And an awful lot of names.
Okay, so, yeah, middle of the Month of the Goat, hot and humid, in Kyuden Hida.
The Shadowlands excursioners spent a few days being poked, prodded and mean-mugged by the Kuni before getting what was presumably a clean bill of health and allowed to stay in somewhat restrictive but comfortable accommodations.
“Okay, now turn your head and cough. And again. And again. One more time. Again. And another one. Cough again please. And another. Big cough this time. And another. One more. And again….”
Not Hida Sugi though. No, the Crab’s rocketing celebrity was invited to lots of tea drinking with a succession of kindly old ladies, first from the Crab and then, and this is when the penny dropped for her, with the Shika. Sugi realised that they were sizing her up for marriage. In this endeavour, the matchmakers hold considerable sway. It’s all very well a daimyo ordering a shrewd political betrothal, but if it goes wrong for any reason… well, the mounting piles of corpses along the Unicorn and Lion border can attest to how bad that can be. So the Crab and Deer clan specialists have been brought in to plot out Sugi’s future and Sugi started running some mental simulations of her own. Marry into the Crab and she’d probably never set foot outside Crab lands again. Marry outside the Crab and… well, that’s a crap shoot. Lot to think about.
Takuya, Rin and Koji, meanwhile, adapted to the pretty rigourous morning exercise, which focused almost exclusively on endurance and strength training and also surviving the Crab cuisine, which focused on fried foods and egg battered… everything. They engaged with their hosts in a friendly way and Takuya and Koji were rewarded with entertainments and latitude when it came to their detention. Rin was rewarded by being dragged around the citadel’s many shrines by more Kuni and asked what they could do better, how could they improve, how would it be set up in Kaito hands?
Takuya, noticed, (because for some reason the Crab are more relaxed around the Unicorn, but also because they thought the northern barbarian probably couldn’t understand them, which is.. rich) that there was a fair bit of turmoil among the Hiruma. Their ancestral sword had been returned to them, but by outsiders and a Hida. Hiruma had not led the expedition (although the Hiruma assigned to the group had literally led the expedition) and many felt that they should have. The Hiruma have an understandable chip on their shoulder about needing the support of other families, since they are landless.
Daylight Castle wasn’t exactly the easiest place to find, even with the Hiruma.
So the Hiruma were torn, between awe and gratitude at the return of the sword, and shame and bitterness at not being the ones to bring it back. Takuya suggested letting the Hiruma take the credit entirely, but the others weren’t having that. Instead, they reported the excellent – nay, indispensible – work of their Hiruma guides, but were happy to take the accolades for returning the sword.
After a little over a week of this captivacation, Asako Fumihito arrived, in a foul mood. Emerald Yoriki were not the Crab’s to order around or detain unnecessarily. Either they were tainted by their time in the Shadowlands and should have been yeeted into a pyre days ago or they should be released to get on with their jobs: heaven knows they have enough work to get on with. To whit: he’d brought a research assistant in the form of Agasha Yoshihiro to join their group and since you can never have enough talented Yoriki, he gave Kaito Rin a field promotion to Emerald Yoriki.
Fumihito filled them in on all the things that have been going on up north: the Lion and Unicorn war rages on at particularly terrible cost to the villages along the border, while the Lion and Crane war over Toshi Ranbo has gone sideways because the Emperor put the Scorpion in charge of that Macguffinopolis. No-one knows what the Crane and Lion will do next on that front.
But we’ll find out this Fall!
Fumihito has been charged by Emerald Champion Akodo Toturi with ensuring the Scorpion do not have cause to get involved in either of the wars: four great clans at war is just too many. He has orders from Toturi himself to go to The Castle of The Swift Sword to adjudicate a legal case being fought between the Scorpion and the Unicorn, with vital information stored in the Ikoma archives.
Since they are here, but heading up the River of Gold, a high ranking courtier named Kaiu Kenta asked Fumihito if it would be possible to look into the matter of some missing stallions that should have passed through Ryokō Owari Toshi* on their way through the mountain passes to Lion lands. Kenta received a polite complaint from a merchant (Takao of the Red Drum) who was accompanying the delivery of the horses. The letter said that the stay in the city was overlong: the fella in charge of the convoy, Yasuki Renji, had not been forthcoming about his plans to leave. They recently received a similarly polite inquiry from the Lion, wondering where their horses were.
Takuya hasn’t seen this type of horse up close, but he has seen a few in the distance during his stay near The Wall: the Kaiu dray horses were UNITS. He’d guess around 18-20 hands tall and thicc.
Good news! The horse boat arrived back a few days ago and will accompany them up the river, bearing Buttakappu (and Takuya, who refuses to leave her side).
After a check-in with their clan ambassadors in the city, which saw Tezuka ordered back north to join the war efforts,… wars effort?… they boarded the gigantic river boat that would take them up the River of Gold.
Doji Koji had some “river discomfort” and stuck to his room. Fumihito had piles of correspondence to go through in his office cabin. Everyone else was mostly left to their own devices for a few days. The travel was non-stop, with arranged deliveries of fresh water and food as they went.
Early on the fifth day, (in accordance with a vision Takuya had earlier!) their vessel was approached by a small tender bearing an Otter and a Crane samurai. They asked permission to board and request assistance from Fumihito. He agreed and they met for some tea, while the yoriki sat along the wall of the cabin and listened.
The two were Umezawa no Susaki Shota and Hiramori no Daidoji Ayumi** and they’d agreed that it would be best to seek out the Emerald Magistrate to help resolve a dispute between the two families.
The Otter Clan had been ordered by the Emperor to give up their land holdings beyond what they need for boat maintenance, which is something the Hantei have to do periodically because the Otters love expanding inland. But their remit is the empire’s waterways and it is felt they should stick to that by the only person whose word matters.
The Umezawa are a very small vassal family of the Otter and run a shrine inland of the river, north of Tangled Path Village, a Crane holding. This, the Crane argued in court, is exactly the kind of encroachment the imperial decision spoke of… But the Umezawa claim that the shrine was founded before their family joined the Otter and were hoping it can get grandfathered in.
Wish I knew what this was from, but it looks like it was the hottest contest on Geocities.
Whatever the case may be, old records held at the shrine should clear that up and either let the Umezawa hold on a bit longer or transfer it over to the care of the Hiramori. The Crane have shown up with financial reparations and soldiers to guard that. If Fumihito could render a judgment then they’d be grateful as this would save quite a bit of face for the losing family, while establishing the legitimacy of whoever ends up with the shrine.
The boat docked near Tangled Path Village and they hustled north along the road above the marshes and arrived at the small, and surprisingly bustling, settlement around Plum Tree Bridge Shrine.
* Common knowledge info dump: Ryokō Owari Toshi is the second largest city in the Empire behind the Imperial capital of Otosan Uchi. It is the seat of the Shosuro family of the Scorpion. It is called Journey’s End City, The City of Green Walls, The City of Stories and the City of Lies. If you were going to have a noir-detective samurai, he’d have his office here. It is renowned for its theatres and entertainment (of all shades) as well as being the heart of the Scorpion’s ++lucrative++ poppy cultivation.
** There’s some dispute among L5R authors whether the vassal family name or the patron family name goes first, but I’m just going to stick to this because I think it’s the way I’ve seen it done most often. Regardless for everyday use by people outside the Clan, the convention is that you use the Patron family name.
