The cantankerous, footless goon and his lackeys were getting closer to Kahli, and she didn't know what to do. She wanted to run away, but that would mean leaving Unit 5a23, and she felt that was a disservice to all that the robot had done for her. Of course, a large part of what the robot had done for her had been, well, to act rather obnoxiously and grandstand about pacifism, but still, Kahli had been inadverdently protected from Lloyd's self destructive blast when he'd detected that its blast radius would hurt him.

On second thought, Unit 5a23 was a selfish asshole. If he were in Kahli's shoes, he would immediately run away and leave Kahli laying there unconscious, probably with some half-baked reasoning too, like maybe that it would save on fuel or some ridiculous shit if he left her there to get attacked by this now-footless poacher.

Moreover, staying would obviously mean a fight. So Kahli knew that Unit 5a23 would definitely not do that, because the robo-man hated fighting unless he felt his hand of self-preservation was decidedly forced. So, with that, Kahli knew she only had one choice.

She was going to fight her motherfucking ass off. Kahli said a silent prayer to Theseosus for her crude thoughts as she focused her sights on the admittedly frail-looking poacher. She had gotten quite good at fighting, hadn't she? Sure, Kahli was probably a much lower level than this guy, but he had to be feeling pretty off-balance. Had he lost a fight? She squinted. It almost looked like Omar had lopped the guy's feet off. What was going on?

"Seriously, what is your problem? Why are you just hovering on that rock a hair's width from the ground?" he asked angrily as he trudged forward with assistance from his entourage.

"Hands up or I'll kick this rock far away from you!!" said Kahli in as threatening a voice as possible.

"Woah, woah, we don't want to fight," said the guy. "We all, well, we saw you fighting that alien up in the sky there. Look, uh, lady, my name's Brahd. Um, I knew your... What was he? You were his apprentice or whatever, you had some master and apprentice thing going on, right?"

"I was his intern. But I think he terminated that before the mega dragon ate him," said Kahli matter of factly.

"Yea, that checks out," said Brahd. "Well, my condolences, I guess."

"Yea, I guess." Kahlin nodded awkwardly. "So, uh, you were saying?"

"You know, he really seemed convinced that you had intentionally brought Curr upon us, or something?" said Brahd. "And well, I'm sure you notice my striking lack of feet, as well as my poor skill at managing without them. Really, I'm going to need to get myself some sort of accomodations at some point, but I just haven't had the chance because my restaurant is just absolutely crawling with Curr, like, to an absurd degree."

"Oh." Kahi took a deep breath. This was a bit of a turning point for her, now. See, she wasn't sure exactly how to respond to Brahd for a number of reasons, although all of that was underscored by a strong sense of relief. She was relieved that he wasn't going to try to fight her, at least not yet. She was relieved that he didn't immediately buy into Omar's version of reality, where she'd intentionally wrought Curr upon them. But with that, Kahli also had to consider that she might still need to keep up the lie that she had intentionally wrought Curr upon everyone. Only, that would of course be a bit of a bad move, wouldn't it?

Then again, Kahli had the [Tale Teller] [skill], so, if she used that, shouldn't it somewhat protect her from fallout? Then again, it would be best to keep her lie as consistent as possible, [skill] or not. After all, Lloyd the evil alien was still under the impression that she'd purposely wrought Curr upon everyone. And, maybe it would be best for everyone here to fear her a little, too. After all, she didn't want to have to fight them all, did she? Well, part of Kahli wanted to, but in general she felt that it would be more advantageous for her to avoid conflict in this specific moment. So, instead, she decided to focus on the fact that Omar had activated a bit of a doomsday scroll.

"A what day scroll?"

"A scroll that spelled out, among other things, the functional end of the world," said Kahli with a smile, looking to Froufrou with a knowing eye. "Now, yes, if Omar were still alive, then he would probably try to tell you otherwise, but I assure you all that he gladly scorched that prophetic scroll to smithereens, activating it in the process."

"That sounds just like him," said Brahd with a sniffle. "Sorry, it's just... Theseosus be praised, I miss him already."

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Another goon, who was missing a leg, sighed. "Get over yourself, Brahd. That guy was obnoxious as hell and honestly, I think I can speak for at least a decent portion of us here when I say that I don't mind that he's dead. He made me uncomfortable as hell, always waving his arm around burning shit left and right like it was going out of style. Hell, I bet what this young, rock elemental is saying is true, and that what she's said has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that, as well all know, earth and fire elementals just can't stand each other!"

Kahli rolled her eyes and sighed. Of course this goon had to be prejudiced, didn't he? There were in Nomachiato long-standing stereotypes based around peoples' elementality. Some of them had echoes of truth - fire elementals were known for being tempermental, rock elementals for being hard headed, water elementals for being wet blankets and rule followers, plant elementals always seemed to call everyone 'dude' and had really wide eyes, poison elementals were sadists, glass elementals prided themselves on transparency, ice elementals were cold hearted, rust elementals were old-fashioned, gold elementals were always concerned with market movements, sky elementals were flighty and scatterbrained, sound elementals talked more than they listened, and seed elementals loved to sew, to name a few. However, some of the more harmful stereotypes were assumptions based on interpersonal relationships between different elementals. After all, they were all tauman beings, but for whatever reason, there were assumptions based on that wherein, among many other assumptions, most of which if not all of which were patently absurd, fire elementals and rock elementals were diametrically opposed to one another on all fronts. Now, this was not a hard and fast rule, but it was something that, for whatever reason, seemed to kick around in the minds and consciousnesses of people predisposed to prejudicial thinking, and indeed through that also to people less disposed to prejudicial thinking after exposure to said prejudicial thinkers. And with that, there was this uncomfortable stereotype where it was assumed that a rock elemental could not like or enjoy the company of a fire elemental, and that they would always hate one another.

Of course, this could not be farther from the case. Kahli herself had sought out Omar as the professional for her to join as an apprentice, she had specifically wanted to be under his leadership, and even though his fiery sensibilities confused and frustrated her from time to time, she was also fairly sorry to have seen him eaten by a boney mega dragon. Of course, his determination that she was an agent of evil was a bit of a damper on the whole apprenticeship, internship, whatevership... And it made Kahli feel relived that he was gone. But still, the feeling over all was bittersweet.

Kahli was aghast at the voracity with which she explained all this to the goons surrounding her. She was beside herself, feeling that in a way she'd given too much away.

"Alright, well... Anyways..." Brahd looked relieved that Kahli had stopped talking. "Anyways, we need to talk to you about all this Curr that has showed up, regardless as to whether you brought it here, or Omar brought it here, or you both brought it here, or, hell, even if it just showed up on its own somehow. See, my pal Gehaff here has the book that details the cure for Curr, and, well, it looks like whatever Curr is in the restaurant right now is resistant to the cure. Which, um, as Gehaff will happily explain, should be impossible."

Kahli watched as a short, stocky man hobbled out from the cluster of goons holding a small booklet in his clawlike, living wood hands.

"So, this is going to be pretty wild. Also, nice to meet you, I'm Gehaff," said Gehaffrey to Kahli.

Kahli nodded with a pained smile and a look that said 'cut to the point.'

"So, uh, you don't know the cure for the Curr already, right?"

Kahil groaned. Of course she didn't! Almost nobody did! It was a tightly kept secret, for fear that the resources required to cure it may one day run out.

"Yea, well, here's a document that goes over the specifics. But, uh, to summarize, the cure is almost like an, well, it's like an anti Curr? If that makes sense? Well... Gods, I'm not making sense... Okay, so, know how Curr just kind of... Turns everything into math?"

Kahli nodded, of course she did.

"So, the cure for Curr turns math into everything." Gehaffrey looked very uncomfortable. "This is, once again, a very base explanation. But the booklet I have, it goes into this in depth. And it explains that the conditions where Curr occurs are rare, and yet prone to happen eventually if matter changes form enough times. But the gist of it is, we cure Curr by converting Curr back to whatever it consumes. So, really, everyone here on this planet was at one point covered in Curr without knowing it, because that Curr was immediately converted to everything but Curr.

"The good news is that, once the cure has converted your matter, so to say, you're impurvious to affects of the Curr because it can't actually interact with cured matter without becoming cured matter itself. It's almost using the mechanism the Curr uses to convert life to math can be reversed to turn Curr back into life, though of course people that were long lost to it were always too fargone to be brought back from a mathematical death. Regardless, the problem is, is that Curr shows up as a state of matter that has become somewhat convoluted. And, well, this 'New Curr' that is currently in our restaraunt is based off the changed matter that is impervious to what I've been referring to as 'Classic Curr.' That is to say, New Curr eats matter that is impervious to 'Classic Curr.'"

Kahli blinked a couple times.

"What I'm saying is, is that we're all doomed and going to die," said Gehaffrey conclusively.

And then, with a huge quake and a shake, a beam of light erupted only a block away, knocking everyone to their feet.