War of Dragons 2: Shipwrecked

Rain and misery. Admist the dark, the Adventurers and Landers of Yamato, as well as some of their Uncrowned allies, drag themselves onto the thin and rocky coast. Just moments ago, their ship wash ambushed by the Rosenheim Navy, employing a new underwater weapons of unknown sorts - not only finding their position against all odds, but also breaching their hull before they had time to respond.

It is only through luck, severe waves, and some of their allies being Undine, that saved the group from certain death and a respawn back at their individual churches.

As the group enters the cave in the hopes of finding a place to hide from their enemies, the group find themselves in a place with glowing fungus. The smell of 'damp' is all around them, and a few glances at the walls with their lights clearly suggests that this cave is commonly entirely under water, depending on the tide of the waters - meaning that they have limited time to stay here.

Lights are being kept to a minimum, to ensure that their enemies in the waters cannot see them. But more importantly, they quickly notice that their Combat Limitation to communicate is still up. They are clearly at risk both at water, and in this cave. This is preventing them right now from calling out to their allies across the waters.

Meaning that their only option is to lay low, and head deeper in before the light of day hits and exposes their position. Or worse, before they drown in the cave. But this means getting past some - luckily lower level - enemies that are crawling through the region. Slithering Centicobras moving towards them and rapid pace. Spitting at them with acid and trying to coil around legs to bite directly. No problem in small numbers, but there's a significant amount of them. And they're looking to make as little light as possible to deal with them!

    The necromancer of SEA shivers a little still damp himself as he enters the cave, "Again this wouldn't happen if you would just let me try to tame a leviathan. Just one friendly leviathan would have saved us. " Setsuna had been moping and complaining mos tthe trip about havving to leave his monster pals behind but now, at least felt better knowing they wouldn't have drowned.

     As he makes his way through the cave he can't help but notice the seaweed pieces stuck to one of the rocks, "I don't think we can stay here for long, unless this splits off into some higher location or something, but hey nothing in here is trying to kill us." As he says those words a ball of acid hits him in the shoulder.

     The look of annoyance on Setsuna's face is evident as he draws his dagger, " My mistake, I forgot everything in this world tries to kill us. " Dark magic forms along the blade before Setsuna slashes in the air sending a wave of dark magic towards the acid spitting centicobras splitting one of them in two. "Move and fight, we don't know when the tide will come back in."

Damp hair hangs forward across Tian's eyes. Their usually painted face shows their normal facial features, streaked with black where the makeup has run off due to the water. It's relatively rare for people to see the Uncrowned crafter this way, without mask or makeup to obfusgate their apperance. Right now, though, neither are as important as staying alive. The Cait Sith has one of the ship's crew, a Lander, propped up with one arm around them, dragging them into the shelter of the cave.

Upon entering, the Lander is set down to rest upon one of the rocks as Tian drawns out one of their daggers, raising it to help illuminate the area around them with channeled light magic. Their nose twitches, taking in the smell of their surroundings and then approaches one of the glowing mushrooms, observing it with a curious expression.

Then, in true canine fashion, Tian shakes themselves off, runs a hand through their hair, and attaches the glowing dagger to their belt so they can sign. Their hands move with a questioning expression, "<Anyone know where we are?>" The system translates an understanding of their sign language to those present.

Then, Tian squashes one of the lower level bugs with a foot, making sure it doesn't get close to the wounded Crew member they've been helping.

Schneider is not in his element at sea. He prefers solid land, or the air in a pinch, but sea is not his element. And it resists his fire. But he follows the escaping party to the small, hidden (for the moment) cave. Taking stock of the situation, he looks curiously around our cave, but it does not seem like a long term refuge. This is made clear by the attack of a wave of centicobras, spitting acid as they attack.

He grunts as he watches, or listens to the autotranslate, as Tian signs, and he replies, "In a cave with snakes." So, not a helpful answer. On the other hand, he has a solution to snakes. "GUNZENRO." The wash of fire singes a few of the centicobras badly and they avoid that area as they swarm. Fire does warm things up, but it also uses oxygen, so he's judicious with ir, which is very uncharacteristic of him.

Llyn didn't like going back to the Palace Lands but the SEA and the rest needed help, she knew the seas and the lands of it better than they. Sides it was a chance to get out on a boat. Then every thing goes to hell, she was very busy in helping keep people alive, ranging from hauling them along. She had had no diea about this weapon being in develoment with her rank then again she had been crowned and that was likely why she was never told. She was never so glad fort having gills however as she drags herself up on shore hauling someone up.

She is not bothered by the water she seems in a bit better spirits.

She's already punching monsters out, or mixing ion elemental water attacks to deal with them.

"I might have an idea but we need to deal with the monsters first before I can even think to figure that out in full."

She bursts out laughing at Schneider's comment as it is accurate when you think about it.

    Events leading up to this point have Fuka on a bit of a slow boil. Getting shot at is bad. Getting shipwrecked and almost killed because of it, that's even worse. But getting an enchanted ship-borne chill-box wrecked, putting her plans to bring Palace Lands ice cream back to Yamato on temporary hiaitus... well, that's the worst possible thing! Anything denying her her enjoyment of ice cream is a punishment from hell itself!

    Still, it's not like she can't redo the enchantments later. Build new storage boxes, attach them to wagonbeds, bring them to ships, supply the Yamato forces once again. This is a delay, not a roadblock. And this cave system is fascinating. It's enough to distract the little sylph from her woes almost entirely! "Does any of this look artificial to you? These pillars? This slope?" she asks. "It feels like we're actually some place significant and forgotten!" the Sylph says enthusiastically, glancing at Tian. No, she doesn't know exactly where they are, but she knows it's cool. Forgotten dungeons are amazing after all, and she's recently had experience among undine ruins. Maybe this is similar!

    Of course then the bugs come out. "Right, OF COURSE there's monsters." she grumbles, her day ruined yet again. She pulls her greatsword free, taking a stance. She'd electrocute the monsters, but there's that whole problem with drawing too much attention with bright light and noise. Short and brutal combat it is then! Going full melee, Fuka wades into the monsters, punting and smashing as best she can as a front-liner, trusting in the back lines to protect her as she protects them.

Torpedoes? Those were torpedoes, weren't they? Oh those sneaky Rosenheim snakes, developing torpedoes right underneath their noses! And homing torpedoes at that! This is clearly retribution for that incident with the mines at Mac Anu. But crying over spilled milk is not going to help anybody. The entire party is shipwrecked, and the mysterious cave they find themselves in is clearly not a safe place.

Which is why it's a good thing they've got themselves a doctor.

Prophylaxis emerges from the water surrounded by a bathysphere of ice that quickly begins to melt away as he emerges, drenched but decidedly not sucking down lungfuls of air. "That," he declares, tone utterly nonplussed as he picks a crab off of one of his ears, "Was not a pleasant experience. Are we all accounted for? Yes? Mostly? Good."

He glances Fukaziroh-ward, then at the surrounding architecture, "...Mm. Looks like it might be some kind of ancient Undine ruin. Seems like we find these now and again. But then, maybe it belongs to an even more ancient race...?" The doctor eyes some of the glowing fungi, taking a moment to procure a small sample for future study before turning towards the obvious path deeper into the cave. "Come along. No reason to leave them any indication that we survived. We might even find something that'll make this trip worthwhile if we proceed."

It seems the doctor is all in on making progress. The monsters are... unusually easily dispatched. Does that mean they aren't necessarily in the Palace Lands yet...?

Uta is off in a corner, curled up, drenched, shivering. Not long ago, her staff (a white wooden snake coiling around a gem shaped like an anatomically correct heart) had been coaxed into emitting the softest of glows, barely enough to see at a short distance, and now it rests against the walls of the cavern.

"It's okay," she states in a low, soothing voice to an octo-crab slime she's currently petting. "Don't hit yourself over it. You couldn't reasonably be expected to stop the Rosenheim fleet alone. You did good enough of a job. Be proud of what you've accomplished." The slime, being a slime, just... wobbles.

The appearance of low level monsters provide a welcome distraction. "Look, Krabken! Monsters! You can finally show what you are really made of!", Uta points, cheerful.

'Krabken' just wobbles, then starts heading the wrong way. It's probably interested in something it thinks is food.

Uta sighs. "...Fine." She concentrates, intones an ominous chant, and through her tense hand, casts an irregular beam of magical energy, which hits the slime and begins twisting and turning, like some sort of arcane leash. "Go, Krabken! Show them you're a hero!"

The minute slime, not really having any choice in the matter, is then controlled into attacking the low level monsters -- and when a slime is not eough to do the job... well, it's being used as a sort of weight at the end of a flail.

That magical leash is very versatile.

Indeed, things are always trying to kill the Adventurers and Landers. Setsuna is certainly right on that matter. As they enter the monsters' 'home', they slither from various slits and holes in the walls, getting on the floor or even onto the ceiling. Some of them 'dive bombing' them as they begin to proceed further in by Setsuna's recommendation.

Tian feels a pat on her shoulder. A thank you from the Lander as she protects them. They look weakened, but their status is at least slowly rising from what Prophylaxis can tell as someone skilled in Pharmacy. They can't be 'partied', so it takes more steps to get an assessment of their status.

Luckily, oxygen isn't a problem here. While this place may smell bad - and even worse when Schneider sends a gout of flame across the low level foes. There's some flickers of light across the walls of the cave, risking exposure to the Palace Land forces that are hunting them.

Setsuna and Tian take a more subtle approach, alongside Fukaziroh. Quick slashes, magical cuts. And whatever Uta is doing with that poor slime.

(X_X!)`~~~~~~~~~~~~|=

The monsters are too low level to put up a fight individually, but they are a pest and a pain to constantly keep up with. Notably, one of them gets flung off of Tian's dagger, and falls near the entrance...

Only for a subtle red laser to suddenly go 'SHEEEEN' and surgically kills the monster the moment it crosses a certain treshhold. From their position, they can see what almost looks like a 'stone arm' coming out of the wall for a moment, before it returns into the wall. A Lander who backpedals out of shock at this however, seems to remain unharmed by this interference - the Lander in question quickly catching up with the Adventurers for safety.

Prophylaxis makes a note about the low level monsters. But even the Palace Lands has the same kind of logic as Yamato - it's just at such a massive scale in comparison to the smaller 'island nation' of Yamato. Monster levels are at its lowest near and around certain very landmarks.

----

As the team manages to make progress, the tunnel starts taking more notable shape. The 'cave' is straight forward. There are some broken openings forking off to the sides, but they just end up in what are essentially empty chambers that seem to bear no use. The pillars along the wall seem too rectangular and structural to be naturally formed by the conditions of this tunnel. There's a lot of reinforcement of the ceiling, and the slope going down, then back up is very 'slow', almost like it was meant for vehicles to easily move through, even though they were moving under and then up something again.

It takes a good twenty minutes of constant battle before they see the end of the tunnel. And with that, the sound of... buzzing?

Stepping out into the light, they find themselves in something that... doesn't look like Undine ruins. This area is clearly on land, at the same elevation at the beach they'd left. Surrounded by massive cliffs, they are standing in a very small caldera like region. Except...

There's all these buildings. Ruined former high rises. Unusual structures. When they step out of the tunnel, there's vegetation everywhere, hiding so much of what is truly here. Trees having rises through broken black ground that looks suspiciously like asphalt. This looks almost like a place of their old world...

Most notably is a rather unusual structure in the distance that seems particularly of unusual architecture.

"The only other explanation for monsters being this level in the Palace Lands is..." Prophylaxis' expression turns to one of surprise, then sudden interest, "No. It can't be. Another Root Town, here? But... why? How...?" The path creeps upward, sloping slowly and steadily towards the surface. The air changes, and Prophylaxis presses doggedly on, pausing only to wordlessly evaporate nearby monsters or administer various medicines. He only comes to a stop when he sees...

.../This./

"This... this is..." Prophylaxis stares agog. It looks like home. Not like, /home/ home. This is not Tokyo. This is definitely China. Specifically... "That's... 'The Big Pants...!'" The doctor pushes on, staring up at the towering structures covered in so much vegetation. It must have taken aeons to grow to be like this. But-- "This doesn't make sense," the Doctor says, "Places like this... Have appeared only in the domains of the Kunie, in the past. Why is it out here, like this? Why has it been here for so long that it's been utterly overgrown...?"

"Come," he says to the group, "We must go deeper. There's--"

The Doctor goes silent. He stops in his tracks, turns, and suddenly rushes down a thoroughfare, toward...

...An active, turning Chaos Gate. "No. No way. What is this...?" He extends a hand, attempting to access the gate via his menu, but surely it won't work, will it...? "Schneider, Uta, check the writing, please. We need to know what sets this thing apart from the ones everywhere else-- quickly, before the inevitable other shoe drops."

Tian's amber eyes look over to Schneider with a bemused expression and a roll of the eyes before running their fingers over the edge of their nose in a sign that the system translates as: "<Very funny.>" It seems to pick up the somewhat sarcastic tone as well. Swishing their puffed up fox-wolf tail, the Uncrowned is momentarily distracted by the touch to their shoulder, giving the Lander a nod before continuing forward with the others.

It isn't until their path forward is stopped by the... laser trap that seems to disect one of the monsters. In response, slowly, Tian takes both hands, the index and middle fingers extended, set atop each other. "<Careful.>" The system translates.

As they continue forward, Tian is, thankfully, oblivious to the sound of buzzing. Not even a twitch from their canine ears. Instead, they seem to squint slightly as they come out onto into the strange sight before them. The Cait Sith's brows furrow and their ears tuck back slightly. It's obvious by their widened eyes that they haven't seen anything qutie like this before.

Slowly, as if they weren't quite sure what they were seeing, Tian signs, tapping two fingers together then using thumb and forefinger to mime out the shape of a building. "<That building. It shouldn't be here.>" They look to Prophylaxis, bobbing their head once before taking a few steps forward, seemingly looking for a path into the city.

That is, until the comment about Chaos Gates is made. That is a topic Tian isn't as familiar with, so rather than heading off on their own, the Crafter waits, head tilted in lupine curiosity.

Llyn is punching, kicking, and doing a number of Wuxia stunts as she fights. She's also throwing out heals here and there where it's needed. She moves in deeper and deeper as they find the laser like attack and the Lander. She keeps staff ready and gives the Lander a look like she expect trouble for them. It seems this is not an issue. So she will move on as they end up deeper and they see the building.

"CCTV HQ? Why is that here..."

There is some venom in her tone towards CCTV though...she taken out of her thought as she falls in at Prophylaxis orders even if he didn't give her one. She got her sketch book out and she's doing her darnet to copy what she sees on the gate.

"Look I was a reporter and wrote novels before I ended up as Llyn. If this is a gate we could fix the network...Though if the Palace Land Kingdoms found this..." She sketches away...

    Merek travels a lot, and eventually he would be with the ship that was traveling along, and then he's with the others because they shipwrecked. As they make their way along he seems to consider the laser that had stopped the monster, and then they are coming upon the Chaos Gate. "Well, that's pretty interesting," he says, "What do you think about it?" he asks the others.

    The caves were interesting but to Setsuna a cave was indeed just a cave, manity made or natural made or level designer made they were all the same these days. As they enter the town he does look at the doctor, "You think we stumbled on some ancient palace land root town that use to be?" That was at least a tiny bit interesting as he considers how someone would go about losing a root town. Normally this would spark conversation of theory later on chims and nothing more.

     That is until Setsuna enters into the large chamber and notices the remains of a city, "Right ancient delopidated root town. Totally on board with that theory now."

     The sight of the odd looking structure causes Setsuna to remember something, probably some picture from some travel brochure or something a long time ago. Nothing more then that though but the others do seem concerned, " Just because it looks like the building doesnt mean it neccessarily is. Designers could have just liked it and made it as an easter egg. We will have to see if it is the real thing later, but hey first one to find any alv writing winnnns...."

    Setsuna trails off as he sees the gate, spinning and active. There is the curiosity on the why and how but more importantly the pure chance it gives as Setsuna moves very quickly towards the spinning gate. As he moves, Setsuna is already opening his menu as he looks for that magic go home button known as 'Logout'

    "The big pants?" Fuka blinks, looking over at Proph and dubiously shaking her head. Apparently chinese architecture or pop culture isn't among her area of expertise. She's perhaps slightly subdued, moreso than usual at least, by the display of a bug-zapper. It sort of makes sense an ancient site of power has defenses against infestation, especially considering this particular site of power is still somehow active. Since it appears to discriminate against monsters, or at least acting as a giant bug zapper, she's less worried and less subdued than she might be if it were a person-killing weapon. But still, forewarned is four-armed!

    She nods, looking around curiously but without actually poking stuff. She too notes the resemblance to Kunie-controlled regions. Maybe there actually is an active Kunie here? That would be neat. That would be... more than just neat! It would be remarkably fortuitous and would kind of cement The Blind One as the Goddess Fuka most appreciates.

    As Setsuna runs off, Fuka blinks in surprise. "Oi, Setsu, if you end up dead I'm going to kill you!" she cautions. All in good cheer... or is she?

The other shoe comes in the form of buzzing. Though low level monsters, there's a lot of them. Kraithornets, poisonous in type, begin to buzz their way down from the incredibly tall highrises around them. In the meantime, Tian and Llyn get the feeling that they've walked these streets before. Once upon a time...

Once upon a time, there would not be monsters coming down towards them. Nothing a few spells won't fix, but they are /really/ starting to swarm them. There's multiple buildings they could duck into, perhaps even use for cover. But if they wish to find out more about the Chaos Gate, now is their shot!

Slowly revolving, wheel over wheel, it remains active as they approach. Even lighting up the symbols around the ring as they move to try and interact with it.

The Landers with them of course have no idea what any of this is, and are looking around agasp. Many of their allies are warriors in their own rights though, even the merchants. Some of them taking out bows, others grabbing waterlogged blades. They are low on arrows because of the shipwreck situation, but that doesn't stop the archers from taking out a few of the approaching Kraithornets!

Setsuna is first to try and interact with it, running over his menu and...

Finds the Logout button still missing.

However, the Teleportation Menu does come up!

It's listing all of the Root Towns he has visited in the past, but also lists a big red mark next to them indicating: <BLOCKED>. However, notably, when he hovers his finger over it...

> WARNING: Unable to Dial. The Administrator of this Kingdom has blocked travel to this location.
> REASON: 'National Security'.

Schneider is pleased that incinerating the snake-things does not seem to deplete our oxygen. He is more surprised, or perhaps less surprised, that this seems to be a way up and out to the open world ... or a very small part of an open world. It looks like a root town that got uprooted, or perhaps a better analogy is that it was no longer used in this iteration of the game. Look, the Devs even forgot to de-activate the town's Chaos Gate. On the other hand ... that may be our only way out of here. Are we inside some sort of volcano?

He looks over to Prophylaxis and nods, heading forward to investigate the writing on the Gate. He's studied Chaos Gates extensively in his past effort to get our Chaos Gates working, but this one seems not to have the same blocks the others had. That's significant by itself, surely!

It takes longer than it should for Tian to notice the Kraithornets buzzing down towards them. Not until one of them stings the Cait Sith and their health goes down slightly. Swatting it away, Tian reaches for their daggers, giving a grunt of irritation before starting to slash at them, channeling fire magic to ward off the insects.

The eerie familarity of the streets is enough to set them ill at ease, but it isn't as if they hadn't seen unusual places like this before in the lands of the Kunie. However... it's hard to tell if this is another such place, or not.

The wonder of the Chaos Gate is all but lost on them, however. Not having really researched or explored that topic, Tian focuses, instead, on making sure that the Lander sailors and their own more knowledgeable Adventurers are protected from the flying enemies.

The laser causes interest and, let's face it, worry in Uta. But one must progress onwards! And make sure that Crabken doesn't get zapped.

"Do you think that these might be... 'Lost Grounds', Doctor?", Uta wonders aloud to Prophylaxis. "If so... are we in danger by lingering around here?" After a moment of silence. "Wait, is that... a chaos gate?" Blink. "Uh. They're supposed to be dark and inactive, not -spinning-." A frown, then, with a flick of her hand, a dismissive, "This one must be broken."

In her defense, she logged in once, and the Apocalypse struck during her first session. Her experiences might be a bit... skewed.

"NO!", Uta exclaims, abrupt, as clarity hits. "This one is -working-!" Following Prophylaxis's instructions, she rotates her finger in her air, mouthing something as she follows the perimeter of the structure. "Give me a second, I must..." She does, as asked, check if the Chaos Gate's writing have anything different. And if she recognizes any of the runes from elsewhere.

"Schneider and I have some interesting information about Chaos Gates," Uta explains. "But we'd better discuss that under the aegis of System Protection. It's a sensitive subject, and we wouldn't want enemy Oracles to..." vague gestures.

"Wait a minute. There -is- a thing we can do!", she exclaims, snapping her fingers. She flicks her menu open, and materializes a fountain pen, which she'll attempt to use in order to copy the runes... and attempt an Innate loremastering of the Chaos Gate. Better than nothing. "I was thinking... if among us there was an Oracle, and a System Protector," She doesn't outright name names, in case these people want to keep their identity secret, "...and we could arrange a System Protector on the other side, to hide our actions from the Palace Landers, -maybe- we could attempt a -manual- connection of the Chaos Gates. Assuming..." She frowns at her note, tapping the paper. "That either the old word work, or we can decypher the current ones."

Llyn looks to Setsuna as she's working wayt for a moment.

"I agree with your theory for the moment it's sound and you are likely correct on the building but they could have picked something they liked." She's busy copying everything she looks to Fuka, she then laughs. She gets back to work for a moment but tht end pretty quickly as the monsters show up she'll put her work away and get her weapon ready.

"Find a way to hook the gates back into a Yamato one?"

    Flick of the finger up and then down, jab, jab, flick up , flick down, exit, reopen, repeat. Did Setsuna even hear the buzzing or notice the hornets, probably not, infact he doesn't really notice much of anything as he continues thte steps over and over. The only sound really getting to him is the sound of his ever growing heart beat that is drowning out everything else. FInally after what feels like an eternity of doom scrolling and jabbing Setsuna looks utterly defeated.

     Coming back to the reality of his situation Setsuna finally becomes aware of the bugs, and speaks up to those still investigating the gate, "Get whatever you need from there then lets figure out how to get out of here." Turning back Setsuna wipes away something from his face and takes a deep breath before he becomes aware of the situation. " Looks like we are not going to be teleporting out of here till we speak to IT, " The joke is delivered rather deadpan. Obviously Setsuna is rather done with this town as he begins to form dark flames and launches them towards the hornets that have clumped together hoping that they will spread the flame to each other.

    Fuka's reasonably well defended against flying insects, but these ones are particularly annoying. And she can't exactly swat them, not easily. Her strength is her strength, not her pinpoint accuracy. So she falls back on something a little more effective, in this case. "I'll help cover us. Brainiacs, go do brain stuff!" she cheers, having very specific people in mind but not really caring who actually ends up doing the intellectual heavy lifting. It's enough she's got their back, and trusts them to share their findings.

    That said, she channels power into her Arc-ane Blade, causing it to light up with crackling energy. This deep inside the tunnels there's no worry about a light show causing problems, surely! Positioning herself to help ward the softer members of the expedition, Fuka becomes the bug zapper she was truly meant to be, unleashing small but powerful zaps of lightning at the incoming Kraithornets.

Schneider is more than capable of incinerating bugs with Fire, they are no more than a distraction to deter us from getting home. A real live Chaos Gate could absolutely do that! On the other hand, it looks like -all- the destinations are blocked. "That's unfortunate," he says. But the menu is up! This is spectacular in and of itself, and bears as much investigation as can be done in a hurry. "I really think this is some unused part of the game, like the whole region was written off, but not deleted." He will look for destinations he knows, and when he doesn't find two he ought to see, he wonders, "Is there maybe some way to make a new connection? Does anyone know?" He looks at Doc, who is his go-to for knowing things about the old game.

    Merek takes a look to the Chaos Gate while Setsuna interacts with it. "Well, interesting. I would like to know more, though I'm thinking that we should probably you know, take the time to deal with getting away from the monsters." The man lifts up a hand to begin shooting his flame spells at it to at least make it safer enough that they can take cover. "The issue is probably that the ones on the other side will not work."

The bugs are easily flashed and fried by Schneider's burning power. They are low level, but they are starting to swarm more and more. The Landers are being pushed back at the edges of the formation as they remain huddled around the Chaos Gate. Notably, the swarming has also drawn out some of the Elkwolves from their hiding spots along the streets, which immediately go to town, jumping and snatching the flying beasts - and then ripping into them - appearing to eat them until they shatter into light. There's a few places of shelter they can hole up in, but time is running out with the quantity of the bugs that appear to be swarming - threatening not just the Adventurers, but their Lander allies as well.

"A Lost Ground... It could very well be. But I have a hunch that this place is more like... A dummied out Root Town. One that's running a different 'version' of the 'Code' that all of the other ones are running. Or maybe it was never 'updated' when the Apocalypse happened. If that's the case, then if we can somehow sample the functions of this Chaos Gate and bypass the protection... Damn, if only Proteus were here--"

But she's not. There are instead only bugs. Prophylaxis grunts and turns to unleash a vortex of bitter cold into the swarming insects. "There may be a way, but-- National Security, why are the other gates protected for reasons of /National Security!?/ This is supposed to be a game, what the hell were they even doing!? Unless it's the Great Firewall, but then why is it that the other Palace Lands gates are likewise off limits!?"

He's thinking aloud, now. But-- "There may be a way to perform a manual transfer. Do you remember when we attempted that experiment back home? It almost worked, but it seemed as though something were blocking our connection. That 'something' is clearly whatever this firewall is. Why it's not working here, I have no idea, but this Chaos Gate may be our ticket out of here if we can figure out how to get it to send us somewhere."

Tian continues to back up towards their Lander allies, making sure to be in a position to keep them out of harm for as long as possible. Since it isn't possible for the Blade Dancer to speak with sign /and/ fight, all that they are able to do is motion their head and daggers towards one of the nearby buildings.

It's a suggestion that, perhaps, they should retreat to somewhere safe and revisit the gate when things are not quite so... dire? It wasn't worth risking lives over, is it? Perhaps it is, but Tian really doesn't know enough about these Gates to make that decision.

Instead, they start to blast wind magic back from the location of the Lander sailors, trying to push the flying insects back towards the Elkwolves, which seem to be having a buffet on the creatures. With a huff of breath, Tian wipes a bit of sweat off of their brow.

Schneider nods as Proph mentions a dummied out Root Town. "Yes, that's what I meant." He's no gamer, he doesn't have the right vocabulary for this. The mention of a manual transfer draws a vigorous nod, and he says, "Yes, that seems like what would be useful." He now divides his attention between burning bugs and probing the Chaos Gate. His own special power doesn't normally work on /things/ but the Chaos Gate is maybe not a normal thing, and the blocked destinations might be caused, or held, by something alive. Maybe? He can try, anyhow, to see if maybe the disabling of the gates counts as Corruption that can be cleansed?

Prophylaxis' expression remains tight and focused, but after a moment it seems like something dawns on him. "I think I know how we can use this to get home," the doctor says, hesitantly, "But we need more time. We can't pull it off if we're dealing with these monsters at the same time, and we need to set things up in advance. Fight towards cover, evacuate the square. I'll explain once we get to safety!"

If he's right-- if that's really what is keeping them from getting back to Yamato...

Then it'll mean a sea change-- in many ways. For many things.

Llyn is glad the bugs are taken out she does what she can to heal and protect the lander who need it while the heavy hitters are just wrecking things.

"We can't stay much longer we got to get out of here or we're going to start losing people!. Or in context of the ... Kingdoms of this world?"

She brightens at Prophs words and she'll do her best to help keep as many people alive...

"There's a war, I'm not surprised the Landers would block the Chaos Gates. Hordes from an enemy nation could just flood into root towns. It'd be a disaster."

"Now, the interesting question is, have these been blocked by the -Landers-? Appraising the Crowns of Control mentions that they impose the will of the True Rulers of Root Cities," she mentions, and without noticing, she begins to pace around, in circles. Rotational movement, akin to the Chaos gate she's reflecting on. "Also, Naval Monte. Aka Clustania, once a private project of a scientifically minded Alv to reach beyond the grasp of the Cursed Wave, the project was abandoned in favor of a more succesful one-" Pause. Blink. "...could... could -this- be the project? A place immune to... uh... not sure if the Black Wave counts as a Cursed Wave. Lore is a bit vague on the subject. But-"

More silence. "Also!", she exclaims, pivoting on one foot and pointing abruptly at someone at random, to suddenly cause a spike in attention.

It happens to be Krabken.

Frown. Spin-point at Llyn. "It is co-ruled by the 'Inheritor of Clustania'. Isn't this supicious?" She looks up and away. "Who -actually- rule these places? So many, questions, so little ans- wait, no, I do have answers. For one!" She points at the Chaos gate, looking straight at-

dangit. It's Krachan again.

Point at Schneider! "One! That is a Chaos Gate. A system of travel invented by the Alv, permitting movement from one location to another based on keywords and permissions. This one was Created by Bondrewd, and remains active and awaiting the next command."

Spin. "Second!" She even raises two fingers to underline the number. "This place is-" She points at the ground.

Silence.

Gape.

"...It's the Dragon's Eye! The small island at the center of the continent that has been a common warground during the wars between Rosenheim, Kallamore, and Thor! Doctor, you certainly remember this, we researched it before the beginning of the war-"

Frow at Krabken.

Sigh. Spin. Look at Prophylaxis. "Anyway... yeah, what I've just said." A nod, silence. Then, look up and away, and tap lips. "Am I forgetting anything?" Snapping of fingers. "Oh, right!"

Engage flailing of arms. "Aaaaaaaaaaaah!"

Schneider is pointed at by Uta. "I know it's a Chaos Gate. And /working/, unlike the others we found. Can /you/ sing it to the first floor Gate like we tried with the inoperative Gate back home?" he asks her a bit tensely. It's starting to get a bit stressful with the elkwolves getting in on the action now.

    Setsuna looks at the crowd as they all hover around the gate of lies and false hope. " We need to get ourselves out of here. I suggest we make for the nearest sturdy building, What about that pants one do you think it will hold?" The question is given as he looks at the group and gives them a glance of 'come on already'. Pacing back and forth he looks at the crowd with urging as he keeps slinging spells. "We can theorycraft when we are not under attack."

    Merek looks to the Chaos Gate and walks up to it for a moment with a nod, before he places a hand to hover along it. "Num. Rre. Lof. Enne. Enter." He does add to others with a nod, "We should probably get the Landers to safety," he says, while he waits to see if the Gate does anything.

The Chaos Gate starts to light up partially as Merek begins to speak to it. Various symbols lighting up... in the same way they do in Yamato... before it just goes back to its previous rotating status.

"We're not going to be the ones doing the singing," Prophylaxis explains as they move into the relative safety of one of the ruined skyscrapers. "Each of the Chaos Gates we've encountered are operating as part of their Root Towns. That they no longer allow logouts is another matter, but they /should/ be able to allow for teleportation. But if they did, the Palace Landers could have simply teleported around our defenses. To say nothing about the obliteration of commerce by trade caravans and other 'real' services that are necessary to provide a functional 'economy' to the various Kingdoms. If, hypothetically, there /is/ no outside force preventing the gates from communicating, then we need to consider the meaning of 'National Security' differently. After all, no one nation is operating all of the gates, but rather each of the nations are doing so independently. And we know that certain individuals serve the 'rulers' of their nations, no...? Certain individuals who are the only ones capable of manipulating the mechanisms of Root Towns."

"So, if the gates are under their authority..." Prophylaxis nods toward Setsuna, "...Then there is likely only one kingdom in Yamato who might suspend their 'National Security' for the sake of stranded Adventurers and Landers. And it just so happens that we have a direct line to their Kunie."

"Oh, that's an interesting subject you bring up, Doctor," exclaims Uta as she easily keeps pace with the Doctor (possibly having to slow down to avoid losing him). "I have been interested in the history of the world before the Apocalypse, as seen both by the Adventurers and by the Landers. Since this is technically my first session, I've asked a few relevant questions to the two demographics." Jump over a small boulder in the middle of the street. Serously, who leave those things around? Is this a platformer now? Best not -- someone might start looking at Proph's hat and begin to salivate. Super Pavlov Bros integration or some such.

"For one, the Landers -do- remember the Chaos Gates working before the Apocalypse. That checks out with the Adventurers' memories. Which kind of rules out the Economy angle, I'd wager. Although..." Frown. "I don't know if Landers can, or have, used the Chaos gates..."

A shake of her head as she dodges a bent street sign, and, dashing ahead of the group to gain enough distance, she begins to spin Krachan around at dizzying speed.

(@_@ )======||======( @_@)

Magical Slime Weedwhacker!

"Second, and this is where things get interesting: A 'proper logout' would require logging out close to a Chaos Gate. There was some... XP bonus or something for a proper logout? I forget the details. But sometimes people logged out 'improperly'. And they'd be bumped to the closest Chaos Gate upon the next login. If they logged out in a dangerous area, there'd be a chance to being booted to a Church instead. Likely if you got attacked in the logout window. That's why players usually logged off more properly, not wanting to risk losing XP." This is all things that experienced players likely knew already, but Uta was no experienced player, so she shares in case someone else in the room also is not. "The Landers on the other hand, seem to have a different telling of this. They do agree that Adventurers used to come in and out for a while in recent years, using Chaos Gates to travel between worlds, but something doesn't add up. They talk about Adventurers living in their lands for days, weeks, months on end, not hours. More importantly, Adventurers of the _distant_ past never 'logged out' as we would define it. According to the Landers, Adventurers were in this world until some great 'curse' swept them away, stopping the Adventurers from keeping the Landers safe."

    Fuka watches sidelong as the two smartest people - in her opinion at least - talk about stuff that's completely over her head. Not that it's hard for something to go over Fuka's head! But she does occasionally have something to say, and sometimes it might even be insightful. "Time here and in our old world went differently though. Days or weeks here would be a few hours back there, right? So someone would play the game for a few hours, and here they'd be running around for weeks at a time." she claims. "Not needing to sleep because hey let's face it, when this was a game 'night' was just a time for different mobs to show up! You just played till you had to log off!"

"Of course they remember us using Chaos Gates. If they didn't, then we'd know for sure that the 'history' we understand doesn't line up with what happened 'in the world.' The Chaos Gates were functional for players in the past, so they were functional in this world as well. After the most recent Black Wave, however, things changed. Perhaps it was then that the world 'came alive.' Or maybe there's even more complicated stuff going on," Prophylaxis shrugs, not bothered too badly by the evident discrepancy. "Either way, we're going to find out soon whether the Kunie have power over the gates. If so... Well, we can't /force/ them to undo their protection, and right now we don't want to, but it might give us something to think about later."

"And yes, time seems to be accelerated here relative to the real world. At least, as far as we're able to line things up-- but that was true even before the Black Wave."

Schneider tries to follow the conversation between Doc and Uta. But it's a bit high-level for him, nevermind that he's been a part of some of it. "So what do we /do/?" He asks, fighting off the pests. "Not even /in general/, but like specifically this instant what can I do to help apart from burning down monsters? I will admit to being weak on lore, but that's because no one ever explains things to me." Being a non-gamery person, he apparently requires more explanation that most people require.

"Right now, all that most of us /can/ do is to keep burning down the monsters," Prophylaxis answers. "But we'll need to set up a safe zone to rest and recouperate as well. Right now, we're still technically 'in combat,' and we'll be worn down eventually if we can't rest. After that, we should probably explore the city as much as we can before we evacuate. It's hard to say when we'll be back here, after all."

Schneider nods to Proph. He won't stop that part, now looking around for a place with cover. "They just keep coming. They may have closed this area down, but they didn't turn off the monster spawn rate. And two and a half years without newbies to farm them." Which means there's a lot of them.

"A time ratio of 50:1, to be specific," Uta mentions. "Interestingly, a lot of Lore events line up far too nicely with real life events, even -outside- the game's lifetime. For instance: accounting for the 50:1 scaling of the timelines, the Flash of Death outside Elder Tale Online seems to line up far too well with Prelude To Song."

"Oh, right!", she exclaims, halting her spinning of a very dizzy Krachan around. "Helping! Song!" Uta shoos the rest of the party. "You go ahead, I'll do a thing!"

Fountain pen shimmered away, she stops, turns around, plants her staff onto the ground, and inhales.

She begins to intone a haunting melody; the (anatomically correct) red, heart-shaped gem on her staff resonates, pulses with light, and the main reason why the resulting enhanced voice, which by now spreads all over the area, cannot be defined as 'crystalline' its because it's also like a warm blanket, coaxing beings into a lethargic torpor.

The monsters, in fact, begin to slow down, giving Adventurers a little breathing room to reach a safer place.