This doot is brought to you by the Mayan Riviera and the Caribbean sun. It is not brought to you by a health scare and emergency room visit.
Apologies if there are formatting errors as I am away from my usual equipment.
Expect a modest Christmas present later.
> [Aliens] Allow Ryouko to meet the aliens openly. Bring Simona in person to assist.
> [High schooler] Explain witch kisses, vaguely, in the hopes that he can be usefully directed. But also sneakily give his bike a flat tire.
The kitchen presents a variety of tools to effect a tire puncture, but there are fewer that might be somewhat stealthy. You settle on a paring knife with a small plastic sheath; it should be concealable but readily puncture the sidewall.
The next thing to do is to bring Simona; you have made a note to get her secure communication equipment before you send her back.
She is of course willing to go. Too willing, almost. You remind her that this is important and dramatics are best kept to a minimum.
It ends up about as awkward as you expected. Ryouko is uncertain how to interact with Simona as someone who is in love with her, and is trying to act the same as she acted before, as if it was not actually a thing. As for Simona, she's clearly working to remain calm, but it's clearly work for her to do so.
You don't stay long, needing to effect your intercept, but you do watch Ryouko through remote access.
"I'm back at school again," relates Simona. "Sometimes it feels like that's the life we should have had. Just two small people in the big universe." She sighs. "But then I think it's just an illusion. The idea, I mean. An idyllic life of peace was never something fate truly offered us."
"Uh-huh," answers Ryouko, blandly.
"Um," says Simona, looking at the ground. "There's, uh, something I always wanted to tell you, that I never got the chance. If you wouldn't mind."
"Go ahead," says Ryouko.
"I love you, Ryouko," she says, almost pleading — perhaps as much with reality itself as with Ryouko.
Ryouko nods. "I know," she says, looking back at Simona for a moment, and then turns to the horizon. "I think we have company," she notes.
Simona manages to look only finitely upset at the matter.
You plant yourself in the bike lane, deliberately in his way of the high schooler, but with plenty of time to stop once he sees you, and wave him down as he approaches.
For a moment he doesn't slow down at all, but then, perhaps changing his mind, he skids to a stop.
"I'm trying to get somewhere in a hurry," he says. "Is it important?"
"I wanted to talk with you about missing girls," you say.
This statement gets his attention, and he leaps off the bike, leaning it up against a telephone pole.
You present to him, as you planned, a fuzzy, mundane, and slightly circuitous summary of what happens to someone under the influence of a witch's kiss. He seems to be engaged by what you're saying, and perhaps distracted by thoughts of how to apply it; it's easy to nick the side of a tire while he stares off into the distance. You conclude ambiguously.
"I see," says the boy.
"Well?" you ask. "What do you think of all that?"
"Useless," he says.
"I beg pardon?" you ask.
You were hoping for a little warmer of a reception than that, and it did look promising.
"It's all useless," he says, not quite yelling at you, but on the verge of it, and certainly a bit upset. "You can tell me that they disappear, but you can't tell me where they went, can you? I already know they disappear. So you're useless."
A new voice interrupts. "Don't be so fast to call the ojou-sama useless," it says.
The voice belongs to a man, just slightly unkempt, blonde, and wearing a Hawaiian shirt. He's also carrying a thing on a chain. You're not entirely sure what the point of it is, but it appears to be a combustion chamber for something fragrant.
"Never underestimate a young lady, Araragi. You would think Tsukihi-chan would have taught you better." He turns to regard you. "I wonder," he says, "is this one dangerous?"
You look at him skeptically as he swings the device around you systematically, producing a fragrant smoke in a circle around you. He studies this smoke as it rises.
You make a small show of sneezing, though you could have readily suppressed it. You're somewhat not a fan of unknown ceremonies being applied to you.
"Not so dangerous. At least, not yet," he concludes.
"What is that supposed to be?" you ask, dubious.
"It's called a censer, ojou-chan," he says. "For incense. With the right training one can perform certain divinations from the smoke. It's not my usual approach; too Western," he relates, now swinging it about idly. "But my usual approach seems to have failed me, and I —"
Here the body of the censer stops at the top of its arc, suspended in the air, as it points directly to you. This does not appear to be part of its normal operation, and ought to be impossible, without some very clever trickery involved.
"Oh dear," he says, and tugs it back into a realm dominated by normal physics.
"What?" you ask.
"Maybe you're not so harmless after all," he proposes. "And I was starting to worry it was broken, too."
"What's in there?" you ask.
"Charcoal," he says. "And frankincense. See?"
He raises the lid to reveal charcoal, a few minimal flecks of the substance you assume is the frankincense, and — nestled in a special glass container clipped into the center— a grief seed.
He watches your reaction to this closely, and might have seen you flinch.
"And maybe something else. Can you see it?" he asks. "I wonder."
You take a moment to process the implications, while not giving anything more away. The man here is not magical and the grief seed is almost certainly invisible to him. Yet he or someone seems to have been able to exploit it, and fashion it into tools such as this one. In a world with no extant MSY, in a world with witches, non-magical people like him could very well be exploiting stray bits of magic, if they have help, or find it in the right form: primitive magical tools, curses. You can imagine, for instance, a non-magical girl "witch," working with an actual witch, or a familiar. And if you follow the train of thought to darker places — human sacrifices, to appease a witch, or obtain power. Or, perhaps closer to you: small, slightly dangerous trinkets, magic charms. And student's caution against charms suggests he may have seen ill.
"I'm sorry," says the student, shaking his head. "I don't have the time for this."
"Ah, you must forgive my friend," says the man, putting away the censer. "He is looking for his missing sister, so he is emotional sometimes, and it makes him stupid. But at least his heart is in the right place. It's quite touching, in a way."
"Hmph," says the student, as he starts to pedal away.
"And yourself?" you ask the man.
"There is an imbalance in the energies in this city," notes the man in the Hawaiian shirt. "Such an imbalance is dangerous, and can attract misfortunes and suffering from a great distance."
"Ah!" says the student, now a short way off. "My tire!"
"Trouble, Araragi-san?" asks the man, winking at you, then stepping over to take a look.
You take this moment to pay attention to the other things that are happening, which may be more important.
The alien vessel has approached much more carefully than the first one, and is using a very basic stealth technology; it decloaks as it engages its landing sequence. The ship appears to be a somewhat more sophisticated and slightly larger model than the other one that landed: a slightly more capable atmosphere-to-FTL transport. However, it is configured atypically, with short range defense and ship-to-ship energy weapons (though not particularly powerful ones) as well as a single torpedo launcher, likely more suitable for deep space engagement than atmospheric l. Machina observes that is unnaturally awkward by wartime standards, gluing together several capabilities that have no real synergies; under most circumstances the offensive armament would be better deployed as an escort to an unarmed transport.
Nanami proposes that this makes sense once you stop framing it in terms of war. She thinks it is an independent peacetime vessel, sent across the galaxy to investigate and chase down the first, and is equipped with some minimal armament for the task. It's not really equipped for fighting anything armed, she points out, but it's not expecting anything armed.
As the ship finishes landing, the squid make contact via telepathy. You don't have direct access to Ryouko's brain at this distance, and you are missing something, but the alien telepathy is different than anything you've encountered. It shows up as a dense concept bundle in Ryouko's thoughts:
I assume that you are a juvenile of the species and a member of the egg-laying reproductive caste who has secretly offered herself as a bulwark against decay and entropy.
And then, as faint echo: You are a magical girl.
Ryouko, however, seems to have experienced this in reverse, the thought of being a magical girl front and center as she replies with an acknowledgment, and little regard for the strange conceptual overtones of the message.
Another concept bundle hits Ryouko's brain. It's impossible to see all the details at this distance from Ryouko, as it has too many, but after a moment you understand Ryouko's interpretation.
An ancient religious order, now little more than a cult, saw a sign in the heavens, and stole a vessel to come here. The authorities have taken an interest in the theft and sent the current vessel in pursuit. The magical girls, secretly embedded among the government, also detected an excess of magic, and were able to send agents on the mission: the commander of the vessel, and the science officer.
Your message earlier complicates things, and looks to the mundane squid like have been negotiating with the cultists. She took a risk following its instructions, and she needs to know what is happening on this planet — and also, what you intend to tell the non magical squid government about what is going on. If you are willing to cooperate in this, she suggests that both magical girl groups can benefit, remaining hidden from the planetary authorities, and working together.
Ryouko is still willing to negotiate here, but she is surprised by the complications presented by the alien masquerade and seeks input from the others. Machina and Mami are hesitant to put their trust in the unproven magical girl, but Nanami thinks a collaboration is the only hope you have that you might actually avoid unwanted alien attention, so she wants to pursue it despite the risk.
> Multi-polar negotiations!
Mix and match of vote components are welcome!
[High schooler][] Ask more about this missing sister and offer assistance
-[] Avoid demonstrating any capabilities and stick to questions like whereabouts and whether she had a new fingernail tattoo or ring
-[] Demonstrate the trick where you don't show up on a camera, and demand information about the other girl who can do that, as a price
[High schooler][] Delegate assistance to someone else in the gang
-[] (write in who)
[High schooler][] Follow up with this Hawaiian shirt guy, who seems to be more in the know
-[] (write in approach and priorities)
-[] Offer to trade grief items for his open ended cooperation
-[] Demand his grief seed, asserting he has no right to it.
[High schooler][] Ditch this side quest for now, and join the other two at the aliens
[Squid][] Propose to cooperate and share the real story with the magical girls only (new forms of magic and a way around the Incubators).
-[] (Write in a cover story for the others.)
-[] Request assistance with a cover story from the magical squid.
[Squid][] Remain vague about what is going on with both groups, until you can assess them better.
[Squid][] Share a reasonably vague and noncommittal account of experiments which attracted the cult's attention for unknown reasons. Discuss the cult in terms of an attempted kidnapping; your message hoped to prevent another one.
[Squid][] Expose the magical girls in the group, and offer to work with the others to avoid further unwanted cultist incursions.
[Squid][] Assemble a large team of many magical girls to capture the vessel and its inhabitants; sort it all out later
[Squid][] Leave the negotiations to Ryouko and the others entirely
[Simona] (write in any interventions if that's what you have in mind)
[Nanami]
