Let’s talk about Cid Shmal—the elephant master. A Robert Stone disciple through and through. Every year, he paid his dues just for the chance to ask Stone a direct question online. If your question was sharp, layered, maybe even poetic—there was about a fifty-fifty chance you’d get an answer. That alone made the subscription worth every credit. Plus, members got access to Stone’s research—both the official stuff and the weirder, unpublished files. The kind of material that turned your brain sideways.

Cid wasn’t just a fanboy. He was a prodigy biologist with a fixation on elephantids—ancient and modern, milk-producing or otherwise. He also happened to be a dairy savant, obsessed with the evolution and culture of milk. At Elephant Acres, he bred distinct elephant hybrids—two of them had six limbs, and then there were the squat, gentle dwarf dairy cows, which gave cream so thick it could stand up in a windstorm.

His number-one nemesis? Mithra Buzzsaw and the territory counsel. Cid saw Robert Stone as the banner of prosperity, innovation, and freedom. Mithra and his pack of clipboard-wielding minions wanted him ignorant, dependent, and broke. It had always been that way.

But then came the letter. A tell-all from young harpy Halva Erith.

And suddenly, it all clicked. Mithra’s crusade wasn’t about ethics, safety, or environmental impact. It was about money. Specifically, his quiet ownership stake in Yellow Cow Dairy—Cid’s old competitor, and now, clearly, his enemy.