Lu Sanqian

Lu Sanqian was the chief of the Village of Lu and the sixteenth-generation descendant of the Lu family. His ancestors built the clan's ancestral hall on ground blessed by gods and buddhas, and he counted that debt as his own. When the hall was converted into a shrine of the Merciful Lady of the Veil he took it hard, and still said the Lu family had to repay it.

With a strange sickness running through the village and wooden puppets walking the lanes, he took it for the Lady's guidance in a dream and set out alone for the summit. His granddaughter Cui was waiting for him back in the village, and all along the road he spoke of asking the Lady to bring her back.

Maskwalkers had sealed the mountain road, and the gate was locked from the far side. He was shut in a cage, calling to be let out, and what he called for was still the shrine. Soul opened the road and lowered the cage, and he went on up.

Rain poured on the mountain and the more he drank the thirstier he grew. The Rootless Dew Soul gave him eased it only for a while. He would go on regardless: whoever waited above, man or ghost, was the Lady's arrangement.

He reached the shrine gate, and never got inside. On him were his granddaughter's ribbon and a letter to his son Lu Jieyuan, its ink broken off halfway.

In his chest was a heart-shaped Mindseal, finer than the old kind, made to keep the power Transcension grants while stripping away as much of its madness as could be.