"Steam tunnels?" You asked, as you descended into the hot maintenance corridors underneath Osaka University. "I thought this would have been destroyed in the old days…"
"It wasn't," Haru said, "And you'll find out why as soon as you turn on a light."
You squinted, but turned to your smartphone and turned on the LED.
Instead of mere darkness, the entire thing was covered in iridescent mist. "... You want me to go through
that?"
"Yep," Kisaragi said. "My favorite access point was near my old place."
"I didn't use them often," Morisawa said. "The one time I did, it was a disaster."
"Buck up. You're not going through it on a motorbike," Asamiya continued.
The image of Asamiya riding through this in leather on a motorbike without crashing hit you in the side of the head like a particularly well-aimed brick.
[SITE UNLOCKED: THE STEAM TUNNELS, an
Infrastructure Feywild.]
"THE STEAM TUNNELS" said:
When you need to get somewhere fast, and are willing to accept a serious risk to do so, accept no substitutes!
The old steam tunnels that run under Osaka are an Infrastructure Feywild, and in exchange for taking a delve through them, you can potentially arrive somewhere much faster than you would have otherwise, beating everything from the local trains to the shinkansen or jets!
Difficulty is based on both distance and familiarity with the target location, starting from Dangerous:
-1 rank for staying within Osaka City
+1 Rank for leaving Kyoto Prefecture
+1 Rank for leaving Honshu
+1 Rank for leaving Japan entirely
+2 Ranks for a vague destination (Example: "Someplace I can heal a critically wounded party member" vs. "Pinoko-sensei's Cabin")
+1 Rank for a location you haven't visited before, or haven't visited for at least a year. Yes this stacks with vague destination.
+1 Rank for a highly-observed or high-security location (like, say, a prison)
+3 Ranks, prima facie, for any attempts to change the past, in addition to all distance and familiarity considerations.
-1 Rank for a location you've visited often enough to memorize, or within the last few days, in addition to gaining the Delve Reset.
-1 Rank if you're given detailed instructions
-1 Rank if you take a Pathshaper with you, not including Mei (whose facility with Pathshaping will be reflected in rolls instead when she takes the Pathshaper Asset)
-1 rank if every member of your party has an appropriate conveyance.
Note these are generalities, not specifics; it's just as difficult to get back to Osaka from, say, Moscow, as it would be to get there!
This Delve, and only this Delve, has a special arrival rule: When you Reach Your Objective:
-- A Strong Hit indicates that you have arrived in no time and will alert no one by your arrival-- you have effectively teleported.
-- A Weak Hit indicates that you have arrived with a little more time than initially planned, but only enough to give you an edge.
-- A Miss indicates that you have arrived too late, or at the wrong destination. Pay the Price.
In short, this is a Delve that can get you to very far away places very very quickly if you're willing to take a devil's bargain to get there. Good luck~
[Swear an Iron Vow +Rapport: "I will seek the truth at Site 1." Rank: Troublesome. 1+3+2 10 vs. 8, 5 weak hit
]
[We start at Dangerous.]
"So where the hell are we going?"
[We have more questions than answers, but are determined to get to the bottom of this. +1 Momentum. 3/10]
"The initial manufacturing facility of the Shirogane Nebuka. You know. The fertiliser factory."
"... Is that
in Osaka?"
"It's on the outskirts."
You've already started in, and soon enough the entire group is behind you, with you taking point. Idly, you felt that surely one of these people was better off taking point, but you supposed that it was your mission, so it was your point to take.
[No member of the party has visited Shirogane Nebuka Manufacture 1. +1 ranks! Formidable.]
Looking at one fork in the steam tunnels already, you start to head down the right fork, until Raimoto stops you. "Wait. Before you go, you need to have instructions from me. You'd better do them all! Or there's no telling where you'll end up."
[We are not leaving Osaka Prefecture, and have detailed instructions. -1 Rank, Dangerous.]
Destination: Shirogane Nebuka Group Manufacture Facility 1.
Rank: Dangerous
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
[Delve the Depths +Resolve: 4+2+1 vs 8, 10 MISS]
[Reveal a Danger: 86, "A resource is broken or lost."]
So, of course the very first thing that happened as the five of you started into the warren of steam tunnels was your cell phone completely fucking failing, losing you both GPS
and written instructions.
Teach you to actually write things down on paper. Also not to rely on only the LED in your phone. You dug through your pack for a moment.
FAILURES
[⁑] [⁑] [⁑] [*] [] [] [] [] [] [] []
[Check your Gear +Supply: 4+5 vs 4, 6 STRONG HIT]
Ah, there was your flashlight. That clicked on easily enough and you opened it so that it became a lantern. "Well. This could have gone better."
[At least you're not completely lost. 4/10.]
Kisaragi snorted. "Asamiya, ideas?"
"Yeah, on it. Give the phone over a minute, would you?"
You handed over your phone.
Asamiya whistled. "Damn, this one's actually pretty dead, I was expecting it to be mazed or something."
"So what's our next move, Asamiya?"
[Delve the Depths +Thoughtful: 4+2+1 vs 6, 8 weak hit]
[81: Mark Progress and
Find an Opportunity: 22,
The terrain favors you, or you find a hidden path.]
[⁑] [⁑] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
"Hold on, don't take that way." She pointed at what became obvious 'gateway' markings. "We'll end up going where we don't want to go if we head there. Try that way for a bit."
"Mm." You clearly still had to fine tune your pathshaping. But then--
"What about this branch?"
"What branch?"
"This one--" you pulled open a door, to reveal more steam pipes and sunlight filtering in from above.
"... I'll take it."
[We take a +1 push to our next roll by leveraging the secret path:]
[Delve the Depths +Thoughtful: 1+2+1+1 vs 1, 1 MATCH]
[And take an extra +1 Momentum for a hit. 5/10]
[Find an Opportunity: An aspect or piece of history of this place is revealed.]
[MATCH: ???]
You continue walking in this fashion, slowly looking around. Your phone cuts in and out of service, gaining power in the sunlight, but failing quickly in the dark. You use the light to, with difficulty, read your directions.
… Seems you've gone off the path already, but at this point, there's not much point in trying to go back. And…
"What's with all the mushrooms?"
Even now, you could swear you heard giggling at the edge of your hearing. All the mushrooms were star-shaped in this patch, but other ones looked like red agaric and morels.
"The mushrooms took it over. I don't know why," Asamiya said. "Don't touch them."
Considering they were all faintly glowing, you nodded. You didn't need telling twice. "So bad news, we're already off the path. Good news, we're not dead."
[⁑] [⁑] [⁑] [⁑] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
That said, maybe best to take the mushrooms a bit more carefully. Especially if they're the source of this weird, iridescent mist…
[Once more taking +1 add…]
[Delve the Depths +Resolve: 3+2+1+1 vs 2, 6 STRONG HIT]
[Momentum 6/10]
The going got slower. This was because you were keeping an eye out for such patches of sunlight as existed,
and trying to avoid patches of mushrooms,
and because you were taking the time to consult with Asamiya and Kisaragi on your gut instincts.
At the very least, you wanted
an exit, if not
the exit you were after-- and if you ended up somewhere weird, at least you wouldn't be in the Tunnels anymore.
Still, this entire place, its ever-shifting fog, the hiss and the heat of the steam running through its bowels-- you couldn't help but feel a bit trapped.
Which is why you were entirely surprised to see someone ahead. Your recent excursions taught you better than to just run up to some random person you found in a Site. You held out an arm and waited.
The mists resolved into a large junction between the steam tunnels and your eyes narrowed. That might be a little more difficult.
As to the person… In a lot of ways, she resembled the popular estimation of a grudge-spirit, with the blood on her shirt-dress, the long, dead black hair, the sallow hands and covered eyes. But she seemed instead, to be breathing in the gloom, and picking mushrooms, instead of immediately identifying the people who had disturbed her. In fact her primary target seemed to be morels.
[Gather Information +Thoughtful: 3+2+1 vs 1, 9 weak hit]
The grudge was covered in the same ground-matter as the ground was- fresh and drying and rotting foliage.
Growing under the mushrooms were, it seemed, the remnants of some fight-- ancient bloodstains seemed to work themselves up into patches of mushrooms that glowed purple. Here and there, old knives were suffering the same fate as the blood. If there was cloth here, it wasn't around anymore. Ancient and fresh spring foliage seemed scattered throughout, in an odd change of pace.
Some old battlefield? Or one that was new, and the mushrooms simply… Moved in?
"One for power, two for calm, three for a peace…" the denizen muttered, making her way down a corridor.
"Not that one," you noted to the others. They nodded.
That still left you with a matter of luck.
[+2 Momentum. 8/10.]
You shone your light down both corridors and made a snap decision.
[Delve the Depths +Thoughtful: 3+2+1 vs 9, 9 MATCH]
And that's when you slipped, kicking up a cloud of the purple dust, and the grudge behind you screamed.
FAILURES
[⁑] [⁑] [⁑] [⁑] [] [] [] [] [] [] []
[Join the Fray +Thoughtful: 4+2+1 vs 9, 9 MATCH]
The knife you were thinking of using skittered away in the dark. More screams and hisses filled the corridors around you.
FAILURES
[⁑] [⁑] [⁑] [⁑] [/] [] [] [] [] [] []
"I smell you…" came the voices around you. "I know who you are--"
"My, my, what. have. We. Here?" Her voice was like pouring syrup over a knife. The clicking sound of high heels on concrete fell on silence.
That voice.
Where had you heard
that voice!?
Thankfully she'd either brought her own lighting, or else had bullied some spirit or other to do it for her. With a striking, motherly figure, long black hair, and a similarly long high school skirt, and wearing high heels… she was quite intimidating. She was taller than you, but not by much. Oddly for the rest of her fastidious appearance, she, too, had ground matter on her.
She reached under her skirt, and pulled out a weathered metal bat, which gleamed in the limited light.
Yumeno took a step back. "No way… It can't be! Mom said you retired!"
She laughed a polite, demure laugh, punctuated by aiming her bat at all of you. "Really~? My, my, I must have spent longer down here than I thought!"
"Yumeno!?" Kisaragi said, clearly nervous about anyone
Yumeno would be afraid of.
"Hifumi Kaori," Yumeno said. The bat suddenly lit up with blue-white fire. "Known as 'Kanabo'."
"That's right, and if you don't want me to chase you to the ends of the earth, you'd better pay my tax."
EMERGENCY VOTE: Oh Fuck, Oh Fuck, come up with a plan, quick!
[] You're pretty sure you're stronger than them. Take the blows, beat them aside, and move on! (a HARD approach. Risks BODY.)
[] The Hell with this,
run! (A QUICK approach. Risks STRESS and SUPPLY.)
[] Wait, something here doesn't add up… [Write-in.] (A THOUGHTFUL approach.
Explain what doesn't add up, and what you want to do about it.)
[] Tell the others to hold off the Grudges. Hifumi is yours. (A RAPPORT-based approach. Risks COMPANION HARM.)
[] Wait, Yumeno's mom? … One of them is lying, and you know how to exploit it. [Write in.] (a RESOLVE based approach.
Explain what the blind spot is, and how you'll use it to your advantage.)
[] Pay whatever Kanabo Hifumi wants. (Safe, but it will seriously dig into your SUPPLY.)
Ara ara, nani wo kore? (MENACINGLY)
