Jashin Hunt / Book Recovery

[spudman]

oog: I figure in this world it's not an unusual thing for people, including travelling workers, to meet by circumstance and travel together as long as it's convenient. Safer from danger of bandits, wild animals, etc. But if you want a deeper reason, Yamato and Higure could have worked out a connection beyond that. Say...nephew and uncle, no other family, or something like that.

ig:

Hamming it up a bit, but not too much...

Higure's remarks are addressed as most nagging is, by ignoring it or enduring it with quiet resignation.

Upon entering the door, it's clear the front of the place is the bar, there's another door that must lead back somewhere and stairs in a corner to the left. A few patrons sit at the bar itself. Others are at tables, with some gambling going on. Lovely, one just spat on the floor. All in all there's a good amount of people here, especially considering it's the middle of the afternoon. The lack of any reception desk or counter likely means the portly bartender is also the proprietor of the inn.

Yamato walks up to the bar. "How much for a room here?"

[Phht]

[Probably easier to keep straight if they're just traveling buddies rather than family. So, who's handling npcs here (other than not me)?]

Higure follows his partner in, pausing to take in the interior and crowd. Seeing Yamato by the bartender, he makes his way over, careful to avoid stepping in anything. He arrives in time to catch the end of the question. He keeps half his attention on the bartender while gazing around the room more thoroughly with an air of boredom.

[MEKristian]

(Hmm... NPCs.... spudman, Jasruv, what say you?)

[Phht]

[soooooo... given the news from Jasruv, do we abort the mission and return to Konoha because our client has become deathly ill or something? Have a sudden zombipocalypse in the village to put down, THEN return to Konoha for the prior reason? Discuss in this thread so the team creation thread isn't filled with mission OOC plot chat.]

[MEKristian]

(It doesn't really matter to me what happens. I can use the characters I planned for this one elsewhere if need be.)

[spudman]

[Well, both options are the same, except the second involves killing zombies, which I am for. It shouldn't take more than a few rounds of posting to kill a bunch of zombies and it is satisfying.]

[Phht]

[I figured the first, then remembered we had a non-Jashin plot plan for the town involving undead, so added the second idea to wrap up that semi-loose-end-idea-thing first. Doesn't help that I just spent some time playing through L4D's Crash Course campaign. I need to play through that campaign with people now. Whatever people want, I'm game.]

[spudman]

As the bartender is about to answer...

*freeze frame*

'As careful as you might be in an investigation, it's important to keep in mind the target is likely not as subtle or professional as you. Normally this is a good thing, because they do something stupid that gives you the advantage. Other times...'

*unfreeze*

Screams and shouts fill the streets outside.

'they do something stupid and make a mess of everything for everyone, whether they're involved or not.'

The noise causes the bartender and some of the patrons to move to see what is going on outside. Yamato turns to Higure and nods. As they move outside they'll notice the cause of the chaos.

Civilians seem to be running away from a sizeable group of people, up to about fifty from a glance and moving somewhat awkwardly but even faster than the civilians.* The particularly disturbing thing is that they are clearly in a state of decomposition and a few of the walking corpses can be seen eating an unfortunate soul that was caught.

Zombies.

That's just terrific.

'You shouldn't take things for granted even with enemies bound by the laws of nature, but in the world of ninja and the supernatural rules and laws are bent, rewritten, and thrown out all the time. Comes with the territory.'

In a flash of motion Yamato tosses a kunai and it lands nearly up to the ring into the skull of a zombie reaching toward a fleeing civilian.

"Get everyone back inside!" Yamato yells at the bartender. No point in maintaining cover with Fire country citizens in danger and the cause of the strange disappearances revealing itself like this, anyway.

"Civilians are still in danger, we take these things out fast. Avoid using explosives or high grade ninjutsu if you can help it." With a small poof of smoke a wakizashi appears in Yamato's hand. In a burst of speed he rushes toward the horde and undead body parts start flying.

*oog: we're going with fast zombies in this case. I know I said Nishiyori would not engage in melee range with zombies unless he had to, but since civilians are still in the immediate area I see that as a situation where the zeds need to be put down ASAP. Explosives and ninjutsu are mainly out because of the civilians mixed in.

As for the necromancer, the crazy bugger can appear in a little bit, I guess. Phht, MEK, you guys want to fill in for him/her or should I?

[MEKristian]

(There was never a necromancer in the first place unless if was Jasruv who had once planned.)

Oi, Herr Demonslayer how much- *notices that Kamisori passed out* OI! *grabs him* Damn it all, and now there's a smell of death in the air... and our "client" is burning up. *wraps Kamisori in a blanket and tucks him away in a cave* Should be safe there, marked it with runes to keep you defended. Just don't die on us Herr Demonslayer! *jumps down the side of the mountain towards the fray*

[Phht]

[Meh, there is now! And why the crap do I keep getting on missions that end up involving not getting much use out of my specialties? ]

Higure blinked. Usually screaming doesn't result from asking how much for a room. He went outside with the group and saw why there was screaming.

"Huh. That's not something you see every day." He removes his kunai pouch and attaches it to his leg.

"Get everyone back inside!" Yamato yells at the bartender. No point in maintaining cover with Fire country citizens in danger and the cause of the strange disappearances revealing itself like this, anyway.

"Civilians are still in danger, we take these things out fast. Avoid using explosives or high grade ninjutsu if you can help it." With a small poof of smoke a wakizashi appears in Yamato's hand. In a burst of speed he rushes toward the horde and undead body parts start flying.

He sighs and makes a Kage Bunshin. "Maybe I should've joined the Demolition Corps?"

His KB shrugs with a small smile, and the two pull kunai and start killing zombies while covering each other.

[MEKristian]

*cuts himself a path to Higure* Oi, Illusion-man! We appear to have hit on a "situation"!

[Phht]

Ignoring the nickname, Higure swaps positions with his KB, placing it in the lead. "I'd complain about you stating the obvious, but with my luck there's an entirely different situation that you're speaking about."

He glances around briefly while taking out a pair of zombies about to blindside his clone. "We should probably see about containing these things in a group and just waste them with a single jutsu so we don't tire ourselves taking them down this way. Oh, and eliminate whatever caused this. Though... where's client guy at?"

[MEKristian]

In a cave, under some protective runes, with a high fever. That's the problem.

[Phht]

"Well... shit. If he needs medical jutsu, we're in trouble but I got pretty far in the medic courses learning the non-jutsu side of things. I'll swap with not-me so he can go check on the client. While you two are doing that, I'll make my way over to bossman and let him know. Yo, not-me! Client's got a fever! Swap and go check him." Higure flows forward, sliding past his retreating KB and start to work through the mess towards Yamato.

The KB comes to a halt next to Shiki and glances around to make sure none of the undead were still moving. Seeing the lack of life, he stows his kunai. "Okay, let's get going."

[MEKristian]

Rodger that; and try not to die! *heads back to where Kamisori is*

[spudman]

Unfortunately Yamato was unable to catch what the other two members of his team were saying what with him being a good distance away, the various noises and chaos all around him, and him focusing on destroying the undead. He cuts down the last zombie nearby and takes note of the Higure clone leaving with Ando.

He turns to Higure. "Report."

[Phht]

"Our client has a high fever. Ando-san moved the client to a cave and set up wards around it before coming here, which likely means that he might've collapsed or is otherwise unable to move under his own power. As I'm certified as a field medic, I sent my clone with Ando-san to assess the situation and hopefully start working to get things under control while we finished up here."

Higure wipes his kunai off using cloth from the undead before replacing them in his kunai pouch. "If trouble comes up with him, I should dispel to let me know. Or I'll send Ando-san to get us. Either way, we should have at least some time to work on this other... issue." He waves his hand lazily at the various dead again corpses.

[Not gonna do the KB's part yet. Gonna look up medical stuff for fevers so I can at least have it sorta accurate. ]

[spudman]

"You both should have taken a moment to inform me before they left." Yamato admonishes in a neutral tone. But he leaves it at that and performs the seals for summoning and a rat as long as an adult human (not including the tail) emerges from the smoke. He has some black specks but is mostly gray with some white, indicating age. His most distinguishing feature is an eyepatch over his right eye.

"Ugh, that is not a smell I needed." the old one remarks, head shaking at the corpses.

"Ryoushi."

"Hm?"

"I want you to see if there is a common scent on these corpses. Someone must be pulling the strings here."

"Lovely..." Ryoushi sniffs several of the redeaded zombies. "The smell of decay is dominating..but there's something worse than rot, here. Not sure what but it's bad news. There's another common scent, it's human and alive. The human has the same...off scent as the corpses, but more of it. I can follow it."

"Alright, lead the way."

Ryoushi hops up toward a rooftop. He gets a whiff of the air and moves toward another part of town. The group comes across a large gathering of undead. Two hundred strong, milling about. Some banging on doors and windows. A few civilians seeking refuge on a platform in the town center have several dozen zombies reaching towards them.

"The human scent, it's coming from that one." Ryoushi points. A figure in dark robes stands alone on the roof of a large building and is cackling like a maniac.

"Fools, you will be added to my army!" the figure yells, to who exactly you can't be sure.

Yamato turns his head toward Higure. "Yuuhi, I'll clear out the horde. You deal with the leader. He seems like a clown but stay on guard." Higure may notice that Yamato did not mention specifics on the 'how', leaving it to his judgement.

"I'll stick with you, kid. Sometimes the bizarre mystic types have things about them that most humans can't pick up on." Ryoushi says to Higure.

Yamato nods and once again enters the fray. With fewer civilians around he's able to utilize ninjutsu but still utilizes the wakizashi for any undead that are close to him.

[Phht]

Yamato turns his head toward Higure. "Yuuhi, I'll clear out the horde. You deal with the leader. He seems like a clown but stay on guard." Higure may notice that Yamato did not mention specifics on the 'how', leaving it to his judgement.

"I'll stick with you, kid. Sometimes the bizarre mystic types have things about them that most humans can't pick up on." Ryoushi says to Higure.

Nodding at the order, Higure grins with a noticeable gleam in his eyes. He swings his sling bag down and withdraws several items from it. He puts on his headband and the first aid kit pouch, unseals a large pouch from a storage scroll, and a few smaller pouches from two other scrolls. As he replaces the scrolls into the bag and hooks the pouches securely to his front strap, he covers his general plans with the summon.

"I have two plans. First plan, get within a roof or two of the guy and make his brain forget to work the heart and lungs. Then we stick and watch his reactions to no heartbeat and asphyxiating. If that doesn't work for whatever reason, I'll be killing that entire building with fire. Beautiful, demolition tag fueled fire. And if that doesn't work... I guess we'll improvise. I have tons of demolition tags." He puts his bag back on. He gazes at the rooftops and points to one on the near side to them and to the rear of the target, away from the platform of villagers.

"I'm thinking that rooftop. Doesn't appear to have roof access from the building interior and it's not near the panicked villagers so hopefully won't attract his attention."

--

The Kage Bunshin arrives with Shiki at the cave, removing its first aid pack. He starts to check on Kamisori's temperature and hydration, among other things. After a few minutes, he turns to Shiki. "Hm. Fever's not bad enough yet that we need a hospital, and he's not dehydrated. See if you can remove some of his clothes. It should help cool him down, but if he starts shivering, cover him somewhat. Shivering will just make him hotter, and that's bad here. While you're doing that, I'm going to try to figure out or at least eliminate causes for the problem. But if he's not awake in a couple of hours, he'll have to be gotten to a hospital."

[I dunno if I ever really considered distances visually when I came up with the range limits for Kyuushi no Jutsu, but since I needed to do so in this case, I started looking at it. And holy crap, 30m is a lot shorter range than I was thinking. I might just remove that part and go with the default 10m+ like the databooks do to allow more freedom in use.]

[MEKristian]

*quickly does so* Great, the one place I could be useful and I'm babysitting our half-dead client...

[Phht]

"Well, you're mainly here to keep an eye on him in case I dispel before events in town wrap up sufficiently for me to come out here to take over. And I'm sure we might get very visible confirmation regarding events in town if real me gets too annoyed. We brought enough demolition tags to blow up a country after all."

He continues checking over Kamisori. "Well, no apparent bug or animal bites. And since we've been in the same general area, I could place a few other possible causes at low probability. Before he collapsed, did you notice anything unusual with him? Runny nose, coughing, sore throat, aches or pains, upset stomach, stiffness, or confusion? Also, any increased thirst or dry mouth?"

[spud, if the summon has no objections to the plan(s) or location, the pair'll go ahead and start moving to the location. Forgot to mention that.]

[MEKristian]

Nope, not a thing. He was fine one minute, then falling the next. *sighs* Even if we see some flashy explosion, it's still not fun if you can't go out there yourself. *smiles* Well, she did always say I was impatient...

[spudman]

Ryoushi: -_-;

"How 'bout NOT blowing up the building when we can't be sure whether people are still there or not? Not saying you can't blow that b#$%^ up if it comes to it, just don't set everything else on fire."

Meanwhile, Yamato is cutting down zombies. Oh look, he just sliced off the top of one's skull. The ANBU captain runs up to the platform and after performing a few signs aims his palms at the zombies alongside it in conjunction with releasing several shuriken.

Reppushou...

The wind chakra enchanced shuriken slice through the craniums of half a dozen zombies. The rest are blown past the platform by a strong gust of wind. The wind technique being directed along the side of the platform rather than toward it spared the civilians from being blown away.

[Phht]

Ryoushi: -_-;

"How 'bout NOT blowing up the building when we can't be sure whether people are still there or not? Not saying you can't blow that b#$%^ up if it comes to it, just don't set everything else on fire."

"That's why it's not Plan A. Okay, let's go."

Higure cloaks himself in the Mesai Gakure (Camouflage Concealment) before moving from rooftop to rooftop, slowly circling in to the target roof while trying to keep from sticking out too much to the nut on the roof. Arriving on the roof, he creeps close to the next roof. With a brief flurry of handseals and a whispered "Kyuushi no Jutsu," Higure unleashes his genjutsu at the target.

--

The KB continues monitoring Kamisori, frowning at not being able to diagnose the problem. "Okay, maybe real-me might spot something I'm not, but I have no idea what's causing this. As a positive, his temperature is stable, though still high."

[MEKristian]

Bah, and they get to have all the awesome Zombie kills. Two missions in a row where I've been completely sidelined...