Chapter 1: Meet Lost, Poet ​



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Kagome and Hazou surveyed the lab. Tripwire activation? Check. Multiple Kawarmi targets? Check. Relatively fireproof surroundings for a half mile? Check. Personal Protection equipment? Check. Berry to test storage portal seal? Check. All normal storage seals at least a mile away? Check. Earth wall bunker? Almost finished...“Sealing preparations complete sensei!” Hazou called out as he put the last earth walls into place.Kagome looked at him as if he was crazy. “Are you daft! There’s no such thing as being fully prepared for sealing! You never know what’ll go wrong! Did the lupchanz get you already boy!”“Sorry sensei, all I mean to say is we’re as safe as we’re likely to be with what we can prepare, and can start testing the multiple storage seal.”Kagome grunted an affirmation. He wasn’t convinced being able to pull something from multiple storage scrolls would be terribly useful, but he was willing to humor his student. Hazou did love his storage seals after all.The idea was to put an item (in this test, a berry), into one storage scroll, and be able to access it from multiple different scrolls later. Hazou figured this would help in the team’s budding merchant empire. After all, removing dependency on ninja for protection, and expediting travel would be revolutionary! All he had to do was solve the sealing problem. Fortunately, after about a month, he had sorted out the theory, and was ready to field test his first prototypes. Now, with the expansion to the sealing fortress that having two potentially catastrophic seals active required, he had finally met Kagome’s requirements for safety.The berry was on top of the first scroll. The first step was to activate that storage seal, and get the berry in the storage dimension.“Storing berry in 3… 2… 1…”Hazou’s pinky inched forward and touched the tripwire. The berry disappeared. Kagome ducked.Ten seconds went by and nothing happened.“Moving on to stage 2.” Hazou said.It was going to work, he could feel it! Hazou reached his pinky towards the other tripwire, connected to the second scroll. This would summon the berry from storage space onto a scroll it had never been in contact with before. It was going to revolutionize trade!“Retrieving berry in 3.... 2… 1…”Hazou’s pinky inched forward and touched the tripwire. The scenery disappeared. Hazou could hear the screams of Kagome fading into the distance.Hazou awoke cold. He looked around himself and saw a wintery forest. It was much colder than he remembered it being, and he was sure he’d never been here before.“Kai!”The forest didn’t change.“Ok” Hazou thought, “Looks like I was lucky enough to not get eaten while I was asleep. Also, that was a great sealing mishap! I didn’t think teleportation was possible! Kagome said not to try to replicate mishaps, but maybe he’ll make an exception for teleportation? First though, I should find the others.”Hazou searched around his sceneryHazou frowned. He’d identified which way was north, and gone south, but quickly came to a problem. Within the first two hours, he came upon a road, but it was strange. The road was about 8 feet wide, clearly a trading road, but it had the prints of a strange beast on it. Given the depth of the tracks and the relative hardness of the dirt, and their prevalence, he concluded that the beast was heavy, but narrow, and traveled along the edges of the road. Clearly, wherever he was didn’t have a strong enough ninja population to keep the beasts in check. He’d need to be alert, especially with no teammates to watch his back.“Maybe this is Iron after all the ninja died? Sage! I must have traveled halfway across the Elemental Nations. I’ll need to go southeast to get back to our hideout in Tea.”So, Hazou started traveling southeast.About 10 minutes later, Hazou came across another trail. It looked like a footpath. It went south.“Must be a nearby town. Maybe I can check it out, make sure I’m actually in Iron.”Hazou began to follow it, adapting an older henge, making himself look like a middle-aged hunter coming in from a night’s hunt. He caught some small rabbits nearby and slung them through his belt for authenticity.A few miles further south, he came across a wooden structure. It was strange, it looked like a place someone could sleep for the night, and looked reasonably well maintained (no dust, no animals hibernating there), but was abandoned. There was also writing on the building, but Hazou didn’t recognize it as any of the languages of the elemental nations. Thoroughly confused, Hazou decided to make a small fire in the firepit in front, gather water from the nearby spring, and then run into the woods and sleep in a tree.The next day, Hazou continued down the trail, still in his hunter disguise. He discovered that structures similar to the one he had passed existed about once every 8 miles or so. It seemed like the trail and structures had been built for Samurai. Maybe this was part of Iron which escaped destruction? Maybe he’d be able to meet a Samurai? He thought they were all gone though…Movement! Hazou hid in the woods. He spotted a man, with a large backpack walking the opposite way. The man didn’t seem to notice him, and was lacking any guard, in fact, seemed as unconcerned with his surroundings as Inoue often did. Hazou pegged him as a Jounin (who else could act that nonchalant when walking alone through the woods) and thanked his lucky stars he appeared to escape notice.Hazou studied the man’s appearance, and henged into a similar outfit after he was gone. Suitably camoflagued as an Iron senior Samurai (or whatever the man was), Hazou resumed his travelling, now walking boldly down the center of the trail. He figured if he met someone later, he’d try to gather information from them.An hour later, Hazou came across a man and a woman, each walking the other way.“Hello!” Hazou called out.“Ubjql” The pair called out. “Unccl Genvyf!”The pair kept walking past Hazou, seemingly unconcerned with him.Huh. Apparently the Samurai had their own language too! Exciting. But Hazou really needed to get back to his team.Deciding that walking along Samurai trails probably wasn’t the best ideas for his health, Hazou returned to traveling through the woods, though kept the henge he’d acquired. It’d worked on the Samurai, and it’d give anyone else a second thought about messing with him (seriously, it was a weird outfit).Hazou thought it strange that he hadn’t seen any chakra beasts, but he was ok with that. But, he started to hear them. Every once in a while, there’d be a deep rumbling, as if a giant snake were traveling across the ground at great speed.Hazou eventually came to a clearing, where a road clearly existed, but this was a road like none he had ever seen. It was 20 feet wide, and had white and yellow marks at regular intervals on it. Further, it looked like it’d been cut into the side of a hill, and the cuts had made a sheer cliff about 10 feet tall on one side.Soon enough, Hazou heard the telltale sign of one of the chakra beasts coming along. He hid in the woods, and saw a metal behemoth, about the size of a chakra alligator, come barrelling down the road at ninja speeds.Hazou saw there was a person inside the beast! But, they appeared to be conscious and non-resisting, which seemed like an odd combination for someone who had been eaten. Regardless, it looked like this particular beast was restricted to the roads. Hazou could be assured that he had an easy escape from it.Seeing that it was getting dark, Hazou followed the road with the chakra beasts south, hoping to finally find a town and some answers. He really wanted to tell his team about his place, since it seemed like it might be an even safer, more secluded place than they’d found in Tea!After walking along the road (and hiding in the woods whenever a chakra beast came along), Hazou quickly came to a mansion. Interestingly, it had relatively little land around it, and had other mansions nearby. Deciding this was a good a place to ask about things as any, Hazou went up and knocked on the door. A tall, middle aged man stepped out and greeted him,“Uv, pna V uryc lbh?”“Hi, sorry, I’m a little lost, could you tell me where we are?” Hazou asked.“Bu, fbeel, V qba'g fcrnx... gung ynathntr. Qb lbh fcrnx Ratyvfu?” The man replied, looking confused.Realizing communication might be a little difficult, Hazou decided to switch to pantomimes.“Me” He pointed to himself. “Lost.” He put his hand over his eyes and peered off into the distance. “I’m looking for Tea.” He made the shape of the peninsula of Tea with his hands.The man pointed to himself “Cbrg.” He pointed at Hazou “Avpr gb zrrg lbh Lost.” He pantomimed eating and rubbing his belly while pointing at Hazou “Uhatel?” He then stepped aside and motioned for Hazou to enter into his mansion.What do?[] Enter Mansion[] Go back onto the chakra monster road[] RUN TO THE WOODS![] Continue Pantomiming[] Write inNote: Voting on this closed a while ago.