I<\/span><\/p>\n feel naked without my hair.<\/span><\/p>\n Dasi and I are making the trip to Muliwan tomorrow, and that means I spent hours tonight working on my disguise with Ameiko, Radella, and Dasi. The easy<\/span> part is <\/span>looking<\/span><\/i> like a monk of Irori: we almost always visited the temple when we traveled to Magnimar, and of course, the time we spent in Jalmeray would qualify as \u201cimmersive\u201d. The hard part is <\/span>acting<\/span><\/i> like one.<\/span><\/p>\n My clumsy attempts at being someone I wasn\u2019t back in Kalsgard weighed heavily on me as I practiced, over and over, under the rising Rebirth Moon. I could hear Sandru\u2019s voice in my head: it isn\u2019t enough to know Irori\u2019s faith. I\u2019m not going to be quizzed on his tenets. I need to be someone that meets people\u2019s expectations. This includes everything from attitude to speech patterns to gods-be-damned posture.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNormally, when creating a disguise, you don\u2019t want to stand out. You want to be forgettable,\u201d Ameiko explained as I dressed in the outfit I\u2019d fabricated. \u201cIn your case, however, you can\u2019t <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> stand out, so you have to become someone that stands out for a completely different reason. It\u2019s\u2026a lot harder to pull off.\u201d And that was the problem. Absolutely nothing about me had to be like <\/span>me<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n Dasi and I constructed a simple story for why we were traveling together. This is harder than it sounds because we had to be able to talk about where we were from, how we met, what we were doing together, and on and on. It took half an hour to develop our \u201chistory\u201d to the point where we could answer any questions the others in our group threw at us.<\/span><\/p>\n We are as ready as we\u2019ll ever be.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019d be lying if I said I wasn\u2019t nervous. But, good news, thanks to the ring, I can fret about it virtually all night long.<\/span><\/p>\n A<\/span><\/p>\n mazingly, we made it down to Muliwan and back without incident.<\/span><\/p>\n Miyaro came up to me in the morning and asked me why I had cut off all of my hair. I know she hasn\u2019t exactly spent a lot of time around humanoid settlements, but\u2026I thought what we were doing was pretty obvious.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI need to not be recognizable in Muliwan, just in case agents of the Five Storms or Prince Batsaikhar are watching for us. My long hair would give me away.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This seemed to amuse her. \u201cSubterfuge,\u201d she said, smiling broadly. \u201cI approve.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She also pointed out <\/span>her<\/span><\/i> hair, which now had streaks of white and orange in it. Streaks that weren\u2019t there the night before. \u201cWhat do you think?\u201d she asked.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s lovely!\u201d I said. Though I am a little confused about how she did it.<\/span><\/p>\n I didn\u2019t have time to get into a discussion, though, as Dasi and I were getting ready to leave. We wanted to be back by dinner time.<\/span><\/p>\n Dasi and I talked a lot on the way down. Or rather, he asked me a lot of questions, and I answered them. I learned that Dasi doesn\u2019t like to talk about himself, though he\u2019ll happily talk your ear off about what he <\/span>does,<\/span><\/i> which is write music, write poems, and research the nobility of Tian Xia in general and Minkai specifically. The most I got about his background was that his mother is an elven performer of some sort, and his father is a warrior or samurai or something. He was raised by his father, which was clearly the only personal information he was willing to share.<\/span><\/p>\n Honestly, I don\u2019t really mind the secrecy. He\u2019s still not quite sure what he\u2019s gotten into. You don\u2019t just open up to strangers.<\/span><\/p>\n Most of his questions at first were around Varisia and Varisian culture. He wanted to know how Shelyn is worshipped along the Inner Sea, and how it differs from worship in Tian Xia (the answer to which can be summed up as \u201cnot much\u201d). He also asked what I knew of the Minkai nobility (the answer to which can also be summed up as \u201cnot much\u201d). Eventually, though, he got around to what I knew about Ameiko.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI grew up with her,\u201d I said. \u201cWe were close friends, maybe even best friends, for several years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n His entire demeanor seemed to change right then. \u201cWhat was that like? What was <\/span>she<\/span><\/i> like?\u201d he asked, clearly excited.<\/span><\/p>\n So I told him.<\/span><\/p>\n My family moved to Sandpoint when I was six. It\u2019s a small town in Varisia, the kind where everyone knows everyone, you know? Except, of course, I <\/span>didn\u2019t<\/span><\/i> know anyone when we first got there.<\/span><\/p>\n Ameiko and I\u2026we just sort of <\/span>gravitated<\/span><\/i> towards one another. I was obviously a foreigner, and she was a foreigner, too, and we were both girls, and about the same age. It seemed natural that we\u2019d hang out together. Over time, we became pretty close friends. And she was a good friend. Much better than I was to her.<\/span><\/p>\n Have you ever been bullied, Dasi? I didn\u2019t think so. I was. I was a small child. Much smaller than other girls my age. I fell seriously ill when I was a toddler, and that illness, as a physicker would say, stunted my growth. Magic can heal injuries, cure diseases, even raise the dead, but there are things it can\u2019t undo. So I was small, a foreigner, a girl, not particularly sociable, and not at all intimidating. Just the opposite, really. And that made me an easy target. And on top of that, I had a temper, which made their job that much easier.<\/span><\/p>\n Ameiko stood beside me through those years. She was there to listen, to help, to offer solace, and when things turned violent, to teach me how to protect myself. And the thing is\u2026I didn\u2019t really deserve it.<\/span><\/p>\n No, of course I didn\u2019t deserve to be harassed and beaten, either. No one does. But my friends didn\u2019t deserve how <\/span>I<\/span><\/i> treated <\/span>them<\/span><\/i>. Especially Ameiko. When you are bruised enough, you lash out at people, including those you love. Yet, as awful as I could be to Ameiko, she still stood beside me. But it\u2019s not just <\/span>that<\/span><\/i> she helped: it\u2019s <\/span>how<\/span><\/i> she helped. I wanted to fight back, to hurt the people that were hurting me. But Ameiko wouldn\u2019t have that. She taught me to <\/span>avoid<\/span><\/i> fights, not to win them.<\/span><\/p>\n Yes, I know. I wasn\u2019t big enough or strong enough to do the latter. It\u2019s easy to blow off the significance of it like that. But that\u2019s not why she did what she did. She wasn\u2019t afraid I <\/span>couldn\u2019t<\/span><\/i> fight back: she wanted me to be a better person than they were. That\u2019s just who Ameiko is. She encourages the best in people.<\/span><\/p>\n Her family? No, Dasi, she didn\u2019t learn compassion and human decency from her family. Well, perhaps from her mom, though even that was\u2026complicated.<\/span><\/p>\n No. No one knows for sure how she died. The <\/span>official<\/span><\/i> story, the one told by her father, Lonjiku\u2014which immediately makes it suspect, by the way\u2014is that she fell from the cliffs behind their home. A tragic accident.<\/span><\/p>\n No one disputes that it was the fall that killed her, but how and why she went over that edge? That was a source of endless speculation for years.<\/span><\/p>\n How much has she told you about her family?<\/span><\/p>\n Of course not. Ameiko doesn\u2019t talk about her family or her personal life. Don\u2019t worry, though. Most of what I\u2019m sharing with you now was widely known in Sandpoint, or at the very least an open secret, and the rest we reconstructed from what we learned after finding the Amatatsu Seal.<\/span><\/p>\n Her father, Lonjiku, was a bitter, angry and controlling man. We know now that he was a victim of the Five Storms, too. His father had hidden their true heritage from him, and when Lonjiku accidentally exposed the Seal, the family fled Brinewall. He survived the voyage south, but nearly everyone else he knew and loved did not.<\/span><\/p>\n His wife, Atsuii, believed he had died as well, and returned to an old elven lover. Lonjiku eventually made it to Sandpoint alive, and eight months later she gave birth to Tsuto, a half-elf.<\/span><\/p>\n Lonjiku never forgave either of them for it. Tsuto was raised outside their home, and the two of them hated one another for the rest of their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n Ameiko was born a year later. In time, Lonjiku would drive her away, too, because driving people away is what Lonjiku was good at.<\/span><\/p>\n Do I believe all this? I was ten or eleven the first time I was invited to Ameiko\u2019s home for dinner. That was actually a rare event, Ameiko being allowed to have friends over. Lonjiku\u2026I don\u2019t think I\u2019d go so far as to say he <\/span>liked<\/span><\/i> me\u2014I don\u2019t believe he truly liked anyone\u2014but he certainly didn\u2019t <\/span>dislike<\/span><\/i> me. Anyway, he spent much of the evening sniping at Ameiko and Atsuii. Ameiko was mortified. Atsuii was painfully silent. I was really uncomfortable and just wanted to leave. So, yes. I believe it. I think he hated his family. Sometimes I think I was invited to dinner that night just so he\u2019d have an audience.<\/span><\/p>\n Anyway, Ameiko, of course, knew her half-brother. She tried on <\/span>several<\/span><\/i> occasions to reconcile the bad blood between Tsuto and her father. Her heart was always in the right place, of course, but Lonjiku didn\u2019t have one, and Tsuto? He would rather be hated than loved. When Ameiko was thirteen, one of those attempts to clear the air ended disastrously. Tsuto actually struck her. She ran away to Magnimar the next day.<\/span><\/p>\n Oh, yes, she ran away from home. Twice, in fact. She was only gone for a few months that first time\u2026but it was long enough to not be home when her mother died.\u00a0 She returned for the funeral, of course, but everything came to a head right then and there. Lonjiku couldn\u2019t even keep the peace at a <\/span>burial<\/span><\/i>. There was an enormous fight between Ameiko, her father, and Tsuto. I think that\u2019s when Tsuto outright accused Lonjiku of murdering Atsuii.<\/span><\/p>\n Ameiko lived at home with her father for the next couple of years out of a sense of\u2026what? Family? Honor? Duty? But it didn\u2019t last. Ameiko left again when she couldn\u2019t take it anymore, this time to start an adventuring career.<\/span><\/p>\n No. Well, yes and no. It didn\u2019t last long: she and Sandru were gone barely more than a year. Something happened out there. Something she doesn\u2019t talk about. It made her\u2026distant, even to me. So, no, I wouldn\u2019t exactly call it a success, but she did earn enough money to buy an inn in Sandpoint, renovate it, and start her own business. So, that is something, right?<\/span><\/p>\n No, Lonjiku did not take this well. He saw it as a deliberate humiliation, and he did not even try to hide his feelings. He literally walked into her bar one night and\u2014right in front of a room full of patrons\u2014very <\/span>loudly<\/span><\/i> issued an ultimatum to her: come home with him or be cut out of the family. Guess which one she chose?<\/span><\/p>\n How did he die? Horribly. It was Tsuto that did it, that murdered him. He had gotten mixed up in a plot against the town and saw his chance to kill Lonjiku as part of it. So he did. He tried to kill Ameiko, too.<\/span><\/p>\n What happened to Tsuto?<\/span><\/p>\n Ameiko executed him.<\/span><\/p>\n We rode in silence for a half hour or so as he absorbed what he\u2019d learned about Ameiko\u2019s history. I don\u2019t know what he was expecting, but it clearly wasn\u2019t tragedy, betrayal, and familicide.<\/span><\/p>\n Kali Nassim: conversation killer. <\/span>Thank you. I\u2019ll be here all day.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n I finally broke the silence. \u201cShe\u2019s a good person, Dasi. Better than most.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Muliwan was, as I said, uneventful. We sold the items that needed selling, bought what needed buying, and teleported back courtesy of yours truly. The only unexpected stop was to pick up a slab of pork belly.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIvan sent to me,\u201d he said when I looked at him quizzically. \u201cHe wants bacon.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I did my best to put on my \u201cdisgusted\u201d face. I was playing a part, after all.<\/span><\/p>\n That was harder than it sounds. I really like bacon.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pharast 5 (Spirit Road, Late Night) I feel naked without my hair. Dasi and I are making the trip to Muliwan tomorrow, and that means I spent hours tonight working on my disguise with Ameiko, Radella, and Dasi. The easy part is looking like a monk of Irori: we almost always visited the temple when […]<\/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-3358","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\/3358","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=3358"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5702,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358\/revisions\/5702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Pharast 6 (Spirit Road, Evening)<\/h3>\n
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