Tall Tales 6

I contacted John, by the time we reach Wallhalla he should hopefully have passage secured down to Yankton ahead of our arrival and I imagine he’s on his way down the river by now to look around for us over there. Though hopefully his presence is well met in Yankton, harrowed like him are sometimes looked down on by fancier folk than us. Especially with how messed up his face is.

We went after the shiyo, who apparently has a name and is a archenemy of Colonel Bennet. We did not succeed, he ambushed Noel then Bennet made us leave so he could fight the shiyo mano a mano. Rangers are such bleeding hearts. Also with Noel taken out like that odds are we weren’t going to do so well unless we rolled out Amber’s trackless train thing to run it over.

Through the Andorah clan we’ve learned that it is apparently remaining in the area despite…tensions that have no doubt formed between us. His name is Sewati and he’s kind of like Shiyo’s very own me. Just trying to get a job done and having to sort through a bunch of bullshit to do so. That and he eats people. So…the forest is pretty dangerous for me right now since I think he hates me after all this. Good times.

Apparently someone from Andorah let slip that we may or may not have a critical piece of evidence to an interesting statement- Lara. We have a Lara and he doesn’t know about her, but he would like to. So we can barter that. Also an entire warband of Shiyo are coming to the territory now after all this to potentially destroy Rapidvale since we pissed them off but they’re willing to hold off to see if we can get information on the location of the bandits since they are also very curious to know that, as that is their primary mission despite how much they hate us right now.

Atop of all this, Bennet is injured but still kicking and having Amber do some repairs on him. Though now it looks like he’s sticking around for a bit oh and he summoned his own personal platoon from Fort James who are on their way. He deems Sewati to be that big of a threat, but Sewati isn’t leaving because he has business here. Basically Bennet is taking on the impossible mission of killing Sewati and Sewati is on the impossible mission of trying to do his original task while in hostile territory that is slowly turning into a battlefield as everyone races to gain a position of control over the area to deal with the other guy calling in reinforcements too.

Move to a small town they said, it’s quiet and uneventful they said.

Anyways, have fun in Yankton I’ll uh…juggle all this as best I can.

I’ve been asking around some local tribes about this shiyo they call Sewati. Apparently he’s the equivalent of Colonel Bennet but for the Shiyo. A respected and powerful commander that still has to run around and get things done for people slightly more powerful and respected. Wait a minute did I just describe myself…oh no you’re right I don’t command anyone anymore. Now I’m kind of sad.

Anyways, I’m alright after the failed hunt but Rohaka is ill again. We panicked and brought Alihana but then the whole showdown with the ranger colonel happened instead. Wasn’t really the wrong decision though, Sewati is very dangerous. Have fun in Yankton, I’ll be here keeping an eye out for shiyo scouts and maybe war parties.

White people are complicated.

So Sahkyo was released…and now the shiyo has Noel instead. Also there is the matter of Halona messing up the whole plan to save Sahkyo. See this is why dealing with the Shiyo is taboo. You do one little thing to save your own life and then it gets really complicated and dangerous after that. Now Sewati is setting up camp for a longer stay, bringing in a war party for protection, trying to barter with the people who just tried to kill him because he’s out of options, and we’re trying to not get eaten by him in the process. To borrow an expression from your people, fuckin wendigos man.

With Noel captured, someone from the Andorah clan of Rapidvale have negotiated for her release but Sewati wants information on the location of the bandits we’ve been after in exchange. Which we also want, so that’s making things kind of awkward and difficult.

There’s another problem with all this. Noel outranks me and no one other than us two know you exist. Her last standing order was that no one leaves until she says so, and if she can’t say so….well people are more scared of her than they are trusting of me since they don’t know the two of us just relay things from you. Now that would be fine if that was all there was to it, they would work with me in her absence were not for the fact that her orders were extremely clear on their motive. She doesn’t want the rangers to find out about you basically. Problem is they’re bringing in reinforcements now and Bennet is still at Rapidvale, so we’re still on high alert. So now they’re on even higher alert because your lunatic daughter will absolutely start doing public executions around here if they disobey her when she’s like this. From one father to another, I feel like you should hug her more often. Even if you’re a disgusting mass of mutated flesh.

Now if you don’t mind I will be rummaging the vault for relics, I may be a howler but I’m old and now I have to go out there myself since we’re missing Noel. Oh also figure out what you want to do with Halona, he never came back but I know where he is. The young think they’re so clever, forgot I’m the original howler that taught them everything they know.  Anyways I’m borrowing the lantern.

Yes I know how to use it. Noel teaches me stuff too you know. No daddy I won’t lose it, no one is using it anyways.

Well Grimold saved Bennet’s life and started bartering with the shiyo. Apparently we’re not supposed to do that but Grimold kind of just…does things sometimes. He doesn’t really care that much if they kill Noel but he said he figured we’d prefer to have options rather than just let her die. I suppose now he’s the liaison to the Shiyo tribe for Rapidvale since I doubt anyone else is surviving the attempt at playing messenger.

Yes it is a tribe now, this shiyo, named Sewati, summoned backup upon learning that we were planning to betray him. More are on the way and he is entrenching his position until we can all work everything out. Whether by killing each other or not, he’s stuck here for awhile anyways since one of the things he wants we don’t have yet and one of the other things he wants we…also don’t have yet. That Hunwe girl can only pop out of the other Hunwe girl once every so often. Grimold is a hell of a negotiator if he got a ravenous man eating monster to sit down and chill for a bit while we get our affairs in order.

Shen’s missing half of his torso but he’ll be okay. Didn’t lose his heart after all, just gotta…let all that mess heal. Which takes awhile at that level of damage. Actually all things considered we came out of this pretty well. The Reclaimers appear to have suffered the most actual losses but all we lost was a quarter of Shen. This might be the first time I’ve ever seen him not too keen on a rematch though, so maybe a piece of his confidence got lost too.

As for our trip to New Orleans, we might as well go to Yankton first if that’s the plan. It’s on the way and along the same river, so we’ll get a ferry down to Yankton then another one down to New Orleans. I’ve tasked Grimold with finding some voodoo herbs from the miasma, us being from the north helps as well. That and he’s weirdly good with plants, I swear he has tried to smoke everything in the forest at least once. So he knows a lot of plants. It should do as a gift, northern miasma herbs and all should be rare down there.

Amber:

Tall Tales 5

I met with ‘the rangers’ which turned out to be Colonel Bennet, the guy in charge of Fort James to the southeast. He had a lot of words of advice on how to deal with some of our bandit issues though no direct contribution of men to the cause. Though the rangers tend to operate in small teams to deal with individual problems rather than going into battle. However he did mention how to get the army to help us if we were to get into the good graces of the territory’s governor. Which might go in hand with Hunwe’s plans for tax evasion…or perhaps be a more profitable option than allying with Bowman. Either way, the current office of the territory is in Yankton which isn’t too hard to reach. Once we get to Wallhalla we could get a ferry ride down to there which is cheap compared to an airship. It can be reached by rail as well but only by going through the miasma but it looks like the iron road currently still connects down there according to Noel’s adventures. Though he did offer to help with the shiyo if we want to take that thing down. Which could probably save a lot of our lives at least. However…Colonel Bennet is very good at this sort of thing and is likely to succeed. Which would put perhaps unwanted attention on the removal of the Shiyo in regards to Hunwe’s tax evasion plans as he would report it’s death as confirmed.

While he’d be a very useful friend to have, who has many similar appreciations for the strange as we do, he is directly tied to the federal government. Having his personal notice would make it very hard to do things discreetly. His rangers already pass through regularly enough just on the way to the miasma so it would be hard even for us to tell how much information they were paying attention to while passing through. If we aligned with the governor

John has been asking around about the bandits, some tall tales and rumors but little in the way of actionable information. All we know is that the southern tribes might know more and that Colonel Bennett at least knows who they are and what they’re doing but not where they come from. Granted, Holloway still promises that he knows where they come from if we help with the tax scheme. I suspect Arrun is tracking them as well and that was why he wanted to get in touch with this “Renwick” fellow. The governor might be able to help as well since he has obvious connections to…well the federal government. Whoever these bandits are they’re a nuisance to a great many people but have managed to stay away from public notice or investigation. So we the only people that can help are decidedly more invested in larger swathes of territory that they might be affecting.

Lara and Hailey have been sent to go tour the miasma for any signs of anything interesting related to the bandits but given that they travel on the iron road they could have come from across the country. Though we did kill most of them so there is always the hope that was the last of them right?

Holloway, the representative of who knows who, definitely seem interested in our offer. Though the rangers have made an appearance at Rapidvale that Kathryn notes might disrupt our plans depending how we play it out. According to her this particular ranger is of high regard among his kind, though is liable to report any ongoing activity in the miasma if not deal with it if we were to report it as being ‘too dangerous for tax collection’. While he doesn’t seem expressly interested in the ongoing conflict between Bowman and these taxman, getting further involved with the government could change any levels of support the town receives – and thus observation.

More importantly, if Lara were to act as a substitute wendigo, this particular man could kill her. If Kathryn is to be believed, he might even be able to kill me. Though he isn’t hostile it is a potential complication to the plan to account for. I believe there will be many more as Mayor Loov’s recent revelation of the town’s inhabitants has garnered a lot of attention from abroad.

Noel is back and has taken a chance to consult with Kathryn and the visiting colonel of the rangers to see what ideas they might have for dealing with the Shiyo. The problem is we left someone with them as collateral. At best we can send Kathryn alone to meet with them and just make stuff up until they’re satisfied enough with her as an informant to hopefully return our howler. Maybe let Lara go as well in the hopes that she cements the idea to them that Kathryn can be trusted to associate with them in the future. Then send a party afterwards to track them down before they get too far away and kill them, hopefully before they realize Kathryn just started making up answers. This is largely because a shiyo will likely know if we send a few too many well armed people towards them.

We’d have to go down to Yankton to speak with the governor’s office about getting a job as bodyguards into the miasma for the county tax collectors. Apparently that isn’t handled by individual county leadership.

It wasn’t hard to get some locations of witches in the frontier, actually Lynch was one of them. Some people know our town has a mysterious woman that seems a little off though they don’t know many details. Down south in Louisiana is the most notorious demon bloodline if you wanted to go and meet with the blood witches. As a vampire I’m sure we’re only exceptionally vulnerable to their abilities. More realistically, within the miasma in this territory lurks a cluster of the Caelum family. They and the reclaimers do not get along so relations with them might be difficult.

Though if you want the safest and easiest access to someone who might know what a mysterious magical object does, we could just get a ferry to New Orleans and get an audience with Marie Laveau. She might be a bit in high demand but if I put on some nice clothes I at least blend into high society. Also that city is  filled with vampires so I’m sure she’s used to dealing with our kind. Sure we’d have to work through some favors and maybe ask Arrun for a letter of recommendation but I don’t know if that is particularly more difficult than fighting through the miasma to maybe find a bunch of inbred vikings who may or may not be hostile.

Hrm? Yes I was kidding about visiting the Whatelys. Don’t do that. Those freaks turn vampires into slaves, and we’re not even sure how they do it. Unless we knew for absolute certain that they were the only people in the entire world that could help, we should not ever come within state lines of them.

We’ve finished refurbishing some of the bandits armor as we could. As I predicted the armor is more material than technical. Meaning it could be used by theoretically anyone with very little training or expertise. Though we have enough to get a dozen guys suited up, however they have to be our normal residents. The most important feature of the armor is its ability to carry heavy loads, which is often paired with the guns those bandits had. A very brute force approach but effective if bodies are your bottleneck instead of money. By comparison, Lenard’s setup is more technical and his weapon is far more powerful than these rotary guns they use but it is also one of a kind and dependent on his body’s internal power source so no one else could use it.

Another note about this armor is the mechanism it uses to enhance the carrying capacity and apparent strength of the wearer is that it is made for normal people to wear. Don’t put it on someone like Lara who is stronger and faster than the suit can handle and will actually wind up being slowed and weakened by it. It interprets the wearers movements and reproduces it through the machinery with more force and often better leverage but you can see why it won’t allow for much speed or accuracy. All that being said, these are worth a lot of money and there is a reason very few militias would have access to these kinds of resources. We could sell them in one of the cities no doubt or we can keep them to set up a well armed peasant militia.

In other news around the shop, the new engineers in training are coming along, at the very least they can handle shop work for the town. Which I suppose frees me and Nathan up to work on…projects.