Moonlight Over a Ruined Village

            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.    

            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 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.

            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 another solitary pilgrim who has the audacity to walk on the river road after nightfall. The night on which he chose to do this dangerous activity is the night of the Wild Hunt. Though this tradition is forgotten amidst the chaotic events that happen in the ruined village on a regular basis, the gods have not forgotten. This night is when supernatural denizens are led by the Queen of Winter. They hunt for living souls to enlist in their endless hunt.             This solitary figure finds himself amidst an assembly of otherworldly creatures being led by the Queen of Winter, who demands he fulfill his end of the hunt by being their prey. However, things soon fall apart when it is discovered that he is too weak to run from them. Deprived of a means to satisfy their bloodlust, they have to alter the details of the hunt. Soon, the nature of the hunt is changed greatly. It then becomes unclear which side of the conflict is hunting which.             This tale deals with ghosts, death, horror, supernatural elements, and despair.  It also contains mentions of irresponsible alcohol consumption. Furthermore, it occasionally resorts to the use of profanity. Listener discretion is advised.