Even better if we can convince Deeprock to strike first. Follow the Deeprock "leader" until he's away from Golgoth.

Rolled 82

>>24298385
That, seems ok for now.

>>24298385

You follow the Deeprock spokesman through the winding, labyrinthine corridors, under the road, to the other hill, and then through a secret door. In the dim lighting, you hadn't noticed, but the food had to be stored somewhere. And indeed, once in the secret section of the village, there's suddenly much more light. Pregnant women, children, the elderly, and other non-combatants abound, several of those carrying weapons are out of their masks. "Klein!" the spokesman calls out in one of the larger chambers, and one of the unmasked warriors turns to him, a tall and lithe man. "We have a problem with the Golgothans."

"What now?" Klein asks.

"He says we've killed two of his men," the spokesman says.

"Did we?" Klein asks.

"Not so far as I know," the spokesman says, "but it must've been someone in the hills. If he doesn't give us their heads, he says he'll head to Westercoast for reinforcements and take the hills by force."

"The Golgothans can't spare troops from the defense, not with a Dorriki army on its way to Westercoast," Klein says.

"It would be a stupid move, but who's to say the Golgothans aren't stupid?" the spokesman asks.

"True," Klein says, and is quiet for a moment. "If we call their bluff and they're not bluffing, they can bring a force large enough to kill us all. If we attack first, we'll win, and with a Dorriki army marching on Westercoast, there's not much they'll be able to do about it...Unless they win that battle...How long until dawn?"

"About an hour, maybe two," the spokesman says.

"Gather up the warriors," Klein says, "we'll meet before daybreak, figure this out."

>intervene, or popcorn.gif?

>>24299069
popcorn

>>24299069
They're just going to meet up? Sure, let's attend and see if we will have to introduce ourselves then.

>>24299069
Sorry I'm late boss, was playing something and for some reason twitter thought it would be cool not to notify me until 2 hours after it started.

Let's keep watching, I think minimal intervention will help us out here more than not.

>>24299589
Subtle or not sublte, I can see both paths leading to our objective of having Deeprock join the war. They have good reason to do so already, so it should be easy enough.

>>24299180
>>24299243
>>24299589

Apologies for the delay, had to run an errand. May have to do so again in about an hour. But we're good for now.

----

There's close to a hundred warriors assembled in the massive central chamber of the hidden section of Deeprock Village. They had to push out all the non-combatants who'd been gathered there and even then it was a squeeze, the warriors packed shoulder to shoulder. Klein explains the situation and a few shouted suggestions immediately go up, mostly of the "kill something" variety.

"Hold up," Klein says, "before we know anything, we need to know who is responsible for the slain patrol. Was it one of us, or have they turned on their own?" There is silence. After a time, Klein speaks again. "Then it was them," he says, surprised.

"Why?" one of the warriors asked.

"A good question," Klein says, "but not one we have time to answer."

>claim credit for kills, or keep watching?

>>24300195
Absolutely do not claim credit. That'd just be seen as trying to cause trouble for them. Shadows are untrustworthy enough already.

>>24300195
Keep watching, as the other anon said it would be completely counter-productive to waltz in right now.

>>24300246
>>24300295

"Well, if they're fighting each other already, why not just let them have at it?" one of the warriors offers. "Let tensions boil over on their own and we can mop up the remnants and loot both sides."

"My favorite kind of battle!" one of the other warriors offers, getting a few jovial cheers from the room.

"We've only got, what, sixteen hours before they leave?" one of the other warriors points out. "Tensions might not have enough time to boil over. Especially since we don't even know what the tensions are! Maybe the killer just wanted to leave our halls, in which case he got what he wanted and won't be striking again."

"We shouldn't risk letting them leave," one of the warriors says.

"I agree, but when do we attack?" Klein says. "If we wait until sunset, just before they leave, it gives more time for internal problems to tear them apart from within. But if we attack now, when they aren't fully awake, we have a better chance of catching them off-guard."

"One of their patrols has been killed," one of the warriors says, "they're probably on-guard as it is, time of day be damned. Not like you can tell where the sun is when we're locked down like this."

Klein nods. "Good point. We should attack at sunset, then." There are general sounds of consensus amongst the warriors. Klein turns to the spokesman. "Tell the Golgothans we're investigating, but don't promise anything. When night falls, we strike."

>wat do?

>>24300597
We finish up our popcorn and dust off our hands, once sunset comes round we'll help these guys kill off the Golgothans. Preferably using Blinding Darkness since there will be plenty of it around to use, and making their soldiers easy targets for their arrows.

>>24300696
No. That's too slow. They need to kill Golgothans right now and link up with our army, which should be passing by somewhere in the forest right now, ASAP. We should convince them to attack right away.

>>24300732
It's going to take our army time to get through the forest, and revealing ourselves now may hurt our credibility if they connect the dots when our intentions are made clear.

>>24300794
Well, consider also that Golgoth is already preparing for a battle. Every moment they delay gives them more time to do so, potentially increasing casualties, or even somehow tipping the battle in their favor. Hell, they may even decide to strike before Deeprock does. In this place, I'd say whoever takes the iniative gets a major advantage.

>>24300696
Agreed.

>>24300852
Perhaps, but we could also bounce on over the the Golgothan captain and spy on what his intentions are to confirm who will have the advantage. I dont think us hanging around for one evening for a battle will be hard missed by our marching army. Us lending our hand to the Deeprock folks will give them an advantage anyway in of itself.

>>24300925
Then let's do that.

>>24300956
>>24300925

Looks like we have a consensus.

You head back over to the Golgothans side of the hill. He's taking regular reports on Deeprock movements now, and has noticed the sudden withdrawal of all Deeprock warriors from every visible part of the village. He's ready to strike at the drop of a hat and has instructed his troops to move in patrols of four instead of two, since that will hopefully be more difficult to ambush. He's considering bumping it up to six.

In any case, he has no intentions to attack. He's getting ready leave and come back with more guys.

>>24301307
Is he alone?

>>24301441

No, he is more or less constantly surrounded by messengers and guards, in the heart of the Golgothan garrison of the village. There's like seven guys around him at all times, and three of those are actual guards whose only job is to sit around and wait for someone to attack him.

>>24301539
Oh well. Sounds like even causing a distraction that might get them away from him (or might not) would cause him to pull the trigger. Probably best just to leave his plans as they are, rather than run a significant risk of him calling the attack.

>>24301611

Alright. Anything else you plan on doing before sunset?

>>24301899
I don't really expect these guys to reveal much, but I'd be interested in learning more of Deeprock's stance on the war and on Golgoth to get a feeling for how predisposed they are to joining the war. Plus, it may give us an idea which buttons we need to press to get them moving in the right direction.

Oh, and learning more means eavesdropping on any conversation we can find, in case that wasn't clear.

>>24302046
I support this. Intel is good.

>>24302046

You know there's secret doors lying around. Unfortunately, you don't know how to find them. You end up following Deeprock warriors around for hours before one of them ducks into the hidden part of the village, but from there it's not too difficult to find the central chamber, where people gather and talk. The hidden part of the village isn't nearly as labyrinthine as the main section.

While the people in the main chamber talk freely, unaware of your presence and evidently certain that no one could find their way in here, they don't talk about much that's interesting. People are really starting to miss the sun. The lack of trade means that good beer is more scarce, and people are using the mushrooms more often. Apparently there's some mushrooms in these caverns which cause you to get crazy high on skin contact. The Deeprock warriors are all bundled up so they won't get tripping accidentally, and they can leave it lying around as a booby trap, and a lot of Deeprock villagers use it recreationally besides, more than normal these days. They don't really like Golgoth, but they want to be on the winning side of the war, and it bothers them that they can't tell what that side is right now. Did you hear that bitch Manti is sleeping with someone else behind Jaren's back? And so on.

>anything else you want to do?

>>24302374
>LSD mushrooms
And these people rely on "tolls" instead of selling this? Come on Dorrik, get it together.

So either way, self-preservation at the cost of others, we should be able to work with that, if they don't decide to do what we want on their own. I'm satisfied with this. All that remains is to decide if we should assist Deeprock in their fight. Shadows jumping into the eyes of Golgothan soldiers could probably be noticed as a little more than odd, but being noticed HELPING could be a good thing if we end up needing to speak directly to them to get them to join. So I think we should do just that, help out here and there when they attack by blinding their enemies.

>>24302604
Precisely what my plan was already, so yeah this sums things up. Let's just wait it out and play shadow blinding support for a squad of Deeprock warriors during the battle.

>>24302604

As night approaches, the Deeprock warriors begin vanishing into hidden alcoves and secret passages. Periodically they pop out to ambush or snipe at passing Golgothans. Word gets around quickly, and a scattered and confused battle breaks out throughout the hills as the Deeprock warriors begin slaughtering the Golgothans. Though prepared for a battle in general, the Golgothans are entirely unaware of where the secret passages go and where their entrances are, so many of them are dead before they even knew a battle had started.

Once the fighting has begun in earnest, the Golgothans rally to choke points, but to little use, as the Deeprock warriors' knowledge of secret passages and memorization of the labyrinth means they can often bypass the chokepoints entirely, attacking the garrisons from behind or below. The fact that you're blinding the Golgothans whenever you get the chance is hard to avoid noticing, since the shadows leap off the walls and what-not, and helps seal their fate that much further.

Within half an hour, the only surviving Golgothans are either fleeing out of the hill and back towards Westercoast or else are being hunted through the halls of Deeprock.

>now what?

>>24303023
A few escaped soldiers can provide Westercoast with absolutely nothing of value as far as I can tell, so no reason to even try hunting them down. What concerns us is whether Deeprock will join the war. Surely they will discuss their next move right away, and we will of course be attending, ready to tell them what's what if need be.

>>24303281
Basically, we may have to intervene but hopefully it won't be the deciding factor.

>>24303281
>>24303422

They do indeed meet to discuss their next move, in that a few of the warriors come to find Klein and ask him if or recommend that they join the attack on Westercoast. To which Klein's response is "we need to know more. How many warriors are in the Dorriki army, from which villages, and where they are. Golgoth has over a thousand men in Westercoast, I doubt any army can take the city without the support of Golroute."

>wat do?

>>24303902
Time to make our entrance.

"But take Westercoast they shall try. The armies of Dorrik march past on their way to confront Westercoast as we speak."

"I am Anomaly, one of the spirits aiding the villages in their battle to reclaim this land. We have triumphed over Golgoth time and again: Guille's Fortress, Summerbridge, Golroute, and liberating both Clarbel and Norfin from beseigers. A great spirit of stone and the patron of the forests bring their implacable might and army of ferocious giant wolves to tear Golgoth from this land, amongst the other villages and their leaders."

Add in a blurb about the numbers of our forces, since I'm not really of a mind the specifics myself to quote.

"Our army would much benefit from the assistance of Deeprock. I watched the skilled fight you put to the soldiers, and you may have witnessed my handiwork in keeping the enemy blinded by the shadows they feared. A valiant effort. Would you join us?"

>>24304181

The Dorriki forces come to about 700 right now, with about 50 wolves in addition. I should probably make the strength of armies and stuff more clear from now on.

>>24304307
Not the most heartening number, but with Deeprock's assistance it would certainly help even the odds. Girdin/ourself is a force multiplier in of himself, so there's that too.

This is getting good though.

>>24304181
I'd leave out the statistics. Doesn't seem very spirit-y to get into that kind of stuff. Rather I'd state that "all villages except those put to the torch and Deeprock have united against the invaders". Peer pressure is a bitch.

>>24304382
True, lets try this angle first. If they absolutely wont consider it without numbers though, be up front with them.

>>24304382
I'd simply just pop up in shadow form and say: "It's actually quite large, and it helps that their enemy tends to suffer crippling command and moral issues when I'm through with them."

>>24304464
Mmmnah, I prefer the somewhat polite introduction. Especially since advertising ourselves as a trickster is a no-no for me. We should be pretending to be anything except that.

Alright, someone roll for their favored approach, d100 highest wins.

Rolled 11

>>24304181
>>24304382

I submit myself to the dice gods.

>>24304810
>roll 10 in previous thread
>roll 11 in this thread

I should just stop rolling entirely.

Rolled 1

>>24304771
rolling for a cheeky introduction and then providing them the information they are looking for.

>>24304919
Well then.

Rolled 44

>>24304181
Rolling.

>>24304181

Klein looks towards you skeptically. "The Golgothans have their gods, and terrifying creatures they are," he says. "I saw them twist and deform men, stretching them out until they stood nine feet tall and rail thin. I saw a great oozing pile of pus that ate through sheer rock. You have your magic, they have theirs. And they've also got a wall thirty feet high and a thousand soldiers. With Golroute burned, all of Dorrik could scarcely hope to match those numbers. And with Golroute burned, you'd best believe that all of Westercoast's thousands of citizens will be happy to take up arms against you as well. Your battle is hopeless."

>>24305372
No offense, but the beings you refer to are basically low level hedge spirits. All of the more capable sort are sitting at the capitol, secure in the knowledge that their counterparts in this region are sealed away. Unfortunately for them, that belief is mistaken.

Rolled 72

>>24305372
"You have little faith in the people of Dorrik. Once they see Golgoth losing the final battle, they will realize they are not the god-sanctioned masters they set themselves up to be."

"Golgoth's spirits may be troublesome, but we have slain two already. Our unity conquers their arrogance, and they are blinded by their smug superiority. Countless numbers of their Blood Guards have fallen by our hand, they cannot stop real spirits."

"Likewise before our spirit of stone, towering and mighty who did rip clean the great gates of Guille with his mere jaws, their walls are dust."

"Golgoth relies on its reputation to subjugate and oppress the people of Dorrik. If we destroy them here, they will not muster the resources to send another army. Your people will be free of them forever."

"Anyone can say they're stronger than their enemies. Anyone can pick off a divided and scattered foe. You've united everything Dorrik has to throw at Golgoth, and what do you have? What are your numbers? What are your victories really? Ambushing a scattered and overstretched enemy? Beating off armies who never planned on conquering at all? Can you conjure an army or destroy one, spirit?"

>>24306409
Really tempted to reply "I just did"

>>24306409
"Conjure an army? No, that's my friend Olbrek's specialty. Destroy one? It's what I've been doing this entire campaign. Yes, the enemy was over stretched and scattered, but that doesn't change the fact then when I woke up [insert correct timeframe] they controlled virtually the entire island. Now, now they are reduced to Westercoast, and I had a hand in every one of those defeats. You ask if I can destroy a Golgoth army? My friend, I just did."

>>24306794
might also add that we've been astonished how willing the blood guard and the regular troops are willing to slaughter each other with but the slightest push.

>>24306794
This. We need a crass intimidation factor. If we need to milk the idea that Golgoth will steamroll these guys if we lose out of spite, we can.

>>24306794

Klein laughs. "You destroyed an army just now?" he says, "you think you can walk in here and tell a transparent lie about what I and my own men just barely did, and I'll believe it? Spirit, if you are a beguiler, you need more practice. There's a reason the Golgothans' plan was to run away and get help. They never stood a chance against us in our own halls."

>>24307140
Uh TM, I'm pretty sure when he said "I just did", he meant that he just destroyed the unity of Golgothan forces with these last few battles. Their effective army has been crippled. Not the fight just now.

>>24307140
A transparent lie? You wound me, for it is nothing but the truth. Or perhaps you still believe that those two Golgoth soldiers were truly killed by their own? I must say that I was quite surprised at the outcome though, usually it take more effort to completely cripple the enemy force.

>>24307355
Actually, I meant that when we showed up they had, what a hundred of their own troops and that much again in native auxiliaries? A day later and they've lost the entire position.

>>24307355

Whatever he meant, Klein thought you were referring to the battle in Deeprock just now. Since that's what "just" happened.

---

>>24307417

"So you started a fight and then we won it," Klein says, "unless you know a thousand warriors sitting in Westercoast just waiting to turn on the Golgothan garrison, that doesn't change a thing."

>>24307779
"Actually, you'd be astonished how quickly the blood guard and the regular soldiers will turn on each other." recount how we annihilated that force in the tree town place.
"Also, moral tends to become a bit shaky when their officers start getting systematically assassinated."

>>24308128

"Spirit, you can recount your trivial victories all day. A scattered, demoralized force is not what you are fighting at Westercoast. If you're capable of making armies fall with the wave of a hand, then go do it, you don't need our help. If all you can do is make shadows twitch, then you've already lost."

>>24308598
"Then we shall."

Leave him, Deeprock is probably hardly worth the effort at this rate. These people seem to be good at fighting on their own terms anyway, I doubt they know anything about siege warfare.

Let's go rejoin our forces.

>>24309261

You regroup with your forces. They're well past Deeprock and have begun heading back towards the road to shave a day or two off the travel time. They'll be at Westercoast within a few days. And it is currently June 12th, for anyone who's keeping track.

The army is weary from the long march through the forest, but since they've got plenty of supplies and the plan is to take Westercoast by storm, they've decided to rest for a day on the road before moving onward and hand out extra rations. Should lift the soldiers' spirits, and giving Golgoth one more day to prepare won't make as big a difference as having a rested army on arrival.

>wat do?

>>24309504
Check in with Mari to make sure she's alright, then I'd actually like to meet with Jens to tell him we're going to scout the enemy ahead of the main force to gauge what information we can gather.

Then of course, we move ahead.

>>24309698

Mari's doing fine. Though as you draw nearer and nearer to Westercoast, a mixed feeling of wonder and dread has settled in. All the warriors are feeling it. Few of them have seen Westercoast. Assailing the massive port town is nigh-impossible so most don't bother. Not only is it bottled up behind Deeprock, it's got walls forty feet tall and ten feet thick, and a population of thousands besides. Some consider it hardly to be Dorriki at all, as with such a massive population, family ties begin to fade and come undone. A man can't trust his cousins in Westercoast, they say. Sometimes he can't trust his brother.

But the walls are mostly what people are concerned about at the moment. Also the catapults.

On the other hand, it's Westercoast City. There's more than three thousand people there. That's more than all of eastern Dorrik combined. That's ten percent of the Dorriki population in one place. They say the farms stretch out for miles. The army will be running into them sometime tomorrow, unless they've horribly miscalculated their position.

Jens is glad to know anything he can about the size of the Golgothan garrison, the state of the walls, and really anything that might give them a better shot at seizing Westercoast. It's going to be a Hell of a fight and they only have a few days to make it work before supplies run out.

Moving ahead of the army, you soon see the rumors confirmed. Although now abandoned due to reports of the advancing Dorriki army, the fields do indeed stretch out for miles. It looks 2/3s of the population of the city typically lives here. It must be stuffed with refugees now. And more besides, you soon catch up with the refugees from Golroute. They seem to have suffered some losses along the way, but they're traveling with a Golgothan escort now.

It hasn't done much for their speed, however. The Dorriki army will catch them before they reach Westercoast.

>wat do?

>>24310036
Sucks to be them, keep moving towards the fity and lets get a proper look at what we're up against. If we have to wait until evening to find a way to sneak over/inside, do it.

>>24310226

After traveling for the better part of 24 hours through abandoned farmlands, you come to the city itself. As advertised, the walls are forty feet tall and ten feet thick. You are genuinely uncertain if Girdin will be able to punch through all that in a single ram. The gates, however, are your usual enormous wooden doors, banded with steel that may as well be wet tissue paper for your pet rock. Cropping up around the walls is a tent city assembled by refugees from the farmland. Looks like there wasn't enough room inside for quite all of them. There's a solid five hundred people here outside.

Conveniently, night has already fallen when you arrive, so you slip across. This city isn't that much bigger than Golroute on its own, only home to about 1200 people or so, but is nevertheless clearly much wealthier. Atop the walls they do indeed have four catapults. Those will wreak merry Hell on any units advancing on the walls. The walls themselves are manned by six hundred Golgothan soldiers, with three separate captains and their attendant lieutenants. Each officer is accompanied by a man in heavy, spiked armor, inscribed with runes. Similar runes are inscribed on their swords. You don't know if these are the blood guard "just for show" runes or the armorman "even Girdin is fucked up by this" runes.

You find another four hundred Golgothan defenders stationed in the streets, concentrated around a large manor in the center of the city, near a massive market that's now overrun with another few hundred refugees.

The Golgothans are handing out food to the refugees and seem to have a very large supply of the stuff. Either Westercoast has plenty of stores for a siege or Golgoth brought plenty of food with them. And their occupying force is roughly equal to the city proper's total population so the latter is a possibility.

>wat do?

Looks like we're finished for today. Tomorrow is D&D, but Friday at 12:00 server time (or thereabouts), what will probably be the last thread of Chapter 2 begins.