Do you sense anything out of the ordinary, Suishen ... other than the fact this is creepy, f$##ing place?
Malnival groans and runs his fingers through his hair as he looks at the others. "Didn't I say we should figure this ooutbefore charging in? What have we just gotten ourselves into?"
Kiyomi is confused by the man's statement, because the play board does not indicate any particular players, as far as she can tell. It just looks like an average game (besides Heng's additional piece).
The man says nothing in response to Harlan or Malinval's warning, but instead throws back his head and laughs diabolically before suddenly disappearing. A moment later, the shogi board flashes. When you blink, you find yourself alone in a perfect square space, surrounded by translucent mother-of-pearl walls.
"Damn it ... knew it stunk."
The others are still nearby?
Malnival frowns and detects magic.
Init:
Everyone hears Malnival casting a spell nearby.
Parity draws his blade and pushes against the wall in front of him.
"Mal? Guys? What happened?"
"Skygni do you smell anything unusual?"
Kiyomi starts, looking around. She calls out, "Hello? Can you hear me?"
You can hear each other speaking. It sounds like you're in the same vicinity, but separated by the translucent walls.
Heng notes that the walls seem to rise out of sight into an amorphous darkness overhead.
Parity finds the wall solid.
"As am I. I'm going to try some songs." Kiyomi concentrates and casts dimension door, trying to get back to the spot by the table.
Parity will airwalk up.
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Parity air steps up, but notices little actual progress -- after several climbing steps, he glances down and finds himself still a few inches above the floor.
Skygni sniffs at the walls, shaking his head. "Doesn't smell of anything..." he growls to Harlan. "Not just nothing special. I mean no scent at all."
Kiyomi calls up a portal and flashes through. After the dizziness fades, she is another cell, one very much like before.
Heng cracks the angle mover piece, releasing a small explosion of magical motes as it crumbles...
One, your vision switches in a blink, and you can now see through the translucent walls. You can tell now that they are made from magical shadow-stuff.
You and the others are arrayed on one side of a 9 x 9 grid -- a life-sized shogi board! Five shadow-pieces are aligned against you. It seems a representative of the game from the table in the reception room. Your forces are scattered and off balance, while the opponents are poised for imminent victory.
The motes from your broken piece coalesce into the adjacent space. For a moment it remains shadowy and indistinct, but then clarifies into an image of Habesuta Hatsue, standing but asleep. She starts awake suddenly, glancing through the wall at you.
What... What are you doing in my dream? she asks, astonished.
"Maybe it's an illusion."
Harlan stares at the walls with all his might, willing them not to exist.
Do I get anything still using detect magic?
Kiyomi looks around, disgusted to still be in the cell. "My spell did not aid me. I am simply in another cell."
"Ooooh, so if we're on the board these are squares. We have to move like the pieces maybe? But which pieces are we? Heng, how do we move?"
Harlan girds himself, mounts Skygni, and rides forward through (or maybe into) the wall.
Hatsue nods to Heng, I will try. She looks over the game board, quickly assessing the situation. A precarious position, but I have a counter-strategy.
Malnival's continued concentration tells him that he is surrounded by strong illusion magic. Harlan and Parity try to disbelieve, but the walls remain solid and seemingly real.
Hatsue's voice enters everyone's mind then, describing the layout of the board and the locations of the enemy pieces. With her words, the walls fade to shadow-stuff, and you too can see the game.
Follow my guidance, please, she says, then begins issuing orders. Parity, move forward one space.
Parity complies, and is able to walk through the shadow-walls to his new square. The walls give resistance, like walking through water, but give way once through to the other side.
The shadowy enemies take their turn, moving to counter Hatsue's strategy. And so the game commences... Hatsue orders Malnival and Kiyomi into a lateral flank, with Harlan and Skygni taking a knight's move to attack. As they enter a foe's space, the shadow disappates.
They counter, moving to eliminate Malnival and then Parity, who also disappear from the board -- banished to a cold, lightless cell. Hatsue frowns but remains controlled, taking advantage of an opening generated by their attack. Harlan again strikes, then Kiyomi... until the enemy's final piece is cornered and defeated.
As soon as the game is won, the illusion breaks and you are all standing in the welcoming room. The shogi board shows the final play. Hatsue is gone.
Harlan shakes his head as well.
"Not sure Heng, but that's some pretty potent magic there. Wonder if the wizard cast it himself? Let's find him quick though, before he can escape."
"Some times, I prefer the days when I couldn't see at all ...," Parity remarks, still a bit confused as to what just happened.
"Let's find this girl and get out of this bizarre place."
"That was ... most strange, was it not?" Kiyomi looks relieved to be free, perhaps a bit more than relieved as her brief imprisonment stirred up many feelings on her previous imprisonment by the oni.
You continue to search the manor interior, but find it as unused and run down as the outside. There are six guest rooms, two baths, a small kitchen and a small tea room. All contain simple furnishings, mostly dust-covered, and appear to not have seen use in many months.
There is a set of stone stairs leading down to a sake cellar, rough hewn from the bedrock. It remains cool and moist, and smells fairly of alcohol. Four sets of shelves stand in the corners, containing scores of ceramic bottles, glass vials, and small barrels of various sizes and shapes. Two passages, to the north and to the east, lead into darkness.
Parity agrees with Heng, and then suggests, "We should head the opposite direction then, I think. He's probably not keeping the girl near where she can easily escape."
Without any dissent, Parity will start heading to the north.
Following Parity's lead, you take the northern path. The tunnel continues straight for seemingly a hundred yards or more. The only discernible change along the way is the steady deepening of shadows and gray-washing of color. A few blinks does not return color to your eyes -- everything, including yourselves, appears a shade of black or white!
Eventually, you catch the glint of your light reflecting off something ahead. The passage opens into a square room, thirty feet to each side. The walls, floor and ceiling have no features, but in each corner sits a tall frame-like object. The northeast frame is circular, the northwest is triangular, the southwest is rectangular, and the southeast is pentagonal.
As you look around, you notice that the passage from where you entered is gone -- only solid wall stands behind you.
"Screw these illusions. This kind of magic pisses me off."
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Malnival frowns and nods his head. " Agreed my friend, illusion is just a form of subterfuge. Real magic makes tangible."
The paper folds away, revealing an inro -- a small ivory box of four segments, held closed with a silk cord, a sliding fastener, and a netsuke (decorative toggle) to hang it from a sash. The segments of the inro are engraved with a depiction of a geisha playing the samisen. The netsuke is carved into the likeness of a strange turtle-headed humanoid holding a vase in its webbed hands, and a six-petaled magnolia flower is carved on the bottom of the netsuke.
I must discover
what lies inside myself
to enter your place
through dark and shadowed gates, but
the reflection is not me.
The inro is not locked, and by manipulating the segments along the guide strands, Heng easily opens the three compartments. Each contains a single, odd item: an empty silk worm cocoon in the lower compartment; two interlocking stone rings, one of yellow calcite and one of blue lapis lazuli, in the middle compartment; and three camphorwood beads on a cord ring in the upper compartment.
Malnival shrugs and begins a spell.
Detect magic.
Harlan also looks for specific magic, though it's obvious this whole place is magical.
"Ok...discover what's inside ourselves...the reflection is not me."
He ponders, looking at the frames.
"These must be the gates."
He slowly rides Skygni up to each frame, looking inside.