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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ForceUser" data-source="post: 339386" data-attributes="member: 2785">Session Three, Part FiveXI QUAN smiled weakly from his bed at the assembled strangers. He appeared ancient in the way that only the extremely old can. His hair was shock-white and long, and it fanned out behind him on his sleeping mat; his body was spotted from age and his skin sagged off his bones. His face displayed a withered road map of deep creases and wrinkles, and when he spoke the party had to remain completely still to hear his words. “So one has come…” he whispered as he weakly lifted his head. Although his body trembled, he held Hien in a steady gaze. “I am gladdened to see another Speaker within these walls…” Hien bowed his head in a gesture of reverence for his elder.Thi Chao, the tall woman, spoke gently, “They have come seeking answers, Wise One. They wish to know of Thi Nhu.” “Ah,” he replied, then jerked as a wracking cough consumed him. Hien started forward, but Thi Chao shook her head. For several agonizing moments, the old shaman shook and hacked, and Hien could hear the fluid rattling in his lungs. Then it was over, and he settled back onto the mat with a sigh. Blood stained the corner of his lips as he continued softly, “My wife. Like you and I, she communes with the Spirit World. Her heart has always been free, and though she loved life with a rare vigor, she disdained to take counsel. I love you, she would say to me, but you do not rule my thoughts.” He paused and shuddered as he suppressed another fit of coughing. “She was fascinated with the way people sought the divine. She journeyed across Dai Viet, talking with great thinkers and monks. She studied the Buddha and the Tao, and even the teachings of Confucius. She debated these things with many people and the spirits of earth and sky.” He squirmed on his mat, and Thi Chao stepped forward to smooth a sheet under him that had bunched up. He nodded in thanks and continued. “She learned of a sect of Buddhism called Hinduism. The Hindu revere certain powerful spirits as gods, and believe that serving these spirits will bring great fortune and happiness in the next life.” Tam nodded, a worried line creasing his brow; he knew that the Cham people to the south, enemies of Dai Viet, were Hindus. “She discovered that up in the mountains here, near Phau Dong valley, lay an ancient monastery devoted to one such spirit, the monkey-god called Hanuman. So here we came and met the people of Phet Lo, who have been kind to us.” Thi Chao smiled at the shaman. “Following directions given to her by a wandering Siamese ascetic, we ascended through a gap in the mountains west of here. We spent many days braving the wilds of the old country, but at last found the monkey-god’s retreat.” The shaman’s eyes clouded, and the listeners looked away respectfully as he mastered his emotions. “I...I do not remember much more. I know we entered the monastery and found…a great room, an altar, with a large black stone upon it. Looking upon the stone weighed heavily on my mind and I became fearful, but Thi Nhu…she would not leave. We argued, but she approached the shrine and laid her hands upon it. Something happened then, I know not what, but I fell into nightmares and remember little else. I saw…I saw my wife holding the stone aloft, and her form was subsumed within another, darker one. I…I think I fled, or was forced away...or…I…” He choked back tears and began to shake; deep wrenching coughs intermingled with sobs. The party looked away again, embarrassed to have witnessed such private grief. After a long while the old man continued, “I do not know how I came to escape the monkey-god’s temple. I remember claws in my soul, and fighting an evil inside me. I remember falling at one point…down a hillside. I landed on a rock and it caused me much pain. I crawled...for some time, and felt a great void in my heart, for I knew my wife was gone, and the spirits had deserted me as well. I thought I had given them great offense, though I did not know how.” He struggled to raise his head, and Thi Chao folded the sheet in her hands and placed it behind his neck. “One of the villagers here, Tuyen, found me and carried me back to Phet Lo. This was…half a year past. I have been confined to this bed most of that time, too weak to even feed myself, though once Tuyen took me to Kim Phe to warn them of the great evil that possesses my wife. I was saddened to learn of the suffering that she has caused the people of this valley.” He coughed again.As the adventurers looked at one another, the old man spoke once more. “I believe that if someone were to find her and separate her from the black stone, they would free her of her curse. They would free us all. I would…I would, but I am too frail now, too frail.” “We will do it, old one,” swore Hien. He stood as he made his pledge.The bed-ridden shaman whispered, “Perhaps. Perhaps. But beware, there are evil magics within the temple, and they have cursed me. I am not so elderly as I appear. I am thirty-five years old…”</blockquote>

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