844/You Get What You Give

You Get What You Give
Date of Scene:	23 October 2014
Location:	The Secret World <TSW>
Synopsis:	The story, has three layers, to hear dearest Andy tell it. He'll leave out the bit about his urine-soaked pants. Surely, he will. (TSW Halloween, part 2 of 3.)
Cast of Characters:	Kotone Yamakawa, Staren, 151, 481, Riva Banari, Wuyin Tsai, Inga, 560, Ayako Hasekawa, 596

---

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
It's been a week since the first encounter with the odd pumpkin-seller, the spirit that at least a few have taken to calling 'Jack.' Is it the same one as from the story? It might be. He hasn't confirmed nor denied it. He's perfectly willing to sell more pumpkins, though.

It's late in the afternoon, just before dark. Wuyin has closed up the garage doors in the bottom of the firehouse and brought in some scavenged tables. He's got a few utensils, a few bowls, and that big ol' pumpkin he got nearby. He's been carving it up for a little while now, carefully giving it the creepy grin it needs. He's not quite done yet.

Danny has been coming and going once in a while, but his visits have become infrequent. He's more often at the skate park, fiddling with his RC plane and using it to take photos of the stand. He says he's seen people come and go intermittently, always leaving with a pumpkin, but the photos from the affixed webcam are blurry. He has asked for help retrieving the plane when it crashed at least once.

Nothing is amiss right now. Nothing's happened beyond what always happens around here, disturbing as that might be. Still... is the fog a little thicker tonight...?

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako is currently in the kitchen, filling up empty plastic bottles with healing water of various colors. Once one is filled, she applies some masking tape onto the bottle and labels what it does properly with a permenant marker. Always good to have identifiable medical supplies prepared and tucked away just in case! As she does her bottling, she hums a cheerful song softly to herself. Her broom is sweeping the floor by itself-it might as well make itself useful if it's hanging around! Her gaze turns towards Wuyin-and then stops as it peers out the window. "Hmm... the fog is getting thicker... hope that doesn't mean anything..." And then she completes turning towards the man with the pumpkin, "How's that jack o'lantern coming along, Wuyin?"

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    Shirou has carved his Jack'o'lantern already. It's got this amazingly, fantastically ugly Oni face on display. Sure, he probably got a pattern off the internet or something as he's not much of an artist, but he did a fine job carving it up. Only a few odd nicks here and there...

    The boy strolls into the garage from other parts, stretching one hand while he clutches the pumpkin in the other. "This 'Halloween'--" His pronunciation of that is weird, given ENGRISH "-is a really weird holiday. What does candy have to do with monsters?"

    Though, omeone from China's probably going to have a similar opinion...

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa has had a mostly quiet week barring one or two th8ing but the cyboirg is here she's chipper she's also brought /candy/ with her for others to enjoy if they wanted to. She She's comming in and going and has let Danny play computer games on her set up here.

"I wouldn't notice Ayako honestly it's about as bad as the fog gets on the West Coast of Canada really, ugg I should be visiting family soon then again I can't really ... go home even if my family wants to see me."

She looks over to Shirou for a moment.

"This is what happens when several relgious holidays end up commericalized honestly."

Staren has posed:
    "You think it sounds strange, but they have an almost identical holiday in Equestria, with a completely different backstory." Staren points out. Kotone gets a curious look. "...Why can't you go home?"

    He's made sure to get Danny some nicer toys. Like whatever manner of drones he needs.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley is certainly here! She's sitting in a corner in the same room as Wuyin. And she has the pumpkin she bought held in her lap. In lieu of having a kitchen knife to carve up the pumpkin, she is carefully etching an Aztec design into the pumpkin, of a grinning face with sharp angled patterns. Despite the smile, it appears more 'friendly' than what Wuyin is trying to do.

    She hums a song to herself, it sounds like a sad lullaby.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva usually ends up the one getting the plane when it crashes.

Many zombies have died for that plane.

She's been languidly poking at the pumpkin Wuyin keeps trying to carve, as if prodding it might make it get a face on its own. "These look like pretty normal pumpkins." Riva comments. "I wonder what's up." She stretches, and then stands, looking over at Shirou's. "Ooooooh, this one is /super spooky/." She declares. "Of course you're good with a knife, though, smart guy." She laughs, and pokes Shirou before turning away.

She flumps into a lawnchair, then, and grabs a drink out of a cooler. "They say Halloween is the day where the world of the spirits is closest to the human realm. Mexico has a huge party they do to celebrate their dead relatives stopping in and stuff, real ancient, but /awesome/ parties."

She takes a drink. "So what's everyone up to?" She asks in general. Maybe someone's got something going on that might not involve zombies for a change.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Danny is willing to take Cool Stuff from Staren to mess with, but he's more able to repair the plane. He's previously said that he's afraid the 'Men in Black over at the airport' might take the drones and do evil science on them. His plane is in no such danger.

"Going well, thank you Ayako," Wuyin calls over his shoulder. He is very carefully cutting it up. He's taking his time with it, and occasionally waving his free hand at Riva's poking digits to ward her off. It's not very effective.

"Trick-or-treating has existed in America since the... forties, I think," he says, addressing Shirou when he asks. "There are older practices in England, Scotland and Ireland, where children and the poor would go from door to door offering prayers to the dead in exchange for bits of food and the like. Wearing masks is a Celtic tradition. It's supposed to placate evil spirits." Wuyin knows a bunch of stuff about a bunch of stuff.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa looks over at Staren for a moment.

"Your going to go off like a nuke but lets just put it I'm orginally from a place where a lot of the population is against cyberization. Now before you go off there have been proven to be problems fatal ones but ... some people go off the deep end like the human liberation army. You have to understand there is a fear our technology might consume us and things like the borg being out there...? Does not help matters much."

she pauses at Wuyin for a moment grins.

"You have done your home work I see."

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako waves hello cheerfully to Shirou as he enters with his jack o'lantern. "Hello Emiya! Nice pumpkin carving you got there." She inclines her head to the side gently. "Hmm... from my experience... the candy is a bribe so that said monsters and spirits don't pull pranks on you." A bright giggle escapes her lips. "I pull pranks on people anyway~. Nice pranks, though." She smiles softly... and then groans loudly. "Although I'm going to try to stay out of sight on Halloween itself. On that day, I get stuck in a form that... well... it's awkward to say the least." She nods her head once and refuses to say more.

    Ayako's head inclines in the other direction as she looks towards Kotone. "Hmm? You can't really go home, Kotone?" She glances upwards for a moment and tips the brim of her hat upwards slightly. "Ah!" She startles and her hat also hops off her head for a moment. Anyone paying attention to her broom also might notice that the brush frazzles for a moment at the same time. "It's because of your... uhhmm... metally condition, huh...?"

    Ayako then looks towards Staren, "Staren, what's Halloween like in Equestria?" Her eyes glisten golden with interest for a moment... and then glisten with interest again when she notes the carving Ainsley is making. "Oh oh, Ainsley, that design! It's super interesting!"

    Ayako smiles brightly at Riva. "It's true, though. In lots of places I've been to." When asked what she's been up to, she smiles softly. "Juuuust the usual things." She giggles playfully. And then claps her hands cheerfully at Wuyin's display of knowledge. "Oohh... I've only mostly seen Halloween in more modern-ish places, so... I didn't know that at all." Her hand raises in the air quickly. "I'm not an evil spirit! Most likely. Probably. Perhaps. Maybe." She giggles mischievously.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    "The Jack-o'-lantern is a tradition that is meant to guide the living, or ward off evil spirits, or... any number of things. I would gather that spirit from the Other Side is following the tradition quite to the letter, and this pumpkin will be a lantern for many purposes."
    Ainsley spoke up while she was working, looking up over at Wuyin for a moment. "Once we finish these, something is bound to happen," she tells Wuyin, "That much I am certain of. Perhaps it will protect us... or maybe trap us." She taps the pumpkin a couple of times. And then as if that was not a worry of hers at all, she starts finishing one of her pumpkin's eyes. She looks over at Ayako and smiles.

    "It's an Aztec design... Sort of. I figured it's appropriate for my pumpkin."

Zwei (596) has posed:
    Still hellbent on seeing what goes on with Stingy Jack and his apparent kidnappings, Zwei has left Weiss on and off at Solomon island for days. Asche has been doing the majority of the legwork elsewhere, including mopping up large amounts of mariage, while his companion unit is otherwise busy. Busy, but not doing a whole lot. After initially catching and taking apart a zombie while Inga's wards were still effective, there's been little to do but to stake out the old fire building and keep a lookout for anything supernatural on the horizon, requiring a great number of hidden scanners to have any chance of picking up anything with how awfully anything digital seems to function in this fog.

    So after a few hours on top of the roof, popping zombies from afar with ultraviolet lasers here and there, Weiss comes down to the impromptu living quarters of the building, taking a moment to peek at each of the pumpkins as she goes by. "Very ethnic! I'm surprised to see so many of you getting into a holiday like this! Or were you just bored and decided you should at least do something with those pumpkins you paid for with your blood?"

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    "Un. They look pretty normal," Shirou agrees after glancing at Riva. "except they're practically bubbling with magical energy. Not a lot, but it's leaking crazily! Even I can feel it." Shirou sounds pretty worried about this fact, to be honest, but he sets the pumpkin down on the table and glances about at the others arriving. He's smiling, at least. "It's nothing much, Ayako. I just downloaded a pattern."

    He shoots Kotone a seriously concerned glance at her voiced predicament, but he's not gona ask that one right in front of everyone else... it sounds sensitive.

    "Hm... Zwei, I'm not getting into this!" The redhead protests lightly. "But I'm curious what that spirit's pulling.... so I guess I got caught up in it."

Staren has posed:
    Staren blinks at Kotone. Then lowers his gaze to the floor. "I'm sorry." There's a pause, as he looks like he's going to say more, but then... He turns to Ayako. "You are stuck in a different form? It's... Well, I'm sorry to hear it's inconvenient." He takes a deep breath and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "The incidents of a thousand years ago passed into myth and legend. According to the /myth/, though of course it's not true, Nightmare Moon returns from her banishment every year on that day searching for ponies to devour. So the fillies and colts dress up in costumes to hide from her, and go around collecting candy to make an offering so that she will eat the candy instead of them. So, the story's different, but the result is pretty much the same."

Kirika (481) has posed:
    What people may not notice regarding Kirika's outfit is that it IS technically a costume. She's dressed as the protaginist of some anime she enjoys, save for her ears and tail of course. She sports an eyepatch, and her foxlike features are concealed with a glamor to keep her appearing fully human. Said uniform itself resembles a naval officer's getup, complete with an airsoft Colt 1911A1 for good measure. Said pistol is merely a toy for collectors, not a weapon. The sword however is the same as it always was.

    The half-kitsune has been posted on the roof, smoking a brass-and-ivory pipe inscribed with multiple runes all the way across the lenght that glow quietly. She watches Weiss take some potshots with hot lazor death at the zombies, but otherwise seems too relaxed to really help out. Zwei's unit seems to have things down fine anyways.

    After a while, she extinguishes her pipe and stores it in a case, climbing down to join the others as she rubs her eyes. "Anything new?" She asks, trying to get used to having to see out of only one eye still.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva chuckles at Ayako. "You must have been a /lot/ of places. Water flows everywhere, amiright?" She grins at the water spirit, and then tilts her head, thinking. "You probably do have a kind of unique way of dealing with the situation, don't you... Hmm." What's that about?

Ainsley's comment (and design) draws Riva's attention next. "I'm sure we'll all be fine. After all, you guys paid for them straight up, right?" She doesn't remember anyone stealing any, but then again, she doesn't remember a whole lot from that evening for some reason.

Weiss causes Riva to wave. "Waste not, want not!" She agrees. "It'd be weird to not do anything with them. They'd go bad! At least make a pumpkin pie or something, right?" Kirika's question draws a shake of her head. "Nothing new! But your costume is awesome." She gets up and walks around the half-kitsune, leaning around to get better looks from all angles. "Or are you going to wear it out and about other times? It's pretty nice!" She smirks. "Not sure about the eyepatch though... You can hurt your eyes wearing one if you don't need to!"

"Huh." Riva says, thinking as Staren relates Equestria's own halloween myth. "Yeah, I guess you're right. There's all kinds of ways to end up in the same place, I guess."

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako quietly thinks about Kotone said... "I thought so..." She sighs softly. "I've been the target of things like in the past that since I'm not human." She shakes her head slowly. "It's never pleasant..." She then closes her eyes and shakes her head quickly-as if shaking the unpleasantness away-and then smiles softly at Ainsley. "Ooo... Aztec... I can't wait to see what it looks like when it's done!" She smiles cheerfully.

    Ayako waves hello cheerfully to Weiss when she comes down. "Weiss~, how was it up there?" Her gaze goes back to Shirou. "Even if it's just a pattern, you still managed to carve it out." Her head nods once. "Credit where credit is due." She grins brightly and tips the brim of her hat to him.

    Ayako looks back towards Kirika and smiles softly, "Nothing new. Nice costume, by the way!"

    Ayako then sadly smiles and nods to Staren. "Yes... and it's a very embarrassing form. Gets a lot of stares... makes me feel like hiding somehwere, to be really honest." She then quietly listens... and then nods her head slowly. "Aahh... I see." She giggles brightly. "Funny to see the result is the same."

    When she turns towards Riva, Ayako nods her head once quickly. "It's true. Water flows everywhere and goes where it will." She positively beams! And then inclines her head to the side gently. "Hmm? Dealing with the situation? What do you mean?"

Zwei (596) has posed:
    "Are they really?" Weiss asks Shirou. "I can't sense anything really coming off of them, but I get a weird feeling around them. Emotionally, rather than involving actual sensors. Getting into something and getting caught up in something are pretty similar at the end of the day though! You're clearly enjoying it. And you're good at it too!" All that boring stakeout time has at least provided Zwei with plenty of time to sift through the enormous amounts of cultural data downloaded from several different internets. Turns of phrase, common knowledge, various mythologies. That sort of thing. Interacting with people is becoming easier, little by little, so at least that small sense of progress occupies the time. More importantly, it means Weiss can recognize an oni when she sees one. It makes sense that the Japanese guy would carve one, even for a western holiday.

    "Not as far as I'm aware. It's been pretty quiet." Weiss responds to Kirika. Then to Staren. "It's funny that a completely different mythos would culminate in functionally the same holiday though. All data currently indicates that the giving of candy in western 21st century Earth worlds has more to do with being able to sell massive amounts of sweets and decorations to consumers than anything else." Waving back to Riva, she moves over to inspect Wuyin's pumpkin specifically since she had been poking at it earlier. "That's true. There'd be no point in paying for them if you weren't going to use them. Maybe if we get enough lanterns we'll see Stingy Jack come out!" Finally to Ayako as soon as she's asked. "More of the same mostly. The fog interferes with just about all of my sensors and I'm starting to doubt there are actually a finite number of zombies. The probability that we'll keep seeing them until the fog is eliminated somehow is steadily growing higher. Of course, they're not really much more than an inconvenience to me, but it'll be difficult to decisively sterilize the area."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa nods to STaren and appricate him actually showing tact today she nods to Ayako and if Shirou asks later they could likely talk on it with less people aorund. Either way she's curious about the whole affair with the pumpkins She was very curious about it.

"I'm curious and sides my family would do this to be honest when I was younger."

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
"A spirit of mischief, I think. You do not have an evil bone in your body," Wuyin tells Ayako. This may be literal. He just smiles and shrugs at the various homework-doing insinuations. Not answering is a form of answer he uses commonly.

"We are performing an experiment," he tells Weiss, "and celebrating the holiday in a traditional manner at the same time." Wuyin puts the finishing touches on the jack-o-lantern. It's fairly traditional, with the toothy grin. It looks somehow hungry, too. He takes a step back to admire his handiwork, wiping his hands on a cloth and putting aside the tools of the carving trade.

Night falls. It's almost abrupt, with how dense the fog is. Wuyin hears something, a familiar buzzing across his ear. He rubs at it, grimacing. Riva probably feels the same; it's difficult for him to tell. He looks around almost expectantly --

The pumpkins light up, all at once. The jack-o-lanterns glow, their innards full of a phantom light that casts an orange radiance inside the building. Those looking outside can see more of them lighting up, orange pinpricks in the dense night fog that add some color to the drab place. They trail off into the distance, the light penetrating the misty cover but nothing else being quite so fortunate.

Ayako feels a strange sensation: a pulling, a tugging, some kind of nudging, a sort of force that seems to be urging her on towards the jack-o-lanterns. She can tell immediately they're some kind of beacon, and she can feel them all over town... and feel them concentrated to the west, the opposite direction of the pumpkin stand, where there must be many more than the ones they have.

Wuyin puts both hands on the table. He looks like he's going to be sick. He takes deep breaths and then starts speaking with the exhalations, a whisper that is nearly drowned out by the squeal of static from every radio in the building. They turn on all at once, cycling through frequencies in rapid-fire, the dial seeming to spin at random and settle for a second here or there. It sounds like nonsense, but the faster it goes, the more it starts to take on a definite tone and cadence.

Voices?

Inga has posed:
Inga is late, or perhaps just in time. In the doorway of the firestation a perfectly good gallon of apple cider is spilled, dropped from her hand, the plastic cracking, spilling the contents out onto the pavement like some kind of autumn sacrifice.

The Seer drops to her knees, letting out a loud keen as her eyes roll back and she begins to speak--her lips moving in time with the broadcast over the radio, adding one more voice to the buzzing chorus.

Staren has posed:
Suddenly, the pumpkins light up. Staren steps back from them, looking to see if they /all/ lit up. "Did you do that?" He looks to Wuyin.

    And then...

    "AAH!" Staren turns off his radio.

    It doesn't work. "AAAH WHAT THE HELL?!" He holds his hands to his head, curling up, crouching on the floor as his teleporter activates.

    He collapses on the great treebranch in Agartha, heart pumping with adrenaline, frantically running diagnostics.

    What /was/ that?!

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako smiles softly to Wuyin. "Silly. I don't have bon-Oh!" She giggles brightly and shakes her head quickly. Once Wuyin finishes his jack o'lantern, Ayako claps her hands softly. "Oh, very nice. Very hungry." She cheerfully picks up her self-sweeping broom and takes a good look at it.

    Once night falls-abruptly at that, Ayako blinks her eyes quickly. "Umm... this doesn't feel ri-" And then all the pumpkins light up at once. "E-ehhh? But... but... there's no candles in them! And..." She floats off the ground unconsciously towards Wuyin's jack o'lantern. "Hey! What's with this?"

    Ayako's feet firmly land on the ground and she shakes her head quickly. "Something weird's going on! There's a spiritual current here, and... it's trying to pull me around! And it's strongest going that way!" She points to the west.

    Ayako's eyes blink quickly as her radio suddenly starts to move on it's own. "Uhh... I don't think it's supposed to do that... is it?" And then winces strongly at the sudden screeching of the radios! Once it stops... she smiles brightly(?!) "Oh oh oh... that... that was interesting!" Her eyes are positively gleaming golden with interest!

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley stares down at her pumpkin as a supernatural glow shines out of it, and alights her features. Her eyes shimmer with a shine of crimson as if the light were reflecting in a way showing some other nature in them. She frowned at the pumpkin as the Bees began to speak, dripping their honey-soaked words through the radios all around them. She clenched her jaw as her own radio screeched sound into her ear.
    She looks up to Ayako, giving a serious stare at her that pierces through her. "Go. We should follow your lead." She stands up, holding her pumpkin under one arm.

    She looks very tense and agitated. Probably because of how Loud the Bees were this time.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa args as she's getting it right in the cybercomm Kotone drops to the ground on her knees, old animal reflexes kicking in as she attempts to cover her head she then drops ot the ground on all fours ttying to breace her self against it. She breaths heavily, raggedly even as she tries to get back up.

"I...they were in my head...."

Kirika (481) has posed:
    The night falls, and Kirika frowns intensely. She falls completely silent, her tail curling warily as she narrows her eyes in bracing herself for the worst. A hand grasps her katana's hilt, the other grabbing the scabbard. Before she can do anything, she doubles over, grabbing her ears to cover them as her glamor falls apart and the half-kitsune lets out a shout. On her knees, she continues to cry out in pain from the messages in her head, before gritting her teeth.

    Yokai brain chemistry means this is not at all great for Kirika, as she goes from SEARING PAIN in the head to nausea due to the aftereffects.

    She forces herself to stand once again, and her hand grabs Kinugiri by the hilt. "...the Buzzing?" She asks, looking to Wuyin when her mental factulties return.

Riva Banari has posed:
"Well, Ayako, you're a spirit, too, right? So you have to deal with... spirit things on Halloween, and heh, she doesn't /have/ any bon..." She trails off, tilting her head. "...es..."

The Bees speah. While Inga shrieks prophecy and Wuyin struggles, Riva stares into the distance, almost catatonic while the multiphonic, inhuman buzzing and cadence forms words that feel pitched down to be able to be comprehensible by the human mind. The loud words do not move her. The chaos does not move her. The lights of the lanterns do not move her.

Not until it ends. Eventually, she blinks, her eyes clearing as if awaking from a dream. "Wha...." She says, trembling a bit as she deals with an unusually dense Bee Experience. "Something happened..." She says, and then looks over when Ayako comments. "The... The pumpkins! They're lit, and..." She looks over to Ayako. "They're calling you... Who are they guiding... Beacons in the dark."
5rHe looks concerned. "Who... Who are they calling?" She looks over and runs to Inga, bending over her to help her. "Inga, we're going to need you. Come on, I'll give you a hand."

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    And then, EVERYTHING GETS BLOODY SPOOKY.

    Shirou jolts straight upward, standing tall and stiffly and... for that matter... breathlessly. The boy gulps, struck by a bit of fear and well, he's pretty unnerved.

    Upon seeing that the Jack o'Lanterns are AGLOW, he leaps away from them wiht a yell, but that doesn't help. No, there's all these.. strange, braincurdling noises to deal with instead.

    "Trace, on." The redheaded magus murmurs solidly. He senses trouble. Big trouble.

    Those perceptive to magic might notice patterns of it flowing through his body, down his arms... golden light that ANYONE can see flares in his palms... it sizzles and arcs like wild lightning, and fades after about ten seconds. Twin daggers of black dragonscale and wicked design rest in his grasp. Only one of them should exist, though, and these are clearly resized versions of Priscilla's side weapon. Ostensibly daggers, they're really more like very short swords.

    "I don't like this at all! We should go look where this is strongest!"

Zwei (596) has posed:
    Weiss' discomfort is entirely nonvisible. Without anything so quaint as instinctive fear of pain, there's no reason for her to clap her hands over her ears or grab her head or start screaming and shouting. All the action happens at the digital level, where Zwei is frantically trying to isolate the source of the signal and run it through both units at once. In fact, Weiss freezes up completely, staring into the distance as all of her processing power is taken up in the attempt, leaving only just enough to record the data in sensible form. Only once the stream of information ceases does she finally regain the semblence of life.

    "Samhain is probably someone who recorded these stories. Possibly part of the monster slayers club? All of them are obviously urban legends, but extremely fragmented, bordering on nonsensical. An old groundskeeper who appears in glass and stares through windows. A man-eating corpse relating to an old hermit. A woman named Chen who was presumably murdered." Weiss pauses a little at the next story in the order. "A chain e-mail gathering sapience at the memetic level, angry at being dismissed. A man named Hills possibly guilty of the same crime as Chen, accosted by something inhuman. Someone afflicted by disease and burned to death by angered dead spirits. The story we already know of Stingy Jack. Something extremely minimal relating to a cursed diary. Two writers who became afflicted with some sort of memetic intelligence related to the deep sea. A hiker named Chloe Mercer hit by a card." That's all I've gathered out of this. All sound fairly typical for scary urban stories, but they have an overarching theme of the tale itself being part of the narrative within the story.

Inga has posed:
When her eyes clear some, Inga hangs her head, shaking it slowly. "Nothing to it now...your feet are already set upon the path. Your feet are walking now, you don't even see them move..." she says quietly, still a little distant.

Riva reaches to help her to her feet. The physical contact helps to bring her back. She closes her eyes a moment, takes a deep breath...a moment later her back straightens, pulled up by work needing to be done. She pulls back her cloak to draw her knife, slicing open her finger. She begins to draw a complicated symbol upon her forhead, charging it with anima as she does so. A bit of aid to help her see into the spirit world, widening her sight. Dangerous, but she believes it will be necessary. Inga's grip on Riva's arm is a little tight.

The witch looks to Zwei. "Samhain, it is a festival of the dead...as it was explained to me. A time in which the veil between worlds is especially thin," she replies.

Inga looks to Ayako then, nodding. "The west...to the west is the gate of the dead," she adds.

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako nods slowly at Ainsley's and Inga's suggestion. "Alright... Follow me then!" She quietly stashes her broomstick in her hat and walks outside of the firehouse. Once there, she floats off the ground, letting the beacons guide her-slowly! The last thing she wants to do is lose everyone else! She seems to be wafting west, opposite the direction of the pumpkin stand. Although she does have to land once in a while to adjust her path so that she doesn't float into a tree or a house.

    As she floats she thinks... "Hmm... it feels like... all of these lanterns are trying to pull me around but... if that's true... there must be a really, really, big number of them if it's pulling me like this..."

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Wuyin recovers around the same time Riva does. He takes a moment to steady himself, closing his eyes and listening. Things gradually stop wobbling from his point of view. When he lifts his head again, he slips on his 3D glasses in the same motion, and then starts for the door.

The fog is especially dense tonight, swirling clouds of grey obscuring vision and technological sensors to an alarming amount. Seeing half a block clearly is a blessing, and though Inga has slightly better vision from her charm, it tints everything with the black-and-grey of the spirit world. The pulling sensation draws Ayako down King's Court and onto Arkham Avenue, the long road that runs east-west through the north side of town. The church borders it, and the police station is at the far end.

The lights are not the only things illuminating the fog, and the assorted investigators are not the only things moving in it. Dimly luminescent shapes sweep into the street from every direction but the west, following the lantern-light up to the road they're on. They're tall and lanky, floating along, some bearing shackles and chains and others appearing broken and twisted.

It is pretty much impossible to mistake the spirits -- the ghosts -- for anything else.

They slowly turn to look in the direction of the living things tromping along nearby. Some of them slow, curiousity overpowering the current. The sounds of things shuffling along the ground starts to echo through the foggy streets behind the ghostly parade, signs of something much more corporeal approaching.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley follows. She does not walk, though. She floats along behind Ayako as easily as the water spirit herself floats, seeming to have no need to walk... despite having arrived to the firehouse and left on foot numerous times. As they proceed and get further into the fog, a frown develops more strongly on her mouth, and this unease prompts her drawing the longsword from its scabbard with a faint metallic hum.

    The ghosts are regarded with an uncertain gaze. She tries to see if she can recognize any of the nearby ghosts, if they are the faces of some of the undead that have wandered the island.

    Her head turns, trying to pinpoint the source of the more physical noises in the fog, clearly made even more nervous when she hears that.

Staren has posed:
    Once it's clear that the... whatever the Bees are doing is over, and Staren's complained and vented a bit, he teleports back. Sure, he'll follow the pumpkin-people to see what all this is about. "Like moths to a flame..." he mutters softly. Still a bit grumpy from having his head invaded. /Again/.

    And /then/ they see something interesting. "Ghosts? Are those ghosts? Wait, this raises /more/ questions. Are they actual souls, people who have been stuck in some sort of... undead state for untold years? Or are they just images, memories, pieces of old events?" Staren looks to the locals for explanation: "How do ghosts /work/ here? Or is it like in Creation, where the upper soul passes on and a sort of... emotional spiritual machinery is left, devoid of personality, seeking only basic needs it can no longer fulfill?"

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa gets up at this point and moves to follow after the others who are leaving but not before she grabs the battle rifle with the short but simple makrings on it that read. XCOM and some short blurb in latin under it. She heads out into the night for a moment as she looks about.

"...I have no idea I just know my ghost whispers to me still. It's the only way I know I'm not just a construct."

She moves alkong with the rifle ready but lowered.

Inga has posed:
Inga's eyes continue to hold a bit of that haze, the distant look of the Seer. A prayer is uttered as the ghosts appear along side them. "Hel receive these lost souls...is it your gate they have opened?" she whispers.

Inga reaches with her knife, dragging it across the flesh of her fingertips before reaching over to Riva, scrawling the same symbol upon her forhead, along with a ward of protection. This is lower, drawn near her heart.

She looks to Staren, frowning. "Now is not the time for those questions, prepare yourself," she replies.

The spirits turn and look toward the living. Inga touches her fingers to the iron of her blade and chants words of warding.

Something is coming.

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako glances around as she floats along with the pull... "The fog's really bad tonight, huh...?" And then blinks her eyes quickly when she spots something else glowing. The ghosts get quite a long look from Ayako... and then she slows slightly when she hears something physical moving around ahead in the fog. "Umm... something's up ahead... and it doesn't sound like a spirit." Her feet land lightly onto the ground and she stares forward half warily and half curious.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva scurries along, warded by the ever-attentive Inga. The utility in her technique continues to astound.

But she does happen to bring a pumpkin with her. Wuyin's, to be specific. She looks astonished at the density of ghosts wandering around and holds up the pumpkin for a better view. "Huh. Never seen ghosts like that!" Riva says.

The other hand has an anima-augmented MAC-10. Because she totally might need to shoot the magic bullets of spooky to die here. "Yeah, something's definately out there." Riva confirms to Ayako. "But what? And where? The fog is scattering the sound everywhere."

Zwei (596) has posed:
    Well there's no way Zwei isn't going to follow Ayako. Not when she claims to feel something, and when Inga says something as spooky and significant as her 'feet are already set upon the path'. Adding Weiss to the train of Elites leaving after the water spirit, the Armiger wanders down the street close to the front of the pack, personal defense systems fully charged just in case, but her attention seemingly more on the pumkin lights than anything else. "The pumpkin salesman has been busier than I anticipated. Look how many there are! Most of them seem to have been taken far away from where they originated as well. Did people really go all that way across a town in this condition?"

    The ghosts are far more interesting. "That's a good question Staren. Unfortunately I don't have anything that can detect souls. All I can assure you is that they're causing EM interference and have no mass signature." She'll trust Inga that it's best to 'prepare herself' though, especially since she hasn't failed to pick up on the shuffling sounds. Turning towards the end of the street, Weiss raises her arm to roughly chest level, lowering her hand as her wrist splits slightly and produces a pair of stubby, carbon black barrels.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    "Who cares about the details," Shirou blurts out, apparently provoked by Staren's calm questions. "This is bad news no matter how you look at it!" Yeah, seriously.

    The hero-to-be has dashed out with Ayako, intent on keeping her safe no matter what kind of crazy stuff is out there.

    His whole face is a mask of worry and fright, but he's not stopping no matter what.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Wuyin gives Staren a shrug. This is not a subject he has done the homework on. He continues on, casting a quick glance at Riva and then pulling his sword and effigy both. Carrying the pumpkin provides plenty of light, and a convenient beacon to gather at, at least!

Most of the ghosts move on. A few of them start towards the carried pumpkin. It seems a little brighter in Riva's hands. The ones that get near lean in to examine her, with their gaunt and exaggerated features getting awfully close. They reach out, spectral hands opening in grasping motions as if to reach into her and pull something out. It is safe to assume it will not be pleasant.

The sounds in the fog turn into humanoid shapes. More of the ever-present zombies shuffle out into view, arms outstretched as they stagger forward. Strangely, they squint as they lurch, like the light was bothering their eyes but pulling them all the same. The moment they see the living (and other) members of the party, they rush forward, snarling and swinging in wide, clubbing swipes!

The group is passing the church. It's on the right, with a pair of jack-o'-lanterns outside the door. Ghosts round the building along with a couple groups of zombies, but the ones that try to get inside get zapped by the wards and dissipate or collapse. They're still safe, it seems.

Staren has posed:
    Staren blinks at Inga. "I think when we're surrounded by them is /exactly/ the time to ask whether they're monsters or potential friends..." He shakes his head at all the people dismissing the question and nods to Zwei. When he notices everyone is armed, though, he reaches down to his belt buckle, which has two half-circle crystals on it, and turns it -- a soft light washes over him as his armor manifests.

    Just in time too, as there are now zombies! Staren starts pelting them with plasma blasts as he charges up to intercept them before they can get too close -- only when his plasma sword is stabbed through one does he remember they don't go down quite so easy, trying to kick it away and back up to stick with ranged attacks!

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako eeps softly and quickly steps back behind everyone else as the zombies suddenly rush in! She's not a fighter at all! Her palms come together and then sweep outwards towards everyone. "Water Bubble!" A bubble of water forms around each person for a moment and then vanishes.

    Water Bubble isn't a strong barrier at all. In fact, it's terribly weak, only capable of slowing enemy attacks very slightly in an almost negligible fashion. Still, it's the backbone to all of Ayako's other barriers, so it does have to be cast all the same.

Riva Banari has posed:
The ghosts start crowding and pawing at her, forcing her to dance around to keep them from reaching in and trying to take something. "HEY HEY HEY!" Riva yells, pointing the MAC-10. "Do I look like some kind of soul charity!?" apparently they think so, as Riva gasps and jerks, /something/ getting pulled out. "Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?" Riva laments. "Why is it always me?" And then she solves problems by pointing the MAC-10 and unleashing a brrrrraaaaaap of anima bullets at ghosts. WILL THEY BLEND?

"I don't remember giving soul-rending pain." Riva asides to the others. She's busy with ghosts, you guys are on your own with the small fry.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa pauses for a moment she's not going to get back up from being dead so she's going to have to pass on this yes, unless she somehow gets dragged in. She does however open fire with her rifle in some vain hope of it working, imaterial foes? There ain't nothing on her world that can deal with that unless it's something of data.

"...This is ... going to be one of those nights!"

The Squaddiers are never going to belive her about half of this shit and they have seen aliens.

Zwei (596) has posed:
    The conversation over the radio only intensifies Zwei's misgivings about the horde of ghosts surrounding them. With so little data, trying to get into a fight with them is an extremely dubious prospect, and it would rather not test of it could somehow be 'pulled into the spirit world' through Weiss. The Armiger takes a step back and leaps upward with the resounding snap of cracking sidewalk, vaulting a couple of storeys upwards and landing gracefully on the highest point of the church, where the ghosts shouldn't be able to reach if the wards are any evidence. Sighting the zombies from above, she snaps her arm towards each one of them in jarringly swift and precise sequence, as if guided by an aimbot; nailing each one with a shot from her personal defense raiser. Each muzzle flash iss accompanied by a streak of coherent light whizzing out like a bullet, punching into center mass of a zombie, and instananeously detonating in a miniature thermal conflagration. She uses just enough juice that each zombie should be blown to pieces without damaging the streets themselves, aiming for surgical shots rather than raw firepower.

Inga has posed:
The ghosts that come toward Riva earn a hiss from Inga, a quick gesture of warding and a spell uttered.

"They are drawn by the pumpkin," she says, probably stating the obvious at this point.

The zombies arrive, running toward them in their usual frenzy. Inga frowns, calling upon her anima as she cuts another line into her skin, casting the blood outward in a spray that when it meats the flesh of the creatures, burns like acid.

Then, a small smile as she takes a step back and looks over toward Ainsley.

A wink.

Then Inga raises her staff. A bright flash of white-hot light, and a bolt of lightning rips into the oncoming group of undead.

Kirika (481) has posed:
    Kirika seems to have hung back to recuperate, having evidently suffered the most out of all of the group from that Buzzing. She groans as she begins to speed back up, popping a power bar as she begins to gather up her ki, so to speak.

    It's not long before the half-fox catches up with the others, and she does so in force when Riva, Zwei, and others engage the undead.

    Zombies she prefers much more than whatever this Buzzing is, zombies are simple beings.

    Kirika teleports into the middle of a massive throng of the undead, slicing them apart with Kinugiri's blazing steel-edge.

    Her movements may be slowed down due to whatever the hell's hurting her, but she's still got the moves down pat.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley looks upon the blood mage with surprise when she's winked at. The surprise lingers for a good few seconds, and then grows when the lightning rips through the undead, leaving a smell of cooked flesh lingering in the air.

    Not someone who is likely to show off, Ainsley nevertheless begins taking part in the zombie culling, swinging and chopping, interspersing flickers of lightning in the charge.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    "The pumpkin... it's the pumpkin!" Shirou's eyes have gone wide in this critical moment with Riva under assault. "Rivaaaa! Ditch the pumpkin! They're drawn to it!" And he's very glad that he didn't bring his outside of the firehouse, sheesh!

    But he doesn't have much time to focus on her, because ZOMBIES. oh gods.

    Good thing he picked the best weapon he knows for taking on spirits and the dead. The dead, the living, all fall equally to the Lifehunt's touch.

    And, for whatever reason, dual wielding short swords seems to suit Shirou's body better than a single longsword does

    "It's /always/ one of those nights in this town!" Shirou complains. Yeah, he feels ya, Kotone!

    Shirou dices into some of the zombies as they attack. They're just zombies, so they're easy to predict, sidestep, and deal with if one just stays calm.

    Thankfully, having been constantly beaten up by Bedivere day after day, Shirou's getting much better at thinking tactically and planning his counterattacks. Compared to his first few forays against zombies and even Elites, his motions are more decisive and planned.

    It's easy for anyone who's been watching him since Unification to notice, but now's probably the worst time to pay attention to details.

    "If we get to the Church and behind the wards we can fight from there without worry!" He goes on to suggest.

    Seems he's starting to think more tactically too.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Staren's plasma bolts do exactly as well as they always have, burning enough of the zombies that come at him down for him to intercept them with his beam sword. He gets nailed by a couple of swipes, but these are the weaker, swarming variety: easy to kick, easy to blast, tough to keep down.

Wuyin goes on a cutting frenzy, keeping a small cluster of zombies from getting into the center of the group. He's aided by a combination of slowing barrier -- something that lets him get glanced instead of struck at least two or three times -- and Kirika's appearance, thinning their number with keen blades over modern firepower. It doesn't seem to be working any better than Staren's plasma bolts are, but it doesn't seem any /worse/, either.

Thunder, lightning, and explosive rounds pour in, and the steady stream begins to slow. Zwei's unnaturally-precise aim starts catching the zombies that didn't get electrocuted by the multiple sources of magical lightning, and they burst into a combination of charred and wet pieces in the street. It is super gross.

There are fewer zombies with every passig moment, the first couple waves disintegrating under massed and experienced fire. The ghosts are another story. A couple break off from the parade now and then, diving into the group. The Anima bullets seem to work on the nearest to Riva, punching into the spectre's form and tearing it apart like a weirdly solid cloud of smoke caught in very precise wind, but the one next to it -- a more faded thing -- barely seems moved.

Three of the more insubstantial spirits shriek, casting thin green bolts en masse into the group. They break apart and scatter like fragments of broken glass, feeling like stabbing cold and then burning hot when blood flows out of the wounds. The other three of the hostile ghosts, apparently much more corporeal, lunge in with claw-like hands and too-wide mouths. One stays on Riva, but the other two go after Shirou. They must sense something about that weapon.

The pulling on Ayako seems to swing towards the south as they get near the police station. A road goes that way, with houses on the left and the woods on the right. There are many more lights in the woods, but many are small, bobbing green things, circling the orange beacons brightly and enticingly.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley does not relinquish the pumpkin she was given for a SECOND. She's not gonna just drop it when she paid good blood for it! She growls as she chops at anything that comes near her, and tries to keep near enough to the group to prevent getting overwhelmed by the surge of dead things. She occasionally glances over at Inga, watching her magic working and showing a warm smile of approval each time she sees the magic successfully cast.

    Then she's struck with something /far too cold/ which gouges into one of her arms. She has to land and stumble, crying out from the pain.

    She begins flicking blasts of magical wind into the ghost, trying to drive them away with a force that will make them prime targets for the party. She just wants to make it easier on her allies.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa totally just shot several zombies through the ghost she makes a face like I totally ment to do that and she scopes out what her comrads no friends have been doing. She sees that so far things are going well but then she's caught by one odf the spirit bolts it feels strange, it makes her feel things that she thought she could not feel anymore.

She drops she rolls tries to get some cover and keep picking off zombies. Yes she's getting shot in the soul more or less it doesn't feel good.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva shoots at ghosts, continuing to protect Wuyin's pumpkin. "Why do I get killed or almost killed every time I hang out around you?" Riva asks Wuyin with mild asperity. Death is only a moderate inconvenience for her, after all.
5rSpeaking on inconvenient, Riva is bombarded by ones that seem to have a resistance to bullets. "Aw, nuts!" Riva yells. "These are not being shot properly! I'm gonna need-" What she needs is momentarily not apparent as the ghost bombs hit, tearing through Riva. Or would, if the wards didn't take off the brunt of the damage. Riva is left staggered and bleeding, and she scowls. "This is /super/ inconvenient." She prounounces, trying to shoot at things that die when they are killed.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    Boy is Shirou ever lucky... these weapons are capable of cutting into ghosts as easily as they can flesh. Or at least, the Lifehunt is. Even if it doesn't properly cut their 'corpus' or equivalent, the spirits are gonna feel it.

    But before they do, Shirou's sure gonna. The phantasmal bolts pierce into Shirou's skin, drawing blood... though his wounds don't bleed for terribly long. Still, the magus is staggering through it all. He is, after all, only human despite his strange ability, and Reinforcing himself to the degree he'd like is likely to cost him an arm or a leg.

    The boy's breathing hard, bt his expression's fierce as he cuts, dices, and then... HURLS both weapons at his assailants while leaping backwards. He goes skidding across the ground...

    "My body is made of swords." He states solemnly, more a chant than proper speech. Again, prana flashes and crackles out through his palms and swiftly forms, layer by existential layer, into a weapon. It's a rather hasty job, so the quality leaves something to be desired, but...

    The mighty obsidian blade of Odin, ZANTETSUKEN, appears in his grasp with a *sizzle-clank.*

    With a fierce cry he goes charging at the ghosts. This weapon can ALSO cleave into spirits, thankfully, being the preferred weapon of an Elder Primal itself. But after about ten furious swings into ghosts and remaining zombies, the weapon simply shatters. It's quickly replaced with - *SIZZLE-CLANK* - an ornate golden lance with a loooong blade-tip. It's ALMOST too long for SHirou to handle. Yet handle it he does. Ornstein's spear is thrust out and power crackles through it - in an instant, thin bolts of lightning flash out at the spectres!

Zwei (596) has posed:
    Score one for the tactical genius. Weiss is completely safe from ghostly influence within the wards protecting the church, meaning the bolts of eerie green light don't even reach her. Unfortunately, the reverse is true. As far as Zwei can tell, the ghosts are safe from her too. If they don't have any kind of mass signature, there's nothing for her to transfer energy into, and thus no way to blow them up. The fact that they interfere with the electromagnetic spectrum, scattering visible light and producing infrared cold spots, is about all Zwei has to go off of.

    Switching off the rydberg array in her weapon for the moment, Weiss begins charging the particles still loaded in the chamber with as many different frequencies as she can fit. Radio, microwave, infrared, ultraviolet, alpha, beta, and gamma radiation, all rapidly shifting between relative levels of interference with one another. Like some kind of crackpot ghost science theorist, she aims for the most solid spectre she can see and lets loose with a tight beam straight into the apparation's center of mass, intense enough that it scorches the pavement behind it. Not exactly a huge chance it'll do anything, but it's worth trying. Probably.

Inga has posed:
Perhaps Shirou's idea isn't a bad one, as much as she hates to admit it, those wards are pretty effective. The witch has plans to implement some spells into her bone fense that include an offensive kick such a that.

The zombies are taken care of. They're all so used to fighting them by now. The ghosts however, are a different story. Inga winces as the green bolts burn like the coldest ice burns. The wisewoman's eyes narrow, her knife drawing fresh blood. She casts it from her knife outward, flowing toward Shirou. A magical barrier that shimmers crimson surrounds him, protecting him from incoming attack while also providing a bit of regenerative healing for the wounds he may take.

Inga turns toward the ghost assailing Riva now, directing the blood that rises from her wounds, the liquid solidifying into thin, sharp spears charged with anima. "I invoke the Allfather, wise of magic, Caller of the dead--be banished," she prays, then sends the spears flying through the ghost attacking Riva.

Staren has posed:
    Zombies are dealt with, but now there are ghosts! Spirit shrapnel is flung around -- Staren's forcefield is stopping it for now, but it's cracking and bits are breaking off. But how does he fight /ghosts/?

    Well, he shouldn't assume the worst. /Some/ of them seem to be effected by bullets, so let's try energy weapons! Staren cycles through weapons until he finds one that works: Plasma cannons, laser pistol, holy-aligned laser pistol, actual physical gun with silver bullets, actual physical gun with magic explosive bullets, and finally, mad science weapons made by a god.

    /Something's/ gotta work, right?

    Right?

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako starts drifiting towards the south now... but then gets startled out of it by the green bolts suddenly being thrown at the group! And especially the stabbing pain from the green energy bolts. "Kyaaah!" Tears come out of the edges of her eyes. "That hurt! That actually really hurt!" She cups her hands in front of herself and forms healing water with a white tinge, which she splashes on herself with a sigh of relief. "Aahh..."

    Ayako's gaze turns towards the south. "It's coming from over there... I feel like I'm being pulled over there."

Kirika (481) has posed:
    GHOSTS.

    THIS is also something Kirika is used to. She feels about in her pockets before...

    "Well, damn. Those could've been more useful before." This is why she doesn't smoke and work at the same time, usually...she's getting slow in her...wait.

    Anyway. Kirika sheaths her sword before she FLINGS herself in front of everyone else, kneeling down to produce a pair of paper seals with glowing script written on them. These are ofuda seals, divine wards against the ill-willed undead and other yokai.

    Her eyes glow with a brilliant white light, and she throws the seals onto the ground as the kitsune begins to chant in some sort of otherworldly tongue, not dissimilar to Japanese, but it's definitely difficult to understand with the translation effect.

    As she does this, a barrier forms in front of her, to ward away these spirits.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is really wondering about Shirou about this swordy thing later but for now. She can't do much against the ghosts with the Zombies aoll felled she falls back and tries to keep the hell behind the people who can do something about this. It's clear she knows right noew she's useless, very much so useless.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
"Insufficient experience with the murderously paranormal," Wuyin suggests to Riva, hacking into one of the few remaining zombies and igniting it with a quick burst of Anima-fueled fire. Kotone is quick to finish it off, and Wuyin keeps a clear line of fire for her and Riva to do their things. He does not want to get shot, and he's between them and the things that die when they are killed. "You should get more independent practice."

Shirou, meanwhile, pulls out several stops. The Lifehunt weapons strike through the wholly incorporeal ghosts as easily as the mostly-corporeal ones, and the less-substantial kind have much less that he needs to hew through to kill them. He (im?)mortally wounds one, and then finishes it with Zantetsuken, laying into the next with blade and lightning. They shriek, burning away like dry paper set alight when they 'die'. Again.

Weiss, on the other hand, does a science. The mostly-corporeal ghost burns, nearly as vulnerable as a person in this state. The bombardment makes it look flash-burned for a second, and then it fades out almost completely, caught wholly by surprise. It's entirely possible that it would have had a response if it knew what was happening, but all it can do is try to rematerialize -- something that Staren immediately interrupts, cycling through weapons in a live-fire test of ghastly proportions.

The results are this: the denser, more manifested ghosts are difficult to harm with magical weapons and sources, but easy to hurt with physical (and energy) weapons of various stripes. The faded-out, nearly-wholly-incorporeal ones are practically untouchable with physical weapons, but die readily to magic. Hybrid weapons don't work nearly as well on either.

The ghost that's trying to kill Riva super-dead gets corralled by Ainsley, swept up and away. It tries to get closer, manifesting sickly green energy in its hands, but Inga gets there before it can do much more harm. It gets off one more short-range burst, and then gets punctured by the Anima-charged blood spears, beginning to burn away in fast-forward with a shriek that dies on the arcane wind.

The last of them don't get close. Kirika flings down a ward, and the last are repelled, flowing back like slips of paper caught on the breeze. They try to get in, but their anger is forgotten rather quickly, and in a moment, they join the rest in the flow towards the woods.

The group as a whole is out of the woods. Now to, perhaps, go into it.

The edge of the Wispwood appears to be lined with the pumpkins. They're sitting at the base of the trees at the treeline, with will-o'-wisps dancing around them merrily. The ghosts pass between them easily, flowing into the misty space beyond... but there's a definite boundary there, a border where things become grey and lifeless, where sight is darkened at the edge by merely looking into it, where things feel cold and alone being even nearby. Even the mechanical can feel it.

The boundary between life and death is very real, and it's right there.

The only color on the other side is a merry orange-red glow, too high to be sitting on the ground. It's moving, up and down, left to right, like it was bobbing... or hopping. A figure is dimly visible through the fog, something tall and dark, with long-fingered hands and a carved pumpkin atop his neck. The lantern leaks wispy smoke, and the interior burns with a glow like an ember ripped from beyond had been shoved inside to keep it alight.

Jack throws back his head and lets out a merry, bellowing laugh. He retreats deeper into the wood.

Zwei (596) has posed:
    Weiss seems to be the odd one out here. The majority of gathered elites seem to have some magical means of dealing with their incorporeal assailants, but the weaponry that works all too well on flesh and blood targets seem to barely do anything to the more faded spectres, leaving the Armiger at an impasse. Relatively confident that the others can pick up the slack should more ghosts come after them, given the combat ratings Zwei had assessed and applied to each of them, Weiss hops down from the church and behind Kirika's ward as it goes up, retracting her PDW for the time being.

    Somehow, the ghostly horde is nothing compared to what lies in the woods. For the second time that night, Zwei is subjected to a deeply seated, almost innate 'feeling' that it can't adequately describe, despite picking nothing up from its active sub unit. It can clearly tell where the problem area is through Weiss' eyes, but attempting to explain the sense of dread it feels at the idea of going further is all but impossible. Why does anyone feel anything? Weiss is just about to turn around and go back when she spots what is /unmistakably/ Sting Jack, at which point Zwei forgets all sense of prudence and sends the Armiger after him immediately. "That's him! I mean, it was obvious he'd be here given all these jack o'lanterns but still!" The tone she says it in might as well scream 'let's get him!'

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako sighs with relief once the ghosts are repelled by Kirika's ward. She stares into the Wispwood as she slowly steps towards it. "Well... here goes... Oh." Her left hand reaches up and takes off her witch hat. She flips it upside-down and digs into it with her right hand.

    After a moment, she pulls out an erlenmeyer flask with purple water inside it. Ayako darts in and out of the group, offering the healing water cheerfully to everyone that got hurt by the green energy. "Here you go! These should help!" On a special note, she stops by Shirou long enough to offer another flask with green water inside it. "Emiya, don't burn out, okay?"

    Once they arrive at the edge of the Wispwood, Ayako stares at the huge amount of jack o'lanterns. "Uhhh... right. I... I think we've found a border between life and death. Or maybe an enclosed space."

Kirika (481) has posed:
    Welp. Portal to the afterlife. Kirika doesn't waste time, hurriedly making her way to the portal. "Well, this...could either kill us all, or we may be able to get to the bottom of this." Pause. "Or both." She taps her foot a little, rubbing her chin as she slips into the portal without knocking Ayako out of the way.

    And there she goes, into the breech to see the unknown. She's only visited her own world's afterlife once, and she was still very young at the time...

    This will be interesting.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley is, thankfully, regaining her breath as they advance down the road. She closely follows Ayako... and carefully reaches to take a drink of the proffered flask that Ayako offered. The lizard girl smiles in silent gratitude.

    The pumpkin she has is kept under one arm. Her eyes fixate on the border of life and death, and she is all at once unsettled by it. This is a lizard girl greatly attuned to disturbances in this powerful and nigh-Multiversal force, and things like this apparently make her instinctually twitchy. She doesn't even register that people are talking about it until she hears Jack's laugh.

    Her head turns and her mouth wilts into a frown... and a rattling can be heard from her sword as one of her arms shake. Is she afraid? She can't stop looking at the border.

Staren has posed:
    Staren tries a lot of guns -- great on corporeal ghosts (?!?!?!), not so great on the more spectral ones. "My weapons don't work on those ones!" Fortunately, others are ready with wards and magic. On they go...

    "Wow. So... I guess this is the dead gathering for entrance to the afterlife. I mean, that still raises all sorts of questions, but..." He hesitates when Jack runs off. "Hey!" After a brief radio discussion, he's willing to follow the others into the afterlife, though. He chases after Kirika.

    At least it can't possibly go worse than his trip to the afterlife of Yunomi's world, right?

Staren has posed:
    And he stops /really/ suddenly when Wuyin warns him over the radio.

Inga has posed:
They come to the wood. The glow of the of the pumpkins, the start contrast between the world of the living and the dead...

Inga stands, her eyes wide, Seeing into the woods..."He's dancing, there. The ghosts are passing through to the large tree, passing into it...Oh, Jack is jubilant..." she says, then looks toward the others. "I doubt I need to tell you that is bad," she comments.

So it is as she'd suspected. Inga sighs heavily. "One of us should go first. Riva, Wuyin or I. I...have not yet died and returned. I have seen the spirit world only in barrow-trance," she continues quietly, going back to staring at the divide.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Kirika marches forward. A fist of ice grips her heart. A tingling sensation runs from the bottoms of her feet to the top of her head. It starts to fade quickly, and with it, all sensation does. Panic will well up inside her, the fear of death all living things possess. She'll feel like she's trying to push through a wall, or maybe a grate, and she'll come apart if she does it like this.

Wuyin grabs her by the arm to stop her from going any further. She's only gone two steps. He pulls her back, shoots her a look over the rims of his glasses, and then goes in himself.

By the fourth step, he freezes. He wobbles in place for a half-second, and then pitches over backwards, seemingly boneless and wholly lifeless. He somehow moves forward at the same time, a greyscale version of himself moving across the threshold. It stands out starkly against the rest of the cold world, his Anima form highlighted with the power it contains.

He turns back, looking confused. He looks down at himself, takes a second to scratch behind his ear, and then moves forward in a low crouch. He keeps behind the trees, out of the light of the pumpkins and the flow of spirits. It becomes difficult to track him.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    Shirou's getting a bit shakey. He did say that he could project 40 more times, but that's only in terms of paying for the feat's prana cost. And this only because he has Iianor's backup keeping his prana supplied every few days. Left on his own, it would dwindle down to the point where he can only project 6 times per day...

    The bigger strains are on his body and mind. He certainly can't keep fighting like this for 40 more projections, can he?

    Maybe, but what shape would he be in afterward?

    Wielding Zantetsuken usually tears his muscles. The Lifehunt weaponry ravages his spirit and threatens serious injury if he pushes it too far. Clarent's skill is WAY too harsh on him and his body type isn't suited for it... Kusanagi drains prana too quickly...

    he really doesn't have anything that fits him, does he?

    He snags the healing water flask, though almost fumbles with it. "Th-thanks, Ayako!" Green water. That's kind of ominous, huh? But he'll hold onto it for now. that might come in handy.

    He is at the border and he freezes, instinctively realizing that humans should NOT take any further steps, no matter what kind of laughing Jack is up to. Shirou's usually one to run into things impulsively, but... then he sees Wuyin topple over.

    ... if Wuyin hadn't repeatedly said stuff about death not really bothering him and his kin, Shirou would FLIP. As it is, he sucks in a breath. SHARPLY.

    Yeah. He's going back for the pumpkins.

    That'll probably take him a while, but it's definitely worth it.

    On the way back he'll be using the supply cart to haul them all, carved or not!

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako eeps softly when Wuyin suddenly falls backwards. And then blinks her eyes quickly when a monochrome version of Wuyin passes the threshold in front of the forest. "A-ahh... I... Hmm..." She calls out quickly, "Wuyin! Don't go too far alone!" Her gaze looks worried since she can't see where he has gone.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley turns her attention to the others, quite baffled by the reasoning passed around. But then she looks down to the pumpkin she is still clinging to. She would try to follow Wuyin through the veil, but only so far as her body doesn't experience any powerful, cold sensations. An experiment, so to speak. The moment she feels ANYTHING approaching what death feels like, she'll recoil so fast she'll leave scorch marks on the ground.

Inga has posed:
Wuyin stops Kirika from making a very big mistake, thank the gods. Inga lets out a sigh of exhasperation.

Then, she watches Wuyin die. Even knowing what she does, it is still a decidedly unsettling feeling. She watches as his spirit-form takes shape and begins to move through the grey world. Her hand tightens on her staff, wondering if she should follow...

Caution wins out, and she remains on the other side for now, her Sight open. Inga looks to Ainsley as she approaches with her pumpkin, obviously concerned. She frowns deeply. "Gods see you Ainsley," she says. She wants to tell her not to go, but she doesn't. Her eyes however, speak for her.

Kirika (481) has posed:
    And then Kirika is stopped from doing something STUPID. She lets out a jolted gasp of pain as she goes rigid, then is flung onto her ass as she stares and watches Wuyin /die./ "NO-!!"

    Horror is written all over her face, and then that is followed by confusion as she stares at what's going on before her eyes.

    "...what."

    As she hears Shirou leg it to get the pumpkins, then it settles into place.

    "Well...not my best moment."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa lowers her weapon now and makes ready for whatever might ome next she pauses for a moment she stares she looks about looking at aborder and a faint forgotton memory comes back to her. She's seen iot before... once and the chill of the grave that should have claimed her is felt quite plainly she is frozen up she looks about now and seems quite spooked as she sees Jack sprint off.

Kotone is much as Weiss really she needs to adapt somehow or end up being l;ess usful.

"Only one way or another but my weapons are useless against spirits I'm just meat to them."

Zwei (596) has posed:
    "Well, that was abrupt." Weiss watches Wuyin keel over and die a little dispassionately. She had kind of liked him, but had hardly seriously known him. What's much more worthy of note is when he gets back up again, or rather, some spiritual version of him does. "Oh! Can we see that for the same reason as we can see all the other ghosts, or is it always like that? Anyways, it's actually pretty fascinating to visually confirm the existence of a soul like this!" She does however, decide against following Jack any further, begrudgingly remaining behind while Shirou goes to fetch the pumpkins.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Moving past that second step, even slightly, definitely gives the feeling of rapidly approaching death. It is pretty terrifying, and definitely noticeable. It is not something that will happen without making that choice.

Wuyin comes back a couple minutes later. He does so by being flung. His Anima form is hurled through the trees, clipping one and spinning towards the edge. He passes over it in mid-air, coming right at Kirika and Ainsley --

-- and disappearing into thin air like he was never there.

About ten seconds later, his corpse takes a breath. It rolls over and sits up. Wuyin blinks a few times and adjusts his 3D glasses, which were briefly askew on his face.

"He spotted me," he explains. Wuyin fishes around behind him, pulling out a wrapped parcel. "He is doing something with the spirits. Storing them, I think. I cannot fight him as a spirit, and there is some kind of -- barrier." He unwraps the thing. "I do not know if the pumpkins would be enough. Maybe closer to the end of the month..."

Wuyin eats a taco.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley finds a place to sit and leer into the barrier of Death. Her mouth is wilted into a weary frown, as if the feeling were something that hurt a lot more than her pride or her physical body. She hefts the pumpkin in her arm and slots the longsword back in its scabbard, then turns to regard Wuyin--

    Her negative emotion washes away when she sees he is eating a taco. She blinks slowly at him in the most stark surprise.

Kirika (481) has posed:
    Kirika just seems to lie there in confusion, before her ears wiggle a bit. Blink. Blink. Blink.

    "Tsai Wuyin, you are a son of a bitch sometimes." She states blandly after a brief and awkward silence.

    Then she suddenly eyes that taco with jealousy. Damn but she is hungry now.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
"It is stressful to resurrect a body," Wuyin explains, "and food helps repair it more quickly. Hence," he gestures at the taco, and then continues eating said taco.

He tosses one at Kirika without looking at her, staying seated where he is.

Inga has posed:
Inga watches with wide eyes as Wuyin's spirit form is hurled...then his body comes back.

Then, taco.

Inga raises her hand to her face and just /sighs/.

Kirika (481) has posed:
    And Kirika catches the taco after a pause. Given whatever happened to herself, she certainly doesn't waste time in chowing down. The fox just sits there, munching in silence beside the portal as she mulls over recent events.

    This world is so fucking weird even for her, Kirika decides to herself.

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako blinks her eyes as Wuyin's Anima form is escorted out of the boundary via the Fastball Express. "Eeeep!" Double eep once his Anima form disappears! But a sigh of relief once Wuyin's physical body takes a breath and sits back up. "A-ahh... St-storing them?! For what? No wait... he probably wouldn't tell you that, huh..." She listens quietly and nods her head slowly. "I'd think... we would need to wait until the boundary between the spirit world and this world gets super thin before we can do anything there... So... really near Halloween, huh...?"

    Ayako sits down in mid-air by Wuyin and shuffles around in her hat for a few bottles of healing water. One purple, one green, and one white. "Here you go. These should help after a revival!"

Staren has posed:
    Staren is a bit taken aback when spirit Wuyin clips a physical tree. /How does that work, seriously/? Wuyin gets up, and Staren walks over. "Is there any way for us to physically go there? Is he... is he just doing the grim reaper's job, or is there more to it?"

Inga has posed:
"The grim reaper?" she asks, brow rising.

"Closer to Samhain, yes...when the veil is thinner," she comments. "Then, with your pumpkins...mmm. I will prepare. Its unlikely I can come in my physical form either, because I did not buy a pumpkin...hmph. Troubling."

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    And Shirou comes trundling in with a cart full of pumpkins... whoever's were left around, anyways. He's a bit late tot he party, too.

    "... What did I miss?"

Staren has posed:
    Staren blinks. "The anthropomorphic personafication of death. A psychopomp, a shinigami. The ferryman. Charon. Collects the souls of the dead and brings them to the afterlife."

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako raises her hand cheerfully, "Emiya, you missed Wuyin get flung out of the forest like a taco with a stale shell. Then he revived. And... well..." She gestures cheerfully to Wuyin eating his taco. "It seems we can't do much until it gets closer to Halloween."

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Wuyin takes the bottles with a nodded thanks. He looks over at Shirou, and then up at Staren. "I do not think he is ferrying the ghosts along their way. They would not be inside that tree." He shrugs.

"It is just a theory. The story happens on Halloween, though..." Sound enough.

Inga has posed:
Inga blinks at Staren, then waves him off. "Ah, like Odin's valkyries."

Inga looks back to Emiya, nodding to what Ayako explains. "Yes, as he said. The pumpkins...we do think they will be needed. Perhaps, since you brought them all this way they could be kept in the church until it is closer to Halloween. Samhain. Whatever it is called," she comments.

Well, alright. Right on to the next disaster. Maybe she can sit awhile. "...the apple cider spilled.." she sighs. She'd been looking forward to having a cup of that.

Kirika (481) has posed:
    "Or Shinigami." Kirika helpfully adds, before taking another bite of taco.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa stands there a bit chilled at this pint she looks about for a moment and looks about as she seemed to be a bit taken aback by everything.

"So your saying we're not quite close enough yet then? She frowns and shakes het hhead there are other things to go after in the mean time she should go after that email...