Dragons of Yokai - Haku Village

Haku Village — A dragon challenges the throne

The summons to Haku Village returns the Hero to the founding of Yokai's royal house. The illustrated history names two brothers: Seiwa, the first Emperor, and Kanmu, the Ayakashi Slayer. A dragon from across the sea had claimed the Isles, ravaging their mountains and rivers and feeding on Oni and Tengu. The brothers fought beside Kitsune, slew the invader and sank its body into the sea. Seiwa became Emperor, while Kitsune mentored the rulers who followed him, until Chaos changed that relationship.

That dragon has apparently returned. Calling himself Zakhvatchik, he intends to make the Isles his nest, with an army waiting off the eastern coast. The Hero wonders whether he is undead, a ghost or the subject of an exaggerated death story, but the opening conversation does not settle how he came back. Miko instead worries that the calamity is her fault. Baoyu rejects that conclusion as gossip.

Rumors claim that the Great Yokai Spirit revived the invader to test Miko's right to rule. She knows the idea has taken hold among both people and Yokai, even though the Hero finds the inference suspicious. Zakhvatchik has vowed to leave if she defeats him as her ancestors did. He waits at Mikoto Shrine, the first shrine in Yokai, whose barrier admits entrants in pairs. Zheng describes the site through legends of the Spirit's blessing and the royal regalia; the claim that a successful pair will become new rulers is part of the circulating rumor.

The Hero immediately offers to accompany her, but Miko insists that her family must prove itself and chooses Baoyu, her cousin and guard captain. He worries about being tested in the Year of the Dragon. Zheng frames it as an ordeal rather than simply a bad omen and expresses confidence in them both. The Hero recalls Baoyu's dreams of a many-headed dragon and suggests animating his New Year painting; Baoyu reminds them that the painting nearly killed everyone before the Hero intervened. The suggestion does not establish control of that power.

Zheng and the Hero remain to defend the coast. If the waiting dragon army breaks its leader's word, Yokai's warriors and fleet must meet it. The Hero agrees, already doubtful that the enemy will honor the supposed test. Miko and Baoyu leave with their friend's encouragement, while the defenses of Haku Village become the immediate task.

Haku Village — Baoyu’s Bloodline Memo

Yue has something more useful than the new outfit she wanted to fit: a memo Baoyu left before the dragon crisis interrupted his presentation to Miko's private court. It records the cover story that Zheng and his soldiers are Wuji refugees, while recommending secrecy about his blood relationship to the Empress. Baoyu distinguishes the people who protected their families from Kitsune from the Yokai he fears might react differently. Circling crows and increasing missing-person reports lend urgency to his concern.

His account begins before Yokai's unification, when humans lived in isolated villages and predatory Yokai dominated encounters between them. It describes the Great Yokai Spirit watching those conflicts passively. Zakhvatchik's arrival threatened humans and Yokai together, turning mountains into volcanoes. Seiwa, Kanmu and their teacher Kitsune united against him. The memo credits their victory with moving the Spirit to bless Seiwa's enthronement and name Kitsune the Wise Sage of the Yokai. This is Baoyu's historical account of the alliance, rather than evidence that all earlier relations were peaceful.

Kanmu's later path split that alliance. The memo calls him Yokai's greatest warrior and a pioneer of extermination tactics; fascinated Tengu even disguised themselves to teach him. Yet he came to see Kitsune's hatred of outsiders as making the Isles a prison and their people his pets. Seiwa understood the grievance but would not sanction another war. Their quarrel escalated from words to armies until Seiwa forced Kanmu overseas. There he established the Taira Shogunate, whose successors preserve his insistence on independence and treat dealings with the Avatars as transactions.

The Wuji section identifies Ying Zhao as its first and only Emperor, then sets written history against family memory. Scholars say Melkior, the Avatar of Metal, chose him as Champion at birth, explaining how the child of an impoverished single mother united the kingdoms. Miko's mother told another sequence: Zhao grew up amid starvation, warfare and persecution of his mother for marrying a man from an enemy kingdom, and became a warlord before becoming Champion. In that tradition, the physically distant Melkior became his closest friend, and together they created Wuji under the Golden Mandate. The memo preserves both accounts rather than resolving the discrepancy.

Baoyu can understand a desire for a deathless empire after such a childhood, but asks whether immortality made a utopia and whether the sacrifice of the royal children's mothers was worth it. The question does not independently prove that sacrifice. He sees Zheng's arrival as opening a formerly closed land to new possibilities, with uncertain consequences.

The conclusion makes the danger personal. Baoyu says Miko has claims not only to Yokai but also to the Taira and Wuji thrones. Ambitious courtiers might see opportunity; hostile Yokai might see a descendant of both an exterminator and the man who made his subjects Xian, blessed immortals. He fears violence and exploitation if that knowledge spreads. He also allows that some Yokai, like some Fae of Greenguard, are reasonable and pleasant. His wish for another mediator like Kitsune ends with the reminder that even Kitsune went mad. The memo is a warning to plan carefully, not proof that every Yokai shares one motive.

Haku Village — The villagers behind the rumors

Zheng's men report disturbances on land as well as dragons offshore. He had intended to clear Haku Village before the Hero arrived, but nearby Yokai delayed the evacuation. In 99th Birthday, the Hero quells newly animated lanterns for six Shrine Beads. Zheng admits discarding the ninety-nine-year-old lanterns to prevent their becoming Tsukumogami at a hundred, only for the act of throwing them out to animate them anyway.

Red and Blue turns to the Mountain Oni harassing the village, requiring ten Clay Gourds and a conversation with Haruki. Haruki says Oni would not normally cooperate in a group like this unless a stronger figure approached with gifts and a bargain. Zheng sees an uneasy connection with Zakhvatchik, who once ate Oni rather than allied with them. Haruki's own account of Oni violence is uncompromising, but it remains his assessment of the creatures he fears.

Haruki is himself caught between identities. He wants rescuing from a villager's attack on Miko's reputation, fearing that an angry response will reinforce suspicions about his Oni blood. He traces his family to the Jade Hound Prince, then tells how his mother rejected a rigid life in Akiba and lived wildly in the mountains before returning to Akiba after his birth and becoming a respected warrior. He identifies Shuten-Douji as his father, whom he sees from time to time. The ancestry explains why he resents being reduced to an expectation of violence.

The villagers' stories attack Miko from different directions. One blames the disasters after Kitsune's fall on divine displeasure and treats Zakhvatchik's return as a test. Another calls her blood muddy because her mother descended from outsiders, even after the Hero points out that Yokai's own protectors helped conceal those refugees. Yue hears the same malicious gossip and notices fox ears and tails on people she had assumed were human. She also complains of villagers secretly putting beetles in her pockets. Her suspicion of disguised fox spirits is stronger than the claim that ordinary residents all agree with them.

Cold Sunshower requires the memo to be read and ten Spirit Lights gathered from Tsukumogami. Zheng concludes that sorcery is aggravating the creatures and that the rumor-spreaders pestering Yue and Haruki are fox spirits in disguise. Inari Boom makes the confrontation explicit: the Hero confronts both villagers while Zheng dispels the magic hiding the Fox Spies' ears and tails, then collects twelve Fried Tofu Skins as the spies flee. He recognizes the foxes' taste for fried tofu and apologizes in advance to the tofu shop for disrupting business.

Haku Village — A tourist enjoys the emergency

A report of a man washed ashore leads to Cui Niao. Zheng asks the Hero to save him from the creatures locals call Nagami, requiring twelve Mermeat and a conversation with the tourist. The attackers prove to be dragons spying for the offshore army. The newcomer seems lost rather than injured and treats an emergency as an attractive addition to his holiday. Zheng leaves the Hero to help him while preparing the ships.

The tourist says one of his fathers-in-law retired to Yokai and never returned, prompting his own first visit. He admires flowers that will actually wilt, unlike the eternal spring of his homeland, and offers to buy the Hero even a building or restaurant as a gift. His calm generosity has an alarming companion: he says he buried a colleague who called that relative a deserter, then dismisses the act because it would not kill the man. These are the stranger's anecdotes and hints about his origins; he has not yet established his identity to the Hero.

Huli Jing drives out Fox Spies for twelve Fox Tails while the tourist offers to pay for shared accommodations, preferably without foxes. He explains that his homeland's Huli Jing can be kind or malevolent and recalls only noticing one fox spirit's malice after catching fire. Aka Oni Ao Oni then requires eight Oni Horns. He suggests burying the attackers alive as he once buried his mother's bullies, but the Hero has no time for the proposal. The quest does not show that suggested burial being carried out.

Stone Shangyuan Fest clears the living lanterns for thirty Lantern Ashes while the tourist offers to deal with remaining foxes and Oni. Its completion turns to a gentler memory of lantern festivals and an invitation to share a lantern bearing their names. Nagami Sashimi then requires three Aquatic Spines from more spies coming ashore. He proposes cooking them for dinner, admitting he has not cooked for a friend since the last war. His later question about taboos introduces a homeland tale in which sparrows become shellfish and dragons pursue their scent; it is his explanation of custom, not a demonstrated natural law.

In Divine Derision, a Dai Tengu descends from the mountains, radiating the nobility and rage the tourist recognizes. The village's lurking Yokai revere it, and the task requires its defeat. The tourist assumes that cutting off the defeated foe's head may be the local custom, but a question about doing so is not an execution. Zheng's separate optional King Sojobo request later calls for eight Enchanted Chimes, eight Pale Scales and one Wind Blade from Fox Spies, Nagami and the Dai Tengu. It returns to the strange mixture of hatred and fascination Kanmu inspired, including Tengu secretly teaching him.

After the Dai Tengu's defeat, the Hero finds the tourist among the dragons on the shore. He chooses the name Yiren and says he paddled a raft across the ocean, lost his way repeatedly and finally encountered the dragon force. Sitting atop a large dragon, he remarks that he may be sitting on a general. His cheerful treatment of the invasion contrasts with the Hero's urgency; his origin story and the rank he assigns his seat remain his own account.

The Hero explains that fighting should not yet have begun because Miko has gone to face Zakhvatchik. Yiren says the dragons were already celebrating their leader's victory. He reports a bargain with the Isles' foxes and word that an ambush has succeeded. The Hero realizes that the supposed divine test was a lie intended to lure Miko and Baoyu out alone. This exposes the rumor campaign's purpose, while the two travelers still lack direct knowledge of the Empress' present condition.

Asked what else he heard, Yiren apologizes for leaving no dragon alive and offers to swim out for another platoon, this time disabling them for questioning. The Hero rejects the needless brutality and doubts rank-and-file soldiers would know more. There is still time to catch Miko, but Mikoto Shrine requires a pair and Zheng must guard Akiba. Yiren volunteers as the second entrant and promises to behave, making another unsettling offer to surrender a finger if he breaks his word.

A war horn interrupts the discussion. The Hero accepts Yiren's help to rescue Miko rather than arrive too late and take revenge, while making clear that this new companion also needs watching. Zheng's account now identifies Yokai collaboration with Zakhvatchik and prepares to engage the dragon army at sea. He tells the Hero to secure the village, then go with their partner to find Miko and Baoyu. Their rescue and the defeat of the invasion remain ahead, beyond Haku Village's opening confrontation.

Haku Village — The Master’s impossible lessons

Another Haku Village story concerns a martial arts teacher who treats the already-famous Hero as a nobody because he does not know them. The Master invites them into his dojo and boasts that animal-inspired training can make a body strong enough to flatten mountains. He says the number of beasts to be defeated is for him to decide and bristles when his own practice is questioned. His training route is separate from the dragon emergency; the two stories do not establish a required order between them.

Join My Dojo makes the Hero his first student in years. The captured definition has no listed turn-in objective. In 500 Punches and 500 Kicks, he demands five hundred each of Frogzards, Gorillaphants and Dragons, suggesting Nexus, Arcangrove and Etherwardes as hunting grounds. Deathly Slow Start raises the demand to five hundred thousand of each. The Hero's internal commentary considers asking Death to count monsters already defeated in return for favors. The Master's completion speech expresses surprise at the quick return, but does not identify which shortcut, if any, was used.

Discount Diploma asks for another five hundred thousand of each creature and provokes thoughts of returning to Death or paying hired hunters, with Dreadrock as a lead. One Million Miles Searching raises each requirement to a million and suggests seeking Sir Render at the Portal for advice about giving up. Ughhhhhh escalates to two million of each and a thought of using a catapult. These are the Hero's proposed ways around the demands, not accounts of completed conversations or methods proven to work. Each incredulous completion response makes the Master's purpose more doubtful.

Work Smarter, Not Harder finally demands 5,999,500 more of each creature. Its completion speech exposes the trap: the Master intended an impossible task that would make the student quit and advertise his unique mastery. Instead, he accuses the Hero of cheating. Cheater Cheater requires one fight with him as he tries to protect his reputation by force. Defeated, he admits he has mistaken a dragon's tail for a snake, offers the Hero the title of true Master and begs to leave with his bones intact, promising not to trick others again.

His remaining teaching describes Frogzard stance as shredding a foe's defenses, Gorillaphant as strengthening attacks, and Dragon as weakening an opponent's attacks, with mastery allowing their abilities to be combined. These are the NPC's descriptions of his techniques. The eight captured training quests are once-only in their definitions, separate from the ten once-only invasion quests and the optional non-once King Sojobo task. The story exposes a fraudulent regimen without making its enormous counters a record of observed kills or establishing how the Hero obtained a class.