Keiko Gasai's page

1st - comprehend languages, disguise self, long arm, shield, true strike, recharge innate magic, cure light wounds, crafter's fortune, see alignment, deathwatch
2nd - alchemical allocation, lesser restoration, see invisibility, anthropomorphic animal
3rd - greater recharge innate magic (researched), amplify elixir, fly, heroism
Scrolls (To be copied later): Cure Moderate Wounds, Cure Serious Wounds, Gaseous Form, Resist Energy, Elemental Touch

1st:
2nd:
3rd:
Mutagen: +Dex/-Wis

I don’t remember much of those days. Probably something to do with the change that followed. I can tell you this much, though – I used to be one of the good guys. I did my job, and I did it well. I was the local deity of a farming village in the mountains of Tien. I ensured good harvests, kept away natural disasters, and so forth and in return my shrine was visited on a daily basis and tended to by a beautiful maiden. I got all the offerings and prayers I could want, and I was happy, even if my purview didn’t extend to the village itself. It was enough for me for my villagers to come tell me how happy they were. I have no idea how long things went on like that. It may have been only a few short years, it could have been centuries, I cannot tell you. What I do know is that I was content with that life. (Was LG)

Then things started to change. I vaguely remember my flow of prayers and visits slowing, and then abruptly stopping. My maiden disappeared from my shrine and did not come to give me news. I was cut off from my beloved villagers. Being the dutiful kami I was though, I continued unerringly in my task. I ensured good harvests and kept away natural disasters. I must have continued like that for a few years, working in total isolation for the benefit of those who could not even find the time to thank me. Slowly, I went insane. The last thing I remember of that old life, I remember in stark clarity – I cursed that village, and my own existence as its guardian Kami. Just as I thought this, that existence came to an abrupt end.

I awoke on the cold stone floor of my shrine, now quite messy due to neglect. I felt… different. It took me a couple moments to realize the cause of the sensation. I no longer felt bound to protect. It was like heavy chains had been lifted from me. I was free, for the first time in my life. I didn’t have to protect anyone, I didn’t have to perform any duties, I didn’t need to follow traditions. I was free, free to do whatever I wanted. …what /did/ I want? Ah yes. REVENGE. Revenge on the ungrateful swine that had forgotten me, forgotten all I had given them. (Now changed to CE)

So it was that I raced through the forest towards the village, descending like an angel of death, ready to repay those that had wronged me. What I found was not the sprawling, prosperous town I so often heard tell of from my worshippers. I saw a town in ruins. A town torn apart, burnt nearly to the grown. Old, rotting corpses still littered the ground, bearing the cuts and arrow-wounds that killed them. I walked slowly into the center of town, my rage momentarily forgotten. The massive sakura tree in the center of town was just starting to bloom. From one low branch, I could make out the form of a girl’s corpse, dangling from a rope around her neck. She wore the priestess robes so familiar to me. Poor Keiko Gasai. She had been a kind-hearted, dutiful shrine maiden. As a Kami, I would have mourned her passing. As an Oni, I mourned my inability to kill her a second time, for daring to die and abandon me.

My anger rekindled, I quietly stalked the ruins of my once beloved town. I found that there were indeed people still living here. There were only a few of them, likely no more than a dozen, living in the more intact houses. I spent a few days observing them, learning their names and mannerisms. I discovered that they were but some of the survivors of the invasion those years ago, they were the survivors that had chose to stay, for the love of their village, rather than leave and start a new life. Despite this, they refused to visit my shrine. Likely they partially blamed me for what happened, forgetting that only nature was within my purview, not the actions of other mortals. They shunned the center of town where the majority of the bodies lay – far too many for them to bury while also worrying about cultivating enough food to survive. So the bodies had lain, and rotted, without proper rites. These curs would have to pay for their sins.

I read their minds, one by one, to find their deepest wants and fears, to find the faces of their lost loved ones, to find everything they held dear. One by one, I came to them while they were alone, bearing the face of whosever it was they most wished they could see again. One by one, I slew them. Slowly, intimately, smiling benevolently, I slew them. I cut them open and ate their entrails before their eyes. I relished every second of their pain, their horror. Their suffering assuaged the growing emptiness I felt inside, if only a little. So it was that I would move on and begin working on my next victim.

Once the town was devoid of life, I set about my second order of business – Those that fled. I took on the first human form that came to mind – That of the shrine maiden, Keiko Gasai, and ventured down the mountain to the nearest city. I spent years tracking down those that had fled, and quietly killing each. That done, I began a proper rampage across the countryside, leaving a trail of destruction in my wake. Quiet whispers my only weapon, I drove men mad, I tore families apart, I nudged towns and cities to massacre themselves, all for my amusement. All to fill that hole in my heart.

It was around a century and a half later that I began to grow tired of my revels. Slaughtering innocents just wasn’t doing it for me anymore. My cruelties became more intricate, more refined, in an effort to stave off that hungry darkness inside of me. Nothing worked. I had recurring dreams, nightmares. I didn’t even know that was possible, for an Oni to have nightmares. Each time I would relive walking through that desolate village square, up to the tree from which the girl dangled. Each time, just as I approached, her rotting head would turn to look at me, confusion painted across her face.

At last I gave in – I would return, for good or for ill. As I grew closer, to my dismay I felt the hole in me even more keenly. I felt how fundamentally /wrong/ and hypocritical my existence was. It ate at me, it burned, knowing what I was, what I had become. Finally I arrived at the village, lying as quiet as I had left it over a century ago. Vines and shrubs had now reclaimed much of what had been built so long ago, slowly returning the land to the forest. Corpses had turned to skeletons, and skeletons had begun to be swallowed by the earth. I walked on, towards the center of town.

She no longer hung from the tree, the rope having long-since rotted away. Her remains lay below, half-covered by dirt, a single flower bud sprouting from an eye socket. Despite being little more than a skeleton, I recognized her immediately. I spared only a passing thought as to the oddity of coming back here, wearing her face and name. The searing sensation inside of me reached a peak, but I took little note of it. As I knelt over her body, only one thought was in my mind – Regret. I was sorry things had turned out like this. That I had become a monster. That they had died. That I had lost that life that I had so loved, that life full of meaning. As I longed for the life I had lost, that life full of meaning, the flower slowly bloomed. I reached out, and just as I touched its yellow petals, I felt it.

I had left something of myself behind at this place, so many years ago. My soul? My divine spark? That squishy part deep inside? I cannot tell you what it was, but whatever it was, I reclaimed some part of it that day. My eyes grew softer and saw more, my mind no longer was full of nothing but hate and lust. At the same time, I felt that ache inside me still. No, different than before. I now ached for something else – Meaning. I wanted meaning in my life. How funny is that, an Oni wanting self-actualization? For the record, I by no means to imply I suddenly went all goody-two-shoes again, simply that my mind was opened to a future perhaps /not/ entirely full of murder and destruction. Those would just be my hobbies. (Now NE, with a bend towards TN, and now MR 1)

So with this new torture visited upon me, I left. I took on another face, that of a teenage human girl and the name “Calista”. I joined an academy and began studying sciences, in the hopes that this would lead me to the fulfillment that I now sought. Perhaps learning the secrets of life and death would reveal some secret as to my purpose in this world (Vivisectionist/Chirurgeon archetypes on Alchemist). I excelled at my studies and only murdered a few of my classmates and one teacher that gave me a B when we both knew I deserved an A.

My studies complete, I decided I’d join an adventuring party, maybe save the world once or twice. That’s how the heroes do it, right? Save the world, everyone praises you and you’re “useful”? I spent the better part of a century “saving the world”. Or more accurately, going through dungeons, beating the crap out of monsters, repeatedly healing stupid allies, having those allies kill each other for my amusement when they ticked me off, and so on. Of course I also wrecked a few families on the side and mayyy have raped some noblemen – they didn’t seem to mind.

I journeyed across the world in search of something worthy to live for and found little. I assuaged my pain the same way I always had – Through the obtaining of “entertainment”. Eventually I grew bored of the material plane, and decided a vacation was in order. I got a wizard friend of mine – one who still believed I was a 20 year-old human girl named Calista – to give me a Plane Shift to Celestia. From there I began a tour of the outer planes, using hubs such as the City of Brass to get about. I would occasionally set up shop and sell some potions, occasionally join a troupe on one errand or another, occasionally cause some havoc then promptly leave town, and so on. Now a little over a decade later, I’m feeling quite ready to return home to the material plane.