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[b][color=DarkOrange]wordcount:[/color][/b] 825 (+2)
[b][color=DarkOrange]Amaterasu: level 8[/color][/b] EXP: [color=DarkOrange]////////////////[/color]///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (16/80)
[b][color=DarkOrange]Location:[/color][/b] Dead Zone Hinterlands - Curien Mansion
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Amaterasu’s internal thoughts on the situation mostly mirrored Big Band’s, with one added focus. The kids were not getting any sunlight stuck in a cave all day, and that was a travesty. The solar celestial wasn’t even being self important on that front (mostly). She was simply instinctually aware mortals life needed sunlight to live, even if she was not aware of the specifics of vitamin D production that was the reason for this

At least the kids had been spared from whatever other thing they had been kidnapped for, but what that fate exactly was wasn’t initially clear. None of them had seemingly seen where they were or why they were being taken before being rescued, or had been rescued from wherever they were getting taken.

Which was concerning.

The receiving of further information had to come from the woman who had kidnapped them, and she did not, in Amatrasu’s opinion, give the best first impression. Skulking around unseen, while also clearly being absolutely massive came off as an attempt to be intimidating, which she did not appreciate. Plus her arrival put an end to the petting session. Not that she could really hold that last thing against the woman, the attention of children was a fickle thing after all.

After being more or less dragged outside by the kids and placed in front of some kind of miniature stage, she found herself sitting on her hindquarters and watching a play, which turned out to have an answer as to what the kids were being saved from.

She didn’t like what she saw.

Not the puppet show, to be clear. She liked that, and it was a novel (for her) experience to be sure. But the macabre subject matter touched a core part of her being that struck a cord even if she did not remember it, for sacrifices being made to terrible monsters were a core part of the original Amatarasu’s tale. 

Not that she needed that memory to be appalled by this information of the existence of a child eating monster. If it was true anyway. It could be that the titanic invisible being was spinning an elaborate tale, though she was not, it seemed, inventing the part about the children being kidnapped. Assuming there was no mental manipulation going on of course. For all she knew the kids were simply being convinced that they had been saved when this had not actually been the case.

There were only really two courses of actions here, she thought: get the answers out of the guards, or stalk them till they were caught in the act.

Helpfully, or unhelpfully, it soon appeared that the very same guards had followed them here and begun throwing accusations around, while Molly revealed herself to stand guard over the children. In doing so, she revealed herself to be absolutely massive and, indeed, of a spider like nature. 

Which raised the question of why she would need to kidnap the children, if she could simply crush the offending guards in one hand. Maybe she didn’t have a proclivity for violence? Certainly, even when cornered, she didn’t seem inclined to go on the attack. 

Or were these men more dangerous than they appeared?

Questions upon questions, and the words of mortals were not making anything clearer as accusations and denials were tossed hither and thither, much to the divine’s annoyance. Had she not been worked up and affronted by the deaths of children, she might have taken a lie down till they finished yammering on.

As it was, she sought answers where only she among the team could find them

Amaterasu stalked closer to the accused guards, and raised her snout to audibly sniff the air, before suddenly flinching back as her nose caught a whiff of a repugnant, aberrant odor on the accused guards. Something human and alien at the same time, and all together wrong. 

That sold it for her on who was in the right here, because what else would a giant baby head with monstrous appendages smell like? Even if that wasn’t the source of the smell, for all her monstarouse size and form, Molly merely smelled of what she was, not of anything inherently ‘wrong’ and so only one group was passing the sniff test here.

She couldn't communicate this, but she could communicate the side she was choosing. She did so by lowering herself into an aggressive pose, before stalking around the guards, growling at them as she did, before putting herself defensively in front of Molly and the children.

Given her own (misbegotten) reputation in the town, this was maybe not the most convincing argument for a peaceful resolution. Then again, it wasn’t meant to be one. Unlike Molly, the Galeeming Goddess very much had a proclivity for violence, and this was everyone’s one warning to either find a peaceful solution, or else she was going to take matters into her own claws.