Moonlight Over a Ruined Village

            For tonight’s tale, we find ourselves back in the ruined village. Strange events continue to occur there, and their grotesque players continue to lurk in the darkened corners of the village. Yet they are largely held in check by the efforts of them boys and their crew. Now the village can even pass for quaint on its better days. However, one strange figure still terrorizes the doomed inmates of the village. More importantly, the town drunk and them boys still have an old score to settle.
            The man with the printed face, or the faceless man, as he is also known, still glares out at the world from the darkness. So them boys and the town drunk decide to do something about it. They embark on a hunt for the faceless man, to find out once and for all, what the hell his whole deal is. To do this, they enlist the aid of Tomisaburo, their former enemy and the self-appointed demon fox lord of the village.  
            Why they enlist his aid remains unknown. Perhaps they need his expertise in the hellish underworld. Maybe the wounds he inflicted on them gained their respect. It’s entirely possible they forgot they ever had a fight with him in the first place. Whatever the case, the four of them set out to hunt for the faceless man.   
            While the three humans hunt through the liquor sections of every store around them, Tomisaburo finds something disturbing. He discovers human faces, that have been discarded and strewn about the village. Some unearthly power is creating human faces and discarding them throughout the village. Tomisaburo quickly deduces that these faces are being created for the faceless man.
            This escalation of the madness that has plagued the village for too long threatens to destroy the fragile peace they have managed to bring to the village. So they hunt for the discarded faces, hoping they will lead them to the faceless man. Ultimately, they do find him, but he has gone through some considerable changes. He is now a major threat to the village, and he must be dealt with. The faceless man has returned to the village that broke him, and he brought some new tricks with him.
            This tale contains frequent mention of discarded faces and other themes of body horror. Moreover, it contains references to gore, antisocial behavior, alcohol consumption, and violence. Furthermore, it contains profanity. Listener discretion is advised.  

            For tonight’s tale, we join Sachiko as she rides the bus to meet with her colleague. Since she is a snake deity, every interaction she has with the human world is strange to her. So she puts in the effort to understand the humans around her and the nature of their actions. Doing this enables her to move about amidst the humans largely unnoticed. Yet on this bus ride, she encounters something too strange for even this ruined village. For on this bus, she happens to look at the passenger in the seats next to her. When she does, she finds herself looking into the face of Chico Marx.
            She quickly deduces that this is not the real Chico Marx. Nobody in their right mind would think it was, after all. Furthermore, it is obviously more of the silly bullshit she has to deal every time she comes to this ruined village. So she contacts her colleague the professor, to listen to his learned opinion. The two of them decide that the asshole wearing the face of Chico Marx is none other than the man with the printed face. He has changed his paper faces for faces made of flesh, and the two of them want to find out how he did it.
            They soon find themselves at the game center that once acted as the gathering place for the cabal that kept the faceless man in a prolonged state of drugged servitude. They also find a large amount of artificial flesh that was shoved into a copy machine for some stupid-ass reason. They trace the flesh back to the inner chamber of the tunnel complex that runs beneath the village. It is there that they find one of the architects of the gruesome spectacle they stumbled upon. Weary of living in a constant state of uncertainty, Sachiko takes it upon herself to end this nonsense. She steps forward and reminds these stupid-ass humans why they should mind their manners when elevated folk are about.
            This tale contains references to the Marx Brothers, Charlotte Brontë, and Rodney Dangerfield. Moreover, it contains themes of medical horror, mutilation, violence, and gore. As if that were not bad enough, it contains profanity. Listener discretion is advised.

            The world is falling down around us, and the situation does not seem to be improving. The streets are still congested, the sidewalks are more broken than they were before, and all public places are more crowded than they have any right to be. But there are a few remaining places we can go to escape the madness. For we still have our ruined village beneath the moonlight.
            One year ago, I started this podcast to provide all of you with a place to safely observe a village as it falls into a state of ruin. We started with a drunkard being chased by a creep with a printed face, and the village has only gotten stranger since then. Yet it still endures, and its tales will continue to haunt most of the places where podcasts are available. However, I would like to announce that the shadow of the village is spreading even further. I warned all of you this would happen in the past, and although it has taken much longer than I thought it would, it has finally happened.
            Moonlight Over a Ruined Village is now an e-book series, and the first collection of tales from our archives is currently available for purchase on Amazon. Again, this collection is in an e-book format, and it is internationally available on Amazon sites. These are the tales that started it all. From the man with the printed face to the mysterious Rook whoopin ass up and down the village, these tales mark the points in the village’s history when things started to get really lit. This collection also includes the tales of the discarded bones, the abandoned shamisen, the two jackasses fighting over bottles, the weirdos shoving bones into the gutter, the turkey-necked jackass with his homicidal ventriloquist dummy, and the penultimate ass whoopin that those creeps at the game center so sorely needed. This is your chance to read these tales for yourself at your own pace.
            This collection contains versions of the tales that have been revised and expanded to accommodate the increasingly complex occurrences of the village. It also contains an introduction and an afterword that provide additional insight into how these tales came to be. Furthermore, purchasing this collection is a great way to help support this podcast, and to ensure the creation of future episodes.
            As with everything associated with this podcast, these tales contain violence, occult themes, antisocial behavior, horror, excessive alcohol consumption, ventriloquist dummies, contempt for public transportation, and gratuitous profanity. Furthermore, reading these tales will more than likely make you deeply mistrustful of darkened roads that run along lonely rivers. Reader discretion is advised.

            For tonight’s tale, we find ourselves beneath the ruined village. Our guide through this realm of unforgiving darkness is the ethereal Sachiko, the charming snake deity who has captured the hearts of the River Road crew. With her in the tunnels are the devil monk and the weasel. They are her unwilling guests as she unravels the mystery of why the faceless man now looks like Chico Marx.
            Yet something is different about her this evening. She no longer has any semblance of patience for these creeps that are ruining the village she has claimed as her own. She had a good thing going with this village, and she’s going to put an end to the nonsense these creepy assholes are perpetuating. And she is not going to be nice about it. She is going to enslave the minds of these two creeps and make them tell her everything she wants to know about the whole sordid affair.
            But none of the River Road crew will mind. She has secured their compliance to her methods long ago through the preternatural abilities typical of her elevated kind. They are working to save the village, and they have righteousness on their side. Her means are extreme, and she is no longer going to be gentle in her approach. Tonight, the ruin ends.          
            Yet not all of the players on the stage are enthralled by Sachiko. There remain two beings who can see beyond Sachiko’s glamour. They can see her as the venomous serpent who has charmed us all from the beginning. But she is not the only player that has been charming us from the beginning. And though she wishes to enact the final stage in her plan to save the village, there are other plans that she is oblivious to.
            This tale contains themes of body horror, violence, and brutality. It also contains descriptions of highly antisocial behavior and profanity. Listener discretion is advised.  
 

            Tonight’s tale concerns a pitiful creature known as a weasel. It awakens to find itself surrounded by darkness, pain, and death. Venom is coursing through its body and threatening to wipe out the weasel’s mind. But there remains within it an undying worm of self-preservation that empowers the weasel to escape. 
            After a great deal of unpleasantness and a change of clothes, the weasel steps out onto the River Road and its memories come back to it. No, they come back to him. He remembers a time when he was the chief player in both the river village and the mountain village. He was second in command to Tomisaburo, the leader of the syndicate that enslaved the entire village.
            As he walks down the River Road, his thoughts linger on his past triumphs and his vanquished foes. His most pathetic victim was a lowly drunkard named Reggie. You may be familiar with him. The weasel had stolen his bones and left him to die on that very road. Yet the weasel has no remorse for that death. In fact, every step he takes on that blood-soaked road strengthens his resolve to return to his former greatness. He then sees a solitary man leaning on a stick under a streetlight, and he makes a plan. He decides to feed on this man as he fed on so many men before him.  So the weasel, who has just risen from hell, stalks his prey with the intent of slowly stealing his life from him until he dies. The only audience to this sickening spectacle is the moonlight and a growing conspiracy of ravens. They have decided to gather at this exact spot, and the weasel is not going to be happy when he finds out why.
            This tale contains themes of body horror, more themes of body horror, and to be honest, the weasel throws up a bit. I don’t want to surprise anyone with that sort of thing, so there it is. Furthermore, this tale contains violence, contempt for humanity, themes of corporate corruption, and profanity. Listener discretion is advised.

            Tonight, we will visit a lonely second-hand electronics store. It was once the center of a criminal conspiracy that came close to destroying the ruined village, and its situation has not improved much since. The management has been replaced by a member of the River Road crew known as the Professor, who has a reputation for being the most sober member of the drunkest group in town. Assisting him is the Craftsman, who is in charge of repairing the electronics.
            However, the craftsman used to be the notorious Turkey, a pedantic little shithead who was once at the center of the very conspiracy the store is trying to leave in the past. This was the same Turkey who created the two ventriloquist dummies that became possessed by an angry ghost. It all worked out in the end, but it could have just as easily gone wrong. Unwilling to abandon his past folly, the Turkey has devised a way to animate corpses. Shockingly enough, the River Road crew does not oppose this course of action. Indeed, the protectors of the ruined village just don’t seem to care.
            So our Professor finds himself alone in a den of madness. Corpses stumble around him as the sickening turkey man needles him into signing invoices for the materials he is using to ruin the village again. The only rational course of action for this man of reason is to abandon the village once and for all. Yet this plan is interrupted by the arrival of an old enemy, who is about to become the best friend he ever had. Provided, of course, he is able to survive their first endeavor.
            This tale contains corpses animated via electronic implants and a person being pistol whipped. It also contains descriptions of government corruption, incompetence, and nepotism. Furthermore, it contains violence beyond the pistol whipping, medical horror, occult themes, and a surprising amount of profanity. Listener discretion is advised.

            For tonight’s tale, we find ourselves in the parking lot of an electronic store. The reputation of the store has always been negative. Yet the discovery of animate corpses on the second floor of the premises has damaged the store’s reputation beyond repair. These corpses were animated by the pedantic psychopath known as the Turkey. He has operated unopposed for so long that the situation has festered and worsened right before the eyes of the community. The Professor, who is the acting manager of the store, is desperate to rid his store of the animate dead. Moreover, he wants to free the village from the Turkey’s relentless nonsense. But the job is too big for him alone.
            In the past, the River Road crew could be counted on to help folk when they were down and out. Furthermore, they knew when to keep fools in check. However, they are nowhere to be seen. To make matters worse, the town drunk, in his capacity as a liaison to city hall, has done nothing to address the problem. So the Professor is alone.
            Yet chance soon brings the Kitsune noble known as Tomisaburo to his store. He is accompanied by the mysterious Rook. The two of them intent to find the animate dead so that they can inhume them. They soon find an eager partner in the Professor, and the three of them waste no time forging a plan to eliminate the animate dead and to solve the problem of the Turkey once and for all.
            Yet the plan they undertake is not going to be subtle. In fact, the three of them are fed up with the village and will do little to spare it from damage. While the River Road crew operated in the darkened back streets, the Undertakers are going to start a full-blown riot in a parking lot. Furthermore, the whole village is invited, whether they like it or not.  
            This tale contains body horror, violence, occult themes, and profanity. Listener discretion is advised.

            For tonight’s tale, we join a lone stranger who fancies himself something of a celebrity. He has journeyed to a nearby resort town to investigate a strange incident. The employees of a local distillery claim mysterious entities have interfered with their production operations. The entities themselves defy explanation, as their actions are too erratic to be those of humans. However, the skills necessary to perform those actions are too advanced to be those of animals. The locals suspect supernatural forces are at work. Some even go so far as to declare them to be deities from the local mountain.
            However, our celebrity has a different theory. He believes the hauntings are being perpetrated by entities from his past. These entities dealt him a wound, and he refuses to bear that wound in silence. So he goes to the town to investigate. His likeable face grants him information about the haunting, and his nefarious skills grant him access to the site of the haunting. When the entities appear, he decides then and there to confront them. When he does, things immediately go very wrong.  
            For the entities themselves remember the celebrity, as they were wounded by him as well. Moreover, they have a score to settle with the celebrity. But they are not alone. For our celebrity has made his share of mistakes in the past, and the victims of those mistakes now demand compensation. It soon becomes apparent to all that the only solution to their problems is to conduct an involuntary medical procedure. The recipient of the procedure stands no chance of enjoying the experience, but he will probably survive.
            This episode is the second-to-last tale for season four. The next tale will be the final tale of the season. This tale obviously contains themes of medical horror. It’s not fun, but it’s not really that bad. However, this tale also contains supernatural themes, descriptions of alcohol abuse, discussions of urban decay, antisocial sentiment, profanity, and disregard for public order. Moreover, it contains references to previous tales. Listener discretion is advised.

            Tonight is the night we conclude season four. It began with the cult of the Spider taking control of the ruined village. They assigned the River Road crew to punish Tomisaburo, deal with the Devil monk, assist the faceless man, and locate the weasel. Over the past season, they have taken bold steps to accomplish some of those tasks. Some of it may have even been intentional. However, the weasel eludes them still. With his ability to make copies of himself, it seems like he will plague them forever. Yet that was before Tomisaburo got involved. He was the one who taught him all his tricks, after all.
            The weasel has been busy this season. He has secured a contract with the government to produce the mind control drug they used last year to manipulate the village population. They want to have the drug in their possession, mostly because they don’t want other players to have access to it. So they send a hapless government stooge to finalize the deal. Amidst the neon lights of a local bar in the mountain village, they agree to sign the contracts at an abandoned amusement park the next evening.
            This does not go well. Neither of them remembers who chose the amusement park as a place to meet. Moreover, the stooge and the weasel have different memories of the previous evening. As they struggle to make sense of it all, they are confronted by a mysterious figure in a Kimono with an array of fox tails at his back. He has come for the weasel, and he is taking him to settle a score. But the weasel has made friends in the mountains, and they will not let him go without a fight. That’s fine with the Kitsune, though. He brought an ass-whoopin with him, and he needs to use it before it expires. This is the night old scores are settled and new ones are forged.
            This tale contains violence, body horror, references to irresponsible alcohol consumption, occult themes, and gore. Moreover, it expresses mistrust in authority, bureaucracy, and the government. It doesn’t matter which one. Take your pick. Listener discretion is advised.

            For tonight’s tale, we join a doomed soul that has been locked away. He was first removed from society, and then from all sources of light. His sanity did not survive. The years he spent in his perpetually darkened cell could not be counted by his broken mind. He clawed at unforgiving walls and pulled at iron bars until his body failed him. He devoted his wretched life to vain attempts at escaping that darkness, and he failed every time. Soon the denizens of the darkness found him and dined on his flesh and blood. Before long, he was forced into a sickening communion with these horrible creatures.
            Satisfied with his ruined state, his captors pulled him from his cell, threw him into the back of a vehicle, and dumped him onto a dirt road in the middle of a ruined village. But it is not just any ruined village. It is the very village from which he was abducted. In fact, it is the very village he played a role in ruining. Emboldened by the familiarity of the road beneath his feet, he sets out to reclaim his village.
            Those plans are cut short by the arrival of two goons known as them boys. They inform the prisoner that the mistakes of the past will not be repeated in this village. In fact, they are there to see to it that he accepts the changes all of them have been through. The prisoner then has to acknowledge the horrific changes he was forced to undergo in the darkness.  
            This tale is dark and deals with imprisonment, supernatural elements, body horror, mistrust in government institutions, and antisocial behavior. Moreover, it contains profanity and references to past stories. Listener discretion is advised.