World Tree MUSH

    Despite the prior week's attack, the people of the west Texas town of Scraggle Peak are... Undeterred. The prospectors want the land, and the Apache tribe is not having it. Though once again the mayor has reached out to offworlders for a more peaceful solution to the issue. He's managed to arrange an actual meeting with the Apaches on neutral ground, on the plains to the west of the town.
    The mayor and his party come riding in at sunset, the tribe having already set up a temporary camp. The Apache Wood Elves are a proud people, their warriors strong and their workers dilligent. The arrivals are ushered into a large communal tent used for meetings of this kind, a small fire crackles in the center of the tent casting a flickering light over everything.
    "Now remember, I want this done peaceable-like. I've got men posted and I'm sure the Apache are ready for anything, so let's just keep to words and everything should go smooth." The mayor says, taking off his hat and scratching at his beard.

    "Agreed," replies Yumi Tachibana, with feeling. Last time went awfully. It was, admittedly, due to outside influence, but it still went awfully. This time, rather than a saloon where everyone can get sloshed, they're out in an apache tent. Hopefully the change in venue will help. "I might not be from this world, but I'm from one like it. I'd absolutely like to end this without bloodshed. I know I'm an outsider, and I look young, but I promise I've got some worthwhile things to say if you're all willing to listen." The girl seats herself comfortably on the ground, or on a mat if they've laid any out for those present.

Holly's just hoping this doesn't result in another gunfight. She doesn't think the Apache's would take well to having a hole ripped in their tent. She's kind of wondering what kind of agreement they've managed to come to. Hopefully there is one, she doesn't need a bunch of vengeful ghosts following her around. Speaking of ghosts she's accompanied by Servis and Lavaux as usual.

Emily Nyx has swapped out her previous ostentatiousness for the appearance of an auburn-haired woman in her thirties, dressed in a midnight-blue business suit. She still has glowing purple eyes and four arms, though. She has her trademark amused and faintly smug smile as she nods to the mayor and sits down next to Yumi; true to her comments to Holly last week, she says nothing, and simply observes the conversation for the moment.

Of course, last week was also reminder -- nearly a grim reminder -- that her common sense is somewhat lacking and she doesn't always notice the right things. So she's just going to watch for what she can see, and, y'know, follow Yumi's lead again.

Mariam Highscribe is wondering what exactly is her sister trying to do here. Is there some ulterior motive? Is it just money? Does she think there's a solution to her world's problem out here in the desolate frontier of their own world that she's playing odds while she investigates to keep both parties out of her hair? Does she just like causing problems!? She doesn't know. She doesn't have answers.

She'd come along because she feels invested now because her sister is involved, but these other parties seem to know a bit more. At least one seems to have encountered her sister before. This means the other witch is jogging to catch up to Holly. "So uh." she says. "How exactly do you know my sister?" she asks curiously, Mariam's tone more curious than anything else, as she looks up over at Yumi. "I don't think I caught... any names. Actually." she says. "Because I walked in and my sister was there who uh."

"I haven't seen in fifty years. I'm Mariam Highscribe..." she says as the group travels towards the tent.

"This should be easy enough. If we stick to words. And keep or hands to ourselves. I think." she says, folding her arms over her chest and tapping her far arm in thought.

    It's not a long wait before the tent flaps open once again and five figures emerge. Three wizened old wood elves, flanked on either side by a younger and much more physically built warrior. Dressed in furs and beads, the five take seats on one side of the fire and begin to settle in, as one begins to speak.
    "I am Nantan." The center-most elder speaks, before introducing his colleages. "This is Bodaway and Eknath Kuruk. We are the three wise men of our people." He does not introduce the warriors. "We come understanding you want peace to the dispute over our sacred lands."
    There is a poignant pause as eyes fall on Mariam, and the two warrios bristle, before Nantan motions them to stand down. "She is not the Covenless Calamity, Baishan, stand down."
    Well it looks like they're acquainted with Salome in some manner.

"Nice to meet you Mariam! I'm Holly Winn and this is Servis and Lavaux!" She points at the ghosts with one hand and offers her other to shake. "I've ran into your sister a few times, in fact she was the one I suggested that I go to Columbia! Does your sister have a split personality? Sometimes she can be really nice and other times she's quite mean! Wait, it's been fifty years since the black hole was created?" What were you trying to do?" The younger witch is full of questions for Mariam and doesn't have much of a filter.

    Emily gets a soft nod of greeting, then Holly as well; Mariam, however, gets a faint shake of the head. "I don't, if I'm being honest. Last week was the first time I've ever met her. I've met the knight she had with her, though." The less said about that little altercation, the better. "My name is Yumi Tachibana. 'Yumi' is fine," she adds; hers is pretty foreign to most here, after all. "Think of me as a wandering knight of the sun. I'm not a fan of bloodshed and tragedy." She folds her hands in her lap while she listens to introductions, with a particular glance at the miners.

Emily ruffles Holly's hair, and nods to Mariam. "I'm Emily Nyx, a Eudaemon created to serve the extinct masters of the halcyon remnant of the world I came from," she says. "I'm in a sort of rivalry with the Covenless Calamity which is much weirder than Holly's ideological opposition. I'm here as an ... assistant negotiator, you might say." She pauses. "I'll be up-front about the fact that I've taken the wood-elves' side before." She waggles a finger of one of her upper hands. "But I'm also not a fan of bloodshed." Leaving out the part where she has no actual skill with negotiation ...

Mariam listens to the words of the others and looks at Holly. "I wondered the same myself for a long while. I think it's just the way she is." she says to Holly. "...Oh! You go to Columbia...!" pause. "Does ol Mister Fasenbenzer still teach potionomics 101?" she asks. "....does he still make the same mistake every first session of the year and scorch the top of the lab room?" she asks.

She looks over to Emily. "Covenless Calamity, is not a nickname I'm familiar with for her. Why that?" she asks. She looks over to Yumi and frowns. "I do not like the company my sister seems to keep if that's an example of it. I thank you for being there to handle it, Yumi." she says.

The wisemen also use this term 'Covenless Calamity' and they need to stop one of the warriors from moving at her. Ah. Yes. This is also another reason she left her world to seek answers elsewhere.... sometimes being mistaken her for her sister.. "I am Elemental Tactician Mariam Highscribe. I am indeed not my sister. Thank you for meeting with us!" she says, with a bow and sits down carefully.

Hooty is back in town with her broom and isn't here. Hooty may be having himself a drink in a still rebuilding saloon back in town. Hooty deserves this.

    Indtroductions are passed about, and everyone seems to settle in well enough. The trio of wisemen are silent for a moment as the last moment of banter passes, before Nantan speaks again.
    "Our warriors are strong and ever prepared, but as a people we too prefer the path of least bloodshed." He says, resting hands on his knees as he regards the negotiators for the span of a few beats.
    "Our sacred lands have not been disturbed for generations, it is not our desire to open them now to outsiders who wish to pillage the land of resources and metals. ... But for the sake of continued peace we are willing to come to an arrangement of sorts."
    Again he pauses, lips pursing into a frown. "Your sister." He says speaking to Mariam directly now, "Is known amongst the tribes well enough already. A witch who works alone and sows chaos and destruction in her wake wherever she travels. That is why she is called the Covenless Calamity."

"Well, she doesn't fully work alone she just doesn't work with other witches," Holly can't help but to correct them. "Yep, I'm in Potionomics because my potions aren't very effect most of the time in fact!" She nods at Mariam. "You certainly like touching my hair, Emily!" Then again it is long. "I can't figure out why Salome wanted to steal mithril from one place but was working to prevent it from happening elsewhere. Unless she was afraid of being cursed or something. I certainly wouldn't want to mine on a burial ground." it just doesn't make sense to her. "I wonder if there's a Holly on this world due then again it seems to be in the past!"

    Mariam receives a nod. "Things with that knight are... complicated," Yumi says, her expression troubled. "But I'm glad I was able to stop her from hurting anyone." Except, y'know, the people who were fighting her. "And it's good to meet you, Mariam." For the time being, she listens to the wisemen, expression thoughtful, head nodding faintly here and there in an automatic 'I'm listening' gesture. "...I'd like to come back to Mariam's sister a little later, there's some questions I have there. For now, though..."

    The redhead sits herself up a little straighter; her tone doesn't quite become 'authoritative', per se, but she does sound more official, sliding into the role of a negotiator and trying to steer things a bit. "I'm an offworlder, so I don't quite have all the background information on this. I'd like for you all to tell me in your own words. First..." She swings her attention to the miners - whichever one looks the most reasonable. "What exactly is it you're looking to mine, if I may ask? The material itself, what it's used for... whatever you can tell me about it. If it's more than one, a little about all of them?"

Emily nods at Nantan. "Yeah, sounds about right," she says. "She's been somehow involved literally every single time I've stopped by this world, even if she wasn't responsible."

She grins at Holly. "I guess I'll just say outright that I'm trying to get you to chill out, kiddo, you're showing a bit of, uh, extra exuberance."

And then Yumi brings the conversation to business. Her expression doesn't change in the slightest, but her general demeanor is now that of someone who is giving this conversation her full attention.

Mariam listens as she looks at the wiseman, and then she blinks. "My apologies." she says. "But we we're led to believe you hired her to keep the miners off your lands, or from attempting to talk to you." she says. "Or rather, that's the general impression we got. Is that incorrect?" she asks curiously. Her tone is curious. Confused, but not accusatory. She's keeping her tone polite, as she is accustomed.

Her brow furrows heavily at the explanation of the nickname. Why is her sister doing that? Is just pure anger? upset? Something else? Once again she doesn't have answers and she doesn't dare asking them out loud at the moment.

She looks at Holly. "I'll have to drop by now that I'm back on world...." she says at that. "...Well. Keep at it. Potions aren't my major thou." she says.

She looks back at Yumi and the discussion. "Right. Is it just the minerals? Or is it a purpose needed for?" she asks with curiosity.

    The mayor is the big representative of the miners, but there are several other men with him, and to Yumi, one of them does answer, "There's gold and silver of course. But what we're really after is the mithril in the hills. There isn't a witch, warlock, or sorceror alive that wouldn't pay a pretty penny for that metal. It's strong, light, easy to enchant, and holds magic a long time."
    But then the wisemen shake their heads in unison. "We did not hire her." Bodaway replies firmly to Mariam. "The crazed witch took it upon herself to tend to our problems without asking for our input. She seeks to get into our grazes, but goes about it in the most terrible ways possible. We did not ask for her help, yet she seeks ours without coming to us."

    Yumi nods her head faintly. "So I'm guessing magic is pretty important around here. Like oil for lamps, or fire for firewood, you need mythril for enchanted goods." It's here that she turns her attention next to the Apache, addressing Nantan; and it's here that it becomes obvious that her questions are probably not so much for herself. "Elder, could you tell me about your land? Why it's sacred, why it's important to your tribe?" A brief, subtle side glance at the miners, to see if they're listening.

"She's normally this way, you should be worried when she isn't cheerful," Servis points out to Emily.

"I'm just excited to learn more! I wonder if a staff made out of mithril would help improve my magic..." The witch can't help but to daydream a bit.

 "If it doesn't you can always hit people with it," Lavaux can't but to suggest.

 "So she wants your help for something, I wonder what." Holly's snapped out of her trance. "Yeah, they don't really have much that uses electricity yet. Then again my parents were never really big on tech, so it was easier for me to adjust."

When Bodaway explains the issue with Salome, Emily slow-facepalms. "Mariam, your sister has the literal worst kind of savior complex," she says flatly. "Though, you do actually raise a good point, Holly. If she does want something out of the Apache beyond just wanting to be seen as 'the one who saved everything' by hook or by crook ..." She shrugs.

She focuses her attention on the Apache when Yumi poses her question. Or at least, she seems to. Secretly, she materializes a camera-eye under her hair, which is also pointed directly at the miners; her eyes don't need to glow and call attention to themselves.

Mariam looks over at the wisemen and she frowns. "So she's just doing whatever she wants...." a deep breath. "...like always." she says. She seems to take an exasperated sigh that makes her bangs fly up a little. What does Salome want with so much Mithril. Surely she doesn't need that much for her special bullets. Unless she intends to fight an army... or try to make one big bullet to shoot at the void.

But that basically sounds ridiculous. Yumi seems to be handling the specifics, but answers for Yumi. "Yes." she says. "Very important, in that respect." she says with a series of nods. She leans over to Holly. "Maybe! If your spells are fizzling you, it might help keep them stable." she says. "...Also that!" she helpfully suggests at the 'hit people with it', as she leans back. She may ask Holly about her ghost friends later. This doesn't particular seem odd to her at the moment.

She eyes Emily. "Tell me about it." she mutters under her breath.

    "Magic is the norm around these parts." The mayor explains to Yumi. "We've got steam up and coming, but it's the witches who provide the people with so much around here." Therefore, the mithril is pretty important. But then it is Eknath Kuruk who answers next. ... By drawing lines in the dirt with his fingers.
    "The lifeblood of the planet resides in those lands." He says cryptically at first before going into more detail: "The world's energy and life coalesces in those regions, it is a land heavy and rife with leylines that must not be disturbed. That is why they are sacred."
    Nantam speaks next: "We believe the one called Salome desires access to those leylines. It is why we have recieved word from many tribes of the east of her dalliances with them. For what reason she seeks them, I could not possibly know."
    "Which leads to our next point. We are willing to let the men of Scraggle Peak mine, so long as they leave the great leylines undisturbed in their digging, and remain to the north of the river."

    The Apache are being more than reasonable, and even jumping ahead of her to offer good terms; Yumi's main concern isn't them, but rather the miners. There's a dozen different ways this could go wrong, some of them very similar to the way things went down in her own world. Both for the Apache, and for the land itself. She's quiet for a moment, nodding to Mariam and Holly, then steeples her fingers.

    "There is one thing I'd like to add to that. Back home, on my world - and on other Earths, that have no magic at all - mining can easily get out of hand. Just from chemicals, trash, and runoff, the land gets poisoned, and nothing can live there until it gets cleaned up. And that can take decades or more. In a place like this, where the land really is alive, where there's magic in all of it..." She closes her eyes. "...I don't want to think about what'd happen."

    Eyes open again, Yumi sits up. "So I'd like for the Apache to show the miners this land. Just... see the land itself. Get a good look at it. And then promise yourselves, you won't ruin it. That your grandchildren and their grandchildren dserve to see it the way it is now, rather than a barren, ruined wasteland."

"Could she be trying to use the leylines to boost her magic and the mithril to absorb the black hole?" Holly can't help but to wonder. "Or she needs a ton of souls for something? She was forcing witches to help her hex people to death in Salem. That might have something to do with it?"

 "Perhaps, she's trying to create a vessel of souls?" Servis suggests to the others.

"This is like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle without the box to know what it looks like!" She sounds a bit frustrated.

Emily nods along with this. Nantam is giving them very important information, and Yumi raises a good point. "Sounds like a good idea to me," she says.

She smiles at Holly, and gently places a hand on her shoulder. "One thing at a time, kiddo," she says, in an almost motherly tone. "Keep your eyes on the task at hand. We can figure out what Salome is up to later."

Hooty may be looking through Mariam's eyes to take notes. She'll probably try to take these puzzle pieces and figure out what she could be doing. It'll probably mean a trip to Columbia anyways and she's totally telling mom and dad what's Salome's been up to!.... She looks to Holly with wide eyes. "SHE WHA---" and then she throws her hands to her mouth and leans over and whisper-yells "She what!?" she says. "That's going way too far....! She must think she's close to a solution. It won't work...! You can't..." she frowns.

"We'll talk later... about that." she says as she sits up straight and crossing her arms. "Right."

"Miss Yumi's suggestion sounds personally reasonable, if the miners agree to it, and keep their word." she says softly. "Everyone gets what they want, and everyone is happy." she says with a curt series of nods.

    There is silence for a beat after the Apache offer their terms and the miners take a moment to let it sink in. It IS more than reasonable, but Yumi hammers it home with a term of her own. The wisemen exchange glances. The mayor and his men look to one another.
    "Regardless of the plans of the Covenless Calamity, we see no issue with showing the men of Scraggle Peak the land." The wisemen decide.
    "And me and my boys think that's fine and dandy too." The mayor announces after a brief huddle with his men.
    It sounds like the mining issue has been peacefully resolved.

"Well, I thought it might be a good idea to warn them if Salome tries something like that again. She might try to sneak onto the land without permission if she's that desperate. Or hex the miners to death." Holly's staying on-topic in her own way. "You were there as well, you know what happened." Her head turns towards Emily as she said that. "I agree with the others." She doesn't really have anything to add as far as the negotation goes.

    Once more, Yumi speaks, this time to everyone - including Miriam. "If Salome starts causing trouble again, let me know, if you can. I'll be glad to help solve whatever problem she's bringing. You already know I'm pretty handy with a sword."

Emily nods to Holly. "Okay, gotcha," she says. She smiles. "Well, looks like all's well that ends well, regardless!"

She nods to Yumi. "Let it be known that I'm willing to help, too," she says. "Salome's gunning for me personally, ever since I zapped her non-lethally in the face while she was robbing a train." She grins. "I mean. Frankly, fighting her is too fun, which is why I indulge her bloodlust, but. Like." She gestures vaguely. "I'd rather fight on the 'good guy' side on general principles."

(Those principles are supposedly that the consequences of fighting on the 'bad guy' side would be a pain, but she's not that bad a diplomat, so she lets it go unsaid.)

Mariam taps her far arm. "I can always send Hooty off to gather people." Hooty slams another shot at this way back at the saloon. "I'm sure he won't mind." he slams another. "It'll be his pleasure!...." another shot.

She frowns. "Does she normally hire people to help her like that knight?" she asks. "That's gonna be a problem." she says as she scrunches her nose. She eyes Holly.

"I'm probably heading to Columbia when I'm done here." she says. "I need to access their library. Look some of this stuff up to double check some things." she says as she crosses her arms. She looks to Emily and nods and to Yumi. "...I should talk to you again very soon, regardless once I see if I can't dredge up potential designs Sall---Salome is working towards." she says.

"Well, she had bandits working for her before. She was alone when I met her on the spaceship Titanic though. There was another witch there named Magilou though, I wonder what happened to her." Holly's reminded of their first meet. "We can certainly meet up at Columbia though!" Now she's excited again.

Mariam gives a little series of claps. "Excellent!" she says. "There used to be a quaint little shop nearby that used to do good tiny sandwiches... I wonder if it's still there..." she says as she scrunches her nose in thought.

"I should get back to my broom and----- wow that is a lot of glasses." she says as if a non-sequitor but it's mostly at the amount of empty glasses she sees in front of Hooty through his eyes.

Emily just smiles at Holly's enthusiasm, and simply nods to Mariam. "Columbia U seems as good a place to meet as any," she says. She gets to her feet, stretches (even though she's a machine), and waves with her left hands. "I'll be seeing you guys around, then!" And with that, she opens a staticky portal, and vanishes through it.