1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\nShe wasn’t always like this. I still remember, very vividly, the first time I saw her after she and her family had vanished and were presumed dead. It was in Korvosa of all places: she was the only one who had survived, and it was Shalelu that had found her. I have no idea how or why they were so far east; I never asked. I was eleven then and Qatana\u00a0and I spent a couple of days exploring, me showing her the best parts of the city from a child’s perspective. She was distant,\u00a0hesitant, guarded, and grieving, but also curious and excited. And more importantly, what she did also made sense, even to an eleven-year-old. At least, once I fully grasped what was happening. Even a decade later when we would see each other in Magnimar, she was still the Qatana I had grown up with. Yes, she may have come across as rude to people who didn’t know her\u2014OK, and sometimes to those who did\u2014but she was never\u00a0erratic<\/em>.<\/p>\nThis…what I see now is something new.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I feel like there was more I could have done, or something I could have done differently, once she was back in\u00a0Sandpoint. Those first years were hard\u2014how could they not be?\u2014and\u00a0they were the years that would have made the difference. Without a family of her own she\u00a0needed support wherever it could be found, but the thing is,\u00a0neither of us were particularly rich in friends\u00a0before<\/em>. Logically, I know this doesn’t make sense, that this isn’t about me, that there’s more to it than that. But logic has nothing to do with it. It’s how it feels<\/em>.<\/p>\nI bring this up now because we’re only a couple of days out of Ul-Angorn and we’re starting to see signs of\u00a0human and\u00a0humanoid settlement. The most significant of them\u00a0came about mid-day today, when we passed a cabin fairly close to the Path of Aganhei. Even in the faded\u00a0twilight we could see the smoke coming from its chimney so we decided to stop. I mean, why not? Not counting Katiyana (why would you?), this was the first sign of civilization…gods<\/em>, in\u00a0nearly two months<\/em>.<\/p>\nThe owner was a halfling gentleman named Kobi, and for reasons known only to Qatana she decided she liked him. After an awkward little greeting where he thought we were headed onto<\/em> the High Ice\u2014we were clearly headed south, but people see what they are expecting to see, I guess\u2014and tried to talk us out of it, he invited us inside just to visit. There was no hiding that we had just crossed, of course, but Qatana just could not help herself. She gave him the highlights of our exploits across the Boreal Expanse: the storms, Katiyana, the Storm Tower, Iqaliat, the white dragon, and even the Dead Man. What do you do at that point?<\/p>\nIt’s not the events so much as it is the attention. Realistically, one halfling\u00a0living 100 miles from the nearest settlement does not seem like a huge problem, but eventually he will talk to someone, who will talk to someone else, and so on. Word spreads. We were supposed to come to the Crown and disappear, not develop a reputation that calls us out.<\/p>\n
Abadius 9th, 4713 (night, Ul-Angorn)<\/h4>\n
I<\/span> give up. Honestly, I do. It is impossible to keep a group of thirteen adults, including the ones who should know better, from drawing attention to themselves. So I am done trying. I can’t be everyone’s nanny, and I wouldn’t want the job even if I could. I don’t want to be my grandmother. I love my grandparents, but that is not the same as loving everything about them. That is no way to live my\u00a0life.<\/p>\nPeople will either learn or they won’t. Ameiko obviously hasn’t\u2014at this point, whenever she says, “No one here knows who I am,”\u00a0it is reasonable to assume that we are in imminent danger<\/em>\u2014and even Suishen\u00a0has stopped offering advice on what to do about it. The sword and I finally share a common bond.<\/p>\nWe are a danger not just to ourselves, but also to those around us. If we’re\u00a0going to continue to tempt fate\u00a0like this,\u00a0then I’ll just have to be prepared for when someone takes advantage, especially in environments that put others\u00a0at risk, as happened tonight. I have to pick spells that I can use in close quarters, without harming people and structures, even incidentally.<\/p>\n
Speaking of tonight, that ogre mage was foolish to try and take us all on like that, but hauteur\u00a0seems to be a running theme there. I mean, he had to know we were not going to roll over and die given what had happened in Kalsgard, right? But I guess he thought he was different.<\/p>\n
In all honesty, his gambit was a good one. While we were all wary, we weren’t really on guard for an oni\u00a0disguised as a human (though I suppose we should have been, yes?), and even if we were could we reasonably have kept it up for hours on end? Which is how long he was willing to wait.\u00a0That<\/em> part was smart, as was the attempt to lure Ameiko away through an enchantment. He just didn’t have a contingency plan that was better than “hack-and-slash with sword”, which is what surprises me. But if our enemies want to make it easy on us, I guess I shouldn’t complain.<\/p>\nThe worst part of that was having it all happen in the middle of The Frozen Spike. One second\u00a0we have Mr. “Why Don’t You Come See My Music?” surrounded and magically held, and the next there’s an ogre mage standing in his place, chairs and tables pushed aside and bar staff and patrons scrambling to get the hell out of the way or cowering in terror.<\/p>\n
Ten seconds later we had cut him down on the spot. Ameiko landed the killing blow. That may end up being important.<\/p>\n
The owner or proprietor, I think her name was Gerta, was pretty distraught. I guess I would be too if something like this happened in my bar. Ivan and I used our spells to fix the chairs and tables, and of course expunge the blood. There was a lot<\/em> of blood. In less than 15 minutes, though, there was not a trace of it left, and I think the bar was even cleaner<\/em> than it was before we got there. A little music, a little dancing, and a round of drinks for everyone, and\u00a0things were more or less on the road back\u00a0to normal.<\/p>\nMaybe I am being hard on Ameiko and the others. Yes, a Tian woman playing a samisen is an obvious giveaway, but so is a five-wagon caravan rolling in at this time of year, looking battered and battle-scarred. There is a reality here that there’s just no way for us to hide or be discreet. Drawing attention to ourselves was just pouring water in the ocean.<\/p>\n
You know who else is well known here? Ulf. I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise. I imagine every caravan stops in Ul-Angorn on the way to Tian Xia so they probably get to know all the Crown guides fairly well. Gerta’s professional assessment? He can hold his liquor. That, and he can be “surly”. That’s it. That’s what came to mind. Obviously, she\u00a0bases this opinion on how he spends his time between jobs, or on overnight stops. Which is a little unfair. The\u00a0drinking he’s done on the road with us has hardly been excessive, and\u00a0you can be surly and gruff if you have the skills to back it up.<\/p>\n
We more or less knew the “surly” bit\u00a0already, anyway. It was pretty clear from talking with Uksahkka that Ulf had his way of doing things,\u00a0and you either did them his way or he wouldn’t do business with you. But like I said, his reputation spoke volumes. Even\u00a0Greta eventually, albeit grudgingly, admitted the same: “He obviously must be good at what he does because gets people across.”<\/p>\n
We’ll be here another night.<\/p>\n
Abadius 10th, 4713 (evening, Ul-Angorn)<\/h4>\n
S<\/span>parna has made arrangements to have some maintenance and repairs done on the wagons. Strictly speaking, this isn’t even remotely<\/em> necessary, but given last night’s events a little added good will can’t hurt. I spent the morning getting us re-provisioned and learned the locals were\u00a0divided on whether we were saving the day or the source of the trouble. Of course, we know the answer to that but we’ll be keeping it to ourselves.<\/p>\nQatana interrogated our corpse because that’s just a thing we do now. Like that sort of thing is somehow normal. For once, we got direct answers.<\/p>\n
“Who were you working for?” she asked.<\/p>\n
“I am an\u00a0agent of the Five Winds.”<\/p>\n
The Five Winds? We have no idea who that is, though it’s certainly a good guess that they are related to the Five Storms and bad with names.<\/p>\n
“How did you find out we were here?”<\/p>\n
“I was waiting to see if you would come.”<\/p>\n
“How did you get here?”<\/p>\n
“Traveled by magic.”<\/p>\n
Her last question was the one we most needed to know: “Did you communicate our presence to others?”<\/p>\n
“Yes,” he said. And that was that.<\/p>\n
Obviously, this is not good. They know\u00a0we’re right here, right now, and will soon learn that we survived. If it was up to me we’d have left on the spot, but no one asked me for my opinion.<\/p>\n
Ivan took care of the body. He conjured a ring of fire around it and just let it burn until there was nothing left but ash and blackened, brittle bones.<\/p>\n
Sparna found a set of jeweler’s tools for me while I\u00a0was running my errands. I’ll need them for our talismans, which I want to set with some semi-precious stones just to give them a little flair. We still have weeks of travel ahead of us, and this is a good way to use the time.<\/p>\n
There are a handful of dwarves here and they and Sparna have more or less gravitated to one another. A\u00a0couple of them were in the Frozen Spike last night and I overheard them talking to Sparna, but I played dumb. For one, I’ve learned\u00a0not to tip my hand\u00a0just to show off, and two, I didn’t want to butt in on their conversation. And, I suppose there’s a three, as well: people talk pretty candidly when they don’t think you can understand them. You never know what you might hear.<\/p>\n
Ameiko, Qatana, and I spent the afternoon together and, predictably, it descended into mischief. I like a little mischief now and then, and the three of us were pretty good at it when we were kids.\u00a0There was this one time, back before Qatana…well, back\u00a0before, <\/em>so\u00a0I must have been 9 or 10 years old.\u00a0The Flinch brothers had this horse and they were obviously not taking care of it and she was very upset. We came up with this crazy scheme to liberate it\u00a0without it being obvious that it had been\u00a0taken. Qatana spent days<\/em> making an\u00a0enormous, fake cocoon, and one night\u2014anyway, it was so brazen and ridiculous that it made sense only to a kid, but amazingly, it worked<\/em>. Well, it worked long enough for the horse to find a new home far away from Sandpoint,\u00a0which was good enough.<\/p>\nToday, we visited a little shrine\u00a0to Desna that was tended by a druid. I was a good girl, and did not burst out laughing when Qatana asked, “Would you mind if we erected a small tribute to Groetus behind the temple?” If you want to really catch someone off guard, that’s a pretty good opening line. From that moment on, I was on board with her idea.<\/p>\n
Qatana’s formal religious education may have stopped a few years ago, but mine has not. Some random druid was\u00a0not going to\u00a0win a theological debate\u00a0with me, and they relented in short order. “Just make sure it’s far<\/em> behind. Maybe on the other side of that pond over there?” That was a little extreme, of course, but I didn’t want to upset Desna, either, so I chose a respectful distance for my\u00a0task: making an ice sculpture of a grinning skull.<\/p>\nSide note: it’s really hard to do that when you’re fighting fits of hysterics.<\/p>\n
Abadius 14th, 4713 (evening, Ovorikheer Pass)<\/h4>\n
W<\/span>e started the climb to the Ovorikheer pass today. This whole area is geothermally active and it just smells terrible.\u00a0We had\u00a0to navigate the\u00a0fumarole fields of Baruun’s Breath carefully to avoid being overcome by the fumes.<\/p>\nRadella unpacked what looked like a portable alchemy lab and spent much of the evening extracting chemicals from the hot springs near our camp. It’s the sort of thing Etayne would have done.<\/p>\n
When\u00a0she was\u00a0finished, she had four vials of what looked like three different substances.<\/p>\n
“What did you end up with?”<\/p>\n
“Sulfuric acid, arsenic, and cyanide.”<\/p>\n
I am\u00a0sorry I asked.<\/p>\n
Abadius 15th, 4713 (midday, Domagalki Forest)<\/h4>\n
E<\/span>veryone’s pretty shaken up, including me. Gods! Two enormous<\/em>\u00a0spiders, the biggest I’ve ever seen, hit our caravan. We didn’t even see them until they were practically on top of us. How do you miss something that big? How do you miss two<\/em> of them?<\/p>\nI didn’t even think. One of them was bearing down on Ameiko’s wagon and I just started dumping\u00a0everything I had on\u00a0it. When it backed off, I turned to the other and didn’t stop until it was engulfed in\u00a0flames.<\/p>\n
The others had to intervene to keep\u00a0me from incinerating the first one, too. Why? Because they wanted to harvest its venom. Again, sorry I asked.<\/p>\n
Olmas went down during the skirmish, barely clinging to life. Sparna, too. We were mere seconds from disaster.<\/p>\n
People are giving me that look<\/em>. Especially Sparna. What do you want me to say? What did you expect me to do? They were gods-be-damned spiders<\/em> the size of a\u00a0whale.<\/em>\u00a0What part of this don’t you understand?<\/p>\n