[The feed comes on to show Varian - his hair is unkempt, and he's much paler than usual. More to the point, he looks worried. He looks extremely worried. There's no awkward bumbling greeting or his usual not-fantastic-at-social-skills attempt to segue into what he wants to talk about. This time he's straight to the point. ]

Jun, Harumasa and Zhongli are missing. They're not answering their phones, they're not responding to telepathic messages. I've not had any word from Jun for... for at least six hours at this point. Haru might be about that time, too - I- I realised he was missing when I was trying to find Jun.

[ He rubs a hand over his face, there's a horrible sharp ball of dread in the pit of his stomach, and it's getting bigger and bigger by the second. ]

Dan Heng contacted me, seeing if he'd heard anything from Jun or Zhongli - so he's been AWOL too. Two's a coincidence. Three? Three's a pattern, and a terrible one if we're looking at the history in this city. There's just - there's no sign of them, and none of them would ignore us for this long unless something had gone wrong. We spent a few hours checking their usual haunts in the city, they're not there.

My engagement ring lets me find where Jun's location is, but... but it's not working. I can't teleport through his shadow, either, which, along with the lack of telepathy means that there's a block on me being able to get to him. Which, in turn suggests someone or something has done that to him.

[ He's spent the last few hours dealing with mounting panic - getting increasingly frightened for what could be happening to the people he cares about. But as the realisation that this seems very much by design has sunk in over the last few hours, anger has started to filter in and mix with it. Fear and anger are not the best combination for him. He feels the pressing need to do something, and god forbid anything or anyone who tries to stop him. He has access to a robot army in Meropide's basement. He can use that if he has to. ]

Going on the assumption they've been taken... they might not be the only ones. In fact, it's extremely likely they're not the only ones. So check on your loved ones, especially if they've been quiet for a while. We need to know how many people have been taken, and we need to figure out who did it. It could be a spirit gate, that's... that's always a possibility- but that usually only happens in October. And people don't notice. Something just feels- it feels really wrong.

[ And sweet god does he want to tear the city down trying to find them. He shifts in his seat, full of nervous energy and nowhere right now for it to go. A sharpness sneaks into his tone that no one in Kaisou will have heard before. It's a part of himself he locked deep down inside years ago, long before he came to this city - but right now it's desperate to crawl out. To focus that energy on getting his people back to him safely - by any means necessary.]

We need to get them back. I fully plan on doing that. If I have to go through every damn building in this city I will find them. But we need help - there's a lot of us. We need to work together on this and get them home.

[ OOC: This is the open to all call to arms for February's plot! This is extremely threadjack and backdating friendly, so please tag away and use this as a means for characters to exchange information and come up with plans! ]