Upon orders from our coven leader Marius, we were to venture into the great isles of Tokuno to investigate the reasons behind Va’lis’ notes would be hidden there. Isonu mentioned that he has been attacked by stealthy characters once he had retrieved partial entries of Va’lis’ journal from deep within the Dojo. It is our charge to seek answers, so I asked one of my more formidable Legionnaires, Harvey Daniels to come along with me. We summoned our best fighters, Dragula and Alejandro to accompany us. As we were preparing our dragons, my maker Amroth came to me. He gave me a shadow sextant infused with shadow magic, certain to be more accurate. It would also glow a deep blue if there were Balrons near. Legend did have it that Tokuno has several Balrons that make it it’s residence. He hugged me and wished us both well on our journey.
We took the moongate to the Isamu-Jima isle of Tokuno and took to the north armed with the sextant and rough coordinates that Isonu had provided to our master Marius. We were far away from our target. We started the path north-bound. Along the way we encountered several healers, one in particular named Percival Coats told us of the dangers we would encounter on the isle, especially from the brigand-like ninjas that sneak about to ambush you. He said that these parts of Isamu-Jima were direly lacking in resources, which caused a lot of the inhabitants to resort to thievery for their survival. He offered up his brother, who was a mercenary, to help us in our journey. When we met Fred Coats he asked for 25,000 gold up front for his services. Something told us both that he would be well worth the penny.
We paid the man and started once again heading north. Fred spoke about a forest known as Yamandon Point. In it we would be surrounded and swarmed by Deathwatch Beetles and a sleuth of other creatures. He asked us to put our beasts on guard as we travelled through. Sure enough, there must have been hundreds of these ferocious creatures all swarming us for our flesh; apparently they are flesh-eaters. When you think of beetles, you think of them as small creatures but these… these stood as tall as I when it would rear back to attack. Harvey and I looked back as Fred would take on several of these creatures at a time with much ease. Dragula and Alejandro did their beast to clear through. At one point I thought we would have to mount our beasts and run the heck out of there, leaving our hired gun to himself. Hey, the price was paid. We made it all out alive, with only a few scratches. We made sure to cover up so that our fast healing would not alert Fred to our true nature.
The trek took several hours and we were starting to fear we’d catch the daylight hours, heaven forbid. Although our dragons know how to shield us, they would not be able to do so for very long. Not to mention we would have had to release Fred from his duties before the deed was done. Well I am not about to waste my gold, so we picked up the pace. Finally, we get there. Immediately we are ambushed by thugs in what we on earth would call Asian-inspired garb. But with two greater dragons at our disposal, these thugs quickly met their end. I wonder what are they so desperately protecting?
We were approached by a woman, who seemed friendly and quite beautiful. She smiles at us and welcomed us to the Dojo. She asked us if we would like some evening tea. We parked our beasts far from the entrance of the Dojo, hidden from view. Fred bid us adieu as his task was done by getting us safely to the Dojo. We paid him an extra 5000 gold for his trouble. As soon as the lady had us inside, however, from beauty she turned to deadly force. He pounced on Harvey first with a companion set of fans that has sharp blades attached to them, but unfortunately for her she found out about what we are way too late. “You are not living!” she screamed just before Harvey tore through her neck. At the commotion, two other women all dressed much the same, charged at us… but one stopped once she saw that we were feeding on the blood of the first one. She gasped and then went to turn around, but I leaped at her before he could make another sound. Harvey quickly expired the other one. Deadly beauties.
We waited for a small while before proceeding. No other assailants showed up. We quickly worked the room for clues, evidence, anything out of place. Nothing. But we did find a stairway that led underground. We snuck in through, but there was a wall. Luckily I brought my lock picking kit with me. I was able to unlock without much effort. As soon as we stepped through we were met with a sore sight — body parts, rotting decay, were all throughout. The stench was almost intolerable for a vampire. Harvey and I could scarcely press onward. Something had definitely gone horribly wrong. We pushed ourselves to continue past this horror only to be met with strange creatures of the necromantic kind — minions… headless corpses… evil surely lives here. We tried out best to execute our orders and search throughout, but nothing seemed out of place or of attention. We did find another set of stairs that led downward yet again. How deep does this place go?
As soon as we came through the stairs, two of these fan-wielding deadly females came at us. They quickly realized what we were however and started shouting before we could get to them. We knew at that moment we had to hurry through the place, down another set of stairs we went to meet with a band of these blade-flying warriors… ten exactly. And they felt a bit more brave than the previous one we had encountered, knowing full well our nature by this time. They still charged at us and then we saw why they felt so empowered. A succubus demon appeared behind him, guarded by a flank of men — much like the ones we met just outside. Took some creativeness to kill through the 10 fan dancers of death, but as we turned to face the succubus, we realized our dragons had come charging through. Great! Backup.
Once Dragula had his foot on the head of this succubus after a rather tedious battle with it, in her demonic tongue she screamed! “Ix manata, longrera para noxis!” And with that I immediately saw that my shadow sextant was now glowing a deep blue shade. A Balron was near. I gave the order for Dragon to crush the succubus under his feet, lapping at the demon blood for his prize. Harvey was taken a while to recover from his wounds so I asked him to step back. He’s younger than I, thus my regeneration gift is much stronger. He none-the-less sent Alejandro on guard in front of me, standing next to Dragula. The Balron appeared. Curiously, another also appeared. Fred Coats.
Long fought battles were exactly what our Beast Legion was made for. This was no exception. Fred joined our efforts to thwart this hell creature, without asking many questions. He did seem to wonder about us. There has been so much blood tossed about that it was not far fetched for us to have blood on our faces or running down our chins and necks… that could easily be explained. Harvey took precautions to hide his healing and wiped his mouth some. Fred stood by me, just behind our dragons. As the Balron is falling, I thrust my sword into the heart of the Balron to send it back to the hell it came from.
After some much needed rest, I was curious to why Fred would return when no payment was arranged for him to follow us down. Harvey was bandaging his wounds, not because he needed it, but more in an attempt to hide his nature. He also took Dragula and Alejandro out near a fountain to rise them clean. I asked Fred directly, “Why return? I have no payment to follow.” He answered quite simply that their sister had been taken into the depths of the Dojo, or so his family thought, and once he saw that the dragons had followed down he took it as an opportunity to search for her. He could have never fought these beings on his own. Seemed logical enough.
I offered to help him search the grounds without letting on too much about why we were there, not that he asked. Fred found a necklace on one of the females that we had killed, and upon further inspection it seemed to belong to his sister. It was a locket and inside there was a picture of their parents. But what little was left of the woman after Harvey had ripped her apart he could not account for her identity. Upon closer inspection of the woman’s hands, he realized that this in fact had been his sister. But she had been somehow mind-controlled. He shed a tear. I put a hand on his shoulder. I urged him to take the locket in remembrance of who she used to be. He then asked me, “Why have you come here?”
Ahhh, and I thought we’d get away without having to answer that. I wasn’t going to let him know of our true order, thus we said something about a missing woman from our clan. It seemed plausible. He said that we were the firsts to ever come here with beasts. It is why his brother Percival made sure to send him with us. He knew with the power of the great dragons we command, he could get further in. He took the locket, and then took his leave.
I went outside to confer with Harvey, his wounds had almost completely healed. The dawn was starting to come through. We would need to stay in the Dojo for the day. It was deep enough to offer us shelter from the sun’s rays. Besides, we need to do a full inspection. One thing was for sure, whatever evil lived there would surely soon enough return. We had to hurry. We took our beasts down with us, they had drank water and been rinsed through. Quickly Harvey and I ran out to the woods to find suitable meat to feed our dragons and then returned quickly with our kills. We commanded them to stay on guard as we found corners in which to enter our dead sleep.