Ch. 3: Light the Path Whenever It's Dark (47)
Echo
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
- Location
- "echolocation" dur hur hur
Evening - Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
You force yourself to take a calming breath. You are not afraid. This is not your fear. Another breath.
The living doll flinches sharply, then looks at you with wide eyes. "Why d-do you...? Ah, no!" she reaches out and grabs the monster, apparently stopping it from attacking the man it came from as he walks away, seemingly oblivious to the situation.
You take another breath. The fear doesn't really recede, as such, but you're at least able to think a bit more clearly. You... you need to get out of here for now. Maiko was right. You need to grab her and leave. And Kyubey, too? You may not trust the thing, but you don't want to just leave it. Where did it go, anyway?
You reach out to at least grab Maiko, but your quick, jerky movement seems to startle the doll and she ducks behind the monster, peering at you from behind its chain arms.
You tug Maiko along with you as you back away slowly, still looking around for Kyubey. The doll girl hesitates for a moment, watching you with a hurt expression, before giving a watery smile and then bowing deeply. "I am s-sorry you met s-someone as unlikable as me," she says, then turns and flees, the monster loping after her on its stilts.
The fear fades rapidly as she leaves, and--
Yui! Minami shouts. Yui, listen to me!
I... what? I am? you reply, feeling yourself beginning to shake as the adrenaline wears off.
You weren't! she says. You and Maiko just... froze up and wouldn't respond.
Oh. I... sorry, it's just... you take a calming breath. Beside you, Maiko has her eyes closed and is taking slow, careful breaths, so you leave her be for now. Did you see what I ran into?
You mean the short girl in the oversized hoodie?
That wasn't a girl. Well no, maybe, I mean... not a human girl, at any rate. Some kind of living doll made of magic, you say. I don't know where she came from, but just being near her was like... having sheer terror pumped into my brain. You wrap your arms around yourself. Even when I realized it was artificial, I've still never been so frightened in my life. Maiko froze up, and even Kyubey freaked out.
Are you okay? Minami asks. Your Soul Gem looks fine, at least?
Yeah, I'm... okay, I guess, you say. It faded quickly once she left. She--
Maiko suddenly shudders. "What," she breathes, "the fuck. Was that."
"Um. Scary?"
Maiko gives you a look of sheer disbelief. You respond by pulling her into the brainmail conversation.
Okay, so! What did we learn? you say. First of all, that monster she pulled out of the guy? Other than not hiding in a secret crazyland dimension, it seemed basically just like a familiar. Maiko, where exactly do familiars normally come from?
They're... fragments. Shards of a Witch's soul. Usually representing some particular aspect of her barrier's internal logic.
And these un-familiars are basically shards of a regular person's soul, right? So it's kinda the same thing?
It... yes, in a sense. I'm not sure, Maiko says. There should be more to it, but perhaps that's the doll creature's doing. She pauses, then looks around. The victim. I should speak with him. Minami, did you...
To your left, one block and then around the corner. A different direction than the doll thing went, fortunately.
Thank you, Maiko says, then strides off quickly.
You blink a couple times as she leaves, then shrug. By the way, Minami, did you see where Kyubey got to? I was gonna bail the fuzzball out too since I dragged it along and once the fear aura got really bad Kyubey looked... not good.
Um, Minami says, hesitantly. Under the bush behind you. Sort of. It, uh...
You peer underneath and find... a smear of rubbery red mush with bits of white fur scattered everywhere, and immediately recoil in surprise. Wh-what?!
Um, you know there's more than one Kyubey, right? Minami says. I guess this one, uh... really, really couldn't handle being afraid.
You're... not sure how to feel about that.
Right. Okay, then. You take a deep breath again. You were so very not ready for any of this, ugh. Can you track the doll girl now that you've seen her?
I... yes, she says, reluctantly.
Don't worry! I'm not going after her, you say. Not now, at least. Maiko probably has some way to make us immune, or can invent one if she has to. Then we can try again.
That makes sense, Minami says.
He doesn't remember anything, Maiko cuts in. He saw us there, and the doll girl, but his memories of the incident seem fuzzy beyond that. He also seems completely unable to recall the existence of the monster--
Unfamiliar, you interject.
Maiko sighs. Unfamiliar, right, she continues. Furthermore and unfortunately, my suspicions were correct and he seems unable to comprehend fear, panic, or other related emotional states. I'd imagine he can no longer experience them, either, though for obvious reasons I elected not to test that point empirically.
Right. Do you think you can find either the unfamiliar or the doll girl in your spookybook?
Gotta go, Minami cuts in. One of our targets started moving and Yumi and I will catch up to her in a moment. You feel her presence vanish from the mental connection, and then let it drop entirely.
"Not easily, at least at the moment," Maiko admits. "Did you learn anything useful about the doll creature?"
You tap your chin. "She's made of magic, like a familiar, but more... sophisticated? Complex? Dunno how to phrase it. It feels like she used to have a really strong connection to something, but was torn away roughly enough that loose scraps of the connection still exist. No direct connection to the unfamiliars, though. Also, she had a lot of magic? Like, as much as some of the wimpier Witches we've seen, or some of the Itabashi Ward girls."
Maiko nods thoughtfully, then suddenly frowns. "Could you see anything about how she created the unfamiliar?"
You shrug. "I was too freaked out to pay close attention, but her magic was definitely, uh, doing lots of magical things."
"And she didn't seem particularly quick about her work. So," Maiko says with a sigh, "what can we conclude from the fact that there were two near-simultaneous incidents yesterday?"
"...there's two of her," you say. "Or another something like her, at least. She feels... unique? Individual? Something like that. Distinct in a way that magical girls and Witches are, but regular familiars and the unfamiliars aren't."
"Two or more," Maiko says, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "There's also... hm." She pulls out her grimoire and begins flipping through it rapidly. A moment later the book snaps open and Maiko's eyes flick rapidly over the page.
She groans. "Kyoufu," she reads. "The Forsaken Terror. Her duty is to bring comfort to the blameless fears that wicked humans bury within their hearts. Those she touches are foolish and unworthy, for she knows in her own heart the truth that one who has hidden away their fears will never know love."
You turn that over in your head. "Isn't that the kinda stuff your book says about Witches?"
"Her name is not that of a Witch," Maiko says. "Among other details. I can't say much more, because her page is also fragmented, even worse than the two victims I've spoken with."
"Everything about her seems to focus on fear in some fashion," you say. "If there's another out there like her, I'm... guessing it focuses on anger?"
"Most likely, yes," Maiko says. "There may also be others. I'm beginning to suspect that the sample obtained from mundane sources is heavily skewed. Kyoufu prevented the unfamiliar from attacking its source. If that's instinctive, I'm guessing the 'anger' counterpart is a lot more... willingly confrontational.
"This is... weird. And kinda horrifying," you say. "Also, I have some official orders from your tiny and adorable leader: Find some way to block the emotion thingie. Please."
Maiko nods. "I've encountered emotional projection magic before," she says. "I could temporarily protect myself right now, but I'll need a few hours tonight to prepare something that will work well for others."
You nod vigorously. "Good. Let's stay away from those things until you do that, then."
Maiko frowns. "I'm fairly certain the unfamiliars don't possess the emotional projection, or any of Kyoufu's other unusual traits," she says. "But I don't think there's anything we could do with those other than destroy them, which might provoke their creators."
[] Head back to where the three unfamiliars were
- [] Just to scout, see if there's anything distinctive about them
- [] Destroy them, then run for it if your magic sense spots Kyoufu or anything like her approaching.
- [] (write-in?)
[] Investigate more
- [] Have Maiko interview some more victims and see if she finds anything interesting about them
- [] Use your magic sense to try and spot more unfamiliars
- [] Use your magic sense to spot anything else like Kyoufu--don't approach, just see if you can verify they exist
- [] (write-in?)
[] Split up for now
- [] Have Maiko...
-- [] Go talk to more victims
-- [] Go home and start working on an anti-emotion-magic-stuff-thingie
-- [] Have her expand her search for potential victims, look for reports of people behaving strangely
-- [] (write-in?)
- [] Have Yui...
-- [] Go meet up with Minami and Yumi. You can't do much else on this issue for tonight, might as well go meet the new kids
-- [] Go back to Momoko's house and see what Asami is even doing there anyway. Rearranging furniture?
-- [] (write-in?)
[] Do something else entirely
- [] Hunt Witches
- [] Do some very visible scouting to the south, try to draw out any invaders that may already be showing up.
- [] (write-in?)
The incubator unit had unfortunately become defective, and as such self-terminated.
