[open] 11/9 hirajiro mystery gang

[reveilation]

[ Over the past week and a half, either Kido or Akira have been going around asking Persona users to attend a meeting at noon on the 9th, with the meeting place being the first floor of the castle in the forest. People who Kido thinks will require dragging to the castle, she makes sure to find and drag over, since she wants everybody to be there in order to share their thoughts and get everybody on the same page. It's rare that everybody comes together like this, so she wants to make the most of it.

There isn't much in the way of furniture and the fridge in the Velvet Room is broken, so Kido can't rely on the kitchen to cook unending gyudon like she did last time. She'd stuck her head into the train this morning and saw something she really didn't need to see, so everybody else is also banned from entering the Velvet Room until the meeting is concluded. Instead, blankets are laid out on the ground and there's a stack of bento boxes which will be easy to eat while sitting outside. There's around three times as many bentos as the number of people, since she knows there's people who'd want seconds (or thirds or fourths or fourteenths... there's a limited amount this time, so no eating contests!!) and if there are any left over, people can take them home. ]

Is everybody settled? Food is on the throne over there, and there's barley tea and cups on the ground next to it, so eat up. Feel free to go back and get more if you're still hungry, but wait until everybody has the chance to get one first. When you're finished, put the box and chopsticks into the bag in the corner so I can wash them later. The cats have their own food, so do not feed the cats anything from the bento. If I catch you, you're not eating for the rest of the meeting.

[ She can't be sure if there's anything in the boxes that might be bad for cats, so it's a blanket ban, sorry cats... There are quite a few in the area, though, including Kano and Shiro. Kano especially does not get food. ]

Now, the first thing we need to talk about...

[ There are a few topics she wants to make sure they discuss, and then the floor is open for anything else people want to bring up, whether it's plot clues, mysteries people are looking into, general questions to bring up to the group, etc. Feel free to post a new toplevel for each new topic to discuss. Since it's a large open mingle, there may be threadjacking.

Also as a reminder, this month the reward for request 12 (two threads with fourth wall characters) is a plot clue in the form of a direct answer to any question your character may have. If there's something that comes up in the discussion that the characters are unsure of and think the Attendants might know (it's possible they might not), it's an option for getting those questions answered. ]

Comments

[overstrain]

The cats like it.

[ Nobody seems to believe him on their true usage............ ]

[reveilation]

[ Kido doesn't believe him either. She pats him on the head. ]

Well, as long as you have that, you don't have to worry about your hair thinning when I do that. Good for you.

[overstrain]

[ Instead of "Emily" they should just make his alias "Cassandra" because nobody believes him... ]

I'd rather you use your hand just like now though.

[reveilation]

[ Yeah. ]

These hands are going to be occupied petting cats. Because that's what you're supposed to use to pet cats.

[overstrain]

[ Terry huffs, takes the scalp massager back, and goes to grab Shirou. It takes some effort to catch him, but Terry knows how to handle cats, even when they try to dodge him. Terry holds Shirou and walks back to Kido, while using the scalp massager on him.

He looks placated, though Terry is only using that on top of Shirou's head instead of all over his face. ]

See? He likes it!

[reveilation]

...What the hell are you doing chasing cats around like that when they clearly don't like it? Leave them alone, Terrence.

[ He may be proving his point, but he's also getting other points stacked against him. Don't just chase cats around the castle like that, oh my god ]

[overstrain]

I don't have to chase them in the house, because they come to me. They like it too.

[ :T

Though Terry lets Shirou go, who hops off to go back to doing his thing. He looks over at kitty!Kano because he's another black cat like Shirou. Maybe he can grab him-- ]

[reveilation]

[ Kitty Kano is saved by Kido who puts her hand on Terry's wrist and turns him around. ]

Then terrorize the cats in the house and leave these ones alone. Come on, you can play with your cats when we go home...

[overstrain]

I'm not terrorizing any of them!

[ That's so rude?! Kido?!?! Anyway, he hands her the scalp massager back in case if she still wants to use it on Minato. ]

[reveilation]

Mmhm.

[ She takes the scalp massager and sticks it in her hoodie pocket, but she's never going to use it on Minato. She'll probably wait until Terry is out of the house one day and go find one of the cats to see for herself if they actually like this thing... ]

[overstrain]

[ All of Terry's cats will like the scalp massager... idk if Kido's will, since sometimes they look traumatized as if someone put cheese on their face. ]

Anyway... The people who run the occult shop are blocked from my pinpointing, except the kid. And it seems weird, because he's really scared of the crows, despite living in something like an occult shop. They're the ones who gave me that tapestry for free too. Maybe they're connected somehow.

[reveilation]

[ What are people doing with Kido's cats... ]

Maybe he got pecked as a kid, like how some people are scared of dogs.

[ He's a kid, so Kido is more forgiving for him to be scared of whatever he wants. ]

But that's interesting... The owners have some connection to this castle, and are also familiar with the dungeons? Or, at least, they don't think it's weird being handed things like feathers and slime.

[overstrain]

... This entire town has strange standards on whatever seems strange or not, actually. The hospital took in people who are obviously "dead" at first glance and performed surgery on them. I think that's the biggest one, so it's not like they're alone in being weird.

[ He honestly doesn't want to list them all... ]

[reveilation]

Yeah, they're all kind of weird. Sometimes I wonder if they're even real, but then I see people like Suzume or Hayato and I can't imagine them being otherwise.

[ She loves her kids. Maybe the kids are all real and the adults are the strange ones. ]

[overstrain]

Despite how weird everything is, I need to believe that it's all real.

[ Partly because Minato said so, and the other part being he'll lose himself in a philosophical spiral if he loses it. ]

It's just easier that way.

[reveilation]

"Need to," huh? If this were all fake, I'm going to be really mad. We'll operate on the assumption everything is real, for now.

[ But possibilities!! are always open ]

[overstrain]

... I can't believe we needed to reaffirm that.

[ Everything's been so hectic. At least back home, he had downtime before he had to suffer again?! He sighs. ]

Anyway, if you need someone camping out at the castle for a week or so, I can do it.

[reveilation]

It's going to be all day and night, so I was thinking people could pair up and sleep in shifts. I'm not going to ask people to stay for a whole week at a time, either.

[ You should what would be smart? Surveillance cams. But it's hard to set those up to catch absolutely everything, when a person's eyes can see so much more and much quicker. ]

[overstrain]

[ ... ... ...

That gets Terry thinking. Yeah, he has a house full of mouths to feed and he's broke, so he suggested himself without thinking. Ugh. Terry sighs in defeat, but then he realizes-- ]

I can send Rimi there! It'll charge on its own because it's solar powered too!

[reveilation]

Rimi just does patrols, though, right? Can it cover a castle this large? There's two floors now, and somebody will have to come at midnight when Rimi won't be able to function.

[ She's also going to trust that Rimi can avoid the bears, and she doesn't know about Kano hanging out here and he'll probably mess with it and this has the potential to go well or badly. ]

[overstrain]

Yeah. Rimi can jump high enough to climb the stairs and it has a pretty good AI to avoid being broken by external influences.

[ To which he means, it was a good AI back in 2029, so it's loads better than 2019 standards. ]

It doesn't have a set patrol route either... I can give commands to Rimi from my phone by calling it, but my phone isn't advanced enough for live-cam. Yours does though.

[ His former phone. ]

So you can check Rimi's cameras whenever you want. I can teach you how to do it later.

[reveilation]

Sure, show me later. I don't think we'll ever get intruders in our house anyways, so we might as well put Rimi to work out here.

[ And then Zen breaks in. ]

[overstrain]

[ He holds back what he wants to say about Kano, the door thief, but... they have Orien now. It's fine. ]

Yeah. It's so weird though... I don't think I ever considered putting Rimi outside the house because it's supposed to be a "home buddy".

[reveilation]

[ Orien needs to eat Terry. ]

I guess we can consider all of this our home... sort of. Not just the castle, but the town and everything around it. I want to protect this world too, and keep everybody in it safe, so what we're doing here is important.

[overstrain]

[ If Orien eats Terry, who will everyone blame...

Terry stares at Kido for a few seconds, before breaking out into another smile. ]

Yeah! I want to keep it safe too. This world means a lot to me.

[ But then Nekogami Encounter part 2 sure happened. It's sad, because Terry does mean that right now. ]