Nakahama

Sumiko looked out of the window of Yakura's car looking at the flooded fields and damaged buildings with a small bit of concern. The flooding seemed quite bad out here, she was slightly worried that the temple might have also suffered badly. However some mysteries needed to be solved, even if the weather was more stay indoors and read weather.

"I think we're nearly there?" Sumiko said as she peeked back at the driver.

The Detective was curled up in Kiyoshi's lap. "I wonder what it looks like..."

Kazushi's on his densai, checking the flood reports and trying to find a map.

"We should be...?" he says, uncertainly. "It looks a lot worse out here than I'd expected."

"Ayuuuuuup." Replied their driver. No one hurled in her car so far, so she was happy.

"Just need to park my baby, give me a sec." Yakura started to awkwardly angle her car into a reasonable space.

Reasoable for a reasonable driver.

Her parking scryer was beeping through the whole thing...and she probably pushed another car while doing so. "Meh." She replied gracelessly, then got out. "According to the mapping spirits, here we are!" She yelled with enthusiasm!

"I think..." Sumiko started, then decided to pivot to "we're here" instead of questioning the parking of the woman who would need to drive her back. She quickly got out of the car and hopped past a large puddle as best she could.

"Watch out for the puddles!" she warned the others getting out the car as she looked up the hill to the 'temple' that they were coming to visit. It didn't seem very temple-like but then again this wasn't very religion-like. Once the others were out she would start heading up the hill to the temple.

Kazushi gets out of the car, as well, and looks over the old warehouse-turned-temple.

"I don't know what I expected," Kazushi says, rating the structure, "but it's still managed to disappoint. So, someone dredged up some old, long-dead religion and decided to give it a try again? Unsurprisingly, it doesn't seem to be working out for them."

"If it doesn't work out, they have a warehouse to store everything in." Kiyoshi had narrowly managed to avoid the puddle.

When the group arrived, there were a few heimen that were on the roof and around the building to work on repairs after the storm. The concrete building fared much better than the rudimentary homes of Tenjin Town in the coast, all things considered. It might have been them mostly dealing with some flooding that happened internally, if the small bucket brigade tossing our excess water was any indication.



Some peasants seem to gawk at them, surprised to see so many samurai at once. All of them were foreign-looking samurai at that. They seem to hold their gaze longer than standard heimen before returning to work unbothered.

The temple doesn't have any in the traditional iconography or trappings of a temple found in tradition. Instead, they seem to favour a triangular icon.


Art by Joanne Kwan

"I wonder what that's meant to represent," ponders Kazushi. "Some kind of three-part divinity?"

"Well they talk about the Sun, the Heavens and the Seas so three points to a triangle would make sense" Sumiko mused as she through back on what she remembered "let's head up. Carefully."


(Did another lore roll on this in case the older one didn't count - didn't make 25 this time but maybe it's not as high after previous pass D6 EA Lore:Lavoie (sage)/int | 5k4 ⇒ 21 )

Meanwhile Yakura, Empress of the Subtle Apprpach, walked up to ome of the heimin. "Hello there. What do you know about the forever night?"

In Sumiko's research, the symbol lines up with the Trinity, which is the main iconography of the religion. As suspected, it does represent the three realms of worship, the Sun, the Sky, and the Sea. The two upper corners represent the first two, and the last represents the Sea.

When Yakura approached a heimen to ask about one of the very obvious terrible events detailed in the Trinity Codex, they would gasp and quickly drop what they were doing to go inside. Likewise, the other ones working make themselves likewise scarce...

A window above slid open...



A Crab woman in a particular uniform would appear from the second-floor window. She would take a seat at the ledge with a military rifle resting on her thigh. She had a pretty good vantage point to aim down on each of them...

"Hey! What are you doing here?" She called out to them with a demanding voice.

***
Roll Lore: Crab Clan/Intelligence at TN20 to ID the uniform.

Sumiko had gone to speak when there was a loud voice. Sumiko looked up and recognised something immediately....


(ooc: D6 EA Lore: Crab Clan/Intelligence (sage) vs TN20 | 5k4 ⇒ 34 (TN: 20) )

edit: I don't suppose my previous rolls for the religion speak of a greeting for the religion? Or any sayings?

"Well, I suppose that's one way of doing things," Kazushi mutters as Yakura approaches the locals. With a gesture, he indicates that Kurumi should move to cover the Mantis should there be an unfriendly response...

...but then some heavily armed Crab popped out of one of the warehouse's windows and shouted at them, and Kurumi instinctively moved to shield her employer, her hand hovering near her sidearm.

"Just asking some questions. Why?" She asked back, seemingly unconcerned. She eyed the woman up and down. "Is there a problem?"

A common saying seemed to be 'blessed day' in the religion. From Sumi's estimation, it seemed the woman had on a different military uniform than the ones in the local defence force, but rather than one more fitting of a 'marine', particularly one that serves on a voidfaring ship rather than a seafaring naval one.



She didn't quite take her eye off of them, but did glance to take a look at the interior of the warehouse. "Yeah, because I'm not answering shit. Elder's not here."

Sumiko stepped forward, offering a bow.

"Blessed day to you" she put her hand over her chest as a sign of respect "please accept our apology for disrupting you. We have come to learn of Lavoie. I understand we might have come at a bad time with the weather as it is, so is there anything we can do to show our intent here is genuine? Has the temple sustained damage?"

(ooc: D6 EA sincerity (Honesty) to show honest intention. Prodigy and bentens | 8k5 ⇒ 24

"Okay," the Crab, who is a Hida from the looks of it, seemed to respond to the custom like it was a shot that merely glanced her armour.

"You can come in if you want, but don't bother the heimen from doing their work. You can ask the Elder your questions when he returns from town," she said before she slipped back inside, closing the window.

Kiyoshi glanced at the others, then led the way inside.

Kurumi follows, followed closely by Kazushi.

"I'll...um, I'll stay with the car," says Katsumi.