as told by the cavalier Olmas Lurecia himself.<\/p>\n
It is hard to believe that all the drama with the prisoners happened before noon had even passed.\u00a0 But we had made a point of starting while it was still dark, so it only made sense that we had most of the day ahead of us yet.\u00a0 Even taking 4 hours for some people to recover their spells put us only at 1:30 or so.<\/p>\n
We set Nehali to task looking for returning parties.\u00a0 The aerial surveillance would likely give us ten or maybe even fifteen minutes advance notice to prepare for them.\u00a0 From what the prisoners told us, we might see 3 or 4 parties return.<\/p>\n
However, all we saw was one wounded horse return. That’s it.\u00a0 Qatana healed it some, and Radella spoke with it, learning it was the only one that survived.\u00a0 Apparently Jiro had been very successful at attacking the raiding parties.\u00a0 Three or four parties, and all that’s left is a single horse.\u00a0 Wow.<\/p>\n
While waiting, Dasi did his blood thing on the weretiger.\u00a0 We learned … well, nothing new but it cost nothing to try.\u00a0 The weretiger was female and (surprise) a ranger.\u00a0 She was obsessed with how we “took her fortress”.\u00a0 I guess that was a little<\/em> surprising – it’s no more hers than ours – but whether her position was from arrogance or ignorance I guess we’ll never know.<\/p>\n Word was sent to Jiro and he will come to the fort with Hatsui and Ameiko (and the others in his party) by more mundane means.\u00a0 I understood that Ameiko was hanging back to talk with Jiro, but it hadn’t been made clear that she was going to be in active battle.\u00a0 Humph.<\/p>\n About 3:45, Qatana went with Kali to retrieved Koya and the seal.\u00a0 They all had to windwalk back, of course, because the seal could not be teleported.\u00a0 Hatsui and about ten recruits arrived not too long after that, and Jiro, Ameiko, and their party about an hour after that.<\/p>\n We already knew that we, as scions, apparently could not open the vault. Ameiko, as Prime Scion, we thought might have a different effect.\u00a0 But no, she didn’t. It wasn’t until, with some trepidation, that we took the seal out of the warding box and Ameiko tried again while holding the seal that we were successful.\u00a0 A circular portion of the floor opened outside the room, and revealed armaments, including the family sword that Jiro had mentioned.<\/p>\n Given how nervous we were, we’d arranged ourselves very particularly, expecting an oni or twenty might teleport in as soon as the seal revealed itself.\u00a0 While that didn’t happen, Kali did detect scrying just mere minutes after it was unveiled, and utilized her previously-prepared anti-magic field to block it.\u00a0 But now they knew.\u00a0 They knew.\u00a0 Their worst fears were still true … a true heir still lived and would be a significant obstacle to their stolen throne.<\/p>\n Inspecting the weapons, Dasi confirmed the antiquity of the swords in the revealed armory.\u00a0 I caught a glance at Jiro and tried not to smile. As Dasi performed the analysis we’d so often asked of him, it escaped him that the best means of identifying the authenticity of this find was already in the room, and had in fact already validated it.\u00a0 The look on Jiro’s face was one that registered a mix of astonishment and mild anger.\u00a0 It clearly said, “What?\u00a0 REALLY?”<\/p>\n But seeing all this transpire, Jiro turned to Ameiko and bowed, accepting her as the eventual Empress.\u00a0 And became a fount of helpful information.<\/p>\n He reminded us that simply announcing an heir wouldn’t necessarily throw everybody behind her.\u00a0 We needed to fan the flames of rebellion before striking at the target, so that we’d either have massive support or, at the least, have few others opposing her. He outlined three key factions we needed behind us or neutralized.<\/p>\n One was the military.\u00a0 While they were currently firmly on the side of the Regent, there were plenty of indications that support was not as strong as it appeared.\u00a0 In particular, the local daimyo, Sikutsu Sennaka, had few on the military who supported him for any reason other than honor.\u00a0 The daimyo and the Regent both seemed unfamiliar with maintaining and growing military careers, and plum assignments and promotions were going to the wrong (in the minds of some military leaders) people.\u00a0 Seeing those undeserving individuals disappear or actually die might make many in the military feel things had improved … so long as they also felt this improved their chance at recognition and promotion.\u00a0 It would require the right timing, and the right people, and so would probably be one of the last groups we’d win over.<\/p>\n Another was the merchants.\u00a0 They were chafing under the Regent’s regime, again largely because their traditional role (and the wealth that went with it) was not being honored.\u00a0 Trade with other provinces was disrupted by squabbles and taxes.\u00a0 The decrease in income was keenly felt, and roundly hated.\u00a0\u00a0 While this group was not as well armed as the military might be, they had other methods at their disposal.\u00a0 Economic pressure – who they bought and sold from and to – might prove as wounding as a sword.\u00a0 They also knew of ways to get into markets – be that countries, harbors, or buildings – that they might be willing to share.\u00a0 That is, once they believed.<\/p>\n Lastly was the ninja groups.\u00a0 While ninjas tended by their nature to be a bit reticent and difficult to access, if they didn’t have some way of contacting them they’d have no business at all.\u00a0 Jiro mentioned there had been four main groups: the Black Lotus, the Dragon Shadow, the Emerald Branch, and the Ruby Crypt.\u00a0 Recently, though, in perhaps the last few decades, a new order had appeared: Oni’s Mask.\u00a0 The other four considered the newcomer to be ruthless (even for ninjas) and without honor, which ninjas are fanatical about.\u00a0 Helping restore the order may be a welcomed option.\u00a0 Jiro was not so bold as to predict we would get allies, but even a promise not to interfere would be welcome aid.<\/p>\n To touch base with the merchant faction, Jiro advised us to make an appointment with a high level geisha, O-kuhaku. She was considered a geisha with sufficient connections that, were she to support us, we’d have a decent chance of both contacting and winning over the merchants.\u00a0 Take a nice gift, he advised, so that you don’t wait a month to see her.\u00a0 She is in Sakakabe.<\/p>\n To reach the ninjas, we would need to approach their council.\u00a0 They meet once a month, on the night of the new moon in Enganoka.\u00a0 We could learn more in the Korrang Market.<\/p>\n We definitely had our work cut out for us.\u00a0 The geishas were first on the list, since the new moon is some two weeks off.<\/p>\n Based on all this, Zos and Kali would teleport back tomorrow to get his cart and our horses, including Kasimir.<\/p>\n As promised, Zos and Kali left in the morning.\u00a0 They rolled in around 11pm.\u00a0 The cart and the horses will stay at the fortress because most of our travels will likely be by windwalk or teleportation in the near future.<\/p>\n We have great concern about leaving the seal here, right where it was last detected, but it would be even more foolish to take it with us.\u00a0 In the end, Qatana and Ivan fashioned a place for it deep within rock using Stone Wall and Stone Shape.\u00a0 It’s now not accessible to anyone who doesn’t know exactly where it is and either is willing to undertake a great deal of physical labor, or has the capability to use magic to reshape the stone again.\u00a0 It’s about as safe as it can be, and arguably safer than it was before.<\/p>\n Because Jiro was fascinated by the idea that magic could compel a person’s direction in life, he offered the remaining prisoners quick and merciful death, or magic by Qatana that would compel them to a new life.\u00a0 They all chose the latter, so Qatana placed them under a Geas that had them serving Jiro.\u00a0 I had said that if Jiro passed this judgement upon them I would be fine with it and I will honor my statement but I have to admit it does still bother me.\u00a0 I can’t really explain why.<\/p>\n With Qatana’s generosity, we all received windwalk and proceeded to Sakakabe.\u00a0 In windwalk we move much faster than normal, but it still took most of the day.\u00a0 We materialized outside the city so that we could walk in normally like any other group of travelers.<\/p>\n I am used to seeing social orders in a society, but in this town they are physical.\u00a0 The most prestigious actually live higher on the hill, and that’s where we will find O-kuhaku.\u00a0 We discussed what roles we should play – probably “supporters of the true heir” were not positions we wanted to emphasize just yet.<\/p>\n Dasi – merchant leader.\u00a0 His knowledge of Minkai made him a natural choice. There were armed guards at the gates to this upper crust society, but they were willing to let us in to spend money.<\/p>\n First up was shopping.\u00a0 We did not yet look the part. Several of us, and I’ll include myself in that, were dismayed at how flamboyant the garb was.<\/p>\n And thankfully, our fine gift for the geisha got us an appointment late the next day.\u00a0 We could get this all started.<\/p>\n And on a down note, in the late afternoon, Kali quietly announced, using codespeak, that we were being scryed upon again.<\/p>\n The guards this time were a bit more surly; they seemed reluctant to let us in even with ‘fine garb’ on us.\u00a0\u00a0 But Kali figured out that they responded well to 10-15gp in ‘tips’ for their fine work.\u00a0\u00a0 At that point, they agreed that we did, in fact, seem fairly harmless.<\/p>\n We had some tea at a tea house while waiting for our appointment.\u00a0 Kali again pointed out, partway through our tea, that we were being scried upon.\u00a0 It lasted, she noticed, more than 15 minutes which, she said, made the scrier a pretty powerful mage.<\/p>\n Eventually 5pm rolled around and we, in our garb and in our roles, went to see the geisha.\u00a0 Dasi tried to gently ease into the topic of a possible heir returning, but he was going too slowly for Qatana who eventually burst out, “we plan to overthrow Sikutsu Sennaka, and Jiro suggested we enlist your help.”\u00a0 Although this demolished irreparably several layers of protocol, it did get her attention.<\/p>\n She slowly offered that one of her girls, O-siyumi.\u00a0 Unfortunately, she’s gone missing, and she would like our help in finding and retrieving her.\u00a0\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 Everything around here is tit for tat, quid pro quo, and I don’t even understand those words.<\/p>\n Against her better judgement, she may have gone to visit a local pearl merchant on his private island north of here.\u00a0 He is apparently obsessed with her, which doesn’t bode well.\u00a0 Strangely, her uncle is some sort of turtle-man … I must admit my mind wandered here and I must have misunderstood.\u00a0 Perhaps he is a turtle hunter?\u00a0 Or maybe just very shy (doesn’t ‘come out of his shell’?)<\/p>\n Anyway, tomorrow we will windwalk there and investigate.\u00a0 We are doing most of the overplanning tonight, the night before, in an effort to be more efficient tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" as told by the cavalier Olmas Lurecia himself. Starday, 25 Desnus It is hard to believe that all the drama with the prisoners happened before noon had even passed.\u00a0 But we had made a point of starting while it was still dark, so it only made sense that we had most of the day ahead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34],"class_list":["post-3934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-olmas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3934","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3934"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3937,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3934\/revisions\/3937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Sunday, 26 Desnus<\/h2>\n
Moonday, 27 Desnus<\/h2>\n
\nKali – advisor to Dasi.\u00a0 Having a woman in this role might raise some eyebrows but at this level, it’s likely nobody will raise the issue.
\nRadella, Ivan, and myself – bodyguards.\u00a0 Allows us to openly take our weapons most places.
\nQatana – spiritual advisor.\u00a0 While a legitimate position, t made me smile.\u00a0 I think few merchants have Groetus advising them.<\/p>\nToilday, 28 Desnus<\/h2>\n