Thread 16
>>138582 Thread 17
>>142144 Thread 18
>>144306 In which PROMOTIONS!
[X] Recap
Quicksilver light slides off wet grass and shimmers in Keine’s bluish-white hair. The clouds are gone and you stand alone with a spectacular beauty bathed in radiant moonglow. Your body’s numb with exhaustion that will yield to aches the moment you stop to rest, but Keine’s eyes glimmer and her movements are springy with unspent energy.
“You’re thinking again,” Keine says, gripping both your shoulders now. “Too fast. You’re thinking too much. Perhaps you should stop.” Strange, that declarative tone.
“Just. Stop. Thinking,” she says, and you wonder if she’s talking to herself more then you.
“Stop,” she says, blue-eyed stare boring into yours, and your thoughts do indeed halt as she leans in close... tantalizingly close.... and
wild ghost chase You freeze.
wild ghost chase “What?” Keine asks, irritated.
“Wild ghost chase,” you say aloud... again. Your own words from a few minutes ago echo through your mind.
We’ve wasted two days on a wild ghost chase. “My brain shut up long enough to listen to itself talk,” you say distantly.
“...
What?”
“You’re right, I had to stop thinking to start! Come on, we should-” you try to walk away, but Keine doesn’t release her grip on your shoulders. She glowers at you darkly, confused, frustrated... and....
“Right!” she exclaims, releasing you and springing away like you’re on fire. “Lets inside. I mean get house. Inside the house. If we could.... now.”
Keine can be pretty strange for somebody entrusted with young minds.
You stride through the soaked grass briskly, turning things over in your head, making vague gestures in the air and muttering to yourself.
“Do you care to share your... thoughts?” Duke asks from your elbow, apparently in his humanoid form again. He sounds more irked then normal.
“Wild ghost chase, Duke. We’ve been sent on a wild ghost chase!”
“‘Wild’ is an apt descriptor,” Keine mutters, “but you’re just stating the obvious.”
“It’s a saying. ‘Go on a wild goose chase.’”
“What’s bad about chasing geese?” Duke asks, mystified. “It’s quite entertaining.” You sigh. One cross-dimensional/cultural communications gap is enough, much less two.
“Chain of logic-”
Keine snorts.
“-first, the ghosts aren’t acting normal. Second, they seemed to be in a stupor of some sort; Youmu said as much. Obvious conclusion – they’re being controlled.”
“Obvious response; find the controller,” Keine concludes.
“Exactly! Now knowing this, why the hell would our ghost-controller make such an ineffectual attack so early and tip their hand?”
You can almost feel Duke’s perpetual frown deepening. “To probe your abilities?”
“Maybe. But it guaranteed we’d start looking around, taking action. And one of the likely suspects already had friction with Keine. Quite predictable.”
“Why would this enemy need to give you a fools errand? You had no activities to be misdirected from to begin with, no?” Duke queries.
“And the scrying, and the huge youkai, and the gazebo attack... where do they fit in?” Keine adds.
“So it’s a very short chain,” you mutter. Figures, after a day of getting stomped on by magical abominations they expect a complete thesis. “But I think I’ve finally got a handle on the situation in this madhouse.” You sigh with weariness, happy to be home, and open Keine’s front door.
Forty odd rabbits turn to look at you.
You stare.
Eighty hostile red eyes stare back.
Not an ear twitches.
Not a whisker stirs.
Slowly, you close the door.
“Or not.”
The door opens and Mokou pokes her head out, cigarette dangling from her mouth.
“Sorry about that. Come in, they won’t bother you.”
“I think they already did,” Keine says, glancing askance at you.
Your party enters the house, stepping carefully to avoid rabbits. The furry little bastards are draped over everything, forty heads swiveling to track your movements unerringly. The air sizzles with rubescent glares.
Keine boggles at Mokou.
Mokou sighs, shrugging. “Eirin’s idea of a bodyguard.”
“Bodyguards for an immortal?”
Mokou takes a drag and expels it thoughtfully. “Who knows what goes through that woman’s mind.”
“Did you find Reisen?” Keine asks. You limp over to your bed, which is occupied by six big rabbits.
“Me and everybody else.”
You wave at the rabbits irritably. They don’t twitch so much as a whisker, challenging you with their hard eyes.
“That outsider again?”
You loom over the fuzzy usurpers, letting them see the ragged edge of your patience in your bloodshot eyes.
“Him, yeah. Went absolutely apeshit about some flag.”
The rabbits rise, ears laid back, nibbley little teeth showing.
“A
flag? He started a fight over a flag?”
Wrath rumbles faint and low in your throat, the bow-wave before the bloodletting. Knuckles crack as your fists tighten.
“No, actually. The Lunar guard did.”
The rabbits reluctantly shift – not leaving, just making room. You collapse on the bed, making the rabbits bounce.
“Oh. Oh dear.”
Mokou sighs again, fishing out another cigarette. “All hell broke loose. They would’ve trashed half the town if that freak storm hadn’t interrupted things.” Mokou looks you over. “What happened to you? Get your ass kicked by another peasant?”
“The gazebo in the park came to life and almost stomped him to death,” Keine states primly.
Mokou drops her cigarette.
“Then he summoned that thunderstorm that proved so fortuitous for you. And I’ll remind you, he’s a guest in my house.”
“... okay,” Mokou says.
“And he’s probably hungry. I am. There’s some sandwiches I made earlier in the kitchen.”
“
Okay,” Mokou hisses, carefully not looking at you. Retracting her fangs, she slithers into the kitchen.
Keine strides to the bed, parting rabbits before her. “
Move,” she commands, and rabbits go springing away like their tails are afire. She flumphs onto the bed beside you with authority.
“So. Your little theory about somebody trying to mislead us. You don’t think its a little... elaborate?”
“Not for the list of available suspects. We’ve got a ghost princess, some vampire-devil mismash, a daffy dollmaker and gods help us a... er, a god. Two of ‘em have spying capabilities beyond my everyday ability to detect.”
“Who?”
“Ghost-geisha and semi-god.”
“But that spell..?”
“Works against magical scrying. Little to nothing can see a ghost that doesn’t want to be seen.” Which is a lie that any eavesdropping ghosts are welcome to trot right back to Her Royal Deadness. “And gods, even weak gods, they-”
Keine nods. “Yes, I know.” She slumps against the wall, and sighs. “And neither would have difficulty manipulating spirits. At least we can rule out the Society, now. We even made an ally of them.”
“And an enemy,” you remark, thinking of Riku. Rough and hardy farmers sons, growing up in the shadow of an ancient and hostile wood concealing terrifyingly powerful monsters. You’ve been in similar villages back home, villages that fought
wars with such forest denizens and occasionally the trees themselves. Many farmers wear their sword into the fields, those who till in such shadows know how to use them, and those who dare the vile forests are truly formidable.
Riku’s an asshole – but a competent one. And his friends probably are, too. You expect trouble from that quarter in the future.
“At least its one we know,” Keine points out.
“What
do you know?” Mokou asks, returning from the kitchen, tripping over rabbits as she does. “Sakuya shows up at your doorstep looking for Mister Magic here, then somebody scries upon you, and
then you’re attacked by ghosts. Don’cha see the flow here? How thick do you have to be?”
“We don’t
know anything,” Keine complains, reaching for a sammich. Mokou drags a small end-table over and sets the tray down. “If Remilia could just have Patchouli scry on me, why bother sending Sakuya? And neither is needed to bid spirits attack; if you’ve a token of the victim they’ll just find you, no matter distance or deception. Which you’d know if you ever paid attention in my classes, by the way.”
Mokou just humphs as she enters the kitchen and emerges with a tea service. “Well chasing your own tail all night isn’t going to help.”
That earns her a Look from the schoolteacher. Mokou ignores it. “Hey, Amazing Dogboy. Gonna stand there all night?”
“Apparently so,” Duke says from the doorway, looking down at a small regiment of bunnies blocking his way. “I believe they bear animosity towards canines.”
Keine stomps her foot irritably, and the rabbits reluctantly disperse, allowing Duke in. “We already chased our tails for two days by jumping at a false lead,” Keine grumbles, accepting some tea from her friend. “Every inquiry we make results in more unresolved leads, more disconnected events, and we’ve got to synthesize them into a cohesive whole before we make any moves-” Mokou’s eyes are rolling heavenward – “and this isn’t history, it’s happening
now, so anything we do renders our analysis obsolete before its finished! It feels like we’re being dragged down by the sheer weight of... everything.” She sips at her tea, downcast.
Mokou groans. “I knew it. It’s Gensokyo High all over again.”
Forcible expulsion of tea ensues as Keine chokes mid-sip. Mokou ducks as the teacup snaps over her head, putting a neat hole in the wall behind her.
“Khaaa
cgk!” Keine declares as tea and air play musical chairs in her esophagus.
“Am I miffing sumfing ‘ere?” you ask around a mouthful of sammich.
Keine, still sputtering, seizes a tea sandwich and cocks her arm menacingly.
“Gensokyo High was Keine’s first attempt at a school,” Mokou explains. Keine hurls the sandwich with all her strength, making it disintigrate. Mokou stands serene amidst the swirling hail of lettuce and tomato.
“Not another word, Mokou, not one cursed syllable!” Keine wails, finally catching her breath.
Duke pulls up your Chest and takes a seat, and you silently wish for some popped kettle corn.
“She was trying to teach ‘adult’ youkai and humans. Regular classes in a few places, teaching them the other species history, to make them bond, blah blah blah.”
“MOKOU!” Keine hollers haggardly, clutching at her head. “Shut up shut up shut up right
now or – or I’ll-”
“What, kill me?” Mokou snorts. “Anyway, it was a total fustercluck, like I told her it’d be.”
Keine’s face begins to redden, and she turns her head away from you.
“She was younger then, didn’t understand what most youkai are like. Self-absorbed, immature, and most of all just plain volatile. Not the school type, and when she got some of them together in the same
room, well-”
“They get the point,” Keine says softly to the far wall. “People
still talk about it. Stupid gossipy
bints that dried their brains out cooking in yakatori stands all summer, to be precise.”
“If the bint was right, what does that make you?” Mokou says, leaning against the wall and sipping her tea.
“With a full perspective on history comes a full perspective of others,” Keine lectures the far wall with wounded scholastic dignity. “You can’t understand somebody else if you don’t understand their history. The concept was sound!”
“
There. That cartful of donkey dung, right there,” Mokou says, thrusting her teacup at Keine. “I kept telling you, ‘bust some skulls, they’ll settle down and listen real good,’ but you just kept on with all that intellectual stuff. You’re over-thinking everything again.”
Ah, the sharp metallic scent of
irony. Gods help you, you love it so.
Mokou swirls her tea around idly, a distant look in her eyes. “People are emotional creatures... not that complex, at the heart of it. Injure them, they cry, shame them, they retaliate, humble them, they resent, adore them, they preen. And youkai, even more so. I’ve watched it for a thousand years, Keine.”
Keine says nothing, but you see her shoulders slump. Mokou makes some excuse of checking on Cirno, and quits the room.
Awkward silence descends.
“I
like this demi-plane,” Duke says. “So interesting.” He sips daintily at a teacup pinched delicately betwixt his big thumb and forefingers.
“It’s been a long day. I’m going to turn in,” Keine excuses herself. You can’t blame her. She’s weathered the physical toll of the day much better, but you’ve both been riding an emotional yo-yo from dawn to dusk.
“I believe it is ‘later,’” Duke says, pulling a scroll from his belt pouch and tossing it to you. “It is time to hear my tale of the blonde puppeteer.”
“And this?” You waggle the scroll at him.
“Something she thought you’d find of interest.”
“Hmmph,” you doubt. She’s a specialist, and a few quarrels short of a quiver and holy
shit what do we have here.
“She called it the ‘puppet enlargement project,” Duke says. He goes on to describe his conversation with Alice in detail, including tales of the kappa’s gigantic steam-inflated doll and the rumored sightings of the youkai that persisted even after the kappa’s festival.
“Kappa?” you ponder.
“Alice described them as essentially... aquatic gnomes.”
“That sounds like gnomes, all right,” you grumble. “Never, ever know when to stop. Puppet? Hell no, lets make a gigantic pop-up doll to scare people shitless!” You examine the unfurled parchment again. “So in response she dreams up a telekinetically-operated golem?”
“Yes. She has the means to manipulate a giant puppet, and she was nearby when we spotted the mystery beast.”
“But why would she bother?” you muse, trying to imagine Uncanny Nightmare Two – Dollmakers Boogaloo stalking through the forest. “What does she gain by making the Saturday summoning society, lichen-locks and her half-pint holiness go scampering around after a mysterious giant?”
“.... what?”
“What?”
“Lady Su- ah, the goddess is investigating the forest giant?”
“So what?”
You raise a teacup sedately and take a sip, thinking.
“Oh, sweet frenzyfucking fiendish firedrakes.”
Duke sips his tea.
“Indeed.”
*****
The lamps are extinguished, the bunnyhorde aslumber, and the dishes – well, screw the dishes, you’re a damn wizard.
Prestidigitation handles that. You sit awake on your bed, slowly turning things over in your mind.
Deities
know things. Even without divine prescience, they can hear a whisper from a mile off. Even the forgotten ones way in the back whom count a few hundred sages across the planes as their worshippers.
Or a few hundred tengu, for that matter. Suwako is posing, sure as you breathe. Perhaps she’s just promoting Sanae’s image, the proper monster-hunting human-helping shrine maiden. Perhaps not. Either way, she must have motive for meddling with the secret society.
To say nothing of the Scarlet Sisters. Remilia was righteously pissed off to see semi-god showing up uninvited. Suwako knew it, too, she just didn’t give a damn. She wanted to “talk to Patchy,” she said?
Did she? Was that the only reason she popped in uninvited, or was she deliberately crashing Remilia’s party?
And Remilia herself! All those snippy comments at the dinner, trying to get your measure. Trying to drive a wedge between you and Keine. And yet, after all that hostility...
Let him into the library. In fact, give him a tour. You remember the first few hours you spent with Keine. Her apprehension at your mere presence in Gensokyo...
You’re clearly powerful, so just by being here you upset the power balance. Many of these youkai have known each other for hundreds of years, even a thousand. You’re a wildcard. Some will try to exploit that, or exploit you. You start. Keine was right, earlier. Nobody is trying to mislead you... just
lead you. Keine suspecting the Society was predictable, due to old friction, but a ghost attack would send anybody straight to the Ghost Princess herself. As you did.
Somebody wanted you there. If they’d wanted you dead, well-! They would’ve thrown something really nasty at you, nasty and relentless, not a single horde of shambling comatose ghosts.
Something like a hideously powerful gazebo, for instance.
You think cautiously, methodically, turning each fact over and over, trying to fit them together like puzzle pieces. You always hated jigsaw puzzles. Set-piece thinking, no flexibility or creativity in it. Very much the hobby of the control freak, the villain too smart for their own good. So confident that nobody will assemble the puzzle they’ve already completed, so sure in that advantage. So horrified when somebody just flips the fucking table over and socks them in the jaw.
At least you’ve done some of
that. Resolved the Society mystery, and made allies. Survived the first deliberate attempt on your life. Taken the measure of the Scarlet Devil and all whom serve her. Finally made progress understanding the elemental magic of this madhouse. And even managed to end the day on good terms with Keine, which you consider analogous to sailing a rudderless ship into every reef in sight and still not sinking.
You drift off on a sense of accomplishment.
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WIZARD LEVEL UP! LEVEL 18 GET! Voting for level-up choices commences soon; writefag has work in 15 minutes. Expect revised character sheet/inventory check at that time. But for now:
You fall into a deep sleep untroubled by dreams. Sometime in the night, a half-forgotten memory surfaces in your subconscious: [ ] The smallest of hints, previously unnoticed.
[ ] Some small thing you’ve been meaning to do, but totally forgot about.
[ ] Something you should’ve thought about by now, but have completely ignored.
