S<\/span><\/p>\n andru is leaving. This is not really a surprise: he was hired to get us all here, and now that job is done. He and Ameiko are very close friends, but he still has a business to run and taking up arms in a revolution was never part of the plan. Bevelek and Vankor certainly didn\u2019t sign up for it, either, and they have family waiting for them back home.<\/span><\/p>\n Their return trip should be a lot easier. There are no crazed disciples of Sithhud commanding winter storms, no armies of the dead, and no enraged white dragons standing between here and Avistan. On top of that, he\u2019ll be crossing the Crown at the proper time of year. To accomplish the latter, though, he has to leave <\/span>now<\/span><\/i>. It will take over a month just to reach the Pass, and he needs to be on the ice by the middle of Erastus. That doesn\u2019t leave him much time to prepare, provision, and hire any help he\u2019ll need to get safely across.<\/span><\/p>\n The finality of the caravan departing is sinking in. For nearly a year it\u2019s been about the journey, but now we are here, and there is no more going back. I mean, we <\/span>could<\/span><\/i>, but we\u2019d either have to leave the Seal behind us or run away with what we can carry. Neither option is particularly attractive, much less realistic, so here we are.<\/span><\/p>\n It took only an instant for Qatana and me to return to Jiro\u2019s camp. Heading back <\/span>here<\/span><\/i> took a little longer because we needed to bring the Seal, and that meant relying on Qatana\u2019s spells. And then we had to explain to Olmas why Ameiko wasn\u2019t with us (which didn\u2019t take very long, but sure <\/span>felt<\/span><\/i> a whole hell of a lot longer).<\/span><\/p>\n What can I say? She\u2019s not going to just sit quietly in her room while everyone else goes outside to play. She\u2019s an adult and capable of making her own decisions. If she\u2019s going to build support among the people here, then she\u2019s going to have to demonstrate that she\u2019s worthy of it. The Seal can only prove her claim\u2014it can\u2019t rally people to the cause, or inspire them. And establishing trust with Jiro <\/span>before<\/span><\/i> he knows who she is does make a certain kind of sense. The impact of the Big Reveal, assuming this all works, will be that much greater when it happens.<\/span><\/p>\n That being said, we need to rein this in. Ambushing second-rate bandits on horseback is one thing, but some of the filth we get mired in goes <\/span>way<\/span><\/i> beyond that. Ameiko can\u2019t claim the throne if she\u2019s dead, and there are some forms of \u201cdead\u201d that can\u2019t easily be undone. If she\u2019s going to take risks, then we need to make sure they are measured ones.<\/span><\/p>\n Fortunately for us, and for Olmas, wiping out the raiding parties seemed to go off without a hitch. We had this elaborate plan in case any of those bandit teams made it back to the fortress, but ultimately we could have skipped all that work and just slept in instead. Literally <\/span>one horse<\/span><\/i> returned. <\/span>One<\/span><\/i>. It was scratched up a bit, but it had obviously fared better than its missing rider, whose blood was all over the saddle. Radella used a spell to talk to it (the horse, not the saddle) and we learned the raiding party had fallen afoul of either Jiro or Hatsue. Just to be certain, Dasi used one of those creepy spells of his on the rider\u2019s blood and got much the same information, only with a lot more attitude.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s been several hours, and this whole place still smells like bacon. This is what happens when you put Ivan in the kitchen. Not that I am complaining about the food, but gods, that smell lingers.<\/span><\/p>\n W<\/span><\/p>\n e needed to use the Seal. Obviously this was not a surprise, but we weren\u2019t really eager to pull it out and start waving it around. I mean, sure, it\u2019s not a beacon or anything. It doesn\u2019t actively <\/span>alert<\/span><\/i> people that it\u2019s out of the box, but if anyone associated with the Five Storms happened to be looking for it at the exact same time, then we\u2019d be standing in the center of a giant bullseye.<\/span><\/p>\n How likely is that? We don\u2019t know. A few months ago I\u2019d be skeptical that anyone would spend the resources to search for it day and night, but now that we\u2019re sitting in their backyard? If it was me, <\/span>I\u2019d<\/span><\/i> try my damnedest to make it happen. I can only assume they\u2019d do the same. So literally no one was comfortable with the idea. We spent quite a bit of time, in fact, grasping at straws for ways to <\/span>avoid<\/span><\/i> it, but we were just delaying the inevitable. The vault would not open no matter what Ameiko tried. It wanted a scion in possession of the Seal, and nothing short of that combination would do.<\/span><\/p>\n We had a long talk about the right way to do this. The worst thing that could happen would be that we\u2019d find ourselves in the middle of a small army of oni, so the idea was to prevent that from happening. With the right spells, they could see the room we were in and teleport straight to it, so we had to make that as difficult and unlikely as possible. Fortunately, I have already fallen into the daily routine of preparing a spell to detect this sort of scrying, and I prepared a spell that suppresses <\/span>all<\/span><\/i> magic (including my own!). These two together were about as effective a defense as I could prepare. Just to be safe, though, everyone readied themselves for a fight. Olmas even set Suishen ablaze. I am sure this did not make Jiro or Hatsue nervous <\/span>at all<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n That advanced planning may even have saved us. When Ameiko touched the statue with the Seal, the floor in the center of the room slowly sank down into a hidden vault. And within seconds, my spell alerted me to magical sight, focused somewhere in the room. I immediately cast my next spell, and all the magic around us went dark. Save for Suishen, whose flames continued to burn inside the field. I remember thinking, <\/span>That\u2019s interesting<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n When my spell expired, the scrying was gone.<\/span><\/p>\n Jiro has pledged his service to Amatatsu Ameiko. Seeing that vault open, and finding his family\u2019s ancestral weapon inside, were proof that he was in the presence of an heir to the throne (in fact he was in the presence of <\/span>six<\/span><\/i> of them, but we decided not to muddy the issue). I got the sense he had been waiting for a moment like this for a good part of his adult life, and it had finally arrived.<\/span><\/p>\n Building a rebellion, however, is going to be a lot harder than knocking two statues together. The good news is, the Jade Regent is as terrible a ruler as he is a person, and that gives us a significant opening. He\u2019s relying on brute strength to take and hold the throne since he knows he does not have a legitimate claim. A significant piece of his military is a private army that he calls the Typhoon Guard, and of course armies, private or otherwise, must be paid. This has resulted in a plague of surplus taxes, and the internal strife in general has strained Minkai\u2019s relationship with other nations in Tian Xia.<\/span><\/p>\n As Jiro sees it, Ameiko needs the support of the nobility, the military, and to some extent, the criminal underground to take advantage of this situation. Testing that theory through concrete action is, of course, the rub.<\/span><\/p>\n First, the nobility. Merchants are the key to Minkai\u2019s economy, and Minkai\u2019s souring diplomatic relations are putting a damper on trade. That, in turn, is driving Minkai into a recession which is clearly not endearing the government to anyone. The ruling class, in the meantime, is dealing with the additional tax burden, which they are either soaking up or passing on to their subjects.<\/span><\/p>\n The geisha of Minkai have some influence with the merchant clans (or guilds, or whatever they are called here), and political influence inside the nobility in general. Jiro suggests that this is the best way to start. There\u2019s a renowned teahouse in Sakakabe owned by a particularly notable geisha named O-Kohaku. It turns out, her uncle was the governor of Kasai\u2026before the Jade Regent had him killed. We\u2019d have to be outright incompetent to <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> get her as an ally.<\/span><\/p>\n As for the military, they see the Jade Regent\u2019s private army as direct rivals, if not an outright threat. This also means more political rivals for the military, all vying for leverage inside the government. Officers who once found themselves in positions of power may be seeing their influence wane as the Typhoon Guard takes their place.<\/span><\/p>\n Convincing the military to turn against the government in an honor-bound society, however, is tricky business. Before they will take any such step, there needs to be a crack in the dam, and that crack takes the shape of the local daimyo in the north, Sikutsu Sennaka. Already locally famous for allowing these bandits to prosper, Sennaka has other wonderful qualities, such as using blackmail, intimidation, violence, and outright cruelty to maintain his authority, and using his power to bully the neighboring provinces. Cutting that thread may be the catalyst we need to bring at least part of the military on board.<\/span><\/p>\n The underground is the one that worries me most because I am not convinced they would be reliable support. One would, in fact, think that a corrupt government works to their advantage. Jiro, however, has suggested that the ninja clans may be sympathetic to a regime change; they have their own sense of honor and, morality aside, the Jade Regent\u2019s government may be something of an affront to their principles. The theory is, even if we can\u2019t get them to side with us, we <\/span>might<\/span><\/i> be able to convince them to not get involved at all. To do that, we need to travel to Enganoka, where representatives of three of the more powerful clans gather every month during the new moon. It is one of the few times you can meet with them to discuss matters more complicated than hiring them for their \u201cservices\u201d (and I am sure I don\u2019t want to know what those include).<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, we\u2019ve had some experience with ninjas that makes me skeptical of all of this, and I said as much to Jiro. We explained about Kimandatsu, the Frozen Shadows, and of course our good times in Ordu-Aganhei. Hatsue turned to Jiro and said, \u201cOni\u2019s Mask?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n As you might guess, anything with the word \u201coni\u201d in it gets our attention.<\/span><\/p>\n There are many ninja clans within Minkai, but over the years four of them have risen to a level of prominence: the Black Lotus, the Dragonshadow, the Ruby Crypt, and the Emerald Branch (which is more of a vigilante group). About 80 years ago, however, a new clan emerged and quickly rose to the same heights through a string of ruthless assassinations and a penchant for targeting government officials. They call themselves the Oni\u2019s Mask. The more he talked, the more it sounded like an extension of the Five Storms, and of course the timing was right, both for the oni\u2019s campaign against the royal families of Minkai and the appearance of the Frozen Shadows in Kalsgard shortly thereafter.<\/span><\/p>\n And let\u2019s not forget the telltale sign of the Five Storms: the painfully obvious name, \u201cOni\u2019s Mask\u201d. Only the Five Storms could come up with something so dumb.<\/span><\/p>\n Where does all of this leave us? The new moon is two weeks away, and we\u2019re obviously not ready to launch an assault on the daimyo, so that means starting with door number one.<\/span><\/p>\n H<\/span><\/p>\n atsue is a sohei of Irori. That took me by surprise. I tried to talk to her about it since we had some common ground, but she was a bit more focused on the sales pitch for coming back to his church than just <\/span>talking<\/span><\/i>. Honestly, I think this was my fault. I inadvertently made the conversation about <\/span>me,<\/span><\/i> which is pretty disingenuous.<\/span><\/p>\n That little faux pas aside, this explains her rather intense (some might say \u201cfanatical\u201d) devotion to her deity. It probably also explains why Ivan\u2019s infatuation with her soured quickly. He wanted to learn a little bit about Irori, but Hatsue doesn\u2019t do \u201ca little bit\u201d. It\u2019s like asking Qatana about Groetus, only less disturbing.<\/span><\/p>\n Z<\/span><\/p>\n osimus and I are heading back to Seinaru Heikiko again. Yes, I said \u201cagain\u201d. Zosi needs his wagon, and with Sandru leaving, we had to bring it back ourselves. Technically, Zosi doesn\u2019t <\/span>need<\/span><\/i> me for that, of course, but teleporting there shaved a day off of the round trip time, which was in everyone\u2019s best interest.<\/span><\/p>\n I could have just teleported back, but making him travel alone didn\u2019t seem wise or polite. And, in all honesty, I was interested in spending the day in his alchemy lab. It\u2019s a little cramped, but there is no shortage of stuff to look at, and it\u2019s another opportunity to let him rifle through my spellbook for whatever he can adapt to alchemical formulas. We just need to take turns up top to make sure the wagon is still headed in the correct direction.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019re being pulled by an animated gorgon. The gorgon we killed back in the House of Withered Blossoms. It\u2019s more than a little unsettling, and for all appearances we have blurred the line between hero and villain, but in a way this works to our advantage. Who is going to walk up to an armored wagon being pulled by the animated corpse of a gorgon? You\u2019d have to be out of your damned mind.<\/span><\/p>\n We were both up top for a while, just talking about random things when he asked me out of the blue, \u201cHave you ever died?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s not the kind of question you\u2019d typically ask in polite conversation, but we\u2019ve been together long enough now that this is the sort of thing that passes for normal.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNever, but there were times I thought I might.\u201d I sensed he was looking for more, so I said, \u201cI was knocked unconscious once. When I was younger. I was told I had a concussion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat was that like?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2026I don\u2019t remember a lot of it. When I came to, I had no sense of time and couldn\u2019t put names with faces. I was hit very, very hard.\u201d The way he had asked was all very clinical, which made me uncomfortable. And I really didn\u2019t like talking about it, anyway. \u201cI\u2026don\u2019t really like talking about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I was better conversation than this one moment, honest. But it\u2019s what stands out.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Desnus 25 (Seinaru Heikiko, Late Afternoon) S andru is leaving. This is not really a surprise: he was hired to get us all here, and now that job is done. He and Ameiko are very close friends, but he still has a business to run and taking up arms in a revolution was never part […]<\/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-3877","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\/3877","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=3877"}],"version-history":[{"count":44,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5720,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3877\/revisions\/5720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Desnus 25 (Seinaru Heikiko, Evening)<\/h3>\n
Desnus 25 (Seinaru Heikiko, Night)<\/h3>\n
Desnus 26 (Osogen Grasslands, Midday)<\/h3>\n