Bad timing or good planning?

Dear King
It may be of relevant information for you to know that Alosne has launched an attack on one of Faelyn’s outposts during the orcish siege while most of Faelyn’s army is not only missing but sort of stuck in Maji due to the siege.  Judging by the size of the army they intend to continue through to attack Lieksä itself while she is away.

We don’t have many eyes in the city to figure out everything going on there. Though at the same time as this happening, the northern tribes have grown a bit excitable as well and the barbarians are roaming around causing trouble as well. One tribe even attacked the drow and another attacked our Ruuhma outpost… successfully. Their sudden simultaneous activity seems suspicious to me. It’s almost as if they know every big hitter in the north is currently preoccupied.

We have a request from Iraeka to return from the siege of Maji to visit her old home to check on whats going on with her people. Hastily scribbled in the post-script was a similar request from Kaila. Notably…Iraeka is a drow whose home has come under attack. Kaila is a northerner whose team just took one of our outposts in a surprise attack. I’m a little wary of that one as per Illka’s advice.

I’m moving our available forces to deal with Ruuhma at the moment, at the very least prevent them from pushing in any further. Until Aato gets back though I’m not sure how well that will go if the group that attacked the drow city also comes up to reinforce the ones attacking us.

Someone is definitely keeping an eye on things for them. Though Alosne and the tribes have been at war with each other for the longest time, I’m not sure why they simultaneously decided to launch offensives and not against each other. While I’m inclined to say one of our northern slaves might be at fault, it doesn’t explain the Alosne side of things. Aggression also doesn’t fit Sakae. When I visited he seemed a bit too timid and more concerned with staying at home and not letting things fall apart. Though all of us being away from the capital definitely made them bold.

Assuming the worst case scenario for a moment here, if Euthar is behind it then that means this was intentionally tied to the orcish siege. If we recall Aato and the rest of our forces that won’t be good for Maji given the manpower our manifesters represent. If we don’t, then its bad news for us more directly. Whatever keeps them informed will certainly know that Uudistar is very important and its not too far from the outpost. Though if they don’t know that place is important and instead proceed north to the village we once conquered instead, we’ll know whatever is at play here isn’t that bright.

Assuming hanlon’s razor holds up and its just opportunism, than the orcs might not know if we actually pull back Aato to deal with this which would be the easiest and obvious play. Perhaps too obvious.

 

Greetings Keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. As for the drunken master search, well the trail we were on was last spotted in Sybaris before continuing. You never actually ordered the fleet to keep searching southward for him. For my best I would say that the next stop would be Obera, as the other cities between us would be too newly constructed given the time the rumors said he was passing by. Unless he went through the river, we know all his travels involve a boat, and instead went to the elven city, in which case he would have wound up in Tethalyn. Not that we can find any clues there given its somewhat violent change of owners, but following the pattern we could look around Lennecas.

On a related note we still never sent anyone to look for the village in the mountain by a lake as it was referred to. I think you planned to have Kaze loop up that way after he was done with the current assignment. Though judging by the other two, finding monk legends around the world isn’t exactly a milk run.

We’ve established the embassy in Cayetano, which has allowed us to keep better tabs on what is going on around there. As it turns out they’re not up to very much with the whole war in the badlands going on. Their plan seems to be trying to lay low and avoid any major conflicts though they’re particularly worried about the sudden mass exodus of Kirillobatov as they had no explanation for why an entire city just picked up and walked off into the northern forest. They seem somewhat concerned that druids may be involved, which they apparently have never gotten along well with.

Also now that the island outpost is complete, our trade route has started seeing a nice increase in profits by utilizing the outpost to go between some of the coastal areas around the island. Takei went further inland to check around and found some peculiar stone ruins but nothing horrible happened in there so as far as he can tell its just peculiar for the sake of being so.

Our last southern scout boat was lost at sea as well. Though at least a good portion of the southern isles were mapped for the effort. Iwanagi has rejoined the fleet and they’re on their way back to Okushiri so he should be safe for the rest of the trip.

 

I sent them up to help guard the outpost. In other news one of our outposts has come under attack by the orcs in the badlands. A group of three commanders moved northward after destroying one of the badlands outposts to the south of ours and probably just assumed the badlands also owned that one. So…that got wiped out kind of quickly.

Nyssa has been continuing her journey to the east in search of Euthar as Alexandria told her to. So far she’s come across some strange swamp village. The notably strange feature is that it has a very small population. Like…so small that I don’t know how monsters haven’t eaten them out of existence already. But there was no signs of battle damage around the village either. Nyssa reports getting the heeby jeebies or something around there too and continued on past it for now.

Also while you’re assigning some of our less occupied agents to various things, Ryo and Christina are just hanging around Sybaris too.

Orcs and things

Stories of Lore 24

 

Dearest king,

I remain here at my station as you ordered. Though it pains my heart to do so. Perhaps the weight of responsibility of this throne strikes me too deeply, to see what you have dealt with all this time. One cannot know what they truely have until it is gone. Only in your absence can I finally confront my truest feelings. I always thought it merely a deep respect, but only now that miles of ocean keep us apart do I hear the echoes of my soul. I wish I had told you before, but ever since the day we met I felt something special. If only I could have told you, that I love you.

Nah I’m just fucking with you, and I figured you’re still single enough that an old timey love letter would be the most action you got all year. Kind of sad considering you’ve always got a bone to spare. I now realize your job is really easy and I do most of the work around here though. I want a raise.

In the meantime, sent the toys down to Sybaris for Vasia to look over. Also in regards to filling the city, just bring the fucking golems back and stick them in it. Though as for the rest of the space, maybe we capture some orcs, or convince some maji residents to chill up here with us. Get it? I’m not sure if puns translate well in letter format.

Also we improved the golem mine designs a lil bit with help from studying that Sakina golem thing. Have fun on your stupid trip.

-Your dearest beloved
Heseli Toivonen

 

 

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people! The outpost in the southern isles has finished its major construction. So things have stabilized down there, now its time to get to exploring the island I imagine. Navy is headed out to catch Iwanagi and bring him the rest of the way home.

Also for once we don’t need to send Katara this week for some reason, which seems strange and worries me.

That’s all I’ve got this week. Want to play some chess?

 

 

Harr harr, you can’t fire me because if you do that means by the laws of Katara heritage – Ankathi becomes your new advisor. Also I’m the one that tends the dragon…s… The nalkas dropped theirs off here for a little while.

 

Alexandria found the moving orc tribe camp thing…its not really a city or anything. Its a bunch of green people with tents. They had no walls to siege so she just shot cannons at them until all of her army died to the orc waves. BUT OF COURSE SHE LIVED. Look she has no forces and is on her way to moncayo pass. I want to hope she gets eaten by a monster but I think monsters are afraid of her, also she has no mana to attract them to her. I’m just saying, if for some reason Ankathi needed to visit the pass there might be some things that happen that we can’t be held responsible for as she is technically not employed by us anymore.

As for the northern outpost, economically its doing pretty well. As for the monsters, not even close. The Nalkas pulled out to help in the badlands and only Ivan is left up there and he can only hold the walls and even that is proving difficult. Another few dozen people died recently. We’ll need to wait for the orc thing to settle down to see what this labyrinth they found really is, as most of the problems seem to be coming from there. Rena, Irini, and Petrina aren’t doing much at the moment though so we could send them up there to join him.

Sam makin me math

The situation at Maji involves a whole lot of staring so far. The orc forces are holding out of range of artillery scale weapons and mages from the walls, as assaulting the three citadels is slightly insane, though they are surrounding the place and apparently considering siege tactics. I don’t think they know we put a gate stone in there awhile ago. This may be a good time for some war profiteering. Though the forces within Maji are not in a hurry to sally out into the orcs either so thats sort of an ongoing battle of resources. The badlands do not favor anyone in a siege but the gatestone definitely lends Maji the advantage. However, this is the first display of military tactics we’ve really seen by the orcs other than seek and destroy so we’re not really sure what they’re up to. Though they have made a statement of offering to just leave if the city turns over the king. Again, less effective than they might think because the cowering civilian populace is…no longer there. We’ve been sending some to Sybaris since they have all that empty space still.

Also if you’re going in Ansa that will wind up leaving me in charge for the entirety of your trip as relaying reports and orders to you while you are at sea might prove somewhat difficult.

As for the experiments with dragons blood, we are able to use it to turn mana into draconic mana which is just less useful for everyday use and not exactly any more potent. We’re experimenting if it can be used to power any peculiar devices at the moment. Particularly cannons and golems. It had no affect on the jade cube of mysteries, as for using it to enchant things that is technically successful. We already know you can use dragonblood to create dragonbane weapons, though the one other thing we’ve managed to make is a sharpened metal object for hitting things and I think an actual dragonborn has to be the one to use it judging by its latent mana and active enchantments but lack of reaction to anyone messing with it. Though there might be other uses for it yet, as that pokey stick has some odd choices of runes in it.

While they weren’t able to get us a map, the king was able to tell us what they know about the southeastern plains. It is unmapped because no one goes there due to the orcs as it were. Though the plains used to be part of the forest until the orcs cut all the trees down, the orcish tribes in particular are somewhat nomadic as a result of their own ecological destruction. It is known that there are a variety of demonic influences in the area due to Euthar meddling with it all.

In regards to the mega city plan, thats…going to be a bit more construction. But we’re working on it. The main issue at present is the amount of space between each location is larger than we have anything to fill it with. It would be constructing a bunch of empty city and basically paying to turn the area into a Sybaris type of place. For starters though, we’re just working on the wall. Because monsters.

 

 

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. I’ve done the paperwork to prepare and send out the various ships and men as requested.

 

The Sohei are on their way to track down Kaze and the Kensei are off to reinforce the outpost. Fortunately with the speed of the hunter ship they should arrive fairly fast. As to other matters, Shime seems to be doing alright…ish. She is still a bit withdrawn though she has returned to her active training and teaching…well teaching the best she can when no one can understand her.

 

Well as it happens, Areti is easy to get a message to because she’s at Maji right now alongside all the nalkas. She’s currently helping Faelyn fight the orcs. I told her about the recent revolution of the dragonborn here in Sybaris and her overall response can be summarized as “seriously? -.-” given she’s been living in hiding over the matter for fourty years or so. Probably doesn’t help her ability to comprehend it that Ankathi is the one who is helping do it. I don’t think she fully realizes Ankathi’s role in all this. Then again, very few understand Ankathi.

As for the former coven witches, about thirty eight are still around. Technically closer to fifty if you count the ones that follow Ankathi these days since they’re here at her manor at the moment. I made an effort to see how many I could get to come back and only got twenty two of them, the other eight are a bit wary these days especially given that Alexandria is still lurking around out there somewhere.

Also for the record, we actually sent settlers to the gate before if you don’t remember. We just forgot to send guards with them so they got eaten in the forest by the monsters.