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Tamamo     "Tamamo no Mae" is a name that has been held by a number of figures in this sector of the multiverse, but the one who distributed a request for investigators through various channels should still be easy to identify, even for those outside both the Paladins and her prior acquaintance. The subject of the request is a mystery, both in the sense that a mystery is what she wishes investigated, and that little information is provided to begin. A museum has lost its pieces, and some people in the surrounding area have gone missing at different points in time, the first such coinciding with the time of the theft. Coordinates, easily translated to warpgate directions, are given.

    Many worlds, upon unification, still show their distinct themes from some notional standard, or can be easily compared to a hypothetically ordinary Earth. Time blends cultures together, barring certain factors of resistance. None of that happens to be the case here, making it at least slightly unusual, at least among locations common to elite involvement.

    There's a giant of a mechanical monstrosity not too far off, though on closer inspection, it's a partially stripped spaceship, the strangeness of its immense and towering form owing to what portions of it could be usefully removed for parts to assist the town that's built up around it. Aged and horrendously ugly prefab structures are still in evidence, but the place has been here long enough, and apparently doing well enough, to show local, permanent construction of wood and brick, in various states of well-kept. The residents are uniformly human, somewhat on the tall, thin and pale side, and though one might expect from the presence of space travel for this to be an 'alien' world, and to those spacefarers it technically is, its biome just looks like any unpopulated, primevil, Earth-style forest.

    Tamamo herself chose to arrive first, together with Lilian, and wait the arrival of others at an outdoor cafe in the vague middle-ring of the town, in-between the concentrated and built up businesses of the central area on one side, and the gradually further-apart individual homes and workshops of the fringes. The weather is pleasant, if warm. There are thankfully few problems with insects.
Ishirou There were so many things here that I4 was curious about that he'd likely be the last to arrive.  He checked out the stripped spaceship, giving it various curious scans to try and find out more about it.  The prefabs and the more natural structures that are made out of brick and mortar.  He's more curious about trying to piece together things and get a feeling for the history than being on time.

Of course, eventually, he is there, messing with holographic screens and trying to sort through the new data he has.  Is it important to this mission?  He doesn't care, he just found a new place he doesn't know about and decided that he wanted to know more.  With a sigh and not an unhappy one but a content one, he swipes the screens away and lets that process in the background.

"Hello!  Sorry, I'm late, I got caught up in uh...something else!  So did I miss anything?" He asks, trying to turn his mind on the actual reason for being here instead of just being curious about everything.  "Oh hey a cafe, what do they serve here..?" he asks, looking for a menu to scan down.  
Kale Hearthward Kale shows up not too long after.

He's got a notepad with him that he spends a bit of time jotting down notes in when there's downtime.

"So a series of disappearances..." he asks as he settles in with the others. "I didn't think to ask - are there any clues? Initial theories?"

He orders tea, and if there's vegan fare he orders something light.
Candy      When he wants, Candy is quite capable of being quiet. He doesn't want to right now--he's got no reason to be suspicious as of yet. Accordingly, the tenor buzz of an archaic motorcycle's engine is his calling card today. This world is close enough to an Earth that he can manage to bring it around without much hassle.

     He approaches, in the open, with a little motorist's cap, goggles and a scarf, the latter of which is pulled over his mouth. It's probably there to keep him from swallowing dust, bugs, and errant twigs, more than to hide his face. Candy pulls right up to the cafe, pulls the scarf down to reveal a quietly pleased smile (probably to do with the lack of bugs on said scarf) and ratchets the bike's outmoded kickstand into place.

     Once that thin rear tire is held in place, he pulls his goggles down, too, stuffing them, the scarf and his little cap into a leather saddlebag near the bike's rear wheel. "Hiya, Limey!" His smile is warm, as is his voice. "And that must be Tamamo."

*Xion made it seem like I shouldn't hold my breath... but Limey, she could see things our way. I know it.*

     "And that," he says, jerking a thumb towards the looming hulk around which the town has been built, "Must be the biggest wreck I ever saw." Candy grins, then strides over and takes a seat. "Looks like it's been here a while--how long, you think? Any chance somebody finally fucked with something they shouldn't?"
Kukuru A mystery is afoot, and that means one thing: People needing to put on their thinking caps to figure out what happened. More importantly,  that means having plenty of brain-stimulating food and drink prepared for thinker types that are sure to show up. That's why Kukuru shows up a little later than most, still wearing a slightly stained apron over an airy white blouse and green/brown skirt as if she had just finished preparing something before just appearing a few yards away in an ominously dark energy swirl.

At least she's all smiles about it. "He-llo there. Am I late? The food took a li-ttle bit longer to prepare, but... Ooh, we can get food here, too." She lets out a relaxed sigh, eventually pulling a seat over and practically falling into it before ordering a sundae for herself.

"Make sure to save room for the brain food later, but don't skimp too much or you'll get tired before we start" She eyes I4 in particular as she says that, then Kale when he orders tea and/or something light. "You, too. Is that gonna be enough for you?"

Candy, meanwhile, gets a curious look when he calls Lilian 'Limey' and identifies Tamamo. "Oh, you know each other? That's convenient..." She hums pleasantly for a moment, then follows his thumb towards the former spacefaring vessel. "Like the engine? Or... Um... The engine?"
Lilian Rook     Though Lilian is not typically a fan of podunk cafes, even for artsy credit, but the 'gimmick' of this one in particular is so novel and extreme (and also there's no street traffic or suitably chintzy fellow businesses all zoned together) that she has decided she'd like to make a time of it. Sadly, her time with Tamamo (and snapping pictures of the ship, the forest, her drink, Tamamo, and posting them on her media accounts) is limited, before other people have the audacity to exist.

    "Don't get comfortable." she insists, polite and level yet vaguely dangerous. "The initial theory is, of course, that the people who disappeared are the thieves, or at least the buyers of the illicitly acquired items, but as simple theories tend to go, there's a small but significant change something stranger happened."

    She capital w Watches Candy, having been talking about him not thirty minutes earlier. Still, if he can make enough of an effort to talk shop rather than stir up shit right away, she can begrudge herself to answer. "Not very. A little over twenty years. Originally a 'generation ship' sort of resettlement afair, as far as I recall, but ended up Unifying first and simply finding another Earth to land on. I think the company charter is paid off by now, though. It's colonist-owned. But as for places to take much of anything, it's exceedingly out of the way. As far as anyone knows, this is an 'accident' kind of Earth. One too old to have any people."
Rita Ma      Rita the perfectly ordinary girl is here- she always seems to be wearing something that could pass for a school uniform somewhere, but at least it's never the same. Today it's an open dark jacket over a white shirt and cute bright pleated skirt! A hibiscus flower pin adds a much-needed extra splash of color, obviously chosen with care.

     'Tamamo' is a Paladin, I heard. And that means Ms. Rook might be there, too. I felt so bad for bothering her with my appetite last time. I think I ate enough that it won't be a problem again- it's down to a dull ache.

     Tamamo and Lilian both get an eager, up-on-tiptoes above-head wave from Rita as she approaches; the latter she has a slightly nervous sunniness towards, while the former she evidently recognizes from description, but transparently marvels at the actual appearance of.

     Candy gets a slightly less overeager, but equally friendly, chest-height wave and familiar smile out of her. "Mr. Candy! I'm really glad you're here, too. You've been doing okay, haven't you?" She doesn't say why she's so happy to see him, but he might be able to infer.

     I4 just gets a slightly apologetic smile out of her as she sits down, trying to be close to Candy and Lilian at once. Kale doesn't receive anything but a quiet, nervous-resentful stare, but she doesn't hold it for more than a second or two.

     "The disappearances started when something went missing, right? But isn't that strange? If it were a theft, they should lead up to it instead, shouldn't they?"
Lilian Rook     Though I4 and Kale have much reason to feel menacing vibes from Rita, Lilian seems less concerned to see her than she does Candy, for some reason. She doesn't seem to mind her sitting close. In fact, she appears to be vaguely, pleasantly surprised about something. Or relieved? Though that isn't to say her attention isn't strongly fixed on her.

    "Well, I did say simple. Things that go missing from museums tend to do so because they're valuable and can be sold. Typically the number of half-cocked heists that turn brawl is much higher than something this clean though. The possibility there's something else going on is . . ." She glances once at Tamamo. "Part of why I'm here. But nominally, if there were a 'crew' involved, they'd all disappear at the same time." While talking, she flags down wait staff, and orders very strong and heavily sweetened, dessert-esque green tea, with social media-approved artsy swirls, to be put in front of Rita.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Get involved with ancient stuff

    Please, please, please tell me there's a dungeon dive. Right? Arthur is here because, honestly, he just thinks Tamamo is pretty cool and deserves help. So if she's looking for aid with mysteries, he'll do his best to help, even if this Arthur is a bit of a brainlet about mystery-solving. He's one of the last to get here, though, because he was *distracted*, presumably by some videogame or something.

    His arrival is hurried, jogging out of one of his Gates and stumbling right up to the cafe, before turning on his levitation as if in a second thought. "WHAT'S POPPIN'?" He rambles, catching his breath a little. "Heard you got MUSEUM MYSTERIES or whatever. Can a homie get up in this adventure? I can't do much MYSTERY SHIT, but I gotta HELP A FRIEND OUT. What's our PLANS? We gonna go HIT THE SCENE, or you got LEADS? Wait, everyone else already pro'lly asked. Where ya need me?"
Kukuru "If the people that disappeared were the thieves, then... No, that'd be too easy. Tamamo wouldn't call so many smart people here at once about something that simple, right?" Kukuru looks helpfully from Lilian to Tamamo at that, and then nods firmly when Rita gives her theory and Lilian addresses that. "And if someone really did want to disappear with valuable stuff, it'd make more sense to get a bunch of it and just... Um."

Kukuru elaborates by teleporting somewhere out of eyesight, then right back to where she was roughly when Arthur shows p. "But then there wouldn't be anything left for anyone else. That's a good question, though, yeah... I get asking a lot of the smart people to come, but..."

She doesn't finish that statement. She just scratches her cheek lightly while trying not to outright say 'why am I here, then?'.
Ishirou I4 nearly jumps when Rita greets him, ok no he actually does jump a little.  He doesn't jump at Kukuru greeting them, but makes a suffering sigh.  He really homes he doesn't have to deal with trying to convince Kukuru not to shove people into bags so she can take them somewhere to heal them.  Or...decides she needs to steal corpses from the Graveyard.  

Rita on the other hand was a bit more complicated of a problem.  Being bitten in half doesn't leave much for, um, talk.  Then again, he was trying to do something he's not suited for, instead of something he was suited for.  For a moment he's not sure if it came down to they were both being awkwardly stubborn, or if maybe he should try thinking about things his way next time.  

He does focus on Candy after a moment.  Like, staring at him.  Just staring.  He's got a blindfold on, but you know he's staring at you.  He also does at least speak to Rita nicely, "Hi..." a beat, "Hey about that thing where we last met...maybe we can talk about that?  You know, not while we're both trying to fight an argument?"

"I'm not very good at fighting an argument than I am talking about them."
Tamamo     I4 gets warned away from actually entering the ship's area because "it's dangerous in there," though his scans turn up that there are people working inside, and that some portion of the ship is still active and being used to generate power for the town. The heavy use of solar cells is a back-up plan by comparison. Whatever it is, it's clean enough that it isn't producing enough pollution to help him identify the technology. It's not producing nearly enough to lift off, either, though a town this size could hardly need that much power.

    The cafe's menu is mostly vegetarian, but not vegan. Kale is able to acquire a salad. The presence of dark, leafy greens is nutritious, but few could honestly claim these ones to taste good. The only meat mentioned, upon I4's thorough examination, is 'sausage.' There's no 'tea' on the menu, but there is 'chai.' Despite being another word for tea, it isn't tea, either, but some halfway reasonably close synthetic substitute.

    Tamamo smiles pleasantly as others begin to arrive, one after another. She's holding a hot cup of chai, and politely refraining from commenting on local quality. Roughing it is part of many adventures. To Kale, Lilian provides the answer, and Tamamo only adds, "They may have sneaked away aboard some private ship, the forests being somewhat uncomfortable to those unused to such a life." There aren't any ships in present evidence, but there is a waterside area of concrete platforms marked like VTOL landing sites, some distance away. "If it is instead some ancient curse, it is not one so powerful that I have sensed it from this distance. Perhaps a visit to the site of the tomb, or to the museum, would help in this."

    To Candy, Tamamo nods, "It is so, I am Tamamo no Mae. I had not guessed how to imagine what face might fit your voice, but you must be... Candelario, is it?" She glances over toward the looming hulk. "I have not had chance to question the history of this place overmuch." She nods to Lilian's explanation.

    Did someone touch things they shouldn't? "Such is always a possibility. If all was well, then there would be no mystery, no?"

    Sugar, at least, is on the menu, along with cream, which means so is heavily sweetened chai, which is what Rita gets, along with a nod from Tamamo, though there's clearly no recognition, this time. "Ah, I do not believe we have met, or have I been forgetful?" She, herself, remains sunny, even through the unfamiliarity.

    And then there's Arthur, "Ah, Mr. Lowell. Of course, you are most welcome, though I believe we may still be in the middle of making plans. I have mentioned the museum, itself, and the tomb, and I suppose I have mentioned the port," which is actually quite lacking in terms of naval docking area, "though if one should wish to learn of every mystery that merely may have some possibility of relation, it would be difficult to narrow it down from 'the world,' perhaps, which remains largely mysterious, to many. They had little idea that there had ever been people living on this land before unearthing that tomb, after all. One might find all manner of oddity out in the depths of the forest, if one had such time as to look carefully." There may have been another location suggested, somewhere up there, too.
Kale Hearthward Kukuru gets an odd look from Kale when she mentions 'asking the smart people to come'.

Rita gets as ignored as Kale can possibly ignore her.

And on being presented with options of 'salad' and 'something like tea' Kale turns them down and just opts to pull a vegan ration pack from his kit instead.

"So we start with the tomb, then - the most likely seeming spot, and do... magical scans, I'm assuming. See if anything can be sensed, while keeping our guards up for if whatever happened comes looking to happen to us. Sounds solid."

He bites into something that looks very much like beef jerky, but probably is a vegan substitute of it.
Rita Ma      The awkwardness with Kale and I4 isn't enough to dim Rita's mood- she's embarrassingly happy about being implicitly Approved Of by Lilian, and that can make up for a lot of bad. Her hands even ball up in her lap a little, tense with the eustress of a new friendship.

     When the tea arrives, she open-mouthed marvels at it: decent clothes can survive the apocalypse, but fancy tea cannot, and this is a luxury utterly foreign to her. "Wow! Thank you, Ms. Rook! This looks beautiful. Is it really even food...?"

     But there's a twinge of sadness to her expression too, after she's regarded the pretty swirls for a few moments.

     ... I wish I could eat it. But it'll taste hideous, won't it? This body won't let me enjoy innocent things like that. Even so, I'd feel guilty if I didn't at least try.

     She takes a single genuine sip, and after a delay of a few seconds, the muscles in her face subtly tense up as she struggles to keep down a grimace. If Lilian notices the reaction, Rita gives her a ashamed, helpless little smile of apology, obviously quietly distressed. After that, she just takes pretend-sips, raising the tea to her lips without actually drinking it.

     "Um, no, you're right," she answers Tamamo after silently recovering from the awful taste. "We haven't met before, but I read a little about you. I'm Rita Ma." Briefly shifting gears into a heightened level of formality, with the rehearsed stiffness of a stock phrase: "It is good to meet you, Tamamo no Mae!"

     She downshifts again immediately after. "What is the thing that went missing? Is it something that could've hurt people, itself? Like a robot people didn't realize was still working, maybe."
Rita Ma      Rita is obviously not as hostile towards I4 as she is to Kale, although she does rub the back of her neck with a hand awkwardly and cast her gaze down towards the table as he talks.

     "Um... yeah. I can talk about it, Mister- uh, I4. But for now, I'm here to help with this. I don't plan to let 'that' get in the way of working together to help people here."

     She glances back up from the tea she's been fixated on, still fidgeting anxiously. "So, is it something you wanted to talk about now, or afterwards?"
Kukuru "Visiting the museum sounds like a good idea, yeah... Maybe they left some clues that we can track them down with." Kukuru goes along with that suggestion easily enough, happily munching away on her sundae when it arrives and blinking owlishly at Kale when he gives her that look. "Hm... Disappearing after touching something weird, though? Yeah, that could definitely happen. Especially if they just..."

She holds her hands up and makes a poofing noise, but her gesture is more akin to fireworks going off or, in this context, someone just exploding. "But even that should've left a trace we can use. I dunno how much magic I can sense, but if the investigators missed something really tiny, I'll be able to sniff it out." Kukuru taps on her nose proudly at that, but she doesn't seem quite ready to get up yet. She's got ice cream, after all, even if the flavor seems off somehow.

She's certainly not going to get up before finishing her sundae.

It's not until Tamamo mentions the forest again, however, that Kukuru suddenly perks up. "Oh. Yeah, that's a good idea, too. If the people here are scared of it, then that'd be the best place to escape through. And there might be weird animals out there, too. Tasty ones."

Once Kukuru does finally demolish her sundae, she gets up and leaves a decent tip with her payment before cleaning her face off with a napkin and heading towards the MUSEUM (once she gets directions, anyway).
Ishirou I4 is still staring at Candy as he talks to people.  Though he does take his gaze off of Candy for a moment to speak to Rita.  "Well...if we're both going to avoid letting that get in the way of now, then we can wait.  Unless we go investigate something together...I can multitask, but you know..." he shrugs, "Android."

A pause, "I'm being indecisive, aren't I?  Shoot, sorry, I'm also trying to process the data I got a bit ago.  Look, Lilian's spoken for you on this so I'm willing to trust her on it, so don't worry about it.  We can talk over disagreements later, and I'm not holding anything against you if you're not holding anything against me, alright?"

His gaze goes right back to Candy, but he DOES speak up about something.

"I don't know if this is important, but I was curious about that ship when I came in.  They warded me off saying it was dangerous and stuff right?  Well...when I scanned it I can't scan anything that would be environmentally dangerous to anyone here, never mind myself.  There are people working in there too!"

"The solars here are a bit underwhelming for this town, but the ship's power could power this town and more...and it's being drained enough that they're using solars for the town AND the ship can't lift off.  That might be important?" He says, with a shrug.  "Or at least a 'hey isn't that strange."

I4 does order a sweet treat and a cold tea or otherwise similar drink.  It was a warm day.  "Seriously, how can you all drink hot tea on a day like this..." There is a pause, "So the Tomb is where things were taken?  We could start there...I admit the ship is just weird, but maybe not related?"
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Go to TOMB?

    "Wait, why're we startin' on the TOMB? Someone took the SECRET STUFF out of the TOMB, then to the MUSEUM, and then SOMEONE ELSE(?) took the stuff outta the MUSEUM, to WHO KNOWS WHERE. Right? Huhhhh... I mean, is this MAGICAL STUFF?" He looks to Tamamo, shrugging in a questioning way. "If it's MAGICAL STUFF, might be able to PICK UP A TRAIL. But I ain't the BEST SCANNER, not really a SEER or nothin'."

    He scratches his chin, and regards the generation-ship. "Tomb... So that was here when they got here? Shit. Gotta mean whatever made it got wiped out. Well, who knows, maybe the tomb's got nothing to do with that extinction." He trails off a little, and shakes his head.

    "Alright, we gonna hit that TOMB? I'mma get up in that shit." He rises slightly, broom suddenly in his hands. "Anyone need a RIDE?" He takes off pretty quick after anyone who needs one mounts. He's headed for that site, following the OVERWORLD MAP MARKER that is weirdly visible on the horizon to anyone standing in range of Arthur.
Candy      "Not as well as I'd like to," says Candy to Kukuru, and for once, it's not intoned like a double entendre. "How about you, you know Four Eyes and Mr. Hearthward? Seems that way, the way you mother them," he adds with a teasing smirk thrown towards I4 and Kale. If he doesn't stir the pot one way, he'll surely stir it some other way.

     'Generation ship' is lost on him, absorbed only through context clues. He runs his fingers through his hair and utters a low whistle at 'colonist owned,' however. It's unclear whether he likes it, is politely interested in it, or dislikes it wholly--he's perfectly neutral when he asks: "Remind me to talk to you about that later--when we're not working, ah?"

     He does, however, allow a gleam of wonderment to come to his eye. "Too old to have any people! That's really something. We're standing someplace most people only see in pictures, read about in the books."

     Someone is glad to see him, and he's turning from the moment he hears his name. His face lights up, and he happily rests his hands on his hips, grinning from ear to ear. "Hi, Rita!" His hand briefly bobs up in a lively little wave of his own. "If I wasn't okay before, I sure am now." His grin takes on a shade of the sly. "I got something for you."

     It's a little palm-sized fluffy Mishy. One of his 'souvenirs' from Mishelam. "Something fluffy, right?"

     Candy hands it over, then moves to sit in a very unnecessary pose in one of the chairs, rocking it backwards to stand on two legs.

     "What do we know about the museum, and what was taken?" Arthur asks where he's needed. Candy takes one look at him, both airborne chair legs hit the ground with a clack, and the witch insistently pats his lap.

     "Sorry," he isn't, "I thought I saw a bug." He didn't.

     "So--" A nod towards Rita, "What do we know about the shit that got taken? Seems to me like if there was a connection between that shit and the missing people, that would be where we start looking."
Kale Hearthward "Why is there a marker - oh, fine," says Kale, getting up and kicking his heels together, activating the BREATH AMPOULES that power his JET BOOTS and following after Arthur.
Tamamo     "A pleasure to meet you, Rita Ma," is also a stock response, and obviously so to one who knows the wording, though Tamamo says it in the manner of one who is either always genuine, or so thoroughly practiced as to convincingly fake the same.

    "A whole collection has gone missing, though I have not heard a complete list of the items, but it did not seem to me as if any were necessarily dangerous, by design. At least, no more so than a sword may be." It very much depends on the sword, especially for people from Tamamo's history, but she doesn't mention that. "The museum should have a precise list of the items, I am certain."

    Kukuru gets directions, though Tamamo doesn't immediately go with her, instead waiting to see if others will need her assistance, since Kukuru mentioned having her own ability to sense magical traces.

    Tamamo doesn't comment to I4's perfectly valid question about drinking hot drinks in Summer. She just sips her chai. She's not even sweating, though she may have a tendency to shine.
Lilian Rook     Lilian isn't *just* attempting to take more tea pictures in a weird place that'll get a lot of hits. Not even primarily. She watches Rita's expression quite carefully, but even more than that, it's almost as if she's staring right through her eyes, her own not quite matching up with the level of shade on her face with her head against the sun. Of course she doesn't miss it. She can't possibly, for several reasons. Foremost amongst those is the reason she claims:

<Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook audibly turns the sentence over a few times in her head, but doesn't change it before saying it. "I know more about Rita than you do at the moment."

    But it seems she might have expected that. No, it must have occurred to her as the reason she'd ordered anyways. A few seconds later, she silently waves Rita's attention back to her, then gestures towards her own eyes. "It takes a couple of sips to get used to." she says. "Try it again."

    Of course, a dead lie, but Lilian was already good at those in polite company and speaking in veiled terms even before getting to know Tamamo. Trying it a second time changes nothing about the taste. All that happens is she can't really taste it at all, finding it so forgettable that it's like sipping from a pretend cup at a tea party. Instead what she experiences is more like the impression of tea. The dreamy delusion of sweet chai that properly fits a fantastical outdoor teatime with friends. It's probably much better than the actual tea.

    "Combing the forest shouldn't go far. That is to say, 'the forest' is much too old a thing and much too early in time to have been whittled down and tamed for a casual stroll. The tomb itself is likely to tell us more about what was actually taken out of it; the museum is more likely to tell us what happened in the removal. We can't ignore the former for the latter; otherwise you run the risk of wasting your time staring at a bunch of empty glass cases wondering how it got out, with some ancient inscription explaining just that underground twenty miles away."

    She sighs, just slightly, at Candy. "Then that sounds like I'd rather not hear it, doesn't it?" she replies to 'when we're not working', though she seems to prefer to accept that level of 'this is this and that is that'. She replies to Arthur "Thus, best to split between the two, I think. Do you consider yourself more of an explorer or a detective?"
Rita Ma      Rita accepts the stuffed toy reverently, with both hands cupped, as if she were receiving a religious artifact. She then immediately hugs it to her chest, firmly asserting ownership and testing its softness. Her eyes are big and bright with wonder one moment, then shut in a sunny smile the next.

     "Thank you so much, Mr. Candy! I already got one of my own from there, but... I really think this one's cuter! I can keep it, can't I?"

     She's still holding it tight when she gives I4 a childishly firm nod, undercutting her now-serious expression significantly. "Don't worry, I4. I don't hate you. ... Even if I feel a little bad for you." Her eyes don't flick towards Kale, but they don't need to.

     "I can't promise I'll change my mind about anything, but we can talk later. For now, I promise that what happened then won't get in the way of helping people now. Okay?" That 'trying very hard to be businesslike' expression melts back into an uncertain smile, transparently hoping for his approval.

     That conversation is broken off by Lilian calling her attention over. Rita looks at her with obvious uncertainty and no small measure of guilt- implicitly, 'don't you see it didn't work last time?' But after pursing her lips and internally struggling for a moment, she nods and decides to trust.

     When she takes that second sip, she subtly braces, waiting for the hideous aftertaste inherent to "everything not raw meat" to hit. Gripping the teacup, her knuckles are white. But it never comes. Instead it's something fairytale-ish, abstract but beautiful.

     Rita's expression looks like she ought to be happy-crying, but she isn't. All the other hallmarks are there: her mouth hangs slightly open, her eyes scrunch up just a tiny bit, and the look in her eyes gets distant. Happiness, confusion, disbelief, something unidentifiably bittersweet.

     (Fake eyes can't cry, but inside the organic wrappings of her disguise, Rita does tear up. A subtle horizontal line of moisture forms just above her cheekbones as the moisture bleeds through a seam in her wrappings.)

     "Um. Thank you, Ms. Rook," she finally says, her voice trembling just a little. "You were right. It's... I haven't had anything like this in a long time." She wipes her cheeks with her forearm, unable to muster eye contact.

     "Anyway," she says after taking a few moments (and a few more sips) to recover, "I think I should look at the shipwreck. I don't know if it's anything to do with the disappearances, but I4 said there were some weird things about it, right? I think I can get in."

     True to her word, once they've all split up and Rita's approaching the HULK, she shimmers out of visibility as the tentacles wrapped around her shift from "mimicking an ordinary girl" to "mimicking the background behind her". Whatever guards there are shouldn't give her any trouble.
Tamamo     MUSEUM:

    A long, low building, the exterior siding is all stained wood. The locally soourced material and neat appearance suggest recent construction, along with it being some distance from the center of town. The presence of a museum might usually suggest the presence of tourists, but there aren't a lot of those. There probably aren't any of those, if the current Elite presence doesn't count.

    The inside is just as nice, without any signs of breaking and entering. Someone may have simply forgotten and left the door unlocked, because, upon anyone entering, someone comes out to meet them, saying, "Hey, we're closed! It's all still empty, nothing to see." She then blinks, having clearly not expected anyone from so far off-world.

    "Oh, hello. I'm Europa Fowler." She has something a little like a stewardess uniform in rich blue, with the little cap, though this is presumably some other kind of uniform. Blonde hair, steel-gray eyes, and shorter than the average lanky-limbed colonist, though that puts her at a normal height, by most standards. "I'm the manager here. Are you tourists? Or did security call you in? Either way, sorry to disappoint you, but there's nothing to see here."

    She gestures at the great array of glass cases, all of which are unlocked, opened, and empty. The arrangement would probably be appreciably artful if there was anything to see but emptiness, or if one had a great interest in zen.

    If someone wants to sniff around, she'll be reasonably easy to convince, though presently of a mind that it's pointless to try.
Ishirou I4 nods to Rita with a weary smile.  Trying to keep things professional, and because Lilian has said she has this situation handled he'll trust her on that even if...  

The memories of being nearly torn apart come back.  He tries his best not to flinch.  Though he definitely flinches when she 'feels sorry for him.'  I4 deflates a little, because of course.  He rubs the side of his face, "Sure we can do that later."

'Ok I4, just focus on the mission.  It's not like you should have an ego to have hurt like that anyway, so it's just unimportant.' I4 tells himself, pushing all of this stuff down a bit.  It certainly won't explosively come up later or anything.  Suppression has never not worked for long-term issues!

At the museum, the lady that is addressing them causes I4 to tilt his head slightly at her.  He lets Candy deal with talking her into convincing them into things because he's already started to focus on the ~mystery~.  That is to sa-wait.  That is another person shooing him away from something.  

"POD, scan," he says to the black box with arms near him.  It floats, and speaks in a feminine voice, "Roger."  For I4, the world starts taking on a strange overlay, the physical world is as it is normally, but for I4 there is a slightly green tinge to everything, like a hologram diving up sections and high lighting things for him.  

Specifically, he looks at the woman first, then looks towards the cases, trying to filter the relative data.  He looks for things that shouldn't be there first.  Fingerprints, magical signatures, anything along those lines.  Things do not just disappear, or magically walk out, something or someone took them.  

There is also the matter of getting in and out.  There are no signs of a break-in, but that doesn't mean there WASN'T a break-in.  Sophisticated tools, a competent thief, or even someone who worked on things from the inside could answer that much.  I4 also tries to see if there are foot traffic trails.  Sure there should be some from staff recently, but there should also be some that would be off, a path on how the thief worked might also be a clue.
Tamamo     TOMB:

    It takes traveling a good ways outside town to find the dig site, which goes uphill, away from the water, and finally to a hillside that could possibly pass for a very, very old mountain. It's entirely covered by thick, green forest, except for the rough vehicle path to get here, and the site itself, that looks to have been started as a mine.

    There are several people outside. Two of them are older, bald men with full beards, one dark-haired and shorter, and the other salt-and-pepper, unreasonably tall and pale. The woman with them has a jacket with hooded dust coat, her uniform choice of 'black' for colors fading in with her hair, though the eyepatch still manages to be prominent.

    The first man is the one to turn, and wave at Arthur as he approaches. His first question is, "What are you riding?" only then followed by salt-and-pepper asking, "Who are you?" The woman just narrows her eye.

    He could just blow past them, and find the tomb down several levels of semi-automated ore mine, as the dig had broken into a cavern, and followed it around to the (now roped off and touched by no one) archaeological site. But, apart from that being rude and very slightly dangerous, it shouldn't be that difficult to get something useful out of them.
Kukuru "Oh? Well, now's as good a time as any." Kukuru raises a finger in a quick thumbs up to Candy! "I fought with them once when we met Rita, and then against a I4 a few... Days ago? Heh... Is that what it looks like?" She giggles softly, sounding strangely pleased at that last bit from Candy about mothering the pair.

Alas, she can't just amuse herself forever, and Kukuru has to get to work once it's time to check out the museum. "Looks like people have already heard about what happened..." She comments, taking note of how few tourists there appear to be. When the (probably) employee tells her the place is closed, Kukuru is quick-ish to reassure her.

"Ah, don't worry. We're here to help figure out the whole... Disappearing situation." She's careful not to mention who or what disappeared, at least, but Kukuru isn't exactly subtle even on a good day. "Were you here the day that all happened? Did you  see or hear anything weird at the time?"

Kukuru sniffs, and not in the figurative sniffing around way. She's doing it rather literally, trying to get a identify what she can smell in here and focusing in particular on anything that doesn't smell particularly 'fitting' with the rest of the museum. Of course, being in a museum dedicated to some probably weird shit, she's going to keep asking questions.

"Are there any rival museums around here that might have wanted your stuff?"
Candy      Of course it's okay. Candy's smile couldn't make that more clear. He even rocks eagerly on his heels! There's a little wave, fingers waggling playfully, before he thumbs his suspenders and vaults whatever waist-high outdoor dining barrier stands in his way.

     It's time to go to the museum.

     "Hi, Europa! I'm Candelario, but you can call me Candy for short. That's I4." He does not answer the question about security. Nor about being a tourist. "We're looking into the people that got snatched," says the witch. As an afterthought, "And I guess the shit that got took, too."

     "I4 there, he is going to take a look around the place, and he is very thorough." Candy whispers conspiratorially to Europa, as POD begins scanning. "He is five, and they say at that age the encouragement, it is good for the child."

     With a straight face, he clears his throat and gestures, with a sweep of his hand, to the emptiness all around them.

     "Was there anything in common with all this shit?"

*Place got cleaned out. Knowing museums, it was stolen a long time before anybody ever took it out of them cases, anyway. Wait a second...*

"Where'd most of it come from?"
Kale Hearthward "Kale Hearthward, Paladins," says Kale, arriving right after Arthur, touching down on the ground nearby neatly and his jet boots turning off automatically.

He gets his notepad back out and flips to a new page. "If you don't mind - wanted to ask if you'd seen anything strange in the vicinity. We're investigating recent disappearances and incidents."

"... And also, if you've seen anyone go inside or leave in the last few days. Besides us."
Tamamo     CAFE:

    Tamamo looks a bit curious at Lilian so encouraging this (not actually very good by her admittedly high standards, but somewhat homey in a spacefaring rustic chic sense) tea-drinking, but ultimately puts it down to that having been the right overload of cream and sugar to make Rita so enjoy it.

    Almost, that is. The reaction still gets a gleam in her eyes, looking a little more deeply into that about-face on its quality, easier now without as many present distractions. "I am glad to see you so enjoy it. Do you... ah, but we do have other matters to which to attend, of course." She'll just have to ask about her tastes some other time.

    And she can hear I4 talking about Rita, after they've both gone.


    HULK:

    There isn't the kind of security here that can do much to Rita's magic octopus act. People pretty much just go about ignoring the upright ship that's near the center of town, if they don't have specific business there. There are some people out near it, but she can get right by them, as long as she doesn't get close enough for them to smell anything fishy.

    With pieces of it missing, getting inside the ship isn't difficult, either. Parts of it are pretty roomy, though it's soon clear that this isn't really a wreck. Parts of it were cut away or dismantled, rooms have pipes that just stop at where equipment used to be, and the only part that still has people working in or on it has obviously new connections that carry out into the power grid, as I4 had noted. That must be the reactor they're using.

    There's another area, centrally located, very possibly connected to everything important, that is heavily shielded, sealed up, and untouched.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Answer the questions

    "BROOMSTICK. Ain'tcha ever SWEPT, yo?" Arthur settles into a simple hover, sitting side-saddle (possibly with passengers yet to collapse their waveforms). Shortie and Salty (that is, the man with the dark hair and the man with the salt-and-pepper hair, respectively) each get a thorough coolkid handshake as Arthur often dispenses.

    Shortie and Salty might have been friendly, but Lady hasn't said much of anything, so Arthur doesn't get involved. "I'm ARTHUR LOWELL, ROCKET-POWERED JERK and KNOW-NOTHIN' PUNK. Don't worry, I won't KICK UP TOO MUCH DUST." He deactivates the broom's rockets, in fact, as if in demonstration, but he doesn't stop floating. "I'm just here to HEAD INSIDE and do some ANALYSIS, y'know? Homie's gotta SOLVE SOME MYSTERIES. Ain't gonna touch nothin', just give it a SWEEP with the FANCY LIGHTS."

    As if to demonstrate, he snaps his fingers, summons up a tiny sphere of light, and sweeps a plane of light circularly around it like a little lightshow, bringing it over the two men in a generalized Analyze Magic thing. "Just gotta run this shit over some TOMB STUFF, get me some LEADS yo."
Lilian Rook     When Lilian rises from her chair (and leaves a generous tip), she leans in just close enough to say 'later' quietly into Tamamo's (fox) ear, and preface it with 'I'll explain it--' with her eyes.

    At the entrance to the mine (as it would be inaccurate to call it 'the tomb' just yet), Lilian doesn't seem all that inclined to spare a whole lot of timed for the named local characters with a subquest each. "Dame Commander Lilian Rook, of the same." she says, trying to make it relatively quick. "It's nothing you need particularly worry about. We've been contracted, in a manner, to do some survey work of the area and the items you recovered while mining here. We will of course be in and out without causing any issues." Almost out of habit more than anything else, she hands over her card, and then motions to Kale to open up a conference band for him to share the conversation with her. She glances towards Arthur. "Don't worry, he's harmless."

    Her intent is to waste no time in getting inside, partly so she can get some space and privacy to dispense with all pretense at occultic divination rituals and instead just enter a lucid half-trance, perceiving herself extending into the future and absorbing every possibility by the side of the road, as she makes the descent towards the tomb itself, intending to be immediately ready.
Tamamo     MUSEUM:

    Europa manages to answer both Candy and Kukuru at the same time, "A rival? Of course not. We only got together, pardon," she interrupts herself, "we only came together to build this place because of the tomb the surveyors excavated. There wasn't any need for a place to show the finds before then, and word would get out if someone else... put in a request for the same thing."

    So, it all came from a tomb, it was a recent find, and this place is too small to need a rival museum. "They had to have taken it off-world. They must have, I mean." The subject has her a bit flustered, though that's made it easy to accept that Kukuru is literally sniffing around without further protest.

    Kukuru finds that a lot of people have been here, but not recently. Long enough ago to have been when everything was stolen, but that could just be whoever first came to investigate it.

    I4 finds very distinct magical signatures in every single emptied museum case. It's nothing matching any of his records, but it's 'something,' and given that it's persisted this long after the burglary, there are two possibilities that best fit the data. (A) Someone used a variety of very strong and obvious magical abilities to open everything in the room up to take the items. (B) The items that were stored here had enough inherent magical energy, and therefore enough inherent danger (if their use and purposes were not known) that locks far stronger than these flimsy things would be warranted.

    Careful examination doesn't reveal any tampering, otherwise.
Tamamo     MINE ENTRANCE:

    Kale first gets an answer from Eyepatch, "'Strange,' besides you? No." She only then introduces herself, "Paladins, huh? I'm Quinn Callisto. Security. We've been watching, just in case there's a connection, or something else down there, but," she shakes her head, "nothing. Do you know something we don't?"

    "I didn't think the Paladins employed Know-Nothin' Punks," Salt-and-Pepper says, before giving his name, "Gavril Hull, by the way. Rock-miner."

    "I told you you couldn't trust the propaganda," says the shorter man. "Oh, Yacob Yastrebov." He absolutely doesn't look like a Yacob. More like a Temujin. "I head the archaological effort, at the moment. If you are going to move any dust, I really should be there to..."

    "No, it's fine. I'll handle this." Quinn accepts Lilian's card, then walks in.

    "Miss Callisto, really, I...!"

    Quinn waves her hand without looking back. "I won't let them break anything too old. It's fine. Stay put."

    Kale is therefore left with just the archaeologist and the miner. The latter shrugs.
Rita Ma      THEN: "It was really good, Ms. Tamamo," Rita says, her tone managing to be both deeply grateful and slightly defensive. "Thank you for, um... showing us this place? I didn't realize their tea would be so great."

     There's no rational-sounding explanation for why a cup of synthetic chai just gave her a religious experience, she knows, so she just gives Lilian a hopeful look. Hopefully Ms. Rook can explain it away to her very good friend!

     NOW: Rita combines unnatural agility and mimicry with the well-practiced sneakiness possessed by every little sister less innocent than they put on. No eyes are on her as she effortlessly scales the "shipwreck's" exterior, finds a suitable hole, and slips inside. Even with tentacles aiding her ascent, she's practically noiseless.

     She only takes a quick peek at the reactor, not willing to risk bumping into any of the workers and raising an alert. If there's anything directly suspicious about that, she can't tell! Moving on, though, her attention is immediately snagged by the shielded, sealed-up area.

     There's a good chance this is completely innocent, and I'm doing this for no reason. But the way I4 talked about it... I have the nagging feeling something's got to be in there. And if I do this right, nobody ever has to know I was in and out.

     Simply breaking the shield is almost certain to raise some kind of alarm, so Rita gets fancy. A spaceship is made of metal, and metal is- even if only slightly- reflective. Under her disguise-wrappings, Rita's veins glow an eerie white as she draws out the power of a recently-devoured monster.

     Colonel Althaus, the ghoul from the train car with Lilian, had a secret trick that she never got to reveal. Now Rita's the only one who knows it.

     Pressing a hand against a nearby metal wall, Rita takes a deep breath, and then steps through the reflective surface as if dropping through the surface of a body of water. In the same step, she re-emerges from another metal wall inside the shielded area.

     What were they trying to hide here?
Ishirou I4 considers the information he has in front of him.  What he doesn't see is much traffic, or at least nothing that would indicate that the items moved or left a trail.  Given how powerful they were he considers this for a moment.  He pauses and looks at the room for a moment.  Ok, first of all, if they are magically that powerful they would have left a trail.  

He also considers the cases, they were opened, but not tampered with.  There are spells that could allow for that, which isn't a big clue...but the fact there is so residual magic here he considers what might have happened carefully.  First, if someone had used various magics like that, then...

He scans Europa, looking specifically for any residual magic that might indicate that she was mentally tempered with, or comparing any of the magical signals with her own, just in case.  He doesn't want to get invasive if he doesn't have to, but given how powerful of magic they're dealing with, he probably won't have to.  

Probably.

He then looks back on the magic's themselves and tries to dig into their signatures and power, trying to sift through what they could have been if they were spells, or reconstruct their magical matrixes if they were items. What was it?  What did they do?  Did the items just suddenly leave?  Did they float away?  Did anyone here have something to do with it?  Or rather, where they tampered with into not noticing?
Candy      It all came from a tomb. Candy grimaces, tugging at his collar. His expression says 'I'd hate to be you right now.' "All of it?" All of it. He shakes his head.

     It sure sounds like something down there woke up to an empty house and rolled into town pissed off. Not really his area of expertise--despite his magic, he's far more used to treating with mortals.

     "The people that disappeared. Did you know any of 'em?" He's guessing she does, given how long the settlement itself has been here, and how it started. You don't ask that sort of question because you're hoping for a yes or no--you ask to see if they spill a little.

     There's a glance over his shoulder at I4 and Kukuru. "Ey, keep it up, 'cause I got no idea what the fuck I am doing," he says, loud enough for Europa to hear. Is that calculated or genuine stupidity? He sniffs, then turns his attention back to her.

     "Oh, one other question, Ms. Europa. How many of them were on the, ah, 'survey' team?"

     It's looking an awful lot like something woke up...
Kale Hearthward "Hmm... you really have enough manpower to spend on archeology right now?" asks Kale, focusing on the archaeologist.

"I don't doubt it's important," says Kale, who doesn't actually think it's important. "But it's a small colony here, and most of the stuff here got moved to the museum, right?"

"What more are you hoping to find?"
Tamamo     TOMB:

    Quinn Callisto leads the way, by her own insistence, as she, Arthur, Tamamo, and Lilian approach the site. The cavern must have been found first, formed by a flow of water that no longer has an exit or entrance, and then the archaeologists were brought in when they found an obviously man-made structure at the end of it. A portion of carved, stone wall has been carefully brushed, revealing the patterns of erosion that were later wholly buried.

    They weren't quite as respectful of the entrance, which was partially broken in opening it, leading to a set of halls and rooms that, apart from the statues carved into the walls, have already been emptied. There are enough of those statues to make it still look crowded. They're all humanoid, if legs are shown at all, though none have faces. Some have carved helmets, and others masks, the intention made clear enough by the carving of 'strings' around their heads, as if to hold them on, though each one was made from a single block.

    Despite Quinn's supervision, it shouldn't be too hard for Lilian to find some time to concentrate.
Kukuru <<"There haven't been a lot of people here lately... Hmm. A while ago, but probably not since all the stuff disappeared.">> Kukuru relays to her partners for this job after she does a few laps around the museum, sounding rather confident in her assessment by the time she speaks up. <<"Might not be a rival museum, either. This one's pretty... Um. Tiny already, and the staff here thinks the stuff got taken off-planet.">>

It takes her a while, but she eventually returns to Europa. "I think that's about all the questions I have so far. Don't worry. We'll figure this out sooner or later, okay?" She offers the stressed out worker a small plastic container with a chicken cutlet sandwich in it. There's mayonnaise on both sides of the bread, and the chicken is still moderately crispy, even if it's a little cold by now.

I4's analysis piques her curiosity, of course, and she peers over his shoulder after a while to see what it is he's looking at without quite recognizing any of it. "He-ey. Did you find anything good?" She snickers lightly at Candy's admission, waving at him a moment later. "Ah, don't worry. Luck can be an important part of investigations, too!"
Tamamo     Rita gets through the shield without breaking anything. It's completely dark inside, but if she's fine with that, there's a lot to see. The part she's in right now was clearly, as anyone with a great knowledge of maintaining or fixing machines can tell, maintenance access and emergency control for the fully No Entry Ever area further in. Puzzling out the pieces eventually starts forming a picture, though it necessarily takes a good amount of guesswork.

    This was a second power source separate from the one the colony is still running, though it's totally cold, now. It's connected to the engines, but not to a number of other systems. There are redundant safety systems in place, but if it's placed dead center instead of out where it could be discarded, then they were much more worried about external damage warping the mechanism than they were confident that they could vent an explosion outward. Which of those is the bigger concern is difficult to guess, but some of the exterior looked like it had turreted gun mounts that have since been stripped of their guns, if not of all the turret mechanisms.

    There's a fuel tank here. Given the size and the way it's hooked up, that's definitely what it is, and it's entirely within the shielded area. So, that has to be volatile. There's no obvious way to check if there's any fuel still inside, and poking her head into starship fuel might be a really awful idea. If she'd entered this area from the opposite end, she'd have already found out.

    The injection mechanisms aren't like anything she's seen before. Removing fuel from the tank required a weird amount of shielded and high-powered equipment. It definitely wasn't oil, nor was it something like liquid hydrogen.
Tamamo     MUSEUM:

    Europa accepts the sandwich from Kukuru. "Oh, uh... thank you?" She looks inside. "Chicken and mayo? That's..." She starts, then cuts off a thought, finishing with, "normal."

    She's nibbling cold chicken while answering Candy. "I knew Hathor and Pierce, but not the others, not personally. Pierce lived out near the forest fringe, so we're not even sure how long he's been missing. Hathor just disappeared out of her friend's house one night." She thinks for a second, then a few more seconds, mouth full. She swallows. "You know..." She gives Candy a look. "You think it's some superstitious ancient curse nonsense, don't you? Like in the vids. I don't, but now that you mention it... none of the people who disappeared are people who've been to the tomb. I dunno," she swallows another bite, "don't know if that means anything."
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Follow Quinn

    Arthur is usually used to being insolent at security, rather than being helped by them. But hey! First time for everything. Arthur's brought out a very, very, *very* tiny star, with which he can very closely examine the humanoids. He mutters to himself, as he examines each of them, and moves on.

    "You're a better scanner than me, right Lil'? Do your thing, I'll try my lower-level one, yeah? They'll hopefully find somewhere relevant -- a central chamber, a structure, an open space -- where he can snap a few times, summoning up a variety of spellcircles. With rapid twists and taps, he configures them and plants the small star therein, setting it to analyze the tomb's halls and walls for traces of magic or recognizable energy signatures.

    If he can find any built-up energies here, he might be able to get a specific signature, a particular frequency, something to look for and pursue to chase down the stolen artifacts. But that's, at most, an ID, a fingerprint of sorts. He has to hope that Lilian has more to offer.
Tamamo     MINE ENTRANCE:

    "Ten, even five years ago, we sure wouldn't have the people," Gavril says to Kale, "but now..." He shrugs.

    "It's still out of the way, but being on the warpgate network at all means ships can get here in a matter of days. It's not like we don't get any traffic." He's a little defensive about that, but goes on with some excitement, "More importantly, we'd no idea there'd been anyone on this rock before since planetfall! Over twenty years, and just now do we find a sign? There must be ruins all over, and they were just buried too deep for us to tell. Who knows what else we'll find? If there's more recent ruins, they could even have have...!" He deflates a bit, "Well, I've no idea, really. But isn't that what being an explorer is all about?"
Tamamo     TOMB:

    Arthur finds a pretty good 'central chamber' without much trouble. Everything goes back to this place. The architects had a decent understanding about the use of space and how to assign central importance to something, though the effect is slightly ruined by the meticulous but messy string markers left everywhere by the archaeologists, marking where they'd found things.

    Tapping into a deeper look, Arthur can find a few things well below the surface of this already-buried tomb. It's faint, but, like the water flow that must have existed before drying up outside, there had existed channels of magic below the tomb itself, a leyline that's dried like a majestically grand and dusty canyon. There's just a trickle, now, where there should have been enough to last what would have seemed 'forever' to human reckoning.

    And that would have fueled, one can reasonably guess, all the more obvious signs of magical equipment having been stored here, now removed. It would also have fueled a locking ward on that door, but that was probably long dead by the time anyone found this place.

    Bits of this may be apparent to Lilian, and Tamamo takes the time to examine the broken carvings on the inside of the door that were part of the ward, though altogether, they're both focused on a different angle.