Tianchao Wangguo Chapter 1: Calm before the storm

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

"Whoever did this crime was a bloodmage, a hideous practitioner of evil, and he used the monk's death to summon something from the Shadow Nether," Guchiko says in a choaked and horrified voice.

 

[Rhialto]

Magistrate Pan Chou

The magistrate's delicate face pales. "Heaven preserve us..." He glances at the sohei/scout. "In that case, I must insist we stay together. Who knows what evil they've loosed on the world..."

 

[Gez]

« If the nether monster still prowls around, it'll be here rather than on the road. Something seems to lurk in the shadows, » she says, referencing the feeling she and her comrades felt.

 

[Nephtys]

Jian Guo stands in silence, shocked by the terrible brutality of the hateful act. She touches the broken stone of the shrine gently, heedless of the blood and filth, and rests her forehead on the stone. When she looks up again her eyes are burning with hatred. "Whoever did this will die. I will hunt them to the ends of the earth."

 

[sword-dancer]

Arishan Tüen Li

*Slowly he measured the defiling of this holy place*
Could I do something to clean this place or even more?

 

[Gez]

« For a start, wiping out the blood marks, and plucking out the soiled lilies. Removing and burning the bark plates that bears unholy engravings. »

She sighs.

« Though it won't undo what has been done, and it will do no good if our enemies restart their depredations. »

 

[Ariakor]

"A priest from the temple near our village came hear last week and tried to sanctify the area again. Probably would help if you did, too, i think." says Kairan, his voice still a little shaken from what he is seein here. Then he looks at you to await your decision whether to go to the village or do something else. He doesn't seem to like this place at all. And so do you. Each of you can feel it: a sensaton like something is hiding in the trees, a shadow, unseen, but like you are being watched by a pair of malevolent eyes. The wind stirrs in the branches and leaves and makes the chill of this place feelable, as if being touched by the Nether world. Perhaps the desacration did not make the spirits of this place flee after all....

 

[Nephtys]

Jian Guo whispers some calming words into the wind, still gently touching the stone, not sure what it could do to help.

 

[Gez]

« There's something out there. The Nether monster is hiding in the trees, we have to find out how to banish it or destroy it forever. »

 

[Ariakor]

Something is stirring in the branches of the underbush at the other side of the pond. Amid the dark and moving shadows you can faintly see the shape of something that looks like a little girl - a girl with soft shimmering eyes, cherry blossoms in her hair and clutching something that looks like a few of the waterlilys. one instant she is ther - then it is just the leaves and bark you can still see.