ic inbox.

[lucentia]

HELLO

"Greetings."

GOODBYE

TEXT | VIDEO | VOICE | ACTION

Comments

[lucentia]

Yes. I was with Hien and Sylus.

[... I should've made sure Hien was in a better state before we returned...]

[voring]

[The way he has no idea who Sylus is whatsoever.]

What even happened there?

[lucentia]

[help.]

We were dealing with some sort of cult?

[voring]

[A CULT?]

Huh?

[lucentia]

I don't really know how to explain it...

[voring]

[what did you all do over there]

Was it a purgatory cult or a different cult?

[lucentia]

A different cult. It was an island, and the people there also turned out to be some sort of... hivemind infection? But any traveler who refused to join them, they killed.

[voring]

Woah. [WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING OUT THERE.]

So you got to this weird island and they tried to kill you guys? Is that how you got all beat up?

[lucentia]

We left the island at first, mostly unaware of what was going on, but then we came across a boat with a woman I didn't recognize, Rafayel, and... Tokinaga. Rafayel was ill, and we believed it originated from the island.

So we returned with them to try and cure Rafayel, which is when—essentially as you put it.

[voring]

[WOULD YOU ALL STOP TAKING HIS BLORBO ON DANGEROUS ADVENTURES. His head cants to the side a bit.]

So... Fake Rafayel and fake Tokinaga and some fake other lady, right? You guys really went back to that island full of people who definitely wanted to kill you, huh.

[AN UNEXPECTED TURN.]

[lucentia]

[SORRY!!!!]

We didn't know at the time that they wanted to kill us. We had an inkling something was wrong there, since I'd seen traces of the contamination, and they did for some reason think we were thieves and thus were quite angry with us when we left the first time, but we had no reason yet to think they were some sort of cult.

[*sylus and hien did in fact steal stuff and lied to lucien about it]

[voring]

[THIS IS SO FUCKING FUNNY HELP. THEY REALLY LET LUCIEN DIE LIKE THIS.]

Oh. Makes more sense, then. Kind of. It's still pretty stupid to go back to a place where you left on that kind of a bad note, but finding help in the ocean's rough for people.

[Have you all considered evolving into bigger things that can handle water better.]

[lucentia]

[no]

Tokinaga and the woman were going there regardless, to save Rafayel. [... a momentary look of guilt.] It would have been callous to leave them be and continue on our journey.

[voring]

Why'd you make that face?

[What is there to be guilty about here...]

[lucentia]

[...]

Sylus is a much kinder person than he seems. To that degree, I am ashamed of myself, and I should learn to take a page from his book.

[voring]

Oh! Did he decide to go back before you guys?

[That's actually hilarious.]

[lucentia]

[it may be that the woman hien and lucien can't identify was the lads mc so het happened.]

Yes.

[voring]

[NOT THE FUCKING HET OF IT ALL.]

Damn, that's pretty funny. [NO IT ISN'T.] Did you guys know they were fake?

[lucentia]

No. I only recalled Purgatory vaguely, so to us, they were essentially strangers if we didn't think hard about it.

[voring]

Oooh, I get it, I get it. I see why you made that face now! But it's not unusual for humans to extend special exemptions to only the ones they know.

[lucentia]

[this does not make him feel even remotely better, even if rationally he is kind of aware that his judgment was influenced by a bizarre obsession with treasure/his destination and also the cyoa runner never intended for us to go with these npcs. we really broke this cyoa by sylus being het.]

It is not unusual, but that does not make it right. In any case, as said, they were essentially as real to us as we were to each other.

[voring]

[YOU ALL REALLY DID DO THAT. IT'S SO FUNNY.]

What happened to them in the end, anyway? Since Tokinaga was away getting his ass kicked in a totally different place.

[And he already forgot who the other two people were...]

[lucentia]

... Tokinaga became, or was already, infected and died. [he doesn't know if obikawa is the vengeful sort so he won't mention who killed him.] Likewise, Rafayel's health improved, but only in the sense that the infection properly awakened in him, and he killed his remaining companion.

He came to his senses afterwards, but the townspeople got a hold of him and likely killed him as well.

[there's the look of guilt again of someone wondering if he could've done something to prevent rafayel's death...]

[voring]

[Fortunately he is not so insane in that particular flavor of insanity that he'd kill someone out of revenge for killing a fake Tokinaga but it is not an unwise idea to just leave it like this.]

So all three of them died in the end. Kind of sounds like what these places are like in general? Making choices that aren't really choices and everything leading to whatever's the worst outcome.

[lucentia]

... Perhaps. If there was ever any way to save them, we didn't find it. Even we remained infected to the end.