Scroll 1 - Forgotten Blood Rain

Black Calendar



The air thickens and becomes difficult to breathe. Elderly and the young are first to suffer.

Kenji's tragic tale began with his death and subsequent resurrection, for the world had changed in the time of his departure. Seeking to find out what had changed under the shadow sky, his reappearance caused him to be mistaken for yurei, undead. More concerningly, it appeared that a number of his fellow dead revived alongside him. What choice had he but to determine what or who had brought him back, and his only lead was to track these undead warriors to their destination.

Hakusa's cessation of his hermitage to return to the world below was not what he had expected, despite the knowledge that in his time away, the land had plunged into the darkness of the eternal eclipse. He saw walking dead roam the slopes, descending to terrorise the travellers of Nakasendo. His calling prompted him to pursue them, to which he managed tenaciously until he lost sight of them through a village by the river. There had to be some meaning behind this first encounter, surely a priestly omen to interpret.

Ikari had chosen to cool his heels out of the city, to lie low until things could be smoothed over by his oyabun. With his leg injury he did not run, choosing to find a more secluded location to do so. The village of Itsuno fit the bill perfectly, no one would find him here, except that the circumstances that brought him here were troubling: the death of a constable, the madness of the elder's wife, and the crimson darkness that threatened to envelop them all.

Kayo had all but forgotten the reasons for her abrupt escape from the city, for something had confronted her truth in the unlikeliest of places, a remote village in the mountains, where for some reason the demented wife of the village elder seemed to know with extreme detail what appeared to be the facts of her dishonourable past. For some reason she was given a second chance to restore that honour, but that meant getting to the bottom of this dark mystery of the Ashikara.

Genji's journey of self-mastery took a curious turn; his regular session at the Iwata teahouse had turned into a confrontation of samurai and yurei, honour and death. And as the embodiment of true fighting spirit, there was no doubt what his next actions ought to be. His pendant spoke of an inexplicable connection between it and the undead, and suddenly he found it hard to remember how he had lost his eye, as if a darkness, like an eyepatch, obscured his vision. Now he had to look towards the route they had taken.

Satoshi's senior, missing. His fellow shinobi, missing. While the duty of a ninja was often one of solitude, he now surmised that some larger shadow was at play, by piecing together the clues left behind that brought him to the village of Itsuno and now further prompted him to investigate the meaning of Karekurenai Temple. At this point, he alone had the ability to fully understand what the crimson darkness meant, thanks to the fact that he was directly under its influence.

Itsuno was a tiny village by all accounts, all but forgotten in the terrible darker days of the present. It was reachable through the mountain path off Nakasendo, through which Ikari, Kayo and Satoshi arrived, as well as by river, which was how Genji and Kenji made their way, and in the case of Hakusa, across the river itself. Its seclusion made it ideal as a remote hideaway for the use of the Koga clan, although no one knew of that except Satoshi. It would have been a good place for Grendar to lie low from the chaos of the city.

Except that it was a village on the verge of some inconceivable tragedy. Of its seven homes, half of its residents were missing, houses abandoned with everything inside them intact, as if their occupants had suddenly departed or were whisked away, a fact Ikari, Kayo, Satoshi, and also Hakusa discovered. But that was not the most disturbing; that dishonour for that fell on Otona Koji's household because of the madness thet befell his wife, Yura. All signs pointed towards the temple in the heart of the forest as the place to find the answers. But no one knew exactly what they were looking for nor how to get there ...

... except one. The single-mindedly yurei who detoured through the village were evidently headed for some dreadful destination, killing everything in their path. To follow them seemed the most sensible way to find Karekurenai Temple. Hakusa, Genji and Kenji had lost sight of them in the night fog of the shoreline. And nnNeither Hakusa nor Kenji could fathom how to keep track of them, as the mist began to tint red with a light drizzle that seemed to swallow their arrival. Only Genji was blessed, or cursed, with the unerring sense where they might be.

There was not yet a chance to search the forest. Along the main thoroughfare that cut through the village came a loud cry, "Otona! Otona!", the honorific for the village elder, before the voice was cut off with a gurgle.

"That is Misao!" Echigo the woodsman exclaimed urgently in the presence of elder Koji, as well as Ikari, Kayo and Satoshi. Immediately Sawada, the night watchman from Idawata post station, ever brave to the extent of foolhardiness, dashed out of the elder's house towards the voice in the middle of the village, lantern in hand. Hakusa heard it too as he was searching the shack by the bank. And Genji and Kenji, only just arriving, feared the worst, that the yurei that they were chasing might have claimed the life of another victim.

All six converged at the small clearing in the centre of the village ...

"I'll check it out Kayo" Slowly follows Sawada out.
Middle-age plain looking man with a walking stick approaches.
"Oh did you all get lost in the fog too?
My name is Ikari, we were looking for our lost constable and found our way here."
What was that sound? Echigo, Who is Misao?"

Satoshi, a plain looking man in decaying black garments, his skin colored a strange red tint, rushes out after Sawada. But once back out in the night, he stuck to the shadows at the edge of the lantern light to watch the scene unfold.

A mountainous man stops agilely after moving swiftly into the center of the village. He is wearing a colorful long robe unable to contain his barrel chest. He grasps a talisman strung around his neck in one hand, and wears an eye patch over his left eye.

"Where did that cry come from?", he looks around nervously, but stops short to be polite. "I am Genji. We were chasing a yurei into the fog and lost sight of him."

Hakusa emerged from the fisherman's shack holding the fishing fly inspecting it as he did. His pallor, the sickly flesh of a leper, and his robes gone rancid from the weeping sores that covered him were masked by the scent of incense. The shugenja carried a bamboo bow, laquered with ochre color, seven arrows, and limped along stopping as he heard the scream. Tucking the fishing fly away he drew an arrow and advanced on the sound, leaving the sophists to deliberate, when there was a clear call to action.

"Are you going to stand there or render assistance to those in need?" The Manipulative Priest jabbed at the much healthier, faster, and better equipped people who had somehow fallen behind him. "Or does a dying man get all the glory?" with further admonishment He tried to laugh, but this reduced him to pathetic wheezing coughs as he limped towards the commotion.

Kayo pointed a trembling finger at the leper. "Ahhhh... a yūrei, you said? It's there!" With a startled cry, the vision of delicate beauty turned and fled in the opposite direction. In this blood-soaked tableau, her pristine skin and noble bearing were jarringly out of place. Her exquisite attire and ethereal beauty had momentarily silenced those who had never before witnessed the striking figure.

Kayo grabs a long stick that she could use like a staff and sneak behind Satoshi and Ikari.

"Baka! Watashi wa mada shin denai!"

"Misao is retired — an artisan — woodblock carving —" Echigo's answer was hurried as he rushed out in response to the cry of his fellow villager, with Ikari struggling to keep up with him, while Satoshi instinctively melded with the shadows beyond the clearing.

They were all too late. Sawada was a couple of steps ahead, replying anxiously to Genji who had already reached the spot where a figure lay crumpled on the ground, "A movement, it went that way!" Misao was still clutching his torso where the weapon had cut him mortally, unable to prevent his internals from bleeding out, made more slick by the dampness from the light drizzle. It was frustrating that they had tailed the undead such a distance, and yet could not prevent their mindless murderous instinct from claiming another life. Hakusa had them covered even as they arrived; there was but one direction he could loose his arrow, in the direction Sawada had indicated, for the path through the villageclearing led directly into the forest, and Ikari, Kayo and Satoshi had already made up their minds to seek answers within. The horror of both the dying villager and the disfigured leper was too much of a shock for Kayo though, as much as the otherworldly impression she left on everyone in a dismal scene such as this was as startling.

From Misao's spilled blood, a crimson taint began to colour the low mist that rolled over the dirt of the village ground, subtly spreading from the clearing in every direction. It would come in contact with everyone present in due course, but only Satoshi understood the implications of what that meant. Was it too late for him to warn the others?

The leper's presence and the unsettling mist rising from Misao's blood did nothing to ease Sarah's fear. The situation was spiraling rapidly. "To the temple!" she urged, her voice tight with a rising panic. "Quickly, while we still can!"

Seeing the crimson mist spread its tendrils toward the others gathered around Misao, Satoshi steps into the light and shouts "Do not let the red mist touch you, if you can! It carries a taint that will mark your skin and likely drives you mad in time." He says this even as he knows his own red tinted skin might make him untrustworthy with suspicion of madness.

As the yurei seems to have fled in the direction they must go to reach the temple, chains clink from within his rotted clothing as a kama appears in each of his hands. He rushes forward along the path, tightly gripping the sickles.

"To the Temple before its too late"

Both Genji and this new crowd seem headed in the same direction, into the forest, towards a supposed temple. A bit confused, Genji is certain the yurei headed that way, and follows with the group.

"Hei!", Genji says with a nod.

Hakusa hobbles along in the direction of the temple as that seems to be where everyone alive was headed. He wondered if The Buddha was still cross with him for eating meat in the last temple he visited, it had been years.

With Satoshi's timely warning, the rest who were gathered took precautions to avoid the tinge of miasma that was slowly spreading through the mist. All except Echigo, "We cannot leave Misao's body," the woodsman dashed to the aid of his fellow villager, heedless of Satoshi's fear. Sawada paused for a moment, then also stepped forward to help Echigo move Misao to the nearest house whilst the rest of the motley assemblage focussed on going after the elusive undead.

As they made haste, Koji the village elder had now also come out, presumably having calmed his wife down from her maddened response when they spoke with her last. "Forgive my distraction, but the hour is late. If you wish to tarry we can offer what simple hospitality we have." In midst of all their pursuits through river and valley under the everlasting dark of the sky, it was all too easy to forget the passage of time, for it was surely near the hour of the rat.

Pressing through the darkness, Ikari curses at the struggle of finding footing along the dark path.

Hakusa was struggling to keep pace with the more able bodied people. Focusing all his willpower on enduring even as the pace was causing his swollen joints to cause him pain.