Tenwa

Celebrations continue in the town after the lighting of the Stone Buddha's eyes. Kan Chi and Lee Ho go into retreat to consider the implications of what has just happened, the rest of the party, get down to some serious partying. MeBe investigates house in the town, which has a strange Mon inside, is it a secret temple?. Tsu Tsi practices his new spell for a week.

Krappi, Mi-Lan and MeBe start surveillance of the house. We capture an attendee and question him.

Strange moments are spotted at are boat. Krappi goes to the boat and uses the shell acquired earlier which seems to be attracting undo attention. He turns blue passes out and falls overboard, and starts to down. MeBe dives in and recovers the shell, he also turns blue and begins to down. The sailors fish them out, and Lee Ho brings them round. Mi-Lan scrubs the blue from them skin, and Tsu Tsi investigates the shell. The shell seems to contain poison, but he almost kills himself working this out, the poison is very strong, and can be used as an invisible ink. and contact poison. While we are at the boat the captive escapes.

Krappi then apologies to the Water Dragon, for poisoning the river, the Water Dragon demands that the shell be destroyed, Krappi gets this done. The Water Dragon then reports this to the Great Western Dragon.

MeBe goes to a tee house. while there he is attacked by 10 friends of the captive, MeBe escapes.

Our boats have now been prepared and are ready for departure. Lee Ho then blesses then and our equipment and horse are loaded. and we the set off.

The river divides into a maze of islands and false waterways, we stop to consider our options. Mi-Lan has gone missing again. we start to explore the maze at a slow pace, and after a number of false starts, we begin to make some headway.

We find a shrine on one of the islands and decide to stop. Also on the island is a pit / cavern which one of Krappi's samurai's falls into. While we are investigating the pit, we discover a Taoist Genie trapped in the pit. Lee Ho arranges for the Genie to talk to Krappi for the price of the Genie's release. We then continue our journey.

We investigate the box.

We encounter some bodies floating in the river, that appear to have been attacked by sharks. The bodies are now fly infested. We leave the fly infected area as quickly as we can.

We arrive at a river settlement build onto a island plateau. It has a good harbour, which is overlooked by a giant Cedar tree. Lee Ho prays to the Cedar, and learns that it is very annoyed at the local population as they do not worship him anymore, we agree to help the Cedar find out why the locals do not worship anymore.

MeBe investigates the settlement, and finds a big pagoda with a triangular Mon on the door. MeBe asked to see the lord but the guard tell him the Lord Jabaloo (the governor) is not available at the moment.

The party talked to some villagers and finds a priest who explains the significance of the numbers on the Jabaloo Mon.

Love
(1) Family and Clan

Truth
(2) Harmony with World
(3) Work and Taxes

Evils
(4) Rape and Murder
(5) Devils and Spirits
(6) Disease and Dirt

Tsu Tsi volunteers to join the Jabaloo so we can try to learn what is going on. After the initiation procedure he learns that there is a second form of the triangular Mon which was far more sinister.

Evils
(1) Family
(2) Wasting Time
(3) All Gods

Truth
(4) Society of Fellows
(5) Dark Follows Light

Loves
(6) Victory Over Enemies

We talk to the Cedar spirit about the situation, and he agrees that he will help unconvert any party members who come under the influence of the Jabaloo while we destroy the cult, so under thought's conditions we decide to help the Cedar sort out his current problems.

Krappi does a very good painting of the Cedar tree while we prepare for the attack on the Jabaloo. We also explore more of the island, to see if there is anything to help in the coming battle. We discover two things of interest.

• A Monk who was a self confessed follower of the true Jabaloo, not the current perversion.
• A Faceless ghost or 'Muj-ina'.

At dawn we investigate the 'Muj-ina', and find a paddy 'Killing' field, field with spirits of dead monks. There is a sword sticking out of the centre of the paddy field, but the spirits defend the field stoically, to prevent anybody retrieving the sword. The spirits in the fields are those of monks. Lee Ho finds it very hard to exorcise / lay to rest the monks spirits. As they do not want to go, they have some unfinished business.

While we are at the ship a fish delivers a message from the 'Dragon of the West', which was :-

Fish Murders you have five days to leave the river“

Krappi send's his apologies to the Dragon, and we then return to the island. Where we are attacked by a group of islanders!. We are protected by the Cedar tree, who made us invisible, once we have eluded our attackers, we launch a attack on the Governor pagoda. We fight our way past the guarded outer doors, and get to a inner door, which is magically protected. We decide to go over rather than though, so we cut though the ceiling, which they seem to have forgotten about. While we are exploring someone sets fire to the pagoda, we escape.

We return to find the pagoda destroyed, but after some examination we find a trap door in the floor, which leads to a full grain store. and a newly build entrance down into a new set of rooms and corridors, that seemed to lead of the island. We post guards at the entrance and return to the ship to collect equipment for underground exploration, and then return to the tunnels. We change the guards and start to explore the tunnel. The tunnel runs to the left and down until it get close to one of the cliffs, then are then stairs that descend. We then proceed for a further 10 minutes under the river and find a T junction in a chamber. There are also stairs going up. We go up and find a small hut in the middle of a island, that is covered in paddy field. The fields are being tended by black robed monks. we are attacked by the monks, and after a fight we prevail. We then return to exploring the tunnel system which is quite extensive, but only find some more paddy fields with no monks, and a tunnel that seems to have been collapsed.

We return to the Cedar tree and appoint a temporary leader for the village, who is then blessed by the tree, and told to recover the sword and ring of office from the haunted paddy field. The spirits let the new leader enter the field unharmed, and once he has retrieved them most of the spirits depart for the next life. Lee Ho move the more resistant spirits on.

We then ask the Cedar tree if we have completed the job against the Jabaloo, but he does not respond. We conclude from this that there is more to do.

We continue our exploration of the tunnels, and decide to clear the rockfall. Beyond the rockfall there are more black robed monks, who attack us, and are defeated. The tunnel then leads to a volcano, that is inhabited by a monovalent Kami. There is a pagoda on a gravel bar, that is unreachable, and in the cone of the volcano there is a big jar that contains main souls - “those possessed by the Jabaloo perhaps?”

Extract from “Discourse of the Jabaloo”

The Cult of the Jabaloo is potentially a great threat to the provinces of this part of china. In its many guises and 'laws, evils and truths' it presents and acceptable face to Buddhists, Shin'to, Taoists and the bureaucrats alike. It is this acceptable, but untruthful face that hides it's many evils… If we are to avoid the subjugation of the populace, and the honoring of many devils and spirits of monovalent intent, we must find a way to defeat this scourge.

We attempt to release them while them, while the volcano Kami attacks us with lumps of very hot rock. Our first attempt is driven off. We try tying a rope around the top of the jar, and pulling it over. After some struggle we succeed, in pulling the jar over, it rolls and breaks and releases the spirits contained within. we can now gain entrance to the pagoda. Inside there are 3 Shugenja who give us a very hard time. After a long struggle 2 die, and one escapes leave very fast.Lee Ho goes astral to track the escaping Shugenja. The escaping Shugenja is engaged in combat by Gadunga-Myoo and killed. Lee Ho tanks him for his assistance. He then returns to the physical world and preforms a segati rite on the remains of the Shugenja. We return to the original island and find the inhabitants are now all right (there souls have returned).

At dawn we revisit the Cedar tree, who is pleased with out work. He has been talking to the Great Dragon of the West on our behalf.. He also tells us of location of the 'Old Dog of Tsai Ti' who we need to visit. The Old Dog is located at Mount Ti. The Great Western Dragon grants use one journey up or down the river. Mount Ti is down stream, and the source of the Yangtze is up. We decide to walk up stream, so we can use our one river journey to return to Mount Ti. We say good-bye to the boat and crew, a long acquaintance is over!

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