Though Inola Barick, their new watergirl, was nervous at being asked to help out at first, Team Haunted Woods did what they did best: accepted the Varwolf with all her peculiarities, just as they did when Crade Talvos painted himself Wraith and made the jump from waterboy to star defender. The Haunted Woods is home to creatures of all shapes, sizes, appendage numbers, and dispositions, and their Yooyuball Team exemplifies and celebrates those differences like no other – especially when others are scared of what makes someone so special!

Crade spent a lot of time with their new teammate in particular, as he could relate to her fears of letting down the team. He took care to teach her the ins and outs of the team’s routine (and how to understand “Brains” Mortigan’s different intonations of the word “Brrrrraaaaaiiinnnsss”), while Krell Vitor and Zo Junior taught her how to catch, throw, and take care of the Yooyuballs. Fanetti reportedly makes sure she gets to and from practice sessions safely, guarding their new teammate against the less friendly horrors of the Haunted Woods – such as the strange, unfamiliar tentacle monster with big yellow eyes that frightened Fanetti and Inola on their way to practice one day.

“It’s not an unusual story here, unfortunately,” Krell Vitor said of the incident. “But it’s not very common for tentacle monsters to show up in this neck of the woods. Or at all, really. Come to think of it, until recently, I’d never seen one at all. Makes a Kyrii wonder…”