See forbiddon_city. Back to Legend of the Five Rings. Next Week

Hiding up in the back of the temple for the night, and hoping no big spider Oni nasties come hunting for us. Inviting the black skinned northerners along as well. Whilst we are settling in, a flute starts playing. Outside is man with a scrotty goblin. Aki shoots the goblin, possibly killing it.

The guy in white is Daigotsu Raizamon - he is asking for Asako Fujiko. Fujiko firebolts him - Raizamon burns and dies, his body warping into a giant spider Oni. Other spiders and goblins come out of the darkness. Another spider Oni tries to ram down the door, but Bortai takes out that one with arrows. The rest of the goblins flee into the darkness.

Hiruma Aki tells us that Daigotsu Raizamon probably had taken over the body of the Oni rather than turning up in person, so we probably haven't killed the assassin.

They were told to come here by a sage who asked them to find stuff for them. The scholar, and their captain, is somewhere in the underground currently. Looking for books, scrolls and something which has been lost for a long time. The captain probably knows more. Captain is Goghar. Abbot tells us that the word Goghar features in some old prayers to the ancestors. Date back to the coming of the Kami. He thinks that Goghar is an old word for Heart of Jade.

Scholar is called Xan Li, and is from the city of Anchu. Came to home port - Morchai - of these pirates and paid for passage to here.

We survive the rest of the night. Keep two people on watch at all times.

The plan is to go down into the underground. The strangers know where to go, because that is where they met the spider things.

We go down into the underground, following the chalk marks left by Goghar and Xan Li. The tunnels are old storm drains. They are quite low, but Bortai can just about squash through. Find a round room with a stone box with a stone lid in the middle of the room. Move it aside, and there is an old skeleton in there. Some jade stones in the tomb.

Following the corridor round - it goes round in a quarter circle until find another circular room, with another tomb. Looks like someone has been trying to dig through the wall here. The chalk marks end in this room. The dug tunnel leads towards the centre of the circle the main corridor was going around. At the end of the tunnel is… nothing. The tunnel seems to come out through a dome. Beneath is just darkness. There is a rope here which has been left dangling down. We reckon it is about 50' down.

Aki climbs down the rope to see what is below. He seems to have found a room full of terracotta warriors. Appears to be an important tomb of some kind. The rest of us follow down. Bortai sits down and starts painting the scene.

Find pools of Mercury in the form of lakes and streams. There is a building here at the centre of the room. There are big stone doors into the building, which were sealed but the seals have been broken. The seal is about the size of the jade plate that started all this off in the first place. There are no exits from this dome.

Go into the building. Sandy floor here (stone floor 'outside'). Couple sets of footprints which leads to another door (first room is just a small entrance room). Enter into a traditional Rokugan style central courtyard. Looks like a typical building except that it is made of stone - even the sliding screens are stone. Rooms either side which are filled with regalia - jewellery, headdresses, clothing and the like. Much of it has rotted away. Centre of the courtyard is a large stone box. Looks like a tomb for a very important person.

Room directly ahead looks to be a library - there is a light coming from this room. Fujiko runs forward, but Bortai stops her. Korin and Aki creep forward to see who is in the library.

Inside the library is a foreign-like person who is reading books and another foreigner who is sitting down playing with a knife. Korin introduces himself, the scholar jumps and knocks over a lantern. Fujiko breaks the sound barrier in catching the lantern to save the books.

The scholar is here looking for an ancient item of the Trolls. They were an ancient civilisation that predated the Kami. They think they know where it is. The item is a sword called Baoji. There is also a Baojian, which was the name of the spirit Fujiko was speaking with the other night, though the foreigners don't seem to know exactly what it is. They are two names listed in a poem.

The items they are looking for are a sword and a sceptre. Very ancient and powerful magics. The poem says that the sword was wrought of a single peice of iron from the heavens sent and it was built around a core of jade. The sceptre is made carved from a single lump of jade. This is the tomb of Empress Akiko, the third Empress of Rokugan. Was married to Hantai the Third.

Their Emperor is a God. All their emperors are gods - they are the light of heaven.

Bortai asks the scholar why he is here now, rather than some other time. The poem talks about a time of great troubles when all will be cast down and made anew. That time is now. The poem that the people of the endless deserts and the great grass sea cease to quarrel and follow one leader that a very very bad thing will start to happen. And they just happen to have found a leader - thousands of thousands of little barbarian bastards (short chaps on ponies) have united together.

We drag the two scholars out of the library and back to the temple for Tea. Reset the seals and fix the stones to try and hide the tunnel when we leave.

When we get back to the Temple, it is a burnt and blackened ruin. The monks and pirates are dead. Seppon is dead as well. The chief Abbot (with the tatoos) cannot be found, but the bodies of the rest are here. Some form of bad magic has warped and rotted the stone of the monastry and it has been collapsed. Probably evil and warped earth spirits were used.

Oops.

We burn the bodies.