"OF course," Star said demurely. "After all, we're going to be separated for quite some time, no?"<br/><br/>The four departed the next morning, to laughter and banter, leaving him with some actual peace and quiet in his home for on-- "Flute, put that down this instant!" "But moooom!"<br/><br/>Despite his attempts to prod at it magically, the orb didn't exactly react much at all to attempts to use it. For one thing, he couldn't quite figure out<em>how</em>to invoke it in the first place, let alone get it to do anything useful.