Okay, last LP based chapter for the foreseeable future, from the next one it should start kicking into the proper story. I could've done that better, but working off a pre-existing script in a lot of ways resulted in things expanding through a particular route. That said, there's also times when things have just gone sideways on what I was expecting.

For those wondering about some of the spellings, Word 2010 in UK English apparently doesn't get along with G-Docs for the spelling/grammar/alternate word checkers. Word hates 'cutscene', Gdocs loves it, I got fed up changing it.

As usual, comments, queries and suggestions would be welcomed.

Chapter 9: A Side of Pizza and Murder

"And we're back for the third time today," Hikaru said once everyone was ready to go for the fourth part of the stream. "It's been surprisingly quiet here in Yokosuka," she continued.

"Quiet's a good thing," Rika commented, stretching slightly in her seat. "At least it means that we've got a bit of a break from things going sideways."

Megan nodded. "If you folks are wondering whether you missed anything after we ended the last part of the stream, you didn't, it was mostly us having a break for necessities and chatting a bit about what we'd seen in Realms of the Haunting, which, bear in mind, is a bit longer than you've seen. I only played to the end of chapter two, there's something like fifteen or more in total." She shrugged, rolling her shoulders.

"Which means," Sally said, "that with Crow having finished and Zenith having opted out, it's Naka's turn to play." She gave the dark haired cruiser-girl an amused look. "For those of you that remember she managed to get herself shafted by letting you vote for which game to play and you lot apparently chose Five Nights at Freddy's. As with most of the other games we've played today, it's probably rated 'teen' or '15'; we'd prefer only those over heavy cruiser or eighteen to watch the stream."

"Not that that stopped you two apparently," Rika commented dryly.

"Alright then, I guess the only thing left is to ask, is everyone ready for Freddy?" Hikaru asked the stream audience.

"Poi~?" Yuudachi cocked her head slightly as Hikaru started the game up.

"Hello, hello? Uh, I wanted to record a message for you to help you get settled in on your first night. Um, I actually worked in that office before you. I'm finishing up my last week now, as a matter of fact. So, I know it can be a bit overwhelming, but I'm here to tell you there's nothing to worry about. Uh, you'll do fine. So, let's just focus on getting you through your first week. Okay?" the voice of the infamous 'Phone Guy' sounded out of everyone's speakers as Hikaru started the game.

"Right, quick thing, Naka, get a rhythm now. Cameras, particularly the one pointing at Foxy's area backstage, and doors," Sally said as soon as the introductory speech finished, cutting off questions from the other girls. "Technically you can just lock one door for a chunk of the first night, but that's a bad habit on later nights when they hang around or bash the doors, particularly when you've got all four mobile."

"W-what d-did he mean i-in t-the c-call, poi?" asked Yuudachi.

Megan arched an eyebrow, snorting as Hikaru yelped from seeing Bonnie and Chica off stage. "There's a lot of lore about the game, some of it still hidden even now, some added in as time went on." She frowned, trying to remember things. "Naka, check the kitchen for Chica, I believe stores or toilets for Bonnie. Anyway, history, in the game time line, Freddy's Pizzeria is the last in a line of places. This game is… I think they worked it out to be '93 or '97, not entirely sure which offhand. The animatronics in use have been around a while and are 'quirky' as they put it."

Sally snorted. "Murderous more like, they're as obvious as a frigging mikura ripping itself out of human form." She shifted, frowning at her screen. "There are… I think a dozen or so theorists around that have videos on the game, one of the more prolific being Game Theory, though there are others with their own ideas."

Nodding, Megan took up the thread once more, "Right, thing is, this pizzeria and its predecessors have been having trouble. They can't keep night guards because most don't last a week, either they fail to return or they die, probably due to existing endoskeletons in the suits or the support structure of them. That isn't all though. Six to ten years before, if I'm remembering right, there was an issue where one of the animatronics bit into someone's head."

Sally nodded at the sick looks from the other girls. "Yeah, now think about this," she continued from her sister. "Most of us are shipgirls so we can push our mass up to match our ship-self's displacement and for non-Europeans, a destroyer-girl averages around one-to-three thousand tonnes." She shrugged. "Heck, even escorts or rescue boats are a few hundred tonnes."

"Don't we also have issues with strength?" Robyn asked. "I mean, part of why you're working with me and Minotaur is because we can put our boilers' or our screws' power into our strength or something."

Sally nodded. "Yup, which for most outside of Britain averages around 40-to-60 thousand horsepower," she replied. "I think Germany and France, maybe Italy as well, were looking at larger boilers because of Britain's ships being more powerful than most."

"The first named incident introduced in the FNAF timeline is the 'Bite of '87', an animatronic – and there's arguments about which animatronic – bites into someone's head, crushing or tearing out not only part of the skull, but also the frontal lobe of their brain, screwing that person up for life, and in lore, they actually lived through it," Megan continued, swinging the conversation back to the game's lore.

"Naka, left door, shut it now!" Sally snapped, causing Hikaru to snap out of her disgusted trance from the tale to shut the door on Bonnie, who had been sneaking up on her.

"Yeah though," Sally continued, noting the pale faces of the other destroyers. "That's not even the worst of it. Most of the lore theorists seem to agree that the bite of '87 is one Jeremy Fitzgerald, the guy you play in the second game. During that game, there might be references to something else mentioned in this one, the missing children incident."

Megan nodded, picking up the story, "Five kids went missing from a party one day and soon after the suits started to leak and stink. A lot of people suggest that it's because the suits are where the children, whose bodies were never found, were hidden. Crushed into the mechanisms of the animatronics and influencing their nightly rage against guards."

Mutsuki and Yuudachi went almost green at the thought of that having happened while Hikaru and Rika swallowed thickly.

"I'd heard about that and… fuck! Chica, you sodding bitch!" Hikaru's exclamation drew blinks from the others as they looked up to see her barely managing to shut the door in the face of the animatronic chicken. "Shit, that was too close. Anyway, yeah, I'd heard about some of the lore, but I didn't know all of it."

Sally nodded, "A lot of it is piecemeal so you're constantly trying to figure out what's going on. What people do have, so far, is that at one point the animatronics were made by a pair of engineers, some of them were stored and rented out, others were static."

She frowned, taking a sip of her drink. "There are something like five games at the moment, one of which shows something happened somewhere after mid-1983 and I say that because there's one interactive cut scene that has a TV showing that year, most videos would have to be after the midpoint for there to be a license like that, or they were things made earlier and released to video that year." She shrugged.

"There's also a few things that people have pulled out of the developer, Scott Cawthon's site over the years, usually in the code behind the scenes that can give hints about things," Megan commented dryly. "Like Chica not being one of the original gang or at some point being part of another group in some place called Chica's Party World or something."

"From what can be figured, Freddy's Pizza was one of the first locations, along with a second that was either renting from the same company or something, which is where Chica originally came from," Sally commented.

Both twins quieted as the second night recording from Phone Guy played, explaining how the animatronics would get more active over the course of the week and how Freddy only acted in certain circumstances while Foxy tended to be camera shy.

"We're never really told about everyone," Megan continued once the message ended. "At the sister location you encounter a ballerina and a singer along with Freddy in white and Foxy, or more likely, Mangle as she was supposed to be. That one ends messily; guy gets used as a suit for some amalgam animatronic, which is as disgusting as it sounds." She gave a weak grin at the sudden green looks from several of the others.

"It's thought that's the origin of the so-called 'purple guy'. Whatever happened, later there was a murder at a restaurant where only Freddy was, probably a paedophile or something of that nature, which caused that to shut down, possibly that's when the Chica location got absorbed, possibly it was after the next thing, which was a bite likely somewhere between '83 and '07, on a kid," Sally explained for those listening.

Megan snorted softly. "Boy's brother was a nasty git who bullied the kid and eventually forced his head into the jaw of the golden Freddy that hangs around." She quieted as Hikaru shrieked invective at one of the animatronics that had nearly managed to get into the office while Hikaru was distracted by the story, only to be caught at the last moment. "Jeez, easy, Naka, you're only on the second night."

"Don't remind me," Hikaru grumbled, slamming the door on Bonnie again. "Stupid animatronics."

Sally snorted in amusement. "Yeah, that's about right," she commented. "Anyway, back to the history. It's thought that that kid or the one before ends up possessing this thing called the marionette, creepy fucking thing. Later on, the spring suits are retired after incidents, possibly including the bite on the kid and they're replaced, possibly with these four, then the five kids vanish so they're replaced with new models that eventually go after the night guard at another site, presumably resulting in the 87 bite, which brings these bots out of retirement and sets up this game."

"The third game sort of shows the presumed murderer get crunched by one of the spring suits that had been locked in a leaky room for years after breaking this lot. Thirty years later you have to survive again until something causes a fire to burn the 'fright' location to the ground, presumably taking the last remnants of the paranormal with it," Megan continued for her sister.

"Isn't it thought that the 'purple guy' is part of the staff at Freddy's?" Hikaru asked, taking a momentary break from the game to grab a drink and almost getting mauled when Foxy appeared out of nowhere. "Fuck! Damn that thing is fast. Did they model him after Roadrunner or someone?"

Megan frowned slightly. "I think I remember hearing that on a forum or Game Theorists or somewhere. Honestly there's so little solid and so much speculation you end up bumping into theories any time you turn around on the net."

"Creepy…" Rika muttered. "Though with Foxy, it could be he's less restricted than the others? I mean it looks like the outer frame is thinner for him and rotted off his lower legs. Could that affect his speed?"

Sally nodded slightly. "Less mass for the same power gives more speed; I think one of your group proves that. Didn't you girls say Shimakaze was near 40kn one of the times we talked?"

"Yes she is, poi, Shimakaze is one of our fastest ships, poi," Yuudachi put in.

Rika gave Sally an arch look, "Not as fast as near 46kn," she commented, drawing shocked looks from her friends.

"There's also the less restriction to his movements due to the foam or whatever they use which means he can move more freely," Megan pointed out, grimacing as Hikaru got mauled by Bonnie, causing a game over and several shrieks from both Hikaru and the watching destroyers other than her twin.

Sally sipped her drink as she watched the others try to get their heartbeats, or their boiler systems, under control. "You know, I was expecting either louder screams or more swearing," she commented dryly, getting sour looks from most of the other girls. "You going to try again, Naka, or would you rather call it?"

Hikaru growled, "Oh, I am going to beat this game. Stupid tinker toys aren't going to scare Naka-chan, no way, desu."

Sally nodded. "Right, want us to shut up or want us to talk and maybe offer hints?"

"Talk, at least that way I'm not going to get spooked by the atmosphere alone, desu." Hikaru replied, taking a deep breath and restarting the game.

Hikaru sighed at the chimes signalling the end of the first night. At least she had a moment to grab a drink when the night ended, though during the night it really felt like one of the time management games where you had to frantically click on everything to try to get things done in a time limit. Granted she had only played two nights and just replayed the first, so how bad it would get, she wasn't sure.

Once the phone message had started playing for the second night in the game, she started setting herself up a rhythm of checking the cameras and doors ready for when the animatronics started moving.

"Okay," Megan started once Phone Guy's voice faded out. "We've talked a bit about what is thought to have gone on and how things are thought to potentially fit together, now granted there's no fully official answers as to most of this so if you look it up you'll find a dozen potentials rather than a definite, at least not that I've heard." She shrugged, frowning at her desk. "We don't, honestly, have many named characters either. We think Phone Guy was around for a while then switched to night shift and…"

"His last week was his last week in more ways than one," Sally said flatly. "Beyond him, you play Michael Schmidt in this one. There're rumours or theories around about that being a false identity or something."

Frowning, she took a sip of her drink. "There's Jeremy Fitzgerald in the second game, which is pretty well confirmed through the pay slip as likely having been employed in November 1987, then the custom night takes place with someone called Fritz Smith. It's presumed Jeremy switched to days and got chomped, though the phone calls are 'interesting', in a 'oh… oh fuck' manner."

Hikaru frowned, checking the lights and slamming one of the doors to the office when she spotted Chica outside. "Didn't you say earlier that it's possible the 'missing children' thing happened during the second game?" she asked.

Megan nodded. "I think it comes up around half way through, so day three, day four or so." She waggled a hand back and forth. "There's something about an investigation and about the 'toy' animatronics acting up with the possibility of the place shutting down, which carries on to the next days."

"Night six is a reveal," Sally added, shifting slightly. "I've actually pulled the phone conversations up on and it has here that night four is the first mention of the investigation. Night five Phone Guy mentions the building being on lockdown, particularly to 'previous employees' and night six he mentions one of the 'suits' has been used and none of the animatronics is acting right. We're never told which suit; apart from 'yellow', so the obvious is Golden Freddy at this point in the releases, though that there's multiple probably did get people thinking."

Rika frowned at her screen, watching Hikaru stop Foxy from coming out of his stage and block Bonnie from the office. "Isn't there some controversies over whether or not the phone calls are done in 'real time'?" she asked. "I mean doesn't the first one mention a summer job despite the cheque being for November?"

Sally nodded. "Yeah, I'd heard that and it does have it on with the first call mentioning a new summer job." She shrugged, sucking her lip briefly. "There's honestly two ways to go with it. Some of the phone calls are actually recordings, which would make more sense for the first couple of days to be recordings given the more frantic nature of the latter calls and how Freddy's seems to prefer covering things up. The other option is that this particular restaurant is south of the equator, since seasons are pretty much flipped there."

"Christmas is in the middle of summer in Australia," Mutsuki agreed.

"That said," Megan pointed out, "there's the chance that Freddy's did just use a stack of recordings they had. I think days four and five in this game are… suggestive of things going sideways."

Sally nodded again, frowning thoughtfully. "In terms of other characters in the series… there's the kid in 4 – the 'crying child' as he's known, along with his brother and a few others around the place, one of which is a suit actor for Freddy's. I don't think any of those people are named beyond descriptors honestly, though I could be wrong."

Megan shrugged. "The third game doesn't really have any named human characters, though they find some tapes about the springlock suits, along with one of said suits, which is a formerly yellow version of Bonnie that has an animated corpse inside. The cut scenes in game actually show how he got in there and it's messy, but it also emphasises how bad Freddy's is about employee health considering they tell their suit operators to bleed out in a hidden room," she said.

Sally snorted softly. "I mean, you know, the suit just locked up and crunched your body into puree and you're supposed to try to get away from customers to die in some obscure office? What the ever loving fuck?"

"Oh thanks for that image, Zephyr," Hikaru grumbled, her stomach gurgling threateningly at the thought of what could happen to the human body in a springlock suit. She swallowed back the bile tickling the back of her throat and coughed into her hand.

After a minute to regain control, she looked back at her screen and screamed, throwing herself back out of her seat at the sight of Foxy right in the face of her character.

"You damn bitch; you did that on purpose, Zephyr!" Rika snarled, picking herself up from the tangle of destroyers she, Yuudachi and Mutsuki had wound up in.

Sally snorted and shook her head. "Hey, that was pure luck, I wasn't expecting Foxy to show up right then," she denied. "The story, sure, not that these games are particularly child friendly in the first place, but I was not expecting Naka, or you three to stop looking at the screen long enough for any of the animatronics to get into the office, much less Foxy of the five of them."

"Alright you two, enough," Robyn cut in. "Seriously though, did you have to bring up the likely results of things like that, Zephyr? I mean… seriously girl that is gross."

Megan shifted slightly. "It wouldn't be the first time," she admitted. "That said, when we're doing it, we're often snarking back and forth about horror films or the like, and I know Fubuki has gotten involved a time or two, she's just pissed right now because Zephyr managed to time things so she wound up on her arse."

Hikaru shook her head, pulling up the loading screen so she could go back to the start of the second night. "Crow-chan is right; I've seen Fubuki-chan give as good as she gets with the horror snarks, though that timing could have been better, particularly since, unlike you lot, I have to restart from the last save as soon as something goes wrong."

Rika crossed her arms over her still small chest and pouted at her webcam, drawing sniggers from her friends. "My revenge will be epic in its awesomeness!" she declared.

Mutsuki and Yuudachi shared a look behind Rika's head with identical expressions easily read as 'what the fuck?' on their faces while Megan and Sally snorted and started snickering at Rika's expression.

"Seriously, Fubuki-chan?" asked Hikaru. "Are you trying to be threatening again, because you're just too cute," she sniggered, something that got louder when Rika turned up the pout.

Chica sticking her head into the office in the game and only barely being forced out by a quickly closed door drew the group's attention back to the game. "Fucking stay out bird-brain," Hikaru grumbled, checking the other side and slamming it in Bonnie's face. "No robot-rabbits either," she added. "Crow-chan, Zephyr-chan, do either of you know more about what happened with things here?"

Sally frowned at her screen. "Well, there's a bunch of theories but little true knowledge at the moment. What we've figured out is that the purple guy who shows in some cut scenes in FNAF2 and after is a murderer and likely is or was a member of the staff at Freddy's. That's most visible in how he ends up undead."

She took a breath and blew it out slowly. "I've mentioned the results of being in a springlock suit when things go sideways; part of how we know is because in FNAF3 one scene is the animatronics attempting to follow someone in purple into this room and fritzing out. We as players can see it, but the bots can't."

"Which is why purple guy hides in there," Megan added. "His problem is, after he demolishes the bots, the spooks come out and they can see the room so they chase him in. After a few minutes of running around, he hides in this old suit, which crunches him."

"There's also something about… either the marionette being haunted or actually having AI of some sort, I think," Sally continued, frowning. "I think another bit of the 'five children' incident is a mini-game. The 'save them' one in FNAF2 or 3 where you play the marionette and put the heads of the animatronics on four corpses or something before a fifth one shows up."

Megan shifted slightly, frowning at her screen thoughtfully. "Something along those lines, I think. I know there's supposed to be at least seven dead kids in the series up to the point of 4, the five from the incident of that name, one outside an older pizza shop that you see while trying to keep a bunch of spread out brats happy as Freddy and the Crying Child, whose brother and the dick's friends put the kid's head in Freddy's mouth giving either the actual Bite of '87 or another bite incident sometime after the start of '83."

"How many kids got killed in this series?" Hikaru asked, focusing on the images of her friends for a moment while scanning through cameras only to miss the poster in 2B showing a gold Freddy. Dropping the tablet blinked and yelped, finding a gold Freddy in the office.

"W-w-what the poi?" yelped Yuudachi only to scream at the flickering images right before it roared.

"Gah!" yelped Sally jerking back from the scream, her chair rolling out from under her and dropping her on her ass. "Ow… goddamn ghost bear," she grumbled, picking herself back up and moved to reclaim and right her chair as it had tipped over when it had skidded backwards.

Megan nodded, letting things calm a bit and Hikaru get back to the title screen of the game. "As far as I know, there's at least eight dead kids in the series, though that might not be everything." She shifted slightly, frowning at her screen. "I know there's some other stuff going on, but I've not been keeping track of what that is, so it might reveal more."

Rika winced, hissing out a breath, "Eight of them? Good grief, that's pretty bad, even compared to the war games."

Hikaru nodded, restarting the third night and listening to the message from Phone Guy a second time. "Kind of makes you wonder just what sort of monsters there are around that something like that could reasonably show up in a game."

"Oh there's plenty, though they're more often reported in the States, if only due to there being more people there," Sally said flatly. "That said, Fatal Frame," she pointed out causing both Hikaru and Rika to shudder while Robyn, Yuudachi and Mutsuki looked confused. "Keeping a gate to hell shut by effectively farming kids to quarter on a rack or forcing one of a pair of twins to kill their sibling?"

"Yeah, fuck that noise," growled Megan. "Were it me, particularly now, I'd be either out of that place or I'd ensure the gate is blocked by the corpses of any idiot that thinks I should kill my sister or let her kill me." She snorted in disgust.

Rika gave Megan a look, since Hikaru was busy evading three animatronics' attempts to enter the office. "Isn't half the reason for the games people doing basically that?"

"Pretty much," Sally shrugged. "Can't say I blame the main ghosts on those issues either, heck I'm honestly not surprised that the animatronics in FNAF are trying to kill someone they can't find because of the crap they got." She snorted softly.

Hikaru nodded, scowling as she slammed the door to prevent Foxy's entry into the office in game. "Yeah, not that it helps when you're trying to stop them from mauling you or shove you into an already occupied suit… or shove an endoskeleton into you. Seriously, ugh, no thank you," she grumbled, swallowing back a bit of bile while checking the cameras again. Opening the door, she scowled at the sight of Chica standing there and shut it again. "I already told you feathers, not interested."

"Hey, you girls mentioned earlier there were other 'bots in the other games, right?" Mutsuki asked, shifting slightly from where she was sitting next to Rika. "What are they?"

"Mostly clones of the main four here," Megan replied, frowning. "You've got this group, the 'withered' version, which is from FNAF2 and is this group run down worse. They work along with the Toys, who are mostly plastic covered versions apart from Mangle, who is a wrecked Foxy in white. Apparently she was supposed to be a 'less scary' and 'easier maintenance' model, which led to her being ripped apart by kids who shouldn't have been near her anyway."

Sally nodded and frowned, rubbing her jaw. "Beyond them in 2, there's the marionette and Balloon Boy, who is probably the ugliest of the lot. 3 has phantoms and Springtrap, or Purple Douche Bag. In 4 there is the nightmare quartet and a spring Freddy in some cut scenes." She paused; flicking her fingers as she counted them off, ignoring Hikaru's yelp when her power ran out on her and Freddy paid her a visit in the game. "Sister Location has a couple of new ones, Ballora the ballerina and her 'backup dancers', Funtime Foxy, Funtime Freddy, Baby and some amalgam thing called 'Ennard'."

Megan nodded, moving to pull up the net on her computer and checking a few things. "Seems like Baby actually did kill someone, a preteen to early teen girl and both she and Freddy from Sister Location had some sort of module to 'store' their victims," she said, frowning at her screen. "According to this, if you play one of the Sister Location mini-games in a certain way, you see what is probably a take on the attack Baby made on the kid in question and she apparently talks about it if you listen to her dialogue in the game."

"Isn't that the one where you're guaranteed to die in the end?" asked Hikaru, letting the game sit at the title screen for a moment while she stretched out and had something to drink. "I think I remember seeing something about both the fourth and fifth games of the series you end up dead no matter what."

Megan nodded again, her mouth set in a grim line. "That's right," she confirmed. "In the fourth game you seem to be playing the Crying Child as he's called, I'm pretty sure one of us already mentioned his end. There's also some things that might suggest that the main part of the game is actually fever dreams or something after the bite he got because of the sound for the end of the night and what you see around the bed. In the fifth game, I believe we did say earlier, but your character gets his innards torn out by this machine and his skin used as a suit. There's supposed to be some scenes if you do custom nights that show the aftermath."

"Wow… that is pretty sick," Robyn commented while most of the girls looked a bit green at the information. "Do we know who this person was in the game?"

"It's supposed to be 'Mike', though there are theories at least that say Mike is both Michael Schmidt and Michael Afton, with the original Purple Guy being William Afton, his father," Sally answered. "How true that is, I've no idea." She shrugged. "There's also this whole theory about how Baby is possessed by the spirit of the kid she grabbed and that said kid is actually William's daughter or something. Once again, it's a theory so take it with a good pinch of salt."

Megan nodded, watching while Hikaru started the game up again, this time loading in on the fourth night. "There's something else as well," she said. "Apparently there's a book series around as well, which, while it's supposed to be effectively an alternate universe to the games, might provide some answers to some of the questions from the games."

Sally snorted softly, frowning slightly at her screen. "I think I remember seeing in Game Theory's videos that William Afton is the killer in the books, and he worked with a guy named Henry to make the animatronics originally in that universe, hence some folks using William for the Purple Guy," she explained.

Megan nodded. "I'd honestly suggest reading the books themselves to see if it fits or browse around to see if there are other theories that fill in holes better before settling on it though. Things are often coloured by your own perceptions so someone else might spot something and have a possible explanation for it that others missed."

"There's also the chance that the guy behind the series is keeping an eye on things related to his series so he'll nab ideas that come up or decide that the theories aren't things he's actually interested in so will change things to point away from where they were heading," Sally pointed out, shrugging her shoulders. "At this point, well, most creators that want audience participation beyond a certain level will work on certain media, not that it means they won't keep a weather-eye on things and make use of ideas that seem to be going the way they want things to be going."

Rika snorted in amusement at that. "I seem to remember you and Crow-chan pulling that sort of thing off a few times when we role-played together." She gave her camera an amused look. "Sometimes we'd be playing a game and one of us would do something off the cuff that would result in something else happening, like… well, remember the meme about wizards, sorcerers and the like in D&D casting at the darkness?" she asked.

"Oh yeah, I remember that one," Megan commented. "One time Naka-chan tried doing that because we were sure something was hiding in it due to Zephyr describing things in this old house our characters were in and we ended up with our wizard and fighter both unconscious because 'the darkness casts magic missile at you' is how she said it."

Hikaru flushed and groaned, face palming while both Megan and Sally chuckled. "What really happened is I crapped out on my roll and got a one, which, if you know D&D, is a botch or an automatic fail so I managed to hit a mirror or something at just the right angle to make it seem like the darkness cast the spell."

"Yeah, but it was how she did it," Rika responded, watching Hikaru work through into the fifth night and grimacing at the noise from the telephone. "Magic missile is supposed to auto-hit, so the fact it had to be rolled already meant something was off, then we get Zephyr-chan describing a lot of crashing and banging among other noises from the darkness so the party is just standing there wondering what's happening when we get attacked by three missiles that hit us, knocking out our wizard and our fighter because they were already hurt. The thing that made it was just Zephyr-chan's desert dry 'the Darkness attacks you with magic missile'."

Megan snorted in amusement, just as the alarm went on Hikaru's game to say the fifth day had come to an end. "Yeah, I remember that alright, along with Naka just sitting there for a moment before letting out a yell I'm sure they heard in China without the benefit of the net." She smirked at her friend, who flipped her off.