[Voice]

[seadevil]

Kodachi asked me for this particular tale and I'm of a mind to tell it this evening.


They oft say that Mount Osore marks the gates of Hell and to look at the place, you can believe it. To make your way to the summit is to climb through a desolate landscape of charred rock and thick, sulfurous air. Not a living soul can be found on its slopes, too fearful are they of what they could invite upon themselves. It's a colorless, lifeless, soulless place. Were it not for the color of the pinwheels the fearful leave as offerings and the cloths tied to the Jizo statues that dot its surface, one would truly think he'd found himself beyond the world of the living.

What then, you ask, was I doing there? What, indeed.

I was sailing north with the intent of making a visit to the One Eyed Dragon, as I do occasionally when prospects in warmer waters aren't quite as promising. The man carries six swords, after all. I can usually make off with one or two of them if I can trounce him soundly enough in a fight, more if we've been drinking, But that aside, I was in search of treasure as usual and heard tell that Harumasa Nanbu had taken up residence on the top of the mountain named for fear itself.

Once I had it in my head to give Old Man Nanbu a visit, I made my way up the mountain. I'm not a man who falls prey to fear easily, if at all, so the dead silence didn't deter me. With only the whistling wind as a companion, I climbed up the rocky path towards the temple grounds he'd taken up residence in. I have a friendly knock, but he didn't seem the friendly sort. Some arcane power kept the gates closed tightly, tied no doubt to a few outposts that circled the main grounds. I wasn't about to let my trip go to waste, so it was time to lay waste to his defenses. Not that anything is ever quite as simple as I plan for it to be.

Usually when I pay a visit to someone, I'm met with their army. To have no welcoming committee was a bit disappointing at first, but I soon came to regret thinking so. As I approached the first outpost, I was overcome with the sickly smell of incense. The plain surrounding the fortification was unmanned, leaving me standing alone in front of several large incense burners that released noxious fumes so thick that the air itself took on their color. Were I a wiser man, I would have taken one and been done with the expedition, but I chose to examine them instead. They were very old, their sheen long since lost to tarnish and their workmanship crude, even arcane in a way. As I looked at them, I heard a strange sound that chilled me to my very bones.

There was a dragging. Soft at first, then louder as whatever was being pulled against the rocks grew in number. Then as it drew closer, there was rattling, metal against rock, metal against metal. Then, as I slowly turned, moaning. Pitiful, forlorn, bleak, like it was being pulled from the depths of hell itself.

And perhaps it was, for I was surrounded by an army of the dead.

The corpses of battles past that were strewn about the fort had drawn themselves to their feet, given life by the incense. Their empty eyes fixed on me and they shambled forward, intent on me joining their number. I fought them valiantly, cutting them down one after one with my anchor, only to watch them rise again and again, undaunted by my attack. It was then that I realized that only by breaking the incense burners could I free their poor benighted souls from their endless torment. I held them off, though oft I felt their cold, scrabbling hands at my neck when I turned away to break down the vessals and though I conquered the position, I questioned the wisdom of continuing on.

However, I'm not a man to leave things half done.

I traveled on, knowing there were two more towers that needed to be brought under my control before I could open the doors that were keeping me from my prize. The second held more of the same, but as I traveled on to the third, I realized that things were not to remain so easy. On the narrow, rocky path to the outpost, I came across one of Old Man Nanbu's generals, or so I thought. I hailed him, but there was no response save a vicious attack. As I close the space between us, swinging my anchor at his head, I saw that there was no man's face inside the helmet, only two burning yellow eyes that held no humanity. When I struck him down, I could see his soul itself rise from the black, rusted pile that was his armor. It hovered above him, blue and black, wispy and cold, shining with an inner light that was no light at all. And then it sank back into the armor.

And he stood again.

How does one kill the dead?

It was all I could do to draw him onward to the final outpost, but when I reached the fortification, I found it manned by more like him, hulking, shambling, and evil with those burning eyes staring out at me. Their swords cut into me as I broke through the incense burners and I feared that I would find my own death at the gates of Hell itself, but the great Sea Devil of the West is not a man so easy to kill as that. I took the third tower an dragged myself onward to face Nanbu himself.

Now, I'd never fought a necromancer before and certainly that wasn't what I'd planned to do that day. However, one never knows what opponent one shall face and I found myself facing down that mad-eyed old man in the small temple square. He had no answers for my questions, my taunts, my threats. His raspy voice babbled, prattled, chattered in mad poetry meant only for the dead. He called down incantations and spells, raising more of his accursed monstrosities to impede me. It was only when I cut him down that they fell around me, finally sent back to Hell where they belonged. I thought, then, that perhaps I should take no treasure back with me, for who knows what I might have invited upon myself.

I'm not a man who fears much, but I still see that place in my nightmares.

Comments

[Voice]

[caster_blaster]

...Huh. I'll give it a 7/10. Nice, action-packed ghost story.

[Voice]

[seadevil]

Aye, I suppose I could have embellished a bit, but I thought I'd tell it as it actually happened this time.

[Implying this isn't usually the case.]

Re: [Voice]

[caster_blaster]

Would it have been possible to just bury the incense?

[voice/...action?]

[rebellions]

[You'd think by now the moment Motochika begins telling one of his tales, Ragna would just close his journal with an annoyed groan, not wanting to listen to the captain's bullshit, but for some reason that isn't the case. Perhaps he's grown fond of listening to them? Or perhaps he's just really bored. Who can tell.

Either way, Motochika will have no trouble figuring out his better (?) half (???) was paying attention to the story told, since as soon as he's finished, there's a loud, high-pitched shriek coming from both the journal and... somewhere nearby, it would seem.

At least he had the courtesy to hold it back until he was done.]

[voice]

[seadevil]

[All's gone according to Motochika and Kodachi's plan, it seems.]

You're welcome, Ragna!

[voice]

[rebellions]

[Give him a few moments please, he needs to collect himself. And maybe his journal, which he may or may not have dropped in sheer terror.]

Dammit, Princess! That ain't funny!

[Ragna for one doesn't sound amused in the slightest.]

[cherrybombpie]

[Giggling. All the giggling.]

[rebellions]

[Damn those two. Damn ghost stories. Damn everything.]

... I can hear this, y'know.

[voice/...action?]

[wanderer_from_ys]

If you knew he was telling the story, why did you keep listening? *Because Ragna, we all know you're a scaredy cat when it comes to ghost stories*

[Voice]

[cry_brady]

[As someone who's actually fought the dead-ish, he's not terribly surprised.]

Why did Kodachi ask you to share this? Seems kinda weird.

[Voice]

[seadevil]

We got to talking about ghosts and I realized she'd never heard any of my ghost stories. She was quite interested in this one, so I made a promise to tell it. I have quite a few others, as well.

[voice]y

[buttwarmed]

Pretty entertaining. I don't think Mount Osore's seen many necromancers in my time.

[voice]

[seadevil]

No? Perhaps someone finally cleared the old codger out. "My time" seems a bit further back than most who've ended up here. I think I've only met two whose lives I'd consider to be history.

action (if that's alright!)

[cherrybombpie]

[Kodachi was listening intently. At the end of the story, she watched him with round eyes.]

What a story! So dramatic!

action

[seadevil]

[Motochika set the journal aside and grinned.]

I told you it was quite the tale! And I believe our intended audience got an earful of it as well.

[The grin widened as he pointed in the direction of the ear-splitting shriek someone let out a few seconds earlier.]

[voice]

[youhearthebells]

Huh. Sounds more'n a little bit like the place I was before I came here.

That guy didn't happen to be related to any snake demons, by any chance?

[voice]

[seadevil]

Snake demons? Not that I know of. He was a bit too obsessed with raising the dead to worry about summoning demons.

[voice]

[ridingtheclouds]

To have such power... to command such horror... To explore the how and the why, to see with my own eyes what created such a thing, such a situation... It is far more tempting than any treasure that place could hold.

To know. That is my treasure. If only such a place still existed in my own time.

[voice]

[seadevil]

Aye, well, you'd be welcome to it. It was a dismal place and one I'm not keen on returning to. The only worse places I've heard tell of are Kanegasaki and Honnouji and you won't see me paying either of those places a visit, either.

voice;

[hoodwinking]

What a nice story. [Cutting down an immense number of the undead actually made her long for home a bit more, but more importantly:]

I wouldn't have left the treasure, however. Cursed or not, it's still worth something to someone.

voice;

[seadevil]

Aye, but I'm not the sort to gather up treasure only to sell it off to someone else. That's for merchants, not pirates.

[Important distinction.]

[Audio] Can I just say I love you? I remember this part in the game, and this brought back memories.

[amethystsregret]

You must be strong to have faced the dead as a living person and remain that way. You asked how one kills the dead. I have an answer from my experience, if you want to hear it...

[Audio]

[seadevil]

I've no intention of going back there, but I suppose it can't hurt to know. Mind you, if it's something to the effect of purifying the place or exorcising them or that sort of medium's nonsense, I'm not the man to employ.

[wanderer_from_ys]

So that actually happened to you but you don't believe my story about Ys?

[seadevil]

Mind you, you told me that story before I had any cause to believe such a thing was possible.

[You can't really blame him. Who would believe in islands in the sky until they saw one for themselves?]