"Thief? Isn't this a ship that belonged to your ancestors Yuki? Well, we're taking her things back and you can go to your final rest".
Inari's eyes narrow. "Bonehead, I am going to beat you like a rented gong."
His spear clattered to the ground and he drew a dagger.
Then his hand began to glow faintly and he moved forward like a striking serpent.
Both Talene's and Inari's radiant lights contact the skeletal samurai, but he does not acknowledge whatever discomfort they may have caused him. He strides with purpose to Inari, weapon raised. Unlike all of the rusted armor, including the samurai's own, that the party has seen in the caverns, the blade glitters in their flickering light as it sweeps toward Inari.
Inari barely manages to avoid the blade, but the samurai's bony hand strikes him just after.
"Liars as well as thieves! There are no young girls in the Kaijitsu family!"
Talene hears a faint sound for just a moment down the tunnel behind them.
"Just what are you implying about Ameiko and me?", Yuki responded, with a mixture of anger and fear. With Tsuto, it was obvious, but was there a chance that she and her sister...
Shaking off these thoughts, she enters her martial arts stance, delivering two quick kicks at the undead samurai's upper body:"First you disregard me as an Urchin, then you disrespect me by telling me I'm a bastard? What a shameful display!"
One kick was decent, but the heavy armor threw Yuki a bit off-balance, and the second kick failed.
Tal turns back towards the sound coming from the tunnel.
Talene looks back down the tunnel and sees a skeleton alarmingly close to her already. There are others behind it. They move wordlessly and practically silently. Only a tap of a piece of what little armor still clings to them against another tipped her off to their approach.
"Oh my! Desna aid me!"
Channel Positive Energy vs Undead
Inari quickstepped back, and cast his glowy hand spell again.
Talene's release of positive energy envelops several of the skeletons approaching through the tunnel. She can see minute cracks spiderweb their old bones, but none of them are destroyed. They continue to advance. One of them comes at Talene, swiping her with its bony fingers and leaving gouges on her upper arm. A second grasps at her as well, but she avoids it. Another one continues past her and flails at Inari to no effect.
One of Yuki's kicks lands hard. The rotten silk cording holding an armored plate breaks, and the plate falls away. Otherwise she isn't sure what harm she's done. The samurai is also caught within Talene's circle of light, but the samurai ignored any harm it might have suffered.
Inari backs away, but the samurai follows with single-minded purpose, slashing him viciously with the sword.
Talene AOO vs. Skeleton - Quarterstaff - Damage
Not a combatant, not really, her strike missed the mark.
---
Tal grimaces as she is once more injured and once again she call out to her Goddess for aid, "Desna, it is desperate, aid us!"
Channel Energy vs. Undead
Although weaker than the first, Talene's next release of energy causes the three skeletons at the front to crumble away to bits.
Inari tried to intercept the blade with his dagger again.
Then his hand flashed out
"Don't ignore me, you...you skeleton!", Yuki responded, searching for a suitable insult, but coming up short, her mind focused on combat.
Stepping into a flank with Inari, she attacked the undead warrior twice more, her fists striking out more recklessly - being ignored like that was making Yuki angry.
Inari's blast of positive energy and Yuki's kicks smash the skeletal samurai. When he falls, so do the remaining skeletons coming up through the tunnel. It is as if the skeletal samurai's great will was their animating force, and without it they fall like puppets with cut strings.
Inari's wounds closed a bit, but he was still bleeding. He picked up the undead guardian's sword and kicked a bunch of the bones away in an arc that bounced them off the wall of the cave.
"You want this sword, Yuki?"
Yuki inmediately kneeled down next to the fallen samurai, her fist ready to strike once more if it moved again. Keeping her eyes on the armored skeleton, she answers Inari: "I mostly wanted it so that he could not use it against us. I never trained with blades -"
Finally satisfied that it seems safe, she turns around and looks at the chest he was sitting on:"I do wonder what he guarded, though."
She made her way over to it and attempted to open it.
Talene channels positive energy for herself and Inari - Channel
"Well, that was exciting and not in an entirely good way..."
She prays to Desna for aiding herself and her allies.
When Inari handles the sword, he notices that while the blade is perfect and unblemished, the handle is quite loose. It would be difficult to use the weapon well considering how it shifts about when moved. On a closer look he notices the end of the handle is false, it is a concealed cap. When he removes the cap he finds a small mithril scroll case inside. The scroll case contains a tightly rolled sheet of paper with writing he does not recognize on it.
Yuki's close look at the skeletal samurai shows it clearly will not be getting back up. She also notices a key on a chain among the bones. It probably was worn around the samurai's neck. It comes in handy when she finds the chest to be locked, because it unlocks it.
The inside of the chest is velvet lined, and it holds holds two trays. The first tray is designed with slots to hold fireworks. There are 11 Desnan Candles and 4 Skyrockets held in it.
Below the top tray is a second, designed to hold mostly vials. A total of 10 vials are seated in it, along with a ring and a wand.
In the bottom below the trays Yuki find a chain shirt and a wakizashi, very similar to the sword carried by the samurai. Both are exquisitely made. Under them are several bags of silver coins, and a bag of gold coins. There is also an inlaid wooden case containing a number of pieces of jewelry, earrings, necklaces, and hairpins mostly.
Talen's use of Detect Magic on your new items finds the potions in the vials, the ring, and the wand to radiate magical auras. So does the wakizashi carried by the skeletal samurai.
Talene smiles as the chest opens, "Yuki! Your sister will be so happy we found this.
Inari, I know I cannot lift this, does this seem like something you could carry or do we leave it here and retrieve it from the town with Ameiko's help?"
Inari retreived the sheath for the sword from the skeletal warrior, as well as it's shorter mate. He belted both of them on, one on each hip in the classic style of fencers. Then he handed the mithril scroll case to Yuki. "This was in the sword."
At Talene's prompting he went over to the box, closed it, and tried to lift it by himself.
"Wow. A true, actual treasure. I thought that kind of thing only happened in stories!", Yuki marvels about the contents of the chest.
Turning to Talene, Yuki nods:"Certainly! She best be happy about this! And proud of her little sister!", she smiles, opening the inlaid wooden case.
As she was busy admiring the craftsmanship on one of the hairpins, Inari handed her a scroll - chances were it was written in the language of her ancestors...Please don't be written in code!
The document is a letter written in Minkaian. Yuki has no trouble at all reading it.
She is perfectly aware that Rokuru Kaijitsu was her grandfather. The current year is 4714, so the letter is just over 25 years old.
"It is a letter...from my honorable grandfather to my honorable father. It tells of enemies of my family, and my grandfathers hope that they might not be after us any longer, and his wish to reunite the family in Sandpoint - also an apology after an argument he seemed to have had with my honorable father. I do wonder if he was on the second ship and found the same fate as Tsutamu here...", she points at the skeletal samurai.
"I guess we should go back then," Inari shrugged.
"I think Yuki and I can get it out of here. Talene can be our bodyguard," Inari smirked.
"I would like to bring it all home to Ameiko, if possible. Show it to her. Even though it's technically treasure belonging to my family, I would never have found it without you, so you will certainly get your fair share...but Ameiko should see it first!"
Yuki attempts to lift the chest on one side, straining against the weight:"I...I can probably carry it for a short distance, but no way I can lift that for very long. We could try bringing it to the water, then fetching a boat, and going up the coastline to somewhere we can borrow a cart...", she suggests, rubbing feeling back into her hands.
"Where's a strapping orc lass when you need one?" Inari said, hefting the other end of the box.
"Sure, who is a better guard than me. Maybe we can take turns Yuki?
I don't need any treasure from it sweetie, helping Sandpoint and reuniting you with long lost family heirlooms is reward enough. Though I should get at least one drink on the house I hope!"
A closer inspection of the skeletal samurai's wakizashi reveals a small inscription in Minkaian at the base of the blade. It reads Whispering Shrike.
When Talene, Yuki, and Inari row up and tie off their boat to one of the wharfs in Sandpoint’s small harbor, they are greeted warmly by the docks crowd. They are only surprised by the group’s means of arrival though. Word had already arrived by way of Mari and Daufni about the Licktoad tribe being laid low. The lack of any more fireworks over Brinestump Marsh the last couple of nights confirmed their stories.
While the dockworkers and sailors aren’t surprised, they are grateful, and happy to express their feelings with vigorous handshakes and backslaps for the returnees. The group also finds they have all the enthusiastic volunteers they need to help them carry the chests up from the harbor to the Rusty Dragon.
Ameiko is thrilled to see everyone back safe and sound. Although she is quick to add she never doubted the group’s abilities. Besides she also knew the Licktoad’s were taken care of, and everyone except Mari and Daufni had decided to stay just a little longer to explore. What she certainly did not expect at all are the two chests Talene, Yuki, and Inari have dragged out of the marsh, or their news of two wrecked Kaijitsu ships.
”Father used ships all the time to ship orders out of the city, and to order supplies, but he never owned any ships personally. He always contracted with merchant captains for shipping. He never mentioned any ships from before my time either” she says. ”On the other hand, I do sometimes wonder how much he really ever told me about anything” she adds dryly. ”He never seriously considered me a suitable heir to the business. Always expected I would marry the man who would run it after him, whatever man that happened to be.”
If Yuki expected Ameiko and she would have great fun going through the chests to look at long-lost family possessions, she’s a little disappointed. Ameiko shows enough interest in the chests’ contents to be polite. But she seems disconnected from the stuff and the history it represents, perhaps more melancholy about it than anything else. Ameiko is happy to renounce any personal claim to the objects in the chests. Leaving it to Yuki to decide how it should all be dealt with. ”You know I’ve never been the sentimental type” she tells Yuki.
There is one exception though. When Yuki shows the letter to Ameiko, she reads through it a couple of times with fascination. Ameiko asks to keep the letter.
As soon as Talene, Yuki, and Inari had shown their faces at the door, Ameiko sent the kitchen scrambling to assemble at decent, hearty meal for them. As they eat, recount their adventures, and discuss their haul of wealth from the marsh, Ameiko listens but seems distracted. Eventually she wanders back to the bar, where she stops what she’s doing a couple of times to read the letter yet again.
At one point a little later, Ameiko takes Yuki aside to mention a couple of things she’s noticed. ”You mentioned the ships wrecking on their way to Sandpoint, but I think they were bound for Magnimar actually. The Glassworks had been built by the time this was written by grandfather, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t have a residence here yet. From what I remember, grandfather had laid out plans for the mansion, and it might have been under construction, but it was Lonjiku who actually first moved in. He and mother lived in Magnimar until then. I do know that grandmother's suicide happened in Magnimar. So, it seems to me that’s where the ships would be going.”
”Also, this was written the same year Tsuto was born. That’s an awful lot of drama packed into not much time huh?” Ameiko seems excited, like her mind is turning over every tiny detail she can draw out from the letter.
”And what’s going on with this mention of a warding box? And that opening it would attract enemies? I mean what kind of things could Rokuro have been mixed up in to attract that kind of dangerous people? He ran a glass business. Was he mixed up with some Sczarni somehow? Considering how tight-lipped Lonjiku was about everything with the business, I often wondered if he was connected to them.” Ameiko smiles, but it’s a clever smile, not an amused one.
”Rokuro wrote this letter from Brinewall. If our family had always lived in Magnimar, why was he there? And especially why was he hiding a deadly important warding box with people guarding it there? That’s one hell of a place for our family to have a connection to. You know about Brinewall right? What happened there?”
Correna stomps up, pushing her way through the crowd. She crosses her arms over her solid looking chest and frowns slightly.
"You went hunting goblins without me. I was out of town for a single month and you went goblin hunting a day before I got back! Do you have any idea what I've had to do to keep from going after you alone? Mostly I just wandered around town at night hoping a goblin might try to sneak in! All I found was a single goblin raiding the trash heap on the beach!"
She then smiles and places her hand on her unique sword's shiny hilt.
"Taught HIM a lesson though. Left his charred corpse in the surf right there. Now promise me the next time you want to wander off after goblins...or the Sandpoint Devil for that matter...you call Correna to come along. Right?"
She then smiles and winks at Yuki, then wanders off looking for a drink at the Rusty Dragon.
Tal's arms and shoulders are clearly sore and she looks tired to be sure, "Geez, sorry Correna even though I see you every day at the Cathedral I just wasn't thinking, we sure could have used you!
I am not sure we'll have any more adventures but if we do I will make sure I run and get you".
She heads to Savah's to stare whistfully at the Repeating Crossbow she still cannot afford, you know, just in case another adventure comes along.
Thereafter, she visits Risa to regale her of the tale of the swamp trek as she knows the old blind woman does not get out much.
She then heads to the House of Blue Stones to visit with Sabyl Sorn and get her take on how she thinks the ships may have ended up in the swamp, she is after all, one of the best historians in town.
Finally, Tal heads to the Cathedral after dinner and shopping to make a report to Father Abstalar, though she does not mention the letter found as that is Kaijitsu business alone.
Inari loved a good story, so he payed careful attention to he conversations between the Kaijitsu sisters. He didn't have anything to add, but he was definitely fascinated by the revelations of their family history.
"We were pretty good at the whole adventuring thing. Why not have more?" he replied to Talene.
Talene smiles at Inari, "I would but mission accomplished right? We defeated the Goblins and returned home safe".
"I'm sure we can find more adventure if we poke around," Inari grinned.
"Magnimar, hu?", Yuki thought back to her own time in the city - she had, after all, attended a school for girls there, for several years.
Mostly because her father wanted her out of the house - she had been made painfully aware of the fact she was no son. And when she finally raised enough trouble in the school during the onset of puberty to cause her to get expelled, she came back home to Sandpoint to learn that both her half-brother Tsuto and Father were dead, and only Ameiko left.
"Father never really talked about all that with me. I know...some of it. From you, from servants, from teachers. But he was even more secretive and distant to me.", Yuki reaches for the letter and also reads it again:"I know about Brinewall, yes - I learned about that in school before I was sent home...but that warding box stuff does sound weird. What do you think it was all about? Our presence here in Sandpoint wasn't exactly a secret, so if those enemies of our family grandfather seemed worried about persisted, we would probably have learned about them."
Contemplating a bit more, Yuki hands the letter back:"I know you are not as interested in the past, and I wish I had the strenght to look forward depending only on myself, the way you do. But I'm curious about what all that is about. I think I'll want to go to Brinewall castle and see about those vaults, myself...maybe there's something left there. This...this is important to me. We have always been a bit different, due to our heritage, and I always tried to learn more about our culture. Here's a chance to actually learn about our family. I thought that road died with Father...and now there's a chance..."
_________________________________
"Well, Correna, thats what you get for wandering off and not letting us know when you'll be back. We couldn't have known you'd be back the next day!", Yuki responded to Correnas outburst, wish a sly smile.
It was, somehow, intoxicating to be a hero. She definitely understood why her sister spent some time adventuring. Tonight, she was in the Rusty Dragon as a guest, rather than a waitress, and it was a very different experience with people congratulating them or cheering them.
Earlier, just after dusk, they had set off the fireworks they had found, to the amazement of the kids who were allowed to stay up long enough to watch.
Shrugging, Correna nods with a sigh and runs a finger down one of the heavy scars on her face as she replies to Yuki.
"I know. It's just a messed up way for things to happen. Since I 'graduated' from school, I've been wanting to challenge my skills with sword and sorcery! But I've haven't encountered anything but a lame goblin raiding the town dump. Even the local bandits have given up lately I think. Maybe they became farmers or something. Its revolting that we cannot find a decent fight anywhere near Sandpoint! I have even considered going after the Sandpoint Devil again...but I know that's futile in the end. Just a legend..."
"Sandpoint has a devil?" Inari asked the scarred young woman, interested in the tale.
"Oh, uh, hi. I'm Inari. I don't think we've met. I feel like I would have remembered you, no matter how drunk I was."
Inari was lanky with an easy smile and a flirtatious charm that somehow managed to be both boisterous and self-depreciating at the same time.
Smirking at Inari's obvious flirtations, Correna steps back and fires of a quick salute while nodding. Its obvious she wanted to make sure her personal space wasn't invaded.
"Well I have heard of you for sure! You and the others are the talk of the town! The Devil is just a local Legend, but I've heard its evil-sounding screams when I was a kid I think. What do the tales say Yuki? Body of a horse, wings of a dragon, teeth of a demon..."
"It is very intriguing isn't it?" Ameiko watches Yuki read the letter again.
Ameiko looks at Yuki with some consternation when Yuki likens her lack of interest in the family's past as strength. "I wouldn't put it that way. I just don't think it matters much when it comes to finding one's way in the world."
"The Kaijitsus have always been an..... awkward, family." Ameiko puts her hand on Yuki's. "I've never known any given two of us to be completely comfortable sitting alone together in the same room. I'm sorry about that. I'm not sure we know how to be close. I tried when I was your age with Tsuto. That turned out badly. I really am trying to keep the same thing from happening for you. I know you've tried harder than I have the past few years."
"But anyway" Ameiko shakes her head at wandering from her point. "I don't think there's anything strong about how I've handled being a member of a family that's supposed to have a 'special place' or whatever. It's just never seemed to me to actually matter for anything that counts. Nobody in their right mind would claim we're happier or more content than most anybody else in town. It's true of the others as well. There's also the Valdemars, the Scarnettis, and the Deverins. The four families, and we're a miserable bunch. We don't like each other. We all just tolerate most of our relatives. And no, I don't include us two in that observation." Ameiko smiles, a little sadly, and gives Yuki's hand a squeeze.
"We're no better insulated from life's s!~+ than anyone else. The Deverins come closest to being normal people, and I like Kendra. Even if I didn't support her in the last election, I really do. But she's never been quite the same since Casp was murdered. I guess I just always figured since it was all built on money anyway, what not just have the money and toss out the rest as pretend? Loose the ballast?"
"But that letter, yeah it's interesting. Maybe I should do some thinking about rethinking some things. Anyway..." Ameiko stands up. "I should get back to the bar. Mugs don't fill themselves, if I want to get paid those fills that is." She gives Yuki another smile, and goes back to serving customers.
Everyone likes a fireworks display, and Yuki's show attracts an appreciative crowd of townsfolk. There are a couple of mentions about how the show is a poetic coda to the town's latest goblin drama. It started with fireworks over the marsh, and now ends with fireworks over the town.
It's also a merry night at the Rusty Dragon. Ameiko and Inari have an ample audience for for as long as they wish to talk about their adventure in the marsh. Ameiko also hands over a note to them. She had forgotten about it earlier in the day with all the other excitement. The note invites Talene, Inari, and Yuki to come to a meeting with Mayor Francesca Brishon on the morning after their return. She would like a briefing on events in the marsh, and she will also deliver payment on the bounties to them.
Old Risa is pleased to have Talene stop by for a visit to catch her up on recent events, and the priestess has all the fine pastries she can eat while she's a Risa's Place. At the House of the Blue Stones, Sabyl checks the almanac of local events. She, and her father before her, have kept the daily habit of recording happenings of note for several decades now. She flips back through the pages to the date of the letter.
There is nothing meaningful on that same day. But three days after its date a massive storm of great fury hit the Varisian coast. It was unusual in its destructive power, the type of storm the coast will only experience once or maybe twice in a century. It was also unusual for being so late in the year. The early spring will commonly see squalls. But this storm arrived on the 1st of Sarenith, the very beginning of summer. Sabyl tells Talene it was almost certainly the cause of the grounded ships.
The next morning, Ameiko seems more energized than usual when Yuki and Inari make it downstairs. When they leave to fetch Talene from the Cathedral and visit the Mayor, she asks them to please come back around by lunch time or as soon after as possible, and to bring Talene. There's something she wants to discuss with you all.