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Stories with Dice
Shadows in the Peaks Episode 6 - A Legend of the Five Rings Actual Play
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The samurai seek guidance from the earth kami to uncover the source of the corruption spreading through the Dragonlands. Torn between following its trail or honoring a ritual at the Early Dawn Shrine, they choose the path of pursuit—setting out toward Shiro Zurui.
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This is Shadows in the Peaks, a Legends of the Five Rings actual play from Stories with Dice. If you're enjoying our actual plays, please subscribe to Stories with Dice so you never miss an episode. Don't forget to rate and review us. It really helps others discover the podcast. Follow us on social media to stay updated. You'll find the relevant links in the description of each episode.
SPEAKER_03We're live, indeed, we are. Welcome back to Fun Filled Legend of the Five Rings. If you've not listened to our previous ones, this is a very stupid place to start because you will not understand anything. So go back to episode one.
SPEAKER_01You shouldn't tell people they're stupid, that's not nice.
SPEAKER_02I've been putting my place, sorry guys. He tells us all the time.
SPEAKER_03I do not, that's a lie. It's true, he beats us, you know, it's just terrible. As always, I'm joined by Marco. Apparently, the asshole who beats you. I mean, someone's got you, right? Tony. Hello. Tony, you were gonna sing for us. Now we're recording, it's not the same.
SPEAKER_02That's a Scott. No. Scott is a singer in this theme. Good evening, listeners. I will not be singing this evening.
SPEAKER_03Woo! Extra XP! And of course, last but not least, Charlotte. Hello. Right. Let's get on with this nonsense. So last time, you all came to the watchtower and some shenanigans happened. While you were investigating the watchtower, some wolves decided to uh descend on Utaku Hiroshi's horse. He bravely went out to uh rescue his horse and everybody else kind of followed suit. Then followed a bloodbath of wolves that were sort of like corrupted and nasty and horrible, which is where we kind of ended it really. So we're pretty much you've all had a bit of a rest since that incident happened. I think you're all having a conversation about whether or not you've hit the Imperial, well, the the Kitsuki's charter of investigations, whether you've done enough. I, as the G HM, have actually gone back and looked at it and gone, have you or haven't you? Well, if you think you've done enough, then you can go back and say you've done enough. If anyone's got lore lore law, low R E L A W, then feel free to make a lore law role. I'll I'll I'll let you to decide. So essentially.
SPEAKER_02No eyes here.
SPEAKER_03No, but it's been a couple of hours since that. You were kind of having a bit of a rest, you know, catching a breath from the fight. I think some of you decided to dismember a couple of the wolves as evidence.
SPEAKER_02That's that's the exaggeration. We took one head. One head. And that cost me a point of bottom. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Yes, one head, okay. Yes, you took one head very disgustingly. Everyone sort of like went, oh no, and decided to not watch as you touched dead wolf flesh. And then you had time to decide what you wanted to do. So, I guess without further ado, what is it you want to do? It's night time, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's getting towards night time. If we look at the charter, travels of Burkenthine Watchtower, assess current condition, check. Interview surviving sentries and local villagers. Don't think we spoke to any villagers, did we? We've just spoken to the sentries. Correct. Investigate signs of corruption in terrain, wildlife and spiritual phenomena. We've kind of killed some of them, but we haven't really investigated any deeper than that as to where it might have come from. Retrieve physical evidence, definitely done that. Scrolls or artifacts tied to the prophecy, and then go back and report our findings. So I'd say we probably have a few more things left to do. Like follow these things into from from whence they came, maybe. Yeah, but what where are the villagers actually? And what village?
SPEAKER_03There are no villagers here. The nearest village for you guys, well, there's Early Dawn Shrine, which is up towards the north, in between the edge of the mountains and the forests, and then there's also Shiro Zurai, which is the biggest sort of like town to the north in the area. Otherwise, you've got Shira Miramoto, which is the capital for intents and purposes of the Miramoto family, off to the west. East, sorry. But you've also got Great Falls Castle. So that's actually a um big castle and keep, and there will be a village surrounding that. And that's to the south, through the mountains.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, we can check that. Where were where do the wolves come from? Did they come from that direction?
SPEAKER_03No, they came from sort of like the northeast. Along sort of like the hills and forests.
SPEAKER_02Can I shigenga commune with the spirits of the wolves?
SPEAKER_03Not with the spirits of the wolves themselves, but perhaps the spirits of the elements.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the kami of the area. Yeah, so you could they could potentially do something like that. Hiroshi Hiroshi suggests to Ayame communing with the spirits of the area, with the kami of the area to see if they have anything to say about the corruption.
SPEAKER_04That was in the forethought of my mind.
SPEAKER_03You could commune with them. The key ones would be Earth because of the mountains that you're on or nearby. Obviously the there's air and water. Three kind of key elements. None of them will be fire, unfortunately, which is your main emphasis. Well, I don't always see eye to eye with the water spirits. No. So either you could choose either the the kami of the land or the karmi of the air. Now the kami of air tends to be quite playful and easily distracted. You probably find them quite annoying to talk to. The spirits of the earth are very straightforward and matter-of-fact, but they're also quite blunt and they're uninterested in mortals' affairs. Cool. Well, Muramotokari is more than happy to help you with that as well. She will happily help with uh with any kind of communing so you can kind of join together to sort of use your you know, just make a ritual out of it, uh, which means you've got more power to kind of like spend to talk to the uh the kami. So if you're gonna do that, anything else anybody else has any plans to do?
SPEAKER_00No, I'm just checking to see. Um for me the the idea is like to understand where the wolves are coming from and if they come from a populated area that we should check. That's what we're doing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're from the northeast, they're coming from the northeast, which is not populated. I'm gonna go up to the top of the watchtower, sort of stay on guard so that we're not caught unawares if if either the wolves come back or with reinforcements and or you know if something else arrives that is unfriendly.
SPEAKER_03Okay. That's cool. Well, in that case, Charlotte, why don't you commune with the spirits?
SPEAKER_04Alright, so clicking on earth and it's a spell casting rule, right? But this would commune use a spell slot?
SPEAKER_03It would. And they're universal spells, so come out of any of your spell slots so it doesn't have to be out of earth, it could be from somewhere else.
SPEAKER_04Gotcha. Do not have an affinity nor deficiency. Any modifiers on this?
SPEAKER_03So it's going to be a very basic mastery, so that's fine. And it's going to be concentrated on yourself, because you're going to be doing that. So it's just a straightforward roll. Even with assistance in this? So yeah, so even with assistance, so she's gonna roll as well. Um and then you can you can you can join your uh any kind of razors and stuff that you might have. You could go for some razors if you wanted to, but the razors really will kind of give you just more information.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think I'm good with going base, because it allows me to ask two questions.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Uh so she's gonna do the same things. If you want to make your uh earth roll. That'd be a twelve. Okay, that's a success, I believe. And let's have a look. Because it's a very basic. She's gonna roll hers. Yeah, so between the two of you, you get to ask four questions of the earth, kami. So you kind of like you start to commune with the kami, and you kind of like think, you know, you sort of you're sitting there, you're you're you're relaxed, and you kind of I guess Akari puts her hands into the sort of like through the snow into the ground, starts to sort of like play with the the soil with her hands as you sort of like chant and you entreat the earth comm. Okay. The kami kind of sort of I I guess make a rumbling sound as they kind of respond to you. What does you want to ask?
SPEAKER_04Well, she'd start out by being humble and apologizing. Honored Earth Kami, please forgive this intrusion. We do have a few questions that we would entreat upon you. What do you mean? The first question that would be asked would be have they sensed any like being direct, like any any corruption in the area that is making the land unwell.
SPEAKER_03Yes, they respond.
SPEAKER_04Are you able to show or direct us to where it is the most concentrated?
SPEAKER_03The Earth Kami makes a sort of low rumble noise, almost like a kind of gravelly kind of noise, after after a while. Probably takes about 15 minutes, 20 minutes of sort of thinking. The answer is yes. And then the ground starts to sort of like tremble, and a line appears in the ground. A fissure sort of opens up, just a a small little fissure in the dirt, and it points in a direction. Well, technically it points in two directions because it's a line. It's just we're on the one end of it. So yeah, it basically opens up to your side. It's no more than maybe a foot long, foot and a half long, and it just is like a just goes whichever direction. That way, uh back towards you. You've got two more questions.
SPEAKER_02Any suggestions from the rest of the party? Has this been caused by the interference of humans? That's a good one.
SPEAKER_04I will go with that.
SPEAKER_03No, I I do not understand how humans can influence such things. They are nothing.
SPEAKER_00Any hint of what is the source of this of the corruption?
SPEAKER_04I think we have the guidance to roughly where the concentration is here.
SPEAKER_03So when you say source, I'm guessing you mean like the person or the thing or the creature or the whatever it might be as opposed to where it is. Yeah, so do you do you know what's causing this? Like the the root cause. What has always been will always be, and that is the cause. Super helpful. Um and that's about as straightforward as it could be. It's nothing new. That is your four questions.
SPEAKER_04Once again, honor commie, we appreciate your time in answering our questions. What is time when you're as old as we are? If only we were able to measure our lifetimes and yours.
SPEAKER_03Then the rumbles slow down and then it stops. Okay? If you grab Marco or anyone else who's got any kind of, you know, way of the land or any kind of bushcrafty, survival-y kind of skills or navigation-y skills, the you can kind of tell that the line is going sort of north-northeast to south-southwest. Or south-southwest or north-northeast, depending which way you look at it. Which looking at your map kind of squarely puts it towards Shirazurai.
SPEAKER_04I think I'd wait for a Kira to come down on his own. And like for those of us who are around, just kind of discussing what was responding, because this would have just been to the summoners and not everyone else, correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So no one else would have heard it apart from you and Miruoto Akari.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so we would share the information that was shared to us and then start to plan this out. What time of the day are we looking at again?
SPEAKER_03Um, it's coming towards evening, so you're probably gonna have to spend the night here in the watchtower, unless you want to travel uh through the night or at least part of the night to the um tea house. Not particularly. And the guard captain and the other guard will be more than happy to have you here, especially after the uh the attack of the walls. Mark, you're up on the top of the uh the tower. Correct. And you can see that there is a rider coming from the East Road Tea House.
SPEAKER_01I'll call down to the group below, rider approaching from the East Road Tea House. And I'll ready already an arrow.
SPEAKER_03Sure. You see a gentleman with a top knock in dragon clan robes, and he is I mean he's not he's not riding really fast, but he's you know he's making a bit of speed, and he comes riding towards the uh watchtower. He sees you up the top, he holds a hand up towards you, and then slows the horse, and then as the horse slows, jumps off the horse and leads the horse towards you, looking at the various bodies that are sort of like laying around. Who is gonna meet him at the front?
SPEAKER_00Me.
SPEAKER_02What is Kamin? Hiroshi Hiroshi stood just behind Hiro Nobu with his Naganata to hand.
SPEAKER_03So uh this uh this relatively middle-aged gentleman turns up and he kind of walks towards you, and he sort of bows and he says, I am Kitsuki Hiro. I am here with a message for yourselves. He looks and can see that obviously there's a um a crane and a and a unicorn, and he says, I believe I'm in the right place. And he pulls out from the scroll satchel a scroll, which he then hands it to you.
SPEAKER_00Do you need to leave or do you wanna come with us to have a tea?
SPEAKER_03He says, A tea will be much appreciative, and I will require your answer as he sort of points into the watchtower, which is presumably where you want to take him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Let him in and the servants take care of him, you know, prepare the tea and some refreshment. Um and I guess I will open the scroll and read it loud. Sure. Well, not loud, just for us for, I guess.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So the scroll is very much very similar to the scroll you already have. It's a kitsuki scroll allowing him to travel through the lands. Uh, it also has uh the mon of the Kitsuki champion or the Daimyo, allowing him to come and contact you. It's in very much the same kind of setup that the one you have, except his objectives is to contact you and you all have your names written in the actual document. And his objective is to contact you and Murumoto Akari and request you and Akari to head towards early dawn shrine, where ritual is about to be performed, which Akari is required. They are to meet a monk at the um at the place, and his name is Togashi Rikuto. It says that you should case this you should arrive as soon as possible once your investigation is completed. Kitsuki Hiroto happily sits down and has tea.
SPEAKER_00We'll turn around and we'll turn to Kitsuiti Kitsuki Hiroto and I will ask him, Do you know where we expected? Do you know of the message? He doesn't know of the message.
SPEAKER_03I know that my lord gave this to me and asked for me to deliver this message to yourself and then to get your replies to whether or not you will continue in your investigation, or you will go to the location it is said in the scroll, and I am to afford you any kind of help I can.
SPEAKER_00So I'll turn around to the other magistrates and so do you think we are ready to go to Early Dawn or we should pursue our investigation to Shirusurui?
SPEAKER_04I think we should pursue our investigation. We just learned new leads.
SPEAKER_02I'd say our knowledge of the situation here is incomplete.
SPEAKER_00I'm a little bit distraught that we don't know when this ritual is to be done in early dawn. I look at Mirumoto, I forgot her name.
SPEAKER_03Akari. Rumor to Akari.
SPEAKER_00Uh.
SPEAKER_03She says, Well, I can I can perform the ritual at any time, I guess. If if if Lord Kitsuki wishes for me to go, I am happy to attend at whichever convenient time is available to me. But I am happy to continue to follow you if you feel that that's something that we could do. Could we could we not do both? I mean the ritual, I I need to speak to this Tigashi Rukuto. I I have heard of his name. He is uh he is a monk that that presides at early dawn shrine. I I guess we could we if we went there we could do that and then move on to Zuri? But I she says she she kind of like looks down at her feet for a second and says, but I guess as the magistrates that that is that is your call.
SPEAKER_00Do you think that this ritual in the early dawn is related to our current investigation? Or are these two unrelated events? Do you imagine it probably has something to do with that?
SPEAKER_03Things are not normally done unrelated when things are so chaotic, she says.
SPEAKER_01So I've obviously come down from the top of the watchtower. We were we were gonna go to the early dawn trying after we completed our investigation of the watchtower. We're we're not.
SPEAKER_00Yes, but now the lead takes us to Shido Surui. If we go to early dawn, we are backtracking in a way. So we've had an equally torn as you probably are. I look at the map, can I gather if you know if if it is because we'll probably need if from east from the east road tea house, it's probably a a day to go to early dawn, I guess?
SPEAKER_03To get yeah, it's probably a good part of day to get to early dawn. If you were to leave tomorrow morning you'd be there by the evening. And equally it would probably take just as long to get to the East Road tea house, the northern East Road tea house.
SPEAKER_00But then the problem is that from the early dawn you we need to go back to the main road, right? There are no roads that go through the mountain. I guess it could take us longer.
SPEAKER_03I mean unless someone has sort of like any way of knowing the land or anything like that. They could potentially try and get through there and look for a way through, but Hiroshi has way of the land, so Okay.
SPEAKER_02So you could try. We could use his knowledge to try.
SPEAKER_03I mean, theory, yeah. I mean way of the land is probably for the unicorn lands, but I would imagine you don't really. But it would allow you to sort of scout out the best routes. You definitely think if you went through the forest or around or on the edges of the forest and you didn't go all the way back to the main road, you could probably cut across sort of around the the the mountains.
SPEAKER_01Kitsuni Akira has trailblazing as an emphasis for his hunting skill, so that might be helpful. That was very Yeah, you could do that. Going through uncharted territory, let's say.
SPEAKER_03And if you found that there are sort of like I mean, I've on the map that we provided, that is like the main imperial road. There's something I said before, there are other roads that kind of like branch off of that. There are rice paddies, there are, you know, there are fields of vegetables and stuff like that, all through the sort of belt between the two mountains. So there are actual ways to get around, but it's just not highlighted on any kind of imperial maps.
SPEAKER_00So my guess is what I'm understanding is that we could go to early dawn, perhaps lose two days max, and then we could be able to go back to Shirotsuri. Do we agree on this? Katsuni Akira believes we should go to the early dawn shrine.
SPEAKER_02Hiroshi? I'm not convinced I want to leave here without knowing at least where these creatures came from, what caused them to be the way they were. I feel like that would be going with half the information that we need.
SPEAKER_04I'm in agreement with Hiroshisan. If we go back, we might run the risk of losing this trail. Like the spirits did not say that it would be here forever. They could shut this down as soon as they opened it up, or as quickly as they opened it up. So doubling back, I do not believe, is in our best interest. They said at our earliest availability, we're not available. We're still on our primary task. Everything else right now is secondary.
SPEAKER_00You bring an important point. Hmm. You might be right. Ooh.
SPEAKER_01You'll have to make a decision. I don't see it as doubling back. How could you not? Doubling back would be going this way. We're going northeast, I guess. And those those wolves went northeast, as a matter of fact. They came from the northeast. It's highly likely we may find something in this forest.
SPEAKER_04Where on our map is the early dawn shrine? There it is.
SPEAKER_01Northwest. Northwest. Sorry, I thought it was northeast.
SPEAKER_04And where are we? So I thought that's where we were. We're down here, yeah. I don't know why I've been thinking the entire time that we went north to the shrine.
SPEAKER_03I think it's one of the things you were going to decide whether you wanted to go to the watchtower only to enshrine or make your way up to the uh the Shuriken Z uh Zero Eye. So you kind of had a decision about what you want to do, you would have went to the Watchtower. I think that that was one of the things you were thinking about doing once you got to the tea house.
SPEAKER_04Look at me not paying attention. I still say that we should continue on and follow the path that the Kami have laid out for us. We go to the shrine, we come back, everything may be gone, and we may not be able to recover this trail. The spirits are fickle at best.
SPEAKER_01Tell me again what this trail is.
SPEAKER_04This trail is to lead us to the concentrated corruption in this area, which is part of the tasks that were set out for us.
SPEAKER_01And how do you know it points towards Shiro?
SPEAKER_04I have entreated the Kami and this is what they told me. And looking at the line, it is, or looking at the drift in the earth that they have graciously provided us, it leads in that direction. Where it goes past our current eyesight, we do not know. But from here it looks like it is heading in that general direction.
SPEAKER_01Could it not also be heading in the opposite direction? There is no arrow pointing one way or the other. It is simply a line in this in the in the ground.
SPEAKER_04And that is why we've been sent to investigate. It could be either direction, we don't know.
SPEAKER_01We have to You are intent on going in the direction of Shiro. I would like to know why.
SPEAKER_04Just a pause in that. Ed, how does this rift in the earth look to us where we are right now?
SPEAKER_03It is essentially a foot, foot and a half, sort of like broken line, I guess, that's kind of opened up on the rock and the and the dirt, and it it goes northeast, southwest. Ish. And when you kind of look at that, it looks like it either points towards Shira Zeroi or southwest past Great Force Castle into the mountains. I I would imagine that you're probably assuming because everything else is to do with this area, it's probably not southwest, because that would take you out of the Dragonlands. If I played Devil's Advocate, yeah. Akira is correct, it could go whichever direction. But you're going to assume that it's going north. Because I haven't done anything else for the past out of the way. So go north. Fine.
SPEAKER_04We have to make the assumption that we're not going to find the source of this outside of the area where all of our troubles or all of the troubles in dragon territory are centered.
SPEAKER_01Is it possible that it is actually pointing that the corrupt source of the corruption is in Shiro Katsuki? How do we know? The very individuals who sent us on this quest might be corrupted.
SPEAKER_02That is possible. Are any of our are any of our guests within an earshot when Akira says that? And if so, what's what's their reaction?
SPEAKER_03Marco, are you gonna say that in earshot of anyone or are you happy to just yes?
SPEAKER_01No, I'm gonna say it in earshot. Okay, right. A very wise man once said, trust no one.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Especially someone who gets paid for their work like this.
SPEAKER_03Let's have a look. Do you wanna take uh do you wanna make some kind of investigation perception-y kind of role, Roshi? Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, let's see what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_03Because you're the one who's specifically looking to see what people will think.
SPEAKER_02What the reaction is. Okay. Yeah. I don't have any perception-related skills, so I guess just an awareness role? Perception. Perception is a perception. Yeah, I've got perception. Perception is a trait, so you can use that. Yep, seen it. I was busy staring at my shoes. For those not listening, I just rolled a five on two dice. Yeah, no, you have to. Which is not good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03No, no idea. Neither of them seem to they've either both ignored the comment or or they didn't hear it. Which is difficult to tell because you're in a quiet, relatively small watchtower, so um, or they're just being terribly polite and ignoring what uh what what he's saying.
SPEAKER_04For what it's worth, when we were there, I did not sense any kind of corrupting force. I feel that it would be a little bit more prevalent if that was the center of corruption. We would see signs of it. We would feel signs of it. Like we felt here when we came to the watchtower.
SPEAKER_02Could there possibly be a suggestion that the corruption is moving in the direction of travel, as in moving towards Shiro Kori?
SPEAKER_03That's a good idea. Maybe that is what's happening, says I Akari. Yes, yes, I think that might that could be.
SPEAKER_01If it is your belief that we should proceed to Shirozurai, then then I will follow. But let us spend the night here in the watchtower, no?
SPEAKER_03Agreed. Suzumi, she says, uh I do not really wish to go out with anything else out there. I'm quite happy to stay here at the watchtower if that's okay with the rest of you.
SPEAKER_01Does she mean for the night or does she mean like for the for the night?
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah, she don't want to live here. It's fine. Yeah, she says, just for the evening would would be grateful. I I'd prefer the the strength of the walls around me than camping outside.
SPEAKER_00So we so be it. We can't tell the messenger now.
SPEAKER_03He says, Oh well he basically's been sitting there and says, okay. He says, I will I will happily advise my lord. In the morning, I too will stay here. And he goes and gets his horse and brings it in as well, so there's two horses now on the lower floor.
SPEAKER_02Hiroshi volunteers to stay to stay on the lower floor for the night. To take care of the horses and hold the door if need be. They will happily let you do that. Shovel that horse manure. He does all over Akira's possessions.
SPEAKER_03Yep, you spend the nights, you were very lucky to hear that nothing bad happens. It's odd for you because you know you don't normally spend time in these sorts of places. It's not quite what you'd expect from samurai housing, but you know, you end up getting some warm tea, some okay blankets. I mean, I guess you might have your own. I mean, I don't know if you probably travel with those, or you kind of just expect wherever you're gonna stay will have that and and support you. Probably, I would imagine the uh Kikita probably has something on all of those lines. Whereas I suppose Hiroshi will probably have his own blanket or something like that, which will be on the horse, having used to sort of like spending nights in stables, that kind of thing. But yeah, the night the night goes uneventfully, and in the morning you can make your way. Kitsuki takes your message and will ride back to Shiro Kitsuki to inform his lordship what it is you're doing. Okay, well, so what do you guys want to do? Do you want to ride back north towards the lower East Road Tea House? Or do you want to strike out just going due north and then hit the Imperial Road and then make your way to the north tea house?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think we should just strike out north for the road. There's no point in going back toward the old tea house.
SPEAKER_03We should be following the rift. Yeah, actually that would take you roughly in the right direction where the the rift kind of goes northeast, so that would take you up towards the uh road.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we should we should never have the rift leave our site.
SPEAKER_03Well it'll eventually leave our site. Uh yeah, so the the rift will go as soon as you walk maybe I don't know, 30 foot, you won't be able to see the rift anymore. Because the rift's only like a foot and a half, so it's not a particularly big rift. But yeah, you can kind of take a line, you know, a sighting. From where you are on this side of the mountains, you can see the other mountains on the other side. You can like pick out some of the peaks. You could go in that direction, which means you will bisect the road.
SPEAKER_00Thank God we have a scouts in our team.
SPEAKER_03Thank goodness for the two scouts. Well, I'm not gonna ask you to like a roll because you have way of the land and you also have hunting, trailblazing, and it is not that difficult to go over relatively flat ground once you sort of leave the hills. Which you do, it doesn't take you particularly long. By the early morning, you have kind of hit the Imperial Road. So, an interesting note about Imperial Roads in Rockagan, they're all raised off of the ground with rock and and and sort of like either slate or or stone, and so they sometimes, depending where you are, they can be anywhere between a foot and and up to four foot off the ground. This is sort of like the the lower end of the side, they're sort of like maybe a half a foot, foot higher up, but it is an actual proper road, hard compact dirt and rock that you can travel on, which is why it takes a relatively short amount of time to get from one place to another in Rock and Gun. So you join that road. Are you going to continue over the road and just follow the direction of the rift, or are you going to turn essentially right and head up towards the Upper East Road, tea house?
SPEAKER_00I think it would be good to stop in the tea house, no?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely, because it'll be dark by if you want a bath and some food and you know. We may very well be spending the night there before heading on to the town.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you're in order to get to the town the next day. Well, you uh you continue on. Who's scouting? Who wants to make a roll? Either Marco or Scott? I'll let you fire out. Do you want to roll this one, Marco? Okie dokie.
SPEAKER_01Could you just roll me 4d10? I'm not rolling the skill? Uh no, just just 4d10. Okay. That is uh 32 for the folks that aren't.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Well, you uh you make your way up onto the road and then you follow the road all the way up to the upper road tea house. The road itself, as I said, is raised. As you kind of are getting towards the tea house, maybe about a mile before the tea house, you can see a number of people sort of sitting by the side of the of the Imperial Road, not on it, just off of it. They're all kind of holding handcarts and various sort of packs made of bamboo or or wood, and they're all kind of there's probably about maybe eight or ten of them, and they're all kind of like sitting down for maybe a lunch, a late lunch, and they kind of look up as as they see you coming, and then they immediately all lower their eyes as soon as they see that you're all sort of samurai, and they go about their business sort of like mumbling very quietly as you sort of like approach them. Essentially they're a bunch of they're a bunch of uh peasants who are obviously looking to take their whatever they happen to have either to be sold or to to to market or trade. As you can imagine, it's kind of coming towards the end of winter, and so they don't have a huge amount of vegetables or anything really to sell. They will look in particularly bad shape. It's been a particularly harsh winter, plus the war that's been going on last year, it's hard to make ends meet.
SPEAKER_01And how far away are we from the tea house?
SPEAKER_03You're probably you reckon you're maybe no more than sort of like 45 minutes away. And they're just sitting on the side of the road? They're sitting on the side of the road. They don't have permission to travel on the on the Imperial Highway, and so they can't really move any further than away. You imagine the the life of a peasant in Rakhagon is not great. Probably it depends, it also depends on on which clan you're a peasant of, but they they tend to stay in the same location, so their their houses and their homes and their families are probably no more than a couple of miles away from where they are, and they will always stay here. So presumably they're gonna go to a headman's house to try and barter for whatever money they can get or whatever else they can get hold of for what meeker supplies they have. Yeah, they they they they just as soon as they realize who you are, they just look down at the ground and they're not saying anything. So anybody wanna do anything or you just want to wander past them?
SPEAKER_01Kitsuni Akira is just gonna wander past them. Well, she will nod and acknowledge them.
SPEAKER_00They don't see your nod because they look at the ground. Yeah, they crane Takita will also ignore them. Well, I will ignore them, but I will have a look to see if there's any corruption or any signs of anything. I don't know if that's something you can see. You know, other than the world's kind of like the walls that you could tell, you know?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you're looking for sort of like, you know, people with like strange color eyes or weird like birthmarks or any kind of defects or anything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I have strange coloured eyes.
SPEAKER_03I know. There you go. So uh if you do, you can uh make either a perception rule or if you want to sort of stop and actually really look at them, I mean it's like you know, wander in and start actually looking at them and moving their heads around that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'll kind of stop and look at them. I mean, I'm the uh I'm the samurai. They don't will not even look at me. So we'll just stop, look at them and see if I see anything.
SPEAKER_03You're gonna manhandle them or are you just gonna just just look them over?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we'll just stop next to them and just look carefully. From the upper part from the road. From the road. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'll tell you what, make a make make a make an investigation roll.
SPEAKER_00I have investigation, so I'd reception roll then, please. I'm I'm just a juiceless samurai. You just need to cat people. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03You're great when it's uh, well, you say that, but I think you did a really good role.
SPEAKER_0016.
SPEAKER_0316, yeah, that that's that's good. Yeah, you look you look at them over and down, I mean they look dirty. They they they look like they're you know, they've probably been traveling for a day or so. They they definitely have they're all sort of like quite padded up with whatever clothes they can find because it's quite cold out. But you can't see anything that kind of like jumps out of you that's sort of they don't have sort of like pustules or any kind of weird dark areas or they're or or sort of like a sickness, their teeth are generally okay, you know. They look like you're you don't really spend a lot of time looking at peasants, you know. It's unless you're sort of like, you know, in at home and you particularly have like a couple of favourite ones that sort of like look after you or whatever. They're all pretty much the same.
SPEAKER_00My thing is because yeah, you also mentioned that we didn't question any villagers, right? So that's why I'm just paying a little bit more attention to this. Uh I will ask them peasants. I don't know how to address them, to be honest.
SPEAKER_03So, I mean, well, I mean, if you if you just said you lot, I mean that's pretty much what you would do. If you want to be really, really kind, benevolent, samurai, you would probably sort of like, excuse me, good sirs, or you know, that's the sort of like way you would normally go. If not, then you say hey you lot.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so we'll do just that. Yeah, hey you there. We heard of attacks of wolves in the in the in the forest up here. Have you seen anything?
SPEAKER_03They all kind of like look around at each other, they kind of realize without without saying anything, that they pretty much have decided on some poor unfortunate is the person who's gonna be speaking to you. And the person sort of looks at them. Anyone else is looking at this, kind of there's a sort of like non-verbal kind of like, why why do I have to be the one? And uh he he sort of stumbles over and says, But my lord, do you do us great honour by speaking to us wolves? No, not not not not not not that I can tell. I mean there are wolves, there are wolves in the forest. Did you did you want a wolf?
SPEAKER_00So you're telling me that nothing nothing happened. Where do you come from?
SPEAKER_03We we come from Where is your village? Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm not answering quick enough for you. My village is to the north of the road. He kind of like points towards just basically the rock in front of him. He says, We're from a small village just to the north.
SPEAKER_00Okay, thank you. And I will talk well, I will turn around to one of my you know, my group of servants and I will ask them, give them something to eat.
SPEAKER_03They say, Naturally, and they sort of like peel off the road, get off the road, and they start sort of like handing out some food.
SPEAKER_00I will continue walking.
SPEAKER_03Cool. So assuming Yori Nori also kind of like steps off and she sort of like goes to help. What's Agacha Yame doing?
SPEAKER_04Well, I don't know, or you hear this ding, and above her head you see a sign that says Ayame likes this. She approves of the distribution of the food to the peasants.
SPEAKER_03Cool. Did she want to stop or is she gonna just, you know, let the let I mean, you know. No, I'll let Hironobu do this thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, cool. Kits Katsuni Akira will just shake his head and and say, Takita-san, you are too soft.
SPEAKER_04There is nothing soft about compassion. Let's just be on our way.
SPEAKER_03You uh you kind of like continue on your your way, and then your your sir your servants and your um and Suzumi Nori will basically catch up with you. Yeah, you make your way uh further north to the Upper East Road Tea House, and as you kind of make your way towards it, you can see that the tea house is nestled in sort of like this again, the rolling plains in between the mountain passes. You can see it actually has a name, the Silver Petal Inn and Tea House. And uh, as you're sort of like making your way towards there, you you see that it's it's positioned at a crossroads. As you're getting towards the sort of tea house, there's probably maybe 15 or so buildings around the tea house, and you can see there are loads of merchants' houses that have kind of like sprung up, places to eat, places to sort of like pilgrimage, and they're set up on like a sort of like star shape. You can see that there is a little rocky path that leads from the sort of like road to the outside of the tea house. The tea house is surrounded by a small palisade, and then someone is lighting some lights or some lanterns at the front of the tea house door. The the gentleman at the front says, My lords, it's uh really good to uh to see you all here. Would you uh would you care to come in and rest yourselves? Yes, we would. Please, please. Come in, welcome to the silver petal inn. And he he basically holds the door open for you. It looks like the the inn itself is a sprawling single-stored structure. It's got a slope-winning roof, and all along the roof you've got these painted silver petal floral motifs. As you sort of like go through the actual door, you kind of go into what looks like a um small courtyard, and it looks like there's a couple of plum blossom trees over a sort of like a little rock garden, and then there's a little uh set of tea lamps that have all been lit heading towards the actual front door of the tea house. You particularly gonna follow the same sort of like routine that you did previously, you kind of go up to the door, you know, hand over your your weapons and stuff, put them to the side, or keep them, depending on what you're gonna do. Guess who keeps his weapons. Okay. You're not met by anyone by the door, so you kind of like stop guessing, yeah, it's probably gonna be a cura that's at the front. Are you gonna go in or are you gonna wait for someone to usher you in?
SPEAKER_00I mean, there is nobody uh helping out now.
SPEAKER_01Uh no, there doesn't appear to be anyone there.
SPEAKER_03Is it customary to be ushered in or Yeah, yeah, but a lot of the time there's usually someone around to sort of like usher you in, especially I mean you're so used to sort of like in the like in the previous tea house, right? There's always someone to like fawn over you and to do things for you. It's what you're used to, you know. But this doesn't seem to be the case here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I guess I'll I'll sort of stand around a little awkwardly, because she's probably expecting, you know, the proprietor or something to sort of usher him inside, so he's just kind of like standing there.
SPEAKER_03So as you're doing that, the person who was lighting the uh the older guy that was that was lighting the lanterns kind of like wanders past you all as a as a group and says, Apologies, my lords. We are short staff this evening. And she says, please, please. He opens the door, please come in, please come in. And he opens the door into the front of the tea house.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. We'll have some tea and please find this horse something to eat.
SPEAKER_03He he looks at and says, Of course, of course, that is a that'll that that we'll we'll get that arranged. Please, please. Um he shows you where the weapons will go, if you've got armour, a place to put your armour, he gives you some fresh shoes to wear and uh or slippers, and he he takes you along to so it's a very different layout to the the previous tea house. It's all sort of L-shaped rooms, and he sort of takes you to this larger L-shaped room, which is divided around a central courtyard, it's a covered central courtyard, and in the middle there is this little spring that's sort of like bubbling up, and in the spring are these little water lilies and flowers on them, and they seem to be perfectly like blossomed. The winter doesn't seem to have affected them at all. Uh, there is a there is an old lady who's almost ankle deep in the water, and if she appears to be doing some gardening to these things in the water. He says, uh, never mind my wife, just come over here, my lords, and he kind of puts you in a particularly nice spot and uh he brings over some some warming trays so you can kind of get warm and sort of like put your feet on them underneath the table, and he says, I'll be with you along shortly, and then he disappears off. You can have a look, you can see in the other rooms, it's fairly busy. There's probably about 20 or 30 other people using this tea house, and most of them appear to be dragon samurai of some some sort or monks, all having conversations and speak to people. Do we see anyone we recognize? They mostly all appear to be soldiers of the Miromoto clan, except for one person who is all in grey, which you recognize from the last tea house. Is that the the guy with the hat? It's your friend. Akira. It's your friend. Akira's. Oops. He's sitting on the far end on one of the tables, and he is talking to a couple of monkeys. Please behave yourself while we're here.
SPEAKER_01I won't be telling anyone to fuck off. I'm glad to get it. I never told anyone to fuck off last time, so you have to still work there.
SPEAKER_03Yes, you gotta like make your make your way and you still like to sit down. And but if he tells me to fuck off, I will cut his tongue up. I mean, sure, why not? The old man comes over and he brings you over whatever you want to eat or drink, and you end up having a very comfortable evening. The the older gentleman says And now it is time. Please, please put your uh hands together for the traveling trip. And he kind of opens up one of the the the show you screens, and you can see that someone is and it looks like someone is going to pull it before you. And he kind of like bows out of the way, and this gentleman turns up in a mask. He's wearing very much the the colours, or just slightly off the colours of the Emperor, and he's got a porcelain mask on, which has very much got the look of what the scrolls would portray as the first Emperor Ryan. Let me tell you a story. A story of how Rocky came in to be able to get the question.