Message From The Dead

Participants:

ff_asi_icon.gif ff_silas_icon.gif

Scene Title Message From The Dead
Synopsis Silas and Asi go house-hunting near Mt. Fuji in the hopes of connecting with the person who left them a mysterious message in Hokkaido long before the Flood ever happened.
Date September 23, 2020

御殿場市の廃墟 (Ruins of Gotemba City)

静岡県 (Shizuoka, Japan)


They'd left Jenny behind at the boat, anchored at the northern edge of Lake Ashi. As eager as she'd been to join them this far, her enthusiasm ended at the shoreline. The land sickness that came over here when she was ashore for too long had become noticeable these last few weeks, and any chance to return or stay at sea was a welcome thing for her. Her offer to guard the smaller craft they'd borrowed to come this way was just as welcome. It wouldn't do to lose it to any opportunists.

It left Silas and Asi to trek alone in the midday heat in the woods leading to the nearby base of Fuji. They'd passed first through the grassy plain that had once been several golf courses stacked end on end, cutting west up wooded hill, and cautiously following abandoned roads north after passing through a short tunnel. When the road serpentined its way more east than north, with compass in hand they left concrete and took again to the nature they now find themselves surrounded by.

As she steps over a felled trunk, the pendants of her twine necklace sway and clink together and prompt her to tuck them beneath her shirt. With her she carries a machete to clear the path ahead, something to pair with the shovel the man from Hokkaido had advised them to bring. The gun, too, rests tucked into her belt. Just in case.

"There should be town ruins beyond here," Asi advises, taking a moment to glance up at the sky through the trees. She'll miss the shade once they leave it, she knows, even if now it doesn't feel like it's doing much. The leaves haven't begun yet to change here, the air sticky even if it's not got all the heat behind it the dead of summer would.

Silas takes advantage of Asi's momentary break, leaning back against a tree and planting the shovel between his feet, the fishhook necklace hanging over his shirt. "You know… I never woulda thought I'd ever end up hiking along at the foot of Mount Fuji," he muses, giving Asi a wry grin. "Not…"

He trails off, waving a hand in airy generality; there's a lot of not there, she's welcome to take her pick. Not in these times, after the Flood; not in this life. Not in this world. And yet, here they are. Although, belatedly, a dreadful thought occurs to him. "Not that this is a vacation or anything," he says hurriedly, glancing around to make sure a plane isn't going to fall on them or something.

Thankfully, whatever deity has cursed their vacations is apparently taking one themself — the bastard — so after a few seconds without any sign of falling airplanes, satellites, or meteors, he relaxes, leaning back against the tree behind him. He adjusts his hat — a worn-looking Panama that'll at least keep the sun off of him — and takes a moment to fiddle with his various knives to make sure they're in place, and that the gun at his belt is firmly secured. When he's done, he looks forward, then he looks to Asi. "Ready?" he asks, more seriously.

He isn't sure what waits up there… but he's hoping that whatever it is, it might finally give him some answers.

It takes Asi a moment to laugh after Silas qualifies that this is by no means a vacation, either because her thoughts are on the environment— or perhaps she, too, was engaging in a mental game of bad-luck warding. She looks back at him with a tight nod, eyes light even for the near-grim of her expression. They can't afford to let their guard down, so she does her best not to.

"I never liked Tokyo that much," she confesses idly, looking in the direction they need to march. Her words come more clipped than she'd like— she needed the momentary break, too. "But nature, I don't mind that as much. Fuji… I've never been, either."

After her heart has settled and she no longer has to breathe quite so needfully, she turns back to Silas. "To new experiences?" she christens their next steps, wrist rotating to prepare the machete for some more low-branch knocking. "Maybe we'll get lucky and there's a welcoming committee here, too."

She doubts it, though. And once they sight the town through the overgrowth, she feels justified in that. A slow breath escapes her to see the destruction years-ago completed, wondering if there's even anything solidly left to find in these greening ruins. Asi runs a hand back through her hair while still standing on the hill, surveying the land for anything that might resemble the estate they were sent to find.

Can't see it from here, at least. That left heading down and across the narrow, small town to find out for themselves… and continuing on the road to Mt. Fuji if that lead to nothing. Asi puffs her cheeks, looks down at her feet, glad for the sturdiness of her shoes.

"Walking through a ghost town never gets any less weird," she opines as she heads down the slope toward the outskirt road on the edge of the burned-out suburb. She slips the compass away into the netted pocket on the side of the bag strapped to her back.

"To new experiences; may we keep having them," Silas says with a grin, following Asi once she starts to walk again.

The levity fades as they actually lay eyes on the dead ruins, Silas's grin replaced by an expression more somber. "No. It doesn't," Silas agrees heavily. Once, there were people here… but they're gone now, he thinks, but does not say.

But bitterness isn't going to do anyone any good; whether this town had been laid low by some Sentinel atrocity or just been collateral damage in some long ago clash, the fact remains that the people who'd once made this place their home are gone now. Wallowing in bitterness won't help anyone… so instead he keeps his eyes and ears open. It's not impossible that there might be something here worth looking into even if it's not their ultimate destination. It's also not impossible that someone might yet be around, and if there is, they probably aren't the sort to be happy about visitors.

"At least so far we're following the prophecy, such as it is," Asi notes quietly once they've passed several streets of former homes and businesses.

While many of the town's buildings are either in disrepair or outright ruin, the basic shape of the city remains and demands to be respected. It doesn't take much to find a main thoroughfare, but it begs the question now of where to even look. She'd recommend looking for signs of green— a home surrounded by neatly kept trees, something distinctly apart from regular urban architecture, but that recommendation is a decade out of date at this point.

So all that's left to do is cautiously continue forward, eyes and ears open. They walk past homes with sunken cars still parked in front of them, glass hazed over from the wear of years of weather. To the eastern part of north on their path, it's easy to see where the edge of town segues properly into town, where fewer buildings are spaced apart even further— where the road becomes highway before long.

Asi pauses to frown and consider it, wondering which direction was better to pursue for their purposes, when she suddenly catches sight of something standing in the middle of the road between two former storefronts. Her breath arrests for the start she gives herself, one which the creature in the middle of the road doesn't notice.

It's been a long time— lifetimes, even, in years measured in its time— for deer around here to have to really worry about human contact.

"Jesus," Asi breathes out in relief when it's nothing worse. When the deer lifts its head from the road-grown grass it's nibbling on, finally noticing it's being watched, she lets out a chuckle. "«Yeah, I see you too,»" she murmurs, and the antlered deer decides it'd rather not linger any longer. While it takes off down an alley, she shakes her head and looks to Silas.

"Your call," she decides for them both. "Follow the outskirts and look for the estate out this way," noted with a gesture to the north, "or try the other side of town, nearest the mountain?" Her head turns west to look down the more building-heavy road.

Well, the buck snacking on roadside grass is a good sign that this place is just as empty as it looks — deer are flighty critters, and it takes awhile for them to get that placid.

So people haven't been here in awhile… which means the odds of finding something worth salvaging on the side are pretty good. Assuming there's not something lurking that's kept everyone scared off…

But then the deer would probably be flighty, too. Is it possible that the DeerMaster is lying in wait somewhere, chortling fiendishly about how new victims have at last wandered into their terrible trap? Sure; it's a big world. Is it likely? Nah.

"Let's stick with the outskirts first," Silas decides. "If we're lucky, maybe we'll find something useful while we're looking, too," he suggests.

"I'd kill to bring back some miraculously-usable gas or batteries, but we'll have to take what we can," Asi agrees as much as laments. Taking in a deep breath, she reorients her feet, following the road that keeps them facing hills rather than takes them deeper into the dead town. The machete is slipped into the leather cover hanging from her side, no longer needed. It frees her hands to pull off her bag from one shoulder, pulling out the canteen and offering it after to Silas.

The streets continue to bear paint and signs that deceptively lend an appearance that the town is still living, should one only look at those markers. The hills to the east and northeast cut a beautiful figure, which is nothing to say of the looming mountain to their west, visible between buildings and down sloping roads. A tangle of birds fly past, too fast to tell if they're chasing each other over food or simply in play. They're gone again almost as swiftly as they came, leaving the pilgrims to continue northbound without distractions.

It's nearly fifteen minutes before something sticks out— the sight of a walled-off spot of land nestled between two hills in former farmland on the eastern rise bringing Asi to arch her brows. "There," she indicates cautiously. "That looks…"

Surprisingly well-kept? The curved shingling of the traditional roof beyond the perimeter wall appears to be in one piece, the tree growth out front not as wild as one might expect. Asi squints at the layout, pensive, and picks up her pace to lead them that way.

The grounds are even bigger than they looked from afar, a significant plot of land held within the walls. Her eyes alight on the plaque adorning the space next to the sliding gate doorway by the front, studying the kanji. Her pensive frown returns, deepens, and she reaches forward to haul open the door directly rather than bother with the long-dead doorbell.

It takes several tugs, but the wheels roll aside— and reveal the grounds within. The traditional home is down a stone path, greenery growing between the stones, but… the lawn has clearly been kept up with, somewhat recently. It runs tall, but not the same way the fields beyond do. The home looks worn down, but isn't covered in vines— the deck running along the outside of the home not covered in leaves.

Asi turns to Silas, her hand resting on the hilt of her machete. Someone's been here.

Silas nods appreciatively, taking the offered canteen and having himself a drink, then… onward.

No miraculous finds await them as they circle the outskirts of this long abandoned place, despite Silas looking sharp for anything that might be of value — their voyage was at least nominally mercantile, after all. Not until they come across the estate anyway.

Silas studies the plaque for a moment, but the kanji are above his skill level. He glances to Asi, sees her hand on the hilt of her machete, and frowns — he very strongly hopes things don't come to violence here… but the possibility can't be discounted.

But they're not there yet. "What does it say?" he asks quietly.

"It's a last name," she answers just as quietly. "Not an uncommon one. Homes often have the names of the resident family posted. It's not unusual." Her answer is cagey, though, in a way she knows it shouldn't be. Asi frowns and barrels her way past her bristling to get to the point.

"It says Nakamura."

They didn't come all this way to linger outside the door, though. Eyes at first down below to mind for traps or tripwires for noisemakers, she lifts them up shortly after. Her gun is retrieved from her belt holster, opting for its longer-range protection over the machete. The grounds are swept, but the pond visible to their left is a lost cause to nature. Beyond it, though, appears to be a plot of plants in various stages of growth.

Her head sweeps to the house next, to the front door as much as any of the balcony doors that spill to the deck wrapping its way around the house. Her grip tightens and she holds, waiting for Silas to go one way or the other.

Asi's initial cageyness is met with silence as Silas, too, studies the grounds; he can be patient, and should an answer not be forthcoming… well, that's fine too. Whatever the reason might be for that cageyness, he trusts her.

When that answer does come, though, Silas pauses for a moment, a stillness settling over him. "Nakamura," he echoes softly.

Then he nods, and starts to walk. "They've put in a lot of work here — work they didn't have to. That makes me think that whoever's living here… they care about this place," Silas muses as he walks forward. His eyes still scan carefully for any signs of defenses or traps, but he doesn't reach for any weapons — he just keeps walking forward, bold as brass. Looking confident can go a long way towards getting your foot in the door…

Besides, Asi's already locked and loaded. That's the thing about having good people at your side — you can count on them to keep your ass safe when you do crazy things, Silas muses. And I've got the best. He wonders, briefly, if Mad Eve had felt this way about the crew of the Forthright… and decides that yes, she probably had.

His steps carry him forward. "Let's see if there's anyone home," Silas says, coming up to the front door, raising a fist… and knocking.

Asi's eyes flash in alarm, a greenish-blue coming into them as she seizes momentarily on seeing his intention. "Silas!" she hisses. Of all the things she expected, bold friendliness was not one of them. Her expression shifts from shock to deadpan quickly, calculating the chances they'll need the gun raised… or not.

Her jaw sets. She leaves her gun arm down.

And no one comes to the door.

But around the corner of the home, from the direction of the garden, an elderly man shuffles into view. He looks surprised to see Asi and Silas, a bucket held in one hand— no weapon. He blinks for a moment and then announces, "«Ah… I thought I heard someone.»"

His voice is a rasp, his posture slouched, his hair full though pale. He wears a vest over a sweat-stained shirt. "«Could you close the gate behind you?»" he asks with a gesture to Asi, who reluctantly eases her posture and stows her gun. She trusts in Silas' path, even if she's grinding her teeth in suspicion.

The old man comes around the house toward Silas, letting the bucket down on the deck on the way. For his age, he seems to get around plenty well. "«I don't get many visitors…»" He arches an eyebrow. "«I don't have much, if you've come to rob me.»"

Once closer, his eyes alight on the necklace Silas wears and stay there.

Silas gives a small smile. "«We are not here to rob you,»" he says politely. "«We've come a long way to reach this place — from beyond the sea. I met a man in a fishing town, who gave me this,»" Silas says, reaching up and gently touching the necklace, "«And sent me to find this place.»" There is little doubt in Silas's mind that this is the right place, though of what now awaits them he is less sure. Only one way to find out.

As the rolling gate rattles closed again by Asi's hand, the elderly man lets out a hm. He thinks for a long moment before pronouncing in a murmur, like it must be said before anything else, "日本語上手っすね1…"

He sighs and looks around the grounds, brow knitting. "«Well, I don't know what you'd come all this way for,»" he balks, and pulls a cloth from one of his vest pockets to dab at the sweat on his neck. "«Nothing special about here…»"

Asi shakes her head as she comes forward. "«Is this your home? Did you own it, in the world before?»" Her hands rest at her hips, an anxious prodding to her words. Whoever this man is, she doesn't recognize him.

The older man considers that before responding plainly but carefully. "«No,»" he says, "«but I was told I could have it, in this 'after'. The Nakamuras were good friends, good neighbors. My wife passed years ago, and looking after all this gives me something to do. Gives me, ehm…»" He looks back between Asi and Silas, not shameful but neither exactly comfortable to be explaining this. "«Better ground than I would have down the road. Animals can't get in here as easy, can't get into the plants. And the plants, well…»"

They know, probably, so he doesn't bother saying. The plants help keep him going, in more ways than one.

He narrows his eyes thoughtfully. "«The last time Nakamura-san and I spoke, he was fiddling with something like that,»" he says with a gesture to Silas' necklace. Only then does he seem to really note the shovel, asking carefully, "«What exactly were you hoping to find here?»"

"«The owners,»" Asi answers rotely, instantly. "«The family that lived here before.»" But it doesn't seem like they are— that they haven't been in some time— and she turns to her companion with a frown.

Silas nods, not without sympathy, as the old man relates how he had come to live in this place; it's a hand-me-down world, these days, and if this old man had come into better than most— well, by the look of it he was doing better with it than most, and by the sound of it he had come by it better than most.

"«I came across the sea looking for the truth behind an old story,»" Silas pronounces slowly, his eyes distant. Then his gaze comes back to the old man. "«I was told, upon arrival, to find an estate that still stood, in a town that no longer existed, at the base of Fuji-san… and to find the owners, and there I would find answers. Though I did not realize that the estate I was being sent to was the Nakamura estate,»" he admits with a rueful smile. "«I have never met Nakamura Kaito, but I had hoped that fortune might lead our paths to cross on this journey. Because of his words, I met my best friend; I had hoped to give my thanks.»"

It's only when the old man glances down, and when Silas follows his gaze to the shovel in his hand, that he realizes something; Silas's eyes widen, mouth curving into a frown as he looks back to the old man. Oh no. "«Do you know where I might find the Nakamuras?»" he asks, hoping that he's wrong.

The old man doesn't correct Silas or look confused when the home's owner is named, first and last— much to Asi's surprise. She'd not wanted to assume, to make smaller a vast world by jumping to believing that the same man who'd sent her across the ocean was the same man who had a message waiting for someone she met and returned with.

But it makes sense, doesn't it?

"«Ah…»" the old man begins, uncertainly.

Kaito Nakamura was a man who had warned who knew how many others of the world that was coming, and left signposts for those who would come after its change. Surely he was here in that aftermath… right?

"«Right…»"

Right?

The old man gestures with his hand first back the way he'd come from. "«This way,»" he says. He leads, and Asi follows close enough behind, possessed to see what lies ahead now with little reserve given for the thought this could in any way be a trap. She waits, tension in her gaze, as they round the house, walk alongside the long, blooming garden, and past the edge of the house yet again. It's then her heart begins to sink. Going past the last of the house feels like a moment of finality. There are no final doors waiting to be opened, no familiar face waiting on the other side, wisened and older but still living.

Instead there is more yard, overhung by an old, shade-providing tree. And under its boughs is a stone marker.

Asi walks past the old man who stays a respectful distance back, instead approaching the marker directly. Rather than perform any number of polite gestures reserved for reverence of a grave visit, she crouches directly before it and lays a hand on the stone. The same set of vertical kanji meaning Nakamura are written here, too, with names of the formerly living etched below.

She lets out a breath of disbelief, reading the names one by one, her hand still over the family name.

"«He knew,»" Asi finally says hoarsely. "«He knew all this was coming and didn't…?»"

Silas pads along behind Asi silently; it's not hard to read the tension she bears, not hard to surmise that on some level, she's got the same suspicion he does.

A suspicion that only grows as they round the house… and is confirmed when he sees where they're being led. "Damn," Silas murmurs, but says nothing more while Asi studies the marker; he just stands there in silence as she processes. It's only when she asks her question that he speaks again. "«He did a lot, seems like. And his work continues, even now,»" Silas comments. "«Maybe he did it this way to avoid raising our hopes for a meeting; so we wouldn't find out until we got here.»"

"«Maybe,»" the old man agrees quietly. "«Maybe. Nakamura-san was a curious man, after all. But after that first great tsunami, the family never came back. Not the father, not the son.»"

Asi lets out a hard sigh and comes to her feet, careful to not let her weight rest at all on the stone. "The sheer scale of it, of what he did, to not look at all after himself… keep himself safe from the Flood…" Her frustration is a way of avoiding deeper emotion, and she wields it plainly. "A-and so, we came all this way for this?"

She looks to Silas next, gesturing vaguely away from herself to indicate indirectly the item they were advised to bring with them. "For that?"

The old man shifts, not understanding her words, even if her upset is plain. "«Let me get a fire going. There should be some tea left, and…»" He hrms to himself and then turns away. "«I'll let you say what you came to say.»"

If he gleans what it might be, given the shovel, he absolves himself of knowing and involvement by his leaving. Asi leaves the graveside, stepping mostly out of the shade and back into the sun, brow furrowing. "The message was clear, wasn't it?" It's a rhetorical. "Find the family. They have the answers. He, whoever the hell—" She closes her eyes in a flutter to control her voice. "He doesn't." Her frown deepens as her eyes open again.

And then she takes in a breath, compartmentalizing, rationalizing. "Traditional Japanese burials are cremations. At least— at least there's no literal skeleton to dig up." She runs a hand back through her hair, staring off at the picturesque mountain in the distance. Somewhere in the middle distance, she finds her sense of peace. "He wouldn't have done all of this without a reason. A good reason."

By the time she looks back to Silas, she's found her composure and resolve again.

"Makes sense," Silas says, studying Asi out of the corner of his eye. But shoving things to the side and sitting on them is a viable enough strategy, in the short term, and pushing Aces when she's like this isn't, so he says nothing. She'll talk when she's ready. "Hopefully what we're looking for isn't buried too deep."

And hopefully, this isn't just someone's idea of a sick joke. Because if it is, Silas will not be pleased.

But that's for later. "The message was clear," he sighs, hefting the shovel and stepping forward. "Keep an eye out; I may need you to buy time, if I have to dig very far." And with that, he steps forward, plants his shovel, and starts to dig.

"Merde," Asi whispers, her feelings dire if she's reaching for a third language yet. She looks over her shoulder to the home, her hand coming to rest over the hilt of the machete again in contemplation. Buy time? For an undiplomatic moment, she nearly opts to achieve that by keeping watch and warding the old man back with either of the weapons.

But they didn't come all this way to act like marauders. They came to forge good relations. Her hand flexes by her side, leaving the safety of the machete, and she lets out a slow breath. "Okay," she agrees with more measure to it than before. "I'll… keep him distracted." She looks back to Silas as he works the first chunk of ground free, lingering for a moment longer before pursuing the old man back into the house.

It leaves the grim work, conducted under shade, bugs thrumming in the distance. Probing spikes down into the ground with the blade reveal nothing so close as to be found with just that stab, but it does help churn the ground slightly; makes it easier to haul up. Silas uncovers a patch of dirt in roughly a square before leaning into a second layer of uncovering.

Minutes pass, working from outside in in the patch he's made. Just as he begins to suspect he'll need to dig around further, wasting precious more time, he strikes something. It's an innocuous enough scrape he doesn't at first think much of it— maybe a glanced stone— but the second jab is sure— he's scraped something metal. When brushing around it to uncover the side of a black, metallic container, he leans into the shovel again to dig deeper and pry the surrounding dirt away…

And strikes a second object with an unmistakable thud of weight to a solid plastic object.

The black urn with obscured white designs is carefully set aside once uncovered in favor of unearthing that second mystery object. Deeper the hole goes, and this object is interred horizontally, necessitating it gets wider, too. Sweat beads its way across him unpleasantly as he continues to work.

"Somehow I doubt the last thing you want right now is a hot cup of tea," Asi notes, suddenly at his back again. In a careful balancing act, the warmer cup is maneuvered carefully and the canteen retrieved again from her bag to offer to him. It lets her look down into the hole she unintentionally snuck up on, frowning at the mostly-revealed plastic, weatherproof casing.

"Is that…?" she sounds incredulous, and sets the tea far enough back on a stable-enough patch of grass. Then she's back by the hole again, slinging off her pack so she can help. "God, there really was something."

The only sign he gives that she's snuck up on him is a momentary stiffening of his shoulders… then he looks back over his shoulder, giving a sardonic grin. God knows he's snuck up on her now and again, after all. The grin gets a little less sardonic when she offers the canteen; digging holes in this heat is thirsty work.

"Yes, and yes," he says, after a long drink, carefully capping the canteen and setting the shovel aside. "Think I've just about got it," he says, kneeling by the side of the hole and reaching down to lever the box up and out.

With Asi helping, it's not hard to pull the box out from the dirt and get it up on solid ground… though doing it alone would've been somewhat more difficult — whatever is in there has some heft to it. "Jesus," Silas grunts. "What's he got in there, a load of holiday fruitcake or something?"

Even as he's wisecracking, though, he's eying the box; there are clasps holding it closed, but no locks — it seems like finding the box was meant to be the hard part. Carefully, he reaches out and starts undoing the clasps.

The container itself is part of the bulk, sturdy enough to weather the elements of time. But the weight inside shifts— something else contributing. One by one the clasps unseal the black box, and when the lid is tossed back, they're met with the sight of…

Another box, one less suited to weathering the elements, but one which— this time— is definitely locked. It's metal, with a faded circular symbol etched in a lacquer poured over its surface to keep it from deterioration, providing a slight curve to its edges. The lock itself is decorated ornately, displaying its peculiar keyhole in the middle of a stylized, metal plate with many edges.

Asi's shoulders sink when she sees that after all this, there's something yet barring their path. She looks to Silas with a blank expression before sitting back on the ground, huffing out a laugh. "Well, shit," she posits with mirth in her voice. "Now what."

She flops back into the grass to sigh at the sky, but first sighs at herself, adjusting the hilt of the machete as it digs into her side unpleasantly. Then she peers up at the tree's canopy and the sky beyond it, taking a moment to acknowledge, "Every bit of this so far has been insane. I didn't— think we'd find anything. Much less left by who. And now…"

Asi starts to let out another laugh which serves as its own kind of ellipsis to her thoughts, before falling quiet.

Silas, notably, is not laughing. Instead, his eyes narrow, the corners of his mouth turning downward into a pointed frown as he studies the box… then starts to run his hands over it, turning it gently when needed to peer at another side. His fingertips gently slide along the surfaces and edges, searching for any hidden catches to press or any panels that might slide aside.

Nothing.

His frown deepening, he sets the smaller box aside, looking now at the larger plastic case, checking to see if there might be anything else hidden in there — a hidden key, or a message.

Nothing.

Setting that aside, he hesitates for a moment before reaching for the urn, tilting it gently from side to side — he doesn't think there's anything in there, though, so it's not really a surprise when there's no sounds from that.

Finally, he lets out a frustrated sigh and sets the urn gently back in the hole. For a moment, he says nothing… then, at last, he looks back to Asi. "We must be missing something," he says, frowning. "This whole crazy loop…" he pauses for a moment to marvel at all of it, shaking his head. Then he sighs, setting the smaller box inside the larger one and closing it up again, then coming to his feet and picking his shovel back up. "Shouldn't take long to close this back up, at least. Maybe we can ask the current resident a few questions. Might be Nakamura-san said something to him that could point us to where we need to go next, even if he doesn't realize it."

Silas' call to rebury the urn is met with silent approval from Asi, even if she says nothing. She doesn't rock herself up just yet to help with that, still staring off into the distance. When he suggests that perhaps the old man has heard something he didn't realize was important, it tangles with Asi's thoughts unexpectedly.

She stills from her own wonderings— and blinks hard. Her hand comes to her neck, following the twine wrapped there down to its end blindly.

"Maybe it will have use for you in your new life. Unlock something that stands in your path. I have… a good feeling about that, Asi."

Asi closes her hand around the key hiding under the Empire State housekey, rubbing her thumb over its strange shape the same way she has many times this adventure from the Pelago. She yanks hard on it, snapping the twine so she can look at it with her own eyes. "Shit," she breathes out incredulously, scrambling on her knees over to the plastic crate. She hefts open the lid and pulls out the metal box within, hoisting the heaviness of it out and setting it on the lid once she slams it shut again.

She holds one key pinched in her offhand, the other navigated to the unique-looking keyhole. The key matches, and she sets it in place, and begins to turn it without any resistance. "Silas!" she calls out, like he's surely not already wondering what's gotten her so excited.

"やった," she whispers when the lock clicks open. "Holy shit." Gently, she lifts the lid of the smaller box using just her fingertips, finding the thin metal to be lighter than expected. It means the weight comes from what's within…

Multiple items. A leather pouch is tucked to the side, pulled closed by a cord. On top of a set of papers rest an object wrapped in cloth, which Asi carefully lifts out to begin to unveil. "Whoa," she murmurs automatically when it immediately and sharply catches the light and she has to change the angle of it to keep from being blinded. The vintage mirror revealed under the cloth is hexagonal— no, octagonal in shape and has several bands of silver lining the outer edge in a weblike pattern before broadly leaving the middle open.

She sniffs as she catches a glimpse of herself fully in its gleaming surface, seeing herself far more clearly than she's used to. She lays it in her lap still with the cloth protecting it, looking to Silas. "Get a load of all this."

For a moment, Silas gapes… then he laughs, shaking his head as he sets the shovel aside. "Ha. Guess it all…" he starts to say… then trails off as he remembers where he'd heard that saying from. "It all comes back around…" he muses, his expression distant.

With an effort, he forces another chuckle, bringing his mind back to the present; he schools his face into a brief smile as he peers at what the box had contained. "A mirror…" he frowns, peering at the mirror long enough to take in the details of it… then he turns his attention to the object in the pouch. He reaches for it, opening it up, but then frowns. "Another one of these things," he says, tilting the pouch to let Asi get a look inside — it's another of those stylized fish hook necklaces, albeit a far bigger one.

He closes the pouch back up and offers it to Asi for her to examine, then reaches for the paper… only to frown again. He flips through the pages, then sighs and offers them, too, to Asi. "These make any sense to you?" he asks, still holding on to some faint hope of things making sense.

Asi only hefts the heavier pendant before setting it down, nothing of immediate interest for her there. Nothing worth chancing touching it, anyway. "If we can find a postcog, maybe they can see imprints left behind. It might be a message in its own right…" she says of the necklace. She waits while he picks up the interlinked sheets of paper and looks through them, gingerly taking hold of the stack to begin reading when he hands them on.

She goes to translate the Japanese there and blinks when she realizes the characters don't have meaning. Asi starts over from the first page, and then skips through page after page, through all seven. "It's— I think it's in some kind of code, Snickers. I can't make heads or tails of it, but I'm not writing it off as gibberish. Not yet."

The papers are laid gently back into the lockbox, centered to serve as a base for the mirror once more. "We haul this back with us," she says with certainty. "I don't know what to make of all of it, yet, but it was meant for us." Asi wraps the mirror once more and lays it back in the box, flipping it shut again and taking the key from it before setting it back in the weather-protective case. "Though to do what with… I don't know. The mirror made my hair stand on end, though."

"A mirror is one of the imperial regalia of Japan. It's definitely not this, but the eight points, I got this weird feeling like… we're inheriting something just as important as the Yata no Kagami." She shakes her head as she begins to push up to her feet. "I don't know. That could be stupid, or it could be something. Why leave behind anything at all if it weren't important?"

Asi looks to Silas, wondering if he's of the same mind.

Silas frowns, his eyes going back to where the mirror rests within the box — the mirror had seemed like just a mirror to him, but Aces' opinion is one he puts stock in, and if she's saying it feels that important to her…

"Right," he says resolutely, nodding. "We'll get it home safe and sound." It has the air of a promise to it… though his solemn expression soon gives way to one of perplexity. "Still say it's a hell of a roundabout way to do things. No… more than that," he says, an incredulous tone stealing into his voice as he actually thinks about everything that had to go right for them to be standing there. "Hell, Aces; it's the mother of all trick shots. Across dimensions, no less!" he exclaims exasperatedly.

Then he raises a hand and rubs at his brow, letting out a sigh. "Well. No point dwelling on things any more than I'm already going to, I guess," he grumbles. "This hole ain't gonna fill itself," he says, reaching for the shovel again.

"Hell of a trick shot," Asi agrees in a mumble. Her head turns for the house, remembering the privacy they'd been given to do all this digging in the first place. The assurance she'd given that whatever they were doing out here was for a reason, and that they'd be respectful. "I'll go check on the old man," she volunteers. "If you're still not done when I get back out, I'll finish up. Don't overtire yourself."

She looks up toward the sky, judging the sun's position, then down to the bulk they'll be hauling with them. "Got a long walk ahead of us yet."


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