>>761354He produces a bribe from his coat… a fish stick.
But, there is no tartar sauce.
>>761353You can tell that even with medical attention, it's going to twinge like a motherpuffer for quite awhile. It could prove a grave weakness if you have to do any fighting anytime soon.
>>761352Willow's orb disappears as he touches it, but Two Tons's doesn't.
Oh… a youthful male voice says in your heads.
Right! Whoops, sorry Tons, I forgot I already gave you one after you woke up on Kukulcan's ship. Well anyway, my name's Make Believe. Nice to meet you! You guys are our new crewmates, right?>>761350>>761353>>761354>>761351"We've seen plenty being built in the arena around nighttime, but not a lot leaving," Schnitzel says. "That's because – they're destroying themselves. To be more precise…
"During the night, these
things emerge from the Metal Men's suits. They're the ones who knit together more of the Metal Men, and who make the hardened gunk armor. It definitely seems like a work in progress. We've seen prototype Metal Men engaging what looks like sparring. Different sorts of tests, or so we think. The sparring seems to happen around dawn, which would suggest they want to experiment with just a little bit of sunlight to see how well their creations hold up.
"However… as of late, we've seen this ruby-colored whisp floating around the arena just before the sparring starts. It's definitely afraid of the Metal Men, because it vanishes quick whenever they spot it. But when it's not running away, it seems to be… almost interfering with the sparring. The sparring combatants start to glow red here and there, and suddenly, their strikes get way more intense and powerful than they had intended. Or, even when they're just shuffling around, they glow red, then start moving way too fast, and crash into a wall, or even tear themselves apart with a normal movement.
"This breaks the newly constructed ones, and even breaks up the hardened gunk armor. Unfortunately, they seem to be learning from this, and spending more time and effort into making a small number of really strong Metal Men, instead of the full-blown armies they were trying to build before."
"So…" Splendid says. "You think this ruby whisp might be some kind of god?"
"Based on what I heard of your guys's side of things, it's not implausible," Schnitzel says.
This might be the longest he's gone without telling a compulsive lie… progress!