Ch.5L: "Lost Souls" / Sigrlinn at the PlatBot Mansion

[Legendary Sidekick]

Spoiler: theme song: How Far I'll Go

The metal hummingbird tumbles off of Heph's shoulder as he leaves—and as it does, it seems to crumple into several pieces, though they never fly apart. Instead, parts rotate, forming a tiny metal maiden. She must be three inches tall, which means the top of your head's up to about the tip of her pointy copper nose.

"I heard about you!" she says rather excitedly. "The wingless fairy! I always hoped we would meet when the girls at the spring mentioned you, but I guess you left the island they day before I was activated. So… do I call you Phœbe or Sigrlinn?"

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn sighs as Heph leaves, and looks curiously at the copper hummingbird, who transforms into a tiny copper maiden. Well, tiny compared to Sigrlinn's real body; she's half a head taller than Phoebe's body.

She smiles and says, "For now, call me Sigrlinn. Phoebe's just the name of this body I'm stuck in. Phoebe's in my body, back at Artemis' cabin. She wanted to come, but she has trouble controlling a human-sized body. What's your name?"

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

"I'm P3N-N1. Call me Penni! I'm an iMaiden. That means I'm gonna be a pilot on a dangerous mission!"

She seems rather excited about this.

"The others say I'm too young and should wait, but Kell-Pi took me under her wing and--"

Her eyes suddenly become very round, and her mouth also forms an O.

"Right. Wing. Poor choice of words around you, right? But I bet I can teach you to fly. Not the way other fairies do, but the way I'm gonna fly!"

 

[Ireth]

"Nice to meet you, Penni."

Sigrlinn leans forward with interest at the idea of Penni's dangerous mission, and smiles at her excitement. The thought of learning how to fly is an intriguing one, too. "That would definitely come in handy! But you can turn into a hummingbird, so why do you need a different way to fly?"

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

"Oh..." Penni stays quiet a moment. "Oh, oh! OHhhhh!" She giggles. Maybe she'll let you in on what she finds so humorous.

"I've never told anyone a New Thing before! I was just activated six days ago. Not even a week old, and I'm already telling someone a New Thing. It's usually the other way around. This is very exciting!"

She stops to think.

...

"How should I tell you a New Thing? Would you like a Visual Aid?"

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn can't help but chuckle at Penni's enthusiasm. "A visual aid would help. Thank you."

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

"C'mon!"

Penni opens what appears to be a ventilation shaft. In fact it's a fairy-size passage. Maybe it was built by fairies. There are thousands on the island.

She shows you a crystal shard with two seats. There are tubes attached to the seats.

"This is the flight simulator. I need a copilot though. Usually N1K-K1 works with me, but she's actually the copilot for D1M-K1. They're both out with S4M-U5 now. So I can be the pilot and you can be my copilot. It's just a Sim-You-Later, so if we crash, we don't die."

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn follows eagerly, and tilts her head at the explanation. "So what do I do? Just sit in there?"

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

"Uh huh."

Tubes wrap around you. One tentacle like thing touches your forehead.

Thoop!

You find yourself sitting to Penni's right. You're in something that looks like an orb from the inside. You and Penni each have a window before you. You're flying behind a flock of geese at the rear of a V-formation.

"See the stick? Pull back to go up, forward to go down. Left and right to turn, but we tilt to the side when we turn, so go easy. Just follow the birds for now, and enjoy the view."

 

[Ireth]

"That sounds easy enough." Sigrlinn remembers the sensation of flying from her meditation session with the Graces, and imagines this is going to be very different. "I think I'm ready."

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Flying is easy at first. All you need to do is follow the birds.

And that's all you do at first. Follow the birds.


BOSS APPROACHING!


Penni pumps her fist as the simulator warns of impending doom.

"Yes!"

A flame bursts onto the screen in front of you. All of the geese become roasted geese, cooked to a perfect golden brown. The roasted geese plummet offscreen.

A purple and aqua argyle-patterned dragon flaps into view.

"It's Puff!" Penni shouts. She trembles a bit then says, "We can beat this guy! There's a 20 to 90% chance!" She confesses, "I'm still learning how to calculate odds. Sorry."

Puff breathes a ring of smoke at you.

"Eep!" Penni says, "We gotta fly through the center of the rings! OR ELSE!"

There are three rings. You do your best to steer as Penni does!

((Roll TALENT! Fairy talent = 3!))

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn follows Penni's directions as closely as she can, gripping the stick tight as she aims for the center of each ring...

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

When you pass the first ring, it tuns gold and makes a *ding!*

5 POINTS!

The second ring earns you another five.

5 POINTS!

"Are you kidding! Twice in a row?"

You feel like you're a bit off on the third ring, but Penni seems more focused—as if hell-bent on getting a

TRIPLE FIVER!

"Holy SHIRT! Oh, it's a good thing I'm not programmed to swear or my donkey would be grass!"

Puff isn't as pleased with this result. "Who dares score a Triple Fiver in my presence. DIE!"

Puff breathes fire at you.

"EEEEEEEEEEK! Pull up! PULL UP!"

((Roll power! That's 1X3 for a fairy!))

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn yelps and tries to pull up as well, but...

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

You can feel the heat from the near miss—fortunately, the tiny robot had just enough strength to get you out of the way.

Penni says, "Press the SHOOT BUTTON to shoot back!"

Puff says, "Nooooo! Not the SHOOT BUTTON!"

((Shoot Puff before he roasts you to simulated death! Fairy instinct = 4X3!))

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn does as she's told...

"Wooo!"

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

You see two giant arms in your view: a silver one and a gold one. The arms themselves must be as big a human. Not a human arm. A human. The orb you are in is apparently a very large head—much larger than a person's, judging by all the interior space. The huge window you're peering through is probably the right eye of a metal giant, while Penni sees through the left eye.

Her ice projectile bounces harmlessly off of puff. Your fireball causes a burn. Puff's face is completely black (except his eyes) and he is continuously emitting smoke rings.

He shoots again.

((1X3 Power to pull out of the way!
4X3 Instinct to shoot back!))

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn hauls up on the stick to dodge the attack...

...and presses hard on the Shoot button to make one of her own!

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

((+your roll = 3))

This time Puff shoots TWO fireballs! Penni's hands slips, but you pull up with all your might and just barely dodge!

Your shots and Penni's are both harmless!

"Ha ha ha ha ha!"

While Puff taunts you, you can shoot inside his mouth!

"The FOOL!" Penni exclaims as she pounds the SHOOT button.

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn pounds the button too, leaning forward to see better if their attacks will hit...