Sky stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the Square, watching as the sun disappeared over the horizon. She leaned against the railing and looked fondly to the large organ, already seeing Blackberry playing his music in her mind’s eye. She smiled serenely as her gaze swept across the cobblestone, imagining Babbagers dancing and reveling in the festive atmosphere. However, she gasped at what she saw next, raising her voice in alarm, “Scottie!”
Scottie was shaken from the couch, tossing aside the book and grabbing his sword as he rushed to the balcony. “What now?” he asked in exasperation, appearing next to her with his sword drawn and body tensed for whatever it was that had his wife so worried. In a quiet, awe-struck tone she could only say, “Green…” Following her pointing finger, his eyes grew wide as he looked down on the Square and saw a creeping green moss covering the cobblestones. He looked to Ed’s and Wallis’ shops and saw that some vines had latched on to the side of the building and had begun climbing the walls.
The couple made their way downstairs, now noticing that the vines were working their way up the side of their own building. “What the hell?” Scottie asked as they assessed the sight, Sky responding with a smile, “I rather like it. We could do with a bit of green around here!” Scottie chuckled and shook his head, reaching out to pull some of the foliage away. It clung tightly to the building but eventually some of it gave and they were surprised to see that the vines immediately started reclaiming the spot he’d cleared.
The two just looked at each other, as if unbelieving. They turned back and saw that the spot he’d cleared was completely filled in again. Scottie spoke first, “Looks like some seeds stowed away with the hops shipment. We’ve gotta stop this. At this rate, it’ll cover everything we have within a week. And I don’t even want to know how it’ll react if it reaches the water in the docks…” Sky nodded slowly, noticing that the new growth, while not as fast as the vines repairing themselves, was visibly creeping across the cobblestones, “I know where we can get some defoliant.” And with that she rushed off, Scottie returning to their home to write a very angry letter to his friends in the north, mumbling along the way, “Giant snakes, madmen painting the town purple, and now out of control weeds. What next!?” He winced at actually having said that out loud, cursing himself for inviting even more trouble.
::Scald hops up and down excitedly, gasping before coughing, pulling his slate out of his satchel to scribble on it and hold it up to Mr. Melnik, reading ‘It’s possible the carbon dioxide from all the coal burning in town is contributing to it’s speedy growth, though the soot can be stifling.’::
ha! there! you see! you see! don’t say i didn’t tell you so!