endgames | 029 -- [Action || Video]

[The afternoon finds Shikamaru bundled up against the cold and out and about in parts of the village he won't normally be in. Wandering, it might look like; he drifts in and out of high-traffic areas like the bar and the item shop to places less visited. The coffee shop he'll be at for sure, and his final stop will be the building that was once Azzip's Pizza.

This will do.]

[Video]

[Later in the afternoon, with dark still far off, the journal feed will click on to see Shikamaru surrounded by various colorful boxes among other things. He folds his hands over a table.]

It's come to my attention over the last few months that some of you have never heard of boardgames, or have otherwise never played. As a reasonable guy, I can let a lot of things go, but that... just seems sad.

[He shakes his head here. With woe, even. And then he gestures to the board games from various worlds strewn in the background. Close inspection will find a shogi set, a chess board, Go, Pai Sho, Plateau, Candy Land, Mouse Trap, ~~Jumanji~~ and so on. You can pretty much make up any family-friendly board game you want here and he will have it somehow. Go for it, actually. He hasn't played all of them.]

I'm here to tell you why they're awesome. [...] And possibly to petition for a partner. It's troublesome, but you'd be surprised how hard that is to accomplish here...

Katara. [Hint, hint.] Kotomi-chan. [Who he can't tease as well, so he'd best clarify:] If you're still up for that.

[He shakes himself with a grin, saluting at the journal with his left hand. He picks up the nearest game.] Anyways, let's get started. It goes like this...

[And from here he'll be giving the abridged rules of the games he knows to start. Feel free to interrupt him, or call him out on any games he skips.]

[/end Voice]

[Action || Locked to Konan]

[Much later in the night, after he's seen to everything he needs to, Shikamaru takes a box out of a drawer and goes outside. From it, he withdraws an origami hummingbird, and contemplates it slowly for a few quiet minutes.

When he's done, he holds it up at eye level and speaks seriously.]

It's about time we spoke again. Don't you think?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oi, oi. I keep busy too.

Undoubtedly. Though you hardly seem to be caught in the act of it. Is there something going on?

Mm. Sorta. I'm still mulling it over.

Would verbalizing your thoughts help?

Mostly I've been trying to decide if the effort will produce anything of value. I'm thinking of putting something together...

Well an effort will usually yield some manner of result, as opposed to not trying anything at all, don't you think?

So the reasonable sort might say. I dunno. I always picked my battles. Less effort that way.

And what sort of battle would you consider worth the effort?

One that pays off for more than just me.

That seems reasonable. What are you thinking?

An intelligence agency, of sorts. More dedicated to research than information-gathering, I guess.

Something that can be used to gather and keep track of the information we know here, you mean?

Yeah. Then piece it together and make it publicly known.

Now that you mention it, it does seem as if there has been less sharing of information ever since there was more information to learn these days. More people have the capability of picking up on different details... but we don't all put them together as much as we used to. And so many others are unaware of past incidents.

Exactly my line of thought. It's gotten too costly.

[He thinks of Korras Blake, taken in like he was, and it makes him so frustrated he feels sick to his stomach sometimes. His voice takes some finality to it.]

I'm someone to blame for that, so whether through this idea or another... I'm going to fix that.

As long as there are those among us willing to share and put these details together, and there should be an amount of that. Some of our backgrounds don't exactly lend us to being trusting individuals; we're more likely to close off to only a few people that we've had the chance to grow to know over these years. But too many people are consistently in the dark.

Mm. [That's why he's thinking of pulling in regular mission-goers like him to start. Ensure some info gets back.] I don't expect it to be an instant thing. The idea is to win people over with time, once they see that everyone else's information is being put to good use.

Nothing is ever instantaneous, but it's always good to have a starting point. After all the town got a lot larger, and the amount of information to learn became diverse after the missions were introduced to us. It makes it easier for details to scatter.

029 -- [Action || Video]

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