Myth: A New Age CYOA

[Jester]

1. The Structure: The Creature's party was building something. You need to decide what to do with it.

D) Investigate it. This may take time, which you may not have, but you will attempt to study the structure and determine what its purpose is. Use the time the chariots are taking to shuttle our wounded to investigate. If it is important to the enemy and has unreplaceable components that can't be easily taken, level it. If it has important components that we can transport, steal them. If it is nothing special leave it and save the ammo for the army.


The Wounded: You have several wounded from the battle but you do have some mandrake roots on hand. You could use them to heal some of your forces while you could try transporting others in your chariots. Note: your force can only travel as quickly as its slowest members. (For example, if the dwarves have to walk then that is the speed you will travel at. If necessary you will send any wounded ahead though.)

2. Ori: He is alive but only barely. Thankfully you have now mastered the Heal spell so a single mandrake root should almost bring him back to healthy condition.

A) Of course you will heal him. (1 mandrake root, 1 minute)


3. Neel: He is badly injured but it is not likely fatal. You could easily heal him with a mandrake root or you could try to patch him up and send him back to the fort in a chariot.

A) You will use a mandrake root. (1 mandrake root, 1 minute)


4. Your Soldiers: You currently have five wounded soldiers in various conditions (Four Black Arrows and a dwarf from your escort). How do you want to treat them?

B) Use mandrake roots on the seriously wounded and send the lightly wounded in chariots (2 mandrake roots, 3 chariots, 15 minutes)


5. The Black Rod: It currently sits smouldering at the bottom of the hole you made. From what you can see it is not damaged in the slightest. Merely looking at it fills you with the urge to pick it up and wield it but you hold yourself back. What do you want to do with it?

C) Throw it in the tunnels and then collapse them. We'll wait outside, far, far away from it until the job is done. Have a chariot drag the staff to the fort and have a dwarf with no magical affinity as driver and a separate dwarf carry it to the tunnels and cover it in molten metal. Cover it in lead if we have enough. If we have almost enough base metals to cover it consider smelting gold into the mixture to get enough.


6. Send a letter via an eagle to Albrecht explaining that we have engaged the main Watcher's army and though we are holding our ground, we are taking casualties. Also send him a detailed breakdown of the Watcher's forces that Nanshe have given us. Request any assistance he can bring, legally or illegally.

will go with this to i guess.

 

[Nevill]

Does anyone else want to send a message to our troops from Stoneheim?

Certainly. But keep in mind that you will have to be quite specific and it will also only work for a moment like all spells put in the rings. What that means is that if someone tries to oppose your attempts (like the Spider Goddess did back at the end of Chapter 1) then your spell will fail if it is delayed for even a moment. You won't be able to continue to apply pressure like you could if you were actually casting it.

They should be aware that we are casting, as well as what we are casting, right? As long as the item belongs to us, they have no reason to suspect anything, do they?

Can we make a notch or add some other identifier on the rings so that the both of them are easily discernable? Can we use one ring to 'recall' the other that way?

Can we 'recall' small animals, like mice?

Do we still need to maintain a line of sight? It was required because we needed a good look at the item to 'recall' it, but since we cast the spell beforehand, would this still stand? Can we 'recall' an item from another room without looking at it? Or, say, from a mile away?

The eagles did not need a roll. Once they were committed to their diving run there was no way for the Creature to save himself unless he knew ahead of time that the strike was coming. Your spells tore him apart quiet nicely.

If one wants to protect himself from such an attack, how does he go about it?

 

[Fangshi]

They should be aware that we are casting, as well as what we are casting, right? As long as the item belongs to us, they have no reason to suspect anything, do they?

They would have to realize what you are trying to do and be able to stop it or they would have to be paranoid enough to take such precautions in advance.

Can we make a notch or add some other identifier on the rings so that the both of them are easily discernible? Can we use one ring to 'recall' the other that way?

Yes but you would have to do something to make it unique for that to work. If you put a notch in the ring but there is another similarly sized gold ring with a notch in it, it might not work very well.

Can we 'recall' small animals, like mice?

Possibly. If the animal in question was unique enough it might work but you have never tried it. There may or may not be side effects.

Do we still need to maintain a line of sight? It was required because we needed a good look at the item to 'recall' it, but since we cast the spell beforehand, would this still stand? Can we 'recall' an item from another room without looking at it? Or, say, from a mile away?

Well there are two ways to go about this if you really want to go indepth.

The first would be to apply the spell as Derryth knows it onto the ring. Following this method would require line of sight but it would also let the 'caster' set the object at the moment the spell is activated. The user would provide the direction behind the spell without having to properly understand it.

The second method is, I think, closer to what you are aiming for but would require modifying the spell slightly. You would need to 'rip out' and 'rewrite' some of the basics of the spell to remove the requirement but it should be doable as long as you provide a clear image in advance. You would lose a little versatility and the end user would have no real input into the process but it should work.

As for the distance this second spell can reach you would need to try it a few times to figure it out. It might be related to just how much power you pour into the spell or there may be other variables at play.

If one wants to protect himself from such an attack, how does he go about it?

There are a couple ways.

If you are powerful enough and can heal quickly enough (Balor, Mazzarin or the Watcher for example) then you can simply shrug off the spell provided you are prepared for it, but there are very few mages that operate on that level.

For most mages the only way to survive such an attack is to not get hit by it. Meatshields are good, if someone or something is willing to throw itself in the way of the spell that works wonders. You have to be willing to sacrifice people though.

Scouting can also work. If you can discover what your enemy plans to do before they do it then perhaps you can escape it.

Failing that if you can kill the caster quickly enough you might also be able to save yourself. You could also attack the spell with a spell or weapon of your own (hit a fireball with a fireball and they should both stop well short of their targets for example).

Other than that you could try to pioneer defensive spells to shield yourself but they belong to a rare and poorly understood field of magic.

So I am afraid there is no magic bullet there, just common sense defenses that anyone can employee and a few more esoteric means of protecting yourself that Derryth is unaware of.

 

[Nevill]

Well there are two ways to go about this if you really want to go indepth.

Alright, I'll stop beating around the bush.

In order to keep us from being enslaved by the Thin White Mage, we have to keep the bullshit coming. So we have to change the pattern a little. An ambush have saved us once, but not this time. Similarly, the eagles won't be enough next time we meet him, I'm afraid.

So the plan is to hit him with something he does not really expect and can't prepare for. Bonus points if it is also a fairly low-maintainance way of doing things.

I want Berty and the grenadiers to devise a satchel charge-like bomb with a delayed blast. Something that only activates once a pin is pulled out. The pin and the bomb are two separate items. 'Recalling' the bomb, but not the pin would qualify as pulling the pin out.

I want to utilize the versatility our animals and rings provide us. Mice may as well be invisible for all the parties involved, so naturally, I turn to them. The plan is to have a mouse sneak up onto the enemy and 'recall' the bomb via a ring, which should be immediately apparent to our forces if they keep a watch on the bomb and it disappears. Before the bomb detonates, we pull our saboteur out of the blast radius with another 'Retrieve Item' spell, or if we are content to accept casualties, we might limit ourselves to pulling the ring only.

That way we can drop a primed bomb past enemy defenses without even needing to detonate it. And from what I know of the spell, it does not require us going through a third of our Energon Cube supply.

This is probably only good for one use against the Mage, but one use is all we need from it. We may even use eagles to distract him from what is happening on the ground since that is where he would be expect the danger to come from.

How is this, from a practical standpoint? I hope I am not outbertying Mr. Levi in the crazy department just yet.

 

[Grimgravy]

1: D>C>B
2: A
3: A
4: B>C
5: B>C
6: Ai

 

[Absinthe]

Jester, Kz3r0, Azira, archaen, Grimgravy would you be up for switching to 2C and 3C so we save some valuable roots now that this option has been added? We only have 6.

Also, voting 5C now.

 

[Nevill]

There is very little incentive to switch from roots to our own power.

If we use the roots and they run out, we can use our remaining power to heal our wounded after we win an encounter. But if we use our power, we might not have enough to win us a battle in the first place.

The roots can only be used for healing. The power, on the other hand, is a more diverse resourse, and thus more valuable.

I'd like to preserve our roots, too, but with only six, it does not seem feasible. We could cut corners and refuse an immediate aid for our soldiers, but if we are investigating the structure, it becomes a matter of not having enough time to nurture them back to health through standart means.

 

[Grimgravy]

I'm more open to sending the wounded grunts back on chariots without healing.

 

[Kz3r0]

Sorry, I am against using our own power with a major battle ahead, and being drained by a third at best is not a good idea.

 

[Nevill]

I'm more open to sending the wounded grunts back on chariots without healing.

Depends on how seriously they are wounded, yes. I am, too, considering this option, but the way it is phrased, we are still trying to provide help. We barely have two hours before the enemy forces arrive, so using up a half of that time is not worth it.

 

[Fangshi]

How is this, from a practical standpoint? I hope I am not outbertying Mr. Levi in the crazy department just yet.

Well you would have to do a few things for this to work.

1. You need to build this bomb, Berty and the grenadiers can probably do that so it is not a huge problem.

2. Lyssa needs to train a mouse or rat to use the ring. This might take time as you will need to convert your new, wild rodents into properly enhanced and trained scouts and spies. This may take a little time. (It would also probably be best if you do not tell the mice that you plan to blow them up, they would surely be less willing to serve if they think it will kill them. They will also likely have demands.)

3. You will need to modify the spell to work without line of sight as I doubt the plan would work very well unless you do. You will also need to establish the maximum range of your new spell when fully powered.

Once you have done that you may try to proceed with the plan. If/when you get back to the fort I will add it as an option to pursue should you so desire.

 

[Kz3r0]

Amended my vote:

1.D)
2. A)
3. A)
4. B)
5. A)
6. A)
i.
ii.

 

[Nevill]

2. Lyssa needs to train a mouse or rat to use the ring. This might take time as you will need to convert your new, wild rodents into properly enhanced and trained scouts and spies. This may take a little time.

That, or we can brainwash poor little critters with a series of Suggestions, Delayed Reactions and Instructions. Their minds are tiny and likely would not be able to resist.

We can spin a story of how the White Mage is the father of all the cat horrors, how he steals and hoards the cheese from hard-working mice-folk, how he threatens to lock all the mice pups in mousetraps and put them in evil mazes to run experiments on them. That is, unless they help us get rid of him and ensure an age of prosperity for all the mice in the world.

What? The recent studies have shown mice to be very empathic and social creatures.

...okay, now I am sure I'm losing it.

 

[Absinthe]

Sorry, I am against using our own power with a major battle ahead, and being drained by a third at best is not a good idea.

The drain only lasts one day. The major battle is not happening today. And we don't have many roots to spare. At this stage we took out the main enemy for the day and the pathfinders & archers (both elites) can manage the rest. Plus it's not like our mages would be down for the count: they can still cast energy bolts and shit.

 

[Nevill]

Excuse me, what are your sources for claiming when the battle will or will not happen? It is not enirely in our hands, nor it is entirely in the hands of our enemies. If we see an opportunity, we will strike. With their main strategist gone (the White Mage is the only one in the Watcher's army who ever tries some fancy tactics, the rest of them are as blunt as they get), we might want to do it sooner rather then later.

 

[Nevill]

Fangshi, how heavily wounded are the Arrows? What is keeping us from carefully sending them back to the Fort on the chariots to be dealt with later? We are planning to be back in two hours.

Does anyone else in the Fort know herbalism?

 

[Absinthe]

Their army has shades and seems to be pretty damn huge. I don't mind harrying them, but we're still due to get huge reinforcements ourselves so an early all-out conflict doesn't exactly serve us. We do have a fortress and shitloads of archers and mortars and shit, so holding out is a viable option. I guess if you want we can run the ambush hard today and see how many enemies we can wipe out with hit & run tactics today (not a bad idea tbh), but in that case we probably shouldn't even waste time investigating and move on to ambush more and more.

 

[Nevill]

We aren't getting huge reinforcements. We will only get about 30 warriors from Stoneheim in about 4 days (provided they won't get killed by the enemy forces 20 times their size, which is why I want to warn them), and maybe Albrecht can come up with something in the days to follow.

Our situation, while not hopeless, is quite bleak, actually.

The conflict will be resolved by the time the Army comes. By calling them here we have put a time limit on a siege, but the outcome will likely be decided without them. If it won't, the enemy will probably withdraw.

I don't think we can afford putting the investigation off. It is something that they think would give them an advantage, and there is a matter of wagons to take care of. We can't ignore it and fight them blindly.

Actually, Fangshi, while we are investigating the structure, can our Pathfinders mine the passages the undead army will be travelling through? No sense wasting time, and they have a lot of explosives with them. This might delay their advance, or at least wipe some of them out as we retreat. All good.

 

[Absinthe]

A siege would be manageable on our end considering the ginormous amount of ranged firepower we have on our hands. The Stoneheim crew knows special shortcuts and passages to reach Blackrock so I'm not too concerned about them reaching us. The chariot should already have informed them about our general situation and call for reinforcements so they should be able to guess what's going on with a decent scout or so. I'd rather keep that eagle for ourselves right now.

At the same time the missive to Albrecht (Fangshi, lets ask Albrecht for more energon cubes too. If we run our cubes hard we can inflict some serious casualties now.) should ensure some solid reinforcements soon enough.

As for putting the investigation off, all we have to do is trash this base, detonate a bomb or two, and get going, tbh (ie. whatever it was it's gone now). If you want to run the ambush hard (a plan I can get behind), then we should just bury this place quick and keep bleeding the enemy right now before the white mage returns.

With Neel, Lyssa, and Pathfinders for instance we might be able to mortar a shade or two today before they notice what's up.

 

[Nevill]

Yeah, the Blackrock troops will reach us alright, but how do they join us? The fort will be surrounded, and I am voting for collapsing the tunnels that lead in and out of it as I want to deny our enemies both the Watcher's stone and a way in, should someone crafty learn about their existence.

We've sent for the reinforcements without warning them what we were facing, as the enemy didn't arrive to our door then and we didn't know it ourselves.

The mage is not the only one that can rebuild the structure, either. He was tasked with it as punishment, meaning it is a grunt work.

If they thought it was worth the risk of sending an advance party ahead of the army, then it might be worth our time to look into it.

 

[Absinthe]

They know what enemies we faced and they can guess trouble with more of the same.

Nevill, you still haven't answered this: Are you up for hitting the enemy hard right now? Because if not, I see no reason to waste roots. We'll have recovered by tomorrow anyway. If we are hitting them hard today, then lets draw some plans.

 

[Azira]

It's probably some sort of amplifying device, for extending the reach of the Watcher fragments. Could take a whole fortress without a blow that way.

 

[Nevill]

Nevill, you still haven't answered this: Are you up for hitting the enemy hard right now?

Right now? No, I am not. Right now I want to investigate the structure and see what hey plan on doing when they arrive. See their forces composition (if they are more than they seem to be), see what is in those wagons, see how many more mages do they have and if there are Drowned Dead among them. We'll decide how to proceed then.

I am content with collecting the information for a while. I will not commit to plans without knowing one thing about the enemy.

It's probably some sort of amplifying device, for extending the reach of the Watcher fragments. Could take a whole fortress without a blow that way.

That would be nasty. I wonder if we can inconspicuously trap it to then blow it up to pieces once the construction is done.

 

[Nevill]

Hm. I kind of realized something. The Watcher's fragment* tries to control people by making them want to possess it and do whatever it takes for that goal. If so, we have to think not only of our safety, but about the safety of the fort as well, which has about 60 well-armed members in close proximity to each other. It helps that most of our people are professionals, but nevertheless, we should probably cover it so that our forces don't massacre each other over it - it should be harder to become obsessed with something you've never seen and have no idea about how it works. I wonder if we aren't wasting time by trying to coat it in metal - once it will be buried under the mountain, our soldiers should be safe from its effects, because even if somebody would want to obtain it, they would have no way of doing so. Though it might still come in handy if we suspect that it has other properties that can be activated by our enemies with proper spells - the fragment didn't affect us half as strongly until the Creature started casting.

We should probably warn Myora ahead of time - she knows her people best and she should assign the right ones to the task to minimize the risks.

On an unrelated note, Fangshi, is our second mortar done for, or can it be repaired given due time?

*It's the Watcher's Dong. A rod half a meter long that drives all three of our ladies crazy and fills them with uncontrollable urges - what else could it be? And they think it's because they are mages, ha!

There is only one way to resist its temptation, and we all know it.

 

[archaen]

All amend my vote to 6. Ai Aii. That leaves us with a single eagle for reconnaissance and warns everyone about what is waiting for us. I am not going to speculate too much on what we should do until we get the reports back from the mice and see what is going on in the pavilion.