At Haru's inquiry Friday steps forward to try to stem the nettles to the side with his spear while keeping an eye out for anything beyond them.
Friday is able to move the nettles aside with his spear so the others won't be endangered by them.
With eyes open and alert for danger, the party carefully moves down the left hand passageway. This passageway has a large standing pool of brackish water in it, seemingly a result of flash floods and storms. The water looks to be about 3 feet deep at most as the passageway continues, but the rocks under the water look to be quite slippery.
Gryf continues forward kicking one of the skeletons heads into the pool of water. "They seem dead for good now, let's keep pushing on" He then continues forward.
I hear nothing. No movement, nothing. Marten reiterates. But look here in the mud, more footprints. They certainly came this way.
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Haru's keen eyes very clearly pick out a path the rest of the party can take through the water to avoid the slipperiest of the submerged rocks.
"Look there... and there... that looks safe... follow me!"
Haru impulsively darts across the water, looking almost like a water spirit as she dances across the rocks.
Friday almost calls out to the bard as she begins hopping across the water but seeing at how easily she navigates it he holds back his concern and follows right after.
Gryf huffs at the water, striding through it and only just retaining his balance he doesn't show his near fall though. "Let me check up ahead while we wait for the others." He look at Haru.
Marten hangs closer to the back, wary of this damp and dank place and hoping not to be crept up on in the darkness.
As you step forward, you notice a passage branching off to your right. It appears to lead to other caverns in this place...
The main passage you're in continues forward for some distance before gently curving to the right as well.
Gryf studies the tracks for a moment.
If he picks them up he will follow if he find nothing else he will continue to move deeper into the cave. "Let's keep moving."
"Come on, follow where I stepped!" Haru calls out to the others.
Not interested in slipping and breaking a knee Friday continues to follow after Haru and her steps.
Following Haru's footsteps, the party is able to navigate the water without hurting themselves on the wet, slippery rocks.
Moving forward, Gryf steps into a very spacious cavern that is mostly sandy and damp, with many skulls and bones lying strewn about. Most of the bones appear to be humanoid in origin. Of particular interest is a kneeling skeleton near the back wall, clad in extremely decayed & rusted four-mirror armour, and bearing an equally decrepit kabuto. What appears to be a wakizashi of fine make is buried in the skeleton's chest where its heart would have been.
Friday quietly looks on as the group moves into the larger cavern, though his eyes are instantly drawn to the remains in the foreign armor.
"Get ready for them to get up." he warns the others as he moves to the nearest one. When they're ready he puts his spear through the skull.
Haru goes over to try to take the Wakizashi out of the skeleton's chest. As she walks closer, she is very wary of the bones around her. As Friday says, she is ready for them to try to get up. She has her dagger out.
Gryf bares his teeth, moving over to the skeletons and slamming down into the corpses.
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As Friday drives his spear through a skeleton's skull and shatters it, and as Haru approaches the impaled, armoured skeleton, its eyes flare to life as deep, red motes!
"HOLD, LIVING ONES, AND BE JUDGED!" It bellows in a deep, commanding voice, rising to its feet and ripping its wakizashi from its chest. The skeletons in the room begin to rise up, the lights in their eyes mirroring the ones in their armoured leader. It points its blade at the party and twirls it, its oddly-untarnished blade glinting in what little light is in the cavern.
Those skeletons who are still intact and not in reach of the party begin to draw short blades of their own. All of them are rusted and decayed from years of exposure to the elements. "If you have come to plunder, ready your weapons. 'Tis our sworn duty to defend what little remains to take."
The skeletons, despite one of their number having been slain, make no move to attack you... yet.
"We were just looking for why you and your allies were rising from the grave instead of resting." Friday hurriedly says as he moves over to Haru.
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The undead warrior glares at Friday as he steps forward to Haru's side, but doesn't strike. In fact, he lowers his blade slightly, but not his guard.
"For many years, my spirit has lingered in these damnable caves. I was roused from torpor by the arrival of a band of goblins... foolish, insipid beasts who saw the glitter of my master's treasure and little else. They stole it, and in doing so gave me purpose once more." The skeletons around their leader open their mouths, and a silent *hiss* of air escapes from them, as if echoing his disgust.
"I will admit, I am quite surprised the newest crop of intruders to our final resting place are not goblins. Even more so to see one of my countrymen far from my home." His red mote eyes rest on Haru, and they seem to soften for a second before he refocuses on Friday.
Friday wanted to respond, or at least ask how they could help them return to their rest, but he figured it would be a better bet to let Haru talk from here. She was much better at it than him, and their sense of duty to their master and/or country apparently gave her a foot in.
And how is it you came to be here of all places, so far from home? Marten asks, eyeing the situation suspiciously
"あなたはみんかいからです?" Haru asks the frightening figure, a slight bit rusty in her parents' native tongue.
Assuming he answers her in the same tongue, she'll ask him the following:
Valeria kept herself ready. She didn't make any outward sign of it, but her mind was already running through the spells available to her. If things got violent, she would be ready.
"And how is it you came to be here of all places, so far from home?"
"It is a tale long in the telling, living one. I am here at the behest of my fallen master... a man of great honour and mercy." The undead warrior's eyes dim slightly as he addresses Marten.
Before he can continue, Haru interrupts.
"あなたはみんかいからです?"
Minkaian:"You are from Minkai?"
The undead warrior seems to relax a bit as Haru addresses him in her mother tongue.
He offers a bow. "確かに。"
As Haru asks her questions, something seems to change in the skeleton's eyes. "The questions you ask me, young one, all tie together in the telling. For me to tell you truly, then you must know who I am... or, rather, who I once was."
"You see before you a broken husk of a samurai, once a man of great conviction and skill. Now, I am cast from Empress Shizuru's sight, a ronin unable to save his master or his line. I was once Tsutamu. I will not be again."
"Why are you in Varisia? How did you become an undying warrior?"
Tsutamu pauses. "The answers to such questions stretch back many years. My master was a righteous man, beloved by his people for his efforts in protecting and nurturing them... his reforms brought much joy and prosperity to their fields and cities." His tone turns wistful, then bitter.
"Alas, such mercies drew the attention of powerful enemies... in the span of years, his great line was winnowed to but himself and a scant few descendants. We fled across the Crown of the World, shedding many of our worldly possessions for even the slightest hope of survival." The samurai growls, his mote-eyes blinking. "In the foreign city of Kalsgard, we were able to secure a ship, and sailed south across the waters. For many more years, we found some measure of peace..."
The skeleton falls silent.
"...but it was not to be. One day, my master put his son and retainers on one ship, myself and his servants on another, and his riches on a third. He told us to flee his side, for he feared his enemies had found him again. He commanded me to sail his family south, to the city of Magnimar, to begin anew." The skeletal samurai begins pacing, tapping his wakizashi against his femur. "Our ships were caught in terrible storms that tore us asunder. I do not know what became of Master Rokuro's son, but I was forced to watch his ship die as my own shattered around me."
He pauses.
Did he mean Rokuro Kaijitsu? Ameiko's grandfather?
Gryf throws his touch on the floor gripping his axe in both hands and readying it to swing. He hears all the talking but still doesn't trust this Tsutamu he waits to hear what else he says but doesn't take his eyes off the skeletons.
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"Wise of you, mortal." Tsutamu nods at Gryf. "Perhaps you would have made for a better guard than I."
"My ship and the ship with the riches came to rest in this swamp." The undead samurai looks back at Haru and continues. "My men found this cave you see around you, and we sought to use it until we could find a village or somewhere else to call home. I took some of us and sought out the other ship to retrieve Master Rokuro's possessions. When we returned..."
His voice trails off as a chill wind blows through the cavern. "...perhaps it would be best if you witnessed it for yourself."
The sounds of battle start to ring throughout the cavern, with cries of pain and the *ripping* of claws and blades through flesh echoing off the walls. Staggering between the party is a ghostly apparition of a Tian man, clad in four-mirror armour and kabuto. His face is wrinkled and weathered from years of hard living, with several scars and teeth marks on his face. His wakizashi is coated in ghostly ichor as it flashes from its scabbard time and again, felling formless masses of flesh all around him. The ethereal monsters lunging at him look much like the monster the party slew at Walthus' home--faceless stalkers.
"When I returned from the Blossom with what possessions that weren't claimed by the sea, I made a most tragic discovery." Tsutamu's voice booms over the ghostly tableau. "This cave... it was the home of a tribe of monsters who could take the form of men. They slaughtered the men who remained behind, and began to butcher the survivors I took with me." His words are punctuated by several precise slashes from his ghostly counterpart, felling the stalkers with a single stroke each.
"I slew the tribe, but only then did I truly know the weight of my failure." The ghostly Tsutamu staggers to the far wall behind the skeleton warrior. He stops and leans against the wall, turning to the party with a look of complete, utter despair on his face. He draws his wakizashi once more, looking at the blade.
"Forgive me, men... Forgive me, Empress..."
He takes the blade in both hands and aims it at his heart.
"...Forgive me, Master."
He drives it in.
The apparition vanishes.
Tsutamu says nothing.
"The name Rokuru sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't place it. What was his family name? Perhaps we could find him or his descendants, if he survived."
Tsutamu's eyelights flicker over to Haru again.
"Kaijitsu."
"Ameiko?" Friday lets out as he looks over to Haru.
Tsutamu's eyelights blink in surprise. "Ameiko? What are you talking about?"
"Perhaps, Friday. What a fateful occurrence! Tsutamu-san, there is a member of the Kaijitsu family in our hometown - the last remaining member there, although I can't say if there are others elsewhere. If it turns out she is the heir of Rokuro, she would be the true master of these treasures, and perhaps then... if you returned what you have been guarding to the descendant of your master, you could finally rest?"
Tsutamu says nothing as Haru speaks.
When she's finished, the undead samurai looks down at the sandy floor. "...I believe so."
"I have a... request, if I may."
"By all means, ask."
Tsutamu gestures to his sword. "In the hilt of my blade is a letter, penned by my Master. It was intended for his son should he fall in battle, but... well, I never saw either of them again."
The samurai raises a bony hand to his collarbone and pulls out a rusted key hanging from a rotting leather lanyard. "This key will open the chest containing Master Rokuro's treasures. It's in the cavern behind me."
He looks at the party, his eyelights lit with a spark of hope. "I wish for you to take them. Deliver them to Rokuro's descendant... Ameiko..." The name sounds very foreign to his tongue, and it shows. "...and give her the letter. She deserves to know of her lineage."
He holds his wakizashi out for someone to take.
More an impulse than on aligning on what the restless guardian wanted Friday steps up to take the offered blade. At least this way if it was cursed Haru wouldn't have to worry about it.
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You see Tsutamu as he once was, his armour & kabuto polished and shining. His tanned, weathered skin is free of scars, and a twinkle is in his brown eyes. He smiles at you.
His voice sounds in your ear.
Use it well. The Whispering Shrike is a blade worthy of any dai-sho.
Tsutamu does not release his grip on his sword yet.
"生活型に固執する人は、ライブ死を無視する人たち。" He intones. "Those who cling to life die, and those who defy death live."
As he speaks, the skeletons surrounding the party begin to crumble, their eyelights winking out.
Tsutamu releases his grip on the blade and steps back.
"I am glad to leave this place... at last."
He slumps against the wall, and his eyelights fade.
Friday's body becomes completely still as he touches the blade, only coming out of the trance once Tsutamu releases the blade. Listening stoically as the guardian gives his final words Friday bows in respect towards remains of the warrior. "I will, I promise. And now you may finally rest, honored transient guest."
I hope you find the peace you deserve, Noble spirit Marten says solemnly
Gryf never trusted spirits or undead before and he hasn't decided to now, weapon still gripped between his hands. "It is done.." Slinging the Axe on his back, he steps towards the now truely dead warrior. "This all has to do with Ameiko? Our job is done the undead wont hurt anyone but.. we have stumbled on to something bigger here."
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Venturing down the passageway guarded by the skeletal warrior, the party emerges into another cavern, this one empty of life. A standing pool of water sits in the southeastern corner, and a chest of jade & cherry wood sits across from it.
Opening the chest reveals its contents...
--5 potions containing light blue fluid
--2 potions containing dark blue fluid
--3 potions containing orange fluid
--A ring engraved with images of crawling ivy vines
--A slender birch wand
--A masterwork chain shirt engraved with images of dancing cranes
--A masterwork cold iron wakizashi
--11 Desnan Candles
--4 Skyrocket Fireworks
--3,820 SP, 421 GP and various pieces of fine jewelry worth 560 GP total.
In addition, the chest itself looks quite valuable. The entire set of treasure weighs about 50 pounds, chest included. It's also fairly obvious that some of the contents have already been removed from numerous slots in the chest's velvet-lined interior.
Upon closer inspection, the wakizashi Tsutamu gave Friday is of quite a beautiful design--the sword is etched with images of seven shrikes perched on a coiling branch that runs the length of the blade. Unfortunately, the hilt of the weapon hasn't weathered the passage of time as well as the blade--it feels loose in Friday's grip, and in need of repair.
It's a sword of +1 enchantment, and the wielder can cast the shield other spell once per day by touching the blade to the person the wielder wishes to protect.
"What a haul! Well, we'd better get this back to Ameiko. Can you big strong men carry the chest between you?" Haru grins mischievously.
Bowing to Haru Friday moves over and with some effort lifts the chest up.