Heavenfall

He nods, "Each element had its own tricks and approaches when it comes to speaking to them. Water and earth I grasp fairly well. Air and fire, while I can do so, are not as easy at least for me."

"Hm. Interesting. Karanoko communes with the Void. It seems to demand a certain... emptiness."

Between her ears.

Jin thinks on that for a moment before his good hand comes up to rub the bridge of his nose at the impending headache, "That... is interesting. I always viewed Void as being all and yet nothing. I cannot even begin to imagine how to hold a conversation with such a concept."

"Well, the only person I know who does it is incapable of properly reading a human being, so..."

Jin shrugs slightly, "If what you say about communing with the void is true I wouldn't be surprised. The world they see must be completely alien compared to that of the rest of us, even with your eye."

"It would be easier to take if she'd didn't... insist. Fortunately, her children are vastly less irritating, and seem capable of tethering her to reality."

Because otherwise, I'm sure her head would bob away like an empty gourd.

"Anyway, I'm mostly here on a social call, so you should lead off."

"Thanks, Sora." The topic that brought him here once more on his mind, "I realized, upon learning there have apparently been races before us, that I never once thought to ask Shinjo how long the Kami have existed. If they would have seen the world before we were here. Has Shiba ever mentioned anything?"

"Well, I admit, I don't talk to him about that sort of thing much- I mostly try to get him to take a break now and then, you know? Given his curiosity, though, I think it would have come up if he'd really given it much study."

Sora frowned.

"Have you met the Nezumi?"

Jin shakes his head, "Shinjo has spoken about them but I have yet to meet one in the flesh."

"Well, I admit, I've only spoken with one, but the workmanship of his armor and weapon, plus the importance of some cultural elements he talked about... in at least some respects, they're well ahead of us technologically, even with all of the advances we've made under the Kami's leadership. I think the past is a subject we need to mine a bit more..."

"Indeed. The stone, before it knew me as a man, mentioned I was not of the Five, those of the war, nor of the Serpents, Ogres, Trolls, nor Pets. Ogres I am aware of, though did not realize they must be that old, the rest I do not recognize."

Finally, Shinjo arrives, tall and esplendor as always, even in her smudged work clothing. "Jin-san, Sor- pardon me, that's Jiyo-san now, isn't it? I hope you haven't been waiting too long."

"Not too long, thank you, Shinjo-sama." The suffix still strange on his tongue, "I had a matter of possible import I needed to speak to you about."

Sora bowed to Shinjo, allowing himself a smile.

"Any conversation with my friend Jin-sama is a pleasure, Shinjo-sama, so any wait has gone unnoticed by me- but as he says, his business is more pressing than mine, so he should take priority."

She nodded to both of them with a small smile before turning her attention to Jin. "What's going on?"

"I have been warned, perhaps, of danger yet to come. I do not know if it is linked to our current endeavor or another threat that yet looms on the horizon."

"Within the forest their is a clearing with a standing stone that is not a natural occurrence. The space itself feels strange though not in the same foreboding sense as what lies ahead of us. My curiosity got the best of me so I communed with the spirit of the stone to learn its tale. It told me it was erected, before the dawn of men, by a race or races it called The Five. The stone is apparently a record and a testament to a great war that they fought so that it would not be forgotten." He pauses, "That information, alone, might have been valuable and something to set scholars to investigating in safer times but it was not finished. It spoke of the fact that the war they fought was not a singular incident. That it was an event that echoed through history. Repeating itself again and again through the ages. Worse, it told me that the cycle has almost finished turning again. That the war is returning and will be upon is in a time less than the span of one mortal man's life."

"I see... I would like you to research this in more depth, Jin-san. Tengoku is distant from Ningen-do, and we are relatively young as far as it goes... We knew little of humans before we arrived and less of others. Perhaps the Nezumi will know more. They have a long history here, comparatively speaking."

Jin nods, "That was one of the questions I was going to have for you. I had not thought to ask, until then, how long the Kami had watched this realm. The stone mentioned other races as well that came before man: the ogres - who we know of, trolls, serpents, and one it just called the pets."

He carefully unfurls a piece of parchment, keeping his fingers at the very edges for the rest is covered in charcoal at first glance, and shows it to her. On closer inspection there are negative spaces within the charcoal forming strange shapes suggestive of intentional design.

"I made a rubbing of the clearest part of the stone but that is not saying much it is faded nearly beyond noticing there even are markings.I cannot imagine much, if any, is legible but not knowing the language it is in I also cannot tell which symbols are clear and which are lost to time forever. I do not suppose anything looks familiar to something you have seen in your travels?"

Sora watched with interest. After all, he was going to be looking into the matter himself as soon as possible.

She looked at it carefully, eyebrows furrowing as she studied the marks. "I don't recognize it," she said, shaking her head. "It doesn't look related to the language of Tengoku."

"The serpents I might have an idea of, if not a good one. I know that Seppun Satoka's story of the world's history that she told us involved serpents - snake people who had some sort of great civilization a long time ago. Their story claimed that our mother became enraged at them, but these lands were protected from her wrath. I... do know she lost her temper at one point, but she had us go elsewhere then. I don't know if it's actually related or what happened."

"I apologize that what information I have isn't directly related to this."