WorstHoleEver

Wei Han and Kasumi head to the north wall.

There, Wei Han will find a less-defended place with northern magic over the wall.

Note that you spent your last trip to the north wall telling people to watch those particular spots, so, at least at the moment, they tend to be more defended rather than less

Yes. That's one of the reasons I have a ninja. My guess is that further to the east, closer to the water, will be better: I started to the west, and may not have concentrated so hard once I got to where I can talk to Master Tien.

Wei Han will stand guard, to warn Kasumi of both Northerners and patrols, while Kasumi digs to see if there's an actual object holding the icky feeling in place. At some point, we may swap places, with Kasumi keeping watch and Wei Han digging, if it's hard for Wei Han to tell Kasumi where to dig from on the wall.

It's really really hard for Wei Han to force himself to plan to send someone out of the Empire (wrong!) to play around in corrupt and unholy ground (wrong!). He takes one sanity point of damage (we'll track this) for setting up the plan: there may be more, depending on how it goes.

Wei Han knows that the wall was more permeable: there are forts outside the wall in places which make sense for defending the wall. He's been in them. All signs point to him being _posted_ in one. The Spider changed the wall, and he will fight that stubbornly.

Each of Wei Han and Kasumi should give us:

1) a dex roll with stealth

2) a Tao roll for luck

Kasumi should also give us a Strength roll with Digging - she can also use half her Athletics.

Wei Han's stealth roll: 1 success. His Tao roll: 0 successes

Kasumi's stealth roll: 4 successes. Her Tao roll: 1 success. Her Digging roll: 0 successes.

You both sneak onto the wall very late at night - there are guards in the general area, but they might not spot a single ninja. Kasumi climbs down, and starts moving the dirt around somewhat ineffectively with a shovel. Somewhat astonishingly, Wei Han *can* tell where Kasumi is, and realizes she's really not getting much done other than covering herself in corrupt dirt.

However, fairly quickly, about half the guard patrol (4 out of the 8 guys in line of sight) heads in Wei Han's direction, at first in a rather combat-ready stance, but then one of them takes his hand off his sword.

"Is there something down there, sir?"

They peer into the darkness. One of them shouts and points: "There's something moving around down there in the dark."

They unsling crossbows; it looks like two of them have targetting on Kasumi. They're loud enough that Kasumi can hear this all.

Wei Han shouts "I think I saw a monkey run across the wall. Is that it?", pointing at a spot closer to the wall and slightly further to the left. Wei Han unlimbers his crossbow as well, but more casually.

One of the guards looks in the direction you're pointing, and the other peers in the direction that the two other guards shoot their crossbows in. They hit Kasumi, one rather badly, before she can become invisible, and she flees northwards.

The two guards who got their shots in shout about a barbarian ninja; the guard who was looking for a monkey is more confused as to whether it was a ninja who climbed the wall disguised as a monkey, or the monkey is working with the ninja, or what. In any event, there are soon more guards summoned and peering out into the darkness against ninja attack, but Kasumi is nowhere you can see.

...

The two of you successfully regroup the next day, at the previous night's camp site. Kasumi is wounded, and you should probably be getting back to the circus.

(Wei Han gives Kasumi his healing potion, and convinces her to wash off the northern dirt in the ocean on the theory that otherwise the contaminated dirt might end up staying in the Empire. Unfortunately, scrubbing in salt water with open wounds is quite painful, and she takes a bit more damage from this.)