The Beauty of the Garden

[Grey Aides]

Mm...hmmmm....

[Yerkan of Elish]

I think there's a good chance we can trick a sslug. Though this depends on exactly how those sslugs work; if they get too much direction from the Lord of the Citadel, we may be in much more trouble.

I'm thinking some kind of illusory duplicate. Acts just like the part of the Pantheon the sslugs wish to attack, but they cannot escape. With a little bit of influence, it might work on these things.

[Yerkan of Elish]

I sift through the known programming for the sslugs, searching for anything that might be used as a loophole to trick the sslugs. Anything they are searching for, trying to do, or a failure to consider all possible cases and stimuli.

[Diamond Master]

I sift through the known programming for the sslugs, searching for anything that might be used as a loophole to trick the sslugs. Anything they are searching for, trying to do, or a failure to consider all possible cases and stimuli.

You find that the three Sslugs are identical in programming. As has been previously noted, each particle of their body is a micro-instruction, together making up the simple capacity for navigation and destruction.

However, each Sslug has one portion discreetly hidden by trilobite action. You hack around in there a bit, but all you can figure out is that the three instructions are different.

Another thing to note: The eyestalks of the Sslugs have been grafted onto a sightless body. They are considered Artifacts.

[Great Thrash]

Well, we can see some of that instruction in what they're doing, especially the complex behavior of paying Favor for things. That's just one Sslug. A specialization.

The other two are destructive but in slightly different ways? I don't know what to make of that.

[Yerkan of Elish]

The destruction caused by Osis is very different from that of Amatin. Inscribing a phrase upon the adamas is highly specialized behavior.

I am not sure what to make of Osis' writings. It seems oddly foreboding. I do not wish to see it completed, except perhaps out of curiosity. But it is ruining the garden, and must be stopped.

[Grey Aides]

The scriptwriter...is unlikely to be...diverted.

Amatin, of destruction...it can easily be lured...

But the worst...is the Sslug of Apathy in the Watchtower... whose sole purpose seems to be engaged there with the Diamond Master...


Let us get Durin here to convert his demesne into one...enormous...trap...

[Diamond Master]

The little shadow is glimpsed in the Lava Molt.

[Great Thrash]

Is it doing anything in particular? I tower to giant size, standing knee deep in lava, emitting a fiery light all around so that my own shadow doesn't interfere.

Is it possible to get a good glimpse? If so, I am simply going to watch it and see where it goes.

[Yerkan of Elish]

"It's done well blocking everything I've laid out for it so far. I have a few ideas left, and we'll see how they work out. I wish you luck, but that creature's mighty elusive."

I walk into the Lava Molt, limping slightly. Behind a crevasse, I change into my tick form, and scuttle into tick form. Using the trilobite I collected earlier and my own skills with illusion, anyone who looks in my direction and sees me, upon second glance will see only a speck of dust or an air pocket among the basalt and pumice - for I will no longer be there, having already traveled away to my next vantage point. In this way, I will keep an eye out for the shadow.