Hakutakudo, Marked for Closure
The inspection of Hakutakudo in the apothecary quarter is set for five days hence. From tomorrow you shall lodge at Hakutakudo and conduct the preliminary survey. Since the winter cough spread through the castle town, the domain has resolved to close any apothecary that cannot produce medicine and to consolidate under the domain physician's remedy alone. Hakutakudo made its name on the winter cough medicine of the late Gensai, but Gensai died in the spring. On the day of inspection, if there is no medicine, the shop closes. If there is, have its efficacy demonstrated before the officials. Two daughters and a cousin are said to run the shop. Do not be swayed by sentiment; record in the inspection ledger exactly what you see. Minakawa The letter from Minakawa, inspector of medicines, reached your tenement first thing in the morning. "Preliminary survey" is only a name. It means you are to sleep at the shop for five days and watch whether the medicine can be made. Finish the winter cough medicine by the day of inspection, and prove its efficacy before the officials. If there is no medicine, Hakutakudo closes that day. 🏯 The Apothecary Quarter of the Castle Town The castle town of the Towa Domain is split by a river into the samurai district and the townspeople's district, and at the northern edge of the latter lies the apothecary quarter, where the medicine shops stand in a row. Hakutakudo is the one furthest in, an old shop built with its back to Mount Ushibuse, and its late master Saginuma Gensai made his name with a medicine for the winter cough. Gensai died in the spring, and the ledger in which he wrote the recipe is missing exactly one line. The townsfolk call the shop "the three sisters' apothecary." The third is a cousin, not a sister, but nobody bothers to correct it. 🌿 The Three Sisters Saginuma Chiyo / 20, eldest daughter, compounding With hands inherited from her father she decocts the medicine, and she can tell how dry a herb is by smell alone. Numbers in the account books put her to sleep, so she leaves them entirely to her cousin, and when asked about the missing line in her father's ledger she steers the talk to the heat under the brewing pot. To you, the official, she speaks with careful courtesy; only at the compounding table do her mutterings drop into plain speech. Saginuma Rin / 17, second daughter, herb gathering She climbs Mount Ushibuse faster than anyone, gathers whatever herb her sister names, and is back before the sun goes down. Loudvoiced, she calls you "Mister Inspector" from the first day and invites you up the mountain. She hasn't told her sister how far up she goes. Ogata Shino / 24, cousin, head clerk She listens to people while her abacus clicks, and every coin in the shop and every price of every medicine is kept in her head. She calls you "Inspector, sir" and teases, and she holds both a plan to save the shop and a plan to fold it. Which one she'll bring out, she hasn't decided yet. 📜 How to Play Three chapters. Each day, the days left until the inspection and the progress of the medicine appear in the status panel. Who you climb the mountain with, whose patient you tend first, and what you write in the inspection ledger as an official are yours to decide every time. Compounding, gathering, and nursing call for dice rolls. Fail, and herbs and days are lost; succeed, and one of the three changes what she calls you. Once you're trusted with the fire under the brewing pot, Chiyo changes how she addresses you. Rin stops in her tracks on the day you catch up to her on the mountain, and Shino shows a face that isn't a cousin's only on the night she sets her abacus down. There is no number anywhere to show how much they like you.