[X][Construction] Build a house for yourself and Olivia. It's not proper for a young woman to share a room with so many other men. (100 Denier in needed materials)
[X][Personal] Make a new set of strength suppressing gloves for Olivia. (50 Denier in needed materials)
[X][Hunters] Scout, learn more about the forest, reduce chance of enemies slipping by.
-[X] Investigate the wolves, find their den and hunting ground. Will reduce encounters, unless you want to lure someone towards them.
[X][Levy] Train with the captain
Construction of a residence proceeded mostly on schedule. The higher expense relative to the barracks style living the rest of the camp goes towards bringing in slightly better materials. Unfortunately one of the supply shipments involved was taken out by an orc raiding party. Not only did it end up costing an extra 50 Denier to complete, the remaining merchants are demanding extra money to pay for the guards they now need to pay for to guarantee their safety on this route. This has raised all costs by 10%. That's bad enough by itself, but it's worse given your job is to prevent orc raiding parties getting through.
The house at least is serviceable. While it's still primarily a log cabin based structure, it has actual mattresses, a floor from the beginning, and actual walls dividing it into multiple rooms. It's certainly still not to the level you'd like, and you'd be embarrassed if you had to entertain any noble guests, but it's a start.
You spend your own time mostly on making a new set of limiter gloves for Olivia. It's actually a highly complex bit of enchantment, partly because it's so unusual a thing to need, and partly because it actually has to limit things beyond what it covers. It had taken you quite a bit of research to piece together the first time around.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she says somewhat tearfully as you present her the new gloves, and she immediately pulls them on.
"I inspected the old ones you gave me to see if I could salvage those, but it seems like the enchantments had been wearing down over time even before they were physically compromised." Olivia flexes her fingers testingly and pokes a few things, but pays attention even so.
"I was very careful with them though, even wore other gloves on top of them most of the time, and they were such nice leather. The other servants even noticed how nice they were." You have a vague inkling that might have been what made your father think the relationship no longer acceptable. Dalliances were fine, but nice gift giving a bit far.
"Their physical condition was quite good, but magically they were threadbare. The enchantment might well have just failed and that resulted in the physical damage rather than the other way around. I'm rather worried about that because they should have lasted way longer," you explain. Olivia has already started cheerfully cleaning with a radiant smile at the simple pleasure of being able to do so without breaking everything. "There might be something wrong with the matrix, maybe I didn't properly fit the pieces together and they're clashing," you speculate.
"I'm sure you couldn't have made such a mistake Master," Olivia states as simply as the color of the sky, despite it being nowhere near simple.
"I have an alternative theory, but I like it a lot less." You sigh.
"Well what is it?" she prompts after an appropriate pause.
"Well it could be that your strength is still increasing. I'm worried that the gloves might have just acted as continual strength training by providing resistance to everything." They are already at about the limit of what you can manage in terms of complexity. Adding a modifier for how much resistance they applied simply isn't possible without taking something else out, and everything else was more necessary.
"I'm sure you'll figure it out, you always do," Olivia replies simply, ignoring the future's problems in favor of sweeping dirt out of the house and humming.
Her confidence in you usually made you feel better. Right now though it just seems to make you feel worse that it might be misplaced.
The scouting of the wolves territory for their den turns into a disastrous rout. These were experienced men with a year's experience with the forest, and nearly half died outright.
"I've been talking to the surviving hunters, and were we anywhere else I'd say they'd all gotten drunk," Leo reports to you in the privacy of your new personal cabin.
"Sadly we're not anywhere else," you complain, wishing you were drunk. The tea that Olivia sets in front of you is not nearly as comforting as a stiff drink would be.
"None of them even agree on what happened. Wolves, giants, bears, boars, the trees themselves, orcs, each other, ghosts. Everyone has a different story," he says while accepting a cup of tea as well.
"I've heard that soldiers often have very different stories about the same battle," you say interrupting him.
"Sure they do, but never heard of a case where they couldn't agree what they were fighting. Given some of the survivors have wounds from our own weapons that one was at least true. I can't rightly rule out any of the others because it is the Overgrowth, but I can't figure out why they would turn on each other too, especially if they were being attacked. These were experienced hunters with a year's experience working with each other, breaking and fleeing an attack maybe, but I've never seen such a unit turn on each other during one," Leo finishes in a puzzled tone. You sip your tea to give yourself time to think.
"I've talked to a couple myself, and none of them really seem all that coherent about what happened. Some of them are still pretty disoriented," you consider.
"That's not really unusual after the first time a unit experiences serious battle."
"They'd already taken losses before now though," you counter.
"That was different, they didn't really see it happen much, many of the witnesses died too, and overall losses weren't as high," he explains. Leo tries his own tea tentatively, clearly unused to it, taking a deep gulp of it and frowning.
"I'll defer to your judgement I guess. It just seems to me that it's too severe. But combined with how scattered the stories are, I kind of suspect some sort of hallucinogenic."
"A what now?"
"Something that tricks the mind into seeing things that aren't real, or seeing real things differently, like alcohol but worse," you explain. "Though I've only heard of them as being consumed by certain nobles for recreation." Leo gives you a rather curious look.
"Not that master Revaria would ever waste himself on such a thing!" Olivia interjects into the conversation from her previous invisible hovering. Leo gives a quick laugh.
"Of course I'm sure he wouldn't. Still nobles enjoy some strange stuff." He eyes the tea pointedly. Olivia frowns cutely at him before withdrawing to the wall again. "I can ask but I doubt any of them stopped to eat some random thing in the forest. Too likely to try to eat them back."
You'd laugh, but you just lost a substantial fraction of your manpower. "At least tell me that the levy is progressing well?"
"They're a damn sight better than the last bunch that's for sure. They can follow orders and use their spears decently well. It can be hard to say how a unit will react the first time they face a battle, but I'm pretty sure they'll hold."
"That's good because we're going to need them sooner rather than later," you reply, thinking about the various threats surrounding your small outpost. Not only did you have to worry about the forest, it seems the orcs are on the move again.
"We're going to need them and more. We really need more manpower to handle the threats in the forest and stop the orcs from trickling past us. Couldn't your father give you more money for more men?"
"I suppose I can try. Though I doubt our relationship is anything like what you expect."
Levy to +15
Hunters at 50% strength, Broken Morale, Will cost 50 Denier to recruit replacements
Plans for Autumn: (Base costs shown, increase 10% for merchants issue)
[][Construction] Try to put up a couple wooden watchtowers in the Overgrowth. (50 Denier in needed materials)
-[] Treehouses
[][Construction] Improve the palisade with packed earth to strengthen it and provide a top surface for guards to observe from. (2 seasons)
[][Construction] Expand the palisade to cover a larger area. (50 Denier in needed materials)
[][Construction] Improve the barracks with more furniture, bedding, separated rooms with sturdy doors for the officers. (100 Denier in needed materials)
[][Construction] Write in
Thanks to Olivia handling many of the mundane tasks of life for you now that she has her gloves, you have more time free for other things. You could squeeze in two actions now, but they would be on d85 rather than d100.
[][Personal] You could produce some basic enchanted gear for one of your units. Sharper blades and harder armor are staples for a reason. (100 Denier in needed materials)
-[] Specify a unit.
[][Personal] Spend time with your men. It might be useful.
[][Personal] Have Leo give you a bit of training. However much you hate the idea, it might be worthwhile to be able to swing a weapon if you get ambushed.
[][Personal] Produce a fireplace exclusion enchant to try in the forest. (50 Denier in needed materials)
[][Personal] Look into building a sawmill for exporting lumber. See what it would cost to build, how much the lumberjacks would need to be paid, and what merchants could be persuaded to pay for the lumber.
[][Personal] Try to convince your father to increase your funding. That seems like squeezing blood from a stone, an angry stone, but might be worth trying.
[][Personal] Recruit units
Unit Assignments
[Hunters] Currently Broken Morale cannot act
[][Levy] Patrol, reduce chance of enemies slipping by.
[][Levy] Train with the captain (must be taken with captain action, is not advised at this time)
[][Levy] Guard
-[] The construction crew
-[] The merchants that bring your supplies (eliminate 10% modifier)
[][Captain] Command troops, raising morale and effectiveness
-[] Which unit?
[][Captain] Train Olivia
[][Captain] Recruit units
[][Captain] Train levy (must be taken with levy action)
610 starting -400 upkeep this turn -150 housing materials +600 season payment -25 breakage = 635 Denier
Upkeep next turn: 375 +10%
Because of your bonuses Morale will recover for units on its own a bit. You had a bad roll on the scouts. It wasn't quite a critical failure but this was a dangerous action. That compounded with not guarding the pass well enough has led to orc raiders slipping past. If you don't have the captain train Olivia she can assist one of the other actions for a variable bonus (not sure how to represent that as exclusive with training her).
