INTERIOR: KITCHEN/DINING AREA IN GIRL’S UNDERGROUND BASE, JUST BY THE ENTRANCE.

  PRESENT: THE BOY (still wearing threadbare shirt and pants gotten from the girl. But slightly different. Also, not hat.), Sitting at the table and listening – THE GIRL (back to wearing her armor and navy-blue ballcap. No sungsses, either.), walking around with a pte of grilled cheese (crusts cut off.)

  TIME: PRESENTLY INDETERMINATE – BUT PROBABLY A LITTLE BEFORE NOONISH.

  “C-Can you believe that?? No armor! Th-they didn’t have ANY protection at all!” The girl ughed loudly between bites of the grilled cheese sandwich she’d been carrying around on a pte.

  She’d made the grilled cheese herself, of course. Making a mean grilled cheese was one of the girl’s special skills. It is, after all, her favorite food. This is because… We don’t actually know why, yet. Maybe she just likes how they taste.

  Why even bring it up!?

  The boy listened to her talk, as he sat at the small table and munched on the crusts he’d cut off for her. She had decided that cutting her crusts was one of his duties for the foreseeable future.

  The crusts used to just get thrown away, but the boy thought that was wasteful, which is something he decided was bad after hearing about it from some dy in a town somewhere. The boy has decided to eat the crusts himself.

  He eats them like this:

  The girl thinks it’s funny how dumb he looks when he does that, so she allows it.

  “I-I mean, you’d think with weapons like that, they’d’ve have the sense to at least have some kind of magical armor if they wanted to dress fancy so bad!” She ughed and paced around the dining area. “But no! It was just robes! They all died in, like, two hits! I don’t think half of ‘em even realized I was there!”

  “you must have been very efficient.” The boy dropped a crust into his mouth.

  “Yeeeaah. It was HILARIOUS.” Her voice trailed off as she devoured the rest of her sandwich.

  This was not the first time they had this conversation in the week or so since the top-hat caper, but it was the first time she got through the tale without breaking into a fit of rage when she remembered that she lost out on the Magic Holding Bag.

  “so you have said.”

  “Aaah, yeah…” She got a few more ughs in as she recalled the st moments her sin foes. “OOH! That reminds me!” Her gaze shoots back to the boy, who notices that she has a number of crumbs on her face. “Back at the restaurant! Yooooou said you don’t know magic, is that right?”

  “correct. i do not. know magic.” Good to be abundantly clear.

  “That means one of two things! Either you’re an Imp, which would really suck, or you’re normal but have to start from square one, either because of how you ended up here, or ‘cus you’re a weird little bug boy!”

  “i s-“

  “OR THAT YOU HAVE SOME SUPER-AWESOME LATENT MAGIC SUPERPOWERS THAT CAN’T BE MEASURED!” Her eyes lit up and she leaned towards him. “That’d be the best option- I hope it’s that one.”

  “i see. it would be good to have the knowledge. how do we find it?”

  “Welllll, I could scour your naked body for a characteristic birthmark. If you’re an Imp or a super-guy, you’ll have one of those.”

  She had no reason to believe that a ‘super-guy’ should have a birthmark, other than the fact that it just sounds like something that would probably happen.

  Head tilt. “should i disrobe?”

  “EhhhhNOT YET! We’ll want a magic-tester-thingy in a bit anyways. We’ll try that first.”

  “okay.”

  “BUT! I don’t have one right now. So we’re gonna go find one! C’mon, Bug, we’re going out!”

  “okay.”

  The girl dragged the boy to the dder, and the two of them ascended to the surface.