thenearshore | [closed] things that can't possibly backfire #42

Entry tags:

[closed] things that can't possibly backfire #42

Who: Shun and Ginia
When: March 4th or 5th, probably.
Where: Various cultists' houses and eventually Sensei's. It's basically Cribs but with cultists.
What: Custom mission, in which an attempt is made at tracking down Sensei.

[It's been a few months since the scouring of the surveillance footage from around Votelli's forest, and finally, they've got something out of it. A few of the names are ones Shun recognises - Saburo and Shinnosuke he remembers from the department store incident, so that's a decent sign they're on the right track here - but he doubts they're going to end up at the same place he'd previously investigated in connection to that. These, finally, are some actual details they can work from, instead of just temporary addresses and hastily-fled hideouts.

He knows Ginia is one of the people who's been investigating the cultists fairly extensively, and they've done this sort of thing before - he wants someone he knows is experienced with this sort of thing here, and he also wants as few people as possible actually investigating. Lacking backup isn't really an option when Sensei poses the kind of threat he does, but at the same time, more than two people is bound to draw far too much attention.

As it is now, they're perched on a rooftop just near one of the addresses, Shun eying the street below them.] I'm hoping Sensei keeping them all at arm's length is going to work to our advantage here. Last time I scoured a place these cultists were using, there wasn't any sign of them contacting Sensei, only that someone was contacting them.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[There's a troubling thought. Ginia scowls a little at the thought.]

That then means any country without a god there is a possible hiding place. I'll talk to Aymeric and see if he found anything pointing to travel to other countries.

[There's the hotel list he had, that'll be a good starting place. Checking over car rental records too. Chikusa might have some names and locations as well. Ginia takes photos of the calendar for better photos, looking for the garbage disposal schedule too.]

Bottles yesterday, burnables today. Damn.

[Shun takes a moment to recognise that name - he's only met Aymeric once or twice before.] It'd be useful to have others to exchange information with, so I might have to look him up again sometime. I don't see him that often.

[It's usually brief encounters during major events rather than any situation where they'd be able to comfortably talk about the kinds of things that have been going on lately, anyway.

Shun's attention turns back to the fridge when Ginia finds the schedule, and he hisses through his teeth at the remark.] Just our luck. We probably won't find much else of use here, then.

Forseti in the contact list. He was at the meeting in December and has the cup the demon was summoned with in his possession. Smart, reliable, level.

[Given how Ginia doesn't suffer fools and how cagey she is about sharing information, it's as good an endorsement as Aymeric will get.]

Scope out the remaining cultists or tackle Sensei's location? The approach won't be easy with that barrier around his place, but we don't necessarily have to cross it.

[That does pique Shun's interest slightly, because while he did have some awareness that Aymeric was around for that long, he didn't know that he'd managed to get hold of the cup.] I'll keep that in mind. We're probably overdue for a proper discussion about the state of things here, anyway.

[If Aymeric was around for the demon thing and oriented enough to be grabbing clues, he's probably been around for longer than Shun, which is a woefully small list of people at this point.]

I'd say go for the other cultists before we try for Sensei. I'd prefer to leave the most dangerous until last so we can dedicate the attention it needs.

Let's try Ryou's then. I've been to his apartment a few times so I know my way around. If he hasn't changed his password on his laptop, I still have it.

[Such are the joys of fake-dating a cultist and copying the contents off his laptop. There's some pity and understanding for him. Who doesn't want recognition for ones work? Who doesn't want to feel like they're heard and appreciated? But also who tries to recruit someone into a "new age religion" after going on a few dates with them?

Ginia pulls up his address and maps out a route, showing it to Shun. Once they're ready to leave, between running and a few strategic teleports, it's not too much time to get there. The apartment is also as she remembers, simple for someone single, with the big indulgence the tank of saltwater fish. Ginia wiggles her fingers at the fish.]

I remember he had an altar and books in his room. I'm going to document this area and search around. Can you keep an eye out for a laptop?

[ As of after he's had his run-in with Ginia, he put all of his occult texts and experiments into storage. He still has a collection of worn, gilt-edged, leather- and cloth-bound books that appear, despite their potentially occult appearance, to all be fiction, mostly historical fantasy about the adventures of diviners and samurai hundreds of years ago.

He has a small altar in his bedroom, laid out on a side table with a pristine silk cloth embroidered with floral and leaf designs on which sit a well-cared-for bonsai tree, a porcelain cup filled with water and an incense burner with a few sticks of incense burned almost all the way down. His black robe is folded in a lower drawer, next to two other embroidered silk cloths; one has a motif of Mount Fuji erupting, with flames and ash, and another has the symbols for fortune, from "very good" to "very bad," embroidered up and down each edge.

The laptop is on the kitchen table, clearly serving in a temporary office sort of capacity due to the bits of innocuous, mundane mail to either side of the laptop. The mail is joined by sticky notes and pens. And yes, his password changed on his laptop. ]

I'm going to assume he's not that stupid, but there's always a chance. [If Ginia got caught in the act of trying to go through his things, Shun considers it deeply unlikely the guy would've left the security hole of the laptop open, but nonetheless, it's something they can test when they get there.

Shun's not familiar with the layout of the place like Ginia is, so when she settles on where she's going, he inclines his head slightly and turns for the kitchen and other more public rooms himself.]

If it's not in his room as well, I'll see if it's out here. It's the kind of thing someone would be more likely to leave somewhere noticeable than most of the rest of what we're looking for.

I don't think he would have suspected me for anything. I was his girlfriend for a bit.

[A fake, short-lived relationship all for the name of information. It's a pity; maybe she could have learned more if the ablution hadn't kept her away from things for awhile. She heads to his bedroom, looking around the space. The books she's seen before, but she still checks through to see if any of them are new or otherwise noteworthy.

She takes pictures of his altar and the belongings around it. It's probably nothing special, but she keeps an eye out for any other incense sticks with the intent of taking one. Looking through his wardrobe, she stops as she finds the robe and the clothes.

She takes pictures with her camera, then takes pictures of the silk cloths with her phone, immediately sending them to Shun. Yeah, that's concerning.]

[That gets a slight brow raise out of Shun, but he's not unfamiliar with that method of infiltration, so for now, he doesn't remark on it. It's not something he'd ever be the type to do himself, but he supposes it's useful in some ways.

The first room he ends up entering is the kitchen, and when he spots the laptop, he's just about to go tell Ginia when he gets her text with the silk cloths. Eyes narrowing slightly, he goes over them before texting back.]

The thing with Sotero, and the bad luck charms? Laptop's in the kitchen, too.

[That said, he starts going through the sticky notes to see if there's any sign of the dumb luck of the guy having written his password down, but it doesn't look like they're going to get lucky on that front.]

It's definitely a strong connection. Worrying.

See if "Chrysiptera!" works.

[Note to self: if there's a chance to talk to Sotero, ask him if he's met Mitsui. Votelli knew of others in passing but also only seemed to have a connection with Sensei. It might be the same with Sotero, but the silk cloths in question are still incredibly specific.

Where would you ever go to get something like that made?

Ginia carefully takes the cloths out of the drawer and unfolds them to take full pictures of the front and back and detail shots. Once she's done documenting them, she carefully folds them back and sets them back in the drawer.]

[Shun tries the password as described, but only gets a refusal from the login screen.]

Doesn't. He must have changed his password.

[Maybe he was suspicious of Ginia's motive...or maybe the cultists were aware people were zeroing in on them. Or maybe it was just an annoying coincidence. As it is, Shun starts looking through a few of the letters as well, to see if he can find much in the way of anything useful. Most of it just seems mundane, but he knows that the cult leaders have used normal mail to communicate before from that postcard he found a good while ago.]

[Figures.]

Try adding a 1 to the end.

Keep an eye out for paper that might be used in charms or tags.

[It's probably not that easy, but it's worth trying. It's more likely they'd have better luck copying the hard drive and trying to crack things off-site, but they don't have the time or equipment for that. If the password doesn't work, it doesn't work.

She continues to search the bedroom, looking for any hidden or false drawers and sweeping under the bed as she searches for materials for bad luck charms or spell tags.]

[ The password does not work. However, that wouldn't stop them from taking the whole laptop if they so chose.

Sandwiched between two of the occult books is a Franklin Clasp Catalog Envelope that appears at first to hold bookmarks. However, Ginia and Shun can eventually realize that there are 4 identical "bookmarks" in that envelope which are actually bad luck charms. Nestled along with them is a large, lined post-it note with three loose descriptions ("young woman with...") they can match to Zelda, Shun, and Hibiki. There's a checkbox for each description thanks to the Post-It's design, and there's a red X through all 3 of the checkboxes.

The herbs on his windowsills are clearly very well tended to, and have a few occult symbols on their containers, but they have no actual magical power at all. ]

[Shun tries the second suggestion and just gets another refusal, so maybe a minute later, Ginia gets another message.]

Still nothing. And all the paper around here just seems to be letters. Someone could probably get into the laptop if we had more time, but I doubt we can do it here.

Have you found anything in there yet?

[He's probably going to join her in there in short order, but he's doing one last sweep of the kitchen area first.]

[The bed and drawers prove fruitless, so back to the bookshelf. Ginia thumbs through the edges of the book, pausing as an envelope slips free. She gingerly opens it and thumbs through the four flips of paper, pulling out the post-it note.

Long blonde hair, pointy ears. Silver hair, green eyes. Spiky blue hair. It's hard not figuring out who the list is referring to, especially as she shadowed that hand-off.]

Get in here now

[Once Shun is in the room, she hands the envelope to him.]

He's going to realize something if we steal it outright, but we can't let him keep these either.

[Considering the obvious urgency of the message, Shun's sweeping through the doorway within moments of getting the message. He initially raises a brow at the envelope when Ginia hands it to him, but once he opens it and starts reading what's inside, his expression becomes steely.

His gaze flicks to the charms before going back up to Ginia.] I'm wondering if he was planning to curse us as humans or as gods. Surely if they'd figured out we were gods they would've used these by now.

[She has a point, though, and he closes the envelope again, eying it.] Unless you can think of a way we can get rid of these without making it obvious, we might as well just take both. Something like this, he's going to realise is gone before too long as well.

I wonder how much they believe in all you gods as real thing and something less philosophical or theological?

[Votelli exists, powered by belief as is the way of all gods, but it doesn't make her any more visible. Ginia doubts she's met all the members of the cult and vice versa. It also feels unlikely Mitsui would have pinpointed the three gods as gods.

Eccentric teenager cosplayers more likely.

As for how to handle the envelope...]

Studying them and having other people look over makes them too valuable to have you destroy outright. We could make copies of everything, but either we risk leaving the originals or he's eventually tipped off when he realizes his are fakes.

Taking it outright might set him off immediately to some further action, but might also mean he's trackable to other people or locations.

There's always making it look like a casual burglary attempt. It'll allow us to steal a few other things like his laptop and the cloths at the risk of putting him at high alert. It may delay him from doing anything if he's tied up trying to identify what was stolen with the police, but still, very risky.

I'd say these more active cultists probably know enough to think we're "real things", even if they can't see us. Not so sure about the others. [Anyone lower than these few they've been looking at probably don't need to know that much, but the ones that are pretty extensively involved seem more likely to have that knowledge to him.

The suggestion of making it look like a burglary attempt is legitimate enough, though Shun glances out of the room briefly as if considering something.] Does he have any small valuables other than the laptop? It'll make for a more convincing burglary if what we take of actual worth outweighs things related to the cult. Even if it's risky, it's probably the best option that doesn't involve just leaving it all here.

[He definitely doesn't feel comfortable leaving the charms here, at least, considering they involve him to some degree.]

[Ginia looks around the room, gauging what someone would reasonably dig through or grab in hopes of reselling. Mitsui was never a flashy person; not a lot of personal accessories to speak of.]

Some of the older looking books someone might grab to resell, we could grab some of those and the ones around the enevlope to make it look accidental. There was some loose change on the nightstand, toss the contents there. A real burglar would be pretty disappointed, but would still make it worthwhile.

Grab the laptop and cables, scatter the papers around. If there are any small kitchen appliances, grab that too. Rummage through any other drawers someone might search. I'll handle this room.

Fine by me. [Shun goes to head back into the kitchen, closing the laptop and bundling the cables together with it. He sets it aside for the moment, though, so he can stir up the papers on the table, sweeping one arm side to side through them as if someone just tried to go through the whole pile at once to see if anything valuable was hidden underneath. Any of them that look like they might be related to finances get hastily ripped out of envelopes and strewn around, to replicate a burglar looking for account details and tossing them aside when they failed.

Going through the cabinets, he doesn't find all that much, but there's a small kettle that he swipes, and he opens the cutlery drawers haphazardly and grabs one or two of the classier looking things, which is mostly the fancy kitchen knives. Obviously Shun needs more of those in his life.]

[Ginia shrugs off her backpack and grabs a section of books around the envelope and few more books that look older or rarer. She rifles through the rest of the books, skewing the shelf as if someone had swept through looking for something hidden behind them. She makes quick work rummaging through the dresser, tossing a few things aside but mostly rummaging through. The two silk cloths are taken as well as the nice one under the bonsai plant. The handful of change and tossed receipts and business cards on the nightstand (mostly for new restaurants or bars) are swept into a large ziplock bag from her backpack, the drawer rummaged through and left askew. She lifts up the mattress and lets it drop onto the frame.

She doesn't upturn the altar, but pours the water into the bonsai planter and takes the porcelain cup. Loading the books, envelope, and silk cloths into her backpack - a meager but reasonable load for a thief - she heads out to join Shun.]

{Shun's doing one last scope out of the kitchen when Ginia comes in, but he glances over towards her when she does. It seems that he's borrowed a garbage bag to toss his own items into for the moment.]

There's not that much in here that's a size it would be easy for a thief to get away with taking, but the laptop and a few other things is probably enough from in here anyway.

[The laptop is definitely the single most valuable item, so it'd be a bit weird to waste too much time taking less convenient and less valuable things after finding that, he thinks.] Do one more sweep of the rest of the apartment and then leave, you think?

I agree.

[Logically, if there wasn't much to take in this area, a thief would sweep the bedroom and then get out. They have enough to deflect the fact they were targeting cult-specific things in the apartment.]

Anything I should grab pictures of before we go? Also before we leave, we need to break the sliding glass door, make it look that's how someone got in.

If you've got the cloths and the charms, I don't think there's much else we'd need pictures of. If we've got the actual items, that's fine for now.

[Especially since he imagines that even if he had a shrine set up, it's probably been screwed up by their taking vital items from it at this point. Might as well not waste time.]

I can handle the glass door, though it'd better wait until we're both outside. [Other than it probably being a bit obvious if the door was smashed from inside out instead of the way it should be, no sense risking someone getting hit with flying glass.]

I grabbed the cloth with Mt Fuji, I thought grabbing both would be too suspicious, though I also got the cloth under the altar. With those two, we might be able to find the maker. With the laptop, we should be able to find more than whatever notes he has laying around. I'll ask the IT department at Ebisu's temple to break into the laptop.

[Ginia looks around the space, considering if there's anything else worth documenting. All things considered, they're walking away with a fair amount of information to look over plus everything to cross-reference with the other cultists.]

Don't worry, I figured we'd break the door on the outside. Let's finish this and move on.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Clue request

Clues for Mitsui Ryou's apartment

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Clue request

Final clue for this apartment

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject