Book 2: Chapter 4 - Homeward Bound?

[Powderhorn]

Late Summer - Day 84, Noon - Free Harbor

After five days of walking through about one hundred and twenty five miles of plains to the last known-location of Aephren and company, the end of summer is quickly noted to be upon the land. The mornings are growing ever-more chilly, and fall will soon be upon you. A question of whether you can campaign through the late fall and winter must be discussed.

Still, you make it to the last-known location and see a rather strange sight: What appears at first to be a flattened hill with the occasional wisp of smoke coming from it. As you approach closer, it resolves itself into a palisade - reinforced with a sort of sudo-glacis made of earth, and then the whole town covered over with earth.

Peeking from the corners of the fortification can be seen the glimmer of two bronze cannon - small in bore, but the only ones you've seen to date, save your own.

Approaching the gate, it swings open, and a member of the Order of the Dragon salutes. "Karadoon, old friend! I see you have found some lost souls. Welcome home."

 

[matt_s]

The sight of his own breath reminded Stavard of the coming winter still long off and yet not far off enough for what they perhaps needed to do.

Winter will be hard, in the field and even here. We'll need to carefully consider our course of action. Cold we can handle, but fighting the war of ambuscades in the snow is another thing entire. Forage would be sparse, snow will slow travel, and our tracks would be far easier to run down. Information on the climate would thus be of great use.

Perhaps the laying of supply caches and shorter ranging scouting missions would be more prudent than a full campaign. Or we could confine ourselves to littoral raiding rather than deep inland expeditions?

[thesloth]

Karadoon

Karadoon stared in amazement at the earthen cover. It was an excellent idea. Clearly the members of Freehaven had stayed busy. He greeted the guard as an old friend.

"You are a sight for sore eyes, friend!

And yes we have found more allies than looked for. Though our enemies still hold the advantage and have demonstrated a blood thirst I did not expect. Ask the members of your order to gather in the hall after supper. There is grim news from the outpost, and remembrances to be held. I will explain tonight.

 

Stavard, we should appraise the community as a whole of the situation before we discuss strategy. And learn how the crops look before we discuss taking anything. We barely managed to survive the last winter.

This year we start in a much better position, but we also added the Drakvian refugees as mouths to feed."

Weapon - Combat statsBAB +1
Extra +1 (Brother Koji spell effect)

Cutter: +2War Axe D6/D8 (1h/2h)

[Vladim]

Iphigenia kept a wary look-out throughout the long trek homewards. Truth be told, she was fully expecting another Maliente attack-the price to pay for allowing their mage to escape. She was as surprised as any when it never materialized; still, that did little to allay her fears. Were they being watched? She would hate to find herself responsible for another settlement's destruction.

Still, she stole what time she could to convey in greater detail what the Oracle had told her. To Karadoon, in particular-but truly to anyone else who would listen-she spoke of what the Oracle had explained about magic. How it had said that everyone had a patina for magic-something that could survive death and even grow after it, and even mirror aspects of the individual that it once belonged to.

But she was no mage, and such explanations or theories made little sense to her untrained mind.

---

Free Harbor was a sight for sore eyes. The prospect of a well-cooked meal and a bed made her positively giddy, but she let the dwarf do the talking. She turned to Stavard as Karadoon offered introductions.

"Or we can hunker down here for the winter. Fortify the place, make sure that it's as strong as it can be. I haven't heard any reports about the Maliente having a navy of any kind... maybe we are safe from the sea?"

[matt_s]

Aye, well spoken. Stavard says as he mulls it over. We have some time yet to work things out. Of course securing this place will be crucial. Koji and to a lesser extent I have some expertise in those matters. And then we will have some time to determine a course of action. Preliminary rangings rather than a full commitment and the prospect of a winter in the field is what I'd vouch for.

Stavard spat.

Home by winter is always a sucker's bet, one of my mates who did a few years in the Navy said.

[thesloth]

Karadoon

Karadoon squinted at Stavard.

"I agree that promising to be home by winter on an expedition is risky proposition. Who can know what will happen.

But what do you mean by preliminary rangings and commitments? I don't think I understand the scope of what you are suggesting."

Weapon - Combat statsBAB +1
Extra +1 (Brother Koji spell effect)

Cutter: +2War Axe D6/D8 (1h/2h)

[8w_gremlin]

Brother Koji 

"This is a remarkable location, have you done this all yourselves, how long have you been here?" Koji admires the workmanship and ingenuity of the location, running his hands over the walls and earthen roof "We had a similar idea, but using camouflaged cargo nets, to hide us from the Dragan, and make us less likely to be seen, even routing the campfire smoke out to other locations"

He wanders around, smiling and introducing himself to the people who look up to him, it seems that this is very natural to him, he stops and looks out at the harbour "Is that a gunboat out there? it looks damaged, has anyone looked at repairing it, for that is something I am well skilled to do, if it is desirable?"

Later as the others talk of ranging and commitments Koji remarks, "Initial forays into the territories around here and close to the enemy as to cause disruptions, scout out locations, sabotage, and steal supplies from enemy encampments, and get out before they can rise a muster. Is that the right gist Mr Stavard? Small team engagements and not massed unit warfare? more like a naval battle than cavalry, heavy and light infantry and archer units?"

"talking of the Navy, I saw an abandoned Gunship laying in the harbour, it looked very dilapidated, but I think with some effort we could repair it and make it shipshape and Bristol fashion. Then perhaps map out the coastline, and see if we can find other settlements or ruins around the coast line?"

[matt_s]

Stavards nods with Koji's description.

The goal isn't to fortify long term. It's to first get a sense of the area, maps and all that more or less. Then, to ensure that use of the areas are denied to the enemy by destroying any of their outposts or scouting parties present. And lastly, to aid our use of these areas by preparing caches and hideouts for our use in future campaigning.

In terms of order of battle it would be just us and a few auxiliaries. If we find a major encampment we could raise some militia and storm their lines with an augmented force. But it could be simpler to assail their lines of supply instead.

Repairing that ship sounds like a very sound idea indeed.

[thesloth]

Karadoon

"Us and a few extras might be all we can muster for the winter. The dwarves are somewhat divided internally at the moment. Some of the humans are outright at war. The descriptions from the refugees make me think the Drakvians might side with the Maliente.

Scouting the terrain, locating their encampments, outposts, and settlements is all good. And I'm definitely willing to burn a few tents after what I saw at the outpost. We could start over here where we labeled this are dog face people. These are a short race. Have kind of dog like features. They attacked us on sight. But I don't recall seeing them use magic. They are, so far as we can tell, very cruel. We found one of them we think the others buried alive in some sort of torture device...."

Karadoon pointed to an area on their charts that was just north and slightly to the west of Free Harbor.

Weapon - Combat statsBAB +1
Extra +1 (Brother Koji spell effect)

Cutter: +2War Axe D6/D8 (1h/2h)

[Powderhorn]

Late Summer - Day 84, Noon - Free Harbor

Quickly, everyone finds that the food situation is on sure-footing due to the works of Iahalae, supported by the sure guidance and leadership of comrades past - not least of which Aephren and Elladra.

While the promise of Drokvian refugee mouths to feed might have raised an issue, it is quickly recalled that they were sent to the Fortune, which in turn is likely to sail for Aweholme. As such, the only new mouths are your own. How they will be assimilated into Aweholme may need to be a question for the spring.

The offer of repairing the Philadelphia is one that falls on welcome ears - but there is a question of if you repair and take it - what will Free Harbour have for itself? A compromise offer is made instead: The Order of the Dragon will harvest materials from the not-too-far distant forest to build a second hull, laborers will be provided, and in the end there could be two vessels - the Gunboat Philadelphia and a different hull. Which would go to who could be a matter of some discussion.

Greta Starling, herself a bit of a polyglot, quickly finds herself offering to teach any who would desire to learn over the course of the winter, and, concerned about the rigors of campaigning, anticipates also remaining here in the spring.

 

[Vladim]

The repair of the Philadelphia-and the making of a copy-seems a promising one-one that Iphigenia is loathe to refuse. They will still need to find cannons to outfit the second gunboat with, she notes, but in general having more boats seems like the prudent thing to do.

She quickly sets out to collecting what rumors and information she can from the locals; knowledge is power, after all, and if there's anything to be learned about their enemies here, then she had better make note of it.

[Powderhorn]

Late Summer - Day 84, Noon - Free Harbor

It's not so much that Free Harbor has secrets and rumors - instead it is just the common talk of the town: At any given time, the flying lizards could go overhead and kill them all. Thus far, it seems that roofing over the entire town has been sufficient for the purpose, and out in the open simply laying down and not moving when one appears on the horizon has also minimized the risk. While they lacked the term "dragun" - they quickly found a liking for it and the term is adopted more broadly.

There are also concerns about the dog-faced creatures. Lumber for construction is harvested from their domain, and it is unclear if there is a centralized government that will lead them to send a unified force against Free Harbor at any time in the future. Thus far, sniping from the Order of the Dragon seems to have been enough to keep them at bay, allowing the trees to be taken.

The last major point of discussion is Kelmar itself. This group was largely part of the first sent out - exiled for various sins real or imagined to explore, but presumably die. The Glowing Expanse was not known to exist, so that they are alive today at all remains somewhat remarkable. But questions about if anyone from Kelmar knows they survive are quickly shifted when it is found out that Drokvian refugees were brought north by Lily Stoddert: Clearly, word of this land's existence is starting to spread. And so, the arrival of the group to Free Harbor brings a different question into sharper focus: Should Free Harbor reach out to Kelmar for additional supplies of powder, shot, guns, and the various implements of war which will clearly be needed, or will Kelmar view Free Harbor as a den of outlaws, having survived past their expiration date?

 

[thesloth]

Karadoon

"Perhaps our best use of the remaining teavel time would be best spent bringing back the cannons we salvaged from the old pirate ship.

That area would not be so far from the forest where the dog faced people are.

If a working party dropped us off they could retrieve the cannons while we looped around to scout the dog faces more thoroughly and then made our own way home.

When we entered their forest last time they appeared to have a large encampment set up. It was dozens if not hundreds of camp fires large. Could have been a permanent dwelling for them."

Weapon - Combat statsBAB +1
Extra +1 (Brother Koji spell effect)

Cutter: +2War Axe D6/D8 (1h/2h)

[matt_s]

If we want allies Southland and Lon seem like our best and least morally compromised bets. Both are naval powers that stand to make a fortune from trade and they seem least likely to act with genuine depravity.

We could send a ship with a delegation from this place and Aweholme to Southland and then Lon to do some diplomacy but that is something I have little tongue for. I like these new frontiers and I think I shall stay here awhile.

But enough about that. Stavard cut himself off.

Let's get those cannons. If we were to engage in river raiding they would prove a decisive advantage.

[8w_gremlin]

Brother Koji 

"We could send word to Aweholm, and get them to approach on Free Haven's behalf, they do not have the history that the colonists here have. Also, the powers that be might not know of the history of some of these individuals, but people can be motivated by greed, and there is a whole lot of knowledge and resources out here that they would want back home. " thinking about this for a moment, he adds.

"Whatever we do, we should write up a charter, a bill of rights, a constitution for the people settling here, so that we don't get taxed by the powers back home, and any resources we ship back, are paid for properly, and these people are not swindled or cheated out of their due."

He pauses and thinks for a while," I'll draft something up, and then we can amend it until it works for all of us"