as told by the cavalier Olmas Lurecia himself.

Wealday, 29 Desnus

So we traveled without incident to the kappa-uncle, but along the way we had an open and honest discussion of how best to protect Koya.  While both Ameiko and Shalelu were trained and experienced fighters, that was not at all Koya’s strong suit.  The difficult question was not resolved enroute.

The kappa, Numataro-sama, greeted us pleasantly and told us a story and history that suggests there are familial ties at play here.  Is O-Sayumi related to the pearl merchant, whose name we now know to be Shosaito?  Numataro-sam suggested strongly that it might be a father-daughter relationship.  The circumstances seem to indicate that O-Sayumi felt compelled to come, but compelled emotionally or compelled magically we cannot say at this point.  Mysteriously, he gave us a shogi piece “for luck” and said it had the power to summon the greatest shogi player in all of Minkai.

We did come to one conclusion, however.  With Numataro-sama’s permission we will leave Koya here inside a Mage’s Private Sanctum. She should be safe from most things, including scrying.  Long term, however, we will need to come up with another plan.

The island looks dim, and seemed pervaded by gloom and doom.  I judge this to be a way of discouraging visitors, and while that may prove true, I’d also not be surprised if it turned out to be an ominous side effect from somebody or something living here.

(later)

Like undead.

We used fly rather than try to take a more mundane method of reaching the island.  It has been our experience that appearing at the entrances made explicitly to greet visitors, like front doors and docks, usually are the worst way to introduce ourselves.  Geisha houses excepted.   On our way in we saw what we assumed to be pearl divers at work (and they saw us).  They stayed underwater a surprisingly long time but when they walked up on shore they were not interested in welcoming us.  They attacked us, and while I suppose in a sense we were trespassers, I think most civilized places will agree that employing undead as laborers is the greater offense.

After dispatching them (Kali said they were mastodons, I think, which I have always believed to be larger, but …) we examined their crude village.  Surprise surprise, we found a secret door in the floor which I’d be willing to bet will lead us to our next problem.   By the way, both Qatana and Kali say this place is bathed in faint magic. No, really?

(later)

aaaand spot on.  This time it was manangles (I think – Kali speaks so softly) masquerading as servants.

We seemed to be exploring, perhaps, the basement of the only house on the island.  We found one room  (before we even met the manangles) that immediately drew Dasi’s attention, since it seemed to be filled with some very fine bottles of sake.  One passage looked even more shadowy and ominous than the rest of the basement.   We decided to save that for last.

It was about then we ran into the first manangle.  We tried to convince her, and the rest eventually, that we were part of the security testing team. They almost bought it (we even had one in manacles “so it would look authentic”, but in the end one of them doubted it enough to attack us and that meant the others no longer cooperated.  Ivan called out they are undead, but they seemed especially difficult to kill.  Suishen confirmed to me, after cutting into one, that these were not oni. (I realize he only speaks telepathically but he almost sounded disappointed.)  According to Kali, these things are really nasty at night so I’m glad we came when we did.

Exploring, we found several rooms – all looked dusty like they’d not been used for a while.  We still have no firm confirmation that O-Sayumi is even here.  One room had a shogi game set up and apparently in progress, and Radella detected a trap of some sort, but Kali was sure it was an important clue.

She was wrong.   Touching the board threw all of us into a sort of grid – a shadowy shogi board? – and about the time figured out how to maneuver within it, we also found we were sharing it with extra things – shadows themselves.  I don’t know who held the lucky chess piece that Numataro-sama gave us, but they apparently activated it and a hazy figure of Hatsue, appeared and although confused by our presence in what she said was HER dream, went to work destroying shadows.

Other than Hatsue, the things that helped us best was recognizing that by DISBELIEVING the grid one found oneself in, it became noncorporeal.  The second was that Dasi had this capability he called “ghost purge” which made our weapons much more effective against the shadows.  (I have to say, he continues to amaze me.)

Having put that behind us, we regrouped to return to the shadowy pathway.