15[20:33] Sun or no Sun, the Four Fangs are keeping Heaven's time, trying to get into position for whatever's coming at the eclipse. Right now, it sounds like Piu and Daizo want to try and lead an expedition into the mines, to try and find the ruins or relics that lay within, and see if they provide some insight into the Immaculates' plans. 15[20:34] Dryas and Zhangyu will back them up, of course, but it's Piu and Daizo's plan. 15[20:34] ...what is the plan? How do they intend to get in? Stealth? Distraction? Just asking? [20:35] 10Right. We've seen what they want us to see, but how about the rest?  [20:36] 10Hmm, yes, stealth. Not likely. But surely there's other entrances into the mines. 15[20:37] Going where they're not even looking is a form of stealth. Maybe not as flashy as the stuff Piu can do, but it counts! [20:37] 14Stealth won't be particularly hard for Piu. She can at least get the lay of the land. [20:39] 14Someone can just ask to take a look if they like. They'll probably get a guided tour, which would be a welcome distraction. [20:40] 14But if they do find anything neat down there, it'll be Daizo who will understand it best. 15[20:41] When does Piu do her casing? [20:43] 14After dark and during a shift change in the guard is ideal, which is why professional armies try never to combine those. But this isn't a professional army. 15[20:45] During the rainy season, the borders of "dark" extend farther than the treaty between night and day would have you believe. So Piu can catch what should be the dawn shift change under a dour, unseasonably chilly sky that's scarcely lightened at all. [20:46] 10Daizo, on the other hand, goes at the problem from a different direction—he offers to review the settlement's defenses, and try to get his hands on detailed maps of the region that way. [20:47] 10And give him an excuse to be out in the wilderness. [20:50] 14Piu might wear her armor for the actual ruin dive -- if they go on one -- for this simple excursion she merely covers her face with a wrap mask. Not that anyone sees her. 15[20:53] Honestly, given the weather, even Daizo might've been able to do this. She's completely invisible to the changing of the guard. There are a couple of major mineshafts, but the whole plateau is scarred with ancient, worn walking paths and steps, little caves and tunnels that might collapse or go nowhere for all you can tell from the outside. There's a lot of ground to cover, which is 15[20:53] a blessing and a curse. [20:53] 14She has to figure out how to get Garnet in here, too. 15[20:58] Daizo, meanwhile, is able to get at the Imperial Surveyor's office, abandoned by its official since the rebellion. The militiawomen guarding the bureaucrats' dens let him in, but he's only got about fifteen minutes to look around before someone comes by to ask what he's doing. How does he spend it? [21:01] 14Maybe she should focus on that over the mineshafts...do any of them have new construction on them? Ways for workers to get down? [21:04] 10Oho. A rare opportunity. A complete copy of the geological survey would be the prize, but it's likely to be bulky and hard to conceal. Otherwise, reports on excavations and maintenance from before everything went to shit would do about just as well, just to determine which entrances are safe and which are impassable or hazardous.  [21:04] 10Whatever else he finds, he's going to grab the biggest map in the room. 15[21:11] Looks like production's been halted for several weeks at least. Carts and tools are all stored either inside the mine or, presumably, at the homes of the miners. You have to imagine at least a few of those picks found their way into Realm soldiers when it all kicked off. [21:12] 14Mines should be empty, then. But the real interesting stuff will be found down the shafts that don't have at-scale equipment... 15[21:13] But as far as convenience goes, those main shafts are it - open, with plenty of lighting from the red jade flecks in the walls; ropes and ladders to get into and out of pits. The off-the-path ways in are significantly less convenient, but also less-well-trod. [21:15] 10How does it rate, say, to climbing down a hole leading to a gateway to Hell? [21:15] 14Sneaking the jar in should be relatively easy for Daizo if we go that route...he can just walk in the front door with an artifact. Piu forgets the exact mechanics of hiding Garnet, though. That'd probably be annoying for her. [21:15] 14"Door." The front...mineshaft. 15[21:15] Daizo's able to find what he's looking for and figure out how to tuck it away just as he hears boots slapping the sooty mud outside. "Tepet Daizo!" calls a woman. That's Temida, he's pretty sure. It sounds like she has a retinue with her. It's only after calling his name that the door opens to reveal her, and the huddle of militia behind her. [21:17] 10Well, this is awkward. He'll turn to face Temida, hands open.  [21:22] "Lady Temida." 10He puts on his best sheepish look. "I apologize for causing such a disturbance—and because of a misunderstanding, no less. I had thought that this was the Export Office's records room—Lady Dryas asked me if I could find some information about the volume of jade that had been leaving the mines prior to Governor Budokan losing his mind." 15[21:24] Temida's head is hooded, but she's not smiling. "What for?" [21:31] 10Daizo: "She wants to know how. much wealth this colony is potentially sitting on, here. I believe she'd like to offer her services as a financial advisor. Even if everything comes to pass as it's expected to, come the eclipse, you and yours will still have a steep hill to climb." [21:32] "But she didn't want to approach anyone directly, not with the mood in the village being so fractious… hence my subterfuge." 10Daizo heaves a sigh. I'm sorry to have given you cause for worry. [21:33] "But she didn't want to approach anyone directly, not with the mood in the village being so fractious… hence my subterfuge." 10Daizo heaves a sigh. "I'm sorry to have given you cause for worry." 15[21:35] Temida considers this in silence for a moment, and then says: "Yeah, alright. We're all a little jumpy, huh?" 15[21:35] "Building you want is over there." [21:38] 10Daizo offers a half-bow. "Thanks. Here, have a couple of yours excort me." [21:39] 10There's a lot of extremely dull pretending to pore through ledgers after that.  15[21:40] Piu's able to put together a couple of different approaches depending on their tolerance for the risk of exposure, the prospect of reward, and the difficulty/uncertainty of exploration. From here it's just a matter of what the hearth wants to do: take the narrow, hard-to-traverse tunnels that might not lead anywhere but almost certainly won't get them spotted, or a slightly more 15[21:40] politically fraught approach that feeds into the main tunnel network. Easy to traverse, guaranteed to go deep, but maybe not to go anywhere anything really interesting is kept. [21:41] 14This sounds like an opportunity to get Garnet involved in the decision-making process. Piu will run her results back to their intrepid ruin-diver and see what she thinks. [21:44] 10Yep. Let's reconvene on the P&T and come up with a plan. 15[21:54] Then Garnet's there with the Fangs. She studies their findings. "I think both routes are viable. Mineshafts break into underground structures all the time. You have to think that's the most likely way the Imperials found it in the first place. But that means that what's down there is probably either sealed up or it's been removed." 15[21:55] "I always favor the direct approach. But I'm not used to all these complicating factors." [21:57] 14Piu: "You know me. I prefer the cirumspect approach, and I want to minimize our profile for an all-out fight with the militia. We're still here to do a bigger job. But I think there's ways we can satisfy that and still go in the front. It just requires more ruses, distractions, gimmicks, so on." 15[21:58] Garnet: "Schemes." [21:58] 14Nodding seriously. "Absolutely schemes." [21:59] 07Dryas considers the notes and materials that the others brought back from their own investigations. "We might take one route in and another out. What isn't sure to me is, what are we looking for?" [21:59] 10Daizo: "Just schemes in schemes. I'm in favor of the 'side door', not least after that run-in with Temida." [22:00] There's a chance that we might turn something up that they've overlooked." [22:02] 07Dryas: "And if we find it now, we think it increases the chance of... reconciliation? ... Closure?" [22:06] 14Piu: "They've made this into their holy site for a reason. The relics and other nonsense they've been poring over -- we saw one or two in that weird meeting-room of theirs -- might in some way be connected to Garnet's jar. It's a longshot, but it's weird old technology involving Anathema from the same geographic region. I think it's worth a look." [22:07] 10Daizo shrugs. "Or more secrets of mass elemental summoning or other lost magic." 15[22:08] Garnet: "What would you be doing instead?" [22:08] "We also want context to better understand the Eclipse ritual, right? Might be some of that down there." [22:08] 10Daizo: "Reconciliation and closure would be wonderful, but I don't think they're likely to happen without blood being spilled first. Especially if Skullstone's stirring the pot here too." [22:09] 14Piu tactfully avoids talk of reconciliation and closure for now. She's made her terms on that known, regarding Budokan. [22:12] 10Daizo: "What else could we be doing right now? Not much. Lots of waiting for shoes to drop." [22:12] 07Dryas shakes her head. "We need to seize the initiative. Act like Dragons." [22:13] 14Piu: "We did that with the whale. Mixed results." [22:14] "Grabbing the kids and sailing away, also an option. But that doesn't actually solve anything." [22:14] 07Dryas: "It was good eating," 07she points out, pointedly ignoring her own bruised ribs. "The mineshafts are our way out. They should all lead to the surface eventually, so they should work as an emergency exit better than an entrance." [22:16] 07She thinks it through. "Or perhaps an entrance, to boot. Better than skulking around underground waiting for them to realize they've lost track of us." 15[22:23] Garnet: "Works for me." [22:24] 10Daizo: "Right. If they don't know we're down there at all, they won't be on alert, Piu can do what she does best, and in the worst case scenario we have our choices of exfiltration route." [22:26] "And between the three of us I'm sure we can figure out some way to handle the jar." [22:28] 14Piu: "I can slip in first and prepare the path. It's going to be this miserable rainy bullshit all day, probably." [22:30] 07Dryas: "And we still have some tricks to get up and down these vertical spaces in a hurry." [22:35] 07Dryas: "Out of the whole gallery, who do you think is the best for us to follow?" [22:35] 07Dryas: "Underground, most senses confound. But scent stays true." [22:38] 14Speaking of, she could always try to rope Rinca in on this. But he's resting. [22:38] 10Daizo: "As I see it, Rikai is our best bet—he's likely to have delved the deepest, and if we do find something we'd have a way to know if we're the first to find it. I've got a few scrolls he's been handling recently." [22:39] 14Piu: "I don't need to tell you to be careful with that one. He might be the most dangerous of the lot. Certainly the least trustworthy." [22:39] 07Dryas: "What do we have of his?" 15[22:45] Daizo has some of the notes Rikai gave him on the cycle of rebirth and the history of the Anathema they're specifically hoping to beckon. [22:45] 10Daizo: "I've spent enough time in his company recently. It the scroll isn't enough, you can get a whiff off of me. Ha." [22:46] "But let's try the notes first." 10It doesn't take long to retrieve them. [22:47] 07Dryas closes her eyes and passes the papers beneath her nose as if examining a fine vintage. 15[22:53] Smells sterile. Not in the sense that there's nothing to detect, but Cynis aesthetes know that really pious Immaculates - or those committing to appear as such - pop a certain way. Very clean, thanks to rough soap and no anointment, and nothing lingering from fine fabrics, the lingering accumulation of pipe smoke, things of that nature. [22:55] 07Noted. "I can pick him out." [22:56] 14Piu: "Alright. I'll tool up and head out. Garnet will move with you guys?" 15[22:58] It never really lightens up much. The rain just gets worse, rinsing layers of ash off every standing structure and revealing more. What's Piu's plan? Wait for another shift change? Try to peel any passing guards away? [23:02] 14She's wearing Silk Shadow now, so she's got a lot more leeway this time. If she's gonna misdirect and creep out guards with weird sounds, rocks clattering, spooky shadows, and so on, she'd like to do so in a way that clears a path for the hearth and Garnet coming in behind her. 15[23:14] Once again, Piu is able to to find the faultlines, and this time open them wide enough to get four other people, two of whom are huge and none of whom are dispositionally sneaky, through. The mine itself is cold and dim, with wide tunnels worn smooth by years of passing boots. The complex is enormous and rich; you're not more than a few dozen yalms past the entrance when you see large 15[23:14] viable veins of jade. [23:15] 07It's quite a sight, even for a Dynast. [23:15] 14The thing they don't tell you in school -- not til year three, that is, once you've mastered the basics -- is that most sneaking is a social skill. Rather than try to slip by these guys in plain sight, it's much easier to freak them out, send them off-mission and off-post chasing shadows, confuse and irritate them, and otherwise bother the hell out of them until the hearth plus one [23:15] 14can more or less walk in, as long as they're not banging and yelling about. [23:17] 10Daizo, quietly: "To think these are the ones they haven't considered worth exploiting yet…" 15[23:18] While the land itself has been neglected, safety within the mine seems of paramount importance. The structures are well-supported, there's clear signage everywhere, marking depth and paths. Daizo can cross-reference this with the diagrams he smuggled out of the surveyors' to help guide them deeper, rather than for a side tunnel. 15[23:19] Garnet keeps pace, Zhangyu holding the jar. She's cowled and veiled, so they can't really read her expression. She's certainly attentive. [23:19] 10If the guards were away for more than a couple of days you could take a pick and a hammer and carve out enough raw jade to live like a barbarian king. Good luck getting it somewhere that it's legal to possess it, though. [23:21] 07Dryas: "Every purloiner, pickpocket, pirate, and picaroon in the Direction dreams of a piece of this..." 15[23:22] Garnet: "And they're just sitting on it. It must drive you insane." [23:24] 10Daizo: "The jade isn't even the most valuable thing here… it's whatever's buried with it." [23:25] 14Piu: "This much jade purchases more than its weight in problems." 15[23:25] "Seudan ann an eabar nam muc." [23:27] 14Piu nods, her mask inclining slightly. [23:31] 10Down, down, down. Thank goodness for the diagrams—you could get thoroughly lost in here. Speaking of, are there any signs of excavations that *aren't* in the official documents? 15[23:32] Eventually the tunnels fan out and the decision of how to get deeper becomes murkier and more arbitrary as you come to the deepest-mapped parts of the mine. Past the There's four different passages here, and the signage doesn't immediately make sense to Daizo. 15[23:37] ...the more he looks at it and checks it against what he knows, the more he's pretty sure that the official map is just wrong. There should be at most two tunnels here, but even then they shouldn't be marked like this. These tunnels look pretty mined-out, so maybe that's why? An older organizing scheme that's depreciated? [23:39] 10They should still be marked, even if they're disused. No, this is what they've been looking for.  [23:39] 10Daizo: "This is where the jade mine stops, and something else begins." [23:39] 14Piu: "Hhhh." [23:39] "What do you make of it, Garnet?" [23:40] "Here, and… here." 10He indicates the divergent tunnels. [23:40] 07Dryas drops to a knee. She's quiet now. Her eyes lazily scan what's out in front of her in the jade-light, but her mouth is slightly open. She takes the measure of this place, and who has passed by. 15[23:45] The scent is parchment-thin here, against at least a couple of people she can't immediately place and the overpowering creosote stench of the mine. But working in Dryas's favor here is that, despite the depth, the air is not still, and the current of air carries what she knows is Rikai's scent from the leftmost tunnel. 15[23:47] Garnet: "Do you hear that? I can't make out the words." [23:47] 14Does she? [23:48] 07Dryas shrugs at Garnet's question, but points to the left tunnel. [23:48] 14Piu should probably take point if they're moving into a position to be going single-file. 15[23:48] No one's speaking down here but them, as far as any of the Fangs can tell. [23:48] 10Things Garnet hears that the rest of us don't are consequential.  [23:49] 14Quietly: "If it's something only you can hear, Garnet, then we're probably headed in the right direction." [23:49] "Or the spectacularly wrong one." [23:51] 07Dryas: "Rikai's aroma is stronger this way. You know what they say about navigating lightless tunnels in the deep places of the world, 'always follow your nose.'" 15[23:51] "It sounds like..." She shakes her head. "I don't know what it sounds like." 15[23:51] "Lead on." [23:51] 10Daizo: "Mm. If you can make anything out, let us know at once." 15[23:52] The five of them queue up and proceed down the tunnel. The rough jade gives way, gradually over a long curve, to the sort of smooth-worked stone of the meeting-hall above, the one the Muses told Dryas was called Aphelion. [23:53] 14...What's the opposite of aphelion? [23:54] Perihelion, closest to the Sun. [23:54] 14Well, let's see what we've got. [23:54] 10Perihelion, closest to the Sun. 15[23:55] This is, or was, an intricate structure. Open areas, a clear architectural eye, rooms and tunnels, all caved in now. Clear points where fixtures were ripped from the walls and floor by looters or scavengers or sorcerers. 15[23:58] The scent leads past dusty rooms that would be as much a treasure trove to savants and researchers as the jade above is to all people. It leads to a place where the structure changes again, turning from grey granite back to red. But this is not the dark and angry red of jade ore, this is a thin, clean, bright red crystal, so pure and smooth you can see through it almost like glass at 15[23:58] the structures it covers and consumes. [23:59] 14Piu will glance back at Garnet from time to time to check her face. Maybe the words only she can hear are growing louder...? Or into words...? [00:00] 10Daizo: "Some kind of cladding, perhaps?" [00:00] 07Dryas: "I wonder if the veins of jade in the mine were always so." 15[00:00] Garnet's expression seems slightly more perturbed every time Piu looks back. 15[00:01] Once they set foot on the crystal, Garnet says, "I swear I've heard this voice before. But I can't place it." 15[00:01] "Daizo, if you take the jar, can you hear it through me?" [00:04] 10Daizo: "I'll try." 10He'll take the jar from Dryas and circulate a bit of Essence into it. 15[00:06] One of the things Daizo remembers from his time at Lord's Crossing is an authentic Pneuman juke-box. Jukes are a kind of mollusk that clings to the seabed in the northern edges of the Inland Sea. They have intricate mating songs and a preternatural ability for mimickry. What the Pneumans figured out - inveterate music-lovers that they are - is that you can teach a juke to play back 15[00:06] people. Anything from a song to a full band's set, for particularly big ones. 15[00:07] Some of the younger Tepets, especially ones that didn't grow up in Lord's Crossing and get jaded by such things, found the juke box endlessly fascinating, though they learned one weird thing, which is that when you record someone's voice and play it back to them, it sounds normal to everyone except the person whose voice it is. 15[00:08] So unlike Garnet, Daizo can instantly identify the voice he hears echoing through Garnet's mind: her own. 15[00:08] NEXT TIME: To Assume The Throne