>>25436805
Let's go check on the duke. See if we can get any new info on the war with Golgoth

>>25436805
It might be a good idea to check out the place we're supposed to meet and keep an eye on it to make sure it's not a trap. We don't need to do that the entire week though, I'm just not sure what else to do in this city.

>>25436919
Let's go drop in on the Duke and figure out whats up, then >>25436934. Also please stop by and tell Mari not to do anything stupid while we're gone.

>>25436987
Be more polite to Mari than just insulting her; she's held her own well enough now.

>>25436987
We could bring her to the place. If nothing else, it might be healthy for her to get out of Smelly: The City.

>>25437004
I wasn't being literal, I was referring to her sickness issue at the moment and to treat it with the proper concern it deserves.

>>25436987

Figure out what's up how? What do you plan on asking about? Don't need exact words necessarily, but I do need a more specific direction for the conversation to go in.

>>25437110
Just hang around 'til he's got spare time alone and ask him how the war is going with Golgoth/Ommos, and particularly how he's managing with recruits.

>>25437189
Agreed.

>>25437189

You lurk about the gloomy castle until night falls, and then pop up in front of the Duke again (from a safe distance). As before, his first reaction is to draw a sword, but he relaxes and says "oh, it's you. What do you need?"

"I need to know how fares the war with Ommos," you ask.

The Duke hesitates, then sighs and says "it goes well for now. But we lay the groundwork for the coming war with Golgoth in the closing stages of this one, and the foundation we build is weak. My cousin the king says he needs more troops to seize Ommosian strongholds before the Golgothans do. But I have crippled the coming harvest as it is! If I send him the numbers he needs, his army will starve through the winter, and come spring we will have a large army with many fortresses, yes, but it will be half-dead from starvation already!" The Duke shakes his head slowly. "We need more men, more bodies to work the fields and man the walls. Or else we need some cataclysmic reduction in Golgoth's forces. We knew their lands were vast, but we underestimated the speed with which they could move an army. Their soldiers are like demons, creatures of war entirely."

Well, more accurately, they're professional soldiers who naturally outpace peasant levies occasionally bolstered by men-at-arms, but no point in quibbling over details.

>wat do?

>>25437532

"So you need more men? Do you care where they come from, as long as they are able-bodied?"

>>25437567
I would also add in "What is the current prediction of when Ommos will fall, and then Golgoth's retaliation?"

>>25437532
Golgoth's soldiers are professionals?

>>25437624

Yes, though some are more professional than others.

>>25437567

"Able-bodied and loyal," the Duke says, "if they betray us on the battlefield, desert, mutiny, they are worse than useless."

>>25437609

"Ommos will be gone by autumn. Golgoth will likely need time to consolidate, and it is unwise to march during winter. Their retaliation will most likely come with the spring thaws."

>wat do?

>>25437791
"So they'll probably be attacking in autumn because nobody expects it. Exciting.

And what of the third player? Where does Gigan stand?"

>>25437856
This, it's important we know what this other kingdom is like.

>>25437856

"Hrmph, Gigan," the Duke says, "their bastard king is a usurper to the throne, same as Ommos. But Golgoth is the more pressing threat by far. They will stand against Golgoth with us, and they control their land access through Menteraki. Golgoth's first move will be to seize that fortress. We must rely upon Gigan to hold it, it is far from our own territory. In any case, we'll have our hands full with the naval war, and Golgoth's strongholds in Ommos."

>wat do?

>>25438047
"Do you think Gigan can be trusted in this regard? Both Kestis and Gigan pounced on Ommos after all..."

>>25438175

"Gigan can't possibly hope to defeat Golgoth on their own," the Duke says, "they must stand with us, at least until Golgoth is beaten. They have no other choice."

>wat do?

>>25438453
We'll leave it at that. Thank the duke for speaking with us, withdraw, go check on Mari next.

>>25438453
Well I've got only one more question for this guy, namely if he has taken any action in response to our information about Arn and Vin.

>>25438507
He sent someone to check on Arn and Vin immediately after we spoke to him, if I recall.

>>25438507
There's no way he'd have any reports back from Vin by now. Sailing takes a while I'd imagine.

>>25438517
Did he? In that case we don't need to ask him.

>>25438517 is correct, so we'll do >>25438498.

Mari is camping out on the rooftops of one of the tenements in the poorer section of town. Evidently she's not terribly fond of the idea of paying a guy for a place to sleep when all the rest of her life the process has been finding the most comfortable patch of dirt available and dumping some blankets down.

She's not the only orphan/street urchin in the city, but she hasn't exactly endeared herself to the others. She's a bloody-minded foreigner and they're all thin, jumpy criminals-to-be (if they manage to live that long) who've lived in Shorefall their whole life and know the place like the back of their hand.

So when you find her, she's got a nine-year old urchin by the collar, his feet hinged precariously on the edge of the building, his back leaning out across the streets below, Mari's grip the only thing keeping him from plummeting off to the side. "You know the wonderful thing about the city?" Mari says, "no matter what height you throw someone off of they ALWAYS land on rocks."

"I wasn't gonna steal nothin' from you, I was just lookin', honest," the boy is babbling.

"Hey, careful with your feet, there," Mari says, "I can't lift you on my own, you slip, you splat. In fact, my grip's feeling kind of sore as it is..." The urchin babbles out something in response, but Mari ignores him. "Of course, if I let you drop, no one would know it was me and then it wouldn't send much of a message, would it?" The urchin nods furiously. Mari pulls her dagger out. "Maybe I should cut a piece off as proof first. An ear? Pluck out an eye maybe?" she rubs the dagger across his cheek.

"No, no!" the urchin says, halfway incoherent with fear.

Mari rolls her eyes and drags him off the edge, throwing him onto the roof. "Scram, tell your friends not to bug me again, or I won't be so nice next time." The urchin wastes no time in running away.

>wat do?

>>25439009
"Very impressive. I could watch you manhandle orphans all day, it's quite entertaining." We'll sneak up on Mari soon as she's done. "For me anyway. You must get bored. So how would you like help forge an alliance between us and a potentially hostile daemon that's been breeding rat-people and illnesses under the city, in a meeting that's probably a trap?"

>>25439104
>manhandle orphans all day

We must be quite proud of our parenting skills.

Also supporting.

>>25439104
Way to sell the deal. Maybe we could add a "thanks for the hint on that one, might have taken much longer to find otherwise". People like being appreciated.

>>25439104

"So a suicide mission, basically? You realize I stay dead when I die, right?" Mari says. "I mean, I'll give it a shot, but...I'm not loving the sound of it so far. What do you need me to do, anyway?"

>wat do?

>>25439371
"Oh don't worry you're not going to be on front. Basically we've arranged a meeting in a cove a week from now, but since I don't know for sure that they're not going to just try to kill me... Well, if things do go that way we get to test what you can do to a daemon. Let's call it plan B."

>>25439371
"Don't worry, I'm kidding. Sort of. It's just a negotiation; we're trying to convince this decay guy into picking a fight with Golgoth in exchange for... Well, I'm not sure what he might want yet. But this is a daemon we're dealing with, and they don't typically like being Delusioned, which is more or less how I do my negotiating. I was thinking that you'd be a better diplomat in this instance with that sharp tongue of yours. If Girdin gets here any time soon we'll bring him along as well, and in the mean time we can go check out the meeting place and make sure it isn't a prime booby-trap location."

>>25439686
Fuck this post. We can't talk for ourselves? What the hell can we do if we can't do that? Not to mention how insulting this would be to a daemon who had agreed to a meeting with a noble (even if currently weakened). Mari is backup in case things go south, and she is not to be seen or heard.

>>25439686
How exactly is this going to work? This guy killed off his own priest and guards to preserve his secrecy. I guarantee you that he (Or his associate we know nothing about) would probably do the same.

>>25439784
To Mari to preserve that notion of "mortals don't ever know the details*. Sorry didn't finish my own thought for some reason.

>>25439762
I'm supporting keeping Mari as our stealth support.

>>25439371

Lets backpedal on that before it turns into a problem. Say "I didn't think so. I want you to help me check out the meeting place in advance to make sure it's not good for traps. I want to be able to get out of there if something goes wrong."

>>25439545
Actually I just remembered I need to ask something important about this. Can we use hidden party to hide others without hiding ourselves?

>>25439837

Doesn't matter. Decay dude has clarity.

>>25439852
Are we certain on this one? We think that those eyes in his lair were looking at us, but were they his eyes or some kind of construct?

>>25439921

I'm certain that wrongly guessing he doesn't have clarity is worse than wrongly guessing he does.

>>25439941
Well we should still bring her along to find the place and check it for an ambush. Because fleshshaping is a neat way to kill people and this city smells.

>>25440016
Does it really have to be restated that bringing her will get her killed? This guy obviously doesn't like mortals.

>>25440153
He isn't supposed to be there for like 6 more days. How is he going to kill her?

>>25440178
He might not be able to, but we have no idea what this "Friend of his" is capable of. He might very well be having him scout ahead as a measure of safety as well, since Decay Daemons are known to be a bit paranoid at times.

>>25440209
Would it be preferable that he attacks just us, then? A hostile engagement is a hostile engagement, might as well be prepared for it.

>>25440232
I don't think he'll be hostile enough to engage "us". But if he sees a mortal snooping about with us he might very well kill her out of suspicion. After all, we're also a Daemon with heavy ties to Night despite being neutral. Why should we give a fuck about mortals either in his eyes?

>>25440262
Well then Decay is seriously chaotic stupid. Even with the lowest opinion of mortals, that's pretty much the equivalent of killing somebody's slave just for fun. And nobody ever made any friends that way and for all he knows we're very capable of kicking his ass.

This has gone on long enough and it doesn't seem like either side will be convinced. So let's roll for it. d100, highest wins, and if there's more actual votes for one side than another I'll go with that. But if it's tied, the roll will break the tie.

Rolled 50

>>25439827
Rolling for this

Rolled 27

>>25440367
Don't bring her at all, have her stay and search for Girdin while we're gone.

Rolled 34

>>25440367
Bring her along to find and check out the place.

>>25440386

Looks like this is our winner.

You bring Mari along to scout out the cove. It's secluded, as promised, full of rocky crags and niches. Plenty of places to hide, but none of them seem to go too deep so at least you don't have to worry about a hidden horde pouring out onto the beach from some secret cavern network. Unless the secret cavern network is just exceptionally well hidden.

The area appears to be deserted right now, though of course it's another five days before the daemon is scheduled to show up anyway.

>wat do?

Rolled 56

>>25440668

"so Mari, if you were going to trap the cave, how would you do it?"

>>25440748
Without fail I forget to take off my dice.

>>25440748
Yeah sure, ask this and also keep an eye out for zubats. I don't care how small these caves are, random encounters suck.

>>25440748

She shrugs. "Hide in one of the crevices and shoot whoever's coming. Stick a bunch of people in a bunch of crevices if I have them. If the people have daemon powers, then use those too, I guess." She looks around and considers. "It's definitely a good place for an ambush."

>wat do?

>>25441222
Tell her to stick here and keep watch while we investigate further into the caves with shadow form. Unless we already searched when we got here.

>>25441327

Yeah, you scoped the place out. It's empty, for now.

>>25441452
Did she bring enough supplies to last out here however long we need to wait? We might want to have her camp out until they get here and provide support from the shadows if things go south.

In the meantime we can ask how her powers are progressing and I guess just answer any questions she might have about Daemonkind (That we want her knowing at least). No real reason to send her back to the city, just make sure she finds a very good spot to keep watch from.

>>25441489
We don't want her here, she'll be in unnecessary danger.

>>25441550
Well, if you think so. Let's send her back then and wait for our meeting to take place. Tell Mari before she leaves to keep an eye out for Girdin, and send him this way if she does see him.

>>25441550
>>25441619

Mari heads back to the city while you wait here.

While waiting, your Shade hangs out with Lark while he tends his wounds from the flying serpent daemon that attacked him the other day. While Lark rests in the woods on Vin island, the townsmen have gotten together into large packs and are spreading out to scour the area, hunting for something. Lark doesn't hang around to see if it's him, slipping from one place to another. His firebolt isn't going to be terribly effective against such large packs. He's able to avoid battle, but the surviving Caelum have plenty of time to get off the island while Lark is on the run. At least he managed to slow them down for a solid week and a half and killed half of them.

Back on the mainland, Girdin shows up about four days later, a day or two before the meeting is scheduled to occur. The land approach to the cove is treacherous and his form bulky and not very agile, so he simply emerges from the ocean, ponderously making his way to the center of the cove, where he ceases motion entirely.

>wat do?

>>25441951
Well we greet him of course, and fill him in on the current plan to meet these Daemons here. Also inform him of Lark's progress too. Keeping him in the loop is probably something he'd appreciate.

>>25442016

Okay, well, you do that. I have to go now (have been slowing down for a while), but yeah, you do that and next time we will have the meeting with the statue. Or an ambush. Whichever.

For any newcomers who don't know how to follow the quest, I tweet when quest is running from @MCJohnnyQuest, so follow that and you'll know when the quest is around, which is good because lately it starts when I get around to it.

Anyways, meeting/ambush is tomorrow.

>see you then

>>25442016
We're slower than usual tonight, which is saying something. Supporting this.