We really stretched the limit of Void-based inquiry last session, which taught us some things about the current situation, but at a pretty slow pace, so I’ll reiterate the findings.
(Takuya had rejoined the party so the Holistic Detective Agency was firing on all cylinders. He’d spent a blurry evening of somehow fabulous yet persistantly vague pleasures with Otomi. She seemed keen that they should continue this at a later date, although she’d count it a GREAT favour for him to kill that annoying little fox that yipped and grrrrred outside her window. Rin’s Shrine Discomfort persists.)
First of all the vibe checks at the Shrine remain good: Happy Spirits, Happy Shrine. But with enough void-tapping they figured out that there was a hidden Spirit, one who could presumably turn corporeal or substantial enough to take a scroll into its possession.
As they left the shrine, Moko, who had been tailing them like a chastened puppy piped up. He’d seen Iwa converse with all manner of spirits out in the marshes since she was a little girl. He seemed impressed by her talent. He knew that she kept the marsh lights away from the roads entirely, and prevented the worst of the “river babies” behaviour near the village. Of the two, he didn’t think the marsh lights (Onibi) would be able to hold onto a scroll. He has a hard time wrapping his head around what the rules might be.
I wouldn’t ask this guy to hold on to anything, tbh.
Back in the village (which is less than a minute’s walk away) there was some sort of clamour and they arrived just as the palanquin of the Otter Clan’s administrator, Umezawa Saburo arrived with a great deal of imperious dignity and whatever pomp he could muster. In his train, a substantial number of Ashigaru and several ronin. Shota hustled his stationed ashigaru out of their barracks too, making the Otter presence in the village… pretty big.
The nervous villagers had made themselves scarce but Lady Sachuko emerged from the Ryokan, serene and attended by parasol holding and fan waving servants, as well as Eiji and her few ashigaru. The numbers were against them, but Koji’s money was still on the Daidoji-trained soldiers coming out on top. I’m not sure about that, but bonus points for clan loyalty.
No-one interrupted the two nobles as they got down to some (in Saburo’s case overly-dramatic) chest-pounding re: rightful ownership of the village and shrine, but the yoriki made sure that everyone could see their jitte, just in case things started to look like they were heading bloodbathwards.
Sachuko was having none of this and her withering reply put Saburo down on his ass, embarrassed and flustered. It was cutting, it was a little cruel, and it was a masterful piece of court bitchiness.
At this point the yoriki stepped in, pointing out that the matter had been referred to them and that they would be handling it and handling it peacefully, as a preference… not a condition (hands idly resting on swords). As Saburo struggled to comeback from basically no-one being impressed by his speechifying, Sachuko put him out of his misery with a dismissive rejoinder that this attempt to cause a confrontation was both impertinent, insulting and worse: cringe. Saburo had no option but to leave with as much dignity as he could muster. Which is tough on a palanquin turning around in tight quarters.
Koji went off to gamble with the glad-to-not-be-on-the-end-of-a-Hiramori-yari Otter guards, while Yoshihiro went back to the Ryokan. There he found a gleaming pile of Koji’s laundry and that wouldn’t have been THAT amazing, but it was seriously gleaming.
SERIOUSLY.
Yoshihiro was impressed, so when a timid voice from the hall asked if he wanted HIS clothes cleaned, he said yes and whipped them off to hand them over. Again, the woman on the other side caught the clothes like it was a bag of anchors and then retreated, but when Yoshihiro poked his head around the door screen to see where she had gone there was no trace of her. Nor in the hallway, nor the kitchen. Not even out by the big stone baths were they did laundry. No-one had seen her.
Sugi and Moko spent some time indulging Sugi’s passion, no, the other one: attending to her armour. Moko is really good with practical, non-slip knots.
Takuya stayed in the shrine and meditated, opening himself up to the universe just doing him a solid and dropping a hint. What he got wasn’t bad though. After a while, when everyone else had gone, he began to feel a presence, a hopping presence. He kept his eye closed, certain that if it saw him seeing it, it would disappear.
I think that’s where we all were.
Everyone knows that there is a scroll-hiding yokai on the Shrine grounds and Takuya knows that it hops. Everyone suspects that the ‘River Babies’ have another scroll. SOMEONE, had figured out that there is a yokai in the Ryokan, but I have no idea how they did that.
I’ve really gotta do a better job of taking positional notes at the end of sessions. That may have had something to do with drinking that Shochu that JIM brought…
