White box

Purple

Screw up or not, though, there wasn't anything they could do about it, so why not be happy and celebrate that Marcus had gotten a growth spurt. Figuring he would be hungry as heck, Stephanie ordered enough high-class pizza to feed a group of 20, and Marcus did not disappoint. There were no left-overs.

Marcus wasn't surprised about Purple figuring out he was a Hadean, filling them in that some Hadeans did slip into this dimension from time to time. But the problem remained - the issue was that he was a prince whose brother was set to eliminate his competition.

Marcus also confirmed that Tharurun did have debts to five other gods and three enemies that were set to kill him, making Stephanie feel that-- well, wasn't Marcus actually kind of a better candidate to take over the god's role? Not that she wanted him to, just that she felt for the believers.

What was wrong with that god to kill some other beings kid for fun. And, seriously, why would someone name their kids - Runrun, Tharururu, Tuntun, and Truran - was it some twisted idea of making kids tough by giving them names that would give them trouble? No, right, what names could someone named Tharurun give others? It looked like the mother was at fault here for going along with it.

But... wouldn't Marcus run into problems with these kids? He had eaten their father, however lousy he might have been. Not they could do anything about it, so Stephanie moved on to telling Marcus about the artifact shop (he was as excited as Bill had been). She told some details about August (without mentioning his name or appearance, though), dryads, dragons, elves, and other beings. Now that Bill was on the seeing side, it would be easy to find time to tell about things.

It looked like Marcus had completed another artifact (another earring), so Stephanie went to summon purple. Checking under her pillow, she found a small purple gem, meaning that Purple did have some updates.

Like before, Purple sat on her table, and Stephanie passed him the other artifact.

Purple made it disappear and said. "With this, you've settled things with three gods."

Stephanie smiled at that, that was good to hear. Then purple told that it would be far more expensive with the other two, though, at best it would take five more of these, at worst, might even jump up to ten.

Good news, though - things could be settled just by working it off, which was a relief. As for enemies - the Arachne, whose child Tharurun burned said that since Tharurun was eaten, then she had no more issue and even sent a thank you gift - a black silk glove that lets physical bodies touch astral ones. Purple said that embodied gods could do that either way so that it wouldn't be of much use to the new Tharurun.

Stephanie put it on, and it adjusted to her hand to fit perfectly, feeling like skin, just completely black in color.

"Can we shake hands?" She asked because even if Purple 'sat' on her table, she knew his body was like a wisp's - it could pass through stuff.

"Sure," Purple said and put out his hand.

"You are warm?" Stephanie was surprised to find.

"I am a living being," he replied to that. "From astral types, only undead feel cold to touch."

The glove matched up with her hand so snuggly that Stephanie forgot to take it off, while Purple continued on the line with the undead. It looked like it would take more time to contact the undead Tharurun robbed, but that he had already arranged for a witch to contact the lesser god, news on that would be there in a day or two.

Stephanie recalled that she had forgotten to ask for a summoning plate for Bill, so she did that now in exchange for a potion. Then she asked how much would it cost to teleport, figuring she might as well also give Bill a few items of that value, so there's no problem in case he and Tim need to move somewhere fast.