The Land of Sakurai Arc of Origin, Ring 8

The Land of Sakurai Arc of Origin, Ring 8

Society on Room 8914 is a land of cherry blossoms and Pagoda's housing many districts. It's world contains several mountain ranges where kaiju roam, and the center is a valley protected by a wall of language. Violet outbursts from the fierce monsters are common, only to be stopped by the magical field of anaemic, thin and inked barrier made up of a million floating kanji. These circulate around in a dome-shape as packets of data crawling across the sky. Inkrites work tirelessly to write poems by the surface to create, fix, repair and cast this ward to protect the valley. Kanjicraft enables the populace to grow food, to communicate across long distances. To arm and shield themselves and of course, to communicate. No one native to room 8914 can speak with verbal communication or make soundwaves, when they speak a single symbol is created out of their mouth physically, and these symbols are exchanged back and forth allowing the pale, short and hobbled kin there to understand one another. 

The races are rounded and shapely, our researchers confused them for some species of doll at first. They seldom open their eyes, and when they do one would discover that their sclera have no pupils or irises. These sclera change colours rapidly in indication of one's mood and emotional state- for this reason, opening one's eye is not only revealing but a display of obscene passion. Be it anger, joy, sexual eroticism, jealousy, fear or elation, any form of excitation is heavily sexualized and thus improper to display or express. The upper classes of society have more leeway on this matter, whereas modesty is the most prized cultural value of the lower classes and sign of those tend to be undereducated, whereas the ruling class displays knowledge of more kanji and creates mouthfuls around them while flashing their vivid eyes freely. 

This floor's primary crop is Muto beans, a mushy food eaten in silence. Rice is also available, but due to its crunchy eating-texture, only the meal of bluebloods. The rulers are Kanji seers who follow the Shogunwise- each District has their own Showgunwise, a spherical minx-like creature with many differently shaped eyes, two large boned-buns atop its, pink and blue swirling patterns, an extravagant set of ornaments, two large breasts and razor sharp teeth. These entities spew hundreds of kanji every minute, like a never ending exhaust of verbal formulation. Although nonsensical to most, the denizens consider these Kanji sacred- only the Seers are able to interpret their messages, and from this mystical tradition governing policy is executed. The enforcers and garrison of the world are the Porcupinas, devilish, rounded imps with pointy tails who carry pitchforks. They're charged with prodding the serfs into farming the beanfields. Luxury drinks of choice for the peasants include Muto smush, Mutomash, Muto wine and Swogmeat (Cut from the backside of porcine livestock who eat rotted Muto beans and waste). 

Society is heavily stratified. In the intermediary of this feudal structure, are the ablative class of the Maikota, a group of ecdysiast who utilize Kanji poetry in their performance. Said to have mastered their sensual emotions to such a degree that they keep them constantly open and the colors shifting for poetic, erotic display, Maikota are able to create 'tangible' fibers with their words. They can stretch these around their bodies like fibers, tease them or smoke them like cigars, and even wear them as extensions of their makeup - usually pale white with painted red lips, and two dots of their social rank. Maikota are courtesans, they sing, dance and entertain. The highest class of Maikota wear bright green with a spiked 'crownlike' circlet, and paint their faces a mint-green - our research team likes to nickname them "Lady Libertys."

Among the middling ranks, we discovered young Misaki (美咲). Misaki was a budding Maikota in training, she was born with a rare handicap that does not allow her to create the kanji physically that others do with their mouths. The girl rarely opened her eyes to display any emotions, the one time she did for our team revealed a bright yellow indicating fear. Her mother, Spade, a lifelong Maikota appeared to be an often vulgar consumer of vodka and cheap pornography. Because the culture of this land revolves around the written kanji to the degree of fundamentalists, Misaki was considered a combination of a heretic and handicapped. Spade did not bear Maikota as the upper classes do not engage in the reproduction process (one that leaves the body swollen for 28 months and weakens their vocalizing organs after), she followed the process by which all of the Maikota and nobles acquire children. They were taken from someone as a lottery of sorts, and indoctrinated. The formal ritual for an infant revolves around tattoo'ing their entire lower half of their body, and these markings stay with them their entire life, even multiplying and growing as they age up their upper chest, arms and neck.

Misaki was selected via this lottery and raised with her 159 sisters in the ways of Kanjicraft. Due to her disability, she was characterized by her struggle to earn Spade's affection and be eyed for a placement of oracle. Those picked become one of the Kanji seers, guiding society in a circle around the Showgunwise with leisurely interpretation. Her conflict reached a turning point when she made grocery runs to the rural countryside, and found a strange figure lying in the bean marshes.

The wight, laying in frothy puddles appeared to gleam in a black carapace from head to toe. Their body was picked up by Misaki and squeaked as she dragged it back to the Misaki palace in the far corner of the valley and placed them on her cot. Their existence, Misaki learned, was of a being who cut ties from their world and started a new life. They were faceless, and atop the shiny dark shell they wore was a jingling cowl. The porcelain-like skin was comparable to Misaki's painted white, but without features. Neither could talk, but by using an inked pen, the two started to interact and parsed the details of each other's worlds. The strange entity, in all their live thoughts and feelings, wanted to experience the internal lives of the natives. Misaki wanted the highest position of her caste.

The two snuck into the highest Pagoda, loaded with luxurious amenities where only the Kanji Seers stayed. Stealing one of their ivory quills, Misaki began to make use of her refined skills in calligraphy. She painted the pale entity with a face of their own, using the tip's careful movements to outline pupil-less eyes, and a single curved line for a smile. The ink sunk in swiftly, and came to life. Her eyes blinked, interconnectivity with the world.

 

Wick began to talk. She and Misaki felt inherently exceptional. It was there that Misaki learned she was in a valley within a world, that was one of many worlds. Far from unsettling her, Misaki grew excited at the prospect of learning about the other floors. However the barrier of a million symbols not only kept the kaiju of the valley out, but the citizens in. Wick did not recall how she arrived, and the two required a way out. Legend said that only the writ of word in motion could negate word, and yet Misaki could not talk. The two concocted a plan and snuck into that the top of a local palace night, where Shogunwise were kept in giant flasks, their words fumed into a hearth and burned from dusk to dawn. Creeping past the Porcupinas guards, the two broke out a gunwise and started making their way towards the border. As the sirens of the sacred rooster went out, the jester and the geisha made their way in a mad dash. Before the two were surrounded, they placed the Shogunwise underneath the barrier and watched the veil divide.

With monsters rampaging closeby, the nearest Maikota got on their knees and begged the two to stop, offering anything as leverage. The Kanji Seers smudged their makeup crying and begging them to cease. Both looked at each other, and complied- in exchange for pulling the Showgunwise from the veil, asked for a luxury temple suite and position among nobility. This was reluctantly granted, and the two soon lived for a time in privilege and excess high atop a royal Pagoda. 

The two drank and partied for a long time, while Wick perfected her tricks and studied from the courtesans manners of dance, song and high comedy. One day, Misaki caught a Maikota sneaking down to the bottom steps and caught her. She discovered that the Maikota was a worshipper and caretaker to the Hogwurst- a massive swine so large that the entirety of her country was built atop of it, and the bean fields and swampy landscape was a mixture of its manure, excess grease and oils. The barrier was not to protect the denizens but merely the hogwurst from other predators, who would destroy the countryside in a heartbeat to get a taste of it. The Maikota also explained that the Mutomash was laced with an ingredient from another world that was put to dampen the peasantry’s minds and make them submissive. Everything about the Shogunwise and their oracles had been fiction and the lone Maikota had made most of the administrative decisions, but due to a special magic she knew of, because other Maikos believed the Shogunwise’s words to be prophetic, wise and a path to the future, suddenly - they were. If her lies were exposed and the country stopped believing in Kanjicraft as their survival and the wisdom of the Shogunwise, their effectiveness would immediately fade instead of being supernaturally effective. With a gentle request, the Maiko asked the two to leave for the good of the country, showing them an arteryway deep underground that led to the woman who the Maiko learned much from.

With a shrug, the two agreed and began to make their way from the world, to another floor surrounded by bookcases. The air for them was dramatic and tense, as they traveled thru bridges, hallways, huge staircases and across shelves in the seemingly endless, ancient dusty room of books and tomes. The two found what appeared to be the front and rang a bell, waiting as they flipped through a grimoire of many eldritch beings within the Tower. Among them, the Hogwurst was listed as a slumbering boar that came from the depths of the darkest disc, at its largest grown size of 1200KM it wades thru abyssal depths of the Tower’s infernal center. The Hogwurst they knew was effectively only a small sow, barely even a thousand years old. After a series of knock knock jokes and games of would you rather, they were met in the massive library by the librarian, who identified herself as Grace. The woman showed exceptional enthusiasm in sharing with them every book in the library, all 3.4 billion of them, and how they documented the vast history and cultural highlights of the Tower. The two took a pass, but offered a show instead. Grace in her excitement rang ‘her Missjest‘, and soon a foxxy woman arrived. Ellie sat with Grace in the children’s section of the library as the Maiko and Jester put on a surreal performance for hours, eliciting claps and cheers. 

Ellie lent the Maiko one of her stones and gave them directions to the Tower’s lobby from the Corridors. After waving the two off to continue their mirthful journey, she returned to the Sakurai Society to ask the administrative Maiko if her “bacon prize” was ready yet. Ellie cooked the Hogwurst then and there, barbequing as the veil barrier fell, and then she sat and watched dangerous monsters roam throughout the sunset to the smell of savory meat.

This is Wick Betelgeuse ‘speaking’, smelling the bacon from here. Ellie sure has a funny sense of humour huh? I like her quite alot, I’m going to practice my juggling for the next time I perform. Well enough about the Hogwurst. Up next is the floor with the Tower’s Harry Potter or whatever.