imaginarymods | NPC Inbox.

part one

Once McCree has joined the Umbra staff in the water around the Calamari Cafe, the Umbra staff begins to flap and move and dip, attempting once more to dive down into the water. It just can't seem to break buoyancy on its own, however, and once it feels it's done enough demonstrating of that concept, it just dips its tip straight down.

Its handle turns McCree's way and almost seems to gesture, for all that an object with no joints in its handle can gesture. If McCree takes hold of the staff and dives, it will tug him behind Miso Fou's bar and deep below. Will McCree follow?

It seems obvious that the umbrella will only float without help and it also wants to go down to maaaybe show McCree something? And he doesn't know how he knows this, but he somehow understands that now he'll be able to breathe underwater.

So, sure. When a sentient umbrella gives you magical waterbreathing powers, you follow it. You don't say Thanks for the spell, but I'm done exploring and I'm gonna have a drink now.

He takes hold of the handle and tilts his body down under the water.

While the umbrella isn't quite powerful enough to drag McCree, it does guide him deeper and deeper into the saltwater lake. Down, down, down, deeper down it goes.

McCree will find this adventure much more fruitful than his initial dive down on Ronaldo's hunches. As the Umbrella leads him down into an underwater cave below the Cafe, jellyfish begin to pass them. Just little baby ones at first, though.

One, two, five, ten, a dozen more and suddenly in this cave the two of them are surrounded by those jellyfish McCree was looking for, the older and larger of which have already begun to display bright pictures in their orbs. For just a moment, the umbrella seems to drift in the water, almost as though what was moving it before has disappeared or something-- but that moment passes quickly, and the umbrella begins to open and shut and open and shut, fluttering away from McCree like one of those jellies moves.

The umbrella spins through the water until its tip prods one of those jellyfish, and then as it bounces back McCree's way, the umbrella opens to slow down its pace, hooking back on to McCree's arm not to float away.

Within the jellyfish's dome, a scene begins to play.

The scene shows a STATIC

The scene shows one elf child, bunched up in too-big clothes. The child has a mop of unkempt hair, but as they push it aside it's apparent this child is just beautiful, as most elf children are. The scene shows them because they are standing in one half of a mirror, looking at themselves as though someone is beside them. They lean in, sticking out their tongue at the mirror, then turn their head to direct that tongue wag at someone else-

And just like the static at the beginning of the scene, this scene statics out completely again.

The umbrella stops moving again for another moment, before rolling to the side. Maybe that wasn't quite the memory the umbrella was going for...

What the...? McCree doesn't know if the umbrella can hear his thoughts, but if so, he wants the umbrella to know that he doesn't get it. He doesn't know the child and in fact, McCree is struggling to remember if he's ever even met an elf of Faerun before. He shrugs and shakes his head at the umbrella, unsure what he was supposed to take away from this.

Like before when the umbrella halted, it once again kind of drifts about until it seems to decide again that it will prod this jellyfish.

And so it does, in sequence, showing McCree not just one image this time but many, in succession, with each poke.

The first few are more akin to the very first, just images of a childhood of this one elf. But soon enough, in these images, there begin to be two elves. And these two little elves actually don't look very distinct from each other. Their faces aren't all that distinct either. But pretty soon, their faces aren't the only ones in the jellyfish's bell.

Soon, there are a few more faces along with those two pretty-much-identical elves, though their faces also kind of continue to be indistinct; not that they'd mean much to McCree, anyway. No, it should be fairly obvious to him that these are not people McCree has ever met. They all seem to wear red clothes, and that might stand out, but not as much as what finally, finally may appear to McCree as a recognizable face.

The scene is set a little different; McCree and the umbrella's perspective is from out at sea, looking upon the beach where the crowd of new faces have gathered. The perspective looks out at the waves, sees they are calm, and then looks back at the beach.

At the beach there are a few humanoids-- six, actually-- standing near each other. A large human man, a gnome, and a dwarf talk a few yards away from where an elf and another human sit on the beach. The beach doesn't appear to be any on Faerun, and it's definitely not from McCree's home.

The vision focuses on that elf and that human, and the elf is beautiful, feminine, vibrant; the human next to her is less vibrant and more reserved, but accepting the friendly embrace the elf gives her shoulders. It's clear that from the rememberer's vision they couldn't have heard the conversation, but the vision lingers on that elf and her human friend.

And while that vision lingers on that elf, with the human in the periphery, both of those faces become much, much clearer. And the umbrella just kind of vibrates next to McCree, not violently, but as though energized. The umbrella is energized by that vision of the elf's face, but McCree's attention may be drawn instead to the human woman.

Because that human woman, in a red cowled robe and with her high cheekbones and deep skin and worried but patient smile is undoubtedly the Director, years younger.

There's so much going on and at first, McCree can't parse the relevance of it all. Who are these elven twins? Why does their story display on this jellyfish? He thinks back to the archive in the ocean, where he saw Jack's memories. What's triggering these specific memories of someone he doesn't know? The idea creeps into his head that the only other "person" down here is the umbrella. Could it be that these are the umbrella's memories?

It's crazy, but what isn't these days?

As the scenes go on and settle into a clearer image, a memory of McCree's own resurfaces from months and months ago. A red robe? He's seen a red robe before, though the body inside of it was long gone. Could it be one of these people he's seeing now? Sure, a red robe could be worn by thousands of people in Faerun, but McCree's got a hunch that it's no coincidence that he found one before and is being shown one now.

And then the image clears and he sees that beautiful elf... and the Director. It honestly startles him. She's been noticeably absent from their little vacation, leaving him to wonder if she's been pulling the strings or if the reason they're marooned here is because someone got the better of her.

He turns to the umbrella and sees its excitement, but really only towards the half of the image with the elf. Was the elf its owner? She was obviously good friends with Lucretia. Are they meant to find the elf? If they find her, will they find Lucretia?

He points to the elf. Where is she?

Again the umbrella doesn't seem to immediately respond. Perhaps it's having trouble doing so, or perhaps it simply doesn't know how to say what it wants to.

After a few moments (and the previous jellyfish having scooted along by) the umbrella prods another jellyfish.

This one has the image of a human-looking man notably in denim, worried.

"I don't know, SCRTCHSCRTCH, what if we don't find her?"

A somewhat-falsetto voice chimes in from the jellyfish's perspective before the memory ends-- "Who?"

Another jab to another jellyfish. That elf is back. She is practically hidden under her hair, looking down at her hands.

"You didn't mean for any of this to happen."

"I know that. And I know it's good. Like, the Hunger's not here, and the hunger's worse than anything we've done. I just... I can't help but ask."

The elf looks up to whoever's jellyfish memory this is. The umbrella vibrates again.

"Did we make the right decision?"

she asks.

"...Who knows if the shield would have worked. You know... sometimes, there aren't right decisions. Sometimes there's just decisions."

The memory flickers forward, and for a moment all it is is that elf, laughing, smiling, crying and beaming.

"Taako, I can't-- I couldn't have done any of this without you. I wouldn't have made it here without you."

And then the memory flickers again and that elf is gone. In her place, in the very place she was sitting next to what seems to be a kitchen counter, there is only a note with three words.

Be back soon.

The umbrella, to reiterate its point, replays that bluejeansed man.

"I don't know, Taako."

Prods the jellyfish again.

"I don't know, Taa-" "I don't know, T-" "I don't know" "I don't know"

"I don't know"

Edited 2020-08-21 20:17 (UTC)

McCree frowns at what he's being shown. It's like coming into a movie only fifteen minutes before the end and trying to figure out just what the hell happened and how all the characters got here. But he thinks he understand in part what the umbrella's doing. It's replaying the same part over and over again in order to answer his question. The umbrella doesn't know.

She's a big deal in all this, he thinks. All them people in the red robes are. He pushes his hands back through his hair since it's floating wild in the water and just thinks for a moment. He doesn't know if the umbrella can hear all his scattered thoughts or just the ones he's trying to purposely push out to it, but all at once a bunch of thoughts and memories are floating around in his noggin.

Red robed people... Lucretia... This elf woman... Hunger is worse than what they've done... She had to ask and something happened... Didn't mean for it to... The shield... Bulwark shield? They didn't try it... They tried something else? Elf woman's gone... Is she the key to all this? Stopping the Hunger... Finding the Director...

He stops, realizing they've been watching the point of view of someone named Taako. Weird name, but okay. What are they supposed to do now? These memories are all well and good, but if he can't turn this knowledge into something fruitful, then they're back where they started.

Where do I go from here? Am I supposed to find her for you?

Something gets a little smoother about the umbrella's movements. As if it's figured out how to play these memories in a useful order, it bounces from jellyfish to jellyfish to stitch together a message.

The first is that fizzled in Who? from before-- and then it plays into static. That image is left in its own moment, perhaps contextualizing or maybe just reminding? But it's very clearly not a part of the sequence that follows.

First, the image of Lucretia again, who is writing in two different journals at the same time where she sits at a table. The person behind the jellyfish 'camera' chuckles.

Hey, Lucretia~

Another prod, another memory. It's that bluejeans guy, again, but right in the flicker of the moment. Nothing about the memory besides the man himself appears clear.

--Find her--

A new memory. The dwarf from the beach. Again, just a snippet; the memory doesn't even properly seem to 'load' the dwarf's appearance from the neck down or the world around them.

Oh, she's not too far off.

--Find her--
A flash of Lucretia.

--Find her--
A flash of the elf woman.

--Find her--
One last flash of a memory and it's... the moon base? No, there's no question about it, it's the moonbase on Candlenights, though the angle seems almost as though this vision is being seen from the floor. From only inches above the ground the memory plays as a black static draws up the form of-- of the Director. That static starts to turn into an inkier darkness, then glimmers of color play-- but the memory gets foggier and foggier, and eventually stops playing.

And then it alternates between that 'find her' sequence of Lucretia and that elf woman. It repeats the image of that elf woman more than Lucretia though. It is not at all ashamed of having a priority in its request.

Now that it's clear the umbrella has a method of "talking" to McCree, the seriousness of the situation sinks in even more as he sees the Director swallowed up by black static. Are those glitches? Or the Hunger itself? If so, why weren't they all swallowed up? Unless they were and this is what's on the other side of it.

Okay. It's a firm thought; focused and sure. If we're all trapped on this island, then the two of them have to be trapped here somewhere too. Or there's a way off this island that we need to find before we go looking for them. Since the island's a smaller search area than the whole of Faerun, I'll start here.

The umbrella prods another jellyfish for a memory of he-who-is-still-jeansed poring over a map.

--she can't have gotten too far.

Another prod, this time more hesitant. Perhaps not hesitant; it is, after all, just an umbrella, it can't seem to emote. It's more as though its movements have slowed and become very deliberate, like moving it has become harder.

It nudges one more jellyfish, one last time, another memory. The viewer of the memory speaks now, to... someone, whose image doesn't seem to load properly.

I'm Taako. Y'know, from TV?

There might have been more to that message, but the umbrella doesn't prod at any more jellyfish, instead starting to float up, up, and up, no longer struggling against its buoyancy.

She can't have gotten far, but where was her starting point? McCree is considering this and takes note of the name Taako again before he realizes the umbrella is floating away.

Hey, wait! He makes a grab for it, not wanting this valuable source of information to just disappear on him. Despite all he's been shown he still feels a little lost. What if he's misunderstanding the memories? What if there are more clues here in these jellyfish that can narrow down his search window? He's still flying blind.

Unfortunately, it would seem that if whatever's in the umbrella can hear McCree, it can't respond again... yet. In the future, however, the umbrella may approach him again. For now, perhaps he should discuss his findings with those who have been in contact with the umbrella before.

NPC Inbox.

umbrella → mccree

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