All Hail Empress Ameiko!

The battle in the throne room was still raging. Sawyer slashed at the Jade Regent with Suishen, pounding against his ornate armor, but the Jade Regent didn’t seem to even notice. He’d just spotted Ameiko. Or rather Nicki’s pet oni Roscoe, disguised as Ameiko. The Jade Regent let out a shout of triumph. “You think you can take this from me?” he shrieked at the befuddled Roscoe. “You dare to challenge me in my own palace? This throne is mine, and this empire is mine!” With that, he flourished his sword at the faux Ameiko. A scintillating plane of force flashed from the blade, hitting Roscoe square in the face. The former Typhoon Guard had survived a lot, but this was the last straw. With a gurgle, he collapsed, and as he died, his shapeshifting expired, and he resumed his native kuwa oni form. When the Jade Regent realized the deception, he let out a roar of fury. A wave of force blasted from his armor, knocking Sawyer back and bringing him that much closer to death.

It took Marie a moment to get her bearings. She’d been trapped by a Maze spell in Renshii Meida’s enchanted kimono, but the oracle’s recent death had freed her. She saw her friends fighting in the throne room, but had no idea who was most gravely injured. So she rushed into the room (being careful to stay out of Anamurumon’s extensive reach), and cast Mass Bear’s Endurance on most of the party. Unfortunately, Sawyer had quaffed a potion of Bear’s Endurance just before the fight started, so the badly wounded fighter got no benefit from his cleric’s attempt to help.

Although the Jade Regent was the enemy they’d been worried about, his grandfather, Anamurumon, was proving to be far more dangerous. Shinjiro flurried helplessly at him, but despite the oni’s great size, he couldn’t seem to hit the evasive foe. Zhustin cast Disintegrate on him, hoping to reduce the oni to a pile of dust, but the spell had no effect whatsoever. Bella was the only one doing damage to the wind yai; she was protected by Greater Invisibility, so he couldn’t see her arrows coming, and he seemed especially vulnerable to the ancestral bow of House Higashiyama that she was wielding.

Anamurumon was furious that he couldn’t see whoever was hitting him with arrows, but he couldn’t waste attacks trying to hit an invisible foe. Instead he leveled a mighty roundhouse swing at Shinjiro’s head. Only Shinjiro’s Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier saved his skull from being crushed. As it was, the monk was sent flying across the room, where he crashed against the wall and slumped to the floor, nearly unconscious. Then Anamurumon took a step forward and crashed his sansetsukon into the cleric, then turned and fired another blast of lightning from his third eye into Sawyer, deafening him with its thunderclap.

Sandoval was standing in the doorway to the throne room, singing Inspire Courage and trying to decide where he could best support his friends. Suddenly, an unseen blade stabbed into his kidney. He felt poison burning in the wound but managed to fight off its effects. He used his Jaunt Boots to stumble out of reach of the invisible assassin, but saw no sign of the Raven Prince. Crossing his fingers, he cast Glitterdust in the area he’d just vacated, and was gratified to see the tengu assassin appear, outlined in glittering motes of light, and frantically clawing at his eyes. Ameiko, who’d heard Sandoval’s cry of pain, peeked around the corner from where she’d been hiding. Seeing the blinded assassin, she whipped out her repeating crossbow, and fired three bolts into his outlined form. Sandoval heard him mutter, “They’re not paying me enough for this shit!” There was a puff of smoke, and when it cleared, the Raven Prince was gone.

Inside, Nicki called forth a gout of Hellfire around Anamurumon, but the infernal flames didn’t seem to affect him at all. Cursing under his breath, the sorcerer ordered his two surviving Ogre Mage skeletons forward to attack the Jade Regent, and they pummeled him mercilessly with their bony fists. Sawyer, near death, knew he needed to make a last stand against Ameiko’s usurper. He tightened his grip on Suishen, and the sword let out a battle cry in ancient Minkaian. The Jade Regent turned to face him just as the ancestral Amatatsu blade sliced through his neck. He stood for a moment, eyes wide, then his head slowly slid to one side and fell to the floor, bouncing down the stairs of the royal dais to come to rest on the ornate carpet below.

Marie finally realized how near death Sawyer was. She rushed to his side and cast Heal. Renewed, the fighter turned to face Anamurumon. But there was no need. Bella fired another volley of arrows from point-blank range. This time she was close enough that Anamurumon could retaliate against her attack, and invisibility or no, his sanetsukon crashed into her ribs. But her arrows sank to the fletching into his heart, one after another. He staggered backwards, clutching at the arrows, trying to pluck them out. “YOU WILL NOT WIN!” he shouted, but his voice was rapidly weakening. “I cannot die! I will …” His words became an indecipherable gargle as he dropped to his knees. “I … will … You … will …“ His eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell face forward onto the throne room floor.

Panting, the party looked around the blood-splattered throne room. The Jade Regent and his inner circle were all dead or vanished. “Ameiko!” Sandoval suddenly exclaimed, remembering the invisible assassin. “We need to make sure Ameiko’s safe!” Everyone hurried into the hallway, and ushered Ameiko into the throne room in a protective huddle. They needn’t have worried: the Raven Prince was never seen in Minkai again, although rumors of him spread throughout the rest of Tian Xia in the years to come.

The group parted, leaving Ameiko looking up at the Jade Throne. She looked around at them, and Sandru nodded up the dais’ stairs, urging her forward. She ascended the steps slowly, and stood looking at the Jade Throne in silence for nearly a minute. Then she turned and looked down at her friends, her eyes full of tears. She took one step back, and lowered herself onto the throne. Her eyes grew wide as the power of the Jade Throne subsumed her. “Oh!” she whispered in a small voice.

They would learn later that the instant Ameiko sat upon the Throne, a rain of cherry blossoms began to fall across the entire kingdom of Minkai, a sign to the people of Minkai from the goddess Shizuru that a new ruler sat upon the Jade Throne. When they saw that sign, the human soldiers in the Jade Regent’s army knew that their cruel master was dead. They turned on their oni overlords and began to battle them. Jiro’s army charged across the river to join them, and together they slew most of the oni who had been oppressing Minkai for so many years. Those who survived fled back to the supposed sanctuary of the Forest of Spirits, where the kami of the Forest hunted them down over the coming years.

But for now, the former innkeeper from Sandpoint sat upon the Jade Throne of Minkai, trying to find a way to express her gratitude to the band of heroes who had put her there. As she struggled to find words, a light began to grow in the throne room. Everyone turned to Marie, who was now outlined with slivery light. Her stained armor faded away, replaced by glowing white robes, and her majestic wings unfurled from her back. Her helm, Helgarval, rose from her head and transformed into a chubby infant with stubby wings. Marie mounted the dais, and stood smiling down at Ameiko. She bent and whispered something in the Empress’s ear, then kissed her on the forehead. She turned and looked down at the rest of the party. “My work here is done. Take care of her.” The light around her grew until it was so intense that everyone had to avert their eyes. When they could see again, Marie was gone.

Empress Ameiko

Postscript

The people of Minkai rejoiced at the fall of the Jade Regent and embraced Ameiko as their new Empress, ready to usher in an age of hope, renewal, and prosperity. With the remainder of the Five Storms driven from the empire, Ameiko began to enact sweeping changes not only to put her fractured nation back together, but to position it as a leading force in the region for years to come. Minkai entered a golden age of peace and prosperity. The people hailed you all as national heroes and Empress Ameiko was beloved by all.

Thus ends The Jade Regent. If you care, you each earned 53,028 XP for defeating the Jade Regent and placing Ameiko on the throne, and you would have ended at Level 15. I hope you had as much fun playing as I had running it!