Don't Shoot The Messenger: Synopsis

It’s been a while since Don’t Shoot The Messenger was posted here in the Trojan Times, so the nice folks working at the paper have asked Mr. Koerner to provide a synopsis of the events that have happened so far so that readers can get caught up quickly. Unfortunately, he decided that he was far too busy to do so himself and pushed the task off on me. Who am I? I’m Turtle. No, that’s not my real name. My parents aren’t that mean. Incidentally, I’m also not real. I’m just a character in Mr. Koerner’s story, which means that the fourth wall is taking some very heavy damage right now. So not only can Mr. Koerner not be assed to write this summary up himself, he apparently doesn’t have much regard for your immersion in the story.

If you’ve been following Don’t Shoot The Messenger, you should know me. I say you “should” but you don’t because Mr. Koerner decided that over the summer he would restructure and tweak the story, meaning that my introduction comes a lot sooner than it originally would have. And since I’m the character in the story who’s compiling and editing all these documents our characters have left behind, Mr. Koerner has suggested that I hint that the initial run consisted of these documents before I got my hands on them. If you ask me, that sounds like a sloppy excuse. But let’s go ahead and pretend it’s true anyway, shall we? Anyway, you can read the original four posts here DSTM 1, here DSTM 2, here DSTM 3, and here DSTM 4. Or just read the updated version  here DSTM 1-4. That’s probably the better option since it’s more in line with what’s coming up next. Mr. Koerner has also asked me to inform you that you should read it because it’s very good, but I think he may be a bit biased.

Our story begins with a young man we’ll just call Turtle (hey, that’s me!), who gets an internship to prepare him for that nasty “real life” thing he’ll be facing once he graduates. Fortunately for Turtle, the job pays well. Unfortunately for Turtle, he’s accidentally taken a job with some sort of cult called the Electi Filii. Whoops.

Turtle works under a man who calls himself Justice, an incredibly clever and cunning name considering that Justice appears to be some sort of blind prophet. Mr. Justice has tasked Turtle with compiling an unfinished journal written by a certain “The Messenger.” If you haven’t noticed yet, nobody really uses real person names here. Anyway, as lovable and cunning and handsome as this Turtle guy is, you should stop paying attention to him since it’s actually Mr. Messenger who’s the important character and most of the story is just his notes. Turtle leaves his own comments, and while I’m sure you’ll love those comments when they pop up, they’re only scattered bits here and there.

Our actual story begins with Mr. Messenger, an IT guy for the Electi Filii. He’s also in charge of entering data into a computer, but he doesn’t quite understand why, considering that he doesn’t have the clearance to enter important data and someone higher up would be much more qualified. Turtle also wonders why they even bothered hiring him to do something other people could have done. But I digress. The Messenger is lamenting the loss of his roommate, who was killed in action. Now he has their shitty apartment all to himself, but he’s realized just how dangerous things are. He starts digging to find out just what sort of business his roommate died for, because snooping around cults to figure out their inner workings is always a good idea.

Mr. Messenger meets a few eccentric people as he starts snooping. First, there’s his boss Tempest, who is a sixteen-year-old girl. There’s also the eternally-facetious Caper and his quiet partner Poe, who always dresses in the black frilly lace dresses known as the “Gothic Lolita” fashion style. The two are known as Trackers, meaning they search out people that the Electi Filii are hunting for some reason, though I’m not entirely clear on what the Filii want with these people yet. Also, Caper and Poe may or may not kill people. I don’t know. You kind of take everything with a grain of salt when it’s Caper talking. Then there’s Helios, a rather charming and sociable man. Why’s he involved in the cult? Don’t know. He likes casually deflecting the question.

At this point in the story, Mr. Messenger has decided that the best way to get answers is to interview the people around him. Fortunately for you, he’s between making that decision and actually interviewing people, so you’re just in time to catch his first one! Be sure to tune in next week when Mr. Koerner has some actual content for you to read!