The single most important component of Balinology is consistent tracking. Subjects have a tendency to acquire more mooflike traits, often unexpectedly and to drastic effect. Take your eyes off of a Balina for a few months, and you'll hardly recognize them when you try to zero in on them again. It happened when the Balbarian turned herself into a living treasure construct while trying to find her in the first place, and it was only a lucky diagnostic that led BTI to observe the majority of Balina Mejeri becoming a one-woman ice cream factory.

It appears to have happened again. Two months ago, the only particularly uncommon traits Balina Rodovoy possessed were her paw hand (which, despite Ms Mahigan's protests, is hardly standard in any universe) and a love of costuming. She was known to be famously ridiculactic, likely self-inflicted during puberty, to the point that she was frequently used in BTI's own literature on the subject as a case study, though this was hardly considered to be rare. This is almost certainly no longer the case, and her entire file is going to need to be overhauled as soon as possible.

Demonic parasites have recently been found in the area, turning ordinary citizens into corrupted or monstrous versions of themselves, loyal to their new hive. Ms Rodovoy had the dubious honor of encountering a parasite queen, which has fused with her body and caused her to grow into an enormous broodmother, driven by a ceaseless, relentless hunger to feed the next clutch of eggs, and the accompanying need to use the resulting crown crabs and succubats to expand her hive's reach.

What was in that box, anyway?

Art: Ficus (original)