Sabris Argael

Background
Many Centuries ago, before the flood, a benevolent Deity sent a human, Hata no Kawakatsu to the realm to create peace. Kawakatsu set about writing plays about peace and prosperity, and carved 66 masks out of cedar wood and bone to be used in his plays. These masks represented different states of the human condition, including sadness, trickery, anger, and jealousy through a demonic or animalistic face. Kawakatsu prayed to his Diety to imbue the masks with a bit of myst, that they may be more convincing visages to his audiences.

Kawakatsu’s plays succeeded, and the realm settled into a period of relative calm. Eventually the plays fell out of fashion, and the masks, now impractical, were stacked carelessly in a temple storeroom. There they gathered age and dust. The temple was abandoned. The shorelines of continents waned further inland.

A century passed, and the ocean shore lapped up against the storeroom door. The masks, sensing the damned wetness outside (the enemy of old cedar wood!), struggled to work together, combining characters and myst. They must escape!

The storeroom doors burst open, and a small girl stepped outside. She is Menreiki, a grouping of the 66 bewitched masks of Kawakatsu.

Menreiki escapes the doomed temple and heads towards higher ground, in the mountains. Living mostly in the woods, she uses her different masks and their attributes to help survive. Because all of her masks have such different personalities, Menreiki is a rather neutral spirit, preferring to be alone. Her days in solitude come to an end when the Yokai Karasaka, a vengeful, implacable umbrella spirit desires the cave dwelling in which Menreiki lives. During a summer monsoon storm, Karasaka ambushes Menreiki, and they briefly battle. Menreiki is overpowered and flees, but not without damage. Karasaka pulls off three of Menreiki’s masks and scatters them: Yuya, the woman’s mask; Kanawa, the mask of the crown; and Tenko, the mask of slyness and trickery.

Menreiki, missing several masks, changes into a malicious spirit. Her form is twisted and ugly, barren of human characteristics. She bitterly bides her time, waiting for her masks to find her again.

The mask of Tenko is lost to the mountain crevasses under Golarian Isle. He sits among the crystal mines deep in the mountain, unnoticed for centuries. Tenko, ever sly, decides to capture the interest of a passerby and trick them into carrying him towards his destination: the Husk of Menreiki. Still imbued with a bit of myst, Tenko bides his time. He decides that a being of  indecisive nature is the best candidate for his taking. He will absorb their soul in exchange for a pact of power and patron. However, in order to bind himself to this soul, Tenko must use all of the myst he possesses. What to do? Tenko waits…

The Drow race of dark elves has also been biding their time. They have a fierce hatred of the surface dwellers, especially those who have been mining crystals quite close to the Drow’s cavernous living quarters. The drow are dark skinned, dark haired, and light eyed. In ages past, the Elves were torn by warfare and sent their selfish and cruel members to live in the underworld. Drow move silently and with a graceful quickness, and are at home in the shadows, into which they blend. The Drow disliske daylight or bright lights. The Goddess Lolth is the Demon Queen of Spiders, and also the Goddess of the Drow.

A shadow seems to flit across the floor within Tenko’s cavern. Then another, another. Stealthy Drow fill up the mine. They have broken through the earthen barrier between their underworld and the Glittering Caves, and they intend to scare the humans into withdrawing to mines closer to the surface. The tiny fleet of five Drow move silently upwards, carefully stepping through their preceived brightness of the caverns. The humans, dressed in an Imperial style, further up and along the mine shaft, still use their lamps and torches to light the way. Sabris is a slender Drow, charged to stay in the back row of the campaign. The high preists of Lolth have recommended the raid, and her superiors stuck her in this campaign because they claim she lacks experience. While true, Sabris is more indifferent towards the surface-folk than her fellow Drow. A decidedly disinterested Drow, Sabris is participating simply because she was told to. Her mind wanders, captivated by the rainbow arcs painted on the walls from the crystalline reflections. The rest of her pack surges forward, and the human guards fight back with fire. Sabris is caught unaware by a stray arrow, instantly piercing her heart and engulfing her form in flames.

Sabris’s soul watches from a nearby cliff as her body burns. She sighs, still nonchalant, and watches the rest of the raid. Six humans are killed, as well as one more Drow. The rest retreat into the shadows, back to the underworld. Sabris spends days in the mine, restlessly examining the surroundings she is doomed to haunt. Wait, though. There, in an abandoned overhang of crystal, something glimmers. She climbs toward the overhang, sits on the ledge, and picks up the mask of Tenko. A voice.

“Hello, detached soul.” The voice is warm and soothing. Sabris turns the mask over, examining it.

“What…. Are you?” She is captivated by the fragrant cedar and smooth bone of the  mask. A strange, small whisper of proclivity tugs at her. She puts on the mask.

“I am called Tenko. I am the Yokai of this mask.”

“..okay. I’m Sabris.”

“Sabris. Are you a human?”

“….no. I’m dead. A dead Drow.” Tenko sighs. In death as passive as she was in life, but he is not surprised.

“Sabris. Would you like to live again? We can change things. You were an impartial soul. I can grant you life.” Sabris pauses. Being dead is boring, but being stuck in the Drow monotony of  worship, clan wars, and constant vigilance was worse.

“I don’t want to go back there. To the underworld. To the Drow.”

“We don’t have to. Let’s go far away from it.” Tengu uses his trickery to sway her.

“Alright.”

“I need your soul. But in exchange, you will have a body, a purpose, and a pact with me. We will be powerful. But we will need to travel on the surface.”

“Let’s do. I’ve never been.”

Tenko uses the last of his myst energy to bind to Sabris’s soul, and to transport them directly above the cavern. Luckily, above the cavern is a shop in Kirella, where the strange, dusty mask sits forgotten on a shelf next to expired potions.

“Tenko, we’re just a mask.” Sabris whines. “I thought we were going to be alive.”

“Just wait.” Tenko settles in his mask. “We just need the right person to pick us up.”