“Well,” said Sir Leeroy with a sigh, “that little detour delayed us somewhat on our way to RavynMardi, it will need us to take something of a shortcut if we are to make it.”

“Shortcut? Asked Mibbet, not liking the sound of this already their alterations to the itinerary had resulted in giant spiders (yum but still bloody scary for poor Rosalind,) homicidal scarecrows (poor Errol, he had two least favourite things and he’d had both in quick succession, if the poor guy had to write a travel journal at this point the first page would just be NOPE in the largest font the page could fit, followed by the same on every subsequent page, until the last one which would probably read “don’t travel, never travel, no way nu uh, never ever ever, followed by a doodle of a big frowny face, which could have been a thumbs down if Errol didn’t suck at art.”)

“We’re going to have to pass through the fungal forest.”

“That sounds like a bad place to live” Errol chimed in, “not mushroom for growth.”

Elvira responded to this with a groan. “Keep this up and we’ll put a cap on the puns you can make in a day.”

“Why, is it a spore subject?”Elvira’s groans intensified, and she shot him her scariest glare, as if in warning, but Errol showing his trademark lack of brain simply opened his big gob again.

“Don’t try to gill-t trip me over being such a fungi.”

It was at this moment Mibbet who was getting rather fed up walloped him one with the handle of choppy, and the journey continued in silence, for a while (Elvira smirking all the way of course, after all she participated in the crime from the outset, yet somebody somebody else got the pun- ishment. An act that was almost as satisfying as being the one in a room who farted, and managing to dodge the blame, especially as both acts stink the place up terribly.)

It took a while for Mibbet to notice Addy the construct eyeing trundles (who of course was eyeing back, albeit by accident) curiously. (It would have taken less time for her to notice, but as you can no doubt imagine human expressions are hard enough to read for a froggy mind as is, let alone when they are plastered on a motionless automata face. So far she got the impression their experiences and emotion were conveyed via that network of theirs internally, and externally by the slight tinge to their glow. She decided at that point she was going to put together some kind of key to help her figure it out in future, but for now it was mostly guesswork.)

“Something on your mind Addy?”

“Yes”

Mibbet took a moment to realise, then tried a gentle rephrase.

“Would you mind explaining what has you looking so confused please Addy? We can’t exactly see your posts on the network, and I have trouble reading expressions.”

“I just tried talking with Unit designated Trundles, they do not seem to have a presence on the network, and also do not converse.”

“Ah that’s because Trundles is a tool.”

This seemed to shock Addy into silence, at least for a moment while she gathered her thoughts before speaking again , “they must be a tool indeed to offend you to the point of you calling them that.”

Rosalind then quickly explained the dual meaning to Mibbet.

“No no no we seem to be getting mixed up here, I mean it literally, Trundles has no code, no mana but defensive spells, and no core.”

Addy somehow managed in the resultant response to convey skepticism over the new data. “Why does a unit constructed with no consciousness have ocular units? It seems wasteful.”

“You can thank Elvira for that, she likes sticking googly eyes on things.”

“Next you will be telling me unit Spikey does not possess consciousness,”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“Then what about Unit Errol?”

Mibbet glanced across at Errol, who thinking that nobody was looking had begun a stealthy excavation of the contents of a nostril, and was in the process of carefully examining (and of course rolling into a ball, nosepickers all do this, it is a rule, and the vast majority will flick it away when they think nobody is looking.)

“I can understand why you would think Errol lacked a mind, but he’s got one, and a good one at that. Sadly for all of us he rarely chooses to use the damn thing though, my theory is he’s afraid of wearing it out.”

“So Trundles has eyes but no core yet you treat them like beloved family, Spikey has eyes too, but no core. Yet anybody who looks at them for too long will be told off by Unit Elvira. Meanwhile Errol who possesses both is treated differently? Why is this?”

“That’s a good question, from what I’ve seen humans often value objects far more than people, but they also like to assign human bits, or pretend personalities on stuff, it makes no sense to me either.”

“Thank you Mibbet, maybe Rosalind could shed some light on the situation?”

................................

“Wait a minute......”

Apparently the particularly penny was functioning in a low gravity environment as it took quite a while before it fully dropped.

The duo grabbed Addy and dragged them into the carriage for a quick talk.

“How did you know?” Rosalind whispered.

“We sense Mana, sound, and sight, conversation facilitated by magic are always perceptible to us.”

“Why didn’t any of you say sooner?”

“You two are so blurred together on a thaumatological level that we just treated you like a cluster,” explained Addy with a shrug.

“You can’t tell anybody,” Rosalind hissed. “If you do we’ll be dragged back to the castle, and won’t be able to find the person who did this to us. If that happens a lot of the decisions we made will be undone, and.........”

“and what?”

The next bit was mumbled so quietly not even a being with the best hearing out there could hear it.

“could you repeat that”

“I DON’T WANNA GO BACK” Shouted Rosalind, all pretence of whispering forgotten for a moment.