BONUS: Playdate Not-Review

I pre-ordered a Playdate a while back and it finally arrived a few days ago. It's an awesome little device, toyetic and whimsical in the way that videogame consoles used to be, yet still feeling premium. It's yellow, it has a beautiful lo-fi monochrome 1-bit un-backlit screen, clicky little A and B buttons and a responsive D-Pad, and a Crank. It uses wifi to download games and has an online store, a web account integration, and the ability to Sideload games which you can buy off itch.io or wherever else, or make your own, but it never lets those features get in the way of the simplicity of the device.

It's also very developer friendly and seems like an accessible way to learn some game development and programming, and I hope to tinker around with it eventually.

It's not going to replace my Steam Deck or PS5 or Switch, and it's nowhere near as expensive as any of those but for what it is it isn't cheap either, but I'm glad that I have it. It's kind of nostalgic, but it also has a kind of alternate universe, speculative, retro-futurist, anachronistic appeal to it, like the clam-shell phone from It Follows. What would a world look like where we had network technology but still only lo-fi displays? What would a world look like where the original Gameboy had a crank?

The first "season" of games unlock week over week. So far I only have the first two starting games, and two free games from the Catalog (their game store), and I'll probably buy one or two more games and Sideload sooner or later.

Whitewater Wipeout is an awesome game. It's tricky to get the hang of at first, it relies mostly on the Crank, and it doesn't do a whole lot to teach you how to play, so you have to be patient, but even though I still suck at it, it's super addicting and fun and a perfect demonstration of exactly what this console is about, Crank and all. I can see why they made it among the first games you receive.

Casual Birder is a cute, fun, funny, open-world bird photography adventure game. It's a little meatier than Whitewater Wipeout, but nothing too Epic. It's the kind of game I might not necessarily have played if it were on Steam or PSN, and I don't know if I'll actually finish it, but I'm enjoying my time with it.

The two free Catalog games I have not been as impressed with, but I still appreciate having a couple more options in my first week until more games unlock, without having to make additional purchases.

Recommendation Dog is basically a matching game. You work at a temp agency and have to match agents given descriptions by the employers. There's nothing wrong with it, I gave it a playthrough, but I dunno it didn't do much for me.

Reel Steal was an interesting and surprising premise, I wanted to like this game, but I just wasn't feeling it. You're modern-day Robin Hoods infiltrating buildings owned by billionaires and robbing them, Cranking your way up and down the facility. It's a cool idea, but ya in practice I just found it tedious.

Maximum Recursion Depth Vol. 3, or Everybody Wins if We're Having Fun: The Animapunk RPG

The new and hopefully improved MRD Vol. 2 (Gameplay Loop, Dev Log) is still in the works, but I think it makes sense to just call the Animism Setting MRD Vol. 3, which I'll be working on simultaneously.

In wanting to have my cake and eat it too, it's running away a bit from the original idea of being like a Weird & Wonderful take on Pariah, but it should be clear how those ideas and others I've blogged about previously are all getting rolled into this; it's still true to the original spirit of the thing.

Previous posts of varying degrees of relevancy:

Anima Concept Crafting (the actual Anima stuff is in this post)

Termina: Animist Necromancy

Freaky Fractals of the Mycelium Matrix (the psychedelic "cyberspace" stuff is in this post)

Appendix N for Animist Setting

We are Building a Religion

The Game is Alive

Worlds out of Phase: There is Only Forward Here

****************************************************************************

Tl;dr

Psychedelic Time Lords across a bunch of mini-Krakoas in frozen moments collecting Pokemon and going on adventures across spacetime, stalked by horror monsters, facing punk rock moon witches, Infernal insectoids, Orwellian pigs, The Imperium of Man, an alien dark web, and the oppressiveness of a world unexamined.

The Surrealists believe that the place of dreams is as real as the material world, and in some ways they are correct. The Dreaming observe the moment. Really, observe it, the full canvas of it, phase rotating it so that what is normally fuzzy and obscured in peripheral vision is brought to the center of focus. It's like rotating around a Penrose Triangle Sculpture, except it's all of reality around a single moment.

Penrose Triangle Sculpture for reference. It only appears like a paradoxical triangle from a particular angle.

It's amazing how different things can appear when observed from different angles.

The Dreaming are a living community. When The Dreaming coalesce around a moment, the ecosystem uniquely transforms around them, pooling into a geologically transient Dream Lake. 

But most of the time, they wander in small bands from moment to moment like ships passing in the night, like blood cells or worker bees, independent yet coordinated on a scale beyond what any individual can perceive.

The Dreaming explore moments out of want, not need.

The only universal meanings of life are those that can be mutually agreed upon, an absurd and seemingly irresolvable problem. In lieu of a solution, The Dreaming embrace the Sisyphean struggle, making meaning for themselves. Nonetheless each of The Dreaming, in their own way, are working towards the betterment of The Dreaming as a whole.

‘Weirdness for weirdness’ sake’ is a criticism that has often aimed at my own work over many years. It’s a phrase I find lazy and borderline meaningless.

I’ve yet to read ‘it’s weirdness for story’s sake’ or ‘for effect’s sake’ or ‘for fuck’s sake’…

Grant Morrison

The Dreaming face opposition.

The problems The Dreaming invite upon themselves are faced with joy, but otherwise conflict is generally avoided. Even so, some uninvited problems must be faced eventually.

The Personal Horror

Everyone has a Time Self (current incarnation), and an Eternity Self (superorganism across time).

The Eternity Self stalks the Time Self patiently, sometimes hiding and sometimes allowing itself to be seen, to strike fear. The Time Self knows there will be a moment when it must defend itself in mortal conflict against the Eternity Self, and that moment will likely not be of their choosing. Until that moment, the Eternity Self is their Personal Horror, an uncanny reflection of everything about themselves they must overcome.

Defeating one's Personal Horror is a rite of passage for The Dreaming, and a gift of choice, whether or not to continue the struggle or allow it to transform them.

To be defeated by one's Personal Horror is to be consumed by the Eternity Self and reincarnated as a new Time Self.

Termina

Termina is to Anima as Undead is to the Living. It is "Unnatural", animation without meaning or only a hollow pretense, and incapable of growth or change. Like undead, no single Termina is as threatening as the idea it represents and its ability to spread like a disease.

Supernature

The myth of humanity's supremacy becomes undeniable when one rotates a moment and sees for themselves the vastness that surrounds them.

Humanity, Anima, the Natural World, Physical Laws, and all the other things compose Supernature.

The Pigs are useful allies who capably handle the dirty work The Dreaming generally don't like to deal with. Things like fighting, politicking, and worst of all "leading" (when one must engage with hierarchy). Even so, The Dreaming have faced no threat greater than when a Pig Warlord consolidates power. The Pig Gangs raid, pillage, and enslave, but also disseminate misinformation, engage in political sabotage, and foment populist revolution.

The Dark Forest is like a shadow of the Mycelium Matrix, a distributed psychedelic superorganism hostile to The Dreaming, seemingly by design.

The United Spacetimes of America is a multiversal empire that  believes it is their manifest destiny to colonize all of existence, including The Dreaming. Their size, rigid hierarchy, labyrinthine bureaucracy, and single-mindedness make them easy enough to outmaneuver, but if caught in their grasp, their mad weapons and unstoppable bureaucratic inertia make them a dangerous force of supernature.

The Radioactive Hive are both empowered and consumed by a grudge they've long ago forgotten. Their sheer biomass, explosive nuclear power, and algorithmic genius would destroy all of existence, if not counterbalanced by the aimlessness of their endless rage; rebels without a cause; the dog that chases a car without thought towards what ends. Incapable of being reasoned with, their only means of communication is their chemically infectious anger which spreads exponentially like wildfire or explosions.

The Infrasonic Moon Witch is a living presence, like the qualia of a song or skin to skin touch. It oscillates in beams of light, the gravity folds of spacetime, and the Humanist interrelationship between all Anima. The tides and moonlight are its greatest familiars, but most beings with a cyclical nature pay some homage to it. A nurturing force that must be relied upon even when one knows, inevitably, it will betray them.

Weird & Wonderful Worlds

Have I defined Weird and Wonderful before? I talk a lot about Weird, but why Wonderful?

Weird is what is juxtaposed against the known and normal. It is a feeling, unsettling, or like the appeal of poking a stinging blister. It is something for which you lack frame of reference, or is beyond frame of reference. It can also be an anachronism, an uncanny valley. It's a kind of spiritual openness. Weird has been explained elsewhere better, but this is where I'm coming from.

Wonder is when the known and normal are exceeded and redefined. It is eureka and understanding and doing. It is the scientific method and systems and information theory, coding, math, linguistics. It's like the Dunning Kreuger Effect; the more you know, the more you realize there is to be known.

"Weird & Wonderful" is a common enough phrase, but actually, they are often placed at odds. Spiritualism vs. Materialism, Ancient vs. Modern; these limiting false binaries.

Statistics and probabilities, germs, genetics, atoms, control systems, are all really Weird. They are not necessarily intuitive, and for all the Wonder that comes from understanding them, it reveals more Weird unknowns that never quite reconcile with our sensory-perception of the world.

The majesty of nature, the interconnectedness of collaborative spiritualism, the introspection that can come from ritual, are all Wonderful; they reveal hidden aspects of the self and the world, without diminishing what else can be.

Wonder in the absence of Weird is like an addiction, an unsustainable compulsion to squeeze more out of the finite. It's wanting answers in the absence of questions, wanting not for Wonder but just to get back to baseline.

Weird in the absence of Wonder is meandering and circular. A kiddie pool can be mistaken for the infinite expanse of ocean if you refuse to measure its bounds.

Wonder creates the space for a far more vast and rich Weird, and Weird asks the questions and demands the slow contemplation to keep Wonder from spiraling out unsustainably.

Termina: Animist Necromancy, Gestört, Radiation of the Nihilist Supra-Organism, a Waste Product of Capitalism, The Sleeping, and other things

In Animist beliefs, life and death are non-binary; Ancestor Spirits carry a presence as nodes in the Superorganism network, the spirit in all things. Communing with the dead is a natural and spiritual practice.

Termina is not that.

Termina is to Anima as Undead is to the Living.

It is the Null-Spirit, the Gestört, the Nihilist Supra-Organism. A collection of things without parsimony, collectively less than the sum of its parts.

A radiation, a waste product of rampant expansion towards meaningless ends. An inefficiency, the churn of capitalistic profiteering.

A linear extrapolation of a spirit at its end. Ambulating without change or purpose, an Undead Cancer.

An Anti-Mutation, a hungry abomination monopolizing future potentialities.

The miracle of Anima, the self-organization of a universe in a low-entropy state, is its improbability. Termina are the creeping tendrils of entropy— eldritch enzymes unraveling proteins, molecules, and ideas, leaving behind a high-probability, undifferentiated state where everything equals nothing.

Broad Categories of Termina

1. The imagined idea of another person, and parasocial relationships.
2. Inert bureaucracies.
3. "Content" generated solely to be consumed.
4. "Solutions" in search of a problem.
5. Advertisement per se.
6. Generative AI as weaponized by capitalists or consumed by those who neither understand nor care to learn ML.
7. Christianity as weaponized by colonizers to genocide peoples and ideas, or the shibboleths of religion.
8. Unconscientious artifice.
9. Measures in violation of Goodhart's law.
10. Weapons of warfare and state violence.

Termina is also not this, but it'll look good in the thumbnail.

The Sleeping

Necromancers of Termina, in contrast to The Dreaming.

Their power comes from striving for power; auto-catalytic; the shrewdness of a single-minded predator; weaponized ignorance self-replicating.

The Relationships between The Sleeping and Termina are of a transactional nature, thoughtless, coercive, and isolating.

Example Termina

1. Forged painting.
2. Smartphone with designed obsolescence.
3. Snake oil.
4. Homeopathic water.
5. Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.
6. NFT Bored Ape.
7. E-Meter.
8. Reproduction of the original Colt Revolver.
9. Property deed of stolen lands.
10. Private Equity LLC.

One day I'll actually properly write up this setting, but for now it'll just keep coming out piecemeal...

Against the Grey Play Report 3: Butt-Busty Baboon Rube Goldberg Machines, or Inception but with a Mutant Squirrel Eyeball Monster

Between the previous session and this one the group did a Reach of the Roach God side adventure set in the same campaign universe, but I was not present for that game and at least so far it has not directly impacted this campaign afaik, but with Huffa's permission I might share that PR down the line as well if it becomes relevant.

Reminder that I don't write these, it's (almost*) all Huffa :), which explains why they're better than my usual PRs lol.

* I believe this PR was not written until a little after the fact so it was lighter on details, so I've tried to fill in a bit more myself. As a result Jabronsky's actions are overrepresented here.

The game continues to get better and better with each session, for real.

I will return to writing my own posts sooner or later, I've just had a very busy summer...

Previous PRs:

1. Against the Grey Play Report 1: We Did an Akira and now the Eye Panopticon is Onto Us
2. Against the Grey Play Report 2: BOB!BAAAAAAHB!BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHB! (Translation: Please Kill Me!)

Characters

Jabronski (Me)

A rock.

Vacillates between slightly agitated and at peace with the universe.

Gastrolithic neurotoxic "frog" companion.

Can sporecast from within the companion.

Hark (Gibran)

Human fighter/barbarian-type who is a gung-ho stoner. Gets up to shenanigans, but also often comes up with clever plans.

Maude the Badger (Onya)

(She/her) Gun lovin, bomb throwin, grumpy old lady. 

Onya: "Loosely based on my grandma, and an old weird anarchist I met as a kid. Both were kinda scary and problematic."

Play Report

We began last session with you all drifting down in the balloon into the portion of the river where the Grey were extracting their spirit distillate - which appears extremely and dangerously polluted.

Somehow you managed to divert the balloon away from the river, but were spotted by Greys at their camp (which had been largely destroyed the session before).

The balloon crashed into a big tree in the forest north of the camp. There you encountered a squirrely that had been dosed with the distillate, and gave it psychedelic therapy*

* Max Note: This is actually really underselling it lol, it was a classic Max psychonautical thing involving the Mycelium Matrix and incepting the squirrel eyeball monster (which incidentally Huffa described really well at the time, it was much creepy) to overcome its childhood traumas.

Some of the Greys that had been sent after you landed on top of the tree and Jabronsky used invoked one of his Freaky Fractals* to keep them at bay.

* Max Note: Butt-busty baboons! It involved a Rube Goldbergian chain of events of agitated butt-busty baboons cascading cacophony of chaos and violence.

You got down the tree and began heading northward toward the Sacred Cave where you know mercenaries hired by the Greys were planning a raid on the hoard the Watchers had collected there to sacrifice to the spirits of the Forest.

You all made your way to the cave. The mercs had already attempted an infiltration when you arrived and you intervened. Here my memory gets very murky. As I recall you saw some of them sneaking in and one/some of you snuck in to warn the guards inside, while others of you approached the mercs still at the camp outside?

Huffa: addendum!

just remembered this bit

You left Chord to setup shop and make bombs and repair the balloon in the tree.

Against the Grey Play Report 2: BOB!BAAAAAAHB!BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHB! (Translation: Please Kill Me!)

Previous Play Report:

Against the Grey Play Report 1: We Did an Akira and now the Eye Panopticon is Onto Us

The first session was fun, but this one is where we begin to hit our stride. Two of the players from the first group left and one new player joined. It's not until one or two more sessions where we land on what I hope is our permanent group.

This session included some improvised Concept Crafting* towards the end (during the defense of Chord's home), more Mycelium Matrix shenanigans, and The BOBs!

*My most recent Concept Crafting-related blog post, Anima Crafting, with links to previous posts.

Characters

Jabronski (Me)

A rock.

Vacillates between slightly agitated and at peace with the universe.

Gastrolithic neurotoxic "frog" companion.

Can sporecast from within the companion.

Maude the Badger (Onya)

(She/her) Gun lovin, bomb throwin, grumpy old lady. 

Onya: "Loosely based on my grandma, and an old weird anarchist I met as a kid. Both were kinda scary and problematic."

Hark (Gibran)

Human fighter/barbarian-type who is a gung-ho stoner. Gets up to shenanigans, but also often comes up with clever plans.

Play Report

The group started off at the Haunted Watermill a few days after the events at the end of last session.

While hanging out with the Rebels there, they heard about the various things that were going on in The Forest. They heard the following:

- The Greenwood-Grey Compound is currently occupied by an emergency dispatch of troops, and more equipment, weapons and people are en route from Greenwood (city)

- Some kind of apparition had been appearing in the Haunted Watermill and stealing strange items

- The maiden who was supposed to set alight the boat in the Burning Boat festival held in the Forest Village has gone missing

- Chord who supplies bombs to the Rebels has found his hut in the path of the New Road being built by the Greenwood-Grey Company

- The Watchers at the Sacred Cave have reported that Mercenaries in the Forest appear to be planning a raid on the hoard of treasure they had gathered from the Greenwood-Grey Company to sacrifice to the spirits of The Forest

- The Eye Panopticon has grown 50%

Kitsch disappeared without explanation shortly after the events at the Greenwood-Grey Compound

- Grench did not meet up with the rest of the crew after and may have been captured by the Greys 

- something glinting and golden was seen passing high above in the sky yesterday afternoon, the elders have debated what kind of omen this might on the eve of the Burning Boat festival

The group decided to travel up to Chord's Home to attempt to save him and his equipment from the Greenwood-Grey Company and their Bob - driven bulldozers. And then make their way on to the Sacred Cave to deal with the Mercenaries there.

En route they encountered some other Mercenaries attempting to make a delivery to the Greenwood-Grey Compound. Their caravan had become stuck in the mud.The caravan is pulled by two Bobs. (Bobs are turtles with human faces created by the Greys and used as a pack animals. They piteously croon 'Boooob' as they labor. No one outside the Greys knows how they are made.)

Hark decided to approach them and ‘play it cool’. Their leader Rum, a mean tit bird, sees them all and immediately tries to recruit them to help. Several schemes develop. Maud suggests using her firewater to blow up the caravan and doing it in such a way the it looks like an accident. While preparing to do this they encounter Trish a very young raccoon who has stowed away in the caravan. They also discover that the caravan is carrying extremely high quality muskets made exclusively by and for the Greys. 

At this point a revised scheme is hatched, with Jabronski suggesting that he speak to the mud via the Mycelium Matrix and ask that it take the caravan and keep it safe for them until they return to get it. Meanwhile, Trish starts crying and Rum comes over to investigate. His lackeys Mal and Mak, both join. A couple of things then happen:

- The mud does indeed take the caravan, seemingly keeping it safe

- Rum becomes so frustrated by the situation that he storms off

- Mal and Mak decide to take responsibility for Trish and take her back to Greenwood (city) . They leave under the impression that Trish is some kind of spy for the Rebels. Trish reveals that her family is fairly wealthy in Greenwood (city) . Mal and Mak leave on their ‘secret mission’.

- Huffa doesn't remember how the Bobs were dealt with here. Maybe they were just let go?

The group then travels on to Chord's Home. As they reach the clearing in front of the house, on the opposite side of the house from the Greys and their Bob bulldozers . They hear shouting between the Greys in the Forest on the other side of the house and Chord, asking him to come out. A loud explosion indicates his response was a bomb. Chord then pops up from a hatch in the top of the house and invites the crew inside. There they discuss what to do next.

Artist rendition of an experimental model of BOB, or possibly a BOB in its theorized larval stage.

They eventually arrive at a plan. This involves detaching the small second floor of Chord's Home, rigging a balloon from the bomb making (and bomb resistant) fabrics Chord has and using a series of explosions to power the flight of the balloon, with the second floor of Chord's Home serving as the basket of the balloon.

It will take about 24 hours to achieve this. They set to work, but in the midst of their work the Greys attempt to break into Chord's Home via the secret passageway underneath the first floor. The passageway is filled with mushrooms that make the Greys sneeze, making their approach obvious. Jabronski uses the Mycelium Matrix to talk to the mushrooms to make them increase their spore output, further debilitating the Greys and forcing them out of the tunnel. However, the spores also seep through the floorboards and begin afflicting the crew. Hark breaks open one of the wooden-shuttered windows of Chord's Home to let air in. The Greys now out of the tunnel and recovering in open air, start shooting, but their aim is not good while irritated by the spores. Hark decides to charge them and try to take their leader hostage. This does not go entirely well. And ends up with Hark captured by the Greys . Maud then finds/craft and throws a tear gas bomb at the whole group outside, debilitating everyone. And Hark is rescued and they are back inside.

With a few more hours time, while the Greys are recovering and moving the Bob bulldozers in place. The crew complete preparations for their plan. They launch the balloon with the Greys firing at them from below. And Maud drops a bomb on Chord's Home to blow it up along with the nearby Greys and Bobs. Chord's Home explodes. The Bobs bray joyfully for this sweet release as they are blown to pieces. The shockwave from the explosion pushes the balloon off course and they find themselves over the Radiant Pool quickly running out of explosives and sinking directly toward it.

Against the Grey Play Report 1: We Did an Akira and now the Eye Panopticon is Onto Us

I've been playing in an IRL game of Against the Grey GMed by Huffa, who is herself one of the designers of the game. I don't normally do PRs for games where I'm a player, but Huffa has written excellent recaps and does not have a blog of her own and she's given me permission to share them here :).

Against the Grey description from the itch.io page:

A system agnostic adventure about anthropomorphic animals taking up arms to defend their forest against the greed of the Grey.

We're using an extremely rules light WIP system by Huffa called Being and Time which you can learn more about by following Huffa.

Images all taken from our discord server...

Setting

We are a heterarchical cell of rebels fighting against a Dutch East India Company-like organization called the Greenwood-Grey Company colonizing an Early Modern-ish Forest society.

The entire world of Against the Grey is itself just one hex of a larger "hex crawl" including material generated with Between the Skies and various elements created by us as a group. For instance, in our campaign, The Mycelium Matrix is integrated into the setting. It is part of a larger connected universe of campaigns and one-shots.

Characters

As is typical, we had some turnover in the first couple sessions, but I believe/hope we've settled into a regular group. For the first session, the following characters were present:

Jabronski (Me)

A rock.

Vacillates between slightly agitated and at peace with the universe.

Gastrolithic neurotoxic "frog" companion.

Can sporecast from within the companion.

Grench (Russ)

Kitch (Adasah)

(they/them). A two-tailed fox. Somewhere around thirty years old – seventy short of the hundred two tails is _supposed_ to take. Never left the forest. Thinks technology is dark magic.

Can transform into people (with fox-like faces)

Flying squirrel companion, Walnut (scout)

Poorly-kept sword

Acorns of healing

Maude the Badger (Onya)

(She/her) Gun lovin, bomb throwin, grumpy old lady. 

Onya: "Loosely based on my grandma, and an old weird anarchist I met as a kid. Both were kinda scary and problematic."

In typical Session 1 fashion we were still figuring things out, and we very much derailed things by the end of the session, but it was fun. Later sessions we hit our stride, but hopefully this is still entertaining. The Eye Panopticon was one of my inclusions to the setting ;).

Play Report

The PCs' cell is just outside of the Grey compound on a mission to steal a sample of the Spirit distillate. The Spirit distillate is in a locked shed at the opposite end of the camp, and can not be touched during transport lest one become Eye-Monster'd. 

There are two guards moving in rotation around the perimeter of the camp. Tax, a badger known to Maud, is overseeing some workers at the center of the camp. Recon by Kitsch's squirrel Walnut determines Tax has keys, probably to the shed.

The group split up, with Maud and Grench staying where they are and Kitsch and Jabronski heading around the perimeter to the opposite end near the shed. 

...

During this time a light from the Eye Panopticon shines on a small building near the shed and a window in the building appears to glow red in response. 

...

Grench decides to capture(??) one of the guards by...eating his head. The resulting screams alert the rest of the camp. Maud at this point throws some self-igniting fire oil to hold them off, which, unfortunately, also sets Grench's pants on fire. Grench ripped off the guard's head and doused the fire in blood. Tax and two workers run to the scene. Maud, still hidden, sees her old friend Tax was distracted by this madness, and shoots him in the head. 

...

Jabronski scouts the shed. They notice Spirit distillate is leaking out, convenient perhaps, but also dangerous. The shed's door, where the leak is occurring also faces the glowing red window. After his return, Kitsch throws Jabronski through the glowing red window. The light disappears and is replaced by two owl eyes. A matte black owl emerges, holding Jabronski, ready to fly away with him. The owl is not paying attention to Kitsch. Kitsch bashes the owl, which grabs them, throws Jabronski away, back towards Maud and Grench's side of the camp, and starts flying away.

...

Maud takes Tax's musket, murders a worker and scares the other off. More Greys are running over. Maud and Jabronski head around the perimeter of the camp, taking advantage of the confusion to get to Kitsch. Grench decides to stay behind and try to change into one of the guard's uniforms to blend in. 

...

Kitsch transforms from human form into fox form and slips out of the owl's grip and scurries under the shed. The owl begins tearing the shed apart in an attempt to get to them. 

...

En route to the shed, Jabronski goes into his frog companion's mouth and enters the mycelium matrix to discover that the owl, the Eye Monster panopticon, and a third mysterious point far to the northeast are connected via glowing threds of mycelium info transfer.

...

The owl is making slow progress getting to Kitsch and becoming increasingly covered in Spirit distillate. Jabronski and Maud arrive. Jabronski can see the Spirit distillate infecting the owl in the matrix. This is clearly _bad news_. Maud throws fire oil on the owl. The owl becomes more enraged and tears the vats of Spirit distillate open. Kitsch barely escapes. The owl is drenched and goes full Akira/Eye-monster abomination. 

...

The compound is in an uproar. 

... 

Grench is putting on pants.