Indeed, there have.

-- aspirantExegesist [AE] began pestering plotHooked [PH] at 15:47 --

AE: {Arey! I'm in!}

AE: {...Arey?}

AE: {I suppose you are busy. But, well, I just wanted you to know that I am all right, and that -- well -- I know you hate when I say it, but it's TRUE, so -- }

AE: {-- well, anyway. }

AE: {I shall turn my attention to alchemizing things. I have what seems to be quite a sizeable grist cache to begin with, so hopefully I can make some useful items before venturing out to explore.}

AE: {Perhaps a hands-free computing device! If I succeed in so doing perhaps you might like one for yourself, as you are no doubt in the GRIP of adventure as I write these words!}

AE: {Well -- off I go.}

AE: {I hope you are all right.}

AE: {I know I don't need to worry about you REALLY but -- this game -- }

AE: {and I do. A little. I know, you may laugh.}

AE: {Well, this is certainly a ridiculous sequence of sentences that ought by all rights to be relegated to the dustbin by a keen-eyed editor.}

AE: {Off I go!}

-- aspirantExegesist [AE] ceased pestering plotHooked [PH] at 15:56 --

PH: ?ssssst. ?st! ?st, ?st, ?st! Lamia! What was that "well, anyway" following the "so"? No fair, hiding ?otentially interesting things by slashing them out with the ever-so-cruel and ever-so-cutting dash!

AE: {Arey!}

AE: {I am so glad you are back!}

AE: {Please give me a moment to cycle back through our logs.}

PH: Also, I'm sorry. >:( An im? stole my -- well, my hands-free com?uting device. I made the [clever name insert later] but this dece?tive little oil slick of an im? snuck u? on ME -- on me!!!! I am still irritated -- and snatched it right out of my ear, then ran! And through a series of lucky breaks, managed not to be immediately a??rehended.

AE: {The FIEND!}

AE: {Ah -- I was just avoiding talking about Ezreki being alive yet again. >>:) }

PH: >:| ...Why?

AE: {Well, it had irked you before! And I figured that it would be obvious enough that it was true, what with my not having died a fiery death, so no use belabouring the point.}

AE: {Did he find you? He said he was on his way to you!}

PH: Ha! But I might have thought that you were just lying to me, and, having deemed the entire adventure ho?eless and your life a sure forfeit, but the game still ?otentially worthwhile, you'd want me to carry on -- or something. >;) Instead of being distracted, trying to find a way to make the server a??lication work twice on one system (and failing).

PH: And yes, he found me.

PH: He's over there, killing things, just now actually! >:)

PH: Lamia, I am very glad that you got in! Do you like it? What does your land look like? What have you made? Have you sallied forth, yet? Or used your knotty skills to brain im?s into ?iles of lovely, lovely grist treasure? How -- did you ?rototy?e Errour? Is it ?leasant to s?eak to her?

AE: {Haha! Let me see.}

PH: Do you know your title yet? Have you s?oken to T since her entry? 

AE: {Would you like me to answer these questions in the order you are posing them?}

PH: I will magnanimously allow you to answer the questions in whatever order you deem most a??ro?riate!

AE: {Ah, delightful! I shall arrange them in the order most appropriate to clear communication, then. >>:p }

AE: {To my increasing embarrassment -- as you are not the first to ask -- I have not yet sallied forth or determined what my land looks like. I have been trying to make preparations, first, as I suspected that the imps would have likely graduated to a level I would find difficult to confront without assistance.}

AE: {I did prototype Errour, after entry; pre-entry, I used ... >.>}

AE: {<.<}

PH: You used........???????

AE: {Volume 8 of [elaborate fanfic title of Arethusa's].}

PH: GAS?! WHAT!!!!

AE: {It was your suggestion!}

AE: {You said to use something full of false information!}

PH: What -- No -- I didn't suggest using Volume 8 of -- 

PH: No, I

PH: Okay, yes, but

PH: A) Those shi?s weren't all im?robable and

PH: B) That is the volume with the ?sychic war and the descent of the elder-gods and the mates?ritshi? of Gl'BGOLYB and 

PH: and lots of other stuff!!!

PH: And the cute bucket. >:)

PH: But lots of other stuff!!!!!!

PH: AND! The information isn't -- false! It was just -- differently ... envisioned

AE: {What it is, I think you'll agree, is _misleading_.}

AE: {Also I had two copies of it. >.>}

PH: I am restraining my righteous indignation now. Just barely, of course. I have it under the tightest of wra?s and the most com?licated of knots. I am also not actually agreeing with that, even if it may or may not be true. I am doing this because I want to hear the answers to the other questions!

PH: Also, Lamia...

PH: ... if you liked that volume so much ...

PH: ...you should've told me. >;) I'd've written more!

AE: {I kept dropping HINTS!}

AE: {I hoped you would take them and surprise me!}

PH: This is not answering the other questions!

PH: >:p

AE: {Yes, yes, I am getting to them.}

AE: {It is actually very pleasant to speak to Errour -- although she keeps me on my toes!}

AE: {She has a beautiful, soothing voice... One that seems to make it more difficult for my mutant power to kick in.}

AE: {She speaks in quite tricksy riddles, and yet I do not feel that I have the natural knack for reading between the lines of what she says, as the lines themselves are knotted and gnarled!}

AE: {It is actually somewhat refreshing, to feel so challenged.}

AE: {In this particular way, I mean.}

AE: {Mind you.}

AE: {She does have a rather irksome propensity for reading logs over my shoulder.}

AE: {And speculating WILDLY as to the black and red romantic implications of wayward bits of punctuation in the sentences of other trolls. ^-_-^}

AE: {And I do know my title! It would seem that I am the Page of Mind, according to Errour.}

AE: {Which she then assured me was amusing given that I have spent so much of my life minding the pages. I do hope that egregious puns are a bug, not a feature, of her present state.}

PH: Oh, really? Then I look forward to s?eaking to Errour! There have been quite a number of shocking develo?ments! >:D

AE: {Indeed there have!}

AE: {...Wait, which developments do you mean?}

PH: Indeed. There have.

PH: There have, indeed.

PH: Indeed, there have. 

PH: I am looking at a certain troll.

PH: I am sure that you can guess which certain troll I am looking at; one might even say 'gazing,' rather than 'looking,' and one might also say I am looking at that troll very hard.

PH: In a well well well well sort of way. >:)

AE: {So far as I know, the only troll within your line of sight is Ezreki.}

AE: {Goodness, Arey.}

AE: {What ARE you saying?}

PH: Uh, no, not him, it is meta?horical looking at!

AE: {Are you certain? >>:p Here I was thinking that perhaps there had been some SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT to do with Ezreki.}

PH: You mean other than the fact that he is suddenly ALIVE?

PH: And adamant against killing his lusus. Much to my dis?leasure.

AE: {Indeed!}

AE: {Well, at any rate, who are you metaphorically gazing at, Arethusa?}

AE: {Very hard?}

PH: You!

AE: {What!}

AE: {Why!}

PH: ?ft. I am on to your innocent little "What!" and your ?ure little "Why!"

PH: I have heard that you have been skimming your toes in the black sea that is Aascam Ca?ita's caliginous hatred!

 -- aspirantExegesist [AE] Lamia TWITCHES. --

AE: {HAVE YOU.}

AE: {I.}

AE: {Would not.}

AE: {Sully.}

AE: {EVEN.}

AE: {My toes.}

AE: {In so slime-scaled a sea.}

PH: ...Reeeeallllly.

AE: {Ugh. What have you heard, and from whom?}

PH: But wait, I am confused! If this is not the develo?ment YOU meant, what develo?ment DID you mean?

AE: {Er -- I would tell you, Arey, but I was asked to keep it secret.}

AE: {It does not, however, involve me.}

PH: Hee. I was 'told' to kee? a romantic entanglement a secret, but my agreement was taken rather for granted; still! I do not think I will "not-betray" the "secret" yet. It will be far more entertaining to watch how un-secret it really is once we have a memo! Which I want to do ?ost haste, so we can all discuss what the game?lan is.

PH: Do you really not hate Aascam, in that way? He's a bit floundery -- ugh, god, sea-?uns -- admittedly, but I think he'll sha?e u? to be quite a decent kismesis! With the ?ro?er training, of course.

AE: {You know -- }

AE: {there may have been a brief, brief moment when I saw a glimmer of something there. }

AE: {But I have no desire to SHAPE a kismesis. I want ... Well, whatever I want, I doubt he can provide it.}

PH: And you didn't tell me. I am wounded, Lamia Ikrem, wounded to my very core. Yes, you have ?ierced my breast with the arrow of friendshi? forsaken!

PH: And I did not mean that YOU should "train" him, oh no no no, THOSE "kismesis"lite shi?s never, ever work out.

PH: What do you want? >:) I know what I want, but it is unlikely to occur, and sometimes I want other things that will be less satisfying, so who knows really.

AE: {I wanted to tell you! I TRIED! But the timing was always wrong. >>:( }

 PH: The timing is never wrong for romantic confession, Lamia! My god!!

AE: {You were FACING METEORIC DOOM.}

PH: Your ?oint?

AE: {AE: {Arethusa!} AE: {Are -- you in yet?} AE: {Am I distracting you?} AE: {I probably am.} AE: {Er. Forgive me. Nevermind.} AE: {Please focus on not dying by meteor.} AE: {Or any other method.} AE: {I will deal with this myself.}}

 PH: So THAT is what that was about!!

 PH: >:D Haha! 

AE: {I hope you can metaphorically see that I am quite literally rolling my eyes.}

AE: {Yes, that is what that was about.}

AE: {There was -- a moment. It was an exciting moment. I was haggling with Aascam over the price of a copy of the Walkthrough which I'd given to everyone else for free, and being honest about it into the bargain.}

AE: {And he began to tell me the extent to which he did not like me, in a way that seemed perilously dark.}

AE: {But then he seemed to retract from this and want to minimize it.}

AE: {And that was when I panicked and was not certain of what to make of it or of whether or not I felt anything, and wanted to talk to you.}

AE: {But then, luckily, I came to my senses.}

AE: {And realised that there were far more important things to deal with, such as not dying.}

AE: {A fact which Aascam blithely refused to consider when next we spoke, during which time he aggravated me to such a frustratingly platonic degree that I simply lost any momentary glimmer of blackness. He was clumsy. He was impatient.}

PH: Tsk. He was too eager.

AE: {He had no grace or ... Seduction about him at all. It was embarrassing.}

PH: I am sorry. I have not had a ?lethora of black solicitations ?ersonally, alas and alack -- or at least, not any that lasted beyond a quick culling and/or devastation of as?irations! >:D

PH: But I certainly see how that would be disa??ointing. I'm fairly certain I know exactly what he did.

AE: {Did he talk to you about it?}

PH: Oh, and do note, I can now LITERALLY see you roll your eyes! >:D If you wanted to!

AE: {Tell me what you imagine, and I will tell you how closely it matches up to reali---REALLY?}

AE: {We can see each other?}

AE: {How so?}

PH: I can see you! I have acquired Ezreki's huskto?. >;)

AE: {Oh! Well then! It would be nicer if I could see you as well, bu}

 AE: {t -- er, do please forgive the mess.}

-- aspirantExegesist [AE] Lamia's hive is absurdly tidy considering the mass of equipment neatly deployed in it, not to mention the burn marks and smoke discoloration. --

PH: I will attem?t to, but I must confess, I am disa??ointed at the flagrant violation of the laws of orderliness going on. 

PH: Gosh, I'd certainly thought better of you!

-- aspirantExegesist [AE] Lamia looks momentarily flustered, before suspecting that she is being teased. --

-- aspirantExegesist [AE] she squints at her laptop suspiciously. --

AE: {ANYWAY. Tell me what you imagine took place?}

-- plotHooked [PH] giggles over Ezreki's laptop, although she continues to use her Mysterious Hands Free Computing Device to communicate. --

 PH: What? Well, it looks as if your hive was in danger of going u? in a conflageration of wood-ash and wood-smoke ... But you'd made room for all of the equi?ment which was needful to de?loy ?rior to entry, and everything went off more or less like clockwork!

 -- aspirantExegesist [AE] Lamia narrows her eyes, but not without a hint of amusement. --

 AE: {I feel like I ought to give you more time in which to continue to pretend that you do not understand that I mean "please tell me what you imagine Aascam did," but who knows how much I have before I am forced to confront the impish hordes?}

 PH: They aren't that bad. Not yet. And you ... 

 PH: ... You kee? acting as though you are hel?less, Lamia. And you are not.

 PH: If you were a hel?less troll, I should be far more less inclined to talk to you as much as I have!

 PH: As for Scammy, I imagine he fixated on the hate as a foregone conclusion and took everything you said and merely another ex?ression of that hatred, which only required finger ?ointing along the lines of "Ah hah! You hate me! You hate me so much!" to further fan the flames.

 PH: It is a mistake many trolls make.

AE: {That was PRECISELY it! Augh! It was SO ANNOYING!}

AE: {And he kept taking my annoyance as FLIRTING!}

 AE: {And -- no -- I do not think I am helpless. I just ... Think that the ways in which I am NOT helpless need a little work to suit the terrain of this game.}

AE: {Which I recognize I have yet to properly ascertain, so I am doing things a little backwards.}

PH: Tee Hee. Yes. You see -- 

-- plotHooked [PH] equips her SEXY WIRE-RIMMED ROMADVERSARIAL ADVICTOR GLASSES again --

PH: -- hatred without contest is boring, regular, tedious, dull, irritating hatred. Not every contested hatred is necessarily caliginous, but therein lie the seeds of great rivalries! Rivalries that will re-sha?e worlds and be highly entertaining to take ?art in or to watch (as long as one was not the collateral damage, and even then)!

AE: {Well, exactly! I do not need to be told this. Plainly one Mr. Capita does.}

PH: Shhhhh! I'm not done!

-- plotHooked [PH] somehow has a ruler which she smacks against her palm, causing an imp or two to look her way in puzzlement. Too bad they didn't see Ezreki's scythe coming their way. --

-- aspirantExegesist [AE] Lamia looks extremely amused, folds her hands primly in her lap, and adopts her best "yes, Arethusa" pose of innocent listening. --

PH: Now, if I was going to court you in a black fashion, I would ?robably begin by turning those you liked against you, or at very least ?olluting their thoughts toward you. Then I would ?robably find some way to rid you of your useful guardian and make a ?oint of hoarding for my own ?ersonal use every scra? of written knowledge, whilst burning and destroying that which I could not, ?ersonally, hoard.

PH: Scammy, being EXTREMELY resistant to reading any of my fics because he's a ?etulant little wiggler who doesn't know amazing and hel?ful genius when it is ?roffered to him in a .txt or a .doc,

PH: and being also extremely hard-worked by his adorable cruel lusus,

PH: has had little time to interact with other trolls in ways beyond selling them things. He has never felt that he has had ?ower! As soon as he starts to feel it, he will ho?efully get more creative.

PH: Or not. >:) Oh well.

PH: Until he figures it out, try not to "ugh" so blatantly in his direction -- it only encourages that kind of behavior. Be disinterested and aloof! 

PH: You may s?eak now. 

-- aspirantExegesist [AE] Lamia, over the course of that, began to look steadily less amused and more ... Startled. --

-- aspirantExegesist [AE] perhaps also slightly green in the cheeks. --

 AE: {Your insights are astute, Arethusa.}

PH: Of course they are!

PH: They are the best insights. Insights used in volume 8. >:|

AE: {I think the game already has a great deal of insight, honestly. We are, after all, INSIDE it.}

AE: {But done is done.}

AE: {Oh, to answer another of your questions -- I did indeed speak with Taula again.}

 PH: Hey, Lamia? Did --

 PH: Oh!

 PH: Hmm. Okay, thank you very much for this information. 

AE: {Was that what you were about to ask me?}

AE: {That is an odd "Hmm."}

 -- plotHooked [PH] sideglances toward Ezreki, who has been sticking close since she acquired his computer. Almost as if he was suspicious of what she might do with it! God. What a paranoid jerk! Arethusa is innocence and LIGHT. Literally, it is in her TITLE. --

PH: ...Hold on.

[05:47] -- plotHooked [PH] gives Ezreki's husktop back. She is naturally the epitome of innocence when she does this. Once he has SHOOED OFF, she turns back to her own Computing Device. --

 PH: Okay!

 PH: Actually, never mind.

 PH: Wait, let me resay that, but less sus?iciously.

 PH: Fuck.

 AE: {^o.0^}

 PH: Ahahahahahaahaha that is the best face! >:D It looks like a little bat!

AE: {Hmph. What were you going to resay less suspiciously?}

 PH: Did you talk to anyone else since your entry? >:) ?erha?s ?e?!S?rite? Is it still very ?e??ish?

 AE: {You are being evasive, Arethusa!}

 AE: {Intriguingly evasive.}

 PH: ?leeeeeeeeease. If I was being evasive, you'd never know! Because I would have been evasive. >;)

 AE: {It is almost as if you are becoming addicted to the sight of me rolling my eyes.}

AE: {But yes -- apart from Taula, I have spoken to Cymoth and Ezreki a couple of times.}

 PH: Aw, damn! I am missing the glorious sight of eyes being rolled, because I gave Ezreki his huskto? back.

PH: His looming was beginning to aggravate me. >:P And was in danger of bringing my s?rite swoo?ing in from the battlefield.

 AE: {Oh -- Arey, I should go. I hear ... Rustling, outside. It's the oddest thing. It actually sounds ... Papery.}

 AE: {I will speak to you later!}

 PH: ?a?ery?

AE: {Oh -- but wait.}

 AE: {I have something I suspect will amuse you.}

 PH: All right! Just remember, you're not actually boring! And I'm sure you're quite ca?able of dis?atching the littler im?s. 

 PH: And you should do that as much as ?ossible, so you have grist to make cool stuff and climb your echeladder etc. etc.

 AE: {Yes, I have been thinking about that. And -- thank you.}

 AE: {At any rate -- here.}

 -- aspirantExegesist [AE] shared a file with plotHooked [PH] --

 -- plotHooked [PH] accepted a file --

 AE: {I know it was your wriggling day a few days ago, and what with one thing and another I missed it, and this is probably a paltry sort of gift, but I have a feeling it will get a few laughs from you at least.}

 AE: {Some of which I've no doubt will be at my expense, but nevertheless, the confirmation of your rightness is a gift I know you cherish. >>:p }