“The term ‘outer ones’ refers to us being immortal, unaging, and exempt from the cycle of reincarnation. Everything relating to the Cthulhu mythos, including my own race, is part of ‘the Stellura family of the outer ones.’”
“The Stellura family?”
“You’ll see it if you use Identify. Our ‘family’ shows who we’re devoted to.”
“Oh, you mean the ‘family’ part of your taxonomy!”
“Here, this is mine, and here’s the Pup Lord’s information.”
“Wow, you’re right. It’s really a ‘Stellura family.’ But why does it say Mh’ithrha is a lower class? That’s gotta be a lie.”
“I had the same thought, but his race is a Lord of Tindalos, after all. He’s referred to as the arch-lord because he’s at the top of that race.”
If my theory is right, these fanatics will be incurring the wrath of the higher-ups and will probably be attacked by whatever they manage to summon. I don’t know if killing the fanatics alone will be enough to satisfy their summon’s rage.
“The easiest method would be to allow the fanatics to summon their being and let them get killed off, but that’s not in our control. I think we have no choice but to stop the summoning. We might actually be able to reason with the Our Ladies of Sorrow, but I’m not sure about Shub-Niggurath, as I haven’t met her yet,” I explain.
“Our Ladies of Sorrow look like humans, so they might not be too bad. I dunno how we’d reason with something like Shub-Niggurath though.”
“And consider her size against the few dozen fanatics who summoned her.”
Information has been shared with you.
Analysis of the fanatics’ documents is underway (Shub-Niggurath).
Shub-Niggurath possesses a servitor race known as the Dark Young.
Approach the Dark Young with a gift for Shub-Niggurath, and they will rebuild you into the Blessed of Shub-Niggurath.
“Ah, so we’re gonna get information bit by bit as we make more progress.”
“Maybe that means we can learn the bare minimum of what we need before we actually finish deciphering.”
“But they probably ordered it so that the final pieces of information are the most helpful.”
“I like how they’ve stopped calling them ‘the suspicious group’ and switched to ‘fanatics.’”
“Oh, you’re right.”
“I assumed the Dark Young would be here if Shub-Niggurath is. But the Blessed of Shub-Niggurath are here too?”
“They deliver presents? How lovely!”
“It’s not lovely at all!”
“Just imagine how grotesque it’d be if the Blessed don’t retain a human form.”
“Aren’t the Blessed of Shub-Niggurath’s appearances assigned at random? This is an all-ages game, so they probably still look human, or at least somewhat human.”
“Are you implying that this game pulls its punches when it comes to creepy appearances?”
“Um, I guess not. I shouldn’t get my hopes up.”
“Good idea.”
Right, the Shoggoth were quite visually appalling too. I don’t know how we’d look at them without a filter or any special resistance.
Rain started to fall in the early evening, just as the forecast predicted, so I cover up in my cloak. I suppose I could cast Waterproofing Force Field, but I need a use for my cloak too.
The analysis is still underway. But where’s our information about the Our Ladies of Sorrow?
“Is it just me, or is it skipping the ladies?”
“Let’s see what happens once we’re halfway done. Based on the shared information so far, I wonder if this server got the Shub-Niggurath route.”
“Agreed. We’re getting way more information about her than the ladies, so I think it’s safe to assume.”
“Hey, I just got back from building the campfire.”
“Oh, good work!”
We mustn’t forget the campfire. The residents keep it up themselves, but it seems safest to help out if we want our S clear. Our non-magic using union members assist by transporting lumber and assembling the campfire.
Now that they’ve finished, they join us in deciphering the documents.
Information has been shared with you.
Progress has been made in analysis of the fanatics’ documents (Shub-Niggurath).
You have determined a suitable location for the summoning.
Search the mountain deep within the eastern forest near the outskirts of Howard Town.
The summoning is believed to be planned for 6 p.m. on your third day in town.
If you wish to take even more precautions, you can do further research to look for additional countermeasures against the fanatics.
Deciphering the documents any further is likely to take more time.
You have obtained a suitable time for a summoning to occur.
A countdown leading up to the climax phase has now begun.
“Whooooa!” the group cheers.
“I bet we wouldn’t have gotten the countdown in time if we took too long getting through 50 percent of Shub-Niggurath’s document, huh?”
“Probably not. I wonder what happens then? Does the summoning just happen without any warning, or does the countdown show up right before it instead?”
“Please don’t tell me we have to fight a defensive war against Shub-Niggurath in the east.”
“There’s no SAN stat in this game, so we can probably run away. But I doubt we’re clearing any quests if we let the town get destroyed or something. That’d be pretty sad.”
Information has been shared with you.
Progress has been made in analysis of the fanatics’ documents (Our Ladies of Sorrow).
You appear to be lacking vital information.
In all likelihood, the fanatics aren’t attempting to summon Our Ladies of Sorrow.
* These documents cannot be deciphered any further. Try another document instead.
“Ah, we can’t decipher that one anymore.”
“So all we know is their names and the fact that they exist?”
“Now we can focus solely on Shub-Niggurath!”
The problem is that our deciphering speed has dropped off dramatically for the Shub-Niggurath document. Well, perhaps the devs accounted for that, knowing we’d all switch to one priority at this point.
We have the bare minimum of information we’ll need, leaving us time to search for something to use as a countermeasure. At this rate of deciphering, we would have never garnered enough information if we’d started much later.
That also means that, the more we continue to decipher, the easier the climax will be on us.
“Why don’t we split up for now? The rain is starting to come down harder, and I think we should patrol the area now that the sun’s down.”
“We still need to make progress on the document, but it feels like a bad idea to skip out on patrols,” I add.
“I’d like to patrol if possible too.”
“Magic users can work on deciphering while the muscle-heads go on patrol.”
“I’d also like to add lookouts to the lumber storage shed,” I tell the others.
“Right, to keep out the fanatics we didn’t capture. Let’s send lookouts to the shed, the empty house, and the entrance to the abandoned mine.”
“Sounds like a plan. The lookouts can keep deciphering so long as they sit and chat among themselves. They don’t actually need to capture the fanatics either. We can probably send two parties to the empty house and the abandoned mine based on the limited number of entrances.”
“The sky would be a good place for lookouts too,” I suggest.
As we plan where we’ll station the lookouts, the rain starts to come down much harder than its previous drizzle.
“Ms. Clementia is definitely enjoying this,” I speculate.