Loren has never been to Yurilao. To be fair, he'd never been to much of the other parts of Selurong. When he'd been younger, he'd been too busy going back and forth between home and school, and keeping Harmony out of trouble. They'd gone to some places, but that had been with their families as part of a thing, and they hadn't exactly stayed around to explore the surrounding area. In college, he'd simply seen no need to, and then Harmony had left school to join the military, and then she'd gotten her job…

Well, Loren had never been to Yurilao, although he'd heard of it.

Naturally, he'd looked it up on the internet the night before, putting together a map of the area. There seemed to be a lot of Amatsushiman restaurants, as well as groceries—as opposed to convenience stores—a hotel that turned out to be a capsule hotel that he decided he'd have to stay at one day just to see what it was like, and a few other businesses that also had dual signage.

The shrine was easy enough to find, situated unironically across the street from a more western-style temple to the goddesses. Looking between them, Loren wondered if there was some kind of joke going on between the two places of worship. While the Temple of Cherry the Hopeful of Reedington was dedicated to the Goddess Madeus, the Yurilao Shrine—according to the plaque in front of it—was dedicated to Tessera, the Zetsubo no Megami. Which one had been there first and whose idea had been to have a shrine to the goddess of despair and a temple to the goddess of hope be practically facing each other?

Shaking his head and hoping there was another plaque that explained it somewhere, Loren mounted the thankfully-short flight of stairs to the shrine and passed through the archway that denoted the small shrine's grounds. As he crossed the border, he finally allowed himself to relax, pulling back the Flame he had spread out to deal with keres during his little walk. It wasn't something he could do in many public places. Wherever people were, there were keres to feed upon them. His college campus had been absolutely lousy with keres of all sorts. Wrath keres, Lotus keres, Empty keres, Desire keres… it had been part of what had contributed to his tendency to stay at home, where the walls kept them out.

Homes weren't the only safe spaces, though. Temples—and apparently shrines—also barred keres from entry. The reasons varied. Some said it was the power of the goddesses blessing the grounds, making it a bastion against evil. Others said that it was from people thinking that the goddesses blessed such places, causing the magic there to react such that they repulsed keres. It was all the same in practice, although there were many who espoused a strong belief one way of the other. His mother, he knew, believed in the former option.

Loren had made sure to never tell her what he thought and simply nod along if she asked.

Given it was the morning of a working day, the shrine was surprisingly busy… or perhaps not. There were a group of tourists taking pictures of the temple and what seemed like a shop being run by two young women. The buildings of the shrine were close together, and seemed in good repair, although the exposed wood looked old and grayish.

He'd called ahead last night—a painful lesson he'd learned in college—and so had a name for someone to talk to, but… well, he supposed he had to find them. Adjusting his backpack, Loren headed towards the two payatin women running the store. They seemed to be selling good luck charms, fortunes and… wooden chains? "Excuse me," he said politely as they turned towards him with wide customer service smiles. "I'm looking for Mister Takayama? We spoke on the phone last night, and he said he'd be here."

"He's probably at the office," one of the women—yes, they were wearing white tops and red skirts, with extra sleeves in the back for their tentacles—turning to point towards the building behind them. "Just ring the bell at the window."

"Thank you," Loren said

He was about to leave, but before he could say anything, the other woman said, "Could we interest you in anything?" she said, her hands folded as her tentacles gestured at all that was available.

About to politely refuse, he paused. "Why not. What do you have?"

After buying two amulets of lasting-friendship, Loren headed for the indicated office, ringing the bell as he'd been told. After a few moments, someone stepped into view, red fingers adjusting the glasses on his face. "Yes?" the oni said politely.

"Um, Mister Takayama?" Loren ventured.

"Ah, would you be the young man I spoke to last night? Come in, come in, the door's unlocked."

Loren soon found himself sitting in a rather thinly padded bench that was pretending to be a sofa, sitting across a low table of dark wood from his host. From the look of it, the color of the table was from age rather than paint.

"Now, what can I help you with, young man?" Takayama said politely. "You said last night that you had questions about Amatsushiman kami?"

"In a sense," Loren said. "You see, a client of my has recently realized that some dolls in their possession are… well, have you seen the movie Doll Story?"

"Ah. You believe you have hinnagami?"

Loren paused. "Isn't that what you call a wish-granting doll?"

"There is some overlap, but ultimate it refers to the spirit of a doll," Takayama said.

"Then yes, I suppose we do have hinnagami. A spiritualist was able to confirm their presence."

Takayama nodded. "I see. You seem reasonably well informed, so may I ask why you've come to us?"

"Well, the problem is the family of the tsuk—sorry, hinnagami are moving, and they won't be able to bring all the hinnagami with them."

The oni frowned. "Why is that?"

"Because over the years the family has inadvertently awakened more than 1,400 of them," Loren said succinctly.

"Bullshit."

At Loren's surprise, the—priest? Was he a priest? Acolyte? Monk?—ameliorated his expression. "My apologies, but… that seems unbelievably excessive."

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"I agree with you completely," Loren said, "but I counted them all myself. The family in question has over the past forty years managed to bring that many hinnagami to awareness, all while neither meaning to or realizing they have done so until recently…"

Expositing the Halili's situation took some time, and required explaining that the late Mr. Halili had been an avid collector. From the look on Takayama's face, he also considered the numbers excessive.

"—and since they can only bring a few with them to Lasablica, we're looking for new homes for the rest," Loren said.

"I… see," Takayama said. "I… don't suppose you're looking to hold a funeral…?"

"No. We'd like to avoid that," Loren confirmed. "Isn't there anything at all?"

The oni shook his head. "I'm afraid nothing readily comes to mind. Once something develops a kami, the kami is bound to that object. Trying to get them to vacate it is like trying to separate the soul from the body; you end up with a corpse and the kami joining the goddesses, since kami don't leave ghosts. However, I'll see about spreading word to regular worshipers at our shrine if they would be interested in adopting one or two."

"That would be helpful," Loren said. It wouldn't be much, but it would be helpful. He reached into his backpack. "I have a flyer here with our contact information. We're planning to hold an adoption day in a couple of weeks so that our client isn't just randomly bothered. If you could just tell everyone…"

He'd printed them out yesterday at Happy Homes after calling Danny for when would be a good time to potentially have a lot of visitors looking to adopt parts of his father's collection. The flyer informed people that there were plamo tsukumogami looking for new homes, a picture of one of the Halili's display shelves full of figures, and a date for when people should come to pick up the figures, urging them to bring their own carrying containers.

"I'll see what I can do," Takayama said, accepting the flyer. "However, if you need more people, I would suggest also putting up a flyer in the temple across the street. As much as we would wish otherwise, Cherry Temple draws far larger crowds of worshippers during their services. You're likely to find a larger audience for your flyer."

Loren nodded. Well, he'd been planning to go there when he'd seen the temple across the street. Given the area, it wasn't unlikely that some of the attendees knew what tsukumogami were. "I'll do that, thank you. I don't suppose the shrine would like to adopt a few? You could have them work in the shop, they'd probably be really popular with the tourists."

A thoughtful look came over Takayama. "Hmm… I will consider the suggestion and discuss it with my colleagues. And… well, if it will spare the poor things from being abandoned, then I suppose I would be willing to adopt two or three, if they're still the same size as I remember them."

"Thank you. That would be a big help."

Making small talk to extract himself so he could leave without being rude followed, and for once it wasn't awkward. Loren simply asked if there were any places nearby that sold incense, and which of them were impregnated with vene so that they could be perceived by ghosts. Takayama was more than willing to recommend some places to him, such as the one where the shrine got their incense from, but he expounded on the benefits of the formulations of the others, including which ones offered incense with powdered venecite already mixed in and which ones were willing to accept custom orders.

Loren listened intently and took notes, because while his little budget solution of venecite mixed with cheap cologne and expired perfume was working, the supply of the latter was finite and dwindling. He might have to ask his grandparents if they had any old stuff stashed away he could have next time he went to see them.

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After he was able to take his leave of Mr. Takayama, Loren walked across the street to Cherry Temple, which had been far more busy. There's been a group of old ladies sitting under the shade of a balete tree in the corner of the temple's parking lot, gossiping to each other about… well, any number of things, their talks occasionally interrupted by laughter. Probably talking about grandkids or something.

As he hadn't called in advance, he had to wait a bit to find out whether there was a priest or priestess who was free to speak to him. Once one was free, he once more explained his circumstance—thankfully the priestess had watched Doll Story with her nieces and nephews—and was able to get permission to post his flyer onto their bulletin boards. The flyer only mentioned tsukumogami, so only a small number of people would understand what that meant. It would at least reduce the likelihood of some child calling because they wanted a magic toy…

After that, Loren made the rounds to the recommended shops to buy incense and, once he he'd looked around, venecite-imbued rice-wine and rice cakes. The wine was nastily expensive, but he'd brought some of the rice cakes for Sara and Harmony. He figured the ghost would appreciate the novelty if nothing else, since he doubted it would have much in the way of flavor. The wine he simply made a note to buy for a special occasion. He'd still be living in the apartment at New Years, so maybe then…?

Once he was done with his little shopping trip—making sure to separate Steve's incense from his—he headed back to the office. It was empty save for Norm doing office work, although Loren didn't really know what it was. Still, the research computer was free, and along with some of the contacts that Danny had messaged to him, Loren had been able to get a start on calling some of the late Mr. Halili's contacts and acquaintances in the hobby to try and see if any of them would be willing to take in any new plamo.

The results were mixed.

A few were simply stores the man had bought plamo from, and while sad he was dead—he'd been a very good customer over the years—they weren't really motivated to do much more than that. Others he called sounded genuinely regretful at the loss, and had even inquired as to how it had happened and whether the family was well. Once he had related the circumstances of Mr. Halili's death—"He died in his sleep last summer, the doctors say it might have been heatstroke,"—and relaying the family was well but still grieving, Loren had felt safe in asking if they would be willing to spread the word among their customers that Mr. Halili's collection was in need of new management. He made sure to stretch that these were not rare or limited collector's pieces but simply well-loved pieces that the family were trying to have adopted so they wouldn't have to be thrown away, abandoned or given to children for them to play with.

He could hear the wince from some of the people he contacted when he'd mentioned that last, and had assured him that they would spread the word, and Loren was able to pass over the relevant information. A few actually sounded like they were writing it down, which was a hopeful sign. He was able to get the address of those with highly-trafficked storefronts and promised he would come over to post the flyer announcing the adoption day, just to be sure.

However, there were two who seemed much more affected by the announcement, and had been worried at the extended silence from the man. Loren had found himself in the awkward position of having to break the news of the man's death to them. From what he was able to discern over the course of the two conversations, while they hadn't been close friends with Mr. Halili, they had been acquainted with him ever since he had started his hobby or close enough. He supposed that over forty years or so, such a longstanding relationship became a deeply familiar one. The two had certainly sounded upset over the phone, and for more than losing a regular customer.

They'd definitely written down the details when he'd told them Mr. Halili's family were looking for people willing to adopt parts of his collection, and had promised him that they would be calling other people Mr. Halili knew in the local hobbyist community to let them know, as well as showing up themselves.

As Loren put down the phone after the last call, he leaned back in his chair and sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing his ear where the phone had been pressing against it for far too long. When he'd taken this job, he'd thought… well, given his first two week had been spent taking keres self-defense classes, he'd thought there's be more violent ghosts involved. But then, given that Harmony had needed to do a lot of research to help him secure his apartment after finding it haunted, perhaps that should have been his standard for what to expect.

Looking at the time, Loren started shutting down the computer and putting away his notes. Quitting time was approaching, and he still needed to give Steve the incense so he could be reimbursed…