CONTACT | Call me, maybe

[intercalaryninja]

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Comments

[justbeingknife]

Temporarily what now?

[ That caught Majima's interest; he looked up from the pages of the book. ]

I guess if there was a way for it to permanently stop her, ya would have done it.

[ He was curious about this blade, too, but Majima figured one was probably more important than the other here. ]

[intercalaryninja]

We temporarily stopped arrivals with a ritual in the book. It was a one-use thing but no one came in for months. She was... quite upset after that. Especially since she didn't know we did it at first. Rin and Haru did a good job pretending it was only one person doing it instead of a team effort.

... That book is how we figured out the Fog had a heart and what lead us to use the Night God's typewriter. We could actually kill her if we could permanently kill all her followers at the same time.

[They can talk about it later. A lighter conversation after all of this...]

[justbeingknife]

I'll bet she was pissed. No more potential followers to string along? And the ones who did it were her 'children' in the first place?

[ Not that Majima put much stock in that relation. ]

...Still, I can't help wonderin' why she's so eager to get rid of her weak spot. It might be true that it's hard to kill a bunch of monsters at once. But wouldn't it be more difficult to off a divine bein'?

[intercalaryninja]

Perhaps. But if the Night God and Day God can lose so much power and be 'killed', perhaps that's what she wanted to avoid. All her followers would have to die at once to kill her. And with her priests able to resurrect almost instantly, it does make it a difficult endeavour.

I sometimes wonder if it has to do with the God that once ruled the Fog, Day and Night. I have no evidence for it... but I wonder what happened to them.

[He'll pass a piece of pottery from Haftesal depicts the shadowy and starry figure behind the three figures that represent the three Gods to Majima.]

[justbeingknife]

[ Majima turned over the piece of pottery in his hands. ]

Couldn't say. Though we did take a little vacation to a place with plenty of stars, didn't we?

[ Wow it would be hilarious if such a creature slept in that horrible eldritch sea. If by hilarious, one meant 'awful'. ]

It seems like enough researchers have been looking into the past to leave a trail of footnotes. Do you know what happened to these people? Why it seems like everythin' we find's half-buried in the past?

[intercalaryninja]

We did indeed. [It certainly is possible. Fortunately (unfortunately?) they have no means to check.]

I tried to search for the text referenced. Unfortunately, there are no records of those people or that literature on the peninsula. The writings likely perished in Hafetsal, whether in the fire or the Fog collapsing the city on their writers.

[Tsukikage sighs. He remembers the time warp event and seeing the final moments of the people in Hafetsal- the ones that summoned the Fog. He remembers her rage before she crushed everyone, including him.]

It feels like we're at a standstill. Progress keeps getting knocked back by some unknown force. It's infuriating.

[justbeingknife]

Yeah. You'd think with all the supernatural bullshit around here, it'd be a little easier to get where we wanna go.

[ And look, Majima had places to go, hooligans to beat up! He couldn't stay on this godforsaken continent forever. ]

'course, that doesn't mean I'm gonna give up. Don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm stubborn to a fault.

[intercalaryninja]

[Wars to fight. Dimensions to save. Tsukikage was on a schedule as well. And he was plenty stubborn in his own right.]

You have mentioned that. [Tsukikage smiles affectionately at his friend.] Then can I count on you to help me when the time comes? I'm looking into something at the Monster's Pearl. If old rumours turn out to be something, I may want your help.

[justbeingknife]

[ Majima nodded. ]

Not exactly the most hospitable of vacation spots, huh? Of course. You need help, lemme know anytime.

Have ya already given it a visit?

[intercalaryninja]

Briefly. I have to say, the fear-inducing effects of the Pearl makes it difficult to do anything. It's a curious matter. Like I said, I'll let you know if something comes up.

[justbeingknife]

That's an understatement.

[ Majima wasn't a stranger to dangerous situations, but being incapacitated with fear was an alien experience for him. ]

So what else happened at Hafsetal? How'd ya even end up down there?

[intercalaryninja]

[Tsukikage takes out the period-appropriate photos he had taken during the Fellowship's last visit there. Besides the book of rituals and the shattered pot that's there, there are photos of the burned library, an unblocked room with a fireplace and a photo of a number of bottles.]

We got there using a path from the tunnels under Vandare. We also dug up another tunnel out of the rubble straight into a blocked off sewer. You can visit there freely, though there's not much to look at.

Besides the investigation, not much. The only 'event' that happened was with those bottles. Someone found it in a cabinet. When you sniffed it, you became feral and attacked people. It was transmitted through a bite. However, we managed to deal with the situation appropriately.

[justbeingknife]

[ Majima looked over the old photos with curiosity. Yep. Spooky, just like he'd suspected! ]

I might pay it a visit next time I'm in the area -- but if you've already gone over it with a fine-toothed comb, I trust your professional opinion.

Ya even got someone to record photo evidence, huh? Before he disappeared, Rin told me that ya had the Hijikata Toshizō keepin' accounts.

[intercalaryninja]

Yes. I thought it was good to keep photos. [He bought a camera specifically for that reason. He was told it was unnecessary at the time but now he's glad he did.]

Oh yes, I do have those. I haven't pulled those out in some time. Shall I get them?

[justbeingknife]

Oh, so they went to you... makes sense.

[ After all, someone would have had to pick things up after the man had disappeared. ]

Sure, if it ain't too much trouble. I remember thinkin' it was nuts how much happened in the space of a couple years.

[intercalaryninja]

[Tsukikage bows and he moves so quickly out of the room, it's almost like he disappeared. The ninja scuttles down to his room in the spider pit and begins to carefully open the box with the book.

It will be some time before Tsukikage returns with it, carefully nestled in his arms. However, he'll happily hand it over to Majima.]

Four years worth of information. The last entry was three years ago. I always wanted to try summarise it all but it's hard to find hours in the day to do so.

[justbeingknife]

Understandable, considerin' the circumstances.

[ He flipped through some of the pages -- it had been a while! ]

Say, there used to be another set of monster hunters, weren't there? Not the poachers, those Bloody Bones fellas.

[intercalaryninja]

Yes, the Bloody Bones. They were quite intent on killing us all... they were quite skilled monster hunters. Their monster-hunting weapons were quite impressive, especially for Ryslig standards.

[Tsukikage absent-mindedly rubs one of his legs. He remembers being tortured by those guys. Not fun.]

[justbeingknife]

But they're gone now. Like the poachers, right?

[ There were so many things he knew only a smidgen about, having not been there himself. ]

Was it that dust-up in Vandare?

[intercalaryninja]

Yes... that sounds about right. I may be mistaken though. If it's not in that journal, I'll cross reference that with my diary. It was just a long time ago. I only arrived at the tail end of that nonsense.

[justbeingknife]

[ He sighed. ]

I've always wondered about it. I know Vandare's split down the middle now, and that they probably had some hand in it. But people seem pretty reluctant to talk about what happened -- maybe for good reason.

[ Whatever it had been, clearly the divisions still remained. ]

[intercalaryninja]

I'll look into it for you, if it helps.

For now, there's a lot to work through. Feel free to borrow all the books, if you like. I trust you with these. Maybe you can find something I've missed.

[justbeingknife]

[ Majima nodded. ]

Thanks... there's somethin' else I've been meaning to bring up, too, though. Remember a year or two ago, back when we first got sent to Felfri?

[intercalaryninja]

Yes, I remember that. That was... strange. This was the instance where Reira-dono set up going to that world, yes? Or was it the other time?

[He forgets. Honestly, things have been hectic and he hasn't thought about Felfri in a good, long while.]

[justbeingknife]

It was the time Marco set up that portal. I was one of the monsters that went through it, and I do believe he's been looking for an alternate power source for his contraption ever since.

So long story short, I went looking for a lead.