Cliff sits at a table outside the ice cream parlour with a cone in hand. He's joined by Moon-Soo and Clip affectionately sharing a cone, and Allen who has been laid down on the table.

Clip
* What about aliens? Are there aliens in the future?

  Cliff Mason
Sure, what did you think Allen here is?

Clip
* An angel, duh.

Hhhhhkkkhh...

Moon-Soo
* if after the ghosts and the time travel it turned out angels were real too, i think i'd completely lose it.
* i cannot handle another metaphysical revelation right now.

Clip
* Don't worry, don't worry!
* I'd still love you even if you were a raving madman.

Moon-Soo
* i appreciate that.
* cliff, how'd you end up a foster parent to an alien baby anyway?

Clip
* Oh oh, are they your bio kid??
* Oh my god... did you have SEX with an alien and you got pregnant!??

  Cliff Mason
No, I did not have sex with any aliens.

Clip
* Really?
* Why not?

  Cliff Mason
I was married! I mean, I'm still...
N-- next question!

Clip
* Oh oh, what about lasers? Do you have lasers??

Moon-Soo
* hun, we have lasers right now.

Clip
* Woooowww!!! That's crazy!

  Cliff Mason
That may be true, but: the lasers we got in my time are way cooler.
It's not just a red dot on the wall anymore, we got handheld blaster pistols, you can charge 'em up and--

Cliff remembers the feeling of it, the laser magnum rumbling in his hand has he aims at an Avean Grunt -- fleeing into the woods -- just before Coral pushed his hand out the way--

  Cliff Mason
--But hey, why are we talking so much about the future when the now is so great!

  Cliff Mason
It's a beautiful day, isn't it? It's bright, it's breezy...
You guys are so lucky, you know?

Moon-Soo
* are we.

  Cliff Mason
A town like this? It's so... peaceful.
It's like, you wake up in the morning and you know there's nothing in this place that could ever go wrong.

Moon-Soo
* cliff we're the number one haunting capital of new south wales.
* things regularly go wrong.

Clip
* Right right, just last year a cult tried to summon the Primal Spirit of the land to devour the town!
* It was sooo crazy!!

  Cliff Mason
Okay sure, but Jasper's family always deals with those.
And most of those end up being Headless Ed's evil plans, so once he gets exorcised? Everything'll be perfect.

Moon-Soo
* you say that like it's a foregone conclusion.

  Cliff Mason
C'mon. Don't you trust your old pal Jasper to get the job done?

Hhhhh...

Moon-Soo
* "trust" is not the word i would be using to describe jasper as of late, no.

Clip
* Aw no, what do you mean?

Moon-Soo brings his hand to his temple.

Moon-Soo
* jas is... he's always been kind of wishy-washy.
* when that's about dinner plans i can deal with it.
* but when it's about genuinely dangerous ghost encounters, where he's always calling in favours from me and he never says why?
* that gets incredibly frustrating.

  Cliff Mason
That sounds pretty noble to me. He's trying to keep you from getting pulled in too deep.
You know, protecting you.

Moon-Soo
* i'm not any safer for being ignorant, cliff.
* jas thinks if he never tells me about any of these dangers then they don't exist.
* like if he resolves it all himself, then nobody will notice and it'll be like it never happened.

  Cliff Mason
That's not just about him, though -- these are his family traditions!
You can't blame him for not letting you in on those.

Moon-Soo
* i can and i will.
* i'm already involved. sunny definitely is.
* she's been stolen away by ghosts or something-- i don't even know the full story because jas dodges me every time i ask why.
* she's my friend too, i deserve to know!

Clip
* Awww, don't worry.
* Hey hey, remember when Cece Speckle got stuck in that ghost-induced nightmare world for like three weeks? She ended up juuuust fine!
* I'm sure a firebrand like Sunny'll be okay!

Moon-Soo
* nnhhh...
* look, don't get me wrong, jas is my friend.
* i understand that he's been dealing with a lot lately, emotionally and otherwise.
* i'm sympathetic, i hope he works it all out.

Clip
* Right right, so we're not taking him off the guest list for Saturday.

Moon-Soo
* he has not messed up that bad yet, no.
* i'm bothered but i'm not about to excommunicate.
* and frankly a party is probably the circumstance in which jasper's all-smiles attitude is at its most appropriate.

  Cliff Mason
Oh hey, you kids are going to a party?

Clip
* Oh~? You didn't know?
* Moon-Soo's birthday is this weekend!

  Cliff Mason
You're kidding! I didn't know I was in the presence of a birthday boy!

Moon-Soo
* you're not. we're still a number of days out.

  Cliff Mason
Nonsense! Birthdays count for the whole week, don't you know?

Clip
* Yeah yeah!!! This guy gets it!

  Cliff Mason
You're officially our guest of honor for this outing! What you say goes!


Clip cheekily wraps their arms round Moon-Soo and nuzzles his face. Moon-Soo blushes, protests, feverishly laughs, and otherwise makes no effort to remove them.

Clip
* You hear that! You're king of the world todaaay~!

Moon-Soo
* ahaha-- clippp!

Clip
* Oh oh, Cliff! You know what this boy really likes?
* Hanging out at the computer store!

  Cliff Mason
Is that a fact?

Moon-Soo
* really, it's fine, we don't have to...

  Cliff Mason
No, no, it's not a problem at all!
I'm something of a gamer myself. I can check out this 2020s release lineup, it'll be nostalgic.
Show Allen here some real culture.

Clip
* Then it's settled!
* We could take a vote, but you aaalready know the answer!

Moon-Soo
* hah, okay, you've forced my hand...


The group finish what's left of their ice creams and get up from their chairs. Cliff hoists Allen into his arms as they leave.

Moon-Soo
* come on then. it'll be nice get my mind off all this ghost trouble.





A spark of mystic electricity arcs between the table and chair Cliff was sitting at.










Lum says:
Hi readers! Bad news again! I injured my arm and it needs time to recover!

I'm getting better, but my resilience still isn't quite there yet. So, I'll be taking a hiatus of 3 weeks for my health. Hopefully this will be the last disruption for a while.

Foreach will return on the 16th or 17th of November or whatever it is in your timezone. Thank you so much for your patience!