[Solo] Three Nights at Tomie's - end

[Deleted]

1645 words HP 100%		Pet: none MP 100%
The mornings were cool and the evenings even colder. Autumn truly was in the air and soon, winter would follow. Lazy daytimes were even lazier and nighttimes were just plain snoozy... the cold air made a lot of people just want to stay in their beds all day. That would have been true for Caerbannog as well, if not for the peculiar quest that she found pinned on the quest board that she frequented in Londinium. The quest seemed simple enough at first glance, but it was the fine print that caught her attention. They say that curiosity killed the cat; it might kill the wolf-hair too. But in a world where she had an infinite number of lives, Caer had little to fear aside from cockroaches and human-like puppets. The quest read: Three Nights at Tomie’s This quest requires an adult adventurer. Guard Tomie’s Sushiria for three nights. Uh...it’s not dangerous. Not at all! The wolf-hair had rubbed her sleepy eyes until she was fully awake. It wasn’t even morning yet; there were a few hours to spare. After discussing the matter with herself, which took all twenty-seven seconds of her time, Caerbannog cleaned herself up, had a bit of toast for breakfast and put on her most decidedly “adult” gear: Zankapfel der Zweite, the black sailor uniform for school girls. Why she thought THAT was adult-looking might forever remain a mystery. In any case, Caer wasted no time in getting to Tomie’s Sushiria. The name itself sounded familiar to her. Was it read the English way or the Japanese way? It leaned towards the latter since the place supposedly sold sushi, then again the owner could not even be Japanese. He could be American who was out to introduce California rolls as “authentic sushi” to the English server. Oh, the horror! But enough about the possibly questionable practices to Tomie’s Sushiria. Caerbannog had readied herself for the quest. It sounded like a simple enough string of evenings, but the text which was struck out really intrigued the samurai. It was interesting to her that they even mentioned the word “dangerous”. At the bottom of the quest, the sushiria’s address was written and it was located at Saint Pancras Station. Why would anything in there be dangerous? First off, it was just full of crafters. She had not heard of anyone having been killed in that area even through accidental knife stabbing or hot soup scalding. More importantly, the Station was in Londinium. If someone as much as brandished a weapon, a Guard would appear. Any sign of violence would be immediately punished. There really was little to no reason to fear anything dangerous in a sushiria... not unless on-goings there managed to elude the Guard System somehow. THAT was one thing that truly intrigued Caerbannog. The wolf-hair, her weapons hidden away as she walked around in her school girl uniform, steadily made her way past the main streets and off to Saint Pancras Station. She soon found herself in the familiar place. It was as loud and bustling as ever so early in the day, what with the transactions between crafters and their customers, and discussions between mentors and apprentices. The samurai walked past the neatly-kept stalls, past the area for crafters, past the displays of tools, materials and wares. In her search for Tomie’s sushiria, Caer eventually walked into the darker part of Saint Pancras Station. There were areas left ruined and undeveloped. Perhaps they were too far into the shadier portions of the Station, thus people kept away from them. This made the quest even more interesting to Caerbannog. Why was there a sushiria in such a place? More importantly, why did they even need a guard for their establishment? “Hummm...” Caer mumbled to herself when she arrived at the sushiria. It was a rundown shack that was in desperate need of a make over. From the outside, the samurai could see some equipment and junk placed close to the window, and the roof over the door seemed just about ready to give away. It obviously was not a good idea to step onto what seemed to be its porch, let alone guard the place overnight... or three nights even. But before she could make up her mind as to whether she should turn around, the door swung open and out stepped a middle aged man- a lander by the looks of it- in what seemed to be a uniform of sorts. On his utility belt, there was a metal baton and a light stick with a glowing mana shard in it. Was this guy a guard? “Aa! Gomen kudasai!” the samurai exclaimed and then she bowed at the lander. “Huuuuh?” the man removed a navy blue cap off his head and then he scratched his greying hair, “SOR-RY I ON-RY SPEAK-ING THE ENG-GU-LISH!” Caerbannog looked up at the lander. Was there something wrong with his brain? It had been a while since she heard anyone talk like a linguistically-insensitive idiot to her. It happened a few times back in the real world when, because of her appearance, she was mistaken for a foreigner in her own home town. The samurai’s eyes narrowed down to slits as her arms remained slack by her sides. The lander seemed flustered, possibly unsure of how to deal with her. “Konnichi wa, manuke-saaan~” the samurai said in the sweetest voice that she could muster as she waved at the clueless man. “Uh...uh...” the lander glanced over his shoulder as if he was worried about something in the sushiria. He then turned back to the Caer Bear, “NO CAAAN-DY HERE FOR CHIIILD-REN! I WORK NOW!” The man immediately turned around and that was Strike Three. Strike One was when he assumed that Caer could not speak English, and Strike Two was when he implied that she was a child. The wolf-hair stomped on a loose board on the porch and the other end went swinging up at full speed right between the lander’s legs. “YEEEOOOOOW!” the man howled in agony as he dropped down on the porch while his hands clutched his pain-stricken parts, “What the hell was that for?!” Caerbannog, who’d gotten terribly annoyed at the guard at the point, walked up to the man’s side and leaned down towards him. She was careful not to let him take a peek up her skirt or blouse. That view was reserved for Kumori. Or for when she was not sober. Or both. ANYWAY. “I’m here for the job,” the wolf-hair spoke in very straight English, “Where do I sign up?” It took a few moments for the man to recover, and even when he managed to stand up he was still wary of Caerbannog and the loose boards on the porch. He looked her over, careful not to seem too critical of her lest she punch a hole right through his navel, and then the man who was named Guy (yes, very creative) finally sighed. “That quest specifically asked for an adult-“ he began, but when Caerbannog gritted her teeth, he knew not to continue with what he was about to say. Instead, Guy pointed into the darkness of the sushiria, “Alright, if you really want to give it a go... well, you just have to watch the place over night. So go in there and-“ “Why do I have to go in there?” Caerbannog asked, “That’s how most horror movies start. Can’t I just guard the sushiria from outside?” Guy stared at the samurai, dumbfounded. “Hmm... never thought of that. But anyway, it’s n-not really dangerous! Nope, not at all!” the lander then put on an obviously fake grin. “Your stutter gives away the fact that you’re lying. And I didn’t even ask if it was dangerous in there in the first place,” the wolf-hair crossed her arms by then. “Well you’re the first one to come along and this is already my last night here, so you might as well replace me starting tomorrow,” Guy crossly said, but his furrowed brows softened when Caer glared at him, “I-I mean... welcome to Tomie’s Sushiria! A magical place for- “ “TO-MI-E?” the samurai, whose arms were still crossed, wanted to assure the correct pronunciation of the establishment’s name. “Yea, Tomie’s Sushiria. It’s right there on the quest thingy,” Guy said matter-of-factly as if saying a Japanase name was so natural to him and so normal in Londinium, “So anyway, the rest of the welcome note thing is something about coming to life, no responsibility for damage to life and stuff, yada-yada-yada. You know, the typical corporate stuff...” “You do know who Tomie is, right?” Caerbannog took one glance at the dark sushiria, and then back at Guy once again, “In Japan, Tomie is-“ “LOOK.” the lander finally sounded exasperated, “Do you want this job or not?” The wolf-hair did not even take a moment to reconsider. “Sure I do!” Caer simply said. “Alright, then just sit there while I do my job tonight and wait for me to pack up come morning. This’ll be my last night here, I’m not letting you get MY pay check for this,” Guy huffed. The Caer Bear simply shrugged as she walked to the end of the porch and sat down there. It was maybe an hour or two until dawn; with her back turned to the sushiria, the samurai did not notice a hulking figure that followed Guy as he walked into his office. Some mechanical whirring and a girly scream soon rang through the sushiria, and that made Caer blink away the sleepiness from her eyes. The air soon fell dead silent and only the sound of the samurai’s footsteps on the porch boards could be heard. “Manuke-san?” she called out to Guy, but Caerbannog’s voice only echoed down a seemingly empty sushiria as she stood at the doorway.

[Deleted]

3000 words HP 100%		Pet: none MP 100%
The light at the end of the hallway flickered as Caerbannog stood there at the doorway. She had called out to “Manuke-san” a few times, but there was nothing in the air save for an eerie silence. It was then that a familiar feeling dawned upon the wolf-hair. It crept up to her being when she first heard Guy’s pronunciation of the name “Tomie”. For the uneducated in the frightful works of one Junji Ito, “Tomie” was a main character in a supernatural horror series. She was a beautiful young lady who inexplicably drew everyone to her, both romantically and otherwise; men and women fall to her allure, and oftentimes her presence drove them to a fit of jealousy. Murder and mayhem would soon follow, and it was not uncommon for Tomie herself to be killed. But those very same murders increase her influence, for every drop of Tomie’s blood, every strand of her hair and every bit of her flesh could “infect” anyone. This in turn would create a new “Tomie” out of the infected person. Or raw flesh itself could regenerate over time until Tomie was whole again. Maybe you’ve never seen Tomie, but who knows what will happen if you stand in front of the bathroom mirror at midnight and say her name three times? Knowing who Tomie was, Caerbannog felt something that she had always looked forward to feeling: fear. She regarded it as one of the most primal of instincts; fear stems from the belief that danger might lie ahead. There were people who feared the dark even without evidence that there was something dangerous in it, but why did they fear it so without knowing anything? There were things to be feared based on what you know, such as the knowledge that a serial killer lives two houses down from your own home. And then there was fear of the unknown. In the dark, one lacks the ability to clearly see what is ahead; there could be something dangerous there, or there could not be. Unlike animals which were usually just wary of what they cannot see or what they do not know, humans tend to cultivate fear in their own heart and mind. Because animals usually learn from experience, it is different from how humans perceive the unknown. Humans imagine things, even if it has never happened to them before. And because of that imagination, humans tend to be more fearful of the unknown. Caerbannog was no different from the average human. Despite being Level 90, there were still things that unnerved her. Tomie was one of them. The fear that the samurai felt as a mix of both things: the known, for she knew who Tomie was; and the unknown, for the sushiria was a dark place and she knew nothing about its architectural layout. So why then did she accept the task? Simply put, that’s how Caerbannog rolls. To her, courage isn’t the absence of fear but the ability to face it. To her, the tank should always lead the party and in uncertain conditions, there should always be a beacon of hope. To her, that was the tank’s role. If the leader of a party broke down due to fear or panicked and ran around aimlessly, then the party is as good as dead. Even in the real world, Kyuu tested her “mettle” by reading various horror stories, novels, comics and by playing horror games. The less weapons in the game, the better; she wanted the feeling of helplessness so that her mind would be more active in trying to find ways around fearful situations. Kyuu never aimed to be fearless; she instead aimed to be courageous. To her, a person who believes himself to be fearless will be brought low by a truly frightful experience. A courageous person, however, will face the frightful experience and keep his thoughts together despite shit hitting the fan. But of course, games were only games and stories only stories; in front of Caerbannog now was a possibility for the “story” to become “true”. The wolf-hair, after thinking for a moment if death was worth this adventure, stepped into the sushiria. She was not afraid to die, but why was that the first thing that crossed her mind anyway? Because Tomie. Anyone who knew her by reading the manga or by watching one of the movies made about her would come to the same conclusion: death awaits those who meet Tomie. Even if it was not by the supernatural beauty’s own hands, those around her will surely die. And most of the time, the deaths occur in gruesome ways. But this is not to say that there are no survivors, and truly there have been those who had gotten away from her allure. People, who had their wits about them or pure hearts and souls, were able to escape her supernatural fury. Caerbannog was closer to the former than the latter and there was a chance that she would survive. And indeed, it could be one of her strengths. Because she accepted the fact that she will probably die in the end, Caerbannog was ready to face whatever was up ahead. For the most part, there was nothing but a creepy hallway in front of her. There’s also an upside down head with dangling long hair that slowly fell down from the ceiling to just a few inches behind Caerbannog, but let’s not focus on that for now. The samurai took five quick steps forward and stopped just out of the head’s reach; its arm, pale and wounded, had shot out towards the wolf-hair’s nape but the few steps that she took forward pulled Caer out of the arm’s range. It was then that the girl had the nagging feeling to turn around, but if there was anything that she learned from her video games, it’s that you should never take your eyes off of a dark hallway. Crazy shit tends to happen when one is not looking, like the furniture coming to life or an animatronics bear suddenly rushing up to your face when you look at the hallway again. So no, Caerbannog did not turn around. The upside-down head, whose body or whatever it was attached to was lost to the dark ceiling, flailed in place as it tried to grab even just the samurai’s hair but she was out of its reach. The thing then let out an audible sigh, one that Caerbannog heard but ignored, and then the head and its arms retreated into the darkness. The wolf-hair had stopped on her tracks for a short while as what seemed to be a lamp flickered on and off at the end of the hallway. To her sides, there were narrow spaces between walls and the front windows. A lot of junk such as pots, pans and rusty metal chairs were stacked there. That left little room for anyone, even for someone as petite as the samurai, to move. Just as Caer glanced at the junk to her sides, she caught a shadow down the hallway from the corner of her eye. But as she had experienced in the real world, lots of silly things are seen from the corner of one’s eye. Shadows, silhouettes, ghosts, a waddling duck costume, all of those were just- wait, a waddling duck costume? Caerbannog immediately looked forward as the light at the end of the hall flickered annoyingly. Even with the low visibility, she saw the unmistakable back-side of a giant duck costume waddling away into the darkness. It seemed that there was a bend to the left up ahead for the duck thingy seemed to have disappeared into a corner... that, or it just went through the wall like all creepy things do. Speaking of creepy things, the mess of hair attached to the upside-down head now came down from the ceiling, slowly, right on top of Caerbannog but just before it reached the girl’s crown, the samurai had gone on to run after the duck. The arms of the ceiling head shot down at an attempt to grab the wolf-hair, but since she was vertically-challenged, the girl quickly got out of the arms’ reach. The head, its face indiscernible in the darkness, let out some curse words before it retreated back into the ceiling. Meanwhile, Caer ran past a small room to her right side. It seemed that the sushiria favored the customer’s privacy so tables were set up in small enclosed spaces and this was one of those spaces. The door was open so the wolf-hair thought to check it out. Room was very small and probably had space for just one table and six chairs, or two sofas like the ones found in diners. It was dark so the samurai could only make out the shape of a white table in the middle, but at the far corner she noticed a mass of darkness that had a unique shape. There seemed to be a person in that seat; a raspy sound coming from that corner made Caerbannog even more curious, but before she could step in to investigate, a loud crash from down the hall made her turn around. The wolf-hair walked off and headed for the corner where the duck disappeared to, and in her haste she just missed the shadow which stood up from its corner perhaps because it noticed her. Digressing, a thousand and five hundred words in but Caerbannog is yet to utter a single word. One might think that Caer was mute or had temporarily lost her ability to speak due to fear but really, that’s just how she is. Any thoughts are just thoughts that are processed in her mind quickly. Caerbannog rarely ever does some internal monologue, and if she does, that means she’s taking her time to think about the situation. That has resulted to a lot of conversations that ended abruptly due to the other person having lost interest, or having thought that Caer had ignored them. In a solo quest though, the samurai did not have to worry about communicating with anyone aside from the landers and adventurers who would explain the quest to her. At the moment, she still had to clarify the “job” that was supposedly given to her and for her to achieve that, she had to find Guy. In her haste to run after the walking duck costume, Caerbannog went around the corner without looking back at her. To her right side, there was a corkboard with many posters and clippings pinned on it. Those would have made for good clues about the establishment, but Caer just turned her back to it and so she did not notice that board. The dark-haired wolf-hair samurai turned to her right shortly and she found herself in a dining hall. It had many tables that seemed to have been set up for a gathering but there were no waiters or waitresses present. The room was dimly lit with just some flickering oil lamps on the walls and what seemed to be mana-powered lamps on the tables. On the far end of the room, opposite from where Caerbannog stood, there was a strangely dark corner that none of the light from the lamps reached. The samurai squinted; she thought she saw some movement in that direction, but then a door on the left wall loudly slammed shut. If that was not suspicious, then what is? Naturally, Caerbannog dashed off to the door instead of investigating the dark corner. As she hopped off to the next step of her investigation, she noticed that upon closer look, the plates and cutlery on the tables seemed older than how they initially looked to her. It was probably due to the dim light; in any case, she could just check later so Caer just made a mental note to double back to assess the contents of the dining hall. Upon reaching the door, Caerbannog put her hand on the knob- and found that there was none. There was no handle either, so it seemed that the only way to open the door was for it to be pushed from the other side. That door then was either open at the beginning when she had just walked in, or someone had another way of opening it from that side. Had she been so engrossed in observing the contents of the hall that she did not notice that there was someone else in the room? While Caerbannog pondered on this thought, some of the oil lamps flickered and then they died permanently. The darkness from the corner that she ignored seemed to grow, and at that moment, the shadow from the small room near the front door stepped through the doorway that Caer had just left behind. Still, the samurai was engrossed in examining the door that had no knob or handle; she did not notice the growing darkness, the walking shadow, or the messy hair that dangled and moved across the ceiling. “AHA!” the wolf-hair suddenly exclaimed as she clapped her hands together once. Not wanting to draw a weapon in the city, Caerbannog looked to a nearby tray of cutlery. She took a butter knife in her right hand and, after she breathed in deeply, the samurai used Zantetsuken on the closed door as she exhaled. Technically she had no target and the item in her hand was not a weapon; either way, to avoid any trouble, the wolf-hair threw the butter knife mindlessly into the growing shadow and muffled “OOF!” was heard. But that did not matter to Caerbannog and at the moment, it matters little to the quest. What did matter was the fact that the once-closed door was now wide open. Caerbannog stepped through the hole on the wall that was left there by her ace move Zantetsuken. It was rather useless in direct combat, but those who knew to use their surroundings well could certainly benefit from that skill. The blue-eyed samurai did not even wait for the dust, left in the wake of Zantetsuken, to settle down. And so she completely missed the horrible sight of the shadow that loomed over her, the growing darkness that had enveloped the dining hall, and the mess of hair that once again failed to grab her head. Oddly enough, the hall up ahead of Caerbannog had a dead end without even a lone window but before that blank wall, there were two doors. The samurai hopped off merrily past the rubble that her skill left, and then she stood between the two doors that faced each other. She looked to the left and then to the right, never behind her as the shadow, the darkness and the mess of hair closed in. Caerbannog did notice a scratching sound from the door to her left though and it was the perfect way to use an explorer’s rule: when it doubt, go left. That door, unfortunately, also had no handle or doorknob. Upon this realization, the samurai sighed deeply because she was not intent on destroying yet another door. Instead, the samurai used the simple idea behind “Ask and you shall receive”: Caerbannog knocked twice on the door. She waited a few moments, and then she knocked again. Still no answer... but as the samurai was about to turn around and the mess of hair above her was about to reach down, the door creaked open and very human arms pulled the wolf-hair in. “What are you doing in here?!” Guy asked Caerbannog but not before he shut the door securely behind her. The very human arms were fortunately attached to Manuke-san and the room that he was in, albeit small and just enough for about three people to mill in it, seemed to be in good condition. Curiously, the door was made of metal and the walls were plated with what seemed to be iron. There was a stack of food supplies on a small table and many journals and parchments spread out on a couch. Beside a narrow but clean sink, an open closet was filled with what seemed to be Guy’s uniforms. “I told you to wait outside!” the lander, seemingly terrified, let go of Caerbannog and repeatedly checked the door knob that was only on his side of the door. There were also multiple bolts and locks on that same door, and one would wonder what the purpose for so many locks was. The samurai blinked at Guy when he looked at her again, but she asked no questions. He did not seem to be in a disturbed state of mind, but instead he looked like a person who was afraid yet managed to keep his sanity together. Caer felt a higher level of respect for him already despite their shaky introductions from earlier. As she looked around her, there were no candies under box traps, bear costumes, or other telltale signs that he was some kind of weirdo or worse, a molester. Guy had been more concerned about what was outside the door, rather than the fact that Caerbannog had showed up at his doorstep. Based on what she’d seen from people who were afraid of something, the wolf-hair could tell that there was something outside that made the man very afraid. Could it be Tomie? How was he supposed to guard this place if he could not even leave the room? And whose was that scream that she heard earlier? “Whatever you do, DO NOT answer when you hear anything from outside! Even if someone knocks on the door... especially if they knock-“ Guy was not able to finish his warning as he was so rudely interrupted. The man went pale as he put his hand over his mouth and backed away slowly from where he once stood. Both the samurai and the lander heard three loud knocks as someone banged on the metal door. An eerie silence then followed.

[Deleted]

1115 words HP 100%		Pet: none MP 100%
Caerbannog did not know enough about the place or the current situation. All she could rely on was the advice of Guy, and she was not about to make the mistake of most horror movie characters who went against some wise guy’s advice. And anyway, the three-knocks thing had an ominous meaning in certain western cultures. It is said that three knocks signify impending death, and that perhaps it was actually “Death” knocking on a person’s door. Whether that was true or not in this case, Caer was not going to bother to test it at the cost of someone’s life. After the three knocks on the metal door, there came an eerie silence. Guy, nervous but still with his wit about him, slowly made his way over to the samurai. He motioned towards the sofa and then with as little sound as possible, he cleared the clippings and journals off of it and put them on a side table. Another three loud knocks banged on the metal door, these ones louder than the ones before. Guy almost jumped, but he managed to steady himself and instead sat down on the sofa as if nothing weird was going on outside. The room fell silent once more, but occasionally three knocks would be heard at the door so the lander and the adventurer did not utter any words. But because Caerbannog kept looking around her for any clues, Guy finally handed her some newspaper clippings that might answer her questions. The place seemed to have been a lively sushiria once. Even though it was situated in the back alleys of Saint Pancras Station, built there by a struggling adventurer because the lease was cheap, it had a lot of patrons especially amongst the landers who had no idea what sushi was. The name Tomie, as Caerbannog thought, was based on what the articles called a “comic book character” from a horror series. Apparently, the sushiria owner was a fan of Junji Ito and thought to make an establishment based on the name of his most popular character. Now, that was all well and good; the sushiria flourished for a while. That is, until a certain female adventurer arrived one day. She remained unnamed in the article to protect her identity, but the sushiria’s owner swore that she was the very image of Tomie. Subsequent articles told of a tragic tale of obsession and just plain weirdness. The female adventurer, creeped out by the sushiria owner who insisted that she looked like the horror manga character, immediately left the establishment. However, the owner of Tomie’s Sushiria was determined to be “by the side” of his “goddess Tomie”. What was originally just a tribute to a manga character became an obsession; the man was accused of being a stalker and truth be told, the descriptions of his activities which ranged from following the female adventurer everywhere to sleeping at the doorstep of her house did send out “stranger danger” signals. That, and the fact that everyone else around her began to disappear: her party members, her guildmates, her pet dog... the adventurer was slowly driven to insanity. Suspicions about the sushiria owner’s involvement in the disappearances remained just that, suspicions; he always had an alibi and nothing would tie him to any crime scenes because there were no crime scenes, only missing persons. But even when the female adventurer was taken in by a home for those who were driven to mental instability by the Catastrophe, there were reports regarding a certain man that wandered around wherever she was. Eventually, she too vanished and around the same time, the sushiria owner stopped tending to his business. The knocking on the door had finally stopped and so both Guy and Caerbannog felt a bit relaxed. They read through some of the other articles but found nothing more than hearsay in it. There was gossip about the female adventurer being a runaway bride, unconfirmed sightings of her and the sushiria owner, ridiculous reasons for the man’s obsession, and many other sorts of things that one would read in pointless tabloids. However, the various references to heretics and Miasma did not escape the wolf-hair’s attention. The place’s owner seemed to have gotten interested in the effects of Miasma, and any sane person knows how that usually turns out. Few survive its effects; fewer still share what they know about it. There were only two possibilities given the information that they found in the articles: the sushiria owner was being led in a wild goose chase by someone who pretended to know about Miasma and its capabilities; or he had been acquainted with a malevolent heretic or worse, a completely corrupted Miasma entity. Before Caer could read some of the journals, Guy took them aside and then he offered some sushi and water to the samurai. “Let me tell you about the five mysteries of this place...” the lander said, his voice as soft as possible. Caerbannog shook her head to refuse the food, but when Guy offered to tell her about the sushiria, she sat up straight and listened attentively. “The first one is the Dangling Hair from the Ceiling,” the lander pointed out, “At first I thought that it was just some kid playing a prank on me... but that thing... its face... its face was not where it should be! And if you are within its arms’ reach, it will try to touch YOUR face!” Guy shuddered at the thought before he continued. “Another mystery is the Walking Shadow,” the lander looked to the door and waited for a moment in case the knocking resume, but he continued his explanation when there came no knocks, “You’d think that this place is also creepy enough with all the darkness, right? Well there’s a shadow here that looks like a person but when it gets up, that’s all it is... a shadow!” Caerbannog nodded eagerly which prompted the man to continue. “The third one is the Creeping Darkness,” Guy looked around the room to make sure that everything was in place, “It swallows everything in its path, leaving nothing but darkness. And the fourth one is the Vanishing Duck costume. I don’t know where it runs off to but I’ve always seen it around here. When it turned around once, it looked at me with its lifeless eyes... ” Guy then stared at the door. “What about the fifth-“ the samurai began to ask but the lander put a finger to his lips as his eyes remained fixated on the locked metal entry way. Three loud knocks then banged on the door. “Ah, I see...” Guy then stood up, “It is time.”

[Deleted]

1065 words HP 100%		Pet: none MP 100%
Curiously, Guy stood up and walked up to the metal door. He pressed his ear against it as of listening to something, anything beyond it. Caerbannog eyed him warily; if he opened that door, who knows what would pour in? There came no more knocking on door and so Guy went back to where the samurai sat. He then motioned over to a clock on the side table. The hour hand was at six and the minute hand just a few ticks after twelve. “The knocking usually gets louder right before sunrise,” the lander said as he gathered his trash from the night before, “That is, at six the mysteries retreat into the recesses of this sushiria.” He then handed a uniform to Caerbannog, and a garbage bag full of trash too. “I’ll open the door now. If you want to return tomorrow evening, please wear this,” Guy said as he handed both things to the samurai, “Oh, and if you’d be so kind as to throw these out for me. I’ll catch some ZZZs.” Carefully, Guy undid the locks on the door and then he pulled it open just a crack. No eerie sounds or sights appeared, and so he checked the ceiling and hallway for any of the mysteries but he seemed to have found none of them. With the coast seemingly clear, the lander led the way out. As he turned his back to Caerbannog though, the samurai looked over to the door right in front of the room that they just emerged from. That other door was still locked tightly and was as silent as when she first noticed it. The girl had the urge to knock on that door but she refrained from doing so because Guy was nearby. If something deathly jumped at her, she would respawn at the Abbey but if that same thing jumped Guy, he’d be very dead. So instead of being the curious little Caerbannog that she usually was, the wolf-hair instead asked a question. “What’s in that room?” she calmed asked. Guy stopped dead on his tracks. “The fifth mystery,” he coldly said, and nothing more was discussed about that. As for the sushiria, while bathed by sunlight it did not seem as eerie as before. The place could use a good clean up and a makeover, but even the old furniture could be replaced. The dining hall, which was incredibly dreary and dark the previous evening, was just an old, unkempt place. There seemed to be nothing ominous about it and indeed, the so called “mystery” was not there. No strangely dark corner, not hair that dangled from the ceiling. The dining hall and the hallways around it seemed to be every bit normal even in its state of disrepair. “It’s not too bright outside yet,” Guy said as he stepped onto the porch, “But you should be able to find your way out of the Station.” “Don’t I need to sign a contract?” Caerbannog asked the lander. “A what?” came the reply. “I will be working as a guard to replace you,” the samurai pointed out, “My employer should have me sign a contract.” “OH! You’re right,” Guy slapped his forehead at this realization, “Yeah he knows that there’s a new guard to replace this one. Let’s talk about it when you come back later. Twelve o’clock sharp, as the midnight hour strikes.” Even though the wolf-hair thought that very odd, she was not able to ask any more questions. Guy hurriedly went back inside, to that questionable sushiria, as if he had something urgent to do. Caerbannog shrugged it off and went on her way to the busier parts of Saint Pancras Station. It was still early in the morning. She had left the guild while people were sound asleep and it seemed that she was able to finish her little adventurer before they woke up. Caer made sure, of course, to toss the garbage bag into the proper disposal area somewhere back at Saint Pancras Station. For some reason, she did not feel at ease even when the sushiria seemed so very normal in the morning. Why did they need a guard for the place? That question still remained unanswered. “Ryuu-nii?” the samurai peaked into their bedroom; Kumori was still sound asleep. Instead of heading back to bed, Caerbannog curled up in a reading chair in the young man’s office. She intended to take a very short nap, and then she would head back out to find more information about Tomie’s Sushiria. The very short nap turned to a whole day of sleep though, and when Caerbannog woke up, the hour hand was at eleven and the sky was dark outside. On the table beside her, there was a note from Ryuu that wished her well and told her not to skip her meals. An egg sandwich and some cold tea were on a tray beside the note, and Caer hurriedly ate it up. She did not feel hungry just yet, but the samurai knew that having slept through the day was bound to have its negative effects such as hunger and dehydration. She did wish that she had cola instead of tea though... “Ah! Tomie’s!” the girl suddenly remembered the ‘job’ that she took. The wolf-hair changed into her guard uniform: it was a white blouse with navy blue accents, and a pair of navy blue trousers. She already had some black shoes so the samurai used those along with the uniform. Then without delay, and without informing the rest of the guild once again, Caerbannog headed out to Saint Pancras Station for her second night at Tomie’s Sushiria. The walk was uneventful as always but as soon as she got close to the sushiria, her hair began to stand on its ends. It was as if some wolf-hair instinct within her told her to stay away from the place, but Caerbannog was a very curious person and she would like to see her ‘job’ through. The wolf hair stopped a few steps away from the porch of the sushiria. She looked up at the bright moon in the sky; it was not full, and it was not red... nothing like those scenes that one would see in a horror movie. She had not heard of any unusual alignment of the stars so maybe she was safe from becoming a human sacrifice. Maybe.

[Deleted]

2010 words HP 100%		Pet: none MP 100%
“Manuke-saaaan?” Caerbannog called out to the guard as she stood in the doorway. The sushiria, once again, was eerily quiet. Nothing stirred from within and if she did not know any better, the samurai would have assumed that the place was completely empty. But the lander Guy had told her specifically to return at midnight, so she knew that he should be waiting for her there. If he was not on the porch, then he was probably still in the back room with the metal door and iron plated walls. If anything, it was a small fortress within the shop and could probably withstand most physical attacks; but magical attacks would be another thing altogether. What was that iron-plated room for? Caerbannog did know about myths and superstitions that regarded iron as a good protector against certain magical beings, but would it work against the mysteries that haunted the sushiria? “Manuke-san? Are you there?” the samurai called out into the darkness as she stepped into the hallway. Since she was already briefed about the mysteries of the sushiria, except for the fifth one, Caerbannog hurriedly walked down the hall and then turned to her left. However, this time she noticed the clippings which were tacked onto a corkboard to her right side. The wolf-hair quickly pocketed them so that she could read the information later, and then she continued her short walk up to the dining hall. Right behind her, the dangling hair from the ceiling tried its best to go after Caerbannog but even though she was just walking, the samurai was still faster than that thing on the ceiling. As soon as the wolf-hair arrived at the dining hall, the moving shadow got up from one of the seats as the dark corner began to grow in size. Caerbannog also walked past that area and to her relief, the door that she destroyed with Zantetsuken remained destroyed. The duck costume did not show up this time around, but the room of the fifth mystery also remained lock so that was still one thing to solve. Caerbannog knocked twice on the metal door where she last hung out with Guy. The faint scratching sound was once again heard from within. He was probably going through some papers? After a short while, Caerbannog knocked twice again and hoped that Guy would finally open the room. She could feel the presence of something behind her but the samurai did not dare to look back. Finally, the metal door creaked open and Guy motioned for her to step in. He closed the door securely behind her and double-checked the locks. The room, strangely enough, looked just the way that it did when she had visited it the previous evening. Most curious of all was the presence of exactly four uniforms on the open closet, the fourth one worn by Guy himself. Caerbannog distinctly remembered that the lander handed one of those uniforms to her the previous night, so there should have been three uniforms left in the closet instead of four. The samurai glanced at Guy but he was still acting pretty much the same way that he always did. Rather nervous but not panicky, the lander made sure to check every lock on the door before he returned to his mountain of papers on the sofa. Guy waved over to an empty part of the sofa and Caerbannog sat down on it. She checked her uniform if it was still in its proper appearance... got to look nifty while guarding a shop full of ghosts after all. There came the occasional three knocks on the door as they waited out the time from midnight to sunrise. As Guy mentioned before, the knocks became louder and more frequent as time passed by. At some point, the guard had offered some sushi to Caerbannog, but before she could try some of it, three knocks rang through the room and that made the samurai think twice. Where did Guy get his sushi anyway? Was there a clean and usable kitchen somewhere in the sushiria? The lander seemed upset that the wolf-hair once again refused to have any of his food and drinks, and that was something that, instead of thinking herself rude, made Caerbannog wonder about the man’s intentions. It also made her wonder about the truth behind the mysteries. “Have you ever talked to them?” Caer asked Guy. “To whom?” the lander inquired without taking his eyes off of an article that he was reading. “The mysteries,” the samurai explained, “I mean, they might be able to communi-“ “NO.” Guy growled. At that very moment, his eyes seemed to be furious and his face was contorted to an almost inhuman one. Caerbannog had seen worse, fortunately; she had a pet Foreman Mukade after all. But anyone else would have been able to realize that just then, Guy seemed less like a lander and more like a corrupted being. Caer shrugged it off and made a mental note to not make the lander angry again. There was only the two of them against the four mysteries outside, though aside from the occasional three knocks, nothing else happened. That is, until... “...Manuke-saaan?” a voice echoed from outside. And of course, the voice was familiar. It was Caerbannog’s. “Manuke-san? Are you there?” the voice said. Upon hearing that, the samurai suddenly felt light-headed. She did not doubt her own existence, there could be a doppelganger right outside. But when she turned to Guy for answers, he was fiddling with something under the table. A hand reached out from somewhere down there... was that a trap door? Guy closed the small door to what might be a basement, and then he put some books and other things on top of it. A faint scratching sound, similar to what Caerbannog had heard before, came from under the table but it was soon muffled by the amount of items that Guy piled up on it. Two knocks were then heard on the metal door of the room, and Guy sat up straight but he did not stand up and away from the table just yet. And then... while the light-headed Caerbannog looked on, Guy’s head suddenly turned to face her. His neck was clearly contorted and if he was a regular lander, he would have died already; but that wasn’t the worst of it. Guy’s face, if you could call that a face, had no eyes and there were only some empty sockets in its place. His mouth, full of jagged teeth, then opened up as he hissed at Caerbannog. “What are YOU looking at?!” was what she last heard before the horrendous Guy rushed up to her on all fours; she then blackened out. Caerbannog’s forehead almost hit the metal door as she stood there in front of Guy’s room. “WHOA. De ja vu?” the girl said after her first two knocks. She heard the familiar faint scratching from inside the room but she refrained from knocking a second time. Upon her head, the samurai felt a cold hand. Screw horror movie cliches, she was way too curious to not turn around! Caerbannog turned and her face was entangled in a mess of hair. She then looked up at the hand that soon retreated from her head to the ceiling, and in the faint light from flickering lamps, the samurai finally was able to see the faceless head on the ceiling. “Ah... noppera-bo?” the wolf-hair blinked at it, and the sole reply was a shy wave to her. The creeping darkness from the dining hall then caught up to the samurai. It enveloped the floor beneath her feet and the walls around her, even the metal door behind which Guy hid. But curiously, the darkness left the other door in Caerbannog’s view; the one which was to her right side when she walked down the hall on the first day. The door then creaked open and a yellow hand, probably that of the duck costume, waved for Caerbannog to move closer. The samurai, although having formed some conclusions based on what she’d seen, remained standing on the same spot. It was then at that moment that the moving shadow approached the wolf-hair. It towered over little Caer and though it was difficult to see due to its nature, the wolf-hair could make out the shape of a tall werecat. The Shadow then waved the duck costume away and in a rather odd turn out of events, the Shadow bowed to Caerbannog and then it went into the room to the right. The ceiling head soon followed and even the creeping darkness removed itself from the walls and floor, and then it went into that room. The door remained open for a while but Caerbannog did not step in. “Hmm... curious...” she said. After a moment’s consideration, the wolf-hair walked back up the way that she came. Behind her, she heard the metal door open but Caerbannog did not go back. Instead, the samurai made her way to the porch and sat down there under the light of the moon. Her job was to guard the place, and she could very well just do it there. She had some time to think about what just happened. Did the ceiling head put those images in her mind? Were they real or were they illusions meant to keep her away from the only other human in the sushiria? Then again, was Guy still human? Who survives on nothing but sushi and water anyway? As Caerbannog thought about those things, she remembered about the clippings that she took down from the corkboard. Among those, she found an old picture of the sushiria staff. Guy was there. He wore the same outfit, the same uniform as he always did. The duck costume was also in the picture, probably the mascot of the place. To Guy’s side, there stood a tall werecat similar in shape and height to the Shadow. As she looked over the picture, everything began to make sense. “Why don’t you come in?” a voice from behind Caerbannog suddenly asked. Caerbannog did not answer. She knew who it was. The sound of creaking floorboards told her that Guy was approaching her already. At that, the samurai stood up and walked a few paces away from the porch. Just as she left her spot, the girl felt a sudden swipe at her hair but she was already out of the lander’s reach. As he had told her the day before, one must remain quiet in the presence of a mystery. Or more importantly, one must not become involved with a mystery- especially a malevolent one. The samurai stood a short distance away from the sushiria but even if it was just a few steps, that put her out of the reach and influence of whatever malevolent being resided in that place. She wanted to go back and find out what the fifth mystery was, but she knew that it was dangerous. It was possible that levels and conventional weapons would be unable to do anything against what she now faced. The blue-eyed wolf-hair, her heart pounding due to fear and excitement, continued to read through the articles and clippings on her person. She began to piece the story together, but what worried her was the scratching in the iron-plated room. If the hand that she saw in her vision was true, and if that was really a human’s hand, then there was someone in there who needed to be rescued. It was possible that, it was the reason why the other mysteries wanted to get into the iron-plated room. She had an idea as to what happened and who it was in that basement, but due to the malevolent presence that she ticked off that evening, Caerbannog thought it would be pointless to return. Caerbannog’s second night was then spend right outside the sushiria, and when the sun rose, she stood up and walked away... intending to return for her final night at Tomie’s.

[Deleted]

2170 words HP 100%		Pet: none MP 100%
Anyone else would have gone into Tomie’s Sushiria during the day; heck, anyone else would not have returned at all! But little Caerbannog was not like anyone else. Even without a contract, she took on her mantle as the sushiria’s guard and she was all serious about it too. The samurai even wore the uniform that Guy gave him the other day. What was the point in being a guard without the proper uniform anyway? To top it off, Caerbannog had a massive cucumber on her belt. Why a cucumber? Because food. Also, because weapon. The guard system of Londinium reacted to drawn weapons and the act of using skills against living targets. Was a cucumber a weapon? Probably not. Should it be classified at a weapon? That would leave the guards scratching their heads for a while. Anyway, armed with a cucumber and a pouch of salt (and also a smaller pouch of black pepper for good measure), Caerbannog returned to Tomie’s Sushiria for her final night as its guard. Guy was its rightful guard and she wouldn’t have it any other way, but he and his friends now needed an adventurer’s help. The wolf-hair was willing to lend a hand even if they never directly asked for her to help out. Caerbanogg’s wee heart pounded in place as she made her way past the usual streets and alleys of Saint Pancras Station. She went further towards the less lively part of that area and the familiar dilapidated shops and stalls came into view. The buildings withstood the test of time and the Calamity, but they were in a state of disrepair. At the far end of the back alleys, there stood Tomie’s Sushiria. Amidst the dilapidated buildings, the sushiria stood defiantly and though dark and unkempt, it appeared slightly better than its surroundings. In its glory days, it would have stood out against the sad excuse for a back drop but in its current state, the sushiria was a few months away from being exactly the same as what was around it. Caerbannog encountered a few people along the way, either unfortunate landers or starting adventurers with nowhere else to go. The back alleys of the Station was not filthy or disgusting, merely dark and uncared for. She wondered if anyone would bother to clean the place up but then Caer remembered that people usually cared only for those close to them. That was also probably the reason why the tragedy at Tomie’s Sushiria unfolded. Having read the clippings and articles and having seen the pictures from the corkboard, Caerbannog understood the drama that unfolded in that place. With what transpired, it was understandable that landers would not have the powers to free themselves and only the aid of an adventurer could give them hope. It probably did not help that some people thought of the brokedown sushiria as a haunted spot; Corruption was only worsened by negativity after all. That said, Caer tried her best to be optimistic about the task at hand. She stood a short distance off the sushiria’s porch. It was five in the morning, just an hour before sunrise. It would give her ample time to mount the rescue, but the samurai was certain that she would be able to pull it off if and only if the four mysteries aided her. Anything less would prove too difficult what with the nature of the task, and most especially since she could not wield her full power within the walls of Londinium. So far, the perpetrator of the disturbing happenings in Tomie’s Sushiria had exploited loopholes in the guard system. Caerbannog was not above exploiting the same shortcomings. The wolf-hair walked closer to the porch and under the moonlight, she could make out two figures at the doorway. One of them was tall, the Shadow; the other hung from the ceiling, the Head. The latter waved enthusiastically at Caerbannog and, although slightly creeped out by their appearance, nonetheless she stepped onto the porch. The moment that she put a foot on there, the floorboards were engulfed by something very black. It was the creeping Darkness, and due to its influence, her foot step made no sound. The samurai walked on and the Darkness remained beneath and around her. It seemed that its presence was great for stealth and she did need that very much now. As for her voice, Caerbannog rarely made a peep anyway so that was not an issue. The samurai remained quiet as she walked on and the Head dangled on the ceiling above her. The Shadow stayed behind the samurai, a little to her right side. It was tall and it would have been scary if not for the fact that it seemed to be a werecat. Kitties are fluffy, not scary. Caer walked down the first hallway and noted the now-empty corkboard to her right side. She peeked at the corner before she turned to the left, and the duck costume was there. It had a pretty blank expression as expected of costumes, but it waved its arm bidding the samurai to follow it. The wolf-hair went down the hall, still accompanied by the four mysteries. They made it to the dining hall which was now well-lit due to the absence of the Darkness. At that point, the creeping Darkness made sure to narrow down its influence. Only a small area around Caerbannog was darkened by it and so the dining hall remained undisturbed as they walked on. Curiously, the duck costume stopped ahead. It scratched its head and turned to look at Caerbannog and the other mysteries. The duck then pointed in front of it, at where the hallway to the two doors should be. Caerbannog glanced at what the duck pointed at... and she sighed. The knobless door had been repaired; undoubtedly by the fifth mystery. Despite their best efforts to hide the samurai’s presence as she entered the sushiria, this was an obstacle that only she could surmount and even then, it would give away the fact that she was there. The samurai took the cucumber in her hand as she stepped right in front of the door. It was solidly build as it was on the first day as if no damage had ever been dealt to it. The Darkness then removed itself from Caerbannog’s person; it sure did not want to be in the way of a Level 90 adventuring samurai. The Head went over to a far corner of the room and the Shadow stood further behind Caerbannog. The duck costume pulled a chair out from under a table and then it sat down. Obviously bemused by the appearance of Caerbannog, it put its chin on its hand as the elbow rested on the table. The samurai held her “weapon” tightly with two hands. It was a fairly large cucumber so the wolf-hair’s little hands could wield it as if it was a two-handed sword. Caer’s pretty good with hands so the fruit would make a good substitute for a real weapon. Okay, maybe there was some accuracy penalty because at the moment, she was a blacksmith and not a chef... but the door -was- right in front of her. It would be odd if she missed it. Her blue eyes changed and had a golden color instead; the wolf-hair inhaled deeply and then, as she exhaled, Caerbannog threw a Zantetsuken attack right at the door. The wood and metal contraption crashed down to pieces and the door frame was totaled as well. The cucumber, however, was still in one piece despite the strength of the attack. The problem now was that she caused such a ruckus. A familiar ominous feeling welled up inside her... how could she have not noticed it until now? That gut feeling that she had, Caerbannog tended to suppress it so that she could have a level head but in this case, she should have listened to it. Then again, she would not have been able to read all those articles about the sushiria if she had not gone into the iron-plated room. Regardless of what transpired in the previous days, the most important matter was here and now. She was about to face the fifth mystery; that attack of hers certainly would have drawn its attention. Little Caer Bear waited for either of the doors up ahead, the metal one to the left and the wooden one to the right, to open up. But suddenly, her hairs stood up on its ends as she felt a presence behind her. “You’re late,” the familiar voice, slightly distorted and obviously full of rage, spoke up behind her. It was Guy. Or at least, it was that something that used Guy’s appearance. “YOU’RE LATE!” The floorboards creaked as that “Guy” lunged forward to grab Caerbannog, but the mess of hair from the ceiling entangled it in place. At the same time, the wolf-hair dashed off and went over to the room to the left. Because it also had now door knob, she knew that if that Guy was outside then the door would have been open. The iron-plating, however, would have prevented the mysteries from entering it. The sores on the Head’s hands was a dead giveaway that it was the one which knocked three times every now and then on that iron door. Notably, if the Head was a ghost, then the sores would have healed up. The mysteries were not ghosts, no; they were flesh and blood, corrupted by something in the sushiria. Caerbannog wanted to find that source and destroy it, and the first step towards her goal was to enter the iron-plated room. The samurai used Denkosekka to run as fast as she could and then once she was in the room, she shut the door behind her. “Guy” followed right behind her having gotten through the mess of hair, but the door was shut right on his face. He yelled and screamed as he pounded his fists on the door. Notably, he could only knock three times every few seconds. The wolf-hair’s eyes returned to its normal shade of blue as she looked around her. Mentally, she laid out the structure of the sushiria; there might have been a door to a kitchen in the dining hall, and that Guy could have been there to make some food: the usual sushi. Though he had what seemed to be supernatural qualities, he was still limited by physical means and even had telltale signs of being “alive” despite the weird appearance that he had every now and then. A faint scratching beneath the floorboards drew Caer’s attention to the table. In her daydream, there supposedly was a trap door under it. The pile of books and things was there, so Caerbannog knelt down beside it and pulled the items aside. Indeed, a trapdoor was beneath all the junk with a simple lock mechanism. The samurai, armed with a cucumber, opened the trap door and then she backed away from it. The distinct wispy appearance of Miasma floated upwards from the room beneath the floorboards and a hand found its way to the opening. Another hand soon followed... and then Guy, the real Guy, heaved himself onto the iron-plated room’s floor. “Hah! Thank the Gods!” the man sighed, this time with the quaint cheerfulness that he had when Caer first met him, “Who knew that Seb was the one behind it all?! If only I listened to the mysteries instead of hiding away from them!” Guy seemed slightly corrupted due to exposure to Miasma, but since it had only been three nights, he was probably at most on Stage 1. It was curable and was not likely to debilitate him for long. The problem now was the source of Miasma, and by the looks of things, it had been trapped in the basement room with Guy to corrupt him. That was probably what happened with the rest of the people in the sushiria’s crew as well. “The thing... his Miasma weapon is in there but... it’s too dark to see anything,” the lander said as he struggled to get up on the sofa and laid down on it as if he finally had much needed rest. The samurai crawled over to the trap door and then she poked her head into the room there. It had nothing but total darkness; even her wolf eyes would probably not see anything down there. The wisps of Miasma continued to emanate from the room and it made the samurai cough every now and then. She moved around to check which direction had the most Miasma and when she found the general area of the source of Corruption, Caerbannog swung her cucumber at it. A loud crash and the sound of breaking glass rang through the room, and outside, the other “Guy” screamed in agony. “Nailed it,” Caerbannog beamed gleefully as she sat up straight; Guy replied to her with a weak thumbs up sign.

[Deleted]

1710 words HP 100%		Pet: none MP 100%
Being a samurai who was new to the effects of Miasma, Caerbannog had not noticed the lingering corruption in the air around her before. But since she was exposed to concentrated amounts of the corrupting substance, she was able to notice the miniscule Miasma particles that remained in around her and how different it was from Anima, the life force of Elder Tale. The samurai was no magic class but it still utilized mana for its purposes and so Caer recognized the basic substances and concepts at least. If the crew had remained in the sushiria for quite some time, and if that weapon had been there all those weeks or months, then it was understandable for them to have been corrupted into the “mysteries”. Guy, who was the guard, would have frequented the exterior of the sushiria and would have been exposed to lesser amounts of Miasma. Now the question was, who was Seb and why did he do this? “He was our head chef,” Guy explained as he pointed to the small table and the sushi on it, “- he was always quiet, just cooking away in his kitchen. Even when the boss disappeared he kept working, even as this place began to drift into the red. Worked his ass off to keep customers happy. Not that the rest of us didn’t work pretty hard... but I reckon the kitchen would have been more stressful what with every other chef leaving.” The screaming outside and the knocking on the metal door continued. Occasionally, some inhuman growls could also be heard. Things began to fall in place just as Caerbannog thought, but there was still something that intrigued her. The previous evening, when the other Guy told her about the mysteries, he referred to the other room as having the fifth mystery. Did it mean that there were six mysteries, including the fake Guy, in the sushiria? That was not all too farfetched, but it did leave the wolf-hair rather curious. She stood up and checked the table, just then she noticed some funny-looking powder near the sushi. “Ah! Don’t touch that! I think he put it in the sushi... and then I passed out,” Guy held out his hand to warn Caerbannog, but he was too weak to stand up, “I thought the others just left and then those creepy things started showing up. I should have known that something happened to them...” The lander sighed, heavily and depressedly. Did he believe his friends to be dead? Caerbannog had read into the information about corruption and how it goes by stages. What if they weren’t dead and just needed to be cleansed of the corruption? The samurai figured that as long as they had their humanity intact, and the mysteries did show just that as far as she noticed, then perhaps the effects of Miasma could be reversed. Even if not totally, at least they might be saved and allowed to return to their families as long as they did not pose any danger to their community. “How do we save them?” the samurai asked Guy. The first thing that the lander did was scratch his head, and then he shrugged. “I don’t know... are they even still alive? I don’t know much about this Miasma,” Guy sighed again, “It turned them to those creepy things, right? That’s what Seb said. And that was why he locked me up in the basement, to change me into one of those things too. He had this craaaazy idea that if we turned this sushiria into a haunted house, we’d get it up and running again. Not the nicest way to go about it though... I mean, turning people to creepy things just to start up a business?” Before he could go on any further, the lander pressed the palm of his hand against his head. Headaches accompanied the corruption stages and it only got worse as the corruption increased. Caerbannog knew that she had to get the lander out of there so that the Miasma could be either cleansed, or it could dissipate into the air. She really wished the room had a window. Then again, if there were no doors, use a window. If there’s no window... make one. Once again with the cucumber in her hand, the samurai faced the wall that she estimated to be the only thing between herself and the streets of Saint Pancras Station. She then raised it overhead and, with one swing, the wolf-hair destroyed the iron-plated wall with a cucumber and Zantetsuken. “WHOOOOA!” Guy exclaimed, “So strong! Are you an adventurer?!” The man then ran over the rubble, jumped onto the empty streets of that abandoned area, and then he inhaled deeply. “What are you doing?!” a familiar voice growled from behind her. The other Guy, because the wall came down and took a large part of the room with it including the metal door, walked up slowly to Caerbannog. As a gust of wind blew the concentrated Miasma away, his ghastly appearance began to normalize. The fake “Guy” look slowly vanished and in its place, Sebastian the Head Chef was left in almost his original state; save for a few telltale signs of Miasma such as cracked lips and the pale, sickly-looking skin. The ceiling head then moved in from the hall and finally jumped down from its void in the ceiling. The creeping darkness caught it and then they returned to their original appearance. The long-haired person turned out to be a wispy lady, the very same one from the picture that Caerbannog found. Based on their uniforms in the picture, she was a waitress and the creeping darkness was someone older than her... possibly a waiter? He was not in the picture that was posted on the corkboard, or so Caer thought. “It was difficult to clarify things what with our lack of speech,” said a deep voice from behind the crew. The Shadow, as expected, was a werecat. A gentleman werecat with ginger-colored fur. He was much taller than everyone else around Caerbannog and had rather advanced symptoms of Corruption all over his body, but since the wind carried most of the Miasma away, he seemed to have regained his humanity. From where she stood, Caerbannog could see the wooden door across the hallway and it creaked open. Revealed was a fairly normal-looking room with what seemed to be regular sustenance for very normal people. Although corrupted by Miasma, it seemed that the crew lived on in that little room. But who opened the door? “Ducky!” cried an excited samurai. The big yellow duck waddled over to the samurai, and then it twisted its head around. No, not in the creepy manner! The costumed one struggled to remove the duck head from the rest of the costume and when his face was revealed, the wolf-hair gasped. “Why are there so many of you?! Confusing!” Caerbannog stomped a foot on the ground. In front of her, there stood Guy in the duck costume. His face and throat had the signs of corruption, and as what happened with the rest of the crew, he was probably unable to speak as well while Miasma had a hold on him. Now there were five people in front of the samurai, and assuming that the creeping darkness was the real duck mascot then that would make the other Guy- the one that she found in the basement- an unknown sixth member. The crew backed away as they stared as something behind Caerbannog, and a large, looking shadow fell over the girl. Sunrise was just a little way beneath the horizon and if she could hold on until morning, then sunlight might be able to destroy whatever was left of Miasma. “They needed an adventurer to get rid of me,” an inhuman voice hissed behind Caerbannog, and she could only assume that the Guy from the basement had assumed its true form, “But do you think you can, half-pint?” Caerbannog’s right eye twitched. She held her cucumber with one hand while the other reached for her pouch of salt. The sushiria crew ducked and hid away; at that instant, Caer turned to face the final boss in Tomie’s sushiria. An inhuman mess of claws and teeth and rotting flesh lunged at her face, but the samurai threw a fistful of salt at the fiend. It shrieked and jerked back in what seemed to be terror, but then it recovered and merely swatted away the salt from its face. “So you are human after all...” the wolf-hair grinned, and then she dashed towards the confused enemy. Instead of hitting it with her cucumber as one would expect, Caerbannog emptied the contents of her other pouch onto the corrupted person’s face. The black pepper burned through its skin and its eyes, and it was left sneezing uncontrollably. Annoyed, that person took out what seemed to be a dagger... so was this a heretic wielding a dagger? Or an assassin trying his hand at the dark arts? Either way, due to the drawn weapon, a Guard appeared and gave out the usual system warning. But the enemy was not to be stopped, and still it attacked Caerbannog; the latter meant to take the attack so that it would be a legitimate action against a person in town, thereby allowing the nearby Guard to spring into action. But a very yellow thing got in the way and the dagger instead stabbed into the back of the real Guy (seriously, it’s the real Guy now). That prompted the immediate decapitation of the attacker via the Guard’s retribution, and then the massive defender of Londinium vanished back to where it came from. “It’s just a flesh wound!” Guy said as the werecat unzipped the back of the duck costume to check the wound; indeed, only the tip of the dagger had dug into the man’s skin due to the bulkiness of the costume, “See?” There were a lot of explanations and corrections to do, but as the sun rose above the horizon, the freed crew of the sushiria agreed on one thing with their savior Caerbannog: it was a story to be kept in the dark; just like Tomie’s sushiria.