Did all the transfers and paperwork stuff. Though to be noted training the other manifesters in the style that Aato uses is both harder and less useful then you might expect. Aato’s style comes from a certain level of preference, creativity, and a rather long rivalry with Sakki. He told them the basics of how he does things at least, we’ll see if they can remotely perform though. This is largely due to the manifesters being a difficult practice which they have spent their time mastering. Aato is the only one who is comfortable with fighting in melee while casting. Its why we know his name off the top of our heads and not the other bulk of them.

We loaded Mikael and squad with their bikes onto a boat to make the trip south, its a long trip. We’ve elected that in pursuing the southern lead they’ll start with other nearby islands in the neighborhood of where Iwanagi has been finding islands. Given that by Eliana’s description The Eye itself would basically just instantly kill the whole team.

Essi is back at her lab in Uudistar working on Aato’s project now as well as seeing what armor can be made for Nalky. The rest of the monsters who came along with Nalky have been put within their underground enclosure we were working on. Though it is worth noting that there are a few peculiar caves down there we dug into. No one really wants to squeeze through them but judging by what we know about mana lake formation now, odds are there is another underworld down there somewhere.

We’ll see how meeting with the elves go once the diplomat gets there.

We’ve sent some units to Maji to start establishing our embassy there. Bit of traveling involved not to mention some setup time on that one.

Can’t give the magic seeds to Ansa since she’s in Alosne at the moment. Though I’ll have her look into it upon returning.

Iraeka is traveling back north to resume scouting, she’s overtaken the note to scope out the northern village since that is more or less her thing. The soldiers have been sent off and told ‘just look where we haven’t already and draw some maps’.

So we went to check in on the drow… Eilsath continually grows stronger ever since they started growing crops on the surface to handle food. Though it isn’t what we projected. They’re a lot stronger then they should be, with the bright light of technology littered throughout their whole city. It seemed inevitable that Vaslochar would go to war earlier to prevent a loss of power since Ghuan was not there to prey on any moments of weakness and that Eilsath might be able to come out on top if they stalled long enough to make use of the tech we offered. What seems to happen instead is that the city is now under Eilsath control, with their Matron being the city’s ruler. While that was what we planned, we had figured Vaslochar would die in the fighting. The high priestess and the matriarch of Vaslochar are indeed dead now, the rest of them are not. Things have been moving slowly and more politically then expected. Then we figured out why.

When Faelyn passed through she recruited them by the hundreds to her own forces and we found she has active agents in the city to alter the flow of the political games down there. It seems that just as we assimilated Ghuan, she is also up to something. The original Matron of Eilsath is dead, so are the next three that were in line.

She took over their economy by introducing badlands technology that both sides desperately wanted at a markup they didn’t know was incredibly unfair until she controlled more of their money then they did. Alongside other clever manipulations.

This whole process is still ongoing and Faelyn hasn’t yet taken direct control, but it doesn’t take much to see that the drow cannot deal with her. Despite how hard it is to siege their city or make plays of subterfuge against their paranoia, they seem to fall quite easily for deals with the proverbial devil. Just as we took Ghuan in this way, Faelyn is doing something quite similar. Though we’re not sure what her end goal is. We did find out that the current high priestess of Vaslochar is escorted everywhere by Faelyn’s people instead of her own though.

Really? You really wanna let Essi build a sports field? That’s a lot of money just for people to ride around in and throw a rock at one another. Fine if you say so. Maybe it’ll at least keep the peasants amused.

Smaller golems…to sit inside and power machines? At that point why not just make the machine in the first place so it doesn’t need a tiny golem.

 

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. Iwanagi has found a rather large city as he continues to circle the island. Well…it looks like they think its a fortress but its made of wood so I am just going to say a fortified city. By now Iwanagi seems to just assume you want him to make contact each time and see if they’re open for trade and such.

They do seem quite interested in trade…oddly enough with the other town we found. It appears the island is quite dangerous to traverse and while their people have boats they aren’t terribly pristine boats. We could just have a few ships travel up and down between them for a simple but fair profit. We may want to consider building an outpost down there.

The city he found shares a more primitive and tribal aesthetic just as the one further north along the island. Talking with them reveals this island isn’t exactly small, and there are thriving civilizations there. However, they don’t necessarily like each other in some cases. The two locations we can trade between consider themselves to be at war with one another, even though they are too far apart to do so actively. It is also part of why trade between them isn’t happening on its own and that’s just an easy route we can take over.

We held the appropriate services for all of our fallen heroes and every soul that died defending their home.

Construction of the southern village has begun.

Chinami reports that Nemnas is most notably a native to the ocean and moves through it at a speed no boat can dream to achieve. He can also eat things, a lot of things. Not to mention due to his size he can take down most ships all by himself and in very short order.

Also Shime and Yuzuki were last spotted chasing each other around the forest playing tag. On a completely unrelated note, reconstruction is going quite well with all these trees we find already felled in the forest for us to just pick up and process!

In regards to your question about the guns and monks. The answer is pending the reconstruction of a Sohei monastery where they can practice techniques and study the application of the idea. We’re working on that. I expect reconstruction to take another two cycles.

In the wake of the war people have found a sort of unity I suppose you could say. Lot of flags hanging outside of homes, and people have pitched in to help with reconstruction so its not costing as much as we might have expected. We disposed of the orc bodies out in the fields to act as some fertilizer. The monks were kind enough to undertake that grisly task.

Yamoaka found another particularly interesting lake between the border of the badlands and the north, it’s not really a mana lake but has great natural scenery.

To wrap things up, our new trading outpost to the badlands has been quite lucrative. We’re already seeing a significant rise in profits on our trade route.

Forgot to mention, the map and scout details we acquired from Esperanza regards to an island in the far north. The scout reports mention that it is filled with really mean monsters and that may be the reason the map was for sale rather then in active use. There is no indications of civilized life, at least not from the initial pass over by the people who found it. However, whosoever claims the shores will see a massive yield of mana harvesting. The entire coast line has been undisturbed for so long that its just oozing the stuff. The problem is the monsters here are very serious as a result, and the island nature means no one has really tried to take over it. It would take an army to colonize that place. Not a small one either, I mean that the entire Oda navy might be needed just to reach it through the sea creatures. Then you have to deal with the ones on land. I see why they just sold the map instead of trying to take it for themselves.

Anyways! I went ahead and got our field properly registered and have some girls working where I registered it to make it a bit more playable. Such as reinforcing some spots and sweeping the streets so it looks nice. As well as adding seats and a member of the league will be visiting from Maji soon to set up the scrying enchantments so it can be properly broadcast. I’m not sure I should suggest this but…maybe we hire some people to uh…dress a certain way when the games come through? Maybe be super enthusiastic and likeable and lead people in the cheering just to make our city look all the more tempting for immigration.

Also the dreadnought is home now. Slaves princified. They seem quite happy with this arrangement considering they thought they were being sold into labor. I mean its still laborious but y’know. Also Thyra has gotten quite good at navigating the seas in her journey, though she was a little disheveled upon returning. Apparently her major complaint was she didn’t realize how many supplies she needed in particular for soap. She has the dockworkers scrubbing every inch of that ship down to get the smell of sweat out of it and refuses to get back on board it until they finish. We also have to repair the ship a little as it had a few run in with sea monsters, fortunately its a big ship and Thyra figured out what to do fast enough but there are still some chunks missing.

In further relation to this, it turns out building dreadnoughts is really complicated, really hard, all our engineers are different, and heavily affected by available materials. Seems everyone has their own take on how to get a ship that big and what it should do. Though Thyra seemed to have a lot of optimizations for mixing it with the idea of transportation due to her trip on the way here. We call our new design the Harbinger! Made for transporting and landing regardless of whether or not people want to see us there.

As for Moncayo, Nyssa just arrived. The place remains basically an extortion toll gate and a haven of bandits and outlaws. Honestly its what I expected the badlands to be more like. Just booze, drugs, and rape in every alleyway. It used to belong to a smaller settlement of people who happened to find the ruins of an old fortress they made their home. Buuut then bandits happened. Apparently originating from Cayetano a long time ago after a huge prison break type of affair happened. The invaders managed to take control of the fort and make it their own home. The civilians were practically enslaved. Turns out it doesn’t do that well as a toll gate because…well when was the last time the forest got any visitors from Cayetano? They just seem to try and get money however they can. They are quite well fortified there given the circumstances of its society.

Another notable mark, abyssal cultists from the badlands have shown up here. They don’t seem tied to or even interested in our active demon cult. If anything they seem to look down on them. They seem to be a sort of missionary type, offering us to explore their own magical methods. I at least heard them out. Notably the cult doesn’t draw their strength from any demon king, they tap directly into the primordial Abyss. So while they’re prone to less explosive demonic powers, such as the likes of Nina’s super demon form, they have a lot less weird voices in their head to deal with. I have had to place them under some protection while they’re visiting though, not only were they targeted by the coven cult but…we kind of made a problem. Getting to that.

Also the sickness has been alleviating, it seems the Archdruid was able to finish the exorcism. Though I’ve seen her hand twitching a few times since then…I’m concerned it may have left some impressions on her. KouKou seems to be up and moving again over in the north. Though I’ve sort of retired her. Without her witchcraft she’s just a young, admittedly adorable, scamp. With the whole spirit thing resolved, she’s just a civilian. I can’t in good conscience let her keep in the danger of our employ.

Petrina has effectively eradicated the cults around Sybaris as much as possible. Their leaders were publicly executed alongside many of their members in a brutal cleansing. That is the short version. The long version is…we may have done a thing.

See we were kind of in a hurry to get the cults dealt with so the Queen of Wolves could do her thing and it was starting to make us look bad with Eliana right around the corner for a visit. Not to mention we needed to be able to take in the people from Thyra’s trip. Atop of all that you diiiid say ‘all forces needed’ to ‘wipe out’ the cults. So Petrina conscripted an old acquaintance, and that friend had two more friends. We call them the inquisitors, there are three of them right now. We’re kind of scared of them.

They follow the Lord Inquisitor Alexandria. She is actually a former comrade of Areti and Talia, she has long held a distaste for the coven and we just accidentally handed her a state license to do what she is apparently freakishly good at. Though is a bit too fond of public executions. She…she..I don’t want to talk about it, but I didn’t have this gold tooth before I met her and I had all my fingernails. She is one of the most talented commanders we’ve seen in a long time, and her ability to find things out about people is unrivaled.

 

 

((Alexandria gives +1 strength per tier to all forces under her command and can disrupt special abilities of other commanders. She has a bonus to capturing prisoners. If ordered to perform exterminatus her army strength bonuses double. But expect that hex to turn into a scorch mark.))

Alexandria butchered cultists in their homes and workplaces alike. This was a second cleansing. We can’t even verify everyone she killed was a cultist, she just assures us that they were, and the results turn out that the cult activities have definitely stopped. When I said ‘publicly executed’ I mean Alexandria burned them alive in the middle of the town square by the dozens. One of these executions involved something called an iron pear and I don’t want to get into further details. They were left to die of infection and blood loss in a cage. I told her to stop but she insisted the people needed to know the price of consorting with demons and spirits.

That being said she has a notably important skill in dealing with the powers that others have. I’m told she hates Ankathi in particular and intends to hunt her down, a little ironic considering I would have sworn they were sisters. Notably with Ankathi’s specialties she showcased, Alexandria might be the only one who can take her on. Though she will definitely try one way or another and I’m not sure which of the two I’m more scared to make an enemy of.

As your advisor I feel its important to note this woman is very dangerous, not just on a personal level. Simply employing her means she’s going to start some shit with people we might not want to be picking a fight with. She stared at the archdruid a bit too long and a bit too intensely for me to feel comfortable. While she seems to share your view on the vassal of other entities thing, she definitely believes in it with a much greater intensity.

Perhaps the worst part of all this is that she has popular support. The people, who aren’t her victims or related to her victims, love her and consider her something of a savior alongside Petrina. Her rise to power seems to be a dramatic reaction to the events surrounding Ankathi, the plague, and the subsequent cults. It appears that in the fervor to be rid of the witches, the people turned to a new kind of monster.