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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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We should really try to talk to the ghosts.

It's an incredibly Goketsu move, and it could give us much-needed necromancy info.
Did they go to the pure lands after death? (It looked like several of them remembered us, which might imply the memory loss is temporary.)
Can they tell us anything about the pure lands?
ect.

Given that the ghosts seem to all be chakra-weilding people we killed, this might be tricky, but it's worth trying when we run into a less-threatening combatant.
Maybe Hazou can pin them while using ghost scales? Does Kei have a nara immobilization jutsu?

The genin we executed while hunting for the squirrel scroll have yet to make an appearance, and the list of chakra-weilding humans we've killed is getting shorter. If we see them, we should definitely try to talk.
 
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Kylinger said:
Who was this?? I don't remember Hazo killing anybody by driving a spike through their head?
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eaglejarl said:
The team broke out of the mist to see Arikada a few dozen meters away, kneeling beside a trio of bodies. The sealmistress glanced up and saw them coming; she froze for just a moment, then went back to what she had been doing, hands cutting seals with furious haste.

"Edo Tensei no Jutsu!" she shouted, slapping a hand on the back of each corpse in turn. No sooner had she touched the third and last before she was on her feet and racing away. The mountainous flab of her torso and arms looked incongruous supported by the newly-normal dimensions of her legs, but it didn't seem to slow her down at all.

The three corpses surged to their feet and spread out to engage each pair of team members; the one closest to Hazō carried daishou—paired swords, small and large. The second corpse was swinging a meteor hammer and the third was bare-handed.

Noburi calculated the angles; there was no way they were going to be able to get around their just-recently-a-corpse attacker and still catch Arikada before she reached the town.

Sudden dismay shot through through him as he remembered something critical: Arikada didn't even need to reach the town itself. The mayor had said that the team wasn't allowed to engage inside 'the town or its territory', which included the area in a one-mile circle around the town proper. At the speed the sealmistress was moving she would be inside the protected area in about five minutes. For that matter, if she could get enough distance she could go to ground; the plains were mostly flat, but there was enough topography to hide in if you wanted to. And that wasn't even allowing for any escape jutsu she might have.

He glanced at Hazō and saw that the other boy had done the same math. If they tried to avoid the corpse-warrior it would stay inside them, keeping them from following its creator. The only choice was to go through it.

There was no need to talk; Noburi slowed his steps a fraction, dropping farther back and circling to Hazō's right. Hazō shot ahead, angling in from the attacker's right side to force it to turn slightly away from his Water-Whip-wielding ally.

Their opponent was a dead man. Dead about three days, based on the slight decomposition and the white film over the eyes. The body had definitely been through a storage seal; it was torn up, bits of flesh crushed or even ripped off by the stresses. The damage was mostly superficial; the actual cause of death was readily apparent: someone had hammered a spike through the left ear canal and into the brain. About an inch of the spike was still sticking out.
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@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped

There's been some discussion of using Tunneling Excavation to tunnel directly out after finding Yuma. Do we have a guess from the characters about how deep the team is below ground?

For reference, the geothermal gradient means that temperature raises by at least 10 C per km deep. So if it's still roughly room temperature in the tunnels they're probably less than 1 km down. It would be noticeably very warm if they were more than 1 km deep.
 
eaglejarl said:
"Yeah, I feel it too," Hazō said. "Shortness of breath, slight numbness in the extremities."
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I'm confused—why aren't they using Tunneler's Friend seals?

eaglejarl said:
"Your clone, the one who went into the caves immediately after the failure. You said at the time that his name was 'Hazō NotASub'." There was implication. She was implying.
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Not gonna lie, I do not understand the implication. It's clearly a flirtation, but I can't tell what it means.
 
acidshill said:
I'm confused—why aren't they using Tunneler's Friend seals?
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eaglejarl said:
People used Purifiers immediately upon recognizing the 'bad air'. (Which is actually a chakra effect but they didn't know that at the time.) It explicitly says in the text that Hazō pulled one out, put it on his face, and handed others around. These are the seals that purify surrounding air. Had the team had another few seconds they would have also tried using Tunneler's Friends seals, which are the ones that work like a SCUBA tank and emit previously stored air. They did not have those seconds and everyone popped before it was relevant.
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I was confused too. But it's a chakra effect, not "bad air" TFs and Purifiers don't help.
 
acidshill said:
I'm confused—why aren't they using Tunneler's Friend seals?


Not gonna lie, I do not understand the implication. It's clearly a flirtation, but I can't tell what it means.
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It is an unintentional double intendre. "Sub" can be referring to "Substitute" or "Submissive", depending on context.


Their opponent was a dead man. Dead about three days, based on the slight decomposition and the white film over the eyes. The body had definitely been through a storage seal; it was torn up, bits of flesh crushed or even ripped off by the stresses. The damage was mostly superficial; the actual cause of death was readily apparent: someone had hammered a spike through the left ear canal and into the brain. About an inch of the spike was still sticking out.
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Also interesting that the description is completely identical, evidence that the shades are pulling from the experiences of the team and not actually the afterlife. Plus the fact that the zombies were already dead, so shouldn't really count as people Hazo killed.

The zombies remind me of a potentially ethical biosealing discipline, however. Real Necromancy! Focus on creating zombie bodyguards, never experiment on living patients. Sure desecrating bodies isn't great, but I'm sure we could get an organ donor list going.
 
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Since we're pretty close to Yuma, we might be able to signal him with loud noises and have him start heading to us. Meet him in the middle and all.

I would hesitate to set off a Banshee in a cave but we are carrying tiny explosive training tags.
 
Left-Hand Mutant said:
We should really try to talk to the ghosts.
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We revived Daizen. So unless he died again I question whether these are actually ghosts. I do agree talking is worth a shot if we can try it without endangering ourselves.

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eaglejarl said:
Do you continue deeper into the caverns to hopefully rescue Yūma, do you retreat, or do you do something else? Do you split the party or stay together?
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Well...did we unstagnate yet?
 
OliWhail said:
I believe @eaglejarl has some fencing experience as well so mayhaps!
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Perhaps not with the same names and conventions I am used to.
eaglejarl said:
It's been a long time since I've duelled. (What's that you say? Fencing? No. I never 'fenced'. Fencing is an abomination before the Lord of Blades and All Things Awesome. It is a game of tag played with bendy wires by pinheads who wouldn't know a parry from a beat if you gave them a map. These numbskulls think that 'stick out your arm and charge!' is the best way to use a blade, yet have someone managed to convince the entire freakin' world and the Olympic committee that the noble and gentlemanly martial art of the Western sword should be debased into a bunch of off-balance, roll-footed, floppy-armed, poor-mannered, scruffy-looking nerf h—)
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I was lucky enough to have a maître d'armes who had a good head on his shoulders and was both efficient at the weapons he used and at not looking like a chicken during a match (iirc he also had some historical swordsmanship training), but it looks like eaglejarl mastered a practice more pure and noble than mine. The time I spent breaking up kiddie fights...
 
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RandomOTP said:
Brave of you to assume Hazou has preferences of his own, rather than merely fulfilling the needs of others.
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Common in the scene for people with unresolved trauma, and if someone qualifies for this, Hazō does. When it's unprocessed stuff pushing them to do that, it's incredibly unhealthy and usually gets recognised as such early by others. So what you're saying is, Hazō should discuss his clone names with Mari for some sagely advice? :D
 
What I don't get is the other side: why did Hazou name a clone working on a Substitution seal "NotASub"? If he didn't intend the double entendre, I mean.
 
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You know, given what we're facing, I wonder if Kei has come to the conclusion that we will be seeing the shades of Isan's other dead.

...Oooh, maybe we get to kill Kouta properly this time.
 
Rough plan. I'll be around to update this with suggestions and improvements, while sticking to the main points of the plan (stay together, go after Yūma, try to talk to a ghost.)

[X] Action plan: Who You Gonna Call?
Wordcount: few
Acronyms: none
  • Don't split the party
    • Kei plays support with Zeyper's Reach and Shadow Betrayal.
      • Try to trap a ghost with Shadow Imitation
  • Push onwards for Yūma
    • Summon the super-sneaky pangolin as a forward element, and the bodyguard pangolin to... bodyguard.
    • Approach Yūma carefully, he might be behaving oddly
  • Try talking to the ghosts
    • Shout that we don't want to fight.
    • Try to subdue a belligerent but less-dangerous ghost.
    • Conversation topics
      • Are these actual people? or just things that look/move like people?
      • What do they want?
      • What do they remember before being in this cave?
        • What are the pure lands like?
        • If they died near others, did they appear in the afterlife together?
 
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RandomOTP said:
All the civilians from the Sunset Racer...
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The majority of those we've killed have been civilians, but we've only seen ghosts of chakra-users. I expect that this is not random.

Maybe the civilian-ghosts got re-killed quickly.
Maybe they faded from the pure lands quickly because the had almost no chakra.
Maybe the sealing failure only targets chakra-users.
Maybe ???

But I would be pretty surprised to run into the ghost of a civilian down here.
 
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