Zhu - It had been a long night. Whiskers kept me company until I fell asleep. I hadn’t realized how much our battle with the Karakuri crab had taken out of me. The mechanical monstrosity was piloted by two of Ichigo’s thugs. Of the ambushing thugs, only one of the pilots was allowed to leave alive. The betrayal of Lady Saru had raised the collective anxiety of my travel companions. We spent the night under the looming presence of a damaged Torii. Come daybreak, Whiskers had coaxed the splintered structure back to its pristine state. This eased my mind more than I thought it would. Passing under a sacred arch in a broken condition is very bad luck. My insistence on fixing the Torii would soon pay dividends.
It wasn’t long before we reached the Shinsiena river. The bridge stretched out over the chasm spanning more than a hundred feet. The gentle river passed lazily by, some forty feet below.
We hadn’t taken more than a few steps off the far side of the bridge before we were confronted by a bit of a puzzle. Kolya’s ability to read trails-sign revealed that there had been an attack here by some creature that attacked from beneath the ground. A patrol of Ashigaru soldiers from Mamoru castle had fallen prey to whatever creature has attacked them. Before we could investigate further, a massive boar emerged from the woods on the trail ahead. The beast looked vexed. Turning its anger and frustration on us, it charged in our direction. The horseman they call Mahaadi moved off the trail and closer, what I assumed was an attempt to outflank the beast. That is when the earth gave birth to a nightmare. To boar was tossed skyward like it was a child’s plaything. A belch of sand and gravel from the creature bursting from the ground turned the magnificent boar into a husk of ash. The sooty particles were absorbed into the mustard colored skin of the earth dragon. In what was was the span of a breath, the bore was gone. In its place a coiling, mature Earth Dragon.
Kolya tested his arrows against the create’s hide after a moment’s hesitation, but the scales were too resilient. The act of firing on the dragon sent it rushing in our direction. The same super-heated sand and gravel that has slain the bar was now burning the air before us.
Fortunately we were beyond the reach of the sand and gravel. It was clear to me that we were no match for the creature, but there was someone nearby that could protect us if properly persuaded. Without thinking I vaulted over the bridge railing into the water; the impact stealing my breath. Before I attempted to return to the surface, I said a prayer to the river spirit, asking for his protection.
The river swirled around me, disorienting me for a moment before I felt the crush of bubbles all around me. Unable to swim in the airy water I began to sink. My strength in human form was not equal to the great power of the river and I was forced to transform. In my fox form I was larger and stronger in every way. I burst to the surface to find that my companions were holding their own agains the creature, thanks to the river’s natural animosity to the Earth Dragon. The river would require much more persuasion if we were going to survive this encounter and I shouted out to my companions to not wait for my return. Then I turned to the depths where I saw the spirit-form of the river approaching. Taking me into his arms we worked together to rebuff the dragons attempts to cross over the river. Now in spirit-form myself, I watched as Mahaadi descended the muddy embankment to escape the searching eyes of the dragon. Whiskers called out from the bridge demanding an introduction from the dragon. “Ganglakara!” he decried before descending into a fit of madness, evidently caused by the phantom snakes attached to his limbs and biting at his flesh. His howls of pain and frustration a heartbreaking reminder that all creatures great and small can be made to suffer.
In time Takeshi aided Mahaadi in escaping the pull of the river. Ganglakara, however was not eager to give up the pursuit of his prey. As the group moved south he followed them from the far bank of the river. Unable to shake the dragon heading south, they turned north into the bamboo forest. The dragon attempted to fly over the river in pursuit, but Shinsiena’s power was greater. I lost sight of my new friends, knowing that I could rejoin them if I followed the river.
I had no measurement of the time that passed between when they disappeared down the trail and when I entered the human settlement along the river, but in the interim my friends had met with ill fortune. The terraced settlement was populated by old women and children and elder men damaged by injury. There, amid the remnants of a village lay Kolya, his body was cold and his head caved in. How had this happened? In my attempts to gain clarity, all I did was add chaos and tension to an already mortifying moment.
The village elder, a woman called Yuki explained to me that they are beset by Oni every few weeks. Largely any time they return from Hoseki City after selling their goods. The Oni extort coin from them and even take any able-bodied men. For this reason they stay hidden as much as possible. It is impossible for them to hide all the time and earn enough to feed themselves.
The Oni have taken over a mining town ten miles to the north. There they have enslave more than fifty people to work the silver mines for their benefit. The corrupt leaders of Hoseki care not for the plight of the village and the Oni are too strong for the villagers to make any difference.
These villages are locked into an unending nightmare.
While I was catching up on events, the others were pooling their money and scheming for a way to recover their dead friend. With enough money raised, they resorted to sending Whiskers into town disguised. He would seek out the Yollari outpost in Hoseki and bring out a cleric of sufficient ability to raise their fallen comrade. The plan worked close to plan, though it was a cleric of Chikaradzuyoi that peformed the ceremony on behalf of Yollari.
With the new day upon us we gathered around the restored Kolya and planned our next steps to continue our journey to the capital.