Jinzaemon: Shinobi,
have you ever heard someone playing the shamisen around here?
I followed the sound and it led me to this well.
It's faint.
Carried by the wind. It's coming from this hole.
You hear it, do you not?
Wolf: I hear nothing.
J: I see.
Perhaps I alone can hear it.
Nothing else matters. I must follow that melody... it truly stirs my soul.
This sound winds upwards from an ancient decrepit village.
It's a village hidden by the mists.
Mists that coil in a forest.
A forest deep below the earth. Only the devoted or the exiled can find it now.
Ancient Woman: Will you be cast out?
Or throw yourself?
What?
If you wish to go to the very depths of Ashina then you'd best cast yourself out.
It's hard to know what the lives of the ancient Ashina were like, save that they lived on land that was coveted by many.
The gate before this jump is a torii gate,
which marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred, and the land below is indeed sacred.
So sacred, in fact, that the water, rocks and soil here in Mibu Village once attracted the attention of the gods.
One of the gods worshipped here was likely the Serpent God,
as its skin is found throughout the village, and another was likely Buddha, a
deity friendly with the Serpent God, whose statue can be found desecrated in the main temple.
Then, far away to the west, some event caused the Sakura Dragon to be cut free from its homeland.
It drifted to the east,
to Japan, where it found the fertile depths of Ashina.
Then it settled here, conjuring a divine realm, usurping the lesser gods and tearing the fate of Mibu
Village in half. It seems like a lucky few would have immediately become citizens of the palace,
these nobles, but that also means that most of Mibu had to simply
content themselves with the divine waters that begin flowing through their village. These waters
bestowed a ton of bounties upon the Mibu, bounties that were distributed throughout all of Ashina;
Dragonspring Sake: a drink that no words can do justice, Mibu Balloons: orbs of water that were sealed
with bountiful prayers, and even Magnificent Medicines: good enough to be stored in this chest,
apparently created by Dogen, the famous doctor. And yet, for all the perks that were offered by its proximity,
the Divine Realm still lay tragically out of reach, until
the Okami Clan arrived in Mibu Village. This group of warrior women,
technically called the Kuraokami Clan, were among the first to figure out how to ascend. They did this by
accruing three ingredients that they knew were stemming from The Fountainhead,
and they created incense with them
The first ingredient was the stem of a sakura tree, for even to this day, a
sakura blooms in Mibu Village. It might even be an everblossom.
And the Mibu have prayed with the power of sakura for the longest time.
The second ingredient was the fragrance of a flower that thrives in the deepest waters of the Fountainhead.
They called it a Lotus of the Palace. And lastly, they offered a Shelter Stone,
which is something that grows inside the body of one who has long drank from the fountain headwaters.
It's a lot like these cancer-like grave wax lumps that manifest in all of the undead in the game,
and these Shelter Stone rocks, too, can appear in the bodies of those who drink from these immortal waters.
And wrapped in the Fountainhead Fragrance, the Okami ascended to the palace.
Here, like the palace nobles before them, they, too, could drink of the purest waters, beginning this transformation into life carp-like beings.
And, as this journey to the Fountainhead entered the realm of possibility,
a culture of Dragonspring pilgrimage began to emerge.
Wolf: What year is it?
Old Man: What year?
Hard question.
Wolf: Tell me.
Old Man: It's the-
year of the Dragonspring pilgrimage.
Every few years, those seeking to join the wedding procession
would journey to Mibu,
drawn to the village by black pine trees, which were set aflame with a fire that never went out.
If you could pass the test,
then you were able to join a procession that led all the way to the wedding chamber, a place that
we know gives you the chance at admission to the Divine Palace.
And the founder of Mibu Village states that the goal of this procession was to meet the Divine Dragon.
And for this, participants were required to master the secret Mibu breathing
technique, which allows one to breathe underwater.
Without this, the dragon cannot be met, and my best guess is that breathing underwater
somehow facilitates the transformation into becoming a noble of the palace;
you're basically becoming a fish, after all, and perhaps this is why we find so many upturned legs underneath Mibu Lake,
failed practice at breathing underwater perhaps or perhaps they burrowed underground
looking for slugs
Amia, because all over the village we find a sort of slug harvest they're on boards
They're piled up on the ground where the Mibu are digging
They're everywhere and might even be valuable
if they're the same type as those found in the precious bait tooltip'
Because this is food that was given to the master carp that was found at Fountainhead palace
This would be a good example of an item that the Mibu could have brought to the palace for trade
Because there was trade between the divine realm and the Hashanah our proof is in the Dragons
tally board a sort of Idol that was given to merchants who were recognized as of
dragon rank by the Imperial Palace
all was going well, but then war the Okami suddenly and without cause it seems
descended upon a sheena they did battle with its people and they put an end to any goodwill that
Did exist between the two lands all records of this war call it long-forgotten
So we have no idea what triggered this animosity
Perhaps the nobles began to age and began craving the vitality of the Ashna
Maybe the dragon began to get sick or I wonder if the okami simply became ambitious
Whatever it was
We know that it was almost certainly initiated by The Fountainhead because it came at little cost to them
Because even though their assault was eventually repelled by the poison of sabi Maru
It's unlikely that the okami ever
Descended in their physical forms the hanging scroll of an old battle hung in a sheena dojo
Speaks of lightning wielding ghosts that once lurked in the lands of the hashanah and this is the description that can fit the Okami
these women wield lightning which is a power of the divine dragon and
There are three known instances of the okami
projecting apparitions down upon the physical realm the first is that of Orin of the water if you're wondering why we count her as
of the okami
Well, it's because her ghostly form is actually weak to the poison of sabi Maru
Which is effective against the Okami this is important information to know
You're not getting past this shamisen player without a fight. Why are you crying?
Because I'm sad
What are you sad about? I don't know where Lord Sakura is or what he's doing
It breaks my heart. If I can't see him I'd at least like to know
But no matter how many letters I said
He never writes me back and no one will tell me where he is
Actually, sir, can you tell me where is lord Sakura's? Ah, I don't know
You are a liar too, why must everyone I do from me
You're probably sitting there waiting for me to explain Aaron's law, but honestly, it's tough
There are no other references to Lord saccuzzo in the game
Save for one this item description of Jin's as Jizo statue
Which Jin's Amon gives to you at the end of his journey. I must give you my thanks, Toby
No, thanks. You brought the shamisen player to me just a moment ago. She
Caressed me
Playing her sweet melody. It turns out
She was calling to me this whole time
Shinobi please
take this I'm
so very tired now this statue was once given to Lord saccuzzo and
Assumedly this was by errand of the water
somehow it ended up in Jin's a man's hands and
my best guess is that
Loadsa, Cuza gave this statue to jinns a man's father because jinns a man's father does know about me boo
village
He probably eventually passed this down to jinns Amon with a warning never visit the ominous town
Hidden in the mists the second apparition of the okami is the corrupted monk
of course whose nebulous formed guards the Mibu village cave entrance after the war it's unlikely that
Anymore marriage processions were being accepted at the palace and this animosity becomes the simplest explanation
From a threatening presence here the third set of apparitions of the bandits conjured by the mist Noble in the hidden forest
this boss has usurped one of Buddhist temples adorning it with a more homely feel and
He strings the poor monks up by their ankles
You
Will you slay he who poses Buddha the one of whom I speak
Hides in an abandoned temple up ahead. He sealed away the village in a shadowy fog
So that he can fool the villagers
I've gotten terribly over but this old man would like to see Lord Buddha
Return to his temple once more
the most curious reveal of this dialogue
Is that the Mist Noble seeks to seal the village away to fool the villagers?
I'm pretty sure I know what fooling the villagers means because by sealing away the village you're essentially
maintaining this status quo in Mibu village
Preventing the buddhist monks from returning to the village and keeping the village isolated from the world
But the manipulation of the villages goes even further Basque
Basket basket basket I am a basket
this basket case is named Osaka one of the few who actually
Resisted the temptation of drinking the now stagnant water of The Fountainhead what is wrong with this village?
I sure like to know that too before I knew it
Everyone had gone insane for a while. I too was in a daze but nice snapped out of it after I
Threw up I was thirsty so I drink a lot of sake
I'm sure that's what made me throw up the head priest sometimes treats us to sake but you know
When you drink sake you get thirsty the sukkah cask runs dry in no time
so everyone has no choice but to drink the water in the ponds and rivers, but the more you drink it the thirstier you get
You get thirstier and thirstier
get ever drink enough the water here was obviously once very pure but now it's stagnant and
Something's wrong with it it is of course
very similar to the rejuvenating waters of a sauna as
The villagers who drink this become undying because when you kill one villager the very same villager resurrects a few moments later
Confirming that the villages are in fact undying and on top of that they now have this
Undying fear of fire, which is also in line with our Sheena's rejuvenating water
unquenchable fire
Even now the thought of it gives me chills the hunter in Oheka
Started burning pine resin and locked himself in his house his pine. Resin burns a long time
It's a real nuisance the villages previously destroyed these black pines that were guiding people to the village
But now it seems like a man named Eno HECO
defended those pines and hoarded their ever burning resin for this the water drinking villagers came to loathe him and
They hide in the earth
outside his home just
Waiting for him to come out. You know, he Co is the village outcasts. He likes eating wild animal meat in his sword
That's why the head priest doesn't give him any sake the head priest is holed up inside the main temple, and he's hoarding
What is almost certainly?
Sake from the dragon spring. Yes, I can feel it
Dissolving
Liquefy oh
The cop has run dry
But this won't do it's too dilute
Refuses to dissolve completely
Unfit to be citizens of the palace
In the fountainhead palace you can find this pure water of the palace which was a drink that once
Visitors to the palace were greeted with when they arrived it
Transforms the priest into a noble confirming three things first. That humans can become nobles
Second that those with red robes are high-ranking head priests and third the fact that he drops carp scales
Confirms that the nobles of the palace are in fact carp like inform
Explaining me booze affinity for slugs and also explaining the worship of the great cop
As I tie this episode up some of you might be saying hey buddy
Why don't you talk about the giant rope creature at the end of Mibu village?
But technically it also appears in The Fountainhead as well. So
until then
afraid not
If you can forgive that pun then consider checking out the new merge below the video
this is the fate of Kings the
skull of a monarch offered up in a dark ritual the goal with my merch is to kind of give off the same vibe as
Many of the souls games give because I think it's cool to rep the games that you're passionate about
Without wearing clothing that's to video game II and I think we walked that line pretty well here
The art is available in red bronze or a black and white line art and sales from this also
Directly support the artist John Devlin as well. Who?
Recently had some of his art put on merchandise and sold without his permission
So it's a pleasure to be able to give the guy some
Legitimate sales in return and it's really fun to create merchandise that you might feel proud of wearing
So please if you're running low on t-shirts
Or maybe you need a hoodie to keep you warm in the winter
Then consider the fate of Kings and I'll see you in the next one