Yeah, not terribly impressed with Professor Ninjaiakis’ overland camouflage skills. That trick with disguising yourself as a creeping shrubbery might have first appeared in medieval Japan, but it’s also been around in Renaissance Italy and, particulary frequently, Boer-war era South Africa. And many times after that. Really, I’d have expected such a well-educated ninja to have something better up his sleeve.
He does, however, demonstrate impressively acute hearing. The sound of somebody turning to stone is pretty subtle, it speaks for his ninja senses that he was able to pick it up coming from behind. Or…perhaps he simply knew it was coming, because I bet that a lot of people react like that to the prospect of having to climb a mountain three times higher than a mountain three times higher than Silhouette Mountain. (Not even ‘climb’, come to think of it more like ‘creep up a mountain three times higher than a mountain three times higher than Silhouette Mountain disguised as a shrubbery’.)
Fortunately, as the Professor already explained last time, any ninja village should do. So if our friends are just to goddamn lazy to infiltrate the Hidden Sky Village, the Hidden Swamp Village, the Hidden Dry-River-Bed Village or the Hidden Overgrown-Ravine Village would work just as well as a source of information, and can be reached without climbing. Their loss, though, since the Hidden Sky Village offers a really gorgeous view of the landscape!
More on Thursday!