P<\/span><\/p>\n aranoid? Me? Maybe just a little. Occupational hazard.<\/span><\/p>\n I was thinking about Ito as we climbed out of the Well; if he <\/span>did<\/span><\/i> have a phylactery of some sort here on the island, where would he hide it? Somewhere out of sight. Somewhere difficult to reach. Somewhere most people wouldn\u2019t think to look.<\/span><\/p>\n Somewhere that we were actively discouraged from going earlier by Amatatsu Onoko. If that\u2019s who she really was\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n OK. That\u2019s who she really was. But at the time I wasn\u2019t trusting anyone but us.<\/span><\/p>\n We weren\u2019t out five minutes when Koya came up to Dasi. \u201cDo you know, there is not one single urn with the remains of the Shojinawa clan anywhere to be found? Isn\u2019t that peculiar, don\u2019t you think?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPeculiar\u201d? That\u2019s not the word I would choose. I\u2019d probably settle on \u201csuspicious\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Then she asked, \u201cDo you know of anything in this country\u2019s history to account for such a thing?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Do we ever<\/span><\/i>. And that\u2019s when my thoughts turned to the lake, and Onoko\u2019s insistence that we not mess with the water level. What was she hiding\u2026?<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n OK. That was just a coincidence. But. We weren\u2019t wrong about the lake. For generations, it seems the other royal families of Minkai expressed their opinions of Shojinawa Ito by tossing the remains of the <\/span>entire<\/span><\/i> Shojinawa family into the water. And one of the sealed urns we found down there was lined with lead, and just happened to contain Ito\u2019s phylactery.<\/span><\/p>\n Olmas and Hatsue hacked at it until the wooden box was reduced to splinters, then Ivan burned it to ash. So, no more Ito.<\/span><\/p>\n Ameiko is interring Shigure\u2019s remains as I write this. Hopefully he will be more agreeable\u2014and considerably less choleric\u2014after that\u2019s done.<\/span><\/p>\n I am not holding my breath.<\/span><\/p>\n I<\/span><\/p>\n had this crazy idea as Ameiko was wrapping up with her relatives.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat if we were to kidnap Renshii Meida?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Everyone looked at me like I was out of my mind.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m <\/span>serious<\/span><\/i>. Hear me out. If\u2026if I get that meeting with her handmaiden\u2014the one that\u2019s looking for a midwife\u2014what if I do <\/span>more<\/span><\/i> than just try to get information from her? What if I can actually get a meeting with Meida?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I am not above using magic to pull this off. As distasteful as it is, it\u2019s less so than killing a pregnant woman. It\u2019s what mom would call situational ethics. That, and Shelyn gave me this ability for a <\/span>reason<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAll I need is a piece of extravagant jewelry. A brooch, a ring, a necklace\u2026something I can keep hidden until I meet with Meida\u2019s handmaiden.\u201d Then I reveal it. Put it on, uncover it, whatever. At that point, she would find me fairly persuasive without questioning why. And it wouldn\u2019t require me to do something as obvious as cast a spell in her presence.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf I could get alone with Meida, and if Radella was close by, and Ivan was with her and keeping tabs on me with that spell of his\u2026I could suppress her magic, and Radella could jump to us using the coin. We could capture her, and then use the coin again to get away.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It is a <\/span>lot<\/span><\/i> of \u201cifs\u201d. And the timing would have to be perfect. But we could do it. We could knock one of the pieces off the board (a metaphor Ivan and Hatsue would appreciate). Why bother trying to sow discord when we can just divide them up directly?<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019d need to go there in disguise. A <\/span>mundane<\/span><\/i> disguise, because I have to assume that Meida can see through magic, or at least detect it in her presence. I\u2019d have to darken my skin, whiten my hair, basically look like someone who trained in Pharasma\u2019s church and dresses accordingly. And I\u2019d have to do it without any of my magical protections or enhancements. I\u2019d need to look the part well enough that even Meida wouldn\u2019t suspect.<\/span><\/p>\n The others think I\u2019m crazy. They point out it\u2019s dangerous not just for me, but for Radella, too. And that if it goes wrong, we weaken ourselves considerably. And it depends on several factors that are outside our control.<\/span><\/p>\n These are all excellent points.<\/span><\/p>\n But part of me really, <\/span>really<\/span><\/i> wants to try it. Sometimes you just have to aim big.<\/span><\/p>\n W<\/span><\/p>\n e met the Raven Prince tonight. He was waiting for us at the docks of the Imperial Shrine.<\/span><\/p>\n So I guess he read our letter.<\/span><\/p>\n He didn\u2019t have a family Seal with him, so he was just a ghostly image at first. We had to circle around the island in the boat and dock again, something he seemed to expect, as he was not the least surprised. He came alone and was just sitting there, waiting patiently. So this was apparently a temporary truce.<\/span><\/p>\n Dasi and I approached.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve been causing quite a bit of trouble.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I answered in Tengu. \u201cWe\u2019re going to keep causing it. I didn\u2019t expect to see you here, but I suppose I am not surprised.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to see for myself the ones responsible. She is the last of the Amatatsu heirs?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe Amatatsu family survived the journey across the Crown. It is <\/span>possible<\/span><\/i> there are others we aren\u2019t aware of, but as far as we know? She is the last.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That he was here talking to us at all, almost certainly without Anamurumon\u2019s or Takahiro\u2019s knowledge, implied there was some angle we could work with him. So I decided to show him some of our cards. \u201cSoto Takahiro has the other families\u2019 Seals in the vault below the palace. They can be used to start new family lines.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI see. Interesting.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHow much do you know about Anamurumon\u2019s history?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEnough.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWould you agree that information has value?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt does. But I will not betray my employers.\u201d Another hypothesis confirmed: his relationship with Anamurumon is strictly business. And the Emerald Branch was right about him having his own code of honor.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI assume you care about the future of Minkai. I don\u2019t think the same can be said about your employers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI do. Loyalties and allegiances can change, of course, but I will not violate my contract. And what do <\/span>you<\/span><\/i> know of this Amatatsu? Is she a good leader?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And there\u2019s the rub. We started all of this because we know Ameiko, trust her, and value her as a friend. Mom once called this a crusade, and I\u2019ve come to the conclusion that she\u2019s right. It may have started as something else, but the farther we\u2019ve come, the more glimpses we\u2019ve been given into Minkai\u2019s future. This isn\u2019t some hack\u2019s play about a noble-born child, hidden away for their safety, growing up in a foreign land only to return to their ancestral home as an adult, and fight to restore their birthright. The people here have to live with what comes next.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019ve rallied behind Ameiko because we know her and believe in her, but\u2026can we prove that she\u2019s a good leader on her own merits, and not just compared to the alternative?<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe are being honest with one another here, so\u2026I don\u2019t know. I can only tell you what I believe. I have seen true leadership from her. She has heart, strength, wisdom, and cunning.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd she cares about her empire. I don\u2019t think Soto Takahiro can say the same.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, he got to the heart of this conversation; perhaps the <\/span>real<\/span><\/i> reason he was here. \u201cBut would she be willing to\u2026employ someone like myself?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s when I knew our letter had gotten through to him.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOnly she can answer that. Would you like to meet her?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n They had a brief exchange, with Olmas nervously watching from a polite, but not foolish, distance. I wasn\u2019t worried, though: if he intended to move against her, or us, he wouldn\u2019t have announced his presence. Especially so brazenly.<\/span><\/p>\n He clearly liked what he heard from her. Both of them, in fact, seemed satisfied as she walked back to the boat. Maybe, just maybe, we had accomplished something here. Obviously, given what he said, we don\u2019t expect him to turn on Anamurumon, and we will likely still be facing him in battle, but he can certainly choose the manner and means of his support without breaking the terms of his contract or tarnishing his honor. Note to self: if Ameiko does employ him after taking the throne, remind her to be very specific in his contract.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOne more thing,\u201d he said, as we were preparing to leave. \u201cI would like the rest of the play.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This actually took me by surprise. \u201cThe <\/span>whole thing<\/span><\/i>? But\u2026there are <\/span>thousands<\/span><\/i> of pages. There are <\/span>stacks<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>stacks<\/span><\/i> of revisions!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI would like to burn it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Well. That explained <\/span>that<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n It was hard to give it up, of course. But it helped to know that it was being donated to a worthy cause.<\/span><\/p>\n W<\/span><\/p>\n e stayed the night. This wasn\u2019t the original plan, but our unexpected meeting with the Raven Prince put us behind schedule. We were already going to be tempting fate by putting into port at dusk, but the delay meant arriving well after dark, and according to Isao, after the newly imposed curfew as well. So here we are.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019ve been given another task. Because what we need right now is another thing to do.<\/span><\/p>\n What we told the Raven Prince yesterday about the Seals? That was all true. Ameiko learned about them while communing with the spirits of the Five Families. \u201cWe can still feel their presence, somewhere deep under the Palace in Kasai,\u201d one of them said. \u201cThe burden lies with you to find four worthy families to be elevated in our places. The Seals have the divine power to establish new ruling families in such a case as this, by Shizuru\u2019s infinite wisdom.\u201d The future of Minkai is in your hands; you\u2019re our only hope. And so on.<\/span><\/p>\n So all we have to do is raid the palace and recover the Seals. I guess I\u2019ll add that to our list.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019re not stupid. It has occurred to us that we could just go for the throne <\/span>right now<\/span><\/i> and put an end to the <\/span>whole thing<\/span><\/i> (or try to, at any rate). In solving the one problem, we more or less solve the others. In theory. What has been holding us back are the hostages: as long as they are there, a single alarm or message could get them all killed faster than we can intervene. So as tempting as it is to just go for broke, it would do us no good to put Ameiko on a throne that\u2019s sitting in a pool of blood\u2026blood from the people she is supposedly liberating.<\/span><\/p>\n And now we\u2019ve added <\/span>this<\/span><\/i>. We don\u2019t know if he can destroy the Seals, but we have to assume that he can. We have to assume that Anamurumon wants Minkai badly enough that he\u2019s willing to torch its future if it\u2019s taken from him.<\/span><\/p>\n Of those two problems, the hostages are the more immediate and best defined. <\/span>Can<\/span><\/i> Anamurumon destroy the Seals? It seems unlikely, though we have to assume the worst. But there\u2019s no question about what he can do to prisoners. We need to get them out, and we need them to come out unharmed. That will eliminate much of his leverage over Kasai, and in the process boost confidence in Ameiko as a liberator and the rebellion in general. Anamurumon will still have ways to terrorize the city, of course, but they’ll be harder and more costly.<\/span><\/p>\n T<\/span><\/p>\n he hostages are home safe, but it was a harrowing raid that almost left two of them dead. Normally we are a lot more careful than this, but we had only a few moments to observe the floor of the palace where they were being held, which meant we had to fill in the gaps with guesswork. And by and large we guessed wrong. A few sloppy tactics on our part, combined with a gross misunderstanding of the guards\u2019 sense of duty, nearly cost the women their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n Fortunately, we had agreed early on that getting them out, not fighting their jailers, was the goal. As soon as I had the opportunity, I teleported the prisoners to freedom, four at a time. This meant leaving my friends to handle the fighting with only limited magical support, but considering how many close calls we had, that decision was almost certainly the difference between life and death for the captives.<\/span><\/p>\n Itsuru has moved quickly. He mobilized his army and built support in central Minkai much faster than any of us anticipated. Rumor is that an army is marching on the province and is just a few days away from Kasai. Since his own men didn\u2019t cover 1,000 miles in a week and a half, obviously he\u2019s got the support of Akafuto as well. The approaching force is reportedly large enough that Takahiro has committed much of his Typhoon Guard to meet them in the field.<\/span><\/p>\n Their absence from Kasai is visible. The city was on tight lockdown before, and in theory that hasn\u2019t changed, but there are fewer guards to man checkpoints, enforce the curfew, and, of course, carry out arrests. According to the Emerald Branch, this thinning of Takahiro\u2019s forces extends to the palace as well: they are operating with a skeletal garrison. All of this is, of course, good news for us, and probably why we had such an easy time sneaking our way in. That being said, we have learned firsthand that the ones who are left are not necessarily flunkies. The fight has been made easier, but it certainly hasn\u2019t been made easy.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sarenith 23 (Imperial Shrine, Late Afternoon) P aranoid? Me? Maybe just a little. Occupational hazard. I was thinking about Ito as we climbed out of the Well; if he did have a phylactery of some sort here on the island, where would he hide it? Somewhere out of sight. Somewhere difficult to reach. Somewhere most […]<\/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-4368","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\/4368","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=4368"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5741,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4368\/revisions\/5741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Sarenith 23 (Imperial Shrine, Later Afternoon)<\/h3>\n
Sarenith 23 (Imperial Shrine, Evening)<\/h3>\n
Sarenith 24 (Kasai, Morning)<\/h3>\n
Sarenith 25 (Kasai, Small Hours)<\/h3>\n