Dunno What It Is, But It's Not That [Zero Divinus]

It was an awfully stranger mission, this time. Mura’s duty was also to throw a glance at the requests that the Fairy Tail Guild were handed – in this day and age through direct means from clients rather than through the Magic Council, who still didn’t have the time or energy to acknowledge them as an official guild in Fiore again… well, whatever. Fairy Tail was doing very well on its own, two feet, and it wasn’t as if they were completely without allies watching their backs.

A-Anyway, back to the mission… there was a strange request that was written quite unprofessionally. It lacked much detail and merely explained that there was something called an ‘anti-meme’ or anti-memorial object, entity or phenomenon in Hargeon. Someone had found a Lacrima from a lost Archive Mage who, at first hearing, might as well have spoken in tongues – they kept describing something nearby that they were searching for as:

‘It’s not here…’
‘It’s not a dolphin…’
‘It’s not a marine animal…’
‘It’s not a house…’
‘It’s not a horse…’
‘It’s not a hoofed mammal…’
‘It’s not a bird…’

It’s not- it’s not- it’s not- that was a recurring phrase in the paper, quoting the Archives received from the found Lacrima. Ever since then, people have speculated if some magical artifact was present in Hargeon, and a certain other Archive Mage came to the conclusion that whatever it was, it might’ve… or might’ve not - depended really – had the ability to completely erase people’s memories of it in almost any way, shape or form, through viewing it, talking about it or reading about it… oh, wait a second-

Maybe the client who wrote this hadn’t seen it, but Mura was still technically reading about ‘it’? There was even a note in the middle of the text that said in bold red: ‘Write a note on yourself, that you can convince yourself with’. A clever way to make oneself continue with the objective that they laid out, even if they were to forget the purpose completely.

Urgh… his head was already spinning, but Mura managed to manipulate the metallic fabric and write a note on his mechanical arm that said ‘Go to Hargeon Town, find weird mind object that makes you forget, you forgot why, so take someone with you’.

…

And just as the paper warned, the moment Mura walked out of the office, his mind reset. He was suddenly smiling, feeling like he needed a drink downstairs.

And vupti, like he had no other business today, he enjoyed a cold, fine sake on a late Magnolian afternoon. It wasn’t exactly the time to drink sake, but he didn’t really care – what he did care for was the completion of the guild hall’s renovation! Damn, what a beauty… hopefully, it would stand for far longer than before.

While he paid no mind to it, as he had already been under the influence of the anti-memorial object, his mechanical arm still held the written phrase that would help him continue on his mission… all needed now was a curious soul to read it.

WC: 521
Thread TWC: 521

Zero bit his tongue as he flicked his paint brush, eye looking over the canvas to the members of his guild. He flicked his eyes back to his project, his paint brush dipping and sliding once more. Zero had decided to paint his guild mates in their natural element. People going in and out, standing taking jobs, drinking, talking, even fighting. The canvas seemed to magically expand to include more room, and the paint shifted as people moved from place to place or came in or left, leaving room to add them.

He noticed the guild leader enter and moved to get a drink, Zero slid his brush around, moving quickly from point to point, lifting his eyes to take in the presence and than back to his canvas. As he painted he spotted several words written that seemed odd. The young mage stood up and walked over to his guild leader, sliding one hand coated in paint through his blonde hair and giving it several new paint highlights, he stopped and pointed. "Hey GM, What's that on your arm?"

Poor Zero had accidently brushed paint all over his hair like that, and Mura couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight. He would’ve asked how his new painting was going, having noticed the large canvas further away from them, but Zero noticed something weird on the Guildmaster’s arm. Raising an eyebrow in worry, Mura slowly lifted up his arm to look closer at it… and that was when he read the words.

“… H-Huh? ‘Go to Hargeon Town, find weird mind object… that makes you forget, you forgot why, so take someone with you’… w-wait, that’s my handwriting!” he spoke up in confusion, “W-When’d I write that down? On my arm, even? Wait, wait, wait… am I under the effect of some kind of spell right now?” In worry, he rose up on his feet and turned around to grasp any signs of magic threads that could’ve held him down in some kind of mind-altering invocation, but nope – none of that was sensible.

Maybe it was due to some kind of item that he was carrying, then… he quickly began emptying his pockets of coupons, herbs and copies of ancient tomes that he wrote down on cheap papers, until he spotted the request from the just-as-confused client.

“… O-Ohhhhhhhhh, I see now… okay, uhm, hey, Zero, this might become your weirdest mission yet, b-but would you care to accompany me to Hargeon?” he gently asked his newer member of Fairy Tail, thus handing him the request paper with the same, worrying information about this anti-memorial object or ‘anti-meme’, “So… uhm, we have to keep our guards up. Basically, something is keeping us from remembering about this quest we got. I even forgot exactly when I forgot about this, and… I don’t even remember when I read this, b-but I think that’s why I wrote this on my arm – to remind myself. I suggest that you do the same…”

Mura was already beginning to sweat a little. This was weeeeeeeeeeeeeird. “T-This is wrecking my nerves, now… w-when’ll I forget again? Maybe we should just look at the paper until we reach Hargeon, but…”

WC: 352
Thread TWC: 1053

(OOC: you can make it a little easier to keep track of wordcount by tracking the amount of words on your posts like me)

Zero tilted his head as he looked at the paper, turning it over, backwards, and upside down. He even did a one handed hand stand as he gazed at it with a curious eye. "Huh, it's a compulsion spell. My dad had a few of these in his textbooks he handed out to his cult followers. It's kinda obvious with all the Not's, it sets up your mind to forget and once you finish reading the paper, poof. There goes the info."

He tapped his chin as he considered how to help and an idea formed. "What we need is someone to remind me to remind you about what we both forget." He placed his fingers to his temples. "I imagine a giant screaming billboard that will activate as soon as any memory magic is done on me."

He read the entire job and set it down, like the guild master before him, the job vanished from his mind. As soon as it did a billboard appeared, white in color with a huge horn and a very annoying voice. "YOU FORGOT WHAT YOU READ.... YOU FORGOT WHAT YOU READ... READ IT AGAIN... YOU FORGOT WHAT YOU READ."

Zero covered his ears and looked at the board in confusion, that was his memory board. And it said he forgot something, his eyes flicked back to the paper. "Oh yeah, huh, seems it works. So boss, there is this mission in Hargeon Town, should we take a look?"

Compulsion spell, huh… wait, woah, woah, woah, woah! He couldn’t just drop that bomb about his dad having a cult of followers as if it was nothing! Damn, was his father famous or something? The nigh indifference of Zero’s in that statement… genuinely worried the shaman for a brief moment, but maybe it was intel to learn about later. Right now, they had a mission at hand.

But… his brain was already tying knots around itself. First, he needed to remind himself of something he had forgotten – pretty much an impossibility. However, Zero offered to remind him in that regard, but then someone had to remind Zero – and Mura couldn’t do that, ‘cause he’d probably forget what to remind him of. These thoughts were definitely healthy for a human mind to process…

“B-Billboard? You think that’ll… work?” Mura spoke in slight confusion. Maybe… yeah! Maybe his Magic had its own conscience! That would mean that it was, hopefully, beyond the anti-memetic ability of… uhhh, of what? Wait…

…

What were they talking about, again? Oh yeah, Mura still had his drink to finish – how come he just left it in his hand for that long? He quickly took a sip and sighed in relief, wondering what kind of request Zero was reading. Maybe it had to do with the mission in Hargeon. “Oh, you got a new mission? Good luck-PFFF-“

Mura was at the other side of the long bar table, having dashed over there in shock at the billboard coming out of nowhere. It was loud and almost caused his heart to jump out of his chest as it screamed ‘YOU FORGOT WHAT YOU READ, YOU FORGOT WHAT YOU READ’… was it reminding Zero of what he had read? Read what? The request? Why would he forget such a thing-

Oh, wait… he had written something on his prosthetic arm too. Was there some kind of memory-erasing power luring over them? And it had something to do with… well, something in Hargeon-

Urrghhh, his brain was aching. Did he have to deal with this…?

“In Hargeon? Is that what led to all of this?” Mura worryingly asked as he pointed at his prosthetic arm with the message written by himself, “… *gulp* H-How long have we been forgetting stuff? What… shit, what else did we forget? Uh… we should probably go to Hargeon as soon as possible, before we forget that as well.”

He still had no goddamn clue what he had forgotten, but it mentioned… Hargeon. At least, the message on his arm did, and he didn’t forget about a mission in Hargeon… ohhhhh, poor head. Before he’d lose his mind, Mura darted outside and summoned Azure-chan-

An eastern, azure-blue dragon, that was-

And commanded the living constellation: “Take us to Hargeon… uhh, something about a mission, but details keep escaping our memory, s-so just take us there. Pretty please?”

The dragon nodded and awaited Zero’s mounting before it would take off into the clouds, flying them towards the port town…

WC: 503
TWC: 1802