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Kentaro looks away even more fervently. His own rough mountain ways have given him no skill for dealing with such a woman and he has no wish to embarass himself. He watches the trail, the trees, the rocks, with intensity.

Has any of us entered the hut?

Taisho will keep an eye around while the conversation with the woman in the hut proceeds unless it is clear his presence in the conversation would be helpful.

Ito enters the hut, followed by Omi. They start searching.

jmacatty wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 10:28 am Ito enters the hut, followed by Omi. They start searching.

Taisho will keep watch outside.

Omi and Ito ignore the woman's offer to make tea, enter the hut, and begin searching it. The woman has no reaction and makes no comment. In the center of the room is a partially-full keg of sake, with straw mats, bamboo tube cups, and worn ceramic bowls around it. Rolled up sleeping mats and rather filthy blankets are along the floor by the rock forming the back wall of the structure. In the front eastern corner of the room are two shovels, a peasant's long iron crowbar tool, three wakizashi, a yari, and a rusted ashigaru helmet. Eight straw raincoats hang from pegs in the wall. In the rear eastern corner, the bushi find find three bushels of rice, 18 canisters of tea in a crate, a bolt of new cotton cloth in a bag, two new lanterns, four flasks of oil, and a coil of rope.

The woman continues to placidly sit on her heals in the formal seza position.

Need Kentaro's action, then everyone can go to next turn's actions.

Marullus wrote: ↑Tue Aug 31, 2021 8:00 pm Kentaro looks away even more fervently. His own rough mountain ways have given him no skill for dealing with such a woman and he has no wish to embarass himself. He watches the trail, the trees, the rocks, with intensity.

Remaining outside, Kentaro sees the high samurai snub and ignore the woman, which makes the ronin feel even more awkward.

"Akemi," he asks, keeping his eyes on the approaches to the hut, "When do you expect the bandit's return?
What are you expected to do to prepare for their arrival?"

At the approach of yet another heavily armed and armored bushi, Akemi with her elaborate but now rather overgrown coif and in her fine but now earth-stained kimono again leans forward, her forehead a hand's breadth above the back of her outstretched hands. Welcome, honored visitor. She again rises to perfect upright posture on the rude earth floor of the hovel. She speaks to Kentaro with eyes averred to the floor. But perhaps because of mode of address or the tone of the ronin's speech, she seems to speak with more looseness in her voice.

Bushi-sama, I cannot know when they will return. She's still looking downward, but Kentaro sees her eyes dart to her left and linger there. Quite obviously, as if it's a stage technique or coy girl's technique, to signal to the audience that the character thinking about what to say. I only know that they always return before dusk. Even they can't find this place on Chiyo-san in the dark, and they don't have the courage to light a lantern on a stick.

Akemi's eyes move to more forward of her, a little further out to the floor's distance. It seems she's subtly conveying more earnestness and emotion.

They leave when they have robbed goods to transport to Shinano or Kofu to sell. If they do that, they're gone for weeks. Today they were not carrying goods. So I think they will return before dark.

She looks up at Kentaro.

Akemi continues, When they return, I'll make tea and cook rice in the well shed. Then I'll wash their clothing. In the evening I may be told to sing and dance for them while they drink sake. And then I may be expected to entertain the leader privately. He's ronin and his name is Satoshi. He has no education and he's a country yokel, but he's quite clever.

Taisho doesn't see or hear anything of interest. Birds call in the trees and thickets. A fox bounds onto a boulder, turns its head and examines Taisho for a moment, then continues on and disappears.

I changed Taisho's facing from NW to N, for a better view as a lookout. If you want to be somewhere else, please let me know.
Need everyone's next actions.

jemmus wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:00 pm
Akemi continues, When they return, I'll make tea and cook rice in the well shed. Then I'll wash their clothing. In the evening I may be told to sing and dance for them while they drink sake. And then I may be expected to entertain the leader privately. He's ronin and his name is Satoshi. He has no education and he's a country yokel, but he's quite clever.

Taisho doesn't see or hear anything of interest. Birds call in the trees and thickets. A fox bounds onto a boulder, turns its head and examines Taisho for a moment, then continues on and disappears.

I changed Taisho's facing from NW to N, for a better view as a lookout. If you want to be somewhere else, please let me know.
Need everyone's next actions.

Positioning of Taisho is good, he will continue to lookout unless the others call him in.

Kentaro glances to her left... north, towards the wellshed. The large mountain bushi has never seen the city theater, nor spent time with cultured oiran. In the mountains, glancing to the left means thinking of lies, or deception. He considers this, then considers the honored Ito and Omi, who deemed not to speak with her and search the hovel. Perhaps this is at his level...

"Ito-san, Omi-san, I will accompany her to the wellshed to check that we are truly alone until the party returns. It will be good to avoid unpleasant surprise." He then turns back to her with an acquiescing nod. "To have rice and tea made fresh for lunch would honor us as your guests," he says. He thinks of the meager rice in his own furishiki and no coin to buy more. It would be appreciated indeed.

(Why looking out to the north? That appears to be the wellshed, so we'll check it out. We approached from the south, right?)

At Kentaro's request for tea and rice, for an instant Akemi looks like she's considering something. She has an alert and intelligent look on her face. Then her expression reverts to the affected smiling oiran expression. Yes, bushi-sama, I will do it. Please come with me. She rises, goes through the door, and follows a path to north. As Kentaro follows, he sees that boulders have been cleared to make the path, and there's a kind of wall of stacked boulders on the north side of the hut. It's around chest-high. It's close to the hovel, so it would only be of any defensive use against an attack from the north.

There's a free-standing shed a few yards to the northwest, which the cleared path leads to. Akemi gracefully follows the path with her small courtesan steps. She stoops to enter the low doorway, which has no door. From outside, Kentaro sees a rude shutters open at either end of the shed. Sunlight illuminates the interior. The ronin can see that there is a straw mat on the floor of the little room and a stack of firewood. Looking through the doorway from different angles, he can see that there's stone-ringed fire pit with an iron pot hanging from a wood poles frame above it. At the other end of the room there's a similar stone ring and similar frame, with a bucket hanging over it. He doesn't see or hear anyone by Akemi in the little room.

There's not much room, but come in if you'd like, bushi-sama.

Yes, you came from the south. I'll post a new map later today.

Kentaro looks to see if she's giving clues, but cautiously enters and inspects the wellshed for anyone hiding. Particularly, he looks for a trap door under the straw mat, given the smallness of the space.

If he finds nothing, he asks, "Is there anyone here?"

Akemi replies, It is only you and I here, bushi-sama. Kentaro checks under the mats of the three yards wide, two yards deep shed. There's nothing under them but roughly leveled dirt. Takes the pot, scoops rice from a bag and puts it in. She washes the rice, goes outside and drains the water off. Then adds water, puts a wooden lid on it. Be careful, bushi-sama, ashes will fly. She uses a footlong bamboo tube to blow on coals in the fire pit and starts a fire. She then takes an iron kettle and similarly does the steps for preparing tea. She does all of these with a smooth grace, as if it were a ritual or a court dance, rather than humble domestic chores.

Soon the tea is done. Please follow me to the shack for tea, bushi-sama, she says. The rice will take some time. Please forgive the fact that we have no o-kazu to offer.She takes the kettle and again follows the path with small ladylike steps to the hovel.


O-kazu - Side dishes eaten with rice, for example, fish, meat, or vegetables.

Kentaro only saw these things in the wellshed: the well, the firepit, the bamboo fire-blowing tube, the cooking pot, the bag of rice, the firewood, two empty baskets, the bucket, a homemade cutting with a rather large cooking knife on it. Outside there were a small wooden bucket with a peasant-style bar of soap in it, and peasant's clothesline.

Taisho on lookout hasn't seen or heard anything notable. Omi and Ito don't find anything else of interest in the hovel.

The pile of rocks "wall" begins at row I, column 27.

Ito's, Omi's and Taisho's actions to catch up in time with Kentaro, and/or move forward?

Taisho will continue watching unless the situation changes.

Omi asks the woman, You say the bandits return at dusk? And that they have kidnapped you?

Ito, stepping up, clearly wishing to run any interrogation, says What direcdtion do they return from?

The woman places the hot tea kettle on the cask of sake, which is the only thing that can serve as a table in the hovel. She turns her head to Omi. Usually they return from the south, bushi-sama. But sometimes they return from the north. But that is only if they have been unsuccessful and are not carrying goods. I suppose the northern trail is more difficult. But they, myself too, fear what may come down from the northern side of the mountain.

She then turns her head to Ito. Yes, bushi-sama. They kidnapped me on the road. The truth is, I did a bad thing and fled my teahouse in Chino town.
I foolishly tried to travel the Koshuu-Kaido to Kofu on my own. The bandits captured me around two ri from here. That was in the middle summer. I have been here for two months now.

If the tea has steeped too long and become bitter, I apologize. I apologize also for the cups you must use. She rises, adroitly uses her fingers to take five of the nine bamboo tube cups lying around the sake cask in her left hand and an iron pot filled with water under her right arm. She goes outside and thoroughly washes the cups in the sunlight near the doorway, in plain sight of the bushi. And also the gakusho Taisho, who has remained outside, listening and scanning all around. She returns, arranges the five cups in a circle, and partially fills each in one pass. And then starts with the last-poured cup, and does another round. The samurai Omi and Ito know that this is evenly distribute the strongest to weakest concentrations of tea to all of the cups.

Well then, please forgive me, but I shall be rude and try the flavor of this tea first. It may be unacceptable to the bushi-sama. And then, deliberately more meaningfully and significantly, with a knowing eyebrow briefly and frankly raised.... So that the honored visitors may feel no worry about partaking of this humble tea service. She takes a cup, drinks, places it on the ground and let's it cool a bit, drinks again, much longer this time. Places it on the ground again and once again let's it sit for awhile. And, most unladylike, tips the cup over her mouth and drains the last dregs. With sudden assuredness and confidence she looks Omi, Ito, and Kentaro in the eye. She waits a moment, again with her perfect upright posture on the humble mat. Bushi-sama, if you would like, please accept my offer to partake. It is humble tea, served in humble vessels. But... it will not give you stomach constriction, pause your heart, or tighten your muscles. For the reason of showing that, I so rudely was the first to partake.

With your permission, I will now take the some modest refreshment to the o-gakusho-san who has been bravely watching and waiting out in the sun. She takes a bamboo cup of tea, rises, heads out of the door.