Well the new construction efforts restore more of it and make it a bit more spacious.

I should mention that building a station above Diadem, an uncontrolled and hostile location, requires shipping parts over there. We’re doing so but it will be awhile before they can even start construction there.

Upon moving to contest the pirates at Zenaka, the fleet encountered a threat we didn’t know was there. Andel’s warning proved correct, we can’t detect all of Asmodan’s fleet. It was hiding in the outskirts of the system waiting for our fleet to appear. The tactical intel has been updated, the first fleet was unable to enter the system. The pirates are wrapping around to cut off retreat as well. It appears they were waiting for our fleet so that they wouldn’t have to engage the planetary defenses. Typical siege stuff. The first fleet has sustained heavy losses and cannot retreat nor make it to Zenaka.

We are currently nowhere near figuring out how Nelta created those black holes. So that isn’t really an option. It is apparently related to sahad though New Age isn’t sure how to make a machine that does it. Though they are now concerned that if it can be done, then Decaelys definitely also knows how to do it.

The exploration teams sent after the Deimos have all lost contact. Whatever is out there, it holds to the stories that it is extremely territorial and aggressive. It is believed all three cruisers have been destroyed or worse.

The Pegasus was “found”. It’s was in the hands of some local pirates. It’s crew is believed to be stranded on some planet they may have stopped along on the way to Silnian space. The secondary explorer sent to find them escaped after sustaining heavy damage to both the ship and its crew. It was forced to make an emergency stop at an alien station. We have not heard from it since.

Our attempts to find Arkaric or the Black Library have led us to wrap around up to Zero North, since we know he was there at one point. So they’re still in transit but they’re taking ‘the long way’ around. Passing closer to Nelta space rather than risk going through the Western Reach or near the mysterious empire that keeps attacking anything that gets close to them.

Moncayo, Roha, the Hasao Tei, and the Heroes Guild are all experiencing an outbreak of mummy rot. It’s spreading rapidly through the populace. Local enforcement found evidence that it was deliberately added to a Vittles factory by an unknown agent posing as a refugee from the invasions. They match no known profiles, though security footage reveals the suspect had the disease themselves rather than transporting it. Food shipments have been recalled for inspection and all who handle transportation have been put into quarantine. The cities have been placed on lockdown as an immediate reponse. It would appear the Phantoms are growing more annoyed with us.

As you might have guessed, food just became a major issue again.

When it comes to nature rebelling, Eden is at least secure since she has total control over herself. Though she isn’t much of a druid beyond her own world. As a planar surgeon, a job title that never existed until just this moment, she can at least say that its definitely something Haziel is doing.

We’ve found another replacement succubus, turns out its surprisingly easy to get demons on board with wild schemes to gain power. Though we’ve gained some territory we’ve lost some of our forces on the ground. While the funding given to the prospective lords bought a lot of hardware they’re a bit short on manpower. Hina is doing the best on this front since she already had her mercenary team. Hina has acquired the most ground, though Quylla has lost the least forces. So a matter of effect versus efficiency between the two of them. Okazi is sort of in the middle at the moment and the new succubus is still being briefed and set up to enter the chaotic former territories of Valadeus.

In other pandem and demon related news, Kharla has been spotted in the old territories of Jvangard bringing things back in line. Obviously she intends to create a new demon lord herself, though now the territory is on fire because Kharla’s only setting is mass destruction.

Asmodan’s team are perhaps moving a little slower since he is otherwise preoccupied at Zenaka at the moment as far as we can tell.

Renjala still missing, more at eleven.

The voidforged do not have any special fabrics that the rest of us don’t already have. Also Kaylen reports they can’t update the prison defenses, Vasia built it and everyone who tries to modify it instead of following her very specific instructions tends to fall victim to the prison itself.

I’m starting to think nowhere is safe if I can’t go to Zanin either. There’s an outbreak in Moncayo right now, a crazed lunatic in Roha, and Enohas might just randomly piss off an entity that can delete planets from existence. Maybe I can lock myself in a box so Eden will let me hide in a basement in Garden city.

As for Sharen, they’ve always made their way by ‘investing’ in what they think will come out on top and otherwise staying out of conflicts. Dramatics aside, I don’t think its actually about who is winning or losing – we are losing by the way anyways. I think its about securing their own position, and not in the normal drow political sense. House Sharen has been in power as THE great house of Shetou for a thousand years. There is no way the Phantoms, an infiltration based group, do not have a way to keep tabs on them. If we could demonstrate an effective way to root out the  infiltrators of the Phantoms that would be a decisive enough play to at least get Sharen out of their paralyzed position. If they moved against the Phantoms now, they have good reason to fear their death would come from within.

The drones are acting fine so far. If anything they’re keeping the recent chaotic wild growths in check by eating it. Were not for Alexandria, Roha would be probably the most stable city in the midst of whatever planar shit is going on with the local wild life. Since if some fish gets uppity, the drones just eat it. If a plant grows out of the sidewalk, they eat that too. They are very thorough in finding aberrant growths and eating it since that is all they want to do anyways. It’s actually a byproduct of the way I told them what not to eat instead of “eat only these things”. Sooo my laziness saves the day?

You say to stop you from trying to do the same tech speedrun that the fallen civilization tried to do…you are speaking to the product of you trying to do that. We are in waaaay too deep to turn back now.

Speaking of which the scouts report that Kaisa’s target planet is…not as nefarious as we thought? It’s not another synapse or a planet full of puppies at least. It is instead a planet occupied by a militarized empire who took over several systems near themselves. In hindsight, we kind of forgot that Kaisa serves the last adventurer and he has final say in anything she comes up with. There’s an evil overlord, its our job to take them down and rescue the people I guess. Though despite the quest itself being pretty…questy…it of course wouldn’t be a Kaisa assignment if it was easy. The empire is a theocratic blah blah plots blah blah schemes – its fuckin Agallias. This is where he was building his own empire to serve the Phantoms and is worshipped as some otherworldly god. We’re…we’re gonna need more biomass.

VSEC cannot max warp us, its unique to the design of their ships. Also we went along to be the second wave just in case. Turns out that might be really important really soon given that they’re struggling with the pirates.

40th day reports that we technically have farms on all our colonies anyways. No maniac would have a remote colony sustained only by shipments from vittles during a galactic famine. Except Zanin, that’s a research facility with very few people on it. Though they need those farms to keep themselves afloat.

They also report we found something in NV147-3 Alpha, the water moon of Que. Sure you could totally eat some of this stuff, but more importantly they found evidence that something is or was down there among the ruins of the fallen civilization. We found something too newly constructed to be from the old ruins yet old enough to predate our own galactic awareness. It was a spear with a not-too-old spearhead. 40th Day thinks there is something or someone here. Though we can eat the fish, that too. At least I can, and so can humans dwarves orcs and demons. Elves maybe not so much.

The next step to confirming Setal as a demon lord is to meet with the council of lords and the Demon King and announce her candidacy. You aren’t a lord unless the king recognizes you as it were. Though once you pull the pin on that grenade, who knows what comes next. For now she’s just cementing herself as the leader of Zenaka.

Well we know how Decaelys does it, she just stops time in a specific pocket of space. Anything passing through it, if not sufficiently warded, will be caught in the spells effect. That is probably why she does it to stop incoming fire rather than just freeze the whole fleet, since ships have pretty powerful wards on them.

The Anti-FTL missile was actually fairly easy to prototype for Khymin. They just cost a few million credits per shot and they need to be launched from a carrier. They’re basically just small disposable starships. They also need to make it to the target and remain active. The latter part is the biggest complication, since they can be shot.

Si Yeon assures us that she didn’t infect herself to test the new weapon. Though she also just gave a quick excuse and left. I’m not a doctor but whenever someone keeps brushing off their illness and trying to ignore it, something is really wrong. Is she dying? Have I watched too many dramas?

We started making a test batch of that poison.

The observation program is proving fruitful. Just the caches alone are giving us a look into how the ring moves. It’s like there is a missing tile or two within its structure and everything kind of slots around one piece at a time to get any larger piece to where it needs to go. Also all the pieces tend to be double sided by using the same gravity generation method ships use…but in both directions. Up and down loses meaning within the ring.

After some autopsy’s we can say that their construction is quite advanced albeit not technologically superior to what we have available. It’s as if they are assembled with extremely deft hands that can keep everything together perfectly on a molecular scale so that once the finished robot is set loose it is actually quite robust and complex even if the battery isn’t exactly some strange alien technology that we’ve never heard of. Just really intricate construction.

The corpses left in the field don’t seem to go anywhere, though I have a hunch on that. I think there is some sort of salvaging system, but that it never comes up to the surface. As there are never any destroyed machines on any of the tiles that come up to get some sunlight. The theoretical scavengers may only live within the ring’s internal structure. Which coincides with Eleazor’s report that down there is very different. I would suggest there are multiple ecosystems throughout the ring, and the internal sections are a major part of that.

The mapping project combined with the caches have given us some notable data. It is currently theorized that while it is impossible to truly map due to its constantly moving nature, we are noticing certain sections are like boundaries. They never go past a certain point, and theoretically this is the limit of each exerlus’ control. Beyond those boundaries is the shifting domain of another part of the system.

So far we’re not doing great with non hostile contact. It seems everything is out to kill us. Though I theorize that has less to do with the machines and more to do with the fact that Eleazor made the exerlus pretty certain that it doesn’t like us. It could also just be a case of ‘if its not one of us, then its one of the others and we should kill it’.

So finding the other exerlus for diplomatic purposes will prove to be a bit difficult. We’re not even sure if we can find the one we already know about again. The scale of the labyrinth inside the ring is unfathomable. You could fit Thenica into the ring, and we just lived on the crust of that place. Imagine that, but several times larger and always shifting. Finding the exerlus inside of these areas will be a significant undertaking. We’re trying to basically invade a star system’s worth of shit for each section of this ring just to find the exerlus at the center of this mess. The main catch being that we can’t use ships inside the rings. The pattern in which the modules shift is also controlled by a sentient machine that can move them in the least convenient way possible for us.

The report from the first and second brigade is in. The Areti’s siege of the moon is dramatically more powerful than initially calculated, though that is likely due to it needing to pay little to no attention to defensive systems since we have no fleet or infrastructure out there. Also Faelyn’s entire fleet is hitting it and took no casualties reaching the moon, as such their initial estimates give them a month before it fails.

The fleet approaching Zenaka has spread out over the system and are disrupting space traffic, though we have a portal to get there so we’re not entirely sure what they’re up to. Though they are sticking out of range of the defenses for now. The natives are growing nervous though.

The fleets proceeded at maximum warp to Enohas to contest Decaelys. On the upside, it did stop her from whatever her original plan was. On the downside, they weren’t able to do anything to her directly. So remember how she can theoretically stop time? That includes the space directly in front of her. It was like that old movie with the guy who just holds up his hand and all the bullets stop in mid air. A brave shuttle pilot tried to ram her and discovered that the ship’s wards could protect from this effect which led to a chain of attempts to just run into her but space is big and she is more mobile in space than most. After destroying some of the fleet she just disappeared, likely into that fourth dimensional warp fuckery that we know she can do. So we lost a few dozen starships and stalled her yet again.

Kaylen reports that Song Yi has no interest in fighting the Areti. There was a much longer conversation, that Kaylen lost, but basically House Song’s only means of fighting the Areti would be with House Sharen’s fleet, which they are still withholding to observe the initial conflict with us and the Phantoms. Atop of which, since Faelyn is not a lich she isn’t on Song Yi’s priority list. It may also turn out that Song Yi is however not sitting around doing nothing. She’s looking for a way to deal with the terrasque as well as track it down.

Vittles reports that they can help in sending food to Preskian but not without straining the supplies for the Federation. Which are already a bit iffy, iffy enough that cyborg cultists are eating their own limbs down in Roha. With the druids gone to the Fae Wilds our supplies have started to dwindle, turns out that without Bill and the gang our crops are not doing so well. Eden is a single living planet but not one that bears much food, and Garden isn’t even built into any soil. Basically right now there isn’t much to spare. We could do so anyways for the sake of diplomatic relations but Vittles thought to ask real quick before they did that.

Speaking of the druids, people have been reporting strange occurrences across both Sol and the Federation. Trees are dying and normally docile animals are becoming more violent. Now I’m not saying Lancaster did something, but just something to keep in mind. I believe Irae will be paying closer attention to it.

Also I will note that I don’t think that Valen is particularly interested in affecting change so much as making money. She’s been reading a lot of news about the state of galactic affairs and suddenly taken a keen interest in having Vittles help her set up a farm on the land we gave her in Zenaka. She’s a bit of a wild card though if you’re hurting for capable soldiers I suppose she’ll have to do.

We’ve re-established contact with Eleazor, the ring sort of spat him back out. More so it rotated the section he was in to get it some sunlight and suddenly he was just…there. An emergency operation led by Madhammer retrieved him, Gunhild, and Laenadra. Who has lost another mech. Though debriefing reveals a lot of information.

The inner workings of the ringworld are impossibly vast and always shifting, but there is an entire ecosystem underneath the surface of the ringworld as well. The surface tiles that we see represent probably fourty five percent of the available sections within the ring that we will ever see on the surface. Modules that need to see the sun every once in awhile and are rotated out. However, these tiles make up a very small fraction of the other available tiles within the ring that have no intention of ever seeing the surface.

It is inhabited by even more creatures, and scarier ones too. Though they encountered something in there, something sapient. He described it as an ancient machine intelligence that told them the purpose of the ever shifting maze. Upon further analysis, the labs have concluded its an exerlus from consensus six. The creators of the ring found and captured one, using it for the basis of the technology that allowed them to build the ring world in the first place. This is also how the terlim machines were built. So it turns out that most of the galactic fuckups that civilization caused were because they got ahold of some crippled exerlus and tried to speedrun a few billion  years of technological advancement and then got a little too close to the sun on that one.

That aside, the ring is always moving because there is more than one of these exerlus within the ring, and they don’t get along. Their creations are constantly trying to fight for control of the ring but the constant shifting has to do with protecting itself from these invasions.

Gunhild was asking why Echo Prime left them here, since if she had the keys that absolutely means that the Echo Consensus knew about this place and knew what was in it. Eleazor supooses that it is exerlus policy not to mess with things that they have no business meddling with. Even if it is an exiled consensus being found inside of a ringworld that is factory producing robot monsters with laser beams on their heads.

Either way, Diadem is a battlefield between a few of these exerlus who are both too crippled to go punch each other and too outdated to fix themselves of their own volition. As the knowledge to repair themselves fully was deleted before the ringworld experiments began.

I suppose all you care about though, is that we have to either shut these exerlus down or get them out in order to get any section of the ring to stop moving erratically but if we do that it will be undefended from the other exerlus sending waves of mechanical monsters in. That was all the information Eleazor was able to get before getting kicked out after mentioning the key. The current theory is that the keys he has don’t give him admin access to the station. Echo Prime didn’t have anything so convenient, instead she just made him a flash drive that shuts off other exerlus. Because the one he was talking to was very unhappy to learn what he had.

It would seem that the absence of the druids is having a dramatic impact around the federation’s food supplies. Which I suppose we kind of saw coming but it was hard to convince them not to go on an epic adventure with the last archdruid. Though whatever they are doing, it’s causing erratic effects. With planar connections warping as Haziel does…whatever she is doing…things are not happening consistently but definitely abnormally.

It appears that all plants are starting to wither as if experiencing a sudden winter despite it not being all that cold. At least according to the local botanical scientists working for Vittles. Our fishing teams have reported that the native fish of the planet are growing more aggressive. Back in Thenica there are wild animals like rats just attacking people in their sleep and trying to bite them in the eye so that they’ll wake up too blind to fight back. Reportedly a few elves have been eaten alive by a swarm of rats. These are some of the extreme cases and it isn’t so universal that anyone else has really noticed the cause, but whatever Haziel is doing it isn’t a locally contained thing. The Fae Wilds are the higher plane from which much of what we understand as nature stems from, she’s altering the laws of nature and if she succeeds…well civilization might be about to take another hit across all of the galaxy. On the upside, my house plants are growing beautifully and a small sprout of basil I grow for spaghetti has now turned into a bush.

We’re not sure if this is all the result of Haziel intentionally doing something, or of what might be a war between the archdruid and something else. Though weather patterns back on Thenica are also growing strange, with lightning storms forming rapidly. Next week’s forecast predicts a flood at the ruins of what was once a capital city. Which isn’t too big of a deal since the city was already destroyed by Nelta, but it was not built in a place where a flood should be possible, and it hasn’t been for thousands of years. We’re safe from all of this here on Moncayo, the abyss doesn’t give a shit and we’re in a water bubble, but I thought you might find it interesting.

Our lordlings have gone forth into the territory of Ki’Ralcht. It was rough. Even with military assets at their side, Ki’Ralcht was already gearing for war with the Vloz invading Valadeus’ old territory. One of two succubi is dead already, killed by Ki’Ralcht herself with the aid of Asmodan’s pirates. Though we did score some ground through it all to establish a few camps they can operate from.

Aryn’s candidate having their shit together is exactly what makes them untrustworthy. You don’t make it far in the demon kingdom without stabbing a few backs and mauling a few fellows. We finally got their profiles sorted out if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

It’s a little difficult to help Charlotte with the Vivarium unless they want to build a new station for it. If they intend to put it on the Iron Cradle then we might have to wait for them to not be across the galaxy.

Rousing speech boss, I’m going to Zanin. We have a puddle there I can probably make a bit bigger. Alexandria just took over the administrative buildings and now controls Roha. Loyalists are being found dead in the streets every day as the inquisitors patrol. I sent Rhazin to ‘maintain the peace’. She sent him back in six pieces. Kaylen sent some boys over to see what was up, they can’t find Alexandria. Also I think you are correct to be suspicious that Alexandria isn’t entirely affiliated with Cassir directly. The other problem is she’s very sneaky, we can’t actually find her. Rhazin didn’t even see her coming before he woke up in the ichor lake. Though he can tell that he was impacted by a massive psionic attack from below the street he was walking down. There is a crater there that goes down to a sewer channel so that checks out. I’m starting to think this isn’t Cassir’s apprentice. Cassir was a cold bitch sure but she wasn’t cruel. She was also never very sneaky about anything she did, nor ruthless. At this point, I think it might have something more to do with Vasia than Cassir. That or maybe the Phantoms…actually maybe the Revenants. This is definitely in their MO.

Alexandria brought me cookies again and I’m just keeping my mouth shut. If they can take down Rhazin I’m not gonna try anything. She asked if you were going to stop by anytime soon.

If anything Kennae is a great example of an immortal that makes this linguistically confusing. He’s definitely not a higher sapience like Kanika even if he is biologically immortal through…protein shakes I guess? Though I don’t exactly have a phone to him, I just recap the things you said to me earlier this month for the sake of these monthly reports.

Though he did say that if he wanted to talk to Kaylen he could just go over to her, she’s not hard to find. He’s just got other things to do and he hopes she has better things to do than talk to him too. I get the feeling he was a surprisingly strict teacher.

He also mentioned that hiding in a fort will do little to help the jydoq people. Then a thirty minute ramble about the merits of zankou and being always prepared. Also he’s heading out to get back to work hunting the assassin and any other ne’er do wells he might come across.

Also given that you’re not having much luck, I’m gathering you have still yet to gain any foresight as to the assassin’s whereabouts. Does that mean they’re not paying attention to you or that they are still plotting a plan? I don’t know how your power works so I’m not sure at which stage of an assassination it would trigger. Can you tell from the moment they intend ill will upon you like Cassir or is it more of once they embark on a plan of action? That or is it just like that spider guy cartoon where you can tell two seconds before it hits in you the back of the head?

You know I can still taste things right? The taste just doesn’t have much meaning. Since I can taste everything in the synapse too. At this point its just a chemical receptor test to analyze the properties of an object rather than…flavor.

Also I doubt Song Yi has time to deal with your horrors. She is the guardian of ancient and terrible techniques and that is what she focuses on maintaining. Apparently she’s currently more concerned with Kanika’s lich-terrasque. Kennae is the one who fights injustice anywhere he finds it in any form like a warcrime seeking missile. Song is after necrocarnates, Kaylen is after Phantoms, and so on and so forth. I feel like Song Yi might be inclined to kill you too were not for the fact that she has a lot on her plate right now since she is hunting the biggest and baddest liches as well as us discovering dozens maybe even hundreds are out there working for Kanika.

-Renjala isn’t here to be the smoke alarm for a House Yi crusade. What are the chances she totally views my method of immortality as acceptable? I don’t *technically* alter their soul myself, I just give it my mind and my memories, and it just starts fitting better over time.

Drow actually do have dressing slaves, or more so servants who help them dress. That or whoever you live with. Standard practice in the morning for everyone to help one another with that. Those outfits are way too tight with way too many straps to do it all by yourself every day. Drow tend to lean between really loose and lazy clothes they can just throw on and ridiculously ornate things that somehow cover up even less but take two people to assemble every morning. At least the rich ones do. I just wore jeans but my mother liked to pretend to be fancy so I had to help her put that stuff on every day.

Craylin’s just curious, don’t mind her stalking people. She’s less than a few months old and being asked to live in a society that fears her for what she is. Let alone that creepy stare, so she just likes to go people watching to see what normal humanoids are like.

We know a really good assassin but counter assassin is a bit iffier. I suppose that is sort of your thing really but you have your own assassin after you. Nah Division is the next best bet. Vanjin especially.

We did a test of the FTL trap, it takes a lot of mana but New Age can actually do it. Granted it also takes a huge rig to do so and we can’t get it as big as Decaelys could. However, could just put it in a missile if we wanted to.

Si Yeon has been sick for the last few weeks so she doesn’t have much research to report. I’m not sure how sick but if it lasts that long it’s kind of odd. She still shows up to the labs but spends most of the time in her office or the bathroom in her office. She didn’t say it but I can’t help but remember that those who were infected by the parasite shouldn’t be able to get sick. At least not for too long.

Though she did report some success making a toxin that interrupts mana flow. Sort of an accident, she was going for mana drain but instead it does a little bit a drain and a lot of disruption. Disables casting though it has an issue in overcoming super resistances to poison. For example, undead who have no bloodstream or Eliza who just casually eats diseases like eleven essential herbs and spices. Would have worked on Illdath though, thirty seventy if it does anything to something like Decaelys. We have no dragons to experiment on but it might outright kill them given how magical their biology is.

ARC is on its way to Enohas to fight Decaelys but it takes a bit to get there. Sounds like it’ll be all wrapped up by the time they do.

Allison figured out whats happening on Thenica. Eliza isn’t with the Jaal’Darya at the moment. She’s what the Phantoms are moving. Though we don’t know where she’s going or why. While she was at it she also uncovered that Eliza, having been left to her own devices with Kanika’s research budget for so long, has become something…else. Dazzle has the strength of a dragon now, and Eliza herself is said to have gone even further. She is on Eden’s level as a surgeon, but instead of changing people’s native planes she can change their race. To anything she has an existing sample of.

As for House Beldobaan, we’ve learned that their house’s neutrality has cost them economically over the years. It is less so that Yasrena is what she is, and more so that the board was just reset in the recent invasions. Beldobaan has clung to power in irrelevance by hiding behind their neutrality so no one would even notice the gaping holes in their influence in the modern day. They are the weakest great house because they were the least aggressive in any way shape or form. Sharen’s dominance comes from economic aggression and so forth.

So it seems that they’re concocting a plan to get back on the playing board, they chose to be neutral at a very bad time. The industrial revolution just passed them by and they’ve been struggling to keep up ever since but you’d never know it since they are so secretive behind their walls. Yasrena represents a good shot for them to do that. The Yochlol thing presents a great front for the real reason, Kanika and the Phantoms can do what Beldobaan wishes they could. They’re not looking for the old ways, they’re looking for an ‘in’ to the Phantoms so they can get some assistance in restoring their power with the front of traditional values to leave themselves a little wiggle room.

This stems from one more complication. Historically it has been noticed that people tend not to mess with them despite them holding good lands. It turns out their matriarch was married into the house a long time ago and slowly but silently rose to power and became the matriarch by basically killing the previous one, as drow tend to do. However, before she married into Beldobaan, she was a Vloz. The reason people tended not to mess with Beldobaan is that Kharla just happened to keep turning all of Beldobaan’s rivals into dolls if they got anywhere near that matriarch since it is Kharla’s cousin. As we know, Kharla has a whole thing about blood relatives and making sure no one touches them.

So this puts Beldobaan in an awkward position. Their hidden ties to Kharla keeps them safe but Kharla isn’t exactly pushing drow politics forward. Without Kharla, House Vloz would be a bit of a joke given how old and backwards they are. They only maintain relevance because Kharla is the most powerful drow in Sol and perhaps to ever live. If even Kanika is wary of crossing paths with Kharla, that’s a clear sign that Kharla is not to be trifled with. So if they maintain their neutrality with the hidden threat that Kharla might come beat the Phantoms up if they get too uppity, they’ll be in a really bad spot if Kharla ever dies. A distinct possibility with how crazy she is. However, if they outwardly and immediately side with Yasrena they could anger Kharla who has quietly protected them for quite some while now.

The Matriarch of Beldobaan is playing it slow not to feel things out, which fits in theme with their house’s image, but to find Kharla and try to talk to her. Since Kharla was just evacuated to the demon kingdom after the Revenant attack, she’s become extremely difficult to gain access to.

We may have just uncovered a conspiracy that could rock the drow world and the many layers on which they’re all playing to try and get ahead of twenty different problems in a month. I suppose that’s why you’re the leader of the division, but damn sir that was fast.

We have conducted a minimally invasive survey of the flora and robofauna. It appears their designs are organically based, and I suspect there was once life here or somewhere nearby…or that they encountered in a database somewhere. Though the consistency in form shows intention, it isn’t random assembly chaos to see what works. That’s important because it means wherever they’re coming from, they’re being designed by something with a much larger brain. Though I don’t know why it wouldn’t imbue the same properties into its creations or network them into a consensus properly. There is also a consistency in some models, but a high variety of them. Though each model is exactly the same as any other in its species. No serial numbers though. Thank you for the abundance of samples Chevalier.

Vanessa and Adrienne have been conducting stealth surveys to see what they do when we aren’t looking. They do very much hunt and play, they even seem to have packs that can distinguish each other somehow despite the seemingly identical construction and the complete lack of data transmission methods. They have scars, wear and tear, and with that they can visually distinguish one another. Though Adrienne says they exhibit personalities, and that is how she can tell a specific one apart from the group. It hurries to its destinations with more urgency than the others but for no practical reason.

We don’t know where they get their energy from. We aren’t sure but it is reasonable to suspect they are solar powered by how much they like to sit in the sun. Though we have also seen species that eat other machines and consume specifically their battery cells.

In all, they’re alive as much as any other animal but with different biological functions and so far no observed methods of reproducing. They come from somewhere in the ring’s labyrinth and we don’t know why they are so heavily armed. Though we do see territorial tribal skirmishes in some species, and notably the different tribes are usually similar but different species.

Also, we may need to alert volunteers that there is a chance we don’t ever see them again. Due to the shifting labyrinth that is this ringworld, it is likely that any camp we set up could disappear beneath the ring for centuries, depends how long this project takes. We already lost a few camps to this phenomena.

Stories of Lore 47

Diplomatic proceedings have moved forward with an Alnae warlord known as General Preskian, an elf of course. They hold mostly what is the former state of Iothaes. I’d describe them as the least evil at least, also struggling the most.

Laesaaria and Shetou are not really the type to tell us if they actually do need anything. Though we do know drow are always in a state of violent acquisition, the famine definitely took a toll on their population but they barely seem to notice the difference in day to day affairs. Cannibal elves in Alnae are a whole thing that makes everyone worried, drow murdering each other for scraps is sort of a regular day. So its harder to tell what they would need and they aren’t inclined to tell us due to that whole ‘we’re better than everyone’ thing they have going on sometimes. Might need to infiltrate them just to figure out what their issues even are.

As requested we’ve made contact with Valen. She proves to be a bit of a haggler. While we know the standard pay rate she points out that she has her own team to keep operating as well as equipment. So she’s questioning if we supply the equipment or the funding to buy equipment and whether or not that’s included in the initial paycheck as well as various potential benefits packages. That and she pointed out that if we are trying to establish an exclusivity contract with her she wants a series of land plots in the area of Zenaka we hold alongside a house in Moncayo. Then stated if we wanted her to formally join VSEC, she refuses to wear an outfit or do any other manner of behaviors associated with our military. Normally I wouldn’t mention all this but as Renjala often said, if you don’t hire them you’ll be fighting them. I think she is weighing contracts against one another given all the effort she’s been going through to make a name for herself among solian powers. I do know from background checks that she does have a tendency to make some…vulgar statements towards the VSEC occupation of Zenaka. Though she does the same towards almost everyone. Do with that what you will.

As for other diplomatic ventures, who is Masa? That and define ‘not psycho’ because Haleh is a raider turned pirate working for Rahlken right now.

Thunderstrike-4’s originally came from Alnae, actually one of the warlords has the old facility though its not in production at the moment. If we were to place a large order and maybe help with supplying it they could be inclined to get it up and running again.

The knights went to the new arcane moon and set up as requested while the fleet is headed towards Auwana. Though not long afterwards we detected an unknown fleet moving towards Zenaka. Allison from Tyne’s division reported that there have been odd movements across Thenica. Worth remembering we have a permanent portal between it and Moncayo. The rift to the Warrens is closed and the Areti is bombarding the knights at the new moon. Also it turns out that Decaelys and her cult are not with the Areti, and also since they are small and person sized we didn’t really pick up anything on the scanners. Technically we should have if they had the mass of mana that creates a jesai ship, but Decaelys is can apparently build her ship right on top of Enohas by using the radiation from the arcane moon itself. The nearby station of Renjala’s construction was crippled during her arrival.

Speaking of Paizarus, the sweep for Solvang ships actually hasn’t turned up anything. They seem to have been content to just leave once they picked up Asmodan. Though that might be what is approaching Zenaka.

Meanwhile the latest report from Diadem is that they have retreated most of their forces back onto the fleet after significant losses. They have managed to re-establish contact with Eleazor and Gunhild but cannot figure out how to get them out of the ring. It’s so colossal that the ever-shifting mechanisms with in it are like watching continents rearrange themselves. Eleazor says that he and Gunhild are alright but very lost, and have abandoned searching for any sort of control room. They’re doing alright on food by eating the strangest stuff they keep finding, it turns out within the ring is somewhat overgrown due to the constant flipping of the external plates depositing organic material inside. Given how old Diadem is, native life forms have evolved. The fleet is on standby to extract Eleazor and Gunhild if they get pushed out into the surface layers at any point but for now they are stranded inside of a living hostile super-station. Eleazor said support would be nice.

As an update, Kaylen’s back from Thenica after hunting down another Phantom colony and burning it down if you still wanted her to go talk to some people for…well Lancaster technically but you’re the one that is here right now.

We might want to hold off on repopulating Jamalia. VSEC just left to stop Faelyn again but Decaelys wasn’t with her. The ol’ distraction strategy. I’m not sure what will be left of Enohas if its moon just disappears. Also now that Decaelys is there, we can’t create a rift in or out of the area since she can either ward it or learn it.

Meanwhile in the demon kingdom. Our four candidates have been sent into the chaos though it is likely both Phantom and Vloz’Khress influences are there as well. Not to mention just rogue demons looking for a shot. The first major issue is that the Vloz sent Aikane, partially to investigate Jvangard’s death as well as guide any potential new candidates while making sure no one else gets a foothold besides those aligned with Vloz interests. Ecsanul and some other larger demons are there as well. Aikane is also trying to maintain the area to prevent it from turning into another bandit kingdom. This is at odds with what a few others are up to but seeing as Vloz ruled the area they’ve had an easier time getting things under control. At the same time, what we theorize to be one of Asmodan’s people are also there looking to destabilize it instead. Our candidates have been preying on stragglers as they can but by comparison Aikane took out several other greater demons already for ‘disturbing the peace’.

All this is to say that our four candidates are able to make some progress with our help on becoming greater demons but its a struggle. A chaotic demon territory is fairly violent and most of our knights were recalled awhile ago when we learned they were likely being watched. Now there is a shapeshifting demon lord patrolling the area and if she finds out we’re there our candidates won’t make it out.

So either they can go into the deeper parts of the territory for better use of their time while contending with other big demons who don’t need the promise of some outside force to do the exact same thing, or stay on the outskirts until someone mellows out the territory but will still be a ways off of being ready to push for demon lord. With the exception of Aryn’s candidate…they’re doing fine. Though they might not be entirely trustworthy.

Also to note, back in Valadeus’ territory Ki’Ralcht has taken over the largest share of his assets. While she is an abyssal and not really a candidate for a demon lord, I don’t think the Phantoms are planning on that. She just happens to know the most about his holdings and has the ability to keep them under control while Asmodan does whatever nefarious scheme he’s up to.

We’ve begun construction on the Iron Cradle for a portal and also sent it through to Diadem as requested.

They’re called acolytes until you win the challenge. Ritualists, cultists, and followers are the yoga moms in the circle. The acolytes actually fight though still have a way to go. Inquisitors would be people at Cassir’s rank. All of them follow the other potential cult leader who is ready to slap your shit. They just killed the other girls who were once associated with your old body and their speech was something to do with ‘oh look who isn’t here where the rest of us are’ and now they’re the leader of the Roha branch by default due to a lack of candidates. She’s an inquisitor, and all the other inquisitors work for her. She goes by Lord Inquisitor Alexandrea. She turned all her ritualists into acolytes. So you know she has also been by the ichor lake to talk with me. It was just a ‘getting to know each other’ conversation though I can tell she’s taking steps to position herself favorably with me. I’m going to be honest too, it’s kind of working. She brought me cookies. Remember how Cassir’s problem was a lack of direction or ambition so she just kind of did whatever we asked? Alexandrea has the opposite problem. The longer  you’re at Jydoq the more they’re probably going to take over Roha. I’d stop them buuut…well you see I had my head cut off and the doctor said I should just take it easy for a bit.

Aryn says she’s not technically cheating but she’s curious if it sounds racist to point out she’s a daiheb cyborg. So she’s a bit more capable at this kind of thing.

Suicidal people aren’t exactly lining up to be science experiments.

Calm down, Song Yi is clearly going to kill Renjala first so you can use that as a warning that she’s coming.

We could send the Yelay to the Iron Cradle. Charlotte seems to want to make a new vivarium.

Scout ships are on the way to see what exactly Kaisa is throwing us at.

The FTL trap would need a ritual with about as much mana as a cruiser can produce with its reactors per hundred kilometers. For comparison…Decaelys did one that would take all of Lancaster’s fleet to recreate. Space god and all.

Mana bomb? I assume you’re talking about the burst spell that Vasia was working on. In which case…sketchy. Kind of. See it keeps killing people who try to use it for kind of meh effect all things considered. Making progress though.

As for assessing Asmodan’s fleet, that might be a job for Nah or at least Allison. I have no way to check on it.

I understood none of that archmage talk. I just know Laesaaria and Yasrena are famously some of the best. At least until we discovered Sakhessa. I thought archmages just got their degree then went to work for some company? Also what do you mean despite how I treat you? I knit you sweaters all the time, well I used to buy them but Craylin has been working on arts and crafts with me. So the last few were mine.

The university syllabus is still being worked on, we got a year before its a good time to start a school year anyways.

As for power hungry, yes. Everyone always has a rationale for it but that doesn’t change that they covet power. Thus making them power hungry. Even if that power would let you save the world you still have to do certain things to get that power. There is a reason they say power corrupts. You simply cannot acquire that power purely through good deeds and happy thoughts. Even when your goal is to do good,  you must do what must be done to gain the power to do so. Such is the cycle of the corrupting effects of power. For example, do you want to keep control of the cult and Roha? To do so you must kill the most promising of Cassir’s apprentices who has the most vision for the cult. You keep the power, but you kill their last vestiges of hope that Cassir once gave them.

Can you even kill them? Unlike you they’re combat ready, as brutal and savage as Cassir was. What would you need to do to kill them and keep your power if you can’t defeat them as you are? If you desire the power to defeat them, perhaps you will once again do something…questionable.

Though if you don’t…well this Lord Inquisitor seems like a bit of a monster in her own right. She too has done what must be done to take power of the cult. Meanwhile, I just dress up my cat and hang out by the lake. I’ve done nothing too terrible, so I am relegated to being just a glorified secretary to my own synapse. If I wanted, I could control you and take over everything you have…but that might be a little amoral.

Kennae says that the skills of a good leader and surviving an assassination aren’t that different. Something something old lizard wisdom. Basically he believes everyone should think like a zankist and they have their own cult thing going on about how ‘everything is zankou’ so instead a leader should learn a series of useful skills like patience, observation, and so on. Also he hasn’t seen Kaylen in a long time.

I suppose as a briefing if you really intend to go to Beldobaan territory, you should know that they’re much quieter than most drow. They thrive on obscurity to an extreme, this might actually make it very difficult to get any information out of them. They do not divulge personal information easily. The Matriarch has not been seen since the invasion, and before those it had been about twenty years. She only appears to consult the masses during times of major events. Beldobaan is a very old house who have previously utilized their neutrality to keep their heads low while working primarily on civil infrastructure. They’re actually one of the less aggressive houses in Shetou in theory. Though we have reason to believe their assassins are second to none, and you just don’t hear about it when they do make a move. Though that is all only true of their deep territories, ones ruled very directly by the house. It is large enough to possess several other locations under its rule, and these places tend to be a little bit wild. Since Beldobaan doesn’t get involved unless absolutely necessary, Kylia for example is a lawless pirate paradise full of people so rebellious they can’t even speak common correctly. It’s where Allison is from.

However, their outliers are probably not what you’re after, so I’ll keep to the core of the Great House. We know it receives tribute from several of its minor houses but even they don’t know what all that money necessarily goes to. It just sometimes comes back for civil infrastructure unannounced. To be honest, to get close to the Vals of Beldobaan you might have to marry into them and even then it’ll be difficult due to their reclusive nature.

The pirate monitoring Allison has been working on suggests a few things. First that Asmodan’s fleet is being built up in the demon kingdom. Second that his new flagship is actually under construction right now at Riftgard back in Auwana.

Ha ha! We’re off on our first federation gig. Apparently our mission, should we choose to accept it, is…conquer a ringwor-holy shit thats a big space station. Full of robot monsters. According to my data, humanoids find other humanoids with pets to be more trustworthy. Clearly we must tame these monsters and put them in every pet store on the cradle!

That and there is the legitimate issue that this place is crazy. Millions of years left to soak up power from the sun and prepare for a journey beyond the galaxy that never happened. We’ve only just gotten clearance to begin mass production for warforged of the more violent models. We will need to place our resources carefully on this one and dispatch our forces intelligently to minimize losses until we have more to work with. Arsene is back at VSEC offices in a big armchair. Great start.

To survey the situation, it’s a ringworld. A ring large enough to encompass a star, its a small star but its a star none the less. One of Lancaster’s cronies got the keys to this sweet ride and upon attempting to move in they discovered that its overrun by robot monsters that are really kind of like us but less sapient and more stupid. The ring itself can shift into different configurations, apparently that was their solution to it being permanently exposed to a star. That’s what they came up with instead of umbrellas. Also that makes the interior an impossible to navigate labyrinth but at the end of that maze is the control room we need to plug the keys into. Without doing so, it is difficult to establish a permanent portal here.

Judging by the sheer size of this place, this might be a multi generational project to get full control of the ring even if we get access to the controls. Let alone to populate it. Right now some of Lancaster’s fleet is standing by but the guy with the keys specifically is trapped within the ring’s labyrinth and can’t get out. Since he has the keys, it would be ideal to find his body at the minimum.

So far the roaming robots are equipped with cannons, missiles, machine guns

As for more ship style warforged uhhh…sure I can try. One turned into a benevolent omniscience with a holier than thou complex and the other is now a depressed vsec secretary so roll the dice and lets see what we get! Oooonce I get ahold of a big enough ship. It has to be awesome.

As for expanding our potential populace we have some stroke of luck there. Right now due to the famine and all the other issues, people are generally happier to emigrate than usual. Bonus, living with a bunch of killer robots doesn’t seem so bad when your other options are a bunch of werewolves, a giant black puddle that spits out alien monsters, and *shudders* Moncayo. So we’re not terribly unappealing and this was a space station used for warforged production by humanoids so we could theoretically restore the life support to the ship interior. All those weird things we built on the outside of the ship maybe not so much. However, food production might be an issue.