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 Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:46 pm
Cinema Village One of the most crowded places of Kyoto, Cinema village is like a real life 1800s era Japan. Cosplayers of all sort and where people dress in an older fashion to match the theme are filled throughout the entire village, and there is often ‘live action’ plays where people will act out historical fights for the crowds amusement.
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Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 6:09 pm
[Cassandra arrives from Nara Park]
Cinema Village. The perfect place for someone like Cassandra. Cassandra had always been firm believer of the fact that 'A person is smart; People are stupid' ; and for the most part, the fact was true. While she was here, as long as she could get herself into some kind of fairly unusual outfit, she could summon fifty four-armed zombies with tentacles instead of legs and people would think it was just part of an act as long as they didn't go on the offensive.
Speaking of which. She'd need to actually get herself kitted out if she was going to do such things. She'd have to be able to look totally in place with the likes of Samurai. Like that would be hard. After a very brief shopping trip, she got herself a pack of 6 white masks (one for herself, five for any minions she could summon or animate)- not unlike the ones worn by Zazie's spirit friends - a purple hooded robe with all of the hems already frayed and torn for the authentic 'hermit' look, and a stick. Yep. It was just an irregular, wooden stick that she'd found on the way. Wrapping a piece of cloth around it and a 'stick' became a 'staff'. Not that she had any need for a staff; but it helped with the look, and it was useful for hitting people around the head if they got too personal.
Finally, to complete the outfit, she summoned a skeleton out of sight, stole one of his kneecaps, cut it down so that it was flat and more like a regular circle, and engraved the Japanese symbol for 'death' on it. Drilling a hole with her needle and threading a piece of thin rope through it, and she had a custom-made bone amulet. All in all, it was a pretty damn good outfit; and she could easily be mistaken for one of the actors. Heck, her own students probably wouldn't recognize her. Sure, her hair showed in places, but why would any of the students assume that she'd be joining in as an actor? For the time being, she simply patrolled around, keeping an eye out for the people that Tatsumi had drawn. She doubted they'd show themselves in broad daylight, but you never know.
[A picture of the outfit can be found in the Fanart Thread]
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 3:02 am
[Enters from Kansai HQ]
Tsukuyomi walked over as she looked back at Kenneth "hurry up Kenneth-san~" she said as she looked around. She let her eyes fall on the many people dressed up, so many of them had swords as she wondered if any of them could actually use them. She had let her mind wander as people looked at her, she looked like a lolita swordsman since her outfit and her swords on her side. She ignored them for now as they started to gather around her which was something people seemed to do with their camera's.
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 2:52 pm
[Enters from Kansai HQ]
Kenneth sighed as he watched the large crowd gather around Tsukuyomi, all gawking in amazement, taking pictures of her as they did. She brought it all upon herself with that stupid outfit she wore, it was just a magnet for perverts and rabid fanboys. Slowly walking over, he pushed his way through the crowd and next to Tsukuyomi, his blonde hair and similar appearence to Tsukuyomi gave an indication to those surrounding her that he was in fact her father and doing that around a girls father was not the best of ideas. "We should go get a costume Tsukuyomi. From now on when we are in public you are my daughter, understood? I won't have crowds gather around because of your...choice of outlandish clothing."
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 3:05 pm
Tsukuyomi was tempted to use her quick draw to take out the cameras and possibly a few people but Kenneth had stepped in and was seemingly helping her out of her predicament. She nodded as she played along "alright father" she said a bit happily as they walked away from the crowds. Once away she looked at him "I like my outfits" she said looked down at her dress as she walked with him.
(( you can puppet if you want i need to go out for a bit >_< ))
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 3:18 pm
Already Cassandra's outfit had managed to gather quite a bit of attention. After all, she looked like she was a performer; which was exactly what she was going for. Behind that mask, a grin was plastered firmly across her face, as she decided to indulge the humans. After all, the humans had come to see a show, and a show they will see. Not yet, of course. She would have to do this with style when she did it.
Reaching into her bag, she pulled out her needle, and gave her finger a light stab. Kneeling down, she began scrawling a circle on the ground, at a four-way intersection of roads. In truth, she didn't need such foolishness as a magic circle for summoning a group of basic skeletons; but the general public would expect to see an evil little necromancer using something like a summoning circle inscribed in her own blood. Fortunately, blood was not something that Cassandra exactly had a shortage in, and her finger bled more than enough to finish the circle. It was a very basic, generic magic circle; and none of the symbols in it actually meant anything, but it was for looks, not practicality. Besides, it wasn't like the dark spirits who supplied her necromantic power would actually give a damn about a summoning circle.
People began to gather around and take photographs as she stood in the middle of the circle, looking straight upwards at the morning sky and raising her staff and practically shouted her chant in a powerful, confident tone; but hushing her actual voice a little so it made her sound a lot older, like an old hermit. There's no way you'd recognize her voice. "O Great and powerful spirits of death! Grant me your power so that I might show this world your might! Aid me in my quest to eliminate those who would fight against you, by allowing me to animate the bones of those who have fallen in battle, so that they may fight alongside me!" Talk about overly verbose spellcasting. In all truth, the long chant had nothing at all to do with the spell she was preparing; she was casting the spell silently, which, whilst lengthening the amount of time it took to cast, did help to put on a show for the tourists.
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:14 pm
{Sosuke enters from the Arashi Mountain Hotel.}
Naturally, there were loads of people at Cinema Village, making it all the harder to find someone. Luckily, Sosuke had kept close to Driviline on the way there, so the two didn't get separated. Stopping in front of a small trinket store, Sosuke moved off to the side, pulling Driviline with him. Pulling back the sleeve of his blazer on his left arm, Sosuke tapped a few buttons, and contacted Satomi.
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:23 pm
Driviline stayed close to Sosuke, but not so close to give people any strange ideas. Driviline looked over to see that Sosuke was starting to contact Satomi. He grinned evilly as he waited for the moment that Satomi would reply.
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:37 pm
Sosuke's call would suddenly drop, and a message could be heard, loud enoguh for both Sosuke and Driviline to hear. It was an automated message with Satomi's voice, and in an apologetic tone she said, 'The message could not go through, I'm busy right now, sorry~!' Followed by a small picture of her in a chibi form on the watch, holding a broken wire and dented drill, sweat dropping a little. The chibi version of her looked like it was actually inside the watch, kind of like thos 'tamogotchi's back in the day, but instead it was Satomi. It seemed she added a cute little personal touch to the watch for each other's messages~
((I have to draw that. x3 ))
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:02 pm
[Zazie arrives with Kaede from the Arashi mountain hotel]  After brushing off the small bits of leaves and bark from her black cloak after Zazie's shortcut through the woods, she had proceeded to enter the village from the rear, cutting through the back of a few stands before she had entered the main street with Kaede.
As she did, she reached into her cloak, taking out the hat and mask she had before as she put them on. The mask itself was an exact replica to one of the faces of the spirits she often had around her, in particular the sillier expression of one of the smaller spirits, making her seem almost comical with it on rather than frightening. But that was the point, there was no sense in scaring your audience, you needed them to feel at ease and to smile. Along with the mask, she put on the hat too, shaking it for a moment as the two long ends draped down to her shoulders with white fluffy spheres at the end, all of which had matched her cloak perfectly. She felt that she was ready for a show, and tucked inside her cloak she had plenty of 'surprises' for her audience, bringing all the equipment to put on a good show._________The world was her stage...
But she could see that someone had already beat her too it, or was at least trying too anyway. Zazie wasn't the type to show jealousy, or much of any of her feelings at that, but she did feel like someone had taken her audience, her spotlight. With her arms crossed, Zazie watched silently from afar for a bit, but as soon as she found her opportunity, she would steal the show.
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:30 pm
Although she was a Doctor by trade and a Necromancer by nature, Cassandra really knew how to lay on the pompous dialog for a crowd. By tweaking the spell ever so slightly, she was even able to make it appear more impressive to the oblivious humans. Having decided that she'd gathered enough of a crowd for now, she finished up her incantation, and slammed the end of her staff down on the ground in a rather Gandalfesque manner.
The blood-inscribed circle burst into a pillar of harmless purple flame, accompanied by applause, a few screams, and some amazed gasps. Producing no heat, it was simply a manipulation of negative energy in the form of fire burning the blood. If anyone was stupid enough to touch the actual blood that wrote the circle, they'd get one hell of a nasty burn. The column of purple flame separated Cassandra from her captive audience for only three seconds.
Those three seconds were all the time that was needed for Cassandra to slap the totally useless masks on her skeletons and hastily whisper them orders. She couldn't encyst them to order them - after all, they have no flesh, nor any brain to feed her commands to. So instead, she had to command them verbally; one of the problems with 'skellies'.
As the flame disappeared into thin air, the sight before the tourists was very different. The circle of blood had completely disappeared; no indication that it had ever even existed remained. Cassandra was still there, in her little Necromancer outfit, with her staff; but now, surrounding her, were five skeletons with masks identical to hers, dressed in full samurai armor, and each with a katana hanging at their side. Admittedly, the armor was a little on the tattered side, and the Katanas were probably nowhere near as sharp as they would have been when their owners were alive; but for the purposes of this 'act', such things only added to the authenticity.
Cassandra turned to her audience and bowed. At the same time, the skeletons did the same, all bowing in a separate direction. Naturally, the act received a lot of applause, and the typical sort of whispers that you'd expect from any sort of 'magic' act. 'It's just an illusion', 'How did they do that?', the usual sort of thing.
As she stood again from her bowing position, Cassandra spoke, having to raise her voice a little to be heard over the crowd. "Thank you for your applause. The spirits of death appreciate it." She didn't know if that was true or not; but she knew that they'd probably liked being part of such a public display of necromancy; even if it was for awing and not for terrorizing. "To all who are interested; I will be conjuring some zombies later, and I will pit them against my skeletal friends here to find out the answer to the ultimate question of necromancy: What is better, flesh or bone? Until then, mortals, enjoy your day - whilst you still can!"
With an evil laugh, she turned and walked away, her skeletal bodyguards following loyally behind her, marching in a row, each in synchronization with the other. Ignoring all the camera flashes, she stayed totally in character, even indulging a few of the punters who got a little too close or actually dared to touch her with a feral hiss. She had actually really enjoyed that little trick - it was actually quite fun. Of course, she knew exactly who'd win the fight later - the skeletons, of course. The weakness of a skeleton was that their bones smashed easily - and in armor, that danger was severely lessened.
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 7:00 pm
[Satomi arrives with all of group #2 from the hotel (Mikhail, Xenon, Mana, Ken, Kazumi)] The place was even more amazing then she imagined! People all around her were dressed in outfits, most fitting the theme of late, feudal Japan. Some were incredible, some horrifying or scary, a few that were just jaw-dropping impressive, and even a few that were sexy. The place was like a missing stitch in time, as if it was still the late 1800s, and not a day had gone by since. Every now and then as she walked she found her attention grabbed from the exotic costume of one person, then she would turn and see a shop that caught her interest or a building that had a design or appearance which put her at awe from its articulate attention to detail in replicating older Japan.
Coming here was definitely a great idea, and at this hour, she knew it was going to get even busier later, which was hard to believe since the place was already just filled with people walking the streets. Some people tried to sell things, others were taking pictures, and a few were even putting on a show by doing a performance or reenacting something from feudal Japan. A particular mock fight between two samurai had particularly caught her interest, and she cursed her own foolishness of forgetting her camera, watching the play for a minute or two in amazement, clearly enjoying the sites and sounds that made this city so alive. Surely the others were enjoying this too!
Walking through the main streets though, there was one thing in particular that she was on the lookout for, having saved up all of her money just to buy one; a kimono. She wasn't really fond of dressing up in cute costumes, though the waitress uniform at Chao Bao Zi she wore counted sort of. But that aside, she always wanted to get one, the last time she had worn a kimono was years ago, and she wanted to try it again now that she had grown. And not just any kimono that she could buy in a specialty clothing store back in other places of Japan though, no, this was Kyoto, no one else did a better job in making one!
Having not seen Cassandra's act since she was too far down another street for her to be in the line of site, she was unaware of the scene that had happened earlier, word no spreading through out Cinema village enough yet for her to know. Nor was she able to see Sosuke and Driviline in the huge crowds, having just arrived herself and not even aware that they were here just yet. Instead, she had her eyes on the lookout for a very particular shop, knowing of one very famous one for making some of the best Kimono's in Japan.
"There it is!!" She suddenly said with a cheer, a big smile coming to her lips as she broke away from the group. "You guys go on ahead~ I'll meet back with you in twenty minutes." She added, not wanting to make the others wait on her as she suddenly began to leave the main street and make her way to a large shop that had a few beautiful looking kimono's hanging in the window and called 'Wu Xi's geisha gallery.' Anyone who knew at least a little about clothing would know of the place and how it was famously one of the top of the line clothing stores that specialized in men and woman's kimonos. But as well, they were known to be quite pricy...((I'll post for Zazie later. ^^; ))
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 7:18 pm
[Last post for tonight; got an early start tomorrow. D20 modern and then Star Wars D20, and if I get to bed now, I can scrape just over 6 hours sleep]
Xenon simply followed Satomi, running a screen-capture program in her head. The entire day would be recorded through her eyes (her right eye to be precise; stereo video is just confusing) and then she could crop out pieces as appropriate. After all, she might lack the funds to buy a camera, but that's hardly a problem when you are the camera. All the costumes only made her wish even more that she could afford one - after all, this was pretty much a real-life game! However, she knew there was no way she'd be able to afford anything; she literally had no cash to her name, and there wasn't a chance in hell she'd pawn off her DS or any of her games just to pay for a costume.
The samurai fight performance had been particularly interesting to Xenon, and she used the observation to pick up a few tips. After all, most of her experiences with swords involved walking forward three steps, swinging at air twice, walking back three steps, and somehow hitting your opponent who was about 10 meters away eight times in the process; also known as the 'Final Fantasy' school of fighting.
As Satomi broke off from the group and told them to 'go on ahead', Xenon didn't quite know what to do with herself. She felt like she'd suddenly been dropped into smack in the middle of a sandbox adventure game with no tutorial, no backstory, and no mission objectives - somewhat lost and confused. After a very brief moment of contemplating what to do, she headed after Satomi before she got out of sight. "I'd rather stay with you[, Satomi-san..." She explained, smiling. "I don't have any shopping to do myself, of course, but surely there's something I can help you with? Carrying things, helping to find a specific item... Anything, just please, give me something to do..."
[Like I said, I'll be going now; just puppet Xenon around with Satomi, being very compliant, like a good little robot.]
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 7:53 pm
Kaede arrived with Zazie as she looked around at the crowds, her choice of outfit was a good one in her opinion since she blended in well with the other people in outfits. She had her usual smile as she looked up and down the road at all the people and noticed the other people who seemed to be doing everything from vending to performing "this place looks very fun~de gozaru" she said to Zazie.
She stretched her arms up as she could smell the foods and hear people have great deals of fun as she hoped the others in her group were enjoying wherever they were too.
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Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 5:33 am
"Fun. Intriguing and..." Zazie's eyes narrowed just a bit as she seemed to be glaring towards Cassandra just now as she added her last thought. "-Competteting..." She wasn't going to allow someone to upstage her, she had planned this first, and this was going to be her stage.
'Dark arts...' It wasn't difficult for Zazie to tell just what had happened. She was much more knowledgeable about true magic then she gave off, and as far as any mage knew, her own tricks was no more than perfected sleight of hand and illusions. And although that may have been true, that didn't mean she was blind to the real thing. There was much more to Zazie then most assumed and she gave off...
Taking the 'stage' herself, Zazie stood where the Cassandra had been moments ago, walking strait into the crowd like she was the next to go, but unlike her rivaling act, she did not say a word to announce it while she broke away from Kaede. She soon found herself standing in the middle of the crowd, who had proceeded to make some room for her when she held her arms outwards and tilted her head upwards so suddenly, as if she was staring towards the heavens itself. Once there, pausing for a few seconds to add to the suspense of her act, Zazie slowly began to raise her arms, as if lifting something over her head, and as she did, something from the ground beneath her began to rise as well.
The earth beneath and around her began to ripple like it was water and there was something coming from it; five things to be exact as they were perfectly encircled around her, each one even spread like it was the star of a pentagram. Slowly, darkness began to rise from the rippled, and as a shocked crowd backed away just a little as they saw the darkness grow, quickly beyond nearly that of Zazie's height before they took form. They were her her spirits, five in total as they took on their blob like shapes with small, pudgy arms and each wearing a different Noh mask like Zazie had been wearing. The crowd gasped and applauded, and as Zazie bowed, so did her spirits, proving that they were not threatening at all to the crowd. In fact, one of them even reached out one of it's poorly shaped hands and patted a member of the crowd on the shoulder, like they enjoyed being among the crowd of people as much as they had enjoyed the act.
While Zazie bowed though, she grabbed the bottom of her cloak like she was doing a curtsey, and at that same time she shook the ends of her cloak just a little as a few small, white candles had fallen to the ground, like they had been hidden up her cloak the whole time. "Thank you, but the act is not finished yet." Zazie said, but with a kinder tone then she usually had, putting on her happy persona for the crowd before she snapped her fingers. As she did, the five candles that had fallen quickly lit up, as if the snap of her fingers had lit the candles by sheer will. Then, pointing towards Cassandra who had been walking away, she wanted to put on a true show for the crowd, silently telling her spirits what she wanted. They knew what to do...
"Watch closely... as I make one of them disappear." She said with a hint of glee, like she had a double-meaning to what she meant. Just as that happened, one of the five candles went out, and one of the five spirits had sunken back into the ground, once again creating a ripple in the earth before that ripple traveled quickly towards Cassandra; who's back was turned to them at the time. As the ripple reached one of her skeletal creations, a large, black, pudgy hand that was from one of the spirits reached out from the ground, quickly clasping one of the unknowing skeletons by the leg, and with a heavy tug, it was dragged down into the abyss, looking like it was a typical vanishing act as it fell though the ground. The crowd was amazed, though some speculated that there was a disguised hole there or that this was all planned from the beginning. But she was just getting started...Having found the shop she was looking for, it was clearly obvious that she was very excited about it. The last time she had worn a kimono... gosh, she was probably half her size now. Even if she normally didn't care much for her appearance, and despite the fact that her femininity was placed below many of her other things of importance like science, research, and her friends, she did still like to dress up every now and then, and this was a really special occasion.
Barely seeming to acknowledge Xenon's presance as she entered; too mesmerized by the sites and the impressive gallery and display in the shop, she was barely able give the robot so much as a nod as she entered. She was like a kid in a candy store, feeling somewhat nostolgic too from being in a place like this after avoiding such for years. "Help me pick one out, Xenon-san~" She said oh-so cheerfully as she went through the numerous textiles of cloth, obis, and already made kimonos. She had saved up a lot of money for this, in fact most of her trip money for Kyoto was dedicated to this very moment. She wanted to get something special...
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