Nexus City

Blindfold sat in the Twisted Truths cafe, trying to calm the storms in his mind. A waiter came to him, trying to get his order. He studied the color of her fate, trying to discern what her name was.
"Amy."
She looked around, bewildered. She wasn't wearing her name tag.
"He didn't mean to, his intention was not to hurt."
Amy blinked twice and nodded, tears appearing in her eyes.
"He is a good man. Try not to hold it against him."
Tears spilled out over her eyes, she was crying.
"I don't have to tell you what to do now, do I?"
She shook her head, disbelief in her face.
"Good. Now go."

She ran off to fix her life. Blindfold smiled. It was always good to help someone.
 
How did she get here? How did this happen?

The lapse from the jump was unusually abrupt, and jarring, she could have sworn that she had entered the coordinates correctly, EVE had verified them, it was an in-system jump, routine. What could have possibly gone wrong? The sudden transitional lurch from the vacuum of space, to an atmosphere provided enough stress on the hull of the Scylla, but the sudden loss of the shipboard AI, and the mysterious vanishing of the crew perplexed Marlene even more.

To those below, a loud, abrupt crack, and sonic boom reverberated through the skies, culminating into a bright flash, and a strange, dark grey, and black arrowhead shaped craft that moved without any grace through the sky above.

Granted she had little time to react. The viewscreens lit up with the light of the blue sky, and the view of some kind of expansive crystalline city that was as fascinating as it was alien. Listing abruptly to the right, Marlene leapt from the console to the forward helm. Quickly, she slid into the center seat, and flipped several switches.

"This can't be too hard." She muttered to herself. Even a ship like this had four simple controls.

Throttle, pitch, yaw, and roll.

She grabbed the control stick, and eased the throttle from it's previous setting. She pulled back to stabilize the descent, the roar of engines reverberated through the interior as she grasped for control.

"Gotta set this thing down." Marlene added.

Coursing through the skies above, the arrowhead shaped ship careened hard to the right, it was slowing it's descent, as retro-graviton thrusters engaged along the bow, and ventral sections.

The markings emblazoned on the side were that of a phoenix, with a superimposed V, and decidedly blocky, and alien writing. Would these markings be recognized? It was unlikely.

It came towards a large, open and grassy field, whipping up dust, and wind as it slowly began to touch down, landing struts emerged from it's glossy, hexagonal paneled hull, and the whole, three hundred meter long ship touched down gracefully in the open field.

Marlene wiped her brow, and breathed a sigh of relief.

"What the hell happened... where are my crew?"

There were no voices, no people clamoring, there was only the blaring sounds of alarms, and the vivid red holographic scroll of error messages that flitted across the view-screens.

Her eyes gazed upwards, there were no spatial calibrations, no stellar patterns, the subspace data-link was unresponsive. The Scylla was completely cut off from the Empire, even EVE was offline, the systems having since reverted to backups.

Taking a steady breath, Marlene climbed out from the seat, and with purpose, she started towards the main airlock.
 
Nilin Gvyhe'arne was taking a leisurely stroll through one of Nexus City's many prairies and pondering the deep secrets at the heart of the multiverses when her reverie was interrupted by the sudden arrival of a space craft landing. This in itself wasn't a particularly rare occurrence here, so she wasn't necessarily perturbed. But she was jostled out of her own head enough to spare a glance for the unlikely arrival.

With a nigh inaudible wet whir the nano-servos within her corneas brought into alignment the disparate pieces that floated within her vitreous fluid into a lens arrangement, granting her telescopic vision. A slight tilting of her head betrayed her curiosity, as she took in the form of the craft. She noted the writing and overall design cues, and felt a faint stirring in her memories.

"Xilunexus, have I seen something like this before?" she whispered as she opened her Va'nyr connection to the AI.

"Yes, All-Mother. Design elements fit within an 80% error rate as a match for Universe OV176-D, species 961058. Local designation: The United Aschen Empire. Analysis of the written language upon the craft as translated by the Master of Tongues further cements this analysis, with a marginal drift quotient of 16%." replied the AI instantly.

"Hmmm. Either them or pretty dimensionally adjacent cousins then...please upload those memories to my databanks, along with the language files we have for them. Include an emulation of Diarneus' dimensional drift translator in case they're not directly the same."

"Yes, All-Mother."

Nilin kept a fair bit of distance as the spacecraft performed it's atmospheric landing. She guessed by the craft's gentle touchdown that mechanical assistance wasn't required. Still, she knew from querying Xilunexus that species 961058 or any dimensional cousins thereof hadn't visited the Nexus since the Va'nyrians themselves had arrived. From experience, she was aware that the transition to this place on it's own was often a shock enough.

She supposed it benefited their own overall mission to be neighborly; until they made contact with the Nexus Entity, studying those it brought here and why was of paramount importance. With a minute personal shrug, the glyph-shaped machinery upon her forehead briefly flashed as she stepped through a tunnel in space-time to arrive a few yards out from the craft's opening airlock.
 
Upon reaching the main airlock, Marlene grasped the emergency release, using all of her strength, she pulled the latch abruptly across the strengthened Duralthene plating of the inner door. It released with a hiss, as atmospheric gases equalized within the interior chamber of the Airlock.

Marlene briefly checked a display, the air outside was breathable, and the display seemed to show some kind of alien entity standing just outside.

She reached down to key in a set of commands into the keypad that was positioned adjacent to a holographic display, which was reading the internal pressures of the airlock. The outer door whirred, and hissed once more, as Marlene made her way into the inner airlock chamber. She threw the lever, and pulled the emergency release. An armored panel slid into the hull with an audible hiss, exposing the armored external airlock door as it swung open with an audible thunk.

Standing inside was a woman, blonde hair, and wearing a uniform that was unlike anything in any known Aschen incarnations. It was a form fitting black ensamble with felt black shoulder patches, and two collar insignia. One of them was the stylized Aschen phoenix, with a V superimposed on the body, and the second insignia pin was that of a Phoenix over a shield. A reasonable facsimile of the Imperial Intelligence Agency's coat of arms.

Her brow was coated in sweat, which was seen as a sheen that seemed to shimmer in the sunlight, her hair was matted, but for the most part she was unharmed. She carried an unusual weapon holstered at her belt, a sleek disruptor pistol.

A rope ladder flitted down from the airlock door, but Marlene didn't use it, rather opting to jump directly onto the ground, she spoke in Anquietas, the Aschen language at first, and it was only a few words as she looked up to Nilin.

"By the Lords, I thought I was done for back there."
 
~Begin anthropomorphic analysis and collection, designation: 961058-Nexus variant,~ Nilin ordered to Xilunexus, via her Va'nyr link.

She took a brief moment to observe the blonde woman as she came into view within the confines of her craft's airlock. The clothing that didn't match their records, the insignia that only subtly did, and the expected security minded approach to the design of a vaccuum door; Nilin's eyes subtly recorded all they saw into their archives.

Her vision across the whole of the electromagnetic spectrum would serve for now. With her memories re-slotted, Nilin remembered that the Aschen she was familiar with could be quite ornery. She left off any forms of active scanning disabled for now, lest she give the wrong impression.

The woman's skin stripe pattern didn't match any of the individuals they'd encountered before, so she wasn't directly known to them. At least there wouldn't be any awkward rehashing of a personally shared past to get through.

"Yes, arrival to this place can often be a jarring endeavor...Welcome to the Nexus," replied Nilin in unaccented Anquietas. She side-loaded an Aschen cultural norm package into her personality construct, and her posture subtly shifted into one she hoped the woman before her would perceive as "placid openness".
 
"So that's what this place is." The woman said, looking up, and around, she grimaced as she looked back to her own ship. Another peculiar finding, the mental link to the Asylian princess was also severed. A curiosity the woman would file away for later. There was something else, her ascended mind could perceive multiple realities at once, she could see through the dimensional veil. That didn't seem to be the case here. Her mind was cut off from the flow of possibilities, her precognition was drastically curtailed. Clear, vivid visions were little more than intuition, the half-ascendant was perplexed at this reality only for a moment.

"A-yup... definitely not in Caprica anymore." The woman added, taking a step forward, while her posture was slightly defensive, it was non-threatening. Perhaps this dimensional cousin was different than the Aschen that Nilin had previously encountered. She noted the creature's Anquietas was quite good. Better than hers even, each pronunciation was on point.

"So you know our language, and you seem to recognize my ship." The woman said, taking another step forward, looking around once more. "Yet I don't seem to recall ever coming across a species like yours." The woman added, her own Anquietas bore a subtle accent that mangled certain pronunciations, it was definitely not her native language.

"I'm Marlene." She said, introducing herself. "Since I have absolutely no clue where, or what this... Nexus is, mind enlightening me?"
 
"It's entirely possible my kind was never in your universe, though we did once make contact with a society known as the United Aschen Empire," Nilin began, her tone taking a wandering subtext.

Her personality construct noted Marlene's speech patterns were slightly off from true. Nilin dismissed her system's recommendation to alter her own; she didn't want to be patronizing.

"It's impossible to determine from within here, the ties to the greater pathways that connect the varied universes of objective reality are...peculiar here. Neither in flux, nor stable. But something else," she continued. She raised her right arm, palm side up.

In the air above it, a complex multi-dimensional representation was holographically projected. It depicted in various levels of detail, the Nexus and the surrounding space, and it's interactions with space and time. It was a multi-layered representation, constructed with intricate detailing and displayed with some cunning across multiple dimensionalities. If Marlene could only observe in three dimensions, she'd still get an idea. If she could perceive more, her knowledge would be more complete. Nilin would also carefully note her responses, ever ready to add to their archives the capabilities of every being they encountered.

"As far as we can tell, this place is actively engaged in a...reforging of reality. We stand where reality is simultaneously at the greatest state of stability, and also where it's at its most mutable...." the Va'nyrian woman let her voice trail for a few microseconds as her thoughts began to return to her previous pondering. A bright warning that she was at risk of being impolite flashed through her personality construct.

"I apologize, I have a lot in my mind. My name is Nilin," she said as an introduction. "My people have been here for some time. We're attempting to get a better understanding of this place. You're relatively safe here, you'll find there's a steady stream of sapients who come through here. This place has also formed some permanent connections to some places, we get a steady supply of resources that way. Do let me know if we can be of any assistance."
 
Marlene cantered her head slightly, observing the dimensional representation closely. She was intrugued, and the subtle cues of understanding flashed across her face. She understood the nature of what Nilin was trying to show her, and it only perplexed her further.

"Well, given that there's nearly an infinite number of possibilities, and you are familiar with our society, at least, a reasonable facsimile of our society, it's not impossible you interacted with Aschen from a parallel reality, where their choices put us closer to their current state of existence." She nodded slightly.

Marlene was taking it all in, there was so much data, so much information that it made her head ache, she didn't have the processing power of the other mind connected to hers, but she did have the clarity that not perceiving multiple realities had given her.

"Something happened here that split the very fabric of reality asunder... Strange... I remember reading a report from a Watchtower in Provincia Isiria... We're at war with a race of aliens that... are incredibly magically inclined, and vastly superior to the Empire in every way... they nearly brought down an Aegis field... the subsequent energy release would have no doubt torn reality... We lowered the shield to avoid such a fate... but I wonder if maybe someone in an alternate reality did not... a good working theory maybe." Marlene said to herself.

"The Technology on my ship is useless, so I guess I need a pen and paper, and maybe something to eat... know any good dives around here? Surely someone's built something." Marlene offered a smile, genuinely amused by the strange alien in front of her. She seemed to lack the pervasive Xenophobia that the Aschen seemed to harbor.

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Nilin." Marlene said, extending her hand.
 
Nilin extended her own hand, and warmly shook Marlene's. She added a definite log to her Va'nyr stream into Xilunexus' archives that this was a different Aschen. The handshake more than anything cinched the deal. She took the time spent in social interaction to queue the multi-purpose nanites and materializers within her body to create a welcome package.

"Yes, it's possible the release of energy from that event in your universe coincided with Nexus' reaching out in it's work, and you were pulled here," Nilin said. "We ourselves were drawn during a routine traversal between discrete universes. From what we've been able to ascertain, behind the "backdrop" of it all, is here. Events that pierce or intrude behind that backdrop, seem to carry a greater chance of encountering this place."

She released the handshake, and addressed Marlene's concerns: "I can do you one better than pen and paper," she said as she brought her hands together before her. The skin of her palms briefly melded, and she made a gesture akin to someone making a bowl out of their hands. A subtle luminescence came to life beneath her skin as a rectangular tablet-like device swiftly began to rise from her skin as the diminutive machinery within formed it.

"This is for you. I call it a Wayfarer Aide. It'll help lead you around this place. You can use it to get to Wayfarer's Point, it's the most stable locale in this place. Everywhere else, is subject to spatial shifting. Our AI does a good job of keeping it up to date, but a picosecond's delay is little comfort if you find yourself shifted," she explained.

She made to pass the device to Marlene. "It'll respond to tactile feedback, and if you've any other method of interface you prefer, you'll be able to request our AI for a bridge-link to the device. Our AI maintains an establishment for the use of all sapient entities that come adrift here, she calls it the Leaky Servo. I am certainly biased, but you won't find better sustenance in the Nexus."
 
Marlene took the wayfarer with a nod. "Thank you." She said with grattitude, before she glanced back towards her ship. "Before I forget." She said, sliding the tablet into her belt, she produced a small smartphone like device, a flickering holographic screen came to life, and she pointed it at the ship behind her.

Tapping an icon on the screen, the ship made a buzz, and the rope ladder was drawn into the recessed airlock, the airlock door closed with a hiss, and the armored panel slid over the airlock, sealing everything up before the vessel began to disappear. One by one the hexagonal panels flickered, and shimmered, enveloping the entire ship inside a refractive cocoon, concealing it from outsiders.

She slid the small device back into her pocket, and then took the tablet. She tapped at it, curiously looking at it to see what kind of interface it had.

"So this thing can be used to navigate this strange place? That would be useful."

Marlene nodded back towards Nilin. "You've been a huge help." She replied. "I'll go check out this Leaky Servo, it would be an excellent place to garner some intel, and maybe, hopefully I can figure out how to get back home."

The way the woman acted, and the way she carried herself certainly betrayed a great deal of military training, but she was also someone who had spent a lot of time embedded in foreign cultures.

She took one last look at her surroundings, and then back down to the wayfarer aide, she keyed it up to help her find the Leaky servo. She was curious to find what forms of transportation she could utilize here, and she doubted a wallet full of cubits would be much worth.

"So, leaky servo? How do we get there?"
 
At Marlene's final query, a holographic display emanated from the Wayfarer. It outlined the long walk required from her current location, on through Nexus City, and into Wayfarer's Point. From the point, it snaked upwards, with symbols that did their best to display in a way Marlene would understand that she could manipulate into giving more info.

Nilin bent over to better observe the hologram from where she stood, and grimaced. "Looks like there's been a few shifts in the past hour. The path back quintupled in length since I set out. Bit of a long walk, and last I heard the few enterprising souls who wanted to get a transportation guild set up were in an union dispute..." she pondered for a moment, tapping her chin with a finger.

"I still intend to resume my walk, but it wouldn't trouble me much to help you along," she said as the glyph upon her head began to gently flash.

"The wayfarer aide has a simplistic emulation of our AI for simple queries, but at any time you can request a direct connection to the real deal. Her name is Xilunexus. You can ask her to get you in contact with me if the need arises," Nilin said as she gestured beyond her.

The air where she pointed shimmered, rippled, and solidified into a cylindrical opening in space. From where they stood, they could look through it into a long, vaulted hallway. At the end of it, were a pair of grand Opaline white-gold metal doors. To the side of them stood the hologram of a blue-haired woman.

"The device will also remember this plot of land. If and when it shifts, it'll guide you back to where your craft is parked. That's the Leaky Servo over there," she said pointing into the wormhole tunnel.

"Do me a favor and don't let it slip to anyone trying to get a transportation service going that I gave you a "lift", I'd never get rest from the job offerings. It was nice meeting you Marlene."
 
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"It was nice meeting you too, I will definitely contact you if I require further assistance, thank you once more, Nilin." Marlene said, turning towards the portal before them. "Enjoy the rest of your walk."

Marlene offered a nod, and started through the tunnel towards the Leaky Servo on the other side, grateful that there was someone to help her navigate. She tucked the wayfarer aide into her belt, and continued through the portal.

She was eager for some refreshment.
 
For a first time travelling between dimensions, Mitzi Klein was surprised at how queasy she felt, or rather how queasy she didn't feel. Considering she'd lived in a cave surrounded by forests all her life, it wasn't that big of a shock to have jumped from there to one of the woodlands that weaved itself within the metropolis that was Nexus City. The air was a little fresher, but that was trivial to get used to.

She spent a few moments just admiring the forest, paying particular attention to all of the insects that called it their home. She wasn't particularly hungry, so she just watched them do insect things. Some crawled up trees, some nibbled on grass, some engaged in duels with other insects. It was entertaining for a few minutes. Many of the bugs differed from those of her home world, but some of them she could identify, so if she ever did feel peckish she knew of some "safe options" to put on her dinner plate. She didn't encounter any spiders, but that was probably a brightness issue more than anything else.

Once she'd spent enough time there, Mitzi ventured out into the urban parts of the Nexus. Now this was something completely alien to her. The giant structures of steel and glass towering above the spider girl were in some ways intimidating, but in other ways exciting. The roads and paved pathways left an unfamiliar feeling on her toes that she found some satisfaction in. She decided to follow one, at random, until she ended up in a market plaza.

It wasn't like she had any money on her, but a little window shopping never hurt anybody. The fashion boutiques caught her interest right away with all of their weird and wonderful clothes of all shapes and sizes on display. With all the variety she could see, there had to be something for driders she could look at, or maybe even try on.
 
Lance was a fairly large man, but not the biggest. Still, as he left Wayfarer's Point for the streets of Nexus, people--human, alien, extraplanar--all seemed to fall out of his way.

Lance had just arrived through a rift. He wasn't quite sure why he was here, but he knew he was supposed to do something. Gabriel spoke to him not with words, but with instincts and emotions. And ever since he set foot on Nexus soil, he had a feeling of rightness.

Those rifts take a lot out of you, though (a lot more than traveling from Hell to Earth, that's for sure), and Lance was hungry. He passed through a commercial district and stopped in at a Cafe. He sat outside and enjoyed a soup, sandwich, and tall glass of lemonade as he watched the crowd shuffle throughout Nexus.

Is that a drider? he contemplated, barely believing. I've never seen one in a town before.

Lance was no stranger to monstrous hominids, and by drider standards, this specimen was on the cute side. He watched her enter the doors of some boutique.

Kain, a fracture of Lance's personality that he associated with his daemonic father, spoke up. Drider meat is pretty good boiled in salt water, Kain advised. Why don't we go hunting, son? As Kain "spoke" to Lance internally, anyone who was paying attention would have seen his eyes flash red.

His eyes faded, then shone bright blue, and Loreili, the voice of his mother, spoke up. Oh, Lance would never harm such an innocent girl, you brute! Away with you!

Lance's eyes faded as he continued to people-watch, sipping his lemonade.
 
After just short of half an hour, Mitzi exited the clothing store looking sullen. She found a number of items she liked, but couldn't afford. Not a huge variety for driders, but apparently they did have a service for customizing clothes to fit all sorts of shapes and sizes. Given the plethora of beings roaming the city, that made complete sense, and Mitzi couldn't wait to try it out.

The first of her worries was exactly how she was planning to get her hands on the money she needed. She barely had any pocket change back at home, and even if she had more it wasn't like she could just convert the currency over. Her world had only just recently linked with the Nexus, so exchange rates and all that financial bureaucracy needed to be sorted out first, so for at least the first few days in Nexus City, Mitzi was going to be broke.

Perhaps doing some odd jobs for people might remedy that issue. She tried asking around, but a lot of people either tried to avoid her or just flat out rejected her, with most cases leaving her to assume her appearance to be the cause. Spider girls just weren't suitable for a lot of roles there in the marketplace. Adverts were everywhere, yet still she couldn't find anything that she could do. She contemplated looking somewhere else, but held that thought for another hour or two and she continued her search within the commercial district.

During her search she did come across one man who made her recoil when she saw him. Lance Xavier. A tall-ish humanoid who seemed perfectly normal aside from what looked like... bird wings attached to his back? Mitzi was completely new to the concept of angels, but she did know what harpies were and naively assumed that this man was a rather unique variant of one of those. Harpies from her world wore their feathers on their arms rather than having separate appendages for them. She was definitely intrigued, but a little nervous to ask. Birds and spiders never had a healthy relationship, but since this guy was a variant perhaps it was safer to talk to him?

"Heya mister! Those wings are cool! I've never seen anything like them before!"

There. She'd gone and said what she was thinking out loud. With bated breath she awaited a response, hoping he'd accept the compliment and be open to talk about his wings, but it seemed just as likely that he'd be completely dismissive of a random drider girl talking to him.
 
Lance, who had just been taking a sip from his second lemonade, started a bit when Mitzi started speaking to him. It seemed the girl was yelling something about his wings, but he felt like he must have missed something before that.

She's mocking you, boy! Crush her like the bug she is! Kain advised within his head. His eyes briefly flashed red, and Lance shook his head, self-conscious that she might have seen that.

"Err... Thank you, ma'am." He replied, slightly uncomfortable. "Nice... fangs?"

Loreili chided him as his eyes shifted blue. Surely you can be more personable than that! You're going to make her feel weird!

Lance's eyes returned to grey, and he continued. He even tried out a smile for a change, but it felt strange to him and he abandoned it for his default scowl. "I am Lance, and for the lack of a better term, you could call me an angel. May I have your name?"
 
Okay so his first instinct wasn't to eat her. That was a relief. The confirmation that this winged man wasn't nearly as primitive as the fabled harpies she'd heard so much about was enough to lower her guard around him. But then he went and reciprocated the compliment, or at least he tried to. That was awfully polite of him! The intention was the important part, and Mitzi flashed a grin as if to say "Thanks", but also to put another two rows of teeth on display. Teeth that anatomically matched human teeth.

She didn't fail to notice his eyes change colour to blue that time, and then back to grey. Questions about that were already forming in her mind, and trying to displace all the questions she wanted to ask about his wings. That maelstrom of inner thoughts was only brief, since it was interrupted by the man's introduction. He introduced himself as an angel, which threw her mind back into a chaotic mess of queries, but then asked for her name, which brought it back to order yet again.

"Oh, I'm Mitzi! Just your everyday drider girl. I actually wanted to ask you about those wings if you don't mind. See, I'm kinda new here and I don't think I've ever seen an angel before. Are you like, from this dimension? How come your wings are separate from your arms? Can they still pick things up and stuff?"

She stopped herself from continuing the barrage of questions any further than that. The fear that she was becoming an annoyance was starting to surface, and that was enough to quell her hysteria, this time.
 
Lance found the spider girl amusing. She seemed to work herself up, realize she was worked up, and then rein herself back in. When last question tumbled out of her mouth, the man laughed and took another sip of his lemonade.

"Let's try to answer all of those in turn," he proposed. "I'm not from here; I actually just arrived from the realm of Earth. Mostly it's inhabited by humans, but I..." He paused and sucked on his teeth as he tried to find words.

"I'm not welcome where I was born anymore," he finished flatly.

"As for my anatomy: I'm not sure why God made me this way. It's not unlike most angels. My mother and father had three sets of wings though. Still, I can't say they're not convenient."

Lance stretched his wings wide so the drider could see them very clearly. Lance had a feeling that this girl was confusing him for a harpy from the line of questions, but against Kain's better judgment, he ignored it.

"And no, I cannot pick up anything with them. But it's better to have arms and wings than to have them together. For instance, I can do this:"

The angel grabbed his lemonade and held it in one hand and then took flight about ten feet into the air, pumping his wings rhythmically to maintain his altitude. He attempted to drink from the cup, but due to the constant bobbing ended up spilling it down his chin. Slowly he touched back down, chuckling from embarrassment.

"Well, I don't recommend drinking lemonade during flight, but I'm sure you could come up with many more practical uses for holding things while flying."

He wiped his chin with his napkin.

"I think that answers all of your questions, Mitzi." Lance smiled warmly at her. For some reason he found her interest quite refreshing. "Unless there were more?"
 
Earth? Like the dirt? When Mitzi first heard the name she sort of assumed that he lived in a giant rabbit hole or something, but wait a minute. Harpies don't burrow, do they? Why would angels have to burrow?

Mitzi couldn't help but feel a little fearful when Lance mentioned that he wasn't welcome there anymore. Did he do something bad that got him exiled? That was the first impression, but it was just as likely that he was driven out by prejudice and corruption. Mitzi had no way of knowing for sure, so she played it safe, going quiet while Lance continued answering the first volley of questions.

That was until he spilled lemonade on himself.

She didn't know why, but she found that little accident way more hilarious than she should have, and was reeling in laughter. It took a good fraction of a minute to settle down, and only once she did did she realize that what she'd done was awfully rude. At first she feared that she might be in trouble, but Lance's demeanor didn't show any signs of malice or anger. It even looked like he was amused.

Then he asked for more questions, and boy did Mitzi have more questions. Probably about as many questions as she had limbs. With the go-ahead signal in front of her, Mitzi's onslaught continued, though it did strike her as a little odd that he didn't have any questions about her. It didn't occur to her that he might already know what driders were.

"Oh yes! There are loads more questions. I saw your eyes change colour! Does that mean anything? Can you teach me how to do that?"
 
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