XianYin Delving - Pools and Snakes

===> COH <===> 1/17/2020, 6:25:18 PM <===

Gam Saan Mine - Xianyin(#17151RM)

	Welcome to Xianyin. The Grey Maze. The Necropolis of the Lost. Essentially, a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. This city of the dead is modeled on the Qin capital Xianyang, divided into inner and outer cities. The circumference of the inner city is 2.5 km (1.55 miles) and the outer is 6.3 km (3.9 miles). The central tomb is located in the southwest of the inner city and faces east. The main tomb chamber housing the coffin and burial artifacts of the Lost Emperor is the core of the architectural complex of the mausoleum.

	A garrison of terracotta figures stands silent sentinel at the entrance to the outer city, locked in precise military formation according to rank and duty, in eternal vigil facing east. The figures vary in height according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals. The figures include warriors, chariots and horses.

	Standing similarly sentinel on the periphery of the inner city is a group of other terracotta non-military figures including officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians.

	In the very center and heart of the inner city is the Lost Emperor's tomb itself, surrounded by a lifeless garden maze where two large Imperial Guardian Lions, or Shishi (a traditional Chinese architectural ornament typically made of stone), stand watch at the mouth of the maze that leads to the tomb. The lions are presented in pairs, a manifestation of yin and yang, the female representing yin and the male yang. The male lion has its right front paw on a type of cloth ball carved with a geometric pattern. The female is essentially identical, but has a cub under the left paw, representing the cycle of life. Symbolically, the female lion protects those dwelling inside (the living soul within), while the male guards the structure (the external material elements).

	*** PLACES CONFIGURED ***
Contents:
Grace
Lana
Xiu

	*** Nightzone ***

Obvious Exits:
  Mine Shaft <MS>

	At the call, Xiu turns - a bit faster than needed, given the tension still inside her. And her eyes narrow at the sight, with more than a little bit of suspicion. "How..convenient." she murmurs softly to herself, remaining where she is for a moment, though fully turning towards the revealed items. She leans forward as she finally moves towards them lifting one of her hands to brush some of her oh so long braids back and she....sniffs a couple times. Still not getting *that* close. "...you mentioned others having come here before and never having returned?"

	Mo nods, "Yep. Tomb raiders. That sorta thing. Oh, and the guy Fu sent but that was at least near a full century ago I think. But to Fu it might as well have been yesterday." Dragons and notions of time were another thing entirely!

	Lanfear sticks her hands into the pockets of her pants as she makes her way after Xiu to meet up with Mo and his findings and chuckles softly. "The dragon provides." she murmurs as she nods her head slowly. Then Xiu asks the question no one deep in a mine ever should and she shudders. "Lets hope the others were not, like us."

	"I have a feeling we might find them at some point either way." Xiu says as she finally crouches down next to one of the packs and begins to open it up. The advantages of four arms. Use two to handle the thing. Keep the other two drawn back to strike - just in case. Her taloned, strange long toes curl a bit on the dusty ground.

	Mo gives Lana a thumbs up and a broad grin, "I'm inimitable one of a kind accept NO substitutes!" Well, he certainly didn't lack in selfesteem! "And y'all are pretty nifty too. We're a good trio!" Then he drops into a crouch and scavenges through the found supplies. They all look to be WWI vintage - maybe a little older. But perfectly preserved!

	While Xiu and MoGui rummage through abandoned supplies, Lana will notice that off in the distance? /ANOTHER/ splash can be heard.

Lana stands there, watching Xiu and Mo rummage through the supplies with a soft smile on her lips as she keeps guard. Suddenly she gets a bit mot attentive and furrows her eyebrows. "We've got company." she offers in mandarin as she wrangles out some water from her top, which is still soaked.

	Xiu pulls a couple things out of the pack she is examining, her eyes slightly narrowed. "This is.." she murmurs. "Old. Huh. Some pieces might be actually quite worth something to a collector.." Still, what she's after, she probably won't find - food. Just plain, simple food. Still, as she finds an old first aid kit, she actually turns it between her fingers and sets it aside.

	Mo smiles, then nudges Xiu gently. "Just a second." He reaches into a pocket, and then produces? Something that looks sort of like a golden compass. Those knowledgeable in Chinese magic would recognize it as a luopan.

Lana glances over at Mo and Xiu for a moment and then chuckles softly as she decides to go a minor distance towards the sound of the splash. "I'll check it." she murmurs softly before she begins her short trekk.

	Distracted by the shiny golden..well, compass and the sounds of her own rummaging, Xiu did not even notice the splash. The compass itself...well, it tells the story of Xiu probably *not* knowing chinese magic in-depth, as she just looks at the thing, slightly tilts her head and softly smiles. "Ah. That might become handy, depending on how deep the tunnels go." Yep.
	As Lana gets up and decides to 'check it', the primal witch looks up and blinks her slitted eyes once. "Check what?" she wonders, watching the other head back towards the entrance. Her eyes slightly narrow. Waaait.. "...what's she doing?"

	Mo pockets the luopan and then grabs one of the vintage rucksacks filled with supplies. "Let's go see!"

"I heard a splash." Lana offers in reply to Xiu's questions as she makes her way some distance closer to the direction of the splash. She is not eager to dive head first into some trap and is careful weighin her every step on the way.

	Xiu would notice that Mo, he of the reckless confidence, is about to open his mouth and shout "OLLY OLLY OXEN - "

	Oh, that certainly gets Xiu's attention. She fluidly rises into a stand, the rummaging through the pack forgotten for a moment The slitted pupils begin to widen again towards a more round shape - and jeez, if she had pointy ears they'd probably perk. Though when she notices Mo *inhaling audibly*, it might be the first time in his life that a person shushes him with the right index finger on her lips. That is, both right index fingers, of both hands. A gesture to follow later, she begins to move, to catch up with Lana.

	Mo eeps quietly, and nods, then falls into line flanking Xiu. He pulls his boomstick from its holster, just in case!

Curiosity killed the cat, thankfully Lana views herself as a dragon and thus most surely will not die by something simple as curiosity. She continues on her way closer to the sound of the splash, confident that Xiu the savage witch and Mo the trigger happy hunter is on her tail.

Grace splashes and flounders in the water as she swims in a direction not for shore ans she mumbles in manderin "Why are they always throwing the blind girl into the water?"

	Mo reaches into his scavenged satchel, and produces some rope, which he then tosses at Grace in the pool. "Grab hold, Grace!"

	Xiu on the other hand is eyeing the motions by the pool with a little bit more tension. She drops onto all sixes, crawls closer as she sees the person there - which, for all intents and purposes, might be yet another trap - even if certain memories of Lana come up there. It's only when Mo suddenly tosses out rope and call's the person's name that she blinks.
	She rises up and....eyes Mo for a moment. "I have to ask..." she remarks. "...is this still a coincidence?"

	Mo hauls Grace in and onto shore. He looks over a shoulder and gives Xiu a wry grin, "Ma'am, I am the /Prince/ of lucky breaks and auspicious coincidences!"

Lana crosses her arms over her chest and keeps that soft smile playing on her lips. "The Dragon sends the trainer of his troops to assist..Imagine that." she murmurs softly as she glances over towards Xiu and then Mo.

	Mo furrows his brow, "Ugh. Fu will /not/ be pleased that I am so severely outmatched by the servants of Lao."

Grace flounders and flais as you throw her something in the water and says 'Trying to be funny?" She then orients with the voice and flails through the water that way eventually finding the shore as she grumbles "Seriously blind people do not swim for a reason!" She hauls herself out looking like a half drown rat.

"You are among friends Grace, there are no sleepers here." Lana offers as she still stands some distance from the shore and keeps a vigil watch of the surroundings, listening to the whispers of the otherside.

	Eyes flick left. Eyes flick right. There is something Xiu is not getting here, but..well. She just silently accepts that certain people seem to know each other, and it seems things are Fu vs Lao on some level. And Lana and this 'Grace'? Lao. Yes. Xiu gets it. Ahem.
	Her tail flicks a couple times as she draws closer just a bit, her strange eyes inspecting that newcomer for a moment. "I presume that our camp just grew a bit, yes?"

	Mo sighs. "Lana and Grace are servants of SHou-Lao, one of the other Last Great Dragons of the Middle Kingdom. Me, I'm on retainer with Feng Fan Fu, another Last Great Dragons of the Middle Kingdom. Trust me, two might seem like a lot, but once there were many." A pause as Mo looks crestfallen and saddened, "But then the Wan Kuei fucked everything up and now there are but a handful or so left."

Lana smiles softly as she stands there and nods her head approvingly to acknowledge what Mo is saying. "I did tell you Xiu, I'm the face of the Shou-Lao." she motions at Grace. "That there is the one pledged to train the Dragon's troops." which perhaps is funny since Grace is seemingly blind, and would normally make for a bad fighter unless it's Rutger Hauer from Blind Fury.

Grace looks to Xiu in the darkness as she smiles and says "I am Grace Kiyong, Akashic Sorcerer." She holds her hand out and "And you have some interesting body features I see, well hear technically but still."

	Xiu lets her tongue flick over her teeth, audible. How she does it without cutting the thing up? Hard to tell, but then again it is a bit longer and pointer than usual as well. "I...see." she says, in a manner that suggests that she does not *quite* see but gets the gist of it. She also got that the girl is clearly..blind. She takes a glance behind them, towards the entrance to the city.

	"...I am still on edge." she murmurs, before she glances at Grace, then the other two. "I will explore the outside of the city a bit. Not inside the buildings yet. And make sure that at least there is nothing obvious that might threaten us." A pause. "And I will try to remember the locations of any statues."

	There is another glance towards soaked, blind Grace, and when she suddenly introduces herself, Xiu tilts her horned head...and then lightly smiles as she steps close. "Greetings." she says, and holds out one of her hand. "Xiu Tong. Priestess of the Earth Mother, and Dark Flower of Lilith." she introduces herself - not quite completely, but really complete enough. If the hand is taken, she gives the other a gentle shake. "Let us talk in more detail when we meet at camp. And be careful. We already got attacked once."

	And with that, and only once their handshake is done, does Xiu turn around, before she silently strides away on those strange legs - then drops onto all sixes and vanishes into the eerie twilight. Her silhouette can be seen on top of the outer wall a long moment later, before it moves along it.

	Mo does his best to cheer up, "Well, as I said, so long as I can keep the two of the three jade memory talismans for Fu, I'll avoid ending up as lunch. The other one can be taken back to Lao." But then Xiu is dropping a plan on folks, to which Mo agrees. "Sounds like a plan!"

Lana watches Xiu dance off into the night and smiles softly. "Interesting that one." she murmurs softly as she then looks towards Mo and nods her head. "Such was the bargain, what the Verbena does with their disc is up to them." then looks over at Grace. "Grace, I'm pleased your here."

Grace says, "Me to, um where is here? I fell into the dragons pool and well floundered up here. By fell someone pushed me.""

	"We are on the outskirts of the lost necropolis, Xian Yin. We were attacked by terracotta guardians, but we triumphed! Then we found an old abandoned campsite that had some supplies. Let's go make a fire and get you dried off?" Mo looks to Lana for confirmation.

"A fire sounds wonderful." Lana offers as she offers a hand towards Grace to lead her on the way back to the campsite. "You'll get a chance to shine in these parts Grace, imagine fighting against terracotta soldiers."

	Mo leads the group back to the abandoned campsite, then uses some of the scrounged up supplies to start a campfire. At least they have fresh water and some rations, as well! He hands out blankets and such. "Xiu is pretty awesome, isn't she?"

Lana licks her lips and nods her head slowly as she crouches down by the building campfire and chuckles. "She is, in more ways than you might imagine." she murmurs softly.

Grace follow along as she mumbles. As a fire is made she strips out of her wet things not the least bit shy as she says "Need to put a bell on that dragon or something.

	"I've not had a chance to work alongside many who resemble the heroes of old," says Mo. "The last time that I did, things ended in tragedy despite a winning streak of nearly a decade."

Lana glances at Grace and chuckles softly, before she looks back at Mo and arches an eyebrow. "Heroes of old?" she
Grace says, "I heroically floundered in the water? Does that count?" She grins as she rest against lana."

	Mo nods, "Like in the stories. Yi the Archer, that sorta thing. Before the world got so small and boring." A sigh as he opens a tin of rations and takes some before passing it around. "The last time I had any such pals was during the Great War. We tried to come together again for the Second one, but that's when things went very bad. But it was pretty bad for everyone, then." He pulls the golden compass from his pocket, and stares at it for a bit, lost in memory.

Lana nods her head slowly and smiles. "Well I'm young, I do not know of any great war except those in stories, like the boxing rebellion or the war in the Jade Empire, the constant battle between the dragon and the tiger." she shrugs her shoulders as she sits there crouching by the fireplace, hoping to become warm and dry.

Grace says, "I was raised on them, but they where just stories, Im not that old either. Its not like I am going to live thousands of years or anything.""

	"The Great War, the war to end all wars. Except it didn't, 'cause people were right back at it again not too long after it ended." A shrug. "Orson, who was like you, Grace. Servant of the scarlet phoenix,and brother of Akasha. Then we had Captain Levinbolt, whose zeppelin we used to get from scrape to scrape. The Ourobouros, who was beautiful and the definition of femme fatale, except she had a maw full of razor sharp teeth and only joined us at night." A wistful sigh. "Those, they were the days."

	"I found a clue to where the zeppelin crash landed," add Mo as an afterthought. "But that's an adventure for another time. Assuming we recover the memory talismans, and Fu lets me get in some R&R."

Lana nods her head slowly once again as she holds out her hands towards the fire for a moment and then removes her top, leaving her bare chested as she holds up the top before the fire to dry up faster. "I'm sure if you bring back two discs, he will grant you the R and R you so desperately need, lucky one."

Grace says, "I have never been in any great battle. I mean someone tried to mug me once in bejing, but not the same thing really." She grins as she drapes her wet clothes over a branch by the fire."

	Mo munches on rations quietly. "So. Tell me about your dragon? Is he as irascible as Fu?"

	But as soon as Mo and the party seem to relax? There's a rippling in the Wall. Lana will notice it as a sign of a spirit pushing through and coming across. Grace? She'll just get a general hacklesraise feeling.

Lana is just about to tell the tale of her Dragon when she stiffens and narrows her eyes. "Something is crossing." she hisses and pulls out her jade embedded whip, as well as starting to gather her thoughts. Spirits are her forte after all.

	Mo arches an eyebrow at the commotion. "Something is crossing what?" His boomstick had been set on the ground beside him, but he doesn't move for it yet.

	After a few moments, something does indeed cross through! It looks like some sort of snake-meets-man spirit! And it does not look particularly friendly! Its forked tongue will hiss out of its mouth as it tastes the air and studies the group with its red eyes.

Grace looks around and well she does notice something is happening, but what is unsure. As the snake man appears she uncoil the beads from around her wrist.

===> Log ended by user <===> 1/17/2020, 8:52:40 PM <===