You think you might’ve had some form of instrument about 3 deaths ago, but that’s definitely lost. Well, you’ve got a good idea of your own.

You hightail your way outie, trying to outrun the deadly grasp of whatever those horrible tentacles might be made of.

You crash through the threshold of ALICE’S CURSED ZONE.

Looks like you made it out, but not without a MYSTERIOUS CURSE, certainly not one with the same presence as the curse of ALICE. You’re not sure what it entails yet, but you aren’t being sucked into the river and your organs seem to have not turned into stone, and those are both PRETTY GOOD SIGNS.

Well, so far, you’ve managed to directly discern the CURSE OF URUSEIHARA without having to consult the villagers, and if you’re lucky, you might even end up saving the guy whose body you’re currently borrowing. Despite the Lepiotas-Psilocybin mixup you had earlier, you’d say you’re doing pretty good. It’s only early noon.

What next?

Back to life again. You feel strange, like your entire face is submerged in water.

What do you know, it is. Was this guy trying to drown himself? You’ve landed yourself in a really unfortunate body.

You pull your face from the water, and a black wind blows over you. A mighty demon must have been summoned to this spot. You still feel weak and colorless. Behind you, there is laughter.

You turn to face… SOMETHING.

“Oh? Am I really face to face with the legendary Medicine Seller? How annoying. Why do you poke around in my business?”

She looks to have the body of a young girl in one eye, but is a beast made of long red tentacles in your other. 

“Identify yourself!”, you shout. She cackles.

“I am ALICE, BORN OF THE RESENTFUL SOUL OF THE DROWNED. I will bring ALL OF URUSEIHARA TO DIE AS I HAVE. Slowly, they will become ENTRANCED by this river, until one-by-one, they all wander to the banks to WELCOME THEIR DEATH.”

You are not sure you like the direction this girl is heading.

Music credit: “Demon Summoning” by Robert Blaker

You can feel the presence of something struggling here. It’s a risky maneuver, but it looks like there’s not many other options, unless you think you’ll get much done as a blade of grass.

You climb in.

A shaman is known everywhere, but familiar to none. When he comes, it is like he was always there, and when he goes, it is like he never arrived in the first place.

“Oh, Medicine Seller? You really are getting rusty, huh. Maybe all the trips are going to your head.” The great beast shifts, and shimmers with an incomprehensible energy.

“You’ll need to return to one of the pages you were DRAWN ON. Once there, however, you’ll obviously need to inherit a new body, unless you feel like repeating your miserable death. If you’re quick, I bet there’s still a fresh one near you. Maybe!”

Better get on your way.

“Oh, foolish Medicine Seller.  I hope your journeys will not be as clumsy next time.”

If you could talk in this shape, you would tell him to step all kinds of off your wickedly threshold-crossing grill. You are just doing your thing, bro. You GOT THIS.

You manage to wander down to a slideshow of you barfing your guts out and dying. You are really damn embarrassed.

Well, there’s gotta be some way back into the story around here. Preferably without vomiting blood. Shit sucks.

Very few people ever make it to REALITY. You are not exactly sure of just how the transit happens, either, but hell, it happens.

Some who have come before you might have called this the “spirit world”, or a “Realm of the Gods”, but you know this to be false. This place is host to a CREATOR, who governs your fate even now.

It also hosts many GREAT BEASTS, which others before you could only describe as gods. You always shake your head a bit at that terminology, though. They certainly seem much less grandiose in person. Humanity has a habit of hyping things up.

Speaking of great beasts…

NEKARAJIN draws near.

“Oh? Medicine Seller, hmm? You dropped in so unexpectedly. I suppose you thought that snack would bring you divinity? You have really been careless with your trips through death lately. One of these days, the Angel will get you before we do.”

This guy’s kind of condescending, but he’s always got a wealth of information that normally never becomes privy to mankind. It’s always useful to ask him a question or two to figure out what’s going on.

You vomit profusely, but there’s no beating it. This mushroom is a killer. It’s already torn up your stomach, and blood rushes out of your mouth.

A shaman delicately walks the balance between life and death, using their body only as a vessel, and their mind only as a place of rest. They dwell not in their corporeal form, what we know to be real is not real to them. They say that their power and their wisdom comes from a reality much deeper than we can perceive. To pierce the veil that separates their universe from a million others, that is their purpose, and they will do so with any means necessary, so that they might bring light from the void back into our world.

…

…

…

…

…

You’ve entered REALITY.

You decide to take wind on the intuition of one of your less tempered thoughts.

A wise man once told you, “there are old mushroom hunters, and bold mushroom hunters, but no bold old mushroom hunters.” Unfortunately you weren’t really listening at the time, and you throw back a good handful of whatever kind of mushrooms you might be lucky enough to have.

They taste like the usual variant, except for a strange, metallic taste, one that takes over your mouth, and the bitter feeling begins to spread through your v-

Oh.

You have just eaten a large handful of poisonous mushrooms and will die within 5 minutes. Any plans?

Ah, you spoke a little hastily earlier. The truth is you won’t be able to do that at the moment, at least, not as long as you’re in HUMAN FORM.

You’re running a bit low on supplies, but from left to right, you have arranged in your travelling chest -

MUSHROOMS, of an unknown variant. The lettering seems to have worn off in your travels. This may come to be unfortunate, as you also collect POISONOUS MUSHROOMS in addition to your entheogenic varieties.

A KNIFE, which doesn’t even need explaining.

A KISERU PIPE & TOBACCO, for binding spirits. When tangled in the smoke, all spirits must tell the truth, and cannot harm living beings. It also TASTES DAMN GOOD, especially when mixed with your next item…

A BAG OF HOKKAIDO-NATIVE CANNABIS INDICA, for use in mediating the connection between HUMAN SELF and SPIRITUAL SELF. In lower doses, it’s enjoyed by many you smoke with as a shared alteration of consciousness that leads to much giggling and many foolish ideas. However, your preferred use is a meditative aid, along with a few of its lesser-known MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. 

A JAR OF RICE, because even the most seasoned shaman needs to eat, or at least, they enjoy to, and finally…

A BOX OF COINS, for use in trading. Your profession has brought you a small fortune and you are always happy to share it.

You’re certain some of this crap must be useful somehow…

—UNPAUSE—

Ah, yeah, not a bad idea. You head back in the direction of URUSEIHARA.

Off in the distance, you can see a CURSED ZONE. Entering here in your mortal form will surely lead to your death, if not 1000 years of bad luck for you and your kin. It looks like it’s taking up the bridge, too. How trifling.

It might not be a bad idea to check your INVENTORY or try to use some DIVINATION, but ultimately, the future is in your hands.

Of course. You go by “Dokoma Ciel”, or just “Ciel”, in these lands. It’s obviously a pseudonym, do you even look remotely Japanese? Anyways, that’s not something you forget. In fact, you’re actually pretty excellent in the realm of thought, with the effortless way you prioritize information, and more or less you are not suffering debilitating mental insanity.

You are a cautious, sagacious, and introverted man, but anywhere you rest, you will see flowers bloom. For living in a place in such a time of great isolation, you have never felt shunned, despite your obvious differences from others. You suppose the nature of your job as a MEDICINE SELLER certainly defuses people.

However, you are in no means of the word a traditional doctor, though you are certainly colleagues with some of them. You are one of a very small few people who is so steeped in the realm of spirits that you are able to diagnose and cure spectral ailments, and combat demons. You could say you have always been half dead, since your birth.

You have also come across in your travels a strain of entheogenic mushrooms and learned to cultivate them. Through their help, you are able to enter the Realm of the Gods, though you do so sparingly, as they are very busy folk.

Right now, though, you are really not sure what to do.