Walking away from the crowds, Momo found a suitable coop to sit herself in. There was a female chicken occupying it—shyer than the others, cowering in a corner and clucking. Momo’s audio courier promptly filled her in with the chicken’s social profile.

Type: Chicken. Name: Bonbon. Level 3.

HP: 4 / 15

It’s just a chicken.

“Oh no, your health… You must be starving.”

Momo looked around, locating a basket of feed to the left of her. She scooped her hand in, bundled the seeds in her open palms, then offered it to meek hen. The hen cocked its head at her, suspicious.

To the meager chicken, Momo was just another one of the terrifying giants that had come flooding into her nest. Storming the gates of her peaceful abode. Bonbon was used to one or two giants visiting her every few days—the priests like Brother Hencrest and Father Feather who tidied her coop and tended to her eggs—but this measly, squirming girl was an unknown variable. She did not bear any of the signs of the chicken devout, and thus, Bonbon remained skeptical. She gave the girl a judgemental glance.

“Hi Bonbon,” Momo whispered, completely unbeknownst to the chicken’s inner monologue. “All these noisy human beings have you too scared to eat, huh? That’s no good.”

Momo carefully extended her palms further. The chicken, hungry as she was, sniffed the feed, but still didn’t move from her place in the corner. Momo could tell—she was petrified.

Eager to find a way to help, Momo checked her Con Artist and Master Manipulator skills, hoping there’d be something in there to help convince the chicken to eat, but alas, all of those skills were better suited for manipulating enemies, not soothing scared birds. And she was doubtful that she could convince the bird to eat a piece of persuasive candy.

A loud boom echoed from the tall ceiling above, causing the bunker’s walls to shake. This had an immediate effect on the hen. The chicken jumped in fear, flapping her wings madly. Momo tried to reach out to her, but the beast just snapped at her hand, ferocious.

“Poor baby,” Momo said, biting her lip. She rapidly scrolled through her internal grimoire, searching endlessly until she landed on one skill she had only ever tried once before: [Charmer]. It was the skill that had gotten destroyed by the bugged out System back in the Oblivion Crisis, but Morgana had promised to fix it and give it a proper description.

Momo had never checked to see if she made good on that promise.

“Skill check,” she murmured, watching as the chicken jumped and down like a mad bunny.

[Charmer]: For 60 seconds, the target’s disposition towards you will increase by as many Charisma points as you possess. This skill can be cast silently.

Perfect.

Momo silently cast [Charmer]. After a moment, Bonbon’s rabid up-and-down momentum came to a halt, its endless squawking quieting to a nervous murmur. It looked at her with unsure eyes.

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“There you go,” Momo said, outstretching her seed-brimming palm again. “Bon appetit.”

It inched closer, one foot after another, and then delicately placed its beak in Momo’s hand. Once the fear left Bonbon, the bird transformed into a seed-eating machine, gobbling up the feed in her hand and then squawking for more, which Momo easily obliged. The bird went through six handfuls total before she stopped, squawking in fullness and resting on her haunches.

“Good work, Bonbon.” Momo ruffled the feathers on the chicken’s head.

Another loud boom shook the cave. The chicken complained loudly again, only this time— instead of spiraling into utter terror—it hastily burrowed itself in Momo’s lap, hiding underneath her oversized cloak. Momo laughed. It looked like she’d become suddenly pregnant with a shivering, squawking baby. She held the chicken tightly to her stomach until the tremors passed.

“I feel you, Bon,” she mumbled. “War’s no place for a chicken.”

Momo had never related more to a bird before. She wished she had a giant woman with a cozy tunic to curl all up in and wait for the worst to pass. She had Sumire, of course, but the pirate was rather normal-sized. Perhaps there was a kind of potion…

What am I even doing? She grimaced. You need to be thinking on how to solve a nation-wide crisis, Momo. Not this.

But where to begin? Casting [Focus], she gathered all the information she knew in a neat little pile in her head. She knew that Kyros and his holy hellions were most likely soon to penetrate her sphere of defense. She knew that Sera had teamed up with nearly every god and goddess in the pantheon to unseat Morgana.

“I need to be stronger. They’re gods. I’m only an Expert,” she mumbled, hugging Bonbon to her chest. “How am I supposed to tell an entire pantheon to fuck off?”

Every subsequent thought felt like another nail in the city’s coffin.

Momo paused. Perhaps it was that — the city itself — which she had failed to consider.

Her eyes drifted towards the mass of people. They dipped towards the devout, wearing their ridiculous ceremonial feathers and praying to the caged, glowing Baryte. Momo looked down at the pouch protruding from her center, and felt equal amounts of embarrassment and amusement. I’m really no different than any of them, she thought. She had been too arrogant before, writing off the devout. Too desperate to be seen as a better savior than a silly little chicken, when it was the chicken who was there for them, even now. Not her.

That settles it.

“If the whole of the heavens is against us,” Momo murmured, eyes following the bird’s cage as it swung gently left to right. “Might as well take advantage of Chicken Judas.”

—

Radu was put on full time Baryte duty, allowing Momo to lead Viktor to her new personal office— Bonbon’s coop—and present her idea.

“The Chickenductor,” Momo said, gesturing for him to sit in the pile of hay she had arranged for him. “It’s the thing powering this entire city now, right?” He nodded. “Okay, got it. Didn’t you mention something about using the Nether lighting bolts raining down from the sky to power it?”

“Ah, and here I thought you were going to yell at me again,” Viktor said, turning his nose up at her. He was sitting cross-legged in the coop next to her, his arms crossed defensively. “But yes, I did indeed mention that. An idea you quickly shot down, may I remind you.”

“Can you save the pettiness for later, please? There’s,”—another loud bang rang out from above, and the shelter shuttered—“clearly more pressing matters.”

“Fine.”

“Good. Now, how serious were you about that harvesting Nether electricity thing? Because I have an idea. And I need to verify with you just how stupid it might be.”

“I was deadly serious,” he scoffed. “As I always am.”

But then he dropped his condescension, and looked at her earnestly.

“Look—you are the Queen, and I am your Court Sage, your highness. Please stop looking at me like that, and put my vast, limitless knowledge to use, won’t you?”

Momo smiled at him.

“Okay.”

Over the proceeding ten minutes, she thoroughly explained her idea, making use of wild hand gesticulations, several different analogies, and a few sailors’ idioms she’d picked up from Sumire. Viktor nodded along, taking notes and asking clarifying questions.

“So,” Viktor said once she finally finished. “To summarize. You want to use my Chickenductor for… carnage, violence, and revenge?”

“Yeah,” Momo said, catching her breath. “Pretty much.”