Archive Stories/Tale of the Redcrane

**Saga of the Redcrane** is a story from The Archives, revealed piece-by-piece across several Tomes.

This page intends to collect all parts of this story in a single place.

## Summary

In the enigmatic expanse of the Many-Realms, Saku, an ageless wanderer, relentlessly hunts members of the malevolent Black Serpent Society. As she navigates through perilous territories, she confronts cannibals in eerie tunnels, grapples with deceitful visions in foreboding forests, and evades death in a haunted coliseum teeming with undead gladiators. Throughout her journey, she uncovers a myriad of strange phenomena—from a morbid hand-shaped stone offering to a macabre graveyard of statues with eerily blank faces. This realm challenges not only her physical prowess but her mental fortitude, as she's constantly barraged by illusions aiming to break her spirit and purpose.

During her journey, she displays unexpected compassion, rescuing a trapped horse from under a monstrous creature. Yet, the ever-present danger of the Black Serpent Society looms large. Discovering an enigmatic scroll that seems resistant to fire, she's cornered by members of the Society. Faced with returning the scroll or facing death, Saku, with her indomitable spirit, chooses to battle, cementing her unwavering commitment to rid her homeland of this pervasive darkness.

## Story

### Tale of the Redcrane

This part of the **Tale of the Redcrane** was revealed in Tome 14 - Betrayal.

#### Part 1

*The strange thing, Saku reflected, was that she didn’t seem to be aging. She had been traveling through the Many-Realms, searching for her enemies for what felt like thousands of centuries, and yet she didn't feel a day older. There was so much she still didn’t understand. She had learned about other worlds and people and their unique cultures and languages, and though she knew a lot about these different worlds, she knew very little about the Many-Realms. This dark and mysterious place made of nightmares that she had unwittingly entered long ago while chasing down Black Serpent disciples through a veil of fog. Saku had tracked down and killed twelve of the twenty-one disciples. Nine remained. But Saku wasn’t worried. She would get them sooner or later. Time was somehow on her side.*

*Now Saku followed bars of blue-tinged light along a track through dark tunnels of concrete covered in graffiti. She halted as she saw a bright light approach her. Quickly, she sprang to the side and vaulted up on a ledge just as a train filled with bodies came charging past her with a rush of air and the stench of rotting flesh.*

*When the train passed, Saku jumped back down on the tracks and continued through the darkness, following the glowing blue bars as the fog began to thicken and she heard crows cawing somewhere in the distance. She instinctively grabbed the hilt of her katana as dozens of cannibals with gleaming red eyes and rotten teeth suddenly surrounded her.*

*The cannibals closed in on her slowly. Then, with a terrible shriek, they attacked. She evaded several blows with crude weapons and backed away. When they rushed her again, she unsheathed her katana and turned into a tempest of blood.*

*With incredible speed, Saku cut through the horde like weeds. She fought twenty rounds before it was all over. Then she wiped her katana and walked away without looking back as the sounds of crows feasting on freshly cut flesh echoed through the tunnel.*

*Carefully, Saku followed the tracks and stopped only when she heard a voice calling out for help. It wasn't a voice she recognised, but it was somehow coming from all directions as if it were in her head.*

*Saku turned round and round but didn’t see anyone. She heaved a deep breath and figured the world was once again playing tricks on her as it often did. Ignoring the voice, she continued her journey through the subway, and emerging out of the tunnel, she found herself submerged in an ocean of fog as she pushed her way into another realm.*

#### Part 2

*After many days of wandering through a rocky desert, Saku heard whispers in the breeze leading her to a forest with thick, giant trees as tall as mountains. Cautiously, she followed the voice, wondering if the world was helping her on her journey to destroy the Black Serpent Society or toying with her. As though the growing fog could read her thoughts, she suddenly saw a serpent head in the distance. Slowly, she approached the towering structure and halted when she realized what it was.*

*An offering to the Black Serpent.*

*Bodies stacked upon bodies, all twisted and warped to resemble a serpent’s head. Dripping vines as thick as a leg held the bodies together. A dozen symbols carved into the flesh writhed and crawled with worms and insects. Beneath the offering was a sign inscribed with crimson letters written in a language she didn't understand. She had seen several of these offerings back home and she knew the creator was not far from the creation; or, perhaps, was still embedded in the structure.*

*With great care, Saku inspected every inch of the offering. None of the faces seemed to be alive. No nostrils flared. No eyes blinked. No fingers twitched. Then as she turned away from the offering, she heard a laugh. A deep sonorous laugh. Instantly, she peered in the darkness and saw a man in a dark robe beckoning her.*

*Fixing her gaze on the Black Serpent disciple, she determined to end his days as a corruptor and slice him into ribbons. The blood in her veins warmed as she closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, preparing to attack.*

*In her mind's eye, Saku saw herself rushing through the trees, leaping, and slicing right through his neck. Then her eyes snapped open and she began a slow gait toward her enemy. Her pace quickened to a deadly sprint. Within moments she lunged into the air with her gleaming katana. A second later she landed, staring at the disciple as the head fell with a heavy thud and rolled to a stop by a pile of thick leaves. A geyser of arterial blood sprayed the ancient trees. But —*

*The torso didn't stagger.*

*Didn't convulse.*

*Didn't collapse.*

*Instead, it squatted and searched the ground for its missing head. Realising this was all a trick being played on her by a cruel world, she cursed her frustration as the severed head began to laugh at her.*

*The apparition stood, holding the laughing head, every cackle adding to her humiliation. With a terrible cry, Saku sliced the false serpent into a thousand pieces, each piece burning like a bright orange ember as it fell and disintegrated into the stewing fog from which it had been born.*

*After a long silence, Saku continued through the forest toward another realm as massive branches suddenly crashed down all around her, trying to crush her like a bug. Slicing through falling branches, she rushed through the onslaught — leaping, dodging, somersaulting—and she didn’t stop until she was out of the woods.*

#### Part 3

*For days Saku pushed on blindly through the realms until she reached the edge of a rocky cliff. Ahead she saw a tower standing atop a column of rock that rose from the darkness below. Just above the tower there hovered a strange airship covered in purple gore and dead creatures with squid-like heads and tentacles dangling from the sides. A wooden ladder connected to the cockpit was lowered to the tower`s roof. Someone was searching for something inside the tower.*

*Cautiously, Saku inched along the rocky crest and noticed a wooden bridge extending from the cliff to the tower`s entrance. Wanting to inspect the abandoned structure, she carefully inched across the creaking bridge and nearly fell three times. But each time she managed to regain her footing until finally she was at the base of the tower.*

*Entering the tower, Saku soon discovered it was full of journals written in Korean and filled with illustrations of strange insects and creatures observed in the realm. She moved from room to room as she ascended the spiral wooden stairs to the roof. In each room, she found stacks of endless journals of a despairing mind. A mind not unlike her own. A mind that longed for companionship and laughter and talks under moonlit skies.*

*Saku had been alone for what seemed like an eternity and more than anything she missed talking and laughing with friends and family. Her journey had taken its toll on her, and for a second, just a second, she contemplated making this tower her final resting place. But as despair began to overwhelm her senses, she heard a voice calling out to her for help. A voice that seemed to be coming from the roof.*

*With a start, Saku dashed up the stairs, unexpectedly scaring a young man who froze wide-eyed for a moment as though he recognised her. Then the young man grabbed a collection of scrolls and bolted up the stairs screaming for someone named Haley.*

*Saku cried for him to stop and chased him up to the roof. Not to hurt him but to know more about who he was, where he came from, and how he ended up traveling on an airship in this endless nightmare. But it was too late. By the time she rushed through the doorway, the airship ladder had been pulled up into the cockpit, and the heavy motor was moaning a lonesome note into the endless abyss.*

*Slowly but surely, the airship pushed through the billowing fog, sounding a deep fog horn now and then so as to ward off creatures of the abyss.*

*Saku stared after the airship for a long time after it disappeared. Then she staggered back and collapsed beside a human skeleton secured in a bolted chair with a fishing rod in his hands. Countless bones of strange creatures he had pulled out of the abyss lay around him.*

*Saku laughed out loud for a moment, then she went silent, and tears began down her cheek. She shuffled back, grabbed the bottle in his bony hands and soon downed the liquid fire. Then she grabbed the rod and cast a line out into the swirling fog below.*

*There Saku spent hours catching nothing and talking about everything to absolutely no one. Then she climbed over the edge of the outer wall and for a moment she wanted let go of everything and let herself fall when suddenly —*

*She heard the voice.*

*She fell back into a pile of bones with a terrible clatter and laughed and cursed at herself for letting the nightmare get to her. Clambering to her feet, she staggered down the stairs, and continued her journey through the Many-Realms.*

#### Part 4

*Slightly hungover, Saku approached a graveyard of ancient statues carved out of rocks as large as mountains illuminated by a shimmering green light that didn’t seem to be coming from any apparent source. As she moved through the massive, overgrown, crumbling arms and legs and heads on the ground, she couldn’t help but notice the faces of the statues were blank. There were no features. No eyes. No cheeks. No lips. Nothing. Just a blank slate. And as she passed the fallen statues, she heard a slight crumble and crackle of stone. Turning, she spotted the Black Serpent disciple in a thick black kimono meditating in the middle of the open palm of a severed, stone hand.*

*Narrowing her gaze, Saku stared at the disciple for a long while, trying to decipher if he was real or just another attempt for this dark world to humiliate her. An instinct told her he was one of the twenty-one she had followed into the Many-Realms.*

*Stealthily, she approached him like a panther on the hunt. She climbed the crumbling wrist and squeezed her way through two plump fingers. And just as she withdrew her katana with a ring and leaped to end his days as a servant of darkness, a massive hand caught her mid-air and lifted her to face its empty face. Then the empty face seemed to morph in and out of a thousand different faces as though she were staring at the very mask of eternity.*

*Saku shuddered at the sight and quickly turned to the open palm on the ground. The disciple was already gone. She cursed something terrible. Her face hardened, and she twisted and thrust out of the giant statue’s grip, falling on the ground like a nimble cat.*

*A second later a fist came crashing down, sending a rain of dirt and debris high in the air. With great speed, Saku evaded blow after blow as the giant statue devastated the graveyard, searching for her.*

*The giant statue lifted limbs and thrust them against the ground. But Saku leaped from hiding place to hiding place as she waited for her chance to escape. And through this graveyard of fallen idols, she played cat and mouse for twenty or so rounds before the giant finally gave Saku the opportunity she needed to escape through a column of swirling fog.*

#### Part 5

*A scream rang out from just beyond the woods. Saku bounded up the hill, past dead creatures and impaled bodies and entered the arched doorway of an overgrown coliseum. She rushed up crumbling steps into the stands and moved slowly toward the ancient arena. She froze suddenly at the sight of the Black Serpent disciple she had been tracking for the last few days or weeks — she couldn’t quite remember. He was lying on his stomach, eating dirt, groaning and agonizing with four bleeding stumps where arms and legs used to be. A pool of sticky, crimson blood grew around him.*

*Slowly, Saku approached the dying man, waiting for him to disappear into the fog like all the other cruel apparitions the world had created for its amusement. But when he didn’t disappear, or laugh at her, she realized he was real and not a fabrication of the nightmare.*

*Saku moved closer and prodded and pushed the torso with her foot until he was lying on his back, staring up at her with bloodshot eyes and trembling lips. Frothy saliva and blood made bubbles as he desperately begged for a quick end.*

*Instead, Saku stepped back, sat crossed-legged in the dirt and watched him die the slow and miserable death he deserved. As he begged for the swiftness of her sword, crows appeared from the darkness and surrounded the squirming worm of a man. Then they picked and pecked at the human worm until there was nothing left but bones.*

*When the crows disappeared into the darkness, Saku rose and dusted the dirt off her kimono. Taking a deep, calming breath, she withdrew her katana and decapitated the head. She watched the head roll away as the sky darkened and it began to rain bone and gore.*

*Saku looked up at the sky, confused, but not surprised. She had never experienced anything like it, and sensing danger, she rushed into a nearby tunnel, wiping off chunks of flesh and pulling out a piece of sharp bone that had pierced her shoulder.*

*Patiently, Saku waited at the edge of the tunnel as the arena thrashed with flesh and filled with blood. Over the thumping organs and entrails, she heard a clang behind her. Slowly, she turned around to face —*

*Dozens upon dozens of undead gladiators.*

*With a deep sigh, she held her katana at the ready as she slowly backed into the gore-covered arena. The gladiators approached her slowly then, all at once, rushed her with axes, spears, and heavy swords.*

*Saku battled the gladiators until the last head rolled and the hellish shrieks and cries ceased. Exhausted, she staggered back and collapsed into a crimson stew of death. There she stared up at the night sky, hoping against hope to wake up from the nightmare that had become her life.*

#### Part 6

After weeks of tracking Black Serpent disciples through strange and brutish realms, Saku found herself pushing through a marsh of thick grass and deep, putrefied flesh like mud. Several times she got stuck, then found the strength to pull herself free and continue despite the barrage of dark and despairing thoughts that continued to assail her with every step.

*At last, she traversed the marsh but collapsed right at the edge. With trembling arms and legs, she clambered to her feet and froze, staring at jagged mountains in the distance.*

*Paralysed by despair, she realized she didn’t know what she would do once she fulfilled her promise and killed the last disciple. Nothing she did would ever bring her clan back, and for a moment, she wanted to fall back and let herself sink into oblivion.*

*There would be nothing after. No anger. No hate. No revenge. Just loneliness and all the memories of what had been lost. Slowly, Saku extended her bloody hands in front of her face and stared at them for a long moment. Then she lowered her hands and winced in pain. A slow trickle of puss dripped down the length of her arm from a deep wound.*

*Saku had to take care of the injury before it festered.*

*Or, she didn’t.*

*She wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore.*

*The despair was stronger than it had ever been. It clouded her judgment — blurred meaning and memory so that she couldn’t fully remember her reasons, her purpose, her past. And now the only thing she felt was —*

*Abandoned.*

*By everyone she ever knew and loved.*

*And she knew this was an absurd thought but couldn’t help thinking it.*

*Saku stood there for what felt like an eternity, just staring at the mountain before her. Feeling alone, she closed her eyes and tried to remember bits and pieces of her life. With difficulty, she remembered faces, voices, and laughter. And she remembered —*

*Her promise.*

*Her promise to bring her clan honour by finishing what they had started.*

*By eliminating the Black Serpent Society once and for all.*

*But first Saku needed to eliminate her doubt and despair, crippling thoughts and feelings amplified by the living nightmare. Opening her eyes, she crushed each dark thought like a psychic bug. Then, from a small pouch, she pulled out a piece of cloth and proceeded to dress her wound.*

*And as she did, a strained voice called out for help. At first faintly, and then louder and louder. She didn’t try to understand any of it. And though she knew the nightmare could be setting her up for a trap, she followed the voice toward the mountains.*

#### Part 7

Through the silver light of the moon, Saku followed a trail of twisted, crushed and half-eaten bodies, searching for the one calling out to her for help. She clambered over piles of armoured soldiers from all time periods who had fought a hopeless battle against an enormous creature with dozens of tentacles the size of buildings. The lifeless tentacles still held mangled soldiers and civilians in its death-grip, mouths wide open, frozen in terror. It seemed like the creature had attacked hundreds of survivors from other worlds who had perhaps come together to make some kind of a home in the nightmare. But it didn’t matter what anyone did to feel normal again, somehow the horror always found a way.

*Saku had seen it countless times during her travels throughout the Many-Realms. The fragments of communities that had somehow risen from the ashes of destroyed and forgotten worlds only to be destroyed by some incomprehensible creature from the abyss. It was futile.*

*Taking in the aftermath of the battle, Saku sighed at the carnage all around her. It had taken hundreds of soldiers to kill the creature and yet she wasn’t sure if it was dead. As she scanned the bodies, she noticed the tentacles twitching now and then. But she ignored the erratic movements as involuntary death-spasms as she followed a decomposing tentacle through a wall of fog toward a faint neighing sound.*

*As she followed the tentacle, the neighing grew louder and somehow made words in her head. She kicked over and pushed aside bodies searching for the source of the pleas until at last she found a struggling horse in a thick stew of gore trapped underneath a massive tentacle.*

*Cautiously, she squatted beside the struggling horse and watched it for a long moment as its desperate calls formed words in her mind. She didn’t try to understand any of it. And she didn’t think it could be understood. This world had shown her that everything she thought impossible was possible and that anything that could be imagined could somehow exist somewhere in the nightmare.*

*Now Saku told the horse everything was going to be okay and that she would get him out of his predicament as she struggled to lift the tentacle. Her words seemed to reassure him. But just as he neighed to thank her, the massive eye of the creature blinked open.*

*The eye blazed like no eye should ever blaze.*

*And without hesitation Saku whirled and plunged her katana into its pupil. Blood splattered and instantly filled the white of the eye, and the creature shrieked terribly as it issued its last breath. Withdrawing her katana, Saku returned to the horse, sliced the massive tentacle, and freed him. Then she mounted the grateful horse and rode off into the abyss.*

#### A Fury of Blood

*The gory head Saku tossed into the fire ignited and sent glowing embers thrusting into the night sky. The dancing flames lighted her sombre expression as she unravelled a scroll made of human skin and examined the ancient symbols. She couldn’t decipher what any of the symbols meant; but, as firelight glinted in her eyes, she noticed that several of the symbols began to shiver and squirm and change into other symbols. It was as if the symbols were alive. But Saku knew this to be impossible and was sure her mind was playing tricks on her.*

*With a start, she tossed the scroll in the growing fire. Then she rose and stood amongst the hacked corpses of her enemy, adding logs of bone and flesh to the hungry, upleaping flames. And there she stood, slowly feeding the fire, hoping against hope that one day she would rid her beloved country of the Black Serpent Society.*

*Saku watched the pyre burn until all that remained was a pile of ashes and —*

*The untarnished scroll.*

*She squatted by the smouldering heap and pulled the scroll out of the ashes as she heard the distinct click behind her.*

*“Return what is ours, and you will live!”*

*Saku turned to face several thugs in serpent armour with pistols at her. Her answer was the gleam of a blade and a fury of blood.*

## Trivia

**Saku's** story continues in the Saga of the Redcrane.