Skuld shoots Draken another odd look and opens her mouth to answer him, then shuts it again as Rat enters.  Finally, just before he speaks, she answers the large armored warrior.<br/><br/>"Don't worry about it.  It's actually kind of refreshing to get away from that floozy.  Just...I'm worried about what Keichi might do to my other big sis without me there to protect her!  He's..."<br/><br/>Rat's question cuts across her consciousness and she rolls her eyes.<br/><br/>"Monkey said that maybe some people might miss the memo.  You<em>do</em>get memos about staff changes, right?"<br/><br/>And then it happens: a small sound, nothing too important.  Just a soft pinging chime, as if a tiny gong has been struck by a tiny mallet.  Nothing worth the trouble of noting, save that it is the distinctive sound of one of the stones on Duke's go board changing to a nice cherry red color!<br/><br/>The other boot drops a moment later as the chitter-chatter of the teletype machine signals an incoming message.  And then Duke's hoarse bellow grabs your attention by the ears.<br/><br/>"RAT!  FOX!  DRAGON!  GET YOUR BUTTS IN HERE!"<br/><br/>If you didn't know any better, you'd say that Duke's mood is already improving.  That means the news is probably very, very bad.