Tengu Reporter Quest (Touhou) (World 7 - Wheel of Time)

No way you're going to miss this! Stay and watch the fight between Valentina and the King.
- Make sure the King wins.


You're hardly going to leave – but you do have to do something about Dodo. The temperature begins falling, and you turn to your subordinate. "Hatate, get out there and distract Dodo." The bird in question shuffles to a stop and tilts his head as Hatate stares at you.

"Distract him? Wha- and how do I do that?" You shrug expressively as Valentina attempts to entrap the King and Queen inside a giant icicle; a simple flexing of magical might shatters the frozen pillar.

"I don't know. Teach him sudoku or shogi, take some pictures. Seduce him." Hatate's expression is less 'disgust' and more 'desire to murder,' but Dodo slumps despondently. Chance! You step to the side, grab Hatate, and push her against the bird. "Whatever. Keep him busy." You slam the door and turn your attention back to the duel, just as Valentina lets out her ear-piercing laugh.

"Ohohoho! So weak, King Nimbus! But don't worry – once Nimbus Land has me as its ruler – someone intelligent, powerful, and above all, beautiful –" Her monologue falters as she notices you scribbling away in your notebook. "Er, what are you still doing here?" The royals stare at you, too, utterly baffled as you take pictures of the combatants.

"Oh, don't mind me. I'm just a humble newspaper reporter, here to cover King Nimbus's astounding victory over a would-be usurper. Just carry on as you were." Valentina takes a moment to comprehend what you just said, then shakes her head and laughs again.

"A reporter? Ha! And I think you are quite mistaken – I will defeat King Nimbus!" You nod absently.

"Right, right, now say something villainous, and -"

"Villainous!? I ought to have you thrown off the clouds!" You chuckle and shake your head. This girl is so easy. She takes a step toward you, having apparently forgotten about King Nimbus – and a shimmering curtain of blue light wraps around her, ringing gently. Hopefully the picture shows it properly. She stiffens, shudders as if being shocked, stumbles drunkenly … then shakes herself and turns back to the royals.

"'Treacherous accountant displays criminal lack of attention span' …." You grin at the outraged shriek, but Valentina has to defend herself against an onslaught of tiny lightning bolts, doing so by bringing forth a trio of large crystals that spin around her for a moment, then fling themselves toward the King. Sheets of ice flash into existence, thin but angled sharply enough from the crystals' impacts that they are deflected. You huff out a laugh, eyeing the cloud your breath makes. Is Valentina too enraged to notice how cold it is, or does she just not mind the temperature? Either one is perfectly believable. However, the royals make their move, flash-freezing an icicle around Valentina's legs and waist, similar to what she tried to do to them, but smaller, faster, and more effective.

"Valentina, give up. Be reasonable about this!" You stifle a grin – the Queen is even being properly heroic without any prompting!

"Reasonable? Reasonable?! You idiotic, misshapen mass of cloud! I'll show you reasonable!" She waves one arm at them, hurling an iridescent bubble that grows in size, then bursts, showering the couple with its contents. The King stumbles back and almost collapses against his wife. Valentina cackles and conjures another pair of spinning snowflakes, sending them toward her opponents. You cluck your tongue quietly, then use your camera for more than just taking a picture – and the blades vanish. Valentina gapes, understandably confused, spending precious seconds not doing anything.

"Yes, Valentina. Reasonable." She whips her head around so quickly that the parrot nearly falls off, and King Nimbus rises to his feet. He spreads his arms wide, then thrusts them toward Valentina, and a veritable danmaku storm of stars pummels the trapped accountant-turned-tyrant, continuing for several seconds even after King Nimbus collapses. Queen Nimbus tries to shuffle her husband back to the bed, so after making sure that Valentina is well and truly defeated (however temporarily) you hurry over and gently lift the snoring king. After tucking her husband in, the Queen turns to you, a stern expression on her face.

"Thank you, Miss Reporter. For the help, and for saving us from Valentina's Diamond Saw. If you have such strength, however, why did you not fight her yourself?" You smile and shake your head.

"That's a defensive move, not an attack. Besides, I'm a reporter, not a hero." She frowns for a moment, but wisely decides it's not worth pursuing.

"Well, I suppose we'll need to get the proper guards back to their stations, and Valentina's soldiers sent back to wherever they came from. I don't suppose your companion managed to get out and tell Garro about us?" You tap your chin for a moment, then put your tools away and open the door. Hatate is sitting on a pedestal where a statue of a bird-warrior had been. Dodo is nowhere to be seen, nor are any of the other bird-warriors. She looks up, displaying only a hint of interest – but she probably heard most of the important bits.

"What happened to Dodo?" She cocks her head curiously.

"What are you talking about, Aya?" Ah. Well, she'll probably write an article about him at some point … or you'll find out when she gets hitched. Or it'll just be one of those mysteries, like why you can't sing! Whatever.

"Could you go tell Garro to come here? Thank you." You close the door on a perplexed expression and, ignoring the Queen's confused frown, wait expectantly. You hear it after several seconds: the thin, high-pitched squeal of someone who very much wants to shriek in outrage but can't because that would be embarrassing. A smile of pure joy splits your face, and you turn to the Queen. "He'll be here soon." She opens her mouth, then closes it and nods before turning back to her sleeping husband.




You wake up and stare at the odd pillow for a moment stretching. You very definitely had a dream, which is an odd occurrence. You just can't remember it … and you're not sure, but that's probably a good thing. You shake your head and glance at Hatate. Looks like she's having a bad dream. You poke her awake, and she twitches upright, looking around worriedly for a moment before focusing on you. "A-Aya?" You nod, and she lunges forward, wrapping her arms around your waist and hugging you tightly. After a moment you pat her head and she remembers where she is and awkwardly disengages. You smile and shake your head before turning away.

Now, what to do? King Nimbus is restored to his throne, and most of Valentina's statues are being melted down – a couple are being kept for posterity's sake, apparently, but they're hideous enough that no one really wants them here. The woman herself is being kept in a 'cell': a guest room with a lock, as far as you're concerned, but the Queen thinks it'll keep her safely restrained long enough for her to recover and be sent out of the kingdom. The … royal bus is on its way to Seaside Town, or should be by now. Unless you really want to get that Star Piece, whether for experiments or for a possible interview with Smithy, there's not much else to do here.


What do you do?

[ ] Go to the volcano and see about fishing out that Star Piece.

[ ] Back to Gensokyo.

[ ] Other?

Rough Draft: Clash in the Skies!

Ayayaya! It's your pure an honest Aya Shameimaru reporting to from another distant land. Nimbus Land to precise; a land on the clouds inhabited by cloud shaped people and not-Tengu bird people. The king of these lands had apparently gotten sick, but his evil accountant had used it as an excuse to lock him up and take control of the kingdom for herself.

Thanks to a certain report snooping around the castle, the King's room happened to come unlocked. This quickly led to a clash between the ill ruler and the evil usurper. Despite the King's sickness, he was still able to summon blasts of lightning strong enough to tear through several walls of the castle and cool the area enough to give this tengu shivers and freeze his opponent to the floor.

After finishing off his upstart underling with a star storm that would make a certain black and white witch proud, his illness caught up with him. The royal cloud passed out before I could ask him a question and the Queen hastily rushed him back to bed.

Go to the volcano and see about fishing out that Star Piece.


You stretch, grinning as Hatate winces at the sounds of several joints popping. "How can you do that?" You shrug.

"Haven't had much to drink in the past couple weeks. Everyone's a lightweight where we go," and you decided to not go bar-crawling when you had the chance, "and now we're about to jump into a volcano and meet a dragon." Hatate stares at you, head cocked slightly to one side, obviously having trouble understanding what you just said. Then she stands up and presses the back of her hand to your forehead.

"Aya, we're awake now, not dreaming. We're not going to probably burn to death just so you can impress Marisa." You blink at the non-sequitur – but then again, Hatate hasn't been herself much lately, either. As long as she doesn't go getting herself into trouble again. You cluck your tongue and shake your head.

"I'm awake, not dreaming, and I was thinking more Patchouli or just passing it on to Tenma and seeing what the council makes of it. All Marisa would want it for is to either make it explode or use it to fuel explosions and danmaku, which is pretty boring. Hatate, those things help fuel wishes! If we can use one to become less reliant – or completely free from – relying on human imagination, then not at least trying to get it is the foolish act. Besides, the only likely danger is from that dragon that's supposed to be there, remember?" You don't say the fateful words, or even think them very loudly; even that could bring the wrath of fate down squarely on your head, and that's not a good thing to have inside a volcano. After a few seconds of trying to pout her way out of near death, Hatate finally hangs her head and nods sullenly. Good girl … although she would probably bite you if you patted her head right now, so you'll hold off on that until you're finished with this little venture.




"So this is Barrel Volcano," you mutter as you fly over the mouth of the burning mountain. Above you is Nimbus Land, to the southwest is Monstro Town, and to the northeast is the Koopa Kingdom. If there were no clouds around, you might even be able to see Bowser's Keep from here … but that's not relevant right now. You study the outside of the volcano, and Hatate nervously descends to your altitude.

"It's … not as hot as I thought it would be," she says quietly, and you shake your head.

"Even a human can stand on the outside of a volcano without being in too much danger. It's what's inside that I'm curious about." The dragon in particular. Finally, you land on the rim of the volcano and peer into the depths. On the one hand, it has rivers of bright red semi-liquid that illuminate the interior, and you can make out a kind of path that seems to curl around the interior wall. Is there some reason people would want to descend to the core of a volcano? Or was someone just really curious and decided to make a path where one didn't exist?

"Maybe there's a whole ecosystem, with oni and some kind of fire-kappa, and we won't have to actually hope the Star Piece hasn't fallen into the lava and we have to get it out with our bare hands, Aya." You nod, then start slowly flying down into the volcano. How fortunate that the innkeeper was kind enough to watch over your bags while you did this, but it is curiously still not too bad. It's certainly warmer than you'd like, and you hope your film isn't being damaged – of course you switched to a new roll before coming down, just in case – but it doesn't seem too bad. You look to the odd path that curls around the interior wall, sometimes forming tunnels carving into the wall and other times taking advantage of flatter extrusions to form little rest areas. And there are little rocks running around, and there's a stony tree glaring at you, and you hope your pictures turn out okay. If something happens to them, then you'd only have any pictures Hatate has ….

As you descend, ignoring the envious and spiteful glares from the volcano's denizens, you keep an eye out for any signs of relatively recent damage – anything that might indicate that something fell from a great height at great speed, or anything like that. It probably would be a shame if the Star Piece were damaged or destroyed before it could be retrieved, after all … but if it landed anywhere, or even hit somewhere, it doesn't seem to have shown any obvious damage. All the wear and tear seems to be perfectly natural, or else quite old. And that … "Huh. Didn't the King say something about someone staying here to keep an eye on things?" Hatate glances at you, and you point down to what looks like a kind of Toad with a peculiarly-colored black and red headpiece. He's standing on one of the lowermost ledges, staring up at you, and you take a quick picture.

"Hm. I guess we should talk to him?" You nod and drop, not quite freefalling down to the Toad's ledge before landing daintily in front of him. Hatate follows suit, although she slows down earlier and so makes a more controlled landing. The Toad recovers remarkably well.

"Ah … hey there! Going sightseeing in this inferno?" He chuckles and looks past you – past you and down. Hmm … the dragon?

"Not quite," you say, and he returns his attention to you. "We're actually looking for a Star Piece that may have fallen in here recently." The Toad nods and gestures down.

"Yep, yep. Something fell in a little while back, conked the old dingus down there on the head. Guess he took a liking to it, though, since he bit it and dragged it back into a cave instead of just tossing it somewhere accessible. Anyway, I'm Hinopio. Welcome to my home, my shop, my inn, my lookout post – whatever you want to call it, really. Can I interest you in any mushrooms? Drinks?" You smile and shake your head.

"Not right now, thank you. I'm Aya, and this is Hatate. Er, do you get a lot of business down here?" You carefully take your notebook out, wary of getting it damp with sweat … but you're not sweating. Did you adjust, or did you just run out of sweat? Hinopio shrugs, apparently not noticing.

"Eh, sometimes. Lots of Koopas on some mission or other, a few people looking for a bit of excitement, strange women falling from the sky, some people just hoping for a glimpse of the dragon. Some months have more people than others." You nod and look down at the sea of lava and its handful of islands. Maybe the dragon sleeps under the lava?

"Mhm. Is the dragon out of the volcano now?" Hinopio laughs and shakes his head.

"No, no – he's down there. See, right over there." He points down at an island … with nothing particularly interesting on it. Hatate shakes her head.

"There's … nothing on that island. Certainly no dragon." You wince, but Hinopio takes it in stride.

"No, no, he's there. He just doesn't look like himself right now. See those little Pyrospheres hanging around? That's him resting. If he gets grumpy or hungry he'll show himself properly." You can sort of make out the … little burning balls that are apparently called Pyrospheres.


What do you do?

[ ] Take advantage of the dragon's inactivity and see if you can nab the Star Piece before it gathers itself.

[ ] Keep talking to Hinopio.
- [ ] About the Czar Dragon.
- [ ] About what he does here.

[ ] Try to interview the Czar Dragon.

[ ] Other?