Scene #7502: The Dragon's Garden-1

Owner	Pose
Lilian Rook	For once, a venture out into the unclaimed wilds beyond the walls of the scarce Urban Centers does not lead to some brand new uncharted frontier of insanity, but somewhere half-familiar for most involved. From a private corner of old world harbour, squeezed into the seaside edges of the Yamato Urban Center from where it encompasses half of old Tokyo, a chartered flight via private seaplane owned by a totally not sketchy bald guy awaits. The courteous, stoic, and tight-lipped Domen Akihiro, has been convinced in some manner (possibly money) to fly a second time from this port and take passengers in his pre-Onslaught relic, uncharacteristically well-maintained from someone who looks like a buff monk squeezed into bomber jacket. It probably wasn't as hard this time, seeing as the route has been tested, and the destination is known to be somewhat safer than it was before. The somewhat lengthy flight has been livened up a bit better than a pile of magazines and an ancient stack of Chinese action movies on DVD, ostensibly courtesy of Lilian, via --knowing the range of her company-- a mini bar fit for a limo, a four player video game console, the casual necessities of a girls' sleepover, and the type of board game that involves four different custom mats, piles of pieces, and a manual that takes half an hour to absorb. All in the passenger compartment, because the cargo hold is, this time, full. The plane takes off from the blue shores until it reaches the miles-tall wall of phasmic fog that engulfs the horizon miles out to sea, and then turns southwest along it, briefly dipping into its edges to become invisible to anyone actually on the shore, and duck long distance sensors. It routes its way to the kyushu region at the southern tip of the archipelago, splashing down off the coast as it is designed to do, albeit only at a short distance in an inflatable raft this time. Except this time, it's actually a motor boat for up to four, because several (floating) pallets of tarp-covered extras need to be tied in sequence behind it, and dragged to the deeply crescent-shaped shore, across a stretch of fog-isolated water that is so calm it feels almost like a secluded pool of very large proportions. They can be unloaded on the old, simplistic wooden dock platforms, supported over the white sand via stakes logged some many decades ago; part of the unique area's ghostly signs of previous habitation. It's the odd pocket of unspoiled, if unseasonal, nature from which one of the Grave Blades had been recovered. A bowl-shaped valley that slopes down between high flinty cliffs on each end, lapped by eerily gentle waves on the beach --sized for many small ships if one cared-- yet foamed white where it crashes against those limits. Even despite the very different time of year, it is exactly as thick with blossoming aspen and plums, bamboo and gnarled oak, as before, even most of the way up the sides of the cliffs. Tiers of flooded fields remain conspicuously free of weeds, overgrown with generationally old rice instead, against the eastern cliff, while the wild grasses and creepers have choked the winding paths up the steeper western hills, which lead to the clusters of cleared plateaus at the rear of the valley where faded old dilapidated buildings, of the extremely rural Japanese cottage style, were once built midway up the forested incline overlooking the crescent, and an earthen yard of canvas-covered old crates. The way up marked by ancient, rope-tied fence posts, and dark stone lanterns.
Lilian Rook	Without the Bad Orb floating in the water, over the small stretch of colourful reef that provides the sole boating danger in the area, there'll likely be no light at all once the sun hits the edge of the valley, and likely very little in the morning, as the whole thing is fully wrapped in fog on all sides. A path of mossy stones once lead out of it to the east, and an arch constructed of aspen marks the top of the rising trails to the west, but outside of those, and a rope-fenced rocky path around the eastern cliff closer to sea level, that fog has progressively crept further over the tops of the valley and edged into its wooded interior --some hundred meters since last time. There were a number of unsolved mysteries of mild to minor persuasion before. The mysterious disappearance of a modern samurai and troops. The fate of the original townspeople. The nature of the fog boundary and the perpetually flowering valley. And most especially, the Olympic-sized tidepool deep inside the cliffside cave, filled with an unearthly rainbow ecosystem, vaguely alluded to as 'the dragon's garden' by the original directions. There will be, casually, time for these, because the first order of business upon unpacking the first cargo crate, is setting up a Warpgate for later return; a Paladins standard design, sufficient to get a transport truck through. A long term project (which Lilian will leave the depth explanation of to up to Tamamo) is intended here, and thus repeated flights will get tedious quickly.
Muramasa	While it most likely had not been intended for his use, Muramasa lays claim to the mini-bar, much like a dragon guarding its most coveted treasure. Albeit, not quite in the way one would expect. ... Rather, he takes on the role of a server and cook, as if it were his own personal vendor to man. If questioned on why he'd do such a thing, his only response would be that it's just something he enjoyed doing, and that he'd appreciate if you'd go along with it. At the very least, for the mini-bar only possessing the facilities and food of a mini-bar, he's able to make do, somehow. Almost as if he were the protagonist of a cooking anime, but that couldn't possibly be so. More seriously, he felt compelled to come here for largely the same reasons he'd originally come to this place to reclaim the Muramasa of Distortions; the image of which was stored neatly within the forge of his reality marble. It wasn't me who made that sword, but someone who was also 'Muramasa the Swordsmith'. Even so, I could already tell that arguing about what's the same or what's different is pointless -- he also was attempting to create that sword. And if he really is still around, I can't fault him. After all, I too, am still trying to create that sword. They both reached for their own Tsumugari Muramasa. For the heart of their sword. By deepning his understanding of that other swordsmith, he would deepen his understanding of 'Muramasa' and hopefully, it would be a valuable learning experience. That his confusion over his own identity had recently come to light put his compulsion to do so in an uncomfortable light, even. He does not bring this up. He only embroils himself in his hobby until they arrive once more, and step foot onto the ever-spring island. "Even after all this time, nothing here has withered. Although, I'm not all so surprised by that." Murmuring the last part, he folds his arms within the sleeves of his haori, his armored sandals pressing into the fresh green, eyeing where that orb had previously been stationed before the incident had been resolved, last time. "The inhabitants of this island ... and the soldiers who'd come here ... just where did they go? And what relation does it have to the dragon's garden? These are all important questions, of course." "That spring that they call the dragon's garden .. to understand what happened here, I think it's important that we should keep in mind that it existed long before any humans came to reside in this place. Or, that's what I would suppose ... if that were true, then ... " He stops, before chuckling sheepishly, "Well, don't let my rambling hold anyone up. This place interests me, so don't mind it if I start talking about nothing." Considering the properties of the spring, if he were correct about it, it goes unsaid that it only makes sense that the Muramasa of this world would come here to attempt and make a sword.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Do you remember what happened here? Arthur rubs his chin, trying to call up the memory. There was a bad... orb? And some fog. And an abandoned village... Actually no, not really. Can we get a recap? >Arthur: Recap http://www.multiversemush.com/scene/scene.php?id=7327 >Arthur: Be less specific, and more helpful >Arthur: Go set up the warpgate, stupid! Arthur is here! And boy does he know how to set up warpgates. His intuitive knowledge of space and Gates means that he knows tons about how to get a Paladins-designed artificial warpgate set up, and he's spending some time recovering from his deathly experience on lower-stress things like wandering to old areas and increasing completion percentages by finding old pickups. "SO," He rambles, "I still can't get the SWORD CODES that I recovered to WORK AGAIN, on account of shit here be HELLA WILD and it STRIPPED IT OUT OF REALITY. So I'm for real straight-up LACKIN', until we hit up another GRAVE BLADE, since that shit fuckin' ATE all my EXTRA SWORD STUFF." He leans on the frame of the warpgate, and gestures a bit at Muramasa. "Fuckin', everything that could'a WITHERED STUFF around here was WARDED OFF, or CURSED OUT OF EXISTENCE, or KILLED or DISAPPEARED or whatever. But whatever DISAPPEARED everyone is probs DEAD now. Was probably that fuckin' WEIRD ORB ANOMALY. So we're lookin' for whatever TRAIL got left, if we wanna know what happened." >Arthur: Investigate the Dragon's Garden While he takes a quick break from the Gate, he pings local magic. That fog boundary -- what's its geometric relationship to the Dragon's Garden caves he vaguely heard about? Does it have any correlation? Maybe he can use his magical analysis to build a correlation, but if there's no useful results (or even if there are, really) there's not much to do for Arthur specifically but head over to the cave soon! >Arthur: Take a break from the warpgate, go get a Gate to the Dragon's Garden set up
Tamamo	Lilian's prepared a great deal for the trip over, though she hadn't really needed to. Tamamo would have been perfectly happy to watch another ancient action movie of well-meaning martial artists rendered victims by circumstance. Given a surplus of options, she spends more time figuring out the board game, unfortunately suffering from the general incomprehension toward game consoles common to people hailing from eras prior to their existence. Rulebooks are easier to figure out. The text is all right there, like a recipe, but without the endless complications matters of chemistry necessitate in cooking. Whether she will get to the point of actually playing the game is not immediately clear, but she has the minibar to keep hydrated. Muramasa will soon discover her penchant for the kind of sake nursed over a long night. Inflatable rafts are not the most comfortable craft. There's the strong correlation between weight and stability, the need to sit low as an immediate result, and a generally poor consideration for cleanliness practical to outdoor work. Presented with this better alternative, Tamamo doesn't even think of walking to shore instead, and takes a seat to travel over. Setting up a warpgate is something that can happen without her, though she does watch the work begin. It's a practical requirement. "Considering the scale of matters," she says aloud, "it would be well to worry that much less in preparation. To prepare for all eventualities should not so delay a beginning to the work, and that which is necessary may not be yet discovered." Leaving the shore work behind, she continues, "If the garden did call such attention as brought both humans and beasts, I would not be surprised. Where many are called, conflict may occur. Whether this is an explanation in itself, I would not say. For matters more immediate, it is the fog that first concerns my mind. Though we have defeated one enemy, that is not security, in itself. I shall see to this, as I may, and return." And she does, going up toward the west, to examine the fog's border.
Ben d'Tarkanan	He's never a fan of fog. At home, or at least, in a place with other people, it's uncomfortable. Something he'd prefer to just be away from. But places like this, where the only people for miles may be the ones scant feet from you... here, it takes effort to ignore. "My compliments on your taste in spirits, Dame Rook," says Ben with a weak smile. The trip to the docks is spent with his gaze locked straight forward. When it comes time to unload the pallets on those old docks, he'll quietly (yes) help, using his strength to handle multiple items at once. At least it's only surrounding the place and not... permeating it. Once he's done, he abstains from helping with setting the Warpgate up, in favor of something else. He unsheaths his sword. Holding it aloft with his left arm, he ponders for a moment about where to point it. "I hope to find the very same answer, Master Muramasa, Goodman Arthur." Ben whispers a word of power that seems to echo into itself, calling libraries or priestly cloisters to mind. A grey, vaporous wisp travels up along the blade of the sword, dispersing like a ripple in water once it reaches the tip. There is a chill in the air. If he doesn't get any results near the docks, he'll just try the tried-and-true houses. Where there are skeletons, there are often ghosts. "With luck, we may find someone who remembers," he says hopefully. "But a bit of 'cavern spring' would hardly be the worst thing we've seen here." There is a visible relief in his features when Tamamo mentions removing the fog, or at least seeing about it.
Miyamomo	Miyamomo does three things on the plane. The first is to look out the window, because this is her first time. But when she discovers doing so makes her a touch queasy, she does the other two things. One being drink (the best cure for queasiness), and the other being watch kung-fu movies. She does so with the air of an expert, no FilmTransgressions dings here, politely stating what she would have done in each situation. When they touch down and land on the island, she looks around at the ancient rice, and up at those abandoned buildings and places her hands on her hips. "Ah yes, this is more like I remember. And we are to revive this place? Marvellous." She goes wandering up towards the buildings, lighting her pipe along the way. She noted how clear those rice paddies were, and she'd like to find whomever is tending to them. No matter how ridiculous that seems.
Xion	"This time, I've come with the most important power yet!" Xion quietly explains to the others, the PLANE RIDE being--- Entirely skipped, as she just shows up from a FOUNTAIN OF DARKNESS (Not A Villain). Dropping from the Corridors of Darkness into a zodiac with an open-buttoned hawaiian shirt, a white tank top, aviator sunglasses, and a light tan ready for the GHOST BEACH. Unfortunately having only one set of beach/aquatic wear to speak of that automatically applies itself means... exactly this situation happens. "Wait, if the cool dubstep orb is gone, what should I make a cool bond with? I saved a whole blank medallion and it totally slipped my mind we fixed this last time!"
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry takes to airplanes quite well in some respects, and poorly in others. It'd be silly for a magical girl to be afraid of heights. Even so, she's visibly restless- tugging at the silvery bracelet on her wrist; tapping her gun through her jacket to make sure it's there; bouncing her wand's carrying case in her lap. They don't expect any trouble, so her particular agitation seems inexplicable. Fortunately, she finds ways to calm herself. Muramasa's minibar comes first- she orders, and slugs back, some straight neat vodka with the self-consciously resigned demeanor of somebody who knows how thematically inappropriate that is for her persona. Afterwards, she makes her way over to Miyamomo's movie-watching setup and settles the remainder of her jitters by Very Seriously nodding along with the kitsune's assessments of the actors' kung fu. The way she pauses, tilts her head from side to side, and then lifts her eyebrows in pleasant surprise each time hints that she's really trying to 'map out' Miyamomo's suggestions in her head. Only once does she disagree: "They're just- actors, you know. I think that'd kill the guy for real, Miss Miyamomo." As they disembark, that weird tension finally dissolves- part of it's not being on the plane anymore, and part of it's cracking up with giggles at Xion's outfit. "I think it's- we're in the wrong hemisphere for that, maybe. But it's a good energy, anyway." Without anything more immediately pressing to do, she pitches in her unskilled labor with unpacking the pallets- though, lacking any remarkable strength, Ben will pretty handily outperform her in that regard.
Lilian Rook	Given that this is now Her World, and not Ben's (or by extension, Majima's), Lilian seems more relaxed around the man than previous occasions have allowed her to be. Uncharitably, this might be because of how trivial it'd be to drop him in the middle of crystal fog hell nowhere if he caused problems, but that seems like a little too much of a leap to make off suspicion alone. "Of course. It reflects poorly on anyone of class to have failed to develop a sense for that kind of thing." she says to him on the ride over. "Much less someone with hundreds of years of history in Ireland." she adds slightly more facetiously. She doesn't have any complaints if Muramasa feels like preparing snacks. After all, she doesn't cook herself. Hell, she doesn't assemble sandwiches on her own. Mainly, she situates herself inbetween as much hypothetical mofumofu potential as possible, nibbles refreshments over a long round of plastic crap strategy, and elucidates Miyamomo to the culture of Jackie Chan films, based on silent preconceptions. "In a manner of speaking." she says to the latter upon disembarking. "I'm afraid you won't find anyone in this countryside anymore. Not for at least a hundred miles. But far, far away, there are no shortage of people who would seek a quieter life, would they believe it safely possible. There are many who attempt such, of course. On average, they last three years or so. Caelton is an outlier at six years now and more or less still going. This place, given its state, must have looked like this for nearly fifty." She points to the fog. "Beyond those boundaries, is Their world. Or at least, the world familiar to one in particular. There were many such like it, that green places like these are few and far between, even after they were all killed, sealed, or indefinitely repulsed. Which makes it all the more unusual this one exists without walls or soldiers." The ideal place for the Warpgate seems to be that cleared yard, after some heaving and moving of crates filled with who knows what. It connects directly to the switchback paths that climb the steep hills, to long ramps that lead to the beach, and sparse docks, and has plenty of space remaining to unload cargo; this of course includes the plastic crates dragged by the motor boat. Setting it up certainly doesn't take long for Arthur, though Lilian makes sure that he at least skims the instructions. Those plastic crates are with an eclectic number of things for Strawberry to unpack. New model solar panels, angled for placing high on the beach, thousands of meters of cable, collapsible LED pylons, proper nylon ropes and aluminium poles, floodlamps, motion sensors, lightweight synthetic IKEA-like furniture boxes in great number, gas burners, mini fridges, a weather balloon, and all the pieces to assemble a beefy radio station, and weather monitoring station. There are few actual tools, because of the glut of titanium and fibreglass implement Ben had stumbled upon before.
Lilian Rook	"Dubstep . . . orb?" Lilian replies to Xion incredulously. "You made a 'bond' with that thing? Shouldn't you be a lot more careful about bonds? Aren't those supposed to be important?" She leaves Arthur to his own devices after setting up the Gate, because geometry is perpetually an important thing in this world, and he's good at it. Of course, the latent feng shui of the place is auspiciously perfect in a number of ways, though whether by accident or ancient intent is unclear. Going by the winding route they'd taken through that system of caves, the 'garden' itself should be roughly dead center under this circular clear area. The path and the arch, as he should be familiar with, remain the only portions that aren't thoroughly twisted in space, but the boundary itself besides them is fuzzy. Unlike Caelton, or indeed one of the Clan centers, there doesn't seem to be a hard line of anything in particular demarcating a warded boundary. It is quite probable this place isn't safe on the full moon. There aren't any signs of magic remaining, outside of the oceanic wellspring of life that seeps through the soil from underground, with the Muramasa of Distortions now absent. Tamamo, reaching the fog, indeed finds that there is no strict ward. There are perfectly ancient shadows of bare and forgotten shrines, here and there --dosojin, inari, and ryujin-- but they haven't been maintained in generations, and have become partially overgrown, with the last signs of offerings and sanctification being still many years old, and unthorough at that. She finds that she can enter the icy, gripping fog quite a ways before the earth begins to bleach and turns to glass. This at least means that the fog itself isn't the encroachment vector of the Antegent that originally spawned it --or at least isn't very fast-- but the fact that it's moved quite a distance inland is worrying. Making an Arthur-style gate to the Garden isn't all that hard now that he knows where it is. The fabulous cavern, massive in size, gleams teal and with rippling patterns of light on its interior walls of seemingly pure nacre, and the huge pool still glows with the soft luminescence of magical corals, some large enough to form surface-breaching spirals roughly suitable to sit on the edges of. The hot vents and springs bubble away in their sub-pools, and the eclectic mishmash of exotic sea creatures pay him no mind.
Lilian Rook	Ben's search for ghosts is mildly helpful on two fronts. One is that no old ghosts remain at all. The graves here are many generations dated, and each burial has obviously been undertaken with great care and traditional reverence, leaving no restless dead behind for a very long time. The spirits he feels around are much more recent, albeit spotty and faint, few capable of answering direct questions. Handfuls of sad, unmourned deaths, with nobody to bury them, and some that instead feel like the traditional unfinished business, though of a vague sense of loyalty, perhaps? The latter exclusively belong to the houses, though a few of the latter invisibly stand vigil at the beach. It seems as if they've begun to fade away even more recently. One might imagine as recently as dispelling the sealed Antegent there.
Xion	Xion shakes her head emphatically, holding out a medallion -- that ARTHUR LOWELL would remember, the blank-faced strange golden shape he had retrieved in the clocktower ages ago with the __X GRIST save for that Xion's is silver in color -- for Lilian to inspect. It is, obviously, some form of sympathetic magic. "Last time I was here I didn't have a blank one handy. This time, I was prepared, but..." She shrugs. "No more dubstep orb." She means the lost Muramasa of Distortions.
Miyamomo	"Nonsense," Miyamomo says to Strawberry with all the air of an expert. "The body is at once, exceptionally sturdy and fantastically fragile. Any blow, delivered with the right force in the right circumstance, can be fatal." Upon the island, she pauses as Lilian calls to her, explaining she won't find anyone here. "Ah. A shame. Perhaps I will dream up some more in time." On that cryptic statement she addresses Xion while she starts helping move the crates, picking them up with apparent ease. "I understand the feeling, young one. In my hermitage upon the mountain, many powerful fighters came and went. I was reading of one the other day, a giant of a man with a broad palm who crushed all his opposition in the ring. I would have loved to face him, but he lived a mortal life..." She sighs, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "But worry not. For there shall always be stronger and stronger foes to learn from! Save your treasure for another." And with that, she starts unpacking crates with... little delicacy.
Muramasa	With everyone splitting up to look for clues or, perform necessary manual labor, Muramasa also takes to the cave system, intent on making sure that nothing had been disturbed. As Tamamo had mentioned, if there were a sign of someone else having been there, it would have been concerning. However, as he kneels at the pool of the hot spring, the odd lifeforms swirling within the pools of water, he determines that no one had been here since their last outing to the island. That was good; at least in the sense that no one or thing had intruded upon the garden. Although, from what was discussed earlier, it seems that the fog is creeping closer inland. Eventually, it could even reach down here, and in a case like that ... I can't think of anything good that would come of it. Although that did beg the question of what had come first, the Grave Blade or the Antegent. The disappearance of the island's inhabitants and the soldiers who'd come here was not a coincidence, after all. Had they been sucked into the seal? Possible, but, in his own supposition, unlikely. No, in regards to that, he was more concerned with the fog. While he hadn't taken a closer look, based on what he could infer from the last time they were here and Tamamo's invesitgation now, it was some form of bounded field that was encroaching inwards, wrapping around the isle like a film. The bodies, he guessed, would likely reside there -- if there were such a thing left behind. Besides that, there wouldn't be any kind of long-term renovations to the settlement without first addressing the issue of the fog. But her earlier advice was apt, tampering with wards or seals without further inspection and consideration was unwise. Reaching down to place his hand on the ground, now that he was sure he was where he needed to be, he begins to carefully push his magical energy into it to perform Structural Analysis magecraft. The purpose of doing so in this case was to understand the construction of the underground springs, but more than that, to search past them. Whether or not there was something physically there, or there lay a deeper center to the mystery emenating from this place, his aim was to reach out to it and attempt to gain a grasp of it. Last time, he hadn't been able to take the time to sit down here and perform the task, as he'd been more pre-occupied above ground.
Tamamo	Having parted from the group by the distance of shore to fog wall, Tamamo remains in touch by longer-distance communication. <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "Several of us here now had seen that prior event, combat against the intruder now vanquished. Though there is one yet to be of my acquaintance. Ah, did I introduce myself? I may have been remiss." Though not the only one who 'was somewhere else, last time,' the only one she hadn't actually met before this trip was Miyamomo. Even if the fog isn't directly turning the ground to glass, something that can't be ruled out as a slower process, it remains the case that things are fine where the fog is not, and that's enough to make the advance more than a little worrying. The removal of the blade may be what has allowed this, but returning the blade isn't an acceptable solution, even if it would have any function without the Antegent to be stabbed by it. Ideally, her careful examination of the area, from bleached earth to fogged grass to vibrant, sunlit growth and peaceful path, would give her that missing information to explain why this is occurring. Ideally, she wouldn't have to perform her magical probing while holding herself for warmth. Feeling winter at this latitude, at this time of year, is improper. Tamamo handles a few matters at once by partially releasing her guise. There's no one here to see it, anyway, so there's little need to be reserved. Summer warmth flows from her and into her surroundings, resolving the chill for her own person. That's one point in favor, but the main purpose is to try a divine touch where lesser magecraft proves inadequate. If she had only the trees and grass and mountain to query, that might be enough, but the presence of a dousojin is uniquely suitable. Her now-brighter, golden gaze searches for where some trace might remain, and she chooses the most likely candidate to tend. A sharp knife serves to slice overgrown vegetation, a simple summoning talisman to sprinkle water, a brush for dust obscuring faces or characters, and a tug on the unseen threads of her own Fate, pulling taut around those of this land, momentarily bringing the two close together. If something is here, she'll find it. If nothing is here, she'll call it back, and have it answer. A simple, protective kami of paths and borders, of travellers and villages, of roads and 'places between,' is what was once tended here. If it's a question of a village's borders, then it's best to ask a local. Better still for that protection to manifest.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Hey, wait, label that thing! After many, many chapters of story, Arthur can finally settle the name of that MEDALLION, with Xion's help! Or at least it's valid for him to totally invent the name of a BOND MEDALLION. "SHIT, yo, I was WONDERIN' what that was about! That thing been up in my GRIST CACHE for FOREVER!" >Arthur: Head over to that cave! A heavy cargo warpgate of a mass-manufacture style always needs a while to calibrate, so Arthur sets that to cook and sets down his Gate. Others are free to use it as they will, of course. He heads for the cave. When he gets there... Hmmm. "Homeslice, you got the ANALYSIS cookin'?" He mutters to Muramasa. "I ain't gonna step up on them toes, holla at'cha boy if you want extra analyzin'." >Arthur: Well, what else can you do? He mutters to himself, "Could go back to the old way of doin' stuff, I guess." >Arthur: Go back to the old ways A long, long time ago, Arthur Lowell spent years on a quest in the Land of Spires and Frogs, where travel all occurred by diving into great crystaline water-bearing tubes and drowning your way to your destination. This gave Arthur a bit of an appreciation for where water flows and settles. Here in this tidepool, perhaps, there's something to be understood by returning to form. Where does the tidepool's currents come to rest? What lies at its floor, or wherever the tidepool and its magic corals may direct what drifts? Arthur slightly tweaks his mage robes to something just slightly more water-friendly, albeit still quite flowy, before he simply dives in, using his ability to survive in space to survive the lack of oxygen as he drifts through the pool and its exotic life. He reaches out in a way more suited to certain aquatic life, activating his rarely-used ability to commune with exotic beings. If this is a Dragon's Garden, there ought to be a Dragon, right? "Anyone home?" He muses "aloud" beneath the surface of the water, as he drifts in an entirely different kind of weightlessness. This may not be super useful, but at least it'll be pretty, that's for sure.
Ben d'Tarkanan	Xion also gets a blank look from Ben at the mention of a Dubstep Orb. "Was it--no, it couldn't have been," he decides. The ghosts are questioned, starting at the docks. "What can you tell me about what happened here?" Why didn't ___ bury me? "...same as the others here. I'm headed for the houses, then," he announces to Arthur, Muramasa and Strawberry. They're easy enough to find... just takes a bit of walking. As it happens, there are a few spirits there... "Do you recall what you were doing?" ...my duty to ____... After a few similar such remarks, he's left pacing over a patch of grass in the valley, trying to piece out the shape of these feelings of loyalty they seem to be expressing. Before too much of the greenery is worn down, he watches as the ripple of his spell brush across a few of those standing at the beach. As the waves crash against the shore, he ponders aloud. "...given the state of the place when we first arrived, and the nature of the beast concealed... Perhaps some ritual was meant to be done, between those on the beach and those in the village." "The sense of unfinished business," he says, rubbing his chin with his right hand, as he turns to peer back inland, at the houses and the rice fields. "Could that be it? This place has no walls or soldiers..." If its safety were based on obeisances to ritual, god, or spirit... Or even arcane measures... <J-IC-Scene> Ben d'Tarkanan says, "Your Grace, were there any wards present when you first arrived?" <J-IC-Scene> Xion says, "Oh, sure, the dubstep orb? It had lots of wards! Pretty sure." Ben's chuckle rises slightly above the gentle whisper of the ocean behind him. <J-IC-Scene> Ben d'Tarkanan says, "You're one of a kind, Goodlady. Thank you." His smile gradually fades, replaced with a slight frown of concentration, his brow furrowing as he resumes pacing along the shore. "Then getting this place up and running would involve not only handling them, but finding out where the weak point is. Clearly, these people -wanted- to help... <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "I saw none outside, sir d'Tarkanan, though the persistence of this place should have required such to exist, beyond the force that held that Antegent in place. I have found the shrines of protective spirits, not recently tended. Perhaps these shall hold some answers." "That must be it," says Ben excitedly over the radio. "I'll be right there." But first... A bit of a compellment, aimed at the spirits with that sense of loyalty and unfinished business, residing in the VILLAGE: "Hear me, spirits, and lift the caul of death! If you would see your duty to this place fulfilled, attend me now!" There's an awkward pause where he waits to see how many, if any, he hooked with that--but 0 ghosts or a handful, he's going to meet with TAMAMO. When he arrives several minutes later, he's standing a few feet away, as she wraps up her fate-weaving. He announces his presence with a clearing of his throat. "Several spirits--mortal, that is--in the village and the beach, seem as though something was left undone, mingled with a sense of loyalty. Could these untended guardian shrines be the source of that?"
Strawberry Princess	THEN: Strawberry rolls the kitsune's words around in her brain as a martial artist befuddles a group of henchmen onscreen. "Yeah," she finally concludes, oddly serious. "Sometimes... people die when they're not supposed to. And they live when they're not supposed to, too." NOW: She makes a funny kind of face as Miyamomo exhales that smoke- it's not an expression directed at the kitsune, but rather an involuntary twitch. Strawberry looks away and puts down the cable she's untangling to reach into her surplus jacket's pocket, pops some gum in her mouth, and starts to chew before turning back around. "Well, I'm glad that you're here in our time, Ms. Miyamomo," she finally responds, resuming her work patiently de-knotting the frustratingly tangly cables. She's sitting perched on the corner of one of the crates, her gangly legs hanging down to idly trace patterns in the sand with her feet. "There's- a lot of history you just skipped over, isn't there?" She glances up with a friendly smile. "Just a few years earlier- or later, I guess- and I wouldn't have been around. I'm glad you didn't skip over this, too."
Xion	XION is called by the spirit of adventure and tutorializing text to follow along with Arthur, first through a Gate and then through the water. The whole time, she's talking. She cannot be stopped. Like a helpful symbiotic remora ghosting on a shark's wake, while ARTHUR goes back to the OLD WAYS, Xion follows with the singularly absurd wash of the Party Member Smear. And the text crawl. "Oh! Medals! Well, when someone with a Keyblade-" Spelled, in-text, greek-X-Blade, which is an experience Arthur has directly. "-forms a bond with someone, the other person gets a medallion for the Keyblade weilder, and the wielder gets a Keychain which lets them modify the traits of their weapon, or get a different weapon. Keychains and Medallions are basically the same thing, though. A little this-for-that!" "The Medallions were first written about in the Book of Prophecy by the Master of Masters, who's actually a super old time wizard guy who knew everything that would happen and wrote it down in a magic book! You see, since they're the amazing powers of other people, they'd capture a bit of the heart or will of another into a technique. Everyone's different, but that's how it generally worked out. If you found a blank one, that means that either you found someone's old stash of precious friend memories that they hadn't used, or, maybe a medallion someone made so they'd be remembered. If it was blank, though... Maybe they've entirely faded away. Blanks can also just be someone's potential for making new bonds!" The text boxes. Arthur was warned about them. "Did you find any LUX? It's what the old Keyblade War was fought over." Xion explains, not even the depths of water able to stifle her CUTSCENE JIBBA-JABBA. His inventory updates. Lux Grist: A competitively pure form of crystallized light, gained through the time honored traditions of social media posting, minigame triumph, and ______________. There's still a part to figure out. He may have some ideas.
Lilian Rook	Arthur and Muramasa examining the underground cave together come away with similar but different results. The structural analysis, in first part, finds that the gleaming nacre consistency of every surface continues a ways into the rock, and doesn't seem to have grown on top of it (somehow) so much as one had seamlessly become the other (somehowe-r). The surface of the pool has never been in contact with the ocean. Rather, there are a number of deep holes, too thin for a person to go swimming down, which tap into a major underground passage which eventually passes beyond the range of the scan. Most look like the kind to be flooded by the ocean, and raised by simple water pressure, but one in particular seemingly sorts of spirals off into nowhere. When Arthur goes swimming around, he first finds out that he doesn't need to rely on his powers to breathe at all. Rather, breathing in the water would probably be bad like always, but being immersed in it fills him with so much revitalizing energy that it's like a single breath of oxygen just never runs out. He doesn't feel any particular pull or current from the water; it's light enough that he can mostly make out the individual movements of quick fish and large eels. The process of it filling and draining must be incremental at best, the surface line moving mere inches between high and low tide. When he asks 'out loud' though, he gets back an affirmative ping from . . . almost every single critter in the pool, actually. Not an eloquently conversational one, but enough to indicate that everything living here understands the idea. This might be one of those Japanese things. Where stuff immersed in enough magic gets smart over time. It could also be that he's never seen some of these species at all before, and most of them don't belong in the same habitat. It certainly does, from his up close examination, seem 'cultivated'.
Lilian Rook	Though the inhabiting spirits have long since faded or gone dormant in the shrines Tamamo finds, a fragment of an actual Shinto goddess is the threshold at which bringing one back into being is either imminently accomplished or somehow completely impossible for anyone. A sleepy conversation with her chosen road spirit offers her a few answers. This particular village site is old, and had modernized very little over time, but rather been stuck in the old ways to a degree that had become helpful when Big Trouble struck. The site was supposedly once blessed by the dragon king itself, through some local who had visited its palace somehow, according to local myth, though that would have been before even this shrine's time, as Ryujin certainly appears to be the principle worship that came first. There haven't ever been hard borders that the villagers cared to demarcate, but even blessings have a set range, and it's the underground water that more or less defines where that is, by where it circulates through the earth, in progressively smaller, branching arteries. The people had been living here throughout the whole of the Onslaught essentially untroubled, but had made a mass migration out of it in the thirteenth year, all along the western road, and never come back. A god of roads and borders has no knowledge of why this would be. It does have knowledge of the exterior encroachment, caused by a 'monster' that had long moved around beyond its borders, blocking roads and attacking travelers, but the road spirit believes it to be dead. The borders have never really been under serious threat, and it believes that if the villagers had stayed here, and their priests continued their observances, nothing bad would have happened. This may be at odds with the human opinion that 'something is eventually going to wander in here', because there aren't strictly any ways of keeping 'monsters' physically out in an indefinite sense. Supposedly though, only the arch road and the stone road lead to the mainland proper. For some reason, cutting through the woods or over the cliffs just seems to cause people to get lost and come back, and those outside to get lost and never find their way in. It doesn't like the fog any more than Tamamo does --albeit largely because fog is a scourge on travelers. It'd been dormant for the past thirty some years, and notes that the corrupted ground has spread somewhat closer to the village in this time. It believes that the fog is something exuded by 'the monster', and thus if some is spilling over the border line, it must 'have offspring', and it must be fairly close, and getting closer.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Do you have LUX? "Shit, bro, I got so many weird fuckin' metrics off that place I barely remember, for real." He pulls the medallion out of his inventory, regarding it with some concern. "But damn! Makin' caches for that? Some deadman's chest shit? That's kinda fucked up retroactively. Is that something you can copy or whatever? I hope they didn't stow a whole-ass friendship and then fuckin' forget about it." Didn't he get some LUX? "Well, haven't hit a crafting need for that, but maybe one'a these days..." He ponders. What can you craft out of raw social energy? It's sure too bad that Arthur can't get useful war-able crystalized light out of posting to twitter! The blank is of some interest, though. It's worth pondering. >Arthur: Your message is received "Huh? Oh, shit! My squid-brain phone is ringin'." He looks surprised to discover it! "I didn't think that was gonna work!" Settling into his drifting, he communes with the cultivated, possibly thinking Dragon's Garden and its denizens, speaking 'out loud' again. "Hey there, Dragon's Garden. Mage of Space here. We're seeing some encroachment of some bad antegent stuff, and all the humans here vanished. You okay down here, you needin' any help? I'm kinda worried about the antegent and how everyone vanished." He keeps it kind of casual, but when it comes to the first contact with unusual, inhuman minds, he approaches things with a friendly, upbeat tone that's a little less bullying -- an important habit to avoid being mistaken for a demanding summoner or a ruthless slayer.
Lilian Rook	When Ben actively calls upon the spirits, he gains the shadows of ghosts with a bit more realization. Though they're still mostly just shimmering outlines to him, barely able to trick the eye in the light of day, he sees the silhouettes of many men with traditional hair knots, standing to attention in ranks, bearing swords at their hips, and --those rifles slung over their torsos have the look of bullpups, actually. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that they're professional soldiers. And they hadn't died that long ago. But also not in battle --those that had, had been buried properly. There are very few of them as well. As if they'd just dwindled down to nothing and the last had died unable to carry out their duty for lack of men and lack of strength. There is only one amongst them who isn't armed and armoured. Possibly a priest who never finished reconsecrating the roads and shrines. If they had one, and he died early on, it'd explain a lot.
Lilian Rook	Where the crates are concerned, Lilian pitches in with moving supplies. She, apparently, already has very clear ideas of where everything is supposed to go. This is probably because there's nobody else who would have chosen to pack these things anyways. Panels on the beach, wiring held up on the fence poles, across the trails, lighting spaced evenly, lamps taken to the faded and rickety old rural Japanese cottages, burners and freezers indoors, nestled amongst long-abandoned anachronistic decor featuring locally cut tatami and portable radios from the 60s. The process of setting up a full monitoring station will take a while, so she settles in for it. While up to this, she asks that Miyamomo and Strawberry gather up what they can from the rice fields, sheds, storages, and cottages. The former, to Miyamomo, looks as if it was at least tended within the current crop's lifespan, which means earlier than 30 years ago. The actual paddies were dug forever ago, and kept very well. Even now, weeds have barely made any inroads, and the water and soil are unnaturally fertile. It could be feeding a village within a season again without issue. There are plenty of old wooden and steel or bronze tools lying around, in various states of advanced age but good care, however plenty of modern stamped items as well, seemingly the last to be used on the fields, the bamboo, and the trees; some axes still sap-covered, some hoes still dirty, some knives still dull. They aren't as well organized as the much older tools, which had all been carefully put away at some point. There are other modern odds and ends, like kettles and cutlery, littered in some of the cottages, though it'd take a fairly thorough examination to see which books and beds are new, and which are decades old. When Arthur asks about Antegent, he finds that nothing in the pool has any recognition of what that is. Even should he describe the idea in painstaking detail, nothing living down here has ever seen, or even heard of one. They recognize the concept of 'dragon' and 'garden', however, associating it with a lifestyle that has been lived here, in this water, for a very, very long time, almost wholly undisturbed. Creates such as turtles and octopi, with long memories or big brains, can hazily recall individual instances of humans coming here, and regular rituals (timed by lunar cycles affecting the pool by degrees) that were once held in secret for a much, much longer time. They don't seem to be in any need. The rich energy, and nutrients that come up from underground, make a complete ecosystem. Furthermore, Arthur could be pretty sure that like, octopi, don't live more than five years or something, so it's extra unusual that most of these critters remember anything beyond that time frame. They seem to believe that the 'dragon' part of the garden is somewhere deep, deep below --ostensibly at the bottom of the ocean-- but only certain animals are allowed to make the journey, and rarely do. Namely, sea serpents and turtles. It is at least, in their animal language concepts, as close as he can puzzle out, considered a 'holy' place. Humans also used to cultivate and harvest the water plants here for various uses that he can probably presume are magical and important, but the plants don't answer questions.
Muramasa	Nodding to Arthur as he passes by, Muramasa focuses back on his analysis. Some time later, with the heat of his thrumming magical circuits coursing through him hotter than even his own blood, the Servant of the Sword opens his eyes and clicks his tongue, shifting his weight back to slide into a cross-legged sit, one hand on his chin. What interested him most of all, before the blueprint in his mind became illegible from distance, was the one peculiar opening in particular. One that seemed to open a path into nothingness; if that were the case, then what was inside would have had to simply "appear" there, or, alternatively, would have had to come from the void. Both were intriguing answers, he supposed. But it did clue him into the nature of the garden, and satisfied with that, Muramasa stands. "Hn." "It's too bad I've no acquiantance with Touta Tawara, I'm sure he'd have a good amount of wisdom to share in this situation, hm?" he murmurs to himself with a wry grin. The rice wouldn't hurt, either. Regardless, Muramasa was positive now, this place was connected to the Palace of the Dragon King -- the same being who was said to have blessed the legendary bowman's aim to strike down a monstrous centipede. Then ... in this case, that Antegent, or whatever it was called, must have come well afterwards. I wonder, did any of them find their way into the palace? In that place it was said that three hundred years would pass in the span of three days .. in other words, if there were anyone from the incidents that happened here who might have found their way there, should they have been welcomed, they would likely still be alive now. Peeling off his haori first, and then the holy shroud on his arm, before stripping the armor on his waist and legs off and leaving himself clad in only a fundoshi, Muramasa enters one of the springs to sink down. "Ah..." "I think I'll relax here for a little while and think," he says to himself, "It's not often that I get to soak like this." For a pseudo-servant who had to carefully measure his magical energy, soaking in these waters wasn't just a physical boon to a hot springs enthusiast, it also supported him in this manner. At least, I should be able to get away with this until Arthur comes back up. I'm sure he has some interesting things to share, after talking to all the creatures who've been saturated in these waters for untold amounts of time, huh.
Tamamo	<J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "Some answers, at last. Very good. Also worrying, but these are worries that have apparent solutions." Renovating every last shrine will take time. Restoring some semblance of power to them can hardly be handed off to others, either. There are practical, if not theoretical, limits to the good fortune her blessings can grant. If someone like Owatatsumi-no-kami refused to be woken, it could be counterproductive to force the issue. The road shrines, at least, she can deal with. The Inari shrines will be no trouble at all. But neither of those will deal with the fog. <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "It would be best, I think, to map the full extent of the waters beneath, and use this as a basis for new wards. This place shall not be safe beneath the moon, if nothing else, otherwise." Maybe Arthur and Muramasa have made some headway with the waters. If they understand where all the waters are beneath the ground, they can surround the village with a functioning array of wards that's amplified by the terrain, as opposed to interfering with the feng shui. Ruining your blessings simply isn't a good idea, but they have the expertise on hand to deal with this in a careful manner. <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "As for the fog, it is likely the result of beasts. A hunt would be a simple solution, though I would not expect the hunting of an Antegent to ever be too simple. They are somewhere without, but not too far." <J-IC-Scene> Miyamomo says, "A hunt?! Finally, something befitting my skills." <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "Just so. The local spirits expect there to be some number of children surviving some grand monster. More than this is not clear." That, on the other hand, will deal with it. Possibly. It could be for some wholly unrelated reason, but a nearby, curse-spreading monster is a fully plausible explanation for permanent, icy fog. She'd like to believe it the most straightforward issue to address, but that might be overly optimistic, considering the opponents. <J-IC-Scene> Ben d'Tarkanan says, "I believe some of these men--ah, apologies if they're a little hard to see. Ahem. They wish to make up for duties unfulfilled. If the Paladins don't mind, the soldiers could serve this place still." <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo to Ben, "Those made restless by a journey left incomplete, is it? I take no issue with this, though I will see whether they have no surviving family to see them to rest. Such investigation shall, I imagine, take some time." Though his own talents of spirit-speaking are remarkably different from her own, Tamamo is nonetheless glad for Ben's support. She looks carefully over the insubstantial shades as she speaks. It is no rare thing to seek aid from one's ancestors, though matters are a little more complicated if their families are unknown, as well as the particular nature of their unfinished business. It seems nothing harmful to the village, at least. Tamamo considers asking what form of help they can offer, in that limited form, but politely refrains. They'll help in whatever they can, regardless. Whether they 'should' help is the question she'll pose to any family she manages to find, later. Lilian will probably know how to start an inquiry into that.
Miyamomo	A hunt! Monsters to fight! Miyamomo immediately looks more excited by this trip than any previous moment. So of course Lilian asks her to gather whatever salvage she can from the old housing. "B-But... oh, very well." With a slightly aggravated huff, she heads off. First up, the tools. She starts gathering them in a neat little pile, bundling them together so she can carry them back in one trip. She notes the fresh sap on the axe blades, the fresh soil on the hoe. The more modern appliances are unknown to her, but her suspicion only mounts. This place is scarcely abandoned. So she stops. And she reaches out. Not with her hand, but with her essence. Her tails writhe and thrash as her spirit expands, soaking through the earth and reaching to the sky. Any spirit it touches as it spills out, Miyamomo becomes aware of. Be those her compatriots, the local spirits and gods that Ben and Tamamo are speaking to... or anything else.
Xion	"I really wanted to come down to this cool kingdom underwater. I really wanted to more than anything, at the time. But, you know, sometimes magic pools that feel like an amazing life-jaccuzi have this weird habit of being weird fairy mind control pools where you have to confront if life is really a search for temporaneous joy so living out the rest of your subjectively infinite but actually like three seconds long rest of you life in an ego-scouring euphoria is really what you want to do." Xion jabbers on, the water making comical bubbles as she gloop-glubs on UNDER DA SEE while Arthur interrogates squids. The plants play host to her unhindered dialogues while he interrogates dragon-effluvia. "Honestly, you probably found someone's special stash, or their favorite medallion of a close friend. It's a little sad, but they keyblade war was really brutal. Only a few people made it through that and I don't think many were interested in forming such strong bonds any more. You can probably use it to store some power for later? If it didn't fade away with the memory imprinted on it, maybe the power it has is one that'll keep as long as you treat it gently? I don't know! I'm not a brainy brainer." Xion's hawaiian shirt floats awkwardly and her aviators hide her blues in the dark depths. "So thanks for coming down here. This place feels really cozy! Do you think, if we formed a bond with some turtles, we could go down and meet a dragon sometime?" "Strawberry thought my outfit was cool, so I'm feeling great today!"
Ben d'Tarkanan	Flanked by spectral soldiers--the ones that left behind the radio and those strange journals. It's... been a while. A particular uncomfortable memory appears... but it doesn't have the same icy grip it once did. In fact... "More than I expected, to be sure," he says. "Not that your sense of duty is lacking, no--" Ben shakes his head and holds a palm up defensively. "But the removal of that Antegent has seemed to dim many of your fellows." So, the priest dies and with him, knowledge of the necessary rites to keep this place safe. "Perhaps that was part of your duties--the protection of the clan and its holdings." An Antegent appears, and someone, presumably from the clan who moved in here and brought the soldiers, uses the Muramasa to contain it. Likely all that could be done, with what was on hand, and the fog. "Typically, those who die in defense of something are able to move on only if that is their sole callling. That you are here tells me guardianship was not your only tether to this place." He frowns slightly. "In any case, my orders. I would like for you to work with the priest..."