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<blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 7616019" data-attributes="member: 6816692"><p><strong>Mind Games</strong></p><p></p><p>Session 37</p><p></p><p>As Carlyle still only needs 2 hours of sleep <span style="color: #008000">(courtesy to his trusted Ring of Sustenance)</span>, he's already awake and making plans for the railway construction when Auryn gets up the next morning. Having had a good night's rest, she apologizes for doubting her partner when it came to his relationship with Fordren. Shaking off all this unconscious fear is quite hard, she says, even if she knows from the bottom of her heart that he'll always stand by her side.</p><p></p><p>“Let's just say that I'd welcome a little more trust.” Carlyle replies with a melancholic smile. “But for now, let's get down to business. Shall we?”</p><p></p><p>He then points at a few spots on the construction map and marks places Burton had mentioned in his letters to Margit and Flying Spark that he'd call weak spots in the Danoran's defenses. Securing our own team is pivotal as well and we still agree to not over-do possible acts of sabotage. </p><p></p><p>“We need to get creative, too, as the Bruse wishes to be entertained as well.” Auryn adds. </p><p></p><p>So we decide to first try out mind games and striking fear into the enemy workers without actually harming them. So we first order a bunch of Harkover Lee Specials (mostly illusion spells) via sending to prepare for our actions. Auryn then takes a closer look at Pemberton's automatons, tries out a few spells and finally asks to lend one of them for a bit of experimentation. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(Wanted to retrain a spell into “apparent master” as we switched to milestone leveling after adventure 5 and I really had no next level in sight. So she's going to learn how to control constructs the hard way.)</span></p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p><p>As we got a message that Rush and Merton disappeared yesterday evening, we ask Margit to perform a few divination spells on them and their plans. She's quite surprised by the results and tells us that “The world's end slumbers in icy depths”. Which is why we also prepare for possible radical Eschatologist attacks, crazy as that may sound. At least we can rule out frozen giants as these kind of guys only reside in Drakr, which is to the north, not to the south (where R&M went)</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(she totally botched the roll. We took it seriously anyway.) </span></p><p> </p><p>After one day of fairly normal work, we then receive another message from Burton including the names of a few foremen and a list of the danoran/Griento's materiel orders. Margit tries another divination for Rush's and Merton's next target and this time the result is “great is the lizardfolk's bounty”. So we suspect they might be sending local lizardfolk tribes after us and prepare accordingly. Burton confirms this suspicion in his next message as he says that the two bodyguards took both weapons and gold with them. </p><p></p><p>Before they can try to hit us hard, we decide to take matters in our hands and bring Margit to a switch at one of Team Griento's marshalling yards. She then uses a metal-bending spell to bend and block the switch. This way, we're able to delay their shipments by about half a day. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(We just realized that a metalbender like Leone would have been crazily effective at this job and were kind of happy to having gotten rid of him in the leak Gate complex)</span></p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p><p>We then continue building our tracks for a few days and keep a close eyes on the Danoran progress as well. They seem to play rather safely as well and so we see no need to hurry too much despite our sufficient financial boost. </p><p></p><p>As soon as the Danorans/Grientos reach the swamplands, we decide to utilize a story we heard from some of our older workers: Legends of will-o-wisps, eerie ghosts and even a banshee inhabiting the misty swamps, luring poor souls to their certain deaths. So we sneak to our rival camp at night, conjure magical mists and use othre spells to conjure floating lanterns. On top of that, Auryn cloaks herself in white robes and sings hauntingly beautiful but grief-stricken songs of death. She lures one of the orcish workers out to the swamp where we manage to kidnap him without much hassle. Just to make sure that the Banshee claimed her first victim. </p><p></p><p>Of course, we don't really intend to harm the guy. Instead, we bring him to our camp where we keep him in one of our tents and explain that he's just playing a part in a crazy game. And we'll certainly release him once this game is over. </p><p></p><p>Next, it is our team which is being attacked by Team Lya as we get a message that some lizardfolk bandits are attacking our shipment. Fortunately, we already knew that this attack was coming, so we take the half-giants and push the bandits back before they can do much damage. </p><p></p><p>To keep up our morale, we do a bit of team-building each evening where we share stories and sing songs and try to get to know each part of Liss' team personally. The evening after the attack, we receive another message from Burton who explain that he had successfully convinced Griento to hire him as a cook as he's terribly afraid of “the Banshee”. This, he'll be able to get a deeper insight into their logistics, he says. Also, Lya Jierre threw quite the tantrum when the workers refused to go into the swamp again after one of their comrades went missing, calling them superstitious cowards. She ordered Griento to fire all “striking” workers and hire others while luring the rest with extra payments. </p><p></p><p>We count this as a total success and continue our nightly terror. This time, we do not only kidnap a second orc, but also put one to sleep and alter his memories to make him remember seeing the actual Banshee take his comrade, killing him with a wail and turning him into an undead. </p><p></p><p>A day later, we receive the message that one of our locomotive's boilers has exploded. In order to save our loc and its cargo, we rush to the damaged engine and let Margit's repair magic do the job. Meanwhile, we find out that someone just put spirits instead of water into the cooling system. So we advise the drivers of the supply trains to always double-check their systems to prevent further incidents.</p><p></p><p>To take revenge on their explosive attack, we ask Margit to set the weather to “nasty” for a while. So she conjures torrential rain in the swamplands and lets the local rivers swell to the point that working there would be pretty unwise. Meanwhile, Carlyle takes a trip to the lower swamp to collect some herbs for a powerful laxative. He then brews a good dose of the drug and sends it to Burton, complete with instructions and stuff. Burton then says that he'll make sure to spice up this evening's stew a bit. On top of that, he hands us information on Ulrik and says that the young servant is a bit shy and usually using the outermost latrine of the camp. </p><p></p><p>We thank our goblin friend for his tip and hand this message to Delft via sending. The next day, Carlyle goes out into the wilderness again to look for wild beasts he may herd into the opponent's camp. He spots a herd of giant goats and two nearby tyrannosaurs. And as goats don't usually form a stampede without a reason, he rouses the dinosaurs and makes them chase the goats all towards Team Griento's encampment. </p><p></p><p>The same day, bandits try to attack us again, and this time they are armed with muskets and rifles. As we already expected another of such attacks, we mange to fend them off without too much hassle. </p><p></p><p>In the evening, we get a new letter from Burton who writes that there had been an incident with wild beasts today. He explains that 20 workers got eaten by a pair of hungry tyrannosaurs after a group of goats had trampled through their camp. But as megafauna is quite a common sight in these parts of Ber, this might just have been a terrible coincidence. Still he'd like to know whether we were behind the attack or not. Oh and the rest of them is panicking as everyone fears they might have caught Cholera. </p><p></p><p>Carlyle turns very silent when Auryn reads the message to him and Margit which in turn puts Auryn on alert. When she asks him whether “we” might have had anything to do with the animal attack, he confesses that he might have been looking for a scapegoat for a stampede earlier this day. And now he's feeling miserable that his action caused so many unplanned losses as he didn't see too much of a threat in the tyrannosaurs. After all, he would have been able to handle both beasts on his own. </p><p></p><p>“I guess, from now on, you shouldn't let me do these sort of missions all alone. I fear I might fall back into old habits which might get... even more people hurt.”</p><p></p><p>Auryn closes her eyes for a moment, takes a deep breath and then finally says “I guess you are right. This 'game' really brings out the worst of us. Curse the Bruse and his idea of 'fun'.”</p><p></p><p>“Curse him.”</p><p></p><p>“But please... remember that you are no longer exactly what people would call a 'mortal', so your potential will always be far beyond the power of a regular worker, or even a soldier.”</p><p></p><p>“I will.” Carlyle promises, his voice quite strangled with regret.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(In a hindsight, this scene was pretty powerful. It had all been fun and games – even if a bit frustrating to poke and be potentially poked where it hurts – until the giants in the playground underestimated their own power. A terrible reminder that with great power comes great responsibility. And one of the few moments when Carlyle felt almost overwhelmed with regret and realized what kind of danger he might pose.)</span></p><p></p><p>Auryn then brings out some notes and books she's been studying for quite a while now as she explains that she's working on something truly grandiose. When Carlyle spots the “Heraldry and Symbolism of the Tyrants of Old” and some rugged pieces of tapestry, he gets curious and asks his partner what kind of grandiose plan could involve so much history research. In return, Auryn grins mischievously, opens up the book and points at a symbol of a steel claw holding a gnoll skull.</p><p></p><p>“I'm going to bring back Gradiax, the Steel Tyrant.”</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lylandra, post: 7616019, member: 6816692"] [b]Mind Games[/b] Session 37 As Carlyle still only needs 2 hours of sleep [COLOR=#008000](courtesy to his trusted Ring of Sustenance)[/COLOR], he's already awake and making plans for the railway construction when Auryn gets up the next morning. Having had a good night's rest, she apologizes for doubting her partner when it came to his relationship with Fordren. Shaking off all this unconscious fear is quite hard, she says, even if she knows from the bottom of her heart that he'll always stand by her side. “Let's just say that I'd welcome a little more trust.” Carlyle replies with a melancholic smile. “But for now, let's get down to business. Shall we?” He then points at a few spots on the construction map and marks places Burton had mentioned in his letters to Margit and Flying Spark that he'd call weak spots in the Danoran's defenses. Securing our own team is pivotal as well and we still agree to not over-do possible acts of sabotage. “We need to get creative, too, as the Bruse wishes to be entertained as well.” Auryn adds. So we decide to first try out mind games and striking fear into the enemy workers without actually harming them. So we first order a bunch of Harkover Lee Specials (mostly illusion spells) via sending to prepare for our actions. Auryn then takes a closer look at Pemberton's automatons, tries out a few spells and finally asks to lend one of them for a bit of experimentation. [COLOR=#008000](Wanted to retrain a spell into “apparent master” as we switched to milestone leveling after adventure 5 and I really had no next level in sight. So she's going to learn how to control constructs the hard way.) [/COLOR] As we got a message that Rush and Merton disappeared yesterday evening, we ask Margit to perform a few divination spells on them and their plans. She's quite surprised by the results and tells us that “The world's end slumbers in icy depths”. Which is why we also prepare for possible radical Eschatologist attacks, crazy as that may sound. At least we can rule out frozen giants as these kind of guys only reside in Drakr, which is to the north, not to the south (where R&M went) [COLOR=#008000](she totally botched the roll. We took it seriously anyway.) [/COLOR] After one day of fairly normal work, we then receive another message from Burton including the names of a few foremen and a list of the danoran/Griento's materiel orders. Margit tries another divination for Rush's and Merton's next target and this time the result is “great is the lizardfolk's bounty”. So we suspect they might be sending local lizardfolk tribes after us and prepare accordingly. Burton confirms this suspicion in his next message as he says that the two bodyguards took both weapons and gold with them. Before they can try to hit us hard, we decide to take matters in our hands and bring Margit to a switch at one of Team Griento's marshalling yards. She then uses a metal-bending spell to bend and block the switch. This way, we're able to delay their shipments by about half a day. [COLOR=#008000](We just realized that a metalbender like Leone would have been crazily effective at this job and were kind of happy to having gotten rid of him in the leak Gate complex) [/COLOR] We then continue building our tracks for a few days and keep a close eyes on the Danoran progress as well. They seem to play rather safely as well and so we see no need to hurry too much despite our sufficient financial boost. As soon as the Danorans/Grientos reach the swamplands, we decide to utilize a story we heard from some of our older workers: Legends of will-o-wisps, eerie ghosts and even a banshee inhabiting the misty swamps, luring poor souls to their certain deaths. So we sneak to our rival camp at night, conjure magical mists and use othre spells to conjure floating lanterns. On top of that, Auryn cloaks herself in white robes and sings hauntingly beautiful but grief-stricken songs of death. She lures one of the orcish workers out to the swamp where we manage to kidnap him without much hassle. Just to make sure that the Banshee claimed her first victim. Of course, we don't really intend to harm the guy. Instead, we bring him to our camp where we keep him in one of our tents and explain that he's just playing a part in a crazy game. And we'll certainly release him once this game is over. Next, it is our team which is being attacked by Team Lya as we get a message that some lizardfolk bandits are attacking our shipment. Fortunately, we already knew that this attack was coming, so we take the half-giants and push the bandits back before they can do much damage. To keep up our morale, we do a bit of team-building each evening where we share stories and sing songs and try to get to know each part of Liss' team personally. The evening after the attack, we receive another message from Burton who explain that he had successfully convinced Griento to hire him as a cook as he's terribly afraid of “the Banshee”. This, he'll be able to get a deeper insight into their logistics, he says. Also, Lya Jierre threw quite the tantrum when the workers refused to go into the swamp again after one of their comrades went missing, calling them superstitious cowards. She ordered Griento to fire all “striking” workers and hire others while luring the rest with extra payments. We count this as a total success and continue our nightly terror. This time, we do not only kidnap a second orc, but also put one to sleep and alter his memories to make him remember seeing the actual Banshee take his comrade, killing him with a wail and turning him into an undead. A day later, we receive the message that one of our locomotive's boilers has exploded. In order to save our loc and its cargo, we rush to the damaged engine and let Margit's repair magic do the job. Meanwhile, we find out that someone just put spirits instead of water into the cooling system. So we advise the drivers of the supply trains to always double-check their systems to prevent further incidents. To take revenge on their explosive attack, we ask Margit to set the weather to “nasty” for a while. So she conjures torrential rain in the swamplands and lets the local rivers swell to the point that working there would be pretty unwise. Meanwhile, Carlyle takes a trip to the lower swamp to collect some herbs for a powerful laxative. He then brews a good dose of the drug and sends it to Burton, complete with instructions and stuff. Burton then says that he'll make sure to spice up this evening's stew a bit. On top of that, he hands us information on Ulrik and says that the young servant is a bit shy and usually using the outermost latrine of the camp. We thank our goblin friend for his tip and hand this message to Delft via sending. The next day, Carlyle goes out into the wilderness again to look for wild beasts he may herd into the opponent's camp. He spots a herd of giant goats and two nearby tyrannosaurs. And as goats don't usually form a stampede without a reason, he rouses the dinosaurs and makes them chase the goats all towards Team Griento's encampment. The same day, bandits try to attack us again, and this time they are armed with muskets and rifles. As we already expected another of such attacks, we mange to fend them off without too much hassle. In the evening, we get a new letter from Burton who writes that there had been an incident with wild beasts today. He explains that 20 workers got eaten by a pair of hungry tyrannosaurs after a group of goats had trampled through their camp. But as megafauna is quite a common sight in these parts of Ber, this might just have been a terrible coincidence. Still he'd like to know whether we were behind the attack or not. Oh and the rest of them is panicking as everyone fears they might have caught Cholera. Carlyle turns very silent when Auryn reads the message to him and Margit which in turn puts Auryn on alert. When she asks him whether “we” might have had anything to do with the animal attack, he confesses that he might have been looking for a scapegoat for a stampede earlier this day. And now he's feeling miserable that his action caused so many unplanned losses as he didn't see too much of a threat in the tyrannosaurs. After all, he would have been able to handle both beasts on his own. “I guess, from now on, you shouldn't let me do these sort of missions all alone. I fear I might fall back into old habits which might get... even more people hurt.” Auryn closes her eyes for a moment, takes a deep breath and then finally says “I guess you are right. This 'game' really brings out the worst of us. Curse the Bruse and his idea of 'fun'.” “Curse him.” “But please... remember that you are no longer exactly what people would call a 'mortal', so your potential will always be far beyond the power of a regular worker, or even a soldier.” “I will.” Carlyle promises, his voice quite strangled with regret. [COLOR=#008000](In a hindsight, this scene was pretty powerful. It had all been fun and games – even if a bit frustrating to poke and be potentially poked where it hurts – until the giants in the playground underestimated their own power. A terrible reminder that with great power comes great responsibility. And one of the few moments when Carlyle felt almost overwhelmed with regret and realized what kind of danger he might pose.)[/COLOR] Auryn then brings out some notes and books she's been studying for quite a while now as she explains that she's working on something truly grandiose. When Carlyle spots the “Heraldry and Symbolism of the Tyrants of Old” and some rugged pieces of tapestry, he gets curious and asks his partner what kind of grandiose plan could involve so much history research. In return, Auryn grins mischievously, opens up the book and points at a symbol of a steel claw holding a gnoll skull. “I'm going to bring back Gradiax, the Steel Tyrant.” [/QUOTE]
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