"Cool mission statement, bro," Noburi said. "Very dramatic.
I thought so, too
"Which I guess answers the question of whether or not summons' chakra envelopes are made of chakra," Noburi said, nodding.
... missing word? I presume this was meant to read "made of nature chakra"?
Having Noburi drain me is an uncomfortable experience even when done under controlled circumstances by someone whom I trust. It must have been extremely unpleasant for Candoru. He may not wish to go through it again.
We really should get into one of those situations where our ability to survive does not depend on the wishes of others, one of these days, tbh.
This time, the tunnel quested about like a hound seeking a trail. When it finally locked on there was resistance; the tunnel shuddered and shook, struggling to sustain itself even as Hazō poured extra chakra in.
Oh, I don't like this.
I figured I wanted the chance to tell you what a complete asshole coward you are!
This one's new
Rats. There went Hazō's disposable trap detector.

Eh, he could always make a contract with some other dog.
EJ I love you and I can't stop laughing
so, I've got a tisane of honey and lemon that will go a long way towards settling your stomach, and a sock filled with hot sand that you can put over your neck to help with the muscle aches."

"Oh. Well, that actually sounds...kinda nice."
He's right, that does sound nice. If the temperature wasn't that high I'd probably go for this right now
"Panashe is accustomed to serving as a forward scount,"
Unlike Candoru, who is... down for the scount 🤭
Fine, we do it the hard way.
After a safety dance and a sealing loadout that explodes the fuckers
The walls and ceiling were thickly dotted with crystals, some of them the size of a thumb and some of them massive conglomerates as large as a person that dangled like expensive chandeliers. The crystals glowed in a haze of shifting colors, each individual crystal pulsing slowly, its color cycling from hue to hue around the rainbow. The crystals covered the walls of the cavern all the way to the distant (?) floor, their light causing the water to glow and sparkle. The waters were warm, bath temperature, and where they intersected with the cold September air one could see traces of vapor rising and twisting lazily.
That sounds incredibly enticing
"Well, that's definitely going to kill us," Kagome-sensei said calmly.
Also that
 
[x] Action Plan: Another Golem's Den?
Word Count: <299
  • Dispel
  • Sanity-check with the team.
  • Secure the pool, close off deeper tunnels with MEW, and set up a trap perimeter
    • Search for any chakravores in the grotto.
    • Noburi, see if there's anything in the water -- be thorough, take your time.
      • Don't immerse yourself, put a hand in at most.
  • Avoid using ES to study the grotto lest we trigger something.
    • Examine the crystals -- are they functional PS substrate?
      • Use chakrascope and MS8, any similarity to the Honey crystals?
      • Are the seals burning up like they did in the Honey cave?
    • Test chakra adhesion/repulsion, any difficulty?
    • Grab samples -- ideally broken off already, to test ES on later.
  • Don't take a dip yet, the chakravores are still around, and we don't know if the cost reduction effect would take time to adjust to
  • After the grotto is cleared, continue hunting down the chakravores.
    • Everyone be on high alert concerning your chakra reserves
      • The drain looked to be short range (1 Zone), so if anyone's reserves precipitously drop, Substitute away
    • Engage the chakravores with RW, MW and Taijutsu only, no ninjutsu.
      • Although enhancements like CotWG and SotS hopefully shouldn't be harmful to use.
      • Taijutsu/MW users should be careful about closing the distance for too long due to drain, be prepared to Substitute away if necessary.
      • Be prepared to run for it if chakra reserves drop too low -- we can always come back.
    • Noburi should focus on activating more misterators, detecting foes, creating Substitution targets, and wresting any drained chakra back from the chakravores.
    • Any regular beasts can be engaged with mist drain.
  • If there's no trace of the chakravores after the cave is fully explored, return to the grotto to do experiments with the water.
 
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Can we assume that we secured the pool with no major combats and skip straight to that or should we plan for combat still?
Yes. There is a straight shot to the surface, everything else is walled off. The path down here was remarkably lacking in...well, anything in the way of macrolife. Some bugs and such but none of the larger life one would expect.

You are newly arrived at the grotto so you know nothing more than what's in the update and you haven't walled anything off or etc.


Do you think otter summons would be cute enough for occasional Fun XP?
Very much so.


Damn, how did she become our adoptive mother? That is solidly in older sister territory.
The relationship has always been fluid.


Secure the pool, close off any deeper tunnels with ES/MEW, and set up a trap perimeter outside the cave.
Done up to the point of the grotto. You'll need to actually explore the grotto itself if you want to find passages to close off.

Did we dip a toe in this or something…?
You held a hand just slightly over it.
 
Updated Action Plan

@eaglejarl, @Velorien, @Paperclipped

This action plan assumes that there's some sort of "Prep Day" or "Timeladdering" mechanic with medical research. This is not guaranteed, since there is no such thing with Technique Hacking. Could we get a soft ruling on it, for the sake of this next update?

[x] Action Plan: It's No Beach Episode, But It'll Do
Words: <299
  • Dispel
  • Secure the pool, close off any deeper tunnels with MEW. Set up a trap perimeter outside the cave.
  • Test if chakra adhesion works on the cave walls.
    • (if it does) Use Earthshaping to study the cave with the chakra pool.
      • Note any unexpected interactions of Earthshaping with the chakra in the earth away/near/in the pool, and any differences thereof.
  • The research team (Noburi, Hazou, Kagome) using Vampiric Dew, chakrascope, and MS8...
    • Timeladder up to "a week," if Noburi's able to do this. (Repeat experiments for data points, controlling variables).
    • Examine everyone's chakra system and chakra regeneration, one at a time, before/during/after they step into the pool.
      • Noburi goes last, first attempting to discern if it'd be bad for his non-standard chakra system
    • Using the same monitoring protocol...
      • Make Shadow/Elemental Clones, testing the affect of the pool on them (with the SC's consent).
        • Joking: ask Snowflake if she'll help with our experiments
      • Summon Seventh Pathians and (voluntarily) test the affect of the pool on them.
        • Noburi, can you tell the difference between human and nature chakra here?
    • Does resting in the pool affect chakra regeneration?
    • Test if...
      • ...Water Whip or Water Clone, made from the pool's water, can propagate the affects of the pool?
      • ...using the pool water in Noburi's barrel has any effect.
      • ...the affect lingers as a Summoner travels to the Seventh Path.
  • Does Noburi think he could replicate the effects of the pool with his bloodline/medical ninjutsu?
  • Does Hazou think he can replicate the effects of the pool with Runecrafting or Sealing?
  • When not working with the research team, the party should take turns looking for any fungi and plants with medical properties. Orochimaru's dossier should have descriptions.
 
Yes. There is a straight shot to the surface, everything else is walled off. The path down here was remarkably lacking in...well, anything in the way of macrolife. Some bugs and such but none of the larger life one would expect.

You are newly arrived at the grotto so you know nothing more than what's in the update and you haven't walled anything off or etc.
Pinging also @Velorien @Paperclipped

Just checking, the chakravores are walled off and the team thinks they're neutralized? Noburi confirmed they were captured with the VD?

Did we kill them after they were baited?

"Fine," Hazō said, allowing his frustration full rein as he switched mental tracks. "We kill them. We kill every last one. If we can't use them, then at the very least we won't let them hurt our family ever again."

Hazou seemed very sure that we should kill them here.
 
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Personal opinion says that Hazou should focus on researching the runes he already is focusing on (Force Domes, TR150s, etc.) and look into replicating the pool's effects in runes only after the others have done their research.
 
Can we not dip into the pool in the meantime and FOOM that way? We don't have to replicate the effect while we still have access to the pool.
I don't want to be forced to stay here for an extended period of time (TR150 & FD and then Water Runes), so I think we should be getting our prep days done while we have access to the pool in case our research on it will need access to the pool -- like the Rift runes need access to a Rift.

We can make the decision of what our next long-term research project is after we do prep days on the pool.
 
What ProperAttorney said, and even so we should be doing more than just prep days.
I'm not convinced we're going to even avoid combat here. This looks like the crystal cave to me.

I don't want to squeeze in 100 word long term research plan that won't even get implemented - see this last plan for a 500 word plan, 200 words of which got written over 2 updates.

We can spend 2 days investigating the pool and then doing prep days on it.
 
I'm not convinced we're going to even avoid combat here. This looks like the crystal cave to me.

I don't want to squeeze in 100 word long term research plan that won't even get implemented - see this last plan for a 500 word plan, 200 words of which got written over 2 updates.

We can spend 2 days investigating the pool and then doing prep days on it.
So what, is Hazou not doing any research in the 2 days he's investigating the pool? That seems a poor use of his time.
 
We've been... having to travel, for the past 9 days? To gather the team, and relocate. Unless I have misunderstood the situation?
This update covered 7 days: 1 day studying the rift, 1 day after reuniting with the team for them to rest off their intense long-distance run, 3 days to run to the mountains in western Wind Country where Orochimaru's magic-chakra-water-cave-place is marked on your map, then 2 days of aerial + telescope searching to find the landmarks and eventually the cave mouth.
XP AWARD: 6 This update covered 2 days.
You have received 4 - 3 (Loquacity) = 1 XP.
XP AWARD: 5

Brevity XP: -2
(500+ words)

It is now about 6pm. This update plus the one before for which XP was not yet awarded covered roughly a day.
FYI @eaglejarl the XP for today was previously awarded, also @Velorien I think Loquacity should have been -2 for a <599 word plan.

@faflec Looks like 5 days where we could have been researching but didn't. This pushes it to 6 or 7 at most.
 
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