The Shadowlands were dark and silent today. And also dark. A dark and unsightly wind flew meaningfully over the evil landscape, raising a scary noise into the evil air. If you had been there you would have been scared, I mean it. Even if you are used to scary things or whatever. It was pretty tight. And evil. Don’t forget evil. That’s what it looked like so, moving on.

Iuchiban stood at the top of the tower that was his house. He angrily looked down from the tower with anger, watching all the people below that looked kind of like ants because they were vary far away. He thought lots of evil things because he is the bad guy and that is the evil sort of thing to do and anyway I am letting you know that he is the bad guy so you do not accidentally like him wait until later good guys will show up that was a very long sentence.

The Bloodspeaker spent a lot of time thinking about the Empire. And the things in it. Because they made him angry. He thought a lot about breaking things and about how he would do it and sometimes he would cackle. He’d be careful only to do it when nobody was watching because that is really the sort of thing you should save up and not do very often or it sort of loses its effect. He scowled as he looked out and tried to think of something evil to do because, I mean, well he was pretty tapped out. Call down a storm of blood from the heavens that twists the evil in mortal souls and then where do you go from there? You know what I mean you have probably been there.

Anyway so he turns around and he says “Hey Yajinden.”

Then Yajinden (oh by the way Yajinden was in the room he was reading a book or something) says “What.”

And Iuchiban says “I was thinking.” Then he sort of pauses.

And Yajinden says “Okay.” Not really because it was okay but more to sort of remind Iuchiban that he had started saying something and interrupted his reading and it’d really sort of make sense for him to at least say something else you know.

And Iuchiban says “Erm. Never mind.”

And Yajinden sort of rolls his eyes and goes back to reading his book. It was about flowers. Or something. Yeah some sort of flowers that you’d find in Rokugan I guess. Maybe roses.

And then Iuchiban says “Oh yeah, hey Yajinden.”

And for a minute Yajinden just pretends not to hear him and hopes that he’ll forget again.

And Iuchiban says “Hey!” and sort of glares all angry at Yajinden cause he was still sort of angry and stuff not at Yajinden but just in general but now it was sort of coming into focus.

So Yajinden decides it’s a good idea to put his book down. “What?” he says.

“I was thinking that it’s time we destroyed Rokugan or something,” Iuchiban said.

Yajinden just looked at Iuchiban and waited for a little bit.

Iuchiban gave a big satisfied grin.

“That’s it?” Yajinden said. “That’s as far as you got with this?”

Iuchiban looked a little disappointed. “You can’t plan too much for this sort of thing,” he said and he shrugged. “I figure the details will sort of work themselves out as we go. Let’s go destroy a city or something.”

“You sure about that?” Yajinden asked, and he looked at Iuchiban sort of questioningly.

“What do you mean am I sure about that?” Iuchiban asked. “Sure I’m sure about that. Why wouldn’t I want to destroy a city. That’s the sort of thing people like us do, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” Yajinden said. “But I am just sort of concerned that people will think it is not very original. I mean Daigotsu destroyed Otosan Uchi just a while ago right? Isn’t this just the same thing?”

Iuchiban blinked. “I’m trying to destroy the Empire here, not shooting for some sort of award for… original… Empire… destroying” he sort of struggled there. “I mean think about it. If we’re going to destroy the Empire there’s only so many ways to go about it right? We’ll have to destroy a city sooner or later then somebody is gonna compare us to Daigotsu.”

“If you say so,” Yajinden said. “I just don’t know about it. I’d think you’d want to start the Lost off with something more impressive.”

“Impressive?” Iuchiban asked. “You remember the blood thing right? The whole tainty blood from the sky thing?”

“That was okay I guess,” Yajinden said, looking somewhat uncomfortable.

“You are stupid,” Iuchiban said.

“Sorry,” Yajinden replied. “What do you have in mind?”

“C’mere,” Iuchiban said, waving eagerly toward the window.

Yajinden got up, but sort of slowly, keeping his eye on Iuchiban. Iuchiban was a centuries old heartless immortal who drew magic from the pain and suffering of innocents and daily plotted the destruction of all creation. This gave him a kind of weird sense of humor. Not the guy you want waving you toward an open window saying “C’mere” with a silly grin. But he went over anyway cause otherwise the story would stop here and I wouldn’t get paid this week.

“To the north,” Iuchiban said, pointing toward the horizon. Well, toward what would have been the horizon but it was the Shadowlands so it was sort of, well, shadowy, but Iuchiban always sort of favored dramatics even when they didn’t make much sense (he cut his heart out and put it in a box, remember). “To the north there stands a Hidden City, in the lands of the Phoenix!”

“That’s pretty far away,” Yajinden said. “Shouldn’t we start somewhere closer, like maybe with those Crabs in our front yard?”

“THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THEY’D EXPECT!” Iuchiban snapped.

“Well, yeah,” Yajinden said. “Because it makes sense.”

Iuchiban gave Yajinden a sort of look that implied it would be unwise to push the matter further. “So this hidden City,” Yajinden said.

“Hidden City,” Iuchiban corrected.

“That’s what I said,” Yajinden replied.

“No you said hidden city,” Iuchiban answered. “It’s Hidden City. You have to pronounce the capitals correctly.”

Yajinden waited patiently for a moment. When he saw Iuchiban was serious, he said “Sorry.”
“Right then,” Iuchiban went on. “In this Hidden City the Phoenix keep all the most dangerous top secret magic items in the clan! Nobody knows about this place except those who go there! Those who live there, never leave!”

“Then how do the Phoenix know where to bring the magic items?” Yajinden asked, now looking out the window with curious interest.

Iuchiban paused for a long time. “You know I never stopped to think about that,” he said. “I guess we can ask them about that when we are there.”

Yajinden nodded.

“Anyway,” Iuchiban continued, “among these items are some of the most dangerous and deadly weapons ever used! The Black Scrolls! The Pearl of Karasu! The Jewel of Karas’ehn! The Bloodsword Ambition!”

“What’s the Jewel of Karas’ehn?” Yajinden asked.

“I just sort of made that one up to pad out the list,” Iuchiban said, looking sort of embarrassed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask about it or just think it sounded so cool that I couldn’t possibly have made it up. I even put an apostrophe in the name to make it seem exotic and authentic.”

“Ah,” Yajinden said.

“No go, eh?” Iuchiban asked.

“No worries,” Yajinden said. “The other stuff sounded pretty cool. The Pearl of Karasu, that’s the magic pearl with Iuchi Karasu and that Kuni guy in it right?”

Iuchiban nodded. “They fight forever in there.”

“Forever,” Yajinden answered, impressed. “You’d think they’d get tired of that.”

“I guess you’d be wrong,” Iuchiban said, somewhat smugly. “And soon it will be ours.”

“Excellent,” Yajinden said.

“Soon all of it will be ours,” Yajinden replied.

They looked sort of confused for a moment.

“Did I say that?” Yajinden asked.

“Yeah you stepped on my line,” Iuchiban said. “Totally switched us around like you weren’t even paying attention.”

“I do that a lot I guess,” Yajinden said. “Sorry let’s start over.”

“I don’t want to start over!” Iuchiban said. “I don’t remember the first stuff I said.”

“Just as well,” Yajinden replied. “This story is already pretty long already. We can probably end it about here.”

“Here?” Iuchiban asked. “You sure? This is a pretty lame ending. It’s not even dramatic or anything.”

“I’m sure something cool and cliffhangery will happen right at the end,” Yajinden answered.

“That’s always pretty lame,” Iuchiban said. “This whole story so far has been pretty lame in fact. Why are we acting so out of character in this?”

And then the tiger jumped out at them!

TO BE CONTINUED
(April Fools, 2004!)