In the now slowed-to-a-drizzle rain, panting footsteps spsh through the streets of Olden [New Coimbra]!
Your green-jacketed detective filled with fear and horror runs full throttle, no breakfast nor umbrel, not minding the tiny droplets dripping down her body now! I TOLD you that I can down the street without losing my breath! Why didn't (You) listen!!
"This is... far enough I think."
Leaning outside the greyed-out edifice of the building I am at, the senpai-induced fear wears off a bit when I shake my hair of light morning dew from the cloudy skies above. I can't feel Sachiko-senpai's malefic aura here, but I'm not even sure if that is a good thing!
Peeking over a twisted and unnaturally grown cypress tree, I scan the streets for any of my senpai's ink cryptids.
Yokatta! [1] Sachiko-senpai doesn't seem to have sent anyone to give me a second round of jumpscares. I am not sure if my tiny beating heart can take much more excitement this morning!
This is the first time Sachiko-senpai has shown off her fearsome visage to me. She's done so plenty of times in cospy, but never directly or this openly in the house before! The moment Madi-san left the house, Sachiko-senpai just started acting weird! I'll admit that using the >greentext on her wasn't very nice, but I was just trying to push how far I can go with the green! I'm not the bad guy here, (You) agree with me, right?!
I do sympathize with Oracion and Annalie a little now. I thought it was funny that they always seem so guarded around Sachiko-senpai, despite one being a faction leader and the other being a murderous fake priestess. We might be the only three who know of my evil ink-senpai's true face!
Ah, and Madi-san as well.
I don't get it though. Sachiko-senpai never shows this side of her when Madi-san's around.
I wonder if there is a special reason?
Anyways...
Let's put boob-for-brains out of our mind for now.
The wall I am leaning against belongs to the [Chapel of Sharryn]. Built in the olden and bad part of the city, its untended and yellowing grass grows slightly stunted in the autumnal winds. Gravestones dot the front of this building little more than four high walls and a roof. Even the roof part is dubious now, a gigantic hole bsted through lightning-singed beams where Madi-san received an impromptu electrostatic heart-revival with bck lightning streaking from the heavens!
This is also Annalie's home base.
Our local fake priestess is the third and final member of [Trono Palido]. Remember them? The dark knights in white cloaks that protect the city of [New Coimbra]? It feels like it has been two weeks since we st saw Oracion and Val-sama, but it really only has been a few hours. Going by everything we know, Annalie should be Val-sama's senior in the faction as well.
I wondered at first why Annalie wasn't present at the incursion into Galopin Chateau, but it made total sense to me after thinking about it a little.
Annalie is...
For the ck of better words...
... a little air-headed.
Not even in the malevolent Madi-san way, but truly, absolutely dumb at times! Please, this is not me being snarky or biased, but she's like an odd screw that doesn't fit into the organization. Oracion is highly autistic but has high enough murderous energy that it cancels out any dorky moments she has from time to time! Val-sama also demonstrated st night that she also has combat power to fell Horseguys in one blow, so she can take care of herself!
Annalie? Annalie is a walking disaster!
Back when we met on Bylon isnd, her hands would frequently spark bck lightning, a part of her [Mennifest]! She's never in control of her own powers, and would frequently shake my hand just to shock me half to death as a greeting! You can tell that Madi-san took a very fast liking to this devilish girl, the two of them prociming sisterhood from different mothers almost immediately after they met! What's worse is that she has absolutely no remorse about her actions, cutely ciming all her attempts to kill me are 'just a prank, sis'!!
You can just imagine the havoc she would wreak if she went on a stealth mission! Little wonder she was not invited along, hopefully for good!
As her [Cover] [3], she cims to be a priestess at this run-down chapel when she's not working with [Trono Palido]. I honestly doubt her authenticity. For starters, nobody ever comes to this part of town. There are very little shops and the residences here are sparse, almost unlivable compared to the [Main Street] we have an apartment at. This is probably just a relic of the Olden days and is being preserved for some perverse historical reason. You can tell from this chapel, it looks like it has seen better days! Its so run-down, why would anyone even come here to pray?! Does anyone even remember who your god is, Annalie?!
As I walk up to the chapel's rge wooden doors, which are bsted in and hanging open with a hole in the middle...
A small paper note is nailed to the front in squiggly and bolded handwriting,
NO SRVICE TODAY
UNTIL CHAPEL IS FIXED
SOWWIES!
FROM: EINQUISITTER ANNALIE :D
I'm pretty sure there are more than a few misspellings in that note, but it is very Annalie indeed! Looking at my bandaged hand, I suppose I won't be getting the healing I need at the chapel. Honestly, it still stings a little, and I don't want to get an infection, so I have to get this looked at. Is Annalie the ONLY healer in this whole city? I've always wondered that. For the st two months, I've never so much as seen a doctor in the New Continent. There are healers for sure in the [Church of Sharryn] and the [Sunset Family], but those are magickal means of healing.
Where are all the real doctors...?
What does a detective need to do to get an alcohol rubbing?!
...
Maybe Annalie's just hanging out with the [Trono Palido] girls?
I almost have half a mind to ask Madi-san over the phone about this, but considering that I just saw her off cryin' into the rain, maybe we should keep away from each other for a while.
I want to savor my little hard-earned victory, just a little longer, too!
Csping my blue flipphone closed, I guess it would be a lot more easier if the [Trono Palido] girls carried phones with them too.
But we can't all be choosers!
Trudging forward in the rain, here we go!
By the time I reach back to [Main Street], the rain had already stopped. The street that runs through the center of the city passes in a slope under the highest point of New Coimbra. The sides of this hard-bricked street are lined with shops both new and old, offering goods ranging from venerable shopfaces dispying magickal supplements in gss cases to far more modern neon-signage just flickering off in the morning light.
This street is also the only street that completely faces Madi-san's hometown of [Bylon Isnd], you can see the tiny lights of our home for my first two months of arrival, [Starlight Cafe], all the way here! Currently, the sun is on the other side of the sky, but during the te evenings, the sun dips right over Bylon Isnd, making the view truly something to behold! I think I might have shown (You) a picture I took once.
Specifically, we are looking for [Trono Palido's] front operation in a shop called [Hauntsgirl].
From where I am at, at the highest point of the slope, it eventually fttens out into a less steep incline before winding into the [Main Street: Shopping Alleys] at the lower levels of New Coimbra. This city seems to be built on yers and yers of older foundations, more modern housing but still distinctively red-roofed housing occupying the higher points of town.
All except this thing that I am passing now.
It is a statue.
A statue carved in complete white.
Even after being beaten by the rain, there isn't a speck of grime of faltering in her posture,
the peek of a single thighed sole peeking out of a still but billowingly carved full-body cloak.
This is a statue of a woman.
Her long hair is exposed behind a one-eyed mask that obscures her face.
Below the ivory-white pedestal she is pced, the pque there reads out:
The statue of the Lord Protector,
one of the two unnamed heroes of the [Princess Wars].
The first of the [Founding Princesa's] companions
who established Vespana's foundations.
'Revere the past, so that we may protect the future.'
There's a whole visual novel about the /Madness/ Madi-san got up to involving this statue, but I'll leave it to you to read '>The Madness of Madison Deroux' and find out!
You realized it too right?
Who this person is, and her connection to [Trono Palido].
That's not Oracion by the way.
The Lord Protector is a mythical figure who founded [Trono Palido] five hundred years ago.
The connection is murky to me, but the white cloaks they wear are their calling card.
It can be said that the [Trono Palido] girls in Oracion, Annalie and Val-sama are the successors of her legacy.
Well! I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on Vespana history here!
You have to go to hentaibird, the current Master of [Trono Palido] for that!
Hang on.
Why didn't I notice this before?
The st line is a quote.
And... there's a cited name right at the very bottom.
I kneel down to squint at the very faded name, the only disappeared and old thing about this pedestal...
When I do, shock registers over your small and cute detective's face...
I... know that name.
We all do.
With trembling fingers, I trace out the contours of this forgotten name,
'Revere the past, so that we may protect the future.'
/>/ - Morganna Fayde, The First Lord Protector
Go Go And Learn Moonrunes & Conspiracies With Aya-chan![1]Yokatta-よかった, it means 'thank goodness'! A way to express relief at something! This not the thing I was wearing at the chateau, that's a Yukata, a sort of kimono!
[2] [Cover] - I know this one! Madi-san expined it to me before! When bad guys want to do bad things, but need a way to hide their evil, they will set up businesses that pretend to be doing normal stuff, but are actually doing shady stuff behind the scenes! That is a [Cover], or a [Front Organization]!
