SoL 8

The tournament is an annual thing held in Maji. Though it is actually part of a larger entertainment business that is active year round traveling from city to city within the Badlands. The particular tournament that is about to take place is actually a talent showcase for a different game entirely, testing for similar skills while being less expensive to fund then the actual game. This open tournament includes a combat arena, a series of marathon foot races somewhat mixed with an obstacle course, an archery competition of some sort involving guns as well, a sort of scavenger hunt, and some silly games where they throw a heavy ball to see who can throw it furthest in a straight line. Each of these games are set up in such a way to be played with teams but I’m not going into that many tiny details for this stupid thing.

I get the feeling you’re going to ask so I’ll go into the actual game this is all for. The game itself at its very core is about putting a “ball” through a goal on opposite sides of the field. The ball is just a rock in the shape of a rounded off diamond so that it doesn’t roll very well nor is it easy to hold onto. The field is about a mile wide by nine miles long, it is held outside of the cities in the open badlands and the game is played with very few actual rules besides ‘get the ball into the goal’. This is where the sponsorship expenses come in, as one of those few rules is that no lethal objects can be used, so players tend to use enchanted weapons that assure the safety of the competitors. On top of that they are usually mounted in some form or another to actually traverse the huge playing field. You can look at it as basically being a cavalry battle though apparently fights on foot break out very often because the ball is not easy to pick up one handed while moving at high speed. Not to mention it keeps getting stuck in crevices.

Essentially its a game on high speed mounts with a combat element to it. Reportedly last year’s season a team won by using a couple war chariots with a ballista on them to pass the ball huge distances. They won by two points, the other team had flying beasts. So at the very least it gets fairly creative. So the sponsorships are necessary given the extensive expenses involved in outfitting a team for more or less war. Mounts, weapons, paychecks, travel expenses, entry fees, more weapons as someone gets a new idea, you get the point. Hence the open games Maji hosts to allow people to showcase their skills on the cheap to be picked up by teams for the actual game.

Most teams in these games are sponsored by warlords and merchants. It is apparently very expensive, especially to make a team from scratch. The market listing is basically an open ad for people to sponsor small teams for the cheap games coming up. That amount would basically see to 90 players being able to attend.

While the market listing is to sponsor existing but unsponsored teams for this exact tournament, if we were to field one entirely of our own people and start from there it would probably be more expensive. Though the only real reason to do that is if you plan to compete in the actual league. Which would see about 330g120m startup costs in order to be competitive with the real teams. Though I use the term competitive loosely here, basically this estimate can keep climbing the more and more ‘competitive’ you want to be for a stupid game. While we can easily afford it since we’re a government and our finances exist on a different scale entirely, funding a 50 man team isn’t exactly comparable to hundred man armies.

Though all that being said, I don’t see that much benefit to participating in all this. While the gamble on a team that could win the actual prize isn’t too bad in terms of risk to reward value, the odds of winning it are slim not to mention the players definitely keep a cut of it if we sponsor existing teams instead of our own who won’t be trained for this.

The league itself on the larger scale might have prizes to be won as well it is somewhat offset by maintenance and upgrade costs. Not to mention paychecks and travel expenses, all for…nothing really useful to us. We’re not exactly pursuing athletic glory here in the north. Though might be worth getting into the scene to figure out the tech behind it, could possibly sell them stuff. Maybe get access to those hovering bike things the Badland raiders have.

Now on to actual business. We’ve dispatched the soldiers to go and assist the mercs with taking down the bounty. We’ll have to see how that goes, travel time and all.

Next tidbit, we figured out what that black market artifact actually does. It is some sort of gateway, there is a second half of it that was not found. The two are linked together and utilizing the artifact basically opens a portal between the two to save on travel time. However, we are not in possession of the second half. We can activate the portal whenever you wish, but we have held off until your command in case it opens somewhere horrible. That way its your fault.

Also Gideon found another village along his way.

Faelyn’s scouts bought at least one of every thing any shop around here sells. So at least they aren’t freeloaders. They’re returning to Lieksä now wagons in tow with samples of all our stuff I suppose. As your advisor of the wise council I feel I should say, her scouting makes me nervous. We may wish to investigate her more as well just so we know what we’re dealing with. Also Ansa took off to Uudistar to go check in on the drow migration. They’ve actually started to move in, though they gripe about the cold a lot.

Meanwhile as an update on the situation at the drow city, things are still oddly quiet. Eilsath is working on planting crops on the surface but Vaslochar is just lurking around waiting for something while Ghuan is in the process of migrating. On a related note, the manhunter finally caught Iraeka enough to explain to her he was just trying to take her home. She thought he meant the drow city and ran off again. Charisma of 0. Reportedly he’s chasing her towards the Badland border. We’ll see if he’s made any progress in communicating his intent to her soon enough I’m sure.

Also, our hybrid program has finally yielded results. It appears that they have discovered a way to manifest mana physically in a variety of forms. Aato Jousen is actually the first to figure it out, we just didn’t realize it was a whole new type of casting until now. Largely because his earlier demonstrations just produced explosions of pure mana, which was a neat trick. He has since figured out how to turn his mana into a disfigured wolf that he can command, as well as a sharp pointy stick. He’s still working on it.

((Unit type unlocked: Manifester. They have a unique ability to spend mana to produce massive effect. They can spend up to 500 mana max to increase an armies power by 1 per mana spent for one battle. They are considered to be at +10 army power by default with their innate casting pool of mana, by spending treasury mana it can spike to 510. This applies even if they are operating alone as an agent. Aato Joutsen has been upgraded to Manifester))

Greetings Keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. Iwanagi is working on talking to the people of the coastal village. Though they are interested in the existence of a wider populated world they are a bit difficult to promise much to due to the distance between us and them.

Occunohaka doesn’t understand trade routes well enough to really get much progress done at the village by the lake. He came from the island to the west as a warrior interested in exploring, not exactly an educated economist. Also similarly, our borders are too far away from them to entice them much into joining the Oda.

We’ve lost two more scouts, particularly the one’s far to the south. They were looking around the island mass we found there. Upon some investigation from Kaze and Hamano that south western area of the sea is considered…dangerous. The tribes refuse to go there since people never come back. North of that, the scout finished looking over the island cluster and has found no signs of people living there. The island seems empty, with the only evidence that anyone has ever set foot there being those lone docks mentioned before.

Kaze and Hamano are on their way to spookyville as you say.

Also the artifact has made it over and been loaded onto the new ships. Speaking of which, remember that thing that sunk Sarkis’ ride across the river? It may have taken an interest in our fleet. The hunter ships were successful in killing it, though two of the hunters were sunk. Fortunately, since the fleet was in the river most of the crew actually survived by swimming for shore.

Yuzuki has made it back home along with Yamoaka. During her recovery, Yuzuki kept training at the monastery and attracted a following of students of her own. Now considered a master simply because the trick she’d been using this whole time was proven effective enough to develop a new ki technique around. We picked one of her new students up for your scout to travel north to see how the concept works out.

Serizawa was always a bit of an…intense fellow. Not so great with the enlightenment, pretty good with the punching. Once Yuzuki taught him the core to the sohei methods he took a quick liking to it and is eager to travel and put it to the test. It seems fitting to give such a restless fellow a mission to travel to the most dangerous part of the continent. That and his skill in the water school has gone into a form of cryokinesis, so if anyone can take the cold its him. For some reason people kept calling him Sub-Zero around the temple.

In regards to your second hiring request, we actually can’t find anyone who fits that profile. We’re not the best when it comes to arcane magic or stealth, let alone someone who is specifically trained to counter divination. Yuzuki and Kyoko can be sneaky but countering divination is a whole other thing altogether.

Our navy has joined the battle at the city to the south with the orcs. So far our ships prove to be a difficult obstacle for the orcs to overcome. Granted we are just firing blindly into the tree line, but with the sheer number of orcs involved, that actually seems to hit things with surprising frequency. They definitely are avoiding the river our ships patrol.

((Sohei warrior monk unit type unlocked. These are monks who are less about enlightenment and more about war. Unlike the traditional monk, they have learned to channel Ki to their weapons as well as keeping up with their hand to hand training. They have dramatically higher combat stats and confer +1 to military power of any army they command. Specifically army, not so great at naval command. However, since they use specialized weapons and such they are not quite as cheap as pure fisticuff monks. If you are curious, the unlock condition was a monk had to go to war and return home alive. Yuzuki has been auto upgraded to Sohei as the founder of the school.))

So in regards to the tournament stuff that Heseli went on about. All that being said there is one potential benefit to competing for us at least. Its cheaper then going to actual war. These games are highly spectated and the players idolized. Katara women are beautiful and as a potential side effect there is a chance of luring men to become princes here if they were to see our girls traveling around for this game. Not to mention the katara are naturally suited to any athletic competition where hitting the opponent is part of the game.

KouKou is more or less fine, just a bit…shaken by the adventure. The forest alone is harsh, a forest full of orcs is bound to induce paranoia. I think she just needs to go with a group on her next expedition so she can adapt to the forest.

As for the warlord collecting units, we could attempt that. Though we don’t know much about the warlords out there, or how strong they are. The only contact we have is hearsay from Nalkas about this Faelyn character and they don’t even know whether or not she’s dangerous. So could try it, though it would be a bit of a gamble. However, a good opportunity to test the might of the badlands since their gangster politics would not provoke them to act upon us for striking at just one warlord.

We’ve sent the gold and hired the mercs, they’re all traveling and stuff. Also as requested we have had the Nalkas turn the golems back on and begun construction of the road to connect our territory.

As for the update on the war…as the orcs reached and began the attack on another city things have gotten even crazier then last time thanks to the arrival of Oda’s navy. So basically a bunch of boats are shooting fire lasers for miles across the horizon, a swarm of orcs are smashing their faces into the walls, werewolves are running rampant eating orcs, the oda navy have some weird girl on the boat who can fire pure explosion that wiped out a quarter mile of forest in one go, their commander is a hydromancer who keeps making the river literally eat orcs, and everything is on fire. Nina will be there next week, meet me by the scrying pool if you want to watch. I made snacks.

Also as a reminder, the son of Orias is still out there somewhere if we were going to get around to that. It might be best to look into that before Nina dies fighting orcs or something, even if Vanessa also works with Orias she is probably not as favored by Orias as Nina is due to the whole…crazy demon knight zealotry.

Now for some good news, Nina found Areti. Apparently she wound up behind orc lines during the all the fighting before and when the army was defeated she had no path to retreat along to get back towards home. With no KouKou to track her down or Ankathi she was just taking a bit of a long way around. She was on her way to Tethalyn when Nina managed to find her. Also we lost about 80 of our civilian army to forest monsters. Turns out they’re not quite as good as the professionals at navigating this place and Nina is having to do most of the fighting against those things. Though there is only so much she can do to stop people from being picked off the edges of camp. However, with Areti rejoining them hopefully that’ll alleviate the situation. As your advisor I feel it worth mentioning that after this whole orc thing, if Areti is still alive we might owe her a vacation with all she has been through.

Did you know the manhunter has absolutely horrible social skills? His attempt to retrieve Iraeka in the aftermath of the orc battle has been…clumsy. It also turns out catching an unwilling drow hunter is quite difficult. So he’s still working on that.

New commander, Aato. He’s one of them fancy boys born to an upper class and went to a bunch of private tutors as well as attended the academy. Has a good grasp of military strategy and tactics, though has a notable lack of experience since well, he never signed up to be a raw recruit. So different path to being an officer then the likes of Eamon and Firebeard who punched their way to the top. Generally a serious fellow with a lot to prove apparently.

He is one of the results of our monk hybrid research program. Not quite a Sakki but definitely talented in hand to hand combat along with arcane augments. Don’t mention the Sakki thing though, he had a bit of a rivalry going on there to try and catch up to him. With Sakki’s death he’s been a bit irritable. He is however the strongest hybrid caster…well now he is at least. He’s already working and drilling with the troops and the five man band.

Also as your advisor I feel it best to remind you that you still have Essi, one of only maybe five people in the alliance who can cast artillery scale magic, sitting around at Uudistar just chilling out with a free paycheck. I am reminded of this because her research has led to an improvement in the golems, so our gold income is up a bit.

The rogue katara are not particularly useful customers because they are mid march and already several days journey away from us. By the time we even got a deal worked out with them, let alone shipping and handling, it is unlikely they’ll still need it. Or even be able to afford it for that matter actually.

The Eilsath mercenaries are on the way south, we’ll see how long it takes them to get there.

As for surveying the nearby area, depends what you define as worthwhile. They are decent at the least, with the mountainous area still holding a lot of mines. Though the southern side of Jamsa is a bit more barren. No ancient relic discoveries that will lead to an unexpected burst of income though.

Relic is shipping down to Sarkisa where the Oda navy is currently passing through. On a similar note we have acquired the artifact from the badlands market, it is currently shipping to the academy where we hope to study it and find something useful about it.

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. Yuzuki and Yamaoka are on their way back home at this point, they should be back soon.

Also Amare says that spot should be fine. Though Kaze and Hamano are a bit far away to find any further delegates to assist them in their journey. As for spookyville, it appears the islanders don’t know much about that place other then that Cayetano has advised caution in dealing with them. It appears they’ve never actually traveled to uh…’spookyville’ as you called it.

The third scout is still circling the islands it found, still no real sign of anyone living there in particular. Meanwhile the second scout has found another island of some sort further south of that. They’re still poking around to see how big these locales are.

Occunohaka has made his way to the lakeside village. It appears to be one of those mana lake things the north has a few of. The village primarily harvests it and trades it with the larger market of the badlands. One of the disadvantages to their location is the lack of access to wood and metals. Basically building materials as their particular lake seems to not be as strong as other ones as to sprout a forest next to itself. This would explain why it is such a small village harvesting the mana here instead of a large city like Lieksa or Jamsa.

Iwanagi made port at the coastal town. It appears to be another of those that suffer from isolation. Having never made contact with Cayetano or any nearby neighbors. Similar to the fishing village in the forest near us, these villages are usually unable to venture further then their own boundaries for fear of the monsters. As such it is a fairly self sufficient town, if a bit small. Currently they are in a mild frenzy of excitement to see Iwanagi, a living person from another society powerful enough to venture out.

Nina managed to catch up with the rogues, just barely. They are currently moving south to follow the commanders. However, the orcs appear to be retreating, or perhaps advancing, towars Leylat where the elves are preparing to make another stand. Given their past behavior, I assume they are looking to reinforce their numbers by linking up with the warchief. They will probably assault the city as well. Though this works to our favor since that city has a river running through it, the Oda will be there soon along with our own forces.

The elves report having now documented a strange occurrence though. The orcish warchief must be doing something strange, because each time he garrisons and prepares to march again he seems to replenish the numbers in his army. This is perhaps related to the commanders always reinforcing with the warchief. We’re not entirely sure that thousands of orcs are just coming from the east again and again, the scouts or druids should have noticed that. There is something awry with all this.

So we’ve never been to the badlands so finding a pair of agents who specialize in it was proving difficult. Though ever since the nomads collapsed out there, a few of them were…well nomadically wandering around. We found a tiefling named Ryo. Once one of our allies main commanders. He would be one of the few we could rely upon to visit the badlands, though it might be a bit of a waste of his talents given he is a skilled military commander. He’s a bit of a calm almost apathetic individual, he only agreed to work for us temporarily though who knows if he’ll decide to stay or not. I also offered him a position as a prince and he said he’d like to live to fourty so that’s out. He’s just in it for the paycheck I suppose.

This is one of the only people in our entire population who have at least visited the badlands even once. So that qualifies her as an expert as far as we’ve got. Nyssa is one of our scouts with a particular penchant for capturing our princes from the wilds. Actually of our current fifteen she brought in six of them. Technically twenty six if you count the dead ones. She’s a very energetic and carefree girl, she seems like so much fun to be around but she tends to punch a lot when she’s drunk. My arm is kind of sore from meeting her in the bar to be honest. At the very least she is a capable agent, especially given where we’re sending her. She and Ryo are moving along the road through the fishing village to depart into the badlands from there. Because roads.

The village plan will take a little while as we have to move both people and supplies. I’ve begun the process of looking for a governor but I’m screening more carefully then usual since either way it’ll take awhile for them to actually have the job. Also the dice of fate seems to leave us with a…well lets say desire to keep interviewing.

The new army has been taken under the command of Vanessa Priscalli, the newest blackguard to finish training at the sanctum. She is bound to the same demonic entity that Nina is, though she raises a lot of questions about Nina and the late Pelagia. I say this because she seems actually not crazy at all. If anything she acts more like a regal knight and if she doesn’t flash the demon magic people just assume she is of the nobility. She is younger then most of the other commanders we’ve had, but as a blackguard she has been specifically trained to undertake the task.

She is currently guarding the caravan that sets out to start the new village.

To take over the dreadnought we have enlisted Thyra Galanatou. Unlike Vanessa she is real nobility, for whatever that is worth. Really she was chosen because she already has some semblance of experience in that she used to fish on a boat and that was how low the bar is on this one. She was a member of the town guard up till now. She’ll definitely need some time to get a handle on how to utilize the boat though so I have opted to have her take the ten warships to the port they are to be sold at to get her used to being on the water. She’ll pick up the dreadnought and the slaves while she is there and bring them back, hopefully this will get her some sea legs as they call it.

 Also KouKou has made it home and seems a bit shaken by her experience. She hasn’t retired formally like Layla once did after such events but she does seem to be spending a lot of time in the coven’s temple staring at the wall and contemplating her life choices. I’ll go talk to her.

Ansa has returned with our…guests. They are a definite mash of available races as reported before by Gideon. We couldn’t help but notice that for a force of scouts they are seriously well equipped. Their gear does still say ‘scout’ but the quality of it and their weapons are undeniably leaning on the expensive side. They were quite amicable though Ansa says she has a hunch that is outside their normal behavior pattern. While they’ve been nothing but polite, she says they are clearly more gangster’s in fancy suits rather then knights in shining armor.

After spending some time with them, they were quite curious to tour the city and learn of who we are. Not that we could do much to stop them given they are quite numerous and obviously well suited to gathering intelligence given their true profession. After some negotiating, Ansa has brokered an initial deal to trade metals from our mountain mines to them for pure mana. Exploiting the fact that the badlands considers this the real currency over gold. Though, this led to further offers of interest through our new contact who has access to the trade routes of the badlands. ((Market now available in buy section))

Diplomacy is an ongoing matter, I can’t help but shake the feeling they’re sizing us up a little bit. Doesn’t help our army isn’t here right now either.

In other news the manhunter has captured two orcs and thrown one in the river. It was able to swim, then he proceeded to drown it and bring the other one back towards Tethalyn. Sakki died fighting the orcs alongside the Katara though it appears his drow friend did not and is now somewhat horribly lost in the middle of the forest surrounded by orcs. So she’s probably on the way to being dead.

Greetings Keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. As per your advice, Yamoaka turned his ass around before all the fighting down there got started. As for discussion with Amare, we’re not really sure if she’s up for recruitment given that she’s an elven princess, heir to the archdruid, and now a witch of the coven. Starting to wonder if thats a good or bad thing. As for the process of becoming one with nature, she informs that it is a bit of a spiritual journey for enlightenment- kind of. It is a little difficult to force someone to become a druid. By her account both her and Neyth started down the path by way of walking into the woods one day and just really “digging it”. More specifically it helps to expose people to nature in order to nurture said interests. She says if you want to find people among our population suitable to becoming druids, it is best to build the haven first as if baiting a trap and let people just wander into it. Some of them will take a keen to it and start down the path of their own accord. When things flow somewhat naturally, that is when the wilds start to take more notice.

We’re just waiting for the Nalkas to send the relic down. Some day they’ll write that in their plans I’m sure. As for the navy, well…we found an artillery mage for you.

Her name is Isayama Eiko, despite being young she seemed to have quite a sense of direction very early on in her life. It seems strange but she actually can cast artillery scale magic, she professes her love for the art exceeds all other passions in her life. Ever since she was a child all she wanted to do was cast the biggest most powerful and destructive spells known to modern arcanology. She’s quite energetic, perhaps a little silly for the military environment given her age but she was literally the only person we could find within our population capable of casting such a high level of magic. Though I get a feeling there is something off with her that she isn’t telling us, but she won by default. For some reason the king of Nalkas just started snickering.

Our trading routes have improved thanks to contact with Pulauli, though it seems they are somewhat indoctrinated to the kingdom of Cayetano already as it were. So not quite as likely to join us, unless we put some effort into seducing them to our side over theirs.

I feel I should warn you that the dawnbreakers may have range enough for coastal bombardment, but scorching rays don’t penetrate water very well. So if the 8th bounty comes towards the fleet its up to the hunter ships and its more standard weapons to deal with that.

The scout ship is starting to look around the island it found. Seems to be more of a archipelago so far as opposed to the singular large masses of the other two we know about. As far as the scouts have reported, things seem very quiet on the island but there is a dock somewhat hidden away in one of the bays. There is no city attached to it nor obvious roads leading away from it, not to mention it is fairly decrepit.

Iwanagi found another coastal town in his adventures.

Yuzuki is on her way back from the battle between the orcs and Katara in the forests, somewhat wounded though she escaped earlier on before the orcish final push. Hopefully she makes the rest of the journey home on her own just fine.

Well that was bloody. Pelagia, Marilena, Euterna, Despoina, Inabi, and Eamon are all dead. Areti is missing, Ankathi was captured, KouKou ran before the fighting even started so she is okay. While the fighting was dramatically favorable to us in considering k/d ratio thanks to the river, the victory itself has gone to the orcs. On the other hand we have significantly weakened the orc commanders in the center area of the forest. Another battle like that and we might be able to wipe them out.

Though, Amare came by to ask if we noticed anything strange but unfortunately we haven’t had enough experience with them to contemplate the matter any. Apparently they have never taken a prisoner before, and she is very curious – and nervous- about them taking Ankathi of all possible people.

Though we feel this might have been because during the battle she was sadistically torturing and taunting them to try and get them to suicide into our troops across the river. Which did technically work, we just got overrun anyways.

In related news, the warchief has been regrouping in the ruins of Wynolwind. Though that has been a bit of a bloody attempt due to the people who stayed behind to make that difficult as possible. Most of the city is in ruins thanks to them setting fires and explosives. Reportedly about 600 of their men died to the sabotage efforts. Though the elves that stayed behind are definitely dead now.

Nina has started walking back home of her own accord in the absence of standing orders seeing as she is all alone now anyways. Apparently now that she is alone she is having some trouble with monsters along the way. We’ll just have to wait and see if she makes it.

In local news, our defeat to the orcs and the results of our losses has shaken the population. Approximately two thousand of our citizens have left the city. Notably holding spears and headed in the direction of the orcs. This has somewhat hurt our local economy but not much we could do to stop them since well… they had spears.

So far every crazy thing we try on the artifact doesn’t yield much other results. It just does the one thing as far as we can tell, and now I gotta get the interns to clean the blood off of it.

Eamon is headed to the rendezvous point.

In other news, Ansa has initiated all necessary trade offers to the drow though it will take a bit of time before the tech we gave them leads to tensions mounting high enough to break out into a fight. Though it does seem Ghuan has taken a keen interest in our offer to move to Uudistar.

Ansa also had a chance to make first contact with Faelyn’s scouts while she was there and is returning with them acting as her escort in a way. They were very insistent on meeting us in our actual city rather then just meeting Ansa at some midway point.

Gideon’s travel through the coast has found another city as he continues eastwards.

When Eamon and Inaba broke away from Wynolwind to join the katara forces, the orc commander they were engaged with gave pursuit. They’ve not managed to catch our forces yet.

As requested, a five man band has been assembled entirely of combat savvy mages.

Mikael is the appointed leader of the group, mostly because he was the first to show up to interviews and is the most charismatic of the bunch. He’s the enchantment specialist of the team, could also be described as a bit cocky and with a tendency to take risks. Perhaps aggressive loose would be an apt description.

He is a younger member of the Nalkas, having only recently graduated from the university but I picked him as lead anyways since he is the most eager and easiest to talk with. Also not terribly quirky in his demeanor, plus despite his outward behavior he is actually prone to overthinking things which I find useful.

Hillevi is the group’s necromancer expert, always good to have one of those around in a small team. If you talk with her you’ll see why I favored Mikael’s lack of “quirks” in demeanor. She was a natural talent with necromancy from a young age, and no one who is talented specifically in necromancy at thirteen grows up to be a stable adult. I swear that rule is actually written somewhere. She is a talented mage though, which got her on the team, hopefully said team doesn’t stick their dick in the crazy though. Her last boyfriend is now one of her skeleton familiars. That bitch should only be handled by a professional…so Sakki.

Ilkka is an actual classical battle mage. Full suit of armor including helmet…which I cannot for the life of me recall if he has ever taken off. I would have made him leader but he hardly ever talks, so that wouldn’t be good for team leadership or morale. I found him within the military ranks so he is already well trained for combat, though is definitely used to a more structured environment then a five man band of eccentric personalities. We will have to see how he adapts as we go along. He is an abjuration specialist.

Pasi is the conjuration guy, combined with Hillevi he can help even out numeric issues a small group like this might run into. He, along with Mikael, are the best straight fighters who know how to use pointy bits of metal when such is called for. He’s young and was just looking for a job straight out of college, I think he would have enlisted with the army had our graduation program not referred him to me for interviewing. I would describe him as the most normal kid in the group, I make this deduction based entirely on the lack of extravagant wardrobe. Maybe he’s just the poorest.

While all five know evocation as a requirement to get the interview for this team, Matleena is the one who specializes in it. So, fireballs everywhere with her. Humorously, her love of fire magic stems from her lack of love for the snow. She learned to summon flames just to make it easier on herself to keep warm, and then it just snowballed from there. As an evocation specialist she also knows how to summon other elemental effects of course. But I can’t help but to mention that she is also good with ice magic…for the same reasons she is good with fire magic. She’s a good fighter but her core motivation stems from a desire to control the climate of her house rather then blow people up and I found that funny considering all the other psychos we hire around here.

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. Kaze and Hamano have arrived at Pulauli. It is a largely tribal village, notably they also have access to useful trees for mana enchanting. It seems to like growing on islands in particular. Though despite the tribal nature there are notably spikes in architectural technology present on the island, often acting as points of operation for the missionaries of Cayetano. They’ve only just arrived so they’re still negotiating trade deals of interest.

One of the scout ships has found some islands on the southwestern side of the scout patrol.

As for attempting to learn druidism, it does seem we would benefit from further help from Amare or any other existing druid though they are caught up in the war with the orcs. Though its not like they have anything else to do at Tethalyn so they’ll just keep doing that I suppose. On a related note, the now barren forests to the southeast of us have shown some interest to Yamoaka for a potential druid base. They do like forests after all, and there are some suitable spots of isolation over there along a river, and keeping any of our investments near a river that leads into the ocean is obviously an advantage in any location for building to us.

As for the island city it is named Tonarooka, I may have just forgotten to update the map with that information.

As for naval affairs, two dawnbreakers have been added to the fleet and Kyoko has been moved to live on the fleet for now as well. She gripes about being at sea though, or more so about being on the confines of a boat.

As for the frozen long island, scouts report its not particularly good for mana more so then any other place near the ocean. Though obviously the ocean remains one of the best places to harvest it.

A former soldier, monster hunter specifically, who retired to live comfortably at home. He will make a fine governor. His experience against the monsters of the forest will help alleviate the biggest concerns of the village and his time as an officer has left him well suited to giving out orders and managing large numbers of people. He is a bit intense with his soldier’s demeanor but at heart he’s quite a lovely fellow. Easily capable of commanding respect and achieving the trust of his people with his blend of serious militarism and the wisdom that comes with the passing years he has seen enough to live through.

Our forces have convened around Pelagia’s army, the orc commanders are in pursuit. The druids have helped slow the orc pursuit though it cannot stop them entirely. At least it bought us some time before the actual engagement. We expect to see a battle there soon once they catch up. Ankathi has ordered the camp to start constructing defenses and has abandoned the siege of the mountain fort, not like they’re coming down here during the orc invasion anyways.

Rhea and Nina reached the monster in the badlands, a massive creature with many heads. In the aftermath, only Nina and eight of her soldiers are left. We’ve collected the reward at least.

Our golem arrangement with the nalkas has been shut down as requested.

As an update on the war front, Wynolwind has fallen to the orcs and its evacuating forces are spreading out through the forest. With the elves and their druids moving further west and our own teams moving north to rally.