[Mission] Do Not Feed After Midnight

[Mortalvis]

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It was hot, but that was a given for Wind Country. The sun blazed down upon the sprawling land of dunes, the sandy stretches dotted by the occasional cactus flower plant. However uninteresting it looked, one of the many mundane dunes scattered over the desert held something much the opposite.

"...You really think there are gremlins in there, Haruna?" a tall, timid-looking boy asked the pink-haired girl. He had been introduced as Mori and despite his skittishness, he had been good company.

Curiously, Mori peered into the cave, but it was pitch black and anything inside was concealed.

"They say gremlins are mean. I hope for your sake that these ones aren't. Oh, um, I'm not supposed to go in with you. I mean--I'm not scared or anything, the village just said I was supposed to escort you. That's all. Really." Backing away from the mouth of the cave, he smiled sheepishly and began to rummage through his knapsack.

"This is for you. It's a lantern, 'cause, well, it's kinda dark in there. You be careful, alright?"

When Haruna was ready to enter the cave, she would find herself walking for a little ways before coming to the cavern's main chamber. What she'd find there was unknown, but if the myth of the gremlins was true...

[Pokefan137]

'Gremlins, gremlins, gremlins, gremlins, gremlins, gremlins, gremlins...'

Haruna kept thinking the word over and over as she rode happily on Pharoah's back, Goliath neatly sealed away on Pharoah's hip. She was so excited. Gremlins! She was going to be able to study gremlins!!! They were so rare that most everyone thought they were a myth, and that meant that every piece of information she could gather would be a contribution to the knowledge of the world! A blank notebook and several pencils were strapped to her side, ready for her to take notes, make sketches, draw diagrams, and everything else she could to record the unique information that was in the gremlin civilizaion. She wanted to know it all!!! What they ate, where they slept, what their government was like, if they even had a government or were more free spirited, if they were nice or mean, what the differences were between their males and females, which was dominant in relationships, the list of question extended on and on and on until Haruna became lost in her thoughts, imagining everything that a real life gremlin might possibly be like. She was shaken from her thoughts by her new friend Mori. He was so nice, and very helpful. Plus, he was a chunin, the mighty warriors who could destroy mountains by blowing on them and make new canyons by kicking the ground.

"I'm not sure if they are or not," said the pink haired girl yawning. "But I really hope they are. I want to study them and write a book on how gremlins actually are to contribute to the library. Imagine what a benifit it would be to have such rare knowledge at our disposal." The girl blinked in excitment. She was so excited that her eyes were almost completely open...almost. When they got to the cave and excited, or at least excited for her, smile crossed her face. There it was. Her adventure lie in that cave, as well as a thousand mysteries. Mori gave her the lantern, which she thanked him for before he left her to her own devices. She stayed outside the cave watching him until he was completely gone before she entered the cave, Pharoah's claws making a light clicking sound on the ground.

As the girl walked into the cave she thought it best to take a naturalists approach. She didn't know what the gremlins were like, and she really didn't want to scare them away before she got to observe them. She had to be stealthy. Super stealthy. As stealthy as a tigress stalking her prey, only without the eating or hurting them part. The girl hooked the lantern around the handle on Pharoah's saddle so her hands were free to control her puppet completely. Pharoah began walking closer to the wall before he actually started walking on the wall, with Haruna using chakra to stay seated on his back. She wondered how she would be able to observe them without them seeing her light, eventually deciding to move her hair around the outside of the lantern, not touching it, but dimming the light enough that it might seem like the glow of phosphorescent moss that that of man made light. She couldn't see as far ahead of her as she once could, but it was still enough for her to observe her more immediate surroundings, and she could still see enough to write down her notes and such.

Eventually she saw the opening into a large chamber in the cave. She had been carefully observing so far, but a large chamber was trickier. She directed Pharoah to climb up and start walking on the ceiling so she wouldn't startle any potential gremlins that might be lurking on the floor. She walked on the roof of the cave, moving as stelathy as she possibly could between the stalagtites so the she might not be seen from the bottom. Carefully, she began to move her long pigtails, letting a little more light shine so she could see if there were any specimens lurking on the chamber floor.

[Mortalvis]

All was still and quiet. The chamber wasn't very large, but as one might imagine, neither were gremlins. Except there were no signs of such creatures anywhere. There were no other exits to the cavern than the one Haruna had used to enter it, which meant that either her information had been faulty or the gremlins were somehow concealing themselves. Or perhaps they were invisible, or experts at hide and seek. Regardless, there were none in sight, but--

Wait, what was that? The soft clatter of nails upon the cold stone resonated faintly throughout the chamber. It was either a many-footed creature or several in a group, but none of the scratching seemed to be coming from the chamber floor. No, rather, they were scurrying across the ceiling and closing in on Haruna's position quite quickly.

"Ario! Vuf nibarwe sma gynp!" The voice, while strong and frantically loud, came from a small creature that stood half a foot in height. It had large, bat-like ears, dark brown skin, a mouse-like tail and clawed hands and feet. Its face was bat-like as well, with large, dark eyes and a flat nose upon a short snout. The little critter was in the company of two others, all of which clung skillfully the the cavern ceiling. Although it had been the one speaking, it didn't seem to be the leader. It was to the left of a proud beast wearing a headdress made of leaves with small bones dangling from it. The two critters at his sides wore nothing but a simple loin cloth and carried spears made of twigs with sharp, metal shards attached to the ends.

"Egap tiy epr?" the middle gremlin called up at Pharoah and Haruna. He was much calmer than his companion, noted by his steady, curious gaze and his posture.

[Pokefan137]

Haruna's eye glistened with excitment as her hand took notes and made drawings at roughly 400 miles an hour, give or take a few. Pages of notes practically filled themselves with every step that the goblins took.

'Oh my gosh! I'm getting to see real goblins! They're cultured. They have clothes. That gremlin has a headdress, which means cheif, which means goverment and THEY HAVE ALANGUAGE!!!!!!' mentally she freaked out, practically oblivious to the fact that they had spears. The fact that they were civilized was exactly what she had hoped for. She tried to observe their reactions to figure out how to comunicate. The ones in front of her had yelled, and she guessed maybe it wasn't talking to her but to the other goblins, probably telling them of her prescense. The one in front had used a questioning tone, so she thought it best to respond. Luckily, she had come prepared for if they were civilized. She knew her mission, but with an oppurtunity such as this, she wanted to get much more out of this than what the village requested. With any luck, she would have the artifact, a comprehensive book on gremlin culture, and, most importantly, an alliance between the gremlins and Suna!!! Haruna reached behind her to Pharoah's right hip, opposite the hip where Goliath was stored. Applying chakra she released the seal that was there and grabbed the peace offering she had prepared, a large basket of fruit specially grown in her family's secret garden, before it could fall to the ground.

Bowing humly she presented the basket to goblins ahead of her, hoping to show friendship. She knew fruit was rare in the desert (the only reason her family had it was because her guardian Yuri grew it deep in the Rekishi Juu archives, below ground, and used jutsu to create the environment for them to grow), so hopefully they might take well to the rare treats. They did seem to have bat qualities. Maybe they were like fruit bats. She looked forward to finding out.

After handing over the basket, she flipped towards the back of her book, and began drawing pictures, quite artistically if she said so herself. When she was done, she pulled the pages out of her book, and handed them over to the calm toned gremlin. Upon them was a comic book-like story board, illustaring:

Panel 1: Haruna enters the cave with treats, smiling

Panel 2: Haruna meets gremlins

Panel 3: Haruna hands treats to gremlins

Panel 4: Gremlins and Haruna become friends, lots of smiling and jumping for joy

Panel 5-7: Haruna is studying the gremlins as they go about their daily lives (with uncharateristically large eyeballs)

Panel 8: Gremlin chief (who she drew as very muscular and handsome wearing his headdress and working it) and Haruna shaking hands with large smiles on their faces, with a rainbow flying over their head.

The girl ripped a couple more pages out of her book, and handed it to the gremlin with one of her many extra pencils, hoping they would illustate to her their wishes and desires as she had done.

[Mortalvis]

When the fruit was presented to the trio, the gremlins were rather curious about what it was. They had never seen fruit before, as they mostly lived on the fungus that grew upon the cave walls. It was a modest diet, though perhaps not the most nutritious.

It only took until Haruna began to offer paper and pencils for the gremlins to refocus themselves. They passed incredulous looks to one another before the middle one declined Haruna's offer.

"Stop, human. I understand your tongue, so speak it to me. We cannot be too careful of outlanders or humans." While the gremlin certainly did speak Haruna's language, it was course and riddled with the accent of his native tongue. His articulation was rough and his words were spoken slowly.

"Fi, veubh ur ri 'Burned Eyes'," he said to his companions, ordering them to start taking some of their fruit offering back to 'Burned Eyes'. The title was spoken clearly in Haruna's tongue, but it was still a mystery as to what it was.

Once his subordinates stumbled off, doing their best to carry a few pieces of the fruit along with them, the gremlin in the headdress turned back to Haruna.

"I am Nuarwet. I believe in your tongue... I am Seeks-Mystery. I am the war chief of the Dwellers. You... you are from Sand Prison. Why do you come to us?" He stared up at Haruna, his short arms folded across his chest.

[Pokefan137]

Haruna's hand once more moved at mach five as she took more notes in her book.

'Oh my gosh! They speak my language!' Haruna paused for a moment. 'You know, I'm not actually sure if my language has a name. I've just called it my language. It's the same language that everyone in the five villages speak, but do we actually have a name for it? And come to think of it, what's the name of the language that we use when calling out jutsu? It's different from the language we normally speak, but still everyone seems to know how to translate to it...Oh well. Time to figure that out later. Back to the gremlins'

"A pleasure to meet you great Chief Nuarwet. I am Haruna, from...Sand Prison? Why do you call my home Sand Prison? But, anyway, I am a scholar and historian from...Sand Prison, and I have come to research your culture and people, to form alliances between our two peoples, and to ask for your assistance and any possible donations you might wish to make to a grand library being built by my people that will contain artifacts, books, and information from every people and area in the entire world...eventually."

[Mortalvis]

Haruna's eagerness to voice her desires was lost on Seeks-Mystery. His head was canted to the left by the time she got to words such as 'scholar' and 'historian', and he was completely baffled at the mention of 'alliances' and 'artifacts'. The most he got from what she had said was her name and her confirmation that she was from Sand Prison.

"You humans speak much very quickly. Too much. You are Haruna, I am Seeks-Mystery. Is there more to speak of than this? Simple, simple." Seeks-Mystery righted his posture and gestured for Haruna to follow him.

"I let you come to Dwellers, but you leave Big Monster behind." With that, he began to make his way down from the ceiling and dropped onto the cave floor.

"Now, you asked about why we call your home Sand Prison? I tell you. You live behind walls all day, all night to keep out others. We see the walls. They are greater than we are. They keep us out. They keep you in. We so surprised you are here because they did not keep you in. You are here, from Sand Prison," the gremlin explained as he led Haruna across the cavern toward a pile of rocks. While the cavern looked to be a single room at first glance, this pile of rubble was simply blocking the passage deeper into the system. There would be enough room for the girl to pass through, but the gremlin leading her had a much easier time slipping between the rocks.

[Pokefan137]

Haruna felt completely silly. She had been using advanced vocabulary on someone who had a moderate understanding of her language. Of course they wouldn't understand a lot of what she was talking about. She made a mental note to be more careful in the future, using more simplistic language.

The girl quickly followed suit as Pharoah let go of the ceiling, twisting in midair, and dropping to the ground with a thump. The gremlin leader wanted her to leave Pharoah behind, which made her very nervous. She never liked leaving her puppets behind. They were precious partners to her, but, then again, he was also very dangerous, so she could understand them not wanting her to bring him along. She got off her precious puppet before she followed the gremlin leader.

"I can definitly see why you would call my home a Prison." she said speaking slowly. "Our village is very concerned about being protected from the outside world, though the leader of my...tribe, Banin Hito, is trying to make us more open to the outside world through the...bonds our library, a place of knowledge and books, will make. Our walls may be high, but one day we shall have people from all parts of the world welcomed into our arms through the bonds of knowledge and sharing." she hoped that was simple enough to communicate.

As she walked behind the cheif, she took notes on everything she saw around her, trying to make sure no detail was left out. Eventually they got to a rock wall, and the two of them passed through, into parts unknown.

[Mortalvis]

Given the way he nodded every so often, Seeks-Mystery seemed to collect the important parts of what Haruna was saying. He remained silent, however, as they passed through the rock wall and into a narrow section of the tunnel system which ran deeply beneath the desert. Bioluminescent fungus grew along the walls, providing natural light as they traveled down a slope which went on for a good twenty yards before it leveled again. Here the trail opened up into a sizable cavern which the gremlins called home.

The walls of the chamber were coated with drawings done in a dye made from desert plants. They were difficult to interpret, depicting small, black blobs and several slender white figures all moving toward a skull. Well, the skull part was up for debate, but it was definitely a white object which resembled a skull. What was strange about it was that it was certainly not human-shaped, and it had fires burning from its dark eye sockets. Many of the other drawings around the cavern showed the same thing, though there were hand prints, foot prints and other kinds of markings as well.

This could all be seen thanks to the fungus which had been placed in crevices in the rock to act like torches. The organic light sources revealed the gremlin's settlement. They had bedrolls made from cactus flower petals, where the majority of the gremlins slept. In the camp, there were around thirty gremlins standing about, none of which really seemed phased by Haruna's presence. They gazed at her, sure, but they weren't hostile, especially when they saw their war chief leading her in.

"Most are not warriors. Not dangerous. Do not let their stares bother you," Seeks-Mystery said as he brought Haruna more deeply into their settlement. He led her toward a small indent in the wall, which was marked by the same colorful paints as the walls. It seemed to indicate importance--clearly, this was the den of a significant member of their society, but it was not Seeks-Mystery's den.

"This is Kibgaim's den. Kibgaim. It means 'Long Sun'. He is the shaman. He come speak to you. He speak your tongue too, and he might know what you are looking for, gynp." Disappearing into the den for a moment, Seeks-Mystery returned with another gremlin in tow.

Long Sun looked to be a young gremlin, but he had a deep wisdom hiding behind his dark eyes. There were markings upon his body which glowed not unlike the fungus lighting up the cave. He wore a simple necklace made of small bones and a leaf loin cloth around his waist.

The shaman did not seem surprised to see a human, told by the soft smile that played upon his lips.

"I have been expecting you."

[Pokefan137]

If humans could spontaniously combust from excitement, Haruna was in serious danger. She was looking in every direction at once, trying to draw and absorb more information than was humanly possible. She copied makrings on the wall, drew portraits of goblins, their homes, what they were doing, what they were using to do what they were doing, and everything else she could get her eyes on. She could seriously see herself living amoungst the gremlins for a while just learning about their unique culture. The gremlin chief mentioned something about her being here to get something. She thought for a moment trying to remember if she was here to get something before her mission reappeared in her mind. With all the excitment and all the other things she could do in a situation like this, she had completely forgotten about the mission she was sent here to do. Still, could anyone really blame her? They sent a historical and culture fanatic into a land of the unknown, and they really expected her to remain focused?

When the shaman came out, she almost flipped out. Shaman! A real life shaman! A goblin shaman! They had an instatutionalized religion! Haruna bowed low in a sign of respect to the shaman even as her hands continued to move rapidly across the pages of her ever filling book. "I am honored to meet meet you." she paused. "But how did you know I would be coming? Even I didn't know I would be coming before this morning."

[Mortalvis]

Before Haruna could say anything further, Long Sun held one of his thin fingers up and turned to Seeks-Mystery. The two shared a few words before the war chief nodded and left. Being at the edge of the camp, there weren't any other gremlins around besides Long Sun. He needed his peace, as he was a creature of great spiritual prowess.

When he was sure they were alone, he turned back to Haruna and smiled softly.

"I know many things. I know when the sun will rise and where it will set because it does so each day. This I know. But I know you come here because Burned Eyes tells me so. Burned Eyes speaks to me, you see. He is very cryptic, but He told me I will see pink today, and I see pink." The little gremlin smiled up at Haruna, his eyes closing in a moment of peace.

"Burned Eyes also tells me He wishes to meet you. His reasons are what I do not know, and I do not question Him. Accompany me. I take you to meet Burned Eyes."

Long Sun turned away and started his way toward a narrow crevice in the cave wall. It was tall and just wide enough for Haruna to slip through. It widened on the other side into a passage way lit up by the bioluminescent fungus. At the end, it widened only slightly more than the way to it.

On the ground, on a bed of cactus flower petals and soft sand sat a skull. It was bovine in nature, with wide white horns and a long snout. While there didn't seem to be anything innately special about it, it would take patience to realize that this was indeed the artifact that Haruna was after.

"I bring you what you ask for, Burned Eyes. I share the pink I see with you." Long Sun approached the skull and spoke to it humbly. There didn't seem to be any response at first, but after a minute, smoke started to billow out of the skull's eyes.

"What is that you say, Burned Eyes? Gynp eans ri reae tiy? Hm..." Long Sun's gaze was cast downward and he closed his eyes again.

"That is troubling. Tell me, human, what is it that you plan to do with Burned Eyes?" His eyes shot toward Haruna as suddenly as the smoke stopped coming out of the skull's eye sockets. There was a quaint understanding within Long Sun's gaze, and it appeared that he had somehow learned of the girl's intentions. Was the skull really speaking to him?

[Pokefan137]

"Fascinating." Haruna looked around the shaman's den, but she couldn't help but be drawn to the center. She made sure to do as detailed a sketch as she could of the skull in the center, adding smoke when it seemed to come to life. She was fascinated by the strange artifact, wondering how the smoke was coming out. Was it a mechnism below the skull, or was the skull imbued with some sort of power, similar to the specialzed weapons some shinobi held? Was there a chance that it was actually magical?

Suddenly the shaman turned towards her with a questioning glance. asking her what she wanted with the skull. Haruna raised an eyebrow. "Um, as much a bones are useful in historical research, I'm not really here to gather them. Unless, of course you wish to donate them. As I told your chief, my main goals for being here are to observe and study you, to form an alliance between our two peoples, and to gather any artifacts or books that you might wish to donate to a library my people are forming. If you did wish to donate...Burned Eyes to our library, then I would take it to my people, our scholars would study it using all our skills to preserve it, and it would be placed in our archives or on display for others to see. If you do not wish to donate it, then it is not my place to rob you of your treasure, but if you did wish to donate it, yet worried about us doing what we say, then you, or any of your people, could come along to supervise our study to make sure we took proper respect of it. The same goes for any other thing you might wish to donate, but as I said my main goal is to study your people and create piece between our two...tribes."

[Mortalvis]

Long Sun turned away from Haruna and shook his head.

"You are one of many words and much explanation when all is really so simple." His words were spoken slowly and with deep understanding. The worldly wisdom of the gremlin transcended words and gestures and found its roots in a much more spiritual place. Supernatural peacefulness and content radiated from him as he stood still, his eyes focused upon Burned Eyes. The skull began to billow smoke once again, stopping only after Long Sun uttered a single word in his native tongue.

"Burned Eyes is important to the Dwellers. He brought life where there was nothing and He has protected us from harm since the times of my greatest ancestors. Yet... Burned Eyes speaks to me another riddle. This riddle is not one meant to crack. It is a riddle because I do not understand His intent. He tells me, 'I wish to go. Let me go, and all will be safe and well.' I do not know what to think, but I am not to question His intentions. He says to me too, 'Let me share. I have much to say.'"

Long Sun approached Burned Eyes and picked up one of the fungus stems from next to the skull. He began to mulch it up between his hands until they were covered in a glowing liquid.

"Burned Eyes wishes to speak to you. Put your hand here." Marking the forehead of the skull with the blue, glowing paste, Long Sun waited for Haruna to do as he had asked.

[Pokefan137]

'You know, as much as they keep saying 'You are one of many words when all is simple' and such, what they're really saying, when translated, is 'You are a big mouth, and you need to shut up.' Still, perhaps I should try using less words here.'

Haruna looked at the skull. She was kind of nervous putting her hands on a possibly magical skull, especially beside the dude who said it was talking to him. It was kind of scary, but she was used to bizarree rituals for the sake of peace. One time she had had to sit on a chair made from a cactus to talk with this one tribe in the desert. Oooooooh, how that had hurt. Still, time to bit the kunai. With a compliant nod, she put her hands on Burner Eyes head, as directed.

[Mortalvis]

There was silence for but a moment before a voice flooded Haruna's mind.

"Speak not a word of this to Long Sun until I say so, and listen carefully to my words. You must take me with you. I can no longer remain in this place. These creatures listen not to a word I say. They take my talk of Sunagakure as warnings and not wishes, and they are blind to the meaning of my words. They say I am cryptic because they do not wish to accept what I am telling them. You, child, must understand my nature. My soul has been sealed within this skull for centuries by powers beyond me.

The seal is as complex as it is ancient and I realize I shall reside within this fetter for the rest of my days. They call me Burned Eyes because of this wretched curse; it causes smoke to pour from my eye sockets when I am near supernatural creatures like these gremlins, burning the hollows ever so painfully. I'm forever in pain here. I cannot endure it any longer. Please, talk to Long Sun. Although he doesn't understand me clearly, he is still wise and he is the only one that will be able to speak clearly to Seeks-Mystery about this."

The voice left Haruna's mind as quickly as it had come, bringing silence to her sanctum of inner thought once again. Long Sun was staring up at her curiously, as though he knew that something was to come of this.

[Pokefan137]

Haruna stared at the skull for a long moment after the voice had faded from here mind. Either she had just had some kind of mental break down, or the skull had just spoke to her. If what it had said was true, then she had to help. Your soul was the most precious thing you had. To have your soul trapped inside an object, unable to move and always in constant pain was a fate much worse than death.

She started to think. These gremlins held this object as a sacred artifact. She needed to convince them to let her have it so she could take it away from them and have the SOS and Rekishi Juu begin research on how to break this vile curse on the soul within the skull. Burned Eyes had told her not to speak of what he had told her, which only made things about fifty thousand times more difficult. The girl slowly turned towards Long Sun, trying to choose her word very carefully.

"I cannot tell you way, Long Sun, but Burned Eyes must come with me. It is a matter of great importance."

She hoped that would be enough. If not then she'd have to get very creative very fast before they accused her of being a theif trying to steal their treasures.

[Mortalvis]

Long Sun looked confused, but not surprised. He sighed softly, his eyes drifting toward Burned Eyes. He knew such a thing had been coming, but he, like all the other gremlins, walled themselves against any thoughts of their protector leaving them.

"Come with you, you say? To Sand Prison? And then what? Here, He is leader to Dwellers. There, He is prisoner. You must understand that gremlins will never come to Sand Prison. There will be no peace between our people. But I have not the means to stop you from taking Burned Eyes if that is what you wish to do. Whatever He has said to you, it is His will and I am unable to speak against it. You do not have bad intentions in your heart, so I trust you as well. Seeks-Mystery and my fellow Dwellers will not take this so well, though." Long Sun, being the wise, understanding creature that he was, seemed to understand the situation despite his lack of acceptance for the truth.

"Burned Eyes has spoken to me about suffering. I know of His pain. He spoke to the shamans who came before me. All has been mistranslated to protect Dwellers. Burned Eyes taught me the tongue of the humans, He gave us great gifts. Now He wishes to leave, but we still have the gifts Burned Eyes gives to us. Take Burned Eyes and run, human. Do not look back. If this is what must be done, do it. There will be strife, but I will do my best to calm my people and we will all one day realize that this was the wish of a power greater than us."

With his final words, Long Sun left the den and ambled out into the camp. All that was left for Haruna to do was to take Burned Eyes and leave the gremlins behind.

[Pokefan137]

Haruna' heart sank like a lead weight. There would never be peace between their two peoples? She refused to accept that. And as a historian, she was not about to leave such a rich place of undiscovered history alone. Not by a long shot this place was a goldmine of information! She had so much she want to learn. So much she wanted to see! She wanted to spend days, weeks, maybe even months reasearching these people. Discovering their language, history, government, everything!

But still, Burned eyes needed her help. Leaving him here, even for a little bit would be selfish and wrong. She couldn't bear to let him suffer, but she also couldn't bear to leave this goldmine so easily! And how did you sneak such a precious artifact out without every gremlin in the place coming to stab you in the face! It was not exactly small. And the shape wasn't the easiest to disguise.

As Long Sun left, the girl sat down to do some serious thinking. How to get everything semi perfect so she could get the info she wanted, and at the same time get Burned Eyes out of here without detection. The girl thought for a long while before finally reaching a plan. She began making a series of handseals, focusing chakra in the hair. Slowly her hair began to writh and grow, until three large snakes cmae forth from her head. They were made of hair, so hopefully they would be good at hiding a skull.

The young shinobi picked up burned eyes and gently placed him inside one of the large snake's mouths, have the hair snake close it's mouth around him to conceal most of the skull. The tusks stuck out the side, but the other two snakes each grabbed a tusk in their mouths hiding the entire skull from view. Carefully she had the snakes elongate before rolling in on themselves until their actual heads were hiddi between Haruna's back and their own coils.

Haruna felt her hair. To say she looked different was an understatement. She had come in with two wild pigtails, and now she had smooth hair rolling down her back and ending in one giant curl on her lower back. Hopefully they would buy that that was just what she normally looked like if she took out her hair ties.

Burned eyes was hidden, hopefully, which. Moved her on to plan two. She took a deep breath before walking outside the cave into the main gremlin area. She made descrete hand signs as she faced the fall, pretending to admire some of the cave paintings. When her hand signs were done, she placed two seals on the wall, each facing out toward the main chamber so they had a clear view of the entire village. They were her spy seals, one to record all visual information and one to record all audio.her goal was to let them record everything here as she waited for the heat to die down once they realized she had taken burned eyes, and then one day sneak back in her disguised as a gremlin and study them for a nice, long time. She could also probably get a lot of information from Burned Eyes himself once he was safe, after all he had been here for a very very long time, but first hand experience was always best.

Having hidden her two seals amoungst the cave paintings, Haruna began walking through the village, book and pencil in hand, trying to act as normal as possible. She stopped to take notes and draw things, listened to people talk, and many other things an observer might do, slowly moving towards the exit the entire time and making sure to keep her hair away from the gremlins. She hoped her hair would protect Burned Eyes from the pain caused when he was around gremlins, and keep his eyes from issueing smoke that would give away her entire ploy, but she couldn't be sure. She had to be careful, move fast, and get out of here as soon as she possibly could.

(OOC: Sorry! My only access to the inter net right now is my phone so I can't list jutsu or bold text. Please forgive me!!!)

[Mortalvis]

Haruna's plan had been successful. As it stood, none of the gremlins seemed to be very interested in the fact that she was leaving, and Seeks-Mystery was nowhere to be seen. Long Sun had disappeared too from the time he left the den to the time the girl had come out to smuggle Burned Eyes away from the gremlins. Most wouldn't notice that the relic was gone until Seeks-Mystery heard about it, as none were allowed into the shaman's den except on special occasions. It had been Long Sun's duty to make sure Seeks-Mystery knew and understood the situation, although the war chief didn't accept what had been done.

Those seals Haruna placed in the cave would pick up a lot of strife over the days to come. Many wails about their lost path and how the 'white figures' had come to reclaim Burned Eyes from their people. There was much mourning among the gremlins, some violence, and only one voice of reason. Long Sun would do his best to calm the Dwellers, but even he was seeing that perhaps, in all his wisdom, he had overlooked the true damage this had done to his people.

Their spirits were shattered without Burned Eyes' guidance. The gremlins would soon break up and several groups, claiming to have no path any longer, would wander out into the desert seeking solace someplace else. Their numbers soon dwindled dramatically and the population was on the verge of disappearing entirely. While Seeks-Mystery remained and did his best to keep the Dwellers together, he grew weary with time and soon was broken like many of his fellow gremlins.

As for Haruna, she had Burned Eyes in her care and the skull was out of the reaches of the gremlins. There would be no more pain for him, and he even had hopes for a day when he would no longer be fettered to that cursed skull.

While what Haruna had done may or may not have been right, she made a decision based on what she felt she needed to do, and now the scribes had in their possession another priceless artifact.

[OoC: Congrats, you passed.]