Tsugiharu played with the radio while he drove their merry little band towards the completely innocuous shrine. So far he'd managed to find chanting...chanting in a lower octave...and chanting in a higher octave. One could almost imagine remixing the three to some weird sort of club beat.

"Well, at least it's not raining today." he commented to the group.

"The wind is nice," their armed and armored Crane escort noted as she made notes on her densai.

Joo sat at the back, allowing those more familiar to drive and sit at the front. He was busy observing the surrounding area as they travelled.

"Hai, the weather is quite nice Daidoji-san." He looked up at their destination. "This is the shrine then? For the Shinri sect?"

Tsugiharu nodded.

"It's just up ahead. But I figured we could make use of the drive time to share what we've discovered in the past couple days. I did at least manage to dig up a decent amount of info about the shrine. They're very old school, linking human's connection to nature to enlightenment. Climbing mountains, meditating under waterfalls, reciting the sutra for hours, going 24 hours without sleep, the works." he explained.

He passed a holoslate back with the research data he'd uncovered to the Osprey to be shared as needed.

Mumei reached for the slate. She tended to fall asleep if she wasn't driving, so something to read was a great idea.

"I mean, there's nothing even odd about all that, is there? Some of it isn't that far from Osprey spiritual practices when trying to really get in touch with a world. But..." she skims through the slate. "We don't...you know...drain some kind of ...vitality? from people who just come watch our rituals."

"Pretty sure the earth kami...even if they aren't the friendliest where we're concerned...have never warned anyone to flee from what we were doing."

Tsugiharu nodded.

"I think it's more a matter of how far they're willing to go. There's nothing wrong with being in touch with nature, but if you believe that modernization of the planet is essentially blasphemy as it severs people's connection to nature, and mix that in with a heapful of Isawa arrogance, you start to see how we get to where they are." he explained.

"Ah, also, there's another interesting thought that came along from something Moshi Atena found. The planet's ocean was created when an asteroid struck the south pole of the planet. At first, I didn't think much of it....but then I started to wonder if that asteroid itself was aligned to a spiritual realm. Perhaps it could even house the powerful spirit that the cultists are bargaining with under the mistaken impression it's a nature spirit."

She sits up, looking at the Spider to judge his mood. Not that she'd ever heard him tease...exactly, but there'd been a certain almost sarcasm in the way he described some of the experiences of the Spider. But no, this looked like plain and serious information. "Could something like that have remained through pacification?"

"See, the timeline is spotty. In the 'clean' history the Imperial Explorers discover the planet and die. The planet gets rediscovered, the clans fight over who gets to run it, and then the Phoenix build a colony. Since what the Spider do isn't considered glorious, I haven't been able to find records about it or when it happened. Spent most of yesterday trying to find them, but if they're there, they're buried deep." he admits.

Joo frowned as he listened. "Well, what I learned is that Asakaze is closely aligned to Chikushuudo and Sakkaku. I figured I'd try visiting those realms today, or at least one of them."

The meteroite was...interesting. "In your experience Kuchiki-san, is that frequent? I haven't dealt much with meteorites and their spiritual alignments. Something to rectify on my end at least."

Tsugiharu shook his head.

"Not my area of expertise I'm afraid. I can try looking into it at the library, though I'd like to pin down more information about the pacification first." he admitted, pulling the vehicle over, close enough to the shrine the party could get however close the Iuchi needed to be to do his thing, but not so close the cultists thought they were getting a shugenja delivery.

Upon arriving, Jin sat down on a convenient place, and started meditating, gathering his energy for the coming investigation.

Alas, it didn't seem he was completely successful, as when he emptied his mind, the image of a few young samurai-ko came into his mind.

Dammit Joo.

Well, that was that, now onto the 'meat' so to say.

Revealing his inner self, he slowly travelled over to the Realm of Animals.

Let's see what do we see here.

[Medium activated]

The chikushodo was more lively, more vibrant than the 'real world'. Blues and greens were somehow more cyan and cerulean. The voices of the jungle were almost defeating, spirit-dragonflies buzzing around even as the spirit-lizards cried as they flew among the fungal stalks. All in all, the chikushodo was very much business as usual, some stray millipede-spirits slowly climbing on Joo-Woo's robes.

Joo slowly looked down at the millipede crawling on him. So far so good, I guess?

"Greetings. Do you live around here?"

The spirts would chitter approvingly, more and more of the insects slowly climbing on Joo-Woo's body.

"Hello there fellas." He continued in a cooing voice. He very slowly moved, just in case. "Have you guys heard of a king in yellow?"

Mumei just kept an eye out, not entirely sure if there was anything one should do beyond making sure the physical part of the young shugenja remained safe.

The bugs chittered, shaking their antenna from left to right and back.

Joo frowned slightly, then stood up. It seems the millipedes were not going to be helpful. He moved very carefully, then looked around for a spirit that might be more helpful.

"Anyone here? Hello?"