Toh Shirong's Story

Wandering through the Naséni Forest, Toh would walk the path leading to the shrine. Today he wanted to pray for a blessing from the gods so they may offer him some luck. It had been awhile since he had visited this shrine, although he would often visit the shrine to offer his forgiveness. Now he was coming her to ask for some luck, perhaps today would be a nice day.

As Toh continued to walk, he would hear a dull roar in the sky. It sounded like a projectile, but as he looked into the air he could faintly see past the trees and leaves that there were white streaks in the sky. Something was happening but it sounded like it was far away so there was not much reason to pay to much attention to it.

Toh would soon continue on the path to the shrine and soon climbed some old stone steps to reach the shrine. As he appeared on the top of the hill he would look at his surroundings making sure to stay silent and to not disrupt the routine of the Shrine Maidens. He would walk up to the offering box and placed a handful of currency into the box, he would then carefully get on his knees, closed his eyes and placed his hands together in a silent prayer to the gods.

At first she thought she imagined it, but as she heard a roaring, her gaze followed the sound to look up at a jetstream of what appeared to be missles. Fortunately it appeared far away, but it was a reminder that while this Island was isolated, the outside world still persisted. The price of peace with the Taiyou. So distracted she did not realize someone had approached until she approached the shrine. Immediately she adopted the diligent face as she recognized them, "Greetings Mr Shirong it has been a long time since you made this journey. If you require anything just speak to me or one of my girls." she nodded before leaving the enclosure and returning to the other shrine she had been cleaning, gently brushing the dust away while also putting fresh offerings within the baskets and removing all burnt scent sticks and replacing it with fresh ones. Normally she could expect about five people a day. On really busy day she could expect twenty which meant she generally had to clean shrine's twice.

Fortunately this appeared to be a quiet day, brushing away at the dust, she found herself thinking back to the missle. Of course she knew the world was different outside of this Island. In fact there was places that had completely abandoned the Gods or where buildings that were not only temples were completely imposing. Explorers had spoken how the world is so chaotic and there were so many cities all over the planet. They even said that where Jie lived was archaic in terms of the places they seen.

As Toh finished up his prayer, he had heard a familiar voice greet him but before he could talk to her she left the enclosure. As long as he was there he might as well catch up and talk to her. Once he left the enclosure, he made his was over to the shrine maiden who had greeted him. "Sorry for not greeting you sooner Ms Bao. It has been a long while and I should have said my greetings first, but now that we are on this topic I would like to say that it is nice to see you again." He spoke giving an apologetic bow.

His thoughts soon turned to the shrine. "I see that the shrine looks well, so how have things been? And if possible is there anything you need help with?"

Jie nodded with placid and polite expression never wavering as she spoke, "The pleasure is mine Mr Shirong and there no requirement to greet any of the Miko here, after all we are merely serving a duty to both the Gods and the Citizens. It would be impetuous to trespass on people's time with their ancestors and thoughts. We are here on hand if you need us, but you are never by any voiltion required to speak to us." pausing she went on, "Nonetheless I am sorry for interrupting your time and hope you will not feel I tarnished meditation or other such things." still she gestured to nearby chair so he could sit, "So brings Mr Shirong to this place today if it you don't mind me asking?"

Of course it was in reference what they both seen, but there was a decorum to these matters, "I just suspected after seeing the missle up above and hearing it, no one would dare come today. So imagine your journey here is pretty serious and you would not otherwise endanger yourself if you did not feel that it was a requirement. I imagine after that, there will be hardly anyone today, you may well be only arrival." pausing she exhaled so she could collect her thoughts, "Our alliance with Shintenchi while beneficial is of course tense at times being we are archaic compared to them. They are like the older, stronger sibling, any time they could view us as merely cattle and slaughter us." coughing her gaze turned down as she quickly added, "But... Mr Shirong I speak haughtily of matters I don't understand, please forgive me being frank... I just worry for my Maiden's and I as well as the whole Island."

Toh gratefully took a seat on the nearby chair and gave a polite nod of thanks in her direction. "The reasons behind my journey here are not serious at all, I just came here to ask for a little luck for the future. And I was already near the shrine when I saw the missile so it was better to just come here than waste a journey." He replied to her question, rather unfazed by the events going on.

When Jie began to talk about the Shintenchi, and how she thought they could turn of them at any time they wanted, Toh decided to speak up. "Its true that that they could attack us at any time, but why would they wait for years to attack a place knowing that they have very little means to protect themselves? I mean I am certain that if they have been guarding this land for years then they must have good intentions. Even if they planned on something like that, I promise that I would give my life to help protect everyone on this island." He stated with a determined smile.

Of course Jie was skeptical hearing this reply and it was difficult for her to keep the general respectful pose, nonetheless she did manage to begin with, "I see most would had been alarmed by the missle and chosen to make the journey another day. I am surprised someone of your station would throw caution to the wind." there was rebellious spark coming out again in full force, she immediately added, "With all due respect of course Mr Shirong, I just am not used to such foolhardy actions to merely pay respects at the Shrine." again she bit back her tongue and tried again, "Sorry, Mr Shirong, this whole thing just making incredibly anxious as you may well imagine..."

Of course her composure was further tested by the absurd claim, "No offense Mr Shirong, but I very much doubt you could stand up to the force and size of the Shintenchi Shogunate, strong and confident you may be. But it is reckless to think you could one handed protect this place. The audacity while admirable is foolish." face-palming she sighed long and hard, "I promise Mr Shirong I shall try keep such opinions out of our conversation... I am just tense and stressed. I shall endevour to be less frank and blunt and instead just exercise an air of clarity and respect."

Toh laughed when Jie face palmed herself, it really was a foolish statement but he actually meant it. Although he could feel something suddenly changed. "Yes I know I have no chance by myself against an entire military, but that does not mean I can't lose hope. But however something does feel different, almost as if whatever the military was fighting suddenly vanished. Maybe the gods did offer me their luck this day." He soon stood up and looked at the sky.

"Well, if you would like I can make some tea for you. If you are tense and stressed then you should rest for now, must be hard keeping up that facade of clarity and respect with all that is going on."

It was an admirable if utterly foolhardy attitude and she herself had her own flaws. It would be wrong to be critical of this man despite how utterly stupid he was in his claims. After all she herself lived in what could be largely called a prison of her making. Duty over anything, duty over happiness. Duty over everything. That was the way, but at times her composure revealed cracks or weaknesses despite her best attempts to stem or revel in her impotence. In reality she could easily forsake this, but everyone had to make sacrifices. This was the way of her society. Duty came first always, leisure merely a secondary part of this whole struggle. Nonetheless she managed to keep this facade up high. No matter how she truly struggled.

Of course she had noted that the their was eerie quiet now, it seemed the worse was over, "Perhaps you are right. But in the end I feel we are living on borrowed time and some of us would have regrets if we were to be snuffed out now. Regrets though matter little when it comes to ones duties." pausing she then added, "I would appreciate some herbal tea. Let's speak no more of the masks we wear. I have accepted what I must be, there is no question about anything else, in my view."

"Agreed, now please wait a minute while I get this ready..." Toh spoke as he reached inside his clothes and pulled out a large wooden box decorated with designs of dragons on it. He the sat on the ground an opened it up to reveal a large kettle pot, a set of tea cups, and small bottles of herbs and spices all neatly organised in this box, a pair of flints, another smaller box labeled firewood, and a small stand to set the kettle on so he could light a fire underneath it. This box was a gift from long ago to which he uses quite frequently.

Toh placed the kettle on the stand, grabbed a bottle of water from under his clothes and poured it inside the pot. He then opened up the box with the label on it and placed the firewood under the stand. He then grabbed the two pieces of flint and lit the firewood on fire. And he was doing this all inside the box.

Once the kettle finished boiling, Toh put out the fire and began to,place different types of herbal herbs inside the pot and mixed them together before pouring it into one of the tea cup and handed it over to Jie. "I always come prepared for a break."

Jie merely nodded and took a sip relaxing somewhat as the herbs started working on her mind and body, "I don't often get time to take a proper break usually so anything like this is greatly appreciated Mr Shirong." pausing she decided to elaborate, "Normally I am busy during free time training the other Mikos as you can likely imagine, after all being the oldest means I must make sure they learn. Fortunately it's not difficult it merely just demanding in terms of how much time I spend to myself." taking another sip she closed her eyes savouring the taste before placing it back down, "This is very good I admit, as I have stated usually so busy very little time to relax myself thus moments like these though rare are appreciated."

"I see...Sacrificing your free time so that you can train the others. I am available anytime to help around and I would be glad to help around. Everyone should take the time to rest, I know this duty is important but if you need time to yourself then take some time for yourself. Although I do not know the duties of being a shrine maiden so excuse me if I said anything displeasing." Toh spoke as he took a ship of his tea and began to pack up most of the equipment in the box.

Jie gave a slight shrug before saying, "Everyone has duties they must obey whether they want something more. Mines is simply quite demanding one. I wish there was another way, but the old ways must be taught. Traditions must be kept alive by the older so though the offer is appreciated with your knowledge on this Mr Shirong I do sadly feel you would be very unsuited here and that your help while noble in the idea would confuse more. Although..." she finished her tea and handed him the cup, "I have likely spent too long in rest so if you don't mind Mr Shirong I will return to my duties of preserving this place of worship and helping others learned. Be well Mr Shirong. Be well."

With that said, she stood dust herself off and gave a formal bow of respect before heading back in to continue the cleaning and other myriads of jobs required.

Toh took the cup and packed up both cups inside the box. "Thank you Ms Jie, I wish you well for the future. I shall begin my own journey and explore the universe. I believe its time to find a new purpose in my life. If you ever need help just ask, but I also bid you farewell." He spoke as he placed the box back inside his uniform before standing up and giving a bow of respect.

With all that said, he turned around and began to leave the shrine, prepared to begin his new journey across the stars. "A new purpose...I wonder how those two are doing? And how my old allies are doing?"

Sailing through space, a small ship picked up a distress signal saying that they were under attack. Curious the man named Toh that piloted the ship decided to check out the distress signal. Changing course, he went to where the message originated from and noticed a cargo ship sailing through space. The vessel would fly around the ship looking from any means of entry while trying to contact the ship. "Hello? Does anyone come in? I have answered your call for assistance." Toh spoke.

Sukarma was badly lost, functioning only from everything over-engineered to take punishment, even while looking with her 6m compact radio telescope for pulsars. Nothing in her pulsar map matched. Where was she! Behind the sarcophagus she monitored gain analysis and signal waterfalls for teltalle marks of the neutron stars.

Then transmission harmonics and signal level of a carrier wave with broadband electrical noise decoupled her sense of 'hearing' with searing pain. She had the gain turned up a lot to hear quiet pulsars on such a small dish. After a moment to stabilize her connection to the tool mounting nexus she spooled up another small dish module to an arm to try and fix a position in space. The mounts still occilated in her head from optimization patterns disturbed by the sudden dismount.

Normally others would know how to demodulate an unknown digital signal on some channel but she just made the equipment go! At least she knew how to listen to the stars. Parallax inside her head from the other dish informed a sense of hearing that mapped into navigation. The cloud of instinctual points was definitely nearby now that the gain was turned down. Dorsal, ventral, and lateral stabilizers quieted as she stopped flexing her limited resources into them. She'd need the resources to cover over holes and run the slip drive.

The slip drive was one of the most EM-Hardened modules she had next to the emergency weaver putting parts back together. FE shielding papered over the holes in her seared hull as the slip drive perturbed normal space. Her port side was numb but the rest felt like getting sucked into a tube as the field propagated forward. Her sense of awareness widened with other pained familiar sensations pouring into her mind from the coupled space. Sensors read everything was fine but the growing spatial hysteresis throwing shadow data into her sensors. Shadows on interior cameras. Short whines of pain came from inside her sarcophagus but behind her. She didn't know how the slip drive worked but now alone it became singularly terrifying. The engine arms mounted together with a loud jostle of physical anchor and FE pressure stabilizers. Then it happened again with her avatar hearing the bang of an explosion from outside her sarcophagi. Frantic interior monitoring systems layers rained onto her consciousness but found nothing but darkness and hums from intrinsic radiometry. The engines were stable even if some of the power systems were slightly unbalanced. The ship was depressurized so there couldn't be a sound outside.

Sukarma calmed down and pointed the engines toward the radio source. The power system was well in acceptable parameters after a number of bypasses and outright replacements. There had to be an engine test sometime not just waiting here forever. She engaged the engines and slip tunnel shot off into the distance. She's relieved she doesn't have to stay in slip-space long after 10 seconds in when something knocked thrice upon her avatar's reinforced vault.

About a kilometer away from Bartos a blue blur of slip tunnel raced in to which some seconds later collapsed tail end with the slight rumble of a minor gravity pulse. Shaped like an elongated marine creature with tentacles the ship was dark blue with light blue streaks and mottle all over its surface. Eight tentacles at the front pointed forward ten meters and thirty meters of ship body behind it. A skirt at its rear relaxed organically releasing four much larger tentacles at the back containing engines. The entire port side of the ship was burnt through 10cm of organic coating. Holes could be seen through layers of armor plating and reinforced superstructure. A tentacle broke from the group of eight and expanded to reveal a small dish.

Sukarma tried to hail the other ship across multiple microwave bands and terrestrial AM/FM with the multi-band transceiver. Her young voice heard a mix of emotions at the scene, "There's someone here! Hello?! This is deep space exploration ship Sukarma with NASA. Is anyone there? Does the other ship need help?"

To any attempts at contacting it, the floating cargo ship remained in its place and didn't respond to any messages coming its way. It merely...remained in place. There were holes dotting one of its hulls signifying a battle had taken place and the ship hadn't been repaired since then. Other than this, there was a docking bay which was closed. However...as the two ships came closer, it began to open. In response to the other messages sent to the ship, there was a brief static, then the sound of a finger tapping the microphone that was broadcasting.

"H-Hello?" The voice asked, the pitch was a bit deeper than the original voice in the recording however this one sounded similar enough. "Oh...oh God, thank you..." At this being said, the transmission cut off with the docking bay still open and waiting for help.

When Toh saw the docking bay doors open, he steered his ship into the docking bay. "I am on my way, just remain calm." He spoke as he landed inside the hanger. Once inside the ship, Toh exited his ship with only a sword as his weapon. He then began to make his way through the hanger to see where everyone was on the ship.

Ion engines engaged to follow the other ship moving into the hangar. docking wasn't an option she'd just make things worse. If she was going to jump from one to the other she had to be close. Sukarma edged parallel to the docking bay doors then cut the engines to curl the arms fore to arrest her motion. The retro engine lines blew out on one side so it wasn't worth risking a spin.

Equipment layer arms peeled back the interior wall to reveal the sarcophagus. Hidden in the middle of the ship's white tile interior it is giant reinforced vault. Protecting and supporting the avatar while she slept or was otherwise unconscious.

Internal dead anchors pushed away soundless to the depressurized volume with a jolt. Sukarma was still presenting into her 1.6 meter tall avatar. The bare harried foot stumbling out quarantine FE fields turns yellow on orange. There were people out there! She looked over the interior and was glad her organic coating kept away an unhealthy green glow.

She ran over to the airlock folding open on the outside to make a concave ellipsoid space on the good side of the hull. The seal opened to her tentacle-haired form running full bore into the void. A flicker of FE field propels her at the docking bay. Arms tucked she aimed for a low angle to the floor.

Communications sprout with Sukarma's excited voice, "I can't dock but I'm coming!"

Sukarma had her field surgery unit backpack on while going in feet-first. She planned for a small skid to a stop across the hangar floor.

The ship was derelict inside of the docking bay, brown blood stains coating parts of the walls and the floor. Alongside this, there were many singed holes in the walls typically around the areas where the bloodstains were, indicating a battle of some kind took place.

Inside the docking bay and from the intercom, a voice cleared its throat as if it were going to speak, however it was cut off by static. The static disappeared again only for a crash to be heard, the person behind the intercom standing up and shouting out. "What was that?" Afterwards, it cut back to static for a few moments and then turned off...

When Toh heard the person speak before it cut off, he put a hand on his sword and began to actually run through the ship looking for the bridge of the ship. Whatever was on the ship was still here and that man was in trouble. Of course while in his rush he did not notice the second ship docking.