Day 5, Late Morning, Who was on weather watch today?

[Akodo Jishaku]

"Good, good." The Lion absently comments as he starts to read through the book.

[Rixy]

For a Lion, particularly one who, as Jishaku had, trained in the matter of naval warfare, the work would be both a wonder and a trial. It became swiftly apparent that the people of the Ivory Kingdoms, despite being gaijin and thus less than the people of Rokugan, were leaps and bounds ahead of their Northern counterparts when it came to ships. The sengokobune, the only Rokugani ship capable of sea crossings, was a relatively modern innovation, less than a century old.

If this book was to be believed, the people of the Kingdoms had learned to cross the seas nearly half a millenia ago and had been learning ways to fight upon it ever since. This meant that they were, despite having never had the glorious leadership of Akodo One-Eye, better naval combatants. Their tactics were superior, their ships were superior, and, by some of the diagrams, their weapons might just be superior too.

[Akodo Jishaku]

Jishaku had to remember to breathe from time to time as he read through the incredible book. Had any been watching him they might have noticed that his eyebrows would occasionally rise upwards and remain there as he read and re-read some insightful commentary on the nature of naval warfare. He would never admit it, but some of this information was even greater than that of the book written by Lord Otemi that he had brought with him from Rokugan.

The Lion made up his mind to ask if it was possible to borrow this book for further study, he was going to need longer than a few hours to take this all in. In the meantime he decided to switch his focus over to the flags that had attracted him to this book in the first place.

[Rixy]

Page after page of flags, faithfully rendered, filled the book. Under each was the name of the captain or company to which it belonged, occasionally the name of the ship, and other sundry matters of importance.

On the thirteenth page of such flags, Jishaku found his quarry. The flag was registered to one Captain Harimad Pashtal, kshatriya of House ....


Where the house should have been, there was only a block of black ink.

[Akodo Jishaku]

I'm going to guess that would be Rafiq... He looked around to see if there was any supplementary information that might date the entry, or the book itself. Was Harimad Pashtal still the Captain, or had his boat passed into other hands?

More to the point, if this information is known, why has nothing been done about the boat in the harbour?

[Rixy]

{{Lore: Ivory Kingdoms/INT}}

[Rixy]

It took some effort, and the help of one of the library's staff, but eventually the book was dated to be some thirty years or so old.

Unless this Harimad fellow had been a man very early in his career, the odds of him being the current master of the ship were quite slim. That, of course, lead to the question of just to whom ownership had fallen...

[Akodo Jishaku]

I see this is going to be a long day. With a light sigh the Lion turned back to the stacks of books and set about trying to find a book that might trace the ownership of Ivory Kingdom warships over the last thirty years. At least he had a few names to start from.

[Roll = 22, no raises. Suspect I'll be coming back on Day 6 ]

[Rixy]

There were a few but not many...what there was on such matters seemed more to be the accountings of heroes than ordinary people. It stood to reason that house Rafiq, if that had in fact been the man's house, would no longer be accounted as such.

[Akodo Jishaku]

Yes, this was going to take a while. Jishaku decided to find out if he was allowed to borrow books from the Palace library. Once the storm had died down of course, he wasn't going to risk taking the book out into the rain.

[Rixy]

The same librarian to whom he'd previously spoken seemed to accept without question that a 'samurai' was just a kshatriya with a funny accent and so simply took down the Akodo's name on a large ledger as well as the title of the book he'd taken, requesting with downcast eyes that he return it when he was done.

[Akodo Jishaku]

Jishaku nods and asks if they have anything he could store the book in to keep it dry. If not he would leave it with the librarian and return the next day to collect it. Once he has an answer he sets off to look for the Scorpion.

[Rixy]

It took a bit of doing but, after a candlemark or so, an oilcloth pouch was provided, the sort of thing usually used to transport messages.

[Akodo Jishaku]

Jishaku gave the librarian a light bow and, with his prize safely tucked away, resumed his search for Bayushi Nobuyoshi.

[Bayushi Nobuyoshi]

It was probably the easiest search for a Scorpion ever. Having nothing better to do with his time, he'd simply been flipping through various books and looking at the artwork.

He bows to the Lion returned.

"I take it your love of libraries has increased tenfold this day, Akodo-san." he offers in his normal flat tone.

[Akodo Jishaku]

"Say rather from no love to a faint affection, Bayushi-san." He smiles lightly. Suffice to say that I have found something that may be of use, and will likely need to test my new-found affection further over the next few days." He takes another look around. "I think I shall return to the embassy, shall we walk together?"

[Bayushi Nobuyoshi]

Nobuyoshi nods.

"If the storm's passed, I see no reason to stay." Nobuyoshi agrees.