The Imperial Shrine

The waters of Kasai Bay lapped gently against the stone pier as old Ejigoro tied the boat to it. The party scrambled out of it onto the shore of the mysterious island known as the Imperial Shrine that had appeared out of the mists. Ejigoro looked nervously up the midnight-shrouded path that led to a shadowy cemetery. “Uh, if you don’t mind, I’ll just wait for you here,” he said nervously.

A large wooden building rose out of the darkness a few dozen yards up from the shore. As they approached, Marie recognized it as a temple of Shizuru, the patron goddess of Minkai, and the deity who had created the five Imperial Seals, anointed the original Imperial families, and had created this island as a place to allow those who had passed to the Great Beyond to still have contact with their Imperial descendents.

The rest of the group hung back as Bella crept up to the temple’s doors, checking carefully for traps. Seeing none, she hesitated on the threshold. Then, abandoning stealth, she simply knocked loudly on the doors. Getting no response, she pulled the doors open.

Inside was a wide room, its walls lined with rich tapestries depicting the celestial realm. On either side of the room were small shrines. Following Bella inside, Marie immediately recognized that one was a shrine to Pharasma, the Lady of Graves, the goddess who shepherds recently-departed souls to their final reward. The other was a shrine to Tsukiyo, the Tian god of spirits. Leading out of the receiving room was a short hallway. Doors on both sides opened into four small sitting rooms, furnished with low wooden tables and seating cushions, all finely made, with sleeping pallets rolled up against the wall. These rooms would provide the necessary facilities to accommodate grieving families and servants of anyone being laid to rest at the Imperial Shrine.

At the end of the hallway was a pair of double doors. After a quick check for traps, Bella pushed them open. She found herself facing a huge statue of a golden-scaled dragon, dominating the room beyond and towering almost to the top of the twenty-foot high ceiling. Looking over Bella’s shoulder, Marie recognized this dragon as one representation of Shizuru. Two more small shrines sat on the north and south walls, dedicated to Minkai’s imperial lines. In the corners flanking the room’s only entrance, two large braziers scented the air with the tang of sandalwood incense.

A figure stepped forward from the shadow of the towering dragon statue. It was woman, stooped with age, wearing a long hooded robe. She bowed formally to Bella and Marie. “Welcome. It has been many long years since we have welcomed any of royal blood to the Imperial Shrine. I am Kiyomi and you might say I am the caretaker here. Do you have someone you wish to inter?”

“We have someone who seeks the blessings of her ancestors,” Marie replied in formal Minkaian. At the same time, she telepathically asked Helgarval to check the woman’s aura for evil. “I’m not sensing any alignment at all,” the helm replied. Marie bowed herself out of the room and ran to fetch Ameiko.

Left alone with the stranger, Bella was on high alert. But her attention was drawn to a collection of shiny objects piled against one wall. She could see gem-inset jewelry, finely carved art objects, and a brightly burnished shield. Following her gaze, Kiyomi explained. “Part of my duty as caretaker is ensuring that valuables are not left to the mercies of the elements when tombs are damaged by storms or earthquakes.” Bella took that explanation with a large grain of salt, but didn’t ask questions.

Ameiko strode into the room, with Sandru and the rest of the group hovering protectively right behind her. She bowed to Kiyomi. “I am Amatatsu Ameiko, last surviving descendent of my Imperial House. I am here to seek the blessings of my ancestors, so that I may claim the Jade Throne from the usurper, the Jade Regent.”

Kiyomi bowed deeply. “It is an honor, Princess. I had thought the Amatatsu family vanished many generations ago. For the blessings you seek, you must visit the Shrine of the Heavenly Sovereigns, as your predecessor, Emperor Higashiyama Shigure did before you.”

Kiyomi explained. “I am the caretaker of the Mikado Cemetery. It is where the cremated remains of many honored members of the Imperial Court are laid to rest. Especially trusted advisors and guardians, or lesser scions of the imperial families might have the honor of being interred in this cemetery. But there is an island within the island where Minkai’s former emperors and empresses are laid to rest. This is the Shrine of the Heavenly Sovereigns. I cannot go there, but that is where you must go to commune with your ancestors.

“Are you alone here on the island?” Ameiko asked. Kiyomi smiled. “Well, alone is not the word I would use, with so many spirits here. But I am the only living person. Well, and perhaps Emperor Shigure.”

“Is Emperor Shigure still here?” Ameiko asked, and Kiyomi shrugged. “He came here many years ago, soon after he was crowned. He went to the Shrine of the Heavenly Sovereigns and has never returned.”

“Was there someone with him?” Ameiko asked eagerly. “A bodyguard?”

Kiyomi nodded. “He was accompanied by a samurai. He and the samurai went to the Shrine of the Heavenly Sovereigns together, but only the samurai returned. He did not speak to me before he left the island.”

Ameiko had no idea what it might mean if Emperor Shigure were still alive after all these years, but she put that out of her head. “Could you show us the way to the Shrine of the Heavenly Sovereigns?”

Kiyomi led them out of the temple and up a cobbled path. They soon found themselves at another torii gate leading into a crowded cemetery. A maze of paths wound through dense jumbles of tombstones and low square crypts. Unlike the large family crypts and mausoleums of their homeland, here in Minkai families only interred the bones or cremated ashes of their loved ones, so crypts could be small. Each section of the cemetery was surrounded by fences or low stone walls, making travel by any means other than the paths difficult as well as sacrilegious. Nicki didn’t let that bother him, though. He’d already slipped into one of the family rooms in the temple and become invisible, so that Kiyomi had never seen him. Now he activated his Boots of Levitation and gently flapped his leathery wings, just enough to move him slowly along well above the maze below.

At the entrance to the cemetery was a small kiosk, containing incense burners, brushes, and a few sticks of surviving incense, doubtless to supply the burial ceremonies. Bella started to rifle through the contents, but Marie stopped him with a sharp look. “Hands in your pockets!” she hissed.

Kiyomi led them forward into the cemetery, shuffling at an old woman’s pace. At the first branching of the path, she turned back to them. “We stay to the right here. To the left is the Path of Rubies, where all of Minkai’s finance ministers and overseers of the treasury are buried. Bella looked longingly down that path, but another look from Marie kept her following the rest of the party.

The night was eerily still, with not a sound of birds or insects. They followed Kiyomi through the twisting paths, until they came to a point where it branced off in several directions. “Keep coming,” she urged, “we go north here, and the bridge is not much farther.” A soft breeze stirred the gathered leaves covering the path, and their rustling sounded almost like whispers. A deep chill seemed to rise up from the earth below them.

Suddenly a shadowy arm reached out of one of the tombstones, and clutched at Marie. She felt its grasp sink into her flesh, and grew weaker at its touch. Behind the arm a face, distorted with rage, appeared for a moment from the tombstone and then sank back into it again.

More ghostly Greater Shadows began rising up all around the party. Some, like Marie’s, seemed to emerge from within tombstones or crypts, while others reached up from beneath the earth. Sawyer felt an icy claw reach through his plate armor to sap his strength. He swung back at it, but the incorporeal creatures were difficult to hit, always retreating into their cover of stone or earth. “Screw this!” he thought, and activated Suishen’s Air Walk ability. He strode up just far enough that anything trying to reach him would have to abandon its cover.

One of the beings was moving towards Ameiko, but Sandru shoved her out of the way, and slashed at it with his scimitar. Even when he could connect with part of it, his blade mostly swept through its shadow-substance without effect. Ameiko drew her sword, ready to stand by Sandru, but the caravan master pushed her back roughly. “No! You’re too important! Keep yourself safe!” Reluctantly, she moved back by Shinjiro, who stood guard over his charge protectively. 

Sandoval began singing, then moved to attack one of the Shadows pursuing Sawyer. Kiyomi gave a little shriek and dashed (with surprising quickness) up the path. She had been flanked by a pair of Shadows, but they ignored her passage.

Bella had plenty of experience fighting Shadows by now, and she knew just what to do. Out of her Handy Haversack came her Nine-Fold Spirit Sword. It was already a ghost-touch weapon, and now she activated one of its rings to also give it the Undead Bane ability. A Shadow was reaching for her from a nearby tombstone, but she evaded it and then whomped on it with her (un)deadly weapon.

Zhustin cast a Quickened Haste then darted into a position where he could see three Shadows lined up in a row. A Lightning Bolt sizzled from his fingertips, catching the undead attackers. Nicki, flying overhead, fired off a batch of Quickened Magic Missiles that finished off the Shadow that Sawyer and Sandoval had already hit, then followed up with more of the same against another Shadow.

Marie called upon Desna, and Channeled her holy power. She could tell that this was Unhallowed ground, and her connection with her goddess was strained, but nonetheless her holy light washed across the Shadows, burning them with its power. 

Another Shadow rose up and clawed at Sawyer’s leg, and he felt his muscles grow weaker still. But his tactic was working – the thing exposed itself to reach him and he chopped down at it, dissolving it into a puddle of ectoplasm. Then he spun and slashed at another rising up to attack him from behind. Suishen blazed, and it, too, evaporated.

Sandru, in a fury to protect Ameiko, lashed out at the Shadow in front of him. Chips of stone flew off the tombstone housing it, and the Shadow sank back into it, and did not emerge again. Sandoval’s echoblade hacked at another, and Bella finished it off with her ghost-touch blade. Then she, too, spun on another foe, hacking it to ribbons. It barely had the strength to maintain its form, and Zhustin dispelled it permanently with a blast of Magic Missiles.

As Marie used her Wand of Restoration to renew Sawyer’s (and her own) strength, Kiyomi rejoined the party. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The spirits have been … restless the last several years.”

“Well you could have warned us!” Marie said testily, and the old woman hung her head. “They usually don’t bother me, so I didn’t expect this,” she explained.

When everyone was recovered, they continued on, following Kiyomi’s lead. As they wound through the cemetery, they began to catch glimpses of water to their right. Nicki, flying invisibly overhead, could see a broad moat, but as he approached it, he collided with some invisible barrier that prevented him from crossing it.

At last they came to a small plaza where the graves to their right thinned out. Ahead of them, a bridge of luminescent light stretched across the silver waters of a moat, leading to a long, tombstone-shaped island. At the far end of the bridge was a large torii gate, beyond which they could see a courtyard surrounded by several stone structures peeking out above the trees. The near end of the bridge was preceded by a stone archway. The arch bore an inscription in Minkaian characters, but time had worn them down, making them difficult to read.

“This is the bridge to the Shrine of the Heavenly Sovereigns,” Kiyomi began, but before she could finish a great grinding sound arose. An entire section of the cemetery lurched into motion, tombstones and crypts smashing together, then rising up into a gargantuan form. It was a Gravebound Warden, a construct created from the tombstones, crypts, and urns of cremated samurai, once loyal guardians of the emperors of Minkai, now interred here not so much to lay them to rest as to allow their enduring spirits to continue watching over the final resting place of those they had protected in life.

But now, something was causing the faithful guardian to run amok, and it glared at the party with baleful eyes. Sandru fired an arrow, but it glanced harmlessly off its stone body. Shinjiro, reluctant to close with the enormous creature, tried to blind it with his Gem of Brightness, but had no better luck than the many previous times he had tried the same trick. Marie called down a Flame Strike that actually caused some damage, and Nicki flew up higher to zap down on it with a Lightning Bolt. Sandoval began singing and cast Good Hope, and Zhustin Summoned a huge earth elemental, but it missed the Warden. Kiyomi (again) gave a shriek and dashed past the northern end of the bridge.

Sawyer didn’t want Ameiko anywhere near this thing. He was convinced that her only chance of safety was to reach the Shrine of the Heavenly Sovereigns. “Hang on!” he cried, and wrapped his arms around the princess, using his Air Walk to make a beeline for the bridge of light, landing at its threshold. The Warden lumbered towards them, then turned and breathed out a great cloud of ash and grave dust at the rest of the party. Sandru and Zhustin couldn’t close their eyes and mouths in time, and the acrid dust left them blind and retching.

Bella, seeing Sandru’s arrow ricochet harmlessly away, reached into her Handy Haversack and came out with a shiny new adamantine shortsword. “How many weapons have you got in there?” Marie asked incredulously, but Bella just grinned, ducked under the Warden’s clumsy swing, and began hacking at its legs. Her rapier glanced off, but the adamantine blade bit deep.

Ameiko was standing at the threshold of the bridge of celestial light. Sawyer was urging her to cross, but she hesitated – what lay on the other side? Just over a year ago, she’d been a simple innkeeper – now she was a princess, on the verge of conquering an empire. Was her destiny really just a few steps away?

She drew a deep breath, and stepped onto the bridge. There was a flash of brilliant light, a scream of agony, and Ameiko collapsed on the bridge, near death.

The PCs earned 5,486 XP for the night, putting them at 417,491 XP, with 445,000 required for level 14. We’ll be at Rich and Joette’s next Sunday, and everyone should be there.