Desnus 25, 4713 (small hours, Seinaru Heikiko)

Qatana has gone to a very dark place and I don’t know what to do about it. Or even if I should do anything about it because, let’s face it, I am hardly an impartial judge here myself. I was visibly shaking not an hour ago, and my hands are still trembling now. The farther we travel the more it’s obvious that people are the same pretty much everywhere. We color our skin, dye our hair, change our clothes, but it’s all just a veneer over a core that is no different from one place to the next. In the face of anomie, people revert to their worst qualities and those qualities are as sure as the setting sun.

I fear that maybe mom is right. What if there really are souls that aren’t worth saving?

There were seven women held in slavery here. And not just held in slavery, but imprisoned in it, jailed at night in bamboo cages “because they had to sleep somewhere”. They range in age from their early teens to their mid twenties, all of them captured and forced into servitude, some with their families killed in front of them, and their villages burned. When we rescued them, one of the first questions they asked Radella was if we were their new owners. They literally thought they had been sold like property.

It’s no wonder Qatana is in a state. Hishasi’s guided tour of the fortress led her through Kaer Maga and emerged thirteen years in the past. That he’s still alive is not a measure of any sort of restraint, either hers or mine: it’s purely a practical decision, and even then, for me, it was a struggle. In a way, all the surviving bandits are fortunate that I prepared my spells to subdue rather than kill. Any attempts at instant justice would just ring hollow, and that played a significant part in my internal debate.

One of them was not so lucky. After we saw the defaced shrine, both Qatana and I had reached a breaking point. She acted first, and ordered the remaining bandits into one of the bamboo cages. One of them hesitated. She did something with her hands while speaking the words to a spell, and he screamed in abject terror and died on the spot. You might say it had a sort of chilling affect on the others. The insurgency ended before it even began; with a newfound obedience, they stepped inside and we locked them up.

And then, by gods, it got worse. Qatana brought in the recently-freed slaves and asked them if any of our prisoners had taken advantage of them. They were in no condition to answer anything, even seeing their tormentors locked in cages, but Dasi had a spell running and it told us enough. They’d all been abused, even the youngest of them, and every one of the men had taken liberties with someone. It was impossible to know who had victimized whom, but at that point what did it matter? If I’d had prepared my spells differently, I could have incinerated them all on the spot and walked away with a clear conscience.

And I probably am fortunate, there. Maybe. If I am being honest, I am still undecided. Maybe I should have done it, anyway.

Except that the others would have objected. And then I’d also have to explain myself to Ameiko. Not that she wouldn’t understand given that business with her half-brother, but it would be more the principle of the thing. I am supposed to be better than that, even if I’m not.

Would Ameiko understand, though? I have to wonder. Everyone knows Qatana’s story by now, and Ameiko knows it better than most, but only Qatana lived through it. Only Shalelu got to see it first-hand. And as far as I know, only she and I heard the stories—and only I got immersed in them, the details slowly trickling in over the years the followed.

It took months for Qatana to even open up at all. When I first saw her in Korvosa she was still in a state of denial over what had happened. I didn’t know what it was at the time, of course—what 10-year-old understands these things?—I just knew that it wasn’t normal, that she seemed both fully aware yet blissfully ignorant of what had happened in the preceding months. I didn’t know exactly what had happened to her, but I knew it was bad. Worse than what I had been going through. Worse than I was capable of imagining at that age. (Now? Not so much.)

So who would understand? Almost certainly not Olmas. He and Qatana had a very long talk after the incident at the cage. I don’t know what they said to each other, but neither left looking particularly happy so I can probably guess: he expressed concern that she was taking the role of jury and executioner against prisoners who had surrendered to us, and she didn’t understand why there was a problem. Rationally, I know he’s right, but I am having a hard time being rational. Maybe that’s the point, though. Do we really make the best decisions when we can’t separate ourselves from crime and victim?

But it’s not like we’re serving up vigilante justice here, either. She even said their fate would be decided by Jiro. As the ancestral owner of this place, and in the absence of a daimyo who gives two shits about his villeins, I think that’s more than fair. And, so what if she had to make an example of one? It was obviously necessary. I mean, if killing almost everyone here wasn’t proof enough that we should be taken seriously, then gods only know what they would have tried to do when we weren’t watching. At least now we can be relatively certain they won’t oush their luck. Or test our limits.

We’ve had enough surprises for one day as it is, so my patience for those is paper-thin. The women we rescued said there was another girl being held captive, one they referred to as the “cat lady”. She was, of all things, a were-tiger, kept as the personal slave and concubine of the “scary man”, the druidic shaman Kamuy-Paro. Turns out? She wasn’t a slave, or held against her will. So. Surprise!

She put on a good act, though. Zosi found her chained to a bed in Kamuy-Paro’s personal quarters, and she played the part of the unwilling prisoner and play thing of Kamuy-Paro to a tee, even going so far as killing one of the bandits that got in her way. She had convinced all of us of her story, captured and forced to be bitten by a were-tiger to inflict the curse upon her for his amusement (for all we know, that might actually be true). But, really, she was just biding her time, looking for a chance to strike. Considering she was a willing submissive in whatever depraved sexual fantasies Kamuy-Paro was living out, she took the evidence of his death—that would be his still-bleeding-out corpse—rather well (which, I suppose, should have been a clue). It wasn’t until Zosi and Dasi informed her of their plans to make maps from his skin (eesh!) that would “reveal his secrets” that she couldn’t sustain the ruse any longer. I guess they weren’t specific on what those secrets entailed, and there were secrets she wanted keeping. Like, who she fucking was.

She attacked us while Olmas, Radella and Qatana were on their tour with Hashasi. She probably thought she could take us. She was wrong. Surprise! I conjured a pit underneath her, and then Ivan gave her a push with a spell, and down she went. She couldn’t get out, especially after I covered the walls with sleet and snow. Zosi dropped bomb after bomb on her until the screams went silent.

Good riddance.

Gods, these people. Kamuy-Paro was a lunatic who we’re told set people on fire. Their chieftain, Gangasum, built his fiefdom like an Ulfen raider short on manners. The guards used their slaves as personal toys, and killed them out of hand (the women said that they haven’t seen the stable boy in a while; when asked about that, Hishasi said, “We need a new stable boy”). And, of course, all of them found sport in desecrating a statue of Shizuru, which tells you plenty about where they stand.

And the daimyo turned a blind eye to all of it. So to hell with him.

(predawn, Seinaru Heikiko)

The women warned us not to enter the secret garden at night. Come to think of it, Kamuy-Paro said much the same. This was Kamuy-Paro’s rule, and he knew what he was talking about. Based on what we learned about him? I wouldn’t be surprised if he was somehow responsible.

I have no idea what those things were. It was like the a pile of firewood just stood up and attacked, ignoring all of our magic as if it wasn’t there (except, unsurprisingly, for magical fire). This makes me suspect they were some form of golem, but who knows? Now they are kindling and splinters so it hardly matters.

Ivan and Radella are talking to the women and helping get them settled in. I have not been included in that discussion because I am quite obviously not in a state where I can be a calming influence. Right now, I am not what they need, and even if I tried I’d almost certainly make things worse rather than better. It’s for the best I stay out of it.

It’s been a long night. The sun will be up soon, just in time for us to go to bed. Later today, I teleport with Qatana to fetch Ameiko and Jiro because we suspect we’ll need the Seal to open the vault. They will come back on Qatana’s spell since it’s faster than the chariot I can conjure. I’ll teleport back because I am impatient and not likely to be good company.

And we have a new problem to worry about. While we were fiddling around in Kamuy-Paro’s garden, my spell that detects magical scrying alerted me for just a couple of minutes.

Someone is watching us.

Desnus 23, 4713 (early afternoon, Osogen Grasslands)

Finding Jiro’s camp was so easy we practically stumbled into it. After several hours passing farm after farm and village after village, each one looking more and more like the one before it, I thought we’d be stuck wandering out here for weeks. But the funny thing about rebel armies is that they have to train, and you just don’t see many farmers practicing in their fields with bows and arrows. Not dozens of them, anyway. In the same place. All at once. So you might say this kind of stood out. It really was as ridiculously easy as Miyaro had suggested: follow the river and look around.

Part of me wonders if it’s wise for them to hold military-style drills like this so brazenly, even up here in the north. But there is, I suppose, the notion of hiding in plain sight. With bandits plaguing this region, and an unsympathetic (if not outright hostile) daimyo overseeing it, people do need to protect themselves, their families, and their homes. How unusual would it be for a ronin and samurai to help teach the common folk to defend themselves? Aren’t there stories of ronin wandering the countryside, saving villages from threats both mystical and terrene? What better cover could they have?

Their drill sergeant, Hatsue, is a serious if not humorless woman who is not one for idle talk. Figuring we had the right place—because how could it not be?—we stopped and watched them practice for a while. Eventually, she figured out that we weren’t going to leave, which I am sure she didn’t find suspicious or alarming at all, and started walking our way. That’s when Olmas and Dasi rode out to meet her.

I had no idea what they were saying to one another, and was just wondering what version of the truth she was getting when Olmas waved me over. So I guess it’s the merchant story, then?

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve spun these lies. Enough that I can almost believe them myself. I don’t even have to try to be convincing anymore. All that mastery was lost on Hatsue, though: she was quickly distracted by my naginata, which I had very deliberately brought with me. She kept glancing at it while I spoke, and I could see that moment when recognition dawned. What can I say? I like to save time.

“How did you come across that?”

I let Dasi answer first. “We discovered a hold in the Forest of Spirits. We investigated, and found it deep inside.”

Then I added, “We took it from a ja noi oni that was living there.”

Hatsue was not exactly impressed. “It was obviously stolen by the oni, and it should be returned to the noble house that it belongs to.”

And there’s the rub. We know the noble houses are all extinct, save for the Amtatsus. And I said as much, leaving out the latter, crucial detail of course. “How do we return it to a house that no longer exists?”

Hatsue answered that the daimyo here would be the appropriate owner, but her eyes kind of clouded over and her expression hardened as she said it. I was not in the mood for bullshit so I called her on it. Lacking a good answer, and somewhat taken aback by my impeccable social graces, she suggested we meet with her commander, the one and only Hirabashi Jiro, and discuss the matter.

I think I am making this sound worse than it really was. Honestly, she was just suspicious: of us, our intentions, and I suppose even our story of the Forest. I would be, too, in her position. Given how abruptly her day had gone from routine to peculiar, I was impressed she held her composure.

That may have something to do with her dedication to Irori. It took only a few minutes with her to figure that one out. I mean, I would know, right? She had the kind of discipline that only comes from the constant study and training. The kind I wasn’t capable of, myself.

I was surprised to see a Shogi board set up in the command tent. There are countless variations of this game around the Inner Sea: Chanturanga, Samanty, and Senterej come to mind, so naturally it caught my attention. When I asked about it, her whole demeanor changed and we kind of got lost in a discussion of rules, play strategies, and even her game in progress. Clearly, I had found her passion. We were still in the weeds when Jiro entered, glanced over at us, and then shook his head while muttering something under his breath. I don’t know what he said, but it was clearly the manner of someone who had seen this scene play out dozens of times before.

We gave Jiro a more complete version of our story, including the tale of the Amatatsu family fleeing across the Crown of the World to safety, and the surviving heir to the throne. You might say that he was skeptical, the way one might say they like breathing. I was half-expecting him to laugh in our faces. Then Olmas pulled out Suishen—who of course remained stubbornly silent because that’s just the way it is—and that changed the tone gods-be-damned fast. Just wait until you find out who Ameiko is.

After a long silence, he said, “You seem to be collecting ancestral weapons.”

I wisely didn’t say anything. The first two responses to enter my mind were unlikely to move the conversation in a positive direction.

He took our measure by giving us a thought experiment of sorts: A samurai, loyal to her daimyo, is brought before a peasant. She is given two blades, and ordered to test them and see if they can behead a man in a single stroke. What is the honorable thing for the samurai to do?

The obvious answer, of course, is to refuse to obey, and leave the service of her daimyo because honor does not trump morality. But there is also the peasant, who is presumably an innocent man, whose life is now in danger, and who the samurai has also sworn to protect. So she must ensure his safety, which may mean killing her daimyo in defense of the peasant’s life.

Of course, real life isn’t this simple. In Ordu-Aganhei, the Prince did something very much like this, and no one stepped up to stop him. Why? Because they feared for their lives, and their family’s lives, and probably the lives of anyone they knew. So an act of defiance may have repercussions far beyond your personal exigency.

Zosi pointed out that, in an honor-bound culture such as Minkai, such actions can stain your family for generations. In which case the correct answer is for the samurai to kill the daimyo to protect the peasant, and then herself to preserve her honor. Except, again, in the real world I don’t think it’s this simple. Honor isn’t a shield. There’s no guarantee your family won’t be punished just because you did the favor of punishing yourself. And “death” and “death with honor” both start with “death”.

Jiro and Hatsue fell on different sides of this debate. Hatsue was all for killing herself to preserve her honor, while Jiro took the more reasonable stance that a dead man can’t help people. It’s probably an old debate between them, just rehashed with fresh voices.

It was a lively discussion, but it did little to convince Jiro that we could produce an heir, or rally anyone behind us in a march on Kasai. So, as I had predicted, he’s asked us to prove ourselves and our commitment first. I wonder how often this is going to happen. Is everyone we meet between here and the Five Storms going to demand we do them some favor? It will be an endless chain of “just this one thing”.

Desnus 24, 4713 (morning, ravine near the Kosokunami River)

We’ve spent the last 12 hours camped in a dense region of the woods away from the fortress the bandits have occupied, under cover of a spell that suppresses our light and sounds so that we don’t attract attention. The ones who came here by Qatana’s spell are also taking turns scouting the fortress, keeping an eye on the guard changes and any new arrivals (or departures). Unless something significant changes, we’re going to take it tonight—or more precisely, early in the morning—after the owl shift comes on duty.

Jiro calls this place Seinaru Heikiko. Apparently it was built by his ancestors generations ago, and they served one of the royal families. He wasn’t forthcoming with a lot of details, like what it’s doing in the hands of bandits, which is a sign that either either doesn’t know or doesn’t want to talk about it. My guess is it’s the latter. But it’s still a good question. We’re told they’ve since renovated the place, repairing and reinforcing some structures so that it would serve as a suitable fortress for themselves. A quick look when we got here confirmed that. As long as you were trying to approach from the ground, you’d be hard pressed to make it inside.

We won’t be approaching from the ground. Do this right, and we’ll make it inside without making a sound. Whether we can keep it that quiet remains to be seen, but the farther we can go without raising an alarm the better.

I can’t help but draw parallels to Ravenscraeg. The cliffs of this ravine are less intimidating, and the fortress itself is on the ground, but there’s enough in common to put them in the same category. It’s yet another “break in to the fortress in the middle of the night” deal, made easy by their defensive strategy which is seemingly based on a frontal assault on the ground. In another life, maybe instead of attacking we could sell them a better security plan.

Why is this even necessary? Apparently, the daimyo here is a real piece of work, which explains why the normally-disciplined Hatsue had trouble hiding her contempt. These bandits operate here, and grow in strength and numbers, because literally no one is stopping them. Which means the daimyo has given them tacit permission to do as they please. It’s a good way to keep the people living in fear, and probably to also keep them from organizing.

Part of me thinks the daimyo is going to have to go, too. That’s pretty seditious of me, but isn’t that why we’re here? Mom would say that politics tend to be local, and that average person is more concerned with living day to day than who sits on some throne. If that’s true, then solving their immediate problems here might build the support Ameiko needs. This is obviously Jiro’s theory as well.

We may get more than just good will out of it. Jiro says there’s a vault of sorts somewhere inside and that vault can, supposedly, only be opened by a member of a royal family. Take the fortress and open the vault, and we’ll be proving to Jiro that we can produce an heir of the Amatatsu family. That would give Ameiko more than just public support: it’d be giving her legitimacy. Of course, Jiro doesn’t know that there are, in fact, six of us that can do that (ten, if you count Ana, Etayne, Sparna and Kelda), but I don’t see the need to concern him with this pesky detail. Especially since we’d then have to explain it, and I am not sure I’m ready to go there. Maybe we’ll test it first to see if it works and to avoid any potential public embarrassment (dad would call this a “soft opening”), then bring Ameiko and Jiro over for an official unveiling.

Zosi is making some thunderstones for us. I want Nihali up on one of those rooftops tonight, ready to drop a stone or two if we stir up trouble. A little added confusion might help us out.

Gozran 3, 4713 (evening, Muliwan)

I brought the last of the rescued into town this morning and took them to where Dasi has been staying. He’s worked diligently over the last couple of days to get them all settled here, setting them up with the money we provided and, in the case of those who need it, people to care for them while they recover. He’s done well putting this all together. It helps that he’s charming, more or less native to the area, and a good judge of character. Normally, I’d worry about townspeople taking advantage of them after we left, but I don’t think that’s going to be a problem here.

Despite its small size, Muliwan seems to be the right sort of place for them. As a trading town, it’s got plenty of foreigners and none of the hostility towards them that seems pervasive on the plains of Hongal. It’s also far enough from Ordu-Aganhei to not be under its influence, and I don’t think I have to explain why that matters.

I’m spending the night here again because I feel like it. We’ve got over a month of travel ahead of us, and I’d like another night in a real bed before we go. That, and I want to be around people for a little while longer, the sort that are just going about life without some sort of mask on. You go outside here and talk to someone who says they are a baker and odds are pretty good that they’re just a baker. They’re not hiding a mysterious past or living some double life. You can almost feel like you’re normal when you’re surrounded by it.

Qatana asked if I could make a large tureen and some bowls in the usual Groetus motif. She’s setting up an impromptu soup kitchen in a couple of nights to help the needy and homeless here—human settlements are pretty much the same no matter what part of the world they’re in—so I said yes. I have often wondered what Shelyn thinks of this sort of thing. It’s not the first time, nor is it likely to be the last, that I’ve whipped something up in this theme. She obviously doesn’t disapprove as there’d be no question about that if she did, but that does not necessarily imply approval. Or maybe I am overthinking this. Maybe art is still art, even when it’s creepy, grinning skulls.

And then there’s Nihali. Am I flaunting my nonconformity? Heretical is probably a little strong, but entering a Shelynite temple with a black raven on my shoulder has to at least qualify as eccentric.

Gozran 7, 4713 (early morning, The Forest of Spirits)

Zosi looks nervous. We’re leaving for Minkai—again—in the next hour or two and his anxiety suggests he is not eager to go. He doesn’t talk a lot about hinmself or his life before joining up with us so I don’t have any idea what it could be, but clearly it’s not his first choice. Which means he more or less signed on with the wrong crowd. If we are successful, we’ll be there for a while. If not? We’ll be there a lot longer.

Gozran 27, 4713 (evening, The Forest of Spirits)

We crossed a major river today. It was a lot easier than that time we forded the Taraska at the Crown, when we had to find shallow waters, wait for low tide, and float the wagons across the icy river. This time we had the benefit of spells and literally built a bridge. It won’t win any awards for design, but it did the job.

So this is it. We’ll be out of the Forest in just a couple of weeks.

We asked Miyaro for advice, as just rolling through Minkai in a caravan so obviously not from this side of the world seems unwise. She suggested seeking out a band of ronin in the Osogen grasslands. It appears that the nascent rebellion has begun in the north, which makes sense since that’s about as far from Kasai as you can get.

Since Dasi is actually from here, and has lived under the Jade Regent, we asked him what he knew. He remembers Emperor Shigure coming to the throne, but being sent into hiding for his own safety when rumors of an assassination plot came to light. Most of the people in Minkai are waiting for him to return.

Of course, we know that’s not going to happen. We told Dasi about the visions we had in Brinewall when we found the Seal. To say he seemed concerned would be an understatement. He was probaby holding out hope, but I am convinced that, deep down, he knew. We just stripped away the veneer.

Desnus 17, 4713 (afternoon, Minkai)

After nearly ten months and some 9,000 miles of travel we have finally arrived in Minkai. The caravan emerged from the thinning forest into rolling grasslands.

There was this moment when I had a flashback to the visions from Brinewall. I was standing here, or somewhere very much like here, as legions of oni descended into the country spread out before me, storms raging overhead. It was a metaphor, obviously, but the view was real. The place is real.

Desnus 23, 4713 (morning, Osogen Grasslands)

Miyaro is guiding us to a series of farms and rice paddies near the Kosokunami River, just below they Kyojin mountains. The ronin Hirabashi Jiro is known to live here, and is potentially sympathetic to the idea of an uprising. That we’re somehow going to find literally one person in thousands of square miles of landscape strains credulity, but Desna is no stranger to Minkai so I’ll just have to trust that she’s laid the path.

We have passed a number of villages and farms, and with each mile they become more frequent and more populous. After so many months of isolation it’s a welcome change.