princess would be such a nice title to add to your growing list, and it might unlock certain geopolitical options for you...
I'm still mourning our chance to become a princess.
@BoneyM What geopolitical options did Mathilde think it would unlock?
It is as this news spreads and the Expedition regathers that you feel the unmistakable feeling of Ulgu sobbing quietly to itself, and you turn to see Kragg the Grim approaching you. "Hand," he barks, and you hold yours out and he drops what looks like a rope of chainmail into it. He nods the satisfied nod of someone who is finally done with a distasteful task, and turns and leaves without another word to you.
Man, Kragg is a right asshole if you haven't impressed him.
He points to the first rune. "This, as I understand it, is a variation on the Spelleater Rune. When a hostile spell is targeted against you, it will not only counter it but also burn - literally burn - the knowledge of it from the mind of the caster. It will be dormant for twelve hours after each use."
He points to the second. "This appears to be based on the Master Rune of Spite, but somehow combined with the Rune of Fortitude. It will grant you the strength to withstand wounds, while returning twofold any strike against whoever dealt it to you."
And the third, the largest and most intricate of the three. "This one incorporates elements of both the Rune of the Furnace and the Rune that Valaya gave to us that allowed us to weather the coming of Chaos. It will grant you such resistance to flame that you could wade through lava, and burn off any taint of chaos before it could even touch you."
But he seriously delivers. I think here's the moment where the threads love affair with magical swag truly began. Which means that all these superweapons are really Kragg's fault.
The more time you spend with the dwarves, the more sick you grow of humans. A dwarf mistrusts magic, but your deeds are enough that most will accept you regardless, especially among the Rangers. But a peasant - and the overwhelming majority of the forces under Petrescu are peasants - is filled with equal parts superstitious fear and religious disgust for magic and its wielders, and the deeds you've done seem only to inflame their suspicions. So you work with Ulthar and his men, slotting yourself into the roster and being assigned a section of the landscape to sweep.
And here's Mathilde's (platonic) love affair with dwarves began.
"No," he says flatly without looking up at the book. "Not happening." You try to probe further, and all you get is an equally flat "he knows what he did."
Max really was a little shit. I think at the time, most blamed sneaky lying Johann, but I'm relatively sure it's just Max being snooty. There's every chance that Johann just forgot to not magister and told Max to tone down the pretentiousness. Which he would not take well from a fellow journeyman
What Esbern lacks in magical vocabulary, he makes up for in shared experience with Seija. You're able to correct a number of assumptions the two of them have made and give them the proper terminology for what they're talking about, but their grasp of the fundamentals is quite solid and they communicate it well. Another couple of days of spare moments snatched between meals, marching and sleep is sufficient to fill in the gaps in Seija's knowledge, and by the time you leave the two of them her Ghur is quite able to gnaw away at magical formations. Not the most riveting way to spend a couple of days, but you've a feeling that soon enough you'll need all the dispelling manpower - even if it is only journeymanpower - you can get your hands on.
In the end, I don't think we ever needed the extra dispelling power. The one time there was a significant force of enemy mages around, they ran into the Mathilde Effect (Acronym pending) and imploded. It was till the absolutely correct course, just another expression of how unreasonably well the whole campaign went.
When you volunteered to ride ahead, Belegar was sceptical until you told him your ability to make the 400-mile round trip in two to three days. Then he's all for it, and gives you the approximate location of the port and the relative location of the entrance to the Underways.
Hmm, shouldn't he already be aware of this? We offered to send out the second round of calls to arm for that reason. Maybe he thought we took a Gyrocopter?
It's not until you reach the under-construction bridge, carefully cross the rickety wooden bridge that was built for tools and workers to cross to build the proper bridge,
I didn't think Dwarfs would be capable of building a rickety anything without taking a slayer oath. Well, it is rangers.
Code:
6 Arrer Boy Big Uns
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
4 3 3 4 4 1 2 1 7
Bow, Hand Weapon
1 Dragon Ogre
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
7 4 2 5 4 4 2 3 8
5+ Scaly Skin, Fear
Hand Weapon
The first apprearance of tabletop rules, and one of the last. I don't think they turned up after the first hiatus. Which I'm totally fine with. They're not well suited to individual units, or frankly any actual usage outside the intended.
You're also bothered by a thought: if the beast is heading to Thunder Mountain instead of merely using it as a landmark to navigate by, then either the volcano is no longer under control of the Night Goblins, they've made some accord with the beasts, or Night Goblins and Dragon Ogres are locked in war with each other. Either way, this would be important information for the Expedition.
Dragon Ogres + Volcano Karak is a great idea. Like most great ideas, it seems obvious in retrospect, but at the time it was a serious oh shit moment, and it was not obvious then. And we must all praise the mercy of Ranald and his prophet the Boney One that it didn't turn into a "this whole region is fucked" situation.
You're distracted for a moment as you contemplate whether the Rune of Spite would activate for a mosquito bite
We should totally figure that out.
- With thanks to the Eisriesenwelt cave in Austria.
I quoted this because you can't quote the 'Last Edited'. Which for this post, was this Saturday. Which makes me all sorts of paranoid. Maybe the image link got broken?
).
