And so The Three began their
pilgrimage to find Oji and seek his help.
The problematic part of this quest
though, was locating his hut. Oji was a curious creature who had a
really short attention span and an aversion to monotony. That taken
into account, it's justified why he moved his house from place to
place whenever he felt like, making it really difficult for anyone to
contact him. But the three pilgrims were old friends of Oji. Back in
the Days of Awesome he had shared with them words of voodoo and a
handful of his secrets. He had taken each one separately and trusted
them with knowledge concerning the locations of three hidden
doorbells.
The first doorbell was kept in a rusty, wooden Chinese box inside an abandoned pagoda, far in the enchanting east.
The second lied below, in the deep,
frozen oceans of the north. Hidden within an ancient shipwreck and
haunted by ghost pirates, sworn to guard the doorbell until the day
Oji would release them from their curse.
The last one was given by a djinn, to
the first one that answered her three questions, regarding life, the
universe and stuff. She was waiting patiently inside her oil lamp,
buried in an underground temple, hidden in the deserts of the south.
And these were all of them.
Oji had no interest in the west or
just not enough pilgrim friends.
After days of walking, a night with
many stars and clouds shaped like donuts, The Three arrived at the
Crossroad of the Worlds. They extendedly stared at each other for a
while and then agreed to meet here again before the new moon rises.
Once they would return with the three doorbells in their possession,
they would ring them to summon Oji's house. Then he would welcome
them and all reunited once again, they could have a tea party, with
Mama Oji cookies and lots of sugar cubes for old times sake.
Thus, with minds set on their quests
and chocolate filled pastries, the company parted ways.
They mounted mountains and crossed
crossings. They faced dangers more dangerous than an unwashed finger
dashing towards an unspectacled eye, but in the end they all reached
their destinations.
When the first shaman reached the old
pagoda, she spend three days meditating on a water lily inside a
mystical pond. With the sole company of ex-prince frogs, she used her
mind alone to visualize and solve the Chinese box. Then she entered
the pagoda, casually opened the box and took the doorbell.
The one stranded in the north,
summoned a giant seagull, rode him and dived like a meteor from the
sky into the darkness of the freezing waters. He rammed the shipwreck
and sent the pirate ghosts keelhauling under his steed's plumage. It
tickled like hell. He emerged from the sea with the doorbell secured
inside his seagull's beak and flew towards the perennial sunset.
The last pilgrim, all sweaty and
drained from the journey in the sands, eventually arrived at
the underground temple of the lady djinn. He polished her lamp a bit
and she appeared in front of him with her three super-important
questions. Not knowing any of the answers, the third pilgrim thought of a different
bargain. He asked her how she felt being locked up in such a tight
place for so long, about her troubled childhood and sensed that she
must be feeling very lonely. The lady djinn was critically moved by
his words and to make a long story short, he shagged his way out of
it.
And then one night, The Three came
back as they had agreed.
They rang their newly acquired
doorbells and in front of them Oji's house appeared. It was a
three-floor mansion with tattered windows and vines that reached the
old attic at the top. That's what he fancied at the time. Oji opened
the door, greeted them and with his only hand waved at them to come
in.
They all acknowledged the lateness of
the hour and that it was no proper time for tea, so they settled for
a midnight dinner and got down to business.
Totemic masks covered their faces.
Holding their staves in hand they formed a half circle around the
fire which burned in the center of the main hall. Oji came and
sat opposite to them. He remained there for a while, staring at the
fire, perfectly still, like a wooden statue. A breeze came from the
windows and touched the feathers on his mask. And he knew that is was
time. He reached inside the black leather pouch in his belt and
pulled something out. The small eyes in his hand were flickering with
a pale green light. “Ashi-atchara. Homi-echara.” He chanted and
with a quick move threw them in the fire. The Three followed his lead
and did the same. A deep guttural sound was coming from their mouths
as the fire started blazing. The room burst with light and inside the
flames they saw the demon.
'He was sitting under Machusasha.
His legs were crossed and his hands rested upon them. As the rain
carved rivers on his forehead, he meditated for strength and fury on
his strike. The great tomahawk was resting against the trunk of the
elder tree and the ground vibrated from it's lustful anticipation.'
The image vanished and between the coals of
the cold now fire a charred doll appeared. Oji picked it up and held
it in his fireproof hand.
It was a granite figure of man wearing
a golden headdress.
Part the fourth... naw
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