Session22
Kurayami Mura
For a number of weeks, Akodo Haraku had been troubled by a vision of a small isolated fishing village; whenever he attempted to divine the future he saw it and with increasing regularity he would see it in his dreams and even when waking. Determined to find out more about this mysterious village he asked an artisan to help him draw the vision in his head; after a long day he was finally satisfied with the artisan's depiction which he then used to ask every samurai and merchant that he met. After a few frustrating days trudging through the muddy streets of Toshi Ranbo, Haraku finally found a man -a fish merchant- who recognised the village and identified it a Kurayami Mura, a small fishing village on the shores of the lake in the middle of Kokoro Nezban Mori (Heart of Vigilance Forest) to the south of Toshi Ranbo.
Yoriki Haraku petitioned Magistrate Bin to allow him to travel to Kurayami Mura as soon as his duties would allow. Isawa Bin, realising that he would need to spend some of the harvest season on the road collecting taxes, agreed the persistence of the village in Haraku's visions was intriguing and warranted personal attention from the Emerald Magistrate and his retinue.
As the autumn storms and rains pounded Rokugan and the heimin busied themselves with the harvest, Magistrate Bin and his doshin collected the Emperor's taxes. Shosuro Korow also received an order from Shosuro Ayumi: find one of her agents, Shosuro Anei?, who has stopped reporting in. Anei was living undercover as the wife of the village headman in Kurayami Mura...
The journey from Toshi Ranbo started uneventfully. However, just inside the edge of Kokoro Nezban Mori, they came across a small girl -maybe five or six summers old- standing somewhat dazed in the path. While she responded to simple questions she did not seem as alert as most children her age and her expression was somewhat vacant. Upon seeing the painting Haraku had of Kurayami Mura she said "home" so they decided to take her to the village with them; after putting her in the care of one of the servants travelling with them they pressed on.
After a few hours they began to notice that something was not quite right with the forest around them. Not only had the blustery autumn winds died down, it was perfectly still; the earthy scent of forest was entirely absent; the sky was grey showing no clouds, no stars and Amaterasu's disc was not visible either... Then there was the forest itself: the trees nearest them were identical, even the creepers clinging to the bark snaked up the trees in the same pattern. The blades of grass and small leafy plants that made up the undergrowth also appeared unnatural upon closer inspection as if none of them were individual, each plant was indistinguishable from the next; it was as if the distinctiveness of each plant had somehow been removed...
Somewhat unsettled, the samurai pressed on towards the village however, the path they had been following petered out leaving them lost in the forest. Calling upon the kami for assistance, Isawa Bin got them heading in the right direction and they soon found a small stream and began to hear the sounds of a woman sobbing but by now the forest was dark. Heading in the direction of the crying they soon saw a well dressed woman with her head in her hands, he body trembling each time the crying intensified which was unnervingly frequently.
Concerned, Miya Katsumi approached the distraught woman and attempted to comfort her. When their heads were only a small distance apart, the woman removed her hands from her face and turned to face the shugenja revealing a completely featureless face! With disturbing speed the faceless creature reached out for Katsumi and gripped the sides of her head who immediately felt a dread pull on her soul; for a split second Katsumi saw her own face looking back at her.
Miya Katsumi managed to resist the creature's pull and drag herself free. The creature, what ever it was, almost immediately began to dissolve into the shadows but not before Shosuro Korow threw a small missile in an attempt to cripple it but the small metal star just appeared to stick into the shadow itself...
The little girl they brought with them from the edge of the forest had awakened but her eyes were the deepest black, no colour and no white could be seen and somehow her features seemed less distinct than they had earlier, it was almost as if her features had faded. By the time they had investigated this disturbing phenomena, the light of two lanterns carried by figures currently obscured by shadow could be seen bobbing up the path towards them.
The two heimin, when they reached the samurai, had the same had the same vacant disposition as the little girl and like her their features were so unremarkable that it was difficult to distinguish them or hold a distinct image of them in the mind for long but they did not appear to be hostile. They welcomed the samurai to the village but said they had no taxes to collect, the headman had apparently gone mad and was currently chained up in his home; none of the fishermen had the knowledge or the authority to do the headman's job and they were waiting for assistance from outside which they now believed had arrived.
While the fishermen lead the samurai down towards the village, Daidoji Ryou found that one of the heimin was drifting closer and closer to him apparently unconsciously but as the man turned to face him, Ryou felt a chill go down his spine and backed away rapidly.
Shosuro Korow, who had been moving stealthily through the shadows at the edge of the path anyway, slipped off ahead of the others and into the village. Nothing seemed particularly out of place at first, just a few heimin sitting outside their meagre homes eating; that was until one of them looked up and Korow could see the fisherman wearing Korow's own face! The more he looked, the more he saw the faces of these people were not their own, one man's face shifted from one to another before his very eyes.
Disturbed, Korow pressed on to the largest house in the village which he presumed belonged to the headman and was therefore where he hoped to find Anei, Shosuro Ayumi's agent in the village. The house was dark with no lights on inside but animalistic howls and wails could be clearly heard emanating from within. Approaching cautiously, Korow found a vantage point from which to observe the house's main room. Inside, a man obviously out of his mind, was chained up and by the state of his skin around the bindings and the excrement which had accumulated in the room he had obviously been imprisoned this way for some time. The more that the samurai watched this pitiful specimen, the more he became concerned; the headman's physique and features appeared to be subtly shifting. Upon seeing this, Korow decided to end the man's life with a poisoned dart, partly out of pity and partly as a precaution. Once he was sure he was dead, Korow moved on through the village in search of Anei.
After a short walk through the eerie village, Magistrate Bin and his accompanying yoriki and doshin arrived at the headman's house. Upon entering the dingy abode their senses were assaulted by an appaling stench and they came across the chained body of the headman, a small dart protruding from his neck. The rest of the house seemed deserted with little sign it had been inhabited for days or maybe even weeks.
Korow then enters the house from the rear and approaches Magistrate Bin declaring that he has found something under the house that might warrant the Magistrate's attention. Leading the way, Korow bends down to climb under the house's elevated wooden platform and gestures for Isawa Bin to follow. Once the Magistrate is under the house in the shadowy darkness, Korow turns to Bin but his face is not that of Bin but an entirely featureless mask. Reacting quickly before the shadow creature could get a hold of his head, Isawa Bin backed out but wasn't quick enough to stop the creature gripping his legs and dragging him back under the house. Ryou, Katsumi and Haraku gripped the Magistrate's upper body and pulled him out of the creature's grip.
Having escaped the chilling grip of the shadow creature this time, Isawa Bin decided to investigate the lake itself which seemed to the be source of the only light in the dark and shadowy village; dim hazy lights seemed to be reflecting from its obsidian surface despite the absence of Lord Moon or the stars from the sky.
Shosuro Korow, seeing the other samurai leave the headman's house moved back and proceeded to set it alight. Upon leaving the now smouldering house, he saw a strange four-legged creature approaching the group of samurai on the shingle beach but chose to ignore it and move on to the next house.
The four-legged faceless creature stalked the group silently; once it was close enough it pounced at Miya Katsumi, apparently passing through Akodo Haraku, and knocked her to the ground. The shugenja was quick however and called upon the air kami who hurled the creature up into the air amid a tempest of wind. Rather than fall to the ground though, the creature appeared to dissipate and become one with the night itself...
A few moments later a shadowy and faceless female figure with shifting black lines writhing under its exposed skin extracts itself from the shadows on the beach and launches itself at Isawa Bin, knocking him down and pinning him to the ground. Unable to reach his scrolls from the prone position the Phoenix shugenja struggles to free himself; Ryou and Haraku lunge to his defence with their katanas and Haraku thankfully manages to behead the creature before it can destroy the Magistrate.
The remaining villages seemed strangely detached from the events of night and unconcerned with the samurai who spent most of the night putting out the fires started by Shosuro Korow. By the time the grey and eerily sunless dawn arrives, the samurai seem convinced there is little they can do here, the strange corruption of the place is far more pervasive than the tainted ground in Toshi Ranbo and infinitely more sinister, it is as if the very fabric of the village and its surroundings are somehow being unmade...
As the villagers start to go about their morning routines in the strange detached state they have come to recognise, the samurai leave the village without the taxes they came to collect and with a chill in their hearts.
Last edited on Monday 24 March 2008 18:58:59
