Scene #486: A Cold Trail

Owner	Pose
Ainsley	The trail had run cold. While many candidates were examined, the evidence was very difficult to pin on a single suspect. There were too many time magic students, there was very little info that could really rule out any specific person, and eventually it led to a stall in the investigation. No new murders were taking place, not after the failed attempt at the University. Then one of the scholars lost contact with HQ. A woman by the name of Kana, she was stationed in the Japanese region at a small town area. The Scholars sent a message about it, allowing some more investigation, and possibly a solid lead into who or what is doing this to these people. "Kana is one of our senior members, and has been a strong-willed scholar for as long as we have known her. That is why her disappearance is strange. You will find the coordinates to her home in the Japanese forests as well as the village she was assigned to watching over. We would send others over, but our hands are full with trying to repair the damage that has already been done by the culprit of these murders. Good luck." The warp gate leads to a forest path, winding through a few hills to where the group is supposed to find her home. The path is overshadowed by bright green trees, with the occasional sakura tree scattering petals across the path, petals that shimmer with a strange white glow. Seems that those pink flowering trees gained a bit more power when the world changed, if only to hold mana in their systems. When they get to the house, it is a shipping crate with a sliding metal door built into its side. It has no windows, and it has a very small chimney for the sake of circulation. The door has a small silver plate in the middle of it as if that was the mechanism to open it. It appears Kana values her privacy quite a lot. The rest of the crate seems to have etched magical symbols all over it, possibly wards of some kind, or other enchantments. The clearing this house is set into lets the afternoon sun in quite easily. The house/crate is sat in the middle of an open clearing near the top of a hill. There's no sign of Kana here. Not even any footprints.
Faruja	A murderer getting off without punishment is something that never sits well with Faruja. So as as he's concerned, a swift trial and hanging should never be delayed. Thus, with something akin to a lead now, or perhaps another tragedy in the works, Faruja follows the others through the warp gate. The area's beautiful, but the rat doesn't spend too much time admiring the trees and scenery. When they arrive, he takes stock of the building. Which happens to be a shipping crate. Faruja squints. "How...curious." He states, clearly slightly taken aback. How odd. With that, Faruja uses his senses to attempt to sniff out any time magic recently used...and more physically, whether he can hear anyone inside.
Jack	Alas poor Faruja. There is someone in the midst who got away with murder not once but five times, and she did it scot free. But those times are long gone and past, as the Heroic Spirit, Jack the Ripper slides out of a nearby shadow as though she were one with it. The silver-haired assassin spends just a moment adjusting her round glasses and smoothing out a wrinkle in the pleat of her seifuku's skirt. "Hello, yes, we are here. We got a text message." As it so happens, as a teen girl living in Japan, Jack would have a cellphone. It is a very pink and girly one, and she holds it out to display the screen with an indicator that she indeed received a text message to show up. And while Faruja begins to check for magery she... Walks right up and knocks on the crate door. "Hello are you home and if you are not home is the door or any other part of the home-tainer trapped?"
Kirika	It's not all bad, since Faruja seems to have gotten off on a good start with Kirika before since they met in passing. While she isn't as jaded by the acts of murder one befalls upon another juuuuuuust yet, she does have a tracker's instinct. She could be of use here after all. "So did I it seems." She says as she approaches, ears wiggling and katana slung across her back. The half-kitsune gives a nod to Jack and Faruja both, then she folds her arms quietly. For the record, her own cell phone is a very utiltiarian smartphone that looks like it was provided by HoH's offices when she joined up with them than any fancy tool someone more tech savvy could acquire with enough cash. Perking a brow as Jack knocks on the crate, she simply keeps her distance and braces for whatever may come out to greet the group.
Ainsley	There is a very faint sensation of time magic coming from the container. Some of the symbols react, glowing a faint white color in response to the touch of the nezumi's magical senses. After a moment, the glow fades. It may be that the time magic comes from the container's enchantments and not from any past use. Jack's direct attempt results only in the metallic noise of her knuckles against it, and the faintly hollow echo from the inside. No one responds. No one opens the door for her. Now that she's closer, there appears to be smudge marks on the silver door plate as if someone had rested their hand on it in the past, in the center. Further proof that it might be the mechanism to open the door.
Faruja	The appearance of Kirika and Jack earn both a little smile from the rat and a flick of the tail followed by a bow. "Excellent, hail, Dame Kirika, Lady Jack! Come, come! Let us see if our good Lady is about. Or anyone nefarious at that." Faruja wiggles his ears. "Well. Whomever warded this 'home' was at least partially familiar with Time Magic. Nothing recent." Proclaims the rat. Then, he visibly vinces as Jack just walks up and knocks. He chuckles a bit. "...Faram willing, they art merly not home." Faruja, in fact, doesn't have a cellphone. Cellphones are for Not-Ajorans and Ripper Girls. No, he has a linkshell tucked in one ear. Pretty much the same thing, though, without the text messages. A glance to the two women, then, he draws a sleeve around his hand. He'll poke at the door plate a bit. Fortunately, someone's educated in the existance of fingerprints.
Jack	No answer means Jack is perfectly within her right to bust the lock. Bust being a relative term in which she kneels to get a better look at the smudging of handprint with Faruja, and peek finger markings. She proceeds to put on a rubber glove, in order to preserve evidence, and try and set her own hand in the exact place. It should prevent loss of the original handprint, while making her attempt to get the door open. She also holds out sets of rubber gloves to Kirika and Faruja. "Hello mousy-man. Ah. With no answer we can only guess it will either be empty, trapped, or um. A murder scene inside." Pessimistic and bleak, but when you lived in 1888 London, that's prettymuch just how things were.
Kirika	Kirika's vaguely aware not to touhc things in a crime scene. She takes the gloves Jack offers to her, offering a smile to Faruja. "GOod day to you as well, Temple Knight." She isn't quite up to date about Faruja's world's own little trials and tribulations, but the tone is genuine in warmth. She observes Jack opening up the door. "One can only hope this isn't the case." comments the half-fox. Her hand reaches up towards her blade just in case, if the box so turns out to be containing some sort of abomination inside as if, one can't be too careful about these things.
Ainsley	The plate reacts in a surprising way. It emits a harmless pulse of static electricity into their hands, and then the door opens up with a loud THUNK and the metallic grinding of the enchanted metal sheet sliding to the side. The inside of the crate is soon visible to the group... and it is a peek into the eye of insanity. The first thing the party would notice is that an entire wall is covered in papers and pictures. Notes of varying types, some of them stained with blood. The paranoid collection is supplemented by huge block letter writing with phrases like 'TRAITOR?' and 'REVOLUTION' that indicate the origins of various journals that the pages come from. And there is a particularly large section dedicated to a single person: Ainsley. There's a picture of Ainsley as a child, still in the Scholar academy. She looks short and a tad tired and miserable. A male quetzal there in the picture, too, standing beside her and looking at the camera with some surprise. His body is heavily scratched out with a black pen, though. The words TRAITOR are scratched into the board around the picture, though it's unclear which one it's referring to exactly. And then there's another wall. It has a circle drawn on it in blood, with symbols reminiscent of time magic. The last wall, the second long wall, is adorned with various charms, weapons and quite a few scholarly tools. There's even a pocket watch, but the face has been smashed by some blunt force. It looks like Kana does sleep in here. There's a cot set up at the far end, near the blood circle. Besides the usual signs that someone lives in here -- clothing, plates and forks, etc. -- there's no sign of the actual occupant.
Faruja	Bleak or not, Faruja nods to Jack. A good assessment. He takes the rubber gloves, and gingerly puts them on. Luckily, they manage to survive his claws. "Nay sense in dwelling upon what might be!" Kirika's words get a nod as well. Inwards they go as the door opens, and Faruja pauses. He takes it all in. The pictures. The words. And the person within. Every single fur goes on end as the rat sees the words 'Traitor' within spitting distance of his love. Trembling in rage, it seems like he'll need a minute. He stalks out of the box, walking away a moment, and lets out a string of angry insults to the woman's entire lineage, alongside lots of fire and damnation. When he comes back, he looks only very, very irritated and offended. Perhaps it's /good/ that the woman isn't in. "Well. Now what sort of ritual were ye enacting, little heathen knave?" Mutters the rat to the room as he kneels, and inspects the watch and blood symbol. He glances at one of his own, then closes his eye. Concentrating, he tries to peer in the past, attempting to get a view of just what hse was up to with that Ominous Blood Circle.
Jack	Well it's not a murder scene. That's a good thing in one way, but in other ways it means Jack has nothing to gain via performing an autopsy one someone- which is both fun in a twisted way, and more informative to Jack than to many others. The runic sigils written in blood elude her other than the fact that she recognizes obvious magical work when she sees it, but the meaning is not one of her specialties. With a scalpel suddenly in hand, she begins delicately un-pinning the images of Ainsley from the wall and beginning to inspect them. She checks the backs of each one for notes or markings. It's a REALLY good thing Himei taught her how to read. "Is it safe to touch?" She asks Faruja, first, referring to the blood circle. Just touching magic runes can lead to all kinds of miseries after all, so she waits for his more knowledgable opinion.
Kirika	Kirika's eyes widen as she sees what lays inside, a peak into the insanity of a heretic or someone who's zealotry brought them too far she has no idea. Either way, this isn't good at all, doubly so if Ainsley is the target of Kana's efforts. She takes a peek inside, her tail stiffening a little as she attempts to avoid touching anything vital while she looks through the room. Eyes flash towards Faruja for a brief moment, the half-kitsune concerned for the priest. Given the nature of his relationship with Ainsley, this can't be too good for him to see with his own eyes. "What drives you?" She asks under her breath.
Ainsley	The notes Jack finds are quite telling of who Kana actually is. The file would not have been immediately forthcoming, but now it is blindingly obvious. Because the back of one of the pictures is labelled like so: My daughter + my husband. Written carefully and delicately, as opposed to the huge scrawl that the other letters are. This isn't conclusive, but it's very compelling evidence that she is, in fact, Ainsley's mother. Which begs the question: Why hasn't she attacked Ainsley yet? As Jack reads more of the notes, it paints a picture of what state Kana's state is in. She is clearly obsessed with these supposed traitors, as each and every stolen paper or self-written paper references people that are expressing doubts about the Grey Scholars and what they represent, and the methods they use to preserve history. The idea of suppressing emotion is often references in the notes, with particular disgust in some examples. The magic circle reacts to Faruja's inspection. It hums gently... Faruja is shown a mental image of Kana sitting before the circle, staring at it, one hand resting on it. The circle would flash, and then she vanishes for a second and returns a moment later, with some subtle differences in her appearance, like shorter feathers. There's this distinct feeling that she's powering it with whatever ritual she's doing, but it's not clear what the circle actually does. It is obvious that it's not harmful, though. Something seems Wrong with her in the image, but it's hard to pinpoint what it is. Kirika would find, while the others are distracted, a book with a leather cover. It's been kicked under the table set up beneath that big tool rack.
Faruja	To Jack, the rat shakes his head. "Nay. 'Tis unwise to disturb such a symbol without knowing what exactly 'tis intended for." Then, the circle reacts. Opening his eye, he looks to the others. "Well. 'Tis not a ritual of harm, methinks. Likely 'twas used to empower a ritual. However, without /using/ it..." Frown. Blood magic makes his skin crawl. But it's not his circle. This is an investigation. Crossing his chest, one hand clutching his cross, he sits down. "I wouldst suggest backing away, honored Ladies." Then, he attempts to add a bit of his own Time Magic to the circle experimentally. Very light amounts, not even enough to truly shift time. Only nudge it along a little. The rat's fur manages to be even /more/ on end by now. Only duty to the dead keeps him from not stalking off again.
Kirika	Kirika's eyes spot the book, kneeling near it as she reaches down to pick the tome up. "I found something," She says, tapping the cover with her gloved finger before she observes the thing itself. Opening the book, Kirika looks through the pages one at a time, looking to see if she can divine anything out of this assuming there is legible handwriting inside she can understand. Probably not, but it's worth a try. Sighing, Kirika prepares for whatever insanity lies inside of the book.
Jack	Now clutching her scalpel in her teeth, Jack adjusts her glasses. She doesn't need them, they just make her look smarter. Still, she edges away at Faruja's behest to step back, but her focus is intently on what she's finding on the backs of each picture. "This is uh." Oh dear, how to put it. "This is a thing." She tries to raise attention, motioning for the others to have a peek at the pictures and their corresponding notes. Though she starts looking amid the other pictures as well. "This one is dead." She notes, tapping one familiar drawing. "We autopsied him. We were elbows deep in his chest, his body had wounds indicating possible murder while caught entirely off guard. But with no reaction to the attack- as if caught in one of Aunti Homura's time freezes. Then she looks to Kirika, "What is it, what did you find?"
Ainsley	Faruja doesn't get any reaction besides a general surge in the circle. It provides some mild feedback at him, and there's this feeling that it tried to turn back time for him. Then the circle begins to glow red. The whole container creaks ominously... Kirika finds a journal. It's full of illustrations, drawings of Kana herself. Full-body, and bit more information that she is likely to be comfortable with, since it details bodily changes down to the most precise or trivial. It's fairly clinical. It details a gradual process of using magic to turn back the effects of aging, and then it goes into details of how to stop time in small areas for short periods of time. There's a section for reversing time in brief bursts to repair wounds as well. It's probably the most damning evidence here. However, the writing -- in Japanese, oddly enough -- begins to turn unintelligible near the end of it, and then there's a few pages glued together with what looks like more blood. The writing there is shaky and hard to read. 'Home' is repeated over and over on one page. There's one last illustration. It's of Kana, but her eyes are bleeding. The drawing is almost abstract in appearance. The circle lets out an awful metallic roar! The metal begins to rust rapidly, and collapse around the circle. The effect spreads, and obliterates the cot in the process! Faruja has a moment to react before it attempts to slap him with oodles of mana backlash and force-age him. The very fabric of reality is finally asserting itself, and it's going to devour the whole structure in a shockwave of rapid time unless something is done to slow it down!
Kirika	Kirika winces as she looks through the pages of the journal, looking very disturbed as things get even more 'intimate' in details. Her jaw drops as she notices the similarities between the Japanese script and the writing of her homeland, and she begins to take down notes in her head as she reads. Eventually she gets out a pen and paper, jotting down a few notes here and there with it before handing the book the Jack to see for herself. "She looked to be seeking a way to reverse aging on herself...it's thorough work." She jumps in place as the cot is exploded loudly, her hand reaching up to grab her sword as she shields herself with a few seals slammed to the ground to form a barrier. "Get behind this!" She calls out to Faruja as things get hairy. "What is happening here? Can we stop it?"
Jack	Jack is, in fact, peeking over Kirika's shoulder. Going to highschool in Japan means... Well she can read Japanese, so she's keeping up fairly well. Until the sudden metal screech gets her attention up instantly. There's a knife in her hand now. It wasn't there before but it is now. Not that it's likely to help in this particular situation. It would be a dire and disastrous loss of evidence if she were to try and brute force the rune- magecraft always seems to sputter and die when a rune is violently broken. But if Faruja and Kirika had no alternatives, it's something she'll try.
Faruja	Faruja looks back, wincing as there's feedback. Faruja steps away slightly, warily. A glance to the picture. "...Could that be!" But there's no time to consider Kirika or Jack's evidence as he's faced with an aging spell. Teleporting back a good foot, he gains a few grey hairs on his left hand. Stepping back behind the fox-paladin's barrier, the rat concentrates. Grabbing a pocket watch, he crushes it, attempting to Time Stop the area where the spell is spreading. Then, he'll start weaving Slow, and Stop spells over the area in an attempt to arrest the spell in its entirety! "Get out, both of ye, and grab as much evidence as ye can! Quickly!"
Faruja	"Backlash! Methinks ye art correct, mine dear! ONly this spell ages!"
Ainsley	The effect is halted by Kirika, straining against her wards. And then Faruja's magic weaves into it, slowing it, and even reversing it here and there. And then Jack tries to attack the rune directly, which is very effective. It also disperses an overdose of dark mana into the air with a huge blast of purple and red, saturating everything for miles. It seems abusing the powers of time has some nasty side-effects. Their combined efforts have prevented any more damage of the evidence, though. The mana itself wouldn't hurt them, but it would feel Wrong in some alien way. Whatever spell Kana was using... it was very strong. Some creatures out in the distant wilderness roar in anger, and birds take flight to run away from them. Something is coming, and it sounds like it's bringing friends. They might not want to stick around for long, though it seems they'll have time to grab anything that looks relevant.
Kirika	Once Kirika has a chance to get some breathing room, she takes whatever she can to nab from the crate as evidence, the book especially. With that, she definitely makes a run for it with the evidence in hand while the party can do so, aiming to get out before the wildlife begin to get too gnawy and angry with the visitors to their neck of the woods. "That does not sound good..." Her sword's close to grab if she needs it, luckily, just in case a predator of some sort does end up attacking the trio on their way out. Hopefully that isn't the case here.
Jack	With a majority of the evidence saved, Jack whips out her GIRLY PINK PHONE. She starts taking as many varied pictures of everything as she can. It's on hearing something terrible in the distance that she pauses only briefly. Just to adjust her glasses as she starts stuffing as much as she can into her shirt, pocket, and skirt like a little sneak-thief. "... We should go."
Faruja	Faruja squeak-snarls. "Feh! Talented, but one must never step into the realm of God. Fool." Spits the rat, even as he's swiftly peering around. He'll grab any other books on either time magic, or journals he might spot. Oh, and he grabs the pocket watc too. He'll investigate that later. Then, he's out the door. A quick summon spell, and a trio of Zuu appear. The large, purple birds flap their wings. "I do hope ye both art not afraid of heights. Shall we?" Faruja hops on, and with a flap of wings, it carries the rat upwards.