• From behind the bush of bamboo stalks, I could hear the clatter of the kokeshi dolls as they teetered along the garden’s cobbled path. Without further delay, I leapt out from the foliage, right hand at the ready.

    As one of the more benevolent of the animated, the dolls didn’t react until it was too late, their wooden heads lopped off before they even made their battle cry.

    Withdrawing the blade back into my finger, I salvaged what was left of their remains before they crumbled and disappeared. A few gold and a fan edge.

    I sighed and slumped beside a tree, ignoring the new kokeshi that crawled out of the thicket to replace their fallen comrades. This was getting tiresome.

    “Nothing yet, eh?”

    My partner stepped out from behind the cherry branches, hopping out of the way for a few passing sakura fluffs.

    “Nah. Even at this C.L., we can’t take out as many dolls as we’d like to.”

    Noel stabbed at one of the fluffs grudgingly, only to receive a gust of sharp petals in return.

    “Why don’t you just kill off more of those taiko drums? You get orbs from the quest, you know.” she said, brushing the flowers from here eyes

    I became irritated by the mention of those animated. That was one of the problems having a demon ring set.

    “It’s not very pleasant being beaten up by instruments with testosterone for several hours.”

    She giggled and pointed to her blonde hair, and then mine.

    “Or dealing with that.” She said, acknowledging the obvious sawdust in my dark tresses.

    Fluffs were fine when they exploded, leaving all but a puff of grass or blossoms behind (sometimes it even smelled quite nice).
    However, when the huge drums were defeated, they would erupt in a shower of wood shavings, peppering your hair and clothes with the stubborn stuff.

    I was getting tired.

    “Maybe we should just go back to the ranch.” I offered, coaxing out the larger wood chunks from my hair.

    “Or the Village Greens.” She said in return.

    Neither sounded appealing. There were three things in common about the animated those areas:

    1. they smelled bad (garlic and fungus is not an appealing mix)
    2. they were overly aggressive
    3. there were never enough to go around.

    Many newcomers (of which still smelled a little bit like the sewer) populated these areas. There were hundreds there every day, and no matter how much Leon said the guard was shorthanded, or how long they had to wrestle to take down a simple flamingo, the province was dominated.

    Noel suddenly brightened. her annoying magnified optimism was also a ring set nature.

    “How about we try for Bass’ken?”