>>5673343
They have sent soldiers to your northern shores, seizing a foothold on the coasts of Sakia and spreading southwards. For quite some time now they’ve been probing Hazaran’s borders, finding that the mountains and fortified passes really made it impossible to cross with anything less than a full force assault. Which they recently mounted, to disastrous results.

Eventually that led to the conflict that just ended, where you and your faction cut down a unit of awakened soldiers sent across into Hazaran to destroy outposts and assault the fortress at Scaithness en masse. They never made it.

Their leader, Clarice, was once one of you - albeit never one who could be trusted. But she finally broke ranks with the Organization’s faction and betrayed the awakened soldiers, to their deaths and incidentally her own survival.

“So, is that all, do you think?” Aurora asks you.

[And can we trust Clarice?] Serana adds.

You shake your head. “Only for the time being.”

“I doubt we’ve really ‘gained’ Clarice so much as the Organization ‘lost’ her,” Laura offers.

“I agree completely,” you tell her.

“This seems like an opportunity,” Helen insists. “An opportunity to drive the Organization back into the sea.”

>I think you’re right. We have to strike before they can put more awakened soldiers into service.
>I think the key will be to turn Sakia against their invaders - and now IS a good time to do that.
>I think we need to interrogate Clarice properly. She was presumably in the enemy’s confidence.
>Other?

>>5673623
>>I think we need to interrogate Clarice properly. She was presumably in the enemy’s confidence.

Not like turn the screws to her but learn all we can about the enemy and its situation before we do anything. Information is power, and we need to have a rough idea of what the enemy has and can do, before we know what they will do and why.

>>5673623
>>I think the key will be to turn Sakia against their invaders - and now IS a good time to do that.

>>5673623
>I think we need to interrogate Clarice properly. She was presumably in the enemy’s confidence.

>>5673650
>>5673623

>>5673623
>I think we need to interrogate Clarice properly. She was presumably in the enemy’s confidence.

>>5673623
>3d10 best of three

Rolled 6, 10, 2 = 18 (3d10)

>>5674504

Rolled 7, 7, 8 = 22 (3d10)

>>5674504

Rolled 2, 2, 4 = 8 (3d10)

>>5674504

>>5673623
“There’s something we still need to do,” you insist. “We haven’t yet had time to interrogate Clarice properly.”

“Are you certain that’s wise?” Laura asks with a slight frown. “Depending on your definition of ‘interrogation’, it may lose us what little good will we already have with her.”

“If it were that easy to lose it wouldn’t be worth having,” Helen counters. Of course, both have good points.

[She knows more than she’s told,] Serana observes. And there lies the issue - regardless of what anyone here thinks of her personally, or even from a strategic standpoint, Clarice represents a largely untapped resource in terms of what she knows about your enemy and how to defeat them. Any details she offers could be parsed for strategic insight, and even if she avoids answering some of your questions the questions she refuses and how she goes about doing that will tell you more than you knew before you asked.

“I agree,” you return to your initial point. “I intend to be careful about it, so as not to undermine our position, but I cannot leave the information she may be able to offer entirely on the proverbial table.”

…

So that’s the conversation which led to this one - where you, Helen, and your mother all find yourselves sitting across from Clarice, who is flanked on one side by Serana and on the other by Reika.

“Well, you sure know how to make a girl feel welcome,” Clarice muses aloud. “So, are you going to interrogate me now?”

“That’s the point of all this, yes,” you admit. “Though you shouldn’t confuse ‘interrogation’ for ‘torture’. We have no intention of simply beating anything out of you.”

“Though a little light coercion never harmed anybody?” she replies with a smirk. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“That would require us to have a better idea for how to control your reaction,” Sabela points out.

“The only reason we’ve all agreed to a light touch is that we can’t predict how you’ll react,” Helen adds.
>1/2

>>5675257
“We need information,” you continue. “If we’re going to end this conflict we can’t remain on the defensive forever, and if we wish to make our next offensive successful we need to know all we can about our enemy.”

“Alright, well if we’re all going to play nice,” Clarice replies with a cheerful smile, “then I suppose I’m just going to have to play nice too.”

“What would you like to know?”

>I want to know how the enemy’s resources are distributed. Where do we evade, where do we strike, what can we expect?
>Striking and maneuvering are tactical questions. I want to get into the minds of our enemy, to form a better strategic plan.
>We don’t know who runs our enemy’s operations - we can’t remove the head of the serpent if we don’t know where to look.
>Other?

>>5675453
>>Striking and maneuvering are tactical questions. I want to get into the minds of our enemy, to form a better strategic plan.

>>5675453
>>We don’t know who runs our enemy’s operations - we can’t remove the head of the serpent if we don’t know where to look.

>>5675453
>We don’t know who runs our enemy’s operations - we can’t remove the head of the serpent if we don’t know where to look.

>>5675535
As a lead into
>Striking and maneuvering are tactical questions. I want to get into the minds of our enemy, to form a better strategic plan.

>>5675453
>Striking and maneuvering are tactical questions. I want to get into the minds of our enemy, to form a better strategic plan.

>>5675453
>Striking and maneuvering are tactical questions. I want to get into the minds of our enemy, to form a better strategic plan.
>We don’t know who runs our enemy’s operations - we can’t remove the head of the serpent if we don’t know where to look.

>>5675453
>3d10 best of three

Rolled 4, 4, 7 = 15 (3d10)

>>5676260

Rolled 4, 7, 7 = 18 (3d10)

>>5676260