Baker Bloch heads back over to Starbuccaneers to attempt to flirt again with Star herself, the namesake. Does she own the store? Did she buy his father’s house next door and turn it into not one but two bars, strange reflections of each other? What about the passageway behind the lower bar? It leads to blackness, like Star’s eyes turned black the other day. Baker Bloch went through, but he came out in the same town. It *appeared* like the same town. But Carrcassonnee said it would be different, somehow reversed. He has yet to figure it out what this means.
Baker Bloch has arrived. “Hi Star. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot the other day. I’d like to ask you on… a date. A date, Star. Can you animate yourself again, like you were in Collagesity Noru several years back? Hard to believe Collagesity itself is now close to 2 1/2 years old, eh? Star?”
Baker then hears a conversation fade in from the back of the restaurant, like a dream coming into reality. He turns to see an animated Karoz talking to Spongeberg about something.
He makes out words like dreamer and dancer and perpetual and world and Nautilus and box before Spongeberg seems to stop listening to Karoz rattle on and focuses his attention directly on Starbuccaneer. Or is he staring at *me*?
When I turn back to Star again for more attempted flirting I find she’s become slightly invisible. As I stare she grows moreso, until about 50 percent of her is gone. The process appears to halt.
“Do you want me to continue?” Spongeberg then says in my mind. “We need the prims. She’s a 7. We can get a whole dance pad in for a 7 spot.”
Spongeberg puts a series of images in my head.
Baker sighs through me. “Take off her hat first,” he speaks back to Spongeberg with his own mind. “That’ll bring it down to 5.”
“That’s not enough. But okay.” The hat disappears. Starbuccaneer otherwise returns to ‘normal’. “Can I flirt with her now?” he asks Spongeberg. “Now that she’s dehatted?”
Starbuccaneer speaks up. “Of course you can Baker Bloch. And how’re *you* doing?”
She’s alive!
Sunklands 