Deeper Into The Ruins To Get Jane's Backpack

"Do you have a camp site Jane-chan?" I ask, realizing that she, unlike myself, does not carry a pack.

"No, I had a backpack, but I had just put it down to check what was in it when the toad things came out of nowhere an chased me..." Jane says.

"Then we must go get it back! If you will be so kind as to direct me Jane-chan, I will lead the way..." I state, having re-sheathed my Daisho.

After a walk of only fifteen minutes, which involves two wrong turns, we come to the location of Jane Doe's backpack, but this is where we run into trouble...

A group of three hairless green monkeys are standing around the pack rifling it's contents and squabbling over what they find, they are armed with some kind of crude knives and wearing something that could be said to resemble clothing if one were especially generous, though it is nothing more than ratty and untanned skins. We have managed to approach without being seen by hiding behind a broken down, smashed, and rusted iron wagon of some sort and I must asses the situation...

"Friends of yours?" I inquire quietly of my new associate.

"I have never encountered such creatures in my life, and I should say not as that is MY things they are stealing!" Miss Doe hisses and I nod once, grimly.

"Very well, stay behind me and follow my lead." I state and rise from hiding to close with the green-monkey-people.

I stalk forward hand on the hilt of my katana and slowing my breathing to enter the state of meditative calm necessary before a battle for the fastest reactions when it begins. At 20 feet of distance I stop and in a loud voice challenge them: "Modoru hanare hōsō kara. Yukkuri!" but at their look of utter non-comprehension and slowly rising anger drop into what seems to be the local trade tongue: "Back away from the package, slowly!" My voice is deceptively calm, or perhaps not 'deceptively' because I AM perfectly calm right now, these Gaijin are nothing to me, I can gut them like a fish without so much as turning a hair, but only a prize fool would mistake my clam for a lack of threat.

It seems that the green-monkey things are brave, but very stupid. "Kuolet jalo koira!" their leader shouts and they rush me en-mass, long bladed knives set to eviscerate.

They don't get the chance.

As the first of them comes into sword range I draw and strike in one swift motion, decapitating him. The other two are taken by bolts of orange/white fire from behind me which leaves them both as little more than spreading clouds of blood, viscera, and bone chips, and just like that the fight is over.

I turn to Jane-chan and bow ever so slightly. "Thank you for your assistance, but I could have handled them myself, I had not even drawn my Wakizashi." I state and she nods, but shrugs.

"I wasn't worried about you, I was worried about ME." She says, and I frown.

"I would have protected you." I state.

"I know, but, then I would owe you twice." She says looking away.

"Think nothing of it, we will have many more times when we must rely on each other I am sure." I say and help her gather her things back into her pack.

Her pack has as many items as mine, food, clothing, some enchanted wands and potions, a set of panpipes, candles, a journal or diary, and a few other oddments including some foreign coins which when compared with my own Gil prove to weigh the same and carry the same values. Several things that were in the pack prove to have been ruined by the green fur-less monkeys, including her pot of ink and ink pen, so Jane cannot write in her journal, which is sad. However, shortly what can be saved has been and we get ready to depart.

From here we have five options: Ahead, to the left, to the right, down, and back.

Ahead of us four mighty buildings lie crumpled and broken crushed together like the model buildings of some giant child who had a temper tantrum and smashed them into each other in a fit of pique till each one could no longer be distinguished from the others. This tangled mass of girders and half buckled support columns is forbidding and dangerous looking but spans a vast dark chasm where the street seems to have fallen into some underground space and now presents and impassible morass of feted water and refuse. It also LOOKS stable enough to climb through, if we are careful.

Behind us and to the left is the entrance to some kind of catacombs, a dark staircase leading down into the earth marked with a cheerful red, white, and blue sign that proclaims it to be 'Underground' as if we couldn't tell.

On our left is an intact tower, well, mostly, many of its windows are cracked and smashed, and vines grow out of some of them, but the structural integrity of the building seems to be OK and we could easily enter through it's gaping doors.

To the right is a large low building, three stories and taking up hundreds of feet of street-front which faded and damaged sign proclaims it to be "B--king Nan---ech Industrial Sta---- #-" the place has a vaguely hostile and oppressive feel about it but then, so does the whole city...