Tao's vision just begane to adjust to the darkness of the caves, there was supposed to be a stash of minerals at the end of one of the routes, problem was Tao didnt know which one, all he knew was what was writen in the report he got from the kagerenmei operatives that were investigating the area. The minerals werent valuable but they were important for the construction of the organization's gear and weapons, he still didnt know the detiles of how they work but he knew that these minerals were important somehow. He walked deeper into a small cave that originated from the mineshaft and it seemed to get more narrow as he continued to go in, the light around him began to get dimmer as well as there was no light source inside the cave either. He pointed his open palm forward and started channeling chakra into it creating a beam of light that shot forward much like a flashlight, that should be enough for now. "Why would they send me here of all places, sure Yasuragi-Masters need to supervise the knight's operations, but why didnt Yume come here as well, it was her find after all"
He wondered while walking on, the cave seemed endless and the light didnt seem to reflect anything that would indicate that the cave would end any time soon. It took him hours until he finally reached a wall and when he did it became a fork leading to several different directions. That wasnt in the report at all, maybe he took a different route then what he was supposed to? He pulled out a note from his robe and reviewed it, it said that the stash should be at the end of the cave burried under several large rocks but the way it seemed now theres no telling which way he should take. He sighed slightly tucking the note back into his robe and took the path on the right. The cave wasnt dug stright, it kept going up and down, left and right in a very odd way, as if it was dug out by an earth jutsu in a rush or something along these lines, and like before it became slightly more narrow as it went on. At the end a brush of orange light could be seen, he stopped his chakra flow and the beam of light coming out of his palm disappeared. He walked towards the light and came to a large open space light by a large quantity of candles arranged in symetrical manner, painting of arrows, circles and triangles on the floor and walls and the cieling didnt seem to end from the way it was light. Tao entered the chamber or what seemed to be one and began looking around, they drawings and candles seem to follow a spesific pattern, like a ritualistic setup for prayer to some god, that wasnt much of a surprise to him considering that the village is extremely religious, but he couldnt recognize any of the signs, the patterns or even the language of the letters that seemed to be writen under each line. He kneeled down and brushed his finger against the paint, it came off easily almost like it was dust... Colored powder? He then noticed something that looked like an alter with a small chest right at it's base, when he came to it to open it he saw that the chest was full of colorful rocks, they were clear and crystal shaped and reflected light quite easily, could that be the stash that Yume mentioned in her report?
He closed the chest and picked it up, but as he did he began to hear voices, they werent speaking but they were humming, low tone hums that were getting stronger by the second as well as a somewhat brighter light source coming from the same place Tao came from. He almost in panic leaped up and began to run up the wall as high as he could to conceal himself from whatever's about to enter the chamber. The cieling of that open space seemed to be uneven, quite lumpy even and it seemed to have a completely different texture than the wall but he couldnt make sure of what it was in actuality because the light didnt reach that area at all. He was looking down from above at rows of people all in white robes entering the room and aligning themselves in a circle around the candles, standing with their hands together bound by chains of wooden beads and hoodies covering their head and faces. Then a person with a red colored robe came to stand at the center, and the humming stopped.
The man that came to the center took out his knife and cut his own throat, instantly collapsing on the ground. The humming suddenly resumed and the drawings began to glow as the people around the candles began to make handseals, every single one of them were doing it in sync with the other and when they were done the center of the room exploded in smoke, filling the room and lowering drastically the visibility. Tao couldnt see a thing aside from a blur of orange light coming from the candles at the bottom of the room and a great shadow at the center of the smoke. As the smoke began to fade away there seemed to be a huge creature, the best way to describe it will be a dog with scales, standing on all four and breathing out what seemed to be blue fog in small clouds. The scales were orange or at least they looked orange due to the candle lights. Then chains errupted from the ground and pinned the beast down. The beast was struggling with rage but it didnt seem to be able to escape the binding chains. Several of the hooded people went out of their lines and towards the chest, each took one of those colorful stones and then went to the beast, they seemed to feed him those rocks.
Suddenly Tao found himself falling down, could it be that he was so concentrated over whatever was happening under him that he forgot to send chakra to keep him stuck to the wall. he was too far from any solid surface to slow him down and he was basically free falling toward the beast. He landed on it's huge back and instantly slipped from it, on closer inspection the scales seemed oily and glistened from the light of the candles. The hooded people began to flew at the sight of Tao, they seemed to be scared of something, or maybe of something else... The beast began to glow and shrink. Tao finally landed on the ground, not as cleanly as he would like but he finally had some solid surface he could actually walk on. He looked at the beast, it was already only twice as big as Tao himself, but it no longer looked like itself, but rather it looked like it was made out of light, it glowed brightly and it began to be consumed by one of the hooded people that was feeding it. The hooded man was pulling it into his body like a vaccuum through his mouth until the beast was no longer there. And before he knew it all the light was gone. The candles were no longer light and everything was pitch black. He clapped his palms and began radiating light from his body but once he did, he saw that nobody but him remained in that room, everyone who were there before were gone, including the corpse of the red robed person. There was no trace of blood and the painting made with the colored powder on the floor was messed up due to the beast that was struggling for it's life just moments ago. Tao couldnt find any of those colored rocks anymore either, seemed like there was no longer any need for him to stay there, but he was curious to know what exactly happened in that room, he had never seen anything like that, nor did he see a creature like that either, it was all... Strange, but facinating in the same time. He knew that one day he'll have to come back here to invastigate this further but for now he had to find the people that were here just moments ago, there is no way they could have gotten far from here. He began to run through the way he came in, and he ran and he ran but he couldnt find a living soul, not until he reached the mineshaft at least, he knew at that point that there was no way to find them now, unless they were to come back to that room, he'll just have to check it again later.
[MFT]
[Topic Entered/Topic Left]
[Run Time: S rank - 30 minutes]