text 💎 un: Tohsaka Rin

[defenceless]

[shortly after the storm clears on may 11th and the network connection between both sides of the group is reestablished, the following post appears:]

We're fine, as far as I know. I don't think anyone's dead, at least.

The storm that separated us was brought about by a Dakal named Pomarr. Some of you may remember her as our feline friend who sold her soul to Ryba—or whatever it is she did—to continue to live on after death.

She swept us to an island that looked like it was raised from the seafloor. It wasn't a vacation, but there were definitely remnants of what those big cats must have called home.

Her plan is to revive her entire race, in the same way Ryba "revived" her. As if life-or-death deals with shady goddesses aren't concerning enough, she wants to grant Ryba the power to carry out this mass revival by having her suck Nalanni dry. Pomarr understandably doesn't care much for Nalanni after she drowned everyone she loved; in fact, she showed us this in morbid detail. She's taken Nalanni. Hence, all the Nalawi losing their Gifts and all of this inconvenience we have to deal with.

Pomarr knows where Nalanni is, but she's asking us not to interfere, and she wouldn't give us the opportunity to speak with Nalanni when I requested it. For some reason, she didn't expect that we would be suffering like the Nalawi are. She's promised to try to fix that.

What do we do now, ALASTAIR? I can share anything else you want to know about our meeting with Pomarr, or Yukimura Sanada-san or Mr. Keats can, but this is most of it. We have a situation where the balance of this whole world might be upended if we sit and twiddle our thumbs.

I don't think I need to remind anyone of the potential consequences of messing with either goddess. Or a litter of zombie cats roaming free.

(( ooc: infodump for rin, yukimura, and keats' conversation with a dakal npc, for one of the plot slots! feel free to handwave your character (in either the marooned group or the left behind group) learned this info by reading the post or talking with rin/yukimura/keats/another recruit. yukimura and keats may also be replying to tags! ))

Comments

[hellshaped]

[Oh.] I figured that was Nalanni's prison. But if the demi-gods were there... damn.

[They weren't fast enough.]

[timebender]

I wouldn't feel too bad about it. Had we not dropped that bomb in the volcano, we would not have been able to access that place... and had we not been so desperate, I doubt anyone would have gone for the bomb idea!

[ She sighs wistfully, pausing for a moment; she's thinking, but at this point, the best she can do is make guesses. It feels so strange, not be able to say whether or not this is how it had to be. She can only guess and offer empty platitudes, the same as anyone else.

It's all very bothersome. ]

As unfortunate as it is, it still is what it is.

[hellshaped]

Can't change the past. [As far as he knows, anyway. But that's a conversation for another time, maybe.] We'll just have to be more careful next time. Learn from it and all that.

[timebender]

Well, you shouldn't, anyway.

[ A gentle and offhanded correction that she doesn't linger on. ]

But yes, I imagine we'll get better at this as we get a few more missions under our belt! Even if knowing that doesn't make sure failures any more palatable. I'm sure we'll look back on this someday and laugh.

[hellshaped]

Hopefully not laugh. [His tone is amused, though. He's more likely to laugh about the idea of laughing than anything else.] But I get what you mean.

[timebender]

I don't know that there will be much else we can do about it. I don't think ALASTAIR will allow us a do-over.

[hellshaped]

Well... learn from it without actual laughter, maybe.

[timebender]

That's a possibility. But that also gets very depressing.

Besides, if you can't accept your mistakes, can you really say you've learned from them?

[hellshaped]

I've accepted a lot. But I can't say I've learned to laugh anything off quite yet.

[timebender]

Well... I have. But I think I had to, really.

[ You can nearly hear the shrug in her tone. This isn't exactly the hill she wants to die on, anyway. ]

If you don't want to laugh, then you do not have to. Just know that some of us might have to deal with it the only way we know how!

[hellshaped]

[It's a good reminder, anyway. He probably would get upset if somewhere down the line, people are joking about the mistakes they made on this mission. Or any of them, really.]

I'll try to keep that in mind.