LU 67 - Space 13

I ran into Thornberry at spawn, who seemed a bit too eager to be in the town he's outlawed in. We got talking about our lives like last time we met, but this time I had an issue to address: him. When he got talking about visiting his old town, I suggested that he should maybe stay there for as long as he can. He asked why, and I explained that some of my citizens are becoming affected by his actions (that was a bit of hyperbole), which I can't allow to continue on. He tried to say how the shit he did happened too long ago to hold against him, but a month isn't that long. Much to my disinterest, we agreed that he can stay here as long as he lays low and stops causing problems. Then he showed me his new potion shop, where I ran into Mira and their friend, Chizzy, again. The four of us talked for a bit, with the talk of therapy for Mira coming up. I brought up that I was a therapist for four years (thanks for the "experience" Thornberry), so I could help them out. After showing the two to the kingdom, Mira agreed to come to me for some therapy. After getting back to spawn, we ran into some kid named shroom - they seemed a bit dazed after being in the nether for 100 years (???), and explained the best they could that echo was in big trouble; apparently tori, who I knew as scavenger, was hot on their tail and ready to kill them. After some hurried discussion, Thornberry and I followed shroom into the nether and left the two friends to do whatever.

After not too much exploration, we found that the worst happened - we were too late. Echo's lifeless body was on some bridge, and shroom ran over to mourn them. Thornberry and I kind of stood by since neither of us cared, and we just kind of waited there while chatting to each other. Shroom at some point heard Thornberry talk about killing Echo, and I took this chance to walk away from all this and went back to the overworld. I found Mira and Chizzy talking with this Nekane guy, so I joined in and had some fun with them. Eventually Mira ran off and passed out, where Chizzy found their diary. There was some depressing stuff in there about darkness or something metaphorically chasing and consuming her, which I found quite relatable in a way. After they woke up and took off with Nekane and Chizzy, shroom caught up to me with Thornberry. Apparently echo had their will on them, which shroom read aloud to Thornberry and I. It had literally everything echo experienced in there, including info about Thornberry (I wasn't in the will); turns out Thornberry's first name is Vice, which isn't helpful because his new alter ego is named Vice Sparkleberry. Shroom began to connect the dots, and was almost convinced at one point that they found Vice. He decided to rebut by fake crying of all things, which somehow worked??? Shroom dropped the topic and asked us if we knew where echo lived. I brought up that I knew where Verdure was, so the three of us went there. Shroom created a memorial for Echo, and decided to live here for a while. I left the kid to mourn, and went back to the kingdom. In other news, neither Illios nor Koratai have come back to me. I haven't genuinely cared about anyone in 500 years, so I started to panic. Was Koratai ok? Is she hurt? Where is Illios? Is she blowing off coming to the kingdom? In this spiral of stress, I reminded myself that I will outlive both of them eventually, so I depressingly calmed myself down and went to relax.