[Action] House Meeting: October 5, Friday, 1pm

[mysterium_npc]

[At around 1pm Elias and Taylor can be found in the drawing room, along with an older gentleman with iron gray hair, a hawkish nose, and wire-rimmed spectacles. He is smoking a pipe which he seems to be in the habit of tapping nervously against the palm of his hand

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[Open to anyone]

[kandescence]

[Kanda isn't sitting down and he isn't planning on talking. Standing towards the back of the room, a short distance from the door, he has leaned his back against the wall there and folded his arms across his chest. He's deliberately holding himself subtly apart from the group, aloof, so he can avoid taking part in the conversation as much as possible. But the room's not so big as to really keep him away from all the others. If someone decides to talk to him or stand by him, there's really nothing he can do about it.]

[bulletcarnage]

[The whole staying aside from the group and being generally quiet was actually something that suited Heine's interests as he enters the room and gives it a brief glance over. There is definitely something on the air that is somewhat heavy, like a question waiting to be asked, but for the time being he is fairly content to draw himself up beside Kanda, his own back resting on the wall and his arms folding behind his head.]

... What I miss?

[kandescence]

[Kanda is quiet for a moment before turning his head slightly and speaking quietly to Heine--not exactly under his breath, but low enough for their conversation to remain mostly private.]

The one with the pipe is from the university. Head of the library or something. They're asking for our help.

[bulletcarnage]

[Heine looks at Kanda out the corner of his eye as he speaks, then shifts his gaze to the front, to the old man with the pipe. They hadn't seen him before, certainly.]

Help with what?

open to npcs and anyone who wants to talk to him and my kingdom for an edit button

[demguns]

[contents himself with the shortbread cookies before he could snidely comment: IT'S AN ANOMALY. NO-ONE KNOWS WHY THEY HAPPEN OR WHY THEY EXIST, THEY'RE JUST THERE. and they can be closed using some electrical charge. but that's not polite, and he has no idea just how much he'll be able to talk about the anomaly, anyway. connor and cutter had always spoken about bringing back specimens alive because if he killed them, they might affect time as they know it. and he wished that wasn't the case all the time, but now he's left wondering whether this world is a product of whatever it is that the ARC was working on

[magisterialis]

[Yana glances around the gathering while the locals and then stays silent for a while, thinking through myths and legends that have endures to his own time.

He's not sure relevant they are.]

I second the questions of the....it is captain isn't it? The captain here. Given the areas that you profess to experts in - [He's being matter of fact, not snide.] - I'm assuming there are there are some very old stories of similar events.

[1/2]

[ideograms]

[The response to these questions might be rather startling: Dr. Armitage goes pale, looking suddenly frightened, as though of something unseen lurking there with them in the room. He turns towards his two colleagues, and Elias seems to take pity on him and relieves him from having to provide the answer himself.]

In some ways it's difficult to say exactly when, I'm afraid. It's a matter of reconstructing events after the fact, but I will tell you as best I can.

The artifact that is currently in the basement of this house--the one Taylor and I were trying to retrieve--was stolen on from the university vault in late August. Judging from what we witnessed on the night you all arrived, and what happened here last night as well, we were right in anticipating some sinister purpose attached to the theft. But the events to which we refer stretch back before that.

Last winter, a man bearing a strange aspect came to the university library to study a particular rare and ancient tome housed there, one of only a few extant copies. [He looks

[2/2]

[ideograms]

[Here he looks at Armitage once more, but the old librarian seems focused on the rhythmic tapping of his pipe against the heel of his hand, as though somehow through the tapping he might escape the moment of recollection the story might invoke.] I-- I'm sorry, but though I've been told of what transpired that night, it's quite hard for me to explain. I'm not sure I understand it myself. The...the body was not wholly human, and yet it was the same man, Wilbur Whateley, who had come some months before for the forbidden book. He...was deformed somehow--or, no, not deformed. The body was monstrous. There's no other way to say it.

It had-- [It seems to trouble Elias just to speak the words.] It had some manner of appendages--mouthed tentacles that protruded from its abdomen, and some kind of a...a stalk or feeler where a tail might have been, along with skin like the hide of a reptile and legs which were...more animal than human. What's more, its blood was not blood at all, and once it had expired, it...somehow liquified, becoming no

[Open to anyone!]

[excommunicated]

[Allen listens carefully to what is being said generally around the room, but he raises a hand before speaking.]

I feel I need to ask, this project of trying to return us to our own worlds, how much of a priority is this actually going to have?

I realise that there are immediate dangers here that need attending to, and I'm sure that some of us certainly will be willing to help--myself included--but some of us are already involved in projects to do with protecting people in our own worlds and need to return to them; I don't want that to be lost and replaced with indefinitely trying to protect this world.

[ideograms]

[A raised hand is not what Elias would have been expecting--this isn't a classroom after all, but he does at least appreciate that Allen is trying to be polite, and he has been reassured (by Link) that the boy's situation when he arrived is no cause for alarm now. So Elias is trying to warm to him. Really.

It's just a little hard to shake that first impression. Nonetheless, he manages to be as congenial as the circumstances allow as he answers.]

We are quite sincere about our commitment to returning you to your homes, if that's what you mean, Allen. But there's no possible way we can offer any realistic time frame. The simple answer is that we just don't know how long it will be, and in that sense it must indeed be indefinite.

[excommunicated]

[The implication of 'indefinite' doesn't seem to sit well with Allen as his mouth falls open slightly and he tries to form words for a few seconds.]

But... You and Professor Aldrich did create that portal, didn't you? I realise not intentionally, but you did do it. So it should mean that logically there do exist ways to reverse it.

[ideograms]

[Elias isn't unsympathetic. In fact he sounds like he's trying to be as gentle as possible while he makes what he's sure will be an uncomfortable point.]

I think it would be more accurate to say that we modified it. A portal of some sort was opened by whatever group of practitioners we interrupted that night. We intervened in what they had started.

Logically, I would say yes. There should be a way to reverse it. However the fact that we didn't open it to begin with--that we don't know how it was opened or where it was initially devised to lead--all of these will make the task harder.

To be perfectly frank, Allen, neither Taylor nor I know exactly what we did. We were trying whatever we could think of, combining tactics wildly. That all the variables joined to bring you here was a matter of chance alone. And it is difficult enough to replicate chance, let alone to find its inverse.

[open]

[sandnsky]

Sorry t'sound rude, but 'm not sure I'm interested in fightin' your war for you unless I've got no choice.

[pushing away from a back wall and taking a step forward, spreading his hands.]

Sure, those ghost things were damn creepy an' if they keep comin' back it'll be a pain in th' ass, but I think you're coverin' up a lot with flowery words. I realize 'm not th' smartest, but I prefer things t'be said plainly, so let's be blunt.

If y'don't know what's goin' on, how're you expectin' us t'do anythin' about it?

[ideograms]

[Elias opens his mouth to answer but then has to pause--it's not the tone of Daisya's remark that catches him off guard but his choice of words.]

I don't think--

I'm sorry, but I might not be understanding you. I don't know what "war" you mean.

There is a threat, yes. A threat which involves all of you as well as ourselves. The forces of which we're speaking clearly entail no small degree of risk for us all.

We may know very little about what is going on, but if we are to find a way to send you all home then we are going to have to learn quite a lot more. That doesn't mean that the forces at work here will wait patiently in the wings while we uncover all the answers.

[disinters]

[Taylor, who until this point has been rather content to let Elias and Henry Armitage do the talking (because they do a much better job of it than he does) shifts a little where he stands and interjects.]

Whatever we're up against here we are out of our depth in a big way. [He shoots a sort of nervous look between Elias and Armitage.] Er... Well. Not a big way. [Another pause, a rethink, then he frowns and shakes his head.] No, I was right the first time, at least in part: we are out of our depth here in a big way

[sandnsky]

[Daisya looks from Taylor to Elias and back to Taylor. His expression is uncharacteristically grim.]

If I hadn't stumbled upon George when I did, I dunno if he woulda made it. 'm not sayin' he's a slouch or can't fight or anythin', I'm sayin' you can't fight those things with fyin' pans an' kitchen knives.

[He shakes his head, then, lifting his hands in a gesture of peace.]

'm not sayin' that your concerns aren't real. Obviously they are, I saw 'em myself. ... but you're askin' us t'fight for you while we're here, while you try t'find us a way home... an' who's gonna guarantee you're gonna do that? That's why I say I don't know if I wanna fight this war for you.

[With that he turns to Elias, eyes hard.]

You can call it what y'like. I said 'm not a fan of flowery words, so you'll hafta excuse that. This's just th' beginnin' of somethin' that's gonna be a long, drawn-out fight... so yeah, 's a war. Maybe 's on a smaller scale than what you or I're used to, but don't disguise it.

[He stops, then, and makes a frustrated sound. He's