>Fatmus: "It's mostly that I'm afraid it'll piss you off and I'll end up eating a Royal Flare to the face. I guess it's mostly about whether you'd be more comfortable having me try to break the news or find it out yourself."
>Shake head. "But either way it can probably wait. What'd be more important is finding out what happened and why. My only hint is kinda unreliable, but it's better than nothing."
>"Short version: A good friend of mine named Purvis hosts 'Z-machine quests' based on a somewhat quirky version of Gensokyo, with incidents of his own making like Yuuka pissing off the sun and Kanako and Koishi moving Gensokyo into the outer world. These uh... basically operate by having the other players collectively give commands to whatever character the quest is starring - like, well, you or Utsuho."
>Glance around for a beer stein. But given the lack of recognition so far... "... though I don't think I'm gonna assume that this is the same Gensokyo, for a couple of reasons."
>Deep breath. "Anyway. The latest one stars a girl named Maribel from the outer world that ended up in Gensokyo after that outer-world-moving incident. It was pretty normal for the most part, aside from more arguing about how to handle things and extra moral dilemmas, but what got REALLY weird was when we sort of randomly encountered Yuyuko and she started talking about a couple of Gensokyo's big players... I think it was like, Shiki and Yukari watching us playing through some gap in Sakuya's head, apparently."
>Shake head. "It was weird as all hell - Purvis doesn't break the fourth wall so casually. So I'm genuinely wondering whether he was actually channeling the events of that Gensokyo, rather than GMing a game as usual. But since no one wanted to force Mary out of character, we didn't push for too much information from that Yuyuko, but she said stuff about... getting Rikako's help to see through that head-gap, wanting Ijiatsu to try and find a way to speak back with her directly, Sakuya getting weird compulsions due to the head-gap... and the whole thing being related to some 'overlay' thing."
>"Which means we've got a couple things to look into for more info. I wanted to pause the game for a while to come to 'our' library to look for anything about that sort of world-combining overlays, but apparently it happened right after I made the suggestion, which is how I ended up in the Human Village. So looking for 'overlay' books here should be an easy route, especially if you have something that'd help find specific books here."
>Point at the white gap. "And remember what I said about that being involved? Apparently that's where the other Gensokyo was watching us from. I have no idea if they're watching there now, or if something stupid happened due to the overlay, or what, but any info we can milk out of those, or ways to communicate through them, could be very helpful. Don't suppose you know Rikako at all?"
>"Though, it's still possible that the whole Yuyuko thing was just part of some crazy plot of Purvis'. I wanna find him to make sure he's safe, but he might know more than he should if we can find the right angle." Frown. "... though I don't think he'd appreciate having Satori forced on him."
>... were there any Ijiatsu landmarks, scenery, or well... anything that we should have seen on the way here that were not present?
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>Fannin Famineist: Hm! At least this girl seems to understand what's going on. Hopefully she'll make some progress...
>To Patchouli, "Though the poor girl's been acting that way now, hasn't she? Perhaps this other world is to blame... unless perhaps something different happened there when she had a moment of doubt? Has Meiling been depressed like that before?"
