Session 48. (2/4/10)

Last week we left Kachamaru facing off with Kuteashguru, the Taisei Headman, who has just called Kachamaru "an impudent worm". Kachamaru's hand gropes for his wakizashi while his mouth gropes for words.

"Take that back, or I'll make you take it back!"

Kuteashguru rises to his feet with rising ire.

Meanwhile, outside, Mineo is lecturing the Headman's son, Okikurmi, on social responsibility.

"Ponder this: 15 years ago we, the non-Ainu of our tribe, were sent out by our original people, the Wajin, as boys to be blooded hunting animals.

"Those animals were Ainu!

"We did that out of duty and ignorance, we were told that Ainu were worms, vermin - a pestilence to be destroyed, to allow us to expand and use the land properly for ourselves.

"We did our duty and we killed Ainu hunters. But then we were told to attack an Ainu village! At that moment we realised that Ainu were people too, and not vermin to be exterminated. Worse, they were peaceful people for whom fighting was not their way of life. We told our masters we would not attack. So they attacked us as traitors and rebels.

"From that point on we vowed that we would defend the Ainu to our dying breaths from all those who would treat them like animals. At first we succeeded. We forced our former people to respect the Ainu. But all we did was make our former people more determined. So they redoubled their efforts and in the end our former people were too many. They have villages with thousands of people in them, they call cities. They have more warriors than all the Ainu tribes together including the women and children.

"So we left our old village after the attacks made living there far too dangerous. All the time we were guided by Koshamain and the other elders of the village.

"Now we are here with you. And what do we see? An Ainu who is worse than our original people. They were ignorant of Ainu and their ways. Your father is not only an Ainu but an Elder as well. We vowed to defend the Ainu from those who would treat them as worms. We would willingly give our lives to defend not only our village but also your village from those people. Koshamain would only have to ask and we would give with a song in our hearts. But we would not protect you or your family. Normally we would be bound by Koshamain's word to hold our peace. But our vow to protect the Ainu is above that of Koshamain.

"So we offer this ultimatum: change your ways or leave this village and take your family with you. If you decide to do neither, then we cannot promise to obey Koshamain in this matter and let ones who treat the Ainu as worms live!"

Mineo adds what he hopes are soothing words: "I think your father has picked up bad habits from our people."

Okikurmi listens with increasing incredulity, clasps and unclasps his fists then gropes for words.

"Take that back, or I'll make you take it back!"

Mineo starts removing his armour and hands it, with his weapons, to Yoshi.

Inside, Kuteashguru stands nose-to-nose with Kachamaru and demands, "You and whose army?"

Haku tries to lighten the mood. "You must be parched - have some tea!" It doesn't work. Koshamain looks on in horror as Kachamaru casts Stage Sword. Kuteashguru tries to interfere with the spell by pushing Kachamaru, who interprets this as the start of the fight, so he winds up to strike out as the magical wooden sword appears. Miyoshi leaps to his feet and tries to interpose himself between the two. He manages to block Kachamaru's left side with his back, but Kachamaru uses his free right side to hit Kuteashguru with his wooden sword for 3 subdual damage. Kokuma now steps in and stands facing Kachamaru, blocking any further attacks. Kuteashguru draws a knife and brandishes it, though he refrains from attacking.

Outside, Yoshi tries to talk Mineo and Okikurmi out of fighting, but he lacks the necessary eloquence. Okikurmi snarls in anger. Mineo takes a swing at the Ainu, but misses. Okikurmi replies with a solid punch doing Mineo 3 subdual damage. Mineo, taken by surprise, kicks out at Okikurmi and critically connects with his left ankle, sending him crashing to the ground, dazed and with 12 points of bruising to his foot. "Had enough yet?" crows Mineo before his normal deference can close his mouth. Okikurmi lies there feeling like he's been run down by a southbound moose.

Inside, Miyoshi shouts, "Everyone put your weapons down and stop fighting!" Kachamaru lowers his bo-ken but keeps it in his hand, waiting to see what the unpredictable Kuteashguru does. Kokuma remains standing between them. Kuteashguru glares at Kachamaru, then at Miyoshi, then roars with laughter, puts his knife back in his belt and walks out. Miyoshi sighs with relief. In Kuteashguru's laugh he detects a lot of amusement, a bit of contempt for these lowly people and a degree of saving face. Kachamaru and Kokuma also detect a little of these nuances too.

Outside, Yoshi shouts, "Stop fighting!" and goes to help Okikurmi up. Mineo, a little shamefaced, helps him.

"Did anyone get the number of that moose?" asks Okikurmi.

"You've got spirit, lad - I like you," comments Mineo.

Just then, Kuteashguru emerges from the hut, still chuckling to himself. He sees the tableau of Mineo, his son and Yoshi and realises there has been some altercation, but he makes no issue of it. He and his son return to their house, Kuteashguru chatting affably, Okikurmi slouching sulkily.

Miyoshi, Kokuma and Kachamaru emerge from the hut and see the retreating backs of the Headman and his son. "That went well," remarks Kokuma with uncharacteristic irony. Just then, a little Buddha appears and demands that he hands over the irony.

Koshamain calls all the heroes back into the hut. He is seething with anger. "You might have got us thrown out of this village! I don't want to see any more of this behaviour! In future you will do as asked!"

Kokuma pipes up, "So next time I don't stop the fight?"

"Not you. I don't want any more fighting or challenging the Headman or his family."

Miyoshi points out, "But we're trying to live like Ainu, but they don't treat us in the Ainu way."

Haku counters, "We have to live in the way of this village, not Ainu generally."

Kokuma puts in his thoughts, "Why don't we scout for another village?"

Yoshi replies, "But this is a nice place, and our tribe doesn't want to move again."

Kachamaru stalks off, unimpressed by Koshamain's attitude.

That night, Miyoshi orders that watches are kept in case of reprisals. However, it is a quiet night.

The following day, Miyoshi calls a meeting of the heroes at first light, before they have to go to their various jobs. Yoshi is concerned that a meeting will look as though they are plotting, but it goes ahead anyway. Miyoshi begins the plotting. "We should go and overthrow the Headman - after all, we are not living in the Ainu way as we originally agreed to."

Haku disagrees, "Actually, we agreed to live in the way of this village."

Miyoshi has no counter-argument, so he agrees to leave things as they are for a few days.

Life in Taisei returns to normal. There is very little activity at the Headman's house, and the chores seem less onerous than before. Over the summer, Kokuma volunteers for the hardest jobs in the hope of improving his strength. Haku and Mineo work on improving the waterwheel.

One day in early summer, Miyoshi, Yoshi and Kokuma go out on a hunting trip, ostensibly to get fresh game from further afield, but actually to visit the "lost" village to see if they might move the tribe there. They make their way up to Lobster Valley, then into Crayfish Creek, Fish Fissure and finally into Guppy Gulley. Miyoshi is first to enter the waterfall. The water is cold! Miyoshi screams like a little girl, stumbles and is swept into the water. He swims back to the bank with rather more elegance than he left it and climbs out. Yoshi laughs scornfully and puts his head into the cascade. The water is cold! Yoshi screams like a little boy, but manfully pushes through the falling water. He collides with a rock face, falls back and is swept into the river. He swims back to the bank. Now Kokuma has a go. He puts his head into the water curtain. The water is... quite mild, really. He steps through but hits a rock face, and is swept into the river like the others. The current carries him under, he surfaces, grabs a lungful of air and sinks again. He tries drowning for a while before eventually resurfacing and swimming to the bank, quite a way downstream. When he rejoins the others, Miyoshi is probing the waterfall with the butt of his spear. After a few minutes of poking he declares that Kokuma's Passage has closed up.

"Curses - a magical kingdom," exclaims Miyoshi.

"The mythical valley has gone mithing," adds Yoshi.

By the end of the summer, Kokuma's hard work has improved his strength, while Miyoshi has been running with the dogs (while hunting) to improve his speed, Haku has improved his wit from the waterwheel design work, Mineo's carpentry has improved his deftness, Yoshi has also improved deftness and Kachamaru has improved his wit. At Kachamaru's insistence, they decide to go down to Miyoshiville to see if the curse has gone and the tribe can return. So one night, under the guise of a long squid-fishing trip, the six of them set off in one of the squid boats, Miyoshi skippering and the others crewing and fishing. This actually doesn't work very well as Miyoshi's knowledge of sailing is minimal, and the others don't know a sheet from a beat, but as the boat drifts down the coast on the tide, they try a little fishing. Kokuma and Miyoshi manage to catch some squid. Haku tries to blast some fish out of the water using Arrows of Water, but they aren't quite powerful enough. The boat drifts past the beach near Kumaishi and Miyoshi manages to get it landed while it is still dark (just) and pulled up into the woods. Everyone goes up Mineo's Passage as far as the cave with the fissures. Mineo is scared that there might be bears. Miyoshi suggests sending him into the cave attached to a rope - if they see him drift back downstream with a bear attached to his head, they'll know that there are bears. Kokuma ignores this and sniffs to see if he can smell bears. He can't. Mineo asks the others to try to be sure. Kachamaru can smell everything in the cave and it doesn't feature any bears, but he tells Mineo that he can smell bears. Miyoshi, also having a good nose, tells him to stop being an idiot - there are no bears. Then Haku notices that the river is lower than he has ever seen it before, despite a wetter-than-average summer. The adventurers splash through the few inches of water to the low roof near the Miyoshiville exit and find that the roof has collapsed, along with hundreds of tons of rock. Kachamaru immediately grasps the implications: "This means that we can't get back into the valley, and even if we could it must be flooded. I wonder how deep it is."

The party retraces its steps back to the beach where Haku transforms into an eagle and flies over the cliffs into the Miyoshiville valley. He sees that the 20 foot snows of winter and the spring rains draining from the highlands have filled the lower part of the valley to form a lake several tens of feet deep. Not a single house is visible, though he feels he can hear a bell tolling in the depths. He returns to the others, disconsolate. The gallant six feed themselves on squid as they wait for night to fall once again, then head back to Taisei. Miyoshi's sailing doesn't hamper them too much, and they reach the village at dawn with a small catch of squid courtesy of Kokuma.

The winter passes without incident, thanks to Miyoshi's iron resolve. He uses the time spent not fighting to improve his sailing skill. Mineo improves his carpentry, Haku Ainu Classics, Kachamaru hunting with dogs, while Kokuma again improves his strength and Yoshi does some speed work. Another year passes. Miyoshi resists the temptation to rock the boat in the village, and instead improves his boating skills. Mineo uses herbs to improve his health, Haku studies School of Soil, Kachamaru improves his wit and Kokuma and Yoshi both improve their strength.

It is now spring of the Year of the Dragon (1472). Miyoshi is now thoroughly sick of life in Taisei. The work is long and hard, and there is little time for improving skills. No-one has even had any babies for several years. He goes to see Koshamain to vent his anger, but it turns out Koshamain is fed up with the situation as well. Miyoshi emerges from Koshamain's hut to find the others outside, waiting to see what he said.

"OK everyone, grab your weapons - we're having a coup," he announces.

"Coo!" says Mineo.

"Cool!" says Kokuma^*.

"How are we going to do it?" asks Haku.

"We should challenge the Headman and his sons to duels," says Yoshi.

"No, we have to just march in there and kill them," says Miyoshi.

"What... you mean murder them?" asks Mineo.

"Yes, cut them up into little bits - except the Headman's wife," says Kachamaru.

"No, we'll have to kill her or she'll just cause trouble," says Miyoshi.

"Maybe we should ask Koshamain," offers Kokuma.

"And rally support among the villagers," adds Haku.

Meanwhile, from the Headman's house comes the sound of much merry-making.

* The original script gave Kokuma's lines as "I'm really uncomfortable about this; aren't there enough people killing Ainu in the world without us doing it too?" but this was felt to be too sophisticated for Kokuma, and was changed to "Me no like dat. Dere's enuff people killin' Ainu widout us doin' it too!". Further disagreement ensued about whether Kokuma would know what a coup was, and the line "Cool!" was eventually ad-libbed.

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