Sakura whispers to her allies "We are not alone, ready yourselves."
She draws her katana and looks to the shrine, cautiously moving in that direction. "Please come out and identify yourselves. she declares boldy.
Kamo follows close behind Sakura. And shakes his head.
Can we never just sneak up and stab a monster? Should be invite it to tea!?
As Sakura gets within 30 feet of the shrine, a ghostly figure rises up from the ground! She is a young woman, but her body appears to have been horribly mangled and ripped apart! Blood-red smoke trails from her gruesome wounds! The woman matches the description of Yeri’s sister, Yuni!
Before you can react, the ghost lets out a frightful moan! The moan turns into a cry of pain as a ghostly tiger appears to rip and tear at her body! Numerous other ghostly tigers appear to do the same to you!
Sakura is overcome with fear! The sight of her gruesome wounds and painful moan tear at her!
And Yuni! NO!
She tries to swing, but it is one of the most lackluster attempts to strike with her katana that she has ever taken. Refocusing, she tries again and delivers a much better second attempt.
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The ghosts tear at Kamo, but he circles around the ghost that was once Yuni and looks for an opening in the girl they have been looking for so long. Hands shaking, he slashes at the ghost.
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The cry of pain draws out pain and fear for Pagma and her friends. She wants to run but manages to root her feet into the ground and throw two anti ghost bombs, hoping one at least hits.
Overcome by horror, Jing shields himself from the otherworldly terror by flooding the area with positive energy.
Yuni flinches as Jing-De's healing energy washes over her. Pagma's bombs miss the ghost but still splash her with positive power. Sakura and Kamo move to flank Yuni, both siblings scoring a hit.
The ghost fixes her gaze on Jing-De and flies over to the sorcerer. Instead of attacking, though, she points at him. “Give me my sister’s beads! They aren’t yours!” she demands.
Jing's voice trembles, but even though he's overcome by fear, it cannot undo his conviction for what he says is rooted in truths that are part of the fabric of his soul. "She gave them to me! She lost you, found us, and we brought her peace! We too can grant you peace, Yuni! Open yourself to Pharasma's embrace, and let Shizuru and Tsukiyo guide your soul!"
Jing-De's words give Yuni pause. "Where is she? Where is my little sister?" she asks.
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Scared but convinced he is touching upon the truth, Jing continues to give voice to what stirs within his soul. "At peace. She said her goodbyes to us and moved on, finally free from the madness of this place. She left behind the beads for me, and I think she knew that they would help us find you. Yuni, I am a hundred percent sure that she's waiting for you to join her. All you need to do ... is to stop being angry, and accept the truth of it. Let there be no more fighting, but acceptance. In acceptance, you'll find peace and your sister."
And as he says it, another truth hits him. "And in doing so, you'll also grant true peace to your sister. Together, you can move on. Shizuru and Tsukiyo will take care of you, I promise."
Yuni cries out in sadness as she listens to Jing-De's words. "We were separated along the Pilgrim's Path. I made it to this place, hoping Yeri would catch up to me, but the monks here had fallen to some foul corruption. They kept a tiger in this courtyard as a pet, and they laughed as it attacked and killed me. But my spirit could not move on, could not find peace, not knowing Yeri's fate."
She wipes at her eyes and then gestures to the beads. "You deserve those now. Thank you for helping Yeri find peace. Now, I may find that peace as well. I hope that I will see my sister in what lies beyond. Farewell." Yuni closes her eyes as she fades away into nothingness.
The courtyard is free of danger now. You can see about purifying the statue.
Critical Success: The statue is purified.
Success: The statue is purified, but as you do so, a weakened blast of pure loathing lashes out as it’s driven from the statue. You take 2d6 mental damage (DC 22 basic Will save).
Failure: The statue remains unpurified. A blast of psychic rage lashes out at you, inflicting 5d6 mental damage (DC 22 basic Will save) to you and anyone who attempted to Aid your attempt to Purify the Statue.
Critical Failure: As failure, but 10d6 mental damage, and no one can attempt to Purify this particular Statue again for 1 hour.
"That was good thinking, Jing-De. This journey has me on edge. I was so quick to lash out at her!" Kamo says, remorsefully.
Jing brings a hand to his shoulder and rubs it. The wave of positive energy had healed the wound, but the trauma remained. "Thinking ... ? I must admit in all honestly that I acted on instinct. Buuut, thank you! You're not the only one who is on edge. Being here is like dancing on a knife's edge. Sharp, ruthless, but oblivion awaits on either side so what choice do we have but dance?"
Jing-De purifies the statue, unleashing a backlash of pure loathing.
The kodama statue gleams for a moment, then a ghostly woman emerges from within! She is a forlorn and despondent figure, but her expression softens to relief and gratitude as she gazes upon you. She speaks in a soft, ephemeral voice.
"Thank you for this kindness. It has been so long since I’ve been able to see beyond the engulfing darkness, but it still pulls at me. I will not be able to remain for long, but I can remain long enough to answer a question you may have for me. Know that there are other statues. Cleanse them and I can aid you further.”
We'll help you as we can," Kamo promises the ghost. "Can you tell us what you know of Kugaagpee? We have heard the name of that dreadful creature throughout our troubles."
I thought it was Kugapee?
Sakura shakes her head confused for a few seconds but quickly clearing the fog, fully expecting this ghostly woman to attack them at any moment.
“Kugaptee," the ghost corrects gently. "He is a nindoru fiend whose existence stands in opposition to the philosophy of Sangpotshi. Nearly a thousand years ago, he was defeated by Tan Sui-Jing. She perished in the fight as well, but her soul reincarnated as a towering sugi tree that grew over Kugaptee’s remains, serving as a seal that would keep his soul trapped. The central sugi tree in this monastery is that very tree. But it has sickened, for Kugaptee strives for rebirth.
"His influence is the source of the monstrosities you’ve been facing. This monastery was once a sacred place, with monks who cared for the land, the animals, and the spirits. At the same time, and even before the monastery, it has been a site that kept Kugaptee’s immense evil sealed away beneath the surface.
"I am Zhi Hui, the last master of this place. I had hoped that this monastery would stand guard over Kugaptee’s grave for many generations to come, but I failed to see how my own death would affect my followers. No one was ready to take my place. Worse, one of my students, Xin Yue, became corrupted by Kugaptee, and even now toils below in his grave to see the fiend’s soul reborn. Now, the fiends who have gathered here have been desecrating the statues scattered throughout the monastery to amplify Kugaptee’s influence."
Zhi Hui's form begins to fade. "Find the other statues!" she implores, and then, she is gone.
The experience almost knocks Jing out. He stumbles back and reaches for his head with both hands, but the ringing in his ears - no, in my brain! - won't stop.
Pagma grasps Jing, helping steady him "We should take turns with the other ones, this wrap we found in the shrine... Kamo says it protects against attacks to our brains, so whoever purifies should wear it."
Sakura checks on Jing-De, surprised at how dangerous the purificaiton process was. Once Pagma helps him up and reiterates about the wrap, she smirks "Well Kamo has nothing to protect inside of his head, so that rules him out."
Once everyone is set and ready, Sakura leads them on in search of the next statue.
"Well, we could carry your brains in Granny Hu's best teacup," Kamo retorts. "And that thing is tiny. Maybe you should get the scarf, so you can save your last bit of sense."
While jibbing with his sister, Kamo makes sure to tend to Jing-De, releashing pressure points that will sooth his headache.
Sakura shoots Kamo a wry smile, her retort quick and teasing. "Kamo, if my brains fit in a teacup, then yours could get lost on a spoon and still have room to dance around!"
"A dancing brain sounds... interesting? But brains in the tea do not." Pagma is used to slipping in and out of the siblings teasing.
"Ah, so you agree! I am more interesting." Kamo grins at Pagma and Sakura.
Sakura rolls her eyes, but her smile betrays her amusement. "Only as interesting as a dancing brain can be, which is pretty bizarre, even for you." She then winks at Pagma, "We should probably keep him around for entertainment if nothing else."
"Oh, definitely" but her own teasing is inserted by not declaring which of the sibling's statements that 'Definitely' is meant to be applied to.
You head back into the monastery, going down the east hallway to the room at its end. A long clay furnace occupies the southeast portion of this simple kitchen. A large cooking pot atop the furnace bubbles beneath under a stained lid, a fire burning in the hearth below it. Elsewhere, ruined tables and shelves lie scattered on the floor. Doors exit to the west and to the north.
"unattended fires are bad for all." Pagma repeats wisdom many many MANY people have tried to instill in her throughout the years. But she doesn't move to put it out, thinking it might alert someone. She does move to the pot to look inside, using her cloak as a pot holder for the lid.
Pagma opens the lid of the pot, revealing a horrid stew consisting of unpeeled onions, whole cloves of garlic, radishes, liver, intestines, and other organs. A boiled eyeball stares up at her from the rancid slosh, and a miasma of foul-smelling vapor with shrieking faces barely visible in the steam bubbles up from the soup!
Pagma sanity nearly cracks as she feels the pot pull her, the eyes holding her, the faces screaming in tiny voices 'come join us'.
The smell is the worst, and so offensive to her culinary instincts to shatters the face's control. Her hand fumbles in her pouch for saffron and turmeric which are known for their calming effects. She dumps both entire bags into the stew, along with every cinnamon stick she is carrying.
Then she slams the lid back on the pot.
"No one open that. Ever again." she pants out.
As Pagma neutralizes the haunt, the fluid in the pot quickly evaporates, leaving behind a sticky residue.
Pagma looks down at the fire, remembers the faces, and then sighs. She pulls out her waterskin, doses the fire, and then moves the pot. The movement dislodges the lid, showing her that the horror inside is now gone.
After sniffing, using her dagger to pull some out, she says to the others "I think we can use this as a poison." so she starts to collect it into bottles to give to the others.
As she looks around the kitchen for containers (since she never has enough), she sees the tea sets "Oh, Mother Otis would love these' she holds up the small round cups with an appreciative grin.
Either she is valiantly repressing the sheer insanity of stew faces that wanted her to join them forever, or her brain has become so cracked now that things like this are just Normal.
Sakura covers her nose and mouth with her hand and turns away when Pagma opens the pot. She steps back and watches her friend quickly and efficiently deal with ... whatever that was.
She wants to take her hand off to ask a question but instead just watches the alchemist go to work. This was clearly her world of weird smells and resides and Sakura knew nothing about it.
When she is done, she hesitantly holds a thumbs up to Pagma, but refuses to take her hand off her face for fear of breathing whatever that was again.
Through her hand, she mutters , "I thought Kamo had bad gas again. Whew."
"Ugh, I'm hungry, but not even I would eat that," Kamo grimaces at the smell lingering in the air.
The west door leads to a pantry. Thick layers of dust cover the shelves and containers stored here. Most of the food stored here has long since rotted away, but a search uncovers a large supply of tea leaves, including a tin of rare tea worth 150 gp.
Kamo gives the room a more in-depth search and after several minutes, he finds a very cleverly hidden treasure under a loose floor stone in the southwest corner of the room—a type II bag of holding that contains an astounding amount of jewelry, statuettes, and other fine art, worth a total of 200 gp. He recognizes the stolen objects as things that went missing a month or so before the last day of spring earlier in the year.
"Ah, people will be happy to see this," Kamo says as he opens the bag. "And such a useful bag. I could put so much stuff in here."
Kamo's pockets, typically stuffed with unusual objects, breath a sigh of relief.
"I swear his pockets just sighed in relief." Pagma whispered loudly to Sakura.
Sakura chuckles, glancing at Kamo's bulging pockets and the bag of holding in his hands. "Yeah, probably gasping for air after being suffocated by all the random trinkets he collects. Maybe now he can actually find what he needs when he needs it."
She nods towards the bag with a smirk. "We should think about who might want all this back, though. It'll be a good day in Willowshore when we return these."
After the bag is sorted, she leads the group onward in search of the next smelly pot statue.
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You return to the kitchen and head north. Twin rows of narrow, uncomfortable-looking bunks are this room’s only decoration, although several have been crushed and then pushed together under a hole in the roof to the northeast, forming a damp-looking nest made of rubble. The sheets and thin mattresses on the bunks are moldy and smell awful. To the north, three partially collapsed dressers are slumped against the wall.
A creature resembling a large, bloated frog with long, slender human arms instead of front feet sits here. Its eyes appear bulbous and blind. It carries a large wicker cage strapped to their back, while dozens of cords and straps affix a trove of broken weapons, tools, and items to its belly and flanks. It grips two longspears in its hands. But perhaps its most unsettling feature is its second face, evident whenever the froglike mouth opens to reveal a human face peering from its throat amid a tangled nest of butterflies.
The frog creature wallows on the nest of rubble, attended by five smaller creatures. These creatures appear human in shape, with thick, tangled hair that grows directly from their faces as well as the rest of their heads, leaving only their gaping mouths visible. Their arms appear to be broken and unnaturally long, with equally long fingers tipped with ragged nails. Small, open sores pockmark their skin. These simpering creatures massage the frog's flanks and legs, begging for food.
Upon spotting you, the frog creature rouses from its nest and waves you over. "Ah! Travelers!" it croaks, the human face in its throat smirking. "It has been so long since we have had visitors here. Come, come! Stay a while! We would love to hear stories of your journeys."
Kamo gapes at the unusual hosts, but waits for one of the more outgoing party members to address them.
Kamo recognizes these creatures as fiends called nindorus. When an evil mortal soul that has been reincarnated multiple times is wrenched from the cycle of souls and corrupted, it can undergo a horrific transformation into a fiend known as a nindoru. A force for entropy and the breaking of cycles, nindorus are hideous creatures whose bodies often appear distorted, who wield weapons that have been shattered yet still function, and whose true face is often hidden from view.
Each nindoru epitomizes the fracture of a specific cycle, be it one from the natural world or from societal traditions. To the nindoru, nothing is more delicious than the consumption of a creature who has reincarnated multiple times, with those who are theoretically about to ascend to true enlightenment presenting the tastiest meal. Those slain by a nindoru are themselves torn from the cycle—the lucky ones move on to the Boneyard for judgment, but many are instead corrupted to form more of these horrific fiends. Followers of Sangpotshi find nindoru to be particularly abhorrent and count them among the greatest threats imaginable.
The smaller nindorus are meokdans. As the least of their kind, meokdans suffer a constant and painful hunger, for they lack the ability of more powerful nindorus to derive nourishment from a reincarnated soul. Meokdans epitomize the cycle of food, from consumption to the creature themselves being consumed in the end, be it by predators or the environment growing from their remains.
The larger froglike nindoru is a guhdggi. A guhdggi forms from the corrupted reincarnated souls of those who have trod the same pilgrimage route through multiple lives. Guhdggis embody the cycles of repeated journeys and the concept that every journey taken ends at the start of the next. Central to this concept is the notion that no journey ever truly begins or ends—they just emerge from the previous one.
"I don't think so, honored one. I'm afraid we don't have time to stay for dinner," Kamo casts significant glances at his friends. "We merely came here to see the statues. Nothing unusual."
Sakura sizes up the unsettling host the attendants, her hand resting uneasily on the hilt of her katana. "We appreciate the... hospitality." she says, her voice edged with caution. "But as my friend said, we're just passing through. We have pressing matters that cannot wait."
Her eyes flicker briefly to the human face in the frog's throat, and she does her best not to gag, her revulsion quickly masked by her resolve. "If you could simply point us in the direction of the statues, we'll be on our way. We wouldn't want to impose."
"Pressing matters, you say?" the guhdggi inquires. "Well, I'm afraid nothing is more pressing then our hunger..."
The lesser nindorus lick their lips as their stomachs growl loudly. They begin to stalk towards you...
Sakura was ready for this, though it's not the path she had wanted. Her instincts kick in as the guhdggi reveals its true intentions. Without hesitation, she draws her katana, lets out a sharp, commanding shout to her team "Take them down!" and charges at the nearest meokdan.
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"Here we go again!" Kamo also charges the group and slashes at a meokdan with his silver dagger.
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Before Sakura runs off, Jing-De bestows a protection spell upon her to ward her against the nindorus. Then the fighter charges in, eviscerating the nearest of the meokdans. Kamo moves up alongside his sister, severely wounding a second meokdan with his silver dagger!
The guhdggi grunts and waves its arms as it casts a spell, attempting to slow Sakura down. The meokdans hungrily bite at the Yuzuki siblings, trying to sate their eternal hunger. One gets a lucky hit on Kamo, ripping chunks of flesh from his side!
"This is what happens when I take a bath!" Kamo manages to gasp out through the pain. "Usually it would spit me right out."
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Pagma ignites the room in bright booms, concentrating on the large frog.