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a seven nation army couldn't hold me back
Takeko's group in the New World (Overlord)
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In the grim cyberpunk world of the 22nd century real life sucks. So people use neural nano-interfaces to escape to the vibrant fantasy worlds of DMMO-RPGs. For years the most popular of these was YGGDRASIL, but it slowly lost momentum and by 2138 is being shut down. Three friends log in to face the last minutes of the game together, completely unaware of what will happen after it ends.

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She's the head of their guild, so it's proper really for her to do the send off. They weren't the greats, there's always been someone with more money and time, but - it's been one of Takeko's only connections to the world. To her friends and even her brother now that they live apart.

She walks the halls of their headquarters, committing everything she can to memory, an uneasy silence around her. Soreiyu's still in the central hall, but Kuchinawa's pacing her, a faraway and thoughtful look on his face.

Eventually they circle back around and settle in to wait for the timer to run out.

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The timer runs out and apparently nothing happens.

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That's weird. Maybe a glitch?

She turns to Soreiyu, who'd been playing around with the controls. "Did the timer run out for you guys, too?"

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"Yeah. Something feels weird, though?"

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He frowns, and - "I think something's off with the interface. Or I'm hallucinating." He could've sworn he smelled old wood and books, ever so briefly. He takes a deeper sniff.

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Anyone particularly perceptive will realize that what feels weird is their clothes, and that they feel weird because YGGDRASIL's haptic feedback is limited enough that they usually don't feel them at all. Also they can see each others lips move and can't see any of their game menus.  Those are other things they might notice.

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Kuchinawa notices these, and that he's getting more feedback than he used to - not just in game, but in real life. 

"Hey guys is this suddenly very real to you two? Because either the game is now real and I'm a snake-person with actual snake-person senses, or I'm having a major hallucination."

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She reaches up to touch her raven-feather hair. She can feel individual strands.

"...I think this is now very real. My HUD vanished too, but that might be the game half ending...?"

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Soreiyu can feel the coarse hairs on his tail. His ears are picking up on sounds he's never heard.

"Logically, we are all experiencing the same sort of altered qualia, in a higher detail than a hallucination might usually provide. The game world is subtly different, in ways that bring it more in line with reality. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude we have been - either switched to a much higher quality virtual reality system without our knowledge, or transported to another dimension that merely looks like our guild hall."

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Kuchinawa digests this, then: "I'm looking outside." He's anxious, jittery, and he ignores his sister and friend calling for him to wait as he darts to the nearest sliding paper door leading properly outside. The castle doesn't have windows, that was unaesthetic, and the wood grain of the shoji door is startlingly real under his fingers. The door rattles in its track as he flings it open.

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They castle is on a large rolling plain that is very much not the rice fields that previously surrounded it.

Nothing in particular is in sight.

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"Hey guys! Come check this out!" he shouts. Then, before they can get there, runs to check if the NPCs still exist. He'd liked the old samurai dude, Masamune, who hangs out in the courtyard and helps them train the best, so he heads there first. Ranmaru, one of the samurai retainers, should be there too this time of day.

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They are both present, and immediately bow upon seeing Kuchinawa.

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"Uchiha-Sama. How may we be of service?"

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"Hey," he says, lamely. "Have you guys noticed anything. Weird?" They're NPCs, they can't give much feedback, but they sometimes give 'reports' so maybe they know something?

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"Do you mean the clouds disappearing?", he says out loud.  Which is a feature the devs had talked about adding but never gotten around to. Largely because they were perfectionists and while voice synthesization is doable lip syncing is still firmly in uncanny valley.

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That's evidence in favor of Soreiyu's theory, at least. "Yeah," he says. "I'm trying to figure out if something we should know about happened."

Possibly he should check the other NPCs. He's worked enough on most of them over the years to be worried - and also he has a sneaking suspicion he should ask one of them if they have internal experiences. But that would be really weird.

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"Could it be an outsider used weather control in our domain without permission?

If so I request you allow me to properly chastise them."

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"It looks like the outside also changed? I remember us being surrounded by rice paddies, there's plains there now, and - I want to confirm whether my memory has been altered or we've been moved."

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"Sure that we were surrounded by rice patties, that I am. 

A scouting party, arrange I shall."

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"Thanks. That'd be appreciated. I'm going to check with everyone else, see if anyone saw someone or something out of place."

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"Understood!"

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In YGGDRASIL bases have two broad classes of NPC.  Those that are created by the guild owners from a pool of levels, and "POP" monsters that autospawn based on the general theme of the guild base. The later have incredibly primitive AI that cannot be modified by the PC's.  Furthermore POPs are at most level 80 which is very week in direct combat against max level PCs.  However, these NPCs can still serve as a living wall/alarm system and fight against the hordes of disposable monsters summoned by many classes.  Additionally they have the benefits of being relatively plentiful and auto respawning after a certain amount of time has passed since they were killed.

After swallowing a brief moment of distaste Ranmaru decides to call upon the castles "hanzo" POPs to form a stealth group, sending them out in every direction.  It will be about an hour before they report back.

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He updates Takeko and Soreiyu on the apparently actually-existing NPCs, runs through his mental catalog of his NPCs (sure Soreiyu helped with the code, but Kuchinawa was the one breathing life into them), checks on a few to get their perspective, and then finds one - a shy servant girl who usually plays the biwa and tells old stories for atmosphere - who is extremely, immensely unlikely to spread tales about Kuchinawa behaving strangely, and approaches her to ask, "Hey, this might sound weird, but - how far back do your memories stretch? I think someone might have used a world item to mess with us, so I figured I'd be a bit extra thorough..." It's more indirect than asking 'so do you have internal experiences,' but - he gave her a few hints of backstory, but far from as much as he usually does, since she's one of the more recently instantiated NPCs and with Yggdrasil shutting down he hadn't had the motivation to continue writing.

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"Eeh! A world item! How scary!"

She takes a second to calm her self then bows again.

"I apologize for my outburst master. I can remember being rescued by the guild and somethings before that." She has an extremely brief look of confusion before giving you her life story.  She remembers what explicitly in her backstory, but not anything else that happened before she actually existed. She also remembers things that happened since she existed and her role in them, and doesn't see anything odd about having not had any agency or even very complex orders until today.  Similarly, after that one brief look she had no trouble reconciling the family from her backstory with Kuchinawa being her god and creator.

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Weird. So it's not filling in backstory - but she's talking like a person, just one who had fantasy-style amnesia and was 'rescued' -

"Thanks. That sounds like what I remember, too. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about."

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She bows, again.

"If master says so it must be true!

Would you like a song before you go?"

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"Sure. Thank you, that'd be lovely."

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She plays. It turns out just a few levels in bard are enough to make someone rock star good by real world standards.  At least if you can get over the idea of a servant girl playing "Rock Over Japan" on a biwa. I mean technically the 20th century is classical music, but that still seems like a bit of a glitch.

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Okay he probably shouldn't have allowed Takeko at the song list.

He claps politely when she finishes. "That was great, thank you!"

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She looks extremely pleased, bows again, and wishes "master" a nice day. Then she returns to idly retuning her instrument.

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He disengages politely and leaves. It's probably been an hour, so he wanders in Ranmaru's general direction.

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Ranmaru bows.
"Kychinawa-Sama. Reported back the Hanzos have. Discovered a village, a forest, and a 100 strong fighting troop to the North they have.  Western knights and some sort of magic users. Preparing to attack the village they are. Plains in all other directions."

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Well, shit.

"We can't just let that village be destroyed," he says. Especially if people here are real. Which, holy fuck, has implications for fighting. He, Takeko, Soreiyu, and the warrior customized NPCs are no slouches, but he doesn't know the levels of the attacking force - probably low with numbers that high - can't assume that though and ahhhhhh this is why he's not in charge of fighting. "I'll inform Takeko. Good work on the information."

 

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"It was nothing."

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"Still. Keep up the good work," and aaaaaa how do you part from someone who didn't exist until like just an hour ago. Awkward parting routines ahoy?

Once that particular nightmare's done with, he hurries to find Takeko and update her on the situation.

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"Well, that's no good," she says. "I'm not comfortable leaving the castle undefended, especially right now, we don't have that many high-level retainers - we don't have concrete information on the enemy's levels - you and me should be enough for the offense, Soreiyu's the best of us at defense. What're our current forces look like - I like the sound of 'overwhelming force' so we'll take a fourth if that's not ludicrously many, a larger chunk if that's too few, I'll leave exact numbers to you and the retainers."

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"Right. I'll. Get that set up." 

He nods to Takeko, then goes to find... Someone.

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Masamune is still were he was left and has a fairly good idea of what forces are available. It also looks like he is talking to one of the Hanzo's so he probably has a good idea of whats going on.

  

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"Masamune, we're moving to protect that village that's being attacked." A quick confirmation with Message - not useful for actual conversations, nice for things-he-forgot - and: "Soreiyu's preparing a scry and some gates so we can position our forces ideally."

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"Understood, I have have the Yabusame assembled as they are most suited to open combat, as well as three of the owlbears for overwatch. This is approximately a quarter of our offensive ability excluding the Daimyos."

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A Message pings against his mind, so: "Right, that's in line with Takeko's directives. Soreiyu's finished his scrying and is on his way." Also shit should he be using honorifics ahhhhh well too late to start now.

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As he finishes:

A certain blond appears in a showy swirl of leaves and flower petals.

"Talking about me? I've got the details we need, and - " He waves a hand and an illusory three-dimensional map appears. "Enemy forces are in red, villagers in white, proposed portal locations in blue. Fighting is active, so we need to move fast."

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The Knight has just killed two peasants and turns to face their children. Sword held high.

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Enri runs for her life dragging her sister with her.

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Soreiyu does not generally advise rushing into situations, especially not for the sake of NPCs.

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Takeko, fortunately for the children, is not required to take his input into account.

She teleports in front of the child, sword raised to block the strike, other hand lashing for his midsection. Shocking Grasp was one of her first spells, and it remains her favorite. Take average-of-seventy damage straight to the gut, enemy knight!

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"And Takeko just jumped the gun. We're going with the highlighted portal."

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He drops like a puppet thats strings have been cut.

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Enri continues to look terrified, but manages to get out a thank you to Takeko.  Curiously her words are perfectly correct Japanese but don't match her lip flaps.

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A quick "No problem," and then a moment to orient herself before she's casting - Winds of Vengeance is ninth tier, but lasts twenty minutes and is worth it until backup arrives, and her fly speed with that's double her usual speed. She rises into the air, wind whipping around her, and a half second's thought activates Cheetah's Sprint, increasing that speed by another ten times. (Two hundred feet per second is probably cheating somehow but damn if it isn't fun). She darts towards the next cluster, activating Storm Bolts whenever there's more than ten enemies within a thirty foot radius of her (eighth tier so it's mana intensive, but does that same average seventy damage in a thirty foot burst, allowing her to target up to everyone within range and her skill's pretty damn high, so), Shocking Grasp if someone's off on their own.

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And some very exasperated cavalry arrives, army in tow.

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Kuchinawa takes up his usual roll of buffs and healing.

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The knights all die in one hit. The magic casters the Hanzos saw haven't made an appearance. The villagers seem as scared of their rescuers as they were of the knights.

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The focus is on repelling the invaders and keeping his own group healed, but Kuchinawa does heal injured villagers when he sees them, and tries to speak reassuringly when directing people into safer areas.

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His own group receives literally no injuries. These knights are kinda completely pathetic. This gives him plenty of time to heal villagers. Several of them look like they are going to just run, before they see the horse archers. The seem to only follow orders and accept healing out of terror.  They say things like "Run a Naga.", "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.", "If only Gazef were here." and "Please don't eat my baby."  Their words continue to be perfectly understandable and not match their mouth flaps.

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Odd.

Takeko starts doing sweeps for the missing magic users while her team secures the village.

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Instead she find a second group of warriors, in completely different uniforms riding full speed at the village from the opposite direction as the castle.  If she keeps looking she will also find the magic casters hiding out in the wasteland between villages, and several already destroyed villages.

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Argh. She sends a Message to Soreiyu and Kuchinawa, warning them about the hidden magic casters (and tells Soreiyu to get a move on intercepting them) and the second group of warriors, then sweeps in to intercept the warriors. She doesn't attack right away, instead landing in front of them. The winds keep swirling about her, but she stops renewing Cheetah's Sprint.

"Halt! I am Daimyo Takeko Uchiha. Who are you, and what is your business with the village beyond?"

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Soreiyu just sighs, tells Kuchinawa to leave the injured villagers to their more human-looking healer NPCs, and starts moving towards the magic casters. He doesn't have Takeko's same spells, but both of them can still get pretty fast, flying on a conjured disk of force rather than showy wind.

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"I am Warrior Captian Gazef Stronoff, here to repel the invaders by order of the king! What is your name and bussiness in Re-Estize?"

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"Oh, good. As I said, my name and title is Daimyo Takeko Uchiha. My castle seems to have arrived nearby through a bit of a magical mishap, and we noticed the village being attacked and mobilized to assist."

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He halts his company, and verbally backtracks a bit.
"My apologies, we pushed ourselves in an attempt to intercept the raid and I'm honestly a little out of it. Please ride with us" he hesitates on the word choice "Uchiha-dono."

And with that he continues on to the village.

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She sends Kuchinawa and Soreiyu and update, and keeps pace.

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Soreiyu, meanwhile, is observing the magic users, assuming they haven't moved. What are they up to?

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They are mostly just standing around waiting for something.  Luckily for Soreiyu their commander is a monologuing douchebag who is fulling willing to inform his troops of the following facts that they are already aware of:

1)That they are the elite Sunlight Scripture of the Slane Theocracy.

2)That their primary objective is to kill Gazef.

3)That their secondary objective is to sow discord by pinning the attacks on the Empire.

4)That he is a monologuing asshole who probably got his job through connections or something.

He doesn't technically say that last bit outloud, but its implicit in basically everything he does.

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Drama. Great. Incompetent drama, at that. Doesn't help that he hasn't heard of any of those groups either.

He updates Takeko on what he's seen and heard. His hearing's already as sharp as it'll go, he's five kinds of invisible, quietened, and stealthed, and his anti-scrying measures are active, so he doesn't feel particularly endangered about hanging around to start planning his attack.

Hm, how best to bring about an ambush, here...

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While Soreiyu plots and plans, she relays the information to Gazef.

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Gazef will ask for a chance to make sure the village is fully secured, but says that if it is he is willing to just go and give them the fight they want.  Or if Takeko is insistent on helping he can lure out the attackers while they flank.  He'll also mention that the Theocracy is to the south of the kingdom, probably to the north of your homeland though he's surprised you haven't heard of them.

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She's fine with him checking on the village; it doesn't seem like the mages are going anywhere immediately, though her third (Kuchinawa) reports it secure.

If they are willing, she and her second (Soreiyu) would like to join the assault on the magic-users. She prefers seeing things through. Him luring out the attackers while Takeko and her second attack from behind is a strategy that works for her.

(She'll leave the 'assuming she's local-ish' thing for later).

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He wants to make really clear that he's super grateful, but that they shouldn't feel obliged to help clean up something thats his responsibility when they've already done so much.  That said its a tactically sound plan and he like winning so he'll go along with it.  At least until he reaches the village.  You guys do know that there are demi-humans in the village?  The one you said was safe.

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Ugh. Fantasy racism.

She has demi-humans in her employ, yes. Is that going to be a problem?

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Well all of the demi-humans he's ever heard of are at least somewhat antagonistic to humans, and typically believe in eating them.  On the other hand they're from pretty far away and all of the humans around here hate each other so as long as she's confident they are really under control.  

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Huh. Ones she has are more 'human with minor cosmetic and capability differences' than 'human-like animal'; she's heard of more monstrous ones, though. Might be a local difference.

(She resolves not to take off her helmet around locals.)

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He will quickly confirm things with the villagers, and all of them, but especially Enri give positive reviews.
With that taken care of he and his men will sally forth.

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Soreiyu notices someone scrying him, sets a false image of the guy continuing to monologue to cover the upcoming fight (he has enough material by now to make a loop non-obvious). He warns Takeko that there's (likely periodic) scrying, he caught a sweep, does Gazef advice a scry trap?

(She passes on the information - and tells him to cover his more obvious non-human features, which he does).

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He admits he doesn't know much about magic at that high a level, but from his perspective if they can make it look normal till they have won then spring the trap that would be good.  The Slane Theocracy are fairly strong magically and may be able to intervene from afar. He's even heard rumors that some of them can teleport.

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If 'they might be able to teleport' is big news, this region is probably fairly low level. Something to keep in mind when showing off; she sends a note to Soreiyu that they might want to keep their capabilities on the down-low.

"We'll do that, then. Are your men ready?"

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He looks at his men, who start cheering in affirmation.
"Yes"

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Then they can begin, Soreiyu firmly establishing his false image (and taking a moment to quickly disguise his more obvious non-human features).

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Nigun gets tired of waiting and has his casters start summoning "angels".  They look to be low level YGGDRASIL monsters called [Archangel Flame] along with a single slightly more powerful [Angel Guardian].  Neither one of them can even pierce the DR of a level 100 with proper anti-zerg-rush skills in their build.  Even without those skills they still aren't a serious threat, assuming they really are the YGGDRASIL monsters they appear to be.

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"Hm, are you ready to draw him out, or should I jump him before he summons something worse?"

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"Attack!"

And with that the royal troops advance.

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She'll hang back and prepare her ambush, then.

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As his men charge it becomes clear that they are individually well matched with the angels but couldn't take on this many even without being harassed by spells.  Also, several of them are using unusual abilities, generally while saying some sort of activation phrase starting with "martial art".  Unlike spells these phrases seem to be in Japanese, or whatever language is being translated into it.

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Hm. She'll have to learn more about the local magic.

Later.

Once the enemy's ranks are a bit disordered, she and Soreiyu swoop in, Takeko going for a surprise attack on the leader, Soreiyu systematically taking out the harder hitters.

They don't show their full power, unless it's needed, and Takeko thinks they've gotten a pretty decent idea of these two armies' weight classes at least for calibration, but they're clearly a step above their opponents. She's also aiming to capture the leader if it's possible without him escaping, and Soreiyu has orders to grab at least one magic user.

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This almost goes smoothly. Fighting with just spells of the 4th tier and similarly leveled physical abilities is enough to utterly overwhelm the opposing spell casters while still being pathetic by YGGDRASIL standards.  It also panics Nigun so he is distracted and yelling about a trump hard when Takeko grabs him.  Unfortunately he already has said trump card in hand and manages to activate it as he is immobilized.

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Behold the Dominion Authority!  An angel of the second choir! A serious threat when in encountered as a choir of seven sevens overseen by seven angels of the first choir like in that one dungeon.  From that update with all the psedou-Christian stuff.  Anyway, by itself its smack dab in the middle of the yawning chasm between the locals' level and that of a player. 

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...She's decently sure she can manage killing it without letting it run rampant, letting it hit her allies, letting her target have time to escape, or giving away too much.

Still, she keeps an eye on her target, watching for escape attempts.

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"Hahahaha scared to do anything? Thats right this is seventh tier magic no man can stand before. Cower before the judgement of the gods incarnate. Dominion Authority! Make an example of the one thats not holding me."

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It shoots a giant pillar of magic down at Soreiyu.

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Soreiyu wasn't paying attention and gets scratched.

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She rolls her eyes and hits the angel with a lightning bolt.

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Its dead Jim.

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"A power that surpasses demons, who in the world are you?"

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"Don't see how it's your business, really."

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...

He seems geniunely confused by how to respond to that.

"Well we just had a fight, don't you normally say who you are so your opponent knows who to beg for mercy?"

 

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"Not typically in my culture."

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...right straight to begging then.
"Spare all of us... no I alone am enough spare me I will give you whatever reward you wish."

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Another scry sweep passes through, and someone starts to like their "colleague" even less than they already did.

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With any luck that scry won't see through Soreiyu's illusions.

Takeko, meanwhile, rolls her eyes. "Is everyone here this pathetic?"

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"Pathetic? That was... There are a few forces that could have defeated that angel like you did but most only high ranking members of the scriptures and similar know about most of them.  Spare me and I'll tell you everything I know."

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"More meant the begging. But, sure, I'll hear it all later."

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"Thank you merciful master.  And normally no, but the other existences capable of destroying Dominion Authority tend to bring it out in people."

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"Uh-huh." And she'll keep an eye on him while switching to ranged attacks, helping the battle move along faster.

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It looks like everyone still alive started running or begging for their lives as soon as the Dominion Authority died. Wait nope, "You rat bastard, you think you can sell all of us out and betray the gods". Looks like an anonymous mook has finally had his Office Space moment and is aiming for Nigun.

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She'll block that, then. If the dude bothers her she'll kill him, won't even waste mana on it, but she's not paying much attention to him.

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He reassesses his options and goes for running away.

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He can join the other people scattering, then.

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"Thank you Uchiha-dono, they are completely defeated.  Would you like to return to the village?"

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"Sure. I'll have Soreiyu secure our prisoners - oh, Soreiyu, go ahead and switch the illusion to a scry-trap, see if we can catch them?" (He nods).

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A giant crack appears in the sky.  They definitely aren't scrying here anymore, and a bomb payload was sent upstream.  Unfortunately, there is no real way of knowing how effective it was against any defenses they may have had.

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"And that'll be them. Well, let's get back, then." She'll keep to the army's pace, since she hasn't received any emergency broadcasts from Kuchinawa, but she does let him know they're all coming.

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Gazef is waiting back at the village with the remaining villagers, who are already busy digging graves.

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"Everything going alright here?" she asks him.

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"People are still a little scared, but mostly happy to be alive.  It looks like we'll have everyone buried before undead start forming."

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"That's good. It's a pity we couldn't get here faster, but time passes as it will."

She mentally adds 'undead' to the list of things to question her captives about.

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"So you said your castle was transported here by magic. Are you planning on going back now?"

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"To my castle, yes, but we weren't the ones to transport it, and don't currently know how to return it." Or if that's even possible.

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"Do you know who did transport it and where it is now?"

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"We don't know who transported it, but we do know where it is, yes, since we were in it at the time. It's hopefully stayed in place."

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"Well what do you plan on doing now?"

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"Return to our castle, regroup, find out more about this part of the world. See if we can return easily, and if not, see what we can do to help out locally."

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"I see.  Is there any way I can get a hold of you, or anything you would like before you return?"

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"We're currently not far from here; I can contact you in a day with an answer on whether returning is straightforward or not, we should have exhausted the easy options by then. I'll have more questions then, too, right now I don't know what to ask, beyond general confusion at the local political scene."

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"Well I can help a little with that part.  This general region is known as the human kingdoms.  We're in the Re-Estize Kingdom, to the South and Southwest is the Slane Theocracy, to the Southeast is the Holy Roble Kingdom. The Baharuth Empire is to the West.  Beyond that is a mix of sea and non-human countries."

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"And the Slane Theocracy are the ones involved in this mess?"

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"Well thats what it looks like. The knight's uniforms are from the Empire, but it sees more likely that the Theocracy was trying to frame them than that they were cooperating."

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"Seems that way to me, too, but I'll see what I can gather. Thank you for the help."

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"It is I that should be thanking you."

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"You're welcome. It wasn't a problem for us, and - we were there to help."

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Somewhat later and back at the castle Nigun spills the beans like a Bell carrying a crock of chili.

The awakened God-kin could have beat the Dominion Authority but it would be a close fight unless they had the relics of the gods equipped or teamed up. Any of the old dragon lords could have done it for sure, but they've gone downhill in the last couple of centuries.  Still maybe if they teamed up. The elf king claims to be that strong but hasn't actually taken the field in Nigun's lifetime so he thinks it may be a bluff. Fluder might have had a chance but just barely. Same for most adamantite adventuring groups. 

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Well. Takeko was hardly the most powerful person in Yggdrasil, but - that's very telling about this world.

For that matter...

What are the capabilities of the Slane Theocracy? And are other worlds known to this one?

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The God-kin are on the Theocracy's side.  They also have the relics of the gods which include weapons and armor that boost the God-kins fighting power by an immense amount, and a mind control device.  This is in addition to a strong conventional military with five other scriptures as or more powerful than the one he lead.  

Well there's the afterlife and the demon world.

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'Relics' sounds potentially worrying, but also like an opportunity if she can seize them. Mind-control - is more of a resource-wasting nuisance in Yggdrasil than an actual threat, but that's not something she wants to screw around with and risk being better here than there. She sends a quick message to Soreiyu that he needs to finish developing those subversion protocols he'd been spit-balling.

(She's fairly confident they can take the army. Given his relative strength assessment, she's also fairly confident she can take the God-kin, but she'll avoid risking taking them all at once, especially if they have their relics.)

She tells him to elaborate on the demon world, and whether the God-kin, so boosted, could have taken the Dominion Authority.

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Boosted they definitely could, and um you summon demons from there. He doesn't know what its actually like.

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(On the one hand, 'literally another world' could cover any weirdness. On the other, that would be a hell of a weirdness on its own, and Takeko prefers keeping her cards close to her chest.)

Who leads the Slane Theocracy? What sort of politics can she expect of them?

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The Pontifex Maximus is the head of state but most big decisions are made by the council, which also includes the six cardinals of each god, the head judge, the head of the legislature (which is its own relatively unimportant thing), the head of the magic research institute and the Grand Marshall.

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Interesting. How are they likely to react to her and her forces?

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They will try to destroy you as threats to humanity.  Probably, you might be able to negotiate with them, but that will be their first thought.

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"Why would they think we're threats?"

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...Because your not human.

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"They'll notice, even if we hide non-human features?"

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I mean if you used disguises from the start you that might work, but the royal court leaks like a sieve and Gazef will totally mention it in his report.  Not to mention all the villagers.

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...Great.

And there's no assurances they can easily make of their good will?

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He might be able to convince them if you release him, and he explains how you thought you were just rescuing the villagers.

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Ah, yes, how exactly does slaughtering villagers while posed as the empire's men advance the theocracy's goals...?

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The kingdom is on fertile land with other human countries providing a buffer against attack.  It was supposed to serve as a breeding ground for strong humans but instead it has become weak and is exporting its degeneracy through organized crime.  So we want the highly competent empire to conquer it.  This was supposed to kill Gazef while making tensions worse.

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(Supremacist idiots. Great.)

Why does the theocracy want the empire conquering this kingdom?

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Because the empire would make better use of there resources.  They have high economic productivity, and a system that allows them to identify and train potential magic users and talented fighters. Also the Bloody Emperor would but an end to the crime syndicates.

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What does the theocracy get out of it, besides ideological superiority?

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They do think having a more competent trading partner and buffer state would be nice.  But a lot of it really is ideological, they are a country of religious fanatics after all.

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(That makes them harder to deal with).

Is the ideology on a local level, or mostly confined to the leaders?

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Its pretty widespread.  The populous is arguably worse actually.  They are a bit less committed, but also less pragmatic about making compromises.

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(Well, that'll complicate things if she ever needs to conquer them. Which isn't a goal, but Takeko likes having her options laid out.)

What are the details of the theology, as far as the common man holds to?

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Six hundred years ago the Six Great Gods came to save humanity.  They saved us from extinction, protecting us from monsters, teaching us magic, and granting us Godly Equipment. But they disappeared one by one except Surshana who was defeated by the eight greed kings.  Also all non-human are threats to humanity, but different species run the gambit from merely being competition for resources (e.g. dwarves) to evil for evils sake (demons, undead ect).

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What's the deal with undead?

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They all hate life want to kill everything, especially humans. They mostly spawn randomly from dead bodies that aren't given proper burials, but can be created by magic.

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Apparent intelligence? Power levels? Immunities, weaknesses?

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All variable, intelligence and power level are loosely correlated with each other and rarity. Typically weak to fire and holy magic, and immune to all mental effects, poison, paralysis, stunning, sleep effects, and death effects.  He then gives an extensive list of undead that mostly matches undead from the low to mid tiers of YGGDRASIL monsters, with the discrepancies all being about creatures he is not particularly familiar with. All of the mid tier ones are considered to be major bosses who likely control their own dungeon or maybe flat out myths.

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"What constitutes a proper burial, here?"

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Its actually not a binary thing, and generally speaking its about showing proper respect for the dead rather than specific actions per se.  That said the main things are putting the body underground or in a purpose build mausoleum, having a grave marker, and having some sort eulogy or prayer for the dead said at the funeral.  Having people visit the grave afterwards also helps. 

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That should be doable. What happens if you destroy the body?

(She's going to assume that applies to her own people as well, and makes a note to put 'consistent funerary rites' as a high priority for the dead.)

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Ghosts/wraiths.  Unless you cremate them and treat ashes like a body.  From what we know about demi-human society we think cannibalism also prevents undead but lets not go there.

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Indeed not.

(So she'll need to be careful with her more destructive spells, at least enough so to gather people's ashes after she zaps them.)

So, in order:

Demons? Elaborate.

What's going on with the declaring attacks?

Who were the greed kings, and are they still relevant today?

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Demons are powerful magical creatures that enjoy inflicting pain an suffering.  They are believed to come from another world, imaginatively called the demon world, but thats a bit speculative because you can't trust anything they say.  

Well besides actual spells warriors can learn martial arts that let use special abilities.  Its really not his area, but some well known ones are x fold slash(es) of light, and fortress which negates attacks below a certain level.

The Eight Greed Kings appeared 500 years ago an conquered most of the world before having a falling out and destroying each other.  All dead now, though their floating castle is still intactish.  The platinum dragon lord lives there now.

 

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(She might want to look into learning some of that, later.)

Who is the platinum dragon lord?

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The most powerful of the remaining dragons.  He's also one of the few people who can still use wild magic.  After a brief pause he decides that its worth volunteering information on wild magic unasked. Wild magic used to be popular before tier magic was introduced.  It was potentially more powerful than tier magic, or a least the tiers anyone normal can reach.  However it requires sacrifices, and can only be used by true dragon lords, their descendants, or people with rare Talents.

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(So people to watch out for).

Any major players with it?

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The Argland Council State has most of the remaining dragon lords, including the Platinum Dragon Lord.  All of the other living ones are inactive and/or hiding beyond the areas the Theocracy has contact with.  Which to be fair only covers a quarter of the planet maybe less.  

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And a modern dragon lord would have a hard time soloing a Dominion Authority?

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Probably, but its hard to say.  Its known the wild magic itself has declined in power and that the strongest dragon lords were wiped out by the eight greed kings, but its  not like the empire has convinced the two to come fight in their arena.

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(So she should avoid convincing every single person on the continent to team up against her at once, it sounds like, but - there's very few well-known direct attacks she'll need to be fully paranoid about.)

(Which means indirect attacks - subversion, information warfare, assassination - are her relative weak spot.)

"Details on the military strength of the other polities?"

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Council State ~= Theocracy >Elf Country if the king doesn't fight > Empire > Beastman Country > Dragon Kingdom > Holy Roble Kingdom > the various small tribes of non-humans inside the human lands> Re-Estize Kingdom 

There are a lot of powerful non-humans in the areas they have less information on, and if all of the local ones united it would be a big problem. But this area remains the human lands because only the Elfs, Beastmen and Dwarves have proper countries rather than tribes.  The dragon kingdom is mostly human they're called that because the royal family has a single dragon in their ancestors.

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"Who's allies or enemies with who?"

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We're actively at war with the Elfs, the Empire wants to take over Re-Estize.  We give the Dragon Kingdom military aid against the Beastmen.  Most of the non-human tribes make opportunistic raids humans and each other but don't really do war per se.  Everyone else low key hates each other but aren't currently fighting.

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"Any treaties?"

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He's familiar with the concept of making treaties on specific issues but not of NATO style treaty organizations.

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"Does anyone have defensive pacts with each other, then?"

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Nope.

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Hmmm....

She'll ask a few more clarifying questions about international politics, but this topic seems mostly exhausted.

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Yeah, that said there are some mildly interesting conventions that countries mostly hold to, most notably that they pre-arrange the time and date of major battles so that they have an easier time containing the resulting undead.  Relatedly, you're relatively close to the Katze plains, which is the the main killing field for the kingdom and empire. Like outside the real danger zone, but still in the general wasteland region.

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Noted. Other nearby geographical, political, or geopolitical landmarks like that?

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If you go slightly further past the village than you did you hit the monster infested forest of Tob which then gives way to the mountains the dwarves inhabit.  You're also fairly near the fortress city of E-Rantel which separates the inhabited parts of the kingdom from the Katze plains on one side an the Theocracy on the other.

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Is he able to at least sketch a map?

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He tries, but his drawing skills are non-existent and as everyone knows writing isn't auto-translated so he can't usefully label it.

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She has a good enough memory to mostly recall what each label means if said out loud, and this is really more for immediate reference and spatial orientation, anyways.

(For that matter, what's their writing system like? She'll be too busy to learn it, but she might want to assign someone to that task if it won't take years.)

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The writing system is phonetic and quite easy to learn if you already know the spoken language which is you are incapable of hearing without it being auto-translated.  This is a known issue and why most people don't learn to read foreign languages. Well its why even people with educations and the chance to deal with foreigners don't. Most people don't learn how to write in foreign languages because they are illiterate peasants.

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(...That's moderately dumb, why don't they have a universal logographic language. She doesn't ask this, but does note that she still might want to assign someone. Learning word roots like logographs should be possible. (She doesn't say this out loud.))

She'll keep him alive for now, and consult Soreiyu on whether 'killing him,' 'letting him go after scaring him,' or 'turning him over to local justice' seems best.

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He's generally in favor of handing him to local justice. It does best to at least appear friendly to the locals.

Also: "We should attempt to scout the area more. Preferably incognito."

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"Reasonable, though they seem to hold prejudices against non-humans, and I'm not sure I trust the - recently ex-NPCs - all that far."

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"Me and Soreiyu can pass with head coverings and contacts for me, and we can have a disguise under it in case someone removes them?"

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"Sensible. I can manage a basic disguise like that, too, even continuously."

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"Say you're travelers from afar, writing a book for the audience at home," she suggests. "It's less suspicious, I think."

And that seems to be that; after some more discussion, they select E-Rantel for their destination.

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The city is a massive fortress completely surrounded by a walls with towering spires.  To get in you have to go through a gate worked by a visibly bored guard squad.  They ask the travelers further up in line basic questions about their business in the city and occasionally have a magic user cast pathetically low level detection spells.  The one merchant to have "high level" magic items in her inventory gets extra questions but is allowed through.

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They don't actually need high level items to be a local threat, so they didn't bring their usual glowing-like-a-Christmas-tree-on-fire arsenal. Just a relatively few things Soreiyu has hidden, and some ritual components in an expanded pouch (also hidden).

He lets Kuchinawa take point on socialization and explaining their story: travelers from a far away land, writing a series of stories about their travels for the audience back home, curious about these lands.

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The guard will be slightly more interested than normal, and ask some basic questions; what your country is called, where exactly is it, and who is your king/leader?

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Not on his map, but it's here, on theirs (far scrying: for the win), and it's named such-and-such (they did, actually, find a Japan-esque nation very unlikely to contact this one in the next, oh, century), and the leader's so-and-so. They've been traveling a long time, and don't expect any sort of official contact - but you might have seen the occasional ware passed along trade routes? Their country makes very good fine pottery and silk paintings - nothing they brought, of course, needing more space for their papers and pens.

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Oh so thats how you pronounce that place. He once saw a rich guy wearing some weird clothes and asked a friend about them. Anyway, since you're from so far away he'll give you a very brief spiel about how awesome a fortress their city is and directions to the three inns in the city.  On is super cheap and mostly used by adventurers, one is super expensive and mostly used by high roller merchants with the occasional noble that isn't staying long enough to just get a mansion, and a middle of the road place used by everyone else.  And now its time for the line to move on.

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They'll thank him and move along.

The place used by adventurers fits more with their cover, and seems like it's more likely to be rife with rumors and people who like to tell stories about themselves, so they head there.

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The city is built in three concentric districts, an outermost military district, an innermost administrative district, and a more traditional city district with housing and industry. The guards directions take them to the middle district and past several open air marketplaces before depositing them in front of a pair of old west style saloon doors.

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He notes the locations of the marketplaces - they can be good for gossip - and leads the way into the building, pausing once Soreiyu's through to look around.

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The windows are closed, and so the interior is somewhat dark. People who were used to the light outside would probably not be able to see their hands stretched out in front of their faces. However, as Kuchinawa and Soreiyu both possess darkvision this isn't an issue. 
The inside of the building is quite spacious. The first floor is a dining area, with a counter further within. That counter is backed by shelves that contain dozens of bottles of alcohol. The door beside the counter most likely leads to a kitchen.

One could see the scattered customers within seated around several round tables. Almost all of them are men, and the promise of violence hangs heavily over them. Everyone’s attention is on Soreiyu. They look at him as though they are sizing him up. The only person who does not pay attention to Soreiyu is a woman seated in a corner. She stares intently at a small bottle on her table.

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He's pretty clearly primarily a spell-caster, one that carries himself with confidence but not arrogance. Someone who knows he can survive in the wilds, but won't be picking fights.

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Kuchinawa carries himself as someone more quiet - halfway between adventurer and scholar, probably has experience with delving into dungeons for the architecture and not the treasure - but out of the two as the one making decisions. He'll approach the bar, first, to see about securing a room for the night.

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A voice like a broken bell calls out; “A room, huh. For how long?”

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He's not particularly nonplussed at the innkeeper asking before he could initiate. "We'd like to stay at least a night, but might stay up to six," he says. "Which it'll be we'll probably know by tomorrow midday."

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"A night is five coppers. The food’s oatmeal and vegetables; meat’s an extra copper. Might be getting days-old bread instead of the oatmeal. That said you know we mostly serve adventures, not that I'm going to turn down money from foreigners or anything."

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"I'm writing a travel novella. 'Adventurers' are usually a good resource for stories. Five coppers is acceptable."

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Soreiyu, meanwhile, is looking around - and notes that almost every patron has a small metal plate on their bodies, usually on a necklace. 

Interesting.

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"You know whats good for getting stories out of adventures?  Offering them drinks."

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"I'll keep that in mind."

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A man stands up and waves you over to his table were he sits with several other men, all wearing silver plates.

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He'll pay the bartender for a night then wander over. "Hello!" he says, smiling. "I'm Kouta. This is my friend and assistant Susumu. We're travelers from afar."

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“I’m the leader of the Swords of Darkness, Peter Mauk. That fellow over there is the eyes and ears of our team, the ranger Lukrut Volve.”

A leather-armored blond man nods in acknowledgement, and his brown eyes seemed to have a spark of delight in them. He's slender and long-limbed, kind of like a spider, but his lean torso is wiry and muscular.

“Next is our magic caster and the brains of our group, Ninya, The Spellcaster.”

 

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“Pleased to meet you. ...But Peter, can you not use that embarrassing nickname?”

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"Eh? But it’s a good one."

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As this happens the final party member just keeps sitting there drinking and smiling.

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"Please to meet you all," he'll say, and Soreiyu will nod, too.

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"I see you're not from around here.  What kind of stories are you looking for?"

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"Well, our main area of interest is how this land differs from ours, but that's harder to encapsulate in a single story. The strange, the unusual, the shocking, all make good tales - or the prosaic and everyday, but for those we'll usually talk to everyday people."

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"We'll there's the time nobles kidnapped my sister."

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"If you don't mind sharing, that does sound interesting!"

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"It was a perfectly normal day, my sister was out working the way she always had since Mom died.  Then that bastard past through our village on the way to here and told he she was coming with him whether she wanted to or not.  I've been trying to find her since then, but that was while slavery was still legal so I think she's been sold off."

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"I've had a few contacts throughout my travels, I can try to find her? Stories should have happy endings, or at least satisfying ones."

Or he can get Soreiyu to scry for her.

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"You really shouldn't get you hope up. Its not"

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Ninya cuts him off.  "Her name is Tuareninya Veyron and she looks a lot like me but blond with with breasts.  She was taken by the pig Baron Cheneko."

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"I'll see what I can do," he says.

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"I'll be forever thank full if you do."

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"I haven't managed it yet, but... I'll try."

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"I'm trying to think of good stories.  There is how we met, but its pretty cliche.  We all met in this tavern. We were new adventures looking for group and the barkeep pointed us and a few others toward each other.  Our group realized that we formed a balanced team and looked up to the black knight.  So we formed a party and named ourself after his legendary four swords."

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He makes a few notes. "The Black Knight?" he prompts.

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"From the thirteen heroes? The ones that defeated the Demon Gods?"

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"I'm curious about local stories as well. It seems everywhere I've gone has had a different take."

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"Makes sense, I mean the City State Alliance is already from far enough east that I've never met anyone from there in person, and the Black Knight kept traveling way past here.  So people probably know more about the bits that happened near them." 

He goes on to explain how the half demonic Black Knight saved this city from being used as a giant human sacfrice to power some unknown ritual.  He also explains each of the four swords of darkness.  Kilineiram, a bastard sword made from compressed darkness with a black blade and and enchanted black sapphire in the pommel.  It has the power to unleash waves of dark energy, but is cursed and will corrupt the mind of a weak willed wielder.  Luckily both the Black Knight and its current owner, Lakyus, are strong in mind. Crocdabal, a corrupted sword which inflicts wounds that will never heal even with magic. Sfeiz, a death sword which will kill with a single scratch.  And finally, Hyumilis and evil sword who's abilities are unknown as its evil was so great the Black Knight never used it.

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He takes notes, makes interested noises, turns the conversation to smaller parts of the legend - who was the villain? What things has Sfeiz killed? And other leading questions. (He's mostly trying to sound out local power levels, and structures in how much individual adventurers can get away with.)

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Peter gets quite into it, and the others occasionally interject as well.  The arc villains of the whole 13 heroes adventure were a nebulous group called the evil deities.  The incident where this city was nearly destroyed was lead by the Dread Demon Zumara.  Sfeiz has killed orges, trolls, and a basilisk as well as swarms worth of lesser monsters.  Judging power levels is made difficult by fact that some of the Black Knight's feats involve monsters that didn't exist in game (what's a fog yak?), but  it sounds like he was somewhere in the vicinity of level 70-85 in terms of power.  This would make him strong enough to be able to pierce your passive defenses, but leave him at a massive disadvantage in a straight fight.  Its also enough that he's considered a legend 200 years later.  Peter doesn't mention anything about the adventure's guild in these stories.

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"When did the Adventurer's Guild form? I heard a rumor it was inspired by the Black Knight?" No he didn't but it's a reasonable rumor to have heard, and either Peter will confirm or want to correct him, so.

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"A bit after the heroes disbanded.  I actually don't know all of the exact details, but the thirteen heroes as a whole where one of the main inspirations with the magician's guild and some of the major temples giving additional support and a template for how to organize it."

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"Interesting. What kinds of things does the Guild handle nowadays?"

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The guild protects humanity from external threats. In practice adventures are specialized anti-monster mercenaries.  The guild serves as a clearinghouse for jobs.  Most obviously, the guild building provides a physical location for people to come and post or pick up jobs.  It also provides escrow service for the reward money and screens jobs for legality, environmental impact, and difficulty level.  The metal plates adventure's wear indicate their rank within the guild.  In addition to being a status thing, this rank is used to insure that they only take jobs of an appropriate difficulty level.  

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"They also keep you from healing non-teamates for free or getting involved in politics."

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"Sounds interesting. The equivalent structures back home are less concerned with keeping adventurers out of politics, but I can see how that arose as an idea."

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"I'm a little surprised by that part, the government is already pretty wary of the how much military power we have without letting us have political affiliations."

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"It's more common in highly militaristic societies. There's also a few places where the powerful outright rule. Not always to good ends, though."

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"Oh one of those places.  Like the elves."

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"Perhaps." He hasn't spoken to the elves yet, and expresses curiosity about their perspective on the various non-human neighbors.

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Tone wise they're less racist than you might expect from people who've taken money to kill goblins.  Their factual information doesn't differ much from what you already heard, but they do clarify that the elf king used his immense strength to take power by force.  They also add that the Great Forest of Torb has a large number of intelligent "monsters", mostly goblins and ogres, but also a terrifying beast known only as the Wise King of the Forest.  Nobody knows exactly what the Wise King looks like but it has jaws that bite, the claws that catch and the ability to use magic.

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Interesting.

He'll see what he can find out about local politics, but otherwise might let the conversation lapse a bit, or be steered by them.

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As previously mentioned Ninya really hates nobles.  This is a small part of why they've settled in an area that's part of the the King's personal holdings.  The party basically all agree that the King is much nicer than the nobles but incapable of getting things done.  They're is a bit of debate about how to split the blame for this between the Six Great Nobles for constantly opposing him, and the king for being a weak willed old duffer.  As for the rest of the royal family, they all love Princess Renner for having successfully pushed the anti-slavery law over the line and supporting adventuring subsidies so that they can get paid more poor villages facing existential threats have a chance of survival.  They don't have strong thoughts on the various princes, who mostly focus on court politics and haven't been to visible to random adventurer's who aren't exactly politics junkies.  They conspicuously fail to mention anything about a queen in a way that implies she's dead, but won't actually bring up that the queen died years ago unless explicitly asked and will be fairly quick to change the subject.

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He nods, makes some vague comments on how the Princess has laid out a good policy, and then - what are the threats in the area like? That villages tend to face?

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He rattles off a list of monsters, including a note that the undead ones are pretty rare if you avoid the plains but sometimes sneak past the fortress city.  All of the ones that are also present YGGDRASIL are extremely noob, and most of the non-YGGDRASIL ones are painted as being similar or weaker with the ghost ship being a partial exception.  Its a floating ship crewed by a relatively powerful collection of undead.  It also mostly leaves people alone.  Like it will kill anyone who comes across it and doesn't GTFO, but it doesn't make the effort to actively hunt people down like a lot of undead.  Peter doesn't even seem to consider the fact that almost half of these monster types use tools and are probably people

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(He does note the possible people-ness of the monsters, starts considering ways to open communications.)

He'll let the conversation drift a bit; he thinks he's gotten a good bit out of this that he can, so he's trying to see where they go and if any more ideas occur to him.

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They seem to have the idea that you're talking to adventurers because you want stories with action, so Peter (with some interruptions) tells the story of last years royal martial arts tournament.  The big favorite to win was Gazef based on his past wins, but a weird blue haired peasant named Brain showed up after having won several smaller events.  They met in the finals after Brain kept plowing through enemies using [field] a martial art he invented that gives perfect situational awareness in a three meter range and his high speed [flash] technique. However, Gazef eventually won by using [fourfold slash of light] to attack from multiple directions fast enough that Brian couldn't avoid all of them.  Everyone is really hoping for a rematch because Gazef is known for training like crazy while rumors say Brain was coasting on talent but disappeared somewhere to master his techniques.

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He nods. Tries to - sort of pry around the edges of guards, and defenses, and general preparedness for emergencies, without sounding like he's actually doing that - mostly more in the vein of asking for stories of past emergencies.

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Lukeluther suddenly starts participating in the conversation, and widely derails it by talking about the time he misplaced his gloves as an emergency.  He may have kinda caught on.

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He'll change the line of questioning, non-obtrusively and to something innocuous. What're some local impossible tales? The sorts of things commoners dream up about magic and adventure?

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Well there is an evil god tree in the great forest of tob, and lots of locals think that its bad luck to say the real name of various monsters in case it summons them.

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He'll let the conversation drift on, but he does have a long list of things to record and think on, and still needs to plan later days' journeys.

After a bit, he asks about the town proper, if they know anywhere - or anyone - else who'll have stories. Is there a library, or any sort of official story-teller position?

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Most taverns have people who tell stories but it isn't really a position.  Lots of nobles and guilds have libraries but they don't just let random people in.

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He'll explore the taverns, then, and might talk to a guild.

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Its getting a bit late by this point, but the Swords of Darkness are going by the adventures guild as soon as it opens up in the morning.

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"We might consider accompanying you guys, then, though just directions would be appreciated."

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The building is quite easy to find.  On the other hand the desk working will be at least vaguely suspicious of people who aren't either guild members or paying customers walking in.  Also, the translation magic does not quite seem to stretch to good unit conversion, so while he says what time the guild will open its not actually clear when that is.

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He'll clarify a few things about time conversion - mostly in reference to other events - but he's not really planning to be there at opening.

He thanks them for their time, says they've helped a lot with his book.

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They'll say there goodbyes then.

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In the morning the party heads to the guild.  As they approach they can see the sword of darkness leaving with a young man and a cart, but they are to far away to say anything and heading the other direction.  The guild building is in the same psedo-Tudor style as most of the city, with two floors connected by a grand stairwell, and crowds of people standing around and setting on the couches provided.  There is also a bulletin board and a reception desk, but in a probably poor design choice these can't be seen from the door.

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Well, he'll enter. He's still clearly foreign, looks more like a pilgrim or traveling story-teller, though his companion looks adventurer enough.

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A receptionist will gesture Kuchinawa to take a small slip of parchment, from what seems to be a take a number system.  His companion will receive a lot of looks that all start at his neck then jump around to his forehead then both wrists, I.E. the places real adventure's keep their guild id's.  After a short wait he will also be told to take a number and make sure he has his entrance exam fee ready.

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"I'm not taking an entrance exam. I'm a foreign adventurer, guarding my charge."

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Oh I see.  Guild badge replacement fee is material cost plus 5 bronze. We'll also need your certified placement exam results, plus a confirmation letter from your home branch guild leader, or in person statements from two local adventures to confirm your identity.  Please move out of the way and let the next person through if you don't have those ready.

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He doesn't have those ready because he's not joining or part of the Guild, but he doesn't feel like arguing with her, so he'll move.

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Secretary lady takes requests from several customers.  She's clearly a big fan of people having their paperwork in order, but her level of rudeness about it is inversely proportional to the customer's apparent wealth.  An fat merchant has no problem post a request for his caravan to be guarded while a villager asking for help with some dire wolfs is nearly reduced to tears when the lady presses him for more and more information then threatens to charge the maximum for a taking out a whole pack when he can't give exact numbers.

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Unpleasant woman. Still, they'll hopefully be done with her and her ilk soon enough.

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After awhile it becomes clear that they are welcome if and only if they are going do business with the guild, and that they can afford to pay as much for a few hours of light interrogation as the average client would pay for several days of actual life threatening work. This second fact is no surprise to Takeko, who already took the precaution of reforging some of their game currency into a fake far south currency then exchanging some of it for Kingdom coins.  Luckily Yggdrasil and the new world both work on the gold standard.  Even more luckily the new world has prices based on having to actually mine gold in realistic conditions while Yggdrasil's economy was run on the basis that piles of cgi treasure look cool.  Or at least this is lucky in the short term.  The upkeep costs on the castle are low by Yggdrasil's standards but could easily drain a local countries entire tax base.

After paid conversations with several adventuring teams and some time touring the city they have enough grasp of the local customs, geography, and history to get by.  With appropriate visual disguises they could probably even pass as Kingdom natives to people from neighboring countries.  They also get a lot of stories about "powerful" artifacts and people.  These stories tend to be some mix of things they've already heard, unreliable thirdhand rumors, useless due to not having a baseline for how powerful certain thing are, or are simply pathetic by level 100 standards.  Still there are a few things that seem at least potentially notable:

Even people who don't worship the Theocracy's gods basically agree they historically existed.

Talents with a capital T are a real thing that didn't exist in Yggdrasil, and while most of them are pretty lame some of them are quite powerful.  For example there's a local celebrity, Nfirea, who can use any magic item without regard for its prerequisites or security restrictions.

Five hundred years ago the eight greed kings appeared out of nowhere and conquered most of the world before infighting weakened them enough for the dragon lords to finish them off.  They spread/invented tier magic and created a flying city that still exists today.  The details of their other artifacts depend on who you ask, but sound like they were at least in the ballpark of what Yggdrasil players would have access to.

When he isn't being screwed by politics Gazef has access to wild magic items that double his stats and a sword that can cut through anything.

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It's fascinating, and Soreiyu focuses intently on analyzing what's being said, what's not being said, since he's there to look like a bored guard, not to do the questioning.

The gods might be a problem, someday. Soreiyu's not going to discount them on the basis of 'historical,' and he knows Takeko, paranoid as she is, won't either.

The Talents could be something to keep an eye on. Nfirea's is interesting - an ally with that Talent would be a boon, given the level of gear they have lying around spare, but an enemy could be a problem, especially if anything ever gets stolen...

They should possibly keep out of sword range of Gazef in future encounters, then.

The artifacts of the greed kings are probably highest concern in terms of actual things that can threaten them. Soreiyu would say it's unlikely for that threat to manifest, but he knows Takeko will want to be prepared as possible.

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Well their last party will give them some information on how to find these things.  The gods either died or "returned to their higher plane of existence" most from old age, one from trying to 1v8 the greed kings.  Gazef is at the capitol, but comes by E-Rantel pretty frequently since its the cornerstone of the kingdoms defense. The flying city moves, and is currently being squatted on by a dragon lord, but the party's bard can show you its usual range on a map.  Nfirea runs a potion shop with his grandmother. They saw him in here awhile ago to hire an escort for an ingredient harvesting run in Tob, but should be getting back soon if he isn't already.  Either way his grandmother is considered the best potion maker in the kingdom, which they guess is a type of powerful person?

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He'll thank them for the stories, at least.

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Guild lady lets them know that they'll have to leave for closing time, but will be approximately 1000% more polite now that they are high paying customers instead of randos.

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They leave, and after a quick discussion among themselves decide they have enough time tonight to pursue a few more leads. Finding out more about Talents seems fairly quick - and the potions shop is near and still open. Afterwards, they plan to make their way to another tavern.

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As the reach shop an old woman runs out, chased by the zombified corpse of Peter from the swords of darkness.

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Well that's not good.

They can't afford to reveal their true power, but he doesn't want to just walk away and he is known as an adventurer - 

Utility spells are great. He'll cast grease so the now slick ground blocks the entrance, is under the zombie, and is not under the woman.

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Zombie falls down.

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And with that bit of breathing room, Lizzy is able to pull out some potions and finish the zombie.

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"Are there more of those?"

And wasn't that the guy they were talking to last night?

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"Yes the entire party."

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And the rest of the swords of darkness are now skidding along the ground.  It seems zombies are't too bright.

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They should be resurrectable if the undead versions are killed. While Kuchinawa backs up, he'll cast minor spells, specialized to do a bit more damage against undead. Try to hold himself back from anything too obviously talented. (He can claim he's specialized in damage over endurance if questioned, say the only reason he won was a lucky utility spell...)

If any of them get out of the greased area he'll spread that, too. Let them keep falling over themselves while he (agonizingly slowly) picks them off.

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They actually go down pretty easily. Zombies are fairly weak even by local standards.  It should be possible to take them out with one first tier spell a piece if its fire or light based and the zombies are just zombies like you'd find in the newb areas of YGGDRASIL.  However, YGGDRASIL zombies are only magically summoned not raised from people's corpses.  If the swords of darkness retained their class levels then it would take several times more damage to destroy them and several of them would be capable of ranged attacks.  Luckily this didn't happen so Soreiyu only needs to cast three times as many spells as it would take at full power.

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Good. He's not sure why you'd bother raising famous adventurers as any sort of undead if you were going to make them the weak kind, not the annoying class level kind, but maybe they triggered some curse or did something else stupid...

"Do you know where they came from?" he asks the woman once it's apparent no more are coming out of the shop.

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"They were helping my Nfirea gather herbs from the great forest of tob when they were alive. I only stepped out for a minute.  Please find my Nfirea."

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"Do you know anything else about the situation?" Tob's possibly the locus of this - and a zombie outbreak in a neighbor would be inconvenient, even if it's really none of their business.

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"It looked like they had a pretty good haul when they came back."

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"Where're their things?" He's not dumb enough to touch anything, but - "I might be able to figure out what happened from looking at what they had."

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She points out a nearly empty cart as having been theirs.  And indicates that they had been unloading it into a storage room at the end of the hall.

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He'll exchange a glance with Kuchinawa, then leave the other with the woman to go investigate around the cart - not touching anything, and casting a few detect spells.

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The cart seems to be completely normal.  Its loaded with what herbs and leaves and other things that seem are apparently used for potion making in this world.  They seem pretty normal, however all potions and most magic items in YGGRASILL were derived from data crystals rather than plants so Soreiyu doesn't have much of a baseline for comparison.

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He'll head into the shop, then.

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The shop shows signs of a struggle.  Also there is a message written in blood signed "Clementine" saying that Zurrernorn has taken Nferia to the sewers.  Or at least thats what Lizzie says it says.  She also begs you to save her grandson and offers anything you want in return.

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He sighs, promises to do it, and asks for a few moments alone (so he can throw high-level divination magic at this).

Is he in the sewers? Where? Who's this Clementine? Who's Zurrernorn? Can he locate any of them with the blood or a name?

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Zurrernorn is a secret society that deals with the undead.  An rouge from the guild mentioned them while bringing the part up to speed on the local underworld but didn't go into to much detail.  Partially because they are considered to be weaker than the enforcement branch of the Eight Fingers gang which the party had (justifiably) dismissed as weak, and partially because she didn't want to admit her ignorance about a group that is generally good at the "secret" part of being a secret society.

Soreiryu's never met or heard of Clementine, at least not under that name.  Speaking of names, scrying by name is pretty limited to begin with and assumes the name is unique.  YGGDRASIL enforced unique names for PCs and the most plot important NPCs, but doesn't seem to true of local first names.  The blood can be used to scry its source, which is Peter.  However, its possible to scry items you're familiar with and thinking about this may prompt the realization that the corpses are missing their guild badges.

 

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He'll scry those, then, and then go looking for any hairbrushes or combs to try and find Nfirea directly.

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[Locate item] plus a map borrowed from Lizzie place the badges in the graveyard.

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[Clairvoyance] reveals a woman, presumably Clementine, wearing a bikini made out of adventure's guild badges.  On the bright side she has a young man that matches Nfirea's description with her, and all of the undead are low level.  On the bad news front they have a literal army of undead.  Also, present are a creepy old man and gaggle of hooded cultists for whatever thats worth.

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Ugh. This is probably something Takeko will want to know about. Contacting her's at least easy enough...

Takeko's plan is loosely for her and Kuchinawa to go invisible, and try to draw the horde out of the graveyard (she suspects they're planning to attack the city, in which case they'll reveal themselves - as members of Takeko's team, trying to dissociate themselves from the undercover work here) while Soreiyu sneaks in to disrupt the horde at its source.

The most likely reason for kidnapping Nferia would probably involve his Talent, given he's not nobility nor a fighter, which means he might be being used to activate magic items to sustain the horde...

He first heads to Lizzie to tell her that his scrying revealed that Nfirea is in a graveyard, and that the woman who kidnapped him is raising more undead.

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Lizzy will attempt to notify the relevant authorities.  Luckily her and Nferia are both local celebrities so she has some pull.

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There is a place which occupies roughly a quarter of E-Rantel’s outer ring, which is also most of the western quadrant. It is E-Rantel’s communal cemetery. While other cities have their own graveyards, none of them are as big as this one.

 

This is in order to suppress the spawning of the undead.

Although many things are unclear about the spontaneous genesis of the undead, the basic idea is that vile creatures frequently spawn from the places where the living came to an end. Of these, people who died sudden, violent deaths and the dead who are not properly revered have the highest chance of coming back to unlife. Therefore, battlefields and ruins tended to be infested by the undead.

Since E-Rantel is very close to the Empire and consequently its battlefields, it requires a huge graveyard — a place where remains could receive the proper veneration.

In this aspect, the neighboring country — the Empire — also adheres to their common agreement to respect the dead. Though they slaughter each other, they both see the undead that attack the living as their common enemy.

In addition, there is another problem with the undead. If left unattended, the undead spawn more powerful undead. This is why the city guards and adventurers patrol the graveyards day and night to exterminate the weaker undead as soon as possible.

A wall surrounds the graveyard. This wall is the boundary between the living and dead. While it is only four meters tall and could not compare to the city walls, it is wide enough for people to walk on top of it. The large doors set into its side are sturdy and can not be easily breached.

All this is in order to ward against the undead that spawn in the graveyard.

There are staircases to the left and right of the doors, and watchtowers along the length of the wall. The guards take turns observing the graveyard below them as they yawn from the watchtowers, in shifts of five men at a time.

The graveyard is lined with sconces enchanted with [Continual Light] spells, so there is ample illumination despite it being nighttime. Still, there are many shadowy places, and visibility is even worse in those places blocked by tombstones.

The guards at the main gate to the cemetery have just came to a very important conclusion based on their own observations and reports from the surviving members of a patrol unit.

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“The undead! The undead are everywhere!”

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Takeko identifies the gate most likely to be swarmed, rings it with successive layers of magical traps as quickly as she can (while staying invisible), then positions herself and Kuchinawa between the gate and the horde.

And then, as the undead approach the first line of traps - 

She drops her invisibility, raises her hand, and clenches her fist in time for a very large explosion that ripples through the front lines of her enemies.

And then she brings her fist down, points, and speaks, and rays lance from her finger.

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Kuchinawa isn't as specialized in fighting, being more of a healer-slash-support, but he's better against the undead than against the living, and has a few area of effect spells he can spam to thin out the horde.

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Soreiyu casts no spells, and does his best to make no sound once invisible, maintaining his scry on the graveyard and waiting for an opening to retrieve Nferia.

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The guards are panicked by the explosions, but also gather that the undead are being destroyed so they fall back.

Nferia continues to be surrounded, by cultists but the creepy guy moves foward to a position where he'd better be able to deal with a more conventional forward assault.

The undead keep coming and they don't stop coming.  Nothing strong enough to cause direct injury, but many of them are strong enough that suppressing them en mass requires relatively high tier spells like the 4th tier holy ray.  These spells are still far short of what they would use in YGGDRASIL PvP, where even 7th tier spell are highly situational.  However, PvP battles tend to be over quite quickly and yet still often hinge on MP management.  While it will take at least half an hour, probably longer if the locals start being remotely useful, holding back an unending horde will eventually use up all the guilds magic.  

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It is not going to take Soreiyu half an hour to move into position. Maybe two minutes. He'll evaluate possibilities: grab Nferia and teleport away if he can, drop the creepy guy from behind and then start killing cultists as fast as he can without hitting Nferia.

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Even players have trouble penetrating [Perfect Unknowable] so if Soreiyu spent one of his 9th Tier spell slots on [Perfect Unknowable] it would be trivial to fly in grab Nferia and teleport out.  Alternatively if he spent a 9th Tier slot on [Gate] he can just yank Nferia through.  Lesser stealth and teleportation spells could have issues with detection from anyone close to player level, of course by local standards they should be just about foolproof.  On the other hand this horde of undead qualifies as legendary by local standards.  Killing the cultists should be easy if thats what he focuses on, the only potential problem is if they target Nferia themselves.

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He has both Gate and Perfect Unknowable, because his high-level-combat strategy is "don't" and someone on the team needed utility spells, since Takeko's too much of an aggressive dumbass to take them.

Nferia will disappear from the graveyard and reappear in front of Soreiyu.

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There will be a brief rent in the fabric of reality, but none of the casters have particularly fast reflexes or anywhere enough talent to cast [delay teleportation] so it will be over and done with before they even notice.

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Nfirea is extremely out of it.  Like its surprising he can stand.  He's also wearing all sorts of weird clothes. [Detect Magic] + common sense suggest the crown is the main issue.  [Appraisal Magic Item] suggests that the crown on his head should massively boost the power of any women already capable of casting mid tier divine spells and make it easier for her to blend her magic into that of others by enough for her to participate rituals despite taking enough of a mental hit to be effectively non-human.  It also suggests that removing the crown without destroying it first will permanently destroy the wearers mind, however it is worth noting that [Appraisal Magic Item] doesn't include full predictions for the item's interactions with effects not being appraised.

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He doesn't have the spell, since he had limited seventh level slots, but he has a scroll for [Greater Break Item].

(If that fails, killing Nfirea, removing the crown while he's dead, then resurrecting him remains an option of last resort).

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He is still out of it, but should mentally recover. It looks like the previous bleeding from his eyes may indicate some physical damage to them. Its hard to tell with the hair.

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He knows some really basic healing spells, but first he's going to focus on getting the other items off. Can they be safely removed?

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Surprisingly that is the only inherently magical item on him.  The rest of his outfit is either only important in the context of the ritual, or just flat out for the look of things. 

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These people are idiots.

He'll coax Nfirea to remove the stuff that's required for the ritual, then, out of an abundance of caution, and then go to find the guy's grandmother.

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Since this type of ritual isn't used in YGGDRASIL caution will result in a nearly naked Nfirea.

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Lizzy is at the adventure's guild, where she has succeeded in getting the guild master to talk to her after hours and almost got forces mobilized.

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He'll get Nfirea dressed, message Takeko about the ritual being ended, rouse a neighbor to stay with Nfirea, a different person to run a message to Lizzie, and then he'll scout the graveyard again, update Takeko again.

She wants to push forward with herself and Kuchinawa, but wants Soreiyu to play assassin against the cultists. Joy.

He'll go perfectly unknowable and return to the graveyard, then.

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Neighbor easily found, looks like a Lizzie potion saved his life or something.  Scouting suggests that that the existing undead aren't going anywhere, except the skeletal dragons which creepy old dude is using to flee the city.   Clementine is bailing on foot while using rouge skills to conceal herself from people who don't have their own rouge skills or just 100 levels worth of increase to their base stats.  The normal cultists are taking a bit longer to process things, but seem to be coming around to the idea of feeling in panic.

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...To capture people for interrogation or not.

Eh, he doesn't really care and his utility spells are better than his offense spells.

He'll grease and then sticky the area around the cultists - he doesn't super care if some escape but that should slow them down - then cast a make-your-target-glow spell on Clementine and screw with the underbrush to entangle her, then the skeletal dragons don't look very agile so they can have a wall summoned immediately in front of them.

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Clementine is tearing a path through the undead that are now aware of her presence and completely out of control. Cultists are neutralized and also potentially at risk from the undead.  Creepy guy is slowed by the wall, but it turns out skeletal dragons can clime surprisingly well.

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ARGH.

He'll send Takeko a message to stop showing off and come help, then wipe out any undead near the cultists, spread the grease so the undead will have trouble moving, send one of his more powerful blasts at the dragons, and... Clementine can be Takeko's problem. Her fault for leaving the utility monkey to this.

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Luckily being level 100 continues to be be ridiculously OP by local standards. So an extremely large area is greased and the dragons are wiped out.  Creepy old dude has fallen to the ground and appears to be alive but having some kind of mental breakdown and talking to his pet rock.  Cultists are running.

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Fortunately for Soreiyu's patience, Takeko chooses that moment to get within 'chain stun spell' range.

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Overwhelming your opponents with spam summons is a common YGGDRASIL tactic so she has spells for it, and with the locals being fairly weak by the standards of spam summons there won't be any who manage to resist it.  In this regard her spell is a massive success.

However, the lower level of the inhabitants is only one of the differences between this world and YGGDRASIL.  Like many games YGGDRASIL prevents allies from harming each other outside of very specific circumstances, thus the spell and tactics Takeko has spend years learning don't account for the need to not hit Soreiyu, which is what just happened here.

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It doesn't actually do anything to him, but those are some very creative curses.

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Well now they know friendly fire is something they need to watch out for.  They have some time before reinforcements arrive to finish off the stunned undead, but not much.  Now would be a good time to get their story straight and loot/kidnap anyone they don't want to share with the authorities.

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She apologizes to Soreiyu, and - well, the biggest thing to figure out is how they knew. Spying's rude, after all. Caught wind of a rumor? Soreiyu was in the area, noticed something strange going on?

(She'll leave the problem people to the locals to straighten out. She's not currently interested in more prisoners.)

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The head of the local adventure's guild was the first serious authority figure to be alerted so he's basically leading things.  Adventures finish off downed undead while guards start arresting cultists and Clementine.  

Meanwhile, the guild leader invites any still visible PCs back to his guild.

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Takeko dismisses Soreiyu and Kuchinawa - no need to risk them being recognized from up close - and goes in on her own. (She's still in contact with them, in case it's needed.)

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“Allow me to introduce myself. I am the head of this city’s Adventurer’s Guild, Pluton Ainzach.”

Pluton is powerful-looking middle-aged man.

He has the aura of a mighty veteran about him. There's no doubt that he is an excellent warrior.

He has a pretty high spot check and a lot of experience with different races, so he will strongly suspect Takeko is non-human.  However, he is smart enough to not force the point, at least not immediately.

 

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"I'm Daimyo Takeko Uchiha. A short time ago my castle was transported to a place nearby here without my permission. I've been trying to learn of the surrounding area since, and help out where I can."

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He takes a second to processes that before becoming subtly excited.

"Thats quite surprising. Where did you come from originally? Is anyone likely to come looking for you?  Daimyo is different enough from are titles that it isn't being directly translated, so I'm not sure if you're independent or have an Overlord that might conduct a search."

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"I came from a place called Yggdrasil. I'd be surprised if anyone came looking for us, we were independent, though small."

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"I've never heard of Yggdrasil before.  Do you have any idea how far it is from here?"

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"Very. A lot's different, and I'd never heard of here. I wouldn't know how to get back."

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"Amazing, what was it like there?"

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"More non-human sapients around. More high leveled opponents. Good bit of competitiveness between the guilds."

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"Sounds amazing.  I'd love to hear more sometime, but on to more pressing matters.  We're quite grateful for your help dealing with the undead, but how did you know what was happening?"

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"I've been listening to rumors - trying to get a sense of what's going on here - and caught wind of someone collecting artifacts related to a concerning ritual. I decided to scry what was going on, and stumbled upon the forming undead army."

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"Which artifacts?  The guards should have recovered any that were still on the cultists, but I haven't gotten the report yet and they may have missed some that were consumed or otherwise destroyed."

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"It was a crown, on Nfirea, who was kidnapped by the leader. It was destroyed in the process of removing it, but I have its remains and the related items with me."

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"The leader of our magician's guild and the mayor should be here coming with any items we recovered.  Would you mind if they examine what you found as well?"

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"Not at all."

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Pluton introduced an extremely thin and neurotic-looking man wearing a robe as Theo Rakheshir, guildmaster.  Theo is accompanied by a human mass of bloated, fatty oil, who is apparently the mayor.

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Takeko will go through pleasantries, and produce the items and fragments when prompted.

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The crown is too thoroughly destroyed for Theo to directly do anything with it.  However, the description and name match a treasure thought to be in possession of the Theocracy.  He confirms that all of the other garb is pointless junk that the cultists just ascribe religious significance to.  He seems rather annoyed that he isn't getting a proper chance to play with it, but confirms that there is no known way to reverse the brain damage if it is removed from a person intact.

He's also quite excited to show you what they got off of creepy dude.  

Theo raises the orb in his hand. It's a fairly rough-looking gem that gleams like a lump of blackened steel. Yet it hasn't been polished and it looks more like a lump of ore than anything manufactured. Everyone can sense something like a heartbeat coming from the Orb.

Theo praises the power of the "Orb of Death" in an honestly kinda creepy manner.  Apparently, it can cast a large number of necromantic spells and grant related meta-magic.  Its incredibly impressive by local standards.  To a level 100 player it is rather less impressive, but sounds like it could still be useful for having access to a large chunk of mid-tier necromancy without having use up spell slots.

 

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She's not too huge on the necromantic aesthetic. Still, she'll offer to help with securing it so no one else gets their hands on it (and make enough of a study of it she should be able to scry it later).

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At her level just getting a clear view of it should be enough to let her scry it, but given how things seem slightly different here it makes sense to take a closer look.  Theo is open to her adding more spells to the vault it will be kept in, but is reluctant to let it leave his hands till the vault is ready. Speaking of scrying the vault already has paranoid anti-scry protection.  Obviously a level 100 with the right set of spells can break through anything local.  But given that scrying favors the defender it is still a pain to deal with, particularly if they want to keep the protections intact and avoid anyone noticing their scrying.  

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Her main concern is if it leaves the vault, or someone suspicious enters that vault.

She should at least be able to hurry along production...

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The vault is already created he's just waiting for his underlings to finish checking that none of their other major magic items have special containment procedures that would preclude sharing a vault with the orb.  Still if she wants to add some extra spells, and doesn't mind Theo watching to confirm the spell's effects they'll take the extra security.

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That sounds reasonable. She'd like to help, still.

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After a bit more talking Takeko, and her assistant (a disguised Soreiyu) are taken to the vault.

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They're not going to waste ridiculous amounts of magic on this, but the vault will be very, very thoroughly protected from everything at the local level, and at a minimum annoying for people at Soreiyu's level.

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With that out of the way Theo reluctantly puts the stone in.

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Once everything's sealed up, he'll raise the possibility of resurrecting (or, making Kuchinawa resurrect) some of the people who got turned into zombies at the start. 

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After a rather drawn out magician's guild group huddle they decide that this will probably just result in them being raised as intact undead, but are willing to give it a go if he'll take responsibility for re-killing anyone that happens to.  They also hunt down the body of a guard captain who was infected by a contagious undead, and was strong enough in life to potentially survive resurrection.

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Kuchinawa doesn't want to bother with any items on this, so instead they recruit one of the NPCs he'd made as a divine caster - if that fails, he'll pull out a wand. Plus, this reduces the risk of that team recognizing Soreiyu or Kuchinawa, since they don't have to be in the room...

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She's able to heal the guard captain, no problem. He's weaker than before, but very alive.  She hypothesizes that this will only work on people who were went straight from alive to undead.  Based on using [Life Essence] she belives that the people in this world are weak enough that only the highest tier of resurrection will work for most of them, and even that might not suffice for everyone.  However, she is quite eager to experiment if Kuchinawa desires.

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He'll authorize the experiment - while Takeko's on hand to put down any failures.

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Trying to resurrect a random zombie fails, Tsunade puts it down her self.  After all, she is a divine caster, and its level is practically nothing. 

Of the handful of casualties of the horde, none rise as undead but only around half come back at all.  Some crumble into dust, indicating that they couldn't handle the drain from even relatively gentle resurrection spells.  Others are completely unaffected, which theoretically means that their spirt did not consent to leaving the afterlife.  Though the actual evidence for this theory seems a bit vague.

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He wants her to try bringing back the adventuring team, too. (He won't be in the area, though Takeko still will).

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She's game to give it a go, but will mention that they will likely come back as zombies if Clementine isn't killed first.

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The magicians will collectively back her up on this point.  They'll also mention that Clementine is on the fast track to the gallows, but has to be brought before a magistrate to be officially condemned first.  The kingdom almost sorta has rule of law after all.  Also, she's probably being thoroughly interrogated.   Zurrernorn was already a considered a terrorist organization before today.  It only avoided law enforcement attention due to not being very active and not giving any good leads to investigators.  So now that they've captured someone who played a major role in nearly destroying a city its only natural they'll want to pump her for everything she's got.

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He'll check with Tsunade if delaying the resurrection will change anything, but is fine letting there be a gap.

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As long as the bodies are still basically intact its fine.  If they can be put on ice that would be nice, but its not really needed.

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Soreiyu has a utility spell for that, like for most things. It's lower level, but it'll keep things preserved for ten days.