For better and for worse, the rest of dinner passed uneventfully.

Actually, I guess it was mostly for the worse.

None of the D'zd knew anything about Suisei or his whereabouts, nor did they offer any information that might have painted the Krr't in a less-than-totally-evil light. So, yeah, not a lot of good options.

The guests left in groups, one group at a time, until the grand hall of the Brrk'zks of T'kznd had been emptied of everyone but ourselves, our hosts, and our hosts' special guests: the yeomen.

And let me just say: my word, the yeomen were awful. I gave them a 0.75 on the Margaret Scale⁠. They were spoiled, entitled, paranoid, greedy, deeply cynical, and often just plain mean. They called Szr't't a "Vvz'zsh sympathizer" for resisting their demands for immediate, all-out genocidal war against the Vvz'zsh, regardless of its strategic viability. Astonishingly enough, the most extreme of their lot than a few of them saw the advance of the Fossil Wind and the Deathlands as a good thing. The extremists were basically doomsday preppers, and were already hard at work building city-sized underground bunkers to provide safe havens for them to live in if and when the surface became uninhabitable. To that end, they wanted the Vvz'zsh gone not just because the savages threatened their agricultural holdings, but because the constant raids were delaying the completion of their doomsday bunkers.

And their kids were just as bad.

I could see why they were such a handful.

The yeomen had just clambered down from the ceiling. They stared at Nina, Lark, and I with a mix of suspicion and derision while their leader, a bracelet-wearing D'zd with four long-sleeves on his vest, resumed negotiations with the Brrk'zk.

"Dk'brr," Szr't't said, briefly glancing at zyr progeny, "would you mind showing our friends to the guest rooms?" He gave the yeomen's leader a wary stare. "I have business to attend to."

"No problem," Dk'brr replied.

Sadly, it was very much a problem. You see, the guest rooms—not to mention all the other sleeping quarters in the Brrk'zk's manse—were located in chambers at the ends of the tunnels in the walls and ceilings, and the only way to access them was to walk up the walls like an ant. A path of dents and dimples we were expected to follow marched up along the wall to where the wall curved into the ceiling, and then had the audacity to keep marching all the way to the hole in the corner, the rim of which was almost perfectly parallel to the floor; totally upside down.

Until now, I'd never realized quite how much I could miss having psychokinetic powers.

My apprehension was obvious to everyone. "It's not difficult," Dk'brr insisted. "Even nymphs can do it."

Speaking of which, the yeomen's kids had gathered around the dining pit to watch my struggle.

I turned to Dk'brr. "What about the infirm, or the elderly?"

"The infirm sleep in the healers' dome; the elderly in the elders' hostel," ze replied.

"Can we go there, maybe?" I suggested.

"They're on the other side of town," Dk'brr replied. "I wouldn't recommend going out at this time of night. With the cold, it's just not safe."

I looked up at the ominously looming wall. It might as well have been a sea cliff. I regretted not having brought Mr. Himichi on this adventure.

"Riceroni sandalfish…" I muttered.

Even the servants at work in the dining pit, shoving the post-dinner refuse through the basement trapdoor, had stopped to watch.

"What if I fall?" I asked.

"Why would you fall?" Dk'brr asked.

Mercifully, Nina stepped forward and came to my rescue. "People don't walk on walls and ceilings in our world," she said.

"Then how do you get to rooms on upper levels?"

"Stairs," Lark said. "You remember our talk about stairs, don't you?"

Dk'brr flicked zyr stinger in frustration. "I mean, yes, but… it's such a waste of space!"

Also, it didn't help that even some of the yeomen had started to stare at us.

Dk'brr shook zyr arms in frustration. "Fine, I'll walk with you."

"That…" I nodded shakily. "Thank you."

Climbing up the path involved using my legs and lower pair of arms to grab the bumps and snag jagged sections of my claws and exoskeleton on them. Going up in front of me, Dk'brr went and turned around, facing me, so that ze could help me as I climbed, which ze did by holding my upper pair of hands in zyrs. Watching Dk'brr's stinger tail flick back and forth, I couldn't help but picture one of those black and white cat clocks with the tick-tocking, wig-wagging eyes and tails that have scared the belassedites out of little Trenton children in the middle of the night for the better part of two centuries.

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Thankfully, Dk'brr had the patience of a Lucent, and after a couple of grueling minutes and the concomitant mockery of the yeomen's nymphs⁠, I eventually made it to the mouth of the tunnel. Long before then, the Brrk'zk and the yeomen had skittered off to a separate room after the distracting potential of my attempt at climbing the wall had made itself clear.

Understandably, their nymphs were very disappointed.

Thankfully, once I was up there, the tunnel that lay beyond the hole in the wall was easier for me to manage. Even though the tunnel was set at a nearly vertical angle, I was able to use my lower six limbs to brace myself against it and climb through. The door to the guest room was a fibrous plank with a handle that, at Dk'brr's guidance, I grasped and slid out of the way into a slot in the tunnel wall. The slot was deep enough that even when the door was fully opened, the door's handle jutted out from the wall just enough for the room's occupant(s) to reach down and slide the door back in place in the event they needed some privacy.

Once I was situated, it was Nina and Lark's turn. I'll admit, I was jealous of how quickly Nina took to walking on walls. Lark had more trouble than Nina did, but nowhere near as much difficulty as I had. Once we were all in, Dk'brr bid us goodnight and skittered off.

I thanked zym profusely for zyr patience.

The guest room was rounded and smooth, looking all for the world like the inside of a bag made of stone. A couple clusters of small holes dotted the walls to let air in, and each cluster had a hinged hexagonal casement to swing into place in case it got too cold. Though the room wasn't cramped, that was only by a technicality.

I can't emphasize enough how much more floor space you could get out of a room when you counted the walls and ceiling.

The place was sparsely furnished, with a rug on the floor and three beds. The beds were like oversized shelves. They protruded from their locations on the ceiling and the left and right sides of the walls. The beds themselves were like hammocks, except that they were enclosed in a frame that felt like a cross between leather and wood. As for the hammock-y part of the hammocks, they were made from a dense, messy, flexibly webby sort of mesh, kind of like fake spider webs you could often find on sale come Cheldmastime, only boing-ier.

Lark and Nina made me take the bed on the ceiling. They claimed it was because I needed to practice my wall-walking. The bed was surprisingly comfortable, despite my consternated cluelessness toward its proper use.

My companions managed to avoid causing trouble for a little over an hour, during which I mulled over what we would do next.

On the journey to T'kznd, Nina had explained that her "magic vision" was still operational, even inside this Archive. That intrigued me, and made me wonder if, as we'd discussed, she might be able to use her powers in here, and without alerting the AVUs to our presence, either. Also, I was thinking of trying to talk to the Vvz'zsh Dk'brr had captured, but was blanking on the logistical details. And that's when the mischief began.

It started with Lark jostling about in her hammock.

"Maybe it's just me," she said, "but this is no place for a girl to sleep. I like my blankets, you know?"

As I was still fretting over the most recent revelations, I failed to notice the comment for the careful-aimed verbal grenade that it was.

Nina lurched upright in her hammock so quickly, the thing spun around and trapped her. She untangled herself angrily, grunting and yelling, only to land on the floor in a painful-looking flop.

"Gah!" she yelled. Then she got up, raked her claws down the wall and then turned to Lark and roared. "Okay bucko, now I know you're trying to piss me off!"

Lark waved a foreleg nonchalantly. "Was it something I said?"

"Ay, dios mio," Nina yelled, "of course it was!" Indignation sputtered through her light waves. "You're fucking mocking me!" She stomped all four of her feet.

"Or," Lark replied, leaning over the edge of her bed, "you're just trying to shit on me because you don't want to accept who I am!" The singer used her lower pair of arms to brace herself against her bed's edge.

Nina shook her head vigorously. "With everything that's happened, you really think I want to deal with this shit right now?" Her demeanor made it obvious that she wanted Lark to say, "No".

"Absolutely," Lark said. She nodded in the affirmative, petals and stinger bobbing.

I slid out of my hammock, nearly stumbling over my legs as I landed.

"Aright, that's enough," I said, "I can't take it anymore."

"Me neither," Lark and Nina said, almost in unison. In response, they crossed their arms at one another in an expression of mutual disdain.

"I'm not talking about that," I said. (To be honest, actually, I was, but I was making a little white lie for the sake of our party's solidarity and morale.)

"Then, what?" Nina asked, in a flickering grumble.

I figured this was as good of a time as any to introduce my hope for what we could do next.

"I'm going to talk to the Vvz'zsh guy they captured," I said.

"You mean the one that tried to kill us?" Lark said.

"Why?" Nina asked.

I glanced down at the floor. "After what happened with &alon, I refuse to to leave anything to hearsay. I want to hear all the sides of all the arguments, even the stupid ones, so that when I make a decision, I know full well who and what I'm siding with."

"Eh?" Lark asked, with a flick of her stinger. She waved an arm. "But these bug people are so nice."

"No," I shook my head, "it's not about that." I crossed my lower pair of arms. "You heard what the Brrk'zk said: EUe is dead."

Lark tilted her flower. "And EUe is…?"

"The Treefathers I met during my first sojourn into the Vyx Network told me that, of the Vyxit's revered leaders, EUe would be the one most likely to listen to a wyrm's proposal for a ceasefire in their conflict with &alon. I might be a wyrm, Lark, but I'm not the Vyxit's enemy. None of us are. It's &alon that's the problem."

She nodded. "I can see how him being dead would be a problem."

"Yeah," I nodded back, "and with that being the case, it looks like the Krr't might just be the next best alternative."

Lark "blinked" with her flower. "Did you not hear any of Zhurty's story about the Keret? They're pure evil, as are the Voovzish."

"That's why I want to hear both sides," I said. "I thought &alon was good, until I learned otherwise. And, you heard the Brrk'zk. This is a religious conflict, and in no uncertain terms."

"So?" Lark asked.

"All religious conflicts are inherently meaningless wastes of life and time, and I'm not going to let myself get caught up with one side simply because they gave us free food and lodgings

"Well," Lark said, "I'm against doing this."

"Amazing!" Nina said, thrusting an arm up. Something we can actually agree on."

"Aren't you the least bit curious about what the Vvz'zsh has to say?" I asked.

"No, not really," Lark replied. "My curiosity ends with when folks murder children and chop their victims' bodies into pieces."

"I agree," I said, "it's dangerous, but…" Yet I didn't have anything to say, only for my gaze to pass over Nina, which gave me an idea. "Nina, have you tried using your powers?" I asked.

"Damn it, I forgot!" She shook all four of her arms and then stuck them out in front of her. "Hold on a sec."

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