Chevaleresse

"Mettaton? I think Burgerpants said some stuff about him." She didn't think she should really be calling the cat person that, but he hadn't really provided her with another way to refer to him. "He didn't sound very nice, though."

Osada Sanae offered her own polite bow to Osada, even if she didn't quite match it in depth. "I guess you could call this place a bounded field. As far as swordsmen, um, there's some wolf tengu down the mountain a ways? I know that Momiji is always practicing, she'd probably fight you if you offered. But, uh, it might be sorta dangerous for you. Since you're an outside human, you might not be covered by the spell card rules, which means that she could eat you." Again, her tone suggests that this is completely normal. "Although I could just exterminate her if she tried." The casual affect continued. The miko stretched a bit. "I didn't get in on this last incident, so I've been looking for something fun to do." Dani and Joan "Not quite." Komachi chuckled slightly. "It's how this place can be jammed full of ancient youkai and idiotically strong shrine maidens without everyone getting splattered all over the walls. Not that splattered people are always boring, but everyone being splattered would be a bit dull after a while." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Basically, you take your fighting techniques and special powers and turn them into bullet patterns. This means it's really hard to kill people with them, but you can still prove you've got the bigger stick. Although it does theoretically level the playing field some." The shinigami shrugged. "I'd call your boss about it. He probably made some arrangements so you're covered under the contract. Though it also means you can't kill any of the youkai. Yes, even the man-eaters. They mostly don't do that any more, anyway." Rory "I'm right behind you~" the voice on the phone said. Rory turned again, but saw nothing. Turning back, there's very abruptly a girl standing in front of him, the same girl he'd caught a fleeting glimpse of earlier. Encounter Complete? "Hello. There aren't a lot of people that are like you with stuff like that in places like this. I like it~" She wandered back and forth, almost prancing as she spoke. There was a fox mask in one of her hands and a sharp knife in the other, with a bit of fresh blood on the tip. "Do you like me?"

Mitsurugi eyed the new arrival. An ordinary human, if not from this world. At the very least, it seemed that this land's native gods had not rejected her yet, if they were willing to send her group aid. Or so she chose to believe, faced with the other alternatives. "I must assume so. My name is Saigai Mitsurugi." She gave the newcomer a slight nod, before turning to the miko. "There is little distinction between conquest and destruction when it comes to these matters. Either way, it imperils humans and gives the youkai more grounds to prowl." Her piece said, Mitsurugi began to continue up the stairs, passing Maxwell. There was still much to do, and she felt that her time to accomplish it was slipping between her fingers at every moment. If the siren song of untempered calamity was already calling to her so, it may have been too late already. Still, like a climber clinging to a rock even as it broke beneath his weight, so she clung to the hope that she could reverse this transformation before it was too late for them all.

"I'm Lucine. Um, I guess I saw your note?" She hadn't really planned on coming back here, but what's done is done. "But I don't really have any money. I guess I just wanted to see what was up?"

Osada "Weird. It sounds like you crossed the boundary or something, but by accident? You don't look like you're hundreds of years old, and you haven't really got that youkai feel, y'know?" She places her fingers on her chin in a thoughtful expression. "Unless you're some sort of hyper-powerful ancient wizard swordsman person who can conceal their power level. Anyway. I'm Kochiya Sanae, and this is the Moriya Shrine. Much nicer than the dumpy places Outside, and nobody's destroyed it in an earthquake yet. You could almost say it's a miracle!" Something about her smile makes it seem like she's cracking a joke. Dani & Joan "I dunno. You need to know anything else before you head out? I've got time to kill." The meister-weapon pair get the distinct feeling that she's not actually supposed to be killing time. "I don't suppose your boss explained the whole spell card contract thing to you, did he? I'd hate to be carting you back over here because of something like that." Rory "Over here~!" Rory whirls towards the voice, again not where he was expecting. He finally catches a brief glimpse of a girl in a yellow dress and a fancy hat, with some sort of eye-like thing wrapped around her - or attached to her? She manages to vanish from sight as quickly as she appeared after popping him with a burst of heart-shaped danmaku for [1] damage. . . but it doesn't seem like she was moving fast. He just lost track of her? Somewhat incongruously, he spots what looks like a pay phone nearby. It rings. Status

"Oh, you poor, poor thing. . ." Heidrun slowly drew closer to the ghost. Ghosts were an unfortunate fact of life post-Sephiroth; the world might have been saved, but many people had suffered untimely deaths in the process. "I. . . is there anything I can do to help you?" Heidrun looked down. She had helped calm ghosts before - she was quite good at it, unusually good going by those who had commented - but she had no way of knowing how the ghosts in this place operated. If all else failed, she could try to force her soul to return to the Lifestream. . . but she didn't even know if this world had a Lifestream. At the thought of the current of mystical energy, the healer felt her shift restlessly in her slumber at the back of her mind. I'm safe now, and so is this place. Go to sleep.

Lucine caught Opal, who had slowed at the approach of two strangers, and quickly stuffed the device into her backpack before she could cause more trouble. The bag emitted some muffled noises that were probably less than pleasant, but Lucine had already moved on. "Um, hi. Sorry you had to see that, Opal is. . . uh, like that."

Lucine picked up the note, showing it to Proditor. It seemed like an unnecessary distraction, and sketchy to boot, but she wasn't sure if they should investigate regardless. "Do you think we should check it out?" The decision, however, was not made by Lucine. Opal, having been fairly unrestrained this whole time, elected to cause more trouble by flying off down the alleyway. "H-Hey, come back! You can't start doing this now!" Without waiting for Proditor's response, she took off after the sapient Mystic Code. "We're in the middle of something really important!" "Is it as important as talking to some cat person at McDonald's?" "You can read my mana levels! I was about to pass out!" "Maybe you'd stop making things worse if you did." "Why are you like this?"

Dani & Joan "Oh, right. This is Gensokyo. Nice place. Dangerous. But I haven't run across a real messy corpse in a while." Komachi keeps strolling forward, but it seems like the riverside isn't actually getting closer. "Well, technically this isn't Gensokyo. This is Higan. You'll get a re-tour if you die here, heh." It isn't actually clear which part of that the shinigami thought was funny. "Over there is the Netherworld, and then past that is actual Gensokyo. The ghosts in the Netherworld probably won't bother you, but if you've got any snacks I'd keep them at the ready." Osada "Eh?" The miko(?) looks confused for a moment, before turning to Osada. "Oh, a visitor! Hey!" She waves at the wandering swordsman. "You don't look like you're from around here. Are you from Outside? It's been a while since I've been out there, what's been going on?" She tilts her head slightly. "And, uh, how'd you get here? There's no path up the mountain from that way, unless you flew." Her tone suggests that this isn't as unlikely as it may sound. Rory The stake sails off behind the rock. He hears giggling, but nothing happens. . . ? Initiative Status

Osada Well, it'd been a long climb up to this mountain, and something funny had definitely happened on the way up; that map just sort of stopped matching the area near the top. Osada thought he may have seen some tall, spooky swordsman guy, but since then he hadn't even seen tracks. He crests a ridge, and discovers. . . a shrine? With a rather put-out looking individual that could have been a shrine maiden, albeit with a rather nontraditional variant on the outfit. She hasn't seen him yet, though; he came up from somewhere off the main path, which she's staring at with a bored expression. Dani & Joan "There was some nonsense going on at Hakugyokurou. I was going to investigate, but I think whatever it was is over with." Komachi shrugged again. "But yeah, I'd maybe find the Hakurei miko or one of her friends." She held one hand in front of herself, counting off on it as she described them. "There's uhhh, red-white herself, black-white, the knifey one, the sword one, and the rainbow one that isn't really rainbowy. Oh, and the green and white one. I think that's most of the people responsible for dealing with this stuff? Usually not my purview, personally. Lots of dead folks to deal with." The riverside seemed to be getting closer, though not as quickly as it seemed it should have. "There's also the gap hag, but she's. . . well, you called your boss capricious, but she gives it another meaning. If you do see her, don't tell her I called her a gap hag." Rory "Okay~!" A girl's voice sounds from behind him. He glances towards the voice, then looks back just in time to see a pink blast of energy narrowly miss his head. Whoever it is did not, in fact, come out. Initiative Status

Dani & Joan "Oh, don't worry about that. Eiki is always like this. You're lucky she didn't give you a lecture, though." She stretched one arm and yawned. "I'm probably going to get one later, but it was probably coming anyway, so what do you do?" Komachi didn't wait for an answer to the rhetorical question, continuing with an actual one. "So you guys aren't from around here, huh? As in, really not from around here. To be honest, I think the fact that your boss could just call me is a bad sign, but death - the concept, not the guy - has always been a little weird when it comes to the boundaries between worlds, so. . ."

Dani & Joan "What do you mean, another shinigami sent them over? Shinigami only send people to the underworld, and these two aren't dead." The pink haired, blue haired woman carrying a large, sharp scythe over one shoulder shrugged. "He said he thought they could do some good here hunting evil spirits, or whatever." This prompted an exasperated sigh. "I've never even heard of a 'Death Weapon Meister. There's been an incident going on, are they even from this world?" "I dunno." The scythe-wielder - a shinigami, apparently - started to shrug, before the one she was speaking to - a green-haired woman with a stern expression and an elaborate, crown-like hat - rapped her on the head with a carved wooden rod. "Just take them back across the Sanzu. And don't bring me any more living humans! Do your job!" The weapon-Meister pair wasn't entirely sure how they'd gotten here. Death had sent them off on some vaguely worded mission through a suspicious-looking doorway, and then this pink-haired woman claiming to be another shinigami had been waiting by a riverside for them. Or rather, she'd been napping, then pretended as if she'd known they were coming before taking them back to her boss. Evidently there had been some kind of miscommunication. The pink-haired woman led them back through Higan, which seemed to be an endless, rolling field of flowers. The River Sanzu slid silently past some distance away; the building they were leaving was an imposing-looking courthouse. "Oh, I never introduced myself, did I? If the big guy didn't let you know, I'm Onozuka Komachi." Rory He can't really tell, but they don't seem to be friendly. The unsettling feeling he gets watching them move and twitch about gives him the feeling that these might be the evil spirits he heard about once or twice. He goes around, getting closer to the palace. He gets the distinct feeling he's being watched by something or someone, but can't remember seeing anyone on his way over.

"How many people, I wonder, begged like this before they were killed by this man, or men like him? How many women stayed silent, or lied to themselves about what he had wrought upon them, for fear of what would happen if they spoke the truth?" Justine looked between the edge of her blade and the wounded Darcy, before turning towards the party. "There are friends from my girlhood who I will never speak to again because of this man. We should give him to the people. . . but I am one of them as well." The swordswoman elected to leave it at that.

"Thanks for the sandwich. I hope your boss is nicer to you." Lucine gave a small wave, then followed Proditor out of the building.

"He plays a CD telling you how bad you are at your job? That's really mean." This Mettaton sounded more and more unpleasant by the moment. "Why would he do something like that?"

"It's a little too late for that. . ." Entangled with popular people might not have been the phrasing she would have applied, but it was certainly one way to refer to her. "If Mettaton would really get mad at you, though, I'll leave you alone. Sorry to bother you." If that was true, this Mettaton didn't sound very nice. She made a mental note to avoid whoever it was if the situation came up.

"Let me know if you need me to look at anything. It's nice to talk to someone who doesn't seem like they're insane, or that has a death wish." He sighed. "Feel like I'm going to join that first group at this rate."

IP Try as she might, IP isn't able to make much headway on determining the contents of the list. For one, it's written in an archaic form of Japanese; it seems whatever force allows them to communicate freely verbally is rather less consistent when it comes to writing. Second, the handwriting is quite frankly atrocious. The author of the list doesn't seem to have written it with the intention of it being legible to anyone but themselves. Third, the items themselves have vague or confusing names. There's a "reflective disc" and "reflective disc device," as well as a "bubbling cone" and a "strange magical brick." Most of the list seems to be of that nature, though a few items are more recognizable, such as a "magical pocket furnace." Rory [78] Rory makes good progress towards the palace. It's some distance away, though, and the terrain isn't exactly inviting. It's not much of a challenge to a hunter like himself, but he does find himself wishing he had brought some cool drinks. At around the halfway point, he spots some wispy creatures with indistinct forms that could have been human or animal. They haven't noticed him yet; he can either go straight through, or circle around.

The sandwich was. . . surprisingly invigorating. She wasn't sure if she enjoyed it for the taste, or simply for how hungry she actually was. "This is actually really good!" She looked around. "Thanks for the food. Do you know where that weird skeleton guy went?"

Lucine hefted the sandwich, and tried to hide the fact that she was visually dissecting it. This task grew more difficult when she began physically dissecting it, poking at the fake meat. Oddly enough, the assortment of veggies didn't seem to bother her; rather, it was the other fillings that set her "weathy Romanian girl" sensibilities off. Eventually, though, she let hunger and urgency overcome her, and started to bite at it "blade" first.

Rory The hunter notes that there are a few routes to take. There's the gap that heads out to the Hakurei Shrine and, therefore, right to the surface. There might be a smithy in the human village, or some leads on where to find one. Alternatively, both the town and the palace are about equidistant. There's a geyser of some kind beyond the palace, and it seems like there's more fire and heat that way. The town is surprisingly large for a place like this, though from here it's hard to tell how much is actually occupied. He could also look for a route straight to the surface, though he feels this may be more than slightly hazardous. IP The instructor finds a few random things. A discarded portable gaming system sits forlornly in one car, and the occasional magazine or newspaper drifts among the cars. One storage unit seems to hold a set of camping supplies, though it is unknown where one would purchase a full set of things that are so eye-searingly pink. Mostly, though, it seems the main utility of the train is the fact that it's air-conditioned. IP did find something out of place; it looked like an old shop inventory? Evidently it belonged to a place called "Kourindou." Masako & Isobel The gap leads out to the shrine. Nobody seems to be home at the moment, or at least nobody is roaming about outside. The woods nearby seem calm, though there's not much beyond a simple well in the back where the gap leads. The occasional fairy flits between the trees, but they seem uninterested in bothering the group. . . for the moment, anyway.

After some brainstorming, technological shenanigans, and a tense moment involving an explosive charge, Kusuke and Law managed to craft a unique weapon for the time traveler's use. "This thing will be interesting to use if we've got to fight anything big. It's a tad more, uh, lethal than I'm used to, but sometimes you can't just beat everything down." He hefted the weapon, testing the weight in his arms, then nodded at Law. "Thanks for the help. It was educational."

Kusuke sighed. "I really need to take my own advice." There had been lulls and breaks, but he felt like he'd been in constant motion since this whole thing had started. Always another crisis, another incompetent teammate nearly getting him or someone else killed, and Satomi refusing to take a single break while literally covered in blood. He doubted that he could convince her to stop, either, though he resolved to try at some point. He also needed to get ready for whatever might be coming up next, now that there was a chance. A few instances lately had shown that he needed something weightier than a few knives and martial arts techniques. To that end, he sought out the person who tended to tote around a gun bigger than their own body. "Hey, Law, wanna work together on a project for a bit? I'm looking to try out some advice I got once."

Rory The train is seemingly completely empty, consisting of a long series of passenger cars. He does find a few compartments with storage in them, and a kitchen car. Oddly enough, the electricity is still on. IP Seemingly nothing happens, though she could have sworn that one of the eyes in the gap rolled.

Legendary Hero? That seemed appropriate. Maybe eating it would help in some weird way with all the stuff coming up. "Can I get the sword one?" She asked the question of the cat, apparently unbothered by the smoking, but glanced back at Proditor for confirmation.