5155/P:WtWM - Beneath the Library

P:WtWM - Beneath the Library
Date of Scene:	19 March 2017
Location:	Alberichstadt <P:WTWM>
Synopsis:	Die Reisende go do some late-night spelunking into some recently unearthed caves that may have a tie to the Mirror Forest. What they uncover is perplexing. Also, birthday planning ensues.
Cast of Characters:	Janine Liberi, 999, Rebecca Chambers, Sanary Rondel, August Kohler, 1031, 1102, Kotone Yamakawa

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Janine Liberi has posed:
    It's a new moon tonight, perfect for sneaking into a low-security facility like Alberichstadt Library. The handsome yet worn wooden two-storey structure is wrapped in scaffolding from the recent remodelling efforts, all of which came to a halt when a startling discovery was made during the foundation restrengthening. A massive cave system, with no other apparent way in, was uncovered.

    The city called a halt to all efforts until archaeologists could assess them for historical worth. And right away, the cave paintings make it rich in that department. The curious reflective pane of bronze on the wall is unlike any seen from occupied caves from that time period also.

    And such strange, black, claw-like paintings all around it!

    For that reason alone, Die Reisende wants to break in to assess any relation this cave might have to their own predicament. Janine has called the meeting the place to be in an alley across the street from the place. "Right, how are we doing this?" she asks moodily once everyone arrives. "Climb the scaffolding to get at a window, pick the front door lock, what?"

Emily Branford (999) has posed:
    Of course, Emily Branford is there as well. And of course, she looks utterly incongruous there in the alleyway, with her arms folded smartly behind her back. "I've my lockpicking kit with me, of course," she offers simply. "We'll need to be cautious of alarms, naturally, but locks themselves shan't be a problem."

Rebecca Chambers has posed:
Rebecca is there also, and like Emily, she believes that picking the lock might be a better idea. "I'd go with picking the lock, definitely. The scaffolding doesn't look too safe in my opinion." A pause as she remembers how Emily mentioned alarms. "Well, let's deal with getting inside first and take it from there."

Sanary Rondel has posed:
Sanary's there, too! She's also visibly unarmed for once, although she's stil carrying her old tomahawk and a backack around that wouldn't look too out of place for a student. "I like the lockpicking idea. Climbing might take too long. And as for alarms... Uh."

     She furrows her brow, glancing back and forth slowly. "... Don't think we can just break the alarms before they trigger, huh?"

August Kohler has posed:
"Hold up. It's the /front door/. How do we know that isn't the most secure part of the building?" August Kohler is here, dressed in a hoodie (hood over his head for STEALTH). His usual stoic expression is one of stressful frustration, and his eyes have bags over them. "The window is safer. It's least likely to have any added security to it for the exhibit. If you guys don't want to risk it, I will." Pause, before a brief smirk. "Unless there's a third option?"

Ashurel Cloudbank (1031) has posed:
    "Actually, Miss Rondel. We can." Ashurel Cloudbank is here, wearing jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt. She has a book, discrete black leather and clearly made for her more covert missions with its likely spell loadout, tucked under one of her arms.

    She tilts her head at the building, "It won't last a terrible long time."

    She presses her hand to the wall and there's a pulse of magic as she casts Malfunction, meant to disable target construct for 1/level rounds.

    "You have about a hundred and twenty seconds before it manages to recover. If it worked. It probably did."

Kotone Shiomi (1102) has posed:
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Kotone asks with mild discomfort about breaking and entering, but she doesn't otherwise object and stays close to the group, clearly very nervous about this all. She's wearing a hockey stick bag on her back, and a holster containing what appears to be a handgun is on her waist. She's otherwise staying a little to the back, "You know this is illegal, right?"

August Kohler has posed:
"We crossed the threshold for 'illegal' months ago. I mean, besides the fact that we have an illegal shack in the woods with generators, weapons, and whatever the hell Branford stocks up in there." August replies dryly to Shiomi. "And that's not getting to the 'we fight monsters' part."

Janine Liberi has posed:
    Janine snorts at Shiomi. "Bitch, this isn't even the most illegal thing we've done. Not all of us have fancy secret government sponsors." As Ashurel strides out to do magic on whatever security system the building has, Janine nods. "As good a time as any. If they still go off, we can just run and try again later. Emily, pick the locks."

    Should the butler comply, the doors swing open without much effort, and no alarms shriek. "Close the doors," Janine whispers once everyone is in. The place is quite dark, shelves packed with books both new and old. Janine hands out flashlights borrowed from the shack from a sports back, and reminds everyone not to point them at the windows ("like the goddamn fools you are" she adds unnecessarily).

    The hole into the caves is in the fiction section. Specifically, where all the fairy tale tomes are stored. The table and chairs have been shifted to permit better access, and a ladder descends into the depths. "Well. Who wants to go first?"

Ashurel Cloudbank (1031) has posed:
    As people head inside, Ashurel snaps her fingers and casts Hidden Presence, hiding herself from being noticed. It's not invisibility, it more just makes people naturally inclined to not notice she's around if a security guard looks in a window or something.

    There is a casual gait to her walking as she trails towards the back of the group, "By all means, feel free to go first. I need to prepare spells in case our cover is blown and we need to make a quick exit."

Emily Branford (999) has posed:
    "Canned meats and preserved foods," Emily replies to August without skipping a beat, before turning her attention to Ashurel. "You know, you're lucky I'm a fast worker. Another group, and setting it off this quickly might have been a bad call." There's a hint of a smile there.

    Then she seemingly disappears from sight.

    Certainly, fast eyes can probably follow the blur of movement, but it's still a flurry of speed well into the superhuman realm. By the time people get there, it will already be open and ready.

    And while she /seems/ casual enough, careful eyes might note that she's actually on pretty high alert. "I can," she offers, before producing her whip, lashing it to the end of something - and simply hopping in, using the whip to lower herself down safely and quickly.

Rebecca Chambers has posed:
As Rebecca heads inside with the others, she takes the flashlight and turns it on quickly, surveying the general area around her quickly. Call it instinct, call it training, call it whatever you want. She doesn't point them at the windows though, instead keeping her flashlight in control as she surveys the interior instead, avoiding the windows entirely. It's not until she notices the hole into the caves that she finally speaks. "I'll go first," She says after a moment of thought. "I'll scout ahead a little and see what's there if you want me to as well."

Sanary Rondel has posed:
"That's it? Huh... Nice work, Ashurel." Sanary smirks in approval at the magus before following the rest of the group into the library. She waits until everyone's inside before pulling the doors shut behind them, glancing outside briefly to make sure they're not being followed.

     "Alright, what do we got here..." The healer murmurs while turning her attention to the hole, approaching it slowly while keeping her fresh new flashlight off for the time being. "I got Emily's back. Just don't fall on us, huh?" She shoots Janine a playful smirk before lowering herself into the hole, keeping a low flow of magic going into her anklets so she hovers downwards slowly instead of dropping like a goddamn rock. If it gets too dark, she'll turn on the flashlight as well, aiming it ahead of Emily instead of shining it on her back or head like a dunce.

     She can be smart sometimes.

Kotone Shiomi (1102) has posed:
"I don't have fancy government sponsors either." Kotone objects a little bit shocked, not really pleased with the tone that's being taken towards her, but she shuts up about the illegal thing and carefully follows along. Why 'technically a cop' would be part of this expedition is anyone's guess, but she is, and she's not backing out just because she's nervous.

... okay, and a little scared.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
The group from Alberichstadt was in a strange situation it was a world that didn't know about the multiverse or the supernatural at large which lead to problems. Things had to get looked into and it was better to aid the people involved in the Forest. It was troubling to her but also she coudl help keep anything from getting wrecked and anythign she saw could be ... gone over later so they'd not need to take any of the stuff down here right?

Yamakawa is looking a bit uneasy herself as she falls in bnehind Shiomi and she's only breaking he silence at this point.

"Keep alert, if there is something down here...it will likely know we're here already."

August Kohler has posed:
August just stares at Emily and shakes his head, taking a flashlight from Janine when she hands them out. He gives Ashurel a nod as her spell works, making the scaffoldings unimportant. It's when they get to the cavern system that he finally talks, having been as quiet and steady as possible. "The section with the fairy tales. Really? /Really?" The redhead shakes his head, and then looks into the entrance. While the rest of the group is debating who goes in first...

August ignores them, heading into the hole and moving to climb down the ladder as quickly as possible, nominating himself. The problem is he can't climb and hold his flashlight too, so unless someone immediately moves to back him up, he's going in dark.

Janine Liberi has posed:
    Janine sighs as Emily and Sanary prove their need to be unnecessarily extra. Since everyone else is not exactly chomping at the bit to climb down the spooky hole, she grumbles something about "making the handicapped girl go before you" and slooooowly makes her way down the ladder. Cut her some slack, she only has one hand to grip the rungs with.

    The cave is some 7 metres below the library, dark and cool. It's dry also, thankfully, with a gritty floor underfoot. Flashlights reveal the paintings on the walls, and it's quite impressive honestly. Some real effort went into composition and depth in some of these. Archaeologists have left bits of paper to denotate their estimates as to what they all mean and the probably time period in which they were made.

    And right away, things are strange, and they realized this. Early guesses place these as having been made when humanity was in its primitive, hunter-gatherer phase. And yet, several paintings depict agricultural practice and animal domestication, something that shouldn't have happened for at least a century yet. This is obviously already the find of the decade.

    And then, down a thin corridor of rock, there's the bronze mirror.

Ashurel Cloudbank (1031) has posed:
    "The girl does raise a point that this club seems to engage in illicit activities or covert operations a great deal," Ashurel ponders, scratching the underside of her chin. She doesn't seem bothered by that fact, more like it's causing a tangential thought to occur to her as she hangs at the back of the group while they go down the corridor.

    "If it remains the bulk of what we do, people may become suspicious regardless of our stealth," She continues as she goes. Once they're underground, she conjures a ball of light in her palm to illuminate as she walks, "To counteract this, we should make sure to celebrate events as birthdays, minor holidays, semester breaks. Make sure to throw a gathering for almost any celebratable event to give the impression we're merely a highly eager social circle. It would help make our frequent meetings in secluded locations seem more mundane. And provide alibis."

Sanary Rondel has posed:
"We do. Hmm... Well, you do. /I/ haven't done anything too illegal yet." Sanary sounds somewhat proud of that as she continues descending into the hole. "A party would be fun, yeah... I could bring one of my pigs! For a discounted price, even?" The healer suggests to go along with Ashurel's idea, always eager to make some extra spending money on the side.

     Not being tied to a military any more is rough when you're used to a certain quality of life.

     "Hmn... You okay up there, Shiomi? Looks like it's clear down here!" Sanary calls out while continuing to shine that light around slowly, pausing on each painting before moving onto the next. "There's some weird paintings down here, but I don't think there's any traps or whatever."

     Touching down with a brief stagger, the axe healer takes another look around before focusing her flashlight on the thin corridor. "I think something's over there, too..."

Emily Branford (999) has posed:
    Once she's landed, Emily proceeds with a surety of movement that speaks of long experience, taking it slowly enough to keep Sanary close by her side, but never quite stopping. She looks around with interest, replying in the meanwhile to Ashurel. "Hazard of the job, I'm afraid. When you defend the world from things it can't or shouldn't know about, you tend to do quite a bit of dancing around the law. Not much to be done about it, though giving people a different impression is a good..."

    She trails off, because getting to see the mirror quiets her right down. "...oh /dear/. Sanary, keep that down the corridor." It's at this point that Emily draws her concealed sidearm, and proceeds down the thin corridor cautiously. She plans to investigate the mirror more closely... and superspeed the hell out of the way if something lunges at her.

Kotone Shiomi (1102) has posed:
Once down there, Shiomi still seems more than a little quiet, and it takes Sanary calling her out that makes her blink and smile. "Yes, yes, I'm fine. Sorry." It is blatantly and without doubt a flat-out lie. Kotone Shiomi is not fine, but she's doing her best to appear fine. Once down, she looks around, trying to get a good picture of what is down here. "Uh, in case it comes up. If it looks like I'm about to shoot myself in the head, don't worry about it. It'll be fine."

Rebecca Chambers has posed:
Upon reaching the ground, Rebecca swings her flashlight around, getting a look at all the paintings on the walls and giving a brief look of intrigue and amazement at this, before returning her focus to the task at hand. The cave itself is intriguing to those who aren't familiar with subterranean settings, indeed, but Rebecca's on a mission here. She aims her flashlight forwards, attempting to get a better idea of what might be up ahead, and then she notices something nearby that seems interesting. She can't tell what it is off-hand though.

When she notices Emily going for it, Rebecca draws her Beretta and goes behind her, wanting to provide backup if she can. "Go on, I'll be right behind you," She says reassuringly.

August Kohler has posed:
As soon as they're underground, August glances at the paintings. He's looking to see if anything seems relevant to what they've witnessed, but quickly gets distracted as Ashurel talks. "Ugh...hm. Sounds like a ton of work, but you have a point with alibis. Where the hell would we host them, though? We can't do it at the Shack, that'd defeat the whole purpose of it. School would be too suspicious, too."

And then August spots the mirror. He follows behind Emily and Rebecca, and watches as Emily goes to examine it. "Branford, anything seem off about it? I'm going to do my own 'investigation'." August will step up to the mirror, reach out a hand to touch it...and see if it goes through. If it works, he'll then pull it out, move straight up to the mirror...

And stick his entire head inside to get a look. This can't go terribly wrong.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Down down they go, well it's not that far. Kotone looks aorund at the painting she looks at them and seems to be getting a good look at all the art here it could be useful very useful. "This really is something." Kotone is taking good care to not touch anything to not leave any trace of being here that could be tracked. She was quite for a moment longer. The then looks to Shiomi and she suspects pair of them may bot be uneasy with this, it's too late now however.

"They might have covered it up Rebecca and we should take care to not ... leave any trace we were here."

She keeps with Shiomi for the moment.

"Least this isn't the forest..."

Janine Liberi has posed:
    "Man, I wish I could shoot myself in the head sometimes," Janine says in response to Shiomi. It's in that sardonic 'teen' voice, thankfully. But then she goes oddly silent when Ashurel raises the possibility of throwing some proper, real gatherings to make people think they're just a bunch of chums. She practically withdraws completely when people actually agree and start to ponder what excuse they could use. She mutters something, it sounds like "birthday" was in there somewhere.

    But she stops and gasps when August just shoves his head into the mirror. "Jesus Christ dude, slow down!" His head goes right in, as expected! As for what's on the other side? Well, it's certainly familiar. An old, abandoned keep, somewhere in the Forest... this is where Emily took them for that communication training, with the hound out in front.

    But also, as August does that... the mirror shifts slightly. A cool draft billows from the crack this reveals. Investigation reveals that this is no mere crack. It's a hole, large enough to go into. Obviously, this had yet to be uncovered because the archaeologists were careful, unlike Mister Kohler.

Emily Branford (999) has posed:
    Emily watches August step forward and do something foolhardy with a carefully neutral expression. "You'd have the keener eyes for it than I." But she does watch carefully for any peculiarities on /this/ side - and, now and then, shoots a glance Kotone's way, keeping an eye on the girl.

    Then August accidentally a new path. "Kohler. There's something behind the mirror," she says in a clipped tone, taking a step to one side so that she can get a slightly better look past the bronze. "Rondel, Chambers, can you give me some light?"

Ashurel Cloudbank (1031) has posed:
    Ashurel perks up a bit, "Oooh! Did I hear you say you had a birthday coming?"

    Ashurel looks towards Sanary a moment later, "A roast pig, huh? Maybe we could have a luau with lots of drinks and food. It would certainly be quite the festivity." Ashurel says aloud as she smiles at Janine brightly, eyes flickering a bit with both mischief and friendliness.

    Ashurel mostly doesn't comment on August being reckless! She simply observes, opening her tome and taking notes on everything that's happening from the moment he sticks his head in the hole.

Sanary Rondel has posed:
"No shooting yourself in the head, Janine. That's... Er. Shiomi's thing, I guess. Just not around any kids, okay?" Sanary has a scolding tone as she says that, but she snickers a moment later before watching as August makes his way over to the mirror. She just watches him with a blank expression when he not only touches the mirror, but outright jams his head right in there.

     "Uh... Should we be worried about that?" She squints lightly as she looks around the mirror itself, moving into the corridor proper. "On it. Watch your head, Emily. If anything pops out of there, I'm still around." Sanary starts to shine light around the mirror and that newly revealed hole, chuckling again when Ashurel speaks up.

     "Whole or cut up? Probably be cleaner if I chop it up ahead of time, but... Ah, I can show up early to do it. Maybe... I'll do it free just this one time." She raises an eyebrow at Janine as if trying to gauge her reaction as well, then turns again to focus on keeping the hole lit up.

Rebecca Chambers has posed:
At first, Sanary Rondel seems to be intent on providing light, but Rebecca figures there's safety in numbers, so she turns on the flashlight attached to her Beretta and uses that to add to the light provided for Emily. "Got this. You can go ahead, I'll continue to cover your back." She says.

August Kohler has posed:
As August is looking inside, he remains inside for several moments, listening to Emily talk before he pulls his head out. "Alright, but I have some news of my own. You remember that keep, with the shrine to Wotan? This mirror leads directly to it. Inside an /archeological ruin/." He furrows his brow, before taking another look inside, emanating his voice through the ripple. "It's still abandoned. This looks to be an outside view, so I can't tell if the ravens are there." August then pulls his head out again, before turning to the others.

"Someone help me break off a shard of this mirror. Perhaps the Pig can use it to trace us to that ruins at any time."

Kotone Shiomi (1102) has posed:
Shiomi does notice Emily keep an eye on her, and she frowns, "I can take care of myself." She insists, and then she follows, looking at the hole behind the mirror, and like the teenager she is, she's feeling insulted on her courage and determined to try to take care of making sure she's not seen as unreasonably cowardly, she heads straight into that hole, not waiting for anyone else.

Janine Liberi has posed:
    "I'll do whatever I damn well please!" Janine barks at Sanary. "It's my birthday soon, so I'll consider it a treat!" A roundabout way of confirming what Ashurel heard. As August suggests breaking off a chunk of the bronze, Janine slaps him on the back. "We're trying not to leave evidence of being here, remember?!"

    Getting through requires moving the mirror. It's quite heavy, and will probably require a team effort. It's possible that something might break anyway, which would solve August's suggestion. Inside is a corridor that leaks swiftly to a dead end. And in that dead end is someone dead. An ancient skeleton, yellowed and decaying. A quick examination by someone with medical training might reveal the deep gouge in a rib bone, indicative of something stabbing through hard and scraping against it.

    Surrounding this poor fellow (and indeed, examining the pelvis would identify the sex) are more paintings, but these are crude and hurriedly daubed, like they were the last act in this man's life. Some of it is even done in his blood. Perhaps they might give a better picture of what happened.

Ashurel Cloudbank (1031) has posed:
    Ashurel smiles at Janine in a friendly fashion as the poor girl seems to get fairly frustrated at the bamboozling of a birthday party that rapidly occurs. Ashurel takes a crystal out of her bag and then holds it to her temple, eyes flashing briefly before beginning to record what she sees into the magical storage device thanks to her divination magic.

    She doesn't seem that bothered by the blood, leaning in to inspect all the markings and blink a few times, "My my, this was a messy affair, wasn't it?" She comments in an almost clinical tone, copying the markings and whatnot down into her tome, "Still. This is quite the find."

Kotone Shiomi (1102) has posed:
Once inside the hole, with whatever help she needed, Kotone Shiomi steps forward some until she sees the corpse, and then after a moment of surprise... she lets out a high-pitched scream and scrambles backwards, falling onto whomever is behind her as the shock of seeing an actual dead person in a hole somewhere makes her act instinctively.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa looks to Emily and Shiomi for a moment Then simply nods as she now moves along she looks to Sanarty and then back to Janine? She doens't think Janine would kill her self and she doesn't comment futher still she has to have been effected by the comment She's now looking at all the mirrors and then to August.

"I'd advise against this if it's connected to the forest wht if this someone makes things worse? Let's case the whole place before we do /anything/."

She just takes in the whole place for a moment she's also looking at the remains nd the painting it's like they were a quickly done wrning... almost.

Jaine howeve ris starting to get grating but With Shiomi's freak out? that gets her attention and she moves to try and makje sure she's all right.

"Shiomi!!"

Emily Branford (999) has posed:
    "We all take care of each other," Emily replies crisply to Shiomi. "That's how we survive these things." And even then it's usually a pretty damn close call. But with the skittish newcomer taking the lead in a show of bravado, the butler smoothly accepts the situation and simply moves to provide cover instead.

    There might be a mental sigh. ...there's probably a mental sigh.

    After the mirror is moved, she's all business, staying close behind Kotone and keeping her pistol lowered but ready. Then they spot a skeleton, and Shiomi screams. Emily immediately takes a quick step forward, moving into protective position and... is... is she pointing her pistol at the skeleton?

    Yes. Yes she is.

    "Careful. No telling if that thing will be getting up." To be fair, with the Forest, it's not impossible!

Sanary Rondel has posed:
"Fine, fine. Just don't blame me if I can't fix it after you're done." Sanary chuckles again at Janine, then steps forward to assist in moving the mirror (maybe not too carefully, either) before resuming light-shining duty from the back of the group. Heading in with the rest of the group, Sanary levels a long stare at the newly uncovered corpse before cringing at Shiomi's scream and catching her when she falls back.

     "Whoa! Easy, easy. I gotcha. Whatever did that is probably long dead by now." Sanary puts on a confident grin, although Shiomi may notice that she's stealing quick glances at the tomahawk on her waist for... No particular reason.

     Zombies suck. "And if it's still around, we'll be ready."

August Kohler has posed:
"We're moving the mirror. They're going to /notice that it moved/. Hell, they'll find out that someone touched it!" And with that, when everyone goes to move the mirror, August finds a chunk of it he touched, and just shatters it off, taking it with him. While others glance at the corpse, August is ignoring it, moving to check out the rushed paintings. "The hell were they in a rush to draw?"

Rebecca Chambers has posed:
Meanwhile, while the others are busy focusing on the mirror, Rebecca acts as cover, keeping an eye out behind them and around them in case something might try to ambush them or a trap might be sprung. She does glance at the paintings, and while she can't make out what they're supposed to be, she does frown a little at what she can make out. "Definitely not your average museum showcases, that's for sure..." Then she notices the corpse, and something about it attracts her to it as she moves closer to it and attempts to get a look at it, attempting to assess it's condition in hopes of determining how long it's been dead for (at least roughly.)

She does notice the gouge in question and she frowns as she moves in for a closer look. The shape of it indicates that this person was stabbed hard, and then there was some scraping done as well. "Looks like somone else, or someTHING else found our friend here and they met a rather painful demise..."

Janine Liberi has posed:
    Examining the paintings reveals a story, of sorts. There are a bunch of figures on the walls, most of them human but with different distinctive figures. The main characters (as in, the humanoids who occur the most frequently) are stick figures with heads done in gold. They worship what appears to be a gold crescent who made their heads gold (as they were white before it appeared). After gaining gold heads, they developed agriculture, built shelters, harnessed fire, taming wolves.

    But they do not seem to be the only people. And the others also worship nebulous figures.

    Another group of humanoids worship something that looks like, in every instance it appears, the artist jut smeared his bloody palm on the wall. Each human also has their heads daubed in blood. These blood heads come into conflict with the gold heads for seemingly no reason many times, but the gold heads develop defences and military tactics that see them as the victor.

    Another group worship... something. It takes sharp eyes to figure out what it is, because it blends in so well. But their figure of worship is depicted by black ash smeared around a natural fissure or crack in the wall. These humans have ash on their heads, and they frequently seem to try to take gold heads hostage. When they do, it seems like they dash their heads to try and get at the gold, but they never do.

    The last group of humans have white heads, and they worship a white sphere. These ones never directly fight the gold heads, but they often steal and run from them. Those that are caught are always depicted as prostrate, afraid.

    One day, the blood heads are fighting the gold heads, but the white heads watch from afar, accompanied by their white sphere deity. The white sphere does something that makes the gold heads have white bodies, and this causes them to break and flee. The blood heads overrun them and claim victory.

    The gold crescent and the red smudge are next shown looming over the white sphere, who is small and seems deflated by comparison. The very last scene shows all the humans with all the same head, the figures nowhere in sight.

Emily Branford (999) has posed:
    The sidearm is lowered only after Chambers has given the skeleton a check-over and it hasn't lunged up.

    Finally, Emily turns, giving the room a brief look-over... but, in truth, she's certain all the others will be doing plenty of examining and puzzling and pondering. So instead, she takes on a task of a different sort.

    "Shiomi, wasn't it? Are you alright?" There's no patronizing or pity involved; just simple concern for the girl's wellbeing, after a shriek like that.

Kotone Shiomi (1102) has posed:
"I'm fine, I'm fine." Shiomi repeats like a mantra, taking deep breaths as she steadies herself. "It's just..." she takes a moment to try to think of how to say this, "I'd never seen a dead person before." Technically untrue, but dead people made up to look like they're just sleeping dignifiedly for a funeral really doesn't compare. "Well, not like this anyway."

Sanary Rondel has posed:
"Easy, Shiomi. It's... Ugh. Man, none of you should even be seeing this. Too damn young for this shit..." Sanary lets out a disappointed sigh, although it seems less directed towards anyone in particular and more at the situation overall. She gives the head-shooter a light pat on the shoulder, then turns her attention back to the paintings.

     It takes her a bit, but Sanary actually seems to be understanding them! Sort of. "So the gold and... Okay. The blood didn't... Okay. So the white come in and... Aah. Then..."

     As she gets closer to where the story ends, however, the healer looks considerably more confused. "Wait. So... Where'd the black people go? And... Weren't they all fighting each other before? How come they're standing over the white thing now?" She points at the ash-headed figures first, then at the crescent and smudge and sphere near the end. "And... Then they just disappeared or something? I'm... I'm lost now."

Rebecca Chambers has posed:
Rebecca does continue to keep an eye on the corpse for a moment, but then she shakes her head as she stands up again slowly. "Looks like it's OK. Let's just get out of..." She stops as she notices the others looking at the paintings, and she too attempts to take them in. "What?" She seems truly surprised by what they're paintings of. "Definitely something about these things that I don't like..."

Emily Branford (999) has posed:
    Emily gives a little nod at that, and reaches up to give Shiomi a light pat on the shoulder. "I can't say as I blame you, that's never an easy experience. I've seen grown men hold up worse than you did, so don't be too hard on yourself." The butler turns to go, then stops herself and comes back around. "Ah, that's right, I've not... oh, where are my manners." A room full of bloody paintings done by a man whose skeleton lies /right there/ probably isn't the best place for introductions, but nevertheless, she sweeps her arm in front of herself and bows deeply. "Emily Branford, Janine's butler and bodyguard. It's a pleasure to put a face to your voice at last."

August Kohler has posed:
As August reads over the murals, he airtraces his fingers over the events. There's a frown, as he shakes his head. "I don't know what this means. Does anyone have a camera? We need to take pictures so we can decipher these later. Seeing that bronze mirror, though, I have my bets this is connected to the Forest."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is not happpy where things are going but this place is also an Occult hazard She looks at all the various biots of art on the wall the warning she can seemingly get as much footage of this thing as she can. She seems to be getting an idea abotu this story but it's going to require certain scholarly Lizard Lady's helop to dig deeper. She Takes a deep breath now. Chambers has confirmed the Skeleton isn't getting back up and she's still very concernedabotu Shiomi she passed out but she's back up. she frowns a bit.

"You have my sympathy Shiomi, it's never easy..."

At least this /was/ tame compared to Kotone's own first experiance with the dead in Kingsmouth.
% "We should get going I have the data and I have to agree August, it seems this may not be the first time It was a problem... or someone saw us comming."

Janine Liberi has posed:
    Janine has been snapping photos this whole time. And she was not happy when August deliberately snapped off a part of the mirror. Even now, she's shooting him baleful glares. "Well, we got everything we need. Now let's go before we get arrested. Again, in some cases." Another angry look at August.

    As she strides back to the ladder, she scrapes her feet over any footprints they left to make them harder to track. On the way, it seems like she finally snaps and says, "Okay look. My birthday is coming up, family is coming to visit, and some are insisting I invite friends. If you offworld weirdos promise to not be weird, you can come too."

    And with that, up she climbs. Boy does she take forever.

Rebecca Chambers has posed:
A brief salute is given behind Janine as Rebecca follows her up out of the cave. "If I can make it, I swear I will not be weird in any way," She says politely. "Trust me, I've seen enough weirdness in one lifetime to know better than to spread it!"