It is a glorious day for the Nalkas people, for I am back and out of the fucking snow. I fought monsters man, do you know what that’s like? I ran out of mana three quarters of the way through the raid and then they still kept trying to eat me. Have you ever smelled their entrails? Have you ever been covered in them? Fuck you.

Anyways Uudistar is on its way to getting running with old man Ylermi headed up to oversee the governing of it right proper. Its population is still going to take some work since most of the captured slaves have been taken back to Jämsä for reasons of security and that is where the greatest harvesting is to be done for them. Impacts on the economy are already visible and likely to continue to climb as things settle down and people get more comfortable.

As for the new commander I have acquired you someone interesting. She costs more then you would expect, and has first dibs on plunder. But she is the only other mage in the nalkas besides myself who can perform artillery scale magic so that you never have to send me somewhere again. She’s a bit more powerful then you might expect. She has spent most of her life in her tower, yes she lives in a stereotypical wizard tower, studying magic. She’s a lich, and a master at both evocation and necromancy, probably the best military field unit you could ask for. Wiiith one catch, she’s spent most of her life in her tower and is terrible with both people and military strategy. Not like…downright detrimental as a commander but she’s definitely not that liable to win chess games. I would advise utilizing her and any forces you give her as more of a brute force type of army. She is good at judging assets though and knows when she can or can’t win a fight, its just her only major tactic is to overwhelm with raw might.

Also I promised her she will qualify as nobility for taking the job, and if you ever have a son she has the right to petition for marriage to them. She is undead so if she doesn’t die in the field she will live long enough to see your son come of age…then outlive them, keep that in mind.

In other news since the instatement of your bill to help veterans attend the university has seen to an upsurge in interest to join the military. Though we can only afford so many of them at a time.

Atop of that, the new slaves while being put to work effectively are obviously somewhat disgruntled over being sent to the mines after we destroyed their home. Might want to keep an eye on that before some sort of rebellion takes place since they can get into the city walls as it were.

Also yep, new road under construction.

He just definitely overstepped in his hiring Essi given all that he gave her to avoid being sent out into the field again. Don’t tell him I reminded you of this but he’s able to cast up to tier 7 magic of every single arcane school. So even if we have a new artillery commander…he’s still the best illusionist, enchanter, abjurer and so on that we have.

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

Kaze has reported back now that he reached the island city. They were not welcoming hosts, in fact upon Kaze’s landing they tried to kill him and his soldiers. However, their island has existed in isolation for a long time and their tribal wars were long ago settled. They were no match for Kaze’s years of active military experience and constant survival within the forests, because we have monsters and they don’t.

They have a fair population size of about fifteen thousand, their city might not be the largest but it is a fair bit larger then our most recent acquisition. What is particularly strange is they aren’t sea faring people, the biggest boat they ever managed to build was just strapping some canoes together and sailing around their own coast line. Ocean monsters sink any attempt they make to venture further and as such they’ve never really voyaged the seas.

He describes them as tribal natives of the island, and despite some language barriers we’ve managed to establish them as violent but superstitious people. Apparently there used to be other tribes on this island before they consolidated into the main city we found, but this tribe is the last one standing. The remains of these times can be seen in their traditions, including an arena where it is obvious they are still a violent warrior people. In fact they have killed the last people to visit them but Kaze accidentally defeated their king in a duel without knowing who it was when they attacked him on the beach. They currently are very afraid of Kaze.

Despite their tribal and violent nature, I see potential here. Kaze has worked out what it would take to convince them to consolidate with us, they would make for decent soldiers provided a little bit of training and are a hardy people. Their lack of ability to move around the seas makes the island their entire world, which also keeps them technologically unable to progress. If we were to give them the opportunity to see the mainland, perhaps also the technology for sea faring boats and steel, they would be indebted to us. Given they are quite comfortable around Kaze and respect him as a warrior, he could play the part of ambassador awhile longer to introduce them to our own culture as smoothly as possible. let me know if you wish to pursue this project, while it is a steeper undertaking then the wall we built for the fishing village, this city is ten times the size and the island has many valuable natural resources. Particularly a type of wood that does not grow on the mainland…a type of wood that is very receptive to enchantment. They don’t know how to enchant it but Kaze’s wizard seemed quite excited and mentioned the possibility of enchanting a boat made of this stuff.

On a cost estimate this could require about 350 gold I imagine and a bit of time. Since we would need to produce a couple of ships for them and perhaps provide gifts of steel weapons, as well as ferry them back here to see who we are. Since they are most comfortable with Kaze he would be busy for awhile to come embarking on this project.

In other news, Kyoko has headed to the isolationist village north of the fishing one…which we should give a proper name. Though she spent most of this time walking there, so that report will be coming soon I imagine.

As for turning the warships into more land based alternatives, the problem is that the forest is thick, too thick for us to even move the warship’s weaponry over it on wheels. Also the forest has much smaller monsters that would overwhelm such weapon teams or be dramatic overkill to use them on. However, someone has come up with an idea to produce a weapon similar to the ones used on the warship. I have them looking deeper into these possibilities. Give them a bit to figure it out.

Meanwhile, Iwanagi continues to question the Archdruid. Apparently becoming a druid is something of a religious rite, committing oneself to “the wilds” as if it were a god. One cannot simply learn druidic magic as it comes from a divine source and is more about an ongoing relationship with that source rather then a spell list. They have no use for mana and can cast again and again theoretically infinitely as long as they are in the good graces of the wilds that empowers the magic. This comes with a military footnote. That means the Archdruid is likely able to perform massive magical feats as many times as she wants without any real limitation other then the fickle motives of the wilderness itself.

This has revealed something of interest to our allies who took Tethalyn. The druidic temple there does not operate fully on behalf of the elven kingdom. It is more of an embassy and is prone to its own motives. While the elven druids are still somewhat fond of their fellow elves and work to a mutual benefit, we already know the Archdruid sees the elves as her vassals, not her allies. This might be useful information to Katara.

Monsters do indeed have Ki, just rarely can they access it in the same way we who have trained to can. Though there is a report the Nalkas once found of a monster who actually could. It was a small one that they killed and dissected later, finding that it was able to do so based entirely on a strange innate skill rather then being based on any strange anatomy.

Speaking of a military of savages, the island Kaze contacted probably qualifies for that concept. Just saying.

Tess: