Nix is in Jiro's house. There's grenades and ammunition stacked in the corner. She struggles to hold a rifle in her wings.





Frustration builds.





—Polyta—
Greetings, Nix.

Polyta enters the hut, moving past Nix to retrieve supplies from the chest.

—Polyta—
I'm sorry to interrupt, I just need to stock up on grenades...

Polyta.

Where is the rocket launcher.

—Polyta—
I'm sorry?

The rocket launcher!!

You had it! After we fought the mass of hands!

—Polyta—
You realize "the mass of hands" has a name now.
Yadiel, I believe it was?
Zabelle came up with it.

I don't care.

—Polyta—
Nix...
I understand you two have a history, but that doesn't mean--

Enough!!!

Stop changing the subject from the rocket launcher!

—Polyta—
In any case, we don't have it anymore. It was lost when Jiro and I were captured.
You'll have to use a different gun.

I can't!!!!!


Nix has a wee rant.


The other guns, my wings don't fit in the trigger guards and I
can't   handle the recoil...

I could USE the rocket launcher!!!

It was more convenient because my wings could fit cleanly around the handles and the backblast dispersed the force of the rockets so when I fired I wouldn't have trouble with
—Polyta—
Look, we can... come up with something for you, but it will have to wait until I get back.








When you get back?
Where are you going.

—Polyta—
There's a new mission.
We've... promised the Goddess we'll negotiate with Proteus.
We were always going to have to do this eventually, but... agh, I really would have liked to have more leverage by the time we brought him to the table...

Kill him with the grenades

—Polyta—
The armaments aren't for him, Nix.
The issue is we don't have a direct line of contact to Proteus, so we can't just invite him to talk. We'll have to... get his attention some other way.
So we're going to... walk directly into enemy territory and, as Coral put it, "sort it out from there."

Fine.

Then I'm coming with.

—Polyta—
Okay.


That's right.










I was expecting you to say I shouldn't.

—Polyta—
I'm not about to turn down perfectly good help, Nix.
Not for a mission as dangerous as this.
Even unarmed, you're impressively agile and quite literally immortal, which will prove indispensable for scouting in enemy territory.
Your assistance really is greatly appreciated.


Polyta gives Nix a smile. It's a plainly honest one, without any intent behind it besides the words she'd said outright.



Nix stares blankly back.



She quickly breaks eye contact. She feels off. There's something buzzing in her head and she doesn't know how to handle it.







—Polyta—
Can you be ready to leave soon?



Yes.
Let's go.



Polyta and Nix leave Jiro's hut together, leaving parallel lines of footprints in the sand outside.

—Polyta—
I should ask, are you having a good time bunking in Jiro's house?

No.

—Polyta—
Ah.
At least you're honest.







Lum says:
Hey everyone! We're back to the old update schedule, updating on Sunday/Monday again going forward.

Also: due to a family tragedy there's been a delay in the schedule. Expect a page of about half the usual size (or no page at all) next week. Thanks for your patience.