Watching Among the Flames [D15, EN, Open]

[Miyako]

The nightly campfires were well-lit as usual, and so went the usual activity of the night: many slept, some gathered by the fires to drink and sing, tell stories and gamble and fight over this and that, and others took the watch. The mood seemed more muted to Miyako as she took the early night watch, however: conversations were more murmur and muted than jovial, games of chance played in silence, a lone campfire musician playing a song without lyrics while others simply passed around a skin of booze and nodded at one another without words shared, all likely a combination from the stiflingly humid air and the flashes of green lightning reminding all just where exactly they were.

Spear in hand, she patroled and swept over the area (Investigation: 41), weaving her way between and around various campfires looking for signs of trouble, before settling near a campfire set up for the watchers to take a break while one or more among them looked around the camp.

[Taochusu]

Taochusu joined in the watch, patrolling around the camp and making sure nothing was trying to sneak in. He stood at the edge of light of the fire Miyako sat near.

[Miyako]

When the familiar face of the large figure appeared before her, she smiled at the man softly and gave him a knowing nod of her head. "Dear Taochusu, good to see you on this night of nights. Things stand calm and firm now, and it is good to know another set of capable eyes do watch. I hope the day has done you well, for the night seems to have brought little comfort." And she looked momentarily to the sky, and after a few moments of staring up there another familiar flash of green lightning streaked across it.

[Taochusu]

"Well, this place is terrible so we'll probably not be comfortable til we leave it," he agrees with a nod. "Just gotta do what we can to keep everyone safe."

[Nanzi]

Nanzi approached the light having made the rounds and waited with a gloved hand, a jet-black raven resting on it. He nodded to those present and clasped the jade in hand before adding verbally, “Heaven’s blessings on both of you, minna-sama. Nanzi trusts the night has been silent and your bellies have been filled with food?”

[Taochusu]

"Quiet enough," Taochusu says with a nod, touching his own jade in greeting. "Ain't seen any problems so far."

[Nanzi]

"Good, we are nearing the end here," he said calmly.

"Nanzi hopes that everyone does their part and the team is... chosen well."

[Taochusu]

"It certainly seems to be chose for the potential to cause pain," Taochusu says with a shrug. "They seem to prefer to send people that have more ties to the world. Like they assume that just because you don't love a person means you don't love people."

[Nanzi]

"Nanzi will not be judged by Shinsei, and do not trust his judgment so he hopes he is proven wrong and everything goes as it should otherwise he will give Nanzi the reason why he failed to save his brother," he responded.

[Taochusu]

"I could care less about the judgement. It seemed to understand me well enough. But I think the reasons people were picked were wrong. Picking folks because they have something to lose seems a bit backwards. I imagine that if killing me would save someone's wife or kids they wouldn't hesitate and I wouldn't hold that against them. But that evil can't push me around like that since I got no wife or kids. I got nothing it can hold over my head." He shrugs. "If that evil place uses those people's folks against them, that's on Shinsei."

[Nanzi]

"That would be on him, agreed," Nanzi said with a nod.

[Miyako]

"The watch is quiet and at least for now all is well," Miyako responded warmly to Nanzi when he first arrived, holding up and touching her jade in response to him doing the same. She put it away and kept an eye on the horizon for a bit, and when another watchman standing by the fire departed to begin their rounds she relaxed just a bit knowing that things were being covered.

"It was a strange experience, to say the least. I know not what he saw, but choices were made, I was not among those chosen, and I hope they work out in the end for all of us," she added to Taochusu's description of things with a slight shoulder shrug. "I didn't get the sense that everyone passed over was done so because of other people. There seemed to be quite a number, in fact, where other people didn't even come up or were mentioned - but what it could have been, I don't know. So few words... so vague." She shook her head.

"But as it stands, my part is elsewhere."

[Nanzi]

"All Nanzi hears is contradictions, he believes in the divinity of man and the ability to choose and then chooses the path for others. Is that not a contradiction of his own beliefs? It matters not, only the rescue of Fu Leng," he said to them.

[Taochusu]

"If everyone willing to go was allowed then we wouldn't be able to protect the folks staying behind to do their magic. We did need to limit numbers. But having one person making those choices is bad."

[Miyako]

"Divinity of man..." she repeated quietly to herself. "I can't say I know much about him to know his insights into such things. You are right, Taochusu: there is much that needs to be done, and though so many volunteered for the task, we all cannot go. But none had chance to make a case one way or the other either: it just was or wasn't, and no elaboration or debate, only him giving the final up or down after... I don't know what criteria. Still very unclear to me." Perhaps another matter of the spirits that she didn't quite understand.

[Nanzi]

"Nanzi volunteered to defend the priests, he sees the larger picture," he replied.

[Taochusu]

"What is the larger picture? I imagine it's just doing what we can to destroy evil," Taochusu says with a shrug. "It's never going to go away. Just can't let it take over."

[Miyako]

"To close the Crater-thing that Kami Fu Leng made when he fell from the sky that causes the Evil of another realm to leak into ours - or at least that's what it sounded like to me when I heard the Nezumi describe it this morning," she tried to recall for Taochusu. "Our shamans doing... something with maintaining a portal for enough time for the Nezumi shamans do use their Magic of Names on Kami Fu Leng to... use a divine name combined with balanced elements to close the portal to the evil place?" She lightly scratched the side of her head as she tried to recall the finer details.

"Sorry... spirit realms are not something I'm well-versed in like my village shaman. I don't think anyone's saying there won't be some Evil in the world after all this, but that this Crater-thing is a mighty source of it that will leak and leak and spread Evil in all directions if not stopped, and the Nezumi made it sound like their magic and Kami Fu Leng's presence that allow... use of his Name somehow? That might do it, and might be the best chance to do so now. Or else it gets harder and worse if seasons pass and Evil leaks and then maybe it might never be able to be closed." She nodded her head at that - that part of the description of what was going on and what needed to be done she was much more positive on understanding.

[Nanzi]

"That we are in a cycle of good and evil, and although our actions, if successful, will weaken Jigoku it will rise and it will find a champion. As for the larger picture, Nanzi sees the role of defending the priests vital to the survival of the mission and expedition success or fail. We will need as many as we can manage alive if we must retreat or we will all die here," Nanzi responded.

"As she said."

[Taochusu]

"You know more than me about this stuff. Not something I ever needed to learn about," he says with a shrug. "It's all new to me on this trip."