Pahhu: Level 8: The Bothness

Pahhu sits on the ledge of the clock tower doing something she doesn't normally do. She stops. Then she does another thing she doesn't normally do. She thinks. "Hmm-mm-mm-umm." She tries making the noises thinking people make, assuming it will help. "Hummm. Ohhh! Of course! Aha! Eureka! ... Got it? Yes? ... Excelsior???" Nothing seems to come to her despite her best efforts at thinking noises. She gives her 'new' drumborine a shake and watches illusory drumborines flit in and out of her vision. It seems to always show what is on her mind, and right now the drumborine itself is what she's thinking about.
 
As she taps a beat on it, the images begin to flit back and forth between the drumborine in a seemingly newer form, with less patina, less seemingly sandblasted and decidedly less illusion producing and the current form she taps. She gives it a hard look like it just said a mean word to her, and then grips it, spinning it around towards a specific uneven tack. She takes her 'older but newer' original drumborine in the other hand, and spins it around to the same tack. On a whim she presses her thumbnail into the skin of the drum and wedges a small scratch into it. She watches as the 'newer but older' drumborine with the magic first replicates the scratch and then it is filled in with grit, sand and dirt, which settles and then polishes out from handling in the span of seconds.
 
"This is the first time I've held a bothness in my hands. I don't think bothnesses are supposed to be together." Pahhu gives a lopsided frown which splits as she sucks her teeth in thought. "Bothnesses are when something is too many times. Things can't be yesterday and tomorrow at the same time. This was a now and tomorrow bothness. Or maybe a now and years later bothness?" She rolls the drumborine and considers. "But if it is now and not years later... then that means someone is gonna steal my drumborine and give it to yesterday me!"
 
Pahhu peers around conspiratorially as she realizes the implication of this. "I gotta tell Ma about this." Pahhu slides down the clock tower wall, getting a shout from Elkian, the firbolg gate guard. "No time! I got two times! Gotta go!" Pahhu hits the ground running and tears into the side door, nearly running into one of the Ilmateri sisters of Hyssop Home, Vifi, a mammon tiefling and one of the teachers and caretakers. The tiefling woman puts her hands on her hips and stares Pahhu down disapprovingly. "Hi Vifi, gotta go!" Pahhu scampers to the side and tries to break away like she always does, but Vifi has seen it too many times and snags her by the scruff of her neck, grabbing at Pahhu's loose clothing and hauling her back.
 
"Now tell me Ms. Pahhu, what could possibly have you in such a rush? Lunch isn't served for another hour, and you know there's plenty these days." Vifi stares down Pahhu, awaiting whatever silly explanation may be forthcoming. Pahhu takes a deep breath from her dash, and then lets the words out as fast as possible. "I have two drumborines, and they're a bothness and someone is gonna steal one and I gotta tell Ma!" Vifi glances down at her hands and shakes her head. "Ms. Pahhu, you never did well in my classes with numbers, but come now if you have two and give one away then you'll still have one. So share with the other children, that isn't stealing if they want to play too. You're practically a woman now, you should know better. The oathmother is very busy, you shouldn't bother her with this." Vifi scolds Pahhu.
 
Pahhu stops cold as she considers what Vifi said. "Ohhhh! OHHHH! AHA! The thinking noises worked this time! Thanks Vifi, you're so smart even without thinking noises!" Pahhu departs at a trot towards her room, her head already hurting as she tries to figure out how she is going to share with her future past bothness later.
 
Pahhu reaches level 11 and takes her 8th level in Stone Sorcerer. She learns the Banish spell, where she displaces a target from the time stream for roughly a minute. She additionally gains 2 Charisma as a feat, enhancing her spellcasting as she has become more in tune with her temporal sorcery after the recent trip into the Bothness.