Death Becomes Her (Ancient Burial Grounds)

(Rushing through - the first day of my workshop was a bit brutal, but I got through. Tomorrow, I have to go to gym too so I will have less time to Wizard101, so don't think I'm dead. This blog lives on!)

The Rock Dojo where I took the Test of Mind was right where I left it. But I didn't expect a friend. "Grace!" I cried, hugging her. "How did it go?"

The Zafarian-born Diviner smiled and nodded. "It went well."

"I see you have changed," I said, noting her new robes.

"A girl called Monica gave them to me, she said they were from the Plague Oni," said Grace.

She smiled and sighed in glee. "She also gave me the plague ooze that you gave her... and I see you have changed as well, or your sidekick. Lady Katie is gone."

"Well... you could say Miss Chloe is my secretary," I said, giggling.

Penny was furious. "Cleo! I should have known you would have gotten strapped to a wizard, but Mma Fairyfriend? You don't deserve her!"

"Cleo? " I asked. "Her name is Chloe."

"Like, what's your beef, fishy tail?" snorted the little Medusa, polishing her blades. "I don't even know what you're talking about?"

"You're related to that snobby, prissy, slutty Gorgon who studied with me in Atlantea Business Secretarial School, and she didn't get even 50%!"

"How did you get her?" asked Grace.

"Long story short..." I began.

"Wow! You're the awesomesauce Sierra Fairyfriend! Gossip is you've replaced Nolan Stormgate as the teacher's pet! Please hatch with my little medusa pet! Yay!!!" (Me) Ugh... headache city...

(After two days of realm hopping in the Hatchery, I FINALLY got a nice pet hatch, and one I wanted - the Li'l Medusa! I was impatient but I thank Emmaline Sky for hatching with Sierra. I guess she wanted a Strange Beast too because her Medusa was a semi-fail with Life Giver. Luckily, Sierra's got better talents - inheriting Lady Katie's Critical Striker and getting Lively which boosts incoming heal, so Sierra gets healed for more health. I will start a hatching marathon once I get a ton of Mega Snacks, but for now this is good. I may train it to Epic to get the Medusa card.)

"I also got all the blue oysters Zeke wanted and got a training point to get a spell to Reshuffle my deck so I don't run out of cards too quickly. Let's go to Yoshihito and deal with the Death Oni!"

(And I ALSO realized I hadn't gotten Sierra's school when I first visited Colossus Blvd. Oops. <_ i="">

The temple was floating on a river and the trees looked to be dead. My body tingled in terror - clearly this was the work of the Death Oni. I had a feeling this guy was more powerful than the Plague and War Onis combined. We hurried to the temple.

We found the samoorai guarding the Temple and bowed to him. He greeted us likewise.

"We are glad to help, Rra Kebo," said Grace. "Tell us the details."

"I have fought the Oni no Death many times," sighed Hideo. "But could not defeat him. Now he has fortified his strength with the Tree of Life."

"We must remove him from it," I said. "Where is the Tree?"

He pointed across a broken bridge. "The river here is cursed, if you try to swim in it, you will die. The only way to get across is to enlist the aid of a powerful evil spirit.

"An evil spirit?" I asked. "I don't like that."

"No good spirit, no matter how willing, can survive the ritual needed to bridge the cursed waters," said Hideo. "And no evil spirit will do this willing, for to do so will be to betray the Oni no Death. You must imprison it within a spirit cage. There is said to be one in the Ancient Burial Grounds to the north. May the Moodha go with you." He bowed.

Like we had a choice. I suddenly heard a screaming and felt a tingle of energy. "Someone must have found an evil spirit to bridge the gap for them," I said. "Let's go."

(Interesting bug - the game plays the dialogue for the Evil Spirit bridging the gap to the Tree of Life whenever you pass by the broken bridge. A similar bug caused the Moodha to speak to everyone in the Moodha's area in the Jade Palace whenever one player got the event trigger, but KI patched that bug. I wish they would do the same here, this is annoying.)

The place was crawling with restless spirits. We avoided most of them and fought some. We eventually came upon a ghostly ronin who didn't seem hostile. "Hao," I said, bowing.

He bowed in kind and introduced himself as Ichiro, the ancestor of Hideo. "The Death Oni has gripped many spirits and plagued them with unrest," said Ichiro. "If you seek to stop him, I will gladly aid you. You seek a spirit cage? I know of three brothers who owned one. They each had a piece of a mantra which would open a way to the spirit cage."

"We will explore the tombs until we find it," said Grace. "Tread lightly, Mma, it is taboo to disturb the dead, but they have already been disturbed."

 

We found many restless ghosts in the graveyard, including a samoorai and his lost love. We did what we could do to put them to rest but it was a drop in the bucket until the Death Oni was defeated. (Lok Soo Chang's side-quest is probably the easiest to do in Mooshu - just avoid enemies and grab 10 jade lotuses for an easy 2410 EXP. ^_^)

 

 
We also found Mossback again, who asked us to heal his other friend, a treant called Oakheart. He was driven insane by the Death's Oni power. A few hits with Sirens and he recovered and thanked us. (You can rarely get a Crabling pet egg as a drop from this battle. Also, REMEMBER this dojo - you WILL have to come back here much later!)

"Here is the first inscription," said Grace. I read it: An evil spirit haunts the spirit world.

"There must be more," I mused. "Let's check the dojos and see if they have anything."

 

One of them did - an unpleasant business with undead ninja pigs. The Death Oni's presence was terrifying. One threw up a Myth Shield but Grace wasn't having it - she summoned a lightning phoenix that brought it to critical levels for my puke-frog to destroy it. (Grace has a lot of treasure cards and I traded some of the storm ones from other characters, including a ton of Thunderbirds. Thunderbird also makes an appearance in Pirate101, in Cool Ranch as a spirit worshipped by the Bison warriors. ^_^)

We found the second inscription and it read: No one living can enter the spirit world first.

"Let us give this information to Rra Kebo," said Grace. (A glitch - she didn't leave her invincibility frames until later so she's in invincible ghost mode. Oops!)

"What does the inscription mean, Rra?" asked Grace.

"From the sound of it," said Ichiro. "A powerful evil spirit stole the Spirit Cage and hid it in the Spirit World, where it has no power."

"A powerful evil spirit?" I gasped in glee.

"Don't think it, Mma," said Grace, reading my mind. "If what he said is true, we can't use the cage to trap the evil spirit holding it."

"Cr**," I muttered under my breath.

"Why did the brothers not tell me about this?" said Ichiro. "Maybe the youngest's mantra might give us enlightment. He used to fight monsters in the back dojo, past the tombs, but now only the demon Tamauichi lives there."

"We'll kill him and find this mantra," I said. "Let's go, Grace."

 

Tamauchi was easy to find, not so easy to defeat as he was Myth. I was glad Grace was there to take him out so I could save my prisms. We found the final mantra and read it. "To reach the spirit world, use a Spirit Torch to light the way."

Ichiro then directed us to a shrine where a guardian elemental, Ember Everburn, guarded a spirit torch. We had to defeat him to prove we were worthy of carrying it, of course.

"You underestimate our powers, Rra Kebo," said Grace, smiling as she revealed the torch. "But..."

"Yes, the mantras do say that no living thing can enter the spirit world first," said Ichiro, who then grinned. "But they said nothing about going in second!"

"Clever," I said. "You go into the spirit world and the portal will open for us to enter."

"There is a problem, though," he said. "I find I cannot move from this spot. However, if you can find some crypt dust, you can scatter it in the tombs and it will open the way for me to go through."

"I'll be right back," I said, rushing off.

Ugh, my allergies! I put the dust in my hat and flew back.

I blushed at the compliment. "Now we can open the portal," said Grace. "Though you should have waited for me to give you a bag, Mma."

"Well," said Chloe. "Let's, like, go and kick some undead @$$!"

Penny snorted. "46%... bah!"

Grace lit the torch and used it to light the candles and the portal opened, and I scattered the dust into it. I saw a flash as Ichiro entered the portal. "Let's book it!"

My first sojourn into the Spirit World was surreal to say the least. Inside was a hideous wraith carrying a crystal with an ivory cage around it around his neck. This was the spirit cage!

"Leave him to me, Mma," said Grace. "I will vaporize him with a spell that only my secretary's call can match."

"Stormzilla?" I asked. She smiled and shook her head.

"You are a fool to stop me," cackled the spirit,who spirited Grace away. I gasped in horror as he attacked. (Yep, even if you both enter the portal, you have to fight this boss alone. I forgot about that.)

He sucked my soul out of my body and I screamed in terror, but Chloe struck my shin. "Don't let this bag of bones totally whallop you! You can beat this creep!"

I nodded, summoned the Satyr...

 

And then the pigs. He was taken out in one shot. (After I pierced the shield he had put on himself.)

He screamed and melted away and I leapt to catch the spirit cage before it shattered on the ground. I wiped my brow and left through the portal.

"Are you okay?" I asked Grace

"Barely," she said, wiping her brow. "I was dumped out back here and forced to fend off an army of ghosts. The Death Oni clearly gave him a lot of power."

"Well, I banished him," I sighed as Chloe and Penny bickered. "And the spirit cage is ours. Let's tell Ichiro the good news."

 

We showed the cage to Ichiro, and then took it to his descendant. "The spirits of our ancestors give us strength, Rra Kebo," said Grace. "It's only sad we could not capture that spirit and be done with it."

"There are other evil spirits," said Hideo. "I have heard of one in the Village of Sorrow, to the east. It was said that a plague destroyed the people and thus they cannot rest in peace. Go there and see what you can do to put them to rest, and capture the evil spirit."

I nodded. "Can do!" But I was scared - I could handle war, I could handle plague, but death was a terrifying new thing. The times I had gotten defeated, I was scared I would die, but could this be my final adventure. I prayed not.

[To be continued...]