Mo draws a card: Enter the Ace!

===> COH <===> 4/21/2020, 2:15:28 PM <===
Mojave Desert - Dusty Trail Head

	The Mojave Desert. An arid rain-shadow desert and the driest desert in North America. The trail head here leads to a largely unused and therefore faint trail that leads deeper into the desert badlands. The flora are adapted to extremely hot and dry conditions, but generally not as extreme as the adaptations needed for survival in the flora of the Sonoran Desert, which has an overlap in its major flora, such as the creosote bush. It is a desolate, lonely, solitary type of beauty out here on the trail. At the end of the trail? An abandoned mine can be made out off in the distance.

Contents:
Ace
Obvious Exits:
  Gam Saan - Oasis <GO>   Gam Saan Mine <Mine>   Out <O>   Zzyzx Road <ZR>

	The Gam Saan Historical Preservation Society. The name sounded innocuous enough. A not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving the history of the Chinese experience in the United States, particularly in California and in establishing the railroad that led to the golden state. The Society owned various historical sites of interest. This? This was one such site. An abandoned precious metals mine out in the mojave, long since closed off to the public.

	But the mine was a front for the true treasure that lies buried deep beneath the surface - Xianyin. The lost necropolis of Qin. The grey maze. Most of the magic had long since left this place, but Thomas "MoGui" Hu? He was determined to restore as much of it as he could restore. As an agent of the Gam Saan, he had arranged for Ace's visit to this place.

	Ace is hardly the most prominent representative of House Hong Lei - they're all up in San Francisco and Los Angeles. He just happens to... be here. He gets off his motorcycle, pushing down the kick-stand with his foot before he adjusts his sunglasses and looks around... at the desert.
	"Huh." He puts one hand on his hip and lets the other swing lazily by his side, as he waits.

	Mo would makes his way out of the mine, and up along the access road towards the sound of a motorcycle. Spying Ace, he would holler out a greeting. "Hey! You! OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE! Over here! This way!" The man would wave his arms up over his head.

	Ace looks up, momentarily startled, his cool broken. He makes his climb up to the cave entrance, having work sensible sneakers today instead of his usual tasteful shoes. "Ah. Hey!" He glances around, and adjusts the way his sunglasses are sitting on his nose. "Nice place. Definitely not spooky. Totally fine." He offers a ringed hand to Mogui. "...Shane McLaren, but they call me 'Ace'." He looks like he's at least part Chinese, but pretty far removed from it.

	Mo arches an eyebrow as he studies Ace briefly. "Aha." A pause then he takes the man's hand and gives a firm shake. "Mo." Then he gestures over a shoulder with his thumb, "The dig's in there." A pause as he looks across an expanse of nothing to indicate the Gam Saan Oasis," And that over there is the oasis. But I'm not the primary caretaker of that spot, just this one. C'mon in."

	"Aha?" Ace says, before he looks up at the cave mouth. "...Aha." He shakes out his shoulders, and then walks inside. "Mo, huh? Nice to meet you." He glances back at the oasis, and then says, "Pretty spot."

	"It is pretty nifty, yeah, but the caretaker's kind of a recluse," responds Mo. "Maybe I'll get you a tour of it sometime." And then he heads on up the access road and eventually into the mine.

Gam Saan Mine - Main Cave(#17123R)

	This is an abandoned mine. Once upon a time, miners worked the mine for deposits of gold. The chinese laborers that worked the mine called the area Gam Saan, or Gold Mountain, referring to the whole of the California-Nevada border as such. The entrance is boarded up and secured against trespass, the space a historical oddity that's been preserved as a part of California-Nevada history. Inside the mouth of the mine? The space is cavernous. Dark. Dusty. Desolate. Antique tools litter the floor. Up ahead in the distance can be glimpsed several shafts, including a central access shaft.

Obvious Exits:
  Mojave Desert <MD>
Ace comes in from Mojave Desert - Dusty Trail Head
Ace has arrived.

	Mo flicks on an electric lantern, and then tosses a flashlight to Ace. "Watch your step."

	"Beats the hell out of my Great Grandfather's shop." Ace says, "When I was a kid I was convinced he was some kind of a sorcerer, the place was full of weird statues, spices, and incense, and the guy was so *old* I thought he was a mummy or something. Turns out I was right about the sorcerer part, wrong about the mummy part... just old. Because of all the potions." Ace catches the flashlight and clicks it on.

	Mo grins and leads the way further into the mine. The darkness, it's almost oppressive the deeper in that they travel. Eventually, they come up to the lip of a drop. A descent into ... more darkness. Mo pulls a glow-stick from his back pocket, cracks it to activate the glow, then drops it down the shaft. Eventually? It winks out of sight and view. "You feel ok climbing down" Mo grins and gestures to a system of cables and rope that's been set up.

	"Oh yeah, sure," Ace says, "Nothing could go wrong here. Slip, break my neck in a mine-shaft, nobody'll find my bones for years, it's cool." He initially hesitates, but then he grabs hold of the ropes and begins to climb down, adroitly enough, if not terribly quickly. "This is the part where Zengzufu would hit me with his cane and call me a dumbass. But that's okay! He would've hit you too. I once saw him break an oak plank with that thing..."

	Mo lowers himself alongside Ace for a bit, until he's confident that the other man won't indeed slip, break his neck, and end up a pile of bones lost for /years/. Once he's secure in Ace's security? "See ya at the bottom, pal." A grin and then Mo unhooks himself from the cable and rope system. AND then turns and pushes off to run. down. the. wall. like some wuxia protagonist. He leaps from one end of the shaft to the other, then back again as he bounds down towards the bottom.

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 ***

	*** Nightzone ***

Obvious Exits:
  Mine Shaft <MS>
Ace comes in from Gam Saan Mine - Main Cave
Ace has arrived.


	"Pff," Ace says, "I could do that, but if I did I'd look like some dumbass Akashic, flauting my shit." He climbs down, the old-fashioned way. "And then Grandfather would come back from the Afterlife to hit me again. 'What you doing!? If everyone see you do that then they know what you do! You is Wu Lung, you got to have dignity! Poise!'" He grunts, as he makes the climb, "And then, WHAP! Upside my head."

	Mo lights up a cigarette once he reaches the bottom, to help kill a little time. But also? Because these are /magic/ cigarettes - the smoke they create? Glows with the soft light of the dawn. Or dusk, depending on one's proclivities. As such? Mo works up a small hazy cloud of illumination over his head. "I never knew any of my grandparents. I mostly grew up an orphan on the mean streets of Hong Kong. Until the Captain found me and took me in. Gave me a home." He offers a cigarette to Ace. "Want one?"

	Ace obligingly takes one, and then lights it with a lighter. "I don't have a story like that. I didn't even consider myself Chinese, though after I met Grandfather, he certainly did. Well, I mean, he was my great-grandfather. It's still something I'm coming to terms with." He drags on it, experimentally. "And yeah, I know. I'm white. The only thing Chinese about me is my middle name, 'Bo'. I didn't even know *that*. Great-Grandfather had a son with a white American woman, who married a White American woman, who had a son, who married a White American woman."

	Mo offers a nod, "Hey man, white woman is at least better than an akuma." A pause as his brow furrows for a moment. "I mean, usually. Mostly." A grin as he turns and blows smoke out in front of him to illuminate a path. "I've got a base camp set up just this side of the wall to the outer city. Try and not touch anything, though I /think/ I've already set off most of the traps that managed to hang on to their magic. Pretty standard stuff. Terracotta soldiers. Crushing rocks. That sorta thing." Then Mo pushes on ahead.

	"That's really comforting." Ace says, "I question the utility of deathtraps in these sorts of places, I mean, what if you had to get back in here for some reason?" He makes his way along after. "I'd just bury it and call it good--" He keeps the cigarette clamped between his lips, and uses the flashlight. "...So why is there a secret Asian necropolis buried out in the middle of the Mojave? I have to ask."

	"The story goes that the emperor had a brother. The brother was marked for death. So he was spirited away. Brought to the west in the /first/ actual great leap westward. It was his courtiers that built this place, out here. A little bit of the middle kingdom, right here in the badlands of the west." offers Mo. Then he calls out "MR. FU! I BROUGHT COMPANY! HE SHOWED UP! AND MADE IT DOWN SAFELY!!!"

	"...Out in the middle of the Mojave instead of in like, the forests of Washington or in Napa Valley. As grandpa would've said, 'Being ancient noble doesn't mean you not DUMBASS.'" Ace says, as he rubs the back of his neck. "...Mr. Fu."

	In this distance, a small glow, as if from a campfire. And then a voice rolls out, booming like thunder - "THOMAS! THERE'S NO NEED TO SHOUT! YOU'LL WAKE THE DEAD!" As the pair near the basecamp, a shadow looms large. Huge. Shaped like a dragon. But then the source comes into view. ENTER - Mr. Fu!

	Ace looks... down at the Dragon. "...Ah. Jingshen Lung's back home. I need to get a place, he's really tired of crowding into that hostel. And he hates the smell of Patchouli." He switches to Mandarin, and makes a practiced, point-perfect bow to the dragon. "Thank you, most auspicious one, for gracing me with your presence."

	Mo looks to Ace, "This, is Fan Feng Fu, azure dragon of the East, and one of the last great dragons of the middle kingdom. He is my guide to the mysteries and wonders of the middle kingdom."

	Mr. Fu looks Ace up, then down, then back up again. The little dragon then settles in atop a crate at the base camp that's been set up, then eyes MoGui. "This one will do, Thomas. This one will do."

===> Log ended by user <===> 4/21/2020, 5:55:54 PM <===