It didn't take too long for the expedition team to find their way out of the ship. Just as they were leaving the power around them began to quell and the ship eventually returned dormant. There was no pursuit and the returned to the surface after some scouring in the darkness.

She kicked down the vent of one of the exterior hatches and climbed out, falling into a small pond of rainwater just below. "Ugh!"

Okay, now the pain was a bit more noticeable without all the fear and adrenaline pumping her up. Climbing down was a not very graceful affair, Hide ended landing hard into the puddle below. Which only brought a bout of pained laughter from the Matsu.

"Holy shit... I can't believe we're still alive."

Yul took the landing in the rainwater fairly stoically, grunting as he landed with a splash. "Let's keep moving." He said.

After a moment, he smiled. "But that was pretty amazing." He reached out, giving Hide a clap on the back.

... but also still moving.

"How's your wound Hide-san?" Koseki jumped down with a splash. Standing he turned to look back at the ship with a thoughtful expression and reflexively reached for his rifle.

"What the shit was that shit in there? I say we blow this graveyard to Jigoku." A scowl creased his forehead. "Of course it would be easier if I had my mining equipment..."

Hide picked herself up off the ground and gave Koseki a huge grin, “Oh, it’s extremely painful!” Her tone was surprisingly jovial for having a large gash on her torso.

She kept pace with the others, agreeing to move forward was definitely the best option. “But yeah... Those things looked humanlike? What are they?”

"If we ever come back there, it will be with flamethrowers, shugenja, and flame-throwing shugenja. Seriously, what are the Phoenix thinking by letting this place unconsecrated? Not that we can reproach that to them without revealing we've been there though..."

She refocused on the present:

"I'm curious about that too, but might want to get out of the forbidden zone as soon as possible. Would be not fun to get caught by a Phoenix patrol after all that. Think you can walk the distance Hide?"

"Did everyone hear that guy? Ordering that big one?" Yul looked around. "Who was that guy?"

He looked at Eriko. "Do we need to report this?"

Hide looked to Akemi with a baffled expression, "They got me in the chest, not the leg. Of course I can walk it."

A koku dropped.

"Yeah... Oh no...wait a minute." The Firefly looked off into the distance making a few calculations. A steam of expletives that would make a miner blush quickly followed. He rubbed his temples.

"Fuck. Anyone else notice that big zombie mushroom had a bunch of feathers on it?" Sighing he continued. "When we first arrived I heard about a bunch of people going missing. I made a few discreet enquiries and heard a few folks disappeared from the Farmlands. Speculation was that some otori herders got eaten by Reavers, so I didn't think any more about it."

His eyes were drawn back to the ship they were walking away from. "I might be going crazy, but... What if it wasn't Reavers, and there's some fucked up Bio-zombie Cult living on that ship?"

Yul more or less followed this, but it took him a few moments. His lips twisted into a disgusted frown.

"Wait... so you think maybe whoever that voice belonged to is abducting people and turning them into those things?" Yul grit his teeth. "He said something about using us to replace them, didn't he?"

He looked at Eriko again. "We've gotta report this. Right?" There was a faint note of pleading in Yul's voice, as he found himself possibly stuck between a promise and the right thing to do.

"Yeah. Or maybe I just read too many of Otomo Katsuko's Tales of the Unexpected when I was a kid?" He shrugged and reached for a cig but then thought better of it. "I suppose we could tell the Magistrate that we saw some weird stuff in the direction of the Kiyonami? During the Hunt, which should be on right now."

Yul had the right of it in regards to moving and Eriko recovered from her rough landing to keep moving. They weren't out of the woods yet and they were technically still escaping. Once they reached back to the Shiro, they could have their breather. She took a look around, trying to make out some landmarks as they've exited from a different part of the ship. Thankfully, it wasn't too far from where they made camp. "Let's find our rides and motor..."

Eriko pulled off her gas mask and clipped it to her belt, grabbing her canteen after for some water. She wasn't shy about chugging some water after their run, letting it run down her face as she kept close with the group.

"Zombies, animated dead...Shadowlands," she said with a few huffs after a deep drink of water, "that's for damn sure. My intuition kicked it...I wasn't sure at first but it just made sense. Nothing in local journals seem to mention anything about mushrooms having this sort of effect on people and it sure doesn't make them grow another set of arms!"

She let out a conflicted sigh and gave a reluctant shake of her head as she was unsure where to go with this. "I'm going to frank to you all...this is actually the first time I've faced something like this. All of my witch-hunting days have been rather...normal? I guess. Going against maho and zombies is not familiar territory. Obviously, something needs to be done...but none of you should get in trouble for it. I know you didn't sign up for this."

Hide took a good long look at Eriko. What was she planning? What was certain was Hide didn’t like the sound of it all. “Well, you’re right. We didn’t sign on for any of that, but...” She clutched her chest, still a bit of pain shooting through whenever she stepped a little too hard on the ground. “I signed on to help you. Whatever that entails.”

That was probably the first time anyone of the people gathered actually heard a completely serious statement from Hide.

"Hmm, good point, we do still need to get out of here." He took a last look at the ship as they made a heroic escape.

As Eriko laid out her intuition and the situation Koseki felt something. Determination? Perhaps. Stubbornness? Probably. He nodded at Hide's words.

"This ain't familiar territory for any of us then. I guess this is what I get for going to the library..." The Firefly made a meal of shaking his head and shrugging before giving them a grin.

"Anyway, I don't know what any of that really means Eriko-san, outside of that episode of Seppun Benteno Investigates, the one they had to put a special warning on? But it sounds like you're going to need a crack squad of ultimate badasses. Looks like you've got us though, and isn't that better?"

Eriko slowly looked up and cast alternating glances to everyone around her, showing a smirk finally. "I think everyone has made it pretty clear that they're not afraid of anything and it seems that we're ready for more at a moment's notice. We know what should be done. I know we haven't exactly known each other for long but I'd like to think that's something. Some kind of special moxie you don't see much, you know? I like that."

She sighed and gave a shake of her head. "But I was really thinking some sort of another thing you guys didn't sign up for, administration and punishment. This might be over our head. The next time we go in, we might not be so lucky to go out, especially if we are keeping this between all of us. At the moment, it's a secret. What I was wondering if we should do the other right thing and tell the magistrate. Send in the cavalry and everything. And I say we, I mean me. You shouldn't put up with whatever they might throw on me for throwing myself under the cart."

There was the other shoe. Hide expected Eriko to say something along those lines, and Hide hated being right. “What... Do you think they would do to you? They wouldn’t kick you out of the miai, right? That would probably really not make your superiors happy. And I don’t wish that on you.”

"With some diplomacy, it might be possible to make a zero-sum deal about this. In other words have the magistrates forget to ask how we've obtained such information, or at least forget to act upon it, in exchange of us keeping quiet on the fact they've let that happen under their nose for you know how long.

I dunno if any of us have the skills to pull that off however. Or even if it wouldn't be better to pass through a middle person of higher status in all cases, to mellow a bit the magistrates before the act. From my information the local ones are a bit on the fence already due to the Spider running around."

"I don't know if anyone else should be in on this other than one person, even then they might start to suspect that there are other people involved," she said glancing to all of them. "I doubt the Asako would kick me out for doing what I did, so long as I show them the obvious evidence, I would hope. Maybe boot me down to bottoms ranks, who knows. It's bound to be messy and complicated, before and after...but may likely get the job done without ending on an episode of Seppun Benteno Investigates where five people go missing without an explanation, never to be heard again."

"But in case if anyone is still wondering about, I'm actually discussing, for once. Tell me how I should go about this, we're in together now."

“Well... I do think that we might not fully be able to handle whatever’s down there. Plus, if something happened to all of us...” Hide trailed off, clutching her chest, before looking away from Eriko, “That man implied that he’d turn our bodies into those things. So I do think we should tell the magistrate. They could bring people in with more resources than what we have among us. I would rather us not give him more bodies to turn into his little experiments, that would just put everyone in more danger, yeah?”

"In my opinion, it's all about presentation. If all or any of us go throw themselves at the magistrate's feet and say they have seen mushroom zombies roaming inside a tomb they were busy defiling, not only it's very likely they will receive a severe blame but worst, it's unlikely their story will be believed enough for the authorities to act upon it.

What I think we need is someone politically astute and connected enough to deliver the news of this infestation to the lord magistrate directly without going through the official channels, almost as an exchange of favors: I give you good information you cannot get through legal means, you don't ask about my sources.

Finding someone who is both talented enough to spin that and who can be trusted not to sell us out for a short-term gain won't be easy, but I would like to drop Yasuki Nishida's name. As a fellow Crab, he is quite aware that not letting zombies roam take precedence over meager political gains... And as the highest status Crab here, any scandal involving that many Crab would reflect badly on him, even if he was to denounce them himself, and especially as he is trying to woo the governor's daughter."