prismatica | text; un: camliax

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text; un: camliax

Greetings, fellow travelers! Or captives. Or whatever you choose to call this strange little commune we've found ourselves in.

I am Sypha, a Speaker and an adventuring scholar. I'm one of the crop of recent arrivals, so I thought it would make sense to introduce myself. Most people seem to use this board for personal advertisements and posing profound existential questions. This isn't...not that, but it's a bit of something different, too.

I'm looking for help with my scholarly pursuits, and I'd like to to learn more about this place. Specifically, how it used to be. I get the impression that very few records from that time have survived, if any at all, but if you know where to find information that could help me start to piece it all together, I would greatly appreciate the assistance from our city elders. 😉

If you don't have knowledge of primary sources, I'll also gladly listen to any local legends you might have heard. Strange as it seems, there may well be a grain of truth hidden in every off-the-wall story. Heck, if you have any boogeymen from your own worlds you're eager to chat about, I suppose I can listen to those stories, too! Not that studying can't be exciting, but it'd be nice to have something else to do while I'm here.

So! Ancient history, local legends, distractions from daily chaos...or perhaps other things you think may be important! If any of those sound like something you'd know about, and you're willing to share, I'm eager to collaborate.

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i know about boogeymen and fairytales 🙃

but not from here because i am new too, hah

Fair enough! I can hardly expect every new person here to have everything I'm looking for. And being upside down must be dizzying enough. 😋

Tell me about the scariest one you do know, then.

hahaha it feels upside-down here... this device is also new to me, ha 🙃🙂🙃 i just found the faces today! so many!

depends. what scares you?

So many. 💁🏼

There isn't too much that scares me. Not nowadays. Maybe something that stalks around in the darkness, taking its prey? Oh, with too many legs!

but exactly. let's pace it, though... 👹 👺 🕷

where i am from, there is a darker realm, unbeknownst to most humans — a vicious world of demons and apparitions, just parallel to theirs, connected, entwined, simultaneous, yet most humans are still dangerously unawares. A spirit barrier, a net of sorts, protects the humans from these youkai's bloodlust — but for a long time, that safety net was quite a bit weaker, and many youkai slipped into the human world to hunt and play, often just on a chaotic whim. Now, youkai are powerful apparitions of endless forms and natures; many are truly the stuff of nightmares, trauma incarnate. But we'll focus on just one, whom you asked for almost by name. An apparition the humans call Jorogumo.

As youkai live on, they become stronger — and live for centuries upon centuries, if they're actually strong. imagine a simple spider, like any — but spiders that survive. and survive. And grow. and grow. over four hundred years, a simple spider betrays its seemingly harmless nature. until what a human may once have thought was an innocent pest in their home, will have grown hideously to the size of a cow. and while it may still be a pest in their home, it's certainly no longer an innocent one. After four hundred years of survival, flies and insects are not enough to satiate such a creature — so, a huntsman just as any spider, jorogumo became experts in hunting humans. but people are no more than so many flies to these youkai. the sheer, cold cunning of their nests ensured an endless food supply. the spider demons became so excellent at trapping humans in their elaborate webs, it became practically a sport for them. typically, Jorogumo favored waterfalls, weaving beautiful nests of invisible, silken snares, enchanting unwitting humans toward their deathly homes... but these spiders are too smart to sit waiting beside a lake, in solitude, hungry. so jorogumo claimed a new home, right in the middle of busy human cities... abandoned shrines, unused inns, maybe the empty house of someone recently dead... somewhere in plain sight. somewhere comfortable. somewhere welcoming. feasting for years and years, a skillful operation in collecting corpses behind closed doors. jorogumo laced itself so seamlessly into human society, truly a part of the community, ha...

but i'm sure you're wondering how a monstrous 400-year-old spider demon the size of a cow is getting on undetected enough in the human cities to live in such lavish bloodshed. of course, they had a technique.

[ ~*~pause for dramatic effect~*~ ]

Edited 2020-08-07 10:14 (UTC)

[Well. This guy is a proper wordsmith himself. Sypha has some questions, not the least of which is the one he mentioned, but she'll see this story through to the end. She thinks about fighting some grand battle with a giant demon spider, flying around its web. She tries not to think about the suffering that would surround it, not keen to remind herself of her own past failures.]

I was going to say it would be bizzare to greet a giant demon spider like they were a village neighbor. But I have my hunches, and you have my interest.

Let me guess...skin suits? This is why I always step on spiders.

[ Sypha's not the only one hard up for entertainment and distractions in this place. ]

not quite. and if you were in this story, knowing what you know now, i'd strongly advise against that step. jorogumo knew such a covert operation required utter silence, no whispers, no murmurs, no suspicion. jorogumo had honed all sorts of abilities in over 400 years — the least of which, honestly, was the ability to control hoards of normal spiders. Jorogumo would often call out to the average spiders to do their bidding, an open web of communication, pardon the pun. any time villagers started to wonder too much, talk too much, jorogumo sent its spiders to burn down those people's houses. you see, back then, fires were a lot more common — lots of wood buildings, paper walls, oil lanterns, it wasn't so unbelievable or uncommon if a house caught aflame spontaneously. and how unfortunate if everyone inside perished in the flames, as if there'd been seemingly no chance for rescue at all — so it goes... but who would ever consider for even a moment that a tiny, normal spider was the secret arsonist? jorogumo covered its tracks well, masters of stealth. because it couldn't risk its clever cover being blown by mere gossip.

Edited 2020-08-08 10:10 (UTC)

but no, you're not quite right about the skinsuits, though — give these demons more credit, they seem far more terrifying than that, don't they? that makes it sound simple, like a costume, ha. these apparitions are far more elaborate than that cheap trick... their expertise lies not only in nesting and hunting; shapeshifting is their true specialty. even if the jorogumo could not find an empty house to nest in... no bother. these apparitions could even manifest themselves into enchanted structures, manipulating their own demonic energy, splitting their form ethereally, inactive yet active, the insides decorated to the nines with its invisible silken lacework as always, full of life eager to be full of death. they blended in just as well as any other house in the city, but were in fact alive, expectant, and inviting. wherever they'd nested, real or projected, there was always a most gracious host to welcome in her guests: who else but a gorgeous maiden? young men are the favorite food of the jorogumo — particularly headstrong young samurai with too much of a taste for adventure, and even more delicious, the amorous young bushi who couldn't resist the gaze of a beautiful woman. Like so many young men cannot. what else do young human boys do but seek thrills of one sort or another? jorogumo was always pleased to oblige their blind ambitions. but as you can imagine, still there are tactics upon tactics at play... cute boyfriends don't ever just walk up to your door, after all, in any context, right? heh. unfortunately.

[ storytime with shishiwakamaru, sup lol, all about that timing... ]

[It takes Sypha some time to respond. She reads over what he's written again and again, parsing the language and the weight of the story, trying to rationalize it all in her head against what she knows, not quite believing any of this is but a tall tale, dashing that aside because of weird bullshit alien planet rules. Wondering what she even is meant to say in response.]

Well, it's an entertaining story. Though I can't imagine normal-sized spiders with little matches and firebombs. Unless I'm meant to believe they set the fires with their mind? Smart little things.

Funny how you know so much about them, if they're meant to be invisible to the plain eye.

[ Shishi's entertaining himself, frankly. He's pausing just to play with her more than anything. ]

they set fires with their energy. not so dissimilar, for our narrative purposes at least.

well, as for my knowledge... i've met a number of jorogumo over the years. a few were really quite witty in fact hah, but all very entertaining hosts.

which brings us to their next talent, actually. shall i continue?

Ah, of course you have.

You may.

as I said, the jorogumo are excellent hosts. They must find a way to entice their prey into their nests, though. they took many techniques here, so i'll describe just a few — and i find this one quite beautiful. sometimes, the gorgeous woman would capture the heart of a shallow young man, and she'd tease him and play with him, stringing him along with her charms and caresses. every day, the enchanted young men would come to pay her a visit, but she was a coy flirt, and kept telling them all "another time, another time," refusing to ever let them fully in, which just kept driving them back... day after day, the men became weaker, sicker, and more obsessed with her beauty. indeed, it still was always a treat to see them, as jorogumo had been savoring their deaths slowly. unbeknownst to her infatuated gentlemen callers, the lovely lady's venom had been working its magic on them day by day.. they'd give up their wives, families, jobs, lives, everything, just in the hopes of courting this vision of beauty, killing themselves by virtue of their love for her. by the time she finally allowed them the amorous chance they'd begged for so eagerly for so long, the men were nearly drunk to death on the poison of their own passion... their veins virtually full of venom now, they wouldn't have been long for this world no matter what, even if jorogumo didn't devour them the moment the door closed.

but of course these are merely snacks, mind you. one can't get by on snacks alone. 🙃

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