Kong stands up shakily. "That was a trip. I feel a bit lit a freight train hit me and I didn't even get to enjoy the drinking usually precedes this feeling." He then turns to Johnny "There should be another one of us here now." and points toward the cave.
"I'm guessing going in to explain a few things is a no-no?"
Luna nods in agreement to Kings Comment of the unpleasant feelings but doesn't describe her own. "Nothing to do now but wait?"
"I guess so." Liisa nodded at Johnny and the newly awakened. "Some fresh berries for that headache? Or something stronger ...?" She raises an eyebrow and pulls out a small flimsy cup made out of leaves. There was certain drawbacks to living in a tree; lack of proper porcelain was one!
Kong's eyebrows raise at the sight of the cup. "Don't mind if I do. After that trip I could use a good belt." He takes the offered cup and takes a drink then passes it to Luna. "This ought to do you some good. And thank you Liisa."
To the west] A woman in abbreviated eastern style armor stands, strutting with a grin on her face. A large three-armed boomerang sits on her back, and a rune sits on her forehead. Next to her is some sort of creature, but it’s draped in shadows, its features murky. The same rune is drawn on it’s head. It’s single visible eye is an oval white gem bursting with deep colors inside. Behind the duo a tower with flowing arches can be seen.
To the north]A tall broad-shouldered man in chainmail with a heavy looking warhammer held casually over his shoulder. His broad face has a welcoming smile on it, and a tool belt hangs from his hips. In the background, a large house puffs smoke and anvils can be seen. A large, scaled dragon is draped over the top of the building, with smoke puffing out of it’s nostrils. A square depression is centered on his belt buckle, as if something was previously there, but isn't anymore. The entire relief is cracked into thousands of cracks. The haft of a headless hammer lies within the sand.
To the south]A man in a silk robe with a metal plate strapped over his stomach looks out from the relief. He smiles with a friendly easy smile, his long hair tied back in a pony tail. A strange multi-segmented sword hangs from his waist, and a dog with small packs on it’s back stands next to him. In the ring on his finger is a oval-shaped depression, it seems something is missing. Behind him is a wagon with cargo on top, and an enclosed living area.
Relief 1]A woman stands on one foot, the other leg bent and raised up so the heel rests against her inner thigh. She wears a flowing silk garment and holds metal fans in each hand. Her face is serene, and on her forehead is an empty space, as if something square were taken. Behind her a simple wooden building with a sun motif on it.
Relief 2]A woman holding a short staff and wearing cloth wrapped armor stands on a building top. Her face is obscured by a mask. On her brow rests a pyramidal black stone that seems to absorb the light around it. Within the relief can be seen dozens of scorpions of various sizes.
Relief 3]A woman in full body armor sits astride a unicorn, a pair of short blades in her hands. She wears an ornate set of armor, and a helmet rides her head. On her brow is an octagonal clear gem. Behind her is a fortress with tall walls and regular crenelations.
Daichi, calm again after his initial adrenaline-fueled panic attack, looks around his surroundings,
He circles around the lit crystal and stares at it, then his curiosity gets the better of him and he starts wandering around the cavern, noting all the reliefs and the present and missing gems... He seems most fascinated with the man with the lute (6) and the asian warrior lady with twin swords(18). But not knowing he's supposed to take a gem, he takes nothing from either... He simply moves on until he's sure he's searched the entire place, is alone except for the dead bodies and there's only one seeming way out, blocked by bars... He tries calling out down that passage.
When no one replies, he wanders again and examines all the reliefs again, pausing at some with empty receptacles, tracing the divots and outlines with his fingers... "Strange..." Yet he is hesitant to take anything from any of the others...
It's said if you eat anything in Yomi, you are destined to stay there forever, perhaps that applies to helping oneself to pretty shiny things as well? But how do I get out of here, there's no clear path
As Daichi searches, he finds an unusual wall made of squared off stone blocks. There are divots on the stone wall that seem to match the shapes of the gems in the reliefs.
Several divots, those that match the empty divots on the reliefs that are missing gems, have been filled in with stone and the outlines only exist now. One of them is actually cracked and split. The rest look like they await the transfer of a gem. (this is near area 3).
What's this? He examines the wall with the divots and stone shapes... goes back and examines the reliefs and compares them with the wall, realizing eventually that the ones with gems match the empty divots in the wall... fascinating, but what happens if I move them here? Will the sleeping dead awaken? Will I join them? Perhaps they died trying to complete the array here?
He contemplates all for a while... checks his cell phone to find no signal and no satellite connection to google all this.
Crap... If I'm not already dead, I'll probably starve to death in here if I don't do this... If i'm already dead it won't matter I guess... He sighs, still unsure which one to do first... Though since it's closer, the gem present in the relief in room 6 seems most likely... or perhaps I should start with the furthest one ? in case the dead awaken and I only have a few moments to finish? What if it simply can't be done quickly enough? Perhaps that's how all these other unfortunates died here.
Finally he makes a decision and treks to the relief of the woman with the unicorn... He looks around and confirms that indeed, this is the only image here with a gem still extant and he takes a moment to steel himself for the task at hand... I'll put this one in the wall, then the one with the lute... that'll be two... We'll see what happens with the dead on the ground... if they don't awaken, I can do the rest... perhaps finishing the array will get me out of here in some way.
He reaches up for the clear octagonal gem...
The octagonal gem resists being pulled for a moment, but then pops free into Daichi's hand. As he takes a step to carry it to the door, there's a sharp pain and the gem pushes it's way into his hand, pushing the skin aside to enter.
The sharp pain, about as bad as a stubbed toe, pushes it's way up his arm, through his neck, and into the back of his brain.
After several minutes, the pain fades...
The divots have vanished, leaving a perfectly smooth wall with no blemishes or markings.
Once the pain fades he checks the relief to see the gem is indeed gone... Somehow I've got to get it into that wall... He runs for the wall, and finds it blank... confused... He starts looking around the cavern again frequently checking his palm to look for signs of the gem's passage to reassure himself it actually happened...
Daichi finds a pale white square on the palm of his hand, as if all the color had been bleached from the skin...
Luna accepts the berries but not the mystery cup. "I'll stick with the basics, thanks." She waits for a while before speaking again. "Think he's dead? Well again anyway."
"The wall will probably grind open if he dies. So I doubt it. We could ask our patrons how he's doing, but there's some difficulty involved in talking when the door is closed... And it might even be hard to tell.
"We just finished making bets on what they'd take. What sort of person did you grab?"
Daichi stares at the white square bleached into his hand in a mix of surprise and horror... "What is happening to me? Some bizarre dream no doubt... Last thing I remember was the gold car coming at my head... That's what this is... I'm going to wake up in a hospital bed full of needles and stuff... Father will be quite angry with me...
As Daichi keeps searching for a way out, the light gradually dies from the crystals in the roof.
As the light begins to dim, there are some clacking sounds. The hairs on the back of Daichi's neck begin to stand up, and as he watches, bones begin to twitch and jerk, moving toward each other in jittery little spurts and jots.
Daichi's palm burns, and there's a flash of light as a golden butterfly sword appears in his hand. His other palm burns, and a silver butterfly sword, matching the first in appearance, appears in his other hand.
Until your alignment shifts, the alignment bonus on sword 1 doesn't work, the alignment bonus on the other works.
Daichi almost shouts aloud and drops the swords as they appear... but at the last second he tightens his grps on them and stares around him for the source of the clacking noises...
The clacking becomes more pronounced, and then the source becomes apparent as all the bones around Daichi begin to flip end over end toward each other, clacking together and building themselves into skeletons, some with remnants of clothes or armor, others with nothing left, a few with bits of flesh and hair still attached.
They pick up broken weapons from the ground (although for some reason not the shattered hammer or staff), and begin to close on Daichi, like something out of a bad horror movie. Each skull grinning demonically as the skeleton moves with twitchy but rapid motions, raising their weapons, or their bare hands if they have none.
The first weapon slams into Daichi's chest, opening his flesh with the rusty edge, leaving a trailing burn on his chest!
Daichi gasps in horror, but doesn't feel the panic that gripped him earlier when he just saw all the skeletons... with grim resolve, he tightens his grip on the 2 swords and backs out toward the only place that looked like a potential exit earlier, - the stone barred passage.
If there's opportunity or necessity to strike at the skeletons without slowing down his progress too much, he'll do so.
As Daichi falls back, his foot lands not with the soft footfall he's used to, but instead with a clank of metal. Looking down, his foot is encased in a black and gold boot, a golden metal with black leather. As he continues to back toward the smooth wall, the armor clanks into place on his body, until he's fully adorned in a full set of formal kikko armor in gold and black colors, with silver trim that match his swords and their black hilts.
Behind him, there's a groaning sound from the wall...
A white square has appeared on it, looking similar to the mark on Daichi's hand...
Daichi pushes against the wall, and if it doesnt yield, he'll place his marked palm to the square on the wall, all the while watching the skeletons around him so none takes him unaware.
As Daichi touches the wall, shrugging off hits, the wall grinds open...
The stone wall finally grounds open after 5 or 6 hours of waiting...
"Ohhh - let's see what you found!" Liisa jumps to her feet with an expectant grin. She also reined in her lizard friend with a feet as to not unnerve their new companion. Not that (s)he probably just experienced a lot worse, but every bit helps!
Daichi stumbles out into the light (?) And steps as far as he can away from the stone wall and the undead beyond it... he turns back to look, discerning whether the skeletons are still following.
(Assuming they arent...) he turns back to these other people gathered there. He turns to liisa, blinking almost in shock at seeing others.
"this is one helluva dream..."
Luna would have fallen asleep during the long wait and been awoken by the door opening then move to join the others to greet him.
"this is one helluva dream..."
"Who wants to tell him?"
"They can't follow you." Neri says as he starts to worry about the darkness. "Or at least, they haven't followed anyone. Welcome to Hell. Sort of. You want the long version, the short version, or the believable version?"
"hell? This isn't a dream? Am I dead then? Are you all ghosts or demons?" He looks leery of but not particularly terrified of the others. "yomi is a strange place if that's so." He looks to Neri and gives a little half smile, "how about the honest version?"
"Probably, Maybe, Yes, possibly and technically." Neri responds to the first barrage of questions. "Okay. You died. That's the first thing, but The Thief grabbed your soul and pulled you here before you went to wherever you were meant to go."
He indicates Luna as 'Thief' and Kong as 'Death', with his hands. "Death went along for the ride to fetch you, which apparently makes it safer. We all died, from our perspectives, more or less a year ago, give or take a few months. I went over a cliff on the eastern seaboard. Once the pain was over, I was here." he says as he takes off his glove. He holds up his hand, showing a red starburst, similar to Daichi's white stone. "If you got out, that means you grabbed a gem, and... unless you died in that armor and wearing those swords, you pulled Unicorn? Which means Liisa wins. Anyway, this world is very, very different from home. Still oppression, still slavery, still torture and all that... but most people just accept it here. Basically, there are three gods, 'Death, Cold, Torture', 'Light, Revenge, and Fighting' and 'Birth, Healing, and Farming'. The last one doesn't seem that bad, but what do I know?" Neri asks, shrugging. "Ultimately, we as a group have been practicing guerilla warfare against the bad guys. Each of us also pulled a gem from the wall, which comes with nifty benefits that seem to be completely unique to us. I wound up with the spheres of fire, explosions, fiery explosions, and war. Also glyphs for some reason." He pauses to see how well the new person was keeping up... or if he looked sick.
"Pretty much what Neri said." Liisa grins - happy over winning the bet. She leans a bit closer and holds out a hand towards Daichi's shoulder.
"But I guess the most important thing of note is magic; and the quickest way to convince someone ..."
She leans in a little bit closer and concentrates and ... pulls a rabbit seemingly out of Daichi's ear!
"There!" she laughs and drops the rabbit next to Daichi's feet. "Always wanted to do that..."
"I guess saying I don't fully understand would be an understatement. You're saying i'm dead... I'm not in a morphine induced hallucination? And this is all real?" He looks at his palm again then back at Neri.
"No, I didn't die wearing armor and wielding swords..." He looks down at his armored self and sighs. "Three gods? what does that make us if they are the bad guys? demons? magic is real? I feel like I'm in some bad manga or a video game."
He turns and looks at the rabbit, his eyes large with surprise. "Usagi! from nowhere! cute trick"
"So I guess the next question is ... what next? And who are you all? I am Fujito Daichi, but I guess family name doesn't matter here... you can just call me Daichi." He gets a wistfully sad look on his face when he says 'family name doesn't matter'.
"Well... that's mostly up to you. Lina would probably try to press-gang you if she were here. She's... to put it in a friendly way, not a nice person. The populace as a whole refers to us as Demons when they know what we are, though we're able to blend in, when I don't do something impulsive and stupid. So... we don't really blend in at all. What we're currently doing is trying to free as many people as we can... or at least, will be soon. In this valley, we're protected, but once outside... not so much." Neri says offering an unhappy shrug.
"I'm of a mind that the 'gods' are also Demons, just that the winner gets to decide how history is written and all that. Or rather, not written. As far as I can tell, most people don't really read here. The important things are: Some of us can work magic inherently, and it's possible to learn magic even if you don't gain it from your gem. My gem merges magic with swordplay." he says, as he draws the Estoc, causing the rings to 'ching' as it slides out of the hilt, and then again as it loses its momentum, whereupon it bursts into flames.
From the receiving end, it would look an awful lot like the mark on his palm, save that it had nine spikes on the star, with nine rings near the hilt on each point. As he swings it around, at no one in particular, it transforms into a much thicker monstrosity, of an asian variety - complete with nine rings, another pair of 'ching's later, and it returns to being an estoc, and gets slid back into the scabbard at his side.
"If you follow us back to the compounds, you should be able to learn quite a bit about who you are and what you do. Mahb, a local, will likely be able to help in that regard, and anyone in your particular compound might be able to help you, as well. Each of our compounds are... like an embassy, I guess. They're our 'personal heavens', or rather, the gems' personal heavens. I've got a volcano, Lees has a grove, Luna has an apartment, Kong has a bone hut, Johnny has wagons, and Lina has a monastery. Unicorn lady had a castle in her picture... right?"
"Something like that... How do i find this compound?"
"Come with us. It's around a giant lake. Speaking of which, don't go near the lake, there are things that want to eat us in there. Also, if you see a squirrel, do not approach. Finally, if you have anything valuable, watch out for a raccoon." He looks to Liisa, figuring she'd be best at explaining the carnivorous herbivore situation. "Kind of wonder, if you get a unicorn, what it's going to eat. What do unicorns eat, anyway?"
Daichi follows Neri... When he mentions valuables, reaches to check his pockets and realizes the armor has none... wonders if he still has what little he was carrying that night. "I have no idea what unicorns eat... they look like horses... so grains and such?"
If I'm dead, father will be very angry... and disappointed... I have failed him and the family. A failure that cannot be corrected from the land of the dead.
"Well I'm not sure either..." Liisa replies. Or do we know Selvaria - what would we feed a unicorn? "... but yeah, stay away from the squirrels - we definitely know what they like to eat - and that would be flesh. Yours probably!" she adds with a blink. "This side of the wall the animal roles are sorta twisted around - carnivores are generally harmless but herbi- and omnivores tend to be nasty. We're working on fixing that, but for now, keep it in mind..."
Coming to think of something Liisa pulls out her deck of cards and flips trough it looking for any change.
"so harmless ceatures will eat me, and dangerous ones are harmless. Hmmm.. either yomi is very twisted in ways the tales never told, or this is one strange dream."
"Generally yeah. It applies to animals native to *this* side of the wall. But more on that later!"
"wall?"
A dark haired man in a black leather corset stands and extends his hand, "I'm Kong. Let's see if this helps: Luna and I traveled back to Earth and brought your soul back here after you died. When you chose that gem you picked your profession here. The gems are old "gods" at this Kong uses finger quotes when he says gods, "According to what they have told use the three that are left have usurped them and taken over the world. And yes the gems will talk to you at some point, so you're not crazy if you start hearing a voice in your head. There is a village of compounds a way from here. It's a long walk. This entire area is inside of a "dome" placed by the gems. That is the wall Liisa refers to. Call it a force field if you like. Inside the role of hunter and hunted are reversed for the animals. We'll take you to your compound and answer any questions you have. This isn't Yomi or hell or Nirvana or anywhere else. I can't tell you were we are but it's none of those places." Kong points to the exit. "We can leave whenever you are ready. The water and berries here are really good. I'd have some before going."
Kong then walks over and eats a berry and drinks some of the water.
...whatever it wants...
"I guess saying I don't fully understand would be an understatement. You're saying i'm dead... I'm not in a morphine induced hallucination? And this is all real?"
Luna moves to whisper to Kong. "Maybe 'Drugs R Us' wasn't the best place to find a new guy."
Kong shrugs to Luna "We didn't exactly pick the place and were along for the ride ourselves. I certainly didn't pick that body as nice as it was to look at."