Stories of Lore 19

The landing is underway. They were able to activate the gate stone to bring troops over but had to use the reserve mana to fight a big thing so they are currently stranded there. No worries though, the island does indeed have plenty of mana to harvest. Our people will certainly have the skills necessary to extract it to turn the stone back on. However, it is likely that they are in for some rough days as they work on that.

In terms of losses, all of Essi’s soldiers died and so did six teams of monsters but she has six more remaining. Twenty units of Aato’s knights went down as well, along with 20 golem units. As well as all of his footsoldiers. Eero died diving face first into the goddamned kraken. I’m not sure if I should commend his heroism or call him an idiot. I suppose his soldier instinct took over on that one. At least he bought the gatestone time to make it to shore. Several other manifesters are dead too. Iraeka is alive but barely, she looks like she might never be able to move comfortably again let alone move through the wilderness on a cane. So we might count her as retired soon, even if she technically lived.

As for the anirace things, the offer was intended for a smaller team though we actually attracted the interest of a larger one. Potentially to play as the opponent to the first team we find if not our own. In keeping with their interest to buy the technology behind our field, some of the bigger teams wouldn’t mind a chance to play on it just to see how it behaves when turned up to its craziest. Though the Shaman King has stepped in before they get any ideas. Putting forth that if they do buy our field technology it has to be a rule that any “shifting elements” have to be set to randomize so a home team doesn’t just memorize a complex choreography script no one else can figure out. That did seem to diminish a little bit of interest, I guess that was what they were planning. Very sportsmanlike of them.

Oh also remembered when you said “maximum mana available”? So we’re low on that now. Well, relative to how much we had before at least. They used full resources multiple times in the landing, so it added up a bit quickly within the week. On the upside, if they get the gate stone turned on before anything goes awry, dragon loot. I’ve estimated that if they can bring it home before something terrible happens, we have a big payday coming.

Mikael and his team have made it to the southern islands but they have no idea what or where they’re looking for and are cruising around a large cluster of islands poking around for anything of interest.

Also the mana worm has been productive now that we’ve gotten a handle of taking care of it.

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. In the assault on the northern island we lost eleven warships and four dawnbreakers. It is also unfortunate that Yuzuki an Kyoko lost their lives in the icy wastes. The navy is on its way back to Okushiri with the ships it has left.

We’ve started harvesting silk from the spiders, or at least attempting to. They’re feisty little things, and we’ve never had to process this stuff before. While its slow going, our trade route has seen a notable increase in value as the little we have sells easily. I’m sure as we refine our methods it’ll be a much bigger component in our trade income.

Iwanagi is setting off to check out the eastern island. We have also raised the expedition force for the southern colony and placed it under Takei’s command. He has already begun to sail south.

As per your orders a few cycles ago, Kaze was sent home to spend time with his wife. So essentially he is just on vacation in Tonarooka. Though notably has expressed some suspicion about the appointment when he wasn’t sent on the expedition to the northern island. I think he is concerned we might retire him. Hamano is on his way to meet with Kaylen.

Shime is currently away with the expedition force in the north so we can’t have her advise on Haven at the moment.

As an update to elven matters, our efforts to convince some of them to emigrate have become a lot more complicated. This comes with a growing faction of discontent within both the nobility and the civilians, albeit two separate factions. The nobility are angry with Amare in particular since she was recently confirmed to still be in contact with Ankathi as her mentor in witchcraft. They seem to be getting annoyed with her constant bouncing between apparent loyalties and want to remove her from power. Though the king and queen quite like their daughter who is something of a war hero and their primary contact to the archdruid. This is uncomfirmed but the nalkas ambassadors are very insightful- it seems some members of the nobility might be planning to assassinate Amare and blame it on Katara. Specifically on Alexandria who is passing nearby with an army of professional ‘not be seen’ types and is known to be liable to attack a druidic witch without provocation.

The civilian side of things is a different type of discontent, they actually want Amare to take full power over the kingdom and to remove the other nobles. This will lead to a druid led state for them and there is some thought that if they truely became a druidic kingdom that the archdruid would then take more interest in looking after them. This party even talks about destroying the current elven cities as they are not very druid friendly. The idea at its core is to become assimilated into Sanctuary so that they will be safer. This particular plot is more confirmed because the elves who went to Jämsä were the ones hinting around and looking to see if our alliance might help since they’re afraid of Ailduin in particular.

However, these tensions are not unknown to the royal family and they are allowing Ailduin even more power to keep people in check. As well as another elven hero, who I’m told is very spooky, being assigned to figure out which nobles are plotting to kill Amare. Ailduin has always been their own darkest champion, similar to Ankathi or Alexandria but not as extreme. Just a comparison to point out why the political factions are scared of him and why him being given more power has resulted in a greater level of fear for the kingdom.

Now for another complication that is not quite confirmed, but the Nalkas are again very insightful. While the civilians want Amare to take power, the nobles might be correct in their suspicions of her. Amare’s ongoing relationship as a student of Ankathi might lead her to other motives than the people who support her expect. We have long since lost track of Ankathi and what she is doing but the fact she maintains ties to powerful people indicates that she is up to something that requires it.

Welp, good news is we’re not bleeding gold anymore. Bad news is eighty teams of pathfinders dead, fourty knights dead, our ships are gone, and Thyra is fish food. On the upside we found dragons on the expedition, so thats neat. Too bad everyone is stuck on the island and shit has gone so far sideways up there that I’m not even optimistic that it’ll reach us at this point.

Moving along, Alexandria is holding Moncayo though we have to get the builders out there. Speaking of which, I’ve decided to hold off on sending ambassadors to Lennecas since our settler teams died in transit to the monsters of the forest. Also I named the stupid towns for you so my paperwork isn’t confusing. The new slaves have been delivered there to help with constructing them.

On to some more lighthearted news. We had our first home game! Won it too, apparently no one has ever fathomed playing the aniraces in an actual urban environment. So we’re two to one on our team so far which isn’t too bad. Turns out home games are decent money, doesn’t boost tourism as much as we might have hoped just yet due to distance but we did get some interesting visitors. It is liable more might come next time as rumors spread of our city’s take on the games and that the curse is no longer in effect. I may have urged some of the local townspeople to really reinforce that point to any visitors. Inn may have been a bit noisy that night too. Not to mention members of Oda came by to watch out of curiosity since they’re just right up the road.

Due to her distinguished service at the northern expedition I’ve recognized Rena as someone we should keep tabs on. She’s one of the pathfinders and really managed to hold her own up there. She actually goes by “Just Rena” though obviously I went through the effort to find out her real name. I see why she doesn’t tell anyone her family name. The relationship is very distant, I don’t think she’s ever met Ankathi but they happen to share a name. Likely a common great great grandparent or something as there are actually at least two hundred citizens with that name. I’m at least relatively certain that there is no secret power behind that name like there was with Damaia.

Oh hey Ansa didn’t show up, oh right she’s stranded at the island right now. I can say whatever I want and she won’t interrupt me for once…I don’t know what to do with this freedom.

♪Weeeeeeeellll Ansa’s a bitch she’s a big fat bitch…♪

*You presume the weekly debriefing is over*