Verthandi is trying to blot out the world with her hood, but the hood starts nattering at her.

-unrulyCreature [UC] began festering anchoressUnbound [AU]-

UC: Hey, AU, you alright?
UC: Verthandi?
UC: Um. Vertie? Can I call you that yet?
AU: look, just leave me, ok
UC: but, but the meteorite?
AU: let it hit. i'm not worth saving
UC: Um. Be right back.

Urdra has stopped typing. Good. Watching the poor kid fumble to say something helpful would've been painful. Verthandi is sinking nicely back into the pit of despair when a soft, heavy object whacks her in the spine.

AU: Ow! What on Khthonn?!
UC: sorry, sorry!
UC: i didnt know what to say so i wanted to hug you
UC: but i couldn't over the computer so i thought i'd use these fancy cushion things to like remote-hug you
UC: but it turns out i can only pick up one at a time
UC: sorry

Verthandi uncurls enough to see the cursor shaking a large tasselled hassock in mid-air. Despite herself, she laughs. It feels painful.

UC: so what happened here, anyway?

Verthandi draws a long, ragged breath. OK, maybe the unsocialised hermit is someone she can talk to about this. You can't be judgemental if you haven't the faintest clue what standards you should be judging by, right?

AU: I killed her.
AU: I killed the most important prophet of our religion.
UC: The Oracle? I thought she was dead already.
AU: She spoke a bit, when I was disconnecting her. I kept going.
AU: Because that was the plan.
UC: Oh. I'm sure you had a good reason?
UC: Actually, hold on, I KNOW you had a good reason!
UC: You're bringing her back! This is brilliant!
AU: Will it really be her, though? The game notes talk as if people come back to life but maybe it's all just dumb chatbot algorithms.
AU: Lights on but nobody home.
AU: Thousands of people are dying right now just so we can play a game where we zombify the Oracle, maybe zombify ourselves later on too
AU: all to do the Mysterious Bidding of the sacred Horrorterrors
AU: who have just forced a nun to do something blasphemous in the inner sanctum, so forgive me if my faith in them is wearing a bit thin.
UC: Something blasphemous? What?!
AU: Killing the Oracle. Do try to keep up.

Urdra doesn't type for a while. Verthandi resists the urge to spam her with more existential dread. She sits back on the cool marble steps, tries to breathe steadily.

UC: I think we have to keep going. We don't have a lot of choice now.
UC: We have to trust
UC: not the plan
UC: but trust ourselves to figure out the right thing to do when we DO have a choice.
UC: if that makes any sense?
AU: It does. I was already putting one foot in front of the other
AU: but I believed our masters knew what they were doing, and maybe I shouldn't have.
AU: OK, let's just get this done.
AU: And yeah, you can call me Vertie.

Verthandi gets shakily to her feet, summons her broom and whacks the top off the Cruxtruder. After that, everything goes like clockwork. While she's wrangling the other machines, Urdra's cursor scoops up the late lamented Oracle and drops her in the Kernelsprite. The sprite takes on a temporary form with an icon of the Oracle's face slapped over the violet mandala. Verthandi doesn't want to think about what she'll do if the Oraclesprite turns out to be an Incoherent, Gibbering Mockery of Life, so she works faster instead.

The countdown started at 2:10. Deep in the heart of The Rose, there is no other sign of how urgent this task is. There's a dicey moment right at the end, when the Alchemiter prints out a chrysalis that hatches into a large, agitated blue moth. She's drilled on this kind of thing, though. Smoothly switching her Strife Specibus from Broomkind to Netkind, Verthandi scoops the thing out of the air and grabs it –

-unrulyCreature started festering anchoressUnbound-

UC: WHOOOOO! You did it! You did it!
AU: I certainly did! Thanks, Urdra. Couldn't have done it without you.
UC: Thirteen seconds to spare, too!
AU: Hang on a mo, I'm sweating my spiracle off in this thing.

The Digital Habit is unpleasantly warm after all that exertion. Verthandi shucks the outer layers off, including the Hood-Up Display. "One minute fifty-seven, not bad!" she says aloud. "That's got to be some kind of record."

"Are you really trying to speedrun S'Burb? I can't fault you for lack of ambition, at least."

It's a female voice, warm and wryly intelligent. Verthandi blasphemes quietly. Some chubb-headed fool of a nun must've ignored the evacuation order. "Look, you really shouldn't be here," she begins, then turns and realises who has spoken.

Hovering in mid-air, her steel body and flowing robes converted into stylised lines of violet light, the ancient alien prophet once known as "Rose Lalonde" regards Verthandi with a steady gaze.