Chapter Text
Warning: This ritual is classified as a Broken Ritual. It does not have the intended effect and often causes death or coma to the ritualist(s). It serves as a case study into ceremonial magic, urban myths and wraiths, and should only be attempted by a certified enchanter level ceremonial mage with sufficient backup. The ritual itself has been pieced from an obscure japanese urban legend, a dream journal of a supposed family member of the Five Sisters, psychiatric files of the people who attempted the ritual and subsequent investigations by qualified personnel. The Information Department recommends spreading several fake versions of the ritual, together with artificial inflation of their popularity via social media influencers to stop further casualties.
The urban legend, originally posted on a now-defunct blog by an unknown individual: "Hey, have you heard about the Five Sister Murders? Five girls, all of different ages have been taken from their home in the middle of the night and then murdered all in different ways! From youngest to oldest they were: Saya, Kaya, Chiya, Maya and Airi. They all gathered around at night on the ground floor of their home, not being able to sleep for some reason. They turned on the tv and played some board games together. Their mother was still sleeping on the upper floor, not noticing the commotion that soon took place. According to the police, girls panicked at some point with signs of struggle filling the room. Yet none of it was heard by the mother. No evidence of the kidnapper's identity were left - not a strand of hair, no blood, no skin. Only the time was known. An analog clock was broken during the commotion, stuck at displaying 4:00. Some people even say that the digital clock was broken too! But this one displayed 死, the kanji for death...
The mother suffered a mental breakdown after the kidnapping, being completely unhelpful to the investigators while the father couldn't be reached. Apparently, the family had a very strained relationship with the father and he was living away from them. They didn't know each other's addresses or phone numbers and dad traveled around the country often, making it hard for the investigators to reach him. They only did so, when it was too late.
First was Saya - buried alive in an abandoned orphanage, found by a party of urban explorers. The cellar under the floorboards of which Saya was buried, hid many small skeletons buried in similar fashion. Investigation of them is still pending to this day.
Second was Kaya - hung with a grappling hook from the top of a construction site. Found by a 'businessman' of a Yakuza group, inspecting the site. He cooperated with the police since he didn't want a murder like this being pinned on his brothers. It seems like Kaya wasn't killed by hanging though - what killed her were multiple bone fractures suffered from falling from a great height.
Third was Chiya - found by the owner of a pachinko parlor opening up for the day. The pachinko machines were all smashed and toppled over and various other gambling and non-gambling games were set up around the parlor. Roulette tables, blackjack tables, mahjong, slots, shogi, chess... some of those are illegal in japan but the police found no fingerprints or other signs of use on all non-pachinko games except one - the blackjack table and cards that Chiya was murdered at. It seems she has been poisoned with an unknown substance and forced to play. Her cards amounted to the value of 20, while the dealer had 21. The police were baffled at the elaborate setup of the murder scene that couldn't be performed without the help of multiple people and most likely alerting the whole neighbourhood.
Fourth was Maya. She was found by her classmates in her school's computer lab. It was closed at the time, with no sign of forced entry. She was sitting in front of computer labeled '4', with her eyes clawed out and a painful expression on her face. The autopsy concluded that the wounds were self-inflicted. The computer that she was sat in front of suffered an unknown failure, causing a power surge to fry all of the components. Other computers at the lab had corrupted hard drives and failed to boot up.
The last one was Airi, found by a farmer. While walking through his fields he found a half-burned up corpse. The actual cause of death wasn't the burns. It was a single gunshot wound to the head, which the panicked farmer didn't notice.
At this point, the mother had to be admitted to a mental hospital. She suffered from nightmares about 'games' that her daughters played and the contents of those nightmares kept spilling into her perception of reality. The police desperate for any lead interviewed her about said games but their description didn't fit any known games fully.
The father was finally contacted. He kept blaming himself for all that happened. It is said that he became deeply religious after the incident, trying to atone for not being present in his daughters lives while he could.
One day, he disappeared. Fearing the worst, the police started the search right away, and re-investigated the previous crime scenes.
On Saya's crime scene they found a teddy bear and a paper with the message saying 'He Lives In SMist'.
On Kaya's crime scene they found the father's severed thumb and a paper with the message saying 'Offering Of Shame'
On Chiya's crime scene they found an empty syringe with trace amounts of an unknown substance and a paper with the message saying 'FOUND IT!'
On Maya's crime scene they found a CD, taped under the desk and a paper with the message saying 'I Won't Be Able To Make Them Rest'. The CD was labeled '死' and contained a single photo of the father.
On the last crime scene they found a spent .38 casing and a paper with no message. The casing was the same calibre as the one that killed Airi.
According to the police, none of those items were there before.
For four months no one was able to find the father.
Finally, he was found in a shady hotel room by a member of the staff. He was dead, with a .38 calibre bullet piercing his head. In front of his body was a board game set up for five players. On the West and East sides of the board there were two candles, on the North and South one candle. Each of the six candles had a different color. Each of them seemed to have burnt out at a different time. There was also a tv playing in the room, together with two clocks. One analog, stuck at the hour four. And one digital, displaying the kanji '死'..."
This urban legend spawned the ritual Five Sisters Game, which by reproducing the details of the crime scene on which the father was found attempted to travel to the crime scenes as a bystander and hopefully help solve the case. Note that this ritual has many variations with widely varying effects - the most dangerous of which is the version with just five candles, where the five ritualists take place of the victims. This one is NOT to be attempted under any circumstances for obvious reasons.
The Five Sisters Game:
Due to the way the ritual is structured, from here on the ritualist will sometimes be called the player.
Recommended ritual tools: Six candles of different colors, a board game for at least five players, a TV, an analog clock, a digital clock, a .38cal gun with bullets.
The Ritualist can take any other tools he deems necessary and can modify the previous list if he wishes - doing so changes the outcome of the ritual however. Most of the times, when changing or removing the recommended tools, the ritual fails to start, certain 'games' fail to occur or become 'corrupted' or the ritualist simply has nightmares bothering him for a few nights after the failure of the ceremony.
The most common modification is substituting the gun with a prop gun or removing it entirely. Very few ritualists manage to actually reach the 'level' that requires a gun to be present, but those that do, become comatose upon reaching the 'Airi Stage' if they don't posess a gun. All others who reach that stage shoot themselves soon after and it is not known which state - the presence or absence of the gun, is 'the right one'.
As long as the games can be played by at least five players, any board game can be chosen. However, ritualists who used board games that japanese girls might be more familiar with, noted that they felt 'more knowledgable of their surroundings and rules', thus having better chances at various stages of the ritual. Of course, all of the mentioned mages 'exited' the ritual before the 'Airi Stage'. The differences between picking a game with up to five players, a game with up to six players or a game that can be played by more than six people seem inconsistent and add to the mystery of which parts of the ritual are Broken.
The correct colors and placement of candles is mostly unknown. What is known is that the candle signifying the ritualist should be placed either in the North or South, and the player should have his back turned towards the tv. The candle of Saya should be white and placed either in the East or West close to, but not in the corner of the side on which the player stands(so if the player is in the North, Saya should either be in the East, close to the northern corner or West, close to the northern corner). It is unknown if the other candles also have to be close to corners. Putting any candle in a corner makes the ritual fail to start. None of the candles should be black - if the ritualist's candle is black, he will die as soon as the clock strikes four, if the candle of a sister is black, the player will die when reaching her stage. The 'correct candle color and placement' in the case of Saya gives the player an option to not fight Saya's spirit, instead pacifying her. However, even subtle changes in candle arrangment shifted the 'games' around so much, that it's impossible to tell if the changes they bring are relevant. Some ritualists even found red herrings - a player found a syringe on 'Chiya Stage' and remembering the urban legend, injected himself with it thinking it's the same syringe found by the father. The ritualist was 'kicked out of' the game upon doing this, feeling 'euphoric' and dazed. He was tested and found to be under influence of heroin. When the high stopped, he claimed the last thing he remembers from the ritual was a mocking voice saying 'winners don't use drugs' - a slogan included in arcade games in north america from 1989 to 2000.
The tv can be set to any channel, though japanese channels and channels preffered by women seem to have a similar effect to the board game choice.
The clocks should be as close to each other in sync as possible. The analog clock is allowed to strike hour four first, as long as the digital one also does so within at most fourty seconds.
The ritual process: The ritual should be started at three o'clock. If it's started at any other hour it fails to move the player to the 'Saya Stage'. It seems however, that if there are only two time measuring devices in the room - the analog and digital clock, and there is no other way to measure or guess time(visible sky, sunlight seeping through the curtains, etc.) the ritual can be 'tricked' into thinking that the hour on the clock is the actual current hour, no matter when the ritual is performed. The effect this has on the 'games' is unknown.
At three o'clock, the player turns on the tv and sets up the board game. If the ritualist mock-plays the game, he might hear laughs and voices of the girls in the room with him, but they are hard to make out and distorted. Inexperienced ritualists often report them as 'sounding creepy' and abort the ritual. The candles should be lit as close to hour four as possible. The closer you do this, the longer will be your hidden 'time limit' inside of the 'games'. When the analog clock strikes four it will stop ticking and produce a loud sound of glass breaking. The digital clock malfunctions soon after, displaying the death kanji. The digital clock malfunctioning signifies that the previous steps were perfromed correctly and the ritual can properly start 'the games'. If the malfunction doesn't happen the ritual should not be attempted for another 24 hours. If the analog clock breaks, but the digital doesn't, the clock should be examined and the ritual should not be attempted for another 48 hours.
The room the ritualist is in should at this point fill with mist that makes him lose consciousness.
After that, the ritual can be aborted at any time. Because it functions like a computer game, the player can bring up a 'menu' that lets him choose either to 'continue' or 'exit'. The 'game world' is paused at that moment and the player is safe from any dangers inside of it, including the time limit. Exiting wakes the ritualist up safely, though many players weren't able to bring up the menu during dangerous moments.
To the outside world, the ritual always seems to end an hour after it starts no matter how far the player got, with the surviving players saying they perceived it as lasting from 'an instant' to 'several days'.
The player always brings any tools he had on him during the start of the ritual, but is unable to use magic, even if he was able to in the 'real world'.
Saya Stage: Due to the bizzare nature of the Saya Stage, many players immediately abort the ritual upon reaching it. The world in the Saya Stage is monochrome, grainy black and white. The player feels, but cannot see his own body, except for the hands. The player's tools are all inside of a backpack that floats behind the player when not touched by a hand. The player makes footstep sounds despite not having visible legs, but they feel unsynchronized as if they are being 'played' slightly after making a step. All injuries can be felt, even if done to an invisible body part. The player seems to be as physically fit as they are in real life. It seems to be set inside of an abandoned building with the rooms set up differently, depending on the floor the player is currently on. The floors and the archetype are randomized, no playthrough being the same except for the starting room. Currently there are four floor archetypes known: a hospital, an orphanage, a school and an apartment building. The player begins inside of a dark room filled with a random assortment of items. Some of those 'items' change when approached - they are the 'NPCs' of this stage. Most of them change by growing limbs or eyes(more often a single, vertical eye) when approached. Those body parts are two dimensional, while the items they grow from are three dimensional. Some respond to being touched or spoken to by hiding into the dark or running away. Others respond by repeating the same sets of phrases - most reported ones being 'He comes!', 'Hide you idiot!' and 'I'm sorry...'. Some of them are voiced though the players cannot describe what the voices sounded like. Others pop up as 'text boxes'. Very few NPCs can be fully interacted with and the players all report instinctively knowing which ones they are. The players feel a sense of wrongness when attempting to cause harm towards them. Proceeding to do it doesn't cause any reaction from the NPCs. It does however, cause Saya to become enraged, making her spirit chase the player and blocking the peaceful resolution.
The only fully interactible NPC in this room will approach the player and introduce herself(?) as Rosa. Rosa looks like a can of soda with paper legs and one vertical eye growing out of her. She will tell you that their big sister Saya has gone missing while looking for their brother Teddy, and that a Bad Man is outside searching for them. She then tasks us to look for Teddy and Saya. When talked to about anything she acts like a girl about six years old, displaying the same skills and knowledge a girl of her age could be expected to posess. If confronted about her looks, she ignores the player. If confronted about the 'game world' or the general 'reality' of the situation, she gives various responses that 'break the fourth wall' and contain some information about the ritual. She once provided a hint the correct candle placement for Saya by saying 'Saya always wanted to get closer to her daddy - exit the game and fix that!'
After exiting the room, the player will find himself in a corridor of one of the four building archetypes. The building is filled with a mist that gradually grows thicker as the game progresses. The mist isn't uniform in color and some places have a blacker mist flowing through them - those are trap areas that kill the player. Additionally, there are two moving characters which are important to mention - Saya and the Bad Man. Saya is a japanese girl, around six years of age. When she doesn't notice the player, her hair seems shorter and drawn back. After noticing the player, her hair instantly changes length and covers her face. She demands the player return her 'brother' and won't stop chasing until killed or pacified. Being touched by her kills the player so it's recommended to use ranged weapons. She has the same kind of stamina and health as any other girl of her age though so she'll get tired and give up quickly if you run away. The Bad Man however has unlimited stamina. He's depicted as a large, black, vaguely human-shaped cloud. Most players can smell smoke when he's approaching. The Bad Man cannot be wounded - bullets and other items fly through him. Both of them move at random, but the Bad Man is sometimes spotted chasing Saya. One player reported an instance of a knife-wielding saya chasing the Bad Man but decided to exit the game immediately instead of observing. The goal of this stage is to kill or pacify Saya. In order to put her to rest, she needs to be presented with a Teddy Bear item found on the hospital floor in one of the beds. If presented with the Teddy brought by a player she remarks 'That's the wrong one!' and keeps giving chase.
Dying at any point of this stage causes the player to wake up and then suffocate.
Killing Saya shows the player a black and white stop-motion animation of a bullet exiting a chamber of a revolver then entering Saya's skull. The animation doesn't change depending on the kill method.
Pacifying Saya shows the player a black screen, then plays a sound of a child laughing, before moving him to the next stage.
Kaya Stage: It is recommended that only physically adept ritualists attempt this stage. It's set inside of a futuristic looking cityscape although the architecture is a bit unrealistic - with a lot of metal pipes, long poles, balconies, scaffoldings, tarps and other things to facilitate parkour. There are no living people with bodies except for the player and Kaya. There are no vehicles except for fast-moving magnetic trains. The player sees all of his body as it was in the real world. If it was injured during Saya stage it is now fully healed. The player has the same amount of stamina as in real life. The player starts on a rooftop of a small building overlooking a plaza. On the floor there is a wireless headset. When put on, a voice relays orders to the player and gives a bit of exposition about 'the plot' of the stage. The voice, the plot, and the exposition varies in details, but most of the time, the player is a secret government agent who is pursuing a rogue operative found somewhere in the city. The voice can be talked with at any time and will respond in a way expected of a male, middle-aged military intelligence officer. The voice is often described as 'commanding' and mocks the player's incompetence when he fails at something. He doesn't respond to comments about the 'reality' of the world. The player's orders are to find and kill the rogue operative. All around the 'game world', the player can find various weapons and items that help with moving around and fighting. Kaya also can be seen using and interacting with those items. Kaya looks like a 14 year old japanese girl, yet displays strength and stamina impossible to achieve at her age and often far exceeding the player. She also has the knowledge and skills similar to that of Special Forces. When talked to, she is completely immersed in the game world and her role as a rogue operative. No matter what the player says, she is convinced that he wants to kill her and is trying to manipulate her to that end. She likes using the environment against the player, often using explosive weapons to bury players in rubble. A lot of ritualists die on this stage.
Dying at any point of this stage will cause the player to wake up, after which multiple bones of the player will fracture, killing him instantly.
Winning this stage shows the player a 'killcam footage' of Kaya's last moments.
Chiya Stage: It is recommended that only ritualists with the knowledge of cheating or legally increasing your odds at casino games(or those trying to find a workaround) play this stage. It's set inside a luxurious looking casino that the player and Chiya cannot exit out of. The windows of the casino do not show the outside world and seem to be bulletproof. The only people who appear as living in this stage are the player and Chiya. The player is once again healed of all injuries and posesses the same physical characteristics as in the real world. Chiya looks like a 16 year old japanese girl(though she doesn't seem to remember her actual age). Her hair is put in a ponytail. She seems to be confused about her whereabouts, stating that 'she was just playing with her sisters' and often acts antagonistic towards the NPCs and sometimes to the player as well. She was described as 'tomboyish' in appearance and behavior by many players. The player and Chiya start at the casino lobby and are greeted by an NPC. The greeter NPC, as well as all other NPCs in this stage, is a two-dimensional black silhouette. Many players say that it looks like a 2-D version of the Bad Man in the Saya stage, but others report them as being different. The greeter tells the player and Chiya that they've been poisoned and that to get the antidote they have to win against the house at whatever game they wish from those present in the casino. However, once one player wins, the other dies right away. At this point, Chiya punches the npc in vast majority of encounters. The punch stops at the body without any effect. The NPC responds to that by saying that 'Sometimes clients misplace various substances around the casino if you'd prefer to search for the antidote yourself'. The player can interact with Chiya in any way they wish and she responds in ways that could be expected of a 16 year old tomboyish girl put in this situation. Her physical strength and stamina are also similar to what could be expected of her, though she seems to have some street fighting experience and knowledge of handling weapons that is unusual at her age. She is also very good at shogi and go. She prefers to look for the antidote and will do so unless she suspects that the player will try to play the games instead. Killing her before winning a game has no effect, though not many players even considered this. The games vary, but most are to be expected of a casino - blackjack, roulette, slots, poker. Others are out of place like dice games, mahjong, chess or shogi. All of them seem to have a higher difficulty than normal though failure carries no consequences unless played against Chiya in a 1v1 game. The casino has other NPCs most of which act like clients or croupiers when interacted with, though there are other staff member roles assign to others too like security. There is no way to distinguish between the npcs visually, other than their placement around the casino. Player and Chiya do not feel any adverse effects of the supposed poison. The 'poison' is probably just the unseen 'time limit' value.
Dying at any point of this stage will cause the player to wake up, then die soon after for seemingly no reason. Toxycology reports indicate various drug overdoses.
Winning this stage will show the player an 'animation' of Chiya being injected with something, and then closing her eyes.
Maya Stage: It is recommended to stop playing at this stage. This stage has many ways to die easily and the way to progress is uncertain. It is unknown how most players who completed this stage actually did it and all of those who did, either killed themselves soon after entering the next one or went comatose. That being said, Maya is the most knowledgable about the situation she's in and retains some memory of other 'game sessions', so if your objective is to converse with her, feel free to do so. Maya looks around 18 years old and states that is her age if asked. She wears a sweater and has glasses, but at the beginning of the stage she takes them off. When asked why she responds that 'They don't seem to be needed here' and that her eyesight is once again normal. She is often descirbed as the most 'nerdy' of the Five Sisters - she acts socially awkward and has above average knowledge for a girl her age. The stage is set inside of a computer lab on what appears to be a third floor of a japanese school. The windows can be opened and looked out of but it's always nighttime of a new moon so not much can be seen. Maya states that the objective of this stage is to find a file on computer number 4. Unfortunately, during every game the file, the puzzles to get to that file, the operating system and everything about the computers in the classrooms randomizes so she has long since gave up on trying to find the solution. Maya believes that the games are some sort of 'divine joke' set up by an evil spirit for it's own amusement. She remembers talking with some, but not all players and states that her father was one of them. She cooperated with him to find an out of the box solution to her game and states that in all previous games dad had to do the same, though doesn't remember his actions in those games or how he set up the ritual. At that time the solution to her game was to take the player's picture with a webcam and burn it to a cd, which caused 'something' to happen. She does not remember what it was. She also states that the next game is probably 'rigged as all hell' and winning it would require finding the evil spirit that set it up in the real world. She often reminds the players not to take too long talking to her due to the time limit and encourages players to exit the game. She doesn't stop anyone from trying to win her game if they wish and provides assistance when prompted. However, she warns that most of the files on the pc are traps and display 'something awful' that kills players.
Dying at any point of this stage causes the player to wake up. Soon after, the player's eyeballs explode, killing him.
According to memory fragments picked from the minds of the players who won this stage by mind mages, upon winning the player is shown an animation of matrix-like green symbol crawl before entering the Airi Stage.
Airi Stage: The following information is uncertain and mostly pieced together from analyzing memory fragments of various ritualists who managed to reach it with or without a proper gun. Throught the entire stage there is music playing, though the melody changes in every fragment. All who hear it describe it as eerie, with many complaining about it 'getting stuck in their heads' for up to a month. Airi seems to be a young woman in her early 20's with long, dyed hair. The colors of the hair vary. If the player started the ritual with a proper gun, he'll start the stage right next to Airi. She'll grab his hand and start running. The player and Airi seem to be receiving various types of damage from unknown sources while running through various, mostly rural envrionments until they die in some way. Most common way to die is also the most peculiar - they manage to reach an open field, when a large man strongly pushes Airi away from the player. He then proceeds to get on top of the player, trying to shoot him in the head with a .38cal revolver while Airi yells something at both of them. It is impossible to discern what she is saying. The man's face could never be recovered from the fragments. He sometimes yells something at player or Airi but his voice is gargled and cannot be recovered. Sometimes he seems to be speaking in reverse but manipulating the fragment to yield an unreversed voice yields gibberish. The player is given a 'quick time event' style prompt to shoot the man. No matter what the choice is, it leads to a black screeb with words 'game over' written on it, a sound of a gunshot, and then death. It appears that the death of this man is linked to the death of the player. It appears that no players tried killing Airi or killing the man with something other than a gun.
The players who get to this stage without a proper gun are comatose. For an unknown reason, their minds actively resist probing by mind mages, but some of them managed to get memory fragments out. According to them, comatose players take on a role of NPCs who chase two shadowy figures and Airi while attacking them with various weapons. Most of the npcs use torches and agricultural tools, but some were spotted with guns. The NPCs all wear black overalls, are severely underweight and cover their heads with carved pumpkins. Nothing else could be recovered.
Dying at any point of this stage causes the player to wake up, then shoot himself in the head with a gun. If the player is unable to use a gun to kill himself in 30 seconds upon waking up, the sound of a gunshot is still heard and a gunshot wound appears in his head.
There is only one player of the Airi stage, who got into it with a proper gun still became comatose. From the memory fragments extracted off him, it seems like he refused to shoot the man and yelled 'ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT I'LL FORGET THEM! I'LL FORGET ALL OF THEM!' at him. The man and Airi disappeared and the player started crying. After a while, he took a stick and wrote 'CAN'T REMEMBER THEIR NAMES OR I'LL DIE' and 'FORGET THEM' on the ground. After that, the world reformed around him into something more similiar to the real world, in which he seems to be living a relatively 'normal life' to this day.
Theories and procedures: Over all, it is recommended NOT to play the Five Sisters Game. Reaching the last stage requires a varied set of abilities, all of them highly honed, together with luck. There is no good ending, except exiting, the Sisters never find peace and the ritual can be performed in so many different ways, that finding the one that unlocks 'winning moves' for all stages like with Saya's stage seems impossible. There might not even be any actual way to win the other stages. The girls themselves might just be illusions created by whatever force rules over the ritual. Players who reach Chiya stage have often noted that they've grown attached to the girls and have a strong desire to rescue them. Last test has been conducted a year ago, mostly to make final contact with Maya. She has been notified that Irkstead will no longer try to play the Five Sisters Game. She expressed satisfaction with this update, informing us that the original urban legend has already been leaked by someone to the dark web and players unaffiliated with our organization keep coming anyway. She wants us to focus our efforts on finding the spirit responsible and has been led to believe that this will be our course of action. Sadly, we have concluded that doing so would require a large investment of time and effort, requiring many more ventures inside of the game and will disband the Five Sisters Game task force.
We are sorry girls... We pray that you reach the Good Ending one day.
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Addendum: A year after disbanding the task force, our archive servers have noticed a hacking attempt in progress. This file has been accessed by an unknown individual who left this message.
"%$&%%@#@!(
Y-u 8i8n't h45ve T0 lie.
~Ma%$&%%@#@!(:"