A Familiar Name [OboyoJinsaka and Chikatsu_Star]

Hello Mr. Jinsaka! I just realized there is a way to message people privately so I thought I would give it a try. I haven't talked to you in a long time!

Haha, I had to run downstairs and double check that old tablet! So you're Kimen, hello! How have you kids been?

Life here at the manor has been as busy as always. We house a number of different businesses these days and managing them all is a lot of work! You two should drop by again sometime, I hear Moit has a friend running a new candy store a block over!

Haha I honestly could not think of a good name to use for this. I hope it isn't a problem, Mr. Jinsaka.

And kids? I always thought Mr. Kent was older than you. He certainly looks older at least. Its kinda been a crazy three years. I would honestly love to stop by and visit with you and Lucass and Mr. Moit and everyone else and catch up with everyone, but I am a bit mixed up in something at the moment. Hopefully I wont be for too much longer. I really want to go home.

Is everything alright, Kimen? If you're in some kind of trouble, you can always come to me. Also, I think we might have had a misunderstanding. Lucass left here a long time ago saying he wanted to go on adventures with you. Have you not seen him at all?

I have not seen Lucass since the last time we played with Casper. I know we had plans to visit all sorts of places around the Cleft together but then some things happened and Mr. Kent and I ended up living in a guild in Mandala for a couple years. We just moved back recently but this group called 'The Order' ran by a man named Magnus tried to kidnap me. I am currently being protected by the Heroes For Hire guild in Crysta.

But that is not what matters right now! I am worried about Lucass! How long ago was this? Did he say anything else? Did he say where he was going?

I have seen Kent working in his forge lately, but I haven't had the chance to touch base with him. I have not heard about this 'Order' or this Magnus, how large is this group? If you need help paying the guild, I'll send someone your way immediately. I'm thankful to hear that they are protecting you, you're probably safer there than you would be here without the PDF around to secure the place. But if anything happens to your protectors, I want you to come here right away, understand?

As for Lucass, that wasn't long after you left. He finished up some preparations here and said he was heading for Truce to meet up with you. You really haven't seen him this entire time??

No, I haven't seen Lucass at all. I never even asked him to meet up with me anywhere during that time. What kind of preparations was he making?

As for the Order, I am not sure as to the exact size, but at a guess I would say they have a large number of people at their disposal and a lot of power. Its pretty worrying. That's one of the reasons I haven't been able to go home and I have had to resort to sending Mr. Kent letters through unusual means with the request that he burn them after reading them just to be safe. He can't write me back though. So it is a great relief to hear you have seen him recently and that he is okay. I have been wondering if he has been okay.

If you want I can try to tell you all I know about them.

I am really worried about Lucass though. I know it has been a while but is there anything else you remember?

I can swing by his forge sometime and see if he's willing to touch a computer, or at least to give me a message to give back to you. This 'Order' sounds concerning, I'd appreciate any information on them that you can offer.

I'm not sure what kind of preparations Lucass was making, only that it sounded like he was going to be gone for a while. To adventure with you, I assumed. If you haven't seen him this entire time, then I wonder if something came up? I'm sure he's not in any trouble; he knows how to handle himself. Regardless, I'll ask Moit to call in some favors and put together a search for him. But if you happen to find out anything, please let me know.

I have had to tell what happened to the truce militia so many time I just about have it committed to memory. I also have extra copies of the letters I wrote to Mr. Kent when all of this was fresh in my head so I can use those to make sure I don’t miss anything…
I met Mr. Magnus at the park in Shrike. He seemed friendly and very chatty but… I don’t know. Something about talking to him made me feel uncomfortable. Like a gut thing. I don’t remember the last time I felt so relieved leaving a conversation. But that is not what is important.
He is about 6 feet tall with black hair, fine plate male armor carrying a rapier and a longsword.
He said he was acting as caretaker to someone he called a princess. She was giving him trouble and protecting what he deemed to be monsters. He said there was no such thing as a friendly beast. That there were people, animals, and things that didn’t qualify as animals that you break and dispose of. I particularly remember that. I think that is when I started to feel uncomfortable. He doesn’t like mages or magic.
But I was confused. I thought he meant things like rabites or skitties when he mentioned monsters. But he was referring to what he called ‘Abominations’ which were beings that were born of dark magic and shouldn’t be alive. He seemed to really hate them and felt like they were something that needed to be removed from the world but by his definition Sir Gustav would be considered an abomination because he was brought back to life through necromancy. And Sir Gustav is a really kind brave knight who fought alongside Mr. Kent and I am sure there was others just like him out there. So I certainly did not see eye to eye with him.
A woman showed up. Her name was Flo. I don’t remember much of her other than the fact she had a ponytale and I think an accent. I couldn’t place what kind though. She seemed to be reporting back to him on some sort of stealth mission. Said the “target didn’t deviate from the norms” I think. After that, they left.

Later on, when things were looking a little better around the smithy I went to Truce hoping to bump into someone from Mr. Kent’s guild. I really wasn’t in a state to comfortably wish any of them goodbye before we left and I felt bad about that. After a while being there I started to hear some growling. I don’t know if you remember or not, but I am really terrified of dogs, Mr. Jinsaka. So I ran in the direction that seemed to be safest which was to the south.
There were dogs that direction too though. They had collars. They had killed 2 of the three guards that were there. I ran down an alley, climbed a tree and entered someone’s apartment room from the balcony. No one was there, but I heard people in the hall.
It was a woman named Sarah and an undead Knight. They were fighting in the hallway, but not against any dogs. Undeads in uniform. I heard the knight say that the main forces were probably elsewhere. I stepped out into the hall and asked if I could go with them because I figured there would be safety in numbers and it sounded like they had a place to go and wait out the attack.
We actually ended up at their apartment. They went in and got trapped in there by a barrier which I learned later was created by a girl named Kadaryata. A girl by the name of V was also inside the barrier and she ended up fighting them.
V is a really tall teenager, has purple eyes and bleached hair. I have never seen her fight with a weapon nor have I spoken with her. She is really vicious and fast in a fight. Its kind of scary.
Kadaryata came into the hall with Mr. Magnus a little after the barrier was formed. She is around my age. She has long blond hair and glowing red eyes. She creates barriers. She is actually nice. Both of them wear collars like the dogs I mentioned earlier but hers is on really tight. It looks painful and must make it really hard for her to breathe.
At first I started to ask Mr. Magnus to help Ms. Sarah and her companion but I realized around then that he was involved in the attack. He told me a little bit about Ms. Sarah. That she was a part of c cult. That she was supposed to be used to resurrect their leader but instead resurrected a knight who was supposed to be her executioner.
She was a very nice person, Mr. Jinsaka! She was joking with me I as she invited me into their home. And the knight she was with seemed to be in full possession of his mind and free will. It did not seem like whatever necromancy was involved she was in any control of him or his actions.

Mr. Magnus told me she was going to be a part of his collection. That he was ‘shopping’ to add to his zoo. That he kidnaps a sample of what he hunts to train his men and to “monsters against monsters”.
Then he said he wanted me to go with him to his castle as a guest rather than his prize… I think I remember him saying it was on an island once. And then he said he had to go and that he was leaving me in the hands of his ‘pets’ which was referring to Kadaryata and a skeletal soldier that appeared in the hallway. He also had a collar.
I asked Kadaryata to let me go. She indicated to her collar and said she was not able to. She asked me not to hold it against her. I think those collars have some degree of control over the person wearing them.
I used my magic to get passed the skeletal soldier and fled to Crysta where I ended up asking the Heros for Hire for help. We returned to the apartment to find the room trashed and only a pair of skeletal soldiers remained there. Ms. Sarah and the knight’s clothes were gone from the drawers.
You might have heard of the incident if you follow the news in Shrike, actually. A lot of people were killed and injured. I told the authorities everything I could at the time and the witness that was mentioned in the report was actually me. They even have some sketches of Mr. Magnus, what I remembered of Ms. Flo, and of Kadaryata and V. But while the Truce Militia had a better time listening to what I had to say, I don’t think the reporters in Shrike did. They said none of the witnesses they talked to said the attack was being lead by anyone in particular. And it wasn’t long until the search for Mr. Magnus was called off.

The Heros for Hire have been kind enough to let me stay here under their protection since then. The man that was leading the guild before had disappeared and it turned out he was among those that Mr. Magnus had captured. We rescued him in McNeil after he made an escape, not long after I found myself there. He has been in something of a coma ever since. Mrs. Gemma said they might have done something involving putting runes on his bones to prevent him from escaping.
We were able to get some information from him about some artifacts that Magnus’ men were trying to collect and we’ve been trying to beat them to it. The group collecting them are working as a team as they seem to have just about the same people every time we encounter them.
First there is Ms. Ruby. She is a tall woman with black hair that I have only ever seen pulled back into a ponytale. She uses a glaive in combat.
Mr. Frank is big and I have only ever seen him in full armor. I have no idea what he looks like. He carries a big zweihander and a crossbow though. The thing that makes him stand out is that he has a pink utility belt with a star buckle. I think I saw some pictures of girls on the pouches. It looks a little out of place on him.
Ms. Tisdale has long blond hair and uses a whip. She usually has V and Kadaryata with her when we encounter her.
They were all on the maiden voyage of the SS. Dreamer. So there might be some records on them so long as they didn’t stow away. I don’t know if that would provide much information on them though.
Outside of collecting artifacts, most recently Ms. Tisdale, V, Kadaryata and some new people I had not seen before were all involved in the attempted assassination of Minister Varley in the city of Progress right before the city fell. I don’t know their names. Since we were protecting the minister at the time I really didn’t get a very good look at all of them while we were fighting.
I know that there was a boy and girl both younger than me involved. The boy has short black hair and was attacking with chains, and the girl was riding a stuffed rabbit she had light brown hair. Maybe a little red? The rabbit is gone though. I remember seeing a collar on her.
There was a man with shoulder length red hair and horns there. He used lightning and fire magic. He also had a collar on him. He seemed to really be enjoying himself.
And I also noticed a man maybe in his late teens or early twenties show up in the middle of all that. He had dark blond hair and glasses.

And that is all I can really think of at the moment, Mr. Jinsaka. I can try to answer any questions you have. And if you want I could probably ask Ms. Iona and the rest of the HFH if they would be willing to give their account of things too. They might have gotten a better look at the people they were fighting for example or picked up on some details I missed.

From what you've described, Magnus probably isn't from the cleft. People like him who are bent in their old world's ways show up from time to time and give the rest of us trouble. He and his group are going to have to learn a great deal of tolerance. I'm disappointed in Shrike's reporters for slipping up, Magnus is probably long gone from here by now. I'll be putting these descriptions out however, so there will be eyes looking for them in Shrike from here on.

I'm curious as to what he deems to be an 'artifact'. The cleft is home to a wide variety of technology and magic, a lot of which is owned by a government or an organization. If he did fall in from another world, he'd think that this "strange world" is his to conquer and pillage. Are you busy tomorrow? I'd like to send someone over there to get their accounts and to deliver you something.

I assumed it was a similar situation as Mr. Kent's. Only instead of one person a bunch of people fell in all at once.

As for the artifacts, we retrieved a cursed necklace he was after that traps the soul of the wearer after death. Each soul it traps adds a bead to it. There was also a bracelet. We found the body of someone that had worn it. At best I can assume he is only after really dangerous ones. The others might know more though.

I don't think we are very busy Tomorrow but I can ask Ms. Iona.

Mr. Jinsaka, if anything comes up regardling Lucass, please let me know!

Of course, I'll let you know right away. You be careful over there and keep an eye out for a visitor. I'll be making some calls and gathering intel. You're not alone, Kimen.

You have no idea how much those words mean to me, Mr. Jinsaka. Thank you. I really appreciate them. I will be careful and keep an eye out. Please be careful yourself. They really seem like a strong and dangerous group.