#war bots

Isca is a Control specialist who... well, controls space more tangibly than the other three bots in the role, making terrain easier for her and her team to traverse the map while making it riskier for enemies to do the same.

Her main weapon is the Frost Applicator, a specialized hose system that sprays water alongside a hypercooling fluid, instantaneously creating ice in multiple firing modes, all of which draw collectively from a large reserve ammo pool. Her primary fire is Ice Shot, which fires a chunk of ice as a projectile. Its damage output is relatively unimpressive, but the ice shatters on impact, dealing minor damage to enemies in a small radius. Her secondary fire, Frost Spray, is where the core of her gameplay comes into effect. This rapid-fire conical spray has a variety of uses based on who or what the spray hits, but it can pierce any number of allies or enemies and is only blocked by barriers or terrain. Hitting enemies slowly applies Frost, a debuff that slows down the speed enemies move, reload, and recharge cooldowns, scaling up to a 50% reduction, though the effect quickly starts to wear off once the victim stops being hit. Smaller Plantoids (including Arber's pals) or buildings (like Xenir's) can also be Frosted, but this slows down their function entirely, up to completely freezing them for a couple seconds when fully frosted! Against burning allies, spraying them with frost reduces the duration of the burn effect, up to extinguishing them outright.

Spraying terrain meanwhile prompts Isca's fundamental mechanic: Ice! Most solid terrain outside of spawn rooms can be covered in Ice, which Isca's abilities interact with. Putting Ice on walkable ground makes it so Isca and any of her teammates moving on it will gain a slight passive speed boost, though only while on that terrain and shortly after leaving it. Ice can also be applied to walls and ceilings, though only bots like Poppett and Hestia, who can directly slide or climb on walls, can benefit from the speed boost. Don't ask how putting ice on a wall makes it easier to climb for Hestia. Iced terrain will gradually thaw over time, but the only way an enemy can get rid of it early is by having another Isca lay down her own ice over it, or by having Otto clean it while in his vehicle mode. You can also spray the surface of water to freeze it, turning it into a circular patch of solid terrain, which does count as Ice for the sake of the speed boost and your other abilities. Ice platforms can be damaged by players on either team to destroy them early, or they thaw out naturally on their own after a shorter time than normal ice. Jumping into ice platforms from below will damage them, so there shouldn't be too many ways to get stuck with these... hopefully.

You also have one more trick with the Frost Applicator: press primary fire while holding secondary fire to perform a Flash Freeze, creating a burst of frost in a wider cone than a normal spray, which does a burst of damage, applies a burst of Frost, instantly puts out burning teammates, quickly freezes water, and coat a wider area of ground in Ice. While useful as a burst of the many utilities of Frost Spray, it has a minor windup period and more significant endlag before you can use the other firing modes again. It also uses up a big chunk of your ammo with each use, so use when you need it most.

Isca's body has a couple unique quirks giving her unique movement options in both surf and turf.

When underwater, Isca is the only bot who can outright swim, as other bots simply sink. She moves faster horizontally, and can hold jump to swim upwards or crouch to move downwards.

Above the surface meanwhile, Isca can get around faster with her Body ability, Belly Slide. After lunging forward, Isca uses her sled-like underbelly to slide along the ground at faster speeds for a short time. However, the duration of the slide can be extended indefinitely by sliding on Iced terrain or by sliding downhill, both of which also increase your speed on top of any additional modifiers, while going uphill (even on iced terrain) slows you down. You can also turn while sliding by strafing left or right, but this will slow you down as you curve. You can also jump while sliding, and the height varies on both your speed and the angle of the terrain you jump off of. There's a lot of variables at play with this ability, but the key part is that you can go faster and for longer while sliding on ice-coated paths. It has a short cooldown, but isn't good for too much unless you master its control nuances and utilize its terrain-dependent qualities.

Of course, you can't slide underwater, so while swimming you only perform the quick lunge forward. However, you go a little farther than in the air, and can aim the dash upwards or downwards, making it a usable option to move faster or evade attacks while swimming.

Isca's Accessory is an explosive finisher for her base kit: Ice Mines! These discreet deployables activate based on proximity and detonate after a short delay, that dealing damage and applying Frost to any enemies caught in the frigid blast. The damage and splash radius is slightly unimpressive, but Isca can carry up to 3 charges of the ability at a time, and have up to 6 active in the field. Unlike other accessories, picking up ammo can restore charges of the cooldown, with small ammo packs restoring 1 charge and large packs restoring 2. Mines can however be destroyed harmlessly by enemy attacks.

Ice Mines also have a two-way interaction with Ice. Mines placed on Ice, including on walls or ceilings, are hidden from the view of enemies. This is only visual though: they can still be shot and destroyed just as easily (and give the normal audio and visual feedback when doing so), and they function normally when activated. However, Ice Mines will also maintain any Iced terrain in an area around them, making it so the ice won't thaw naturally until the mines are destroyed. Use these two aspects together to maintain control over an area, keeping a path of ice for you and your team to take advantage of for mobility, while also making it riskier for enemies to traverse it recklessly. A tip to play against this: if an area's been locked down by ice for a while, take note of circles of ice that haven't thawed. Shoot for the center and you'll probably find the mine maintaining it. A counter to this counterplay: use multiple mines to create irregularly shaped ice patches to make it harder to pinpoint where individual mine is. Of course, this spaces out the damage potential or area you can cover, so there'll always be some give and take.

That covers the default kit, but her alternate gear varies her playstyle and utility a fair bit, so getting into those:

Her alternate weapons all change what exactly you spray with your frost, varying her utility and lethality accordingly. Do note that any other terrain modifiers besides Ice will let you extend and move faster with Belly Slide and conceal Ice Mines, unless stated otherwise.

The Snow Sprayer produces soft slushy snow on the ground instead of ice, laced with repairing nanites that heal allies walking through it rather than speeding them up. The rate at which the snow heals your team is based on how fast they move through it. Its primary fire produces snowballs, which do a slight burst of healing to your teammates on impact in addition to damaging enemies. Its damage with all attacks is reduced and it Frosts enemies much less efficiently, but it excels at providing a supplementary source of healing to your team.

The Sharp Chiller creates unique Sharp Ice, slowing and damaging enemies who walk through it rather than offering any benefits to allies. The damage and slowdown only apply while moving, though unlike Snow, the damage rates are consistent regardless of the enemy's speed. Its Ice Shots are sharpened into icicles, which don't explode on impact, but fly faster, arc less, and can headshot to deal critical damage. Its Ice Spray deals more damage, applies Frost faster, and has slightly longer range, but has a narrower width of effect and consumes ammo faster. It struggles to maintain terrain and doesn't support the team as directly, but it gives Isca an appreciable boost to her lethality.

The Wipeout Washer replaces cooling compounds with raw high-pressure water, which can only briefly Soak terrain. Soaked terrain offers no special benefits and dries quickly, but can extend Belly Slide and will freeze into normal Ice if in contact with Ice Mines. The primary fire shoots balls of water that deal minor knockback in their blast radius. Secondary fire shoots a stream of water that rapidly pushes back enemies as it hits rather than apply Frost, and Flash Freeze becomes a Flash Flood that launches enemies away. All of these attacks can not only extinguish burning allies with increased efficiency, but can also clear Muck debuffs as well. You even passively replenish reserve ammo while underwater! This is a major playstyle shift, trading the slowdowns and area control of ice for the pushing power of water.

Isca's Body gear options add some modifications to her Sled Belly, giving additional options to her movement capabilities at a tradeoff to her existing ones.

The world-famous Zam-Belly (tm) automatically applies Ice (or Snow/Water) from your Applicator onto the ground while sliding, letting you slide at maximum efficiency across new terrain and let allies behind you reap the benefits (or pursuing enemies deal with the pains of Sharp Ice). This comes at the cost of draining your reserve ammo though, and you can only slide across uncovered terrain for 3 seconds, though sliding on covered terrain pauses the timer. Get Zam-Belly (tm) today to speed up your ice coating duties in style!

The Hydro Jets make the impossible possible for just a moment, letting you fly into the air or rocket to the ground with a burst of water that can be aimed in any direction for a single more powerful lunge! It's even better underwater, as you can dash forward indefinitely and steer in any direction, and get a decreased cooldown when the ability ends! However, you can't slide on the ground, and have a slightly increased cooldown when used in the air. This is best used for when burst movement or high ground access is crucial, or if you can't make use of sliding across long paths.

Finally, her other Accessories increase her area control with unique interactions.

Stoat Seekers are automated tracking explosive drones, which pursue enemies as long as they have an ice trail to follow. Stoats come from Stoat Nests, larger deployables that have significantly increased health and maintain ice in a larger range, but can't hide under ice or attach to walls and ceilings. You also can only have two active nests at a time, can only store the cooldown of one, and can't replenish them with ammo packs. Once the nest is placed, it will periodically generate up to 3 Stoat Seekers, which will rest on top of the nest until an enemy makes contact with any Iced terrain that the nest has a path to. Once a target is found, the Seeker will chase them down at high speeds and explode instantly on contact, dealing only slightly less damage and Frost than an Ice Mine. The Seekers themselves are invincible, but will return to their nest if they no longer have a valid target on any accessible ice, pivot to a new target if a valid one exists and their initial one left their range, or self-destruct if they are no longer on ice or lack either a valid target or a path back to their nest. Only one Seeker from each nest can be active at a time, with the next leaving the nest once the prior one explodes. Stoat Seekers require unique positioning and maintenance to make the most use of, allowing you to create networks of autonomous defenders.

Deep-Freeze Globes are small snowglobe-like devices that supercharge any Ice they have a point of contact with, causing it to glow and have double its usual effectiveness. This means a doubled movement speed bonus for standard Ice (including frozen Water from the Wipeout Washer), doubled healing rates for Snow, and doubled damage and slowdown for Sharp Ice. Snowglobes have slightly more health and an increased ice maintenance range, but they can't be hidden and you can only have 3 active at a time, while still being able to carry 3 charges at once. The snowglobes also don't deal any damage whatsoever, entirely focusing in on the utility of whatever your Frost Applicator can provide.

Isca is the most unique and in-depth of the Control specialists, with an icy arsenal of abilities and interactions. She's got expressive mobility, area denial, crowd control debuffs, and AOE damage, but all relying on either prep time or the constraint of her ammo as the fundamental resource it all relies on. Her kit naturally inclines itself to a defensive playstyle, but using her unique means of claiming territory can give her team a foothold and maintain momentum on offense. Her alternate gear can vary her playstyle a lot, and the interactive nature of her kit means each loadout has even more to consider. Use the Snow Sprayer, Zam-Belly, and Deep-Freeze Globes to create large areas of boosted AOE healing with an escape option that heals you as you travel. Keep the Zam-Belly but swap in the Sharp Chiller and Stoat Seekers for a devastating ambush play: set up your nests, then catch your foes in a sudden trail of sharp ice as they get bombarded by cute but insatiable seekers! Or take the Wipeout Washer and Hydro Jets together to adopt a more freeform playstyle, using Ice Mines as you wish without being committed to a cold-hard defense, especially if you can take advantage of maps with water! Or just take the stock Applicator and Belly along with snowglobes to maximize mobility.

Phew that was a complicated one. Isca is probably one of the most involved characters mechanically (like most of the fourth characters in each role, I suppose), with Frost Spray alone being perhaps the most complicated single attack in the whole game. I really wanted the last Control bot to take "area control" in an interesting new direction besides just "AOE damage". She still has that, but... y'know I think the ice thing is a little more substantial. She was actually planned as the fourth Utility bot for a while, but her kit is so thoroughly based on literally controlling area that it felt right to pivot her. Also because then whatever the fourth Control bot was, it'd mean there'd be basically 5 control bots with big area denial tools, 6 if we count Xenir because of their turret, which I'm scared would be just enough to clog the game a bit too much. The focal point of the flip came from changing her default accessory to the mines. Originally her accessory would somehow create an ice ramp, which would serve as solid cover from the front and act as a jumping point for her slide. I liked this idea of a full movement sequence, but it felt too niche and too out of place, especially when I liked the mines as an alternative. Sorsier's stone pillar ability already covers a lot of the same functionality of being both solid cover and a tool for accessing high ground anyways. Shifting the default pick from something utility-based to an area denial tool was what set her default expectation to the new role while still leaving room for interesting sidegrades.

I'm really proud of how much "crosspathing" she has access to, she's the first character where I think I nailed each individual kit option having distinct pros and cons based on what else you pair it with, rather than just pools of interesting individual options that mostly just synergize based on similar optimal use cases. Not that everybody needs to be this insane with the concept, but I think it's neat where I can push it a bit more.

Though to address an expected question... yeah, didn't I say the penguin concept was being downsized to a Velenna alt weapon? Well. It was, but then I realized the idea would be both too convoluted for an alt weapon and didn't really satisfy the concept. This was also after Martinet was cut and Nekross was swapped to Duelist, so Control and Utility got their fourth slots opened up again. I do still think the two are a bit similar: they both have arcing explosive attacks and debuff-inflicting spray attacks (hell, they're both european), but the context for both really defines them as separate characters. Velenna's kit and design still need some work. Ironically though, my flimsy idea for a potential fourth Support was downsized into Isca's water gun (and hydro jets to a lesser extent). A water-based healer has become a bit tacky anyways ever since that one college student and the smooth wet dog have hit the scene. It also feels more mechanically and thematically cohesive to condense here than it did for Velenna. Ice is just cold water, penguins swim better than they walk, the attacks can function a lot like the ice versions, it just kinda clicked to make her the Ice/Water character rather than have a separate water character.

~

Sand spilled down the stairs as the rusty metallic door was ripped off. Two bots peered down, the sunlight barely illuminating the stairs into the darkness. The bot with stiff wires sticking up out of his head turned on his lantern and walked down. The bot with the cracked visor and dented head followed.

At the end of the short steps was a large room. The lantern showed silhouettes of tools, spooled wiring, solar panels, and a small laptop.

“I think we just hit the jackpot!” cheered the stringy-haired bot. His wires twitched with joy. He pulled his brother in by the shoulder.

“Harry! Cain!” A voice screamed from the stairs.

The two bots sank and drooped.

A bot with a shorter, stout body stomped down into the lantern’s glow. “You were supposed to wait for me.”

Harry grimaced. “Typh. Does it really matter?”

“Yes. Dad commanded us to do this together. We need to be on the same page,” said Typhoon.

“I guess me and Harry have to go back 30 pages then,” said Cain, followed by a chuckle.

Her screen bore into him. “Let’s just see if we can turn on the lights.”

“Alright.” Cain walked over to a wall. He dug his claws into the metal. He dragged his hands down, peeling off the wall with a screech.

Typhoon knelt down to the freshly exposed wires and pipes.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” said Harry.

“Of course.” Typhoon fiddled with the wires. Nothing happened.

Harry groaned. “Cain.”

“On it.” He grabbed Typhoon by the shoulders, pulled her away, and tossed her onto the floor. She yelled at them to no avail.

Harry took off two jumper cables attached to his waist. He clipped them onto the building’s wires. He took the remaining ends and clipped them to his upright strands.

The lights came on.

The room was a lab. Science equipment was everywhere. There was a reinforced glass window showing a purple orb. They went through the door beside it.

On the other side was a padded room, scorched. In the center of the room was an upwards claw holding the purple orb. In the corner was a melted camera. Just below the window was a human skeleton.

“We’re rich!” The three cheered.

They raced over to the body. Naturally, Harry and Cain pushed Typhoon out of the way.

“Hey!” she shouted.

The brothers scooped up the skeleton. “Make yourself useful and finish scouring the place.” The two raced off.

Typhoon grumbled and scoured.

She went to the camera. She noticed that it was mostly intact. She plugged herself into it. There were a bunch of videos. The latest video had a human. He stood beside the purple orb, wearing heavy safety equipment that made him shorter.

“As discussed in my previous recordings, the Solar Receiver allows us to have a multitude of unique outputs through solar radiation. I have surrounded a gross of receivers inside a protective shell to showcase the limitless potential. Let’s begin,” the scientist pulled out a remote.

With a series of inputs, the orb innards began to glow orange. A geyser of flame erupted from the orb to the ceiling.

A new series of inputs, then the human tossed a red ball up. Midway through descent the orb innards turned white and the ball floated in midair.

Another series of inputs and the ball fell. The innards glowed yellow. A bolt of electricity flew into the wall.

“Success!” cheered the human. “Humanity isn’t doomed yet! With this new power we can rebuild!”

The orb innards grew black. It started to drip. Everything went white. The human screamed. Video over.

Typhoon was enamored. She needed that power like a shellless hermit crab needs an old coffee mug with ten times the legal amount of lead paint. She grabbed the camera and watched all the videos saved on it. She poured through the videos, analyzing every frame rapidly like a youtuber desperate to churn out content for a new franchise movie. The faint buzz of bots cutting apart the building sneaked into the room. She focused on the details of the receiver.

After studying, sunlight poured in through small cracks. Typhoon walked over and smashed the orb open with her fist. She pulled out the cube of interconnected receivers.

“It just needs a bit of direction.” She scanned the area.

The metal pipes jutted out of the exposed wall. She ripped one out, but not before accidentally bending a portion near the end. She fitted the pipe with the receivers.

She lifted her staff triumphantly. She made sure to hold it in the sun.

“So this is what you’ve been doing.”

Typhoon turned around. Her father stood tall, even beside her brothers. His crown tore through the sun, leaving a shadow of three claws right beneath her feet.

“You were supposed to help your brothers scrap the laboratory. Not continue its directionless experiments.” Whirl scowled.

Her brothers snickered.

“But this invention can help us! Wildest power beyond our imagination.”

“Then show us.” Her father stared at her. Her brothers rolled their eyes.

Typhoon shut her eyes. She concentrated. She felt the buzz from the connected uplinks in her hand. The staff shook. It glowed light blue. A stream of water shot out the bent end.

Her brothers jumped back. Whirl tilted his head.

“And now lighting!” Typhoon felt the buzz in her hand. The staff shook. It glowed light blue. A stream of water shot out the bent end.

Her brothers looked confused. Whirl went back to normal.

Typhoon tried again. Water. Again. Water. She focused on any other output: fire, levitation, geo manipulation, smoke, mirror, blast, heal, cleanse. Only water.

“Disappointing,” laughed her brothers.

Her father did not disagree.

~

The water was above her eyes. The sunlight bounced and shimmered around her. At least she was better kept cool while submerged.

A ripple flowed through her pond.

She sat up, tearing through the water. She whipped her staff forth, pointing at the intruder.

A plant leapt out the edge of the pond, following Typhoon’s reaction. It had three legs formed from roots, a bulbous body connecting the legs, a hunched stem neck, and 6 petals encircling a yellow eye.

The two stared at each other, puzzled.

The plant wasn’t green. It was brown. The leaves were crumpled. The petals were withered white. It trembled. The eye was dried like a flat grape. It was all alone.

Typhoon gingerly set her staff down. She beckoned the plant closer.

It stumbled forth into the water, staring at her.

“Go ahead.” Her voice was light.

The plant’s eye was locked on her. A bump traveled up each of the legs as the plant gulped. The plant paused, waiting for a reaction. After a few seconds of anticipation, the plant guzzled water. Its leaves softened. It trotted out of the water. It looked back at her.

The plant ran away.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

It did not turn back.

She fell back down. She shut her eyes.

~

The Swirl Set used land boats. The boats had wheels on the bottom for travel on land. The wheels didn’t retract when going into the water, but drag was minimized with some hydrodynamic plating.

The boats rode on the ocean. Naturally, her father’s boat, The Sinker, was the largest. It was practically a ship. All the meetings for the Set took place here. When leaders from other Sets came over, they went to speak with her father on The Sinker. Whenever there was a storm or disaster, The Sinker was the stronghold. This time, however, the meeting would be on another Set’s base.

An oil rig grew in the horizon. The Sinker pulled up to the main structure. The smaller boats hung around surrounding floating platforms holding buildings. The tallest buildings had ramshackle rope bridges to the rig, where bots bustled back and forth, hauling tools and equipment to and pails of oil fro. Everything swayed and bobbed with the sea and the storms. It’s like the city breathed. The core ripple motion was centered against the tower. The oil rig itself was tremendous. It sat on top of a fat pole, with the structure itself akin to a mythical human creature: the hamburger. A mishmashed stack of pipes, platforms, cranes, and more pipes. Centuries of rust were still being removed by workers.

Her father went with the Baron, who was notable for being one of the few bots that had authentic mint-condition wool clothing, into the rig’s tower. Whirl’s followers were free to wander the city, and his children were left to be on the rig. Harry and Caine were chatting up the guards.

Cain was busy boasting. “Yeah. I got my dent from a fight with Usari himself. It was a very very close fight. But in the end I decided to let him go.”

Harry rolled his eyes. He noticed Typhoon walking past them. “I’d rather have a drink than continue listening to you.” The bots all laughed it up. She kept walking, her steps heavier.

Through continuous practice, she had concluded that she was not creating water out of thin air. More accurately, her staff was able to pool the moisture in the air. Thus, she had been practicing to control water. It started with knocking over a cup of water without touching it. Soon, she was able to push aside the rain around her. Then, she turned her efforts back to generating water. She had just begun summoning powerful geysers wherever she wanted.

The hum of her staff told her that, naturally, there was plenty of water around to use, both in the air and in the obvious place. She looked over the railing on the lowest floor. She peeked at the ocean through the cracks of the buildings. She noticed the homes tilting back and forth. The bots looked tired and depressed. Being tossed around had drained them in every way.

She held her staff forward. She had just given it a new attachment, a shower head. She gripped it tight. Tighter. She could feel the joints in her neck stiffen, like someone had bolted a rod to the outside lengthwise. Each hole in the showerhead let out a beacon of light blue light. She thrusted her staff forward.

She held the sea still.

The homes were flat, and water looked like you could walk on it and not have your ankles bend a millimeter. The people stared up at her in awe.

“Holy shit.” “She can do that?”

She looked up. Her brothers were leaning over the railing.

Of course they doubted her. Those disgusting ingrates. Always giving her a hard time. Always calling her useless. She grew sick. Her molten fury could boil the sea. The water went from still to rapidly oscillating. She lost focus. Her staff misfired, sparks drifting down to the depths. The waves grew harder. The homes were tossed and turned. Spikes of water. Waves that were towers. Yelps. Screams.

She threw her staff to the ground. She fell back. The waves returned to normal.

From the tower’s window, her father stared down at her, his eyes still.

~

Plants of all types were gathered around Typhoon’s oasis, where the water was high enough to where she could stand straight up and have only her head fully exposed. The plants hopped and skipped in the water. The most noticeable guest was a palm tree, providing her consistent shade. There were even patches of grass rimming the water.

She would dance with the plants that came to visit. They had their own melody. The tree would shake its leaves together. The flowers would clap their petals. The grass would sway. Some of the bigger plants came into the deeper end of the pool.

Typhoon cheered and laughed and cried and smiled and jumped and screamed and yelled and even swam.

The water was never still.

~

Her cabin was dark. Schematics and blueprints lined the walls. Sporadic chains of receivers dangled from the ceiling to the floor. Faded posters of discontinued bands hung on the walls. If she could just add more. Improve more. Then everything could be fine.

The door opened. Harry and Cain peaked out of the door frame. “Typh. Dad wants to see you,” said Harry.

Typhoon hesitated. Cain stared at the floor. Harry turned his head away from her. His eyes landed on the old melted camera in the corner of the room. 

She walked out of the room, into the long hallway.

The carpet no longer had a squish. She had at least accomplished that, right? Sure there was the incident at the rig, but everything turned out fine. Dad still got the information. They were still part of the larger Array. There was no reason to discontinue her. But they were going to. Ever since the accident she heard them whispering. They probably thought she was a waste of metal.

They’re gonna take her to the room they took mom. 

Typhoon made her way to the deck. At the back of The Sinker, her father sat at the edge. He stared at the sprawling cracked white sand desert flying by.

“We need to talk. Come. Sit down with me.”

Typhoon slowly walked over. She sat. Her father put his hand on her shoulder.

Before a syllable, Typhoon flew off the boat. 

She slammed into the sand. She scrambled up and ran after the boat.

She saw her father walk back in. No time wasted.

She ran and ran until the boat was a black dot on the horizon. She cried and screamed. She fell. 

She didn’t get back up. 

She rolled over, body sprawling across the white sand. Her staff laid beside her. She stared up at the sun. The staff dripped.

She laid still.

~

A beam of light shone through the water. It was the middle of the night. The light swam through the pond.

Typhoon grabbed her staff and leapt up. The source was right on the edge of the pond. Her staff hummed with blue light. “Stop right where you are.”

“Ah. So that’s how you do it,” said a deep voice.

“Who are you?”

“May I step forward?”

Typhoon tried to focus her eyes in the darkness. “Fine.” She kept her grip on her staff. The beam of light engulfed her. She could feel the staff’s energy somehow still growing.

A large bot stepped into the light’s scope. He was a truncated pyramid flipped upside down. Akin to a pot, but far more angular. His feet were x-shaped with thick clamps. His large hands had 5 digits. He had bulky arms and legs. Plants stood out of the top of him. He had squarish, glowing yellow eyes.

“I’m your friends’ caretaker.”

“Friends?”

The light scope grows, revealing a horde of sentient plants surrounding the pond.

Typhoon lowered her staff.

“We’ve heard quite the praise about you. They seem to be very fond of you.”

The plants jump up and down in joy. Typhoon could almost hear their cheering. She bobbed a little curtsy. “Thank you.”

“Yes. You would be perfect to join us.”

“Join you?”

“There are many more plants that need you. If you’re willing.” He outstretched his huge hand.

She reached out. The three bots and their plants walked off into the desert, past the moonlight, and leaving a trail the wind would disappear.