shellphones | Information Collecting [Lonely Lighthouse quest]

Type: Text
Sender ID: crystalrepose (Miriam)
To: Public
Subject: Information Collecting
Warnings: N/A for now

Greetings,

I’m called Miriam; I’m one of several who’s been investigating the disappearance of the villagers from Marrowmouth, down the coast from the lighthouse. Though I do not know all of you, I believe I have information to share instead of feeling as though I’m chasing shadows.

Whatever took all these people also took the village’s boats, save for one too mired in red seaweed to be salvageable. There was a cut net on board, however—and the net was surrounded by a binding circle. To keep an entity contained—or trap those who came along to look into the matter. Which almost happened to me.

The crimson seaweed that washed up on the shore has its origins further out to sea; its stalks go far deeper into the water than any kelp forest I’ve seen, and it doesn’t seem attached to anything. Large mats of it drift wherever the current takes them. They feel...unpleasant to touch, but the worst is what hides within them. Predatory fish, some from my world. A group of hostile mer has made exploring the sargassum a bit troublesome.

If you’ve uncovered other information, I’d be glad to hear it. Others may find it useful, as well.

P.S. I’ve found what that antivenom was for, Sherlock.

((OOC: Further information has been gathered here! This is part of a leadup into a player plot development next month. And feel free to threadjack around this post if a subject of interest comes up.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The more I read your notes on this, the more I think we've got some sort of ocean demon on our hands... If there's such a thing as ocean demons? This is all still bad news.

I'm not great at this research stuff. But I want to keep helping here.

Your help is very much appreciated, Zack. I'm also better out in the field; Sherlock and Zelda are helping me where my research skills are lacking.

But with all the things the ocean seems to contain I'd honestly be more surprised if there weren't demons in it.

But--you bring up a good point. That binding circle on the boat--it was the same kind the Guild used to manage a summoned demon. Why would it be there after the fact?

Well, together we make up for a pretty good mini crew for this.

So you're thinking this binding circle was ... Keeping something in? [Keyword- Was.]

Something got out and it left the circle behind. Maybe.

Yes. But circles like that usually go inactive once breached. This one was repaired after whatever it was escaped.

I've had binding circles just like this one used against me in the past, and they're also the same Enochian as what keeps my crystal sealed.

Edited 2026-05-13 01:45 (UTC)

Did someone use a circle like this against you? How.

Does this mean... Someone is in charge of this circle?

My crystal is enough to count, it seems. My f-

Alfred, he's the one who enscribed the Enochian bindings on my crystals to stop their advance. He also used the same script writ large to try and keep me away from a castle he was going to demolish.

But he is

not here. No one from the Guild should be. The Alchemists' Guild was destroyed a decade before I arrived here.

I have only taught a few here what Enochian is, and I don't suspect them at all.

[Zack is only learning he has more questions than comments, now.]

Then we don't exactly have a lead on who's dealing with these circles, now. Or why they're even here in the first place.

Do you know how to get rid of them, at all?

Yes, and I can show you. Just be certain that you want whatever is contained to be freed. Those bindings made of chalk or paint are simple to unmake; those carved are harder, unless they're still inactive. The one aboard the fishing boat was drawn quickly.

If you're already trapped, your options are fewer; overwhelming the circle's power with your own, or hoping for outside intervention to break the circle. Wriothesley was able to get me out of that one before the boat sank.

Edited 2026-05-19 21:17 (UTC)

What manner of creature was it used for?

Are you certain that the fish are from your world and not a species that normally lives in this world?

The mer out in the sargassum are lionfish-like--stingers and all. They might be the stripers the village's records talked about.

The antivenom works quickly at the surface. I didn't spend too much time facedown in the boat.

[Because of course Miriam threw herself at them. There were others she needed to protect, that's like waving a red flag at a bull.]

There may yet be other monsters, but of these I'm very certain. I know those teeth, and those eyes. The Guild called them forneus.

[Attached is a sketch of the biblically accurate coelacanth.]

They're voracious, and their bite is as cold as ice.

The appearance of that fish here carries certain implications about what the rifts bring to this world. It would explain in part why new creature related disasters occur with some frequency.

[ That fish is horrifying. Sherlock will gladly leave it be in the water and away from him. ]

When you looked around town, did you also find that people had left matters as they were upon disappearing? I found food left out and other projects as they were. No amount of tidying or cleaning up was attempted before they disappeared.

[ Although, Sherlock is one to talk because of the mess his rooms tend to be in. ]

Whatever it is, it has managed to abduct the villagers without much of a fight. When Thancred and I explored the village, we found a lot of houses empty, as if people had just walked out and left. There was some effort to stop whatever the effect was as we found barriers in the basements, but it was almost like they were voluntarily deconstructed.

In some of the houses farther back from the shore, we found the message of "don't listen" scrawled on the walls.

I have to admit, it was rather upsetting.

I'm sorry you had to see that.

The...well, the rats in the village also mentioned something about hearing an unfamiliar voice. We're not certain if it was my friend they were hearing, but one of them started getting very distressed.

And I did hear...humming, from the sargasso sea. But if it was a siren's call it wasn't a very powerful one; I felt nothing from it, and it sounded more like a mer practicing. Maybe it was different below the waves, but the humming had stopped by the time I got in the water.

So, whatever it was, we can assume it was coming from the water?

Perhaps there was a time when it was stronger. And that's what called people away.

I admit, I don't know much about Sirens.

[But he is trying.]

It seems like it. I think that fishing vessel might have dredged something up best left forgotten.

The sirens I've encountered in this world range from entirely harmless to somewhat troublesome; these might be somewhere in between. These mer we encountered quickly chose violence over song.

Isn't that always the case?

[it certainly hits a little closer to home than he would like.]

It sounds like whatever it is, we should probably be on our guard and prepare for the worst.

Information Collecting [Lonely Lighthouse quest]

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