EVENTS:

Klimt, Mary and Peggy eat together, the two girls sitting conspicuously close to him. Emilia seems a lot less voracious than the day before, but still consumes twice as much as usual. Rosa, on the other hand...

Well, her open ribcage makes eating a sight to behold. Her stomach stretches to inhuman proportions as she cosumes pound after pound of meat, quickly shrinking back down when her digestive juices kick in, leaking slightly where her body was sutured.
After asking Mary for seconds seven or eight times, she actually gets up to go grab more food herself, her previously skeletal legs having swollen to the point they could actually support her body. She doesn't bother with a plate or cutlery, either, going at the roasted deer with sharp teeth and claws like an apex predator.

Mary: "Uhm. Rosa, dear, are you quite all right? You seem a bit... Feral, I suppose?"

Rosa's only answer is to burp loudly, before silencing her growling stomach with another cut of venison. The others can't help but notice a growing bump on her lower back, looking almost like a... Tail? It certainly wags around like one.



Meanwhile, Eigla has started to work on the garden, pounding logs into the ground to use as fence posts. Her body is so impervious to damage she barely needs tools to drive them in, occasionally using her fists in place of a hammer.

While going to pick up more materials, she passes by Mary's modest flower bed. Oh my, a rose seems to be blooming. She moves closer to smell the large, crimson blossom-

Ow. She feels a stinging pain, and realises she's stabbed her thumb on a thorn. A small droplet of blood runs down her skin.


FRAGMENT OF MEMORY: WALLED GARDEN
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Eigla opened her eyes again. The rose was gone, and so was her wound. Her hand was covered in small red patterns, like petals. It was a part of her now, and it would never wilt.

EVENTS:

Eigla walks inside! She plans on sitting beside Rosa and helping her eat, but the gunner is standing and eating very well on her own, thank you very much.

Wait. Did Rosa always have such an appetite? Did she always have a long, muscular, fish-like tail, too? Did she always wear shorts - wait no those are not shorts, her hips are just covered in scales.

Uhm.

Eigla: "Are you, um, feeling okay Rosa? I know that's kinda weird to ask after you got hurt..."

Rosa: "Yes.
Thank you for lending me your stomach, it's coming in very useful for digesting food.
The mud creature was certainly a tough fight. We need a tool for re-positioning ourselves mid-battle.
Oh. Mary. Did you know there was a large mud creature covered in bones and tentacles in the nearby swamp? It was persistent."


Mary: "Uhm. There is a swamp nearby? I, I am afraid I do not often leave these grasslands. It's far too dangerous, as I'm sure you have just experienced."

EVENTS:


Mary: "You seem to have grown it, within the last half hour.

All those calories went straight to your tush, dear!~"

The shepherdess stretches, yawning.

Mary: "Well... Today was rather exciting, wasn't it? Perhaps... We should try to live a bit more carefully for a while. The days will grow shorter soon, and there'll be less room for error when roaming the woods.

So, shall we all go to sleep? I'm sure my bed is spacious enough for - "

She grimaces, looking at Emilia and Peggy.

Mary: "Fffffour. Sigh."



You all feel like things will become quieter for the foreseeable future. Perhaps this is a good thing.

[Timeskip? Fill in with your broad objectives for the next few weeks]

EVENTS:
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Weeks, then months pass at the farm. The party repair themselves, then their clothes. Their minds take a bit more effort, but they slowly begin to ease themselves into the routine.


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KLIMT

Klimt spends most of his time exercising, trying to kickstart his dead heart. When pushups and shadowboxing produce no effect, he turns to lifting huge boulders and caber tossing trees, replenishing his energy with copious amounts of raw meat.

It works, at least to a point - he experiences a temporary high right after exercising, and can see his skin looking less grey and unhealthy, but the feeling soon subsides.
Despite himself, he feels jealous of Rosa and Emilia. They looked so fierce, so... Alive, by simply spending enough energy to absorb their new parts. He was burning infinitely more calories, then- Why must everything feel so muted?

Nevertheless, his training regimen helps him in other areas. His limbs grow more muscular, and every day he seems a bit less tired after working out. As scars begin to cover his toned pecs, he finds himself feeling as less of a boy and more of a man.

He also hunts a great deal, either looking for deer with Peggy, or releasing his frustrations by pounding Mudmen into the ground. He sees several Mud Kings in the depths of the forest, but decides not to pick a fight with them just yet. They're not going anywhere, after all, and the Flesh from their minions is more than enough to keep the party in good condition.

While he never quite learns to enjoy the feeling of Peggy's slimy, misshapen body against his own, he grows accustomed to it. Their afternoons together are spent discussing the state of the world, sharing survival techniques or just enjoying one another's company. Inside the many-armed creature, there was a very human, girlish mind, and he is reminded of it with every cuddle and kiss.

He teaches Emilia a great deal. She is always eager to follow whatever orders he gives her, and makes a genuine effort to act and talk in a more natural manner. He tries to feed her bits of his Flesh to accelerate the process, but quickly gives up on the idea: it seems to always leave her depressed and selfdestructive.
Still, she continues to taste him in other ways, and their bond strengthens daily.

Mary's attraction for him grows less desperate, but considerably more pleasant. She seems to always be there to help him dress his wounds after his hunts, and wipe the sweat off his body post-workout. Of the three, she by far the one that pushes him to improve himself the most, cheering at every pushup and stretch, and beaming whenever he lets her feel his pecs.
He rewards her lavishly, and she indulges in every moment of it.

Often, he sees Eigla and Rosa pensive, uncertain. He lets them know he's always there to Comfort them if needs be, but they never take him up on the offer. Despite their friendship, he feels he lacks the fierce bond the two girls have with one another.



EIGLA

Eigla continues to be industrious: The small smokehouse turns into two, the vegetable garden expands daily, and the cottage becomes a sanctuary for her and Rosa, free from the nightly noises of the main farmhouse.

With Mary's help, she forages for hardier roots capable of being planted in the late summer, and soon her garden blooms with rows of turnips and broccoli. Frequent hunts make sure the smokehouse is never idle, and the wolf pack is sufficiently mollified.
More than once she comes across the Red Wolf roaming the forest, but the creature never acts aggressively toward her, even as the days grow shorter and the game more scarce.

In more than one way, her efforts are flourishing, but she still feels unsatisfied. There is a... Distance, a strangeness between her and Rosa, a gap she can't quite seem to cross. She can't help but compare herself to Klimt, and envy his bizzarre harem.
Still, Rosa was the one person she'd chosen to love, and nothing would change that. Not her strange body modifications, nor her occasional lapses into halting, off-character speech.



ROSA

Aside from helping the others with their hunts, Rosa dedicates most of her time to repairing herself. Even for the undead, there is a limit to how much a body can repair itself, and hers had long gone past it.

She feeds her Coffin most of the Flesh Klimt brings from his battles, but it still refuses to print sufficiently human body parts. Several repairs attempts are made, and none succeed in full: The metal box's interior is now covered with a substantial layer of organs and tentacles, and ignores most of her commands. Only by bargaining with small morsels of Meat can she convince it to produce reasonably plain sheets of skin and muscle. When examining the remaining mechanical parts, she notices the unit has a small symbol of a skull and flower by its serial number.

She turns to Mary for help, and the shepherdess delivers. Surprisingly, she seems to have a vast knowledge of medical and surgical procedures, though she refuses to tell where she acquired them. With the older Doll's aid, Rosa learns to fabricate enough parts to restore her body to a semblance of normalcy, at least when viewed from a distance.

Not all is well, however. The tail seems to increase in size daily, and the scales encroach on her torso. She feels... Strange, incomplete. Like she was stuck with a form that wasn't truly hers.
The more she thinks about it, the more she fears that might be the human form.


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There is a chill in the air today. The three of you are watching idly as the flock moves across the rocky fields, when you hear a whistle. Emilia climbs down from her perch atop a nearby tree, looking agitated.

Emilia: "Master Klimt! I saw, someone, on the horizon! A shape, or a person! Moving closer, by the road!"


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