Stories Of Lore 6

Gideon has found something of interest, the ruins of a sort of citadel. It is obviously quite a few centuries old but he found something interesting buried deeper, there are signs of Nalkas architecture and design in here. This citadel is sitting on what used to be our gateway city to the badlands, but is definitely not our ruins. It appears that what we had left behind was taken over by another civilization for their own use, repaired, and added on to. Though that other civilization seems to have also fallen, this place could help us better determine just how long we had been asleep. Our ruins have been scavenged, rebuilt, then ruined again over who knows how long. There are some residents attempting to squat here, far more primitive then whoever must have rebuilt the place. These savages are of a mixed breed, Gideon reports coming across humans, elves, orcs, tieflings, and so on. While the citadel affords them a home to defend, they appear to be little more then a collection of lost souls attempting to survive on the border between the north and the badlands. Gideon has remained at a safe distance so far, given our prior first contact just recently he is a little wary. Though this place may be of great interest to us.

Eamon has taken over the troops as requested and the tunnels have been temporarily sealed.

In other news, Uudistar has expanded to take over the northern portion of the lake, well most of it. The eastern side remains untaken but the walls protect us quite well and have good aim at some of the monsters. You have received a request from Ylermi to halt the standing order to murder all the monsters. We have inadvertently created ideal conditions for studying the beasts. We can reach both the northern coast line and the eastern shore of the lake, both of which are valuable to monsters who need the mana. The walls offer protection for researchers as do the emplaced weaponry, and this puts us closer then anyone has ever been able to get since the monsters -will- come to this lake since there are so few alternatives in the north for them to subsist off of.

Sakki remains embedded with what are apparently called the drow, he describes the affair as an “experience”. He is treated well as their guest, but ‘well’ is subjective. He has been made to fight for his life in a gladiatorial arena against strange beasts, poisoned, and kind of raped. I say kind of because he doesn’t mind but the drow subscribe to a matriarchal society like the Katara and it’s clear he didn’t have the option to say no. He describes them as vicious psychopaths of the highest possible degree while maintaining a civilization. One step further across the razor thin line of barbarism and they would collapse into a primitive tribe. The diplomat from Oda has been advised by Sakki to remain afar and simply advise him how to act as mouth piece, because even when they are being friendly their guests run the risk of dying. With the help of this diplomat Sakki has been getting a lot better at asking questions to help us learn about them.

While these drow are not as technologically advanced as us in general, they do have some interesting things we don’t. Notably, they utilize some sort of venom tipped weapons that can bring down the monsters with shocking efficiency. Though they don’t go to the surface too often as there isn’t much there of interest to them – at least not that they know about. Also they have an interesting fungal delicacy that for some reason tastes like cake down there. They seem to specialize in demon aligned magic, warlocks of some sort. While we work on golems, they simply enslave minor demons for labor. As another oddity, they have two breeds of tieflings. Highborn and lowborn. The lowborn are the typical kind, but apparently they have a tradition of high priestesses mating with demon lords producing highborn tieflings. I am ninety percent sure there is zero practical difference, and is just a way for nobles to feel self important for fucking demons.

The battle outside Tethalyn has finally reached its conclusion…well that was an interesting turn of events. Marilena lost 43 soldiers, Ankathi lost 64. The remaining forces total at Rhea with 44, Marilena with 57, Ankathi with 22. The gear finally arrived as well though, not the best timing on that unfortunately.

KouKou has found the mountain fort to be somewhat…impressively hostile. Notably, they are badland denizens. Meaning mostly humans and tieflings. That fort gives them access to the forest below. They’ve been raiding the forests for its resources to ship back into the badlands, which has made them very wealthy. They are not used to interacting with people outside of their own circle, and apparently they have smaller outposts at the foot of the mountain where people usually interact with them on the far side. Since KouKou came from the forest she bypassed the outpost and made them a little paranoid given that no one is supposed to reach that fort. They failed to kill her but not for lack of trying, she is currently hiding in the forest nursing her wounds as they shot her successfully twice and she can barely walk. We may wish to send Despoina to retrieve her before they find where she is hiding to finish the job.

To add to this report though, they did not attack KouKou until after she removed her hood. They demanded that she did, but it indicates they were looking for something specific about her. They were fine with the parliament of owls, but not so much with something else about KouKou. Talks might not be impossible, but it clearly has to be the right person to do so, and I don’t think it has anything to do with charisma.

Speaking of impressively hostile, Areti made contact with the orcs. They are not open to negotiations, Areti killed a platoon’s worth of them while retreating. This has apparently gotten the chief’s attention, and now the one seemingly called Xnaurl Bloodfire has taken an interest in Areti. His forces have stopped pursuing the elven frontier and started scouting northward looking for Areti. She has killed dozens more as she makes her path in the general direction of “away” yet still they pursued her with a level of obsession. She describes them as impressive warriors.

In regards to Ankathi’s plans for Amare’s son, she apparently had intended to afflict him with a sickness that only she knows how to cure, it happens to also be her field test of the elven plague she has been designing. I have gathered why she sent Amare here though, she’s not trying to acquire peace between us and the elves. She wanted me to find out how much Amare would understand about witchcraft to see if they could recognize our work, because if they can’t they’ll have no idea where the plague is about to come from. It seems this was a layered strategy though and she has since put a hold on the idea since Amare instead joined the coven as a sort of distant member. So now she would definitely recognize it, but has also started to act in a way Ankathi would consider favorable. It was as if she came up with multiple ways to achieve her goal no matter how the cosmic dice might fall.

It took awhile to find anyone among our people potentially qualified for being a diplomat. I settled on promoting Christina who until now was administrator of the market square, of those I could find she has the best knack for words and understanding of conflict resolution without punching. She is quite charismatic and authoritative given her position, with a fair understanding of how to hear arguments and settle them. As military training is almost compulsory around here, it is worth noting she has some skill with evocation should she need to fight though I wouldn’t rely on her for such a thing.

Greetings Keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people.

We have begun preparation for the tournament, though it will be a little longer to get that all set up in order to make it a bit more of a public affair for entertainment, and to let people travel or get in fighting shape. The islanders are definitely interested, given that they’ve been holding gladiatorial combat for years anyways. As such we have appointed Quetzalli to organize and host it since this is something she would have some familiarity with.

As for the construction of port defenses, don’t worry we already have those. Mostly because of naval monsters, though they can shoot a boat just fine. I’ll see about placing some of the new ballista’s there as well as those are extra effective against ships I imagine.

Iwanagi reports that the navy of the fort is actually part of a larger civilization. They are in an alliance of their own whose major cities can be found to the east. They told Iwanagi he can sail south and around the cape to find the sea where they mostly reside. Though they will be sending a few ships north to meet with us and see what is going on up here to see about establishing trade arrangements.

As for the scout ship, that is basically what Iwanagi is on right now. We could theoretically improve it with magic but that has its obvious dangers.

In regards to the village, the problem there is unavoidable. If we sabotage any of their resources then come by with that resource the reaction is likely to be the same no matter what resource or method we use unless we can pin the blame on something else.

In regards to retinue for the diplomat, we could send him with a basic compliment of soldiers. He is not a wizard and if we don’t send any there is a good chance he can avoid the bigger monsters while his guards can deal with the smaller ones. If you want extra security, perhaps smart, sending a monk with him would be ideal given that they cannot be disarmed during diplomatic trips. Not to mention since they don’t use magic they won’t attract too much attention to him while traveling.

Speaking of new hires, we found that naval commander for you. Her name is Chinami Aiga.

Apparently she used to be asked to help with the fishing endeavors around the docks. Wizardry aside her understanding of the ocean alone is reason enough to place her with the fleet. She comes from a fishing family who still know some of the old techniques of navigation, she can stick her foot in the water and tell you the currents, the fishing prospects, where in the ocean she is, and so on. She does not navigate by the stars, but by the currents. Fitting that someone with such an interest in the ocean is a hydromancer and aeromancer, or as the locals put it “cheating at fishing”. She apparently had a trick of just pulling fish out of the water, with the water. Very fresh fish from her stall. With these talents she can actually spot aquatic creatures miles out at sea if they’re of a large enough size for her to detect. I felt she has the potential to be an ideal naval commander, though it took some convincing to get her to accept the position.

It should be cautioned though, while she understands the ocean better then anyone she doesn’t fully understand the military. She spent the last week memorizing the chain of command…as in the names of the ranks. Chinami also has some issues sounding authoritative, all her commands sound more like suggestions from some cryptic old fisher woman. She needs more time to fully take command in a military capacity but I reason that it is easier to train her as a soldier then to train  a soldier in the arcane arts or the way of the sea, or any other combination. Essentially this fisher being taught about war is the fastest way to get what we’re after in a naval commander.

With our embassy projects completed I have easy access to the intel network for the rest of the alliance for major affairs. *looks down at Winter’s section* We may wish to withdraw from this alliance for the time being before we get pulled into that. We have our own problems here in the north, and it looks like the south is going to become very…messy.

In the meantime you should decide who will command the newly recruited soldiers. Finances are improving well at least. Also tunnel construction has hit what can only be described as “a bigger tunnel”. We have since halted the project and stationed guards at the entrance until you make a decision on what to do with this, because in that bigger tunnel were the same people from the strange castle. We lost about twenty workers in the ensuing retreat. To that end –

Sakki has been continuing to hang around the castle, he has actually made some headway on diplomacy somehow. Apparently, he seduced one of them and that’s how he got inside their castle. As to further demonstrate their savagery, they fed him Rakkel for dinner and considered it amusing. Their underground network is big…a lot bigger then we anticipated and every estimate we had about their population from watching from afar was very wrong. Underground they have a city the size of Sybaris. Attempting to siege this would be suicide for us, not only can we not get underground effectively but their numbers are quite high. Sakki did some math that I didn’t know he could do. They don’t know it, but they have a tunnel that goes right under our capital, and they harvest runoff from the very same lake we do when it flows underground.

Gideon has finished exploring the southern border of ice. Without any other standing orders he has opted to just wander off along the border to see what else he might see.

Layla has completed her project that was apparently designed with the help of Ankathi’s research in the village of Sarkisa. She has constructed a fairly large and…spiky building. I’m not even totally sure what it actually is but with the gold you sent her; Layla apparently hired a scholar of some sort to look into the art this monument was designed for. So…I guess we have someone new on the payroll.

The first, and potentially last, blackguard. Through consorting with the dark entities Layla’s Sanctum has produced a sort of knight imbued with dark powers. She is a terrifying warrior, equipped with the best arms and armor we could get ahold of thanks to the new trade route to the Nalkas. Layla says she would make a good commander but wasn’t exactly going to hire an army with her current funds. But according to her Nina has some sort of ability to affect her soldiers in a supernatural way to empower them.

I am wary of this, the way Nina was created was to consort with a much more powerful entity then our witches do but instead of trying to barter with it Nina has become a pawn to it. Avoiding the horrid death many of our aspiring coven witches do but simply submitting herself to those creatures in exchange for great power.

Nina herself is a very…I would describe her as intense personality. Her constant communion with some sort of dark entity has definitely affected her outward demeanor. She seems to have a sense of purpose though, and that causes her to behave perhaps erratically to our perspective. She refers to this entity as “master” and keeps pitching that we should meet with her master. Her loyalty to the throne might be subject to question depending what this entity’s designs are. Be very careful dealing with her, while you or I could deal with her should she rebel against the throne I fear it is actually if she doesn’t that we might be in the most precarious of situations.

((New monument unlocked: Sanctum
New unit unlocked, Blackguard 150g50m | 50g20m: Fully armed infernal knights with less utility then witches but are all-in on combat stats and warfare based abilities. Increases morale and defense scores of any army they command. Increases overall combat level of any army by +1 per soldier. Gains +1 combat power for every 5 enemy soldiers. Has +1 to morale shocks on enemy armies. Prone to downright evil and slightly erratic behavior.))

On to other affairs, here is the governor you wanted for Tethalyn. She’s a fine warrior in her own right, I figured she would be a good choice to govern a fortified city. She has a militaristic mindset demanding strength from her people, increasing the defensive behavior of whatever city she lurks within. As a person she’s quite regal and projects the air of nobility quite well, though is not good with kids given she abandoned her own after ‘doing her part’ for the nation’s reproduction problems.

Aside from all this, Areti has found her way to the front lines of battle between the orcs and the elves. Her report reads “It is a sea of bodies howling for blood as far as I can see. Every night the fires of their camp reach to the horizon. They throw themselves into the elven walls with a zeal for death and glory greater then our own. The elves are evacuating their people every day, they can’t hold this line much longer and they know it. Once this fortress falls the choke point between these two mountains will not be able to hold them back any longer and they will spread through our home forest.”

As for the defense of Tethalyn, the upgrades from Nalkas are still en route, though the first batch has arrived to be utilized for Marilena’s army. Ankathi and Rhea’s are on transit once again. The fighting near Tethalyn has begun, despite the reinforcements to Marilena Neyth doesn’t seem deterred. She instead opted to take on Ankathi and Rhea as they approached from the sides and ignore Marilena’s fortified position for the time being. Losses are already massive, fighting in the forest has given Neyth a significant advantage. Despite us controlling Tethalyn the area is still a familiar ground to the elves. Rhea’s army took the worst of it while Ankathi has just started burning the forest around her, using witchcraft to rot the woods and then set it alight as a defensive mechanism. The fighting still wages on in the form of guerilla warfare in the forests.

Interestingly, Amare has chimed on on this. Neyth is a radicalist, even more so then Amare herself who at least has that whole crucifixion thing to be angry about. That is the reason Neyth is the only commander here assaulting Tethalyn, while the rest remain to the east fighting the orcs. After discussing this with me Amare just flew off, not really sure what she is up to though.

Also Despoina found another village lurking out in the woods. This one is actually quite elven, and close by to the elves. Though seems to lack the flag of the Aywin nation. Perhaps an offshoot colony of some sort?

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. I should point out that while Iwanagi is a master at sea, you may want an actual wizard for commanding the fleet advantageously. Especially as we look into producing boats out of the new wood, enchanted boats are best wielded by a proper master of the arcane rather then a monk who is good at floating on the winds.

Also yes the diplomat is here.

A nice old man with a disarming smile. Actually I play go with him on weekends at the local tea house. He currently works as assistant to the local governance, has a knack for diffusing situations before they escalate. I feel he may be the man you are looking for, he isn’t much use in a fight so you will need to keep a retinue with him if he travels abroad but he is definitely an impressive wordsmith. He’s a decent man, concerned with fairness, justice, and good tea. Don’t offer him sake though, he likes to remain clear of mind. He is prone to spouting proverb style wisdom but this seems to impress most around him as to listen to what he has to say.

Also fear not, I have already been assembling the details of higher quality boats for you. It was definitely a first priority for us, including a quite interesting design…

((New unit unlocks:
T2 Warship 450g50m | 20g10m: 35 Naval Power
T2 Hunter Ship 450g50m | 20g10m: 15 Naval Power, 50 Naval power vs monsters
Dawnbreaker Galleon 1100g120m | 40g20m: 85 Naval Power – armed with ballista that can fire for miles into coastal hexes with ease.))

In regards to the temple and the monks, all they do is meditate and try to achieve nirvana as you say. So…they’re well on their way to that. I foresee that whatever this second tier of monk you prophesize might be found through trials and not mere self reflection.

On to Iwanagi, he has made landing at the fort along the coast. They do seem quite friendly actually and interested to meet with us, the fort is guarding a long line of docks along the inlet of water which acts as a trading locale. He describes their wealth as equivalent to ours and trade might be useful. He has been spending the day wandering around their market looking for things of interest to bring back to showcase.

As for the work at the isolationists, Kyoko describes the most vulnerable resource they have to be their water supply of the nearby lake. Their population is dependent on it and even though they don’t live far from areas with good rainfall they didn’t grow exploiting that and they live on the drier badlands side of the borders, so if the lake were to become undrinkable it would definitely hurt them. Though it is not clear if they could trade for that as it is a hard resource to ship. It would significantly reduce their population undoubtedly. Alternatively, Kyoko is pretty sure the denizens of the badlands don’t actually know about that artifact and that is of substantial value to raiders, not to mention it is concealing any other value that might have been causing the marauders to ignore it thus far. If they were to learn about it the isolationists would likely be driven out of their village or at least come to a state where they were in need of protection. As the least cutthroat option though, their metal resources come from a small mine and this is already something they don’t have in particularly great abundance. If the mine were collapsed it could take a little bit of time before they started to feel the pressure of lacking new iron income but it would inevitably effect them as things started to wear down.

The golems can’t really be upgraded so easily from one model of body to another. So we just made new ones out of the wood, its been a bit of a process of trial and error as wooden golems were considered an oudated idea but new materials resulted in some unforeseen results. The task was accomplished but probably not the most efficiently, but the whelps eventually figured it out. Also they might have burned about a hundred gold worth of the stuff just trying to get it to work.

The embassies have been attempted to set up after some negotiations and finding proper placement. Will be a bit before that all comes to fruition though what with some construction, fees, and traveling to be compiled. Though there have been no major issues thus far.

So it turns out that while we can send people who are less talented with mana to harvest at the coast to minimize their footprint, the problem remains that the mana they’re actually harvesting is what draws them in. Somewhere between five and fifty peasants were eaten, I haven’t taken a formal headcount yet. We do have defenses at the coastal setups but some of those monsters were a little on the larger side then expected – by an order of magnitude. I don’t even know why that thing was in such shallow water. It isn’t too bad as we can see them coming and move people to safety but progress is slow.

Also Sakki and Rakkel reached the castle bearing gifts. Yeah those people are pretty nasty, they killed Rakkel upon seeing her and almost killed Sakki as well. You should know as well as I do, killing Sakki is very very difficult. So even an ‘almost’ is pretty serious, apparently there was a lot of running around in the snow and Sakki only escaped through sheer dumb…okay through Sakki methods. We have reason to believe they intended to capture the two but they definitely were told to bring them in alive “if it is reasonably practical” if that is the case. They took the gifts though, it seems that despite how things have gone Sakki has managed to make a degree of contact with them. They are indeed subterranean experts, and not like us at all. We only lived in the tomb to hibernate until we could resurface, they seem to live down there full time. It should be noted they are technologically advanced compared to many others we have encountered out here, not quite to the degree as the reports from the Badlands but definitely a far cry from the primitives along the coast we dealt with.

Greetings Keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. Iwanagi has continued along his voyage to the south, he’s come across two coastal settlements. One seems to be another fishing village, but there is also a long stretch of land upon which a fort style city stands. They have a lot of boats in their harbor.

Technically, we would have leverage over the isolationists if any of their vital resources were to go missing. With their secluded nature they are self dependent because they have everything they need, so if any of those needs go missing it would be a problem for them. In the example of Salt, while yes it would work but abducting all the salt unseen would be harder then just slipping a note to Katara that some unruly fellows are over yonder.

Also yes the troops we stationed at the fishing village are to remain there until they might advance to more notable self sufficiency in defensive options against the forest monsters. In regards to all the other economic decisions and projects, we did the things.

Also the Ballista project, along with a few others, are underway as we explore the properties of this wood. To which end our new citizens have been adapting well, it is fortunate our territory is protected by the mountains so they can see the area without encountering any ne’er do well beasts from the outside to sate their curiosity. Also Kyoko is just hanging out in Okushiri now that she has returned from her ventures if you should need her to do anything else.

Ankathi has marched on the village as instructed. Casualties weren’t too bad on our end and the village has been effectively reduced to ruin in the fighting as they put up a good effort. The men are in the process of being dragged back kicking and screaming.

KouKou ventured off and found a fort up in the mountains. They are…better defended then most we encounter. Them being a fort on a mountain certainly helps that. According to KouKou they seem to be a gang hideout for some people who primarily roam the badlands. I couldn’t help but notice that the area around this fort is desolate. We’ve found quite a few villages throughout the forests as it supports life quite easily, but there are no settlements in a rather vast radius around this fort, at least not on our side of the mountains. KouKou said they seem a tad dangerous.

The army upgrades will take a bit just to ship down from the north so try not to get into too much trouble until it does. To that end, negotiations have broken down. While Marilena has escaped Commander Neyth, a chunk of her army did not. She is on retreat to Tethalyn though it is proving difficult given that Neyth is a druid and we are in a forest. I suspect our lack of political experience has somewhat hindered us in these negotiations and perhaps we should have asked the Oda to do this.  To be noted, while Marilena is retreating to Tethalyn, Ankathi is still away at the other village so there is no reinforcements there for her at this moment.

((new hire cards will be a bit late because I got sick and just moped around instead of doing them))

Tunnel construction has begun.

The thing with the whole “uses as little as mana as possible” is that little quirk where our entire race are literally mana eaters.

Raakel is on the way to meet up with Sakki. Bit of a trek though, give em a bit to get there. Gideon also has been sent to go poke around.

For the most part regarding the good wood, you see when a man loves a woman… Also its particularly good for wands and fortified walls. Though stone is still the go to for walls if you wanted to make a very expensive pallisade they’d be good at that. Due to their properties it is most notable that they have a conveniently cumulative effect on larger devices. Magic missile trebuchet anyone? Definitely expensive mana sinks to utilize this kind of thing though.

Also we’ve managed to get our capital territory expanded and taken control of a section of the coast, as requested some month or three ago.

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. We’ve managed to integrate our new tribal friends, they’ve taken a liking to our concept of clothes. Mostly because we have softer fabrics then they are used to. Quetzalli in particular seems to like them.

The island’s wood has already been seeing some harvesting as well as experiments in replanting it near ourselves for future operations as the island can only support so much of it. Beyond the wood and its people the island has fruits and of course more fishing ventures. Though nothing that stands out too much on a governance level, our local market just has more interesting food around now. So overall a good boost to the economy.

As for Kyoko’s affairs, it is questionable that we can actually provide anything of interest enough for them. Mostly because of their paranoid nature alongside their self sufficiency, this combination makes them rather insular and less interested in whatever anyone else might offer them.

Sooo negotiations aren’t going that well. It seems that since we let the ‘prisoners’ go they didn’t tell the best stories necessarily. It likely doesn’t help that Areti crucified Amare -who Ankathi informed us is an actual princess- in the public square. All we are in possession of is the city itself but space isn’t necessarily a big concern to them. I think they might be holding a bit of a grudge about that whole attack thing. It hasn’t completely fallen apart yet though, things are just a little rocky on the political front. Personally, I would advise sending one of our agents to find the orcs that we heard about to gauge what exactly it is they’re so concerned about.

Speaking of which, Aima has been caught and killed by an elven commander known as Neyth who was apparently in the process of moving her forces from deeper elven territory towards the rear after our invasion of Tethalyn.

And finally…Amare showed up here in Sybaris yesterday. With a letter from Ankathi, apparently Ankathi is up to something. She has requested me to keep Amare with the Coven for awhile and to show her some of what it is like with them. However, she sent a second letter through more traditional means, was a long list of details about Amare and a closing footnote that Ankathi knows where to find Amare’s son and requested Areti to scout in a certain direction. Ankathi apparently has already captured elves and begun experimenting on them in a basement in Tethalyn…suffice to say we should make sure the elves don’t find out about this and maybe reign her in before she does…Ankathi things.

According to KouKou, I am still surprised that’s a historical name, the village is less then compliant. Mostly because of the curse, I suppose that’s what one can expect when the chieftan and a bunch of the respected members of the community are older males. Tech wise they lack anything of value to us, though it seems the area they settled it is rich in resources so…financially speaking its not too bad of a place.

New…magical girls as you call them. Despoina is one of those more spiritually inclined types and has a good relationship with the otherworldly creatures witchcraft often communes with. By good I mean she is liable to kill people with an ethereal embodiment of pure spite. This constant consorting with such creatures has turned her perhaps a little mad. Though she isn’t dead so technically she is doing better then four fifths of those who attempt to do such things. Be wary, she is prone to bouts of violence. Not quite as dangerous as Ankathi but not exactly one of our best behaved for first contact.

To balance that out I found one of our more…lets say distinguished witches. Euterna is a bit classier though also a bit of a bookworm. She is effective enough to go into the field but expect her to go a little slower then the others as she likes to catalog things. Though I figure such deep scouting wouldn’t be too bad, might find some unique spots for harvesting herbs. I’m not actually sure where all her money comes from, we don’t exactly have many instances of hereditary wealth around here but she didn’t seem to even have a job before joining the coven.

Stories of Lore 5

Sakki reports that the village most definitely has a population larger then what we can see. Its minimalist structures are extremely fortified but there is no way so many people could live there comfortably and these people seem to be fairly affluent. Unlike the village we recently raided, there are adornments of valuable metals and stones on the inhabitants of this village. Though it might be more apt to call the village a castle. It is completely walled with a small court area, not quite a fortress city like we utilize, but if they’re underground they have definitely reduced how much they need to fortify. As mentioned before they are in possession of valuables, this wealth combined with such a relatively small area to fortify means it is ridiculously fortified. However, it is mostly fortified with monsters and perhaps bandits in mind. An organized force like ours could still crack it…we do have artillery after all. Sakki remains cautious as ordered and has had no direct contact with them, but notes they are close in appearance to the elves that were discovered to the south, albeit a bit of a different complexion.

The southern lake would be okay for a village as it has access to water and some degree of food. However, it is poor for us in particular due to how much we need mana. Without the mana infusion in the waters it would be a village that would need to import mana from our other locations just to keep the populace’s hunger for mana satiated. So it would definitely be a loss of mana to sustain it.

A wall of that size that doesn’t just get knocked down by some big monster that wants to pass through would cost approximately 1,425g per tile…at least thats what my notes say. No idea what a tile is. Though a wall of that strength and level of protection would be a steep investment, it might be cheaper and more effective to build a tunnel system instead. Given that a wall like that would be basically a tunnel anyways, might as well just put it underground to avoid the beasts that might muck it up trying to pass through it. I’d estimate the tunnel to be about 650g per tile.

Also the new agents are in.

As requested we looked for someone capable in the field of not dying and diplomatically gifted. On paper Raakel isn’t as talented as some of the other applicants, but she convinced your secretary that she was the best. So I guess by technicality that makes her the best at wordcraft.

Raakel can be described as ‘intense’. Her diplomatic method seems largely to consist of making others uncomfortable and/or nervous. We noted that she didn’t specifically rely on intimidating, just preyed on people’s desire for the meeting to be over with and causing them to miss details that add up in her favor over time. Outside of wordsmithing she is a wizard, gee who would have guessed. We seem to have a lot of those.

Gideon is an old veteran of wandering the world. He used to be a scout, then he was a college student, then he was a roaming monster hunter. He has years of experience, and mana keeps him quite spry in his old age. He takes a particular interest in travel and investigation. He’s not exactly as fight happy as Sakki but he’s definitely easy to set off. Something about having been in the wilds too long. I’d describe him as quiet with an explosive volatility. He’s an evoker and enchanter for the most part.

Salutations Keeper! Today is a beautiful day for the Oda people.

We had the monks test monster reaction to ki. We had to find beasts with less powerful noses, as they’ll just go for flesh if they’re hungry. In most cases it seems the monsters either cannot detect ki or do not care about it as it is not a food source to them. This is attributed to the success of our monks in the forest thus far since they have supernatural abilities to combat the larger monsters but don’t rely on mana for it thus making them invisible instead of beacons.

As a report regarding the island’s wood, it would actually make enchanted tiers of boat possible in the first place. It could also be used to enhance typical monk weapons, they are big fans of the staff and they require their weapons to be made of wood to channel their ki properly. Said wood could also have further utilization upon greater discovery of its potential. As more properties might reveal themselves through experimentation. Though in the immediate time, it could be used to sustain suitable enchantments on anything made primarily of wood. Generally enchantments are imbued into metal, but metal has a poor ability to store mana. Wood has a higher ability to store mana, but less durability to maintain enchantments. This particular wood could be said to be a more effective mana battery then most other options while being hard enough to sustain lower level enchantments, but higher levels then any other wood we have could utilize.

Kyoko has gotten the opportunity to investigate the temple by employing her…carpentry profession to repair and manage the temple. The temple itself is really more of a dungeon full of traps to protect the artifact rather then a place of worship. It is simply disguised as a place of worship. The artifact largely seems to work by making mana undetectable within its range, though it has a notable flaw in that it applies that to everyone. Which is why they have effectively no way to notice that Kyoko is even there with all of her illusion magic. Then again, they seem to believe she is a born and raised resident of a dead carpenter with a family. I’m still not quite sure how she did that part.

Another of our monastery monks, Yuzuki is actually a former bandit from the wilds before a robbery gone wrong in which she ambushed and was promptly caught by Shime. The monastery adopted her and gave her some semblance of direction. She refused to give up weapons even early in her training, which goes against standard monk practice because metal interrupts the flow of ki. However, she has pioneered techniques to make it useful and is something of an oddity. Pending the success of her adventures she may end up retiring back to the monastery to teach the others how her techniques work if they prove effective. For a monk she is a lot snappier and mean, along with arrogant. Though that comes from her childhood, and she is still quite a specimen of the monastery as a level headed and kind person. She just might insult you in particularly creative ways or start punching a lot quicker then most.

We took a moment to ask Yuzuki what she thinks might have happened to Shime, as the two of them were fairly close. Yuzuki being one of the only people who could understand Shime’s charades in their entirety. She did not give a very elaborate answer, her words were “She’s being a goody goody not an elf. She’ll pop back up someday.”

The one you wanted for a commander, champion of their native arena. He’s about seven feet tall and definitely has the advantage of an imposing presence that drives others to obey him. Though he’s not the best strategist, pretty great at just hitting things though and has a rudimentary understanding of the most basic strategic principles such as flanking, positioning, and charging. Most of the funds that go into hiring him seem to be utilized on food, turns out all that body mass needs a lot of sustenance.

A bit erratic, Ocunnohaka, is quite interested in working with us in whatever capacity required for him to go and travel the land in search of monsters and riches. He’s an adventurer at heart for sure, sometimes gets in a little over his head but what young adventurer doesn’t? He definitely has an appreciation for excitement and is talented with the bow in particular. He is sometimes perhaps a bit too energetic for my old bones to keep up with. Before we encountered them, he was a hunter among the tribe and mostly responsible for finding either meat or fish.

I suppose you could call her a princess, but her father’s position is not inherited but taken in trial by combat. Never the less, I suppose it helps to be the child of the chief however he got his position. She’s a clever girl, fairly used to dealing with people who want something from her due to her position. She does not trust us all that well as we are a new contact offering a whole new world they never knew about, so I suppose her hesitation is understandable.  What is curious though is we cannot tell exactly what kind of person she is yet. We know she has expressed some interest to marry Kaze, but the motive behind it is unclear. Because Kaze defeated her father, he is technically able to declare himself chief if he so desired. We don’t know if she is staying close to power or genuinely interested in looking over the integration carefully.

KouKou reports that the village is fairly mundane. Largely a group of people who settled there since it had the resources necessary for day to day life. Their culture is similar to the majority of the western coastline in terms of architecture, heritage, and language.

Layla has agreed to take on the role of governor over at the new village provided once she gets there she doesn’t have to do too much walking. She’s not much of a traveler now given the leg and all.

The settlements typically have their own defenses and locally sourced guards as needed, with said defenses depending on the population after all. After a bit of a push, we’ve been convincing people to embark on an exodus to the new village from Sybaris to help get it up and running. In the meantime however Vasi will likely need to continue to protect the new settlement.

Marilena arrived at the first elven city indicated to us by the others. I am told it is called Lennecas. Its population is notably higher then Tethalyn’s but it is also not a remnant like Tethalyn was.  So what it lacks in size and grandeur it makes up for by having actual people utilizing all of it. Its defenses are slightly better then Tethalyn’s proved to be but not by too much. Many of the refugees were led here so it is currently rather over crowded. Though while they have a larger garrison, they are not as well armed nor walled. Obviously, its full of elves.

As things would have it, all our effort on the horses have definitely yielded some results. Thanks to Takota and the village we’ve managed to train them to serve as battle mounts. They’re better at it then the beasts of burden we typically utilized since they’re faster.  Also see last updates for stuff about the armor we got from the Nalkas.