Shrine Maiden (A Modern-Day Touhou Quest)

A ray of sunlight shines through a narrow crack in the rice paper screens and down on a sleeping figure. Rei groans and stuffs her head under a pillow. It was too early for anything to be awake. Seemingly in mockery of that thought, a bird begins to chirp in an obnoxiously high-pitched screech. She adds a second pillow atop the first to muffle the sound and sighs in relief as the chirping fades into the background.

She melts into her bed, stretching out and luxuriating in the warmth of her blankets, and is just about on the edge of falling back asleep when a second chirp joins the first. Then, a third. Then, a fourth. Until a whole symphony of birds is screeching what must have been inches away from her window.

Rei glares into her pillow, willing the birds to spontaneously combust. Unfortunately, her prayers remain unanswered, and the screeching grows in volume and complexity until she surrenders with a grumbled sigh.

Half an hour later, she's sitting on the back porch, a cup of green tea in her hand and watching sleepily as the sun creeps up over the mountains to the east. With a touch of caffeine in her blood, the birds no longer sounded as though they were trying to sing while being strangled. It was almost nice. Pleasant.

The serenade of birdsong is interrupted by a low-pitched growl, one that takes Rei a moment to realize came from her rather than some nearby animal. With a reluctant grunt, she pushes herself to her feet and goes in search of an uneaten burrito from the night before. Upon finding it sitting right next to her futon, she unwraps it gently, takes a good whiff of it to check, and bites down.

I've eaten worse…

Room-temperature curried meat mixes unpleasantly with congealed cheese sauce and slimy bits of lettuce and tomato. Despite that, she's hungry enough that the burrito goes down without much more than one or two gags.

…but not much

Reluctantly awake and even more reluctantly full, she decides it's time to get on with the day. Unfortunately, she couldn't spend the day lazing around the shrine and reading manga. Well, she could, but she had things to do. A lawyer to visit. Some gardening stuff to buy so she could start to fix up the front yard. And… she sniffs at herself delicately… definitely a bathhouse to find.


When Rei thought about a meeting with a lawyer, she first envisioned something in a high-rise building with floor-to-ceiling windows. Since Gensokyo didn't have any buildings that were much more than three stories, that was discarded. Next, she'd thought about a lawyer's office in a strip mall, next to a Chipotle or something. But Gensokyo didn't have many of the trappings of American suburbia either.

Instead, the law firm is located on the top floor of a building nestled incongruously between a greengrocer and a home improvement store. Rei stares at the faded, off-center sign hanging from the door. Kotohime and Enigma - Shadows Unveiled, Truths Concealed. That was an… odd motto for a law firm. But then, there wasn't much she could do about it. With a sigh, Rei pushes the door open, feeling deep within her soul that she was stepping into something weird.

Inside is a small waiting room; its once-clean beige walls have been intentionally and artfully stained with splashes of discoloration. The carpet, still a fresh and vibrant green near the walls, appears to have been cut into an uneven pattern—as though someone had gone in with an electric razor to trim it. From behind a thick curtain set to look like it was over a window—despite the room being on the interior of the building complex—shades of neon red and blue lights flash intermittently. The final decoration piece is a coat rack in the corner holding a faded gray trenchcoat and an equally faded fedora.

No receptionist is waiting to take appointments. Nor is there any furniture save for a single folding table set to one side and covered in what looked like intentionally arranged junk. Rei spares a glance for a colorful container of cup ramen, unopened thankfully, before pausing on the skeleton of what could only have been a snake if snakes had abnormally pudgy bodies and extremely thin tails.

"A bird walks into my office, the glow of youth still fresh on her face. The ribbon in her hair red like the blood of this dying city," A deep, female voice interrupts her before she could poke the snake-ish skeleton.

Rei spins around, a glare on her face masking the sudden jump of her heart. "Who are you?"

The woman tips back a fedora—not the one still sitting on the coat rack—with a gesture that just accentuates how absurd the hat is compared to the violet kimono wrapped around her. "Just a shadow that lives beneath the surface of this poorly fashioned illusion of a town."

"That's not a name." Her scowl deepens.

"What do you prefer, sweetheart? The truth or a pretty lie?"

Since it was the Kotohime and Enigma law firm and Enigma wasn't a name—not that Kotohime was much of one either—that meant this was probably...

"Ko-to-hi-me." She enunciates the name as though speaking to a child. "I'm Reimu Hakurei. You sent a letter to me about the shrine and my mother's will."

"Miya, now there was a lady." probably Kotohime makes no sign that she recognizes her name. "A shame she forgot that one bad apple could spoil a harvest."

"And now she's dead," Rei grounds out between clenched teeth, annoyance with this… whatever she was pretending to be… overpowering her feelings about her mother. "So either tell me why you sent that letter, or I'm leaving."

"A bird flies across an ocean to learn her mother's fate only to find her talons caught in the same trap. Fortunately for her, the shadows can hide both friends and foes." A manilla folder appears from within the folds of Kotohime's kimono. Rei snatches it before it can be shoved into her face. "One such friend, bought with secrets whispered on a breeze, awaits in Kyoto."

Rei flips open the folder, eyes catching the symbol for Kyoto University before she quickly skims it. It was an acceptance letter for the university and a full scholarship offer. Apparently, her mother had helped Professor Okazaki—a chair of the Faculty of Letters—with some research on ancient Japanese folktales when the professor was a graduate student. When the professor had heard of her mother's passing, she wanted to do something to pay her back.

"That's…" she shakes her head. She would figure out what to do with the offer later. "Your letter said inheritance issues, not a scholarship offer."

"The state will squeeze the rotting underbelly of this town until it bleeds. Absentee and neglectful landowners will be the first to suffer under that steely-eyed gaze."

It takes Rei a moment to parse through the… whatever it was… but she gets it. If she left Japan for good, it was likely that the state would try to claim the shrine. Now that she knew, she should be able to sell it first if that happened.

"Anything else?" She stares at Kotohime as though daring her to say anything more.

"The bird sings like the mournful notes of a sax-"

The rest of whatever she would have said is cut off by the slam of the door behind Rei as she marches out of the office.


The walk across town from the infuriating lawyer to the flower shop she'd seen on her first trip through Gensokyo did a lot to cool the annoyance boiling within her. It was hard to stay too grumpy when the sun shone, and a cool breeze ruffled through her hair. She could have still managed it, but why let some weirdo lawyer ruin her day?

A pair of sunflowers, each placed in a separate planter and set on either side of a brightly painted green door like a pair of guards, mark out the entrance to the flower shop. Rei pauses for a moment to admire both the vibrancy of the golden petals and the rich, dark earth they were sitting in. If they were any indication of the quality of the shop, she'd found quite the place.

A doorbell chimes as she steps inside, but she ignores the metallic chime in favor of the rich, complex aroma of flowers and fresh soil. Flowers of every shape and size, each in full bloom, grow in long troths formed into aisles, cling to the walls along verdant trellis', and hang from the vaulted ceiling in wispy waves. It was a riot of color. It was…

"Perfect," Rei breathes a contented sigh and drops down to her heels, careless of the dirt smudging onto her pants, to get a closer look at the nearest planter. A single sunflower stretches out of the soil, imperious as it holds court with its lesser kin. She reaches out a hand to brush a few grains of soil that had landed on the petal of a pale white morning glory.

"Well, well. It seems as though our new miko has a bit more taste than the last one."

Rei jumps as a low voice whispers in her ear. Her foot catches on an invisible bit of something, and she stumbles back. Her arms windmill as she tries to regain her balance, but to no avail, as she falls back onto the soil-covered floor with a muffled "oomph."

"Though she seems just as ungainly." Rei looks up at whoever it was that had surprised her, a scowl firmly etched onto her face as she stares up into amused blood-red eyes framed by dark green hair.

"The hell are you?" She pushes herself upright, ignoring the offer of a manicured hand as she brushes bits of dirt from her pants.

"Yuuka Kazami. Humble shopkeeper and mistress to all these lovely children." Yuuka bows, the amusement dancing in her eyes giving the gesture a mocking cast.

"Hmph," Rei frowns and fixes the shopkeeper with an annoyed stare. "Do you always sneak up on customers like this?"

"Only the cute ones."

Rei ignores the flirtatious wink with a roll of the eyes. She'd heard better. "And how did you know I had a shrine?"

"Gossip travels quickly," Yuuka shrugs elegantly, then ruins it with a mocking grin. "And Marisa likes to talk."

"You know Marisa?" Rei supposes that shouldn't be surprising—the blonde had an easy-to-like air about her—but it was still disorienting.

"She comes by every now and then trying to finagle things that aren't hers." Despite the accusation, there's only a bit of indulgent amusement on her face. "But you didn't come here to gossip about your new friend, did you?"

"Hmph." Despite the dismissive sound, she couldn't disagree with that. Gossip was fine, but not with a strange flower shop lady. "I'm looking for some perennials… preferably reds and whites."

"For the shrine, hmm…" the playful look fades from the green-ette's face. "The land up in the hills is rather alkaline… hydrangeas will turn a nice, pale red. Hellebores or peonies will flower earlier in the season and create a cascade of white fading into red as the season changes."

That all sounded right, and the tidbit about the soil alkalinity was helpful. "Anything to go with cherry tree blossoms?"

"Something dark to cover the ground beneath… Ferns preferably. Foxglove if you need the color." Yuuka turns on a heel, "follow. I've got a few of everything ready to be replanted in the greenhouse."

Rei frowns as the sunflower seemingly turns to follow the flower lady but shrugs it away.

It's probably just a breeze.

Half an hour of browsing later, Rei is standing in front of a checkout counter, sheepishly staring at the… perhaps excessive… amount of things she'd selected. She hands over two five-thousand yen notes and frowns. There were two bags of soil, a dozen flowers, and maybe twice that in seeds. How exactly was she supposed to get all of this back to the shrine?

Yuuka smirks, seeming to read her concern, "¥500, and I'll have this all delivered to the front of the shrine. You'll still have to get it up the steps, though."

"Deal." Rei sighs and hands over a 500 yen coin.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Miko. Come back any-"

The door slamming shut and cutting off Yuuka is just as satisfying as when she'd done it to Kotohime. It's enough to put a smile back on her face. Now, to find a bathhouse.


Rei sighs and sinks into the almost scalding water until only the top of her face is unsubmerged. A wooden plate bounces into her iceberg head, and an eye cracks open to look at the remnants of a pair of bottles of sake and half a dozen rice balls. ¥1000 got her a bath, a soak, and enough food and alcohol to make the annoyance of dealing with weirdos fade into a haze of contented, drunken warmth. It had also gotten her free access to some fancy-looking soaps and creams, but what was smelling like a rose and having smooth skin compared to this?

She sinks entirely underwater as she propels herself back to the pool's edge. Her head bounces lightly against the lip of the pool, and she breaches the surface with a cascade of water. It was strange for a bathhouse this nice to be completely empty, but she could hardly complain. In fact, with no one else here, this might be the perfect place to take a… zzz…


Rei fell asleep in the bath, so when she wakes up, she'll have to make her way back to the shrine. She has time to do two things prior to (or after) staggering back home. Reminder: Rei has ¥26000 left.

Exploration Options - Find a new place at random or look for a specific one
[] Explore the neighborhood around the shrine

[] Explore Gensokyo


Social Options - Hang out with the people you've met
[] Meet up with Marisa


Hobby Options - Improve an existing hobby or learn a new one
[] Go to the arcade

[] Read manga

[] Start a new hobby.
-[] write in which. Previously mentioned hobbies are art, exercise, sports, history, movies, camping, and music. Other hobbies can be written in (with GM approval)


Shopping Options - Make the shrine and your existence there more pleasant
[] Buy home repair supplies

[] Buy a solar-powered generator


Food Options - Feed yourself for a day or longer
[] Buy groceries

[] Find a restaurant

[] Get dessert


Employment Options - Find a job so you can afford to buy stuff
[] See if Yuuka wants an assistant

[] See if the convenience store is hiring


Other Options - The world is vast beyond belief and mysterious beyond words
[] Write in. In lieu of writing out a neverending list of things to do, I'll leave this here if voters want to do something else. Write ins may well end up being incorporated into the turn options even if not chosen.





[AN]
Rei either succeded fantastically or failed miserably on the bathhouse action. I'll leave it up to you all to choose which. Unrelated, in canon Kotohime is a princess, a cop, and a bit weird (even by the standards of Gensokyo). So a butterfly flaps its wings and she becomes a lawyer and a noir detective (and I apologize for butchering the imagery of noir films).

Rei wakes sputtering and coughing. She flails upright, sending waves of near-scalding water cascading around her. A hacking cough bends her nearly sideways as she expels the water that had somehow trickled into her lungs while asleep.

Jeez… I haven't fallen asleep in the bath since… never.

She climbs back up onto the pale wood floors of the bathhouse, pausing momentarily to direct a dark-eyed glare at the pool that had nearly drowned her before turning to look for her clothes. A white blouse with red piping and a similarly colored knee-length skirt are folded neatly atop a fluffy white towel.

After drying, Rei drops the now-soaking towel onto the floor with a wet plop and picks up her blouse. It smells fresh, as though it has just been cleaned.

They really go the extra mile here, huh?

She finds the rest of her stuff in a neat pile on a chair, slips on underwear and clothes, and then tucks her—rapidly shrinking—wallet into a pocket. Refreshed, relaxed, and more than a little wrinkly, Rei nods in satisfaction and turns to leave. It was time to buy some groceries, though without a place to store fresh food, she would be limited on what she could buy.

And there were only so many times she could eat ramen noodles before going crazy…


The glare of fluorescent lighting spilling out from floor-to-ceiling windows onto the sidewalk outside marks the entrance to the grocery store. A shiver runs through Rei as she steps inside, the blast of air-conditioned air almost freezing compared to the heat of the bathhouse and the faint humidity of the summer night.

Dozens of aisles laden with all kinds of foods stretch toward the back of the store, each one marked with the bright red kanji for On Sale. She grabs a basket and skips past the long-since-closed bakery and the frozen foods section. She'd need to buy dried goods—and maybe some potatoes or something—at least until she found some way to keep things cold.

Turning down a snack-food aisle, Rei begins dropping chips and chocolates and a twenty-four pack of deluxe ramen noodles—though what made it deluxe when it looked just like the ones next to it, she couldn't tell. Another aisle passes by, and she adds a bottle of soy sauce, yakisoba sauce, and a family-sized jar of peanut butter—it was hard to starve if peanut butter was around.

She drifts down another aisle, this one mainly filled with pickled foods, pausing for a moment to pick up a small package of umeboshi—who eats pickled plums? Her move to put the package back is interrupted by the crash of glass breaking.

Rei jumps back as liquid splashes against her legs and skirt. Her nose wrinkles as the pungent smell of vinegar surrounds her. Spinning around, she sees the remnants of a massive jar of pickles spilled out across the floor and takes a step back as a trickle of pickle juice begins to snake toward her shoes.

How did… there's no one else here, and jars don't just fall like that… they don't.

A frown crosses her face as a number of odd incidents knit together in her mind. There was something strange in Gensokyo. And she knew just who to ask about it. But first…

Rei steps back from the shattered jar of pickles and looks up and down the aisle. No one seemed to be coming to check on the sound of breaking glass, and so, with a casual whistle, she walks quickly toward the end of the aisle.

That wasn't her mess to clean up…


A bored-looking teenager occupies the checkout counter, barely looking up from the conveyor belt as he scans her purchases. When the last of her groceries is placed in a bag, the cashier punches a button, and ¥5000 pops up on the till. The cashier doesn't look at her or respond in any way when she offers a quiet thank you. Lazy teenagers.
With a sigh, Rei hands over yet another bill from her steadily dwindling pile of cash and grabs her bags.

The summer humidity hits her like a wave as she walks out of the grocery store, but she barely pays it any mind. She had a witch to talk to.


"Hey, Rei," Marisa looks up from a brightly colored manga with a smile and wave. "Back for more burritos?"

"No… they were barely edible the first time around." She holds up the half-dozen plastic bags currently cutting a deep groove in her hands. "I've got food for a while… and weren't they bur-ee-toes?"

"Hah. Nah. The boss came by an' lectured me 'bout diction or some nonsense." Marisa hops over the counter, grabs the groceries from her, and sets them to one side. She sniffs deeply and raises an eyebrow. "Why do you smell like pickles?"

"A jar of them attacked me at the grocery store," Rei replies with a bland look.

"Ahh, shoulda' come here instead." the blonde grins. "Ours have been domesticated."

"Right, well, that's enough of that." Rei fixes her friend with an intense stare. "There's something weird about Gensokyo."

"Y-yeah, like what?" her eyes narrow at the stutter in Marisa's voice.

"Let's see… my mother's lawyer talks like she came from some crappy detective novel. Which is weird, but whatever, except." her voice gets a touch louder when it looks like the blonde might interrupt. "She has an honest-to-god skeleton of a Tsuchinoko in her office."

"Ya' sure it wasn't a fake or nothin'?" by itself, that's what she would have thought too, except there were other examples of things she'd seen and couldn't explain.

"Hmph, well, how about the flower lady?" an eyebrow raises as Marisa flinches slightly and then tries to hide it. "She's got some sunflowers that follow her around like she was the sun itself."

"Ahahah," the blonde grins uneasily but doesn't say anything to counter her statement.

"There's other things. Like something invisible tripping me or knocking over the jar of pickles I'm soaked with," Rei pauses to scowl at the air. If something were haunting her, she'd make that thing regret it. "But it all started with something in the shrine that set my teeth on edge. A yin-yang sphere that appeared from nowhere, sitting in the honden. I could blame each one on exhaustion or hunger or whatever, but looking at it together, it seems that something else is going on…"

When she finishes her rant, she notices Marisa staring at her as though debating something internally. Eventually, the blonde speaks, "I ended up in Gensokyo at… fourteen, maybe… an' stayed with a nice older couple for a bit 'fore I moved out an' found this job. Everythin' was normal 'til I saw Yuuka doin' somethin' that… maybe it's just better to show ya'."

With that, the blonde holds out a palm and closes her eyes. For a long moment, nothing happens, except a faint chill working its way down Rei's spine, until a spark of light flickers into existence in her outstretched hand. "She was dancin' in the flowers under the moon an' these sparks were jus' rainin' down on her."

"Magic…" She breathes out. She'd had a suspicion, but to think that…

A feeling of vertigo sweeps through her. Up becomes down, left becomes right. Her vision greys out at the edges.

"Hey, Rei, you alright?" Rei blinks in confusion before realizing that she was sitting on the floor, her legs splayed out awkwardly, and a concerned blonde face was staring down at her. "Ya' don't… C'mon, we got a tiny lounge in the back."

She stares at the hand held in front of her for a moment before reaching out to take it. Rei holds on limply as she's yanked upright and mindlessly follows that spill of brightly colored hair toward the back of the store.

"So, yeah," Marisa flops into a chair and gestures at the one across from her, "magic's real. Least in Gensokyo it is… outside, I can't even gather enough mana for a flashlight."

"That would…" Rei trails off, her thoughts moving as though through mud, and drops onto the chair.

"It's a lot, I know." Marisa reaches forward and pats her on the shoulder. "S'like there's this block that keeps folks from noticin' weird things, an' when it breaks, it kinda sends the brain for a loop."

"Yeah, that's…" She struggles to force fractured thoughts into words but can only settle on one thing. "My mother… did she?"

"The shrine?" the blonde tilts her head to one side. "Now that I think about it, the shrine's been abandoned s'long as I can remember and-"

"That's not…" Rei forces the interruption out around the thickness of her tongue, "Letter… sent… died days ago."

"That's." A fierce curiosity flares in her friend's eyes. "I thought magic was the big secret here, but maybe…"

"Maybe?" Rei could feel the fog beginning to lift from her thoughts.

"I dunno…" that focused look fades to a sheepish grin as Marisa scratches at the back of her head. "I'm pretty much self-taught. There's only so much ya' can learn by spyin' on Yuuka an' readin' in the library."

"Could we ask her?" she doubted the playful shopkeeper would tell the truth even if she knew it, but would it hurt to ask?

"She's old school. A hijiri or somethin'. Not the kinda person ya' really ask questions like that of." Marisa shakes her head. "'Sides, she's caught me spyin' on her a couple times, so I'm on thin ice with her as is."

"She mentioned that," Rei allows a faint smirk to cross her face. "Called you a finagler."

"Is that even a word?" the blonde frowns momentarily. "Well, anyways. That's probably enough talkin' 'bout that old hag. Swear she can hear when her name is said."

In that case, there was really only one question she could ask, "So, what now?"

Marisa drums her fingers idly along the arm of her chair as she thinks. After a long silence, she leans forward, fixing dark, golden eyes on Rei. "Way I see it, there's two things. First, ya' forget 'bout all of this an' I'm bettin' that in time ya' won't even notice the weird stuff anymore. The second is that we dig right in an' figure out what's goin' on in Gensokyo."

"We?" Despite the question, Rei can't deny the flicker of relief at knowing she wouldn't have to solve this… whatever it was… on her own.

"Ya' think I'd let a mystery like this go?" A cocky, almost blinding grin crosses her friend's face. One soon mirrored by a lazy, confident smirk crossing her own.



Rei now has a new option type [Event Options]. These options will only trigger if they receive the most votes and will take an entire update (or multiple) to resolve (or advance to the next stage). Think of it as voting to start a mini-arc instead of the more day-to-day actions. Due to the nature of these options, several days may pass before they can be started, so pay careful attention to your food and money (or don't, starving Rei could be fun too).

Reminder: Rei has ¥22000 and 5 days of food left.

Rei has 3 actions available (or just 1, depending)


Exploration Options - Find a new place at random or look for a specific one
[] Explore the neighborhood around the shrine

[] Explore Gensokyo

[] Go hiking in the mountains around Gensokyo


Social Options - Hang out with the friends you've made
[] Meet up with Marisa


Hobby Options - Improve an existing hobby or learn a new one
[] Go to the arcade

[] Read manga

[] Plant flowers at the shrine

[] Start a new hobby.
-[] write in which. Previously mentioned hobbies are art, exercise, sports, history, movies, camping, and music. Other hobbies can be written in (with GM approval)


Shopping Options - Make the shrine and your existence there more pleasant
[] Buy home repair supplies

[] Buy a solar-powered generator

[] Buy some electronic entertainment items


Food Options - Feed yourself for a day or longer
[] Find a restaurant

[] Go get dessert


Employment Options - Find a job so you can afford to buy stuff
[] See if Yuuka wants an assistant

[] See if the convenience store is hiring


Event Options - some things take a lot longer to complete than others
[] Visit Professor Okazaki about the scholarship to Kyoto U.

[] Investigate the shrine with Marisa.


Write-in Options - The world is vast beyond belief and mysterious beyond words
[] Instead of writing out a neverending list of things to do, I'll leave this here if voters want to do something else. Write-ins may well be incorporated into the turn options even if not chosen, so feel free to suggest whatever you want to see and do.



[AN]
On a side note, the cast of Touhou is massive. So if anyone has a preference for characters they'd like to see, specifically ones that don't arrive in Gensokyo via incident (e.g. the SDM crew) please let me know.