Chapter 3

Special thanks to Josh for providing the inspiration for the character of Josh the monk.

Yet there is still the curious case of Lil'ling in Tu Wang Ping's proverbial pocket.

The savage beating from the woman, which Tu Wang Ping only narrowly survived, is the reason she fell into the mess, literally fell from a cliff into the sea where she was recused by Pin Lung.

Now it is time to figure out that puzzling case. 

First, she must get her payment from Pin Lung for taking on the case of Pin Lung's missing daughter and for helping him in the Flower Liches' dragonboat race, which he gives her his winnings of 100 Gold Pennies.

It is a pittance yet Tu Wang Ping takes it anyway. (She got only 200 Gold Pennies to endanger her very soul!)

Tu Wang Ping needs to investigate the House of the Sound of White Jasmine, yet Lil'ling, or whatever hideous praying mantis Venus flytrap hiding inside a white jasmine flower feeling was, knows about her.

Tu Wang Ping suspects the Flower Liches would have something to do with this. It might be a coincidence that such an inexplicable supernatural malignity just so happened to correlate with the summoning of the Flower Liches, yet it might not, so perhaps the strange horribleness inside Lil'ling knows that Tu Wang Ping survived and is still alive. Because of this, Tu Wang Ping decides on hiring a third party, someone who the Flower Liches nor the thing that pretends to be Lil'ling would not know.

She quickly finds Josh, a wondering monk, who calls himself a Disciple of the Northern Wind, or a carousing monk, part of the sect of Progressive Fighting. A weird fellow because Tu Wang Ping has never heard of such things, yet she has never heard of the things Terry the Terrible and Shesha speak about either, and Tu Wang Ping is getting a feeling that reality is thin when the Flower Liches are in the city, and other people could perhaps slip from their world to another, such as Tu Wang Ping's world.

She gathers her forces around her, namely just Shesha, Terry the Terrible, and now Josh the monk, and prepares her plans.

Josh is mentally disturbed at Terry the Terrible's slave complex and internalized racism from being a slave in his world.

Yet this quite mental disturbance does not get in the way of Josh the monk has been brought on to do because if what Tu Wang Ping says is true, then a great many horrible things could be or will happen and Josh is not going to let that happen.

At night, as Tu Wang Ping prepares her plans with her allies, Terry the Terrible hears a faint tapping coming from outside the walls of Tu Wang Ping's small house.

Tu Wang Ping looks to Josh and Shesha and whispers them to get ready. Tu Wang Ping know this city when it is in the time of Flower Liches and a faint tapping at your door is never a good omen.

They all gather in one particular room with one candle and wait out the night, they will plan in hushed whispers and sleep on the floor in this room tonight.

There is a rattling and a scrapping at the doors of Tu Wang Ping's house. Yet whatever is outside, does not or cannot come in.

The night is a quiet night after that though pregnant with fear.

Terry the Terrible casts cure light wounds on Tu Wang Ping, giving her 6 hit points. 

Thus rested and healed, Tu Wang Ping sets out with Josh the monk to find out what is at the bottom of the curious case of Lil'ling.

They decide to have Josh the monk pretend to be a forbidden suitor to Lil'ling while Tu Wang Ping hides and uses her psychic powers to get a reading on what is going on in the house. 

She warns Josh the monk, although, of the sinister malignancy she registered in Lil'ling, like a venomous praying mantis, hiding in the flower of a jasmine and also tells him of the absolutely devastating hooks the thing could do. Tu Wang Ping survived only by dumb luck.

Josh the monk nods in understanding of all this.

In trepidation he sweats as they travel to the House of the Sound of White Jasmine.

Without trouble, Josh the monk walks up to the house and begins talking to Si Lim about his fears about insanity and memories of being killed by blue-face monkey-men. Josh the monk was told about these fears and memories by Tu Wang Ping.

Si Lim looks at Josh the monk in horror and asks confused, "How! How! How do you know that?!"

Josh the monk crouches down to where Si Lim is sitting at his coach and whispers, "Remember that detective woman who came here into the house and never returned? She was attacked by your mistress, thrown down off the cliffs yet survived. I have been hired by her to continue the investigation. So come along please, tell me what you know, from what I have heard, your mistress does not sound kind anymore."

Si Lim shakes his head in fear. "No. No. I won't talk about it," he whimpers.

However, abruptly Josh the monk hears a voice from up above on the house's balcony. The voice cries, "Hey! Are you talking about the night where we all were killed?"

Josh the monk looks and get up. "Yes." He smiles. He sees a haughty young man standing on the first balcony. 

"Tell me about that night," asks Josh the monk.

The haughty youth smiles smugly, "What is in it for me?"

Josh the monk smiles as well, all in all, everything comes down to money. Fortunately for Josh the monk and the investigation, they have plenty of it.

"One second," says Josh the monk and he runs where Tu Wang Ping is hiding and asks for money for a bride.

Tu Wang Ping nods and she gives him 9 gold pennies.

Josh the monk runs back and throws the coins up at the youth.

The pennies reach the balcony and the youth tries to catch them, but they clatter on him.

"That enough for ya?" grins Josh the monk, proud of his throwing skills.

The youth grumbles, feeling a bit up staged by this white wandering vagabond. 

"Fine," the youth calls down, and the youth tells Josh the monk how he remembers how one night horrible ghosts and goblins came and took the servants, about running to the District Judge's house, about being sent away, about how the creatures came to him, tied him up, and slaughtered him down by the riverbed, giving description of the place where he was ripped apart, then awakening back in his bed in the House of the Sound of White Jasmine.

Josh the monk listens to all of this and says thanks for the information. He heads back to where Tu Wang Ping is and relays this information to Tu Wang Ping.

Tu Wang Ping knows what to do. They head back to pick up Terry the Terrible and Shesha. (Get in losers, we're going adventuring!) They go to the place where the youth on the balcony recalls being killed.

Jutting, ivy covered flat rocks stand above the river's curve. The water is muddy, as a light back draught stirs it. Dragonflies by day and fireflies by night gather at this place, feasting on minute yellow insects, so many that their continual buzzing merges with the river's sound. The mud flows at the surface only; the riverbed, some 20' below, is clear, littered with small pieces of mica, beautiful but of little worth (Flower Liches of the Dragonboat Festival, page 82).

They find the dead bodies down 20' by the riverbed. The dead bodies are bloated by water and decayed, yet our party can identify some of the bodies as servants they've seen in the House of the Sound of White Jasmine.

Tu Wang Ping wants to take a closer look so she inspects with sensitivity to psychic impressions, shows clearly the bodies murder at the hands of tall humanoids with blue simian faces, heavily slanted eyes, and long powerful arms and they were tied before reaching the river. As well, sensitivity to psychic impressions show a trail leading to where these creatures are. (This is not in the text of Flower Liches of the Dragonboat Festival, yet give me a break, I need a clue to get the party somewhere.) 

However, as she is in the muddy water, six, two feet long slug-like, sickly white worms with vivid crimson heads and tubular, tiny fanged mouths swim out to attack her!

They attack, one attaching itself to her with the tubular, tiny fanged mouth. Another successes. Third one successes. Fourth one does. Fifth one does. Sixth does not however.

All of this causes 5 points of damage to Tu Wang Ping as she is leeched bitten by them.

As well, the fifth one attaches itself to her face! Which blinds her.

Our party's turn now, seeing Tu Wang Ping attacked by the leeching white worms with vivid crimson heads, Shesha and Josh the monk race-wade into to get Tu Wang Ping.

Shesha drags her back out of the mud and water while Josh the monk tries to rip off one of the sickly white worms, however, Josh the monk only does one point of damage, causing the worm to turn and bleed and have its colours shift along its body yet it stays suckered on Tu Wang Ping.

Tu Wang Ping immediately attempts to get the worm that has attached itself on her face off her face.

Her mad panic causing her to squeeze the slug-like worm until it pops and explodes into an array of worm fluids and blood.

Unluckily for Tu Wang Ping, Terry the Terrible has not prepared a cure light wounds spell, leaving Terry's only avenue for help is to attempt to pry another sickly white worm with a vivid crimson head off her. He stabs one with a dagger, causing 3 points of damage and the worm shrivels as it stolen blood oozes out of it.

Only three remaining worms are left.

They suck 3 points of damage out of Tu Wang Pin.

Josh the monk rips one of the worms off of Tu Wang Ping and slams it to the ground where it splatters on impact. (Josh the monk threw a 20 on his D20!).

Terry the Terrible is startled by this impressive display of strength and hand agility and slips up. He trips into the splatter blood remains of the bashed worm and falls, getting his face covered in worm fluid and the blood of Tu Wang Ping. (Terry the Terrible threw a 1 on his D20. Amazing how this random bit of chance highlights the typical traits of how I see these characters. Josh the monk being hyper-competent and Terry the Terrible being a fuck up).

Shesha, meanwhile, crushes  another one of the worms. 

Tu Wang Ping gets the last worm.

Suitably saved, she explains to her three henchmen what she was psychically able to detect. 

Therefore, they are heading to the Gulistan of Nightshade, the Flower Lich, As Tu Wang Ping understands something about the Flower Liches somehow she always knew that the Flower Liches would be at the bottom of this terrible mystery.

Josh the monk is adamant that Tu Wang Ping needs to rest from her ordeal, yet Tu Wang Ping will have none of that.

Terry the Terrible will heal her up and then they will find a way to implicate the Flower Liches for transgressing beyond the reach of their dragonboat festival. Tu Wang Ping has taken too many beating and experiences near to death to wait.

However, as said, she does allow Terry the Terrible 14 hours to mediate and prepare two cure light wounds spells after being convinced by Josh the monk. She is healed by 6 hit points.

All four then dare the Gulistan ominously and weirdly named 18ter curzon street, at night no less.

A large townhouse stands out in the middle of Shui Tsa street. A tin plate hangs loosely on a single rusty nail by the copper double door's side, indicating a weirdly different address —18 Ter , Curzon Street. Where all the other houses feature gracious slanted roofs, lanterns, and fantastical wooden decorations, this gloomy, lackluster building, made of red- and yellow-painted bricks now blackened by dirt, is devoid of any such decorative touches. Up above, three wind-swept balconies overhang the street below. There's a striking absence of sound, absence of life, and absence of joy seeping from the house, and the faint smell of a deep forest. (Flower Liches of the Dragonboat Festival, page 69.)

Despite the absence of sound, life, and joy, our party enters the Townhouse and come into the lobby where a mist shrouds the lobby.

The bizarre place is empty of life. The party does thoroughly search the lobby finding a tricycle, a strange contraption for all of them, a black oiled trench coat, and three maroon umbrella, strangely wrought.

As well, they discover a black crystal chair, opposite to where they came in, though none dare sit upon it, they are too scared by such a thing. They are scared of everything in this room, and by the fact that there seems to be no doors in the walls.

Not to be thwarted, Tu Wang Ping cries to comb the walls with their hands and claws, in Shesha's case, in search of hidden doors.

Quickly, Josh the monk a door on left side of the room to the black crystal chair. He cries for everyone and they arrive and the door is revealed to them.

Josh the monk attempts to open it yet it won't budge. So Tu Wang Ping decides to use her chimes of openings upon it.

The door opens and the party enters the dinning hall of the Gulistan 18ter Curzon street.

They examine the unopened oven, the table and the chairs, yet find nothing of note. They decide to take the stairs.

Yet the mist quickly reveals that the stairs are covered by sticky, disgusting strains of goo. To which, Terry the Terrible whispers, "Spiders . . ."

They set to work dismantling the web work. It takes one hundred minutes or nearly 2 hours.

In that time, during the first ten minutes, four purplish-skinned ghouls with tiny fanged tubular mouth and crimson and blue flowers of flesh erupting on the surface of their skin arrive out of the mist to see the party hacking away at the sticky webs.

These four purple monster men with crimson and blue flowers erupting out of them begin to laugh a terrible, guttural laughter from the tubular mouths. The creatures look exuberant as if they are high upon something, they seem to view the party trying to cut away at the webs as profoundly hilarious.

Then these flower monster men wander and ramble away, shrieking their giggling as they do.

Tu Wang Ping's blood turns cold for she knew those things as the flower ghouls, the followers and guards of the Flower Liches, though why they did not attack them is beyond her understanding. (The flower ghouls had devoured a really high person just before and the party literally threw a 12 on the reaction throw.)

The party continues slicing away at the webs. They finally cut through the webs and are through to the stairs.

When then they are met on top of the misty stairs by four more of the purple flower ghouls with tubular mouths and crimson and blue flowers puckering their skin. 

The head of this flower ghoul procession makes a motion with its claw for the party to move aside and the party does so, stretching themselves thin across the stairs's wall.

The flower ghouls march down the stairway, their leathery faintly flower sweet skin so close to the party members.

Josh the monk sucks in air deep into his nostrils, Shesha keeps his tongue in his mouth (as he is part naga or snake spirit), Terry the Terrible shutters in a uncontrollable quiver, and Tu Wang Ping now knows why these places are called Gulistans, Houses of Flowers, Houses of Ghouls!

They search around the small anti-hall of the stairs in the second story yet cannot find any door, though Tu Wang Ping believes it is because of a magic enchantment on the doors in the Gulistan.

Thus Tu Wang Ping takes out her chimes of openings and rings it. (I'm going to say it has 5 charges now.) A door then opens upon the right wall where there was no door before.

The party enters the next room where they discover it to be a cloak room, yet there appears to be only one red tall woolen cloak in this cloak room. None of the party dares put on the red woolen cloak, yet Tu Wang Ping takes it and folds it up and places it in her inventory, who knows? It may prove useful.

Again, there appears to be no doors in this room and, as all the room in the Gulistan, there is that ever encroaching mist swirling around. Yet again, the party cannot find any of the hidden doors, secreted from their eyes by the magic of the Gulistan.

Yet again, Tu Wang Ping has to use her chime of openings in this cloakroom, a door is then opened, (4 charges are left in the chimes).

They enter a large corridor. Through the mist, they can hear a voice reciting something in an unknown language with a deep voice; actually Tu Wang Ping recognizes the language, it is Avestan, the holy language of the Zoroastrians and it is reciting the names of, what else, flowers.

This time, Tu Wang Ping quickly discovers a door in the corridor. They decide that, instead of using the chime of openings, they will simply bash the door down this time.

Promptly Shesha cleaves down the door with his battle ax, clearing the way for the bedroom.

The oddly furnished bedroom has a fresco of a slick deep red fur-less panther decorating one of the walls and two 20' long barbed black leather ribbons hang from its side leading to a four-poster bed.

Tu Wang Ping immediately knows that there is something up and wrong with this bedroom's strange set-up. She whispers to the rest of the party to be wary and to not get within the reach of the black ribbons.

She notices an opening to the lounge and points to it for the party to go through the opening while she investigates this room, using her sensitivity to psychic impressions on the bed. 

She gains the vision or notion that Lil'ling was here, bound, gagged, and panicked. Lil'ling had been taken to this bed, being prepared for a ritual by tall humanoids with blue simian faces, heavily slanted eyes and long, powerful arms, the black ribbons moved on their own to tie and bind her to the bed. Lil'ling cries and moans in panic as a blurred silhouette bends over her, reciting eldritch incantations.

Tu Wang Ping is horrified by this because the Lil'ling in the vision actually seems like the real Lil'ling, not the false one which attacked her and had a soul like that of venom in the white jasmine.

Quietly, Tu Wang Ping walks to the lounge where Josh the monk, Shesha, and Terry the Terrible are silently transfixed by a gigantic mouth moving its glossy and cherry-red lips.

Tu Wang Ping sees this gigantic mouth and performs her Read Object psychic ability upon such a magic mouth.

This forces the mouth to repeat and mimic what it is saying. It speaks in the voice of a Flower Lich, Nightshade, gloating and laughing about his plans, explaining that he intends on swapping bodies with Lil'ling and that he intends to use her body as a portal gate for summoning a demon lord! Whose manifestation will shred Lil'ling's body to peices!

Tu Wang Ping and her party are horrified by this revelation.

Tu Wang Ping hurries the motley crew out of the lounge and bedroom so as not to damage the evidence in those rooms. In the corridor, however, they hear again that voice speaking the names of flowers in Avestan. The party finds this voice disturbing and cannot converse in this room. They head into the cloakroom to discuss what is to be done.

They need to get out of here yet they also need to obtain the evidence here.

Josh the monk says that he could perhaps carry everyone down via the balconies. 

Seeing no way of getting the gigantic magic mouth out of the room, Tu Wang Ping describes a desperate gambit, attempt to find Lil'ling in the body of Nightshade, the Flower Lich and get her somehow to tattle on the Flower Liches to the Gods so that the demon lord will not be birthed.  She also likes Josh the monk's idea of how to get out of the Gulistan through jumping off the balconies.

They head to the balcony connected to the lounge and Josh the monk begins to jump with Tu Wang Ping. 

Josh the monk deftly carries her down to the ground of the city's road. Then he jumps back to get Terry the Terrible -  - - and he fails. He throws a 17!!! Fail! Fail! Fail! 

Terry the Terrible manages to roll when he hits the ground, allowing him not to gain any damage, but Josh the monk's imbalance combined with Terry's rolling on top of him nets him 2 points of damage. It is mostly Josh the monk's confidence that is shaken a bit as he did not perform that flying leap very well. Yet, Josh the monk get his head in the game, and leaps again to finally get Shesha.

Josh the monk gets up without a problem and gets down without a problem as well. 

Now all the party has to do is find Lil'ling in the Nightshade's body.