Posted on November 6, 2021

Stories of Lore 15

The golem ship is prepped with the route programmed in, assuming the buoys work everything should be good to go. We’ve begun construction on the somewhat minimalist station to push through and see what that gets done, and the order’s new ships are on the way to Enohas.

The arena business is a little complicated, mostly because Laura’s doesn’t have an official location. Also the legalized version has been unprofitable because Laura turned right around and exploited a hole in it that she practically designed. They were paying people to fight, but it was technically an open call for any who wanted to enter it. However not everyone knew about its existence. Laura instead advertised the existence of our new legal one in a very specific way to appeal to people just looking to make rent as a sort of low-contact ‘get paid just for showing up’ situation. Then she registered enough people that it’s ability to function froze since no one working there knows the scene at all. Then she registered her arena’s fighters in ours and just took all the money home knowing the administration didn’t have anyone who was prepared for whatever lunatics she had acquired. Due to the speed at which it was set up to out-compete Laura it has been a stuttering start and stop situation as she keeps exploiting the fact that a lot of money was put into it with only her work on the growing scene to stand on. Turns out the manager of the new arena works for her too as the only people qualified to run the place had ties to her scene. So basically we just bought Laura an arena and she now runs both circuits, harvesting our investment into the prizes to stay competitive with hers to fund the underground one that we suddenly are having a much harder time even finding. In time the staff are likely to be able to stabilize so her influence isn’t as dramatic though she’s not technically doing anything illegal to them she’s just overwhelming their logistics and exploiting a necessary rule in its system to take most of the money into her own ‘team’ of slightly more professional fighters. She then took the money and bought a bunch of land in the southern part of the city and paid for a lot of construction work and we’re not sure what mischief she’s up to now.

Speaking of which, Hylavi is having a new issue. It turns out Laura invited a lot of people to Koura recently by taking advantage of how generous 40th day has been with relocating people. Basically telling people exactly how to get into the system for the relocations and moving people around the frontier on Ilex’s money instead of her own. So she just imported four entire gangs from Sol straight into the city before anyone realized this was happening. She didn’t recruit them or set them on any particularly dangerous path, she just charged them for ‘discounted emigration’ packages. However, those gangs are now starting their own brands of trouble separate from her and keeping the city security busy. We can’t really pin it on her since she’s not pushing them to do anything, but Hylavi is still pretty convinced it’s Laura’s fault.

She combined this with a knowledge of how the Koura Cures trials are going and that program became flooded as well. This technically isn’t a bad thing as she’s getting medical help to a lot of people who need it, it’s just setting up a dangerous situation where a lot of people ‘owe her one’ for getting them out of Sol and their cancer fixed at the same time. They are then going on to work normal jobs and businesses but with a favor they know they owe to Laura which has expanded her network.

There’s a few more schemes she’s up to but basically Hylavi now has an entire department whose job is just to keep up with what Laura is doing. We’re pretty sure she has several more similar endeavors just by watching how her finances keep growing faster than we predicted. Just thought you ought to know since you’ve been rather invested in keeping on top of that particular woman.

Koura Kures has expanded a little more and the tests are still ongoing though has had a notable improvement on the general health of the colony. The problem is the one that went slightly wrong have resulted in another rabid mutated colonist with alarming speed. New Age came by to take them away, though it is a reminder that due to the volatility of this method it has to move slowly otherwise it can basically kill people. Well, that is if you want to do it the Alnae way with clinical trials, approvals, and risk assessment. If you’d prefer, we could switch to the Jaal’darya method and just tell people that its a gamble then hurl the lower class into it in the name of rapid progress.

The corvettes are currently double checking earlier found planets for habitability. We found some micro-organisms in some locations though nothing particularly exciting.

I suppose we’ll tackle Nila as the first order of business. I am at least convinced that she isn’t too dangerous in regards to manipulating the merkas. She seemed much more concerned with getting her bounty and has always been more a loner than some grand conspirator. Though I can’t speak for whoever is helping her. Finding her on the planet will be difficult as the only support we really have is Jamalia, the mining station nearby at the moon, and some of 40th day’s scanners.

First and most obviously, no one should go anywhere alone ever. Her best way off the planet is on the many ships Madhammer has here. We should release alerts with pictures of her and make sure every single staff member stares at it for at least twenty minutes. She got into the Kar’Soluth because no one asked her to take her helmet off, so everyone must not wear a helmet! Self excluded, I literally can’t take this off. Besides, I’m iconic.

Fortunately for us she is on the opposite side of the planet without so much as a tricycle to help cover distance. So it’ll be awhile before she can reach Jamalia and the ships. Unfortunately, that’s a lot of ground for us to cover to find her before reinforcements come to get her.  Extra bad, reports just came from Faelyn, there is a starship coming towards us from Sol. While not a particularly large threat to our assembled forces, they’re definitely going to try and pick her up if she doesn’t escape by then on her own. Our destroyers from Somnus will be on the way though construction and travel might make that a bit of a tight race. Because this is a golden world scanning for her from orbit with 40th day’s scanners is making very little progress. She might have figured out to turn her APT off just in case we tried to find her that way.

The current best bet might be to send out the gnolls to try and track her down. Just…under very heavy guard. Oh also one of the knights can summon a few hunting hounds from noctis. That might help. We could also try to bring in Adryn, this is something of a specialty of his. Better chances of finding her but it’ll take him awhile to arrive so we’ll be against the clock on that starship which could lead to some…escalated conflict. So safe option that might not find her in time, risky imports that might get us involved in a skirmish with her and whoever is on that ship, or just spread out hunting hounds and then try to track her based on which parties go silent during check ins.

The pandem radar can tell that you are linked to Irae, though it doesn’t seem to find anything related to your phylactery at least.

When it comes to the less popular planes there is perhaps a phenomena worth noting. Imagine an hourglass, wide on two ends with a bit of a bottleneck in the center. There are some areas of the murky swirl that is cosmology that function similarly to this in concept. Where only a few planes, usually lower ones that come and go into the fabric of the universe, can be followed. As you know, since your coordinates on one plane will match up on another, this means that these planes going through the bottle neck must be entered traveled across, and then exited in order to reach the murky swirl of planes on the other side. This is…highly  theoretical math stuff as reaching these would involve traveling on a temporary lower plane across an impossible distance. Such as going from one side of the universe to the other, beyond galactic super clusters tenfold…in most cases at least. So if someone were to stumble upon something like the Astral Warrens and find a way into that other side who knows what would be there. It would be far beyond any technology or spell we’ve ever devised to peer into the other side.

This is why Alexander is the knight chancellor. He loves quantum pandem theoretical math shenanigans.

Further more! There exists another few oddities. Imagine a cosmology IN a cosmology IN another cosmology and you have the celestial plane for example. It’s natives at one point could basically create new planes with rules that they happened to like. In the olden days, the gods controlled these realms and created their own planes of reality that were technically all inside of the celestial plane. This is another observed phenomena with lower planes every now and then. The abyssal plane likes to do things like this too, as indicated by the location of Moncayo which is on another dimension within the plane it’s already in. In theory, if one were to be within one of these sub-dimensions that found a way to latch onto a more stable plane while its host plane was collapsing you could escape the astral plane itself. That theory doesn’t hold up well but there’s a ten percent chance it works that way maybe.

There are also hypothetical beings that can create these sub-dimensions or even whole new planes at will. They are a new field of science and might be Vasia’s domain but according to the current understanding, these ‘cosmic entities’ are beyond our comprehension in many ways. Important for our interests, is that they can warp and shape the astral plane. Theoretically even escaping it, and thus all of the known universe, into other universes or perhaps even a cosmology that the astral plane is tied to. Though going out beyond the limits of the astral plane is a recipe for all known logic to break down. Even the void could only help you gaze into the possibilities of a universe beyond our universe. No bindings to the major planes we know to determine its rules, beyond the astral sphere all understanding and concept of all everything would cease to function. Wait a minute, I think I just understood sahad for a moment there. I feel small…

Anyways, these cosmic entities, the alpha entities, can theoretically alter even the astral plane. As mentioned before, we have reason to believe one such entity created the Astral Warrens. Perhaps there are even more planes yet unknown to us that they created just like the Warrens that we cannot find because they do not need to obey the typical rules of astral cosmology.

Another possibility are the micro-planes. As you know, the Astral Warrens has a unique shape similar to a tunnel network. By our standard understanding of the planes, reaching the edge of a plane is nearly impossible but within the Warrens it is so small that these tunnels are only a few lightyears across. I have been working on a hypothesis that suggests more strange undetected planes could exist that are even smaller. Perhaps even mere atoms thick. I hope to publish my theories by next year actually. At the very least let it make the rounds at the universities with libraries who delve into the theoretical. Though if I could find just one such plane and document it…

What were we talking about?

Sarnai’s bind.

Oh that, I’ve got nothing.

Moving on before he makes us brew tea and sit in the library for the rest of the night discussing theoretical quantum pandem mechanics. Though on the topic of education, when it comes to the ‘top thirty most dangerous individuals we know of’ how are we ranking that? Because there are more than thirty demon lords just to start off with. Do we prioritize at least the ones who we are likely to encounter, the ones with aggressive behavioral tendencies, or just the top thirty of all time?

In the meantime I’ll invite Exme for the interview.

Reika is somewhat of the opinion that as long as the higher members of the merkas hierarchy continue to live, they won’t be able to let the millenia long genocide of their people just slide. Since it isn’t just history to them but their origin stories. Kind of similar to how she and the Vloz’Khress are just never going to get past their issues. Their happiness upon persuading them for peace is moot, it won’t happen. One of these two races is going to die off or they’ll pick opposing sides on the galactic battlefield as they enter into it. She believes we’re better off just wiping one out and taking the credit for it.

Counter point-

Begone shedevil! None of your ideas can possibly lead to anything other than history remembering us as monsters. Someone turn Irae off.

Oh hush, I’m merely presenting options and a wider point of perspective. Anyways, as I was saying. We have a friend who IS a necrocarnate and can rewrite primitives with ease given how little defense they have. We could make the merkas more…amicable to our ideas by force without them noticing we did it. The young will follow and will be long dead and gone before they’re educated enough to understand that rewriting is even a possibility. Most in Sol only know of it as a myth or a legend. But I have this new friend, and she has this friend, and she can turn anyone into an zealously loyal minion.

I have another friend who can make anyone look like  merkas. Just swap them out for our guy and call it a day. Better yet, just make a male one. Their civilization won’t know what to do if they discover one last male exists but is against their current leadership.

Okay but quick question, is there any way to solve this conflict that isn’t INCREDIBLY evil? So far our options are genocide, soul manipulation, and falsifying a messiah.

I don’t do the whole…ethics thing. I gave you some options that are highly likely to succeed using the resources we have available. Ask Lancaster’s lap dogs if you want some high investment low yield lawful goody two shoes answer.

Hylavi says move one group to Moncayo, and move the other to Koura, and let them get distracted with fitting into the modern world such that they kind of forget their grudges and then when they find each other again they’ll be too occupied trying to scrape a living by as best they can in a foreign economy they are vastly uneducated about yet forced to start at the bottom of. The death of their people will become a foreign statistic once they realize they alone cannot do anything about it, forcing them to just try to eek out their own little place in the galaxy and let everything else fall to the wayside. Let taxes and capitalism grind down the fucks they have to give about anyone other than themselves.

Wait a sec…uhh someone tell Nicole to keep an eye on Hylavi’s mental health. Actually maybe send Ohalyn to a therapist too now that I think about it….also all of our slaves who work for us because of- oh fuck someone pull me out of this rabbit hole.

Sarnai is a bit cranky when given advice about her most recent performance. Also with how much Alexander is poking at her trying to figure out more information about her bind while the whole base is also trying to find Nila. She responds to things by just scowling at the moment.

As for the alliance, the only other major single colony of note is called Que. They have a fleet and army as we and Faelyn do that they have been investing into regularly. So it turns out they’re a Valdir splinter. A rogue group that decided to go out and colonize things on their own since the mothership left. It’s composed mostly of curious scientists exploring the possibilities of the silnian science. What’s peculiar is none of them are a synapse, they use technology to try and replicate the effect and control their worker drones. Attempting to simulate a mothership’s level of presence through a huge array of psicrystals. It kind of reminds me of the origins of Tykel, a colony devoted to the science and exploration of a particular topic. They seem to be looking heavily into terraforming based technologies and chose a system with a lot of moons and planets to work on. Apparently the reason for their military is actually a minor paranoia that an experiment will go wrong and silnians will eat them all, also the lesson Tykel taught us about how incredibly wrong a well intentioned research facility can go with just one clever person showing up.

There are many other smaller colonies brewing but they’re still highly developmental. Auwana, Cayetano, and Galeim stand out due to their larger populations and economic status. Most other colonies are the entire group’s life savings pooled together to just get some prefab shelters and farming equipment shipped out to the middle of nowhere. We just happen to have a lot of wealthy people in one place for our starting investments. Jamalia is even grander than most of them, the alliance is definitely a little shaky overall in terms of how much everyone can contribute though that is sort of the point. To help everyone get up to the point of being relevant at which point the alliance will become a proper contender in politics.

So upon mentioning the rift tunnels to Faelyn she offered a contract to build one of them, we’d be looking at roughly a 250 million profit for it. She wants to connect Moncayo to Thenica’s terminal hub, which kind of loops right back around to what her original plan for Moncayo was. Makes sense. Though we’d have to send Alexander or you to do it as this is a rather large and technical undertaking that will definitely take a lot of time.

I contacted Sharen about the whole Nelta invasion thing. Apparently they’ve been in talks with Faelyn about the very same matter recently and while they could loan us a carrier and a pair of battleships they still have to worry bout what Alnae and Kar’Soluth are doing at the moment right now.

I brought  you one of the toys. Its a wind up fish. It felt appropriate. Also I don’t drink that much wine I’ll have you know. I actually prefer margaritas. Sometimes I just drink the mix really, I like the tanginess.

So the ship cores continues. Turns out they’re made out of a material enchanted by arcane methods, the yelay taught us how to make it. The outer shell is just…anything durable with an illusion enchantment and the inner core is a magically engraved diamond network with a few other enchantments on it. We’re having diamond cores shipped in from a manufacturer so we can start experimenting with that. It’s not too complicated, materials wise at least. While the yelay did know how to make these from scratch as a civilization, the ones we have only have passing knowledge of how they work. At least the programming part of it. Since they’re not reprogrammable and apparently require a lot of machinery to produce, there was no need for the astronauts to need to know how to build them from scratch. Though even just the rough idea gives us some places to keep looking through.

Uneloj however knows things other than engineering. He’s a mage and knows spells and stuff. So here’s the problem…we have six new cases in the containment cells after he tried to show people one of the spells. He is also perplexed by this response as apparently his species does not become catatonic upon witnessing it, that or they see it so early on that no one notices its abnormal effects of being learned. So we’re working our way through all that. But that’s what he has to trade, spells.

Cassir and Peter are on the way to Enohas to look into things over there, once the ship gets there. Also Cassir laughed at the warning about Vasia, apparently she learned from meeting her that consent is not something Vasia should ever have.

Vamon is still coordinating with Faelyn’s forces, though we have a bit of time before the invasion actually gets here. Meaning he’s also just hanging out and taking Alexander’s place as the diplomat to keep tabs on whats going on around there.

I’ve run some numbers, okay really I told the engineer to do it but that’s the same thing. We have an estimate on what it costs to attempt to build the exerlus engine. It’s estimated to be…lets see…wow thats a lot of zeroes. The budget to even attempt this would be in the trillions, and that’s not accounting for the likelihood that it doesn’t work on the first try. For now they’re working on a small scale proof of concept, but don’t expect an engine for a little while. That being said the Nelta engine is a lot more reasonable in theory though we’re still trying to figure out where the quirks in it are. The exerlus one is very precise and the Nelta control core is as well but we’re not sure how much the rest of the construction is dependent on this level of precision. It appears to be less finnicky at least.

The Vivarium construction project has begun, also as an update to the DNA library, we’re up to thirty eight samples of various small critters people found in interesting places we didn’t ask too much about. We’ve also gone through with maintaining what i’ve named the fenalis and despite my desire to immediately sell them I am advised by the vivarium staff to let them finish testing their behavior under domesticated environments before spreading them everywhere. I’m still keeping mine though, but they’ve postponed advertising them until they at least figure out if they carry anything that can affect humanoids.

Also it turns out the Yelay utilize a method of reproduction that I can describe best as ‘like growing a potato’. So they don’t actually need much help from the technology we have, it’s more so a matter of a suitable environment to begin that process.

Adryn is ready to come back if you have something else for him to do. Until picked up though he’s still out running around. This is the problem with Sivataurs…they really enjoy their job.

We found someone among their detectives who seems suitable for the position. They lack the more professional experience Vaeri has but she is definitely not a common occurrence. Hopefully they’ll be up to whatever your plans might be for them.

Anyways moving on, getting Kaylen off of Thenica is difficult since Alnae definitely considers it necessary that she be there. She definitely outranks arms dealers and they’d have to bend for her convenience so an arms deal is unlikely to get her to leave the planet given its current state of martial law. Though with the ongoing Nelta business, if we can get the alliance to push forward so Kaylen will need to come help fight Nelta that would definitely get her off the planet but kind of prove them all right about why the alliance is a bit of a bad idea for their individual politics. Though it’s not like we haven’t done that before. Other options include creating an opening in the Alnae Ultra carrier she can go after. She is one of Alnae’s champions and would likely partake in that kind of operation personally as we saw in the most recent territorial conflict. We’ve also seen that she has a lot of motive to get rid of that thing as its holding up Faelyn’s plans to bring everyone together to get some stuff done so we can do the interception plan against Nelta.

Though as you may recall, that carrier is not easy to assault. Even with its full schematics and any kind of weapon you could ask for, it simply can’t be taken with a surgical strike. It has to be won through a war. However, I have an idea. We don’t need to take the whole carrier, we just need to force it to move somewhere an army could assault it. The problem is that Kaylen’s army can’t assault it in space since it would take down most ships sent to deploy boarders and it would require colossal resources to move that much firepower onto it. Getting into the realm of being a planetary invasion.

The reasons it doesn’t need to go anywhere is because it is self sustaining and supports its own population of experts. So even if its engines or its solar systems were crippled they could wait it out until their own engineers repaired it without needing to dock. I don’t really have a full plan for the matter though, it is well defended and could easily bring in more people while it waits carefully in its position. My point being though, if we can find a way to force it to dock and let Kaylen know when and where it will dock we might be able to make progress. Especially if it were to happen to lose power to its engines while docked.

Alternatively, we pull an Ark and find a way to cripple their food production. Food can’t just be repaired, if we can take it out they’ll have to do something and at the very least interact with everyone else again. It’s not the same as taking the whole ship, but at least it would shake the status quo enough to present new opportunities.

Also about that Uneloj thing, Ilex’s boys are definitely probing the matter. So there’s that to be resolved to see who is doing what. We can’t really recruit as openly because of the nature of our division. I have some thoughts on that matter since the issue has come up twice in a row as of late. We used to have Sophia we could use as a front for a lot of our more public operations alongside Vanjin. Our efforts to re-establish the criminal gang division have been sketchy due to how meticulous and difficult to sway Laura King has proven. However, we do have The Nomads right now. If we were to get a few more ships on hand we could follow in Mr. Vandross’ example of using a pirate team as a front for bolder operations. This would be a good way to look into more open moves of recruitment to give people a tryout period, and the Nomads know we exist and haven’t said anything to anyone. Largely because they like Aryn and we haven’t given them a reason to at least. But it might be worth it to try and recruit Uneloj to the Nomads as part of an…aggressive pirate expansion. Though we’d likely need to find a new place of operations for such a thing, I don’t think Lancaster would appreciate us creating a pirate fleet spearheaded by the Nomads on Somnus. The illicit nature of criminal fronts happens to be convenient for testing people’s abilities to adapt to the kind of environment required by the division. Since keeping quiet and doing some dirty work now and then is part of our day to day routine. Just a thought at least.

Vaeri is still out there trying to infiltrate Siwa’s inner circle enough to figure out what is in that basement though obviously its a well guarded secret, she’s getting closer but as I warned, it does take awhile for that kind of work to manifest.

A minor siege was made on Helym to prove the effectiveness of our soldiers and their arsenal. We managed to demonstrate what a real modern soldier is capable of despite the difference in numbers and size, also introduced them to the concept of artillery which shook them a little. They had some questions about the resilience of our race given that our meatbag nature leaves a lot more vulnerabilities compared to their energy based life form. Then they made fun of my scars.

So we blew up Helym and “recruited” the entire population. We’re going to help clean up this Nila mess and then we’re headed back to Koura for boot camp and gearing of our new recruits. I’ll be acting as a substitute drill instructor while we’re still here on Enohas. Did you know they in fact, can be physically exhausted from exertion? At least, that is the current theory judging by their behavior and reaction to the drills. Results pending Gheir’s peer review of my findings.

Posted on October 30, 2021

Stories of Lore 14

Patch notes!

Arsenal – Can shift arsenal stacks into offense or defense as desired and declare weapon/armor types as desired. Can upgrade colors instead of enhancing number as desired.

–It was always kind of supposed to be the ‘batman’ template in terms of using gear to prepare for the situation. This is an attempt to convert that into a mechanic that came to me at random, so now its patch day.

Lancaster – Lost some raw stats since arsenal now does a thing.

Renjala – Stats updated to Ryner sword’s bonus. Level up: Cosmology replaced with Durable, which gives extra hitpoints.

Alexander – Terror template changed to fire resistance. Because as I have written a lot more with him now, his personality has shaped into not quite what I expected it to be and terror no longer fits too well.

Sarnai – +2/+2 to reflect training. Lucky template added due to level up.

Vasia – +1 sahad

Vanjin – Replaced hunter with Arsenal 2, as this template kind of properly defines her entire character gimmick. Lowered slayer and offense by 1 because of arsenal buff.

Gunhild – Mass destruction lowered to 2 instead of 4 due to loss of Inaji rifle. Keeps template due to madhammer specialty.

Ecsanul – Lost one point of offense, defense, and mass destruction as a side effect of being banished. Note: Stats are unchanged in true form instead of bound summons.

Yasrena Val’Hari – Actually statted instead of memed now. “ow’ replaced with 3 and mass destruction 8 added.

Laesaaria Val’Hari – Same exact patch as above.

Eliza Pierce – +1/+1 from level up after completion of Koura parasite research

Roster additions who were already characters but not accounted for: Ihaslu, Peter Harlow, Echo Seven, Aato Jousen, Mikael Lehtin

Well with Lancaster out of aethernet range at best I can convey an occasional chat through Renjala…so he better not leave Somnus for awhile. In the meantime, I’m on the way back from Moncayo. So I am contacting Sethis through the comms so he can tell Renjala what to tell Irae so she can tell you what I said. This is going to be a bit rough.

Also Ohalyn’s trafficking isn’t a criminal enterprise, we never banned slavery. So I’m not sure just how well that conversation will go. Not to mention as the major supplier for New Age, her stopping those operations will open it up to Laura King to take over. Ohalyn may be somewhat jaded, but I can imagine what happens to the slaves when Laura takes over the enterprise.

You’re already there at..alien planet so I don’t need to keep you up to date on that at least, nor do I need this conversation to go on any longer than it already has. This many waypoints to communicate is aggravating enough, so you can just keep that knowledge to yourself for now until you get back.

Meanwhile back here, the KouKou has been thoroughly examined. Everyone who should be here is in fact here and we found no stowaways. That being said, there was an oddity. Rations wise, it seems like there is or at least one extra person on the ship. It seems like no one is missing, but someone is extra. However, when we take a headcount in the quarantine we come up with the right number. There is a chance that plus one is still on the alien world with you.

Hylavi also asked if we should be stopping the birth of an arena. Apparently as a sport someone has been running an underground arena like those found in Kar’Soluth. Formerly Shetou, though the eastern houses never liked the bloodier version where people can actually die. They’ve been offering people prize money in exchange for just surviving a fight, and so far no one has died. Most fights end before they get too out of hand, though there has been quite a few broken bones. Apparently it was born out of some of the wealthier denizens of Koura city realizing that a lot of the immigrants we take in are sort of desperate and penniless after fleeing Sol for greener pastures. Hylavi was contacted by Ohalyn about this arena looking to purchase some slaves. Which is usually what comes right before it becomes a true blood sport.

Also you’ll never guess who one of the major financial players in this arena is. Our dear friend Laura King.

I hope you’re cozy at Somnus, I’m still stuck back here at Enohas. Though after you left things have definitely wound down. As I told Alexander, Nihlav and Daesta returned to their city to take their lost and found back there as well as ready defenses in case Kar’Soluth reach them. We know Nila is still somewhere on the planet, and definitely low on ships at the moment, though I’m pretty sure that’s not a good thing for us.

We’re repairing Alexander’s corvette at the outpost as best we can, though we don’t have a proper shipyard so it is taking a little while. At the very least we were able to get back to Jamalia on it.

New problem, something was horrifically wrong with Sarnai. She was vomiting blood – which is glowing by the way – and a bunch of other symptoms that get all the more gross the further down the list I go. However, upon analysis from Alexander, her pandem corruption was at record levels. Previously it was barely present, she struggled to even open a basic rift. Then it skyrocketed to sixty eight percent. For comparison, you are the most corrupted and powerful pandem caster we know. You’re at fourty three according to your last checkup. He described it as she created a vortex of corruption around herself. I couldn’t even get my APT to work if I’m standing too close to her. This leads into the big problem, the medical teams couldn’t examine her. If they got near her with any ethi tools whatsoever they would malfunction. At best they could use some traditional hand examinations, but that didn’t turned up anything useful. Also her glowing blood made a microscope shatter when they tried to look at it. That being said, over the last few weeks, we’ve been keeping an eye on her of course. Her corruption level seemed to be deteriorating the more mana she steals from things around her. We put her next to the corvette engines for awhile and she returned to normal levels of two percent corruption after sleeping next to the engines for a night. She’s back up and completely fine, but Alexander has concerns. As all this happened after her bind possessed her, which admittedly saved her life and Reika’s.

We’ve never actually seen corruption be undone by draining mana from other things to basically purify itself. Alexander thinks this might be a hint as to what her bind is. A similar phenomena is known to take place in certain entities where corruption can be avoided entirely. For example, Setani experiences no corruption since she only links to the demon planes but she is actually from there. So its possible Sarnai’s bind, despite how hard it is to track, is from her native plane and is just some sort of strange creature. It would explain why during her possession she became an absolute master of humanoid on humanoid combat with a sword, as if she were familiar with that situation and those specific weapons. His current favorite theory is that she’s bound to some sort of creature that drains mana. His second theory is that she’s bound to something natural, something that can filter and purify mana on its own. Like maybe a dryad. Third theory is that we should talk to Vasia. Fourth theory is that we make absolutely sure not to talk to Vasia.

This leads to the problem Alexander now wants to solve. We don’t know where Sarnai comes from. His theory that her bind is sneaking around on her native plane means we need to solve the problem of Sarnai being an orphan from the streets of SV3. It could be that she is indeed from Vermasih, but well…is it ever that easy? Though to be noted, we have no idea if determining what plane she’s truly from will help at all, it’s just the next best lead he has.

Also, of course, we cannot get her bind to answer any questions. Sarnai mentions that while she is in communication with it from time to time, this is sporadic and not under her control. Often it seems to be only one way communication, she can hear it but it can’t hear her, or chooses not to.

In other news, steamworks completed its new project in transportation. Or more so its proof of concept prototype. Basically its a bike. It keeps falling apart because the engineers keep trying to put a huge engine on it and its kind of bulky. They also insist on offroad tires. They call it a panzercycle. We’re working on stability and consistency still, kind of neat though.

Well Eliza’s willingness to help anyone usually comes based on what they can trade with her. Money doesn’t seem to work as we noted last time when Sarden approached her. Especially now that she’s backed by the phantoms. She’s practically richer than Lancaster now, at least when it comes to funding her projects. So she said she wasn’t interested outright, though I do believe if we can get her something she wants she might be inclined to help. As your advisor I can tell you right away that we can afford her, and that it also might be a bad idea. If we give her access to the Maker in the vivarium she would probably bite and agree to do the operation. I have no idea what happens after that.

Also, you are correct. You did not send Cassir as Vasia’s guard. However, you did sort of give a blank approval to Vasia’s requests. She decided to take Cassir and I kind of just…stamped that one and moved on since I figured everything she wanted was approved. Though in hindsight, I don’t think she wanted Cassir for a practical reason involving the mission. I mean it was beneficial to have an empath there, but it was more beneficial for Vasia to get to meet Cassir on her own terms. I’m betting Vasia wants to get Cassir to the point where she’s cleared to know about New Age Labs so she can be properly utilized by Vasia. Possibly dangerous, might give Cassir something to do though. Just in a quirky direction.

New age has been delegating Vasia’s schedule and is investigating Uneloj discreetly to see what they might learn from them before they find a way back home. Apparently they figured out that we don’t know sahad and are now offering to trade some knowledge on the matter for passage home. They’re very astute to economics.

Aside from that, the race now known as the yelay that we picked up recently have been settling in. We’ve gotten them to explain those black spheres from the ships we’ve been salvaging. Apparently those are indeed the control mechanisms for sahad devices. They use light for computing, making them vastly more powerful in terms of processing than most methods we have. This is also the reason they are such a deep black, because if any light gets into or out of them it could basically cause a bug. However, Vasia was right that you can only make them once. The pathways in them are not malleable like our psionic computing is. So if you mess up, you have to start all over again. They’re basically clockwork computers, and once constructed they can’t be modified. So while powerful for their size and energy requirements, you’d need to be really confident that you never wanted to add new features or fix a glitch. It is likely that a civilization without access to psionic computing invented this as a solution to their issues and mastered it enough to mass produce it as needed. For our uses though, we mostly want to be able to read them so we can figure out how things work rather than replicate them. Humanoids like the ability to rewrite things, and perhaps we’re more willing to make programming errors in the interests of speed and project completion since we know we can go back and fix small problems later.

Orchard is the definition of having space for workers at this point. Phoenix however is another story given how difficult the planet is to work with. Speaking of which, Adryn hit the jackpot down there.

Lookit! It’s adorable and fluffy and it eats practically anything. I just let it lick my dishes clean and eat the leftovers. It also eats cardboard boxes. A great find for the vivarium. They breed like crazy too. Pet shop time. I already got him to send me three.

Oh right, refugees. Yeah we’re shipping them around where we can, whatever.

As for the exerlus engine…it could be going better. We did confirm the atomic construction is an actual necessity. Also we blew up a workshop learning that. We’re having more luck looking over the scavenged ships for their engines than the exerlus one. Granted the exerlus one is uh…fast. Echo Seven confirmed they could reach where Lancaster went through the rift within about thirty years. So basically around ten times faster at FTL. Though that number is somewhat related to the fact that the exerlus don’t need life support or anything else and can focus entirely on speed if they really want to.

…are you saying I’m not socially talented? I’m hurt sir. Though among the Somnus security forces would likely be our best bet on that, since they have to talk to people and defuse situations all the time.

Also in searching for the leak that got to Laura King it was surprisingly easy. It wasn’t that Laura found out, it was that Selona did. How do we know this you ask? Aryn called her big brother and asked if he knew anything about the suspiciously overpowered weapons Laura had for Vaeri to use in this cover op. They’re actually his prototype battleship class weapons intended for countering alien ship designs based on intelligence from the New Horizon’s shipyard salvage that Laura DID find out about through her own connections. She is also selling him the information on what Siwa factories is up to after we give it to her.

So basically… Selona figured out what Vaeri is up to because they’re also keeping tabs on the Siwa business and the phantoms and the revenants are the only people who can recognize Vaeri and noticed her snooping around. Selona offered Laura to offer Vaeri weapons for her op. Aryn asked if Arkaric knew where she got those weapons. Arkaric did indeed design them, based off of intelligence Laura sold him that she got from New Horizons. Laura is the smallest fish in this chain of informational hot potato and is just the middle man of choice for Selona. Given the way Selona operates, of course they did all this bullshit instead of just texting Aryn. Partially because its the officers doing it not Arkaric himself, and also because that’s just his style to make everything as confusing and convoluted as possible.

The weapons are helping Vaeri’s cover identity though, she now gets invited to the cool parties. With wine and fancy clothes hosted inside garages filled with prototype firearms. She’s definitely deep into the scene relatively quickly, though is still working her way into the inner circles that might reveal what is going on in that basement to her someday.

Meanwhile back at Sol, Vanjin has concocted a plan. The driver for the councilor isn’t consistent, it rotates on a regular basis. Though they’re always elven, and likely have some security clearance she can have Aryn look into fabricating. Then place an elf into the job and maybe replace some other security who might be supposed to recognize the current driver of that day. This is where the plan starts to go off the rails. She wants to get into contact with one of the rogue warlords and organize a full blown attack into the capital city using rioting citizens as a distraction to sell to the warlord and have the invasion to distract the entire platoon of armed forces protecting the councilor, then our driver just takes some evasive maneuvers down a side street and we extract from there. Here’s the problem, the major obstacle to conducting this is getting Kaylen away from the capital when it happens. If she’s there the rogue warlords wouldn’t risk an attack even with some insider information on a hit they could try to perform.

As for Uneloj he’s currently selling sahad knowledge to get a ride home. Given that he was captured in battle and shipped around in a cage for months, he is a bit homesick. Definitely not looking to start a new job in a place he’s never been to before with people he doesn’t know and surrounded by aliens. I think this is why the black market keeps saying ‘cooperation levels may vary’ when we look into these alien slave auctions. None of them want to be here, otherwise they wouldn’t really be slaves or prisoners. Either send them to Ohalyn or expect them to be seeking a way to get back to their homes, people, and families. Though if we can get people to refuse to sell Uneloj transport home for his sahad knowledge we might be able to corner him into needing some short term income to get his passage back. Which is something we could send some agents out to ensure becomes an unfortunate situation for him.

We’ve lost a few more bodies again after the battle at Enohas with the Kar’Soluth. Only one tank, car, gunship and a mech of each model. We only sent one of each to show off to the arcurans so we didn’t necessarily have that much there, though it all got blown up by their corvette. Clearly we should have sent more tanks.

Though we’ve definitely gained some arcuran recruits for all this effort. They’ll need a specialized boot camp, probably throw that one at Gheir, to get caught up with modern warfare as we know it. However, Whitetalon Armaments has a prototype mech concept to test once we can get them back here to Koura. Because they’re made of mana and their shape is malleable…we might be able to create some interesting mech designs for them to pilot. If we could remove all the life support, controls, chair, screens, buttons, and so on…well that’d be a pretty thick mech.

While we’re currently recovering, we still have plans to go blow up the walled city of Helym and…improve our numbers. We might need an extra freighter or two if recruitment keeps going this well. Arcurans are very easy to recruit. Whitetalon armaments is also working on armor suited to their anatomy in anticipation of their arrival whenever we manage to ship out. We’ve also set up a more permanent recruitment center on the planet since it appears this will be a very…lucrative investment.

As advisor it is my responsibility to inform you of possible options and consequences. So in keeping with my duties, I will mention that their primitive society could be recruited in mass if we destroy the merkas city and bring them to witness it. We currently have one hundred twenty seven arcuran recruits. If we destroy that city and they see us do it, I am fairly certain we can expect tens of thousands with ease. That’s just the short term too.

Also as advisor, I will inform you that Lancaster may try to shoot you if you so much as mention I explained this possibility. Renjala too maybe.

We’ve gained some regular recruits as well from the refugees 40th day have been shuttling around. Impending alien invasion sure brings the patriotism out of people, and colonists don’t like the empires as much. We have a very good sales pitch for this kind of scenario.

Gunhild is severely injured. This is more of a job for a mechanic than a doctor. I’ve fixed the bleeding but she doesn’t have much left to bleed. Blitz also broke his leg fighting the Kar’Soluth so he’ll be out for a month or two while we fix that up. I’ve had to restrain him. Do not let him convince you to take that collar off his still working leg.

Stories Of Lore 19

Well…that was… this is going to be rough. I have been working with Khota to condense all we have learned so that it can be approached more simply.

The Spirit Keeper is widely thought of as being a god. We understand that at the core of it, he is the brother of the King of Crows and a rival to him in power. He is said to be an immensely powerful shaman but we’re not sure what that power entails as we didn’t have Hakenu’e get a display from them. Though it seems he trained Eerihild, Hallvard, and Haleh. By the process of…paying attention I am pretty sure he trained Icno as well. Since he would round out to it being all four shamans with white hair and blue eyes, not to mention the four strongest, all having been in contact with this one entity.

I have consulted with Xacalli on the matter, she was unaware the King of Crows even had siblings.

He has offered to heal Alihana in exchange for helping Hallvard and Eerihild kill Haleh and then taking Hallvard and Eerihild away from the north. Such an entity could be a valuable ally though Hakenu’e gets the sense there is far more to this man than we have been able to learn with this meeting.

He is in direct conflict with Haleh. Who has revealed that her bloodline has more than one trick. It is likely that her family’s abilities all have to do with affecting the mind in some way or another. Unfortunately, her eldest daughter has the ability to steal knowledge from others. We are not sure of the entirety of its extent, but this is likely how Haleh has been so effective in controlling so much of the north in such a short span of time. Her ‘interrogations’ carve all the information she could ever need out of anyone she wants. So this means she now knows everything Tlalli knew. While the Nezatl messenger wasn’t fully informed of everything we know, she was aware of the general ongoing affairs of the tribe as most are.

Extra unfortunately, that means Haleh just learned we don’t have Alihana right now and we’re not entirely sure of why but she seems very confident that without her she could destroy us. If not through sheer numbers she might have another we don’t know about in her family of loyalists that only Alihana could deal with. However, she has agreed not to do so for now since we sent a peace messenger before either of us ‘knew’ that she would likely win the war. On threat of us making sure not to sneak Alihana back onto Auwana. She also wants us to send her Xacalli for…’interrogation’ which appears a little painful. In exchange she will tell us all she knows about the Spirit Keeper, and I get the feeling she knows a lot more than most people do or would so easily tell us.

So she wants to make sure I have no ulterior motives to help the King of Crows or the Spirit Keeper, and by proxy that the tribe has no such motives. If we don’t, she is hoping to reveal information to us that might draw us to her side at least as allies for the time being.

I will state, I do not have any such motives or knowledge. However, there are three other things that I would not so easily let her learn. The first being the ritual of crows. The second being the ritual of the King’s call…which I may not have told you I can do. Basically, I am of high enough status to call for the King’s attention. Essentially, the reverse of the scrying pool. The third is my blood magic, I do not truly know if it is tied to my bloodline or not. There is a chance…we end up giving her daughter all of my magical knowledge. Her daughter’s ability is terrifying, but it can’t protect her or win a fight. The north is mostly filled with shamans, this requires more than raw knowledge of the art. You need to be able to interact with the spirits and that is something of a deeper journey. If she can use my magic I have spent decades refining in an instant… Well consider that risk appropriately.

I’m not really concerned about how much it appeared to hurt Tlalli. She’s fine and I’m tougher than that. Though the repercussions of arming the Chanai with my knowledge could be vast. At least for everyone else. I doubt that girl has the passion I do nor the power of the crow’s mark.

I’ll do it if you ask me to, but I won’t be held responsible for the aftermath.

I must ask you to leave the meeting Xacalli. I know we asked you to be here for this part, but you will understand if the option to give your knowledge to this Chanai woman is taken I would prefer you not be here for the rest of this discussion.

The one time these were interesting too. Alright fine, though if the option is not taken I wish to be informed of what is going on. Consider me…invested in this Keeper business.

Thank you. Alright then, since Zhuan is missing I would like to say the crazy things he would say for once. What if…we just have Xacalli perform the King’s call? Instead of siding with the Spirit Keeper or Haleh, we just…go get the King? Haleh was clearly distasteful of crow-folk. If we brought them here she would have a very serious problem. They are ruthless, rampant, and can’t actually reach Auwana so we would be spared from their warpath. I don’t know if that’s how the ritual works, I just wanted to float the idea while Xacalli isn’t there so Haleh doesn’t…misinterpret me.

I’m not as fluent in the ways that people think so I won’t pretend to know all the details of how these people work as Zhuan does but I will give my thoughts on the options of war.

As for my actual advisory statement for this council, as a war assessment it is likely we cannot defeat Haleh outright. Though with the savage folk and the Thorin, perhaps even the Ivor, we should be able to as I said before. We have not even solved the Howling Horror for her yet, she would be under attack from every direction and no matter her confidence that is too much for her numbers to handle unless the Asvald wipe out the northern forces before we make a move. However, we will have to operate with just those who are already off of the island to avoid drawing her attention until we are ready for it. We will also be at great risk of losing those same people if she finds them, especially with her daughter’s talent for interrogation.

The next and safest option is to stand neutral as Haleh demands and just…float on by without getting involved though the Keeper may see that as siding with Haleh. Not sure how reasonable he is. It is likely that Haleh would host our wayward champions in her village if she doesn’t want them to return to Auwana in this scenario, so they would at least be safe.

We could outright ally ourselves with Haleh. Her objective is clear, to establish a line of influence into the far north where she can stage a plan to destroy the Spirit Keeper. If we were to partake in this, we could easily solve the Howling Horror for her. Well perhaps not that easily but thanks to Citlanal we could mitigate the biggest risk of engaging it. So much so that wild experimentation is quite easy to do. The Ivor aren’t moving but we could still send Sakazai to…quell the threat to take some pressure off Haleh so she can focus on the northern dispute. From there it is a matter of brute force, which we could aid with just a little given our current ability to deploy our warriors though without the other two problems I am sure Haleh could deal with the rebels and the invaders herself. She might even give us more assistance in mobilizing our warriors across the land if we wanted to help in an even greater capacity. The problem here is I have no idea what the capabilities of this Keeper actually are. Not even Xacalli can give me a meaningful idea since no one has actually seen the King of Crows get into a fight.

At the core of the situation, Haleh and the Spirit Keeper are in a battle to the death. We have…perhaps not ideally positioned ourselves into the middle of it. For our own ends, we are most interested in expanding our tribe before we float further away. However, the shamans all predict the same thing, we will be going southeast on the next currents. A land that we are steadily learning is going to be  an interesting affair, so the more allies the better.

Zhuan is not here so I will do my best to counsel on this angle of the situation. Haleh may not be willing to outright join us, she is a proud queen. Though she may be willing to ally with us, at which point we would be akin to an empire of two tribes. We have enough land up here to let her build her own village wherever she likes to house her people and we know she has…a grudge against certain entities we can expect to meet to the east of here. Ragniva and Icno also clearly share these feelings, which is what binds them together. This path will put us at significant odds with Hallvard and Losvir’s followings as well as the Keeper. Perhaps even the King of Crows as well in the long run and several other gods of equivalent status to them. Taking this path will ally us to the many powerful champions who follow Haleh, a number larger than any other choice and with no lack of quality. This maaay put us at odds with the Rahana to the east though, we have to discern the truth of the matter there. It also is immediately placing us as the enemies of all these deified entities.

The Keeper only offers us two champions of his, assuming they both live. Hallvard and Eerhild, while powerful it is notable he was very specific that it was those two and only those two because he needs to rebuild the north afterwards. However, there is another angle here. I have…convinced Xacalli to share with me one critical piece of information. There are three of these deified beings here in the western half of the world, they intend to wage a war with the rest who reside in the east. Allying with the Keeper would earn us his patronage and at the very least some allies in the King of Crows and the Oldest Man. Though…it may be awkward teaming up with the cannibals. I imagine should the invasion begin, we will suddenly have some interesting allies sharing the island with us. Though we will also have the protection of the followings belonging to these three beings. This puts us at odds with the others of their ilk in the east most likely, who we have not even met.

As another more difficult but perhaps more rewarding angle, we could just…try and sneak off with whoever we can. I am sure we could recruit many of the savage northerners who desperately need a new homeland. Not to mention the Volsung who have lost their ancestral home and apparently know some things about farming. Some of the Vargr seem less aligned with the full weight of their tribe than one might think. It is known that Haleh can sometimes rule through force and fear.  The Ivor would likely also be interested in this since Xiomac is no longer, and we already have the Huanacan for them to fit into. There are likely more clans that have escaped our notice amid this conflict we could dedicate our people to seeking out and finding. Not so sure about what Ragniva is up to. While her loyalties seem in a difficult state, her motives are not. I do not know if she would side with us if we could not prove ourselves in battle whilst showing no interest in the greater scheme of Haleh’s to pick a fight with beings whose powers we do not understand. Though this option would be the best way to avoid making enemies of anything we have not yet met.

We’ve been experimenting with copying what we can of the Asvald’s methods though in this snow its hard to get anyone to practice much of anything effectively. Though the idea has some merit to it.

Citlanal went to deal with the Howling Horror, or at least assist Icno in the effort. She was able to prevent its murderous howl, then we discovered it is immensely strong and very hard to kill. However, it moves very slowly and isn’t particularly bright. Kind of like one of the Hariwana zombies but way stronger and tougher. It seemed to have a weird fascination with Icno and wasn’t interested in chasing anyone else.

Also it occurrs to me, isn’t almost Hallvard’s entire army technically enslaved? Should we be doing something about that?

We’ve sent out some people to look for any fire beasts but that might be awhile given that everything up here is frozen.

Tlalli was sent with two others to try and establish talks with the Vargr. Turns out her daughter can read minds. So…that could have gone better. Though its a good thing we didn’t send Citlanal or Kaya as they would have learned so much more from them.

Greetings Chief Chants. With Sawiri, Alihana, and Hamona all away, I shall take over the solemn task of keeping you up to date with the affairs of the clan once more. The Vanguard have reached the Lone Mountain, and they are awaiting counsel on how to handle the affairs with the Spirit Keeper as we have learned.

On their arduous odyssey of crossing the lifeless cold that we call the White Lands, they have come to fall in with the witches of the Volsung clan during a quarrel with the village proclaimed as Sigehea. It is quite nearby, Hakenu’e has acquired the attention of the Volsung on terms favorable for us.

Tehanau has made her way to the village of the Thorin. She cannot find Losvir’s presence and no one is knowledgeable as to where he might lurk. Lokala’i is also there, so they have taken to dueling people around the village to ensure their names are marked and remembered. Tehanau is undefeated.

Hamona has traversed the lands and returned to the plains. As winter comes, the plains are as still as the earth its people have been returned to. The cannibals have departed from the land, yet only after their victory. Demon bones lay speared over campfires. The Halik and Witch Doctors lay still in their camps, never to awaken again. All that remains is the solemn silence of a land which has perished. Auwana is all we can call home for there is nothing left, just an ashen grave.

That is strange. The cannibals were powerful but so were the demons. It seems odd that they took over the entire plains so swiftly and then just as quickly left it for dead. The land may have been burned but there was enough there especially for just one clan to last through the winter.

Zhuan has Hallvard’s forces taking a slower march to delay the inevitable invasion long enough for us to figure out what we want to do about all these matters. Some of his forces morale has been shaken by our ministrations though others seem more difficult to sway. Not to mention Hallvard himself will not be deterred from this war. While his personal motives are in seeking a new land, we have recently learned he and his ally Eerihild have a shared master with other motives that just so happen to align to the task of invading the south.

Also my arm is better now.

Wehilani was occupied with her journey to the north with the vanguard. Though I was able to ask Esin if any of the harpies could make the flight for us. Between the vanguard already taking off, and the flight to deliver the clothes to them they are unable to catch up with the vanguard without a proper idea of where they might be found in all the north. They are now tracing the path Haleh most likely took in search of the wyvern’s…is it right to call it a resting place if we know its spirit is with Haleh still?

Lokala’i is doing fairly well. He managed to reach the Thorin village and met up with Tehanau there and so now there are two weird underdressed elves fighting people around there. Lokala’i has only lost three of his eight attempts, though it is clear many of the Thorin’s greater champions reside here ready to repel Haleh should she assault them again.

A duo is traveling back to the jungles, but since all of the gryphons are already in the jungle with the Akoa they will have to walk. We’ll hear back from them someday, hopefully before the island floats anywhere else.

As for the pair hunting the strangest of creatures in the north there has been a complication. A large number of them have no bones. Though a few have managed to be collected but now there is the problem of getting back to Auwana through the siege of Ragniva. Though perhaps fortunately, Sawiri is not far from them at the Lone Mountain.

Esin had no ideas on improving the lifts.

This device you call a sword reminds us of Alihana’s unique weapon sawiri made for her. It is as if it were a giant knife, similar to these swords though perhaps an even greater version. We’ve also noticed that the Howling Horror wields a similar object. A long sharp…thing. As for its purpose as a sidearm there are those curious if it could be as versatile as an axe. Since such a weapon is great for gathering fire wood as well. Silas has been experimenting with the device. So far it cuts saplings well enough at least. Though those are rarely good for fires. However there is something to be said for the ease at which it can place its edge along an opponent as its basically just a long edge sticking out of its wielder’s hand.

Stories of Lore 13

Our efforts in the southern grasslands have paid off it would seem. An offshoot of the Wenhai clan has taken interest in Auwana. Largely because they apparently sent someone to confirm that a floating island actually does exist, and took an interest when it was mentioned that we have a large supply of spider silk easily available. They may not have realized what that silk comes from though. They are known as the Xiaoshen clan. Descendants from Wenhai who have been far from home for a little while, if you recall the real Wenhai are further south than the grasslands after all. Their names are strangely short and easy to confuse with other words I find, I’m not sure how efficient that is but it seems ingrained into them throughout generations to name their children like that.

They do also know the secrets of the silk weaving as the Wenhai did. We’ll have to see how they and the Nezatl can work with that. They split themselves into two distinct positions among the clan. Those who are born dedicated to being warriors and trained from an early age as such and those made to pursue the paths of maintaining the needs of the village. Apparently it was an idea they had two generations or so ago in order to have more reliable defenses from the many things out to eat us. Their warrior “caste” as they call it like to use bizarre tools instead of the traditional spear and club. Notably many opting for smaller implements or even just their hands. Something about a warrior should never be unarmed. While they have the desire for experimentation with weaponry they don’t seem to have the talents of Iiniwa or the Dozen to help them along. Well not until now at least.

Be sure to help them settle in.

On to other matters, we’re still moving people into position to begin the full assault. The Travelers indicate the southern villages guarding the key edges are likely to be the least protected whereas the northern ones the most. This is because the northern areas of the jungle are home to the arakkoa while the southern is heavily influenced by the Ranoni. Which as we know have very different views on Xiomac. It seems the southern ones are more so hidden than guarded.

Xacalli is on her way to begin talks with the Ranoni and I think its worth mentioning we should send someone to the Akoa…if not the travelers since they are already hanging out with the Akoa by technicality.

Basically we’re trying to move a lot of people all at once so its taking a bit to get everything in order.

Is the caste system of the new guys slavery? I don’t know if I’m offended or not yet.

Also yes the bees are coming along well. We’re still waiting to see what happens in the cold, though we did get some more honey for you at least.

Our bone collectors are definitely gaining a reputation for being a little strange now that they’re collecting blood as well. Soon enough we will be just collecting corpses overall. Actually that might help Tupai’s work so not the worst idea.

It would seem your meeting with Esin went well enough. She came to the village to meet with Hakenu’e though she was still a bit of a difficult person to talk to. Probably because Koamalu was there as well.

Alihana and Sawiri have been preparing for the ambush though neither have left the village to do so. Their explanation was “gryphons and scrying pool”. I told them I would pass it along to you.

The hunt for the great stalker is long, with many a winding turn. The Vanguard, assisted by Kennae, are looking to try and find the beast a second time but as the first time indicated, its difficult.

Uyitzan is on his way back, though might be a little while considering we sent him into a whole other teritory. Iiniwa is managing the home front.

Also the gryphons have formed mating pairs, which is good for our future of flight. At least that’s what I think they’re doing.

Esin still seems unsettled in regards to what she wants to do around here. Though doesn’t seem that enticed by the offer to join the dozen, I suppose chief of the flying folk holds more interest. That and she is still definitely taking her time with the options. Xacalli on the other hand asked what the advantages of joining an established clan over just lurking around the village is.

Also I marked the map where the travelers currently are. They are moving a little further south and then towards the east.

My abilities stem from a ring Alihana gave me, you seem to be her elder. That being said, the orcish manner of bolstering one another is rooted in shamanism. I don’t think either of our powers share a domain with that. Attempting to transfer your abilities towards another would be curious though. There are not many healers that rely on magic, even my own abilities are really just to keep blood in the body, or pull it out and put it back in when necessary. If yours has to do with the transfer of life and power, that would put it more in the domain of the crows. Only the king has been able to gift such a thing…well and his brother but we don’t talk about that much.

So to use your ability for healing we’d need to really figure out what it is and how it works.

Behold for it is I, the cosmic force of all things. Coming once again because it makes no sense to have an advisor explain the following knowledge to the new player who would know their own clan members.

Zhuan is one of the older members of the clan, born of the warrior caste and excelling past expectations. He has since invented many techniques he passes on to those he teaches and is considered the greatest of the Xiaoshen’s warriors. He also has spent a lot of time as an advisor to the previous chief as well as the current one. Acting as a sort of mentor to the younger as well when they were young and just taking over the clan following the death of her father. By all accounts he is thoroughly amazing.

Now if only he wasn’t so lazy. If left to his own devices Zhuan will spend it doing nothing in particular. His position has afforded him the ability to rely on others to meet his basic needs. Barring something needing an actual fight he sometimes takes some extra motivating to convince to do anything.

Laisun is another member of the warriors. She was born to a strong warrior father on the day of his death. While she was supposed to be of the working caste she felt a compulsion to continue in her father’s place. She trained in secret for some while until she was able to acquire the title of Wilds Walker, an honorary title acquired by stripping naked and defeating a monster or beast of equivalent weight. Meaning despite her lack of claws, teeth, or really anything that would make that a viable idea, she punched that thing to death anyways. She does normally carry a knife though for obvious reasons, but upon acquiring the title she was able to petition to take up her father’s place in the clan as one of its warriors instead of remaining a gatherer.

She is an extremely focused and driven individual, often pushing herself dangerously close to the limit of her abilities. This has sometimes resulted in her coming back home barely alive. Though her teachers do commend her dedication, which probably only encourages her to keep trying such stunts.

Caowei is an oddity in that her own clan has rarely seen her. Known to disappear for years on end, Caowei is technically a scout. One who was presumed dead a long time ago only to return after having walked much further than anyone anticipated. She has since been “presumed dead” multiple times because she kept doing this.  She is something of a loner and is stricken by a sense of wanderlust. She was never content living on the grasslands and would just keep on wandering looking for anything of interest, occasionally bringing back trinkets of her travels to the clan.

She isn’t the strongest warrior or even technically a scout, she was originally just looking for new food sources. She has become quite good in combat by necessity of constantly being attacked by monsters across the many lands she walks. At some point she acquired, and now favors, a unique spear with a bone knife for the spearhead. The knife is of Sawiri’s make but he has no idea who she is or where she got it, though he does tend to trade with anyone for anything.

She’s been to the plains, jungle, frozen north, southern waters, and eastern desert and has seen many things though perhaps less than one might hope as she’s not prone to talking to people. So she only knows “what things tried to eat me while I was there” for the most part.

Upon hearing of the clan’s plan to join a tribe that lived on a floating island it seemed a reasonable compromise for her, since her home would now move and wander for her.

And now back to your regularly scheduled advisor updates.

Well I suppose we’re here now for better or worse. The clan is still dealing with the occasional scares of encountering some of the people the Launi’Kauhale have collected. While we already knew the Hariwana were here its still a bit of a shock to see their piles of bones that they collect.

To go over the basics the present clans and their affairs include:

Beastkin: They’re a bunch of shamans named for their totem binds to their spirit animals that often causes them to change their shape to that of a hybrid between their human forms and their totems. They’re the big kahuna around here, and are a bit wary of the Hariwana due to one raising the dead and the other communing with them.

The Hariwana are the infamous bone enchanters, led by a lot of creepy looking people. So far they just seem to really like shadow puppets. Though they specialize in experimenting with magic in general. They lack the distinctive singular theme the others have…but their stuff is all kind of darkly orientated anyways.

The Huanacan live to the south in the forest, they’re a little antisocial after years of being hunted by humans for…every reason possible. They’re comprised entirely of monsters. They’re actually pretty sociable I’ve learned.

The Nezatl live in the main village, they’re mostly crafters and maintain the temple. Also tricksters and zealots. For a group known for rescuing enslaved people from raiding parties they carry themselves more like pranksters.

The Dozen are a group of warriors formed from various other clans. Focusing more on individual recruitment to raise elite warriors. Their culture is kind of diverse as a result. Though their chieftain, Mor, is somewhat eccentric.

The orcish remnants are technically their own clan but they don’t have much say in the council of chiefs, largely due to how few of them are left. Though they were recruited after the war in the northern plains over the whole ‘burning the entire plains’ thing that nearly wiped out all of the orcs.

Finally there is a group of flying folk living on the far side of the southern mountain who are technically part of the Huanacan but lately seem to be in a position in between being a full clan of their own versus a long range subordinate of an existing one. I haven’t quite figured out everything going on there.

The tribe in general is currently in a war with Xiomac, who is apparently the perpetrator of the Ubaba village’s destruction. At least according to Xacalli. That’s the gist of whats going on that I have for now. I’m going to go take a nap.

Stores of Lore 11

From the administration team, I bring news! Technically Auwana now has three villages on it. The village in the mountain where some new flyers from the jungle have agreed to the same deal the Huanacan offered those from the plains. It appears they attracted a very unique specimen though, one who likes to build. They’ve started building more elaborate houses than just thrown together nests and developed their own market. Actually they’ve been coming to trade with us here at the lakeside village with odds and ends they find from flying around and scavenging down below since they tend to explore more often than we do…since they’re all capable of flight.

Add this to the existing, but mostly empty, village by the rune circle that allows us to travel by lightning to the ground below and that makes three. We may consider naming each village a bit more formally so we know whats being referenced to. I suppose technically you could argue for four villages given the Huanacan live on their own in the woods but they aren’t really far enough away that I would count that one as being apart from the main village.

We finished helping out the Milani with basic repairs around their village after…y’know…Citlanal set it on fire.

As for Kaya’s adventures, well it wasn’t cannibalism. There’s another demon druid there, which as we learned from Mor is a whole thing. Just like with the Milani, the druid appears to be kept rather closely guarded by the village. They also chased Kaya out soon afterwards.

Also despite our best diplomatic efforts, the druids don’t seem all that inclined to leave the jungle to live on a floating island that goes to who-knows where. Especially with our lack of a giant tree apparently. While they have been continuing to teach Maxhui, notably she will have to stay behind to continue her training at this rate if the island leaves the jungle.

So the problem with giving Taike a flying mount is that she seems to have issues seeing things that should be obvious sometimes. We still don’t entirely understand how her blindness works, but she has a tendency to miss good spots to land by impressive margins sometimes. At least her mount is smart enough not to listen to her too closely. I’d classify her as mobile but I wouldn’t make flying a major part of her duties if it can be avoided.

As for adding more bone to her…I dunno never tried that. This might be more of a realm of expertise for the dead raisers like Tupai. I suppose the same line of logic would lead to adding bits to our bone guardian. Tupai and Sawiri are intrigued by the idea but I’m debating if that should even be attempted at the moment, as it might kill Taike. We know Coszacatl can do it but she’s only using the bones for structure as opposed to truely animating them. We could easily tie enchanted bones into her skeleton but at that point we could just have her wear them like the rest of us do. The real end goal is making it a part of her own skeleton that she could use I imagine, and thats where it gets tricky.

The apprentices, sans half a dozen of them, are back on Auwana now and reconsidering their professions. They’re also a bit more scared of me now. I’d call that a productive outing.

Sawiri and his team have absconded with the bone guardian and affixed things to its head to work on the temple some more. Apparently they can reach much higher now thanks to it and are trying to make the temple bigger. I say trying because Sawiri has fallen off four times and put a hole in the roof that needs to be fixed twice now. So not sure if its getting any better or not.

We put bone spikes at our landing zones. Also, people still aren’t voting on the Xiomac vs Xacalli issue. At this point maybe just do whatever and tell them later that its their fault for not voting.

We’ve had Kennae and the team gather some of the aquatic wild life down below to bring back up with some effort. A lot of fish died on the trip, most likely because its a surprisingly long and bouncy flight. We’ve tried to introduce some to the lake and some of Ragash’s ponds but we’re still seeing how that goes.

To which note, we probably need to appoint someone to care for the ponds given that Ragash isn’t really around to manage them anymore.

Uyitzan and his team are still exploring in the north and have managed to find some others of the more monstrous variety to communicate with. Apparently the dead villages are a known phenomenon and that is why the area is mostly empty. People found it safer to flee to other areas than risk continuing to live by the river haunted by whatever is killing entire villages. Some gnolls in the area have rummaged through these slain villages to loot the places at the very least. They found footprints that indicate something humanoid is the cause. Of the gnolls that scavenged, only four of the sixteen survived a deadly illness that fell upon them soon afterwards. They believe some sort of spirit is haunting the river, though we still have no one to tell the tale of actually meeting whatever this thing might be. Though we were able to put the timing of the attacks to indicate the culprit to be moving along the river westward.

Also Pride Rock has attracted a few more flyers who like the whole “lack of bird eating giant spider things”. We’ve gotten them to agree to the same deal as the previous ones we set up there.

Avonaco and Sakazai have made it to the northern areas to look into these fallen villages a bit more. Fortunately people were a lot more willing to talk to them about the affair than they were with Uyitzan. Unfortunately, they don’t know much. This phenomenon has very few survivors, and those that did live were simply away from the villages at the time of whatever happened. There exists several local legends though they are wildly different and not helpful.

First bit of evidence Avonaco could find, is that there are a few, and by few I mean three, people who claim to have seen the creature. All three gave very different descriptions but they did all say it had three skulls on its head. Not sure if that’s a mask or some weird monster, but they all agreed, while having not met each other, that it was three skulls with horns. It is likely wearing a lot of black, one said it was a living shadow but the others said it was a dress or something to that effect. Either way it was a lot of black. From there they don’t agree on anything.

I’ve noticed a few elements stay the same in each myth from non-witnesses. The first being that its “horrifying”. Not too helpful. Many seem to think its some sort of supernatural entity, a spirit or a monster perhaps that just happens to have the vague shape of a man. There is also a recurring story of revenge but no one had the same reason for it wanting revenge other then “for being killed” but that is clearly wild stabs at an explanation since no one has talked to this thing.

The next question is how its killing so many people in such a dramatic fashion. While most assume magic, Sakazai suspects something else is at play. Mostly because of the story they got when they met up with Uyitzan about the gnolls becoming sick after scavenging the place. Though, upon consulting with Alihana, Alihana says its likely a mix of methods between something more physical as well as something more fantastical.

Meanwhile to the west, the Travelers have taken to wandering up and down the coast to keep an eye out of the water people. I think we can assume they didn’t find whatever they were looking for when they first set out to find the northern healer, since we found Xacalli in the south, but they just…kept on walking. I don’t think they’re coming back unless we send someone to go get them, they do tend to just wander off sometimes if we don’t keep them occupied. They found another small village along the way with not much going on.

First off in regards to our stance on other peoples, I concur that our intimidation is a great factor to utilize. I do caution about it when trying to recruit though, as different people respond to different things. Though specifically the type of clan we might be looking to recruit and in what position we are expecting them to fulfill. I am wary however of capturing them by force for the simple reason that it would add a threat to our own domain. The current advantage of our island is that we are free to roam around on it without fear, even the children as long as they don’t play too close to the edge that they might fall off. An enslaved population is a potential uprising, and may mitigate some of the safety we currently enjoy. However, it is likely would could handle such a small threat to ourselves.

As an experiment we had Wehilani fly Kennae down to the earth below to scavenge for snails since she is the strongest flyer. In terms of weight she can transport at least, the harpy is definitely more agile in the air. This went well, though definitely was tiring for Wehilani as she had to climb quite a height to get back up. Unfortunately, the fires have affected the snail population as well. Kennae was only able to find perhaps a dozen. Though it is a start.

We also had Ka’oana investigate the depths of the lake. Along with some of our others who might understand the situation to investigate. The problem seems to have been compounded not only by the fact that the deeper part of the lake doesn’t run out through the river, but the floating island has trapped it where it is. So there isn’t enough natural drainage through the soil, as not too far down is whatever rocks allow the place to remain aloft.

The Huanacan have a few oozes among them who could help clean the place, but they hate submerging themselves in water. Something about being washed away. We could consider draining the lake entirely so that the oozes can reach the problematic areas. Then utilize these snails and perhaps other creatures for the long term cleaning. However, in the short term, we are likely to experience a water shortage soon. Water is also the hardest thing for Wehilani to bring up from the ground due to its weight, difficulty of transport, and the sheer quantity needed to slake the thirsts of so many. Though judging by how green this island is, there is no shortage of water. The task is simply how to collect enough of it. A lot of people are at least getting something from the fruits of the island, though you see why I am still concerned with the availability of drinking water. These are issues we must tackle quickly. On a related topic, Kennae isn’t sure how to get fish up here yet. Which may be something we wish to do in the future.

While the island provides much we did not have before, the land beneath is still a burned wasteland. Since we cannot control the island to move, we have no idea how long it will be before we find ourselves above more fruitful lands for our few flyers to scavenge.

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You may chant by moonlight, but it is day! You have no power here, now I am chieftain Chants by Morning! Ooga chugga ooga chugga. Wait what did I come here for again…

Oh yes right. So bone rope….yeah no. I can make bones strong and noodly like a rope…wait whats a noodle? Squishy…bendy. Anyways I can make a bone kind of ropey but hrmm that sounds like rapey. No wait rope bone, can’t make it long. Unless maybe we find something with a very long spine…about a hundred of them. SNAKES! Bring me ALL THE SNAKES. Hehe danger noodles. Whats a noodle?

*The next morning at an ungodly hour for anyone to be awake*

BEHOLD, A BOWL OF NOODLE. I made it out of plant fibers and bone marrow, its like a giant basket but its really strong. Also it floats on air. Be sure to tie it to something- oh there it goes. It floats even with the weight of two people in it! I’ll leave you to unstick it from the roof of your hut. It’s really hard to get back down. You might need a big rock. Good thing you have a nice hut, it almost carried mine off.

A rope from the island to the ground is difficult, because the ground below is not always the same distance away. Also that is a really long rope. I estimate it at seven hundred ninety eight skips straight down. It needs to be a strong rope too. ALL THE SNAKES. WINGS FOR EVERYBODY. Oh actually, Huanacan once tamed a manticore. Get more. Attach bowl of noodle. Via snake. All of them.

I went asking around to figure out what magical options the tribe might have available to it overall. I do notice we make up the bulk of it, I was hoping this cultural exchange might yield more ideas for my work. Yet of course, the one person with a magic truely original and different that I was most excited for, has no damned clue how their own powers work. Anyways we have…

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Before our harpy was sent to look for more of her kind that more of her kind simply…showed up. The flying island passed by the mountain her kind would call home. This island definitely attracts all who can fly due to being such a curiosity. They likely would have fought us for the territory were not for the fact that we managed to get a whole tribe of things onto it.

Actually a few of them took to nesting in the mountain on this island. Notably on the far side, they are definitely experimenting if they can sneakily inhabit Auwana despite our obvious claim to it. They are not all harpies though, and they are not all united. They simply tolerate each other as fighting for territory seems of little benefit given they all realize that their food source will have to come from down below as long as our tribe holds claim to Auwana itself.

We have seen Aarakocra, a griffon, some harpies, members of the demon clan below, and even a faerie dragon. Not to mention non-sapient species as well, including a juvenile roc. Not all have stayed but many have passed by, which affirms the earlier idea that the island’s mere existence draws flying species to check it out. This may pose a defensive threat to us in the future if anything decides it really wants to settle down. Despite fears the island could not support the whole tribe or might limit our expansion, the reverse is our current plight. There aren’t enough of us to cover such a vast stretch of land, especially from things that just fly around. We have a few members of the clan keeping watchful eye on the far mountainside, I think its a mountain at least. Its seems too rocky to call a hill but its not actually all that large.

Anyways, we have some of our people watching the area as well as other places near the island borders to see who visits. Our old friend Kaya, the camp invader, has been instrumental in this since she can just stand in plain sight without any of them noticing here counting how many are perched on the mountain rocks. I have been collecting their reports just to keep an idea of what is going on around here, and what strangers might be visiting. It definitely strikes me that despite our assumed security up here, that we are not able to totally secure these borders. I think the elder chief underestimates the threat of these visitors, I would definitely not recommend children leave the village alone. There are far more birds of prey than one would think, and they can get pretty big.

Our harpy has become an ambassador of sorts to these flying guests, keeping tabs on them as well as talking with the more intelligent ones. This has been a fruitful relationship, one of the Aarakocra accepted the offer to join the clan. Perhaps tentatively as they are afraid of the rest of the tribe near the lake, but they are content to keep staying in the mountains and assist us with tracking and speaking with visitors of the island. They took the offer as a form of assurance that they are now official denizens of the island, and I have offered that if any of the other bird folk might try to evict him from his spot on the mountain that we will send our warriors to assert his legal claim to the land.

In regards to the lake, we actually never recruited any aquatic species. Largely because we have never lived near a lake. Too many people visiting, but the Elder Chief assigned it to Ka’oana. Since crocodiles actually just hold their breath underwater, he is not affected by the troubles of the water quality.

Also I have taken full stock of our people and their unique abilities.

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I swapped the tents, they are confused but not amused. Success. Also I have no idea what sugar cane is. You can’t change your title to elder either, for one thing you’re the youngest. Second, that title is reserved for the old bull, to symbolify that he is the chief of chiefs and rules the whole tribe. Sit still dang it.

Anyways, our clan seems to have become appointed as officers when it comes to mediating disputes between clans as long as our own is not involved. Though after that tent swap I wouldn’t be surprised if we are the most frequently involved. That being said, that job had a lot more to do than I originally thought. I’ve spent most of my time helping Huanacan keep an eye on the wild life but Nenetl has been-

Doing all the actual work thank you very much. As it is there are actually a lot of things that might need mediation as the clans get used to each other but also as they all get used to the tribe’s own rulings on certain matters. Recently its just been some housing disputes but those were relatively minor especially since everyone started building up their little sections of the village a bit split from each other. Though there is also a distinct lack of tribal laws available to base mediation off of, and every clan has their own bright ideas.

Oddly one of the first questions to come up was if two people from separate clans were to marry what clan do they remain a part of? There aren’t any marriages planned, but I had four of our girls ask me that within relatively quick succession and I suspect that despite our independent spirit, some of the rescued slaves are happy to see some men again that aren’t trying to rape and pillage them.

Another thing I’ve noticed is some arguments over resources. Specifically who gets to harvest what. There is of course always a desire to cut down all the trees to build a really sweet house. However, the Huanacan are rather attached to the trees as they live in the wooded areas and aren’t so happy with the idea of people cutting down the whole forest relentlessly. Not to mention some of the people who want to cut down all the things aren’t always aware which trees bear fruit that we’re currently relying on. There was also an incident where a member of the Hariwana almost got stabbed because it turns out the dozen also like having trees nearby to their camp and someone wandered a liiiittle too close with an axe. For now I’ve put in a ‘okay we have houses now, stop cutting down trees until we figure something out’ rule. While the island’s forest is fairly vast, you don’t know when you’re over-harvesting until you’ve over-harvested. Given we are trapped on a floating island, it might be important to maintain such things carefully.

Also there have been some fist fights but I left those alone because we do have a thing for duels anyways and until they start stabbing maybe its just best to let them work it out. However, such conflicts can lead to further clan introversion and mentality. So that’s a thing to look out for.

Also as requested I looked around to see who knows how to make what. Rope, Fire, Bows, sewing, tanning, jerky, pemmican, adobe, the atlatl, canoes, calenders, sundials, stone shaping, suspension bridges, how to put stuff in a pipe and smoke it.

Some of the other clans down below might know some other weird tricks. Though thats our current baseline.

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Most of the village is built on the lakeshore rather close to the woods. So we just built our homes slightly further east towards the river. It had the large boulder requested. It’s been a long time since any of the dozen have built a proper home for longer term use other than an overnight tent. Admittedly we let the beastkin help us with some of the construction ideas, such as where the support beam is supposed to be and whatever this adobe stuff is to add some reinforcement to the structure against the strong winds this island…apparently named Auwana, experiences.

The two greatest contributors in the battle with the Wyvern were arguably Ka’oana and Hakenu’e himself. Turns out the old bull still has some life left in him after all these years. Obviously they were somewhat attached to their own clan, so not much recruitment to occur there.

As for the lake that was covered at the tribal council already and the ongoing effects that is having. Though our own magic men lack for any method of dealing with the lake’s stagnation. Scouting off the edge of the island for Avanoco yields a difficulty, most of the larger beasts were destroyed by the fires of the Chanai. Anything else that might be one such beast, could easily be one of the mounts of the Chanai. It is hard to tell from up here if there is anyone riding them, though we assume as much due to them often being in groups with other animals that do not match their species.

Also Ragash has returned from scouting.

The Huanacan have been making an effort to find all that flies around the island, so I went looking elsewhere. The mountain that they’re poking at due to how many birds are landing on it has a cave network underneath it. It is however, not a very large cave and can be somewhat difficult to squeeze through but there are many winding passages. Most notably, there are a lot of colorful stripes in the rocks. Lot of blue especially, some lines that were obviously gold as well. However, some of them don’t look like they just naturally formed. Some look more like they were intentionally placed there by some unknown entity. All the rocks that don’t look like they should be there are notably green in color with some of them emanating a soft glow. I’m wary of poking at them.

The woods are quite vast here, I would imagine its because this island has been adrift since possibly the dawn of time and they had nothing to do but grow. I do notice a very odd trend of the woods though, there are trees that line a lot of the island’s boundaries and they are all of no tree we have seen before. Instead of leaves they look more like they have green needles along their branches. They are still soft, and only mildly prickly, but these trees are dominant around the entire border of all the wooded areas whereas leafier trees tend to exist more inwards towards the island’s center. There is also more than one lake, and even a swamp. This island must have a lot more water than you would think available to it, we’re just doing doing so well with figuring out how to drink it. Notably there exists a bit of a pond to the northeast of the lake we dwell by. It runs off the side of the island and notably had no water in it at the time.

Earlier in the month  built a dam to prevent any water it did collect from flowing off the side of the island. Later when I returned to it, there was already enough water in it to take a drink from, and it was quite a bit cleaner than the lake we live right next to. There had been no rainfall though, but I asked around and according to the village the expert on such matters was a kobold they called “Kennae”. He says that the island is collecting large amounts of water by passing through clouds, which is why we are occasionally and randomly plunged into deep fog. Whatever the clouds contact, it leaves some moisture on. It is likely that this is why the island is so wet, instead of waiting for rain it merely steals the rain from the sky for itself. As proof of this, the island came from the northwest. A very dry area, yet its swamp is still very wet. The shallows of the lake stagnated during that journey, the majority of its water ran off through the river off the side of the island. By damming that we should be able to collect enough water to fill the lake again in no time, we just have to clean it up.

For now, collect water from ponds that form downriver or from the lake I dammed off in the northeast. That is freshly acquired by the island and hasn’t touched the central lake to become contaminated yet.

As for other creatures, there are only birds here. I have yet to see any squirrels, bears, or anything else. I don’t think anything else has ever been able to get up here and that has contributed to the massive overgrowth of the forest. Seriously, the ground is almost impossible to see underneath all the foliage running wild up to my damned chest in some areas. Nothing is grazing on the smaller shrubbery so it just keeps on growing. We might need to drag a couple deer up here.

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.

Stories of Lore 19

The landing is underway. They were able to activate the gate stone to bring troops over but had to use the reserve mana to fight a big thing so they are currently stranded there. No worries though, the island does indeed have plenty of mana to harvest. Our people will certainly have the skills necessary to extract it to turn the stone back on. However, it is likely that they are in for some rough days as they work on that.

In terms of losses, all of Essi’s soldiers died and so did six teams of monsters but she has six more remaining. Twenty units of Aato’s knights went down as well, along with 20 golem units. As well as all of his footsoldiers. Eero died diving face first into the goddamned kraken. I’m not sure if I should commend his heroism or call him an idiot. I suppose his soldier instinct took over on that one. At least he bought the gatestone time to make it to shore. Several other manifesters are dead too. Iraeka is alive but barely, she looks like she might never be able to move comfortably again let alone move through the wilderness on a cane. So we might count her as retired soon, even if she technically lived.

As for the anirace things, the offer was intended for a smaller team though we actually attracted the interest of a larger one. Potentially to play as the opponent to the first team we find if not our own. In keeping with their interest to buy the technology behind our field, some of the bigger teams wouldn’t mind a chance to play on it just to see how it behaves when turned up to its craziest. Though the Shaman King has stepped in before they get any ideas. Putting forth that if they do buy our field technology it has to be a rule that any “shifting elements” have to be set to randomize so a home team doesn’t just memorize a complex choreography script no one else can figure out. That did seem to diminish a little bit of interest, I guess that was what they were planning. Very sportsmanlike of them.

Oh also remembered when you said “maximum mana available”? So we’re low on that now. Well, relative to how much we had before at least. They used full resources multiple times in the landing, so it added up a bit quickly within the week. On the upside, if they get the gate stone turned on before anything goes awry, dragon loot. I’ve estimated that if they can bring it home before something terrible happens, we have a big payday coming.

Mikael and his team have made it to the southern islands but they have no idea what or where they’re looking for and are cruising around a large cluster of islands poking around for anything of interest.

Also the mana worm has been productive now that we’ve gotten a handle of taking care of it.

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. In the assault on the northern island we lost eleven warships and four dawnbreakers. It is also unfortunate that Yuzuki an Kyoko lost their lives in the icy wastes. The navy is on its way back to Okushiri with the ships it has left.

We’ve started harvesting silk from the spiders, or at least attempting to. They’re feisty little things, and we’ve never had to process this stuff before. While its slow going, our trade route has seen a notable increase in value as the little we have sells easily. I’m sure as we refine our methods it’ll be a much bigger component in our trade income.

Iwanagi is setting off to check out the eastern island. We have also raised the expedition force for the southern colony and placed it under Takei’s command. He has already begun to sail south.

As per your orders a few cycles ago, Kaze was sent home to spend time with his wife. So essentially he is just on vacation in Tonarooka. Though notably has expressed some suspicion about the appointment when he wasn’t sent on the expedition to the northern island. I think he is concerned we might retire him. Hamano is on his way to meet with Kaylen.

Shime is currently away with the expedition force in the north so we can’t have her advise on Haven at the moment.

As an update to elven matters, our efforts to convince some of them to emigrate have become a lot more complicated. This comes with a growing faction of discontent within both the nobility and the civilians, albeit two separate factions. The nobility are angry with Amare in particular since she was recently confirmed to still be in contact with Ankathi as her mentor in witchcraft. They seem to be getting annoyed with her constant bouncing between apparent loyalties and want to remove her from power. Though the king and queen quite like their daughter who is something of a war hero and their primary contact to the archdruid. This is uncomfirmed but the nalkas ambassadors are very insightful- it seems some members of the nobility might be planning to assassinate Amare and blame it on Katara. Specifically on Alexandria who is passing nearby with an army of professional ‘not be seen’ types and is known to be liable to attack a druidic witch without provocation.

The civilian side of things is a different type of discontent, they actually want Amare to take full power over the kingdom and to remove the other nobles. This will lead to a druid led state for them and there is some thought that if they truely became a druidic kingdom that the archdruid would then take more interest in looking after them. This party even talks about destroying the current elven cities as they are not very druid friendly. The idea at its core is to become assimilated into Sanctuary so that they will be safer. This particular plot is more confirmed because the elves who went to Jämsä were the ones hinting around and looking to see if our alliance might help since they’re afraid of Ailduin in particular.

However, these tensions are not unknown to the royal family and they are allowing Ailduin even more power to keep people in check. As well as another elven hero, who I’m told is very spooky, being assigned to figure out which nobles are plotting to kill Amare. Ailduin has always been their own darkest champion, similar to Ankathi or Alexandria but not as extreme. Just a comparison to point out why the political factions are scared of him and why him being given more power has resulted in a greater level of fear for the kingdom.

Now for another complication that is not quite confirmed, but the Nalkas are again very insightful. While the civilians want Amare to take power, the nobles might be correct in their suspicions of her. Amare’s ongoing relationship as a student of Ankathi might lead her to other motives than the people who support her expect. We have long since lost track of Ankathi and what she is doing but the fact she maintains ties to powerful people indicates that she is up to something that requires it.

Welp, good news is we’re not bleeding gold anymore. Bad news is eighty teams of pathfinders dead, fourty knights dead, our ships are gone, and Thyra is fish food. On the upside we found dragons on the expedition, so thats neat. Too bad everyone is stuck on the island and shit has gone so far sideways up there that I’m not even optimistic that it’ll reach us at this point.

Moving along, Alexandria is holding Moncayo though we have to get the builders out there. Speaking of which, I’ve decided to hold off on sending ambassadors to Lennecas since our settler teams died in transit to the monsters of the forest. Also I named the stupid towns for you so my paperwork isn’t confusing. The new slaves have been delivered there to help with constructing them.

On to some more lighthearted news. We had our first home game! Won it too, apparently no one has ever fathomed playing the aniraces in an actual urban environment. So we’re two to one on our team so far which isn’t too bad. Turns out home games are decent money, doesn’t boost tourism as much as we might have hoped just yet due to distance but we did get some interesting visitors. It is liable more might come next time as rumors spread of our city’s take on the games and that the curse is no longer in effect. I may have urged some of the local townspeople to really reinforce that point to any visitors. Inn may have been a bit noisy that night too. Not to mention members of Oda came by to watch out of curiosity since they’re just right up the road.

Due to her distinguished service at the northern expedition I’ve recognized Rena as someone we should keep tabs on. She’s one of the pathfinders and really managed to hold her own up there. She actually goes by “Just Rena” though obviously I went through the effort to find out her real name. I see why she doesn’t tell anyone her family name. The relationship is very distant, I don’t think she’s ever met Ankathi but they happen to share a name. Likely a common great great grandparent or something as there are actually at least two hundred citizens with that name. I’m at least relatively certain that there is no secret power behind that name like there was with Damaia.

Oh hey Ansa didn’t show up, oh right she’s stranded at the island right now. I can say whatever I want and she won’t interrupt me for once…I don’t know what to do with this freedom.

♪Weeeeeeeellll Ansa’s a bitch she’s a big fat bitch…♪

*You presume the weekly debriefing is over*

Our scouting force moving eastwards through the north found one of Alosne’s outposts. It is apparently the edge of their civilization’s eastern reaches and after that there are no roads anymore, we can expect to encounter some of the more violent northmen from there on out.

Ansa has figured out the magic beans. Basically they’re capable of growing into the mana tree we have seen in Tethalyn, so that wouldn’t be too bad. Though it will end up costing about twenty gold to plant the thing since the north is not so hospitable to it, meaning we’ll have to arrange some shenanigans in regards to getting it to grow.

Also you may want to specify what you want to do in regards to the elves regarding the last report on the matter.

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. Torogawa has finished its basic construction and the process of getting a nice stable city is well underway.

Iwanagi continues circling the island.

As for the elves, they’re generally a bit tentative about the alliance, thanks to the Katara as mentioned before. Also they haven’t responded yet about coming to the talks. For the most part we can assume their desires involve not having to fight for the time being given the state they are in. However, Konya has been careful about how to approach a certain topic. The Elves are aware of our naval strength after Neyth visited Okushiri, not to mention our involvement in the war. However, they do not fully understand the Nalkas and the advantages of being allied to them. Also the Nalkas emissaries that accompanied Konya are not the best when it comes to explaining such things to them. They also, along with most people, do not understand their own relationship to the Nalkas as their ancestors. So that could likely be leveraged depending on what angle you would wish to approach that. A gentle approach could be a good way to ease them into accepting the alliance, though perhaps if the Nalkas and Katara sent more aggressive diplomats assimilation might be more plausible.

Also definitely not to channeling Ki through bikes.

We’ve begun shipping towards the southern isles as you requested. Might be slow going with the distance and all.

Who is Vlad? Also you still didn’t name all the new villages. In other news, the Oda are requesting us to visit the elves in Lennecas to assist in diplomatic negotiations though the entire goal of which seems to vary. I surmise they’re looking for whatever exploitation they can get, whether an alliance or annexation. We could just go finish them off and enslave the elves to save their politicians the effort. I’m sure Alexandria wouldn’t mind a detour on her way back.

Speaking of which, she and her forces have started setting up camp in the forests outside of Moncayo pass, the Nalkas siege crews are arriving a little later so that will be underway by the next cycle.

Also Ivan has finally arrived after his rather long journey. It did not take long for him to be properly cared for…as in our agents to receive him were interrupted by every tavern keeper. Though all things considered he seems a bit of a solemn sort and while he hasn’t been isolating himself he is notably not invested in all the social interactions others are towards him. He spends most of his time since arriving inspecting the barracks and sparring with Petrina’s knights and Petrina herself.

Cannons on their way here and there, we sold the five to Zahur.

Okay so the drow situation. Irakea is on the way back to Jamsa to prepare for deployment to the island. I’ve looked deeply into it, she’s about a mile out of town by now. She moves pretty quick.

Oh wait you meant the other ones. Faelyn hasn’t yet assumed direct control over anything but her influence over their city puts her in position equivalent to either house mostly due to her control of their economy. While we predicted Eilsath and Vaslochar would eventually go to war with each other over the city, she has stalled it by reintroducing a third element to the game.

Vaslochar is reluctant to leave their ancestral home they are the dominant power over, and Eilsath isn’t so sure about leaving behind the city just as their position began to solidify within it. It is likely that Faelyn is aware of this and actually intends to turn the city into an extension of her own influence rather then abduct any of them by assimilation. Becoming sort of the mutual higher authority to both houses, many of their common folk are quite willing to humor this since historically the nobles are dicks.

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. Iwanagi resumes his sailing adventures. We’ve also gotten everyone aboard the fleet to make the journey to the island, so the city is a little quieter with them all embarked.

Konya has also gotten a ride with the nalkas boats that are headed down towards Moncayo Pass so they will drop him off along with the Nalkas ambassadors once they all get there.

Also the reconstruction of the city is primarily complete. A few areas are still in disrepair but for the most part the monastery and the city are back up to normal. Though economically businesses are still resettling into place in the wake of the destruction.

As for your thoughts on the Sohei and Kineticists, it seems sensible enough to me.

Our colony on the island south of Tonarooka has halted its construction, the aquatic monsters there have managed to murder half of the construction team and force them to hide further in land.

Pretty simple week, everyone is going places and projects are still working to completion. I’ve had Alexandria reroute to avoid her murdering everyone just yet.

As for trade exports, well we do ship wood to the badlands as it were. Though that has been less lucrative then when we first started due to the siege of the mountain fort ending. Though they have to be somewhat confused over the matter. Other than that we lack for any unique resources though we do trade in the basic stuff here and there. Granted it has never been a specialty of ours due to our more isolated nature.

As a somewhat pressing matter, if we don’t find a quick solution we might have an economic collapse very soon.