>>358603
I'd say that we should bar the downstairs door, and have our creatures set an ambush for the bug creature coming around the back. Then we can continue to sneak around and maybe assassinate people up here.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/16(Sun)14:34 No. 358649 ID: 383006
File 131880086984.jpg - (56.72KB , 850x700 , 34.jpg )

I can't hear anything. We'll set up the ambush

Soon enough, the ambush happens. One of the wolves attacks the guard after he opens the door. It gets a lucky shot in on him, but he's not badly wounded.

Everyone else attacks the bug soldier. It's brought down, but not after it wounds the other two wolves.

One is bleeding seriously, but the other one is only slightly injured.

What next?

I guess we should have the injured wolves retreat into the woods (no sense throwing their lives away) and have the cougars stand watch.
Then go and see what the wizard with the ogre is up to (after checking that nobody upstairs is moving around inconveniently)d.

>>358649
Have the wolves retreat into the woods. They're injured; no sense getting them killed by forcing them to fight further.

Everyone else sneak upstairs. We'll want to try to assassinate as many of those here as possible.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/16(Sun)15:08 No. 358663 ID: 383006
File 131880288810.jpg - (74.03KB , 850x700 , 35.jpg )

I leave one of them to watch the far stairway, and take the other with me.

It looks like the things have moved some, but nothing too serious. Whatever was in the middle room with what I assume to be a stairway up is no longer there.

We've gotta sabotage that ogre.

Leave the cougars here to keep watch, then sneak in to deal with the necromancer.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/16(Sun)15:58 No. 358685 ID: 383006
File 131880592128.jpg - (76.18KB , 850x700 , 36.jpg )

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that I sent the wolves off. The one that was seriously wounded is probably going to bleed to death, but whatever. There wasn't really anything I could do about it.

Okay, I have one cougar at each stairwell. One of the big doors downstairs is still blocked, the other is open.

Is this how we want things before I engage?

That looks fairly good.
Proposed plan:
The cougar at the non-ogre entrance pushes the door slightly open, intentionally making a small but noticeable noise. When the necromancer notices, you strike, and retreat if the ogre turns hostile.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/16(Sun)17:08 No. 358707 ID: 383006
File 131881009160.jpg - (86.40KB , 850x700 , 37.jpg )

Okay I bit him! It roars, oh dear! I think everyone is pretty well alerted at this point! What now?!

Mess up the bones on that pedestal thing then RUN FOR IT!

>>358707
Our objective here must be to do as much damage as possible to the remaining forces here- hopefully eliminating them entirely. If we withdraw now, they'll only be alerted that we know of their presence and take steps to be more prepared next time. We must make this strike as decisive as possible.

First, people will likely be rushing for this room- try to get your cougars to ambush them and take them down as they enter the hallways/stairwells.

Secondly, how sophisticated is the programming on constructs like this one? Could you perhaps lure it into destroying our other enemies while it's chasing you? Or failing that, at least destroying their stuff.

Have the cougar by the partially open door shove it open loudly and roar to try to try and distract the ogre.
Then abscond through the other exit (getting the other cougar to open the door for you if necessary).

We aren't going to be able to beat a zombie ogre with two cougars. And it is very unlikely to turn on its allies considering how the mindless medium-bug didn't do that when we tried the same.

Main problem with that bug plan was we just let it do it's own thing and hoping it would kill the enemies. They managed to prove us wrong there.

However, while the ogre is modified, it's still not a graceful creature. You could probably give it good commands but it won't turn on a dime most likely.

In short, zip in, zip out, and use the ogre's size against it and have it wreck everything trying to get you. If things get dicey though, fall back.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/16(Sun)18:44 No. 358772 ID: 383006
File 131881589756.jpg - (80.74KB , 850x700 , 38.jpg )

It completely ignores distraction cougar and slams into the wall. stones dislodge. It is not going to take it long to break through.

I hear footsteps on the up stairs but can't detect anything, and hear screeching sounds from the other door. I think the wizard is transforming the two guards.

What should I do?

We need to get out of here. Also keep it away from its hammer.

...wait, I have an idea. Lure it around to destroy the tower's walls. Make it collapse.

I don't think there is much left to do up here other than getting crushed or stabbed. Even supposing the ogre is too clumsy to hit us, the medium-bugs certainly are not.
All units retreat down the stairs, and away from the tower.

(How close are our reinforcements?)

>>358772
It looks like the people in here are shifting into monsters. That's probably not good. We can no longer expect to defeat them in a straight-up engagement or even an ambush. Retreat.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/16(Sun)19:35 No. 358791 ID: 383006
File 131881895740.jpg - (96.06KB , 850x700 , 39.jpg )

Okay, successful escape, although I lost another cougar. Oh well. Those medium bugs are really, really fast. I am 100% sure that the ogre is not following me. The fast bugs won't find me once I'm well and truly in the woods, though.

Reinforcements are a few days away. they are theoretically they consist of 10 infantry, 10 archers 1 mage and 11 workers as reinforcements led by Rayawyn.

Feel free to change that if you want. I'm gonna let this other cougar go and then head back to the castle I guess.

>>358791
If you can get some more animals in preparation for meeting up with the reinforcements, that would be optimal.

*facepalm*
Well the view from here would have been incredibly useful to see before we started our attack >.<
We would have done things quite differently had we known that the giant reanimated monster is not in fact the main project here...
And now their guards are on alert and all our explosives are several day's travel away.

Ok, I guess the best we can do now is to have you see if you can gather any more forces while keeping a watch on what they are doing on the tower top while keeping out of sight.
(Is one mage enough to bomb the tower's top floor from outside?)

>>358791
We should probably add another mage to the equation as well as a few more workers. Lets say another ten.

The Ogre is likely to be quite heavy and incable of getting out of traps, so we're going to need a rather large trap pit dug and then luring the ogre into it. Since the great bastard is so heavy it should be possible to make the covering of the pit sturdy enough to bear the weight of a human or several. Then we line up our infantry and archers behind some field entrenchements behind the pit, Rayawyn gets to lure the ogre towards us, then it falls into the pit, hopefully crippling it. We kill any remaining guards/soldiers and then finish off the ogre with arrows and magic.

It's possible that they send out medium infantry bugs to screen the ogres advances. So we might have to prepare several locations if the first one is exposed by medium infantry.

Actually, green snake, could you go to the north to investigate the abandoned witch's hut as well?

Checking out the witch's hut sounds worth doing, though I wouldn't put it past these guys to have some sort of magical communication methods.

Oh yes, we should also ask Rayawyn to remind us how she and the king took down the ogre the first time.

>>358707
Now run away. Go up the stairs. He won't be able to follow you and may even harm the others- undead are rarely noted for their intelligence.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/17(Mon)18:09 No. 358998 ID: 383006
File 131890018781.jpg - (103.42KB , 850x700 , 40.jpg )

Ugh, OK I guess I can go check out the witch hut. I can call more animals when I get further away from this area, but animals really, really, really don't get along with normal troops. I have to be there with them too. So, I'll find some stuff when I get close to the witch hut.

You wait for several days before Rayawyn reaches the tower

Okay, we're here. I don't see any movement around the tower at all. On the top floor there is some kind of big tent-like structure to block off my view. How should we approach it?

>>358998
First, as there's no indication of movement right now so there's likely some time to spare, scout out the entire perimeter for anything unusual while keeping everyone out of sight.

>>358998
Find a nearby clearing and start digging entrenchements and a very big spiked trap pit. There shouldn't be many there unless they got reinforcements. But the ogre might still be there. He should be too big and heavy to climb out of a pit if he falls down in one, and a few of the medium soldiers could probably trip down as well.

With field fortifications up the infantry should be able to hold off enemy infantry if the ogre is taken out. That should give you and the archers as well as the mages a good chance to take down any surviving enemy mages.

Once we have it all set up we're going to need to draw them out, either a blasty spell on top of the tower or a shower of fire arrows should do the trick. Then fall back to the prepared postions and fight them there. Once they're all dead we sweep the tower and try to figure out what they were doing here. Also, we set fire to the ogre corpse after we have examined the magic they used to bring it to life. It might be something we can use against them in the future, or we can find a way for our mages to undo the spell.

Can our mages bombard the tower from the tree line? If we can, I think we should start setting up earthworks slightly within the trees (making sure to have some to cover the back, in case of an attack from the woods).

They likely have some sort of measure to shield the ritual site on the top floor, so instead of aiming directly towards it we should aim for the damaged upper walls, to collapse the ceiling remains and hopefully the floor as well.

>>359001
We can't do much falling back once we have started the attack; the medium-bugs are very fast and our mages are rather slow.

By lighting the tent on fire, of course.

>>359004
That's why it might be better to use fire arrows instead. Anything that gets their attention.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/17(Mon)19:26 No. 359034 ID: 383006
File 131890479019.jpg - (129.43KB , 850x700 , 41.jpg )

We spend the better part of the day creating a big pit that is covered. It should be totally fine for our people to walk across it, but something heavier than infantry will probably collapse it. We also build some earthworks nearby.

The clearing is outside of spell or arrow range (that's the whole point of clear cutting around a fortification.)

We also scout the perimeter of the tower. I don't see any movement at all. Nothing. There are no tracks leaving the tower, though. Nothing has left there for several days. I found the bodies that the Green Snake hid and everything.

The tower is really very sturdy. The mage can certainly do some damage, especially through the hole in the outer wall, but we probably can't collapse the tower or anything like that. Even if we had regular siege engines. But there is a huge hole in the side so we can definitely mess up the interior.

So, the current plan is to march out until we're within range, and then use magery and arrows on the tower until something comes out, and then retreat behind the earthworks, right?

Yep. Hopefully the ogre will be one of the first troops out so we can catch it in the trap.

>>359034
That's pretty much it. Be prepared to block enemy spells and move quickly. We don't want to stay out in the field for too long so that we get caught up in a fight in the open.

Might even be a good idea to only send half of our forces. We don't want to fight there, just draw them out to us, the enemy might be more likely to attack without thinking in full force if they think it will be a clear and easy win.

Anyway, if the ogre falls into the pit then it's no longer an immediate concern and we should target enemy mages instead, after that comes the infantry and last of all we finish off the ogre in the pit.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/17(Mon)19:54 No. 359051 ID: 383006
File 131890647763.jpg - (116.55KB , 850x700 , 42.jpg )

No defensive magics set off, although this close I can feel a strong magical aura coming from the tower.

Things are merrily on fire inside after a few minutes. Nothing is coming out.

Back off and let it burn, then.

The tower looks abandoned, but a strong magical aura means that something is still there, though it might just be a trap for anyone who enters.

I agree we should let that tent burn to see what is under it, and we should have some of our faster units (light cavalry?) stationed around our main force as sentries in case the enemy tries to attack with the tower as a decoy.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/18(Tue)05:07 No. 359137 ID: 383006
File 131893962087.jpg - (114.86KB , 850x700 , 43.jpg )

It burns until the fire goes out on its own. I can't really make anything out on the top floor. The framework collapsed and burned, and so did parts of the ceiling, so debris is piled everywhere.

There is quite likely nothing living up there, though.

Still, nothing comes out.

>>359137
Hmm, seems like they might have abandoned it then. We're going to have to send forward a scouting team. Rayawyn being good at stealth makes her a natural choice for it, but she should probably have some others with her as well. Say 2 infantry and 2 archers. That ought to be enough to deal with any single medium infantry they might find and still small enough to manage to disengage and get back outside if anything nastier is encountered.

Oh right, back at the capitol castle, get started on digging a moat. Preferably a big and deep one. Doesn't have to be water filled, a dry one with spikes at the bottom works just as well, even better in some ways.

It looks like we are going to have to scout it. (Dammit we should have had Green stay to watch...)
At least we should leave a sentry outside when we so, so they can't corner our scouting party.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/18(Tue)14:55 No. 359203 ID: 383006
File 131897490548.jpg - (79.33KB , 850x700 , 44.jpg )

Okay, I'm taking 2 infantry, 2 archers and another archer as a sentry while we scout it out. The whole place is dripping with magic, but I can't see anyth-

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/18(Tue)14:55 No. 359204 ID: 383006
File 131897493132.gif - (1.53MB , 850x700 , 45.gif )

(animated)

>tower has magic in it
>nothing happens at all when we light it on fire
>they totally didn't teleport out and leave the tower boobytrapped rite guise

UGH. What the hell, guys. I wish I had gotten up earlier to state how dumb that plan was. I guess I would've been outvoted anyway, but sending in our general with so few troops is a bad idea REGARDLESS of the situation oh my god.

And now the troops there have no leader, and are likely going to be ambushed before we can get back in contact with them.

drag Rayawyn out of their.

if heroes died from something like that that easily then they wouldn't be heroes. probably needs a few weeks of intensive care though, and maybe a phoenix down.

>>359204
Ouch, painful. But now we can conclude that they're done with that tower and not likely to use it anymore either.

Oh well, pull back the remaining troops and lets see if we can hire any replacement for Rayawyn. We should also try to get help from churces and stuff, since it's not clear we're fighting a cult that can be classified as evil.

What the hell?!
I sent her in because I thought out anti-magic specialist would be able to deal with a magical trap!

Is there a discussion thread?

>>359207
Let's not fuss at other suggesters in the quest thread, especially without actually suggesting anything

>>359218
You can use my general purpose one, http://tgchan.org/kusaba/questdis/res/345255.html or make one with the OP image if you want.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/18(Tue)16:51 No. 359241 ID: 383006
File 131898189695.jpg - (122.93KB , 850x700 , Disposition03.jpg )

You're going to have to assume Rayawyn is dead, although you haven't seen a corpse. Because the general is gone, you've lost contact with the force entirely. Half of the troops you sent out come straggling back in low spirits several days later.

At least the tower is gone. Your mages tell you that it was likely they were trying to do more with the ogre - possibly bind his spirit into the dead meat. Your guerilla strike almost certainly prevented that - forcing them to retreat and boobytrap the tower. Whatever they had before is all they're going to be able to use against you - a powerful construct, sure, but likely mindless.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/18(Tue)17:12 No. 359245 ID: 383006
File 131898314402.jpg - (108.16KB , 850x700 , Mercs.jpg )

The first batch of Mercenaries arrive. You have enough resources to hire and maintain One troupe of them. Your own recruits should start filling in too soon.

Alrekr The Fang is a warrior with a band of rough barbarians. He always commands only his own units - 1 Shaman, who provides minor healing and very minor magic resistance, 5 Spear Throwers - unarmored units that are more damaging but shorter range than archers, and also count as weaker light infantry, 10 Barbarians - solid medium infantry that are very unlikely to break, and 10 workers.

If this mercenary group goes too long without seeing combat, it is likely to begin causing trouble

Amir al-Azhar, a mage, and part of some sort of cult. He has 2 mages, 2 Assassins - units that are very weak, but powerful at close range and extremely stealthy, 8 Archers, and 20 servant-workers - extremely weak melee units on top of being workers, and Al-Azhar likes to use them as human shields.

Drauukir Ironfang is a young dragon. He is extremely difficult to injure and deals massive damage in melee and at short range, but moves slowly and cannot be concealed through any means (opponents always know where he is). He can deal damage to structures like a siege engine.

There is a chance that this unit can cause unrest if he is hired.

Ea Lightbringeris a mercenary-priestess. She has strong healing abilities and raises morale for any units she's attached to. She has 2 mounted priestesses - mobile healers that can also cast augmenting magics to strengthen other units, 5 combat medics - units that can bandage other units, sometimes reducing after-battle casualties and providing nonmagical healing, and 50 workers. None of her units have offensive capabilities of any kind.

>>359245
I'm voting healers.

I think Amir's a great choice here. What better way to fight magic bastards than with more magic bastards? Assassins are also a good idea and who can say no to expendable sla- servant-workers?

Lightbringer. There is certainly no shortage of need for healers.

>>359245
Well we need to cover up our loss of counter magics and magic power. So I say we should go with Amir. He should be useful to have around.

Setting up watchtowers and possibly some border forts against the forest could also be a good move if we have the resources and manpower over.

>>359245
I think the critical question here is, do we have anything in our army that could successfully take out that ogre? If not, we may have to hire the dragon just to specifically take it on.

We don't want a cult to gain strength in our area.

Let's go with Lightbringer.

When has subtlety ever worked out for us? We need a big thing we can throw at problems to make them go away.

Drauukir Ironfang. Like a Boss.

>>359275
Agreed, crush it with dragons is clearly the best idea.

I think the best Idea is to hire the priestess to reduce attrition

>>359253
A critical question is whether magic-heals will hurt undead (which I asked in the disc thread).
(Though I think Paladin + healer + buffs can probably take the ogre.)

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/18(Tue)19:35 No. 359306 ID: 383006
File 131899173537.jpg - (15.62KB , 280x347 , sword.jpg )

Answered some stuff in the /dis thread.

http://tgchan.org/kusaba/questdis/res/345255.html

I'm going with the Lord of Mar... I mean Amir.

Before we decide on a dragon, we need to think about that "unrest" thing. That may be a big problem. Do dragons have a tendency to do evil things or not respond to orders? How risky is this beast?

That said, he'd probably make a great engine of destruction once we find a place to actually assault.

I don't like the sound of Marv- cultist-mage, but out main advantage over the bugs seems to be in ranged combat. And at this point, stealing all the magic would work in our favor.

Ea Lightbringer

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/19(Wed)07:21 No. 359393 ID: 383006
File 131903408250.jpg - (113.29KB , 850x700 , 45.jpg )

"unrest" just means your citizens will lose morale. The dragon is big and scary.

You decide to hire Ea The Lightbringer. The other mercenaries sail away.

"It pleases me to serve you, king. Together we will defeat this menace that haunts your kingdom," she says, bowing low.

The priestesses (including Ea) have a chance not to be attacked by undead, lower the more powerful the undead is, and take less damage from undead spells. There is a chance that necromancers will fail to raise troops near the priestesses. Their healing is close-ranged, so it's best if they're attached to a unit that will receive healing whenever it's injured. They are mounted units and capable of quickly relocating, however.

The combat medics have swords and armor, but it's more used to make sure they don't get killed than to kill enemies. They should likewise be assigned to groups of soldiers in combat, although they can't quickly relocate.

Ea can be used as a general or a normal troop under one of your remaining generals, and must be fielded when any of her units are fielded. It is best to field her entire mercenary group.

The devastating loss of Rayawyn has left your country in mourning, but you cannot be taken in by the enemy's ploys again.

You have begun filling the dry castle moat with spikes and other hazards, and having workers erect and man watchtowers near your towns, and near the border to the forest. You haven't heard back from the Green Snake or Gaylin yet, but a few new recruits are combat-ready.

Do you have any other plans before you hear back from your generals?

>>359393
Aside from strenghtening defenses and making sure town and village militias train and strengthen their defenses as well, not really. We should probably check in on Gaylin and see how his mission is going.

Maybe we should have some of our light cavalry patrol near the forest border? What do you guys think?

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/21(Fri)09:38 No. 359807 ID: 383006
File 131921512042.jpg - (54.89KB , 850x700 , 46.jpg )

I say, we've made our way past the forts and are well into the other king's land. We were traveling just down the road here - a road in somewhat of a state of disrepair, I must report - when some fellows appeared.

Rag-tag for the most part, two light horse with javelins, a captain with armor, mounted, six crossbowmen, and four infantry. There are hills on each side of the road, so their foot soldiers are below us.

The chap in charge is demanding that we turn over our goods else we'll be fired upon.

>>359807
Fired upon? Uphill? Who does this man think we are? Inform him he must be truly desperate to threaten a force on even footing with his own. Ask him what has driven him to such lengths. If he is needing employment, perhaps he could consider joining our forces, hmm?

>>359807
Inform him that you're here for proper diplomatic negotiations and that shit like this is not tolerable. Also inquire wheter or not he's for hire, seeing how these chaps all have their own stuff already they should be ready to go if we can recruit them.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/23(Sun)09:49 No. 360232 ID: 383006
File 131938857396.jpg - (101.27KB , 850x700 , 47.jpg )

I inform the man of my position and that I can provide him with regular food and real pay. I'd have to take it out of the treasure I've brought, but it shouldn't be a significant diminution.

"Don't know why you want to try and diplomat with that horse anus. That's why we're in the position we're in - banditing for a living. Released lots of us soldiers with no where to go and no other line of work. Got these strange visitors come give him advice. Envoy came to the capital about six months ago, nobody knows from where. didn't come from no boat for sure. He listens to these fellas. Say we don't need a big standin' army no more. Cuts us free. What are we supposed to do? We aint bad people despite our current preoccupation.

Well, I can hire these fellows and either send them back or keep them with me. We have enough workers to support them and reclothe them in our colors.

Crossbowmen are inferior to archers in every way, except that if they are killed, workers can be trained to take their place relatively quickly. These soldiers are all starving and have low morale.

>>360232
Sending them back to our country would likely be more diplomatic than bringing them with; showing up at the king's with a bunch of his ex-employees in tow could be kind of awkward. Make sure that they have sufficient supplies (mostly food) that they won't need to do anything untoward on the trip back, and that they are firmly instructed that no banditry will be tolerated within our realm but that there will be lasting jobs for them in our military upon arrival at the capital.

From the sound of it, there are other groups in a similar position to this one- and we are quite in need of additional forces. This could be an excellent opportunity to bolster our military. If they can gather more similarly out-of-work soldiers on the way to our capital, we can offer a small bonus, I think.

the odds are three to one that the monsters and the strange visitors giving the king advice are related. they are probly trying to soften up nearby kingdoms and deprive us of potential allies at the same time. we can probably turn there plan against them if we can leverage the large number of desperate and unemployed soldiers to bolster our ranks

Continuing to the other kingdom at all is looking like a dubious plan.
It sounds to me like the bugs have charmed their king (magically or otherwise), and have a sizable force there.
Even if we can break the bugs' hold on their king, with their army disbanded the bugs could just hold a coup.
While the other kingdom could be where the bugs are getting their human resources from, a diplomatic solution seems unlikely.

Wow, that's really mega-suspicious. It sounds like this kingdom allied with our enemies or got mind-controlled or something.

If we keep them with us we risk running into someone that recognizes them from their banditry. If we send them back then it's possible they'll have trouble getting past the forts. We could avoid issues with the former by having them wait outside town or something... the latter might even not be an issue, depending on how tight the borders are.

I kinda want to keep going, and make a deal with a town somewhere to direct ex-soldiers to our kingdom. Their problem becomes our manpower.

>>360239
Supporting sending them back and making it known that we'll offer a small bonus for recruiting additional displaced military men. Do make it known that we wish for them to cease banditry.

Let's look for any further recruitment opportunities as well.

Now this is an interesting situation. Well, send them back and tell them to bring any of their buddies, but if one or two of the people let go by their king were leaders or generals, talk to the our king. We could use information and maybe a strategic advantage just in case.

Either way, are there other places we can go than that kingdom? Might be just that one.

>>360232
Send them back to our own country. Also inform them that any other of his fellows who want to join a righteous cause that pays regularly are welcome there as well, since we need the manpower.

Hmm, those envoys seem like a rather suspicious bunch, we should probably be wary of bug cultists and shit at the court. Things might get more troublesome than normal negotiations.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/23(Sun)15:22 No. 360372 ID: 383006
File 131940856912.jpg - (119.09KB , 850x700 , Disposition4.jpg )

I was the right man for the job, I say. I manage to round up quite a few of them and send them back. Some quantity of the supplies are spent.

These troops are all not quite as good as yours. Not as well equipped or trained. They seem to be decent enough chaps though.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/23(Sun)15:25 No. 360373 ID: 383006
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When we approach the capital I see some huge, robed figures outside the gate. Keeping the main force a ways back, I send a light horse to scout ahead.

"Wat bring you to the citeye, foreign-man? Wat brings or purpokts here?"

Their voice is strange, tinny. How should we approach?

>>360373
You know what, I really don't like this. I say we screw this diplomatic mission, we try to find as many down on their luck ex soldiers as we can and get them to follow us back, we can send in the Green Snake to try to figure out what's going on here later. Seriously this seems like a bad situation to walk into with what we currently have at hand.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/23(Sun)18:30 No. 360425 ID: 383006
File 131941982221.jpg - (112.70KB , 850x700 , 49.jpg )

I get the scout to withdraw and we begin our journey back. I may be able to recruit additional troops with the envoy money.

It is much safer than going inside. No telling what is happening there.

Savior!!Z0Mwx3ZJZj 2011/10/23(Sun)18:31 No. 360427 ID: 383006
File 131941988285.jpg - (126.12KB , 850x700 , 50.jpg )

Okay, I made it to the witch's hut. Looks like they've come and gone. Whole place is burned to the ground. Lot of footprints around here, but they're just sort of in the area - no tracks leaving or coming from anywhere else.

>>360427
Well that's a bummer. No trace you can sniff out or so? Because it would kind of suck if we get nothing out of you coming here.

What the heck is that green stuff at the top of the tree?

>>360494
Oh dear. Watch out for a possible trap.

Suggestion 2011/10/24(Mon)15:12 No. 360706 ID: 383006
File 131949432070.jpg - (72.63KB , 850x700 , 51.jpg )

Oh, that's just something living I sensed in the tree. I suppose I should go check it out.

It's an owl! I ask it if it saw anything useful.

The owl informs me that he has a hole in the tree where he lives, and that he's been here for a while. He said that people showed up one day while he was asleep, and lived in the hut for a while (animals are really stupid about time). Anyway, they came out with a big scary ghost lady and then walked around and stuff and then when he was asleep again they disappeared.

It seems like the ressurected the witch as a spirit instead of a corporeal undead. That means only magic can hurt her, and it'll be a real problem. They must have been doing this while they were also working on the ogre's body. I just want to know how they're moving around. I know magical teleportation is a thing, but you'd have to be a super powerful wizard and even then it's really unreliable and can't transport large groups. It's got to be something else, but there are no tracks leaving here. It's frustrating is all. Oh well, I don't think there's anything else to learn from this guy.

Suggestion 2011/10/24(Mon)15:16 No. 360707 ID: 383006
File 131949458113.jpg - (118.36KB , 850x700 , Disposition5.jpg )

This is your current troop disposition. The light bandit horse uses javelins, so they only get one ranged attack.

The crossbowmen have shorter range and are less accurate than your own archers, and fire more slowly. Their infantry are worse than yours, but it's mostly a matter of morale, not skill.

Their heavy horse are not as tough as yours.

Do you have any plans? Currently, most of your watchtowers are complete and manned, or nearly so, and your moat is now full of spikes. Most of your cities and villages are properly garrisoned and walled.

Do you have any other plans? Any troops to send out? It's OK if you don't - your enemy probably won't wait forever to make his next move.

Uh. These guys are flying around or tunneling. Probably flying, since tunneling would leave obvious disturbed earth.

So we might have to worry about flying bugs. Good thing we have some extra crossbowmen.

>>360707
The newer members of our military could probably really use some drilling and practice alongside our other troops; hopefully with enough time training together they'll feel more a part of our military and their morale will go up somewhat.

Both the giant ogre and the spectral witch will likely require magic to defeat, and we've only got four wizards. Can we train or recruit more? Failing that, can we build catapults or bolt throwers to go with our defenses- things which might be able to make a serious dent in that ogre or anything else really big and tough they have to throw at us?

>>360707
We should give our new troops time to train with our old one so they get to know them and stuff and see if we can get them to improve. We should also talk to them about what has been going on in our neighbours kingdom, because there seems to be something seriously weird going on there and we might have to intervene there somehow, damn shame we don't have any assassins.

>>360719
I'm all for building siege weapons if we can manage it. That'd give something to deal with the ogre and let our wizards focus on the witch. Though mobility will as always be a problem.

Identifying the origins of those enemies is pretty crucial, but it looks like getting leads will be difficult with whatever methods they're using that don't leave tracks.

Indeed, if we can get some ballistae or other big damage single-target weapons, we could take out the ogre a lot easier.

Assuming we can't just trap it in a pit or something.

Does our Chamberlain know anything about the territories surrounding our kingdom? Since we apparently don't (aside from our immediate borders), we probably want to ask him about that.
After all, if the medium-bugs are made from living humans, the bugs have to be getting those humans from somewhere, and it would be useful to see if the neighboring kingdom is the only option for that. (They could be shipping them in from overseas, but that would be difficult to manage sneakily.)

Oh shit, what if they flew out from the witch's place? Put an alert out to track the skies as well as the ground. We cannot afford to be caught with our pants down if the enemy has access to air forces.

Can our serpentine friend find any other animal pals in the surrounding area to question?

Bump

>>391436
Man, this quest is great, but we sort of have to wait for the author to return. Bumping it won't do us any good.

Accidently hit A one too many times and have the owl re-tell you the entire thing.