Scene #5239: Fundamental Fragments of Human Nature-2

Owner	Pose
Priscilla	Not much has changed since the last time anyone was here. There's much much still around left to change it. Like most of the surrounding area, the scene is set at an unfathomable height, atop mountainous plateaus of such size that they are only recognizable as mountains, instead of level ground, by the fact that if one walks far enough, they eventually reach the edge of the peak they're on, and come face to face with a drop so steep that the sun can't penetrate the mist miles below. Everything visible seems to be sat atop some form of cliff or rise or another, vertically tiered atop one another, and separated by kilometers of winding gulfs. It seems like the kind of place only someone who could fly would live, and yet evidence of human occupancy is all over. At least, previous human occupancy. Only a couple of people had been here to see when it was a gigantic fortress of stupidly high stone walls, housing a rambling maze of medieval human habitation, stacked several layers high. Now, it's nothing more than a wasteland of twisted and melted stone and metal, dissolved into a semi-liquid slurry and gradually settled into the shape of a well-used candle on its last legs. It's impossible to tell where any of the individual buildings or streets may have once stood, as the latter have cracked open several layers deep, to expose the dark of the under-city, and the former has hardened in viscous, running waterfalls that hang over the edges like melted wax. Only the especially tall tower, or hardened fortification, is visible by some larger feature sticking out of the long-since hardened floes of molten rock, withered away and bearing its melted features horizontally. Luckily, the bizarre, waxen puddle that an entire metropolis had become overnight, has been thoroughly mapped by this point. It's a short trip, back to where the investigation was last time: deep down the dark chasm opened up in the city's guts. Even now, however, with the summer heat setting in, and the sun at its highest point, wandering the charred streets feels like constantly wading through thick, freezing fog, and one must squint to see, despite the absence of a single cloud in the sky. There is little necessity for assisted descent, either. Plenty of ropes and ladders have been set up to navigate the multiple layers of sub-streets, aquaducts, and sewer systems that are now open to the air, which quickly leave one standing at the dark mouth of a paved channel that still runs with clear water, forlornly guarded by the shattered remains of a rusty, iron-barred gate. Past this point is where all sources of light start to dim and die out very rapidly. It's also where Staren can find one of his video cameras, sat neatly outside the impenetrable shadow, as if moved to the entrance on purpose, completely undamaged.
Reiji Arisu	Whenever the Abyss is involved in... Well. Pretty much anything?? There's always reason to be concerned. Whether it means that there's some kind of awful serpent-thing trying to corrupt yet another hero to the dark(er??) side, or cities melting like literal candlewax, when news of the Abyss spreads, those who know better run far away. Those who know better AND have previously been involved in straight up axemurdering avatars of the Abyss instead run headlong into it. And so, Reiji Arisu has arrived. "This..." Reiji's expression rankles at the sight of... This. All of this. The frigid fog, the oozing buildings the creeping Dark. "How did this happen without anyone realizing? This kind of corruption, underneath the Undead Burg of all places. Right beneath our noses..." "What /happened/ here?"
Tamamo no Mae	Tamamo's here, partially because of boredom and partially because Priscilla subtly offered for her to go. After checking around her kingdom to make sure everything is okay and no stray Sabers in Red trying to sneaky sneak into her property, she heads off to where her current Lord tells her to go. And to say the least, Tamamo's got a really disturbed look upon her face. The world around her, worse looking than the hellhole that Alexis took her and the group to. In fact, she'd rather be on Saber's lands than this place, but no, she presses on, for it's the good of things... to her Master and Lord. She does, however, wait around a bit, pondering where to go from here and whom she was going to meet, after all, Tamamo didn't have her Master with her right now... but there was at least someone else around to see. "Well, if Tamamo could tell you, then I don't think we'd be in this situation now, huh Human?" Tamamo wanders over to Reiji, pondering a few things before looking around, "Can you tell Tamamo what you know about this place at least?"
Tomoe	not much has changed here since Sheena was here last, but for Sheena? Her entire world was turned upside downa nd on it's head. Her life back home has become one crazy death game. her world had changed, she had changed. Though she was not to foolish to arrive as her self. Then again was she not more Tomoe than she was Sheena? She had transformed before entering into the warp gate to arrive so Tomoe once more sets foot upon this world and has made to catch up with. Though her companions who knew her would notice? She had chanced how she carried herself it was more like back in the death game and she was seemingly more on edge than before as she fell in with Reiji. "That is why we're here to find out what happens here Reiji." The towering Woman to those who were new was over six feet tall very almost statue like and had pointy ears which splayed out to the side a bit. she was also clad in a mix of plate and cloth armour whichc had a cross here or there upon it. 5R "Tammamo? The name's Tomoe."
Jonathan Joestar	Jonatahn, who was not here during the previous investigation, steps carefully among the molten crags. His white button up looked rather odd, even among the company he was keeping with the rest of those present. Sleeves that rolled up to his biceps didn't seem all that strange even with how massive the muscular man was, but there were weird leather buckles running to from his upper arm to his shoulders, rough in appearance and cutting a sharp contrast with the delicate embroidery of the shirt itself which was complimented by the combination cravat-bola tie. " ... I don't know." Jonathan says, replying to Reiji. A leather gloved hand rubs the back of his neck as he bends down on one knee to examine the composition of the mess around them. "The stone's too damaged to tell us anything.." "But that in and of itself tells us something, doesn't it? Whatever did this wasn't acidic in nature, this warped terrain was caused by something unbearably hot. This kind of melting doesn't occur naturally outside of volcanic shelves." Geology wasn't his field of expertise per se, but it was very closely related.
Staren	Staren rides from the warpgate on a magic flying broom, because who cares about coherent thematics? As they approach the entrance to the... corrupted area, he dismounts and puts the broom away in his bag which is too small for it, like Mary Poppins. "...How did that get out here?" he comments when he spies the tablet-repurposed-as-camera. Reflexively turning off his armor's and headware's wireless access and pulling another tablet from his bag to use instead, he remembers that he set the camera-tablet to autistic mode and it's probably out of power now anyway. "That's what we're here to find out." he replies to Reiji, approaching the camera to check on it. To Tamamo he replies, "Kalameet melted this place. For unknown reasons, it's now being corrupted from underneath by the Abyss, which is making everything... weird." At Jonathan's comment, he adds: "Kalameet's been dealt with. We're here to investigate the abyssal corruption." He's expecting it to have run down, and he's prepared with spare batteries and charging cables and the like. For extra paranoia, he fully tints his visor and sets his helmet cam to lower res temporarily. "I don't know what we're going to see here... take any precautions you can. I don't know if the Abyss can use basilisk hacks, but this was clearly set out here for us, so... it might be a trap." He temporarily degrades his helmet's audio feed, too.
Reiji Arisu	Reiji has History with fox of Tamamo's particular... persuasion. The onmyoji looks a little wooden at her approach, mollified somewhat by the distress and concern he's feeling toward the present situation. "...I am Reiji Arisu," he says to the fox, gingerly adjusting his vest with his spare hand. "And this place... WAS a city, once. A settlement. This... Was due to the wrath of a black dragon. Kalameet, the dragon of calamity. But..." He turns his nose to the wind and takes a long breath in. "...This was not... It didn't feel this way back then. Something is wrong."
Xiaomu	"Well, it used to be a pretty scenic fortress," Xiaomu remarks as she catches up with Reiji. "At a rough guess, I'd say something extremely hot happened to it .... maybe Kalameet, but I think his infernal blasts were more of the 'blast you into a scattered cloud of ash and cinders' variety than 'melt into an indistinguishable puddle'." She pauses, looking Tamamo no Mae over, very carefully. Xiaomu's nose is actually twitching a bit. "I don't believe we've met," she says with a vaguely cordial smile. "Name's Xiaomu. Reiji here is my partner." She pulls a package of fried tofu out of her vest, carefully tears it open, and holds it out for the other vixen-type to help herself.
Jonathan Joestar	The black haired nobleman nods, absorbing the combined information presented by the others present. "I see. Oh, where are my manners..? My name is Jonathan Joestar. I'm here for research." he introduces, coming back up to a stand for a polite bow. He'd spent long enough in the larger multiverse by now that he didn't feel very put off by the appearance of a strange, eastern Fox Woman, but...how to put this. He didn't approve of her dressing manner. "What is this? It's like...smog, almost. ...No." Jonathan stares past Staren, where the light wasn't reaching. "It's more like the ocean, I think."
Priscilla	Staren is quite predictably correct that his tablet has long since lost all battery power. Nothing prevents him from charging it back up, however. The operation is as simple as switching batteries. When he turns it on, and checks the recorded footage, the vast majority of it is just staring at a tiny area of barely visible flagstones, with the monotonous, echoing trickle of water for company in the background. He can fast forward through literal days of footage, and see only the light level slowly decreasing, and the visible area shrinking bit by bit, even with night vision filters. It's only the last few minutes of the recording, that have anything of use. When the camera's visibility has reduced to absolutely nothing, there is a sound like faint, distant breathing, only audible through extreme levels of echo, like listening from the top of a deep well. The feed clatters slightly, in the way it usually does when someone fumbles an amateur shaky-cam, and then the recorder is tilted nebulously 'up', towards shapes in the dark that are only recognizable for the fact that the pixels that render them actually switch off; that is to say, without the faint black 'glow' that one can should normally see from a monitor, even in a dark room. Discrete sections of the screen deactivate to render them. The shapes comprise a collection of human(ish) heads and shoulders, clustered around the camera as if all gathered around to look down at it, with eyes that are little more than stark white pinpricks against the black, extremely bright, but casting no light. With his visor intentionally jacked up, Staren experiences little more than a feeling of intense vertigo, as if the screen of his tablet were a deep hole. The shapes disappear from the frame, and the audio craps up with the sound of the tablet being clumsily dragged, scraping over the ground, before it ends up outside where he had found it, and instantly runs out of power, despite displaying 10% battery.
Priscilla	Jonathan's observation feels like a canny one, in a way that is difficult to process. No sooner has he said those words, that it seems to just kind of 'make sense' the instant one considers them. Almost as if the shadows agree. Peering into it, there isn't much his eyes can really glean, however; only the unbidden sense that he has forgotten something important, though clearly there is no reason for such a concern. Subject to the same oddity as the people who came before him, Reiji's spiritual senses are abuzz with proximity to the dark tunnel, as if looking at the boundary where the sun ceases to reach were something like staring at . . . something like, perhaps, a small, well honoured shrine, perhaps to some god of an important road.
Tomoe	Tomoe looks to Jonatahn for a moment she's curious about him for moment. "good thinking sir but we are also dealing with remants of the Abyss and Staren what did you pull up on that." She looks Jojo over for a moment trying to size the man up and she seems to like what she see she also looks to Xiaomu wiuth a faint smile to her foxy friend. "it was but now? All I can say is I do not know. she keeps a good look out here as she looks about keepuing alert for trouble while everyone else does but she's also listening as well trying pick up onany noise that might hint at trouble is comming.
Tamamo no Mae	Oh, so many more people just pop up out of the wood work. If there's one place infested with the remains or dangerous energy of a being who melts places faster than gorgonzola, there was bound to have more than just her and the Reiji there. The Tomoe-elf gets a curious wave given back at her, and a look is shot to the loud human, not by voice but by clothing, that is Jonathan. And there was the robo boylike thing that was Staren. This was a party of weird people. /Very/ weird. Oh well, Tamamo has to stick through it, after all... it'd at least please Nozomi that she's doing work for the COncord instead of bickering at Nero. And Tamamo liked bickering at Nero. And then there was one more... one that set her fox senses off faster than fried tofu... Xiaomu. She hears her introduction, noticing the wariness, then there's fried tofu... right there.. in a package. "Such a marvel, fried tofu in a package!" She snatches it up nicely, a few slices here and there. "I am Tamamo no Mae, a pleasure, Xiaomu." said as casually as possible. She doesn't even wait to figure out what response Xiaomu will have over it, as she turns back to Staren, looking at the glow of something upon his tablet... wandering over him and sticking her head over his shoulder to peer at it... and immediately backs away from the visage peering back from the end of the reel, "Mikon!" comes the surprised shout at it... "Well, if.. if that isn't creepy, then Tamamo doesn't know what to tell you. So, we're to figure out what's going on here?"
Staren	"Well, /that's/ creepy." Staren comments once the faint breathing starts, and then there are humanoid shapes... "My very own creepypasta in real life. Lovely." After it finishes playing, he comments: "Well, I guess those are what lives in the abyss. Are we planning to try and talk with them, or something?" Once it's clear that nobody else has been whammied, Staren disables the basilisk hack precautions to take a closer look at the creatures. Only THEN does he notice the weird effect with the screen. "What the hell...?" He holds it close to his face, then starts running diagnostics... not much he can really DO here except check how displaying 'darkness' affects power use, though.
Jonathan Joestar	Jonathan's expressions petrifies into a deep frown. Something about that sentiment was ..right on the head, he suspected. In a way he couldn't rightly put his finger on. But then again, this place seemed to have strange effects on him to begin with, for some reason, he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd forgotten something rather important. Like forgetting to lock the door when you leave home. Something small that would bug you until you encountered the issue itself. While Tamamo chomps on Fried Tofu and Staren busies himself with his recorder, Jonathan approaches the gate with a cautious tension in his body. Without all the high tech, fancy gizmos that most modern Archaeologists used, Jonathan's typical method when encountering unknown entities if visual observation served no purpose, was to try and experience it himself. Even in battle this had proven useful in figuring out ways to defeat Dio's Vapor Freeze Technique or Bruford's Leeching Hair. Though it was a tight squeeze, he manages to fit his arm through the gate, sticking it out into the darkness. He hadn't wanted to try moving it in fear of breaking the sorry looking metal completely. 'If it really is corrosive, I can expel it with my Hamon...probably.'
Reiji Arisu	There are two things that immediately set of Reiji's This Is Terrible senses. The first is that... pervasive sense of Dark. Of Unlight that does not merely occlude sources of illumination, but instead... Seems to eradicate light itself. Like a diffuse black hole, except one that actively seeks and devours light. The second is a name. Tamamo no Mae. Reiji squints. Just... Just ever so slightly. Was Tamamo no Mae always this... ...Bubbly? ........ "Maybe we should have a closer look," Reiji says in the vague direction of that roiling corridor of darkness. "Reminds me kind of like a Fog Door," he murmurs, pressing a hand lightly against the murk. "Except... More ominous, somehow."
Xiaomu	The look which passes across Xiaomu's face when the other foxgirl introduces herself as 'Tamamo no Mae' is best summed up as a non-verbal 'wait, WHAT?!' - not exactly spooked, but there's a very, very pronounced double-take and an expression of wary disbelief. It's probably a good thing that this Tamamo has no idea what Xiaomu and Reiji and some of their allies went through the previous summer, with Ouma trying to collect the chunks of the Killing Stone and unleash the ancient kitsune's lingering curse. Xiaomu takes a piece of fried tofu to munch on while getting her own reaction under control again ... and it probably helps that she's kind of caught between distractions. Staren's studying whatever that is on his screen; the mention of 'creepypasta' causes a slight earflick by way of reaction. The psychic miasma lingering in the area isn't exactly letting her focus on specifics right now, either ... or to be more accurate, she COULD concentrate on something specific, but she has a distinct suspicion that she'd regret doing so. At least there are some familiar faces. In fact, besides the nine-tailed foxgirl, Xiaomu realizes that she's met everyone else who's here. "Be careful about sticking your hands in the Ominous Darkness, guys," she advises Jonathan and Reiji. "I didn't stockpile holy water for this trip."
Priscilla	To anyone else enterprising enough to peek over Staren's shoulder, the feeling is much stronger. There's no doubt that the sight evokes something, though it is probably not so sophisticated as a 'basilisk', or some kind of brain exploit; rather, more like something that strikes a deep, half-remembered chord in one's heart, evoking intense feelings of familiarity, bordering on deja vu, and nostalgia that is borderline nauseating. At least, for most people. Tamamo, oddly, gets maybe a tenth of the effect. Regardless, the power use seems to be fine, if even fractionally lower simply due to parts of the screen not using it up. Nothing seems to actually be wrong with the tablet, at least. It works fine, and doesn't radiate elemental evil or anything. Jonathan reaches out into the dark, and encounters, oddly, nothing but empty air. Though, as thick and cloying as it is, and how much it looks like a physical substance, his hand plunges only into the cold, clammy, and humid interior of the darkened aquaduct; unpleasant, but perfectly breathable, and posing no risk to him. For some reason, he gets that kind of jolt that one gets when heading upstairs at night, and miscounting the number of steps at the top, but nothing more. Either way, the gate isn't going to be a significant impediment. He can trivially unlock it from the other side, even if his muscles barely fit through the gaps. He could probably even bust it right down, if he wanted to. For all of its elusive significance, the dark is just dark. The area beyond is perfectly traversible, if not particularly safe.
Tamamo no Mae	Fortunately the Caster has her back facing towards Xiaomu's little double take and disbelief and Reiji's squinting, even if it was ever so slight. "Well." a single spoken word from the fox is given as she paces, pondering what to do. Though, in preperation, the mirror that she wields unfolds from the sleeve of her top and floats right in front of her, the Eightfold Blessings of Amaterasu. "This darkness is quite annoying, wouldn't you think?" the fox's demeanor going from cheerful to down right 'okay, what the hell's going on'. She looks towards Jonathan, who seems to have an idea of his own, albeit... strange. She just watches him stick his hand... then arm through that gate, "What in manner do you think you're doing, I don't think any of us here..." a look towards Staren in particular, "Okay, maybe one of us here may be able to sew back on an arm."
Jonathan Joestar	He felt a dizzying confusion, for a moment. As if he were about to trip --it was a sensation that some described as 'dream death'. It's when you wake up from a nightmare in which you were falling from a great height, and still for just a moment, experience the sensation of falling despite being wide awake. That single instant of surprise and fear. Jonathan's hand flexed as he spread his fingers out ensuring that yes, even if it looked like pitch black fog, there was certainly nothing there but air. Having a preference not to break things without necessity, Jonathan peeled back the locking mechanism and pulled his arm back through the bars, opening the Aquaduct up for everyone. "I don't believe I was in any danger of losing my arm, it's quite alright. Let's see here..." Consulting his pack, Jonathan produced a modern torch supplied by the League, and took the first step into the wet, humid passage. "Shall we go?"
Tomoe	Tomoe is going to be polite she aso does take note everyone else's comment. She looks to Staren for a moment and she stares at it. "You might want to be careful with that given how everything is seeming to break around here." She looks to Jojo he was right he was very much right about this and she'll look at him fort a moment concerned at his actions. She'd also taken a glance over Staren's shoulder and she wishes she had not. She looks away rapidly thought. "Ugg I shouldn't have done that." She llooks to Jojo for a moment and asks. "You all right and .... right we should. I'll take point if no one objects." She chants a brief spell causing a sphere of light to appear at her shoulder, out fomes the Dawn breaker and mourning wall as she makes ready to take point. "Sir if I might ask I think i missed your name." She takes a glance back to make sure Staren, Reiji, Xiaomu and Tamano are all right before she'll move on ahead.
Xiaomu	"I left my sewing kit at home, anyway," Xiaomu remarks casually in reply to Tamamo's 'able to sew an arm back on' comment. "Glad that didn't leave you short-handed, in any case," she adds with a nod to Jonathan. "So what do we know so far, besides 'spooky, probably haunted' - actually, 'haunted' would make a LOT of sense for how this place seems to have been wrecked ..." SHe looks at Reiji. "You're probably picking up more fine details than I am at the moment, what've you got?"
Staren	"I cannot sew an arm back on, but I'm sure I can work something out though." So it's deactivating parts of the tablet screen. That's... interesting... but he's not sure he can learn more from that right now. Perhaps the league can develop better screen technology by abusing the effect or something. "I guess all that's left is to... head in there." He turns on lights on his armor. "I'll be doing my best to track our location..." through both inertial AND breadcrumb positioning systems! "...but no guaruntee anything will work in there. We might not come back." When he gets that in-the-dark-too-late-at-night feeling he checks for infrasound, because wouldn't it be nice if the had an easily-understood explanation? One can only hope it doesn't mean that the darkness will make nightmares manifest...
Reiji Arisu	"Mmmn," Reiji's lips turn downward at the corners. "It's... A strange feeling. Almost as if there is a god present here," Reiji gestures into the darkness. "In there. It's... Hm. A pathway? A shrine to a god of travel, but travel to... Where? I can't say." There's a beat. Reiji rubs at his chin. "I can try to get more, but I'm not sure. I can sense the Dark, but it's strange. Very strange." "So in other words," he shrugs, shaking his head, "Your guess is as good as mind. Best way to know more is to go in ourselves."
Priscilla	Walking into the open tunnel is largely what one would expect. Despite the apparent time period, the hall is very precisely carved, and relatively spacious, made with tightly fitted flagstones that appear to be much more sturdy than the rounded, concrete passages one will find in a modern city. Moss appears all over, like the glue and mortar holding it together, but otherwise, all the filth usually expected in a sewer system has long since disappeared, in the years, decades, or even centuries, it hasn't been used. The walls and floor are thick with that translucent slime that forms on old, humid caves, but the water itself, directed down a wide and shallow channel that splits the corridor, is clean. Probably not drinkable, but clean. The first leg of the journey is pretty normal. The radius one would expect out of their lights is significantly lower than ideal, but that's the only real oddity. Staren detects no sounds particularly out of the ordinary (though they seem to travel really, really far), and his positioning system traces closely the same route as before. As Reiji and Staren would be familiar with, however, the further they go, the more the light starts to falter and fail, though not through any fault of the sources themselves. The League's electronics hold up as well as ever, and Tomoe finds nothing wrong with her spells. It's like the rays given off just fade into nothing. Pretty quickly, the moss ceases to be green, and starts taking on odd, midnight blue hues, sprouting fleshy flowers of mottled black petals, which ooze some turquoise fluid. The water becomes impenetrably black, even when shining the lights directly on it, as if the channel had become ten miles deep, but anyone daring enough to stick their fingers into it will just experience icy cold wetness and stones worn smooth beneath. Still, it feels as if the passage is gradually widening, or like side routes are opening up all the time, even though the actual junctions are very few. It's tempting to hold one's hands out as a buffer, like bumbling around an unfamiliar building after a power outage, but there's really not much of anything to find. That is, save Staren's tablets. It seems only the one deepest in had been found, because every so often, the group practically trips over one. All of the are out of power, and wet with condensation. It's roughly around the point that Jonathan, in the lead, could swear that he's just turned a left corner five times, when he practically kicks one of the tablets underfoot, which is supporting some kind of opalescent, blue-black growth not unlike an egg, though it's difficult to tell whether it just grew on top or from inside somehow. The sound of cavernous dripping is now pretty constant, despite the fact that there are no irregularities in the roof for water to drip from, and still not enough actual space to echo like that. Checking the mapping software, Staren will find that they've diverged off of what /should/ have been the only extant passage in this section. Even Tamamo will have the uncanny sensation that she's just stepped into some sort of Atelier or another, roughly coinciding with the exponential intensification of Reiji's and Xiaomu's spirit alerts. Granted, the egg-plant-tumour-thing doesn't seem to be the source, but more of an indicator, like a marking at the edge of a predator's territory.
Tamamo no Mae	Tamamo's following the group, graciously allowing Jonathan to head forward in the lead... after all, he looked like he could take hits for her. Its with, however, as they get further and further in, with the light dimming and the blackness... it really ... well, everything here makes Tamamo feel very uncomfortable. And by that same token... She feels unwelcome. Tamamo mutters a curse under her breath as she makes a minor complaint on the Concord radio, her tail swishing... an antsy bugger that thing is. "Eeeeh... Tamamo... feels not so welcome here. It's quite uncomfortable for me, everyone." she turns to Reiji, "Carry me... and tell me what your senses say... Tamamo is curious." she wanders herself as close as she can to Reiji, weather or not Xiaomu stops her is a different question. Though, even after they travel further... "Did... we step into a workshop of some sort?"
Jonathan Joestar	Jonathan apologetically takes a deeper step inward. "I have to insist that I ..take point, as you put it, miss. It'd behoove me as a gentleman to do so." he says, before adding, "My name is Jonathan Joestar, it's good to meet you." He figured she hadn't heard, earlier. That was fine. With everyone ready to go, Jonathan begins to walk down the stony path. "This Aquaduct hasn't been used in a very long time. All the filth and excess that would be left over has long since disappeared...I'd wager a hundred, a hundred and ten years? No, that's not long enough..at this climate, the cold would..." Jonathan mumbles to himself in thought. Despite his muscles and proficiency for fighting, it seemed intellectual pursuits were his preference. "Hm? The light is getting dimmer. But, this is a brand new battery." And, he observed, it wasn't just his torch. Warily, he continued to hold it out, until eventually, it was almost like there was no light at all. His hand past moss and after some time, strange flowers. Before he can attempt to examine them closer, he winds up tripping on one of Staren's tablets. "Ech....good lord, what is that? An egg?" Jonathan lightly taps it with the tip of his boot before deciding to leave further examination to the others. For now, he'd breathe lightly, and try to channel ripple into the flower. The cold didn't bother him much due to his reflexive use of Hamon breathing, but he was curious as to what kind of reaction the flowers here would have. The foreboding atmosphere was starting to remind him of Windknight's Lot, so perhaps a little testing of the fauna would shed some proverbial light on the situation, for him. "Please act with decency, Miss Mae."
Xiaomu	"Less a workshop, more a greenhouse/mushroom farm/not sure I wanna know," Xiaomu replies to the other fox, casually interposing her staff (with a soft jingle of the headpiece's rings) to stop Tamamo from petitioning Reiji to carry her. "And your legs look fine to me, strong and healthy; Reiji's gonna need his hands free if anything big and vicious and hungry for fresh fox meat leaps out of the darkness at us."
Staren	"Yes, it's uncomfortable to all of us." Staren replies to Tamamo. Jonathan gets exposition: "The living inhabitants are very long gone -- the city above was inhabited only by undead for... a very long time. I guess they don't poop." Staren periodically checks whether the breadcrumb relays can still get a signal all the way to the entrance. It's comforting to know that unbroken line of influence is, as long as it is. "Oh hey, wait a sec." Staren asks them to stop while he cuts one of the flowerlike growths to put in a sample container. He's no botanist, but he's sure the League has some. On they go. Staren stops to check the tablets as they find them, calling for the party to halt and inviting them to watch. "...This passageway is new." Staren comments, when the map doesn't match. He starts looking closely at the opening, trying to find any sort of seam or indication that... something acted upon the surrounding stone, rather than this passage just /appearing/ like, again, some sort of minus world. He'll scan the egg thing too, but it's probably going to end up in another sample container.
Tamamo no Mae	Denied... "Humph, maybe you're right." Tamamo mutters, looking at that staff and hearing the rings of the rings. Oh well, Tamamo tried. Maybe later. "He can always put me down if something happens. But if that's what you wish, ok. Tamamo will.. acquisice." and then there's the chastise from Jonathan. Tamamo can't win here, can she? Probably not. She wanders up towards Staren, this one looks more... amicable to company at least, "So, what are these... things doing here anyways?" she questions a bit curiously, "Tamamo.. hasn't seen anything like this before."
Tomoe	Tomoe keeps on point as the party heads onward she's on edge she went to the Abyss before the world changed, this echo? Remant? It scare the bloody hell out of her and given she can't evne have the delusion that her remote avatar used to give her?She's clearly on edge. "It's like the light's being eaten..." She notes and she notices the moss she looks at it for a moment, she hears the droipping. "It's good to meet you Jonathan Joestar, and you do seem to be a gentleman." She thinks she's going to end up liking them she stares at what might be an egg her weapon is ready, like she expects it to hatch and try to eat them all. She's learned presume anything and everything can /kill/ you. "New Staren? Like things shifted?"
Reiji Arisu	Reiji... Is not for any old fox to mount whenever she feels like it! The exorcist breathes a deep, long sigh. It may perhaps be inadvisable, given the... Atmosphere permeating this place. "Ladies, please. We have business to take care of." If they want to get all territorial and/or checking out one anothers' legs, they can do it in a place that isn't horribly haunted! Speaking of. "Stay away from the... egg," Reiji frowns. There's a sense of... of familiarity about this place. Is it just the Dark, or is it... Something more? Mmn. "There is something... The Dark. The Abyss. How did this /get/ here?" He shakes his head, quietly rubbing at his temples. Trying to massage away the... Haze? "Do you feel it, Xiaomu? We just entered something. Territory. There's something /here/ waiting for us."
Staren	Staren stays the hell away from the egg, per Reiji's advice.
Staren	Staren looks at Tamamo. "What things? If you mean the tablets," he waves a hand holding one, "I left them here to see what they'd see. If you mean the weird shadow-people it saw... no idea, that's what we're here to find out."
Xiaomu	Xiaomu's ears flick a bit at Reiji's query, and she closes her eyes, ears flicking a couple more times as she inhales (carefully) through her nose. "Yeah," she says quietly after a moment, nodding to Reiji. "I feel it too. Can't tell what it is, just ... something is still 'here'. Not sure if it's alive, dead, undead, or immortal. So best behavior, everyone," she adds, glancing around (maybe pointlessly) at the others in the group. "Try to be houseguests, not burglars, and I think our odds of walking out on our own two feet get a lot better."
Priscilla	As far as Staren can tell, nothing weird happened with the stone. There's no physical evidence that something happened to the passage. This is essentially meaningless, however, with how little he can keep track of at once. It could be the software, it could have been a change that happened all over while he was gone, it could have been something overt that he missed a ways back. Hell, in this dark, it could be a giant worm gobbling up the path behind him, for all anyone knows. At the very least, it doesn't appear to be a temporary aberration on the map. It's very consistent. The pitch black flower growth comes away easily enough, though, under so much as a decent scalpel, though the bright turquoise fluid that drips on his suit's fingers seems corrosive, to the extent that it clearly manages to deal some superficial damage to the exterior of the high-tech suit, but not nearly enough to really pose any kind of threat to him. At least, it's easy to assume it's some kind of chemical corrosion. Probably. Trying the same thing with the 'egg', however, winds up popping it like a pressurized blister, splattering him all up and down with blue and violet mud, which somehow reeks of fresh blood, even through the filter. Gross. And it wrecks the paint job too. Jonathan busying himself with another flower gets . . . much different results. It feels faintly oily and cold to the touch, though nothing special. Oddly, the blue nectar, even should he get some on his bare skin, doesn't do him any harm. When he channels his Ripple, as opposed to all the other sources of light, the solar energy that radiates him does a very admirable job of lighting the passage, as far as it could reasonably be expected, as if pushing the pitch black backwards like a tangible, weighty thing. For a little bit, he can see everyone else easily with his own eyes. The flower he's experimenting with then reacts very strongly. Though the sunlight holds the shadows at bay, it doesn't burn away the unholy-looking plant. Instead, the blossom rapidly grows, soaking up the life energy and rapidly multiplying in size and complexity. Vein-like creepers sprawl out in all directions over the wall, sprouting rose thorns that look eerily like human teeth, and the petals splay outwards as the whole thing recursively blossoms from inside of itself, spreading out in a bizarre, black fractal pattern. When he stops, he'll be able to see what looks like tiny red /eyes/ in the dark, narrow gaps between petals. Incidentally, anyone looking Tamamo's way after the dark falls again, will see a certain reflection in her mirror. Given that it's impossible to see anything more than a few feet away, it generally shouldn't be possible for a reflective surface to display anything either, but just on the glass, anyone can catch a glimpse of an army of white eyes, belonging to shapes packed densely all around, rivalling Tokyo's most dense subway traffic. No matter where else one looks, they won't find it in the space around them, even though it should be within /touching/ distance . . . Save Jonathan. Less than a minute after he'd started using his Ripple, he is the lucky subject of the feeling of dozens, if not scores of people, grabbing hold of him all at once. Unlike the clammy cold of the tunnel, each of them is oddly lukewarm and soft, and rather than strangling him with iron grips or raking at him with hidden claws, the feeling is that careful insistence of a mob pulling him out of a car wreck, attempting to drag him away from the others, and further into the tunnel. Their grasp doesn't make any geometric sense, coming from every single direction, including ones that would require multiple arms to occupy the same space, but it doesn't matter. He can see them on his body, as parts of him that are no longer visible at all, in human, hand-shaped splotches. In fact, everyone else can see them too, along with other, smoky shapes that eat up his silhouette, as if he's being rapidly pulled behind a dense crowd.
Staren	"Ugh... acidic blood? I mean sap..." Staren comments as the flower leaks on him. It's stowed away for study later... And then Jonathan lights up the tunnel. "What are you doing?! What kind of light is that?!" Staren exclaims in interest, watching the flower grow. It's fascinating at first, then kind of creepy and threatening. "O-kayyyyy..." And then, creepy mirror. Staren tries to feel the people that aren't there around him. He checks his own reflective surfaces, like a deactivated tablet screen, even producing a signal mirror from his bag to check... And then Jonathan's in trouble! "Hey! Hey, let him go!" Staren runs over and... isn't sure what to attack, actually. He'll have to settle for trying to grab Jonathan and pull against them! "Guys! Hold him!"
Reiji Arisu	Well. That's a thing. "Why are they..." Reiji's eyes narrow. What is it about that man that makes him a target? No, that doesn't matter now. That energy- he's seen it before. Unbound humanity. Drawn to fire, drawn to light, covetous, coiling serpents in the dark...! "Hold still!" Reiji roars, his hand falling towards his swords. He surges ahead-- An arc of fire is breached by a wave of crackling lightning. Karin fuels Chirai and the two blades resonate, forming a beacon of heat and energy in the depths of this abyss-- a beacon to draw those entities away from the Englishman. Chirai snaps back into its sheath with a crack of thunder and a click of steel on steel, but his combination isn't finished yet. He draws once more... An invisible blade? Death. The ancient enemy of Humanity. The ancient embrace of the ultimate end. He roars as he swings, hewing a tight flurry of blows into the shroud of flame and lightning. A series of eviscerating slashes to tear those loose fragments of Humanity to shreds...!
Tamamo no Mae	... Things have gone to out right creepsville. The flower leaks onto Staren and, watching with a slight bit of interest she gets bored of it, and turns around, catching a glimpse into her mirror. Her eyes go wide as she swings it out with magic, only to let it return back, attacking something that's probably not there, "Mikon?! Th...there's something on or in my mirror, this accursed world is playing tricks on Tamamo!" she swings it out again, and with the return... those eyes stay. Then suddenly, sunlight? In this dank place? She turns to look at the source... and she eyes that flower that Jonathan is feeding light to, the rapid growth causing her to blink a bit rapidly and suddenly it starts grabbing at him. Time for Tamamo to get in there and help the exorcist, and by doing so, she rushes in, enchanting her mirror with fire and moving to try smacking whatever is covering Jonathan with a fire enchanted melee attack! "Kya! Let go of MIster Handsome there! He's not yours to do whatever you want with!"
Xiaomu	It is entirely possible that Xiaomu is going to have words with Jonathan later. Normal plants grow best in the sunlight. When you take a bunch of plants that have adapted to thriving in this kind of near-dead darkness, and expose them to 'sunlight' in what the sage fox takes to be a 'supernatural' form, OF COURSE they're going to suddenly proliferate like that. Reiji is already reacting; Xiaomu moves to back him up, planting her staff against the ground next to her and bringing her right arm up as she calls out, "Dakki no Kata!!" Magic flares in her upraised hand, and she starts trying to drag stray ... well, whatever that 'sunlight' is which Jonathan is unleashing. It's a very tricky question when it comes to targeting, though. Xiaomu is trying to steal that 'life energy' - not from Jonathan, not from Reiji, not even from Tamamo, but from the suddenly-overgrowing plants; the abrupt proliferation is more than she can stymie on her own, but with Reiji and Tamamo weed-whacking with their respective weapons and Xiaomu trying to choke off the overgrowth at its 'food' source. Not to mention what Staren and Jonathan may attempt.
Tomoe	The whole state of things has Tomoe on edge still she keeps looking around expecting to see something come downon them and for now? Wthn the egg goes up? She seems /very/ worried she steps back to not get caught in it and she also takes note of what jojo is doing as well. She wonders will it help at all? She'll soon see what happens, the plant seems to like hte power that is being used. She looks back to check on everyone else? She sees something in Tamamo's mirror, she is getting more on edge. She then sees Jojo is in troubl and she bolts after him trying to grab on and hold him, her weapons vanish and she grabs hold or tries to she's also superhumanly strong in how well she can hang on. "I do not like this! I don't like this place!"
Jonathan Joestar	Jonathan watches in fascination as it grows, flourishing. It wasn't like the evil he was used to encountering, the kind that was banished by the sun's light. ...At least, the fauna itself wasn't. The deep shadow that had seemed to eat the light around them was pushed back by the energy of his body, so close to the sun's power that it was indistinguishable. Removing his hands from the plant after its growth had begun to worry him, Jonathan's face grew closer, peering between the petals. "Red dots? Or, perhaps -- eyes?" "And teeth..?" It looked almost like a man-eating plant. It filled him with an uneasy feeling. "Ah, yes?" Jonathan cranes his neck as he feels a hand on his shoulder. But. It wasn't any of the people present, rather, it was...something. A black entity, but it wasn't cold. It was warm. The numerous hands blotting out spots of his body were gentle, tugging at him in a soft manner. The others were starting to panic. They were all trying to help him, but he quickly held out a hand to try and dissuade them. "Calm down! Don't worry about me, just trim away the rest!" Tamamo's flame is grasped by his bare hand. He was warm, but not in the usual way that a human's body heat would provide. "Koooooh.." His chest expanded with a great breath. And his body lit up once again, but the mangitude of his light was far greater than before. Golden lightning ran up and down his arms and his legs, gnashed between his teeth, and coalesced in his finger tips, swirling with the magical flames that the fox lady had conjured. "Scarlet Red! OVERDRIVE!" Lightning turned to licking crimson flames, bright and hot. He pushed it into his chest, and as a result, his body became cloaked in a shower of red flickering petals of fire, and as if urged on by an accelerant, it was an attempt to pry the hands away.
Priscilla	To Tamamo's consolation, there is nothing /in/ her mirror. It's probably only its extremely magical nature that allows any reflections to appear upon it at all. Staren wisely checking his tablet and signal mirror sees nothing on them. Luckily, Jonathan does not /actually/ appear to be dissolving, when Staren rushes to grab hold of him; at least not yet. He does get a big, hand-shaped hole in his cone of vision, plastered against his visor for the effort, though. Oddly, comparative to all the lights the group had produced thusfar (save Jonathan's Hamon technique), magical fire seems to have a much more significant effect in standing out against the darkness. The flaming mirror, and Reiji's elemental sword, sweep back the black haze clinging to Jonathan's form, briefly better highlighting the way it clutches at his body in such an anthropomorphic way, still holding tight, but blown back, like long shadows cast by a stroke of lightning. They come away completely, when he initiates his overdrive. Where the other flames had chased it back, the Hamon-powered fire that issues from his body outright scorches it away. At first it would appear as if he is repelling an evil or undead presence, but on closer inspection, for the few seconds that hands and fingers linger on his flesh before being burnt to nothing, it is quite clear that the red and black are burning up /each other/, mingling and mutually annihilating. It uses up a lot of energy, to free himself completely. Even Reiji won't be able to see where his sword is in front of his face, and likely have even less idea of its effect, but for the merest fraction of a second, he can feel something soft and yielding split under its edge, and then, a few seconds later, the tunnel lights up. That is to say, the tunnel finally /allows/ the gathered torches and magical lights to illuminate it. The gross growths on the walls remain, until Xiaomu starts syphoning their absorbed energy away, and then it all rapidly starts to wilt, leaving behind only the now-drenched tablet on the ground.
Staren	The darkness is driven back! Staren sighs. "Perhaps diplomacy is impossible here..." He shakes his head. "In any case... we need to learn why your light was so effective... I'm not sure if we should stay in this deep while we experiment, though." He /will/ check the tablet, when there's a chance.
Jonathan Joestar	Eventually, Red smolders lightly as an orange conglomerate of gentle waves. Jonathan's breathing remained steady, but he felt tired. Much more than he should, but he knew why. He'd felt it, the conflicting energies. He knew that it was more than it appeared, and felt the two powers cancelling one another out. Jonathan didn't feel very good about what just transpired, though, he couldn't deny that the fauna was unsettling. Perhaps he should take it back with him, to his laboratory. "It was sunlight, when I breathe, my body produces it." Jonathan clarifies for Staren. It wasn't wholly accurate, but no one here had the time to listen for the in depth explanation of Hamon. That was merely the simplest way to put it. "I don't get the feeling that..whatever that was, was malevolent. It was..gentle, almost human, in a way."
Tamamo no Mae	The fact that someone /else/ that isn't Tamamo is gathering /her/ fire and using /her/ fire for their use would give the Caster a brief pause... if it wasn't for the fact that she was trying to save an ally from being consumed by the darkness, or worse, a grue. But she continues to help attacking, even with Reiji's Flame Sword and the Hamon Technique from Jonathan, she pours a lot of magical energy into her attack, seeing as it's helping drive away the darkness! With Xiaomu's little stunt, stealing the 'life energy'... the combined effort helped at least free Jonathan. She blinks a bit, looking at him curiously now that the chaos has died down. "Eh? Tamamo has a lot of questions for you, but... I think I will agree with him..." as she gives an idle point to Staren. "Perhaps we should... attack this from a different angle and get some research done on what we've experienced?"
Reiji Arisu	Darkdrift slides back into its sheath with the sound of a cat's footfalls. Light... returns. Life and warmth and color bleed back into the world as whatever presence they had encountered falls away. Reiji... Has ideas. "...Do not be fooled," he says to Jonathan with a note of warning. "The Dark in this world, it's a cloying, seductive thing. It covets flame and desires warmth. It sought you out likely due to that power you wield, but even if it does seem gentle, it's... Well. Do not go quietly into that dark night, sir. I've seen what happens when humans allow the dark to overwhelm them- it's grotesque at best, monstrous at worst." He shakes his head. "Kuroshio-- my sword-- caught something at the end. It slayed, I hope, whatever was causing all of this, or wounded it at the very least. We'll need to monitor the situation closely, I think, just in case."