So far every crazy thing we try on the artifact doesn’t yield much other results. It just does the one thing as far as we can tell, and now I gotta get the interns to clean the blood off of it.

Eamon is headed to the rendezvous point.

In other news, Ansa has initiated all necessary trade offers to the drow though it will take a bit of time before the tech we gave them leads to tensions mounting high enough to break out into a fight. Though it does seem Ghuan has taken a keen interest in our offer to move to Uudistar.

Ansa also had a chance to make first contact with Faelyn’s scouts while she was there and is returning with them acting as her escort in a way. They were very insistent on meeting us in our actual city rather then just meeting Ansa at some midway point.

Gideon’s travel through the coast has found another city as he continues eastwards.

When Eamon and Inaba broke away from Wynolwind to join the katara forces, the orc commander they were engaged with gave pursuit. They’ve not managed to catch our forces yet.

As requested, a five man band has been assembled entirely of combat savvy mages.

Mikael is the appointed leader of the group, mostly because he was the first to show up to interviews and is the most charismatic of the bunch. He’s the enchantment specialist of the team, could also be described as a bit cocky and with a tendency to take risks. Perhaps aggressive loose would be an apt description.

He is a younger member of the Nalkas, having only recently graduated from the university but I picked him as lead anyways since he is the most eager and easiest to talk with. Also not terribly quirky in his demeanor, plus despite his outward behavior he is actually prone to overthinking things which I find useful.

Hillevi is the group’s necromancer expert, always good to have one of those around in a small team. If you talk with her you’ll see why I favored Mikael’s lack of “quirks” in demeanor. She was a natural talent with necromancy from a young age, and no one who is talented specifically in necromancy at thirteen grows up to be a stable adult. I swear that rule is actually written somewhere. She is a talented mage though, which got her on the team, hopefully said team doesn’t stick their dick in the crazy though. Her last boyfriend is now one of her skeleton familiars. That bitch should only be handled by a professional…so Sakki.

Ilkka is an actual classical battle mage. Full suit of armor including helmet…which I cannot for the life of me recall if he has ever taken off. I would have made him leader but he hardly ever talks, so that wouldn’t be good for team leadership or morale. I found him within the military ranks so he is already well trained for combat, though is definitely used to a more structured environment then a five man band of eccentric personalities. We will have to see how he adapts as we go along. He is an abjuration specialist.

Pasi is the conjuration guy, combined with Hillevi he can help even out numeric issues a small group like this might run into. He, along with Mikael, are the best straight fighters who know how to use pointy bits of metal when such is called for. He’s young and was just looking for a job straight out of college, I think he would have enlisted with the army had our graduation program not referred him to me for interviewing. I would describe him as the most normal kid in the group, I make this deduction based entirely on the lack of extravagant wardrobe. Maybe he’s just the poorest.

While all five know evocation as a requirement to get the interview for this team, Matleena is the one who specializes in it. So, fireballs everywhere with her. Humorously, her love of fire magic stems from her lack of love for the snow. She learned to summon flames just to make it easier on herself to keep warm, and then it just snowballed from there. As an evocation specialist she also knows how to summon other elemental effects of course. But I can’t help but to mention that she is also good with ice magic…for the same reasons she is good with fire magic. She’s a good fighter but her core motivation stems from a desire to control the climate of her house rather then blow people up and I found that funny considering all the other psychos we hire around here.

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. Kaze and Hamano have arrived at Pulauli. It is a largely tribal village, notably they also have access to useful trees for mana enchanting. It seems to like growing on islands in particular. Though despite the tribal nature there are notably spikes in architectural technology present on the island, often acting as points of operation for the missionaries of Cayetano. They’ve only just arrived so they’re still negotiating trade deals of interest.

One of the scout ships has found some islands on the southwestern side of the scout patrol.

As for attempting to learn druidism, it does seem we would benefit from further help from Amare or any other existing druid though they are caught up in the war with the orcs. Though its not like they have anything else to do at Tethalyn so they’ll just keep doing that I suppose. On a related note, the now barren forests to the southeast of us have shown some interest to Yamoaka for a potential druid base. They do like forests after all, and there are some suitable spots of isolation over there along a river, and keeping any of our investments near a river that leads into the ocean is obviously an advantage in any location for building to us.

As for the island city it is named Tonarooka, I may have just forgotten to update the map with that information.

As for naval affairs, two dawnbreakers have been added to the fleet and Kyoko has been moved to live on the fleet for now as well. She gripes about being at sea though, or more so about being on the confines of a boat.

As for the frozen long island, scouts report its not particularly good for mana more so then any other place near the ocean. Though obviously the ocean remains one of the best places to harvest it.

A former soldier, monster hunter specifically, who retired to live comfortably at home. He will make a fine governor. His experience against the monsters of the forest will help alleviate the biggest concerns of the village and his time as an officer has left him well suited to giving out orders and managing large numbers of people. He is a bit intense with his soldier’s demeanor but at heart he’s quite a lovely fellow. Easily capable of commanding respect and achieving the trust of his people with his blend of serious militarism and the wisdom that comes with the passing years he has seen enough to live through.

Our forces have convened around Pelagia’s army, the orc commanders are in pursuit. The druids have helped slow the orc pursuit though it cannot stop them entirely. At least it bought us some time before the actual engagement. We expect to see a battle there soon once they catch up. Ankathi has ordered the camp to start constructing defenses and has abandoned the siege of the mountain fort, not like they’re coming down here during the orc invasion anyways.

Rhea and Nina reached the monster in the badlands, a massive creature with many heads. In the aftermath, only Nina and eight of her soldiers are left. We’ve collected the reward at least.

Our golem arrangement with the nalkas has been shut down as requested.

As an update on the war front, Wynolwind has fallen to the orcs and its evacuating forces are spreading out through the forest. With the elves and their druids moving further west and our own teams moving north to rally.