Chapter 12: Revelations and Plans ​

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Hazou left the town and returned to camp. There, he saw that his absence had not been noted. His companions seemed to still be asleep. Deciding to set up some basic alarm traps, Hazou found some particularly crunchy looking leaves and twigs and placed them in strategic places around the campsite, hoping that any person or dangerous animal approaching would make at least some noise. Then, retreating back to his tree, he settled in to sleep. Remembering Kagome’s warnings about keeping a henge up too long, he dismissed his henge while making sure he wasn’t visible from below, and fell asleep.Hazou awoke at first light. Instantly awake, he assessed his situation:“Kai” Hazou muttered under his breathe,Checking his physical condition, he discovered he his stomach was sore.Brushing it off, he replaced his henge from the day before (dispelling the upset feeling in his gut), and got up to start the day.Once up, he noticed that Camp Shoes and Double Dip were still asleep. He decided to dismantle the traps while waiting for them to get up. He decided he’d also speed along the process by doing so… less than noiselessly.Grabbing a large branch, Hazou started swinging it to and fro dispersing the twigs and leaves he’d left the night before.After about a minute, muttering came from the tent.By the second minute, there were shouts coming from the tent.Finally, after three minutes, Double Dip emerged from their tent with Cubar in hand. Hazou smiled and walked over. He held the cubar and read it,“Why are you making such a racket? It’s early.”Confused because the sun was clearly up, Hazou spoke and entered his response, “Sun’s up, time to start the day. Do you have food?”After reading the phone, there was much grumbling amongst the hikers, but they started moving around, and vaguely collected camp. Double Dip pulled out a device which let out a controlled fire below a pot and started cooking. Camp Shoes handed Hazou the cubar.“We have some food. We give it to you if you give us storage magic.”Hazou considered that. Well, it’s not like they could use it anyways if they had it. He handed back the device,“Ok. I’ll make a new one for you.”He pulled out his storage seal, unsealed the paper box with paper and ink in it, made a new seal (with both his companions silently watching), infused it, and handed it to them. They happily offered him a spoon and a bowl filled with some kind of warm gruel.Hazou started eating from the bowl while the others investigated the storage scroll. They poked it, and prodded it, held it up to their packs and each other. They spoke while holding it, looked constipated looking at it, and waved their hands to and fro while holding it. Hazou was halfway through his gruel when the cubar was handed back to him.“How do we use it?”“Just pour a little chakra into it.” Hazou sent back. Hazou resumed eating.The hikers discussed amongst themselves a little, and continued experimenting with the seal.“How do we pour a little chakra into it?”Hazou considered. Then, picked up the storage seal they had been holding, and stored the bowl of gruel he’d finished eating.“Like that. It’s an ability every ninja has.” Deciding to throw them a bone, he added, “Civilians cannot manipulate their chakra.” Though they should have known that already.There was a lengthy discussion amongst the hikers. Hazou waited it out. Eventually, the cubar was handed back to him.“Can civilians use any magic at all?”Hazou thought about dreams he had in a past world of uplifting a divided world, and equalizing a society.“Yes. Letting civilians use chakra devices has been a goal of mine for a year or so.”More discussion amongst the hikers. Then the cubar was handed back.“Making money from storage magic will need civilian usage. We can back for a while. Have some funds. Can get more. Need civilian usage.”Seizing the opportunity, Hazou decided to have his opening discussions with Camp Shoes and Double Dip then.“Ok, Let’s talk about it…”Hazou, Camp Shoes, and Double Dip talked the whole morning through. Hazou learned that Camp Shoes and Double Dip were names they had picked up in the last couple weeks, not their real names. They were actually called Eli Cohen (Camp Shoes) and Vlad Smirnov (Double Dip). The device he’d been calling a cubar, was technically a phone. The country he was in was called the United States of America, and it seemed to be approximately equivalent to Leaf from his understanding of geopolitics. Vlad was technically a dual citizen of the United States and Russia, the other major power (Hazou liked to compare Russia to Mist), and travelled to Russia about once a year.Speaking of travel, Hazou was astounded by how much Eli and Vlad’s society had advanced in that department. It seemed their world was much larger than the Elemental Nations, and everybody moved around a lot. Now convinced that he was no longer on the same planet (and perhaps even dimension) as his previous world, Hazou wondered if he wanted to return.Regardless, at least several of his teammates seemed to be here. He couldn’t help but wonder who else might have been brought. Putting aside questions he couldn’t do anything about for now, Hazou resumed learning about the surroundings from Eli and Vlad.Eli and his family had lived in the United States for generations, but Vlad had moved here while he was young, and was now a citizen.They had met in school at a young age.They had never heard of ninja.. Everybody could use their magic, called technology, but not everyone understood it, and relatively few groups made new technology.. Eli and Vlad were both, despite being old enough to have started a family (21 and 22 respectively), only just out of the schooling system of the country and didn’t have jobs yet.Hazou wondered? They had decided that, before they got a job, they would walk 2189 miles from one end of their country to the other, over a bunch of mountain ranges because it sounded fun. All of the people he’d met at the hostel (the name for the dwelling he had first stumbled into) were doing the same thing.Camp Shoes and Double Dip had told the other hikers that they were just moving on, so they figured that might reduce the chance of somebody finding them, though they were quite unsure what would happen with the granite wall Hazou had made.Hazou also asked the pair about getting a phone or dictionary for himself. They assured him they could do that, but not at Monson (the town he had explored). Monson was too small to have anything useful, they’d need to go to Bangor, one of the major cities in Maine, the province they were in.Hazou thought.In terms of funding, getting Hazou a phone would cost money, but only a small fraction (~1%) of their funding, though it would take a couple days. On the other hand, getting Hazou to Russia would likely take all, or a large majority of their funding. The local monetary system, and most monetary systems worked with currency. Their currency could be physical (they showed him a few pieces of greenish paper), or representative. The most common type of representative money was credit cards (they showed him a stiff piece of paper). Ultimately, technology linked the physical and representative money somehow, and each person could access their own money in either way.Also, as came out during an argument Hazou had asked them to translate, it turned out Vlad was mildly capable of using technology to exploit the link between representative money to make money his own. Eli thought this was a bad thing, and didn’t like Vlad doing it. Regardless, it would take time and equipment they didn’t have in the woods, and might attract the attention of the authorities, so they didn’t want to do it unless absolutely necessary. Food costs varied widely based on how well you wanted to eat. The funding Eli and Vlad had was intended to last them ~6 months of rations like the ones he had eaten that morning, and occasional nice places to sleep, like where Hazou had found them. If necessary, they figured they could stretch the funding a little further on food, but it would taste even worse than what they’d had that morning. A good meal would cost approximately as much as Vlad’s phone.It also turned out, Eli and Vlad had a fairly simple way of planning to get Hazou into Russia. Put Hazou in a storage seal, then have Eli and Vlad travel there as they normally did. Deciding he didn’t want to reveal that storage seals couldn’t be used on people, but needing to know more, Hazou asked about specifics in how traveling between countries. That revealed a little more helpful information.Vlad had a fake ID Hazou could use (which would make people think he was from the United States), but didn’t have a fake passport he could use. So, they could easily move him around in the United States, and while both Eli and Vlad could, and often did, travel to other countries they couldn’t take Hazou with them openly. Vlad also mentioned that Hazou looked nothing like his fake ID, so Hazou shouldn’t expect it to work all the time. He’d also need to return to New York (a nearby province) to grab it should they need to use it.Partway through their conversation, Eli had connected their device to another device without a screen. When asked why, he responded, “The phone is running out of magic. This gives it more.” Confused, but accepting, Hazou ignored it and focused on more important questions.Vlad and Eli coached Hazou on how to speak several phrases and numbers Hazou had carefully picked out. Initially, they said he was understandable, but had an atrocious accent. Hazou spent a fair amount of time asking them to repeat the phrases until he got it right once. Then, he use just used that everytime. Eli and Vlad were a little confused by Hazou’s ability to perfectly speak the sentences, but they accepted it.Once the sun had risen to its peak, the group decided they should eat food. Vlad and Eli were happy that they were going into town today, and so could eat all their food.While they were cooking and eating, Hazou inquired more about how they planned on making money off of storage seals. From the debate between Eli and Vlad, it seemed the specifics might not be as… concrete as one might have hoped. There were several options they could pursue.Both Eli and Vlad wanted to do a bunch of simple experiments on storage seals to discover their exact properties to see if there were edge cases they could use them for (most of which Hazou already knew the answers to). Hazou carefully remained silent and didn’t respond to questions about what he knew about storage seals. No reason to give up free bargaining information.Vlad knew some places he could likely sell storage seals for a fair bit of money while being untraceable. Eli knew some technology masters who would likely do almost anything to study one. Both knew people who had the resources to make a new company which could likely hide the specifics of how it worked, and sell some product. They figured the applications were virtually limitless, so the exact specifics ofthey sold the storage seals to was a question they could answer at a later date.With lunch finished, Vlad and Eli started packing up camp and prepared to go to Bangor. Hazou volunteered to run them there, but they just laughed and said it’d be easier and less conspicuous if they just hitchhiked there. They explained hitchhiking to Hazou: basically, the cars driving down roads were piloted by people. They would ask people to drive them where they wanted to go, and eventually, someone would give them a ride, and in exchange, they would give the person conversation and entertainment. They assured Hazou that they could cover for him in conversation and he could just sit there as they got driven into Bangor. They did, however need to travel about 15 miles through the woods to get to the road Vlad wanted them to go to, and were more than happy to accept piggy back rides to get there.Hazou is about to go see the big city with Eli and Vlad, traveling via hitchhiking. How do you intend to get there and what do you intend to do once there? Please submit votes in plan format.[] Go along with the plan[] Run there yourself[] Suggest a different course of action[] Work towards purchasing a phone[] Secure housing for a few days (will cost money unless an alternative is offered)[] Find a computer and search for more teammates[] Research civilian usable seals[] Write-in