Open log

[prunedworlds]

WHO: Ritsuka + anyone
WHERE: just some random street corner
WHEN: 1st of July
WHAT: Ritsuka found herself whisked away to another world? Must be Tuesday...
WARNINGS: Probably none, this time

There's a new face in town! Or at least, there's a redheaded young woman who, while not appearing particularly bewildered or confused, most definitely is spending some time looking over the surrounding buildings and cityscape. As one does when trying to figure out where one is or how to get where one needs to go. In any case, it's definitely true no one here's seen her in town before!

Should you approach, though, she'll promptly swap from that evaluating stare to a friendly grin.

"Oh, hi there! Are you from around here?"

If you're especially observant, though, you might notice a set of red marks on the back of her right hand. But that's probably not important, right? Right.

Comments

[prunedworlds]

"But they've both been here months at least, too?"

She might feel a little bad about that, except one thing she does already know is that sometimes Servants just get summoned places. It happens, nothing that can be done about it!

[fionnuisce]

"Yeah, they have. He's contracted to a close friend of mine, and she's established herself about as well as you expect."

Extroverts. What a weird species.

[prunedworlds]

"Right."

Okay, she can't help but grin a bit at that description. And just imagining what Sei might have gotten up to here.

But anyway, tangent aside...

"Oh, but is there anything else I should know about this place?"

[fionnuisce]

"Admittedly, there's definitely people far more knowledgeable than me about the finer workings of this city on both the mundane and supernatural sides. And there should be an app on your phone that will get you in touch with most everyone able to perceive the supernatural. You'll be much better off getting information from multiple sources than just relying on me."

[prunedworlds]

"Well, sure, but if I'm going to ask different people, it doesn't hurt to hear from you as one of them too, right?"

Really Waver are you trying to weasel out of explaining things to her now?

[fionnuisce]

"Yes, of course. But I'm not an expert on the crazy shit that goes on around here, and I'm definitely not a local who can go into far more detail."

Multiple sources are academically encouraged!

"Criticall, though: about every month or so, some weird shit goes on in one branch of the Spirit Realm or other without fail. The realm and problems therein take a lot of forms, and shocking no one it's usually our problem to deal with."

[prunedworlds]

Look, just because Ritsuka trusts Waver doesn't mean she's stupid. She's been around this kind of thing a few times before, she knows how important it is not to make assumptions or take things at face value. Or the word of one source, no matter how trustworthy that source may be. Sometimes people simply don't have all the information.

"Because most the people here don't have any way to do something about it?"

You know, the whole kind of needing magic to fight magical threats thing.

[fionnuisce]

"More or less. Left unchecked, any number of myriad things could go wrong. But enough of us here have both the awareness of the supernatural and the means to handle things that so far it's gone well enough."

God forbid there ever be a quiet month.

"For a couple examples, a few months ago we had a minor outbreak of faeries and fucking magic salmon--which, yeah, hated that one." You know, for reasons. "Before that there was the spirit realm gate that led to a world overrun by demons, or the one that went to the literal Egyptian underworld after the sun went out for a month or so."

[prunedworlds]

"But it hasn't always been like this?"

She's assuming not. Otherwise this place surely would have been wiped off the map a long time ago.

[fionnuisce]

"Apparently not. Things haven't been this broken for long, though I can't remember the exact date I was told when it started going wrong--maybe it's been a year and a half in total, I would have to check with someone actually native to the city. But that incident in the underworld severely aggravated the issue by damaging the Spirit Realm barrier further, which is also likely to prove our problem on the larger scale."

[prunedworlds]

"So something probably happened to start it. And maybe if whatever that did can be fixed..."

Well, it's theoretically possible, right? And pretty similar to how one deals with singularities and lostbelts alike. Find the root cause, fix (or destroy) it, problem more or less solved.

[fionnuisce]

"Exactly. The issue is that we're still at an early point of evaluating the wider damage and seeking out a plan to repair it. And repairing 'the damaged fabric of reality' is more than a little beyond me, so we've all got a hell of a lot to learn first."

We can't all be Zelretch or the Aozakis, unfortunately.

[prunedworlds]

"Isn't finding and getting rid of whatever's causing the damage the first thing to do before fixing it, anyway?"

Ritsuka says that completely matter-of-factly. Like this is such an obvious concept even she knows it.

It's almost as if she's spent the last, oh, three plus years doing precisely that sort of thing.

[fionnuisce]

Deadpan:

"...yeah, we sort of did that. There was a whole line to punch him in the face, it was actually pretty funny."

[prunedworlds]

Wait, what?

Just give her a moment to blink and process that.

"... But it sounds like it's still getting worse, huh."

[fionnuisce]

"Sometimes removing the root of the problem doesn't undo the damage, Fujimaru. Just like any injury; you can get rid of whatever fractured a bone, but left untreated it will only get worse before it shatters."

Not that he would know.

"Shipping a megalomaniac off to Florida handles the cause, but there's a hell of a lot of metaphorical first aid necessary before anything gets better."

[prunedworlds]

"Do you know what exactly he did at least? Or how?"

Look, Ritsuka's spent something like the last three years of her life trying to fix things that were breaking reality in some way. She cannot help the urge to try to solve the problem, or at least look for something that would give a clue to where to start solving.

[fionnuisce]

"Exactly, no. But in broad strokes, a professor by the name of Willow chose the least sane way imaginable to cope with regaining memories of a past life. As I understand it he had a whole faction in his organization essentially rebel and try to restore his past life's world--there's some facsimile or fragment of it in the Spirit Realm, though don't ask me how."

In other words, he'd earned the line to throw hands.

"So gallivanting about in the Spirit Realm as he was doing caused all kinds of trouble, on top of the attempt to steal the power of an ancient Egyptian deity and trying to utilize what I can only describe as 'Satan in draconic worm form'."

...he doesn't know what a Giratina is.

[prunedworlds]

It probably says a lot about Ritsuka's experiences that... none of that actually sounds terribly farfetched. Honestly, she can probably think of a few similar experiences if she tried.

"Did he have some kind of research on the Spirit Realm?"

Or was this just a case of sheer idiot doing things at random and finding out what happened.

[fionnuisce]

"Ostensibly, yes. The organization he belonged to before stabbing them in the back is called POKEGO--they generally research the functions of the Spirit Realm and ways to survive within it, as well as the wide range of weird animal species in said fragment of that world."

Beat.

"...Really weird."

[prunedworlds]

"Oh, like monsters or something?"

She has no idea how close to yet how far from the mark she is, there.

[fionnuisce]

"Not...exactly?" Depends on how monstrous a living apple is. "Here, I'll show you-"

Waver reached into a pocket of his jacket for a small red and white sphere, pressing a single button on the front--with a small and brief flash of light, a small creature appeared perched on his shoulder. The cat-fox-rabbit flicked an ear and wagged its tail, chirping at Ritsuka in greeting.

"It's a species called an Eevee, if I remember right. His name's Moralltach."

[prunedworlds]

"Ah! He almost looks like Fou!"

Hello don't mind Ritsuka leaning in to get a closer look, that little guy's adorable okay?

[fionnuisce]

Knowing very well he was cute, Moralltach would hop right down and across the table to Ritsuka. Pets for being very cute and polite please.

"...Sorry, what the hell's a Fou exactly?"

[prunedworlds]

And pets he is indeed getting. Many pets. And a very distracted Ritsuka taking a moment to register Waver's question.

"Oh, we don't really know, actually... He's just some sort of creature, he looks kind of like this, but white, and with a bigger tail. He's Merlin's familiar, too, but he's been staying at Chaldea."

Aaand we're back to petting the eevee, as one does.