Scene #6482: *Marama's Fell-2

Owner	Pose
Bloody Revelations	Going deeper into one of the largest shadowlands in Creation isn't something to be done lightly. At least, not too lightly anyway. Knowing that most of it is under the control of a would-be ghost warlord makes things easier, in many senses, because it drastically diminishes the potential for wandering Bad Things to happen if the area is nominally under martial organization. Still, it is prudent not to go back in the middle of the night. With some choice about the matter, early morning is best. Even though it's morning though, once one goes any distance past those borders, the sun's light becomes weak and washed out, like the rays slipping past thick curtains in a dim and disused room. Even then, though, it feels like a welcome difference from last time, where even the pallid and weak morning manages to banish some of the unnatural cold, like an unpleasant memory of winter rather than something defined by northern spring ice and ground snow. It's a anaemic sort of merciful quality, making the journey a little easier, when the worst of the things in shadowlands have retreated back into the Underworld, so as not to be trapped within its borders by day, where the shadowland merges with Creation instead. Trekking deeper, through miles and miles of razed and wasted forest, acres of ancient trees leveled by the thousands and turned to petrified black stumps, host to spires of unmelting ice and shadows, the way forward is uneventful and unharried. The odd giant raven, skittering thing, and even the sight of something like a massive horse skeleton, watching the procession silently from the distance, don't bother to interfere. It's fairly boring, if spooky and tense, for quite a while too, with the only marker of progression through the desolate landscape being the intensifying feeling of ambient wrongness, or perhaps reverse-ness, of everything, like breathing in feels like emptying your lungs and your skin feels inside out. The lack of meaningful scenery ceases about a mile or two in, where signs of what you'd seen before start to appear again in force. Mass graves, first. Some completely uncovered, piled neck deep with bones from corpses that were simply bulldozed in. Obvious sites of huge pyres, some still un-lit, remains still strapped to iron poles where they'd presumably starved to death after some mass abandonment had taken place. Temporary walls set up, riddled with what appear to be bullet holes or blast marks, with the ground swept clean beneath them. Going further in, the more sophisticated things seem to get. Gruesome pikes and pseudo-crucifixes give way to small furnace buildings and airtight outdoors chambers, as well as artificial pools dug into the ground and filled with who knows what, and bubbling geysers of some faintly glowing, ghostly green fluid. Further than that, one starts to run into what look like actual faculties. Buildings ostensibly built for habitation, of a sparse and military sort, looking to be menial staff barracks more than anything, as well as tiny offices of a sort, and closed off and covered supply depots. There are no dead around here, which goes to show, as all of the remains so far have been inhuman. That is, unless one counts a technical workshop with a number of items still littered around, which contain a number of inactive and partially disassembled automata, superficially similar to Impeccable Abacus.
Staren	A straightforward mission: They're here to destroy a bad guy. Well. Find a bad guy's weakness. Although destroying him, temporarily, is on the table if it comes to it. Mysterious green goo. Staren collects a sample container. "So... Do any of you have a particular plan here? I mean, we're walking into this guy's base... given there's noone else here, it doesn't seem like he could not notice us, and I'm not exactly sneaky..."
Empty Tidings	Empty Tidings has no desire to be within the borders of this shadowland after dark. If she absolutely has to be, she'll deal with it; if she has any choice in the matter, she'd rather be there during mildly more comfortable daylight hours. It is worth noting that she is on this world's sun's personal shit list for the purpose of this comparison. The 'Solar Exalted' comes prepared this time. Knowing that animals won't come this far and aware that walking long distances is for people used to such an activity (she isn't), she's brought an actual entourage instead of merely claiming ownership of the one assembled by the general presence of Do-Gooders: a dozen strapping young men, dressed in light armor that looks like it could be local grave goods or battlefield salvage. Some of them are bearing a litter on their shoulders without complaint. Tidings is, of course, reclined in relative comfort on the litter as they pick their way through the trashed environs. It's more like poles and hammocks than a palanquin, but it's got pillows, and isn't reliant on a beast that will flee at the first sign of danger. "I hate this place," Tidings sighs, peering at the little buildings they've stopped near. "I suppose we'd better start looking for more ghosts if we want to get anywhere, though." Her nearest guard does not respond. Or go looking.
N'Raha	Wark Wark. It's been rougher than usual, getting his trusty Chocobo to actually make the trip out here this time, but it's done. The tall green bird canters uneasily into the clearing in front of the buildings, holding two people in the saddle. Raha is here, not in his sweater and jeans, but something much more respectable. A smart green suit jacket and pants and a tie and he looks like his a Serious Business Catte. Here's here to deduct your expenses... OR YOUR LIFE. Ahem. There's a huff though, as he untucks himself from around his partner, sliding out of the saddle while holding onto Dogmeat's reins. "Come on, let Inga off and I'll send you back home, you big dummy." A glance around to Empty and Staren, as he holds out a hand for Inga. "...This place is still wrong."
Tomoe	How to kill a ghost and make them stay dead? Was not a train of though Tomoe thought she'd ever have to deal with or even think about so far as a flight of fancy but that is what the group is very much here to do. She'd armed herself as best she could and made what preparations she was able to make for this. She heads once more into the Shadowlands with the rest of the group and seems to be uneasy, she's never feeling right in the Shadowlands. Even in the daylight hours it leaves her haunted for lack of a better term and she notices something watching them from the old burnt out forest as they move. It doesn't seem keen to pick a fight so she'll leave it be. Memories of footage and image from the second world war and other conflicts on her own world come to mind as she sees the mass graves and everything else to go with it. She'll not touch anything nor move to take anything any urger she might get at times to loot things? Are utterly just suppressed by the horror of this place. % "Not much of one but I have to wonder if he's looking for the mother of all fights and if that's the case Staren we can certainly give it to him." She look to N'Raha as he gets off his trusty Chocobo and nods "I have to agree there N'raha...it is." She meanwhile looks at Empty Tidings and her goons and just has had this whole /really/ look on her face for the whole trip, whenever her view passed her way. "Right let's get to searching, shall we? Let us not stray too far from each other, however." Now where would the Ghosts be lurking around here, which might seem like a silly question, but given the nature of the Shadowland? They could be almost anywhere.
Gawain	Gawain walks alongside Tiding's 'palanquin', dressed in full armor, sword sheathed at his side. As they approach, he talks to her. "Well! I think it's quite lovely for a horrible undead forest." He hates it but it's got...aesthetic, basically. As they approach the automaton, Gawain starts picking around for anything valuable or identifying. Anything that they might be able to use coming up, or that might seem Important to science-y people like Staren. "Don't fear, friends. We'll find our way through this and slay our enemy!"
Inga Freyjasdottir	This has been one of the more depressing road trips that she has taken, that is for sure. Whatever countryside could have been admired is soured by the presence of so many corpses. She could certainly do with some bones, but she has a feeling that her traveling companions wouldn't take kindly to her searching for bones to put in her bag. "This is a terrible place," she states at some point, and she's not sure any would argue. She suppose a necromancer might be joyful here, but that is just about it. The wrongness of this dead place is not unfamiliar to her. It reminds her of a time best forgotten. If this were some other journey, some other place, she'd have told stories or sung songs to help the time pass for them all, but she is mostly silent, riding pillion behind N'raha on his chocobo. A steafast beast, and a warriors mount--even if it did resemble a giant chicken. Inga eyes the green goo, but as Staren takes a she decides she will let him discover it's sercrets and perhaps share with her later. She sighs as the chocobo stops and Raha dismounts. She takes the offered hand and slides clumbsily from the saddle, grabbing her walking stick to steady herself once her feet are on the ground. "It's death. You are alive. Of course it is wrong," she says, looking around the clearing and toward the buildings. She glances toward Empty Tidings and presses her lips together thoughtfully at the litter. She wants one of /those/. Until such a time as he needs to potentially fight things, Inga would link arms with Raha, having him to lean on improving her gait considerably. "I could go look around as a spirit," she offers with a small shrug. "I believe this place is already a shadow of the living world...I do wonder what would happen." Inga goes limp then, as she attempts to project her spirit out of her body as she is accustomed to doing. Raha probably won't let her break anything when she falls over, right?
N'Raha	Raha does in fact have time to catch Inga, though... "Oh, Twelves warn me when you're doing that, please." He lightly cups an arm around the Seer's waist and snags her walking stick for good measure while she takes an Astral Walk.
All-Seeing Eye	The Multiverse's best dressed state champion finds that, by this point, shadowlands are old hat. Some would say that's arrogant, and perhaps they're right. He holds himself confidently, idly adjusting his synth-leather gloves. Still dressed for winter, his vibrant demeanor is at odds with the atmosphere. All smiles beneath the fur-lined ushanka which bears Claslat's emblem, his expression does sour slightly when he notices during the journey their silent, distant observers. Still, he's sure to make his greetings and pleasantries sufficiently bubbly. Tidings in particular receives a wry, knowing smile, and he files in beside her as soon as he's able. "I do," says Eye to Staren. "I have a most efficient means of discovering whatever emotional baggage binds our opponent to this mockery of life. Finding it, and severing it, should be a simple matter, if he's here. If not, I'll find where he is." The Exalt shrugs affably, his attention turning to the partially disassembled automaton. "My thoughts exactly, Tidings, dear." From the center of his palm sprouts a dark metal spike. He first checks to see if it's powered on, or able to be powered on. If so, he jabs the spike into it and begins searching for memories related to their quarry.
Bloody Revelations	Staren goes to collect a sample. It immediately sticks to his container like gel, bursts into green flame, and melts it in seconds in his fingers, consuming the thing like kindling regardless of what it's made of. People probably got pushed into this pit. Gawain goes to the workshop, and finds things in two primary categories. One is huge amounts of intentionally 'destroyed' artificial creatures, some frankly indistinguishable from humans except for where they've been opened up, and exposed impossibly elaborate insides that would take microchip-tier assembling machinery to build. Most of them have so many magical components that they they're grossly inefficient to try and smash, so they've been exhaustively dismantled until they stopped working as a way of 'killing them'. The other category is of stuff that has been taken apart with clear and careful intent to put it back together again. Though the parts on the tables and racks have since been covered in thick layers of dust, skilled hands have taken great care to document, label, and draw diagrams of all the pieces and their connections, probably hoping to learn how they work and reactivate them in the future, possibly being too valuable to outright destroy. The tools for doing so, including various scanning lenses, almost clockwork multi-tools, sticky anti-grav stones, weird spherical hammerspace containers, and the like, are all immaculately intact, as are what look like thin exo-frames for power lifting and heavy duty work, and a handful of magitech rifles and handguns, which oddly haven't been looted. It's easily the most preserved level of old technology (though, not old old technology) he's seen outside of Lookshy, and he already knows who owns all that now. Amongst the intact pieces, a register of names has been taken; specifically, the names of the automata. None of them are model numbers or makes; they are all bespoke, one of a kind pieces, with people names or local sobriquets, ostensibly 'citizens' of some variety or another, documented like . . . Well, Tomoe is right. Pretty much exactly like a 'camp'. There are references to a broader compendium of these documents, as these seem to be copies from out of a larger database keeping track of everyone sent to this place, listed as 'Camp 17' rather than Marama's Fell. Inga projecting her soul out of her body immediately finds that the experience is more comfortable. There is no longer so much a feeling of the very ambiance of the place 'flowing in reverse', like rubbing her hypothetical fur the wrong way. It doesn't really look any different, already being a melange of the living and dead worlds in the first place, but she finds herself oddly invigorated, as if her powers are marginally stronger and easier to use. She can walk through the walls and all with no problem. There'd apparently been no ghosts, and no shadowland, at the time this place was operational, or else that'd have been a security hazard to address. All this badness came after.
Bloody Revelations	All-Seeing Eye basically just goes and cheats. Most of the automaton are hopelessly chopshopped, and the few that have functioning Animating Intelligence (A.I. geddit? hurrhurr) cores are shut down to complete unconsciousness, and would require a lot of rebuilding and recharging to get running again. There is one that at least operates off a bound elemental, currently in a coma, which he can search with no resistance, but with very little clarity, gaining only dreamlike impressions. Given the sheer size of this place, it seems unlikely this random machine person would know Achiba on a personal basis. As far as he can tell, there's only a dim recollection of the name, amongst so many others. The elemental knows that Achiba belongs to some kind of gene-engineered species literally bred for gladiatorial sport by the old regime, and meant to be as aggressive, bloodthirsty, and perpetually angry as possible. The elemental knows that they were largely heavily restrained and killed first as a priority, probably personally by 'Anjei Marama' (probably the Fell's namesake) and her(?) personal assistants. Apparently, Camp 17 used to be much, much smaller.
N'Raha	Raha feels a little bit lame here, but he's got a very important job to do. Keep peopel safe, especially his partner. The light hold he's got on Inga shifts into a Princess Carry as he hoists the little viking up into his arms, and shuffles over to the building to follow the rest of the crowd. Catmeat, for his part, has apparently had enough of this nonsense, and promptly evaporates into a cloud of aether and feathers, going back wherever he came from.
Inga Freyjasdottir	Inga sighs, all of that wrongness sliding away as she projects her spirit outside of her body. No wonder the ghosts wanted to stay here. This place was for them. It likely made them feel as alive as was possible. Inga drifts through the buildings now, having no trouble getting around. So she simply searches, hoping to find another spirit to speak to and ask some questions of. "Hello?" she calls, and listens for an answer. She trusts Raha is taking care of her body while her spirit wanders. She will not stray too far from her body, and not for too long. If she doesn't find anyone to speak to now, she'd head back to her body.
Tomoe	Tomoe is engaging in the search and when the list is found she's going to go over them to see what she can find on them keeping an eye out for anyone of note there. If there's a list of the automata here? There could be a wider list of the captives here including their target. "Hey if we can find more of the list here we might be able to find something on our target if there are more records left." So Tomoe will pull her smartphone out of her inventory and snap off a few pictures of the documents before she's going to start looking about. With an objective in mind? Tomoe's going to go hunting for more records if she can find them, perhaps here's a record office somewhere? They had to keep track of the prisoners right?
Gawain	Loot! Good loot! Gawain starts collecting weapons and tools, and when Tomoe's done snapping pictures, calls her over. "Tomoe! Can you carry all of this for us in your inventory?" If she accepts, Gawain just carries chunks of Preserved Tech and Preserved Weapons and shoves them onto Tomoe as if she was a pack mule. But a friend! A friend pack mule. And then, he progresses. As he does, he calls out. "Hello! Anyone there? Olly olly oxenfree!" The last part is to see if his voice echoes at all.
Staren	Staren immediately jerks back and throws the burning container into the pool. Accompanying the others into the base, he's soon drawn into examining the constructs, an intense academic interest in how they're put together and animated and programmed that could easily make him lose a lot of time if others weren't here. He probably can't learn anything in-depth with brief examination, but he makes sure to scan all the documents and notes. Gawain's comment draws him out of it. "Hmm? Oh, yes, yes, we should put them back together... hopefully these notes are complete enough to..." He can stow away collected parts in his bag and try to suck the constructs into the matter manipulator, at least. At some point he remembers that Eye said he had an answer to their problem. "Oh, hey, so, how are you gonna get the information, anyway?" Staren asks innocently, unaware that Eye's plan was apparently to learn the guy's weakness by scanning the mind of one of his victims.
Empty Tidings	Empty Tidings is comfortable. Empty Tidings is also bored. Momentarily considering following Eye around while he stabs things, she gives Tomoe a brief glance, and then eyes N'raha and his friend the temporary corpse for a moment longer, some unreadable expression crossing her face. "I'm pleased to see I wasn't the only one to think to bring a retainer for this little errand." She sits up with a sinuous motion, stretching languidly, and then swings her legs over the side of the litter. One of the guards steps up and scrapes snow and dirt off a flagstone with the flat bottom of his rectangular shield. She slides down onto it. She isn't really shod for hikes right now. "I did not come all this way to be ignored," Tidings grouses. She marches into the camp, followed by her small retinue, marching in almost eerie lockstep behind her. She finds an open space -- an intersection, maybe, or just a cleared spot where something used to be; she's not certain -- and presses her hands together, palm to palm, bowing her head and closing her eyes as if in prayer. But since no gods will answer anyone's pleas out here, she does something potentially productive instead. There's a subtle ripple in the air around her, and a gust of wind that whips age-old corpse-dust into a frenzy. A tremendous pillar of golden luminescence, looking like a pillar made of stained glass windowpanes all fitted erratically, erupts into the sky. It unfurls, interlocking intangible pieces fanning out into a tremendously intricate mandala made of warped, glowing windows. It's also the size of a moderate-sized apartment building and visible for what must be miles, which ought to get /something/ they can interrogate to (re-)death to notice.
All-Seeing Eye	Animating Intelligences are an entirely legitimate field and completely different from Artificial Intelligences. As it turns out, the bound elemental doesn't know much. With a sigh, Eye removes the spike, and the device withdraws, pulled back into its port by the retreating data transfer cable. "What a waste." All the energy that was put into destroying these out of spite could have been put towards reprogramming them! He's the last one who should criticize for pure spite, but... Staren approaches behind him, and Eye stops the spike before it fully retreats into his palm. The Exalt turns around and holds it up. "Data transfer!~ This darling little Charm can access and read memory. I haven't had any luck so far." With a backwards nod towards the one which looked like Impeccable Abacus, Eye pouts. "That one's the only one with enough power left, and only then because an Elemental is powering it. Why, if you could repair one of these darling things, I'd be ever so grateful!" Behind his back, one fist clenches. He hasn't forgotten Staren's involvement in some of the reality dissident's plots. "I do have to ask why you're here, though... I thought you and... your friend would want something like this." His tone is 'innocent' compared to Staren's genuine innocence, and he gestures around vaguely with the hand that holds the spike. "Surely, the better idea would be having her come down here and... doing whatever it is she does," he says, his gesturing now slightly dismissive, "To give this brute we're after a more... genuine existence? Or does she only save people she has a use for?"
Staren	"Well, it might take awhile, but if the big guy's not gonna show up..." Staren starts, then Eye brings up Revelations. He scoffs. "Please. Although... your second guess has the gist of it. A beast like this won't help build paradise, won't work for anyone else anyway, and... really, if this is all he does with what power he has, he can't see the bigger picture." Staren sighs. "No redeeming qualities and he's an evil monster making Creation worse. The future is better off without him anyway." If Empty Tidings somehow doesn't summon trouble, he'll set to work re-assembling one of the constructs instead of hurrying to pack them up.
Bloody Revelations	N'raha's guard duty remains boring for the moment. Nothing untoward happens to Inga's body, and they appear to be alone here for the time being, as any ghost squatters or war gangs that would make this place their base have largely been absorbed into Achiba's burgeoning little nation-state already. Staren trying to peek at the documents quickly figures out something important: the savants at work here were almost as clueless as he is. Apparently, the engineering here largely exceeded their technical abilities and general comprehensions to a vexing extent, being the metaphorical pre-World War society trying to figure out how to build a computer from having access to a bunch of modern prebuilds and no suitable electrical outlets. They're Solar-built, and the people taking them to pieces weren't Solars. Them's the rough brakes of Creation. Tomoe actually really really has the right idea. The barracks and supply facilities don't seem to contain any useful information, largely dedicated to the already vacated personal effects of petty officers and left-behind spare equipment, uniforms, and on-site passes and keys (and the supply depot is mostly tanks and jars of probably bad things), but the faculty building further ahead is better furnished (albeit extremely dusty) to the standards of a 21st century private office, with many more tapestries, a mini-shrine, a non-functional communications table that probably did holograms before, and rolls and rolls of documents on segmented shelves --scrolls, not crystals. A great number of them are, actually, 'relocation' registers. There's way too many to sit down and read line by line from start to finish in a reasonable amount of time, so some information about who they're looking for would be required to narrow down the search through mountains of data on non-humans, names, species, notable details, assigned ID numbers, dates of internment, and scheduled dates of execution and by what. Yeah. Inga doesn't have trouble searching the place at noclip speed, passing through floors without issue, as the shadowland seems to make her almost weightless and easily able to levitate up and down to a degree. The upper quarters are obviously luxurious officers quarters, with private missives still open on the desks, and higher authority keys, as well as a map of what Camp 17 would have originally looked like and all of its important points of interest. The sealed chambers outside are blatantly gas chambers. Not even fake Auschwitz showers. Just obviously rooms to pump poison into. Nobody to talk to though. Not initially though. It isn't until Empty Tidings huffily fires a fake Anima Banner into the air that she can see someone, on the other side of the cluster of facilities the group is on, down a long, narrow, straight path that no doubt serves as a way to connect to the next cluster by vehicle. It is, at least, not the dust on the horizon of an approaching Mongol horde, but it's probably not much better. At least a dozen dark, ragged shapes moving swiftly through the dim sunlight, scarcely touching the ground between rubble, defunct crystal light posts, old vehicle hulks, and the plentiful half-regrown stumps and ice spires. One of them lands on the roof of the main faculty building above her, little visible except a hunched posture and tattered black cloak, squatting on the very edge like a vulture. Its voice is barely better than a series of rasping croaks, speaking a separate language than the variety they'd already heard at the camp before (the war camp, not the extermination camp). "Oh so you're the one's who been askin' around here, huh. You don't look that much different to me. Some lady who died a what? Northerner, but . . . looks soft. Not an Icewalker. You here from Whitewall? They don't know when to give up, no."
N'Raha	Boring is fine, though as the others start to poke and prod and outright announce their presence, the Miqo'te's hair starts to prickle, his eyes narrow, and his grip on Inga tightens. A look to Empty as the Exalt announces Herself, and he clicks his fangs in mild frustration. Not what he was expecting. A look down to Inga and he hrms. "Come on, find what you're finding and come back."
Inga Freyjasdottir	Inga sighs as the missives that she cannot read nor take with her. She can tell the others what she's found, though, and they can make their way up if the feel it is important. Movement like this could be rather addictive to someone who generally has some trouble moving around, but she's done the whole 'be dead for a while' thing already, and thinks she'd rather prefer being alive now. The column of bright light certainly is attention catching, and it is only after this that she finds someone to speak to. Inga looks up toward the figure. "Greetings. I am not the only one. There is a group of us--most living. I am not from Whitewall, no. I am not from this world at all, but was brought in to help with some of the issues here. We seek Achiba," she says, her tone polite. "If you know anything about him, would you perhaps come speak with the group of us?" she asks, squinting up at the dark figure, hoping to see more than shadow.
Staren	Staren didn't expect them to understand the things, or they wouldn't be in this state of disassembly -- either they'd just have power cells and/or hard drives pulled or they'd be stripped for parts, right? He's just hoping they took precise notes on how they took the machines apart so he can put some back together again. So, he needs tools. Hmm. He reaches to take off his gauntlets, but he's not wearing his power armor. Right. He fishes a pen-sized metallic object out of his bag. The silvery metal forms tiny tools of whatever shape he seems to need to put things back together. If he needs a larger tool, he starts searching the lab for them.
Empty Tidings	Empty Tidings isn't being huffy, she's being... proactive. Yeah. And she'll rip out the lungs of anyone who says otherwise. The dust clouds are about right. She's set herself standing in what passes for a road, slippered feet planted and arms crossed. She's smiling, looking vaguely smug, as if leading certain danger right to them was exactly what she wanted. Clearly, she's got a few screws loose. (It's all part of her Solar disguise, see.) The anima banner doesn't really... /glow/, per se, like one you might expect. It looks more like the 'substance' of it is lit up to be visible, but it isn't shedding the sort of eye-squintingly bright light that you'd expect. She should be bleaching clothes, walls, and eyeballs. Instead, she's just properly and dramatically backlit. It'd be weird if you had a lot of experience dealing with Solar Exalted, but since pretty much nobody does... "That ought to do it," she decides. Her retinue gathers up near her, watching the sides to make sure that they don't get unknowingly encircled. She'll let the disembodied person handle initial contact.
Gawain	After getting the various equipment to people, calling out, and then Tidings attracting people, Gawain heads in the direction of Inga's spirit so that she has backup. He's a ghost technically himself, so it should be fine. Heading that way, once Gawain gets there, he nods to the other ghosts, while sticking to Inga. "Hello, there! Sir Gawain, Knight of the Sun, Warden of the Paladins. As she said, we're looking for Thrice-Dead Achiba. Any assistance you can give would be much appreciated." He smiles and nods. There's a huge chance they're horrible murder ghosts and will attack. But there's also a chance they're friendly! Gawain's going to stick with that chance more, because he's an optimist.
Tomoe	Tomoe is also unaware of All-Seeing Eye's plans but her own may bear some fruit and then Gawain asks her to start storing items. "All right but I do have my limits Sir Gawain." How could she say no to such a request form one of the Knights of the Round Table. She'll start storing stuff but notes. "I'll take as much as I can hold but I do have my limits." Thankful but inside is feeling of quest items have filled my entire bag. As Eye does his thing and brings up she frowns and looks over at Staren for a moment her gaze lingers on him for a moment. She'll finish packing up then heads out to seek out the records. She seems to have with her companions have found the haystack and now they must find the needle. "So any idea how to cut the search down here there's a mountain of data wait wasn't our target custom made being for the old rulers of creation?" She'll try to look for the name Achiba and anything on the automatons that might aid Staren in his own repairs. She'll also grab any personnel lists at Eye's request as well.
All-Seeing Eye	"An excellent point!" says Eye merrily, as the spike slides back into his palm. He makes the 'good point' finger and everything. "I suppose it's good that you place such trust in her to be impartial. It /would/ be a shame if you allied yourself with a known mass murderer only to find her judgement... lacking." Flipping his hair over one shoulder, the Exalt moves out of Staren's way to get a status report on everyone else's efforts. He takes a moment to converse with the others here, tapping a finger gingerly to his temple to converse over the radio. First... "Have any of you found any census, records of transfer, scheduled executions, and so on?" He nods as Tomoe answers in the affirmative. "Any mention of Achiba, or are they merely to do with these automatons?" She's still looking--he takes that to mean no luck on Achiba yet. But if this place is organized with any semblance of order, then there should at least be records for the automatons. Perhaps they'd help Staren, which in turn would help him find more information on their target. Staren asks to have a screenshot. Eye concurs. "They might prove useful to Staren's repair efforts." The next best source of information would be a staff member they can interrogate. What about personnel?" he asks, rubbing the soulsteel plating on his chin with his free hand. Staren probably has the means to extract data from the automatons, assuming he's able to repair them. If he doesn't, he'll probably be able to talk to them anyway. Choice of company aside, Staren is rather polite. He leaves the engineer to his business, leaving the automatons as well, and heads outside. He's met with the site of Tidings' retinue, of a gaggle of shades of some sort, and N'raha, standing watch. There doesn't appear to be any hostility yet, although with Tidings' bombastic display he's not sure how long this relative peace will last. He approaches at a brisk pace, but does not make any hostile move. "Greetings," says Eye politely, if somewhat flatly. "I am All-Seeing Eye, Soulsteel Caste of Autochthon's Chosen, and Warden of the Paladins. I am part of the assembly searching for Thrice-Dead Achiba, alongside Sir Gawain." His hearing picks up the mention of 'some Northerner woman.' He can guess who that's supposed to be. "The Northerner woman you mentioned--Bloody Revelations, perhaps?"
Bloody Revelations	Well, Empty Tidins (et. all) won't be unknowingly surrounded. They'll be very well informed about being surrounded. There's enough of the shadowy shapes to form a loose circle around the ground, taking perches on top of various chambers, barracks, and even the tops of pyres or crude crosses without issue of balance, at enough distance that it isn't practical to prevent them from doing so, but where the circle itself isn't particularly tight or restrictive. They too are barely distinguishable from a scrappy cape floating on the wind at high speed. The one talking to Inga cocks its head in what is probably interest, but with a really unnatural bent to it, like the super flexible neck of an owl hidden under all those thick feathers owls have. "Oh, no no, then it's backwards. If you're looking for Achiba, see, you have to tell us everything you know about him. Not many come through here looking for someone like that. It's either to join him, or do something unadvisable you see. He's not one who likes people doing the other thing. He's got plans and all. No time for anything else." The thing shakes its head side to side in weird, twitching motions at Gawain. "Nope. No. Nope. First you have to answer. Not taking you nowhere until you do. Who told you what, and what you want. Achiba ain't a hard one to find if you're really looking. Sure you can guess why you ain't going nowhere until we know what you're looking for. Sure you can guess. Don't try to say you're on some kinda mission either. Thrice-Deads aren't allowed in places like these. Leave Marama's little projects to rot. Ain't worth dignifying." The pretty much just black cowl twitches in All-Seeing Eye's direction. "No. She looks like a Northerner." it jerks in Inga's direction. "Ghost, so figures she'd be a local ghost as your guide and all. Need a ghost guide. The living don't go anywhere here, no. Especially not humans." He just ponders the name he gives him, making long, irritated groaning noises, like really struggling to remember something. "No that one's . . . from southward or something? Center? Don't care. Don't care for Stygia, don't care for the Isle, don't care for humans. Nobody does, you see. Especially not Exalted. Nobody cares, nobody likes." Staren has some success plugging things back in, screwing in itsy bitsy fastenings, re-winding springs, plugging in the correct gems and wires, but it's frankly going to take him days to get it all done. There's no way he can reactivate one of these things, slowly taken apart and documented months here, in a reasonable frame of time. Tomoe is fine for just stuffing things in her inventory. Narrowing down by the information from All-Seeing Eye, namely Achiba's specific designer species and the fact they were pretty much first to the chopping block, makes going through the records considerably easier. It seems pretty much all of that breed, save for some stragglers captured much later, were executed way deep in the center of Camp 17, when it was much smaller, and were all personally overseen by this titular Anjei Marama person. In a variety of manners too. Seemingly experimental manners, like trying to find out which one was the most effective. She doesn't have the luxury of trawling through documents forever though. The surrounding rag-people are pretty obviously going to be armed and waiting for a signal to attack if someone gives the Wrong Answer.
Inga Freyjasdottir	Inga listens to the queer creature, nodding. "Everything we know? Well, you had best talk to my friends here. Alas, I am from A North, but not this one," she replies. "My dead state is temporary, but far more comfortable here," she adds. Still, Raha is probably getting worried, or at least tired of lugging her body around, and so she'd best return to it. "One moment, and I will return," she says, leaving Gawain and All Seeing Eye to speak while she finds her way back to her body. Inga's body suddenly gasps, her eyes snapping open as she returns. That wrongness settles again upon her, the body heavy and slow. It's the way you feel after having been swimming. Gravity reasserted, reluctantly. Inga looks to Raha, blinking, then smiles sheepishly. "You could have just set me down...but thank you. I ah, should have given you more warning," she apologizes. "Ah, we have found someone to talk to. That way," she points. Then, as it seems they are not all in one place, Inga will speak into her radio to tell them all what she has discovered.
All-Seeing Eye	Eye laughs he places a hand upon Gawain's chest, as if to say, 'hold on, I've got this.' "There is a reason 'no one likes Exalted.' And there is /definitely/ a reason you should care. If you'd like to find out which reason that is, by all means, delay me further! I /am/ a bit bored, and I would love to see how a group of..." He looks them up and down dismissively. "...shades... would fare against the original design for all Exalted," he says, placing a hand upon his chest, "...and one of the Sun's own," he says, nodding back to Empty Tidings and her retinue, "/In daylight./" "Here is what /I/ know." He holds up a finger and wags it at them. "Achiba isn't here. I am. You have two options. You can tell us where he is, and upset him, or you can refuse, and upset /me./"
N'Raha	Raha sighs a bit, feeling the life come back into his seer. He grips at her gently as he places her down and retrieves his axe from the Aether. "Right, come on, people are wandering off and doing things and... just lead me." Bravura hums and glows in the darkness, despite the awful pall of this place. He wanders up on Eye and Gawain as he starts boasting, and then grumps. "Hey, Mr. Knight, Mr. Eye, Inga says they want to stay here. Should I just start... breaking things? We could get out of here quicker then and keep looking for this guy somewhere else." Frustration is building up in the Warrior, latent energy rippling off him as he shoulders the Axe.
Empty Tidings	Tidings' people form a half-circle, with her at one side. They face off with the shades, standing and watching with utter stillness and silence. They don't move quite like people. They just seem a little... off. Under their helmets, their eyes are dark, not reflecting any of the light cast by the filtered day or the essence flare. Empty Tidings comes to stand next to and a step behind All-Seeing Eye, looking up at the spokesman. "We don't want to do anything terrible to our new friends, do we?" A golden ring around a smaller disk of the same glitters on her brow. "But I know he was a gladiator," she says. "So I was wondering if perchance he'd be interested in a bout with me. I'm /terribly/ interested in fighting arts of antiquity. I'm a little bit of a... scholar, I suppose, of them. A firsthand demonstration would be wonderful." Tidings' entire demeanor screams 'bookworm making a bad decision' right now, from her body language to her extremely earnest words, down to the fact that she's got hired guards instead of trusting in the power of her Exaltation to protect her. Clearly, she's no threat to the big boss warlord, right?
Gawain	Gawain is immediately going to speak and tell them everything they know, until Eye interrupts with a QTE and speaks up instead. Gawain sighs, and instead moves to respond to N'Raha, putting a hand up. "Please, please, no violence is necessary. We can sort this out with them like adults!" Gawain's hand doesn't move for his sword. It moves towards his belt, straightening it. He doesn't need to have his hand on his sword. He's a quicker draw than any of these ghosts, after all.
Tomoe	Tomoe with the added information? Tomoe's search is made much easier, between stuffing anything Staren or the others need stored. She looks at her rapidly filling inventory list. Oh, this was going to be a paint to sort later. So she does something she enjoys some degree more, she goes digging in the paperwork and with the help aforementioned help from All-Seeing Eye? She hits some pay dirt. Over personal band, to the rest of the party, she'll note "Got something. Looks like he was one of the first up on the wall, at the center of the came to a lot deeper in and it was run by someone by Anjei Marama who oversaw the executions personally if that's worth anything." She'll use the last of her inventory store some more of the papers. She keeps in mind the sorts of things she was looking for and stores them away. If she's lucky she'll get them some additional useful information. Given the notice of someone is here talking to them it's possible more ghosts might show up with far less than friendly intent towards them.
Staren	Staren makes just enough progress to realize this is going to take too long. He packs up the people and the notes and heads out to check on the others. Oh hey, wraiths! Wraiths that don't know who they're dealing with. He is about to give some quippy ultimatum about how they've got this backwards and if they tell him about Achiba and run he'll be too busy killing Achiba to track them all down, but Empty Tidings invokes Diplomacy. ...Diplomacy? Diplomacy? Whatever. So he shuts his mouth and waits a few seconds to see how this pans out.
Bloody Revelations	Given that All-Seeing Eye is absolutely and totally a Solar for real, the ragged things surrounding the group begin making a number of odd, rapid, chittering, croaking sounds, like halfway between locusts and magpies. This much doesn't translate, and is almost absolutely a form of obscure communication with the 'leader' as to what's going on, busy with the social half of the 'visit'. Given that, and the fact that the Alchemical is blatantly made of Soulsteel, and N'raha and Gawain are pretty much oozing magic like strong body odour and are clutching blatantly high end magical weapons, for once, there appears to be no ill-advised jump attack on them. The creatures remain at their distant posts, watching like dark, canny birds, rather than cackling and leaping to join battle. "Riding a body that looks just like you huh? Real convenient. Real expensive. Backing, huh?" the talkative figure seems to conclude about Inga, apparently figuring her for a ghost possessing a designer clone corpse, and adding that to the tally of extremely well-funded and well-armed group taken out here at the behest of some princess or another riding on the shoulders of a dozen swarthy servants. "A bout. Haha. About. That's funny. Good idea, but funny. I'm sure he'd like to hear. Get a laugh. Kill a- no, get a ransom, probably. More money, more weapons, more for Marama to get hers." Pretty much as soon as Marama's name is brought up audibly, twice, N'raha, previously sitting around as Inga's bodyguard, is suddenly punched in the brain by a jumbled and fragmented vision, disjointed and unfocused as if seen through too many eyes at once. It must be the past, as the landscape around him isn't quite so frozen, dark, and wasted, but not so far that the land hasn't been clear cut and razed for hundreds of miles, and isn't obviously taking ill, filled only with sickly and withering vegetation under perpetual, leaden cloud cover.
Bloody Revelations	He can see technicians in long green robes and various wearable jeweled machinery working on the exact same automatons as Staren has been poking at, as well as a number of head-to-to armoured guards with those weapons, wearing body armour almost more sci-fi than it is samurai plate. He can see a procession of all manner of bewildering creatures being lead forth in chains, often very heavy or overtly magical, shackled to each one in behind the other, and being counted off by a clerk in ostentatious Chinese-style dress. There are some mentions about speeding up the process. A deadline. Evacuation order? They're trying to burn through the backlog of prisoners before a certain date where some leading body had told them to pack up and get out. There's some worried muttering about the state the land is devolving into. The name, Anjei Marama, stands out as crystal clear in an otherwise soupy burble of auditory buzzing, pronounced with palpable disgust even by the supervisors. Something about the fact that she refuses to leave. Arguing whether she really will stay behind here when . . . something about the evacuation. Discussing some sort of rumour that a subordinate had reported. Something about voices telling her what to do. A subordinate executed for sedition, of course, but with some credibility. Every time he feels the name come up, he feels a white hot spike of resentment, jabbing into his chest, over and over. The whole vision is painted in shades of malice and hate for that name. Even the murmur of the camp workers contains layers of suspicion, fear, and overt contempt. That kind of impotent desire to see some kind of vengeance done, but either being part of the feudal machine beneath them, or tied up in chains and bound to be mass-executed anyways, knowing there's no real posibility of revenge, despite how much one might wish it, and instead projecting hopes on . . . whatever is causing the evacuation, will get her. Painfully. Back in reality, the croaky cloaky things seem to arrive at the conclusion that jumping a group that both outnumbers and out-arms them is probably a bad idea, and after considering All-Seeing Eye's demand for information, promptly fuck off. The lot of them break their circle and begin disappearing at high speed into the shadowed and desolate terrain, vanishing easily into the dark. The particular one he's stuck with gives him a wet, rasping cackle, and says "Just look. Not hard to find. Not like he'd hide from you. Think Achiba would love a chance to try it out. Kill one of you Exalted to prepare for the main event. See if It works." Then swoosh. He's retreating too. Likely to report back. Messengers that die are terrible messengers.
N'Raha	Raha for his part, staggers as the vision hits him. Deeper than usual. It's not usually this bad away from home. The Echo here is not kind. He drops to a knee, his axe falling and sinking into the floor as he shudders and... well. It's clear to anyone who knows 'seeing' that he's been taken by something. his ears pin back, his tail fluffs out, and he just goes distant for a long few moments... And then he staggers up to his feet. His nose is bleeding. This was much worse than back home. A accusatory point at Eye and then Tidings. "I saw... magitech. Vast armies of these things." He kicks at one of the broken constructs. "They had beastmen... many tribes." He shakes his head and wipes his nose and looks at the Exalts. "And your damn... Achiba was in charge of it all as it was going to hell. People were evacuating but she didn't." An accusatory glare. "...Who the hell are we hunting, because I'm not sure if it's the same sort of person we're being told it is."
Inga Freyjasdottir	Inga can practically feel it when N'Raha's Echo triggers, and rather than touch him and let the vision take her too, she takes a step back and slams down her mental defenses. He'd watched over her while she was spiriting off, she'll watch him while he's in the throws of it. She can see it later. It's like DVR. She stands on guard, her staff in hand, but the creatures do not attack. The spirit she'd been speaking to doesn't understand what it is he saw her do, and she doesn't argue with his assumption. It might not even be far from the truth, really. She relaxes slightly, when the spirits all retreat. Presumably to report to Achiba. She goes back to watching Raha, thinking how strange and novel it is to be watching someone else have a vision for a change. When he comes to, she reaches a steadying hand toward him.
Gawain	As the ghosts run off, Gawain doesn't chase. Intead, when N'raha almost falls, Gawain's about to move to help, when Inga does. It's N'raha's accusatory pointing that has Gawain frowning, moving to stand alongside Eye and Tidings. He trusts them. "We're hunting a dangerous ghost, just as we were told, for the good of Whitewall. You need to trust your allies! Besides, I find it unlikely that Achiba was in charge of something so big - he was a gladiator and an experiment, wasn't he?" Gawain casts suspicion on the vision, but doesn't doubt it entirely. He just doesn't understand it. Taking a breath, Gawain turns to the others. "We should rest ofr now, and return at a later date to continue exploring. We may have a lead, if N'raha saw anything of use, and by pushing further into the Shadowland."
Empty Tidings	"Oh. Well." Empty Tidings looks mildly offended, or maybe shocked. The shades break apart as a group and run off, dispersing before she can do more but try to collect herself. She drops the act once they're ten or fifteen seconds out of sight, turning to N'Raha. The golden mandala of twisted glass fades to motes of gold, vanishing and leaving behind a momentary field of something like yellow stars. The symbol on her brow lessens to a mark like a golden brand than a gleaming mystical emblem. "Does it matter?" she asks, shrugging a shoulder. "An army of the dead massing outside of civilization will only go one place with it."
Staren	They ran away. They ran away! Without volunteering much information. Dammit, were these wraiths actually /smart/? Staren tries to draw a bead on the nearest one as it disappears into darkness but... damn, it's useless. Oh well. It's not like they really expected to sneak up on Achiba anyway. "The main event, it said. Sounds like they're destroying something that an exalted would be 'a warmup' for. But what? A death lord or something?" Staren shrugs. "Look, if we get new information of reasonable veracity, our plan may change. That's okay. But it's not like we have another way to find out what Achiba's real deal is without continuing on the path we're on anyway." Staren taps his matter manipulator. "I'll put these constructs together and see if they can tell us anything."
Tomoe	Tomoe watches as the Ghosts run off she's doesn't chase after them and she looks over to N'Raha with concern as he almost seems to fall. "Woah! Easy man are you, all right? Wait you saw what?" She stares at N'Raha for a moment but what he says sinks in rather quickly as she thinks about it. The Ghost are gone but with what her companion has said the Salamander seems a bit pensive. "It sounds like that's a very important question we need to find the Answer too." She looks at Staren for a moment and nods but there's this look on her face again for a brief moment before she reigns it back in. "Right I'll fish the parts out of storage for you once we're out of this place. I don't want to linger here anylonger and feel like I need to take a shower in holy water once we're clear."
All-Seeing Eye	"I thought so," says Eye, nodding cordially to the shades as they disappear--all but one. 'Marama can get hers' does sound interesting, though. 'Marama' is the one who ran this camp, the one for whom it's named. By all accounts, she appears to have run an exceedingly efficient extermination engine in this camp. Anyone living this mockery of life who was unfortunate enough to have been her prisoner must hate her, indeed. If Thrice-Dead Achiba was one of hers... Perhaps she's the fetter that keeps Thrice-Dead Achiba alive? He calls after the last shade as it runs off. "Be sure to tell him I wouldn't blame him for hiding! Not that it'd help.~" Eye turns and faces N'raha, more for manners' sake than necessity. "The ghost of a genetically engineered super-soldier, created only for battle. It's all he knows, and it's all he's doing. The fighting is making all of this," says Eye, gesturing around himself with a finger, "Worse. I suspect that Achiba is attempting to destroy Anjei Marama, the supervisor of this extermination camp, either literally or figuratively. It's possible she herself is a ghost, very long lived, or else Achiba wants to destroy something she valued in life. I'm not certain, but I can handle all three possibilities with equal ease." "If it would make you feel better, I'm certain we could test that hypothesis!" Eye smiles wanly at N'Raha. It's a kind of 'trust me, you're not the only one who knows this is awful' smile. "I can't deny the nature of the grotesqueries that went on here under Marama's name, and Achiba is only doing what he was built to do. With him expecting an attack, we may even be able to move on whatever his target is and destroy it cleanly, ahead of him--without his clumsy, brutish fumbling worsening the decay here."
N'Raha	RAha just sets his jaw a bit at all of that, and slumps back down into a very feline squat, ears pinned back to his head, his tail poofed out. Only the petting from Inga is soothing things here. "...I'd like that. I'd like to stop this from getting worse. This isn't even anywhere close to my home and this..." A grumble. "It's hardly heroics. This is just cleanup."
Inga Freyjasdottir	"Heroics isn't always pretty--indeed it is usually quite ugly," she says, leaning on her staff. She misses feeling weightless. To All Seeing Eye, she nods. "I think you have the right of it. I will look more into this vision later...but it is a good lead. This Marama..." Inga says, looking around the buildings. "This place...mm, maybe it is two monsters we should put down."
Tomoe	Tomoe thinks for a moment. "Good point there Eye, and I hate to say it but sometimes cleanup is better than nothing." She seems sad about that but it's also true.