Scene #8017: People of the Valley

Owner	Pose
Vantablitz Remnants	Ahn has continued to fail to find a new place for her and Lotus to live. Or rather, continued to passively refuse and make polite excuses about it, evasive about the reasons why beyond long familiarity. That would mean another fucking death hike up into the mountains of . . . somewhere, but after the first time she went and built a Warpgate. Like, herself. Using the nuclear generator in the bunker arcology complex to run it. That means arriving directly inside. At first, that means the portion that is like a well-kept community center building slash airport slash lab, just with zero windows, half the spare space in commons and lobbies and corridors being taken up by a million kinds of potted and hanging and latticed plants, and also a lot of empty ramen cups, coffee mugs, plates and energy drinks lying around, with the odd article of unsorted laundry. Ahn greets them inside, dressed in fitted shorts, tall boots, leggings only good for repelling thorns up to the thigh, a cutoff top, and an unzipped military jacket for ostensibly the same purpose. And like, four hundred pounds of reflec-orange resin crates packed with black foam shock insulation. Long and flat, eminently carryable like an suitcase, and possibly once meant to survive an airdrop. Other than excessive apologies and repeated bowing about the fact that she is now asking you to help carry them, she also stops and hands each of you a small, dark hairpin mounting a freshly picked flower bloom --there's a variety, from crysanthemum and rose to hibiscus and water lily to african tulip and yellow mai-- and firmly insists that once you leave the building you wear it at all times and do not take it off until she says so. It might have something to do with the ultraviolet-black lotus flower she's wearing. Often wears. At random. Then it's a somewhat unpleasant trip through the horror level half of the arcology. A lot of dark and spooky areas behind blastproof glass and welded doors. A lot of overgrowth-choked rattling catwalks and spooky vent noises. Emergency directions painted on the walls and carpets of brass casings apathetically swept to the side, burn marks and the odd human-shaped smear-silhouette. Out of there, and into the brisk humidity and quiet racket of a shaded mountaintop jungle. The hike is down this time, following the oddly dark blue and shiny river.
Ishirou	Ishirou is here because he heard his friend Ahn needed help with something! Though now that he knows /where/ he is going, he knows how to dress for it. He wears form-fitting pants that are made out of a special leather made to helpfully deflect thorns and keep bugs out and boots tied up into these shoes. He's got a shirt that isn't a comfy sweater for once, that's light, but long sleaved to help keep him cool but also keep things off of his skin, and a hat to help keep the sun off of him when it breaches the trees. It's one of those old-fashioned jungle safari hats. Behind him is his POD, also with the same hat on. Ishirou looks happy to be here. Then less happy as the situation is explained. Oh no. Manual labor. He's not sure about this...but then he remembers that Lilian was chiding him about being out of breath so quickly and needing work out! Also, it's /Ahn/ she is such a nice girl! He sighs. "Alright!" he says, trying to sound upbeat. Later on, Ishirou is carrying a case, and his POD is carrying a case. It looks sort of silly for the POD to be, somewhat hovering slightly hunched over. "Oh man, this brings back memories...getting through this on the way up. That was an adventure, and slightly different expectations when we got to Ahn's living area.."
Charlemagne	Dark and spooky areas filled with blast proof glass and welded doors? Overgrowth-choked rattling catwalks and spooky vent noises? Emergency directions painted on the walls and carpets of brass casings apathetically swept to the side, burn marks and the odd human-shaped smear-silhouette? . . . Bunches of random clothes, mugs, energy drinks and ramen filthy'ing up the floors? "Coooooooooooool!!!" The young man with black and white takes his time inspecting the place in depth, not for anything in particular honesty. If anything it seems like the kind of look a kid might give at a candy store. Everything's new, everything's different, everything's got an exciting opportunity. It wouldn't be an adventure otherwise. Albeit. . . "Mmm, when I heard there was help going out I kinda figured it'd be a bit more crazy. This place is all fancy and all, but it definitely feels like we're just mov--Hmmm, nope, nevermind. It's like they say, castles aren't built alone. OKAY! Let's get these flowers and get packing!" The flower the young man takes is an amaryllis as he places it in his hair, a small chuckle escaping his lips. Truthfully, it doesn't exactly fit him, but neither did this entire situation. In fact. . .His attire really made him stand out in a way for just how. . .Casual it was. A black t-shirt with white long sleeves under it. Black jeans with tied up sneakers. He honestly just looked like some college-kid on vacation more than any sort of elite that was meant to be providing help of any sort to the Multiverse, yet here he was. . .How did he hear about this anyway? With the view they just described, probably he was just one of the only people that didn't have any prior affiliation with Ahn and her group to hop in on his own!
KNK	Neither Rose nor Violet know Ahn nor Lotus. They've at least heard everyone else here speak, with the exception of Charlemagne, but whoever they're here to see and Shelter: CAMELIA are all new. But that's fine. They show up with Rita, Rose quietly asking her 'who is this' and Violet making mysterious additions about gals who are 'pals.' They take their namesake flowers, without a hint of hesitation, Rose saying, "Yeah, sure," and Violet, "Okay!" They're both pretty good at lugging heavy equipment around, to a degree somewhat strange for their size.
Kukuru	Kukuru likes warp gates. It's far easier than having to actually know where she's going the first time around, and even repeat trips are still less strenuous than having to actively do anything to teleport there herself. She doesn't even mind the fact that she can't see outside, just looking generally pleased to be there with what looks like a casserole tray for a giant tucked against her side and held in place by one of her claws reaching waaay over to the other side of it to keep it upright. She totally brought a casserole tray today, and she's even dressed like a neighborhood grandma between the pale red (yet not quite pink) sweater and the long forest green skirt to top that off. "He-llo, Ahny and... Oh, I guess Lotus is in the bathroom or something. I brought a housewarming gift~" She chimes in cheerfully, setting the tray of hot, yet unidentifiable food substance on one of those crates before moving it to the closest thing to a free table she might find once the moving job is revealed. She actually doesn't seem to mind that at all once Ahn asks, somehow seeming more pleased at being asked to help at all. The flowery hairpin, naturally, goes right into her hair between her head and one of her horns. The more unpleasant trek, though, has Kukuru furrowing her brow deep in thought. "Oh, there's a lot of work to do here, huh? Well, cleaning up a place isn't so bad, either. You can really get a better feeling for how you wanna fit it all once you're done."
Rita Ma	Rita- dressed in her cute little jacket/skirt/leggings combo- takes a moment to orient herself in the new surroundings. "Oh. I thought we'd be in the rainforest again. This is--" Her eyes land on Ahn. They widen. She goes for a hug immediately. "Ms. Ahn!!" Then, after releasing her: "Have you been taking care of yourself? You've been getting out, haven't you? I brought some more of that crab soup, if you wanted any, but..." She descends into trivial fretting, and hands over a thermos full of delicious spicy seafood stew. While early preparations are being made, Rita busies herself by putting away some of those empty ramen cups and strewn-about articles of clothing. She is nothing if not industrious. When time comes to pick a flower, she goes with a pink hibiscus. She's plenty strong enough, but at her size carrying a crate like that as if it were a suitcase would put her fatally off-balance. Instead she puts it up on her shoulder. Even so, she eyes Ishirou with concern. "Are you sure that's going to be okay? I can carry one for you, if you want..." To Ahn, while she's not being spooked by creepy environments: "What's in these? Where did you say we're taking them, again?"
James Bond	Bond steps through the other side of the warpgate. He's dressed in a bespoke, grey two piece suit, with a matching dress shirt and tie in muted blues. Neither too relaxed, nor too tight, the style forms a traditional, yet aggressive kind of silhouette. "You... need help carrying these," he says, quite overdressed. A sideways glance falls briefly upon an empty ramen cup. Despite the hike, and the generous portion of resin crates that he's taken upon himself, Bond's suit doesn't seem soiled by the endeavor. The flower he's taken, a white crysanthemum, even seems to go with it. "Most people that build or keep up nuclear reactors by themselves don't have guests over," he says, dress shoes finding footholds with casual ease.
Vantablitz Remnants	"I really am sorry!" Ahn apologizes, for the millionth time, to Ishirou first. "Ah, even back then, I didn't know you were coming, so there was nothing I could . . ." A soft chuckle, vibrating in the way of a failing vocoder, sounds from ssssomewhere. "Living area. It sounds like a zoo~ The captive Ahn exhibit~" "Hey. That means you're a zoo exhibit too." "I'm your handler~" "Then clean up every once in a while!" Charlemagne is probably well-advised to not go poking around what could only be called 'plant-themed Dead Space'. There are segments --entire wings, really-- of the shelter where eerie lights and sounds of movement give one the chills. Greenery visible through locked door portholes somehow convinces the threat-recognition part of the brain that they're looking at human corpses and elicits the appropriate revulsion and tension reaction. "Thank you again!" Ahn says to Rose and Violet, bowing apologetically one more time. She then begins slinging crates onto a back harness that looks cobbled together out of old tactical webbing; the kind that'd hold magazines and radios against a soldier's body armour. "H-huh? Why would-- N-no." Ahn replies awkwardly to Kukuru. "She doesn't-- No. Yesterday was really tough, so she's mostly relaxing in the sun at the well. But she'll be there when we get there! I promise!" After giving Rita the requisite return hug (lifing her a tiny bit off the floor) and reassuring her she was out aaaaaall day for the last two(!) days, she blushes just a tiny bit. "I'm getting around to cleaning. I've just been very busy. It falls to the bottom of the list and . . . well, then you're tired, so you say you'll do it tomorrow, and-- Rita! Y-you really don't have to!" Once they're out onto the mountainside, the hike has to begin (rather than end) by heading through the oppressive darkness of the dense CAMELIA perimeter. The shelter looks forlornly overgrown behind belief from outside, like a mansion abandoned for two hundred years, though the sparkling glass dome at its center looks to have been recently flamethrowered. Thankfully, by following Ahn's zigzag trail markers, back and forth to groves of fabulous black lotuses with white leaves and faintly luminous green stamens, the eerie ocean of wildly misshapen, green and barkless trees, coiled and groaning shrubs, and the odd shivering web of vines, leaves them alone. The jungle below is much more traditional; for a tropical mountain anyways. Despite the altitude, it's pretty warm, and the air is thick and rich; crisp and invigorating in that way that is impossible to taste within a thousand miles of a city. A lot of the vegetation is strangely either dark-hued, rainbow-blended, or semitranslucent in parts, but buzzing insects, loud birds, and the odd snake or tree-climbing mammal can be seen on the trail; there are even weird-looking fish in the river. "Um . . . It'll make sense when you see it." Ahn says, once the group passes by the remains of a campfire, with log benches and bared poles that seems to indicate a kind of rarely but repeatedly used waypoint, and a layer of trees marked with incomprehensible trail signs and odd bone and metal totems. "But if I have to explain it right now . . . some people live in the valley. And . . . Well, I feel bad ignoring them completely. So I try to leave things for them to find. And I keep some bad things away. But this is one of those times where I think I have to help more than usual. And . . . it's not like I could ever use up all those supplies, right? They're supposed to last ten thousand people people twenty years" "But really. Don't take that flower off, okay?"
Staren	A wild Staren appears! She looks alllmost at home in a post-apocalypse lab, although her coat is a bit more 'anime' than 'post-apocalypse' -- needs fewer belts and more stains and tatters. She's happy to shake Ahn's hand. "Hi! It's nice to finally see your place!" She has the spare inventory space at the moment so the empty instant ramens are sucked up into the matter manipulator for later disposal. Oooh, hairpin! She's not sure just how to wear it but happily takes suggestions. She's so enthusiastic about that she actually forgets to immediately scan it. She'll also put as many of the cases as needed into the matter manipulator. Horror arcology. Huh! Staren's eyes widen at first, but following Ahn's lead she quickly takes it as Just How This Area Is. Once they step outside, she looks out at the jungle. "Hey, is it safe to fly over the treetops and take a look around, or will that attract predators?" Also, colorful plants! "Hey, can I take samples? Mom'll probably wanna compare 'em to mutated plants on our Earth." Staren smiles as the mission is revealed. "Ooh, so it's not just a look around visit, we're helping people? Nice!" She rubs her hands together. "What do they need help with today?" Ahn reminds her about the flower. She touches the hairpin with her finger, considers how to scan it without taking it off, and pulls something like a square-er flipphone with an almost 90's kids toy aesthetic of shiny plastic and transparent plastic from her pocket, carefully holding it up over her forehead to scan the hairpin before looking over the results.
Ishirou	Ishirou is climbing down with the power of POD and his own slightly decent movement tech. Despite the case being extremely heavy and this whole situation making him sweat. He's also chosen honeysuckle as the flower he attached to his short crop of hair with a hair pin. Ishirou listens on the way down, looking more flushed as they walk. "Oh so...it's for the people down there? We noticed they were around when we first got in, but we figured out that's not where the lost team went to...and we quickly found out what happened to them.." The feet trees. Ew. "Anyway, this is nice of you Ahn...but really, why the flower?" He asks, trying to make sense of it and why she's so insistent on the flower.
Kukuru	"I can help you two clean up later. It'll help you feel better once everything's nice and sparkly!" Kukuru offers while keeping her eyes open, truly a daunting task as she already looks like she's ready to take a nap on the spot. She doesn't, of course, since there's still work to do, and especially not while she has that white lily in her hair. It sticks out pretty well between the green and the gray! Once Kukuru sees the overgrown shelter, she's once again pursing her lips at the sight. "There's so much... Work to do here. I bet it'll be super nice once it's all done, though!" It's a bit of a struggle to keep her on track and away from the funky trees, but she usually slides back on her own before getting caught up in anything too terrible. The fish and the animals in the trees, though, make it just that little bit harder. When Ahn explains the purpose of all the strange little encampments, though, Kukuru can't help but giggle softly and hurry over to Ahn to ruffle her hair lightly. "Aw, that's so considerate~ I know how some kids can be about taking that kind of help, so it's really nice to see you thinking about that kind of stuff." As instructed, Kukuru keeps the lily tucked in her hair. She checks to make sure it's still there, too, . "Aye-aye... Hmm. Do you think they'd like some homemade stuff, too? I've still got plenty here."
Charlemagne	It's not the eeriness of the place that throws him off, if anything there's a part of curiosity that still piques his interest even if that's the case. The only thing that really ends up throwing him off though is when the danger recognition alerts him to the corpses. It's. . .The first time the young man's face goes a bit more somber. It's also at this time that he ends up taking more flowers from Ahn than probably anticipated and attempts to leave them close enough to the bodies without invoking any problems. A few words are mumbled in a bent knee before getting up again. Once that's handled and greetings are given though, he's quick to join the others as they begin to hike. At the very least it seems like this guy can keep up with no issue, though the Oohh's and Aahh's don't seem to let up at all. Poor Ahn's probably having to handle his curiosity rising, "Ne, ne, what's up with this building anyway? Also. . .What's the deal with these plants?! They're so cool! Literally have rainbows and see-through stuff! Aaaah, I wish my friends could see this." He really was treating this almost like a field trip still. . . Though as she brings up the situation with the natives, he starts settling down a bit more. "MMmm, so you're doing humanitarian work it sounds like? Very nice! We just met, but it sounds like you're already a pretty cool person. Although, what's the deal with these valley people? They can't provide for themselves given the land they're on?" And then there's the question on everyone's mind, "Humu, humu, not that I don't mind the flower either, but it feels like it looks silly on a guy like me, don't you think?"
KNK	Rather than 'get spooked' in the spooky tunnels, Rose gets twitchy. Oddly twitchy. Like she's having to suppress dozens of different reflexes that were drilled into her extremely hard. It is, mostly, odd just for the fact that none of them involve anything recognizably associated with a fright reflex. They're all tightly localized. Violet doesn't have that problem. She just looks around with a lot of "Ooh!" and "Ahh!" and "Woah, that looks like a DEAD GUY." Charlie has clearly disarmed at least one of the ninjas with his energetic introduction and self-narration, during which Rose affords Bond with the instant chilliness of one who'd grown up in a place and time that thought of men in suits in the same way as some in other lands think of those who decorate their armor with skulls. It's that immediate (incorrect) assumption of understanding what he's about, unhelped by his own, properly done introduction. "Sure are a lot of plants," Violet says, but then, confused, "aren't they supposed to be green? I thought they were green." "Some of them are green." "Yeah, but those ones are like spilled oil." The rainbow plant is given consideration. "Huh." Neither of them have any problem keeping hairpins in. They both have their hair up in ribbons to hold their ponytails, in the first place. "Ten thousand people?" Rose starts. "How long have you been up there, anyway?"
Rita Ma	"Oh! Hi, Ms. Lotus!" Rita says, waving to... the black flower on Ahn's head? Even she seems a little uncertain with that pinpointing. "It's good to hear from you again! Thank you for taking good care of Ms. Ahn." Rita is in the middle of tossing an armful of ramen cups when Ahn tries to get her to stop. Instead she just smiles. "Oh, don't worry, Ms. Ahn! It can be really hard to clean your own spaces sometimes, right? It's easier to care for a friend than it is to care for yourself." Thunk. "So let me do it! It's easy." She has no complaints on the trek, but keeps tightly to the path and doesn't touch anything, having been here and Found Out before. "They are supposed to be green," she confirms for Violet and Rose. "I'm pretty sure." Not nearly as confident as she ought to be. Then: "Isn't it rude to ask how old someone is, Ms. Rose?" She's uncertain about that idea too, having received it secondhand.
James Bond	"I won't." Bond's eyes alight on the trail signs, then the totems. Those'd be for the 'bad things,' I'm guessing. Answering Charlie, "If that's what you think, you should take it off," he says drily. To his credit, Bond does lightly swat at Charlie's hand, should he attempt to actually do this. "They are, aren't they," he says to Violet. "These look like... replacements, or maybe imitations." A brief glance towards Ahn, confirming whether he's got that right. "Have you ever spoken to one of these people?"
Vantablitz Remnants	The flowers are just flowers, according to a scan, though with miniscule traces of unidenfiable exotic carbons; ambient microplastic levels. Ahn probably grew them herself. No, she definitely did. "Umm . . . This is national emergency reserve shelter and COVEN military laboratory, designated CAMELIA." Ahn explains awkwardly. "I don't know if any of the others survived. I was never able to contact them. I followed the signal for refugees to come here, years ago, but it was like this when I found this." She does her best not to look at a broken lead pipe and the shattered remains of a molotov on her way out. "Actually, a lot worse. I sort of . . . broke in." She shakes her head. "They can provide for themselves fine. But that doesn't mean I should just sit on a treasure hoard I could never use up, right? It was meant for everyone." She adds, cryptically, "You won't look silly." Ahn is a little cagey replying to Rose. "A while. Long enough I probably would have gone crazy without Lotus, haha . . ." She doesn't spare a glance for the flora anymore. She's probably too used to them. "Oh, most stuff is pretty different now. It's . . . you could just say it adapted? Even though that's not really true. Don't worry though, it's pretty normal. You just have to learn what properties everything has all over. And there's still lots of leftovers from the old world. Just . . . things fill in the gaps now. Gaps that we made." Walking down a mountainside lugging an average of thirty pounds of junk each isn't exactly quick or easy, but it's uneventful. It may have to do with the trail markers that don't seem to be Ahn's handiwork, or the odd, singular lotus growing in the random bodies of too-blue water that pool between mini-waterfalls and branching splits in the river into smaller creeks. Simple stones carved with illegible script appear by the side of the more proper path, here and there, and less often, carved wooden statues very vaguely reminiscent of jizos. White, black, green, and red dyes, in descending proportions, are slathered thickly onto suitably ancient trees, bound with rope, giving off the uncanny feeling that the trail is special to someone in some way, though there are no footprints to find. And then the journey through the jungle terminates at a crumbling gravestone to modernity. The collapsed bones of enormous concrete towers and walls, the corroded scraps of wire and stranded dividers and fixtures and wire-sheathes of foreverplastic, form a city block-sized crescent sprawl where the mountain terminates into the valley below. The river runs through the rust-welded corpse of what once might have been a hydroelectric turbine. Greenery has completly overgrown everything; unfamiliar moss and vines have had ample time to suck every useful mineral out of the embrittled skeletons of what can only be guessed as vehicles due to the rubberized detritus under the leaf litter. Fuseboxes lie broken open and stripped. Bits of brass blend into the environment from layers of verdigris. 'Years ago'. Yeah.
Vantablitz Remnants	Once the terrain becomes something closer to lush grasslands, there's not much of a journey left. Ahn guides the group to a reasonably large longboat of carved wood, tied off in a camouflaged alcove, and pushes it into the river, out of a crescent pool filled with lotuses. Once people load up their crates and themselves, however, she ducks into the little box cabin and the sounds of a motor starting up are heard. It cuts down the winding sapphire river, truncating the remainder of the trip to ten minutes. The occasional flock of large, fast-swimming shapes chases alongside the boat, but leaves it alone. "Um . . . A little, but . . ." Ahn begins to reply to Bond. "I-it's a bit awkward. And . . . well we don't have anything in common, right?" The embarrassed look she wears indicates perfectly well that she expects everyone else to be her ablative shield against socialization. The final destination is visible ahead of time by ordinary smoke rising on the horizon. The grassland rises in shallow, sharp steppes. The river splits several ways, and nourishes expansive groves of more traditional greenery, though oddly of the sort of high-stilted kind usually better suited to saltwater marshes. It's rather hot, at high noon like this. Judging by the first signs of irrigated paddies, it must be mid-summer. Before they even get all the way there, they catch sight of a handful of people, though only from a distance. They're shockingly hard to spot until the move up close enough to view the boat, being draped in forest greens, night blues, and slate greys, silhouettes broken up with strings of beads and plumes of feathers and furs of local wildlife. Even their exposed skin is broken up with jade-coloured ink, in elaborate spirals and zigzags. They move from tree to tree, mainly via rope bridges and what appear to be bleached plastic slats nailed into the old bark, until they have a clear view of the river, and then begin calling out in what sounds like excitement. One of them fires something that trails coloured smoke --dark black and violet-- into the air. The fact that they're armed indicates they're probably either scouts or hunters. The fact that they're armed with a mixture of what looks like straight swords, curve-bladed spears, compound frame wheeled-bows, and the odd bullpup assault rifle painted in the same colours of the special trees, is less obvious. The fact that all of them, men and women, have flower blooms anchored in their hair somewhere, explains both a lot and very little. They don't stay to welcome anyone, but quickly fade into the grove in the direction of the fires; ostensibly to deliver news. The boat is easily docked by simply throwing anchor (which Ahn appears to have made by strapping depleted uranium 120mm rounds together with cabling, funny enough) and disembarking onto solid ground. From there, it's only a walk through groves that become honest to god orchards, grasslands that become orderly flooded crop fields, down lanes of elaborately carved wooden arches and text-scrawled stone markers, and up to the highest plateau, where rings of surprisingly sturdy-looking stilt houses have been built up over the greenery, organized around geometric patterns of circular gardens and giant trees. For the very attentive, inactive floodlights of rugged modern design exist around the perimeter, painted with the same colours and symbols, put alongside 'laser bug nets' and old solar panels marked with the same. There is a faint radio signal.
Ishirou	Ishirou is now very much sweating and muscles painfully sore from the generally short trip. Once able to set his suitcase down, he collapses on one side of the boat, while the pod gently sets its down and joins Ishirou by sitting on his shoulder. Though at some point Ishirou looks over the edge of the boat to watch how the world looks on the boat itself and down the river. He remembers the river not exactly being good for health, but that might mean more for /their/ health. Or it could be a different river. It's been a minute. He also sees the dark figures under the water and looks down. His eyes scan down, trying to make sense of the dark figures from where he was. Eventually, when they come to where they are heading to he looks up to look at the village. He now spots it...the villagers all have flowers in their hair. "Oh." "Ionna would have a field day here.." he mutters to himself. "Sure did set my expectations wrong there.." he says, with a shrug. He starts to get ready to lug the suitcase again. "Ooooh, this is going to be hell.."
Rita Ma	The boat ride is nice. Familiar, but nice. Rita sticks her fingers in the water and watches how their wake distorts the reflections on the surface. It's soothing. The sight of civilization so decayed elicits remarkably little reaction from Rita, but later on, she visibly startles when the signal flare is fired. 'Being scrutinized by people she doesn't know' already has her on edge. "That's... good, right?" she says anxiously to the rest of the party. When the scouts turn and retreat into the forest, she breathes a little sigh of relief. The hot weather doesn't bother her, and the cultivated greenery cheers her up a bit further, resulting in an overall sunny mood. "A garden this big... I'm not sure I've ever seen it before. Oh, look! They even have fruit trees! Ms. Ahn, this is amazing!" Her standards for greenery are pretty low. Approaching the stilted houses, Rita finally sets down her orange crate and looks to their host. "This is where we're leaving the stuff, right? What was it they needed help with anyway, Ms. Ahn?" After a second's pause: "And where's Ms. Lotus? You said she'd be here, didn't you?" Her tone isn't concern, but mild disappointment.
Kukuru	"Military... Oh! So they did experiments and stuff on..." Kukuru starts, trailing off shortly afterwards once she notices that awkwardness in Ahn's tone. Instead of making (audible) connections of everything she's being told, she just approaches her and gives her a gentle pat on the arm and lingers in case Ahn needs a moment. It could also make things a little more awkward. She's pretty good at bad timing, too, regardless of intent. "I wonder if these plants are the same, then. I mean, I know there's little plants that eat bugs, but I don't think I've really seen big ones like those." As she speaks, there's that thoughtful look coming to Kukuru's face again, but she shakes her head a moment later as if trying to get herself not to think about something bad. Alas, Kukuru's not nearly smart enough to catch any inconsistencies in the story, so 'years ago' really does mean 'years ago' in her eyes! A few years at most, maybe, but it doesn't linger in her head too long. Still hoisting however many crates she has and then some (thanks to being big and strong from eating her veggies and also anything and everything), Kukuru looks about as energetic as she did when they started this trek: Not very. It hasn't dampened her mood one bit, though, and she even seems a little more chipper when they reach the boat. Boats mean fish, and fish means fish! She doesn't have anything to cook it with right there, but she'll still offer whatever she can catch in her claws to anyone that wants incredibly fresh fresh. The people that Kukuru sees, meanwhile get friendly waves from her. She doesn't call out to them, but there's a broad smile on her face that would indicate her intentions rather clearly if she wasn't waving with one of her claws. She doesn't notice until it's time to disembark, and she's still wearing them once she hauls those crates again. "I think they're excited to see us. See, Ahny? There wasn't anything to worry about~"
Rita Ma	Rita spends a little too much visible effort convincing herself that she does not want a Kukuru-caught wild fish.
KNK	Rose doesn't respond to Rita's claim of age-related rudeness, feeling strangely vindicated by Ahn's completely unexpecterd caginess over the ostensibly different question of 'how long since you'd moved?' "The gaps you made, huh?" The ninja pair continue to be totally unaffected (visually) by the weight on their backs, with almost too-perfect balance, though thirty pounds isn't really enough to conclusively reveal how much heavier their bodies are than they look. Mountain traversal is easy enough, but it can't be quick, because then they'd leave the group and lose the trail. After mentioning 'IFF,' Rose isn't that eager to fuck around and find out, and Violet is sufficiently awed by all the things she can already see from the trail, present company included. "Hey, hey, where is Lotus? I mean, Miss Lotus?" They set their packs down after making their (slightly trepid) way onto the water. '...we don't have anything in common, right?' "If that's true, why help them out? And even go out of your way for it. You must have some reason." "Didn't you say you needed company? All~ that time up here?" Though when Violet says it, it almost sounds like she's saying something else. "Hmmm? Ooh, they have flowers, too."
Staren	Staren recognizes 21st-century ruins when she sees them, but these look even more ruined than usual. Although, she's from the great lakes area -- perhaps this is the effect of century(/ies?) of exposure to humidity...? "/How/ long ago was the apocalypse, here...?" Also, she scans the hairpin to try and discern if it contains an IFF device or what. Staren takes in the surroundings. Information on another post-apocalypse Earth will probably be of interest to scholars back home. The hike is relatively relaxing for her -- she has her case in extradimensional storage, and her shoes have some kind of hovertech that lets her take advantage of the general downward slope of travel by coasting, stopping before she builds up too much speed, coasting, stopping, and repeat -- it's less work than all the steps everyone else has to take, anyway. Environmental enchantments built into her coat even keep the humidity and heat from making her too uncomfortable. It might make her a teeeensy bit annoying to watch. Eventually, there's a boat ride and then the natives! When they call out, Staren smiles and waves back. She looks through a pair of glasses at them that have some built-in zoom function. "Ooh. I bet we could bring them a lot of supplies they could use." Robots back at the lab may be assembling a care package that includes an awful lot of guns as they speak.
James Bond	<J-IC-Scene> Charlemagne says, "Mmmmmngh-- This guy really is cool! I need to pick up a trick or two from this guy!" "You like yourself a little too much to learn any of my tricks," says Bond, the glint in his steely eyes hinting at a smart remark on the way. It halts, when he notices something about where they are, lost in thought. This jungle looks familiar. Hard to tell, with all the things that've 'filled in the gaps.' But... Stepping through the last of it, he finds the hint of a familiar skyline in the bones of the towers, and in the bend of the river. "Hanoi?" Ahn's answer snaps him from his thoughtful gaze. He opens his mouth, only to close it with a smirk when he sees her embarrassed expression. "You've probably got more in common with them than I d--" He tenses up for a moment. It sounds like excitement, that calling from their observers across the way. The sight of the guns have his body sprung like a coil, ready to leap into action, eyes scanning everything from the boat's position relative to the shore, all the way across to the colorful bullpups. No attack comes, and he can relax. After releasing a breath, "Those guns aren't like anything I've ever seen. Not just the paint," he says. "Look at the make. More modern than I'd expect, and better condition, too, for people six generations or so down the line from all this," he says, gesturing behind him at the fading, crumpled cityscape. Hefting his haul for them up, he's off the boat and walking in short order. A hand runs through his hair, though his palm discreetly presses against a concealed receiver in his ear, turning it on and scanning through local radio frequencies.
Charlemagne	"Hehehe, seems that way?" A carefree smile still exists on the young man's face as Bond makes that observation. For most of the ride he's been rather calm. Simply enjoying the experience and the like. Whether it be the marked up areas they've traversed to the boat ride, everything is taken in with a calm and cool demeanor. If there's any sort of concern he ever has on his face it's when Ishirou looks like they're gonna stop for a bit, to which he'd offer a nice pat on the back if he can. Which implies. . .He's carrying one of these boxes with just one hand. Which. . .Also doesn't seem to be an issue, which is still surprising cause despite his stature seeming rather toned, it still seemed off for him to carry it so casually all the same.. The second time he seems a bit more excited though is when smoke signals begin. A look that seems more focused appears on his face and well. . . "Nene, Miss Ahn, how far out with supplies do you usually go?" The question's honest enough. After all, he's no scientist but he knows that when strangers step into your lands, it usually leads to a bit of unwelcome attention.
Vantablitz Remnants	Ishirou scanning the water shadows gets pretty low detail. The water is filled with some kind of exotic carbon chaff (micro-organism? weird algae?) and trace heavy earth metals, though otherwise seems to be simply clean freshwater. He'd like to say that they're sharks, if they weren't way too fast, and if his scans didn't return a lack of anything like a skeletal structure; just sort of a weird, dense 'spine' through their center that branches out into a very complicated structure of interlocked layers of tissue that seem to self-support. A tiny bit like dissecting a tree or fungus, actually. Ahn is taken in by Rita's enthusiasm, her uneasy anxiety breaking up into a cheerful little laugh. "It's really impressive, isn't it? It gets bigger and bigger every time I see it. But it's prettiest inside. These trees are for feeding people, but the trees over there are 'for families', and 'for spirits', so they take very good care of them." The subject of the flare gets her to begrudgingly say "That colour is--" and then two words Rita recognizes natively. They mean 'divine visitation'. "Why not help them?" Ahn replies dumbly to Rose. "They're human too, aren't they? They're just trying to get by. They want to eat good food, sleep in a warm and safe bed, have good times together, find love, and have family, just like everyone else. They haven't done anything bad to me, so . . . ?" The hairpins do not contain IFFs. Again, they are flowers. Ahn flinches when Bond says Hanoi; she's absolutely awful at hiding her feelings. When he mentions the firearms emblazoned with those symbols, Ahn awkwardly mumbles "That's because . . . I designed those. I had to use the army issue kind before, and they weren't good enough." More brightly. "They 'found' those twenty years ago, so I'm really glad to see they're taking good care of them." She's happier to answer Charlemagne. "It depends. Usually I just leave them at the shrines. Not all the time; I don't want them to rely on me for every little thing. Some stuff I let float downriver, and some stuff I leave in the ruins around here for them to find." That husky vocoder vibrato voice answers for Ahn on the second subject. "Right here~" says a lush crown of white-black-green lotus flowers adorning the highest and grandest arch at the top steps. Liquid blackness pours from above it onto Ahn as she crosses under, simply dropping the crate and spreading out her arms as if this were perfectly ordinary. It slithers around her body like a living thing, slipping effortlessly under her clothes, dividing itself into several pieces, and then geometrically spiking like magnetically activated ferrofluid. A moment after, the liquid blackness hardens into something like a skin of spiral braided muscle with the sharp gloss of photovoltaic crystal. Sound effects unnervingly similar to wetly chomping teeth correspond to bright white plates of what looks like articulated enamel napping over one arm, the opposite leg, and Ahn's upper body, like a partial carapace (seemingly lacking the mass for the rest). Swirling glow-green designs pattern it here and there, and small red markings appear in flower petal form over the heart, and as streaks under and cornering her eyes, where Ahn rubs them with her fingers. The overall composition and balance is identical to the paint applied to the giant trees on the mountain, and the items of modern technology.
Vantablitz Remnants	Ahn shrugs off the army jacket, picking up her crates again. Her 'clothing' crackles "She has plenty of company~ I'm around all the time, after all~ Who needs anyone else~?" Somehow it sounds like it caught both meanings. "Pleased to meet you. Are you friends of my favourite little host~? Ah, that being Rita. Sorry I could only meet you through the little part of me that watches over here." Ahn huffs. "You could have come out in person if you got off your lazy butt." "That concept doesn't apply to me. I'm a lotus. The fact that I move around at all is unusual~ You're the one whose butt benefits from exercise~" "Hey!" The radio, to Bond's scans, is receiving nothing; it seems to be a beacon for the sole purpose of navigation, and has only one tightbeam channel that appears to be aimed up the mountain; a one-way transmitter. It may very well be for Ahn's benefit only. It seems to be coming from dead center, where he can see the flowering boughs of a truly enormous bodhi tree, poking well above the others. The goal appears to be a straight shot through the village to that very same giant bodhi tree. People gather up on the streets, in the gardens, and on the balconies of their homes, in great numbers, just to see. Long hair, bright colours, sandals, bracelets, elaborate sashes, feather trinkets, and ornamental flowers are the common theme. The degree of body painting (tattooing?) varies wildly, but the general rule seems to be that as quantity increases, jade is replaced with black, then added white, then added green. The wildly drifted creole they're all using sounds like some mix of Vietnamese, Korean, English, and Japanese, in that order, but is multiversally comprehensible as wild excitement, speculation about everyone but AhnLotus, and something about a shaman being right and answered prayers. Ahn keeps her embarrassed silence. The focal importance on gardens to the structure of the town is incomprehensible as anything but cultural, as every communal plot is covered in adornments, ornaments, written scrolls, incense, offerings, and jewels, along with tall stone markers where names are written, part shrine, part gathering place, part artwork, part memorial. The fact that the whole thing is built around the biggest one is logical; a separate, more classical wooden shrine has been built under it. The radio mast is sneakily concealed in the boughs. Ahn indicates to drop the load of crates here. Anyone with a nose can smell blood and antiseptic. Anyone willing to look around can find that the adjoining 'religious hall' under the tree is currently stuffed to capacity with casualties of something or other. A woman in her forties with a water lotus and an elaborate, east asian-style dress, is being helped down the stairs by what looks like a pair of handmaidens. And she-- Greets the party in pure English.
Staren	Lazy doesn't apply to Lotus, she's a lotus. "Wouldn't the word be 'sessile', then?" Staren suggests. She looks at the gathered crowd with pleased awkwardness -- she's not really a visiting god, but it's nice to be so enthusiastically welcomed! She smiles and waves back to them like a visiting dignitary. She's thinking about what gifts she can give them when she smells... a hospital? Staren follows her nose, and eyes widen at the number of patients. Someone is brought to them and speaks... "You can speak American?? ...So, what's the situation?" She waves a hand at the 'hospital', looking attentively to the doctor? leader? for an explanation.
Charlemagne	As he listens to Ahn's elaboration he just nods along. Leaving it at those spots definitely seemed like the smart way to go about it, religious offerings and bounties of the land. It probably makes sense for the native people of the land to receive it in such a way, at least given his own experiences once upon a time. Unfortunately, as the others start talking about robots though, he starts looking a bit confused. Seems like when it came to talk of robots that he kinda became the confused grandpa of the group. No matter! There was still plenty to gander and familiarize himself with. Though as he watches one thing happen, the dowsing of that black liquid there's a bit of concern in his eyes as he speaks up a word out of habit, "A Grail?!" To most the word probably would have meant nothing, but he's almost all ready to do--Something, though when it becomes apparent that Ahn and. . .Whatever this is alright with each other, he starts breathing a sigh of relief. "Oi, Ahn, warn a guy a little will ya? Auuugh, making someone worry like that isn't good for their hearts, ya know?" It takes more time till they finally reach the village and well, certain thoughts come to mind as he sees them gawking at the Elites. While most are likely trying to just give their crates onto the spot and leave it at that, after hearing Ahn's elaboration he finds himself at least trying to appear somewhat friendly. He'll try to give a smile to kids watching by, he'll give a hearty nod to certain plots in the fields that seem like they've been well taken care of, and for the woman and her handmaidens he tries to give a humble nod as well. It's only till he releases the crates at the proper location and finds they're being greeted in English does he look to Ahn again, "Oooh, she can speak to us! Yo! Nice place ya have here!"
Kukuru	Kukuru keeps some fish in her pockets for later. She or someone else (Rita) might need the snack. "... Oh, I get it. Family trees! And.. Spirit trees." Kukuru repeats that last bit to herself a few times, as if trying to figure out something amusing about it, but she gives up after a while. Instead, she spots the liquid blackness covering Ahn, and her first reaction is to... Do nothing, actually. It doesn't look like Ahn's freaking out about it, so Kukuru's content to watch the confusing, yet oddly captivating ritual as it happens. She actually gets closer for the chomping pot, shuffling around a few times and letting out an intrigued 'aaah' noise once she hears Lotus speaking through or from Ahn. "Oh, you know Rita? That's great! A nice girl like her needs more friends, too." She declares proudly, then curtseys lightly to the combined Ahn and Lotus before picking up her stack of crates again. "My name's Kukuru. Ku-ku-ru. Are you like a... What's it called..." She struggles visibly with the word for a while, but it does actually come to her for once! "... A dumpling wrapper?" It's the completely wrong word, but it's right in her head. On the way to/through the village, Kukuru keeps taking little pauses here and there to greet just about everyone she encounters. Her claws stay on the whole time, but the friendly look remains ever present. She pauses to look at all those scrolls, too, trying to make heads or tails of the words before looking towards Ishirou and Bond. "He-ey. Do you know what these words say?" Once the crates are unloaded, Kukuru stretches her arms out behind her head with a loud, satisfied noise before finally putting her claws away in her pockets. Catching that scent in the air, though, has her peeking into the hall a little sooner than she otherwise would, and that lingers on Kukuru's mind as the English-speaking woman greets the group. "Hello! Um... Are they okay in there?" She points towards the hall, then squats in place to take a load off after all that working. "What happened to everyone there/ Do you need a healer or food or whatever?" A beat, and then Kukuru snaps her fingers. "Oh. Or maybe a bunch of stuff that we brought?"
Ishirou	Ishirou stops carrying the case and sighs, letting it hit the ground. He gives Rita some thanks and walks. The POD is still carrying theirs because he can do that. Ishirou watches as they walk, staring at everything and everyone. It's very interesting, it's very cool to him and he's eager to get to know these people. Though he's clearly figured out why the flower was necessary. When Lotus reveals herself, he smiles and waves a hand. "Hi Lotus, how are you? Though stop with the eating jokes..." it's bad enough Rita is right there too! Ishirou's senses are sparked ahead of time, though a few might be able to beat his general sense package. He runs inside the moment he notices that there is a scent of blood. The injured people...he isn't a medical doctor, but he does have the advantage of a sensor package. He rushes inside and starts immediately helping by trying to ID injuries, and providing what basic first aid he can assist in.
Rita Ma	Rita takes a crate off of Ishirou's hands, at his request. After an initial little 'hup', she doesn't show any issues carrying it. That only makes sense, though; he's seen her rip metal with her hands before. "Ms. Lotus!! There you are. I missed you!" It always seems like a tossup whether scary things will get under Rita's skin, or whether she'll cling to them fondly like a life raft. Lotus is in the latter category. Rita tucks an orange crate under her arm so she can awkwardly wave without having to set them down. "I'm not a host, I told you," she responds, in a tone of eye-rolling embarrassment. "It's still just me." But the pair of them know exactly to what extent that is, and isn't, true. Being stared and gossiped at by the village makes Rita shrink into herself, adorably self-conscious. But long before the 'hospital' comes into view, her spine straightens, her eyes widen to stare in its direction, and her demeanor abruptly shifts. Human blood. And a lot of it. It takes her a second to realize they're being greeted, like she's coming to from a daydream. She sets down the crates in order to give the obviously-important woman a hasty, polite bow when it clicks. Fumbling a little: "Please forgive us for intruding. We've brought supplies on Ms. Ahn's behalf. I hope that these can be useful to you." Then, glancing between Ahn and the Important Woman both: "What happened here? Why are so many people hurt in the first place? This can't be normal, right?"
James Bond	Bond catches the flinch, but outwardly, he doesn't much seem to react to it. Or perhaps he doesn't want to react to it, overmuch--which seems more likely when he attempts to reassure her. "By all accounts," says Bond to Ahn, looking around at the clear signs of development, culture, of life itself. "It looks like the least harm a few 'found' crates of guns has ever done." "I don't know how open I'd be about it, though," he cautions. "At least, not until you figure out what the paint's supposed to mean. Looks almost religious to me," muses Bond, before a quiet chuckle briefly shakes his cool composure. "You might be s saint, you know." It's then that Lotus makes her appearance. "No," he says, "On second thought," Bond grins with his hand upon his chin. "Maybe a little higher on the pay scale." Through the village, Bond looks uncomfortable. He's not used to being seen, much less speculated about with anything resembling positive reception by strangers. "Clever," he says, of the drop point, lowering with his knees to carefully drop off his armfull. How in God's name is that suit not ruined by this point? "It is," says Bond in agreement with Charlemagne, "And we'd like to help it stay that way," he continues. Watching Ishirou rush over to help the injured, Bond nods towards him. "He's going to help with your wounded--I'm more useful with one of those," he says, nodding towards the nearest bearer of a painted assault rifle, "Than a needle and sutures." "But if there's anything else we can do, we'll be happy to."
KNK	'They're human too, aren't they?' "What? That's enough for you?" '...and some stuff I leave in the ruins around here for them to find.' "Ohh, like a treasure hunt! You like games like that? But you like 'setting them up' more, or 'playing them'?" Again, Violet makes it sound like she's talking about something else. Rose is considering this all with an expression that would be more easily readable if half her face wasn't covered. Observing Ahn and Lotus's transformation -- or, perhaps, 'adornment' -- Violet chooses to respond specifically to Ahn's casual approach, "Ooh! Gosh, you two are intimate, aren't you?" out of all the things she could say. "Okay, so, that's Lotus. If Rita hadn't cleared this," Rose dryly remarks, "I'd think we were in horrible danger just by being anywhere near you." Almost as if she still thinks that Lotus looks terribly hazardous just to be remotely close to despite Rita's vouching for her. "Nice to meet you? Or, no, that was you back there, too. Distributed intellect? Or it is just networking? I think I'm picking up a radio signal near here, but that can't be 'you.'" And the people think they're possibly spirits, maybe, or mountain people, or... who knows. The English is the only part that mostly overlaps with what Rose and Violet can understand, and they're not that great with 'pure English,' either. (It mostly just sounds really funny and posh, in their ears, with their own speech being an Anglo-Sino-Slavic creole.) While Rose keeps the same pace, Violet starts prancing. Full-on leaping ten feet into the air and pantomiming scattering petals from a basket, staying roughly with the group only by circling it. She doesn't have any wings, but she does have little jets on her legs. They're a subtle effect, if the thing you're watching for isn't 'non-ballistic arcs.' 'Smell' they're not particularly good at, but somewhere in the vague vicinity of 'ordinary human' they can manage for at least some substances. "Huh? Rose, blood." That one's high on the list. "Should I...?" She looks about to duck away from the group, but Rose says, "No, stay in sight. Let's see this one play out a little longer."
Vantablitz Remnants	"If anyone here is senile, it's you." Lotus vibro-drawls back at Staren. Ahn watches Chalemagne innocently. "About what?" Both of them respond to Kukuru at the same time. "A what?" "A what?" Ahn answers Kukuru about the scrolls and markers. "Stone is for ancestors and paper is for 'divine spirits'. Humans return to the earth, and flowers grow towards the sun. People rise and blossom like plants then wither and turn back to dirt." "Except you." Lotus adds. Ahn makes an uncomfortable noise. Lotus makes an unnerving laugh at Ishirou. "Heheheh. Jokes. You're cute." Followed by "Aww, I would never eat Rita~ I might give her a little taste though." A louder, less menacing laugh. "True, true~ Didn't we settle on you being the invader~?" Ahn stares at Rose again. "Why? Is it not enough for you? People are supposed to help each other, aren't they? That's . . . how humans are." She doesn't quite seem to get Violet's meaning. "Um, I guess I mostly set them up." Lotus does. "Oh she'll play them for hours~" Then to Rose herself, "Nice to meet you too~ You look like fun~ Distributed is closer to the truth. My 'body' is back on the mountain though, I'm afraid~ The radio is just so the 'me' can send signals to CAMELIA you know." Ahn sighs tremulously for Bond. "I'm . . . ugh . . . 'the deva of the sacred mountain', I guess." The older woman who greets the group breathes a reassured sigh when they respond to her. By looking at her, she's the only one with a single red mark in all her designs. It seems like a reserved colour. "Of course. It is a duty of the Sakadagami to pass down the enlightened tongue, so that the devas may hear our prayers clearly. This is the first time we have welcomed 'people of the mountain', and so I fear our hospitality is inadequate, in this critical time." The handmaids return into the building and come back out with a small group of male helpers (monks?), who see to the crates immediately. They say prayers (sutras?) before opening each one, but are audibly relieved and overjoyed to find them stuffed full of modern medical supplies, packaged high-calorie food, chemical lights, ammunition, and basically what you'd expect to find in an emergency crate. Those entering the hall are welcomed in with reverent respect, as if their attention as healers were a matter of course; expected, even, by the nature of their being. The number of wounded is unfortunately extreme. Most have been badly injured by physical lacerations or trauma. Some are missing limbs; a few are blind. Half of them have fairly horrific burns, both thermal and chemical. Ishirou's scanning finds that all of them are, to some degree, poisoned, with some complex organic neurotoxin he can't pinpoint to anything he knows of. It should definitely have killed them by now, but mostly seems to be getting absorbed and filtered by-- His medical scans reveal that the flower ornaments in their hair aren't really flowers. The structure is rooted right into the skull; microfilaments extend through the brain, and branch through the major nervous system pathways symbiotically. It seems to be preventing neurological failure.
Vantablitz Remnants	The ostensible matriarch adopts a posture of hands-together ritual respect as Ahn moves her way up to the front, dropping to one knee, while her maids lower their eyes and kneel on both. "It is an honour to receive you, as my mother did before me, and hers did before her. If you have heeded our desperate prayer, then you know already that the demons from under the mountain have escaped their prison. They have emerged; breached into the sensing realm. We have used your gifts as wisely as we could, and those who have died have fought bravely to honour you, but I fear that this is a matter well beyond mere moral hands. Please. As the deva of the mountain, she who seals ten thousand devils and brings guidance to noble spirits, we beg of you to correct this perversion of the realms, in protection of the virtuous souls who live here, who have always walked the upright path." Ahn reaches out and takes the woman's hands. "Be at peace. I would be here for no other reason. Lay a sacred trail to the gates of hell and it will be shut." she says. However, it's Lotus' voice, broadcast telepathically, that says <<That's a problem. Something must have caved in, if there's a way in and out of Hell all the way down here.>>
Ishirou	Ishirou is learning a lot today, clearly, the poison that should be killing them is being drawn out by the flower, which is symbiotic with the humans here. Thinking about this, he decides to not bother with trying to ID the poison right away, instead copying the scans for later. He sends that data to the POD for storage, so that they can upload it to the Paladin's database for processing. What he does do is help the doctors as he can, trying to relieve the burden of these numbers with his own, though limited, skills. He does, however, also point out things that are not apparent. For wounds that are not obvious, or internal, he will point them out explaining the best that he can. He also helps doctors quickly ID wounds and their severity to increase the efficiency of treatment and care. He does his best to stay out of the real doctor's ways for things he's not skilled at, and also helps with things like getting water and bandages. He's really just an advanced nurse at this point, but with the benefit of medical scanners to help doctors treat. Also organization skills.
Kukuru	"You know. Like the... Food with the meat and veggies inside, and the crispy skin outside." Kukuru explains to the symbiotic pair, pointing at the white plates and everything else covering Ahn. "Just.. Not for-real eating, I guess. Right?" <J-IC-Scene> KNK. Rose says, "Who's the least edible person here? Assuming we're all people." <J-IC-Scene> Ishirou says, "Why...?" <J-IC-Scene> KNK. Rose says, "Tell you later." <J-IC-Scene> Vantablitz Remnants \|Lotus hmmmms. "Rita. Then the one in the funny shirt. Then Kukuru." <J-IC-Scene> KNK. Rose says, "... ... Which funny shirt?" <J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, "Least edible... Eh? I'm tasty! Probably." When Kukuru thinks nobody is looking, she chews on her hand briefly. Current tests are inconclusive. The older woman explains the situation, and Kukuru looks over at the wounded in the hall again. "We'll take care of it, mhm. Before we head down, though...!" Spotting Ishirou heading in to aid the doctors, Kukuru nods lightly in approval before heading into that hall as well to do one what she does... Best? Really good, at least: Healing. Lots and lots of healing. She may not have expertise in the form of medical knowledge, but the regenerative nanites swirling around inside of her start flowing outside of her. Even on a bad day, they're already capable of healing grievous wounds or restoring once-dead flesh, and even the poisons coursing through all these people are going to have to contend with the brute-force curatives suddenly introducing themselves into the wounded. If Ishirou or any of the doctors direct Kukuru, meanwhile, she might even start working more efficiently than just looking for whoever's making the most noise.
Staren	Staren sucks in air through her teeth when she sees the extent of the injuries. She makes a motion of pulling up her sleeves, but they don't move with the vambraces attached. "Alright. Let's..." She blinks. Oh right. Kukuru is here. She turns to the slothful-mom. "Kukuru, have you got this covered?" While Kukuru works, she delivers her crate(s?) to the monks, and upon seeing the contents, warps in an additional, larger crate of medical supplies, dozens of simple LED lights, and a few caseless SMGs with several magazines of smart material bullets for each. Look, she has a bunch of those to unload and this is as worthy a cause to donate to as any. Staren then heads back over to the matriarch, who is... kneeling? Awkward. "Oh, you don't have to..." Staren looks to Ahn/Lotus and transmits via cybercomms, <"'Demons from under the mountain?'"> Staren then turns her head back to the matriarch. "Please, tell us all observations you have about the demons that escaped... we'd like to know just which ones we're dealing with." Hopefully that's a sensible question to ask...
KNK	'People are supposed to help each other, aren't they?' Rose stares at Ahn. The motion of the cameras in her eyes is subtle, like a faint glittering in the iris, a blink as lens are exchanged, layers of information on electromagnetic radiation sorted through digital filters before hitting the outermost layers of her MMI that don't mimic, but replace, where optic nerves would be. It's interpretable as color, with training, though there's no way to ever know if two minds can see the same color, even when they are observing the same spectrum. 'Ultraviolet' only means 'invisible to most,' not 'all.' "Yeah, sure," she says, dropping the topic. After checking that there's nothing hostile in the area, Rose relaxes. There is essentially nothing either she or Violet can do for a bunch of wounded (probably, mostly) humans. Violet stopped pretending to be a faery once they were greeted, and returned to Roses's side when she smelled blood. The prospect of 'demons' is a lot easier to handle than the humanitarian mission (as Rose would call it if she'd ever heard of one). It's also easier than keeping a straight face at Ahn's religious ceremony, though Rose is mostly succeeding at not making a sound. 'You look like fun~' That, though. "What do you do for fun around here, anyway?" "Oh, I absolutely want to hear this."
Charlemagne	"About...Whatever that just was! I seriously thought you were being eaten by that stuff or what not. It'd be seriously uncool if we let that happen to you after you're trying to be so kind to these people, right? Though. . ." Now that he's been able to settle down a bit though, he was trying to look a bit more at this tuff before Lotus had ended up speaking and well...From there he just keeps his distance, it's just a little peculiar even for him. He's known people being turned into trees...But not trees turning into people into their hosts! By the time Ahn essentially elaborates the situation, the apparent matriarch of the village or whomever she was, explained things of the demons and well, not that Charlie hasn't dealt with demons before, but at the same time. . . He attempts to speak telepathically as well, <<Hello? Testing. Testing. Hello! Man, if I'm just talking to myself in my head, I'm gonna feel really silly. Ah- Anyway, so what's all this about hell they're talking about? I'm guessing it's not really but. . .What exactly are these demons they're mentioning supposed to be though?>>
Rita Ma	"'Invader' is hardly any better! You're just being terrible," Rita grumbles, though she also seems somehow embarrassed. "Do you have to call me anything like that? It's like if I called you 'clothes'." "'Hell'," Rita repeats softly, still seeming a little bit 'out of it'. "That's... Ms. Ahn, you mentioned 'training there', didn't you? Way down that well. It's full of monsters, isn't it?" She shudders, just a little, and looks off towards the horizon as if she might be able to see the breach. "Whenever you go down there, I want to help. If that's okay. I know you could probably help these people on your own, but... you've already done a lot for me. I want to make it easier for you, too." But, assuming they're not mobilizing for the counterattack immediately, Rita gravitates towards the hospital next, digging into her little leather satchel for the simple medical supplies she carries. She's much less effective at the job than Kukuru, but guided by Ishirou's information, she Does Her Best to help patch them up. She frets and grimaces sympathetically about the extent of the injuries, but her discomfort is more for the suffering of the people than the actual sight of mangled bodies. Even if it only helps a tiny bit, that makes her feel better.
James Bond	Bond chuckles. "I'll keep that in mind," he says to Ahn, his blue eys brightening with his slight smile. It turns to something more serious, as he hears the woman's response. "It's anything but, I'll have to insist," he gently disagrees. "I don't think I've ever had a reception like that," Bond amusedly adds, hand on his chin. Something catches his attention--some thought, discovery, or revelation has Bond looking away. The finger of one hand fidgets slowly with the cufflink, before he remembers where he is. "Demons," Bond says quietly. Well, if he's fought Antegent, why not demons? There's a nod of his head, a sharp coldness in his eyes. "Alright," he says in a collected, professionally detached tone. "Tell me about them. I saw burns on the warriors--how exactly do they accomplish that? Do they sleep? Eat???"
Vantablitz Remnants	"Oh? Are you looking to try wearing me~?" Lotus teases Rita right back. When Violet eggs her on, she answers with malicious truthfulness. "Up on the mountain? There's leftover movies, books, and games, but I've finished most of them. Ahn taught me to play some new ones, and we made some up too. Ahn really likes her gardening, but I like hunting more~ Let's see, sparring is pretty fun~ Exploring too. There's plenty of relaxing things to do, if you like hiking or fishing. Ahhh, but it's really the helldives that are exhilirating~ That and when Ahn gets--" "Enough from you!!" "--for days sometimes--" "La la la la I'm locking you in the freezer when we get back!" Inside the temple hall, the healers around aren't unskilled at their job, and it's clear Ahn has somehow taught them all about using the modern drugs and sensors, feeds and surgical tools, as well as a few things that are less recognizable. Possibly another case of her own designs. Something for skin grafts? And perfusions? The combined prowess of several Elite healers is taken, altogether, as merely the supernatural powers of higher reincarnations. However, Kukuru in particular finds that her healing is slow; her nanites are aggressively dissassembled and absorbed by the 'root system' in each individual person, as if it were the neurotoxin. In the more serious time and place, the matriarch replies apologetically, "While it may be a simple matter for beings of the higher realms to identify demonic beings, it is very difficult for those of us within the human realm. Our warriors report countless forms amongst them, such that scarcely two look alike. A demonic parade from the western lakebed. Even the fumes of the hell realm now hang over it. I know not what profanity has occurred to enable this, but we will do everything within our power to purify it. We have sealed them in only for a very short time by breaking the earth, and for that, we humbly beg the forgiveness of the deva of the mountain." "As you know, demonic beings a sluggish in the dark, but their power is greatest at the height of summer, where they are known to ravage and proliferate, then slumber in the winter. They will break free in a matter of days, I am told. Summoning the holy warrior deva was our last resort. Otherwise we would have to leave the valley completely." <<The interior complex of the mountain. We've been working on finding out what it is and why it's there for . . . twelve years now? Ahn says that when she came to shelter CAMELIA, she went into the mountain once, to turn on something, or turn off something, or put something somewhere, so that all the neomorphs in the area were lured into it, and then she sealed up all the entrances. That's why the valley is so safe. She didn't go back there for a really long time, but now that I'm here, she can't leave it alone. The problem is, either there really are millions of prey in there, or they're repopulating somehow. They leak onto the mountainside sometimes, but in small numbers. Even these guys can kill them when there's that few. If there's a big breach though, a gigantic swarm could emerge.>>
Rita Ma	"Oh? Are you looking to try wearing me~?" Rita reflexively makes a Face. It's the kind of face you'd make after stepping in something really gross. There is no contemplation or consideration required. "Not any more than you'd like getting 'invaded', Ms. Lotus." Grump. Pout.
Ishirou	Ishirou watches over as Kukuru tries to heal someone, specifically watching how the flower gets rid of them. He records this a few times...then raises a hand up with the idea to try and biohack the flower itself, attempting to make it recognize (specifically) Kukuru's nanites as 'friendly' and not harmful poison to be kicked out. Sort of like an immune suppressant. He might need one or two tries to make this right, but once he has a solution he can start hacking flowers to let Kukuru start healing the grievous wounds. If doctors ask, he explains that their immune systems are too good! He doesn't frame it as bad but explains that sometimes the body can be overzealous in defending itself.
James Bond	"It's quite alright," Bond politely offers back. "Besides, that's all quite useful information to have--trust me." It'd probably be a decent enough set of things to look for, given the information he already has about this place. "In fact, it's already given me an idea," he says with a sly, reassuring smile. "Excuse me for a moment," says Bond, with a deferential bow of his head, before turning to walk a few feet away... and look at his watch. Navigating past displays on body armor integrity, biometrics, and radio signals, Bond finds a map. A tap of his finger adds a pin. Lowering the watch, as its virtual display fades to a flawless imitation of an expensive designer analog, Bond straightens his tie, turns, and strides up to AhnLotus. "A moment, deva?" he asks, with a confident smile. "A Paladins drone," he begins, his voice low. "Brought in through your gate, flown overtop. Advance reconnaissance. Analysis." He pauses. "It would mean people would have to bring the drone through and set it up here. They'd need flowers, too. Are you..." His brow furrows. "Would that be alright?"