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Enigmatic Book of Mystery-Chapter 2(Armor Hunt)(OPEN)
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Post by ricochet8-Kshin on Apr 20, 2022 22:31:25 GMT
Ollie's response to Grace's words caused the young Gumdramon to look closer at the teen before he asked "Wait, Ollie, you're not? Are you also an orphan?"
Grace looked back and forth between Ollie and Kshin before looking back at Ollie as she said "Oh my gosh. Ollie, I'm sorry for making you uncomfortable. I didn't mean to upset you. I guess I should of thought better before I spoke." Grace's shoulders were slumped as a sad expression appeared on the face of the normally peppy Gammamon.
Wanting to pull the conversation in a different direction, Kshin asked "Hey, Ollie. Are there any other questions you wanna ask about us?" Maybe by sparking the teen's natural curiosity would undo some of the damage unwittingly done. Yes Kshin was lucky to have been adopted off the streets but apparently Ollie hadn't had similar luck.
Both Kshin and Grace noticed at how Procopius was starting to behave in a protective manner towards his partner and maybe even trying to comfort the boy. Then an idea came to Grace's mind before she said "Hey, Kshin. Maybe you can tell Ollie and Procopius about the time you and your adoptive family went treasure hunting for the treasure your parents were never able to find. The way you described that the treasure was an ancient city lost to history." Sure Kshin even possessed a map to said city but Ollie didn't need to know that.
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Post by ollieandprocopius on Apr 21, 2022 14:03:09 GMT
"No apologies, Kshin, not for that. There's no way you could have known, either of you. Orphan yes I...I suppose I am. Though my parents aren't dead, not that I know of anyway, which I admit isn't much considering that if they WERE dead I'd have no way of knowing one way or the other." Ollie admitted. He always instinctively thought of his birth parents as still living even when he had zero actual confirmation of that one way or the other.
"Lost city? Man, sounds fancy. heaven only knows what sorts of things people live behind in a whole abandoned city." Procopius said, somewhat curious himself but also helping with Grace's plan to hopefully get Ollie's mind focused on anything other than his own festering miseries. And from the way the boy's eyes lit up like bottle rockets it seemed they succeeded.
"A lost city? My word. Even just looking into the living areas of pre modern people, or digimon in this case can tell so much about how they lived, who they worshiped, what kind of jobs they did. The idea of a pre-modern Digital World...fascinating." he said, his mind instantly snapping to the cliche image of a mayan or aztec style city covered from top to bottom in vines, brown brick turning almost golden in the timeless gaze of the sunlight, crumbling to treacherous, shuddering imbalance with the pitiless march of time. He has at least SOME Indiana Jones in him.
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Post by ricochet8-Kshin on Apr 21, 2022 21:18:19 GMT
Kshin and Grace both cringed at learning that Ollie wasn't an orphan in the traditional sense it seemed. As far as the young human knew his parents were alive but he didn't know where they were. "You mean they just left you? Why you seem like not only a nice kid but intelligent as well. One would think parents would love to have a kid like you. I guess I'll never understand the motives of people." Kshin said shaking his head in disbelief as he finished the last sentence.
When Procopius mentioned the city, Kshin said "Yeah it was pretty fancy in places. Though most of the building seemed to be made either out of clay or wood but there was an ornately decorated well in the village's center." Kshin said shivering as the thoughts of being imprisoned in the well when he was a Dorimon came back to mind. At least he didn't have to face that scary situation alone.
Mentions of the ancient city seemed to pep Ollie up and Kshin said "Yeah had to go through a trap laden cave to get to the city but it's a shame I wasn't able to take a picture of the city now that I think about it."
"Kshin, it sounds like one day you should take me since you have the map to the ancient city in your possession. I can take all the pictures you want." Grace said excitedly pulling out her camera from underneath her scarf before she realized what she said in her excitement but Kshin didn't have to say anything as she said "Oopsie!"
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Post by ollieandprocopius on Apr 22, 2022 12:23:54 GMT
"My...understanding of my birth parents is slim. Most likely illegal immigrants to Japan, probably with large criminal records if I had to take a wild guess. Witness saw two people making a very sharp exit away from the hospital where I was left but other than that I don't know the first thing about them. Names, faces any details at all really. Reynolds was a surname I chose for myself." Ollie said. The way that he talked about it was...clinical, like he was talking about something he had read, a kind of cold mental distance that made it all the more clear that he HAD to hold the idea at arm's length to avoid cracking under the weight of it.
"I can tell you a couple things about them for sure." Procopius said with a snarl as he imagined the sorts of "colorful" language that he would have been able to use for Ollie's parents, most of them not allowed on public television.
"A map? My word, that's a treasure in itself. I don't expect you to let me copy it or the like but will you let me cite your..."personal collection" as a source for its existence? If you and your parents are well known enough it would give some credibility and citing private artifact collections is common enough." Ollie explained. Usually the citation of private collections was saved for truly massive examples like the Vatican Archives in Rome which were technically the personal collection of the Pope but Ollie figured he could brute force a workable citation for Kshin's smaller archives, Ollie already mentally mapping the entry on the whole affair.
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Post by ricochet8-Kshin on Apr 22, 2022 23:29:52 GMT
"I didn't know one could choose surnames unless humans were legally changing their names. Still leaving you like that was not cool and your so called parents should be ashamed of themselves." Grace said looking fascinated with Ollie's tale.
"Why couldn't he choose a surname? Digimon sometimes choose their own first names and, sometimes surnames, if they weren't named at birth. I decided to use the same surname as my adopted brother LJ though." Kshin said before he continued "Still the surname of Reynolds sounds pretty cool. I bet it has a story behind it much like Procopius' name."
While shocked at Procopius' use of language both Kshin and Grace nodded in agreement with the Tsumemon's words. Nice language seemed to good for Ollie's parents.
Kshin set his bag down and began rooting through it before pulling out a small chip with it resting in his palm before he said "Grandpa somehow hid it in my fur before he handed me to my mom. That had to be when since he petted my fur before he did so and told my parents to run while he held off the pirates. Unfortunately Grandpa died the same night my parents were murdered. I only survived because I was hidden in the bushes. In the morning I was discovered by the leader of the pirates who brought me to Whitewater and left me in the streets where I joined a gang of rookie level dragons to survive. Yet when they came upon Mandrake and Lothar planning to pickpocket them they abandoned me when the plan went awry. To be honest I was scared witless of not only Mandrake and Lothar but a human named Hana and her twin partners Data and Rush."
"Hey, Kshin, how do you even access this map anyway?" Grace asked staring at the chip.
"Well last time it was read by a chip reader in Hana's digivice but I think any chip reader could do as well." Kshin said scratching his chin.
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Post by ollieandprocopius on Apr 23, 2022 12:31:34 GMT
"Honestly?...no, not really." Ollie sighed when Grace said that there was most likely a story behind the choosing of his last name. Like anything there WAS a story behind it, just not really a good or interesting one. "I resisted choosing a surname for myself for the longest time, for a long while my functional last name as "Doe" as in John Doe because I refused to pick one and nobody at the orphanage cared to pick one for me. In the end I rolled open a book of names and wrote down the first one I saw because I was too frustrated with the whole process to think straight, let alone put my care into it." Ollie sighed. His near photographic memory of his reading meant that not only did he knew which book it was and where it was right now but also the exact page where his frustrated tear stains could still be found.
"Yea, Kshin...been there, done that whole...rough neighborhood gangland thing. You got lucky, you got out, I've seen it happen before. Unfortunately nobody decided to pick me up off the side of the road." Procopius said. he wasn't being accusatory, just like Ollie hadn't been to Kshin when his words had reminded him of his loneliness. It seemed that both sides of the duo had something in common with Kshin to one point of another. "I made the best of it, on the streets of Terminal I mean. Got things running pretty well, took care of my neighborhood, kept the real violent, evil stuff out. Then...well somebody whacked me on the back of the head real good and I woke up with Ollie looking right down at me. It's been a new kind of adventure since then I suppose." He said, explaining the life that he'd made for himself. Even if it wasn't what most people would call "good" living, it had been his, and finding out who was responsible for stealing it from him was still a goal that he and Ollie had.
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Post by ricochet8-Kshin on Apr 23, 2022 22:28:43 GMT
"Good thing you did take your time with choosing your surname as it gave you time to figure out what suited you best. While humans using the term John Doe sounds generic I can understand it's better than being called nothing at all." Grace said as she thought of how she thought of how she had chosen a name for herself. It may not of been fancy like Procopius' name but she thought the name Grace was both cute and pretty so she went with that. She had not really chosen a surname until much later when she had one set aside for school purposes only.
"I guess I was lucky I didn't become as rotten as the gang's leader, huh? I had to face him again when I went back for my mom's locket. Fortunately I didn't have to face the jerk alone as an Impmon named Dust went to help me out while Mandrake led Dust's companion, a Lekismon named Luna, to Lothar who was hurt at the time. I snuck away from Mandrake and Lothar before I recovered from my separation anxiety so I was grateful Dust helped me out." Kshin said with a sigh.
"Man all three of you had it rough." Grace said before she continued "At least none of you are alone anymore. Ollie, you and Procopius have each other and both of you have each other's backs just like I have Kshin's back. Do you two have any other friends, Ollie? Procopius?"
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Post by ollieandprocopius on Apr 24, 2022 12:18:35 GMT
Ollie had to take a second, thinking on the idea of having other friends. He almost shook his head for a moment before he realized that that would be a lie.
"Oh! Yes. I have one. A good one even. Her name is Kaya." Ollie said, thinking on the feisty gal that very often saved both his things and his dignity from the bullies that refused to leave him alone. "I suppose I may have two now even. Turns out she's a tamer too! Her partner, Hawkeye, was very kind when we met." Ollie said, being very enthusiastic about meeting the avian digimon. He didn't get many people who were so nice to him, especially who were so nice to him right off the bat. He didn't have many points of attachment and that meant that his mind and his heart were constantly reaching out blindly for them, even when he didn't know as much about the subject of his friendship as would probably be required for most other people.
"I...I don't know. I thought I did. I suppose when you're on top of your little slice of the world its easy to convince yourself you got a lot of friends. I tried my best to run a tight ship, make sure everyone got what they needed, that nobody stepped too far out of line and brought the hammer down on top of all of us. Kept the crime between the lines, more of less...seems someone didn't agree." Procopius said, blinking hard as the brain rattling impact to the back of his head that served as his final sense memory of his old life repeated in his mind's eye.
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Post by ricochet8-Kshin on Apr 24, 2022 12:38:36 GMT
"Those names sound familiar. I think Mandrake and Lothar mentioned meeting up with a girl named Kaya and that she had a Hawkmon named Hawkeye with her. Mandrake and Lothar went Christmas shopping with them and some others. Perhaps those were your friends, Ollie." Kshin said as he recalled what was told to him when he and Grace got their Christmas presents.
Grace noticed how Ollie seemed hesitant before she said "I can see how forming attachments can be difficult as I had that problem before meeting Kshin since I wondered the Digital World alone." Then Grace smiled before she said "Since I met Kshin I have enjoyed not only having someone to travel with but I don't mind being a magician's assistant since Kshin is trying to be a stage magician."
"Yeah but I'm not that experienced with performing yet since I don't know many tricks but I have been practicing a lot of different things but not with much success with some harder tricks." Kshin said his paws resting in his lap while still gently holding the chip that held the map to the ancient city as well as the last message his grandfather left him.
Grace smiled at Procopius before she said "Sounds like you still tried your best to do what you thought was the right thing."
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Post by ollieandprocopius on Apr 25, 2022 14:15:11 GMT
"Magic tricks? Now I'm just wondering if, in a world as strange as this one seems to be, you mean slight of hand or real, out of this world magic!" Ollie said, laughing and shaking his head. He never would have even considered thinking about magic as a real thing before now but most of the things that Digimon could do were ninety percent of the way toward being magic anyhow, so why not? "if you have a deck of cards, I can show you a few tricks. Card tricks are just about math and pattern recognition after all." Ollie said, not mentioning that he had also learned the tricks to try and make himself more popular, back when he was young enough to believe there was any chance of his social status climbing past the cruel expectations of his peers.
"I highly doubt it could be anybody else. Trust me, I only met Kaya recently and I can tell you for a fact that her and that partner of hers are one of a kind." Procopius said, remembering the single run in he'd had with the blonde firecracker, also knowing it will be far from his last as he finally confronted what Grace had said. "it was...easy for the Knightmon to say "no crime, no how" when they never had to worry about where their next meal was coming from. It's easy to work within the laws when you MAKE the laws." Procopius said. It had been a harsh reality, living on the street but he tried to make the kind of system that everyone could at least live in.
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Post by ricochet8-Kshin on Apr 25, 2022 22:30:36 GMT
"Well my magic is basically slight of hand since I wasn't born of a magic family just adopted by a Wizardmon. Some digimon are known for powerful actual magic. The only time I can use actual magic is when I armor digivolve to Sorcerimon." Kshin said not offended one bit that Ollie didn't know in the Digital World magic was real. Both of his adopted siblings had access to magic as well as one of his adopted parents and one of his adopted grandfathers.
When asked if Kshin had a deck of cards the young dragon began digging into his bag pulling out a box that held the deck of cards before he said "I do have a deck of cards. Once I showed interest in magic I was given a deck of cards and entered a magic show getting second place with a trick that involved both cards and a coin."
"Yeah. Doing the right thing is far from always easy as I learned from Kshin when we first met. Though he had odds against him he went into a village to help others where as I was initially too afraid to. At the time I thought he was just too crazy to have the sense to be afraid but as I've gotten to know him I know he was likely scared out of his mind but still able to somehow succeed. When we met a second time I decided to travel with him and the rest is history." Grace said.
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Post by ollieandprocopius on Apr 26, 2022 14:33:29 GMT
Ollie started to cut and shuffle the deck like a lifelong card shark, cards slipping over and past one another without a single pause or hitch in the motion until he fanned the entire deck out in his hands, facing Kshin.
"Pick one, any one, just don't let me see it." Ollie said, waiting for Kshin to pick a card and memorize what it was. he then waited for him to slip it back in the deck and began to shuffle. "I like magic tricks. They're like brain puzzles, you try to figure out what the magician isn't letting you see that's making it look more illogical than it is." He said, not even looking down at the cards as he shuffled them, the slips of thick card stock still rushing over one another with a satisfying sound. "Is this your...hmm...wait a minute." Ollie paused, making a show of confusion as he turned the deck over and fanned it out again, showing that Kshin's chosen card was totally missing from the pile. "Oh THERE it is." Ollie said, leaning forward and reaching behind Grace's head frill to pull out the card from behind her head with a flick of his wrist.
"Wait you...and she...but you didn't even see the..." Procopius' non-existent jaw nearly hit the floor as he stuttered, the wheels in his brain trying desperately to figure out what the hell he had just seen. Evidently the digimon from the wrong side of the tracks had never had the pleasure of seeing a magic trick like that.
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Post by ricochet8-Kshin on Apr 26, 2022 22:55:12 GMT
Grace watched as Ollie cut and shuffle the deck for a while just as she kept sharp eyes on Kshin when he practiced his slight of hand. As Ollie fanned out the entire deck it was clear the setup for the trick was ready. When Ollie told Kshin to pick one and don't let him see it. Kshin reached out to the deck her eyes now focusing on both boys intensely. Kshin's slight of hand was probably his best when it came to magic tricks and not necessarily card tricks so did Ollie know what he was getting into?
Kshin took ahold of a card with one of his paws and looked at it before sliding it back into the deck as Ollie began to shuffle it. "Magic tricks are fun too though I still haven't mastered some really hard tricks. Maybe I should ask Mandrake for advice one day since not only does he know real magic but knows slight of hand magic as well." Kshin said before Ollie looked confused. He knew that gesture and what it meant and a smile spread across the young dragon's face as Ollie pulled a card from Grace's head frill which confused Procopius.
Kshin smiled and said "Not bad but look at the deck closely. That is not my card." As Grace blinked in confusion now just as puzzled as Procopius Kshin leaned forward reaching behind Ollie's shoulder and held out a card as he, with a smirk, said "My card is right here. You're trick is pretty good though."
Grace now gaped at the sight she saw before she asked "Wait but how?"
"Now, Grace. Surely you know that magicians never reveal their secrets." Kshin said with a mischievous smirk he was copying from Mandrake.
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Post by ollieandprocopius on Apr 27, 2022 14:43:37 GMT
"I...well I hope someone will explain at least part of it to ME before something in my head pops!" Procopius said, shouting at nobody in particular as hiss mind wrapped around the two dueling tricks in as many ways as he could think of. How the hell had Kshin gotten the card out of the deck under Ollie's nose, how had Ollie planted the card behind Grace's frill without noticing it was the wrong card, how had he and Grace who had been sitting a foot and a half away from them both during the entire process not seen ANY of it?!
"Hehe, well...looks like the better man won." Ollie smiled, looking a little bit crestfallen at being upstaged and having his thunder stolen in a moment where he was being a bit more socially daring that usual. Still, he reached out a hand and offered it for Kshin to shake. He wasn't a magician by trade, just a knowledge sponge who had absorbed a few decent card tricks from a book here or there as he handed back the deck of card.
"My brain hurts." Procopius said, flopping onto his stomach and using one of his finger claws to scratch at the top of his head. He was having a lot of trouble keeping up with the little egghead he had been paired up with, he just wasn't built for it...yet. Ollie reached out and patted him on the head, smiling a little and leaning in to at least whisper his half of the trick into Procopius' ear, which only made the little Digimon's eyes sparkle as the "trick" of the sleight of hand was shown to him, the missing piece that made the entire puzzle fit together in his mind's eye.
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Post by ricochet8-Kshin on Apr 27, 2022 22:32:53 GMT
"Procopius, I have no idea how he does it either. All I know is stage magic, whether slight of hand or otherwise, is a matter of misdirection. Obviously at some point Kshin made his move but exactly when I don't know." Grace said trying to help with as much as she knew about the trick which was basically nothing. When did Kshin make his move anyway? Was it before or after the cards were fanned before him? Obviously the clever young dragon wasn't revealing anything.
Kshin reached out accepting Ollie's handshake before he said "For not being a magician or one in training you performed the trick pretty well. Surely you have entertained others with it if you practiced it so much." When Ollie handed Kshin his deck of cards back the Gumdramon placed the cards back in his bag taking notice of the still stumped Procopius. Then he watched as Ollie explained everything but Kshin's part of the trick causing the Tsumemon to be content as the pieces came together.
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