Youmu was silent as the man spoke. It was all too strange, too confusing. Where had that letter come from in the first place? But he seemed desperate. And she could hardly disagree with him, even the air here felt wrong. Vile. Something was terribly amiss in this land. But she was not the daughter, nor the granddaughter, of anyone who had ever dwelt in a place like this. His mind seemed unstable, but...

The letter.

When Youmu opened it, she couldn't help but notice the letters shift from their original text to kanji, just as she had briefly seen another set of unreadable words do in the ruined town. Was there some sort of power at work making it easier for them to understand what was happening? For that matter, the boy definitely hadn't been speaking Japanese, and yet his words registered in her mind as Japanese words...

That was the least important thing at the moment.

The silvery-haired half-phantom scanned through the letter, her expression growing grim as her phantom half fretted behind her.

"... The previous owner of these lands unleashed something terrible here," she said, raising the letter up to display it to the others, "I don't understand where we are, but given everything that's happened I think we might have ended up here to stop this. Whatever... whatever this is."

[@Rune_Alchemist][@KoL][@Crusader Lord][@PKMNB0Y]

[hr]

The birds most certainly had not been a threat. Even if they'd been given the opportunity to attack, their bloated bodies would have been unlikely to even get off of the ground. And now, one had been reduced to an unrecognizable feathery, bloody splat, and the other had been electrocuted and cut in half. Strangely, if anyone had the mind to check, there were now two oddly eye-shaped pebbles lying next to each of the birds.

Not that it was important. But it was odd.

Of course, there was nothing that could be done for the dead body, but at least it was no longer being disturbed.

From this position, it was likely a little easier to get their bearings and try and figure out where they were. And indeed, it was possible that the streets below looked familiar... they were one of the streets that had been featured in the strange video, undeniably so. With any luck, that meant that the girl was hopefully nearby, though there were certainly a lot of buildings to check. That wasn't all, however.

There were a few more details that could be discerned. Lamps filled with some sort of fuel that glowed softly-red illuminated some doorways, as if marking those that were occupied. Carriages laid idle in the streets, a few of them stopped before what was clearly the corpse of a partially-eaten horse.

But most importantly, now the mob that had been visible only by their torches was easier to make out.

They weren't human.

Perhaps they once had been, but now something appeared to be terribly wrong. Their forms were distorted, too much hair, limbs stretched oddly, sleeves fraying. Some wielded curved swords, others hatchets, some wooden shields, some pitchforks, and many held torches above their heads.

The one at their lead wore a tophat.

"Kill the beasts! Spill their blood!" he called, his voice still sounding human enough.

[@RolePlayerRoxas][@PKMNB0Y][@Raineh Daze]