Oh, that's even worse.
And then the Scorpion show up at the capitol, having run themselves ragged (and possibly killed their horses from overexertion), only to be met by hostile Dragon Samurai and the regent in custody.
When it rains, it pours.

I don't know how much more "in need" someone can be beyond being stuck in a filthy public bathroom and realizing there is no toilet paper. But there are versions where they offer a cloak or something too.
I was thinking of translating the legend of the girl with a mask over her lower face that comes up on those who are traveling alone outside train stations and asks "Do you think I am pretty?" and attacks whether they answer "yes" or "no", but I can't seem to find the name of that one.

Meanwhile, Suiren and Horonigai compared noted. Suiren had calmed down a bit, and - doing his best to sound 'not insane' - described the monster that had attacked him on the roof to Horonigai. The two decided they were overdue a visit to talk to Reju Toshio. The family shujenga was in his rooms, on one of the upper floors. On the way there, they passed Otomo Nobu, with an ashigaru in tow - he'd left the cells before Uiri had found the tunnel, intending to begin a room-to-room search of the castle using the Otomo ashigaru (who knew the castle better than the recently arrived ronin and Reju samurai). When they arrived,  Toshio was preparing offerings to try and calm the elemental disturbance. He didn't, he said, have much hope of it working. In his opinion, the cause of the disturbance was the castle itself - a vast artificial fortress, on an artificial hill, with its moat fed by an underground stream forcibly redirected for the purpose. Frankly, short of levelling Closed Shell Castle and starting again, Toshio thought it unlikely the effects could be reversed significantly. He listened to Horonigai's claim of quieting the Kami in Twin Blessings Village (he kind of had to - she's an emerald magistrate and significantly socially superior to the vassal family samurai), but it was clear that whilst he was making supportive noises he wasn't impressed and felt what she'd actually done was a temporary fix at best. When challenged as to what he'd done, he said he'd been primarily inspecting the walls - Closed Shell was so ridiculously over-fortified, by a general who'd been schooled at the capital, that it wasn't unlikely the fortifications contained wards and supernatural protections as well as simply physical earthworks. If so, and if one or more had collapsed or malfunctioned from to poor maintenance (due to no-one knowing they were there and no shujenga being here for years) that could well be the immediate cause. When Horonigai mentioned the well, he dismissed it as servant's paranoia. Not that they probably weren't hearing something, but that it was far more likely to be a symptom than a cause.  "He's trying to talk us out of investigating the well, isn't he." "Yup." "So - that's where we're going next?" "Yup." - Suiren and Horonigai's players.  Overall, the two didn't really get anything especially useful out of Toshio. Both samurai were certain the shujenga was concealing something but weren't sure what.  Horonigai also noted that a lot of the offering components Toshio had in his rooms seemed to be for air invocations, which was slightly at odds with the water and earth offerings he said he was preparing. On the way back down to the ground floor of the keep, the two PCs were swept up in a sudden hubbub - Jikai was back early from the hunt, and the daimyo had been attacked. Horonigai and Suiren rushed out as well, seeing Reju Jikai - white as a sheet, but seemingly uninjured - along with a battered Goriate and a wounded Uiri. Suiren checked over Uiri, providing first aid and stopping the bleeding, whilst Horonigai made sure the daimyo was unhurt before he was swept away by a group of reju guards and attendants, led by Reju Jinzaburo, his yojimbo (who'd been casually left behind as unneeded and was clearly shocked that his lord had nearly been killed). The PCs compared notes, with the two bushi sharing their suspicions about Nakama and Horonigai and Suiren sharing what they'd discussed with Toshio.  Uiri still had his prisoner, so resolved to drag him to Reju Tsugumasa, who promised to subject him to 'strenuous questioning'.  Whilst he was there, Tsugumasa confirmed that one of his bushi had followed the trail Uiri had found, and confirmed that Rin had headed south-east as far as he could follow her - she hadn't shown any signs of swinging back toward the castle. South-east most likely meant the holdings of the nearest other daimyo, Otomo Osamu.  "Whose half-brother she killed." "Yes but Sorai doesn't know that. And Rin can honestly say Sorai's half-brother Emon is dead because of orders Reju Jikai gave. I feel he will be 'not pleased' by the news." "Wonderful. I love this castle. Solve one problem and three more pop out of the woodwork." "At least it's better than Winter Court; we actually get to hit things." - Uiri and Goriate's players. The other three descended into the kitchen cellars to go and investigate the well.  The cellars were dark and damp, and - as promised - haunting moaning noises echoed up the corridor from the room where the wellhead was.  As they approached, Horonigai started praying loudly, beginning an attempt to commune with the spirits. It turned out the spirits wanted to commune rather more quickly, directly, and violently, as a skeletal figure clawed its way out of the well. It was surrounded by a vaguely humanoid glow, and ectoplasmic tendrils flowed from its limbs back into the well, jerkily controlling its movements in a way disturbingly similar to the puppet shows Suiren had been watching in Hirosaka. Striking first, the figure - rather disturbingly - incapacitated Goriate in one strike action.  To be fair, he was on half his endurance after the fight with the wolves, and he was only in travelling clothes, not his armour. But still, putting him temporarily out of the fight before he even got a turn was a deeply unpleasant new experience. Suiren responded by striking with his wakizashi (he was also not really armed for a fight), and - whilst he landed a critical strike - succeeded in damaging the edge of his sword against the resilient bones.  The effect was suitably impressive - the glow vanished, and the 'strings' shot back into the well. The bones fell to the floor, seperately.  Goriate meanwhile used a void point. His Fear of Corruption anxiety had been triggered by the monster (putting him distressingly close to compromised as well), but it did at least give him the means to use Warrior's Resolve to remove incapacitated. Horonigai meanwhile approached the well itself. The following turn, the bones didn't stir. Suiren guarded Horonigai, whilst Goriate performed a calming breath. Horonigai continued her cleansing rite, and was rather disturbed to see a shape - mostly consisting of multiple eyes, tentacles and beaks - swirling up through the water towards her. It reached past her with a quintet of tendrils, snatching up the bone 'puppet', which continued its attack - fortunately missing Horonigai.  Horonigai had registered her prayers were making it harder for the spirit to animate the bones effectively. Correctly suspecting the bones were those of the Otomo founder of the castle, she started to invoke the general by name and was rewarded with the animated skeleton's attacks becoming detectably less coordinated, as if the bones were fighting in the monster's grip. Suiren struck at it again, causing only a little fatigue (limited by his damaged sword and the relatively weak damage of a wakazashi), before Goriate struck at it with the hunting spear he was still carrying.  An enormous chain of explosive successes and strife results put the monster within a hair of incapacitated - as well as compromising Goriate - but also landed another critical strike, scattering the bones again.  Horonigai continued to try and dislodge the spirit in the water with offerings to the kami and theology - which didn't go all that well. Still, it was obvious Otomo Nahoko's spirit was trying to resist its former skeleton being misused, and the monster struggled to try and reanimate the bones a third time. Uiri finally arrived at this point, rushing towards the well and drawing his katana.  The samurai waited, taking calming breaths for a round, before the bones reanimated one last time and attacked. This time, the three armed samurai were ready for them, and whilst Goriate missed (being compromised), Uiri landed enough damage to incapacitate it and then Suiren used path of shadows to land a truly brutal critical strike and destroy it.  Screaming, the tentacled mass retreated into the water, fading out of existance as it did so. The water fell into the suddenly vacated space, splashing out into the room, whilst the bones collapsed to the floor. "Oh, great. Maho-Cheaty-Bull-****" - Horonigai's player. 

Possibly, however the Castle of Secrets has a lot of bad stuff locked up there and one of the things about cursed objects is they tend to corrupt things that are meant to contain them, and an outward expression of that is often those items turning black as they are overpowered by the cursed energy.
Admittedly it is very likely that the Black Scroll should be among those that got rushed out of the castle, but my nature of always thinking well what could make this situation even worse does veer towards they thought they were getting the right scroll out and instead all they got was Jiro forgery practice, so now an Oni has a Black Scroll, and the body of Yogo Junzo just waiting to be resurrected.  What could possibly go wrong with that

In the case of Deadly Sting, it deals damage equal to whatever weapon you're using's deadliness + bonus successes +4, as Noxious Poison increases the deadliness by four.

In the case of Noxious Cloud, what happens is that it deals 3 damage, as the technique describes. Deadliness doesn't enter into the technique (and thus Noxious Poison doesn't do anything - it only affects deadliness, after all) unless the opponent cannot defend against this damage.
In that case, you're right, the game tells you to use the deadliness of a weapon (+4) that isn't involved in the first place, so ??? If in doubt, you can look to Unspecified Deadliness on p270, of which I think that Extreme Temperature is the most fitting - a poison cloud feels like a dangerous terrain more than a fall or a kihō. So the deadliness would be 9, imo. (This is likely much nastier than a weapon, but hey, make poisons dangerous.)

The thing in Shadows is that the Shadowbrand user was unsanctioned. He was a shinobi entrusted with the art who was experimenting with it outside of approvals, and went rogue, completely enabling brands outside of the Scorpion clan's approval. 

I looked the story up: Dreams of Shadow. And you are partially correct, in the story, Shadow and Void cross their path, as the Master of Void has a daughters who seems to be either conceived or at least touched by the Shadow and in the end, he seems to fall into Shadow. But those events do not seem directly connected to Void, they just happen to happen to the master of void, probably the Shadow targeting him.
The story does have a Shosuro with a shadow brand, teleporting to a shadow like with the new Fluid Shadows invocation, doing sanctioned Scorpion business, and feeling his humanity slipping away each time he uses it, like with 4th Edition Book of Shadow.
To me, that is a contradiction to the novel. So maybe 5th Edition hasn't decided yet how much to use the Shadow/Lying Darkness angle, and thus produces inconsistencies.

Sorry for just answering now as I only got the PDF today, but you are right. I found the Sun Sentinel extremely underwhelming for a shugenja school. I mean, you can always importune the kami for any invocation, but to say in the fluff that the Sun Sentinels are famous for their Air invocations and not give a single one in the curriculum, is like, you guys don't have any proofreading?
And for the second argument, yes, we must assume that besides no proofreading they have no playtesters and yet, when you go into the credits for the books there are names assigned for both proofreading AND playtesting...

Seems a bit unrealistic for a single minor clan, but never underestimate a very angry woman with spontaneous access to vast amounts of magical fire.

Yes, I saw that. Possibly exterminate the Phoenix and Mantis? 😂

They did. They did not, however 

And indeed https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2020/12/2/the-yogo-curse-part-2/
On behalf of all the RPG players of The Highwayman at GenCon who didn't manage to kill off Lady Atsuko before this point in the story......"Oops."

I guess this is an extremely late review of the book but I'll do it anyway.
All this is just for chapter 2 and 3, that contain actual mechanical stuff.
Centipede Clan: great to have some fleshing out of this minor Clan and I admit I don't know so much about it from AEG time, but they look cool. They provide 3 possible schools for the minor clan, and the book provide only one. The Sun Sentinels, that for some bizarre reason have the shugenja AND bushi tags, even though they just mentioned that the Moshi do have a bushi school and it's a shugenja school with no access to invocations, except the ones given in the curriculum which is only Fire invocations, which would be fine, except that 9 pages ago, they mention how the Sun Sentinels are famous for their Air and Fire invocations. I guess someone failed on their proofreading check... I had discussed this with others that had already given their opinion on the schools but now actually having the chance to read them, let's go through the other schools: Agasha Alchemist: a waste of a page. They are what the Yogo Wardmasters are but with potions instead of wards. Besides, the Agasha Mystic alredy have in their fluff, if not their mechanics, that they already use alchemy to fuel their invocations anyway, so having another Agasha school called Agasha Alchemist, is redundant to say the least. If this was an Agasha smith instead, to do a homage to the the Tamori... Asahina Envoy: another Crane Courtier school but at least they are not Doji. This school is actually interesting, providing another way to play an Asahina that is not a Shugenja and providing another way of playing a Crane Courtier that doesn't have to always deal in favors and gifts. Ishiken Initiate School: after almost 2 years of waiting we finally have the Ishiken. I gotta say I am actually surprised how interesting this school is compared to previous iterations of the Ishiken. Kaito Spirit Seeker: I like this different aspect of the Kaito obligations. Really cool school. Kaiu Architect: another waste of a page. We have a Kaiu Engineer already, why have a Kaiu Architect? What are we going to have next Kaiu Surveyor? Kaiu Interior Designer? (which actually makes me think a Kaiu Shugenja/Sage based on geomancy could be a really cool school for them). Kitsu Realm Wanderer: a way better Kitsu School than the Kitsu Medic from Shadowlands. With an interesting fluff and interesting mechanics. Besides, they are from the only interesting family in the whole Lion Clan. Shosuro Shadowweaver: ooooh, look at me, I am so edgy I have 3 different tags and even though I have a misleading name, I don't have any Shadow Brand mechanics.  Also, I am yet another Shugenja and Shinobi school in a clan where 6 out of 7 schools are Shugenja or Shinobi... It's interesting that they can work better inside obscuring terrain but their school ability is like creating a sphere of darkness from DnD on the battlefield and hope an adversary will decide to go inside? Granted, on Rank 4+ that's the entire battlefield covered in darkess but stil... As assassins, the Shosuro Infiltrator from the core works better than them, as Bushi, the Deathdealers are way more interesting, as Shugenja they have a different role than the Soshi, but still feels like a waste of a really good page for a better school. Utaku Stablemaster: another waste of a page. A school that feels like an NPC school or if someone wanted to play the Lone Ranger in a High Fantasy Samurai game... Guys, look, I can summon a ride when I whistle... The new advantages and disadvantages are really good and offer some interesting ideas for more. Ancestral Swords: I mean, I guess it can have some value for those that want to know what the equivalent to a DnD artifact could look like in L5R but they are more interesting for fleshing out their stories than their actual mechanics. Agasha Pattern: that would have worked amazingly with an Agasha Smith school in this book. Instead, I guarantee in the future we will have an Agasha Smith school that won't have this pattern because they won't reprint this pattern in that book. Techniques: lots of invocations. It would be nice if we had had some kihō as well, we could have definitely removed some schools to have 4 pages that could be filled with a dozen new kihō... Inversions are strange, which I guess was the intention. I like the way they use the dice, focusing on blanks which is like a really insightful idea. Places of power are really nice. The Bond with a Spirit title is awesome and creates some awesome storytelling hooks. The moon cultist title on the other hand, feels like something that an NPC would have and in this case, it could just be an NPC profile instead. I am honestly disappointed that there's a single new NPC. I was hoping for more supernatural creatures being shown here. Overall, I would give this book a 4 out of 10. I had so many expectations for it and waited so long that I feel cheated. I honestly don't have much hope for Fields of Victory AT ALL, after this book.

Sorry for just answering now as I only got the PDF today, but you are right. I found the Sun Sentinel extremely underwhelming for a shugenja school. I mean, you can always importune the kami for any invocation, but to say in the fluff that the Sun Sentinels are famous for their Air invocations and not give a single one in the curriculum, is like, you guys don't have any proofreading?
And for the second argument, yes, we must assume that besides no proofreading they have no playtesters and yet, when you go into the credits for the books there are names assigned for both proofreading AND playtesting...

https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/70/99/709912de-88e5-45e1-8ea8-e1c3e2c7c62e/7_the_yogo_curse_pt_ii.pdf
The Scorpion have to be Crab for a day.  It does not go well.

It’s on sale on drivethru now... 🙂

Still no dead-tree or PDF for me … disappointing … 😔
 

And that's what I mean, right there- in the old lore, by the time we met him, he was already mahoed out.
But here, we see a man that old lore fans know as one of the foundational villains of the setting acting honorably and bravely to counter a threat to the Empire. We (or at least I) like the guy. So if he falls to darkness, it will actually hurt a little. And if he doesn't, we will all be relieved. He has gone from being "that guy who sorta started all of this" to a sympathetic character.
Kuni Yori, while already corrupted, has also been given more nuance (and the retcon to the history of Kuni daimyo makes him seem less of a "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!" schmuck).=
This is why, even though the LCG is basically out of my life, I stick with the new story. It's relatively good.

Well, we’ve already got the perfect set up for The Last Stand of Yogo Junzo. Holding the line against a relentless onslaught of darkness throwing itself towards Kunshu, desperately hoping for the arrival of a relief force of Toshi Ranbo jade-equipped Crab that will arrive only to find he’s poured his life force into the last of the shikigami; a final prayer binding the Sword of the Hantei. 

Ahhhhhhhhhh.
 
Yogo Junzo might actually get to be tragic this time, instead of us being told he's tragic...
Because you don't need to be cursed to make a bad choice based on incomplete information.
And also, well... his motives for doing what he did last time have already been subjected to change. We have actually reached a major point of divergence in the lore by now, so... let's see what happens, hm? Yogo Junzo as one of the greatest heroes of the Empire is actually a possibility. So is a doomed descent into darkness. Time will tell.

Based on what we see of him in this story, I'm actually hoping that Yogo Junzo becomes a great hero of some kind.
I think either being a hero for the Scorpion or the Empire as a whole would be really cool.

Ha, so the plural works fine, it’s just the singular for ‘inferno’ that gets censored. This is stupid.

My copy delivered this morning.. Thank You Shiny Games (UK)

Yes.

So...this week proved to be the 'running away from scary things' episode.  The PCs got a decent night's sleep, and were up early to attend Rin's seppuku. Prior to the event, they decided to do a little investigation. The three magistrates made their way to the (dead) water-flower garden, to investigate the 'curse', whilst Suiren took the opportunity of the pre-dawn twilight to go scrambling up the outside of the keep to investigate the roof - it would be late enough that Jikai and his wife would be up and have left their rooms but not so late that he'd be expected to be somewhere in particular and his absence noted. Uiri, Goriate and Horonigai arrived in the garden to find it already occupied by Miya Shinako.  The PCs weren't especially surprised, and Uiri had pointedly brought the wakizashi recovered from the ruins of the waystop near Twin Blessings Village. Shinako described her uncle, Miya Emon, and confirmed he was a shujenga. She said that he'd been coming to meet her at Closed Shell Castle, and then the two were heading on to the holdings of Otomo Osamu, Emon's half-brother and the nearest other local lord (Otomo Niko, one of the other castle's guests, was a sort-of-ambassador between the two daimyo).  She tearfully confirmed that the wakizashi was Emon's. Uiri gave it to her and, putting it into her obi, the Miya poet left the garden with a hard-set expression to attend Rin's seppuku.  "Must make a point of staying with her, as she might well do something stupid" - Horonigai's player Meanwhile, Goriate was wandering round the garden. Horonigai was planning to commune with the spirits, but Goriate noticed something far more prosaic. There was some life growing in the garden, in the banks of a small fast-flowing ornamental stream, which presumably connected to the same spring which fed the moat and the (apparently haunted) castle well. But away from the stream, there was nothing growing - not even weeds.  As he inspected the determined algae, he noticed the ground make a surprising crunch underfoot, and noticed a slight glitter to the soil. Investigating (thanks to the benefit of being the only PC with a decent Labour rank), he noted the distinct smell of rock salt worked into the earth.  "Shujenga use purifying salt?" "Enough to poison an entire garden? How incompetent is this guy? I think this was deliberate." The PCs are increasingly coming to the impression that Reju Jikai is being made to look bad. Following Miya Shinako, the magistrates also made their way to the main courtyard, where much of Jikai's court was assembling. Suiren, meanwhile, changed into his 'working clothes' and broke out his tekagi climbing claws, and passed a fitness check to clamber up the outside of the castle from the guest quarters to the very roof. He also got enough air opportunities to avoid the notice of the handful of Reju bushi sentries.  Once on the roof, the result was pretty anticlimactic - a large expanse of glazed orange roof-tiles on a gentle slope, with clusters of moss growing in the gaps here and there. Curved ridge tiles coloured in a deeper red ran along the spine of the roof, with wooden shachihoko "tiger-fish" guardian statues at either end. There was no particular evidence that he could see of someone being up on the roof. A set of tiles that obviously formed a hatch into some store-room or attendant's office on the top floor stood out from the others, and the lacquer was in slightly better repair, and the moss much thinner on the ground, within easy reach, but there were no loose tiles or marks that suggested a recent presence on the roof itself. The PCs knew at least one person - Jinzaburo, Jikai's yojimbo - had supposedly been up on the roof, but there was no indication he'd come much further than sticking his head out of the hatch.  Suiren had more or less decided the investigation was a bust, and started to make his way towards the hatch, when a loud wooden cracking noise drew his attention. He turned to look, and watched one of the shachihoko turn its head to look at him. Wooden eyelids opened to a dull glow.  "Okay.....that's....not normal...." The shachihoko shivered and shook itself, and detached itself from the roof, curving round and 'swimming' towards the Shosuro. "I think you should probably leave." - Horonigai's player "We don't know it's necessarily going to attack." - Suiren's player The shachihoko approached to within ten feet or so, speeding up. Its tiger's mouth spread open with a cracking, crunching noise, revealing rows of razor-edged teeth. "Uh-huh. So.....you were right, I was wrong, and I feel now is the time for me to **** the heck off at some significant speed." - Suiren's player  "You see? Next time I say 'run', you run away first and you argue later!" - Horonigai's player Unfortunately, the shachihoko was very close indeed and there was no obvious way to evade it - it was between him and the hatch, and trying to clamber down the plaster walls whilst being attacked by a flying adversary was firstly incredibly dangerous and secondly almost certain to draw the attention of the guards he'd avoided on the way up.  His backup plan was to use two more precious vials of Night Milk for Noxious Cloud. By the rules, success (which he managed handily) would leave the shachihoko poisoned - meaning it would suffer disoriented and prone - which felt a little wierd, but frankly Suiren was only using the technique in the hopes of triggering the opportunity to create an area of obscuring terrain.  The shachihoko did move up to attack in response, but a combination of air stance and obscuring terrain meant it had no realistic chance of hitting Suiren, and duly missed. Suiren struck back - also missing - but using an opportunity to trigger Skulk. With Skulduggery 3, he was able to evade the angry guardian statue and scramble down the far side of the castle unmolested whilst it was still searching for him in the nooks and crannys of the roof. Returning to the guest quarters, Suiren's first response was to rush to catch up with the other PCs and warn them what he'd encountered. "No. Stay there, and tell our characters when we get back." "Why?" "You're compromised from the fitness checks so you look like you're on the edge of a nervous break down. You also escaped through a night milk cloud, so you and your clothes smell of opium. And in this state, you're going to burst into the daimyo's court insisting you've 'been attacked by a flying daemon-fish monster' when as far as they're concerned you've been in the guest quarters all night. I invite you to imagine how well that conversation would go." "....Or alternatively, I could stay here, drink quite a lot of sake to steady my nerves, and tell your characters when you get back." "Good shinobi. Stay." Suiren and Goriate's players. With that, the magistrates arrived at the courtyard. Reju Jikai and Reju Tsugumasa, the magistrate, were waiting there, along with a stony-faced Miya Shinako and an impassive Mamoru Nakama. Various bushi and attendants also lurked on the outskirts of the courtyard. The PCs waited for Rin. And waited. And waited. After a few minutes, Otomo Nobu scurried in with a worried expression and spoke in a hurried fashion to Reju Tsugumasa Tsugumasa - with an expression that was more angry than worried, went in turn to speak to Jikai. "She's gone, isn't she?" - Horonigai's player The daimyo - who appeared partly embarrased and partly furious - apologised to his guests and said that 'there had been a delay' and that if they had any other plans for the day, he did not want to detain them. Shinako pretty much stormed out.  Worried that she was holding onto herself by her fingertips before the person responsible for her uncle's death was a no-show at her own seppuku, Horonigai followed. She found the Miya samurai staring out across the dead garden, in floods of tears.  Horonigai tried to calm her - without, of course, drawing any attention to the fact that calming was needed. She promised that the magistrates would find out what had happened, and that Rin would be found. "I have confidence that you will see the person immediately responsible for my Uncle's murder punished." "....'immediately'?" "Emon-san died because he was in the waystop at Twin Blessings Village when it was destroyed by one of Reju Jikai-sama's samurai." "And he didn't order that. That doesn't make Emon-san's death his fault." "He was travelling along that road in the first place to see me at Closed Shell Castle." "That doesn't make it your fault either." "I was here to see Reju Jikai-sama since he was sent here from the capital after the duel with Daidoji Gombei." "That's still not his fault." "No. The events leading up to the duel are my fault. As is, therefore, everything that proceeded from it." "What....are you saying?" Miya Shinako explained what had happened at Winter Court. She'd arranged to have a servant spook the horses, intending to leave Reju Jikai bruised, dirty, embarrassed, rattled and generally unable to compete in the poetry competition.  What hadn't been planned was for Daidoji Eiakasu to try and play hero - shove his teacher out of the way and attempt to wrangle the stampeding horse, and get trampled and lose the use of his arm for his trouble. That in turn led to Gombei's challenge, Seppun Azusa being crippled, Jikai being sent to the relative obscurity of Closed Shell Castle and so on.  Horonigai was very hesitant around the Imperial samurai. She was still worried that Miya Shinako was going to do something stupid, especially now she understood the poet was mostly in the castle out of a sense of guilt.  She agreed to meet her later that day to talk and take tea later that afternoon - mostly to give her an arrangement she'd already agreed to attend to make sure she didn't decide to take her own life in a self-spiral of shame over the day.  Right now, I don't think she's decided what to do about Shinako. She's not said she's going to tell Jikai or, for that matter that she hasn't. I think the supernatural curses, scheming vassals and imminent violent peasant revolt rank rather higher on her 'to do' list and Shinako has slotted in at the "apply enough effort to keep her stable long enough to deal with the issue properly once things calm down" position. Tsugumasa left a few moments later, heading towards the castle's holding cells, with Nobu not far behind him.  Uiri decided to follow the magistrate - on the (fairly obvious) assumption that Rin had escaped, he planned to offer his help hunting her down. Not that he holds a grudge or anything.  Tsugumasa accepted his offer of help, and the two arrived at the cells together. Nobu had already questioned the guard before reporting to Tsugumasa, and the Reju Magistrate confirmed that no-one had been into and out of the cell block for most of the night. Reju Tsugumasa and Otomo Nobu had been there when Rin had been put in the cell. Reju Masaru had attended not long after, as Rin's commanding officer. Reju Toshio had attended shortly after that, as the priest responsible for offering Rin a blessing in advance of the ceremony the following morning. The guard - a Reju samurai (Nobu had suggested pointedly using a Reju family bushi rather than one of the ronin in case Rin still had friends amongst them) had taken Rin her last meal about an hour later. At that time she'd been in her cell and everything had looked normal.  No-one had passed him - on what was the only entrance to the holding cells - for the rest of the night.  Uiri went to investigate the cell where Rin had been held. With a good air rank and skulduggery skill, plus the fact he was already sure it was there somewhere, he eventually located a trick panel, leading to a narrow tunnel. He also found some crushed and burned feathers and flowers, which the PCs figured out were probably the aftermath of an invocation offering of some kind.  "Toshio?" "Toshio." He followed the tunnel, and emerged into a small bracken-filled clearing just beyond the foot of the castle hill. At the entrance, he found a waxed cloth balled up - roughly the right size to form a waterproof wrap for a daisho - and, given the way something had munched on the taller bracken fronds, evidence that a horse had been left there.  Clearly someone had contrived to release Rin and provided her the tools to escape.  Uiri tried to ascertain which direction she'd left in, but it wasn't especially clear. He was confident she was riding roughtly south-east, which took her away from Hirosaka, Twin Blessings Village and the Scorpion Clan border, though.  Nakama went to speak to Jikai, and seemed to be calming the daimyo down.  Since the PCs have decided Mamoru Nakama is the con artist Haru, Goriate decided to get himself involved in the conversation. It turned out Nakama and Jikai were talking about hunting. Aside from poetry, this was Reju Jikai's main passion, and the one benefit from his ownership of Closed Shell was the woodland territory he could (and did) now hunt in constantly.  This was the first time anyone had actually spoken to Nakama or seen him close up, and in addition to the gray kimono, goriate noted the sling supporting a wound to one forearm, and the well-cared for but very old sword (an antique dao rather than a 'modern' katana). The samurai was stand-offish but still had a lot of presence, and proved very persuasive. Nakama had suggested the daimyo to go out on a hunting expedition later that day, as a way to take his mind off the castle's problems'. Paranoid that this was part of some plot against the daimyo, Goriate persuaded Jikai to invite both himself and Uiri. The hunting expedition started cordially enough, with Jikai - complete with Toppi, his prize falcon - Nakama, and Goriate and Uiri, both in travelling clothes and issued with loaned hunting spears, and two Reju family bushi guards, all on horseback. Not long after they entered the woods, though, Jikai released Toppi, and the bird was suddenly struck down by an arrow loosed by an unknown assailant. Jikai asked the two magistrates to retrieve the bird and find the archer - the two Reju samurai indicating that they planned to stick close by their master in case any further attack came.  Goriate had no luck finding either Toppi or the bowman, but Uiri did find the latter's trail, and managed to get ahead of them and cut them off, bursting through the forest and knocking the attacker down. The attacker turned out to be one of the castle's ashigaru guards - which was interesting since amongst other things it raised the question of where his arrows had come from.  Uiri slung the unconscious prisoner unceremoniously over his horse and started to head back to Jikai and Nakama. Goriate, meanwhile, continued to look for Toppi. He couldn't find the falcon, but did find tracks passing his position and heading in the direction of the Reju daimyo. It took him a moment to place them as wolf tracks.  It also occured that neither he nor Uiri were currently with the daimyo. "Heading back! SPEED!!!" By the time Goriate reached Jikai's position, the daimyo was surrounded by a snarling pack of seven wolves - the same ones that the PCs had encountered earlier, less their wounded, so far as Goriate could tell. One of the bushi was dead. The other was on foot, trying to protect his lord - and his lord's horse - whilst Jikai tried to find a way out of the snarling circle of wolves. Nakama was nowhere to be seen.  Goriate charged in and with a handy fire stance yari strike, knocked one wolf out of the fight. Two attacked Reju Jikai, causing a fair amount of fatigue and giving the daimyo bleeding. Two others turned to attack the hida, failing to cause any fatigue but giving him bleeding. The last two savaged the second Reju bushi, killing him. Uiri arrived a round later, as - emerging from the forest nearby - was the great grey pack leader.  It was the same beast that had been with the pack on the road to Kawacho. Horonigai's player registered what was going on first, even if she didn't understand it. "Nakama isn't Haru.....He's....the wolf?!?!" "Get the daimyo out of here!" Uiri yelled, moving to attack the pack leader. He delivered an impressive 8 fatigue, despite giant wolf's resistance and being in air stance, thanks to a string of explosive successes.  Goriate, meanwhile, moved to cover Jikai in water stance, guarding the Reju daimyo and using Crescent Moon Style to ready a retaliatiory swing at anyone who went for him. Two of the wolves did, but were thwarted by the higher TN. One of them took a spear wound for its trouble, and limped away, whimpering in pain. Then the pack leader attacked Uiri back, knocking off half his endurance, and leaving him bleeding and severely wounded (air) in one strike. Seeing how much damage the wolf had done - and pointedly noticing that it had rolled a pool of nine dice in its strike action, the two bushi got the hint and tried to extricate themselves with water/survival horsemanship checks, calling on their bond for mutual assistance. With lucky rolls, they got clear, and - having left two wounded pack members behind them, the wolves didn't pursue far. As they left the forest's edge, Jikai, Goriate and Uiri finally slowed from a mad gallop, and tried to gather themselves before returning to the castle...