NEW DOCUMENT UPLOADED. OPEN FILE?

[imaginarymods]

As a result of Sans and Sayori's investigation of KV, multiple videos are sent to each of the Reclaimers' bracers.

LUCRETIA.VID

The screen plays a recording of a memory.


Lucretia is standing, surrounded by group of folks in red robes. She herself is clad in a red robe, though the viewer can only infer this from Lucretia's own point of view. Most of the faces are unrecognizable to the Reclaimers, save a few select faces;

the face of the Elf woman in the umbrella that Sans, Wash, and McCree saw before, Barry Bluejeans, Davenport himself, and Maureen, Lucas Miller's mother. The other figures are an elf man that looks remarkably similar to the woman, a dwarf with an impressive beard, and an absolute hulk of a human man.

The elf woman reaches out to touch Lucretia's shoulder, and Lucretia looks at her. The woman's face is so kind as she addresses Lucretia's worry.

"This will work, you have to believe in me," she assures. "And if it doesn't— if dividing the Light of Creation into these relics doesn't work, then we will try your method.

But please, Lucretia. Just give this a chance. Believe in us."

The recording swaps.

Lucretia stands in front of a mirror— no, the mirror—, reaching forward.

"Please," she pleads, stifling a sob, voice riddled with anguish. "I need help. I need more time. I—

I can't do this without them.

Not again."


The recording ends.

LUP.VID

The elf woman sits across from the identical elf man she was with in the prior video. She's looking at her lap, though, only seeing the man's knees close to hers, like their limbs are a bridge between them that almost doesn't meet.

"You didn't mean for any of this to happen." He says to her.

"I know that. And I know it's good. Like, the Hunger's not here, and the hunger's worse than anything we've done. I just... I can't help but ask."

She looks the elf man across from her in the eye.

"Did we make the right decision?"

The elf man's brows knit together and he takes a breath.

"...Who knows if the shield would have worked. You know... sometimes, there aren't right decisions. Sometimes there's just decisions."

The recording ends.

CURSED.VID

From the perspective of someone nearby, you watch as the dwarf from the prior video is confronted by a hooded figure.

"Now, I don't know what you're talking about," comes his rough voice. "If you're hungry, well, the tavern just across the street has the most amazing-"

His voice is cut off as a hand reaches out from the robes and grasps the dwarf around the neck. The hand is made of black opal, and as black tendrils reach out to stab into the dwarf, the dwarf's own eyes turn black as well.

The recording swaps to the vision of a more recent Lucretia.
It's the Lucretia the Reclaimers recall, in her current age and current outfit, or at least what she wore regularly before candlenights.

The view remains concentrated on Lucretia, but passing as if unnoticed by the recording, a shock of black shoots up through Lucretia's staff very suddenly.

"Are you alright, Johann?" Lucretia asks, raising a brow, looking genuinely concerned.

The view shakes as if the person whose memory this is has shaken their head, slowly.

"It's nothing, m'am..."

The recording ends.

CANDLENIGHTS.VID

This memory seems to come from a shorter stature as well. IT's the Moon Base as it stood in Faerun, and a child's hand— Angus's hand— reaches out to push the door open. Anyone who has visited the Voidfish's chambers after hours may recognise the room he enters.

"Madame Director? Are you in here?" he calls out.

The memory patches in as if it's skipped a bit, and now the scene becomes more clear.

Lucretia stands in the middle of the room, hunched over herself, clutching her head with one hand and the staff with the other. Davenport stands at her side, and there are other Reclaimers— Reclaimers that may be recognized as a handful those who haven't appeared yet on the island— around, as well as some Seekers and guards.

"You have to leave," Lucretia demands, her voice cracking as if with pain.

"M'am, you have to listen to-"

"Now! There is no more time for listening!"

Lucretia shouts, her voice like venom. When she looks up, her eyes have turned completely black.

"I can't... I can't hold it back anymore,"

"Not without us!" Angus asserts. "You can-- let us help you!"

"You don't understand! There is no more hope! There is nothing! Even if you leave— this is the end!"

All of a sudden, thorns shoot out of Lucretia's staff, which has turned completely into black opal. The thorned vines that shoot from Lucretia's heart and staff are all that black opal material, too, and they shoot out in every direction, grasping and curling around everyone in the room, Reclaimers and Seekers alike. Even Angus is caught in the vines.

He catches Lucretia's face again, watching as it wrenches in despair, black eyes still crying real, human tears.

"I'm sorry," Lucretia chokes. "This is all I can do."

Even more tendrils extend, wrapping around Lucretia herself, consuming her, devouring her. Angus reaches out, but those vines are starting to consume everything around them as well. Outside of the dome, the sound of a storm begins to ring, amplifying the terror of the moment.

Angus reaches out, trying to free himself from the tendrils, reaching for the hand of a dragonborn woman before a thorny vine tears her away from him.

He loses his balance, tumbling down a few more branches, and when he's finally stopped tumbling he looks around to see a book has fallen out of his bag.

CALEB CLEVELAND AND THE IMAGINARY ISLAND, bears the book's title, but its cover is gilded and shining.

A voice completely unlike the voice heard on the island calls out directly from the book's pages; the voice of a Relic.

"Use me. Save yourself. Save everyone."

Angus reaches out and grabs the book.


The recording ends.

Comments

usmusicstart

[korekara]

that lucretia-san... she's the director, right? there's still a lot i'm trying to remember but i definitely remember her! so, something really bad happened... and now we're here? did angus-kun do something with a relic to try and save us?

[ She feels... weirdly calm about this. She feels like this should be a shock to see, somehow, or that she should at least find this sort of thing a little surprising. But even though she feels a little scared and a little shaken, the foundation under that is more of a business as usual sort of vibe.

She's done things like this before. She can keep doing it. ]

where did this come from? does anybody know?

[ HASTILY AMENDED AS A PS: ] oh!! by the way!! this is honoka! hi, everyone! by the sounds of things i'm super late and i don't really get why but i'm gonna do my best to help!!

un: eudaimonikos

[eudaimonikos]

Well, I have no idea who any of these people are, and I don't really want to get involved in whatever they're doing. Looks bad.

[hey honks, welcome to Jerk Amnesiac Michael!]

There's still new people showing up? Did you wash up on the beach like us?

voice | un: synagogue

[motherfucking_ghost]

Hard agree. Honestly I was just gonna suggest getting involved but like, to kill her? Like this chick's bad news and caused all this junk to happen, right? So it stands to reason that if you kill her, the curse will be broken.

's usually how these stories work.

But not getting involved is a pretty good idea, too. Save for we'll probably be stuck here.

voice | un: defeynseattorney

[doubledsofjustice]

I'm sorry, what exactly is your experience with curses, again?

Just curious.

[motherfucking_ghost]

I literally said that's how these stories work? Stories? Stories, like, we're in one now, apparently, I...guess?

Okay, other ways to break curses involve kissing frogs, true love's kiss, saying someone's name, burning things, sometimes there's sacrifice involved, but I'd much prefer this being the 'just kill the thing to break the curse' type.

Cuz I'm not kissing a frog. Or a squid.

[doubledsofjustice]

There's also usually, you know, talking someone through something, or—

or... [Mia seems to be remembering something, hesitating.]

...Or, you can talk the curse itself into submission.

But that's not the point. There's another curse in that video I'm a little more interested in. See, there's a Dark Knight spell that allows a person to enter a vessel, and... Jesse was saying that there were souls in that umbrella.

What if breaking might be a little more literal? No kissing required.

[motherfucking_ghost]

I think you and I watch different movies. ['Talking it out' isn't a very exciting climax!!!]

Souls in an umbrella. Of course. Why wouldn't there be souls in an umbrella. That's a normal thing. You wanna go hunt down the umbrella and snap it in half with my big beefy muscles? [church please]

[eudaimonikos]

[Shrug. Honestly, Michael hadn't even thought about that part.]

Not like this is my favorite place
But if I had somewhere else to be, I probably would've remembered it by now, right?

un: PAPYRUS

[spaghettimonster]

MAYBE. BUT, MAYBE NOT!
I BARELY REMEMBER ANYTHING.
YET I'M SURE I HAVE PLACES TO BE!

[eudaimonikos]

Where do you get that certainty?

[spaghettimonster]

JUST LOOK AT ALL I'VE DONE HERE.
PEOPLE BEFRIENDED, MYSTERIES INVESTIGATED...
AND THAT JUST IN A FEW MONTHS.
THERE MUST BE LOADS MORE, BACK IN THE LIFE I FORGET.

[It is, maybe, a little less certainty and a little more desperation. Especially in light of how full of selfies and un-full of accomplishments his cell phone appears to have been.]

un: dtangusmcd

[imaginarymods]

With all due respect, sir, that's a stupid idea! If you try to kill her everything's going to get broken worse.

[motherfucking_ghost]

You're the one that apparently shoved us all in a FUCKING STORYBOOK to save us from the queen's magical depressive episode or whatever, so I'm really not sure you get to say that things could be worse.

[imaginarymods]

We could be dead, sir, or inside the Hunger? I'm pretty sure I get to say that that would be worse, objectively speaking.

[korekara]

[ She supresses her instinctive response, which is more or less to yell HEY DON'T BE MEAN!!!, sensing that it probably won't help any, which is about the most self-aware Honoka has been all week. ]

kind of, i guess! i'm not totally new, because i remember some things from before getting here but i'm still trying to work it all out.

[eudaimonikos]

[Ugh. Michael glares at the screen, awash with jealousy that even some new kid is remembering stuff when he never has. But, luckily, it's not a video call!]

Right


Well, that's interesting

[korekara]

honestly it's just kinda frustrating! i want to remember everybody, you know? it feels like we were all really good friends and idk why i can't remember it properly.

[eudaimonikos]

Well don't get your hopes up
I still don't remember anything

[Frankly he rather doubts he was friends with any of these people anyway]

[korekara]

WHAT????? YOU DONT REMEMBER ANYTHING?????

[ Did this need to be capslock? Absolutely not. ]

Then we've all gotta start busting our butts to help you remember!

un: dtangusmcd

[imaginarymods]

I don't remember all the way up to the Relic, ma'am, but I remember up to what happened with Madam Director and that's real, so I guess the Relic must be too! I'm sorry, I know we weren't supposed to touch those.

Um, also it's good to "see" you!

[korekara]

aaaaaa angus-kun!!! i'm really glad you're okay!! omg all this remembering stuff is really messy. but!! it's ok!! because thanks to that we're all here together, right? and now we've got some more time to try and pull ourselves together so we can save everybody.

btw if you like you can just call me honoka! we're friends right?

[imaginarymods]

Yes, pulling ourselves together is important. Even if I don't feel all that together right now. We still have a job to do.

Oh. Yes, ma'am, then I'll call you Honoka! Since we're friends. [he got the spirit]

[korekara]

[ she loves angus...!!!! ]

well we're here on the island, right? that's a good enough start for me!

i guess i'm just kinda stuck on where to go from there...

[imaginarymods]

I'm pretty sure we need to find the Director and get her out of wherever she's stuck. I don't think she can do it on her own.

That's what I remember, anyway. Part of the reason we're in this mess is that she wouldn't let anyone help.

[korekara]

jeez!! what the heck did she even bring us here for if it wasn't helping her!! we're just gonna have to make sure we bust in there and help her out so she knows we really can do this together!

i've just gotta remember how to do all this magic stuff first!!