Lisa looked down at the sigils, frowning. AI Ninety-Seven was taking forever to fetch the book they had requested. "You know what," she muttered, "this would go so much faster if we had Ba--the Dra--" Lisa cleared her throat. Keeping track of Bath's three identities was mildly annoying. In this circumstance, she actually did mean to say the Dragon. "The Dragon helping out."

Fartuun turned around and placed a finger on her lower lip. "I--yeah." She laughed. "A god's assistance would undoubtedly speed things up."

Lisa cocked her head. Fartuun knows all about the...incident under Whitesun, with the mega fungus of doom. She wondered what Fartuun actually thought of Bath and his capabilities after bearing witness her efforts to bail the Devourer out of trouble.

Fartuun raised an eyebrow. "Not that we have any way of contacting him," she stated pointedly.

True...I'm Lisa now, not Asil.

"Besides, this is probably beneath his notice."

"Actually," Lisa began, "the Church and Dragon discovered this ship together. They were the ones who assigned me the task of figuring out the sigils."

"They did discover the ship," Fartuun acknowledged with a smile. "Anyways, looks like AI Ninety-Seven has finally returned." She gave Lisa a pointed look.

Lisa pivoted around, surprised. She suppressed a grimace. I need to find a way to stop androids like AI Ninety-Seven from sneaking up on me. Because she always detected the shells of living beings long before they approached her, she found AI Ninety-Seven's silent approach deeply unsettling. While she could technically fire off her echolocation non-stop to detect nearby non-living entities approaching her...doing so was incredibly distracting. She sighed inwardly to herself. Bath criticized her inability to properly use the echolocation boon, and even though she'd had it for less than a month, she had to agree that her progress was sluggish.

"AI Ninety-Seven," Lisa nodded, snapping out of her thoughts.

"I've brought the book." AI Ninety-Seven held the book out, pinching its thin cover between two slender fingers.

"Excellent," Lisa said, smiling. "We'll send another service request if we need anything."

AI Ninety-Seven bowed his head. "Best of luck, Church."

Lisa flinched. He just...called me Church? She glanced back toward Fartuun. The woman appeared completely unfazed. Did she not hear? No way.

When Lisa turned back, AI Ninety-Seven was gone. She cleared her throat, then walked over and passed the book to Fartuun.

The woman winked at her. "He called you 'Church' last time he came, as well," Fartuun pointed out. "And the time before that..."

Lisa's jaw dropped. Seriously? I didn't even notice until now. And I thought my progress with echolocation was bad...I can't believe I failed so badly at hiding my identity.

"I thought it polite to not point it out," Fartuun said while placing a hand over her mouth. Then she began to cackle. "Sorry, I'm just--heh. Your jaw is literally hanging."

Lisa walked over to the nearest wall and leaned against it, arms folded across her chest. "What?"

"I actually figured it out a few days ago, after receiving the implant," she admitted. "I went through my memories, processing them and letting the V-Tap run profile analyses."

Lisa frowned. "Profile analyses?"

Fartuun nodded. "Running analyses on all people I've come up with. Whenever I walk around, the V-Tap automatically displays people's names above their heads. If I focus on someone, it'll also provide information on them based on previous interaction we've had."

Lisa nodded slowly. "So, let me guess: it found out that Lisa and Asil are one and the same." Lisa sighed. Shit.

"Exactly. Actually, it displayed your name as follows: Lisa White in large letters, with Asil, Church of the Dragon in italics underneath." Fartuun shrugged. "Sorry."

Lisa shrugged. Well, at least only one person has the V-Tap right now. I'm going to need to be better about keeping my two identities separate... But how? She originally had Bath change her face to look less-perfect whenever she was Lisa, but had since mastered making the changes herself. She'd considered ridding herself of her reliance on Bath to switch between her personas a final step toward realizing her goal of keeping Lisa and Asil separate. But if the V-Tap still discerned that Lisa and Asil were one and the same even when their appearances were different...

"It's fine, not your fault," Lisa said, trying her best to mask her disappointment. She could tell that Fartuun was a bit embarrassed from the pinkish-yellow color of her shell and didn't want to make her feel any worse. "Since you already know...well, I'll call the Dragon over to work with us."

"Isn't he busy with something?" Fartuun asked.

Lisa scoffed. "No." The familiar black hole of Bath's shell was currently racing down the bathhouse slide. "I'll get him."

Lisa smiled as she left, putting up a veneer of self-assurance. As soon as she was out of the ship, she gave the ground a dejected look and sighed. "Have I already blown everything?" If my two identities are too similar...I'll have to change one of them if the V-Tap becomes widespread, or if people independently develop the profiling technology Fartuun mentioned. "And I can't exactly change the Church's identity at this point..."

Shaking her head, Lisa ran off to fetch Bath. When she arrived at the bathhouse, she was nearly knocked over by two verdora racing past the entrance and up to the overpass leading to the slide. She rolled her eyes and decided to wait until Bath circled back around.

She counted down on her fingers. Three, two...

"Yo," she stated. "You're needed on the ship, Thaddeus."

Bath froze mid-stride, swiveling his head to face her. "Now?"

"We've been making progress on the sigils," she explained. "And actually..."

Suddenly, Lisa received an instant message from Fartuun. She opened it up, projecting it from her chip reader.

>> Lisa: just received a notice that the Knight has established the city-seed.

Lisa's eyes met Bath's. "The city-seed's done," she relayed. "We actually do need to return to the ship. Tell the verdora to come along; Fartuun and I will send out an announcement to everyone else in Bluff View."

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Bath blinked once. "Got it. See you in a bit."

Before Bath left, Lisa coughed, then said, "Also...Fartuun knows."

Bath's eye ridges rose. "Knows what?"

"Her V-Tap let her connect the dots between Lisa and Asil," she mouthed, her lip barely moving.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Be careful," Lisa muttered. With that, she backpedaled through the bathhouse door and headed back to the parked Egdelek Arc.

---

"I've returned!" Virigard squeaked triumphantly, raising her diminutive arms to the sky. "Wow," she murmured. "That's a city-seed, alright." She'd never seen a violet city-seed before, but that's the color that a lot of the foliage had taken on. She bounded forward, zipping over the wall and into the city without causing a stir.

She found Dean within the Spire. No surprise there. "Dean!" she called out.

As he looked up from his desk, a smile came over his features. "Viri!"

She jumped onto his lap and scrabbled around to his shoulder, rubbing her cheek against his head. "I missed you," she cheeped.

Dean's smile widened. He reached up a hand to scratch her back. "Did you find anything interesting?"

"Yes!"

"Like...?"

"I found a giant thing!"

Dean snorted and shifted his position as he suppressed a grin. "A giant thing?"

"Yes." Virigard sniffed. "I don't have a name for it."

"Did you take pictures with your chip reader?"

"Pictures?" Virigard echoed incredulously. "I took video." She gave Dean a smug look, her tail swishing over his back.

Dean gestured to the desk. "Can you project it, then?"

Virigard tapped the chip reader on her wrist. Soon, a projection of a massive, cylindrical slab of gray filled the tabletop.

"Kinda shaky," Dean observed.

Virigard gave him a small headbutt in reply. "Don't you see the thing?"

Dean placed a hand over his jaw. "Yeah. That's all made of concrete?"

"Yup!"

"Huh."

"So," Virigard piped up after a few seconds. "Whaddaya think we should call the thing?"

Silence.

"Dean!" She began to swipe furiously at his head, claws that would shear metal merely mussing up his hair.

After another solid few seconds, Dean leaned back and sighed, defending his head with two hands. "Why do I have to name everything?" He gave Virigard a look, cocking an eyebrow. "Do you know how many things I've been forced to name on this trip?"

"But Dean..."

"Nope! Virigard, you found this thing, and you get to name it."

Virigard's eyes began to seemingly increase in size, shining like black crystal balls.

"Fine," Dean relented. "Give me three adjectives and I'll think of something." He steepled his hands and gave her a serious look.

"What's an adjective?" she asked meekly.

"...Just give me three words that describe the thing."

"Big."

"That's one," Dean encouraged.

"Thick."

"...That's another."

"Long!"

"Seriously," Dean muttered, flicking Virigard on the back. "Could you think of any other adjectives besides those? For one, they're completely vague...moreover they're..." His face began to redden slightly.

"They're what?"

"They're immature," he replied, crossing his arms.

"You're so harsh!" Virigard retorted, giving him a hurt expression. "I'm only a few months old."

Dean's lips pressed into a thin line. "Give me three more adjectives."

"Fine!" Virigard said. "How about..." she began, trailing off as her eyes wandered back to stare at the paused video projection. "Gigantic. No, enormous. No...gargantuan!"

Dean's eye twitched. "That's one."

Virigard began to rub her hands together nervously, as though confronted with a difficult puzzle. "Powerful. And then..." Her face screwed up, her whiskers bristling. "Imperious."

Dean whistled. "Big word," he praised.

"Hehe," Virigard replied. "Isn't it?"

"You looked it up just now on your chip reader, didn't you," he accused.

Virigard looked at him guilelessly, her tail swishing. "Did you see me do it?"

Dean rolled his eyes and let out a small chuckle. She could've easily found the word imperious on her chip reader without him seeing, given that a chip reader's interface was normally only visible to the user.

"Given your words," he began, "The thing shall henceforth be called..."

"What!?"

"..."

"Dean!" Virigard pouted.

"Godzilla."

Virigard froze. "Wha..."

Dean's deadpan expression gave way to uncontrolled laughter. "Sorry Viri," he forced out between breaths. "I really needed a laugh." When he turned back to the projection now, he had a hint of sadness in his eyes. "This isn't a thing, Viri. It's a monument." Dean narrowed his eyes. His analytical eye had improved leaps and bounds after mastering the artist profession. The monument was clearly ancient and almost completely destroyed...but he could make out what he thought it should look like by extrapolating out. He envisioned the way the cement would look once smooth and full, without cracks and missing chunks.

Why had they made this out of cement?

Dean understood the reasons why Virigard had described the thing as gargantuan and powerful. He also knew why she'd initially called it big, thick and long, assuming she'd completely misinterpreted what the "thing" was. But...

"Viri, why did you describe the thing as imperious?" That was the one adjective he didn't find immediately obvious.

"Look at its big eye," she murmured. "Its face is gone...but that eye..."

Dean rubbed her leg. "I see now. Right," he said, suddenly getting up. "We're going to call it The Imperial."

"Oo, okay!"

"Viri, hop off my shoulders for a minute." He headed over to a conference room on the floor below, intending to make use of its whiteboard. The whiteboard technically wasn't an actual whiteboard, but its hard, white dragonleaf surface made an almost indistinguishable facsimile.

"Are you gonna draw?" Virigard wondered as Dean grabbed a blue dry-erase marker from a pocket under his tabard.

"Yup."

She knew better than to keep speaking and hopped into one of the room's office chairs. She swiveled around in circles to pass the time, each revolution revealing that Dean had added more and more details to his creation.

After about five or so minutes, he paused in front of the image. Virigard jumped out of the chair and grappled onto his back, ears twitching. "Who is that?"

"The Imperial," he replied.

Virigard cocked her head. "But that doesn't look anything like The Imperial. All that I had in the video was a big block of shapeless concrete with a giant eye at its top. It looked like a...finger with an eye instead of a fingernail!"

She's way too innocent, he thought to himself, cringing internally. "Viri, that's only because the monument you found had been ruined by thousands of years of elemental exposure. While what I've drawn here is only a rough approximation...it should be a fairly accurate representation of what the monument once looked like."

Virigard grew quiet. "It looks serious," she murmured. "And sad."

"That's because it is."

She placed a paw on his ear. "How did you know its face looked like that? I can't see anything but an eye!"

"You can kind of tell by the way the face chipped off," he replied, inclining his head into her silky fur. "Remember the way that the ridge on the original jutted out and had a crack at the corner? That was actually a fairly intact part of the original face."

"But still..."

Dean shrugged. "The rest is just intuition," he admitted. As was the case with all of COTD's boons, they made things easier, expanding the capabilities of the mind and body. Dean didn't know how his boons worked; accordingly, he didn't know why the artist profession had given him the insight to see what the monument had originally looked like.

"Maybe this isn't right," he whispered. He thought back to the girl in the tomb, his thoughts drifting toward her tiny slippered feet, of all things. Am I projecting onto this statue reconstruction? he wondered.

"I like it better the way you drew it," Virigard interjected, nodding her head once. "Much better than a cyclops finger."

Dean rubbed her head. "Thanks, Viri."

"Of course!" she cheered. "Hey, when are the other arcs gonna arrive?"

Dean looked out of the room's window, looking out over a gray landscape dominated by oppressive clouds and churning waves. "Soon, probably."

"Good!" she exclaimed. "After this, only two more stops until Earth!"

Dean chuckled. "You seem excited." Truth be told, Dean couldn't wait to be back. He'd thought that traveling to planets that nobody had ever seen before would never grow stale, but he had to admit that part of him was excited to return to Earth. How much had it changed over the past month without the Church and Dragon to keep it in line?

Virigard looked at Dean as though he was the stupidest man alive. "You owe me rum coke; of course I'm excited." She crossed her tiny arms and puffed up her chest.

"You're right," he replied in acknowledgment, nodding his head. "Is that really all you're excited about?"

"Uh..."

Dean just snorted and made his way out of the office and toward the balcony. He rested his hands on the balcony's railing, inhaling the pungent scent of sea air. "You know, this planet isn't half bad," he said. "Reminds me of what England might look like."

"Might?"

"Never been there," Dean replied. "Aside from Somalia, I haven't spent much time away from the United States."

"Me neither. How about we make a visit together?"

Dean rubbed the back of her head, smiling. "It's a date."