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[Rolzup]

I, Burne

I was, of course, correct in my fears. I generally am.

This was the famed Asymmetric Recruitment Squad, about their vital business. The ignorant might call them a "Press Gang", but as a veteran myself I understood the importance of their work.

Their leader, alas, was an odious little fellow named Savur Phillipe. A man not without connections, as it transpired, but entirely without morals. Phillipe was to become quite the millstone 'round our necks over the course of the next few days, until we....

But, no. I get ahead of myself. Lieutenant Phillipe was, he claimed, concerned about the obvious violence that had occurred within the square. I assured him that nothing worse than justice had been done, but he seemed rather skeptical. It's hard to imagine that any man could doubt the sworn word of Burne, but I suppose that it's simply another sign of the man's degenerate personality.

Kenji then began remonstrating with the man, and I resigned myself to the onset of violence. Matter were made all the worse when our madman began scaling the wall opposite, apparently intent upon investigating the ramshackle abode of this "King Daikon" who had so lately vanished.

The Lieutenant did not take kindly to this, and began making threats. The madman, perhaps sensing the tension, responded by throwing rubbish down on to Phillipe's men. Kenji began making threats of his own, and I do believe that some swords had been drawn.

And then...something...happened. And I'll be damned if I know what.

Kenji, you see, is not *just* an effeminate foreigner. Oh, to be sure, he wields a sword tolerably well...

IF BY "WELL" HE MEANS, "CAN SPLIT A MAN IN HALF WITH A SINGLE STROKE", THIS IS, IN FACT, CORRECT.

...but swordplay is not, I think, where his true strength lies. How can I best explain this?

Ah.

It is said that there are those among the Ajakhani who practice a form of martial discipline. Some type of unarmed combat, in which the attacker's strength is turned against him. A shift of momentum, and a fearsome charge becomes a terrible fall.

This is clearly inferior to the Erisian way, in which the charging attacker is impaled upon a set spear, and then roasted alive for his effrontery. In fact, I myself have....

My apologies; I digress.

Kenji, it seems, practices this very art. But he does so verbally, rather than physically. Time and again I have seen him do this, turning an implacable foe into a reluctant ally with no more than a few well-placed words.

I'm never entirely sure how he manages this. It all seems reasonable enough at the time, no matter how mad it may appear in the cold light of dawn.

Whatever it was that he said and did, the end result was that he and Lieutenant Phillipe set off to gamble together, at a local establishment called Stiltjackets.

The madman, for his part, had made some discoveries among Daikon's belongings. A book, and a short length of wood with many faces carved into its surface.

The faces were muttering quietly to themselves; you couldn't hear them if you actually listened, but you'd catch snatches of conversation while paying attention to other matters. The madman seemed to be hearing them quite clearly, and was actually responding to the stick as though it were somehow sentient. Not, I hasten to add, that his responses made any kind of sense whatsoever, beyond betraying a disturbing fascination with pudding.

Mop Mop Bow commented that it was rather unusual that the madman was able to hold this stick, as it usually "bit" anyone other than Daikon who ventured to touch it.

Daikon, I surmised, was another individual with a primal connection to CITY itself, much like our madman. He seemed to have better maintained his sanity, however, and masqueraded as nothing more than a greengrocer for reasons of his own.

At this point, I'll confess, I was growing impatient with matters. The hour was late, and I had matters of grave import to consider before retiring for the evening.

HE SPENT THREE HOURS WAVING HIS CHEAP SECOND-HAND KATANA AROUND AND KILLING IMAGINARY OPPONENTS. HE LOOKED LIKE HE WAS HAVING SOME KIND OF A SEIZURE.

We resolved, then, to meet at Mop Mop Bow's establishment upon the morrow. Rakhir would act as a bodyguard for Delphine, and conduct her though the streets of Little Ajakhan to some place of relative safety. Word would be left for Kenji at the rude little inn where he was staying.

Plans having been made, we then adjourned for the evening. I returned home in fine spirits, glad to once more breathe in the fine air of Eris.