Silva

A fancy suit walked in then, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. "Was someone talking about me?"

Disguising was a delicate art that Eve had never spent much time trying to learn as she didn't really care about being recognized. She knew you had to balance between trying to hard not to be seen and trying too hard to be recognized as someone trying to be dismissed as a threat for being too obvious. There was also the matter of trying to look...average. Ordinary. Which meant nothing extraordinarily practical or impractical. It was all a science. Unfortunately, it wasn't one she was amazing at. Eve looked at the piles, quickly sorting the items by usefulness. Wigs were out--her hair was already in a different state than normal--as was most clothing--she wouldn't know where to even start. Anything beyond black required too much fashion sense to figure out. She knew not to wear green-ish blacks with more red-ish blacks, but colors were beyond her. Could purple go with yellow? Could green? Or orange? It was too complicated, while at the same time she knew something had to be different beyond her hair. Color was necessary to not look extremely suspicious. She sighed and pulled out a red scarf from a pile. It was bright. The color made her wince the first few times she looked at it. Eve wrapped it around her neck loosely. Then she pulled on the weaves of her braid a little to let out some frizz. Glancing in a mirror, she knew it had worked. She looked almost normal despite not changing much. A feeling of deja vu set over her. Someone else had looked like that before. Worn something eerily similar. Unwanted, a memory of her mother resurfaced. She'd had to go out. Probably for a meeting to raise more money for one of her charities. No. It wasn't a meeting, Eve remembered. It was a dry fall day. She was taking her to her friend's house for a playdate. There was not a cloud in sight. Only strong fire-stoking winds. On that day. Eve swallowed heavily, turned, and walked over to Lena by the door. It wouldn't do to dwell on the past. She was continuing her mother's legacy by helping the people of Alleycity, twelve years later. The Doves might have been gone, but they would never be forgotten.

"I trust you on this," Eve said, gently handing the blue bag back to Lena. Based on what Alask had been told, it didn't seem like something she'd ever be willing to use. The other two she pocketed away. There was a slight bulge from where they sat in her jacket, but nothing too noticeable to anyone not looking for it. She glanced back at the table on a whim. Zyn was watching her through a mouthful of food. She avoided eye contact, looking at him only through peripheral vision. If Alask and Lena were fine with him, she would to. A staring contest would do no one any good, even if she knew she would win. Keeping her eyes fixated on a spot on the ceiling, she braided her hair back. It was by no means perfect while at the same time did exactly the job she needed it to--preventing most hair from falling in her face like usual. "I'll see you later, Mart," she told the boy, smiling. "Try not to cause too much trouble while we're out."

Until they saw a mudkip and realized the adorableness of mudkips.

Monty Python, anyone? SDW:

That surviving mudkip was @BitBitio who hadn't been among the rising mudkip empire due to 9 days of inactivity.

Orderly discussions.

He was either lying or simply trying very hard not to acknowledge the truth. When he'd explained extrapolation to her six months ago, he'd tapped to teenagehood. It wasn't absolute proof, but proof enough for Freedom. Besides, he was a Councilman part of the Ghostblood Triarchy. That was as close to running the world an ordinary person could get on this world. Hence, former nerd. She didn't press there any more, instead choosing to answer the question. "Yep." Tapping down to around seven, she watched the table grow slightly taller. "'Little me' has no fears, but still acts like a copycat." Freedom stopped tapping, reverting to her natural age. Her forehead throbbed and body ached. She winced despite her attempts to ignore it. "'Normal me' is a paranoid mess yet logical at the same time." She quickly stored away a few years to where she'd been before, pain fading away. "'Older me's are constantly changing, though, typically, the older, the more safety conscious. Which is nice and annoying at the same time. There's not much variety. "So, really, it's less advice, and more different perspectives. It's a one person committee on every topic," Freedom said. "You do the same or something similar?"

Freedom ate the spike-checked strawberry. "Some adults don't drink." "Anyways, my sister would disagree with your disagreeance." She didn't specify which one immediately, nor was she aware if he even knew she had more than one. "Getting picked on has only caused her to not accomplish all she could've otherwise." "Maybe you were a different type of nerd, though," she said, discarding the strawberry's leafy top. "Compile is one-of-a-kind." She smiled. "And she's not even an Atium Ferring." She paused. "But we're not going to get anywhere on this train of thought."

"I'm sure he'll love it. Any acknowledgement helps him," she told Mart, smiling. "But we might have to wait a bit to get it to him, depending on what your mother is planning. I'll look forward to hearing it." The thought of the Haunt did dampen her mood, though. It was a continuous weight on her shoulders. How do you help an intangible, invisible person be seen? There was an answer, she knew, it just eluded her endlessly. Eve turned to Lena. "Sure. Which one? Whiterose?" All of the other great guilds would be too powerful, especially if something went wrong, and the Church was newer. Logically, it made sense that that would have been what Lena and Alask had deduced. "Scouting there shouldn't be too difficult. All we'd need is realistic seeming feigned interest in the religion. It also gives a pretense for future visits." Deception of priests was low, but religion didn't feed or shelter most. It was the usual weighing of importance in morality. At the end of the day, the ends tended to justify the means. Besides, it wasn't as though they were trying to mess with them by impersonating their gods. They likely had more resources than they knew what to do with.

It always felt the same. The nervous butterflies in her stomach every time she stood right outside the door. She knew it was illogical. There was no reason to be nervous. Yet it never failed to happen, no matter how many times she tried to stop it. She understood it, though. Despite all that had happened, she knew that a part of her expected to find them all on the floor dead one day, just like the previous three times. Eve pushed open the door and stepped inside quietly. Alask and Lena were sitting and eating dinner. There was another man there that she didn't recognize. She watched him for a few moments before completely entering and softly shutting the door behind her. On the way over she'd picked up some food and ate, so she didn't head over to join them. Instead, she walked over to Mart. The boy was busy doing his homework and she tried not to disturb him too much as she took a seat next to him.

I wake to a fly landing on my nose. "Seriously?" I mutter. "How did I manage to fall asleep despite all this action?" I shrug to myself and turn my direction back to the screen, picking up some popcorn. @AonEne

"Maybe it's also because they're told it's impossible," she said. "If logic says you can't survive, you won't." Freedom shrugged. "You're right, though. Pacifism doesn't stop problems. It only makes it harder to deal with them." If they hadn't been so opposed to violence, they might have been able to stand up to Hellbent. Then again, he had been so powerful it probably would have ended with them all dead. "Though, I don't think it's the pacifists the crazy scientists have problems with. It's the ones who just don't want to get skewered." "But I'm not beating up nerds. That's just wrong and it wouldn't help my already poor case." She picked up another strawberry and absentmindedly began checking it for spikes. "They've got to use their brains to run the world intelligently someday and they won't be doing that if everyone picks on them. Or if they lose too many brain cells." She looked up from it. "You convinced me that learning to fight was important the first time we met, though, so even if the universe has yet to throw many dangerous situations at me since, nothing's changed. We're still mostly on the same page. Freedom glanced at his glass of wine. "Except when it comes to drinking."

I'm not really planning to get too involved here, but to answer Ene's question... It's the same reason why anyone doesn't want to join together. Fear. If everyone is congregated in one spot, they're more exposed and can't pick up and run. Especially with much higher power levels. The Uninvested have reason to be afraid. One Invested can decide they want to be in charge and make them suffer. A city can't exist without ordinary citizens. Until enough Uninvested can be convinced to settle down, no long-lasting city can be established due to lack of consistency. Also, you're assuming that the people know there's a plan to build a city. That would require reliable systems of communication. I'm not imagining organized settlements of any sort. People might be scattered all over. How would you contact them and propose the idea? What would a city offer them that isn't better than they already have? Then, think of the people on the AlleyPlanet. Sure, some are natives, but there probably are also immigrants. The immigrants might be coming to escape lifestyles of laws and governments reigning over them. These immigrants also are coming from other planets, bringing in different forms of Investiture. They're strangers. The natives wouldn't jump at the chance to create a shared settlement. Though, maybe there aren't many immigrants. If there's no organized settlement, word might not be widely out there about the AlleyPlanet. Which goes back to my first points. The DA created the planet, no? These people are most likely aware of that and afraid of doing anything drastic. For all they know, they might be wiped out of existence if they join together. Hence, guilds. I know, I know, you want to avoid getting to into guild politics, but it would be a natural result to split into factions over something like this. Unwittingly, the guilds would lead to forming more connections and the eventual unity, even if the early guilds die off soon afterwards. Or, I'm totally off here due to a brain too full of American history. Tl;dr: "The DA created the planet, no? These people are most likely aware of that and afraid of doing anything drastic. For all they know, they might be wiped out of existence if they join together."

I didn't find any completely new ones, but here are some more parts of 63 that were cut off. 63.1. Their clothing needs less fabric. Also cheaper. 63.7. They can use shorter beds, too. Tall people kill more trees. There were a few more that I spotted--the Librarians stuck them on the top shelf, out of reach, though!!! And they weren't even considerate enough to leave a step-stool nearby!