Welcome to Gaia! ::

Joy's snark led to Encke's near cackle, a brighter sound than he might've been typically giving these days.

"None taken. I think my husband would at least want me to ask first and contacting him from here is a little on the complicated side." If Basiluzzo was even powered up, for one. Encke was positive the standard mobile phone connection wasn't going to work from here. Viatrix was only so magical. "That and I don't want to die either. Got all these glowing tattoos for a reason."

Those didn't cost money, but they sure cost a lot of time and dedication. Considering Encke could have been spending that time auditioning to make more money, they figured it was close enough.

Not that they really needed it these days-

Encke dug back into the Enckean they could read but Joy couldn't. They tapped in some further questions about these mines, a quirk of interest forming on their face. "Yeah, they're more of the valuables type mines, looks like. Also some of the s**t we used to power, well," Encke gestured around themself. "Off the main comet itself, connected with ... those leylines."

Now how the hell did they get to the leyline connections itself was the question.

"I've been coming here for years. Where the hell have those things been hiding?"

"Maybe it does," responded Encke, returning the playful smugness with a bright response and an amused smirk over their shoulder. It was fair enough, honestly--no one else had triggered the appearance. Encke themself certainly hadn't. Pendour and Basiluzzo hadn't either, but Encke supposed none of their visits these days were particularly exploratory. This one had been.

"Of course, Cosmos seems to have a weird way of restoring this all for us. All the animals just reappear, one by one." Encke snorted. "So you're right about that."

Hell, one of the other birds they had spotted when not under the surface in the basement of the Ruling House, Encke hadn't seen before. Probably also new.

Typical.

"I suppose the next mystery is figuring out how to get to the leylines. Search engine seems to think it should be obvious, and it hasn't been," Encke pinched their nose, "of course."

Joy had a point, hilariously enough -- a lot of the s**t that was indeed bullshit on Earth seemed to actually be true in space. Encke had his own theories about that. Perhaps it was residue from the thousands of years ago where there was apparently more ready communication between Earth and what would be aliens.

After all, descended knights existed somehow.

"Dousing, or whatever the hell Enckeans would've called it," Encke snorted. "Honestly, yeah. Might be worth looking into. What the hell can it hurt at this point?"

Clearly, Encke's Comet would survive without them at this point.

"But yeah, no, I'll keep you posted. Anyone who has a part in figuring this out deserves to know how it ends up." Encke's laughter almost felt like a relief. Exploring his comet felt almost like a mundane worry compared to everything else. "I want to figure out how to get to those mines, anyway."

Maybe there would be something interesting over there.