Yukari Quest III - A Z-Machine Adventure

[Hello Purvis]

>Make our way towards the boulders and inspect them.

>You approach the boulders, which takes a bit more work than you would like as you duck around low branches and around thicker patches of brush. The boulders themselves, three of them in a clump, seem to be perfectly normal hunks of rounded rock, about waist high to you and a few feet across. Thick green moss covers most of their surface, which is without flaw save for a long scratch across one. A scattering of fallen leaves and twigs rest atop them.

>_

[O4rfish]

>There was some animal or youkai here. We're not a master tracker, but do we have any way of knowing what kind it was?

[Hello Purvis]

>There was some animal or youkai here. We're not a master tracker, but do we have any way of knowing what kind it was?

>Thinking on it, that seems to be the case, doesn't it?
>You could probably take a closer look at the signs, and see what conclusions you can draw from them. It's been a very long time since you've had to read tracks, but you would like to think that you remember something about it.

>_

[Yaersulf]

>Look closely at the scratch.
>Insepect the nearby groud for tracks other than our own.

[Hello Purvis]

>Look closely at the scratch.
>Insepect the nearby groud for tracks other than our own.

>The scratch is long and thin, you get the feeling it was made either with a claw or a stick if it was done intentional. If it's unintentional you can think of dozens of things that might do it, such as something a person wore scraping against the rock, or some hard shell part, who myriad other things.
>You look around for tracks. and see things such as broken underbrush, as well as snapped twigs and torn leaves. They resemble the tracks you have left behind very closely, which leads you to suspect they were left by something human-like. About the only difference is that you do not see much in the way of bent brush, which leads you to believe the tracks are reasonably old, more than several hours at least.

>_

[Yaersulf]

>Attempt to follow the tracks, towards where they were headed rather than came from if we're adept enough for that.

[Hello Purvis]

>Attempt to follow the tracks, towards where they were headed rather than came from if we're adept enough for that.

>You assess the broken brush, and find that the angles of the breaks suggest that the tracks were headed the way that you came from.
>Following it back, it seems the tracks loop toward the way that you entered the woods. Following them back to the edge of the woods, they seem to stray into the lighter, but more brush-filled parts of the woods.

>_

[Yaersulf]

>Continue following them to the best of our ability.

[Hello Purvis]

>Continue following them to the best of our ability.

>You follow them through the underbrush, where they become a bit sparse. The brush itself it mildly annoying to traverse, but not too difficult. At a glance, you don't really recognize any of it it, but it seems to resemble ferns and various knee-high to hip-high shrubs. None are particularly interesting, and it seems the whomever was here before agrees; the trail doesn't vary too much as it makes its way toward the edge of the woods.

>_

[Yaersulf]

>Follow the trail to the edge of the woods, then discern whether it will be possible to continue following it.

[Hello Purvis]

>Follow the trail to the edge of the woods, then discern whether it will be possible to continue following it.

>You continue to follow the trail, bit by bit, as it weaves through the the edge of the woods, You aren't able to perfectly reconstruct the path, but you can generally follow it. At one point, you notice a long small depression in the ground, where you imagine a branch had fallen, and was picked up. The edge of the woods is much like what you've seen before; trees that look like some hybrid of peach and apple trees, some shed twigs, leaves, and rocks on the ground, and some underbrush.
>The tracks lead about three fourths of the way around the woods before the head into the plains and become much harder to follow.

>_

[Yaersulf]

>Try to work out in what direction they head into the plains, then begin in that direction whilst keeping an eye out for anything to assure us that we're on the right path.

[Hello Purvis]

>Try to work out in what direction they head into the plains, then begin in that direction whilst keeping an eye out for anything to assure us that we're on the right path.

>You suspect they headed east and begin that way.
>Unfortunately, there is naught but grass in the plain, which tends to recover from being tramped rather quickly and easily. You shortly lose the trail.

>_

[Yaersulf]

>Commit the location that the tracks exited the woods to memory, then continue into the field in the direction we were.

[Hello Purvis]

>Commit the location that the tracks exited the woods to memory, then continue into the field in the direction we were.

>You make a note of the place where the clearer tracks end, and continue into the eastern fields.
>The fields bear a variety of grasses and reed-like weeds, with the odd hardy wildflower here and there. While pleasant to look at, they are also very poor at retaining any sign of the mysterious person's passage. The breeze causes the grass to wave and rustle, which does an ever better job of obscuring any trail. Ahead, toward the eastern part of the island, you can see what looks like the ruins of a half dozen old stone houses, their roofs crumbled and their walls falling apart.

>_

[Yaersulf]

>Head over to these ruins.

[Hello Purvis]

>Head over to these ruins.

>You proceed toward the ruins.
>There were seven houses here, though one is barely more than an ankle-high half-buried rectangular foundation.  The rest are just walls made from unworked fieldstones stacked and mortared together. One seems to be nearly complete; with a day's worth of repairs and a new roof, it would make a perfectly serviceable one-room home. Others are significantly more broken; most wouldn't be worth trying to save at all. There doesn't seem to be much else left that you can see at a glance; the grasses have reclaimed this place and grow thickly here.

>_

[O4rfish]

>Explore ruins for signs of the creature.

[Hello Purvis]

>Explore ruins for signs of the creature.

>You poke through the ruins, peeking into the ruined homes. They are empty, save for the occasional shard of broken pottery or piles of rubble from the walls. You can see places where wooden beams would have been fit into the tops of the walls, those that still have tops, but they seem to have rotted away with time, or perhaps were taken away. The grass here is no better at holding footprints than anywhere else, but you do note in one of the houses that there is a small divot in the dirt where a large pottery shard was resting, but seems to have been removed.

>_

[Yaersulf]

>More thoroughly search that area.

[Hello Purvis]

>More thoroughly search that area.

>You look around this ruined home a bit more closely. There isn't too much left of this one; the west wall is almost entirely gone, save for a few ankle-high remains here and there. The northern and southern walls are not doing much better, they rise and fall  randomly and seldom reach higher than chest height. You are pretty sure the north wall would collapse further with a good kick. The eastern wall is reasonably intact, one part still being complete enough to hold a slot where the beams for the roof would have fit.  Much of that rubble has fallen into the house, while more rests along the outer walls.  Aside from the rubble is a thick carpet of grass and weeds, and scattered among it are some shards of broken pottery.
>Taking a closer look, you don't find any other items of interest. What you do notice is that other pieces of broken pottery have been disturbed from spots in the ground that have grown up around them, as has some small bits of rubble. Near one pottery shard, you note a thin mark in the earth, with suggests a stick or cane or some such was drug across it, possibly to prod that shard.

>_

[O4rfish]

>So, some creature without phlanges or fine motor control; either an archaeologist or scavenger or something that just wanted to lay on the dirt without pokey things.

[Hello Purvis]

>So, some creature without phlanges or fine motor control; either an archaeologist or scavenger or something that just wanted to lay on the dirt without pokey things.

>These all seem possible from this bit of evidence. If someone chose to lay down here, it wouldn't too many hours for the grasses and weeds to recover.

>_

[O4rfish]

I guess we're done here, so take the invisibridge?

[Yaersulf]

I'd really like to find whatever this is, it's the first sign of non-plant life we've seen here as far as I can remember, outside Gensokyo that is.

[O4rfish]

Maybe it also went across the invisibridge. MAYBE IT'S INVISIBLE TOO

[Yaersulf]

Maybe we're invisible? Maybe EVERYTHING is invisible? Maybe everything in this strange universe is made up of sound, and we're SEEING WITH OUR EARS. O_O
>Have one last quick look around the village for signs of habitation.
>If nothing else is found, head toward the bridge of light.

[Hello Purvis]

>Have one last quick look around the village for signs of habitation.
>If nothing else is found, head toward the bridge of light.

>You have a last look around, but you've seen nothing to suggest anyone is inhabiting this place. There are no signs of fires, no garbage, no paths that have been trodden down by constant passage, nothing like that. If anyone has lived here, they have not done so for some time. Nor do you see any other remains of tools or the like, save for the occasional bits of broken pottery. If not for the presence of good mortar and the obvious skill that went into placing these unworked stones, you would be convinced these homes predate most of human civilization.
>You make your way back toward the bridge of light, passing through more grassy fields. As you get close to it, close enough to make out the light from the shimmering, you notice a thumb-sized stone dusted with dirt among the grass. It catches your eye in light of some of the other things you've seen; if it is dirty, likely it was resting in the ground for some time, and if the dirty side is up, likely it was dislodged.

>_

[日巫子]

> Pick up the stone.

[Hello Purvis]

> Pick up the stone.

>You pick up the stone. It is a reasonably light rock and smooth from weathering. Judging from the dirt on it, it likely spent some time lodged into the ground. You image it might have been dislodged by someone clipping it with their foot.

>_