Underneath the twisted blue moon

Hello again! For our 3rd infodump we'll be talking about the other crossover in this quest. Heroes of Might and Magic. Now this crossover doesn't contribute any characters, as far as I know, but it is the source of much of the quest's mechanics. Penguin has merged together Homm3 and Homm4 together when creating this quest. If you go to this link , you can find details on both of those games. However, many of the numbers there have been tweaked.

Now if you want to have a faction in this quest, you need a magical item called an anchor. Without an anchor placed inside the proper infrastructure, you won't be able to use a lot of the Homm mechanics. There are 5 different types of anchors corresponding to the 5 types of magic in Homm4. As an aside, there's another faction in Homm4 that doesn't use magic and the muggles fill that role. The categories are Life, Death, Nature, Order, and Chaos. It's possible for multiple anchors of the same type to exist and in fact you should not be surprised to see this happen. Individuals have magic types that they are more or less aligned towards and anchors tend to seek out like-minded individuals. In Dace's case, he's most in tune with Order and least in tune with Nature and Life. Having to play in his 2nd worst alignment caused Dace problems last quest, but you could make Nature work if you wanted to.

So say you find an anchor. What infrastructure do you need build to actually use it? To answer that we turn to the factions in Homm3. Each faction there had a town type and in order to use your anchor you need to model your infrastructure one of those towns. Furthermore, the towns are connected to a certain type of anchor. Each CK2 province can contain 1 town.

Castle: Life
Tower: Order
Inferno: Death
Fortress:Nature
Rampart:Nature
Dungeon:Chaos
Stronghold:Muggles
Necropolis: Death
Conflux:Order

Once you've built the infrastructure and placed your anchor, a number of things happen. First is that your heroes can level up. Heroes will be your commanders in the field and they follow Homm4 when leveling up. When an hero levels up they also fall under the influence of the anchor's type. For example, if someone that hates animals is working a hero for a nature faction, they will start to like animals.

Second is that you can build facilities for your troops. You can't expect to build up an army without giving them a place to live, after all. There can be 7 unit types per province and you build their dwellings through Martial actions. Unit types won't come automatically with your town, you'll have to go out and find units willing to work for you.

Thirdly, there are also civilian facilities. These are built through stewardship actions and provide various benefits. There's some economic buildings, mage guild buildings to teach heroes magic, and so on. Normally you can only build mage guild buildings in the same type as the anchor and a sideboard into non-antagonistic magic types. Oh! And there's this building called the workshop that lets you craft items, buy items other people make, and unlock research options. If you don't build the workshop for Dace right away, you can watch LordPenguin bang her head against the wall. Tough choice, no? Just kidding, you should build the workshop as soon as possible.

Finally, once the anchor is activated, it will start to influence the entire province. Once the anchor takes hold, it will boost magic of the same type and dampen magic of opposing types. There is also an ability that activates when you've held your capitol for long enough which differs depending on anchor type.

Antagonism
Life: Death & Chaos
Order: Chaos & Nature
Nature: Order & Death
Death: Life & Nature
Chaos: Order & Life

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"... Indeed. I understand you are busy and appreciate you modifying your schedule for me." Dace spoke aloud as he was writing the letter to the person in charge of his checkup.

Yesterday was possibly one of the worst days he had in many years, but he couldn't afford to let it get to him, and after a night's sleep, he was up and ready to react and make his decisions. First was his checking his health's state. He felt none of the chronic chest pains someone who reached the late stages of the syndrome would feel, but it wouldn't hurt to make sure nothing was amiss.

Second, as expected, he needed to talk to his daughter. Or more accurately, check her up and her curse scar.

He got up from his desk and began walking along the corridors, the morning sun just barely beginning to peak through the forest's foliage. The walk towards the young woman's room was quick, and along the way, he signalled for a few of his servants to fetch both breakfast and fighters. After all, just because last time's attempt was foiled wouldn't mean that she wouldn't try anything again.

D100 : 96.
D6 : 2

"Excuse me?" A low, feminine voice called out for him and he turned around, seeing a young woman around his daughter's age looking at him uncomfortably. She seemed to be partially of African descend, with chin-length bangs framing the sides of her face while the rest of her black hair was held up in a tight bun. She was wearing a grey muggle suit and was holding a bundle of papers. "Myriam Wells. Mrs Grove told me you were the one I needed to meet, do you have some time, or...?" She finished awkwardly.

Dace held up his hand and took the papers.

"I'm currently busy, but willing to go over the papers. I will transmit my answer to you within seventy two hours."

The girl held her bag to herself and murmured a thanks before walking away briskly. Dace, for his part, continued on his way, storing the papers in one of his expanded pockets. When he arrived, he saw his daughter sitting up and glaring at the maid currently serving her tea. He didn't know why, of course, but as long as she was behaving, he really didn't care. Dace sat on the seat next to the bed and stared at her with a mildly disappointing look.

"If you were going to have a dalliance with your mutt." Aife grimaced as she began drinking. "I would have at least expected you to make sure you used protection." Aaaand there went the tea, Dace thought, the corner of his lip twitching as his wayward daughter spat the liquid out, then began trying to cough the rest out.

"What?" She looked up at him with a red face and teary eyes from her coughing fit.

"Hm." He didn't bother answering her, adding a bit more sugar to his lemon tea, before he realized what he was trying to do and asked for another cup. "Though, considering you thought it was a good idea to poison me yourself in my own manor, I shouldn't be expecting anything remotely intelligent from you lately. Now, why don't you tell me why you haven't gotten this pretty little curse of yours checked?"

She blinked at him stupidly and he pointed at her thigh. She blinked and lifted her dress, revealing the wound that was festering with black magic. Aife stared for a moment, before glaring at Dace.

"There's nothing there."

It was Dace's turn to be surprised. He turned towards the woman observing them both and she shook her head. Nonplussed, he whipped his wand out and put its tip against the black line, before casting a revealing spell. The spell frizzled and crackled, before something akin to dark lightning arced out, causing the women to gasp, though in Aife's case it was in pain.

"Yes, there is." He answered simply, as the line seemed to bloom, dark veins running under his daughter's skin. He looked at her face and had to raise an eyebrow upon seeing her right eye had turned black, meaning her brain was very likely affected.

That would explain a few things. However, he needed to check the library to learn what it actually does.

"Now, can I trust you to stay put and not try to kill anyone as soon as I turn my back or will I have to call for Dumbledore and your beloved husband?"

The woman gritted her teeth and nodded.

"Good. Felicia, do keep an eye on her." Dace huffed amusedly before getting out of the room to make good on his previous thought.

Research roll : 85 + 10 + 60 = Success ! + 5 Research, Discovered what is affecting Aife

The library was much larger than it first looked, due to the old expansion charms in it, and one needed to be able to navigate through the forest of moving ladders to get what they wanted to find. Still, it only took him a few hours to find what he was looking for, and the results were rather promising.

Among the diagrams, and the rather questionable suggestions of authors that were long dead due to angry mobs, Dace managed to find something that was most likely what he was looking for. The Curse of the Kinslayer, created by one Salazar Slytherin, was a dark and insidious curse that inhibited the victim's thinking processes while heightening their sense of danger, essentially rewiring their thought processes to feel threatened by their blood relatives . Then came the second part of the spell, where the compulsion kicked in and drove the victim to first feel pleasure from their relative's pain, quickly followed by the enhancement of any subsequent murderous impulses, once again aimed at said relatives.


Aife's curse discovered !

Social data updated!

Well then. Slytherin certainly didn't play around. Now at least he knew Aife wasn't in her right mind when she tried to kill him. More troubling was the fact that Voldemort tried to have his daughter kill Dumbledore, only for her to focus on him. But yet again, that Rosier business did create some tension between the two of them. He should do something about the man too, but for that, he'd need to clean house first, he decided, closing his book.

Aife was surprisingly obedient once she learned she was the Terrorist's latest plan to kill Dumbledore, and even moreso when he showed her the relevant passages in the book. Treating her would take some time, but it would be a golden opportunity for Dace to obtain a few concessions from her.

What will Dace do?

[] Send Aife to Dumbledore, She's his problem to deal with now.
[] Deal with it yourself. She's your heiress and the Terrorist just used a mind altering spell on her.

Later that night, after sending orders and money to get to the bottom of that 'disappearing village' story, he finally got some time to check over the papers the young woman gave him. It was a letter of recommendation from Amanda Grove, the woman responsible for the economy branch of his academy. She wrote that the girl had excellent grades and was qualified to work directly under him, as she also passed the battery of tests to determine if she was a plant or not. All that he really needed to decide was whether or not he wanted to hire her.

Does Dace hire Myriam Wells as his Economic advisor?
[] Yes ( Dace will now pay her 1 000G/T)
Since she is a GASL Alumnus, Dace can decide for her Advisor action for the first turn of her employment.
-[] All hands on deck: Myriam will take care of a stewardship action for Dace.
-[] Bookkeeping for dummies: Myriam will study and draft plans to increase the efficiency of Dace's finances and/or businesses by a margin. (Need to be assigned to a specific task)
-[] Aggressive expansion: Myriam will look around and point out good business opportunities ripe for the picking.
[] No

Two days later, the scouting party sent came back with alarming news.

They met up with a group sent by the pureblood factions, including some clan heads like Ernest MacMillan and Octavius Rowle, and headed together towards the site of the catastrophe. The buildings were all charred, the stone melted, the land itself was black and, at the center of the ruins, two giant sacks of flesh were pulsating.

Rowle immediately flung spells in their direction, but they didn't so much as scratch their surface. Or at least, this is what they believed, until an expecially vicious blood boiling curse made one of the sacks explode, a figure falling out of it's insides, covered in bubbling, scarlet liquid.

At that point, Dace's scouts decided to make themselves scarce, because the other sack was opening. The steaming figure got up, revealing the five meters tall abominable lovechild of a troll and a werewolf, that immediately pounced on the only remaining group. Sadly, they didn't manage to see what was the second creature, but they heard its, no, her haunting, bloodcurling laugh.

Sadly, the scouts didn't manage to gather concrete information, but even Dace had to agree that there was a high likelihood that the two creatures were the reason the village disappeared.

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Alright, Setting's mostly here, one more prologue part and we'll get to turn 1!