W<\/span><\/p>\n e\u2019ve put our trip to Kasai off a day so that we could celebrate tonight with Jiro\u2019s army. I was a little too anxious for a party, but we needed to be seen along with Ameiko so I stuck it out until people stopped caring about who was where and then called it a night. Of course, privacy is close to impossible here, especially with half the countryside still living in the back yard, but any change from throngs of people was a big improvement.<\/span><\/p>\n This whole celebration thing feels premature to me. Yes, we repelled a fairly significant attack, but all the Jade Regent has to do is send another oni or two up here after we\u2019re gone, and Jiro will be doing more than repairing the gate. Of course, the theory everyone is working under is that the Jade Regent cares about the more <\/span>immediate<\/span><\/i> problem, which is <\/span>us<\/span><\/i>, not this place\u2014the ramblings of the atamahuta oni implied as much (there are so many kinds of oni it\u2019s like bird watching; someone should write a book)\u2014and it\u2019s not like he has an unlimited supply of heavyweights to throw at it, but I can\u2019t help but worry. One skirmish is not the war. It\u2019s not wise to celebrate too much until after it\u2019s over and you know you\u2019ve won. Gods know plenty of the villains in this saga have gloated to our faces only to learn that they were horribly, terribly, and <\/span>fatally<\/span><\/i> wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n This business in Kasai seems premature, too. Everything we\u2019ve done up here in the north has been about building Ameiko\u2019s support slowly and carefully, allowing the rebellion to grow organically. What\u2019s the point of all that if we end up racing towards a confrontation with the Jade Regent <\/span>now<\/span><\/i>? Yes, I know the goal here is to get some blessing from the past emperors of Minkai\u2014however <\/span>that <\/span><\/i>works\u2014but Kasai is right there. Once we\u2019re in the city, will it be so easy to leave if it is as bad off as we\u2019ve been led to believe? And if my suspicions are correct and the Jade Regent has laid a trap for us on the island, what then? Our arrival is not going to be something we can hide.<\/span><\/p>\n I realize we don\u2019t have unlimited time, but the Enganoka province is still in turmoil, and Sakakabe isn\u2019t faring much better. Wouldn\u2019t it make sense to wait for things to settle down?<\/span><\/p>\n W<\/span><\/p>\n e spent the day sailing on the wind over Minkai, the rippling hills, farms, and lush grasslands of the north giving way to the forest and marshes along the Tagiryu River. The Kyojin Mountains grew taller and more rugged with every mile. One could almost mistake this place for Elysium. All problems vanish given enough distance.<\/span><\/p>\n We haven\u2019t traveled in this manner since Qatana left. I can\u2019t help but wonder how she is doing and what journey she is on with her new companions. I also can\u2019t help but wonder how they are coping, as she is so much worse now than she was when we began, and they don\u2019t have the benefit of experience to help them out. Almost reflexively, I tried to imagine what it must be like for them to be contained to a ship with her at sea, and then I realized I more or less already knew: the caravan across the Crown was little different, just longer, colder, and almost certainly less comfortable.<\/span><\/p>\n She said she would check in from time to time, and that I was welcome to do the same. I eventually will, assuming we live long enough, but it\u2019s too soon to do it now. For one, she needs time to adjust and settle (as do we), and for two, with our accelerated schedule, now is not really the time for personal matters. So that will have to wait. The stories will be more interesting later, anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019re not far from Akafuto, which is tomorrow\u2019s port of call. We couldn\u2019t travel that far in one day, so we needed a layover and chose the first substantial village we saw as we passed into the heart of the province.<\/span><\/p>\n Hatsue is traveling with us. She\u2019s been to Kasai before and is pretty sure she can help us make contact with the resistance movement. And I can\u2019t believe I actually wrote those words; it reads like something from bad community theater. But regardless of how it sounds, that is what it is, and we can use the help.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019re taking a slower route from this point on\u2014visiting Akafuto for sure, and possibly another village or two in order to get a feel for the people and the politics\u2014so Hatsue and Ivan are headed directly to Kasai tomorrow morning. Why her <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> Ivan? She needs him for the spell we used to travel here today, and also because I think he has a crush on her.<\/span><\/p>\n And I can\u2019t believe I actually wrote <\/span>those<\/span><\/i> words, either.<\/span><\/p>\n K<\/span><\/p>\n urozawa is close enough to Akafuto to not be insular, but far enough away to have its own identity, and that made it nearly perfect for getting a little information on what people know of events both up north and down south. That being said, no one was particularly forthcoming when it came to the subject of Kasai, so it took a bit of gentle coaxing from Dasi. The most telling comment of the day was, \u201cAt least we are up north where we\u2019re free.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n To warm the village up to us, Dasi and I put on a few performances, mostly music and dancing inspired by stories of the old emperors. It\u2019s the sort of thing that people love; the old stories are <\/span>always<\/span><\/i> the best stories. It is also a subtle way of reminding people how the empire used to be, and how different it is now.<\/span><\/p>\n Rumors of an heir up north\u2014the <\/span>real<\/span><\/i> north, not the relative-to-Kasai north\u2014have made it this far, but in what was far from a surprise, no one really believes them. So Olmas chose to make a bit of a splash by calling attention to Suishen and its status as an Amatatsu ancestral weapon. (As a side point, we need to talk to him about the best way to start this sort of conversation. Talking to a young child, then asking them if they wanted to \u201csee his sword\u201d lacked prudence.) Suishen, for once, actually supported that by calling attention to himself, too. (As another side point, we need to talk to Suishen about that, too. Scaring the shit out of a young child that isn\u2019t expecting a talking sword is a problem I don\u2019t even have a category for.)<\/span><\/p>\n I had to go pick up Ivan at, of all places, the fortress. The <\/span>plan<\/span><\/i> was for him to meet us in Akafuto, but that plan did not survive even five minutes in Kasai. He and Hatsue were both okay, but to quote Ivan, \u201cWind walking into Kasai is a bad idea.\u201d After dropping Hatsue off so that she could enter the city on two feet like a normal person, he tried to keep an eye on her from above. He was spotted right away, and the very organized response included marking his position with magical lights so that the archers on the ground knew where to shoot.<\/span><\/p>\n We got hints of this sort of thing from the villagers here. Not Ivan specifically, but on the regimented, militaristic lifestyle that has enveloped Kasai. The other quote of the day was, \u201cThe emperor loves order.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A<\/span><\/p>\n kafuto is the second-largest port city in Minkai, a major trade hub, and home to a number of shipyards. It reminds me a lot of Magnimar that way, though it is much larger and significantly less diverse.<\/span><\/p>\n So far, what we\u2019ve heard from the people here doesn\u2019t differ much from Kurozawa, though the conversations about Kasai were a bit more pointed. Today\u2019s quote was, \u201cGo there, keep to your business, and come back fast.\u201d Something about large cities like this makes people more willing to speak their minds. I suppose that\u2019s because a sense of anonymity comes from being a grain of sand in the desert.<\/span><\/p>\n Dasi and I repeated our performances last night at the inn where we are staying. That went well, but not exceptionally so. Connecting with people who aren\u2019t looking for a connection is always a challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n We head to Kasai this afternoon. From both Hatsue and the few people here that we talked to at length, we\u2019ve learned that soldiers there\u2014almost certainly the Typhoon Guard\u2014are searching everyone who enters and that they are paying particularly close attention to women. Which normally would just be creepy and uncomfortable, but now is those things plus unsettling. All that means we need to enter in disguise, and specifically in <\/span>mundane<\/span><\/i> disguise, since we don\u2019t want to look like a bonfire under a cursory inspection with magic.<\/span><\/p>\n The problem with mundane disguises is that they are hard to pull off, so there is quite a bit of risk here. What if one of us gets caught? Or even just taken aside for questioning? What if that happens to <\/span>more<\/span><\/i> than one of us? It\u2019s that last one that worries me the most, as I\u2019m not confident I\u2019d be able to get to everyone to pull them out. And it would be absolutely suicidal to try and fight a bunch of guards in their own city. So quite a lot is riding on what amounts to makeup and wigs.<\/span><\/p>\n O<\/span><\/p>\n bviously, we made it here, though it was not without incident. We were waiting in line to enter the city when two Typhoon guards descended on a woman and interrogated her right there in the middle of the street. Through magic, they either compelled or falsified her confession and took her away. This brought back fairly ugly memories of the market in Enganoka. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s worse: not being able to intervene in time, or knowing that you can\u2019t intervene at all and are forced to watch it play out.<\/span><\/p>\n In Akafuto, they described Kasai as being under martial law. \u201cThere is heightened security there,\u201d they said. \u201cIf you\u2019re about peaceful, lawful business, you\u2019re fine.\u201d These accounts are either magical thinking or willful ignorance, as Kasai is nothing short of a military state. People are questioned indiscriminately for the crime of existing. The guards rule through fear and intimidation. Punishment seems to be summary and brutal. And I don\u2019t doubt that many or most of the people here would sell one another out to avoid having the lens turned on them.<\/span><\/p>\n One glance up confirmed what I suspected ever since Ivan returned: there were Typhoon Guard patrolling the skies under cover of invisibility, and probably watching the watchers. There weren\u2019t a lot of them, but enough to form a regular patrol. It is yet one more thing to have to keep track of. It helps quite a bit that I can see them, though, and we can use this to our advantage.<\/span><\/p>\n Our contact for the resistance movement is Asachi Isao. He is not just an old friend of the Amatatsu family: he actually knew Ameiko\u2019s great-grandfather, and was entrusted with the bulk of the family\u2019s wealth when they fled over the Crown of the World. Suishen actually recognized him and was practically <\/span>giddy<\/span><\/i> to the point where I thought maybe Olmas had brought in the wrong sword. But then Suishen made some backhanded compliment to which Isao replied, \u201cI see you haven\u2019t changed,\u201d and I relaxed. (It\u2019s also nice to know that it\u2019s not just us.)<\/span><\/p>\n As the footcab-in-residence, it was my job to teleport to the fortress and bring Ameiko and company back with me. As soon as she was here, Isao got down to the business of explaining just how bad the situation in Kasai really was. Because what we needed was more gods-be-damned challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n He broke it down thusly:<\/span><\/p>\n So just those problems, then.<\/span><\/p>\n Ameiko is itching to take action. I was pretty dumbfounded by that, given how she reacted to my little stunt in Enganoka, but maybe something has changed in her. Either that, or there are just too many indignities here to ignore. Either way, this translates to yet another change in plans: instead of walking into the ambush at the shrine on the island, she wants to raid the granary and liberate the rice.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m all for it. I reached my breaking point long ago, so any opportunity to tear down pieces of the Jade Regent\u2019s empire is more than welcome.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sarenith 16, 4713 (Seinaru Heikiko, Night) W e\u2019ve put our trip to Kasai off a day so that we could celebrate tonight with Jiro\u2019s army. I was a little too anxious for a party, but we needed to be seen along with Ameiko so I stuck it out until people stopped caring about who was […]<\/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-4158","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\/4158","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=4158"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5732,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4158\/revisions\/5732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Sarenith 17 (Kurozawa, Night)<\/h3>\n
Sarenith 18 (Kurozawa, Late Afternoon)<\/h3>\n
Sarenith 19 (Akafuto, Noon)<\/h3>\n
Sarenith 19 (Kasai, Evening)<\/h3>\n
\n