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Oh my God!

[She's taking a breath to scold him for worrying her, but there's no way she can miss those sounds. Even through the crackling, weirdly poor reception, those are screams! And gunshots? And... something that sounds kind of like a fire?]

Wait, wait, don't hang up! Where are you right now? Are you safe?

I don't know?

[Hell, maybe? He's thinking this is probably hell. But Kaede doesn't need to know that.]

Professor Gromph brought us to another plane. I'm safe, [Not really.] but I really need to go now, Akamatsu-san. I'll talk to you later!

[And this time, he really DOES hang up. Sorry, Kaede, but he really needs to focus on the task at hand.]

[If she tries to do a little sleuthing, she may find that, at some point, Shuichi made plans with Ferran to try and gain ownership of the mirror. And since that's definitely where he was last, there's a chance that "us" includes Ferran as well as Gromph and Shuichi. At least he's with a seasoned Reclaimer as well as a powerful mage?]

Saihara-kun!

[It's too late... he's hung up. As much as she wants to, she doesn't call him back yet again; he says he's safe, and she wants to believe him, but with all that noise in the background...

Well, maybe this is part of a lesson? Like that crazy professor who's throwing fireballs at everyone. He says he's safe, and he's with Professor Gromph... mmmnngghh...]

Let me know when you're back, ok??
I want a full report!!

[Needless to say, Shuichi does not look at his bracer again as long as he's in the Abyss. And when Ferran succeeds in attuning to the mirror, everything that follows it pushes contacting Kaede even further from his mind. Even once they pass through the mirror and arrive in the caverns below the town and his link to Kaede is re-established, he doesn't think of it. But given what was waiting for them down there...can you really blame him?]

[And then...time resets. It's noon again and Shuichi is left reeling from the sudden temporal displacement as though it was the first time it had happened all over again. So there's no message on Kaede's bracer but since they probably arrived in Thay at least near each other, if not together...the detective himself likely isn't too far away.]

[Aside from clear disorientation and something that might be terror, he looks perfectly okay, thanks to time resetting all the minor scrapes and damage to his clothes he sustained on his little field trip. Though there is a very, very faint scent lingering about him. Something unpleasant but unplaceable, the only physical reminder that the last loop took him to somewhere Beyond...]

Edited 2019-12-09 17:13 (UTC)

[Kaede had intended to wait near the mirror for him, hoping he'd be back well before the loop reset. She plucks restlessly at her violin, fingertips drawing a restless, anxious melody from its strings as she sits there and waits and watches the time.]

...Huh?

[She's about to push herself to her feet and brace herself against the reset when her connection to Shuichi is re-established with a suddenness that almost leaves her falling back to her butt again. She looks around wildly, but he's not here, nor is the mirror. Instead, he feels... like he's underground? Before she can take more than a few steps, everything rewinds back into place, and she closes her eyes against the now-familiar dizzying rush. Her eyes snap open again, and they're back in Thay as if they had just arrived.]

Saihara-kun! Are you okay?

[She doesn't have to look for him; they've reset enough times, coupled with the Oath, that she can head directly for him without hesitation. The hand not holding the violin reaches out and touches his arm, eyes seeking his for reassurance that whatever happened, he is truly okay.]

I... [One look into his eyes is probably enough to say that no, he is not okay. At least, not in an intangible sense. Whatever happened in that other plane or when he was briefly underground disturbed him deeply. Or maybe it was just the fact that he had virtually no time to process it. Either way, his eyes say more than his voice. At least, for the moment they remain locked on Kaede's.]

I'm...f-fine, yeah. I just... Rainer-san. P-Professor Rainer has the relic and Headmistress Casariel, she...sh-she's the one who...the dragon...

[He raises a hand to his temple, closing his eyes and shaking his head a little. His brain is whirring back into motion, attempting to sort things out and fit pieces together. He doesn't fully understand everything he heard, but those two facts stand out starkly in his mind. Facts that everyone needs to know, and so he sputters them out disjointedly to the first person he can. He shakes his head again and looks into Kaede's eyes again.]

This has to be the last loop, Akamatsu-san...everyone needs to know...

[Shuichi, you need to sit down and maybe try and say all this coherently?]

Edited 2019-12-09 17:50 (UTC)

[He sure doesn't look okay! Gently, but insistently, she tugs at his arm, trying to guide him away from the thick of the other Reclaimers so maybe he can go sit down. She doesn't get too far, though, considering he drops that barely-coherent bomb.]

W-What?!

[She'd suspected Rainer of having the Relic since Szass had admitted that when he'd killed her, she hadn't seemed to care, but Casariel? And the dragon?]

H-Hang on, Saihara-kun... back up. What're you saying?

[Verbally and physically, as she uses that grip on his arm to more firmly try to guide him somewhere he can sit down. A bench? There's got to be benches in town somewhere. Come sit.]

[Shuichi easily allows himself to be steered to a bench. Sitting down and having a moment to collect himself sounds great? He hasn't had a chance to do that for several hours now.]

I...

[Breathe. Just. Breathe. Everything is fine now. Or well...he's not being chased down by demonic hordes who want his soul anymore so things are better, even if they aren't actually all that fine. Okay, he's had a moment so let's try this again.]

Ferran-san and I were trying to gain control of the mirror but...nothing we tried worked. So...Professor Gromph took us to another plane so Ferran-san could try attuning to it there. He said it would be easier to make it recognize a new master that way and...he was right. We were able to pass through it...and it connected us to a place...below the city, I guess? The dragon was down there, and so were Professor Rainer and Headmistress Casariel. They were having a very...heated discussion. I d-don't really understand everything that was said but...Headmistress Casariel is the one who keeps releasing the dragon. She wants to destroy Faerun for...some reason. Something about revenge for her people, that's one of the parts I still don't really understand but...Professor Rainer has been resetting time over and over again to try and stop her, but it's...it's taking a toll on her. She's starting to disappear, which is why she wants this loop to be the last one and wants us to help her...

[That better?]

[That's it, breathe. She sits beside him, half-turned so she can face him. She can feel him starting to gather himself through Oath just as well as she can see it, and though there are questions swirling through her mind, she forces herself to keep quiet for once in her life to let him collect his thoughts.]

That's...

[Wow, okay. That's a lot. A lot of suspicions confirmed with evidence, a lot of new information that she doesn't know what to do with. No wonder Shuichi had been so frantic when their timeloop had reset. He's right, they have to tell everyone, the sooner the better.

But she doesn't say that immediately. It's hard not to leap to her feet, use her bracer to @ everyone and let them know what Shuichi said. Instead, she forces herself to take a second, then reaches out and takes his hand, giving him a smile that's meant to be encouraging.]

You're amazing, Saihara-kun... just like that, you learned so many things! All we have to do is stop Headmistress Casariel, and then...everything will be okay!

[Then, finally, maybe all of this will be over.]

So we'll tell everyone, okay? If Ferran-kun hasn't already.

Edited 2019-12-11 06:14 (UTC)

["Just like that"...haha. aha. ha. Dimly, he registers that comment as faintly humorous. She really just has no idea...and how could she? She wasn't there.]

I didn't...do very much. Ferran-kun...is the amazing one. [He's the one who actually managed to link with the mirror, after all. Shuichi's attempt did nothing, and he definitely had the lowest demon kill count among Ferran's protectors.] But...yeah. That's...all we need to do.

[Stop Casariel. Sounds so easy when you say it, but judging by her conversation with Rainer...]

But...I think it might be easier said than done... I don't think she can be reasoned with...even Professor Rainer couldn't manage that, and they're friends, aren't they? And... [He frowns slightly, running the conversation through his head again.] it sounded like killing her would have very dire consequences. It would destroy something called "the Weave"...

I bet you did more than you think.

[She squeezes his hand. She always feels better when Shuichi's around, after all, and if she's learned anything from being a bard, it's that inspiration and motivation can come from the most unlikely places for other people! As long as Ferran wasn't a bully to Shuichi...

...Wait, what? She goes still at the mention of the Weave, her grip loosening on his hand just a bit.]

The Weave... that's where magic comes from. But... there's no way, right? I mean, the Weave is like...

[She gestures in a vague area as if trying to encompass the whole world. It's quite literally everywhere, as far as she knows.]

There's no way someone like Headmistress Casariel is that important. She's not like, a god or something.

[Hey, instead of talking about him and how useful he was or wasn't, let's focus on this Weave thing. Since Kaede actually knows what it is, maybe he can make some sense of one of the things he was completely unable to understand while he was underneath Thay.]

N-no, I don't think she's a god...just a very powerful dark sorceress. [She certainly has the evil cackle down, plus all the creepy purple energies.] But she said that she drank from "the Wellspring of Magic" and became one with it. And that's why killing her will destroy the Weave...

[And now it makes sense. If the Weave is where magic comes from, if it's something that's everywhere...now he understands just how dire the consequences are. Why she was using that as a threat.]

Hmmmm...

[That does sound pretty dire! Kaede's personal research didn't go too deep into the specifics of the Weave -- she knows it exists, that's about it -- but nobody has to be a scholar to figure out that someone becoming one with the source of all magic is pretty bad news.]

Well, killing her shouldn't be our first solution, anyway...

[She chews her bottom lip for a moment. It still feels sensitive, to say something like that in front of Shuichi when he was present for what she did back in the Killing Game, but it feels like it's important to say. Especially with the stakes that high, they can't afford to kill her.]

Yeah, we'll tell the others. I'm sure if we all put our heads together, we'll come up with the right solution.

[Well at least Kaede learned from her mistake in the killing game. Granted, Shuichi never doubted that Kaede would have done what she did if she felt she had any other options. She was pushed into a corner, mentally and emotionally. That's not really the case here. Granted, they're just as pressed for time now as they were then...]

N-no, of course not. And I'm not saying it should be, I'm just repeating what she said. Obviously, she thought it was a possibility Professor Rainer might consider, even as a last resort, and took steps to prevent her from doing so.

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pretend i've been using ferran-kun this whole time because i'm dumb

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