A rather soothing, yet powerful male voice could be heard from a miserable looking drinking hole dubbed 'Last Stop', words carried by notes of a popular folk song. Popular if one was a Scorpion samurai or heimin that had been born between 3101 and 3106. To others, the song was but a catchy tune, few able to see past the lyrics.

Tiger's claws bloom, called by winds, the storm has come.
Tiger's claws blossom, called by winds, the storm has come.
The sadness eternal, like waves washing over the isle.

Under the spires of steel we met,
And under the spires we bid farewells

Tiger's claws scatter, morning tide remains,
Gentle, quiet peace, blossom of waves that cannot be sung.

Under steel spires, we sang of our ways,
Under steel spires, we part ways for eight thousand ages



The rugged man finished his song, lifting his shamisen to his shoulder even as he offered bows to his audience, slowly lurching his way to a corner table. Some tossed him some change, the performer deftly snatching the coins in his hand, pocketing the money with a faint smile on his lips. Yet that smile died as he sat down on his table, laying down his shamisen. Soon another man took the stage, the crowds turning their attention at him. The man who had sung of tiger's claws largely forgotten by the time the first notes filled sake house.

Seika flops down on the other side of the corner table. She's dressed in Hoshi's comfortable street clothes, still her favorites for casual wear, though a jasper-green scarf printed with abstract praying mantis motifs marks her clan identity to any observer who's actively looking for it.

"Interesting song," she says brightly, propping her elbows on the table.

--
D7 ME--Lore: History (Bard Edition)/Int | 4k3 ⇒ 21 (TN: 20)
Basic success!

"Thank you, samurai-sama." Gebu replied, smile creeping on his lips. "It's quite popular around here. Even if not everyone likes it." he added with a soft smirk. "Gebu is the name, music is my game. Even if, well." Seika could see the bard pat the worn blades he carried at his side. "Even if I am sorta one of you. Sorta, neh." he chuckled.

"Hey, you got two swords. That's more than me." Seika grins. "Samurai's not something you can be halfway, so if you are, you are. Otherwise my ancestors wouldn't have made it, for one thing."

She sips from the bowl of watery sake she'd picked up at the bar while listening to his set. "I'm Seika, Yoritomo Seika. I've heard of you, Gebu-san. You have kind of a following around here... enough to make somebody curious, you know?" She tilts her head to one side a bit, inquisitively.

"Yoritomo-sama." Gebu bobbed his head, his neon green curls clinging to his face for a moment before he tucked them behind his ear. "Well, let's say that Yoritomo-sama knows where she'll get her rice tomorrow where as one does not. There's a slight difference right there, even if we're both the same." he added, sounding more amused than upset. "What can I say. People like good music?" Gebu shrugged, chuckling softly. "Yoritomo-sama isn't the only one who noticed. I had a run-in with some doshin the other day. They had some rather brutal critique." the ronin patted his shamisen that had been fixed with electric tape and pieces of hard plastic screwed to its frame, smiling still. "I Yoritomo-sama isn't here for the same." he murmured, glancing around a little nervous.

The World of Dreams and it's slums were both large places relatively speaking. The Last Stop was just a tiny watering hole of no import, just like dozens like it. There was no reason for anyone to just run into one another in such a place. But the universe conspired to make funny coincidences happen sometimes.

On one side of the bar Yoritomo Seika was having her meeting with a ronin musician. Their discussion relatively private. On the other side of the bar was Hato who had spent a decent chunk of the day looking into Watanabe Heavy Industries and doodling pictures of it's founder. She was there on a completely unrelated matter, gathering information from her underworld contacts on Soshi Kioku.

The two would likely never meet, even though they were only separated by the width of a crummy dive bar and it's clientele. It was just one of those weird coincidences they were both in the same building at the same time, that seasoned Scorpion magistrates would write off, but the rookies and the conspiracy theorists would make much of.

Hato slid the 3 Koku across the table, careful not to draw attention to the transaction in such a place, and spoke of things in low tones.

Awa/Investigation 2 raises called Asking about Soshi Kioku 42 vd. 35 Pass

Tassu wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 22, 2022 4:57 am

"Yoritomo-sama." Gebu bobbed his head, his neon green curls clinging to his face for a moment before he tucked them behind his ear. "Well, let's say that Yoritomo-sama knows where she'll get her rice tomorrow where as one does not. There's a slight difference right there, even if we're both the same." he added, sounding more amused than upset. "What can I say. People like good music?" Gebu shrugged, chuckling softly. "Yoritomo-sama isn't the only one who noticed. I had a run-in with some doshin the other day. They had some rather brutal critique." the ronin patted his shamisen that had been fixed with electric tape and pieces of hard plastic screwed to its frame, smiling still. "I Yoritomo-sama isn't here for the same." he murmured, glancing around a little nervous.

"Oof." Seika winces. "Someone wasn't a fan of.. what was it... the crimson lord and the walls covered in blood and all that? Seems like kind of an extreme reaction to a difference in musical tastes. I don't think I'd be that thin-skinned, personally. Not that there's a lot of people writing songs about me, good or bad."

Reflexively, without so much as looking what she's doing, she fishes a small packet out of one of her pockets--Blue Tiger Acid Apple flavored chewing gum. She pops one tablet free of the foil blister packaging, then offers the packet to the ronin. "So... why do you keep doing it? Singing these songs that piss off the local lords? You don't have to tell me, but I've been kind of curious. Reminds me of a monk I used to know back in Mantis space... but he's a monk, so if anyone got too mad at him he could just bounce to another temple someplace else."

"Yeah, and the one about the beast. Though I think it was the one about the Crimson Lord that got 'em bit riled up. Some people don't like being reminded of what's happened." Gebu chuckled, still nervous as he looked at Seika. Now, she didn't look much like a threat, but she did have friends and Mantis had a reputation in these parts of the city. "Bloodshed and all that. Though, it was really slaughter." he added, grimacing. "Yet they laud him a hero. I can see why going against the 'rrative might stir the pot a bit. Still, didn't think they'd be that quick."

Gebu accepted the chewing gum, popping it in his mouth as he turned his shamisen in his hands as if he was trying to see if he could mend the instrument with her offerings. "Well, someone's gotta tell the truth, don't you think so, Yoritomo-sama?" the disgruntled man asked, tilting his head to the side. "They say truth is what you make of it, but I don't think it works quite like that." When she mentioned a monk, his eyes widened. "Well, that's wee bit surprising. A lot of the monks here sing all the same songs. No jazz, nada." he shook his head. "No soul innit."

"Oh, you should meet this guy. Jissai, was his temple name." Seika considers this for a moment, while crunching through the thin sugar shell of her gum tablet. "I don't know where he is now, though... or how long he'd last on a Scorpion world, really."

"Uh... so that one was about a real slaughter? I heard other rumors about the Beast besides your song, but I didn't know if the Crimson Lord thing was just poetry or..." Her painted lips quirk a bit. "Well, now that I actually met you, I get the feeling you don't do a lot of songs that are just poetry."

Tossing the offered gum into his mouth, Gebu bit into it, looking up as if he was trying to make sense of the flavor, then began to slowly chew on it.

"Jissai eh. I'll keep that name in mind, thought seeing how much imagination the good brothers and sisters have, I am sure there are like ten of 'em going around the Empire spreading the word. Now, if they spread mayo on onigiri, someone might actually listen." Gebu mused, now rather wordy when he had figured that she was not going to try to batter him with his own instrument.

"Oh no. The Lord Magistrate put thirty good workers to blade. All by himself." he explained, dead serious. "See, there was a mutiny. Now, you might read news and think that a ronin working for an unknown agent had agitated ironmongers of 5th Steel. That the heimin were pawns in larger game, sabotaging the war industry and all that. In reality. Well, who knows what's reality anymore. It's not even clear there was a ronin - I mean, there was as far as the news go. So you know, that ronin is bit like Fortunes - there when you think they are there. So, with heimin not doing their work and with them making all sorts of demands, well. Some stories are easier to tell than others. They say they fired on the doshin. They might have, that I do not know. Our noble lord magistrate did not take that well." Gebu grimaced. "At all. They say it took three days to clean the blood off the walls. Not much poetry in that, don't you think?"

"Yiiiikes." Seika's eyes widen and her brows arch upward. "The current lord magistrate? Not that I know the guy well, but he doesn't have that obvious bloodthirsty vibe like some soldiers do. When you can tell right away just from being in the room with somebody, you know?" She gives a tiny shudder, leaning in. "But that doesn't necessarily mean anything, I guess. Would you believe I'm supposed to have dinner with him tomorrow? 'Cause of the oshidama tournament, not 'cause I'm in his fan club or anything..."

On the stage, ronin freelancer doing torturing his biwa as he summoned series of notes that no-one had ever dared to play on the delicate instrument. Everyone seemed to love what was happening, no matter how cacophonic the notes might have been. After a while it became rather evident that the man on the stage had some sort of grudge with the Crane.

"Fuck you, you're a Crane wanker,
we're gonna punch your ugly mug.
Fuck you with a fucking anchorm
you're all twerps, so fuck you all

Long I have waited to have my revenge
To bring that Crane wanker to his bitter end
So I have gathered a ship and a crew
We're sailing to find him, we know what to do
On a dark moonless night, when he least suspects
We'll creep up behind him, so hard to detect
We'll bring out our anchor by the light of the stars
And shove it inside of his big fucking arse!"


Gebu looked around as if to make sure that the audiences were enraptured with the current performance before answering. "Yeah, that's the man." Gebu nodded as the audiences cheered. "Well, that's the thing. He's all suave and polite in public. Wears a mask." the ronin tapped his temple. "Not a stupid man, that guy. Oh no. The high-ups like him too. Loyal like a dog. Without fault. Well, unless you count thirty odd dead a fault. But hey, it's a large planet, you got large tolerances." Gebu cackled. "Keeps heimin in check, I think. Ain't no-one want to see their guts on the wall. Gives you a poor life'expectancy."

"I mean, I wouldn't expect him to gut Yoritomo-sama with a table knife, really." he added, sounding amused. "That would look really bad, yes? Still, might want to keep yer distance. Not a good sort of fella. More a beast in shape of a man I say."

"I guess a good dog bites whoever it's told to bite. Or that's one definition of 'good,' anyway." Seika wrinkles her nose. "I'm not the Empire's biggest fan of that kind of Dark Fortunist, strong-devour-the-weak attitude, personally. I mean, I'm not, like, a huge bleeding heart or whatever, but how often do you really *need* to go that far?" She shakes her head, with a suggestion of rolled eyes.

"Or take the Desolation over there. Like, power generation's really important. Research is important. But maybe don't run your spirit reactor past safe lines in the middle of a megacity, you know? Or if something goes wrong, holy Daikoku, clean that shit up."

"If dog wants to eat, yeah. I mean, dog he's been always, as far as I can tell. Just not bloodhound." Grimacing, Gebu happily chewed on his gum. "Did he need to go that far or did he want to go that far? Now there's a question to ponder neh. Neither answer is very comfortable." he shook his head. "Sometimes, you don't even want to know. But people should know what happened, if only so that they know what they might be dealing with. You gotta call people out when you can. If no-one speaks the truth, well, then everyone's just going to lie and that sounds pretty awful." Then again, World of Dreams was Scorpion city and lies were very much part of the mesh that knit the society together.

"Well. Yeah. Or don't let Yogo run your power plants." Gebu scoffed, evidently unhappy. "You'd think they wouldn't let those morose fuckers touch anything but their willies. But well, you see how that went. I suppose there are decent Yogo out there." There was a brief pause. "Just maybe."

World of Dreams may be a Scorpion city-planet, but Seika isn't a Scorpion--she's a Mantis who happens to be allergic to lies herself, and so she nods along with Gebu's mini-speech. "You're right, Gebu-san. People can decide what they want to decide once they know whatever there is to know, but you can't make good decisions without the truth. Garbage in, garbage out, right?"

Her eyes widen behind the rim of her sake bowl when Gebu returns to the subject of Kinuran. "Whoa. Yeah. That's... yeah, no joke." She says an internal prayer of thanks that the Moshi are just occasionally theologically conflicted on account of their past, not actually cursed like the hapless Yogo.

She bites her lip and glances over her shoulder. The truth will out... "You'd think they could at least make amends to all those dead people whose souls are still trapped in there, though."

"There aren't enough garbage trucks in the Empire for this world, that's for sure." he chuckled, his eyes gleaming with mirth. Picking up his shamisen, he struck out a note.

"One, two, three, four, five
Everybody in the truck, so come on, let's ride

mhmhm... mayyyybe

To the magistrate's around the corner
The boys say they want some happy good time..."

"Or something like that." With the moment of inspiration gone, he laid down his instrument once more. "They did, back when. A lot of fuss, hundreds of priests and thousands of monks going through the ruins. All the incense in the world - they really had to, because it stank. It really stank. Like, you could smell everything here." Gebu patted the table. "Got everyone gagging for few days."

"Nope, ain't no joke. I suppose they did fence it up, but man. Some things keep creeping out. Beasts. Though now they do claim they have slain a spirit near the wards. Dunno if I can believe that. But hey, what's a little more garbage on this world."

"So that mess is after the cleanup. Yikes." Seika grimaces into her sake. "But letting glimmerstone trade on the grey market like that... when they gotta know what it is..."

She shakes her head.

"So, uh, how did you decide to become a troubadour of truth, then, Gebu-san? It seems like kind of a risky line of work."

"Glimmerstones? What about them?" Gebu blinked, seeming a little confused. Unaware of the metaplot and not really shugenja, he had never had a reason to look into the matter. He had merely referred to the ghosts bound to the place - ghosts that still haunted the ruins. "Dunno anything about them, no." he shook his head. "I was talking about the ghosts. Ghosts. Someone should set the poor souls to rest."

"Well. Once you lose your lord and family, you don't have much else to lose, Yoritomo-sama." troubadour replied, grinning. "At least I can try to uphold some virtue, even if I have to beg for coins to feed myself." he patted the pocket where he had stuffed the money people had thrown him.

"Oh yeah, before I forget." Seika slips her hand into a different pocket from the one holding the gum, producing a small red envelope. "I was gonna give you this if I found you. Support the arts and all."

She slides the envelope across the table.

[[Ding ding! GEBU found 1 KOKU!]]

She leans a little closer. "It's not just the ghosts you can see in there, though. Those are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, you know? Those glimmerstones the Scorpion priests are buying off scavengers? Souls of the dead, trapped in shards of whatever enchanted materials they were using in there." She nods solemnly.

It sounds kind of crazy when you put it like that, she realizes...

Gebu tucked the envelope into his pocket, offering Seika a smile as he did so. "Yoritomo-sama is as kind as she is beautiful. One is most grateful of support." His posture matched his words, the poor bard radiating gratefulness. "One might be able to find a warm meal tonight, at least." Later he would curse himself for not having been more vocal with his thank-you's, but as manners dictated, there was no way he could have opened the envelope in Seika's presence. "Really!" The kind smile melted from his lips, Gebu sneering. "They are trading them like peanuts in the slums! Well, shiny and expensive peanuts, but still! I know like, half a dozen people selling them. Oh my flipping kami." the distraught man pressed his palm to his face. "That's messed up man, real messed up! How on earth you figured that out?" he asked, squinting his eyes. "Priestess, aren't you?" Gebu wiggled his fingers. "Talking with spirits'n stuff."