Scene #6762: Reservation 107

Owner	Pose
Yuli Sin	Since the problem has become infectious, first appearing on RIFTS Earth, and right now, potentially who knows where else, it seems as good a time as any to revisit where people had first spotted it, knowing that it's no longer plausible to write off as a one-time weird little adventure in nowhere. Nowhere it is, too. Magnetic north doesn't exist. GPS doesn't work. There aren't any satellites to hook up to. Even fancier geological positioning gives iffy results and only seems to narrow down to several hundred miles. As should be generally known by now as well, the air is obscenely hard to breathe. Though it looks crystal clear, save for a faint glittering at distance, it feels like sandpaper inside the lungs and on exposed skin. That much can be dealt with via reasonably well-crafted filters for now. For those who'd been around before, the same warpgate leads to a radically different vista already. Whereas the plateau had been endless fields of lilting gilded gold, wetlands of heavy mercury, and mountainsides carpeted in cobalt and gems, with a barren no-man's land to the other side, and beyond that, a heavy mist, now the last glimmers of gold are far, far on the western horizon, barely visible. The no-man's land has moved itself many miles over in that direction, and the warpgate has been taken over by new tracts of 'glasslands'. That is to say, it emerges into a surreal and vaguely unwelcoming landscape that hasn't a shred of green grass or blue sky to be seen. You stand on thick, charcoal black soil that feels like beads of silicate, and thin banks of silvery sand, under the deep, oppressive, jungle shade of layers cast by layers of stratified 'trees' made of translucent, glassy trunks and fractal branches, exposing silver skeleton and black conduits inside. They greedily absorb all possible sunlight, with only the thinnest, dimmest rays slipping through the dark canopy of iridescent, blue-black leaves, given a transparent sheen over hexagonal patterns like a beetle's shell. Bracken in shades of glittering diamond sprouts all around, shrouding unidentifiable structures in colours of carbon, glowing with ruby dots of light. Glowing red 'moss' seems to cover much the few natural stone surfaces. Platinum lotus flowers and black 'fungal' shelves adorn places they have no business being. The air hums with a constant, soft, sharp whine like a spinning hard drive, with clicks and cracks faintly echoing all around. Parts of the terrain expand and contract as if breathing, or reconfigure their petals in mesmerizing coordinated displays of countless mirror pieces. Your reflections are cast everywhere, and any view is warped beyond recognition before it goes very far. The exposure of light, usually a sweeping red beam, splits into brilliant fragments wherever it touches.
Yuli Sin	There is, at least, definitely one place that is known to be 'safe'. A group of oddly dressed nomadic refugees had escaped this way a couple of weeks ago, before this place had been special aside for how strange it was, and how bizarre the threat had been. Since nobody had wanted/dared follow at the time, what they have is a set of directions left behind that have to go by the stars (oddly semi-visible during the late day) and the few landmarks that are natural, unchanging formations. It's a long trip. You have to navigate by (surprisingly, clean) waterfalls off complicated rock formations and rivers through deep channels, by crumbling bluffs and particularly steep inclines, and by the occasional array of synthetic jungle that stands out in its sheer scale or strangeness, from a recursively branching tree hundreds of meters tall and another hundred across, dangling thousands of black 'vines' back into the ground, humming loudly, to fields of perfectly innocent silver grass, swaying gently with no breeze, that the directions warned to avoid. What you eventually come across doesn't seem to be special at first. The thing that stands out is a field of enormous, squared, obviously artificial (comparatively) obelisks, carved up and down with geometric designs, out in a clearing of actual sunlight. They're wound top to bottom in glass vines and metallic flowers, but the ground is mostly dry and hard --almost sandblasted-- rock and sand and gravel, as a welcome splash of warm colour. Markings in red have been painted all over the lower perimeters of the obelisks, with various items left at their feet, from unidentifiable mechanical parts, to trinkets and sculptures carved out of plastic and ceramic, to, the first big oddity, tiny bunches of small flowers and herbs, and sticks of burnt incense. The definitive feature of the place is roughly in the geometric center of the field, where the earth has cracked open, not through any kind of tectonic fault, but seemingly through sheer force of what might be a celestial impact. Water rushes in through a corner of the long scar in the earth, filling it with mist that makes it impossible to look down from the air.
Staren	"Geeze. Are we even in the same spot?" Staren asks noone in particular after he steps through the gate, checking his map. He's using an inertial tracker, so if the gate had moved it wouldn't tell him -- looking at his map for this purpose is pointless. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a flat boxy object with a couple of vents on it and presses it against the sand to check for nanomachines -- he then clips it to his belt, just to be safe. If there /are/ no nanomachines he'll collect some flora samples before setting out. The waterfall's presence is reassurance that he's not TOO far off... but wasn't it a mercuryfall before? Staren compares his map data with last time to see if it appears to be in the same place. The obelisks are interesting. Staren makes sure to get pictures from all sides of the strange writing, then takes ground and air samples (if no nanites) to see if he can later analyze what kind of meteor hit here.
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade is hear, leading the pack for the Flotilla. The rest are here mostly as an accessory to her, in fact. When it comes to navigation of complex platforming features, at the very least, they have no problem; a combination of mid-air jump-boosts, grappling hooks, and wall-slides makes the navigation straightforward, and they're /very/ used to star charts. "Floran think, fancy sssacred land magic isss kind of terraforming place. Not sssure! But, Floran guesses." Biteblade rambles as she moves on and towards the obelisk zone. When she arrives at it, she starts pondering. Looking at the offerings, peering at the great crack... It's hard to see from up here. But there seems to be little else to do but fuss with it. Barring anything unusual making a problem for her, she's actually just going to see if she can navigate down into the crack in the earth, around and above the flowing water. Anything relevant she can see just by sticking her head /through/ the mist instead? Or is some great spirit about to jump out of it the moment she starts clambering around it?
Sumiko	Once more, Mikoto walked through the warp gate, and this time with a mask she was given by one of the travelers. Placing the mask on her face, and finding it rather stylish, she had decided to start here transformed, because the place outside of the protected area was dangerous, and she was expecting to be right into danger. That and well, she wasn't sure if the 'protected' place was actually safe or not, but it was at least 'better' than the necromancer's lands. Looking up, she looked at the trees that had basically come to choke the land of its light. It was a dark forest, but at the same time, it held it's own beauty. With a breath, through the mask, she pushes forward, talking with Staren as he goes towards the path they were given. The directions were clear enough, but at the end of the day, they had to follow them. On her back rested a Jade longsword, her outfit various shades of jade and silver, as her athletic body continued to push through the hostile terrain. At the waterfall, she kneels by it, looking to see if it's actually clean and safe to drink. She takes a cup of it with her own hands and brings it to her lips to taste it. If it is safe, she takes a bigger drink, enjoying the water before pressing on. The gifts left at the obelisks are regarded by Mikoto, and she too drops small offerings. After all, this was fairly Shinto-esk, and there was no reason to not believe the ruler of these lands was not worthy of an offering made to Kami. She respected it, so far, but did not reveal it...and the offering was more made out of respect than anything. She leaves small chocolates. The scar in the earth was also interesting, Mikoto leans over the edge to look down, unable to see anything down there. Was there a path, or would it be a leap of faith? Well, she couldn't fly...so she would avoid doing any leaps. Instead, she stabs the blade into the earth and sends a few birds to fly down into the crack to look. "Yeah?" She asks Biteblade, "I mean, as we saw the land change, it would be a good guess, or the Kami of this place can extend her territory, not unlike a witch barrier. There are other spirits that can do that too...I guess? I only heard about them indirectly."
Yuli Sin	There are nanomachines. There are a fuckload of nanomachines. There are hundreds of kinds of different nanomachines in the same sample area. A quarter of them appear to be of completely different make than the others, and various different kinds are actually 'preying on' each other, disassembling and devouring each other like colonies of coral at night. There are nanomachines in the air, in the dirt, and on most surfaces, like germs. There are also, in fact, no germs. No microorganisms or bacteria. none. There are nanomachines in the water too, but that much further, they all appear to be of roughly the same composition, with way fewer strains involved. As far as Staren can tell, some of them actually appear to be for water purification, and some are harvesting hydrogen through electrolysis, while a bulk are apparently useless but probably not. The water itself is cleaner than anything one would otherwise find anywhere on Earth outside of laboratory conditions, without an iota of pollution or bacteria, but probably not healthy to drink, due to aforementioned itty bitty microscopic workers. Looking around the huge crack in the ground, running perhaps two hundred meters long and thirty across at its widest, Mikoto does locate what looks like it'd be a way down, narrowly carved in a zigzag way down to the bottom, but the prevalence of pitons and cables in the walls would lead her to believe that it's only meant to be safely navigated with some kind of harness or another, or perhaps only used for lowering and raising equipment. Staren analyzes the huge tear in the ground, easily deeper than it is wide. His equipment detects that it breaches the ceiling of an underground cavern, which seems mostly naturally formed. The actual tear itself though, doesn't match the profile of any kind of meteor impact after all. It seems like it was split by something extremely dense and with highly focused force and momentum, almost definitely artificial. Biteblade just jamming her head in there gets to keep it attached. The mist is mostly a function of the water splashing hard at the bottom of the deep drop, warming up, and then rising to form a sort of misty ceiling. Below that, she could rappel a considerable difference down the vertical shaft of light let in from above, and then find herself in said cavern that someone like her would instantly recognize as an old underground lake reservoir. There was probably water up to the ceiling a long time ago, but now she ends up above an underground island with enough headroom to fly a kite around without issue.
Yuli Sin	The island created by the lowered water level is more extensive than the gap up above that lets in the sun; enough to build a school and have space left over. It seems that someone definitely did build something down here a long time ago as well, judging by the crumbling remains of some edifice that was once connected to the walls and ceiling by telltale pneumatics that look distinctly like the shock absorbers used in nuke-proof silos, now broken off and drenched with hanging shelves of moss and vines and flowers that stream long roots all the way into the water below. Pylons stabbed into the ground who knows how long ago still glow with little rings of light at their tops, lighting the far portions of the cave island where the sun doesn't diffuse out far enough, marking pathways into further tunnels branching off to the sides, connected by both natural 'land bridges' and bridges built of buoyant plastic slabs, pontoons, and mesh. Whatever the structure was, only the bottom quarter of it remains, as if melted away from the top down over time. A variety of the same glass flora from outside sprouts up here, but it's actually a minority in the midst of mosses and creepers and vines that thrive off the moisture and can handle low light, and along the long gash of sunlight, colourful flowers grow in rows that have clearly been lovingly tended to. The central fixture of the island is filled with silvery sand from above, strewn with water-smoothed stones of every colour, and carefully brushed and sculpted into overlapping ripples such that it perfectly resembles water in of itself, organized around a single, living cherry tree, probably hundreds of years old, with piles of rambling totemistic shrines have been set up, and wound with imitations of prayer rope made of wound up optic cables, from which are hung countless talismans that are mostly various codes that have been inked by hand like calligraphy, and then some which are actual calligraphy. Green grass grows around the edges, and extends a ways off towards the tunnels, lit by overhead lights still powered by something or other. Little floating docks of cobbled together components that remain buoyancy positive moor boats of stitched and welded together resin and rubber components. Strung wire holds up sun-drying herbs and wet clothes. Importantly, there are people here. A sizable number. There aren't all that many on the central island itself, mostly seeming to be moving through, tending to the garden and tree, or sitting around apparently reading or meditating inside the ruined building, burning incense or paging through a couple of functioning holographic displays. None of them are wearing masks. The majority, but not all, look vaguely east asian in origin, wearing similarly styled white clothes decorated with red dye and silver and gold wire wound into them. A group of them in the building have shaved heads, while the ones around the garden wear veils. There are kids running around, even, playing with makeshift toy weapons or braiding flowers together.
Staren	Staren drops the nanodetector like a germophobe who picked up something off the floor of a public space and only just realized it. Then he remembers that nanites didn't try to eat him LAST time, and clips the nanodetector to his belt and sprays himself with nanites that eat other nanites, just in case. "There are nanomachines /everywhere/... Spotting Mikoto's sword, he briefly toggles on his essence sensors to try and determine if it's /that/ kind of jade. "It's not like a witch barrier. That's some kinda... paralell dimension that's an extension of a magical girl's powers. Perhaps soul. This... this is just nanites ALL OVER the place, changing everything... and working towards different goals." Seeing the pitons and stuff set up, Staren ties a rope to something just in case, but uses his wings to fly down. To... a little oasis of organic life? With people? Why aren't the terraforming nanites effective here? "Uh, hello?" Staren tries calling out and waving. "What is this place? Why is it different from... outside?"
Sumiko	The Jade isn't Creation Jade, but it is still magical and hard enough to be used as a weapon. The only thing about it really is just it's tied to her own magical field. As Staren goes on about how it's not even the same thing, Mikoto rolls her eyes in exasperation. "Oh my god, I said like, it's a way of trying to compare something to something else in a way to understand it, not actually saying it's the same thing. Seriously, you are insufferable sometimes!" Mikoto stands up from the edge as the birds vanish, and she takes the blade to put back on her back. She starts moving down the cave, aiming to try and find her way across the various land bridges and to try and find her way to the island as well as habitation that these people enjoy. "Instead of yelling at them why don't we just go down to meet them? Seems less rude," Mikoto says, "Though yelling a conversation WOULD be interesting...hmm!" She can't decide if she wants to double back or not. Nah, she keeps going, deciding to actually get to the bottom of this.
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade descends. A bit of a harsh, long drop for it too. Her glide would give out before they reach the bottom, so instead she elects to simply reel most of the way down with a looooooong grappling hook, until she reaches the island at the bottom. "Big big big underground home!! Floran lovesss! Heyyyyy, hi hi! How isss? Thisss isss holy land, right? Very holy place?" She calls out alongside Staren's questions as she approaches. "Cautious. Touching down. It looks like we had just enough line length." "We would survive being just short." "Not a fan of testing that. I /am/ a fan of getting out of the sun." "Bleh. Floran isssn't! But underground home isss cool engineering." "Hmmmh. It certainly seems to have history, even if not artistry." "Well, doesn't look like they could keep the old artsy shit... Hey, how do they get back to the surface all the way down here?" Biteblade pushes forward, looking about the settlement for someone to run up to and press the dialogue button on, someone with a Greenfinger sort of look. "Cat friend, know what good quessstion to asssk about weird thingsss happening?"
Yuli Sin	The waterfall, as it turns out, is a perfect sort of background noise. Once you're on either side of the mist curtain, it's basically impossible to hear the other. No people noise rises from the chasm, and no outside noise comes down from it. It's acoustically isolated, and the background reverb makes it so everything doesn't echo obnoxiously down below. It's a pleasant sort of white noise, that goes with the rippling lines of reflected light on the walls. It also means that trying to yell from the opening doesn't work for shit. Rappeling down is a massive pain. At this rate, there must definitely be a secret exit/entrance to the surface, well-concealed for obvious reasons. Oddly, a bunch of strangers barging in doesn't seem to cause that much of a stir, or at least not a negative one. It immediately draws the attention of the kids, who all drop what they're doing and gather around in a big circle. Some of them tag along when Mikoto goes searching side tunnels, following at a distance to stare and chatter. People seem inclined to watch at the new arrivals, but the reactions they get are mostly just waves from people pausing their gardening or weaving or leisure activities. A couple is actually flying a paper kite on the warm updraft off to one end. A group of teens gathered around a moss-caked console are watching some video that looks like old drone footage of a reconnaissance route around a series of ocean islands. Without working audio however, it has the air of a nature documentary. The closest thing to the 'greenfinger' archetype that Biteblade gets is one of the men in plainer robes and a shaved head coming out of the crumbled away building and down a path of smoothed flagstones and through a tori of carefully cut 'tree glass', bowing briefly before the group. "We had heard that there might be new arrivals, blessed by the goddess. Welcome, weary souls, to the one hundred and seventh path. Your journey is over. You are finally safe here." he assures you. A couple of people try extra hard to grab your attention, excitedly waving from the back. They seem familiar enough that they're probably from the refugee group before, though you hadn't seen their faces then, and they're still wearing a lot of facial coverings now. Going deeper into the side caves, Mikoto finds both more in the way of natural furnishings, where newer halls are lit with strings of paper lanterns, slow streams are host to clusters of water lilies, mosaics of stained glass chips paint out natural vistas on spare walls, garlands of preserved flowers hang from the ceiling, and she can find benches, tables, and vases of simple make. Larger caves are lit by natural sunlight as well, but seemingly 'piped in' by optical cable cleverly threaded through the stone to the surface, giving the appearance of windows despite being hundreds of feet below ground.
Yuli Sin	She also finds more in the way of working technology. Though some areas are entirely handmade and filled with things like weaving looms, tooled workshops, hand-carved quarries, sleeping areas filled with bedrolls and dining areas with low tables, she manages to bumble into what is very clearly a hydroponics facility the size of a football field, mostly well-maintained despite the advanced age of the structures 'outside'. She comes across a mostly restored cable elevator of sorts, with old pieces filled in with extremely similar but obviously hand-crafted new ones. There's a workshop with a few of what appear to be working lathes and cutters, though much of it has been taken up with feudal era forges and tool benches. All of these major spaces have scores of people around them. She manages to find one room of uncertain purpose that drops a huge shaft even further into the earth, ringed with catwalks, with a giant spire of unknown usage that plunges all the way down the middle, thrumming with noise and smelling of ozone. It's very easy to get lost beyond that. At best guess, half the space was already here, and is still plated with original flooring and lighting, and half has been expanded through manual labour over a very long time, floored with polished stones or some sort of pseudo tatami.
Staren	Staren waves back to the refugees(?) but his attention is on the man who actually spoke. "I'm not so sure we're blessed. And we're not here to stay, because we're from other worlds that..." Staren looks around. "Are like THIS" he waves vaguely at some of the greenery "instead of covered in metal and glass and machines. I mean, not everywhere? There's wastelands too but this world is unlike anything I've ever seen. However, an entity... well... 'messengers' of a being calling itself a goddess recently intruded onto my world and started making part of it like it is outside. So I'm here for information, and to offer any help you may need." Staren considers. "Do I still need to provide proof of other worlds before we can have a useful exchange of information, or are we past that now?"
Sumiko	Mikoto seems more interested in the caves than the children at first, looking behind her when they seem to run off after her. After some exploration, she turns to give them a proper bow but turning right back around to explore. The technology was fairly...well rustic in some places, but advanced in others. Light being pumped in through fiber optics, that was neat! The final room, with the smell of ozone, catches her attention. Seemingly expanded by not just the work of the celestial object, but also by manual labor. Her hands run along with the smooth stone, looking towards the object in the middle of the room. "I am guessing this is the power?" She speaks to herself, crossing her arms. Looking down towards the pseudo tatami, and thinking to herself some more about the similarity of this Japanese-style room. Still, she could guess what it is, but she wanted to see it in action and decides to follow the catwalks towards the central building.
Starbound Flotilla	"Hi hi, wissse friend! Don't worry. Floran journey not done! Floran ssstill working hard on thingsss. Big journey, Floran ssstill need to make!" Biteblade says, cheerfully. "But, Floran earned anyway! Floran ssstab bad, evil necromance lionsss! Yeah yeah!" She pumps her little fists. Then she settles down a bit more. "Can help usss find a good place for messsengersss of god that cat friend talksss about? Floran wantsss to know everything about terraforming! Sssacred land hasss amazing chemissstry!" Biteblade seems to be working on the assumption that they won't, or can't, speak directly to the god in question. At least, not in the traditional way.
Yuli Sin	Staren's arrival and half-assed set of questions doesn't seem to elicit much of a response. "Whether you believe so or not, you have been blessed, or else you would not have passed this far. You must have traveled many many kilometers to get here as well." They still use those, apparently? "I'm glad to hear that." he says, warmly and sincerely in response to Staren's blah blah intrusion. "It was brave of you to come so far to seek answers, and you were right to be worried if you are from another green place, so I am happy to tell you that there is no need to fear. The goddess will preserve it, should you and your clan show her the proper respects. Stay a while, and we will show you the proper rituals and markings to take home with you. We have plenty here." You can, in fact, already smell the telltale aroma of tea. Given the number of people, and the size of this place, it was probably originally meant to support a lot more in an emergency situation, so they have a few luxuries. The reaction to Biteblade is extremely positive. People turn towards the obvious newly arrived refugees, their story now evidently true. "Wonderful! The Necromancer has long been an enemy of the Glass Goddess. Their lands have been at war for ten generations. Defeating the golden punishers is a feat worthy of being passed down. We should be commemorating your success." he says. "The messengers are nothing to fear if you approach them with humility and purity. Few creatures of the land are so harmless, but it is best to go unarmed where you can. If you can make appropriate contact, constructing a shrine should be your next task, to properly commune with spirit of the land and know her thoughts. Again, we can show you the proper observations and correct materials and alignments." Mikoto dicks on off into the giant ominously humming spire. She finds that the inside was definitely a generator turbine at some point, or rather, several, stacked upon each other vertically. They turn no longer though, corroded through. The humming comes from the waterfall of tree roots that has slowly gushed down through the central shaft over some time, though she can only call them roots in the sense of simile, since they're made of some white artificial material. It seems like they've been tended to in almost bonsai fashion, trimmed and guided in certain parts to grow out into the walls and spliced into power lines. It's quite probable that the forest above is providing the electricity now. Beyond there, she finally runs into what looks like some sort of grand hall or longhouse arrangement, where the community probably gathers for communal events. Right now, it looks like they're in the aftermath of a significant hunt, as a crowd of women goes about the process of butchering a carcass with the ritualized efficacy of native peoples with buffalo, or further back to when men hunted mastodon. Well, except the carcass is that of some gigantic machine, being cut and stripped for parts and materials of all kinds, worked on with whole teams dedicated to sawing and cutting away its frame layer by layer, gathering what look to be synthetic muscles, neural cables, metal plates, pressure fluid, power cells, and whatever they can find intact. It appears to be massively damaged already, by some tremendous volume of weapons' fire. It may have been scavenged, all things considered. There are some children in this room too, but they appear to be playing around a raised chair at one end of the room, built up around the base like a shrine box. In place of a statue of a guardian spirit, there is what is obviously a suit of powered armour still seated in it, stark white with crisp green accents, highly articulated and complex, with an opaque, reflective blue face visor. It's dusty, but still plugged into the power supply in the wall, leaving tiny lights glowing between its plates. The kids are decorating it with little talismans, braided necklaces, flower wreaths, and so on, giggling all the while.
Sumiko	"Huh!" She says, watching the inside of what was once a generator be used as...well bonsai! The water pouring down was causing the sound, which is most interesting! Pushing past this, after some observation, she finally comes along to what could be described as a longhouse. Did they seem to have moved from an Asian themed area to a native one? Still, she watches as she walks through the ritual scavenging, watching the people as they work, not disturbing them until she finally comes across the children playing around what appeared to be more like a guardian spirit of technology. She watched them carry on, a soft smile on her own face as she offers another chocolate to the guardian. Standing back up fully, she looks towards the children, and bows slightly to them. "I'm Mikoto! I was looking for a group of refugee's that might have come by a bit ago? We helped them escape the big bad terrible necroman." She makes a fake scary face.
Staren	Staren sighs at couching everything in terms of spirits, but sure, okay. He, at least, doesn't intend to submit to some spirit, but knowing what kind of communication methods get Yuli Sin's attention is good to know, at least. "Yes, I'd like to know the rituals at least. So, why does she allow the green life here, when she's eliminating it on my world?"
Starbound Flotilla	"Yesss! Yesss you should!" Biteblade beams proudly, clearly excited about it. She's tempted to get out her trophies and other suchlike, but what she managed to claim is undoubtedly still biohazardous. "You ssaid conssstruct Shrine. What would Floran need for Shrine? Floran can build biggessst, bessst shrine ever!" She seems to be... yes, flexing. "Need to get sssacred thingsss right? Need artifacts maybe? Tell Floran, tell Floran! Will make big shrine to sssolve problem with cat friend home." "..." "...What? What're you lookin' at, toaster?" "Confused. It doesn't offend you that we're going to make a shrine?" "How else am I gonna yell at /their/ god?" "I am uncertain what response I expected, but somehow, impossibly, you defy it." "Can I crank-call god too?" "No. Focus." "I'll focus on crank-calling god."
Yuli Sin	Mikoto doesn't have any difficulty looking for her group. As soon as she enters the room and makes herself known, the handful of kids she'd helped save before run right up to her. They're pretty easily distinguishable from the others due to being obviously shorter and really unhealthily pale, likely never having been out in the sun before they ran, and then wearing full robes and masks. The other children laugh and run away when she brings up 'the necroman', but her legs are now glued with little kids from before. One of the women actually gets up and comes right over, hurrying with the gait of someone who suddenly just remembered something. Nattering something barely intelligible, she foists a sort of necklace of elaborately knotted optic wire carrying a pair of cobalt stones and what looks like the last finger joint of one of the Golden Lions, repeatedly insisting it's hers and she should wear it. Mikoto can presume it's an important badge of honour, because she has a whole set of them she tells her to give the others. The monk-looking guy Staren is talking to seems to have the same kind of hand me down non-answers as most shamanistic leaders really would. "The same reason that the first green life disappeared, almost certainly. Back in the beginning, when the entire world was soft and warm, filled with green and blue, and it caught the Wasting Illness and began dying. The place you are from is likely no longer long for this world. The spirits of all the lands can sense this, even when they fight one another. Even if it has lasted this long, once it becomes tainted with impurity, the only recourse is to remove the tainted flesh of the land." When Biteblade shows genuine enthusiasm, the man smiles, excuses himself with a bow, and then heads back into the destroyed 'nuke-proof' ruins, bringing back a small cadre of adepts of some stripe or another, differentiated by the number of markings on their layered robes and sashes. "My disciples will take you to the texts. The simplest of shrines can be done with perfectly still and pure water, a flowering thing that draws on it, silver sand, the hundred and eight holy markings on anything you wish, and the heart and blood of a suitable hunting creature. As you would expect, the greater the beast the heart is wrested from, and the more immaculate and pure the ground, the worthier you would be of receiving visions." He's kind of clearly described the huge zen garden thing in the center of the island as well. Since Staren cranked his nanodetector inside, he discovers that the air here, too, is clouded with a very small concentration of airborne nanomachines, but they appear to have effectively passive roles, and are inert when they land on things, or are inhaled and exhaled. It's hard to tell what they're really for, honestly. Could be pollutant scrubbers, or atmosphere monitors, or just kicked out of the water and no longer active.
Staren	Staren folds his arms at the non-answer. Although, he does file away one thought -- that the 'impurity' could be some sort of specific thing that the 'goddess' is targeting. He records everything that's told to Biteblade for future reference. It is some small consolation that if this 'goddess' wants Earth, she's going to have to fight the Coalition, the Federation of Magic, the Splugorth, the vampires, the Xiticix, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and everything else for it, not to mention actual heroes. Not that he intends to let her get that far...
Sumiko	It was strange to feel...happy like she did right now, the thought that she helped saved these people from a terrible fate. She held onto an expectation that this place was terrible in its own way but seeing it and its beauty just seems to remind her that not all good things have a catch. Not everything is as terrible as it seems, and it's a peace that she has forgotten. Her hands rub the heads of the children glued to her, "Well, good to see you too. Staren the Nerd and Biteblade the Huntress are up there, probably talking to people!" she says, until a necklace is thrust upon her. However, she takes it from the woman and ties it around her neck, with a smile and a bow. "Thank you, and I will do what I can to make sure the others get theirs." "I'm Mikoto, by the way," She says to the woman, "We didn't get a proper introduction...you know the whole running and fighting for our lives part. Is it possible to speak to the protector of these lands? I'm still new to seeing how things work here, and I'd be nice to actually talk to them with what we know...and of course, what we don't know." Still, she plays with the kids gently, she notes their...still pale appearance, and it reminds her of a time in her life where she was barely not living on the street. It a sad moment, but overcome by the lightheartedness of it all. Knowing these kids would not suffer as she did. Maybe there WAS a way to use this power that isn't completely in her own self-interest? This brings other things to mind, but right now she could table them.
Starbound Flotilla	"Biiiig heart? Of biiiig preymonster?" Biteblade is positively vibrating with excitement at the opportunity as she walks inside. This, at least, is quite familiar to her. Go to a strange land, hunt its strange creatures, and build a strange mechanism from them? Exactly the strange, tough experience she knows and loves best! "Ssso, if Floran build big shrine, then cat friend can learn about Wasssting Illnesss and ssstop it before ssspiritsss try to take over. Good!" She plants both hands on her hips and excitedly gushes to Staren and the wise new friend. "Floran want copiesss of textsss! Floran want to know, isss any big hunt Floran can take? To get /big/ heart?" She seems eager to get this done, and even more eager to show off while she does it. She already loves how familiar this world seems! "Cat friend, why can't all meat people make sssense like thisss?"
Yuli Sin	Staren, silently folding his arms and looking grumpy, gets nada. Mikoto, playing with kids, has them all yell out their names first before the woman can get a name in edgewise. "I'm Champak!" "Aditya!" "Dakshesh!" before the woman can shoo them away a little and pull down the bottom of her new cloth mask. There is actually a tiny little breathing clip thing inside, though it doesn't look suited for long-term use. "Zayan. Do you mean the goddess herself? I wouldn't know. We are new arrivals. We haven't been taught everything yet. To speak directly, you have to bring offerings, mark them appropriately, and supplicate earnestly." Judging by the unidentifiable metal beast being butchered, the flower of interlocking red diamonds is probably the symbol. "Sometimes she answers questions. Sometimes, in dire need, she answers a prayer with a miracle." Biteblade, ridiculously enthusiastic about hunting, is taken for an eager student, and quickly furnished with a hand-drawn illuminated script the size of a pocket bible but without nearly the text density, written vertically in what looks like some weird fusion of Japanese and Korean. "You are very ambitious in wishing to bring such a great blessing to your home, but from what we've heard, you are an accomplished hunter who is well worth the goddess' attention. The priesthood rarely ventures outside their Path. Those who do rarely go far --no further than they need to harvest the bounty the goddess allows, and dedicate her share. We are lucky enough that ordinary men not have to hunt here. Our one and only hunter is Three Chiefs."
Staren	Staren looks at Biteblade. "I suppose you could hunt a dinosaur or something." That does make him think of something, though, which... relaxes him slightly, just to have something to ask about. "Are there even... living beasts here anymore? Or do you mean the 'heart' of one of those golden lion things or the like?" The guy speaks of a hunter, too. "Do you even get to eat meat here? Or does Three Chiefs hunt... beasts of metal and glass?"
Yuli Sin	The priest immediately shakes his head. "A soft beast won't do. There is no glory in hunting down such old and frail things. Only the pure creatures of the land are enough to prove a huntsman is worthy of attention. It is a show of a human being overcoming an animal created by the goddess' hand." He appears to be familiar with the idea of normal animals at least. "A few other creatures of the flesh are permitted to live here. Deeper in. We take from them sparingly, and they take little from us. We share that much of a bond, being fellows in warm blood, sharing the same roots in the diseased world that died. It's impossible for beings like us to consume the flesh of the pure beasts, but we make use of their bodies for all manner of essentials."
Sumiko	Mikoto giggles as the children introduce themselves, flustering the poor woman. She waves to them as they are chased off. She'll have to play with them later. Mikoto bows a bit more deeply to Zayan, as is right and proper. She listens to the woman, nodding as she explains what she knows. Looking to the beasts that are laid out, she thinks about this for a moment, "So I am guessing...an offering of an enemy would be enough to gain her attention?" "I am new to these lands myself...I hail from a lot farther away. It's good to see that you are all doing so well, and the children are happy and healthy. I am glad you and yours are doing so well...and I am sorry more of yours could not have made it here."
Starbound Flotilla	"Floran wantsss to meet Three Chiefsss!" Biteblade says, very intensely. "Floran isss gonna hunt /big/ preymonssster for shrineheart. Preymonssster ssso big," She puts her arms out as if she's describing an actual size. "That goddess will know everything about why isss bessst to not take cat friend'sss greenssspace. Floran want to sssee a great beassst of the land too! Need to know what it'sss like." She's practically bouncing. Looks like she /very especially/ wants to meet up with whatever the local equivalent of a hunter is. And if she gets to fight more strange, esoteric monsters like that, it'll be doubly good. A more local breed found in the holy land too, from the sound of it!
Staren	Biteblade's enthusiasm is almost infectious. Staren relaxes a little more. "Alright, yeah. Let's find the biggest, baddest thing and take it out. May as well see more of how the goddess's creatures fight anyway. Let's talk to Three Chiefs and see if they know where we can find one."
Yuli Sin	Zayan looks only briefly a little sorrowful at the mention of the others. She looks to the side of the room, towards a set of gold masks that have been hung up next to low rows of other old personal affects, no doubt from many different previous generations. "It's fortunate enough that you made it as well, if you had to travel any further than we did. Things are wonderful here. The holy land gets more arrivals these years, the priests tell me, so arrivals like ours aren't so strange. There's plenty of room, and more hands can make more." "The goddess is very responsive to the hearts of her enemies. The Necromancer, the Mother of Ghosts, the Infinite Maw, to the west, the north, and the south. War is in her domain. Besides; none are friendly to He." she adds, in harder tones. Clearly enjoying Biteblade's enthusiasm, the lead priest ushers her through a similar route to where Mikoto had gone, obviously heading to the room where a dead synth creature is being chopped up as a likely destination for tracking down the clan hunter. "Fortune smiles on you. Three Chiefs only returns here only infrequently and doesn't stay for long. You've come just after the holy week; he would have left the next day." Along the way, the priest makes some cultural smalltalk. "That title belongs to him for being the chief of the Hundred and Seventh Path three times; each time the Path assumed he had perished, only for him to return years later. After long enough, our forefathers decided he would simply remain honourary chief in perpetuity, and the priesthood would interpret his will in his absence." They enter the same room as Mikoto. The kids are all fixated on them now. The priest guiding Biteblade breezes right past every man and woman in the room, heads all the way to the end, and then kneels on a mat before the dusty suit of powered armour plugged into the recess, as if sitting before the shogun. The kids scatter from decorating it, falling behind a certain distance in line. "You will need this token." he says in hushed tones, handing Biteblade a tiny little square of glass, with rounded black plated corners. He then waits there. Very patiently. To 'interpret the will' of the dust-covered suit of armour now covered in decorations by small children. Nothing appears to be terribly forthcoming about it. Zayan bids one of the kids to run up and drop the trophy finger from the Golden Lion over Biteblade's neck, and then a few seconds after, then the glass responds, projecting a series of layered images inside it, shifting through a variety of characters. That part is borderline irrelevant to the Starbound Flotilla and Staren though. The local tactical network immediately pings a new signature; Callsign: 117 - Lambent Corona The little glass pad flashes with little abstracted symbols, going through a plant leaf, a bow and arrow, a lion, a red drop, a half moon, then a pause, then a waxing moon, a tiger, a heart, and an hourglass. It really, really looks like part of a screen taken out of some portable device that'd been salvaged, and likely has its chip glued somewhere in the back. Over the tactical network, an encrypted text message comes through. o-bring heavy weapons. don't die.
Staren	Staren follows Biteblade, unless it looks like someone's going to fight him over it. He looks at the beast being salvaged curiously. "So where's Three Chiefs? Oh, is he... in the armor? Hey there..." He starts to wave, but the... stillness of the armor and the way the priest acts like he's communing with it is slightly offputting. And then someone gets onto their network. Who are you? Staren texts back.
Sumiko	"I lost two sets of parents.." Mikoto says because misery loves company. "Perhaps it is fortunate, or the will of the Kami that we came when we did and received your distress signal," she continues, putting a hand on the woman's shoulder. "Well, that's good then...it should get her attention..." A beat listening to the hostile places around here, "What happened to create such a world.." Of course, this is all interrupted by the coming people. Mikoto waves to the new person, and then Biteblade and Staren on their heals. She gives Staren the spare necklace she was given, as Biteblade is presented with her own. "Wait...this is someone? Not just a guardian?" She asks, confused, missing half of this, and is surprised when someone speaks on the tactical. M: Ok, and hi I'm Mikoto. Nice to meet you guardian spirit-san!
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade knows how to deal with salvaged things. Most of what she does is done by stealing shit out of stuff other people made! So she can immediately deal with this. A quick AR-keyboard tapping deals with this, as Biteblade twists at invisible circles. Hello, honored hunter. Floran is Biteblade, a captain of the Starbound Flotilla. It sounds like you already know what's going on. We have weapons as heavy as you could ask for, and we know how to use them. Will you let us join you in a hunt? Biteblade gives a grateful nod to the wise new friend as she does this. "Floran underssstands a little. Floran think, now isss good and sssolved! Thank you, new shiny-head friend. All help, and Floran appreciate! Will bring you back sssomething asss trophy for help! Give honor for great altruisssm, yesss!"
Yuli Sin	o-I can hear you fine. o-36 hours until the charge cycle is complete. o-you have time to get ready. The head priest answers Mikoto from his kneeling position. "Three Chiefs is the guardian to many other Paths as well as ours. He is one of the oldest in the glasslands, among the three most powerful of the goddess' ordained champions. The Hundred and Seventh is what you could call his spiritual home, however. He returns here to regather his strength and bathe in the divine energies of the goddess for seven days, once every one and one third years, and watches over the holy week. o-I have a target in mind. o-when I find it, you'll know. o-you can help out if you're fast. The priest hovering over Biteblade's shoulder assesses the symbols, nods sagely, and says "He is satisfied by your hunting prowess. He will leave at the end of the holy week, and travel for several nights. There he will find an even greater foe, and you will do battle with it. You have until the feast to ready yourselves and prepare." That was . . . mostly accurate, actually. o-and show up for dinner. o-the locals call it good luck. The suit on the chair raises a hand, shaking a thin layer of dust that'd gathered on it, and, subtly, very carefully not dislodging any of the decorations the kids had piled on it. Taking the indication, a handful of boys disappear hurriedly into a back room, and then come out lugging an especially exotic looking rifle between the four of them, struggling with its weight to bring it over and present it to Three Chiefs, who successfully picks it up with one hand. At a touch, status lights blink on and a holographic sight appears, the heavy, broad, one-piece main aperture splitting down the middle with an electric whine. Three Chiefs begins slowly and methodically stripping and inspecting the rifle, closing the text channel and indulging in the mindless prepwork. "He's impressed." nods the priest, wisely. "You can stay as long as you like. A hunting Three Chiefs is moved by is an esteemed one indeed."
Sumiko	Mikoto nods but is glad he can hear them. Having to text everything on her phone to talk to someone in the same room as them was very...disconnected. "Ah ok, nice to meet you then, Three Chiefs. I'd be an honor to hunt with you," she says, with a proper bow. Then one to the Priest gotta be polite. "Thank you for telling me! Huh...so a feast and then a hunt. Well, it'd be a heck of a thing to write a report about...and I am on break." She grins, "Sounds like fun. That and a good chance to learn more about how things are here."
Staren	Every year and a third? What an odd timeframe. Recharging batteries, perhaps? Staren simply nods. "Well... I can stay for dinner, but then I'd better go prepare my weapons."
Starbound Flotilla	"Feassst!" Biteblade suddenly calls out, abruptly. "Yesss! Good, Floran getsss honor of great hunter! Floran needsss to ssstay for great feassst. You have meat here in glasssslandsss, right?" She turns to the spiritual new friend here and looks /intensely/ hungry. But then, she always does. Bit of a symptom of having /so many teeth/. "Can Floran have workshop ssspace? Gonna tune up and get ready! Gonna get biggessst magbow for thisss!" She seems terribly excited, and has only barely avoided giving a hug to Three Chiefs by instead giving one to their guide. She's practically skipping off in excitement!