(Call of Cthulhu) Do Gods Dream of Digital Drugs by 秒針, Japonism(2021年更新版) by INT の犠牲者卓, 2021/12/22
This is the full narrative replay for the Japanese Call of Cthulhu Scenario, 神々は電⼦ドラッグの夢を⾒るか, or Do Gods Dream of Digital Drugs, written by 秒針 of the INT の犠牲者卓 , or Victims of Int group.
If you’re a player, or just don’t want to know everything about the scenario ahead of time, you can read or listen to the first, spoiler-lite section of my review of it here. You can find the Japonism bundle with this scenario in it on booth.pm
And now onto Do Gods Dream of Digital Drugs?
Day 1
They had all received calls from their mutual friend, Masahi Hamamatsu, asking – urging, more so – them to take a few days off for an important get together. He had something to show them, something that would change their lives. Though knowing Hamamatsu as prone to exaggeration, they did as he said, more looking forward to meeting him, and each other, and getting a few days away from the everyday grind. Masahi could be eccentric, but he had always been there for them whenever times got hard, and without him the four of them likely wouldn’t have stayed friends after high school.
Coming off of work, the programmer Akira Kubo was the first to arrive at the venue Hamamatsu indicated for the meet-up, a little underground live bar headlining an electro-punk jazz band he’d never heard of. Definitely something Masahi would have chosen though, as an EDM producer he had an eclectic taste in music. Akira sidled up to the bar, people-watching to pass the time waiting for the others.
He could have come earlier, his schedule certainly allowed it, but the pianist Majima Yuto preferred to take his time. Nine to six jobs were for other people, normal people. Artists, like Majima and Masahi, worked in schedule with their muse. Of course, Majima happily accepted an excuse to shelve that muse for a few days. Spotting Akira at the bar, Majima slipped through the crowd to greet his friend.
Itsumi Makino always worried about taking days off. You could never be sure the request would go through, and even if it did you could always be called in. Nevertheless, Itsumi gladly stowed his uniform, locked up his revolver, and left the police station excited for a few days with the boys, ideally not having to worry about wrestling any drunks or filing missing item reports. Finding Majima and Akira at the bar brought a smile to his face, even if the noise grated a tad.
Bleary-eyed Daiki Sato stumbled into the venue last, still in his suit, smelling of sweat and cigarettes. At least he’d loosened his tie, letting his brain know that, finally, the work day was over. And unlike most days, he could finally relax for more than a few hours. A part of him felt a perverse guilt about not catching the train back home, preparing tomorrows lunch, and passing out to catch just enough sleep to wake in time to catch the train back into the city. No, tonight heralded two days of absolute freedom. Daiki stumbled past his friends, ignoring their salutations until he’d ordered, downed, and re-ordered a whisky.
Then Masahi Hamamatsu sauntered up to them, clapping shoulders. He told them how happy he was to see them, and how excited he was to spend time with them. They found tickets pressed into their hands. The Roppongi Hills Music Festa, it read, dated the day after tomorrow. Masahi said he was involved in the event’s planning, and knew there would be a performance he needed them to see. A performance that would change their lives. He didn’t answer any of the questions they bombarded him with. Laughing, he simply said they had to see it to believe.
The Hills Music Festa, HMF, rang some bells. It had been on the news, not just because it was the biggest tech-focused music concert in Japan, but because it had been on the receiving ends of protests and threatening demands for it to be cancelled. Tokyo politicians and police denounced the threats, vowing the event would go ahead with tightened security. When asked about the protests, Masahi half-laughed, half-scoffed. Cowards, he said simply.
At the best of times Masahi tended towards distraction, and so none of them questioned the earbud trailing into his sweater. Odd, certainly, to listen to music while at a live show, but Masahi was Masahi. They did note that even more than usual his eyes wandered, his sentences trailed off, he missed conversation cues. When pressed if he felt alright, he replied he was doing great, and just so glad they were with him.
Then he stabbed a pen into his neck.
Itsumi rushed forward to catch Masahi as he fell, wrestling with him to pull the pen out as Masahi seemed to be trying to jam it further in. As Masahi strength waned Itsumi removed the pen from the ragged wound, blood spilling out between his fingers. The others getting over their shock, called an ambulance.
Akira spotted Masahi’s phone, having tumbled from his pocket, lying in a growing pool of blood. Earbud still jacked in. No sound, though. The phone glitched out when he tried to open it, but with a bit of finesse he managed to at least power on the screen, and saw that Masahi had been listening to a song titled ‘Tristan.’ The phone was rapidly dying. Afraid the blood would corrupt its data storage, Akira quickly dismantled the phone. It did indeed appear damaged, but with a bit of work he thought he might be able to recover some of the harddrive.
Despite Itsumi’s best efforts, by the time the ambulance arrived, Masahi was dead. Seeing people die no longer shocked Itsumi, but a friend going cold under his hands still did.
Police questioned the group for a time, but besides having Itsumi fill out extra paperwork, with the promise of much more come his next workday, they released the group from the station. A collegue of Itsumi, Detective Gakuto, followed them out though, and between puffs of a cigarette told them that Hamamatsu’s death seemed familiar. Four other individuals directly related to the HMF had died recently. The police conducted an investigation, indeed technically were still investigating, but all the deaths were clearly suicide. Busy with other matters, least of which preparing security for the HMF itself, the police chalked up the suicides to work pressure.
The case essentially shelved, Detective Gakuto had been moved onto other matters, but something still rubbed him the wrong way. If Itsumi, and the others, felt the same way, maybe they could poke around on their own time. He handed over a note with the names of the four deceased; Kanakura Saya of Chala Inc., Baden Thalman of Penture Co., Ltd., Professor Akasawa Sakurako of Yugoshi University, and Chikura Takumi of Messiaen Record Co., Ltd.
Itsumi pressed about the threats against HMF, and Gakuto seemed a bit cagey, mumbling about confidentiality, but let on that there was an ongoing investigation into a group called the Church of Serialism thought to be responsible. He warned the group off for now, and that even though the Serialists seemed like peaceful-enough New Religion loonies, they should leave the Church to the police, just in case they did turn out to be dangerous.
Left to there own devices, the group quickly decided they would find out why their friend killed himself. The companies on the detective’s list would all be shut at this time of night, but they thought of a possible lead before waiting for tomorrow. They went to Masahi’s condo. A trusting friend, he’d told his friends the key code to his door.
Sparsely furnished and relatively neat, with the exception of Masahi’s work area. Akira quickly spied Masahi’s laptop. Password locked, but Akira knew he could fix that. As he worked, the others rifled through Masahi’s mess. Mostly work related, compositions and abstract notes. Among the chaff they found a calendar marking a date a month past. A meeting. With all the suicide victims. They also found a black business card, marked with the name, Church of Serialism. And a USB with the tag ‘Tristan’ taped to it.
Akira cracked the password. A cursory check found Masahi’s email history unexpectedly sparse, as if he had deleted swathes of emails. One remaining stood out. Addressed from Akasawa Sakurako – the dead professor from Yukoshi University, and addressed to Masahi and the other victims. It contained a password for a USB drive, and a reminder that Tristan was confidential up until its debut at HMF.
Remembering that the last played track on Masahi’s phone had been called Tristan, Akira plugged in and unlocked the USB drive. As expected, it contained a single file. One, very large, audio file, titled Tristan.
The speakers on Masahi’s laptop didn’t work. Akira suspected they’d been intentionally disabled. An audio-engineer’s headphones lay snarled on the desk, though, and after a second of everyone looking at each other, Majima slipped them on and nodded to Akira.
He pressed play.
Chaos. Beauty. Madness and absolute clarity. Swirling rhythms cascading into infinite patterns. Grief, joy, curiosity, panic, calm. So calm.
They watched Majima. He stood, hunched over the desk. Eyes looking ahead, one hand on the headphones.
All normal. His other hand stabbed a pen through his eye.
Itsumi jerked forward, grabbing Majima’s arm as he tried to dig the pen further into his eye socket. Akira tumbled back over his chair, but Daiki had the presence of mind to help Itsumi, and together they managed to wrestle away the gore-streaked pen. They held down Majima, arms still jerking as if trying to get at his own flesh, and yelled for Akira to get a towel to staunch the bleeding.
Within seconds, though, Majima calmed, looking around for a brief moment with cleared eyes. He reached up to touch blood pouring down his cheek. Then the screaming began.
Two hours later, Akira, Itsumi, and Daiki smoked outside a hospital. Majima was stable, and would be held at least overnight. The doctors of course wanted him under observation for weeks, but in his few moments of consciousness and clarity, Majima demanded he be released as early as possible. They’d meet him in the morning outside the hospital, and decide were to go.
And so they returned to their homes. Akira spent the night fretting over Masahi’s phone, trying to salvage anything from the storage unit. Itsumi went over the names of the victims before turning in for the night, doing some brief searches of the companies to get a head start tomorrow. Daiki kicked off his shoes, marched through his one-room apartment, and without changing or bathing, collapsed on his futon and promptly passed out. And Majima dreamed through drug-induced sleep of a song he could barely perceive, but knew he’d never be rid of.
Day 2
A jittery Akira fast walked to the hospital. He’d barely slept and cruised on a litre of coffee. It had taken most of the night, and morning, to recover any data at all from Masahi’s phone. But he’d done it. Itsumi likewise felt a tad haggard on his commute, having spent more time than planned the night before researching the four deceased and their organisations. True, fresh clarity never greeted Daiki in the morning anymore, but he also didn’t feel like death, so he took that as a sign of a good sleep.
When Majima left the hospital, an eye patch covering the mess that still itched despite the painkillers, he found his companions outside comparing notes, already planning their routes for the day. Majima shook off any suggestions he rest and leave it to them. Without further ado, Itsumi laid out what he’d learned of the victims, and they decided who would go where.
The first body, found a full month ago, had been that of Sakurako Akasawa, a professor at Yogoshi University, and a leading member of their artificial intelligence lab. While the university had campuses all over Tokyo, the AI lab was near Jinnbochou Station. The second to die had been Chikura Takuto, a sound engineer at Messiaen Record, an audio equipment manufacturer located next to Ueno Park. After that was Baden Thalman, a German national, and Japan representative for the international investment company Penture Co., Ltd., headquartered in a tower attached to Shinjuku Station. Kanakura Saya had been the last victim, before Masahi, a senior employee of the Shibuya-based event-planning agency Chala Inc.
Akira obviously knew the most about computers, and had even attended Yugoshi for a short time, so he volunteered to visit the AI lab. It likewise made sense for Majima, as a musician, to ask around Messiaen Record. Itsumi took Penture, and Daiki Chala, to finish things off. Before they parted ways, agreeing to keep in touch and sharing anything they discovered in a group chat, Akira shared what he’d recovered from Masahi’s phone. Not much, just message history. But among the texts was one an anonymous message, telling him to be careful around the ‘nonbelievers’ until the ‘reveal.’
On his way to the Yugoshi AI lab, Akira searched a bit more into Professor Akasawa, learning that she had been the lead developer of a project called ‘Partita,’ billed as a deep-learning AI set to autonomously seek out the answer to the question ‘what is good music?’ Assistant-Professor Eai was now listed as the project lead.
Arriving at the lab, Akira simply asked a student where the Partita lab was, then walked with purpose through the halls, counting on his confident stride to convince others he belonged there. When he entered the lab room the engineers, programmers, and assistants looked up at him, and once again Akira bulled ahead, asking for Assistant-Professor Eai. A solidly-built middle-aged man popped his head out an office. Keeping up the facade, Akira said he was here for maintenance, and taking him at his word, Eai invited Akira into his office.
Eai asked some light questions about who Akira was and what sort of maintenance, and Akira said he’d worked with Professor Akasawa on server maintenance a few months ago. A risky lie, as Eai might have been working closely-enough with Akasawa at that time to know anyone on the team, but the assistant-professor made some affirmative noises and sighed at Akasawa’s name, saying he missed working with the professor.
Akira probed a bit further, and Eai seemed more than happy to reminisce about Professor Akasawa, saying she’d been a genius, and that Partita would have never pulled through without her leadership and talent. He’d taken her suicide hard. In fact, this had been her desk, and the desk where she’d killed herself. With pens.
To pull the assistant-professor out of his darkening mood, Akira prompted him about Partita’s ‘work,’ and Eai quickly lightened up, beaming with pride and said Partita was hard at work on a follow up piece already. In a lower, jokingly-conspiratorial voice, Eai said he shouldn’t be sharing that, but Tristan, the first piece composed by Partita, would be revealed very soon at HMF anyways. Asked if he’d heard Tristan, Eai sadly admitted he had not, and that Akasawa had expressly forbid anyone from the lab from listening to it. As far as he knew, only Akasawa and other members of the HMF committee had heard it. With a slight grin, Akira asked if there was perhaps a copy of Tristan still in the lab, but Eai laughed and said it had been wiped from Partita. He had no idea if Akasawa had other copies made, or where they might be.
Deciding that was as far as Akira would learn, he excused himself and went to the server room, once again without any trouble. With the servers humming around him, Akira plugged in his laptop. Even a brief glance at Partita boggled the mind with its complexity. And indeed, it was learning, and creating. Normally this would fascinate Akira, enough to make him contemplate applying to work at Yugoshi right this minute, but he’d seen what Partita’s creations had done. Tristan killed Masahi, blinded Majima, and quite possibly killed this professor Akasawa as well. Akira got to work.
Before heading into Chala Inc. Daiki checked their website, finding that the company had been contracted to plan and coordinate the HMF. Seeing that appointments were required. Daki made one through the site. Outside the Shibuya office, Daiki noticed that posters were pasted to the windows, reading ‘Cancel HMF,’ and bearing a logo he recognised from Masahi’s condo as being that of the Church of Serialism.
As soon as he entered the office a receptionist guided him to a small conference room. Another minute later, and a bleached-haired young man sauntered in, silver earnings flashing almost as brightly as his slightly-vacant smile. He introduced himself as Kenji Charashima with an aloof bow and settled sideways into a chair next to Daiki.
Kenji proved more than happy to explain anything to Daiki, being one of the few employees not incredibly busy with preparing for HMF, especially after Kanakura passed away. Kenji’s mouth turned into an almost comical frown. Daiki asked how Kanakura was involved with HMF, and Kenji said that a few months ago Kanakura had gotten a call regarding an AI project. Weird, he’d thought at the time, as Chala had never really been involved with anything like that before. But Kanakura said it would turn HMF into an event never to be forgotten, and no doubt guarantee Chala steady contracts for decades.
Speaking of HMF, Kenji asked, ‘Are you like, going? It’s gonna be crazy, there’s a special event, you know? Real secret’ He waggled his eyebrows until Daiki asked what the secret was. ‘When you put it like that I just GOTTA tell ya! There’s gonna be a gig, a song made by an AI! They call it ‘Tristan,’ right? Weird.’ With a secretive glance around the room – the tiny, single-closed-door room – he continued ‘No one’s heard it here besides Kanakura.’
Daiki replied that he indeed was going to HMF, and that he really needed to get access to Tristan, there was something dangerous going on. Kenji, the gentle soul that he was, trusted Daiki immediately, and quickly gave him Chala-branded backstage passes, saying they’d help him get around the event without any difficulty. Regarding Tristan, it was with a different department, and Kenji honestly had no idea where or with whom. With so many staff busy he couldn’t promise anything, but he’d look into it right away and call Daiki if he found anything. Daiki thanked him and left for a smoke.
Itsumi bussed to Penture’s Shinjuku office. On the way he checked some news releases regarding the investment company, finding that it generally involved itself in tech-related ventures. Notably, it had funded the Yugoshi University AI lab, publicly endorsing the AI music composer program ‘Partiti,’ hoping it would usher in a new era of both music and AI generated content.
Penture’s office took up a full floor of the office building, and stepping out of the elevator Itsumi found a short hallway with a code-locked door and an elderly security guard. The pentioner apologised, saying that Itsumi would need an appointment, and that likely wouldn’t happen any time soon. When asked about Partita, the silver-haired guard said that the person in charge of that project was swamped with handling complaints due to all the threats. With a little extra pressing, he admitted that the staff member went home just before the last train each day, and might be able to talk briefly on the walk from the office to the station proper.
With little else to do but wait, Itsumi decided to go check out the Church of Serialism, supposedly located near Jiyuugaoka Station. Waiting for the train, he found that the Church’s website said it was devoted to worshipping ‘The God of Music.’ Business registry sites also showed the Church financed various live houses, concert halls, as well as sound equipment and recording companies. Altogether, the Church seemed to be entirely peaceful, and even a rather successful business, with no history of incidents up until the threats against the HMF.
And just as he got seated in the train, a news article dropped in his feed. Two hours earlier police had raided the Church, arresting the whole of the congregation. By the time Itsumi got there, an altogether nondescript building that fit in with the offices around it, only a pair of officers stood outside. After telling them he was off-duty doing some extra curricular work for Detective Gakuto, they let him in.
The wide worship hall was empty, scattered papers on the floor, and there was only a single door at the back of the hall. Itsumi rifled through the papers, finding them to be scriptures. Most detailed Serialism’s devotion to the God of Music and promoting musical art among all of humanity. Harmless. But there were also freshly printed pamphlets, prophesizing the descent of the God of Music to earth to banish the Devil’s Music. The writing was sloppy and nearly incoherent in places, but Itsumi pieced together that the Serialists thought Tristan represented the Devil’s Music, and the congregation had to defeat it. There also seemed to be some division among the Church, with the new scriptures denouncing heretics.
Stacks of sheet music stood near pews. Itsumi couldn’t work out the notes, they seemed absurdly complicated, so he snapped a picture and put it in the group chat. He went through the back door, finding a small office littered with binders and records. Pouring through well-laid out finances and registration papers, Itsumi found that he recognised many of the Church’s members as popular musicians. Others were listed as HMF staff – moles. There had been plans for Church members to attend HMF at 1:00pm and conduct a performance. Like a flashmob, he thought with a smirk. But the mass arrests did not bode well for the Serialists plan. He also dug through a member list, finding a dozen or so names crossed out and marked as ‘excommunicated.’ Masahi Hamamatsu, among them.
Majima sat in the waiting room of Messaien Record. The receptionist had said their employees were all quite busy at the time. While keeping tabs on the others’ progress, he’d passed the time searching about Messaien. Right on the corporate family page the Church of Serialism was listed as a majority shareholder, the rest of the company being either family or employee held.
The picture of the Serialists’ sheet music in the group chat caught Majima’s eye. The notes fell into place, and he could hear it in his mind’s ear. Mysterious, beautiful and terrible, echoes from the end of the universe, disrupting his thoughts, ambitions, his very sense of being, until Majima was not Majima, only more notes drifting in the eternal song.
He hummed.
The receptionists scream snapped him out of it. She stood, her chair tipped over, hands covering her ears, eyes bugging out. They stared for a minute, then Majima awkwardly shrugged an apology. New song. Rough draft.
A man in a black ACDC shirt stretched by bulging muscles, his head glistening-bald, strode into the room. He looked at the receptionist as she shakily took her seat, then with a frown walked over to Majima and bowing, introducing himself as Ren Otoishi. He apologised for the wait, he was busy with HMF prep.
Pretending to be interested in purchasing equipment, Majima told Ren he was a pianist, intriguing the big man, who suggested they jam sometime. He shredded. With assurance they would, for sure, soon, someday, Majima then worked into some more pressing questions, firstly about the Church of Serialism. Ren said the Serlialists didn’t involve themselves in Messaien’s operations, and none of them worked for the company. Ren had never even met one of them. Dream shareholders, really, never complaining or making demands.
When asked about Takumi Chikura, Ren clammed up for a second, but eventually let out a deluge. He didn’t know how to feel. He’d liked Takumi, certainly never wished any harm to the guy, but now that he was gone, Ren had been promoted. But he was also so much busier now having to handle HMF. But he got payed so much more now though! But he still had nightmares. Takumi at his desk, nodding along to whatever played in his earbuds, all the while stuffing pen after pen into his eyes, mouth, ears.
Asked about the music, Ren shrugged. The people from Chala had collected it. Confidentiality, or something, but Ren still thought the music had something to do with Takumi’s death. Majima thanked Ren for his time and promised to call in the jam session. Ren shredded his air guitar.
The four met up as it was nearing midnight, Akira coming in last. He’d left a virus in Partita that would cause the program to cannibalize itself. If all went as planned, no one would notice until the crippled Partita ceased up, and without Professor Akasawa, they shouldn’t be able to repair or rebuild it. After some talk of what to do next, they decided to first catch the Penture employee, Kyouko Shachikuda. They ran into her as she hustled to the station, trying to ignore them until Daiki caught her attention as a fellow over-worked soul, used to catching the last train. Kyouko said she’d answer some questions, as long as he could keep up and she wouldn’t miss her damn train. In the end they didn’t learn much new from her. Penture invested in all manner of projects around the world, and dozens in Japan. She didn’t know much about Baden’s death, just rumours he’d done it with his own finger nails. Too tired to care, too busy. Kyouko’d been dealing with constant claims, complaints, and threats from that damned church – at least that should get easier now that the bastards had been arrested.
Midnight approached. They had some idea what would happen tomorrow. Tristan would play at HMF. All those in attendance, all those watching it across Japan, all those streaming it internationally, they would all hear Tristan, and no doubt react just like Sakurako Akasawa, Takumi Chikura, Baden Thalman, Saya Kanakura, Masahi Hamamatsu, and Majima. They didn’t know where Tristan was, or if any of the Serialist heretics were still out there. But they knew one thing.
They had to stop Tristan.
Day 3
Midnight passed, and though tired, Itsumi thought there was still more they could do before HMF kicked off in the morning. With a call to Detective Gakuto he might be able to weasel into interrogating one of the arrested Serialists, and it might be worth staking out the HMF grounds. Majima and Akira agreed, and though Daiki wanted little more than to make the most of his day off and go to sleep relatively early, he would follow along.
Luckily Detective Gakuto worked nights and gladly volunteered to join Itsumi and guarantee an interrogation. The suspect seemed an ordinary man. Late 30s, musician. He looked haggard and at first didn’t answer Itsumi’s questions, just shook his head saying he’d explained everything already so many times, and no one listened. But Itsumi would listen. He told the Serialist he knew about Tristan, he knew about the heretics, he knew about HMF.
The Serialist nearly sprang out of his chair. He begged Itsumi to stop it! Tristan was the Devil’s Music! It would destroy them all!
Itsumi calmed him down, asking in particular how to stop Tristan. The serialists had been planning to play a song from their god at the HMF to counter Tristan. They didn’t know if it would work, and well knew it would be dangerous, but what else could they do? The HMF organizers wouldn’t cancel, the financing company wouldn’t pull the plug, and the police wouldn’t listen!
When asked about the heretics, about Masahi, the man snarled. The fools thought the Devil’s Music was from God. Blasphemy. Masahi was the worst among them. He’d heard the music, and knowing what it was, still pushed ahead to broadcast it with the whole world! Though, if it hadn’t been for Masahi being involved in HMF, the church might have never learned of Tristan at all. God be praised for small miracles.
Itsumi showed the suspect the member lists he’d found at the church, and also had Detective Gakuto check which members had been arrested. Between the three of them, they narrowed down two members that had slipped through police and were known to be heretics. The suspect told Itsumi to be careful. Those two thought they carried out the will of god – they wouldn’t let anyone stop them easily.
Leaving the police station, Gakuto said he wouldn’t be able to have the event canceled, or even Tristan stopped, not just based on the words of a jailed cultist. But knowing that two possibly dangerous Serialists were still on the loose, he’d be able to keep more officers on the lookout, and loop Itsumi into the command structure. If he spotted anything untoward at HMF, he could call on the officers and they’d know who he was.
Parting ways, Itsumi met back up with the others and drove down to the HMF site at the Roppongi Art Hills complex, stopping on the way to pick up his well-worn bokuto. The heavy wood felt good in his hands, though he hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. The Art Hills complex had a couple people walking through on their way home or to night work, but otherwise it was silent. A public space, there wasn’t anything impeding their wandering around, but nothing had been set up yet. With little else to do, they decided to camp out in Itsumi’s car.
They awoke early as the first trucks pulled in and started unloading equipment. With the Chala ID badges they could wander around the stages and equipment areas without any problems. Tristan’s unveiling would be held at the main stage in front of the Hotel Grand Continental, a towering structure of reflective glass.
As more and more people poured in, stages took form, and booths for souvenirs and refreshments sprang up, Kenji Charashima from Chala Inc. called Daiki, telling him that Tristan was being transported to the HMF now in a white van. Unfortunately Chala had a lot of white vans and he couldn’t say exactly which white van… But when it arrived he’d get a notification, so he’d call Daiki back right away!
They waited backstage at the main event space, keeping an eye out on the crowd and making note of the equipment. Lots of speakers, all over the place. Numerous back ups and failsafes. Lots of staff. If they had to disable the speakers they’d be noticed for sure. Being hassled by staff didn’t matter much beyond wasting precious time, but it opened them up to the heretics, if they were watching. They’d need to get at the equipment running Tristan directly, and hopefully quietly.
By the time the event kicked off, thousands of people had come. News crews, musicians, tech enthusiasts, simple passerby, professionals, amateurs, tourists, families. Police were scattered around entrances and key places, but nowhere near enough to keep an eye on everyone.
Forty-five passed. Only fifteen minutes until the special event. Until Tristan. Still no call from Kenji. They were getting ready to start pulling out wires at random when Daiki’s phone finally rang. Tristan had arrived! It was being run on a server stack in an equipment tent, just off the stage. Right under their noses.
Trying to blend in, the four walked over to the tent, seeing it full of blinking servers and flashing screens. Akira gulped and pulled out his laptop. A pair of engineers busied themselves in the tent, and when they looked over at Akira plugging into the servers they had been expressly told to keep clear of, he shrugged, making his Chala badge clearly visible, and said he had to run a few last checks just be to be extra safe. An experienced liar by now, Akira convinced them completely, and they turned back to their work. Akira quietly puffed a sigh of relief and dove into his work.
It would take time, he knew. Tristan had spilled out of its USB drive all over the servers. It seemed to even be searching for a way out. He’d need to hunt it down, and he might be able to delay it a bit. But it would take some time.
The announcers’ voices rang out, giving a five minute countdown. Itsumi, Daiki, and Majima waited outside the tent. If Akira couldn’t finish it in time, could they just smash the servers?
Akira said maybe, but it was risky. Everyone would not only notice, but Tristan seemed more like a virus now than a simple audio file. If they didn’t spectacularly destroy every bit of equipment, it might still manage to play.
Majima still had the Serialists’ tune in his head. He’d had it all night. When he dazed his fingers started playing it on his thighs. Among the various audio equipment and instruments backstage was a keyboard. If Akira couldn’t finish in time, Majima offered, he could play the Serliasits song. He thought it might counter Tristan. The others thought this madness, if not impossible. The Serialists had planned a full orchestra. But it was better than nothing. Majima grabbed the keyboard and hooked up to the speakers, and practiced. Just in case.
The count down hit zero. Nothing happened. Akira gave a weak smile, still pounding on his keyboard. The two staff in the tent panicked, and Akira mumbled he was trying to get it working. But he needed time.
Daiki spotted movement in the crowd beyond the annoyed murmuring. Two men walking with purpose towards the edge of the stage, eyes on the equipment tent. Daiki met Itsumi’s eyes, pointed out the men, then dove into the crowd.
He pointed at the two men and shouted, “Look! Exile!”
Something about the surety in his voice, or the white shirt and tie, convinced everyone around him. Soon the crowd surged, hunting for the boy band, sweeping up the two bewildered heretics.
Itsumi called in to the police, telling them there were two dangerous men in the crowd, but he’d lost sight of them.
Majima wiped sweat from his eyes. His programs worked away at chasing Tristan into a corner. Only a little longer.
One of the men broke through the deluge of screaming fans, pushing past Daiki and up to the edge of the stage. Daiki stopped resisting. He’d done his part. Let the rest handle it now.
Majima got up from his piano, stood in between the man and the tent. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. He wasn’t a fighter.
The man drew a knife.
Then Itsumi’s bokuto smashed down on the back of the man’s head, dropping him to the ground in a heap.
The other man had worked his way to the edge of the crowd, but stopped at seeing his companion face down in his pooling blood. Police arrived on either side, tackling and cuffing him.
They all turned to the tent at a triumphant woot to see Akira jumping and fist pumping the air. He got it! He’d killed the little bastard! He’d erased Tristan! And with Partita crippled and withering away, there wouldn’t be another. The four relaxed, relieved, tired. They’d done it.
The HMF staff stared in horror, though. There was no music! Thousands of people waited for a ‘secret event,’ and now they had nothing. The crowd milled, annoyed at discovering they didn’t get to see Exile, and now realising they might not see anything at all.
Majima gulped and carried his keyboard onto the stage, sat down, stretched his fingers, and started playing. The others had a brief moment of panic thinking Majima was about to play the Serialists’ song, but it was an unwarranted fear.
In the following months Majima gained some renown. His performance was… perfectly adequate. Confusing, really, for the audience, who didn’t quite see what was so secret about it. But the story eventually came out that Majima had stepped up to cover the blank spot, and people ate that up. Frequent TV gigs gave way to regular spots on a few shows, and a strong core audience for his music was secured. He always had a little ditty in his ear though, and working ever so slight themes from it into his pieces, his audience grew and grew, among musicians and laymen both, as well as obscure corners of the internet, and a particular church near Jiyuugaoka Station.
Itsumi filed report after report, and then follow-up reports, and interviews for those reports, then reports for the interviews, and so on. With Akira so thoroughly eradicating Tristan and Partita no evidence was left of the music’s powers, and so Itsumi left that out of his reports, focusing on the Serialist heretics, writing that they’d planned a terrorist act at the HMF, one the orthodox Serialists had tried and failed to prevent. The suicides had been due to constant harasment from the heritics as well. It didn’t entirely satisfy the higher-ups, but with Detective Gakuto’s assurances they eventually dropped it. Soon enough, Itsumi worked alongside Gakuto, this time as a detective partner.
Daiki had had enough excitement. His holiday had certainly been unique, nothing he would ever have experienced at work. But his work also didn’t try to kill him. Well, at least not immediately. He greeted the slow grinding down of his mental and physical health with gusto. No one at the office would drive him to stabbing pens through his eyes. At least not yet. Majima might become a world-famous pianist, Itsumi might become a detective, and Akira might do… whatever Akira did, but Daiki was an office worker. A salaryman. So he slipped on his suit, tightened his tie, and got on the train. He had a salary to earn.
Akira couldn’t let it go. He’d seen the complexity of Partita and Tristan, he’d seen the programs doing more than any human could have told them to do. It distracted him at work, so he quit. Very carefully, oh so very carefully, he started a new project. The others had forgotten something, and Akira had turned out to be a pretty good liar. He’d pocketed the USB drive in Masahi’s apartment after Majima had listened to it. Akira didn’t listen to it, of course not, but analysed it, searched around on the darker corners of the internet, and even got a gig at Pensure. Someone must have known this would happen. It must have been intentional. He’d find out who had made Tristan. All the while, the song sat on the USB drive, waiting. Music is made to be listened to.
Thank you for reading this narrative replay for Do Gods Dream of Digital Drugs?
If you’d like to see how it turns out for your group, you can purchase the scenario from booth.pm, but note the scenario is currently only available in Japanese.
Before you go, though, maybe take a look at some more scenario replays?
MJRRPG: Branches of Bone
Seeds of Terror: The Mummy of Pemberley Grange, Endless Light, One Less Grave, Hand of Glory
Chaosium: Amidst the Ancient Trees, The Necropolis, What’s in the Cellar?, The Dead Boarder
Japonism: Do Gods Dream of Digital Drugs?
Bibliothek 13: A Cup of Horror
