"Don't let what happened today put you off," Nate says, walking in from one of the side rooms to sit opposite Freckles at the table after everyone settles down. "You reacted admirably, got the job done, and there were no casualties. For the mission.

"If you do want to take some time to get your head together, know that you will have a place here, and you can still be part of the guild and use other methods to contribute."

"I'm fine," I reassure him. "Aside from having a chunk of something forced through me at high speeds." I try to laugh it off but apparently I killed the mood again.

"Have you found anything out about the group that tried to kidnap you?" Nate asks and I want to ask when would I have had the time?

"Not yet," I grumble, finishing off the last bites, stacking the dishes then shotgunning my cup. I sigh, shift to my bank, and stare in confusion at the spread of foods on and around the table.

I was gonna come back. I figured that when I ran I'd get hurt, and I was gonna come back to eat up and heal. Oh, no. It wouldn't be such a big problem if Little Red hadn't tried to sample the stuff I left out. I guess something smelled like something edible, but, considering the bloody meat bag and strange blood spatters, I'm gonna assume it wasn't. Shit. Her kids! Fack! I could ask Joe for help, but I don't want to feel obligated to give him one of the kids if they survive. I don't want the family to be separated or for the little nibblets to be picked apart for science. When they grow up it should be easy enough to just--. No... I won't be able to tell if the meat is safe for them or not. I kneel down next to the corpse, picking it up and doing a quick soul suck for any information she might have had that could maybe be passed on to help her bebes.

Kinda offended. The foods I mixed smelled good to me, but shiver thorn and fish apparently smell like fermented meat. To her. To me it smells like fish with herbs and something tart and acidic. What do I smell like? Rich, juicy grub meat with a hint of death. A clean scavenger. Something too weak to get its own food.

Okay, fuck you, Red.

...

Fine! ♪ Thank you, Red~! ♪ Meh... Explains why things with noses aren't immediately calling me a God of Death or Mother of the Swarm. I smell like a juicy, prissy trash bag, really? I start cleaning up while I grumble, leaving Little Red's body out to see how many soul sucks I can get. I got three off of some poison clan's basic fighter. To be fair he'd been a cultivator of average talent who was juiced up over decades with poisons that enhance everything. Bro didn't skip out on anything. Qi channeling, essence channeling, skin, blood, bone, even bile strengthening. Any and every enhancement there was, he got, and he worked diligently. He wasn't some badass super genius with talent leaking out of his dangly bits, but he was still a badass. But he was a badass through tried and trued methods. You'd think his diligence and thoroughness would have earned him more recognition, though... So was getting sent to infiltrate and subsume a guild really a punishment or did they have faith he'd get the job done and he just misunderstood. Instead of riches and bitches he got more work and turned in his two weeks to become a God in a less powerful part of the country.

While I'm out here checking corpses... I pull out the "guards" and Two-Weeks, laying them out in a line in the front yard, moving Little Red's body so she's separate but I don't lose her by forgetting about her, and clean up the mess in the house. So. These bodies are technically my fault for various reasons, but are they at all connected. My head hurts and I don't know if it's from lack of sleep, lack of food, too much shiver thorn, or too much soul sucking, but I feel like I'll crash soon.

The hunans all have markings, Two-Weeks has a band around his middle finger that looks like a ring but is actually a line art drawing of a centipede, easily covered by wearing any kind of glove or anchored bracer, but, in his storage he's got some kinda flesh colored paste, a makeup, to smear around the area. The "guards" have markings at the base of their skulls. I don't soul suck them at this time because I already feel shitty, but the marking indicates they're not from a poison clan but from a devil clan.

Not sure if it's a mistranslation of the information available to me, but demons appear to be people who shed their humanity for augments, i.e. people to weak to Get Gud on their own, needing to graft the powers of better creatures onto their forms. Mutants like me. But my mutation is me, not something forced on me or stolen, so... Devils are also people who throw away their humanity, but they do so by doing inhumane things and worshipping inhuman things, borrowing power until they figure out how to develop their own. If they steal power they might become demons. And that's shameful, question mark...?

So on to Little Red. Who made you? Devil, demon, or vanilla cultivators looking for power? For all I know she was just born different and hounded across the country. Technically, I doubt she had to settle down anywhere for two long to get knocked up, but she is alone isn't she?

"Where's papa rat?" I ask the corpse, banking the hunans as I look her over.

There's a weird notching to the pad of one of her paws making it look like a flower. Dunno if that's intentional or not, but that's all I'm getting until I soul suck. I bank her body, wonder if there's milk out in the world, sigh, then shift out with the intention of cornering Joe somewhere to ask for his advice.

I'm not giving him one of the babies.

The room is empty, but I hear soft breathing and move around the table to see Freckles laid out, sleeping on the sitting cushions. Well, he did bring me here, but where's everyone else, and where was he planning on me moving in? I wander around, the main room branching off into two different rooms with a bank of windows across from the entrance. I circle around, finding a minor office, a kitchen, and what looks like it might be a linen closet but resolves itself into an outhouse with nature sounds.

... So... People do poop. The triplets made it sound so unhealthy, but how else do you process the stuff you can't use? Or do they turn that into Qi, too? Pffft. I leave the room, close the door, open it and go back inside. Is there a medicine cabinet and where does this place lead to? I can't put my hands through any of the openings in the side of the small wooden room, I'm not climbing into the seat, although I could probably use it for fertilizer. Or I could hurry up on the bird thing, and the texture of the walls does not match what I'm seeing. What bothers me is that I know my Ultravision can see through shit like illusions and layers of essence, but it's not, and it hasn't for a while.

So... I'm in a whitewashed wooden room made to look like an outhouse with windows, natural sunlight, and nature sounds. So... is there indoor plumbing or is it a collective shit pot that gets processed somehow? Nate walks in, head down, reading a book, the front folded back, and closes the door. When he goes to undo his pants I clear my throat and catch the book as he jumps, releasing it, but doesn't make a sound. I watch him close his eyes, entire body tense as he holds his breath, then slowly breathes out, relaxing as he does.

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"Didn't lock the door because I wasn't using the room," I say, realizing I'm sitting on the edge of the toilet seat while I think. "Was just exploring the space."

"Get out," Nate suggests cheerfully, still not opening his eyes. I don't know if I startled him into releasing what he came to drop off.

I get up, nudging him to the side with one finger and he pivots, trading places, eyes still closed, and then I leave, closing the door behind me.

"That could have gone better," I mumble, continuing my explorations. "Didn't see any toilet paper or a sink, but those are probably magic bullshit, too.

"... I hope."

I wander through the apartment, trying every door I find. There are rooms on both sides of the hallway, but I'm pretty sure one side goes into the space that the front windows look back into, so... More illusions? What bothers me is that none of the rooms are locked. Unless I'm on some more all your spatial are belong to me kick, then the security is awful. Are they counting on the front door being the only thing to stop people. Now I'm curious. I'm not done exploring the rooms but I head back to the main entrance, open the door which lets in all the noise from Eager Heart, startling Freckles into waking up. I leave, close the door behind me, then open it again to see Freckles reaching for it. I wave him back, watch as he stumbles to the side and re-enter, closing the door behind me.

"But that's not a real door! It's an illusion over a transfer circle!" he shouts at me.

"No, pretty sure it's a door over a connection to some spatial zone. There might be a transfer circle on the door, but it reacts more like a portal than a teleport," I correct him. I turn to him with a shrug and explain that spatial storages are what bank bugs do. "Unless it's another mutation I've developed."

"How are you so useless and so ungodly powerful?" he stares at me squatting, hands clawed, palms up, and I think he might actually start swinging.

"Tell me how you really feel," I crow as I process his question. I snort, walking away from him before he gets any more frustrated.

"That's not what I meant!" he stammers, a brilliant red spreading across his skin starting from his face. Haz we achieved full body blush?

"That's exactly what you meant, but not how you wanted to say it," I laugh, scurrying down the other hallway to continue my explorations. If I understand this right the whole thing circles around.

"Eclipsed Rainbow, wait!" Freckles says, still red, still chasing after me, still wide-eyed, red eared, but now his face is pale.

"If you're worried about offending me, you haven't. I'm more worried about you trying to grab me and breaking something," I admit, slipping into a room that might be locked or inaccessible through the open door.

I look around at the neat little writing desk with its assortment of reed and feather pens and pots of ink on top of what look like ink bricks and an ink stone. There are bookshelves with more books than trinkets lining the walls, and Joe laying on the bed, one hand behind his head, the other holding a book up while he reads. Well. Shit. He lowers the book slightly turning his head to see me, then going back to reading.

"A good substitute for milk would be any fatty nut ground down, strained, and mixed with water. You can also try fish oil and ground meats. Make sure everything's moist," he says, raising his head to free his hand to wave me off before settling back down.

"Thank you for your support," I give a quick bow. "I should get started on that." I bow again, leave the room, and Nate grabs me by the back of the neck. "Gack!"

He's gentle enough that it doesn't register as an attack, firm enough that I know I don't want him to tighten his grip, and then he just steers me back to the main sitting room. Freckles is sitting at the table, head lowered, but when he sees us he gets up, face flushed and jaw clenched as he climbs to his feet. Is he mad at me or Nate?

"Running River! You can't just go around scruffing people!"

What? No... No! Did this bitch really just--? I start thrashing, humiliated that he thought he could get away with it.

"I thought he was threatening to paralyze me!" I shout, Nate recoiling with his jaw dropped before I slap him. It doesn't do anything, but I feel better. "What do you want?"

"Ah, no," Nate shakes his head, hands up, palms out, fending me off? Really? "I was going to show you that you can drop your anchor in the main room.

"There are no rooms in the apartment available for you, but you don't really need one."

... Fair. But I want one. I sulk, looking around the room, the public room, for a place to drop my private anchor. Might as well just go to the stable. Can move around in there. Meet new people. Intrusive thoughts drag my attention to the windows and I wonder if I can open them or if they're just an illusion.

"Do those windows open?" Figure I should ask before I get tackled for trying to open them.

"Don't!" Nate and Freckles both shout, hands out like they're going to stop me from not doing anything.

"Your mothers!" I shout back. Fucking scruffed me? Really? "'Don't' why? What happens? Do they open or are they an illusion?"

"Eclipsed Rainbow, please do not go into the void." Nate says very slowly and politely, slowly smoothing the air. Is he comfort smoothing the air right now?

"So this is a spatial zone," I confirm. I don't need to explore it now, they're not gonna be here forever, and I don't think they can stop me from checking it out.

"Don't know how it works. Don't need to know how it works. Don't break it." Nate says, this time looking up at me with his head lowered, patting the air on each point.

"All very good points," I widen my eyes, waggling my head while wandering closer to the windows, both of them tensing and giving me side-eye. "I'm not going to do anything, moms. I'm just looking..."

I'm gonna do something later. Technically I'm gonna do something now, but that's just finding an area out of the way that won't get blocked off so I can set down my anchor. Somewhere they won't sit, won't be tempted to drop stuff, won't --. Fuck it. I stand next to the desk, shift to my void, and unbank some of the paste I'd been making. I mix that in a Willed flat bowl with some common fish, add a little water, then move over to the tree I'd dropped the babies, remember that I didn't make that den, then wander over to a bush further away. The bush smells like things that are good, and I feel better eating some of the fresh leaves, my children taking blood from me every time they nurse.

"I'm sorry, fucking what?" I'm snapped out of the memory next to a bush that might be good for poisons, the fresh leaves good at increasing blood production while various other parts can cause clotting, hemorrhaging, and more.

Wait, so the babies need milk and blood? Or meat and milk? Or blood element stuff? I can't just bleed into the pan, that'd be a bad, so... Do I drain the blood from the bodies or...? I set the pan down, and an pack of bugged out black eyed, balls of blood soaked cotton trundle out, sniffing around. Powerful looking black claws, little black noses, that I now know pick up things differently, sniff at the bowl before one adventurous, and probably starving, cub starts drinking and chewing. I think I took the bones out while I was mashing the meat with my fingers, and I'm hoping that me touching it wasn't enough to poison it. Probably should have used a spoon. Nope. Might have a bunch of death wood utensils that I've been using... I think I remember using my least needed woods for stuff for a while. Well, shit.