Maribel Quest Perpetuation: A Z-Machine Adventure

[Hello Purvis]

>"Yeah, you could say that. This is the third time she's gotten me, now, actually."
>"Oh, Kogasa, I saw you at the Felt this morning, but I was really pressed for time so I didn't get a chance to say hi. Did you win anything?"

>"Huh, so a frequent hassler," says Renko. "You get a lot of those."
>"I bet it all on black," says Kogasa with a shrug. "Maybe next time."

>"Have you had any success in surprising people other than me?"

>"I've gotten a few faeries!" says Kogasa. "Oh, and one time I surprised a farmer by hiding under the chicken coop."

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"Not bad, not bad. Anyhow, I think we probably should probably go return this. Have a nice day, now!"
>Head to the human village

[Kilgamayan]

> Wait, don't leave just yet!
> "Oh, I almost forgot to mention! That thing Renko did earlier today? She went to the Scarlet Devil Mansion with a fairy army and beat everyone there!"

[Hello Purvis]

>"Not bad, not bad. Anyhow, I think we probably should probably go return this. Have a nice day, now!"
>Head to the human village

>She nods. "Every little one counts."

> Wait, don't leave just yet!
> "Oh, I almost forgot to mention! That thing Renko did earlier today? She went to the Scarlet Devil Mansion with a fairy army and beat everyone there!"

>You are about to leave, when you stop yourself.
>Kogasa's eyes widen. "Nu-uh! You're kidding!" she says. Then after a moment, "Really? "
>Renko grins and nods.
>"It's a trick!" says Kogasa, frowning.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "Hand to God, it's true. There will be a newspaper article about it some time soon. We can show it to you, if you like."

[Hello Purvis]

> "Hand to God, it's true. There will be a newspaper article about it some time soon. We can show it to you, if you like."

>"Everyone knows the newspaper is full of lies," says Kogasa. "But okay. I'd like to see!"

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"Lies?"
>Look to Renko
>"So much for responsible journalism. Ah, well. It'd probably end up in there one way or another. Giving Hatate a front row seat at least increases the chances of accurate reporting. Right?"
>To Kogasa: "For what it's worth, I imagine most of the fairies around here will vouch for it. It was... quite an impressive battle."

[Hello Purvis]

>"Lies?"
>Look to Renko
>"So much for responsible journalism. Ah, well. It'd probably end up in there one way or another. Giving Hatate a front row seat at least increases the chances of accurate reporting. Right?"
>To Kogasa: "For what it's worth, I imagine most of the fairies around here will vouch for it. It was... quite an impressive battle."

>"Yep," says Kogasa, "You can't trust that thing."
>Renko nods, though frowning a little. "I guess as long as the main parts are right..."
>"Oh, okay," says Kogasa as you mention the faeries. "Well I'm happy you did alright!"

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"Anyway, you have a nice day now. See you later!"
>Head to the human village

[Hello Purvis]

>"Anyway, you have a nice day now. See you later!"
>Head to the human village

>"You too!" Says Kogasa. She waves as the two of you depart.
>You make your way back toward the main road. Once a discrete distance away, Renko asks, "What's her deal?"

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"Honestly, as far as I can tell, that's it. Surprising people is just what she does. She's pretty good-natured about it, though, which is why it doesn't really bother me as much as it normally might. Apparently she used to be completely ineffective at it until she found that copy of the Art of War. I'm amazed at how much of a difference that could make, if the stories I've heard about her are to be believed."

[Hello Purvis]

>"Honestly, as far as I can tell, that's it. Surprising people is just what she does. She's pretty good-natured about it, though, which is why it doesn't really bother me as much as it normally might. Apparently she used to be completely ineffective at it until she found that copy of the Art of War. I'm amazed at how much of a difference that could make, if the stories I've heard about her are to be believed."

>"Weird," says Renko, as the two of you continue out of the forest.  You glance over toward your house, and notice that the bonfire seems to have burned out. At the same time, you also notice a lot of the front yard is scorched and blackened. Thankfully, this doesn't seem to have extended to the house itself.

>_

[DracoOmega]

>Frown at the yard
>"Going to have to fix that one, eventually..."

[Hello Purvis]

>Frown at the yard
>"Going to have to fix that one, eventually..."

>Renko nods. "Yeah, guess we will. Wonder what happened?"

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"Maybe the fairies forgot about the fire for a bit, and some of the rest of the yard caught fire before they could put it out again?"
>About how much of the yard is burned, in comparison to the actual size of the space the bonfire occupied?

[Hello Purvis]

>"Maybe the fairies forgot about the fire for a bit, and some of the rest of the yard caught fire before they could put it out again?"
>About how much of the yard is burned, in comparison to the actual size of the space the bonfire occupied?

>It's hard to tell, but you think it's a good three or four times more than the bonfire's radius when you say it. Maybe more.

[DracoOmega]

>"Oh well. I guess the damage is done now, whatever happened. Not much we can do except scrape and resoil the place eventually.The house was a fixer-upper from the start..."
>Continue on to the village

[Kilgamayan]

> Regret not grabbing pieces of the golem while we were out.

[DracoOmega]

> Regret not grabbing pieces of the golem while we were out.

Frankly, I was hoping the blacksmith or someone else would have a cart or something we could load them in. There's far too much to just carry with us.

[Kilgamayan]

I wasn't expecting us to grab the whole thing, but surely our backpack has some room for at least a little bit, and it would be nice to have something to show Ari(?) so she can at least see what we'll be talking about.

[Kilgamayan]

Of course it's entirely possible we were in the wrong part of the forest anyway. My imagination's compass is terrible.

[Hello Purvis]

>"Oh well. I guess the damage is done now, whatever happened. Not much we can do except scrape and resoil the place eventually.The house was a fixer-upper from the start..."
>Continue on to the village

>She nods.  "Yeah, I guess it will be alright."
>You continue on.

> Regret not grabbing pieces of the golem while we were out.

>Oh right. You did kind of pass that by in your eagerness to get to the bellows...

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "Hey, Renko, do you remember seeing any fairies with a bucket yesterday? A bucket you didn't expect them to have?"

[DracoOmega]

> "Hey, Renko, do you remember seeing any fairies with a bucket yesterday? A bucket you didn't expect them to have?"

Remember, Renko already said that fairies stay the hell away from Kourindou. So I doubt any of them would be trading anything in there.
Besides, wasn't Tewi suspect number one at this point, anyway?

[Kilgamayan]

Is she? I'm not sure I'm sold on Tewi being an outright thief so much as a grifter. She steals Reisen's shit, sure, but that's Reisen. There's no wit or cleverness involved in waiting for a bucket's owner to leave for a while before taking the bucket. I'm not sure Tewi would really bother.

We also don't know if she would have a reason to go underground. Admittedly, I can't think of any reason for fairies to go underground either, but fairies are dumb and there are a lot of them so it seems like at least one or two would eventually find their way down there purely by chance.

EDIT: There's also the possibility that whoever took the bucket later lost it, leading to Nazrin finding it (and thus not knowing where it came from), leading to Nazrin selling it. Though I don't know why Nazrin would sell a bucket to Kourindou if it was important enough to the clinic for Murasa to buy it...

[DracoOmega]

I don't know if you recall, but Kisume specifically mentioned, among the list of people passing through around the time the bucket was stolen, a dark-haired rabbit.

[Kilgamayan]

I actually do not remember that. Do you happen to have the post handy? I realize that's a lot to ask of a 10-topic game, but...

Or, well I guess we could try this.

> Recall list of people Kisume identified as passing by when talking about when her bucket was stolen.

[DracoOmega]

Here's the post. Seems it didn't specify dark-haired, but rather short. Nevertheless:

>"Lemme think..." She looks up toward the ceiling, leaning back far enough to tip her bucket.  "Um...Yammy, a short little rabbit, someone with blue hair, one of those Prismriver girls... think there were some others."

[Kilgamayan]

Hmm. Doubt any of the PrismReznors would bother.

Blue hair could be...

- Remilia: Extremely unlikely, not worth considering.
- Keine: Same.
- Nitori: Maybe worth considering - I can see Nitori grabbing stuff that isn't hers in a fit of invention inspiration - but she was on the mountain all day, as I recall, and if she really wanted it for something like that she wouldn't turn around and sell it.
- Tenshi: I could actually see this happening, if Tenshi found some time away from the bar. No particular motivation needed other than "it's Tenshi".
- Kogasa: ...Maybe? She might've lifted it for some Sun Tsu-based reason. Kisume certainly seemed surprised. Kinda wishing I had thought to ask her. .-.
- Cirno: This would play into my fairy theory. I can see Cirno doing something like this, even if I can't think of an immediate reason (but since when do fairies need a logical reason to do anything?). I can also see Cirno ignoring any and all fairy conventions as she pleases.

So ultimately it's down to one of Tewi, Tenshi, Cirno and Kogasa. This does admittedly make Tewi look worse, but...I just don't think pinching a bucket is her style.

...Or it might be Rise. Did she go back to the moon for good?

[DracoOmega]

I can't imagine Kogasa would do it. What's the point in surprising someone if you're not around to see their reaction? It really doesn't seem her style. As for Tewi, I think she'd do it just to be a pain, particularly if she expected someone else to end up with the bucket afterwards and cause the kind of awkward confrontation that actually happened. It also really doesn't seem like Cirno's style on a number of counts, in my opinion. Plus, I'd think Kisume would have specified it was a fairy, and not just someone with blue hair, if that were the case.

EDIT: For that matter, what are you hoping to accomplish by tracking them down at this point? The bucket's been returned, Kisume is satisfied Murasa didn't do it, and went to apologize. And it's not like we're going to get any apologies out of most of the most likely candidates on the list, anyway. If they even admit they did it.