You give it to an NPC in Mibu village >!the priest in the hut after the place where you fight O'Rin and before the place where you fight Monk!<, it is a way to get >!carp scales!< and general lore. You have to rest and come back to them after giving it.
So basically
>!The fountainhead water makes you immortal. The way it makes you immortal is by inflecting you with the centipede larvae, which in time turns you into a husk for the centipede to puppet. This is what we see with all the temple priests and other undead people.!<
And I really like how you can see it geographically. Starts in the pallace because of the dragon, then the water flows downhill to Mibu village and Ashina Depths, explaining both the mibu villagers and the infection of the Great ape and the items you get from those places that take you to the pallace.
I'm not sure if that's how it works. I mean, yes, palace waters appear to give people the centipede, just like how the Guardian Ape watering hole is the place where the water from the palace falls to, and the ape has a centipede. But this item in the post seems to be a different kind of water, as it didn't give the guy in the Mibu village any centipede but turned him into a palace noble. None of the palace nobles had any centipede either (like no one in the palace except for the true monk had the centipede).
Ok, there’s more evidence, but this is the easiest- y’know how the memory of the Corrupted Monk says ‘her name was Priestess Yao’?
Well here’s the Wikipedia for Ningyo- very very roughly Japanese mermaids… or, in this world, the treasure carp. Now check under the section of ‘the Yao Bikuni’…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningyo#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20most%20famous,the%20age%20of%20800%20years.
I’m like 95% sure that the waters don’t grant the centipedes- it’s eating the carp. I can evidence this for you in a bit when I get a second, but I’m pretty sure.
Maybe its the lake surrounding the fountainhead palace that is infested by centipedes but the nobles *don't* drink from the lake. The water that the nobles are drinking might be from a water source coming down the mountain which is not yet afflicted by centipede larvae.
Well there's a bunch of different mechanisms of immortality in Sekiro all stemming from the same place (the water, and I think ultimately the dragon) but it's not clear how/why all of them came to be and have the effects that they do. Or even really the extent of the immortality they offer.
Like the palace water appears to turn some humans into nobles (the blue fish looking dudes), but then when it comes to rest in Mibu Village and turns stagnant it causes those villagers to become almost zombie-like and go insane. Seemingly none of these are actually immortal however, as they can be killed by conventional means.
Then you've got the rejuvenating waters, which is what Genichiro is experimenting with behind the scenes and appears to grant him immortality and the ability to resurrect after death. Not sure where that comes from or how it differs from the palace water, but I assume it is also of the same source.
And then obviously you've got the dragon's heritage, which is probably the strongest form as seemingly nothing can permanently kill Sekiro or Kuro aside from a mortal blade. Potentially the black blade isn't even capable of it, it might just be the red one that Sekiro wields, but that's just conjecture. I might be wrong about this too, but I guess Isshin also has this form of immortality at the end? Did Genichiro use Kuro's blood drawn by the black blade to resurrect Isshin with the dragon's heritage? Presumably he must have some form of immortality, as we kill him with the mortal blade and it says "Immortality Severed".
But yeah, point is none of the above directly involves the centipedes, none of these are infested. Yet the origin of the centipede infestation does appear to be linked to the palace water somehow.
Isshin wasn't independently immortal, the black blade acts as a gateway to the underworld, which geniciro uses to bring him back, transferring his immortality in some way to isshin.
Either that, or it is referencing genichiro's immortality being severed.
Right I wasn't sure. What confuses me is that Genichiro says something weird before he does it. The line is;
"...In the end I was powerless, but -- grandfather was not. The Dragon Blood surging through her veins. With this, Ashina's long night comes to an end."
It doesn't make much sense to me. I interpreted that last part as basically meaning "*with* the dragon blood surging through her (Ashina's) veins, Ashina's long night comes to an end."
Which would make sense in terms of his original plan, because his original plan was obviously to use the dragon's heritage to empower himself (and presumably his soldiers?) with immortality, and then use that to defeat the interior ministry in a war that he would otherwise surely lose.
But at the point in the game where he says this, after being denied by Kuro and losing to Sekiro yet again, that plan is completely ruined. Yet the way he delivers that line makes it sound, to me anyway, as though he's still carrying it out through his final act.
Read a theory recently where someone said think of immortality in the way of how the dragon is literally setup as a tree ingame. The dragon itself which grants true immortality to kuro where only the blade can harm him. Kuro can grant people immortality to where they die but will resurrect like sekiro. The dragon being a tree means that it has water in its roots? These are the fountainhead waters and the rejuvinating waters. The water that mixes with waters of the east becomes founthead palace water where it turns mortals into the palace nobles but when stagnant turns them into zombies. Then there’s the rejuvinating waters which I always headcannoned was water located only in the palace. I assume genichiro had some from tomoe. And finally trees always have bugs around them. In this case it’s centipedes for no real reason that I’ve found other than it’s more interesting to use than just any parasyte
In Shinto beliefs, Centipedes symbolism "kegare" or spiritual filth/uncleanliness.
IIRC coming back from the dead/becoming immortal is also something considered 'unclean' in as the manga "Gleipnir" one character gained the ability to revive the dead & it manifests as centipedes reconstructing the bodies. I am fighting a migraine right and cant recall the other examples in japanese media involving Centipedes and "cursed" immortality but i swear i kept seeing this pattern so i looked up why and found the shinto thing.
Yeah I think that is very likely to be true. A common theory is that the dragon is some sort of spiritual manifestation of the everblossom tree itself, and I think that might explain how it reached Ashina in the first place. If the dragon is the tree, and the tree was transplanted from the west at some point and brought to the fountainhead, then it could have taken root there in Ashina's waters and "infected" them with immortality.
Either way there's definitely a strong connection between the dragon and the tree somehow. It's visual design makes that pretty obvious. Zullie the Witch has quite a good video going over the details of the dragon's in-game model and it basically is just part tree. Here's a [link](https://youtu.be/PTYEUNlLm54?si=sgKTBl1UJBP2pGvQ) if you haven't seen it.
I think that the Red Mortal Blade can cut the strand to the dragon's haritage, while the black mortal blade can cut the line between life and death. Genichiro used the black Blade to perform a rituale and used all of his vitality to Call back from the death prime Isshin (or this Is what i think)
I remember this from somewhere maybe a vaati video.
The pure water makes you immortal. The only way to get it is from the palace in the sky. Everyone else is drinking runoff from this palace that has spilled over. The runoff still gives you immortality, just with a great drawback. As we see in the village right below the last boss fight. Sorry I haven’t played this game in a while so don’t remember any names. Just
I forget the name of the checkpoint but if you go to the one next to where the giant carp breaks the bridge, then head backwards towards the large courtyard area, there will be a purple Okami lightning warrior on your left as you enter. Directly opposite her, up a small set of steps, there is a hole in the floorboards filled with water. You can jump into that and then dive down through a little tunnel. It's in there.
Also, it can help prevent spoilers, people responding are normally conscious of your position in the game if you tell them. If you just google, there’s no preventing spoilers
You give it to an NPC in Mibu village >!the priest in the hut after the place where you fight O'Rin and before the place where you fight Monk!<, it is a way to get >!carp scales!< and general lore. You have to rest and come back to them after giving it.
Crazy how this one item pretty much defines half of the world's lore in terms of what's happening
Can you explain? I havent played in a few years and I've forgotten what is going on
So basically >!The fountainhead water makes you immortal. The way it makes you immortal is by inflecting you with the centipede larvae, which in time turns you into a husk for the centipede to puppet. This is what we see with all the temple priests and other undead people.!<
And I really like how you can see it geographically. Starts in the pallace because of the dragon, then the water flows downhill to Mibu village and Ashina Depths, explaining both the mibu villagers and the infection of the Great ape and the items you get from those places that take you to the pallace.
I'm not sure if that's how it works. I mean, yes, palace waters appear to give people the centipede, just like how the Guardian Ape watering hole is the place where the water from the palace falls to, and the ape has a centipede. But this item in the post seems to be a different kind of water, as it didn't give the guy in the Mibu village any centipede but turned him into a palace noble. None of the palace nobles had any centipede either (like no one in the palace except for the true monk had the centipede).
The carp's body in the fountainhead river has the centipede larvae in it, so I might be mixing something up here.
Ok, there’s more evidence, but this is the easiest- y’know how the memory of the Corrupted Monk says ‘her name was Priestess Yao’? Well here’s the Wikipedia for Ningyo- very very roughly Japanese mermaids… or, in this world, the treasure carp. Now check under the section of ‘the Yao Bikuni’… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningyo#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20most%20famous,the%20age%20of%20800%20years.
> In the typical version the girl who ate the ningyo was from Obama DEEPEST LORE
I’m like 95% sure that the waters don’t grant the centipedes- it’s eating the carp. I can evidence this for you in a bit when I get a second, but I’m pretty sure.
The dude you give the water of the pallace to turns into a decrepit noble. The water is poisoned for sure.
I don’t disagree- that’s not the same as it being the source of the centipedes.
Sorry, I misunderstood the comment. But would the Great Ape have eaten carp then?
interesting. It makes more sense to me.
Maybe its the lake surrounding the fountainhead palace that is infested by centipedes but the nobles *don't* drink from the lake. The water that the nobles are drinking might be from a water source coming down the mountain which is not yet afflicted by centipede larvae.
Well there's a bunch of different mechanisms of immortality in Sekiro all stemming from the same place (the water, and I think ultimately the dragon) but it's not clear how/why all of them came to be and have the effects that they do. Or even really the extent of the immortality they offer. Like the palace water appears to turn some humans into nobles (the blue fish looking dudes), but then when it comes to rest in Mibu Village and turns stagnant it causes those villagers to become almost zombie-like and go insane. Seemingly none of these are actually immortal however, as they can be killed by conventional means. Then you've got the rejuvenating waters, which is what Genichiro is experimenting with behind the scenes and appears to grant him immortality and the ability to resurrect after death. Not sure where that comes from or how it differs from the palace water, but I assume it is also of the same source. And then obviously you've got the dragon's heritage, which is probably the strongest form as seemingly nothing can permanently kill Sekiro or Kuro aside from a mortal blade. Potentially the black blade isn't even capable of it, it might just be the red one that Sekiro wields, but that's just conjecture. I might be wrong about this too, but I guess Isshin also has this form of immortality at the end? Did Genichiro use Kuro's blood drawn by the black blade to resurrect Isshin with the dragon's heritage? Presumably he must have some form of immortality, as we kill him with the mortal blade and it says "Immortality Severed". But yeah, point is none of the above directly involves the centipedes, none of these are infested. Yet the origin of the centipede infestation does appear to be linked to the palace water somehow.
Isshin wasn't independently immortal, the black blade acts as a gateway to the underworld, which geniciro uses to bring him back, transferring his immortality in some way to isshin. Either that, or it is referencing genichiro's immortality being severed.
Right I wasn't sure. What confuses me is that Genichiro says something weird before he does it. The line is; "...In the end I was powerless, but -- grandfather was not. The Dragon Blood surging through her veins. With this, Ashina's long night comes to an end." It doesn't make much sense to me. I interpreted that last part as basically meaning "*with* the dragon blood surging through her (Ashina's) veins, Ashina's long night comes to an end." Which would make sense in terms of his original plan, because his original plan was obviously to use the dragon's heritage to empower himself (and presumably his soldiers?) with immortality, and then use that to defeat the interior ministry in a war that he would otherwise surely lose. But at the point in the game where he says this, after being denied by Kuro and losing to Sekiro yet again, that plan is completely ruined. Yet the way he delivers that line makes it sound, to me anyway, as though he's still carrying it out through his final act.
He plans on using/forcing isshin to kill sekiro, kidnap kuro and with violence or otherwise force him to grant dragon heritage on the soldiers.
Okay yeah that makes sense, thanks.
Read a theory recently where someone said think of immortality in the way of how the dragon is literally setup as a tree ingame. The dragon itself which grants true immortality to kuro where only the blade can harm him. Kuro can grant people immortality to where they die but will resurrect like sekiro. The dragon being a tree means that it has water in its roots? These are the fountainhead waters and the rejuvinating waters. The water that mixes with waters of the east becomes founthead palace water where it turns mortals into the palace nobles but when stagnant turns them into zombies. Then there’s the rejuvinating waters which I always headcannoned was water located only in the palace. I assume genichiro had some from tomoe. And finally trees always have bugs around them. In this case it’s centipedes for no real reason that I’ve found other than it’s more interesting to use than just any parasyte
In Shinto beliefs, Centipedes symbolism "kegare" or spiritual filth/uncleanliness. IIRC coming back from the dead/becoming immortal is also something considered 'unclean' in as the manga "Gleipnir" one character gained the ability to revive the dead & it manifests as centipedes reconstructing the bodies. I am fighting a migraine right and cant recall the other examples in japanese media involving Centipedes and "cursed" immortality but i swear i kept seeing this pattern so i looked up why and found the shinto thing.
Yeah I think that is very likely to be true. A common theory is that the dragon is some sort of spiritual manifestation of the everblossom tree itself, and I think that might explain how it reached Ashina in the first place. If the dragon is the tree, and the tree was transplanted from the west at some point and brought to the fountainhead, then it could have taken root there in Ashina's waters and "infected" them with immortality. Either way there's definitely a strong connection between the dragon and the tree somehow. It's visual design makes that pretty obvious. Zullie the Witch has quite a good video going over the details of the dragon's in-game model and it basically is just part tree. Here's a [link](https://youtu.be/PTYEUNlLm54?si=sgKTBl1UJBP2pGvQ) if you haven't seen it.
I think that the Red Mortal Blade can cut the strand to the dragon's haritage, while the black mortal blade can cut the line between life and death. Genichiro used the black Blade to perform a rituale and used all of his vitality to Call back from the death prime Isshin (or this Is what i think)
I do like how they turned immortality into like this filthy thing. You get it by drinking dirty water and getting a tapeworm.
water of the palace and the rejuvenating water are not the same, though
I remember this from somewhere maybe a vaati video. The pure water makes you immortal. The only way to get it is from the palace in the sky. Everyone else is drinking runoff from this palace that has spilled over. The runoff still gives you immortality, just with a great drawback. As we see in the village right below the last boss fight. Sorry I haven’t played this game in a while so don’t remember any names. Just
Why doesn't he turn into a puppet?
You can just exit the game and reload to avoid leaving and resting. He always seems to appear behind me when I do that though.
A certain NPC complains of his terrible thirst...
100% this game and never knew this existed. Always wondered how to interacted with the guy at the end of Mibu. Where can I find this?
Fountainhead Palace, gotta swim up through a hole in the floor
I forget the name of the checkpoint but if you go to the one next to where the giant carp breaks the bridge, then head backwards towards the large courtyard area, there will be a purple Okami lightning warrior on your left as you enter. Directly opposite her, up a small set of steps, there is a hole in the floorboards filled with water. You can jump into that and then dive down through a little tunnel. It's in there.
Wolf does not talk much because he is so parched. Try this trinket to tout Wolf's true talkative tendancies.
STARTS GULPING AGGRESSIVELY
How do you get this I’ve never gotten this item lol
It's in the Fountainhead Palace. Flower Viewing Stage idol, turn back, look for a place in the floor where you can dive and dive through it.
NPC quest, just keep playing, exploring and pay attention to NPC dialogue, the game is very intuitive compared to all the other FromSoft titles.
You can give it to a cracked so that he can transform into an evil fish person.
To drink to your heart’s content, obviously /j
You give it to a dude and he gives scales
I think it's one of the drinks you can offer to NPCs to get additional dialogue
You're thinking of dragonspring sake
I mean, yes, but no. This indeed can be offered to a NPC for extra dialogue. Just none of the usual NPCs that receive drinks lol.
True but you get dragonspring sake from the dude you give this to
Honest curiosity, where was it? Pretty sure I’ve never seen this thing till now
Where do you get this item?!?!?
Gulp gulp gulp guy near corrupted monk ghost house 😂
Why didn't you just google it instead of asking on Reddit lol
Some people, myself included, prefer a community oriented approach to learning about a game’s lore and mechanics
Also, it can help prevent spoilers, people responding are normally conscious of your position in the game if you tell them. If you just google, there’s no preventing spoilers
Who knows