Hidden in the Fine Print?

[Chibi-Reaper]

Land of Shrines

Overview (Basic)
Income: LOW
Resources: LOW
Local Opinion: BELOW AVG
Security: HIGH
Morale: AVG
Outpost: NEEDS REPAIR

Infrastructure-
Mess Hall: Provides simple fare. No set staff, meals are cooked by a cycling pair of individuals who each keep an eye on the other as they handle food.

Forces:

A-Rank Jounin: 2 ('Nara', 'Axe')
B-Rank Jounin: 4
C-Rank Chunin: 13

C-Rank Medic-Nin: 1 ('Kekkon')

Human Resources:

Noble Maid?
Poison Petals bloodline carrier.
Varying pre-packaged specimens: x8

Other Resources:

Food: 20 turns
Ryo: 5600
Luxuries: 6 units

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

As far as jobs go, debt collection isn't a bad one. As long as you're smart enough to do the tallying and itemization and value assessment, rather than the heavy lifting and intimidation that need large, visibly muscular men.

Of course, there are times when collection trips become a little more exciting than you'd rather. Usually, the imposing muscle does the trick, or there's a brief scuffle as everything proceeds as normal.

You figure out that this isn't how it will go this time right about when you hear the meaty 'chuntk' sound of a knife finishing its casual path around the room to bury itself between the eyes of your help.

It was a temp job for him, just like you. Something to earn a little money before moving on to the next toil... you'd never met him before, and probably never would have again. Now he's laid out on the floor, and you only realize that another of those little knives is headed your way when the tinkling sound of metal on metal tells you that it's been deflected with a dirty spoon.

Of all the places, you've been sent to repo from a bar that's currently serving as a missing-ninja hide-out and neutral ground of some kind. Well, it was a nice enough life, though much shorter than you expected it to be.

"Hold on a minute." The slouching man who just saved your life says, voice slow and lazy. "I'm thinking about something."

There's some displeased grumbling in the gathered lot, and you swallow thickly. Despite that, it seems like the man is going to get his requested sixty seconds... you can't speak for after that. You wonder if you could break and run... no, it's like looking at a pack of wild dogs. Run, and you'll be run down, for amusement if nothing else.

"You remember that thing that got brought up before? How everything's harder without the back-up, or the infrastructure. What cut it off was... who's in charge, right?" he asks aloud.

There's a sudden scattered sound of voices, a few different names.

"Yeah, shut up. Talking here." the lazy man grunts. "But thinking about it... sure, the person in charge is usually the strongest person. But what do they really do, you know? I mean, besides in theory being the last line of defense for what have you. What do they actually spend their days doing? I know we've got people've started off from a few different villages here. Leaf, Mist, Sand... Rain and Grass too, at least." he says, pointing out the visible, though marred, plates of metal and insignias stamped into them. Not all have them visible.

There's a much more quiet muttering, and very faint conjecture as ancient memories are prodded.

"Paperwork?" Someone ventures. Woman's voice.

"Lots of talking to people, but... always a stack of something needed a signature."

"I can't think of... well, handed out assignments directly sometimes, but usually just had a go-between..."

"There's definite... no, that's down-time. On the job it's...."

"Yeah, I figured it would be pretty similar across the board." the lazy man notes. "It's just about... paperwork, entirely. Things that need to be signed, stamped, overviewed, sent off and delivered. Tedious bullshit that eats up your day, and then you spend all of your time off, or nearly, trying to keep yourself sharp just in case since you never see any real combat. It's kind of a drag, and someone's got to do it. But all you really need is to be smart enough to make decisions, capable enough to sign your own name, and dumb enough to be the biggest target around."

The lazy man waves a hand at you.

"... Looks like the answer just dropped into our laps." he grunts.

"You're shitting me." an upset woman snaps, standing up and drawing attention to the heavy looking axe across her back. "What the hell does this weed know about running an organization of ninja, huh?"

"You rather we fight it out, and probably a couple of the bigger deals go down over it? That's start-up funds, I guess." the lazy man points out. "Besides, he'll figure it out. After all, his neck's on the line here too... if he can't hack it, then we can always find another paper-pusher that might appreciate the offer more."

When he smiles, it's like a shark.

"Have a seat... Glorious Leader." he says, voice containing only a trace of very clear sarcasm. "So you tell me. If you were going to found a village, where would you put it?"

....

Good god, they're serious.

You had better be too, then. Your life is hanging in a precarious balance. You have to think. The major countries are out... rich and a lot of space, leaving Wind and it's nearly impossible to cultivate anything deserts aside, but they already have big Ninja villages set up and from what you understand, they don't at all appreciate competition.

So if you were founding a village, and not just being coerced into founding a village, it would be....

----

[ ] The land of Rivers. High transport ability, and many trade routes go through there. If you can get noticed, then there'll be a lot of money going through.
[ ] The land of Rice. Lots and lots of cheaply available food, from the rice paddies nearly covering the whole region. You hear something has been off with the daimyo recently, though.
[ ] The land of Bears. On the plus side, lots of trees and there are mineral deposits to make use of. On the other hand, bears breed like rabbits here and grow very large.
[ ] The land of Fruit Trees. It also produces fine nectars and wines from the fruit. Which may be a downside, since it's plentifully available and relatively cheap.
[ ] The land of Shrines. Austere, picturesque landscape and you'll infuriate possibly countless monks and pilgrims if you harvest the natural resources too freely, but who would seriously look for a pack of ninja-criminals here?

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

"If I had to pick.. the land of Shrines." you decide.

You're immediately left with derision from most of the gathered ninja criminals, but the lazy man just leans back, thoughtfully stroking his short beard.

"You're going to have to walk me through the reasoning behind that decision." he suggests.

"W-well, uh. The main benefit is... who's going to look for you there? The country is all shrines and shrine-tenders, tall rocky cliffs and rope bridges over chasms, and little in the way of natural resources." you outline. From the perspective of a healthy civilian village, or even of a trading outpost, it isn't ideal, but for an organization of thieves and murderers...

"Ah... I see where you're coming from. And better yet, the stone in that area is really fragile and brittle, so it's nearly impossible to bypass the ordinary traveling routes. Trying to walk up or along a cliffside will just leave you with a bunch of nasty spills, worse if you try to jump. There's some ore veins in there, but getting them out without triggering collapses is a big problem."

.... You didn't know that yourself, but it sounds like the sort of thing a ninja might keep in mind. It sounds like he might be more familiar with the area than you are.

"So the benefits... are that it isn't likely that any of the older villages are going to pick up on exactly what's going on, where, until it's too late to really interfere. And they would, if they cottoned on. Longer term, invading is going to be pretty tricky. High grade shinobi aren't going to have much trouble moving through difficult terrain, but the grunt lines.... aren't getting through without making it really obvious that someone's heading in. Small groups or solo infiltrators might be a problem, but they always are. Not bad."

He shrugs.

"Of course, there's going to be trouble getting jobs coming in, and importing food and supplies through. But hey, that's your problem to figure out, right?"

That shark-like grin is back. And for all that the man is a solid hand-span shorter than you, he effortlessly lifts you with only one arm. That's... that's the power of a ninja, you guess.

"Finish your swill, and anyone who wants in, get your asses to the land of Shrines." he barks, tone just shy of giving orders. Just enough to keep volatile superhumans with a dim view of authority from speaking up about it, you guess. "Move quietly. If the point is to set up a place that we won't be found too soon, then one of you lunk-heads dragging a hunter on your tail defeats the point, right?"

"Fuck you, Nara!" The axe-woman barks, before slamming herself back down into her seat in a very clear declaration that she'll take her sweet time getting there, if at all.

By the time she's finished, you've been carted out the door, and then for all the man's deceptive slowness the world is going by very quickly.

"There's long term benefits for the land of Shrines, too." He muses aloud as... good gods, you're covering distance in minutes that should have been hours of transit. "We'll have to discuss that later, though."

A finger presses deliberately at your throat, and everything goes first grey, then black.

You wake up in a dark room that smells of dust and mold....

.....

This is the back of a large shrine, isn't it? Converted into an office. You're sort-of draped into an almost-seated position across an out-of-place chair.

"Oh, you're awake, Leader." the lazy man says, simply. "You were out a few days... longer than I expected."

You've been unconscious for days!?

"Less people joined up from the bar than I expected... I wouldn't have bet on all of them, though." he allows. "On the other hand, some word of mouth is going around, so there's a few extras. Total of two A-class Jounin, four B-class Jounin, and a baker's dozen, unlucky thirteen Chunin."

He tosses a sheaf of papers onto your desk.

"Luckily, I heard about this temple. Some S-ranker on a bender came through, cleared out all the priests and pilgrims a couple years back... died not long after. The superstitious call it a curse, but if he was murdering holy men for no reason then he was probably already at least a little suicidal by that point. And by now the smell of blood is gone, ready for the bones to get pitched out, a new coat of paint, and someone else to move in."

There's a long, creaking noise from somewhere in the distance, followed by the sound of a roof collapsing. There's a puff of dust off of the walls, and you realize that the corners are filled with spiderwebs. You can faintly hear insects skittering from the disturbance, making the skin along your spine crawl.

"... Probably a good idea to do some structural repairs, too." he suggests, managing to sound like he doesn't actually care that the building might come down at any time. "That's going to need wood and good stone.... workers too, I guess. Good luck with that."

"Hold on, do any of the ninja have any building skills?" you ask quickly.

... the lazy man just laughs, like you've told a funny joke.

Well.

A location has been made. Seems like there's a well, a very deep one, so that's water. Food... might be more of a problem. They can probably at least cook for themselves, if there's something to eat, but....

You try to imagine the hardened criminals going around the temple with brooms and dust-cloths, beating out clothes and hanging them on lines to dry. Your mind fails to accept the image. It is... you think... the sort of mission that you can hire ninja to do if you have a lot of income to pointlessly dispose of, but you think they set the trainees to handle things like that.

You can't help but assess the situation and start clarifying what you need immediately. Builders and material are one. People to clean up and sort anything that was... left behind. It would probably be best to stockpile food and have someone on duty just to cook it...

How?

You flip through the papers quickly, reading... already taken a couple of missions, somehow. Ninja move quickly when they have a mind, and being able to confidently claim they're part of an organization instead of solo actors means that they can charge enough to take what they've become accustomed to and pass the rest into communal funds.

You don't think it's enough to solve even one of those problems just by paying for it directly.

"There's no way just paying for it is going to work yet. Not reading your mind, but your expressions are saying everything." the lazy man agrees. "I'm sure you'll figure something out."

.... you could delay non-essentials. Pay for what's needed most immediately, and then delay the rest for later. Or... you guess ninja can just take the things that are needed and go. Maybe the people too. That's... going to make it obvious that something is going on somewhere, though. There will probably be missions made for other ninja to figure out the strange thefts and kidnapping, in a strange sort of irony.

Maybe there's some kind of happy medium. If you can't even make a plan for this... it doesn't say anything good about your life expectancy, at the moment.

---

[ ] ??

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

Think. You have to think.

".... Bandits." you say aloud, after your mind whirls around and around both itself and the problem for a few minutes. "The big problem right now is start-up capital, and the solution to that is banditry. Not... not doing so yourselves, but targeting groups of brigands that are doing very well for themselves. Take their profits as ours, and even if someone notices that bandit numbers are thinning, who's going to complain about it? It's the best chance of getting workers and supplies."

"You'd be surprised." The lazy man says... Nara, yes, you recall the dropped name. "It's not a bad idea. The thing is.... you aren't going to find much in the way of criminal activity in the land of Shrines right now. Not much to target. Even robbing nobility's a bust, because as a religious state the closest thing to a local Daimyo is the head priest of the main shrine of one hundred million gods. Monks don't usually keep a bunch of ready cash on hand and all that."

He scratches the back of his head.

".... So that's going to take forays into neighboring countries, which is still a little risky and going to take a while. And ninja don't usually do this kind of work pro-bono... missing ninja especially, more so if there's a ninjutsu or genjutsu focus. Taijutsu and weaponwork can be disguised, but the others are mostly a big red flag that says volumes. Doable, though, and it helps get the word out. As a 'village', going to want a lot of missions coming in or a steady stream of funds from the Daimyo... without the second readily available, going to need the first all the more."

"Is that the case..?" you say, not having put much thought to the internal workings of a hidden village before. "Anyway, there are a couple of other immediate concerns I want to bring up. First, I need reports, I've never been to Shrine country, I need scouts and information. And I'd like to know what you were alluding to when you said this was a good spot in the long term as well... it seems like this is more than just good defensive ground that you're talking about."

Nara's eyes sharpen as he looks at you. Then he mellows out again and shrugs.

"Well, you know Ninja are the foremost discipline of war, right?" he says, a little smugly and full of self-importance. "... It's because we steal from the others. Priests and samurai.... stole a bunch of weaponry techniques and tactics from the samurai, stole taijutsu from the both of them, and from the monks we stole sealing arts. Fuuinjutsu. More effort than most care to put in beyond sealing and unsealing your luggage or exploding tags, rarely for summoning and things, but supposedly there's a certain kind of climate and landscape that's good for learning. Helps realign your karma and settle the spiritual weight or whatever the monks babble about. Might be a few different kinds of opportunity if they're just right next door."

.... You aren't sure how you feel about robbing holy men and burglarizing temples at any point in the future.

"Anyway, I guess that'll work. Send out the b-grades on bandit extermination, and the chunin to scout and get the lay of the land and such. Go ahead and get settled in... Leader."

---

The land of Shrines is poor, and probably the only reason it's been ignored by the surrounding countries to develop their cliff-top monasteries and shrines is because of how little value there is in moving troops through, compared to the cost.

And it's kind of an eerie country too, particularly at night. There's some kind of chill to the air unrelated to temperature, though the ninja brush it off without noticing or commenting. You spend the next couple of weeks focused on reports and half-desperate planning. There's not much food either... it seems like it isn't enough to wear too much on the ninja yet. They must be used to long periods of deprivation. In any case, the few, spindly fruit-bearing trees at the top of cliffs and herbs, scattered and small wild vegetables, and occasional small animals at the bottom of gorges....

They're problematic and slow to gather, and don't stretch far. You have a little trouble bringing yourself to eat more than the ninja do, in no small part because of how they might take that, but it's much less than you're used to. You're losing weight... getting thinner.

A food source, supplies. It'll have to be imported, but you need to find a way to secure a supply line of edibles soon.

... A lot of the scouting seems to have focused on spying on the monks. Understandably, it doesn't seem like many of the priests and shrine maidens are aware of your presence here, yet, but opinion of ninja, murderers-for-hire... it's obviously low. Might be a little bit of a problem for diplomacy, where a lord would clearly see the value in having a pack of trained assassins close at hand if dirty deeds need doing.

All in all, not the worst position you could start from, but there are some significant drawbacks.

"Hey! "Leader"! Your moron raiding party came back with useless crap." An ornery voice barks, slamming your door open.

It's... she hasn't offered her name, and you haven't yet picked up the courage to ask. Mentally, you've just been referring to her as 'Axe', since the item is what immediately draws attention. Along with 'Nara', the two are the only A-class ninja you have at hand.

She's upset with the outcome of the bandit-hunting, clearly. Dragging alongside herself...

A woman. Late twenties, early thirties. Faint smell of blood lingering about her, a tired look in her eyes. She moves with a stiff soreness that she can't quite conceal.

"I am the niece of the Daimyo of Grass's younger son." she says, voice dull as she volunteers the information before you can ask for it.

... Kidnapping and ransom? It doesn't seem like she considers her situation much improved.

"Barely any cash or food, and they think dragging in some noble old maid is going to make up the difference? You told them to come back with something good, right? You better have! And if those idiots thought about it, the fact that this slice of christmas cake was still with the damn bandits should have made it obvious nobody was buying." Axe huffs, obviously pissed. "If it was a boy, maybe that would have been worth the time and effort."

... That's true. Male children can inherit, while females are married off and the parent needs to pay dowries. She has a point there.

What to do about this...?

---

[ ] Try to ransom her back to Grass anyway, yourself.
[ ] Deliver her to one of the other temples. No longer your problem.
[ ] Keep her in a cage or cell until you decide what to do about this.
[ ] .... You can think of something, surely. (??)

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

"So, I don't suppose you have any special skills or talents?" you finally say, after hesitating for a long time.

"I am the niece of the second son of the Daimyo of Grass." She says again, seeming to pick up a little confidence. Not much, though. Thinking about it, you faintly recall that his second son... isn't born of his wife? Though the exact details escape you.

"I am versed in the finer points of etiquette and noble duties. On my own time, I study the histories, enjoy fine art, and both study and compose poetry."

.... That all sounds like the sort of thing that could generally be expected of anyone with noble blood from anywhere, more so if not all their blood is noble... but it also sounds pretty expensive to keep going.

And not the sort of thing that you can calm down irritated and potentially murderous superhumans with as a display of making use of the situation.

You don't think that you could really consider her as even slightly useful for doing the heavy lifting that might come up...

"Could you cook or clean if, hypothetically, your life depended on it?" you ask.

She doesn't seem to know quite how to respond to that one.

.... Well, even if she's never touched a dusting rag or cooking pan, you're pretty sure she can learn along the way if required. It's not that hard.

The thing is just that you can see problems coming either way, whether you keep her around or return her, and you aren't sure how the positives of either option weigh up against them.

---

On this issue:

[ ] Keep her-
-[ ] -as a prisoner for now. You just need more time to figure out how to run with this, rather than making the decision on the spur of the moment.
-[ ] -as temporary menial labor. There's a broom around here somewhere, though it looks like it'll snap if handled too roughly. And she can cook, right? People cook food all the time.
-[ ] -as a prisoner Guest. You don't know noble things, and so if for any reason you should need that sort of information... well, less chance of it here, of course.
[ ] Deliver her-
-[ ] -to a nearby shrine. They can handle getting her back where she needs to be, or she can start a fantastic new life doing whatever it is shrine maidens do.
-[ ] -to a well-traveled trade route somewhere. People are going up and down those all the time, with some margin for error.
-[ ] -to the Grass Palace City. You won't be able to get too close, you think, but you can make sure to invent one of those symbols ninja wear on the metal plates so people know who is responsible.
[ ] This is one hundred percent absolutely not your problem. You asked for the ninja to rob rich bandits, so the ninja can figure out how to deal with this. "So what do we even need this guy for?"
[ ] ??

Setting that aside:

[ ] Rice exports a lot of food. They would barely notice if a caravan's worth of it went missing... you hope. Fuller bellies would definitely settle tempers down somewhat.
[ ] You know what Bear country has? Well, besides bears. A very strong logging industry. Steal a lumber shipment and all you need is workers to build things. Any number of improvements are eventually feasible!
[ ] What you need is money. And Fire country is rich, particularly with all the tourists that come in to play the many casinos and red-light districts. You just need to hit one tax shipment on its way from one of the tourist cities and you should be able to breathe a little easier.
[ ] ??

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

"Well, you'll learn." you conclude. "Unfortunately, as this is still the early and introductory period, I'm afraid we're low on manpower, and I'm informed that cleaning and repair are traditionally jobs to foist off on the young up-and-comers. Even then, it's not taken gracefully."

"You... You would have me work as a cleaning lady?" the noblewoman says, slightly aghast.

"Don't misunderstand." you say. "Noble etiquette, or a respectable grasp of history, those may well be useful in the future. Clearing out the wreckage and making this place presentable is something useful you can do right now."

Her teeth grit slightly, and it's clear that she's never been forced to do peasant work in her entire life.

Still, it's not your problem, and Axe's hand clamping down on her shoulder in an unfriendly way cuts short any thought of objection.

"So that's that, right? Got lots of filth for you to scrub and dust to sweep out, so you'd better hop to it, right?"

In the face of a crystalline moment of clarity, understanding the clear threat to her life if she is to refuse, the noblewoman swallows her pride and nods.

... It's not like you don't understand how she feels about that, given your own situation, but it seems like everything will work out. Saying that, though...

"One more thing." you say, as the noblewoman weakly excuses herself. "You're correct that looting bandit camps hasn't had the results I'd hoped for. I focused on the fact that such brigands target wealth, and disregarded the fact that they still eat and spend money themselves, in ways that often don't result in goods that can be seized. I wanted to avoid stepping on toes too quickly if it was possible, but the way things are going we're going to run out of ration supplies in the near future. Even with the occasional sack of food here and bottle of wine there, it doesn't make up the current needs."

"So, you've got something that'll work, then?" Axe asks, pointedly.

"First. I'm told that shinobi are able to seal large items into small scrolls, for ease of transport. How many of our current forces can do this?" you ask.

"All of them. You don't escape your first village as a genin, no matter what your superiors have done. Not if you want to live long after the defection. And if you haven't learned how to use sealing scrolls by the time you make Chunin level, that's the first thing that gets drummed into your head." Axe answers.

"Good. The baker's dozen have returned from their reconaissance, so I want you to lead them on this mission. The land of Rice exports food caravans all year around, and there's a large surplus of grain. You will select a caravan with no shinobi guards, disguise yourselves as bandits, and take it."

"No ninja? Are you joking? If there's no ninja, then I can take a bunch of traders and a few guards on my own, you know." Axe says, displeased with the instruction.

"Yes, you could. However, even if there are no survivors..." and you cringe a little inside to realize that you may be ordering an unknown number of innocent traders and guards to die with this, but continue on. "... if just one person massacres the whole convoy, then the evidence left behind won't fit with it being overcome by a bandit force. It's necessary to have a number of 'bandits' that all fight at least a little differently."

Axe sighs slowly, disgruntledly exhaling.

"Yeah, yeah. If you say so, 'Leader'." she says, making a half-hearted sort of salute.

"I'll leave it to your discretion whether to target a caravan early into their circuit, full up on food supplies, or to target something later into it and starting to swing back with money and other things. But above all else, keep in mind that this is a stealth operation. There can't be any links to us, and so if your disguise is seen through... you'll have to resolve that problem immediately. Try to avoid shinobi, but if it turns out that there's guards in disguise, then don't give them a chance to realize what's going on."

"There's the spirit!" Axe says, seeming more pleased with the orders.

"Also. Keep in mind your cover as bandits. Even if you could abscond with everything in the wagons and the wagons themselves, ordinary brigands couldn't. So the aftermath will have to be staged. Leave some of the goods in the wagons and fire them. There should still be traces of what they were carrying left behind, but it will be almost impossible to tell how much was taken and how much was maliciously destroyed."

"Gotcha. I'll round up the maggots and head off, then."

....

You have other reasons to put such a comparatively large force into this, too. If they're off elsewhere, then they can't run back here every time they want to eat, and will have to scrounge up meals in the field. That means fourteen fewer mouths to feed from the dwindling ration stockpiles, which in turn extends them for a while no matter how successful the mission is.

For now... you'll just put your faith in the ability of your forces.

---

By the time Axe returns, savage grin crossing her entire face and twisting finely-cut red lines, most of the broken buildings have been torn all the way down as the hazards they are. Some things can be scavenged from the wreckage, but not much. Enough to determine that at least one of them was a kind of monk dormitory and another was a mess hall. You can probably build new ones in those spots, sooner or later.

There's little room on this plateau for much more, so once you have to expand beyond that, you'll need rope bridges to link the cliffs together.

Of the baker's dozen, several seem to have taken small injuries and a couple are being hauled back by the more fit ones. It doesn't take a genius to tell that something went very wrong on this mission, though at the least it seems like they succeeded in meeting the goal. Barrels and barrels of rice are stacked on each other in a pile, along with kegs of wine, and a smaller number of highly decorated but more diminutive barrels. Nine in total.

Nara argues with Axe in the distance, then starts prying the lids off of those. A great deal of steam comes out, as he looks inside and then orders the rest opened.

Then he comes to fetch you.

"Reporting. That meat-head... hasn't completely fucked things up on this one, but we've got problems." he says, shortly.

"Go on?" you ask, allowing yourself to be led down to the courtyard because the other option is to be picked up and physically moved there.

"To start there's the obvious." Nara grunts. "Things went really bad, fast... that meat-head managed to pick a caravan where half the people running it had to be undercover ninja, and so things turned shitty really quickly. In the end, everyone had to go and I'm not convinced the 'bandit' story is going to hold up because of it. There's no proof about who did it, though, so we're in the clear. More importantly, we've got a couple of serious injuries to deal with. As a rogue, you pick up basic field medicine and wound care really quickly, but there's only so far that can go. The injuries a couple of the chunin have taken... they have a little while, but pinning it shut, slapping bandages and salve on, that's not going to cut it. With no medical attention, their odds of pulling through aren't great. If infection sets in, it drops to nearly nothing."

So... you have to put some amount of priority on setting up a medical system if you don't want to just write them off. At least a doctor of some kind.

"Saying that, we've got bigger problems. That being why there were so many undercover ninja in a trading caravan." Nara continues, dragging your attention to one of those small barrels.

You peek in, and at first you think you're looking at a travesty, a small corpse packaged into a container that barely fits, curled up. Then it becomes clear that the figure is still breathing... very slowly and steadily, eyes shut as though asleep.

"What is this... slave trading?" you ask, straightening yourself up again.

"Maybe. I'm not sure. A couple of them visibly look like they have a bloodline, so there's more options than that... could actually be someone's charity effort, smuggling known or suspected bloodline children out of someplace that doesn't appreciate them existing. Mist hasn't had a wide-scale purge lately, but they start up a new round of genocide at the drop of a hat. More likely... there's a lot of reasons to kidnap bloodlines, and not many of them are good. What I can confirm is that these containers are almost made completely out of seals to keep the contents in a quiet state of almost suspended animation."

He shakes his head as boxes of trade goods and small chests of money are piled up neatly as well, all being prepared to be moved inside with the rest of the stores. A quick glance at that plunder shows it to be more than the sum total of village funds at the moment by a large amount. With an influx like that, you should actually be able to hire people to do things here, and maybe finish some new construction.

"I can say this. Whatever the person who arranged this was planning, he's not going to appreciate a slip-up like this at all." Nara says, though he doesn't need to state the obvious at you. "So... you're the Leader. Make a judgement call about this."

---

Gains:

[Noble Maid?]
[Ten Turns worth of food. (Total: 12)]
[Luxury trade goods: 6 units]
[20K Ryo (total: 23600)]

Loss:

[Chunin x2]: Taken heavy injuries, recovery time: UNKNOWN.

-

On the spot decision regarding the unexpected kidnapping?

[ ] ??

-

Actions: 1.

[ ] Construct: simple Barracks. (Cost 15K Ryo, build communal shelter. Morale -, Discipline and Camaraderie +)
[ ] Construct: Mess Hall. (Cost 18K Ryo, requires dedicated cooking staff. Morale +, food used more efficiently.)
[ ] Search: for Medical Specialists. (Mission: select ninja to deploy.)
[ ] Restore: Temple Altar, Shrine, and Offertory Chest.
[ ] Meet: with nearby temple representatives. (Mission: Select personal guard.)
[ ] ??

(I'm also accepting image suggestions for how Leader-ccountant appears. Won't be a vote, but I might like one and pick it!)

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

For all that you're nominally in charge of this, you don't know much about ninja. About as much as you know of the intricacies of actual nobility, Daimyo and their advisors, and the like. But even with your personal knowledge on the matter, you know that Bloodlines are important in both cases, though for different reasons.

So, this is the sort of thing that looks like a huge possible problem, but also an opportunity.

"Who in Rice could be behind this, and why?" you wonder aloud.

Nara straightens up a little, in interest.

"You think that they were going to Rice?" he says, thoughtfully. "It's possible, though I'm not aware of any ninja operations going on in that country... I don't have the benefit of a wide network of watchful eyes to call on these days either, though."

"It seems to stand to reason. The caravan came from Rice to begin with, and at the end of the circuit it's to Rice that they will return." you say.

"That's true. The purpose of a caravan is to stick together for safety in numbers, so they don't typically break apart without good reason and another caravan or two nearby to join up with. But it's not unknown either." Nara says, scratching his beard. "And the seals... aren't my specialty, but it looks like they'd last about long enough for the caravan to get back into the heart of Rice at normal speeds. But that doesn't mean it's their destination. Even if the caravan didn't break apart, that doesn't preclude leaving the cargo in a drop zone for someone else to pick up and move in a different direction, to throw off pursuit."

Nara considers.

"Could be Rice has something going on. Could also be that they were bound for a ninja village... Waterfall, Grass, Rain, any number of smaller outposts... from the big five, the only unlikely culprit is Mist. Rock, Sand, Lightning, or Leaf could all be a possibility." he says, not drawing any conclusions at all.

Axe, standing nearby and peering into a barrel, snorts.

"You figure the tree-huggers as the sort to go whole-hog on kidnapping? These brats don't look particularly 'rescued'." she grunts.

"That's true. Even in a stupor, a simple look over them says there are traces of long-term malnutrition for most of them, at least one case of what could be either prior substance abuse or chemical assistance to drop a target, and a few that show traces of injuries consistent with being captured by force and a struggle." Nara concludes. "That suggests that these were destitute orphans of one kind or another, and that while some of them might have been given a recruitment pitch it's probable that the majority were simply acquired, through one means or another. Not gently, which would have been a problem if there was anyone who cared enough to object... it's not the sort of tactic you take if you're looking for loyalty, or even plan to keep them around long, so my guess is that while some of them might have a different end destination, the majority are just lab rats for medical experimentation. Still doesn't really rule anyone out."

Axe arches an eyebrow.

"Gee. And here's my opinion of soft, huggable leaf ninja just cracked all to pieces." she says, sarcastically.

"It's a business practice. Go figure... sometimes the client gets unsettled. Saying that, you'd be astonished how healthy and full of life a tree can seem, even with the roots rotted clear through."

"Well, you'd be the one to know about that." Axe shrugs.

You feel a little uneasy with the discussion. Raw materials for experiments... doesn't quite mesh with the idea you'd had of ninja gaining power through some sort of grueling physical and mystical training regimen. Either way, it seems like you've made dangerous enemies, if they find out about this. It might be best for you to just... get rid of the evidence and forget it ever happened. Whether that means just dumping them all in a temple somewhere to grow up into acolytes or burying them in a hole.

But at the same time...

"Ninja typically mentor apprentices, isn't that right?" you ask, uncertain of the particulars.

"Sometimes. One to one gives the most individual tuition, but while that suffers in a larger group the standardized model these days is three students to one instructor." Nara explains. "It's made up for by the students co-operating with each other, and in ideal circumstances it works out slightly better than a solo apprenticeship. It should be obvious that situations are seldom ideal. Two to one tends not to work well, since one is typically left stewing alone while the other gets personalized instruction, and four to one stretches the instructor to the point that they usually can't juggle them all. Of course, established villages usually have a preparatory academy, too."

You shake your head.

"Right now, start with picking one to wake up and give a trial mentoring." you decide. "Or apprenticeship. Integrate somehow. The rest should keep for a little while, and it'll be easier to make arrangements if they aren't all introduced at once."

"Hm..."

Nara scratches his head, thinking.

"Yeah. If it's one at a time, I should be able to make sure there's not too much trouble on either end. Keep the cargo from a mass panic about being collected and intercepted, and time to be sure of the mentors too."

It takes you a moment to follow that train of thought, but it's almost traditional for a master to take advantage of the apprentice. Traditional or cliche, one or the other. On the other hand, this group probably didn't know what they weren't signing up for at all... but they're orphans snatched off the street, so it's probably not a huge surprise, either.

In the end, missing ninja are criminals, so you suppose it'll take some thought.

"There's no point if the mentor doesn't teach anything, after all. And you also have to consider who's going to just use them as convenient meat shields or suicidal distractions." Nara says, pausing and then deliberately not touching on the concerns you're already thinking of. "I'd rather not bother with it myself, but I guess I could take one and pass along some tips along with the work I don't feel like doing personally."

"Are you kidding? If that's the case, I want one too." Axe says obstinately, hackles rising, talking about the situation as if it's a child's dispute over toys. "If you think I'm just going to sit back and watch while you get a personal slave to handle the shitty bits while you polish up on the fun ones and I'm left without, you've got another thing coming!"

"... And if that's the case, then it's going to have to go to someone else first. Too much of a pain to deal with you if you're going to feel slighted over something like this. I'll figure something out for now. It's questionable how many of these were intended to actually become Genin anyway. If any."

"For the time being, I'll leave it to you, then. Make the best arrangement you can think of." you say, passing the buck as Nara gives you a thoughtful eye. "With that said, we need something resembling medical personell. Pick a few chuunin in good condition and have them search out options, then report back. I'll make a decision based on the data that comes back."

"Understood, Leader." Nara says, looking over the barrels. "Better start with the one showing chemical symptoms. If she is an addict, it'll give a little more time to finish withdrawals and recover. Feeding an addiction is going to be a problem in an area like this, so it's better to get the problem out of the way somehow or another instead."

---

"Poison Petals." Nara says, a few days later in your office.

"Wonderful." you say, attempting to pass along without saying it outright how little the words mean to you. "Why is she in my office?"

A little bit of drool hangs out of the dazed-looking young woman's mouth. Almost instantly, Nara has a small bottle pressed against her jaw, catching the spill until she takes hold of it herself.

"Bloodline. Nearly extinct, but good for assassinations. The natural fluids... sweat, tears, blood, so on, of a carrier include various possible toxins and chemicals. You've probably heard stories of killing with a kiss, and members of this bloodline could do that without preparing for it in advance. Well... could. The clan itself has been dead and survivors scattered since about sixty years ago." Nara explains.

"I see. And the reason she's in my office?" you ask, pointedly, as the girl keeps drooling into the bottle, eyes gaining a little more focus as it fills.

"Unfortunately, this one isn't suitable for training. Without another carrier to teach the basics of the bloodline and maintain discipline, or at least a highly qualified and talented medic-nin to try to make up for the lack, there are problems. I wasn't wrong when I guessed she was addicted, but some of the basic assumptions were off. It wasn't a choice that she could have made, and she can't be separated from the drugs that she naturally produces to get sober, either. It's just bad luck, but that compromises the focus, judgement, and basic capabilities that are required for almost everything beyond the barest basics of ninjutsu and genjutsu. Even taijutsu requires a certain discipline and understanding of your own body that can't really be managed while you're under influences like that, and sealing arts are right out. The only option is to focus on somehow training the bloodline itself, but without a more advanced member to handle the instruction the odds are against it actually going anywhere. Pure luck at best, and so having an ordinary ninja trying to pass anything along is a waste of time and effort. I'm one hundred percent certain that this one was going to end up on an operating table, with all of that considered."

"I see. And the reason she's in my office?" you repeat yourself, as the girl lifts the bottle and knocks back mouthfuls of her own saliva.

She lets out a long sigh, pupils twitching a little, and blinks.

"Did you want some?" she asks, having clearly ignored the conversation as she lifts the bottle up in your direction. You wave it away.

"You wanted to integrate them." Nara shrugs. "This one's useless for ninja training as far as I can determine, shouldn't be anywhere near food other people will eat, and even if we had a doctor already I'm not certain on how far she could be trusted to not help herself to the medicine cabinets, so... good luck with your new aide. It also looks good to have a visible bloodline carrier in your staff presence even if she's incompetent, because spies can never be completely sure."

"Ah." you say, flatly and not particularly sure why you're planning around spies getting into your village already. You can appreciate the passive-aggressiveness at its finest, but it's annoying when it's pointed at you. "And you think that's going to work out better handling official forms and documents?"

"Not many of those, yet." Nara points out. "Though admittedly, level of schooling is questionable. Light interrogation suggests she was settling into work as a low-quality geisha before being grabbed, so she's not completely uneducated, the question is just what she was taught and for how long. Normally I could give at least a reasonable estimate between that and apparent age, but the bloodline interferes with that... it's on record that the chemical slurry that keeps shifting in the bodies of the carriers can result in aging being either delayed and slowed or rapidly advanced. So in this case, she looks about fourteen with some uncertainty in either direction, but her actual age could be anywhere between eight and her late twenties to early thirties. Tricky to tell, with her brain pickling itself a little and drinking that doesn't help."

"Hmmn?" she says, blinking slightly as Nara gets her attention. He doesn't bother attempting to take the bottle away though, passing the buck right back to you.

"... If I was a betting man, though, I'd say older than she looks. There might be some interest in recreating the bloodline, but considering her condition, employment, and the future problems that training a new generation of bloodline carriers would bring in this case, smart money is on vivisection to determine what chemicals are floating around in her for longevity experiments." Nara concludes.

You start to speak, and are interrupted by hot, slightly damp breath against your neck as the girl slowly inhales through her nose.

"You smell like old paper and soap." she decides aloud, before leaving your personal space to wobble over to a desk at the side of the room, where she drops down on top of assorted books and scrolls and goes right to sleep.

"Moving right along." Nara says, waving slips of paper before you can get your words back in order. "We've got reports back from the chunin we've set out. Not much. Most civilians who get sick or need surgery have to half-ass it themselves and hope they hold out long enough to get to a bigger city or hire someone to come to them. The latter might be a viable solution, except that every ninja currently here has a bounty on their head, and funds are limited, and as such it'll be a problem to convince a ninja in good standing to overlook that. So, there are two options."

He raises a finger.

"First off, there's a retired surgeon living in a small town. He won't come out of retirement willingly though, and he objects enough to emergency clients hammering on his door. He'll still care for them though, so it's not impossible. Can't use chakra, but his surgical and traditional medical techniques are top-notch... difficult to scale him on a ninja system because of that. We'll have to forcibly relocate him, and it's likely that it won't be long before he's noticed missing. That could lead to hired ninja trying to sniff us out."

He raises another finger.

"On the other hand, one of the scouts noticed a C-rank missing medic-ninja near enough to make an approach. Not the best around, but the villages don't let the best go rogue. Unless you're Tsunade herself, then you get labeled as 'on sabbatical' instead of 'Deserted'. From what I remember of the bingo books... host of personality issues, tended to practice neutralizing poison by seasoning other people's food, too fond of corpses for anyone's comfort, but the village was able to overlook that until a high profile client died under her treatment. The accusation was that she'd let him die deliberately, but there's no way to say for sure."

---

[ ] ??

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

There's benefits and drawbacks to both sides of it. The biggest advantage for the surgeon is that in theory anyone can be taught to cut and stitch flesh, assuming they have a steady set of hands and can remember what twitching red bit is which and how they are supposed to look. As far as you can guess, medical ninja have to know and be able to do all that and be good with the ninja magic they use.

You assume they need to know how the organs they work with fit together, anyway. It stands to reason, at least.

So.... in theory, shouldn't the medical ninja be able to teach ordinary surgery too? You think, anyway. You might be wrong about that, but it sounds right, anyway.

When it comes down to it, you just feel better about collecting one more rogue ninja than you do about putting an old man in your position, stolen from the world and... not quite forced to work with a bared knife at your throat, but with the understanding of trouble to come if you don't play your role well.

Just an ordinary tax-collecting accountant, and not even a high level official one, can be easily replaced with any other. That was true even before all of this happened, and the only job requirements were basic math, enough people skills to keep a big hulking mass of visible muscle or two in line, and the understanding that if things didn't add up somewhere along the line you'd be sitting in a cell until someone else figured everything out.

"Pick up the medical ninja." you decide, in order to move your thoughts away from that.

There are drawbacks from her, but hopefully the benefits outweigh them, and the only people who might come looking for her are people who are already looking for her and hopefully won't be able to track where she's gone as long as she stays in a central location with minimal risk of wider exposure and doesn't leave it.

"In theory, that's one more potential instructor, as long as her interests aren't a problem. They're more focused around corpses than anything else, if the rumors are accurate, though. Comes down to it, we still don't know how many of them were meant for training in the first place, of course."

Nara shrugs and makes a few barked orders, and within minutes two of the B-ranked Jounin are off.

"Chuunin won't be enough?" you ask, thoughtfully.

"They might be." Nara admits. "If she plays along and just comes at the invitation, it'd be plenty. If she fights, though... she's only C-ranked herself, and that's mostly because of her healing jutsu, but being able to heal yourself as you fight makes things... tricky. Even if she's still only genin-level in other combat abilities, being able to heal her wounds on the fly means she's probably a match for two other chuunin. On the other hand, if she's confronted by an A-rank ninja then she'll immediately go on the defensive and attempt to retreat and escape the situation no matter what she's told. In that case talking is pointless and it's a forcible extraction, and that'll leave traces that hunter-ninja in the area can follow up on. It's balancing the option of letting her accept the polite invitation, while having enough power to wrap things up quickly even if she doesn't like the idea. It's really in her best interests, but you never know... we rogue ninja are a suspicious lot."

You think on that for a moment.

"It sounds plausible... but how much of it is also that you don't want to do it yourself or try to order her to do it instead?" you ask.

"Ah. That's a secret." Nara says, without the slightest hint of apology in his tone, before taking the lead of that 'Poison Petals' bloodline carrier and wandering off to find someplace to quietly nap.

Thinking about her... what are you going to do about her? Frankly speaking, she doesn't seem particularly useful in an ordinary sense, but it would probably be a bad idea to go any of the other directions that come to mind. It doesn't seem like she's able to guarantee what kind of drug comes out, and using anything like that is most likely a bad idea to begin with in this situation even if you know what it is. Best bet is probably...

.... You'll ignore her for now, and send her to do something that doesn't hurt anything if she makes a mistake, later, and try to get a handle on what exactly she's capable of.

--

In the end, it seems like the medical ninja comes willingly, or at least she isn't too roughed up to make a preliminary diagnosis when she arrives, while you're sleeping. That news comes the moment you wake in the morning, along with an official message.

It looks like your presence here hasn't gone unnoticed, and one of the head priests of the nearby shrines has been directed to feel you out. No hints that the holy men are considering forcing you out... yet. You'll have to see how that holds up when they realize that you plan to stick around, but for now they only seem interested in arranging a talk sometime soon.

You might be able to put that off for a while... you're not sure how long, though. It doesn't seem like a tense 'if you don't respond now, the next message is going to be tied to an arrow aimed at your heart' sort of letter, anyway.

First, though, you need to check up on the medical ninja...

On 'Kekkon'. Possibly the most ominous name you've heard yet.

... The face doesn't live up to the name, really.

"Oh my. You're the leader of this group?" she asks, cracking one eye further open to look at you, a faint smell from the makeshift operating room, wooden tables with straps in an ordinary and otherwise empty room, wafting out and lingering in her clothes and hair. Of blood and worse.

"I won't dance around the issue. How do things look?" you ask pointedly.

"Ah, right to business. Well then. In one case, recovery is simple. The wounds are deep, and they come dangerously close to being lethal in some cases, but I like to think I have something of a small talent for poison. Already on the road to recovery, though I'll have to perform a full treatment with some bed rest after. At this stage, however, that full treatment can be postponed indefinitely at only the cost of extended convalescence." she says, conversationally. "The trouble is the other, who needs attention first."

She pauses, considering her words before continuing.

"Unfortunately, he wasn't so lucky as to get off with near misses, and his opponent was using a different weapon. It didn't take long to determine that his intestines had been punctured in multiple locations, and nearly completely severed at one point. The smell should have been a clue for that."

"I see. And what does this mean for his odds of survival?" you ask.

"Well, that's tricky... right now I have to resort to cruder measures than I'd like, and I have him opened up a little further, pinned apart, and with all the dangerous segments of intestine set to let anything that passes fall out into a disposal bin. Unfortunately, a little bit of infection has already set in, though it doesn't seem to be spreading fast. The biggest concern is my own limitations, and so I'll have to treat him in three stages."

She holds up fingers to count them off.

"First, I need to heal the intestine itself and clean him out... not precisely in that order. I'll need to recover from that stage of the operation, so another two to three days after that I'll go back through and try to deal with the infection present, and however much it has spread in the time being. That's always a little tricky... after that I'll need to recover for a while again before making a final examination to be sure that everything has gone well. If it hasn't, then I'll need to try to heal the infection again and make another inspection later on, and again until there are no lingering traces. Once everything is confirmed in good condition I can completely heal the tissue and skin damage and he'll only need a week or so to recover from the trauma, assuming he's still alive." Kekkon explains.

"And what are his odds?" you ask.

"Well... septic infection isn't particularly advanced, and he hasn't died of his wounds yet. On the other hand, he's lost a lot of blood and the facilities aren't anywhere near what I'd like, so I have to make up for it with more chakra-intensive techniques and treatment... have to manually stimulate blood recovery, sterilization, any number of little things... I'd estimate seventy to seventy five percent chance of survival, and that treatment will eventually be fully effective, with around a fifty percent chance that everything properly takes on the first try."

She pauses, contemplatively.

"Of course, the treatment itself will be traumatic. Probably not as much as open surgery with knives, but on the other hand I don't keep anaesthetic on hand either. There's a small but very real chance that he might subconsciously give up on survival, in which case it'll be much harder. If the subject doesn't want to survive what they're going through, then the full burden is on the doctor." she admits.

You sigh.

---

Gain:

[Kekkon: C-rank medical ninja], medical diagnoses and treatments can now be performed and plans for proper medical facilities drawn up.

Used:

[Food: 1 turn. (Total 11 remaining.)]

-

[ ] How should you respond to Kekkon's diagnosis?

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Actions: 1.

[ ] Construct: simple Barracks. (Cost 15K Ryo, build communal shelter. Morale -, Discipline and Camaraderie +)
[ ] Construct: Mess Hall. (Cost 18K Ryo, requires dedicated cooking staff. Morale +, food used more efficiently.)
[ ] Design: Basic medical building plans.
[ ] Restore: Temple Altar, Shrine, and Offertory Chest.
[ ] Meet: with nearby temple representatives. (Mission: Select personal guard for travel.)
[ ] Invite: nearby temple representatives to meet with you. (See above, but they come here, more details may be wise.)
[ ] Awaken: Seal-slumbering captives. (Choose to extract 1-8 from containers).
[ ] Mingle: with your ninja. (???)
[ ] ??

(There have still been no suggestions for leaderportraiture...)

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

"I'll look into medical facilities later, but it's not on the top of my list. Do what you can, it'd be a shame to lose people this soon." is what you finally decide to say.

As a medic first and foremost, Kekkon is naturally less dangerous... and also more than other ninja, you guess. Less likely to wind up getting your head cut off if you cross her, more likely to wake up mysteriously infected with something terminal, you'd guess.

"I'd rather have proper medical equipment to pick up the slack, but I suppose I'm already working with spare senbon instead of medical pins and I can ask around after strong spirits..."

To be perfectly honest, you've never made much of a study of medicine or treating injuries beyond the basics. You know how to bind a wound, the theory of stitching it together, how to take care of ordinary colds, and beyond that how to say 'go talk to a doctor, already'. This whole conversation is already outside of your scope and faintly disgusting.

It's probably for the best that you have a good poker face.

For now, you have a few more things to do. You need to make a polite reply to the message that carefully keeps the thoughtful priests and monks at a distance while not insulting them or implying... any number of things.

You rub your temples as you make your way back to your main office. If you just ignore the letter, then they probably can't be sure you got it in the first place, but if they find out you're ignoring them then that brings problems of its own. Will just saying 'come back later' do? Maybe... but if you don't give a reason, then that's a pretty clear snub, isn't it? You need to have an excuse, you decide. With that in mind, you start thinking, looking for something that would serve as a reasonable excuse.

If you're lucky then you can just excuse yourself with reconstruction... you hope. You've never been the sort of person that gets pulled for writing the important correspondence... and you've had to feign complete illiteracy in the past to get trusted just to carry messages without reading them. But construction seems like a reasonable way to delay this. You do have repair work that needs doing, and you should be here to oversee it, and it would be rude to make them come here and bring their own food and sleep in the courtyard outside.

It seems like that'll work, and you take a moment to write the response.

In the meantime...

In the meantime, you're sick of cooking your own food, and tempted to test the limits of what the ninja will really let you get away with. You have the funds to have a mess hall. It would be cheaper if you had a stockpile of building materials, since without that you're going to have to pay for both the lumber costs and an architectural design, but at least you don't need to bring a labor crew in.

--

Time passes, and Kekkon proves her value as your two injured rogues return to partial service. It seems like they, at least, are more fully behind the idea of this place now, with a reminder of what they left behind in a hidden village and none of the reasons they left presenting themselves.

As rogues, solo, surviving their injuries would have been unlikely at best, a matter of crawling off the battlefield and managing to hold themselves together long enough to find someone both able and willing to patch them together through sheer luck. Some basic first aid is almost obligatory to learn as a surviving rogue ninja, but in the state they were in it wouldn't have been nearly enough.

It's one of the harsher kinds of reminders about the benefits of a support network and infrastructure to fall back on. You don't always have to die when someone kills you.

Outside, Axe lets loose a piercing battlecry and swings, splitting a tree trunk in half with a single blow. A few more render the raw materials into something that can be properly used as less notable ninja move them into place, the framework of the mess hall coming into form.

That reminds you of your other current issue, and you sardonically leaf once more through a test report based on the construction going on. It turns out that the poison-petals girl can read and write perfectly well, but...

Well, the first page is all right.

The second drifts into a story about beavers deciding to build a wooden castle instead of a dam, as the old adage 'out of sight and out of mind' is proven true. It seems like she completely forgot what she was doing after turning over one of the sheets of paper on the provided clipboard.

The third page has a few spots of what you suspect might be drool on it, and simply repeats the words 'stir fry' over and over, with a single dissenting 'barbecue beef' in the middle of the pack.

The fourth and final page of the report is completely taken up by an artistically rendered human penis with butterfly wings floating around a colorfully blooming vagina bush.

On the plus side, it seems like she's perfectly competent at ordinary menial labor as long as someone reminds her what she's supposed to be doing, and she's too consistently high on whatever her own body is doing today to really object or care about getting messy. Though in contrast this also means that she doesn't have a problem with just taking her clothes off when they get dirty and continuing on, or following through with the preventative measure of removing them in advance.

You really want to dislike that girl, but it's a little hard when she seems to be hallucinating you as a giant teddy bear half the time. You'll refrain from going into detail about what the other half consists of.

... You're interrupted from your thoughts by a commotion outside, and it only takes a moment to confirm that ninja are slipping away from the construction site, moving...

You stand up, walk out of the office, and then sprint the rest of the way outside to where you slow down again to an appropriate walking speed.

Your ninja are guardedly watching the approach of a group of monks, headed by a single shrine priestess. She comes to a stop at a respectable distance, close enough to speak but not close enough to make a single tackling leap at anyone... you hope.

Her eyes are cool, and somehow judging you in a way you can't quite name. But you don't like it. You feel... small, in a way you haven't felt since you were a child. It's not the same thing as the threatening and dangerous presence of a powerful ninja, though.

Kekkon isn't represented here, but it looks like most of the rest of the rogue ninja are. Even Nara and Axe are present. They're waiting for you to speak.

"Well." you say, after a long, visibly tense moment. "I'm afraid that we are unprepared to properly welcome you."

"It is of no consequence." the woman replies shortly. "Rather, it is due to our haste that such matters will be overlooked."

The ninja shift, clearly trying to determine if there's about to be a fight. In response a few of the monks shift their weight, but most remain in something close to their leader's state of peaceful stillness.

"Ah. I did think that I had mentioned the current state of the shrine in my correspondence..." you say, slowly.

"And it is for that reason which we are here. General repair and construction is of no concern. However."

She sweeps one arm deliberately.

"That which is consecrated. The torii gate of this place, marking the entrance to what is holy ground. The offertory chest, which accepts the faith of pilgrims and pretenders alike. The sacred altars. These are not matters for profane hands to tamper with." She lists, uncaring of the small offense in her words. "This shrine was erected to pay reverence to a god of life, motherhood, and safe childbirth. To allow such matters to fall into the hands of the profane and irreverent... it will not be tolerated, and such mockery of the divine as allowing those who kill for money to desecrate the shrine in such a way, even with the best of intentions, will raise the curses of vengeful spirits."

You patiently wait for the priestess to demand holy tithes so you can tell her exactly where to shove them, but she comes to a stop there, waiting.

... Unexpectedly, her words seem to have more of an effect than you expect on the ninja. Nara seems to share your disbelief, tempered with a touch of cautious concern, as do some number of the chuunin. Oddly the Jounin seem warier and tense...

And for the first time you can recall, if only for a moment, Axe's face is ashen in silent dread.

You scratch behind an ear, thinking about this one. It sounds an awful lot like she's suggesting you just step out of the way and let her either fix or rip out those holy bits without interference.

---

[-18K Ryo, remaining: 5600]
[Mess construction underway]

[ ] ??

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

"Hmm..." you say to yourself. "... Then, I'll have to have our housekeeper prepare tea."

"I hope you don't mind that it's seasoned with the hearts-blood of our fallen foes." Nara continues seamlessly, sarcasm almost concealed.

"Shut up, you smug sack of fuck." Axe hisses under her breath, as the head Priestess nods.

"Your hospitality is acceptable, but it must be postponed until our duties are completed." the priestess says, without warmth in her words. Then she moves her arm sharply, setting off a jingle of bells, and the gathered attendants move to begin chanting in chorus while quickly dismantling the torii gates.

In turn, you send people to make sure tea is prepared, and withdraw.

"Nara... keep an eye on this. Don't interfere, but if something's going to explode or seal us into a rock for the next hundred years, I want to know about it before it goes off." you say, still a little uncomfortable ordering around people that could kill you with one finger while half asleep.

"Sensible enough." Nara agrees.

"Gods, you idiots are going to offend the priests and we're all going to wake up with demons sucking on our guts." Axe moans.

You shift in place, slightly unsettled by the mental images. Nara doesn't, and visibly scoffs.

"Any half-trained Chunin can come up with a Genjutsu like that, to explain sudden pain of injury." he grouses.

"How the hell are you so smart and so dumb all at once, you sanctimonious shit?" Axe groans. "Fuck, that's right, you were Leaf. Fucking leaf."

Nara arches an eyebrow.

"Probably never had to fight a demon yourself. God damn leaf. If it's not Senju sealing them in trees without breaking stride, it's the fucking Uchiha hunting them down for ritual meals. No smart demon sticks around in Fire country even with both those clans the way they are these days, and everyone else gets to just suck it up and deal."

"It's been a while since I was in Fire, and I still haven't seen anything like that." Nara argues rationally. "And the most you hear about it from villagers is superstitious gossip. The cow who you haven't been feeding as much isn't giving as much milk because a monster is drinking it in the night. The crops were bad this year because of a drought, it must be a curse. That kid knows too much, it's a witch, smother it in its sleep."

He shrugs.

"Baseless superstition." He concludes.

"Do you think there's no reason that the shrine tenders are the sealing masters? One of these days you're going to get your guts eaten." Axe warns, knuckles whitening.

"Possible. There's all manner of strange bloodlines and crazy people with power out there." Nara allows, without actually agreeing that monsters in the dark might be a thing to worry about. "For now, I'd rather focus on immediate concerns. Dealing with the monks and handling those kids."

He shakes his head and strolls off, leaving you briefly alone with Axe, who seems just about ready to split something in half from frustration before she stalks off in a different direction.

All in all, you're not completely unruffled when the time comes for tea. The head priestess seats herself elegantly across from you, for all the world as though she were just here on a diplomatic visit.

The tea is simple farmer's fare. Drinkable, but in an important meeting like this would normally be, roughly the same comparative quality as a steaming cup of fresh horse piss. It's the best you have to offer at the moment, however, so it's probably lucky that she's already overlooking some amount of decorum. If you'd scheduled a meeting, then you could have sent someone off for the requisite supplies, but that can't be helped now...

---

[ ] ??

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

You've never seen a spook yourself, but to be fair, if you had then it would likely be the last thing that you would ever see.

While Nara is unconvinced, Axe counterbalances him along with literally almost every other ninja here, so you think you're going to be leaving the priestess to do whatever she wants.

What she wants, apparently, is to just remove things. Not valuable things. Religious things. Icons and shrine decorations. It leaves the place even more barren than before, somehow.

"This land remains sacred ground. But not sacred to any specific deity." she claims, as the torii gates out front are refurbished. "The shrine grounds sleep and wait, until a new speaker claims them in the name of a new god."

"And that would happen by...?" you say, leadingly.

She smiles, and takes your question entirely differently than you had intended.

"I do not think it likely to happen." she says. "We will be leaving this offertory chest. It is raw and unsanctified. For appearances alone. After all, I think it to be unlikely that you would be over fond of pilgrims making their way to this secret retreat to seek blessings and benedictions."

"But if, for the sake of argument, I was interested in a... new speaker for the gods, as you said?" you ask.

The head priestess looks extremely nonplussed and caught off guard for a moment.

"... The greatest difficulty in that would arise in that it could not be for the sake of a god which objected to blood for coin." she eventually says. "Not so limited a selection as one might think, even leaving aside such aberrations as the Jashin cult. There then would be the problem of the priests and shrine tenders involved having their own opinions on the matter. Nevertheless... this is not a matter to be considered lightly, and at this time I am only come to ensure that sacred ground is not tainted or corrupted."

Then it's something that will have to wait for you to go out and do official meet-and-greets with other shrines, you suppose.

In any case, it isn't terribly long before the procession finishes their work and leaves as ceremoniously as they first came. Nara's had them watched the whole time, but reports that nothing unusual occurred.

The whole visit really was what it had seemed to be on the face of things, huh?

It's a couple of days after that, as the construction of the Mess Hall winds down, that Nara steps into your cluttered and dusty office.

"Small problem starting to show up, 'Boss'." he says, scratching his beard. "Those containers... the seals on them weren't designed to last indefinitely, so they're starting to degrade. Either they had something else planned for the end destination, or someone would have been able to touch up those seals."

"Well, what's the problem?" you ask.

"We don't have anyone that can do that. Sealing's kind of an esoteric art, once you get beyond storage and explosive tags." Nara says.

"No, not that. I mean... what happens if they fail?" you ask.

"Well, the barrels stop working, but that's about it." Nara says.

That doesn't sound so bad...

"Not a huge problem on the face of it. But unless you've got a plan to deal with eight brats all waking up at once...?" Nara continues.

... That gives you a little more pause. At the very least, that's eight more hungry mouths to feed. The Mess Hall should double how long your stores of food that haven't already been eaten will last, but increasing the number of people eating will cut that down again proportionately... maybe more than that, depending on growth spurts and if there are any big eaters in the lot.

"At this point, I'd suggest instructing myself and Axe to pick an apprentice. At the same time, so that she doesn't get up in arms or cocky about preference given. But that just opens two of the boxes up, and doesn't do anything about the remaining half dozen. As the leader, you're going to have to make a decision about that."

You groan quietly.

"As well as standard activities, of course." Nara says. "Though I think that you've started getting a handle on that."

"Yes, thank you..." you sigh, as the poison-petals girl flops agains you from behind.

"Cuddle meeeee..." she whines, as you try to pry her off without accidentally touching her drool. It doesn't always do things on skin-contact, but the time it did was... an experience.

---

[One turn of food used, 10 remaining]
[Mess Hall completed, food storage and preparation centralized. Turns of food doubled to 20. Morale increased one stage, to 'Average'. Mess Hall may be improved or better staffed.]

Suggest a long-term plan for the kids in barrels?

[ ] ??

Personal Actions: 1

[ ] Design: Basic medical building plans.
[ ] Meet: with nearby temple representatives. (Also select personal guard for travel.)
[ ] Invite: nearby temple representatives to meet with you. (See above, but they come here, more details may be wise.)
[ ] Awaken: Seal-slumbering captives. (Choose to extract 1-8 from containers).
[ ] Mingle: with who? (Write-in)
[ ] ??

Ninja Mission Assignments: 1

[ ] Construct: simple Barracks. (Cost 15K Ryo, build communal shelter. Morale -, Discipline and Camaraderie +) Insufficient Funds
[ ] Raid something?
[ ] ??

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

"Okay. For now... for now we'll start with the apprenticeship idea. You and her both, pick one from the group." you say, while attempting to pry the girl off of you.

"That still doesn't resolve anything for the other six...." Nara says, and trails off as he watches you struggle against the Poison Petals girl's tight grip.

You really ought to try to figure out a coherent name that she responds to consistently.

"... That said, I guess I can't expect you to be able to pull a genius plan right out of your pants." he finishes, seeming a little disgruntled about it. "There's enough we can do without shutting the barrels completely down to kind of figure out more or less what the bloodlines involved are. For most of them, anyway. I'll bring Axe the good news."

"Great." you say, wobbling in place a little with Petals latched onto you like a living back-pack with a grip you can't break.

And asleep. You cannot pry her off of you and she's just sleeping. Wonderful. At this point the only thing you can do is bear it with all the dignity you can muster and hope that whatever she's drooling down the back of your neck and shoulder isn't going to do anything by skin contact.

You can't sit down anywhere to do paperwork with this going on, so you might as well go around and set marching orders going. Thankfully, the ninja make no comment on your situation as you arrange for a squad of Chuunin to head off for Bear, to steal lumber from their logging camps. An extra couple are tagging along, both as back-up if the situation turns bad enough to call for it, and to gather information on things that are going on in the world today. Being in the land of shrines, you don't really get a lot of visitors with news and gossip.

Kekkon is much less helpful when you approach her about Poison Petals.

"There is literally nothing I can do under these conditions." she says, flatly. "I'm not a skilled enough medic-nin to just ignore all of the standard medical facilities and tools and just do everything raw, with variations of the mystical palm jutsu. You'd have to be Tsunade herself... or at least be directly trained by her. The only thing I can do is identify whatever she's oozing today, given a sample and some time with nothing else important to do, and cure accidental poisonings. And that is entirely due to my specialty with poison."

"So, there's nothing you can do about...?" you say, gesturing behind yourself to the slumbering girl with the death-grip on your torso.

Kekkon gives you a very flat and unimpressed look.

"In my professional medical opinion? Deal with it, sir."

You feel like the position as leader of this ragtag batch of ninja should earn you more respect, but you suppose you're leader in name only.

---

[Nara and Axe are selecting apprentices.
Ninja Activities are Underway]

[ ] Personal actions

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

You have little choice in the matter, so...

So you just deal with it. It strains your self control to the very limits to have a young and attractive enough girl crawling and drooling all over you, but it helps that you strongly suspect that if you did anything, you'd die.

Not that the ninja would kill you over it. You're pretty sure that none of them would really care, particularly with the choice of apprentices Nara and Axe are making, and how they're dressing them, but considering that you wake up in Kekkon's care twice over the next week just from her drooling on you?

It gives you a solid idea of what would happen if you tried to do anything fun. And it gives you plenty of chances to discuss how to build a better infirmary with the woman.

Nara picks a young girl to train, and if he knows or suspects what her bloodline is going to turn out to involve, he's not spilling. He does seem to keep things professional, wherever people can see at least, but it doesn't take much to tell that the girl isn't in the habit of underthings.

The selection Axe makes is also pretty...

Like her choice of weapon, Axe has no subtlety whatsoever. If she isn't already training the boy she pulled out of the barrels as much in how to please her as she is teaching him ninja skills and how to fight, it's only a matter of time. The casual handling and touches are... it's pretty obvious.

After just a couple of days, the boy is following her around like a puppy looking for another rub behind the ears. Or something.

... After a little longer, your squad of ninja get back with tons of high-quality building lumber. The operation went off without a hitch. With that said, the spies that tagged along come back with nothing aside from the fact that after a big theft like this, Bear is going to be on raised alert for a little while, and operations in that country are going to be a bit more difficult.

Yeah. You might have guessed at that, on your own.

---

[Collected sufficient lumber to reduce building costs by 10,000 Ryo.
Bear Country on guard, defenses raised.]

Personal Actions: 1

[ ] Meet: with nearby temple representatives. (Also select personal guard for travel.)
[ ] Invite: nearby temple representatives to meet with you. (See above, but they come here, more details may be wise.)
[ ] Awaken: Seal-slumbering captives. (Choose to extract 1-6 from containers).
[ ] Mingle: with who? (Write-in)
[ ] ??

Ninja Mission Assignments: 1

[ ] Construct: simple Barracks. (Cost 15K Ryo, build communal shelter. Morale -, Discipline and Camaraderie +) [Reduced Ryo costs to 5K if using lumber]
[ ] Construct: basic Infirmary. Not much, but the doctor can see more than one person at a time, and there's space for multiple patients to sleep under observation. (Cost 14K Ryo, build Basic infirmary. Morale + and reduces odds of losing ninja due to injuries from missions gone wrong.) [Reduced costs to 4K if using lumber]
[ ] Refurbish and rework the shrine overall. (Uses Lumber stores, makes outpost Secure and increases Local Opinion)
[ ] Raid something?
[ ] ??