Bunraku (Samurai Mecha Quest)

[X] Take the skull, a relic of the fallen Heavens, to offer as a gift to Summer's Dragon lord. There it can find peace as an object of study and a relic to be preserved.
 
[X]Take the skull, a relic of the fallen Heavens, to offer as a gift to Summer's Dragon lord. There it can find peace as an object of study and a relic to be preserved.
 
[X] Take the skull, a relic of the fallen Heavens, to offer as a gift to Summer's Dragon lord. There it can find peace as an object of study and a relic to be preserved
 
[X] Take the skull, a relic of the fallen Heavens, to offer as a gift to Summer's Dragon lord. There it can find peace as an object of study and a relic to be preserved

I... am honestly a little conflicted here, want to the Relic rest, but at the same time, I don't think she deserves to be destroyed.

I just hope this works out for all
 
[X]Take the skull, a relic of the fallen Heavens, to offer as a gift to Summer's Dragon lord. There it can find peace as an object of study and a relic to be preserved.

A cage is a thing to be [filled by something], whether metaphorically or physically. Perhaps through some means as a relic, it can be [filled] with [purpose]. That way it can cease being so empty. Better than simply fading away to nothingness, at least.
 
The relic is done in the likeness of a human, and is capable of human emotions as long as it holds her memory.

The last dragon used it as a toy, as most Heaven's residents tend to do. Try as I might, I can't see a favorable outcome for it if we give her to another who does not even have sentimental feelings to sweeten the pill.

Pretty much the only thing I see that would work would be erasing Aoi and her strange non-existence by filling the cage with something else... but that would destroy the value of the 'gift', and therefore is highly unlikely if we gift it to a dragon.

The cage, or the book is not alive. It does not need our pity. The prop inside, though... To me it feels like letting it continue to exist is just mocking the dead.

I find the whole practice of keeping a copy of one's mind to be used as a memento somewhat disturbing. I can perhaps overlook it between lovers - the intricacies of their relationship is their business - but doing something like that out of curiosity (which is what we are giving her/it out for, 'an object of study') is a bit too much.
 
[X]Take the skull, a relic of the fallen Heavens, to offer as a gift to Summer's Dragon lord. There it can find peace as an object of study and a relic to be preserved
 
[X]Smash the skull, consecrate the ruins, and bring the recorded memory and the trapped ghosts a true, final rest.
 
I find the whole practice of keeping a copy of one's mind to be used as a memento somewhat disturbing. I can perhaps overlook it between lovers - the intricacies of their relationship is their business - but doing something like that out of curiosity (which is what we are giving her/it out for, 'an object of study') is a bit too much.
I mean, you're not wrong, but the other options are to leave it to slowly die or kill it right now.
 
I argue in favor that this in not killing - as it itself tells you, it is not alive - but putting the spirits of the dead people to rest.

I am not sure what exactly is happening and whether the afterlife of the castle inhabitants is affected in any way if something keeps clinging to their identities. Though the symbol 'Rest' affecting the guardians made me think they really are spirits trapped by the book's magic, I can't insist on my interpretation - especially after getting it wrong the first time.*

* though there is a mention of concecrating the grounds, so... maybe?

I don't think keeping it around in whatever quality hurts Aoi any - the woman is long dead. But I also don't think the relic thinks it belongs to this world - it has no meaning, only causes suffering, and being only able to perceive the world like Aoi did, it 'suffers' for it as Aoi would despite being aware it is not her, and is not alive. I can think of nothing to relieve it short of having Aoi leave this vessel, in a way that Aoi would feel appropriate. So... if Aoi would find herself turned into a ghost feasting on people, what would she think the solution would be?

Being offered as a guinea pig to some other master does not strike me as one.

If the dragon could repurpose the relic, I'd probably be fine with it, but then I find its purpose dubious in the first place, and I doubt we could tell him what to do with it. Without Aoi, it is just an item.
 
Last edited:
Right, the nature of the dancers is unclear, which wasn't deliberate. My bad.

A big thing in Bunraku's setting is that the gates of the Underworld are closed, which prevents souls from passing on into the afterlife. As a result, a dead soul finds "rest" usually by letting go of its worldly attachments and falling into a kind of eternal sleep within its own bodily remains, but it is still present in the physical world (which makes disturbing dead bodies very dangerous).

The true Aoi died in Heaven's fall, and so her soul probably passed on before the gates closed. But the celebrants in the castle are ghosts, and they are kept in this delusion by the skull, out of the guilt felt by Aoi's memory. Breaking the skull (or taking it away) would remove the source that powers their nightly illusion, and the ghosts would likely fall asleep, which Tomoe would help with a few prayers and a libation.

Removing the skull one way or another puts the dead dancers to rest, while leaving it lets them go on repeating their final night until the skull's memory unravels and it runs out of power. As far as the ghosts are concerned, it is a question of whether Tomoe decides that it is better for a soul to realize it is dead and fall asleep until the day the Underworld opens its gates again, or if it is better to never know you are dead and embrace a joyful delusion. The dilemma around the skull is a bit more intricate, as it touches on questions of selfhood and what makes someone real.
 
which Tomoe would help with a few prayers and a libation.
Almost asked what was stopping us from doing this with the "take the skull to Summer" option, but I guess it's that that would mean taking the skull some distance from the castle so that the illusion stopped, stashing the skull there, walking back to the castle, consecrating it, and then going back to where we left the skull?
 
Almost asked what was stopping us from doing this with the "take the skull to Summer" option, but I guess it's that that would mean taking the skull some distance from the castle so that the illusion stopped, stashing the skull there, walking back to the castle, consecrating it, and then going back to where we left the skull?
You'd consecrate the castle in both cases, I just didn't put it in the "take the skull" option because I expect my players to read my mind I guess :V

(if you've followed my previous Quest efforts you'll know that I have issues with conveying the right amount of information in my voting options)
 
As far as the ghosts are concerned, it is a question of whether Tomoe decides that it is better for a soul to realize it is dead and fall asleep until the day the Underworld opens its gates again, or if it is better to never know you are dead and embrace a joyful delusion.
Not that anyone is voting for the option to leave everything as is, but wouldn't it be a strange question for Tomoe to have considering how she chose to deal with 'Aoi' by awakening her and forcing her to face the truth?

Also, I don't think the impetus to consume the memory of living beings would be removed if 'Aoi' is left alone. Or was it specifically our memory that she's been after because of our blood? I am still not entirely sure what came over her - the personality we are talking to does not seem to be the type to lead a parasitic existence at the expense of other living souls while they simultaneously regret their actions that caused innocents to die.
 
I am still not entirely sure what came over her - the personality we are talking to does not seem to be the type to lead a parasitic existence at the expense of other living souls while they simultaneously regret their actions that caused innocents to die
She got stuck in a recursive action loop, where the role ensured that she try to stay in the role
 
[X]Smash the skull, consecrate the ruins, and bring the recorded memory and the trapped ghosts a true, final rest.
 
[X]Smash the skull, consecrate the ruins, and bring the recorded memory and the trapped ghosts a true, final rest.

ALL COMES TO RUIN.
 
VI. Release
VI. Release

You stare at the skull for a long time, reflecting upon what you've seen and heard.

This is not a just fate. To replay one final day endlessly, without ever forming new memories, without ever growing beyond the remembrance of that one day, losing even all other memories in time… It is no life; it is the sickness of the old, the true ancients who sit in their chairs staring at a world only they can see, forgetting all that they've ever known. And to do this, out of guilt, this memory, this record of a dead woman, is trapping dozens of souls in that delusion, a gesture of misguided kindness.

It is not kindness to allow this.

You take the skull in your hands, holding it up to your face, staring into it - but Aoi's image is truly gone, for now at least; it is only a piece of beautiful jewelry. You sigh, resigning yourself, and brandish your spear. You strike with the haft, one swift blow to end it quickly.

The spear bounces back, quivering in your hands, and the skull sits pristine.

You frown and try again, harder this time, yet to no more effect. You pick up the skull in your hands, pushing against it to crush it, and achieve nothing. Of course. It withstood a fall from the heavens to the earth. It was a relic made to endure the test of the time. Your mortal strength will not break it. You take the item under your arm and descend back into the courtyard, moving through stairs and corridors full of shadows and cold stone, the illusion fully dissipated.

You place the golden skull in the center of the courtyard, and push yourself up into the hatch of your bunraku. Rain soaking the pavement, you raise your steel titan, stepping out of the protective walls, and stand with all its might in the middle of the yard. Your body tenses against the strings of your puppet; you form your fingers into a claw-like grip, sliding them slowly across your chest, and deep within the limbs of your armor heavy cogs shift, unlocking its full strength, a striking power that cannot be sustained without damaging your frame. You grasp the immense naginata, its tree-trunk haft in both hands, and raise it high to the moon. Under your breath you whisper a wordless prayer, a string of syllables whose meaning is long forgotten. Then you strike.

The curved blade catches moonlight and for a moment it seems as if a crescent moon itself. Then it falls, putting truth to the name of your frame, a Falling Mountain.

The golden skull shatters into a hundred fragments. In that same moment comes a tidal wave of golden light, a crushing pressure that knocks you into your seat, and your vision goes blank. No, not blank. It is a blinding light which resolves itself into…

You are sitting upright in your bed, staring wide-eyed as your mother tells you the story of the daring young mortal who stole a star from the sky. She is tired - she works herself to the bone - but she is smiling at how awed you are by such a simple story. You try your hardest to commit it to memory, to never forget it.

You are sitting in the street, watching as richer men and women pass, hawking your wares with your still-childish voice. A dozen of hair pieces patiently carved out of wood and painted to attract the eye, butterflies and beetles and flowers. When the day ends you collect your earnings and you go bribe one of the servants of the old preceptor so that he'll let you curl up beneath his window and listen to the stories. You never forget a word of them.

You are sitting in court, smiling at your success, reciting all the stories you have spent these years memorizing in a voice as smooth as a river in summer. They listen to you, and you know that for now at least you will not want for food or a roof over your head. In the crowd your eyes catches that of a handsome man whose smile is a little too knowing to your taste; for a second his eyes glow with something not human, and your heart skips a beat.

You are sitting in a chariot pulled by a flock of sparrows, riding over the clouds, trying not to shriek in terror. At your side, your consort is still smiling that same smile as on the first day. Then you see them, filling your sight all at once: the glittering towers of Heaven, the dragons coiling across the skies, the stars and the moon and the sun all in the sky at once. You forget your fear then, and open your mouth in awe.

You are sitting in the tea room facing your beautiful garden. Your husband has left once again, and you keenly feel the walls around you. He means no ill will, does not intend to keep you prisoner, but sees no reason to arrange for you a visit to the human world. You sit, fanning yourself with a gold-laced fan, brushing imaginary dust off a silken kimono, sipping tea out of a porcelain cup, attended by countless servants; but your eyes are cast on the walls of your garden, and you long to hear new stories.


The deluge of visions ceases, and the world returns as you blink. The castle is gone; the radiance that washed over you has replaced it with a magnificent mansion of a style of architecture unknown to you, a building never meant to face war, all paper walls and gracile wooden beams and multi-tiered roofs, with a divine gate in the front of its alley and an orchard in its garden, a place as beautiful as a dream. Beyond that mansion are the shadows of glittering towers, flying contraptions, serpentine shapes crossing the air…

Then the image dissolves into motes of golden light. You watch as they dance across your armor, painting bright lines as if drawing the most intricate of tattoos on the steel giant's skin; and then that too fades away, and you are returned to the silent night. Even the rain soon ceases its patter.

You dig a hole in the middle of the courtyard and bury the shards of the skull in it. With your bunraku's naginata, you trace a command of rest over that tomb, then on the wall over the main door of the castle itself. In your experienced hands even the armor's clumsy controls manage to use it with the grace of a brush, its blade digging into stone and earth as long as you put in enough force. When that is done you climb down and go through every room in the castle, reciting prayers of rest for the dead while dipping your fingers into what's left of your small beer and flicking it to the ground in libation, over and over.

At last, you sit down on your mat in front of the cold fireplace. Looking around you, you can almost feel as if the dancers would materialize once again to resume their party… But no, there is only the quiet of the night, and your own thoughts hurtling through your head.

You take a long sip of sake, and collapse onto your mat.

[Resolve rank is: DETERMINED]
[Acquired character trait: A Memory of Heaven]


***​


You've been walking for two days now, and you know you are getting closer to your goal. Yesterday you spotted bandits, riding along the hills and observing you from afar, but they did not dare to approach a bunraku with their limited numbers. Later you saw a village on the horizon, but it was too far off your route to make a stop, and so you kept going, following the river always. Other than this there is little to break the monotony of the march, or to distract you from your bleak thoughts.

Now, more and more patches of fertile land are appearing, strange islands of greenery in the beaten earth of the warlands. The transition between enclaves and battlegrounds is usually more straightforward, but here it's as if both terrains were encroaching upon each other and creating a broken patchwork - and you see no human being anywhere you look, even though you are beginning to see more patches that would be big enough to sustain farms.

A tower stands off the road as if in silent greeting. You raise your armor's arm and shout out a greeting, but receive no answer. As you approach you see these are slender buildings of stone and wood, perhaps a little too slender to make good fortifications, and from their windows float - stained and frayed at the bottom - a banner sporting three stalks of wheat inside a sun at the zenith; the mon of the city of Summer.

This, then, must have been the outer perimeter controlled by the city until recent times. Why it lost that ground, you could not say; but you know now that the city is very close, a few hour's walk only. You might be there by sunset if you push yourself a bit, probably more in the early night.

Looking around you to confirm your suspicions, you see indeed a second watchtower a great distance away to the east, across the river. And looking to the west, where the hills rise like soft waves… You do not see a watchtower. Instead, you see something stranger; a faint glow over the horizon, coming from some kind of artificial structure, a building or complex of some kind whose details you can't make out. That building would have been inside the perimeter controlled by the towers when they were manned, although some fair distance off to the west.

You ponder whether you've had enough of wandering off into the supernatural unknown with that castle, and whether you can afford to delay any longer. You've run out of food (with fish an unreliable addition at best), of drink other than water, and are looking more ragged every day, not a great first impression when introducing yourself to a lord. If you take a detour, you will certainly put another day between you and your arrival. And you'll probably learn why the city had to pull back when you get there. That said, there is a faintly glowing man-made structure only a couple hours away, and who knows what could be there?

[ ]Ignore the structure and head directly for Summer.
[ ]Head for that unknown place to investigate it.
 
Last edited:
...We'll probably look like a dishevelled disgrace before the dragon anyway, because we are a dishevelled disgrace, and it's a dragon with astronomically high standards.

I don't know. The dragon isn't going to take us on appearances, and if investigating the structure lets us do something useful to Summer we have a better in than just showing up as we are.

[X]Head for that unknown place to investigate it.
 
Back
Top