>>23821972
Train our minion in Delusion

>>23821972
Ask Girdin and Olberek if they're familiar with any local daemons. Worth checking before we go.

We kinda also wanted them to send small parties to Norfin and Clarbel because numbers. Are they gonna?

Also, no twitter update?

>>23822051

Olberek's actual domain is in eastern Dorrik. He's had contact with the west, but doesn't know the local daemons intimately at all, and the ones he did know of are all absent, presumably hanging out in the oubliette graveyard back east.

>>23822014

To begin training in Dementation, you must first know how to reach out and feel the mind of another. Never mind about sensing weaknesses or sending messages or any of that. The first step is to teach Mari how to tell that these big balls of myopic insecurity are out there in the first place.

She's not doing well at that. Like, at all. This is going to take a while, and she won't be able to work on Fleshshaping while also working on Dementation. Also, it might be that whatever the Hell she is can only learn one or a certain set of talents, and Dementation isn't one of them, so you're actually just wasting time for both of you. Or maybe it's just that learning Talents is hard (because it's not like her Fleshshaping has been coming along superfast either).

>>23822147

Oh, yeah, they're doing that too.

I tweeted pretty much as soon as the quest started. Did it not get through? It's showing up on my feed.

>>23822173
Nevermind, looks like twitter was holding out on me.

I don't think we should be worrying about training Mari atm, she's campinwith an entire army after all. We should gauge her morale, though. She has expressed concern about her brother already. We don't want her distracted or running away.

>>23822165
We don't need to train her in anything much other than not dying right now. We want to be able to bring her into a battlefield and not worry she'll get herself killed. We've kept her on the fringes of the last two but that's more because we wanted her out of the way rather than helping her gain experience.

Since there's no local daemons and we don't feel like trekking around to find any, we should probably push on.

>>23822331
Agreed, keep pushing forward. She'll keep learning Fleshshaping at her own pace anyway, not much we can do to dissuade her.

>>23822241

Mari seems fine. Bringing up her brother induces a lot of worry, but when she isn't thinking about him, she seems alright. She's begun opening up with some of the Estercoast warriors. She spends a lot of time on her own practicing archery and Fleshshaping and leaving the resulting mutated animal corpses lying around so that the army knows the spirits of the vengeful dead are still around. But when she isn't doing that, she's making a few friends.

>>23822331

The army plods along to the west. One night, as they begin pitching their tents, there's a shout and alarm from the northern flank. By the time you and Mari arrive, there's nothing left to be done, the battle is over. Two Dorriki are dead from arrows, and a Golgothan scout as well, his horse riding about unclaimed. That lasts for about five seconds before one of the horseless Dorriki springs onto it and begins galloping after the rest of the fleeing Golgothan scouts, a half-dozen others following after.

You won't be able to catch a horse running at full speed on your own, but perhaps you have some other plan to catch the scout? Or maybe there's naught to do but wait, hope, and march on?

>>23822735
You can you climb something moving, right? Maybe ask Obolek to send a wolf and ride it as a shadow if he is near enough. Otherwise, delude one of the riders that doesn't follow them yet to do so while keeping him company on the horse.
What is the range on your blinding spell?

>>23822735
if we have the range, blind one of the scouts, and start disillusioning the others to cause infighting

>>23822805

Delude them with what, exactly?

>>23822808

And same question here.

>>23822832
"Everyone around you is a traitor, you must kill them to live."

>>23822832
This is one of few times where I think "You need to catch them." would work. If you don't like that for some reason "You will never be able to live with yourself if you don't catch them now!"

>>23822805
We shouldn't really need a delusion for this, except for the purpose of the rider not knowing we're there. Since we've established a sort-of reputation in this band, we could just drop the subliminal part and confirm their rumors.
"Follow those Golgothans or their punishment shall be yours"

>>23822931
I forgot we already revealed ourself... Does even the common folk know about us? I would drop the second half of your Sentence either way

>>23823015
They don't know shit. The rumors started because of what they saw in Summerbridge. Playing the part of this "vengeful spirit" just seems like it might be both fun and a boost to their morale.

>>23823015
Only the three leaders know about us. Keep it that way if we can. If we delude anyone on our side start it with "The spirits want you to-" which should tie in with >>23823048

>>23823069
Or we could just start deluding the people running away into turning around. Something like "The only way to live is to surrender to them"

>>23823069
So "The spirits want you to follow the riders." if we want to be straight with him. Simply "You want to go kill these guys right now." if we just want him to move.

>>23823069
Well, I'm not suggesting a polite introduction here, I'm suggesting playing into the beliefs that already exist in the band. The soldier wouldn't know anything more than that he heard a voice from "somewhere" and by mentioning "their punishment" he would, hopefully, assume that he is being addressed by the spirit he already believes to exist.

I dunno. Assuming the scouts haven't seen the wolves/Olberek/Girdin (who I assume are still somewhere) then we can just let 'em run. They'll prepare for an incoming army but one one backed by serious daemon power.

>>23823374
Even better if they're preparing for nothing.

Not seeing much consensus as to what to do here, so let's just roll it. d100, highest wins.

Rolled 94

>>23823580
Mount a dire wolf, chase after and delude the scouts with "The enemy forces are small, you can engage and kill them all yourselves and return as heroes."

I'd roll for >>23822931
but seeing as all posts in favor are my own, I'll just assume I'm horribly outnumbered unless I see anyone else supporting it.

>>23823619

Guess we're going with this, then.

It takes a bit to find a dire wolf and point it in the right direction, but fortunately the beasts are powerful and swift. After nearly an hour of slowly gaining on the horses, you finally manage to catch up enough to throw a Delusion onto one of them. Once he's turned around and begun fighting the enemy, you lift the Delusion on him and put it on the other instead. Eventually, you have all the scouts fighting with their pursuers, riding about and firing arrows back and forth. Some of the Dorriki draw axes and attempt to run in close enough to fight in melee, but the Golgothans have superior horsemanship and are able to evade their attackers.

In the end, it turns out your delusion was actually perfectly accurate. The scouts are whittled down to two survivors, but the Dorriki are killed or driven off. Your dire wolf ends with an arrow through its eye, too.

>wat do?

>>23823928
Delude one into thinking that the other is a traitor and that he needs to kill him. Also make a mental note that the next time it looks like our pet mortals are losing we should probably intervene earlier.

>>23823928
I had really assumed we would be able to give input for the fight instead of just sitting there and watching all our guys die and kill the enemies ourself afterward.....
>>23824014
We have done this often enough, let's do it again.

Rolled 87

>>23824014
This.

>>23824047
Whoops forgot to take my dice off.

...blind their horses

>>23823928
Horse archers are OP. Delusion one with "The other guy is a Dorriki in disguise and will try to kill you." Hopefully this should kick in before they get far away. If so, blind the winner and kill him with the loser's weapon.

You delude one of the scouts into shooting the other, and then blind his horse. He curses and struggles to get the beast to act properly.

>>23824453
Blind the rider too and then kill them with the bow of the other archer.

>>23824453
paralysis delusion, then shank him.

save one for interrogation

>>23824567
point. paralyze, disarm and interrogate

>>23824567
This. Paralysis should get him right off that horse.

>>23824606

Alright, you paralyze him, go corporeal, and drag him off his mount. Now what exactly did you plan on asking him?

>>23824827
Typical military information. What he knows of Golgoth's deployment, where he came from & where he was going, what he was expecting to find by scouting, if there's been any unusual rumours going around about either Golgoth or the Dorriki.

>>23824827
if he knows anything useful so we don't have to torture him to death.

stuff like what his orders were or where he was from.

>>23824855
Add the same delusion we did before that "You can only tell the truth" as well please.

>>23824855

As a scout, he knows a little bit more about deployments of necessity, since he needs to know where the camp is going to be in order to report back to it. The Golgothans have taken Golroute Village by bribing the villagers into submission. There was some dissent when about a half-dozen children were taken by the Blood Guard because they were supposedly cursed, but their families were mostly cowed into submission or else run out entirely, with the implied approval of the rest of Golroute. Golroute Village, as a crossroads, is now being used as a staging area for the ongoing battle against the Dorriki, which is more of an endless series of skirmishes and raids than a proper war.

The scouting run was a standard trip to make sure that no raiding parties were headed towards Golroute. It's a dangerous job, particularly since a scouting group failing to return is, from the commander's perspective, pretty much exactly as valuable as their coming back alive to report an approaching enemy.

>>23825392
"How soon were you expected to return?"
How far would we estimate we are from Golroute?

>>23825464

The scout is expected back within two days at the most. Your army is three days out from Summerbridge and it is four days further march to Golroute, but you could get there in one day with a horse.

So long as we're discussing times, it's currently May 11th. Once winter hits, your mortal pets won't be marching anywhere until it passes, but that's not something you'll need to worry about for a while.

>>23825532
Chain of command - Who does he answer to, who do they answer to, does Golgoth have a field HQ or is it all directed from the capital? What are the blood guard exactly, and does he know how many are deployed in the region?

>>23825532
Then we have an opening. We didn't kill his horse, so we could take (we know how to ride a horse, don't we?) to get to Golroute and plant misinformation. We could even use this scout to do so, but since we can't control him completely, that's sort of risky. It might be sufficient to simply infiltrate the base and make the commander believe this scouting party was never even sent out. Something to be discussed, perhaps?

"What is your name? Who was the leader of this party? Who is your commander?"

>>23825612

The scout answers to a lieutenant who is in charge of scouting things, who answers to a captain who is in charge of the day-to-day defense of Golroute, who answers to a commander who is in charge of fucking western Dorrik's shit up. And that guy answers to the general in Westercoast City, who answers to Emperor Kalen, who is answerable only to the gods themselves.

So, my plan is we kill this bastard, ride to Golroute, find this lieutenant (we might want to ask this scout just who that is and where to find him), and make him believe he hasn't sent out a scouting party in two weeks. That SHOULD do the trick, I think. If the officer believes and says so, the people below him won't go against that. Thoughts about this?

>>23825765
I'd suggest we use the scout and make him report that his group was cought in an ambush and massacred by a small force. We just need to make sure he will do as we say.

My ideas:
1. Delusion him "If you break the orders given to you by us, it will be worse than anything you can be imagine"
2. Just tell him to do as we ordered. Then follow him to the camp. If he does not report what we told him, we just kill him and whoever is listened to it. May be risky.

Alternatively, we could delude his superior before they meet: "Those scouts are prone to deserting lately"

Whatever we do, our main priority should be making sure that the main force does not recieve word about our army.

Ask him if he knew about our army before.

>>23825977
His superior will be suspicious. If they are in a camp, he would have noticed that a scouting party left.

>>23825989
I considered something similar to your idea. The killing him and whoever heard him part will be pretty tough in the middle of a military base of operations.

>>23826021
The lieutenant isn't likely to tell his superior that he some managed to neglect his duties so hard by not sending out any scouts for so long, I think.

>>23825765
We get the scout to ride us back to the fortress. Soon as we're in close distance (but not in direct sight) we kill the scout and go do some scouting of our own. Check the condition of the fort, listen in on the men, see if there's any more blood guard. If we see any openings we can exploit, we do so, if their position is strong we simply start the long trek back to meet up with the Dorriki to warn them what they're facing. If we ride there by horse it'll take a day or so then walk back after scouting the place out we should meet up with our own forces again about a days walk away from the camp.

>>23826062
I meant that the superior noticed that a scouting party left. But you're right. Even if he asks the lieutenant about the reports, he'd just state that everything is as usual. This could work for at least a week.

That's the plan then? We ride to Golroute, find the lieutenant of the scouts, plant our delusion, scout their defenses, return back to our guys if we have any valuable tactical information.

>>23826238
More or less. We need to be cautious though, I'm expecting ways for them to detect our presence by this point. Have to be extra sneaky.

>>23826288
I am fully expecting that something will go horribly wrong and we will need to change the plan completely. But for now we have a plan to be ruined by the enemy. And that's as good a start as any.

>>23826327
Mh. But that's actually why scouting is a good idea; with more info on the enemy forces we can come up with a more solid plan. And possibly disrupt their defences in the proces.

>>23826238
I do not like this plan, to be honest. There are too many loose ends. Making the scout report that they were ambushed is more elegant. They'd send a force to the site of the battle, which is several hours from our main encampment. When they find nothing except corpses, they will return, and while they may increase security, they do not know about the army and there is no risk that they stumble over an obvious delusion. We would not want them to notice that a higher force is messing with them. The scout should probably have an unfortunate accident later, so we don't have to keep the delusion up forever.

>>23826354

Your main encampment is going to move between the site of the battle and Golroute Village between now and when the Golgothan scouts arrive to investigate the battle site.

>>23826238
>>23826354

Oh woah, woah. We don't want this scout riding into base at all. Remember, a scout party that doesn't return at all is exactly as important as one that reports enemy forces. We can kill the scout outside the camp then just shadow-form and sneak in at night; he's not expected back for three days so they won't notice anything amiss until then anyway. That only gives then one day to prepare and they don't know what to prepare for. Letting the scout return alive, even if we delusion him and his commander, makes it WAY easier for something to go wrong. We don't want to take that chance. We want to sneak in, scope it out, POSSIBLY try to exploit the enemy defenses is we see a good enough opportunity, then get back to our army and tell them what's up. We can't keep the scout under a delusion forever, which means we have to kill him anyway. Better sooner than later, and without giving the enemy a mysterious death to investigate.

We tell the scout we will let him live if he rides us back to camp. Delusion him with "I will only ever tell you the truth" if need be. Then when we're close, steer him into some undergrowth and kill him and his horse. Then, we sneak in, scout, only cast delusions if there's relative safety or huge gains, then get back the fuck out.

>>23826354
The scout is a loose end himself. If he tells what he saw, they will expect an army. If the officer starts acting weird they expect... what? That he's lost his mind? Do you think they're so paranoid AND well versed in Dementation that they will figure out what's going on? And even if they did figure out that a spirit made him act crazy, would they assume that spirit was doing so to aid an army marching against them? I doubt it, honestly.

>>23826479
I'm going along with this.

>>23826488
How well-versed the enemy is in the ways of daemons and spirits is irrelevant. They're military; anything out of the ordinary will make them paranoid and put them on alert. Especially if there's blood guard at the camp; they do not stand for even minor deviations from protocol.

>>23826479
Actually, he's expected back in two days, leaving them two days to prepare. They still won't know WHAT will him them as long as we don't let the scout live, but they will know something is coming. Most likely they will raise their defenses to their maximum, not just some arbitrary medium setting. I don't think we lose anything at all by attempting the delusion.

Once again we seem to be at an impasse. Roll for kill scout or delude scout.

Rolled 4

>>23826680
Kill the scout.

Rolled 33

>>23826680
Kill.

Rolled 42

>>23826680
kill. We can't keep up the delusion long enough.

>>23826705
>>23826714

Alright. You don't particularly need the scout to lead you to the camp in the first place, because they're stationed in Golroute Village which is on a major road, which is the entire point of both stationing an army there and trying to seize it. So, you just kill the poor bastard and take his horse. Gangsta.

Golroute Village is probably about double the size of Deepwell. It's got a large wooden wall, but not a palisade. Guards actually patrol this thing. There are regularly spaced watchtowers. You recall this area being covered in woodland four hundred years ago, but now it's flat plains out for miles. No prizes for guessing why.

There's only so much spare room inside the village, of course, so most of the Golgothan rank and file are in an encampment on the western side of the village, with hastily erected trenches and stockades guarding the perimeter. The guard is heavy, but if you wait until nightfall, the darkness of night will cover your approach and make you basically invisible outside the range of a torch.

>wat do?

>>23826830
I think we can keep up a single delusion indefinitely, but I want him dead too since the line between intended effect and actual effect of delusion can get quite blurry sometimes.

Rolled 94

>>23826903
Continue to observe their patrols and get a guesstimate for how many soldiers are in the encampment outside the walls. We wait until nightfall before moving, not taking any chances.

Rolled 89

>>23826903
Circle the military camp, examine the stockade for any signs of poor workmanship or instability.

>>23826977
Forgot my dice again. I keep doing that.

>>23826973
So did you apparently.

>>23826973
The dice gods are a cruel, cruel pantheon indeed. Misrolled and suffered for it.

>>23826973
>>23826977
Based on past experience I will also add that we should especially look for concentrations of blood guards. If Guille had daemons, this place is likely to as well, and the blood guards seem to be in charge of that business.

>>23826977

There aren't any particular weakspots in the construction. It's not a terribly good construction all around since it was assembled in like a week, but it's equally terrible all around. And really not so terrible as you'd expect under the circumstances.

>>23826973

A rough estimate of the number of soldiers in the encampment outside the walls would be about four or five hundred soldiers.

>>23827011

Well, there aren't any Blood Guards outside the walls.

Waiting until nightfall now?

>>23827202
Yes, and then seek a good vantage point of the military encampment, then Golroute itself.

>>23827202
>Waiting until nightfall now?
yes

the wall thing is wooden? light that shit on fire.

>>23827202
A weak defensive structure, but against our guys who seem to be mostly about axes and the occasional bow... Yea, they'd probably manage to get themselves killed on it.

>>23827275
Especially since they are outnumbered. I'd suggest poisoning the food.

>>23827254

There aren't any. The place is a plain and there's basically no way to get high enough to see over the wall, even though it's only about fifteen feet tall. You could pretty easily build a watch tower high enough to see over in a siege situation, but a siege this ain't.

>>23827260

How?

>>23827445

Same question.

>>23827486
how many guys do we have again in our main army?

>>23827486
I do hope that anons were just thinking aloud and didn't actually intend to try to burn down the place yet. Recon comes first.

>>23827486
We've been around for thousands of years. Surely we have some basic knowledge of natural toxins and where to get them. I'd say we go pick some flowers and sneak them into the camp in the middle of the night. Then we should find the cook who is likely preparing some kind of stew and delude him with "These herbs here are needed for your recipe".

>>23827537

About two hundred. You used to have a few more, but you took some casualties in the fight with Guille.

>>23827586

You can't move stuff from outside the camp to inside it unless you plan on sneaking about while fully corporeal.

>>23827537
300 if I remember correctly. More if the other villages send us support. We should at least outnumber them 2:1 so they stand a chance in a battle.

>>23827609
Yup. That's what I was thinking. We just need to create some distractions or delusions and go unnoticed or even shadow form if shit hits the fan. It's a bit of a gamble, but we should be fine.

>>23827693

Okay, so distractions and delusions like what?

Guys, guys, guys. Before we attempt to sneak in there the hard way, we should really scout the place the easy way. Again, highest priority is spotting blood guards and their concentrations. If these people have daemons to aid them, we have to know.

>>23827870
Okay, scout first, and make sure we find out where the food is prepared,
then collect
>>23827693
herbs and find appropriate delusions as the situation requires when re-entering the base.

>>23827870

Okay. You wait until nightfall and slip over the wall undetected. The camp's Blood Guard to regular dude ratio favors regular dudes even more so than Guille or the camp you attacked outside Deepwell did, and there are regular officers and people actually talk and joke and sing. So that's a change of pace from Summerbridge, at least.

There's a sizable section of the camp given over to a massive outdoor kitchen, with lots of pots and pans and stored food set up. Presumably when it isn't night this place is busy preparing food.

The Blood Guard aren't completely absent but they are in much reduced numbers. For the 400 Golgothan soldiers out here, there's only maybe ten Blood Guards. Previous ratios would suggest there should be at least double that number. Also missing is the commander and you can only find one captain and his lieutenants. The other officers are presumably in the village proper, along with perhaps more Blood Guard and probably a few enlisted to serve as body guards, unless Golgoth's relationship with Golroute is really close.

>>23828213
Try to stealthily scale the walls to get a look at the village proper, if we gauge it isn't too risky in shadow form. Keep a lookout for anything strange, and make a mental map of the layout.

>>23828426
Alright, but don't take too long. We want to return with the poisonous herbs while it's still dark.

>>23828426

From the top of the wall you can get a pretty good look at the village. It sprawls outward from a central square which is probably where merchants come to sell stuff under regular circumstances. Currently, it's home to another Blood Guard mobile shrine, with the usual thirteen Blood Guards guarding it. You can also see the trademark red cloaks of other Blood Guards standing or occasionally walking through the town. You don't see any officers but at this distance it's kind of hard to tell, and given that it is night they might just be inside.

>now what?

>>23828623
Leave the town and collect poisonous plants. While we can still cause trouble in the town during daytime, running through a military base would be a problem.

>>23828725

Okay, you do that. Now what do you plan to do with them?

>>23828623
Their force is pretty goddamn big, likely better-armed and trained than our incoming militia. While the blood guard have a reduced presence there's still a fair few floating around who'll be on the watch for anything too out of place. Their army is bigger than ours and it's unlikely we can stir up another insurrection.

I've been wondering then, since we're poisoning the food, exactly how much can we undermine their operation? Try to stir up paranoia, fears and frustrations to stress and exhaust their soldiers? If we can throw around little bits of madness like shadows that move when they shouldn't, people acting strange, supplies getting damaged or doing missing, could we stir up a paranoia? If we can get the blood guard on high alert and have them take away regular men and women for interrogation and questioning we can start a pretty big stir and have people blaming and cursing at each other, and unfit to fight properly by the time our army arrives.

Though, off the top of my head I'm not 100% sure on what we can do, and how, or how effective we'd be in the time frame we have.

>>23828915
Well, I'm pretty sure that in the resulting paranoia, the town's inhabitants will be massacred, but who cares.
Having the Blood Guards take soldiers away is always a good idea, and making soldiers backstab them too. A tavern fight in which suddenly swords are drawn is also a good way to undermine their combat strength. Then, we could mess with the officers again. A commander losing half of his soldiers to poisoned food while his force starts infighting will be seen as incompetent by his captains, and we may have some of them plot to dispose him, while informing others of their plan. There are many amusing ruses, but not so much time left.

>>23829068
Well if we could get a message sent to our army to wait three days or so, enough to give us a week of messing around? Hell we can work it into the confusion; have a commander order a messenger to take orders to wherever along the route that'll run the poor bastard into our forced, then switch the orders with a message for Jens to wait while you make the situation easier. Commanders sending out secret orders to places isn't a good sign, especially when the courier does not return. Though whether Jens would buy that the message is from us is another thing entirely.

>>23828915
>>23829068

So I don't really see any actual suggested courses of action here. What are you going to *do*?

>>23829176
I'm throwing up suggestions because I can't think of a good course of action; I was hoping someone else might be able to run with the ideas.

>>23829176
We use our, maybe a bit rusted, knowledge of plants to find some nice ingredients for the soldiers next meal. Aconitum would be nice, mushrooms too. Pretty much any highly toxic plant we can get.

>>23829306
Bonus points for hallucinations before death.

>>23829306

Yes, okay, you do that. What do you plan to do with those plants? How are you getting them into the food supply without being detected?

>>23829377
Leave them outside the camp where we can find them again. Become a shadow and look for ways into the camp, the nearer to the kitchen the better. Take a look at how many guards are around and scout the way. If we can handle the amount of guards, we get out herbs, distract them with our standard "Something is in that bush over there" delusion and sneak them into the kitchen. If not, we will have to be creative.

>>23829459
Make use of Unnoticed as well since we have to be corporeal to hold the herbs.

>>23829479
We cannot move while unnoticed. It is useful if a patrol is heading towards us, but not to get into the base in the first place.

>>23829500
Right, that's what I meant it for. It'd make more sense to use it once we're actually bringing the herbs in so the guards don't wonder what on earth that small pile of foliage is.

>>23829459

The camp is well-guarded. There aren't any obvious entrances and since they built these fortifications themselves like two months ago, there's not really any unnoticed crevices you can slip through. The guard is heavy enough that they can (and do) send a few people to investigate odd disturbances without breaking the perimeter.

So, now what?

>>23829701
Okay, we let a soldier do the dirty work. Drop the herbs somewhere visible and delude him with "These herbs need to be brought to the kitchen to cure a terrible plague that's going to kill every one of you if not treated."
We only need a single soldier so we can delude him.

>>23829806
Yeah this is better than the overcomplicated shit I was drumming up, try this.

>>23829806

The soldier glances about and goes to scoop up the herbs. He then brings them to the other guards on his patrol and tells them that he's stumbled across some of those herbs they need to cure the plague. The others ask what plague. The ensuing conversation is very frustrating for all involved, but finally one of them agrees to take it to the camp's doctor.

>>23829869
delude the doctor

>>23829806
Our chances should be better if we get them into the base first. We'll tie a weight to it and throw it over the palisade, then follow as shadow. When it's inside (bonus points for not throwing it at a guard's head) we'll search for a single soldier. Maybe they are patrolling in the base alone, as they have no reason to fear a danger from inside.

>>23829891
Run ahead to the doctor and delusion him with "The herbs the man is about to bring you will cure the plague that is sweeping your men, it needs to be ingested in food to be effective."

>>23829891

Your method of travel requires that you take regular detours and hold still for long stretches of time whenever you get caught in a light source. The camp is too well lit to be able to follow the soldier to the doctor immediately. Best you'll be able to do is show up in his tent later.

>>23829921
Way too late, disregard this.
>>23829891
This. "The herbs need to be mixed into the food so that everyone is cured from the plague, even if the symptoms are not showing yet."

>>23829943
We should take the wager and quickly enter his shadow while no one is watching, even if we have to move through lighted areas.

>>23829997
We'll need to do this to stand a chance of reaching the doc before he does. Hopefully we can pull off a "There's something odd behind you" delusion and then make a break for the doc's tent just before he arrives so we can pull off our doctor delusion.

lets give proof to this plague. find a lone guard and delude him into thinking he he just finished reading My Immortal set to a drinking game.

>>23829997

You're able to slip through the camp without being noticed by mimicking the guard's shadow as best you can. When you near the doctor's tent, you throw a "something odd behind you" delusion onto the guard. He glances over his shoulder, and the ground lights up with glowing blue runes and sigils that spiral outward from your location in all directions, out to the perimeter of the camp. The Golgothans draw weapons and look around for the source of the disturbance. As soon as you lift Unnoticed, they will, y'know, notice you, since they're now all on high alert.

>wat do?

>>23830119

Unfortunately you've failed to specify what sort of drinking game. The guard's subconscious fills in the details: Take a drink every time you read genuinely moving prose. He is unsmashed.

>>23830198
Well, the jig is up. Damned if we do, damned if we dont. Blind all the nearby guards and get the fuck out of there, make a beeline for the camp's edge pronto.

>>23830246
the tvtropes extended version. also, wouldn't reading that abomination even without a drinking game be enough to make him sick or mentally scarred?

>>23830323

The good news is that in the confusion you're able to get away. The bad news is...Well, that just happened. Now what?

>>23830459
Now we observe the camp from a safe distance to figure out how they respond to the threat of magic being used within the perimeter. Gotta make the best of a shitty situation, and gauge what all they can do about it.

>>23830520

What do you mean by "a safe distance?" There's no good vantage points outside the camp and you can't especially tell what's going on from outside. Do you plan to lurk around or just try and glean what you can from outside the perimeter?

>>23830659
Try to stick around the perimeter in shadow form hidden until they either raise security enough that we risk being discovered immediately, or dawn approaches.

>>23830778

On which side of the perimeter?

>>23830794
Inside, preferably.

>>23830844

From inside of the perimeter you're able to watch as events unfold reasonably well. The first to arrive is a trio of Blood Guards. They surround the guard you'd been shadowing (har) and begin circling him, but make no move actually hurt him.

The next to arrive is a seven-foot behemoth covered head-to-toe in plate armor. Every inch of his skin is covered in interlocking plates, even the joints, where tiny plates weave together into armor that flows like silk. Strapped to this man's back is a massive great sword. He stares at the guard in question for a while, then shakes his head at the Blood Guards. The four of them depart, the Blood Guards returning to their posts in the camp and the armored man returning to the village.

Also, looks like we're dying down, but I'll keep this going a bit longer.

>>23831002
Hoo wow, we're in deep here. Do we have any idea what that thing was? If a daemon, what court would we guess it's from?

Either way it looks like they either think some random spirit wandered through and just got spooked, or they aren't too concerned yet. Let's retreat outside the perimeter and wait till dawn to see if they actually reinforce their guard patrols in response. Our friends will want to know about this threat before they arrive.

>>23831121

You can't tell whether or not it's a daemon. Nor for that matter can you tell what Court it's from if it is a daemon.

They do not reinforce the guard. The guard is already pretty heavy and adding more regular Golgothan dudes won't do much to an invading spirit anyway.

>>23831153
Let us journey back to our comrades then and meet up with Olberek and Girdin to discuss what we learned of the Golgothan position. Causing havoc inside the camp will be quite difficult with those wards, so the best we can do at this point is to get some input from our forces. Also curious what the dispatches had to say about village involvement.

>>23831222

Alright, I'll respond to this and then call it for the night, since it's clear at this point I've only got the one guy playing.

When you return and track down Olberek (it takes a few minutes) and Girdin (you decide to hold the meeting where he's at rather than waiting for him to lumber over to you), they are less than pleased by the news.

"Enchantment, or Alchemy, perhaps," Olberek says, stroking his mossy beard. "The meddling of the Court of Knowledge, no doubt."

"Knowledge," Girdin says, rolling the words over his stone tongue. Olberek has been updating him on what's been going on in the cosmos over the past ten thousand years or so. Introduced him to the concept of "strip mining." Girdin is less apathetic towards science and industry than he was before.

"And an armored figure responded to the alarm, too," you say, "covered in plate completely. Not a bit of skin or a link of chain to be seen. Sound like any daemons you know?"

Olberek shakes his head, and Girdin follows suit. "Golgoth has been bringing in an awful lot of daemons from deep in their heartlands to act as cannon fodder," he says, "daemons of villages and towns. Daemons should not wander so far from their homes on a whim!" Wouldn't that be nice. The city that powers the Red Queen is on the other side of the continent on the other side of this continent. She wouldn't have ever started any of this shit if she'd kept to her territory. For that matter, Razag's city isn't even on this world. "We'll need to find a way to fight whoever this daemon is," Olberek says, "but we hardly know a thing about his Talents. We aren't even sure if that armored fellow is him."

"It is no business of mine...How you fight him," Girdin says, "my friends live quite far...From Golroute, and...You say its defenses are wood...Regardless."

>cont.

>>23831524

The report back from the scouts isn't terribly heartening either. A force of a hundred Golgothans has laid siege to Norfin Village, and they hide behind their walls hoping to wait them out. Clarbel Village, meanwhile, is engaged in exchanging a series of raids with another force of Golgothans, whose size is hard to pin down but seems similar. The Golgothans move through the woods, and while they are easy enough for natives to track, they leave traps and ambushes in their wake and they move fast. Clarbel Village itself, meanwhile, provides a large and stationary target for the Golgothans to raid whenever given the slightest bit of leeway by the Clarbel warriors.

And that caps it off for tonight.