Sarenith 2, 4713 (evening, Kiniro Kyomai Teahouse)

In the Enganoka province there is a fishing village. This village found itself under a crushing tax burden, and when they could no longer afford to pay their daimyo he called nine of his best samurai and ordered them to raze it to the ground. These samurai were loyal to their daimyo, but they were also honorable men. Because there was no honor in burning a village and killing its residents as punishment for a debt, these samurai instead returned with the tax money that was owed. By satisfying the village’s debt, the daimyo was properly served and their honor remained intact. The daimyo, however, expected his orders to be followed, and the nine had deliberately disobeyed him so he insisted they they be punished. Though he had a reputation for cruelty, in a rare moment of mercy, the daimyo merely dismissed the samurai from his service.

This is the story that Itsuru told us. The ronin call themselves The Nine Pawns, and the daimyo is, of course, his brother Sennaka.

So why tell us this?

Because The Nine Pawns are seeking retribution for the years they spent, trapped by honor, serving an unjust and unworthy man. Because Itsuru is sick of his brother’s cruelty and the Jade Regent’s hubris. Because all of our interests are aligned. Because an opportunity has presented itself, and as foreigners, we are in a position to act on it.

We have limited time. Sennaka is setting out for a resort at a hot springs that he uses as a private retreat. The Nine Pawns have infiltrated this resort as servants while it is being renovated. We can coordinate with them—if they are willing to take a chance on foreigners that they have never met—and increase our odds of success. He’ll meet with them and get word to us, either personally or through someone bearing one of our talismans.

This meeting was important enough that asked Jiro to join us. Itsuru needed to see we were building a real army with real people, led by men of honor; that we weren’t just a group of miscreants taking advantage of Minkai’s instability. It turns out Jiro and Itsuru knew each other, or rather, knew of one another, and that helped give weight to our claims. Especially since O-Sayumi started things off with a hammer blow: “These are scions of the Amatatsu family.”

Note that she said scions, not scion. We haven’t told anyone that, which just underscores that O-Sayumi is the real deal. It caught us off guard, and we had to back up nearly a year to explain it.

Getting Jiro here was easy, but not without drama. He and Hatsue had intercepted a messenger carrying a request for troops to quell a certain rebellious ronin in the north. Combined with some other intelligence, Jiro believes the fortress will come under attack in the near future. This is, of course, the big problem with fortresses: they aren’t mobile. We’ve always been most vulnerable when we were sitting still. A fortress doesn’t have the option of moving around.

Sarenith 4, 4713 (evening, Kiniro Kyomai Teahouse)

Over the past few days, when we weren’t stuck in meetings, Dasi and O-Sayumi have been combining their skill at divination magic in an attempt to learn something about who is spying on us, and why. It was a fascinating process: with each casting, they’d get small pieces of information that could be fed back the next time to refine their sight. By the third or fourth day, an answer emerged, and in answering the question of who we so answered the one of why.

We’re being followed by a legendary assassin. One who is believed to work for the Oni’s Mask clan, and is rumored to have extraordinary magical powers. This would explain the disguises and the constant scrying. So far we’ve been able to thwart them by moving around and using magic of our own, but that has come to an end: we are going to be in Sakakabe for several days, and they will eventually figure out where we are. We are a pretty ripe target.

So there is that to look forward to.

Itsuru delivered the message to us personally: his brother leaves for the resort in just a few days, and will arrive in a little over a week. The Nine Pawns have agreed to ally with us, and they are setting traps in the forest to isolate the lodge from the company of soldiers that serves as his traveling “guard”. They will hold off the soldiers, giving us the time we need to deal with Sennaka and his retinue. It’s not a bad plan, especially for one that was put together in just a couple of days.

Now we just need to live long enough to pull it off.