(Skyseas of Gensokyo) Nazrin Quest (Part 13)

[DracoOmega]

>No obvious or immediate signs of our target, though?
>Come to think of it, have we seen any signs of other sapient individuals passing this way since we left Kagerou?

>No. There is plenty of green, and maybe even a few flowers, but no immediate sign of a garden.
>Not that you've been able to spot. Even if fairies come out this way every now and again, the woods are vast enough that crossing paths with the trail of one is a long shot, and yesterday's rain undoubtedly wiped out nearly any trace that might have been left.

[Oldmansour]

>All right, well, how much does our new vantage point, pretty though it may be, help us narrow our search, if any?

[DracoOmega]

>All right, well, how much does our new vantage point, pretty though it may be, help us narrow our search, if any?

>Well, you can see quite a lot of terrain, and assuming the garden is not so small as to disappear under heavy tree cover (could so many flowers even grow beneath that kind of shade?) you can probably rule out anywhere that you can see clearly. There's still a lot that you can't, obscured by the rise and fall of the land, but you can also spot other elevated vantage points from here that probably could see them, and plot a path towards them. Perhaps by bouncing back and forth between hilltops you can rule out a lot of ground without having to walk through all of it? Assuming the garden is not concealed through some more effective means than just isolation and obscurity; if it is deliberately camouflaged, then you can't rule out missing it even if your eyes wandered right over its location now.

[Oldmansour]

>And there's no kind of magical camouflage that we've sensed either?

[DracoOmega]

>And there's no kind of magical camouflage that we've sensed either?

>You've detect nothing particularly magical at all. Now, presumably magic intended to disguise would be more subtle in its own presence than other magic - you've never really occasion to try and detect something magically concealed before - but even conventional magic would be difficult to detect at great range unless it was massive in magnitude. You doubt you could detect anything meaningful from this distance, no matter what it was.

[Oldmansour]

>What's the terrain like between us and the nearest of those elevated vantage points?
>Assuming pass-ability, let's head up and there and see what we can see.

[DracoOmega]

>What's the terrain like between us and the nearest of those elevated vantage points?
>Assuming pass-ability, let's head up and there and see what we can see.

>Rugged, hilly, and partially obscured. Getting anywhere from here is liable to require some roundabout pathfinding, and you can only plot the generalities of your route from this distance. But one thing you can do is make sure you know where you're going. You quickly sketch in landmarks, compass bearings, and approximate directions for other places you plan to visit, then pack up and set off back down into the forest again.
>There are thankfully few complications along your journey to the next peak, save the final part; the ascent here is far steeper than the last, and after a few minutes spent looking for an easier way up, you concede to climbing straight up the rock face. You adroitness is... not what it used to be; your grip is less certain, your steps slower, and the effort leaves you panting on shaky limbs before you're halfway up. But eventually you pull yourself back onto flatter ground and collapse, breathing heavily.
>The view up here is less impressive than on the plateau and you're less in the mood to appreciate it, but you can still see an entire valley that was hidden from you before. The sun is fading now - bands of gentle crimson etching across the lower sky. Not so far away, a small flock of birds bursts from between a grove of maples, quarreling loudly.

[Oldmansour]

>Analyze valley.

[DracoOmega]

>Analyze valley.

>Without yet mustering the strength to stand back up, you stare out at the new terrain your perch has revealed. It is a broad expanse of deciduous trees and tall grasses within a shallow decline, less dense than much of the surrounding forest; you can see more than one thin ribbon of water peek through the foliage. But though your eye slowly traces over it while you try to catch your breath, you see nothing within it that catches your attention.

[Oldmansour]

>All right, roll over and rest a minute.
>A thought occurs. Is there some money to be made by our cartographical efforts out here?

[DracoOmega]

>All right, roll over and rest a minute.
>A thought occurs. Is there some money to be made by our cartographical efforts out here?

>You roll flat onto your back and lie still for a while, the brisk wind sapping the heat from you. You're not looking forward to the next hill one little bit.
>It's certainly possible that a good map of this area would be worth money to someone - if not the fort, then some academic in the city, perhaps - but it would need to be a lot better quality than the notes you've been taking. It's a task that's within your skillset to do, you think, but you'd want more time to do it than you currently feel you can spare. Whether even a few rough observations could fetch a quick buck... you suppose it's possible, but you wouldn't count on it.

[Oldmansour]

>Assess stamina. From what we saw, how much more progress can we reasonably expect to make today?

[DracoOmega]

>Assess stamina. From what we saw, how much more progress can we reasonably expect to make today?

>You could maybe find it in yourself to climb another hill like this today. If you had to. You really don't want to have to, but you could. You think. Some of them probably have gentler slopes; maybe it won't be so bad? You kept hiking a lot later than this each night so far, but this afternoon has been unusually physically demanding and your condition is only getting worse. Your lip curls in quiet frustration.

[Oldmansour]

>Well, lying here isn't going to get us anywhere, this youkai isn't going to drop out of the sky onto our face. They're saving that for the doujins.
>Once we catch our breath, stand up and have a better look around.

[DracoOmega]

>Well, lying here isn't going to get us anywhere, this youkai isn't going to drop out of the sky onto our face. They're saving that for the doujins.
>Once we catch our breath, stand up and have a better look around.

>You let yourself rest for another couple minutes, then pull yourself to your feet and have a better survey of your surroundings. Much of what you can see is what you already observed from the plateau, of course - that had the higher vantage, even if it was further away - but some bits are new and you take note of them. The largest of these is the valley you examined earlier, but there are some other small hills and bands of forest that you think must have been previously obscured by the hill on which you are presently standing. You take out your map and rotate it around to compare notes.
>Though several minutes careful observation further cements your understanding of the area's geography, it turns up little else that's exciting. The terrain is mostly homogeneous, if bumpy, and no section of forest looks very distinct from any other. There is no sign of sapient influence on the land, nothing obviously out of place, very little open ground, and not even much in the way of animal activity you can observe from this high up, save for a single lone hawk circling somewhere to the south and a... actually what is that?

[Oldmansour]

>Well? What is it?

[DracoOmega]

>Well? What is it?

>That's a good question. It's just the faintest hint of motion on the side of a distant hill - too far away to make out anything more than a dark speck - but for just a moment, there was a bright glint of light from it. ...and there it is again! The light is ruddy orange. Could that be reflected sunlight?

[Oldmansour]

>How far away? Close enough to reach before we wear ourselves out today?
>Any details at all as to what could be reflecting that sunlight?

[DracoOmega]

>How far away? Close enough to reach before we wear ourselves out today?
>Any details at all as to what could be reflecting that sunlight?

>You think so, though you can't be sure with some of the terrain along the way obscured by smaller hills. More pertinently, if that thing keeps moving in the direction it's going, it will almost certainly be somewhere else long before you can reach it.
>It's so far away that you can't really tell, but you can't think of any mundane animals that could do such a thing. It could even be a person, though it's useless to try and resolve their figure from their distance without a spyglass or something.

[Oldmansour]

>So we, a clever and savvy ranger, failed not only to bring along something to sleep in, but also a set of binoculars?

[DracoOmega]

>So we, a clever and savvy ranger, failed not only to bring along something to sleep in, but also a set of binoculars?

>Your recent shopping habits leave something to be desired, yes.

[Oldmansour]

>Then let's chase them down. With all due speed.

[DracoOmega]

>Then let's chase them down. With all due speed.

>You peer over the edge of the cliff for a few moments, then lower yourself down the rock face with a small sigh of resignation. The descent is easier than the climb was, but your condition is all the worse for the latter and your limbs sometimes shake when you bear your weight on them. You curse your trembling arms when a narrow ledge of dolomite slips beneath one foot. You don't have time for your body to not cooperate! Eventually you reach the bottom with nothing worse than rubbery muscles and a thin sheen of sweat to show for your troubles. You pause just a moment for rest, then press onward as fast as you can manage, and frankly faster than you probably should - urgency and discontent spurring you beyond the complaints of your body. It can complain later.

>The sun has already set by the time you reach the foot of the hill on which you spotted that gleaming speck. At least you're fairly certain this is the right hill. You pull out your compass and your map and compare bearings against your last vantage point. Yes, this is definitely the one. But though the tree cover is almost absent here, there is no immediate sign of anything either gleaming or moving - just an empty, rocky hill.

[Oldmansour]

>Still as good a lead as any we've had.
>Let's see what if anything we can douse.

[DracoOmega]

>Still as good a lead as any we've had.
>Let's see what if anything we can douse.

>You pull out your dowsing rods and see if you can hone in on whatever that gleaming spot you noticed earlier might have been. Nothing is immediately obvious - just lots of quartz and dolomite, with the smallest traces of copper - so you expand your search. Or, rather, attempt to; it takes only a minute of struggling to tease apart resonances for it to become abundantly clear how poor your focus is tonight. After several minutes more, it's all you can do not to throw down your rods in frustration. This should be straightforward! Why can't you seem to keep your thoughts in one place? Readings blur together into vagueness and the more irritated you become at your failure to separate them, the less sense you can make of anything. You've know you've pushed yourself hard today and each day it feels like there's less and less to push, but surely you can still do this much? It's like you're a novice, all over again.
>You sigh and stop and just sit down on the ground for a few minutes, watching the stars come out. There's a cool breeze tonight; the kind that feels like a gentle caress across your cheek. It's a pleasant enough night, you guess, to be all alone and dying on a rock in the middle of nowhere.

>Eventually, you muster up the resolve to try again. Even if you're off your game, even if your... mind is slipping, you're still an expert. Even on a bad day, you can still beat the pants off almost anyone at this. So you tell yourself. So you try to believe. You are more patient this time, slower; if you need five times as long to localize a reading in the distance, then you'll just give yourself five times as long to do it. You sweep your dowsing rods methodically across the horizon, and gradually start to make sense of what you're seeing. More quartz and feldspar and a handful of uninteresting carbonates... a little silver vein of silver half a mile underground, some hematite and... tanzanite and... and is that...? Your brow furrows and you throw all your meager focus to the task of picking out one little subtle blip among miles and miles of rock, one tiny spot of... of....
>Of worked steel. No metal that hasn't seen a forge rings like that; there is absolutely no doubt in your mind, even now. Somewhere, a mile or two northwest, there is something made of tempered steel. And it's still moving.

[Oldmansour]

>Moving in which direction?
>Is that close enough for a human to hear shouting? On second thought, never mind, we probably shouldn't. We'd just as easily frighten them off or anger them at our presence.

[DracoOmega]

>Moving in which direction?
>Is that close enough for a human to hear shouting? On second thought, never mind, we probably shouldn't. We'd just as easily frighten them off or anger them at our presence.

>Possibly north? It's a little hard to tell exactly at this distance. Maybe a little west-ish?
>And there's a good chance there's an actual hill in between the two of you, which isn't exactly going to help voice transmission, to say nothing of all the trees.

[Oldmansour]

>Good, that means we have some cover if worse comes to worse.
>Track them down.
>Wait, is it just the one sense of forged metal we've sensed, or is there more from this source?

[DracoOmega]

>Wait, is it just the one sense of forged metal we've sensed, or is there more from this source?

>At this distance, it would be impossible to differentiate multiple metal signatures in close proximity. You don't think it's a large quantity of metal, but you can't tell if it's a single object or multiple smaller ones.

>Track them down.

>You head westward in pursuit of this moving steel and are quickly stymied by a steep gorge that was rendered nearly invisible by plant cover until you were almost upon it. You're actually a little lucky you didn't fall into it. Finding a way across ends up necessitating a significant detour and your target gains ground on you. Fortunately, their presence still registers clearly to your senses, now that you know what you're looking for, and you adjust your course to follow.
>It doesn't feel like they're moving very quickly, but your own progress is frustrated by more strenuous inclines than you're in any shape to tackle and thickets you could only barely squeeze through at the best of times. The better part of two whole hours pass without either seeing or hearing your quarry, and nearly all your stamina feels spent by the end of them. You're much closer now - that much is certain - but you feel like you're pressing forward on grit alone now and there's a new problem: it seems whatever you're tracking has moved somewhere high within a sheer rocky ridge and come to a stop. If you're reading your own cartographic notes properly, this ridge has no obviously walkable slope from any direction.

[Oldmansour]

>How far away are they now?
>How far away can we usually detect that kind of material?