>You are Nazrin, a newly inducted member of the Seeker's Guild, and you are dying. But at least you've stopped bleeding, so perhaps you can call this progress?
>Your career got off to an interesting and busy start last week, between stolen cats, missing cattle, and sword-wielding fairies, but things took a much darker turn when an encounter with a wild spider youkai left you infected with a mysterious and deadly illness. Thanks to Minoriko's creative thinking and the power of an ancient sword found buried in the spider's lair, the Blight has been kept at bay. For now. But you've been told you have no more than a couple weeks to live, unless a cure can be found. A cure that very likely may not even exist. Still, you are determined to try - finding hard-to-find things is what you
do, after all.
>Your efforts on that front have met little success so far. No doctor in Braston could identify your condition or offer aid, nor were you able to obtain more than the barest clue of your sword's origins from the visiting archaeologists. Now you have placed your hopes in Val Razua and its Grand Academy, the single greatest repository of scholarship in Gensokyo; if the information you seek can be found anywhere, then there's a good chance it can be found there. To that end, you obtained passage on the Blue Maiden, a speedy transport ship run by a Captain Murasa. After helping to resolve the issue of a stolen export license that was keeping them tied up in port, you departed for Val Razua last night, and looked forward to a few days of peace before resuming your search.
>Unfortunately, your passage met another obstacle this afternoon in the form of pirates seeking a relic that Murasa was secretly transporting. A fierce battle ensued, but despite all the struggling and bleeding you did on behalf of your hosts, your side was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing Aya and her crew from commandeering the Blue Maiden and obtaining what they were seeking. You only got a glance at the object, but couldn't make heads or tails of what it was supposed to be, and Murasa has claimed to be similarly in the dark. But at least they're gone now, and business has been getting back to usual even quicker than you would have expected. Hopefully there won't be any more unpleasant surprises waiting between here and Val Razua....
>Currently, you are in the Maiden's galley with Miyuki, the pair of you having just finished getting tonight's shepherd's pie into the oven.
>Give her a nod. We can understand.
>"I think everyone has something like that. A little thing that just feels... right."
>"I've never really thought of it like that," she says. "It was just something I enjoyed doing. But I suppose you could be right." For a moment, her eyes grow slightly distant and a weary look seems to come over her face. Then she bends down and peers in the oven. "I think it'll be pretty good once it's cooked."