Keine Quest (Part 2): Broken History

[Hello Purvis]

>Quietly: "You both see that, right?"

[DracoOmega]

>Will the hole leading back up easy to locate again?

>It would be easy to find the chamber again, given that there's only one path there. The hole may take a little searching for. It would stand out against the ceiling, but Mokou's light only reaches so far. Still, it shouldn't be too difficult to locate.

>Quietly: "You both see that, right?"

>"Uh-huh."
>"Yup!" Rumia still manages to somehow sound exuberant while whispering.

>Get a little closer and observe.

>You walk towards the strange lights. They seem to be drifting slowly in different directions from each other and shedding tiny flickering wisps of energy above them. They're still well outside the range of your own light.

[Kasu]

> Recall knowledge of spirits that live Underground.
> Get a little closer.

[DracoOmega]

> Recall knowledge of spirits that live Underground.

>You recall that there were large quantities of evil spirits that lived in parts of it, primarily in the Hell of Blazing Fires, although the occasional one elsewhere. You've never seen one before, but these do look at least partially like the description you had of them. Despite being the remnants of the souls of people condemned to hell, they're not necessarily aggressive or malicious, although some certainly can be. You think that the kasha who lived in the Palace of the Earth Spirits had some ability to control them, or at the very least herd them.

> Get a little closer.

>As you get a little closer, you can see several more of them. The brightness of your own light makes them harder to see into the darkness in the distance, but they don't appear to be paying you any notice. If they are aware of your presence, they do not seem to be reacting to it.

[Hello Purvis]

>Onwards. Be ready to react if they do anything hostile.
>"We'll just try and leave them alone, I suppose."

[DracoOmega]

>Onwards. Be ready to react if they do anything hostile.
>"We'll just try and leave them alone, I suppose."

>"Yeah...." Mokou agrees.
>You move tentatively forward, keep your eyes fixed on the cluster of spirits. As you get closer, they seem to become more glow brighter, and become more active, swirling around each other like a cloud of fireflies, but none of them does anything obviously hostile. You pass by without incident.
>As you continue down the tunnel, you see the scattered other spirit, moving up or down the path. They're a little unnerving, to be honest, but so far, no more harmful than the rock you're walking on. After a considerable length of time, and many twists and turns of the tunnel, you emerge into another chamber, even larger than the last. You can't actually see the ceiling past the edge of your light, and darkness extends in all directions but thee wall next to you. You also realize you're not even sure which direction is northeast, anymore.

[Hello Purvis]

>Have a look around. Does this cavern seem any different than the prior one or the tunnel?

[DracoOmega]

>Have a look around. Does this cavern seem any different than the prior one or the tunnel?

>At first glance, no, other than the obvious size difference. After you move around a little bit, you notice some channels cutting across the floor. In them seems to be a single mass of smooth, lumpy rock, of a different composition than the surrounding stone. You think you can also see more spirits, flicking in the distance.

[Hello Purvis]

>At first glance, no, other than the obvious size difference. After you move around a little bit, you notice some channels cutting across the floor. In them seems to be a single mass of smooth, lumpy rock, of a different composition than the surrounding stone. You think you can also see more spirits, flicking in the distance.

>Do the channels look handmade, or like some curious natural phenomena?
>Follow one for a bit.

[DracoOmega]

>Do the channels look handmade, or like some curious natural phenomena?
>Follow one for a bit.

>They don't look necessarily handmade, and they're different in appearance to the ones that Utsuho cut through the ceiling, and on the surface.
>You follow one for a while, as it twists and turns and meanders some more. After a while, it terminates in some sort of pit. It's not especially wide, but you can't see the bottom from here at all. Looking around the pit, a couple more channels end here, too, but others seem to be traveling elsewhere in the chamber.

[Hello Purvis]

>Check the rock in one of the channels. Are we educated enough to recognize it as something that might have once been lava?

[DracoOmega]

>Check the rock in one of the channels. Are we educated enough to recognize it as something that might have once been lava?

>Your knowledge of geology is rudimentary, but that definitely looks plausible.

[Hello Purvis]

>Continue to cross the cavern. If we see other channels, try to determine if they have a point of origin, or rather a point that isn't ending in a communal hole.
>Do the spirits seem to care about us at all?

[DracoOmega]

>Continue to cross the cavern. If we see other channels, try to determine if they have a point of origin, or rather a point that isn't ending in a communal hole.

>You continue to wander around the cavern in what you think is the direction away from where you entered. You may have gotten a little turned around while following the first channel, though.... You do see a few more after a while, although no obvious point of origin. You could always try following one of those, too, but you risk becoming thoroughly directionless after a while.

>Do the spirits seem to care about us at all?

>The only ones you can see at the moment are very far away.

[Hello Purvis]

>Use the general position of the distant spirts as a navigation point. Can we estimate how far away they are with any degree of worthwhileness?

[DracoOmega]

>Use the general position of the distant spirts as a navigation point. Can we estimate how far away they are with any degree of worthwhileness?

>There are several different groups of lights you can see. There a few around eye level, mostly spread out, with a small cluster somewhere ahead and slightly to your right. They're probably at least 500 feet away, although it's hard to tell more beyond than that. You think you can also see quite a few more vague twinklings towards the ceiling. With so few features to go by, it's hard to tell whether some are simply smaller than others, or significantly more distant.

[Hello Purvis]

>Head in the general direction of a group of lights that feels like it's roughly opposite of the tunnel we came from.

[DracoOmega]

>Head in the general direction of a group of lights that feels like it's roughly opposite of the tunnel we came from.

>You try to find a suitable group of lights to use as a marker, and head off in a direction that you think is roughly opposite where you came in, although you can't be fully sure.
>The travel passes uneventfully for the most part. You see another small pit along the way, and several more trenches of various widths. You can definitely see more dense gatherings of spirits now, mostly towards the direction of the ceiling, although you do pass fairly close to a couple isolated ones on the ground. The group of spirits you were using to navigate are getting quite close, now. You'll have to take a detour unless you want to try passing through them. There's still no sign of any cavern walls.

[Hello Purvis]

>Ponder if evil spirits have any capacity to communicate with the living.

[DracoOmega]

>Ponder if evil spirits have any capacity to communicate with the living.

>It's possible they might, but not in any terms you could understand. Some of the people who deal with them regularly might be able to understand them better than that, but you're not certain. Or anyone who deals with the dead, for that matter, which they at least partially are. You could probably sense hostility or such from their movements, but nothing more complex than that.

[Hello Purvis]

>Oh well. Give them a decent amount of space, and keep moving in that direction.

[DracoOmega]

>Oh well. Give them a decent amount of space, and keep moving in that direction.

>You try to navigate past the cluster of spirits without getting too close. Nevertheless, they seem to get a bit more agitated as you draw near. A few in particular seem to glow and flicker oddly. Still, you move past them without much incident and try to keep moving in the same direction as you were originally.
>Wait, is that a couple spirits from the group you just passed drifting towards you? They're still fairly far away, but definitely seem to be drawing closer.

[Hello Purvis]

>"Mokou, can you mark the direction we're headed? A couple of those spirits are approaching, and I don't want to get turned around."
>Observe spirits. Prepare to conjure up a few familiars, just in case.

[DracoOmega]

>"Mokou, can you mark the direction we're headed? A couple of those spirits are approaching, and I don't want to get turned around."

>"You mean we aren't already? Good to know." She flicks her wrist, and you see a talisman fly out and affix itself to the floor, pointing in the direction you were walking.

>Observe spirits. Prepare to conjure up a few familiars, just in case.

>The spirits are continuing towards you, flickering brightly. They're moving faster than you were walking, but not amazingly fast. You could outrun them if you picked up the pace. They're still outside of your effective firing range.

[Hello Purvis]

>"Not completely so."
>Keep going, but keep an eye on them.

[DracoOmega]

>"Not completely so."
>Keep going, but keep an eye on them.

>"Well, as long as you can get us back out of this place again."
>You continue moving forward, and the spirits continue to follow, slowly closing the gap between you. You think you can see a couple more spirits move to join them from other directions.

[Hello Purvis]

>"Let's not try to make any hostile moves. I don't think there is a lot they can do to us, anyways."
>Keep going. Collect Mokou's talisman so it can be used as a marker later, if we can.

[DracoOmega]

>"Let's not try to make any hostile moves. I don't think there is a lot they can do to us, anyways."

>"I dunno.... unless us just being here is hostile."

>Keep going. Collect Mokou's talisman so it can be used as a marker later, if we can.

>You've already moved a fair distance past where the talisman was dropped, but you suspect she has more than enough of them that she'd never notice it missing, anyway.
>You keep moving forward, and the spirits continue to close on you. They're probably no more than 50 feet away, now, and you can see a couple more that appear to be moving towards you from the sides.

[Hello Purvis]

>"Quite."
>Keep moving. Stay watchful, in case they send danmaku at us.

[DracoOmega]

>"Quite."
>Keep moving. Stay watchful, in case they send danmaku at us.

>You keep moving, in the hope that they will get bored, or go back to... whatever it is that evil spirits do around here. Keeping a watchful eye on them proves to be a wise idea, however, as a few moments later you see a small burst of spherical shots fly towards you from the closest spirits.