August Catch All

[insinning]

Who • Vogel (Emil Sinclair) and YOU
What • Catch all for August - any dungeon runs, misc. stuff happens here. I'll toss up open TL from now and then that don't fit with event posts.
When •All Throughout August
Where • Mac Anu and Lumina Cloth.
Content Warnings • none, will add if any pop up later

Comments

//Akatsuki

[insinning]

[After being called over by Akatsuki to meet up, Emil does so at the requested time, flower crown shining on his head as he shoulders his new lance. His boots squeak as he walks over and he thinks he should have looked for better boots instead.

No matter.

He'll wait patiently at the meetup point, pulling out his phone to scroll mindlessly like a good millenial gen x representative.

[horologia]

[ can't believe we're playing in the timeline where gen x gets vr in 2000.

in any case, not too long after he gets there, she'll show up, in all her default glamour glory! the terrible cuirass that dropped in the run may have been better statwise than what she started with but it sure isn't any better fashion wise. ]

I hope you weren't waiting too long. I had to see what my cat wanted first.

[ ahem. ]

But ... Anyway. This is what I found atop the clock tower.

[ she'll show the thing she's carrying to him and ... they sure are some torn pages, written in german! as she can't read them i have not asked the mods what it actually says other than 'it's a poem'. ]

[insinning]

That's okay. My dog used to be like that too.

[Sinclair smiles at her. He's a mess of fashion sense himself at the moment, despite the nicer skin Oria had found for him. He just hasn't had time to equip it just yet, perhaps reliving the horrors of the headchicken. Or headhen, as it had been named in his inventory. Bizarre.]

Let me have a look...

[Reading through it, frowning thoughtfully]

It looks familiar. I feel like I've heard these phrases before. Gimme a sec-

[And as soon as we get info on the poem...! But also, translating is hard work]

[horologia]

Referencing something from outside the game, then?

[ hm... why don't they go find somewhere nicer to sit down and let him translate, rather than just milling around the Chaos Gate. surely there's a shop or cafe with an open seating area or something. ]

... I did note that, surprisingly enough, it does not take up an inventory slot.

[insinning]

Maybe it's a key item thing.

[Thinking, thinking. Wow, it's been awhile since he's read German]

Do you mind if we sit somewhere while I finish translating?

[It's not too difficult, but then they can try to discuss it]

[horologia]

Not at all. It's probably better than simply standing by the gate.

[ they can go to somewhere nice and shaded in the plaza. there's plenty of businesses around to find a seat at. ]

[insinning]

[They find a nice little cafe, and they have in game currency now, which means they can actually buy things, even if eating in this world isn't necessary. It just seems polite. Once they take a seat, Vogel can read through the poem properly]

So the first two lines say "Unknown where the Cursed Wave was born…After the stars doth cross the heavens".

[horologia]

[ they're patronizing the npc shopkeepers of mac anu, it's fine. maybe there's a hidden affection or reputation system where treating the shopkeepers well will earn them discounts on the future, who knows?

but in any case, huh. ]

... is this specifying a time of some sort, maybe ...? If it is a key item, perhaps it's linked to a quest somewhere.

I don't think we would have noticed any change in the skies just yet though, unless the game has it so that they rotate and cycle through more quickly than they do in reality...

[insinning]

[And the coffee here tastes waaay better than any he's had locally. Bizarre]

Maybe it's the lore for this world. 'The cursed wave' feels like a creation mythos.

[He just wants to scratch the itch that tells him he must have read it somewhere before. But if he had studied it in the German literature books, he can't recall the writer for the life of him.]

And this is the second part:

'The sky in the East doth darken and air doth fill with mourning.
From the chosen land beyond the forest, a sign of the wave comes'.

[horologia]

... it almost sounds more like a cycle of creation and destruction, maybe. If the world already existed when the wave is set to arrive, and the air is filled with mourning ...

It's a little ominous, isn't it? [ a sip of her tea, which ... huh, it's perfectly steeped. not burnt at all. ] I wonder whether it's simply flavor text, or if it's part of a longer, overarching plot.

[ teasing future events, maybe? or maybe it's just worldbuilding. ]

[insinning]

[He turns the phrases over in his own. He had always done well in his liberal arts classes, but it's a little hard to apply that knowledge to something in a void]

It's interesting, isn't it? If it was hidden up there, maybe they wanted players to find it to help start off a plot. But it's not complete either. Do you think it's part of a hidden quest to find the other pieces?