HokumPocus

The Five Senses

---

A lone man strutted near the perimeter of the church, his fist tightened over his heart and his face a sort of twisted exaggeration of human emotions only seen in theater performances. It was as if whoever was making the expression and the original owner of that particular set of facial features were two different people, in the same way a puppeteer's hand and a new glove he was stretching out adapted to one another.

"Hear ye! Hear ye!"

The man's voice was nearly drowned out in its entirety by the chaos of war surrounding it. A puppeteer never sticks to one puppet, however.

"All who fight in the name of this great land! All who wish to destroy evil!" The second man sounded a lot like the first. Their features were identical, actually, but through careful tweaks to clothing and a noticeable pitch added to his voice, it was likely that no one would notice through the heat of war.

The first man raised a cupped hand to his mouth and spoke once more.

"We must invade the church! There is nothing but corruption happening within!"

The second replied. "A great corruption of what once was pure!"

It was a classic technique. If two conmen seemed to be on different sides, it complicated matters to their advantage. Likewise, the second man favoring a more spiritual argument to compliment the first man's more practical, rebellious shouting added an organic touch to what might have otherwise been two parrots mindlessly repeating words. And Octavio had far more tact than that.

A third illusion skulked near them, a silent guard meant to prevent any unfortunate interruptions. He stood beside a few other men who had been drawn in by the illusion's words and raised his weapon in a powerful motion. He furrowed his brow and took a moment to wet his tongue before speaking.

"What these men shout must be nothing short of the truth!" He turned to the other men and women nearby, trying to meet as many eyes as possible and respond to silent doubts with a thundering approval from a man who seemed to be just like them until moments ago. "We must storm the church!"

"Storm the church!"

"We must!"

"Until our last breath!"

More voices, more weapons drawn. It was a disheveled and disorganized attempt at what an army was, but it was an army nonetheless. An army that was amassing quite a lot of new, stringless puppets.

***

"We're getting quite a bit of progress here," Octavio muttered, without moving a muscle. His eyes remained clamped shut and his hands remained on either temple. "All a rockslide needs is a couple of good pebbles in the right direction."

The Five Senses

---

"I suppose veneers don't matter when our lives are on the line this often," he stated, not making eye contact with Chres. "No, I am no true nobleman. I grew up under... shall we say unfortunate circumstances, and had to sharpen my tongue to feed it." The dry start of a chuckle creaked out of him. "Although I suppose the throwing knives and constant bickering with Lynx outpaced my words at some point." The battlefields and peaceful lands turned battlefields they found themselves in had never been the time to talk as allies, and their periods of respite had Octavio thinking less about the benign and more about the myriad of threats surrounding them. The truth was out there now, at the very least.

His words slowed from their typical patter. "Wanting something. No, it wasn't that clear cut. It was more of a continual testing, a sort of odd verbal probing. She wanted to test her information and myself simultaneously, it felt like. Wanting to see if I'd stick to defending my principles and the rest of you." His eyebrows arched upwards. "And I did, you know."

It would have been simple to end the conversation there, but the dread of that day continued to loom over him. "She seemed satisfied, in her own enigmatic way. Her last words were a warning. She'd return... and... so would my sister."

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

---

Alex thumped to the rhythm of a song in his head as the others deliberated their course of action, his knuckles pausing with every swivel of his neck to listen to what another person had to say. Siegfried was unamused by the idea, but the same could be said of his perception of Alex as a whole. He felt like an older brother, if that older brother had the opposite personality of his actual older brother. Kalie was out of the question too. Sif was more ambiguous, but clearly had other priorities.

Kazuki spoke... and teetered... and drank... and drank..

He answered the bard in earnest regardless. "These disappearances are too specific to be some griefer or troll. Whoever or whatever's behind this is probably a bigger deal than people goofing off too hard, I think." There was more on his mind, but Kazuki's surprise trip to the ground had been a good end to the conversation as any. He watched in morbid fascination as Kazuki's princely demeanor carried over into his drunken slump, giving the movement an almost gentle air.

"Huh." he muttered. At least Kazuki's brother was there to help the guy. A pang of envy made a frown jolt across his face for a split second. "All me and Seele have are papers," he told Graves. "There's no telling what the cause is yet, either. Could be something that doesn't bleed, though I sure hope it does." He sighed. Once again, he didn't want the kaleidescope of bizarre ideas in his head to spill too hard onto everyone else. He'd have to tame his impatience and let people approach this from all sorts of angles to establish a better feedback loop among everyone.

The tavern cleared itself of wayfarers as he ruminated, some having committed to the more domestic and economic problems they were now going to have to deal with. The idea of a powerful adventurer slaying dragons and then dying from not packing enough sandwiches or having too many tears in his gear was kind of funny to him, but it was now a possibility, and something that had probably already happened more than once in this world. It was food for thought.

"I think we before we head out to any of the possible dissapearance spots we should just talk to the people connected to the disappeared. I don't think whatever this is is gonna strike in the same place twice, anyways." He dragged his knuckles through the surface of the wood and raised them to cross his arms. "What do you guys think?"

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

---

Alex looked up from his sprawling mess of documents for what felt like the hundredth time, his eyebrows either widening or tensing based on what words got speared across the tavern. Despite the amount of effort he placed in his investigations, the conclusions were no longer inside his head, as it instead thrummed with an entirely different set of mysteries.

He'd come to a realization not too long ago, one that made him audibly laugh and had continued to morbidly entertain him since. He'd spent his life living as a passive, even hedonistic man with a reckless streak and a desire to stay out of any trouble that wasn't his, followed by the undercurrent of a desire to divert from that, to be something more, a hero on the times he allowed himself to use such an immature word. And it came true. The opportunity that couldn't have possibly been granted in the world of reality had reared its head and crashed into him at full speed.

He empathized with anyone feeling weak or scared. The phrase "be careful what you wish for" had been a particularly reocurring intrusive thought of his, and he definitely struggled with regrets and fear. But they were going to solve this fucking mystery if no one else would. He cleared his throat, and the mechanical horse wheeze of a noise seemed to have at least gotten some people's attention.

"Well, uh, back when this was a game everyone had their own reasons for playing. The people not fighting might just be doing other things. And that could help us. Like right now," he made a broad sweep of his arms towards the documents laid out in front of him. "pla- way-people are disappearing and I have my suspicions."

It was tempting to blurt out his own ideas, but forcing answers onto people was what he decided on intentionally avoiding. If he interviewed people separately then they'd give better information than if he were to fill them in on what any other wayfarer or denizen answered. Likewise, he wanted his party members to draw their own conclusions first. "Seele's right, but I'm also thinking a little more long-term. The reason why this is even an incident in the first place is because people haven't banded together tightly enough. We approach the right people, we talk, we network, and something like this becomes harder for everyone involved."

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

---

A Memory

"You knew this was happening."

It was a question, but it was also a statement. His mom knew the answer. There was a lilt to her voice, a small part of her that was begging him to say anything else, anything that wasn't the truth. His head remained in his hands as the words fell on him. He already knew how she looked right now, he didn't need to see it again. Her green eyes swollen from bawling, her skin the sallow color people got when things like eating and sleeping weren't important anymore. All he could and would see right now were her sneakers as she stood facing him, his wet eyes turning them into blurs against the white tile.

"Alex."

He squirmed. This would all be easier if she just yelled at him. He hoped she would. Like this was another D on a test or some stupid sandwich bag with weed in it. All of that felt dumb and it felt even dumber now, some distant things done by a stupid kid at some point before this. This was serious, this was unforgivable. If he was a stupid kid then and in every year leading up to ninth grade, then he was the dumbest, stupidest kid alive right now.

"Mhmmph," he mumbled. She took another step towards him and the already stagnant atmosphere of the hospital tightened, like it was choking him. The step was gentle, too, a careful movement made by someone not wanting to scare him off, not wanting to make another scene or shouting match or another week of running away to a friend's house and picking up where their fights left off on the phone. She thought he'd do it. She really thought he'd fucking do it. But she wasn't wrong, he knew, she had all the evidence in the world to know her second child was a total fuckup who would run away after having her first child take a fistful of pills and tape a goodbye note to the fridge next to the baby pictures.

Another step. Slower, more cautious. Wary, even. "You knew what those kids at school were doing to your brother and you didn't tell anyone."

Another statement that crashed on his lap. Another horrible thing he couldn't deny. What could he even say?

"I," he croaked. Even that single noise was hard to shove out. He swallowed hard enough that it hurt, and took a deep breath.

"I didn' knowwwit wassthatbad."

A third step. Rougher. "Every day! For four years! It was on the note!" Her voice was getting louder. She stopped herself, until she could manage a hushed tone. "All those bullies at school, all the bruises the doctors found on him... all the cuts..." what air remained in her sputtered out, leading into the quiet sob of someone who'd cried so much tears couldn't come out anymore.

He squirmed and tightened around the hard seat even more until it felt like his bones would snap. He wished they did. "I'did'n know," he blubbered. "I'didn thingit would, I didn' know he, I..."

***

I don't know.

The words draped themselves over both sides of every parchment Alex took notes in, rocking in tandem to the flickers of candlelight that followed him late into the night. His eyes had spent hours wandering along the labyrinth of documents he'd taken from the guild advisor, losing themselves over and over again in between the black hedgerows of ink. This was a lot more difficult than he intially thought. Talking was easy, approaching others was easy. It was the reverse, the analysis, the understanding, the listening, that was hard. This had all been the latter, a one-way conversation between him and those presumed missing or worse.

He'd been in a situation similar to this. Clutching his brother's bony hand, asking himself the difficult questions, trying to draw the right conclusions. The years after that were heavy, only lightened by the eventual talks of video games and LARP campaigns Alex feigned interest in. But the memories never faded, and his family or his brother's friends never forgot. Even in the world of Pariah did the stares of his brother's friends carve their way into him. It didn't matter how many layers of extravagant armor or fantasy crafting tchotchkes were between them, he'd always be the stupid kid who smoked cigarettes in the school bathrooms, the poser who thought he was some kind of artist, the one who ignored his brother until it was almost too late.

He woke up with a startle. He must've fallen asleep at some point, predictably. Facing him was a crude drawing of a pair of eyes he had no recollection of ever making. He stared, and they stared back. He averted his gaze out of instinct.

He dragged himself out of his dorm chair, and a piece of parchment stuck to his cheek through drool fluttered along with him. He peeled it off, gave it a quick inspection, then added it to a messy pile.

"Mmh.. shit."

***

His body's initial groans of protest diminished with the walk to the Laughing Worg, as the barrage of thoughts concerning the case took priority over everything else. Knowing he was late only minimized the aching even further. If his party couldn't prevent the loss of more wayfarers, they could at least discover the answers needed to be the voice of those who no longer had one. It was a strange goal, but as someone who had nearly lost a family member, he knew every name on paper was a person with a similar story, one with people who loved them.

His brisk walk transitioned into a hard shove of the tavern doors, one arm clutching the small yet important stack of documents he'd picked to analyze. He'd taken the most important of his findings with him, folded and shoved in the middle of the stack in an attempt to conceal it from any prying eyes.

"Crap, sorry I'm late!"

The Five Senses

---

His fingers continued to trace the cracks in the stone surrounding him, quietly responding to his thoughts. When he remembered his past encounters with danger they skipped across the jagged rock, only steadying whenever he or Lynx would put an end to one of his mental tangents.

It was when Chres spoke that his index finger dug deep into a hole in the rock with a soft crack, nearly causing Octavio to stop moving entirely.

"Awfully quiet? Me?" he chuckled. He wiped his hand clean of debris and continued. "You're not in the wrong there."

Intuition told him the woman would know if he was loose-lipped about their encounter, but he also reasoned she'd be prepared for it. Why wouldn't she expect Octavio to talk? He bit his lip for a moment. At times it felt like clairvoyancy and good connections were identical.

"I had an encounter with a woman not too long ago. She knew too much about me." Another chuckle escaped him. "Now, I've been the subject of dossiers and wanted posters in the past, I'm well acquainted with the typical amount of information one person can gather on another. This was beyond that by a grand margin." His eyebrows widened as he shook his head.

"Even making some, some silly little nursery rhyme about me. Me and... my sister."

He let out a deep breath he hadn't realized he was holding in. "An awful lot of bizarre people in this world."

The Five Senses

---

Octavio's fingers traced jagged lines across the surface of the walls. It filled him with a particularly hopeless sense of deja vu to know it hadn't been his first time in this situation. Skulking around in tunnels, but not by choice, the same way alleyway cats knew to stray from light to keep their heads from being torn off.

He had been previously approached by a strange woman who knew far too much about him. Although he hated the idea of someone like that running loose, he had to admit she had been a good source of information, if a little esoteric. She taunted him with implications and fairytales, preferring to watch the show that was Octavio drawing his own conclusions. That was fine by him. A performer had to entertain to eat. And he ate well that day.

His sister was hunting him down. It was the one thing he could be sure of. The mysterious woman's stories seemed to point towards Lynx as Octavio's most pressing issue, but she'd also left traces of his sister's presence linger in his mind. It was all so cruelly intentional, and he was aware that by mulling over it he was playing into the hands of others stronger than him.

"Will you not answer the question?" asked Lynx. He plodded along listlessly.

Octavio shook his head longer than was probably necessary. "Argh."

"Not holding up well," stated Lynx, in a tone so dry only Octavio could have understood it.

The others split resources amongst themselves and talked each other out of their troubles. He listened to their conversations, their confessions and their troubles. The last battle had been especially difficult, and they'd been a lot more trusting of one another. Octavio had been too, even if he didn't realize it. He remembered the story this woman had told, and his counterpoint.

"Because there was distrust. And ignorance. Had they been civilized little animals," his eyes followed the taken candle, "then they would have known that cooperation is the wisest choice. It's why we're the civilized species." The wording. I'm going to come to regret that.

"Civilized? Us?" Svephraey said. "That there is the real comedy. Cooperation? We cooperate only for as long as it serves us. In the end, no matter how much we pretend, our species is no different."

The more he thought back to that day, the more his own words surprised him. But he was right. They'd proven it, all of them, time and time again.

Enter: Into an Isekai World

Apologies for the delay this test week has kind of been beating my ass LOL

Enter: Into an Isekai World

---

"Oh..."

Kaito received the card with both hands as a sign of respect. His body snapped into its more awkward natural state as he finished, shuffling through the contents of the pocket of his dress shirt. His fingers skipped over the hard metal of a couple of paper clips before settling on a business card of his own. Digging it out took both hands, the other holding the pocket in place to keep anything from spilling.

"I am Iyasu Kaito," he said, thrusting the card forward. He'd introduced himself before, but enough odd events had happened to them that he didn't fault the tired-looking salaryman from either not caring enough to remember or not having registered his name in the first place. It was another one of those observations that had been neatly arranged behind gunman on the loose in his mind.

He gave the new business card in his shirt pocket a firm squeeze and carried onwards. "Therapy isn't a traditional office career, but there are many similarities." A twang of defensiveness seeped through his smile, a byproduct of conversations with other men his age who pursued more typical lines of work.

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: Drox Fraternity House - The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

The pipe smoke trailed as lazy ribbons a mere head's length from Alex, and he made a conscious effort to ignore both them and the odd team name Taasha had puffed out. She had been a hard woman to read, communicating entirely through her words rather than a face so calm and pale it was corpselike.

As she spoke it ocurred to Alex just how appropriate for the job an unaffected demeanor like that was. Hostile breakdowns, investigations, words that felt at home wrapped around dark smoke all permeated the air with dread. It was the sort of talk you'd hear on the news or a gruesome television show, now accompanied by a pipe instead of a cigarette. Thinking on the events from a different perspective, the confusion and disorder seemed to be a breeding ground for situations like this. He refused to say it out loud, but it seemed like things were only going to escalate from here on.

"Too much noise," he grumbled. The collective outburst of wayfarers had established a ever present fog that no previous investigator had been able to cut through. The kind that he struggled with even before the phrase Pariah Online had become a regular part of his lexicon, now amplified. One on one interviews would probably be worthless in a situation like this. They'd need some way to cover more ground, make bigger connections.

He let Seele gather the most useful of the papers before thumbing through and keeping a couple to himself. He focused on the initial insights, the kinds of thoughts investigators had jotted down before developing the tunnel vision that probably kept them from drawing any larger conclusions. Or at least, it was what he theorized.

"Mmph," he said, agreeing with Seele's compliments. "This is all good stuff. I think I'm getting some ideas already." He ventured a gaze into Taasha's eyes, only to be met with unmoving amber suns that drilled holes into his skull. He turned away reflexively. Baby steps.

"Extra hands, perfect. I think I know how we can take this on."