It certainly wasn’t going well as Arcadia had to learn another spell prior to this “basic” void magic spell. It took quite a while, to say the least. An hour or so consisted of the fox trying to conjure the dark magical aura that she’d seen engulfed the twins’ hands whenever they attempted a spell.

This was nowhere as easy as trying to create a fireball, and much more difficult than her illusory tricks. No amount of practice in either of those spells could prepare her for this. At least she knew she could do it with her prosthetic hand. She didn’t even want to know if this would hurt her if she attempted with her left furry hand.

Once the conduit of an aura persisted on her hand, Arcadia moved on to re-reading the warnings for the dark fire spell. “All right,” she murmured, reaching for the bottle of Dryla’s tangy mixture. All around them were wrappers of snacks and boxes and pastries, and the twins were minding their own businesses while equally checking on her progress every now and then.

“So it’s sort of like a regular fireball,” she said. “Except it’s practically draining my SOUL of all its energy.”

“Pretty much,” Dryla agreed.

“Just know when to stop,” urged Driela. “We don’t want you passing out in our room or destroying your hand again.”

Arcadia gave an arrogant chuckle. “I’ll be fine. I’m sure I’ll be able to nail this flawlessly. Just... give me another hour to do this once.”

Arcadia was reluctant to dig around the Void Bank more, but curiosity got the better of her. It wasn’t like she found—or rather, felt—anything else interesting, anyway. The cylinder, something soft and furry, a cool metallic device. Driela urged her to not take out any more stuff with Flowey in the house, and Arcadia gladly obliged. Her fur had been standing on end for what felt like forever, and she felt chilled to the bone.

As she closed the trunk, the goat-twins had already been trying to learn new magic spells. Their hands radiated a violet-black energy, glowing vigorously for a brief moment before weakening to a lambent glow. The struggle in their faces suggested that this was straining them greatly.

Arcadia scooted next to Dryla and looked at the book. One page was all text, warning the danger of this dark magic, while the other was, again, mostly words, but there were small colorless illustrations here and there on the sides, showing what the spell should look like. Written in larger text was “Dark Fire.”

After a coincidental text from her mother that she and her siblings were with Toriel, Driela and Dryla took this as their chance to show off to Arcadia their magical trunk back home. Flowey and Floreska would remain in the house, but the twins were going to be quick with their snooping. Flowey would probably be too busy with his daughter, Dryla assumed.

Double checking to make sure that they’d save each and every recording of their yelling, Arcadia sat in front of her laptop for a moment longer. Her eyes scanned the screen, darting from file to file and checking if she’d organized each clip to its appropriate folder named after the yelling voice. Eventually she shut her laptop and stood up. With an eager smile, she declared, “Everything’s in perfect order.”

The twins led the trip back to their home. Despite being caught off guard by the abrupt declaration of a race by Dryla, Arcadia sprinted faster than the goats could. She easily passed Driela, and then eventually brushing Dryla’s fur after tailing her for less than a minute. The fox ultimately won, and by the time the twins arrived, she was sitting against the house’s wall and had already recomposed herself while the twins were sweating.

“How are you so much faster than us?” Driela wheezed as she bent over.

Dryla’s eye twitched at the bold and insolent lie the gray face stated. And with such stern attitude, too. “How dare! That’s a blatant and baseless lie, and you know it!” The goat-girl would then ramble about how it was perfectly normal for pineapple to be on pizza.

Arcadia nudged Driela’s arm to draw her attention away from Dryla. “Does she usually burst out like this over something like pineapple on pizza?”

“Sometimes,” Driela answered with a shrug. “I’m fine with other people not liking it. What about you?”

“It’s all right. I mean, it’s not my favorite, but if there are anchovies and pepperonis on the pizza then it’s definitely on my menu.”

Driela shuddered at thought of anchovy pizza. “Then that means we’re getting different menus,” she murmured.

Asriela was on her way home when she heard someone vend ice cream. It already caught her interest, but it tickled her sweet tooth more to hear the endless selection of flavors—or at least she assumed it was endless.

She approached the stand, and the person behind it looked uncanny as they resembled a gray face. “Huh, you look…” Asriela pursed her lips, thinking that it would come off as rude. “Never mind. How much is a scoop on a sugar cone?”

“Void bank?” Arcadia echoed, cocking her head. “Is that like some sort of magical game you two play?”

Driela rubbed the back of her head. Her voice, like Dryla’s, was hoarse as she answered, “It’s not really a game, but it is magical.”

“And something that I haven’t snooped around in a while,” Dryla added. “Unfortunately we can’t access it on the fly. We have to go back home and use that trunk in our room.”

Arcadia’s ear twitched at the mention of a trunk. “Wait, that chest in your room? I thought it was just where you store your precious treasure.”

“Yeah, no. We’ll explain it to you when we get the chance. I don’t think you would believe us without showing it.”

The fox pouted and retorted, “What’s that supposed to mean?”