Vriska has been trying to meddle in everyone’s business. But it seems she’s been the one getting meddled with. A “friend” grimAuxiliatrix [GA] has just informed her that her lusus is doomed to die soon. She is now going to check on her lusus.

It seems Vriska’s hive is some sort of tall structure. She needs to descend down “millions” of stairs to reach her lusus nest. She passes a huge contraption hanging outside. She explains it was a doomsday device she had built for a member of the nautical aristocracy. We’ve seen some nautical trolls briefly, perhaps one of them?

Reaching the near bottom of her hive, Vriska finds her lusus. A gigantic spider, it looks to be about 70m tall, and healthy. We see her hive is a building on top of a canyon. It’s about as big as Karkats. The spider’s nest is at the bottom of the canyon under the hive. On the other side of the canyon is another hive.

Vriska’s neighbour it seems is centaursTesticle [CT]. Who we now have to be introduced to. As we saw before his room is covered in robots, broken bows, and naked pictures of muscle bound centors. His name is Equius Zahhak he’s obsessed with strength.

He talks about wanting to join some noble group of Ruffiannihilators and Archeradicators. But he’s unable to actually use a bow properly as he destroys every bow he tries to use. He describes it as “fetishistic” as Vriska did with her 8-balls.

He says the priceless masterpieces around his room are of Nude Musclebeast. These are apparently local creatures Equius finds their strength to be stunning. And tosses a comment about how those of “lesser bloodlines” are unable to appreciate art.

When he is angry, which is often he goes into violent rages. His robots are designed to fight him and give him a target to focus his violence on. His lusus is also his butler, one who milks himself to give Equius to give something to drink… damn that’s just wrong. His lusus apparently bruises at the slightest touch. But Equius believes his lusus is the strongest.

He has 3 weapon specs. Fist, bow, and 1/2 bows. This is only the second time we see the Strife Portfolio that allows for multiple specs. The writer hints that he may have forgotten it existed.

After spilling his milk Equius flies into a rage breaking a bow. He chats with Neopeta to calm down in the conversation we saw earlier. This is where Nepeta had asked him if she could join the red team, but he forbade it. He wasn’t sure if he had actually convinced her to join him on the blue team. He’s still angry, Nepeta is associating with lower bloods.

He decides to chat with Gamzee. He says Gamzee is a friend. But friend and enemy are the same word in trollian, and he hates Gamzee. This seems to be because Gamzee is of the highest bloodline. However, Gamzee does not act in a way that Equius thinks someone of his class should.

Gamzee is more concerned about running out of Faygo while in the medium.

Equius commands Gamzee to stop drinking Faygo. Gamzee agrees. Equius then back pedals. He doesnt feel like he has the right to make demands of someone of a higher blood class then his own. He suggests Gamzee need to be more commanding. Gamzee agrees but has no idea what the hec Equius is talking about, and doesn’t desire to be better than anyone.

Gamzee mentions he is on the red team and in the game already. He was defeating imps but now just eats pie with them. Equius suggests they roleplay a scenario of Gamzee being authoritative towards him. Totally not for some kind of homoerotic kink thing. Though this likely became the source of a lot of fan material. Anyway, Gamzee strongly suggests Equius stay out of the sea. This being pretty low impact as Equius doesnt live near the sea. He pressures Gamzee to be even more bossy, he humours the request. It was another very creepy interaction.

Gamzee, again mentions he has no idea what Equius is going on about with all this bloodline stuff. Equius finds it terrible that someone with Gamzee’s blood behaves in such an undignified manner. This while “she” of low blood can have such dignity. He doesn’t say who “she” is and ends the convo.