Wednesday May 19th, just after the body's appearance

[willyousee]

Travelers: if you were not at Thistle House tonight, you need to know. A face familiar to some as the Blue Illuminant has appeared at the door - unmistakably dead.

[The speaker's voice may be familiar, with its soft French lilt, but Alcuin is not precisely calm tonight. Indeed, he seems shaken and queasy.]

I can show you if you wish, but it is most unusual. And unpleasant.

Keep your wits about you and please stay in close contact with one another if you can. I would suggest not venturing out alone, and if you can manage to stay close with our infiltrator friends, so much the better.

Have any of you any expertise in unnatural deaths? We are going to need your help if we are to determine what has done this and how best to stop it happening again.

Comments

[capital_asset]

It doesn't appear to be. He still has his skin.

[stophamatime]

I want to say that's a good thing, but...

[But what else is out there, if not that?]

[capital_asset]

...but that means there's something or someone else out there.

[stophamatime]

...yeah.

[closed to Ken]

[capital_asset]

The wounds remind me a bit of a Jubokko, but I've never met a Jubokko who would care enough to create a display like this.

[It's not the best attempt at a distraction that Raidou's ever made, but he's not sure Ken would appreciate a more blatant subject change; if he's anything like Raidou was at that age, he won't want to feel as if he's being treated like a child.]

[closed to Raidou]

[stophamatime]

[Raidou is right on target with that one. The last thing Ken wants is to feel like a child.]

Those are...the tree youkai, right? The ones that suck up blood?

Re: [closed to Raidou]

[capital_asset]

Yes.

filter goes on forever so we don't have to fix subject lines

[stophamatime]

How much is there that makes you think there are demons around here to worry about? Have you seen other signs of them?

...I guess the other night is kind of obvious, but aside from that, has there been anything?

Re: filter goes on forever so we don't have to fix subject lines

[capital_asset]

It's... more of a feeling than anything else, I suppose. I know that's not very helpful.

[stophamatime]

Are they usually more obvious?

[capital_asset]

I think it might be more that I'm used to seeing them.

[stophamatime]

All the time?

[capital_asset]

It's what I was trained for.

[stophamatime]

I was just thinking - Shadows only came out during the Dark Hour, at home. If it seems like there's stuff here but you aren't seeing it, maybe it could be something like that...

But nothing really felt different when that thing was out before, so maybe not.

[capital_asset]

Demons in my world generally remain in their own realm, but sometimes they'll cross over - especially if the veil between the two realms is particularly thin.

[stophamatime]

Is it usually?

[Because that's kind of the impression he's got about Raidou's life is that he's always cleaning up the messes.]

[capital_asset]

[He's not wrong.]

It generally depends on where you are. The veil is particularly thin around my village, so it's not uncommon to see demons in the surrounding forest. It's somewhat less thin in the Capital, although that's not going to stop a demon from crossing over if they really want to.

[stophamatime]

They mostly just showed up around Tartarus, where I'm from.

[There's a slight stress on mostly, though not enough of one to make his feelings on that blatant.]

Maybe there's a pattern to it here, but if nobody's seen anything else it's...hard to say if there is or if it's just lucky timing.

[How do you guys do this detective stuff full-time, wow, this is kind of hard.]

[capital_asset]

Mostly?

[And then he sighs.]

I'm not sure even those who were at Winterfell would necessarily know to look; fairies seemed more of a theoretical concept to many of them. I was hoping they'd be more knowledgeable in general.

[He still can't believe these people were foolhardy enough to go out deliberately looking for fairies. For their sake, he hopes any fairies in this world are far more benevolent than the ones back home.]

[stophamatime]

Mostly.

...someone has to know more about something. Even if we didn't see a lot, there's at least one thing out there that isn't human at all.

[capital_asset]

[Raidou wonders whether he should press Ken for more information. He suspects it might be better to wait until they're not in the middle of investigating a murder scene.]

I know.

...Of course, knowing something and being willing to talk to outsiders about it are two different things.

[He knows that from experience.]

[stophamatime]

...especially if you don't have any way of knowing if they'd even believe it.

[Disbelief has been far more trouble for Ken than intrigue, at least at this point in his life. (Give it a month.)]

[capital_asset]

...Or how they'd react either way.

[stophamatime]

...yeah.