Let's not gut someone for answers

"Hah! Now that was fun!", Tatterhood said as she collapsed onto RJ's bed, "The stupefied look on their faces was priceless. I will never get tired at teasing you mortals".

"Yeah yeah, now come on we have to go meet our new friend", RJ replied as he hooked up his phone to the computer. A small chiming noise coming from the phone confirmed that the app had activated it's, what RJ has been calling, "gate mode".

"Oh fine", Tatterhood said while getting off of his bed, "Can I at least mess with them by playing a raunchy audio recording"?

RJ gave Tatterhood a withering stare before rolling his eyes and walking into the portal, Tatterhood following behind him.

_________________________________________

"Ay amigo help me"!

"What the hell"?

"BAHAHAHAHAH"!

The moment RJ and Tatterhood entered the Spirit Garden, they were greeted to the sight of a wolf-headed ogress and a zouyu playing keep away with a talking skull as the ball and a headless mariachi skeleton as the victim. Needles to say, RJ was concerned, Tatterhood found it hilarious, the culprits were having fun and the skeleton was miserable.

Eventually, Frost spiked the skull a little to hard and sent it whizzing pass both Ember and the skeleton, directly at RJ.

"Uh oh".

"Meow"!

"Somebody catch me"!

"Oh shit!", RJ exclaimed as he instinctually curled up to try and block the skeleton. Unexpectedly, as RJ fell curled up, small brownish spell circles manifested around his hands as the earth around him began to rumble.

Just as the skull was about to hit him, a hand made of dirt and stone shot out of the ground and caught the skull like a baseball.

"Ay...thanks amigo...", the skull said with a sigh.

"Nice catch", Tatterhood added.

"Thanks...forgot I could do that now...", RJ said as he noticed the magic earth hands. The skull's body soon came walking over and made a gesture towards the hand to give back the skull.

"Uh, amigo"?

"Oh? Yeah, sure. Let me just...".

With a wave of his hands, RJ managed to manipulate the earth hand to gently place the skull back onto the skeleton's neck. Once it was firmly in place, the skeleton himself clicked it back in.

"Okay now that that's over, why did you-wait, where they go"?

RJ was all set to interrogate and reprimand Ember and Frost for messing with the skeleton, but they had disappeared from the area while RJ was helping the skeleton put his skull back on.

Unbeknownst to him, Tatterhood had saw the two abscond into the surrounding ruins. She wasn't going to tattle on them though.

"Forget about it for now, min venn. We still need to figure out Mr. Mariachi's past, no?", Tatterhood asked aloud in order to get things back on track.

"Mr. Mariachi?", RJ asked with an incredulous look.

"Well we can't call him 'the skeleton bard' forever. Think of it as a placeholder until we figure out his real identity", Tatterhood answered.

"What do you think?", she asked the skeleton.

"As long as you help me figure out my name, you can call me whatever until then", Mr. Mariachi replied, "so...how we are gonna do this"?

"For starters...let me check something real quick", RJ replied, "Hey! System thingie"!

[Yes]?

"AHHHH, VOICE OF GOD!", Mr. Mariachi exclaimed before squatting and using his guitar as a cover.

"Hah! You two panic in similar ways! That's funny!", Tatterhood said with a laugh.

Rolling his eyes, RJ turned his attention back to the game's voice.

"I just want to check something, can I access the internet while I'm in here? I am inside my computer...phone...thing"?

[Technically yes], the voice replied.

A transparent screen manifested in front of the trio, depicting a shop screen with a various models of what the shop had termed, "Interconnected Network Access Implements".

"Why wasn't this part of the set-up tutorial"?

[A majority of features in the Grimmemoria app is only accessible when the user asks the right questions. You'd be surprised how many other users never ask this question], the game replied in a roundabout way.

These implements looked to be an odd mix of magic ritualistic items normally dedicated to the arts of divination, such as mirrors and crystal balls, and computer models ranging from steampunk fever dreams to cyberpunk nightmares. There were even some in the shape of humans and animals...with one-time use labels.

"...I...are these living implements used in the way I think they're used?", RJ asked with a bit of knowing dread in his gut.

"Yup", Tatterhood replied nonchalantly, "although, I'm not sure how one uses entrails to make use of the internet".

"Entrails? The hell?", Mr. Mariachi asked with his eye sockets somehow widening in shock.

"Yeah, let's not do that", RJ replied as he manipulated the interface to exclude the usage of entrails. (Un)surprisingly, the number of entries dropped significantly due to the exclusion of divination of entrails.

"Why were there so many entries?', RJ asked in a whisper as he saw the list shortened.

[Divination by entrails makes use of many, many types of animals].

"..."

Biting his tongue, RJ looked through the list until he decided to settle on a [Divining Floating Crystal Array] that he thought would fit with the asthetic of the [Floating Castle].

The sound of coins being deducted from his account jingled in his ears as an array of crystals materialized in a corner of the garden. The game even threw in a free chair for him to use while using the array.

Not wasting any time, RJ, Tatterhood and Mr. Mariachi made their way over to the array.

The array consisted of a spell circle etched into the ground, while a large crystal chunk was suspended in the center of it. A pair of orbs floated around the crystal chunk in synchronized concentric circles.

"Well ain't that this thing fancy", Tatterhood commented.

"Uh, do you know how to work this thing?", Mr. Mariachi asked as he eyed the array from multiple angles.

"I think I'm about to find out", RJ replied as he sat in the provided chair.

The familiar tingling of knowledge entering his brain occured once he got comfortable.