Lord of a Fief Quest [Xianxia/Western Fantasy Fusion, CK2-ish]

You left the village of Mors for the uncivilized rural portions of your lands with a sizable retinue in tow. Fifteen competent knights, the Bloody Hand, a company of cavalry, and your three advisers. It was the most powerful force the Bloodthorn Valley had seen in a generation and it would hopefully be enough to handle the dangers you faced in the uncivilized parts of your fief as well as the Orcs that would likely interrupt your journey. You were stepping into the realms of unknown, uncivilized spirit beasts. Beasts that were quite territorial and hungered for the spirit cores of others.

The dirt roads that crisscrossed the valley and their stone idols of protection gave way to open grasslands as you searched the lands between Mors and Baoshan for potential sites of interest. The grass was much loved by your horses the further you got from civilization, perhaps a bit too loved if truth was told. Your men had to constantly tug on the reins to keep the horses mind on the journey and not on the grass that they devoured.

Day turned to night and camp was set further from civilization than any of your patrols had dared venture. In a world where spirit beasts feasted on the flesh of men, few dared to leave the protection of the stone idols that guarded the roads between villages or surrounded the fields they called home. Those who dared were viewed as adventurers. It seems you had made adventurers of your men this day.

The evening meal was uneventful, your men quiet and nervous to be out in the wilderness and unprotected by the stone idols that served as the guardians of civilization and discouraged predation by common spirit beasts. It was agreed that your Knights would keep watch in pairs during the night to stiffen the resolve of common sentries. You had some fear, not unfounded, that sentries might run off in the night if there were no cultivators to run towards. You yourself would sleep through the night unmolested by duty. It was the privilege of rank and a practical matter of you being the most powerful cultivator available. You should be well rested since you were the only one that could face uncommon spirit beasts, the sort that could penetrate the stone idols that protected civilization.

You retired to your tent early that evening for meditation and to rest, with the intention to wake with the dawn when the camp would roar to life once more.

You woke to screams of common soldiers and the beating of war drums to wake the camp. It seemed something had decided your men were of interest. You rose and dressed yourself in traditional robes, your Ironwood Fortress technique was the Bai family's true armor.

The scene outside your tent was chaos as a pack of large direwolves, nearly the size of horses, prowled through the camp. That was bad for such creatures were of the Second Realm, too powerful for common soldiers to handle except with extreme care and exceptional losses. You had no intention of trading ten men for every direwolf, you would likely run out of men before the pack ran out of direwolves.

It was time to get people's attention so you augmented your voice with spirit energy and shouted, "Soldiers, gather near the south of the camp and form a shield wall. Keep the wolves off you as best you can. Knights, form up on me. We need to kill these creatures before they kill the men under our protection."

Cavalarymen were ill-equipped to fight on foot but they still had javelins and shields. It would be a prickly thing intended to encourage the wolves to seek easy prey. Like sixteen men in loose formation without long, pointy weapons. Spirit beasts were intelligent compared to common animals but they were still animals. Fire and spears were both the source of primal terror.

The Knights of Bloodthorn Valley, as well as Bai Chenshen, gathered around you with various combinations of weapons and armor. A few like, you, carried neither but that did not mean they were disarmed. It simply meant they relied heavily on techniques in place of common weapons. Knights were too poor to afford proper spirit treasure arms and armor after all. Your knights formed a loose circle with their backs to a common center, for the direwolves were circling.

Eighteen direwolves against seventeen cultivators. It was not a good situation to be in, particularly given the loss of even a single cultivator was a massive blow to any fief.

Sweat dripped down onto your brow despite the chill night air as you shouted, "Hold men, let them attack.".

The first direwolf to rush in was struck in the flank by a massive fireball hurled by one of your robed knights, Shen of Hunan, if you recalled correctly. The wolf's side fur caught fire and it staggered off into the darkness to roll on the grass in an attempt to extinguish the flames. A human like act for an animal, likely from the consumption of human intellect in the form of spirit cores.

The other wolves were more cautious now, not eager to be the next to taste Shen's fiery cultivation. However, humans still looked puny compared to the mass of a direwolf so the creatures still believed they had the advantage. Blasts of ice and fire were hurled in the direction of the wolves but it did little to discourage their interest in the cultivators they had encircled.

When the attack came it happened all at once, a surge of animalistic fury. Each cultivator found themselves toe to toe with their own direwolf, a battle where a single misstep would be fatal for the Second Realm cultivators. You, however, were of the Third Realm.

Your direwolf snapped its jaws at your left arm only to find you had invoked the Ironwood Fortress technique and its jaws found only hard, iron-like bark instead of flesh. Masters of Wood were slow but strong. You grabbed the direwolf by the throat and simply crushed its windpipe before it could withdraw. The poor creature died of suffocation as it spasmed on the ground, a horrible way to go.

The Knights and Bai Chenshen held their own against their respective direwolves with a variety of techniques in play. Bai Chenshen, like you, simply relied on brute force and toughness to keep his wolf at bay, likely using the family's Ironwood Fortress technique to grant both strength and durability. Others, such as Shen of Hunan, relied on preternatural speed granted by Air or Fire techniques to dodge incoming attacks while retaliating with blistering bursts of fire. A few used Ice, the power of Winter, to erect defenses as well as land chilling blows on their respective opponents. If they had not been there to distract so many wolves, you would have been in serious trouble.

While your fellows fought their duels, you walked from wolf to wolf and dispatched them with cold efficiency. Sometimes it was a blow to collapse a windpipe, other times it was a forceful blow to crush a leg, whichever was more convenient. You were breathing heavily by the time you reached your ninth wolf, your spirit energy dwindling dangerously as you released your Ironwood Fortress technique and instead resorted to the Ironwood Blade technique, a simple and less expensive use of power. Of course, you were no longer invulnerable as well. Trade offs.

Thankfully, you did not need to test your swordsmanship as the remaining direwolves turned and ran off into the night, leaving their fellows to die. Unfortunately, it was not in time to prevent injury among your number. Two knights found themselves badly bitten and in need of a recuperation period safe at home. It was the sort of thing that was inevitable in battle. It was why battle was best avoided.

You used your sharp Ironwood Blade to cut out the spirit cores of the fallen beasts, unsure what to do. It made sense to compensate the injured and their families but at the same time it represented a year's tax revenue from 180 people. It would be a shame to throw it all away when you needed to save up to buy spirit treasures and cultivation aids of your own. You could dip into the Valley's revenue but only so much, much of it was earmarked for maintaining troops and funding infrastructure projects. You only had 1166 Silver Bars a season to work with, this represented a tenth of your revenue.

[ ] Spend almost all of the money on your injured knights and to compensate the families of the fallen soldiers. (-110 Silver Bars; Net +70 Silver Bars; Direwolf Cores sold to the Alchemist Guild) Gain the Trait: Generous (+2 Diplomacy; Upgradeable). People will expect such generous compensation in the future and will be disappointed if you do not provide it. (-10 Silver Bars / Injured/Dead Man)

[ ] Spend the expected amount in compensation. Your knights would fare a little better, your common soldiers a little worse, but in the end it was what was expected of you and that was OK. (-4 Silver Bars / Injured/Dead Man; -44 Silver Bars; Net: +136 Silver Bars to be spent as you see fit; Direwolf Cores sold to the Alchemist Guild)

[ ] Be Miserly and keep all this wealth to yourself. It is, perhaps, a cruel act in the eyes of some and may hurt your favorability with your troops but you only needed to worry about cultivators. You could kill a hundred common soldiers by yourself. (-8 Silver Bars per Injured Cultivator; -16 Silver Bars; Net: +164 Silver Bars) Gain the Trait: Miser (-2 Diplomacy; No penalties to offering unfavorable deals; Upgradeable)

++ Gained 9 Rank 2 Direwolf Spirit Cores. Worth about 180 Silver Bars.
--- Two knights injured, returning to their villages for recovery. (13/15)
--- Nine common soldiers were killed or wounded and sent home. (91/100)
--- No Bloody Hand were injured (20/20)


Dawn came and went and the business of the day became finding the Direwolves Lair, both to add it to your maps and decide you would attempt to wipe it out. If they were allowed to feast on human spirit cores there was always the risk they would grow more numerous and stronger. And there was also the odd matter of the grass being so addictive to horses. Perhaps it was some source overflow from a place of power?

Your scouts found the lair easily enough, the direwolves that had fled had left tracks for you to follow after all. It was a sizable hole dug into the side of a hill, a place of shade and respite from the harsh noon sun. It housed a dozen direwolves and some sort of natural spring that provided them with water to drink. The question was, given your losses, did you ride on and purge the land of these monsters? Or did you simply leave them be given there were no reports of them raiding humans and you had come into their territory?

[ ] Kill the Direwolves. (Initiates Combat; Potential loot 12 Direwolf Cores / 240 Silver Bars; Potential Casualties: 1-3 Knights)

[ ] Leave them in peace. You knew about them now and could come back at your leisure to remove them. (Safe option)

There was also the matter of the grass. You were an expert with Wood and Horticulture, you likely could discover its properties and what value it might hold. However, you would delay your expedition in a dangerous area and could always come back later to investigate. Of course you won't be able to exploit this resource without first removing the direwolves.

[ ] Investigate the Grass. (+7 Days to Expedition; Alchemy roll to discover the effects of the grass and their alchemical properties.)

[ ] Investigate the Grass Later. ( Adds an Investigate the Grass option to future turn orders as a personal action or as an action assigned to the Alchemist Guild. )

Note: You do not need to vote by plan.