barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
I just like making up the names and then saying them.
Hsia Lin Lin. Chow Siu-Keung. Li Fa.
It pleases me immensely.
Hsia Lin Lin. Chow Siu-Keung. Li Fa.
It pleases me immensely.
Wild Stewardess Action! - And Madness Followed COMPLETE!
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
Two dogs tussled over something down an alley between houses that stood blank and empty, doors hanging open and windows unshuttered. Their growls echoed down the main street as the Angels walked five abreast into town.
Nobody came out to greet them. A shutter creaked back and forth in the fitful breeze. Emerging stalks of rice waved in the water-filled paddies that surrounded the village. High summer, yet nobody working the fields. Even Lin Lin was quiet. Only the ongoing growls from the dogs offered any sign of life.
Shan looked over in frustration.
"What are those beasts fighting over?"
Wei-Yong turned to look more closely.
Her knees thudded into the dust of the road and she convulsed, vomiting helplessly. The others rushed to assist her.
A human head, its face torn in an expression of agony, hung suspended in the jaws of the larger dog as the other leapt and snapped, trying to yank the prize from its sibling.
Wei-Yong shook off offers of help.
"I'm okay. I just... I just saw something. Those dogs... "
She took a breath and got unsteadily to her feet.
"Something terrible has happened here."
She stared down the main street with murderous intent.
"Something terrible."
*****
They rounded the corner and stood looking across the main square, at the base of what had once been a statue of the Goddess. The statue itself lay in the dust to one side.
Ming-Wa cried out at the sight and ran for the fallen idol, flanked by Shan and Wei-Yong. Fa and Lin Lin turned at a sudden voice nearby.
"Welcome! Welcome to Wei Ming! Welcome!"
A little old lady waved at them from the shade of the teahouse, where two other figures sat motionless. Fa and Lin Lin shrugged at each other and headed towards her. She continued to smile and babble as they approached.
"A beautiful day. Welcome! Tea? Please, sit down. Welcome! Strangers are always welcome in Wei Ming. Welcome!"
As they neared the steps up to the shaded potico of the teahouse, Fa experienced a surge of dread. Those figures sitting at the table, as she watched them, her skin seemed to seethe with revulsion. She made a quick hand signal to Lin Lin to be watchful and smiled at the old lady.
"Thank you. It is a beautiful day, praise the Goddess. And may She smile on your town today."
At the mention of the Goddess, the two figures turned.
"Your puny, stinking Goddess is nothing to us. Death is nothing to us. We will be free!"
Lin Lin's eyes widened.
"I don't want any tea, thanks."
*****
Ming-Wa fell to her knees in front of the broken statue, imploring the Goddess for aid. Wei-Yong put a hand on her friend's shoulder and patted it awkwardly.
Though none of them possessed devotion quite as absolute as Ming-Wa's, all of the Angels were loyal servants of the Goddess and the sight of this desecration offended them deeply. Shan stared at the broken statue, a slow rage burning deep within her. She knelt and brushed dirt from a sacred face she'd known all her life, reverent and furious at the same time.
"Jing Zhou. That bastard."
Wei-Yong nodded.
"We'll find him. And we'll deal with him."
"We'll tear him apart!"
Ming-Wa spat in her anger.
"We'll take him all the way back to Zuyang and the Goddess herself will skin him alive!"
"Yeah. We'll get him."
*****
Fa and Lin Lin started to back out of the teahouse.
The figures before them rose up, eyeless sockets gaping. Blood smeared their faces and flies buzzed incessantly. The old lady sank to the floor, screaming in terror and curling into a ball.
Shan, Ming-Wa and Wei-Yong turned at the sudden burst of screaming. They took a step towards the teahouse and then froze as from the far side of the square emerged a row of shambling, hooded figures. The stink of rotting flesh rolled across the plaza.
Shan swore an imaginative oath that had something to do with the Goddess' tan lines. Ming-Wa had just enough presence of mind to look offended.
Fa looked over her shoulder, took in the line of figures staggering past, and tapped Lin Lin on the shoulder.
"These two are yours, sweetie. I'm going to deal with those ones."
Lin Lin nodded, drew both her sai and leapt at the two coming across the teahouse while Fa stepped outside and raised her arms. Meaty smacks behind her told of Lin Lin's efforts.
Black smoke seemed to swirl up around her, reaching outwards in a growing circle of darkness, sucking at any vegetation it could grasp, drying out the soil in the ground and the planks of the teahouse. As she always did, Fa experienced a moment of terror at the hungry power she commanded, but she bent her will and performed mammoth calculations in her head, the values and operations multiplying endlessly as she thought her way down coldly rational corridors, forcing her mind into the exact pattern that would trigger the energy of Shadow to alter reality in precisely the manner she sought.
Fa shuddered as the power leapt to her will and the ground exploded at her feet. The explosion raced away from her, dirt and soil flying upwards as though a gigantic, frenzied mole were burrowing at immense speed just beneath the surface, charging straight at the advancing figures and sending them flying in a noisy blast of sorcery.
Limbs, torsos, heads, boulders and lumps of soil tumbled back to the earth in the wake of Fa's spell, crashing down into the ruined plaza. Shan's sword flew back and forth as she dismembered a few that had escaped destruction, but Fa saw in horror that three had avoided both her spell and Shan's attention and ow advanced on Ming-Wa.
The young woman stepped back from the horrible creatures advancing on her, and then braced herself, raised one hand to her temple and extended the other out before her. She closed her eyes. The three figures before reached out, hissing, but then withdrew as a strange glow suffused the girl's slender form. The shimmering haze brightened, then lashed out, cutting the creatures into pieces.
Ming-Wa opened her eyes and straightened up as wet chunks hit the ground in front of her. She raised her eyes.
"Thank you, Goddess."
*****
Fa knelt and tried to comfort the screaming old woman.
"It's okay, Auntie. They're gone now. Tell us what happened here. Where is everybody? Where is Chow Siu-Keung?"
The woman's wild eyes unnerved Fa more than the undead creatures they had just fought. She stared about, unseeing, frantic.
"He made us... He made us do that! He made us eat that! My little boy! My little Gan won't play with me anymore! They're waiting in the fields for me! They're waiting!"
Wei-Yong turned away from the woman's desperate pleading. Steeling herself, she walked into the alley and squatted, watching a dog ten feet away. The dog cocked its head and then padded over to her, sniffed at her hand and started to lick.
- What happened here?
Everything good.
- Good? Why good?
So much food.
- What food?
Flesh.
She reeled back as the dog growled and snapped at her, and hurried to join her friends. Shan looked a question and she shook her head.
"They're waiting in the fields? I don't like the sound of that."
The women surveyed what they could see of the rice paddies from where they stood. Wei-Yong's gaze seized on a farmhouse some distance from the village center, perched between water-filled paddies. She nudged Shan.
"Look. That one place. It's all boarded up."
Shan cracked her knuckles.
"Breaking down doors is always fun."
"That's my girl."
*****
"Back! Back, foul creatures! Back to the filth you came from!"
Shan scowled.
"I don't smell."
Lin Lin smiled.
"I don't think he's talking about you, Shan. He probably thinks you're one of those no-eyed zombie things."
Shan tried to work that out, but shook her head and thundered her shoulder into the door once again. The panel and its supporting planks gave way this time, and the big woman stumbled into a disorderly room, furniture overturned and broken and hiding behind a table at the back of the room, an old man waved a knife at her.
"Back! Back!"
He blinked.
"You have eyes."
"Pretty ones, I'm told."
The old man stumbled forward, the knife falling from his hands. He dropped to his knees.
"The Goddess herself has sent you to us! Save us!"
"Yeah, yeah. Where'd the stranger go? Jing Zhou? The bad guy, where is he?"
He lifted a shaky arm and pointed up into the hills overlooking the town.
"He has defiled the holy resting places of our ancestors. He has made a mockery of our homes and our faith. Even now he blasphemes their caverns. Help us! Drive him out!"
Ming-Wa turned to stare up into the hills, her expression cold.
"We'll drive him out, alright."
Nobody came out to greet them. A shutter creaked back and forth in the fitful breeze. Emerging stalks of rice waved in the water-filled paddies that surrounded the village. High summer, yet nobody working the fields. Even Lin Lin was quiet. Only the ongoing growls from the dogs offered any sign of life.
Shan looked over in frustration.
"What are those beasts fighting over?"
Wei-Yong turned to look more closely.
Her knees thudded into the dust of the road and she convulsed, vomiting helplessly. The others rushed to assist her.
A human head, its face torn in an expression of agony, hung suspended in the jaws of the larger dog as the other leapt and snapped, trying to yank the prize from its sibling.
Wei-Yong shook off offers of help.
"I'm okay. I just... I just saw something. Those dogs... "
She took a breath and got unsteadily to her feet.
"Something terrible has happened here."
She stared down the main street with murderous intent.
"Something terrible."
*****
They rounded the corner and stood looking across the main square, at the base of what had once been a statue of the Goddess. The statue itself lay in the dust to one side.
Ming-Wa cried out at the sight and ran for the fallen idol, flanked by Shan and Wei-Yong. Fa and Lin Lin turned at a sudden voice nearby.
"Welcome! Welcome to Wei Ming! Welcome!"
A little old lady waved at them from the shade of the teahouse, where two other figures sat motionless. Fa and Lin Lin shrugged at each other and headed towards her. She continued to smile and babble as they approached.
"A beautiful day. Welcome! Tea? Please, sit down. Welcome! Strangers are always welcome in Wei Ming. Welcome!"
As they neared the steps up to the shaded potico of the teahouse, Fa experienced a surge of dread. Those figures sitting at the table, as she watched them, her skin seemed to seethe with revulsion. She made a quick hand signal to Lin Lin to be watchful and smiled at the old lady.
"Thank you. It is a beautiful day, praise the Goddess. And may She smile on your town today."
At the mention of the Goddess, the two figures turned.
"Your puny, stinking Goddess is nothing to us. Death is nothing to us. We will be free!"
Lin Lin's eyes widened.
"I don't want any tea, thanks."
*****
Ming-Wa fell to her knees in front of the broken statue, imploring the Goddess for aid. Wei-Yong put a hand on her friend's shoulder and patted it awkwardly.
Though none of them possessed devotion quite as absolute as Ming-Wa's, all of the Angels were loyal servants of the Goddess and the sight of this desecration offended them deeply. Shan stared at the broken statue, a slow rage burning deep within her. She knelt and brushed dirt from a sacred face she'd known all her life, reverent and furious at the same time.
"Jing Zhou. That bastard."
Wei-Yong nodded.
"We'll find him. And we'll deal with him."
"We'll tear him apart!"
Ming-Wa spat in her anger.
"We'll take him all the way back to Zuyang and the Goddess herself will skin him alive!"
"Yeah. We'll get him."
*****
Fa and Lin Lin started to back out of the teahouse.
The figures before them rose up, eyeless sockets gaping. Blood smeared their faces and flies buzzed incessantly. The old lady sank to the floor, screaming in terror and curling into a ball.
Shan, Ming-Wa and Wei-Yong turned at the sudden burst of screaming. They took a step towards the teahouse and then froze as from the far side of the square emerged a row of shambling, hooded figures. The stink of rotting flesh rolled across the plaza.
Shan swore an imaginative oath that had something to do with the Goddess' tan lines. Ming-Wa had just enough presence of mind to look offended.
Fa looked over her shoulder, took in the line of figures staggering past, and tapped Lin Lin on the shoulder.
"These two are yours, sweetie. I'm going to deal with those ones."
Lin Lin nodded, drew both her sai and leapt at the two coming across the teahouse while Fa stepped outside and raised her arms. Meaty smacks behind her told of Lin Lin's efforts.
Black smoke seemed to swirl up around her, reaching outwards in a growing circle of darkness, sucking at any vegetation it could grasp, drying out the soil in the ground and the planks of the teahouse. As she always did, Fa experienced a moment of terror at the hungry power she commanded, but she bent her will and performed mammoth calculations in her head, the values and operations multiplying endlessly as she thought her way down coldly rational corridors, forcing her mind into the exact pattern that would trigger the energy of Shadow to alter reality in precisely the manner she sought.
Fa shuddered as the power leapt to her will and the ground exploded at her feet. The explosion raced away from her, dirt and soil flying upwards as though a gigantic, frenzied mole were burrowing at immense speed just beneath the surface, charging straight at the advancing figures and sending them flying in a noisy blast of sorcery.
Limbs, torsos, heads, boulders and lumps of soil tumbled back to the earth in the wake of Fa's spell, crashing down into the ruined plaza. Shan's sword flew back and forth as she dismembered a few that had escaped destruction, but Fa saw in horror that three had avoided both her spell and Shan's attention and ow advanced on Ming-Wa.
The young woman stepped back from the horrible creatures advancing on her, and then braced herself, raised one hand to her temple and extended the other out before her. She closed her eyes. The three figures before reached out, hissing, but then withdrew as a strange glow suffused the girl's slender form. The shimmering haze brightened, then lashed out, cutting the creatures into pieces.
Ming-Wa opened her eyes and straightened up as wet chunks hit the ground in front of her. She raised her eyes.
"Thank you, Goddess."
*****
Fa knelt and tried to comfort the screaming old woman.
"It's okay, Auntie. They're gone now. Tell us what happened here. Where is everybody? Where is Chow Siu-Keung?"
The woman's wild eyes unnerved Fa more than the undead creatures they had just fought. She stared about, unseeing, frantic.
"He made us... He made us do that! He made us eat that! My little boy! My little Gan won't play with me anymore! They're waiting in the fields for me! They're waiting!"
Wei-Yong turned away from the woman's desperate pleading. Steeling herself, she walked into the alley and squatted, watching a dog ten feet away. The dog cocked its head and then padded over to her, sniffed at her hand and started to lick.
- What happened here?
Everything good.
- Good? Why good?
So much food.
- What food?
Flesh.
She reeled back as the dog growled and snapped at her, and hurried to join her friends. Shan looked a question and she shook her head.
"They're waiting in the fields? I don't like the sound of that."
The women surveyed what they could see of the rice paddies from where they stood. Wei-Yong's gaze seized on a farmhouse some distance from the village center, perched between water-filled paddies. She nudged Shan.
"Look. That one place. It's all boarded up."
Shan cracked her knuckles.
"Breaking down doors is always fun."
"That's my girl."
*****
"Back! Back, foul creatures! Back to the filth you came from!"
Shan scowled.
"I don't smell."
Lin Lin smiled.
"I don't think he's talking about you, Shan. He probably thinks you're one of those no-eyed zombie things."
Shan tried to work that out, but shook her head and thundered her shoulder into the door once again. The panel and its supporting planks gave way this time, and the big woman stumbled into a disorderly room, furniture overturned and broken and hiding behind a table at the back of the room, an old man waved a knife at her.
"Back! Back!"
He blinked.
"You have eyes."
"Pretty ones, I'm told."
The old man stumbled forward, the knife falling from his hands. He dropped to his knees.
"The Goddess herself has sent you to us! Save us!"
"Yeah, yeah. Where'd the stranger go? Jing Zhou? The bad guy, where is he?"
He lifted a shaky arm and pointed up into the hills overlooking the town.
"He has defiled the holy resting places of our ancestors. He has made a mockery of our homes and our faith. Even now he blasphemes their caverns. Help us! Drive him out!"
Ming-Wa turned to stare up into the hills, her expression cold.
"We'll drive him out, alright."
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
That was an earthbolt from Fa and Sever The Tie from Ming-Wa, for those who want to know.
Skade
Explorer
And finally, I read a story hour. I want to read more of them, really I do, but its so hard to get into reading something on the screen, and turning it into a legible text doc is more work than I care for usually. I'm glad I started in on this one right from the beginning.
I'm loving it. The scene with the dog was perfectly creepy, and the whole scene builds the horror aspect wonderfully. Do the girls already know backstory on teh villain, or is that going to be revealed in game?
I want to read more of them, really I do, but its so hard to get into reading something on the screen, and turning it into a legible text doc is more work than I care for usually. I'm glad I started in on this one right from the beginning. I'm loving it. The scene with the dog was perfectly creepy, and the whole scene builds the horror aspect wonderfully. Do the girls already know backstory on teh villain, or is that going to be revealed in game?
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
The girls don't know anything you don't know, at this point. Even less, actually, since you know the rules and they didn't even know THAT much.Skade said:
There will be some but not huge amounts of backstory revelation. I'm a "don't explain, let them find out later" sort of DM.
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
Wei-Yong frowned. Beside her, Mau Li pricked up her ears and cocked her shaggy head up at her mistress.
"Does anybody else see that?"
Ming-Wa sighed.
"No, Wei-Yong, nobody else can count the feathers on a sparrow from two miles away. What is it?"
"Something flying."
"Flying? Perhaps it's a bird."
"It doesn't have wings."
"Then how is it flying?"
Wei-Yong looked away from the distant object to study her friend.
"I presume," she said carefully, "It involves magic."
Ming-Wa nodded.
"I see."
Stepping out of the cave, Fa shielded her eyes and looked where Wei-Yong had indicated.
"I can see it. Wei-Yong, you must be able to make out more details now. If you're done baiting Ming-Wa, perhaps you could tell us what it is?"
"Sorry, Fa."
The tall woman squinted into the sunshine.
"There's two people, sitting on something flat. I think one's a woman and the other is a man."
"The Jasmine Witch, I presume?"
Shan looked down the hillside, where thirty or forty more figures shambled slowly towards them. They'd come clawing out of the rice paddies as the women had made their way up the hill.
"Maybe she'll get tied up with them."
Fa nodded.
"Let's get down this shaft. Jing Zhou's got to be down there somewhere."
"Why not let this Jasmine Witch deal with him? That's got to be her Codex he's got."
Ming-Wa shook her head.
"No. Jing Zhou is ours. He has offended the Goddess and descrated her glory. It must be us who deliver justice. The Jasmine Witch works against the Goddess as well. If she gets in our way, we'll destroy her, too."
The other women looked around at each other. Nobody could find anything to say.
Finally Lin Lin grinned and squeaked, "So we're going down the hole? Great. I'll go first."
And with that she ran over to the circular hole that dropped away into darkness and jumped.
Head-first.
Shan, Fa, Wei-Yong and Ming-Wa used the ladder.
Lin Lin plunged downwards, and just caught a notion of the onrushing floor quickly enough to be able to curl up and roll out in a lightning pop-up to her feet, bouncing several times as she waited for her friends to climb down. The ground was hard-packed earth, and she wrinkled her nose at the briny salt-water smell.
"It smells like the ocean down here, too! Jing Zhou's gotta be down here somewhere!"
"Well," said Wei-Yong, her breath a little strained with the effort of lowering herself and the wolf draped around her neck, "If he is, I guess he knows we're coming, now."
Lin Lin shadow-boxed excitedly as her friends joined her.
"Good! You hear that, Jing Zhou? We're coming for you!"
Fa lit a candle she'd scrounged from the old man's house and held it up, shielding the guttering flame with her hand.
Around them stone walls, rough-hewn and covered in dust, stretched away on two sides, forming passages leading in opposite directions. Footsteps tramped through the dust in all directions, impossible to track, though Mau Li nosed about in an interested fashion. Fa shrugged and led them in one direction, away from the dim circle of light at the base of the shaft.
As the candle's light travelled down the meandering passage, Wei-Yong nocked an arrow to her bow and Shan kept one hand on her swordhilt. They both tensed as the rock walls came together before them, forming a small room that had once been a simple chapel to the Goddess.
Had been, but was now befouled. Ming-Wa cried out in shock and horror at the lewd scrawls on the walls, defacing what had once been humble depictions of the Goddess and Her goodness. Mau Li poked her nose towards the brownish smears and jerked back, growling. Heavy feet had ground incense sticks into the earth and kicked over the small idols, trodden offerings of rice cakes and pine fronds into the dirt.
After a quick look, Fa turned about and led them the other way. Nobody spoke.
Past the shaft they'd descended the tunnel began to rise in a slow series of irregular steps, layers of shale worn smooth by countless feet. The smell grew worse, like a tide pool too long in the sun, festering. Fa slowed as the narrow passage opened to the left, revealing a small alcove with a waist-high font that had once, presumably, distributed clean water for visitors to purify themselves with.
Now it was clogged with putrefying slime, limp drapes of green gleaming in the candle's glow. All the five women (and the one wolf) recoiled from the alcove and, except for the wolf, made warding gestures of the Goddess at the desecration. The stairs continued past the alcove and with a brief look round at the others, Fa continued on her way up.
"Put out the candle, Fa, there's light up ahead."
At Wei-Yong's careful instruction, Fa blew on the candle and they all stood silently as their eyes adjusted. Indeed, as Wei-Yong had stated, a faint glow came from up the stairs. Only barely enough to see by but as they climbed the light grew stronger and they stepped out of the rough passage into a finely-worked hall that opened into a hellish scene.
A corpse sprawled supine on a crude table, entrails strewn from the body. Other corpses splayed against the wall, held in place with iron spikes crushed through their limbs. The stink was horrific (Wei-Yong threw up again) and the images of blasphemy and foulness so unnerved the women that they could barely remain standing. Mau Li whimpered.
Ming-Wa, sobbing, turned away and found a small shrine, set up with dozens of tiny stone idols. Ancestor worship, she realised, but the idols were each defaced with a strange clay seal. Uttering a cry of disgust, Ming-Wa tore at the little stone statuettes, breaking the seals from them. Shan and Wei-Yong saw what she was doing and after a moment of comprehension, joined in.
Lin Lin stood unhappily, frowning. She rubbed at her hands and watched Li Fa go around the room, studying the desecrations and murmuring to herself.
The hall, besides opening into this chamber, also opened into two narrow hallways, both of which ended in heavy wooden doors. Lin Lin was watching Li Fa make her way around the chamber when one of the doors opened. She turned, alert and happy for a distraction.
The two rotting corpses that shuddered out the open doorway somehow carried none of the horror of those displayed in the chamber behind her. Lin Lin dropped low to the ground and spun backwards, extending one leg in a whirling kick that knocked both of the approaching figures to the stone floor. Her sai glittered in her hands as she slammed them downwards, breaking apart the half-decayed heads of her opponents. They stopped moving as Lin Lin checked herself for sprayed bits.
"Everything's okay! Don't worry."
Wei-Yong, now that the idols had been restored to their unsealed state, looked past her friend into the dark chamber beyond. Hundreds of figures pressed forward, hands reaching out, closing in on the doorway.
"I'm going to worry, all the same."
"Does anybody else see that?"
Ming-Wa sighed.
"No, Wei-Yong, nobody else can count the feathers on a sparrow from two miles away. What is it?"
"Something flying."
"Flying? Perhaps it's a bird."
"It doesn't have wings."
"Then how is it flying?"
Wei-Yong looked away from the distant object to study her friend.
"I presume," she said carefully, "It involves magic."
Ming-Wa nodded.
"I see."
Stepping out of the cave, Fa shielded her eyes and looked where Wei-Yong had indicated.
"I can see it. Wei-Yong, you must be able to make out more details now. If you're done baiting Ming-Wa, perhaps you could tell us what it is?"
"Sorry, Fa."
The tall woman squinted into the sunshine.
"There's two people, sitting on something flat. I think one's a woman and the other is a man."
"The Jasmine Witch, I presume?"
Shan looked down the hillside, where thirty or forty more figures shambled slowly towards them. They'd come clawing out of the rice paddies as the women had made their way up the hill.
"Maybe she'll get tied up with them."
Fa nodded.
"Let's get down this shaft. Jing Zhou's got to be down there somewhere."
"Why not let this Jasmine Witch deal with him? That's got to be her Codex he's got."
Ming-Wa shook her head.
"No. Jing Zhou is ours. He has offended the Goddess and descrated her glory. It must be us who deliver justice. The Jasmine Witch works against the Goddess as well. If she gets in our way, we'll destroy her, too."
The other women looked around at each other. Nobody could find anything to say.
Finally Lin Lin grinned and squeaked, "So we're going down the hole? Great. I'll go first."
And with that she ran over to the circular hole that dropped away into darkness and jumped.
Head-first.
Shan, Fa, Wei-Yong and Ming-Wa used the ladder.
Lin Lin plunged downwards, and just caught a notion of the onrushing floor quickly enough to be able to curl up and roll out in a lightning pop-up to her feet, bouncing several times as she waited for her friends to climb down. The ground was hard-packed earth, and she wrinkled her nose at the briny salt-water smell.
"It smells like the ocean down here, too! Jing Zhou's gotta be down here somewhere!"
"Well," said Wei-Yong, her breath a little strained with the effort of lowering herself and the wolf draped around her neck, "If he is, I guess he knows we're coming, now."
Lin Lin shadow-boxed excitedly as her friends joined her.
"Good! You hear that, Jing Zhou? We're coming for you!"
Fa lit a candle she'd scrounged from the old man's house and held it up, shielding the guttering flame with her hand.
Around them stone walls, rough-hewn and covered in dust, stretched away on two sides, forming passages leading in opposite directions. Footsteps tramped through the dust in all directions, impossible to track, though Mau Li nosed about in an interested fashion. Fa shrugged and led them in one direction, away from the dim circle of light at the base of the shaft.
As the candle's light travelled down the meandering passage, Wei-Yong nocked an arrow to her bow and Shan kept one hand on her swordhilt. They both tensed as the rock walls came together before them, forming a small room that had once been a simple chapel to the Goddess.
Had been, but was now befouled. Ming-Wa cried out in shock and horror at the lewd scrawls on the walls, defacing what had once been humble depictions of the Goddess and Her goodness. Mau Li poked her nose towards the brownish smears and jerked back, growling. Heavy feet had ground incense sticks into the earth and kicked over the small idols, trodden offerings of rice cakes and pine fronds into the dirt.
After a quick look, Fa turned about and led them the other way. Nobody spoke.
Past the shaft they'd descended the tunnel began to rise in a slow series of irregular steps, layers of shale worn smooth by countless feet. The smell grew worse, like a tide pool too long in the sun, festering. Fa slowed as the narrow passage opened to the left, revealing a small alcove with a waist-high font that had once, presumably, distributed clean water for visitors to purify themselves with.
Now it was clogged with putrefying slime, limp drapes of green gleaming in the candle's glow. All the five women (and the one wolf) recoiled from the alcove and, except for the wolf, made warding gestures of the Goddess at the desecration. The stairs continued past the alcove and with a brief look round at the others, Fa continued on her way up.
"Put out the candle, Fa, there's light up ahead."
At Wei-Yong's careful instruction, Fa blew on the candle and they all stood silently as their eyes adjusted. Indeed, as Wei-Yong had stated, a faint glow came from up the stairs. Only barely enough to see by but as they climbed the light grew stronger and they stepped out of the rough passage into a finely-worked hall that opened into a hellish scene.
A corpse sprawled supine on a crude table, entrails strewn from the body. Other corpses splayed against the wall, held in place with iron spikes crushed through their limbs. The stink was horrific (Wei-Yong threw up again) and the images of blasphemy and foulness so unnerved the women that they could barely remain standing. Mau Li whimpered.
Ming-Wa, sobbing, turned away and found a small shrine, set up with dozens of tiny stone idols. Ancestor worship, she realised, but the idols were each defaced with a strange clay seal. Uttering a cry of disgust, Ming-Wa tore at the little stone statuettes, breaking the seals from them. Shan and Wei-Yong saw what she was doing and after a moment of comprehension, joined in.
Lin Lin stood unhappily, frowning. She rubbed at her hands and watched Li Fa go around the room, studying the desecrations and murmuring to herself.
The hall, besides opening into this chamber, also opened into two narrow hallways, both of which ended in heavy wooden doors. Lin Lin was watching Li Fa make her way around the chamber when one of the doors opened. She turned, alert and happy for a distraction.
The two rotting corpses that shuddered out the open doorway somehow carried none of the horror of those displayed in the chamber behind her. Lin Lin dropped low to the ground and spun backwards, extending one leg in a whirling kick that knocked both of the approaching figures to the stone floor. Her sai glittered in her hands as she slammed them downwards, breaking apart the half-decayed heads of her opponents. They stopped moving as Lin Lin checked herself for sprayed bits.
"Everything's okay! Don't worry."
Wei-Yong, now that the idols had been restored to their unsealed state, looked past her friend into the dark chamber beyond. Hundreds of figures pressed forward, hands reaching out, closing in on the doorway.
"I'm going to worry, all the same."
Similar Threads
