[Week 2] Early morning day 320

[desperate_times_right]

[Chloe’s mental voice sounds weak and disoriented, as if she’s in shock]

Can someone come to the caves? I need help.

I think Hana’s dead.

Comments

[desperate_times_right]

Yeah. Like... a vinegar battery. It hollowed her out from the inside.

[capital_asset]

So in essence, you're possessing your own overlay's body...

[Guess who has had multiple traumas experiences with this scenario.]

Can you remember who was using the battery?

[Because based on what they know of Hana, it seems highly doubtful that she did it herself.]

[desperate_times_right]

It was Gil. I don’t know why. I think he called me a slave.

[capital_asset]

I see. So not only is Ghalib 'recruiting' Dreampushers, and presumably editing their minds to make them more loyal, he's resorting to more extreme methods like this as well.

Can you move at all?

[desperate_times_right]

I couldn’t at first. I can now, but I’m pretty dizzy.

[capital_asset]

Understandably.

[desperate_times_right]

I feel weird but I don’t know how much of that’s just this body.

[capital_asset]

Weird how?

[desperate_times_right]

Weak. Sick. All my joints hurt.

[capital_asset]

Well, you did say he used a battery on you...

[desperate_times_right]

He used the battery on him. Magnator powers.

[lightnovelexperiences]

Give me a good reason not to call him out in the street and make like a Katador.

[She's dead serious.]

[desperate_times_right]

He’s got lots of followers. No one will believe you.

[lightnovelexperiences]

I appreciate that you're giving me obstacles rather than dilemmas, here.

[There's a touch of gallows humor there, but she's sincere.

It will make this easier.]

But I'll keep that in mind.

[desperate_times_right]

Kinda tough for me to be objective about the other part.

[Normally she’s on the side of avoiding too much intervention without a request from the locals but she’s sending this message from a woman’s corpse so it feels different]

[lightnovelexperiences]

No amount of greater good can make up for this kind of evil.

We had a name for people like that back in Mundus. Ravager. The one thing everyone could put aside petty politics to agree on was that they needed to be stopped.

Plus ca fucking change.

[desperate_times_right]

We’ve only got a couple of weeks. If these people can’t defend against whatever happened in Scatter-Spore, what happens with Ghalib won’t matter. Sometimes all you can do is get the bombs out of the bay.

[lightnovelexperiences]

If Ghalib's cult takes over, surviving the Nation-Eaters won't matter.

Or isn't that the conclusion you came to the first time y'all came here?

[desperate_times_right]

I just woke up. We’ve been here before?

[youandyoualone]

Cabal will deal with him.

[lightnovelexperiences]

Anafiel.

[There's a sort of mental sitting-up. She likes this guy. She likes this guy even more after demonstrating he's willing to do violence on behalf of the powerless.]

A friend of yours, or am I missing something?

[youandyoualone]

Ah, no. Not quite. 'Tis a Spire in the Vale, one that has kept more knowledge and lost arts than any other. The man whose mind Naoki woke me up inside is a Cabalist. They believe that the Spires and the Vale must be united once more in order for the people to survive--but that in doing so, they must not reproduce the horrors of the past.

Ghalib was to be Cabal's tool for it, but he has been proven irreparably flawed. I think Qabil--the particular Cabalist who has been most intimately involved in the plan and who has been spending the most time in Ghalib's company--will be quite pleased to arrange their vengeance.

[lightnovelexperiences]

...you know, it's nice for the shadowy conspiracy to be on your side, for once.

[...time to do something decisive. Time to act the way Penuel would want her to.]

Tell your buddies that at least one Traveller will stand with the Cabalists, but that our window to act is narrow. And when this is over, let's go to Yomi, and tell me about sharing a room with your overlay?

[Totally not asking him out. Not a date. Nope.]

[youandyoualone]

I will do so, though I am unsure how willing they would be to accept aid from 'Portori' as they call us.

[There's a hint of amusement in his mental voice,] And I would be quite happy to visit Yomi with you, my sweet.

[lightnovelexperiences]

After the Travellers screwing up so bad it killed a God, I can understand if they're reluctant, and -

[Excuse her as she hears the latter part of the statement and bluescreens for a moment.

reeeeeset. There we go]

I-it's a date...!