“Hey there. Right now, we only know how to get a forecast at the exact hour on the dot. Also, the further out the forecast is, the less accurate it seems to be.”
“And we don’t know about its modifiers or anything else yet?”
“Nope, not yet. You have to get Air Magic or Storm Magic up to level 30 to get the spell.”
“Derivatives of Wind Magic? So I’m entirely excluded from these branches.”
“You can’t take those because of your race, right? That’s quite a heavy penalty,” he says to me.
“But I make up for it by having very strong Light Magic and Dark Magic. I suppose I can’t complain.”
It sounds like the weather forecasting spell is out of my grasp. Well, my race isn’t particularly affected by weather in the first place.
“It’s gonna rain? We won’t get much EXP from hunting, so maybe the devs really do want us to sit down and decipher all this stuff.”
“The EXP reaped from an S clear shall more than make up for it, my liege.”
“Exactly.”
“We should prepare places to sleep now, before the rain gets here.”
“Let’s dig holes!”
“How about not?”
“We tried that in the camping event.”
“Yeah, the one where we got flooded, right?”
“That really sucked,” everyone groans at once.
I thought the camping event was quite fun. At this point in time, I can also flee into subspace to escape the rain.
“Hey, whatever happened with the cat and those pumpkins?”
“Who knows?” the group replies.
“Maybe the devs will explain them when the event’s finished.”
“Knowing them, they’ll probably answer if we just ask.”
“They definitely would,” the group agrees.
“The main event’s probably going to lead us to Shub-Niggurath or the ladies, right? It definitely won’t be the final fight, but if they do arrive, I think it’ll be tonight.”
“Yeah, maybe. That Krust… What’s it called again? Anyway, did anyone try solving that equation?”
“It’s the Kruschtya Equation, and only individual players can solve it. The entire server doesn’t share the solution. So yeah, it sounds impossible.”
“Besides, you probably drop dead the second you work it out.”
“Let’s try it, Princess!”
“Are you sure this is a good place for it?” I ask.
“Don’t get the rest of us mixed up in this.”
“Even with minimal damage, you should still die.”
“But the damage would have to be extreme if even Princess died.”
“Fear not, it’s just a fatal wound.”
“It’s too late for fear to stop anything at this point.”
In the TRPG, you become Nyar once you solve the Kruschtya Equation. It’s not a matter of gaining new information—it’s really more like a transformation.
“I think you lose all SAN and have your intelligence and education stats turn into Nyar’s values. If we do receive knowledge here, it could be like a new skill or something? Hmm…”
“Losing all sanity likely means an instant death in this game, as the character dies as an individual when they lose all SAN in the TRPG. I doubt we’d be able to run from Nyar once he arrives either,” I speculate.
“Yeah, there’s no way. The only person who might have a chance is you, Princess.”
“He would merely click his tongue at me and leave.”
“Actually, I’d like to see that.”
“But don’t you think he’d come after us if he sees us standing nearby?”
“Yeah, for sure,” the whole group agrees.
“It doesn’t seem like him to just leave without trying something first.”
Yes, the beings who dwell in the Medium do seem quite bored, after all.
“I dunno much about Cthulhu stuff. What is ‘Nyar,’ exactly?”
“He’s a being named Nyarlathotep,” I begin.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe it would be faster to describe him as the character that Nyaruko is based on. Although, this game mostly draws from the original stories, so obviously, he’s not a cute young girl here.”
“Oh yeah, I know that anime series.”
“To put it simply, he’s something of a nuisance who, despite his unparalleled strength, enjoys driving people to madness by granting them knowledge,” I explain.
“He’s also referred to as Crawling Chaos and The Faceless God. He has a thousand avatars with different personalities that can actually exist at the same time. I even hear they battle each other sometimes.”
“Nyarlathotep is incredibly intelligent. One could say that he looks down on everyone else but himself.”
“Okay, got it. He’s an evil, troublesome sort of guy.”
“That’s all the information you’ll need to get by.”
Only those with personalities similar to Nyar can fully comprehend him, after all.
Information has been shared with you.
Analysis of the suspicious group’s documents is underway.
Instead of summoning the inactive gods who never appear before mankind, they are attempting to summon mythical beings witnessed throughout civilization for millennia—the outer ones.
Pray to the outer ones, not the dormant gods. Rulers should be the strongest beings of all, and they must lead from the very top of all hierarchies.
…These are the beliefs the group shares blindly.
“All right, but who exactly are they praying to? Do they intend to make the outer ones their kings? This is no sane group of people, that’s for sure. Strength and political ability are completely different traits,” I remark.
“Well, yeah, I guess that’s what makes them ‘fanatics.’”
“Shall we send them all to the Medium? I’m sure they’ll wail with joy. The Medium’s inhabitants will also be pleased to have new to—I mean, new visitors after so long,” I suggest.
“Were you about to call them ‘toys?’”
“No, you must have misheard me.”
“Sis, should you be letting your character slip like that?”
“Ah, no, probably not. I don’t think I can let these fanatics off the hook now that I know what they’re planning, so I’m seriously considering sending them to the Medium.”
“What’s giving you pause?”
“Well, I’m speculating outcomes based on the Medium inhabitants I’ve met so far…”
As a member of the Stellura family, I feel personally attacked by this.
Outer ones, at a fundamental level, worship the gods. Almost every character in this game based on Cthulhu serves Stellura in particular.
Yog-Sothoth, the basis for Stellura, is enemies with the Lords of Tindalos and related characters in the TRPG, but that’s not the case in this game. Mh’ithrha, the Arch-Lord of Tindalos, has actually helped me out quite a bit.
Long ago, worshippers of Stellura, the vice-goddess, evolved into beings based on the Cthulhu mythos. That’s probably because Stellura herself is based on Yog-Sothoth, the viceroy god.
When these beings stopped being “normal”—though I’m not certain they were all humans before their evolution—Stellura created the realm known as the Medium and brought them there to live. This was because humans can be cruel to other races, and it probably creeped them out to see those who used to be humans lurking about.
Thus, the goddess they worshipped granted these beings a place where they belonged and introduced them to others who were just like them. I’m sure it was none other than an act of divine salvation to them. That’s why their gratitude toward Stellura is so strong—strong enough that they obey even Nyarlathotep without any disdain for him.
“In other words, the outer ones were all individuals who went through an evolution just like I did.”
“So they weren’t born like that?” Rina asks.