The Moon Over the Ruined Castle(reskinned "Enemy Patrol" from China Station)
Hanamura Case Files No. 4Abunakajima, East China Sea
1932 (Showa 7)(My apologies if this prologue has become a bit of a novella, you can skip through to the next
bold part if you want to get into the action.)
Tsubaki and Natsuko were in a pinch, to say the least. An hour ago, they and Tsubaki?s sister Yuri had been aboard a rust bucket steamer striking south with the cursed gold monkey. They had been told a Tokyo Imperial University professor working on Okinawa may have more information on its origins and, against Tsubaki?s better judgment (and begging and pleading), Yuri had chartered ?Capt. Redding? to take them south with no questions asked and a cash payment. He had boasted the
Kyushu Queen was the fastest steamer ever built on the Clyde and modified in Nagasaki for the express purpose of moving goods and people without question for cash; which in retrospect seemed oddly specific.
They departed at nightfall and all was well for the first few hours. Natsuko made green tea and served it to her friends, so they could enjoy it under the light of the full moon. Their captain did the same, though with a bottle of Suntory?s
shirofuda (white label) whisky he pulled from a crate on deck. The steamer was small, but they scooted away from the strong smoky scent wafting off his breath.
"I've been meaning to ask, but what's that worth?" He said, eyeing the sack with the golden monkey.
"I thought we paid extra for no questions asked," Yuri retorted. "Or do we get a refund?"
"It?s a fair question, since it has no true value." Tsubaki cut in with a content smile as she watched the moon. "The real question is: why would someone paint a lead monkey gold and pass it off to a rabid, murderous cult? That's what I want to know, so here we are."
It was a bold faced lie and she wasn?t the best at selling lies, so hoped her nonchalant response (looking away so he couldn't see her face) worked. She wasn't sure if he bought it, but the captain shook his head and called them all crazy but well paying.
A watery red explosion off their bow ended the peaceful scene. A fast moving shape knifed toward them from behind. Spotlights sprang to life and danced across the water as their captain, never one for being shot, at sprang to action. The little steamer shot to full speed and zigzagged wildly as geysers of red-colored water exploded around them.
"Rapid fire salvos, those are quick firing guns, a
Kaba!? That's not right!"
The
Kyushu Queen narrowly avoided a killing blow with a hard juke that had a domino effect through the small craft. The loose wooden case of unpopular whisky went flying and struck Natsuko, who lost her grip on the gunwale and tumbled over the side. Tsubaki grabbed for her hand but it slipped away as Natsuko plunged into the sea.
Natsuko flailed in panic, she couldn't swim and fully clothed felt herself being pulled down into the cold depths. Distant booms vibrated the water and made her want to puke; she gave up precious air as she went down. Any closer and the explosions would be deadly, rupturing her internal organs. It was over and it wasn't going to be quick and painless.
Something warm clamped down hard on her wrist, Natsuko flailed back harder before a quick chop to the head discombobulated her enough she stopped struggling. Her head broke the surfaces and she began sucking air; she was being held firm from behind as a familiar voice attempted to sound calm.
"It's okay, I have you. I have you. Sorry about the chop, it's harder to pull a drowning victim up when she?s struggling."
Natsuko coughed up salt water as she exclaimed, "Tsubaki! I'm so sorry! It's my fault!"
"Stop apologizing!"
"You first!"
They shared a strained laugh; as her brief pulse of spiritual energy began subsiding Tsubaki pulled them over to the floating whisky crate and they both held tight. Once again, alcohol was the cause and solution of life's problems.
"I jumped in after you, because you can't swim. You... we... won't die alone."
The destroyer and its prey thundered in the distance and there was one final flash before all fell silent again, leaving the girls and crate alone in the water.
"Do you think they escaped?" Natsuko asked.
"I don't know, but I know Yuri. Shooting her won't kill her, it just makes her mad."
The bespectacled castaways made landfall less than an hour later. They were tired, briny and parched, but alive. The island was pure jungle around the fringes but terrain rose sharply and just off the beach was a hard-packed dirt road hemmed in by tropical shrubbery that would hide it from passing ships. Neither girl was a naval expert but the captain had called their attacker a "Kaba," a Japanese name meaning ?birch tree.? They may now be on the bad side of the Imperial Japanese Navy and would have to lay low.
Unlike the sea, the jungle teemed with unseen life that buzzed, breathed and cried in unrecognizable ways. They also discovered that in such a humid, warm place that fully drying off wasn't happening either. It was frightening but also a little exhilarating as neither had been to a jungle before and it aroused their natural curiosity.
They hadn?t gotten far when Natsuko stumbled across a pile of rocks, or more precisely a long and low rock wall mixed into the jungle. Under the full moonlight they could see gaps in the canopy where more walls and the remains of ancient structures lay.
"I think you found a castle," Tsubaki said.
"It?s a bit different than Osaka or Nijo," Natsuko replied.
"It?s Ryukyuan," Tsubaki explained. ?I?ve always wanted to see one. They built castles around sacred sites.?
This perked up Natsuko's attention, ?sacred like stones or sacred like fresh water sources??
Tsubaki was genuinely surprised by the insight. Natsuko continued, "I like to read too."
A pair of bright yellow lights followed by the sound of an engine broke the darkness; the girls hopped over the short wall and fell back into the jungle. It stopped short and a group of men disembarked. As they approached, it became clear by their clothes they were sailors, their hat tallies read "Imperial Japanese Navy Ship Sakuragi," and each carried a venerable Type 38 rifle with fixed bayonet gleaming in the moonlight. One muttered to the other, spitting out a slow stream of words with a minimum of lip movement that made it hard to understand.
"They look like Japanese sailors but..." Tsubaki searched for a delicate word. "Thuggish."
A sailor thrust his bayonet into a bush and a flurry of feathers fly everywhere as birds darted off in all directions. He raised the bladed weapon and shook the bird corpse off.
A stab first and ask questions later kind of night- they needed to get out of here now!
Red markers are search markers and blue are patrol markers; sailors will be used in the game proper.
The ScenarioYuri, acting group leader, is searching the castle ruins for her missing comrades. Two patrols are searching near the center of the map on both sides of a shallow river and as per her luck a perilous area has decided to perch near a search marker! Her four search areas are the castle ruins, the remains of a shrine or temple, the other side of the river, and just in case, the pickup truck that brought in the sailors.
Edges are difficult terrain, and because it's night, low visibility is in effect, limiting line of sight to 12.? No less than three patrols will be on the board at the start of each turn.
ERRATA"The Moon Over the Ruined Castle" is a famous song composed in 1901 by Taki Rentaro.
Abunakajima is "Danger Island" in the Nagasaki dialect.
Suntory's shirofuda (white label) whisky was Japan's first domestic whisky. It was introduced in 1929 but sold poorly; the Japanese did not take to the taste of smoky Scotch. The famous square bottle Suntory wouldn't be released until 1937.
Japan's Kaba-class destroyers were built in 1915; incidentally Japan also built 12 for France as the Arabe-class during the Great War. By 1932 all had been scrapped or were in the process of being scrapped.
Natsuko's inability to swim first came up in ?Strangers in the Night?
Japan is home to many distinct regional dialects and their associated localized variants. The two sailors? closed-mouth way of speaking is inspired by the northern Tohoku dialects, which are almost incomprehensible to outsiders, though I didn't want to say they are from there or anywhere else.
I may never state precisely where any of these girls are from, but I think of Natsuko as coming from a rural village in Kyoto Prefecture. To Kyoto City people, she is a dirty country bumpkin with an unrefined accent. Those from outside Kyoto Prefecture assume Natsuko is a city girl due to her polite speech and refined Kyoto accent. Natsuko wishes she was invisible to everyone.
For an idea on how Natsuko would sound, "Kyo-kotoba ("Kyoto language") features softer consonants and elongated vowels, which contribute to its gentle, more flowing sound. Specific pitch accents also help to give the dialect its unique musicality." (Enjoy-Kyoto.net)
On a flat hat or "Donald Duck hat," a hat tally is the ribbon around the headband and until World War II, sported the unit that the owner was attached to. As the Kaba-class was named after trees, this fictional ship was named the Sakuragi, as a play on the real world Sakaki.
10 October 2014, 04:13:11 PM
