un: ut malum pluvia | audio

[somebadnews]

[ Five is walking out of the lighthouse as he addresses the network, since it's generally quieter where ghosts aren't constantly interrupting his thoughts. The beauty of this form of communication is it's not entirely unlike talking to himself, which is really his preference. ]

Okay, listen up. Since we're all sharing, let's see if we can't come up with an actual plan, before we experience the next shift and you all inconveniently forget who you are again.

[ To say nothing of a haunting that has already sent him into a panic attack or how he nearly drowned just to see for himself what he'd already heard second-hand. Nothing but success for Five Hargreeves. ]

Two orders of business. One, Miang-Si is obviously a catalyst, if not the cause of what's happening here. I searched her room one of the nights she was out galavanting with her lake friends. There was correspondence that suggested she was enamored with someone, who I now assume was the Huntress. I also found evidence that the woman in white, and another in red, visited her there. The witches she's involved with also may have dragged in women doing laundry nearby into their lake at some point, judging by what was found with the skeletons at the bottom.

Secondly, these hauntings aren't just some curse. If they are spirits, we need to figure out a way to trap them. There's a woman in white, a man in black, a lumberjack, and another woman in red. Who else has been seen and how often? If we can capture one of them, maybe we can get some answers before whatever triggered this starts again.

[ He has no doubt it'll happen at the worst possible moment.

Just as he's about to continue with his all-important conspiracy theories, he's approached by a young girl with a silver coin in hand. Distantly she can be heard saying she's worried about her family, and asks him to take a donation for Kathoo'lul's blessing. Dumbfounded, he takes it and promptly loses his train of thought as she scurries away. ]

...Amazing how easy it is to start a cult around here.

Comments

[somebadnews]

[ Tried to... sure. Allison was sharing a drink with her husband, but he can't remember if she touched him. ]

That's a safe assumption. The trouble is how quickly they disappear.

We need some way to anchor them. Like the mirrors.

[northerndragon]

I could happily go the rest of my life without seeing another mirror.

[somebadnews]

[ He's right there with you, but he hasn't seen anything else that can absorb a spirit. ]

I'm still waiting for other suggestions. All the necromancers and magic users we have, you'd think someone would have tried it before.

[northerndragon]

Let them try it, then.

Are we sure, are we truly certain, that there's no mirror causing all our troubles here?

[somebadnews]

Nothing is impossible. The ones in Miang-Si's room didn't look cursed, but I didn't get too close to them.

[ Unlikely, though he gives him a little credit. At least someone is trying to think up new theories, even if Jon is just saying that because Five brought it up. ]

[northerndragon]

[Or is he just saying it because of his mirror-related trauma?]

How many are there? Smash them all. Let Drogon at them with flame.

[somebadnews]

[ Well obviously, that too. Not that he's going to mention that he's kept that shard inside him for years and he still suggested it.

But it's because it exists that he knows that something out there must be able to trap them. ]

I'm not opposed if you'd like to burn her place down, but keep in mind who her allies are.

[northerndragon]

I speak only of the mirrors, not her home.

The moon in water, like a mirror pool. Does the one have anything to do with the other?

[somebadnews]

It wouldn't be unheard of. Bodies of water have acted like mirrors before.

We've just never successfully got them to work in our favor.

[northerndragon]

It might be that we're all in a mirror now, a great mirror, all of us. I remember the glimmer of light, far away, like being underwater. The real moon could be in a dish of water, if you were within the mirror. The moon in the sky, any moon, might be false.

[somebadnews]

[ ...Has anyone checked in with Jon, lately? Five would hate to be the one to tell him that being trapped in a mirror is actually the better option for them. ]

And how would you explain the time travel?

[northerndragon]

I cannot explain all of it, but time was strange to me when I was trapped there. It was only moments, but it felt like days. What if there's more than one mirror, each holding a different time?

[somebadnews]

[ He'd like to dismiss this as trauma nonsense, but... well, he's currently chasing down a theory that's only a little less out there. ]

Did it feel the same as it did when you came here?

Jon, please start making sense

[northerndragon]

No, not as such. I'm not sure it would have to.

Miang-Si told me I could aid the water that was wronged. Don't know if that has much to do with anything. We know the dead come from it. Dead in the water can't go far where I'm from. But the moon is in the water, too.

he's in good company

[somebadnews]

[ That's... something. Did she mean the dark water? Or something to do with what they found in the lake? ]

When did she tell you that? Before the time shift?

[northerndragon]

Aye, when they took her from house to house.

[somebadnews]

[ When she was crazy. Still... that's interesting. ]

She must have really taken a liking to you.

The dark water was spreading then. Did she mean to send you back to stop it?

[northerndragon]

[He thinks on that.]

Might be. Or it might only be that she speaks of the dead rising again from the waters. If they were thought to stay, then don't stay anymore, if the water loses what once belonged to it, that might be a way of wronging it.

[somebadnews]

[ He can't say that he's wrong. His take is different from what he'd gathered, but it gives him something to think about. ]

So your theory is that she's trying to help by manipulating you. Only she was too insane to actually tell you how.

[northerndragon]

I asked how I might help. That was her answer. But not the only place we've heard of something being wronged here. I don't know if she means to help or hinder.

[somebadnews]

She's made too many connections. The Huntress, the witches, and two of the spirits. It's no wonder she loses her mind.

Have you tried to speak to her since?

[northerndragon]

No. I've had no chance.

[somebadnews]

It might be easier now that she's more lucid. She sneaks out most nights, and on the others her servants seem to let anyone in. Maybe you can find out what she meant.