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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Battle of the Shirokij, Part 3
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    • [*] Dragonflask

    Tally

    For a brief moment you're overwhelmed with the heady hubris of the idea of trying to apply the Apparition-binding techniques you learned from the Gold Order to the being in front of you, but good sense and your desire to finally test the Dragonflask in combat conditions prevail. You draw the flask from within your robes and swig down the mouthful of spirits it contains, wincing at the unnatural burning sensation as the Dwarven whiskey evaporates and unleashes its payload of Aqshy within your sinuses. Knowing what to expect, you're able to expel the fireball in a controlled cough rather than a sneeze, and the world turns white and ringing as the flash and roar of the magic drowns out your senses.

    [Magesight: Learning, 39+29+10(Windsage)-20(Blinded by Aqshy)=58.]

    When your vision returns a moment later, you take in a smoking crater where the top half of a Dryad had been. There's plenty of smouldering splinters that may or may not have been part of your target, but nothing large enough for you to be sure it came from them instead of the detritus of the forest floor. When you try to focus your Magesight through the ripples of so much Aqshy being unleashed in an instant, you're able to catch a glimpse of the splintered remains of what had been an attempt to weave Ulgu into a teleportation spell, now quite thoroughly disrupted. You exhale in relief at that - you don't know enough about Dryads to say for sure whether that's the end of this particular being or not, but at the very least their part in this battle is done.

    [Kreml Guard vs Treeman: Martial, 84+20+10(outnumber)=114 vs 18+30-15(heavily wounded)=33.]
    [Boris: Martial, 86+20+10(Shard Blade)=116.]
    [Nadezhda: Learning, 63+15=78.]

    You return Ljiljana's thoughtful look with a smile - your invisibility having been shattered by the use of the Dragonflask - and turn your attention to the rest of the battlefield. Nearby, the Treeman appears to have reached the bank by clawing its way across the ice, and though several of the Kreml Guard lie dead and dying around it, the rest are swarming it with axes swinging. As you watch, Nadezhda turns the flow of ice from the river to the Treeman, slowing its actions for long enough for Boris' flying leap to thrust the blade of his glaive into the Treeman's face, the lilac glow dimming and the spites scattering as the being finally succumbs to its many injuries.

    [Horse Archer vs Branchwraiths: Martial vs Learning, 99+20=119 vs 64+25=89.]

    Behind you, the woodsmen had finished off most of the Dryads and had begin to charge the magic-users, but before they could reach them or the Dryads could finish their spell, arrows slamming into the Dryads announces the arrival of the Ungol horsemen that had been scouting the forest. One of them topples and the magic is disrupted long enough for the woodsmen to reach the two that remain, and they fall under a series of axe blows, refusing to the last to turn their attention from the spell they had been trying to cast. The last of the lilac glow finally fades from the battlefield, leaving the remains of the fallen enemies difficult to distinguish from the felled trees their bodies lie among.

    Boris pulls his glaive from the Treeman and thrusts it skywards. "Slava Kislev!" he cries, and it is repeated by all present, Kossar and Gospodar and Ungol alike.

    ---

    Tzar Vladimir arrives soon after, and his disappointment at having missed the battle lasts only as long as it takes him to catch sight of the fallen Manticore. After that point his attention goes towards organizing a cart for the trophy and having a messenger sent to warn his personal taxidermist to be ready as he examines the teeth and claws of the beast. All other details are left to be taken care of by others, who seem unsurprised by this turn of events.

    Over the next few hours, you and Johann watch the battlefield be restored to something resembling order. The wounded are carted off, pyres are built for the dead, and some of the rotas are dismissed to return home. Boris speaks personally to each of the woodsmen who fought so well against the Dryads, and most of them end up accepting his offer to join the Kreml Guard. The Ice Witches gather up every scrap of Dryad they can identify and fill several carts with now-inanimate wood, debating back and forth over what that they're going to do with it all. You've already claimed the lower half of the being you destroyed as your own trophy, and are considering whether you should use the credit for this day's work to claim some more. And once the most urgent tasks are complete, you meet with Boris and Ljiljana among the debris to discuss the day's work.

    "An easy battle is a good battle," Boris says. "And we owe it to you, Atamanka Ved'ma Weber. The rota of Boyar Kalashinivik would have been helpless against this force."

    "I am glad to have been able to assist the Empire's ally," you reply.

    "But still I ask, why? What brought them here?"

    "Athel Loren's actions are hard to understand, but when they have come to the Empire, it has been with specific targets in mind. And in this case, it seems to have been the local Boyar."

    "The Praag Kalashiniviks were loyalists to Tzarina Kattarin," Ljiljana notes. "The Resvynhaf Kalashiniviks managed to avoid the purges of Tzar Pavel, but perhaps that was a mistake. Perhaps they were meddling with something that drew the attention of the Forest Spirits. If you wish it, Tsarevich, the Ice Court could investigate them."

    He considers her for a moment before nodding. "Do it. If anyone is trying to thaw out that monster, they need to be found and killed."

    Ljiljana smiles. The Ice Witches have been on the outs with the Tzar, and you think you just saw them get their in with his heir. "The Widow will see it done."

    You tune out their discussing of the specifics as you consider the battlefield. Both Kislev and the Ice Witches have benefited from today, and there's a number of ways you can ask for that debt to be repaid. The Waystone Project which brought you here in the first place comes to mind, but so too does your nascent library back in Karak Eight Peaks. A word from the Tsarevich could grant an army of scribes access to a number of different libraries and institutions within Kislev.



    [Magical component gained: The lower half of an Ulgu-wielding Branchwraith]

    Mathilde will claim the one choice from each of the below two categories that get the most votes.


    Gratitude of Kislev:

    [ ] [KISLEV] Waystone Project: Kislev
    A formal partnership with Kislev itself will mean you will have easy access to its lands for study and experimentation in the later stages of the Waystone Project.
    [ ] [KISLEV] Waystone Project: Hag Witches
    Boris has a strong relationship with his Ungol subjects, and would be able to arrange Hag Witch cooperation for the Waystone Project if you ask for it.
    [ ] [KISLEV] Library: Bokha Palace
    After almost a thousand years of Kislev's often-tumultuous succession, it's anyone's guess what sort of books might have accumulated within the Palace Gospodarin, and what might have survived its near-destruction in the Great War.
    [ ] [KISLEV] Library: University of Kislev
    Significantly more modest than many equivalent institutions of the Empire but renowned in certain circles for the study of beasts and spirits, as the lines between the two are often blurred in Kislev.
    [ ] [KISLEV] Library: Magnus Gardens of Praag
    A surprising oasis of art and learning within the cursed city, the institutions of the Magnus Gardens produce some of the finest artists, musicians, and astrologers in the Old World.
    [ ] [KISLEV] Library: Writer's Rooms of Kislev
    The headquarters of the government-funded scribes for a mostly-illiterate country, Writer's Rooms boast over eight hundred years of the transcribed history and culture of Kislev.
    [ ] [KISLEV] EIC Foothold
    Though it's far from any of the EIC's current outposts, a nod from the Tsarevich could open up a market that it is usually very difficult for Empire traders to get into.
    [ ] [KISLEV] Manticore
    If you have some use in mind for Manticore parts, the taxidermist could be made to hand over to you everything he removes from the beast.
    [ ] [KISLEV] Boon
    Leave the favour unpaid. One day he will be a Tzar, and a favour from a Tzar can be a great thing to have.


    Gratitude of the Widow:

    [ ] [WIDOW] Waystone Project: Ice Witches
    You've worked well with the Ice Witches multiple times now. Seek to continue that trend by bringing them in to the Waystone Project.
    [ ] [WIDOW] Library: Ice Court
    If asked to contribute to your Library the Ice Witches are likely to carefully excise anything that might give insight into their own magic, but they would still have centuries of accumulated observations on the other magical phenomena of the Old World.
    [ ] [WIDOW] Treeman wood
    The most difficult of the trees felled this day, wood and spirit entwined is sure to make for useful materials that could be of use for either Collegiate or Dwarven artifice.
    [ ] [WIDOW] Dryad wood
    Less dense in power than the wood of a Treeman but greater in total mass, the large amount of spirit-manifested wood left behind by the defeated Dryads could be used to make something of considerable size or number.
    [ ] [WIDOW] Boon
    Leave the favour unpaid. You never know when Ice Witch assistance might come in handy.


    - There will be a six hour moratorium to give other suggestions time to be suggested.
    - While today was good work, it didn't save an entire Kingdom. Suggestions should be on the scale of a single skilled specialist or a single conversation the Tsarevich would need to have with someone.
    - Before anyone asks: Mathilde doesn't know enough about Dryads to say whether or not this was a permakill, and didn't roll well enough on her Magesight to identify the trajectory of any departing soul or spirit.
    - Dice rolls: here.
     
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    • Personally, I'm all in favor of Plan: All The Witches.

    That's two specialties that vary pretty widely from the other sources we have access to and that we probably weren't going to get otherwise.
     
    I'm leaning library from Kislev, though I'm undecided on which.

    But, I definitely want the Ice Witches in on the Waystone Project.
     
    Well, I think we can call this a great success. Even if it costs us an AP from next turn, totally worth it.

    [X] [KISLEV] Waystone Project: Hag Witches
    [X] [WIDOW] Waystone Project: Ice Witches

    This seems like a frigging slam dunk.
     
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    Aren't the Hag Witches considerably less capable when removed from their home ground, due to the lack of established relationship with the local spirits?
     
    Ganurath said:
    Aren't the Hag Witches considerably less capable when removed from their home ground, due to the lack of established relationship with the local spirits?
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    We don't need them for magical oomph, we want them for any insight they can provide.

    They don't lose their knowledge, and their knowledge is the very reason why the institution of the Hag Witches exists.
     
    Given our communal endgoal, I see this as the natural dovetail

    [ ] [KISLEV] Waystone Project: Kislev
    A formal partnership with Kislev itself will mean you will have easy access to its lands for study and experimentation in the later stages of the Waystone Project.
    [ ] [WIDOW] Waystone Project: Ice Witches
    You've worked well with the Ice Witches multiple times now. Seek to continue that trend by bringing them in to the Waystone Project.
     
    Yeah, all the Witches seems best. Right now we don't even know where we would need to go to experiment, so getting permission to muck about in Kislev lands is jumping the gun, but expertise will definitely be useful no matter what.
     
    Amantalado said:
    Its like watching a lion about to pounce on a baby gazelle, and right as it leaps towards its prey, the gazelle trips and fumbles to the floor and the lion soars right over it, off the edge of a cliff, and into a valley filled with cacti, poison ivy, and snakes.
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    And right when the lion claws its way out of said valley, it steps onto a landmine.

    I really feel terrible over how Drycha just went out like that, ignominiously dying and being virtually ineffective and no one even knowing who she was in her last fight.

    It'd be like Mathilde getting into a bar fight in a random no-name shithole and dying from that and no one realizing this was Lord Magister Weber that was dead on the floor.
     
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    Amantalado said:
    And right when the lion claws its way out of said valley, it steps onto a landmind.

    I really feel terrible over how Drycha just went out like that, ignominiously dying and being virtually ineffective and no one even knowing who she was in her last fight.

    It'd be like Mathilde getting into a bar fight in a random no-name shithole and dying from that and no one realizing this was Lord Magister Weber that was dead on the floor.
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    …Oh my god. We're the Default Drunkard.
     
    I like the implication that the Vampire Tsarina is currently frozen in a block of magical ice.

    Also the fact that Boris is likely going to have considerable Ice Witch support in his future since he is their in back into the halls of power so they benefit from him being alive. Additionally I have to agree with Boris, those Woodsmen were badasses who deserve the promotion to an Elite fighting force.
     
    TalonofAnathrax said:
    The sheer disrespect displayed here is outrageously funny. I really hope she's perma-dead, but I also hope Mathilde never actually learns who it was she just killed. A Hero unit vanishing forever thousands of miles from home, just like that.
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    I guess we aren't going to be getting any dwarf rep after all. And yes I know that the system has changed.
     
    Boney said:
    [Kreml Guard vs Treeman: Martial, 84+20+10(outnumber)=114 vs 18+30-15(heavily wounded)=33.]
    [Boris: Martial, 86+20+10(Shard Blade)=116.]
    [Nadezhda: Learning, 63+15=78.]
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    Holy shit, the treeman jobbed and got buried.
    Boney said:
    and though several of the Kreml Guard lie dead and dying around it,
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    Holy shit he scored several kills through that anyways. Dude was a fucking beast.

    As for the vote...
    Boney said:
    [ ] [KISLEV] Waystone Project: Hag Witches
    Boris has a strong relationship with his Ungol subjects, and would be able to arrange Hag Witch cooperation for the Waystone Project if you ask for it.
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    This would be a tempting alternative to Kislev's participation as a polity if we weren't already damn certain that The Father applies. We can sweep them up next turn.

    So, Waystones: Kislev, and Waystones: Ice Witches. Extremely sexy as many of the other options are, I don't see why we'd do anything else.
     
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