thequietyear | GAME OPEN

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GAME OPEN

The storm ends at some point during the night and with it comes a restful, almost enforced sleep. There's still a chill in the air when the morning comes, but it's being chased away by the warm spring sun. There's even birds singing, of all things, as if the view outside the cave wasn't quite idyllic enough. Almost too idyllic, some might say, but being paranoid never got anyone anywhere, right?

Immediately outside the cave is a broad valley. Not as green as it could be, much of the grass is brown, but there's a few tufts of proper, lush vegetation poking through. Immediately outside of the cave is a large stone head, almost Olmec-like in design, with an oddly contented smile. A sign leaning up against it declares that it's 'open for business'. Nearby, tossed carelessly onto the ground, are a few tools. Shovels, axes, saws, and the like. Rusty and dinged up, but serviceable.

Off a ways is a large forest. Opposite of it is a river, and the grass is definitely greener on the other side. And, a few dozen feet outside of the cave, are the Blank Men. Tall, pure white, smooth, and the instant the new residents lay eyes on them, they know what they're for. How they know, no one can say. They just do. Whether that makes them trustworthy, that's up in the air.

Far off in the distance, there's a massive lake that the water runs off into.

The sky's blue, the air is clean, and there's a whole year before Winter comes. The world is theirs to make of it as they will. How will they start?

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It's okay, they can just admit that they're old farts. Not that Tenten would ever say as much, not to their faces.

"Could we... I don't know, dig a little channel?" She squats and traces her finger in the dirt to illustrate. There was the river, then she draws a line shooting off diagonally from it, then curves that line back around to meet with the river again. "I mean, I'm no engineer. Would that be feasible enough as a spring replacement? Or should we just be digging wells?" She stands, brushing her hands off against her pants, and frowns. What if the river flooded? Well, there were things they could do to prevent that. "If we had more tools, I'd think about a water wheel or something, but..."

Piping. Plumbing. Talk about subjects she had no clue about. She wishes Yamamoto were here. After he practically rebuilt Konoha, it'd be nice to have his skills available. She groans, rubbing at her forehead. "I'm bringing up too much stuff, sorry. We should keep it simple for now, keep from overcomplicating things."

Bruno agrees with Larkin's judgment on location; he nods, still half-thinking about the plumbing issue. While Larkin returns to their tools, Bruno watches Tenten sketch in the dirt and listens to her suggestions. "...I don't know. It might work; but I've never tried anything like that before..."

After she seems to give herself a headache, he tries to smile reassuringly. "One step at a time, right? Heh, maybe by the time we've got a roof over our heads, someone with more water experience will have woken up back there." He gestures towards the cave behind them. "As long as we have a way of collecting the water somehow, we'll manage..." Er. Actually...

Bruno turns back to the tools as well, looking for buckets, wondering whether they have any at all, and if they do have any whether they're rusty like the other tools. Step one might be 'construct a bucket'.

Edited 2022-02-05 03:33 (UTC)

"A well's better as a spring," Larkin says, coming back to them, "I bet the Blank Men could dig one. But starting with four walls and a roof is best. We can haul water for ourselves if we have to."

Haul with what, though, he's not sure. He didn't see a bucket, but maybe they can make one? They're fairly simple to make. Just a round thing with a handle, right?

"I've got water transport handled," she says, patting a scroll at her hip. Thankfully, there'd be no need to make a bucket. Well, not until there were more than the three of them, at least. "But you're right, one step at a time. Let's get a roof over our heads before we start worrying about digging ditches."

She's not going to argue housing placement if they're happy with it. "I can get started on breakfast for us, then move on to chopping and moving wood." Bamboo would be a little preferable, but they'd work with what they had. "No sense starting the work day hungry, am I right?"

Hell is definitely not what Jackie had expected. Sure, those Blank Men are maybe kinda like goengsi, but he hasn't been judged for his sins or whatever. He hadn't paid a whole lot of attention, he just occasionally prayed at shrines and whatever. ...a lot less occasionally after killing Yung. He'd felt weird about it. Dirty. That was why he'd wanted to leave, in the end. He knew you didn't just leave the Sun On Yee, though. Once you were in, you were in. 'Til death, and after.

He shivers and crosses the arms of his bloodied hoodie, finally deciding to speak up. "Hey, I, uh, I don't know a lot about this stuff, but I can be muscle or something. Chop wood. Maybe cook a little." He's a city boy, not a survivalist. He'd never been off the main island in his life. Hong Kong had been all he'd ever needed, his whole world. This was...some Lord of the Rings shit, and he didn't care for it at all.

"We'll need muscle," Larkin says, "for carrying and chopping and all that. I don't suppose you know how to butcher things?"

Larkin takes in the blood on his clothes, but he's not going to say anything about it. He's not sure he wants to know the cause of it and whatshisface here doesn't look injured.

Bruno's about to ask about what Tenten means when Jackie speaks and he looks up, startled - oh, right, that guy. He smiles apologetically. "Heh, sorry - you were so quiet I forgot..." He then trails off as he finally takes in the blood.

His expression instantly switches from sheepish to concerned. "Oh no, are you hurt?" Sure, the guy doesn't seem hurt, but why else would there be blood? What possible other reason could there be?

Tenten had honestly forgotten there was a fourth person there. She practically jumps out of her skin when Jackie does speak up, then promptly tries to play it off. Nope, nothing out of the ordinary here.

Jackie gets a long, measured glance as she takes in the blood. There's quite a few reasons someone would be bloody and, apparently, uninjured, and almost all of them bring up warning bells in the back of her head. Then again, he could just be a hunter. "Don't worry about not knowing much, we can share knowledge easily enough. Y'know. If you're okay right now." Gotta have their bases covered.

"Yeah, uh, I can...do that. Kinda grew up in a restaurant." In a manner of speaking. Not to mention that the whole gang ended up getting corralled to help with kitchen tasks periodically, because Mrs. Chu'd said if they were going to take up space in her kitchen they'd damn well better earn it. She was scary enough to be a Red Pole herself.

He doesn't want to use the word 'butcher' right now, though, since that was basically what had happened to him - hung from a pipe like a side of beef and cut open, and now here he is, stomach wound gone but blood all over his clothes all the same. (The least Hell could do was clean him up, like, c'mon.)

"Haha. I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be fine? Everything's fine." He says, his voice raising an octave. Jackie Ma is a poor liar. Jackie Ma has also never been okay in his life.

Bruno puts his hands up in a placating gesture, misinterpreting the source of Jackie's distress. "Hey, hey, it's alright - I know waking up here was weird, but there's nothing trying to hurt us. You're ok... unless, er, you're injured - we can patch you up if you need help though!"

He shoots Tenten and Larkin an admittedly kinda panicked glance - he's not sure they do in fact know how to patch the guy up if he needs it. Probably one of the other two know first aid stuff though? They seem used to roughing it to some degree...

"Um..."

Oh God, do they not know they're dead? They have to be, right? This is Hell, right?!

'Cause if it isn't, that might be worse. At least Jackie knows what to expect in Hell. Then again, he hasn't seen Uncle Po, or Winston, or Vincent, or even fucking Dogeyes.

"...I'm not hurt anymore," he says tentatively, and raises his shirt enough to show off the new, nasty scar he has on his stomach right where Mr. Tong's machete--

--he doesn't want to think about that.

It's a clean horizontal slash, clearly done by someone who knew what they were doing, and clearly a fatal wound. Not only should he not be upright, he shouldn't be conscious, just based on the blood loss soaking his shirt and hoodie.

Larkin could patch him up, but that's clearly not necessary. He stares at the scar for a long moment. That is clearly fatal. Or should be. Had he died, before this?

Were all of them dead?

He shakes himself out of it. "That looks healed. Good. I don't think we have a hospital around here."

...Oh. Bruno blinks a few times, not entirely sure what to make out of the scar - Julieta's healing food had never left scars from things it'd patched up, and also yeek what a terrible injury that must have been...

He fidgets with his ruana for a moment, unsure what to do next. "...Er, are you sure you're... healed up...? You, ah, should probably sit down for a bit, just to be safe..."

Does Jackie need a hand? Bruno offers one in case - can't have this poor fellow falling over after surviving whatever'd happened to him.

Tenten's eyebrows are threatening to leave her forehead. That looks like it had been nasty back when it had been received. "You must know some pretty good medics," she starts, then trails off as she realizes she doesn't quite know where to go from there. Thankfully, Bruno's on top of things. "I'll just let you two take care of that." Food would probably do Jackie some good, she was always hungry after getting healed.

She steps back, then slips a scroll out of one of her holders, twirling it between her fingers. She'd get started on breakfast, just some okonomiyaki or something, while they handled that. Tenten stretches the scroll out, kneels, and then there's a puff of smoke as she calls forth what she needs. Eggs, cabbage, some other fixings, some wood, and a pot. And a matchbook. First things first, starting the fire, which she'll set out to do.

Jackie hastily hides the scar again, embarrassed. He hesitates before taking the offered hand. He's not used to help from anyone but Wei, mostly his life had been a dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest thing, but they were all going to have to lean on each other to make it here, huh? "Thanks," he says quietly.

And then suddenly...wheeeeere did all of that come from. Not like he's going to complain, because that's way more useful than anything he can do, but it's definitely something that makes his own eyebrows rocket up in turn.

"How did you do that?"

"She does that," Larkin offers, holding his hand out to Jackie in turn. "Which is good, since gathering food will probably take a while.

There's plants around that are probably edible, and animals, but that stuff can't just be conjured up.

Bruno smiles in what he hopes is a reassuring way, making sure Jackie keeps his balance. It's not until Jackie comments on something that he turns around to see - oh, wow, suddenly food! And a pot, wonderful!

He perks up. "Oh, you have a gift too?" That'd been a Madrigal-only thing back home. What a useful one too, much more useful than seeing futures-no-one-wanted.

"Ninja magic," she comments to Jackie. Just offhand. Surely Larkin's the only one who doesn't know what a ninja is, right? "I've got some food stored like this, but only enough for a few days. A week at most, if we stretch things thin and skip meals. We're definitely going to have to start foraging and hunting once we've got our shelter set up." If she'd known she was going to be stuck in the wilderness, she would've stocked up some more, maybe even picked up some soldier pills. But who can predict being kidnapped like this?

She glances up at Bruno and shrugs, nursing the fire to a good start. "A gift? I guess you could say that." Her master had used 'talent', but hey. Gift worked, too. Not everyone could work space-time jutsu like she could. It was a point of pride. "What, do you do ninjutsu?"

Bruno, meanwhile, looks confused now. Impressed, but confused. "'Ninja'? And what's... 'ninjutsu'?" While he'd agree the Madrigal gifts could be called magic, Tenten's using a bunch of other words that have no meaning to him. He can't answer her question without knowing what she's asking.

Jackie takes Larkin's offered hand as well, and then: "Ninjas have magic?!"

Then she explained a little, and he nodded like it made sense to him. Food was stored somewhere. Didn't matter where, there was just food. "I can roll with it. I don't think I wanna eat much right now, anyway."

Larkin's inclined to think of it as heretical psyker powers, but if it gets them food, he's not going to judge Tenten for it. Out loud.

"Thanks for the meal," he says, instead, "once we've eaten, we can figure out how to get those things to build a shelter."

Larkin's a wise man.

She turns to answer Bruno, but just bursts out laughing at Jackie's interjection. Okay, yeah, maybe that should be addressed. "Ninjutsu is ninja magic. You don't think we can do everything we do without it, do you? And ninjas are... Think of us as covert operatives." A glance at Jackie. "...With magic."

And, voila! Fire! She sets the pot aside, pulls out a knife, and starts roughly chopping everything in preparation for breakfast. "You may not be very hungry now, but you'll want food later. Best to start work on a full belly."

"Covert operatives?" Larkin settles beside her as she's chopping. "That's what I do. Did. Perhaps... do you two have skills like that?"

He looks up at the other two men. They don't look like soldiers, but maybe they're spies of some kind?

Oh, they've got two spies? Bruno feels like this happened in a telenovela once... he tries to remember more details of that as he moves to sit, motioning for Jackie to do likewise. He doesn't think he remembers any stories about magical spies, but - and then Larkin's asking if he's one too and Bruno decides his experience with telenovelas probably isn't very relevant actually.

He scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "Er, well... I... did hide in the walls of our house for ten years or so..." (He's not sure whether that counts, regarding the question.)

"Um..." Jackie shrugs. "I'm good at planning, like, heists, and shit. But we were never really good at covert stuff...kinda not the point, y'know? We had to show strength." Wei would have been good at that kind of stuff. But Wei was good at everything, and Jackie was just...Jackie.

Helpfully: "I've seen a lot of movies, though."

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sorry for tagging in late!

Re: sorry for tagging in late!

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cw brief murder description

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