Agreed, but we can do these things simultaneously, too. Missions don't necessarily follow along a linear path - I'm still finishing some threads from when I wrote as a Padawan, and that was from months ago :P
Posted. You can skip past the part where we go forth and issue your character with equipment, btw - I know some writers find those little details tedious, but it's what our characters would do in this situation, so it's what we must write ;)
Hah, well, that explains a lot, Teynara thought, doing her best to restrain the chuckle that might otherwise have issued from between her lips, provoked at the thought of this young woman being a military brat, as they used to call them. She doesn't seem anything of the sort - neither the...
Sorry to say I could be of no help there whatsoever: my historical knowledge doesn't generally extend to China or Asia in general, beyond Russian Socialism/Communism and the Cold War, so I can't offer anything to you there. Just hope it doesn't prove too difficult for you to work out.