Under a Blank White Sky

Mira nodded at the strangely garbed warrior. While she had never heard of half the terms stated by the rabbit and the warrior, she could tell he too was prepared for battle. "Very well, Plague Hunter. I will take your word for it."

That, and the fact that the group had not devolved into a melee (quite yet at least) was enough for the demon hunter. She then proceeded to introduce herself.

"I am Mira, a member of the order of Demon Hunters. Until this morning, I was on a quest at the behest of the great scholar Deckard Cain to stop a powerful demon from bringing his armies to Sanctuary. I am afraid that I don't know where I am or how I got here. However, I am more then willing to work with those not in league with the Burning Hells." She bowed her head, her face wreathed in shadow.

Sedd raised an eyebrow at Mira's question. "Been called one before, but that's a bit of an exaggeration. You really think a demon would just tell you, maybe wear a big sign that says "hello I am a demon please exorcize me?" Though I suppose it's better than just attacking without checking first," he said, shooting Korra a look.

"You look more like a child's drawign of a rabbit than an actual rabbit," observed Sedd, once again leaning against one of the giant stone hands. While he strove to appear apathetic to the weirdness of the day, a particularly observant person might be able to tell that it was starting to get to him.

One of the gatekeepers turned slightly to face Red Arrow, and stated, "It is forbidden to speak His name while He yet slumbers."

To those who had asked about tribute, the other one merely repeated, "Those who wish to pay tribute may use the front entrance. None shall pass this way while He yet slumbers."

edited 8th Apr '12 3:29:45 PM by Sir_Screwloose

By this point Ignatius was far enough away not to be able to hear most of the odd antics occurring by the temple gate, having decided on what to do from the first utterance of "front entrance". He walked swiftly and coldly around the side of the huge temple, attempting to see if there was anything but wall present on the rest of it, specifically another entrance. For reasons of logical protection, he kept his hand by his dagger and his mind open to spirits, although not so much as to cloud his vision.

The demon hunter gave a scathing glare at the scholarish looking man with the cat eyes. He didn't have the smell of brimstone that generally surrounded the minions of the Burning Hells, but she still didn't like him.

The giant guardian things however... she had encountered constructs similar in appearence to them before. The fight had not been pleasent... Still, there was work to be done.

Mira stood about fifteen meters from the guardian, and spoke loud over to it. Her hands were on her twin hand crossbows.

"Declare your master's identity, or I shall send you to meet Him!"

"Okay..."

Red Arrow said after hearing Oswald's somewhat angry rant before he heard the gatekeeper reply.

"Great. It's just repeating itself." However, the archer heard the other gatekeepers' answer.

Except that it kept on repeating itself.

"Looks like the only way in is to give something that these two gate guards'll accept as tribute. Or the other way, which is dangerous, is to fight our way in and see who's inside."

Red Arrow sighed and slinged his recurve bow over his left shoulder.

I think I may be slowly running out of ideas.

edited 8th Apr '12 11:29:51 AM by Ominae

Unlike all the others who were tense or in conflicts, Nana decidedly just skipped out on the thing in his quest to find the front door. Literally. Moving his limbs in the manner of an energetic elementary school girl, the effeminate man ate up a surprising amount of distance as he raced about in his search. "Um... This place is weird! But I can learn things here!" He happily exclaimed, optimism present on his face.

Listening to the non-answers given by the guards and the others' responses, Sakuko thought, Stay and watch the fights, or try the other side for this 'front entrance'? Answers are probably best right now, and these two seem to have a rather large deficit of them...

"I'm going to see if the front entrance is on the other side," she said, and followed those heading around the other side, keeping her eyes open for anything else out of the ordinary. "So, anyone been here or a place like this before?" she asked the others in the general vicinity.

It appeared that Kestrel had not been paying enough attention as the stoutly built guards - the Russian found himself automatically classifying them as such regardless of appearance, time period, or dimension - marched forth to meet the group and sternly explained that they were not allowed to enter the temple while 'He' still 'slumbered'. He would have been tempted to wonder if they were being fined by the word judging by how blunt and unwilling they were to expend any more effort than necessary, if he was given to such things.

Some of the others tried talking to the guards, which elicited essentially the same reaction, while other people tried to sneak past. Personally, Kestrel didn't want to test his luck. He knew his SC3000 was capable, yes, and these creatures didn't appear too exceptional in the context of his fellows, but he knew how these sorts of beings usually turned out to be bullet proof in movies. Kestrel didn't relish the prospect of checking whether reality matched up with fiction. Switching off his sonar goggles, he glanced at the people trying to enter the temple and shook his head.

"I think we should regroup to decide what to do next," called Kestrel, instantly wincing at how he couched his intentions in the language of soldiery. It was unintentional on his part, not to mention awfully clumsy, but he wasn't going to make a fool of himself. That, and he was unwilling to waste more breath than necessary talking to these people.

Korra shrugged to Toph,

“I did say you wouldn't believe me didn't I?” Now Korra felt a bit...well like a bully. She had just dropped a ton of thinking on this 14 year old...well...this well traveled 14 year old.

The 17 year old avatar straightened up and glanced back at the temple. Apparently now one of the others was going to pick on the guardians.

“I think we might have to smash stuff in a second.” Then an idea hit her.

“You the strongest Earth Bender in history or was that all talk?” She said with a bit of a smirk (Not that Toph could actually see that...)

Red Arrow stared at Kestrel, who seemed to be at a loss.

"You got some idea around this place?"

The archer pointed to the temple for reference.

Toph looked down, frowning. She couldn't be standing in front of someone from her future. In fact, she couldn't even come to terms with the fact that one day, their friends were going to die. She was only 14, she never really thought about that, even if she was friends with the leader of the Fire Nation and the Avatar. Maybe 80-year old Toph was more... able... to deal with that— what was she talking about? 80-year old Toph?! The blind girl didn't even want to imaginer herself as an 80-year old woman. And with a daughter. Well, if this girl was from the future, she could probably give Toph more information about what would happen. Putting all that conflict aside, Toph grinned approaching Korra:

"All talk?! I'll show you, Future Girl! I'm the greatest earthbender in the world, and I can prove it!"

"That's because I'm a cartoon rabbit", Oswald said to Sedd. "You can call me Oswald the Lucky Rabbit".

One of the guard's head turned slightly to face Mira. "We serve He Who Waits Beneath. It is forbidden to speak His name while He yet slumbers."

The other one turned to Toph and Korra as its grip shifted on its weapon, the first sign of possible aggression from either of them. "Vandalism is futile. Desecration will be punished."

Sedd just rolled his eyes and followed Sakuko, Nana, and Ignatius around the side of the temple, rudely disregarding Oswald in the process. "I've been to temples before," said Sedd, shrugging at Sakuko's question.

The sad thing is, this is still better than back home... He paused for a moment, bending down to inspect a small patch of greyness. Experimentally, he dug out a handful of it. "Huh.. It's like clay," he observed, kneading it in his hand.

When they got around the front of the temple, they were greeted by a surprising sight. About a hundred yards away from the front of the temple - that is, the other side of the building from the rest of the group - was a collection of buildings and structures much more closely packed together than the few random buildings they had seen before. The tallest was a strange clock tower with fourteen symbols around its edge, but there was also several houses of various shapes and sizes, a stack of mobile homes, half of a cheap motel, an Easter island head, and a circle of teepees - and that's just what they could see from the temple. Even more surprising were the people who could be seen moving about in the distance.

The front entrance of the temple was a more normal sized set of double doors, open to all who wished to pay tribute to whoever the temple was built for.

"Yeah, and I've stood on ground before," Sakuko said sarcastically to Sedd, "I don't suppose you have any useful tidbits of information? Or, saying you don't know is allowed, after all."

Then, reaching the other side, she looked around and said, "Well, that really cleared up ... not much. What do you guys say: go inside - or check out those other buildings?"

Ignatius looked around and took the scene in, then quickly made a decision and walked towards the double doors to walk inside, both dagger and spirit-sensing still ready as normal.

I'm officially declaring that Ignatius has his spirit-sensing to the level that doesn't impair his sight whenever not stated otherwise, and the emotionless thing always applies to everything he does.

edited 9th Apr '12 10:11:24 AM by Replica

"Computer Program? Of course, as is everything else here. I would realize if I was stuck in a robotic puppet as I wouldn't be able to bring out my hammer. I've never seen a Net area quite like this before but the Net is a big place." Unaware programs, this has to be a video game or video system. Something has gone wrong though since most of these players don't appear to match eachother. At least they are interactive now. "But I'll play along until I can figure out more about this area and what brought me here." Having certain preconceptions and the vastness of the Net, it would take a little more convincing than this to show Twilight that he wasn't where he thought he was.

Speaking to nobody in particular, "Mysterious references to him, access denied and paying tribute. Sounds like we should find out who 'he' is."

edited 8th Apr '12 4:19:42 PM by StephanReiken

With practiced grace, Mira pulled the skullcovered crossbow from her back and pulled the trigger. A single bolt launched, it's tip burning with infernal green fire. There was a swishing sound, and then a thud.

The bolt passed three inches above the head of the guardian that was looking at the demon hunter, before landing embedded in the building behind it. Small pops occurred as the arrow embedded itself into stone, the flames scouring the impact zone before popping out of existance.

The crossbow was already reloaded, through some unknown mechanism.

"Answer my question, or the next one goes through your head."

"It's a village." Nana said, somewhat startled by the sight of the slightly lackadaisical group of structures. Somehow, it didn't seem to fit any specific aesthetic the agent knew of, which was rather odd given his amnesiac self. "We should check out the buildings. We might be able to get info about both this place and the front door the guardians were talking about." He responded to the girl's question, before picking up the hem of his robes to run towards the figures seen in the distance, waist length hair flying about in the air.

Marle frowned, and decided to follow some of the others to the front of the temple. As she spotted Sedd grab some of the ground, she too decided to also grab some of the ground herself, forming it into an egg shape.

"Weird," Marle replied to Sedd. She then saw an entire town at the front of the temple. "Hey! A town! And people!"

Marle decided to go up to one of the people. She knew the drill when in an unfamiliar place.

"Do you know where we are?" She asked the person. "We are... lost."

After Red Arrow spoke up to Kestrel, he turned around to see that some of the others went to investigate the other side of the temple

"I wonder what's going on..." The archer said to himself, but he then saw Mira had armed herself with a crossbow.

"Hey! Hey! What are you doing?"

edited 8th Apr '12 9:10:35 PM by Ominae

Crap, are we splitting up again? Sakuko thought, watching the others go in opposite directions, oh well. That town looks like the safer bet, especially since I don't have anything that could be used for tribute on me.

Sakuko headed down along with the others to the strange mishmash village, looking around, nearby Nana and Marle.

Bubbles had been quiet, mostly because she was unused to being by herself. Blossom and Buttercup were usually by her side, and Blossom was the one that made the plans. This talk about 'He' caught her attention, however, especially the 'It is forbidden to speak His name' part. She knew of only one being whose name was forbidden to speak of.

A creature so evil, so vile, that you were never to speak his name... 'HIM'. If this really was 'HIM', then everyone here was in trouble. Bubbles doubted she could beat 'HIM' on her own, and even if some of the people here had superpowers, she wasn't sure if it would be enough, especially given what that monster could do.

To be safe, she flew above the temple and looked down, attempting to see into it with her X-Ray Vision. She hoped she was wrong about 'HIM' being inside there.

edited 8th Apr '12 6:58:34 PM by kagescorpionakki

Oswald took another good look around. "A computer program, huh?" Oswald said to Twilight. "That's certainly one posibility what this place is".

Then Oswald, with his very sensitive rabbit ears, heard someone mention a front entrance, and noticed that everyone seemed to be heading around the large temple structure. "I don't know about you Twilight, but I'm gonna head around this temple and check out this "Front Entrance" everyones talking about. You comming or what?"

edited 8th Apr '12 10:19:32 PM by Dezmo

Twilight nodded and smiled. He casually took his hammer and threw it up into the air where it hung for a moment, then fragmented. Each piece burst sending off a little bright light then disappeared. "I'm as curious as you are and where this leads." Twilight crossed his arms as he walked, looking closely at the structure and the others, trying to analyze things and figure them out. Then looked inward to himself and analyzed his own functions doing a self diagnostic.

Basic movement functions checked, general system integrity seemed to be fine, combat abilities tested green. Touch, hearing, smell, visual, taste.. all the basic human senses checked though smell and taste are rarely used. However, the basic other senses were on but not checking out. Connection to the local net area was red, not showing anything. Connection to the PET was offline. Its very possible that Twilight's basic net area functions were dysfunctional instead of this being a primitive area but that isn't something that normally goes wrong without other serious problems.

edited 8th Apr '12 11:14:37 PM by StephanReiken

As everyone began to head in different directions, Angelo found himself in a rather peculiar position of getting to choose where he went. The options weren't terribly promising when he looked at them. Going around to the front of the temple and paying tribute to whatever god this was a temple of seemed safest. Until you considered what would inevitably happen once you set foot inside and committed some kind of faux pas that you hadn't even known about, then got tossed in a dungeon at best. Or some ill-minded cleric decided to use the lovely 'maiden' as a sacrifice to a dark god they secretly worshiped. Oh yeah, that'd been fun.

Then there was the choice of going into town, which could also be okay. Until he realized that doing so would probably just invite a bunch of lecherous stares and unwanted attention. If the last inn had been any indication, doing that might make for a long day. Really long. Finally you had the group that was plotting to find a way into the place - the two who had started the quick introduction session, and who were now thinking up something. And of course the woman who'd just shot a crossbow bolt at the tough looking guards who had threatened to respond with force to provocations. Wait, what?

The bard just stood there, mouth gaping as he stared at Mira. Why did he always get put with these people? He finally did speak, but all he could do was nearly panic, "What are you doing? How do you know they won't.. jump all the way over that fence, attack us all and then pickle our eyes for use in their breakfast? Or worse, decide to use us as their personal.. er.. bed slaves or something?"