>>25472321
Let's go check in with the Duke and see what developments have occurred. Nothing better to do until we get that out of the way.

>>25472424

You encounter the Duke again. He's still waiting for word back from the people he sent to investigate Arn and Vin. Your Shade confirms that the investigators at Vin have shown up, but you have no idea what's going on at Arn, although unless by great fortune they happened to shipwreck, it's a safe bet that the Caelum have arrived there by now. The investigators in Vin have so far been posing as mainland conspirators in on the plot to defect to Golgoth. Through these means they've managed to obtain a few confessions, but several of the guild lords refuse to trust the newcomers, especially when they can just let their more trusting fellows do the negotiating and keep their hands clean if there ends up being arrests made.

Otherwise, the situation on the frontline hasn't changed much since last week. Still desperate, and time is running out.

>wat do?

>>25472987
Ask him how long the journey to Sholta and Whisper City is, and offer to investigate the two locations to garner potential assistance. If we can slip in a question about the history of Sholta and their independence, do so.

>>25473022

"Sholta City has been independent since the death of King Iridos, the last king to unite all of Margell. When he died with a...Muddled line of succession and the pretenders rose up to claim the throne, Sholta claimed loyalty only to Iridos, and said they would give no tribute until the succession was settled. Fifty years later, the kingdom is still split, and none of us can spare the forces to capture Sholta, so they still stand.

"Now, Whisper City answered to Ommos," the Duke continues, "they were used as a staging area for an attack on Sholta several times, in fact. Sholta has been a valuable buffer between us and Ommos in the past. But for the last five years, the city is cut off. No one comes back from there. We stopped sending scouts a long time ago. Waste of good men. If your magic can get you into that city and back out alive, we would be most grateful for any information you can give us about its present situation."

>wat do?

>>25473335
"Hm. Golgoth would do away with a legitimate king entirely, making sure that all of Margell answers to Golgoth's own mad emperor. Perhaps with this angle, I may be able to convince Sholta to take up arms against Golgoth themselves and temporarily assist you. It will be difficult, but not impossible I imagine. If they value the rule of a legitimate king so much, then they will see the truth in such events."

"As for Whisper City, I have no doubt I will find out the truth behind what has happened there. Such mysteries are things that cannot be overlooked in war. I shall discover what I can, and let you know my findings."

Then we make sure he's agreeable to the situation and visit Mari to inform her of our intent.

>>25473464

The Duke's perfectly fine to have another ally in the fight against Golgoth. Reinforcements from Sholta could make the difference between containing Golgoth in the plains and being conquered entirely.

When you tell Mari you're leaving for Sholta, her immediate response is "you need me to come? Sholta's probably no worse than Shorefall and I won't be doing much good on my own."

>wat do?

>>25473821
"I'd like nothing better than to do so, though keeping Girdin informed of what we're up to may be difficult. Unless we return within 2 weeks, which is possible. Sure, I could use some backup while this shoulder wound heals anyway."

Then let's make for Sholta together, preferrably stopping outside the city until we can determine what their attitude is towards outsiders.

>>25473876

Mari packs up her camp and you make your way to Sholta City. The trip takes five days, but mostly because Mari needs to sleep every night. If you go this route alone, you should be able to make it in three, two if you hurry. As it is, you have a week before you're supposed to meet with Girdin, giving you four days to poke around Sholta, five if you push it. Heading to Whisper City will basically guarantee you won't be able to meet up with Girdin, and who knows how long it'll take to find him again, especially if he just decides to just go into ponder mode deep beneath the water. It could be a month before he decides what to do next.

Regardless, Sholta City conducts the occasional random search of incoming merchants, and occasionally pull suspicious looking people aside for a brief questioning. In the hours that you watch, however, all of those people walk out of the guard tower again, unharmed if slightly flustered. Two little girls traveling alone (or one) might raise more suspicions, though.

>wat do?

>>25474294
Getting in seems a trivial issue. First fun thought that springs to mind is find a lone merchant or something like that, have Mari slip him a coin or two to pretend that she's his niece if the guards ask. Support her request with a delusion of "nothing bad can happen from taking this offer." Explain the plan to her first so she doesn't blurt out a response to the delusion that he won't even be able to hear.

>>25474947

Lone merchants are difficult to find. The country is wartorn and there's plenty of bandits lying around, to say nothing of the possibility of being sacked by a patrol of soldiers who decide their lord doesn't need to know it was necessarily their fault that merchants have been ambushed in his territory. All caravans have at least a few guards.

>>25475304
Hm, well that doesn't have to be a huge problem. Obviously if he'll have guards around we skip the delusion. The only reason a target would have to not accept is if he's worried that she'll go on to do something horrible and he'll be associated with whatever that is. Perhaps with a story of how she ran away from home and went here to her uncle but now she's afraid that the guards would do something bad to her if she tried to enter without an adult and she doesn't want to cause any trouble for her uncle.

She keeps her weapons concealed right? Trying to play the innocent angle with those clearly in sight obviously won't work.

>>25475506
Oh, and the reason I'm bothering at all is because I'd like to keep this as mundane as possible. This place is an OBVIOUS next move for us, so if Domz have any kind of feelers out I want to avoid using supernatural means as much as possible.

>>25475506
>>25475550

Fortunately, Mari does indeed keep her weapons and armor hidden under a traveler's cloak by default (she would attract all kinds of unwanted attention otherwise, since most of her stuff is looted from Golgothan soldiers and thus pretty advanced). She finds one of the incoming merchants and explains that her village was destroyed in the war and she needs to get inside the city to find her uncle, who is the only family she has left. For a few coins, the merchant agrees to pretend she's part of his caravan until they get through the gate. The guards don't even bother searching the caravan on the way in (they can't search all of them) and Mari is in the city, with you walking along in her shadow.

The city of Sholta is about as dirty and disease-ridden as Shorefall, but no worse. It is, however, thronging with guards. Far from depleted, the city is perpetually ready for siege. There are guards on every corner and the walls are teeming with soldiers. Mari's flaunting of local laws isn't going to be so simple here.

Like most Margellian cities, in the center is a large but squat castle with thick walls, the banners of the ruling Count Visin flying from the towers.

>wat do?

>>25475762
Oh yay, just the way we like our cities. Full of gosh darn police. Remind Mari that in this strange part of the world you're actually expected to just rely on the guard when someone tries to steal with you or other stuff like that, and that "handling" them yourself is just going to you in trouble. And we'd really like to avoid being spotted by our enemies again.

Ask her to try to catch up on what's going on in the city, what are people worrying about, how do they feel about the war and stuff like that. Anything she can obtain from overhearing conversations, idle gossip, really anything not too conspicuous. Meanwhile we'll try to sneak into the castle and see what the big shots are up to.

>>25475927

You tell Mari not to irritate the guards, a plan to which she is quite amicable. She's been eyeing them nervously since her arrival, and kept her cloak clutched tight around herself so no one can see all the valuable gear she keeps on her person.

You, meanwhile, scurry off to the castle. Count Visin lives here with his family and seems to keep a better mood than the Duke back in Shorefall. He receives updates on the progress of the war from his spymaster, and updates on the state of banditry and Kestis' forces from his knights. The current state of things is apparently that the countryside is mostly stable and the people mostly prosperous, but people keep disappearing near Whisper City's territory, and occasionally a small village will just fall off the map entirely. When scouts investigate, they either don't return or come back with tales of an entire village full of corpses but without any sign of wound, sickness, or starvation. Those who return haven't suffered any illness, but the Count has quarantined the ghost towns and burnt them down with fire arrows and torches thrown from maximum distance, fearing it might be some kind of slow-spreading miasma.

Despite this, the Sholta City area seems to be holding itself together pretty well, and they certainly have plenty of troops to spare seeing as how they're constantly patrolling for bandits or enemy incursions and their fortresses are all at or close to capacity.

>wat do?

>>25476235
Try to stick around for a while, see if he keeps audiences or councils, have discussions with advisors or anything else that might give us an idea of what things he's concerned about, his intentions and opinion of the war and just about anything else that could come up during any meetings.

>>25476311

You've already viewed his audience and councils, that's where this information is coming from. He's clearly concerned with invasion from Kestis (though this is a distant concern since they have bigger things to worry about) and whatever's up with Whisper City, but that's it.

>>25476329
Alright then. I'd rather not play our hand just yet, in case any Dominion are stationed here or just that someone is keeping an eye for signs of us. Let's return to Mari, see if she's learned anything on the street level. Or gotten herself in trouble. If she hasn't, we should have a few looks around the city ourselves, especially keeping an eye out for local religion as well as rumors of unnatural or supernatural nature. If there's daemons in town, we need to be aware of them.

And I actually have to go now. I hesitate to recommend keeping the thread alive overnight. On the one hand, this thing has been tiny. On the other, every time I say that, SOMETHING comes up and I can't make it.

File: 1371428071953.png-(138 KB, 1553x872, TDQ Map Situation.png)

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Oh, and a question. Is our wounded affecting our ability to use powers, as in making it harder for us to focus or harming our stamina? Or is it only hurting our physical ability?
Also reposting my infomap from last thread with your correction. I expect to update it as new info becomes available.

>>25476501
Well, I'll just take the liberty of leaving some notes for myself then.
1) Whisper City is starting to sound absolutely horrifying and the events described most definitely supernatural. I have no idea what kind of daemon matches whatever is going on there though, and while we're desperate for contact with any daemon at all that isn't Dominion aligned, we should probably have Girding nearby when investigating. Once again there's also the concern that whatever is there could be of a mind to simply kill Mari just for fun.
2) That the Count follows the war closely is good news. He may just be a reasonable man and realize the importance of joining the fight against Golgoth. Sholta appears incredibly well prepared for such a role, and having apparently acted as a buffer zone between Ommos and Kestis before, it should be very competent at defending itself. I'd almost dare think that something nice has happened.
3) We're seriously walking the most obvious path here and we need to be extremely wary that we don't get spotted by Dominion daemons again. At the same time however, if only a single daemon is encountered, a sneak attack may be able to net us a quick kill and a small power boost from quickening.