[ti]private[/ti]the shadow over innsmouth [s][c]

Normally he knew the other would come riding in on the back of any Pokémon he had out at the time, but—wait. Wait, hold up, time the fuck out.

“What happened to you?” he blinked, making sure he’d sent the message to the correct person and double-checking the direct message he’d received. What in the name of—

“What the hell,” he mouthed a few moments later. “Unless I’m tripping, how do I know you’re Josh Devlin?”

Another blaringly obvious fact that something was wrong: his feet were touching the ground.

(Why did this look like another scenario at another roadside café?)

He would blink, confusion still on his face at least until the other started perusing the menu—he’d have to take this kid’s word for it that he was indeed, the very same Josh he’d explored with.

“You literally turned tail and made a run for it,” he would nod along quietly, once someone had come over to take the new arrival’s order and was on their way. “You literally bailed at the last second. Humor me—is cosmic horror, or the entire cosmic horror genre as a whole, something that doesn’t sit well with you?”

Josh Devlin

“Geez, did you go swimming for an extended period of time or something?” he would ask the other. Pruny fingers were some of the absolute worst to have, all things considered.

(Heck, they even managed to capture the sensation of pruny fingers in virtual reality? Talk about technology advancement.)

“Wait, what? The guy who had a smaller-than-usual Kyogre?” he would blink, before seeing another direct message appear on his end—that settled it, this short kid was indeed the very same Josh Devlin.

“Yeah, I got the test message. Geez, you really want to ride anything and everything, huh, is that why you shrunk yourself down like that?” he would confirm with the other.

The first thing that would be delivered to their table would be their drinks—a strawberry milkshake for the literal kid, and his own frothy, yellow concoction of banana and mango. Well, the two fruits were close in flavor profile in the real world, so who knew how this mess was going to taste when he tried it?

(The fun of virtual reality—eating food and not gaining a single pound!)

“Alright, so… you fled right after… I remember Hanzo told me that when the downpour picked up, he yelled at you to get the hell out of there and. He followed after me, because from what I think he told me, I just… jumped out of the second-floor straight into… water.”

Josh Devlin

He hadn’t gotten that far yet when it came to the ‘personal’ modifications; because as much as he wanted to make himself a ranged spell caster, he knew he had to at the very least unlock the Tank class to a sustainable level where his companions could protect him from aggressive attacks.

“Yes. We did,” he would nod quietly as he took a sip of the frothy yellow concoction.

When the other bemoaned their luck against Alicia Westfield, he would sigh.

“You’re not thinking outside of the box far enough. Do you legitimately need a legendary Pokémon to be able to take her down in combat? You’re just… punishing yourself too much. Think. What else are Dragon-types weak to?”

He would wait for the other to answer as he took another sip of his drink.

“And speaking of… you really don’t feel comfortable with eldritch horrors, do you?” he would confirm a few moments afterward.

Josh Devlin

He idly wondered what kind of gameplay settings the blonde had active, because—he didn’t encounter any kind of ‘level requirement’ when it came to popping his Pokémon up when it was time to evolve. He just—let them evolve when they wanted to.

“Maybe there’s some other condition you haven’t met yet,” he would sagely hum. He knew that Dragon-types were an ass and a half to evolve because of the excruciatingly painful level curve they employed—why do you think he still had a Dratini despite all that—but still.

“You went and got a Bagon without me? Damn, man, I’m wounded,” he continued; his eyebrows quirking at the mention of the name.

The moment the other reacted the way they did when he mentioned eldritch horror, his suspicions were confirmed.

“So I guess you’re not a fan of anything H.P. Lovecraft, then,” he added.

“Because when we got to… to the very end of it all, everything started falling together and making sense. They were all turned into fish.”

Josh Devlin

“Either they still have the same conditions to evolve in-game, or they nixed that option and made it all available from the start and left it up to us to decide when we evolve our companions,” he hummed.

(Truth be told, he knew that Hanzo was the one who wanted to get strong quickly, and had agreed to evolve so early so that at least someone among the myriad traveling with the white-haired ‘elfin’ was strong enough to protect him, and everyone else.)

“I only have one Ice-type attack, and it’s on my black Gyarados. You think I’m a fool for rushing in alone?” he would snark back. There was no way he was going to risk it, especially when it came to… damn. They really were missing one type subclass, and it had to be the most powerful one, to boot!

“Okay, so I don’t know if you took up or had any literature classes in university, so… haven’t you noticed why the name of that quest was ‘the Shadow over Asper’?” he would pose the hypothetical question.

After a few moments of silence, he would answer the question if the other was stumped.

“That’s because it was, quite literally, an allegory for Lovecraft’s the Shadow over Innsmouth. Story about a guy who went back to his ‘hometown’, only for things to start going really weird. And then it was the fish creatures. All of the townspeople turned into fish creatures after a certain point in their lives.”

Did he have to give the other the rundown for the actual story before making the comparisons in-game?

Josh Devlin

And there he was again with the one-track mind!

“You may say that now, but wait until they drop that… the option to fight a Very Rare Pokémon in the Arena,” he would hum. There was word on the street that there was some kind of special Colossal Battle coming soon, however the main problem here was that it involved most likely the highest-leveled players that were active across the North American server.

“Who knows what a Very Rare battle out there looks like when it finally drops. Not everything can brute-forced alone, you know?” he added. He’d seen this before—almost all the time in Eorzea, if he was being honest.

About how the roulettes would always come out of nowhere with some surprise mechanic that everyone had forgotten, and was forced to rely on all of a sudden.

(This was why he was always saving Sidra’s ass whenever they ran their weekly roulettes there. She would insist on always taking the lead, and he’d be forced to go on the defensive and save her proverbial ass from being owned!)

“They never taught you anything about Lovecraft? Odd. Weird-ass lit class you had. Well, since you don’t know the rundown, might as well give you the entire thing.”

He would clear his throat before taking a sip from the frothy shake to gather his thoughts.

“Alright, so we have our average Plain John here, right? He decides it’s time to check out this place he’d found off the beaten path—the story calls him Robert, but you’re free to interpret whatever the name of the person is since the name ‘Robert Olmstead’ was only in Lovecraft’s footnotes for this. Anyway, the place, hilariously—or ironically, don’t know which is your forte—is called Innsmouth. This place, built near the water, used to be prosperous shipbuilding center and port of call.”

He would take a few moments to compose himself with another sip of the shake, before he continued.

“However, after the War of 1812, the place started falling into decline. People around the other nearby villages put it down to some hocus pocus, superstitious shit—which, ding ding—was apparently true all along. But you know how fictional folk love coloring their tales to attract the crowds. Anyway, there’s like, only one human occupant in the entire place asides from the narrator himself, though the rest of the ‘people’ that live in Innsmouth just leave him alone because he’s a drunk. Take note of that fact—that this guy’s a drunk—because it’ll be important once I get to the next part.”

Before he could continue, though, they were interrupted with the arrival of their food.

Oh, god, that smelled fantastic.

Josh Devlin