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We've just pushed a blood guard off the side of a walkway (hopefully to his death?) and subsequently inspected the freaks body. The obvious move is to get back in the shadows, observe how quickly his buddies respond and how.

Also, I took the liberty of adding town names to the map you posted last thread. Seems a little more practical for now.

>>23755481

It doesn't take long for a response to come. Two more Blood Guards arrive and begin searching for their missing comrade. Eventually they look down and find his shattered body on the forest floor, and soon after an alarm is sounded. The camp comes to life, the deathly silence replaced by shouts and stamping feet as they spread out to find a potential intruder.

They probably felt pretty silly when they went through all this trouble for a guy who just slipped and fell to his death, but hey, better safe than sorry.

>wat do?

>>23755687
sneak around to learn where we can do the most damage when our army arrives

>>23755863

What sort of damage were you planning on doing, and how?

Pretty neat that the place is high enough for that to work. But just pushing a few guys over the edge won't win the battle. Manipulating or disrupting their leadership has pretty much become our modus operandi, so were we able to find anyone who seemed to actually be in charge?

>>23755881
I don't plan to do any damage yet just see where the troops can make the most damage, where the guard seems lax this sort of stuff

>>23755937

No. There are ground-level sergeant-type officers leading the guard, but no sign of any high-ranking types who might be running the whole show.

>>23755982

Yes, but you can't determine where you're going to be most effective if you don't have a plan to actually do anything. There are no glowing weakspots you can hit for massive damage.

>>23755937
I'd like to remind you that those are the elite Bloodguard. Killing them alone would significantly lower moral and remove all those nasty old traditions of watching each other and having light around you so shadows cannot assassinate you. I'm tempted to just continue killing them until we can slip into and out of Summerbridge whenever we want.

Free their horses.

>>23755982
The most obvious target at the time the army arrives would be any point overlooking the bridge, but even if they get across the bridge they'd still be highly exposed to archers from above. I don't know if simply hitting any of them would help much.

>>23756065
Terrorize them until they abandon the treetops entirely? That'd probably be surrendering any hope of taking this point without alerting the rest of the Golgothan forces, but it could help.

>>23756064
Examine the guard routines, where are their supplies, how do they communicate, where are their sources of light, how do they prevent rot in their supplies, what sleeping arrangements do the soldiers have and other things which would be of use. We are bound to have experience in this. See if we cant find some sort of way to utilize our powers. We should be on look-out for anything that is easy to sabotage.

>>23756094
This is a surprisingly good idea. Our whole campaign relies on the fact that they don't know we are coming. Removing all ways to send quick messengers or killing all messengers might be the most important thing we can do. At the moment we can surely destroy this stronghold, but as soon as they know we are attacking them things will become a whole lot more difficult

>>23756185
Yea, I'm on board with this actually. But, we're two days ahead. ALL of their horses running away isn't likely to be "just an accident" so we might want to wait a day.

>>23756224
Ok, so tonight we are looking for ways in and out, memorize the layout and plan the best routes to 1) Remove the horses (injure their legs or steal them if possible) 2) Find out guard routes 3) Find out where officers are stationed 4) Find best places to kill people (already known: Walkways)

>>23756291
Sorry about the weird structure, I shouldn't change my mind mid-sentence....

don't we outnumber these guys pretty hard? what we should be looking for is messengers or some kind of retreat plan so they don't get away when the army arrives.

>>23756291

Their horses are pretty easy to find. Since trees are, as you might imagine, not the most awesome place for a stable, those are some of the very few structures kept on ground level. As far as good places to kill people is concerned, the walkways near the fringes are definitely the best because the guards are spread out over a wide area (as opposed to near the bridge where they're very tightly concentrated) and there's an easy built-in way to kill a fool.

There's no sign of any high-ranking officers anywhere in the village.

>>23756355
Pretty sure we have the numbers once they actually arrive, but I think one should be at least a little worried that they're all up in treetops behind a bridge that our guys will have to cross. Unless every single soldier here decided to skip archery practice, that can be a lethal situation.

>>23756365
set the stables on fire

>>23756419
With? You have to specify this kind of stuff.

>>23756365
Preliminary battleplan:
1) Army stops out of sight. If we have enough people to surround the in a reasonable manner (need to be able to hold the line for a while if they try to escape)
2) Olberek uses his wolfs to find patrols and kill them. Rabbadon kills as many guards as he easily can.
3)Army, Girdin, Olberek attack village, Olberek takes control of horses, Girdin does most of the heavy fighting, humans stop eveyone from escaping.

We might consider demanding surrender at some point.

>>23756499
>surround the village in a reasonable manner, do so

>>23756499
We can't surround the place. The whole giant river and only one bridge in that they heavily guard from this side thing?

I agree with the other points though.

>>23756419
If you're going in that direction, why not just set fire to everything? This place is strategically valuable, our guys are going to want to hold it afterwards. Minimal damage to the place is preferable.

>>23756499
For now, Girdin refuses to fight. And it is my impression that surrounding the village is impossible. There's a river in the way.

>>23756537

The bridge/river is definitely the big monkey wrench in that plan. The fact that it's in the treetops doesn't help, since there's a limited number of walkways leading up, most of these are deep inside the village, and the enemies will have the advantage of height the entire time. Upshot being that in order to get up to the same level as your opponents, you need to walk through several hundred yards of death from above.

how many horses do they have? could we just delusion someone to believe he needs to take them to the direction where our army is?

>>23756637

They have several dozen of them. This being a raiding party from Guille Fortress, it looks like pretty much all of these guys were mounted when they arrived.

If this is a raiding party from Guille, were their supplies to be sabotaged they would presumably head to Guille for more, rather than the direction where they actually still have guys, yes? So if we can find where they keep their supplies and ruin them, we could perhaps force them to march right into our army?

It's late. Not late enough to be considered early. But still late. There are two men. One is tall. His appearence immaculate. Not a wrinkle in his clothes or a hair out of place. He holds himself in a way that a statue would, no undue movement. The other man is a contrast to the first. Hunched over. Unkept hair with ragged clothing. Darting eyes and fidgeting hands. His features long and rat-like. The two men are standing under a tree. Arguing. Waiting. Arguing about what they are waiting for.

"Of all the people, in all the Courts, in all the stupid world, I have to come out here tonight and wait for this stupid thing." Grumbles the second man in a squeeky, uneven voice. "With YOU no less." Pointing a grubby finger at the first man. "I'm willing to bet you don't even know what we're waiting for."

"Of course I know what we are waiting for." Replies the first man in a flat, measured tone. "We are waiting for tonights event to occur. At this location. Which we are to mutually attend."

"That's a no then. Fan-TAS-tic. This is just I wanted to do tonight, sit in a forest with Prince Prim-n-Proper. I bet this is punishment from one of the higher ups for something I didn't even do."

"You should not always think the world against you. My unclean friend. I think that if you find patience. You will find that the event that we are waiting for has arrived." He turns to refer to the third man who has just appeared.

>>23756738
Risky, but also a good idea. It might be worth a shot.

The third man who has just appeared looks around with the puzzled face of someone who can't remember why they walked into the room. Most people in his situation would also be puzzled if they just suddenly started existing.

"Hello. What is your name?" The tall man askes in his flat tone.

"My... name?" The new man asks. He seems confused by the concept of having a name. He is confused by the concept of suddenly existing. He's confused by the concept of suddenly existing and being asked his name.

"Yes. Your name. Everything has a name. They are an important part of ourselves. They help us to define who we are. They affect how others view us. And how we view ourselves."

"Who we are..." The third man echos, his words trailing off. Everything was is so strange to him. Why did he have knowledge but no memory of anything. Why was this strange statue-looking man talking to him. What was a statue. Where was he. Who was he. His thoughts are cut off when the short man let's out a sound somerwhere between a scoff and a hairball.

>>23756738
That's a good plan.

"Names are overrated, why do we have to define everything? Why can't a Daemon just exist?"

"You only say that because you do not like your name Mouse." The taller man responds.

"You shut your face Order, no one likes you!"

Something clicked. Daemons. That's what they were. The tall, statue-like man called Order was really a statue. A Daemon of the Court of Dominion. The other one. The hairy, little one. He was the Daemon of Mice. Night Court. But who was he? He was a Daemon, that he could tell. But a Daemon of what? The words "something scary" flashed in his mind. He cracked a smile. It was coming to him now. Bad crops, bad dreams, bad children. The locals had been quite eager for a boogieman. It looks as if now they had one.

"My name is Wickerman, Mr. Order, does that answer your question?" Wickman says, flexing his straw hands.

"Yes. That is statisfactory. Because of the presence of Mouse. It will be noted that you are a member of Night Court. Good night gentlemen." As soon as Order finishes his monotone assessment he disappears.

"Eh, I hate that guy." Mouse squeeks when he's gone. "So you're Wickerman eh? You must be some local hedge. I'm Joey." He offers his hand. "I'm here to get you on your feet. Help ya feel not so new. Here Wick, let's walk and talk, I can call you Wick right?"

>>23756738

You don't have the ability to predict the future so you can't say how these guys will react if they run out of supplies. There's no particular reason to believe they wouldn't return to Guille Fortress to resupply, though. The way messenger pigeons works means that Guille couldn't have sent one here, but there are some survivors of any battle. So it's possible they've received word of Guille's fall.

>>23756826
Well, the soldier we interrogated didn't sound like it. but it could just have been that HE didn't know. Still, we've moved relatively quickly, we SHOULD be ahead of the news. I think. Gathering intel would be a lot easier if we could actually detect their leader...

>>23756947

Only way you'll find out is if you try it. So far no one's actually suggested that you do it, just asked what would happen if you did. So, you going for it?

>>23756995
It seems a good option to me and I see nothing better, so if nobody has any objections, let's do it.

>>23756995
Let's go for it, seize the day!

>>23757078

Alright. The supplies are held inside one of the larger buildings near the bridge, and of course they are well-guarded. A half-dozen regular sentries plus a pair of the more regular Blood Guards. How are you going to wreck it?

>>23756800
I like this! I also like the potential of this Daemon setting.

>>23756800

Oh, just in case there's some confusion: this guy is one of the people who helped me flesh out some top-level setting stuff like how daemons work, what the Courts are, how they react to each other, etc. etc. And he's writing a cool prose thing that he's going to post in the thread as it's finished. It's not directly related to the current plot, but some of his characters are cool enough that I'm thinking of talking to him about reusing them in the quest proper.

>>23757163
how far away are the supplies from the corpses of the villagers? i imagine that's the easiest way to make them non-edible.

>>23757163
Well, I'd imagine that "supplies" includes stuff that you can use to make fire, so that was kinda my idea right there. If we can't get under the door in shadow form, perhaps we can delusion someone into believing they or a superior needs something from the stores and then follow them inside.

>>23757416

Starting a fire isn't super hard because these guys have torches all around. But how are you planning to get a torch to the supplies when there are at least six guys in this room whose job it is to stop you from doing exactly that?

>>23757388

The corpses are mostly on the outskirts of the village, and the supplies are in the center, so it's a few hundred yards.

>>23757481
does any of them have an obvious leadership position? we could just delude someone outside into sounding an alarm and then go back inside and delude him to believe they are all needed outside.

>>23757481
Oh they're actually inside? I thought they just patrolled around the building. I... uhm.. maybe we can set fire to the entire building. That's kinda shitty though, we need something that doesn't involve us being seen directly...

>>23757481
Why don't we just walk up to them, pull some tongues, yell "CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!" and run like fuck into the trees and hide in the first shade we can find? Then when one runs nearby, delude him into thinking we went THAT way, then sneak back around to the supplies?

>>23757650

Well, this carries a risk of being stabbed.

>>23757595

No. The place is quite mysteriously absent any higher-ranking officers.

>>23757650
There's this voice inside my head saying that these guys know better than to abandon their posts to chase after us, even if it would be comedic.

since we have two days or so, we could just scope out the area for a while and work out their positions and enemy forces. Then we can double back and tell Jens and Olberek what they're in for; the terrain and deployments, likely weak spots, etc. We don't need to hit them right now, and them being caught completely unaware by the incoming army might be better than raising the alert by fucking with them.

>>23757832
But it would have been nice if we could get them to abandon this village entirely. It's a fucking deathtrap for our guys, even if they know that it's a deathtrap. I just don't have any likable solution to getting to the supplies anymore, and I definitely don't like >>23757650

Perhaps if we observe a while longer, the leadership of this band will be revealed one way or another. We might also want to go make sure Mari isn't getting herself killed.

>>23757924

Well this is the most recent suggestion, so let's go with this.

Lurking about the village, the guards hardly speak. They keep to hushed tones with one another when they do talk, and are often looking over their shoulders at the silent Blood Guard. Eventually the man they were torturing finally expires. The lack of communication means there's no way to make out any kind of chain of command, but there's got to be someone in charge...Right?

Mari, for her part, is doing fine. On edge from being so close to a clearly bloodthirsty Golgothan raiding party, but unharmed and sleeping in a tree.

>>23758255
Do we have any idea how big their occupying force is?

>>23758335

Yes, about fifty soldiers and nearly half that number in Blood Guards.

Guys. They don't have any obvious officers to counter our assassination tactics. Of course, they will have at least some, which will do everything to stay low. I'm quite sure that they are wearing either the regular soldiers or the bloodguards equipment and weapons. We should be able to counter this by deluding a soldier. Just tell him "You need to speak to the highest ranking officer here right now". That should do the trick.

>>23758379
This is worth a shot honestly, let's bite and see what happens.

>>23758379
I'm all for trying, but we first need to find someone who's on their own or not part of the regular rotation. They seem to have set themselves up so purposefully that if anyone breaks formation its immediately obvious to the rest. That makes it really freaking difficult single someone out.

>>23758371
That are suspiciously many Blood Guards. That makes me believe that a good share of the "Blood Guards" are actually officers like I mentioned in >>23758379

>>23758426
I believe that the Blood Guards are a separate organization that works alongside the regular army though. There were no Blood Guards calling the shots at Guille's Fortress, the commander(s) were normal dudes.

>>23758426
It's especially many if it's just supposed to be a raiding party. Would impersonating blood guards to disguise their officers really be tolerated or did they just bring that many of them? Why were they expecting to need so many?

Fuck, these guys are making me paranoid as fuck.

Isn't this the kind of thing we should have asked the guy we interrogated? "Who is in charge?"

>>23758420

So are you going to go for it or what?

>>23758671
i don't see any harm in it

>>23758420
At least the blood guards. We've already managed to pull one regular guard out of rotation and they don't seem overly concerned by that.

>>23758671
Yes

>>23758705

The base is on higher alert now that one of the Blood Guards has mysteriously died, but by the next day people seem to have calmed down a bit. It's hard to imagine a Blood Guard just stumbling off a walkway, but despite their pretensions to the contrary they are basically just spooky humans.

After the guard hears your delusion, there's the usual several minutes wherein he turns it over in his head and the idea begins steadily growing. And then he glances around to make sure no one's looking and jumps down from the trees, darting from beneath one walkway to another and slowly making his way away from the village.

Before long, however, a Blood Guard spots him and pulls a bola from his cloak, twirling it in the air and then sending it towards the fleeing man. He is quickly caught, and the Blood Guard descends to collect him.

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>>23758901
well this is interesting

>>23758901
Well shit, now I'm not even sure if he actually was headed towards an officer or just got messed up and tried to run.

Also unsure as to whether TM is writing or waiting for new input.

>>23758901

There should be some kind of conversation. Let's listen to it.

>>23759180

There is not. The Blood Guard is deathly silent and while the panicking guard begins pleading his innocence, claiming he was investigating a disturbance etc. etc., the Blood Guard does not respond at all.

>>23759219
Well that's not very helpful of him. I'd give him a "This soldier speaks the truth." The soldier would probably hear us however, which might be bad. Opinions, guys?

>>23759219

He won't just stand there for hours listening to the panicked rabble of a would-be deserter. He'll either *BLAM* him on the spot or bring him to an officer, by which we archieve our goal. In the first case, we use the same delusion on the blood guard, in the latter we follow them.

>>23759311
The problem is the way you've worded that delusion basically sets us up for our own downfall. This guy probably thinks the soldier is crazy and would dismiss the dude bringing up another voice or something. By making him think this guy can only tell the truth it makes the soldier's concerns about hearing us valid.

And now I must go. This thread is pretty abbreviated due to the late start, oh, well, hopefully I can get it going on time tomorrow.

>>23759384
That's a damn shame. Totally not an appropriate point to be stopping.