Kamo rolls his eyes at the poor approximation of himself and takes the familiar route of beating up Sakura.
"I'd never mistake you for the real thing," he teases the doppleganger, "But the face is an improvement!"
for and
Pagma ducks behind the table, but is still bathes in flaming liquid. All of which is cleansed from her friend's healing. "Thanks, Jing" she flashes him a grin before lobbing all her bombs at the bad Sakura.
If all these battles they've been forced to fight has taught her anything, it is Sakura is deadlier than any of them.
Everybody gangs up on Sakura's impersonator. With blades and bombs, you take it down. The faceless monster bursts into a cloud of short-lived red butterflies as it dies. Sakura moves up to Pagma's duplicate and slices into it.
Jing-De's double creates a spiritual weapon, a red claw that attacks Sakura. Kamo's double abandons its attempt to recover from the sickness, slowly moving in to flank Sakura and attack while Pagma's double stabs with a dagger as well.
"Sakura's down!" Pagma celebrates before amending "Bad no face Sakura I mean." she amends that statement after seeing the vicious cut faced Sakura gives to Pagma's own duplicate. Like her friend has dreamed of this moment.
Then the alchemist draws her own dagger.
Jing points a finger at Pagma's faceless doppelganger and calls on the magic within him to take command of her actions. "You!" The tone and intensity of his voice changes as the spell takes effect, making it hard to resist what Jing says. "Kneel!"
Kamo looks for weaknesses in the false Pagma and slices at them.
for and
for
Sakura slides over to faceless Pagma and tries to slice and dice her, but there is something about attacking her friend's likeness that unsettles her and her swings are unsteady.
◈
◈
Pagma's impersonator explodes into red butterflies as the real Pagma bombs it and Kamo slashes it with his blade! Sakura turns to fake Kamo and slices him twice, badly wounding him.
Fake Jing sustains the spiritual claw and its shield, while fake Kamo slashes at Sakura.
"Look brother! He's as defenseless as you are!" Sakura taunts, easily slashing into her faceless-brother.
◈
◈
◈
With Pagma's impersonator gone, Jing shifts his attention to Kamo's doppelganger.
"I'll let you continue your usual beatings, then, sister!"
Kamo moves to menace the imposter Jing.
for and
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Pagma decides to conserve her dwindling pile of bombs and goes to help stab one of her friends. "He even flinches like he does when you almost hit him, its uncanny." the alchemist's statement is not meant to be mocking, which might make it worse.
Jing-De's spell completely overwhelms the fake Kamo, who explodes into butterflies. The rest of you gang up on the final faceless foe, and it's not time at all before he bursts into crimson insects as well.
As soon as the last impersonator is destroyed, the mindscape around you fades way. You return to your version of Willowshore, back in the Cerulean Teahouse once more.
Heh Shan-Bao's gear manifests along with you. The gear includes a greater choker of elocution, +1 striking longsword, +1 resilient padded armor, and his glove of storing. His journal has transformed as well, into a fulu compendium full of dozens of loose sheets and scrolls.
The governor's manor has returned to Willowshore, sitting in its lot in the northeastern corner of downtown as if it had never vanished to begin with. The building appears ruined, though. Its doors have been ripped open and the warding fulus that once covered its walls now lie in tatters, allowing anyone to enter the building easily. No villager dares to do so, though.
While there are no more treasures or clues to be discovered in the manor, the first time you investigate, you hear the sound of plaintive wails coming from within, like a child crying weakly. The sound comes from a little black cat shut inside a battered cupboard. Black Bean, is frightened, clingy, and starving but otherwise healthy.
"Ah, Black Bean is saved!" Kamo exclaims, relieved. "And maybe the town, too," he adds as an afterthought.
Pagma is crotched down feeding the poor kitty immediately. "Maybe he can live in the tea house?" she says with plenty of hope. She knows her grandfather will never allow a cat in their home, not even Pagma's annex, but in truth having a cat in there would be bad, maybe explosive. So the tea house is the only option.
As you start to make your way back to the Teahouse with Black Bean in tow, a familiar face approaches you. It is Shinzo, his ever-present raven companion Yix perched on his shoulder. The mysterious merchant greets you with a wistful smile on his face. "Hello, my friends. You've uncovered the truth. Congratulations. You don’t always. I expect you have many more questions. Now that you know what you are, I am allowed to answer them."
"Wait, what we are? What do you mean by that?" Kamo frowns. "You sound like the deluded governor."
"And what do you mean that we don't always find out the truth? We know that there is something strange going on with time and mindscapes here, but are you implying that we've been fighting this battle again and again?"
"I mean that you are dead," Shinzo says plainly.
Part 2: Face-to-Face With Death
Seeing your reactions, the merchant nods his head. "Yes, I’m afraid you are, yet you are also alive. You exist trapped between life and death, here in this mindscape, and as long as you do, you cannot move on to the afterlife, yet you can still return to life.
"Allow me to formally reintroduce myself to you, friends. I am Asahina Shinzo, a reaper of those who subvert the celestial order. Humans call me ‘shinigami,’ a god of death. I arrived here seven years after Willowshore died. I’ve stood vigil here for one hundred and eight years. You have repeated your year a hundred and fifteen times. This may be the last. It may not. That is for you to decide."
"Oh!" Is all Kamo can muster. For once, he's speechless!
Pagma's mouth opens, like she means to say something but then just swallows hard. Seconds, or minutes later, "We're dead... and we have to decide what?"
"Whether to fight to return to your lives, or to give in and surrender yourselves to death. But this will be the last cycle, regardless of your choice, for this time, forces in the living world seek to exorcise the ruins of your home.
"With each year that you repeat here, the living world travels forward a year. It took over a century, but finally, the lost resources of this remote town have drawn the attention of those who would plunder it. The exorcists are led by Mago Kai, a man driven by fear and pride, who seeks to claim Willowshore as a base of operations to begin the harvest of this land’s lumber. Yet, until your restless spirits have been banished, he cannot begin his operations in earnest, for the hauntings by the people of Willowshore disrupt any attempt to work in the region. Your ghosts are the last line of defense, and once you are gone, his harvest begins. It won’t be long at this point until he discovers the Tan Sugi and removes it, at which point Kugaptee’s death will end. His reincarnation into the living world is not to be tolerated.
"So then, if what you seek is the Great Beyond and your afterlife, to embrace the death that has already claimed you, then you need do nothing more than wait, and these exorcists will soon finish their work, this reality will end, and your souls will move on to stand before the Lady of Graves. It seems to me, perhaps, that a return to the lives cut short would be preferable?"
On Shinzo's shoulder, Yix gives a loud, trilling caw.
"Yes" Pagma nods to the last question, her eyes drifting as she thinks about everyone being dead.. Mother Otis, the
Yuzuki family, even Papa. Her eyes returns to Shinzo's "Yes! We need to fight."
"I can't imagine that the dumplings are very good in the Boneyard, and who knows where Sakura is headed in the afterlife!" Kamo jokes, nervously. "She needs time to reform her ways!"
"Of course we'll fight for Willowshore," he says more seriously. "What do we need to do to return the town to life?"
"You sought your lost governor for answers, and while he may not have realized it, his plan has merit," Shinzo says. "Transmigration is your salvation, but you must complete his research. Even then, I fear that this magic will initially be limited. Your Eternal Lantern stands still in this reality, but it, like the rest, is a fabrication of thought. In the living realm, Mago Kai has taken this lantern’s flame as a trophy. It was the heart of your community, and without it, I fear the most you can do with transmigration is to manifest temporarily as spirits—yet, even as spirits, you should be able to move against him.
"Return the lantern’s flame to Willowshore’s ruins, and it will serve as an anchor and a lure. Only then will you and the people of this town be able to find your way back home, and back to life. Alas, I learned little of Mago Kai and his plans—what I’ve discovered already has strained the limits of what I am allowed to pursue without irrevocable personal repercussions."
At this, Yix nods his head vigorously and caws loudly once.
"So, we are going to haunt the town, but in the future?" This has become very interesting!"[/b] Kamo is more excited than scared, now. "How do we start our spiritual excursion? Do we need to do another ritual?"
"Your subjective future, the living world's present," Shinzo clarifies. He pauses reluctantly before continuing. "You will find your home much changed from what you remember. Jorogumo rule Shenmen, just as you heard. The spider women are not kind. They take their tribute in silver, lumber, and people. Mothers scar the faces of their children, so as to avoid attracting admiration or jealousy. Old men placate the spiders in their houses with crickets, hoping it will buy them one more winter before the monsters take them. And Willowshore lies in ruins, as it has for decades.
"You will need to complete your governor's research in order to learn the ritual of transmigration."
Sakura stands frozen, her mind spinning as she tries to comprehend what Shinzo has just revealed. The weight of Shinzo's words sinks in.
... We have been dead, trapped in this repeating cycle for over a century???
She can’t wrap her head around it. All of her struggles, triumphs, failures-it all happened while they were dead?
Sakura struggles to speak, her voice catching in her throat. "We've been... dead? All this time? Every year... repeating?"
Her hand tightens around the hilt of her katana as if grasping for some sense of reality. "How... how is that even possible? And now you say we have to haunt our own home to stop some... monster from destroying everything?"
"It is possible due to your governor's hubris," Shinzo says. "In attempting to bolster the Tan Sugi tree to protect Willowshore from Kugaptee, he opened himself up to the fiend's direct influence. He was utterly consumed by the sealed horror. The ritual Heh performed, tainted by his grisly murder, combined with Kugaptee’s power and unleashed a vortex of hungry ghosts and nindoru fiends upon the your village, slaughtering all of you and then capturing everything in these mindscapes. With these two bottled realities, Kugaptee’s imprisoned power could slowly build over the repeating years until, finally, he would be strong enough to rip free from the Tan Sugi’s roots and reincarnate into the world.
“I can travel reality; stepping between planes is no significant task for me. Alas, I cannot take you with me, for you are dead and thus cannot travel at my side. But I have managed to gather some gifts that I hope will be of use to you..."
"Interesting. So Kugaptee is like a stew boiling in a covered pot--trapped in these realities, it concentrates his power," Kamo speculates. "If we return to the real world, will that end the dangers from the fiend?"
"Oh, and thank you for the gifts. They will prove very useful, I'm sure."
"Kugaptee still poses a threat to the world," Shinzo cautions. "The Tan Sugi tree is the only thing that is keeping the nindoru bound and preventing his death and subsequent reincarnation. This is not to be tolerated. You must ensure Mago Kai does not follow through with his plans to harvest the tree."
Sakura’s mind whirls as she processes Shinzo’s explanation. They had been trapped, unknowingly, in this twisted cycle for over a century!
She takes a deep breath, trying to ground herself. "So, even now, we’re still fighting to stop something that should have ended long ago."
Hearing Kamo’s remarks, she gives a wry smirk, "Brother. Even in death, you’re thinking with your stomach."
"If there’s a chance to save Willowshore... to stop Kugaptee and keep him from reincarnating, then we’ll do it." Her eyes flash with determination. [b]"We’ll find this Mago Kai and reclaim the lantern’s flame. We didn’t survive this long just to let Willowshore die."
Sakura admires Vashu's ninth life, examining it closely. "This is quite a blade!"
Pagma pats Kamo's shoulder and whispers "There is nothing wrong with thinking with your stomach. It is such an important part of you. Denying that would be like telling your sister to stop thinking with her sword..." Pagma smiles sympathetically
"I will continue to return every two weeks for new wares for you to purchase," Shinzo says. "Unlike those gifts, the supplies I offer are not my own. The payments go to others in the Great Beyond. Good luck, my friends. I shall see you soon."
He bows, and Yix caws and flaps his wings. Black Bean mews softly in Kamo's hands.
***
The first step toward escaping Willowshore’s mindscape and returning to the living world is to read through Governor Heh’s notes and journal entries. These notes are written in Common, but reading through them takes 8 hours of work. The key elements are summarized as follows:
• The governor’s failed attempt to bolster Kugaptee’s cage on the last day of spring ended in disaster, killing everyone in town. Governor Heh became trapped in his own small mindscape, while everyone else became trapped in the larger one that includes the region’s hinterlands.
• Even though everyone died, they live on now, trapped in this repeating year-long mindscape. Governor Heh’s term for a soul forming a new body in a mindscape like this is “transmigration”—a word he also uses interchangeably for the concept of such a person returning to the living world. Transmigration is similar to reincarnation in this definition, save that the new body created for the slain soul isn’t a different one, but the same one that soul possessed in its most recent life.
• Governor Heh’s formula for a transmigrate ritual would allow those trapped within this mindscape to use the light shining from Willowshore’s Eternal Lantern to travel from this mindscape to the living world, but the notes are incomplete, in part due to his ignorance of the reincarnate ritual, and in part because he was working alone and wasn’t particularly well-versed in spirituality. Completing the work will be much easier for someone who knows the reincarnate ritual or is more learned in occult or religious matters.
Research Checks DC 22 Academia or Library Lore, or DC 24 Arcana or Occultism
Consulting Experts: You spend the day discussing the topic with a local expert; the skill check you attempt for this research check varies, depending on the expert you speak to; Maximum RP 2 per NPC
Research Checks DC 22 Arcana (consulting with Igawa Jubei at Mother’s Coil); DC 22 Nature (consulting with the kodama Great Willow north of town); DC 22 Occultism (consulting with Shinzo on one of his visits); DC 22 Religion (consulting with Elizeth Candora at Her Fluvial Lady of Souls)
Introspection at a Shrine: You spend the day in quiet thought or prayer, meditating in the presence of one of Willowshore’s many shrines or places of natural beauty; Maximum RP 3
Research Checks DC 24 Religion or Occultism
Jing finds Shinzo's offer to be a difficult one. If he is dead, he ought to be dead. A part of him years to be torn from this physical realm so that he may drift upwards and to the great beyond, bask in the warmth of the Good Gods Above, and re-enter the cycle anew without Kugaptee's taint.
But wouldn't that just be giving in to fear? Disguised by rationality as the right thing to do? And Shinzo. Could he or his patron be the source of his powers?
He needs more time to weigh the truth of things and for now, follows whatever choices his companions make. So far, they've never let each other down. Hastily and with less grace than the gift deserves, Jing offers Shinzo a quick bow and picks up the manuscript. "You have our gratitude, Shinzo."
---
Try as he might, Jing finds it hard to let the truth get through to him. Even in the serene setting of his garden, comfortably perched atop a big, soft, and fluffy pillow, the walls of Jing's mind are doing what they can to keep uncomfortable and most unwanted truths at bay.
For now.
Working alone was too distracting, since reading the governor's notes was not interesting. Talking to Shinzo was significantly more so, especially being bale to feed Yix bits of berry and dried meat. Lastly she took time to think about what she had learned, in quiet thought or prayer animated rubber ducking with her favorite guardian statue.
Kamo tries on the sandals that Shinzo leaves as a gift. "Wow, these are so comfortable. My old ones were almost falling apart, and I barely noticed."
Kamo also makes sure that Black Bean is settled in before they start to do dangerous research, extracting promises from his mother and father that they will feed the cat the finest fish and keep him away from Little Kamo.
***
As usual, Kamo prefers to gleam as much information from the texts as he can, examining the small details and obscure clues in the governor's incomplete notes.
After the first couple days, he's reasonably sure he has gotten all of the useful information he can from the fragmented notes.
Knowing that Igawa is an expert in many strange rituals, he brings his findings to her on the third day, hoping he might spot any of his mistranslations or faulty assumptions.
Sakura decides to convene with Elizeth Candora at Her Fluvial Lady of Souls. The next three days are mostly productive, but by the third day she is tired of talking and reading and wants spend time stopping Mago Kai.
It only takes a few days for you to fully figure out what you need to do next:
Rituals to bring the dead back to life typically require a dead body (or at least a part of it) to function. In this case, no dead body exists, but Governor Heh’s breakthrough idea of using the Eternal Lantern’s light as a sort of “pathway” between this world and the living realm is a brilliant solution to this problem.
Including a metaphorical nod and concession toward longevity and life itself is important—feathers from a heron, long believed to live for centuries and capable of “purifying” spirits as they transition to new lives, would make a perfect component for the ritual. The feathers must be gathered from a living bird, who must still be alive when the ritual is cast. Beyond this, the burning of rare incense and specially treated slats of sakaki wood serve as the best components for this ritual, but the process of preparing these slats is expensive and time-consuming. Even more exciting, hints of a more powerful version of transmigrate might allow for many more souls than just you to escape the mindscape.
Most of Governor Heh’s research focused on the concept of sacrifice—in particular, the sacrifice of one life in order to propel another, “worthier” life out of this mindscape purgatory, in which the sacrificed life was ritualistically incinerated in a clay shell within a huge kiln. This was less because of an inborn predilection toward evil on the governor’s part and more of a shortcut and a concession due to his lack of knowledge of reincarnation. At this point in the research, though, you have an epiphany—by instead placing the person to be transmigrated into such a clay shell and then fired in a huge kiln, the sacrifice of life can be internalized, so that only the target to be transmigrated is affected. Of course, failure to perform the ritual correctly would result in painful (and potentially lethal) burns, but such a risk would be worth it for anyone wishing to avoid having to sacrifice one life for another. The possibility of a greater transmigration ritual is confirmed—and it might even allow you to transmigrate the town’s structures into the living world as well to replace the ruins that exist there now.
You complete the formula for transmigrate, a potent ritual that draws much of the power you need for success from the Eternal Lantern. You'll need to relight the Lantern in the living world in order to perform the more powerful version of the ritual.
***
The people of Willowshore are eager to help with the ritual preparations. Since you are in good standing with them, the local hunters gather the heron feathers for you, and workers volunteer the labor and money to build the kiln and prepare the sakaki slats. It will take six weeks to fully prepare the slats, however, which means you will have to survive the harsh winter conditions long enough for them to complete their work.
***
The bakeneko Yami continues to hang around the teahouse, bringing Sakura the gift of a partially eaten sparrow. Yami tolerates the presence of Black Bean, should you bring Governor Heh’s cat to the teahouse with you, but the bakeneko tends to bully the smaller cat by smacking Black Bean on the head.
***
Hunting and foraging is a sparsebusiness in winter, yet still, a few locals continue to ply their trades even as the days grow crueler. In the past few days, some hunters and foragers have found several of their traps and blinds have been ripped open and partially burned. They ask you to investigate.
It doesn't take long to catch the culprit in the act. A spectral, half-feral human girl moves about the snow-covered woods. She is in a singed dress and clutching a burned fox kit in her arms. She partially burns anything she touches, which is what allows her to rip open the traps and singe the local trees. She hasn't noticed you yet...
Jing tends to his garden and puts extra time and care into ensuring the starflowers and snowdrops bloom just before the ritual takes place. As silly as it might sound, Jing wants to take something from this world back to the last. Will it come with him when the ritual is completed? Jing doesn't know, but he feels that it is very important he at least tries.
***
"Words or violence?", Jing whispers as he studies the girl. If it were up to the girl, he imagines the answer would be violence, but part of him feels compelled to at least give the peaceful route a chance before escalating things.
"Words, always" Pagma whispers back, and nudges the most of diplomatic one to Go Get Her
"Oh, a fox! They are so cute, but the calls they make give me the shivers!" As usual, Kamo waits for Sakura to make a good first impression.
Sakura watches the spectral girl for a moment, the burned fox kit in her arms tugging at her heartstrings. The sight of the girl, so young and lost, sparks a deep sympathy in her. She glances back at Kamo and Pagma, giving them a nod to indicate she's going to approach first.
Taking a deep breath, she carefully steps forward, her hand resting lightly on the hilt of her katana. Not out of aggression mind youo, but out of ... habit? Her voice is soft and gentle, trying to put the girl at ease. "Hey there... you don't have to be afraid. We’re not here to hurt you." Sakura keeps her posture calm and non-threatening as she draws approaches. "Are you okay? What happened to your fox friend?"
Jing steps forward and raises his hands, palms facing forward, to show the girl that Sakura isn't lying.
The girl startles and looks like she is about to run off, but Sakura and Jing manage to calm her down some. ”The other humans... They came to our village. They said the foxes were causing misfortune. So they burned down our homes. They burned us all. Me and my baby brother...” She chokes back sobs as she looks down at the burned kit in her arms.
She looks up at you again, and her form shifts from human to kitsune. ”Are you mad at me for burning your traps? Are you going to punish me?”
"What?! That's insane," Kamo is shocked. "Our mother is a priest of Diaikitsu; we'd never hurt a fox."
"More important that even that, we'd never hurt a child." Pagma moves toward the wounded kit "I have a healing potion, if you'd let me give to him, or to you so you can do so." Pagma pulls out a small healing potion and offers it to the kitsune.
Sakura heart aches for the young kitsune, and the fire of anger burns inside her as she learns of the cruelty that caused this pain. "No, we're not mad at you. You’ve been hurt, and I can’t imagine how hard it must be to lose your family like that. But we're here to help, not punish." She glances at Pagma, giving her a nod of approval as the alchemist offers the healing potion.
"You are kind. But I'm afraid that will not help," the girl says. She reaches out with a spectral hand that passes right through the healing potion. "The burns were too much for us. We are gone, but we cannot go. As soon as we can go, we shall, but this place keeps us here for now."
Sakura's heart sinks as the reality of the situation settles in. She swallows hard, feeling the weight of the kitsune’s words.
"We'll help you move on. You and your brother deserve peace, and we'll do whatever it takes to give that to you."
She turns to the others, glancing between them. "What can we do to free them from this place? There has to be something, some way to help them pass on."
"I don't know if we can free her earlier than the rest of us--we are all ghosts trapped here, remember!" Kamo is a bit preoccupied with their personal predicament.