NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cerebral Paladin" data-source="post: 3709749" data-attributes="member: 3448">Having secured the treasure, we discussed our next step.  We all agreed that we should take control of the tribe of trueborn dependants.  If we did not, they would almost certainly be destroyed by the various dangers that now infest our land.  Without any significant combat-worthy guards, it was unlikely to be difficult to bring them into loyal service to Caldefor and Lord Paranswarm.  There was some discussion of whether we should take them as slaves, which seemed most natural to me as they were captured forces of the enemy, or whether we should rule over them without enslaving them, as Spring advocated.  I believe that Spring’s own experience as a former slave makes it difficult for him to understand that slavery is part of Paranswarm’s Order for the world.  I tried suggesting that many of them would likely be able to earn their freedom, as he had, but Spring was unpersuaded.  Sergeant Cilorean did not settle the discussion, and we ultimately left the matter undecided.  There would be time enough to sort out the details of their legal status later.Spring raised the possibility that we should strike again immediately, heading to another dragonhold before word of our attack spread.  At the same time, we had to weigh that against the need to move the tribe of trueborn, the dragon eggs, and the treasure across the Shadowline to where they would be safe.  Since we were only a few days south of the border and no alert would reach the other dragonholds from this army, Sergeant Cilorean decided that we would head straight north for the Shadowline.  After we had crossed safely and reported, we could head back into Caldefor and strike again.  As long as we worked quickly, we would be able to make our second attack before they were alert to our tactics.The trueborn tribe quickly accepted our dominion.  Spring flew over them, commanding them to obedience, while I cast minor magics to impress them even further.  Within moments of our accosting them, they had fallen to their knees and were groveling before us.  It would be difficult to find a truer demonstration of Lord Paranswarm’s natural order for the world:  it is the nature of all things to seek order, with the weak obeying the orders and receiving the protection of the strong.  That a group as small as we were could control and protect them only increased their respect for us.  We examined the tribe and found that there were about five-hundred trueborn left in the tribe, almost all women and children but with a handful of elderly men as well.  They traveled remarkably lightly, and though they were emaciated and clearly starving, they still could travel at a reasonable pace, although not as rapidly as we could have traveled without them.  Their scant food supply had been destroyed by the bone water dust--the warriors kept most of the food, and they clung to the army in the hope that the demons would be willing to feed them enough to survive.  Of course, only I travel with rations, as my companions are past the need to eat, and while I had brought enough that I had ten days of rations left, that was a pitiful amount of food for five-hundred.  After discussing the matter with Sergeant Cilorean, I kept one day’s worth of rations, because I would not be able to remain effective on less than half-rations, and distributed the other nine days worth among the tribe.  It was a pitiful amount of food, but they seemed grateful and able to stretch that much more than I would have imagined possible.</blockquote>

Verification