Mud Slide Meetings.

The ratling begins working his way out of the mud and back down the path the way they came. "Maybe the trail will dry up in a few days and we can resume the search then?" he suggests to Rin half-heartedly. What is the tightly-wound magistrate going to do now that her quarry is denied her?

"Unlikely... this level of mud would have washed any hope of a trail away with ease. It seems the man has escaped me again." she offered with a soften of tone as she shook her head. It was easy to imagine that her jaw was tensed now as she looked to the horizon. She glanced back then to her present company with a slight quirk of lips. "Let us bring Kitsuki-san back to town. She was not my intended discovery but I suppose fate has seen fit to simply thwart my efforts at every avenue and leave me with little but scars."

The Mud settles as quickly as it came, still sludge like but no longer flowing from the side pass it had come from.

Chitter nods at the Scorpion's resignation and begins trudging out of the mud, leading the way back down the mountain path. He did his best to shake and scrape the mud off of his armor as he went, but he was really looking forward to sitting down with some water to really get it clean again--and getting the muck out of his boots. He had found that an emphasis on cleanliness helped him convince humans that he was more than just a savage.

Chiyo cringed slightly at the words of the Scorpion, the words of the latter reminding her of her own clumsiness. Or rather, her never-ceasing curiosity and the trouble it usually had gotten her in.
However, when the odd voice corrected the Magistrate's words, the Kitsune looked up.
Not fate... My kin? she wondered, her eyes searching for the source of the voice - thinking that perhaps her fall had damaged her more than she had thought initially.

"Shosuro-san," the woman then addressed the Magistrate, remembering the mentioning of someone who had escaped her. "I entered these... Mines through the main entrance. If I am correct, there are not that many ways out from those mines."
She pondered for a moment, wondering if the mines through which she had entered were perhaps connected to another underground system of caves - and whether this place belonged to the latter rather than the former.
If these parts belonged to the mines, whoever they were after had little choice but to leave through the one entrance. And even if they did not, Chiyo doubted anyone would want to stay in these mines for too long. She had been here for a couple of hours only and already, she had sensed too... Too much. Too much of the odd presence. Too much of whatever had been released by the crystals?

That earned a curious glance from the Shosuro woman, the cold and mud forgotten then as a glimmer of the trail was laid before her. "How far are these mines?" she asked with a note of renewed vigor in her words and gestures. It was perhaps an unseemly breach of her on but this murderer had eluded her for so long that she wished dearly to ensure that justice was brought to him whether at the end of her blade or beneath the headman's axe.

The Kitsune smiled slightly as she pointed in the direction from where she came.
"I actually assumed that you entered these caves through the mines," the woman explained. "I did. It was... At least an hour, perhaps more, of venturing into the mine when the floor suddenly gave way."
Or perhaps not so suddenly, had she not been too distracted by the odd reflections.
Suddenly, she found herself reaching for the fox-like mask and was glad to find it still strapped to her side.
As she took it between her hands and started cleaning it to the best of her ability, she continued to address the Magistrate.
"The mines - or at the very least the main entrance - is about a day-and-half traveling from the main village if I am correct."

The mud in the crack slowly hardens, but even as slowly as it drys out it does so far faster then you might expect. THat is, you are actualy able to watch it dry before you.

Again, that voice. Voice? Sound.
But this time, it was clearly directed at her - and again, the others did not seem to have heard anything.

The Kitsune lowered the mask she holding even further, having paused the cleaning earlier on due to the odd drying process of the mud already. Now however, her eyes darted back and fro, studying her environment as if she expected something to appear near them.

"My arrival was more akin to awakening in a cave rather than entering a mine. It was an unpleasant prospect made more so that I was trapped with the fugitive I had been pursuing. In either case, we can make the journey to the mines or my companion and I can bring you to the village. The only particular cocern is catching my death of an ill humor drenched as I am." the Shosuro woman replied with thoughtful considerations that were reflected in the frown she now wore. Even then it seemed insincere and more like an attempt to suppress some manner of amusement. She also casually noted that the Kitsune woman was agitated by something but then agitation seemed a common trait in this place.