Scene #7270: Arson on the Sacred Mountain

Owner	Pose
Lilian Rook	Time is a flat circle and Oda Nobunaga is laughing in hell. From what you're told as critical backstory, it goes that a critical handoff between the neo-daimyo clans of Oda and Hojo, exchanging two of the infamous forty-four swords made by Sengo Muramasa after his own death, had been interrupted and one of the blades stolen, the Oda clan left without their side of the trade has been out for blood. The Hojo themselves are completely above suspicion for a very simple fact: the Hojo clan has three swords, and a well-known curse on the whole set is that anyone or any household that holds exactly four swords at any one time will fall upon disaster without fail. Thus, the fact that the hired Multiversal thief and his local support had attempted to steal both, however, means that whoever hired them cannot have two already. Given the very well known way that 44 swords are spread across 11 clans, the villain in question could only have either one or three themselves; nobody has just one, and thus anyone with three could not possibly take the sword their hired middlemen had stolen -- not until they steal a second one and present both at the same time. This has given the Oda, actively aided by the Hojo as both a sign of goodwill and as a matter of honour for the fact that the theft had happened under the watch of their retainer as well, time to track down where a strike team of traditional warrior monks could have been convinced into karmic sin in broad daylight and plainclothes next to a pair of heretical eastern sorcerers. Before the culprit burns all their contact assets and dissolves the shell they'd operated from. This is a lot easier due to the fact that one of them had been captured, and though possessed of an iron will from years of training, distinctly lacks both the alien mindset and suicide implements of a real shinobi. The two of them had their specialists scrape all the info they could from the man's mind (before beheading him, you're told), which has lead them somewhere rather unpleasant: one of the many secret monasteries on the slopes of the protected zone of Mount Fuji, albeit uncharacteristically near its base, and it seems, secluded by eastern magic rather than the proper mystical practises of a buddhist hermit. Which leads the clan that was once infamous for Oda Nobunaga, up the side of a sacred mountain, to surround and cut off all escape from a temple of warrior monks, and lay siege to it for standing against them. History is a sequel to itself.
Lilian Rook	Despite being extremely personal clan business, and a matter not only of extremely culturally significant honour, but of maintaining the integrity of a national power balance, Multiversals are allowed to this one. This is entirely because a bunch of them threw themselves out on a limb to protect the botched exchange before, and saved one of the swords -- the Muramasa of Life, given by the Oda to the Hojo. Which is ideal, because Lilian had warned them of the thing she's concerned about: the fact that the regional director of the Japanese isles theatre, based out of the Hidden Continent, has not only agreed to allow this, but actively forbidden the nation's neutral special forces from wrapping it up themselves, or even participating. The Muramasa of Separations is in the temple somewhere here, in this stretch of still-forested mountainside, where the ground levels out just enough to nestle a building complex on a broad line of flat ground across a meltwater river, up against a cliff and surrounded on all sides by hinoki cypress, maintaining a certain level of darkness even around late morning. It would seem to anyone that the space is completely empty, save for bits and pieces of broken up forest across it, but you're very much assured it isn't, and that it's been accomplished with more powerful magic than some kind of cloaking, as the monastery is coterminous with the forest occupying its space. This isn't a matter for screwing about, evidenced by the fact that there are no less than three hundred troops sent from the combined personal armies of each clan (at a 2:1 split), two five-man teams of ostensibly skilled senior onmyouji, a squad of four Enlightened retainers from the Hojo clan, and one of the Oda's three Muramasa wielders, Oda Morimitsu, being the unusual six and a half foot giant clad in mon-emblazoned modern composite o-yoroi. The encirclement chokes both sides of the linear stretch of flat level, with three quarters of the total forces split between them. The remainder are posted in the forest below and atop the cliff above. There are no ranks of archers with oil-soaked arrows, this time. They've been busy lacing the lower slope with land mines, setting up mortars above, posting snipers around the forest, and digging up embankments and placing prefab barricades. The sorcerers have been making the rounds drawing a geometrically satisfactory circle of correct talismans and occult objects around the perimeter of the area, between the monastery and the troops.
Lilian Rook	Their job after that, however, is revealing the complex, requiring an extensive ten man ritual to properly break down the borders of the concealment, based in destructively countering the geometry accomplishing the spatial distortion. The forest distorts in the center, trees drifting aside as if gliding across eyes, stones and shrubs pushed towards the edges of the encirclement, just now looking as if they fit in perfectly with the general density of the mountainside forest. The construction that rises out of the leaf-strewn earth is unusual. Dull, pale grey, hewn out of stones lower down on the mountainside, with undyed clay tile eaves and no banner markings to speak of. Old circular windows are dark at midday. The traditional courtyard is bare of anything but a trench for running the river water through a winding series of small gardens. There seems to not be a soul around. Not on the grounds, not in any of the side buildings flanking the square, not in either of the two large, tiered towers at the front, and not in the broad, multi-level quasi-castle at the far side. There isn't a statue or shrine to be seen anywhere, even. It's freakishly quiet.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Break the defenses A modern siege for a modern era. Arthur Lowell joins it. Did someone say exotic geometry and spatial distortion? Arthur Lowell is hard at work on making sure the concealment is broken, leveraging his powerful understanding of space, geometry, and magic to help make sure it happens. His methods are, of course, far less traditional, but he should be a significant help. >Arthur: Approach Stomping his feet with all the weight his slight frame can muster, he approaches. He approaches as far as is safe -- not safe for most, but at least safe for him to speak. He stops his clomping stride and stands, grin beaming, eyes wide, arms crossed, hood flapping dramatically. >Arthur: Pester "YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUU!" He roars, pointing a finger accusingly at the building. "The name's ARTHUR LOWELL! ROCKET-POWERED HOOLIGAN! BULL-HEADED PUNK!" He jams his thumb against his chest. "AND THE MAN ABOUT TO BREAK EVERY PIOUS KNEECAP IN THIS WHOLE DAMN BUILDING!!" Back to crossed arms. "Bring the SWORD OUT, you MOTHERFUCKERS, or I'm 'boutta show you some HOCUS POCUS BULLSHIT that'll SLOW YOU DOWN for WEEKS longer than that PARALYTIC BULLSHIT ya hit me with!"
Eryl Fairfax	Eryl is aware of the historic irony of the Oda clan laying siege to a temple of warrior monks on a mountain. But he dares not say it aloud. That last one was more a massacre, and it may inflate heads and egos to draw parallels. He catches up on the whole situation and occasionally bending down to pick up a loose stone while watching the sorcerers crack the concealment with some unorthodox help from Arthur. As soon as the stone-hewed, spartan temple reveals itself, Eryl begins to walk. Never mind the boundless silence. Never mind the intensely obvious scent of an ambush lying in wait for the besieging army. Eryl just walks in, as if out on a Sunday stroll. Someone has to test the bait. It may as well be the nigh-invincible cyborg.
Tamamo	Having expressed her interest, Tamamo arrives, though not specifically to the aid of the besieging army. She has a little problem with them, at the moment. They'd taken in a captive who had surrendered to her--and then cut his head off. The punishment fit the crime, and this misstep in proper custody was a surely unintentional slight, but a slight, all the same. Their actions would have made sense had she had been in the clan's employ, and thus obligated to fully turn over custody. The implication is wholly unacceptable. Thus, Tamamo does not arrive together with the army, nor behind the army, nor does she otherwise meet with the army at all. She simply appears, without giving any particular sign of her passage or even her mode of travel, on the inside of the quasi-castle, right inside the entrance, with the doors firmly shut behind her. She feels no particular need to identify herself. They'd already recognized her well enough, last time. Instead, she walks quickly forward, calling out, "You know me, and you know our time here does not stretch overlong. Make your entreaties now, before the storm's arrival. I will hear them." As she does, she searches for the presence of sorceries, for the hidden places they would need for either desperate survival or cunning escape. If they have any plan, it is most likely neither to die here, nor to attempt to wipe out the invading force, though it is only her assumption that they would be more clever than that.
Xion	Xion wonders and marvels at the sheer scope and scale of things. "It's like the Galbadians, but cooler...!" She oohs and ahs as the Oda clan spread out and form a tactical cordon, their sorcerers putting out enough magic to tingle her face. It's nothing compared to Arthur Lowell's output, though. The guy's on fire, and Xion is absolutely here for it, big Trigger stars in her eyes sparkling bright. >Xion: Cut the promo. "Quake!" She incants in a stage whisper, placing all five bridged fingers against the ground. Pulses of magic rumble through the ground, pale flashes of magic spidering through the ground with cracks timed to Arthur's dramatic stomps. She manages to resist two-fisting vuvuzelas as he rises into the air and shout, instead squinting into the parting trees - for a gate, a barred or locked area, some geomantic defense: anything that would bar the way in from a full frontal charge attack. Extending her left hand out, her fist closes on a faded, gutterig flame of a light that sputters and spits in her hand. The sound of something broken, fading, a candle in a breeze. "Archer... One more trick." She whispers to nobody but herself, the flame burning 'out' up and down to form the two arms of a longbow. Her right fingers pluck the string, a key-like shaft of light stringing itself against her gripping thumb. Pulling the string to her ear, she squints her blue eyes at the front door, takes a breath, and holds it. Angling her shot up to arc vertically to the target, she looses the Starlight-shaped shot through the intervening distance to banish the barricades. As the arrowstring twangs, the bow twinkles and shatters with a metal snapping sound, and fades away into dust.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Examine monastery Arthur leverages his powerful GEOMETRIC MAGIC SENSES, performing a full-scale ANALYSIS of the enemy position as best he can. While he might be behaving like a complete idiot, Tamamo has the right idea and it's right enough that he won't abstain from it nonsensically. He's looking for any more geometric tricks, and if he can find any fancy magical geometries, instead of looking for hidden things or secrets, he's going to look for something else. Specifically: What is, tactically, the best and most disruptive part of the building to smash through the walls or windows dramatically and start the attack? Is that even possible right now?
Lilian Rook	Whereas Arthur might've become used to it before with some of the victories he'd scored along the way here, this time there is no enthusiastic response, never mind cheering, to his unearthing the monastery from under its veil of pinched and stretched space, folding over itself with too-thin forest. They are, after all, here to perform a job. And it isn't a feelgood win against inhuman monsters either. It's something that harkens back to bloody history hundreds of years old, just with fewer people to die this time. Stomping his way to the front with dramatic cracks, courtesy of Xion, adding to the theatrics, it'd be reasonable to assume that he'd get a significant response from the other side instead. He does not. Were he somehow less sensible than he is, he'd get the feeling that nobody is home and they've all been duped, but it's not as if temples like these are full of people who can't keep their mouths shut and feel like reacting emotionally a lot. Given the look from the outside, unless he plans to scrape the buildings around the inner perimeter of the courtyard -- nominally where people would live and do things necessary to support the commune -- it's only the four storey rise at the far end, furthest over the meltwater river, that seems as if it'd have anything important, and probably not right behind the big, obvious front gate. Logically, as far away from there as possible, without kicking in a window up high being an easier route. There seems to be little else in the way of geometric powers, however. There are the ringing elements of feng shui and auspicious luck-gathering and meditation-enhancing shapes, but nothing overtly 'magic' as opposed to merely spiritual and/or cultural. It very much feels as if the concealment had been outside help. Something allowed to be laid down by outsiders. That large-scale working of geometry doesn't appear to have been the only thing laid down, however. Eryl is able to strut right into the courtyard without issue, stepping across worn-smooth flagstones, around rock gardens, across bends in the calm, water-filled trench winding back and forth through the middle, not even experiencing any data correlating to someone taking aim at him from one of those pitch black windows. There's only an extremely brief warning when he steps on one particular stone, as if it were the click of a landmine, before an explosion goes off from a malevolent talisman beneath, laid between the stone being removed and then grouted back down. An explosion of superheated purple fire sufficient to create a small mushroom cloud blows up from underneath, turning bits of rock into white hot bullets and releasing a cloud of toxic smoke along with the blaze. Considering he's first to find evidence of traps -- very un-monk-ly ones, he's radioed to head back behind the barrier; the plan has immediately become to shell the entire courtyard into so much flaming rubble, such that no measures of preparation could remain intact, before entering. None of them particularly stop Xion's shot from arcing across the empty space, breaking through an invisible dome that turns shades of iridescent soap bubble when it shatters, and landing right in the front gate's heavy locks, causing a bar to fall from the opposite side with a loud thunk.
Lilian Rook	Tamamo has a different experience, beyond the dull rumble and the spike of magical energy she can pick up from outside, strangely insulated. She'd pulled strings and used different channels from the rest. It may even be best for the siegers to not have Tamamo no Mae, ostensibly bunrei of Amaterasu Omikami, along with them and watching, but that's not the point. The building is very dark inside. The windows are blacked out because they only stare in at a darkness that fills the rooms like haze, certainly obeying rules more like fog than an absence of light. Looking around without moving far, the stairs that lead right and left from this room are certainly trapped, as are the far broader stairs that lead down at the far end, as well as heavily warded at the bottom, possibly being some sort of sanctum, or at least a secret tunnel of some kind. There's a lot of unsavoury onmyo laid all around the place, with all vestiges of familiar buddhist-style blessings stripped bare. All the places she'd expect to find figures or icons to honour the tradition, in fact, are bare, with outlines in dust that indicates they were removed. She can also sense the presence of spirits about the place, but not their specific location -- that especially should be sacrilegious to this sort of temple. What actually replies to her isn't of such sorcerous bent though. She hears a voice in the room that comes from a perfectly ordinary radio tucked into a corner behind an empty plinth, resourcefully using no magic, and no doubt two-way. "Though it might honour us to receive you on another occasion, you should leave, right away. This is a sacred place no longer. Those of us who have renounced our vows for the greater good will remain for long enough to see you out and away. There is no sense in you being caught in these conflicts of karma. Those of us who did, knew what we were doing, and stand by why it was done." There's just enough of a pause to have been talking to someone. "Those of us who did not -- who maintain their loyalty, will be forced to leave as well. We cannot send the demonic sword along with them. That would only endanger their escape. We will attempt our best to deliver it ourselves, but whether or not you agree is beyond our mortal hands. We entreat that you either return to the lines outside where you will not be caught between this necessary conflict, or that else you see those who are loyal to the buddha's teachings out to the mountainside ten miles from here, or if it does not displease you, carry away the demonic sword to a tengu who you will know when you see, aboveground. Regardless, we will do what we must."
Arthur Lowell	>==> "ALRIGHT!" Arthur roars. "NO SWORD, NO MERCY, BABY! Time to MAKE THINGS RIGHT and BRING YOU SOME LIGHT!" Slamming one foot down hard, one almost expects the same significant oomph of one of Xion's quakes, but no. A sun is summoned, a drifting star that joins him as he charges. The darkness in the building, he intends to banish it. A roaring shout of enthusiasm marks the start of his broom-rocket as he charges in. First: SMASH that gate now that it's unbarred! Crash through it, and arc towards the interior! ------------------------------------------------- \| \| \| ACTIVE \| DANGER \| CRITICAL \| \| ---------- \| ------------ \| ------------------- \| \| \| \| \| \| ******** \| ********** \| \| \| \| \| \| ------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- \| \| \| THRUSTER MODES \| \| \| \| [ ] DASH \| \| [ ] CRUISE \| \| [ ] CHARGE \| \| [ ] SPRINT \| \| [X] ESCAPE VELOCITY \| \| [ ] UNSTOPPABLE FORCE \| \| [ ] PLAID \| \| [ ] UP A GODDAMN NOTCH \| \| [ ] LET'S DO THIS SHIT \| -------------------------- He accelerates hard as soon as he notices what happened to Eryl, and takes it into account despite his show of being a huge idiot. The thing about a landmine is that it has a fuse. The thing about a secret buried malevolent talisman is that it has a time of activation, where spiritual machinery processes its terms coming to fruition. If Arthur can go fast enough, he can outrun them. >Arthur: Locate objective using Analysis and Magic Sense Key thing to find is that sword. How can he? Can his senses mark it? He fixes his senses for magic and especially spatial phenomena on whatever trace fragments of magic he might have been able to pick up from the sword when it was nearby. Can he identify anything?
Tamamo	Radios are not as personable as Tamamo would like, wholly apart from her inability to exert more forceful influences over those who are not, technically, present. It would have made the conversation swifter, even if it changed nothing about its conclusion. With such a time limit, she must resist the temptation to argue over karmic balances and the teachings of the buddha. Instead, she walks over to the radio, just for the comfort of not having to raise her voice. "Mine is not to spirit some away under the protective cover of night, or otherwise avoid such prying eyes as here watch keenly for any escape. If you have already prepared a route for them to take, I will see to the certainty that they be spared this. Were you to lack such, I expect you would find little chance in completing this delivery." The tengu. Interesting. If they really don't have any plan for getting the monks out, the best she can likely do--short of telling the clan warriors to stop, which she has good reasons to avoid--is to write out some good fortune for them. While hers are powerful blessings, the presence of this many practitioners, multiversals included, makes the immediate future a murky one. It wouldn't be guaranteed safety unless other steps were taken, and she's still considering those. "Do you lay an alternate claim to the sword? I must regretfully admit, the achievements of swordsmiths were rarely of great interest to me, and so the blades are outside my present knowledge, whatever She might know of them. You spoke of necessity, but do you challenge their ownership? If there is nothing to say on this matter, then I will not be party to the appearance of mere theft."
Eryl Fairfax	The pleasant stroll ends quickly. Eryl had naturally been scanning his surroundings. Awaiting gunfire from the windows, or footsteps that foretell the arrival of the repelling force. What he gets instead is a slight shifting of the stone underfoot, and Original Face screaming at him. "Oh hell." He leaps back with his backfoot, raising metal limbs to protect fleshy bod from the superheated stone bullets. One manages to sneak pass to cut the side of his head, but organs are preserved as he lands back down with a thud. Arthur goes streaking in overhead as he gets the radio call to fall back. "No time, now that he's going in," he replies. "Shell away if you like, I can handle it." He gets back to his feet and begins backing up, stepping on his own footsteps so as to avoid any further surprises. Before breaking into a run and leaping towards the castle. While airborne, a projectile fires from his knee towards the gates, the shell exploding on impact to create an opening for him to tumble through.
Xion	Eryl triggered the traps! Arthur barreled in the front door! Tamamo-- Xion feels another powerful desire, less the burning heart of Arthur Lowell and more of a radiant countenance. So, instead of ARPG wackyarms clownshoe saunter towards the gate like a PS2 era garbage child while buttrock plays, Xion swerves in her canned full-stick walk and joins up with Tamamo. "It's really nice of you to try and get everyone out of this." She comments, peering at the radio with an afficianado's eyes. "I think Arthur is trying that too, and the Grandmaster is probably one of the best at it." Xion leans over, whispering in Tamamo's... sssside of the head. She does not go for any animal ears, because that'd be ?rude?? "Do you think we can get the Oda Clan to not burn them to the ground if we tell them nicely, too?"
Lilian Rook	The voice on the other end of the radio, nondescriptly male and measured, is slightly slow and reserved when replying to Tamamo. "There is a way. Beneath the temple and into the mountain as deep as is safe. It will pass beneath the soldiers and their sorcerers. There is no chance they will be unnoticed should they carry the demonic sword with them. So they will not." "The matter of ownership we, I, do not recognize at all. The smith died long before these swords were completed. They were never meant for commission or sale or gift to any lord or another. The deviant blades were forged by a man's ghost out of an obsession so strong that he resisted reincarnation for a century before finishing his life's work. All that has happened since then is that they have been collected. Unearthed, scavenged, stolen, conquered, and changed hands a hundred times over for hundreds of years of bloodshed. There are no dedications here. No marks on these blades but pieces of the cipher to the forty-fifth. That any lord owns them is only a matter of having the power to take them." "This is a power they cannot be allowed to hold forever. It has already been foreseen. They will be returned to the heir or they will be returned to the earth. Many agree on this. More than the daimyo realize, still unable to let go of Sengoku in their minds." "Downstairs is where you will find the hermits that we send away. Upstairs is where you will find the sword. We have no way of allowing you safe passage through the courtyard any longer. That is the limit of our ability." She can tell that pretty quickly. Even from inside, she can hear Oda Morimitsu yelling the order to fire from all the way across the courtyard and beyond the boundary outside of it. Arthur blazing across the courtyard at top speed causes a tidal wave of explosions, fire and lightning, to follow closely in his wake, fit to singe the bristles of his broom, and create an enormous, obscuring wall of dirt and smoke, much of it unfortunately poisonous. Right away, she can hear the result of the flashes that strobe and pop atop the cliff above, bursting loudly in midair and showering the courtyard, gardens, buildings and all, safe zone and no-man's land, in a carpet of bomblets that set the whole grounds to the torch immediately, burning with whitish fire smelling of acids that spreads slowly on its own, eating through the stonework. The door, sans its wards due to Xion, is blasted open only ten seconds later by Eryl, not having much in the way of an ability to withstand his coilgun. The radio clicks off loudly, just late enough for Xion to hear it. Those who came from outside are not so 'fondly' entertained. They don't get to see whatever the monastery has prepared either to spirit people away or run with the sword, for that is the point, but they get to see more of the more elaborate, last ditch efforts their still-unknown mystery sorcerer allies had laid down. Mostly becomes they come out to eat them.
Lilian Rook	Though in origin they are of a decidedly earthly sort, it's little help to the initial shock of waves of gaunt and long-armed, horned devils pouring out of holes in the earth and sprinting out into the surroundings, screaming as if in mad torment. As soon as snipers take out the windows on the upper levels, explosions following a moment later from the special munitions, severed heads with painted faces and drifting hair fly out of the pits of broken glass by the score, flying high above the fires and coming down on the army in a wailing swarm. The Elites pressing through the fore are assaulted on the ground by clawed and horned menaces, trying to pull apart their limbs, and from on high by the mysteriously floating heads of women baring fangs and biting at their throats and heads. This does, at least, accomplish the task of stalling the huge block of troops outside. The forest immediately becomes a chaotic den of gunfire and explosions that certainly matches or exceeds its historical predecessor despite its much smaller scale. Hordes of lesser devils and cursed remains can be shredded with enough advanced bullets -- the time they would overwhelm thousands of soldiers is long in the past -- but it requires doubling down behind the wards that the friendly sorcerers fight to keep up, throwing grenades where they pile up and focusing gunfire on the chokes where they start to break through. Since the courtyard is both on fire and all of its narrow 'safe' paths are awash with fire-immune demons, there's little way to push forward for the next few minutes at least. The warriors monks themselves, disavowed by the Buddha, are still nowhere to be seen.
Arthur Lowell	>[S] Arthur: Make this right Arthur could make an effort to test the further-up defenses. Or try to cast a portal inside, or something. But that would leave him vulnerable to facing whatever threat is presented there solo, and... more importantly, it wouldn't be as heroic, as down-to-earth. And so, here, he skids to a stop in the safe path, brandishing his broom, and chooses to fight. That doesn't mean he doesn't understand that he needs to fight /fast/. He pops the cover on some more switches, and revs his broom by yanking a ripcord hard. -------------------------- -------------------------- \| \| \| \| \| BLENDER MODES \| \| THRUSTER MODES \| \| \| \| \| \| [ ] STIR \| \| [ ] DASH \| \| [ ] CHOP \| \| [ ] CRUISE \| \| [ ] MIX \| \| [ ] CHARGE \| \| [ ] PUREE \| \| [ ] SPRINT \| \| [ ] LIQUIFY \| \| [X] ESCAPE VELOCITY \| \| [ ] CRUSH ICE \| \| [ ] UNSTOPPABLE FORCE \| \| [ ] CRUSH BONES \| \| [ ] PLAID \| \| [ ] RIP/TEAR \| \| [ ] UP A GODDAMN NOTCH \| \| [X] ATOMIC DISASSEMBLY \| \| [ ] LET'S DO THIS SHIT \| \| [ ] ANNIHILATION \| -------------------------- \| [ ] LET'S END THIS SHIT \| -------------------------- He goes to town. These are monsters, evil spirits. He can take them apart and still feel righteous and decent at the end of the day. And so he does his best to. He focuses on the aerial threat, suffering the bites head-on with enthusiasm and willpower to keep the air clear with rapid dashing and heavy atom-splitting broom-blender action, interspersed with brief moments of SHMUP-protocol magical blasting on both air and land. Before long, blood pours down his chest and his arms from bites, but the amount of ultraviolence he's dished out fits just such an aesthetic. "WHAT'S WROOOOONG!?" He shouts out, in his most obnoxious, taunting voice. "You don't gotcha SORCERER FRIENDS to get up in my BATTLES with the PARALYSIS now?! Come out here instead of your SPIRIT BUDDIES and learn the Fifth Noble Truth: 'FUCK YOU, FIGHT ME!!'" They're delaying him. This much he can vaguely tactically comprehend. But he hasn't seen the speedster, so he thinks he can make a good effort to out-speed their delay.
Tamamo	"Aha," Tamamo says, "and so it is a matter of power gained for its own sake. Alas, to wrest the desires of war from humanity is outside mine intent." She isn't saying that she can't, and isn't saying what her intent actually is. "With sadness, I shall leave such mortals to their own misfortune. May your fate return you to the path." A short bow will go unseen. Then, explosions. "Ah." As expected, Tamamo didn't have very long to chat. There was only a courtyard in the way, after all. Maybe it would have been better to get further inside--though at least it isn't the samurai who charge in first, just (what appear to be) some combination of a young man, a teen girl in a trenchcoat, and a teen boy too cool for foresight or responsibility. Still, it could be much worse. Having somehow avoided even any dust accompanying the forced entry, Tamamo greets any entry with an ambiguous smile and a nod. At Xion's question, the nearest fox-ear slightly shifts to orient on her. Long hair, along with the little bells hanging off her headdress, make it unclear if she has a second pair of human-style ears to reach, but probably not. "Oh, so you did overhear this much. Hmm..." She ponders the question. "I fear they would be undissuaded unless some noxious force were brought to bear, and it is not my wish to impose my own rule... nor, indeed, that of any others." Being forceful or obnoxious would not count as 'telling them nicely.' "Those who do 'what is necessary' are not so easy to persuade. Best, perhaps, to render the aim 'unnecessary,' and let their honor remain, do you see?" That's probably more than the time that should be spent discussing the matter, time still being quite short, army of spirits included. Tamamo extends her attention to the stairs down, checking for the appropriate path. Still to Xion, "If you would like to assist in a... rescue mission, you may come with me. If you intend to assist the Oda, however, you should head in the opposite direction." Tamamo is not assisting the Oda, today, even slightly, by whatever combination of design and 'that's just how it turned out.' She makes her way downstairs at a brisk walk, which leaves enough of her attention there to spot and leap over traps on the floor, or dispel any curses targeting the entrance as a whole. Her own magic, of course, exactly counteracts this sort of thing, which means she has plenty of ammunition for immediate counterspells.
Eryl Fairfax	Eryl rolls to the ground and bounces to his feet. He was expecting some form of resistance at this point, and he finally gets it. Horned figures shambling to the hole he made, aiming to swarm the already hazardous courtyard. Flying heads blot the sky and come down to bite and gnash as these demons fall upon him with strength and numbers. This is bad. In pushing this far ahead, he can't easily fall back, especially with the courtyard in flames and choked with poison smog. The only way is forward, and these demons outnumber him, perhaps even 100 to 1. But he does have one advantage on his side. This far out, there's no one to watch him fight. The first demon that grabs at him has its head severed, Eryl's Ungraspable high-frequency blades hissing against the mountain air as they glow white-hot. Said head is grabbed and hurled at one of those flying heads horns-first to impale it. His One Hand Clapping coilguns fire in tight bursts, tiny slugs erupting from his index fingers at near-relativistic speeds. Even a tiny object can blow holes through multiple targets at such velocities. Another head bites down on Eryl's neck and he simply grabs it by the hair and yanks, letting it take a pound of flesh before slamming it down on the head of a horned demon, impaling it on its horns before cutting it and the demon in half from the head down. He lets them swarm him, lets them get their blows in, but never stops hitting back, and ensures every blow is a lethal one. It's a horrific display on behalf of the cyborg, paining this Buddhist temple bloody with weapons named, after their teachings. It's a new, advanced form of heresy that there isn't a name for yet.
Xion	A choice, then. Between helping the Oda, and helping Tamamo. That's-- Xion drops in behind Tamamo like a JRPG party member, matching her gait and step somehow in a lockstep so perfect and matched Tamamo could easily amuse herself by hours increasing her heel rotational speed and hurling Xion around completely unlimited by geometry. "Well, you're Lilian's best friend, and I'm here for Lilian, so, that's an easy choice. I'll support you in whatever you want to do!" She has the pure smile of a JRPG protagonist, and the absolute iron certainty of the words she said. Whatever you want, Tamamo. Anything. She's got your back. Drawing out her Keyblade (a star-capped simple blue-and-chrome affair) Xion swings her weapon over her shoulder and Engages In Lockstep.
Tamamo	A secret way. Faithful monks. A need to escape. They would have left, already, but something hinders them. Reluctance? Loyalty to their wayward brethren? Surely not to the monastery's grounds--they have already been defaced... no, not defaced, but swept clean, removing everything that would have been destroyed in the inevitable bombardment. They were prepared, after all. Everything of value must have been taken elsewhere, either far enough away, or still in the process of being moved. Is that it, then? Or is it only that they lacked the confidence of escaping the siege without help? The exit might not be so far away that the farthest warning line won't notice it. Tamamo gives Xion a markedly less ambiguous, happier smile as she steps behind her. It doesn't yet occur to her to abuse the lockstep for purposes of childish curiosity, but only because they're still in a timed section of the day's adventure. Having the keyblade along can only help in the matter of getting down through the defenses to reach where the monks wait, but Tamamo's first thought is still to deal with anything on her own, leaping (easily, despite the visual weight of that dress and trailing sleeves), dispelling, or auto-countering traps, depending on their type. Her defensive abilities naturally extend to Xion here, as well. "Have you ever drawn a fortune from a shrine, Xion?" Tamamo asks, pulling out a few slips of paper. The ink on them doesn't particularly look like anything, though there's a faint impression of 'LUCK' being written on each. "it is as to... horoscopes, yes? I have prepared some such fortunes as I thought might be needed by another. Would they be pleased to draw 'you will escape far from a violent confrontation, miraculously unharmed,' do you suppose?"
Lilian Rook	There isn't a prayer of an onmyouji, even turning their arts to similarly heretical ends as the monks here, placing spells that'd stand in the way of even a divine splinter of Amaterasu, even if she weren't already a famous 'kitsune witch'. A whole team of them can, and did, lay down a great quantity and volume of wards, restrictions, curses, and spot-summonings, up to and including one of those vary famous particular sorts of jars best not to break and genuine death curses, very much looking like the downstairs portion, underground, is where the sword would be kept. Normally, a whole team of monks would probably drop from the upper floor to fight people here, so by the time they broke through, it'd just be an empty sanctum. Since Tamamo had shown up extremely unexpectedly, as an already unexpected visitor, and sidetracked that part to a significant degree, that isn't quite what happens. The monks have no way of turning off any of those sorcerous means of defense, so it still requires a lot of repeated small efforts from her. Having Xion's keyblade to handy to slap against repeated barriers easily makes the work into half, all the way until the large, hefty, dusty doors at the bottom, rough and old with all their paint peeled away, grind slowly inward against their arch, revealing an underground cave and several paths that have never been fully smoothed out or furnished, largely only host to square wooden archers, ropes of lanterns, the dusty shapes of whatever was removed before, and piles of brass buddhas and stone jizo, wooden beads and neatly folded robes, discarded for good. The tunnels only go through several more empty rooms with any tapestries or idols of religious significance still left up and the rest taken away, looking very much like where a reliquary would be, but going nowhere. It's a nondescript stretch of blank stone amidst one of the passages that is entirely an illusion, possible to squeeze through even for a large man by turning sideways. It leads out into a deeper, darker, older tunnel by far, where the floors and walls ripple very slightly, painting striated coils of shadows all the way forward from any light source. Advancing even a little bit along it finds the lanterns held by a procession of would-be escapees, making mediocre progress for the fact that the group of mostly older men and a handful of young to middle-aged women, still actually wearing the robes otherwise discarded behind, or very simple day clothes, is carrying along a number of children, both their own, and as it looks like, several effectively deported from their original places of more modern living, in the same way some had witnessed the Hojo 'donate' their 'excess' to small organizations around the mountain. Even through what must be several meters of earth, the sheer volume of violence up above indicates where they're passing the Oda line.
Lilian Rook	Showing up behind them, a pair of older men smoothly step in the way and ready their walking staffs in the pair's direction. The younger children hurry back behind them, but one who could only be thirteen at most mimics one of the women, who draw and aim handguns from behind the actually well-trained warriors. Not now-obsolete turn of the century weapons, but the gunmetal and holography of real, extremely restricted military hardware. The woman's hands tremble slightly, but the boy's don't. He very firmly yells, almost losing control of his voice, "I'm not going back! I don't care what they want; I'm here now and here's where I'm going to stay! I won't leave again!" before the woman recognizes who Tamamo is in the dark and immediately shoves his gun down and claps her hand over his mouth, for the way the sound echoes like crazy. Daring to ask, she whispers instead, despite the fact that they should be pretty safely concealed this far down "You were sent here by the bhikku, weren't you? Please; we need to reach the end of this passage before the soldiers begin searching the area. If outsiders are helping them, it won't even take them twenty minutes to storm the insides. We won't outrun them when they find this." Up above, this seems to be proven as the case. The flood of a thousand and one devils set upon the crusading Oda soldiers, their Hojo support, and their Multiversal champions, begins to gutter out. Despite the impressive shock of it, whatever mysterious order is working arm in arm with who should be their enemies only had a short time to prepare it all, and no doubt lack grand arch-practitioners amongst their heretical ranks. The barriers laid down by the upright onmyouji are in tatters after not even ten minutes of fighting, causing breaches in places that bloody the trenches, but the demons flowing across the courtyard are thinned out by repeated direct mortar strikes and the flying heads picked out of the air by snipers. Outside of the raging firestorm, now starting to spread into the cypress forest all around, the courtyard is starting to become passable. Eryl and Arthur are able to outright butcher their way to the front, flaying evil spirits to bits and piling up corpses fit to impress the retainers struggling up the road of carnage behind them. They reach the entry shortly after Tamamo and Xion have left, able to see the open gates at the bottom level and the old rooms beyond, as well as a large number of shredded and burnt talismans and ropes.
Lilian Rook	Those two are instead the recipient of a score of black robed ordained monks borderline backflipping down the stairs to either side, using the walls and railings so as to arrive five at a time instead of coming down one by one through easy choke points. They quickly surround the entry, blocking off access up above, taking up fighting stances, grim-faced and wordless when they close in on the two and start fighting -- the kind designed to break every single bone in a man's body and pulverize his heart through his ribcage once all of his limbs stop working. It's not just a delay, but an outright last stand, where a doomstack of midbosses have all showed up at once. One of them looks to be in his sixties, yet is easily the leader of the miniboss encounter in motion. No less than four, however, are teenagers, and so awkward and novice in their martial arts -- still soft and slow from unmistakable years of urban living -- that their first choice the moment they've been knocked away is to draw and shoot once someone lets their guard down. The monks are expressionlessly resolute, but the youths clearly have not been trained in the ways enough to hide their open, shaking anger. There's going to be absolutely no way to track whoever has the sword, fleeing into the mountain they certainly know better than either the Elites or the feudal lords' men, until the leader of them Does Something. Oda Morimitsu slashes his way to the foot of the courtyard with plain steel, putting it away only to leave his hands free for unsheathing the other Muramasa blade here. The blade comes out colourless, and then instantly adopts the glaring colours of fire all along its flat, and their colour negative captured in its hamon. Drawing in a deep, slow, perfectly measured breath, his kiai and sudden cutting motion not only splits a path straight down through the fire to the doors, revealing bare, flawless, unburned stone, and not only does it cleave an entire mob of demons in half along the way, but a tingling wave of storm-like pressure washes through the building like cold water. The hazy darkness dissolves away, as does, more intangible, the 'confusion' of the battle. The sound of gunfire and shouting and howling beasts and roaring fire all parts out and heavily fades. The sudden motions and erratic pacing of the brawl become strangely measured and defined. The taint of dark magic and the swirling maelstrom of conflicting arcane energies recedes, and daylight comes through the rear of the building. A perfectly, unnaturally serendipitous view through a back window, lined up by the convenient motions of a hundred branches and stones and shifting clouds and bending trees, shows the back of a courier moving at high speed up the rocks against the river current, jumping up twenty feet at a time.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Take them on the way you're supposed to This is grim. This is where the human reality of the fight is settling. But Arthur, slamming through the door, has to make sure his momentum doesn't stop. In this moment of silence before the brawl, he raises a fist. "KNEES AND ELBOWS." He says. "NO SKULLS, NO ORGANS." A declaration of tactics. He's clarifying his non-lethality first and foremost. He takes his stance with a battle-broom. A wave of vision surges through. He sees through the back window. >Arthur: Accelerate -------------------------- \| \| \| THRUSTER MODES \| \| \| \| [ ] DASH \| \| [ ] CRUISE \| \| [ ] CHARGE \| \| [ ] SPRINT \| \| [ ] ESCAPE VELOCITY \| \| [ ] UNSTOPPABLE FORCE \| \| [X] PLAID \| \| [ ] UP A GODDAMN NOTCH \| \| [ ] LET'S DO THIS SHIT \| -------------------------- They will be able to get in the way. They will, most likely, probably be able to catch him. But with his high-speed broom-brawling melee-battling style, he can bring an absolutely outrageous amount of raw, refined skill, honed by dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands or tens of thousands of hours of time spent in the heat of combat, and hopefully match the disciplined skill they can wield; his sheer willpower can match the pain of gunshots. He has to believe he can surge through, crash through the other side of the monastary, and blast his way through the window to chase the courier down. "NOOOOOO YOOOOOOU DOOOOOOON'T!!" He roars. "I WON'T LET ANOTHER ONE GET AWAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!" No blender. Just bashing. Knees and elbows, nothing else. Arthur accelerates, fueled by an insecure desire to make his failure /right/.
Eryl Fairfax	Eryl is a sight by the end. Blood wells from the wound on his neck. His fine clothes have been torn apart, revealing cuts and bites all over his body, adding to a collection of old scars, both battle and surgical. Most of his face is obscured in blood, and only some of it is his own. Were the monks that now bar his path to think that the enemy has summoned their own demon to overwhelm their horde, it would be of no surprise. Eryl scans their faces, and immediately picks up on the young men. "What sick man sends children to fight this battle?" he immediately asks the eldest there, practically spitting the words along with saliva and blood. Arthur has this. He lets the hooligan dive into the thick of it and make the situation a loud mess. Eryl picks through the crowd, shoving aside anyone in his path, either deliberately or not, and heads towards the young man. If they draw and shoot at him, he takes it and presses on, until he's close enough to take the barrels of their guns in his hand. And then crush them beyond use. "Go home," he tells them. "Old men on both sides are sending young to die on behalf of a sword. Killing in pursuit of a tool for killing. For 'honor.' The only true honor lies in living wisely and safely with those who care for you. Go. Be with those people. If you have none, find them. You won't find any here." Once they're rendered a non-issue, he begins picking off the edges of the crowd that Arthur is drawing aggro from. Wrapping his arm and hands around throats and squeezing until unconsciousness claims them.
Xion	'Have you ever drawn a fortune?' Xion shakes her head, once more wonderment entering her eyes. The path is as the path does, with Tamamo taking the lead and Xion following behind in that oddly perfect lockstep. When Tamamo leaps, Xion is a pace behind. When she glides, Xion follows, hanging from ropes and sliding across walls. It is a dance - and the Nobody laughs, having 'fun' in the pleasant ways of physical exertion. The way a roller coaster is thrilling. The way bathing in the sun leaves a pleasant smell and a wonderful feeling on the skin, in moderation. "I don't believe I ever have!" Comes her eventual answer, taking a fortune when it's offered. "I don't really believe in horoscopes, either. Astrology though, that's really cool. Aren't the stars awesome? Bright and shining, like jewels. I hear the constellations have meaning too. Power." The fortune is held delicately, as she waits for Tamamo's decision about the catacombs and the adventure. She is, as she stated, Here For Tamamo. No matter what.
Tamamo	Trap after trap after trap. It might have worked to stall the invaders long enough, if Tamamo hadn't arrived, and opened the way for them. Wasting time down here while someone escapes up above. But then, they could have just bombarded the place after dealing with the demons, too. It probably doesn't matter. She just has to hope it doesn't. 'By the bhikku.' If the monk still holds to his title, then, yes. "He said... that some had yet to forsake their vows, and did flee, below. To help in this escape is the most with which I may assist." Tamamo had not, unfortunately, expected quite this many people. Her pre-written 'just in case' fortunes will easily cover herself and Xion, but not this large a number, and they take some time to make. Rushed work has less predictable results. <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "Oh, Xion. A question, if I may." <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "Are you as adept in securing entrances, or do you deal only with the opening thereof?" <J-IC-Scene> Xion says, "Oh! Both!" <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "Oh, wonderful. I am far more confident in this particular plan, that being the case." Tamamo finishes this brief conference with her party member, and provides her answer to the the woman, the monks, children, and others. "Make haste. None will chase after you from this direction, apart from ourselves, as this passage will be locked behind us." She says that with a warm smile, brightening the interior. Actually brightening, but a little Sunlight leaking out through the fox's countenance won't be an issue for long. Tamamo stuffs the fortunes back away again, and pulls out a different set of talismans. These she sets up to define an apparently arbitrary 'box' on the passageway behind them, letting the strips of paper drift from her hands to plaster over every corner that determines its shape. It's pretty large, enough for a group of twenty people to crowd into and then still move all at once. Tamamo steps back out of it again, onto the away-from-castle side of the still-empty area. She does not explain that this forms a 'barrier' that redirects any attempt to run through it to instead run those inside in endless circles, nor that anyone who so entered would likely find themselves trapped for several hours, at minimum, before finding their way out again, when the spell-strips had expended their temporary power. She just pats the wall--the invisible, sort of springy wall that now exists in the air between a set of four talismans, and turns to Xion. "Would you please lock this?" It makes a kind of 'vrum' when her hand hits it. "And then, we may hurry on after the others. It would be best not to return to the battleground, I should think."
Lilian Rook	Eryl crushing a weapon that should be anywhere near this particular place is a pretty good way to get electrocuted, he finds, after the first one. Applying pressure anywhere near the magazine is a lot of voltage and a lot of gas pretty fast, though it deforms in his grip all the same. The last youth he knocks to his ass, vehemently goes for a sucker punch at the side of his face all the same, exactly zero percent like martial arts and exactly one hundred percent like sleight of hand and street fighting. "I didn't get sent here to do anything!" he yells, followed by "No, I got sent here by them!", pointing out the door. "Three years ago! It was convenient then, but inconvenient now right? You think I can't think for myself? That I can't have an original thought? Just like all the other earthworms out there, right? Keep your head down, read the room, don't make trouble for anyone, work hard and single out someone who isn't, as quick as possible, right? Stay out of that bottom five, ten percent and you'll have it easy. Better than anywhere else, at least. I should be grateful. Is that what I'm supposed to believe again?" "You're all beyond help. This entire country is. Even after everything that's happened, it's the same old thing. This can't be helped, that can't be helped, endure it with dignity and it'll turn around. Are the people from this country so useless that they can't stop and think about why even the Buddha is against them? I came here to kill you myself, bootlickers! I wasn't here long, but I'm on their side! Those people can't keep getting their way! So die!" Spit flying from his lips, he pulls a grenade canister from out of his sleeve, arming it with a flash and a shrill beep, and then throws himself against Eryl. This is not currently Arthur's problem. He knocks aside five practitioners on his way out, requiring a brief brawl with two who manage to leap up, and then balance, on his broom from either end for a two-sided setpiece of fisticuffs, having no problem on the fast, swaying, narrow ground, until he can send them flying from there -- though the minute he does, they come under massed gunfire from the encirclement outside. Instead, the courier making his way up the steep rocks at lightning speed is his problem, gaining on him while he's stuck fighting, and almost reaching a sheer, right angle cliff edge, clambering up on a thick cypress that has grown sideways from the rocks, before Arthur gets to tackle him, newly sealed sword case and all. With nothing to grip onto, the best he can do is repeatedly beat Arthur around the head, neck, and hands while being taken down, yelling something Arthur can't hear over the rocket exhaust. He catches a glimpse of a second man, lanky and seven feet tall, with a red mask and the huge black wings of a crow, take off from a cypress branch and launch high up the mountain and out of sight.
Lilian Rook	It isn't long before the monastery is being stormed right behind the two. The rank and file soldiers are way behind, probably told not to break formation, though bullet holes puncture foot thick stone walls here and there from snipers somehow aiming through them, wounding one monk and forcing others off of Eryl's back to dodge them. Morimitsu smashes through the half-swung closed doors, breaking them off their hinges with little more than strength and size, ripping his helmet's mask off with one hand and throwing it at one of the youths approaching him from the side, breaking his leg. The four Hojo retainers storm in on each side, hitting the swirling chaos with superior size, armour, and relic weaponry, trying to drive the senior martial artists back towards the breached lower passage. The Muramasa in Morimitsu's hand is cold grey across the flat and glowing charcoal across the edge as he enters, turning to colours of lantern light and dull ice instead when he enters. He swings it once through the room, and the things shift and rearrange. Fighters glide around the room, stones sliding past each other, splitting the melee into neat partitions of dueling pairs and trios, for him to walk right between. He turns to face the door, hits his radio, and, bizarrely, yells another 'Fire!' order. At a distance nobody is going to be hitting anything blindly, a good fifty soldiers all fire long bursts from their weapons, dangerously blanketing his entire position. He swings his sword again with another fighting shout, perfectly vertically down the doorway. Hundreds of bullets chew through the thick stone walls in orderly clusters, breaking down chunks through which further shots fly into the brawl and directly strike dueling monks multiple times, overwhelming how many bullets they can deal with at once and knocking several of them down incapacitated. The Muramasa shines bright as daylight on its flat and pitch black on its edge. He points to the stairs and has the retainers charge down that way. "If it's open, someone went through! No use ignoring it! Onward and through! You know how it is! Nobody leaves the mountain!" He is unaware they're going to be trapped in a spatial loop for the next twenty minutes because of Tamamo, while the handful who were against standing up and fighting feudal powers over this are escaping out of fear of reprisal. He is also unaware that they aren't going to be able to destroy the kind of talismans they are familiar with countering, as he would be reasonable to assume, because he is unaware Xion did key lock unlock heart key chi things to them.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Contemplate Arthur had to take them both on. Fisticuffs aboard his broom is... bad. He never uses it, but nobody's looking, right? He wields his Fistkind, wielding street-fighter pugilism against their martial arts in a desperate moment. They'll know his secret... but then they're gone. He is now bruised alongside being beaten, but he continues. He... he isn't really sure how to feel about hitting someone into massed gunfire. He winces as something morally pained surges inside. Is this convenient? That's awful. The contemplation lasts only a few seconds, and he focuses on the courier. He's gonna make this right. >Arthur: Tackle the motherfucker His stance gets low and his arms widen out, fingers splayed and ready. He SLAMS the courier, and then locks the two of them into zero-gravity to minimize escape chances! "DON'T YOU DARE!" He roars! "I'M NOT FAILING TWICE!!" Then: A single flash of sight. Time slows in adrenaline. Where has he seen that man before? A mask. Wings. A mask. Wings. Was he there? Was that man there the night that Arthur traded the lives of ten Hojo civilians away to something unknown? Was that one of them, or like them? >Arthur: SOMEONE MADE A FOOL OF YOU, DIDN'T THEY? >Arthur: MORE THAN YOU MAKE OF YOURSELF. Arthur grimaces under the smashing impacts the courier lays on him, and in a single act of entirely excessive violence, moves to brutally dislocate each of the courier's arms cleanly with a pair of sickening cracks. Only a smaller part of his mind seems to recoil at the violent lashing out, and most of it has to focus on rocketing back towards the Odas, hopefully with a good grip on the courier, and the box CAPTCHALOGUED safely in his SYLLADEX.
Eryl Fairfax	The young man begins raving as Eryl shrugs off the multiple electric shocks that conducted along the metal and blood. It all begins to fall into place. The people banished from the cities. The brewing discontent at the way of things. He takes the punch to the face, turning his head to roll with the blow. "So you'll die? The nation has issues, so you'll die and that'll show them? No. You'll be a number on a sheet. 'Choosing to die here' proves nothing, and solves nothing." Grenade. As the young man tackles him, Eryl's armblade shoots out. Not to stab him, but to skewer the explosive and destroy the detonator, slipping the blade between his opponent's fingers. At the same time, he pivots, catching him with his other hand by the throat and slamming him to the ground. "You've failed. Had you died, it would have been for nothing. If you must die, make it worth something. Not this last-stand out in the wilderness. You're worth more than that."