Journal of Miyara Kyosuke (75)

    Goru and Bollo chatter away in barbarian.  Apparently Bollo wants to know if we have anything to sell.
    Duruluma has been complaining about the lice, the food, and Q's extortionate hold over the community.  Anton is still optimistic and hopeful, mostly because he has not been here quite long enough yet to have his spirit broken.
    I look around for some sort of stronger drink, and comment aloud that they might have something like that.  But of course they do not understand me.
    The townsfolk talk far too much about mning.  In fact, Anton and Duruluma get into a shouting match, as is normal for barbarians.
    I decide to experiment and see if it's possible to get drunk on this beer.  I stand among the disgusting peasants while they tell their stories to me in some incomprehensible tongue. I ask Hosei if he can make it stronger.  He says he can't, and doesn't have anything stronger, but all he has are spell materials.  He suggests boduka, which can be made from rotting potatoes.  Bollo wants to sell me some, and Hosei gives me a couple of silver coins to pay for it.  I hand over the silver, and Bollo goes to get boduka.  He brings a glass; it is actually very good.
    When I tell Miyara about it, she gets him to bring a bottle and another glass.  She buys the bottle for two gold.
    I am delighted to find something so good here, and it's cold out here, so I drink a lot of it.  The prattle of the barbarians is now sounding less like an attempt at a language and more like bad background music.  The more Miyara drinks, the more she speaks in Nipponese.  This is good.  We treat them to some good drinking songs.
    The keg runs out.  Bollo thinks we should buy the next round.  We do -- it's only one gold -- and everyone cheers.  Miyara and I work on finishing the bottle of boduka.
    About an hour later, we notice that Bollo is looking longingly at the bottle of boduka, and tells us some story that indicates he wants the bottle back.  I suggest that the bottle might be magical and ask Hosei if it is, while Bollo indicates to Miyara that what he really wants is some boduka for himself.  Hosei tells me that it is not magical, in fact nothing here is.  In the interests of friendship, we give him some.
    Eventually the boduka runs out.  We walk sedately back to our hovel, although we weave around a bit because Pito does.  In fact, everything is weaving a bit.  We sing loudly for everyone's entertainment as we make our way back.

    The night passes uneventfully until about 3 am, when we are woken suddenly.  Something hits me very hard.  The entire hovel has collapsed on us.  I quickly deal with the worst of my wounds, then look around for Miyara.  She is hurt badly.  I tend her wounds, which helps, but she's still in bad shape.  Many of us are, of course.  I draw Rabena's attention to Miyara and then get out of the way.  I am not sure what happened then.

    Eventually I regain consciousness, apparently under Rabena's care, to find that most of the group are now in full health.

Here there is a break in the journal.  It is known that Miyara Kyosuke stayed in the village while several of the others attempted to destroy the Stone by focussing its opposing powers through it, which failed.  There was then a fire at Bollo's peat moss storage area, leading to a mass brawl triggered by a fight between Q and Bollo.  Soon after that, a group from the Empire arrived in the town, with a prisoner who Kyosuke thought was here to drink him.  The man said it was not him, but the rest of the group, Miyara Miwa in particular, believed the man was part of the solution to their problems.