>You are Nazrin, a newly inducted member of the Seeker's Guild, and you are dying. And while you finally hold one element of a cure in your hands, your hope that it is enough may be fading.
>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 were told you had no more than a couple weeks to live unless a cure could be found, and one of them has already passed.
>Your search for this cure has been a long and frustrating road. You could find little useful information about your affliction or its treatment in Braston, so you sought passage to Val Razua in the hope that its Grand Academy might house the information you desperately require. While the journey was marred by a bloody and near-disastrous struggle with tengu pirates that resulted in the Blue Maiden's defeat and the capture of a curious relic it had been transporting in secret, you still arrived in Val Razua more or less on schedule and in one piece.
>Fortunately, some of your hopes were realized when you discovered a passage, buried in the rare books collection of the Voile Magisterial Library, describing a medicinal mixture which can cure 'the ragged blackening of the veins'. Unfortunately, after consulting with a knowledgeable but somewhat incoherent professor of herbalism, you have learned that bittercress blossoms, a critical ingredient of this mixture, occur only once every seven years and are not due for another three. Hoping that the blessed soil Minoriko gave you might hold the key to obtaining these rare blooms, you acquired some bittercress seeds from a nursery in Val Razua and planted them within it. The effects were dramatic and only a couple hours later you were holding a full and bushy plant where just before had been only seeds and empty soil. Worrisome, though several more hours have passed now, the plant has shown no sign whatsoever of flowering.
>While waiting for your bittercress to bloom, you decided to search further into your sword's origins and powers at small Shinto shrine you passed while canvassing the nurseries. There you unexpectedly bumped into Kyouko, the helpful youkai who assisted you in the Grand Academy's Divinations department earlier that day. You found yourself surprisingly taken by the cheerful yamabiko, and small talk led to storytelling and then to dinner and drinks, and now the two of you are walking back to her place, where you plan to spend the night.
>Presently, the somewhat inebriated youkai is crouched at your side, examining Kumokirimaru's sheath from almost comically close range.
>"I had to catch the first ferry out of town. Didn't think that'd end up being the Maiden at the time, but I didn't have days to wait for a nicer sheathe to be made."
>"Somethin' to do with that plant you need to delivery?" she asks, poking the bottom of the pot with her finger.
