Now, I told you that story only so that later bits of this one would make sense. It was winter when the Vengeful Spirit Incident properly began.
Sanae, who had been pleased with her success in introducing Renko and myself into her cultural milieu, had begun to evangelize the culture of the Outside world (as she saw it) to other residents of Gensokyo. On this particular day, she had managed to capture a captive audience.
"What the heck is that thing?"
"It's called a portable game console!"
What Sanae was holding in her hands was a small, square brick of purple plastic, hinged in the middle so that it could fold out into two connected segments. The ones staring at it as we gathered around the kotatsu in main room of the rebuilt Hakurei shrine were myself, Renko, Alice and Marisa, all of whom just happened to be visiting the shrine at the same time. Reimu was, of course, around somewhere too, but she was busy dealing with Suika's latest antics at the moment and it was too cold for anyone to want to pursue her into the yard, so that left the five of us all huddled together. Sanae took the opportunity to bring the device out as a conversation starter.
"Oh, I've heard of that!" Renko said excitedly. "Is that a Nintendo DS?"
"Not quite. I never got one of those. This is the Gameboy Advance SP."
"It's some sort of game? It looks different than the one they used to have at Korindo," Marisa opined, eyeing the console suspiciously.
"That was probably the original game boy. This one's better."
"These are a kind of toy in the Outside world, aren't they? What do you do with them?" Alice asked, poking at one of the buttons.
"Watch this!" Sanae said smugly, laying the console down on the table and flicking the power switch. Immediately a tinny chime rang over the speakers and a pixelated image formed on the small LCD. Marisa and I both stared in wonder, though probably for different reasons. For Renko and I, something like this would be a museum piece. Although I had seen games of this sort before, seeing them run on the original hardware had a certain wonderous charm to it. For Marisa and Alice, it was probably the first time they had seen a functional video display, much less a game running on one.
"What's it doin'? Why does it sound like that?" Marisa asked, with a mix of wonder and distaste.
"Interesting. It's a type of projective grimoire, but the image seems to be trapped within this little frame. It's also a very poor quality image, isn't it? What's that supposed to be? Are those letters?"
"It doesn't just show images though, you can control it!" Sanae said, moving around to the opposite side of the table and pressing a few of the buttons on the lower half of the device. As she did the characters moved about on screen and music faded in and out.
"So that's what those things do!" Marisa cheered, thoroughly engrossed. Despite having never seen video games before, both girls seemed to understand the concept immediately.
"You're commanding that little avatar? It's like a marionette show." Alice muttered, sounding like she actually approved, for once.
"Not just one show either. By replacing the software, you can play various different games." Sanae said proudly.
"So it's not exactly a grimoire then, but more like a scrying lens for looking into stories?"
"Wait, what the heck does that mean? What's a software?"
"Think of it like your hakkero, Marisa. This device would be the trigram reactor and the software would be like your Spell Cards. You have a bunch of different ones for every occasion, right?"
"Oh, I get it. Well what kinda stories does it tell then? Do you have a story about magic?"
"A magic story? I guess you'd want an RPG then. This is a bit old, but you'll probably like it." Sanae flicked the switch again and the image on the screen vanished with a faint chirp. The two witches watched with interest as she slid the hardware cartridge (which was a novelty for me as well) out of the device and pulled another out of her pocket. When she switched the device on this time, the title screen that appeared was one even I had heard of. A retro game from the golden age of home consoles. As a child, I had played it on my first phone, the sort of timeless classic in which the simplicity of the outdated graphics and mechanics seemed charming rather than old-fashioned.
"Dragon Quest 3!" Renko crooned.
"Mm-hm!" Sanae nodded happily. "This is the game boy color version."
"oh, it's startin'!"
The opening cutscene played, followed by title screen theme so classic that it instantly evoked a wave of nostalgia in me. "Here," Sanae said, placing the console in Marisa's hands. This is the story of a brave warrior who takes over from their father and sets out on a journey to defeat the Demon King."
Marisa accepted the console, but looked a little dubious at that statement. "Do I gotta take over from my father? How do I play this thing?"
"Um, well you just press the buttons to accept or cancel choices. You can select things with this. For now we have to start by entering your name. Like this... Sa-na-e-the-brave. There, see?"
"Huh, what's all this?"
"Oh, that's right. This game starts with a personality test. Your character's stats change depending on how you answer."
"Wait, I'm playin' as you now. Do I answer for my personality or yours?"
"Don't use yours, Marisa, your character will come out all weird and stunted." Alice interjected.
The three girls huddled tightly around the small screen watching with wonder as Marisa made her way through the introduction. For Renko and I, there was no space to watch, but it wasn't nearly the same level of spectacle. Renko looked up and me and shrugged as we watched the three of them stare with fascination at the tiny handheld.
"I knew Dragon Quest was timeless, but who would have thought that its appeal could even transcend the Great Hakurei Barrier?" Renko asked with a wry smile.
"Yuji Horii is truly a great talent." I agreed.
The door to the outside opened then, admitting a blast of cold air as Reimu entered, scowling and rosy-cheeked, apparently released from tending to whatever mischief Suika had been pursuing. She slid the door closed and took a moment to look over the scene, with the three girls huddled in rapt silence over a corner of the kotatsu and the two of us overlooking them with eyes full of wistful nostalgia.
"What are you all doing?" she asked.
As none of the three girls huddled around the console could be bothered to respond, I looked up at her. "Sanae brought a toy from the Outside world," I explained.
Reimu's face contorted into a grimace of disgust. "Ugh, I'll pass. Outsider things never make any sense. Nothing in Korindo even works, they all just sit there, staring at you."
"Oh, on that note, Sanae, how did you manage to keep that thing charged? Even if you never used it, it must be nearly dead after sitting for this long."
Sanae looked up and smiled broadly, giving us a big thumbs-up. "I was hoping you'd ask. It's another triumph for the Moriya shrine. We were able to successfully generate a little bit of electricity recently. Not enough for large-scale production yet, but I was able to set up an alternator and charge a few things. If you have any batteries you want to recharge, come on up to the mountain some time."
Renko and I looked at eachother in wide-eyed shock. Could this mean our cellphones, which had lain dormant for years as quaint artifacts of a future past might be revived? It took me a few moments to get my head back into the correct frame of reference to remember that even if they were successfully charged, our phones would need other infrastructure like signal towers and wifi to actually be useful.
"Sanae, did you say you got a generator working? How?" Renko asked, in awe.
"Hey, what do I do here?"
"Oh, first you need to go to the tavern and recruit some other adventurers. You can pick warriors, fighters, clerics, mages, dealers, jesters, sages or thieves. You even get to name them all!"
"Since I'm playin' you, I'mma get a mage to be me then."
"If it's going to be you, you should get a thief, Marisa."
"Oooh thieves are really strong in this. That might be a good idea."
"Really? Alright. Ma-ri-sa the thief and Alice the mage. There's no 'stick in the mud' job, is there?"
"What are all of you even doing?"
"Oh, don't forget Reimu, she can be your cleric."
"What? Why am I in an Outsider toy? Don't make me something weird."
With all the commotion, Renko's question went unanswered. I shrugged at her and we watched as Reimu tried to crowd her way in to get a look at the screen.
-.-.-.-.-
In the end, Sanae let Marisa take the Gameboy boy home with her.
"You know you're never going to see it again now that you've let her 'borrow' it," Alice chided as we all headed toward the torii gates.
Sanae beamed innocently. "She'll have to bring it back once the batteries run out. That'll probably be in a day or so."
"Oi, Alice, you just died again. Why are you always so useless?"
"What? Don't let me die, you're supposed to be protecting me. Heal me up."
"It was just two hits. I thought you'd at least be able to handle that much."
I never did manage to find out if the intrepid party of Sanae the Brave, Marisa the Thief, Alice the Mage and Reimu the Cleric was able to defeat the Demon King Baramos. In the end some questions will have to remain unanswered, I suppose.