Several miles inside the Shadowlands is a Hida outpost. The actual fortress was found, not built by the Hida clan. A force of about thirty samurai man the fort at any one time, along with a commander and shugenja. The samurai are rotated with fresh men, a third at a time so that no one man stays for longer than twelve weeks. The purpose of the fort is to provide an early defense and lookout post for the larger forces on the border.

Approximately twelve weeks ago the current shugenja went out on a scouting expedition, taking six samurai with him. The foray was routine, a regular exercise scheduled at three week intervals, so the shugenja has an opportunity to check for any abnormal incursion and to query the surrounding land. The party was gone for three days, and upon their return the shugenja closeted himself in his rooms for several more.

On the second day the commander, having ascertained from the recently returned samurai that nothing had gone amiss during their time away, and knowing his shugenja to be prone to moods as well as melancholy fits, left the fort on a scouting expedition of his own.

Two days after the commander's departure the shugenja emerged in good spirits and with an irregularly shaped, opalescent stone cradled in the top of his staff. That night at dinner however, things began to go wrong.

Two samurai moved to take the same place at one of the tables. They traded grunts, then insults. Then, as the first began to turn away from the table, the second samurai, one of those returned from the shugenja's expedition, bashed in his companion's skull with a heavy iron serving pot from the table.

The hall erupted into immediate chaos. Horror and anger mixed in the air as the offending samurai was borne thrashing to the ground. The man he had struck was dead. Amidst the cries and accusations, the shugenja stood forward, calling for an example to be made. At his urging a kind of group hysteria broke out The samurai was hauled violently from the room, taken to the top of the wall and, a rope about his throat, thrown down. All the while he screamed inarticulate, guttural curses, frothing at the mouth. But then, so did several of the men carrying him.

At the end of three more days, an unusually heavy rain broke out forcing the commander's return. The grotesque, bloated remains at the gate greeted him. Furious, the commander entered his hall to find it an unruly den. Samurai hunched sullenly at the tables, sprawled drunkenly on the chairs, slurring insults and boasts.

A few warriors retained their dignity. They spent the past few days keeping to themselves and awaiting their lord's return before choosing a course of action. They had come to regard the current state of affairs as a kind of contagion. With the four loyal men, plus those who had been abroad with him, the commander confronted the others. What ensued was disturbing at best. The samurai ceased their unruly behavior and came to attention, but slowly. And while a few had something in their eyes that resembled shame, the majority moved like oafish dogs, reluctant and seeming to obey out of habit.

The commander ordered them back to their duties and then, at the advice of one of the warriors who had retained his post and his dignity, called for the shugenja to come to him in the dining hall. The shugenja came reluctantly away from his rooms, claiming to be in deep studies. When confronted about the recent goings on he stated ignorance of martial matters, claiming to have been distracted by his meditations. The suspicious commander questioned him about his recent foray. The shugenja replied that it had been routine in the extreme. They had found no cause for alarm of any kind. When asked what had transpired during his most recent conference with shugenja back at the border (arcane means of communication at regularly scheduled intervals being the standard method of communication from this far-reaching post) the shugenja replied with a tone of disdain, that he had seen no need to make a communication as there was nothing to report. The commander, enraged, insisted that the shugenja make the contact immediately, to which the shugenja replied that the intense elemental energy of the storm outside interfered with his ability to communicate. The shugenja then excused himself with extreme politeness, claiming to be weak from energy expended in meditation.

For four more days, the commander waited for the rains to subside enough to move his entire command back to the border and away from what he knew was a contaminating force. The storm continued on with increasing vigor, turning the already marshy lands surrounding the fort into a veritable lake: impossible to pass on horse, and extremely treacherous on foot.

Most of the samurai, including some of those who had been out with the commander had become wholly uncontrollable, erupting into brutal conflict at no provocation and responding little if at all to authority. Unable to wait any longer, but unwilling to abandon his post or to force those men remaining loyal to him into the storm, the commander sent his most trusted man out to bring help if he could from the border. Perhaps a contingent of shugenja with the appropriate purificaffon rituals could yet save his men. By now - to his horror - physical changes had begun to occur in the most violent cases.

The messenger was to leave through a little used hidden exit, kept for purposes of escape should the fortress be overcome by a frontal assault He was intercepted at the passage's entry by samurai now responsive only to the dictates of the shugenja and his altered staff. He was viciously slain and his carcass devoured by the attackers. The commander, unfortunately, had no way of knowing this

Within a few more days, changes in the remaining samurai became extreme, both in physical form and in character. They became exclusively carnivorous. Their speech was reduced to guttural sounds. Their bodies hunched, pallor became grayish, and their overall frame seemed somehow to grow. The commander and a soarse handful of men not much affected used religious symbols and objects of family and clan honor to drive their brethren out of the fort. Such objects appeared to become increasingly distasteful, and then painful to them as their transformation continued. The remaining men then barricaded themselves inside and settled in to wait for the reinforcements they fervently hoped their rumor was bringing.

Of the shugenja, they could find no trace. The last anyone had heard from him he had been locked in his rooms, moaning and chanting in a singsong manner, pausing often for breath as if under some physical strain. After clearing the interior of the keep, attempts to locate him failed. His staff too was gone.

The stalemate was brief. Not long after running their fellows out into the Shadowlands, most of the remaining samurai fell victim to their fate. Before long they could no longer bear to look upon the holy items they had so recently used to defend themselves. They cached all their religious and honorable items in a back room and covered them over with blankets and debris. Four days after they had shut themselves in, they tore down their barricades and ran out in search of meat.

The last three samurai to retain their humanity made their way to the storage room where they had hidden away their family swords and religious symbols and committed sepuku rather than face their inevitable transformation.

The commander remained alone in the keep, the determination and brute force of will that had seen him through a hundred battles now driving him not to give into this thing that pulled him away from himself. As if following some intuition, he went down into the storerooms below the keep. He came across two of the monsters that had been his men and cut them down without a thought. Farther in he came across the dried husk that remained of the shugenja and the warmly pulsing stone atop his staff.

The commander picked it up and locked his hands, his stare, and his will on it. He is keeping it in check, but only barely. He sits under the fort chained to the rock that is the prison of a ravenous oni. And with his will he keeps it from questing any farther in its need to feed on the essence of men. He no longer knows where he is, or what he does, only that he must not stop.

The Adventure

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