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He connected the dots. "...Pauline?" he said.

"Aha, hello," she said with a nice smile. "I was wondering if you would be able to tell it was me. What do you think of my avatar? Nice, right? I'll be honest--if you don't tell me it's nice, I'm going to be upset."

"...It's nice." In another thought process, he was reaching out with the Scarf, trying to locate her invisible avian body. With so much open air out here, though, it was difficult. She might've been too far away.

"Your enthusiasm could use a little work, but I suppose that will do. So what are you doing?"

He slowly destroyed his platform and let himself back down to the ground. He supposed he could tell her the truth here. In fact, he'd been wanting to share a bit with someone. Beyond the fact that it was to prep for a potential siege, Garovel hadn't demonstrated much interest in his iron castle strategy--perhaps because it was taking a while. Probably thought it was tedious or something.

That, and he'd been thinking about asking one of the Sparrows for help on this project, anyway.

"It's a decoy castle," he explained. "Not terribly unlike your family's estate, actually."

"Oh?"

"I'm just trying to, ah... have a bit of forethought, I guess. In case Warrenhold is ever attacked."

She was quiet a moment as her avatar gave the nearest tower another look, the expression on her human face looking abruptly more serious than a second ago. "...Are you expecting an attack to arrive soon?" she asked.

Ah. Difficult question. "Not sure. Maybe. Better safe than sorry, though."

She gave an admissive nod.

"Hey, uh... I don't suppose you could work some of your illusory magic and help spruce it up a bit for me, could you?"

Her brow furrowed. "Excuse me? 'Illusory magic?' What do you think I am? Some kind of sorceress?" A whisper of a smile was creeping across her lips, however.

Hector took that as a cue to double down. "...A little bit, yeah."