Author: Shiloh Kyrie, Posted: Tue Aug 4, 2020 5:15 PM, Post Subject: It's the Thought that Counts [SOLO]

Once upon a midsummer evening, Shiloh pondered, sleeplessly–
Lying down in Serenitas on the cold and polished floor.
Plans were strewn about in the basket, overflowing onto the ground in cascades,
Scribbled out and redrawn a hundred-fold.

Then came a sound like quiet ticking, as the gears within her brain were clicking,
In her insomniac and addled state she started thinking of what to do for that friend of hers.
Angela's birthday was soon arriving and the Clephsydra's engines were driving themselves at full speed to her very door.
"The ingredients will be coming in ten more minutes, and the workshops will soon be full."
A mere ten more minutes and nothing more.

While the ferrets' feet were scurrying she had a disquieting sense of hurry that gnawed away at her from her very core.
"The venue's planned and invitations sent, but shouldn't we do something more?"
With a start she sat alert and thought of what she was waiting for.
There was no time to waste, and with haste she cast a spell to open a dimensional door.

Quiet were the streets Arri as the sister moons shined brightly, illuminating the gemstones set into the boulevards.
Like a shadow, silent and skulking–the goddess climbed onto the building that held the knowledge she was looking for.
With the deftness of a lemming, she scuttled about to find an opening and lowered herself down by a rope. 
The librarians were all sleeping so very deeply, that no one noticed the unseemly figure that rifled through Sularia's Historical Library.

Inspiration in hand, she quickly vanished back to the land where lightning flashed and rain poured.
As a gleam crept into her eyes, Shiloh gave a crooked smile: "With this they certainly won't be bored."
The forges were torn asunder to make way for the flour she had plundered from nearly every general store.
Nearly a thousand pounds of sacks of sugar had been purchased from shore to shore.

Outside the lightning was flashing as thunder boomed, crashing against the spires that dotted the temple road.
Furious bolts of electricity were striking the towers to fuel the furnace that would bake the mother-lode.
"They say cooking is a science, so we can't go wrong–", such hopeful words for certain someone.
Those words would return with a vengeance, in sarcasm, when all was said and done.

While the Machinarium's fires were bellowing in a roar, the rest of Arri was in store for the first of many strange happenings–all for Angela Rose.