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April-May 2025 Test Drive Meme
April-May 2025 TDM
Introduction
Welcome to Folkmore's monthly Test Drive Meme! Please feel free to test drive any and all characters regardless of your intent to apply or whether you have an invite or not.
All TDMs are game canon and work like "mini-events". For new players and characters, you can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Current players are also allowed to have in-game characters post to the TDM so long as they mark their top levels ‘Current Character.’
TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.
Playing and interacting with the TDMs will allow characters to immediately obtain a canon item from home, especially weapons or other things they may have had on their person when they were pulled from their worlds! There will always be a prompt that provides some sort of "reward" to characters who complete certain tasks.
🦊 New Star Children meet the Fox still in their worlds, and she brings them into the new realm of Folkmore. As you follow her, your body begins to change and new characteristics emerge. These may stay for a while, or perhaps they will hide away after. And during all of this, the Fox explains to you where you will be going: to Folkmore.
and then... you fall like a shooting star, falling to the land in a burst of starlight.
🦊 Experienced Star Children are already familiar with this time of the month. There are shooting stars all across the sky, and some fall to the land, which means the Fox has brought new arrivals. These newly arrived Star Children will face some tests, but Thirteen wants the more seasoned residents to participate as well.
Perhaps you follow the falling stars on your own, or perhaps the Fox simply teleports you there, but it appears you too will be part of this.
Content Warnings: Potential Monsters
With the onset of spring, even icy Wintermute is showing signs of new life. Dragons have been spotted in the mountains, the spirits will tell any Star Children who listen. Dragons have returned, and there's something very strange going on in a new tunnel that opened up on the slopes of the tallest peak… Just in time for new arrivals to shower down from the sky. Most of the newcomers land–smack!--in pillowy snow not far from the tunnel’s mouth, close enough to feel the warmer breezes that waft from it. It's as if the land itself is tendering an invitation for all to come and see a fantastical new sight.
And fantastical it is. Star Children who enter the tunnel quickly find themselves in a warm and breathing darkness that extends for a half-mile into mountain stone. The ceiling is low enough that very tall individuals might come perilously close to a bumped head, but otherwise the tunnel is wide and inviting, the floor smooth of all obstructions. Luminescent moss scrolls along the walls in patterns of sine waves and complex equations, leading on and on into the dark.
Then, abruptly, the tunnel opens into a cave so vast one might think they’ve stepped back outside, under a starry sky – except it's warmer by far than anywhere else in Wintermute and the stars overhead are arranged in oddly regular patterns. A thriving mathematical forest spreads out across the cavern’s floor, populated by strange and winsome spirits. There are decision trees with mysterious choices written at every branching, and outcomes glowing on each leaf. There are fractal flowers and vines with square roots. There are spirits shaped like Platonic solids and spirits whose proportions follow the golden ratio and spirits of every number or lemma or theorem one could imagine.
There are, also, dragons: large and little, colorful and drab, but every one of them friendly and every one of them deeply enthusiastic about mathematics. They have their own dragon convention centered in the heart of a great grove of perfectly symmetric trees. There they compare their hoards – of theorems, unsolvable problems, mathematical manuscripts, court mathematicians – and compete to make students of the arriving Star Children. Ever wanted to learn calculus from a giant fire-breathing lizard? Now you can! Or maybe you really can buy sixteen apples from one dragon and eat twelve before giving the remaining four to the one that posed the word problem in the first place – not normal behavior in the outside world, but in math it is.
Then there's the race course. An enterprising pair of dragons who gather differential equations (the short, fat one with a scarlet crest) and train-based word problems (the long skinny River Spirit) have set up a racing track in the sky, to show off practical uses for the math of time and distance. For the very low price of listening to a safety lecture, Star Children can run the course to their hearts’ content – using their own wings, or magic that turns THEM into dragons for the duration of the race. Racers will find any number of aerial obstacles, speed and altitude boosts, and strange but harmless phenomena to fly through as they compete with each other for copies of a cute (non-magical) dragon plush. His name is Euclid. He has a slide rule.
Like any self-respecting conference, this one also has MORE swag for the dedicated to collect. Star Children who stay to solve problems or listen to lectures might receive any manner of neat dragon-branded trinkets: Tiny solar calculators in dragon shapes, Penrose tile sets made of dragon scale, dice carved from shed horns. None of them are magical but they're awfully neat and might look so cool on a mantle or desk back home.
No more than once, when getting a reward for winning a race or picking up gewgaws from a dragon presenter, Star Children will receive a mysterious package of papery shed dragonskin. Inside is an item from home – one that might be far larger than its wrappings.
Star Children of a less mathematical bent might wander the forest instead to see the sights: A river with standing waves, a giant chess knight making a tour, strange attractors that draw in tiny spirits. And of course, at the furthest edges of the cavern, there are monsters – though whether these strange half-imaginary beasts mean to eat Star Children or make them suffer through algebra homework is up to the luck of the draw.
With the onset of spring, even icy Wintermute is showing signs of new life. Dragons have been spotted in the mountains, the spirits will tell any Star Children who listen. Dragons have returned, and there's something very strange going on in a new tunnel that opened up on the slopes of the tallest peak… Just in time for new arrivals to shower down from the sky. Most of the newcomers land–smack!--in pillowy snow not far from the tunnel’s mouth, close enough to feel the warmer breezes that waft from it. It's as if the land itself is tendering an invitation for all to come and see a fantastical new sight.
And fantastical it is. Star Children who enter the tunnel quickly find themselves in a warm and breathing darkness that extends for a half-mile into mountain stone. The ceiling is low enough that very tall individuals might come perilously close to a bumped head, but otherwise the tunnel is wide and inviting, the floor smooth of all obstructions. Luminescent moss scrolls along the walls in patterns of sine waves and complex equations, leading on and on into the dark.
Then, abruptly, the tunnel opens into a cave so vast one might think they’ve stepped back outside, under a starry sky – except it's warmer by far than anywhere else in Wintermute and the stars overhead are arranged in oddly regular patterns. A thriving mathematical forest spreads out across the cavern’s floor, populated by strange and winsome spirits. There are decision trees with mysterious choices written at every branching, and outcomes glowing on each leaf. There are fractal flowers and vines with square roots. There are spirits shaped like Platonic solids and spirits whose proportions follow the golden ratio and spirits of every number or lemma or theorem one could imagine.
There are, also, dragons: large and little, colorful and drab, but every one of them friendly and every one of them deeply enthusiastic about mathematics. They have their own dragon convention centered in the heart of a great grove of perfectly symmetric trees. There they compare their hoards – of theorems, unsolvable problems, mathematical manuscripts, court mathematicians – and compete to make students of the arriving Star Children. Ever wanted to learn calculus from a giant fire-breathing lizard? Now you can! Or maybe you really can buy sixteen apples from one dragon and eat twelve before giving the remaining four to the one that posed the word problem in the first place – not normal behavior in the outside world, but in math it is.
Then there's the race course. An enterprising pair of dragons who gather differential equations (the short, fat one with a scarlet crest) and train-based word problems (the long skinny River Spirit) have set up a racing track in the sky, to show off practical uses for the math of time and distance. For the very low price of listening to a safety lecture, Star Children can run the course to their hearts’ content – using their own wings, or magic that turns THEM into dragons for the duration of the race. Racers will find any number of aerial obstacles, speed and altitude boosts, and strange but harmless phenomena to fly through as they compete with each other for copies of a cute (non-magical) dragon plush. His name is Euclid. He has a slide rule.
Like any self-respecting conference, this one also has MORE swag for the dedicated to collect. Star Children who stay to solve problems or listen to lectures might receive any manner of neat dragon-branded trinkets: Tiny solar calculators in dragon shapes, Penrose tile sets made of dragon scale, dice carved from shed horns. None of them are magical but they're awfully neat and might look so cool on a mantle or desk back home.
No more than once, when getting a reward for winning a race or picking up gewgaws from a dragon presenter, Star Children will receive a mysterious package of papery shed dragonskin. Inside is an item from home – one that might be far larger than its wrappings.
Star Children of a less mathematical bent might wander the forest instead to see the sights: A river with standing waves, a giant chess knight making a tour, strange attractors that draw in tiny spirits. And of course, at the furthest edges of the cavern, there are monsters – though whether these strange half-imaginary beasts mean to eat Star Children or make them suffer through algebra homework is up to the luck of the draw.
- Wintermute now has a crazy math cavern!
- All the scenery, spirits, and monsters in it are based on different mathematical concepts and constructs – trees with square roots, three-dimensional-polygon spirits, and so on.
- The dragons have returned and they're holding a mathematical conference inside the math cavern.
- Star Children who stick around to listen to lectures and solve problems can get neat dragon conference trinkets.
- They can also have weirdly mathematical experiences right out of word problems: Buying seventeen cookies and eating eight, anyone?
- Or they can try the flying race course – either using their own wings or turning into a dragon.
- (Dragon transformation available only while participating in a race – sorry dragon fans.)
- There are also math monsters to fight – or get assigned homework by – around the edges of the cavern. Scary!
Content Warnings: Forced Participation, Forced Relocation, Other dangers of your choice
Not all of Wintermute’s changes are so light-hearted as a mathematical cavern.
It happens, suddenly, to Star Children new and old – there’s a moment like a too-long blink as they’re stepping through a door, or a moment of drowsy inattention in a class. A moment of dislocation, a hypnagogic jerk, and suddenly they’re in another place – maybe a strange one, or one that’s strangely familiar.
One group of Star Children, the choosers, will find themselves brought up to a mountain high up in Wintermute – so high it seems they can see all the world of Folkmore right before their eyes, wherever they turn. The air is cold and crisp and clean, and the mountaintop so near the sky you might catch the faintest strains of the Fox’s voice as she escorts new Star Children across it. Each pair (or more) of Star Children who find themselves on this strange mountain are given a little time to talk before a voice interrupts:
“Do you think the Trials are wrong?”
The voice is crisp as the air, androgynous and sourceless. It waits for Star Children to answer, then continues:
“Your responses are noted. Trials are necessary to provide opposition needed for growth.
“The following experiments are meant to reveal Star Child ethical preferences. Please make your choices quickly and explain your reasoning for each. Data recorded during your session will be used for improvement purposes.”
The “following experiments” are a series of binary choices, on the fates of different groups of victims. Victims might be Star Children or spirits or a combination of the two. The choices come in several flavors:
Choosers are presented with their choice, a crystal-clear vision of their victims, and a glowing timer in the air before their eyes. They have until the timer reaches zero to agree on which victims to afflict with a Trial – and if they cannot agree, or refuse to make a choice, their view goes ominously dark and the voice simply proceeds to the next experiment. (Did all the victims get it? Did none?) In choosing, they are permitted to watch their victims’ fates play out, and asked to explain why they chose as they did.
Victims get much less of an explanation of what’s happening to them. They simply appear in a location suitable for whatever Trial or doom is about to be inflicted on them. If they're going to be lost to Encantado’s enchantment, a gleaming facsimile of the river appears, not much bigger than a large room in dimensions. Slated to die in bed? They’ll be in a mock-up of their own room. Crushed by a trolley? They appear, pre-tied, on tracks that come from nothing and go to nothing, beneath a cloudless blue sky. “You have been chosen to participate in an important ethical experiment,” is all the voice says – and then they are left to their Trials, to succumb or fight as they will. Though there is a strong – but not irresistible – compulsion to simply give in…
While the experiments have all the trappings of a scientific exercise, Star Children who try might argue the experimenter into changing the experiment. Heroic Legends may ask to suffer a Trial in the place of the victims. Cruel Myths might suggest ways to make things worse. (Or vice versa.) Sound reasoning is more likely to get through than arguments from emotion, though there is sometimes merit to a winsome appeal.
Remarkably, Thoth herself is sometimes there with the choosers – a gleam of light off lenses in a shadow, a thin and thoughtful smile for a choice made or declined. “This isn't me,” is all she’ll explain, if asked.
“But it's fascinating, isn't it?”
Not all of Wintermute’s changes are so light-hearted as a mathematical cavern.
It happens, suddenly, to Star Children new and old – there’s a moment like a too-long blink as they’re stepping through a door, or a moment of drowsy inattention in a class. A moment of dislocation, a hypnagogic jerk, and suddenly they’re in another place – maybe a strange one, or one that’s strangely familiar.
One group of Star Children, the choosers, will find themselves brought up to a mountain high up in Wintermute – so high it seems they can see all the world of Folkmore right before their eyes, wherever they turn. The air is cold and crisp and clean, and the mountaintop so near the sky you might catch the faintest strains of the Fox’s voice as she escorts new Star Children across it. Each pair (or more) of Star Children who find themselves on this strange mountain are given a little time to talk before a voice interrupts:
“Do you think the Trials are wrong?”
The voice is crisp as the air, androgynous and sourceless. It waits for Star Children to answer, then continues:
“Your responses are noted. Trials are necessary to provide opposition needed for growth.
“The following experiments are meant to reveal Star Child ethical preferences. Please make your choices quickly and explain your reasoning for each. Data recorded during your session will be used for improvement purposes.”
The “following experiments” are a series of binary choices, on the fates of different groups of victims. Victims might be Star Children or spirits or a combination of the two. The choices come in several flavors:
- One large group of victims will suffer an inevitable Trial unless the Star Children agree to inflict the Trial on a smaller group.
- Star Children may choose between two different Trials to inflict upon the same group of victims.
- Or they may choose between two different groups of victims to inflict the same Trial upon.
- Sometimes, the above scenarios might be combined: different Trials for different victims, but all inevitable. Someone has to suffer.
Choosers are presented with their choice, a crystal-clear vision of their victims, and a glowing timer in the air before their eyes. They have until the timer reaches zero to agree on which victims to afflict with a Trial – and if they cannot agree, or refuse to make a choice, their view goes ominously dark and the voice simply proceeds to the next experiment. (Did all the victims get it? Did none?) In choosing, they are permitted to watch their victims’ fates play out, and asked to explain why they chose as they did.
Victims get much less of an explanation of what’s happening to them. They simply appear in a location suitable for whatever Trial or doom is about to be inflicted on them. If they're going to be lost to Encantado’s enchantment, a gleaming facsimile of the river appears, not much bigger than a large room in dimensions. Slated to die in bed? They’ll be in a mock-up of their own room. Crushed by a trolley? They appear, pre-tied, on tracks that come from nothing and go to nothing, beneath a cloudless blue sky. “You have been chosen to participate in an important ethical experiment,” is all the voice says – and then they are left to their Trials, to succumb or fight as they will. Though there is a strong – but not irresistible – compulsion to simply give in…
While the experiments have all the trappings of a scientific exercise, Star Children who try might argue the experimenter into changing the experiment. Heroic Legends may ask to suffer a Trial in the place of the victims. Cruel Myths might suggest ways to make things worse. (Or vice versa.) Sound reasoning is more likely to get through than arguments from emotion, though there is sometimes merit to a winsome appeal.
Remarkably, Thoth herself is sometimes there with the choosers – a gleam of light off lenses in a shadow, a thin and thoughtful smile for a choice made or declined. “This isn't me,” is all she’ll explain, if asked.
“But it's fascinating, isn't it?”
- Star Children are swept up suddenly to Wintermute to participate in a series of “ethical experiments” meant to make the Trials “better”.
- Star Children who are choosers get to pick, trolley-problem-style, which group of victims suffers a Trial.
- They have limited time to pick and must agree on what happens to their victims.
- Penalties for failure to agree or choose are left ominously mysterious.
- They are encouraged to explain their reasoning.
- The experimenter can be argued into inflicting a Trial on a chooser instead, making the Trials worse, or otherwise changing the parameters of the experiment to be kinder/crueler.
- Star Children who are victims get random Trials inflicted on them. Fun!
- Star Children may be picked multiple times as choosers or victims. They can be picked for a different experimental role each time.
- Inflicted Trials may range from actually fun to merely embarrassing to horrifyingly fatal. A list of options pulled from past Trials and weather events is available here:
1. Hunted as prey by an inescapable power that will trap and kill you if it finds you.
2. Fighting a monster.
3. Involuntary memshare.
4. Environmental death: drowning, burning, sucked into a black hole.
5. Must tell painful/uncomfortable truths to others. The closer the relationship, the more dire the revealed truth.
6. Tied to train tracks.
7. Followed by mood weather. - Players are encouraged to work with each other as choosers and victims – while the mysterious experimenter will not condone or enable communication between choosers and their victims, it's also not disabling the Relics or any other form of long-distance communication… Or you might just want to have fun inflicting woe on your close CR. No judgment!
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Thanks for telling me, Casey.
[It probably wouldn't have made Leo feel great to have his little brother burst into horrified tears at the sight of him, so that's one disaster avoided.]
And sorry if I scared you.
[That reaction was definitely because Mikey is so very badass and intimidating and absolutely nothing else. This whole family is doing great.]
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He can't help wincing a little at the apology. At... least it was in part because Mikey's a badass? Casey knows the potential in those mystic powers of his. Kid's gonna go real far. (The fam is 1000% fine there are no! lingering! issues!)]
You're fine, don't worry about it. I was just startled. [Apocalypse makes you jumpy! And he knows to get the heck out of the way when the ninpo comes out to play.] Are your arms okay?
[He's not even going to be subtle, he's checking for cracks. Without knowing Mikey's timeline, he can't be sure of how risky it might be to use those powers right now, even for just a mild display.]
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I'm good! [There's the slightest wince when he flexes his fingers, but it's more akin to having strained a neglected muscle than anything of real concern.] Just out of practice.
[Which means it's nothing his brothers need to hear about, right? Right. Ignore the dozens of witnesses. Actually, no. Don't ignore them. They're a great excuse to change the subject.]
You ready to ditch this place?
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Still, it doesn't look like there are visible cracks right now, so Casey's satisfied.]
So ready. If we head into Wintermute proper, I can get us some hot cider or cocoa. [He pauses, looking Michelangelo up and down.] And get you a coat, maybe.
[It's so cold here, bro are you okay??]
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[He pumps a triumphant fist into the air. Freezing cold or no, that all sounds infinitely better than spending another minute at the world's lamest version of Dragon Con. He'll just have to trust that Casey knows how to get them to civilization before he turns into a Mikey-cicle.]
You picked up a sweet tooth already, huh?
[Casey embracing the wide world of flavor is maybe one positive to be found in all this time-jank.]
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[He's way more used to the cold, since he goes to Thoth for school and is thus in this area three days a week anyway, and Mikey's a turtle and should be kept warm! So Casey shrugs off his coat and drops it over Mikey's shoulders. He can hold on to that until they get to a shop. Once that's sorted, he leads the way towards the cave entrance. It would be a very long walk down the mountain, but once they're out... well, he has a faster, more fun way of getting back to town.]
I've got so much to tell you, and I don't even know where to start... uh, I should ask, what's the last thing you remember from home? I mean, you remember who I am, so that's good.
[Means he's past the invasion, which has him more or less in line with the rest?]
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Oh, that's easy! [The timing is so perfect he has to laugh.] We were basically doing this in reverse: taking you into the city for real food. [A beat.] And to see the sights when they're not on fire.
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Oh, huh… so now you're the one from the future, too. I think the others are from around the same time? But that didn't happen for me yet. It was right after the invasion, you guys got sensei back, we patched everybody up at the lair, and then I woke up here.
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[Or experience regular, non-apocalyptic human society, but the pizza thing is up there too.]
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[It was loud, and bright, and there were like a bazillion strangers everywhere. It was kind of terrifying?? Folkmore's so quiet, when there isn't some crazy trial going on. Also the people here are awesome. He has in fact been experiencing a lot of non-apocalyptic things since his arrival.]
I don't know how it compares, but I did get to try pizza here! And lots of other foods, too. There's a food truck down the road from our apartments that makes really good pizza, so we eat it all the time.
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Consider that place added to my list. If their pizza isn't up to my standards, I'll make you some myself.
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Even if it is, I'd love to make pizza with you sometime. I've been learning to cook, but I'm sure I've got nothing on you.
[He has technically been following a number of Master Michelangelo's recipes, but practice makes a big difference.]
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I'll teach you everything I know! Leave it to me and we'll find all kinds of things you haven't tried!
[It's not that his brothers never cook, but those guys? They have no appreciation for artistry. It's gonna be different with Casey, he just knows it!]
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[Enjoy your new pupil, Mikey, because Casey has gotten very enthusiastic about flavours and cooking and all that jazz.]
Not to get you too hype about everything all at once, but I've been learning how to paint, too.
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[Mostly it's nice that Casey's finally got enough normalcy in his life to start picking up hobbies--that some of those hobbies happen to be following in the family footsteps is even better.]
No pressure if you're not ready to share, but I'd love to see your work anytime you wanna show me.
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[It's Mikey, he'll probably think it's beautiful. And really, over a year of lessons from an actually-excellent artist, with how much free time he has here? His current stuff isn't bad.
Thinking about it now, though, there's a lot that Mikey's missed, and a lot of stuff Casey's gotten to learn here. He can't help a devious little smile now that they're really out in the open air.]
Hey... wanna fly down the mountain?
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I thought you'd never ask.
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He fishes a little egg-shape from his bag, something Mikey may actually recognize: it's one of Draxum's little magic storage pinecones. With a tap it shifts into a full-sized staff, with a chipped red orb on the end and a carved pangolin curled around it. As if that's not enough, he straddles it like a classic witch and, with a moment's focus, it begins to float.]
Not bad, huh?
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[Congratulations to Casey for single-handedly convincing him that just maybe Folkmore is kind of cool and has more going for it than icy wastelands and calculus.
Mikey ooohs and ahs appropriately, rounding the staff in a blur to poke at it and test its weight before he jumps on behind Casey.]
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Isn't it amazing!? Everything's different here! It's kind of the best, in uh, some ways at least.
[Again. Leo losing an arm? Not good. People dying? Also not good. But they also come back, which... does not happen at home, so. Perks? Yeah. This is why he's focusing on magic, sorry.
Once Michelangelo is on the staff as well, Casey coasts away from the cave and heads down the mountain at a steady pace. Hold on tight!]
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He whoops loudly, but at least this time he's leaned back enough to not be in range of deafening Casey.] There's magic and no one cares that we're turtles? That is the best!
[If dragons can teach math class then he's getting a Hidden City sorta vibe, but above ground (better!) and without anyone in his family being wanted by the cops (probably!). Definite perks.]
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Oh, right! Yeah, no one cares here. Or you might get, like, "whoa, turtle!" once in a while, but everyone gets over it pretty quick. There's other people around here who could pass for mutants or yokai, too.
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Yeah? I didn't even think about how many people you guys must've met already. [Adding to their collection of weirdo friends might be the best perk of all.] If we really do get paid by socializing then Leo's probably a billionaire by now.
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He probably is! It's hard to tell how much you have until you buy a thing. Lore can get you pretty much anything, it's really cool. Ask me for something from home, whatever you can think of! I'll try and get it.
[Well, maybe later, once they land. He pauses, then peers over his shoulder,]
Not people, though. Already tried that.
[Definitely dropped his spoon in a lake and asked for sensei at least once, oops.]
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Who'd you try to summon?
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