Scene #6828: Days of Future Blast-3

Owner	Pose
Solomon Lau	It's been almost a week since the shootout at the hospital. Johnny Zhu hasn't been in communications since, and on this day, it might seem like he's avoiding the group. Perhaps he made up all that stuff about time travel so he could skip out without being bothered, lay low, and go back to vigilantism. Or perhaps not, since through the comms of the radio he got from Staren, he sends coordinates. The destination is on the Hong Kong island of Kowloon, not far from the park that used to be the famous Walled City. Traversing the roads, the traffic, the noise, eventually leads to Lung Kong Road, and an unmarked storefront. The storefront occupies a commercial space on the street of a gray apartment building, with noise and bustle of life coming from higher up. Where a sign should be over the storefront is nothing, just a corrugated steel roll-up door. Johnny Zhu is waiting outside, leaning against the door. He's wearing a sleek brown jacket, a light undershirt, and a pair of jeans, instead of his usual detective suit. As the group approaches, the black-haired man waves, and then moves over to the keypad. "Glad you arrived. We'll talk inside." Solomon Lau is here as well, but he's wrapped in bandages and has clearly been to the hospital recently. He talks to Johnny as he moves open to the keypad. "Thought for a second you'd ditch us." Johnny replies, as he very carefully inserts a code. "Nah, you showed your skills back there, so you deserve the truth. Otherwise, it's just me. Also, don't touch this, it's wired to give you a fatal fuckload of volts if you misenter." Unlocked, the door is rolled up, allowing the group inside. He closes it shut behind them, relocking the mechanism. "We found this place a few months ago. It belonged to our predecessors back in the 90s, but was abandoned until now." An old room with a dirty floor, it feels very 'late 1990s', which fits the interior. Several rows of dusty file cabinets, a large world map on paper, made with school-style poster paint, dots all over the map across the world, focused on Hong Kong, with a few in the mainland China, and a lot fewer everywhere else. In one corner of the room, near an outlet but left unplugged, is a 486 computer covered in grime underneath a table. It has a zip drive, a small but bulky monitor, and a dot matrix printer. On a yellow post-it note, in faded marker, are the Chinese characters reading, simply. "DO NOT TURN ON" On a different wall hangs a brand new corkboard. A series of photographs has been pinned to it, as well as a few post-it notes. It's much more up-to-date than everything else, and one note, which Solomon goes over to read, simply states. 'Jason Chen - poking around. Might be a good candidate for the war?' Once everyone's settled in, Johnny speaks up, taking a seat at a little wooden table, sitting sideways. "So, here's how this is going to go. You have questions, you ask them. Probably about time travel. I'll answer them, fill in any gaps you have. And then, if we have time, I'll take you somewhere special after this. Sound good?"
Staren	Staren's not walking all this way on crowded streets. He FLIES from the warpgate on a broom, although he at least has the discretion to land a couple of blocks away, duck into an alley, and then sneak the rest of the way as a cat, slipping in with the group and changing back. He looks around and actually winces at the ancient computer. He looks for a seat, then turns to Johnny. "So. Time travel. How's it work, what are the rules? We can't understand how this war you're in is fought if we don't understand the battleground first."
Tina Natsumi	After that last mess with the SLA, Tina's taking fewer chances today even though she's agreed to meet with Johnny at a suppoedly more secure location. Once again, she's arrived with her phone in her jacket pocket rather than leaving the camera exposed, what with the whole SECURE LOCATION thing. She makes a pit stop to pick up some street meat for herself and whoever's coming along and then some, ordering a good five meals' worth of assorted meats and questionable fried organ bits. Girl needs food to function. Maybe the injured guys do, too. "Howdy. Ah... Good to know 'bout that." She nods, glancing over at the keypad after that warning is given. She's still somewhat distracted by that Genomic Solutions thing, the connection between them and the time travel thing still not quite clicking just yet. She'll have to ask about that later. First, gawking at that ancient computer. "Dang. /Can/ that thing even turn on?" She asks with an amused smirk, tilting her hat back a bit to get a better look at the note. Tina's not going to try it, but she's still a curious one. Maybe later. "Sounds good. Alright, this time travel business. How's Genomic Solutions tie into all this? That guy I was facin' off with mentioned 'em being important, but... Uh. I don't really get how med research ties to all this stuff 'ere."
Maya	Maya has had time to recover from the fight last week while tending to other Paladin matters, however, she's not heard a peep from Johnny until now. She's got the location and it's time to head out, she'll use her 'clubbing' outfit again and add a jacket to it. She's going to scream outsider sure, but at least it won't have a flashing neon sign to go with it. So clad in a t-shirt, jeans, jacket and runners Maya arrives. "Johnny." She nods a little bit as she heads inside the mention of the pad. "Nasty but effective and thanks for the warning." Maya's hair sways as she goes and gets inside she notices the old PC for a moment. It's not her's so she'll leave it alone. She'll look at the chalkboard for a moment as she moves to sit down. Maya might take some of the meat if Tina will share, earth meats are a real trip with how rare large mammals are on her homeworld. "So what kind of time travel are we dealing with?" Maya's tone is very serious. "Seems like a timeline is trying to make sure it happens, regarding that ape from the hospital."
Lilian Rook	"Why on Earth wouldn't that be wired to electrocute someone after the second or third failed attempt?" asks Lilian, before the part where they're all prompted to ask their questions. "And then why isn't the big scrap door wired with anything? Even outfits like this know how to rig a grenade on a wire or something, right?" Oh well. Seeing the inside immediately arrests any further questions, because it's both old and filthy. At least the old part is old enough to be mildly fascinating, given that Lilian especially fixates on the utterly ancient computer when looking around, but the amount of dust and grime on everything has her hesitating to step anywhere, looking for the cleanest patch of floor before each movement. "And couldn't you have kept this place at least a little less revolting?" When actually asked for questions, the first thing she does is actually point to things inside the room. "What is the map tracking, and why can't the computer be turned on?"
Solomon Lau	Staren gets straight to business. Tina brought meat, which both Solomon and Johnny move to partake in, as Johnny pulls out a large sketchpad off the table, full of diagrams. He stands it up, and then begins. "Okay." "You familiar with feng shui? You're gonna probably go 'yeah, I know what feng shui is, chi and polarity and directions and colors and all that shit'. Well, that's all important, but the truth is, geomancy has real power. Chi is important. A place where the chi flows, especially strongly, is called a feng shui site. Those who attune to them gain power." Johnny takes a bite of meat, grabs a bottle of water, and washes it down, before continuing. "You might be asking, 'how the fuck does this relate to time travel?'. And it's very important to time travel." Maya gets a glance and a shake of a ehad. "It doesn't involve timelines. It doesn't involve suddenly appearing and disappearing. You can't shoot my great-grandfather and then I'll cease to exist, unless you play with feng shui." "You travel through time via a realm called the Netherworld. You enter a portal hidden somewhere, traverse through the tunnels and the towns and the kingdoms, and then take another portal to a different juncture. That's what we call them, junctures. There's not infinite places you can go. Normally, there's only four time periods you can travel, though ever since those apes dropped the C-Bomb, there's been little pop-ups going virtually anywhere." "So, I know what you're going to ask. And I'll answer it: you change the future by taking control of enough feng shui sites to make a real difference. Various factions fight over them, it's why it's called the Chi War. We weren't always using smartphones in the modern era and driving cars." Johnny turns around to Tina. "Genomic Solutions...damn, I knew that was an important lead. I was investigating it. A company called FuturePath, a front for the SLA, was trying to acquire it - it's a medical research deal. They do great things at GS. The SLA's frontman, an Austrian named Otmar Schlenk, was handling it. He wasn't among the captured at the hospital, so I'm not sure what happened to him. But it looks like we're going to need to investigate them some more, see what's going on. They might be in danger." Lilian's complaints about the revolting get a little laugh. "I'm not a janitor, and I didn't set the trap, we can talk about updating it later. Anyways, I have no idea why the computer can't be turned on. The note was there when we arrived." Regarding the map, Johnny points to it. "As far as I understand, those are feng shui sites that the Dragons know the whereabouts of in this era. Most of them I actually know of are held by the big players. I know nothing about any of the mainland or foreign ones." Solomon asks his own question. "Jason Chen. You talked to him?" Johnny nods, taking another bite of meat and washing it down the same way. "He met a guy I know, a pickpocket, and asked him questions about the Jade Wheel Society. That led Jason to me. I tried to evade him, but, he was pretty smart, and was able to get some answers out of me. Nothing life-changing, but, well, that's not true..." They both grimace, remembering that the man is actually dead because of this. Johnny waves his hand. "Anyways. So, yeah, we're not going to get attacked by time travelling ninjas today. Probably."
Tina Natsumi	Of course Maya and Johnny and Solomon get to eat that food. Everyone gets to eat with even having to ask for it! Tina's not stingy. "Gotta agree with Lilian here. Everyone's fatfingered buttons sometime in their life. Gettin' it wrong once or twice can't be that bad if it just doesn't open anyway. No sense gettin' all fired up over it happening once in a while." She chuckles for a second, inwardly cursing herself for not thinking up a better pun five seconds earlier. And then the lesson begins with Staren's and Maya's questions about the rules. "Huh... Like ley lines or that kinda stuff." Tina murmurs to herself, finding a flat-enough space to sit on while munching on what she can only hope is a fried foot or something. Things start getting a little weirder once Johnny goes into the Netherworld and its role in the time travel shenanigans, and it gets even more bizarre once he goes into the name she had gotten from the Austrian. "So the Netherworld leads to these little time portals that go to roughly one o' four places, and those four places got people fightin' over 'em so they can affect the future on a macro level... Huh." Tina starts tapping her chin lightly. "And this GS is tied to it somehow with the SLA goin' after 'em, but... Okay, so that's one place to check out. Figure out if they got some projects goin' on around one of those..." Crap. What were they called. "Feng shui... Layers? Chi spots? Maybe they bought up some primo sh-real estate, eh?" Tina doesn't even give that enough time to linger before grimacing. "That was bad. But... Yyyeah. Maybe that got some new property near a spot nobody knew of until now." Tina shrugs, then leans back in her makeshift seat. "So what's your goal in all this? Gettin' control, keepin' them from gettin' control, what?"
Staren	Staren partakes of street meats. He makes a handwobble motion at the 'familiar with feng shui' bit. He's heard of it, but he doesn't know of 'real' feng shui the way he knows of, say, leylines and geomancy. He ahhs and nods as Johnny's explanation then immediately goes into something that sounds more familiar. His ears perk up as Johnny lists how time travel /doesn't/ work. "...Interesting. So... you can travel to specific times, but what you do there doesn't change the future /unless/ you control enough leyline nexi? Feng shui sites? Demesnes?" he tries various terms to see what feels most natural. He's not sure which. "So." His tail flicks. "When can you go to, what did the present used to be like, and who are the factions in this time war?"
Maya	Maya is very happy with the meat and enjoying it as he listens she actually relaxes a bit. She listens to what Solomon has to say. It's interesting and unlike anything, she's ever run into before either. She listens intently as this will be important for what they are dealing with here. % "So it's almost like you have to turn on admin access with the points to change anything. To use a computer term then, and this Otmar Schlenk does sound like someone we should dig into and we should look into the company they were after as well." She looks for Lilian for a moment. "Kinda reminds me of scrap piles back home." She looks back Johnny and grins at this. "Good, so we might get a chance to sort things out. So this netherworld is what links all the eras together. I think I'm starting to get it, at least I think I am. What can we do to help you keep things from getting messed up?"
Lilian Rook	"You know those are probably fried in gutter oil rght?" Lilian says to Tina, making a face at the mystery meat on a stick. "What, the interior decorating fad?" she then replies to Solomon, in about the single most western way she possibly could. She stares at him with narrowed eyes full of dumbfounded suspicion, until he gets to the outright occult instead of accepted cultural, and eases up. "Oh, geomancy. Carry on." Her more accepting posture, carefully not leaning against anything despite the sense she'd like to, gradually slips back into several shades of 'are you kidding me' the more specific the explanation gets. "What the hell is the Netherworld? Why are there only four specific time periods? What the hell is a C-Bomb other than a word you aren't supposed to say in polite company? Are the interior design sites in the time period or the Netherworld? Who's even warring over them?" There's a brief pause in the barrage of questions, and then she thinks of something more pertinent and less semi-sarcastic. "Actually, how many times has time already been changed here? Do you have any way to tell? If you're at war, certainly someone has won over enough of those leylines before, right? And if you can control time from the present, what does that affect?"
Solomon Lau	"Yeah, that's a good point. I'll have to get it rewired, then." Johnny replies to Tina, before shrugging. "No idea if Genomic Solutions is a feng shui spot, but that's not the only reason the New Simian Army, since the SLA is probably a front, would be attacking them. They go after research and tech, too, since the future is a shithole." "My goal? Well, my goal is the Dragons' goal, and that's to fight righteously to stop those in the Chi War from abusing innocent people. Protect their interests. And that's sort of status quo, but mostly just go around, shoot bad guys. If a change was benevolent, then, maybe." As Staren plays with the words, Johnny nods. "Let's say there's a guy named Donald Fong. You shoot his grandfather. He'll still exist, but he'll have a different grandfather whose history led to pretty much the creation of the same guy. Now he's Donald Wong. But otherwise, not too much different. It's lateral reincarnation. Unless you kill him and it involves a feng shui site, then all bets are off." Staren asks the Big Questions. "690, 1850, now, and 2074. I wasn't a chi warrior at the time, but from what I've heard, the last big period was basically magical feudal. Ruled by these sorceror god-kings called the Four Monarchs, who fled to the Netherworld after they were defeated. They rule kingdoms there." Johnny flips the chart to another diagram, this time of the factions, and uses it to educate. "Originally from 69AD, until the C-Bomb closed that juncture and opened the 690 one, there's the Eaters of the Lotus, who are evil eunuch sorcerers; there's the Guiding Hand, a bunch of strict Confucian monks from 1850; the Lodge, who are basically the Illuminati but real and according to my friend, the guys in charge of the Jade Wheel Society, though he was pretty cagey about the Lodge in general; the Jammers, a bunch of cyborg apes and mutants who dropped the C-Bomb and raid for tech and stuff, I don't know their current deal too well; and the New Simian Army, who split off from the Jammers and want to take over the timestream." Lilian's sarcasm just gets a laugh from Johnny, who starts answering. "I don't know why there's only four time periods. The C-Bomb was a massive blast meant to erase all the chi in the future, back when it was a dystopia hellhole, and it succeeded by killing 97 percent of the future population and sending horrible shocks through the Netherworld. The Netherworld isn't Hell, but it's basically a bunch of tunnels and caverns full of weird stuff that can be shaped with chi and lead throughout time. People live there. The 'interior design sites' are on Earth - many in each time period." And then Lilian asks the Real Important Question, and Johnny nods when she asks if they have a way to tell. "Those who have been to the Netherworld aren't affected by shifts, mentally or physically. We call the big ones 'critical shifts'. So if you killed Donald Fong's ancestor, he wouldn't actually know anything was different up until he learned that his grandfather was a Wong by being called Wong. Even if you used feng shui - he might just be a mysterious history-less person." And the other question also gets a nod. "They shift hands every once in a while, but currently, the Lodge is in control. From the present, it'd affect the future, so the 2074 juncture. You could theoretically make it not a wasteland hellhole if you changed things." Maya's question gets a broad grin, as Johnny takes another bite of mystery meat on a stick. "Well. There's just one of me. But there's several of you. I'd like you to consider becoming Dragons. Fight in the Chi War, try and stop the factions from doing whatever horrible things it is that they do, from hurting people." "Whether you decide to or not, that's up to you, as long as you'll aid me. But anyways, if you don't believe me..." "We could always go to the Netherworld today."
Tina Natsumi	"Sounds... Simple?" There's a noticeable skepticism in Tina's tone as Solomon speaks of the New Simian Army. "Not that I don't believe or anythin'. It's just... Weird for 'em to target researchers if they could get more out of the research being done to make the future less shithole-y." A shrug, and Tina digs into more of that questionable food. "Gutter seasoning makes it more unique. Come onnn, try some." She flashes Lilian a smirk as she holds out a suspicious meat skewer, that particular piece looking almost normal. If not for the broken bone sticking out to one side, it'd almost look like something that could be served in an overpriced family restaurant. "Sounds like you've got good priorities in place. Not like..." Tina bites back a snicker as Johnny goes over several of the factions, calming herself down by the time he gets into the Jammers. "... The rest of those groups. You do know you're askin' a lot of us, though, yeah? Gettin' involved in all this time patrol business and such is gonna be... Hm." At first, it sounds like Tina might reject it. She starts tapping a finger on her chin, though, glancing at her pocket every now and then at the phone stuffed inside of it. "Question. This Netherworld and all these factions and time business. Is this the sort of stuff that most folks don't even know about and shouldn't know about? Like a... Masquerade sort of thing?"
Staren	Staren listens. "Well. Controlling the timelines of an entire world, that's something an eye's gotta be kept on. Although there's some really thorny moral issues around changing the timeline even for good... But imagine if you went back to the earliest time, set up technology and education, and skyrocketed quality of life over the past couple of millenia? You could just keep bringing the knowledge back, too... millenia of R&D in an instant! But the people living those high-quality lives would replace the people there are now... were now... were in the past? Hmmm..." Staren shrugs. "Anyway, we should probably check out the netherworld, sure."
Maya	Lilian asks some good questions very good question that a veteran of a lot of strangeness has just not thought about in regards to the whole mess. "So the Dragon attempt to stop selfish and malicious changes to things?" She looks at Linlian's response to the food and goes to get some more. She pauses thinking about this finishes her meat and refrains from more for now. "Sounds like some interesting time periods to visit." Diguiuses would be needed and then comes the mention of the C-bomb is explained "So if a period is cut off it's pretty much locked in then?" Maya leans back a bit and thinks for a moment. "I'm willing to consider helping, I would like to do more research about the magic end of this and the Netherworld as well. We should expect people who have fled like the Kings did to the Netherworld? I too would also like to see it if we can." She looks to STaren for a moment. "Here we go again, Staren. Old age isn't slowing you down right?" She looks to Lilian and Tina. "It's an adventure if nothing else right? As for that Tina? Well, we'll have to look into disguises."
Lilian Rook	"But the illuminati are real. Sort of." says Lilian. After that though, the direct, important questions continue off of the chain of answers so far. "Hypothetically, if we bothered, would using the current sites to change the future get rid of the Jammers and the NSA, or at least get them to bugger off without any reason to be here?" Lilian doesn't sound intensely invested in the idea, but it's clearly more than a thought exercise. "If so, why isn't that any of the Lodge's interests?" She visibly considers a crack at the expense of enuch sorcerers, but then thinks better of it. "Furthermore, doesn't that mean the further you go backwards, the more leverage you have over more periods? In that case, I'd assume the Eaters of the Lotus have the most opposition, since they have all three other time periods currently strung together, and their major factions, at their fingers." She then shrugs slowly and faintly at the part about portals opening and closing. "If I had to theorize, though, I'd assume that there are myriad different time periods linked together, in their own individual strings of several, but kept apart from each other by this Netherworld structure. If tunnels open and close, then logically there are plenty of networks that just don't connect to each other. This is the pool you have." She doesn't seem too impressed by the explanation of the Dragons though. An eyebrow twitches upward, and her lips quiver with the first couple of words forced to be unspoken. "That's . . . a little vague, don't you think? How do you even know what things that multiple megalithic secret societies are going to do will affect 'innocents'? By whose consensus? Especially with time travel and ripple forward effects involved. How do you even stop them, if you don't own any chi points or whatever?" She then recoils slightly in revulsion at Tina waving the skewer in her face, slapping it out of her hands immediately and onto the floor, where it belongs. "Don't bring that anywhere near me. It belongs in a bin, not your stomach."
Solomon Lau	"Well, see, they can't undo those deaths. Time travel doesn't work that way. So that's why it's hard to make it less of a shithole, or at least I assume. I'm not a scientist." Regarding her last question, Johnny nods. "People don't know, yeah. I wouldn't call it a masquerade, but the factions basically keep it as quiet as possible and that's in our interest." "Yeah, it's dangerous. That's why the Dragons never attempted to change everything. I don't know exactly what happens to people - that'd have been a question for the Professor, and she's gone. She wasn't in the van, though. No one knows what happened to her." "Locked in, what?" Johnny doesn't seem to quite understand what Maya means for a second, before understanding and shaking his head. "The Future can still be changed, as far as I understand." Lilian continues on the subject of the things. "It probably is in the Lodge's interests. I'm not the Lodge. Since a lot of them have been to the Netherworld, it might not get rid of them, but it might get them to fuck off, yeah. Regarding the Eaters, the thing is that in 690AD, Empress Wu Zetian got rid of all the sorcerers and eunuchs. They don't have the power they did in 69." He shrugs about the tunnels. "I don't know. Maybe?" Regarding being vague, Johnny just sighs. "They kill civilians. They do horrible experiments. They're willing to do whatever it takes to win this war. The Eaters are obvious in their evil just by the name. The Lodge sees everyone as expendable in their game, even their own. The Guiding Hand...I don't know enough about them. I explained the C-Bomb. Nobody there can be trusted. And perhaps we don't have many chi spots, even though we're standing in one..." "But we're the scrappy underdogs for a reason. We have to build ourselves up, you know. We got to fight them for their spots. Rip them out of their grasp. Take away their power." Johnny moves to get up as Staren mentions the netherworld. He'll keep explaining as they travel. "There's a portal not too far from here. Come on."
Solomon Lau	Through the streets, taking the sidewalk, eventually, they reach another storefront. It's a single building, kind of run down, with a vending machine outside near the rear. Johnny approaches the vending machine, and presses and holds the Coke and the Lemon-Lime button simultaneously for 108 seconds exactly, if anyone counts. Afterwards, he presses enter, and the vending machine slides awy, revealing a sort of cellar leading down. Leading the way, Johnny leads the group down the cellar. After a bit of normal traversal, with normal underground features, the walk turns out to be way longer than it should be, and as soon as the light is far enough, Johnny pulls out his phone and turns on his flashlight. The walls are white chiseled stone, with broken patterns of old medieval carvings into the walls. Eventually, though, they hit a flat plane, a tunnel, and continue forward. Eventually, the tunnel widens, and lights begin to shine in, from luminescent rocks. As they travel past the luminescent rocks, they finally see it. A massive mountain of scrap and junk, formed into haphazard structures, tunnels, and marketplaces. It's a tiny city. People mill through tunnels and around the scrap, as other buildings hang out in the corners of the colossal cavern. As Johnny leads them into the mountain, they reach a bazarr, where he keeps his head down. People selling all sorts of stuff, from flint arrowheads to futuristic toaster-shaped objects that probably do something neat. There's a lot of noise. A lot of haggling. And a lot of oddity. A massive wolf-man sits guard outside of a shop, in the tunnels, making sure nobody fucks with anybody else. People are dressed oddly - one person wears a toga and genuine cowboy boots and a hat, while another wears enough gear he could be called genuinely steampunk. "This is the Junkyard. It's the central nexus of the Netherworld. I hope that proves I wasn't talking out of my ass here, at least. A lot of these people are dis-timed, those who have lost their time to critical shifts or came out of a pop-up or something. From here, you can reach each of the Four Monarch's areas. The Ice, Fire, Darkness, and Thunder Pagodas." Johnny glances at the shops, nodding to himself about what they contain, as Solomon walks up to a guy selling guns. No ammo, but guns ranging from 'genuinely 1850 fresh' to 'this is a laser gun', and jerks away to consider buying something. He'll rejoin the group later.
Maya	Maya understnad now at least she thinks does she better. She looks to Lilian for a moment, she also thinks she needs to read up on more generalist Earth History, or at least the eras. Lilian bringing up the idea the network from the Netherworld made be different depending on where you access it makes a certain sense. Maya started as the scrappy underdog so long ago. So that does seem to appeal to her as she gets up dusts herself off and moves to follow Johnny. "All right let's see this Netherworld looks like first hand."
Tina Natsumi	"I ain't too worried about disguises. Nah, I was thinkin' of how much I could really capture for the fans." Tina smirks at Maya, then takes her phone out to show it to Johnny and Solomon. The light is off, and the home screen is normal. "Ain't recording anything now, don't worry." It doesn't mean she won't do it later, but at least she's got the sense not to do it HERE of all places. Her chipper demeanor does falter somewhat when Lilian smacks that skewer away, and she sighs lightly while leaning back on her now empty hand. "Aw. Fine, fine, I'll get you somethin' cleaner later. Still, there's a whole world of cuisine you'll miss out on if you don't experiment a little." For better or worse, Tina's got it set in her head to keep trying whether Lilian likes it or not. At least there's significantly more important things than questionably prepared food to occupy her here. "Guess I'll keep the streams to only the really public stuff, then. And the nonsense. Don't want every Tom, Dick, and... Wait." She pauses for a moment, then waves dismissively without continuing that thought. She sticks to listening for a while, snickering shortly after Johnny speaks about Wu Zetian. And then there's less chuckling when he gets into the Eaters' methods. After that bit of sobering exposition, Tina's up and off to follow Johnny to the portal! The vending machine trick gets an amused chuckle at just how secret agent-y it is, and then they're going down. And sideways. And forwards. A lot of forwards. Before she realizes it, they're in the Netherworld, and Tina's both out and in her element. She has the toga cowboy to thank for that. "I was expectin' to go through some kind of giant obsidian portal to get here, not walkin' and elevator rides. Not a bad surprise, though!" Taking in the sights, Tina fishes out her phone to see if there's even any reception, then hits the record button to get some video for later. She also takes a look at those laser guns. It's lasers. Why wouldn't she look at lasers?
Staren	"So are the Dragons like Time Police, trying to keep time the same, or are they trying to make things even better?" Staren observes as they go. The Netherworld isn't much of a shock to someone from the Multiverse, but after looking around for a few moments, Staren decides to obtain an example of a futuristic gun, computer, and one of those mysterious toaster-boxes, to see what 'future' technology is like here.
Lilian Rook	Lilian sighs, but it isn't a frustrated or impatient one. "If you could bring back the dead with time travel, this whole war would be five times more intense. Trust me on that one. Little else motivates people quite like that." . . . only for her eyes to widen, her head to swivel, and her arms unfold as she looks at the place with both degrees of shock and disgust. This is a point? Isn't it supposed to be some anonymous dump? Does nobody else have any way of tracking them down? Why does nobody else have, or even want, it? With that in mind, and possibly already some initial strategizing based on the assumption people can't easily trace leylines, she blanks through Johnny's explanation of how people get hurt and what the Dragons stand for. "Par for the course, honestly. When it comes to secret societies." She adds "Interesting that the Eaters reappeared in a later period after the NSA apparently tried to bomb their time period out of existence, though." When they all reach the vending machine, Lilian doesn't initially count, but after a few seconds, she intuitively guesses back how many it's been, and arrives at the obviously most proximal significant number. "108. Cute." she says, before heading in. The exact second she sees the Bazaar --takes it in-- she snaps her fingers, points, and declares "I'm coming back here." Deciding to clarify after a moment's more conscious thought, she says "Clearly it's full of crap, but this is the single most useful thing I've seen here. This much of a convergence of everything valuable throughout time; this is such an absurd resource that I'm astonished you aren't using it constantly." A beat. "It also explains where the SLA got their guns from, I suppse." "Christ almighty you're obsessed with that phrase." she briefly remarks to Staren on the way around. Then to Tina "There's an entire world of cuisine you're missing out on due to being so cheap."
Solomon Lau	"I appreciate that." Johnny mentions to Tina, and laughs at her expectations. "Yeah, it's not glowy portals, but it's still portals." Staren gets a shrug, sort of. "We want things to be better, but like I said, it's dangerous to just change the past. We want to protect people, first and foremost. But it's only really just me left." Lilian gets a response, belatedly, about the Eaters. "It's less that they reappeared, and more that those in the Netherworld already weren't cut off, so they went to 690 as the closest thing to their home time. Any who were in 69 got cut off and trapped there, no longer players of the Chi War." Regarding the Bazaar, Johnny just shrugs. "It's pretty useful, and apparently there's a Dragon base in here somewhere, but I don't know where it is." He says that part uietly, as he does look up to the piles. "The Four Monarchs dump all their trash in here, and other stuff piles in. Mostly trash, but sometimes treasure." And as they're looking around, Staren moves to obtain a futuristic gun, but he can't find himself a computer - this place really is full of trash. The gun is only one of a few, which Solomon barters for another with his cash on hand, and takes it with him. The box is relatively cheap, mostly because they have no idea what it is or does. It appears to be some sort of force dampener generator if he looks into it, but it's pretty damaged and probably wouldn't work right. As they're passing by, a shopkeeper waves them down. "Ah, newcomers, is it? Yeah, yeah. I've got a line on real solid scroungetech, straight from the future. Couple of hyperfast food warmers, true water decontaminators, the whole works. Camping's never been more stylish! It's only the price of-" Johnny speaks up. "Way too much." The shopkeeper furrows his brow. "You didn't even let me speak, you bastard. Trying to undercut my business?" "We're busy, here." Johnny says, and continues ahead, assuming no one actually needs that stuff. "You can haggle for most things, here, but I didn't think we need any of that. So, let's talk immediate business, since you seem skeptical about the Dragons thing. I feel we should head to Genomics soon and take a look. What do you say? You still onboard?"
Staren	"But what does protecting people /mean/, in a world where the timeline can replace them at any moment?" Staren asks. "Are you protecting the people who live /now/ over those who COULD be alive? Or do you protect all possible lives equally, somehow? Or some other metric? You could say you have to revert changes to save people, but what about everyone from the alternate present with magic and stuff? Don't they have as much right to life as anyone else? Would you revert the change to save THEM?" Staren looks at Johnny intensely. "Like... you're the one with experience being a heroic time traveler, my own experience was all stable time loops so I didn't have to deal with /changing/ things. Surely you've thought about this."
Tina Natsumi	"Pfft. I ain't made o' money! I mean, I've still got a lot leftover from the last donation, but..." Tina starts responding to Lilian, stops, then taps her chin briefly before shaking her head. "... No, no. Can't use that money for food. Not doing any of those creepy food streams, either. I got standards!" In everything but food, apparently. "So if you're the only ones... Er. One left, aren't you worried about... You know. Recruiting? Not losing any ground you make securing those feng shui points before someone else waltzes in?" She's starting to sound skeptical, but that's (temporarily) shunted aside by all the weird stuff on sale. She doesn't buy anything, though, but she does linger around some of the weirder shaped trinkets just to remember where they are for next time. "Maybe I'll pick something up on the way back. See ya later, pard." She waves the shopkeeper goodbye, then follows after Johnny and mulls over his offer. "You know this is nuts, right? I mean, it'd make for a good show, but..." That's right. It /would/ make for a good show. "... So where is this Genomics place, anyway? We goin' there tonight?"
Solomon Lau	"As far as I understand, don't quote me on this, people's souls still exist and stuff. It's just the people who change. Protecting those who aren't /involved/ from horrible fates is the name of the game. Even if the future has to change and people's lives change, as long as it prevents suffering, that's what matters." Tina gets a shake of the head from Johnny. "I'm not ready to go tonight. And I can't just recruit anyone. I have to recruit the right people. There's probably other people calling themselves Dragons out there, but...I don't know where they are or who they are. We're not very well-coordinated, y'know?"
Lilian Rook	"I don't camp." Lilian flings airily towards the enterprising merchant. "Good hustle though. 'Scroungetech' sounds a little messy though. 'Acquired technology' might net you more of the attention of the classier crowd." "So, who even are the Four Monarchs and what do they do? You've mentioned them twice, and that they presumably have some kind of monopoly on what flows into the Netherworld. Am I to assume there's one that controls the gateway to each time period?" Lilian asks Johnny as they move past. "I don't particularly mind examining the company, I suppose. I still have to deal with some things regarding the Jade Wheel Society and all, but now it appears there's a layer above even them, in the Lodge."
Maya	Maya says "You want to make changes but don't want to say end up making things worse. I can understand that mode of thought." It sounds like Johnny would take a go at improving things if they thought they could and she thinks for a moment. She does think following up Lilian's idea of checking other regions is a very good one. The trip goes onward now and she'll find they hit the tunnel it gets rather interesting after they move for a bit after the Vending machine. This is not quite what she expected but it's pretty damn neat she will see the cavern and the bazaar looking at all the various items for sale, okay it is a bazaar of earth's history and at the name junkyard, she can't help but grin. "You were certainly not talking out of your ass here." Maya may very well pick up some 1850 guns herself later given the small armoury she keeps and chose to get a rifle of some sort when she has the chance. Ammo shouldn't be too hard worse comes to worst she can hit up people elsewhere in the multiverse for it. "Comming back later would be a worthwhile Lilian." She looks to Johnny for a moment sizing him up a bit more. "All right I'm in...Johnny, you seem to have been on the level with us. I agree get the wrong person and it could end very badly. Or you are all decentralized so any of the big groups will never know if your all down for the count or if there are more."
Solomon Lau	The merchant strokes his chin. "Acquired technology...that has a good ring to it. Aha!" And then they leave him alone as he considers that. Johnny speaks back up. "The Four Monarchs used to be in charge of the world before the Lodge took over, back when it was magical fantasyland. Now they coop up in their territory scheming, living feudal lives. They don't control the gates, but they'd like to - there's far too many tunnels and portals for anyone to control. But the Four Monarchs are definitely the biggest 'faction' in the Netherworld proper, even if they don't have any territory on Earth." Johnny pauses. "I say 'faction' like that because they all hate each other, which is why they don't control the Netherworld. They're the Thunder King, Fire King, Ice Queen, and Darkness Queen." As they get around one of the tunnels and start getting to where they'd start heading back, Johnny says. "Well. Sounds like we have a course of action. When we move to go to Genomics, let's hope we can solve this SLA problem and hinder the Simians. Thank you for coming with me - I look forward to working with you further."