Burning vampire produces a remarkably warm, and nice flame. I kinda wish I had marshmallows. Unfortunately I hadn't expected the night to end in fire, possibly naive of me, and I'm rapidly running out of time.
As soon as the devil died, anything they might have been doing to keep our scuffle from the notice of the mundane authorities went with them. So now the sound of sirens fill the air and reminds me, rather uncomfortably, that I have a deadline. The desiccated corpse of the hopping vampire burnes rather quickly, but even a shredded human torso has a lot to burn.
Still I can't exactly go anywhere until the soon to be re-dead thing pinned to the concrete by my knife finishes dying.
I'm having uncomfortable flashbacks to the trolls.
I can hear the sirens stop and, thanks to my improved hearing, I can tell they stopped a few blocks away, where the fight between me and the two monsters had really started. The sound of voices drift to me, understandable for the first time since I arrived in this country, trying to figure out what's happened.
It's not everyday you find cars, trees, and chunks of building ripped free and hurled down the street.
The vampire continues to burn as the cops walk the trail of destruction and begin approaching the alley way. I'm feeling amazingly good after that fight. My armor is keeping a steady trickle of power into me from where my hand is in the fire produced by the corpse, so I have no trouble making myself invisible when the officers reach the mouth of my alleyway.
I'm not here.
The two in dark blue uniforms look and smell somewhat shocked at the amount of damage that's been done in our brief fight. Then one turns and catches sight of the alley. He walks to the mouth then stops, his mouth drops open as he plays his flashlight over the dark alley.
"What the hell happened here?" He asks loud enough for his partner to hear.
"Well that is what we're supposed to figure..." The second cop started over when his partner began talking, and trails off as he comes even with the other officer, "World war three?" He offers after a moment of stunned silence.
I can't really fault the theory. I had explosives, both mundane and Script, packed about one per square foot lining the alley front to back, top to bottom.
Had it been over kill?
Debatable. The vampire was still alive after they'd gone off, after all. Which is what I wanted more or less, but it also means that there hadn't been any kill at all, so I don't see how it could be...
My mental rambling is interrupted by the vampire finally giving up, the corpse has taken enough damage that it can no longer contain life. Even life as dubious as that which belongs to hopping vampires.
Still my new telekinesis settles into my soul, which means it's time for me to go. Keeping my glamor up I leap, and bounce off the alley wall so I can clear the two cops without risking bumping into one of them. Once I'm in the street I take a glance back in the direction of the fight, and winced slightly.
The street is wrecked for about three blocks. Cars are punched through buildings several stories up, the street is shattered in several places and trees, benches, chunks of concrete, and all sorts of other debris are scattered across it. It looks like a tornado touched down and wandered for a few blocks.
Definitely time to leave.
Fortunately, before I kicked off this mess, I planned ahead. One of those plans had been the trap in the alleyway. However I also have a plan for if the copious explosives failed to kill whatever happened to be chasing me. Granted that plan is basically 'run away', but an exit strategy is always a good thing to have.
A few more blocks away from where the alleyway is, and down a few side streets is a small, but very old, park. That park consists of a small grass field, a sandbox with a small jungle gym set in it, and at the back of the park a grove of trees even older than the park. A grove that comes with equally old dryads. How old the trees are I don't know, dryads while not dumb don't really process time the way humans do.
Or at all really.
These dryads agreed to hold a getaway bag for me, shelter me, and help me escape should it be needed. Escape isn't the word I'd use for my current situation, but I still need to get to Japan, and I don't really have documentation of me entering China. I could have gotten some, but it didn't really seem worth the effort.
I get out of sight of the cops, and drop my glamor before breaking into a jog. My armor is delightfully silent as I run, and only a minute or two later I arrive at the park and, once I've shown my face by pulling down my hood, I'm greeted in typical dryad fashion.
I am pleased to discover that kissing is still enjoyable, even without pieces of my soul missing.
Once they're done, and the grove leader snuck in a second slightly less quick hello, they led me into the grove, and sat me down, "Your hunt was successful then?"
I nod, leaning back against one of their trees, only to discover that the dryad that tree belongs to has decided to be my backrest instead, "Yeah, um..." I start only to be distracted slightly when my backrest starts to hum quietly and take apart my braid by running her fingers through my hair. It's remarkably distracting, and feels quite nice. After a moment though, I manage to pull my attention back to the others who seemed quite amused at my situation, "Yeah, almost too successful. The devil had a... live in boyfriend? I don't know, she was living with a hopping vampire that objected to my plans with force." I shrug slightly, "I ended up using my trap on him." All the dryads nod at that. They probably heard the boom from here.
"Did you gain from this unexpected trial?" The leader of the grove asks me. I nod again, and reach for the new spiritual mechanism I gained. Focusing on a random leaf, something that I don't think I can really do any damage with when I inevitably fucked this up, I try to make it move.
The feeling is odd, almost like pulling a bowstring, only not. I'm adding something to the leaf in trying to lift it, though it hasn't moved yet. Then I release the metaphorical bow string, and what I added twists and expends in a moment, sending the leaf rocketing up into the air.
As much as a leaf is capable of rocketing, anyway.
The dryads and I all stare up at where the leaf had vanished from view. For a long moment nobody moves, then our gazes lower again as one. They all stare at me. I look wide eyed back. After another moment of silence I shrug, "It's a work in progress?"
That seems acceptable as the dryads start moving around again, and the grove leader moves on, "Then this was an opportunity, one you made good use of. I assume that you still want passage to Izanami's children?" Spirits, especially older ones, often have odd ways of referring to things. In this instance a roundabout way to refer to the Japanese islands that the goddess Izanami had supposedly, literally given birth to.
Hell, for all I knew it's true. Gods do weird things when it comes to reproduction. Another reason to avoid them as much as possible.
"That would be great." I tell her with a smile, "Though I'm in no rush. If you're willing I'd like to take the night to rest and deal with your request in the morning before I leave." I have no idea how they were going to get me to Japan if I needed to leave in a hurry, but I can only imagine that it would be infinitely more comfortable if they took their time.
The grove leader smiles back at me and nods, "That is acceptable. We have the bag you left with us," One of the younger dryads brings my duffel, setting it next to me, "and you are welcome to our hospitality, none will find or trouble you here."
"Would you like help with your armor?" The dryad still acting as my backrest purrs in my ear.
I blush and shift slightly, "Um... yes actually. I kind of need it."
I know what the dryad is offering, but honestly my armor is not designed to come off or get put on in a normal fashion. I really do need an extra set of hands, or two, to get it off in any kind of reasonable time frame.
After we manage, I get into something more comfortable, accompanied by a few wolf whistles from the dryads, but I'm too tired to really pursue anything. Mostly I just want to sleep.
I don't have a sleeping bag, but it turns out I don't need one. Four dryads cuddle up to me, one I'm pulled into leaning against, one snuggled into me on each side, and one lay down on top of me. It's a little strange, but surprisingly warm and comfortable.
I can definitely think of worse places to sleep.
###
I wake up in a pile of scantily clad tree spirits, and to the sound of giggling. I groan, which causes sympathetic groans to echo from my sleeping companions, and force my eyes open to look around. I can't really see much without moving somebody, so I start trying to gently extract myself from the dryads without waking any of them.
I fail dismally.
Hospitality in a dryad grove comes with breakfast. The meal is entirely made of fruit and nuts, but it's good and filling. As soon as I'm fed I settle in to begin paying the dryads back for agreeing to shelter me against a stray devil. Even if it's only as long as it takes to get me somewhere else, it's a pretty big deal for the little spirits.
What they asked for is a Script to help protect them from the city's ongoing plans for urban development. So using my athame, I carve a Script into flat river rocks that should make hurting anything within the defined bounds utterly unthinkable. People will justify the feeling to themselves however will make sense to them, but if it works the way I want it to, people just won't want to do anything to inconvenience the dryads.
While I work, I continue to hear the giggling that had woken me up, and generally the sounds of a small child at play. I don't really think about it much as there was a park outside the grove, the local neighborhood must make use of it.
I had time to work out the script while I was waiting for the gremlins to acquire the claymores for me, so it only takes a couple of hours to do the actual carving. It wouldn't have taken that long, but working Script now that I have Allspeak is different.
The new ability doesn't grant me instant knowledge of the entirety of The World Script. There are several symbols that I haven't been able to interpret from various scanning Scripts I've done, that I still can't understand. What I already know, thought, is set more firmly in my memory, and comes together more intuitively. I've been able to speak Script like an actual language fluently since working on my tattoos, but now it feels like English does to me. Like I had been born speaking it.
Puzzling out the new feeling slows me down, but once I get used to it Scripts should come smoother and quicker.
I'm finishing up when the grove leader comes and sits in front of me. She patiently waits while I finish carving the symbol I'm working on. When I finish I look up at her with a smile.
"We have secured your passage. A Sylph has agreed to carry you in her breeze," The dryad tells me, and I can't help but groan.
I hate working with Sylphs.
"Let me finish up, then you can introduce me." I tell the dryad with a sigh. She smiles sadly at me and heads towards the edge of the grove. I turn back to my work and try to lose myself in it.
It takes another twenty minutes for me to finish all the carving needed for the Script. Then another ten to place the stones and activate the Script. All the while I do my best to ignore the five year old girl playing in the park behind me.
I'll have to deal with her soon enough.
Done with the stones I stand up and brush my hands off, "There. Nobody who actually looks at your trees should be able to bring themselves to hurt them. How it'll work at more steps removed I can't say." I shrug.
The grove leader nods and seems pleased, "Now it is time for our side of the bargain." She turns and leads me towards the little girl in the park, and I brace myself for what's coming next, "This is the Sylph that has agreed to carry you."
I look down at the spirit in the shape of a little girl, and she looks up at me. Her skin has a faint white tinge to the otherwise healthy color, her hair is white and drifts around her head like a trailing cloud, and her eyes are a solid sky blue.
She is, in a word, adorable.
Which is why I hate working with Sylphs.
Slyphs are the spirits of breezes, the same way dryads are the spirits of trees. And like dryads live as long as their trees do, Sylphs live as long as their breezes do. I don't think any Sylph has ever lived longer than a couple of weeks. They're all so relentlessly cheerful about it though, trying to play and enjoy as much as they can for as long as they have. They're proof that 'supernatural' doesn't mean 'better', and a tragedy that I've never really been able to ignore.
This Sylph is no different, and she looks up at me with a huge excited grin. I kneel down to get closer to her level and get glomped around the neck for my trouble.
"Oh, I'm so excited! I can't wait! I've never flown over the ocean before! The air moves so different and there's actually an end to the water! Did you know that?"
I manage a weak chuckle, and pat the girl on the back, "Yeah I did. It's why I asked for help to get there."
"You can count on me!" She lets go of me and puffs out her chest with pride, "I've never flown with anybody before, but I'm sure I'll do fine! So does that mean we can fly now? Can we can we canwecanwe?" At each 'can we' she rises a little bit further into the air until she's at eye level with me standing up.
"Just let me get my things. Then we can go," I tell her, and head back to the grove to collect my duffel bag.
"Then we can fly~!" She sings spinning in the air, and following me into the grove.
It takes longer than I would have liked to be ready, as I have to stuff my armor and Sclamhaire into the duffel along with my minimal travel supplies. Once I have though, I return to where the Sylph is dancing and humming to herself, which interestingly sounds like a breeze through the trees.
"So how do we do this?" I ask, catching her attention.
Instead of answering the little spirit runs up and flings her arms around my neck. She giggles, and then everything is gentle movement and rushing wind...
What feels like only moments later I'm deposited in a soccer field, perched atop a skyscraper. The Sylph sticks around long enough for an enthusiastic goodbye, and then flits off to whatever catches her attention next. Honestly I'm just as happy about that. I don't know how long it's taken us to get here, but at the speed a breeze moves at, a few days wouldn't be an unreasonable assumption. Which means the Sylph could die at any moment. I've already seen one of the relentlessly cheerful little spirits weaken and fade back into air in my arms. I really don't need to see it again.
Around me the city of Kyoto spreads out as much as it can. In the distance I can just make out where the old Imperial Palace still stands, while over the rest of the city a sort of reverse sunset paints the underside of the clouds with neon lights. I feel kind of excited, and I can't wait to get to work.
Just as soon as I figured out how to get off this skyscraper.
###
I came to Kyoto for a very specific purpose. I'm headed into canon at a sprint now, and that means dealing with the power levels that canon brings with it. Not something I'm remotely prepared for.
My shortcomings in comparison to the people I'll be dealing with are manyfold. I'm not strong enough, fast enough, powerful enough, or skilled enough to survive in the thick of the coming conflicts. About the only thing that I have going for me is that with both telekinesis, and the Siren's voice I'm far more versatile than most of the canon cast. That won't help me much though.
Most of these problems are largely beyond my ability to fix in any sort of reasonable timeframe. Power will come with time, or luck. Speed and strength likewise. Skill can only come with time.
However unlike the others there is something I can do about how much time skill will take. Something that's also easily accessible. Relatively. Talent can be defined as the time it takes to learn something. The more talent one has, the faster one learns. Mundane talent isn't something I'm sure I can steal though. It feels a little too close to knowledge. It isn't, but I'm still not sure.
Fortunately there are other options.
Somewhere in this city is a hidden forest full of Yokai. These Yokai are led by a nine tailed fox called Yasaka. Yasaka has a daughter that I know will be kidnapped, and probably soon. At least soon enough that the planning for this bit of treason has to already be in the works. A great many of the Yokai involved in the coup are of a species called Tengu, or crow demons. Tengu are known to have a supernatural talent with all edged weapons. The punishment for treason is pretty much universally death. If I expose the attempted kidnapping before it can happen, Yasaka might be inclined to give me one hell of a boon.
Mundane talent I'm not sure I can steal, but supernatural gifts I'm absolutely sure I can.
And if a lot of Tengu are going to be executed anyway?
Well I'll get a lot of supernatural talent, and hopefully make a new friend in the process.
This won't make me the equal of warriors that have been fighting for thousands of years, but it will help me narrow the gap faster.
Hopefully fast enough to live through what's coming.
###
So.
What do I know about this kidnapping?
First, the target is something like nine years old at the time of canon, which means she's seven or eight now.
Second, the operation is put on by the Khaos Brigade. Maybe a specific faction of it... I can't really remember. What matters though is there's only a small number of outside operators.
Third, the majority of the forces involved in the coup are Yokai. I specifically remember a lot of Tengu being involved. I think there's a Rakshasa as well. Or some sort of tiger demon thing.
What I can infer from this is that there's some central place where the planning for this has to happen. You don't subvert wards like what's guarding the hidden Yokai forest, plus some decent chunk of the native forces on a whim. A lot of planning has to have gone into making this kidnapping work.
Further, that central location has to be somewhere outside of the forest's protections. Planning to kidnap the Yokai leader's kid, inside the Yokai's forest, would be like doing the planning to assassinate the President inside the White House. It would be a profoundly stupid and unnecessary risk that could only end poorly.
I try not to assume my enemies are stupid.
I'm just hoping that their HQ is still inside the city. I suppose it could be anywhere, but inside Kyoto makes more sense to me. Turncoats won't have to do anything suspicious to report in. Everything they need to keep track of is right here, and in a city with the population of Kyoto there's absolutely no chance of standing out. So somewhere in this city is a nice place with all the evidence I'll ever need to prove what they're up to.
I just need to find it.
My plan to do this is simple. Hopefully simple enough to work. The people involved in this will have to report in regularly, both to keep information up to date for planning, and to be told what to look for. Since I know there are a lot of Tengu involved in this, I'll use Script to track their movements through the city. After a wait while patterns develop, I'll check out anywhere that Tengu tend to frequent.
I'll get a lot of false positives, sure, but I'm not exactly running on a close deadline.
So the first thing I need is a sample of Tengu, so I know what to track.
###
First step of finding Tengu is finding a place where I know they'll be. So finding the hidden forest, and the established entrances and exits. The problem with that is getting through the illusions of at least one nine tailed fox. Probably a whole lot more than one, given how long the forest has been there. Given that nine tails are supposed to be the only creatures that can match Tuatha de Dennan, the folks that I got my own illusion ability from, in the field of illusions I have no hope of pulling that off.
Fortunately I don't have to. Operating on the assumption that they aren't using something like my conceptual 'I'm not here' illusion and are instead creating an illusion of something's presence as opposed to its absence, I should be able to detect the mana used in maintaining them.
As it turns out I'm sort of right. I can't find the forest, but the entrances, which have to be holes in the protections to let people in and out, stand out like bonfires. Which might sound like a weakness, until you see the damn things. They're layered with sheets and nets of mana hundreds deep. I have no idea what all of them do, but each one is powerful individually and together I really don't want to poke them.
Then there's the physical security, each entrance is disguised as something utterly mundane. Shops that actually work, and sell what they advertise, so that they attracted no attention. That the people working in those shops and businesses are actually all decently powerful Yokai, ready to murder the shit out of anything or body that they think looks even the slightest bit suspicious at a moments notice?
Yeah, I'm not letting any of them even see me until I'm ready to present myself to Yasaka.
Which is why I'm on the roof of a building a block away from the flower shop I'm staking out. I'm about four stories up and relying on my hawk eyes to get a good look at anybody going in or out. So I shouldn't be attracting any attention.
I hope.
While I wait, I play with my new telekinesis, and I think I'm beginning to get a handle on how it works. When I pull back that metaphorical bow string I'm adding potential energy to an object. When I let go of the string, that potential energy immediately decays into kinetic energy in whatever direction I want the object in question to move.
Which really explains a lot of what's been confusing me about the damned hopping vampire. First off, it got around my armor because this brand of TK has nothing passing from point A to point B. The vampire simply added energy to me, not my armor, and since then the energy is nominally mine, the armor did nothing about it. It has to let me move after all. Same deal later when, since it doesn't have to reach through anything, it just added the energy to my intestines.
Similarly why the vampires hop instead of fly. Clearly it's possible to create a sustained force, the vampire had done it after all with it's conga line of truck, dumpster, and building chunk. I will admit without shame though, that I have no idea how it could be done. And seeing as that's the only time the vampire did it, I assume it isn't easy.
Which is why I decide to start with juggling.
Turns out juggling isn't easy either.
I have a pebble that I'm trying to keep in the air by repeatedly launching it with my TK. The idea is to catch and bounce it up again before it hits the ground. That hasn't happened yet, though. I am slowly getting better at judging how much mana to sink into any individual act of TK to get what I want. At least in terms of how far I fling a pebble.
I'm so focused on my attempt at juggling, that I almost miss my target. The man in question is wearing baggy cargo pants, a sweatshirt, and a dust mask. The style is the sort of thing I'd expect from American wanna be gangsters. The sort of people who have to hold their pants up manually, because getting something that fits is apparently beyond them.
It's the dust mask that catches my attention though.
Masks like that aren't exactly uncommon to see in Japan. From what I can tell people wear them when they're sick, but their cultural work ethic won't let them take a sick day. So they wear the masks to try and keep their cold, or whatever, from spreading around.
I'm not sure how well it works, but it's the thought that counts?
This mask though, has an unusual bulge in the top center of it's cheap fabric. Exactly where the man's nose should be. Tengu, when in human form, universally have a nose of the sort that makes me think that Cyrano de Bergerac was a Tengu in exile. So a man walking out of the Yokai's hidden forest, with a face covering that still hints at more nose than is typical?
I'm pretty comfortable making a leap of faith at this point.
I had to leave my armor at my motel. Walking around in mat black metal armor that makes me look like the grim reaper, would be the opposite of subtle. Sclamhaire I put in a generic carrying case that's probably meant for posters or something, and the athame rests in it's sheath in it's normal place at the small of my back.
The armor though has to stay at the motel. It's honestly kind of uncomfortable to have it that far away from me. Like an overstretched muscle, only it's my soul.
I'm getting pretty tired of learning all the different ways my soul can hurt, but until I figure out how to store at least my armor with the rest of my soul, needs must.
Still, I'm armed and mobile, which is all I really need.
I run across the rooftop and leap across an alley to the next building. Moving quickly I catch up with my suspected Tengu, and kept pace with him. Eventually he'll end up someplace without witnesses, and I'd be able to mug him for a feather or something.
Possibly not the friendliest plan, but the Tengu will be mostly unharmed and I'll get what I need. Hell, for all I know this is one of the rebels on his way to their HQ. I doubt it, I'm not that lucky, but he could be.
For now though it's just a game of follow the leader.
###
Telekinesis is both great for parkour, and embarrassing as hell until I figured out how to calibrate the damn thing. Being able to launch myself over jumps I'd never be able to make on my own is great, and surprisingly easy to do.
Sure I overshot and undershot a lot at first, but I get better each time and pretty quickly I land at least roughly where I want to. On the other hand landings are somewhat trickier. Getting the perfect angle and amount of energy to slow myself for a safe landing, and not send myself pinwheeling across the roof in an uncontrolled tumble is not as easy as it looks, and it doesn't look easy.
Not that, that happened.
At all.
Ever.
There's no video evidence, nobody can prove anything.
I make my way across the Kyoto skyline with more ease than I have any right to, and manage to not lose my Tengu in the process. It's close once or twice, but I manage.
The game of follow the leader finally ends as the, suspected, Tengu takes up residence at the mouth of an alleyway in a thoroughly middle class part of town. The buildings surrounding us are in the majority apartment complexes. The sort of places that would be too expensive for college students or entry level positions, but don't require a middle management salary to afford.
The buildings are also all ten plus stories tall, which is a bit more height than I want to have to cross in a hurry. Fortunately getting down turns out to be easy. Locks have ceased to be a problem for me as long a subtlety isn't required. A firm grip and a twist of my wrist breaks the lock on the roof access door and I'm inside.
Stairways in large buildings tend to be less used than elevators, tend to have fewer cameras too. All in all stairways are by far the best route to avoid attention. The Tengu has looked to have been settling in for the long hall, so I'm not exactly in a hurry heading down the ten stories of stairs.
Heading out the front of the building, I head back towards the alley where my target is waiting. Drawing even with the alley I turn and take a moment to examine the man I've been following more closely. I'm not exactly subtle about it, so it only takes a few moments of examination for the man to notice my staring at him.
"What'er you lookin at, foreigner bitch?" He demands in an accent that certainly isn't what I'm used to hearing around the city.
Accents through Allspeak are weird. I don't hear things in English, so it's not like I'm hearing a southern accent or something, but the pronunciation is clearly different from what I've been hearing around the city. I also noticed that if I'm not careful I tend to acquire the accent and dialect of whoever I'm speaking with.
It would be nice to get confirmation that he is in fact what I'm looking for, and since rudeness seems to be the order of the day, "I'm trying to determine if you have the most unfortunate case of gigantism I've ever heard of or if your actually a crow monster from mythology."
His eyes go wide over his dust mask, and after a moment of stammering he pulls a wakizashi short sword out from under his overly large hoodie, "I'll show you gigantism.. Bi... slut!"
Did he just change insults half way through one?
I'll take the sword, and how he smells more startled than angry, as confirmation. The smell of feathers clinging to him doesn't hurt either. Which means that even though I have Sclamhaire and my athame on me, I don't want to get into a sword fight with a Tengu. It seems to me that would be sort of like starting a land war in Asia.
So instead I pull my metaphorical telekinetic bowstring waaaay back, and launched the Tengu further into the alley at a decent speed.
I stroll into the alley after him to find him picking himself up slowly. So I take the opportunity to telekinetically slam him into a wall, and drop him at my feet. I wait a moment to see if he'll start moving again, and when he does I punch him in the head. The man slumps to the ground, and lies still, I'm not sure that he's done though, until his form slowly warps into that of a man sized bipedal crow, with arms and hands in addition to wings.
I really wasn't expecting that.
Though I possibly should have been.
I've just decided that telekinesis is my favorite power. I'm sure it won't be that easy every time, hopping vampires don't rule the world after all, but god damn if TK from ambush doesn't feel like a cheat.
Cheating sounds like exactly what I want to be doing though, so I don't let it bother me. Which isn't very hard really. I pluck a feather from the Tengu, and take a moment to drag him to a spot in the alley where he won't be immediately visible from the street. That accomplished I stroll out of the alleyway, and head to the nearest bus stop to make my way back to my motel, whistling cheerfully.
That hadn't been nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Sure it took a little while, but it wasn't difficult. Hopefully the next part would be just as straight forward.
###
Someday I'll learn to stop jinxing myself.
That day is not today.
I lean over the cheap table in my cheap motel room, looking down at the best map of the city I can find. The next step of my plan calls for covering the city in Script tags that will ping anytime they detect a Tegu enter their range. With overlapping coverage I'll be able to track movements by which tags ping the same way it's possible to track a cell phone by which cell towers it's using.
The problem I'm having, is that I'm looking at the size of the city of Kyoto, and calculating how many tags I'll need to cover the city in its entirety. In all three dimensions no less, and further how long it will take me to make and place them all...
It's a more than a slightly prohibitive number.
Thousands of tags I'd have to make by hand, weeks to place them all. Not to mention how long the paper tags would last wherever I could find to place them...
No.
Just no.
Clearly I need a better plan.
...
Inspiration will strike at any moment now.
...
Aaaannnny moment...
...
Maybe Pua can help?