After firing the Orbgun, the weapon manifests a blade of glowing energy, as well as a label that wasn't there previously.
"Requires Kinetic Energy to recharge," Simeon read. "Oh.... kay?"
Spotting Willow surrounded by Hounds across the path, he creeps over to I17. There, he casts Whirling Blades. Simeon then moves to J17, K17, L18, stopping for a brief moment to wave hi to Willow, before squeezing between Hound 6 and the cover to return to K17, and stopping at K16.

He then throws a Chairian Ration towards Willow, draws the Close-Combat Knife and uses Riposte.
And there he stood on a tree-planet, staring down a pack of alien wolves.

"Bring. It. On."

Emerald eats the I10 corpse then promptly moves to I10... then he guards

Keiko moves to G8, slaps the 1st Seeker with some paper, and just stays there.

Battlestuff

EN starts by glancing at Nia, then shakes her head.

"Naw, Nia. Scanner's ne'er been busted afore, an' ah doubt it'd start doin' tha' now. Sides, ah've 'eard some o' th' rest o' th' group already 'eard o' some Chairians bein' lured outta th' battle by th' sound o' a child an' not comin' back... Tad suspect, t' me. Don't be goin' near tha' child, kay? Ah'm dead certain tha's a trap, an' not th' fun kind."

"...While ah'm at it, ya reckon ya coul' use tha' Salvation thingy? Pretty sure tha's in yer spell list."

After saying all that, she shuffles her way into the forest at J7 and takes a look around for a target... She soon fires off a blast of heat at the L5 hound, grinning at the rest of the pack.

"Come at me, y'all sons o' bitches!"

There's a pause... EN decides to activate her special, GUN SHOW, which pretty much consists of her physically opening her own chest and reaching inside to pull out a gun at random. Hopefully one that's actually fitting for the current task, namely, killing a bunch of evil dog things...

Also, since I kinda forgot to do it and it's an important thing... Aegis Guard preferably right, but upper right instead if not quite possible. Aspis Shield definitely to the right.

Nezira moves up to J9. She examines the Seeker next to her, before taking her staff, building up a ball of light in its core, and passing a beam of it over the Seeker, evaporating parts of it due to the sheer intensity of the light. All the while, the light functions somewhat like a Scanner, gathering information about the Seeker through what one might call destructive testing. Portions of the gathered information swirl into Nezira's robes, analyzed, consumed, and transformed into MP.

She then takes out her Recharging Scanner and scans the Bloodhound to the north of her, once again consuming information -- and this time, applying Observer Eye.
(Translation: move to J9, basic attack on the Seeker (with a scan from the Staff's passive, restoring 2 MP from her robes), and then bonus action scan on the Bloodhound, with Observer Eye, restoring another 2 MP)
Whatever the result of the scan on the Bloodhound, she shouts out something -- "The Scanner's saying that the child isn't a physical object! Don't get near it, there's something very wrong here!"

Meanwhile, her Rushers multiply and swarm. Rusher 2 moves to J8, while Rusher 1 moves to K8 and Duplicates a new Rusher at L8. All of them Guard.

Pope, meanwhile, moves up to H10 and casts Luxaveil on Marron.

Auth dashes into the battle, fashionably late and not attempting to organise his own equipment, subsequently losing focus. Definitely not. Not at all. He takes to the skies, flying to G7 from spawn. He lands next to where EN was, seeming to be a little disappointed that she moved before he could get there.

uA: The Scanner shouldn't be failing... that child is a trap without question. We need to keep our group away until we're ready to deal with it.

Auth speaks fairly quietly to Nia, as she's surrounded by a thin black coating. It's a shield, protecting her from light.

Auth then stares quietly at EN. "Fun kind" of trap? Maybe he'll ask later... not that he says anything aloud. It just looks like he's staring at EN.

Teag, acting last in the fight, goes up to K13 and slashes Yggcrawler3 with Manifest Sword if it is still alive.

Brutishace sneaks to I10, downs a cup of Soulblossom Tea, carefully takes aim at the first Bloodhound, and unleashes Drain Life on it, hoping to hurt the foes close his target as well.

He's gotta take these enemies out before they can close the gap- a lot of those on his side are weak to Piercing, so that should be good

Battle: Old Gaiadiamond Mine
Irongutta's jaw drops open after witnessing one of the Yggcrawlers get turned into a bloody mist by Teag's Rail!!FUN!!

"Flamin' Mork! Ya turned it into paste in one shot, lad! Yer gonna 'ave to show me wot kinda dakka yer packin' there when we're done, Teag."

Irongutta moves to K12, gaining Unstoppable Force! He smacks Yggcrawler2 with a basic attack.

Zed throws a point into SKI, then jumps into the Preserve fight at C13, flies to G16, and guards.

Wyvern flutters over to L3 and attacks the Bloodhound.

<ROUND ONE-HUNDRED AND SIX>

Piono does a lot of stuff. First, he applies a permanent marker to his special, changing a few things about it. He then decides to visit miss Omorika in Zone 1, and is left to wonder why a couple of the trees have been stained a very deep red. But before he wonders about that, he gets to have a nice conversation with Omo!

OMORIKA: Ah, greetings sir Echoss. I am Stella Omorika, former member of the Highchair. It is a pleasure to be of service.

Echoss informs her that Spark's branded her as a traitor. She doesn't seem fazed, her expression not wavering in the slightest.

OMORIKA: I'm not surprised.
OMORIKA: He did threaten me with a flamethrower of all things moments after the Sphere became a huge threat, after all...
OMORIKA: I assume you're aware that he plans to pilot the thing into the middle of Tabletopia as part of his "revenge" plot...

OMORIKA: One, as Miss Elem or Lady Khioneas would say, might say that Spark has "no chill".
OMORIKA: ...Did I use that expression properly? I am not entirely familiar with their terminology yet...

Echoss also decides to talk with Chloe via butterflygram, Chloe almost instinctively swatting it as it lands on her. Fortunately, she manages to restrain herself long enough for it to transform into an Echoss.

CHLOE: U-Um, hi!
CHLOE: It's fine- I mean, I was the one to lash out and almost skewer you, eheheheh...
CHLOE: Anyway, it'd be cool to talk! We did get off to a rocky start of sorts, and well, I just sorta wanna talk with someone...
CHLOE: Maria's cool and all, but it's stressful shepherding a something-single-digit year old.
CHLOE: ...Also, talking to children is hard. Nia's really, really good at it, but I'm... eh.

CHLOE: So, anyway!
CHLOE: Why don't you start by... telling me about these butterfly things you can make?
CHLOE: Almost went up and smacked the one you flew here. I'm glad I stopped myself, though!
CHLOE: ...Actually, your skillset seems to be interesting in general, so...
CHLOE: Why don't you tell me about yourself?

The classic interview opener question. Devious. Anyway, another Echoss decides to go and mine some ore in Yggdrasil's Approach. He splits in half with a chop, sending 8 Durasteel Bars to the inventory. He then moves onto Yggdrasil itself, and attacks a pocket of Megabark with an Iron Pickaxe! This yields 18 Megabark from one of the veins- apparently, using two charges in one round yields less bang per charge. He's still almost exhausted the vein, though! Suddenly, a Yggcrawler drops down near one of the remaining veins! Apparently, this one is considering the harvest of Megabark an attack on the tree, and will make it a bit of a pain to harvest!

Then, further elsewhere, Echoss magically creates 20 bottles of Bottled Water. That's bottles with Bottled Water in them, so that's Bottled Bottled Water. This is a crime against humanity, and you know it. He then hands them all off to Nia to upgrade. For 0 credits.

NIA: Yeah, sure!
NIA: I've done dumber stuff for less.
NIA: Somehow ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

...Nobody's quite sure what Nia's doing with the bottles, but it probably won't be pretty.

---

Destiny requests to get some Joltwires from Chloe. She shrugs.

CHLOE: Uh, sure.
CHLOE: Just don't use it to "slaughter heretics" like you seem to like doing, alright?

Chloe somehow finds the time to head out to the Fireblast Encampment, where she rummages around through the wreckage and comes out with 15 nice bundles of Joltwire.

CHLOE: So, these bits of wire I found...
CHLOE: They weren't used in weapons or armor, or anything like that.
CHLOE: Apparently, they were being used to power lightbulbs, of all things!
CHLOE: You have this amazing wire that can do things that a normal wire can't, and they used it for lightbulbs!
CHLOE: ...Maybe they were in a pinch? Seems like they were really strapped for wire...

Chloe also drops off a bonus 19 Wire Scraps in the inventory. Neat! Then elsewhere, Chloe and Crya meet up...

---

Koharu goes AFK. Sorry to see you go.

---

Packo and Nia have a bit of a chat. She wants him to make meat buns, but he doesn't have a baking tool anymore.

NIA: Aw...
NIA: Actually, if I think about it, we could probably like, buy a rolling pin and other baking thingies from... whoever our RPG shopkeeper person is.
NIA: Or like, make one! Apparently, we're really good at on-the-fly crafting!

He also asks about Chloe.

NIA: Oh yeah, Chloe and I are like, best friends!
NIA: ...I-I mean, we had a falling out over something dumb and we ended up beating the gorilla out of each other...
NIA: B-But we're s-still b-best friends!
NIA: I hope...

Nia's uncharacteristically down at the moment. She sighs and stares at the ground for a moment, before suddenly shooting back up.

NIA: N-Now's not the time to be mopey!
NIA: I'm lucky to see her again, a-and I have people who need help right now!

Nia readies herself for another round of spellcasting. One couldn't really look at her and guess what she's feeling right now...

---

EN clarifies something for Nia. The scanner usually doesn't heck itself.

NIA: So... what you're saying is that the child over there is 100% an evil monster.
NIA: I don't wanna believe you... b-but it's true, isn't it?
NIA: I-I've never nuked a kid before! I-I mean, I haven't nuked any like actual people before, but I've especially nuked a kid before, even if it's an evil monster POSING as a kid...
NIA: ...
NIA: I really hope we're right about this, guys!

NIA: ...Also, I guess I could use Salvation. Could be fun.

---

Somehow skipped Tazz on the way here, so we'll do his post now! Venia answers Nia's question. Nia watches Venia's face crumple and crunch in a variety of different manners as she thinks.

NIA: Uh, gorilla.
NIA: I-I didn't strike a nerve, d-did I!? Not my intention, I swear!

Venia eventually responds with a "No" to Nia's question about friends. Nia's mood takes another big blow.

NIA: g-gorilla! I-I'm really, really s-sorry to bring i-it up, then...
NIA: I-I just t-though, y-y'know, it'd be a nice, easy question for you...

Nia sighs, and listens to Venia vent about her emotions for a bit.

NIA: M-Maybe it doesn't mean much, b-but I don't think you're awful.
NIA: It might be the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from just any sorta decent person to try and reassure you... but you've done some pretty great things already!
NIA: Like, you helped save Chloe's life, already vowed to save me from the Butterfly, brought a helpless child here to die, please disregard that last statement...
NIA: Point is, you're pretty awesome! If you need help, you can always call me up, y'know!
NIA: ...
NIA: Look, the point I wanna make is, I wanna be friends!

Nia tilts her head to the right, and gives Venia a wide smile.

NIA: Everyone needs a friend, and I really don't wanna see anything as hot as- erm, as cripplingly average like you suffering!
NIA: You're reminding me of Chloe right now...
NIA: But yeah!

...The topic of questions comes back up. Nia gives a coy little grin towards Venia.

NIA: Hmmm, quick, tiny lil' question for you...
NIA: Can I... get your phone number?
NIA: Nailed it : 3

Elsewhere, Mr. Krabs talks with Salix, asking a for a few favors.

SALIX: Hm, alright.

He starts by asking about ranger calls.

SALIX: Ranger calls? Alright...

...What he does is fundamentally different from Nana. It's not clicking- it's actual hooting and yelping, more like that of an animal.

SALIX: That was a spider call. It normally takes a long time to learn these sorts of things... but I've been interested in these sorts of things since I was a sapling.
SALIX: Anyway, anything else?

He then asks to look down his throat. He shrugs.

SALIX: ...This is probably for a good reason, I'd guess.
SALIX: Go... ahead.

He opens up wide, giving Mr. Krabs a nice chance to see that there's nothing else swinging about in there. He then promptly invites Salix through a portal to the Preserve.

SALIX: ...
SALIX: Is this conscription? Because this feels like conscription.
SALIX: Well, if it's to save Willow- sure. I'll agree to some temporary conscription.

Salix wordlessly hops through the portal, making a quick call to the Yggcrawlers and Splinter Spiders with him. They too, crawl on into the portal. Back at the Reception, Maria's basically greeting everything within a five-meter radius of herself. Then a "piggy" comes by with a letter, which she asks Chloe to read.

CHLOE: Oh, sure!
CHLOE: Um, let's see...

Chloe clears her throat.

CHLOE: "Oi! This 'ere letter is fer that pal- em, for Maria!"
CHLOE: "Make sure she reads it!"
CHLOE: "I want ya to look over my sapsqueal for now, I'm sure that yer the one to get it done, Maria. Make sure ya feed 'im and take 'im out fer walks."
CHLOE: "Irongutta."
CHLOE: ...Punctuation as-written, by the way.

CHLOE: Anyway Maria, this is great! You can take care of the cute lil' piggy!
CHLOE: It's a big responsibility, though! You need to make sure that he's happy and well fed! Then he'll make you happy, too!

Hemlock knocks the butt of her gun against the ground, snapping everyone to attention.

HEMLOCK: Ahem.
HEMLOCK: We don't have much time to waste. Shall we get a move on?
CHLOE: A-Ah, right!
CHLOE: Everyone, with me! Or Hemlock, I guess.

The group progresses northward, into Yggdrasil's approach.

---

<THE PRESERVE, ROUND THREE>
So. The child. It doesn't seem to respond to Seeker Spheres within Range 1 of it. Anyway, if only because of your RNG, everything seems to be going pretty swell. Just don't forget to fix up Wyvern- he almost died! He probably should've died, but he's okay! Also be wary of Nana- if you're planning something, maybe now's the time to do it?

<OLD GAIADIAMOND MINE, ROUND THREE>
that's all
the battle's done
that was fast
...Anyway, a new battle has opened; you can now venture down into the mine itself! It looks like you'll be dealing with a non-zero amount of Iti... so prepare yourself!

Alright, so, I have an idea for a new mechanic. There are certain items we're going to be making multiple times, in basically the same way. for instance, I'm making searing bombs again, which I already did once or twice in my first stint in Thymium.
So the idea is this:
Prefabbed recipes. Upon doing a crafting sequence for a consumable (or crafting material I suppose) you can designate it as a recipe, which you or other people can then follow in the future. That way players don't have to try and find new ways to bake bread every time they want a sadnwich. Additionally, prefabbed recipes would still use up your crafting slot for the round, so large amounts of consumables crafting wouldn't eat up tons of Ire's time.

Echoss responds to Omo and Chloe at roughly the same time.

Omo:
"Yes, I was aware of that plan, though I remain fuzzy on how intends to 'pilot' the thing anywhere, let alone into the middle of an enemy that was a sizable threat even before your military was decimated.
And yes, you used the phrase pretty much perfectly. Anyways, I have delivered my message, and shall converse with you in a more direct matter soon.
A pleasure to make your acquaintance Miss Omorika." and the hologram folds back up into a butterfly and flutters away.

Chloe:
Echoss chuckles: "In all fairness I did effectively appear from thin air right behind you. In the situation you've been in for the past day or so, it would be a surprise if you weren't a bit jumpy."
"Hmm... about myself? Well, that's a bit of an extended story. But I suppose I shall pare it down as best I can for the sake of brevity.
First and foremost, I am a collector, and consider myself the best in the, well I can't really say "business" because it is rather hard to make a business out of collecting things for most people. But suffice it to say that I consider myself the best.
The reason I am a collector is a rather lengthy tale, but at present it serves as a measure by which I can keep myself entertained and passably sane as time marches on in the Void, because the next thing that I suppose I should introduce about myself is that I am an Immortal, and as such do not age and am unreasonably difficult to kill even beyond that.
Which leads me into the butterflies. That is a particularly useful spell I mastered quite some time ago. It is something of a "split consciousness" power, allowing me to interact with multiple locations at once through a number of hardlight projections. I have these butterflies flitting about in a number of different places, to help me keep an eye on things."

"So what about yourself, Miss Elem? You are not a native to Sussui, as evidenced by your being human, and while I vaguely remember something about someone by the name of Chloe Elem being briefly involved in the Terraria Godmodding Conflict, I don't want to presume too much, and even if you are the same Chloe, I don't really have any information on who you are."

Meanwhile in the Overworld, one of Echoss's butterflies returns to the base of Yggdrasil to ruin the day of a Yggcrawler. He opens a portal over his shoulder and out if it drops something that looks like a large wooden mallet. He eyes the Yggcrawler that dropped to guard the northern megabark vein warily, and hits the southern one with his mallet, causing it to bust open entirely, spraying megabark ore up into the air, which the hologram Echoss collects into the group inventory. He then walks over to the Yggcrawler. It snaps at him, and he dodges out of the way, swinging the hammer down with a mighty blow that completely misses the Yggcrawler.
The Yggcrawler is very confused. At least for the ten milliseconds it takes before the ground erupts beneath it's feet, sending it high into the air. H!Echoss shades his eyes as he looks up at the Yggcrawler's trajectory, then steps out of the way as the Yggcrawler lands right where he was standing a moment before. This would be a good deal more of a problem if the Yggcrawler in question hadn't been flipped upside down in the process.
H!Echoss shakes his head as the Yggcrawler desperately tries to right itself. "Don't worry, I'll flip you rightside up once I'm done here. I'm afraid I need these materials for the purpose of saving your world." He then smacks the megabark vein with his hammer a few times to grab more ore. Unfortunately, Echoss has miscalculated the strength of the Megabark and his mallet shatters after about three whacks.

An order is then placed with Chloe, gunpowder. If she needs directions, Fireblast Encampment is probably a good place to check.

Shortly thereafter, the Harvest Golem expedites the rate of growth of the wheat in the farm, completing it's growth cycle.

I then go bananas with crafting, despite not having any in the inventory.
First, Searing Bombs. We've got like, a bazillion cinderfruits that need upgrading, and fortunately enough, all I really need to do that is some extra gunpowder for the bomb, and a pittance of iron for the bomb casing.
So I take as many of the cinderfruits as Ire lets me take (up to 12, don't want to use up the planting stock) and carefully mash them into a fine paste. I use secret spicing techniques to mix it into the gunpowder I now have on hand, making a large quantity of searing powder.
I then take bits of iron and shape it using the power of INEXPLICABLE FIRE MAGIC and mold it into a shell for the searing powder, then something something triggering mechanism and voila! Searing Bombs!

I then set this as a "premade recipe" for searing bombs.

The Meldblossom Tea is relatively simple, I grab a few iron ingots, hit them with my previously used INEXPLICABLE FIRE MAGIC (yes it does have to be in all caps) and while they're still reeling from the sudden betrayal, shape them into a kettle. I pour some samples of goneblossom tea and soulblossom tea into the kettle, and reheat it. While the tea stews and mixes (can you stew a beverage?) I clean out the teacups, and when the meldblossom tea is ready, pour it back into the cups, ready to be used in combat. hooray!

I then set this as a "premade recipe" for meldblossom tea as well, later I'll probably do a different one using the two blossoms directly.

Yggapple Pie (Yggapples, Wheat, Celefruit, Chocolate Eggs, singular bag of salt, 1 uniform log, 1 iron ingot per pie, 1 cobblestone, 2 pocket warmers)
It is time for the REAL masterpiece of this post. A pie! (Or multiple pies if Ire is so inclined to give us such.) Pies are tricky things, and require a number of different ingredients, fortunately, however, most of the major ingredients we need are available to us on Sussui and already in the inventory, and the handful that aren't aren't actually listed as materials so we can safely say that Echoss can import them thymefield-tariff-free.
The extra items that Echoss pulls in from outside the Thymefield as follows: a stick of butter. That seem insignificant, but when baking a pie, you need everything to be absolutely perfect.
First, Echoss pulls out one of the pieces of uniform logs and sets it down to use as a cutting board. Then he mashes up a handful of celefruit. Why are we doing this? Because Celefruit are EXTREMELY sugary, and we need sugar to make the pie taste good, so we shall be using the celefruit mash to create a sugar substitute, one that may even add a nice extra tang to the pie that processed white sugar wouldn't provide us with on its own. So Echoss takes out a large pot, and scrapes the celefruit mash into the pot, adding in a bit of fresh springwater, and boiling the whole thing down a bit to get the flavor a bit better.
While that is going on, Echoss grabs several Yggapples, and neatly peels and dices them, popping the small Yggapple chunks into another pot, which he sets to boil next to the celefruit sugar substitute prepping.
This probably brings us to the question of the moment. Where is Echoss cooking these things? JOE's titanium oven actually, he's set up a pair of the pocket warmers on top of the oven to act as convenient stovetops. They'll probably burn out by the end of this craft, but if not, hey, the oven is now one of those convenient stove/oven combos you get in most modern kitchens. Anyways, two of the remaining three pocket warmers are being expended one way or another.
Now, while the fruits are simmering down, it's time to make the pie crust. First he grabs a bit of the wheat that was finished up by the harvest golem earlier this post, then he grinds it up on the uniform log cutting board with a bit of stone, making some fine flour, which is then mixed with water and that stick of butter to make a dough that, when baked properly, will make a nice, crispy pie crust.
So he takes a couple of pieces of iron and molds them using previously established INEXPLICABLE FIRE MAGIC into a few pie tins, which he then molds the pie crust dough into, making the base for the pies. He then takes a couple of chocolate eggs, the boiled down yggapples, and the celefruit sweetener, and heating up the chocolate eggs with his INEXPLICABLE okay no that joke's gotten old, anyways, he mixes together the yggapple stuff, the sweetner sauce, and the chocolate all together, making a top-quality chocolate-yggapple pie filling, which he then puts into the pie crust, putting another layer of crust over the top in a weave pattern, making a fully complete Yggapple pie!
He then slides it into the titanium oven to bake until the pie(s) are fully complete and added to the inventory.

Echoss traipzes down to J10 and pelts Sierra with eggs tosses Sierra a trio of chocolate eggs, for dietary reasons. Also not dying, but those two are basically the same thing, right? If I somehow proc the double item usage thing on my trait two rounds in a row, the duplicates go to EN.

-RP: Nia-

Venia silently listens to Nia's response. She almost interjects the moment the Butterfly speaks up, but then lets Nia continue. None of it improves her mood, visibly or otherwise-but the phone number question gets Venia to blink.

"... What would she even call me about? How would she? Eighteen thousand years in the future is probably outside of her coverage... She'll get turned off sooner or later either way, but it'd be dumb to just not let her have it... Especially not now. Could be useful if Nia or I get separated from the group..."

Venia's face returns to a more neutral pose as she responds. "... I guess... I just need to find something that accepts phone calls... Future 'n' all. Different systems of communication, but military stuff never skimps on old stuff, and I should have a military line..."

Venia reaches her hand out to her left-at about the same time, a small 'ripple' of gold appears in midair, which Venia's hand pulls through, as she visibly rustles around. A moment of this leads up to her pulling out a smooth, green camouflage armband, which springs up in a hard-light display like a computer screen when Venia puts it on.. Venia flicks through into an options setting of some kind as she browses.

"... This won't be very useful for communication, like, after this is all done. Phones typically don't send calls to and from, like, the future. Like, unless you want to, uh, come with, but honestly, I don't see why anyone would..."

Venia eventually gets to the number, which she jots down on a piece of paper (also obtained from a golden ripple) and hands to Nia. Presumably, Nia exchanges her own phone number.

"... I guess it's my turn, again? Uh. Hrm... You said, you said you and Chloe were involved in godmodding wars, or at least talked about them, but, uh... Only heard about Chloe being on one of those beforehand. Terraria Godmodding War, to be precise... So, uh. Which ones were you talking about? Probably got lost to time... Oh! And I sent you a little test text, just to make sure I got the right number."

The test text doesn't look like a test; it reads "Nia do NOT yell about this. People suspect nana to go nuts on willow so we'll have nana put to sleep so willow can tells us what's up with her and clear the paranoia. Sorry."

It's followed up: "Nia she may be controlled by a parasite iti. I swear to god I saw it in her throat when she was making those rangers calls. Seriously do freak out please. If its real we can save her if its not then no lasting harm."

Venia reverts to her depressed look after yet another sigh.

---

-RP: Maria's Wonderful Garden Trip-

Maria's face lights up as Chloe simplifies things for her. "I get to pet a piggy! Hooray!" She squeals as she pets the Sapsqueal. Her attention for most of the tour thereafter is torn between Piggo and looking at all the pretty flowers... And, on occasion, a more subdued glance back at Hemlock's rifle.

She does catch onto Bass'es little comment, though. "What feelin'?"

---

-RP: Salix-

Venia waves to Salix as he joins the fight. "Hey, Salix! Thanks for coming in, my name is Venia, I'm the one 'behind' Mr. Krabs, and I'll just give you a quick sitrep-"

Venia uses a bit of classic Player Character magic to huddle up to Salix and start whispering into his ear, hoping he'll hear over the commotion of the battle.

"OK, the child over yonder? Big trap. We're trying to spring it, not real, been killing Chairians. If we screw up and die, spread the word so it can't get more victims. Nana, the Chairian girl with the gun over there? She's been looking for Willow too, but we're super suspicious of her right now for what we hope will be paranoid misunderstandings, so we'll be casting a sleep spell on her just so we can get this cleared up from someone who knows better-Willow. Willow's over to the southeast near the orange trees, she'd love to see a friendly face that definitely isn't possessed. We met Clausa earlier today, he was pulled from his post by Acacia, dueled us, lost, got the day off thanks to Cypress. Also thank you for coming here seriously thank you so very very much, sorry for the dump, just keep away from the 'child,' thank you, again."

Venia pulls out of her huddle, quickly checking if Nana was watching, alongside, you know, a lot of other battlefield factors.

---

-Battle: The Preserve-

Post-huddle, Venia moves to H18 and points at the Gotou with the Slayer's Splintershot, neutering some of its evasion with the Slayer's Mark. Her hat pings Carrion 2 nearby, and Venia follows up with an Elemental Blaster set to the Fire Element.

Simeon turns around. "Thanks, Ette."

He then moves to K17 to doublecut Bloodhound2. After doing this, he looks up at Willow in the trees.
"You mean, Nana? Yeah, she kind of dragged us over here to save you, actually. We had keep her from running straight into the forest."

--------------------
Meanwhile, someone else takes the Mindscape Radio to dial it?
"Hello? Could I speak to Chloe? Hi, I'm a friend of Simeon. He was the one waving around the Bloodstained Foil last...month-ish ago? Anyhow, I'm calling to let you know that we've met Nia. Do you have any advice on how to talk to her? Anything we should know that we don't already?"

Boshi looks behind himself. "(Flanked. Figures.)" He then notices Wyvern nearly being the deaded. He moves to (I4), and uses Material Transfer on the Bloodhound. He heals Wyvern.

"(Keep it together, bud. We aren't gonna be outta this for a while yet.)"

---

Meanwhile, Mustache Girl was honestly bored stiff. She gets up. "They're done! Be right back, gonna do a few things." Then she basically goes ballistic around Zone 1.

---

Mustache Girl first walks straight north to the Pillar with the Titanium in it. She uses the Ashen Reap to cut into the pillar, and makes it fall over to the North as if it were a tree. The resultant crumbled stone is then easily picked up, as is the Titanium after a bit of extra mining.

She then walks to the Gold in the Forest of Departure. Noting the Sentences, she sets her Ashen Reap to explode after she lodges it into the rock, safely mining it and to kill a few sentences.

She swings the pickaxe as if she was Mario tossing Bowser into a bomb, and then releases at just the right time to make it fly into the ore, knocking her on her butt in doing so.

KABOOM!

While the Sentences were dazed, she books it to the pickaxe, and slams away at the Gold as quickly as possible to mine it. The second the Sentences would attempt to grab her, she ducks and runs, and does another swinging attack like the above, this time aiming for the Sentences themselves.

After all is said and done there, she moves onward to the Untamed Woods. She parkours up the trees, and uses Generic Sword #239 to cut as many of the vines loose as she could, until they run dry. She swings back down on a leftover vine, which she then pulls clean off the tree.

Mustache Girl then wordlessly walks into the Ashen Canopy. Admittedly, she was a bit wary of spiders, but it wouldn't stop her from trying to get the Spider Silk. If food needs to be sacrificed, she trades in the number of Celefruit needed to keep the spiders satisfied until she could harvest all the silk. She runs off without a sound...

She returns to where she was before, utterly beat. "Reaaaaaly need to get in shape..."

Packo moves to M15 and hits Inciter2.

The Man stays where he is and shoots Seeker 3 dead.

==BATTLE ACTION==

Nezira commands her Rushers.
Rusher 2 moves up to K6 and slashes the Petal apart, then retreats to J6.
Rusher 1 moves to L9, Rusher 3 moves to M8, and both attack Seeker 2.
Once it's dead, Rusher 1 retreats to K9, and Rusher 3 to K7.

Meanwhile, Nezira herself moves up to J8 and raises her staff, casting a pulsating bubble of water that latches onto Wyvern and glows with a soft blue light, pulsing and flowing into his wounds, before jumping to Hound 1, pulsing with a harsh blue light and tearing away at its body with cold and watery vortices, jumping back to Wyvern and once again glowing and pulsing with healing power, and then leaping over to the Nanite and growing for a second, as though gathering the last of its strength, before ebbing into it and expending the last of itself on damaging the technomorphic Iti.

(Ebb and Flow, healing Wyvern, over to Hound 1, back to Wyvern, then over to the Nanite with Empowered Pulse)

Meanwhile, Pope Bill moves up to J7 and carefully casts Last Dream on Nana through Eye of Providence, making sure to neutralize the damage and the Horrid portion of the Sleep. So, essentially, it's just "Sleep for two rounds." Yep.

He also responds to Marron, “...Yeah? You probably met another version of me. Downing that me woulda been hilarious to see if I’d been around then. Anyway, I’m not dead, as you can see right here.” He gestures to himself.

---

==NON-BATTLE ACTIONS==

Out-of-battle, Nezira decides to go stabilize those Darkmatter Rocket Engines. She takes a Silverwood Log, two Frigid Crystals, two Gaia Crystals, two Durasteel Ingots, and three Titanium Ingots, and walks over to the Airship. She carefully splits apart the Silverwood and carves it into a wide, basketlike housing for the Darkmatter Rockets, exploiting the Silverwood's natural affinity with magic, order, and stability to keep the Darkmatter Rockets contained. The Frigid Crystals are infused into the Silverwood to help cool the rockets, while the Gaia Crystals go to general stability, thanks to how earth is associated with stability, durability, and sturdiness. Nezira then alloys the Durasteel and Titanium together and uses the resultant metal to directly socket the Darkmatter Rockets to the ship with a thick layer of metal, keeping them from boring into the ship, rocketing away, or otherwise being problematic. The remainder of the metal is used to reinforce the Silverwood Stabilizers with inlaid metal and attach them around the Darkmatter Rockets, forming a complete system.

She also invites Chloe to help out with the Airship -- using a repurposed T3 Harvesting Form. Once Chloe gets there, she shows her around the airship, and offers to help out with any ideas she has. Weapons, maybe, or something interesting for the systems?

Hex superspeeds over to C9, joining preserve!