Deru Kugi wa Utareru
-- common Japanese axiom ('The nail that sticks up will be hammered down')

SEVEN IS DARKER

Jay Noyes
Subject: DG: EH -- Jay's Japan Chapter
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 12:32:45 +0900 (JST)

I was looking over my backlog of messages and found that someone had already done a Japan chapter. Ah well. I'll go ahead and send the first of the two versions of the Japan chapter that I was doing. This one does not involve the Goddess of the Black fan.

Jay

Seven is Darker, or
Deru Kugi wa Utareru
('The nail that sticks up will be hammered down' -- common Japanese axiom)

Location: Tokyo, Japan
Tome: The Muvian Documents w/ Original Hoag manuscript of the Ponape Scripture
Bischofe: D. Walt (His personality and background hasn't yet been worked out, and I'm still looking for good first name in German)
Pawns: (Sort of. See below)
The Yakuza, and a radical Japanese Nationalist Group "Shin Nihon Tenchuusha" (the New Japan Society for Divine Retribution) also known as "The Bastards with the Armored Trucks and Amazing Loudspeakers". To know them is to hate them.
Non-pawns, but involved groups: Tim and Ruth Andrews (collateral damage), and Emperor Akihito, and the entire Japanese Royal Family

Synopsis

Everyone has problems.

Alzis' problem is that a tome he covets -- the original Muvian Documents of the Ponape scripture, detailing, along with many of the lost magics of Muvian race, the summoning of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra -- is written in Muvian, which no one currently living can read or speak. Subsequent to the Innsmouth raid, there were only two copies of Captain Abner Hoag's manuscript describing in hideous detail his experiences with the Ponape islanders, including translation notes of the original Ponape documents, made with the assistance of Hoag's half- Polynesian manservant. One copy -- later destroyed by Daniel Fries' rampage -- was captured by project COVENANT in the assault on Innsmouth. The other was the original, which Hoag's daughter had re-bound in 1793, under the title of "Islands of the Pacific, or the Far Voyages of Captain Abner Hoag." That copy had been thought lost until it's recent discovery by haole emigres Tim and Ruth Andrews in their new home, a plantation mansion in Hawaii -- an occurrence that got their pictures in the local papers and was certain to attract some rather unexpected and uncertainly unwanted attention.

D. Walt's problem is that he hates his assignment. He has been given the task of managing Japan's nationalist groups in their efforts both, knowing and unknowing, to support the Karotechia. Although he acknowledges the Japanese as one of the greater of the lower races, he hate them simply because they exist. He considers the brightest of them to be only a small step up from clever monkeys. However, his assignment is his assignment, and he intends to carry it out. He has known for years that the Shin Nihon Tenchuusha' had possessed the original Ponape documents, but never actually tried to obtain them, as they were impossible to read. The Andrews' discovery has changed this, however, and he immediately set out to get both the manuscripts and the documents. But the yellow bastards aren't cooperating.

Shin Nihon Tenchuusha's problem is that the modern Emperor is only a rubber stamp of the gaijin-controlled lackeys of the Japanese parliament -- known as the National Diet -- instead of ruling the country directly as is his divine right and duty. Since the occupation of certain South Pacific islands during the war against gaijin oppression, however, the group has possessed documents that they believe will allow the summoning of the goddess Amatarasu no Mikami, the founder of the royal line. Unfortunately, the nationalists were unable to read the documents, as they had been found subsequent to the execution of the last living speaker of Muvian. When D. Walt assigned them to capture the newly discovered Hoag manuscripts, they realized that this was their chance to break away with the inferior Germans and reinvest the Emperor by summoning his divine ancestor.

Tim and Ruth Andrews are troubled innocents, whose problems arise simply because they fell in love with a beautiful old mansion on a vacation and decided to buy it. Although they had been pleased with the fifteen minutes of local fame they received after discovering the strange old book, they had been less than thrilled when their were taken from their home by hard-eyed Asians in suits. In the two months since then they have been almost constant bound, spent weeks seasick in a ship's hold, tortured, and repeatedly interrogated in bad English. They know nothing, but Shin Nihon Tenchuusha is determined not to repeat past mistakes.

Emperor Akihito and the entire royal family are about to have some quite serious problems. Their adoring supporters, Shin Nihon Tenchuusha, is entirely correct; the Imperial line is indeed descended from divinity. Sadly, Amatarasu no Mikami is actually Mother Hydra seen through the veils of time and legend. Should Shin Nihon Tenchuusha actually succeed in its plans, the Japanese public is going to be seriously surprised, and the Royal line is going to undergo a severe change of lifestyle.

Jimmy Arai, of Honolulu, is a man whose problems are slight, if significant. For ten years, he has been plagued by dreams of a man of Middle-Eastern descent. At the man's behest, Jimmy has taken Polaroids of every black cadillac to pass his ticket booth in the airport parking lot. Now the dreams have stopped, and poor Jimmy is all alone again.

Finally, our intrepid adventurers have the problem of saving the world.
They, through A- cell, receive a manila envelope containing a photograph of four Asian men -- one with punch- permed hair -- driving a black cadillac, the rental plate clearly visible. A two-month-old article in a Hawaiian newspaper tells of the Andrews' odd discovery. These clues will lead the investigators to Japan, where they will be caught between two groups vying for control of manuscripts contain forbidden knowledge. The difficulties are manifold: Will they make common cause with D. Walt to take the manuscripts? How will they combat the mythos in a country were you're never farther than thirty feet from the nearest innocent witness and reports of gunfire will bring out a horde of S.W.A.T.-equivalent police? Will they have ramen for lunch, or face the sanity-blasting terrors of the dreaded natto? The agent's decisions are crucial in saving humanity from the hammer of fate.