Hoshiko had questions best answered at the source. But after the experience of the other night, she wasn't going to travel there without precautions.

At this hour, traffic should be light enough to simply work by the shrines rather than fitting everything into her tiny room. So she sits in the protective circle of blessed salt, emotional support ofuda strung on her obi ties. Offerings and incense made, though that's not really needed for the process. And there are friends awake to keep watch as she travels.

"If all goes as planned, it's going to be pretty boring for a bit...never easy to tell how long since time moves differently in some of the realms some of the time." She pauses a moment, then says, "If there's anything you'd like me to add to someone's case, now is the time to tell me. I may not have time, but will add it if I do. Or keep the message for later." She'd let them know of the offer earlier, when asking for company this night.

From what your researches have shown you, you'll want to roll Lore: Spirit Realms / Void to get your ritual going. TN is 20.

"Well...as I said, it isn't important, of course, compared to all this. But if you do happen to hear anything about Tanaka Tsugumi..." Shinnosuke, seated beside a small table with a cup of very early morning tea at his elbow, speaks unusually diffidently. This is like something out of a play--very like!--but certainly outside his usual sphere of life experience.

Haku is curled up snoozing at Shinnosuke's side, leaning his silky head against his master's leg. Soon it will be breakfast time. Soon. But not quite yet.



---
If Hoshiko specifically asked earlier, Shin would already have mentioned Tsugumi, a younger sister who died when they were both children. Because she passed over only a few weeks before his grandfather Tanaka Eisei, the old head of House Tanaka, he's always been vaguely worried that her mourning rites and underworld necessities might have been too overshadowed by that bigger, more ritually important death, and something could have gone astray.

Hoshiko nods. "Of course. It's mostly a matter of asking the clerks to search up records...which means I might not have an answer till the next time." Resting her hands lightly on her knees, she shrugs slightly, "but you never know, sometimes you run into the one who worked during her judgement and they remember right off. Rare, but it happens. I appreciate having someone to watch...um, me...while I'm gone."

She offers a reassuring smile and nod before her eyes close, right hand tracing a mostly spiral pattern in the air reflecting the path she usually 'sees' herself walking to the Realm of Waiting. The habits of meditation are rote, setting her mind and breath into familiar patterns.

***************************
She would have offered earlier as they planned things, yes. ^^

D9 LN: Getting through to the otherworld. Lore: Spirit Realms/Void VP for +1k1 | 7k4 ⇒ 30 (TN: 20) to get on through to the other side.

The world around Hoshiko grays, and the walls around her take on signs of disuse and disrepair. Spectral spiderwebs hang idly, and dust that shows no footprints sits like sprouting mold upon the floor.

It is Meido, the Realm of Waiting, and the queues are long.

Hoshiko sighs, feeling that grounded an centered sense the place always brings. She examines her hands. She's never sure what sort of denizen of the realm she'll end up appearing as, but there's always that missing finger on the right hand carrying through. Looking up she starts through the faded hallways, seeking the records door...or a familiar face. Her steps seem to have no sound of their own, only a strange echo that seems like the ghost of living footfalls.

In the gray distance ahead, Hoshiko can make out two figures moving between two offices. Each is carrying a stack of papers as large as themselves. They move from office to office, crossing in the hall. Beyond them, just at the edge of sight, she sees the hall opens into a larger chamber. The faintest echoes of voices carry to her from there.

She hurries forward, though hurry is relative and measured here. Nearing those figures, she clears her throat as an appropriate mode of not-to-intrusive intrusion before offering the appropriate bows and greetings and introductions to a question. The glimpses of the space beyond are always worth the trip.

Gray on gray, perhaps with some glimpses of beige and ecru, the hall stretches to accommodate the legions of dead who await their processing and judgment.

"Yamada Hoshiko."

One of the clerks--a nondescript figure, features more suggestions than actuality--appears to be addressing her.

"It is not yet your time here."

There is a small, polite shake of the head, a lift of her 4-fingered hand. "It is not, but also not my first time visiting these halls to share knowledge." A deeper bow. "I apologize, as I usually try to bring more, but this time I seek it instead. We may be dealing with one who has escaped their judgement, you see."

It's always hard to tell if she's spoken to this particular servant before. Patterns of speech slip through sometimes...though maybe that just distinguishes older, more experienced clerks from the newer. There was always more to learn.

"None may escape the judgment of the Fortune of Death" comes the reply, and although it still has the flat and faintly hollow affect endemic to the place, there is some sense of emphasis behind it.

"Such a thing cannot be."

Fukurokujin wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 25, 2025 5:15 pm

"None may escape the judgment of the Fortune of Death" comes the reply, and although it still has the flat and faintly hollow affect endemic to the place, there is some sense of emphasis behind it.

"Such a thing cannot be."

"Even emperors come before the court then?" Hoshiko asks.

"And pardon, I did not mean to imply they escaped being judged. But the hungry dead slip out of their realm from time to time."

*Shh-hah* breathes the other clerk, his exhalation creating no stir amid the dust and cobwebs, but oozing into the ear softly.

"The walls of Ningen-do are bound with sleep, and in dreams may come things un-looked-for when awake. Thus it has been, and thus it will be." *Shh-hah*

This takes thought, for spirits speak ever a bit sideways to mortal ways of thought, and outside of the formal language of briefs and records, Hoshiko needs years yet to become fluent.

A polite bow precedes the question, "I may see. Excuse my ignorance that I ask these finer points. Do you say that our incursion is but a dream, or that these things may come through those dream boundaries to move in Ningen-do?"

"Other realms obey other rules, and the master of one is not the master of all."

*Shh-hah* "He wishes to be. But he was not, and he will not be." *Shh-hah*

Fukurokujin wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 25, 2025 6:29 pm

"Other realms obey other rules, and the master of one is not the master of all."

Hoshiko nods. "I see." Sort of. "That I may understand the rules here...are all mortal spirits bound to be judged here when they die? I seek to understand the judgement of one named Hantei Ningen." Were the Hantei rare and memorable here, or just another in the long, long river of souls?

"Ah," She dips in apology. "Or might that be better directed to a different office?" bureaucracy and all. The realms obeyed their various rules, and so did each sort of spirit within them.

Cearnach wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 25, 2025 6:58 pm

*Shh-hah* "He wishes to be. But he was not, and he will not be." *Shh-hah*

This, is going to require meditation to ponder, but perhaps. "Does he have a name?" Things may be bound by such, sometimes.

"We remember the Hantei. They do not always remember them."

*Shh-hah* "Several. And none." *Shh-hah*

Fukurokujin wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 25, 2025 7:06 pm

"We remember the Hantei. They do not always remember them."

"Do you remember one judged and assigned to spend time in Gaki-do?" she asks quietly.

Cearnach wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 25, 2025 7:10 pm

*Shh-hah* "Several. And none." *Shh-hah*

Most bore several names over time, and across lives. That none would require some thought.