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.