The Scarlet Devil Mansion [Open]

[Schala]

Well, Katrina had managed to string her logs and Carmellia's logs together with an old muddy knife and some old muddy rope that some adventurer must've dropped. She didn't think the raft was really going to work, so she grabbed a fallen treebranch and decided to use it as a paddle.
Then she tapped Carmellia's shoulder.
"The raft is done," she said. "Yes, I know it's not very good, but we might be able to make it if we both paddle."
She handed another fallen branch to Carmellia.

[Augen]

Hong Meiling watched the others, waiting... It seemed that they were going to try to make a move... So she mustered up her ki and got into a fighting stance, while Akane sat beside her, licking her own foot. "Slrrp... They comin' down yet, Meimei?" "I think they're just about to, Akane."

[xxhikaruxx]

Hikaru, Kanda and Yumi walked toward the Gate of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Hikaru said "What should we do anyways?"
Kanda said "Well we know very well, we cannot all fight at once unless there is more people. We wouldn't want to make Korochi our enemy."
Yumi then sprang up "You, don't fight... You are injured... Hikaru, please refrain from fighting too, I can't bare to see people die. I will be honored to protect both of you."
Kanda said "First off, my name is Kanda... Second, Why would we need you to protect us? Using a little girl for a body guard, thats a shame. And you can't even fly, how could you fight against anyone."
Yumi turned all red and said "Be quiet! I can do as good as you can, okay!?"
Hikaru put his hand on Kanda's shoulder "Give it a rest, okay? Kanda..."
Kanda grunted "Hmph... Better not let us down, youngling..."

[recon5]

Korochi had noticed that the gatekeeper wasn't alone this time so she would be able to join in if Hikaru and the young girl weren't fighting as well. She put a hand on Yumi's shoulder. "Don't worry, kid. I'll take care of your Agyel friend. You don't look like you can do much in battle anyway. Besides..." She gestured towards the mist. "... that other guy might appear again and someone will have to fight him so you and Hikaru need to be fresh."

She didn't expect Yumi to agree with her but it had been her responsibility to offer the advice and now that it had been given she wouldn't bear any guilt if the girl got into trouble.

----

Carmellia's anger began to well up but she controlled herself, keeping her reward firmly in her mind. Still, there was something she had to tell Katrina. She grabbed both of the branches Katrina was holding. "Hey, have you even seen a paddle before? You need a flat part on one end or we won't be able to move the boat."

Ignoring the knife Katrina had found, she got a sharp stone and began to scrape the wider end of one of the branches. Truth be told she wasn't sure it would work either but she was confident that the flat part was needed since she had yet to see a paddle without it.

[Schala]

"Thank you, Carmellia," Katrina said as she took one of the paddles. "I think that should work."
She put the raft into the water and sat on it. It wasn't very sturdy, so she sat on the very edge to subtract weight pressure and giving Carmellia most of the room. After all, if Katrina fell off she would be able to swim, and she didn't know if Carmellia would be able to.

[Augen]

Several newcomers had arived at the gate, and Hong Meiling got into a fighting stance before she looked amongst them. "My mistress does not like to be disturbed. So I will ask you this once, and only once... What business do you have with the mansion?!"

"Those two smell like the water in the lake... Can I clean them up, Meimei," she asked, looking up from her foot and licking her lips.

"Not yet Akane," Meiling responded, looking down at the little maid and then back up at the newcomers. "We still don't know why they're here, after all."

[xxhikaruxx]

Yumi nodded her head at Korochi and said "Yes, thank you... You're right..."
Yumi backed off a little but still stayed close to Hikaru incase another sudden attack came up again. Hikaru was holding a Mag of 25 bullets for his Volcan13 on his left hand. He listened carefully to what Hong Meirin said, he closed his eyes then opened them again. Hikaru was thinking of an excuse to get into the mansion when Kanda spoke "I heard that in this place there is a library... It can help us find information... And secondly, there is a natural Phenomenon... Why is this lake filled with Mist? I beleive this may be caused by a shard of the Sacred Stone."

[recon5]

Korochi didn't have anything to say to the gatekeeper so she just stood back and watched. As she didn't have anything better to do she decided to have a closer look at the gatekeeper's companion. Most of the regular maids in the Mansion weren't too notable but there was something about this one that intrigued the Youkai (the tongue, perhaps?). Absentmindedly she allowed her left arm to swell and extend into it's Orochi form, and she had it slither over to the maid to give its eyes a closer look at the curious little creature.

Wanting to see how the maid would react, Korochi decided to speak with her left mouth instead of her regular one. The serpentine head looked its target over before speaking in a gravelly voice. "Sssay, you don't look like a fairy. What are you anyway?" It flicked its tongue at her a couple of times before continuing. "You sssmell a bit unusssual..."

----

Carmellia hesitated when Katrina offered her a place on the raft. She didn't like the look of the thing and she doubted that it was seaworthy at all, but she would have to get on and help the girl paddle it if she wanted her reward. She quietly took one of the paddles and sat where Katrina had shown her.

[Schala]

Seeing as Carmellia was a small girl, the pathetic raft was not too pressured, and Katrina was relieved. She didn't know how long the raft would hold, so she paddled very quickly, not that it mattered unless Carmellia paddled at the same rate.
Katrina didn't know why, but she was beginning to feel...friendly...toward Carmellia. It was not what you would expect, with how different they were, but Katrina was, by nature, sweet*.

*(Well, not towards those who attack her friends, but meh. That won't be coming up for a while.)

[Augen]

Hong Meiling crossed her arms and looked to the side. "Well I'm sorry, but the library is OFF LIMITS right now. As is the rest of the mansion... And there is no Sacred Stone here. So you might as well be moving along." It was obvious that she didn't want to deal with things at the time. She had just been woken up from her nap, and she was quite cranky right now.

Akane looked up from her foot again. "We're truly sorry, but ever since a recent incident with a thievi-- Uh... Um..." Akane watched as the serpentine arm slithered torwards her. "Kyaaaa!" Akane quickly ran behind Meiling's leg and looked at the strange head. "M-m-m... Meiling! What is that thing?!"

Hong looked at the head and then back to Akane. Rather than answer Akane, she chose to answer the serpent. "... This is Akane. And you're right, she's not a fairy. But she's still a maid. That's all I know."

[xxhikaruxx]

Kanda said nothing. He thought, They could be just lying to me, you never know until you try... Kanda looked arround. Hikaru asked "What do you think we should do...?"
Kanda replied "Break down this gate and move on..."
Yumi said "I disagree, lets just leave."
Hikaru said "Yumi... if I leave, who knows what will happen to me... The library is the safest place... What can possibly go wrong?"
Yumi looked down and sighed "You are right, you'd probably get eaten by a bunch of Youkai..."
Kanda said "Well safety is more important... But this one stubborn gate keeper thinks we are going to disturb her mistress..."

---

Patchouli finished reading her book and she set it beside her. She picked up another book and started reading it. Patchouli yawned and continued reading. Patchouli was reading a book about the 9 planets of the solar system. She closed the book in boredom and picked up another book...

[recon5]

The Orochi head looked a bit taken aback by Meiling's reply and turned to look at Korochi. ''You sssaid there were only fairiesss in the Mansssion. You lied."

Korochi put her remaining hand on her hip and glared at the snake head. "Me, lying? I don't lie, snake. That's your specialty. Maybe you lied to yourself about what I said. I know I mentioned the humans and the vampires, at least."

The Orochi head locked eyes with her before answering. "All the maidsss then. You didn't mention maidsss that weren't fairiesss. Anything ssstronger than a fairy could give usss a problem and I don't want any of your problemsss."

"Hmph. You're twisting my words again. You scared or something?" She took a step forward and placed a finger on what passed for the serpent's forehead. "Why don't you get back inside and stay there until you're needed."

With those words, Korochi shifted her arm back into its normal form and turned to Hikaru. She'd been following their conversation throughout her own argument and she felt that she had to say something. "Well, in some ways you are going to disturb her mistress since her mistress will have to follow you around to make sure you don't mess things up, this being your first visit and all. About getting eaten by Youkai, I think we have enough strong fighters here to be safe even if we decide to leave for now. Your choice though. Just make sure you keep any battles fair."

----

Carmellia tried her best to match Katrina's frantic pace, not bothering to check how far they had left to go. She really had less faith in the raft than the human did but she didn't have any choice but to paddle as well as she could and make sure that both of them reached the other side. Her reward was at stake.

[Schala]

Katrina had been paddling so fast that she didn't notice when the pathetic excuse of a raft...well...hit the other side. It was just a mess of logs and muddy rope.
She got off the raft to see that Hikaru was standing at the gate. In both horror and relief, she ran up to him. She had made it just in time!
"Hikaru!" she cried. "We've come to save you!"

[Augen]

Akane wasn't quite as scared as before, seeing as the serpent had returned to a less disturbing form. Still, she stood there behind Hong Meiling, looking at the newcomers.

"I don't think they're going to go away, Meimei... Can we kill them," Akane asked, clinging to Meiling's skirt.

"If they're going to try to get past this gate," Hong replied, putting both hands to her right side and gathering up some energy. "... Then we just might have to kill them."

It was around that time that two enemy reinforcements had appeared on a raft. Said something about saving the white-haired one. That didn't sound good.

"Meimei! They just keep coming. More and more of them keep coming! Like cockroac--" "Yes, I can see that, Akane. Now be a good girl and get ready to defend the fortr-- er, mansion!" "Ooookaaay," the little maid said, walking out from behind Meiling and standing there, still shaking.

[xxhikaruxx]

Kanda and Hikaru listened to what Korochi had to say. Kanda said "However, I have my own needs, I really need to use this library. It may help me find my way home and get all 10 shards of the sacred stone. That is my mission here."
Hikaru ignored Kanda and looked over at a distant, he said "Katrina.... She must be here to drag me back to that cursed windmill..."
Kanda said to Hikaru "Go! go through the gate, I will stay here..."
Yumi shouted "But Kanda! You are injured!"
Kanda said "Its alright, girl... I know what I must do..."
Yumi said "You get to the library, and I stay here... I don't want you to die..."
Kanda let down his guard and said "Hikaru, let's go, we'll leave it to the girl. Now is our chance to find the books we need."
Hikaru nodded "Right..."
Yumi pulled out her deck of cards and thought, This is probably as far as I go... But its better me dying then it is to see them die... If I am a big enough distraction, maybe I can let Hikaru and Kanda sneak into the Mansion. Yumi said to Hong Meirin "I am your opponent..."