Sarenith 23, 4713 (early morning, Imperial Shrine)

Amatatsu Onoko is here. Why she wasn’t here yesterday when we needed more timely information about what we are getting into is anyone’s guess. Maybe Shigure’s temper tantrum scared her away. I don’t know if she had children in life, but if I was a mother and was granted immortality as an archon, the last thing I’d want is a front seat to the Terrible Two’s for basically all of eternity. Your reward in heaven for a devoted, pious life is not supposed to double as punishment.

Ameiko spent some time communing with her in private and then opened up the conversation to the rest of us. I took the opportunity to ask her my new favorite question. “Why is there something called ‘The Well of Demons’ in the Imperial Shrine?”

Her answer was as unsatisfying as it was uninformative. “It doesn’t have a name. That’s just what Shigure calls it.” Which is not what I was asking. I don’t care about the name; I want to know why it’s here. But bickering with an archon didn’t seem like a healthy plan so I let it drop. And, to be fair, she did shed some light on what is down there, and what we have to do.

“The handmaiden devil Amatatsu Meimei and her handmaiden have infested this place. I can’t bestow my blessing until she is dealt with.” One guess as to what she means by “dealt with”. Also, apparently the Well of Demons contains devils. Note to self: Correct Shigure on his terminology.

Who was emperor Amatatsu Meimei? It’s a given that she was not a very good person if she was a petitioner to Hell, and if given form as a greater devil it’s a fair bet that she was especially vile. Suishen confirmed as much, giving us a fairly pointed review of her tenure as emperor. “She was unnecessarily cruel and selfish, seeking her own power over what was best for the empire and its people.” And she’s had plenty of time to refine her personality since then.

Who is Meimei’s handmaiden? No clue. Though I appreciate the recursion. Whoever she is, she has to go, too.

And, of course, we have to do this one thing in order for Ameiko to get Onoko’s blessing. On top of the other thing that we have to do for Shigure. Maybe its a blessing of it’s own that the spirits from the other families are blocked from communing in the Shrine until this business with the Well is resolved. I don’t think I can handle each of them asking us to do yet another “just this one thing”, too.

(still early morning, still the Imperial Shrine)

Our first descent into the Well of Demons went poorly. This is the problem of not knowing what you are getting into and not knowing what to expect when you arrive: you can’t plan for everything. You can only be so flexible, and if you get caught reacting instead of acting then odds are good you aren’t going to recover.

This is particularly dangerous when dealing with beings that can teleport at will. The force that contains the demons and devils within the Well almost certainly saved our lives as there is generally no such thing as running away from something that can instantaneously appear at your side across any distance at any time. When you start this kind of fight, it needs to be one that you are sure you can finish unless you have similar powers of your own.

It’s been less than 10 minutes and Amatatsu Onoko has already gotten on my list. We went to stop the water from dumping into the Well because it was so loud we could barely hear ourselves think much less communicate, and she appeared and blasted us with her trumpet. Just in case it wasn’t clear what kind of archon she was. Branding is important.

I had what many might consider to be a reasonable question: “What the shit, lady?!”

This was probably not the most respectful way of addressing a herald of Shizuru, but the whole thing caught us by surprise. Also, I was feeling kind of cranky.

“Why would you halt the flow of water into the well? The lake sends the cleansing water that contains the evil within!”

Uh…how about because, no one fucking told us? Like, when we were asking about it? What is it with celestial beings treating information like caviar? Is there some divine rule that crucial knowledge pertaining to saving the world can only be fed in small bites? If it’s not a game of twenty questions, it’s riddles and metaphor. No one can be direct about anything until it’s smiting time, and then it’s all, “How dare you disobey this rule I’m just now telling you about!” This is no way to run an organization.

“Because it’s so loud down there we can’t hear ourselves think. And because we just got our asses handed to us. And also because we didn’t know! How would we know?!”

Gods, I am just not in the mood.

But at least now we know what we’re up against, and what we can (and can’t) do about it.

Sarenith 22nd, 4713 (evening, Imperial Shrine)

We met Emperor Shigure today. What remains of him, that is, which is mostly an angry, impotent spirit raging at the living world. Thrust into a role he never expected to take, manipulated by the woman he thought he loved, then betrayed and murdered by his childhood friend. His reign was short and tragic, exactly as engineered by Anamurumon, and this half-mad ghost was the result.

He was barely rational when he appeared before us, verbally abusing everyone and accusing us of various crimes. Conspiring with his killers. Usurping the throne. Taking what was rightfully his. And on and on. I tuned it out because I just couldn’t even. His portrait was painted in fury and self-pity. We let Dasi do most of the talking since he’s good at that sort of thing, and because we were dealing with a petulant child.

“I will not give my blessing while my body remains dishonored!” he bellowed, acknowledging Ameiko’s status as heir but denying her the means to act on it. He demanded that we descend into the Well of Demons and bring it back, cremate it, and lay it to rest. Are you for real? This is what’s important right now? Yes, his anger was justified. But he was willing to sink the entire empire out of spite. Such a small, petty man.

Still, we agreed because—wait for it—we have no choice. Because nothing is ever simple or easy.

It’s not really his fault at any rate. Takahiro’s crime corrupted this place utterly and thoroughly: as Shigure’s body rots, so does the Shrine. This is almost certainly why the entire island is trying to kill us, but that is the smaller of our concerns. Until the Shrine is cleansed, the conduit between here and the spirits of the past is closed. No spirits; no blessing. Which means Ameiko’s path to the throne is blocked until we sort it out.

Why in the name of the gods is there something called The Well of Demons in the Imperial Shrine? I thought it was a pretty good question, so I asked Shigure during one of his moments of lucidity, but what I got for an answer was a nigh-incomprehensible tirade that boiled down to “some name I made up”. Whatever purpose the well originally served is a mystery, but it clearly wasn’t intended to be a dumping ground for the decaying bodies of former emperors, murdered in cold blood. Hence, the current state of affairs.

Shigure says he can feel the influence of whatever is down there, and more importantly, he can feel it spreading. It’s only a matter of time before it reaches the material world and infests Minkai.

That fool Takahiro has no idea what he’s done.

Sarenith 23rd, 4713 (small hours, Imperial Shrine)

When I left Magnimar over a year ago I never imagined I’d be spending my nights studying the finer points of childbirth and prenatal care. The turns my life has taken since then have been so bizarre that they seem to defy logic much less prediction. When I see my reflection I wonder who it is that’s looking back at me. I want to know what she’s like. Where she calls home. Where our lives diverged. What became of her dreams.

Meida’s pregnancy is both an opportunity and a complication.

The complication, of course, is that she’s pregnant. Taking the Jade Throne from Takahiro and Anamurumon is almost certainly going to mean taking it by force, and using lethal force against a pregnant woman is just not a thing that’s going to happen. That is a hard stop. I will not take part in any such plan. And that immediately puts us at a disadvantage, because they certainly won’t be holding back.

Since we don’t have a good solution to that problem at the moment, I am instead choosing to focus on the opportunity. The Emerald Branch says she is secretly looking for a midwife, so why not give her one?

This is not as ridiculous as it sounds. When you study the arcane you end up learning a little about everything, and humanoid physiology kind of comes with the territory. As you continue your studies you end up gravitating to things that interest you, and…well…there’s a reason why seeing Sefa again, and holding her baby, had the effect on me that it did. (You also can’t spend any amount of time around an acolyte of Pharasma without learning a thing or two about obstetrics. Even when that acolyte was Qatana.) To the others this seemed like it came from out of the blue, but in reality? I just never talked about it. I mean, it’s not like the subject ever came up before now. When, exactly, would it have been relevant conversation?

I am being realistic about this gambit. I don’t even think I’ll get invited into the palace much less hired by Meida, but I am pretty sure I can get an interview with the handmaiden that was tasked with the search and that’s good enough. To date, we know almost nothing about Meida and even less about the inner workings of the palace. A conversation with her handmaiden is the closest thing we’ll get to insider information, and it could prove fruitful. I just need to be credible enough to not raise any suspicions (and I’m also not above a little cheating, if necessary.)

All of that is moot, though, if we don’t succeed here at the Shrine first.

We descend into the Well tomorrow. We have no idea what we’ll find there, what we’re up against, how extensive this growing corruption is, or even what the nature of it is, and that makes it hard to prepare. Normally one would assume that something called a “Well of Demons” contains, well, demons, but given that this is just some name Shigure made up? Gods only know. I took some time yesterday to extend magical sight down to the bottom, but what I saw wasn’t particularly helpful: a dark hole in the ground, filled with water. Pretty much what you would expect from a well, only larger in scale.

Obviously there’s more to it than that, but there’s only so much divination magic can do in one sitting. If we did this again tomorrow I’d be cutting into spells we might actually need, and with no guarantee of getting better answers at that. And, really, at some point we’re just going to have to go in, anyway. So, as Ivan would say, save the spell.

Gods, it’s going to be a long day.

Sarenith 22, 4713 (morning, Kasai)

Communing with a deity is like being cured of cataracts. All the haze and uncertainty and guesswork is replaced with this abject clarity, a change that is so stark that it is practically painful.

“Is Renshii Meida pregnant?”

YES.

“Is it Takahiro’s child?”

YES.

“Is she keeping this a secret?”

YES.

Again and again the answers came, each one a lightning strike of divine truth.

“Is Takahiro’s mother still alive?”

NO.

“Did Anamurumon have her killed?”

YES.

Koya was straining against her contact with Desna, or whichever servitor had answered in her place.

“Is Takahiro’s father still alive?”

NO.

“Did Anamurumon have him killed?”

YES.

I was practically shaking, feeling the weight of what we were learning. Answers from a deity come with a permanency and surety that makes them more real, more absolute than anything you know or have experienced. Like, you could come to question everything about your life, your place in the world, even who you are, but these truths would endure.

“Is Takahiro a descendant of Anamurumon?”

YES.

Does Takahiro know this?

NO.

After her spell ended, we sat in stunned silence.

When we first met with the Emerald Branch here in the city, we gave them a list of questions around Takahiro, Anamurumon, and Meida. Mostly, they were shots in the dark.

From the journals, we knew Anamurumon was obsessed with fathering an offspring that could pass as human. A half-fiend would likely be bound by the same divine laws as an oni, but a half-fiend that appeared human could mate with a human, and produce a child of their own. That would result in a tiefling, and being of mostly human blood the child could, in theory, fall outside the divine restrictions. If Anamurumon stayed close to this child, exerted influence over them, he could essentially take the throne by proxy.

Soto Takahiro refers to Anamurumon as his “grandfather”. In Minkai, this can be a term of affection just  like “aunt” and “uncle” back in Varisia, but…could they actually be related? We didn’t know. But, according to the Emerald Branch, Takahiro didn’t know, either. “Takahiro has made inquiries in the past about his parentage, but we do not know what, if anything, he discovered. This at least suggests that his grandfather also did not know, or was not forthcoming to young Takahiro with that information.”

Another question for them was how faithful Takahiro and Meida were to one another. They told us Takahiro is something of a philanderer, which we were more or less expecting to hear. Meida is significantly more faithful, though there was still a big surprise to be had: “One of our contacts is a samurai whose daughter is employed as one of Meida’s handmaidens. She recently asked her father about the possibility of quietly securing the services of a midwife who could be trusted for her loyalty to Minkai and willingness to be discreet.” You do not “quietly” hire a midwife who can be trusted to be “discreet” unless you are trying to hide a pregnancy.

Before this morning, all we had were these suspicions, but now? Now we have some idea of just how fragile the Jade Regent’s grip on power really is. How much does he really know about Anamurumon? Obviously, not very much, because his “grandfather” has been keeping a lot of secrets from him. Some very significant secrets, which include the murder of his parents. To say that is huge would be a ridiculous understatement. This is the sort of thing that makes enemies out of friends, lovers, family. And how much does he know about his lover? Again the answer seems to be, “Not as much as he should”.

As for Meida, herself, we don’t know what game she’s playing. Obviously, you can’t hide a pregnancy forever, but trying to hide one at all suggests a lack of trust between her and, well, everyone. Whatever her angle is, it depends on that staying a secret for as long as possible.

We met with the Emerald Branch again this morning and asked them straight out if this was information they could work with. You might say that their response was an emphatic “Yes”.

Which is good, because we’re going to need their help again. We’re taking Ameiko to the Shrine today and we don’t know how long we’ll be gone, mostly because we don’t know how big of a trap we’ll be walking in to. That means the Emerald Branch will have to keep the rebellion and the Amatatsu heir visible both in name and in spirit while we’re away.

It also means that the situation with the kidnapped daughters, also known as the hostages, is going to have to wait. Though we are pretty sure we know where they are being held, thanks to the posthumous interrogation of a Typhoon Guard commander, it’s deep in the palace and that’s not a raid we can just pull off without significant planning. If we can pull it off at all; we may have to take the throne first, or at least commit ourselves to that path, which is something we can’t do until Ameiko receives her blessings from her ancestors. However that works.

I am resigned to the notion that there will probably be casualties among the hostages. While there are no executions scheduled for today that we know of—the one that was seems to have been cancelled because the two prisoners escaped over night—that doesn’t mean that there won’t be any last-minute changes. And if we aren’t back before tomorrow…

Well, I don’t really want to think about that.

(afternoon, Imperial Shrine)

We did find a trap waiting for us here, but like all things Five Storms it was so poorly organized and so obvious that they may as well have put up signs. I am not kidding: what gave it away was that we actually heard bickering. But I guess there’s not much else to do when you’re stuck on an island waiting in case, and I quote, “one of the other families shows up. How likely is that?”

How likely, indeed?

From the sounds of their adolescent squabbling, this was another one of Anamurumon’s famous “The Five Storms is known to keep their word” deals, where he promised to marry one of them or father their child or gods know what else and like idiots they believed him. They were even fighting over him in advance. Where does he find people this gullible?

Not that they were “people”. They were, in fact, what Dasi called rokurokubi, which is apparently Tien for “woman with a 20-foot-long neck”. It was creepy and disgusting, watching them stretch out and snake their heads around the room, like naga with a human torso. Anamurumon sure can pick them.

The rest of the shrine has been…disturbing. I don’t think it’s Anamurumon’s doing—not directly, anyway—but something here is definitely amiss, as we’ve been attacked by shadows and a giant construct made from gravestones. Somehow, I don’t think this is how visits to the Imperial Shrine are supposed to go. When the heir comes to receive blessings from their ancestors, I don’t think the island is supposed to try and kill them.

We were so desperate for information that we actually consulted Suishen. Yeah, I know. Don’t judge us. Not only did he not know anything about the Imperial Shrine, he literally had never even paid attention during the few times he was brought here. Why? Because there was “no fighting” and that made it “boring”. Ironically, this non-answer was an answer in itself, as it confirmed that none of this is supposed to be happening.

I hate shadows. We were walking through a cemetery for the advisors of past emperors and other notable figures when they emerged from the graves to attack. We were completely surrounded from the start, which gave us nowhere to go. When one of them descended on Koya, I knew I had to do something but there was a shadow on top of me as well which limited my options. So I choose a radical and dangerous tactic: I cast a spell that suppressed magic and supernatural phenomenon. At which point I promptly fell 30′ to the ground. But it put me close enough to Koya to protect her from their touch, so mission accomplished.

It’s a good thing I’ve learned a thing or two about how to fall without dying.

Sarenith 20, 4713 (Kasai, early morning)

Ivan, Radella and Dasi scouted the granary last night so that we’d have a better idea about what we are getting in to. So far, it doesn’t look like anything we can’t handle; it’s what comes after that will present the real challenge.

The granary itself is this enormous, marble building sitting along one of the canals on the north end of town. The front of it has massive double doors that face an open lot the size of several city blocks. Dasi says that four large statues depicting some sort of tiger stand next to them, two on either side, and they radiate magic. We put our heads together, having seen enough magical constructs in the past year, and in keeping with the local culture we are pretty sure they are taotiehs: large stone golems that swallow victims whole and trap them in an extradimensional space. These were apparently recent additions to the neighborhood, appearing about the time the Jade Regent took a direct hand in the distribution of food inside the city. To the average person this is a significant threat, though to us it’s just a matter of applying the right tool to the job.

Alas, we don’t have the right tools. Mighty though Suishen is, which is not nearly as mighty as he would lead you to believe, he is not quite up to this task so we’ve sent Isao in search of adamantine weapons. We’re not being picky: we’ll accept an adamantine anything at this point, though blades would be preferred since that’s what Olmas and Radella are used to. At first, Suishen objected to the idea that Olmas might need to use some “substandard thing” for pulling off this raid, but we have long since had enough of his hissy fits and just pointedly asked, “How do you feel about hacking into magical stone?” And that shut him up.

We’ve learned to enjoy these moments of relative peace when they come, as they are so few.

But the constructs aren’t really the problem. With the right weapons and the right spells (there aren’t many that will work on them, but I have a few tricks) we can reduce them to rubble. No, the problem will be what comes after: a warehouse full of rice is not something we can just walk away with. It will have to be loaded and distributed, and that is not a small task nor is it one that can be effectively enhanced by magic. It will require manpower and time, two things we do not have a lot of.

Our best bet is to organize a wagon brigade. One that can send in a steady stream of wagons to be loaded with as much rice as rapidly as possible, with each wagon disappearing into the night as quickly as it comes. Each of them will have to escape detection both before and after the attack. It is not a trivial order, which means we’re turning to the Emerald Branch for help. After all, we’ve paid a heavy price to put them on retainer, and by the Gods we are going to make them earn every damned copper of it.

Our long term plans are a bit murkier. There is still the Shrine, of course, but I am thinking even beyond that. What will we be facing when we stroll into the palace?

According to Isao, this whole mess started because the Jade Regent employs a Diviner, and she foresaw a daughter of the Amatatsu clan taking possession of her family’s Seal. The one Seal that he does not, in fact, already have. With all five Seals they can force the Jade Throne to accept him as a ruler, presumably because that blocks any true heirs from claiming it themselves: no Seal, no claim.

So who is the Diviner? A woman by the name of Renshii Meida. Dasi used the samisen to find out a little about her, and she comes from a long line of troublemakers. The family goes back centuries, and at one point they were loyal allies of a human warload named—surpise!—Anamurumon. He attempted to take the throne in a failed coup a few hundred years ago, and when his forces were defeated, and he was killed, the Renshii family scattered like roaches in the light. A few of the survivors went on to become geisha, some of them notable, and Meida is one of their descendants.

I checked in the journals from the House of Withered Blossoms, and the dates line up. It’s not a perfect fit from the death of Anamurumon-the-Tian-warlord to the appearance of Anamurumon-the-oni in the House of Withered Blossoms, but it’s in sequence and that’s good enough for me.

So. This is not Anamurumon’s first dance.

(evening)

But wait! There’s more! Meida is the Jade Regent’s lover! Seriously, you cannot make this stuff up. I can’t help but think back to the journals and notes we recovered from the House of Withered Blossoms. From the day the Five Storms was first conceived, it has been plagued by infighting and backstabbing, all the way until the day they escaped. Because, of course it was, because they are oni. It’s in their nature to feud with one another and scheme and backstab. And, it took place on a grand scale, far beyond what you see even in the human lands. It was pervasive enough, and overt enough, and violent enough that it kept coming up. And this is what we cleaned from journals. What happened that was never recorded by their annalists?

Here’s the kicker, though: Anamurumon has always been their leader, which means he either doesn’t care what happens beneath him as long as it doesn’t affect him directly, chocks it up as a cost of doing business, or is simply unable to stop it.

I’d like to think that we can use this somehow; that we can take the pettiness and jealousy and self-centered nature of the Five Storms and get them to undermine each other. Though Meida is probably not an oni, she must know what she has gotten into and that means she is playing the same game and is cut from the same cloth. And whether or not Takahiro is aware of his heritage, he is still descended from one.

We asked Isao who else sits in the Jade Regent’s inner circle, and were surprised to learn of a fourth: the royal assassin, known as The Raven Prince. From the name, one can infer that he is a Tengu, but could he be an oni, too? Like Kikonu was, only, you know, less of a lunatic. I added it to my list of questions for the Emerald Branch, along with whether he works for any of the clans.

When we met with them, I didn’t even have to wait to get an answer.

“Oni? Oni… In the various tales of the Raven Prince I’ve never heard a hint of that. Tengu, yes, hence the name.”

“Is he affiliated with any of the clans? Does he have a code of honor?”

“He is known to all the clans, worked for most of them at one point or another, but never joined any. He’s been sought after for years by the highest and most powerful when debts or scores needed to be settled. I can’t speak for him directly, of course, or have personal knowledge of his state or honor, but I have no reason to doubt he holds to his sense of honor.”

“Can you get a message to him?”

“It would be easier if he was allied with us, but…there are still ways. What is your message? We will see to it and advise you of the answer. It just may take a little longer in his case.”

“I don’t have one yet,” I said. “I am just trying to understand what is possible.”

I have turned this information over in my head several times. Here’s what I’ve come to: of the four in this inner circle, he’s the odd one out. He must know who he’s dealing with, sure, but…what if this is just a job to him? What if he’s literally just hired help? That would mean he doesn’t have a personal commitment to the Five Storms. The Emerald Branch says he has a code of honor. Maybe he’s not beyond influence. Especially if he knows the honorable ninja clans of Minkai—the Oni’s Mask does not count—have either stepped aside or are actively backing us.

Isn’t that worth pursuing?

Sarenith 21, 4713 (Kasai, morning)

We go tonight. Isao has arranged the wagon brigade; the Emerald Branch will help run interference, both before and after. We’ll signal both using fireworks. The same fireworks we picked up in the Brinestump Marsh almost exactly a year ago. Like, nearly to the day. It’s strange how we’ve come full circle. Fireworks from Minkai are how this all started. Now they are the beginning of the end.

Sarenith 22, 4713 (Kasai, small hours)

Not only did we strike at the heart of the Jade Regent’s empire of fear and control, Ivan and I also managed to spoil an abduction attempt by pulling off a daring rescue mission. I wrote the other day that this sort of thing sounds like bad community theater, but believe you me, I am beginning to understand the appeal.

It took some effort, but we crushed the constructs. The others reduced three to rubble; I turned the fourth to dust. Beyond that there is no trace of its existence; it is simply gone.

We were also lucky enough to have a patrol of Typhoon Guard stumble on the scene because destroying constructs simply did not provide the same sense of satisfaction as killing oni. As soon as they stepped into the square, hilarity ensued: the commander actually asked us to halt because we were out past curfew. Where do they come up with this stuff?

It was towards the end of the fight, as the taotieh were gone and the Typhoon Guard patrol was being hammered into paste, that Ivan came towards me and called up, “Hatsue is injured!”

He’s been using a spell to track her location and physical state; the same one he and Dasi use to monitor all of us (I assume that’s with her permission as that would be creepy otherwise; this was not the time to ask). “Tell me where to!” I said, and descended to the ground next to him. I watched him cast a spell that made his skin harden like stone.

He gave me a direction and a distance—about a half-mile and change to the northwest, I forget the exact bearing—and I said, “We’re going, now!” And by the Gods, I teleported us in the blind, aiming just 10 feet shy and hoping we wouldn’t appear on the wrong side of some wall. (In retrospect, this should not have been possible at all, but it worked. Neither of us stopped to think it wouldn’t, or wonder how and why it did, until much later.)¹

We popped into the middle of a street. In the midst of three Typhoon Guard who were watching a fourth load Hatsue’s limp body into a prison wagon of sorts where a second woman lay motionless. The three Typhoon Guard around us moved to engage, but Ivan got the first shot off, sinking an arrow into the driver. Two of the oni closed in to strike but my spells protected me. Between their swings, I saw the driver pull on the reins, and the horse took off pulling the cart behind it.

Not on my watch. I maneuvered away from the Typhoon Guards and threw a wall of ice in front of the retreating cart; the horse quickly came to a halt. The two oni advanced on me again, their strikes finding my mirror images instead of me. Then the driver turned and pointed a bow and arrow at Hatsue’s head. “Leave now, or they die!”

So I left…by popping behind him where he couldn’t see me. The driver paused just for a moment, thinking he had won the upper hand with this stunt. Ivan, though, had other plans and sent five arrows into his chest before he could react. The oni collapsed over his seat, his nocked arrow releasing harmlessly into the ground.

“Reach in and grab one of their hands!” I called to Ivan as the remaining guards advanced on him. I popped into the cage with the prisoners; Ivan threw up a wall of stone to block the remaining guards off. Then I reached deep into myself and found the strength to cast a teleportation spell that I did not have prepared.² We vanished and reappeared in the square in front of the granary that we had left only seconds before, Hatsue and the other liberated prisoner in tow.

Dead oni littered the ground. Zosimus had already set off the fireworks and the carts were on their way.

After all that had happened, I wanted to send a fairly pointed message to the Typhoon Guard. I looked at the remains in the street and suggested writing a message of defiance with their entrails. It’s more practical than you think because you can say a lot in Tien with just a couple of characters. Dasi, however, objected to the idea. Somewhat strenuously.

“No! We don’t want people thinking we are as bad as, or worse than, the oni.”

Worse than evil spirits manifested in flesh? What, this is something we’re actually worried about?

“It’s not like they’re real people. Slaughtering oni is something the city will understand.”

The others were not convinced. So instead we burned their bodies to ash and etched the Amatatsu family seal in the stone walls of the granary. Sure, it’s still a statement, but it just doesn’t deliver the same punch.

¹This was totally a goof on everyone’s part, including the GM, as the spell was Teleport and not Greater Teleport. I offered to spend a Hero Point on it after-the-fact to make the impossible possible, but the GM graciously waved it aside. Which is good, because of #2.
²This is Kali spending a Hero Point.