Planeside 2

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Keiko concedes that point

At the very least they're more "modern" than the wood elves, and so they're influencing the state of things here. And you're right... it's not fair to assume it's being done on purpose. But if their influence is too much, then we can end up with some really nasty things: we don't want these guys turning into Rakshasas and Kumiho!

The fox village is a lot more "normal" looking than the elves had. The buildings are neat and organized, if a touch plain. Some sort of white clay/mud mix coats most of them, and there are quite a number of decorations. One or two buildings that are unmistakably shops of some sort hint that they're even developing an economy of sorts.

Sun Ce beams

Welcome to Jianye

Keiko whistles.

Well... dang.

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

"No...we don't."

She shudders and falls quiet.

Cleo looks around the village admiringly; this place is pretty nice, but then-

"This is Jianye? But it's not remotely underwater!"

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Keiko blinks

I dunno about underwater... For us, Jianye eventually became Nanjing, but it ought to be the better part of a thousand miles east-northeast of here.

She looks around

And it's on the Yangtze river, which I certainly don't see... unless that little creek over there is supposed to count.

Sun Ce shakes his head

I don't really know what you mean... But this is our home.

Keiko smiles

And a very nice home it is. So, your father Sun Jian is still your leader, right?

Ce nods. Pi, meanwhile, looks unimpressed

Yeah, great: fancy mud huts.

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

"Jianye was a great city on an island that sunk into Yangtze sea after an ancient disaster."
"..."
"This probability sphere nonsense is ... well, it's just that! Ridiculous!"

Cleo finally shakes her head and smiles.

"Well, take us to your father, if you wouldn't mind?"

On the way, she does keep her eyes open for anachronisms and strangeness.

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Ce nods

Yes, of course: Follow me!

And he leads the way along the village. Pi shuffles along, enduring the visit. Keiko is doing a lot more gawking and sightseeing than actually looking for anything. Cleo looks around carefully... and might see rather human-like footprints appear in the mud near a puddle with nobody immediately obvious to make them. But Keiko might just distract things..

Does that kid over there have an IPHONE?!

Certainly, a child off to the side is intent on a somewhat shiny black rectangle that would be about the right size for a 6+ ... but Ce and Pi look at her incredulously

You've never seen a writing slate before?

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

Footprints? Well, that could just be a tricksy fox-spirit. More likely-
The green jewel on Cleo's necklace lights up as plants spring up out of the mud. For an instant it's just leafy little marsh grasses, but then it's vines, reaching up, grasping, coiling in on themselves and over anyone who might be stepping out of that puddle, forming a veritable thicket to trap people within.

"I dunno. Ask him, maybe? There's something else here."

She hops over near the mud. Did you find anything, vines?

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Keiko's ears fold down

Well... it's the right color and size! Uh... why are you making plants?

Every fox person on the street (Keiko included) stares at Cleo's vines.

Or more especially: the odd, struggling, person-shaped gap where there are not vines.

Every fox person on the street (except Keiko) starts to run about in a fright.

Oh... I suppose we should have expected...

Another nearly silent, invisible, scent-masked attacker breaks his concealment and moves to strike. This time, however, Keiko proves just how very fast her reflexes and movements can be: her rapier flashes out and across in a blur, and in one smooth movement lops the dark elf's hand clean off then arcs around to a halt just breaking the skin of his neck. Her ears pin back and her tails bristle out.

... an attack! Move the slightest bit, and your head joins your hand on the ground!

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

Oh no, it really is them! Cleo's eyes follow the severed hand as it flies and falls, horrified. But no, she has to do more still. She starts singing a harsh, discordant song that sets one's teeth on edge, and could be recognized by the magically aware as a dimension-locking spell. Incoming teleportation should go quite off-target, and out-going teleportation hopefully won't go anywhere.

She gives a nod. These dark elves, they're everywhere. Two isn't necessarily all of them.

[Deathkeeper]

Realm of Cats

"Well, the most catlike thing would be to just jump over all the obstacles, but since we don't really know where we're going it seems to be kind of a hard thing to do. Any ideas? Because if you have any ideas for skipping it, I'm open to it." he says.

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Oh no, it really is them! Cleo's eyes follow the severed hand as it flies and falls, horrified. But no, she has to do more still. She starts singing a harsh, discordant song that sets one's teeth on edge, and could be recognized by the magically aware as a dimension-locking spell. Incoming teleportation should go quite off-target, and out-going teleportation hopefully won't go anywhere.

She gives a nod. These dark elves, they're everywhere. Two isn't necessarily all of them.

As the dark elf is busy not moving, Keiko mutters a healing spell and stops his bleeding.

Sit!

The shocked elf does so, collapsing into a heap on the ground. Keiko turns and addresses an empty space across the square

You fail. Surrender now, or you'll be the first full casualty of this little adventure.

[Ionbound]

She gets closer this time, but it seems to be knocked out from under her. Her body just... isn't proportioned for leaping and pouncing.

Gwen frowns as she glares at the ball, the smiles as she realizes the solution to the issue. Her body shifts and cracks as she drops to a form that is quite catlike, not quite a full quadruped, but definitely digitigrade, though she retains her thumbs to catch the ball if she gets close enough, then pounces yet again, hoping for victory.

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

The magic song hangs in the air, not quite fading away like it should. Presumably it's still working.

Cleo, for her part, is mostly looking around. Other footsteps, breaths that shouldn't be there... there were three in the wood elf village, there should be three here. Enough things are coming in threes. But she also waves at the empty space in the tangle of plants. It might feel newly grown thorns, not yet sharp, but a little uncomfortable, start to prick at them.

"Well? Get so we can see you, and speak quickly."

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Keiko now points out the failing

You messed up your cloak spell: I can still see your shadow.

Well... to anyone not from that world, it's really hard to tell. But between Cleo's spell and Keiko's taunting, the third one steps out with hands raised in surrender.

That's three. Taking bets on how many there will be in Pi's hometown, as this seems to be the adventure of three things...

Which gets her to facepalm

Well, if you're going to get stuck in a weird parody the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I suppose that's what you get.

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

"I guess that explains why there's no other animal spirits of note. Elves, foxes, tigers, one-two-three."

Cleo strides quickly over to the newly surrendered one and tries to bind his hands behind his back with some plant-fiber rope that just sprouts from nowhere.

"Sun Ce, does your king have a protocol for dealing with spies and assassins?"

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Keiko nods

Yeah, must be something like that.

The elf does not resist: now they have three prisoners.

Ce blinks

Well... no, not really. This has never happened before.

Pi grins unpleasantly

Give them to us: they will never bother anyone again

But Keiko shakes her head

See... that's the sort of thing we're trying to avoid: you tigers are getting just a bit too vicious already. Granted, even in the best circumstances you're never going to be all that friendly, but still...

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

"We didn't eat you, Pi, for trying to kill us. So we're not going to eat them - unless they give us another reason. Sun, go get your father, please, or at least tell him we're here. You, dark elves. Start talking. Who are you, who sent you, what was the plan, how much did you know about us and about what was happening in the other villages. Is anybody gonna pay a ransom to get you back?"

Cleo walks briskly back and forth. Asking people a bunch of questions is a much more comfortable place to be. And she gives Keiko a smile.
"Good catch on that shadow, by the way. I didn't see a thing of it."

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Keiko grins

Thanks!

Sun Ce runs off.

Pi sighs and rolls his eyes: he was expecting that response.

The three elves look at each other. They've clearly tried to use their teleport-away devices and had them fail. Though the notion of being ransomed gets a morbid chuckle from one of them.

Those who fail are not redeemed: we will not be welcomed back.

We are the chosen, and the world will be ours.

We know of you only our orders, of which you can likely guess: Sun Ce and Cao Pi are to die, and the black fox with nine tails is to be captured and returned to our master. There was no mention of anyone else, so you will be killed or spared as required by the situation. All task groups have the same orders at this time.

Keiko yawns and rolls her eyes

You dark elves always prattle on so. Out with it, already: which of the Seven do you serve? I'd guess, but my guesses haven't gone so well lately.

But the elves look sullen and un-cooperative, and don't answer.

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

Cleo chuckles - so predictable.

"Please. Even if your people do conquer the world - which they won't, have you seen this world? - you aren't going to be involved."

She snaps her fingers, and the thorns sprouting from her elf-holding thicket of vines grow rapidly to become longer and sharper. If they were wrapped around someone, they would be in an increasingly miserable state.

"You are giving me a reason. Do you think that if you are silent I will give up? Do you think that dying in pursuit of your mission will give you some escape?"

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Keiko grins and watches Cleo work - her beloved seems to have the interrogation well in hand.

The elves once again look at each other... execution is one thing, torture to death is something else entirely.

Cenzar

Keiko snorts

Gezundheit! So: lets pick one who wasn't killed a million years ago, shall we?

This gets an indignant response

But that is who we serve!
How dare you!

Keiko frowns

I dunno... I guess it's not beyond the bloody Nexus to be rescuing people who were supposed to be dead... I'd a pinned you for Zelar's lackeys, myself. You know what, I don't care which of the demon lords you guys follow around like twits: we're gonna stop you.

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

The thorns - stop getting worse.

"If he's just a demon lord, he probably exists in lots of universes, right? They say Cenzar, maybe it's Cenzar."

"Or was."

Cleo looks sharply at the least injured elf.

"You understand that your service to him is over, by your choice or by execution?"

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Keiko's hand is restless on the hilt of her dagger. This can't possibly influence the elves now... can it?

We serve... served.. the demon lord Ceznar: To infiltrate and subvert without notice is our highest calling. And we have failed. Zelar the accursed is an enemy we would ... enough.

Keiko smiles

Well, now... is that so? But I quite hate Zelar the betrayer myself, and it would be just awful if he found out about you now, wouldn't it?

(( Uh... Zelar very nearly gets the medal for destroying your entire planet, Keiko! ))
)) Hush! I know what I'm doing, know-it-all author! ((
(( hm... ))

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

"Don't get along, do they?"

The vines whirl about to untangle from their captive. It should scrape him up a little bit more, but then he's free from a torturous plant death.

"Um, Keiko? Are you planning to stop all of the demon lords?
That might be a bit much for just us."

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Keiko grins

Nah: they loathe each other.

Then shakes her head

No, we couldn't possibly. Just toying with the notion of playing one off against the other... but it's a bad idea and I won't really do that. If we really have a refugee from the days before the dark elves came to Erda at all, I think we can deal with him. It doesn't really even change our plans particularly: true seeing, detect invisibility, dispel wards... there are all sorts of ways to deal with sneaky elves now that we know they're there.

back to grinning

And instead of a thousand year long "arms race", we skip right ahead to modern capabilities on the defensive side. The dark elf forces will be so far behind that they'll never be able to get the sort of advantage they did back home. That, and we warn the three tribes here about what these demon-lovers try to do so they know what to watch for. With two of the three groups nominally immortal, it ought to work out.

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

Cleo laughs aloud.

"You know, that's right. I can't think of any problems that have been solved by adding more demon lords. But the trouble is if we have to deal with more than sneaky elves."

She goes to nodding then, and ruffles the hair of one of the captive elves.

"Is a defensive advantage enough? The elves, right now, aren't suited to any sort of aggressive action, but can we leave them there to scheme for years? Best case is- that they give up and go try this scheme somewhere else?"

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Keiko grins unpleasantly

Oh, we're going to need to kill their demon lord. Or at least banish him away from here so he can't lead them anymore. Without his influence, they should go back to being standard unpleasant elves. They'll probably always be a bit on the nasty side, but without a powerful sponsor like him they'll not be able to dominate things and I think they'd be hard pressed to travel too much.
But we can't take away all the challenges: we wouldn't want the world going stagnant.

Pi smiles quite happily at the thought. Off in the distance, Ce finally returns with his father. Sun Jian is a larger and more impressive specimen than his son, and Keiko grins when she sees them appear.

Oh, there they are. About time!

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

Cleo matches the unpleasant grin.

"I can get behind that. Although, is it just because we know enough that it falls to us to stop him? It should really be one of the wood elves-if they had a chance."

She turns and bows to the new fox.
"Sun Jian! Apologies for the trouble that accompanies us. I don't know how much you've been told, but I would like to hear what you think should be done with these assassins."

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Keiko shrugs, but then it's a bit late as the king arrives. The elder Sun nods to Keiko, Cleo, and Pi, then looks darkly at the elves

This goes beyond my experience, to be frank. The thought of these intruders lurking around our village and manipulating us all with an eye to keeping the three tribes separate so we are easy to conquer is very disturbing. How much of what has happened in this area has been their doing rather than any of us?

He grows quiet, and Keiko turns to Cleo

Anyway, yeah, you're right: if possible, it should be a team of the people who live here who get the job done...

Sun Jian looks up

My ruling is this: take them to the mine at Xibi, and let them toil underground for the rest of their lives.

Keiko shrugs again

Works for me.

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

Cleo refrains from terrible puns.
"That seems acceptable."

She shrugs.
"It's impossible to know just how much was their doing. More than you would like, I'm sure."
"Anyway, the demon lord ...what's his name? Seznar? Needs to be slain, and I think it should be your son, alongside Cao Pi and one of the elves you know, who are the ones that should do it."

"But you'll need to help them, and we'll need to help all of you."

[Fenric]

[Fox Village]

Keiko nods in agreement

Ceznar. Say the "C" with your teeth and make the "r" as soft as you can manage - t'says-nahr

Jian quietly unhooks his belt

My son, Sun Ce: I charge you today with the quest: Slay the demon Ceznar. To this end, I have brought and entrust you our greatest treasure.

The hilts of the traditional Chinese longsword are of green jade studded with rubies, the handle of some white leather, the pommel is a diamond and the sheath of woven gold. It radiates power, and Sun Ce takes it revently, Pi scowls and looks envious.

Keiko whistles.

[Recaiden]

[Fox Village]

Cleo nods slowly.

"Thanks, Keiko."

Then comes the time to marvel at the opulence of the sword. She starts to whistle, but no, Keiko's beaten her to that. She settles for an appreciative whisper.