Enter the Dragons! (XianYin)

===> COH <===> 2/15/2020, 7:36:15 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:
Ying Yue

	*** Nightzone ***

Obvious Exits:
  Mine Shaft <MS>

Mo hung his hat in one of two places during his "off hours" - a little roadhouse bar up near Idyllwyld, or an abandoned mine outside of Laughlin, in the mojave desert. Tonight? He was in the abandoned mine, deep in its bowels, on the outskirts of Xianyin, the lost necropolis of Qin.

	Ying Yue has been here before, though she likely travels on the other side of the mirror, as it is less conspicuous for a dragon to be flying on that side. But when she steps through, likely to some disappointment, she is in her human guise.

	Mr. Fu looks up at Mo, and clears his throat. "Thomas - we have company." The little dragon flies on up to perch on Mo's shoulder. Mo looks over in the direction Fu indicated, then smiles when Ying Yue appears. "Ying Yue!"

	"Thomas." Ying Yue replies, using that name as it is the same one that Fu uses. "Are you here trying to figure out the next step of the quest?" She asks, brushing herself off a little.

	Mo frowns, "MoGui. Or Mo. Thomas is the name my mother gave me," he offers, seeming content to leave it at that. He then clears a spot in the small camp for Ying Yue to come and join him. "Something like that, yeah. I'm hoping we can resurrect the dragon next down here."

	Fu looks at Mo sadly for a moment, then flies off his shoulder and blinks out of sight for a bit, leaving the two to chitchat alone, for now.

	"And Ying Yue was the name that the people from the river I lived in gave me." Ying Yue says, taking a few steps closer. "Are you ashamed of the name that you were given?" Seems she wasn't quite ready to drop that subject.

	Mo sighs, "No. I, Just." A frown. "Do you know anything about dhampyrs? We're literally thermodynamic miracles. Impossibilities. Well, improbabilities, at any rate. The most auspicious thing ever." His frown deepens, "But every once in a while, we're a miracle gone bad. Auspicious and inauspicious at once. Because of me, my mother died." He pokes at the small fire he created for light and warmth. "So. Not ashamed, not really. Just. I haven't earned the name she gave me. Not yet. Not until I avenge her death."

	"You see yourself as a miracle gone bad, but you have a certain amount of balance with you. She gave you that name for a reason. I do not think that it is your job to earn it. I think that you would be better served living up to it." Ying Yue says as she moves to join him at the fire, "And what would vengeance do to further your cause in the grand scheme of things?"

	"It would make me feel better. It would balance a wrong." Mo leans back on his hands. "I've spent my entire life preparing to balance that wrong. And maybe afterwards? When I do? Maybe my tainted joss will find balance too." A grim little smile as he draws forward, placing his hands over the flames.

	"And then someone will end up wanting to take vengeance out on you for the vengeance that you took. It would just be a cycle. Sometimes you have to become the good that balances the previous bad. But that is not something I can tell you, because the biggest disruption to balance is free will I have found." Ying Yue smiles.

	Mo hnhs. "Maybe. They're certainly welcome to try. But you take out one of the underbosses of the thousand hells? Folks are bound to come looking to test your iron." A smile. "At any rate, all in its due time. We have lots of stuff to take care of before then."

	"Sometimes I think that things would have been easier if I had just remained in that river. But now I know that I have to be more than what I was. And let go of some of the things that I have wanted to do." Ying Yue comments with a little sigh.

	Mo nods. "Orson was like that. Saying stuff like that, I mean. But he was akashayana. Me? I liked Captain Levinbolt - he was a man of action! Derring-do! He's the one that gave me my nickname - MoGui." A grin as he breaks out some snacks and beverages and passes some over to Ying Yue. "He was an Elec - Elec - An Adventurer."

	"I mm a Mirror. I deal with spirits, who for the most part have a specific purpose in the balance of the world. Most of the time when I end up on an adventure it is to try and keep others safe." Ying Yue says, "And I will keep calling you by your name. It will remind you that you have a name to live up to rather than a nickname to hide behind."

	Mr. Fu blinks back into view, hovering up above Ying Yue's left shoulder. "I knew there was a reason I liked you," the tiny dragon murmurs. He drifts down and settles down onto the ground next to her. "You will help us, then?"

	Mo sighs, resigned to having someone else other than Fu calling him by his name now. "Great, you two are like peas in a pod. I'm outnumbered!"

===> Log ended by user <===> 2/16/2020, 12:03:03 AM <===