Moonlight Over a Ruined Village

For tonight’s tale, we meet Tomisaburo. Some of you may think you are familiar with that name, but you are mistaken. You have yet to meet Tomisaburo, but tonight you will be cured of that. For this is the night that Tomisaburo gets revenge on them boys for attacking him. That never happened, but the rumor is that he tried to tempt them with a haunted shamisen and they beat him for it. Since them boys did nothing to dispel the stories of this incident, the repercussions of it are going to occur. The tale of this incident will replace the false narrative being perpetuated by them boys and their ilk. For in this tale, Tomisaburo reminds them boys and the misfits they keep as pets that the unknown forces that weave their way around us are best left unknown. They can never be known, and it is the epitome of folly to assume any degree of familiarity with them. Tomisaburo will use a glass bottle to do this, and it will hurt like hell. This tale is violent and gruesome. Listener discretion is advised.

Tonight is the night we look back over the first five episodes of the series. We start with a hapless traveler on his way home that is pursued by a faceless phantom, and we end with a mysterious vigilante assaulting a gang of creeps in a graveyard. In between, we have two sisters learning a new way of life, two brothers preserving their old way of life, a ventriloquist dummy given unholy life by a ruined man, and a doomed soul robbed of all traces of their identity. All the while, the river that cuts through the village is haunted by two lost souls who hoard trash, a tunnel dwelling miscreant who poisons the village around him, and a vengeful Kitsune trying to take his pound of flesh from a world that thought it had escaped him. For tonight is the night we examine where these tales came from, and we speculate where they are going. Because nobody who sets foot in the ruined village ends up where they intended. This episode contains profanity, violence, and references to previous episodes and antisocial behavior. Listener discretion is advised.

For tonight’s tale, we follow the newly initiated member of the crew that haunts the village with them boys. They have taken to calling him the professor, as he has a unique talent for looking into the supernatural with his feet planted firmly on the ground. Often when dealing with the unknown, people become so bewitched and bewildered that they lose sight of the ground they were standing on before everything changed. For that is what happened to the crew. They were gravely wounded in what they claimed was an unprovoked attack. They needed the professor to help them find a path to recovery. But to do this, they will have to make a bargain with an old enemy. One who has kept a red eye on them and all they do. For this is the tale of the night when old vendettas were settled and new ones were forged. This tale contains profanity and references to tobacco and people being burned by tobacco. Listener discretion is advised.

For tonight’s tale, we find ourselves with a lone woman standing beneath a streetlight in front of a desolate field. There is nothing around her but the gravel street in front of her and the torn-up earth and abandoned construction equipment behind her. As she stands there, she is watched from a hole in the ground by a pair of auburn eyes. This particular shade of auburn does not naturally occur in humans, and the owner of those eyes would never claim to be human. For the owner of those eyes holds humans in such contempt that he refuses to have anything to do with them apart from feeding off of them. Yet this woman awakens a feeling in his heart that he has never known. As he watches her stand there alone, he grows concerned for her. This feeling evolves into an infatuation that makes him question his biological need to feed upon her. However, the evening takes a dramatic turn when she asks him for his aid. He soon finds himself amidst a calamity of her making, where he learns this woman has made some really bad choices in her life. He soon finds that his choice between protecting this woman and surviving was already made for him by a mind colder than the earthen hole he crawled out from.  This tale contains violence and themes of death, mutilation, and decomposition. Listener discretion is advised.

For tonight’s tale, we return to the very spot where the solitary thug waited beneath the moonlight for his doom. This was the spot where the hapless thug encountered the ruined beings that removed the very bones from his body while he was still alive. They then left the empty husk of all that was left of him to drown in water not even deep enough to cover the discarded cans and garbage that always seems to accumulate along the river road. Though that event is in the distant past for the surviving villagers, it is relived every night for the parents of the victim of this cruel act of depravity. The mother wastes away in her bed, resolved to lie there as lifeless as her son did at the end of his life. The son’s father, however, stalks the river road in search of the criminals who destroyed his son’s life. His single-minded devotion to his vendetta has claimed every waking moment of his life, which has resulted in his being ostracized by the rest of the village. Yet he has allies in the form of them boys and their crew. Their persistent dedication to shredding the web of terror that binds the river road has attracted the attention of dark entities from beyond. These dark, strange beings have decided to take a stand against the cabal that preys upon the pilgrims of the river road. Tonight is the night that these beings make themselves known to the father of the lost thug. Beneath the moonlight, they declare their allegiance to the father and his undying vendetta. Tonight’s tale contains people dealing with depression, references to violent acts of criminality, antisocial sentiment, profanity, unholy entities, and a father with a single-minded devotion to his vendetta. Listener discretion is advised.

For tonight’s tale, we find ourselves back on the river road. Yet we are not alone. Far from it. We are members of a gang of likeminded malcontents who have finally decided to do something about the strange occurrences that have plagued the river road. They are going to go straight to source all of these occurrences. The entrance to the drainage tunnels. This is near the area where six of the village youths were found after their bones had been removed from their bodies. The charge is being led by the mysterious Rook, and by his side is the father of the solitary thug whose bones were removed from his body. They are both armed with rebar poles that they will gladly plunge straight into the softest parts of whoever dares to get in their way. With them is Sachiko, the enigmatic snake deity. She is joined by the town drunk, the professor and his consortium of ghosts, and the animate ventriloquist dummy who has recently graduated from cigarettes to cigars. They will go deep into the tunnels to confront whatever resides within. That will prove to be a very bad idea, for which they find themselves grossly ill-prepared. The only reason they don’t immediately regret it is because the tunnels are so long that it takes them forever to get to the center. Once there, they confront the oddity that lurks within the tunnels. This is the very same oddity that has been lurking on the river road, where it has been seen aggressively eating chicken, discarding bottles, and denying warrantee claims. This weirdo is more than ready for them, and they soon find themselves caught in the very center of his web. Bound and at his mercy, he forces them to confront their past indiscretions before delivering a shocking revelation that makes them all question what they’ve all been doing with their lives. For this is the evening that this collective of malcontents finally learn that their true enemies are not who they thought they were. This tale contains profanity, descriptions of violent crime, dark themes, supernatural entities, and characters mercilessly ridiculing people for their unconventional fashion choices. Listener discretion is advised.

            For tonight’s tale, we rejoin the young woman who dared to venture into the ruined village where she lost her way on the river road. Having learned little from her last ordeal, she decides to set out to explore a different village, this one at the foot of a haunted mountain. This mountain is said to be the home of not only a coven of witches, but also a murderous cult who is suspected of using bones for the purposes of occult rituals. She is sent at the request of the denizens of the ruined village to look into shocking new developments regarding the fates of the doomed young men whose bones were removed from their bodies and were left to die in the river. It turns out those youths are not only still in possession of their bones, but they are using them to live in this haunted village. That information changed pretty much everything for them, so they sent her to the mountain village to verify all of it. Hopefully, she can make sure they haven’t joined that weird ass cult. While on a bus going to the mountain, she gets of the bus to wander around in the parking lot of a convenience store.  There she runs into who you are probably expecting her to run into. Together, they venture into the heart of the mountain where they are soon confronted by the very cult of weird assholes she was sent there to investigate. She soon finds herself being pulled into the cold, earthen depths of a strange new village, where unknown horrors lurk in the very earth itself. This episode contains the usual level of violence, antisocial behavior, and profanity. Listener discretion is advised.

            For tonight’s tale, we finally address the issue of the weasel, for he has been lurking in the background of these tales for far too long. While his story is as tragic as you probably think it is, there are supernatural elements woven throughout the weasel’s misspent life that may shock you. The weasel possesses supernatural powers that enabled it to survive the hatred all living creatures. These powers were given to him by a notorious fox deity by the name of Tomisaburo. He bestowed upon him unnatural abilities of transfiguration and regeneration. These gifts were given to him just to enable him to survive the torments he enacted on the weasel in jest. But when Tomisaburo meets the sinister dirt spider, the idle play, sick though it is, soon turns into a conspiracy to enslave the denizens of the ruined village.        
            Tomisaburo and the dirt spider devise a plan to use the weasel as the tool he is to infiltrate the pharmaceutical company at the foot of the mountain of the wolf. Once inside, they will create a chemical that will enable them to manipulate the residents of the ruined village. But like all things from the village, this plan is also ruined. It is not long before the weasel catches the attention of the wolf deity, and the wolf deity does not like what he finds.
            What follows is an account of how a cult removed the weasel’s bones from his body repeatedly. This account, which is an obvious fabrication, was accepted as the undisputed truth by all the denizens of the ruined village. They have been living in fear of the mountain village ever since, which doesn’t really say much for them.
            Tonight’s tale contains a sarcastic account of a ridiculous bone removing ritual that would be disturbing if it was in any way believable. Moreover, it contains demons from hell, cult activity, profanity, and magical creatures engaging in antisocial behavior. Listener discretion is advised.

            Tonight is the night we look back over the second seven episodes of the series. First, we meet the mysterious Sachiko as she rides the bus into the ruined village. She has come to investigate the bizarre incidents the area has become known for. Then we meet the solitary thug on his way to meet someone about a job, which does not go well for him at all. Next, we meet Reggie, who was once down and out, but who managed to pull himself back up. He uses his second chance at life to rid the ruined village of the nonsense that’s been plaguing it.
            Then we go back to the time when Tomisaburo first met the Bird man and proposed the formation of the cabal that is responsible for most of the ruin in the village.  Next, we find a man who is tormented by a ghost. He seeks help with the devil monk, but soon decided to try his luck with them boys and their crew. They have a really good time solving his problem, which is great, uplifting, and fun for all of the.  
            The next episode makes up for that by being really dark and scary. That’s where we deal with the cabal and the sick process they devised for removing bones from the living. And finally, we have the epic tale of a lone wanderer who gets lost walking on a strait road next to a river. She soon runs into them boys and their crew, who solve none of her problems. Instead, they take her on a tour of every convenience store parking lot in the neighborhood. They then proceed to incur the wrath of everyone in their neighborhood.
            For tonight is the night we examine where these tales came from, and we speculate where they are going. Because nobody who sets foot in the ruined village ends up where they intended. This episode contains profanity, violence, references to previous episodes, and antisocial behavior. Listener discretion is advised.

            For tonight’s tale, we meet the cult of the spider. Their leader has been lurking in the shadows of all of these tales. He watched the wolves move into the mountain village, and he did nothing. He watched the river village fall into a state of ruin, and he did nothing. He watched the demented followers of the wolf of the mountain perpetrate their sick bone removal ritual on a lonely traveler, and he did nothing. Yet when the character known as the bird man started to manipulate the denizens of both villages, he started to plot in the darkness.
            The birdman then used the bone removal ritual on the denizen of the river village to strengthen his control over them. When those lost souls howled through the ether, the spider answered their call. He took them in, listened to them, and he was angered. These lost souls could not forgive the torment they suffered at the hands of the birdman.
            So they all discussed the matter in the darkness, and formed the cult of the spider. For his first act as their leader, he shook the strands of their web which had been woven throughout both villages. This act set events in motion that would send all the characters exactly where he wanted them to be.
            Tonight, the trap is set, the pieces are in place, and their plan of dominion is enacted. They will capture the birdman and see that he suffers. They will then establish his rulership over both villages. Tonight, the chaos of the past comes to an end. Tonight is the night that order is established. This order is that of the cult of the spiders, and they will suffer no nonsense.
            This tale marks the end of season one. Season two may follow shortly. For nothing is guaranteed on the River Road. This tale contains exposition, violence, profanity, antisocial behavior, and horror. Listener discretion is advised.