[Spirit Expedition] Collection Squad

[Ace Trainer]

The initial excursion into the ruins had gone relatively quietly, Tenga had entered the ruins and swept off down a hall, directing Mahalo to go down a different hall and vanishing into the darkness of the ruins winding paths. Very little direction had been provided to them from the elder spiritualist, though it was unclear if this was indicating his confidence in this crew or a relative apathy towards how their portion of the assignment had gone. This was, all things considered, a relatively barebones squad. This probably reflected the relative unimportance of the meeting in the eyes of the village leadership. More than anything, it was an opportunity for them to test shinobi that needed the additional attention and assessment – shinobi like Asuna, the young jinchuurinki Indra, and the chosen Zhizhi.

The hall the crew had been sent down had been dark, requiring torches to be lit and carried by them, occasionally mounting them to the wall as they spiraled down. The ruin itself had been somewhat meager, it had appeared from the outside to be a single building with a portion of it buried within the sand. But now that they were inside it was clear that they had entered from the top of a tower on the building, and that the ruin in fact went deep into the underground, buried by years of erosion and sand drifting into the area. The group would have spiraled down the hall way slowly but surely, checking every step for sturdiness and ensuring the hall was reinforced and wouldn’t collapse behind them. After what would likely feel like an hour but had only been perhaps 15 minutes, the hall would let out into a massive room.

Much of the room was empty, the easternmost wall (or what they could assume was eastern after going in circles several times to reach this point) had collapsed, leaving brick and mortar strewn across the floor and a fair amount of sand having leaked into the room, leaving a relatively large slope towards the eastern wall. Otherwise, shelves covered the northern and western wall, though there were only a handful of books across the vast shelves, suggesting the ruins had been properly evacuated at some point or alternatively had been raided already too.

Immediate to the right out of the hall they’d come out of, was a doorway to a small room, something of a study room or perhaps a bedroom some time ago. Stepping into the small room, Indra would hold the orb out in front of him, a soft glow emanating from it. ”Young master, I believe we are already finding some of the special chakras Tenga-sama had mentioned.”, his guard would suggest. Indra would nod and turn to Mahalo, presenting the faint glowing orb.

”We’ll hang out here a little bit and follow you all once we get some.”, he said. He’d give a smile to Kagayuki and cautiously walk into the small room. Their mission was starting.

[Kanade]

"So this orb thing." Kagayaki pointed to the thing in the man's hand, "This orb thing is going to tell us when there are energies, but how are we supposed to capture them again?" She had either missed it or had not heard it in the sweltering heat of the outdoors. Sometimes heat would affect the other senses, not just the eyes, but the ears as well, making people hallucinate all sorts of things. She shook her head, the sphalerites on her crossed arms and forehead casting rainbow refractions around the room, "You would have thought that Tenga-sama would have had enough foresight to have made sure that we were ready for the task and given us a clear set of instructions." She didn't say the last part but thought, especially when he knew that one of the people on this team was a hard-head like me. She wasn't really all that great at following directions, she supposed, in the first place, and was not bright enough to have earned chuunin after all of these years. Indra, who was beside her had a better chance at it than she did.

Best foot forward though, she supposed, with a sigh. "Alright, if either of you two know how to work the orb-thingy, I'll just be here to back you up doing the duty, or if you have another and the time to teach a block-head like me-" She pointed to herself to iterate the point, "Please let me help out, as I want to be as much help to Tenga-sama" the bastard that sent us off without a lot of instructions, "-as possible." Kagayaki supposed that what they were doing was important, she supposed that what they were doing had some bearing on what the other teams were doing, and she supposed that if she and Indra didn't do what they were supposed to do the mission would fail. She wasn't trying to be obstinate, she was just thick, as always.

She looked around the room and hummed to herself, wondering what kind of person or people lived here before, whether that was covered in the time that it took her to reach the ruins today, and whether there would be a refresher forthcoming or whether she would be left to flounder around with a piece of ninja tech without an instruction manual.

[wc:414/???? NANOWRIMO]

[Ace Trainer]

Indra watched as everyone meanders off, clearing the room for them of hazards before continuing on their way. Listening to Kagayuki, he was slightly confused, his large black eyes looking at her curiously as she seemed to complain about the poor guidance they received from their mission leader. He looked at his guard for a moment before pursing his lips together seemingly trying to decide if he should say something or not, "Uh. When we got our mission orders it came with our uhh, what did he called it ? Our uh-"

"Captors", Indra's guardian interjected.

Quickly nodding, "Yeah yeah. Our captor. It was sealed in a scroll. Did you bring yours? It said to bring everything. Did you read the instructions?", he asked. Indeed, everyone had been provided with their necessary equipment before they'd disembarked, so even if she hadn't realized it, Kagayuki had been given hers. "Anyways, he told us during all the instructions and junk. It'll glow more and more as we get closer to the uh..disharmonious chakra?", he looked to his guard to ensure that was correct which she responded to with a polite nod. "It glows with chakra. When its ready to be activated, the glow will shift in color and will start resonating with the disharmonious chakra which should make it visible to us. Then we just...Kai."

Odd, but simple enough.

"Young master, you'll need to be diligent in zeroing in on where its currently resonating with. This is not exactly an exact science.", she suggested. While her commentary was directed at Indra, she looked at Kagayuki for a moment as well indicating she was giving her the same suggestion.

"Ehhh. I hope you brought your captor, this will be hard with only one...he did say it could store multiple though...", he mused out loud. Beginning to walk away, taking odd directionless steps as he tried to follow the glow. "Whats your name anyways, hum?", he called out to her, not stopping from continuing to wander. In truth, Indra needed to be moving. He wouldn't mention it to anyone, but ever since he entered these ruins the sounds of souls within them had gotten louder and louder. Every once in a while he heard souls like this within Suna, a combination of angry and sad, they would cry and call and sometimes even form words which often made Indra feel less comfortable. While it was rare within Suna, within the ruins Indra could hear it all around him. He was sure something grave had happened here at some time. A place taken away from the light for so long? Almost certainly. Hopefully moving around a lot and talking to Kagayuki would distract him from it.

[Kanade]

Kagayaki nodded at the child’s instructions and took out the scroll that she had received. It had very clear instructions on how to unseal the seal that was plastered in the middle, and looked from Indra to the guardian, back to the guardian, and finally back to the scroll, “Well I’ll be-” She cut herself off with a chuckle, “I suppose it is there after all.” She was too proud to blush, and instead wove the seals as he talked about how it would glow when they got closer to the disharmonious chakra, whatever the blast that was. Her orb appeared on the scroll and she held it under her arm like a soccer ball while she rolled the scroll up with her other hand.

The guardian interjected when she opened her mouth to speak and she frowned at the woman, lifting an eyebrow. As if she were a child that couldn’t do a simple task. Instead of saying anything she held her orb aloft dutifully after storing the scroll and making a rude hand seal at the guardian while her hand was still in the sack. She got a faint glow that seemed to be coming from roughly the same direction as Indra’s orb, but it seemed to be on the opposite wall, so down the same corridor hm?

“I’m Kouseki Kagayaki, but I am sure that you must have known from the gems that I was a Kouseki before I even told you.” Her tone and demeanor were matter of fact, and she knew that her clan was prominent in the village, prolific, and well known. Especially for their help with the village defenses, “I heard about you from your return from that pebble country expedition.” She smiled at him, her orb glowing brighter and brighter with every step, she waved it back and forth, it seemed to be taking her to the right, “Meeting a Jinchuuriki on my first mission back from a long hiatus is quite auspicious.” She thought about it for a moment, “Or they think that I need extra surveillance as well.” The tone was darker and more suspicious, the comment was obviously aimed at the guardian.

“So we just locate the source, it starts to pulse like this?” She pointed at her orb which was now omitting a bright light, brighter than it had before, she shouted over triumphantly, beaming at where the voices of Indra and his keeper were “And we just do this?” She made a Kai sign and her orb went instantly dark, leaving her blinking and groping in the darkness, “Um, It’s dark, it’s cramped, I’m scared.” She whispered to herself, her eyes shut and she started to breathe heavier, her breaths coming in more frequent almost gasps. She was afraid of the dark, and almost wished that the disharmonious chakra was still around, at least the light from the orb abated the darkness of the ruins.

“Indra, are you still there?” She had her eyes closed, as if that would help with the darkness all around her.

[WC: 536/???? NANOWRIMO]

[Ace Trainer]

As Kagayuki spoke, Indra continued to circle about the room inspecting whatever he could find seemingly ignoring the orb in his hand as the light radiating from it brightened and waned as he moved. The guidance on being diligent had seemed to fall on deaf ears. When Kagayuki mentioned she had heard about him, his neck snapped to her, "Hey now, I was careful. They wanted us to show we were strong not my fault I'm a host.", he gave her a sort of incredulous look, seemingly offended at an otherwise innocuous statement. His attention drifted away, however, and the second part of her comment wasn't caught.

It was, however, caught by his guard who shot Kagayuki a sort of furrowed look indicating how ridiculous what she said sounded to her, "My priority - and only purpose - is to ensure the Young Master does not befall any trouble as he continues to be field-tested.", she gave something of a pointed look, "Whoever he is selected to work with is of no matter to me.", she noted.

They would continue, however, and Kagayuki would activate her first try at the captor, a sudden gust as it activated and all the torches in the room being extinguished. She would call out in alarm, receiving no response.

Suddenly a small flame would ignite from the middle of the room, splitting itself as it spread across the room to reignite the torches.

"Oi. Be more careful!", Indra would shout. As the room re-illuminated, Kagayuki would be able to see that the guard has moved to Indra's side and had been the one to re-ignite the torches. Seemed she was quite good at her job.

[Kanade]

Kagayaki nodded to herself, shuddering from the feeling of not being alone in the room, "You think that there is something here that's evil, or I mean, I just-" She started to ramble about the general feeling of not being alone, trying to reconcile the change in temperature and showing her weakness to the dark. One could hardly blame her for the phobia of the darkness, as she had almost been the victim of a cave-in and she had forevermore gone about inspecting the general make of the walls, especially in underground areas. Kagayaki was doing just this when she noticed a crack in the wall, "Hey do you think that the spirit thingies could be hiding in cracks in the wall or are they too small?" She had never hunted spirits or heard of disharmonious chakra before today. She had no idea what kinds of things they would encounter there and shook her orb, pointing it toward the crack. It remained dimly lit, "Did I catch one do you think?"

She aimed the question at the other two who were getting further and further away. Kagayaki jogged to catch up and walk behind Indra and his escort. Regardless of the answer to the previous question she aimed another one at the both of them, "So do you think that we are better sticking together or wandering around, splitting the party, and covering more ground?" She looked up at the ceiling as she asked this, noting that the cracks that were in the walls were at the base, and the structure still seemed sound. There were general signs of settling, such as slanted walls and doors that didn't quite fit, but other than that the foundation of the rooms and hallways seemed to be just fine. And, really, what more could one expect from a ruins. She just hoped that it was indeed safe to be down here and she wasn't putting Indra in any more danger than he was supposed to be in.

Kouseki were a dime a dozen, and she wasn't from any sort of 'noble line' of them. Quite the opposite, she could be replaced in a heart-beat, but if Kagayaki put the genma's host at risk because of her actions, inadvertently or otherwise she didn't see a way that she would be able to escape the Kazekage's wrath, or that of the elders of her clan, and she would be lucky to come out of the ordeal alive. After all, he was a child, and she was an adult, they would be much more strict with her, even if she was just beginning her journey as a Kunoichi. She waited for the answers to her two questions and continued to probe at every crack, nook, and cranny of the places they were visiting, trying to gauge where the orbs were leading them.

[476/????]

[Ace Trainer]

Indra shrugged at Kagayaki's first question, "Just spirits I think. Dunno if they're evil or what. Tenga wants their energy for something though...", he said absentmindedly. It wasn't really a concern for Indra if he was being honest. Ruins like this weren't in the light, so typically there was something wrong with them. The notion of entering was taboo enough as it was, so running research and experiments left Indra...questioning a lot. For now though, he'd suspend his doubt.

His guardian would then shake her had at the next question, "You're not catching spirits. They leave residual energy that Tenga-Sama is interested in. The captors stabilize and collect that energy that is otherwise destabilized when moved. Based on the initial analyses, he suspects something about these ruins allows the energies to remain after the spirit has moved through the area without breaking apart into it's constituent piece like unnatural chakras typically do. So it present a rare opportunity for him to study them.", she explained.

Hopefully the trio would not run into any spirits at all.

Indra would continue to walk around, seemingly giving Kagayuki an answer to her final question. They were left in this room to collect all the energies in this room, then they would move on. How they covered this room though didn't really seem to matter to him, and he would just follow his captor. A soft glow would begin to emit from it, and Indra would carefully begin to follow the glow, rotating ever so slightly whenever it began to fade until he was being led directly to a nook between two decrepit shelves that lifted all the way to the ceiling. The captor would begin to resonate even brighter as Indra approached and, and as he attempted to place it against the wall it would shake violently but do nothing further.

Frowning, Indra would push his hand against the wall, which would cause a brittle brick to fall away, revealing a dial about the size of a basketball in the cracks behind it. Pushing away the dust, Indra would call out, "Oi, oi! come look at this!", he would say to them both. Clearing away the debris, Indra would be presented with a round stone dial. It had little marking on it with the exception of small dashes on the circle around it. Between each pair of dashes at the 12, 3, 6, and 9 positions on the dial were square divots that seemed to be missing a piece. And in the center, an inscription, Time is the only direction you need. it would read. The divots seemed large enough for a small mahjong piece of go in, not very large at all. But the small lines coming from each divot connecting in the center seemed to suggest something needed to go into them. Indra would spread his fingers wide, attempting to press all 4, and while his fingers reached, he was unsuccessful in creating any reaction.

The captor in his pouch continued to shine bright and shake violently. "Whatcha think?", he would say to Kagayuki and his guardian.

"I think we need to find whatever goes in those little holes, young master.", he guardian responded.

It seemed they had a new task.

[Kanade]

Kagayaki nodded and tilted her head to Indra as the escort expounded on what they were finding, and the difference between catching a spirit and catching the disharmonious chakra that was resonating behind them, because of them. If she had been a spirit enthusiast, or perhaps more skilled in ninjutsu, or even interested in the inner workings of chakra and how it worked, she might have been more intrigued and even asked questions about what that all meant. As it was, it elicited a bored look from Kagayaki, who swung it back and forth, still attempting to find any signs of whatever it was that was left in the wake of the spirits. It was certainly less exciting for Kagayaki to not be going hunting spirits, but rather the traces they left behind.

She watched Indra's orb from time to time, and once his started to glow, she moved toward him, finally finding herself beside him when he said 'oi oi look at this'. She read the inscription as well as looked at the small pieces. "So we need to find the numbers 3, 6, 9, and 12. She pointed to each of the missing numbers, "Unless it wants us to find more than those missing pieces or those [ieces have somehow broken or something." She held up her orb, using it as a source of light, "So maybe we can find them here in this room. No sense in making people go all over to find the pieces if they needed to solve the puzzle." She started to search around the room, starting with the shelves that Indra had bumped into with the orb.

She hoped that, if these pieces were tied to this disharmonious chakra, bringing it along with her, held in front of her the entire way that she looked like some sort of lantern, maybe her orb would react like his did. That was the hope, but whether that proved true she would have to see, "So I think they probably will all be of a different color, at least, to the sundial." She was talking aloud, whether Indra or the retainer heard, she couldn't really tell, but it was also helping her think about the puzzle. "So my best guess is that they're going to be like, one is going to be like a, like red color or something, or a yellow? Representing the sun and the others will be like a, black color?" She sighed, "And they could be like, standing things, maybe like, glass prisms so that you have to follow the light of the prism at a certain time of day? Maybe Noon?" She shrugged again. This was all speculation and she was rambling at this point in time. Looking for anything, anything at all, that would fit into the majong sized divots in the sundial.

[464/???? Nanowrimo]

[Ace Trainer]

The assumption Kagayaki made at first seemed accurate, getting an approving nod from Indra who began to wander no different than she did. The room was illuminated by the torches, but that certainly didn't make it easy to see. And the pieces they were talking about were not very big, Indra could easily hold all four in one hand from the looks of it. Which meant in a room this size, they would be scouring for a long time if they weren't all in the same place....and given the disarray the room was in, he had some doubts on them all being in the same place. The next portion of her assumptions, however, caused him to raise some eyebrows. They seemed like guesses at best, if not random musings.

"I think I'll just look around and see what we find before we start postulating about what color they might be.", it sounded like Kagayaki had read one too many stories about adventurers, this was real life, not some sort of wacky puzzle put together by mysterious ancient powers.

Or at least, that's what Indra would think.

Continuing to wander the room, Indra would decide to follow the book shelves next to the dial, moving to the left and carefully inspecting each one. The shelving expanded across the entire western wall, breaking away only a few times to small nooks like the previous where he had found the dial, or doors to small study rooms. Much to the visual displeasure of his guardian, Indra would climb up the shelves, inspecting each individual shelf and the few disparate books on them to no relief. He'd quickly made it to the center shelf dead-west of the room when he let out a frustrated grown. "Ah this is impossible!", he shouted angrily. He'd resume his climb, starting from the bottom as he made his way up, knocking a few books that practically turned to dust when they hit the ground as he did. Eventually though, an excited Oi! would come from Indra as he held a hand up in the air holding something. On one of the shelves he'd found something! A small grey square just the size of the little divots, a single dot on the middle of it.

"Look what I found!", he shouted.

Three more to go.

Jumping off the shelving, he'd present it to the guardian before going over to the dial. For a moment he stand there before turning to his guardian, "uhh...hm. How do we know which one it goes in?", he asked her. A good question indeed, perhaps this was some wacky puzzle indeed.

[Kanade]

Kagayaki was getting rather frazzled as well, not having found anything of use from using the orb to go up and down the walls. As soon as Indra found the tile she ran over to where he had found it, tapping it, she nodded, "So this was found on the... east wall, so that means that 1 must be east." She would only change the direction if she was interrupted or challenged in her belief that the wall was to the east. She had no real idea where she was, but believed it to be east since that was the way that the bookshelves were, and that the number one probably should have been. "The sun rises in the east, so then 1 would be sunrise, and it stands to follow two would be noon, and so on and so forth."

She left plenty of time to be challenged but gave a smug grin to the boy and his handler, "which probably means that the others are at the other cardinal directions, within this room." She seemed to gloat on this, and looked more closely at the tile, "Why do you think it's grey, do you suppose that it could be like, you know, the light at that time of day?" She thought about that for a while at least, "people that make these puzzles put a lot of work into things like this, symbolism and other such fun stuff. Like my mom has this sundial that has all sorts of things on it, like my birthday has a small sphalerite, and on my birthday every year the sundial's shadow will point directly at the sphalerite, and it'll make all these dazzling colors appear on the ground beneath it. My dad's is a diamond, and she didn't put hers on the dial, even though we begged her to do so." She continued the story and frowned, "but like that, if the shadows and colors, and numbers all mean something then we need to know what time of day, because it's a sun dial, the sun is in that direction. Maybe." She shrugged, "But then I have no clue why North would be 4 and South would be 2."

She looked between Indra and the handler before shrugging and sighing, "The best thing to do would be to put the dial in the middle of the room, and put the pieces on the edges of it where we found them. Maybe their position in the room means something." She certainly hoped it did, because that meant that finding the other three would be a cinch. If she was wrong, they would have to start the scouring over again, retracing their steps from when he had called them all together.

[wc:458/???? nanowrimo]

[Ace Trainer]

Indra would watch with his hands on his hips as Kagayaki talked through her ideas and rushed about with a theory on how to do it. She prattled on about the sun and colors, and some other things that she seemed a little confused about which didn't inspire a lot of confident from Indra. Eventually, she'd pause and he'd look at his guardian as if to say 'does that make sense'? Indra was intuitive, but he wasn't exactly a genius, while Kagayaki wasn't inspiring a lot of confidence, he couldn't feel sure about doubting her either.

His guardian would just give a disappointed shake of her head, "Miss Kagayaki, that is the western wall.", she corrected.

Indra looked at his guardian, then at Kagayaki, then around the room, turning in a small circle where he was standing for a moment, the small square still in hand. Placing a finger on his chin, he gave a sort of ahhhhh then nodded. "It is!", he exclaimed. "Well. There goes those ideas then, huh!", he gave a grin as if to rub it in her face, and then turned to his guardian, "Welp, you got any ideas then?"

The guardian would shake her head, not seeming to give it much thought at all. In truth, she was here to protect Indra, and could not care one way or another whether the mission was a success or if the puzzle was solved. Honestly, solving the problem could present some level of risk for Indra, some level of risk that would likely not make it worth it. She knew though Indra was short on patience and high on distractibility, so if this mystery took too long, the young master would likely lose focus and get caught up in other matters of the mission.

Indra turned to Kagayaki again, "Welp.", he would hold up the tile, inspecting it once more before finally answer the question she had asked, indicating he had in fact been listening even if he brushed over most of what she had said, "Maybe its just a gray tile, you know? Or maybe it is supposed to be for time, so then how would we know without the others? you think we need to place it before we can find the others?", he asked. If that was the case, they were in for a long puzzle it seemed.

[Kanade]

As soon as she got done, the idea was shot down by the retainer and then alleyooped by Idra. She sighed, "Well, yeah, that does take the wind out of my sails." She visibly deflated some, then looked back to the tile, "If we have to place it before we can find the others, maybe it'll glow if we put it in the right place." She pointed to the twelve position, "Maybe just make your way around clock-wise and we'll see if anything jumps out at us, then repeat for the 3 position, then the 6 position?" She wasn't in control of the dial so she was really at the mercy of Indra. She also hadn't found the first piece. That, coupled with the fact that she and he were being escorted by the guardian made her feel like she was rather a third wheel in the whole situation.

"Maybe once we try that, we can just, go with the cardinal directions again, maybe the next one will be on that wall." She pointed to the south wall, her back facing the Western wall. She knew when she had been beaten at a game of intelligence. Without another piece, without knowing whether it was a different color or whether it had another dot, or even whether they could find the blasted piece, she had nowhere to go.

As soon as they exhausted their choices on the dial, she would go to the south wall, trying to find something there. She just had the hunch that direction had something to do with it. The shelves may have been on the Western wall, but all the pieces couldn't be on that wall, could they? She glanced behind her at the shelves that held old tomes, "Maybe another piece is hidden in those dusty old things." She mumbled to herself and shook her head. No time for self-doubt. She was the first shinobi in her line for a good three generations. She wasn't going to mess this up.

Hopefully something would happen with the tile, but if not, at least she had a backup plan. She held the orb over the dial and piece, wondering whether the orb still detected disharmonious chakra within the two objects. She tried not to let the gnawing self doubt cloud her thoughts, and the shadows dancing across the floor didn’t help with the gnawing doubts that she should even be here in the first place.


[408/????? Nanowrimo]

[Ace Trainer]

The first suggestion the girl would make would be to try and guess which slot it went into. Indra would give a quizzical look but nod in response and would take the tile as he returned to the dial, placing it into each slot slowly. Starting at the top, he would place in each slot and release, leaving it in position to see if anything happened. As he moved around the dial, the frustration on Indra’s face was increasingly visible. As he reached the 9 position and placed the tile in, no response would come from it, and he’d pull it out, groaning. ”No dice.”, he muttered.

Next, he’d put his hands on the dial, in an attempt to remove it from the wall per Kagayaki’s previous suggestion. However, doing so left him straining against it as it remained firmly cemented in place. Seemingly, it was not meant to be removed. So much for that plan.

Kagayaki had began to walk away, but suggested the remaining shelving on the west wall might have something, so Indra would give an affirmative nod, ”We’ll continue to look through these then.”, he said to her, gesturing for his guardian to follow. The guardian, silent thus far, would follow, hovering behind the young jinchuuriki as he resumed his ascent, climbing up the various shelving and sorting through whatever books he ran across.

In contrast, Kagayaki stood at the south wall. Unlike the north and western walls, the south wall lacked in much on it. A large feature in the center that was - at one point - likely a fireplace drew the eye most immediately. When the temple stood above ground, this fire place likely reached to the sky, but now that the ruins had sunk into the sand, the fireplace was filled right rock and limestone, barely able to get an arm into it, let alone look inside. Otherwise, there were a few decorations on the wall, a couple of frames that no longer had paintings in them, and some sort of statuette that seemed bond to the wall as if it had been mounted directly rather than placed on the shelf.

Was there anything to find there?

Indra, at this point, had made it to the next set of shelving, and was half way to the roof, hanging off a shelf and looking over to where Kagayaki was, ”Any luck!?”, he would call out. It was clear the boy was enjoying himself, regardless of what the actual mission was.

[Kanade]

Kagayaki walked over to the fireplace, noting that it hadn't been swept out, and wondered whether or not the people were given much warning before they left the place. More often than not these sorts of buildings, ones that held people that had been working were shut down with no advance notice, and besides, if you were going to be leaving it to ruin, why would you clean out the chimney. A hunch that she was right about the directions had led her to here. "Am I really going to go sifting through potash and coke, trying to find something like a tile?" She voiced, while scenarios ran through her head. One was that if these were an answer to an age-long puzzle someone would have tossed the piece into the fire, the next was that perhaps there was something in the fireplace itself that was a sort of lever, the third option was that the fireplace had a false bottom.

She set down the orb to her left on her dominant side and got on her hands and knees, sifting through, she did come across some pieces that were so covered in ash and soot that she couldn't distinguish even their rough shape. There were some pieces which were definitely too large, and some too small, but there were roughly five pieces that were so covered in soot and dust that they were unrecognizable as anything but perhaps age-long coals that had calcified there in the fireplace. She set these next to the orb and then with her hands, covered in the white ash from the cold fireplace, she started to pat the back wall, the side walls, and then took a good long look at the statuette. She would attempt to tug gently on it, wondering if the anchors that held it in place were strong enough, sturdy enough to hold it there. She also examined its base, and how it was affixed to the wall. Perhaps there was more to it. If anything should go amiss, she would promptly call for Indra and his handler, but perhaps she was wasting time and energy barking down the wrong mineshaft, as her mother said.