Clarisse Quest [now in Part II, Revolutionary Girl Clarisse] (a PMMM/TTS quest)
I propose that someone wants us dead.
- Location
- Oooooooh emotional roller coaster
> Split the team
> Magical girls most comfortable with / interested in witches fight the witch
You send Ryouko with Kirika and Homura. Kirika for melee, Kyouko has better tech for track. Ryouko for mobility, and her ranged attacks. Homura for timestop, more valuable in combat, your trump card that can keep everyone safe.
... Right?
We've seen that one before, notes Ryouko, surveying the familiar population. (She tactfully leaves out the fact that Kyouko was barking at it.) There are also several types of freaky-bird inhabiting the trees, of varying sizes. They pay Ryouko no particular heed.
> Track the invisible interloper if possible
> Follow the visible interloper otherwise
You send Amy to follow Mr. Vampire Hunter, in case the two join up again, while you focus the rest of the girls on locating whoever, or whatever, had his attention earlier, taking a more distributed approach in an effort to better triangulate signals. After a while it is clear that there is someone, or something, which is emitting a mild but just-detectable electromagnetic signal, a spread spectrum signal emission, that doesn't line up with the rest of the traffic you've come to expect. It takes several of you with technology to lock onto it with any effectiveness, and Machina is a great help. She credits Mami-chan with an instinct for where someone hiding around these parts ought to be. It seems she's been through warehouses and factories in the area before.
> Try to look for a soul using magic
Can you track it as a soul? A good question.
Soul space is weird, and you do not understand the projection with which it is mapped onto your awareness to begin with. If you try focusing on where you think it this soul-bearing entity would be, it modifies that projection, warping your view in confusing ways, distorting your references to reality and your view of the other souls... while failing to manifest anything new. It is viscerally disconcerting.
Instead you do your best to close in on whatever it is, but … well, it seems to be on to you, as it's getting harder to hear. It's hard to say whether it's engaged radio silence and is lying low, or whether it has simply given you the slip. You are taking a moment to work on better signal attenuation estimates to improve your last location estimate, when Ryouko calls.
Clarisse!
> Support witch team if necessary using Ryouko as a proxy
You do your best to catch up quickly.
What Ryouko probably means by "Clarisse" is, "Things are heating up. I think we're about to need tactical advice. Also, can you still do that from there if we're timestopped?" That's what the models indicate, anyway. She is looking at Homura, specifically her shield, and the group appears to have reached the witch: a burning tree in a cauldron on a fire in a clearing, surrounded by more of the dense trees. The familiars are starting to harass the crew in greater numbers. Kirika is happy enough about this, but her approach could use a little refinement.
And while you are confident in your assessment of Ryouko's true query, you don't have a direct reading on Ryouko, which is one of the problems in this particular configuration. She is used to a very direct link where she does not need to say things like that explicitly, and without that, your assessment of the situation will be degraded, your suggestions late, and, of course, you will have no ability to reach her in time stop.
You should be there help her out. You could teleport nearby, but that has its own risks. The familiars are no longer peaceful, and you might find yourself drawn into the labyrinth.
I have an idea, Clarisse. You could use the ribbon.
Yes, like that.
You throw yourself at your other self, the one inside Ryouko.
There's a certain exhilaration about being part of Ryouko while she battles. Her enjoyment of the fight is a part of it, but there's something else in her strength and her speed, her heightened alertness. Yes. You've missed this feeling of speed and of power.
And, of course, you can share the stream of consciousness so much more directly. You don't need to even explicitly tell Ryouko, "I am here". You can project the sense of here-ness for her to act upon directly, and preliminary advice.
"Time-stop at will," she tells Homura.
Homura nods, and activates her shield.
It doesn't work. Or rather, it works, but the vines and the roots of the trees are alive. The whole labyrinth seems to be either … alive, or empty space.
You are alarmed.
Is there anywhere safe to stand? You try, and fail, to identify a stable platform to stand on that isn't alive. Or is there some way to fight it in the air? It could be safer, but your ability to make it happen is limited. Ryouko could teleport, of course, but would have to deal with gravity, so not even better than jumping. And what of Homura and Kirika?
A ridiculous idea occurs to you of Homura riding on Ryouko's back as she leaps around, touching the vines for the shortest time possible, using crossbow bolts to dislodge portions via teleport and dismissing them as quickly as possible. But what about Kirika? Just leave her frozen in midair? No, that's not safe, she'd be more of a target than on the ground …
You have the wrong team for this witch. Even Kirika's sharp claws are less useful here just from the give of the material, and she's not even trying to be a team player. Damn.
You know what would be nice right now? A barrier generator, so you could have a safe spot between teleport runs, and fend off dive-bombing freaky-birds.
Hey, speaking of Kirika, what the hell is she doing there? Climbing the tree?
"This is no good," Ryouko says. "Homura, turn it off. Kirika?" She calls out. "What's your plan?"
Kirika has made it to the edge of a giant nest which sits in the trees' branches. She vaults the edge, and smashes one of the eggs inside, almost as big as she is, with a big grin.
Of course this just makes the witch mad.
At this point you would almost prefer to just leave Kirika to the witch. It would be so much easier. But you can't quite bring yourself to entertain this idea seriously. You suppose Governance really didn't want you wasting their precious magical girls… and Ryouko wouldn't be on board it either. She's not that cold, praise the goddess, even if it would be convenient.
So the two of you will work together to save them both. The witch at the center is very nasty, sending out dark vines, spiked with thorns and dripping with a nasty substance. They grow at her targets with a speed like they're being shot out a cannon.
And that is a very large freaky-bird that has just swooped over to grab Homura.
You need to get these two out of here, fast.
Homura, Kirika, Ryouko (and you) all tumble onto the asphalt pavement outside the labyrinth.
There is still a chunk of the nasty thorn vines on Ryouko, the dripping substance making its way into Ryouko's left arm through small gashes opened by the thorns. It has also caught fire, and is somehow trying to use Ryouko's arm as fuel, both for the fire and, it appears, for re growth. The readouts are all very alarming, and becoming more so as something infiltrates further up Ryouko's arm. She can sense it as a magic infiltration. It is nasty.
This is also alarming. Ryouko has decided to use her teleport attack on herself and just chop it off, to stop the spread. The good news is that Governance tech will permit an orderly shutdown of the major arteries. Deprived of fuel, the flame burns out, and the vine melts into shadowy goop that boils away.
Homura's glasses are broken, her pigtails are a mess, and there is an indentation on her leg from the bird squeezing her.
Kirika is mostly intact. She looks over at the two of you.
"Wimps," she concludes.
Ryouko rolls her eyes.
"This isn't an ordinary witch," says Homura — not to Kirika, just matter-of-factly — as she peels a dead bit of thorn-vine off of her leg. It does not appear to have been draining her like the other, and turns into a black goo, which boils away on the ground.
"Consider," continues Homura. "The last set of witches have all been battling demon infestations internally. This one was not. Instead, it was configured in such a way as to deprive us of all our tactical mobility advantages. In short, a very good trap, targeting — I would not say the three of us specifically, but targeting our team, generally. I propose that someone wants us dead. Our stalker?" she suggests. "Or the Incubator?"
"The what?" asks Kirika.
"Kyuubey," says Homura.
If it's Kyuubey that would be … unfortunate, you note. We're very lucky we didn't lose someone.
While Homura begins healing herself, and fixing the tatters in her school uniform, Ryouko picks up her severed arm and inspects it. It's rather blackened. You contemplate remedies. This is not your usual first aid case… and she is supposed to do school tomorrow.
In a moment, some the others arrive, unbidden, Kyouko carrying — well, that's not really Clarisse right now, is it?
Kyouko is carrying not-Clarisse princess style, which is simultaneously very romantic and slightly distressing. Yuma is following.
You are a little annoyed that they are here. You're welcome to see Yuma, but you'd have preferred them to chase down the interloper.
"Here ya go, Clarisse," says Kyouko, setting down the lavender Ryouko clone with a streak of pink in her hair.
… right. The Clarisse impersonator, from the current traffic patterns, appears to have access to all your credentials and secrets. This is good to know. You would feel slightly better if she were Volokhov certified. Presumably she asked for them to come.
Sakura-Clarisse makes a little "eep" sound as she lands. When she gets a better look at Ryouko, though, she covers her mouth in alarm.
"Oh, no," she says. "Clarisse, are you okay?"
Kyouko makes a bit of face. "Wait, what?"
"Clarisse is fine," says Ryouko.
You relay a quick explanation to Kyouko.
Yuma approaches deliberately and examines Ryouko's severed arm.
"That's pretty bad," she says earnestly. "Its better than not having an arm at all. But it's still not good."
"Damn," says Homura, suddenly.
"What's wrong?" asks Kyouko, turning to look. Homura seems to have been restoring her gem with grief cubes, but…
"They're not working," she says.
Oh goddess, if you'd all been caught in that mess and then in the middle the cubes had stopped working…
It doesn't take long to figure out that the problem is the same thing that scrambled Homura's little charm from before. A brilliant beam of pure Hope very well could do that to grief cubes, too, especially if it's stored with them.
The question, then, is what exactly to do.
"Okay … who's got grief cubes," says Kyouko, frowning, "and wasn't carrying one of the feathers? Mami, Oriko, Kirika, Yuma…"
Kirika bristles.
"I thought we were teaming up because you had so many cubes," she says. "Now you don't and you want to steal all of ours?"
"Whoa, geez, calm down, girl," says Kyouko. "It ain't like that."
"Don't waste your magic, Yuma," commands Kirika, crossing her arms. "They're just trying to exploit you."
"But … she's hurt," says Yuma.
About this moment, Machina checks in. Mami has just picked up the trail of your target. It seems to escaped you surrounding it by going down into a storm drain, but it lingered nearby, and she has found it in the canal. If the canal didn't run underground, she'd be much more confident about giving chase.
> an assassination attempt? by the incubators? perish the thought!
[Healing][] Ask Yuma to heal Ryouko's arm
[Healing][] (write in alternative)
[Pursuit][] Leave Mami to the pursuit all alone
[Pursuit][] (write in alternative)
[Witch][] Let the witch go
[Witch][] Send the whole team to fight the witch for its grief seed
[Witch][] Fight this witch yourself personally
[Witch][] Fight this witch with a specific team or tactic
-[] Flight! Barrier generator!
-[] Tap the Simona feathers for power
> Magical girls most comfortable with / interested in witches fight the witch
You send Ryouko with Kirika and Homura. Kirika for melee, Kyouko has better tech for track. Ryouko for mobility, and her ranged attacks. Homura for timestop, more valuable in combat, your trump card that can keep everyone safe.
... Right?
We've seen that one before, notes Ryouko, surveying the familiar population. (She tactfully leaves out the fact that Kyouko was barking at it.) There are also several types of freaky-bird inhabiting the trees, of varying sizes. They pay Ryouko no particular heed.
> Track the invisible interloper if possible
> Follow the visible interloper otherwise
You send Amy to follow Mr. Vampire Hunter, in case the two join up again, while you focus the rest of the girls on locating whoever, or whatever, had his attention earlier, taking a more distributed approach in an effort to better triangulate signals. After a while it is clear that there is someone, or something, which is emitting a mild but just-detectable electromagnetic signal, a spread spectrum signal emission, that doesn't line up with the rest of the traffic you've come to expect. It takes several of you with technology to lock onto it with any effectiveness, and Machina is a great help. She credits Mami-chan with an instinct for where someone hiding around these parts ought to be. It seems she's been through warehouses and factories in the area before.
> Try to look for a soul using magic
Can you track it as a soul? A good question.
Soul space is weird, and you do not understand the projection with which it is mapped onto your awareness to begin with. If you try focusing on where you think it this soul-bearing entity would be, it modifies that projection, warping your view in confusing ways, distorting your references to reality and your view of the other souls... while failing to manifest anything new. It is viscerally disconcerting.
Instead you do your best to close in on whatever it is, but … well, it seems to be on to you, as it's getting harder to hear. It's hard to say whether it's engaged radio silence and is lying low, or whether it has simply given you the slip. You are taking a moment to work on better signal attenuation estimates to improve your last location estimate, when Ryouko calls.
Clarisse!
> Support witch team if necessary using Ryouko as a proxy
You do your best to catch up quickly.
What Ryouko probably means by "Clarisse" is, "Things are heating up. I think we're about to need tactical advice. Also, can you still do that from there if we're timestopped?" That's what the models indicate, anyway. She is looking at Homura, specifically her shield, and the group appears to have reached the witch: a burning tree in a cauldron on a fire in a clearing, surrounded by more of the dense trees. The familiars are starting to harass the crew in greater numbers. Kirika is happy enough about this, but her approach could use a little refinement.
And while you are confident in your assessment of Ryouko's true query, you don't have a direct reading on Ryouko, which is one of the problems in this particular configuration. She is used to a very direct link where she does not need to say things like that explicitly, and without that, your assessment of the situation will be degraded, your suggestions late, and, of course, you will have no ability to reach her in time stop.
You should be there help her out. You could teleport nearby, but that has its own risks. The familiars are no longer peaceful, and you might find yourself drawn into the labyrinth.
I have an idea, Clarisse. You could use the ribbon.
Yes, like that.
You throw yourself at your other self, the one inside Ryouko.
There's a certain exhilaration about being part of Ryouko while she battles. Her enjoyment of the fight is a part of it, but there's something else in her strength and her speed, her heightened alertness. Yes. You've missed this feeling of speed and of power.
And, of course, you can share the stream of consciousness so much more directly. You don't need to even explicitly tell Ryouko, "I am here". You can project the sense of here-ness for her to act upon directly, and preliminary advice.
"Time-stop at will," she tells Homura.
Homura nods, and activates her shield.
It doesn't work. Or rather, it works, but the vines and the roots of the trees are alive. The whole labyrinth seems to be either … alive, or empty space.
You are alarmed.
Is there anywhere safe to stand? You try, and fail, to identify a stable platform to stand on that isn't alive. Or is there some way to fight it in the air? It could be safer, but your ability to make it happen is limited. Ryouko could teleport, of course, but would have to deal with gravity, so not even better than jumping. And what of Homura and Kirika?
A ridiculous idea occurs to you of Homura riding on Ryouko's back as she leaps around, touching the vines for the shortest time possible, using crossbow bolts to dislodge portions via teleport and dismissing them as quickly as possible. But what about Kirika? Just leave her frozen in midair? No, that's not safe, she'd be more of a target than on the ground …
You have the wrong team for this witch. Even Kirika's sharp claws are less useful here just from the give of the material, and she's not even trying to be a team player. Damn.
You know what would be nice right now? A barrier generator, so you could have a safe spot between teleport runs, and fend off dive-bombing freaky-birds.
Hey, speaking of Kirika, what the hell is she doing there? Climbing the tree?
"This is no good," Ryouko says. "Homura, turn it off. Kirika?" She calls out. "What's your plan?"
Kirika has made it to the edge of a giant nest which sits in the trees' branches. She vaults the edge, and smashes one of the eggs inside, almost as big as she is, with a big grin.
Of course this just makes the witch mad.
At this point you would almost prefer to just leave Kirika to the witch. It would be so much easier. But you can't quite bring yourself to entertain this idea seriously. You suppose Governance really didn't want you wasting their precious magical girls… and Ryouko wouldn't be on board it either. She's not that cold, praise the goddess, even if it would be convenient.
So the two of you will work together to save them both. The witch at the center is very nasty, sending out dark vines, spiked with thorns and dripping with a nasty substance. They grow at her targets with a speed like they're being shot out a cannon.
And that is a very large freaky-bird that has just swooped over to grab Homura.
You need to get these two out of here, fast.
Homura, Kirika, Ryouko (and you) all tumble onto the asphalt pavement outside the labyrinth.
There is still a chunk of the nasty thorn vines on Ryouko, the dripping substance making its way into Ryouko's left arm through small gashes opened by the thorns. It has also caught fire, and is somehow trying to use Ryouko's arm as fuel, both for the fire and, it appears, for re growth. The readouts are all very alarming, and becoming more so as something infiltrates further up Ryouko's arm. She can sense it as a magic infiltration. It is nasty.
This is also alarming. Ryouko has decided to use her teleport attack on herself and just chop it off, to stop the spread. The good news is that Governance tech will permit an orderly shutdown of the major arteries. Deprived of fuel, the flame burns out, and the vine melts into shadowy goop that boils away.
Homura's glasses are broken, her pigtails are a mess, and there is an indentation on her leg from the bird squeezing her.
Kirika is mostly intact. She looks over at the two of you.
"Wimps," she concludes.
Ryouko rolls her eyes.
"This isn't an ordinary witch," says Homura — not to Kirika, just matter-of-factly — as she peels a dead bit of thorn-vine off of her leg. It does not appear to have been draining her like the other, and turns into a black goo, which boils away on the ground.
"Consider," continues Homura. "The last set of witches have all been battling demon infestations internally. This one was not. Instead, it was configured in such a way as to deprive us of all our tactical mobility advantages. In short, a very good trap, targeting — I would not say the three of us specifically, but targeting our team, generally. I propose that someone wants us dead. Our stalker?" she suggests. "Or the Incubator?"
"The what?" asks Kirika.
"Kyuubey," says Homura.
If it's Kyuubey that would be … unfortunate, you note. We're very lucky we didn't lose someone.
While Homura begins healing herself, and fixing the tatters in her school uniform, Ryouko picks up her severed arm and inspects it. It's rather blackened. You contemplate remedies. This is not your usual first aid case… and she is supposed to do school tomorrow.
In a moment, some the others arrive, unbidden, Kyouko carrying — well, that's not really Clarisse right now, is it?
Kyouko is carrying not-Clarisse princess style, which is simultaneously very romantic and slightly distressing. Yuma is following.
You are a little annoyed that they are here. You're welcome to see Yuma, but you'd have preferred them to chase down the interloper.
"Here ya go, Clarisse," says Kyouko, setting down the lavender Ryouko clone with a streak of pink in her hair.
… right. The Clarisse impersonator, from the current traffic patterns, appears to have access to all your credentials and secrets. This is good to know. You would feel slightly better if she were Volokhov certified. Presumably she asked for them to come.
Sakura-Clarisse makes a little "eep" sound as she lands. When she gets a better look at Ryouko, though, she covers her mouth in alarm.
"Oh, no," she says. "Clarisse, are you okay?"
Kyouko makes a bit of face. "Wait, what?"
"Clarisse is fine," says Ryouko.
You relay a quick explanation to Kyouko.
Yuma approaches deliberately and examines Ryouko's severed arm.
"That's pretty bad," she says earnestly. "Its better than not having an arm at all. But it's still not good."
"Damn," says Homura, suddenly.
"What's wrong?" asks Kyouko, turning to look. Homura seems to have been restoring her gem with grief cubes, but…
"They're not working," she says.
Oh goddess, if you'd all been caught in that mess and then in the middle the cubes had stopped working…
It doesn't take long to figure out that the problem is the same thing that scrambled Homura's little charm from before. A brilliant beam of pure Hope very well could do that to grief cubes, too, especially if it's stored with them.
The question, then, is what exactly to do.
"Okay … who's got grief cubes," says Kyouko, frowning, "and wasn't carrying one of the feathers? Mami, Oriko, Kirika, Yuma…"
Kirika bristles.
"I thought we were teaming up because you had so many cubes," she says. "Now you don't and you want to steal all of ours?"
"Whoa, geez, calm down, girl," says Kyouko. "It ain't like that."
"Don't waste your magic, Yuma," commands Kirika, crossing her arms. "They're just trying to exploit you."
"But … she's hurt," says Yuma.
About this moment, Machina checks in. Mami has just picked up the trail of your target. It seems to escaped you surrounding it by going down into a storm drain, but it lingered nearby, and she has found it in the canal. If the canal didn't run underground, she'd be much more confident about giving chase.
> an assassination attempt? by the incubators? perish the thought!
[Healing][] Ask Yuma to heal Ryouko's arm
[Healing][] (write in alternative)
[Pursuit][] Leave Mami to the pursuit all alone
[Pursuit][] (write in alternative)
[Witch][] Let the witch go
[Witch][] Send the whole team to fight the witch for its grief seed
[Witch][] Fight this witch yourself personally
[Witch][] Fight this witch with a specific team or tactic
-[] Flight! Barrier generator!
-[] Tap the Simona feathers for power
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- Location
- The infinite well of fanfics
Really important question since i dont remember us being explicit since we teamed with oriko. How did we split the cube stash?
I am going to guess, because despite figuring it out apparently it was never actually explained, that the Feathers offloaded their Grief into the Cubes just by being near them/indirectly in contact with them.
And as nice as it is to see Sakura up and about, we need our body back, Mami needs backup, and we need to murder Kyuuby.
Threaten to use our Wish to murder his entire species if he keeps fucking with us? Everything is either hanging on by such a small string and we're going to be digging hard enough into how souls work and function that he's becoming increasingly irrelevant anyway.
"You're trying to stave off Entropy? That's nice. I'm trying to stop a multiversal Witch from devouring multiple timelines worth of universes. Fuck off or I'll kill all of you."
Goddammit, we increasingly just need answers on the Soul. A prominent one with the Cube issue is now "What is Grief" and "How do I boop it."
- Location
- Oooooooh emotional roller coaster
Ah, this is a fair objection. Please forgive my writing for being addled with the knowledge of authorship.
The same Hope burst from Clarisse that purges the feathers and scrambled the little charm also managed to neutralize the cubes. I will edit in a clarification shortly.
The same Hope burst from Clarisse that purges the feathers and scrambled the little charm also managed to neutralize the cubes. I will edit in a clarification shortly.
- Location
- The infinite well of fanfics
This is the best outcome when it comes to dealing with logistics, just focus any black feathers a bit more to get more girls who can carry a stock pile, with feather girls on reduced count incase we scramble them by accident.
I do hope kirika and yuma had a decent size of cubes on them for the hunt, or that would be stupid. Oriko not having many would make sence given shes basically under house arrest. We could do a cube count, but that means giving up on the stalker.
- Location
- Your imagination
Let's try to kickstart the votes:
[Healing][X] Make sure Ryouko is stable, but hold off on healing the rest of the arm until we sort out our magic supply situation
[Pursuit][] I genuinely don't know. Sending Mami alone seams extremely dangerous, but letting them get away looks no less dangerous
[Witch][] Fight this witch yourself personally
-[Witch][] This is looking more appealing now, but I'm still hesitant to continue Hope Booping.
[Witch][X] Let the witch go
There, now we have something to go off of.
[Healing][X] Make sure Ryouko is stable, but hold off on healing the rest of the arm until we sort out our magic supply situation
[Pursuit][] I genuinely don't know. Sending Mami alone seams extremely dangerous, but letting them get away looks no less dangerous
[Witch][] Fight this witch yourself personally
-[Witch][] This is looking more appealing now, but I'm still hesitant to continue Hope Booping.
[Witch][X] Let the witch go
There, now we have something to go off of.
Is it just me, or is Homura substantially more murder-face then usual here?
We should come up with a response to Kirika too, something about how Oriko wouldn't want her to refuse to cooperate here.
- Location
- Oooooooh emotional roller coaster
I fear I am unable to understand the implications of this, only the general screaming noises.
Is "murder-face" an adjective specifically referring to PMAS? I must admit to not following it in detail, and will have to defer to your judgment. Are you referring to her attitude specifically thisdoot, or does it cover the previous doot as well?
Of course, you also have the option of calling Oriko for clarification. Or pretending to call her. Handing Kirika a cell phone and synthesizing Oriko's voice. Lots of options. You can also consider how much Yuma respects Kirika.
How delightfully ambitious! Any ideas on how to start?
The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
It's an older meme than that, but I think what they're saying is that Homura is acting less like shy, naive second-loop Homura and more like hardened, experienced thousandth-loop Homura from the series.
Nolrai
weak to fangs
- Location
- Porltand
Kagome is the name of an paranoid seal master from Marked from death. His general reaction to uncertainty is to blow things up. Hence this sub process is expressing a counterproductive desire to just nuke everything from orbit.
Yeah..is Homura okay? She does seem very formal and authoritative. A far cry from her usual stance on things.
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The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
Could this be a ribbon thing?
- Location
- Your imagination
Moemura has displayed Coolmura-like traits in Magia Record, so there is precedence for her to act differently even without soul-altering magic.
- Location
- Wingmaiden's Reach, the Near Roofs, Town
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Could be a ribbon thing, could be that our sweet, darling Homura has heretofore hidden depths. I'm not sure the exact diagnosis matters, since I doubt it would be possible to get a majority to vote for de-ribboning Homura and depriving us of timestop immunity.
That's what the Wish is for.
IIRC in TTS Yuma always thought of Kirika as crazy, so the same is probably true here. I think it's still worth pushing back on. In the long run I would like to de-crazy Kirika a bit, since it makes working with Oriko harder and and don't think it's really in the best interests of either of them that Kirika do this kind of thing. It would also be nice if Yuma understood the benefits of sharing resources across a larger group in smoothing out short term fluctuations, but that might be a bit much to expect from a 7 year old.
This. It's a notable attitude change from the previous update, where she was telling us about vampire repellent charms and apologizing for being bad at names. I wouldn't want to de-ribbon her over this, but I think it's worth talking to her about.
- Location
- Oooooooh emotional roller coaster
Perhaps you can find a workable alternative!
Anyway votes so far:
[1] Hold off on healing Ryouko due to cube supply questions
[1] Let the witch go
[0] Permit Mami to pursue the invisible interloper
Ribbon policy changes and feather layout policy changes have also been discussed and might be added to a vote?
- Location
- The infinite well of fanfics
I should really vote as well then...
I think we should track down and get to know this new magical girl. Fighting over cubes and seeds is the biggest drain and we need to deal with this asap or at least get some new infomation. However we are going to be low on cubes so we should really get some info off kirika about demons.
[Healing][X] Ask Yuma to heal Ryouko's arm
-[X] Explain to Kirika the whole point of having lots of cubes distributed is to make freak events where people lose all their cubes not as big of an issue.
--[X] Also, doing it latter will cost more cubes and cause an investigation why Ryouko's arm is missing.
-[X] How well spread are the demons at the moment?
[Pursuit][X] Everyone present except Yuma and Ryouko pursue the magical girl
[Witch][X] Let the witch go
I think we should track down and get to know this new magical girl. Fighting over cubes and seeds is the biggest drain and we need to deal with this asap or at least get some new infomation. However we are going to be low on cubes so we should really get some info off kirika about demons.
[Healing][X] Ask Yuma to heal Ryouko's arm
-[X] Explain to Kirika the whole point of having lots of cubes distributed is to make freak events where people lose all their cubes not as big of an issue.
--[X] Also, doing it latter will cost more cubes and cause an investigation why Ryouko's arm is missing.
-[X] How well spread are the demons at the moment?
[Pursuit][X] Everyone present except Yuma and Ryouko pursue the magical girl
[Witch][X] Let the witch go
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[Healing][X] Ask Yuma to heal Ryouko's arm
-[X] Explain to Kirika the whole point of having lots of cubes distributed is to make freak events where people lose all their cubes not as big of an issue.
--[X] Also, doing it latter will cost more cubes and cause an investigation why Ryouko's arm is missing.
-[X] How well spread are the demons at the moment?
[Pursuit][X] Everyone present except Yuma and Ryouko pursue the magical girl
[Witch][X] Let the witch go
-[X] Explain to Kirika the whole point of having lots of cubes distributed is to make freak events where people lose all their cubes not as big of an issue.
--[X] Also, doing it latter will cost more cubes and cause an investigation why Ryouko's arm is missing.
-[X] How well spread are the demons at the moment?
[Pursuit][X] Everyone present except Yuma and Ryouko pursue the magical girl
[Witch][X] Let the witch go
Nolrai
weak to fangs
- Location
- Porltand
[Healing][X] Ask Yuma to heal Ryouko's arm
-[X] Explain to Kirika the whole point of having lots of cubes distributed is to make freak events where people lose all their cubes not as big of an issue.
--[X] Also, doing it latter will cost more cubes and cause an investigation why Ryouko's arm is missing.
-[X] How well spread are the demons at the moment?
[Pursuit][X] Everyone present except Yuma and Ryouko pursue the magical girl
[Witch][X] Let the witch go
-[X] Explain to Kirika the whole point of having lots of cubes distributed is to make freak events where people lose all their cubes not as big of an issue.
--[X] Also, doing it latter will cost more cubes and cause an investigation why Ryouko's arm is missing.
-[X] How well spread are the demons at the moment?
[Pursuit][X] Everyone present except Yuma and Ryouko pursue the magical girl
[Witch][X] Let the witch go
- Location
- The infinite well of fanfics
In our quest masters attempts to advertise this quest to people, they said the following:
Naturally, I noted that this didn't include Sayaka, who has a boyfriend. Tomoyo decided to explicitly not comment.
Sayaka is therefore probably bi and has eyes for someone else, which will obviously result in drama™.
tomoyo said:
Naturally, I noted that this didn't include Sayaka, who has a boyfriend. Tomoyo decided to explicitly not comment.
Sayaka is therefore probably bi and has eyes for someone else, which will obviously result in drama™.
- Location
- Oooooooh emotional roller coaster
At this time I can neither confirm nor deny that Sayaka either is crushing on, or will find herself crushing on, any of: you, Ryouko, Kyouko, another girl she already knows, or some girl she might yet meet. You are, however, welcome to consider Madoka canon, spinoffs, and TTS.
if aliens have magical girls, they might be like Clarisse.
- Location
- Oooooooh emotional roller coaster
> Ask Yuma to heal Ryouko's arm
> Explain to Kirika the whole point of having lots of cubes distributed is to make freak events where people lose all their cubes not as big of an issue. Also, doing it later will cost more cubes and cause an investigation why Ryouko's arm is missing.
Getting Yuma to heal Ryouko is very easy. It's not that Yuma likes healing itself. It's that she doesn't like seeing broken things like this. In the Governance timeline, for instance, there was that dismembered gangster… So convincing her to ignore Kirika and help is no great effort.
Kirika grouses a bit but doesn't have a concrete plan about what else to do or what to do about you.
> Everyone present except Yuma and Ryouko pursue the magical girl
Yes. And you can help teleport people there, and contribute to monitoring the situation via radio.
(Also, you're just the slightest bit jealous of Kyouko looking at Sakura like she's you.)
It is easy enough to return to being standalone Clarisse, but there's something different. You can see it through Ryouko's eyes. You've lost the pink in your hair somehow. There's some small presence in your mind that's gone. Also, Ryouko has a pair of small fluffy wings.
This is to be expected, Clarisse; you're pouring yourself into a container that would be slightly overfull. You have a little bit of momentum, and there's more of you than there is of her, so it pushes her out.
"Hold on," you tell Ryouko. "I can fix this… I think."
Here are the things you have learned from trying to fix this.
The first is that jumping between bodies is an effort that leaves you a little tired. You really should rest a little while between jumps. The second is that the lighter soul is pushed out of the way by the jumps. The third is that Sakura is simply not compatible with Ryouko. She separates out from Ryouko, taking the form of fluffy white wings, but the soul-part is immiscible. She does not speak in Ryouko's mind, nor does she suddenly become a tactical computer.
The obvious solution would be if Ryouko could jump to you and you to her, so the fourth thing you learn is that you can't jump to Ryouko, or vice versa. Actually, it leaves her rattled, and more aware of her soul gem than usual. It feels to her like she bumped up against the bars of a cage.
The last thing is that even when you're just looking at souls with Princess Ryouko's magic, Sakura is involved, elevating that specific capability from a memory to something you can actually do. The source of that magic is physically separated from you now, and you're pretty sure that you'd lose it if you were too far away from her — even the ability to teleport, which is kind of the one you were hoping would make you a little more tactically useful. There's an alternate pathway to it through the ribbon, but it requires Ryouko's presence.
You can still teleport the others into position, though, and help everyone track the radio signals. Hopefully Ryouko will be back in action soon.
Mami is an urban warfare expert, and even more so with Machina assisting. She knows this city like the back of her hand, and tracks your quarry relentlessly through the concrete-lined underground stream.
Before long, Ryouko is in one piece again. Yuma, however, is insistent that she will be going with Ryouko now. She hates being left behind, and says that Ryouko has to do this for her as payback for her help. Also, she volunteers that green magical girls need to stick together. Ryouko seems willing enough to pay back the favor. You suppose this is okay; you had only really anticipated Yuma staying behind for long enough to help Ryouko.
The great greenway through Mitakihara is part of the city's flood control system as well. This means there is infrastructure running alongside the stream, overflow tunnels, with gates and weirs and storm sewer discharge points. Machina shares what she's found of the layout and some fragments from Mami's prior attempts to gain access to them for hunting witches.
While your target has so far favored a straight shot through the main channel, it will be tricky to corner someone down there.
Your target is soon laying low again, so you are playing a bit of a waiting game. You have made your way into what seems to be the local flood control center, providing you with a vantage point for radiolocation; you are also investigating whether you can make use of the closed circuit feeds to catch the splashes of anyone running in the water. Mami is setting up webs of ribbons, as you try to flush her out. Out of an abundance of caution you also send a warning to Sayaka to be on her guard, as her apartment is not too far away, and you are wary of her being targeted.
A few moments later, Ryouko's soul gem starts glowing.
Why is it doing that now? Ryouko asks.
There is a very short list of times that Ryouko's has glowed in the past. All of them have something in common.
Indeed, Machina wishes to know urgently if there are any times when this doesn't signify Ceph drives or stealth technology.
It feels somewhat different, Ryouko indicates, and takes a moment to figure out why.
It's not the feeling itself that's different, it's coming from somewhere else somehow, she realizes suddenly.
Clarisse! she relays. It's near you!
As you process this thought, but before you can react, an object flies through the crack under the door. It is a small, rectangular thing, glowing brightly. You catch a glimpse of markings, but not a good one.
This strikes you as an excellent moment to evacuate. You reach for the appropriate magic —
The bright object detonates, with surprisingly little force, just a slight puff of wind, but a shimmery light covers everything in sight, coating it like a luminescent dust. It fades quickly.
But now you find you can't teleport out. This little device has disrupted the attempt somehow, you're sure of it; there is a resistance when you make the attempt.
The door opens. Because you know exactly where to look you can make out the outline of distortion, a faint radio emission, and hear the imperfectly silenced sound of a stealth device doing its best to hide someone.
Ryouko? you call to her, sending your thought of help me, please.
Ryouko cannot jump to where you are. It's an effect on the local space, you think.
This leaves you facing an unknown entity with unknown powers, all alone.
You brace yourself for a fight, reach for an offensive power. If the teleport won't work maybe the railgun. Or would a spear be better in such close quarters? Yes, and surely Kyouko would be willing. You will do so —
The cloaked figure just avoids you, opening an exit door to the outside, dashing off into the distance.
You provide a vector to Ryouko. I'm safe. Never mind me. Follow it, you instruct.
The chase continues, but Ryouko is without teleports for a short while, and in the open areas here it is much harder to find your target. She is able to follow the interloper, but the team loses your target about the same time as the teleport effect fades.
Out of an abundance of caution, you have Ryouko check in on Sayaka, but the only outcome of this is Sayaka asking for Ryouko to get off her balcony before her mother notices.
Kirika has decided to return to Oriko's, annoyed, and takes a slightly disappointed Yuma with her, while the rest of you sit in a circle and teleconference with Nanami for the debrief. Ryouko is relaying to Homura again. She seems to like it, actually, and wonders a little whether a duty like this is a little bit of what it means to be Clarisse — which it is, a little.
"It's human sized," says Ryouko. "Stealthed, but we've faced better stealth. Armed with something we haven't figured out yet, which disrupts teleports; obviously that's trouble."
"Technological or magical?" asks Nanami.
"The disruption seemed to involve magic," continues Ryouko. "The stealth seemed technological, but more like alien technology than human. My soul gem reacted."
"Maybe that was a reaction to the magic," you propose. "You've reacted to spatial disruption before, at the wormhole mission…"
She shakes her head. "But there was a stealthed alien fleet there, too," she says.
"Are you suggesting it's alien, then?" you ask.
"I'm not entirely sure," she says. "But I think we should be open to the possibility."
"It's a much simpler explanation if it's just magic," you note. "Because then it's just Kyuubey sending people after us with more counters to take us down. If it's some magical girl who's obtained alien technology, well, I have a candidate, and her name is Simona, so I can't rule it out, but it doesn't feel quite right."
"What if it's an alien with magic?" proposes Wakaba on the teleconference.
"That would be shockingly unprecedented," you say. "No one has ever met an alien magical girl."
"The device we have doesn't look like ceph tech," says Ryouko. "And it is unlike Kyuubey's other tools."
She picks it up for a better look —
Suddenly there is a flash of light and a startling zap, and she lets it go, in alarm.
The card has changed. It now has a pink color with a magic circle on one side, featuring an icon of the Moon, a small star contained in a sub-circle, and the feather. The other side has a picture of a girl you've seen before in mirrors, and a label. "Zettai zettai daijobou."
Also, Ryouko's fluffy wings have vanished.
"Okay. It's a passive container for soul magic," you say. "Lovely."
The idea itself is harmless. Actually, you've used one already. It's on your head right now. What you're a little unnerved at is the idea of others having access to this magic, and what they might do to souls, splitting them up.
The others take a moment to look at it.
"This sort of thing might let someone do magic," you note, "without being a magical girl herself."
"Oh," says Homura. "It's like the charms. But… it seems better done."
You consider the implications of this.
"If someone is making charms that are actually magic," you propose, "it could be secondhand magic, from witches or familiars. That doesn't seem like the highest quality magic to me. Or maybe there's just more of the magic, and it has a self-organizing effect."
"Mami-chan would have noticed that," says Mami.
"Whatever it was loaded with is probably not as much magic," you note. "Of course this still isn't something you see in our future…"
"So if aliens have magical girls," proposes Wakaba, "they might be like Clarisse."
"Me?" You are a little surprised. "I don't think that I count as a real magical girl…"
You explain how you are simply using a shard of a soul from the nearly-forgotten past to wield the magic power of a princess from an erased future so that you can wield the power of friendship. In conclusion, Wakaba thinks that your objection is very silly.
Indeed, Clarisse, you are being silly. I blame the Governance-Incubator propaganda. If there is any doubt, there was that time you danced.
"So you developed your own magic after being very close to Ryouko's magic and borrowing powers," says Wakaba, still under the impression that this is pretty normal.
"Yes, but this just isn't the way it works!"
"Oh fuck," says Nanami. "The Incubators. The grief cubes and the witches aren't just about collecting energy, they help to make sure that no one can have access to an alternative model for magical girls, and challenge their monopoly."
You realize something. You... probably shouldn't tell them all about it, because, well, the matter of Nadeshiko is a little delicate yet, but it should be okay to summarize.
"Something like this actually might have happened before," you say, hesitantly. "I heard a story about another girl like that who started to learn magic without a contract. She wasn't even very magical, but… not too long after that all the witches in town suddenly disappeared, and her friends ran out of grief seeds, and everyone turned on each other."
"When was this?" asks Kyouko. "I've never heard of anything like it.
"Um. A few decades ago," you say.
"Where do you go to hear these things?" wonders Kyouko.
"Fuck," says Nanami.
"What?" asks Wakaba.
"We're next, that's what," says Nanami. "We're down to about twenty-five cubes, and a dozen grief seeds, and by Homura's account, there's a gigantic disaster witch heading this way in like a month."
"And maybe aliens," notes Wakaba.
"We haven't begun to establish a possible reason for aliens to be right here right now," says Ryouko.
"That incident earlier today," says Nanami. "With the feathers. It's a hell of a beacon. Think there's any way they could detect that?"
"… Maybe," you allow. "If the magic is superluminal … and if they just happened to have a scout somewhere nearby to divert on short notice…" You consider. "There might be some nonlinear causation at work, too; the witch's magic could be powerful enough that it works by creating an abstract occasion for disaster, rather than causing it directly. Then that catastrophe could be filled just as well by an alien invasion as a storm or tsunami."
"So … um … what do we do?" asks Homura, concerned.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," you say. "This is all still highly speculative."
"We need grief cubes," says Nanami.
> How well spread are the demons at the moment?
Machina fields this question. "We haven't seen a standalone miasma yet," she relates, "but from my extrapolation of grief models to a zero-demon configuration, it's not too surprising, even with a generous boost from witches. We should start seeing them soon, though, and at normal rates midweek to Friday."
> hopefully this leaves it a bit more clear how Nadeshiko is important, at least
While you are welcome to propose off-the-wall plans within reason,
please do try to stick to one top-level task per entity, thx
[Witch][x] Send someone to throw used grief cubes into the witch and leave it for a while
[Sakura feather][x] Put Sakura inside Clarisse again
[Simona feather][] Collect Simona feathers centrally away from grief seeds and cubes
-[] Install a Simona feather in your soul to exploit its power
[Nanami][] Develop a terrestrial-focused monitoring strategy to track interlopers
[Nanami][] Develop a space-focused monitoring strategy to look out for aliens in orbit
[Nanami][] Improve grief forecasts
[Nanami][] Talk to Mr Vampire Hunter
[Clarisse][] Soul science
-[] Replicate the card
-[] Investigate that book
-[] Open more grief seeds
-[] Work on better ways to talk to feathers
-[] Try to arrange more independence for the Sakura feather
-[] Investigate tapping the Simona feathers for their magic power directly
-[]Disassemble an operating soul gem that sounds dangerous, please don't
-[] Look for ways to reach souls inside of gems
[Clarisse][] Assist Nanami with tech
[Clarisse][] Research Nadeshiko
-[] Speak with Papa about the matter
-[] Speak with Shizuki Tomoyo about the past
--[] (write in questions for any of these)
-[] Mount an expedition to the past
[Clarisse][] Focus on developing your own powers through dance
[Hitomi][] Research Nadeshiko
-[] Send Hitomi to talk with Papa
-[] Lend her the ribbon but warn her against changing places
-[] Swap her to the past for a day or so to get to make friends with Nadeshiko
--[] (write in questions for Yukari)
[Hitomi][] (write in)
[Ryouko][] Lead a witch hunt back at Salem (use portal to save on transport costs)
-[] Spread cubes
[Ryouko][] Lead a witch hunt in a closer neighboring town
[Ryouko][] (write in)
[Oriko][] Ask her for good witch hunting plans
[Oriko][] (write in)
[Kyouko][] (write in something)
-[] Thank her for carrying one of your bodies back to Ryouko; that was sweet of her
-[] (write in sweet nothings or even sweet somethings)
[Kyouko][] Keep an eye on Oriko tomorrow
[Wakaba Sayaka Madoka Yuuka Ophelia Simona Machina Mami?] (write in)
Ongoing plots:
-Attend school, follow up regarding charms
-Follow up conversation with Simona
-Look for an opportunity to alert the authorities to Yuuka's situation
Not an ongoing plot yet, reminder, since someone was posting about Sayaka and boyfriends:
-Find out what's up with her boyfriend in the hospital and if you should help
> Explain to Kirika the whole point of having lots of cubes distributed is to make freak events where people lose all their cubes not as big of an issue. Also, doing it later will cost more cubes and cause an investigation why Ryouko's arm is missing.
Getting Yuma to heal Ryouko is very easy. It's not that Yuma likes healing itself. It's that she doesn't like seeing broken things like this. In the Governance timeline, for instance, there was that dismembered gangster… So convincing her to ignore Kirika and help is no great effort.
Kirika grouses a bit but doesn't have a concrete plan about what else to do or what to do about you.
> Everyone present except Yuma and Ryouko pursue the magical girl
Yes. And you can help teleport people there, and contribute to monitoring the situation via radio.
(Also, you're just the slightest bit jealous of Kyouko looking at Sakura like she's you.)
It is easy enough to return to being standalone Clarisse, but there's something different. You can see it through Ryouko's eyes. You've lost the pink in your hair somehow. There's some small presence in your mind that's gone. Also, Ryouko has a pair of small fluffy wings.
This is to be expected, Clarisse; you're pouring yourself into a container that would be slightly overfull. You have a little bit of momentum, and there's more of you than there is of her, so it pushes her out.
"Hold on," you tell Ryouko. "I can fix this… I think."
Here are the things you have learned from trying to fix this.
The first is that jumping between bodies is an effort that leaves you a little tired. You really should rest a little while between jumps. The second is that the lighter soul is pushed out of the way by the jumps. The third is that Sakura is simply not compatible with Ryouko. She separates out from Ryouko, taking the form of fluffy white wings, but the soul-part is immiscible. She does not speak in Ryouko's mind, nor does she suddenly become a tactical computer.
The obvious solution would be if Ryouko could jump to you and you to her, so the fourth thing you learn is that you can't jump to Ryouko, or vice versa. Actually, it leaves her rattled, and more aware of her soul gem than usual. It feels to her like she bumped up against the bars of a cage.
The last thing is that even when you're just looking at souls with Princess Ryouko's magic, Sakura is involved, elevating that specific capability from a memory to something you can actually do. The source of that magic is physically separated from you now, and you're pretty sure that you'd lose it if you were too far away from her — even the ability to teleport, which is kind of the one you were hoping would make you a little more tactically useful. There's an alternate pathway to it through the ribbon, but it requires Ryouko's presence.
You can still teleport the others into position, though, and help everyone track the radio signals. Hopefully Ryouko will be back in action soon.
Mami is an urban warfare expert, and even more so with Machina assisting. She knows this city like the back of her hand, and tracks your quarry relentlessly through the concrete-lined underground stream.
Before long, Ryouko is in one piece again. Yuma, however, is insistent that she will be going with Ryouko now. She hates being left behind, and says that Ryouko has to do this for her as payback for her help. Also, she volunteers that green magical girls need to stick together. Ryouko seems willing enough to pay back the favor. You suppose this is okay; you had only really anticipated Yuma staying behind for long enough to help Ryouko.
The great greenway through Mitakihara is part of the city's flood control system as well. This means there is infrastructure running alongside the stream, overflow tunnels, with gates and weirs and storm sewer discharge points. Machina shares what she's found of the layout and some fragments from Mami's prior attempts to gain access to them for hunting witches.
While your target has so far favored a straight shot through the main channel, it will be tricky to corner someone down there.
Your target is soon laying low again, so you are playing a bit of a waiting game. You have made your way into what seems to be the local flood control center, providing you with a vantage point for radiolocation; you are also investigating whether you can make use of the closed circuit feeds to catch the splashes of anyone running in the water. Mami is setting up webs of ribbons, as you try to flush her out. Out of an abundance of caution you also send a warning to Sayaka to be on her guard, as her apartment is not too far away, and you are wary of her being targeted.
A few moments later, Ryouko's soul gem starts glowing.
Why is it doing that now? Ryouko asks.
There is a very short list of times that Ryouko's has glowed in the past. All of them have something in common.
Indeed, Machina wishes to know urgently if there are any times when this doesn't signify Ceph drives or stealth technology.
It feels somewhat different, Ryouko indicates, and takes a moment to figure out why.
It's not the feeling itself that's different, it's coming from somewhere else somehow, she realizes suddenly.
Clarisse! she relays. It's near you!
As you process this thought, but before you can react, an object flies through the crack under the door. It is a small, rectangular thing, glowing brightly. You catch a glimpse of markings, but not a good one.
This strikes you as an excellent moment to evacuate. You reach for the appropriate magic —
The bright object detonates, with surprisingly little force, just a slight puff of wind, but a shimmery light covers everything in sight, coating it like a luminescent dust. It fades quickly.
But now you find you can't teleport out. This little device has disrupted the attempt somehow, you're sure of it; there is a resistance when you make the attempt.
The door opens. Because you know exactly where to look you can make out the outline of distortion, a faint radio emission, and hear the imperfectly silenced sound of a stealth device doing its best to hide someone.
Ryouko? you call to her, sending your thought of help me, please.
Ryouko cannot jump to where you are. It's an effect on the local space, you think.
This leaves you facing an unknown entity with unknown powers, all alone.
You brace yourself for a fight, reach for an offensive power. If the teleport won't work maybe the railgun. Or would a spear be better in such close quarters? Yes, and surely Kyouko would be willing. You will do so —
The cloaked figure just avoids you, opening an exit door to the outside, dashing off into the distance.
You provide a vector to Ryouko. I'm safe. Never mind me. Follow it, you instruct.
The chase continues, but Ryouko is without teleports for a short while, and in the open areas here it is much harder to find your target. She is able to follow the interloper, but the team loses your target about the same time as the teleport effect fades.
Out of an abundance of caution, you have Ryouko check in on Sayaka, but the only outcome of this is Sayaka asking for Ryouko to get off her balcony before her mother notices.
Kirika has decided to return to Oriko's, annoyed, and takes a slightly disappointed Yuma with her, while the rest of you sit in a circle and teleconference with Nanami for the debrief. Ryouko is relaying to Homura again. She seems to like it, actually, and wonders a little whether a duty like this is a little bit of what it means to be Clarisse — which it is, a little.
"It's human sized," says Ryouko. "Stealthed, but we've faced better stealth. Armed with something we haven't figured out yet, which disrupts teleports; obviously that's trouble."
"Technological or magical?" asks Nanami.
"The disruption seemed to involve magic," continues Ryouko. "The stealth seemed technological, but more like alien technology than human. My soul gem reacted."
"Maybe that was a reaction to the magic," you propose. "You've reacted to spatial disruption before, at the wormhole mission…"
She shakes her head. "But there was a stealthed alien fleet there, too," she says.
"Are you suggesting it's alien, then?" you ask.
"I'm not entirely sure," she says. "But I think we should be open to the possibility."
"It's a much simpler explanation if it's just magic," you note. "Because then it's just Kyuubey sending people after us with more counters to take us down. If it's some magical girl who's obtained alien technology, well, I have a candidate, and her name is Simona, so I can't rule it out, but it doesn't feel quite right."
"What if it's an alien with magic?" proposes Wakaba on the teleconference.
"That would be shockingly unprecedented," you say. "No one has ever met an alien magical girl."
"The device we have doesn't look like ceph tech," says Ryouko. "And it is unlike Kyuubey's other tools."
She picks it up for a better look —
Suddenly there is a flash of light and a startling zap, and she lets it go, in alarm.
The card has changed. It now has a pink color with a magic circle on one side, featuring an icon of the Moon, a small star contained in a sub-circle, and the feather. The other side has a picture of a girl you've seen before in mirrors, and a label. "Zettai zettai daijobou."
Also, Ryouko's fluffy wings have vanished.
"Okay. It's a passive container for soul magic," you say. "Lovely."
The idea itself is harmless. Actually, you've used one already. It's on your head right now. What you're a little unnerved at is the idea of others having access to this magic, and what they might do to souls, splitting them up.
The others take a moment to look at it.
"This sort of thing might let someone do magic," you note, "without being a magical girl herself."
"Oh," says Homura. "It's like the charms. But… it seems better done."
You consider the implications of this.
"If someone is making charms that are actually magic," you propose, "it could be secondhand magic, from witches or familiars. That doesn't seem like the highest quality magic to me. Or maybe there's just more of the magic, and it has a self-organizing effect."
"Mami-chan would have noticed that," says Mami.
"Whatever it was loaded with is probably not as much magic," you note. "Of course this still isn't something you see in our future…"
"So if aliens have magical girls," proposes Wakaba, "they might be like Clarisse."
"Me?" You are a little surprised. "I don't think that I count as a real magical girl…"
You explain how you are simply using a shard of a soul from the nearly-forgotten past to wield the magic power of a princess from an erased future so that you can wield the power of friendship. In conclusion, Wakaba thinks that your objection is very silly.
Indeed, Clarisse, you are being silly. I blame the Governance-Incubator propaganda. If there is any doubt, there was that time you danced.
"So you developed your own magic after being very close to Ryouko's magic and borrowing powers," says Wakaba, still under the impression that this is pretty normal.
"Yes, but this just isn't the way it works!"
"Oh fuck," says Nanami. "The Incubators. The grief cubes and the witches aren't just about collecting energy, they help to make sure that no one can have access to an alternative model for magical girls, and challenge their monopoly."
You realize something. You... probably shouldn't tell them all about it, because, well, the matter of Nadeshiko is a little delicate yet, but it should be okay to summarize.
"Something like this actually might have happened before," you say, hesitantly. "I heard a story about another girl like that who started to learn magic without a contract. She wasn't even very magical, but… not too long after that all the witches in town suddenly disappeared, and her friends ran out of grief seeds, and everyone turned on each other."
"When was this?" asks Kyouko. "I've never heard of anything like it.
"Um. A few decades ago," you say.
"Where do you go to hear these things?" wonders Kyouko.
"Fuck," says Nanami.
"What?" asks Wakaba.
"We're next, that's what," says Nanami. "We're down to about twenty-five cubes, and a dozen grief seeds, and by Homura's account, there's a gigantic disaster witch heading this way in like a month."
"And maybe aliens," notes Wakaba.
"We haven't begun to establish a possible reason for aliens to be right here right now," says Ryouko.
"That incident earlier today," says Nanami. "With the feathers. It's a hell of a beacon. Think there's any way they could detect that?"
"… Maybe," you allow. "If the magic is superluminal … and if they just happened to have a scout somewhere nearby to divert on short notice…" You consider. "There might be some nonlinear causation at work, too; the witch's magic could be powerful enough that it works by creating an abstract occasion for disaster, rather than causing it directly. Then that catastrophe could be filled just as well by an alien invasion as a storm or tsunami."
"So … um … what do we do?" asks Homura, concerned.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," you say. "This is all still highly speculative."
"We need grief cubes," says Nanami.
> How well spread are the demons at the moment?
Machina fields this question. "We haven't seen a standalone miasma yet," she relates, "but from my extrapolation of grief models to a zero-demon configuration, it's not too surprising, even with a generous boost from witches. We should start seeing them soon, though, and at normal rates midweek to Friday."
> hopefully this leaves it a bit more clear how Nadeshiko is important, at least
While you are welcome to propose off-the-wall plans within reason,
please do try to stick to one top-level task per entity, thx
[Witch][x] Send someone to throw used grief cubes into the witch and leave it for a while
[Sakura feather][x] Put Sakura inside Clarisse again
[Simona feather][] Collect Simona feathers centrally away from grief seeds and cubes
-[] Install a Simona feather in your soul to exploit its power
[Nanami][] Develop a terrestrial-focused monitoring strategy to track interlopers
[Nanami][] Develop a space-focused monitoring strategy to look out for aliens in orbit
[Nanami][] Improve grief forecasts
[Nanami][] Talk to Mr Vampire Hunter
[Clarisse][] Soul science
-[] Replicate the card
-[] Investigate that book
-[] Open more grief seeds
-[] Work on better ways to talk to feathers
-[] Try to arrange more independence for the Sakura feather
-[] Investigate tapping the Simona feathers for their magic power directly
-[]
-[] Look for ways to reach souls inside of gems
[Clarisse][] Assist Nanami with tech
[Clarisse][] Research Nadeshiko
-[] Speak with Papa about the matter
-[] Speak with Shizuki Tomoyo about the past
--[] (write in questions for any of these)
-[] Mount an expedition to the past
[Clarisse][] Focus on developing your own powers through dance
[Hitomi][] Research Nadeshiko
-[] Send Hitomi to talk with Papa
-[] Lend her the ribbon but warn her against changing places
-[] Swap her to the past for a day or so to get to make friends with Nadeshiko
--[] (write in questions for Yukari)
[Hitomi][] (write in)
[Ryouko][] Lead a witch hunt back at Salem (use portal to save on transport costs)
-[] Spread cubes
[Ryouko][] Lead a witch hunt in a closer neighboring town
[Ryouko][] (write in)
[Oriko][] Ask her for good witch hunting plans
[Oriko][] (write in)
[Kyouko][] (write in something)
-[] Thank her for carrying one of your bodies back to Ryouko; that was sweet of her
-[] (write in sweet nothings or even sweet somethings)
[Kyouko][] Keep an eye on Oriko tomorrow
[Wakaba Sayaka Madoka Yuuka Ophelia Simona Machina Mami?] (write in)
Ongoing plots:
-Attend school, follow up regarding charms
-Follow up conversation with Simona
-Look for an opportunity to alert the authorities to Yuuka's situation
Not an ongoing plot yet, reminder, since someone was posting about Sayaka and boyfriends:
-Find out what's up with her boyfriend in the hospital and if you should help
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