The Unpretentious Account of the Obsequious Kuroda Lien

Lamashan 28th cont.

It is easily imagined how the former empress took Ameiko’s refusal. Immediately her whole person changed, her face becoming much more fiendish and her lower half turning into tentacles to match the ones on her head. She shot a spell at me but finally I was strong enough that it could not overtake me! We rushed in, Kromyar and Nerizza taking her winged guards on either side while I claimed Maemi for my own. It was not long before all three of them lay at our feet. Admittedly the former empress’s attacks were quite powerful. I would not have been able to stand against her myself. If Emilian had not been there with his healing I would have found myself in the ethereal line once more.

Once Maemi was dead Suishen spoke. ”That one was a blight on the Amatatsu name,” he told me in his usual bitterness. ”With her out of the was, other Amatatsu ancestors will be free to bestow their blessing.” We have succeeded with one of the imperial families. There are four more yet to go.

Moving on we were able to find Teikoku Sokai, the ruler of Tian Xia that had thrown off the title of emperor in favor of the title Shogunate. Emilian later informed us that Teikoku had been passionate about strengthening the imperial lines. He had practiced eugenics during his reign, and thusly had looked very poorly on the common and poor citizens.

We told him our purpose and in a condescending and tyranical tone he told us that to receive his blessing we must first destroy a certain tori gate so that he may move out of the overcrowded Well of Demons taking up his reign in the Lake of Tears above. Knowing this would not be a good idea I tried to satiate his desire for space by telling him that he is now alone on this level of the Well of Demons. But this only angred him since he and Amatatsu Maemi had come to an agreement. Emilian tried to smooth things over when Kromyar jumped in with a proposal. What did the Shogunate think if we were to rid the well’s lower level of the remaining imperial lords, then ceded the whole place to him? Would that be a fair trade for the Teikoku blessing? The Shogunate found this favorable, though he did not believe that we were up to the task. Even so he relaid what information he could about the two imperials we were yet to face.

Sugimatu is the representative of the Nobenoro Imperial family. He was exceptionally evil. Near the end of his reign he attempted complete familicide. The other imperial families stopped him before he could succeed. Sometime after this Sugimatu fell to Abaddon, coming back as a Thamadeamon. He now deals in the traffic of human souls, and searches for a key that will allow him transit back to Abaddon.

The records of Shojinawa Ito’s reign have been completely stripped from the history books. What we do know is that he had found a way to turn himself into a lich and created for himself an undead army that swept the land. His reign was finally ended when a sovereign dragon, one of the heavenly lungwangs, guardians of the world’s harmony, came down disguised as a peasant breaking into the palace and dispatching him to the afterlife. Teikoku admitted that the location of his lich’s phylactery was not known.

Armed with helpful information we descended to lower level. We were met with a greater body of water than any above us, with no way to traverse it excepting a small skiff. In the first cavern we were met by a grave knight, a powerful mounted undead soldier. Perhaps one of Shojinawa’s new undead army. It attacked with acid that covered all but Emilian. Kromyar, Nerizza, and I beat on it with Nerizza dealing the final blow. In the next room we are attacked by an enormous bat-like creature that Emilian identifies as a Nightwing. It is another undead creature and somehow it has a natural resistance to our weapons. This Nightwing nearly killed Emilian outright. It was the second time in this cursed well that he has come so close to death. We could not let it succeed in killing all of us however and thus we put it down as quickly as we could. I couldn’t help but wonder if there were hordes of undead awaiting us still.

It was soon after that when we found former emperor Shigure’s body. Our attempt to claim it was interrupted by the appearance of Shojinawa Ito. He told us that he would be willing to give us the body if we were to let his spirit ride one of our brains to the surface world. Knowing that we had to kill this man I told him that none of us had room. He then told us that we had to die.

The fight against Shojinawa was easier than I had anticipated against one who was supposed to be some king of the undead. He had some strong spells which we were able to dodge for the most part. Kromyar did the bulk of the damage and ended up finishing Shojinawa in the end. Thinking something was a little off the dwarf realized that what we’d just fought was closer to the description of a dread ghost than in was that of a lich. It seems that the rumors of the former tyrant had been inflated a bit. Such is the vice of many evil, misguided emperors.