(Yes, that seems appropriate. BTW, said script is called an "ofuda." The Old Man used the same thing, though with a different inscription most likely, when he cured my frostbite.)
As of now, given that I'll need to stay longer for training anyway, I'll focus on the language and philosophy. I've been here for more than a year, in any other immersion situation, that would be enough to learn. I'm going to put my ol' Study Buddy to work.
But yeah, business as usual.
And so it is. We'll adjust your Japanese language skill when I've had a chance to look it up. My internet has been on the fritz this week.
Most of the reading is just reinforcements of philosophy you have read already. You're getting to the point now where you can start delving into some of the secondary materials, interpretations and debates and the like. Your Study Buddy is still lagging behind, but while he's lacking in philosophy, all of this language and reading experience is turning him into a pretty good poet. He has a knack for haiku, and a form that reads a bit like a sonnet, if they had developed sonnets in Japan.
Sayuri returns by the end of the week. It turns out that the original recon team never actually made it back at all. Their information was brought in by someone else. Plural someones else. But she's not entirely certain whom, yet.
I thank her for the info, that does help form a picture of what happened. I let her know to keep an eye and an ear out for those replacements, five will get you ten they're dirty.
Well, if I'm passing him leaps and bounds in Philosophy, pretty soon I'll run out of Japanese to tutor him on. I offer, "You know, back where I came from, I was pretty sharp with literature. Story analysis, comprehension, interpreting poetry, things of that sort. If you'd prefer, we can study literature. Frankly, I'm helping you study so I can learn the language, so as long as we're reading SOMETHING... What do you say?"
They don't really have novels, as such, but he produces what appears to be a history. It's a fairly recently-written one, meaning it details events of perhaps fifty years ago and stretching back a good hundred years before that. It promises to tell the tale of the war that put the current Daimyo in power.
When the Old Man sees you two reading it, he lets out a sigh that can best be described as 'tired'. "The Daimyo was not always how he is now," he explains, "When he first took power, he was strict, but it was still a desperate time. Now we have had peace, these thirty years, and still he has gotten worse and worse, every year..."
"Well, there are only two reasons to oppose leadership: either to show the current leader the error of their ways, or to replace the leader. Come to think of it, what are we trying to do here? Are we trying to reform the Daimyo or replace him? And with who, if that?"
Besides that, is my friend here going any smoother now that we're not totally in over his head, or is it not making much of a difference? If he's doing better away from philosophy, then we'll keep rotating, but if he's not doing any better on different subject matter, I'll steer him towards philosophy again. If he doesn't want to, I'll gently remind him of who made sure he still has a face. XD
He seems to be doing fine. He's not stupid or illiterate, he was just a bit behind on his philosophy. He seems to be doing fine now, and once you get him going on literature he seems much happier. He's got a better head for history and wordcraft than for philosophy and moralism.
As for the Daimyo, most people are just trying to survive him. The Emperor's Own are just too strong a force to deal with - from what you've heard no ninja has ever actually successfully killed one.
Also, it seems every dynasty has one like this, a lunatic who makes things hell for a few years until he dies and someone replaces him who, if not exactly benevolent, at least isn't a slobbering madman. The scary thing about this one is how quickly he got to it, and how long he's been at it. Some people are beginning to wonder if this generation will be long enough to outlive him.
Ok, we're a Relief Corps, I can live with that.
I've got no more active requests, so it's just business as usual until something happens.
(I'm going to pass for a day. Sorry, I've just got nothing.)
... Fine. By the way, Alex, from Ubercon, is having trouble posting his char and summary on the boards. No one can see his posts but him.
Have him copy the URL of one of his posts or threads and e-mail it to me at referee@mjyoung.net and I'll find it and see whether I can spot the problem. Sometimes when character sheets are posted all at once the software thinks they're Spam posts, and they have to be approved, but it doesn't always let me know that such posts exist.
--M. J. Young
Nevermind--I found the character generation one, at least. That should be approved now.
--M. J. Young
Still here, Harry. If you just need some time to scheme, let me know.
Yeah, that's about where I'm at - trying to come up with something a bit more subtle than just outright saying what went wrong, and having a devil of a time at it.
(I'd rather play than not play, so if there's anything that can be done to help you, ie scenery change if you might have written me into a corner, I'm open to whatever.)
(Would you mind a skip-ahead? I have sort of written this into a corner where nothing short of an expository bridge is going to get us out. What it comes down to is: you've done all there is to do right now. The next thing to do is the 'reveal' of what happened with your intel, and the confrontation that comes after. Would you mind a bit of narrative and then a fight?)
(Not at all. Go right ahead. I've never minded narrative.)
I still check this, every few weeks or so.
Fine, here's a nice expository bridge:
What went wrong with your intel is, somebody sabotaged it. I'm sure you can imagine who. The problem is, there's no physical evidence to connect him to any of it. If you were to challenge him, it would be your word against his, and nothing short of open combat would be enough to settle the score. You don't have much of a chance of beating him one on one, you would have to come up with something tricky. Sayuri isn't willing to help you fight him either. She's an assassin. She could poison his wine, maybe, if she were a little better trained, but she's not the combat brute you're on your way to becoming. So there you have it. Your intel got screwed because someone who doesn't like you decided you needed to die, or just lose enough face to drive you out of the camp.
OK, I can deal with that.
For now, all I can do is bide my time and try to build up assets. Whenever I get a chance, I'll go about finding out how to open and repack a pepper blower with a powder of my choice. However that plays out, that night, I'll try casting that Darkvision spell I cooked up. (For some reason, if you didn't get the sheet, or you have any questions, let me know.)
In between that, I'll do what I can to obtain a small amount of lamp oil, about four ounces or so.
Next time I see Sayuri, I tell her to follow Tsuyoshi and check to see who he talks to. I'm starting to think he might be a mole for the Daimyo. He fights LIKE a samurai, uses a SAMURAI sword... It's not so farfetched. If anything she sees seems out of place, then I know what I'm going to be doing for the next few nights.