China Station Episode Nine: Dagon’s Tomb
Hanamura Case Files No. 12
Dagon no Haka (Tomb of Dagon)
Abunakajima, East China Sea
1932 (Showa 7)
Consumed by the humid, lush jungle, three girls followed the memory of a trail. The mere trace suggested it hadn’t been trod for longer than any of them had been alive, then the brush gave way to the rough outline of stone steps under a thick carpet of ground cover ending abruptly at a misshaped hole in a limestone hill. As if out of respect or fear, nature refused to touch that darkened orifice. Yuri smacked another mosquito and Natsuko sipped at her water bottle. Tsubaki checked her notes and map before making her announcement.
“This is it,” Tsubaki said. “Welcome to Dagon no Haka.”
“This isn’t a tomb,” Yuri said. “We passed three other holes just like it on the way here.”
“I disagree,” Natsuko interjected. “It’s too foreboding not to be a tomb.”
“She’s right,” Tsubaki nodded. “It’s a tomb but older… much older. A fincha like this pre-dates Fuchien influence on Ryukyu’s religious beliefs and burials.”
“And it’s extra foreboding,” Yuri agreed with Natsuko.
“The perfect place to bury a god,” Tsubaki added. “Especially one you want to forget.”
Natsuko naturally believed everything her good friends said, especially the absurd stuff, but burying a god didn’t click with her. “How do you… kill a god?”
“Same way you kill anything else,” Yuri answered nonchalantly. “But with gusto.”
Yuri thumped her chest then Natsuko’s. “Kibare! Chesuto!”
Not being a sword-wielding redneck from the rebellious south, Natsuko had no idea what either word meant but thinks she got the idea. Yuri laughed as always, but there was a nervous edge to it.
The entrance, as it was, descended at a slant with a strange twist, as if the slick limestone spiraled downward following unreasonable geometry. Or something. The trio helped each other with careful steps to the bottom. Inside was damp and covered in a thin layer of mud, droplets of water fell at random from the overhead. Beams of light appeared as they clicked on their tubular Ever Ready flashlights; the exploration of Dagon’s Tomb had begun…
SETUP Five 99-year old five-sen coins mark the challenges five needed to be overcome inside Dagon’s Tomb.
The girls had a
fortuitous start and were
well-prepared despite the short amount of time they had to get out here.
“This looks like the main chamber,” Tsubaki explained as she looked about. “Bodies were normally laid out on a coral slab to drain the fluids as they decomposed over three years, but there’s none. Look for the shiru hirashi, a stone depression- Watch your step, Yuri!”
The stone slab depressed under Yuri’s weight and poison darts shot out of a hidden alcove. Tsubaki instinctively shielded her face with her leather journal and Natsuko held up her water bottle at the sound. Yuri nimbly tumbled back and the darts harmlessly embedded in the opposite wall.
“I saw it,” she insisted. “I just wanted a closer look.”
“Please look with your eyes and not your feet from now on,” Tsubaki sighed.
Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, she scanned the room and continued. “Bones were put in funerary jars and then placed in a side chamber.”
“Like this one?” Natsuko pointed her beam to a half-hidden fold in the wall.
“Good eye, Natsuko.”
Gingerly, the slipped through the opening and entered the next chamber. As expected, funerary jars lined the wall. Tsubaki was about to launch into a spiel about yabuchi-style earthenware when her flashlight caught the reflection of two ebon orbs above a gaping mouth dripping drool. The too familiar shape of the deep one barely had time to register when he lunged!
Tsubaki flinched and missed all her shots but he didn’t!
Unleashing her spiritually powered strikes at full strength for the first time in many adventures, Yuri let the fish-frog or frog-fish man have it and delivered deadly blows on all accounts!
Breathing hard and looking at the dead deep one on the ground, Tsubaki took a moment to compose herself and shake off the light wound.
“I should have expected fish-frogs after we got the monkey back.”
Natsuko came forward, her head turning every which way, straining to see any potential threats.
“Stay with Tsubaki,” Yuri ordered. I’ll probe on ahead.”
“Remember,” Tsubaki warned her. “Your eyes, not your feet.”
The ruckus seemed to have alerted the other less than deceased tomb denizens as when Yuri approached the third challenge the denizens struck! Not just at her, but Tsubaki and Yuri too!
Ignoring her sister’s words, Yuri used her feet to take on the challenge and kicked it until the frog-fish croaked!
Fighting back to back, Tsubaki and her foe failed to land strikes while Natsuko took hers out with a funerary jar lid and bashing from a half-empty water bottle. Her ability to challenge spiritual energy was weaker than the Hanamura girls, but was enough.
It took the combined efforts of the trio to take down the last frog-fish, or rather, one annoyed Yuri because the other two were taking too long.
The next chambered widened and had a pair of distinctly man-made columns, a skeleton in Spanish armor lay on the ground. Natsuko and Yuri looked to Tsubaki, who shrugged. “I have nothing. No idea how he got here.”
After the darts, they were ready for the next pressure plate traps, saw the dart firing holes in the walls and took careful, measured action. By which I mean Yuri tossed Natsuko’s water bottle at the pressure plate to activate it from a safe distance.
Stone walls dropped into the room’s entrance and exit, sealing them in and then gas began to blow from the “dart holes.”
“I have another bright idea,” Yuri announced.
“Let’s not.” Tsubaki chided as she looked around and covered her mouth.
“That door is limestone. If we all smash into it and discharge our full spiritual might it could break.”
“That beats my urine rag idea,” Tsubaki accepted.
Yuri’s stupid idea worked and Natsuko breathed a sigh of relief.
Finally, they arrived at the tomb of Dagon. It’s high, hand-hewn ceiling was held up by numerous columns. A pulpit with a tome bound in a strange leather and writ upon in a dark brown ink anchored one end, and on the other, a toppled statue.
Yuri inspected the fallen statue while Tsubaki debated looking inside a book that would clearly bring madness upon the reader and Natsuko begged her not to. This time, there would be no probing a pressure plate with her foot and no activating on purpose from a distance. Instead, the floor dropped out from under her for no good reason and she slid toward a spiky spike trap!
The ancient wooden stakes crumbled under her ladylike weight, but still tore gashes through her causing two hits of damage to her health and ego. Mostly to the later. She assured Natsuko she was fine as she pulled her up.
“I’m fine, really.”
“Only because we all share a blood type!” Natsuko responded.
“That’s why I keep you around.”
As Yuri patched herself up, the still kneeling Natsuko noticed a faint outline in the wall behind the statue. She called over to Tsubaki and upon closer investigation discovered it was a hidden door. Carefully she turned a stone in the wall and it opened, revealing a puzzle of sliding stones and such.
“Tsubaki,” she called out. “Please help me; I’m not very good with puzzles.”
Tsubaki tried her hand at the puzzle and stepped back. Nothing happened. She began to think when suddenly bits of ceiling came down, the earth shook and darts flew out of everywhere! All three girls took hits and Yuri passed out. A deep one threw himself at the puzzled puzzle-failure!
She took him out in a panicked flurry of blows. Even with the cave collapsing around them she recomposed herself. Natsuko ignored her wounds and was pushing Yuri to wake up, but it was no use. Tsubaki threw herself at the puzzle again. She was almost there…
As swiftly as it began, the shaking and darts and madness ended. The puzzle gave way and in the alcove behind it was the mythical Eye of Dagon.
It’s nice to let Tsubaki shine in a story like this. She usually feels overshadowed by Yuri’s mouth and Natsuko’s neurotic worries.
ERRATAFincha is a style of Okinawan tomb.
Fuchien is the old Wade-Giles system name for Fujian.
Tsubaki is accurately describing a proper Okinawan tomb from the time before the “house” and popular “turtleback” style tombs came into being. The original tombs were often natural caves like this.
“Kibare” and “Chesuto” are Satsuma dialect words of encouragement. The former is a version of “ganbare” and the latter is a shortened form of “chie sute yo” or “throw away your wisdom.” (JUST DO IT!)
Yabuchi-style earthenware is the oldest style of pottery found on Okinawa and goes back 7,000 years.
The “urine rag” refers to using a urinated upon rag as a makeshift gas mask. An Okinawan in the 1945 battle referred to doing such a thing to survive a cave full of smoke.
Photos taken by me in 2022 somewhere in Nanjo City.
March 24, 2025, 08:15:32 AM