cawnviction | IC CONTACT @ ryslig

Missing, officially. I don't know if he's alive anymore... if that can even be called 'living'. [Her expression darkens a bit.]

If you don't know who he is, now's a good time to learn. He's the fourth god's father.

[O...kay... sounds like there's a story, there. Not really dead but not really alive either? Duly noted as a question for later.]

Does that make Liewen a god as well?

No... he's human. And so was his son, Elias Liewen... or at least, he lived as one up until about sixteen years ago, when he disappeared. That was when the 'fourth god' first appeared in this world.

[She opens a drawer in her desk and shuffles some papers around before producing a folder, which she hands to Crow.]

This is all the information I was able to find on Elias by snooping around in Liewen's records. They're copies, so you can keep them if you like.

[The first is a newspaper clipping, dated sixteen years ago, describing the disappearance of a young boy whose strange powers had been terrorizing his neighborhood in Bavan. The only things he left behind were a hole running deep into the ground, and a man, one of Dr. Liewen's assistants, completely embedded in his apartment wall, save for his legs dangling out. In the article, the boy's name is scratched out.

The other document is a missing person file, which appears to have been taken from Vandare's police records. The file's date matches the date of the previous article. It describes Elias Liewen, age 12 at the time of his disappearance. There's a warning to approach with caution, as the missing subject is extremely dangerous and believed to have killed several people.]

Unfortunately, this is all there is. Liewen made a serious effort to cover up everything related to his son, to the point that nobody around him even knew he had one.

[Crow takes the documents, the ridges over his eyes pinching as he reads. Newspaper reports aren't exactly the best of accounts but that and the missing persons file is all they have. Crow purses his lips and turns his attention back to Rita.]

So we're dealing with a twelve year old kid who became a god?

[Do gods even age? The fact the Fourth God had been a kid earns a wince of sympathy. He'd be cut if one of his own kids had ended up like this.]

Do you have anything on how that happened?

A kid... I guess so. I don't think he looks much like one anymore, though. [Not that she can say so with much confidence. Rita's not sure what he looks like these days.]

I don't know how it happened, but I have some thoughts on the matter. Tikbalang once said something like... when the fourth god was born, he obtained half of the fog god's power. That's how he became a god.

But it's not like that can just happen by accident, right? So the actual incident... I think it might have been Liewen's doing. Liewen knew more about the fog god than most people. What if he developed a way to siphon her power and place it into a vessel? With that 'vessel' being his own son...

[Yeah, he'd been thinking along similar lines the moment Rita had said the Fourth God had been born with the power. Not that he really has much experience with magic, but it'd be strange for the powers that had always been there to suddenly go out of control when the kid's twelve, wouldn't it? Or maybe it had been there dormant, but something must've triggered it, right?

Crow swears, the hand not holding on to papers balling into a fist.]

If that's true... It'd neatly explain why he covered up information around his son. [Crow shakes his head.] If he wasn't missing, I'd punch him myself. Who does that to a kid? To their own son?

[Crow's tail lashes furiously behind him before he runs a hand through his hair, trying to calm down without resorting to his usual method of punching something really hard; he gets the feeling Rita wouldn't appreciate it.]

So why isn't the guy here any more? You make it sound like you know where he is. He's not dead, is he? At least, not the way people are normally dead.

[That, at least, he has experience in.]

Edited 2016-02-03 13:57 (UTC)

[One of her office walls actually has a fist-sized hole in it, and no, Rita didn't appreciate that one, either.

But Crow's question is a difficult one to answer, and after a pause, Rita's gaze falls on the laptop she left sitting open on the floor.]

He's there. In the network.

His mind was linked and integrated into the RSDOS system. But the last time I heard from him, he was... unstable... [She's not sure how else to put it.] ...so it wouldn't be strange if he died or went mad since then.

[What.]

You're telling me the Fourth God's dad is now the internet?

[Crow runs a hand through his hair, incredulous. Good thing there's no porn on the network; it'd just feel really weird knowing there's some guy potentially watching him if there was.]

That's just his mind, right? So his body went missing when he was linked?

... Yeah. [It sounds a lot weirder to hear it put like that.]

He used the fourth god's power to build the network in the first place, and presumably kept Elias in a similar state: comatose in the real world, conscious only within the network. I don't know how their positions got switched around, exactly. Maybe it was revenge.

In any case, his body's nowhere to be found, so the fourth god probably moved it somewhere.

[Crow pinches the space between his eyes. So the body could be anywhere on the peninsula at the very least, if it's even reachable at all.]

Damn.

[And that's all he really has to say about that.]

So who was the person who found out about the Fog God's heart?

I don't know who learned of it originally. Most of my information about it came from a guy called Duke. And his information largely came from Tikbalang...

[She sighs.] Honestly, we can't even be sure the thing really exists.

[Crow runs a hand through his hair. Yeah. All they have ambiguous words to go off, nothing really concrete enough to come up with anything resembling a plan of action.]

Any way to get in touch with Duke?

[If the guy had a way of getting into Tikbalang's good books to get the horse's mouth flapping more...]

Or has he gone the way of Liewen, too?

[Missing, that is.]

Yeah... he's gone. [She glances away, not wanting to give away any indication of being upset about that. The guy was pretty annoying, but... still.]

I was there one time when he summoned the horse-freak. He gave him some booze, and that seemed to put him in a good mood. Or maybe he was in a good mood anyway, and it was all up to chance to begin with. [She scoffs.] Who the hell knows?

[Crow snorts.]

That's the problem with this place, isn't it? Not really knowing anything.

[He folds his arms.]

Is there anything else to know about the gods?

[She cups her chin as she thinks.] Nothing too pertinent... except...

Liewen left some of his knowledge about the gods in a document, written in an indecipherable language. I think that knowledge could be the key to fighting the gods... but I can't read it, and Ryslig's top scholars don't seem to have a clue, either.

The same language was used in the ruins of Hemlig, and in religious texts supposedly left by the night god. If we can find a way to read that language, we'll be able to learn what he knew.

[Language, huh? He doesn't exactly have much hopes he'll know how to read it -- learning written language purely off card games leaves a sizeable gap in his ability to read -- but then again, Shulk had been trying to decipher symbols of his Monado, only for him to learn that those symbols are Kanji from Yusei.

But it's Rita's last two sentences that catch his attention.]

The Night God? [Interesting.] I'm trying to get back in contact with Mana, that Night God priestess that was on the Network a while back. If I can set up a meeting, you wanna come along?

[Rita's eyes widen a little.]

You are? Actually, I was planning on meeting her, too. She says she probably doesn't know enough to be useful, but if I can get even one word translated, it'll be a hell of a lot more progress than I've made here.

[Great minds think alike? Crow grins.]

Yeah. [He gestures with a hand.] I want to know more about this Night God. I heard about what happened in Rota and the monsters who turned human for a while.

[Before they went nuts but that's not what he's focusing on here.]

Might be worth knowing more about that ritual, even if it went wrong.

[That gets a sour look from her.] Right... that ritual.

That's when I first met her, actually. I tried asking her about it, but she just said some crap about faith, and ancestors passing on the wisdom of the night god, and how they just kinda felt their way to a solution. [The disdain in her voice is palpable.]

[Crow can't help the snort of laughter. She sounds offended.]

Hey, sometimes you just gotta put aside the brain and feel.

[But he does concede--]

Doesn't help if we wanted to try and replicate it though. Still, I want to meet her in person anyway.

[That's because she is offended, dammit. That priest girl even talked about magic like it isn't a science! That's unacceptable.]

No. I don't. [Put aside her brain? Never.]

... But I agree with meeting her. It sounds like she's worried about getting found by the Bloody Bones, but if she really is an ally, she'll work with us.

[Heh.]

I'll let you know if I can set something up.

[He waves a hand.]

Anyway, mind if I get a copy of the document? In case the only time she can meet happens at a time you're not around.

[Dead or otherwise indisposed.]

Sure. If anything, I'd like to have a few copies floating around, in case anything happens to the originals.

[And for that reason, she's already got a few made. She picks up a folder and pulls a couple sheets out.]

These are two separate documents, but they're both definitely from Liewen. One was found hidden in this room, and the other, in the place he used to hide his son at. There could be more documents like these hidden in Ryslig, so keep an eye out for that, too.

[She hands him the two pages.]

[Crow accepts the pages glances down at them. He hadn't been expecting much, but damn, that script really is completely indesciperable to him. He taps the papers he has on hand.]

Thanks for all the info, Rita. Really appreciate it.

[He tucks the papers under an arm.]

If there's anything I can help with, let me know. It's the least I can do.

It's nothing. [She shrugs, dismissing his gratitude.] Not like there's any reason to keep all this to myself. [Besides laziness. And misanthropy. Meh.]

I'll keep it in mind. [For someone who's practically allergic to the sea, it probably can't hurt to have a merperson she can call on, anyway.]

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cawnviction - 2016-02-24 11:27 (UTC) - Expand

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