"Woo! We're chiefs for a day, can you believe that?" Lili cheered, bouncing slightly with every step. Her usual warm smile was much more brighter and everything about her showed her excitement. Shakuro smiled back at her, although he was much less thrilled about all of this.

"Yeah... hopefully everything will turn out alright, you never know what you're going to deal with when the day starts." He kicked a pebble off the road and watched as it rolled through some flower bushes. The other seedling also stopped walking and gave him an incredulous look, tilting her head slightly, excitement vanishing and substituted by a confused frown.

"Aren't you excited? Even just a little bit?"

"Well, I mean, I already help the Chief with some things, so..." He shrugged.

"But have you ever administrated the entire Oasis?" Lili was practically glowing as she spoke. "This is an one time only experience! This will be so much fun!"

"Like keeping these nasty bugs out of the garden? I swear these are more annoying than some of the chaos monsters."

Both turned their heads at the familiar voice. Sol's ears were lowered and his tail dragged of the ground, his fur was disheveled and dirty with a few twigs and leaves hanging of it, the two seedlings winced as they saw the red marks of where the bugs had stung through his fur. Scratching his new battle wounds, the tired lagora made his way towards the duo, who offered sympathetic looks. With the desert and Chaos gone, many problems were solved, but several new immediately took their place. They had never seen so many animals around before, but their populations were booming thanks to the large amounts of food, water and lack of giant bloodthirsty monsters trying to corrupt them. That meant they could see hundred of colorful birds and butterflies everyday, but also hundreds of hungry creachers trying to feast on their crops.

Hundreds of hungry creachers that bite. A lot. In fact, it was only thanks to his fur that he escaped that hellish battlefield with only half a dozen stings. They weren't sure why these bugs in particular were so insistent, but they'd be left with nothing to eat soon if they let their guards down.

"Did you manage to shoo them off?" Lili questioned, concerned.

Sol responded with a nod, groaning as he scratched his arms. Why did the have to itch so much?

"Actually, I was going to ask you if you knew how the Chief did this? I heard about it, but I didn't think these were actually so aggressive..." Sol picked a couple of leaves from his fur as he spoke. Lili tried to recall anything that could help, she did meet Tethu while he was on his way to the gardens a few times as he had to pass by her bloom booth, but otherwise he never shared the secret with dealing with those pests. He neither carried anything with him, nor wore anything to serve as protection, she never really stopped to question herself that before, it just never crossed her mind.

She shrugged and turned towards Shakuro, who was still holding his chin and looking down, a concentrated frown on his face.

"I think he just uses his green gale? I mean, bugs hate wind, right?"

"Well, we don't have a green gale. In fact, we have no wind at all!" Sol responded, wildly gesturing to the plants around them, exasperated. True to his words, none of their leaves were rustling, only the occasional weak breeze flowed by occasionally. Honestly, they couldn't blame him for being snappy after facing a hundred or so enraged winged stingers all by himself.

"I remember Tethu mentioned something about smoke? Apparently there's a smell those insects absolutely hate, I think it's some kind of flower?" Shakuro looked up, still looking focused on his thoughts, "although I do believe he uses wind..."

"... I...I didn't wanna bother him," he winced, looking down at his arms and legs, the small red dots were more irritated now, surely thanks to his constant scratching, but he couldn't help it, "but I don't think I can handle another day of this."

"We should probably let him rest for a while, his fever was really high and I'm sure the bugs will take a little while to return at least." Lili delicately placed her hand onto Sol's shoulder in a reassuring manner. Her words brought some hope for the lagora, it wasn't enough to lift his mood by much, but at least his frown softened a little. He was about to reach out to the red spots again, but Lili held his hand firmly, shaking her head before letting it go. She was right, they both were, but these were so painful and itchy, he was starting to think maybe he was allergic to their venom. They better find someone else to do this.

"Yeah...you guys are right, sorry." He accompanied the two on their walk at their invitation. The other residents went on with their days, talking, selling, buying, playing... although no one could deny the atmosphere wasn't nearly as light as usual, many shops were closed and out of stock, rumors were being spread left and right, many chores still needed to be done, and that was only the beginning of the list.

Some of the plants were wilting as well, they weren't sure why but many of their plants around their homes were beginning to die. No matter how much care they gave to them, their health would gradually deteriorate until their previously bright green leaves became brown and collapse to the ground. The Oasis really had seen better days, maybe there was something wrong with the soil, or the pests were also giving the other trees a hard time. They'd have to keep an eye on those.

"There's nothing to apologize for, I really wouldn't want to deal with that either." Shakuro smiled as he lightly elbowed Sol on his good(ish) arm.

"Still, we need to find the others so we can organize ourselves...wait who else is helping run the Oasis again?"

"You; Sol; Miura; Levi; and me. Although Isaac suggested we bring Mariah and Sakina along to make up for the mess they made last night."

They went quiet at the mention of the two. Sol and Lili shared an uncertain glance before looking back at the wise seedling, who either didn't notice the others' change in demeanor, or did a great job at pretending not to see anything. It's not that they were mad, well...maybe they were a little bit, that was a very stupid move of their part, but it was more disappointment than anger. They weren't the ones that they owned an apology to anyway.

A black and white noot chirped and waved their short little wing towards them, they were carrying several bags filled with all sorts of goods that could be bought at the Oasis, the little bird was barely able to carry all of those at once.

"Good morning! Hope you enjoyed your shopping!" Lili smiled as they returned the noot's greetings. These little fellas were always in a good mood after a long and expensive shopping session.

"O-Okay, so...back to what we were talking about..." Shakuro quickly urged their attention back to their original subject, scratching the back of his head. Lili raised an eyebrow at the seedling's odd behavior, for some reason Shakuro seemed to be unnerved whenever they crossed paths with the cute little birds. It's strange, it's like he suddenly developed a fear of noots in the span of a single night, but she shouldn't pry. "I say we need to gather everyone and organize ourselves, doing everything randomly is asking for a disaster to happen."

"Yeah... everyone kinda ran off when we finished talking with the Chief."

"Okay, so next step: find Miura and Levi! Let's go!" Lili ran ahead, the bright and determined smile she was known for was back on her face. The boys couldn't help but smile at her antics and follow her as she interrogated every passerby for Miura's and Levi's whereabouts.

They might just be able to do this.

One thing about bookstores is they were holders to written masterpieces, the sacred guardians of knowledge. If not for these books, all the information their ancestors had gathered could be at risk of being lost forever, this assured the next generations would be able to understand the world much better than they did. It was truly an honor to be a librarian, it wasn't unlike being the guardian of the most precious of treasures, one people did not give nearly as much credit as it deserved.

Isaac hummed as he cleared off the dust of some of his books, he closed the library for the day to clean it, those days in particular were always slow so he took advantage of it. He placed the hardback back into its rightful spot and returned to his desk, smiling proudly at his work. There was still plenty to do, but he was already way ahead of his schedule, he could afford a little break. Sitting back and relaxing with a nice cup of coffee, he smiled longingly just at the thought of it.

Through the corner of his eye, he saw a particular large book that was carelessly tossed aside. He was actually the culprit of this, but he was at a hurry at the time, so he forgave his past self. The page displayed several paragraphs of written text as well as a few ink illustrations, all about all known diseases similar to a cold. He frowned as he gave the page a more throughout read, he had already read it several times just between last night and this morning, he had the ability to remember anything he's ever read with ease, but he still couldn't help making sure he hadn't skipped anything. So far everything was pointing towards either a particularly bad flu or pneumonia. Isaac would usually take great offense at being proven wrong about something, he took great pride at his studies and readings, but whenever he read that description and saw the ill lungs drawn in ink, he welcomed the idea of being wrong with open arms.

Especially when his eyes found that warning in red ink at the bottom of the page.

Massaging his temples, he closed the book and carried it back to its original place, struggling a little with how large and heavy it was. Tethu defeated skilled warriors several times his size, got rid of the chaos whenever it invaded the oasis, not even the Chaos itself could handle that excitable sprout, he could get through this no problem. The bookseller took a large calming breath and started to make his way to his kitchen. He needed to something to calm his nerves.

"Are you sure you're not forgetting anything?"

"Well, I don't think so. Why?" It took a few seconds for it to register in his tired mind, but eventually his eyes widened as much as they could as he quickly turned his head towards the intruder, he let out a startled yelp and almost knocked down an entire stand as he fell down, hopefully a horrible disaster was avoided, but a couple of books still fell on top of his head. An amused giggle reached his ears, he looked up to see a tall, transparent figure hovering above the ground, hands behind her back as she gazed down at the seedling, a tiny innocent smile on her pale blue face.

"Are you okay?" She asked with genuine concern, but she was still stifling a laugh. Isaac sat in stunned silence for a few seconds, then let out a partially relieved, partially exasperated breath.

"I'm never getting used to this..." He mumbled as he picked the fallen books and placed them back on the shelf.

"I don't think anybody ever does." Esna smiled warmly as she floated towards him, lowering herself and bending her tail as if she were sitting down. Isaac massaged the back of his head, it was a little sore but hopefully it wouldn't bruise. "So...as I was saying, are you sure you aren't forgetting anything?"

"No?" Oh for the Gods, why couldn't ghosts just cut to chase instead of being all vague and ominous?

Esna's ears lowered slightly and her smile made way to a worried frown. "The Oasis, silly. We are all worried about Tethu, but what about the Oasis? We can't just leave them."

"I thought Shakuro and Lili were already on their way? Also I think either Sol or Nubit went to chase the bugs out of the crops..." As far as he knew the chores were already being taken care of, so he wasn't worried about that.

"Yeah but is that enough? Many shops are still out of stock; there are crops to harvest; roads to clear..." Esna counted on her fingers, her tail twitching slightly. Isaac hadn't met Esna more than a couple of times before, most of her appearances were at candy and toy stores and harassing unaware residents by splashing water on them randomly. It was all in good nature and people often had a blast with it, but he avoided the spring as not to be her next victim, paper and water did not mix. Esna was usually the happy and friendly bundle of joy, less confident than Tethu, but just as playful, it was odd to see her so annoyed. Apparently being enraged whenever the words "managing"; "oasis" and "easy" were put in the same sentence was not exclusive for the Tethu...he was starting to get nervous about this.

"I know you guys are trying very hard, but there are so many things to do and is easy to get overwhelmed. Me and Tethu used to keep a list of things that we need to do, we... barely ever managed to stick by it, but it did help a bit!" She floated towards his desk, picking a few blank papers and a pen, she struggled with it a bit, groaning as her hands phased through the paper the first few times before she finally managed to get a hold of the objects and hand them to the waiting seedling.

"First we need to make sure everyone has something to sell! Then clear the roads and get rid of any trash or weed, trust me these grow super fast... I wish I were exaggerating. Oh! And we can't forget about delivering things and also to collect the dewadems..."

Isaac was really getting nervous about this. Keeping an Oasis of this size running smoothly was a lot of responsibility, but they would have to manage... hopefully the next few days wouldn't be too chaotic.