Welcome to Gaia! ::

'Ugh... What the hell? I had a dream that I was a Spartan Pirate Ninja? ' the gennin's head was killing him from the trap; and the sun was already setting; 'Beilborg!? Did he get hit by a trap too?!' Maneuvering himself up into the cliff, he saw the necromancer investigating an empty campfire and campsite; a pouch of oil dripping in his hands. Beilborg gave a very serious glance towards Cruxis, as if to ask him why he'd not just levitated up the mountain to begin with; though Cruxis would simply have replied that if he'd flown up alone it would requiring him to leave his ally behind; and he did not intend to face a powerful enemy alone and with an ally twenty minutes below him at the bottom of a trap-infested mountain path.
But instead Beilborg simply spoke to Cruxis; "Seems like our raider and his friends left this smoke signal as a decoy to get us to climb the mountain. He laid traps to delay us, or probably to make us give up. Going off of your poor luck, I think you're far more determined than our Raider thinks of pursuers... We're lucky, I found a trail though. They're close to here."
"Friends?! Do you think we'll be able to take on more than just this raider? If his friends are as strong as he is we might need to get backup... I can use a tracking tag as a beacon with a little bit of improvisation I think..." Cruxis would have said more but the necromancer cut him off
"Don't bother. If we leave now to get help, they'll be gone; my estimate is they plan to be gone by morning... I've already been researching his 'friends'; they're likely minion lackeys... There are three of them, E ranked criminals... There's little threat from them. The raider leader is C ranked in the Bingo Book, I would advise we scout carefully ahead before pursuing..."
"If we're careful we might still be able to pull a victory from this... We have to be careful though. It'll take about three hours for any help to arrive if we send a beacon... "
"Then we'd best not need help... Between the two of us we still stand a chance; so long as there are no more unseen variables to this retrieval. Follow me, their trail leads this way..."
Cruxis nodded and took Beilborg's lead, following the necromancer towards an open clearing on the opposite end of the mountain. Despite the elaborately set up traps, the raiders must have expected some degree of resistance, by the traps they'd set up on their main camp. And yet why had they made their real camp so close to the false one? Likely because they expected the traps from their first trap to scare off any pursuit or enforcers from finding them.
It was actually quite clever, attempting to simply make the opponents think they had gone elsewhere by now, but they had been arrogant. They had left an obvious trail for the necromancer to follow; and with abit of luck, they found the camp nestled in an open clearing alongside the mountain''s denser forest region. Beilborg made a motion of a single finger of his mouth, a shushing sign; sighting three guards around a single tent; likely where the leader was. The lesser minions could probably be taken out with the leader imprisoned...
"Here's the plan kid... You're going to sneak around, put their leader in these handcuffs; and then waltz him out to display for his minions. Once you have him captured they'll scatter, or I'll beat the crap out of them... I'm not too particular on how that step goes. At worst it gives me three new corpses.... Oh don't give me that look." Cruxis gave a sharp glare at the note of new bodies for his corpse jutsus; and Beilborg spoke in a matter of fact note on his latter comment. "Now then, I would advise you use my Cloak of Sinking to get in; you'll smell like a crypt after using it, but it'll sink you right under the guards and into the tent."
"I have my own ways of sneaking, thank you very much..." the genjutsu user glared again, striking a quick string of handseals; the wind around him bending to his will as he broke apart sediment around him and heated his right hand to melt it as it passed through it, forming a thin layer of mirrored glass around himself.
Cruxis already knew what he had to do, cloaking himself with his refraction jutsu, a technique that used a thin layer of glass mirrors in order to refract light around himself, making it harder for opponents to see him. But as he snuck inside, the glass jutsu shattered... Hell, there must have been a ward of sorts to disable stealth techniques placed around it., Cruxis found a man standing in front of him who was wearing a red shirt, a white jacket, and somehow managed to give him the impression of crocodiles and kangaroos.
"'Ello there, mate!" the man declared, raising a hand a hand and throwing a long, bladed sort of weapon. Only a bit of quick footwork managed to help Cruxis slip to the side and dodge it. "Oy!"
"Did you... just throw a machete at me?" Cruxis spoke, raising a brow towards the man with an intense glare "What, do I look like some kind of bush to you?"
"Sorry, but I'm afraid you don't have the situation quite right." the man responded, sounding just the smallest bit uncertain. Of course, it was about then that his friends appeared. An old, old man and a girl in a faintly bizzare costume.
"Ma'sr Arnie! U need Kip-kip?" the girl asked him, tilting her head as her faintly bizzare tone seemed to indicate a vocal-based ability; Cruxis kept a wary eye in the thugs...
The old man just giggled as he patted Kip on the head. "Don't worry, Kipster, it's just an Outsider who we have to deal with... He can't handle the power of THE GENDER BENDER" he reached down and strapped a skirt around his waist as he spoke this.
"...I think I'm just gonna go." Cruxis stated in a slightly creeped out voice, turning around. Another machete hit the ground next to him a moment later and stuck fast.
"Sorry, but I can't allow you to escape." Arnie said. "Woltar, Kip, let's go!" Lines spread across Arnie's skin, the space between them fading to black as they shot out, and a moment later the thunder from down under released a transformation technique, and teeth erupted out of his arm as a young woman and a blue water spirit joined him in rushing at Cruxiss. "You can't take all three of us at once!"
Beilborg's eyes narrowed just a bit as the three thugs charged at Cruxis, clearly intent on a fight. The water spirit, rather than the crocodile-ish form the first had manifested, came up to Cruxis first, apparently the fastest of the trio, and swiped at him with a blade that morphed out of her arm. But she was slow, unskilled, and the blade only managed to cut through a bit of Cruxis's cloak as the genjutsu artist used a mirror clone to escape. Beilborg moved in, unleashing a hand seal to allow his Corpus-no-jutsu to course through his ritual dagger as it struck into Kip's side, rotting her flesh and forcing her to transform back to normal, paralyzing her from the waist down as he struck into her spine.
"You don't get it, do you?" Beilborg asked as Woltar's 'lovely' female form came in with a pair of knives and slashed at him. Beilborg only allowed a half-smirk to cross his face as he first kicked left to get out of the way, then dodged right], and finally got a good enough grip to hurl 'her' towards a tree. "It's ten percent luck..." Arnie's teeth shot out of his arm a moment later and managed to cut open Beilborg's cheek as the man attempted to skewer the lithe Necromancer, followed by a fierce barrage of direct punches from a man who was pretty good at what he was doing. Of course... pretty good wasn't quite enough when dealing with the foe they'd chosen, who promptly activated his cloak of sinking to leap through the ground and flipped back onto his free hand, then pushed himself further back and threw his ritual dagger into Arnie's body as he landed on the ground again. "Twenty percent skill..." The Miukip girl's paralysis had somehow worn off; she'd transformed into a water form and Beilborg whirled around and slammed a foot into Kip's head as the water spirit came in again, sending her right into a tree. "Fifteen percent concentrated power of will..." he slammed his first into into Woltar's head as the gender-bender tried another attack, knocking 'her' out cold. "Five percent pleasure..." Another barrage of fists took out Arnie, the cloak's agility boosting technique amplifying Beilborg's movements far beyond what the bandit could react to, "Fifty percent pain..." Beilborg rolled under another distant barrage made by the teeth and came up in front of the Crocodile-man, shoved his fist into the startled man's mouth, then jammed a knee into him just below his ribs. Beilborg calmly watched as the crocodile slumped over and his transformation, as with those of his allies, faded away. He flipped his ritual dagger out of the body and back into his pocket, glancing down out his defeated foes. "And a hundred percent reason to remember my name.".
"Remember this bub!!! A blast of chakra suddenly hit the Necromancer, knocking him backwards as Cruxis finally back on his feet and in the fight a; readying a kunai in hand with a fierce glare. The three thugs were nothing compared to this guy, and as Beilborg stood up from the attack and he wiped a thumb over the would the thug had managed to score on him, then calmly wiped the blood off on one of the unconscious minions ."That's him, the leader... We take him out and we get the research scrolls..." Beilborg mumbled, preparing for combat alongside of Cruxis, "I still have plenty of fight left in me... Watch my back kid. Let's go! he grinned with a smirk as he prepared to fight.

{ Mission Step 1 : 200 / 200 }
{ Mission Step 2 : 75 / 75 }
{ Mission Step 2, try 2 for Cruxis : 75 / 75 }
{ Mission Step 2, try 3 for Cruxis : 76 / 75 }
{ Mission Step 3 : 100 / 100 Lines }

"Check it out! Its a recruitment tent for the Jishaku Mining Company! I could use some money!" A young man said, running down the hill towards a greenish tent. A long line trailed from the outside to the base of the hill. The young man, a boy by the name of Arata, jumped in line with the rest. He had brown spiked up hair, and a short, slim figure. His muscles were lean from lots and lots of errand running. His small wallet jingled with just a few coins, he was quick to make money, but also quick to spend it, usually on cheap food or cheap clothes, or the occasional trinket or rent for an apartment. His eyes were cheerful and dark brown, and the dimples at the side of his mouth were signs of his pleasent smile that he wore proudly. Those who saw him often would know that his pencoil thin eyebrows were the result of

He peered to the front of the line, and frowned inpatiently, "Come on, come on... I wanna get on with this and start making money," he tapped his foot, and looked around. He looked up at the back of the head of the man in front of him, looked away, then quickly looked back in a double take. The man had blue skin! "Woah woah woah!" Arata yelled, "How do you have blue skin, man!"

The tall, blue skinned guy turned around, and gave the younger boy a stiff glare. One of his thick eyebrows raised in momentary confusion. Gruffly, he asked, "Hmh? Whatchu want, bro?"

"You heard me! I said to tell me how you turned blue! You're like... A blue man!!!" Upon closer inspection, Arata noticed that the tall blue man had gills too. This guy was getting more and more interesting by the moment. "And did you know that you have gills?! Are you some sort of fish man!? Are you one of the Shark People from Water Country?!?!"

The fish man groaned, and took put a pipe into his mouth, "Heh. Yeah, you caught me, bro. I'm from Water Country all right. I'm a shark-man too, just like ya' said." He jammed his finger into the boy's chest, "But, hey! It's not right to start prying like that, bro. Not cool at all." He removed his finger from the boys chest after a final poke, and said with a grin, "But listen up, my name is Sosuke, Sosuke Hoshigaki. I'm just your run-of-the-mill fisherguy from Water Country. The fishing business has sort of sucked lately, y'know what I mean?" He rubbed his fingers together and grumbled, "I need cash, bro. If this country is where I can get some, then I will, get what I'm sayin'?

The boy nodded, "Yeah! Yeah! I know exactly what you me-" There was a loud call from the tent, calling for the next person. In their chat, the line had moved all the way so that it would be Sosuke's turn next. Sosuke Grumbled, and crossed his arms, "Heh, I best get up there."

* * *

The Jishaku Mining Company wagon wobbled and stumbled over each and every pebble on the way to the Magnet Cliffs, the very place that the mine was located. The Magnet Cliffs, as it turned out, was a sacred place. The Iron in those cliffsides had special properties formed by eons of lightning storms jolting the barren earth. The Jishaku Company developed a way to mine and use this precious iron effectively, so they bought out a huge area in the cliffs and began to mine it. Apparently, the mining operation was well underway, and was getting so big that they'd need anyone and everyone willing to work in the mines. Every chunk of ore they could scrounge up from the vein they had uncovered was a huge addition to their profit.

The payment for working in the mines was meager, but the benefits were abyssmal. However, by the sounds of it, they also offered a lot of gear to prevent any injuries or future medical conditions from working in the Mines. With all of their bases covered, they were ready to roll in profits, with little exspence outside of the manual labor and safety gear.

Arata and Sosuke spent a good amount of time chatting the entire way to the Magnet Cliffs.

41 lines here

Cruxis attempted to dodge but was slung aside by the attack; skidding across the forested ground and stopping only thanks to applying pressure behind him via bukujutsu, which he managed to activate in time to prevent collision with a tree. Holy hell this guy was not going to be easy by comparison to his lackeys. Beilborg had proven his mettle against the initial three, but how much of his energy had he used to attack?
"You massacred my grandmother's village, stole their village scroll, and I have every intention of seeing you brought to justice you monster!!!" the gennin's eyes flared as he stood himself up; forcing himself to fight on as he channeled his chakra into his counter-attack.
Striking a rapid set of hand seals, Cruxis summoned an illusory flaming meteor towards the brigand, determined to pull through this fight as Beilborg lashed out at him with a charge Corpus-no-Jutsu, the forbidden technique which could turn living flesh to the consistency of a corpse's.

"Some pretty big words from a no-name and his buddy. but things needed done and justice in this country is skewed." With a casual flip of the small targe like shield it was soon apparent that it was no mere deflecting implement as, like with his bow, it emitted a field of chakra which enveloped his person easily distorting the genjutsu and the strange attack from his partner sending the assault fizzling off into the grass, the strange jutsu of course cause the patch of earth and grass it hit to become barren and dead. It was clear that should be avoided.
"Weird techniques you've got their but my skill and tools are far superior to the power you guys can put out." he explained a cocky smirk trailing across his face as he raised the chakra bow once more and fire rapidly as before however he simply ran across sweeping the spray of arrows across the area surrounding the two meddlers. "Say good night boys, these are gonna sting!"

"Good no more trouble then... Back to my mission" The shinobi exclaimed before turning about and leaping off into terrain certain to gain praise in the completion of his mission.

As the pair left Gryu'joing village, Beilborg kept tallies for trackers; his mind counting down an internal clock for which his zombies would leave their work upon; and it showed. Cruxis on the other hand noted their path in order to find his way back; making mental notes for his magic map. The two were silent on the way to the necromancer's campsite, and given the late hour, Cruxis did not even bother fighting the hospitality when the necromancer offered to sleep outside by the fire instead of in his tent, allowing Cruxis to take the sleeping bag; and the gennin did, conking out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.
The dreams of glass-working came to him again. The jutsu itself wasn't entirely new; Cruxis had been working on the development of the technique for awhile, once he took his ninja training seriously in the last two months of his academy training he had shown an incredible learning ability despite his late start to put his efforts towards more than simple pranks. The idea had come to him as a defensive measure; creating a false image using light and mirrors as a diversion during a training exercise the younger Cruxis had seen his opponent strike the mirror and the shards flew into his fist, causing extraneous amounts of pain. and had given Cruxis the idea to attempt a full out style based on glass. With abit of luck, and a lot of research, he found information on wind releases that utilized sand; and while the land of lightning lacked sand; he discovered he could use wind to break down sediments around him to function almost in the same manner. Further experiments involved him siphoning sediments between handseals as he heated his hands, allowing the sediment to become glass as he struck the seals for the nature of his attack; allowing the glass to form quickly and with a deadly precision, with partial aid from his Ryuugan eye; which allowed him to quickly locate already loose sediment thanks to its ability to enhance fine details in his present surroundings.
Cruxis's creative streaks were at their finest in the world of dreams; where his imagination could run wild. The labyrinth of his dream world held sway, a massive maze of mirrors and reflections of things that might be... Cruxis did not know how he knew it; but he knew that he could only learn what his dreams showed him unless he reached out and touched what was within the mirrors, or should the mirror touch him. He was afraid to reach for them though; unsure if what he reached towards was what he truly needed; as opposed to simply what he wanted. And so he allowed his imagination to roam cautiously within the maze of mirrors; the various shades of what might be roaming through his sightlines as he wondered just what he should be moving towards... As a scholar he knew eventually his curiosity would get the better of him, but he also knew from his increasing experienced sticking one's hand into a fire was a horrible idea unless they wanted to get their hand burned.

The morning sun reflected into the cave as Cruxis's eyes fluttered awake; and he looked out of the cave to see Beilborg meditating out on the cliff...
"I did not tell you the entire truth of the blight of the undead... One of my old teammates, Aodhan, had been afflicted with it... That was the first thing I did when I chose to take on the path of a missing-nin; I called into work and told my supervisor that I had a family emergency. He believed me and told me to keep him posted. I knew that I would probably get fired because that blight incident wasn’t going to resolve itself within a few days.
I let Aodhan stay in my basement during the day. He was safe so long as he stayed put. I made sure that nothing physical or otherworldly could get in and he couldn’t get out. Cruel? Maybe. But it was for his own good. I left my tiny apartment that night dressed in black and my face kept under a hood. I didn’t need casual passerbys noticing me. I traveled across the building tops, following the strands of chakra in the earth below me. I could sense the air flowing about me, and far off in the distance the ebb and flow of the water. Those that could sense the coming and going of chakra I’m sure sensed my presence as I passed. You know that shiver you get down your spine for no reason sometimes? That isn’t always caused by a sudden drop in temperature, someone walking over your grave, or someone standing behind you. Sometimes that’s one of my kind passing close by. I wanted to be sure I caught sight of whatever it was that I had been sensing all day. It was faint and vaguely familiar. I stopped and tried to ground myself. I called softly out to the spirits of the dead within the earth, asking for their help. I felt the power rise up and engulf me.... and then I understood what the blight was... It was them; wreaking revenge on mortals for feeling what they could feel no longer... That power entrapped me, and made me obsessed with the blight..."
"You found a power that you delved too deep within. I'm afraid to delve into my power for fear of becoming obsessed with it... I was taught once that someone who doesn't fear his own power is not fit to wield it; but fear should never be a reason to stop seeking knowledge..." Cruxis looked to him, before continuing, "Thank you for letting me camp here... I'll be in the Hidden Cloud Library in the evening researching, I could use some help if you're willing." the time for indecision was over. He needed to study more than anything if he were to become a competent force in missions. A combination of poor choices, lack of training, and plain bad luck had done a number on him already; but he was determined to train harder because of it. But in the meantime, he had a pretty girl to meet for breakfast today! With a nod from the Necromancer, Cruxis was off, leaping off of the ground to gain some height before pushing the force of his chakra underneath himself in order to levitate over the ground; another push of chakra to propel himself forward towards Hidden Cloud; his magic map genjutsu hovering alongside him in order to track his direction.




{ Traveling Gryu'joing to Hidden Cloud Village - 60 / 60}

The traditional road to the market village was a long road that wound along the mountain in a downward spiral, and would take several hours to traverse. Rissa's shortcut however, was a straight-down-the mountain road, sacrificing a degree of safely for directness with a narrow road filled with thin, jagged stairways that Cruxis had nicknamed 'the stairs of death', but would only take about an hour using that road to get to Gryu'jong. Cruxis's bukujutsu technique, which allowed him to dance upon the air as if he were flying, allowed for some bypassment of the terrain hazard, and so as they traversed the trail, he looked over the brightly color coded notecard on the 'mission', reading commentary aloud.
""So the place we're looking for is Ray's Ramen Rounds, which so conveniently has a special of buy one round, buy the next three for three-quarters the price: of course any bargainer will attempt to get this deal; which has led to abit of a running tab on Notwen-sensei's part. The good news is Ray is looking to branch out into delivery, so the three of us working on a per hour scale, will cover the tab clean in about five hours, plus we can keep any tips we make from deliveries!"
As he mentioned tips, a coin juggled between his fingers and vanished up his sleeve again, ""We should finish up the deliveries around seven o' clock; that should give us time to eat and regroup before full nightfall. Then we'll see how we're holding up before attempting the hoodlum trap. Otherwise, we'll use our tip money to get us an inn room for the night and we can try taking on that bounty tomorrow. Does that sound like a good plan?"




18 / 60 Lines Country ---> Gryu-jiong