[*] [Actions] Plan Our Jobs Take Priority
-[*] Interweave your network with the Watch as it expands, so that you can use the Watch to cover your network's communication lines and actions. (NEW)
-[*] Expand the administration of the Watch so that they can expand into other counties without your personal oversight.
-[*] Complete taking control of the renamed Stirland Watch. (finishes action begun last turn)
-[*] Integrate the rat catchers, sewer-jacks and gong farmers into the Watch, and begin having the rank-and-file of the Watch learn from them (Watch speciality action).
-[*] Expand the Watch into the County of Worden, prioritizing Worden and Potting.
-[*] Can I Come Too?: Everyone seems to be riding off to Leicheberg lately. Tag along and see what's going on with these Haunted Hills. (NEW)
--[*] Ranald's Blessing on Can I Come Too?
-[*] Overwork - Undead Research: This is Stirland. Time to bone up on your knowledge of the Undead.
-[*] Formal Proposal: Your idea for an undead research team intrigues Van Hal, but he wants more information. Write up a full proposal, including where it will fit in the existing heirarchy, and spend some time sourcing the equipment it would require. Write in details: Name, who it is technically a part of (Watch, Witch Hunters, Military, College, none), and whether it reports directly to you (becomes a new Organization you command) or not. (NEW)
--[*] Name: Autopsy Agency
--[*] Membership: College
--[*] Control: Van Hal
--[*] The organization would have wizards from the colleges, along with surgeons and hunters to best locate, combat, capture and dissect the undead encountered. The key difficulties will lie in detection, location and capture, where a wizard is best suited to the parts of detection and capture, being able to identify the Dhar at work and also counter or trace any necromancers involved.
--[*] While there may be political costs to a formal expansion of the colleges, the value here in Stirland should be well worth it, and there is the alternative of hiring Journeymen and keeping the control under Van Hal's personal authority if the politics prove stubborn about a formal expansion, as his position makes commanding journeymen wizards simple by law.
--[*] With the information gathered, it'd be helpful to the roles of Gustav, Kasmir and your own office to get the detailed reports. Specific tactics to fighting the unliving would greatly ease the losses on the forces combating the supernatural in the field, while your informants would also greatly benefit from identifying the more subtle forms of undead hidden within the populace or lurking where the people will only report otherwise vague rumors.. Then Kasmir's office to assess if the locals are coerced, duped or in collusion.
-[*] Enchantment: So far you've still failed to find suitable equipment (damn Wizard Chic) but you could always try to throw your authority behind commissions from glassblowers and blacksmiths. (-discretionary gold, action required to set up and learn to use equipment)
--[*] Just buy. Defer setup if you get anything
-[*] Free Time: Now well-established in Wurtbad, you can spend some time in your scant off hours getting to know someone better. Pick one character. (no action required)
--[*] Wilhelmina
-[*] These agents are getting expensive. Write up a proposal for your discretionary budget to be increased, instead of waiting for Van Hal to decide to increase it. (warning: attracts oversight to your current budget)
--[*] Budget increase dearly needed as the information network need huge expansion to refill the void left by the demise of the League, as well as watching the Watch to prevent corruption and hostile plants. Push for increase of 100 Gold at minimal, due to need to finding and keeping reliable officers.
-[*] Cut Embezzlement to 0. You have your own estate income now to cover your fees.
[*] [WAIFU] None of the above: Mathilde is open to the idea, but none of the current options really do it for her. - Number of voters: 30
[*] [WAIFU] Van Hal - Number of voters: 23
Waifu Vote Result: Mathilde will be married to her job, but will have certain thoughts regarding Van Hal.
---
There was a time, you reminisce, when every problem given to you was solved by running at it with sword and magic armour at the ready, and whatever happened, it was all wrapped up in time for dinner. Now, you've got
bureaucracy.
Tragically, it's entirely a necessary evil. The newly-renamed Stirland Watch could be a
fantastic tool in all sorts of ways - for your information network, for presenting a credible threat to the criminal underworld to force them to fall in line under your authority, and, of course, for the good of the citizens of Stirland. So you have to grit your teeth and sit down and hammer together an organization pretty much from scratch because the blasted Bretonnian
peasant who used to run the Wurtbad Watch took one look at your incoming regime and chose retirement.
You secure oaths of loyalty from the remaining subordinates of the Bretonnian and move the headquarters to a townhouse that just so happens to be next door to that of your information network. You try to require them to give reports in writing instead of the verbal reports they used to give, but quickly run into the problem of widespread illiteracy, so you once more set up a literacy program for your underlings. You're getting sick of working with uneducated peasants, but when recruitment for the Watch is restricted to military veterans, you don't have much of a choice.
Things rapidly start falling apart when you try to build a bureaucracy, however. You spend
weeks on interview after interview, and in the end you're able to divide them neatly into two categories: incompetent and infiltrators. You invite a few of the second lot back to face rather more
intensive interviewing, and as it turns out there's far greater demand for competent administrators than there is supply, thanks to the trade vacuum caused by your removal of the Stirlandian League. The EIC have snapped up a number to start with, but there's also other trade leagues moving into Wurtbad, and they're looking for bureaucrats of their own. And a few of those new hires have been sent on to you, in what appears to be a defensive measure - there's concerns that your brutal breakup of the Stirlandian League and the seizure of their assets may be habit-forming, and they want agents of their own in place to tip them off should you attempt the same with them.
You put away your implements, thank your interviewees for their time and honesty, and have Julia return the rather distressed candidates back to their paymasters with your best regards.
You spent some time with her later, trying to find an easy solution, but there just isn't one. There's no competent administrative staff left unspoken for in Wurtbad; the only way to get your hands on some is to go elsewhere to hire some on, or to start headhunting those already hired by other organizations, and there's just not the
time for that right now. At least, Julia says brightly, it makes it easy for her to sink her hooks into the Watch unimpeded, but it's no comfort to you.
Fine. If you've got to do everything yourself, so be it.
---
Your last task before heading off to Southern Stirland is the expansion of the Watch
downwards. You're acquainted with how sprawling the underways of Wurtbad are, and you want to start projecting power down there as well as the Watch currently does on street level. The first stop is the Sewer Jacks - technically already part of the Watch, they've just been operating independently for so long that they ran as a separate organization. A reminder of their charter and they fall in line, but talk of a greater focus on their duties gains their interest. You meet with the leader of the Jacks, a short and scarred man known as Lower Hans, a number of times over several weeks in their offices beneath the southern gatehouse of Wurtbad's inner walls. You explain that you envision the Sewer Jacks with improved equipment and training as an elite force dedicated to patrolling the sewers, whereas the rank-and-file of the watch will 'only' be brought up to the
current level of expertise of the Sewer Jacks. His eyes brighten, but he speaks a single word: dwarves.
Given time, you manage to extract further words from him. Dwarves, he explains, are the undisputed masters of tunnel warfare. The Stirland Watch can either spend a dozen lifetimes getting anywhere close to catching up to them, or they can bring in Dwarven trainers to teach them. Stirland has a trade relation with Zhufbar, you remember, albeit one strained by all the Sylvania in between, so it's not entirely impossible - and there was mention of some dwarf issue being raised in the coming Elector's Meet, wasn't there? Something to keep in mind. You say you'll keep it in mind, sketch out plans for the Sewer Jacks to begin training the rest of the Watch, and move on to the more difficult part of the job.
You hold a series of rather fragrant meetings with representatives from two of the most avoided guilds in Wurtbad: the Rat Catchers and the Gong Farmers. You paint a picture for them: one of a new, modern Watch that ruled the streets below as well as they did those above, of the sewers being a hidden but vital part of the Wurtbad machine instead of a hive of vermin and pestilence. Either as independent contractors or officially as employees of Stirland, they would be brought aboard and their roster expanded so that no more would any street in Wurtbad know the smell of human excrement and the skitter of paws in the dark.
It's a surprisingly impassioned pitch, and it wins them over - it takes you weeks to hammer out the details but in the end, both guilds are being formally adopted by the Stirland Watch. Both start to expand their rosters, taking in the poorest and most desperate of Wurtbad's populace and offering them an income and a purpose. The Rat Catchers, no longer bound by the requirement to collect tails for bounty, begin to experiment with new ways to wage war on their eternal foe (it sounds a little melodramatic to you, but hey, whatever helps them find purpose) in the form of rat traps and poisons. As for the gong farmers, the tiniest outlay of funds from the Stirlandian treasury to purchase carts, wagons and barrels pays for itself within the month, as waste flows out of the city and, to your shock, money flows back in - solid waste goes to the farms to act as fertilizer for a modest fee, and it's downright
shocking what the tanneries outside Wurtbad's walls will pay for liquid waste. And every drop and dollop that flows out is no longer lying on or under the streets of Wurtbad, or being dumped into the poor River Stir.
If nothing else, you can claim with pride that Wurtbad is a better-smelling city for your intervention.
[Finishing the takeover: Req 50, Stewardship, 71+10=81.]
[Expanding the administration: Req 40, 14+10=24.]
[Spotting the plants: Req 60, Intrigue, 53+16=69.]
[Julia interrupt? Roll, 4. Nope.]
[Sewer Jacks: Req 30, Stewardship, 95+10=105.]
[Rat Catchers: Breakpoints 30/60, Stewardship, 64+10=74.]
[Gong Farmers: Breakpoints 20/40, Stewardship, 69+10=79.]
---
With all that set up, it's time to join the rest of the group in Southern Stirland. They set off weeks back, but with all you've got to do in Wurtbad you can't spend all your time wandering around the Haunted Hills, so instead you decide to join Wilhelmina's rather more relaxed journey south. It'll be far slower than if you had just ridden a shadowhorse, but a lot more comfortable and it gives you the opportunity to spend some time with Wilhelmina, your long-time coworker and now cofounder of the EIC.
At least, that was the idea.
In reality, Wilhelmina is entirely occupied with her own concerns, and the entire column was forced to wait awkwardly outside the EIC building as Wilhelmina has a screaming row with her eldest son; you can clearly hear the details, as can everyone in this quarter of Wurtbad. The son in question apparently feels that the EIC has no business getting caught up in an inevitably disastrous crusade into haunted Sylvania, and that she was putting some damn fool of a noble ahead of her own family; Wilhelmina shoots back that that 'noble' made the EIC possible, and continues to do so, and even if he didn't she'd still throw the full weight of the EIC behind him, and if he, the son, didn't like it he could resign his place in the company and go out into the world and find some other mother figure to leech off of.
From there, things spiral downward awkwardly.
You don't know how things ended, because after the first hour you summoned your shadowsteed and galloped out of the city on your own.
[Spending time with Wilhelmina: Roll, 2.]
---
You've got a fair bit of reading to do on your way to Southern Stirland to keep you occupied, and you're comfortable enough on shadowy horseback to read as your horse gallops. You've got a number of books on the undead, and more importantly you've got all the information your still-growing network has collected on Southern Stirland. You've honestly been neglecting to read the reports that flow in, leaving it up to Julia to make sure that there's nothing important in there - there's only so many hours in the day, after all - but you suppose now is as good a time as any to start tapping into it, and Julia had busily distilled those reports into solid nuggets of background information on every corner of Stirland.
Southern Stirland, you soon realize, is actually the richest third of Stirland proper. Though Wurtbad is by far the largest population center in the province, Schramleben, Hornau, Leicheberg and Sigmaringen are second through fifth, the fertile soil between the Moot and the mountains supporting fertile fields and vast herds of cattle. It comes as something of a shock to you, as you'd assumed that Western Stirland, furthest from Sylvania and where you'd spent most of your time and attention, would naturally be the biggest part of it - but it's only Wurtbad that makes Western Stirland so important, and without it, the average wealth and size of the towns and villages is far below that of Southern Stirland.
You suppose it makes sense, when you think about it. Most of Western Stirland (and Central Stirland, for that matter) is hills and woods; good for sheep and hunters, but not the sort of place that makes an area rich. For that, you need crops and cows. There were decent farmlands along the Aver, but they lacked the fertility of the lands tucked up against the Moot. You think you're starting to understand why generations of Stirland's Elector Counts have resented the halflings for the loss of Stirland's most valuable soil.
The next report to fall under your eye was on Maksim von Stolpe, the young man that was elevated to rule after his brother got 'disappeared' by you, and his lands. Leicheberg's largest claim to fame (before Van Hal made it the military headquarters of Stirland, that is) was that it was, technically and arguably formerly, Sylvanian. The people were Stirlanders, but when the border was still a legal entity, Leicheberg was on the Sylvanian side of it. But generations of hard work and dedication and military might had forced back the terrible things in the night that made Sylvania what it was, and now the land was as solidly Stirland as any other, with the least haunted of the Haunted Hills supporting vast flocks of sheep and the lowlands of Swartzhafen supporting cattle. Every indication was that he was very enthused about the military presence in his lands, and considering that half of those lands fell within the 'Haunted Hills' and the other half in the shadow of the 'Ghoul Woods', you can certainly see why.
You skim a single page on the neglected barony of Texing, which reverted to the Elector Count after the owning family died off. Decent farmland and some timber industry, but isolated from the rest of Stirland. Perhaps that would change if Van Hal keeps building roads - a Leicheberg-Halstedt road could easily go through Hirtenfeld. Another single-page report, on Sigmaringen and Countess Alexandra von Munsterburg - the least prosperous of the southern counties, but still well off. A pious and quiet land filled with shrines and shepherds, only mildly terrorized by monsters wandering down from the mountains from time to time.
Schramleben, ruled by the Grand Mayor Victor van Grissenwald, is the largest city in Southern Stirland and second-largest in Stirland proper; it is also a Chartered Free Town that has somehow expanded into the area of a county. Built on the shore of the Aver and the crossroads between Averland, the Moot, and Zhufbar, it makes incredible profits selling its famous ale to all three. It also has more head of cattle than any county in Stirland. Its wealth makes it the political juggernaut of Southern Stirland, and it apparently hosts an informal meet between its Grand Mayor and the three Counts every year to discuss business.
Finally, there is the county of Hornau and the Count Robert Toppenheimer; the richest farmlands in Southern Stirland, held back by a lack of enough peasants to work them all. Nobody's that keen to live right up against the Sylvanian border, and crops need a lot more hands to tend them than cattle or sheep do. As a result, he's as positive about recent military developments as Count Maksim is, and has ordered his levy train every weekend in anticipation of a push into Sylvania.
An idyllic corner of Stirland, on paper; but the fact that a simple road can't be built to link it up to Central Stirland tells otherwise.
You spend a pleasant night in Schramleben, sampling their famous ales and taking in the wealth of the city for yourself in a way that you didn't manage to when you galloped through in the past. It's far smaller than Wurtbad, but it's richer, cleaner, and more cosmopolitan. About one in four of the people on the street are dwarfs, halflings, or Averlanders, and the locals are dressed much more finely than the current fashion in Wurtbad. Then you realize that the current fashion in Wurtbad is thrice-accursed Wizard Chic, and you extend your stay in the city a few more days to make some purchases, cackling with glee as you're finally able to clean out the glassblowers and smithies of a city that Wizard Chic hasn't reached. You find stills, alembics, calcinators, retorts, flasks, lenses of every colour, vises, sets of chisels and pliers, an anvil, a very small pedal-forge, and all are purchased and packed in straw and sent up the road to Wurtbad, addressed to Dame Weber, care of the EIC. The cost is
outrageous but you don't care. You've finally beaten Wizard Chic.
[Shopping for enchanting equipment: Req 60, Learning, 89+16=105.]
---
You finally arrive in Leicheberg with a light purse and a lighter heart, and introduce yourself to skeptical soldiers at the gate of an entirely new building: Fort Redemption. Word is sent up a chain of command, and before long Van Hal arrives and welcomes you in, and the guards relax. The barracks is all tall walls and small buildings, with tents in places and ongoing construction in other places, and it bustles with activity. Something like five thousand troops call this place home, and thousands more call it their job; you pass an open-air kitchen with a long line of hungry soldiers patiently waiting, and a small shrine to Ulric, and a tent out of which wafts the smell of blood, death, and the screams of the wounded. Past all this you are led and then into the central keep, past another guard checkpoint and through a series of hallways into what can only be called a war room. Gustav, Schultz, Kasmir and Markus are already there, leaning over a map of the area, along with a face you only recognize after a moment's thought - Maksim, last seen as the dilettante little brother of the Count, now ruling in his own right, and constantly tugging at his belt as the unfamiliar weight of his rapier drags it down.
You all exchange greetings as you join the huddle. "No Wilhelmina?" Markus notes.
"I left a couple hours ahead of her," you reply, leaving out the 'why'. "She should be here within two or three weeks - she's at the head of an entire trade caravan, by the look of it."
That draws a few surprised looks, and you practice your smirk in reply.
Wizard, you don't say, but in such a way that everyone hears you not saying it.
"She'd probably want to sit this out anyway," Van Hal says. "There's a burial mound about half a day into Sylvania - some local hero that was dug up and his remains resanctified in the early days of the Empire. Unlike most of the other Wight Kings, he doesn't get up and go wandering on his own - the only thing that drags him out of his rest is enslavement, and him and his retainers make their way back home after the necromancer in question is slain. If he's still there, then we'll know that our problems are the natural pulse of the Haunted Hills. Worst case scenario, the petty kind of necromancer that can only bind the already-restless dead. But if we get there and it's empty, it means there's something with real power lurking in these Hills."
"I'm in," you say instantly.
Van Hal smiles and nods, and you draw a thoughtful look from Gustav. "You, me, Kasmir and Markus; Gustav will lead a company of his Pistoliers with us, and we'll have flares to signal for reinforcements if necessary. Should strike a decent compromise between moving fast and moving in force."
"In and out before sundown," Kasmir states firmly, and Markus nods in agreement.
"Bezahltag," Van Hal says, "unless the weather shifts, in which case we push it back. Three days to prepare."
---
You take the time to burrow into the bureaucracy at Fort Redemption. You know that the retirement package for soldiers is fairly generous, which means that someone must be handling that money; you make your way to the Paymasters' offices, and from there find a mess. The pay is centralized, certainly; but each Regiment handles retirements internally, and draws up the paperwork to request that their coffers are reimbursed after the fact. You had hoped there was one person you could talk to that would be handling all retirements, but no such luck. So instead you go to the paymaster of each of the eight regiments stationed at Fort Redemption and speak to them individually, braving their suspicious looks and asking them to pass on to men that retire that the Stirland Watch would welcome them with open arms. All they need do is bring their discharge papers to any watchman in Wurtbad, and they'd be directed to the offices of the Watch and welcomed into their ranks.
To your surprise, each and every one of them is open to it, and tells you that they'll pass on the suggestion to their men.
In hindsight, it's probably because you kept it straightforward and minimized your own place in it. "Go to Wurtbad, talk to any watchman you see" is easy to remember and seems unlikely to be part of any weird Wizard plot. But now you'll have enough manpower coming in that you can afford to send some of Wurtbad's officers down south when you get back.
[Retirement bureaucracy: Roll, Stewardship, 35+10=45.]
[Speaking to the paymasters: Breakpoints every 10, Diplomacy, 84+8=92.]
---
You spent so much time chasing down the paymasters and convincing them to pass on your message to their retiring soldiers, you don't have a chance to catch up with anyone before it's time to go venturing off into the Haunted Hills. One hundred pistoliers, two champions, one Elector Count, a priest and a wizard head out in the first light of dawn across the uneven countryside of the Hills. The atmosphere is tense, and every horse but your own is spooked.
Justification for the atmosphere is provided barely an hour into your ride. Atop a hill between you and your eventual goal, two ghostly figures float in midair, shimmering green energy glinting off the transparent scythes in their arms. You're glad you've started skimming books on the undead every night, instead of your usual reading material; you're able to identify these as cairn wraiths, the lingering souls of novice necromancers with just enough know-how to preserve their spirit, but not enough to bind it to a body. They're staring at you malevolently, but not even trying to conceal themselves.
"What in Sigmar's name?" Gustav asks in shock.
"Cairn Wraiths," Van Hal states, confirming your own identification. "Nasty - they can't be harmed by normal weapons." He unslings his repeater rifle and hands it to you, and after a moment's investigation work out how to pop out the cylinder and start weaving
Ulgu into the bullets. This soon after dawn, it's trivial. "Fortunately for us, we're not so limited. Gustav, pass Kasmir your pistol." He does so, and the murmurs of Kasmir's prayer joins your silent concentration as you seal the doom of these fallen wizards.
"Is this," you murmur distractedly, "proof enough? Of necromancers?"
"Unfortunately, these will wander of their own accord just as readily as they will at a necromancer's bidding." He accepts the rifle back from you, checks the cylinder is secured, then aims down the sights. "Though they're rather limited - they tend to come from a time," the sharp
crack of gunfire breaks the uneasy silence, and then shrieks rise from one of the figures as hideous spurts of
Dhar pour from the spectral wound, "before gunpowder."
The other figure charges, and runs into shots from both Gustav and Van Hal, and joins its fellow in shrieking in unexpected agony. Further shots from both of them finish off the figures without further trouble, and they disappear, either dispersed back into the Winds of Magic or sucked directly back into the Warp.
"Shall we carry on?" Van Hal says, a hint of a smile on his lips, and you find your own smile mimicking his.
[Various rolls to determine whether a threat is present and its nature and potency]
[Scouting: Roll, 84.] vs [stealth: Roll, 19.]
[Van Hal and Gustav clown on them]
---
The rest of the trip to the Barrow is uneventful, and the sun is bright overhead as you approach it. In darkness it would be intimidating, but in the cold light of day it looks like a sad ending for a once-powerful ruler.
"Mathilde?" Van Hal says, and you concentrate your senses. The ground is stained with
Shyish, of course, and like everywhere in these blasted hills there's the lingering taint of long-forgotten atrocities staining everywhere with a faint overcoat of
Dhar. But as far as you can see, there's no evidence of any recent magical activity, and you say so. "A promising start," he says, dismounting, and you and the other three follow suit. The Pistoliers remain mounted; Gustav barks an order for them to form a cordon, with scout patrols in every direction.
"Just like last time," you say wryly as you draw your Greatsword; you give it a frown, uncomfortably aware that you've been neglecting your study of the blade since then, but you shake the thought free and begin folding
Ulgu into it.
"If only duty took us somewhere nicer," Van Hal agrees. "Mathilde, you take the lead this time. Keep an eye out for any magical tripwires. We're much closer to Drakenhof here."
Kasmir says prayers over Gustav's repeater pistols, then Markus' sword; Van Hal's blade needs no such assistance.
Orc Hewer's runes were carved when this mound was freshly dug, and rendered the blade's edge able to pass unhindered through armour and flesh and bone alike.
You tear yourself away from enchantment envy, and lead the party into the darkness of the barrow.
There's something
different about this one; something you can't quite put your finger on. The torches carried by those behind you barely penetrate the darkness, but the
Shyish in every surface means everything glows amethyst to your senses, and you step with confidence through the murk. The passage is winding, sloping downwards under the hill, and finally you emerge into a room - an antechamber, you realize, as an ancient door of long-fossilized wood bars the way further into the chamber. And to each side, skeletons stand upright against the walls, blades in hand to defend their dead king; you feel a pang of sadness, because their protection
endangers the king they swore to serve in life and death, as it makes his resting place all the more tempting for those that wield the tainted magic of necromancy. Not just a Wight King, but his honour guard too; lieutenant and shock troops in one convenient place.
Twenty empty eye sockets stare at you, empty of the sinister witchlight of a wraith.
Shyish cloaks them, and deep in their bones, the taint of
Dhar from being bound and animated again and again for countless long-forgotten battles, and each time they found their way back to this place, to stand in defence of their master; but with no defence against the hideous magic of Necromancy, they only stand ready for the next fiend who wanders this way to enslave them.
Behind you, the others peer over your shoulders into the antechamber, taking in the sight.
"Should we check the main chamber?" Gustav asks, his voice breaking the silence of the tomb.
"If there was a necromancer anywhere near here, this honour guard would be gone," Van Hal says firmly. "I won't disturb their rest any more than it has been already."
"Is there something we can do for them?" you whisper, your voice almost breaking as you stare back into the empty eyes of one of the would-be wights.
"I'm no Morrite," Kasmir says gently, "and even if I were, to lay all the dead of Sylvania to rest would be the work of a hundred lifetimes." A hand falls on your shoulder, and squeezes it comfortingly. "We fight for the living. I pray that one day, we will have the luxury of fighting for the dead, as well."
Boot scrapes on stone as the others turn to leave, making their way out once more. You look once more at the long-dead men, still standing in a doomed effort to protect their king from those that would defile him, and then turn and follow.
---
The light of noon seems unreal to you, after the
Shyish-tinged gloom of the barrow. You accept a drink from Van Hal's flask, the liquor burning down your throat and radiating from your gut, chasing away some of the sadness of the tomb that had seeped into your bones.
"That answers that," you manage to say, though you can't find it in you to sound victorious. "No necromancer, not here. Just... Sylvania."
"Still threat enough," Gustav mutters, drawing murmurs of agreement.
"A predictable and manageable threat," Van Hal says. "No threat of strategic trickery, just the ebb and flow of the restless dead. We deploy the 2nd and 3rd in force to guard as the road is built, then the 4th comes down and joins a push into Sylvania to bring their numbers down."
"Timeline?" you say, managing to make it sound like simple curiosity.
"Mmm... a year?" Van Hal says, looking questioningly at Gustav.
"If Schultz can hold up his end of things, I can make a year work."
"Call it a bit longer for the muster. In just over a year, we purge the Haunted Hills."
---
You spent some more time with Van Hal in the coming days. His office here is far from the comfortable one back home, but there's a pair of chairs and a fire so it's not too bad. He's currently reading through your budget proposal, and the attached paperwork showing your current expenditures, completely free of embezzlement for the first time since you began; he looks at you wryly, and you return the look blankly, and he smiles.
"Look, I'll grant you another 50 for the Discretionary," he says, "that should cover you for a while longer. But this is supposed to be
discretionary, for unexpected bits and pieces that pop up as you go along. It's not supposed to be for you to maintain an entire staff filed under miscellany." He holds up a hand to stall your coming objection. "Yes, they're important, I've no doubt. But if you keep scaling up, you can't count on Stirland to cover the cost - not when we've got so many other drains on our resources. Either find a way to make your network revenue-neutral or stop throwing money at everyone you want to tell you things. I hope patriotism is still legal tender for these purposes, but if not, I've always found a great deal of value in threats of violence."
"I'll find a way to make it work," you promise.
He nods. "I've no doubt. What else do you have for me?" You hand him your proposal for the Autopsy Agency, and he sits back and reads through it. "Under the authority of the Colleges," he notes.
"Under the authority of my Master as a Magister of the Colleges; it'll pass to me once I graduate."
"Which means that it's not bound as tightly as I'd like to Stirland proper," he says with a frown. "Oh, it'll be fine for the foreseeable, but what happens after our time?"
You... hadn't actually thought that was a concern. "I... suppose it would either dissolve, or a new head would be appointed by the Grey Order," you say.
"If this is to happen at all I want it
ironclad," he growls. "This organization is to be a
partnership between the Grey Order and the Elector Count of Stirland. When we're both dust I don't want this turning into anonymous wizards using Stirland as a laboratory."
"I... can write something up to that effect," you say, more than a little confused.
"Okay. Good. Go on," he says, settling back down.
"Okay, uh, members would be drawn from surgeons and hunters as well as the Colleges, with the goal being to form teams that can locate, capture, and then research subjects. It's my opinion that a wizard being part of this would be vital, so they can identify the
Dhar and counter any necromantic control."
But Van Hal is shaking his head again. "No. Any organization that requires
a wizard to function, let alone wizards
plural, is doomed. The supply of
competent wizard back-up we can count on, not including yourself, is measured in
man-hours," he pauses. "Wizard-hours? Anyway, it's not measured in actual full-time wizards assigned to this. I'm sorry Mathilde, but this plan is good on paper but sure to end up with either incompetent baby wizards getting good people
killed or, if we restrict it to
competent wizards, a bunch of hunters and surgeons sitting around wondering if they'll ever see a single wizard to fill in the trio. And this part?" He points. "I control it directly? Has something led you to believe that an Elector-Count has nothing to keep them busy from day to day?" He rereads the entire the entire proposal as you sit there, feeling very small. "Unless you can make the current plan work without wizards, scrap the entire thing. Actually, if we're using regular surgeons for the actual examinations, cut out the Colleges entirely. And for Sigmar's sake decide whether it'll be under Gustav or Kasmir or Schultz or yourself or, in fact,
literally anybody but me."
He subsides back into his chair, then sighs and pulls out a flask, offering it to you. You drink gratefully, and mutter an apology.
He shakes his head. "Look, I get it. In a perfect world this would be a
fantastic way to expand our knowledge of the undead. But you and I both know that this is so terribly far from a perfect world, and we need to work with what we have. And what we have is barely-trained peasants." He waves an arm towards a window. "Look out there, the 2nd and 3rd. Ten thousand peasants with spears. Five thousand with swords. Five thousand with crossbows made of wood and scrap iron. One thousand horsemen with pistols. How many cannon?
Ten. That's the kind of ratio we can sustain." He points at you. "
You are our cannon. Now figure out how to make things work with thousands of peasants."
You take the proposal he passes back to you and leave the room, your mind starting to go to work.
---
On your way back to Wurtbad, you pass Wilhelmina as her caravan makes its way from the Moot to Schramleben; her palpable jealousy at your shadowhorse follows you all the way up the road to Halstedt, where you spend the night. More inspired than ever, you spent sleepless nights digging through books of undead, sent from the College libraries with dire threats regarding what would happen if you lose them. Not because they were especially rare or anything; the libraries were just like that. Wraiths and wights, skeletons and spirits, a hundred varieties of undead and a hundred more accursed living creatures that flock to them. You're barely scratching the surface.
You pop in at Worden on your way through, and announce your annexation of the local guard; you had brought a copy of the founding charter of the Stirland Watch for this very purpose, and allow the local representatives of the tiny bands of thuggish thief-takers to read through them - or, more accurately, to find someone to read it to them - and let them decide whether they wanted to be part of the law enforcement juggernaut that was forming, or be in its way. They opted for the former, and with
that in hand Potting puts up even less resistance, accepting that it was time for their local law enforcement to fall under the aegis of a province-wide organization.
Since you had the momentum and manpower, you went all in. Vigaun didn't even try to say no, apparently glad that the three-man team that handled law enforcement was going to be supplemented by trained men from the capital. Nussbach didn't even
have anyone acting in that roll, so you told the Headman that now there'd be someone around to deal with crime. They seemed reluctant to give up the traditional punishment for thievery, which was nailing the thieves' hands to the door of the village tavern, but he's not enough of a fool to stand in your way. And with that, your work was done, and it was time to head back to...
You sigh, and turn your horse along the dirt road to Kelham. You have a
duty.
---
The Headman is a tall man, still muscled despite his advancing years, and well used to getting his way. But he sees the robes and the hat and the sword and the paperwork. He bows and stammers and welcomes you to the humble village of Kelham, and what could it do for such an august and powerful figure? What he doesn't see is
you.
He doesn't see the face of the girl that he dragged into the village square fourteen years ago, screaming for her to be burned; her mother and father had stood and watched and said nothing as the villagers started to gather firewood. Then someone arrived who argued, the single man that served as law enforcement in Kelham, who said that there was
laws. That the girl had done no crime with her magic; that she hadn't harmed anyone nor raised the dead nor summoned creatures, only made a toy horse neigh. And the man that had once fought and bled for Stirland placed a hand on the hilt of his battered sword, and he
insisted.
Two weeks later, of living in that man's spare room and not seeing another human being and asking every day if her family had asked about her, and they hadn't,
nobody did... two weeks later, answering the summons that had been sent to Wurtbad, a man by the name of Magister Regimand had arrived in the town, and demanded to see the child blessed and tainted with magic, and took her away to learn to control and cultivate the blessing and curse of magic.
The Headman is still standing there, awaiting your answer, not daring to ask again even as the silence drags. And then you talk of law enforcement, and are told they have none, not since six, seven years ago when bandits got the last one, and though the news hits you like a punch in the gut you simply nod and tell him that watchmen will be sent to oversee Kelham. And he thanks you, and you leave.
You spend some time looking down the even fainter dirt road leading off the village square, that you knew would lead to a too-small farm and too-busy adults and too many children and, somewhere, maybe, a carved wooden horse that had once been made to neigh.
And then you leave. Never to return.
Not if you could help it.
---
[Undead research: Req 40, Learning, 34+16=50. Progress gained.]
[Expanding watch into County of Worden: Diplomacy, 68+7+20(manpower secured)=95.]
WATCH STUFF TO BE WRITTEN UP IN A NEW INFO THREADMARK
HAUNTED HILLS PURGE BEGINS TURN 12
BUDGET EXPANSION ACQUIRED: +50g/turn
TRAIT ACQUIRED: Bureaucrat
UNDEAD LORE: Novice
Discretionary Income: +200g
Veteran informants: -60g
Watch informants: -10g
EIC informants: -20g
Julia: -30g
Townhouse staff: -20g
Enchantment equipment: -150g, including shipping
---
Net: -90g
Personal Income: +50g
Estate Profit: +10g
Tithe: -6g
Student Loans: -35g
---
Net: +19g
The Council Meeting is in Fort Redemption, since most everyone is there anyway; only Anton is absent. The council room is a far cry from back in Eagle Castle, but it will have to do, and you can be back in civilization soon enough anyway. Everyone else seems to be energized by the martial atmosphere; even the previously-timid Schultz is going around armed these days.
You put your papers in order, and frown a little, remembering the knockbacks your proposals got earlier. But as your Master says, if you survived then you didn't fail. You just have more work to do.
Public Report: Write in (optional; can write in word for word, or just outline what is focused on)
Private Report: Write in (optional; the private meeting is traditional at this point and will take place, simply say whether there's anything specific you want to bring up here)
Potential Orders:
Investigation:
[ ] There's definitely evil afoot in Drakenhof. Perhaps there's a way to survive investigating this.
[ ] The disappearance of your predecessor is very concerning, but according to the Stirlandian League he's pulled out of the game with all his ill-gotten gains. If you're not willing to let that go, maybe you could track him down anyway.
[ ] You kind of regret learning exactly what you did to the Thorned One, but you did it. But the liquid leaking out? That's still an unknown. Will Van Hal let you look into it on the clock?
[ ] The spell used by the informants is like nothing you've heard of before. You want to see if you can detect or replicate it.
[ ] Something your Lieutenant said gave you an idea. Investigate the shores of the Black Water, see if it can truly be tamed.
[ ] If we've got vampire troubles, maybe you should spend some time investigating how to counter vampiric infiltration.
[ ] Wilhelmina said a lot of really complicated words at you. Maybe she's up to something. Or maybe you just don't know a goddamn
thing about large-scale inter-provincial trade. Either way, something to look into.
[ ] The Purge of Haunted HIlls will begin in a year. Perhaps there's a way you can contribute to the preparations.
Infrastructure:
[ ] Your intelligence infrastructure is becoming worthy of the title; perhaps you could dedicate some time to expanding it. And, ideally, Stirland could pay for it directly instead of it eating your discretionary income.
[ ] The Wurtbadian Watch is now your attack dog - let its reach spread across Stirland.
[?] The Wurtbad Thieves Guild, despite barely being a loose gossip network, really came through during the take-down of the Stirlandian League. Maybe you should cultivate this useful tool. (Van Hal has said: not until the Watch is greatly scaled up, does it count yet?)
[ ] For
no particular reason, it'd be a good idea to see about informants within the military.
[ ] How about a military police? It would mesh well with your current organization, and could be useful in keeping tabs on the military.
[ ] Also for
no particular reason, how about I see about building a unit in the army dedicated to catching terrible necromantic gribblies? In a way that conforms to Van Hal's criticisms.
[] Other/s (write in)
- Van Hal's criticisms of the Autopsy Agency aren't my
criticisms; they're his, and shaped by his prejudices and experiences, and also by a roll I made behind the scenes. That said I don't think it was entirely polite to say to a non-wizard that's been fighting the undead for his entire adult life that wizards are required to properly fight the undead.
- As discussed between posts, I'm trying to make Mathilde's information network more... okay, I'm sorry, I've been fighting this for days and I've just got to use the word: verisimilitudinous. So enjoy the Southern Stirland 101 that Julia condensed out of all the reports she's been getting.
