World Tree MUSH

    So Castiel has discovered that she has a problem.
    She can't return home.
    This is an issue, yes, but it also means she can wander the earth a little longer and help out where she can, even if it is kind of distressing.
    Today's journey finds the small blonde at the entrance to the Shoshone National Forest, in Wyoming.
    The fire lookouts residing in the area have noticed some... Strange phenomenon that has been bothering them of late.
    Things like feeling as though they were being watched, listened to, and spied on, by some third party. Then there's the story of the little boy that went missing about a year back when his father brought him to the forest to try and toughen him up in the wilderness.
    The father went missing, too.
    Castiel is staring into the woods down the main hiking trail, in her human guise, it's bright and early because she intends to spend much of the day if not long into the night investigating the source of this strangeness.

"Hello."

Itana is just... there. She managed to cross a great deal of landscape unseen and unheard. Now she's emerging from behind a cactus and making her way towards Castiel and the trail, hood pulled up but not so deeply as to cast her eyes in shadow.

The archer moves up to one side of the little angel, looking on down the path with a frown. She seems to lose herself in thought for a moment.

"It does appear we've seen something about watchers before," she murmurs before folding her arms, looking down at Castiel. "I suppose we must do what we can."

    Well, that's a weird little blip. Stelle was heading back to the Express to touch base with Pom Pom, Himeko and Welt.. but now she's in.. a forest? She blinks owlishly as she heads over towards a young blonde girl and an archer...?

    "..."

    Verbose as ever, Stelle. Keep it up.

    Finding a man in hiking gear is not unusual in this neck of the woods. Though this one's carrying a fairly large case for a stringed instrument with him. Though that's not terribly unusual either, campfire singalongs are a thing, right?

    Though, finding a crowd starting to gather, the dark-skinned Duncan Ritter tilts his head a little. "Is there an event?" he inquires. Given his tone he's not being a smartass, he's actually just curious.

    Missing humans, complaints about being watched by some mysterious being...it all sounds quite like demons, undead, or some other unnatural evil may be involved. As such, Tyrael is here--and like Castiel, is using a human guise, appearing as a normal young male hiker about to head up the trail when he notices the other angel just standing there staring into the woods.

    "Excuse me miss, are you lost?" the man asks amicably. "The main trail is that way." he continues, pointing off west in case she really was lost.

    Looks like a party has gathered up. This always seems to happen around Castiel, huh.
    Nevertheless she doesn't even startle as Itana appears at her side, she's grown accustomed to the nomad woman's presence, and Itana actually brings her, of all people, a measure of comfort to know that the woman is there.
    "I do not think this is the Dark Watchers." She says, first. "This is not their region. But hello, Itana."
    Stelle's appearance earns a tilt of the small blonde's head and a blink. She wasn't there a moment before, was she?
    "Ah... Hello?"
    Then Duncan and Tyrael arrive, and Castiel-- or CASSANDRA NETHERLAND as she is known in her human form shakes her head.
    "Not an event, no." She answers at first. "There have been strange incidents in the forest. I am here to investigate." She explains before shaking her head again, this time to Tyrael.
    "... No, brother, I am not lost." She replies, calm and placid, though staring quite intently at him. "I was about to head that way." Down the main trail, she means.
    It's a bit of a hike down said trail, and though she doesn't LOOK prepared for hiking in her white dress and sandals, she doesn't complain once for the four hour trip into the heart of the woods.
    It is as Castiel- and those who chose to join her in her excursion- reach a fire watch tower.
    There's a figure at the top and he waves down at the group before heading down the stairs to meet them.
    "You must be Cassandra." The fire watcher says, "If you're going deeper into the woods, you should all stock up, I've got flashlights and radios here for anyone that needs them. The caves are off limits, but that won't be a problem because they're all gated and locked off. If you get lost at any point just try to find one of the trails. They all circle back to here eventually." He says before frowning. "I wouldn't stay out too late though if I were you, the woods have gotten pretty eerie at night, so you can all stay in the tower with me if it gets too dark and leave in the morning."
    The blonde nods her head. A lot. Before she takes a flashlight and a backpack full of rope and basic gear and turns to the party once the fire watcher is out of ear shot.
    "I do not know what we are looking for, but it is likely... Not human." She opens up a little more freely. "From here we can head to the nearby lake, the ravine, or the cavaes, though it looks like we will not be actually entering the caves... Hum..."

>> SUMMARY[Castiel] >> Exploration Options: Lake or Ravine.

It's been awhile, but Itana looks steadily at the wandering minstrel when Duncan turns up. She recognizes him, alright. The events at Damcyan are burned into her memory, and while he was no perpetrator of them, he was there nevertheless. After a moment, she nods, expression difficult to read.

She briefly lays a gloved hand on Castiel's shoulder. Cassandra's, even. "Hello again." Looking off down the trail, she narrows her eyes slightly. "Whatever the danger is, something must be done."

On they press, on down the trail. Itana is more than prepared for this kind of trip. She doesn't tire visibly, calling pauses once or twice to give everyone a chance to drink a bit of water or have something to keep their strength up - but soon enough, they've moved ahead to where a fire watcher waits.

Technology, even this small, is not Itana's forte. She does pick up one of the offered packs, looking at the radio suspiciously before relegating it to a spot on her belts next to her quiver. "The ravine first, while it is still light. I do not like the idea of fighting monsters in the dark."

    Stelle looks back at CASSANDRA. "Stelle." she says, likely by way of introduction. The grey-haired girl doesn't look like much. Especially compared to some of the others here she looks like a stiff breeze would knock her over.

    However, similaly to the hidden angel, this waifish girl doesn't complain about the hike. The Divine amongst the group may note an aura about her, it's not a pleasant one.

    She pulls something from out of sight, setting it on the ground beside the tower. It unfolds into a floating crystal of some kind, then faintly glows a pale green for a moment. She then 'reaches' into it, pulling some basic supplies out and nodding to the others... she even offers a clear packet of green 'candies' to the others. "Trick Snacks?" she explains.

    She doesn't really offer much insight to the options for travel, letting the others take point.

    Duncan also offers a greeting to Itana, though he offers a pleasant greeting of a smile and a calm, "Greetings." He does remember her, though he doesn't try to greet her all buddy-buddy -- he might have met her all of once or twice.

    Castiel's words of strange incidents gets a frown. "I did only happen along by chance, but I will assist if you would have me," he offers to Castiel.

    He did come here expecting to camp, so he's got some supplies. That said, he will take a flashlight if offered by the person in the fire watch tower. He nods to Itana's words as well. "I agree. The area around the lake will likely be more open; a ravine is the last place I would want to be in confined quarters in the dark."

    Oh hey, candies! If Stelle offers them to him as well, he will accept a few. "Ah, thank you," he notes. He does have a bit of a sweet tooth!

    It's worth noting that, despite his own dark-feeling aura, he doesn't seem to get unnerved or anxious around any possibly-radiantly radiating folk here. Perhaps he can't sense it.

    When Castiel seems to recognize him, Tyrael nods. He'd suspected she might be out here for the same reason as him. As they start down the trail into the forest, he nods in polite greeting toward the others and the fire watcher although he doesn't take any of the offered food or supplies. 

    "What else do we know about these strange incidents? What about the missing boy and his father?"

    To the ravine then. That seems to be the general consensus, so the party starts heading that way.
    Duncan and Stelle's auras earn them some inquisitive looks from Castiel, but she's not going to complain if they're helping, so she doesn't question it. For now.
    "Not much. The father was said to be an avid outdoorsman, displeased with his son's... Introverted manner. So he brought him to the forest to try and make an outdoorsman of him too. It clearly did not go well, when they both vanished after several weeks in the woods."
    It's about an hour's way to the ravine, and the forest opens up into the ravine itself, a river had once run through this region but long dried up, cutting a path into the mountainous region nearby. Which means when the forest opens up the party is already at the bottom of the ravine and has to work their way up.
    Castiel pulls out a set of binoculars and examines the path ahead with them.
    What she misses is the lone figure that seems to be watching the group from up on ahead that vanishes into a crevice in the rocks a moment later.
    She also takes a candy when offered.

Itana wouldn't consider any of her travel companions from the Damcyan journey 'friends,' per se. They were there at a time that changed her life for the worse. Duncan gets a glance from her now and then, but her focus is on the hunt right now.

Fortunately for Itana, not only can she not read auras, she has no aura to put out - she seems by all evident measures to be a bog-standard human, albeit one clearly not from around here. She purses her lips as Castiel explains things. "The father should be spoken to about that," she says with a slight scowl. "If the son has other options to live his life happily, it is not the place of the father to force him into needless hardship."

The trek to the ravine is little issue for her. Without binoculars, she settles into a crouch behind a large boulder and begins to visually scan the cleft in the landscape.

What Castiel does not spot, Itana does. Wordlessly, she points towards the crevice where that shadowy figure vanished. She begins to prowl forward, almost catlike in her approach as she maneuvers from cover to cover, trying to get close to that cryptic spot.

    Stelle pops a candy in her mouth. It emits a sharp snapping sound and seems to 'stick' to the roof of her mouth. She doesn't seem to mind all that much. Of course she offers to everyone. She's an introvert not a jerk.

    She's largely quiet on the trip to the ravine, but those golden eyes of hers snap up to the figure watching them. "... Company." she alerts, pointing to where the figure was a moment before. Itana seems to have that on lock, but the Trailblazer moves to assist. Summoning her spaceball bat from seemingly nothing, she stalks forward, following Itana's path.

    If Duncan notices the inquisitive look Castiel gives him, he doesn't mention it. But at least he's not actively ignoring it either -- in that way people do when they're VERY OBVIOUSLY trying to ignore something. He just... doesn't react.

    He does however, listen to the explanation from Castiel about the father and son that disappeared. And his opinion is pretty much the same as Itana's. "Sometimes the apple falls quite far from the tree... and the tree is very unhappy about it. Though it's none of the tree's business where the fruit goes when it falls from the branch."

    He didn't notice the figure until the area was pointed out. "What is it?" Stelle's observation gets a blink, and he looks in the direction Itana and Stelle are looking in. Duncan probably doesn't see it, but there's something in that direction...

    So he shifts his instrument case around, and opens it from the 'wrong' side. That seems to be where he's stored his sword, since he retrieves it from there, and then slings the case on his back where it's out of the way.

    "Hmm." Tyrael looks pensive when Castiel tells the story about the father and son, although there is no evidence of either approval or disapproval of the father's actions. If he is disturbed by dark auras, he doesn't show it. These people are allies, for now.

    When the rest of the party's attention is drawn toward the crevice where the mysterious figure appears, he follows them carefully.

    "Ah...?" Looks like Castiel missed what the others saw, but as the party starts heading in that direction--...
    There is a rumble. Dust and debris fall from the ravine wall.
    Before a large rock comes tumbling down.
     It happens quickly, a small earth-slide of rocks, but the big one- about the size of a cinder block drops straight down.
    Castiel's hand sets on Duncan's shoulder, it's a quick contact, but from her fingers spread a sense of safety, protection, and security as the rock tumbles down precipitously fast and-- bounces harmlessly off of the Dark Knight as though he were wearing his full suit of armor.
    "That was not a natural rockslide." The blonde mutters as the party reaches the spot where the shadow vanished to. It looks like there's a hidden crawlspace that couldn't be seen from afar.
    But on the other side...
    On the other side of the crawlspace is a young boy's 'home base'. Toys litter the floor, untouched for a year covered in dust, drawings of superheroes and pages torn from comic books are pasted to the rock wall. There's a section for some electronic toys, a box of graphic novels, and a little 'alarm' system of cans on a string that has fallen apart over the time it's been here. But no sign of anyone...
    

This isn't the first ravine Itana's explored. At the first subtle sound of crackling rock, she looks straight up and sweeps her arm out as if to signal the others in the group: Back off.

It happens quickly enough that there might not be time, but for Itana's part, being fast is part of what she does. She vaults backward, hitting the ground and tumbling away swiftly. A big chunk of debris crunches into the ground where she was standing a few seconds prior, but by then she's well clear and rolling back to one knee, bow drawn and arrow en route to the string. She draws and scans the ridgeline intently, silent as she tries to spot the danger.

She can't find anyone. Frowning, she falls back in with the group and returns the arrow to her quiver.

The 'home base' adds to Itana's confusion. Knitting her brows, she folds her arms across her ribs as she looks about the place. "A child hiding in a rock face? Who would leave a child in a place like this? And how would they survive out here?"

    Rocks fall, everyone dies? Not while Stelle's here. She does... something... to her bat, the main body starts to glow brilliantly blue-white. She then hauls back and SMASHES a rock coming straight for her like a major leaguer swinging for the fences.

    Stelle then frowns a bit, seeing the 'home base' setup. "Father got hurt... or taken? Child had to learn to survive fa from civilisation?" she suggests, speaking up the most she's done so, since she arrived.

    Rocks fall and... nobody dies, surprisingly. Duncan had just shifted to prepare for the rock rolling at him -- that sword does kinda look like a big flat paddle from some angles, after all -- but the contact from Castiel, and the sensation of safety, gives him pause. He blinks as the rock bounces off. Though it's pretty clear that was due to Castiel's influence, so he gives her a nod. "Thank you," he replies. "That would probably have been bad if you hadn't helped me."

    Itana's question gets a tilt of Duncan's head. "Could be that the boy was not just brought here, but brought here and left," he suggests. "Though I hope not; I had hoped that society was long past such asinine 'tests of strength' for their children..."

    Stelle's suggestion is a far better one, and Duncan nods. "I hope it's more that. Does it look like anyone's been here recently?" he inquires.

    When the rocks begin to fall, a glowing golden shield suddenly appears around the group, absorbing the impact of the rockslide before dissipating once it's all over.

    Tyrael then follows the others into the small cave where it appears the boy may have previously been hiding. But had his father been with him, or had he been alone? He picks up one of the graphic novels, examining it briefly before putting it back and continuing to search for any evidence of where the boy may have gone.

    "Consider it my pleasure." Castiel replies to Duncan when he thanks her. But then she frowns.
    Everything looks like it's been untouched for... Quite some time now. Though Castiel seems to find something amid all the toys. It seems to be a diary.
    "Rope training... Rock climbing, survival... I'm sick of it all. I just want to go back to the city and be with my friends and go back to school. I hate it out here." She reads aloud, pursing her lips. "I'm sick of dad trying to tell me how to live my life and man me up. I just want to be free. I'm going to leave the forest when he's out hunting next. I'll hide in one of the nearby caves until morning and then take the main trail back to town." She conveniently lore dumps while everyone has a look around the base.
    The comic books are standard superheroes and good vs evil stories. But the thing is... when Tyrael lifts the comic book there seems to be a drawing on the ground under it. Shifting more books aside, it seems to be a map of the ravine and forest, with an X marking a nearby cave that the party likely would have missed.

The entire situation has left Itana frowning. She's good at surviving in the wilderness, but she also had a family to guide her through childhood. For a child to face that life alone....

Indeed, Castiel starts reading - a solution Itana didn't even consider trying. Itana can't read, after all. Settling to one knee, she listens to the little angel's readout. Her lips come together, and she looks up towards the cave roof with a slow rush of breath through her nose. "For a father to build such resentment in the son," she murmurs, but doesn't finish.

The map is soon exposed. Itana takes notice and moves to check it out. "This matches our surroundings," she observes before taking an arrow and using the head to mark out a route.

"If we follow this course, we should get to that cave quickly."

    Stelle frowns a bit, looking through the paraphinalia. She frowns a bit, placing a hand over her chest with a contemplative look on her face.

    Then Itana says they should move, and she turns with a determined expression.

    Listening to Castiel's reading of the diary, he nods. "About what I expected. Perhaps we should keep that; there may be authorities in this area who disagree with these parenting techniques as well," he he suggests.

    There's a map! Itana draws attention to it, and Duncan nods. "If this place has been abandoned for so long, there's a likelihood he made for there," he notes. "We may find him there, or along the way."

    Tyrael notices the map after picking up the book, frowning at it. Hm, had the child drawn that? But if he was planning on returning to the city, why would he mark another cave in the area?

    Well, there was only one way to find out. He starts to head out toward the location marked on the map.

    "Mmmmmm..." Castiel muses thoughtfully as the map is uncovered. "It has been a year since any sign of father or son have been seen. I do not with to say expect the worst but..." She trails off as the party leaves the boy's home base and heads deeper into the ravine towards the cave where he supposedly hid away. It's another hidden spot in the ravine wall, very easy to miss, but the group finds it easily enough.
    Thanks to the footprints.
    There's a fresh set of footprints leading into the cave.
    Castiel produces a flashlight and clicks it on as the party makes their way inside to... Find a locked gate. The caves were all locked off just as the fire watcher said and this one seems to be no exception. But it looks like the footprints walk clean through the gate.
    "It's getting dark..." Castiel does note. "But we likely don't have time to go back and ask for the key."
    And the trail leads right inside, too.

Itana narrows her eyes slightly. She slips out of the hideout and follows the path along.

The footprints make things easier. They feel entirely too fresh. Moving along the path they trace out, Itana pauses upon reaching the locked gate. The trail of prints meanders straight past it.

There's no key in sight. Itana looks towards Castiel. "This is not going to be a very angelic action, so feel free to look away," she suggests.

She then fishes a sprig of metal out of one of her pouches and gets to work trying to pick the lock. It's taking some doing. Itana knows *how* to do this, but she's not a natural thief, and she's taking care not to snap her pick off in the lock.

    Tyrael follows the footprints as the party makes its way toward the closed off caves. He examines the trail...the prints look fresh. But that hideout definitely didn't. If the child had been gone from it for over a year, who left these recently?

    There are plenty of...less clandestine ways he could have gotten past those doors himself, but it seems Itana already has it well in hand.

    Duncan nods to Castiel's cautionary words. "Indeed. If we do find him, he may not exactly be hale and healthy if we do," he agrees.

    The footprints moving up to the locked gate gets a frown, though. "...Has there been any disturbances of the gate itself? It looks like someone walked right through the gate..."

    Of course, following this train of thought, he's going to look at the footprints! What do they look like? Are they human... or something else...?

    To answer Duncan: the gate is a little rusty but it looks like it hasn't been busted through... And the footprints are very human, with a hiking boot tread to them. Castiel nods her head and... Covers her eyes. Because if there is anything she has learned, it would be 'see no evil'. But with a click the lock comes undone and the gate squeals open, the rusty hinges echoing in the dark beyond...
    The entryway leads into a narrow path, with a hole leading down a steep fall to one side while a 'corridor' of stone goes on ahead. But something stops Castiel at the hole down.
    There's a rusty piton embedded in the rock wall, and a snapped off segment of rope attached to it.
    "I do not like this at all..."
    But proceeding down the cave is a straightforward path. There's only one path to it, and it hooks around, has several waist-high drops, and ends in a small alcove, with light shining in from above.
    There's someone here alright. Someone young. Someone who's been here a year now.
    Someone who's rope snapped while climbing down from above. If there's any consolation, it looks like he passed quickly from injuries caused as a result of the fall.
    Castiel sighs.
    "We should go back and report this..."

It's not evil if you don't look, little angel. Itana tries not to be too loud about opening the gate. The rust gives her little choice.

What they discover is, perhaps, something nobody wanted to see. Itana looks down at the alcove and presses her lips together. She's seen bodies in advanced stages of decomposition before, though usually in the desert, where the vultures, Sahuagin and sandworms have had time to pick the bones clean. The child, lying there dessicated and sheltered from predators to let nature take its course, is an unpleasant sight even for her.

She reaches out instinctively to hold a hand in front of Castiel's eyes. "That would be best...."

    So nothing overtly supernatural yet, given the look of those footprints. That can always change, though. He holds that retrieved sword down, but ready to pick it up at a moment's notice. As the group enters and heads in, and Castiel notes the piton and snapped rope, Duncan also purses his lips.

    Looking down, he also sighs. "...One part of the mystery solved at least... poor child," he replies quietly. And a nod to Castiel. "That leaves the father... he disappeared as well, yes?"

    Tyrael follows the party down into the alcove. It seems the child had died from a fall. The sight of the dead body doesn't seem to faze him at all. Still so many questions left unanswered, though. What had happened to the father? Who had been watching them earlier? Did the footprints belong to them? Why were they visiting this dead body? Or perhaps it was not the body they were interested in, but something else in here.

    He starts to search the alcove for anything out of the ordinary.

    There's nothing... Just the snapped rope and the child. Nothing out of the ordinary beyond that.
    It's a sobering sight and Castiel is more than a little somber as a result, when Itana rests that hand on her shoulder. She glances back with pained blue eyes but says nothing. By the time the party leaves the gave the sun has set and the stars twinkle in the darkening night sky.
    "Let's head back to the fire watch tower. They can relay what we found to the local authorities and we can get some sleep for the evening. ... I get the sense that this mystery will not be solved until we find his father." She does note to Duncan.