Archon's Curse [Pathfinder Kingmaker]

[Imperator Pax]

Interlude I: Early Spring 4711 Part 3​

Valerie occupied the head of the table, but admitted that Harrim might as well have been in her seat, at least for today. The cleric of Groetus might have worshipped the 'wrong god', but he was still a cleric, and more importantly he was responsible for the actual council position of managing the day to day religious affairs of a kingdom with a great variety of religious representation.

Harrim had been left in charge of religious affairs, and supported a set down list of codified laws. They had originally been transcribed in Common, but she'd seen a number of copies begin to circulate in Draconic. She could understand why, the clerics of Iomedae who had travelled from Mendev had spoken of silvers dragons who were apart of Iomedae's church. Their response to Shaoyu had as a result been somewhat more mild than she expected the clerics and paladins of Shelyn might have been but then it was similarly possible these were simply inured enough to dragons in general.

Whatever the case was the draconic translation of the law code had found its way into the hands of the kobolds, who were something of a nuisance in their presence and their seemingly unending questions about watching a 'big person' kingdom unfold. That was what was happening, a kingdom was taking shape before their eyes. It was going to be a religiously diverse one. No, it was a religiously diverse one. That was clear as Tristian returned to the chamber, with Jhod who was himself followed by a handful of other Erastilian faithful, and a smaller cloister of related faiths.

Erastil wasn't the issue, not old dead eye nor his wife, even though there had been grumbling about the farming institutions put in place in the baronial administered farms, but they had been soothed enough by the fact that those changes only applied to the baron's personal lands, not to those of traditional farmers and croft communities. No, the issue at hand was Pharasma's lot. Maybe if it had just been Jaethal it would have been one thing.

If it had just been the mid wives, and various minor village clergy dedicated to Pharasma they'd have probably heard less complaints. They had less of an issue Jaethal, or Davik Nettle being undead than clerics from Rostland, or for that matter from Pharasman visitors from further south. Of course Nettle's patron deity was Abadar, which was sure to be less controversial than Jaethal having been directly reanimated by the Pallid Princess... and well it wasn't as if Kyonin was precisely thrilled. Though that, could be just as much Jaethal's position at court as it could be the elves issue with her undead status.

Harrim grunted in excessive surly-ness as he sat down.

She glanced from the Mendevian delegation of Iomedae's church to those from Cheliax far to the south. Iomedae had been a Chelish noblewoman before she had ascended, but that had been before the present infernal monarchy had come to power, and there was a diaspora of those who the church was helping to resettle away from the infernal dominated courts of the nation. The problem was the Iomedae clergy didn't want to deal with her or Harrim... they would work out religious matters with the dwarf if they had to but, the truth was she gathered they wanted to wait.

Any doctrinal issues that might have existed between the southerners and the crusaders or Eire's branch of the church were secondary to just venerating the same goddess. It was no secret that the baron was an immensely powerful cleric, and his first significant building project had been the cathedral rather than a castle, or palace.

"The worship of Pharasma is not proscribed," Harrim grunted a bit louder than normal, as he banged his hand on the table looking at the elf across the table from him, "The dead one hasn't managed to start a plague and if we're being frank about it her goddess doesn't talk to her any more than I hear from Groetus but even if she did the laws are written down, we've all agreed to follow the barony's laws. Sentient undead are still people." He grunted.

She doubted the argument was convincing the elf, but they'd only really been complaining since Eire had left... and actually that was probably why. "Jaethal's position as advisor to the coronet is not up for discussion. She fought against the corruption that occupied the temple of the elk as well as against the stag lord, and is even now charged to the destruction of a group of evil fae." She declared in her best regent voice hoping that would be enough to put an end to the matter.
--
A flurry of archons whirled through the air firing rays of holy light at the fleeing willowisps who had realized that the messengers of heaven were immune to their electricity. Shaoyu dropped back to the ground folding her wings beside him looking around.

He glanced around. They were making progress, even if it was slow going. The fires had to be controlled. It would have been so much easier if they had wanted to just scour the whole island with an inferno, but that wasn't the goal. Small controlled burns cleared swathes of nettles and thorns bit by bit.

... and of course once they dispelled the malignant aura and destroyed the wisps they could bring in horses to plow the grounds with steel plows to churn through the burned soil, but that was getting ahead of themselves. They weren't to that stage yet.

A stream of ectoplasmic... gunk bled from the flying skulls side as the archons convreged in for the kill down the hillside Short of just spamming magic missile , and since willowisps could fly simply setting the terrain around them wasn't practical, summoning was his best method of countering them. Calling entire flights of archons in had the added advantage of they served as excellent scouts and seeing what needed to be burned in addition to ferreting out the willowisps infesting the island.

They were slowly making progress clearing a traversable, with horses, path to to the summit where the iobarians had built ... whatever it was the tower and ruins surrounding it had been in the time before the starfall. He was eager to go over the ruins, even though they had likely long been stripped of any valuable easily transportable items. The ruins would let them side step around starting from scratch. Enough of the ancient curtain walls, and the tower appeared at least from a distance to be intact that repairing them should be easier, and more importantly was the simple geographic location of Candlemere.

"I think we'll need another few days," He announced, tonight would be the flood moon, which might encourage an attack from the remaining willowisps, or they might choose to remain away. Whether they stayed away or attacked they weren't in a position to mount a final approach to the summit yet. Once they approached he wanted to be sure he had enough time to not simply cast Dispel Chaos, and sanctify the grounds, but take other precautions, and part of that included being in a position to do that only after all the willowisps had been killed or at least driven off... and as the archons were certain they weren't there yet.

"How do you think Jaethal and the others are doing?" Linzi asked.

"I'd hope they're done already, but I'm sure either way they're fine." It was the larger of their two parties, and he was relatively sure that Perlivash and Tyg would be of some use. "The bigger issue on their end is the distance overland," and the river's noxious smell due to its tendency towards algae blooms making it difficult to travel it by barge made part of the journey by horse all but a requirement. It was also through the countryside, any elven path or other civilized concourse had long since been broken up and overgrown... and making new roads or bringing old roads back into service required a much greater work force, labor pool, whatever as well as organization than he could afford, so overland travel was going to have to do without the luxury of paved roads for the time being.

"and," Scribble scribble, "What do you think Harrim is doing right now?"

.... probably cursing being made head priest of the kingdom...
--
Notes: Alright so we will be going into the original planned lead into spring 4711 next week, but more or less this is as a chapter an example of the AP's explore the hexmap and see what your people find, carve out territory and make your kingdom.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Desna 4711 Absalom Reckoning
​

--
Eire exhaled for probably the tenth time, but only really because within the cloistered safety and privacy of the room made that possible. There were several days more until the full moon, which in the riverlands the blossom moon was tied to different deities even though it also served as Iomedaen equivalent to memorial day. For worshippers of Erastil, even those of Taldan stock were so far divorced from the empire of the shining crusade against the Whispering tyrant that they had little reason to associate the day with the southron conflicts and instead prioritized the spring and the planting and matters of farming.


The instruments of Feudal Power were an intersection of both social and economic realities. Of military power and religion. It was all well and good to talk about the free market this or regulation that, but the reality was much more complex.... even before you added magic into it. In the long term Eire absolutely intended coinage and financial book keeping to give way to a more centralized bureaucratic financial institution. A national bank though was a long way off though, and he knew it.

Across Golarion, Avistan, the countryside especially were only partially monetized economies. Oleg traded with hunters, trappers, farmers, and other crafts on barter just as much as any of them took coin, even if he bought and sold goods in restov's markets using coin. Not even always Brevoy's bits either, the trade road could easily bring foreign coins from the distant south, or from Numeria or Iobaria. That was discounting just other older coins, which still had some degree of if for no other reason metallic content. Restov was their connection to Brevoy, and from there to the other northern countries, and their markets. Monetization was necessary to sustain both long distance trade, and also a territorial monarchy.

That was the goal of course, and so as spring approached, and their was plowing, and planting to be done Eire's focus was focused on matters closest to Shrikewall. Spring's approach, and winter letting go, would also mean the lizardfolk, all of the lizardfolk, would be becoming more active. That promised potential problems with the 'thickskin' tribe to the west in the Hooktongue slough. That was hardly the only western threat either.

Golarion though was for all its medieval development also a world with magic. Lots of it. It had the written word, agriculture, and your proper clerics could create clean water... access to clerics resulted in a marked improvement in mortality rates across most social strata but were especially pronounced in the feudal elite... because unsurprisingly the clergy were well represented among the clerics. It had other social effects, but Avistan, particularly with Brevoy still relied on keeping ancient infrastructure in good repair. The ancient Taldan roads were an excellent example, and the dwarven shield fortresses would likely be another, in his own kingdoms.

It was in this reality that Eire focused. The road to Oleg's, and then from their Restov was a vital trade route, and lifeline that had to be protected... and so any disturbance there needed to be addressed. "Do we know much?"

"Definitively, no. Jhod believes its probably a worg." Jaethal replied. "Its been enough to terrify the townsfolk though." She replied in a mix between exasperation and resignation.

"What about Oleg?"

"He thought he could settle it himself, but he's had no luck, the hunting party turned up nothing other than some of the slaughtered livestock."

Eire nodded, "I see. The shepherd boy with his flock?" Jaethal confirmed that that was the principle reason Jhod believed that they were dealing with a worg.
--
Olegton was as a settlement set south of the main thoroughfare. The old border fort that Oleg had opened his trading post in had been build on a built up hill overlooking the road. That made it visible given nothing in the burgeoning town had the height to obscure the northernly view. The scroll of teleport was specifically keyed to Oleg's, he simply hadn't had time to to make ones for Nettle's crossing or the Temple of the Elk, or for that matter the village of Tatzlford, even though at least the latter had been linked with a sending stone for emergency communication with shrikewall.

Getting back to Shrikewall would be even simpler, Recalling by divine magic to the cathedral of Iomedae was a comparatively trivial task. That was one of the realities of the intersection of divine and arcane magic and how it effected feudal power. Eire could make this trip with little notice, even if it was limited to really Oleg's, for now it made potentially travelling to Restov that much easier.

Oleg's town had not substantively changed in the few weeks since he had last been here, only Desna's beginning, and thus planting season had marked the change over from winter activities in town to other labors. There was a noticeable difference in construction just this far north. Olegton followed a tradition of largely waddle and daub construction, the use of wood predominating in the round houses all the way to the public house, and the market. It hewed far closer to the Rostlandic peasant building tradition than the log homes, and joinery never mind the masonry brickwork of construction in Shrikewall. That was far from the only difference between the two. Olegton lacked the clear grid lines and organized structure of the capital. There was a communal field here, and overall Oleg's more resembled any other simple burgh or thorpe of the rostlandic plains.

Right down to the worried peasants clamoring for something to be done... and when the village elder, or mayor, or whoever had that problem the matter moved to the next rung in the feudal ladder, which meant him... or probably technically someone on the council acting in his name... but Eire didn't mind.

--
Oleg's search party had recovered ten sheep, living ones. There was little that could be done for the shepherd boy, or the barmaid. Yes, Eire could have expended raise dead spells, but he had no idea if they'd successfully be able to weather the ordeal of being brought back...assuming that was a thing.... and he didn't have the material components necessary. The boy was dead.

Jhod leaned on his walking stick, and reiterated once again his confidence it was a worg. It could have been a large wolf, but there was the issue, "There is only one set of tracks."

Worgs while possessed of an, often malign, intelligence were social pack hunters the same as wolves.... of course that didn't exclude the possibility of an animal with rabies. "Insmort is correct, that is suspicious." He agreed. "Especially with two dead bodies," Two dead humans, "what about the night before?"

"Just wolves howling."

Jhod was quick to protest jumping to reject the possibility of werewolf despite it being on the full moon. A rabid wolf could still be an explanation, and a worg might be prowling a lone even if it was unlikely. Wolf howling was not definitive proof, of anything really. The full moon was circumstantial.

Eire looked around the scattered livestock, the mutilated bodies of the sheep, and quicksilver eyes glowed as he search for the possibility of magic... that still wouldn't eliminate worgs, but the presence, residual confirmed that it wasn't any ordinary wolf.

The Full moon suggested werewolf, but only because he knew those were in fact real. "Jhod assemble a party of hunters," As soon as the old priest was gone, "I want you to go into town and see if there are any strange visitors... would Beaky," The owlbear, "react to a werewolf?"

"One in human form? I have no idea." The former paladin replied, but followed after behind Jhod.

The presence of magic strongly suggested that it wasn't a wolf... not a normal one. A worg would not have headed back to town either, which was the direction that the large tracks departed from. He turned to Oleg, "Assuming it is a werewolf, we should be able to break the curse tonight, but ideally, is the stockade in good repair."

Oleg waffled, "I don't know about holding a werewolf in it though," Well there was always hold monster.
--
Jhod was astonished to have been proven wrong. The afflicted kellid barbarian was a man named Kundal. Jaethal found Jhod have been wrong to be amusing at least. The church of Erastil or at least any of the other members of Jhod's co religionists had little else to add to the matter.

In a major contrast to Shrikewall, Olegton lacked a clear religious grounding. There were no shrines, though Eire suspected at somepoint a Shrine to Erastil would be established or possibly some other divinity, but Oleg had been more concerned with establishing and expanding trading opportunities, and seeing to the common field.

Jhod, and Insmort were probably not in the best standing with Erastil's church given their respective pasts either, but the nearest religious institution was the Temple of the Elk... and it would probably only be a matter of time before the church of Erastil wanted some official religious presence in Olegton.

A year had passed. A year since the Death of the Stag Lord, if not quite a year since Jamandi had proclaimed him baron in Restov. It had taken Jamandi months to ... well to conclusively come and say that there had been no sign of the Iron Wraiths or what had become of them. One of her four expeditions had failed, which to be fair the Surtova dynasty had tried to mount an expedition before Jamandi and it had also been destroyed. The best, and it to be honest, guess was that barbarian tribes in the region or nomadic ones from numeria had been responsible, but there had been no claims of responsibility for the mercenaries' destruction.

Kundal had little knowledge of the glenborn highlands htough to share he had wandered through there, but along the road from Numeria proper not through the wilderness. That meant he had come along the south rostlandic road.

"Which is disappointing, I admit." He shrugged, "once the planting seasons begin we will need to resume explorations." It was a pity that at some point in the half century the Tiger Lords village on the explorer's old map had either been destroyed or they had moved on, having a village in the north west would have been useful. The land was good at least... but they simply didn't have the people to establish farms or grazing in the north west. "Still, I am glad we could resolve this quickly Oleg," He stated to the sending stone before Oleg signed off.

--
Notes: Regarding the Empire building / Kingdom building part of this I am going to make a minor tweak to 'census' data for Pathfinder, city populations are in 'family units' not individuals for this... because otherwise they are entirely too small in my opinion.

So this is the originally planned post timeskip scene its a couple weeks in the timeline after the previous 'Interlude 1' in early spring. It is based off of material from Kingmaker AP2, but its also an opportunity to get into some of the kingdom building and explore some of the demographic stuff when we follow up on this. Right now I'm doing the Sorrowflow quest next up, just because it adds the twins, and then we will begin going through day to day events up until high summer which is when the first troll warnings 'trobold crisis' will start and just in general working from there.

Probably what will happen is that in terms of yearly events each year in the story will probably focus on basically the months of the medieval (western european) calendar spring, summer, fall, and then the winter months happen off screen like we did for 4710. Now admittedly 4711 will entail more than 4710 did because now we have the braony established, and I will be referencing other adventure packs to an extent.

 

[Imperator Pax]

26 Desnus 4711
The end of the month was right around the corner, and Eire was looking at their Tiefling guest less so than the map that dominated the table. Sorrowflow was technically on his side of the border, but it was very very close to what Varnhold, so much so that he wasn't even sure if they could access the ruins of an alleged Taldan settlement without switchbacking over the border as things were... but that was purely guess work... and it wasn't as if there was the advantage of GPS to really be sure of the border.

The going alone thing was not something that was a popular condition with anyone, but particularly vocal was Linzi, "The last time some pretty lady asked you to come by yourself you came back with your eyes all red, and a bunch of severed hydra heads!" The bard squeaked standing on her chair

"And the manticore." Amiri added.

"Yes, don't forget the manticore." Jaethal agreed sardonicaly, before glancing at the tiefling. Kundal who was sitting in on this meeting along with Insmort, both having come down from the crossing, hurriedly asked Akiros to explain in Hallit.

The young red dragon, still in human form, exhaled a breath of steam. Shaoyu crossed her arms and sulked, either at the reminder of being left out of those, or at the prospect of not coming along to face whatever might appear this time.

"If Kaessi's information is correct, and accurate, by which I mean the Taldan settlement's existence, or the ruins there of, we should be able to confirm that with a spy glass." He remarked, "Once we have confirmed it the party may remain there, until I return." There were protests of course, Linzi bringing up the trip to the Verdant Chambers, and Nyrissa' ambush within in the first months of the year did him no favors, but he couldn't risk bringing that large of a party over the border recklessly, if they had to cross. "More importantly Akiros will lead the wagons to help Kressel finish the western border works."

There was little point in trying to establish the Ford River camp as anything more than a manorial defensive fief. The Temple of the Elk was too near, and would likely make a larger more natural place of settlement. Kressel's domain though represented a much more reasonable, and arable place to construct a settlement... and the truth was there might actually be a worg problem to her south across the river.... and they were gradually expanding to explore that way.

He gestured to Kaessi's map, and then to the domain. The latter was much more recent presenting the stolen lands and their southern neighbors the kingdoms of Pitax, and Mivon most prominently. It did not show really an eastern border for Varnhold, but Varnhold had been established close to Maegar Varn's charter's western border in a mountain pass and with the Kiravoy river flowing nearby. As the most easerly of the four charter areas much of the domain of Varnhold's official Restov recognized borders were in the dunsward, the steppes that flowed into iobaria further east. Varn being a professional mercenary had probably picked the most defensible spot in the north to establish his baronial seat .

... and Drelev, and his imaginatively named Fort Drelev had been given his for the course ran all the way to new stetven, the capital. A mess of fens, and swamp were cut through by navigable smaller rivers until they reached the broader trade rich artery of the east Sellen river. The East Sellen ran to Mivon and that eventually ran all the way to the greater Sellen River in the south which reached the Inner Sea.
--
They rode the roughly forty miles to Nettle's Crossing and spent the evening there before continuing across and following the southern bank of the Shrike as it moved north. The waxing half moon had provided a relatively clear evening at Kressel's hold before they had ridden on. Eire didn't presume to understand how Jamandi had chosen to, assuming she had been the one to draw up the charters actual geographic boundaries and of course they were closer to where the lord of the Dunsward had staked his capital than they were to Shrikewall. If they'd been doing anything else he might considered an outing over the border to officially visit their neighbor., but not this outing. Even with just a spy glass it was another reminder that the ancient taldan built things to last, but that there were limits and it was obviously Taldan construction that had seen better days.

"Abandonned like the ones further south," He remarked shutting the glass, "Too far from Taldan settlements and then left to sit as the ages wore on." and those settlements had broken apart and been succeeded by other communities with few to any political ties to the Taldan heartland as the empire had declined.

"But it could be restored in time."

... and provide a source of income. "True, but not why we're here." He dismounted from the horse, and handed the reins off to Jaethal who was scowling more than usual, an expression mirrored by Amiri, and Shaoyu as well. Linzi was more sulking than anything. "This will not likely take long," He remarked looking along where the river carved through the mountain pass to the east, stones rising above before it began its northern course through the hills before the crook wound its way from between the hills and furrows to the Shrike... this part of the country of his domain likely was mineral rich if the Taldan records were anything to go by.

His eyes continued to move over the rise as foothills with green grass gave way to more windswept, eroded places where the earth, the dirt and clods of soil couldn't hold on to leaving only the rocky exterior. The path to the summit over the rise and into the depression was clearly artificial. A thousand years could not erode away where likely oxen and thousands of laborers over years had cut through the hill to make the mine into the side of the sorrowflow. Its Taldan origins largely masked by the passage of time, save its presence on maps recovered from within old scyamore that had been left within that mine.

The Qadiran accent on the common tongue gave it an almost song like inflect, "You have a far away look in your eye,"

"This is the borderland." They were closer to Varnhold than Shrikewall, and by no small distance either, but it was more tha that, "The Taldan expended so much effort to advance this far north, and kept going." Humans of taldan stock were common throughout Brevoy to the north the descendants of those ancient explorers even if many of the more urbane culture of the inner sea had blended together with the kellids of numeria and presumably the iobarian humans. Brevoy was a young country unified by choral's armies backed by his dragons.

The Tiefling nodded, "Well, if this this will not take long we should still be going." The blue eyed girl remarked.

Amiri grumbled and kicked the dirt. The Tiefling was right though and they began to move through the ancient wide cut road. The remains of large several foot paving stones having kept the road intact over the centuries though not nearly in as good condition as the regularly travelled and maintained south rostlandic road to the north of them.

After several minutes of walking Kalikke looked up at the stone face, and pointed to a rocky thoroughfare leading into the hills only partially visible in the dark slate gray, "There," She declared. "That leads to the tower."

"You really believe this disk of the eclipse will be here?" He asked. The thing that might permit the twins to exert some measure of control over their constant shifting between one in this world and one on another plane waiting.

Kalikke had said that Nethys had once been a mortal wizard. That meant he had ascended to deity status at least some point ... by at least the fourth millennium before absalom reckoning before Aroden had taken the test of the starstone. Eire personally suspected that meant he had likely done so without that aid... and given Nethys's dogma and parables probably meant the method was perhaps more dangerous than the test of the starstone.

Whether or not that was the case, whatever Nethys's origins were, the story went that one of his worshippers had crafted the magical artifact... and at some point Taldan raiders had looted it. Why they had brought it here who could say, but at some point a flood had torn through the taldan reaches, and he doubted that had been entirely natural. Not as he felt the magic lingering beyond.

"Something of power remains here."

"Indeed." He agreed sensing the for lack of a better term blips of elemental extraplanar power... the epicenter almost certainly the remains of the Taldan settlement, or somewhere there in. He looked at the haggard Taldan tower, "it occurs to me, given our conversation on the disk being a tool of planar travel that it may have, by design or misfortunate event have been responsible for the flood that swept through here."
--
Notes: Kaessi's introduction chapter will be roughly three parts and involve her setting up a permanent home in shrikewall, the capital, this is in contrast to the game where she has her home when you do the Sorrowflow quest with her. It will also touch on some of the migrants from the Inner Sea. That will touch on the church of Abadar as well as the sweet teeth who will probably show up in Part 3. Again, thats a change from the game.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Desnus 4711

'The Sorrowflow Part 2​

They hadn't had much further to go, and on reflection, while not visible from the distance by spy glass it was clear that the Taldan had not been the last long term denizens of their mine, and that made sense in hindsight. The Taldan ruins of the Sorrow flow had at some point been appropriated for other purposes, and probably after that had played host to no shortage of transient tenants ranging from animals to bandits, and outlaws of other sorts... but newest ones were about what he had come to expect for the Stolen Lands. Eire lifted one of his boots, and stepped over the charred remains of another slurk and looked around for any remaining threats, before turning his gaze towards the the path that should have lead to the Taldan town center, and then to the one leading presumably to the, or a, mine entrance.

"Your suspicion on the flood might be the case." they diverged from the road that lead to the mine itself and into the ruins of the Taldan settlement. There was debris everywhere but shrouded from general view in how the valley was obscured from nearly all sides. Why the taldan had erected a mining settlement here was in question he doubted whatever ore could be mined couldn't have been easier to extract from some other patch, holla, or river valley along the mountain chain. Why had they picked here? Of course if his suspicions on the geology was right, that was potentially good for him, and for his eastern neighbor.

Like a beacon to his magically augmented sight the magical circle was not Taldan in origin though... it might have been Qadiran or one of Taldan's other rivals but it certainly didn't look like the styles of binding used to trap extraplanr creatures by the countries of the northern coast of the Inner Sea.

"The circle here binds the elementals." And if there had been others, or worse ones binding larger stronger water elements that very well could have sparked a flood in retaliation... but that didn't explain the magical style used to bind them.

"They've been trapped here for a very long time." Kalikke remarked moving around the circle straying, but also not getting close enough to touch. "I think, someone used them, bound them here to attack the Taldans."

It seemed absurd to think they'd been here that long, "That would have been two thousand," Or even twenty five hundred years ago, maybe more, but probably not much less. "Years ago."

"Yes a very long time." She whispered, and glanced to the braziers, a burst of water sprayed out, and doused each of them, and the fluidic arms waved in exuberance as the light from trap dimmed.

"Did you know that was going to work."

"I... think the trap was Qadiran, or atleast known to my homeland, I've seen similar used to bind genies in the east." Kalikke paused her tail swished, at the thoughts swirling in her head. "It was an educated guess more than being fully sure it would work." The elementals were free but not obviously hostile.


After a moment of conversation among themselves the gestured some more and spoke in a gurgling voice a language Eire did not speak... apparently introducing himself and warning them, according to Kalikke's translation, of danger ahead, and that they could call upon them for aid.

"Lets hope you're right, but even if the Taldan were destroyed by the bound elementals," He gestured to the ruined foundations, and the brick structures that had once been homes and shopes, long long ago. "something else must have destroyed the tower." It was further up the hill and while from a distance the face of it looked fine now that they were closer it was apparent the other side had not been so lucky.
--
The climb up to the ruins took the better part of forty minutes. The path which the Taldan settlement had used when it had been a thriving community had long been covered up by fallen debris from the destruction of the town itself... and probably whatever had happened in the interim. The Tiefling looked warily around the structure, and the debris that had fallen down from the north facing, and the squat square adjoining structure. The latter's wooden timbers having long since rotted away.

Kalikke's breath hitched.

He tracked her gaze to a towering mottled stone fleshed creature. The gargoyle was gigantic, and had stuffed its nest among the ruined building down below with an assortment of pilfered jewels and from among them something periodically flashed. White, and then black. It was a disc like object that shone even brighter, standing out under magical sight.

Eire looked down the worn path that lead down, at least this one was largely free of the debris, they could climb down here, assuming the beast didn't fly a way. Kalikke leaned forward as well, "The disk of the eclipse that must be it." She exclaimed, a little louder than he would have preferred but her excitement was reassuring.

... and then she froze and the expression was the only warning before the surge of magic and the portal switched her for the other sister. Kanerah replacing Kalikke. The red eyed girl raised an eyebrow, "What a view." She remarked.

He held a hand to stymie the charade, "You may dispense with such charades, given the physical differences between you two I'm surprised it has lasted this long." Though admittedly his eyes had a particularly problematic habit of turning red... and during those episodes he wasn't sure what was happening.

"Exactly," She crossed her arms putting forward a brave face to hide a momentary flash of fear, "Yes I always thought that the herald of nethys must be having us on, a joke at our expense with all this secrecy business." She gave a forced laugh, that was vaguely otome like in character. Her noblewoman's laugh finished she nodded, "Yes with us switching with no warning at all, there was no sense worrying about it." She smiled. "Last we saw one another , you had just received your barony, and now we're on a mountain side looking out over monster infested ruins, why are we here?"

He gestured idly extending a flannel sleeved arm and pointing a glove clad finger towards the gargoyle's nest, "The disk is down there."

She made a small 'oh' noise, "Admittedly when I told you of it I hoped that we might simply relax and send some questing knight to retrieve it, spend time by the fire in your castle while it was fetched back."

"While I do posses a fortified residence, which is the legal definition of a castle," He remarked amusement tinging his voice as his grip shifted, and he doubted she recognized or noticed the red bleeding into his own eyes, staining the ordinarily quicksilver crimson, "I've yet to actually raise a stone keep or undertake crenulations. So much to do, and I very much prefer to be hands on. Kings should set exemplary notice to their vassals, and I have a young ward who needs a good example more than most." He remarked in an almost leonine purr. "I suppose of course" he remarked resting a hand on the large chiseled rock at the top of the stairs, "had your sister remained we might have summoned those water elementals she befriened, but no matter. We will deal with this problem directly." Fire burned from his finger tips, discloring the rocky outcropping he was gripping and long wings expanded from his back.

She blinked at the massive scaled wings, but did little more than raise an eyebrow further. "Of course lead the way, I'll be happy to add my own fire to the matter."

The Gargoyle roared at the sight of him, but it meant little to him as he soared down the ray of solar flame scouring the monstrous humanoid's wing. The creature was probably a thousand pounds easy and covered in barnacle like brambles and moss... clearly touched by the faewild... the first world, but its stone like hide likely would have denied him the use of a sword effectively... if he'd have cared to use one in this fight.

As soon as the solar ray struck two more fire rays lashed from Kanerah's hands towards the creature. It growled and sort of barked at them trying to avoid the following attacks. Its eyes narrowed swinging its taloned hands toward him even as flame boiled from around his body, "Silly thing, you may as well strike at the sun herself." the backhand sent long raking clawmarks in solid stone that turned molten at the blow as the gargoyle backpedalled and he landed.

Kanerah rushed forward bounding closer to continue to strike at its flanks with fire bursts that ignited patches of moss, and the briars.

Apparently the Gargoyle understood the common. It bolted for one side likely trying to snatch the tiefling hoping she'd be an easier target, which might have been easier if Kanerah hadn't been shooting fireblasts at the monster... or if it hadn't had to turn exposing tail and wing. Eire extending burning hands to grab the creature, and it shrieked in pain as fire burned through its joints. Kanerah wasted no time and didn't fail to seize the opportunity to bring her hands together in a gesture that fired a larger combined blast of flame that slammed into center mass resulting in an almost wet crumbling gasp as the gargoyle folded in on itself.

Eire exhaled a glance at the remains, "Nicely done," He remarked... and they looked around the nest... even assuming the disk proved to be a bust, which he doubted turning quicksilver eyes on it and looking again at the pulsating magical aura, the haul from the jewels alone would be well worth the trip in the short term... and in the long term sorrowflow was almost certainly worth the investment. "The disk," Eire waved to it.

The twins flashed seeming to blur under magical sight after Kanerah picked it up as they switched back and forth a few times at will, as they expressed power over the artifact.

"Hah we can change at will. How wonderful."

He nodded leaning against one of the ruined foundations.

It took almost half an hour for the two, the twins, to finish swapping back and forth and chattering excitedly. Kalikke naturally was the one who volunteered the interest to remain in the lands, but she doubted Kanerah would mind. "We will need to build a house though." Her comment was playful even as she rested a finger on her chin in contemplation of the prospect. It wasn't as if Shrikewall was lacking in space to build a home, in fact living quarters were likely what they very well needed to be expanding on before summer really set in.

--
Notes: Acclimating to Golarion's calendar is annoying, need to adjust some of the summer events or they're all going to run together, and fall will have less...

 

[Imperator Pax]

'The Sorrowflow' [Conclusion]​

31 Desnus 4711

To the reckoning of the Church of the Dawnflower, probably in no small part due to the month bearing their goddess's name, was the formal beginning of summer in their calendar. It had taken longer to return from Sorrowflow due to having swung up north to Oleg's, and then coming south. They were going to have to do something about the road situation eventually. At the very least they were going to need to construct a main north south thoroughfare. Regardless though given the volume of gems the gargoyles had horded the trip had been worth it.

Treasure hunting wasn't specifically a royal task of course. Of course he wasn't a king yet either, but he supposed that would devolve endlessly into semantics. What really though most people expected his time to probably be focused on were other matters of state, and foremost among those was the question of religion... or at least the faiths. It was partly the reason he was keeping the Sarenith holy day in mind. Even if he, personally, didn't really think of it as summer yet.... but in three weeks it would be the solstice.

Whatever the case, it was true that there weren't that many followers of Sarenrae in the capital or the kingdom, but that might not always be true, and there were enough of them besides Tristian to bear it in mind. Sarenrae's worship was more common to the Inner Sea than in Brevoy. Of course, Numeria had more of Iomedae's church than Brevoy. The envoy of Abadar's church though had come up from the south with others from the Inner Sea... ironic since Brevoy did actually have a strong church of Abadar.

Eire hadn't had any interest in becoming a pathfinder, but maybe given a few years if he hadn't been told of Jamandi's quest and recognized he might have set out for Absalom on his own... or Numeria or Mendev. Arsinoe and the caravan the golden eyed aasimar had arrived with mostly hailed from the jewel of the Inner Sea.

The problem of course was the Abadar cleric was late. Not to this meeting, but she'd come weeks, months even after clerics from other faiths had arrived... even if admittedly the Temple of Abadar in Absalom's trade mission / envoy had come with resources themselves. Which was by no means Arsinoe's fault, he had written to the church hiearchy, reaching out to Iomedae's clergy and that had meant the nascent barony had been coming into being with Iomedae's church soon to receive clerics and acolytes from Mendev, Numeria, and indeed the heartlands of the Inner Sea long before Abadar's clergy had likely heard of the development.

It was actually somewhat impressive that the Church of Abadar in Absalom even cared about the nascent barony enough to send someone... but it was still a bit much to hear her say things like 'I cam here assuming the citizens of your young barony could use the services of a priest'.... especially when there were perhaps a dozen clerics besides himself and Harrim in the room, never mind other members of faith hierarchies like Jaethal or Tristian.

Tomorrow being what tomorrow was the recent Sarenrae delegation from Absalom were also present.... Jhod was conspicuously absent but he had the Temple of the Elk to contend with like most of his coreligionists.

Harrim two seats down grumbled and reached for his tankard of ale. The Kyonin delegation last month had been the first major non human group to visit. That wasn't to say that the caravans, and missions didn't include non humans but more to say that thus far there hadn't been any dwarves... and while he wasn't really expecting any Orcs either... five kings mountain wasn't much farther than Kyonin.

Eire adjusted his position in the chair, but didn't mirror Harrim's drinking. He was silently grateful for the books he had had in his backpack... not all of them were as useful as he had probably hoped them to be. Golarion was not earth after all, but it was still useful to have various examples of English common law, and information on how medieval kingdoms structured their taxes. "I have promulgated a written codex of the laws of the realm." Not all at once of course, some things weren't necessary to cover all at once, but the truth was given the situation he was increasingly writing missives in Draconic rather than Taldan common, which surprised him. The reason for the draconic though was the lizardfolk, and kobolds all used the language, and so did a surprising cross section of his human population... and of course Shaoyu spoke common well enough now, but preferred the much more august and ancient language of dragon kind.

They still hadn't gotten the printing press. They weren't exactly easy to buy. Not the sort of thing that was kept in stock. He thought about the tiny diagram of Paige's compositor... and wondered if that might be doable... but that'd require precision he wasn't sure they had. The compositor was also prone to being finicky... a linotype would be slower but more reliable.

"A most commendable initiative your grace."

He'd gotten used to that. The right honorable or lord would have been how he would have thought the title should have been. Your Grace would have been appropriate to a british duke, but then golarion or at least this part of avistan's peerage system still remained somewhat opaque to him.

Once the Aasimar had been settled in with a copy of the laws they adjourned. The introduction and some small business before it had taken a decent amount of the morning, and thus he'd had to turn his focus from the hall temporarily to the ongoing development of the domain's growing main square.

At one point in time this had all been paved, there were ... he was loath to call them catacombs per se but there was a natural cave network that had been excavated and expanded upon by the cyclops of Casmarron and then later appropriated by the Taldan, and then abandoned by them and then used every so often as a storage area. The Stag Lords bandits had exploited it to store loot, and they'd probably not been the first ones either.

Kalikke had demonstrated no shortage of fungible assets and had secured a place one one of the main thoroughfares developing. It would take time for a house to be raised to her specifications... and really calling those specifications a house was inaccurate.... he'd have probably used the term villa though it was more oriental instyle. Qadiran he presumed.

She sat down at the for lack of a better term, the royal pavilion. They had collected up the impressively large shelters the Technic League had left behind and were using them as temporary outdoor dining areas. "You are going to build a castle?"

"Technically as a fortified residence, I have one, but yes," he gestured to the consecrated ground and the long strands of rope, across a span of a few hundred acres, "A stone keep will eventually take shape over there, the curtain wall to guard the city," Once they got that far, "Will be adopted to the coast, so yes eventually there will be a castle." As it was the high town, Shrikewall proper was already growing distinct in terms of organization from the settlement of houses and farming community down from the plateau in the nearby dale. They'd probably have to construct another exterior north facing wall to enclose that at some point, but large fixed fortifications were not a priority.

Whatever Kalikke had to respond to that was cut off by the sharp greeting cry of "Elder," from a tiefling approaching the pavilion. He made a point of discretely waving Garess who was hovering nearby to ease off. He wasn't sure why the guard was so paranoid, but it was like this whenever he went around in public. That the other tiefling boy had mentioned that he'd heard the baron could breath fire elicited a dirty look from Garesss... but it was hardly untrue.

The third, and only girl in the group shushed the two, and bowed which only emphasized their jester like appearances. "The sweet teeth you spoke of?" He asked to confirm.

"Yes." She proceeded to introduce Tevi, the girl, and then Naiho and the last as Elki all who had come from Qadira. "they were instrumental in tracking down the Taldan ruins." He nodded suitably impressed by the three's helpful exploits.

Naiho remarked that they'd actually been hoping to find work in town, and Kalikke shuffled her feet under the table, "As it happens," Eire remarked, "I can help with that."

"Really?"

"The barony is young," He gestured, "Can you tell me the original architectural style that that was built in? Is it taldan?"

The sudden question caught them off guard, and they stared at the old tower. They were stumped. Then after a minute Elki shook his head, "I don't know your grace, but not Taldan, too old. Doesn't look elven either, but I could find out." He remarked honestly. The other two sagged in defeat.

"Its Iobarian, there are several of their ruins we know of scattered through the lands, but there are Taldan ruins, and elven also. I need the countryside explored, particularly in the east where you've already started." There was no rush between the two rivers they were talking about a million and a half acres, maybe a bit lesss, and he certainly wasn't expecting them to map it all. "Those Taldan ruins you found, Sorrowflow," Which they would definitely be renaming, "Will make an excellent settlement. I need the land surveyed, I'm not asking you to explore the ruins, map and identify and we will involve you the exploration, and we can go from there."

It was more than the sweet teeth had been expecting, more than Kalikke had been expecting. She sighed, "Thank you. That should keep them busy."

"I would hope so. Thats just the eastern part of the domain. There is still north and west," And the south, but the southern frontier was not at this stage a priority. "Did you sit in on the council meeting?" He was aware that the church of the dawnflower, Sarenrae was not Kanerah's favorite, but he wasn't quite sure how she felt about them or for that matter the faiths in general... besides presumably the Church of Nethys. "Tristian has my permission to hold his festival tomorrow," There was really no reason to refuse the request, "I have never been to Qadira, but this is not there whatever the Qadirans feel about tieflings that is not true here."

 

[Imperator Pax]

9 Sarenith 4711
The following day, star day on the calendar, would mark Sarenrae's festival of burning blades... it wasn't of course intentional. It was probably helpful that the Sweet Teeth had been gone about a week and a half, or not. This wasn't Qadira. Eire looked across the field, surveying the posts driven into the ground, the lines of string, and rope strung to plot, and measure. Progress was predictable, especially with harvest season here, construction would slow as more hands moved to the field, but there were still things that needed to be build.

Trees were cut down, and some did go to mills to be sawed into planks, but given the need for houses and barns most were delimbed and turned, and hatched to join them for cabins, and loghouses, and barns, and from there once the frames were done.

The broad valley north of Shrikewall's promontory was bounded by the rising hills that pushed Shrike and Skunk into the courses that lead them down into the Tuskwater itself. The north eastern prominence of hills helped shape turning the tuskwater more southerly till it opened into the big lake. The hills flattened out in-between one another creating a dale that was pretty decent farmland as a result, and thus he'd had surveyors working to plot and measure, in preparation for all the work that had been needed since this time last year... and it was starting to come together, made simpler as more people became available to do the work.

"Kagar is here, he seems alarmed." Jaethal remarked without any kind of preamble or salutation. She was actually due to leave soon, and make for the elven keep that had been abandoned to history... and really the task of visitors and petitioners really should have been Valerie's job... but not much point standing on ceremony given their current conditions.

"Oh?" He replied.

Before she could reply there was an excitedly fwoosh of air as Shaoyu arrived. "An Interloper." She declared furiously, "The bard," She meant Kagar, "declares a green dragon in the south." There was a crackle of sparks as she exhaled loudly.

Jaethal shrugged at his look, "Probably from more tazylworms," She replied, "I'm sure the lizardfolk are just panicky. Don't know why they're complaining all that much, it seems just as happy to attack the Thickskins," The long tails rival tribe, "As it is them."

That was another problem they were going to have to contend with as summer neared. The Thickskins were a much more aggressive lizard folk tribe, and not nearly inclined to mercantile ventures and cooperation as the Long Tails... whatever bad side Count Shimmerglow had had he had been helping Kagar's tribe and the Chief 'King' Vesket to not just keep the Thickskins at bay but beat them back and prevent them from coming further into the area around candlemere.

He considered, "What do you know?"

"Acid burns seem to be the case." The Tatzwyrms who had nested where Loy's town was taking shap had also used acid, so possible. "But a dragon seems a stretch." Jaethal seemed intent on not elaborating as opposed to simply settling on what she was sure on. She had made her judgement that it probably wasn't a dragons much as tribesfolk, and apparently humans turning a somewhat rare predatory monster into something bigger and meaner with each tall tale. "Do you want me to handle it?"

He thought about it, "No. I'll go." The castle in the west needed to be examined, they needed that underway. The simple fact was those ancient ruins, not just the elven castle, but here, and at Candlemere were all at useful geographic locations, appropriating and using the ruins as the basis was a practical choice for establishing power projection through the narlmarches. The three sights even forms a rough triangle projecting into the forest to the west. "I was meaning to visit the lizard village anyway," The matter of a universal promulgated law was going to be complicated applying it through the narlmarches.

If there was a dragon issue... well the dense forests to the west made sense, but he was a bit surprised that they hadn't seen the young adult who had laid Shaoyu's egg, or the Silvers supposed to nest to the east. Of course... it was possible if it was a dragon it was a young recently hatched and solitary green that had been left to its own devices.

"When?" Jaethal queried

It occurred to him she had moved on to the matter of Tristian's festival. "The day after I think." Sunday." The prospect of meeting the interloper addressed Shaoyu interupted to to turn the matter to dinner. It was Fireday, and so thus well Tuskwater was an abundant lake for fish and it was fireday so fish for everyone. The religiously inspired diet caused him to consider the legal code he'd been working on. The simple reality was that pre modern societies... most societies simply didn't generate the food resources to allow large prison populations. Lex Talionis was the norm for that, in conjunction with other resources... but in a world with magic, well hello fines used to pay the local church to magic a cure provided an effective solution to at least most cases of simple battery, or common injury.

He glanced to the local public house in the valley's farm community, and they kept walking.
--
Sarenith's day of blades was mostly looking to be a small affair. Tristian was allowed to do his thing, and that kept him busy for most of the day. Unwilling to overshadow the other priest Eire had retired to his private study and to the books, and papers.

The roll top desk was dominated by a large sheet of paper that he'd used a cantrip to copy the paige compositor's patent image from the book onto the larger medium. The compositor, and any movable type was likely a distant project. He'd need it to have the characters for Taldane, or in Draconic... or both. Realistically the system of weights was going to be another issue for kingdom records and standardization... something else to do.

Eire moved to rest a wool sock covered foot on one of his bags. Two years... more. Count Shimmerglow had said ... something about Shyka the Many... was that what had happened. The lack of electronics in his gear pack weren't the only factors that had stood out... even if it was foremost of them.

He'd, even though he didn't remember, had packed oddly. One of the things he'd noticed was the lack of any of his Koistenten books. He'd brought wood working books, joinery, foundations, engineering medical... but nothing he didn't regularly have. The book on machinery, and physics was useful... but he hadn't brought anything with diagrams for late 19th​ century firearms... which might also mean nothing. The simple reality was the tooling diagrams were more likely to be useful.

Besides he knew guns worked, even if had moved almost entirely away from using them. He hadn't needed them. They were also too complex to hand off to or reproduce. He thought about the cyclop's heligraph system or the remnants of it. He suspected he was missing something, but he had neither the resources or use for right now to implement a telegraph system.... and given the magical communication that allowed him to communicate with Oleg's, he wasn't sure that was necessary.

Magic allowed him to sidestep a variety of logistical hurdles, and that meant when he had to parse down the principle need... it was usual proving to be the basics. The farming revolutions, and tools, to make tools. Infrastructure, and people would be next... but the next matter would be contending with going south to see if there really was a green dragon predating on a village of lizardfolk that he did want to keep around.

Valerie's knock was unnecessary, he'd left the door open... in part because high ceilings or no it was summer and the air flow helped with the heat... it was nice that they had magical heatless lighting but that only helped so much. His regent was frowning.

"Yes?" He asked.

"Your grace Sir Kesten reports that there has been a fight."

"I see," He stood up. "Do you know what happened?"

"It is religious in nature." She declared, carefully guarding the statement.

He nodded, but didn't repeat his first response, "Do we know the nature of it? And who it involves?"

"A paladin of Irori, a cleric of Nethys, as well as a Willas Gunderson and apparently Kaessi seem to have had some sort of argument about Candlemere. Messer Gunderson seems to want to travel to Candlemere to treasure hunt."

"That doesn't seem the sort of thing to cause a religious dispute." He remarked looking out to the ... what passed for a central square, it was hard to think of that given that paving it had yet to reach a high enough priority to warrant actually doing it, especially since they were still exploring the catacombs.

"Rismel, the cleric, apparently believes he received a visitation from his god and that the island is therefore sacred to nethys."

He cleared his throat, and snorted, he was a little doubtful Candlemere would be sacred to a god of the far south without an explanation, but sure, "No, sorry, do go on."

"Kaessi finds it very odd her god would directly communicate with Rismel."

Eire nodded, but decided not to ask for a clarification on why that was 'odd'. "And the paladin, and Mister Gunderson?"

"Those two want to explore the ruins, the paladin appears to have been part of a party of adventures which includes, or perhaps included now, Rismel. They were hoping to explore the island, and from what I gather publicize or sell whatever they found."

"Have they been to Candlemere?"

"No, Messer Gunderson seems to have come to the barony from our neighbor to the east, he has a letter of introduction from Lord Maegar, apparently neither were aware of efforts to the isle before departing Varnhold."

He nodded, "Very well, have garess put it on the docket and we will deal with it."

 

[Imperator Pax]

11 Sarenith 4711
The boat ride allowed them to reach Candlemere directly from the castle or at least from Shrikewall's coast, and it was far quicker than overland travel to the village. Tristian had decided to tag along. It seemed that Valerie's information hadn't been quite accurate. At some point before they'd cleansed the island Willas had visited the island and then decided he needed back up, and returned to Varnhold, with Rismel in tow, to recruit others for the party.

Kanerah was openly contemptuous of Rismel's claims to have been in direct communication with their patron deity. That somewhat complicated the matter of the twins switching out, but even kalikke agreed that Rismel's claims breached Nethys orthodoxy regarding the faith. Nethys apparently didn't talk to his clergy directly... apparently ever.

While, though potentially heretical delusions aside Rismel was insightful useful even for other things. He'd been able to lead them straight to the gateway to the First World. That more or less put paid to his claims he'd been talking to Nethys directly, but not a waste of a visit. "I trust I can leave this in your hands?"

Kanerah tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Delusions of grandeur aside, Rismel is not wrong the island would make an excellent site for a temple of Nethys." That hadn't been what he'd asked, "I should be able to keep them from killing one another, I think I'd like to look around actually," He wasn't sure if Kanerah was saying that or if she meant Kalikke wanted to search the ruins. She paused as a flight of archons twisted around before zooming across the landscape, "I don't know if I'll get used to that," Her tail twitched and she rested her fingers on her chin, "How did you clear all of this brush."

"Dragon fire mostly."

"Ah of course, silly me." She laughed, and then spared a look at the rows of beds terracing the hill, "Are they planting potatoes?"

Planting was something of a misnomer, it was really planted, since they were largely finished now, "Candlemere is pretty marginal rocky farmland," and prone to rain, more so than Shrikewall was, "so they're the best crop for cultivation here." He acknowledged as her eyes tracked the riverboats and vessels coming up the shrike river from Mivon.

"The river goes all the way to Star bay, and the Inner Sea." Absalom, Oppara in Taldor, Almas in Andoran and the other ports of those countries beside. Never mind the ports of Qadira, and Osiron, Thuvia, Rahadoum, Cheliax. "Your young barony has attracted a great deal of attention." It had occurred to him. It wasn't as if somehow that fact had eluded him in terms of what they were doing. ... and there was so much more to be done.
--
Vesket at least, once they had arrived in the lizard folk village later that afternoon, was certainly convinced it was a green dragon. The lizard king was pretty close to hysterical but there was good news of a sort in his account. He had an idea on how big it was.

From the description it was probably only a young Green Dragon, not yet a juvenile. Still of all chromatics greens were supposed to be the most reasonable to deal with, and Eire was hoping that they could track this one down, and it could be made to see sense. ... given its size, and thus age there was always the chance the parent might or might not be around. "Vesket seems very confident."

Kagar grunted, "It is so." Then after a moment the rattler glanced back. "It is because now village has dragon here."

Of course. That made sense. The hysteria had probably abated quite a bit with Shaoyu flying around looking furiously for the green interloper. She didn't seem to be having any luck with that. Linzi followed his gaze, "What happens if she sees the green?"

"Most likely she'll trumpet a challenge." He replied, and hopefully she wouldn't go charging head on, he wasn't sure how far her flying ... what kind of distance the vantage gave her right now. The rattler's comment highlighted one more detail of how Golarion differed in political organization. Vesket was not a slouch as a fighter, and he had a magical weapon so in that sense he made sense as a tribal elite warrior being chief.

That was a fairly simple organization.

Brevoy followed a fairly conventional feudal arrangement of its own despite the fact ... frankly that it shouldn't. He wasn't sure how the House of Rogaravia had managed to maintain power for two hundred years, but they had just vanished, obviously due to magic, and not been deposed by civil war.... he really didn't understand how politically they hadn't erupted into civil war.... especially given that they didn't have a unified church to provide that stabilizing factor.

In all honesty, out of all of the neighbors Numeria... or Pitax made their own sorts of sense in terms of factions, and organization from what little he did know of the neighboring countries.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, "Well if anything we'd better start looking."

"Right." Linzi agreed.

"I can show you where last sighting was." Kagar remarked. They departed the Long Tails's village and made their way south and east into the forest on horseback with Shaoyu continuing to fly overhead looking for any sign, but given the tree cover he doubted she's see through the foliage. They were meandering about to the west looking for a clearing that Kagar thought was about another half a mile when a tree overturned.

From up above Shaoyu threw herself into a meteoric dive as the wyvern like creature shifted onto the bend of the road on top of the broken oak. Its wingspan must have been about thirty feet, but the give away was its lack of forelimbs.

"Dragon."

There was a roar.

"Drake." He corrected.

Shaoyu hit the drake at the thunder of her dive in a massive crash.

Whether dragon or drake it didn't matter, they needed to get off their mounts and get them out of the way. Shaoyu was actually smaller than the adult drake, but that size difference probably didn't count for much. Not nearly as much as he had expected it to against an actual green dragon. Having a full set of limbs to attack with also provided its own advantage. Linzi and Kagar began to play their respective instruments even as the two broke apart and started to circle.

With another bellow the drake reared back throwing its head suddenly forward and sptt a mucousy green blob towards Shaoyu. Not a true breath weapon the glob burst, the ball of acid splashing and turning into a sickly greenish yellow miasma covering the young red.

That was a mistake.

A blast of fie exploded in reply from Shaoyu's maw, catching not just the drake but the broken tree as well, that exploded under the sudden heat. Even if it had been a young green dragon at that point it probably would have decided enough was enough, the drake shook from its burns and turned to flee, but Shaoyu was unprepared to let that happen and pounced, smaller size or no, getting hit by a sprinting clydesdale sized object from the side still sucked.

The impact jarred, and bowled the drake over and a mass of crackling flames wreathed the red's claws, "Yield." She demanded in Draconic.

The drake yipped pitifully covering its face with its wings.

... and that was that, save of course for the red trying to deafen all of them with her victorious triumphant bellow.

Celadon, which was accurate to the drake's coloring, wasn't especially intelligent. In terms of book learning Amiri was probably smarter, but it was conversant in draconic, and intelligent enough to work through what rules were and why breaking them was a bad idea.

That it even had a name was testament to a more peaceful time in the stolen lands. Before Nugreah, and the Stag Lord's ritual there had been more druids than just Bokken, his crazy brother, and the Stag Lord's father, but the others had dwindled. Druids were hardly the most sociable people and tended towards isolation. The last Celadon had seen of the druid who'd given him the name had been at a distance going to the land of bones of the linnworms in the east, near where the silver dragons were. That had been at least a decade earlier and Celadon had already been mature by that point... mature and for that matter most of its siblings killed off by the life in the southern narlmarches.

Not that his brood had been the only drakes, but he'd never encountered any of his own kind, never mind an actual dragon this far north. The Greenbelt was plentiful with wolves, and he did occasionally see a wyvern coming in from either mountain range in the distant east or west, but for the most part the challengers were mundane. Humans, boggards, thylacines, giant spiders and that sort of thing. He didn't cross the shrike, not only because there was vastly less cover but because there were a pair of mated owlbears in the kamelands that the drake knew better to trifle with.

The recent fighting between thick skins and long tails had simply been too good and opportunity for the drake to pass up given how frequently one side or another with dead or wounded on both sides. Shaoyu was quick to call this being a buzard, but the young dragon had never gone hungry either. If Celadon could towards law abiding, and follow the rules this was actually going to be pretty helpful.

... also he had mentioned linnworm bones, and reiterated what Perlivash had mentioned previous regarding the silver dragons in the east. Sooner or later they were going to have to actually visit their neighbors in the east, both Maegar, and the dragons too.


--
Notes: Don't ask. I don't know how this got missed. You will notice from the date that this is supposed to have occurred before the previous two updates. It got put in the wrong file apparently.

 

[Imperator Pax]

13 Sarenith 4711
They had returned to Candlemere collected Kaessi and Tristian along with a very disappointed Gunderson and his party and returned to Shrikewall. Any discussions of a temple of Nethys would have to wait until Candlemere had a more permanent presence, but for the time being it wouldn't hurt to go ahead and inform Harrim of the project.

"Gunderson and companions have departed?"

"Except the priest of Nethys, but yes they stated their plans to return to Varnhold."

That simply reminded him he really needed to do better about maintaining contact with his eastern neighbor. There was no easy way to reach out to Varnhold. No roads that were actually worth calling roads crossed the stolen lands so the only option he could see besides sending someone overland up into the mountains would be to go up to the south rostlandic road, and cross from the Brevic village of Nivakta's crossing and follow the kiravoy south.

That was a long way to go around, but with no established mountain path and regular course there was not better option available to them to manage regular correspondence. "Yes, well do keep an eye on Rismel, I have a letter to compose to Lord Maegar that will need to go out to Oleg's first thing in the morning." Morning, because regardless of how things were, regardless of the plenitful conveniences magic could offer, travel was still largely contingent on daylight hours.

Eire move to seat himself behind the center of the sprawling realm map. He still considered baron a somewhat title to hold. It was too fundamentally from his thinking tied to either is later english position in the peerage, or its norman era connotations and his rank as an independent ruler and the volume of land he nominally held by the charter didn't fit neatly into either role. He supposed, knew even, that he was overthinking things.

He traced a line down the western border, recalling that twenty seven hundred years ago the fifth army of exploration had reached the western border of Iobaria. Twenty seven hundred years. The south Rostlandic road didn't pass directly through the stolen lands, and he wasn't sure why.... but there was enough evidence of Taldan inhabitation to suggest there should have been a major taldan thoroughfare... at the same time he supposed if it had been there then he'd have not been building the barony at all.

The even earlier third army of exploration had begun making inroads into the River Kingdoms in 1520 Absalom Reckoning, but Razmiran sat on the shores of Lake Encarthen. That was easily six hundred miles to the south east.

"You have another great project look."

"We were always going to have to build roads, Jaethal." It was just a matter of state, but seventy odd miles was no small, or cheap feat. "Oleg's needs to be physically linked-" She stopped them there.

"The kobolds are back," Which wasn't unusual, "And given what we know of Taldan settlements," The undead elf gestured to the sprawling table map, and charted a path up from where the thorn river met the Shrike north east of Shrikewall.

He leaned back, "Jaethal you find the sootscale nearly as annoying as Valerie does," Which was not something that had escaped him, but he felt it bore mentioning, given she was suggesting actually linking Shrikewall to the Old Scyamore and running the road north to meet Oleg's. She deflected even dismissing the grating squawking, even inspite of it that they could still be useful. Of course they had to cross the Thorn River at some point to run a road to Oleg's.
--The lands north of the Tuskwater between the skunk and thorn rivers were part of a hilly region that caused the forests to the east to become progressively thinner the abutment of the zones were just a factor of the land. The Kamelands had plenty of water, but were less suited to supporting forests. There were still enough trees to harvest to address the growing settlements needs, and more importantly the hills provided access to stone to quarry, which was useful beyond measure given how scarce sources of building stone was in much of Brevoy to the north.

"We will need to set up a more effective timbering solution, but for the moment our needs are satisfied." The barony had two main zones, and unlike with the rostlandic plain to north which did have some light forests the kamelands had enough quaryable stone that they could prepare more permanent structures in addition to having nearby sources in the narlmarches proper to have good quality heavy timber.

Still he had to balance that with the reality of potential fae problems, and keeping the lumberjacks from causing other kinds of trouble. It was all about balance. Ironically the wood resources were the easiest thing. Manufacturing nails, never mind more complicated metal projects for common building projects was the bigger hang up.

... still regardless of whether this bored Amiri or not this needed to be done. Harrim grunted, "Well, I've looked around the island," Candlemere, "And it seems as if all the will o wisps have met their doom, but we can't know for sure if they'll return or not."

"I've taken that into account," It wasn't just Harrim doomsaying, while he'd cast dispel chaos, and sanctified the island's ruins, that was in part to dispel the malevolent aura that had presumably been drawing the will o' wisps from the First World in the first place. "We'll see what happens but for now we need a more permanent encampment set up there." The shrike river eventually flowed into the east sellen to where it flowed into Kallas Lake, and thus the Sellen and that provided them a river route all the way to the Inner Sea. "But Candlemere lets us project into the lake and that lets ships sail up the Shrike once they reach Mivon without having to go up the east sellen and come overland." The Rostlandic road was well built, but being able to cut Brevoy out entirely was desirable for the sheer amount of time it seavd. "Now, while that river passage needs to be secured there is the castle," Or the ruins of the elven fortress, "to the west."

Amiri glanced up from playing with her knife as Jaethal straightened. "Its a dump. Can we fix it yes," She continued before she could be interrupted. "The walls need work, including rebuilding the southern wall, and smaller breach to the south west. Leave aside all of the scrub, and weeds that have grown up, most of the roofs are gone from the towers. If it wasn't a concentric keep I'd say the towers might as well be demolished." That wasn't a great start to reports on the survey. "The north west tower is the only of them not really ruined."

"I see, and the keep itself?"

"Overgrown but its probably the most intact out of the whole place. Its livable."

But with the breaches to the walls it could hardly be considered a proper fortress. "Is it?" He was actually surprised processing the last sentence.

Jaethal gave him a dirty look, "Its bearable. More cleaning would be in order."

He nodded. "That's something at least." There were short on people. "Alright, I want you to prepare a party I'll send them to guard the lumberjacks and see what we can do, I'll try and talk to Kagar about helping... if Kessel isn't using Dave's services, get him to look at the castle." He basically the only full time engineer they had not committed to a project here. The temple of the elk didn't even have engineers it was all itinerant masons supplied by the temple of Erastil. There were two Chelixans, a couple more professionals from Absalom, but none he was comfortable sending to the west. The Chelish engineers were vouched for by Iomedaen church officials but by that same token were engaged in affairs on behalf of the Inheritor's church.

"And the timber? Corax I assume."

He nodded at the not really a question. "He's available. Just try and avoid antagonizing any more faeries." Eire added after a minute, and quietly contemplated requesting Akiros and Kundal join the western party. Mouri was another possibility, and had the advantage of being in Shrikewall while Akiros was at the temple of the elk not at his own hold.
--
Notes: this and the following, or more accurately day after, section have undergone minor revisions as I contend with trying to get the days straight for the summer.

Also I don't know if there is some snafu on the wiki, or if someone vandalized wiki intentionally ... or what but I'm sticking to the original 4711 kingdom date (I will be going back and changing the 46 revision I did back to 47), despite the wiki currently saying that the AP for some reason started in 4611 and its on both the wikis so fuck if I know whats going. I have been told by more than one person that the timeline is supposed to 47XX AR. On an unrelated, and much smaller scale timeline snafu, on my part, as a result of the summer planning issues.

It is also why we don't have a Kaessi section to go along with this. It is also why we will probably get a second update later in the week (probably Thursday or Friday).

 

[Imperator Pax]

16 Sarenith 4711​

The kobolds were back, or more accurately by this point their small delegation had returned for another visit. There was technically a small guest house attacked to the hall for guests of the baron. It was the same style of log tongue structure as the hall itself. It had been an effective and expedient structure to raise, and furnish given the timber stands to the west that could be floated down to the lake before the previous winter. It hadn't been Corax's first project but the ranger had made sure the wood was suitable for the task and it had only taken about a dozen men two weeks of work to raise it. The structure itself had taken less time than the interior furnishing, and as it was designed for normal sized people it was bordering gargantuan to kobolds.

The visiting party from old Sycamore were all kobolds, occasionally the monthly party contained a few curious mites tagging along on their queen's behalf but not this time. It features the same principle pair of Mikmek, and Napkik and a few older kobolds than them. Apparently what would have ordinarily been too far for either party was remedied by being able for the sootscales and longtails to meet in Shrikewall to trade. The lizardfolk, the longtails, being able to take boats from shrike wall, and just being being larger, had the easier time of it. The sootscales were smaller and had to go over land.

He hadn't been aware that this sort of trade was going on, but then again it had only really begun after the spring thaw and the realization that the baronial seat was a safe location the two tribes could meet. Perhaps more importantly, not that the trade and the alchemists work wasn't important, was confirmation that there were other kobold tribes south of the river, and to the west. He'd been wondering. There were probably other tribes to, but the sootscale enjoyed a relative isolation from their caverns beneath the old scyamore, and their peace with the mites. That peace, and the fact it was holding was good, and it encouraged him that trade between the two draocnic speaking races would prove useful in the longer term.

That was part of what Kanerah wanted to talk about, but that in turn had been somewhat overshadowed by Celadon's introduction to court. Only the fact that the Lizardfolk, the longtails, had pretty much been living in the wilderness on a subsistence life style that compelled them that meat was meat kept them from taking issue with the drake's recent predation of their kind. That history meant they didn't object to his eating their own dead, never mind eating the dead of thickskin. It was a cultural thing that humans or at least the barony's human settlers would have been a bit more unsettled by.

"We could even construct an alchemists workplace." The tiefling commented, settling it so that both parties could bring their goods here and then make whatever they hoped to make would require more than just one building. Both lizardfolk and kobolds would need housing, and space not just for an alchemist to work but also for a herbalist. That wasn't unreasonable, and it was precisely the sort of economic foresight and planning that Valerie wasn't suited for. It didn't address the long term need for eventually moving to a national bank but the Tiefling twins provided a steward for the kingdom to be.

At least for now, in the Stolen Lands, maybe even in most the riverlands, land was plentiful and people scarce. They had the land to set aside and plan districts and quarters even if they didn't necessarily have the incomes to act on that in its entirety. Jaethal's suggestion came to mind, "Running a road to Old Scyamore would make it easier for the Kobold to reach the city," And that in turn would make it easier for the smaller creatures to travel back and forth. Jaethal was going to have to go without any such benefit but at least her efforts had the benefit of being able to take a boat up the murque, but that was still less of an issue than getting most places. "Will you be able to see about that?" Because realistically Kanerah, or Kalikke was going to need to coordinate with Valerie when it came to finding the personnel among settlers and immigrants coming from down river, or from Brevoy to fill those positions.

Kanerah idly fanned herself, throwing a glance at Jaethal, "i'm sure that I can find some people. Abadar's followers might be able to recommend an engineer if we need them but we'll need to reach the river first." Dead Dave would be tied up with the abandoned elven keep's salvage, restoration or whatever word one wanted to use.

"Actually I can help with that." Jaethal remarked, "There is someone."

Her tone had a certain... je ne sais quoi that put him on edge, as if she wasn't so much doing them a favor so much as ... "Why do I not like the sound of that?" He asked.

Jaethal's pale face remained placid, and she sat a small figure on table. An elven woman holding a solar icon. "We could wait to see if Abadar's church spare anyone but there is a cleric of the church of Findeladlara who needs something to do."

"Does he?"

"Very much so, he's proving to be quite a nuisance," Apparently Dead Dave's craft wasn't good enough, and from Jaethal's accounting it was a wonder the elf hadn't petitioned to be added or even replace Davik Nettle's position on Jaethal's staff at the keep. "Oh I'm sure he's going to ask." She snorted, "But I haven't actually mentioned the keep is elven in construction. He thinks its another iobarian ruin, or Taldan like we have here. He's looking for something to provide a 'guiding hand'."

"That's his goddess's title isn't it?"

"Yes, how terribly witty, but I'll admit he could be useful. Just get him out of my hair."

He paused, "Should we not be advertising the keep is originally elven," There was no telling how much work was going to be required for, hell Eire was relying on personal report he hadn't even made his way over there to investigate.

"Only if you want an influx of smug self entitled know it alls who think just because elves in the distant past thousands of years ago might have walked through a glade makes something theirs." She scoffed, "Kyonin is going to be annoying enough, and the only sufferance to that is we're likely going to be just as aggravating to them, I wouldn't ah advertise until its complete and we have it staffed." Well that was why they had a council, but it was one more thing they'd need to contend with. "Now about the letter to our eastern neighbor," At least she'd stopped calling him baron meat head any longer... and that was far more complimentary than the description she had dubbed Drelev with.

--
Eire lifted his field glasses and looked out over the farmland along the river, and the handful of developing homesteads in the wide valley between the Shrike and Skunk river to the north. He let the ten power styrka fall to his chest and rest against the printed blue tee shirt. It was plenty warm enough for it.

They were heading into summer or maybe it was already here, depending on how one wanted to count. Regardless harvest season was beginning, and in particular he was looking at the dale's distinct field shapes. The short fields of oxen driven erastil owned homesteads, peopled mostly by settlers from Restov. Long narrow fields of the royal estate contrasted them. Those were drawn by the horses, the collars, and steel mold board style heavy plows that would cut the soil take it and turn it over.

There were wing beats to signal Shaoyu's impatience with walking and she had bounded into the air to hurry ahead of Amiri. On the other hand that wasn't unusual. Shaoyu exercised caution not to hit anything even if the sudden transformation did tend to spook animals, and anyone not in the know. Amiri grunted at the landscape spreading out over the valley to the north.

He decided not to turn this into a lecture about how the farm and the crop rotation and so forth would allow them to sustain animal herds all year long with fodd crops, and so forth. Amiri's last attempt to have complex agriculture explained to her had boiled down to her liking real food... which fell a little flat given her use of seasonings and spices on chicken and duck and goose... and the fact all of those could be raised on farms.

Farm raised livestock, and being able to sustain large herds of livestock through the winter was probably the biggest change in food raising. It was a long term investment. He entertained Shaoyu's questions on the harvest and on the differences... but the truth was the first harvest while it would be different wouldn't be as telling as Harvest 5 or a harvest in as many years either. That would be really when they should begin to see the real difference... and that would require patience. It would also mean creating a bureaucracy and that required literacy.

He turned away from the dale, and looked in the direction of the Tuskwater to the south. They needed an actual road from here to Oleg's. Pretty much all southern traffic came in to the lake pier and didn't require or make a priority a road in that direction. That wasn't going to be true forever given the community on the ford Oleg's friend was building up... and beyond that there was the castle.

"Have you settled on a name?"

It wasn't finalized yet, "We would be getting ahead of ourselves given all the work Jaethal seems to think it requires." They weren't sure of the fortification's original name... cleaning was required and maybe cleaning up the place would eventually yield that. Amiri raised an eyebrow, "I am considering Hereford."


The name meant nothing to Amiri, but then he hardly expected it to.

"Ah will we station crusaders there?" Shaoyu questioned, "To guard against western brigands, and the inflated soft heads," An inexact translation, but loosely she was calling Fort Drelev's ruler a stupid preening lizard that had flared its crest against a much more powerful foe, "in the marshlands?"

That question drew Amiri's attention.

"Realistically conflict with the west could come from any number of factors," He replied, "And a strong military presence will deter Lord Hannis from leaving the slough." It was something he was taking an abundance of caution with, "It also shields Tatzlyford from the west, which is important, and not just because of Drelev. "I've been speaking with Akiros, and he thinks for whatever of Drelev's personality flaws he's proving competent in pushing bandits and other threats out of the lakelands of the Hooktongue, and that potentially threatens Loy's town to be."

... and if that were the case that created an issue the ford and its community was about thirty miles north of the elven ruins and maybe fifteen east. Gary's 'castle' as the boggard called it was on the wrong side of the river to protect the community.

"And?"

"And Kundal found a dead unicorn in the woods west of the town," Akiros had told the Kellid man that he'd investigate it when they when south from the Temple of the Elk to make for the elven ruins, and that once he found out more he'd report back... but the dead unicorn had disturbed the barbarian, "He said someone sheered off its horn."

"Poachers." The nearly year old dragon snapped a burst of sparks accenting the growl... and she was probably right, but it bore investigating, and the Church of Erastil were planning to send a party with them so they might be able to find out more.
--
Notes: Alright So the tentative plan is that tomorrow and sunday Ghost Who Walks (BT) will get two relatively short interlude updates, and then hopefully on monday we will gett back to a somewhat normal pattern of updates. In theory that will mean probably alternated between Essence wielding social general and the Luxen Contract side story on Thursday... but right now I'm dubious about managing to actually stick to that. I do also want to finish overhauling S.A.M. but thats sort of stalled out.

Among some other things which (besides the previous sections lack of a Kaessi centric perspective scene) is that the farmland section was abridged

 

[Imperator Pax]

20 Sarenith 4711
The news of poachers in the western woods had irritated her... but Jaethal would probably handle the matter, and it wasn't as if Valerie wasn't aware that she had no shortage of other things to deal with. The summer solstice was tomorrow, and she wasn't entirely sure was the expectation was, given the dragon's birthday. Midsummer, or high summer, was upon them and among other festivals besides Desna's ritual of stardust, lay the Sarenite Sunwrought festival. Their liege's own sect of Iomedae apparently also held the longest day of the year to commemorate the Chelish sun goddess in some capacity that was wholly separate from her status as inheritor of Aroden's legacy.

Leaving aside the dragon's birthday she had other preparations as well. It was no secret of course, the explosion of activity the last two months had prevented his grace from dedicating time to construction and farming projections. Her growing staff was responsible for the managing the rolls system. That insured the meals, and residence of farmers in direct baronial service. The baronial farmers were provided directives from the coronet with instructions on farming and application, access to tools and seed stocks, and housing. In return her staff saw to the dispensation of cash payments for wages, and fed them from the baronial pantler.

That was only one part of Valerie's job. Then there was managing Garess's reports. Then the matter of contending with cataloging the exploration reports, the charts, the mapping... and keeping special tally of any reports of banditry. Her duties as estate chancellor were many.

Including the Qadiran was something she had agreed to because it was beginning to be too much. "Jaethal wants to see about importing cotton?" Valerie looked up from the elf's looping script, and set the missive aside.

The red eyes blinked at her. "I will see what I can do." The other woman replied, "Did she specify what kind of cotton?"

A glance at the missive, to confirm "She did not." The blonde replied.

"I will consult the merchants, perhaps someone from Absalom, though Katepesh or Osirion would be the likely best source for such." Kaessi tossed her hair over one shoulder with a huff and ran her fingers over her brow.

She left it to the tiefling, it was another task delegated. As estates chancellor she needed to be able to delegate the matter of foreign trade to the Qadiran. It was not the same thing about contending with the matter of religion and state that she did occasionally feel the need to pass to Harrim as high priest of the realm. That had entirely different motivations.

The doors opened to admit the remaining council with the young dragon giddly excited as she bounced in her step across the hardwood floors. Valerie was grateful whatever magics rendered the cathedral of iomedae also seemed to make at least the baronial estate's structures largely fireproof. There had been a few incidents in the square, but those were or had been instances of stalls or other temporary structures. The plateau was increasingly developing and the lakefront would probably be its own town ... and the community of the valley to the north its own administrative district as new houses were built and people arrived.


"are you regretting allowing the sweet teeth loose, yet?" The tiefling asked referring to the trio of also tiefling hangers on.

The baron worked his way around the table to his seat at the head of the table. "I am reconsidering how prudent prioritizing the east country was..." He admitted running his fingers along the table map that dominated the council chambers.

The prevailing theory was that Hannis Drelev the installed baron of Hooktongue slough must have been at least a passingly capable administrator and leader because it certainly seemed as if his knights had succeeded in pushing out the remaining bandits to the west... unfortunately driving the brigands over the border. They didn't have proof that was what had happened, and certainly none that it was intentional but it didn't matter.

"There was no sign of the village on the map." The map had been probably half a century old, so that wasn't some great shock per se. "I've spoken to restov the Tiger Lords were probably dispersed by force." To deter raids into the fertile rostlandic plain.

Kassil Aldori nodded recounting that had probably been a decade ago when a tribe of the tiger lords had begun to raid into the rostlandic plain, "The survivors probably were driven westwards, perhaps all the way into Numeria." He declared confirming the suspicion.

That prompted a nod. "Well regardless the site is useful." The site was about thirty miles north of the statue of Erastil north west of Tatzlford. It made a decent enough place to put a watchtower even if didn't warrant any more complicated fortifications. They were getting good at throwing together such structures from local timbers.

Seeing the opportunity Valerie spared a brief glance to the two emancipated slaves, "If the east is a concern perhaps Regongar should ride to join Jaethal."

"She's not going to let me do anything," The half orc complained, "Let me join Loy, I'll range out to see if I can find anything, see if I can find what killed that unicorn."

Eire considered the request. "Regongar is likely right Jaethal's priority is less pursuing poachers and bandits around the woods." But on the other hand the barony had assured Corax that he and his men would be furnished with protection. "Dispatching you to tatzlford is probably not the worst idea-"

Any further was interrupted by the doors banging open again, which was unusual, Valerie had assumed that Garess would have the usual guards posted in front of them. It was true that she wouldn't have put it past Jaethal to simply barge into a meeting, but she was deep in the western lands making for the ruined elven fortress... and even if she was on the way back, it wasn't she who was barging in.

"Your grace apologies." The brevic envoy bowed sweeping his hat off his head. "I apologize for the intrusion, I've ridden from Restov with dire news." and that news came in the form of another charter from the swordlords of Restov. "Lady Jamandi has been informed by Lord Hannis," The baron's mouth twitched into the beginnings of a scowl, "Of seeing an increasing number of trolls in the southern lands."

There was a pause. The baron broke the wax seal broke to unfurl the parchment, and confirming that at the bottom was the Aldori crest. "Trolls?"

"Lord Hannis claims that they have begun preying on shipping from the south, and attacking his peasants, laying waste to outlying settlements. Restov had questions about the decline in trade coming up the east sellen river."

They had discussed over the winter months the set of falls that prevented traffic from using the shrike river from sailing to Restov, but the securing of Candlemere and Shrikewall's location allowed traffic to sail up the shrike to the barony bypassing the last half of the East Sellen River.

"How long has that been going on?"

"Since the start of spring your grace." The brevic envoy declared his voice clearing showing his alarm sellen river trade being cut... and good reason The Sellen flowed all the way to the Inner Sea, and all the great cities upon it.

"You've had trade impacted for three months now, and Jamandi or the Lord Mayor hasn't sent word." Valerie watched as pointedly glanced to the swordlord's heir apparent.


The envoy from Restov glanced down and colored... "In truth we ... thought the initial problem was on our side of the border, your grace. That the delays were just delays and that New Stetven had made new policies, as they'd been talking about.... but then Lord Hannis began to complain about ships not making it, and we received warnings from Mivon that one of their ships in the slough had been attacked by monsters, and that they presumed that that had been what happened to several others."

"And trolls?"

"That took longer to confirm, the Mivon ship captain said they'd been attacked, and they'd managed to turn back. Some of his crew had been poisoned, but later when we sent word to Dreleve he confirmed that some of his outlying peasants had been attacked by monsters as well. He'd thought at the time it hadn't been any more than the trouble than the previous ones with bandits and barbarians, and responded accordingly... and then they saw the trolls. Hundreds your grace."

She resisted the urge to scoff at the courtly fool. "Go on?" Mivon it seemed ad reported its own further troll troubles last month though those had not started to threaten the river traffic along the shrike... but if they were responsible for Drelev's misfortune then it was only a matter of time before they moved from attacking timbering parties in their portion of the southern narlmarches' great forest.

The baron idly moved a weight to hold the charter's edge to keep it from trying to roll up. "Jamandi describes this a problem of the southern greenbelt."

"We have no further details than that your grace." That wasn't helpful. Even as far south as Shrikewall was, it was considered still to be in the 'northern' greenbelt on maps that described the stolen lands in such terms

 

[Imperator Pax]

Summer 4711
'Troll Trouble'.​

Restov was almost a hundred miles from Shrikewall... admittedly the larger problem of that distance was on their end. On Brevoy's side the south Rostlandic Road an impressively well maintained wide and paved Taldan road, the river ran half way down, and that was an easy and mostly pleasant ferry ride. With banditry suppressed that made the flow goods, people, and thus even despite the distance they should have gotten some indication that something was happening sooner than this.

Eire paced, he had abandoned his seat in the middle of the map. He had not planned for this. He had been gearing towards agricultural reforms, and building the kingdom up... and to do that he needed explore the lands the charter laid out as his.

The troll threat made little sense... at least the warning coming from Restov. He had expected Harrgulka, but hadn't seen the trolls, and while there had been kobolds in the south not what he had expected... and thus his attention had turned to high summer and matter of baronial administration. Restov's news was not particularly helpful they claimed that trolls were coming from the west as well.... "I want more information." but in the mean time, "We'll fortify our southern borders, and we will decamp to Hereford." It would actually be the first time seeing the castle, and he knew it wasn't ready yet.

Trollish regeneration was stopped by acid or fire. The forest Drake, Celadon, would be useful against them though that would probably mean cajoling the somewhat dim drake to assist. Tristan should be able to cast base fire magic of course, The Dawnflower held the domain of fire after all. Tristan would be ideal to man a hospital in the south near the southern border.

"Flaming and caustic weapons enchantments are going to be in high demand." Alchemists fire came to mind in particular, but in a pinch burning pitch, and more mundane flaming arrows would suffice.

He wondered how fast they could have the kobolds of the sootscales start making those. An alchemists workshop was no longer an idle fancy aimed at magic items and commodities for trade. He nodded gruffly at the comment. Kanerah's greater fire affinity would have been useful... "Yes, we'll need to focus on that, see if the Kobolds can make a batch quickly for Garess's guards," Maybe even stick around in larger numbers.

The elven keep just wasn't in any shape to be... Eire tapped his foot, "How many people are still waiting to be settled?" He asked glancing to Valerie, who was forced to consult a ledger.

"There is a group from Cheliax."

People fleeing the diabolist realm who had been helped here by the Church of Iomedae. Iomedae was willing to tolerate Asmodeus and the church acknowledged that the diabolic house of Thrune enjoyed a legal right to rule, and that made rebellion unpalatable for much of the church.

"That'll do," He replied, shifting around to look at his council, "Kessil I want you to speak with Jamandi, in person, I want to know everything about when this started, and as much in the way of details as possible."

The half orc, to his credit, didn't protest being sent to Restov. He glanced to Amiri, then to Regongar and Octavia. The other half orc didn't wait, "We're going right? Crack some skulls?"

"Yes, we'll concentrate at Hereford and see what can be done... see if any threat presents itself. I want to sweep thoroughly the area around the Murque river, and make sure the long tails village is secure." That would mean more caustic weapons, or alchemists fire or something. He'd have to contact Oleg about stocking up on alchemists fire, assuming that whatever wasn't on the market hadn't already been bought up, or wasn't subject to exorbitant prices as people panicked at the prospect of a troll invasion.
The next priority after that trying to make sure Valerie and Garess could be sure Shrikewall was prepared for what they could do. "You could summon Kressel, and Akiros." Valerie suggested.

Akiros was a maybe, but he shook his head all the same, "No. I want them where they are and on the look out for bandits." The trolls would be no excuse to let anti bandit patrols lapse. Besides, "Send word to Akiros with Jhod," because he certainly wasn't going to take the old priest down to the abandoned keep, "I want the Erastil church combing the north woods for us just as a precaution." Valerie nodded. He'd been meaning to visit the Temple of the Elk some time later in the summer as he'd promised to do now that it was nearing complete restoration, but this took priority. "Your priority as regent is to keep settling anyone who comes up the river, or down from Brevoy... and anyone who comes up the Sellen I want to know why we didn't have any warning from Mivon on their eastern causeway having monster problems."
--
The murque was prone to silting up, particularly in the spring thaw, but he had concerns that any especially heavy rains might prove a problem but that hadn't been the kind of thing he'd had time to concern himself with as the summer had become increasingly busy. He had expected that once Kaessi's expedition to Sorrowflow had concluded he'd be free to focus on the matter of infrastructure, and overseeing the harvest.

Not to be however. Corax though had been busy the last few weeks. Parts of the forest had been cleared, but the walls hadn't been completely cleaned of the vines and moss as of yet. The walls, except where the breaches were, were twenty feet high, and had at one point probably been painted to accentuate the faded carvings. As Jaethal had described in her reports there were four towers , south east, south west, north east north west and then within the walls themselves a central tower. Unlike the walls Jaethals small work parties had begun clearing the vines and other plants that had grown up the forty foot south eastern tower.

"Which one did you find the statue in,"

Jaethal threw an annoyed look over her shoulder at the emergency party that included the cleric of Findeladlara, "That one," She pointed to the south west west which was easily the most wretched looking of the towers. It had two breaches in its walls on either side , which was not encouraging, and it was clear that Jaethal had had workers trying to clear the debirs as they had worked on the project. "I told you it was a mess." The elf shook her head and grimaced throwing another irritable look back to the parties as they slowly disembarked on simple pier that must also been corax's doing.

Amiri shoved her way through to join them, "Its kind of runty." She remarked, which probably wasn't fair. The main gatehouse was only about ten feet wide... and despite the four perimeter towers he doubted this had been a major military fortification.

It wasn't really small, but Amiri was right the gate, and the foot print... "Castle in the term, fortified residence meaning." He remarked. An outpost more than a major fortification, "The real giveaway is how thin the outerwalls are." In a way he was disappointed... on the other hand, once the rest of the debris was cleared they could probably patch the walls, especially the smaller breach on the western side... it would just be a matter of getting the space. Jaethal's priority had been clearing foliage, trees and debris in the interior of hte castle. "You said the Grand hall is intact?"

"Its weathered time the best."

It was the most complete structure, the same uniform five foot thick walls, and the tallest tower, reaching a height ... just over twenty odd meters... seventy feet, and with an intact roof from Jaethal's report, but the height was deceptive. The elves had in another example of poor design choices for a military building opted for comfort. The upper floor had a ceiling that took up much of the tower's height in private suite clearly intended to be cool in the summer... he assumed they'd probably used magic to keep warm during the summer.

... but as an outpost... this would work.

Amiri and Regongar both agreed it was small, but he ignored the comment, "How was the snow over the winter?"

"It hasn't made clearing out the towers any easier."

He nodded, and glanced back towards the river and the brooks that must have been the source of the murque or at least the start of the aquifer that fed the river . He hadn't seen any ice, but he hadn't expect to either, not at this time of the year, but it had been obvious that they had been gaining altitude, but he was pretty sure once they got over the hills, they probably swiftly dropped back down until they became the wooded swamps of the eastern slough.

They'd need to confirm that. Ideally that would keep anyone from marching up the backside of the hills. "We should settle in, and see how Corax is handling things." He replied. That left them really to wait. He'd been hoping that enough of the keep would salvageable to make a good garrison, but it might not even be sufficently large enough for that even if it had been in good repair. More like the wooden redoubt Loy had set up on the east side of the ford to serve as stockade for the nascent tatzlford town.

"What now?" Jaethal demanded.

"Just thinking of the issues of crops." A chelish yeomanry settled in the area perhaps? Would that work he wondered... no they needed to wait for Corax to report before getting too far ahead of themselves. This troll trouble was going to require a refocusing of their efforts.
--
Notes: Not unsurprising, you see this WotC, or even under Gygax's tenure with other settings is that medieval buildings are often smaller than they should be in maps or in descriptions, and thats especially true of things like castles in the AP. In the video game you can make the excuse of limitations on the programmers memory and what not but in this case I'm going to use the canonical details and lean on the mold of scottish fortified tower residences even though those don't one to one match

 

[Imperator Pax]

Erastus 4711

He looked around the hills. Corax had no shortage of high quality timber to work with from all appearances. This part of the rise hadn't been touched, probably hadn't even seen an axe in two or three centuries. It was true he had to work through some dead wood, and clear space, but since it had been so long since anything had been touched he wasn't short on anything, which made the extra work clearing a trade off.

"You're certain this is local stone?"

"Most certain your grace." The man from the inner sea agreed. That made it unanimous. Dead Dave, the Elf, and the mason from Iomedae's church were in concurrence over the source. "I'm not saying that the ancients couldn't have transferred stone but I'd wager a talent, begging your grace's pardon, that they quarried these stones from the nearby hills."

Perhaps the other giveaway was even though the main residence had large survived most of the supporting structures had not. Even though it wasn't an exact one to one match the keep was effectively a stone shell keep built around a donjon tower. It was a fortified residence, but little more... and with the breaches to the walls and the decay that had set in on the towers it was hard to call it fortified.

"And there is no sign of a forge or smithy?"

"No your grace."

He nodded and pointed to the elf, who h had been waiting a little impatiently, "You may take over the interior work supervision." He turned to Dave, "I need you to supervise throwing up a palisade further afield as Corax pulls the trees down." The shrouded undead man nodded leaning against his stick, and then to the last man, "I need an organization of the debris, to reuse as much of it as possible." The mason nodded. The division of labor also kept the three experts from arguing ... or at least would reduce the amount of arguing they did. He hadn't been here long bbefore he'd gotten to see what Jaethal meant first hand.

Eire glanced high into the summer sky as the sun beat down. Sending Dave to set the palisades was probably at least something of a waste of the undead's abilities but they had an abundance of timber to work with, and he needed the work done. That was only part of it. The abandoned elven fortification even leaving aside its state of disrepair was too small for what he needed, but it was large enough to serve as a manor home, and as the seat at least for an administrative area.

To that end it would be a combination of factors. He wouldn't be able to promise a stone church to the inheritor yet, a nave of wood would have to suffice in the short term, but the benefit of the Iomedaen faithful, human or half elf was that grateful weight of the sword. From the Chelish diaspora they had gathered a core of about fifty to form the basis of a militia in the area to garrison. As settlers they were unlikely to be able to plant crops here, not this year. They might depending on how much they could get done plow up enough with horse drawn steel plows to plant a small winter cover crop, but it wouldn't be a priority. The truth was he expected to support settlers here from the baronial farms and granaries of Shrikewall.
--
Summer was building... and so were they. Trees were felled, and work camps assembled. It was nothing fancy. Heavy logs were hewn down, notched and used to make rectangles. At some point they'd need to make a mill, and then further down the road a pond and use the water from the murque's source further up to turn a wheel, but they didn't have time for that. They needed wood now, and structures.

"He's going to be positively insufferable."

"He is insufferable, I just want to punch him in the mouth." Amiri grunted to Jaethal remarks about the elf.

"Yes, but its going to get worse." The undead elf remarked to the barbarian.

Eire leaned over his ledgers and did his best to ignore both councilors complain about the elven cleric. They'd yet to actually see any trolls, but Regongar was currently out on patrol having won the game of lots with Amiri over who got to go first. She'd grumbled and he was sure they'd argue some more but there were other priorities.

The geography of the murques sort was heavily forested hillside. Once one passed over the river the hills became more pronounced cut by the Shrike, and Gudren, but effectively he could recognize that the Tuskwater was effectively the center of a more massive river valley. The Narlmarches rose up slightly descended into the slough, and on the other side the glenbon uplands rose until they became the Brantheld and the crags of eastern Numeria in the distant west from them. The further south one went the further the elevation declined except where geography shaped and twisted the rivers through the river kingdoms.

"Hey." Amiri was looking at the map, "Isn't that place you killed the manticore near here."

He blinked at the question, thinking of the Verdant chambers. "Its north of here, but yes," Probably not even ten miles, but further up the hills through a winding pass." It had occured to him it too had been probably elven ruins, though at the time he hadn't given the small outpost much consideration, and really hadn't given much consideration of it since. "Its not much different in size here." He'd assumed given the remains it had at one point been some kind of fortified temple or monastery. It had had small squat walls, but lacked towers, and didn't seem to be a fortified residence. The entryway into the main structure hadn't matched what he'd seen in the abandoned tomb. "Even here is considered the northern greenbelt," If it was elven then at one point before the starfall there had probably been some kind of larger elven community in the region, but they'd seen scant evidence of that nearer to the tuskwater. So far it had been Taldan, and then even older cyclops ruins. Thus far no evidence of the dwarf ruins that Harrim had expressed an interest in exploring either... but he suspected those were either further south or to the west.

Celadon, the drake, knew what a troll was, but had only ever encountered them as solitary threats that he could kill or drive off using his acid. Even tazlwyrms were probably dangerous to trolls for that feature, which probably explained why there weren't more trolls in the narlmarches before this point, but that he would admit was speculation.

Jaethal agreed. "If its been going on for months now something must have stirred it up."

He nodded, and Amiri made the astute observation that one of the trolls a chieftain had probably knocked enough heads together to be made king. Jaethal was a little contemptuous of this idea citing that trolls were generally too stupid to really organize for that and required too much food for a collection of tribes as such to organize without eating themselves out of an area.

Simply put that without an especially intelligent leader to organize the necessary food stuffs and and larder there would be no way to keep the trolls fed. This wasn't the same problem of tribal barbarians of human or even orcs where the bigger issue was rewards and gifts to secure loyalty but the more basic need of sustenance. "That's why they're raiding the losers to the west, and south, they need the cattle, and pigs," And eating Drelev's horses too, he considered added, but decided against it, "The trolls have an army they have to feed and they're taking it from the weaker neighbors."

He was mildly flattered that Amiri's explanation for why they thus far hadn't been attacked was that the trolls somehow knew better than to challenge shrikewall directly. He doubted that was the case. Geography was the more likely explanation. He doubted the trolls knew about the Drelev demesne at least as such either. Mivon they might know about but they hadn't actually attacked the southern swordlord settlement so much as attacked its shipping... which in itself seemed odd, but he supposed attacks of opportunity made as much sense as anything else.

He took out a few tokens.

"We need to secure from here to the long tail village." Which when one got right down to it wasn't that far , but there was a gap, where the bend of the murque was, once the detla of the murque was reached and it flowed into candlemere well Candlemere was right there... and it seemed unlikely that the trolls would manage an attack over the river. Any threat was probably going to be from the south, but as measure of completeness he gestured to the north, "Akiros, Kundal, and Gary along with the Erastilian church will sweep the west down to Tatzlford and meet Loy there." Loy was in the process of finishing a simple wooden stockade type fort that had already been underway as part of his charter. "Melianse, Tyg, and Perlivash will with Mouri's assistance continue to monitor the area around her," The Nixie's, "Grove." He moved interior towards the tuskwater, "Valerie and Garess are organizing the town militia to contact the old beldame, Tiressia and Falchos." The dryad and Satyr and the small fae population there, but that missive was particularly just an example of an abundance of caution. The reason he'd sent the young knight of the torrent with the fae was it placed them close enough to respond in any direction. North east to Tatzlford, or south east here, or due south to the long tail village.

That did leave one problem.

Shrikewall, and for that matter Oleg's town, were now by the standards of the Stolen lands before the stag lord's demise now relatively large. It was true Mivon and Pitax were larger population centers with about ten thousand each. Mivon being the slightly larger of the two, but they were really the only two proper 'cities' in this part of the River Kingdoms. The more common form of settlement were hamlets which mostly never reached the scope of proper villages. Even if they did most were simple isolated agrarian communities that may as well not even known about the stag lord or other problems more distant.

That didn't change the text of the charter which established Narhold's boundaries. It was hard to say exactly how far north the border with Mivon was. After all The sword lord's respite was was north of the confluence of the East Sellon and so called Mivon Sellen River, the latter flowing down through kamelands from the Tors of Levenies. Regardless of where the 'real' border was there was a good chance somewhere in that southernmost forest zone he had trolls on his side of the border.

Jaethal looked at the map, and the polished stones he'd placed on them. "If the trolls are really attacking the southern Slough all the way to Lake Hooktongue itself, then it makes no sense why we haven't seen them to our west. The hills shouldn't create that much of an impediment to them after the first major rise,"

And if they were able to hit targets a hundred miles distant from one another with supposedly forces 'hundreds' of trolls strong, they should have had more sign. It was probable, from what he remembered, that yes this was Hargulka, and that Hannis Drelev must have been having some trouble... but he had to wonder if Drelev wasn't exaggerating the troll problem to explain other problems... bandit troubles? Restov had stated Mivon's shipping had been attacked coming up the east sellen by trolls near the border between Drelev's barony and the Mivonese as it entered the slough... that certainly suggested Drelev couldn't have been overplaying the troll threat that much.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Erastus 4711
There were far fewer holidays in Erastil's month than he would have thought there to be. They'd missed Archer's day in the travel times... but the truth was it hadn't precisely been a priority. The full moon was at the end of the week, veritably right around the corner, and there had been thus far no sign of trolls in the dire narlmarches thus far.

The only beast of note had been a hodag, whose lair Amiri had found because Celadon had smelled the giant spiny lizard's recent prey of several bandits, specifically the stink of their rotting corpsese. Killing the beast had at least given them something to do, but still no sign of trolls.

The plan sat to return to Shrikewall ahead of the first, which of course was Ascendance day... though he supposed the simple wooden nave would suffice to commemorate the Inheirotr's Ascendance if a challenge presented itself... but thus far there had been no signs of trolls. The bandits the hodags killed had probably not been the only ones of their ilk and that would need to be dealt with as well.

They didn't have the numbers to run patrols, even without needing to watch for a trollish threat. In the River Kingdoms as a whole the nearest thing to a large troll kingdom was in the west in the Loric Fells... that was too far away. There was no direct route either. "Only Jamandi will be able to provide more answers," And that would mean waiting for Kassil Aldori to return at the start of the coming month, which did them no good right now.

"When we return I think we will need to reorganize." Hereford would require more settlers, and more than horses and plows. They had cleared almost a dozen acres of land around the abandoned keep, but it wasn't enough, and they'd need steel plows to break the soil, and clear roots, and prepare to plant.

... that was banking on getting anything down at all. With more settlers from the inner sea that might be possible before Rova ended, if only just. He wasn't going to leave the elf in charge, his only focus was attempt to restore the keep to spec, which was not feasible without more stone, and significantly more refined wood finishing.

As for the martial aspect Regongar might have been willing to fight trolls but the half orc but had always relied on his blue dragon's heritage to generate lightning where as he'd need to generate fire to fight the trolls. Honestly getting him a flaming or other enchanted scimitar would probably be the easier option. Certainly getting Regongar to take a new sword would have been easier than convincing Amiri, who absolutely wouldn't hear of the idea.

The Murque's length was a problem. Large swathes of it were shallow, and brown to marshes developing which marked where the spring thaws flowed down burgeoning the normally place river full of silt and fast moving sluice until it reached the delta with much of that energy spent. "We could build a watch tower."

"The hill is on the wrong side of the river." A little less than half way to the Long Tail Village the hills rose abruptly in what he was pretty certain was a limestone carst forcing the river to turn north before coming back south and then continuing on to finally join Candlemere lake. The natural promontory of that hill would have been a good place to build. "Also it has far fewer trees than anywhere else." Because of course it id. The hill, for reasons of geography had far fewer trees than the rest. That meant they'd be probably hauling up building material up the hill to build anything. That wasn't ideal given their existing situation.... it was downright impractical with summer waning, "Now here, and and the Long tails will need to patrol their respective parts of the area, and we'll have to find some way to bolster them to meet in the middle.

Jaethal then dealt with the other ticking clock. "What about when winter comes?"

The longtails didn't hibernate but they did markedly slow down their activity in the colder months of the year. Candlemere didn't freeze, but the swamp wasn't exactly great in winter, but up here they would definitely have snow, and probably more than a foot of it if he were to guess... which was another problem.

... and if the trolls were really pillaging for food stuffs because they didn't have the ability to support themselves by civilized means... that meant raids might get worse over winter rather than them not campaigning during those months, which presented them yet another problem form the feudal perspective.

... and one he didn't have a good answer to.
--
He walked through the cleared space. Eire had grown accustomed to the facets of medieval building with posts dug into the grounds on the outskirts of the footprint of the building, and string stretched around the outside, and across the interior to help survey and measure. Each building followed the same general pattern. The long houses were just glorified log bunk houses stretched out, sod floors, and only limited ventilation and not the best heating. For summer that was fine, for winter, they'd have to find out, but they might be able to put better floors in before the cold really set in. They were building for expediency though at the moment.

Each house thrown up was one that could shelter from the elements and house workers to expand the inside of the broad palisade. What they really needed was a good forge, and a smithy to start turning out nails and other iron mongery. They needed iron for that, and they didn't have a good source to mine yet, so that was another thing in the very very long list of things a feudal overlord needed for his kingdom to run.

The main focus was now moving large stones out of the way, and using a fire hardened tree trunk as a roller to pave a pathway down to the muck where the large flat barges sat moored at the posts that had been driven early in the spring by Jaethal's original work parties.

Linzi was even now busily brainstorming words to describe the work ongoing. Amiri grunted every so often, but seemed to be approaching the end of her patience with the discussion of verbiage. "I can't believe we didn't get to fight any trolls." She grunted. "I thought they'd show up eventually."

"Just because we have yet to seem them doesn't mean they're not out there." What really needed to do was to organize more riders to try and search out any of the crofts that didn't yet know about the alleged threat. Hamlets, and smaller settlements were the most vulnerable to even a few trolls , even if there really wasn't an army of marauding monsters a few trolls attacking would be enough to destroy any farm busy ploughing or gathering their summer harvest. "I admit..." He paused, looking at the northern barbarian "I don't know enough about the ecology of trolls."

She mouthed foreign word back to him.

"Beyond the usual, solitary, fire and acid work." But really not much more. Even if this had been faerun, Eire wasn't sure if he'd have been able to give much more than that... well besides that there were other sub types. The prospect of a troll army, regardless of what he knew about Harrgulka... and he considered that as possible still... he still wasn't sure what he needed to do about that. The process of exploration took longer and require more manpower than he was expecting, and they had yet to turn up any dwarven fortifications which complicated his initial, original plans to concentrate resources in that direction.

Amiri kicked an errant rock towards the banks of the murque's meandering course, "So what then?'

"We see what Jamandi can tell us," Whatever Kassil Aldori could tell them on his adopted mother's behalf. "Maybe that will give us some insight." There was nothing but woods for miles north, and west of the skunk river until one reached the statue of Erastil, "I see no other recourse but to secure our northern and western frontier, and that means sending Gary to show us the path he fled up here when he left his tribe." If the frog riding boggard could get up the hills then Jaethal was right there was almost certainly a path trolls could manage. There was also the issue of where exactly the legal border was between the slough and the narlmarches.

She grumbled somewhat at the rearing again of 'lines on a map'.

"Trolls won't care about the line," And neither were bandits, "But Drelev is likely to use any excuse he can," He just struck Eire as that sort of person. Paranoia aside, "Besides Gary's path down," Into the slough, "I want to know where the waters that flow into Lake HookTongue begin.
--

 

[Imperator Pax]

Arodus 4711
Eire leaned over the basin and washed his hands. Taldan, and Absalom had been founded by the Last Azlanti, Aroden. The sobriquet marking him as the heir to the first human empire to emerge in ancient history before the star fall. He had recovered the starstone and that had allowed him to ascend to divinity. His rule had allowed Taldan to prosper and stretch across Avistan.

Aroden had been the god of humanity, of innovation, history and culture. In the fifth millennium of the absalom reckoning with Aroden increasingly distant from affairs on Golarion Cheliax had torn itself away from a weakning Taldor.

And just over a century of before the present day the Last Azlanti had perished under mysterious circumstances that no one could explain. Thus marking the age of lost omens. Despite the thousands of years the church had existed, and uncounted martyrs and saints only Iomedae stood out among those retinue, only she could fill the void.

She alone stood to inherit the mantle left by Aroden's passing.

Shrikewall's cathedral thus blended the dome and columns, and eventually stained glass, of the old faith but taking the broadly cruciform shape rather than the more typical basilica of the ancient azlanti architecture of Aroden's early church. Today signaled, recalled the day Iomedae had succeeded Arazni as herald of the last azlanti. It recalled a time before, when she had been 'just' a fledgling goddess. Two weeks from tomorrow, would mark another holiday originally of the Aroden church. Armasse.

... and so he moved to his prepared notes at the lectern addressed the gathered clerics, acolytes and other members of the Inheritor's faithful to outline what would take place on the sixteenth. In that past epoch of human history, before the age of lost omens, it would have been to gather the whole able bodied community, he meant to head off any of the partying and week long festivities it had become across the inner sea. Not the least of which was that as the ruling authority he had to contend with how the trolls might indirectly effect living in his realm besides just the martial aspect of any fighting.
--
The baron was meditating, quiet reflection after the gathering of his co religionists. That left Valerie with the prospect of having to mind an incorrigible dragon, in human form, to contend with. Shaoyu was excited at the prospect of Armasse being used to prepare the community for battle against the trolls.... which did at least explain what it had been the.... what the meeting had been held to address.


It wasn't that she didn't understand the young dragon's exuberance as she bounded from end to end of the table. The prospect of something more than the usual disputes over grazing rights, the prospects of flocks, forestry and other mundane concerns was at least something of a welcome change.

... or It would have been if the chamber to which the council met in was not full of clamoring for the inevitable conflict. Valiere crossed her arms over her breastplate, "We wait for Kassil Aldori to return." The half orc wasn't back yet. He had left Oleg's that morning, which was a delay that they hadn't expected, and the magical call of sending hadn't included any details.

They were going to have to wait for Kassil Aldori, whether or not Amiri liked it or not. Whether or not the baron's exuberant ward wanted to wait for him or not. Regongar grumbled along with them, adding another voice of discontent and impatience to the throng.

She remained firm, "We need to know hat is happening with our neighbors. It is entirely possible that the trolls have not crossed into our own lands." and if that were the case that meant they had time... but it also meant that they were going to have other problems. Including dealing with bandits displaced by things. Neither were conventional military threats, and the young barony had only a limited number of town guards under Garess to call upon, and few proper warriors. Its real fighting power was concentrated in the council membership, and other friends at court.

More than that, even if they could arm the farmers, that was likely to be useful against an attack by monsters than it was bandits, and peasant conscripts were far from ideal in stymieing that... as shown by the inability of the local Erastil worshipping river folk to deal with the Stag Lord. Of course the clergy of Ersastil, not just Jhod, were promising that they'd help, but Valerie was skeptical of this. Tristan espoused that they should be grateful for their good fortune but didn't let that stop him from suggesting they remain vigilant.

As if that didn't go without saying, but... "We need to consider supplying arms to at least some of the peasants."

Amiri scoffed, "In my village every man was a warrior."

Kundal nodded besides Akiros, "It is so."

Valerie wanted to question that response to ask why the both of them were here then, but bit the comment back. Akiros nodded, "What about the volunteers?" the ex paladin of Erastil asked, "I heard the baron had gathered some."

"Fifty brave souls." Linzi declared waving her quill.

"They owned swords already." Valerie replied, "I was speaking more of light infantry, spearmen, watchmen to reinforce the walls." Linzi made a small noise of inspiration as she took notes, and Akiros held off from any further questions, and she continued on. "Besides the volunteers are with Jaethal," She was the only one not present really but the undead elf inquisitor was confident she could deal with a few trolls if it came to that, but really she'd stayed behind because they hadn't seen any yet.

An hour later Valerie braved the sweltering heat with Shaoyu in tow... the young dragon didn't even seem to notice the great flaming braziers of course. The baron was a tall man, his red hair loose and unbound, and the silk coat hanging open a long sword nearby. He wasn't even sweating in the heat, but she supposed if he couldn't be burned heat wasn't going to do much.

There were similarities between the baron and Tristian beyond simply the overlap in their respective goddesses' domains. They were both from faraway lands, and frankly though both said they were human she suspected perhaps that like Arsinoe, the priestess of Abadar, who admittedly even somewhat resembled the both of them they were closer to being Aasimar. Not that it mattered, people often flattered her own beauty as bordering the divine.

It was possibly the explanation, but even if that were the case it didn't matter. The baron was as barons, monarchs should be, regal, and wise, and most importantly worthy of their position and status.

Eyes of quicksilver rose to look at them as they entered the chamber, and the book closed. He extended a long arm, and long fingers and gave a paternal head pat to the dragon. "Patience pays dividends," He counseled the young red dragon in human form. She wondered if he had been supernaturally aware of the council meeting , or if he just surmised the matter. "Anything?"

"Kassil still hasn't arrived, probably not until the morning." A nod, "There have been no riders to warn of troll sightings," He nodded again, "To the best of our our knowledge the bandits that the hodag ambushed fled eastward, but we're unsure where they might have gone, and there has been no sign."


"Then as the only confirmed threat to the peace we should focus on finding them, you think they came from the Slough?"

"From that direction at least, probably pushed out by House Drelev's knights, merely misfortunate enough to stumble upon such a rare beast in the woods."

"It is so," He agreed. "Mik mik and the other kobolds are still here?"

"Yes," She replied. They weren't growing on her, but she supposed they were at least somewhat civilized.

"Alchemists fire is going to be our primary recourse I expect."

Valerie nodded, "Of course your grace," She replied perfunctorily.

The young barony had not had the time to even consider putting together a military force, or compiling a rolls given its age. She had no answer to how many hands they could possible provide arms for for Shrikewall, never mind Olegton. "Oleg' town should be fine, given its location, at least for the time being." Loy Rezbin's settlement of Tatzlford though was small, and they would need to see about it." He paused drumming his fingers, "if we can confirm the trolls have crossed our borders then we're probably going to be in the unenviable position of needing to uproot any and all crofts, and thorpes that exist... and that will be contentious. Is Jhod here?"

"No your grace, he should be at the Temple of the Elk." She replied dutifully.

"No sense summoning him until we're sure we'll need Erastil's church for that." He muttered more to himself, "We will wait to hear what Kassil Aldori knows. "Because they really didn't have much choice. Thus the next stage of monarch of regent was the contingency to what was to be done if indeed they confirmed the threat of trolls... and that would be attempting to convince the native riverfolk to uproot themselves and move somewhere safer that could be protected... and the best solution to that would be probably Olegton given its more northern location, but there were problems for that. Displacing the peasants from their ancestral homes would be as unpopular to say the least.
--
Valerie knew better than to meet the barbarian in the clench. Amiri's strength bordered on the supernatural , and weapon to weapon she knew it was a losing battle. Her shield was necessary to deflect the giant piece of metal the kellid warrior woman called a sword.

The prospect of fighting trolls had reinvigorated Amiri.

Even if they had yet to see any.

"It'll be fun."

Fun wasn't really the word Valerie considered when contending with the prospect of invading trolls, but Amiri wasn't alone in looking forward to the conflict, even Kesten Garess seemed excited at the prospect of a martial challenge. "We will need to do all we can to prepare the militia for battle." The baron had arrived with his ward, both having sheathed their longswords, and slung them over their padded tunics. A safety precaution that seemed farcical, but was being done more as an example to others.

"What about the mammoths?" Shaoyu asked causing Amiri to perk up.

"Its true that there are probably herds migrating to winter pastures, but even so I wouldn't count on that being a food source to be depended upon." Trolls were not exactly fast, on top of, "I doubt the trolls have any experience hunting mammoths migrating from the glennebon, or near lake Silverstep. I'm glad we were told the herds exist, and that they'd move into the southern grasslands, but they'd have to be ambushed in the slough for the trolls to catch them." He shook his head, "If they are raiding shipping into the slough they'll likely find that the shipping dries up, and stops coming up river," which meant whatever they were were stilling wouldn't be available to steal, and meant they'd probably have to move further to steal food or other goods, weapons? "They're already disrupting trade," Since Jamandi had actually complained. "I don't believe they can actually threaten our portion of the Shrike, but we should still be prepared to reinforce Candlemere."
--
Notes: Mammoths (among other 'prehistoric creatures') are common on Golarion, and particularly exist in the River Kingdoms ranging from dinosaurs to Mammoths and appear to be found in Casmarron as well, and as fauna will be showing up every now and again, with Amiri wanting to organize a mammoth hunt later, and of course sab toothed cats, and other large fauna appearing as well.

... because Golarion is kitchen sink.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Arodus​

Eire stretched and swung his legs off the bed. The first rays of dawn's light already beginning to enter through the window, and with it the start of his day. That meant getting up, pulling on a clean change of clothes, a mix of locally made attire, and clothes he had brought with him from another world, and then washing his hands and face before heading out to the business of state.

He wasn't sure how other noble estates worked, how other barons conducted themselves, but he supposed he was something of a morning person, and that he'd been informed last night after dinner of new petitioners via the cathedral's charge d'affairs. That side stepped two different offices [Harrim as High Priest, or Valerie as Chancellor] of baronial governance... which was why at the late call it involved the Church itself.

Armasse had originally been a holiday of the church of Aroden so it made sense that in hindsight the church of Milani would celebrate it as well.... even though he had basically forgotten she even existed. He had not plans to admit that to the members of her clergy of course, minor goddess yes, but she had been a saint in Aroden's church, and truth be told there were a lot of minor divinities. The reality was, particularly with religious tolerance enshrined by law he was going to have lots of minor faiths he hadn't thought about to contend with.

Apparently trouble with trolls, coupled with an announcement of Armasse had been enough to get the Everbloom's clergy to make themselves known at court. It was actually Eire would admit somewhat embarrassing that he hadn't remembered them.

"And?" He asked.

"They're from elswewhere in the river kingdoms." Valerie replied looking somewhat annoyed at the abrupt change in courtly itinerary, "Apparently their assistance wasn't welcomed in Fort Drelev, and decided to come here after hearing of the cathedral to Iomedae. That was how they came to us."

He nodded. That made sense. "Of course." Parts of Cheliax also had churches of Milani and it was possible that they were likely to attract more from there or Galt depending on how things went. Eire supposed it was better that she'd told him before he had embarrassed himself in public with the reminder that Aroden's church did have other splinter successors.... but since Iomedae, and Aroden before her, had had only a limited presence as a result of the Mendev crusades he had not expected anyone. That had been his mistake. "I'll speak with them once we have a better picture of the matter, where is Kassil?"

"Waiting in the council chambers." She replied.

"Good, we will find out from him first, and then the Milanites can be brought in."

It was a short walk, and Kassil Aldori didn't really look any worse from the wear of the ride from the north. "I trust you have something more effacious from your mother than her first messenger." He declared taking his place at the center seat. Unlike Jamandi's 'mansion' there was no raised platform in the hall for the table, it simply wasn't the sort of priority for architectural design at this stage in the barony that adding platforms was necessary, especially as they needed to rearrange the tables, and furniture with some frequency to contend with the combination of town administration, and other affairs.

"He means useful." Jaethal declared making her presence known. She looked unbothered by the early morning hour, which was more than one could say for the living members.

"Tch." Amiri snorted.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing." The Kellid replied

Eyes in the room returned to the half orc. "The sword lords of Restov think part of the problem of communication could be remedied with road construction." He started with. "We are going to continue to have a problem communicating facts if this continues."

He took the statement, and the written portion of it in the missive in stride as he browsed the letter that the half orc handed him as everyone sat down. "A road, yes, I will take that under advisement." Not that they hadn't already considered that but Jamandi probably didn't know that.... it was true a link to the south rostlandic road would probably help, "In the mean time, Akiros will provide a ferry to run messages down the Thorn hence forth at least until we can finish a road."

"Right," the former paladin declared agreeing. "I'll get on that."

"Thank you." He replied, "Moving on, that provide lines of communication. Now. As for actual details?"

"Yeah we haven't seen any damn trolls!" Their kellid barbarian snapped banging her hands on the table. Amiri was not a morning person. "We barely see any bandits." Her attitude implying that might actually be a bad thing.

"Lord Hannis insists he had been attacked by many trolls." Kassil replied. "He says they're coming from the south narlmarches."

He hoped this wasn't going to turn into a matter of having to send Kassil back and forth between Shrikewall and Restov. That was impossible, but maybe that was what Jamandi expected to be necessary given the apparent decision with the abysmal condition of the infrastructure... as if he didn't already know that. The thorn river ride down to the shrike and to the tuskwater was at best a temporary solution, they couldn't rely on that, but it would work for the summer months. "That is little different than what we were told last month," He replied, "I cannot presume to know everything, but thus far I have seen no instance of trolls."

Kanerah, her red eyes flitting only briefly to the half orc, nodded, "I have spoken with some of the mivonese and they have heard rumors of trouble up the east sellen but they haven' specifically said trolls. It seems to me that the western baron has run into a problem that he cannot handle on his own." There was a barb there.

Eire held a hand to stymie a further, "Jamandi may take it as such that we will endeavor to establish better roads and lines of communication with our friends in restov, but we have thus far seen no sign of trolls. We will remain vigilant, and we will take precautions but thus far Kaessi," and he had nearly called Kanerah by her name, only barley catching himself, "is right. This, appears by all instances to be a problem that Lord Hannis has found himself in... and perhaps one unique to his realm."

They had stopped there for a short breakfast to be brought in, and then rejoined. The breakfast had be been public and had not been a working one... and of course part of it was to forestall any irritable statements made from hunger.

Saying it was Hannis Drelev's problem was all well and good, but that wasn't the end of it, and Eire had no intention of pretending it would be, but he was glad to know traffic coming up the Shrike River wasn't experiencing problems which was the priority he had set the twins towards. "I am merely saying we've seen no evidence of hundreds of trolls that Drelev's people claim." He replied, and that in itself was another problem.

That was why he found himself pacing the room. A part of him wanted to declare a state of emergency but there was no apparatus by which to express such a condition. It was true that they had in a sense a promulgated law, but in a feudal society never mind one ... in their present early years he didn't need a legal justification to do something... or he didn't need to explain why he was doing it in a legalistic format. He was overthinking things. He didn't need a legal justification to do something, he just needed to declare that there was a threat.

"We will collaborate with the church of Erastil and hopefully find all the hamlets that might be threatened and see if we can convince them to see reason." Tristian promised him.

That did little to stop Eire's padding across the hardwood floors. He nodded, "Jaethal?"

"Its not the worst idea, if anything it might impose a little more order on things being able to settle the lands, rather than the back woods."

He wished she hadn't said that, the truth was the river folk were unlike to take well to that kind of high minded attitude regardless of how much Jaethal was right about the benefits... and of course it late in the year. "We need to know where they are, but our first priority needs to be Armasse, and a body of prepared citizens." Even though he was willing to admit that since most of those would be migrants from the Inner Sea there was a good chance that there would be other matters. "I will speak with Milani's clergy once we finish." He informed the others, reiterating what he had told Valerie earlier. In real terms he wasn't sure what that would yield, almost certainly Milani's church would be looking to win converts but Eire wasn't sure he opposed the peasants learning how to fight .... especially with the consideration of troll attacks being a foreseeable challenge in the near future. "However I will need more information, actual details about Drelev's problems before I can be expected to do something."

The council was settled on doing something, but there was nothing obviously going to settle the problem of the trolls when thus far the trolls hadn't made an appearance before them. The introduction to Milani's clergy, and their recounting of their own contact with Baron Hannis Drelev to the west underscored another part of the problem.

There could be little doubt that Hannis's parents, Lord and Lady Drelev of the Drelev barony of Brevoy had educated their son. Hannis was a competent enough duelist that he hadn't gotten his ass kicked in Restov for acting snooty to the wrong person. It was clear that he knew enough about fighting, political management, and the way of an estate to make money. He wanted to have a noble domain, and Hooktongue Slough and the East Sellen river flowing up to Lake Reykal, meant the opportunity to charge tolls. Drelev had wanted to secure his access and his moneyed rents, and drive off any bandits.

He had no interest in peasants knowing how to fight. For better or worse Hannis Drelev was no efete noble without any talents. To compound that he certainly the sort to want any new faiths running around that might undermine his rule by teaching the peasants how to fight.
--
Mikmik gleefully hopped from one foot to another. The kobold liked being involved, and he gleefully scribbled away notes in draconic to record everything that was said in the meetings, including perhaps less desirably all the side bars and arguments. Mikmik was a stenographer of great ability in that regard.

"There is an option." Tristian suggested, "The Old beldame's village."

He paused to consider it, and the map in front of him. The decrepit remains of the village were close by, just a few miles south west of Shrikewall over where the Skunk river opened up to flow into the Tuskwater. It was doubtful that a relocation there could be easily attacked. It was certainly better than the Kamelands as those hills opened up on the other side of the tuskwater. The eastern frontier was something they'd have to put aside for the time being, and he needed to call back the sweet teeth from their ranging. If there was troll fighting to be done then having everyone on hand and aware... and he wasn't even sure they'd been told yet about the threat.

He nodded. "Kaessi, I need you to recall the sweet teeth, and have them introduced to Tiressia, as well as the Old beldame." Tristian's idea had merits, but had the potential for complications as awell. They'd had discussed rebuilding the village, and repopulating it, but it had not been an immediate priority, and dealing with the scythe tree had been a happenstance not a planned facet of the expedition those several months ago. "Doubtless any significant relocation will be temporary," Thankfully they had the Rostlandic plains and their farms to the north where they could simply procure food from Restov's markets because the hamlets in the south, and particularly the south west directly bordering the slough as a region were probably going to have problems with either this harvest or in the face of the peasants unable to sow and prepare the winter crops. That this was not a human threat but rather a monstrous humanoid incursion only made the potential damage a much greater trepidation, the trolls might very well eat any villagers... and that left them with the matter of organizing what would be needed for Armasse.

 

[Imperator Pax]

16 Arodus 4711
In Arodenite orthodoxy Armasse was intended to be a week long festival. It was intended to have a number of functions, a myriad of ones related to societal maintenance across social classes and occupations... that... regrettably that had largely fallen to the wayside in favor of a week of raucous partying in the Inner Sea where Aroden's faith had once been strong. For the church it was intended as a period to ordain apprentices into the rites, knights to choose squires, and to teach the history of warfare and train the peasants in the science of arms.

Such had been the crux of the baron's speech, and much of the morning had been dedicated to matters of practice with the sword that had included Shaoyu being tutored in the favored weapon of Iomedae's clergy alongside others in the community. A week was not ultimately likely to be enough, but Valerie suspected it would be enough time to identify the commoners most likely to be useful for additional training and prepared to supplement Garress's small contingent of guardsmen in the event of an attack on Shrikewall itself.

Valerie doubted such an attack was forthcoming, but it showed forethought especially given that the baronial estates had pulled in a miraculous harvest to stock the domain's granary. Of course, miraculous was probably inaccurate, Valerie doubted the gods had anything to do with it so much as the innovations and the horses that had worked the fields, but there was no shortage of praise.


Eire gestured to the Brevic map, and placed four of his polished stone tokens on it. One for Varnhold, one at Shrikewall, one on the western banks of Lake Hooktongue for Hannis Drelev's Fort Drelev. The fourth, and final one, Valerie noted was for the lost expedition in the highlands further west of the Drelev demesne.

"It occurs to me that Jamandi's ambition may have created the problem, leaving aside that one of the expeditions failed, and that it seems unlikely Maegar Varn has anything to do with our present troll troubles. The settling of Hooktongue slough as like has created we'll call them the ecological conditions of Drelev displacing denizens of the region that has either directly or indirectly stirred the trolls up. Indeed its entirely possible that we've contributed to this shift by creating another pressure in the east, and Mivon is to our south, driving something to provoke the trolls to unify, and thus creating a potential danger capable of contesting Drelev's control in the southern Slough."

Some discussion followed, and Harrim gave the beginning of one of his homilies about men making their own misfortunes before finally getting to his point, with a cough, "Drelev might well be inviting his own doom. If the trolls are in the south then he might be the closest to them. Their lair could be there."

"I had considered that," The Baron remarked, and he reached for the small felt bag he kept the polished stones in, and put another on the East Sellen river. The border between Mivon's claims and those of Drelev's charter. "It would explain the attacks in this region, and on shipping from there to the lake itself, but Drelev's reports specify trolls, and not I assume, though can't be sure that means normal trolls not aquatic scrag trolls. That is normally a distinction I think would warrant mentioning, if only 'blue trolls' as opposed to greenskins." he gave a shrug, "They would have to get through the slouth though and cross the siltstrand river to threaten Drelev's fortress according to Kassil." The comment caused the half orc to glance at the map and away from the rest of the council's looks.

The details about 'Fort Drelev' had probably been a detail he hadn't considered the impressions of sharing. Regongar, the other half orc, had vocally declared that he wouldn't piss on the neighboring baron if he was on fire. Which, vulgarity aside, was perhaps not the best statement to make for other reasons given his grace's penchant for fire... or his ward's. Not that Valerie expected a great deal of discretion from their emerging military elite, and with Kaessi arrival at court that was another fire thrower to contemplate as well.

Couple with his grace's clear antipathy to their neighbor, Regongar's sentiments might have been not so quietly agreed with.

"As much as I distrust Drelev, it seems he's telling the truth about his problems, and we will need to concentrate our efforts on securing the western narlmarches. That is our priority." The provision of security to Narhold's charter's own boundaries. "What we cannot allow it to do, is stop our own farming in the northern districts, and if Drelev's access to the Sellen had been interrupted then we cannot allow this to disrupt our own connection to the Inner sea, and the flow of goods and people."


And of course there lay the burden of being regent to the realm. Amiri, Regongar, even Kesten Garress among others were all likely to be arranged to take positions on the front line against any threat, where as given her position as the second in the council... she had the responsibility to the matters of the estates, and the arrival of new settlers. She would be here, addressing those matters, while the others fought the monsters.

--
Kanerah shuffled the papers. The collected reports that she had from the Sweet Teeth meant for her sister, their 'elder'. She had been exempted from the rolls of military service, and was grateful, even though the exemption was really more of a matter of contingency... that and her skills were better served here rather than lobbing fireballs at trolls...

... especially given the lack of their presence thus far. This was so much a better use of her time rather than stumbling through the unexplored back country.

The priest of Sarenrae had also been exempted. The eccliutheurge along with the old cleric of Erastil had been allotted to emergency medical responsibilities in the event something went wrong. The surly dwarf was sure that was going to happen, but had still volunteered to lead a party against the trolls if they came.

The blond threw a look from the table as the baron corrected his ward's posture and footwork. "You shouldn't rely on brute force. An adult troll will likely be as strong as you or I, edge alignment and crippling their regeration are what will win the day." They started the set again.

Kanerah was happy to be exempted from the prospect of the fights to come, but that didn't seem universal. Even the Sareanite who was happy to be responsible for healing lamented he wasn't to be in the front. She had no experience managing a village militia, and understood implicitly the best thing to be done was to focus on the matter of coin, and trade. Those differing responsibilities had divided the council into differing committees of responsibility.

All Qadiran citizens were supposed to serve two years in the military of the satrapy. It was not something she had brought up because it was too easy for denizens of the western most satrapy of the mighty kelishite empire to evade service through any of a litany of exemptions. For good reasons of course, the Jewel of the East needed to grant those dispensations because not only was the padishah less interested in war, than he was trade, but because that trade was the life blood of Qadira.

Kanerah had been occupied, her sister managing the Sweet Teeth as they prepared to see if the Sorrowflow would actually plan out, among other tasks, when Narhold's promulgated written laws were being drafted. It created a single body of text for laws, and standards, but it also created a basis of the tax code, and a recommendation of how tax money should be allocated.

While it was clear they had been written in Taldan, they didn't match what Kanerah understood of the Taldan or the Chelish legal codes, and of course it was impossible to miss that the legal codes were also being promulgated in Draconic. It was not unique to the Kobolds, there were a noticeable substrate of the Brevic settlers who all spoke draconic as well, and of course plenty of settlers drawn up the sellen from the Inner Sea spoke the language, but most of those were arcane dabblers.

"The problem with the tax code is it hasn't had time to go into effect." She stated softly drawing the lovely blonde's attention back to their own matter, "The fall harvest needs to be accounted for," among other things, and if they were going to have to put commoners under arms that was going to be a problem as well. They couldn't expect to harvest crops if they were having to stand guard somewhere. Kanerah recognized that it was financially viable to purchase grain from Restov's markets, but it was also a sure way to be taken advantage of, as it had been from Restov news of the present troubles had arrived.

"The harvest should already be underway." Valerie replied straining to ignore the dance of swords, "But that could last into Rova," and never mind actually processing of the crop. Tying and winnowing were nothing she could speak of, but they had to be done at the farms.

"Milling could be done here." The baron remarked turning away from the sparring clang of blunted longswords.

That was the sum of what they could do. They would transport who knew how many small folk's harvests from plots here to mill their produce, and leaving aside that the baron would prepared to allow the displaced farmers to use his mills at a discount, maybe even generously allow them to use it for free given the crisis that carrying trade would be a consuming haul.

That was also just the prospect of their crops, not their other possessions.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Arodus 4711
As far as a first crisis went Eire admitted it was the lack of having definitive answers that was the most annoying. It wasn't just the lack of being able to pinpoint Harrgulka, or he supposed Tartuk, either... it was the greater complexity of real life factors made everything harder. There was so much more as a medieval ruler that he had to deal with than just heroically questing.


Like winter. They should have been preparing for that, the stockpiling of crops not preparing the peasants to face monsters that might literally eat them.

On that, Valerie had volunteered to help train the peasants, in spite of her own personal religious beliefs... that was to say her own irreligiousity. Valerie's atheism didn't bother him, admittedly Eire found it strange, and more than a little odd to hold the positions she did... but they were her's.

If she had some kind of issue with Shelyn it would have made more sense to him to simply pay homage to another goddess or other deity... but her faith or lack there of, was a personal matter, and he had no interest in interfering in it. There was a reason, freedom of religion, that he had made Harrim the council's chaplain despite no one else venerating Groetus. It certainly wasn't that he agreed with groetus philosophical outlook towards the inevitability of entropy.

Armasse marked the halfway point through the month named for the dead god. Once it was over the next calendar holiday was the Sarenite celebration marking the end of summer... and of course thus Rova and the beginning of autumn. They had roughly five weeks until the fall equinox.

He was painfully cognizant of that time. Cognizant of his responsibilities, and and the real expanse of the charter. Given the scope of it, he wasn't surprised one of the expeditions had failed straight away. He still didn't know what had caused the iron wraith to disappear but it didn't' really matter he supposed. That they had was probably the more important detail, and ... and the likelihood that Maegar might possibly be next... assuming Drelev didn't end up a troll snack. He wondered if that wasn't what was fast approaching.

If that was what Drelev faced Eire accepted that Jamandi wasn't likely going to be happy, but the reality was there simply weren't the resources to do anything about that. He had too many other responsibilities to go rescue Drelev.

That might have been a reasonable expectation if they were both more developed domains in a more structured feudal order. Or if there was something more than Jamandi's ambition involved in sponsoring both baronies, but the cold hard logistics of it was Eire didn't see how he was supposed to mobilize the manpower to address this.

As something of a facet of this concern Amiri scoffed, "Most of these so called men can barely string a bow, they're not going to be any help at all." She shook her head hair swaying, and smacked Regongar on the shoulder, "Its going to have to be us that have to deal with this."

What Linzi recorded in her book as 'Valiantly Sally Forth'.

Even in purely conventional terms unprepared peasant militia weren't much good against bandits. "Well, that is the point of Armasse, I'll need to speak with Jhod," And the broader Erastilian clergy about encouraging archery. He doubted his having to miss the previous two archer feasts had anything to do with the realms' peasants not practicing for war, but Erastil's church might be able to encourage some extra practice among the doughtier types. "Amiri is right, even if we can put together a larger levy, it'll be to better protect the city while we sweep the countryside, or road wardens to lead groups through the woods to safety, not a standing fighting force, not against trolls in numbers."

Amiri nodded leaning against the post. The Kellid warrior woman full of anticipation, and excitement at the prospect of riding again... but also a pent up irritation given the failures to find the foe over previous rides. "They should at least be able to stand guard." which was probably the most charitable thing she'd managed thus far about the prospect of 'weak city people' being able to fight.

Eire had to wonder how much of that was compensation, or airs she put on to try and emphasize how separate and aloof she was from the Taldan village folk, how much of it was Amiri trying to remain distinctly Kellid, and from the lands of mammoths from the north west. ... and there was going to be mega fauna to contend with too.
--
Another two nights and then the half moon, Eire took a bite of the meal of the fish He had noticed the abundance of, or at least that they were common enough not to attract second looks, of what he considered new world crops tomatoes, zucchini, fagoli the list went beyond just potatoes. The issue was that they were largely ignored due to the productivity of the rostlandic plain. The traditional farmers knew what worked and continued to rely on long fields plowed by oxen.

"Its a start, your grace." The Cleric of Iomeade bowed to the high table, and ceded his place to a cleric of Milani... who contended... in somewhat less judgmental terms that Amiri was right. Most of the common folk had never been called to martial service. Only a few persons who had been displaced here from afar knew how to drill. There were a handful of hunters who could use a bow, but few had any but the simplest weapons, and not enough arrows to fight a battle. In short they were not ready... and they weren't likely to be ready any time soon. The best they could do was knock together simple spears, and make more arrows, and hope.

Armasse had in Aroden's time been an institutional cog for lack of a better description. It had not been intended to start from scratch and built itself off of Taldor's storied traditions of martial figure... and had become a more raucous celebration, on the modern day, because of Taldor's pursuit of leisure. The pursuits had started long before Aroden's death, and the decline of the empire had begun before as well.

A week was just not enough time... and they would need to invest more time, and also investing time in this short term ... unproductivity was cutting down on the time they invested in managing the economic apparatus of the domain. Bakeries needed to be built, and drying sheds stocked with wood, and so forth for the coming winter. There needed to be more mills, especially if they had to manage significantly more crops from peasants hauling it in from the countryside... if it came to that. They needed mills and yards to treat lumber as well for future building projects as well.

The vagaries of geologic fate had made the curve in the murque river a problem... and that created an issue with defensive frontage. "We will consider these things," He declared. "The barony's western frontier will need to be patrolled to see if we can find sign of the trolls coming in from those foothills, but if there are trolls operating on Mivon's frontier we must look to see if they cannot be located." It was the official party line so to speak, a rehash of things that he'd already basically stated

... but in terms of any political responsibility not just the matter of feudal ones that was what most of the policy was, you tried to keep on message and moving towards a goal. It was just the goal was a bit more complicated than the 'don't get eaten by trolls', and 'don't let trolls eat the peasants'.

The last of the entertaining reports, and petitions finished along with dinner they moved back into the council chambers which unlike last year's meetings involved its own rooms instead of just pulling a shade across to create a temporary division.

The red eyed tiefling signaled she had something that hadn't warranted public mention. "I've spoken with some of the merchants, whatever the situation was with regards to the east sellen... it has deteriorated that merchants from Mivon are no longer comfortable going up the east Sellen, either to lake hooktongue or to brevoy beyond."

He looked to Valerie and Kanerah. "Candlemere needs to be expanded, and we need a team to explore down the shrike." He thought about Jamandi's complaints about the road system. If ... as he suspected Drelev had been settled on Hooktongue for its trade value... if the east sellen was closed then there was no trade flowing up it to Reykal and that meant no trade flowing east to Restov along the Rostlandic road. Two sets of falls prevented anyone from taking the shrike all the way up to restov from their side. "Our priority needs to be insuring our own trade and flow of goods is not interfered with."

"I know you wished to send the sweet teeth but perhaps I could borrow the little devils to investigate down river." She suggested.

He waved in acknowledgement, "That would perhaps be best." They didn't have the resources to spare, and going down the river, and back up was easy with as frequently as travel had been managing. He was dimly aware that given the relocation and having to then go over land up to the Rostlandic road... there were probably going to be an influx of new passers through.

It was only the beginning of troubles for the barony found on the shores of Lake Hooktongue. It had been Jamandi Aldori's intention to install the Drelev scion to what should prove a prosperous and thus easy to manage trade community. Hannis Drelev was the scion of an established baronial house and thus a potentially vital link in throwing off Issian oppression and declaring an independent Rostland, but of course Jamandi and her coteries ambitions had overlooked politics beyond Brevoy.

Hannis Drelev had been able to prove himself capable of dispersing the small kellid tribes 'squating' in his new domain's northern frontier, and he'd been quick to pursue other bandits. The monstrous threat caught him off guard, but that point he'd already attracted the attention of another political threat as well. The 'Kingdom of Pitax' to the west of his chartered lands.... and the growing barbarian presence that Drelev had managed to disperse originally had only been a small tithe of what was brewing.

But of course there was also the fact that the Issian rulers, the House of Suratov had noticed the baronies that had appeared to succeed where earlier expeditions had failed. The disruption of trade to Lake Reykal was enough to alarm House Suratov, and set into motion other factors.
--
Notes: Despite the ending of this segment's tone this is not actually the end of the year's events in story material, but it is needed foreshadowing for stuff that happens off screen to the west beyond Shrikewall's borders.


Tomorrow, I will be putting up a new LitRPG story that I started writing, friday, on a challenge we will see how that goes, but its slated to be a hundred thousand words.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Arodus 4711
He ground his teeth as they bounced along the narrow dirt trail. Regongar hated patrolling. He had come to despise it. It had been fun at first. Exploring a new area, delving into the unknown woods... now though nothing. It was the nothing turning up that aggravated him to no end... because somewhere out there there were trolls to fight, but they sure as fuck weren't here.

"Reg," Octavia complained, "You're spooking your horse, you have to ease up."

The half orc grumbled and tried to 'ease up'. The attempt didn't last long they were riding through the places they were always riding through, and nothing ever happened.

Except when it finally did. Regongar probably wouldn't have even noticed the stupid horse noises, he certainly didn't at first. Horses were stupid panicky animals after all... and given where they were Regongar would have been just as happy if it was those idiots who hadn't wanted to move. The villagers had said they didn't recognize the baron's authority, and hadn't paid any mind to the stag lord either so why wouldn't they be just fine against the supposed troll problem, which the local bard had stated couldn't possibly be real because 'no one' in the community had ever seen a troll before so the threat was probably just made up.

So they rode for the noise, and made for the river crossing to the south. In truth Regongar could have cared less about helping some stuck up pipsqueak gnome. The gnome seemed like a nuisance, and helping him fish the cart and the damned horses out of the river, but that was a lot easier with summoned help.

Regongar wasn't sure if Tieflings were empathic or something but Kaessi's eyes tended to shift with her mood or something like that. The blue eyed tiefling was now presently waving to the water elementals who had helped raise the cart back on to the bank.

The filthy mud splattered gnome might as well have been trying to look down his nose at them. Then after a moment he swept his hat off, "Jubilost Narthropple, at your graces service." He said, with a slight bow. The gnome surveyed them a little closer now, "Your help with these kobolds and my almost-drowned cart was timely indeed."

The baron waved, "You may thank Octavia for her word of sending to call us, or we might not have heard the commotion." He replied.

Regongar bristled against gripping his scimitar's, sheathed, hilt at being called a servant by the pipsqueak, but Octavia beat him to it glowering at the gnome. "Sounds like your servants are nothing but tools to you. Truly, with masters like that being a servant is not much of an improvement over being a slave!"

"What's this then?" The little bastard looked Octavia up and down, snorting and, rolling his eyes. "Run along, little girl, the grown-ups are talking."

Octavia placed her hands on her hips and loomed over the mouthy midget. "So you're not only arrogant, but a boorish swine as well. Why am I not surprised at all?"

The gnome cleared his throat and didn't respond, "Also, while I'm on that, I'd like make an official pronouncement: the roads in your barony are in terrible condition. People must search for wading fords to cross the rivers because no one has bothered themselves with building bridges, and honest travelers have to take the risk of being attacked by kobolds at any moment."

"I have been informed," Eire had rested a hand on the dragon in human form stilling his ward, "Admittedly it was something of a distant priority before my neighbor to the west decided to go stirring up trouble in the south." He replied with a shrug, "road building is now something of a more pressing concern."
--
Eire grimaced as he looked at the map. Jubilost's comment on the roads... or lack there of had been annoying, but it was just reiterating what Jamandi had said. It hadn't helped that they'd found him just on the south side of the skunk river., but even if he'd been on the murque the point still would have had a point.

They needed to focus on a north south linkage from Shrikewall to Olegton, and it made more sense to run it through to access Old Scyamore, especially if they were going to engage in trade with the sootscales for alchemic goods. Goods they were going to potentially need for fighting the trolls.

"You may assure your mother we will take all respectable measures to begin the process of connecting Olegton and a general line of communications in hte face of this trollish threat," He supposed he was technically repeating himself... they had still yet to actually clash with the trolls, but reiterating to Jamandi regarding the roads seemed prudent at this course. They needed to find the trolls, "As for the Kobolds who accosted Jubilost, that will require investigation as well."

Mikmek and his fellow sootscales all shifted somewhat.

The fact that Juiblost's encountered had happened so close to the capital was a concern. At the crossing of the Skunk river was an issue. That needed to be investigated immediately, since that was for all intents and purposes right in their back yard. A mere couple of miles outside of the dale. He thought of the ruined village, left abandoned after its nymph queen had under gone the monstrous transformation to scythe tree. They needed to send word to Tiressia and the fae, and the old Beldame as well in order to keep them apprised, but so far this month's progress wasn't much in excess of lasts.

One more feudal obligation to see to though. One more aspect of being king, and building a kingdom.

He glanced to the scratching of quills to where there were both Linzi and Jubilost were both hastily taking notes of the meeting... it was a surprise the kobolds didn't seem to be... but at least there were only two of them right now. He returned his focus to the map. Besides the road, Arodus was on its wane, the month of the dead god was nearly over, and winter would be approaching soon. Autumn was due to begin with Rova, the following month. They needed to bring the harvest in as quickly as possible, and stockpile it safely.

They needed to secure the surrounding area. That meant dividing labor between his companions, and the court to secure the borderland and insure the peasants could carry out their own labor.

Speaking of companions it seemed as if Jubilost didn't uniquely rub Octavia the wrong way. The gnome had managed to run afoul of Valerie as well it had seemed... how he'd found the time Eire didn't know but it had happened. Linzi at least seemed impressed by Jubilost's publishing history... something about eulogies to Pitax or such. ... and of course with regards to his seneschal he turned, "I will need either you, or possibly Garess to ride for the village ruins south of the river," The Skunk, "I want a wood stockade, or Palisade, and guard posts established there to protect the boats." There wasn't a settlement there, but having boats to carry word back and forth would useful and faster than overland travel even once they built a road... but south of the Skunk wasn't going to be a priority.

"Of course your grace." she paused, "And what will you require the other to do. You mean to approach the kobolds unless I am mistaken?"

"I do, but they're not an immediate priority in comparison to ranging to try and locate any settlements who aren't yet aware of the troll threat."

"Regongar said that some of the villages are dismissive of the threat."

"We haven't seen the trolls in person either," Which very well could have been a good thing, if they were only plundering Drelev's land... then, no he needed to be proactive. "We need to ascertain them, and perhaps that is best left to Garess while you treat with Tiressia. The nymph should be aware of what we're doing, and why, and that rebuilding the settlement in the face of the troll threat."

"If Lord Drelev has not exaggerated the monsters strength, mere woods alone is unlikely to be an effective deterrent against them." Valerie remarked

He was aware, but it would be the quickest sort of semi permanent defense they could expect to raise quickly, and being quick was the point. "I'm aware." The old town wasn't really a port or natural harbor but its lake side banks, and the inletting made it relatively ideal to build a pier and ... and if it came to that evacuate any threatened residences across the tuskwater, either to shrikewall or to the 'kamelands on the opposite side. "i'm going to go talk to the Kobolds," The sootscales, and their mite neighbors too, "about the matter of a road from Shrikewall to the Old Scyamore, and then beyond." Hopefully this time there would be fewer sudden distractions, and he'd be able to gather settlers from the inner sea to assist in the project.
--

 

[Imperator Pax]

Rova 4711
The noise of the attack had already disturbed the fall air... and with a bellow of wrath and rage Shaoyu dived towards the ground fire rising from her scales wreathing a thousand pounds of angry dragon in a haze like an asteroid hurtling through the atmosphere. The nearest trolls attacking the hamlet met a fifteen foot cone of shock black flame as she landed. The lead of the ranks, simply, disintegrated from the chest up, and another lost an arm, while a third had the good sense to jump out of the way barreling into the nearest thatch home to get clear.

Shaoyu had no intention of letting the troll escape her long teeth snapping towards a flailing limb as the others, on both sides, began to react... on all sides he supposed. He doubted the villagers had expected rescue to come from a strange party that included a dragon of all things... but this was also the first time they'd actually seen a troll raiding party.

Eire waved a hand to his right letting one of his Chelish coreligionists take his reins as he swung off the skittish horse. "Circle round." He ordered. Valerie nodded dismounting and leading a second party.

It was a fairly simple village, no doubt like any of the other small thorpes, and hamlets, crofts and collections of farming communities by other names, that they might have encountered through the riverlands. Most likely he suspected the chief god among the shrines here was Old Deadeye... the wood and thatch town was... nothing he had not seen before, save that they had finally found a settlement threatened by the slavering greenskins.

Eire kept his head moving, left and right. They had a rear guard, and in a world where firearms were not a concern his greater worry from a flanking attack would be magic, but he supposed he had a more pressing matter. Shaoyu's wrath was enough that she'd increased the local temperature several degrees Celsius, or in imperial units bumped it to ninety plus degrees as if it were once against the heat of summer despite the sun's waning position in the sky. Sunlight wreathed his hand, and the bolt extended reaching out to touch an unfortunate monstrous beast and boiling through the simple leather jerkin the troll wore and sending it toppling to the ground.

A larger troll stumbled back divided as they were recognizing the threat posed... and its squinting expression must have meant it was calculating exactly how badly they had miscalculated... right before a dark skinned man fired a close range long bow into one of its eyes. The troll howled in pain... which caused Shaoyu's horned head to jerk towards the noise and pounce like an oversized house cat her claws wreathed in fire. "Goddess Victorious." She invoked.

A handful of spearmen formed ranks along one flank probing at trolls who had since made the shift from predator to prey in the span of a few mere moments. He would have preferred not allowing them to escape, but it there was a tactical prudence here were allowing them to quit the field might have its own benefits. Trolls didn't have the best eyesight, and Shaoyu could fly, so potentially tracking them from the air back to where they were laired seemed useful.
--
The village was all things considered ... damaged, but it certainly could have been worse, "You are the baron." It wasn't really a question.

Shaoyu had returned to her human form. He had noticed that since the solstice she could sheathe her own longsword in fire at will, or seemingly at will. It would have been an interesting development rather than one to look upon as a tactical and strategic one given their war. "I am that." He replied to the ranger's question. He had admittedly simply assumed the man worshipped Erastil... Toarg was something of a surprise but, it was a quirk. He need not have considered it. "This is my ward, Shaoyu," He indicated, and then to Valerie, "Chancellor of the Realm, Valerie."

Valerie in something of a brusque matter questioned why they hadn't heeded the directive to evacuate, or at least take precautions. "Truthfully we didn't believe. No one in the village had seen trolls before, never mind so many. It seemed absurd to pack up and leave just because we were told." The truth was he wasn't surprised by the answer.

Eire had come to expect the village insularity, and it was only good fortune that they had been ranging through the area like this. "Will they heed my warnings now," Or did he have to contend with their abstinence further... or were they going to have issue with his court. He thought of Shaoyu but given the trolls would they take issues with the longtails, and the sootscales?

Ekundayo glanced to his wife and daughter. "It is not safe here." He replied, "If not for the barking we would have had no warning at all."

A nod.

He had seen the wolf. They had b een lucky in that.

In fact that had only merely ... perhaps somewhat unfairly, inclined him to assume the veneration of Erastil. Whatever the case, whatever intercession there was or wasn't it did not matter really.

As feudal overlord these lands and the people were under his protection.

The troll threat, this initial encounter confirming its existence in his land, needed to be answered. He could not permit it to remain in his lands. Realpolitik of allowing it to happen in Drelev, or even Mivon to the south, was one thing... but only acceptable because he didn't have the resources to be expeditionary over his border. If they were here... no since they were here. .. well...

"We shall expunge this menace with the sun's holy wrath," Shaoyu barked. Paraphrasing the church's usual doctrine of vigilant crusades. Born in Cheliax, and ascending to godhood only in the early 39th​ century by the Arodenite calendar, the church of Iomedae was a militant one, in a way beyond that of Aroden before her. The last azlanti had had martial character, but was... well he supposed the Roman Republic, to Iomedae's Roman Empire... no that wasn't quite right. Iomedae was goddess of paladins, knights, and warriors of virtue. Temperance, Justice, Valor. To that end he wasn't sure the Empire was the right comparison.

"For the grateful weight of the sword." He echoed. Religious solemnity aside, there were more practical issues to contend with. Holy War was all well and good, but one still had to contend with not just actually finding the enemy, but it wasn't immune to logistics. "Make sure Tristian has everything he needs, if he needs aid, be sure to come and get me." The ecclesitheurge presumably had everything in hand, but sometimes it helped to check... even if they tended to have very different methods of medical care once you got past the curative magics. They had confirmation of the trolls now. "We will need to send word to Jamandi confirming the trolls." and with winter around the corner he had to wonder if the voracious omnivores were trying to squirrel away as much food for the cold months, and if that was what had pushed them this far east. It seemed a safe guess... he had had to introduce crop rotation principles, , but it was true that kobolds and goblins, and trolls all at least seemed to have succeeded in animal domestication. The kobolds seemed to practice agriculture with various cultivars, including radishes, cabbages, and others... but trolls didn't seem to have made that shift in organization, probably never achieving the stability and population density necessary to make the jump... or least not here... which meant they were probably raiding for basic necessities like food as they carved out a larger territory in anticipation of the winter.

... which if true meant there would be more attacks.

"This might not have been the first attack." He nodded in agreement to Valerie's comment.

"The thought had occurred to me," Regongar had told him that some villages were more insular than others... and they were going to have to do something about that. He returned his focus to the village. The nucleus of which was the water feeding the common farm plots, and near which the communal buildings had been raised. He could see the long strips where the cattle had plowed the rows of the communal field, basically right up to the tree line. If there had ever been any sort of wall, or palisade it hadn't existed in generations... and he doubted there had ever been one at all. A hundred or so families and woods, and water ... the most dangerous threat had probably been wildlife for generations... maybe the occasional bandit or feud with a neighboring village, but nothing like the sort of threat the trolls had posed.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Rova 4711
They had withdrawn, evacuated, whatever one wanted to call it, Ekundayo's village via Candlemere, and traversed from the lake to Shrikewall. Or at least they had evacuated those who were willing to be evacuated from the village. It would have been a lie to say that everyone had seen sense. Jaethal had commented that the idiots may well be doing them a favor in effectively volunteering to be bait... but there were other things to do.

The capital continued to bustle and grow, filled with the clack and rhythmic bangs of hammers. Stas, one of corax's journeymen, had gained his own party of jacks to lead in knocking together more houses for the swelling population that wasn't even counting the village displacement.

The bearded man already had a lot of work to do, and if more villagers were going to have to be evacuated they were just going to be added to it. Once he was gone Eire turned to Valerie. The road problem was rearing its head again. With roads they could have theoretically spread more of the displaced, Oleg's, Loy, the Temple of Erastil, Kressel and Akiros's respective holdings.

Knocking together log cabins in the valley was the most practical solution to housing that they had while still maintaining some semblance of his ideals of centralized layout, and planning for the settlement... but with greater settlement in the valley that meant more security concerns. The greater possibility of something attracted to the dale as would prove to be the case.

Old Beldame's village simply wasn't fit for human inhabitation... there was too much that needed to be done and that would have to wait until after the spring thaw. "Kesten," And Eire had to resist the urge to default to referring to him by his surname give his ... familial troubles, "are there any other matters that need to be seen to?" besides the list that had been there before.

"The rabble rouser, continues, your grace."

The foreign bard had been stirring up trouble for a couple of weeks now. There simply hadn't been time to deal with it... or rather there hadn't been a priority to divert resources to do so up until Grigori the bard wasn't simply orating but using magic to stir up trouble.

If it had just been speeches Eire would have continued to ignore the man, but the magic had been a trip... a hint to look closer... in addition to being a criminal offense under the package of laws he had promulgated last year. Grigori was from Pitaxian spy, he had apparently graduated from the Pitaxian academy of arts before their own bard's expulsion from the institution.

... and in a sense that was where Grigori had mistepped as well. He had probably started stirring trouble up in smaller villages, of riverfolk. Regongar had recognized him as one of the leading hecklers, and the half orc had had to have been prevented from resolving the problem directly. Grigori had labored under the perhaps notion that the majority of those here would be of similar mind... but they weren't.

Shrikewall was not predominantly populated by northern taldanes of Brevoy or the river kingdoms already most of the city's population had migrated from southern Avistan drawn by the promise of better... whatever better was supposed to be....

... and whether from Absalom or Cheliax or other parts Shrikewall's residents the denizens of the baronial seat had little in common with Pitax culturally, compared to one another. They were much closer to the old Taldan empire's core than the frontier regions. Shrikewall's primary religious site was the cathedral to Iomedae not a temple to Erastil, or even Abadar... who at least would have been represented within the southern taldans major deities...

... there were other factors, but really it was religion, and culture.

You couldn't accuse a member of Iomedae's church of things like 'gallivanting around', talk of fools errands, or such without real proof. Such things were par for the course for expected of hereditary nobles apart of the sword faith. Then as if to compound Girgori's initial faux pas and lack of knowledge of Absalom, and Chelish and other inner sea views on their feudal overlords he had brought up the matter of money.

... maybe those missteps had been why the bard had resorted to using magic.

If not for Kesten investigating and assistance from the Iomedaen church carried out while he'd been away Grigori might have been assumed to just be some galtian malcontent... and Galt's revolution was condemned by the Church. It didn't matter. Grigori had entered the land on orders of a foreign power to undermine and cause the nation to fail.

... and the answer to that was as Jubilost had described it in a word 'Cheliaxian'.

The gnome didn't seem to frown on the pronouncement. Eire looked at the partial gathering. "I will go your grace." The hell knight declared.

A couple of junior clerics, all Chelish, of Iomedae also volunteered as well. Their presence reminding him that the local church ... like Brevoy's church of the inheritor to the north lacked a dedicated inquisition. ...staffed by full time inquisitors rather than part timers for the church.

That hadn't been something he'd expected to be a priority. Since hadn't requested the larger church apparatus hadn't seen the need to dispatch them. A public charge of the felonius violation of arcane acts, and misuse of mind magics would suffice. The reality of a trial though seemed forgone given he was likely to face a Chelish jury presiding over a full list of charges that would include espionage and conspiracy to insight rebellion. It would not have been considered a fair trial under modern earth standards... but frankly there was a part of eire who had every interest in making it so lawyers were a very uncommon profession indeed.
--
Kressel had come to visit, and while she wouldn't be taking anyone with here back to Nettle's crossing she would at least have some idea and thus be able to plan for resettling some of the smallfolk in the new year when hopefully dead dave was free to build. The turning of the seasons meant that the lizard folk were preparing for winter, and their less active sluggish part of the year. They would be vulnerable to to trollish attack. Celadon wasn't likely to be awash with activity during the cold months either. Still it had been a good opportunity for Kaessi to introduce the sweet teeth to the rattler, and Kressel all to consider protecting the long tail's village in the short days.

"Pitax has always spewed a lot of shit." Svetlana's half sister grunted to their most recent problem.

Apparently even before the current 'king' they had laid claim to a wide stretch north of their actual holdings... which seemed like it might run afoul of Jamandi's plans to settle baronies in the Stolen Lands. Such details were confirmed by Linzi. Internal propaganda, and aggrandizement aside, Pitax had never had the means to clear and explore those stretches of highland no man's land. Certainly not control it given the barbarian communities of Kellid that Kessil Aldori suggested had dwelled there.

"Pitax was founded by bandits fleeing brevoy,"

"And Justice's noose." Kesten added in agreement.

To that extent it was something of a surprise that the kingdom had managed to survive as long as it had... and well Brevoy wasn't that old having only been founded in 4499 a little over two hundred years ago.

Eire shook his head, "Irredentist claims aside, we will have to keep a watch. Our focus must be preparing for the winter, and and contending with the trolls."

"Tartuccio was a pitaxian spy, and there was the attack on Lady Jamandi." Kesten reminded him.

"And we will send word to Jamandi of this latest transgression," He replied, "But we must contend with the most immediate problems. That is the natural turning of the year, and the fact of the trolls, which may verywell be related. We need to bolster our defenses against them and if possible locate them, and neutralize them when we can." He had not forgotten about the purple gnome or his allegiances... but there was only so much they could do, and he needed to deal with the troll problem.

The weight growing into these feudal obligations steadily shifted his priorities. The barony... the kingdom to come was his responsibility. He had originally planned on a stone keep, he had moved to the cathedral, and the assistance of Iomedae's church in recognition of needing the apparatus of statecraft. He didn't need a castle for the barony, the hall would suffice for administration until it wouldn't, but the church provided other uses.

It had ultimately come down to the best way to institute organization, and record keeping. He had needed a work around for the bureaucracy to get crop rotation, and other farming improvements underway, and that meant literacy, and the written word. It was about economic specialization. Even though he had never been he could guess what Fort Drelev was like, at its core was by all accounts an relatively impressive stone keep that had been Hannis's first priority. Whether or not Hannis had had some starting point to build from, ruins or some such was unknown, but regardless at the core of the neighboring domain was the lord's estate.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Rova 4711
It had been a few days and the day of the Inheritor was still more than a week away. He was glad that Tristian was absent today's proceedings. There were realities to contend with.

Kassil Aldori was looking around, when he thought no one was watching, as Regongar leaned on his elbow idly turning the page in the book he was reading. The other half orc had been largely disinterested in the proceedings. Not that Eire could blame them, this was fundamentally the sort of thing that must have been boring. Not that Eire himself was Chelish... despite the gnome's assumption or remarks... but the Church Iomedae ... well the goddess had been Chelaxian in ethnicity even if born long before the infernal house of thrune had assumed power. Shaoyu was really the only one paying attention to the petitions, for the sake of paying attention to the petitioners.

Linzi was scribbling the minutes, Valerie was attempting to maintain a stoic expression, but Jaethal, nor Jubilost for that matter, were bothering to pretend that they weren't bored. Eire nodded to the cleric as he concluded. They were almost done. Almost. It was actually kind of a pity the sootscales weren't here they usually were enthralled by these sorts of things. The riverlands, and Brevoy were taldan colonies... in the sense that their culture was taldane. Of sorts. They shared a distant ancestry with the ancient empire and Aroden's rule... but that was a heritage long in the past... for realms that measured themselves by much much more recent events. Chelish custom was much closer, really sort of revanchist, if Eire were honest, to the empire of old. They had been born out as a separate polity in response to imperial decline even while Aroden still lived.

Autumn was now upon them. There were the trolls... and of course now the reiteration of the Pitaxian threat. The first in terms of realm management he had been, he had thought he'd been readily prepared for. The brevoy colonist had, like the riverlanders, wanted to, and had been allowed to, establish open field systems... but as a greater number of Chelish, and other inner sea migrants had allowed him to go ahead and set up the land surveys that would... were effectively enclosure policies and those farms. The erastalian church didn't want to do that preferring by tradition the open field system, and communal shared labor by people among the faith. The bigger issue was needing horses for the farms.

While still practicing the open field system, and manor dominated agriculture Cheliax had a more comprehensive administrative system, and bureaucracy and appeared to have at least some basic employment of crop rotation. That had been what he had planned his priority had been comprehensive agriculture, and construction in and around Shrikewall... but Jamandi, and Jubilost were right the road conditions were too bad. That needed to be addressed for Old Scyamore, Olegton, and Tatzlford... and for that matter the old beldame's village.

... which was another matter to consult his Chelish subjects., as well as other immigrants from the Inner Sea. The problem was that it was late in the year to really be engaged in such things. "In summary your grace, and in no small part to it being underway, Restov's petition must be considered the priority."

That meant the road that would run from Old Scyamore, to Olegton, and thus connect to the Taldan South Rostlandic road. It was simply economics. He didn't make a comment on the qualification of calling Jamandi's 'advice' a 'petition'. As an artery of trade the roadway would be important, but the trolls seemed potentially poised to cut the river link that tied them to the inner sea. That link was what was swelling Shrikewall's population, where as Olegton, and Tatzlwyrm were growing more 'naturally' from river and brevic folk moving there.

"The troublemaker my lord?" Jaethal wasn't even trying to be formal. The inquisitor of the pallid princess languidly stirred a curtain of dark hair sweeping as she moved. "Shouldn't we get on with it?"

She had the others attention as well.

At least this time she hadn't made any quips about heresy charges... even if she meant them more along the lines of what he had legally codified as 'sedition'. Eire didn't consider that word as a matter for levity... Grigori was a problem that they needed to deal with.

So much of holding court all too frequently involved repeatedly having the same conversation with different retainers who had been absent for one reason or another. It was the simple reality of of feudal governance and with Shrikewalls somewhat meager administrative capabilities. They needed more scribes, and accountants really. Eire really wanted a modern, or semi modern financial system... "Yes." He declared rising, "Bring in the accused."

Grigori of Pitax was a plump man dressed in deep purple clothes of quite good quality. He could have passed for a well off trader. His appearance, and his jewelry in particular clashed with the clothes of the native river folk. If anything his appearance only really fit in in Shrikewall where such fashions could easily blend in with the throngs of fresh off the boat persons.

"Your grace," The bailiff bowed. "If it so pleases you and the court, we seek to present the initial felony charge, under the violations of the Arcanum,"

He rested his hands on the table, "Grigori of Pitax you stand accused of the misuse of magic, and the enthralling of mortal minds by sorcery." Eire was aware he wasn't short. The great table may not have been on a raised platform as most grand halls would have been laid out, but it didn't need to be in this case.... he was at least a foot taller than the human bard even bracing on the table. "These laws were laid down in the edicts, and promulgated upon the foundation of the kingdom in both Taldane, and Draconic. The accused speaks, and reads common, does he not?"

There was a small tittering from the assemblage of people to the left of the entrance of the hall., not helped by Regongar thumping his boot into the leg of the table, as he leaned his face into his arm to conceal his own snort.

Grigori had been a busy boy. The rabble rousing was one thing, but there were multiple counts of his use of enthrall spells during those speeches. It was probably unnecessary, and probably done by Jaethal just to needle the bard, but a pair of long banners painted with the statute were brought out, one in Taldane, and the other in Draconic.

Hallit didn't have a standardized script, it appropriated the use of the Taldan alphabet, but it hadn't escaped Eire that Amiri's literacy was weak at best. It really wasn't necessary. Ignorance would have no excuse, and Grigori was basically dead to rights for as much magic as he'd been tossing around, even without other evidence. The bard had fucked himself, seemingly on the assumptions he had made coming into the Narlmarches rather than learning about what had developed since Jamandi's acknowledgement of the baronies in the stolen lands. It would have been perhaps more comforting if Grigori had just been some Galtian rabblerouser.

The hall settled, and it was clear Grigori reading from the left post, presumably the Iomedaen proscribed method of execution. That was to say, death by decapitation. Eire had included the use of hanging by authorities in his abscence, in the event Valerie was required to handle felony cases for ... a contingency planned for in cases of capital crimes of arson before the coranation.

Exile was a possibility included... but the truth was Grigori was too dangerous to let live. He was spy who had been aiming to ferment unrest. The trial for misuse of magic was a formality to warrant execution, and to explain it. If they could find out anything about Pitax, all the better... but he doubted it.

Grigori had bragged, and talked up his native kingdom in public spaces, but it seemed unlikely he really new much. If he had sent messages back to Pitax, well that was unfortunate, but Garess wasn't sure that Grigori had any contacts.

If Grigori spilled the beans under examination well, they'd see if Jaethal could convince him to give anything up, but that really did seem unlikely. The undead elf to his left stood up from her chair, and moved around to the front of the table, "What has been observed, is repeated and malicious actions against the citizenry of Narhold. Violations of the statues in public spaces, in the witness of town guards, and baronial agents."

Grigori exploded into a tirade that was more emotional than logical. It was little different than the speeches he had given in public as called about the will of the people, and how they'd been off adventuring.

There was a flicker of blue light around the hall floor.

Grigori had just made the mistake of then trying to use magic on Jaethal. Eire blinked his arcane sight away at the second level spell, as Jaethal backhanded the bard. Leaving aside that frankly he doubted Grigori had the magical potential to bedevil an elf, clearly Grigori didn't realize the inquisitor was one of the undead.

"Worthless curr."

"Your grace, the rogue."

He held up a hand to stop the commotion. "Grigori of Pitax, on the charge of misuse of magic, and the use of mind altering spells upon agents of the barony of Shrikewall, I find you guilty. Take him away from here."
--
He wondered what exactly Grigori had been playing at. The man wasn't suicidal, but it was a little ridiculous in a room with dozens of spellcasters to try and do that. It didn't seem like panic, arrogance... possibly. Grigori didn't seem to have ever been anywhere else but the river kingdoms, and brevoy... maybe numeria, and he seemed to have an awfully inflated opinion of Pitax ... especially since by general consensus it was city of less than ten thousand people.

Regongar and Jaethal rejoined them and the door closed to the solar. "Drelev, and Hooktongue Slough might be subject to similar rabble rousing," Jaethal remarked, "The slug doesn't know, but he was sent to and I quote," She rolled her eyes in annoyance, before adopting an imitation of the bard's voice, "in seeing your little nation fail. This could be related to Tartuccio." She shrugged, "What was the word you used, realpolitik." The elf managed the german pronunciation. He had described the concept of it to her and she agreed with it in principle. "The use of secret agents... and Tartuccio did seem proud of the 'rivalry'" and perhaps the little bastard had send word back before delving into old scyamore...


"He knew we were on to him, he could have gotten word back."

Eire had wondered if that might be the case. If Tartuccio had managed to relay reports...

"And there was whatever he sent through the portal."

Eire nodded to Kesten, and Jaethal both, "And of course there is the matter of land, and Pitaxian irredentism. If you can't get anything more from him, I'll deal with it." Regongar had volunteered to swing the word, but no there were expectations of justice here. "We will need to focus on the trolls, and the road north. Regongar I need you to organize an exploration to the south west we're looking for dwarven ruins. Its the most likely place to be big enough to support a 'troll kingdom'."

After the half orc had departed Valerie opined that, "Winter is coming."

"I know... we can't likely campaign before the snows come." and the truth was he had wanted to bring the lizard folk and kobolds against the trolls as a precaution... but they didn't know where the dwarven stronghold was. "even with just the trolls we had a reason to start preparing an army," Which would give Amiri something to be actual general over, "We need to marshal our forces on the possibility of another western threat."

"They would have to come through Drelev," Jaethal remarked.

"I don't think Hannis is quite as capable as he thinks he is." She shrugged, "But that is something we will need to prepare for., and that means that the three of you," As well as Amiri who had ridden to patrol in order to avoid further city boredom, "will need to contend with over the next year in your respective capacities."


--
Notes: On Character sheets. That is hopefully forthcoming I'm going to do an index threadmark, and then go through my notes on the other computer and try and slowly add the people who have character sheets done. With the exception of like Amiri, who is canonical.

As a note this is 3.5 / 3.75 / pathfinder 1st​ edition. This is not second edition pathfinder. Just in case anyone is unclear. This was written (like Out of the Dark) under the nominal assumption of pen and paper's spell slots (except for unlimitted use cantrips from pathfinder) I've increasingly moved away from that use in stories. Its a pain in the ass and I know that I waffle back forth between slots and MP, but I should really just stick to using mana pools.

On that note, I did not back the 10 year kickstarter, but it started shipping to backers end of last month, and from what I'm told it does have some interesting features. I haven't seen it in person, and frankly given Paizo's prices, I'm probably not gonna buy it when it first drops at the end of october for everyone else.

But anyway, as an example of Eire's 'sheet' this was originally based of the awesome Drow CYOA, and one of the early builds was multi talented (this is gestalt), Paragon (ability stats), Draconic Ally (obviously in the posted version this is Shaoyu), Mighty Ancestor (free draconic major blood line), undead friend. What makes this build interesting is that it was Cleric 20 but the other 'class' was Erlking, which is a CR 18 fae. Obviously not final build but it does still have show up in the current story version, in both Eire's appearance and his description and mannerisms.

I need to do that post, and hopefully that will be forthcoming. As for this the simple reality is that jury trials were not normal in the middle ages outside of northern europe. They were a Germanic tradition, and were adopted into common law in england by the danelaw... and medieval law and legal traditions were not as advanced or nice as modern contemporary western legal traditions.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Rova 4711
As fall gathered its strength the colors of the leaves had begun to change, and the wind would, given last year, carry the fallen leaves into the Tuskwater, and the Candlemere. It had painted the shallows of the lakes a brilliant mix of yellows, oranges, and reds. The harvest moon had been a week earlier, the Day of the Inheritor the day before, and of course that had left him with contending with the last days of summer, and the approaching autumnal equinox. There were three months left in the year, and with too much to do.

Grigori of Pitax was a bad cut out. Maybe the scheme might have been a little more obscured if they hadn't known about Tartuccio, but how fucking arrogant was Irovetti to send one of his own nationalists... it wasn't as if Grigori wasn't just a citizen but upfront about his own home's perceived superiority. Garess had been quick to pronounce it, and the general agreement was it at least it had started as a bandit kingdom fleeing Brevoy... and it had gone somewhat straight at least, but Irovetti had to have realized that Tartuccio had been caught last year ... he had to know the Aldori were suspicious.

The possibility of that, of the Restov sword lords, turning into the Mivonese Aldori being cautioned should have been obvious... but Eire wasn't sure if Jamandi had actually warned them of Pitaxian subterfuge and espionage. Given the attack on her manor surely both Maegar, but especially Drelev should have been on guard.

He might have considered it over reading the situation, but both Jaethal, and Kanerah agreed that Irovettti's handling was as arrogant as it appeared to be to them as it was to him. Harrim just considered it a sign of hubris of men... and maybe that was all it was, he doubted it was the extent of what scheming amounted to this far from the Inner Sea regardless of how complex Qadira could be... the realm had other challenges to face before they turned and looked further west.

With the trade through the Hooktongue slough disrupted the only option was overland through the Narlmarches ... and that meant a road to Olegton, and thus for Jamandi, and the Free City of Restov presumably preferring any overland trade caravans to come to restov before their goods were sold on the Brevoy market. The Shrike river moved fast enough that it wouldn't freeze in winter, they had again taken note of that in particular last year, and that meant an all year round trade route down to the inner sea.

It placed a potentially even greater importance on Candlemere as well. It was the best use of Kaessi's time and efforts. It wasn't going to get cold yet but in a few months, the second month in the new year well it would probably be too cold to effectively work in the wilderness... but the new year wasn't exactly going to be toasty by comparison. That also wouldn't be the first snows, there was a chance they'd start getting dusted as early as the end of next month, though that probably wouldn't stick.

"Davik is our best option." Which meant pulling him away from the western frontier, and it also meant putting the undead engineer in Olegton where ... frankly he was probably going to creep people out. Oleg needed an engineer to grade the ten mile highway path south and lay it out. Qatepesh style tar paved roads weren't an option with the resources they had available, and the large flag stones they were going to use to accommodate what were effectively to Eire a variation to Roman style roads would take effort. "He would only need to be there a month or so."

Eire nodded, Jaethal was probably correct. Once they got that far though it was the roughly thirty mile track north south to Old Scyamore that became the problem. In terms of manpower. "Make it so," he replied verbally confirming. They were working both directions he wasn't sure if the primary roadway could be finished by the end of the year... and if they had to stop towards the end of Nethys they weren't like going to get done until the spring thaw began... and that would be potentially as late as Gozran depending on the winter.

A harsh winter would of course be bad. A mild one ... well there were still other regular annual things to focus on, things that peasants would have to do around their own properties, and that would cut down on the available labor pool for work besides just the shorter daylight available. That was especially true given the cultivation of fields to sustain large herds over winter in the dale north of Shrikewall.
--
If it wasn't one thing it was another. In this another was, the recent owlbear attack. Not that they hadn't known they'd been a thing... and he'd considered that, as well as Celadon's warning about the mated pair to the east.

"Now, the following is merely speculation. I do not pretend to be familiar at all with owlbears, so I ask merely to cover the possibility, could this be merely animal territorialism?" He asked, as far as he understood Beaky the Owlbear was male, "Was this one seeking to contest Beaky's presence here?" Or even territorial enough to want to drive off humans he supposed.

The former Paladin of Erastil shook his head, "No. I wouldn't think so."

He hadn't thought so, but even so. Even for an exceptionally aggressive specimen an Owlbear attacking a settlement seemed a bit much... he'd have gone so far as to speculate the monster had levels in barbarian for the damage the creature had wrought to the old Beldame's village. "Then we will have to deal with it. Any ideas?"

"Beaky's not likely the cause," Akiros decided to reiterate, "but it could have followed hunters back, even then with as fast as it was, I have a hard time not seeing it catching interlopers."

That was an idea, "Ask around all the same see if any hunting parties are missing or if they know, or have heard of anyone going missing of late." He received acknowledgement and the former paladin excused himself leaving him to contend with another mess. A rogue owlbear? The timing seemed suspect, not the least of which was it hadn't seemed to have been looking for food.

Rabies? Could owlbears contract rabies... well probably so.

There was a flash of wind as Shaoyu descended from the air above, "The rude beast has left a trail far to the east." The young dragon reported.

He paused, "You were able to follow it across the river?" The braon inquired looking out over the broad expanse of the tuskwater. "South?" He guessed.

The dragon nodded, "In the neck between the two lakes, I saw it go south past the mudbowl," Where the Old Beldame wanted them to collect, or organize the collection of black rattlecaps from, "and further south towards the little sellen."

That was absurd. He didn't know much about owl bears but it travelling that distance to mount an attack on a settlement seemed impossible for just an animal ... and they had too many other issues going on on top of this. At least it hadn't gone south along the lakeshore and attacked the lizard folk, there had been a prevailing concern that the thickskins , the long tails rival tribe, might try their luck again once more before the chill really sat in. That was a potential concern on top of the trolls, and worse was in the same 'quadrant' so to speak.

That meant there were limitations to who he could pull for this. Valerie needed to remain in Shrikewall. Kanerah, well the twins, were at Candlemere dealing with the construction there, and also the potential of a temple to the tiefling twins patron deity. Celadon needed to remain anchoring the eastern most flank with Regongar, and Jaethal was in the west at Hereford.

Eventually given a whittling down process he elected that they'd need to go quickly. That meant really Amiri was available to join him Shaoyu, Akiros, and thus by proxy Beaky. The former Paladin returned at the top of the hour, "I'm ready." Amiri pumped her fist at the announcement.

"Any missing parties?"

"That's the thing," Akiros shrugged, "Not any of our people, that anyone can recall." He sensed the but, "There were some strangers that passed through from the west, and I would guess they were hightailing it from Drelev's domain... they had something weird with them."

"Weird, in what way?" Eire inquired.

There was a pause, "He was travelling, well I would have thought they might have been bandits Drelev displaced with everything being said, but their leader had a set of barding with him."

"A knight?" He asked.

Akiros paused, then deferred to answer, "A set of barding that from the description, I think was for an owlbear. I don't know if this Eirikk is a knight, but no one seems to have seen him since he and his men went east over the river."

Bandit, or agent of Drelev, unless this was an absurd coincidence that might explain why they had a crazed owlbear to deal with. That raised the issue back to the first question... barding wasn't exactly the sort of thing bandits went out of the way to have. They were a hundred plus miles from 'Fort Drelev', and with the massive Lake Hooktongue between them as well... on the other hand Eire had to admit a young roguish questing knight might very well ignore little things like borders in favor of a prestigious mount especially if his liege was dismissive, or contempuous of that neighboring fief... so it was possible this mess hadn't been actually malicious... but it was a mess that needed to be cleaned up anyway. "Well we will need to ride quickly Shaoyu thinks its moving towards the Little Sellen River that is at least a two day ride," which meant they would most likely be gone a week if they went overland. "I want to embark for Candlemere and leave from there, but regardless we need to go tonight." Lake travel would save them some time, but the bigger benefit would be on the return trip.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Rova 4711
Kalikke had wished them the best of luck as she was busy dealing with the small settlement on Candlemere, and the flog of immigrants north to shrikewall. The river's trade was arterial to them, and probably very important to Restov, but he doubted that it was quite as important to the merchants in the Inner Sea. He doubted that somewhere like Brevoy commanded the market share...

...and for other causes, well the blockage of trade through hooktongue slough while a nuisance was a problem, it wasn't as important to the crusaders since their main route to Nedev was through Numeria, and the main Sellen river, or using the west sellen river , which bounded Ustalav, and Numeria.

To that end it didn't escape him that this was the farthest in the south east he'd travelled within his own domain. There simply hadn't been time or reason to explore the Kamelands after other challenges had arised. The lands south of the Gudrin river on the eastern sides of the lake had not represented a priority to explore not with hundreds of square miles in the west across the narlmarhes... so today they were riding along a distant stretch of the Shrike river, who through a confluence of geography started began high in the mountains east of Brevoy, flowed down and south of Restov along the south rostland road, the hills and highlands that diverted the kiravoy river's course added its flow down into the Shrike , and the Crooked river did the same a few miles south that created along with other facets the two water falls that prevented the shrike carrying traffic all the way to Restov, where the Thorn joined the Shrike north was the Shrike's entry into the Tuskwater was just shy of the point in the west where the Shrike exited Candlemere.

They hadn't had a reason to prioritize the eastern side of the river... even though the drake had mentioned the presumable owl bear and its mate... and there were dragons of lake silver step that he himself had warned Kressel about.

"We're almost to the little sellen." He remarked examining the hand drawn map. Akiros nodded. The former paladin turned barbarian turned bandit turned petty noble seemed to be torn in how the latter occupation should be conducted. Akiros wasn't illiterate, far from it, but with Kundal around... and maybe Amiri as well and the possibility of some Kellid tribes to the west he'd been getting pulled between predominantly Brevic Erastilian clergy (and Jhod), and a different other martial life. That Drelev had probably displaced any kellid villages ... the Kellid tribes didn't really have the economic complexity to make the shift to town or urban manufacturing from the sound of it... hadn't sat well... which of course merely another potential grievance to any conflict with the western barony. ... assuming the trolls didn't just eat Drelev. "I did mean to ask what is it you brought?" He pointed to the variety of earthenware jugs.

Akiros glanced at them. Then Amiri followed suit. "Ah," Akiros paused to consider his words, and then explained that the farms had, particularly with the new crops ... so thus clarifying incidentally he meant the baronial farms... been experimenting with malting. Mash... effectively moonshine... and by medieval standards stupidly potent alcohol at that. Apparently Kobolds knew enough about metal working to make stills if given the time of day.

It was true of course that one of the things he had sourced from his books, before it had proven unnecessary had been colonial style ciders, and rum recipes and how to manufacture.... made somewhat unnecessary by the fact that magic could provide effectively endless supplies of clean water, ut it made sense. If the food situation was stable turning corn, barley, and rye in whiskey made sense, because that would keep longer, and could be sold at a higher price at market.

That still didn't answer the question this wasn't a trip to market.

"Bait. Get the fat bastard drunk and spring up on him." It was a simply sort of trap. Using mash for hogs made sense... and probably would work for bears...

... Amiri's declaration was a mixture of disagreement from wanting to fight head on, versus recognizing that Akiros's idea was commendable for a hunting party to think of. Not that they'd end up using it for its intended purpose.

Munguk the hill giant drained another jug smacking his lips, as they exchanged looks. "He says the trolls are in the west in a ... big house in the earth."

Eire nodded he'd already cast comprehend languages , his giant wasn't nearly to keep up with the dialogue given Munguk's intoxicated state and blubbering. Munguk, hill giant or not, was simply more pitiful displaced person in the stolen lands... apparently the trolls hadn't let him stick around them. Apparently he'd been coming from the west... maybe as far as Numeria given he knew about the ruined keep and he'd passed the long tail village, "Can he show us?"

An exchange in giant followed between former paladin and the wanderer. That turned into something of a surprise Munguk could actually write... even if his handwriting was atrocious. Eire wasn't positive that he translated the blue scrawl correctly, but meant something like 'mean ugly troll-men'. He was relatively sure that was close. .. and if the map wasn't dead on... it gave them an area to narrow their search... though weather might not permit them to get up into those hills with an army. To the east there was another marker of old destroyed or mostly wrecked buildings that Munguk had seen as he wandered looking for wolf berries... which to Munguk's misfortune had just gone out of season meaning that he had probably just missed the last of them until next Gozran.

Even now as Rova's end approached and the new moon drew near the fall colors were in near full display. Shaoyu returned, and joined the conversation. Apparently the ruined buildings that Munguk had know about to the east were also known to both the Kobolds and Mites of Sootscale. At one point in the Scyamore's history there had been attempt to build ... what amounted to a colony to the south under a previous generation of leaders. It had worked pretty well until they had been destroyed... realistically by bandits... by some catastrophe in the past.

Munguk was invited to ask the Long tails for passage to Shrikewall, if he was looking for a home, exactly how well the lone hill giant would fit it in was to be seen by if was looking to brew liquor well the kobolds were working on that with the harvest as it was.
--
The owlbear was no where to be seen at the abandoned ferry post that had once been a bandit hideout, and kobold and mite colony, and its tracks continued further east along the Little Sellen's confluence.

The owlbear must have been a truly massive specimen. The trail it had left in terms of flled trees, and uprooted shrubbery became more pronounced the further east they travelled into the kamelands... and all of this was very recent ... which suggested that whatever had happened to provoke the raging owlbear had occurred in the time since summer had started. After the trolls had started attacking Drelev? Eire suspected that was probably the case... if it was then the young hotshot with the owlbear barding might have been a knight looking to impress people in a time of crisis... and might have bitten off more than he could chew. He wondered if that was the case with Drelev and the trolls, or if Harrgulka had always going to have dreams of kingship... was Harrgulka emulating what he saw from Drelev, or had he already scene Mivon and wanted to make a troll kingdom anyway?

Eire looked up at the rising projection of stones were not proper mountains but the series of stony hills were part of the geography that turned the little sellen south. From a geography perspective there a handful of them that were probably little islands left over that had once been connected to the other foot hills of hte Tors of Levenies, and while he wasn't sure from what he understood of the Kamelands layout he suspected they were about fifty or so miles from the mountains... which by dragon wing was not far at all. Silverstep was close, probably about forty miles from the supposed silver dragon ancient wyrm's foot print.

"I think there is a nest up there." Akiros reported. "There have to be caves up there. That ould be a place for a nest." The former paladin of Erastil reported starting hard at the rocky expanse, "What I can't figure is the destruction were seeing."

"No?"

"Maybe from a juvenile looking to mark his territory, but from a fully mature bear no. This is pointless destruction," and not from a fight with anyone. The owlbear had purposefully toppled trees to mark where its domain was....

So if it wasn't Beaky, "Any sign of Eirikk and his band?" He had to adjust his question because they weren't sure Eirikk was actually in Drelev's employ. Akiros was sure he had come from the Slough, and used Brevic coinage, which was circumstantial at best, and Akiros's suspicion had been bandit first. There simply hadn't been enough people who had interacted with the young adventurer to be sure of things one way or another... but barding and arrogant haughty braggart of a young bravo ... could have been either.

"Not that I've seen. Everyone else seems to have steered well clear of this," He wasn't surprised Shaoyu hadn't seen any signs of camps having been pitched. There were no signs of horses, and it wasn't going to be easy to figure out where to tie them off since taking them up the hills was going to be chancy.

... the answer though on if they were on the right track or not, was settled by a sudden bugling from Beaky and the young male owlbear rearing towards the hills. Akiros pulled his far eye and swept, and Eire followed suit lifting his otherworld's binoculars and bringing them across. "I see it," Akiros didn't understand the units of measurement but after a moment found the outcropping on his own.

Amiri was already starting up the hill without them, and Shaoyu was already following. "I suppose we should follow." The former paladin remarked almost cheekily.
--
Notes: After a significant delay the 10th anniversary kickstarter for kingmaker has finally shipped (eye roll, like I have very little sympathy for Paizo, especially for the prices they charge, and speaking of) I didn't back it (and frankly I did back the Clan Invasion battletech kickstarter, so its not like I don't have some idea for this) but supposedly the digital stuff will be available to buy come late october which is ridiculous in my opinion, but frankly I'm probably going to bum off my friend's copy anyway.

I am interested to see what all has changed and most the lore stuff from the original, but frankly while I'm intersted I'm not so interested that buying it is likely to happen when it first becomes available. So, to that end I don't see it effecting this story.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Rova 4711 Conclusion

Amiri was a good ninety feet ahead of them, but she also had Shaoyu in tow. Eire wasn't sure that she had seen the various litter or detritus in her haste, but it should have been hard to miss the dead horses even in spite of how picked clean they were. The owl bear had had company at some point, and "recent," Akiros grunted looking as Beaky continued to charge forward, "Looks like the cave's big enough for scavengers too."

That was lovely to contemplate, but it made sense.. even if Akiros didn't mean rats and the like. The likelihood this was an indicator of the missing hooktongue folk was high. In Brevoy it was a day or so walk between villages... some times ten miles to the next hamlet or thorpe of thirty or forty families tilling the soil. The river lands were more sparsely populated, due to less ability to keep monsters and natural predators at bay. It was doubtful that the loss of so many horses from villagers would not have made the circuit along the little sellen from the little fishing dingies that plied the course that was the main artery of travel. "Something else he asked?"

"I'd say the drake was right about their being two,"

That was a problem because he doubted either Amiri or Shaoyu were focused on that detail. That they were rushing forward to fight the owlbear who had attacked, not the potentially second one, "Is she here?"

"I don't know." The former paladin replied, and there was little further to discuss before they also pressed further into the cave. The cave was as Eire had expected an expansive limestone karst where the cave system had been formed by water dissolving material as sturdier rocks of the tor shaped its flow and adjusted its course southwards around them. It humid inside, much warmer actually than outside the cave, and there was a bed of fungus and mold as a result, the iron sabatons Akiros wore crunched bugs under foot every so often.

Amiri shouted, in a mixture of disgust and alarm right before Shaoyu bellowed, and the save was illuminated beyond the natural bioluminescence of rocks and fungi that filled the interior with the abrupt smell of superheated sulfurous odor as she expelled a blast of fire as they came down the incline.

Not an owlbear, but a Shambling Mound gave a death shudder as it rolled backwards down the hill, much of its mass incinerated as Shaoyu and Amiri moved with flaming swords to finish hacking the monstrous plant to pieces. Eire navigated around the large branch that had been severed before the fire blast, probably from Amiri's giant's sword, a particularly audacious monstrous red centipede launched itself at him, only to hit the flaming shield that incinerated the insect as it tried to strike... but Eire was more concerned about the expanse of the cave. If this had been Faerun he would have been concerned that this would have been the kind of topographical feature would have lead down into the underdark.

He had to remind himself, that this was not Faerun. Eire had seen no evidence, heard no indication that the drow were a thing on Golarion... which admittedly he had to remind himself even as they descended further into the cavern that in the original canon of the Forgotten Realms Drow had been largely unknown to the surface world... and there was no way to be sure if that was the case with Golarion, and whether or not most people avistan would have known about subterranean dark elves being a thing... but for now the owlbear was the issue. The rampaging beast first, investigation second, and then most likely returning quickly to Shrikewall to resume focus on their other issues would be the order of the day.

"We need to get them to slow down," He declared to Akiros. It didn't matter whether or not the Drow were a thing on Golarion, or not, they didn't know what all was down here, and without throwing a look back at it, the shambling mound was just proof that there were other monsters down here besides the owlbear.

"I can probably get Beaky to calm down," Akiros hedged, but without much strength to it... and that was probably fair. The male owlbear that served as Akiros's companion, and sometimes even mount, was likely to directly confront or follow the other male owlbear's scent on its own.... and there were those dead horses to consider.

Eire felt the haste sla, as he thought of it trigger, causing him to accelerate as he moved past Akiros as the former paladin gave a sharp whistle to get the owlbear's attention. "Slow down," He ordered to the two, "We don't know what's down here, and as large as the owlbear is, there are other things down here." And given the uprooted trees it was probably much stronger physically than any of them. Beaky was strong, but not uproot full grown oaks with ease strong, Shaoyu could demolish simple buildings, but the damage the larger owlbear had donw was in excess of what she could do that quickly with brute force alone. Monstrous magical beast this was, not some giant boar, "Something is not right here, and we will fight this in a similar manner to the creature at the temple of the elk." Shaoyu had been absent for Tristian's rescue against the corrupt plant monster there, but Amiri at least understood having been there.

Shaoyu reluctantly slid to a halt as the tunnel opened into another cavern, this one with a large pool of fresh water about forty feet cross and perhaps extending east west twenty or so feet, as it was fed, and moved water through an underground tributary to the little sellen. Shaoyu's pause though was short lived as an owlbear trumpeted a furious challenge and barrelled down towards them from the opposite end of the the hundred hundred foot distance in leaps and bounds as it bellowed.

It was huge.

He had expected that much.

It was also wearing what looked look well made lamellar armor. The armor had clearly taken a beating , as the leather backing of the scales showed in some places where those iron bits had been torn or ripped. A few broken arrow shafts had been left lodged in the creatures haunches largely harmlessly, though probably a nuisance.

The armor was enough to convince Eire's already suspicious inclination towards the affair that this was not happenstance. Solar rays formed in his hands as Eire twisted his fingers into invoking gestures filling the cavern with radiant natural light. Shaoyu brandished her flaming cold iron longsword at the enraged owlbear..

"I told you he was big." Akiros remarked as Amiri commented on the creature's size even as they spread out. Eire was more concerned with what he saw under his magical sight. The owlbear had been ensorcelled... it wouldn't have been the first thing he looked for, but with Grigori so fresh on his mind, and the mention of pitax... it made sense to check. The owlbear was cursed, enraged beyond all reason by a curse of rage.

The angry trumpeting continued as it met their front line. Amiri circled one way around bringing her sword into an over head swing as Shaoyu moved the other way. Akiros and Beaky moved into to support Amiri forming a loose wing as the the enraged giant snapped one way and then another left, and then right as it tried to contend with more than one target. As the left flank formed, Amiri, Akiros, and Beaky the owlbear moved to try and force them into the corner and wall of the cavern, which was a mistake. Ordinarily Eire would have focused on being in the frontline, but the opportunity was two good to pass up. The solar rays lanced into the creatures side, as Shaoyu moved to hamstring the creature before it could barrel Amiri on the far end into the cave wall.
--
Once the beast was dead, which didn't take long really, and lay slumped as bloodied mass of feathers and burned meat still wrapped in its barding there were other things. Akiros agreed that this hadn't been nature at work... someone else had a hand in this. Despite the cavern size it wasn't hard to find the body a well equipped young man. The armor the corpse wore matched the pattern and colors of the barding of the dead owlbear, Eirrik the baron presumed.

He paid little mind to the other loot once he saw the ring... because he had seen something similar too it before, and so had Akiros. "That's like the charm the stag lord had, what is it?"

"Nymph's hair." Eire replied as he fingered the woven charm of hair and tiny gems... and the source of the curse... hadn't though to look at the one the Stag Lord had had... had it too been cursed? He couldn't be sure... it was possible he supposed.

The musing ended as Amiri called that she had found more bodies. Eirikk's men were less well, ostentious, and more practically equipped their lord, but still they all had arming swords, bows, and shields, and similar lamellar armor. "Knights?"

"Armsen more likely," He replied, Eirikk's retinue were all dead surrounding the owlbear's mate. The female owlbear had been chased here, and from the pitiful hooting of a surviving cub it wasn't hard to guess that it must have emerged to face the intruders to defend its offspring before Eirikk had managed to ensorcell her mate. "Will it survive?" He asked.

The small cub protested Akiros's scooping it up even as Beaky sniffed around, "She, and I think so, Jhod might be able to help." Eire nodded, "That will not be a problem. Gather whatever we mean to bring with us." They formed a circle, and with all the material gathered they where whisked away in a flash of sunlight.

"Your grace," The Iomedaen cleric bowed as they appeared in the Cathedral of Shrikewall.

"Brother Vaclav," The baron returned place a hand on his own sword icon pendant. "Has there been any news in our absence?"

"No developments my lord, I shall announce your return," He remarked.

No news, was probably good news. Eire doubted given the recall spell that the hill giant that Akiros had befriended and who had been sent on his way had beaten them here, but who knew. Munguk had seemed especially excited of a home after having been denied one by the trolls in the west.

--
Notes: Drow are actually a thing in Golarion. They're actually even mentioned in the AP... I don't remember if they're in the cRPG offhand. I could wiki that later, but mostly this is a call back to Bear rib's cyoa. In one of the outlines for this the connection to the under dark is a thing, and a certain drow lich goddess would be showing up later... I don't know if thats going to be a thing.

As for the character sheet and why I have not updated it, a member of my DnD group, who reads this and also Out of the Dark, has suggested I stick with or use a variant of the Erlking version of the gestalt build. His suggetion is instead of Fighter, use the Magus class, which I'm somewhat resistant too because they only get sixth level magic. [His suggestion is sorcerer over wizard, which I'm not opposed to, but its something that ussually is discussed after campaigns].

Regarding Eire's recall / teleportation, basically and this is the divine version, he can teleport back to Iomedae's cathedral whenever he wants, and technically he could do it to the Temple of Elk but that would be impolite. Its a column of solar fire teleporting you into another religion's major temple, it would be rude. Nethys probably doesn't mind because it is still magic, but old deadeye is a little more traditional and propriety driven. [Canonically Erastilian mainline doctrine in relation to the Church of Iomedae is that Erastil thinks she should find a nice husband and get married.]

As an aside, I have a very early copy (that I'm borrowing) of Kingmaker and there are a couple of spelling mistakes. I believe its supposed to be Eirikk, double k, but it does vary sometimes, similarly they can't make up their mind if its Gurdin, or Gudrin. There are probably other examples, but if I fuck up, its probably because I copied it from the book while I had it opened. [I think Nyrissa's name also gets mispelled in this printing as well, but that happens]

 

[Imperator Pax]

Lamashan 4711
Ascendance Day loomed. It was the final Iomedaen holy day of the year, celebrating Iomedae's ascension to divinity status through the starstone. Admittedly there were other deities whose had their own celebrations of their own ascension.

There were still two final months in the year, Neth and Kuthona, but for all practical purposes the barony was preparing to settle into the winter season they would not be able to undertake any further great projects, and if they were lucky they would be able to finish the ones they had started before the end of the month.

Work though never truly stopped. The road building was the primary priority. Graded properly they could be kept easily clear of all but the worst snow, and that would be useful to keeping a line of communication to Olegton. Olegton connected to the South Rostland road, and the river as well and thus ran to Restov.... which interestingly to Eire was according to some Brevic maps often considered the northern boundary of the stolen lands... but more pointedly while Restov was considered in the Stolen Lands... so to was Pitax in the west.

... of course that meant nothing some of the maps also included Mivon as part of the Stolen Lands, reaching well past the confluence of the East Sellen and Shrike... so the exact definition of 'Stolen Lands' seemed fluid, and no one seemed to be able to establish exactly where the border was, or even why it was the stolen lands.

It was probably a useless term really, certainly a term he was leaning towards needed to be avoided in its official usage within kingdom business.

The boiling vessel for the tea was hot enough, the vessel was beginning to steam. The vessel on top of it and the boiling vessel were removed and the water added to the top vessel containing the tea leaves with a lid applied quickly.

The process of making the morning tea continued, it would be another twenty minutes before it was ready, but there were things to contend with before breakfast.

The simple process of fortification was a natural development over simple fence building. All one needed as lumber, and of course simple fences were useful for shoring up defensive fortifications the same as they were in keeping livestock in their pastures. That meant that as a labor matter even children could assist in the process freeing adults to work with maneuvering and levering sharpened trunks into place. The simple palisade was what they had the resources, and manpower to build. Harvesting timber was cheaper, faster, than relying on masonry, or ceramic manufacture... stone or brick walls. The palisade wouldn't be as durable as those, but they wanted the defenses up.

Eire suspected given what they did know of 'Fort Drelev' that either Hannis's parents had sent him the stone... very unlikely given that Brevoy built primarily wooden fortifications due to a lack of readily accessible quariable stone, or had quickly located one such source, possibly even specifically chosen his site for that reason. Whatever the case was Hannis Drelev had prioritized being able to build a stone keep, and basic curtain walls to protect his baronial seat.

The advantage of winter's approach was that it was easier to harvest trees right now. Hazel, and others were entering their near ideal time of the year to take and work into things like fences, and such... but they would probably continue to harvest and expand incrementally even into spring. It was the sort of work though with wood, making withies, and so forth, was the sort of thing Brevic settlers were familiar with for both their own farms, and for levee labor and it was really the sort of thing you didn't need skilled labor for, or a lot of tools for a fairly solid barricade.

Eire wondered if Drelev had the money to hire mercenaries... but he doubted it. Drelev though had knights, and presumably had a plan to actually organize them, and the levees of both his tenants and their tenants, and any household troops. After all Hannis had proven he could handle bandits. Even now Drelev might be doing the same thing going on across the western narlmarches, searching for the troll stronghold.

... but while he had probably been search for longer, finding the hill giant Munguk potentially had narrowed down their own search efforts.... and of course that was the problem there was no good delineation in the landscape of the territory... but from what the wandering giant had said... the fortress that the trolls had moved into was not in Drelev's domain. It wasn't even really close, and while much further south than Eire had been expecting it was not in Mivon either. If the giant's recollection of travel time, and features was correct the dwarven ruins were about twenty or so miles south of where Hereford sat, and probably a few miles north of the Mivonese border.

If those details were correct then it didn't matter how hard Drelev might have been scouring his own lands, and it also potentially explained the blockage of river trade up the east sellen river into Hooktongue slough.

"The map we recovered from the body may mean nothing." Eirikk had had a map on his person that showed Shrikewall, as well as the lair of the owlbears within which he had perished. It was absent a number of other features. It did mark oleg's trading post, but not the town. It didn't signage the old scyamore or Loy's town at the ford... all of which could be easily explained as the map having been drafted based on the time of the coronation and what Drelev knew.

"It might not," Jaethal agreed. "But the," owl "bear attack is entirely too coincidental," Especially given the lock of nymph's hair. "But no, In this case I was referring to another map." The dark haired, pale elf tossed a look towards Harrim, and unfurled a much older map. The elves had long memories, and it showed a different map of Avistan.

Not so much in the geographical features, but in the time before Choral the Conqueror, the political boundaries had been different... and of course the river kingdoms had few truly stable political entities. Pitax was only somewhat older than Razmiran, which had only celebrated its first half century this year. This map was far older and suggested that Pitax's bluster of four centuries of survival was just that. There was no Brevoy on the map, no Mivon, no Pitax, nor really any recognition of what had been. This still showed a time when Taldan was in retreat, but while Aroden still lived. It showed the Taldan frontier but also the trade routes the dwarven roads as they had once been.

"Given the description," Eire remarked leaning over the map and looking at the course of the rivers, it would be... "this one." He tapped his finger that was labelled in elven script Brozneshield fortress... and Harrim was quick to speak up, and Eire confirmed that the dwarf could come, as he had stated months and months ago. "And if this road of shields is as it appears," He stared hard at the map, "then when spring comes we are going to need to venture into the others."

Silver Shield. Gold Shield. Iron Shield. Never mind the watchtowers marked out along the road, some of them were even close enough that they could dare them to explore before the snows came.

There was a pause in the discussion as breakfast was put forward on the table, small plates distributed, and the tea set out... and of course the missives, letters, and such which had arrived. Besides of course the letter from the east, from Varnhold, that he expected there were a few others.

The locating of an elven map from when Jaethal had still been alive had been useful... but of course it wasn't the only thing on her mind. Jaethal had been subject to exile from her homeland for her crimes... exile not death... but some had considered that not enough. Jaethal still nursed that grudge of how she had died, and of course the mystery of why the Pallid Princess had reanimated her as a unique undead.

She suspected an elf had wielded the blade, which was why it was still an issue. AN elf would still be alive, and thus a threat to potentially contend with if they resurfaced... and a threat she wouldn't recognize on sight.

... admittedly with Jaethal's personality the sudden appearance of any peer from her time as a Kynonin official was likely to elicit a great deal of suspicion. This was of course a potential false alarm since Kyonin had already officially complained about Jaethal's presence. The church of Pharasma wasn't especially pleased either, and that was without them knowing about Dead Dave.

Then of course there were the other matters. Kanerah and Kalikke had a unique situation of their own... and unique responsibilities that stemmed from trade down the river into the inner sea. Kundal, and Akiros had also brought word of moving bands in the north. The kellid tribes weren't hostile but it was something to be aware of. The letter from the church of Shelyn was something of a surprise... or at least a professed representative of the Church.

Spoiler: Letter from Fredero Sinnet

https://pathfinderkingmaker.fandom.com/wiki/Letter_From_Fredero_Sinnet
...
I write these words with a heavy heart. The reason I take up my quill today will most likely upset you. Quite recently I heard rumor that a lost soul, once blessed with the mercy of my goddess, has found shelter in your service. I'm speaking of the daughter of one of the most worthy and generous patrons of the Order of the Eternal Rose, who once made the mistake of leaving our ranks. I am deeply convinced that now is the time for her to return to the path destined her by divine will.

I am now traveling to the west, to the place that's been chosen for the new Temple of Shelyn that will be occupied by one of the young congregations of our church. I deemed it necessary to diverge slightly from our path with but one purpose: to arrive in your lands and collect Valerie. May this journey be a cleansing pilgrimage for Shelyn's chosen, whose judgment was clouded by the impulsiveness of youth.

I request that you free Valerie of her vows of service to you, for fate has destined her to serve one who is above us all. Direct the girl to the trading post that's on the border between your barony and Brevoy. There I will be expecting her with my comrades.
...

Harrim grumpily harrumphed as he passed the letter further around the table. Tristian took and read it, looked a bit galled at this.

Eire reached up and sipped the dark red tea, "Valerie?"

"Your grace?"

There was a moment's pause, "Do you wish to resign?" She rejected the notion immediately, "That is good to hear," He replied retaking possession of the letter before Shaoyu decided to incinerate the perfumed document.

"He dares to threaten -"

He held a hand to stop the dragoness's snarling, "I' am interested in other details. He speaks of a temple of Shelyn in the west. That is a detail." Shaoyu did have a point, polite phrasing aside there was a rather implicit threat to words like 'expecting her with my comrades', and words like 'collect'... "Sir Fredero seems quite assured of himself "

"Sounds like he needs his face readjusted." Amiri snorted, and there was a handful of agreements with the sentiment from around the table.

Leaving aside that he agreed with that sentiment. "We have too much work to do, even without the troll situation, even without it being winter, I have little interest in being dictated terms by some knight I've never met. I would recommend you reply to the letter ,"

"He may come here." Tristian commented.

There was further bristling around the table, "Then it would best he keeps a civil tongue. If Valerie has no wish to resign, never mind returning to the church of Shelyn that is her choice. I do wish to know who we're dealing with, but that is only to address any trouble he may attempt to stir up. Know this, you are welcome here as long as you wish to be apart of the realm."
--
Notes: As with 'last year', the previous year in the story (4710) there are kingdom administrative bits going on in the background, and there are scenes that take place over the winter but in medieval society with the exception of the vikings you didn't generally do much travelling during winter, there are exceptions, and trading still happened but for the most part this was the period of the year where people hunkered down, and mostly did repair work locally rather than travel (again exceptions exist historically) and yes the norse for example waged winter campaigns because as a culture were more active in travelling, and trading during this portion of the year.

Basically though your manpower is tied up at home for the most part. Now the other part of that is also lack of infrastructure overland travel is a problem. This is why the north south axis highway to Oleg's town to Old Scyamore to Shrikewall is important, but since this is a dungeons and dragons world we will eventually get royal institutions of a magical nature. Teleportation circles (Eire has already demonstrated this with being able to recall at will to the Cathedral of Iomedae) where institutionally forces of the domain can rapidly redeploy from one settlement to another, i.e. Shrikewall to Olegton.

Regarding Pathfinder lore, guide to the river kingdoms makes the claim its four centuries old founded by bandits from Brevoy, but Brevoy is only two centuries old. It also claims its been constantly struggling with Mivon, which again only founded by Rostlandic sword lords fleeing from brevic foundations.. It also gives us the 4702 year as Irovetti arriving, and his rise to power.

As an aside for medieval defense, proper medieval fences are fairly durable. In my experience people tend to think of them in relation to cheap picket fences and less, this is the sort of thing that keeps cattle in their pastures, mostly because when most people think of cattle pastures they think barbed wire, thats a 19th​ century technology, and also when think cattle farms or ranches they think wide open plains rather than the much smaller village shared pastures of the 11th​ century Europe.

EDIT: I just want to point out that the CRPG does not include Drelev's domain the hooktongue slough region. The Temple of Shelyn being referenced here is being built there technically still the Glenebon heights but it makes more sense politically for the Brevic church of Shelyn to be constructing a temple in Drelev's domain than in unclaimed wilderness (the iron wraiths are dead) or in the territorial claims of Pitax. Just felt that needed to be clarified.

 

[Imperator Pax]

4712 End of Winter
The equinox was quickly approaching following the Rebirth Moon, another week before Erastil's church celebrated the start of planting week. It meant they were now well into Pharast, the third month of the year. Winter was but a shadow now, and it was warming considerably. The snows would begin to melt soon, and that meant in particular for the Murque and the Thorn, to a lesser extent the skunk the flood season would start as the thaw swell the rivers. It wouldn't be a problem with the Shrike. The Shrike was fast enough moving normally, and more importantly long enough while it would swell some its flood risk was much reduced compared to the others.

Still it was an important matter for the baronial council to discuss, and to plan for. The winter months had entailed significant work, and once spring arrived they would move against Harrgulka the self pronounced king of the trolls. Narhold, and Shrikewall as its capital, had continued to grow. That gave the twins something to do, and Oleg in the north as well. With the situation in Hooktongue slough the way it was the Shrike was the only water trade route into the Rostlandic plain, and that meant Olegton's connection was seeing trade caravans move to both Restov as well as to other parts of Brevoy, like Brunderton more directly north.

Restov didn't really need to worry about the competition from the latter though. Brunderton was further there was no good direct road, and it was bad terrrain overland on top of that. Trade to Brunderton would happen, but it simply compete at large with the south Rostlandic road built b the ancient taldan settlers. Beyond those two, he was interested in what trade with Varnhold might bring.

For Eire the end of winter, and the warming would, once the waters calmed would mean the greater resumption of trade ... but it also would mean the campaigning season would begin. The winter had brought more of the same really, as Drelev's complaints about the troll threat mounted. The winter meant the that nascent trollish kingdom on their doorstep had needed to raid further into the slouch looking for food.

Ordinarily in troll societies the matriarchs would expel, or even drown excess population during times of privation if sufficient subsistence could not be found. The would be troll king was attempting to make up for his shortages by launching raids against vulnerable targets. That had resulted in of course Narhold's responses. Eire suspected that Hannis Drelev probably had secured himself and his retainers inside fort Drelev and relied on fishing from lake hooktongue to continue to feed his people through the winter. Most likely, as with most herds in Brevoy, he'd slaughtered most of his herds ahead of the winter. With crop rotations, and grazing fields spread the royal herds in the tuskdale valley north of Shrikewall were able to be fed through the winter, and also were shelters by both natural, and manmade defenses.

Eire had spent the last few months doing what he could in conjunction with other clerics in building up the defenses against other potential incursions. That had been the plan for winter when most of the peasants, the common folk would be largely focused on strictly local affairs... and had been before Jaethal had found Bartholomew Delgado... or the troll Jazon.

Both of which had proven to be different sorts of complications, and ones he hadn't readily ben expecting.

... and the latter might well explain why Harrgulka had not launched an attack against Shrikewall proper... and potentially suggested a diplomatic resolution to this... Tristian was hopeful of the latter at least. Eire was prepared to give it a chance... there were kobolds in Harrgulka's service... but Jazon had not named Tartuk, or even mentioned a purple kobold among them... and he had asked after a point if there were any strange purple kobolds around.

... but no, no purple kobolds. Plenty of strange Kobolds, but to all inquiries no pitaxian spies. Increased intelligence or not, Harrgulka had named his kingdom Troll Hold ... or Trollhold ... so very inventive. The winter peace could not last though, if they were short on larder were now, from the attacks on Drelev to the west, then it was too early for a harvest to come in. They had also not seen Jazon the civilized troll for weeks, and with winter waning they couldn't afford to wait much longer. They couldn't be worrying about the troll situation, and Jamandi wanting it resolved with the weather warming, and the Thickskin tribe starting to probe the longtails.

He turned to the envoy from the Long tail tribe, "We will move to deal with the thickskin tribe once the flooding subsides." that would give them time. The old rattler acknowledged that it wasn't likely to be warm enough before then for the lizardfolk to be prepared for any large scale movements beyond their villages. "Do you think the trolls may be attacking the thickskins?"

He toyed with his instrument in contemplation, "It is possible." The lizardfolk agreed. "they push from the south lands and earlier than most years." He continued in draconic. This was simply the way court was increasingly conducted as a growing number of literati settled in homes as citizens of Shrikewall, or around the nascent church of Nethys on Candlemere isle.... and that was just human arcanists, never mind it was the language of both the lizard folk, as well as the kobolds who inhabited the vast subterranean expanse of the old scyamore.

Eire contemplated the distraction that provided them. They knew where the Bronzeshield fortress was, and though they had not made a move on it, they had scouted out a handful of other dwarven ruins on the western frontier, and much like the elven ruins that existed in the stolen lands they had the potential to create further trouble with the races who had constructed them even if there wasn't a clear line of descent. Jaethal had absolutely no interest in holding Hereford as an official enfeefment, and certainly not just because she was an elf.

... and even if she were, Kyonin probably still wouldn't have been thrilled by that development. Hereford was the better protected of the two western settlements in the realm. Hereford was also the smaller of the two as its geography didn't readily facilitate easy settlement... and if the bronzeshield was any indication, the dwarven road of shields might well facilitate much easier settlement than trying to consolidate existing villages.

All of that was getting a bit further afield... he knew they needed to move on the Bronzeshield fortress soon. Harrgulka's lack of belligerence against Shrikewall might very well have been simple military expediency but even if it wasn't they couldn't have him launching attacks from within the domain against both mivon and drelev without it causing problems.
--
Eire contemplated his possessions, and really the new room. Another sign of the development of Shrikewall that was made clear by the expansion of the council chambers as the dressed stone took shape. The truth was that the castle, magical assistance in its construction or not, was not a priority. It would take shape mostly for the shape needed to supply the administrative, and military needs of the realm.

He had been reading on the subject of the lands to the north, which histories suggested produced conflict reports. In this particular one it recorded that Rostland was a Taldan colony established by the fifth army of exploration, while Issia's origins were displaced barbarians driven out of Iobaria either by warfare or the plague who remained independent of Taldan civilization. It went on of course to suggest that Choral was himself an Iobarian warlord and had forced the unification of of both... and of course with the disappearance of Rogarvian line left the geographically distinct boundaries divided and on the brink of civil war.

Truthfully he was skeptical of the broad sweeping claims on Rostlandic history and deep cultural connections to the south. The book in question smacked entirely too much of the sort of history written for propaganda narrative. It was a bit heavy on Iobaria, Issia bad, Rostland Taldan civilized good. Still the vast span of time aside they did have proof of Taldan mines, and presumably the taldan fifth army had needed farms to settle. That the account seemed to skip over, and failed to mention the various ancient iobarian cyclopean ruins littering the narlmarches he was skeptical of how useful the account might be.

They'd been looking for resources to corroborate Jaethal's elven map. "We're prepared your grace." Valerie remarked. The former paladin would as chancellor be remaining behind in the capital. Tristian, and Kalikke would be staying at the Old Beldame's village, and Candlemere respectively.

Harrim, and Amiri would both be coming. Eire would have liked to bring Jaethal, but she and Octavia, and Regongar were anchoring the western flank at Hereford, and Tatzylford. Though he doubted it would be necessary given the effort expended to bolster their protection, scrolls of recall would facilitate evacuation to the cathedral or to the temple of the elk for care.

Linzi, Harrim, Shaoyu and Amiri would be forming his party for the trek. "And if they don't see reason?" Jaethal's question was accompanied by Bartholemew squirming in her shadow. It was not that Jaethal didn't ordinarily have that effect on people, but the firebrand trolls, which were thankfully few, who had joined Hargulka retinue had been a product of the wizard's research into trolllish regeneration. The encounter had required as a precaution Regongar and Octavia's studies to orient more towards earth... caustic acid magic. Radiant fire still bypassed fire brand resistance, though the exact mechanism of why Eire wasn't sure... but it meant that Tristian and the Tieflings could form a viable second line defense against them if it came to that... but it had complicated their original strategy of alchemists fire.

With Tartuk though to reverse engineer the process it seemed as if there were too few trolls to make a meaningful difference to the character of trollish attacks reported. Given all of the bellyaching that Drelev had been making about the plundering of his lands by monstrous humanoids one would have thought he'd mention if fire wasn't working.

"Then we will be as fire from the sky." He replied. Truthfully if negotiations failed Eire already knew he planned to summon as many reinforcements from other planes as he could before he had to enter melee. They had also gone through the trouble to find an enchanted favored weapon of Groetus for Harrim that would deal acid damage as a precaution. They had made what preparations they could.

--
Notes: This starts the end of winter, early spring campaign season that serves as the intermediary between 4712, and concludes Troll trouble, as well as leading into Arc 3 Varnhold vanishing. Part of this chronological spacing is of course to allow the kingdom to grow. This should last, this immediate period, from Pharast 4712 to Sarnith of the same year, at which point we will move into the Varnhold Vanishing adventure, but some of the following portions overlap in terms of days covered.

As for updates this week, Sunday I will be updating the Luxen contracts (the expansion) and then probably the 30th as well the same. The advantage with this, and AoE timeline (in the AH thread) is that I've got a couple updates up front, and while not as ready I can edit and make adjustments to the Out of the Dark story so that can be updated on Friday pretty easily. Unfortunately due to other issues and I keep following behind I'm behind on the Drow CYOA story of the same name which I had planned to try and resume updates for this month, and thats not going to happen. What will probably happen is if smut (you're on this site) is your thing the other misc thread will probably have some faerun adjacent stuff go up from an old flash drive, and my laptop's files.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pharast 4712
Troll hold, and the bronze shield fortress it was centered upon, was closer to the border of the narlmarches closer to the east sellen river as it flowed down from lake hooktongue than it was from the murque flowing down into Candlemere. That partially explained some of their good fortune, because even as a decrepit ruin the Bronze shield fortress was an impressive structure... and Eire would have been lying in saying that he wouldn't have used it as capital, if he had known its location ... but no, Shrikewall was better positioned for trade.

Harrim morosely contemplated the ruins, and the troll hold. Harrgulka had non trolls working under him as well. He had impressed, Kobolds, lizardfolks, humans and dwarves amazingly enough... Eire was sure there were others... but that they weren't eating other civilized beings out in the open was a good sign, just as most likely Drelev had established 'Fort Drelev' on the western shore of the Lake, and potentially Varnhold where it had been raised.

The dwarf grunted. "He's coming."

Indeed Jazon the civilized troll was approaching with a party of others. Eire was not a small man but adult trolls started at eight feet and three hundred pounds. The truth was Eire had some guess as to how this was going to go, he hadn't wanted to discuss it with Jaethal, but ... he wasn't sure that Hargulka could be talked around. Jazon could probably get them close enough to open dialogue and then they'd have to work from there.

If talking worked, it worked, if it didn't then yes, there was going to be a fight. It was best to keep things simple, just to acknowledge that if things went wrong it would be a fight. The troll waved, raising a broad open hand. A gesture that Eire returned .

Shaoyu puffed out her cheeks in annoyance and looked around. A moment passed as the troll walked towards them, and she observed, "They're going to start planting soon." Interestingly she was right. It was mixed labor pool... and the humans seemed to be supervising but they were plowing the loose rocky soil similar to how the locals cut their rows.

Eire noted there were no horses, or draft animals... the trolls were making up for it using their own giant bodies to push the blows, which were large and crudely built 'supersized versions' of the sort of things he was used to seeing erastil's worshippers use to make their narrow strips.

Jazon finished making his way down the pathway that dwarfs had cut centuries earlier, and nodded acknowledging that they were farming. Winter had apparently been hard with limited larder stockpiled. All the livestock had been eaten over the course of winter leaving no livestock to plow the fields.

The trolls appetite had meant even the pigs were gone, which was a problem. Eire wanted to ask about the lizard folk, but there would be time for that later. "I take you to King Harulka."

"Thank you." Eire replied. The Bronzeshield fortress interior was in poor shape much like the interior. The abandoned halls were even more a testament to the dwarves craft. Even after probably centuries of neglect the structure was sound, even if dusty. The kobolds scurrying about weren't really trying to clean so much as make it livable to their tastes. It still left something to be desired, but it was something... it was more than simply squatting in bygone ruins

Eire had to resist the urge to ask Jazon as they walked how long Harrgulka had had them living here. It was obvious that agriculture had not been the first thing to occur to the troll king, and probably only winter and snow had convinced him that there really was something to this farming thing after all once food had started to run short. One of the issues with the long tails had been that they ate the corpses of the dead, generally because they couldn't afford to waste meat in the lean times, but as a culture simply didn't have a taboo about such due to the shortages of food.

The layout of the hall was much as Eire had expected. It was spacious enough that the dwarves had clearly intended for interior market days to be held here, rather than outdoors. Tables were absent but there was certainly space for them, and as demonstrated by the wagon that served as Hargulka's throne the room could easily accommodate them. This room had probably been intended to seat and feat hundreds of dwarven warriors and craftsmen for hours on end.

... and unfortunately the Troll King wasn't happy to receive them. Jazon had gotten them this far but the chance of peaceful negotiations seemed to evaporate when Hargulka punched Jazon in the mouth. Harrim stopped grumbling about the state of the fortress as the troll backpedalled. Eire glanced around as a precautionary measure, but there was no purple kobold to be seen... and Jazon had only ever mentioned a singular king.

There were a handful of kobolds but then were were a few others present. Eire would have guessed Hargulka must have been trying to hold audiences for his kingdom and contend with the day to day business when they'd walked in.

"Argh, Borba come here for fight!" Hargulka roared picking up his massive mallet. Eire noticed that despite probably comparable intelligence, Jazon spoke much more polished Taldane than the troll king did, occasional clipped dialect aside. "Fight borba." He made a big wind up that telegraphed the strike making it easy to dodge, which Eire did because he certainly wasn't going to try and block it... he had little doubt that Hargulka was stronger than he was, and definitely out massed him.

Amiri glanced at the trolls, and readied her giant sword, then with a look towards him gruffly remarked, "Well that was fast."

A flood of supernal heat and radiant light filled the hall. "Yes." Eire replied levitating off the ground, "I came to bring peace, so be it." The invocation finished and planar rifts formed releasing almost a half dozen hound archons into the hall wielding blazing greatswords. Trolls recoiled at the sight of the five celestial warriors, and their flaming weapons. The squad's arrival somewhat evened the numerical disparity between the trolls if they moved to engage.

Hargulka gave a bestial growl as he recovered his stand, sparing only a partial glance to the heavenly host. Eire surveyed the troll under his arcane sight, and while the troll king did have magical equipment nothing that truly stood out... certainly no sign of a nymph's hair charm as they had found on the Stag King or on Eirrikk the would be owlbear tamer. That was potentially a good sign.

"I Hargulka will tear you apart with my own hands." A straight and literal translation from giantish to vulgar taldane. A chieftan's challenge.

The supernatural heat blossomed, swelling and filling the hall as the baron floated, then flexed long branch like fingers, "You think to fly above the sky." He replied in draconic as the three feet of longsword blade glowed with the trace aura of his favored spell. A crescent wave of divine rippled off the longsword's thirty six inch blade.

The Troll King roared in bane as the vertical column expanded, but the battle was joined. Angelic canines intercepted trollhounds. A dragon in human guise bellowed in flame and fury. Amiri brandished her giantish blade. Harrim swung for a troll's knee using his new magical flail, and Linzi began to play her tune.
--
Notes: this is short, I admit that, I don't feel like writing a fight seen, but I also need to really sit down and read the other cyoa options.

I've paged through my buddy's copy of the anniversary edition (Some, I haven't read all of it), it is at best going to largely be secondary material for this story. I will mostly be sticking to the CRPG, and the first edition AP, and not making major changes to the current plot.

Additionally I'll thread mark and do minor edits (spelling, spacing) and such when I'm at my PC, hopefully tomorrow evening if it doesn't take.

 

[Imperator Pax]

4712 Pharast
Her blue eyes swept over the cluttered table. It was filled with arrears, and tallies and all sorts of other records of stocks, and goods, and the balance of currency. They had been waiting, delaying really, instead of focusing on the matter of the first market day, fair, of spring. Even if the trolls were out there there had been other things that had needed to be seen to.

Among the first things she and her sister had constructed was a home, or well paid for one they hadn't been involved in the manual labor. It was unfeasible, not impossible, but unfeasible, to construct something totally in the Qadiran style, in the style of their homeland and thus their home was a mix of the exterior finishings of local materials and interior trappings of home. She supposed it must have been similar to the problem the baron faced.

Though it was unfinished the baron's keep had begun with the task of excavating soil that had buried the old Taldan settlement... and then the Iobarian substructure beneath it, and rebuilding its foundations with local stone. It was slow going work to mate the dressed stone and masonry into new buildings but the hillside that had been built up by the Taldane probably for a watchtower at some point, what Eire had suggested might have been a 'broch' had been cleared away, and dug out to access the deep iobarian chamber under which had served as the main sublevel of the new keep, above which a mix of timber eaves, and concrete arches supported the ceiling of the vaulted great hall, but that wasn't what held her attention.

Kalikke was staring at the map as it shifted. It was a map, of sorts but it was also a product of arcane magic. She had seen the remnants of the incubator that had kept Shaoyu's egg warm though the dragon kept careful watch on it. The map was, its colored terrain was in three planes. The unknown reaches of the domain were simply sand. Great expanses of green sand filled the west and eastern expanses just waiting for agents of the barony carrying special tokens to explore them. It was the explored parts which rose up... little models of facets of the realm like Sorrowflow to the north east, and the capital at the center.

This little wonder had been the baron's project in the snow filled previous month, and it has altered just this morning updating to show a small yellow fortress on the surface of a hill rise. "It must be bronzeshield fortress." It certainly lined up with the map that Jaethal had been able to procure. "At least we know that they've arrived." She remarked.

The blonde wasn't reassured by the comment. Harrim had gained assurance he would be permitted to accompany any ventures into dwarven ruins that the baron delved into... and so the dwarf was there. Kalikke would have enjoyed the possibility of venturing forth, and the sweet teeth would have enjoyed the thrill of it but they at least would be able to see the fortress later... Valerie's interest was being in the vanguard of the baronial force... alongside his grace.
They were here in the event of attacks on the capital. "How frequently does it change?"

"I believe every hour." The blue eyed tiefling replied, unless the baron purposefully triggered a 'refresh' as he called it.

"Will it change if the baron is successful?"

"If this Hargulka yields?" She paused, "I don't know." Then after a moment. "He'll most likely simply recall to the cathedral, so we should know quite quickly either way. For now though there was no change other than the indication his grace had arrived at the dwarf fortress... and as the morning sun climbed higher into the sky... there was court to open... they needed to return to the hall, and contend with the business of the realm.
--

Valerie knew that there were questions circulating about when Oleg would get around to a religious center for Olegton. By this point the other communities of note in the realm all had religious anchors, at least one. Or at least Valerie assumed it was just Olegton, the kobolds and mites of old scyamore were supposed to have shrines at least, and shamans.

That made having Loy Rezbin here somewhat of a problem given the precise reason. Tatzlford had been raised on the eastern side of the ford where the tatzlwyrms den had been... thus the side his grace and the others had attacked from as it had been the direction he had been travelling. It was a small village, of about roughly two hundred families and given the troll crisis a small fort had been erected in what was the center of town to protect it citizens in time of crisis. Officially Loy was Lord Mayor of the town, but the influence his wife Latricia wielded was undeniable. The priestess of Erastil had among other things come to address planting day, but also the matter of the recently, privately, established temple to the goddess Calistria. Unfortunately not only was this the only religious matter being brought up, it was being done while his grace, and Harrim were both absent the capital.

Besides, Latricia's complaints of a scandalous new institution, and Oleg's lack of of action there were still others. The tiefling Kaessi had been given leave to establish a temple for the Church of Nethys on Candlemere, but the isle, similar to that of Shrikewall's swelling population was now contending with additional migrants and that included members of the church of Sarenrae which included Qadiran adherrents, which while Valerie suspected that Kaessi enjoyed some of the available creature comforts of her homeland she wasn't especially happen with other facets of the Dawnflower's church.


Absalom was rightly called the city at the center of the world, and it wasn't just Sarenrae's church. Nor was it just Abadar, or Nethys, or Calistria coming in the new wave of persons... there had probably been other immigrants, ones who had held to Shelyns church but with the turn of the year it was on paper. Paper, that was the development. The river kingdoms, the stolen lands included, were largely sparsely populated wilderness scattered hamlets and farming villages mostly. They still had no idea the real population of the rustic countryside, but settlers from Brevoy, and the even larger volume of peoples migrating north from down river coupled with the stock taking of the first real annual tallies of harvest, that was different.

Prosperity was a powerful draw, and Valerie understood the increase in people would draw the churches interest. The baron's membership in the Church of Iomedae, most clearly demonstrated by his directive to establish the first cathedral in the River Kingdoms had not gone unnoticed. It made her duty to the realm greater... and a potential conflict with the church of Shelyn more and more inevitable.

She reached for the tea, a non alcoholic choice she had selected intentionally, and sipped as the throng of court attendees filtered back in as the recess approached its end. Kaessi sipped the glass of wine she had liberally refilled as Valerie brooded over the letter that had been shared before the winter had set in. She would have preferred the matter not be addressed that way, but it had been... and a confrontation seemed likely in summer if not before. "What do you think?" The tiefling asked.

"Of their dispute?"

"The law is clear." Valerie replied giving her own opinion.

"That is true." The red eyed woman agreed, "And there are other considerations beside."

Valerie paused clearly stopping to consider the matter, "Octavia is an adherent of Calistria."

"Ah yes, that as well. I was thinking more about the matter of elves." There were some migrants from the south who had expressed an interest in settling in the Old Beldame's area, what would most likely become New Colton, and that included a contingent of elves from Absalom, "If we were to side in favor of Erastil not only would it be against the laws written, it create further discontent."

"if we don't, wouldn't Erastil's church have an issue?"

"Latricia will clearly have an issue," The tiefling sipped her wine, "But acceding to her request shows favoritism that really isn't warranted." She tapped, "We have options to delay. His grace, we could even delay by summoning Jhod to return, and give his input on the importance of the letter of the law."

Valerie frowned at the latter suggestion. It was exploitative... but it would probably work. "Do you have any suggestions on the issue with regards to Olegton?"

"We delay of course. They want us to make a decision because the dwarf, and the baron are absent, that would make fait accompli. Abadar's church clearly desires official dispensation." So they were to delay. Undesirable, but she didn't see another course.

"How do we do that?" The answer of course was that Garess had a report of his own related to the martial readiness of the realm to convey... which of course ultimately circled back around to the matter of faith. If Erastil's church had been better organized, then it was more likely that they could have provided levies of archers, but the hamlets were too small to effectively gather. They had been trying, but taking small clusters of men would have been ineffective, especially against the threat they faced in the trolls.

The Church of Gorrum was a major faith in Brevoy, and common in the River lands as well. It was the faith that Amiri also belonged to, but that didn't create any particular interest. Valerie doubted that there were organized churches in the land of the mammoth lords, and she had never seen the kellid barbarian woman attend a religious gathering out of anything that might have been mistaken for piety. Where Erastil encouraged self sufficiency and competency with sword and bow for self defense, Gorrum was a war god, and his church was much, more martial in character.... but even that ran into the matter of organization.
--

--
Notes: Tomorrow hopefully, I will be updating Not a Hero, which was originally planned for today, but I need to go through both my laptop and my PC for notes because that update been repeatedly delayed due to previous technical issues. so I am as a result of this updating this because, I have material in the pipeline

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pharast 4712
There were probably not that many trolls in Troll Hold in total. Even discounting food shortages there probably hadn't been that many trolls to begin with. Hargulka had had to knock heads together from other tribes to cobble together his kingdom, and that had included the 'fire brands' and the trolls Bartholomew had been experimenting on for research into healing potions... then there was also the other trolls... no scrags though.

Eire would have admitted he was surprised by that... it was a little odd. If Hargulka had been serious about being king he would have likely found that he would quickly have been king of ... most likely a predominantly kobold, or human realm. Trolls, and lizard folk simply couldn't sustain the population growth to people land as they could. Certainly Hannis Drelev's claims of being attacked by hundreds of trolls was clearly hyperbole, there were hundreds of trolls here, but that seemed to be the sum total.

Harrim held his flail menacingly in one hand... not intentionally so, the dwarf was really more of a grouchy resting glacier in appearance, but the magical weapon glowed under his arcane sight.

Shaoyu huffed expelling a breath of sparks. She had remained, and fought in human form, not resorting to her breath weapon

Linzi was already brain storming how she would commemorate in written word, and verse the victory here. The hound archons remained near to hand. The trolls Amiri had knocked unconscious during the fighting had reassembled themselves as she grimaced at them.

Eire surveyed the kobolds once again... but no, no sign of purple scales... as Jazon had assured them that he never seen a purple scaled kobold in his entire life. No, Tartuccio here. Eire shrugged more to himself and glanced around. "This isn't really ideal ground for agriculture." The dwarves had built it more for a trade garrison, and probably to mine. Most food had probably been shipped in from farms to the north or from the west in those ancient days.

Hargulka started to grumble that the borba had said that but fell silent.

"Its the terrain. Trying to grow grain, even with strong backs is extra work." There were crops that could be imported, potatoes, sweat potatoes other crops but the rocky soil appearance looked like it would be poor for millet... or maybe he was wrong, but certainly without much more extensive work it was going to be less productive. If Eire were to guess Hargulka had seen enough of human villages that he'd figured he could just demand that the human villagers who had been uprooted as tenants show how to farm without considering things.

There was another reason he was already contemplating matters. He couldn't have them here for more than one reason.

"You want to farm?" He asked. It was mostly rhetorical, he really expected that the trolls might fare better raising sheep, and cattle in the kamelands as their main food source, supported by agriculture but one thing at a time. Whatever the case, it was early enough that they could find somewhere and start planting on schedule.

--
They had returned in what was becoming the traditional way now. Now, was the time to see if peace would hold. Hargulka and Jazon both seemed interested in 'civilized' life in different ways, and to different degrees. Hargulka, and for that matter Munguk the hill giant, probably both could have adopted easily enough to life among the kellid tribes... and Jazon certainly would have an easier time dwelling among a cosmopolitan background... but the question was what about the others.

Hargulka had been able to abolish eating living sentients... corpse eating not so much but then the lizard folk ate their dead traditionally... and they had known about that even before moving on bronze shield fortress. There was also going to be the matter of literacy as well.... and like everyone else with winter letting go they were going to be more mobile.

He was going to have to ask what barges were available, as resettling Trobolds denizens would mean opening the baronial food stocks to feed them until they were settled...
--
It was a mistake he ended up making in the charters, transfixing in Taldane common the 'h' into a 'b'... it did not appear in the Draconic version of the document because of he had written it out as a diminutive form 'the trollish hold' of the larger 'Narlhold' referring to the larger narlmarches. Eire would have preferred if someone had caught it, and said something. The difference was minor, and didn't change the meaning or text.

"We may at least inform your mother," He informed the half orc, "That this should resolve issues in Drelevs domain." and resettling the trolls off the border ... not quite a mountain ridge, at least not compared to the tors to the east... would hopefully keep drelev from coming over the border. "At least in so far as trollish raids on his people and livestock."

"Always other trolls." Harrim remarked sourly.

Eire nodded from his seat... and the dwarf was right Hargulka if not for the food shortage had planned to subjugate trolls who lived further west to expand his ranks... yes. "We will clarify that any issues with trolls on our side of the border have been settled."

'For Now'. Harrim grumbled. Tristian was too busy with the the dawnflower's dogma of reconciliation, and temperance to contribute much... not the least of which was it was needling Kanerah who had started the morning already on the wrong foot. Though Tristian said he was from a cloistered church in Qadira it was the presence of Qadiran merchants plying the river that had started the issue.

Still those merchants carried cotton shipped from Orsirion that would be be turned into a twill... thankfully he had brought jeans in his pack... even though he had largely abandoned wearing them in favor of simply magically mending the cotton nylon blend... nylon was not something he was going to be able to reproduce, but with cotton they could make denim, even if they had to trade for the raw cotton bales.

Trade arrangements were a complicated thing.

"Trade up into Hook tongue slough remains blocked. Merchants are refusing to travel that way after last years violence," Especially not with a safer alternative route even if it didn't take them straight into Lake Reykal. Eire personally suspected given Drelev's opinions on merchants being what it was that it hadn't just been the attacks in the slough that had started to deter the trade... but he couldn't prove that.

Besides it wasn't that important. Restov wanted trade to come to Restov first and thus he wasn't going to rock the boat; no pun intended regarding whether trade was or wasn't moving at pre crisis volume through the slough. "The slough is beyond our remit." Eire remarked, "The east sellen does not touch our lands." Not when the implications were that Drelev had made little effort to prevent his subjects from respecting the territorial boundary between the two. No he was going to try and do better than that, but that would mean delineating where the Narlmarches ended on a map, but regarding the rivers, "The flood moon is in a week how are we in regards to preparations?"

Jaethal who had returned from the elven keep at Hereford nodded, "The spring thaw has already begun at least down river," the murque was already beginning to rise. "We wont really know until the rains start." Part of that was not simply the normal crop rotation, but given the terrain. It was probable that the old beldane's village would support rice cultivation, and there was enough of a migrant population to at least attempt it, but rice harvests were on a different schedule than corn, or wheat.

... of course they couldn't keep referring to it as the Old Beldame's village... so it would probably officially become New Colton. If rice paddy cultivation worked, that would diversify the kingdom's food supplies... and that was something Eire was certainly in favor of. "I understand there is a clamor regarding Oleg not having made a decision yet?"

--

Eire walked along the plateau that had been the site of the Stag Lord's fort, and who knew whatever other bandits before him... and before that probably a Taldan out post two thousand years before... and before that the ancient iobarian cyclops had had outposts here. Those structures had probably been in ruins, and buried by the time the Taldan fifth army of exploration had arrived, but the foundations and the material had remained solid. The plateau had been coined the high town to distinguish it from the laketown district of Shrikewall's shore line along the tuskwater. Down below at the lakeshore despite the brisk air men worked to bring in the catch, or check their nets for breaks... but the more important site looking into the water were the trading ships plying the lake from the shrike river's course as it moved down south.

This was in more than one way the artery, the lifeblood of the realm. The trade was vital to economic prosperity, just the immigrants into the barony proivded people for a land. It hadn't occured to him, but Brevoy had roughly the population, probably, in line with medieval England... which given their comparatively primitive agriculture made sense he supposed.

Winter was over, and though the calendar year had started almost three whole months earlier now was the time of the year where things would really begin to move again. The spring equinox was behind them the tradition planting season had begun, and thus the year was underway.

He wrapped a hand over the other, and looked over the cool waters of the great lake. Osirion the land they were sourcing their cotton from was ancient. Its 'first age' had been six thousand years ago, thus before the period of Aroden Reckoning, when most had still been eking out a hard scrabble life after the 'earth fall'.

It was Egypt? After a fashion. Eire wasn't sure how that worked, but the church of Nethys had claimed one of their prophets had lead to the foundation of that first Orision dynasty... and yet from what even Amiri had been able to describe the Osirion pantheon was that of Egypt... with other Inner Sea gods in syncretism. Saranerae's worship seemed to have been brought by Keleshite conquest which at least made sense... but it raised more questions.

There was a flash of lightning in the sky, and then thunder. The spring rains had begun. "Your grace." He was already standing preparing to walk back as Akiros approached. He wasn't alone, Kundal had apparently run himself hard, and was panting. He must have gone to get Akiros, and in turn the former paladin of Erastil had followed suit. One more thing to handle, but that was what it was to rule. A feudal overlord was expected to lead, there was only so much in terms of logistics to delegate.
--
Notes: While I am unlikely to use anything directly from it, at least not in the immediate future the old third edition Dracononomicon is probably one of the best books, or at least probably one of my favorite, books in terms of fluff and NPCs. It three hundred something pages, and its really worth a read.

So we're moving into the spring arc that is the space between the conclusion of Troll Troubles and Varnhold Vanishing, and it'll cover some more dragon stuff in the River Kingdoms/Stolen Lands, as well as some of the companion quests. This a largely spacer to finish out in snippets the winter of 4712 as we move into Spring 4712, and another anniversary of the Stag Lord's defeat ahead of the Varnhold vanish. The spring arc will probably be longer than I originally expected simply on the basis of material that probably needs to be covered in the spring instead of fall.

I'll probably had a 'feudalism' note some time before Varnhold Vanish begins.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Gozran 4712
'Tax fest' was a holiday of the Church of Abadar on the ide of Gozran, or a little over a week. Eire would have been lying to say he found Abadar's church involved in this matter to be...odd... The barony had a written tax code, even if it wasn't a fully monetized commercial economy it was written down. It was one thing, in the previous year for the Church of Erastil to do such as baronial agents in the north country closer to the temple of the elk, and Oleg's trading post... but part of the coming preparations were that even though she'd been late coming Arsinoe had been busy over the last year, and Eire knew that Dead Dave venerated Abadar even in his continued unlife.

The truth was with the troll troubles, and frankly even without that, surveying the domain in general, he hadn't been able to find the time to interact beyond basic formalities with the Church of Abadar or their representatives Without the emergence of the Troll threat and Drelev on the western border he probably would have been able to make more time. He would have been able to keep better track of the comings and goings within the city and maybe the expansion of the populace who venerated Abadar foremost might not have 'snuck up' on him.

That being basically the case, and the consecration of the temple of Nethys on Candlemre... the golden eyed Aasimar was look for a little more royal endorsement. Eire suspected that Tax Fest and the assistance that Abadar's church provided in such bureaucracy was how the church managed the influence across courts, and kingdoms throughout Avistan, and beyond... which in turn likely made them potential vulnerable in turn to courtly politics from those realms... and that also worried him.

"Leaving that aside," He began, "Our next priority is the sorrowflow road, and the opening of trade with Varnhold. The crooked it river flowed down from its source actually both and south, from the high peaks. The north fork flowed down into the Shrike, while the southern fork flowed a much straighter course until became a small stream that trickled into lake silverstep. It was the northern fork that gave the river its name, and the one that cut its way through a valley in the mountains that provided the most expedient path to Varnhold... but that same path would also require contending with the spring thawing, and the river being at its height.

The robed undead engineer down the length of the great table nodded, "running a road from the crossing and then a second bridge across the crook shouldn't be a trouble. It is, begging your graces pardon more a question of their end, than our labor."

Eire shook his head, "The road tie was Maegar's idea," Or possibly his wizard, "I would expect that he was plenty of reasons to want a direct route," Not the least of which would be to avoid brevic tolls on any merchants who were purchasing goods. That was not a knock on Jamandi, or Restov, or Brevoy at all... but he very much understood that trade here was a very complicated affair, and costs added up including overland travel times.

The 'Varnhold Pass' as it had been named was partially the result of the Crooked River's course, and partially the vagries of geography. It was the best option, but the road would probably be easily forty miles from Nettle's crossing in as straight of a path as they could make. "Yes, your grace, but then there is also expanding the crossing to accomdate the increased traffic."

They had had to rebuild Davik Nettle's bridge. The Stag Lord had destroyed it the same night he'd murdered the living Nettle. Expanding the bridge, and expand Kressle's hold on the north bank of the Shrike would hand in hand.

Akiros cleared his throat, "And that brings up the other matter, your grace."

"You believe them?"

"I believe they saw something your grace." Them / they in this case referred not so much to the Cheliax immigrants, but rather to the iobarian nomads journeying from the north west who had passed through Kressels domain... admittedly without incident. The steppe nomads claimed to be journeying to Numeria, but along the way had passed a bitter evil wind to the south east as they travelled.

Something about an ancient undead as they had hunted for Mastodons on their way.

Eire shrugged. "I'll pen an inquiry to Maegar on both accounts, they had to have come through the Dunsward,"

"Should we investigate?"

Ordinarily he would have said yes. "No," Truthfully the former paladin should have been focused on his own feef, and Eire was still uncertain about their western frontier. "It'll give the sweet teeth something to do, and I want to know everything we can about all the ruins. You said the tribe was passing northwest?"

"There is a gathering they're going to, I think we will see more of them riding through, other tribes."

"Then that is what I want you and Kundal to do, coordinate with Amiri." The Kellid was absent this meeting. She, Shaoyu, Ekundayo... who apparently venerated Torag... and Harrim were at Bronze shield the exploration was being seen as to what could be done... what needed to be done That was going to be another matter of religion. That was the issue with such a tide of humanity moving into a new region he was finding... the sort of thing he had underestimated severely. They had to paused from the sound in the antechamber. He started to wonder if the masons had had an accident, but it sounded more like a scuffle or other disagreement had broken, and was at risk of escalating. "I wish to know the movements in my lands Akiros, but if they are passing through peacefully then so be it." There was too much else that needed doing, "In the mean time." The baron rose, a gesture mirrored by the others.

The antechamber of the keep was a throng of court attendees Garress and Kundal both looked agitated to different degrees, and a rapid flurry of iridescence signaled that Perlivash was rapidly flying around the chamber. The faerie dragon urging the assembled to calm themselves, his message being echoed in a more calm and slower manner by a large bearded, but otherwise, bald priest of Sarenrae who probably weighed twice of what Tristian did. The slimmer cleric was already rushing to his darker skinned coreligionist to find out what was going on.

The faerie dragon seeing them buzzed forward on his butterfly esque wings doing an impressive bit of acrobatics that amounted to a mid air bow, and switched to draconic for the conversation. The bigguns perfumed git was from Pitax... and seemed as full of himself as Irovetti's previous two lackeys... Tartuccio and the bard / spy Grigori.

Tristian was back a moment later, in terms of summary his report was not much different than that of the faerie dragons. Eire strode forward, and cast a pointed look at the hand resting on the gilted, golden hilt of the man's rapier. It explain Kundal, Garress and the others belligerence at least, because Valerie immediately placed her hand on her sword. The baron raised a hand, "If you mean to make a challenge then do so." The statement was calm, but almost a dozen clerics of Iomedae fanned out to either side of them in a mix of garmets and colors. Regardless of whether they were wore red and black or white and gold or more practical field colors of gray or green all of them carried practical, functional longswords. There ranks were further complemented by clerics and members of other religions, and still lay persons beyond membership in the council.

The heavily perfumed man coughed slightly, and Eire couldn't be quite sure if it was just the powder he wore giving him a pallid look that resembled Jaethal, or if he was actually sick. Stefano Moskoni stopped himself from mussing his carefully styled, and wax dark hair with the hand he'd drawn away from the sword. "I do apologize your grace, I am Sir Serfano Moskoni, of Pitax." The knight's sarcasm dripped off the words and Eire was happy that Amiri, and Shaoyu were absent this visit.

The pitaxian noble threw a glance towards Kundal as if he expected at any moment the former werewolf might turn beserk and make to rend him to pieces. A discomfort that Stefano Moskoni explained made all the more pronounced by the apparent lack of spare arms in the Stolen lands. Stefano had been been an envoy for Irovetti visiting Restov, apparently his embassy had been there throughout the troll crisis, and on the way here he'd encountered a 'concerning number', which probably meant more than one, of Kellid horselords simply riding through on their way to the west.

Eire didn't glance to Akiros, but he didn't need to. "A similar observation has been rendered," He conceded, and before the Pitaxian could puff himself up waved towards the Aasimar, "Arisinoe would you ever so mind speaking to the matter of peaceable journy." The church of Abadar had different hospitality rights than Iomedae but they weren't that different. Iomedae's faith was a slightly more martial one which impacted social mores, neither prevented him from collecting tolls, and both encouraged policing the highways against bandits... and Stefano Moskoni did have a point. The recent crisis had stretched manpower thin.

It was a distinct possibility that people might take advantage of that.

The doors to the council room shut back behind them. "I don't like his tone."

Garress's understatement punctuated the looks circling the council... no one had liked his tone. He had planning to call Garress in anyway to speak about the textiles... that was to say the process of introducing jeans as part of a uniform to direct baronial subjects. The simple fact was most peasants wore homespun clothes and were lucky to have two sets of regular work clothes... but the denim would also help establish uniforms for the baronial guard... that would have to wait. "Nor do I," Eire agreed, and it was unlikely Pitax had anything to do with Harrgulka's attempt at carving out a trollish kingdom in imitation of the new human baronies... but Pitax might attempt to exploit it. "We will have to be on our guard." but he supposed that went without saying.