the house of manouk | test drive meme

[groundrules]

Hello, hello! Our latest event — doubling as a test drive meme and stretching until 12 August — is a one-off incursion in an uncharted time pocket dimension — the House of Manouk.

Anyone can hit up the test drive meme, but you will need an invite from an existing player to apply on 5 August. Have fun!

THE HOUSE OF MANOUK

---

Image source.

THE TERRACE

Old or new, you wake up on a white-stone terrace dominated by a twisting hedge maze that houses great columns, tattered statues, ponds, rivers, gazebos and pergolas — and high looming walls of thickly bound ivy, bloomed roses or thorny vines. Walking the Terrace somehow always brings you deeper into the maze, while a flushed, sunless sky stares down, unblinking.

You experience no thirst, hunger or language barriers here. Old translation & communication pendants can nevertheless be found scattered across the Terrace and Grounds.

New arrivals encounter the sorceress Karsa, who explains you were likely summoned by one of the undead lords who seeks control of Akhuras — and reached, along with the party she leads, a pocket dimension outside of time. Karsa’s associate, the Merchant, instructed to exit the time dimension by finding Ellethian waypoints — typically stone tokens engraved with the carvings of an eye with a sun for a pupil. Karsa may activate them for you to leave this place.

Your mission is to search the House and find the waypoints of Ellethia or of the rival Dawn’s Reach Trade Company without attracting the ire of the local exiled overlord(s).

■ Some of the statues you discover on the Terrace seem crudely carved, gaining the features of your loved ones, the longer you stare at them. Some seek to throttle. Escape them by having someone else stare at them, becoming their new target, or by leading them in a crowd of other statues.

■ Beware getting pricked by thorns: covetous vines can quickly ensnare and pull you into the maze’s green walls, or bind your hand to that of your companion.

■ The maze’s weather often mimics your mood: nice and balmy for contentment, cold for fear, torrential rain for sadness and a heatwave to answer anger. Smile.

■ Every now and then, you hear screams from other parts of the maze. Run, and you might find pairs of steel manacles or rusted chain on bloodied grounds, from where fresh rose bushes quickly rise up. Investigate.

■ Go deeper in the maze, and you find a heap of small stone tablets. Most list names, ages, occupations and include loving remarks, such as the finest husband or she smiled ever bright. Alarmingly, when your companion’s back is turned, you find tablets engraved with your handwriting, saying, don’t turn your back to them, blood reeks strong on them and that’s not their name. There are no waypoint tokens here.

■ Spend enough time in the maze, and you discover an old, red-eyed, white-haired and hunchbacked man with two chainless shackles on his wrists. He ignores you, muttering to himself about how the House must keep moving, moving. The House doesn’t like you. The House is awake. The House should sleep. The old man hits or trips you with his cane, or you might wake to find him hovering very closely over you. Engage him.

■ Now and then, he seems suddenly alert, if not outright fearful, shrieking that he comes and rushing to tinker with pulleys and stone mechanisms hidden within the maze vine walls. The maze’s architecture abruptly changes, with the ground quaking, walls shifting, while old plants wilt and fresh ones rise up within heartbeats. As the House changes, you might spot a long, spiralling staircase at short distance. Go down into…

Image source.

THE GROUNDS

The ground level of the House is splintered in dozens of decaying rooms, many locked. There are no windows here, dust thick in every corner, while faint scratches and canine footprints mar the floors — the marks of dozens of great skeletal hounds that haunt the corridors.

The dogs lead, chase or drag you towards a shuttered hall room, where a middle-aged, red-eyed and white-haired man furiously searches through haphazard mounds of tousled tomes. He too wears shackles. His manner is perfunctorily polite, as he calls back his dogs.

”…not from around here, are you? Must have broken time. Hooligan. Well, you’ve travelled centuries to be disappointed. There are no mysteries here, no epiphanies. All the great wells of myth and magic? Some other pigs have drunk them dry. Blame your luck, for bringing you to the shambling hut of — …the fine House of Manouk. Taravast’s greatest necromancer, til his mind turned to slaughter.

I was his disciple. Lisanther. Must’ve come from high on, did you? These cursed shackles… he senses everyone in his House through them. If he feels us on his scent, he works his little screws and wheels and moves the House stairs. Impressed? Don’t be. He’s a wreck, who feasts on time echoes of the anguished. That’s him. Paints a picture, doesn’t he? Stay out of his sights, or you’ll wear his chains soon too. Same as me, same as the dog he keeps in the dungeons. Dragged back every time he wanders.

If you want to make yourself useful, help me. I traded fairly with a caravan of the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company. They say they left behind scrolls in these grounds, with the words to free me. They overcharge, but they don’t lie. Help me find them. Break my chains, and I’ll break us out. I can. I swear it. ”

Deeper into the claustrophobic Grounds, you find specters of men and women, chained just like Lisanther — their skin translucent, their gazes lethargic. They feel neither dead nor alive to the magically sensitive. They are either very present in the moment or barely recall their whereabouts. If asked about tokens, they say the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company left scrolls in the Grounds main quarters:

▶ Bathing quarters

At times pristine and delightful, at others blood-marked and torn. The waters abruptly run very hot, cold or silty. The spectre of a wo/man might appear in the tub, staring unblinkingly or murmuring that people do all sorts of wickedness in this bathroom: they have even witnessed stabbings, treasures being hidden beneath tile boards, and even a birthing!

▶ Kitchens

Sprawling and soot-laden, bursting with supplies of stale wheat, eccentric cakes, exotic fruit and spice jars, these kitchens were built for long service. A heavy cauldron bubbles and boils a green broth in a cold fireplace, where ash and stone drown wood. A circle of spectres troubleshoots how to improve the meal — just as the kitchens’ doors slam shut, and they cordially invite you to do the legwork for their recipe. They instruct you to chop, clean and prepare the most unusual ingredients: hair of a dog, salt, moulded thyme, arsenic, one of your finest love stories… they’ll tire of their creation and release you within the hour. Don’t dine, dash.

▶ Sleeping chambers

There’s rest for the wicked in these deserted sleeping quarters, which boast exceptionally well-stuffed cushions and pillows, blankets and ‘reading materials’ — torn pages from books of history and magic. Some speak of the desperate attempts of the rulers of Taravast to flee death. Others talk of using spells, the elements and even mass sacrifice to achieve immortality. Enjoy your rest, only perturbed by occasional distant screams —

…or perhaps by a large, feral white bear that bursts in to briefly chase you, before disappearing. Veteran travellers may recognise him as the creature of Anurr.

Some of the chain-breaking scrolls of the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company can be found in each of the main rooms, along with some of the Company’s talismans, marked as waypoints, which should be brought to Karsa. See what your character finds.

Finish up here, or meander down a final stairwell to —

Image source.

THE DUNGEONS

Cold, deteriorating, crumbling — difficult to say if this is a tightly bound knot of underground tunnels, or a torturous weave of lost dungeons. Parts of the floor crumble to reveal abyssal depths below — or suddenly appear beneath your feet, to help your progress. Emptied, creaking bookcases abound. Here and there, you see your reflection in shattered wall-length mirrors, moving differently than you, or just slightly older or younger than you are.

■ Revived skeletons patrol the corridors, scantily armed with base blades, stones and torches. They largely ignore you, only blocking your path if you near a magically-locked stone door in the back of the Dungeons, from where you hear… human pleas.

■ Door engravings instruct to speak out the three truths of each day. Nearby, you find a mound of crumbled stone tablets, along with three golden ones raised on pedestals that read:

▶ with morning, my body is a weapon, sun-seeking, righteousness-bound

▶ by midday, my flesh has bent and battered, a shield of justice for young life to come

▶ come evening, I am blood and bone, a humble house to hope eternal

■ Tip bookcases into the narrow corridors to prevent the skeletal guards from reaching you, as you search diligently through the stone debris beneath the golden pedestals. You might even find Ellethian waypoint tokens: palm-wide, marked with a sun pupil. Take them to Karsa immediately… or open the now unlocked dungeon door as a man calls out.

■ Enter, and you discover an dimly lit dungeon alcove, with animate skeletal heads hanging on each wall. They cackle, Mind your step. Heed them and look for holes in the floor tiles — needle-thin spikes emerge from there periodically.

■ Go deeper, and you discover a large bare stone room, scantly livened by torches bearing green fire. A small hole — barely enough to fit a grown man standing and lying down — has been dug into one of the walls and secured. This inhumane prison’s bars crackle and sizzle with magical electricity. A skeletal hound waits by, with a set of keys fastened to its collar.

■ A white-haired, red-eyed twenty-something young man sprawls haphazardly in the prison: battered, swathed in rags, shackled and wild. He holds out his blood-tipped hand between the bars, but fails to lure the dog close — and calls out to you, instead:

”You must be mad to come to me. The old man sent you? Finally? Good. How wonderful. I’ll spit on you, and I’ll spit on his grave. He left me here to die. And now he’s remembered me? What does he want? …no. It doesn’t matter. Rip the keys off that mutt and get me out of here. ”

You can engage or release him, if you coax the key from the recalcitrant dog. Or leave him be and see Karsa with your waypoint token.

Image source.

NOTES:

■ There are multiple waypoint tokens to leave the time dimension: the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company talismans, hidden in the Ground rooms, and the Ellethian tokens, found in the dungeons. Bring whichever one you discover to Karsa.

■ You can optionally solve the mystery of Lisanther, the prisoner, Manouk and the spectres.

■ The House’s layout changes periodically, but characters can find the stairs to travel across the three levels every few hours.

■ Mention in your top level if you play an old timer or a test driving tourist. TDMers can make both logs and network prompts here!

■ QUESTIONS & NPC INBOX!

Comments

[weifinder]

( little by little learning more of worlds he'll never see. doesn't make it less fascinating, less curious to find those bits of understanding. Find ways, perhaps, to make it applicable across the world they're in now. Maybe his own, though that's a doubted possibility, what with the chances of anyone remembering here seeming low from any conversations had with those who had gone home, short or long. )

Mm, we ran into water as a deterrent for death-touched creatures, but don't count on that being true for the dead here — bodied dead can move in and through and under water with no ill effect, and spirits, ghosts, depending on individual strengths move through anything they wish.

( His thoughtful look turning solemn, glancing to the ghost here, watching it as if it would tell sensible things. Sometimes they can. Other times, it's beyond them. )

Take care. Not for the things you know, but for the things you believe are familiar. Here, all our understandings reshape themselves.

( Then to her, directly, eyes shifting her way: )

Your sensitivity to death will make you vulnerable to the Death Lords themselves. Like I am, or Lockwood, or a good handful and more of the rest of us. Keep that in mind. They've manipulated members of our party more than once or twice before against their own wills and inclinations.

[brightestmoon]

The circumstances under which I find myself here... well, they were not pleasant.

[ That's an understatement! And about all that he's willing to say on that subject.

The warning makes him flinch, just a little. He feels sick, unable to help picturing one face in particular, grinning wickedly at him. He takes several steps away from the statue just as he feels cold stone fingers brush against his hand. He swallows hard, pale face growing even paler. ] Perhaps we should leave.

[mashiara]

( It's all information she's sorting out and keeping in mind, her months here gaining a sort of resonance in her understandings, just as it leaves gaping holes in what she does and doesn't know. There's more history here than her scant handful of months. Yet not vast numbers who've been here for what... is the longest over two years? She thinks that's what she's heard. )

Yes, very like what has them asking anything from us. And if I'm not mistaken... I think that man upstairs is his own reason for having those shackles. Manouk, Lisanther, and the one in the dungeon.

( She grimaces, finally scooting away from by the bucket under the sink as the trickle of substances surely still not water slows to the slow, inevitably drip, drip, drop of an ending flow. )

What you found tells me more about why. Manouk claimed he was sent here because the followers of the Doxe were jealous. The Doxe who was asking him to find a means of making him immortal.

( Feeling sick to her stomach, she rises, busying herself with looking for another towel to wipe her hands clean. Glancing through the ghost in the tub to see if the water has yet turned clean. Closer again now than moments ago. )

I believe we're learning what some of that cost was in human lives. Why he was condemned.

[moonsounds]

[She doesn't fight if he wants to take the notebook or anything either, calm throughout. None of it's stuff that can't be known, just like with her illness--she has no reason to hide any of it.

So she nods with a soft 'mm' of acknowledgement.] I don't remember anything from my childhood. And since the illness has come back, I'm worried my memory will start to go again, so everything's written down now.

But I haven't shown many of the symptoms, so it's likely dormant again, for now... [A pause and she adds reassuringly,] It isn't contagious right now either.

[mustact]

[ How should he respond to this? Jacob may be an assassin, but that doesn't mean he should just tell him anything and everything. It always irks him to lie in response to a direct question, because that's not the type of person he wants to be, but ... Some things are more important to protect than his own beliefs. ]

I have seen one.

[ That will do. It's not a lie, just not the whole truth. ]

[pepsifree]

These things look more like profiles than tombstones, considering the fields about occupations. Marty's head cocks as he reads a tablet about a so-called "alchemist", and how apparently this man had a heart more rich than any treasure. Even the sweetest folk are destined to die someday, he knows, but this stark reminders like these are exactly why he never went to graveyard parties on Halloween (that, and nobody ever invited him).

"Hm?" He turns when Jacob speaks up, none the wiser to his plight. "Oh, uh..." There's a moment's hesitation as he considers telling Jacob when he's from, but hey-- they're a team now, and Jacob had been more than forthcoming about his own situation. If this is a dream, then there aren't any consequences; if this isn't a dream, then maybe Doc'll make an exception if they're both out of their respective time periods.

So, free hand rubbing lightly at the side of his neck, Marty admits, "I'm from 1986. Sorry. I probably should've said so sooner, huh?"

thinking once the water's gone clean, marty gets busywork? also fails 2 get tub guy 2 answer him?

[pepsifree]

[ These are all new terms Marty doesn't understand, terms that he tries to file away with a level of care he hadn't afforded to the magic lady he spoke to first upon waking. But Nynaeve's gained his respect in a way the other lady didn't, and bias works wonders on him.

He eyes the wax seal again-- Dawn's Reach, Nynaeve had said, and that sounded significant too-- and then frowns. ]

So you're telling me that this place, whatever it is, has loonies trying to live forever and sacrificing other people for it? [ Softly, and more under his breath than anything, he mutters, ] Jesus.

[ And just when he began to accept this place was real and not at all an elaborate dreamscape. ]

...there's gotta be a way we can set these ghosts free.

[nothinglikefather]

For a distance or right up close? They're nasty bloody things.

[ Nasty enough to blow up half a railway siding and the secret lab beneath it. Nasty enough to send people mad. Or destroy the world. None of which sounds good. ]

You know what to do if we find one here?

[makemeasong]

Oh, lots of planets have a North.

[ She has no idea she's echoing the Doctor, but the words simply come out. It's a reminder too, to be way less broad. Probably stick to the first question: what's the name of your planet?]

This might be—no, definitely will be—the wildest experience of your life. Some things good, some...uh...not so much. But we're all just working on trying to get home in between the weird stuff.

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob's attention isn't on the tablets any more, his eyes turned to Marty, reading him. The tension in his shoulders, the angle of his spine, the slight hesitation before he speaks. Whatever that stone says, he doesn't know, doesn't know if he'd trust it even if he'd been able to make out the words, but he thinks he's a good enough judge of people.

Okay okay, he was round about Pearl, but he's not wrong about Henry, or Roth, or any of the rest of them.

And he's good enough to know that Marty is hiding something. He just radiates it right now, and Jacob cocks his brow.

Then Marty says it. Over a hundred years. That's a bloody long time. That's why it was hard to picture him as an American, despite the accent. A hundred years! Everything has changed in that time. The American war is probably, hopefully over. The fashion for top hats probably is too, mores the pity. It's almost unbelievable...

And its enough to make you want to hold back on telling someone. Jacob let's his own tension fade and he laughs, patting Marty on the shoulder.

"I can see why you thought you had to keep that to yourself. It's a long time. Don't worry. It's... it's alright. I won't ask about anything. Messing up the future, right? Anything you tell me, I might try to change, blah blah blah the end of the world? Something along those lines."

[makemeasong]

Okay, so, here's what I'm thinking, and I know it's crazy. But...what if we're supposed to go down that path toward the screams? Maybe this is to keep us together.

[ The screams still come, sporadically, and the vines don't loosen. ]

Maybe keep your knife out.

[traaaaaash]

[ Eda wraps her talon-like fingers around the vines enveloping the stranger and pulls, forcing them apart. ]

No panic. We'll get you outta here.

[rumorate]

[Allison shifts the blade in her hand, moving it into an offensive position, just in case, before nodding.]

Lead the way.

[Hopefully it won't be set up to eat them or something.]

[bravelyrunsaway]

( He presses one hand to his chest, over the centre rather than his heart. Not for the familiar by now scent of her teleporting as Five does, but for her question as he does not make any move to descend the stairs himself. )

A person after my own heart. If you would, love, your escape means is much faster than my own!

( He says, sword out and ready for... whatever might be action. Mad Man Number Two? )

sounds good to me!

[mashiara]

There are. As for setting any of them free... I don't know.

( Her teeth grit with the admitting, but there's no point claiming she can understand how ghosts work when the knowledge simply isn't there for her. There's no intuitive way to help them; there's no singular approach for the dead. Not all the ghosts she's heard of here can even wish themselves onward, even want to leave. That these ones are trapped, the only slight kindness might be their limited awareness of the world around them. )

There are others here who work with spirits and ghosts and the dead in ways I've never heard of before this world. They might have answers. In the meantime...

( She glances toward the tub, and the ghost sitting in it: )

We need another bucket.

can end here maybe? :D i loved this thread thank you ;_;

[pepsifree]

[ Though there's some disappointment in his face, it's less because Nynaeve's failed to supply an answer and more for his own helplessness. Marty's brows furrow, but he understands what she means, in the end-- Tub Guy and Tub Lady's fates are sealed for now, and there's nothing either of them can do about it. ]

I... [ Best not to dwell on what he can't do, and to focus on what he can do instead. ] I'm pretty sure I saw a bucket in the other bathroom. The lady in there can't hurt me either, right?

[ These poor bathroom spirits. Marty understands experiments and the joy of them, but to do them at such a cost is beyond his comprehension.

So he stops comprehending it. Marty gets back to his feet, carefully rolls the parchment into its original shape, and then slips it into his relatively roomy vest pocket. ]

I'll be back in a jiffy.

[ And with that, he's off. This time, there isn't any panicking or screaming, but if he lingers a moment longer to give the muttering lady in the tub a sad look, that's his business alone. ]

[wifedup]

- Begging Daozhang's forgiveness.

( It's a quick comment before Wen Kexing is grabbing for the blind man's arm and tugging him neatly out of the sudden swinging grasp of the statue. It teeters where it's stood, force connecting with nothing but air, and he can't help but feel as though the thing's malicious intent rises in incriments. So there'll be more time for politeness later. And while he doesn't know this man, letting him get bludgeoned to death seems a little ... unkind.

He might be useful, after all.

Behind them there is the sound of stone scraping against concrete, the heavy thud of a body stepping down from its pedestal. Wen Kexing swears a little under his breath, haggard, before he's steering Xiao Xingchen forward. )

There's a maze, we might lose it within.

[wifedup]

But it can be?

( Wen Kexing looks away from her notes and back to her, his gaze searching her face for a second. She could be lying. She could be telling the truth. Either way, he doesn't do anything as plebeian as put space between them, nor does he react with anything other than mild curiosity. )

How do people usually react when you tell them such things?

( Because he can imagine it going very, very badly. )

[wifedup]

( Oh, he can see why some people would choose the embrace of forgetfulness over what tends to be the harsher edge of reality. One only has to see some of the people who have found their way to Ghost Valley - not every one a vicious, hardened criminal. Wen Kexing is aware that to some, the unforgiving mountain of Qingya and the Water of Lethe provide respite, safety, a chance to start again.

It is unfortunate that it has done him so unkindly. He might have been tempted to let it live.

But instead of answering he makes a small, noncommittal noise. It is presumably for the best, whatever he might have said would have surely been cut off by the commotion. Wen Kexing's steps don't falter as he moves away, towards the nearest arched exit. He has to assume they're being led somewhere, but the where he'd rather not find out. After all, everything here has been vicious so far. )

Can we go over?

( Called to Wei Wuxian. Wen Kexing could certainly make the leap, wouldn't even fall out of breath for it, but he has no idea about his companion. Abandoning him after he's done everything to help would be a coward's action. )

[moonsounds]

[She's quiet for a moment before she nods slowly.] There are four stages of the disease. The first two stages are fine, but the third stage is when it starts effecting others. Prolonged contact can cause others to get sick, or... To decide to end it there.

[She purses her lips, clutching the books a moment before she shakes her head]

No one's been bad about it, thankfully. Most just have questions, but no one's seemed concerned. It's a rare illness-- it doesn't really happen outside of the island I used to live on.

[pepsifree]

Marty doesn't know what he expects, but it certainly isn't laughter. And it definitely isn't the almost infuriating logical sense in Jacob's answer. The man talks about "messing up the future" like he knows about it by heart-- truthfully, Marty had been thinking less about the real ramifications of revealing the future and more about what Doc would think if he failed him. It's as humbling as it is hilarious that Jacob's got better etiquette than Marty does about all this.

"I... I don't know about the end of the world," he says honestly, "but I got a friend who once said it could 'threaten your very existence' knowing too much about your own future.

"But for what it's worth, I've never met or heard of a Jacob Frye." Not that he can recall immediately, at least. Besides, Jacob would probably be dead by 1986, wouldn't he? "So it's not like I can tell you much, anyway."

He smiles, lips pulled into a crooked little tilt, and then turns back to read through tablets again in the hopes a token might magically pop up.

Once he's moved the tablet he'd last been looking at, Marty's head tilts. The one just beneath it looks... startlingly like he'd written it himself. "Uh...

"Uh, what got you askin' about my time?"

[nothinglikefather]

He's not as quick as his sister, but Jacob is smart, at least sometimes. Not as smart as Evie perhaps, who seems to have memorised every book she's ever read, but he can understand complex concepts. Such as the true nature of the world he lives in, the secret truth about humanity that its better no one really knows. And that's why, when Marty confirms he's from the future, it's just a matter of putting it together.

If you know about what future events, you might try and somehow benefit them, or even stop them. That's certainly what the Assassins would do if they knew about Templar plans. But doing that will no doubt have an impact on the future, change things, and that probably wouldn't be good for the people from that future.

"That's the way it should be." Jacob says when Marty says hes never heard of him. Despite the fact he shouldn't care, he does. He runs the best gang in London, he crashed the English economy, none of that gets rememebered? Of course it doesn't. Work in the shadows to serve the light. That's what assassins do.

He mentally shakes himself- he didn't pick this life, he just has to live it. Evie does too. So does Henry. They all just have to do the job that's in front of them, and he knows that. He tells himself he's made his peace with it. He goes back to the conversation, his own eyes still looking over the tablets.

"You asked first. Said I had to be from some crazy timeline. It isn't that crazy to me, but 1986? Thats crazy. I'll be lucky if I make it to 1886." He'd be forty-two if he did. An old man, by assassins standards.

"Does everyone dress like that, when you're from? Bright colours and... whatever that fabric is." He means the jeans. He's never seen anything like that before.

[pepsifree]

That's not his name, he reads in his own writing. Jacob Frye, age 21, occupation gang leader, don't turn your back to him, that's not his name.

"I..." He's distracted and it's obvious as hell, but Marty shakes his head as he picks the tablet up. He might as well show it to Jacob himself, because surely this has to be some kind of trick. "I like to think I got my own style. But bright colours? Yeah. And my pants? Double."

A beat.

"Did you find any stones with--"

But the moment Marty holds the offending tablet out, he notices its contents seem to have changed. It isn't Jacob's name and details on there, and what might have been his handwriting is replaced with something far more fanciful: Elizabeth Corduroy, it reads, age 43, and the contents are so different he blinks profusely as he turns the tablet around. Marty tilts his head like a new angle might change it, like it might be a trick of the light, but...

"...with your name-- this had your name on it." He looks up, meeting Jacob's gaze with furrowed brows. "I could'a sworn it did."

[nothinglikefather]

"I don't doubt that, handsome thing like you-" Jacob begins to reply but he can feel tension in the man tied to him and its all he can do to stop and turn to look as Marty turns to him. Something is wrong. The air around them has changed and its not simply because he called another man handsome.

Jacob blinks, letting Marty try and find the words he wants to use, brows raising as he begins to make some sense. Although really they don't make any sense at all.

"My name?" He repeats, perplexed, and looks at the stone. It doesn't have his name on it, at all. But Marty is looking at it woth such confusion that Jacob believes him. It was there, now it isn't.

"There was a stone with your name on it. It said something but I didn't get a good look. But it wasn't something nice, I'll bet. That stone say something bad about me?"

He's sure it says something hideous.

[mustact]

Up close.

[ This type, at least, was relatively harmless. And although it seems his people were closely connected with it, he's not so sure he knows what to do with any others. So he shakes his head. ]

I suppose we ought to study how it works.