T<\/span><\/p>\n indertwigs. Chain shirt. Sword. Furs. Snow shoes. We knew, <\/span>we knew<\/span><\/i>, these were Ulf\u2019s things and we knew he was here. We picked through the trunk some more, just to be sure. Axes. Climber\u2019s kit. Check. <\/span>Check check check<\/span><\/i>. And then. Gods, <\/span>and then<\/span><\/i>. Leather armor. Rapier. <\/span>Samisen. <\/span><\/i>I felt like I\u2019d been kicked in the gut. Hollowed out inside. <\/span>Ameiko<\/span><\/i>. I thought I was going to be sick right there.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve felt real panic before. Dread. Fear. I mean, I thought I had. I grew up in Sandpoint after all. When I was eighteen we were trapped in our home when giants raided the town. We had heard the rumors for days, and were preparing that morning to leave but we weren\u2019t fast enough getting out. And, <\/span>BOOM<\/span><\/i>. From the north gate, just a stone\u2019s throw from our house, they were there. We weren\u2019t ready. We hunkered down in the center of the house for what felt like hours, mom and dad lying to each other and to me that everything would be OK.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s one thing to feel fear and panic because your life is in danger, because you don\u2019t have control over events around you. It\u2019s another to know that you had basically one job, <\/span>one gods-be-damned job<\/span><\/i>, and you blew it. We hadn\u2019t kept Ameiko safe. <\/span>I<\/span><\/i> hadn\u2019t kept her safe.<\/span><\/p>\n My head spun. What had we done wrong? A thousand things. We left her with very little protection. She didn\u2019t have Radella\u2019s ring. The caravan was no secret. We\u2019d been spied on for days. They probably knew what she looked like. The list goes on. What <\/span>hadn\u2019t<\/span><\/i> we done wrong?<\/span><\/p>\n Of course she would go out on her own. We should have known. She just wanted more information about what lay ahead. About what should be her kingdom. And she\u2019d been cooped up since we got here. Wouldn\u2019t I have done the same? Hadn\u2019t we both done this countless times when we were kids? At the very least we should have left her the ring. Stupid. Stupid! But maybe it wouldn\u2019t have made a difference. I don\u2019t know.<\/span><\/p>\n Is this what mom and dad felt? Every time I came home with a bruise on my face, or a tear in my clothes? That they had failed me somehow?<\/span><\/p>\n They grabbed her the day we left. The very <\/span>morning<\/span><\/i>. She must have been brought here in the middle of the night while we were holed up in the cloak room. We had no idea. (Yet another failing. Why hadn\u2019t we purchased a few scrolls so we could stay in touch with the caravan?)<\/span><\/p>\n It explained how reinforcements had gotten here so quickly: they were already on the way, just a few hours behind us. They just didn\u2019t realize that\u2019s what they were when they left.<\/span><\/p>\n We got lucky. Ameiko wasn\u2019t here long enough for Kimandatsu to do anything more with her than throw her in a cell, more or less. I imagine only having the heir was not enough. Kimandatsu probably needed the Seal, too, as well as the scions. <\/span>Us<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n Well, she got us, just not in the way she was expecting. And now Kimandatsu is dead, and Ameiko is safe, and the Frozen Shadows are finished.<\/span><\/p>\n To get to Kimandatsu we had to push our way through Runecaster. He resisted. Violently. He put up quite the fight, despite being outnumbered. With some well-placed spells and quick thinking he was able to spread us out, taking us on just a couple at a time, but in the end it only delayed the inevitable. We caught up to him before he could get help, and that was that.<\/span><\/p>\n Runecaster was an odd creature, a half-troll of some sort. I\u2019ve seen a number of breeds over the years, but nothing like him. The troll half was obvious, but the other? Not so much. I can\u2019t help but feel saddened by how this turned out. I mean, the circumstances of his birth were probably not great (how could they be?) and I doubt he was a popular figure here or anywhere just by the nature of what he was. His life was probably difficult. The Frozen Shadows was likely one of only a handful of options for him, all of them bad. How much of this life had he chosen for himself? How much had been chosen for him, just by limiting what he could choose? Did that leave this place as the best of his options?<\/span><\/p>\n Kimandatsu I have less sympathy for. And by less I mean none. Lute was right: Silverskorr was the purple ogre. Kimandatsu was an oni from Minkai who had taken her identity and worked her way into the Rimerunners Guild. We still don’t have proof that she murdered the real Silverskorr at sea, but what other conclusion is there to draw?<\/span><\/p>\n She was surrounded by over a half dozen of her Tian ninjas, having some absurd social gathering, and we cut through them like paper. Kimandatsu, herself, was the bigger challenge, first figuratively and then literally as she reverted to her true form, but Olmas had Suishen and I had my spells and enough of the others were able to hound her until she fell. She tried to hide using invisibility, but Suishen granted Olmas the power to see, and of course we had spent far too much time around these Frozen Shadows vaunters to not have learned that they only have two tricks. I had purposely prepared the same spell multiple times, and unleashed bursts of glittering dust into the room, coating her form each time Olmas called out her position. I exhausted all of my spells, bringing in a giant bat, and even drawing upon my own essence to manipulate a scroll to a more advanced summons, just as I had done at Brinewall.<\/span><\/p>\n This last part was, I suppose, overkill but I felt like being thorough.<\/span><\/p>\n Ameiko was safe. So was Ulf.<\/span><\/p>\n They were held captive in a stinking cell filled with stagnant water, guarded in a manner of speaking by giant frogs with glowing eyes that nearly blinded us just as they had blinded their charges. Ulf looked particularly bad having been here for several days. We\u2019ve given them healing and food, but only time will restore their vision.<\/span><\/p>\n While we wait, we\u2019ve been discussing the future: both ours, and the Rimerunners Guild\u2019s. The latter will almost certainly cease to exist. Once Lute returns and tells his story, backed by the physical evidence we will take from this place, they will either collapse on their own, or be crushed by the Crown. What little legitimate business they had will be overshadowed by the organization of assassins they had been unwittingly fronting (and I suspect the \u201cunwitting\u201d part will earn them very little sympathy).<\/span><\/p>\n As for our part, we are taking the money. That vote was almost unanimous, and though there were some objections raised about the money belonging to the Guild, it will almost certainly be seized if we don\u2019t seize it first. When the objections continued, Suishen actually spoke up.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou humans are terrible at managing your finances. I languished in a collector\u2019s hoard instead of defending my family for decades because some idiot didn\u2019t have enough money with him! I say get enough money to accomplish your mission this time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This did put an end to the brewing argument, I\u2019ll grant it that. But. Fuck you, too. I manage my finances just fine, <\/span>thank-you-very-much<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n More problematic is the matter of\u00a0 Ravenscraeg itself. Qatana insists on selling it as if it were our property just because we are standing in it. There was a legal sale, title transfer, and so on, making it formally property of the Rimerunners Guild. There is no skirting this. If the Crown does step in, which I am sure they will, there will be no finders-keepers rule. I\u2019ve tried to explain that multiple times but she won\u2019t hear it.<\/span><\/p>\n I eventually just dropped the subject. The realities of what we can and cannot do will become clear in due course.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Arodus 15 (Ravenscraeg, Night) T indertwigs. Chain shirt. Sword. Furs. Snow shoes. We knew, we knew, these were Ulf\u2019s things and we knew he was here. We picked through the trunk some more, just to be sure. Axes. Climber\u2019s kit. Check. Check check check. And then. Gods, and then. Leather armor. Rapier. Samisen. I felt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-2390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-kali"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2390"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5648,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390\/revisions\/5648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}