2021-08-07: Ghosts on a Train

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  • Log: Ghosts on a Train
  • Cast: Loren Voss, Asgard, Kaguya, Magilou, Lan Lilac
  • Where: Buckeye Station - The Depot
  • Date: August 07, 2021
  • Summary: In which nobody is good at riding a train, but a robot is good at suplexing them.

=======================<* Buckeye Station - The Depot *>========================

Buckeye Station's rail depot has returned to functionality, thanks to the blood, sweat, and toil of underpaid local workers. The central station is a large, stately building, all local stone and ornamental brass. Inside, travelers can purchase tickets, food, drink, and newspapers from all across Aquvy. Murals on the walls depict the history of the Anaheim Rail and Freight Company--and, secondarily, Buckeye Station itself. There is ample seating, both inside the station and at the covered waiting areas next to the tracks.

The depot is never truly quiet. There are always at least a handful of civilian travelers, and Anaheim's black-coated security officers keep a watchful eye on the place. It /is/ a strategic investment, after all.

BGM: Wild Arms 4 - The Dark Grey Buckeye
DG: A party led by Loren Voss is now entering Chibiki-Iwa Express.
DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
===========================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express *>============================
================<* CHALLENGE - A Train You Ain't Gettin Offa *>=================
|Type: Entry       |Dungeon Ability: Agility   |Challenge Rating: 4          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 A mysterious train that departs from the Thirteenth Platform.                 
                                                                               
 Perhaps you believe the rumours of people disappearing into the cloak of      
 midnight, or perhaps you're here to debunk the urban legend once and for      
 all. Perhaps you are here because destiny calls.                              
                                                                               
 The only clue you have is a foreboding black ticket, marked for one Group,    
 departing from the station you're present at...                               
                                                                               
 Hirasaka, Hirasaka... the one-way train bound for Hirasaka...                 
      will be arriving shortly.                                                
    Please wait by the yellow line... until the doors...                       
 	Open.                                                                        
                                                                               
 An ominous, tinny voice echoes from public announcement speakers that         
 Filgaia stations are... not usually equipped with.                            
                                                                               
 And then--                                                                    
                                                                               
 clack-clack                                                                   
   clack-clack                                                                 
                                                                               
 It appears.                                                                   
                                                                               
 A shooting star racing through the wilderness, drawing to an eerily silent    
 stop at the platform you're standing on. It is a train unlike any you've      
 seen - unlike the carriages and locomotives of Filgaia, the rumoured,         
 legendary Chibiki-Iwa Express has silver, rectangular cars, painted with a    
 black stripe.                                                                 
                                                                               
 The sliding doors open. The lights are on within, revealing surprisingly      
 mundane rows of seats flush against the walls. There is an almost             
 supernatural compulsion that draws you within. But just as soon as you start  
 inspecting--                                                                  
                                                                               
 The doors will... now close.                                                  
      Please step away from the doors...                                       
    There is no opening the doors.                                             
                                                                               
 The doors hiss to a flush close. No! The train shifts... it might be too      
 late!                                                                         
                                                                               
 Is there truly... no gettin' offa this train you're on?                       
=Dungeon Conditions: Cripple, Secret==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Travel back from Spira is a pain. There's no two ways about it: first you have to go through the Elw teleporter, walk through a forest, catch a ship (which takes days), and from there it largely depends to where you're trying to reach.

    For him, it's points further north, further north even than Assyria Base in the Damzena Desert. Which means that once Loren reaches Zoara, he has to take a train.

    As fate would have it, he arrives late at the station. He's already missed it, he knows he's already missed it, it's going to play hell with his connections and--

    There's one train at the platform. It has strange, silver rectangular cars. Only one black stripe adorns them. They're not a line he would have seen before--

    It doesn't matter. He races onboard and plants himself in a seat, breathing hard as he sags backwards. He's made it, somehow...

    'Hirasaka, Hirasaka... the one-way train bound for Hirasaka...'

    One-way train to... where?

    '...is leaving the station shortly...'

    Loren sits bolt upright in his seat. And the doors slide shut in the exact moment that he realizes how...

    ...how empty this car is for the line to Port Rosalia. Which he has traveled before.

    "Wait! Open the doors!! I'm on the wrong--"

    Too late.

DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, A Train You Ain't Gettin Offa.
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.

 
Near the back of the platform, there is a shape that's both tall and broad. It's difficult to know when he appeared there. Certainly after everyone else. Sticking out of the pocket of his trench coat is a black ticket...
 
... the same black ticket as everyone else.
 
-=-=-
 
"Is this some kind of bad jest? You're saying this just appeared on your form while you were in the middle of your auto-repair cycle?"
 
Malik says, with an air of skepticism. He knows the Golem is incapable of lying, but all the same, it truly seems implausible that something like this just appeared inside the Yggdrasil.
 
"Affirmative." Asgard replies, "You're sure your sensors didn't miss some filthy street urchin slipping it onto your person?" "Affirmative."
 
Malik turned the ticket upside down, then flapped it in mid-air, as if... recalling something... from his youth.
 
"I'm sending you to investigate this... on my own authority. Do not inform Melody... I'll tell her myself where I've sent you off to." Malik offers this smug smile, "Her initial reaction is one I will want to witness myself."
 
-=-=-
 
BGM Change: Infinity Train OST - Getting on the Train - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFVJ7TSVXfY
 
The Golem steps up, from the platform, onto the train, having to bend over with one hand at the arch of the door in order to slide himself in sideways. Up one step, then another.
 
His pace is sedate, unhurried...
 
Each step tromping across the sleek silver interior with a clatter. The Golem then moves sideways down the aisle. Tromp. Tromp.
 
While he feels compelled to board... he has no desire whatsoever to get off.
 
Which may be passingly inconvenient for the beings which actually feel a certain existential horror upon the announcement... because blocking the aisle of the car is a horned golem a little over four sharls high.
 
Sure maybe you are theoretically fast enough to reach the door in time... but his presence might certainly be a hindrance to that.
 

DG: Asgard has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, A Train You Ain't Gettin Offa.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

You might think that being an alien conqueror with a noble title and a personal army would mean that Kaguya would have at least one--no, two--ways of getting around in style without having to mingle with the common folk. You would, in that case, be wrong--her Gears aren't practical vehicles for simple travel across the countryside, and her army is on a boat back to Glenwood. Furthermore, the Veruni do not have awesome flying ships designed specifically to cater to Kaguya.

It's bullshit, is what it is, but Kaguya has to take the train.

And so she is on the train. She grumbled. She complained. And she came into the train to prepare to take a nap. Until people started making noise....

"Shut uuuuuup," Kaguya complains, currently seated in a booth with her feet all over the other seat like a rude jerk. "Some of us are trying to nap here."

Pause. Kaguya blinks after a moment.

"...Hey, what's the rush out, anyway?"

DG: Kaguya has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Train You Ain't Gettin Offa.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    So, about Xenobia --

    Nah, I want a sundae.

    Okay, but Xenobia --

    Yawwwn... hey, what are those cute little murderers up to?

    A THOUSAND YEARS AGO, MAGILOU --

    Meh meh meh, who cares about whoever that was?

    YOU DON'T THINK THAT'S A LITTLE RELEVANT --

    "Hey! Look! A train station!"

    Magilou deliberately interrupts the narrative trying its level best to spoil the plot, which she has been talking to this whole time, because Magilou can break the fourth wall, obviously. Or maybe she's talking to the little Normin flopped over the feathers on her shoulder, exhausted from walking for so long. We'll never know, because the camera cut in on them at that very moment.

    She hops onto a shikigami to surf that way, and Bienfu yelps, grabbing onto that strange trailing piece of her costume for a terrifying moment before he remembers he's a Seraph, and she's his Vessel, and he just turns into a mote of light and blips back inside her.

    As she sweeps past another poor unfortunate soul who's late for the train, she grabs the black ticket from their hands. "HEY!" Yelps the character who the train wanted to kidnap. "THAT'S NOT YOURS!"

    "I don't see your name on it~!" Magilou yells back, which may or may not actually be true.

    But the train's door's are closing, and she's almost too late--!!

    So just as that poor traveller launches themselves at her to try and retrieve their ticket, Magilou unclicks the book behind her, and a mighty dove pops out -- knocking them back, and sending her sailing forward just as the doors slide shut.

    "SAFE!" Magilou declares, triumphantly.

    She might have landed in a pile on Loren, but that's fine.

    Magilou grins, righting her hat as she sits up. "... say, where's this train going, anyway?"

DG: Magilou has used her Tool Super Pop-Up Book toward her party's challenge, A Train You Ain't Gettin Offa.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    Lan has made up her mind. This is a very important undertaking, and she's got to see it through to the end. How else is she supposed to become stronger? She can't just concentrate on physical and spiritual strength if she wants to find a way to save Filgaia, and the business with the journey up Babel Tower made it all too evident.

    No, she must also train for mental fortitude in the face of adversity!

    Because it's not exactly a secret that being inside of a Gear frightens Lan for reasons she has a hard time articulating.

    And it's not like she wants to freak out whenever she ends up inside of one! It's actually pretty embarrassing, okay?! Even just riding in Gwen's Halcyone sets her nerves on edge!

    But like her mother always said, strength can be cultivated. So when she'd found a train ticket hidden away in her pack, she'd thought it was a decent enough idea to try it out. Trains are sorta of Gear-like, without being Gears. She can work her way up. It'll work!!

    Her enthusiasm is only slightly dampened by the fact that although she double-jumped up onto the roof of the train, someone in a uniform promptly commanded her to show her ticket and then to go inside. Her protests went unheeded, however, and Lan was promptly herded into a car.

    She's prying discreetly at one of the windows when a familiar voice sounds from across the car. Lan is promptly distracted from trying to stick her head out of the window like a dog. "--Loren??"

DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Butterfly Ribbon toward her party's challenge, A Train You Ain't Gettin Offa.
===========================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express *>============================
================<* CHALLENGE - A Train You Ain't Gettin Offa *>=================
|Type: Entry       |Dungeon Ability: Agility   |Challenge Rating: 4          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 A mysterious train that departs from the Thirteenth Platform.                 
                                                                               
 Perhaps you believe the rumours of people disappearing into the cloak of      
 midnight, or perhaps you're here to debunk the urban legend once and for      
 all. Perhaps you are here because destiny calls.                              
                                                                               
 The only clue you have is a foreboding black ticket, marked for one Group,    
 departing from the station you're present at...                               
                                                                               
 Hirasaka, Hirasaka... the one-way train bound for Hirasaka...                 
      will be arriving shortly.                                                
    Please wait by the yellow line... until the doors...                       
 	Open.                                                                        
                                                                               
 An ominous, tinny voice echoes from public announcement speakers that         
 Filgaia stations are... not usually equipped with.                            
                                                                               
 And then--                                                                    
                                                                               
 clack-clack                                                                   
   clack-clack                                                                 
                                                                               
 It appears.                                                                   
                                                                               
 A shooting star racing through the wilderness, drawing to an eerily silent    
 stop at the platform you're standing on. It is a train unlike any you've      
 seen - unlike the carriages and locomotives of Filgaia, the rumoured,         
 legendary Chibiki-Iwa Express has silver, rectangular cars, painted with a    
 black stripe.                                                                 
                                                                               
 The sliding doors open. The lights are on within, revealing surprisingly      
 mundane rows of seats flush against the walls. There is an almost             
 supernatural compulsion that draws you within. But just as soon as you start  
 inspecting--                                                                  
                                                                               
 The doors will... now close.                                                  
      Please step away from the doors...                                       
    There is no opening the doors.                                             
                                                                               
 The doors hiss to a flush close. No! The train shifts... it might be too      
 late!                                                                         
                                                                               
 Is there truly... no gettin' offa this train you're on?                       
=Dungeon Conditions: Cripple, Secret==========================================
======================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express - Round 1 *>=======================
==================< Results - A Train You Ain't Gettin Offa >===================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          0 --(20)--> 20                 Fail
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lan Lilac                           0 --(20)--> 20                 Fail
Butterfly Ribbon                    2   Agility Effects: Quicken              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaguya                              0 --(20)--> 20                 Fail
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magilou                             0 --(12)--> 12                 Pass
Super Pop-Up Book                   4   Agility Effects: None                 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Asgard                              0 --(20)--> 20                 Fail
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Loren Voss                  0 --(15)--> 15                 Fail
Conditions: Cripple|Secret(2)
Effects: Quicken(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has failed this challenge! The party gained 15 exploration! If anyone needs to use party
management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    'There is no opening the doors...'

    Loren cannot in fact reach the door during those critical few moments to attempt to race out the door and/or try to pry it open because there is, in fact, an enormous Golem blocking the way towards it. He has approximately three seconds to make a face that, to people like Kaguya and possibly Magilou, may be /extremely/ funny (it's what you get when you're Loren and attempt to express shock, panic, and irritation at the same time) before he turns hard in Kaguya's direction--

    "What are you doing here?!"

    --as Lan calls out in his direction, hearing his voice--

    "Lan?! What are you doing here?!"

    --before, just as the doors slide shut, Magilou makes a perfect last-second approach into the train car and lands safely within. And, this is the important part, she lands atop Loren Voss, in that exact moment he'd turned to yell over at Lan.

    ...clack-a-clack...
        ...clack-clack...
            ...clack-clack...

    The train is underway. The doors will not open.

DG: Lan Lilac has drawn a new Challenge.
===========================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express *>============================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - Spooky Delta *>=========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat    |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 An eerie, rattling sensation encroaches the passenger car. The haunting       
 clickety-clack of the train's wheels upon the gauge make for an unsettling    
 melody as a trio of ghosts appear to bar your path!                           
                                                                               
 Hee hee...                                                                    
   Let's show them, sisters...                                                 
     Yes... our special attack!                                                
                                                                               
 The eldest sister-ghost conjures a reflective barrier around the center one.  
 Then, the youngest sister-ghost ricochets mildly effective magic off the      
 barrier at your team!! If you get it, it might even... sting a bit! The       
 middle sister looks resigned to her lot in life: to be subject to the antics  
 of her siblings.                                                              
                                                                               
 They look so proud of their strategy, even if it feels like it might be       
 easily foiled...                                                              
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Wound============================================
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    Sadly, the window remains unopened. There are more distracting things at hand! And, as Magilou learns, underfoot.

    "You always ask that!" Lan complains, getting up off of the bench as the train begins to move. Secretly, it's kind of a relief - if she's got someone else to look after, Lan won't have to worry so much about her own feelings. It's the curse of being the Big Sister friend.

    She'll try to pull Loren out from underneath Magilou, and also attempt to keep him from getting himself set on fire or attacked by a shikigami - it's easier than smoothing over hurt feelings afterward. "Shhhh! You're being too loud!"

    Something cold splashes against Lan's back and a shiiIIiiIIiiiIIiiiver that she can't help runs right up and down her spine. "Gah! What the--" Who spilled their drink on her?! She whirls around, leaving her fellow miscreants forgotten for the moment--

    "..." Oh no they're adorable!

    A ghostly trio of children have taken up the entire aisle behind them, the one with an auburn ponytail winding to pitch a snowball-ish spell at the blonde sister. A slightly older-looking ghost with wavy brown hair concentrates hard on the magical barrier she's erected around the blonde. "Get 'em!" the eldest crows, right before the youngest bounces a weak ice spell off of her sister.

    "SUPER NORN TRI ATTACK!" Ponytail announces, as the snowball goes wide, splatting off of the ceiling above Kaguya. Where is she getting all of these snowballs?! Why isn't she even bothering to aim?! "ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAAAAAAAAAAA!!"

    Lan, waffling despite her responsibilities as a shaman, takes a little too long to uncap her bottle of blessed water and threaten the ghost kids with it. "Listen, you three are old enough to know better than this--!"

DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Clear Water toward her party's challenge, Spooky Delta.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    Sorry, Loren. You're locked in here with Magilou. This is your life now.

    "Well, golly gosh gumdrops gilly-geebers, why didn't you say something?" She chastises Loren for being in her general path of destruction, patting his head before Lan comes in to free him. This at least rescues him from the horrors of Magilou picking herself up while he's still underneath her. She tumbles off of him, and hops up, wrists flourishing just short of ta-daa. Lan seems worried about being too loud, so of course, Magilou respects her concerns by declaring at full-throated volume: "Don't worry, dear little Lan! Lunar's most magnificent witch, she of ceaseless power and wisdom, MAGILOU, is come!" She sweeps her arms out, just so the crosshairs have a good angle.

    There is a creeping, terrifying shiver, and Magilou grins, pointing double finger-guns to the dark. "Yo!" It is shortly revealed that Magilou is not talking to nothing, but, in fact, is talking to ghosts. If it were that easy a thousand years ago, a lot of pain might have been avoided. Oh well!

    She of ceaseless power and wisdom proceeds to look at the Delta Sisters...

    ... and look between the Delta Sisters...

    ... and sit down in one of the seats of the train. "Have fun, kids!" Magilou calls encouragement, waving to Kaguya as if to specifically call her out as a youth. Meanwhile, she pulls out a deck of tarot, and proceeds to set them down in some strange idea of a game.

    "o/`" She verbalises that exact image as she leans just /slightly/ to the side to avoid a snowball splattering into her face. After a moment, she draws the card, and reveals... "The 'Three of Pentacles'... so, then, what's the plan...?"

    Of course, Magilou completely fails to explain the meaning behind the teamwork-laden card, or why she's now expecting a plan.

DG: Magilou has used her Tool Fortunetelling - Trickery toward her party's challenge, Spooky Delta.
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.

 
Asgard's mechanical face makes no expression whatsoever at Loren's expression of shock, panic, and irritation. However his sensors are now constantly monitoring human non-verbal communication, thus his data banks create an entire 3D map of Loren's face, in this moment. Then it begins monitoring his body temperature, pupillary response, skin perspiration, and heart rate.
 
Loren Voss' expression has thus, in this moment contributed to the development of the very very large Golem blocking his path.
 
As it turns out, Loren Voss upon turning in the other direction continues to offer up a cornucopia of emotional data, in how he turns and oves towards Kaguya, then Lan - then gets knocked over by Magilou.
 
"Optimizing Data. Working."
 
Thank you Loren Voss, for your contribution to science.
 
Asgard marks Magilou at her boast as being powerful and thus a person of interest, and then, things start flying in the train in acts of aggression.
 
"Unidentified energy fields detected." And then, strangely... Asgard moves to intercept the snowballs before they strike Kaguya, as they patter off his energy field. "Analyzing... phenomena."
 
For a few long moments the Golem is still, as his sensors check various wavelengths of existence, trying to isolate the presence... just as he did with Seraphim.
 
And then, Asgard's ocular sensors seem to shoot down to the trio. The Golem, in the middle of the aisle, moves down on a single knee... and asks... a single question to the three ghost children he can sense now, but couldn't before.
 
"Are you strong?"
 

DG: Asgard has used his Tool Auto-Defender toward his party's challenge, Spooky Delta.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Kaguya finds Loren's face hilarious. She's still laughing when he turns towards her and demands to know what she's doing there. But the train starts to take off. And that's nice. There's a Magilou and everything!

"I'm riding the train," she answers eventually, in the tone of 'duh, obviously.'

But she gets up as it becomes clear that people are talking and it's not naptime anymore. Instead she looks over at Lan and waves. "Hey Lan. So--"

SUPER NORN TRI ATTACK!

'Have fun, kids!'

"What!!!" Kaguya says, and doesn't even thank Asgard for handling the snowballs. She instead frowns and peers over at the others. "You..."

"They're not strong, Asgard! Not everything is about a fight!"

Pause. "Well I guess they might be strong. Yes, they are strong enough..."

Kaguya rises from her seat the rest of the way and straightens to her full (not very considerable) height. "Heh heh heh... You're very brave to come to mess with the great Kaguya. I wonder if your power is sufficient..."

Theatrically she leans forward and reaches for something from her bag. "But can you withstand... This!?"

Kaguya throws a capsule forward and it bursts into--

Three giant tomatoes with huge toothy maws.

"Uwee hee hee, face my minions!"

...Kaguya likes kids.

DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Killer Tomatoes toward her party's challenge, Spooky Delta.
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.

 
Asgard's head suddenly swivels around and looks at Kaguya as if she'd said something profoundly shocking.
 
"Clarification requested."
 
And then, three giant tomatoes are sent to attack them.
 
"Contradiction detected."
 

<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "Don't worry about it, sweetie, she's being contrarian," Magilou says, breezily, as she thumbs through her cards.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Has... has Asgard ever gotten the chance to observe, up close, a creature as singular as Loren Voss? His blood pressure alone in this moment should indicate some sort of medical malady, and yet, he seems perfectly fine! At least, until Magilou lands on his head.

    "And??"

    Maybe if he hadn't spotted Lan and gotten beaned by Magilou he would have had more to say to Kaguya.

    Lan is able to extract him without incident. "Who's too loud?! She's the one who landed on my--mhf mff mrrpph."

    ...Lan may need to clap a well-timed hand over his mouth. Otherwise, uh, he's likely to have more words.

    The sheer unadulturated wrath in his expression alone may already speak volumes on its own.

    But there is a fell chill in the air, and there, behind them, are...

    Loren remains frozen for a long, long moment, staring over at the trio of ghosts in abject horror. He can see through them. Does that mean they're... they're...

    "They're... they're just playing a prank, right?" he whispers to Lan once she removes her hand from his mouth, rigid where he's still knelt on the floor. "Just some... trick of the light. This isn't..."

    It's one thing to deal with undead monsters. It's one thing to deal with 'spirits' or things like them.
    It's another thing to deal with a for-real, this is absolutely happening, definitely not a prank or optical phenomenon, definitely a person's spirit...

    ...ghost.

    Forgive him (or not): he's going to be stuck like this for a little bit longer.

    At least until Kaguya pulls out the tomatoes, that is, because--

    "Seriously? What's your problem, anyway?"

DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Spooky Delta.
===========================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express *>============================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - Spooky Delta *>=========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat    |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 An eerie, rattling sensation encroaches the passenger car. The haunting       
 clickety-clack of the train's wheels upon the gauge make for an unsettling    
 melody as a trio of ghosts appear to bar your path!                           
                                                                               
 Hee hee...                                                                    
   Let's show them, sisters...                                                 
     Yes... our special attack!                                                
                                                                               
 The eldest sister-ghost conjures a reflective barrier around the center one.  
 Then, the youngest sister-ghost ricochets mildly effective magic off the      
 barrier at your team!! If you get it, it might even... sting a bit! The       
 middle sister looks resigned to her lot in life: to be subject to the antics  
 of her siblings.                                                              
                                                                               
 They look so proud of their strategy, even if it feels like it might be       
 easily foiled...                                                              
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Wound============================================
======================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express - Round 2 *>=======================
===========================< Results - Spooky Delta >===========================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          20 --(13)--> 33                Fail
Fight                               0   Combat  Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lan Lilac                           20 --(5)--> 25                 Pass
Clear Water                         1   Combat  Effects: Cleanse              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaguya                              20 --(5)--> 25                 Pass
Killer Tomatoes                     3   Combat  Effects: Rally                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magilou                             12 --(5)--> 17                 Pass
Fortunetelling - Trickery           2   Combat  Effects: Resilient            
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Asgard                              20 --(5)--> 25                 Pass
Auto-Defender                       2   Combat  Effects: Embolden             
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Loren Voss                  15 --(30)--> 45                Pass
Conditions: Cripple|Fright(2)|Secret(1)|Wound(2)
Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1)|Resilient(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 30 exploration! If anyone needs to use party
management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    Perhaps only teamwork can vanquish this terrible trio! After all, they certainly seem to be masters of it themselves.

    The concept of an enormous golem who is not only really unbothered by snowballs and also interested in talking to them seems to be pretty wondrous. The youngest sister (a Norn, it seems??) stops throwing snowballs long enough to puff up a bit and put her hands on her hips. "Yeah!" she beams. "We're totally strong! See how good our strategy is?" ('Hinaaaaaa,' the middle one reprimands her gently from behind the barrier. She bears a vague resemblence to Lan, somehow...)

    "Wahahaha!" the oldest one laughs. "We're not afraid of you, uh, is your name really Kaguya--" She interrupts herself to ask a finger coming up to scratch idly at the disintegrating butterfly temporary tattoo on her cheek. "Because that's kinda kickass."

    However good their strategy is, however, it's simply no match for the novelty of KILLER TOMATOES! All three sisters squeal in varying degrees of delight and surprise, but their Magnificent Plan is promptly abandoned in favor of playing with* Kaguya's minions.

    *an impromptu free-for-all with. When did Ponytail get a baseball bat??

    Lan, meanwhile, has known Loren more than long enough to know exactly what's about to come out of his mouth, in front of children. She claps a hand over his mouth with the non-bottleholding hand until she feels his struggles cease. The fact that he quit fighting because he saw little kid ghosts is inconsequential. "What? Even if they're being a little rambunctious they're still just kids..." Because this isn't Lan's first run-in with spiritual shenanigans.

    Soon enough, the Tomatoes and the Norns have thoroughly exhausted each other. The sisters all grow more transparent by the moment, though they're clearly just ready for naptime and not horrible exorcised or anything. "Okay! You can stay," the oldest decrees. "I like them!" Ponytail agrees, leaning her bat against her shoulder. "Bye-bye," Blondie waves, smiling as they all vanish for a well-deserved rest.

DG: Magilou has drawn a new Challenge.
===========================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express *>============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - The Chill of Death *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat    |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 A chant continues to echo and chill at your very spine as you explore the     
 train cars:                                                                   
                                                                               
 ...A      ki       me       shi      ...                                      
     ...sa  HI   yu  SE   mi       ...                                         
     ...WE       mo       SU...                                                
                                                                               
 As if drawn by the verses, several ghosts dressed in little more than white   
 rags rise from the very floor of the passenger car. Though they do not        
 possess faces, their intent is quite easy to understand as their ghastly      
 hands reach out.                                                              
                                                                               
 A single touch freezes to the bone, and threatens to leech away what life     
 still exists in your body -- your absolute lifeline in this deathly express   
 line.                                                                         
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Exhaust==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "Yup!" Magilou chirps to Loren, brightly. "It's just a trick of the light! After all," she adds, with a wink from behind her tarot card. "They're ghosts, so it's a wonder someone like you can even see them."

    She pauses, glancing to the camera, pressing the card to her chest.

    "Why, me? I've never had trouble!"

    WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO, MAGILOU?! (The audience, dummy! (Don't interrupt my narration! (This narration is implicitly my internal experience! You're the one interrupting! (What are you even talking about?! (Don't worry about it, there are too many nested parentheses now.)))))

    "o`," Magilou says, again, cheerfully. "o`~"

    Her song is getting really... really kind of creepy, isn't it..?

    ... wait, hang on.

    She's just opening her mouth at the right moment. She's not even singing! She's a FRAUD!

    She's a fraud who doesn't look at all surprised by the fact that something else is seeping up from the floor of the passenger car. White wisps over nothing. It is the manner of children to dress in bedsheets and pretend to be ghosts; do not think of bedsheet-children. They are too beragged, too nondescript, as if the ravages of time have forgotten all but this base form of them.

    Their robes are not white as innocence. They are white as death. You are going to Hirasaka, after all.

    They reach out, to Loren with bone-thin fingers, as if they have forgotten to place muscle between knuckle and skin. They reach out, to Kaguya. They reach out, to Lan.

    That hand pauses, at Asgard. There is a whisper of a pause in that eternal chant, WE mo...

    ...

    ... SU, they catch up with their thoughts, and reach to the automation, too.

    Magilou, who has given her ghost a high-five, gives zero indication of the absolute grave distress it causes. Her grin is sharp as a knife, as she waves that chilled hand, and drapes back on her seat. "By the way, these ones don't want to play. Better think of something quick, or you're going to die!"

    She streeetches up a leg, and props it on the seat, as she folds her hands behind her and catches a quick nap.

DG: Magilou has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Chill of Death.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

"It's fine," Kaguya says to Asgard. "Don't worry about it." She also says to Loren, "I don't have any problems! I'm completely fine in every way, and nothing is wrong at all!"

She laughs as the ghosts make ketchup of her minions. They aren't particularly sentient or long-lived, it's fine, it's not like she engineered them to feel pain... probably. "Nice work!" she says. "And yes that is totally my name."

After a while, when they prepare to leave, Kaguya waves. "See you some other time. I'm not ready to go yet, myself."

Once, she would have been completely petrified of ghosts. But things have changed...

Ah. Here's a less pleasant job on offer.

Music... That kind of music. Kaguya lifts an eyebrow as she notices the wisps. Their white robes. Yes, she feels the chill of it even from here, with one foot in the grave already thanks to her disease that is not really a disease at all. She watches as they reach out.

"...Are you some of the ones I killed?" she wonders. "It would be right, if you wanted revenge. But I can't let you have it, either way."

She looks over at Magilou for a moment and shrugs, pulling an ARM from behind herself and loading it with cartridges. "Sorry guys. Not today."

BANG. Kaguya fires a green projectile made of energy for the first, and then another, and another, wielding her shotgun like a magic wand.

DG: Kaguya has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Chill of Death.
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.

 
Contrarian. Asgard notes this data as a personality characteristic of the tiny Veruni, and instead focuses on the diminutive ghosts.
 
"Affirmative. Then we should engage in battle soon."
 
Asgard notes to the ghosts, without actually performing any aggressive moves towards them. Even if they are supernatural energy fields of something his sensors are only starting to quantify, his data banks have cross referenced them with humans in the stage of life where they are decidedly not strong... and their attacks certainly are not providing any appreciable challenge to his barrier. Thus fighting them now might not offer him any good data!
 
His logic circuits decide that the best course is to postpone battle and instead to continue his analysis.
 
"Once you have finished off your assailants."
 
It is not to be though, as the ghosts grow more transparent.
 
"Return when you are ready for combat."
 
Did Asgard just schedule a playdate!?
 
And then comes the procession in white. A ghost whose identity has been swept away as one reaches out to him, and slips through his barrier, causing an uncomfortable fluctuation in his systems that is decidedly unpleasant.
 
"Modulating Barrier Frequency. Searching for solution."
 
The Golem declares, before reaching out with a barrier encased fist to try and...
 
... yes, you guessed it. Punch a ghost.
 
Then punch another ghost. Then punch another ghost.
 
Whether he succeeds in actually punching a ghost or not as his barrier works to find a solution to ghosts.. he's nevertheless, trying to intercept them before they touch any of the other passengers... perhaps purely because he wants all the ghost data himself.
 
Why though?
 
Well... part of it is orders, and part of it is...
 
... he just really wants to fight a ghost.
 
The appearance of a singular ghost seems to give him momentary pause, with a seeming indescript shape beneath the hood.
 
Before he jabs his fist right into it's torso.
 

DG: Asgard has used his Tool Auto-Defender toward his party's challenge, The Chill of Death.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Loren has a moment to sag in relief when Magilou confirms that it's all just a trick of the light--
    only to freeze up again the moment that she reveals that, also, they're ghosts. They're definitely totally ghosts.

    Lan won't find it very hard at all to meaningfully silence Loren after that. Indeed, it's only once the ghosts have... gone off to wherever ghosts go when they're not actively haunting/harrassing someone and Lan has released her grip on him that Loren eases back a touch and means in towards Lan to ask, a twinge of desperation in his voice,

    "is this a ghost train."

    ...So maybe it's less of an ask and more of a statement in hope of a denial.

    But he at least begins to pick himself up off the traincar floor and that's an improvement over matters. Possibly also an improvement, getting the hell out of this car and hopefully finding a place that's a little less occupied by--

    "Who's singing?" Loren asks, his gaze settling on Magilou as if he's suspecting her of such a thing. "Cut it out, it's creepy--"

    She's not the one singing, he realizes, when white figures begin to rise out of the floor below them all. Loren makes a sound that doesn't approach the form of any proper word as he reels about, trying to find perhaps an escape route, or something, or

    And one of their long boney fingers feels as if it's somehow skipped all the important bits on the way into his very core.

    In the end, he's a soldier by training, and in this moment where bits of his self are being peeled off from within, he reacts more appropriately than before. He threads Ether through the wires coiled around his left wrist. Green light flares out from about him in a tangle of fractal lines, seeking bodies to restore and repair, to smoothe over all the damages these spirits are applying to those present.

DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Ether Tuner toward his party's challenge, The Chill of Death.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    Is... is Magilou lipsynching? To what, though?

    "Hi Kaguyaaaaa," Lan waves, a bit belatedly. "It's been forever!" Since Lan and Loren were in Moon Jail together, which was actually just 'village arrest' in Spira. Lan had a great time enjoying Island Living for the most part while Loren sulked around the hut they were staying in.

    Oh, there's the song. Wow, she hadn't pegged Magilou for being so cryptic spookwave! Lan learns something new every time she meets the world's mightiest sorceress. And it even sounds like she's got more than one voice! How clever!

    ...H-how clever, the way she's magicked up some backup singers!

    "...It's a ghost train, yeah," Lan nods aside to Loren, eyeing the new arrivals, who are definitely some of the least favorite of all the kinds of spirits Lan has encountered in her career. The hostile, extra-spooky-on-purpose kind!

    She dances backwards from the reaching fingers, though it's much harder to escape the psychic damage of their spooky, dischordant song. Pouring some water from her opened bottle over her palm, Lan reaches out to scatter droplets of blessed water across the apparitions. "Okay, normally I'd have a drum circle for this but we're kind of cramped here--"

DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Clear Water toward her party's challenge, The Chill of Death.
===========================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express *>============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - The Chill of Death *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat    |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 A chant continues to echo and chill at your very spine as you explore the     
 train cars:                                                                   
                                                                               
 ...A      ki       me       shi      ...                                      
     ...sa  HI   yu  SE   mi       ...                                         
     ...WE       mo       SU...                                                
                                                                               
 As if drawn by the verses, several ghosts dressed in little more than white   
 rags rise from the very floor of the passenger car. Though they do not        
 possess faces, their intent is quite easy to understand as their ghastly      
 hands reach out.                                                              
                                                                               
 A single touch freezes to the bone, and threatens to leech away what life     
 still exists in your body -- your absolute lifeline in this deathly express   
 line.                                                                         
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Exhaust==========================================
======================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express - Round 3 *>=======================
========================< Results - The Chill of Death >========================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          33 --(0)--> 33                 Pass
Ether Tuner                         3   Combat  Effects: Rally                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lan Lilac                           25 --(0)--> 25                 Pass
Clear Water                         1   Combat  Effects: Cleanse              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaguya                              25 --(0)--> 25                 Pass
Fight                               0   Combat  Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magilou                             17 --(0)--> 17                 Pass
Fight                               0   Combat  Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Asgard                              25 --(0)--> 25                 Pass
Auto-Defender                       2   Combat  Effects: Embolden             
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Loren Voss                  45 --(20)--> 65                Pass
Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Fright(2)
Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party
management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "Bin~go!" Magilou points a finger-gun at Loren's horrified revelation about what kind of train this is. She and Lan, it seems, are of one mind about it. How interesting!

    She's much more relaxed about the revelation than Loren is; she doesn't bother lifting a finger. One of those purple-green eyes opens a crack, as she glances to Kaguya, grin all carved out one side of her face. Ghosts~ are cheaper~ than therapy!

    She doesn't say that, though. She's busy singing. Or... humming along. "o/`" Magilou harmonises with the horrifying background chant, eyes closed again, foot wagging where it's crossed over her other knee. Whatever happens, happens.

    (Yeah, Loren, it IS pretty creepy.)

    Luckily for her, Asgard comes in with a great solution just before one of those ghosts can reach for her (final?!) resting-place. He punches a ghost with GREAT velocity, such that it phases through the next train car, and likely the next four besides. Magilou doesn't blink. She's probably very impressed, though. Unless she's asleep. Wait, is she asleep?!

    Her eyebrows raise -- without, mind you, opening her eyes -- when Loren starts threading Ether through those wires. It's no ghost-punching, but it does do wonders to heal the damages incurred from touching the ghosts.

    Though, let's be fair, the only person really touching the ghosts here is Asgard, who is punching them. Oh, and Magilou, who high-fived that one ghost. She should really thank Loren for restoring her soul. (She's not going to do that.)

    Everyone else has the common sense to use ranged weapons when accosted by touch weapons. Like Kaguya, whose shotgun-blasts slowly build a zone of exclusion where no ghosts may enter... or Lan, who sprinkles blessed water, ensuring the ghosts can't slip back in between those blasts.

    Obviously, Asgard is still punching ghosts. Asgard never stopped punching ghosts. Tragically for Asgard, everyone else's efforts eventually ward those deathly apparitions from their train-car... for now.

    Magilou, who is also here, yawww~wwwns as she sits up, with a mighty stretch. "I had complete faith in you!" She beams, far, far too brightly. "I bet you'll be fine when they show up in your nightmares tonight, too!"

DG: Kaguya has drawn a new Challenge.
===========================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express *>============================
=================<* CHALLENGE - A Train They Are Gettin Onna *>=================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility   |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 Tsukuyomi-eki...                                                              
   Tsukuyomi-eki...                                                            
     This train will make a stop at...                                         
       Tsukuyomi-eki...                                                        
                                                                               
 Suddenly, the train jostles to a stop as it pulls up at a frighteningly       
 barren station, surrounded by a non-landscape, composed of absolute           
 nothingness.                                                                  
                                                                               
 The doors will open... on... the right.                                       
   Please stand clear of incoming passengers and...                            
     Do not forget your... belongings...                                       
                                                                               
 Just as sudden, ghostly passengers start filtering in rapid numbers through   
 each open door, threatening to bowl and push you over if you are not          
 careful! You'd best find a seat or a secure corner that these ghosts care     
 less about.                                                                   
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Overzealous======================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

"I'll think about it," Kaguya says of battle with Asgard. But that's it for now. Instead she is focused on the ghosts, and on, "Of course it's a ghost train. There's ghosts all on it! Why we're on a ghost train I don't know, but it's probably because I'm like more than halfway dead."

A beat, "But I'm not getting off on the other side! I've got way too much to do yet."

Is there an 'other side'? Kaguya was not a big believer in ghosts and spirits until she learned that gods exist and hold a personal grudge against her people, but now she works for a Goddess, so strange things could happen. Ghosts are much cehaper than therapy.

"Yeah yeah," Kaguya says, "Go back to bed old lady."

Nightmares... Kaguya's already are too crowded for ghosts.

But suddenly when they're done, the train jostles to a stop; the station outside as the doors open is completely barren, with nothing there. But the doors, open, suddenly start bringing in ghosts--

"Oh, shit--"

Good thing the kids are gone!

Kaguya takes a seat with all the ferocity of a kid used to being the smallest at dinner. "Over here, Lan!" she suggests.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    Thank goodness for enormous, imposing golems! Especially the kind that understand which ghosts are in need of punching. Today, that golem is Asgard.

    "I'd better not have bad dreams from this," Lan grumbles half-heartedly. "This was supposed to be a mostly-normal training train. Not a spooky ghost train, even if only some of the spooks are actually spooky--"

    Her train of thought (ha ha) just keeps on going, finally starting to trail off a bit one the arrival at a station is announced. "Huh. Well maybe if it's too spooky, we can just get off here and try another train. They can't all be haunted, right?"

    But then the doors whoosh open, and it turns out that yes, Lan, this entire station is also haunted. By commuters. "Wha-- hey, ow! That's my hair!!"

    Asgard is probably buff enough to not be super affected by ghost rush, but Loren's kind of nerdy. Lan reaches for his hand and jumps--

    --and jumps again, sideways this time, hopefully dragging her pet nerd behind her as she tries to land safely in one of the seats like Kaguya and Magilou, who are better at trains than she is.

DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Butterfly Ribbon toward her party's challenge, A Train They Are Gettin Onna.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "They're tomatoes! Why did you-- forget it, I don't want to know," he crabs in Kaguya's general direction, giving up as if in defeat.

    ("Lan, don't encourage her," he'll whisper a moment later.)

    They're on a ghost train, Lan and Magilou confirm. Loren's response is to simply briefly look as if his soul is slowly leaving his body (as opposed to the rather more quickly way it's about to start leaving his body in a moment or two). Another day, another time, he would have vehemently denied that ghost trains existed -- ghost trains! what a stupid idea! -- but right now...

    ...right now he's in the middle of it, and it's all going wrong.

    But at least he's soon feeling a little better (in that, his soul is a little less partially detached from his body, literally this time) and the ghosts involved have been thoroughly punched and exorcized.

    Loren has a moment to take a breath. A moment to jerk his head in Magilou's direction and start to utter, "What is wrong with--"

    And the whole train lurches and rattles to a stop. Only a well-timed grab of a bar keeps him from being sent back towards the floor.

    The doors open. Releasing the bar, Loren starts towards the door, only to stop up short when he sees what's beyond--

    Which is to say, nothing's out there.
    He goes pale, paler than his usual and locks up, which is a bad choice of things to do because here come more passengers.

    Lan might be the only thing that keeps him from being trampled. Assuming she can keep a good grip on his wrist.

    Somewhere, several of his instructors at Jugend are getting afflicted by a sense of forboding. As if something terrible they had forseen happening many years ago is finally occuring...

DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, A Train They Are Gettin Onna.
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.

 
Asgard seems pleased with the data he retrieved from ghost punching.
 
And then the ghosts file on the train.
 
And Asgard seems to note how clogged the aisles are getting. Cross-referencing his observations of Filgaian trains, he understands passengers are supposed to be seated.
 
Which is why the very large golem turns sideways and tries to thread the sudden ghost rush awkwardly. He is late to start moving, so he is last to reach an opportunity to sit down... but once he makes it... take a seat he does!
 
Beside Loren Voss.
 
Now, as massive and broad of frame as he is... his body may be pressing Loren a bit uncomfortably hard against Lan(And maybe even Kaguya, if she's on the same row Lan chose) given that he takes up roughly two and a half seats on his own.
 
Asgard doesn't seem to notice.
 

DG: Asgard has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, A Train They Are Gettin Onna.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "Back to bed? Works for me!" Magilou declares, as she promptly sags back against the seat she was napping on. She notably doesn't bother fighting Kaguya on whether or not she's an ~old lady~.

    "They're totally all haunted," Magilou replies to Lan, from her reclined position, thus proving once and for all that Magilou was never actually sleeping.

    Magilou yawwwwns. "What's wrong with you?" She lances back to Loren, as the train shudders to a stop. "Geez, what kind of weirdo gets on a ghost train, anyway?" Magilou, you're on the train, too!

    Tragically, she asks this question right as the ghastly commuters pour in. One of them crowds by so close, they unseat her hat..!!!

    Without missing a beat, Magilou reaches back to snatch it before it can disappear into the ghost train forever. But will this foolish gesture of sentimentality cause Magilou to be swept away..?

    Would that be better for everyone?!

    And is it any wonder Asgard sat on the seat Magilou isn't currently napping on...?

DG: Magilou has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Train They Are Gettin Onna.


DG: Kaguya has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Train They Are Gettin Onna.
===========================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express *>============================
=================<* CHALLENGE - A Train They Are Gettin Onna *>=================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility   |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 Tsukuyomi-eki...                                                              
   Tsukuyomi-eki...                                                            
     This train will make a stop at...                                         
       Tsukuyomi-eki...                                                        
                                                                               
 Suddenly, the train jostles to a stop as it pulls up at a frighteningly       
 barren station, surrounded by a non-landscape, composed of absolute           
 nothingness.                                                                  
                                                                               
 The doors will open... on... the right.                                       
   Please stand clear of incoming passengers and...                            
     Do not forget your... belongings...                                       
                                                                               
 Just as sudden, ghostly passengers start filtering in rapid numbers through   
 each open door, threatening to bowl and push you over if you are not          
 careful! You'd best find a seat or a secure corner that these ghosts care     
 less about.                                                                   
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Overzealous======================================
======================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express - Round 4 *>=======================
===================< Results - A Train They Are Gettin Onna >===================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          33 --(13)--> 46                Fail
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lan Lilac                           25 --(5)--> 30                 Pass
Butterfly Ribbon                    2   Agility Effects: Quicken              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaguya                              25 --(5)--> 30                 Pass
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magilou                             17 --(13)--> 30                Fail
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Asgard                              25 --(5)--> 30                 Pass
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Loren Voss                  65 --(20)--> 85                Pass
Conditions: Fright(2)|Overzealous(2)
Effects: Quicken(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party
management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

"What, you don't like tomatoes?" Kaguya asks. "I'll have you know that tomatoes are a very versatile plant that would do a lot of good for Filgaia if they were adopted more widely."

The old lady naps. Taking her hat back requires more than just reaching for it--she has to actually work a little to get it back, which is obviously terrible. But Lan does succeed in getting Loren to safety. Unfortunately, it is extremely safe to be uncomfortably squished by a huge Golem, as Loren discovers. He's fine! Just uncomfortable. Very safe.

Kaguya relaxes in her own seat, having already gotten one fine, and eventually the rush of sudden filtering ghosts is finished...

And it's not so crowded anymore.

DG: Asgard has drawn a new Challenge.
==========================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express *>===========================
====================<* CHALLENGE - Train on your Parade *>====================
|Type: Climax      |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 *SKREEEEEEE*                                                                  
                                                                               
 The train comes to an extremely sudden halt.                                  
                                                                               
 So... you are the ones who have been causing trouble...                       
   I will not allow you...                                                     
     ...to disrupt my schedule...!!                                            
                                                                               
 A powerful shadowy force flings your group off their feet and YEETS your      
 team out the nearest window!!                                                 
                                                                               
 ... onto cold, metallic train tracks.                                         
                                                                               
 You see your shadow, cast by powerful ghostly headlights behind you. A        
 haunting steam whistle blows.                                                 
                                                                               
 Uh oh.                                                                        
                                                                               
 (NB: This is an interim card meant to set the scene; resolve this card        
 without posing, and go straight to the Final card!)                           
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Save Point=======================================
DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Loot Abuse toward her party's challenge, Train on your Parade.
DG: Asgard has used his Tool Gemini Circuit toward his party's challenge, Train on your Parade.


DG: Magilou has used her Tool Mayvin's Accounts toward her party's challenge, Train on your Parade.
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Paku-Paku toward her party's challenge, Train on your Parade.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool MediScan v7 toward his party's challenge, Train on your Parade.
==========================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express *>===========================
====================<* CHALLENGE - Train on your Parade *>====================
|Type: Climax      |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 *SKREEEEEEE*                                                                  
                                                                               
 The train comes to an extremely sudden halt.                                  
                                                                               
 So... you are the ones who have been causing trouble...                       
   I will not allow you...                                                     
     ...to disrupt my schedule...!!                                            
                                                                               
 A powerful shadowy force flings your group off their feet and YEETS your      
 team out the nearest window!!                                                 
                                                                               
 ... onto cold, metallic train tracks.                                         
                                                                               
 You see your shadow, cast by powerful ghostly headlights behind you. A        
 haunting steam whistle blows.                                                 
                                                                               
 Uh oh.                                                                        
                                                                               
 (NB: This is an interim card meant to set the scene; resolve this card        
 without posing, and go straight to the Final card!)                           
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Save Point=======================================
=====================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express - Round 5 *>======================
======================< Results - Train on your Parade >======================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          46 --(0)--> 46                 Pass
MediScan v7                         3   Wits    Effects: Rally                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lan Lilac                           30 --(0)--> 30                 Pass
Paku-Paku                           2   Wits    Effects: Enlighten            
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaguya                              30 --(0)--> 30                 Pass
Loot Abuse                          2   Wits    Effects: Stalwart             
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magilou                             30 --(0)--> 30                 Pass
Mayvin's Accounts                   2   Wits    Effects: Enlighten            
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Asgard                              30 --(0)--> 30                 Pass
Gemini Circuit                      1   Wits    Effects: Cleanse              
----------------------------------< Party >-----------------------------------
Leader: Loren Voss                  85 --(0)--> 85                 Pass
Conditions: Fright(2)|Overzealous(1)|Save Point(1)
Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1)
==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 0 exploration! If anyone needs to use party
management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
DG: Asgard has drawn a new Challenge.
==========================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express *>===========================
===============<* CHALLENGE - The Suplex of Everyone's Souls *>===============
|Type: Final       |Dungeon Ability: Combat    |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 So, um.                                                                       
                                                                               
 A rampaging ghost train is after you.                                         
                                                                               
 The doom train has a frightening face, and a headlight whose beam scorches    
 whoever is unfortunate to step into the light. It also has the horrible       
 habit of casting curses and other dark magic to whoever is out of reach of    
 its light.                                                                    
                                                                               
 It's extremely obvious what'll happen if you get run over by a train, too.    
                                                                               
 But hope isn't yet lost.                                                      
                                                                               
 It's said that trains -- in particular, ghost trains -- have a long and       
 storied history with martial artists. There have been many tales, perhaps     
 all exaggerated, of a muscle-bound "bodybuilder" straying from his gym and    
 taking hold of a locomotive by its cowchaser and performing...                
                                                                               
 The legendary Train Suplex.                                                   
                                                                               
 Is this the start of a new legend -- YOUR legend?                             
=Dungeon Conditions: Wonder===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.

 
Abruptly the train halts, but that doesn't mean the sounds of the train stop.
 
CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA
 
There's a sudden blinding glare through the rear of the train cars.
 
So... you are the ones who have been causing trouble...
 I will not allow you...
 ...to disrupt my schedule...!!
 
And then an impact, jarring, as it feels like the whole train is shaking. Shadowy fingers creep through the car like fine mist in this moment where they are all off-balance, and they each find themselves yanked out the windows. Right onto train tracks.
 
Your destined time of death...
    Your predetermined manner of passing...
        It matters not...
            The schedule will be kept...!
 
Asgard pushes himself up on the train tracks. Not too long ago, Ida proved to him that even creatures of inferior mass can summon enough strength to lift something of much greater mass.
 
It is plainly written in his databanks, as clear as day.
 
And he feels a fluctuation in his Gemini Circuit. An enthusiasm, an eagerness... a joy perhaps, in testing it out.
 
And so as the train charges, Asgard simply extends his arms to receive it, as one might a lover at a train station, having returned from a long trip.
 
"Wide Barrier Activate."
 
The train plows right into him, and his heels grind into the metal causing wooden slats to pulverize into a hail of wood, and metal to twist and lurch before suddenly they reach a tenuous equilibrium against the shining blue field of his barrier and momentarily halting it's momentum. The hail of debris never seems to strike the party, as if his own barrier was extended for defense rather than offense around the rest of them.
 
However... the Golem now that he's made contact with the train car makes several mass calculations.
 
"Assistance requested-"
 
Relatively speaking, while he is quite strong. The mass difference is much bigger between him and the train than it was between Ida and him.
 
"-in derailing the locomotive assailant."
 

DG: Asgard has used his Tool Auto-Defender toward his party's challenge, The Suplex of Everyone's Souls.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    "Whew, safe!! --Wait, hang on--!!" Agard squishes Loren who squishes Lan who might squish Kaguya too if the space-time continuum allows for it. "I said that's my hair!!" she yelps, and in the ensuing shuffling around and pushing, Lan sadly isn't paying enough attention to the feelings of the most influential person of all...

    ...the, uh, train itself?!

    She's taking a swig of water from her bottle when the voice echoes through the car. "Hrm? Hmm--"

    When a misty hand yanks and then yeets her, her cheeks and eyes are both bulging. "MMMMMBLLLLBLLblpfh! *Hack, cough!*"

    Anyone unfortunate enough to be too close to her might get sprayed. At least it's the Guardianist equivalent to holy water???

    She lands on the tracks and rolls into a run, every single bit of martial training she's ever had in her entire life paying off in a single instant. Must run faster! Must run faster!!

    That is... until Asgard actually manages to match the thing for force. Lan slows down, turning to stare. This... can this really be happening?!

    But it seems even the might of a golem isn't quite enough to lift a train...!

    Lan, apparently, believes in him!! Because instead of doing the smart thing and leaving the tracks, runs towards Asgard, braces her legs against the ground, grabs for the cowcatcher, and lifts.

    ...When it quickly becomes obvious that hey, her strength is not nearly enough for this, she makes a split-second decision.

    Lan hopes it's a good one.

    That force that hides inside of her comes out to play, surging in bands of night-sky black around her limbs, biting into the metal of the train, cinching tight like manacles around her body. She lets out a cry that comes from the depths of her soul, adding her strength to everybody else's!

DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Clear Water toward her party's challenge, The Suplex of Everyone's Souls.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "Wh-- hey! That's my hat!" Magilou grouses, as she gets up, horror of horrors, to snatch it from the ghosts. She fixes it back on her head, grumbling. "The cheek!"

    The fact that she is now pressed up against the wall of the cabin, just a skip and a turn away from the door which leads deeper into the train's abyss, is apparently immaterial to her. She pries herself off of the wall, and goes thonk as her feet hit the floor again. Step, step --

    -- "YIPE!" --

    -- that's the sound-effect of a witch getting flung onto the train tracks. "Oh, my," Magilou remarks, tumble-step, turning back to see her shadow. She turns back to grin, to Lan. "Deja vu, huh?" They know what it looks like to be in the path of an oncoming train! Well, that other one was a monorail. They're basically the same thing, according to Magilou.

    This one might also be a ghost, so it's more expressive, but BASICALLY it's the same.

    Luckily, even if there isn't an alcove, there's an Asgard, which is apparently just as good at keeping her from becoming a Magilou-themed pancake. Which is good, because she didn't really feel like running! "Ehhh," she puts a hand to her hip, wagging her opposite wrist. "It's an okay barrier, I guess." It's one of the most effective warding techniques she's seen for a long time, but, look -- this is really subtle, but maybe he's picked up on it -- Magilou is kind of a jerk.

    Magilou siiiighs, lacing her hands behind her head, tapping one toe behind her other heel. "Do I have to?" She whines. "You really seem like you've got it in hand!" Trains are EXTREMELY heavy. Asgard is also pretty heavy. He can't be that heavy.

    It's only when Lan brings out a ribbon black as sin, and cries in just that way...

    "Oh, all right," Magilou sighs.

    She lifts her hand, and snaps her fingers.

    And, in a sparkle of light--!

    Suddenly--!!

    Have you ever wondered how Magilou has so many outfits on hand when she doesn't have anywhere to put them?

    The answer is apparently... magic.

    Because all a sudden, Magilou isn't dressed in the holy raiments of a witch, any more. (Or, as the ignorant rubes might put it, like a jester.) Rather, a red spandex singlet stretches over her torso, meeting black, black leggings which stretch down to laced-up brown heels. Her black sleeves are detached from her arms, of course; her hands are all clad in black, fingerless gloves.

    And that hat she fought so hard to keep has vanished into thin air, replaced by a mask all made of red straps, a black triangle at her forehead emphasising the way it's all made up of 'V's. V for Victory! V for Verbosity! V for... Villain..?

    You see... Magilou's Heel Costume was designed precisely for a moment such as this!

    ... her bangs still stick out of the mask to get in her face, though.

    Magilou brings a tarot card -- no -- it's her shikigami, positioned underneath herself, broad as a diving-board -- and bounces off of it, with an audible *BOINNG-G-G-G-G*. "Flying high!" She chirps, with obvious amusement, as she doesn't bother trying to pick the train up.

    Rather, what goes up must come down, and purple and white light surrounds her as Magilou reaches the apex and sharply, SHARPLY drops, top half to the earth, reaching out to grasp the train itself in a big, big bear hug...

    ... because when Magilou lands...

    ... she bounces!

DG: Magilou has used her Tool Fortunetelling - Trickery toward her party's challenge, The Suplex of Everyone's Souls.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "Not when they have teeth!" Loren retorts, shaking his head as if in disbelief.

    But that was then, and this is now--

    Loren stares straight ahead of himself, stuck as the meat in a very, very uncomfortable sandwich. He doesn't say a word, not even when he's shoved this way and that.
    This is only partially because he can only just breathe.

    His only saving grace is that he doesn't have to remain like that for long. Something speaks, pressing words into his mind proper, and he finds himself apprehended by long shadowy fingers that come reaching in through the windows. He has enough time to bug out at these (and get sprayed by water) before he finds himself yanked out and into the mist-laden train tracks. Freedom -- or, well, no.

    They're on the tracks. The train is coming right for them.

    "Hey, uh..." he starts to say, trying to collect himself after all of that. "That was the train, right."

    His answer will come readily, as does the device he brings to hand as the engine races towards them.

    "Just making sure."

    'Error', reports the medical computer as he tries to pull anything from their surroundings, and that's actually a little bit comforting in a weird way.
    Also, even he can only freak out so many times in one go, and there is the sort of urgency impressed upon him that only a speeding locomotive can. He breaks off in a run, thinking to outpace it somehow--

    And that weird Golem (maybe under any other circumstance asking about it might be a little bit important) stands its ground right as the train keeps on coming right towards them.

    And... catches the train car, a fact that becomes plain just from the noise. Loren stops just long enough to look, to see Asgard, to see Lan, to realize what Lan's doing, to hear that request, and

    "...Can't... believe this!" he roars, winding Ether again through and along the wires coiled in a bracelet at his wrist and pushes his will into the earth below them and pulls it upwards with, one hopes, a rattling of the earth and a scream of rising rock.

    Working like this, he really only has a moment to gape at what Magilou is doing and perhaps that's for the best.

DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Ether Tuner toward his party's challenge, The Suplex of Everyone's Souls.


<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Loren's retort gets a "Well how else are they going to eat my enemies?"

But then, "Waugh, gross!" Kaguya does not break into steam burns upon being splashed with Guardianist holy water, as it turns out. She just calls it gross.

Chug chug chug--

"Wwhat the--"

The blinding glare, the impact; Kaguya blinks, and she pushes herself up, waiting for the words to process in her head. "...Wait, you mean..."

"It's all right here?" she wonders, and perhaps there is a joy in that too. Someone accustomed to knowing how she is set to die in time, being told that it's on the line here and now. Kaguya grins, suddenly, as Asgard activates his barrier. The train plows into him--it halts--the debris doesn't strike them, but--

Assistance requested.

"Oh yeah," Kaguya answers. "This is definitely happening."

With a "WOOHOO!" Kaguya rushes forward right next to Asgard, and brings her hands down, bending at the knee to LIFT--and help to suplex the goddamn train. As she does she goes, "What the shit Lan--"

But she doesn't stop lifting.

She definitely doesn't stop lifting at Magilou's cool outfit. "BELIEVE IT!" she says to Loren as she pulls--!

And three giant tomatoes start pulling, too!!

DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Killer Tomatoes toward her party's challenge, The Suplex of Everyone's Souls.
==========================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express *>===========================
===============<* CHALLENGE - The Suplex of Everyone's Souls *>===============
|Type: Final       |Dungeon Ability: Combat    |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 So, um.                                                                       
                                                                               
 A rampaging ghost train is after you.                                         
                                                                               
 The doom train has a frightening face, and a headlight whose beam scorches    
 whoever is unfortunate to step into the light. It also has the horrible       
 habit of casting curses and other dark magic to whoever is out of reach of    
 its light.                                                                    
                                                                               
 It's extremely obvious what'll happen if you get run over by a train, too.    
                                                                               
 But hope isn't yet lost.                                                      
                                                                               
 It's said that trains -- in particular, ghost trains -- have a long and       
 storied history with martial artists. There have been many tales, perhaps     
 all exaggerated, of a muscle-bound "bodybuilder" straying from his gym and    
 taking hold of a locomotive by its cowchaser and performing...                
                                                                               
 The legendary Train Suplex.                                                   
                                                                               
 Is this the start of a new legend -- YOUR legend?                             
=Dungeon Conditions: Wonder===================================================
=====================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express - Round 6 *>======================
=================< Results - The Suplex of Everyone's Souls >=================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          46 --(5)--> 51                 Pass
Ether Tuner                         3   Combat  Effects: Rally                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lan Lilac                           30 --(5)--> 35                 Pass
Clear Water                         1   Combat  Effects: Cleanse              
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaguya                              30 --(5)--> 35                 Pass
Killer Tomatoes                     3   Combat  Effects: Rally                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magilou                             30 --(5)--> 35                 Pass
Fortunetelling - Trickery           2   Combat  Effects: Resilient            
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Asgard                              30 --(5)--> 35                 Pass
Auto-Defender                       2   Combat  Effects: Embolden             
----------------------------------< Party >-----------------------------------
Leader: Loren Voss                  85 --(35)--> 120               Pass
Conditions: Fright(1)|Wonder
Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1)|Resilient(1)
==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success!
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has successfully explored Chibiki-Iwa Express!
==========================<* Chibiki-Iwa Express *>===========================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - It's Too In-Tents *>======================
|Type: Discovery   |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 Thoroughly defeated (and possibly suplexed), the deathly train takes a        
 moment, before re-railing itself.                                             
                                                                               
 I see...                                                                      
   So the will to live is that strong...                                       
     I will let you go... but however...                                       
   First I must perform my duty...                                             
                                                                               
 The train invites you back into its carriage, and proceeds swiftly towards    
 its intended destination:                                                     
                                                                               
 An enormous, ruined Zeboim-era city lying deep underneath Filgaia. Shattered  
 skyscrapers peak its skyline, ringed with raised highways and offramps. A     
 nearby rusted road sign labels the city in Zeboim or the Ancient Tongue, if   
 you can decipher it:                                                          
                                                                               
 [ HIRASAKA CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT 3km ]                                    
                                                                               
 The passengers depart for the fallen city, shrouded by glowing butterflies    
 that hover about the station, shedding a faint aura of death...               
                                                                               
 Then, the doors shut, and the train honours its promise as you are whisked    
 away to the very station you started this bizarre journey. As the carriage    
 pulls away, there is very little evidence that this mysterious incident ever  
 happened, save...                                                             
                                                                               
 ... a glowing little butterfly, and underneath it... a folded-up, high        
 quality Tent. It's certainly very fancy, and will serve you well on the road  
 if you have to camp it in the rough, but...                                   
                                                                               
 What exactly was the train's in-tent to give this to you?                     
=Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.

 
Lan braces herself alongside Asgard. As does Kaguya, with her Veruni strength - and three tomato minions.
 
Loren cannot believe this is happening, but it does not stop him from offering Earth Ether that PULLS upward into the train, as the train suddenly begins to rise at a slight angle.
 
And that is all the lift that the Golem, the Solarian, the Veruni, and three mad science experiments need. The train engine rises, it's horn WHISTLING in dismay as it's held aloft by those sets of arms.
 
Bending at the knees, they suddenly all launch into the air. To be joined by Magilou's wrestling maneuver - with all the force of an interloping HEEL. Abruptly, as she strikes it, the weight over-balances, and the train inverts.
 
Before being driven down upon the tracks with a massive collision that feels destined to permanently crater this area and set it out of commission for ages.
 
The dust slowly settles.
 
I see...
So the will to live is that strong...
I will let you go... but however...
First I must perform my duty...
 
One moment, the dust is settling - and the next...
 
They are back inside the train, that seems speeding along, as it abruptly dips into a darkened tunnel that zips through the bowels of Filgaia at incredible speed.
 
Into a Zeboim era skyline.
 
As ghosts depart at the final stop, it truly feels less like a ruins, and more like... an afterlife.
 
The doors shut, and they are whisked back to the surface at even more incredible speed until...
 
They are let off at the same platform they got on at.
 
Each of them has a folded up tent in their arms.
 
-=-=-
 
Later.
 
"Well now - I would like to take a look at the data from your excu-"
 
Malik pauses at the surreal sight of a Golem pitching a tent with a butterfly logo on it's side.
 
"You know what. Upload the data. I'll look over it on my own time."
 

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "But they're... tomatoes," is Loren's last lingering protest.

    And then there is nothing left but to tackle the train.

    The train, which seems somehow mollified by their efforts.

    They're permitted aboard as it heads on towards its final destination.

    It's a city that ends up seeming quite familiar in various ways, both because of its obvious point of origin, and because Loren can't quite shake the feeling that he's seen it before, somehow.

    Somewhere.

    It prompts an involuntary shiver, and after that he closes his eyes and sinks deeper into his seat.

    In the end they're back where they started, more or less no worse for wear and with a strange gift of a sort in their arms as the train departs.

    ...He really did miss the train heading to Port Rosalia, huh.

    ...His mother's really not going to like this.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    If there were any other way--

    No, there was certainly another way, wasn't there? She could have... she could have used magic. She could have just hoped that her strength wasn't needed. It probably would have been fine, with everybody else here.

    Lan opens her eyes to find herself back in a seat on the train, and that's not the weirdest thing that's ever happened to her, but it's still plenty freaking weird.

    Almost weird enough to distract from the idea that she's getting too comfortable with this. She had barely hesitated to use it against Azoth, even with Gwen telling her not to.

    But here she is, without even a thread of it showing up on her skin. Was it a hallucination? Did they actually suplex a train at all?

    Later on she'll at least be happy to have a better tent out of it. Yay free stuff...?

<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "I intend to see how all this ends," Magilou answers the train, entirely too casual. "If you want me after the end, I won't stop you. Aah, 'til then..."

    Magilou sighs, leaning back in the seat which she's obviously in, all devil-may-care. She pulls out a leather-bound journal, and scribbles out the symbols on the road sign. She'll bother Grim with them, later.

    "Hmm, hmm... it's funny how there are old cities like this under the earth everywhere, isn't it?" Magilou poses a question to the carriage, entirely too casually. "Lost for a thousand years, perhaps..."

    Aaah... mapping out the world on a pirate ship.

    Why is that relevant? Shh, they're at their stop.

    Magilou finds herself holding a tent...

    ... only to turn around, where a Normin stumbles out behind here. "Here!" She chirps to him, entirely too cheerfully. "Carry this!"

    The tent is much, MUCH bulkier in Bienfu's arms.

<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Kaguya is quiet, when she comes back. She doesn't even shove Loren. She just takes her tent.. and looks around at the others.

"Yeah," she says to Magilou belatedly. "Funny."

"Later guys. I'm gonna go camping."

She waves, and heads off. "...Bet the Lunies won't show up to join me this time..."

One day she'll get an explanation. But it is not this day. She doesn't even push for it.

She just goes.