zerotohiro | Some Legends Are Told, Some Turn To Dust Or To Gold [CEREALIA INBOX]

A few hours, but I don't think he'd willingly go off on his own. Not that he could. Sorey was sick and honestly, that idiot can't sneak his way out of a paper bag.

[And Dezel isn't here to windstep/help with any sort of great escape. Sorry, Sorey.]

You think maybe he was kidnapped then or something? [He likes Sorey, but he has to wonder what could have gone wrong.]

Dunno. Maybe. He's been targeted by assassins before.

[Granted, that happened before she joined the party, as they were on their way to Rayfalke, but she's heard of things from the others, and she can't say they surprise her in the least. (And then they met the actual people behind the Scattered Bones...)

Maybe a wind seraph was involved or something, but Dezel's been gone for a while, and she would know if someone like Zaveid was here. Not to mention that they wouldn't do something like that willingly. Wind seraphim can be dumb nerds, but they're the Shepherd's dumb nerds, dammit.]

But there were no signs of struggle, and if there's anything Sorey's good at besides nerding out about ruins, it's putting up a fight.

Assassins? [What the hell Sorey. That's not the point though, that just lends to the fact that this is even weirder than he thought.]

I mean, I'd hope so since he's the Shepherd. I've got an idea to start looking for him, but I'll touch base with Mikleo too to get a better sense of what's going on. Anything else you can tell me about Sorey? You guys haven't been here that long but I know he has…not sure if maybe he mentioned anything.

[A pause.] Mikleo's really not gonna stop at anything to get Sorey back, is he?

Being the Shepherd isn't all fun and sheep.

[But that's all she'll say about the assassins part. Rose might come here one day and...well, it'd be bad to give away the more intimate secrets of her...line of work.]

Nope. They've been together since they were wee Sorey and wee Meebo. Weebo. These device things say that he's not registered anymore, though. Is that common?

[As far as she knows, even if he were kidnapped, that's still no reason for him to be de-registered in what seems to be CERES's system.]

[There's a snort both at the pun and the word Weebo. What, it's funny. The amusement's immediately zapped from him when she continues, however, if only because that's never a good sign.]

…that's really only common if people are pulled back into the Nexus, I think. [That sounds a lot nicer than "gone", doesn't it?] Anybody tell you about that yet?

[There's a slight pause on the other end of the line before she answers, which is already an answer in and of itself.]

Nope. Does it have something to do with our..."code"? The level of technology in Glenwood isn't even half as capable as the technology here, so this "code" stuff isn't something we're familiar with.

[The pain of being from medieval fantasy JRPG canons.]

It's got everything to do with our code. The Nexus is where all of our data is stored and stuff and where CERES keeps us if they decide our code is corrupted or incomplete. They send people there when something's not working right inside the colony. Sometimes people come back right away. Sometimes they don't. According to Mosley my brother and I were both here before and sent back to the Nexus to be fixed before we came back a couple of months ago. I don't remember any of that, but other people have told me that we were both here before.

It's...creepy. I've seen pictures of the inside of the Nexus. People are just hanging there waiting to be rebooted basically. That could be where Sorey is, especially if he's no longer registering as being in the colony.

[There's an even longer pause this time as she tries to take all that information in. What she's really understanding from all that is that Sorey's possibly stuck somewhere, hanging somewhere lifelessly, just waiting to be "rebooted" (she's guessing that it means something close to reawakening)]

...How do we get there.

[It's not a question so much as a demand.]

That's the thing. I haven't found a way yet. [And it's clear that he's frustrated with that. There are people in that Nexus that he wants to rescue, too.] The good and bad thing is that they're not going anywhere. It gives us time to hunt him down.

[She lets out a derisive noise, not at Hiro, but at the situation. The thought of Sorey, or anyone in their little gang (like Dezel; he deserves his salvation and rest but they won't even give him that?), being kept somewhere in some sort of stasis doesn't sit well with her at all.]

It's not going to be easy to get to either, since it's apparently so important. Not the sort of thing you'd leave around in broad daylight. They'd probably have to make the first move or slip up somehow.

[It's annoying, sitting around and twiddling their thumbs for something to happen so they can take advantage of it. She's admittedly way out of her element here, but that won't make her give up.]

A friend of mine told me that a lot of people were dragged into the Nexus a few months ago. I avoided it somehow, and now I kinda wish I hadn't because I could have used the experience to figure out what's going on. Athena couldn't tell me how they got in or out but she showed me pictures of the place. It's…they're not dead. They're just shut down and it's weird. But there's hope to bring them back online if we can figure out where it's located.

My guess is the tower but that tower's huge. And they don't just let anybody in. [There's a huff of his own.] But people sometimes come back on their own. Like when people die here? They're revived in a few days. Maybe we can start figuring out where an access point might be. Something.

Some Legends Are Told, Some Turn To Dust Or To Gold [CEREALIA INBOX]

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