Ameliorate means "make (something bad or unsatisfactory) better."
Hat Kid is awakened by Myla's gentle shake. "Ugh, already?" Hat Kid says.
They thank the last stag and exit the stag station. "Well Myla, you're safe in this town; so do what you will now without me."
"Our little misadventure was kinda fun, glad to have met you, Hat Kid, hopefully I'll see you a-again. I'm going to go take a nap, you need to hibernate haha." Myla goes into a home which is presumably hers, leaving Hat Kid at the entrance of the stag station.
She spots Elderbug near the town bench, hovering over a drowsy Tiso. "Nahk, leave me be, old man."
"Ey ey ey don't be rude to Elderbug, Tiso." Hat Kid says scolding him.
"Ak, you're here too, child?"
"I'm not truly a child, Tiso."
"Then why are you called Hat Kid, huh?" Hat Kid opens her mouth to speak but close's it.
"I... well... Hat Teen doesn't sound as nice does it, Hat Kid also makes my opponents underestimate me."
Tiso sits up. "Oh really, so you think you can take me on, child?"
"Psssh, yeah all you have is that basic shield that you can throw." Tiso stands up and squints at Hat Kid. He holds his shield in front of him. Hat Kid raises an eyebrow with smugness. Tiso's shield opens up to reveal the sharp edges of the shield. Hat Kid steps back.
"Ha, you're intimidated; I knew you would be." He starts manually spinning it at a moderate speed that isn't enough to actually cause any damage. "Still think you can take me on, child?"
Hat Kid scoffs and turns away. "Too primitive if you ask me."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You tell me, Tiso?"
"Sedemach." Tiso says nasally. That's how he's always talked. Hat Kid walks away towards Sly's shop with those 4 words she spoke to him.
Hat Kid enters Sly's shop with the door creaking as she comes in.
"Zuma konkon." Sly says with surprise.
"Heya, Sly, I've come to pay my debt for the nail you gave me."
"Very honorable of you, Hat Kid, to be honest, I thought you would die out there but at least I gave you a chance so I wouldn't feel bad."
"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence."
"You are just a kid."
Hat Kid screams under her breath then gently sighs. "Sure sure." Hat Kid drops 994 worth of geo. "This is the amount I was missing before so there you go." Hat Kid leaves with Sly waving goodbye.
She goes towards Elderbug whom she never spoke to when arguing with Tiso earlier. "Nice to see you, Elderbug, how you been?"
"Oh you know, just standing around here all day; haha; no really, all I do is stand here."
Hat Kid gives him a worried look. "D-do you at least eat?"
"Oh yes, don't worry about me I take care of myself."
Hat Kid gives him a hug and takes off towards the howling cliffs. She traverses the terrain till she comes close to her ship in the sky. "Finally." She sheds a tear and wipes it away. "I'm so happy I can rest in my ship again, Snappy."
"Scyaaaa."
I take it your sounds are usually happy sounds." She twists her timewatch around and prepares to teleport. "3... 2... 1... boo-p"
"Child!"
"PAhh!"
Hat Kid, Snappy, and apparently now Tiso are teleported to the main hub of Hat Kid's ship. "Peck you, Tiso, you scared the prequim out of me."
"What in the Pale King is prequim?"
"I don't know, I just made it up. Anyway since you're here now; you have to not touch anything unless I say it's ok. Come with me, Tiso."
Hat Kid and Tiso enter the machine room where she has instruments and books along with other technologies.
"You ain't never seen these technologies, have you, Tiso?"
Tiso looks at her piano. "What is this contraption, child?"
"This is a piano, hit one of the keys with your finger."
He taps a few different keys and is surprised to hear wonderful sounds. "Hmm very intriguing."
"Go ahead and play all you want, Tiso."
Tiso sits and starts messing with the piano while Hat goes over to her little workshop table and spins in her chair happily. She puts her timewatch on a stand and begins typing on a hologram that appears in front of her. "Now to finally analyze the journal I found by that cave on the greenpath." After many translations are organized, Hat Kid has the names, habitats, and behaviors of the creatures in Hallownest embedded in her timewatch. "Woah, someone kept track of all the creatures they came across, too bad, I think whatever was in that cave where I found the journal killed them, there were definitely lots of bones in there."
"Scyaaaa."
"Hey! Tiso, what's your shield made out of?" Hat Kid shouts from across the room.
"I don't know!" Tiso shouts back.
"How do you not know!?"
Tiso doesn't say anything. This makes Hat Kid get up and walk over to Tiso. "I would like an answer, Tiso." Tiso stops trying to understand the piano and looks up at Hat Kid with his hood shrinking. "Tiso... why is your hood shrinking?" Tiso takes his hood off to reveal his 2 long antennas drooping. "Oh, so that's why your hood is so pointy, because your antennas are pointed up."
"I served in the Pale Kings army during the fall of Hallownest."
"Oh, hold on a moment." She twists and turns her timewatch to a recorder. "I'll translate it later but tell me all about your time in uhh... the Pale Kings army, was it?"
"Yes, I was part of the ADT, that stands for Ant Defense Troops by the way. I have forgotten many things over the course of time but the story I'm about to tell I will always remember." Tiso says with anger and sadness.
"Alright Tiso, I'm listening... and recording."
"The ADT were equipped with a variety of weapons, whatever they were skilled in; they had it. I; a two handed long club nail. The Infection had spread worse than it ever had before. The Pale King assigned 1 of his 5 great knights to our mission."
"And this mission was?" Hat Kid asks intrigued.
"We were to find a group of mender bugs and their sentry beetle escorts who were fixing the royal waterways."
"Oh wait, who was the champion that led your mission?"
"Her name was Isma and she was known for her kindness so it made sense she would want to help those in need. We were a squad of 20 and we always had a partner to watch our backs. So we made our way from the capital city and descended into the infested royal waterways."
"Very interesting, please continue." Hat Kid smiles at Tiso who gives a temporary smile back.
"So we continued to the lost groups work destination; fighting off the parasite flukes that came at us. Isma was taking point making sure if anything wretched was going to happen to us, it was going to have to happen to her first. We made it to their location only to find the mender bugs had disappeared and the sentry's had turned to husks."
"Wow they turned just like that?"
"Apparently so. We were attacked from the flukes and sentries which drew us to the deeper parts where it was overgrown and acidic. It was chaos down in those sewers, the foul smell, the mushy cold moss, the hot bubbling acidic waters. Most of my squad were eventually dead or dying, and my partner and I..." Tiso gathers his thoughts. "Isma was trying to get as many wounded as she could out of the grove as she could. My partner and I were separated from Isma and the rest of the squad. So many flukes were on us, trampling over each other mindlessly as they came after us with their jagged teeth. We held them off near the edge of an acid pond for as long as we could. Eventually gas built up from hwurmp's floating around and they caused a large explosion. "Luckily this took out a good amount of flukes which bought us time. I had nothing to protect myself with so I was knocked over and disoriented."
"So how'd you get out Tiso? This is literally thrilling, I must know!"
"Alright alright relax, child."
"So my partner was able to block the blast with her, you guessed it... shield; although it was blown out of her hand."
"Wow, so the shield you use was hers?" .
"It's an easy assumption is it not? Anyway, she was swarmed and I grabbed what strength I could and picked up her shield and hobbled over to her as she was busy going fist to cuff with the flukes and sentries, heh... she was always a fighter till the end. Those crazy flukes were lunging at her and she was getting piled even more. Endless gas was building up during our last stand and another explosion knocked me down again."
"Wow, so you guys kept fighting till you were totally dead."
"Yep this felt like an endless cycle because we kept trying to protect each other in the hopes that help arrived... it never did."
Hat Kid stares with sadness at Tiso. "Well I'm here alive and well, am I not child?"
"Yeah but... what happened to your partner?"
"Right Right, sorry, I'm so narcissistic. So eventually my partner decided that we were both going to die there or one of us could make it out. I was so exhausted I couldn't even blink so she..." Tiso lets a tear drop from his eye with a momentary pause. "She sacrificed herself by opening the shield up more, revealing the sharp edges and extra cover like how I showed you earlier. She put me on it and sent me across the acid pond. I could see her making a true last stand with my long nail club as the flukes and sentries swarmed even greater. I passed out and awoke later safely. I took her shield and now journey around Hallownest challenging things that would harm others willingly or not; they will not harm anyone good willed."
"Wow... that was amazing, Tiso, sounds like you two really cared for each other's safety."
"Yes, well I suppose I can tell you now since nobody's around to imprison me but we were also romantic partners, which was forbidden between troops of the ADT."
"Aww, I'm real sorry for your loss... even more now."
"She was always talking about how we could better protect those in need with the future of technology, she wanted to become an inventor when she was much older and couldn't serve in the ADT as well as she does... or did; in her prime."
Hat Kid gets an idea and starts measuring Tiso's wrist by grabbing it and scanning it with her watch.
"Ak you could at least ask my permission before grabbing my arm, that could make me identify you as an oppressor."
"May I have your shield for a bit?" Hat Kid asks politely.
"M-my shield? After all I just told you?!"
"Yes, give it to me."
"...Fine! But you have to clean it before you give it back."
"I'm sure you'll be more than pleased with what I do with it. I'm done anyway so pls continue your piano playing." Tiso nods in acceptance and Hat Kid goes back to her work bench. To augment it, Hat Kid starts infusing bits of high tech magnets throughout Tiso's shield. "So Tiso's shield is made of an acid resistant metal... cool." She then begins crafting a special band for Tiso's wrist. After polishing Tiso's shield, she gets up and walks over to him.
"Alright, Tiso, which arm do you use to throw your shield?"
"Throw my shield? What gave you the idea I could throw it."
"Uhhh, when you knocked off that one guy's helmet when we first met."
"My shield coming back to me after throwing it at that false knight was pure luck, heh, otherwise I would have been crushed. Pure... what a word am I right, child?"
"uhhh yeaah, ok." Hat Kid says suspiciously. "Fine, what arm do you use to hold it most of the time."
"I'd say my left arm"
"Ok, take this wristband and wrap it around your left wrist."
Hat Kid wraps the band around Tiso's wrist and he tightens it while inspecting the buttons on it. Hat Kid brings over his now clean shield to him.
"So I've upgraded your shield to--." Tiso hits a button while Hat Kid is talking and his shield begins to spin on its own really fast, causing Hat Kid to let go. The shield starts flying around sharply out of control.
"Oh no no no! Hit the button again!" she yells, struggling to not get her head cut off. Tiso quickly hits the button again and the shield stops spinning; hitting the floor.
"Child, what have you done?!"
Hat Kid sighs in relief. "Something amazing, now let's go to the main room." They go to the large open space in the ship's main hub. "Have you ever heard of telekinesis, Tiso?"
"Mmmmm... no."
"How about moving objects with your mind?"
"Ah, bunch of shaman craft that is, I stayed away from the crazy's that are infected at the soul sanctum in the capital city."
"Well this is not shaman craft, it's magical engineering."
She shows Tiso how he can make his shield spin fast and automatically. The truly new feature allows him to basically move his shield around in a telekinesis fashion when he throws it. He throws it while it spins sharply, as it could cut through enemies now with ease. He moves it around by the will of his arm and hand movements.
Hat Kid shows Tiso a button on his wristband. "And lastly with this button, it will return to your arm and stay there... just don't go cut your self on the return ok."
"Hwaaaaa! I am unstoppable now!" Tiso yells in a war cry fashion.
"Just don't lose or break your wrist band, otherwise you can't do nothing super."
"Roger roger, child."
"You can practice while I do what I have needed for so long... a nice long NAP! Consuming blood can only hold you over for so long."
"Well uh, good luck with that."
"Yeah yeah yeah." Hat Kid says annoyed as she goes to her room. She puts her hat next to her bed and Snappy gets out and curls up next to Hat Kid as she crawls into bed. She and Snappy fall asleep peacefully.
Hat Kid awakens to pounding on her room door. She springs up and lands face first on the floor, her hat being lifted into the air and landing on her head. "Ugh, what do you want, Tiso?" She yawns and walks down the hallway, opening the door for Tiso. "What?!"
"It's been 22 hours, at least that's what your device says over there."
Hat Kid rubs her eyes looking at Tiso. "I-I slept 22 hours?"
"Yeah, and I'm hungry."
"You guys eat? I didn't even think about my own hunger till now, I'm famished. Come with me."
They go into Hat Kid's kitchen where she grabs the weird food in her fridge and gives Tiso some.
"These are some weird delectables, child."
Hat Kid finishes eating and starts baking cookies.
"Usually I get my cookies from a timerift but I'm out of timepieces to spare at the moment, so normal cookies will have to suffice."
Tiso talks with Hat Kid about how he's been getting the hang of the new shield upgrades until the cookies are done baking. Hat Kid gives Tiso a cookie, wrapping and putting the rest into her hat for later; and prepares to send Tiso back down into the dark world.
"So you should go to the crystal peak and smash up some crystals to fuel your tech wristband every now and then."
"Got it... and thanks for everything, kid."
She nods and teleports him back down. "Huh, that was a rather nice time with another sentient being."
"Scyaaaa."
Hat Kid shoves a cookie in Snappy's mouth.