Wuppo's Bag [Pocket World]

Kojuro was right behind Yasuke Shisou as they entered the mysterious magical bag, the red cords held in place to the back of their armour. “See you later, Wuppo!” he said casually, trusting the ogre to guard the bag, and the small group of assembled samurai, servants and priest to make sure Wuppo was kept in tea and food while he waited for them to return. There was no way of telling how long they would be in there or what awaited them. At first as they entered the recesses of the satchel, there was nothing but darkness, a leathery smell, and a very slight breeze. Then suddenly, whatever was underfoot gave way and they were falling through complete darkness, a tunnel with no sides that either of them could touch. Nothing about it seemed like the inside of a bag any more – if it ever had.

The two samurai hit the ground near simultaneously, and rather suddenly, landing on a combination of dry leaves and spiky seed pods. Kojuro stood up, pushing up his helmet by the visor as it had fallen down over his eyes a little, and adjusting his swords. He pulled one of the spiky seed pods out from the fabric of his hakama, that had somehow stuck to him underneath the armour flaps. “Yasuke, you alright?” he asked as he started to look around. This was no ordinary bag interior for there were trees growing here and a rolling mist that seemed to obscure everything beyond a few feet giving the place an eerie atmosphere. The barking of dogs could be heard from some way in the distance. “Hmm,” he said, a smile broadening on his face as he tried to keep a lid on his excitement that they had ended up in what appeared to be a completely different world.

As the pair landed, they would indeed find themselves on the covered floor of a misty overgrown forest. The most immediate and audible noise they would hear would of course be the barking of dogs in the distance, but if they stopped and listened, the samurai would be able to hear a faint, hollow chittering sound; like someone tapping erratically with bamboo sticks on a hollow log.

It might seem unlikely though that the adventurers would notice the strange new noise, as they had much more pressing concerns. The thing they would undoubtedly care about most at that moment was the red rope they'd tied themselves with before entering the bag. They would find it to be cut, the end still attached to them cleanly sliced perpendicular to the rope's length. Through one mechanism or another, their only safety line had immediately failed.

"Wuppo?" a voice came from directly behind the two men. If they turned they would find a man staring at them through the fog.





The man appeared to be as old as a human could reasonably expect to be before sidling off the mortal coil, and looked to have many old injuries. The most notable of these injuries would be to the left side of his face (eye, cheek, and a partially missing lip), and a lame arm bent at the elbow and tied close to his body on the same side.

"The devil does have a name then."

The old man looked at the two newcomers sternly, then turned his back and began shuffling off towards a faint yellow glow behind him.

Kojuro stood slowly looking around as Yasuke got up, listening to the odd sounds of percussion that seemed to underscore the dogs’ barking. “Wuppo doesn’t like anything that makes a loud noise. Probably if a dog barked too much he might have put it in here… “ He turned towards Yasuke and noticed that the cord on his back was severed, and not only that, cut clean through, as he held the end and examined it. He looked up but there was no trailing red cord coming from behind him either. “Well, at least we won’t have to worry about being tied down,” he said optimistically. There was nothing in the sky above to suggest they had just fallen though. “I guess either we’ll find a way to get out of here, or we’ll have to make friends with some bandits and settle in,” he quipped, not yet overly concerned. He had no idea what to make of the ropes being cut, the whole scenario was quite beyond his experience so he was firmly prepared that anything might happen. But before they even tried to find a way out, they would have to look for Yasuke’s katana and Rena’s ocarina, and depending on how far these woods stretched on, it might not be an easy task.

Following the sounds of the dogs barking might not have been a bad first move, until the strange old man turned up. He presented a quite startling image, appearing out of the fog like that, but nevertheless, he seemed to be an ordinary man, albeit one that life had not been kind to. “Wait!” said Kojuro as the old man started to disappear into the mist. “Grandfather, what is this place? Is there a settlement near here?” he asked as he followed after him. It wasn’t too difficult to catch up to the old man as he was slowly shuffling.

For a moment he got the undeniable sensation that he was being watched, and frowned in perplexity, turning but seeing nothing except a rustling in the underbrush. Very strange. To Yasuke he said quietly “Be careful to be polite to everyone, they could be kami or yokai, its wise not to aggravate them.” He knew Yasuke would probably scoff as he always did at the mention of magic, but it was best to err on the side of caution when it came to the supernatural.

The old man stopped as Kojuro called out to him, making it only a few slow paces before turning back to the newest pair of strangers. The man appeared as if he would speak before Yasuke interrupted him by pointing at the faint yellow glow he was walking towards.

"'That significant yellow light' is a campfire - or at least what passes for one here." the old man quipped curtly at Yasuke's rudeness. He turned his attention back to Kojuro; "Hard to imagine how the imbecile with the bag bested that mental giant behind you."

The man squinted at Kojuro with what presumably was his one good eye, and shuffled forward towards the Hizashi leader a step to get a better look. It might have even been his first real look at the two. After a moment, he began speaking again. "I've seen all types of people come through here; thieves, thugs, soldiers, men, women, and pieces of all of the same - but none in quite such good condition. What, Kojuro-dono, affords the two of you the golden ticket? Why does the devil want you in his hell unharmed?"

The old man motioned them on towards the glow as he turned once again and began trudging in the same direction he had before.

"As for what this place is, you know as much as I do after your trip. And I wouldn't be terribly concerned about finding the settlement, you'll be going there very soon.. unless you have something in trade."

If they were to follow the man, they would find an extremely small and sparsely furnished camp. The yellow glow in question now appeared to be coming from a fire ring in the middle of the camp. In the fire ring, however, they would find no fire, only a handful of fist-sized yellow crystalline stones giving off the strange light. There was a felled log for sitting, a few different sacks tied at the top with rope, and a tattered and worn piece of fabric thrown over a line between two trees making something of a tent.

The old man sat himself down on the log, his shoulder slumped as he looked into the yellow crystals of his 'campfire'.

"None of those samurai would cut our ropes. They're loyal to the Hizashi clan through and through. I chose them myself," he said, slightly frustrated at how easily it sent Yasuke into a paranoid fit of panic. "Calm down. I know its not exactly a usual situation, but we're not going to get out of this if we lose our heads over every little thing," he said.

Despite Yasuke's rudeness, Kojuro was determined to try to have a civil conversation with the old man - whatever he was. "If you mean the ogre Wuppo, then he is no devil I assure you," he said, feeling the need to defend his friend. "I'm sorry that you've ended up in here, but you must have inadvertently scared him somehow. He hasn't had an easy time around humans." Still he was a little concerned that all the people who came through into the world in the bag were harmed in some way. "We entered of our own accord," he explained, ignoring the old man's insult of Yasuke who probably somewhat deserved it. He kept on going after in the same direction as the old man, easily catching up to walk beside him. "What do you mean, grandfather? Is the settlement a bad place to end up?" They certainly had things they could trade, if they needed to, but he would prefer to get to the bottom of what was happening before agreeing to part with anything.

He dropped back a little to talk to Yasuke. "Maybe he doesn't know the way out, but he definitely knows more than we do," he replied. "Can you at least try not to insult every person we come across?" he asked, knowing that Yasuke had completely zoned out the moment he had mentioned kami and yokai. He caught up again with the oldster. "How many people have you seen enter this world?" he asked the old man, "and how long have you been here?" He looked around at the strange campsite as they came upon it. A little tent where the old man probably lived and a fire made from … some kind of crystals. He held his hand up towards them to feel if they emanated heat like a fire or just light.

"No devil? Scared the demon that imprisoned us all here?" the old man raised the eyebrow over his good eye as Kojuro defended Wuppo. "Come closer Kojuro-dono. Come, stand here in the light and look at the penalty for startling this 'Wuppo'. Look at my face, and my useless arm, and tell me the thing that did this to me is no devil. Tell me for what crime exile in this condition is just punishment."

The old man's words were cold and flat. He'd obviously had this conversation with himself many times before.

"I've seen many people come through; thieves, highwaymen, murderers, soldiers, and pieces of all of the same. As for how long I've been here, I have no way of telling - other than to say that time is different here than it is back in our world. I came through as a young man, not dissimilar in age to you and your friend here, and it was years before I found someone i knew from the camp I was in when that devil ambushed us. We couldn't have gone in the bag more than a few minutes apart, but what was left of that boy came through long after I arrived. Maybe a few moments back home is months here, but its just as likely that minutes here is years back there." The man shifted on the log on which he was sitting, and looked up at Kojuro.

"What I'm saying, Kojuro-dono, is that for all we know, by the time you made it here the beast you call Wuppo could have been dead and buried for decades, and anyone awaiting your return given you up for dead decades before that. We wont know until the next batch of unfortunates make it and tell us if the monster still possesses the bag. Allow me to suggest that entering the bag of your own accord was incredibly foolish."

Yasuke speaking made the old man turn his attention towards the samurai. He squinted at the newcomer, apparently having a hard time seeing in his advancing years. The old man reached down and picked up one of the crystals which continued to glow with yellow light.

"I didn't put the fire in these crystals, they grow like that in every hole in this hell." he began speaking again as he gazed into the yellow light. "Back home, a single tiny chip off of one of these crystals would bring a small fortune, and here? They're so worthless they don't even warrant the effort it would take to steal them from an old man that can't defend them. There's more of these than eight men could carry in every cave in walking distance of here. Before you doze off again, Second Banana or whatever your name is, I think you'd like to know that these crystals are exactly why you two wont be spending much time here. You see for the same reason something that is entirely worthless here is priceless back home, the things from our world that are entirely worthless there are more valuable than life itself here. Wars are waged between the natives for things you would have tossed away without a second thought. You'll be going to the settlement because you are valuable. They will fight and die for your weapons, your armor, bits of paper, and even your bodies if they have to kill you to get your cooperation."

It might be only now that the pair might realize that as the old man talked, the strange arrhythmic hollow clicking and clunking noise had become louder - from barely audible to now just above a whisper. The old man held out his hand to Kojuro, offering him the crystal.

"You don't have much time left. If you intend to flee, you'll need one of these to light your way. You aren't well provisioned enough to refuse my hospitality."

The crystals did not seem hot to him and he took his hand away from them, still curious as to what they were. Yasuke's apologies were all accepted and he said nothing more about it. Taking a closer look at the old man, as requested, he gave him an evaluating look before answering, “Can you explain how being put into the bag caused these injuries?” he asked, “I'm sorry that this happened to you, but punishment is besides the point. Sometimes circumstances just cause bad things to happen, deserved or not. We must endure them. That's just how life is.”

He listened to the rest of the man's story with patient scepticism. “If what you say is true, then we have no way of knowing whether the one who owned the bag when we entered is the same one who put you inside. I scarcely think we can blame Wuppo for this,” he replied, pleased to have trumped his logic. On the other hand, he was actually close to agreeing with the old man that it had been a little foolish to just enter the bag with very little in the way of supplies and no idea at all of what they were doing. The idea that time was speeding by in the Hizashi Mansion while only minutes had elapsed here was not a pleasant one, but he wasn't about to let it get him down.

He was interested in what the old man was saying about the crystals, but laughed when the old man gave them a scare story about the restless natives. “If cannibals want to eat us, we'll make them work hard for their supper, right, Yasuke?” he grinned, seemingly unconcerned, as he put his hand to his sword hilt as if to emphasise his meaning.

He paused and looked around as he heard the strange sounds becoming louder and clearer. He took the crystal from the old man and nodded. “Thank you, grandfather. Once we have found a way out we will make sure to return for you.” He secreted the crystal into a small cloth bag across his back that contained a few provisions such as rice balls and a bamboo water flask, and began to walk away into the woods. “I'm not running from these 'natives',” he confided to Yasuke once they were a short distance from the old man's camp. “Let's get closer and try to get a glimpse of what they are about. The trees and fog should conceal us well enough.” Unless Yasuke had a reasonable objection, he would lead them in sneaking forwards through the trees towards the strange noises, so that they might better understand what they were facing.

As soon as the two of them stalked away from the camp, Auri followed them. She was on her toes and managed to step only on the places where she would make no sound at all. Only when they were far enough away from the old man she moved.

She suddenly dashed towards the group of them and before Kojuro would know it she would try and grab the bag that was holding the crystal. If she did succeed she would then stalk far enough away from them so they wouldn't be able to hurt her and take the crystal from the bag throwing it far away into the mist.

Her appearance probably surprised them. She was small, very small for a human and most of the time she had been hunched, making herself appear even smaller. She was dirty and her blond whispy hair was in dissaray. She would then throw the bag back to Kojuro, not having taken anything but the crystal.

"You have one too! I saw! Throw is away! They can see!" She pointed towards where the sounds came from. Her eyes big and wide and moving from them to other places around her in fast succesion, as if she was waiting for someone to jump onto her.

As Kojuro was putting the crystal into his bag, it was snatched away all of a sudden by a tiny thief. Suddenly finding his hands empty, Kojuro drew his sword and chased after the woman into the mist. “Hey!” he called after her in a voice low enough to attract her attention but quiet enough to hopefully keep a small amount of stealth as they crept through the woods. He briefly caught a glimpse of something as the light-bringing crystal arced off in the forest, but his attention was on the girl.

He caught the bag reflexively as she threw it back to him, not cleanly since it was with his off-hand, but he managed to get it without spilling the rest of the contents onto the ground. “Who are you? Explain yourself!” he demanded from the thief. Looking at her a bit more closely he could see it was a young woman, small and hunched, with hair the colour of straw. He still had his sword drawn. “Who can see? What is it that’s out there?” he half turned to Yasuke, thinking she must be just gabbling nonsense as he was certain that Yasuke didn’t have one of the crystals she was so afraid of. Kojuro had been concentrating on the girl, and hadn’t seen the crystal illuminate the creature fully.