Ongoing Role Play ~ [The Unexpected Guest]

[Yu-Baaba]

The story thus far . . .

(Yu-Baaba)(open)
It was a very normal morning. Yu-Baaba was awoken by the sound of her precious baby Bou crying for her to feed him. After that was done, she set to work on her daily money count *Mmm. Rich, as usual! She then helped herself to a hearty breakfast of lizard and rice, and was about to make her rounds about the Bath House to make sure everything was running as normal.

Suddenly, she sensed something. Something BIG was coming. But she didn't know what. She made her way to find her second in command, Hiro.


(Hiro)(open)
Lady Hiro was meditating on the floor of her room, trying to center herself for a balanced day.
All of a sudden, she was interrupted by a small frog worker.
"What do you want" she said harshly - she didn't like to be disturbed when she was meditating!
"Uh, please forgive me madam, but Mistress Yu-Baaba is searching for you." he stuttered as he fell to his face in a bow.
Hmmm. I can sense something coming. She thought.

"Very well, I shall go see her at once." She picked up her bow and headed to find Yu-Baaba.


(Yu-Baaba)(open)
Yu-Baaba finally found Hiro trying to ward off the Radish Spirit (in as polite a manner as possible). Yu-Baaba excused them both and took Hiro aside.
"Do you sense it?" Yu-Baaba asked without much doubt of the answer. She had trained Hiro well, and her powers had become quite strong.
"Well, I'm going to the door to greet - whatever it is. You round up some of the "special" workers to be ready for it."
She then left Hiro without even waiting for a reply. Yu-Baaba chuckled to herself. She wasn't worried - whatever IT was couldn't possibly be beyond her power to control. In fact, she liked it when things got amusing around the Bath House.

Yu-Baaba stepped up to the doorway, prepared for the worse - nothing would surprise her.
The creature that had caused such a tremor in her senses suddenly appeared, walking towards the bridge.
Yu-Baaba gaped in shock -
"WHAT?! A HUMAN?!!!!!!"


(Hiro)(Maru, Tin)
Hiro bowed to Yu-Baaba, then ran off to obey her orders.
She found the workers most suitable for the task at hand.
"Maru, Tin, prepare yourselves. Yu-Baaba has a special guest for you!"
She then ran off to help Yu-Baaba.


(Tin)(Hiro)
Tin heard Lady Hiro call his name. He turned, and bowed. "Yes Lady Hiro?" Tin said, rising from his bow. Tin listened to what she told him. "I shall see to it right away." Tin said, getting up from scrubbing a tub, and walked over to where Yu-Baaba was.


(Yu-Baaba)(open)
Yu-Baaba stared at the human in disbelief. After a long awkward silence, she gave him a curious look and said "Who are you?"
The human looked straight in her eyes and said "My name is of no concern. I have come here for a bath."
Yu-Baaba chuckled, "We don't serve your kind here. You'll be lucky if I don't turn you into a mouse, just for coming here."
The human looked closely at Yu-Baaba, then said "If it's a question of money," then out of thin air, he conjured a sack full to the brim of pure gold, nearly twice the size of the average Frog Worker.
After Yu-Baaba had satisfied herself that the gold was indeed real, she stammered, "Well, this is certainly unorthodox . . . Workers, prepare the bath!"


(Tin)(open)
Tin hurried along and grabbed a bath token. He then slammed his fist against the wall, and the small opening for the bath tokens opened. Tin clipped the token on and walked up towards the tub to pull the string.
Then Tin walked up to Yu-Baaba.
"The Bath is ready." Tin said with a bow.


(Maru)(Open)
Maru took her time heading over to Lady Hiro. Although she had been to the Spirit World before and knew what mistress Yu-Baaba would do if she didn't hurry, she didn't care.


(Tin)(open)
Tin nodded to Hiro, and waited for when the guest was ready to head to their bath. His stomach made a bit of noise, his face turning red.


*******************************************************************************


(Yu-Baaba)(open)

Yu-Baaba, overlooking his stomach noises, nodded at Tin approvingly for preparing the bath so rapidly. Then she snapped at some lowly frog workers and motioned them to lead the unexpected guest to his bath. She bowed to the peculiar human, “Your bath awaits. Please enjoy your stay.” He nodded and somberly followed the frogs.

Before he could follow, Yu-Baaba gave Tin a subtle indication to stay behind. She took him aside to a remote corner so she could hold counsel with him in private.
“I’m sure you can sense that there is something amiss about that man. In all the many generations of this proud Bath House, we have NEVER once served a human as a guest . . . still he has paid handsomely for his stay, so make sure he gets treated with the works. All the luxuries and top notch service . . .”

She paused, then said with a hint of urgency in her tone, “Keep close watch over him. If anything unusual happens, alert me at once.”
She excused Tin and looked up to catch one more glimpse of the strange guest as he turned a corner at the end of a distant hallway. She stared after him with a mixed look of curiosity and foreboding.

[Tin]

(Tin)(Open)

Tin listened to Yu-Baaba's instructions. He was indeed curious to know what she thought this newcomer might do. Granted it didn't really surprise him at all if such a thing happened. As of late the Bath House had not seen any sort of catastrophe or action... so this was a slight change of pace. "I'll alert you immediately, Yu-Baaba-sama," he said, bowing deeply to her as she had finished.

Having been dismissed, he followed the frog workers that were leading their mysterious customer to his bath. Tin made sure to speak to those that were in the area to make sure that this guest was served with the best of the best.

[Douko]

(Douko)(Open)

High above all the commotion with the strange guest, Douko was sitting on the rafters, meditating. Like Mistress and Lady Hiro, he had sensed something also. This man, he wasn't from here, nor was he from the human world. This perplexed Douko, and eventually he descended to covertly get a good look and the stranger.

[Hin]

(Hin)(Open)
After she finished doing what she’s doing, Hin noticed the new guest at the entrance of the bath house with Yu-Baaba. "This is weird, we never have anyone like him before..." she thought. She walked toward the entrance to take a closer look at the guest. She thought that he was a human, but there’s just something about him that makes him not a human, "…probably one of the unknown spirit."

[Douko]

(Douko)(Yu-Baaba)
Douko says "Mistress, would we happen to have a library here? There's something wrong with this 'human', and I want to check it out, maybe learn about him."

[Yu-Baaba]

(Yu-Baaba)(Douko)

Yu-Baaba glanced over at Douko. The day he had appeared at the Bath House was a strange one. No one seemed to know much about where he came from or his shrouded past - of course there weren’t many who remembered much of their lives before they became slaves to the Bath House.
But Yu-Baaba preferred it when she knew where her workers came from – she was always suspicious of the unknown, and besides it is much easier to control someone when you know a little about their past ...
Still he had proved himself useful on more than a few occasions, so the witch allowed him to stay and even tolerated his impertinence from time to time.

“Well, of course you know we have a small book shop for the guests. Mostly tourist guides and cheap entertainment. But I assume you’re referring to my personal library. I’m sure you know that I possess some of the most rare and mysterious books, containing some of the most powerful magical secrets in this or any other world. It is infrequent that anyone besides myself sets foot in there . . .
However, you may not have such a bad idea. I’ll let you do this research.”
And with that, she began to lead the way to her personal library.

[Douko]

(Douko)(open)
Douko starts to follow Yu-Baaba. As he is walking, he tells various employees to "find out what you can about the 'human', and report back to me."

He and Yu-Baaba finally arrive in her personal library. As he stares at the almost endless rows of books he wonders where to start. He finally picks a book on humans, and decides to learn more about them.

[Yu-Baaba]

(Yu-Baaba)(open)

Yu-Baaba watched Douko for a moment, amused at his concentration. She opened her mouth as if she was about to tell him something, then changed her mind and said simply "I'll leave you to it then."

She left him, without much worry about any of her books or secrets. They guarded themselves well and only a fool would attempt to steal from her anyway. Few realized just how connected to the Bath House Yu-Baaba was. It was almost as if the very building was merely an extension of herself. Little occurred within that place without her knowing. Even the walls themselves could be her spies if she so chose.

Yu-Baaba sighed contentedly and decided to check in on her guest and see how he was settling in.

[Tin]

(Tin)(Open)

Bowing to the guest as he was settling into his bath, he rose to inquire and see if he needed anything specific. "Is there anything specific you would like, my lord? We have an excellent menu and of course chefs that could prepare whatever you ask," Tin said, wanting to make their strange new guest as comfortable as possible. So far he hadn't sensed anything odd about his aura, so there wasn't any need to alert Yu-Baaba just yet. And hopefully there would be no need.