The New Winds

Wyn is literally burning the midnight oil, after a nice nap most of the evening. He sits in the common room working on sketches and drawings after spending the time of the last few days observing the city. At least his headache was finally gone.


D3 EN Cartography/Intelligence R1 Tech TN 20: 7d10o10k3+5 40

Returning to her training habit of sleeping in through the morning, Nesrin returns from town after some much-needed horse, and then an equally needed bath. She requests a cup of tea before looking for a seat. Spotting her fellow Topaz competitor, she heads over to see if he'd mind company, waiting properly for acknowledgment and bowing a greeting when it is given.

"Miya-san, if I'm not interrupting, would you mind if I joined you for a bit?"

He smiles and greets her waving to an open chair, "Please do join me Utaku sama, I was just finishing up working on some sketches of the town of Tsuma"

"I was going to ask what they were." She settles with a grace that says her muscles aren't screaming after half a day of exertion, though she expects to feel it tomorrow.

"Which is this one? It's really elegant looking." She points to one of the sketches. "I haven't gotten to see all that much of the town yet."

"This is a detailed map of the city we are in now, as you can see I have noted the exact gradient of the floor of the kakita academy dojo noted there, and the weather and wind patterns for the local surrounding terrain,"

Eyes wide, she traces along one of the wind markings. "Hooo, that seems really useful if we're outside for the archery competition. And just, tactically handy overall. Like...if anyone *did* attack the village, say from the river, that's a really nice place to try and draw them in for an ambush."

"But how do you measure the gradient of the Academy floors? I can imagine kind of...feeling it when practicing, but that's no kind of precise."

He nods, "Miya are trained to be able to judge things like ground gradient, and floor smoothness by sight and touch. Add that to various records and such we have access to..." He shakes his head, "It's what my school is built on, anywhere I go, after a few days observation I can create tactical maps like these"

"That's awfully useful and really neat" she pauses a moment, thinking. "Guess it's good we don't see the Miya at war much, cause that's a bit of a terrifying advantage." She looks at the floor of the inn. "Like...I'd pretty much think this is level till I got to the stairs. Maybe not?"

"If you'd had a chance to walk over the race course first then, I imagine you'd have had an even better idea of how to run it fastest and take advantage of the terrain for those obstacles, yes?"

"There is a 3% grade on the inn common room floor actually as noted here" he touches the spot near the inn on the map, "It would have given some advantage, unfortunately I hadn't had the chance to explore enough for a full survey before our race."

"Still you did well other than that slippery one; you're very fast. I hope they're able to properly clean the mud from everything when the servants have so many people to care for right now. I suppose they're used to the influx." She sips her tea, letting the cup warm her hands. "Perhaps one of the other competitions will be run there and you'll have a more to work with."

"My school's more about doing everything better on horseback," she chuckles, "but they wouldn't even let me use my own mount for the horsemanship, so I certainly won't be riding for the archery or...oh..Law tests."

"Oh, but I imagine you have your own mount too? Or is that only when directly assigned as a courier?"

"Mine is in the stables here at the inn currently, Much of our work is exploration and travel so we spent most of our life on horseback. Even more then the Heralds. They say that experienced cartographers become the second best horseman in the empire."

"Oh! Cartographers! My apologies, I'm not very familiar with Imperial schools and just thought of the Heralds, since we see them coming through all the time." She offers an apologetic bow. "That is a lot of traveling. And given the testing on heraldry we just had, I feel like I should ask about your school mon so I know better next time I meet a cartographer."

"My sisters wouldn't ever let me hear the end of it if I didn't say I thought the Shiotome were the best riders in Rokugan, but who does your 'they' put in front of the Cartgraphers?" she asks with a chuckle.

He smiles, "I was speaking of course of the Shitome, even the Imperial families must bow to the true masters of horsemanship" He bites his lip, "Thank you again for your assistance in the obstacle course, you did not have to come back for me"

She offers a smiling dip of her head, with a grin, acknowledging the prominence of her school in that arena, then shrugs. "I mean...I did, really. It wouldn't be as fair a race if you lost it on account of a muddy pit. I know that one wasn't deep enough to be a danger, but they can be. I've seen the bones in high summer of creatures that were caught in those that can form on the plains and then dry up. Not really different than letting someone pick up their weapon if it goes flying during a spar, you know?"

Bracing her elbows on her knees, she says thoughtfully, "the championship would be nice, but only one person's getting it, and I'm only a halfway decent duelist, so there's nothing but hard feelings in it if I just try to get farther ahead any way I can."

"Maybe I can be of service there, as you were to me" He sketches the Miya Cartographer mon on the edge of the paper he was working, "Here take this, you can use it to study the Miya mon, and other things that might help"

Nesrin leans in to look and grins. "I was going to ask if I could study your school mon so I didn't make that mistake with another cartographer in the future. But this is even more than I would have expected." There's a tiny pause, realizing that it's a gift and actually is more than expected. "so, it's..I can't just take all this work you've done. Just studying it here is a privilege."

He shakes his head, "I will make more, it is what I do, please this is only a rough first attempt, let it go to some use"

Not being a courtier, this didn't quite come naturally. So there's a pause as Nesrin discards several approaches that either imply that a rough draft wasn't good enough or that she didn't really have a use for a drawing or something equally awful. Refusal without insult wasn't always the easiest thing.

She settled on solidly awkward instead. "I mean, it's the first one you're making here, and you never really get to have another 'first sketch at my Topaz Championship Tournament' again. That could be kind of...sentimental. I'd feel weird taking that away from you."

"Then the Sentiment will be appreciated and you may treasure it and remember our time together with your future family"

With a bit of a seated bow, Nesrin takes the sketch into her hands, admiring it. "I will treasure it. It will stand as a memory of this Tournament and the training before."

"I wonder if that training will become a tradition too?" She says thoughtfully, as she traces the walls of the academy with a light touch. "We'll be the first of a new thing. Though I hope they clear up that whole underground city before having more students there. They don't need a tradition of subterranean invasion."