Normally you would hesitate to leave a male Imperial magic-user with no knowledge of Kislevarin unattended in Kislev, but close proximity to an obviously unperturbed Ice Witch has demonstrated to the gathered pulks that Johann is benign and keeping up with cavalry on the march for days while on foot has made him intriguing, especially to the young men and women of the nomadic Ungol krugs. So while a chaperone might be called for, he's at least in no immediate danger from the Kislevite taboo on male magic-users - or at least in less danger than he would be if he got caught sniffing around the leylines with you.
Literally everywhere he goes Johann attracts eyes from everyone. He is a literal magnet for both men and women. Genuinely irresistable dude. Good for him. I'm happy for my man.
The Kreml Guard and the leylines, you decide. If there's to be a battle inside a forest, you want to have at least some dedicated infantry on your side, and having a sensible and skilled general in the form of Tsarevich Boris around would also be an advantage. And while you're heading in that direction you can also investigate the matter of the missing leyline you noticed at Gross Selon, as if those energies are still flowing from Kislev but are being intercepted partway by the enemy within the Shirokij Forest, that's something you're going to want to know about in advance.
Normally you would hesitate to leave a male Imperial magic-user with no knowledge of Kislevarin unattended in Kislev, but close proximity to an obviously unperturbed Ice Witch has demonstrated to the gathered pulks that Johann is benign and keeping up with cavalry on the march for days while on foot has made him intriguing, especially to the young men and women of the nomadic Ungol krugs. So while a chaperone might be called for, he's at least in no immediate danger from the Kislevite taboo on male magic-users - or at least in less danger than he would be if he got caught sniffing around the leylines with you.
With the stated intention of speeding the Kreml Guard along their journey you carefully scrutinize every map the gathered pulks can produce and depart from the muster at Resvynhaf and once you're out of sight you veer northwards, towards the headwaters of a tributary to the Urskoy that the leyline should pass underneath. If you follow the river from its source to its mouth, you should be guaranteed to cross the direct line between Kislev City and Gross Selon.
I've gotten to the point where I find nearly anything Mathilde does funny. She sees the opportunity to do something, so she tries to get as much possible out of it as she could, so she scrutinises pathways as good as possible so she can do both duties that she set for herself. Get Boris to the fight while checking on the leylines. I love the contrast between Mathilde and Johann. On one side you have this galaxy brain 4d chess going through a full constructing a mind palace, and on the other hand you got a guy whose head is empty and heart is full (Before people get on my ass about it, I don't think Johann is stupid. I think he enjoys not thinking too hard about things. His profile is literally "keep it simple").
Two hours later you're starting to develop a headache from straining to look downwards with your Magesight while keeping your eyes fixed on the path ahead. While the Shadowsteed has many advantages over flesh-and-blood horses, its willingness to gallop at full speed into a tree or river can be quite a downside. And through it all, not a single glimpse of a leyline. While that might be enough to quell your concerns of Kislev's army marching unawares into a superpowered Athel Loren Battle Wizard, it does nothing to sate your curiosity. So instead of turning back, you use Smoke and Mirrors to hop across the Urskoy near the village of Iranasgrad and start to follow the river upstream towards Kislev City.
This is literally cartoon imagery. Now I have the mental image of Mathilde being flattened into an ironing board from slamming into a tree like those Tom and Jerry cartoons. Strangely fitting.
Also, you're not making me check maps Boney. I know you checked the maps and made sure everything is accurate, but I am not going to squint at small text again to track locations just to be able to say "AHA! That's where Mathilde ended up for like one or two lines in the update!". It doesn't matter that I did that several times before.
Two hours later, as you approach the village of Sava northwest of Kislev, you finally pick up a leyline, and one strong enough that you likely would have noticed it even if you weren't actively looking for it. Judging from its direction, you're certain that it is coming from Erengrad. That makes sense, as it is one of the three major cities of Kislev, and though you're not sure if it was ever an Elven settlement, the mouth of the Lynsk would have been a natural place for them to have erected a Waystone nexus even if they hadn't lived there.
So energy is flowing into Kislev, but as far as you've seen so far, it isn't flowing out. You start to construct possible explanations for this in your mind, from the mysterious to the catastrophic, but you shake yourself out of it. You're going to be completing a circuit of Kislev City anyway in order to reach the Kreml Guard, so building theories now when much fuller data is only a few hours away would be a waste of effort.
Realm of the Ice Queen Page 18 says this in the Kislev calendar on -5000 Gospodarin (Around -3500 IC or something like that):
"Elven colonisation of the Old World finally reaches the site of modern-day Erengrad. This outpost marks the furthest the Elves penetrate to the east and north."
So yeah the Elves had an outpost in Erengrad. I remember posting this in the thread before.
About an hour later, halfway between Kislev City and the village of Ardkha, you halt your Shadowsteed in consternation at the leyline you've discovered. As you might have guessed, there was a leyline between Kislev City and Praag, Kislev's third major city. What you hadn't guessed was that the leyline would be flowing northwards, taking power from Kislev to Praag. While you're relieved that all that power isn't gathering and curdling under Bokha Palace, it makes as little sense as water flowing uphill. The Waystone Network exists to gather magical energy from across the world and deliver it to the Great Vortex of Ulthuan, and while you do know that there are other, smaller networks, that Gross Selon is built to take in energy from Kislev City, and that Kislev City was originally founded as the Elven trade settlement of Athel Numiel for trade with Karak Ungor, both indicate that Kislev City would have once been part of the main Waystone Network. So something had to have changed for it to be flowing north from Kislev City instead of south.
Your first instinct is to suspect some Chaos plot, as it's very easy to remember your own visit to Praag and suspect some deep wellspring of corruption that might be to blame. But on further thought that doesn't make sense to you. Praag is in a dire state, but it is less so than it was in the direct aftermath of the Great War Against Chaos. It may be recovering with heartbreaking slowness, but it is recovering. And it wouldn't be if the Waystones of half of Kislev or more were draining Dhar into Praag. So the energies must either be expended in Praag, or be flowing onwards onto some other unknown destination.
You glare up the Kislev-Praag road, very conscious of the time ticking by. You're already going to be cutting it fine to reach the Kreml Guard in time to get sufficient sleep before a day of speeding them on their way with Rite of Way. There's no way to squeeze the four days it would take you to ride to Praag and back into this already very constricted timetable. You sigh and mentally add it to the very long list of unanswered questions you've accumulated on the subject of Waystones and turn your Shadowsteed southwards.
Mathilde is literally a walking locus of Ulgu with all the rampant curiousity, confusion and constant backlog of questions roiling inside her noggin'. The day she no longer has questions is the day that either she or the world has ended.
Thankfully, it proves rather straightforward to find the Kreml Guard. Even if they weren't the only infantry column making their way down the narrow and rutted dirt road between Kislev City and Resvynhaf, their signature armament of a light bow and a heavy axe is hard to miss. You slow to a trot as you approach the column, as anyone approaching at what could be perceived as a charge seems very likely to have a bad time of it, and by the time you reach the column you see that part of it has already split off and is watching your approach, and by the size of the centremost figure and the aura of frost surrounding his glaive, you're fairly sure you've found the Tsarevich. Probably not the welcome every passer-by gets when approaching the column, but not every passer-by would be riding a horse made of shadows.
Aha. He does have his Frost Glaive, although not any other magical equipment that Mathilde was able to discern. He's gained the favor of the Ice Witches it seems, which is fully in line with his ambitious nature. Not being Tzar certainly isn't stopping him.
"Atamanka Ved'ma Weber!" Boris calls out at your approach. "Heard you were in Kislev once more. Did your Elves tell you about these Elves?"
Atamanka is the female version of "Village Chief" that Kislev uses. Ataman is the word used for the leaders of the Stanistas. Ved'ma is "Witch" basically. He's basically calling her Chief Witch.
Also, what is up with people and going "your dwarfs" and "your elves" etc. They're making Mathilde look like she's catching Pokemon or something.
"No, Laurelorn is as far removed from Athel Loren as the Elf Quarter of Erengrad is. I was looking into the trouble they caused on the Ostermark side of the border when I picked up their trail."
"Many of your colleagues would have called the matter done when they realized it was Kislev's problem."
"Before Khan-Queen Miska arrived in Kislev, Ostermark's capital was as far as it could physically get from the border, even though that meant being across the river from Sylvania. Now it prospers just across the river from Ryazan. It is in the Empire's interest for Kislev to be strong."
Mathilde and her classic "we all need to work together" speech attempting to hide the fact that she's trying to make connections so her project gets more support. She's not lying per se, but she's certainly not telling the whole of it. I'm quite certain it is considered pretty rude to tell someone right out that you're helping them out to recieve favors.
"If only more realized it. Why have you come to me? Though we march to war, my father will ride to it, and will not wait for anything once he smells blood on air."
"I know, and I was hoping to change that. There's a spell that should let you reach Resvynhaf in time-"
"Wait, I read about this. Is this with boots and coins and blood and sometimes troops just disappear?"
"No, I'd need a number of other Wizards for that. This is a spell of my own invention, one I used to good effect on the Karag Dum Expedition. All it does is make a flat, even surface out of just about any terrain."
Boris looks at the churned remnants of the rutted path the Kreml Guard has left in its wake. "But not slippery, yha? Like proper Dwarf road?" You nod. "And you can do this all day?" You nod again. Boris considers that, before turning to the man next to him and rattling off a series of instructions. "My Kossars do not drink before a battle," he says, turning back to you as orders are shouted at the marching men who by now are some distance down the road, "but you are welcome to share our fire and food and koumiss."
I definitely chuckled when Boris bought up "Impossible March of the Damned Soldier". I suppose someone as well learned as the Tsarevich would know, certainly since he's a military man. What I find interesting is that he "read about it". I suppose he read the journal of a soldier who went through it? I certainly can't see the Empire allowing Imperials to publish books about rituals so it had to be a Kislevian.
Boris speaking of proper Dwarf roads does get me thinking. Man, these guys were seriously screwed by dirt roads. Kislev desperately needs an infrastructure update and Vladimir is certainly not doing it. Boris needs to hurry up and become the Tzar. I would say that he might benefit from Karak Vlag's return but I can guarantee none of those Dwarves ever built a proper road. What use are roads in the Chaos Realms.
It takes shockingly little time for a small village of round Ungol tents to be erected and a meal of porridge and dumplings to be boiled, and once that is done the Kreml Guard gather around the fire in an air of easy camaraderie that Boris seems entirely at home in. You don't have nearly enough Kislevarin to immerse yourself, but that does give you the opportunity to observe, and you have enough to say thank you when the skins of koumiss circulating are handed to you. Koumiss has a reputation of being shockingly potent, but that's because unsuspecting visitors to Kislev take one taste of fermented mare's milk and stick to kvas for the rest of the night, which tastes deceptively mild but hits like a runaway bull, and they blame the resultant blackout and hangover on the horse milk instead of the stuff that seemed like water. You find the koumiss to be surprisingly charming, like a mix of soured cream and Bretonnian bubble-wine.
I like the little humanising and worldbuilding elements thrown in, particularly since this is a bit of a different culture than the Gospodar we're so used to. Despite being Gospodarin, Boris feels entirely at home within the Ungols of the Kreml Guard and that indicates a level of experience and comraderie that says a lot about him and what he's been doing. It's really nice.
Also, Mathilde drinking Koumiss reminds me of Laban. Except we drink fermented cow or goat milk not horse milk. If it's anything like camel milk then I don't want to touch horse milk. Camel was way too strong for me. And no, the ones I drank weren't alcoholic, although I'm not sure how much more alcoholic this Koumiss is compared to other types of fermented milk. There can't be that many ways to ferment milk right?
Once everyone has eaten their fill, there's a great deal of dancing, sparring, and wrestling, and it's often difficult to tell which is which. Despite their heavy arms and armour the Kreml Guard prove to be incredibly agile, and after watching some of the axe spars and being watched in turn by Boris, he asks you if you know your way around a blade. Branulhune's appearance in your hand supplies your answer for you, and an accepted challenge later you find yourself ringed by Kossars as you weigh up Boris, who's an intimidating sight even with the icy glow of his glaive muffled by a cloth wrapping. The two of you put on a decent showing for the audience, but you can tell that Boris is growing as frustrated by having to keep from unleashing the full power of his weapon as you are, and the two of you call it quits while you still can with good grace. You observe to him that there'll be plenty of opportunity to have a proper fight soon enough, and Boris claps you on the back.
I was going to say something about the inherent homoeroticism lying within the first part of this scene, then I considered backing that up and saying nothing, then I realised that there is no reason to silence myself. Big Bears Manhandling Each Other in the Cold North of Kislev.
I feel bad for Boris and Mathilde. I hope they get a cool fight scene where they fight back to back to make up for the Nat 1. I want to see them wreck shit.
The next morning finds you atop your Shadowsteed in the morning mist, trying to ignore several hundred pairs of eyes watching you with cautious expectation. It's been a while since you've had cause to use Rite of Way, but the Praestantia syllables you'd constructed it with leap to your tongue as though it had been yesterday and Ulgu leaps to your command. You brace yourself for the initial jerk of draining energy as the path ahead of you disappears under a field of impenetrable fog, and then the draw lessens almost as sharply as you urge your Shadowsteed forward at a fraction of its possible speed. You let the chorus of the spell slip from your tongue to your internal monologue, then to the back of your mind. Behind you the foremost of the Kreml Guard cautiously wades into the fog, peers downward in confusion at the flat and solid surface that has somehow appeared where moments ago there had been rutted dirt, and then he is nudged by the man behind him and starts to walk. You increase your pace once and then again as the Kossars become familiar with the terrain you have supplied and threaten to overtake you until you're at as rapid a pace as infantry can maintain without breaking into a jog. Behind you a marching song begins in a tongue that sounds halfway between Kurgan and Kislevarin, Boris' voice loudest of all among them.
[Casting Rite of Way: Learning, 72+29+10(favourable conditions)=111.]
This scene certainly lived up to the hype. Very nice way to integrate the build and anticipation of the in universe expectations, Mathilde's nervousness, and integrating her success and the unsure nature of new magic interacting with a group of mundane humans. At least these soldiers are more used to Ice Witches so they're actually more likely to trust Mathilde than your standard Imperial State Troops ironically enough.
I assume the tongue that sounds halfway between Kurgan and Kislevarin is some sort of precuror tongue to modern Kislevarin that came from when the Ungols and Gospodar wandered the Steppes as Kurgan/Kurgan-Adjacent tribes.
It's still several hours from dusk when you arrive at Resvynhaf, and it takes you a moment to remember how to stop casting the spell so you can step to the side and allow Boris and the Kreml Guard to make an impression upon the gathered pulks. Despite a day's hard march they stand tall and proud, Boris foremost among them, and he shouts a greeting to Boyar Kirill as he nears. After arrangements are made for food and drink for the Kossars, they, you, and Milica convene to discuss the latest happenings.
[Rolling...]
The Tzar, you hear via Milica's familiar, has finally gathered together the city rotas and is ready to leave the city tomorrow at dawn, which should have them arriving at Resvynhaf that evening. It is generally agreed that the Tzar is likely to order an attack on the intruders in the Shirokij the morning after that - or rather, considering how little is known of the intruders, to push into the Shirokij in the direction of the besieged villages and see what happens. That gives you a single day before everything is violence and confusion, and leaves you with the difficult question of how best to spend it. And having the heir to Kislev's throne present does open up new possibilities.
I don't know how I didn't make the connection until now, but I genuinely facepalmed at my idiocy for not noticing. Of course Milica's hawk was a familiar. That's why it always accompanies her. I thought it was just a hawk pet that she kept around that liked to groom her hair and stuff.
[ ] Contact Ostermark
The Tsarevich can grant you the authority to reach out to Ostermark to request their aid on behalf of Kislev, and their military is already mustered at Bechafen. Ride there and request Elector Count Hertwig pushes into the Shirokij from the south as Kislev's forces do so from the north.
This choice makes the most sense to me. There's an entire force mustered across the river. Let's bring them in. We literally need all the backup we can get and they'd probably be the most significant military contribution out of all the choices. 2-5 Ice Witches is not an army, as much as they're powerful, they lack the strategic flexibility of an army.
