And this Path remains

Been a while, but hey, that's what happens when one experiences a sudden spike in productivity. Which is exactly what happened to me ever since I regained the access to the Path of Black Leaves.

Fortissimo sure enjoyed reconnecting with her home, she missed it, the unstable nature of that place, the constantly warping reality, the constant heaviness in the air, far different from the reality we all inhabit over here. I sympathise with her, as soon as she began to exhibit her changes with me, back when I was alive, our Tall Friend kicked her out and severed her connection to The Path. Funny how that could be interpreted as a parent kicking their child out for being "different", I'm sure Malik can relate.

So how did we get back inside The Path if mine and Fortissimo's connection has been severed to it? Welp, my newly established partnership with Malik turned out to be a 2 for 1 deal. His friend, Franky, decided to join us as well, most likely for the purposes of watching over Malik. I have been aware of Franky's curious ability to not only summon Maenad's to our reality, but also, somehow control them, what I wasn't aware of, is that he also had access to The Path and could actually navigate through it flawlessly. When I had access to The Path, navigating through it was a pain in the ass, sometimes I could nail exactly the moment as to when I should exit it in order to end up where I need to be, most of the times I would miss my exit point and would end up being stuck inside of it for weeks/months.

Suffice to say, I've been curious as to Franky's "human" nature ever since.

But that's a topic for some time later, let's talk about the previously mentioned "productivity". Now that I no longer had to travel across the world through the painful means of a flight service, we've been busy locating a new base of operations and cleaning up certain loose ends. Not to mention, working on actually being a team, which has been a bit of a rusty endeavour: refusal to do what I request them to do, constantly questioning the purposes of my plans and constantly nagging on about going after Malik's interests while putting mine on the shelf. Overall, it's been rough, but, it'd be lying if said it wasn't worth it, because of Malik's strategical thinking, we've been able to "take care of" certain "issues" flawlessly and with minimal risk.

However, we must also acknowledge that the ease of our operations also comes from the fact that our Tall Friend is currently occupied. You see, due to recent events, undoubtedly caused by The Plague Doctor, I'm guessing our Tall Friend was forced into becoming active in a conflict with The Plague Doctor. Far more people are living in fear of contracting a deadly disease these days than anything else, the food chain is under threat and our Tall Friend, I'm assuming, can't afford that to happen.

Of course, all of that is just mere speculation on my end, mostly because I haven't seen our Tall Friend for months now, which is strange considering the nature of our "activities". Oh well, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, nevertheless, this recent panic has been working in my favour deliciously.

So, how's everyone else been? Are any of you even still alive out there?