Pilgrim 4, p.2
Pilgrim 4, page 2
Tier
Stone Behavior
Subranking
Clay Color
Adept
Stone
Green
Mancer
Float the stone
Crystal
White
Wielder
Shatter the stone
Diamond
Blue
Reaver
Repair the stone
Golden
Yellow
Divinator
Dissolve the stone
Soul
Purple
Part One
.Chapter One.
Danzen Ravja traced his paintbrush over his mother’s work, finishing up what she had started before her death.
In less than an hour, his day would be ruined by an encounter with a monstrous yokai. Yet at the time, he would have never known that, Danzen using his moment of quiet to reflect on what needed to happen next. Not only would he forge the northern passage, allowing a more secluded passageway from the east to the north, he also planned to collect enough remnants to rebuild Sunyata, heaven itself.
Was it even possible?
This was something that had been heavy on his mind over the last few days, even if those around him had assured him that it was worth a try.
“Everything is worth a try,” Jelmay had said the previous night, the bakeneko picking at his teeth with his nail, his eyes a bit glossy from some liquor he had procured in the yokai village of Osul.
Kudzu, who had remained quiet up until that point, offered her opinion as well: “I have to agree with the bakeneko, even if I’m doing so begrudgingly. We have to try. We’ve been discussing this a lot recently and if there’s a chance it can work, then it will be worth it.”
“It’s all about balance,” Jelmay said, which wasn’t the first time Danzen had heard this explanation. “Remember, right now we just have a hell, Diyu, which is a great place to end up. Am I right? Am I the only one excited to one day be forced to go to hell? No?”
As he thought about the conversation, Danzen continued with the work on the monastery that his mother had started. Something in the task of going over her lines reminded him of how he had first sought her out at her nunnery after learning Shodren was alive. She later joined him in Genshin Valley, the truth eventually making itself known once his mother revealed that she had other plans for Danzen, Shodren hoping that he would take his father’s throne in an effort to rebuild Sunyata.
But that was out of the question.
No matter what his father Tengir Gantulga did, no matter how hard he tried to force him to one day become the ruler of Diyu, Danzen would resist. He had seen enough death and bloodshed to last a lifetime, and even if there were parts of hell where those with power, like his half-brother, Nomtoi, could live in relative comfort, he wanted no part of it.
Hence Danzen’s desire to get moving, to begin the next part of this journey. Alongside his companions, he would venture to Abbot Monpo’s fox shrine the very next morning. They would take the northern passage as a group, led by Sansar, the three-legged raven who had been working with Danzen’s mother all along, and Galzo, a winged wolf they had befriended.
Since moving to Genshin Valley, Danzen had not only learned of the existence of yokai, he had been hunted ruthlessly by a number of assassins, most of whom he had killed. From Shunta to Norwin Dawa, one by one, Danzen had stopped those who wanted him dead. Yet Soko remained, his former lover killing the Witch of Diyu before his very eyes. For all he knew, the masked woman had since traveled to the mountains outside of Sainshand to retrieve the witch’s potent poisons. Wherever Soko was, he knew that she would one day find him, which was yet another thing he would have to be wary of in his upcoming travels.
Earlier that morning, as he bent his echo alongside Yato, Danzen had wondered when that inevitable encounter would come. Soko could be as patient as she was impulsive, and the fact that she was still alive kept him on edge, making him wish that he was a bit less stationary than he was forced to be at his monastery.
There was no telling when she would come for him.
A sudden noise outside caught Danzen’s attention, and two voices met his ears, his mood souring to some degree. The second voice belonged to Usagi, the jade rabbit that could be as helpful as he was a thorn in their side starting up an argument with Jelmay.
“Why did you come all the way up here if you’re just going to bicker with me?” Jelmay moaned. “You could have just stayed at the bottom of the hill and waited for me to come down on my own time.”
“If you’re going to open the northern passage, you should have already left by now. Yet you are sitting here doing what?”
“Thinking; counting the clouds; waiting for Pilgrim to finish mourning, or painting, or whatever; waiting for the first star to appear in the sky; seeing how long I can stare at the sun; coming up with my next scam—all the things that bakeneko do on their day off, well, aside from the Pilgrim part.”
“Hmmpf! If you must know, I come with news,” Usagi said with a strong sigh.
“Usagi is here,” Yato called into the monastery, the young assassin peeking her head in and smiling.
Danzen continued painting over his mother’s outline, not yet ready to deal with the argumentative yokai. Kudzu, who had been resting in his bedroom, slowly trotted into the main space of the monastery, the white fox with her ears pressed back, her whiskers on edge at the sound of Usagi’s voice.
“This better be good…”
The next voice Danzen heard was one that he was still getting used to, the voice belonging to the three-legged raven named Sansar. “We will set out in the morning, Usagi, you are already aware of this.”
“What the bird said,” Jelmay relayed to the jade rabbit. “It really makes no sense that you would come all the way up here to scold us for not leaving already, especially when you already know we are planning to leave tomorrow.”
“It’s only because…” Usagi seemed to grumble to himself for a moment. “Because of the way that you announced your intentions of rebuilding Sunyata, word has spread through the forest of what you are planning to do, and word has come back to me that there are those that aren’t interested in what you are planning to do.”
Jelmay shrugged him off. “So you’re telling us that people, or better, yokai, don’t agree with us wanting to rebuild Sunyata?”
“That’s right, and they may be planning something…”
It was at this point that Danzen put his paintbrush down.
He smoothed his hands over his robes and got to his feet, noticing that there was a small fleck of gold paint on his nail.
The former assassin stepped outside of the monastery, where he found Jelmay lying on the hill next to Yato, the bakeneko not yet bothering to sit up. Kudzu was seated on the other side, Sansar perched on the roof of the monastery looking down at the three of them. Danzen’s two stone lion dogs were there as well on their perches, both still at the moment. The only one missing was Nomin, the blind assassin volunteering to retrieve food for the night.
It was a warm day, the summer in full effect, the wind moving through the trees and whistling in a sweet and pleasant way. The previous day had been hotter, and the slight drop in temperature was welcoming, which was one reason the others had all been relaxing. Danzen had mostly avoided the confines of his monastery during the heat of the day, but today was different, and with the doors open, the front and the back, the space had been cooled off, comfortable for once, allowing him to finish his mother’s work.
“Ah, he decides to join us,” Usagi said, his whiskers twitching, the rabbit baring his two front teeth as he spoke. “Maybe you will be the voice of reason for this bunch.”
Danzen nodded.
“Ugh. Again with the silence. Anyway, I came here to warn you. And you owe me for that, I should add, forcing me to come all the way up this wretched hill!”
Jelmay started to laugh. “Owe you? You could have sent someone else to warn us. You didn’t have to come yourself. Where’s Monobake? Send that shear-headed idiot.”
“Quiet, you! Pilgrim, ahem, sorry about the bakeneko. I’m here to tell you that the longer you wait, the more trouble you will run into here in the Valley,” said Usagi. “Not only here, but along the passage itself. Word spreads quickly, you know.”
“And let me guess,” Jelmay said, “you’re here to offer us some sort of protection. Maybe if we cough up some kip or some antiquated relic, our little trip will all of a sudden become easier, and the supposed yokai that are out there trying to get us will no longer be interested. Sound about right?”
Kudzu scowled at the jade rabbit. “I agree with the bakeneko. You aren’t the kind of yokai that gives out information freely.”
This seemed to rile up Usagi, who stood tall for a moment, his cheeks puffing out, eyes bulging. “How… how dare you!”
Jelmay started to laugh once again. “Your theatrics aren’t going to work on me today, not this afternoon, at least. It’s too nice out. We haven’t had a nice day like this in a week. How old are you? A couple hundred years, give or take? I must say, Usagi, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack if you keep stressing out like you do. What did you actually come up here to tell us? Did you just come to warn us? Or do you want something?”
“You ask what I want? I’ll tell you what I want! I… I am in agreement that the opening of the northern passage would benefit yokai as well. It has been a very long time, a thousand years or more, since yokai have used that passage. It’s too dangerous, especially with the demonic fog that makes it practically unnavigable. If you are able to open it again, it would benefit all of us. I’m not talking about rebuilding Sunyata, if that is even possible. So that’s why I’m here. I wanted to tell you that you should leave soon, and that you need to keep your guard up.”
Jelmay snorted at this suggestion. “It’s like you haven’t met Pilgrim here. If anyone has their guard up, it is the man who has been trained from birth to kill indiscriminately. Not to mention that we have Lady Pilgrim, who, I must say, is getting stronger.”
Yato offered Jelmay a funny look, the breeze blowing strands of her long black hair across her face. “Thank you… I think.”
“Want another? We have Blind Pilgrim, who is off doing whatever a blind assassin back from the dead does on an afternoon when she’s supposed to be bringing back food. I get it. I get it! You came here for a meal, didn’t you?”
“No, but…” Something akin to a smirk took shape on Usagi’s face. “But I wouldn’t turn one down if you offered it to me. It is a long hop back to my hovel. I wouldn’t mind something to drink as well. Perhaps some spirits? I know you picked something up in Osul the other day, or maybe you have some of the human kind. I would have gotten some myself out of your home, but I wanted permission to enter.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Jelmay said. “You convince the fox here to turn into a human and go down to my home and bring back the alcohol I picked up—for you and me to share, of course—and I’ll let you stick around for dinner. Deal?”
Kudzu shook her head. “Not happening, Jelmay. I’m quite happy where I’m at.”
“Bah…”
“I’ll go,” Danzen said, stopping an argument between the three yokai before it could start. “It will be nice to take a walk. Thank you for the warning, Usagi. We will keep it in mind.”
****
After retrieving his boomerang sword, Danzen headed down the hill toward Jelmay’s roadside home, Astra sheathed at his side, noticing as he passed that Usagi was watching him in a strange way as he bickered back and forth with Kudzu and Jelmay.
The former assassin was used to their behavior by now, Kudzu and her disdain for certain types of yokai and her fierce loyalty; Jelmay with his humorous nature, the bakeneko always scheming up something, but also proving time and time again that he could actually be trusted even though it went against Danzen’s basic instinct to do so. He still hadn’t decided what he felt about Sansar, the yokai who claimed to be from Sunyata often quiet, simply observing the others. But if Sansar had helped his mother, and he had been able to attack Danzen’s father, then Danzen would learn to trust him. Three-legged ravens were legendary, and aside from that particularly strange aspect of his appearance and his power, Sansar would be able to help with surveillance in the future, another bonus.
Danzen recalled what the former abbot of his monastery had written down in his field diary about the raven, known as either a sansokuu or a yatagarasu.
The appearance of yokai like Sansar symbolized that the end of something was near, and as far as Danzen knew, one hadn’t been seen since the time of Jimmu, the man who had founded Kishu Kingdom. Jimmu and his clan had come from the Outer Regions, where the northern passage was, in search of a better homeland. They ended up following a three-legged raven to what was now Sainshand, not far from the Diyu Brotherhood.
The rest was history.
As far as Danzen could tell, Sansar wasn’t the same raven from that time, regardless of if he was from Sunyata or not. Even if yokai lived centuries longer than humans, Jimmu’s journey was one that took place well over a thousand years ago.
This did leave Danzen wondering how the three-legged raven had come about in the first place. Did it simply appear? What was the nature of its origin, and what did his mother think of it? What had been her true perspective on Sansar’s appearance? Perhaps Menya, the nun who had taken over his mother’s monastery north of Odval, would have an answer. After all, this was where they would begin transporting Sunyata remnants that they found, storing them where they could be protected due to the remote nature of the nunnery.
By clearing the northern passage, Danzen and his group would forge a direct route between the Valley and the Outer Regions, where there could be an untold number of remnants. They would also be able to look for them in the west toward Sainshand, using traditional routes.
The only problem with that would be that remnants were highly desired, and this would leave them prone to bandits and assassins, people like Soko and those she was able to employ, those who would sacrifice their lives for kip or to get in her good graces. As Danzen had recently learned, there were other groups searching for Sunyata remnants, groups like Penumbra, a clan started by a man named Jinkai, who had bent his echo in a way that allowed him to use his shadow as weapons, not unlike Danzen’s weapon, the Blade of Darkness.
Half a decade ago, Danzen had been given a contract by the Brotherhood to take out several of Jinkai’s Penumbra clansmen. Strangely enough, he’d never been given a contract on the man himself, and there was no indication if Jinkai was alive or dead.
The opening of the northern passage would allow them to circumvent groups that may be trying to loot remnants, groups like Penumbra. With the help of yokai, and its remote nature, it would be the best transportation route for them, Danzen was sure of it, but he also knew that there would be other factors involved, from his demonic family and their constant interference to combative yokai.
Danzen reached Jelmay’s home, the one built by Suja villagers Khamdo and Temur, the home seemingly tucked away in the Asura Forest providing him some seclusion. Danzen hadn’t spent much time there, mostly because of a sizing issue. Jelmay’s house was custom-built for him, and the bakeneko was stout in nature at just about a yard tall, his home constructed to reflect this.
As he approached the front door, movement to his left caught Danzen’s attention, an enormous beast tearing out of the woods and charging straight at him.
Trees began to fall, one of them destined for Jelmay’s rooftop.
Danzen withdrew his blade and was just about to send it in the direction of the disturbance when the monster stopped, shoulders heaving up and down, a wicked look on its mangled face, eyes red, skin mottled brown and covered in pustules. The yokai was twice the size of a bull, overweight and dragging its distended belly against the ground through the usage of four long limbs, each with a single claw where a normal bovine’s hooves would have been.
“Leave the northern passage be,” said the enemy yokai, saliva dripping from its mouth.
Crack!
Jelmay’s home collapsed under the weight of a second tree, the ground shaking as Danzen glared the yokai down.
“What say you, half-demon?” the yokai asked in a snarl, its mouth full of sharp gray teeth that were spaced out, easily an inch between each canine.
With the flick of his wrist, Danzen sent Astra flying forward, his boomerang sword stabbing into the yokai’s eye and magically returning to his hand. He could sense by the way it was behaving that there was going to be no bargaining here, and nothing at this point would stop Danzen from trying to rebuild Sunyata.
The enemy yokai had to die.
Roaring in a mixture of anger and pain, the yokai snapped its neck back, curving its huge body up as it brought both claws down to the ground, a shockwave of force actually causing Danzen to lose his balance.
While certainly girthy, the yokai wasn’t large enough to be able to produce something like that, unless…
The monster went for the same maneuver, the shockwave taking down more of the trees around Danzen, collapsing them all around him, the falling branches and upturned roots becoming increasingly difficult to avoid. Like Usagi—who had clearly had a hand in this attack—this yokai seemed to have some command over its echo.
This also gave Danzen a new notion, one he hadn’t really considered even though it should have been clear to him before. Anything could cultivate its echo, the creature’s size and physical prowess less of a factor than he had originally considered.
“You will die!” the yokai growled again, a great wave of force taking shape all around Danzen. He dropped slightly and sent all of his power into his legs, launching well above the tree line just as the yokai released another shockwave.
