M<\/span><\/p>\n unasukaru, The Least is dead, and with that the voices in my head have finally silenced. I\u2019d grown so used to them that I was nearly startled by the stillness. As Munasukaru\u2019s body fell to the ground, Yuka\u2019s thoughts coalesced into a single, coherent voice: <\/span>She\u2019s dead. I\u2019m finally free.<\/span><\/i> And then there was nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n Almost<\/span><\/i> nothing. I was staring at the naginata still clutched in Munasukaru\u2019s lifeless hands, and I knew right then that I could use it. Yuka may have passed on, but somehow she left this macabre gift behind. I could sense the naginata\u2019s balance, time its swing, see it flowing and dancing around me as it cut and sliced\u2026and I <\/span>wanted <\/span><\/i>it. And now that we know what it is? I want it even more.<\/span><\/p>\n How exactly did Munasukaru come across one of the ancestral weapons? That\u2019s probably another entry on our list of mysteries that will never be solved, though I suppose in this case the \u201cwhat\u201d is more important than the \u201chow.\u201d Dasi examined the symbols engraved in the naginata and said they identify the House of Sugimatu, one of the five imperial families of Minkai. Like Suishen, the naginata even has a name\u2014The Thundering Blade\u2014though unlike Suishen, it can\u2019t talk. Which, as far as I am concerned, is a point in its favor. One talking ancestral weapon has been more than enough.<\/span><\/p>\n I am holding on to it. For now, anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n Munasukaru, The Least. They actually called her that. The oni kept a library of sorts, shelves filled with everything from carved tablets to silk scrolls to rice paper tomes. The most interesting of these is an enormous volume that serves as a historical record of the Five Storms\u2014turns out it\u2019s just some stupid, arbitrary name\u2014written in a beautiful and meticulous Tien script. Munasukaru, it seems, was part of their leadership\u2014an officer, or one of the board of directors, or whatever you want to call it\u2014and \u201cMunasukaru, The Least\u201d appears to have been her official title. We see it printed here, over and over again. I bet they even called her that to her face. Can you imagine?<\/span><\/p>\n This record doesn\u2019t end with their escape. The handwriting abruptly changes to a sloppy script that degenerates over time into nearly incomprehensible scribbles on the final pages. It must be Munasukaru\u2019s writing\u2014it seems she was The Least at penmanship, as well\u2014chronicling her descent into madness after being abandoned here. She was ordered to stay behind for the sole purpose of keeping the kami out, so that they wouldn\u2019t learn what the Five Storms had done or what they were planning.<\/span><\/p>\n If I am reading this correctly, she was obsessed with the leader, Anamurumon. She desired him, lusted after him, and also hated him for ordering her to stay here. Why am I not surprised to learn that the oni have mastered the art of abusive relationships? And still Munasukaru obeyed, apparently clinging to the hope that he would someday return for her.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s all just so overly dramatic and pedestrian. The more I read, the more obvious it becomes that what the Five Storms do best is undermine each other. It\u2019s page after page of betrayal and infighting. Like they learned how to be human from bad theater, the sort that makes Kikonu\u2019s play into an aspirational goal.<\/span><\/p>\n Yet, despite all that infighting, Anamurumon has always been the head of the snake. That in itself makes him pretty dangerous, and then there\u2019s the whole \u201cwind yai oni\u201d aspect on top of it. We\u2019ll almost certainly have to go through him to put Ameiko on the Throne. So there is that to look forward to.<\/span><\/p>\n The kami say that Munasukaru was not originally part of the oni that make up the Five Storms: she came along later. She and her hobgoblins were just some wandering nuisance in the Forest that eventually found their way to the House of Withered Blossoms, and once she entered she couldn\u2019t leave. I am guessing she wasn\u2019t expecting that. (Neither was I, but I guess it\u2019s nice to get a question answered for a change: the screwy rules that kept the Five Storms imprisoned applied to newcomers as well. Hence why her spawn couldn\u2019t leave, either. The whole family was basically stuck with each other for eternity. I don\u2019t even know where to <\/span>begin<\/span><\/i> with that. We may have accidentally done them all <\/span>favors<\/span><\/i>.)<\/span><\/p>\n As for how they escaped? They constructed something called a \u201ckimon\u201d, which Dasi says is ancient Tien for a demonic gateway. It was made from humanoid bodies fused into stone, forming a circular doorway. We spent some time studying it, and it appears it was powered by the tortured souls of those who were destroyed to create it. And I think that\u2019s enough about that.<\/span><\/p>\n The next few days should be interesting. The kami didn\u2019t pay us for our services, of course, so we are claiming everything we found as compensation. Which is a polite way of saying we are looting the House and everything underneath it. <\/span>That<\/span><\/i> means we are carrying an enormous pile of sheer random crap: opium, ancient coins, carvings, shoes, gold- and silver-plated whatsits, porcelain whosits, and enough morningstars and tatami-do armor to equip an army of hobgoblins. I haven\u2019t seen a pile of junk this big since Snorri Stone-Eye\u2019s funeral boat.<\/span><\/p>\n It will take the better part of a week to liquidate it all, and the only city for hundreds of miles is Muliwan. Which means going back to Muliwan. It\u2019s been long enough that I\u2019m not really worried, but if there were another option I\u2019d choose the other option.<\/span><\/p>\n W<\/span><\/p>\n e head back to the caravan today. Given the option we wouldn\u2019t walk, but with sixteen rescuees to escort to safety we are simply too many for magical shortcuts. Not without splitting us up, anyway, which we don\u2019t want to do. And that\u2019s fine. I am actually looking forward to it. We spent too much time literally in the dark.<\/span><\/p>\n I was able to talk to mom earlier. We found this crystal ball in Munasukaru\u2019s den and I figured, why not use it and save myself a spell? It\u2019s got a flaw in it, but it\u2019s not one that keeps it from working. \u201cWorking\u201d is pretty much all that I needed.<\/span><\/p>\n I was hesitant at first to tell her about Yuka; about what happened. But then I did. I am not sure why. Maybe I just needed to talk it out. Maybe I thought it was the right thing to do. Maybe I felt she deserved to know. Whatever the reason, I did it.<\/span><\/p>\n You\u2019d think that it\u2019d be something of a shock hearing your daughter tell you about that time she was half-possessed by the spirit of a woman who was brutally tortured and murdered at the hands of a demon, but the number of times I\u2019ve seen mom be surprised by something falls in the low single digits. She was all casual, as if this sort of thing just happens. Oh, you were possessed by a spirit, were you? Was she nice?<\/span><\/p>\n I told her about the dreams, the images, the whispers, the memories that weren\u2019t mine, and about the effect it had on me.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>What bothers me most is that I knew what I was doing. I made those choices. She wasn\u2019t forcing me to do anything.<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Mom was silent for a while. Then she shook her head sadly and said, \u201cDid you really believe you could do this thing without getting your hands bloody? Is that what you thought?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>What? No! Of course not! It\u2019s just\u2026I don\u2019t want that to define me. I guess.<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cStop pretending the \u2018how\u2019 matters. Whether you kill someone yourself, or merely help your friends to, in the end, dead is dead. This line you\u2019ve drawn\u2026it doesn\u2019t really exist.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>I don\u2019t believe that.<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n She shrugged. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why you\u2019re struggling. Just accept the fact that some lives are so corrupt that they\u2019re not worth saving.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>That\u2019s rationalizing, mom. It\u2019s how zealots justify crusades.<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIsn\u2019t that what this is?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n These were not the words of encouragement I was hoping to hear.<\/span><\/p>\n C<\/span><\/p>\n omplicated plans are kind of a thing with us, though this time it\u2019s born out of necessity. We have sixteen former prisoners that we can\u2019t take with us to Minkai, and a mountain of stuff to sell. Dasi thinks we can settle the former in Muliwan while he works on finding buyers for the latter, so that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do.<\/span><\/p>\n Obviously, we\u2019re going to use magic because backtracking in the caravan will take too long, and unlike yesterday we don\u2019t need to go all at once. Over the course of the next couple of days I\u2019ll teleport our settlers there in small groups. Dasi will come with me on the first trip so he can get things rolling. Some of the others, including Ameiko and Shalelu, want to go into town for a couple of days, too, so Qatana will bring them in using a spell that lets you travel on the wind. When they\u2019re ready to come back to the caravan I\u2019ll take them on one of the return teleports.<\/span><\/p>\n Got all that? Clear as mud, right?<\/span><\/p>\n I can do two round trips in a day, unless of course there\u2019s a mishap. I\u2019ll take the scrolls with me in case that happens at the end, as the last thing I need is to get stuck overnight, alone, in some random part of the Forest or Hongal because I botched the landing.<\/span><\/p>\n Shit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pharast 29 (The Forest of Spirits, Evening) M unasukaru, The Least is dead, and with that the voices in my head have finally silenced. I\u2019d grown so used to them that I was nearly startled by the stillness. As Munasukaru\u2019s body fell to the ground, Yuka\u2019s thoughts coalesced into a single, coherent voice: She\u2019s dead. […]<\/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-3733","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\/3733","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=3733"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5715,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733\/revisions\/5715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Pharast 30 (The Forest of Spirits, Morning)<\/h3>\n
Pharast 31 (Forest of Spirits, Morning)<\/h3>\n
Pharast 31 (Some Random Part of Hongal, Morning)<\/h3>\n