A<\/span><\/p>\n matatsu Onoko is here. Why she wasn\u2019t here <\/span>yesterday<\/span><\/i> when we needed more timely information about what we are getting into is anyone\u2019s guess. Maybe Shigure\u2019s temper tantrum scared her away. I don\u2019t know if she had children in life, but if I were a mother and was granted immortality as an archon, the last thing I\u2019d want is a front row seat to the Terrible Twos for basically all of eternity. Your reward in heaven for a devoted, pious life is not supposed to double as punishment.<\/span><\/p>\n Ameiko spent some time communing with her in private and then opened up the conversation to the rest of us. I took the opportunity to ask her my new favorite question. \u201cWhy is there something called \u2018The Well of Demons\u2019 in the Imperial Shrine?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Her answer was as unsatisfying as it was uninformative. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have a name. That\u2019s just what Shigure calls it.\u201d Which is not what I was asking. I don\u2019t care about the <\/span>name<\/span><\/i>; I want to know <\/span>why it\u2019s here<\/span><\/i>. But bickering with an archon didn\u2019t seem like a healthy plan, so I let it drop. And, to be fair, she did shed some light on what is down there and what we have to do.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe handmaiden devil Amatatsu Maemi and <\/span>her<\/span><\/i> handmaiden have infested this place. I can\u2019t bestow my blessing until she is dealt with.\u201d One guess as to what she means by \u201cdealt with\u201d. Also, apparently the Well of Demons contains devils. <\/span>Note to self: Correct Shigure on his terminology.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Who was empress Amatatsu Maemi? It\u2019s a given that she was not a very good person if she was a petitioner to Hell, and being given form as a greater devil suggests she was especially vile. Suishen confirmed as much, giving us a fairly pointed review of her tenure as emperor. \u201cShe was unnecessarily cruel and selfish, seeking her own power over what was best for the empire and its people.\u201d And she\u2019s had plenty of time to refine her personality since then.<\/span><\/p>\n Who is Maemi\u2019s handmaiden? No clue. But if they come as a pair, I\u2019m guessing she has to go, too.<\/span><\/p>\n And, of course, we have to do this one thing in order for Ameiko to get Onoko\u2019s blessing. On top of the <\/span>other<\/span><\/i> thing that we have to do for Shigure. Maybe it’s a blessing of its own that the spirits from the other families can’t communicate through the Shrine until this business with the Well is resolved. I don\u2019t think I can handle each of <\/span>them<\/span><\/i> asking us to do <\/span>yet another<\/span><\/i> \u201cjust this one thing\u201d, too.<\/span><\/p>\n O<\/span><\/p>\n ur first descent into the Well of Demons went poorly. This is the problem with not knowing what you are getting into: you can\u2019t plan for everything. You can only be so flexible, and if you get caught reacting instead of acting, then odds are good you aren\u2019t going to recover.<\/span><\/p>\n The force that contains the demons and devils within the Well almost certainly saved our lives, as there is no such thing as running away from something that can teleport at will. When you start this kind of fight, it needs to be one that you are sure you can finish unless you have similar powers of your own.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s been less than 10 minutes, and Amatatsu Onoko has already gotten on my list. We went to stop the water from dumping into the Well because it was so loud we could barely hear ourselves <\/span>think,<\/span><\/i> much less <\/span>communicate<\/span><\/i>, and she appeared and blasted us with her trumpet. Just in case it wasn\u2019t clear what kind of archon she was. Branding is important.<\/span><\/p>\n I had what many might consider to be a reasonable question: \u201cWhat the shit, lady?!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This was probably not the most respectful way of addressing a herald of Shizuru, but the whole thing caught us by surprise. Also, I was feeling kind of cranky.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy would you halt the flow of water into the well? The lake sends the cleansing water that contains the evil within!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Uh\u2026how about because <\/span>no one fucking told us?<\/span><\/i> Like, <\/span>when we were fucking asking about it?<\/span><\/i> What is it with celestial beings treating information like caviar? Is there some divine rule that crucial knowledge about saving the world can only be fed in small bites? If it\u2019s not a game of twenty questions, it\u2019s riddles and metaphor. No one can be direct about anything until it\u2019s smiting time, and then it\u2019s all, \u201c<\/span>How dare you disobey this rule I\u2019m just now telling you about!<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This is no way to run an organization.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBecause it\u2019s so loud down there we can\u2019t hear ourselves think. And because we just got our asses handed to us! And also because <\/span>we didn\u2019t fucking know!<\/span><\/i> How would we know?!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Gods, I am just <\/span>not in the fucking mood<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n But at least now we know what we\u2019re up against, and what we can (and can\u2019t) do about it.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sarenith 23 (Imperial Shrine, Early Morning) A matatsu Onoko is here. Why she wasn\u2019t here yesterday when we needed more timely information about what we are getting into is anyone\u2019s guess. Maybe Shigure\u2019s temper tantrum scared her away. I don\u2019t know if she had children in life, but if I were a mother and was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-4316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-kali"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4316"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5737,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4316\/revisions\/5737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Sarenith 23 (Still The Imperial Shrine, Still Early Morning)<\/h3>\n