Bizarre Beginnings

Journal my journal, what a strange turn my mission has taken!
 
Upon arriving in Hu Zhuang Wu, I met a flamboyant half-elf and his impish familiar in the local tavern who apparently took a liking to me. Despite his rather ridiculous demeanor and penchant for grifting, I can't help but find him amusing. On top of that, he says he can get me into Del'Orta...
 
Which is part of what served to complicate things. Strange lights had been seen across the water, and this bard, Orlando, refused to depart for Del'Orta until we'd examined them--a debt he owes, apparently. Still, he's my best ticket in--if I can trust him, which I believe I can--and he insisted on going and getting himself killed anyway if I wasn't to come, so we left at nightfall and rowed across to a settlement marked on my map as Daopian Hai'an.
 
I remember how still the night air was despite the eerie lights weaving about the sky.
 
I utilized my Moon Arts, my grapple proving a reliable friend once again as we scaled the tower wall of the central keep. The man in possession of the lamp Orlando sought was a pushover in and of himself, but he had two golems as guards which could pierce the veil of the invisibility Orlando had thrown over himself, and they shot him as attempted to flee. His familiar and I managed to scurry down the wall and feed him down my rope as I struck down one golem with a Diving Crescent, and the second I dispatched with a Waning Moon Cut. The lamp was ours, and we just barely managed to stanch Orlando's bleeding before he crossed the Grey River.
 
As we rowed back, I saw a messenger pigeon break away. Had I not had a delirious, half-dead man in the boat with me, I might've taken a go at bringing it down, but apparently someone else did the job for me later; I saw a crow with a pigeon feather in its beak as we docked at Hu Zhuang Wu.
 
We commissioned the help of the stern Ma Sing, a woman graced by Bahamut with echoes of my mother, in reviving Orlando. While he recovered, I took it upon myself to track down a missing rice shipment, intercepted en route by two highwaymen tipped off by the Maycomb crew. I slew one with a Veiled Crushing Fang and subdued the other, bringing back the rice and taking in the bounty on the outlaws' heads. Now I must decide how I may use the firecrackers I got from him.
 
This village has a shrine to a protector spirit which I have been able to find some peace at. On the first day, a spry fox left a delicate bell with me, and I've been praying and meditating at the shrine every day since, doing my due diligence to the Platinum Guardian and the places where the spirits of this realm resonate.
 
I'm eager to move on. Orlando's close call set us back a few days, but with the help of Ma Sing he's looking spry as a samisen again, and we're ready to embark to Del'Orta on Muyko's ship. That little imp had better keep his claws off Bas'tet.
 
I've some sketches of this place I'd love to send to Hikari. I hope I am able to find a place where I might send them.
 
May the Platinum Dragon watch me through the gleam of my sword, guard me in the plates of my armor, guide me in the words of the strangers I've yet to make familiar, and bless me in the light of sun and moon. I am but a transient pilgrim walking the tracks of this past and future world, my blood the blood of my lord and my father and my people.