Blackblade 18.0 - Resident Evil: Hikon Chronicles

With Ridley gone, the rest of the group waited at a small inn. Worried about Caelan, Vol had Ragoom use a Sending spell to communicate with him; the Northman seemed alright, albiet somewhat stressed in his reply. Meanwhile, Raito commissioned Broken Tusk to produce a pile of Hats of Disguise in order for them to more easily blend in when they returned to Yeto. After three days, Ridley returned, bearing scrolls of Teleport along with a couple of other requested items, including a Bag of Holding for Vol and enough Hats of Disguise to cap the rest of the party, though the Riolythe hats were a sight more eclectic than the Asonian ones Broken Tusk enchanted. Everyone disguised themselves as Yetomen, some more elaborately than others, and practiced under Raito's tutelage at various looks and fashions for situations that might arise. With nothing else to wait for, the group convened and used the scroll, intending to finally return to Caelan. 
When the spell resolved, they found themselves standing in a cucumber patch. Sensing something to be off, Raito looked around, and quickly determined what the problem was: the spell had misfired, and instead of sending them about 2 hours outside of Shizuoka City, it had placed them about 2 hours outside of Hikon City. Sighing, Raito declared that they may as well stop by his hometown, seeing as how they were basically there already. Broken Tusk and Traveler, deciding that they were conspicuous and needed nothing in Hikon City, agreed to hide outside of town and keep their heads down, and would join up with them on the following day. The rest made their way to the city built on trade and agriculture. Upon entering, Ridley wanted to go his separate way, taking with him Yomiel, saying that he wanted someone reliable to watch his back while wandering a new place. Raito agreed to this, and after arranging a meeting place, the two disappeared into the streets. This left Raito, Ragoom and Vol to explore Hikon; Raito declared the first order of business to be a trip to the bank.
As they made their way to a bank, the group happened to come upon a public message post bearing a wanted poster for them. Unlike the one they assumed was posted in Shizuoka, this one directly named Raito Kamun, along with a description of him. It declared that a group of foreigners, led by Raito Kamun, were wanted by Lord Miro for an assassination attempt upon Mako Murakami, and a reward would be given for information regarding them or their whereabouts. Besides Raito, it contained written descriptions of Caelan, Ragoom, Broken Tusk and Yomiel, and a picture of Traveler. Almost as an afterthought, it mentioned that they might be in the company of a young man, with a very vague description of Vol that avoided suggesting his race.
Wearing a disguise, but bearing a pile of papers with his own signature and seal, Raito went to the bank and proceeded to liquidate his assets. When he received the money though, he found himself short nearly 150,000 yen from when he had last taken money out. Further inquiry determined that it was his wife who had taken the money out over the course of the last month. Armed with this information and renewed girth in his wallet, Raito left. The trio had a pleasant lunch, where they debated what to do. By the time they finished, they resolved to go to Hikon Castle, if nothing else than to see what it looked like from outside.
When they approached the gate, they found it tightly locked and heavily guarded; armed guards wearing the colours of Miro manned the guard towers and patrolled the front of the outer wall. Ducking into a Happy Noodle Man cart, they spoke to the proprietor about the situation: apparently the guards had started their rotating 24-hour vigil and complete lockdown of the castle shortly after the army had been led out. Leaving the cart and ducking into an alley, Raito determined that they would infiltrate the castle to reclaim his wealth and possessions. They planned to make themselves invisible and then, using Vol's Dimension Door spell, enter the castle grounds and take on disguises to blend in, avoiding the guard's scrutiny. Once inside, they would go into Raito's estate and claim his belongings, followed by the main estate, where they would target the Originally they considered making gardener or maid personas, when Ragoom realized that the best disguises would be that of Miro guards, as there was a decent chance that any servants within might all be of Miro's house, not Kamun's. After practicing the accuracy of their disguises, the group set out to enact their plan.
The first part of their plan went off without a hitch, and they found themselves hiding behind Raito's estate. Sneaking around the back, they found their way in through the servant's entrance leading into the kitchen; the grounds seemed eerily silent and still. The kitchen was empty. Dust covered every surface, and the foul smell of rotten food wafted out from the storage cupboards. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed or hastily abandoned, but it appeared as though no one had been in here for months. Moving into the dining room and beyond, they found the whole first floor to be likewise abandoned. With delicacy and speed, the trio collected works of art and valuable items at Raito's behest, including flower arrangements, paintings, flatware and Raito's favourite monogrammed towel, before heading upstairs. The first room on their agenda was Raito's study, where they procured Raito's entire book collection and assorted stationary and pens. Moving on, they opened the door to Raito's bedroom, where they were greeted by the staring, hollow eyes of a desiccated undead man, almost identical to those seen in the Mitsurhym. Ragoom and Vol were both paralyzed by the gaze; Raito slid the door shut, but the creature's sword sliced through the paper and wood door like it was nothing. Working quickly, the trio managed to destroy it; Ragoom's positive energy drained the unlife right out of the creature, leaving nothing but dust, a black glassy stone and the armaments it had been wielding. Vol, having never seen anything like that before, needed some consoling before he could regain his composure. Realizing that the situation was probably worse in here than they originally thought, and supposing that perhaps those guards were not stationed to keep people out as much as keep things in, they decided to keep investigating. Raito gathered his things from his room, including his wardrobe and suit of armour, as well as a wide variety of clothes and items from his wife's room down the hall. With that, Raito decided that he had collected everything of value, both monetary and sentimental, from his house, and they exited and began to move towards the main estate.
Keeping down, they passed behind the barracks, now empty of its army. Pressing up to the door, Raito caught the vaguest hint of a strange noise: a repeated, dry creak. They all agreed that it was probably more undead, and that there was nothing worth looking for in the building, seeing as how the army had been properly mustered and marched out. Passing by Kaneda's house, Raito decided not to enter, seeing as how his brother was likely to find out about his intrusion and reclaim his things from him, making it a hassle and not worth the effort. Making themselves invisible again, the three dashed across the main road that passed through the grounds one at a time, in order for Raito to cast the spell repeatedly. Ragoom nearly tripped and made a mostly-stifled cry; a guard seemed to hear him, but made nothing of the distant, disembodied noise. Hustling around back, the trio entered the main estate through the servant's entrance.
The main building appeared as empty as Raito's home, with dust and the smell of stagnant air filling their senses. Walking down the servant's corridor, they approached the main hall. Their meager efforts to remain quiet were no enough, and they heard a loud groaning and creaking react to them up ahead. Rather than fight the creatures directly, they turned and ran, passing through the kitchen and into the dining room in an attempt to come up behind the undead and avoid them. Unfortunately, they found the dining room filled with three more of the creatures, and they froze under the paralytic gaze of the zombies. Using their respective skills, the trio of adventurers were more than a match for the undead, despite their repeated falls to the numbing gaze. After having dealt with the monsters, the group could still hear the original zombies slowly catching up to them, so they took up positions by the door. One by one, the undead marched into the dining room and, apparently not intelligent enough to recognize the pattern, were summarily dispatched by the waiting men. With all of the monsters destroyed, they congratulated themselves. As they prepared to go upstairs in an attempt to reach the vault and armoury, Raito noticed that all of the art that had been decorating the room had been destroyed: paintings slashed, statues shattered and flower arrangements ripped asunder. Mourning this loss and questioning who would decide to particularly destroy works of art, they made their way up the stairs to the second floor. 
Without hesitation or delay, they went to the room where the late Lord Kamun had kept certain historically significant weapons and armour on display. Unfortunately, they found the door locked; Raito knew that the key would either be upstairs in his father's study, or on his father's person and therefore beyond their known reach. Hoping for the former, they ran up the stairs.
As they approached the third floor, the group could hear the strange sounds of chanting. They tried to climb quietly, but a loud screech told them that they had not gone unnoticed. Taking that as a cue to run, they shot upwards. Raito, intently focused on his goal, bolted up the stairs towards the fourth floor, paying no mind to the contents of the third. Ragoom and Vol, on the other hand, saw a chilling sight upon reaching the third floor landing. All of the walls, it seemed, had been ripped out, creating a large empty space. A red, glowing, all-to-familiar circle was drawn on the tatami mats in the center; a large number of the frightening undead were positioned around it, and a tengu woman stood at its center, shrieking at them and their intrusion. Vol managed to tear his gaze away, despite the numerous pairs of eyes, and he followed Raito; Ragoom was paralyzed momentarily, but managed to break away and escape before he was totally surrounded.
On the fourth floor, Raito found the door to the vault room locked, as well as that to the study; the latter had a much weaker door though, which he managed to break down relatively easily. He found the study almost barren, as though someone had collected up all of the papers and books of worth and taken them away. Further, there was no trace of the keys. Frustrated, he went back into the hall and met the others; he explained the situation as they prepared to attack the undead climbing the stairs after them. Suddenly, a loud shriek cried out, and the sounds of undead climbing after them stopped; apparently, the tengu had called them back, stopping the adventurers from attacking them one by one as they had before. At a standstill, they discussed their options; Vol asked if he should start trying to use the Rod of Pacci, in hopes of shattering the door to the vault. Raito approved of this plan, and was even more enthused when it worked on the first try; he told Vol to collect everything in the room, and to hurry. 
By the time Vol returned, saying that he had grabbed everything save for what was nailed down, the undead still had not made a move. The three steeled themselves, and then took to the offensive. Raito pushed past several zombies with the aid of a spell, then stood to attack the tengu herself; the undead had congregated in a mass by the stairs, so Vol unleashed a fireball, charring the zombies and weakening them enough for the holy energy of Ragoom to fell them all in a single blast. With their attentions turned solely on the tengu, the group savagely attacked her, and it took mere seconds until Raito's blade sliced clean through her, killing her soundly. Immediately, the circle flashed, just as it had the last time a tengu's blood had been spilled, and resolved itself as an eerie glow. Investigating a little deeper, they found that it was not actually written upon the floor: when the mat under it was moved, the runes remained stationary, and seemed to just vaguely float above the floorboards. Wanting to leave as quickly as possible, the group raced downstairs, stopping only to break the door on the display room and claim its contents. With the Kamun possessions reclaimed, Raito activated the Rod of Emergency Teleport, landing them a mile outside of the city, squarely onto a farmer's cabbage cart.
Evening now upon them, the group returned to the Happy Noodle Man cart for dinner, as they had promised the owner they would, and then retired to their inn for the evening. Some while later, Ridley wandered in, and reported what he had learned in the city. According to him, not only do Miro's guards keep the castle sealed off, but they also aggressively keep people away from the gates and arrest anyone who gets too pushy about entering. Further, guards are not the only people he had sent to town: there is apparently a strange illness going around, citizens are all advised to get medical attention right away if they should find symptoms, and Miro had sent additional clerics to the city to assist in fighting the disease. Raito and Ridley pondered this information for a moment before Ridley retired. Yomiel entered the inn not too long after Ridley, and had a moderate conversation with Raito before retiring. During their chat, Ridley popped in and mentioned that he had also heard tell of a woman who was hiring people to try and enter the castle, and couldn't figure out why he had forgotten to mention this before. After finishing with Yomiel, Ridley took Raito out towards the place where interested hires were to inquire, which turned out to be a small place in the cheaper part of town.
The pair met with a man, who told them what the job would entail; when Raito asked about the person hiring, he said that she was unavailable. Raito passed him one of the hairpieces of his wife's that he had collected earlier that day, and told the man to inform her that he had already been in the castle, that he wished to see her in order to sell her the items he had collected, and to give her this as proof. Taken aback, the man agreed and left with the comb. Raito and Ridley waited around for a while, until eventually the man returned and said that he would like to see the goods that had been reclaimed. At this point, Raito finally recognized the man as a servant of his house, the butler Mr. Fuma, and so revealed himself and asked for his wife. At this juncture, a nicely-dressed woman with long hair and a fan entered. She threw her arms around Raito in relief that he wasn't dead, then pulled back and slapped him across the face for not being dead and yet leaving her to deal with current events. The reunited couple had a conversation, gleefully watched by Ridley who was honestly enthralled that two people like those in front of him legitmately existed. Eventually, the pair retired to another room and sent Ridley, along with Mr. Fuma, to collect Misaki's things, which had been left in Vol's and Ragoom's Bags of Holding. Late in the night, they became tired, and so Raito returned to his inn room to sleep while his wife stayed in her not-uncomfortable yet certainly unglamourous and therefore inferior apartment.
Category:Banishment of the Blackblades