I<\/span><\/p>\n qaliat wants to celebrate, and I get it. I mean, if my village was being terrorized by a dragon or some other monster, and strangers arrived out of the blue and just \u201ctook care of it\u201d, I\u2019d probably want to celebrate, too. In fact, I\u2019ve <\/span>been<\/span><\/i> there. I grew up in Sandpoint, right?<\/span><\/p>\n And, maybe if I had tried to <\/span>persecute<\/span><\/i> and even <\/span>execute<\/span><\/i> those same strangers when they first showed up on my doorstep, I might go a little overboard in trying to make them feel welcome during round two. So I don\u2019t want to say that this little gala is wrong. It\u2019s just that\u2026I expected there to be at least <\/span>some<\/span><\/i> acknowledgement that we\u2019re throwing a party over the death of something that shouldn\u2019t have had to die at all. That wasn\u2019t even a threat until someone went out of their way to provoke a fight. Can we at <\/span>least<\/span><\/i> acknowledge that?<\/span><\/p>\n When I tried bringing this up to the chief and the hearthmistress? Blank stares. OK, fine, we\u2019re just going to ignore all that, then.<\/span><\/p>\n They pulled us aside to talk about what they had learned from Tunuak\u2019s secret shrine while we were away. Fine by me. I couldn\u2019t take one more minute in the village, anyway. Iqaliat would just have to celebrate their heroes without the heroes.<\/span><\/p>\n For what it\u2019s worth, the village elders had been busy trying to figure out what their former shaman had been up to. What he was unwilling to give us through his spirit, they had been busy working out from what he left behind.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe morozokus are the scourge of the demon lord Sithhud. The dark-haired woman, the one he calls Katiyana, may have found a way to restore his power.\u201d When we first arrived, we\u2019d been told that strange, black monoliths had been appearing on the landscape. No one knew what they were for, but given Tunuak\u2019s pictograms? The general consensus was that they were connected somehow. I couldn\u2019t fault the logic.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe tower in this pictogram may be the Storm Tower. It is similar to the towers in the Nameless Spires, but it stands alone near the Alabastrine Peaks.\u201d It\u2019s called the Storm Tower because, yup, storms always seem to be swirling around it. No one puts any thought into these names.<\/span><\/p>\n We were told that the storms have been getting worse each year, slowly working their way farther and farther south. Whatever plan this Katiyana has? It seems to be working. She\u2019s not just a threat to the inhabitants here, but to Avistan and Tian Xia, too. She\u2019s been operating up here unopposed for quite a while. I think it\u2019s time for some opposition.<\/span><\/p>\n Don\u2019t get me wrong: I am no crusader. We were pulled into this mess and all but forced to do something morally repugnant to fix it. This Katiyana person is the why, and I aim to do something about it.<\/span><\/p>\n A<\/span><\/p>\n bout half way to Unaimo, we lost the sunlight completely. The next three months will be in total darkness save for the lights we bring with us. It\u2019s unnerving.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019re in Unaimo just for the day to resupply for the trip over the ice. If it wasn\u2019t so late in the year, it would be a busy trading town, but being the off-season, it\u2019s more subdued. I got my share of inquisitive looks when I was filling every inch of cargo space with the provisions we purchased there. I think they were waiting for me to volunteer the answer. Fat chance. I wouldn\u2019t have said anything even if they\u2019d come out and asked.<\/span><\/p>\n We leave on the return trip to Iqaliat in the morning. Then? It\u2019s up onto the Ice.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lamashan 26 (Iqaliat, Night) I qaliat wants to celebrate, and I get it. I mean, if my village was being terrorized by a dragon or some other monster, and strangers arrived out of the blue and just \u201ctook care of it\u201d, I\u2019d probably want to celebrate, too. In fact, I\u2019ve been there. I grew up […]<\/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-2616","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\/2616","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=2616"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5656,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616\/revisions\/5656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Neth 2 (Unaimo, Evening)<\/h3>\n