I hope I've provided you all with a suitable location to meet up and get to know each other!
The climb up Wua-Sho has been a miserable one, of blood and sweat and ever thinner air. Animal attacks, starvation, freezing, exhaustion, all these dangers pale to the hardest obstacle you've yet faced in your journey; that of simple, mind numbing attrition. The mountain doing all it can to turn you around. The only kind thing Wua-Sho has provided is the abundance of fleshy pink fruits that grow along its ridges, and even those are beginning to taste foul.
How long has it been? The last time you were able to see the lights of Harutoma city was something like a week ago, that was before the fog set in. Maybe two weeks. Two weeks of battling this mountain.
But you've nearly beaten it.
Ahead is a clearing of grey stones and green grass. Paper lanterns hang from ornamental poles between the stones (how they are still lit is not apparent), and just ahead of that clearing is a wrought iron gate, open but not inviting. Stairs are beyond that -- the final six thousand stairs, it is said, that lead to the City of Jade itself. One last push is all it will take.
Yasuri found the small, somewhat more open area to be a satisfying point to halt before finally entering the city. His own food had ran out around some time ago and he'd been forced to rely entirely on those odd pink fruits for food, but the taste of them had gotten old quick. Well, those and whatever animal was unlucky enough to choose him for prey, namely one mountain lion had provided him with a refreshing change of taste. But that had happened early in the trip and the meat had run out quick. Yasuri sat on a rock and looked up the mountain. Master Kenta had left for this same place two years ago. Yasuri had waited at the bottom, occasionally leaving for food, keeping up his training. His master had given him no details as to how long the trip would take, why he'd taken it. Whatever he was doing up here, it had surely taken too long. Besides, Yasuri had always been curious about the City Of Jade. Curiosity alone however, had never been a good enough reason to venture up the abrasive mountainside to explore a city of death. Six thousand more stairs were all that lay between him and the city. Nothing compared to how far he'd gone already and how long he'd waited.
We see Meng Wu finally reaching the clearing just before the last 6000 steps. He takes in the scenery and remembers back to the time when his master decided to make the pilgrimage to Mount Wua Sho and the reaction from the sect. After two years passed and his master didn't return, the sect arranged for a five-man team to go search for him.
Unfortunately, Meng Wu was the only one to have survived out of the five people. Once on the clearing, he sees a man, but decides not to disturb him. He finds a boulder to sit on and calms himself down with meditation. After that, he speaks to the man, asking him if he is climbing the mountain or waiting for someone else to come down.
Breathe in... One more step...
Breathe out... One more step...
Meng Wu had fallen into some strange trance since the day he started climbing the stairs up Mount Wua Sho, coming out of it only to eat and drink enough to allow him to continue, but not enough to fully satisfy his stomach. It is a known and true fact, in the end, that satiety dulls the senses; Meng Wu would not be so careless as to give himself unneeded trouble when climbing the mountain.
When he finally reached the end of the stairs, Meng Wu stood there motionless for a couple of minutes. The blank look in his eyes slowly returned to normal, a sign that he was coming out of trance once again.
"...Huh?" Meng Wu said absentmindedly. As he looked at the scenery surrounding him, his eyes slowly widened, only now realizing that he had reached a stop. In front of him was a clearing of gray stone tiles. Rocks of various sizes were scattered around the area, with ornamental poles standing tall between them and which held paper lanterns, their flames flickering and unsteady. All that, along with a tall, open gate that stood a couple hundred feet opposite of Meng Wu, gave the whole clearing's atmosphere a special feeling of ancientness that only ruins of the Gods had.
Meng Wu's master, Siu Ren, had briefly talked about the Gods to his disciple, but Meng Wu's mind could not comprehend the scale of power a being would have in order to be called a God. What he had understood, however, was that some unknown time, long ago, the Gods simply disappeared from the face of Waidi. Their City of Jade, full of splendor and magnificence, had been abandoned, left behind to be ravaged by the passage of time and the wrath of the elements.
The knowledge that such a city of legends existed, however, would cause Meng Wu to sometimes daydream about all the wondrous opportunities and treasures that were sure to be hidden away there. However, his master made sure that any thoughts not related to practice and training would be taken care of. Thus, you can understand how surprised Meng Wu was when his master told him out of blue one day, that he was making the pilgrimage to the top of Mount Wua Sho. Even more surprised where the rest of the disciple body of Sect Cloudspire. A Pavillion Master was leaving for an extended period of time, with no guarantee of coming back soon! The news spread like wildfire amongst the Inner and Outer sect disciples.
When the time had finally come for Siu Ren to leave, the whole Sect gathered to bid him goodbye and a safe return. Even the Sect Master, a man so old that could be called ancient himself, came out of secluded cultivation and silently watched as Siu Ren left.
At the start, everyone was optimistic about Siu Ren's journey, thinking that he would be back in two months - at most four if he encountered rough terrain or weather. When one year passed since his departure, everyone started worrying that something must have gone wrong, but their trust in Siu Ren's prowess kept them from sending people to search for him.
Only when the second year came to pass did the Sect realize that the gravity of the situation was out of the scope of their imagination. The Sect Elders convened and a search party of five people was created, of which one was Meng Wu himself. After careful preparation, they left for Mount Wua Sho.
It took the party roughly a month to reach the base of the mountain. Taking in the sheer size of Mount Wua Sho, the five people decided to split up, with each person taking a different path to the top. After splitting up the supplies, the five people took off, each picking a path of their own.
They quickly came to know, however, that the mountain was not to be underestimated. One died of a landslide, another died of starvation because he refused to eat the pink fruit that grew on the mountain's ridges, another was robbed and killed by bandits, and another was mauled to death by a huge bear while he was resting. Unknowingly to him, Meng Wu, by some kind of twisted luck, strength, will of heart to see his master once more, or a combination of those things had been the only one that survived long enough to reach the clearing.
And now he was standing there, gazing that the area in front of him silently. His gaze then fell over a man sitting on top of a boulder, a couple of feet away from the wrought iron door. The man was definitely not a person of Meng Wu's sect, that much was certain from his attire.
Meng Wu stared at the back of the man for a couple of seconds before walking over and sitting cross-legged on a boulder of his own. Without talking, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, revolving his cultivation base and feeling a wisp of spiritual essence flowing through his body's meridians. He immediately felt his fatigue lessening, and the last remnants of fog disappeared from his mind.
After a couple of moments, he opened his eyes once more and looked at the man again. He coughed slightly, to get the man's attention, and talked out loud.
"Hello there. If you don't mind me asking, are you climbing up the mountain? Or waiting for someone else here?"
After Lei Keung had returned to the place he'd last seen his master, Harutoma city, he decided to ask aroud about the whereabouts of Master Fan Gang. With no letter or parting words to speak of, the best he could piece together was that his master had left for the summit of Mount Wua-Sho, to the fabled City of Jade. A place most people had never seen and returned from, to a point many weren't sure it even existed in the first place. Though few, like Lei's master spoke of it with certainty and kept the legends of its existence alive.
Master Fan Gang had spoken of the place many times with Lei, and had even said he would one day return to the City of Jade, but Lei never believed his master would actually go through with it. After so long of not hearing back from his master, and now learning where he had headed, Lei decided it was time to pursue him and if nothing else, to reclaim his master's remains from the perilous mountain. After all, no one had heard from him in a couple years now.
It was a quiet night with inclement weather the night Lei Keung reached the base of Wua-Sho mountain over two weeks ago. Lei had decided it best to take some time to meditate at the base of the mountain in the rain to clear and focus his mind for the strenuous trip ahead of him. He rested beneath a thin slab of stone overhang that barely covered him, a calm in the middle of the storm. It was a peaceful place where you could hear the rain pattering against the thin stone above you, but could still feel the water dripping all around you. The sight was like a thin mist being cast over the surrounding surfaces by each droplet. The smell was that of the pure earth around.
The boisterous thunder would occasionally cause small scale landslides at the base of the mountain, mid-way up the mountain's surface however was another story, the landslides were at least one-hundred fold the size and constantly changing the terrain of the mountain. You could hear and feel the earth rumble from all directions when the stones gave way higher up.
Lei would use those images, the sensory intake as an anchor of sorts as he scaled the mountain later on, it was all in mental preparation. Though no amount of training could prepare him for this journey, no matter what kind of physical or mental endurance he had built up over the years under his master's teachings. Still, day after day, week after week, he would push on as the journey became more and more perilous each hour.
The beginning of the journey wasn't all that challenging, it was just some steep hiking here and there, some run-ins with bandits, smaller beasts, and scavengers, which could all be easily killed for food and supplies to save for the rest of the trip. No, the problem didn't lie in any one battle alone, it was what it all added up to; each encounter took a little more out of you, each missed opportunity for food or water added to your fatigue, each miscalculated step led to a small fall or trip-up.
Lei had trained in the mountains before, as per his master's strict training regiment, but one thing you could never seem to train past was the thinning of the air as you ascended. No matter how you tried to control your breathing to get more oxygen into your body and keep your muscles from weakening, nothing seemed to work indefinitely. It was all-too easy to over-exert yourself the higher you climb, even the simplest task becomes seemingly impossible. Yet you were trained to maintain mental as well as physical strength, no matter what the circumstances in front of you.
Between the meat gathered and the fleshy fruit, it was important for Lei to sustain some sort of balance between the two, but over the course of weeks and how early on he had encountered creatures to kill, the meat had gone bad with no way to preserve it. Lei wondered if his master had somehow managed to survive at the top of this mountain, how he could do it for so long. Surely, there must be something else? Maybe he'll find out once he reaches the City of Jade.
In the first stretch of grass he had seen in a while, Lei sees an opening as he's nearly at his limits and needs to rest, thinking this as good a place as any. As he gets closer, the fog sort of clears enough to show some paper lanterns hanging from pillars. 'How peculiar.' He thinks to himself before he hears voices clearing through the fog and sees the shadows of two other people sitting on the rocks. Lei stands and waves from a distance but decides not to interrupt their conversation and lays in the grass with a sigh of relief.
Yasuri glanced at the the other man as he ascended in surprise. A pilgrim to visit the temple, somewhat like himself? Hm, the ornate sword adorning his person was of some interest and the clothes were vaguely familiar. The man found his own rock to sit on for a moment before instigating conversation. "A little bit of both. I'm waiting for someone as I climb up." The sentence did misportray the events slightly, but that was alright. Yasuri was confident his master was still alive. Why he hadn't come down was a wise question, but that was why he'd come here after all. "As for yourself? I imagine no one comes this far without at least taking a look around the infamous City Of Gods." Yasuri said to continue on the conversation. Remarkably as he did so yet another person came up the mountain.
Yasuri had been thinking that climbing this mountain was a rare event, yet here were two other people that had climbed it at the same time no less. A good warning. Being able to climb the mountain didn't make you special, rather, that was the bar for entry. Yasuri looked at the foreboding stairs again. It had been a long time since anyone had come down from this mountain. Anything could be up there waiting for him. Perhaps these two wouldn't mind coming with him. As he'd said earlier, it was doubtful they'd come this far without intending to enter the City, and every pair of eyes and set of hands make things safer. Something to bring up as the conversation progressed, after all, he was in no hurry. Yasuri had already waited a long time, he didn't mind waiting a bit more.
Meng wu reacts to the man's replies, and also answers the man's questions to him. He notices that something has captured the man's attention, and turns around to see another person reaching the clearing.
This new arrival prompts Meng Wu to remember his compations, and prays for their good fortune and health while climbing up the mountain. He then thinks of what's to come after they leave the clearing, and hopes that the other two would consider the possibility of teaming up to climb the rest of the mountain together.
Last but not least, he introduces himself to the man he was talking to.
"A little bit of both. I'm waiting for someone as I climb up."
The man's answer confused Meng Wu. "A little bit of both? Who is this person that he so casually mentions climbing this mountain..."
Meng Wu sighed and rubbed his temples. He hadn't exactly 'enjoyed' climbing up the mountain and reaching as far as he did. He had to evade all sorts of threats while constantly rationing his food in order to not completely starve to death, and although nutritious as they may seem, Meng Wu felt like he was willingly torturing himself whenever he bit into one of those pink fruits, making the whole eating experience one that he would rather not want to go through ever again in his life.
Plus, usually when someone is waiting for someone else, they actually... wait. Meng Wu couldn't really understand why this person climbed the mountain 'while waiting' for someone to come. "Well, unless he is searching for someone, like I do..."
"Oh yes, I am actually searching for someone who had previously walked up this mountain. In a sense, you can say that the City of Gods is my destination." Meng Wu smiled as he replied to the man's question.
However, as he finished speaking, Meng Wu noticed that the man's attention had been drawn to something behind him, and so Meng Wu turned around and noticed the new arrival.
"Hmm, more people, and it seems he's not one of my companions..."
His mind drifted back to the other four people forming the sect's search party, and could only mutter a silent prayer for their well-being. He had found out the hard way about the dangers hiding behind the rocks and bushes of Mount Wua Sho, and thus, could imagine that his friends had gone through, and maybe still going through, much the same difficulties as he did before reaching this relatively safe clearing.
Yes, 'relatively' safe. Although Meng Wu appreciated the chance to catch up his breath, as well as the chance to converse with someone else for the first time in two weeks, he knew that staying in one place for a long period of time was bound to spell disaster for them. As he looked at the flight of stone stairs behind the gate, paving the road to the top of the mountain, Meng Wu felt unease creeping up his spine.
Looking back at the two who had also made it up to here, Meng Wu wondered if they shared the same thoughts with him. Going by how dangerous the first part of the mountain was, he couldn't imagine what dangers may lay further up, and he dreaded the thought of treading those steps alone.
Of course, his loyalty to his master trumped all feelings of fear and uncertainty he may have had. If it meant finding his master, Meng Wu would not think twice about climbing the rest of the stairs alone. Nevertheless, he would be a fool to not grab the chance to lower the danger level, by teaming up with other people to climb the mountain together.
Meng Wu jumped off the boulder and walked towards the scruffy man. "But we haven't introduced ourselves, have we? My name's Meng Wu."
He clasped his hands together, greeting the man the way only martial artists do. In his mind, a person capable of climbing up to here certainly had to have some martial background. A mere commoner is simply not capable of surviving the harsh conditions of Mount Wua Sho.
-------- This is the introductory post for Akio and Ose Haru --------
Unease has followed you like a shadow ever since you reached the fabled City. The ground here is polished to such a degree that you can see your own reflection on its glassy surface; a reflection that has been your only companion through these wide, foggy streets. Towers -- uniform, seemingly endless -- carved of solid jade loom above you, their tops lost to the fog. For all you know the city could be miles long, but you have not walked far from the stairs that led here from the mountain.
The City has been completely silent, and you have not even felt the wind on your back since you took your first steps into its streets, it seems almost as though the entire place has been frozen in time for thousands of years.
You had seen no familiar architecture, just these featureless jade towers -- until now. Before you is a traditional wooden temple wall, the kind built anywhere in Waidi to keep bandits at bay, but here it looks as out of place and alien as you must. There is no gate here, but surely there must be one further along.
What was that? A footstep?
You turn your head and in the distance, further down beside the wall, you can just barely make out the silhouette of (hopefully) another human being.
Traveling alone through this unearthly shell of a city seemed to do things to one's mind. The entire place felt strange, almost sinister, and from the moment Akio had set foot in the place, he had felt as if he was being followed. He kept turning his head, half expecting to see some sort of a demon standing behind him, holding the corpse of Noble, the man that had disappeared into this nightmarish place about two years before. Obviously, Akio never saw such a thing, but this time, there was no mistaking it. Through the mist and gloom, a figure stood. He could barely even see the thing, but it was definitely real, not some illusion created by the uncanny surroundings. At first, Akio thought about running, about hiding somewhere and hoping the figure would pass by. There was a structure just in front of Akio -well, now more accurately to his side- and it was so out of place that it had to be of great importance. It was a wall, probably that of a temple, and while he saw no gate, it probably wouldn't be too hard to find. Even if it wasn't an important building, it would be a change of scenery, and someplace to elude the approaching figure. But that was cowardice that he couldn't allow from himself. He was a trained warrior, a skilled mercenary. True, he had broken his sword on the way to the City of Jade, but one such as he did not need a blade to defend himself. Whoever or whatever it was standing before him, he would face it.
Akio let out a short sigh. The man had seen him anyway. There was probably no hiding at this point, even if wanted to. No, if the person- or creature- approaching was a malicious being, he would find out soon enough. If it was friendly, then he would have an ally to help him find his friend. Not even for a moment did he allow himself to think it was Noble. No, after Noble disappearing for so long, it would be wishful thinking to expect him to just walk out of the mist and gloom, ready to chastise his young apprentice for following after him despite the warnings given. What it could be though, was a caretaker of the temple, some guardian or defender of its sacred grounds. Maybe it was another mercenary sent into the strange city, payed to take care of whatever it was Noble had been sent to do. Or, maybe Akio was thinking too much and doing too little. That settled it. be the thing friend or foe, it could be useful to confront. It could hold information about the location of Noble, or at the very least, a few supplies to aid with the quest at hand.
With one last glance at the surreal landscape, Akio began to approach the figure, casually allowing one of his hands to slip from his boa staff to the shurikens hanging from his belt. The language of the surrounding kingdoms had always been somewhat hard for Akio to speak, but he was good enough at it to get by with little problem.
"Hello, Friend. You seem a far ways from any sensible place. I thought this city to be all but abandoned. Tell me, what brings you to this cursed land?"
Akio spoke firmly, but he wasn't shouting. He only allowed his voice the amount of force needed to carry over to the figure across from him. Strange... Akio's voice sounded unfamiliar to himself. It felt as if somebody else was speaking. No doubt it was his mind playing yet another trick on him, but he couldn't help but grimace slightly. The sooner he could leave this forsaken city, the better.
As Lei was laying down, he could feel something in his spirit resonating, he could feel something or someone calling out to him from within the city. He walked between the two sitting on stones, even if it was a bit impolite, and pushed past the gate to ascend the stairs towards the city. Feeling it inside him as he got closer, nearly entranced.
When he reached the top of the stairs, he was awe-struck at the size of the mega-structures, the jade towers throughout the city. He wandered aimlessly through the city in search of something or someone else, more familiar to him.
Yasuri stood and returned the man's gesture with a grin, "My name is Yasuri, I think the two of us are not very different: both in goals and background. Perhaps we should stick together if you intend to also enter the jade city. I've heard many rumors of this place, many of them not good. I'm not eager to find out how many of them are true and someone to watch my back certainly wouldn't sadden me. It seems our friend already seeks to enter, shall we follow?" Yasuri asked, gesturing at the man that passed them into the city. If they were in a different place he might've asked the man for a spar, but now was not the time for such things. Yasuri felt rested enough to continue, in truth the break had been more for mental preparation then physical rejuvenation. The younger man with hedgehog hair might have felt confident enough to continue alone, but getting friends was never wrong. Better to be over-prepared than under-prepared after all. That combined with the overall feeling of malice from the city made Yasuri highly suspicious, even paranoid of dangers that lay within.
How long had it been? Two or four weeks since Haru had left the very relative safety of the city to find his washed up master and friend. Haru didn't have high expectations for finding his master Tanka still alive or in one piece for that matter but the old man had surprised Haru before. The trek to the city had been one of great misfortune, almost as if some great celestial force wished to hinder Haru's mission in any way possible. Of course Haru was not a firm believer in state of mind, mojo and such supernatural forces. The Ronin only believed in two things; luck and his prowess in fighting. While most master fighters that Haru had encountered claimed to use their chi and what not, Haru believed that they were simply good at their craft, not channeling some unknown hidden power from within.
Haru was about to go off on another tangent of thought in his own mind when he came to the sudden realization that there was someone approaching him from the fog. It had been to long since he'd met any one on his perilous venture and he jumped at the opportunity to respond. The man's words seemed a little forced but regardless they were understood well enough by Haru.
"I've come to this decrepit place in search of the ronin known as Tanka. Have you come to do the same? Were you a member of the Rebellion as well?" Haru asked the man as they came closer and closer to one another.
The journey up the stairs seems to pass by in moments compared to the climb it took to reach them, and the City is upon you before you even notice. The City, as far as you can tell, is surrounded by a dull wall that appears to have been cut straight from a single stone, rather than having been constructed piece-by-piece. In fact; none of the structures of the City look to have been built, only carved from some giant green stone.
The fog conspires to mislead you, the monolithic Jade towers so similar that it's clear you would have no chance navigating this place if not for the power of your Chi. By reaching out spiritually you can sense several energies in the streets around;
To the north is a familiar feeling, something contemplative, peaceful, but also tense and weary.
To the west you feel something broken and sad, something that has lost its purpose.
Something to the east feels familiar as well, but in a different way. Something ancient and powerful, like a memory half forgotten.
You can feel many other energies as well, but none as strongly as these three.
And -- faintly -- you can feel that just by entering this place you have attracted the attention of something that is masking it's Chi from you. Something that does not yet want to be discovered.
Lei takes in his surroundings in awe, wondering what could have created the city. Could it really be as they said, that gods created such a place? As Lei feels now that he is being tugged at from three different directions, he has to make a decision. So to keep it safe, he goes with what feels the most right to him and heads north.
"Great, seems like this other person doesn't actually share the same thoughts as me..." Meng Wu thought as he watched the man who had reached the clearing last, move ahead of them without even bothering to greet them.
He had half a mind to stop him as he walked past them, if only to warn him about the dangers of the road ahead, but the burly man had started talking to Meng Wu at the time and so he didn't think about the matter any further and turned his attention to the one who had just introduced himself as Yasuri.
"Indeed, I feel the same thing about you, now that you mention it!" Meng Wu said with a laugh once Yasuri talked about how he felt they had many things in common.
"I've been picking up strange signals from the road ahead, and I too think that staying close together will do us only good, even if someone doesn't share our sentiments..." Meng Wu Told Yasuri, the last part of his comment obviously pointed towards the impatient person from before.
"I think we should get going as well, though. Seeing as that person is so eager to climb the rest of the mountain, at least we should stay close by so if and when something unfortunate happens, we can quickly have him join us. What do you say?"
It's a short walk to the north when you encounter something very out of place; another human being! An old bald man in sickly yellow robes sits cross legged beside a boxy single story building, which also looks somewhat out of place amongst the towers around it, though it is also green.
He smiles at you skeptically as you approach and says, with a somewhat old fashioned dialect; "There's a powerful energy in you, I can tell. Were you invited to the Old Temple, then, or have you wandered here accidentally somehow?"
He stands. Though appearing harmless, you can see his body tense as though anticipating you to strike. He evidently doesn't trust you.
Lei Keung approaches the man and building somewhat more tensely than when he was looking for the source of the energy. He hoped it would be his master, but instead comes across a stranger sitting beside an odd green building. Lei feels misled.
In reply to the old bald man he says: "No, I wasn't invited, but I'm in search of someone specifically. Who are you, and what is this Old Temple you speak of? What is this place?" He stops himself, too many questions running through his head.
He wondered to himself if maybe the others he had passed might know this man. But it was just a passing thought. He continues as he sees the man's muscles tense in anticipation: "I don't intend on harming you, there is no need to worry."
"Yes, let's get going." Yasuri said in response to the Meng's suggestion and began heading up the stairs. To his surprise the other person had already vanished into the misty city. Odd. Yasuri paused for a moment as they entered the city, this place felt very strange. Such strong feelings he could sense from this city. He tilted his head and looked to the west. Remorse. He knew the feeling well, of having your purpose taken away from you. He took a step in that direction before pausing and looking at Meng. "I want to go this way, unless you have a suggestion?" It was a question but he doubted the man would object, in which case he would begin heading in the direction.
Meng Wu followed behind Yasuri as they climbed the last six thousand stairs to the top of the mountain. Always on alert, Meng Wu didn't even realize it when they finally reached the top; the climb had been quite calm.
At the top, a towering, vast wall greeted them. Silent and tall as it was, Meng Wu felt like an ancient structure like the wall would have achieved sentience by now and would be watching every traveler that managed to reach the top of Mount Wua Sho. Nevertheless, there were no eyes popping open, nor did the wall sprout legs and start walking towards them.
"I want to go this way unless you have a suggestion?"
The silence between the two travelers was broken by Yasuri, snapping Meng Wu out of his trance. He turned his attention towards the burly man and saw that Yasuri had started walking towards the west. After a moment pondering on the issue as well as picking up on the feelings emitted from that direction, Meng Wu nodded affirmatively and walked next to Yasuri.
"Let's see what this feeling of sadness I'm picking up is," Meng Wu said while looking ahead.
"I've come to this decrepit place in search of the ronin known as Tanka. Have you come to do the same? Were you a member of the Rebellion as well?"
Akio frowned slightly as he heard this, carefully choosing his next words. The man before him was trusting, perhaps overly so. Either he was lying, or he was naive. Still, Akio wasn't entirely sure whether or not Noble was part of some rebellion. They had helped out with uprisings and insurrections before, a handful of them even taking place in a few settlements fairly close. They were mercenaries, after all. Akio decided to repay the mans supposed candor with his own, or at least slightly. He wouldn't lie to him at the very least.
"I too am in search of somebody," he replied,"His name is not Tanka, but he may of been part of this rebellion you speak of, perhaps he came here for your friend, or to carry out a similar mission. I am unsure."
Akio glanced around the city streets, unease setting upon him once again.
"Listen, I mean no offence, but could be continue this conversation elsewhere? I don't intend to stay in this city any longer than possible, and talking can be done while walking. Follow if you want, but don't try anything stupid, or you'll regret it." Akio didn't even wait for a response before resuming his walk around the temple wall in search of a gate.
Haru was a little put off by the other man's tone. Days without seeing another soul and the first one he comes across already doesn't seem to like him. While Haru's first impression of the man wasn't the greatest, it was understandable as this forsaken city had already begun to take its toll on Haru.
Haru quickened his pace so that he was walking a meter or two behind the other man. In an attempt to hopefully lighten the mood between the two of them, Haru tried his luck at changing the topic of their conversation.
"Do you believe the stories about this place? It being built by the gods and the like?" Haru asked as he stared up at the wall they were navigating then to one of the immaculate, jade towers.
