"What kind of event?" Haelin asked, brightening.
"The corruption will try to make a serious incursion on Mris. In the form of…" She paused, then read: "…tentacles of ultimate doom. When it appears, players will come frantically running from all the islands, because if it’s not beaten back, Mris will start to break apart. Being first on site gives the greatest chance of gaining some very nice rewards. Julian’s guild—ah, band—is asking very nicely for us to tell them where we are, and for you try to hold off triggering the event until most of them are here."
Haelin was a psychic psychic, and had spent several years training to fight semi-real monsters, but she was still a youngster who plainly found the idea of sending a wave of players running most gratifying.
"If they can help me not get killed that would be good, too," she said.
"All right," Laura said, and relayed the map coordinates. "Julian says it will only be a few minutes—few joden—before the first of them reach us, but it will be at least a quarter-kasse before there will be enough of the band here to start. The best thing to do is to stay very still."
"So we just stand around?" Haelin asked, more in token protest than annoyance.
"We were ready for a break anyway," Gidds told her. "Go to the bathroom if you need to—we will probably be very busy in a few minutes."
"Dzo." A whole world’s dignity and reproach in a single syllable.
Lira, who had been idly poking the fresh dirt where the Star Claw had been uncovered, said: "Does Julian have a secret name as well, Unna Laura?"
"Alexander." Anticipating Sight Sight this time, Laura went on to explain middle names once again.
"May I ask you a question about your family name, Tsa Devlin?" Allidi asked, in her calm, direct way. "I’m not certain if it is an impolite question in Earth culture."
Laura nodded, and was not surprised to be asked whether Devlin was her own family name. Muina, Tare and Kolar were all matrilineal, and she could see where Allidi might be confused. Laura was only glad Gidds had explained a little about his own family’s situation, allowing Laura to avoid awkward return questions.
"Devlin is Cass' father’s family name. I kept it in part because having the same family name is less confusing for schools." Laura grinned. "And because Cass objected strongly when I suggested she and Julian could swap to my family name."
"Why?" Lira asked, very interested. "What is it?"
"Jiglea." She pronounced it Jeg-lee-ah, as her father had. "Originally from a country called Romania. The problem being that English speakers, reading it, would pronounce it jiggly, which is, ah, duni, in Muinan."
Three pairs of eyes widened. Gidds kept his response to a barely audible: "Ah."
"They used to call us the Jiggly Sisters, when we were at school," Laura said. Which had been far more apposite for Sue and Bet, but Laura had hated it just as much.
"Cassandra Duni," Lira said reverently.
"Lira Duni," Haelin offered, and produced a flicker-smile the very image of her father’s.
"No."
Lira’s response held more than a hint of thunderstorm, so Laura reached for a quick diversion.
"Did Cass ever mention what selkie means on Earth?"
Sudden, fixed attention was answer enough, but before Laura could go on there was a shout from above.
A half-dozen golden birds swooped low, and a cluster of people leapt to the ground. None of these were Julian’s Space Ninja, but one was Corezzy, whom Laura was particularly interested in meeting. The avatar, at least, was that of a young man in a blue Adonis mould.
"Thanks for waiting!" said another player, an equally muscular young woman called Tzatch. "I’m leader of the Sky Wing." She nodded generally to Laura’s group, then went on directly to Dakal. "It’ll be a few joden before enough of us are here. I can talk you through some strategies, but chances are high you’ll get caught by the emergence whatever we do."
"It seems pretty harsh to have something like this lying around the new player areas," Laura commented.
"It’s a lucky find, really it is," Corezzy put in. "The person who triggers the Star Claw—well, there’s only been two before in the game, but each time the trigger got a powerful teszen out of it. And it made the teszen who fought the corruption node stronger, which explains why we all came scrambling here."
"What would happen if I just threw it as far as I could?" Haelin asked.
"No-one’s tried that, yet. You can if you want, but I don’t think it will help."
Laura was not surprised to receive a channel request from Gidds, and when she accepted she found all three Selkies in channel.
"We will be extremely distracted without an explanation," Gidds said.
"What happens if the need-to-know aspect of Sight Sight triggers and you can’t get an answer?" Laura asked, curious.
"Nightmares," Haelin said. "And feeling cross, and not being able to settle. And seeing things that remind you of it everywhere. Sometimes the answer puts itself together. Sometimes it itches for years."
"Sounds frustrating," Laura said, bringing Lira into the channel because she could see Rose frowning at her. She mightn’t have Sights, but Lira was very socially intuitive.
"This is a seal," Laura continued, showing them an underwater sequence from one of the documentaries Cass had spent the last few years translating.
"Tedan," Lira said. "They sometimes come out onto rocks near Kalasa."
Another animal that could be found on both worlds? But the Kalasan tedan would be in a freshwater habitat. And now was not time for further distraction.
"Selkies are mythological beings that are seals in the ocean, and shed their skin on land to assume a human form," Laura said briskly. "I can look to see if I have a selkie tale among the books I brought with me, and translate it for you. There are quite a few different traditions, but they tend to be quietly tragic stories."
And quite a lot of them involved some seriously problematic consent issues, which Laura wished she’d thought about before using the name as a diversion. She’d talk to Gidds about that first.
Fortunately Sight Sight seemed to be satisfied for the moment, as Allidi politely thanked her, and Haelin went back to asking Tzatch questions about surviving the Star Claw.
In short order nearly four dozen members of the Sky Wing band gathered—Julian’s Space Ninja arriving and offering a wave and a second glance at Rose. Tzatch, clearly an experienced guild leader, briskly divided her band members into groups with designated tasks and alternate roles for when the plan inevitably falls into the sea.
This settled, she turned back to Laura’s small group, but only to shrug. "Every little bit of damage counts, but your defences are all at baby levels. It’s up to you how much you want to mix in, but—well, we’ll revive you once it’s over."
At least it wasn’t a permadeath game. Laura glanced at Gidds to see how he was taking relegation to the sidelines, but found Ruvord surveying arrangements with a clinical air. He noticed her gaze and produced his flicker-smile before turning to Haelin.