Thanks, Ben [Mingle]

[saveournpcs]

Date: 4th of January 20, 3 hours after everyone came out of the cavesCharacters: OPEN

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Three hours after everyone came out of the caves, an earthquake of the magnitude 5.7 shakes the echo boundary.

Up on the ruins, a single block from one of the lower walls gets dislocated and falls.

Down in the city and villages, things go a bit worse. A couple of sheds collapse, things fall over and off things, and some houses are left with cracks in their walls and might end up condemned. A number of telegraph poles fall over and a few on cars. There's three injured and no fatalities over all, and a few related car accidents because people got distracted that again go without fatalities.

...And, of course, the Media are back. The next day, the Sun titles "IS THERE A NEW CRACK IN THE EARTH'S CRUST??? Another earthquake strikes Mossgate 4 houses condemned, 10 admitted to hospital, powerlines down", but newspapers with more journalistic integrity send reporters as well.

Someone else is back, too - Numbered will see Mr Neutral, Mr Evil and Mr Helpful wander the streets.

Comments

Mister Helpful

[spaghettimonster]

At some point in the day, after Benjiro's well-being is resolved, Russell heads back to the cliffside where Mr. Helpful revealed some surprising information.

After all, today he's learned a few other surprising things, and this seems like the best place to take some binoculars and search for signs of giant sharks in the water. He could have gone elsewhere to do this looking, but the possibility of crossing paths and sharing some information is a dim hope in his mind.

[saveournpcs]

As he climbs the hill, it just so happens that Mr Helpful is also on top of the cliff.

He looks up when he hears someone approach and smiles at Russell. "Good afternoon."

[spaghettimonster]

Russell brightens at the sight of him, mainly because of the vindication of it. Finally, he's predicted something of these guys correctly.

"Good afternoon! I was hoping to see you," he says, as if to justify his cheer - especially in light of what else he has to say. "I don't suppose, uh, you're aware of... what's happened lately? The earthquake, and all."

[saveournpcs]

"I am aware of it." And then he points out, with some humour in his voice: "I do currently live here, you know."

(Not that Russell is wrong. He cannot usually be found just wandering the streets.)

[spaghettimonster]

"Right, right, yes. Of course," Russell agrees, trying and not entirely succeeding at reining in his impatience. He glances around, checking for (obvious, visible) eavesdroppers, like ordinary humans, cameras, or mice.

Not seeing any - whether there's any or not, he didn't look that hard - he clarifies: "I mean, how it happened. What we heard down there. All that."

[saveournpcs]

Mr Helpful shakes his head. "I am not. You're the first to tell me about it.

What did you find?" He frowns. "...What did Mr Evil do?" Is that what this is about?

[spaghettimonster]

A sensible assumption to jump to, especially considering the context, but it just drives home that the rest of them can make mistakes sometimes too. Russell tries to smile, likewise not quite succeeding at it.

"Well... Not rightly sure he's involved. Yet." He glances out at the water. "But we, uh. 'Heard' he might be... making a giant shark? Hey, do you interact with the mice at all?"

[saveournpcs]

"....A giant shark." Mr Helpful blinks in surprise, and then creases his forehead. "I will try to investigate that. That would not be good at all.

And no, I do not really. They seem to only wish to interact with your kind."

[spaghettimonster]

"My... Ah. Humans. With numbers. Right." Russell doesn't outright bite his lip, but he considers for a moment. "Well. They, uh, gave us that warning. With a lot of charades... Seemed to think the shark'll pose some danger to, uh, you know. The town. Everything in it. And around it.

And," he looks away toward the river, as best as he understood the others' estimate where the giant mouse is. "...under it."

[saveournpcs]

He tries to put the puzzle pieces of what Russell has said together. "...You found something that the mice did under it?"

[spaghettimonster]

"Probably," Russell confirms, while deciding how to say this. Speaking to a man who claims to be an alien from another planet, he shouldn't be flustered in wording this in a way that sounds sane, yet here he is.

"So. The tunnels go down there - the old ones, from the war. And the mice, some of them are down there. Including... an unusual one. Not rightly sure it's a mouse. It's... a bit large." Something between understatement and sarcasm.

[saveournpcs]

He doesn't look like he's disbelieving, though he does look a bit puzzled. "...A large mouse? How large?"

[spaghettimonster]

"Don't rightly know! I think he said... a mile long? Maybe two." There had been a lot of other alarming details in that conversation.

[saveournpcs]

"...that's not large." That's gigantic. Even to an alien. "I'm pretty sure Earth life forms should not be that big."

[spaghettimonster]

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure of that too. Not except for, you know, fungal networks. Certain sorts of trees." Someone watched some nature program recently. "It sounds mad, doesn't it? I didn't properly see it myself, just a picture, so I can't help but think he was exaggerating... You really haven't heard about that?"

[saveournpcs]

"Not of any specifics, no." He falls quiet.

"...For what it's worth," he picks up again after a little while, "I always assumed that whatever the mystery underground source of all of this was was even bigger than that. Something that encompassed the entire area that's..." He makes a vague hand gesture, "an anomaly. So as giant as this is, it's smaller than I assumed.

This is all assuming that the giant mouse is actually the source of all of this."

[spaghettimonster]

Russell nods, with a pensive glance toward the river. "We're sure it caused the earthquake, but the rest of it... The mice and the echoes, they're linked somehow. The giant mouse itself, it might just be another creature caught up in everything, changed to be... massive. It's hard to say." He bites his lip for a second, then grabs his mobile and unlocks the screen.

"There was cave art down there, I took a few photos... Here." The screen's on a mundane photo of the three mostly humanoid figures around the giant mouse, the handprints of varying shape.

[saveournpcs]

He studies the human figures closely, and then frowns. "That looks like not all of them were human. Not completely at least, any more. But they are very old, aren't they?

...Do you have proof that the giant mouse is linked to the echoes the same way the small ones are?"

[spaghettimonster]

"'Proof?'" Russell echoes, squinting at him. "I don't... that's not what I was looking for. But I suppose, when Benjiro, uh, touched it, he got an echo from it. And not an echo about a giant mouse."

There's the mix of avoiding admitting the context in which Benjiro was climbing on it for hours, the confusion of his imperfect recall of details of whether it was the ordinary sort of echo or something different, and so on.

[saveournpcs]

He frowns in faint confusion. Maybe it's just that his own thoughts had been travelling into a different direction, but...

"Why would you have expected the echo to be about a giant mouse? You think the mouse is related more closely to Benjiro than to everyone else?"