By the time Rayne had run down the timer on her machine gun powerup, and tossed a few other spells out for good measure, the battle was over. Or extermination really, given that the blobs had been more a threat to the people they were protecting than to the outsiders themselves.

Really the only casualties had been the terrain around the village which looked like the warzone it had been. Though at least in Rayne’s case, the damage done by the woman who had been the cusp of becoming her worlds new Gaia seemed to be regenerating at a remarkable rate, fresh shoots already poking out of the ground.

At least Rayne hoped the damage to the land was the only casualty as she floated over to the village’s defenders and heard Remilia asking about the wounded. She was fairly sure she hadn’t seen any of the oozes get close, but you never knew. Plus she had been a touch blinded by her own explosivity for a bit there.

Still, Remilia would surely have things in hand if there were, and so she focused on checking in as to what in the world they had just run into.

“Hello, I’m Rayne, and I’m happy we could help” she said as a quick introduction, before asking “but what was that? The caravaners we were riding with said they’d never seen anything like them, and I certainly haven't either”

It didn't take long for the otherworlders to completely exterminate slimes both small and large. The wide open area gave Lewa a good view of both hamlet and surrounding countryside, so when he saw that no enemies remained, he told the merchants and guardsmen of the caravan that he'd be right back and made for the beleaguered village. Gali or Kopaka might have remained cautious in a situation like this, taking time to assess the aftermath of the battle before relaxing, but the toa of air felt pretty confident that no stragglers had managed to slip through his allies' fingers. By the time he drew near, the villagers holed up in the town's center had begun to reemerge, at which point they found no trace of the slow but inexorable horde that had driven them into a panic--only the collateral damage to the terrain left behind by their inexplicable saviors. Fortune really had favored these people today, delivering them heroes that made those menacing monsters look like gnats in comparison. It was a good thing, Lewa reflected, that all these people brought to this world alongside him happened to be altruistic, and not at all the sort to take advantage of the clear power gap in play here.

Of course, now that he arrived, Lewa didn't really know what to do or say. He couldn't take credit for saving these people, so any attempt to follow up on the others' efforts now would be too little, too late. Plus, he couldn't be sure that his appearance would go over well with them in the first place. Gripped by despair at the brink of destruction, the inhabitants of Aventon had been desperate for any help, and they'd witnessed his heroism firsthand. If a big biomechanical warrior showed up out of the blue here, his reception might be a lot cooler. Then again, they seemingly had no qualms putting their safety into the hands of that huge tree monster, so who could say? And right now, nothing interested Lewa more than Maokai. Since his arrival in this world he'd been forced to accept the existence of purely organic people and animals, but plants were nothing new to him. Mata Nui featured plentiful plant life, and nowhere was the flora larger or lusher than Le-wahi, but in all his days Lewa had never seen a tree stand up or walk around, much less fight. If there was an upside to getting snatched away from his island home and leaving his people undefended, it had to be marvelous sights like this.

While the others spoke to and followed up with the townsfolk, Lewa remained at a distance in the vicinity of Maokai, fascinated and bent on further examining the twisted treant. If he and Gwen, as the blue-haired woman introduced herself, harbored some degree of familiarity with one another, he hoped that even if Maokai preferred to remain uncommunicative, the scissor-wielder could shed some light on who the strange pair were and what they happened to be doing here, other than coming to the aid of some helpless humans.

The first thing Anne Mayer did, once she and her allies had finally cleared the battlefield, was sit down on the grass and take a long moment to catch her breath. Even if she'd seemed relentless while the fight was still raging, the exertion from all that running around had added up over time... Fortunately, the enemy this time had been pretty weak. Even though she'd ended up a little tired, her body didn't feel like it would give out from a skirmish like this one.

While she rested, the Knight took stock of her surroundings, and with some relief found that her side had suffered no serious casualties. She thought she'd seen Mokou take a hit in all the chaos, but it clearly hadn't kept her down for long. Most importantly, the village had come through it all more or less unscathed, and the sight of those fragile houses still standing tall was enough to drive the tension from Anne's shoulders with a shuddering sigh.

A bloodless victory. The joy and satisfaction welling up inside her could be read clearly on her features, and for just a moment the tired veteran looked nearly ten years younger.

At a measured pace, she approached the girl with the scissors, arriving a short while after Rayne flew down. The witch had already started asking the important questions, and Anne waited for Gwen to answer before following up with her own. "Anne Mayer," she introduced herself, and extended a handshake to the blue-haired girl, who might have passed for a Knight if she'd shown up in more familiar circumstances. "Forgive me for prying, but... The two of you aren't from around here either, aren't you?"

Her serious look was back, cool and analytical. Even accounting for the fact that she didn't know much of this nation and its customs, it seemed all too convenient for a pair of such powerful fighters to have just been hanging around a village even smaller than Aventon. More likely they'd popped up the same way Youmu and Remilia had after the initial 'summoning,' only much further away from the supposed epicenter of the event.

Just how far have things spread...? If otherworlders were appearing out here, then it stood to reason that they'd manifested in even more distant regions as well, perhaps even as far as the capital.

@PKMNB0Y





By the time she had finished exterminating the last of the giant slimes, Fran had turned to see the battle had come to a close as the remaining remnants of the slime horde had either retreated or, more likely, been exterminated as well. Sighing in satisfaction, Fran leapt toward the village to meet with the others. She landed just in time for the girl with the giant scissors to introduce herself.

"Thanks for the help! Honestly, your arrival was quite the boon; I think we would've been fine, but I can't say the same about the villagers there. My name's Gwen; this is Maokai. He doesn't... Like people much, though, so it'd probably be better if you let him be."

"Fran.", the berserker simply replied as she gestured to herself. She figured, since she was not in a Grail War, telling people her name would be of no consequence, especially when this world was not her own.

After the merchant caravan was informed of the situation and began turning around yet again, Sanae flew back up into the air to get a look at the area once more. Putting aside the copious amount of damage they had done to the landscape, though, there didn't actually seem to be any trace of those strange enemies they had fought earlier. The young woman had noticed them disappearing into nothingness earlier, but seeing the landscape battered but with no blood to be seen...

Well, it wasn't as if that was all to unfamiliar—danmaku duels usually resulted in a fair bit of collateral damage, after all—but with what they had seen from this world already?

That was strange.

With most of her companions already moving to question the town's defenders, Sanae chose to instead follow in Anne's footsteps and check up on the hamlet and it's residents. By this point, the villagers—though still somewhat on guard—had finally begun to check out the situation with their own eyes and, with any luck, go back to their usual lives.

Floating gently to the ground, Sanae slowly made herself known to the people present and, in much the same way she had informed the group of people she had been traveling with, let them know that everything was indeed safe now. Those who were more curious left to go check the truth of her words, while others chose to stay behind.

At a glance, though, Sanae found no indication that anyone here was any bit out of the ordinary—at least, not among those she had seen exiting the building. The question of why those things seemed to be converging here still stuck out in the back of her head, and the young woman felt like this was a good a place as any to start investigating.

"Um... Do you mind if I take a look inside?" she asked no one in particular as she pointed towards the doorway. "I just want to make sure that everyone's okay; we have a healer with us, so if anyone's injured, we can treat them."

A few cautious glances were thrown her way, of course, but in the end the remaining defenders of the town reneged and let her in.

The extent to which this hamlet was sparsely populated only really dawned upon her as she took a look around inside the room she found herself in now, though. At best, this was probably some sort of communal hall, given how the place looked very much like a somewhat well-decorated home, and given how few people were left inside, it didn't seem like there was any reason to converge here of all places.

"Maybe it's just because there were people here, then...?" she muttered to herself as she glanced around, only for her gaze to fall upon what seemed to be a lone child with pale golden hair, curled up in the corner in a fetal position out of the way of everyone else.

There was a brief pause as Sanae stared at them, then at the other villagers present, then once more at the child before walking over to see if she was okay. As she approached, though, the shrine maiden took note of how delicate they seemed to be; with unblemished, pale skin and none of the usual signs of someone who had seen even a day's work under the sun, Sanae felt that she might as well have been looking at a porcelain doll.

"...Hello?" she asked, kneeling down nearby to try and reach eye level with them, "Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere?"

---

"Remilia, Rayne, Fran, and Anne? Such wonderful names!" Gwen replied with a smile on her face as she sheathed her scissors on her back before returning the Knight's handshake in kind. "You're quite right, Miss Anne; neither of us are from here. In fact, we were wandering this land for a few days' time before coming across this charming little town."

After she had replied, though, Maokai grunted briefly, shifting his gnarled body and causing the wood to creak and groan in response.

"...Those things were not unlike the Mist. A curse befouling the land itself... I suppose that even in this realm, mortals would seek to defile nature," he added, glancing briefly at Fran before turning towards where all of the creatures had come from.

"Oh? I suppose that those things were familiar, in a sense, but I certainly didn't feel any of the Black Mist on them. Probably for the best, though," the blue-haired girl quipped before glancing back towards the rest of the group. "Anyways, if you're looking for any injured, I had all the townsfolk gather in their town hall... Or some equivalent therein; it looked to be the largest building here, so it seemed like a reasonable enough place to hide away while we did what we could here."

@VitaVitaAR@EchoWolff@Izurich@Lugubrious@Drifting Pollen@Raineh Daze@DracoLunaris@Rezod92

Together with some of her fellow abductees, the Scarlet Devil conversed with the two peculiar guardians, only to find out that they - Gwen and Maokai - shared similar circumstances as the rest of the group. How peculiar and yet... unsurprising, snatching people from their home realms is Lavielle's forte after all. "Then we're all in the same boat indeed, sigh, that deity truly is quite troublesome..."

As for those ooze-like creatures, it seemed neither Gwen, nor Maokai (presumably) knew anything specific about them beyond Gwen's theories, comparing them to this 'Mist' concept, probably something originating from her homeland. Well, they certainly weren't going to find out by just idling about, the mystery could be put for latter as there were more pressing matters at hand. "The town hall, you say? Very well then~" Without further ado, off went the vampiress.

"Be not afraid, peasants, your healer is here!" Remilia enunciated as she practically barged into the hall, performing a grandiose entrance not too unexpected from the lilac-haired youkai. She took a cursory glance of the huddled folks, found no one to be in critical condition, but still shrugged and started spilling benevolent rejuvenating mist from her body anyway. "Bask in my mending mist, folks, it'll cure all of your maladies~"

Evidently, Remilia didn't see the golden-haired girl as anyone special, she had similar hair and complexion as Flandre, Marisa, and Alice? Neat.

Youmu inhaled deeply, flicking the black ichor from her blade as it began to dissipate and fade from existence. Whatever these creatures were, they weren't simply slime given form and some sort of murderous intelligence. She could feel them as spiritual presences, and the very air itself felt rotten when she was close to them.

There was no denying it, even if she wasn't as adept at understanding such things as the miko. They were some sort of evil spirit, or something similar, their oozing appearance a symptom of what they were rather then their core nature. The simple fact they vanished after death rather then leaving a body made that plenty clear.

The doll girl and the big... tree... man seemed to think they were curses, and while Youmu wasn't exactly familiar with the specifics of such a thing she couldn't exactly disagree. They felt corrupted and rotten at their very core, after all.

The petite half-phantom took a deep breath.

"Kochiya-san is a miko, so she might be able to do something about them," she commented, "I can cut them, but it'd probably be better to identify the source. If we can do that, then cutting the source should put an end to them, right?"

It made enough sense to her, at least.

Noting that the green-haired miko had proceeded into one of the buildings, Youmu sheathed her blades and followed her inside. If anyone were still here, maybe they'd be able to help.

There was a girl. A single, lone girl in the entire village. Had everyone else been killed? It was a terrible thing to think about, one that made the half-phantom's body tense and her teeth clench.

But still, if nothing else, one person was still here, right?

...

Something seemed a little strange, though. Something about this girl seemed insubstantial, somehow. Youmu couldn't really put her finger on it, but at once she seemed strangely familiar and yet entirely unfamiliar.

The way her body was curled, it was clear how she must have felt.

And yet, at Kochiya-san's words, she stirred.

"... It's all rot," she murmured, "It rotted the air and it rotted the trees and it rotted... it rotted everyone."

Her voice was barely a whisper. Her appearance was doll-like, fragile, as if a strong breeze could carry her away. Her limbs with thin, her entire body slender, clad in nothing but a white patterned dress.

When she raised her head, her soft features were utterly devoid of expression. Her eyes, a strange shade of gold and purple that resembled the sky at sunset, were completely lifeless.

"... You're not rotten," she murmured, again, "But everyone it touched rotted just like it...."

Happy to leave conversing with these people of interest to his fellows, Lewa stood by and absorbed what they had to say. Anne had already given the Spirit of Air the impression of wittiness, but when her intuition about Gwen and Maokai turned out to be correct, the toa could help but be impressed. Her arboreal companion chimed in with some insights about the strange enemies that everyone faced, and since Lewa didn't expect him to be able to talk at all, he found the creaky timbre of the treant's voice particularly intriguing. While he didn't understand Maokai's reference to something called the Mist, Lewa did feel alarmed when his new acquaintance posited the existence of mortals inclined to harm the natural world.

Such a concept was utterly foreign to him; on Mata Nui, there was nothing that could be called civilization, just isolated pockets of tribal Matoran eking out an existence on their island home. While they didn't always live in total harmony with nature, its rules and patterns governed everything, an inescapable fact of island life. Really, Lewa didn't really know what going 'defiling nature' could even mean. At most he could conceive of harmful ramifications of say, Ta-matoran living in Le-wahi, where they might be inclined to fell trees to feed their forges. Or Ko-matoran living in Ta-wahi, where the cold-weather Matoran might seek to tame the lava flows' uncomfortable heat. But even a whole tribe working as one still probably couldn't inflict lasting damage on the ecosytem. Mata Nui was a wonderful land, but its natural forces were powerful. Here, though, Lewa had no idea. Could people really bend their environments to their will? Lewa looked around and the rolling fields, scarcely able to imagine it. 'Defile' was a scary word to him.

Some of his comrades had separated from the rest of the group, heading into one or another of the town's humble buildings. Hopefully Remilia would be able to help any locals who suffered injury during the attack, but Lewa didn't know what the others meant to do. If they'd resolved the crisis here, it made sense that everyone would continue on their way. Naturally the thought of sticking around to make Maokai's acquaintance occurred to him, but trees had nothing if not time, and while Lewa's homeland was under siege from the Bohrok his own time was precious indeed. "I don't imagine that the caravan would stay-wait here," he ventured after a few moments. "Perhaps we should say our goodbyes."

Nope, these things weren't able to kill her either. Not properly, at least. Sure, taking whatever the blobs were spewing out to the face had been kind of... well, it was fatal. It had also been a particularly odd feeling, like it was trying to do… something more than killing her. But either it wasn't applicable on mostly-ordinary humans, or it was yet another thing that was unable to overcome the Hourai Elixir.

It had left her standing around for a few minutes to test after dying, though. Also to catch her breath and wait for her head to stop ringing… head injuries really were the worst thing to die to, even when they didn't have a lasting impact.

At least she was paying enough attention to catch what the odd green guy was saying. "If the caravan goes on alone, there might be more things like this on the road."

"I wouldn't recommend letting them hit you."

@PKMNB0Y

"...Those things were not unlike the Mist. A curse befouling the land itself... I suppose that even in this realm, mortals would seek to defile nature,"

"....Ah.", Fran replied to Maokai's words, in a surprisingly understanding tone. Whether it was in her world or another, magus or otherwise, it didn't matter. There will be those be those who will tamper with forces they do not understand. More often than not, to the detriment of either the world around them...or its denizens.

For Maokai, it led to the desecration and corruption of his home, apparently.

For Fran...it resulted in a doomed existence filled with heartache and sorrow.

The berserker tilted her head down and sighed, feeling dejected.

Yeah...she and the sentient tree definitely have something in common.

"I see..." Anne didn't look particularly happy about her theory being proven correct. Sure, the presence of two more offworlders had been of great help here, but how long would it be until they encountered one that wasn't so friendly? She still remembered how Youmu and Alucard had nearly come to blows, and Maokai didn't seem particularly fond of humans in general. Different values, different priorities... It was all too easy for people to come into conflict, even if their goals initially aligned.

And the warning we got through Millie. Cracks between worlds, a great danger. Was the process that had brought them here even under control any longer?

She had her suspicions about those 'curses' they'd been fighting, but there was no way to confirm anything as of yet. Instead, she decided to repay Gwen with a little information of her own. "My companions and I are the same as you two: all of us were brought here from different planets or dimensions. We're still not sure as to why or how, though we think an entity named Lavielle might be behind it." She glanced off towards the road, where the caravan was slowly coming back into view. "We're heading to the capital right now to try and find out more. Others chose to stay behind, or strike out on their own... But you could always come with us if you're looking for answers."

“You can add my world to that pile where that happens" Rayne replied regretfully to Maokai’s comment about mortals defiling nature, before clarifying that "There wasn’t any left above ground, and I'd only just stopped what little was left below ground going the same way when I was ripped away from it” which probably didn't help Lewa’s fears about that possibility, before adding “so if I have any say in it, this one won’t be going the way mine did”

That said, there were still a lot of questions about this one, such as why there were even more other-worlders being dropped in here now, and possibly even otherworldly threats? If the blobs were unfamiliar was any suggestion that the latter was happening anyway, and what an unpleasant suggestion it was.

“Are there people able to do what the goddess did, and using it for evil, maybe?” she wondered, but that train of thought got interrupted when the caravan got brought up.

“Oh right! Ok hang on one moment I’ll go fill them in and figure out where we’ll meet back up” she offered, before dashing off to do just that.

The Phantom Thief had strolled the perimeter of his flank, searching for any stragglers as he circled back to the heart of the hamlet. If so many of these little villages keep getting attacked like this, they might have to start charging for protective services...

Strolling through the town streets toward where some of the others were conversing, sheathing his small blade and stretching out his back a bit, Arsene's spectral form dissipated as his mask returned to his face. If there were other kidnapped otherworlders, then this would be a good source of information... providing if they were here longer than the caravan group was. Otherwise, it would just be putting another tab in the list of worlds they would never get to see.

Having missed introductions, again, he had walked into a conversation of which he vaguely knew the subject, at first glance at least, before eventually catching on...

Am I really this uncoordinated without my phone? I'm late to everything now... His mind wandered as he passively stood on the sidelines, listening in on the conversation between the treant, the pale woman, and a good two-thirds of his familiar group participating. He said nothing, having nothing to contribute as of right now.

The girl's words left Sanae feeling quite uncertain about the whole affair. It was quite apparent that the doll-like child in front of her was lost in her own thoughts, but given the state of the town the shrine maiden could only presume that she was referring to something else.

With that assumption in hand, though, the best thing that Sanae felt she could do for the moment was leave her be and maybe ask some of the other townsfolk about her. Something about the whole situation didn't sit right with her, and if there was any chance that it had something to do with that ominous premonition that Millie had, then surely it had to be worth looking into.

Taking a step back from the girl for a moment, Sanae began to do what only seemed reasonable at the moment: accosting any villagers still lingering nearby and questioning them about both the girl and the threat they had so succinctly decimated.

"Oh, that girl? She wandered in here looking like a worn rag a few days ago. I'm not sure where she came from, but one of the old men here—bless his soul—let her stay a while. She hasn't done much since, but even I'm starting to get a bit worried about her."

"Hm? Oh, those strange things? I haven't a clue where they came from, but I'm quite thankful to you and those other strangers for helping fend them off. Never though I'd see a talking tree in my lifetime, much less one coming to our aid."

"That girl is weird! All she does is stay curled up like that. We invited her to play a few times, but it's like she doesn't even hear us!"

The various quips and remarks the villagers had to provide her were unfortunately not particularly enlightening, but Sanae couldn't help but feel as if there was some faint throughline between...

Well, everything here, really.

If anything, though, it would probably be worth running by the others and get their thoughts on the matter. Call it intuition or pity or whatever else, but if there was any information to be gained, it would be from the near-catatonic girl who had fled here with naught but the clothes on her back.

It was at that point, though, that Remilia promptly stole the attention of almost everyone present by... Well, announcing her presence. But while the elderly and infirm took solace in the vampire's ministrations, the girl seemed to be unaffected by it in the slightest.

"Ah, Miss Scarlet!" Sanae called out, waving her over to the vampire before walking over. "I suppose I may as well start this discussion with you since you're here and all, but..."

At this point, Sanae relayed to her what she (and Youmu, given how the half-ghost gardener had been present for her inquiries) had heard from those present—the words of the odd girl included.

"Do you think there might be anything worth looking into here? She doesn't look any better now despite your healing, so I'd guess she's got some sort of trauma... But I'm not sure if leaving her with the townsfolk is the best idea, either."

Outside, though, Gwen seemed to be lost in thought for but a moment as Anne provided what information she had on top of her proposal to join the group. There was a brief pause as the blue-haired girl looked up at the sky with a pensive glance, then towards Maokai, before finally returning Anne's gaze with her own.

"While I would love to see this capital you speak of, I'm afraid that Maokai might be a bit too... Slow for your entourage—physically, of course. He'd also stick out like a sore thumb among people, and he isn't quite fond of them to begin with, so I think it'd be best if we continued on our separate ways. Oh, but if you do happen to find anything out in the future, please do try and let us know... Somehow, I suppose! If we're all travelers from other worlds, then there must surely be a way for us to communicate. If not, then all we need to do is meet again, no?"

With all that said and done, though, the caravan slowly began to pull in towards the hamlet. Rayne, in her haste, was the first to inform those in charge of what had transpired. Given their response—which included thanks that their group wouldn't be forced to take a detour and that no lives had been lost—it didn't seem impossible to convince them to stay a while longer if need be. The sooner they reached their destination, the better, of course, but there were still people here who could very well want to purchase some seldom-available merchandise or otherwise take their minds off of the events that had just transpired.

@VitaVitaAR@EchoWolff@Izurich@Lugubrious@Drifting Pollen@Raineh Daze@DracoLunaris@Rezod92

Seeing that no one needed urgent treatments, Remilia simply delegated her mist to generally apply its healing properties to anyone coming in contact with it. Furthermore, she didn't manage to listen anything the sullen blonde girl muttered, but even if she did, she wouldn't see her as anyone peculiar. Truly, after spending the last five centuries with a certain younger sister, the Scarlet Devil's sense of "creepy blonde pale young girl" had been utterly desensitized.

Thus, it took Sanae's explicitly pointing her out for Remilia to pay "Wingless Flandre" any particular attention, "Oh, it'd appear she's referring to the source behind those shadow oozes." The petite youkai surmised, "If only Satori's pet nekomata is here, she's an expert on all things rotten-... ah, nevermind, that Necromantic Hermit might be the better candidate." She mused, "Unfortunately, as said before, wounds of the psyche are beyond me.

"Bringing her with us would be unwise, but it seems that both you and Youmu were able to see something in this girl that I couldn't, so if you decide to invite her to travel along with us, I won't stop you." Remilia then rubbed her chin slowly, pondering if there was anything else she could suggest, "You can also let me feed on her and see if I can discern anything unusual from her blood." The vampiress quipped with all the nonchalance of musing an ordinary plan of action.

Once she’d caught up with the caravan, things had gone relatively smoothly, and in short order, the witch knight had set them on a path to link up again. With that sorted, and having missed everything to do with the catatonic girl thanks to her message running, she decided that the best course of action now would be to have a fly up high into the sky to check the lay of the land. The last thing they wanted to do was cross the next hill, and find yet another giant blobby army over it after all.

Plus, who knew, maybe she could get some kind of clue as to wherever this one had come from in the first place, be it simply whatever was in the direction they’d come from, if not some kind of actually identifiable origin.

Although Lewa sympathized with the plight of the villagers, attacked out of the blue and saved only by the chance intervention of benevolent strangers, he had his own villagers to worry about and couldn't linger here any longer. Instead he seemed rather antsy to continue on with the caravan as quickly as reasonably possible. His biggest takeaway from this whole incident was the fact that his own group didn't seem to be the only people brought here from other worlds, turning what he thought to be an isolated and unprecedented event into just one occurrence of a much larger and farther-reaching trend. Naturally this bothered him, since if his abduction wasn't a conscious and deliberate act of an individual that could be reversed and just part of an established trend, getting home might be a whole lot harder. On the other hand, it did imply that the little girl Millie whose desperate prayer had catalyzed his arrival here was probably not a person of pivotal importance to his quest, which was good since by now the otherworlders had left her far behind. The source of the phenomenon was still out there somewhere; he and the others just needed to find it. Livened up by the excitement, the re-energized Toa of Air prepared to get a move on.

"...That might be easier said than done." In Anne's era it would have been a trivial task to track down an odd couple like Gwen and her walking tree friend, but without her usual resources to call on she'd have to rely on word-of-mouth reports. Communication was an option too, but the Knight wasn't sure how she felt about relying on carrier pigeons or hand-delivered letters for any kind of important information exchange.

Maybe there'd be a way to find them using magic? She remembered how the Herald necklace had seemed to gravitate towards Millie—perhaps a similar effect could be reproduced, once she had a better grasp of how the artifact worked. For now, she could only smile politely and wish Gwen luck on her travels, whether or not their paths happened to cross in the future. "If you run into any more like us, try and spread the word. For the lost and the stranded, even a few scraps of useful information could turn out to be a lifeline."

With her parting request passed on, Anne trudged the rest of the way up into the hamlet proper. She had no intentions of sticking around for long, but while the caravan was still on its way she had time for a quick survey, and a few questions.

Once she'd satisfied herself that the town was in good shape, and wouldn't need much further aid, the tired Knight poked her nose into some of the locals' conversations for just long enough to confirm what she needed. First off, the oozing creatures hadn't been an expected or common occurrence in the region—which lined up with everything else she knew. Secondly, she'd find out the name of this quaint little village and file it away for later use, perhaps once they reported the incident to the monarch or their officials in the capital. She probably could have found out more if she'd really put the effort in, but Anne had worked hard enough as it was today. It'd be easier to gather intelligence in the capital anyway, assuming they could get there before a massive horde of invaders overran that place as well… That did seem to be a running theme with the stops on their journey thus far.

She was all ready to leave, all ready to move on and pursue her main objective, when the hamlet hit her with one last surprise. Just a girl—a little slip of a thing, childlike and morose, not much different from any of the countless war orphans Anne had known in the past. Who knew where the Gensokyo gang had found her, or why they'd decided to bring her along for now? In that moment it didn't matter: the mere sight of the child drove a sharp pang of agony deep into the Knight's chest, and left her completely frozen in her tracks.

No. It couldn't be—

That memory of me will torment you forever.

Her eyes had gone unfocused, her breath caught in her throat. That voice, a whisper in her ear, a crushing hand wrapped around her heart.

Of course it hurts. It's a punishment, after all.

Did you run to a faraway place like this, because you thought you could escape from me?

She lurched forward, a thing possessed, wholly unlike the worn yet composed woman she'd been just a moment before. One step, two, her false left arm outstretched towards the golden-haired child and her achingly familiar gaze—

—No, not familiar.

Anne blinked, suddenly seeming to come to her senses. It took her a moment to steady her breath, to straighten herself, to belatedly realize that she might have frightened the girl just now. Her lips parted, and she mumbled out an awkward apology, only half-conscious of what she was saying.

"I'm sorry. I'm..." A few seconds late, the full context of the situation returned to her. Remilia, Youmu, and Sanae, all accompanying this strange child they'd found. "I got caught by surprise. Who is this, exactly?"

The same Anne they knew, back on the ball and badgering them with questions. That brief elation from earlier, however, the fulfillment that had appeared in her eyes after they'd protected the town together, was entirely gone. If anything the woman looked more tired than ever now.

With Remilia's insight in hand, Sanae took a moment to consider what Remilia had said. Sure, from a pragmatic point of view the mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion had a point—while their group was self-sufficient to a fault (at least in terms of combat power at the bare minimum), bringing along someone unable to care for themselves would only increase their burden as they traveled towards Nieve. The situation would only grow more concerning once they actually reached the place, seeing as how all of them had things to research (and in a completely foreign town, no less!).

...But even so, something seemed to be nagging at the back of the young woman's mind to at least check her out. She wasn't exact a bleeding hard, but it was hard not to trust her intuition when it had done so much for her in the past already.

Maybe letting Remilia check up on her wasn't such a bad idea. Probably not now—doubly so not in here, where people might not be inclined to have such a thing happen—but worth examining all the same.

"Erm... How much information can you get out of blood alone? I'd guess blood type's the bare minimum, and whether or not they're dehydrated or something...?" Sanae asked right as Anne entered the building and bore witness to the same girl they had been discussing.

Despite her reaction or the conversation panning out in front of her, though, the girl seemed to remain almost completely catatonic. For such a blasé dialogue about what to do with her, her eerie lack of response only served to further push Sanae towards at least getting her checked out.

"No problem; this girl, uh... She apparently arrived to this town with nothing but the clothes on her back and has been cooped up here like this ever since," the young woman replied, filling Anne in on what information she had gathered up until then. "She said some stuff earlier that Remilia presumed to be connected to the monsters that had arrived here—something about rot?—but we can't exactly ask her when she's like this. I was just thinking that if nobody else has any leads, then this girl would be the next best thing—and to that end, figuring out what happened and to get her back to normal might be worth looking into."

While the conversation persisted for a bit longer, ultimately a decision was made to bring the girl along for treatment (and a bit of an examination from Remilia once they were on the road). With the caravan choosing to move past the hamlet—Sila, or so it was called—it only made sense to return to traveling once any last farewells were made and the entourage passed through.

For what little it was worth, the area seemed to be clear of whatever those strange monsters were, and that safety persisted over the next few days as the caravan continued on towards it's destination. Unfortunately, the odd girl's condition saw no marked improvement over the course of their travels, though a "sanctioned" feeding on Remilia's part would reveal that the girl was most certainly not of human origin. What exactly she was, though, would require either someone more versed in the matters of the magical or a response from the girl herself.

On the fourth day after leaving Sila, though, the caravan—and those traveling with it—would finally see what the capital waiting for them was. Even from this far distance, the grand walls lining the city could be seen, stretching out and around on all sides to protect it from any danger, and past them buildings that seemed to reach twice as high. In the center of it all, a large castle could be seen, spires poking out in the distance as they reached out towards the skies above.

It was, even from this distance, undeniably a castle town lifted straight from a storybook.

Thankfully, the guards requisitioning the group at the gate were acquainted with the merchants leading the caravan, and simply by proxy of association it seemed that the group was free to follow them in... For the moment, at least. Past the walls lay white-stone houses inlaid with wood that almost seemed to make them stand out all the more in the midday sun...

And with them, an invitation for the otherworlders to explore as they wished. They were no longer bound by their informal contract now that they had arrived, after all, which meant that they could begin any examinations of the city in earnest.

@VitaVitaAR@EchoWolff@Izurich@Lugubrious@Drifting Pollen@Raineh Daze@DracoLunaris@Rezod92

Hmmm... how vexing, it seemed everyone here somehow discerned that this peasant girl was peculiar in one way or another, even someone who lacked mastery over the arcane like Anne. In fact, Anne had the most pronounced reactions of them all. Was there really something she missed? The youkai wondered. Perhaps everything would be revealed once she got around to divining the girl's blood, whenever it'd be.

"Oh, various. Type, health conditions, any mundane or arcane impurities, those things." Remilia shrugged. It was no different than a blood test in Eirin's clinic really, maybe even better.

The possibility of the blonde being an Otherworlder like them was there, but she just didn't stand out enough for Remilia, unlike Gwen and Maokai. Well, like she mentioned, if they wanted to bring her along, she wouldn't stop them.

For her part, Remilia made sure that each villager in the hall had the treatments they needed before departing once more with the caravan.



During the several days since they departed from the hillside hamlet, the Scarlet Devil had sampled the gloomy girl's blood, then found out that she wasn't human, or at least, not 'human' in the Gensokyoan sense, also that she wasn't sick, so whatever's ailing her was probably mental as they had suspected, and... well, that was pretty much it. Without the girl's cooperation, it was quite difficult to gather more information about her.

Though speaking of gathering information, the promised land was within the horizon at last. Finally, civilization, Remilia couldn't wait to indulge in a proper warm bath, eat proper food, and enjoy services as befitting her noble station. No offense to those good villagers, but the vampiress didn't exactly belong with the unwashed masses.

With palpable joy on her pale visage, Remilia didn't even register the slight discomfort of being blanketed under the clear midday sun. Once the caravan had passed the gates, the Scarlet Devil would immediately beeline toward the castle, expecting Anne and whoever else interested in having an audience with the reigning monarch to follow her.

"And oh, Sanae, as soon as you're able, do inform Lady Suwako that we can finally meet with the sovereign of this land. If there's a place to organize a nationwide effort to settle these issues once for all, it's here." Remilia paused just long enough to tell Sanae that before continuing on her way.