Basically, my sole inspiration for today’s scene was the “Pondering my Orb” meme — itself based on art of presumably Saruman from an old Lord of the Rings tabletop RPG.

I really have nothing intelligent to say about it, the just wanted to use the word “orb”…

Copyright J.B. Norman

“You know,” Vera says, laying her chin on the table to be at eye-level with the orb as she ponders it. “I thought it was going to be bigger.”

“Yeah,” Prima agrees. “It’s supposed to be a magic orb. But it’s not very impressive, is it?”

“What does it even do?” Vera asks.

“Let’s not find out,” Kat says, from the behind the table at the far end of the room that she’s flipped over to shield herself when the orb inevitably explodes.

She knows how this sort of thing goes. But at least Dunstana’s not here…

Kat tries to look after the two young Elven orphan twins as much as she can. She brings them along whenever she’s doing odd jobs as a freelance adventurer. The latest odd job in question was cleaning out some eccentric old guy’s house.

Naturally, there was a secret room behind one of the bookcases that opened up when Vera accidentally dusted the wrong book. Naturally, that secret room had been full of strange magical equipment. And, naturally, that included a mysterious magic orb glowing with a pale green light.

“And what are we going to do with it?” Vera continues.

“Bury it,” Kat offers. “Lock it away. Drop it down a mine shaft. Throw it into the sea.”

“Could we sell it to somebody?” Prima asks.

Vera gasps with excitement. “We could eat food for a month!”

“If you’re hungry,” Kat offers from behind her table. “I’ll buy you dinner. You don’t need to mess around with magic orbs!”

“Kat,” Prima counters. “If it’s as dangerous as you think, wouldn’t it be irresponsible to let somebody else get their hands on it and, like, explode themselves.”

There’s a long moment of silence from behind Kat’s table.

“Ugh,” Kat finally groans.

She hates doing the work and she hates putting herself in harm’s way. But at least she knows that she can deal with it when it happens. She’s not so cold-hearted that she can just let somebody else have to deal with.

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s go see Scarlet.”

“Not it,” Vera says suddenly, backing away from the orb.

“Not it,” Prima repeats.

Kat stares blankly over the edge of her table. “Wait. Wha — Oh, come on!”

Her gaze goes from Prima to Vera to the orb — which she thinks has started glowing a bit brighter — back to the Elven twins and back to the orb.

“Fine,” she sighs.

She tosses a tablecloth over the orb, bundles it up, ties it up and gingerly picks it up.

“But if I get turned into some kind of crazy magic ghost, I am haunting you so hard.”

“So, we didn’t want to bring it up, Kat,” Vera says. “But since you did mention it, me and Prima could do with a proper meal.”

She smiles sweetly up at Kat as Prima nods along eagerly.

“After we get this thing sorted out,” Kat answers. “And we get any anti-curse spells that we might need.”

“Yeah,” Vera offers. “But—”

“After,” Kat says in the same tone she uses on Dunstana.

---

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