Session 43. (26/2/10)

Special Guest Star: Lenny the Attack Lobster as Killer Lobsters #1 and #2.

With a second quid boat quickly built, Kokuma and Kachamaru try it out on a moonless night's fishing, testing Kachamaru's surmise that the demonic possession of animals does not extend beyond the valley or to sea creatures. The first pot they bring up shatters this hypothesis: Kokuma is attacked by a killer lobster. Taken by surprise, Kokuma suffers 5 points of damage at the claws of the lobster and almost drops his tetsubo with a wild swing at it. Kachamaru almost injures himself laughing. The lobster attacks again and nips Kokuma for 4 more damage. Kokuma angrily swings his tetsubo and smashes the lobster to bisque. Meanwhile, Kachamaru sneaks up on a second lobster and picks it up from behind. The lobster is unable to gets its claws on Kachamaru, and he takes his sword and chops off one claw. Then, while trying to exchange lobster and sword between hands he drops both. The one-clawed lobster snaps at Kachamaru for 4 damage. Kachamaru panics and tries to kick the lobster but misses. The lobster attacks but also misses, giving Kachamaru the chance to stamp on it and turn it into mousse.

Up in the hunting grounds, Mineo is in his newly-learned fox form and looking for suspicious behaviour. He doesn't have to look far. He sees a deer, but rather than ignoring or avoiding the fox, it puts its head down and charges. Mineo eyes the impressive antler with misgivings - and flees. The deer keeps chasing and catches up, but its first hurried lunge goes just over Mineo's furry head. Mineo keeps running and gets a short lead, but then the deer starts catching up. Mineo starts looking around for a hole or undergrowth to hide in but none presents itself. Mineo runs on, the deer only yards behind. He makes another effort, but the deer keeps pace. Finally, using the last of his stamina, Mineo puts on a burst of speed and loses the deer. Shaken, Mineo concludes that the animals are indeed behaving strangely, but that further investigation is too dangerous.

Haku is also patrolling the hunting grounds, in his hawk form. He is trying to use Detect Magic, but it isn't working very well. He spies a giant rat and swoops closer for a better look. Sure enough, it is one of the demonic, razor-toothed variety. He hovers and uses Detect Magic, successfully this time, but the negative result tells him that magic is not the cause of their problems.

Miyoshi is also in the hunting grounds, looking for suspicious behaviour; Yoshi is following at a safe distance to make sure he doesn't get into trouble. Miyoshi is looking for a secluded glade, but can find only trees. Switching to plan B, he listens out for water or a waterfall, but he can't hear any - it turns out he is nearly a mile from the river. Switching to plan C, Miyoshi just goes hunting in the woods. Almost immediately he finds a tree full of birds, which on closer inspection turn out to be vampire bats. The closer inspection wakes the bats and they fly out of the tree and straight at Miyoshi. Yoshi shouts a warning and takes one down with an arrow. Miyoshi takes another down with his spear, but two get through and bite him, doing 8 total damage and injecting a level 1 fast narcotic poison. Yoshi shoots another bat and Miyoshi gets the last one with his spear. As he gets his breath back, his system fights off the poison, leaving him feeling just a little bit weaker. Miyoshi decides to go back to plan A, and eventually finds a quiet glade. He sits in the middle and communes with nature while Yoshi watches from the trees. Despite never having tried before, Miyoshi attempts to meditate. An hour later, Miyoshi exclaims in surprise, "Nothing happened!"

When everyone has returned to Miyoshiville, they discuss their adventures and opinions. Kokuma thinks the Kumaishi demons are the source of the problems. Miyoshi, Kachamaru and Haku think they should try to talk to a demonic animal to find out what is driving it. But first, Yoshi and Haku agree to go into Kumaishi and see if the demons are still active. They get plucked and dressed and make their way through the tunnels, around the town and enter it from the southern (and only) road. They plan to listen to conversations in one of the town's hostelries, but are surprised to find that there are none. Switching to plan B, Haku suggests they go round the market. But there isn't one, there is just a range of shops and traders. Switching to plan C, they go to a house where fish is on sale. Haku speaks to the fishmonger.

"How's the fishing, my good man?"

"Oh, it be fine, sire. Abundant seas round here. See, I've lots of fish for sale."

Yoshi and Haku haven't a copper coin between them. Yoshi looks at the wares, interested in whether there are any big fish, but they are all very small. Haku thanks the man for his time and they casually move on towards another shop. Out to sea they can see fishing boats and decide to wait for them to return and land their catch, so they go and sit by the shore for a while. In the mid-afternoon the boats land on the beach and start unloading the fish. To Yoshi's trained eye it seems that the catch is unremarkable, perhaps slightly below average. There is no sign of demonic fish.

Back on the Ainu side of the cliffs, Kachamaru, Mineo, Miyoshi, Kokuma and Haku's wife head up to the hunting grounds in search of a demonic animal, to talk to its spirit. Kokuma's tracking skill fails to notice some tracks, so the first he knows of the two mad mink is when they attack him. Fortunately they miss. Kokuma swings his tetsubo and Miyoshi swings his butt (of his spear) and turns the two hinky mink into manky mink. "How are we going to talk to the animals if you keep killing them?" asks Mineo. Mrs Haku just shakes her head. Switching to plan B, Kokuma manages to track down a magnificent reindeer. While he watches it, the others fix up the bear nets in a semicircle around the deer.

"So now we scare the deer into the nets?" asks Kachamaru.

"No," explains Mineo patiently, "If it's demonic it will charge at us, so we stand behind the nets."

"And if it's not demonic?"

"Then we don't want to talk to it."

The five hunters stand behind the nets and wait. Nothing happens.

Miyoshi says, "I'm going to recite some poetry. Ahem. 'There once was a demonic deer / Whose preference was decidedly qu-' uh-oh!"

The deer, a rutting stag that presumably saw Miyoshi as a rival (as it could not possibly have understood the poem), charges towards the nets, makes a phenomenal leap and lands right in front of Miyoshi. Instinctively, Miyoshi fends it off with his spear, the butt end anchored into the ground. The deer hits the spear and does itself 6 damage, then tries to gore Miyoshi but is held off by the spear. Kachamaru fires three Darts of Wood and lands two, giving the deer a level 2 lightning narcotic poison. Kokuma hits it with the stun side of his tetsubo and Mineo hits it with his jitte. The deer fights off the poison while trying to deal with a spear wound and a headache, and lunges at Kachamaru who skips out of the way. Miyoshi pulls his spear out of the ground and swings the butt end against the deer's head, and Kokuma concludes the fight with another stunning blow from the tetsubo. The stag goes down, unconscious. Quickly the hunters tie it up in the nets. Miyoshi wonders if he has won any does.

When the stag comes round, Turesh (Haku's wife and former Miss Shikabe Shaman) uses the Ainu trance power to talk to it. As one of the most intelligent animals of the woods, it has the conversational level of a small child. However, Turesh still finds it hard to make the stag understand what she is asking, especially when passing on questions from the others.

Turesh re-examines the deer and confirms that it is a demonic creature. She exorcises it and it calms down. She restarts her cross-examination.

Turesh gives up. The others debate what to do with the deer. Kokuma wants to eat it. Kachamaru wants to see if the meat is good once it has been exorcised. Miyoshi wants to release it.

They release it.

Then Miyoshi decides that they should test Kachamaru's idea that the meat might be edible if the demonic creature is exorcised first.

"But we just let an exorcised animal go," protests Kokuma.

Undeterred, Miyoshi leads the party off on another safrari frasari wild animal hunt. Soon Kokuma finds a dray of squirrels.

"I hope they're demonic!" cries Mineo, "Oooow! Oh no, they're demonic!" he screams as a laser bolt hits him for 27 damage. Each of the others is also hit: Miyoshi for 2, Kokuma for 6, Kachamaru for 5 and Turesh for 2. Turesh tries to exorcise one of the laser squirrels, but fails. The others fire arrows: Miyoshi misses, Kokuma kills one, Mineo puts a critical shot through two and Kachamaru takes care of a fourth. Turesh manages to exorcise one squirrel, which immediately runs away. The one remaining demonic squirrel catches Kokuma with its deadly gaze for 6 damage. Seeing their experiment hightailing it, everyone fires arrows at the exorcised squirrel, now getting plenty of exercise. Three arrows hit it, killing it 10 times over. Kokuma fetches the carcass, now more hole than whole. The meat looks OK. Mineo starts a fire and they spit-roast the meat. It is quite edible. On a whim, Turesh tries to exorcise a dead demonic squirrel, but nothing happens and the meat is still bad. They return to the village to report.

Koshamain and the main protagonists debate what to do next. Yoshi thinks that the village's dead bear cub's spirit might be poisoned, and they should do something to cleanse it. Turesh points out that they have already sent the spirit back to the gods. Kokuma suggests sending an apology to the gods with the cranes, but that is months away and there currently is not enough food to get through the winter. Yoshi thinks that the village is cursed, ever since they started calling it Miyoshiville. Everyone thinks that Miyoshi's spear is the cause of the problem and it should be destroyed - all except for Miyoshi, who blames Kokuma's missed catch. Haku suggests hunting, or rather fishing further afield. Koshamain concurs, and expands on this, suggesting that the whole village could move north up the coast, sailing on the squid boats. Soon it is agreed that the ex-Wajin heroes (and Kokuma) will take one of the squid boats north to look for a new village site, while the rest of the villagers pack up as well as build another, larger boat to sail in. And so, in the early hours of the morning, the six adventurers, a sailor and a navigator slip onto the black waters on the outgoing tide.

The boat rounds the headland and sails north about a ri. With Miyoshi commanding the boat (giving orders to the sailors), the other heroes try their hands at fishing. Only Kokuma catches anything, a fine salmon that does not appear demonic, but everyone learns some fishing, except Miyoshi who learns some sailing skills. Cheered by the normality of the fish, they drift north on the currents and wait for day break. When the sky lightens Haku changes to gull form and flies ahead to scout, and returns with news that there is an Ainu village in the next bay. The boat soon reaches it. Miyoshi orders the sailors to beach the boat on the land, but the sailors, tired of being told how to do their job, land it on the beach. The heroes go ashore. The Ainu village is set in a wide valley, a short distance from the sea. There is a plush headman's house, 30 or so rather squalid houses, some grain stores and other stores, a forge, several large fields of barley, a river that is dammed to make fish ponds, and several fishing boats on a wide, sandy beach. The barking of dogs alerts the locals to the arrival of the visitors. A number of Ainu come to meet the newcomers. They look friendly.

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