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[ Megumi's connection to the Murmur is crisp, cool, and terse; he avoids projecting anything more than he needs to, when he can help it.

And in this moment, he's taken the time to get his thoughts straight and make sure he can help it as much as humanly possible, because this month is shaping up to be a ride, and he's possibly spent a little too much energy dragging Hosts into the bowels of the abyss with his magic today. It's left him a little bit twitchy and he's noticed that there's a painful but pleasant afterglow after every spell.

And wow, does he not trust that at all. He's trying to button his feelings up extra tight right now. ]

Hey. I assume at least some of you have also been wondering about the status of the mainland.

...this is an island, for the record. If anyone hadn't already heard about that.

Noah, Aventurine, and I went to check on the bridges on the northeast side -- starting from Triborough and working north from there. There were four bridges in that area...past tense. All four have been destroyed, and from how thorough the job was, I'd be very surprised if it wasn't deliberate.

If anyone is in a better position to check on the others, I'd be interested to hear what you find, but I'm guessing it's more of the same.

[ Pause. That was the easy part, but of course there's more. Why wouldn't it be worse? ]

...so at least initially, I'd assume there was an attempt to isolate Manhattan. But I have doubts as to whether it actually did any good. We tried to get a look at the other side while we were at it.

[ And here he projects the memory, to save the trouble of explanation. There's a view, filtered through Aventurine's binoculars, of thousands of Hosts standing along the shore, gazing towards Manhattan, unmoving.

Yyyyyep. ]

However far it's spread...I think we're at the epicenter.

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It's screwing with us all, my guy.

[He sighed, knowing that he was going to have to explain himself.]

I'm trying not to advertise it much, but I was already an angel to start. I just quit my job centuries ago- and now everything is coming back wrong. It's so weird~

...like, sparkly light, herald of God, that kind of angel?

... It's a bit more complicated.

[A lot more complicated.]

But it's not right to be steering the history of a world that doesn't know better.

It doesn't matter anyway. I don't know everything that they're doing besides some messed up business with the Tree of Life. It's not my problem anymore. I was chilling with King Satan in Japan after we opened a Gate and got stuck, but then that baby popped out of an apple and Gabriel had to show his dumb face, make a mess, and steal my pizza-

[There's no hiding the mental image of the baby and himself smashing a pizza into the dead-eyed face of tall, blue, and stupid, even if the image was clearly a work of cathartic fiction.

Urushihara took a breath.]

Point is, don't compare me to whatever you think you know. We're alike only in name.

And whatever I've got now is not what I had before.

Edited 2025-08-12 20:12 (UTC)

[ Good gosh Megumi is the wrong genre for this. ]

...duly noted.

[... Crap!

Too much?

Urushihara floundered for a moment, anxiousness bleeding through like the sounds from the neighbors through paper-thin walls.]

Uh.

We don't need to decide right away.

Maybe we all need some field testing. Or, a town meeting.

Both?

[ It's not judgment coming from Megumi, just the absolute bafflement of someone whose tolerance for absorbing weird bullshit is keyed completely to the horror side of the spectrum. ]

We're a bit spread out for a meeting...physically, anyway, but this seems to work well enough that we don't need to all be in one place, I guess.

[ Even if there are some aspects of communicating this way that he really, really dislikes. ]

...I guess you're right.

[He disliked how open the Murmur made him, even if there were times when it was useful. Sharing images of what's around his location was one example- but the price of such a link was too high for his liking.]

If you think a field trip to the bridges is a better idea, we can do that. I just wanted to offer an easy option. Get enough height and you can see Most Things.

Your way might still be the most efficient. From what Ash has said, though, it sounds like we're most probably isolated, so I don't think doing anything too risky to confirm something we're decently sure of is the best play.

[ But, yanno. Not like he can save anyone from themselves, either. ]

So it's backburnered for now. Got it.

[He didn't want to risk his behind if there was no reason for it.]

It makes you wonder what happened, doesn't it? Monsters don't just appear for no reason, and they seem drawn to something here.

Do you think they know we're here?

Maybe. But not necessarily.

It might be that they're drawn to us because we're not part of the...collective, but it might just be that they're trying to join the throng in the subway tunnels. We don't really know enough to say.

....I don't like that either way.

[There was a noticeable shudder through their connection.]

Are they gonna eat us? I don't wanna be a snack for them.

They've seemed less interest in eating us and more interested in...assimilating us, I'd say.

[ So no, we're not potential monster food. We're potentially gonna get swallowed up by the Borg! :D ]