Pet of the Month Club #3: Meet the Candidates (Patreon)

Right now, Barathrumite+ patrons are voting on the next pet of the month!  This time, we have two repeat contenders and two newcomers. Say hello!

(The voting ends on Friday, July 19th, 11:59 PDT.)

Ursunculus

Many things get made in the workshops of Grit Gate, and no system of organization, even one devised by the assiduous Barathrumites, is without flaw. Take one episode as evidence of this principle: an experiment, begun in the carbon-wet alembics of Barathrum's study, where the saliva of an urshiib was brewed with primordial soup, distilled, and set to dry. Say something recognizable formed, diminutive though it remained, and was taught the way of the world through a slow osmosis of culture as it leaked into the microcosm of the enclave. Say for a month that thing was accounted for, until another promising project took off, and the logging of its whereabouts lapsed. Sure, it'd still be seen from time to time, scurrying across the fulcrete or scaling a ream of graph paper. Of course no one would recall precisely where it was last seen, or when, for it was always just "around". Until it wasn't. Until, unnoticed by the eyes of its progenitors, it scampered past a malfunctioning force projector to make its way in the world.

Hylaeus

It's the custom among patricians that first-born children, slated to inherit nothing of their families' estates, venture out of numb Ibul into the wide world, and that -- in the case of the Iuto family -- they shove off with the companionship of their household's foremost hound. So it came to be that Octadius, grown by manhood into a spiteful wreck, pledged his intention to cross bleak Arthax with his canine Hylaeus, who himself harbored no desire to abandon his lamplighted streets, but -- lacking the rights afforded to dogs in other parts of the world -- was forced to obey. And when Octadius, who cherished courage more than sense, found himself impaled on the fossilized stinger of a manscorpion, Hylaeus could do little more than look on with irritation at his own new predicament, and ponder how he might finish crossing the desert with his life in tow. By a hound's luck, though, several days of vexed wandering were rewarded with the company of a dromad caravan, which saw him safely to the white dunes of the East, and from there, to a curious land called Qud.

Ebenshabat

"WOULD YOU LIKE A STARAPPLE, FRIEND?

THEY ARE LOVELY. THE JUICE IS INSIDE.

OH, MYSELF? HAH HAH HAH. NO, FRIEND. I WON'T BE EATING ONE.

I COULDN'T.

MUST I, ANYWAY, TO APPRECIATE THE JUICE? 

CAN'T I ADMIRE THE AESTHETICS OF THE APPLE FROM AFAR?

AREN'T I IN A BETTER POSITION TO JUDGE THE APPLE, ABSTAINING FROM THE JUICE, AS I DO?

HAH HAH HAH, FRIEND! 

I ENJOY OUR CONVERSATIONS.

THERE, THE HIGH SALT SUN! IT CASTS NEXT TO NO SHADOWS.

BUT SOON IN WILL TRACE AN ARC ALONG THE WIDE SKY.

AND THEN, WHY, WOULD YOU SIT WITH ME? IN THE SHADE OF A STARAPPLE TREE.

YOU MAY EAT A STARAPPLE WHILE YOU DO. THE JUICE IS INSIDE."

Chamaniya

"Glorious salt sun, praise be upon you! Let us bask! Let us live! Let us drink!

Uh, you there, curious fellow with whom I am bonded. Cohort of mine. BUDDY. There appears to be a defect with your internal compass. A catastrophic flaw in the mechanism. You appear to be headed underground, *away* from the bright and lovely star.

What's this now? It is your *intention* to crawl into a cave, to entomb yourself in the rotting earth, like a dead thing?

My chum, my sun-sib... may I call you sun-sib? Surely we may discuss this. I... no, wait! Ha, yes! The Cave! I love it, too, but perhaps just a little more time in the sun and we.. wait! Friend! Compatriot of mine... stop... wait there! I've a few more things to say about the glorious sun that you might... STOP!"