Catch-up part two

The duke looked over his small city, town compared to Jarda and a mere village to be overlooked by the greatest empires of the world, but it was his, so it was everything.  Every great city started out as a small town and that started out with a single house, so one day this place would be bigger and better.  His gold staff was always with him and usually in his hand and when he concentrated, he could see into the hearts of his subjects and he could see all parts of his land just by looking.  There were limitations with his staff, for example he had to know which person to spy on and which location to focus his attention.  Just like his audience chamber, he could look at the supplicant and see what he was doing as he spoke, but he could not watch the person behind him too, well, a normal person could not do that; he could because he had the staff.  So, the sedition of his new lords had caught him by surprise.  They had gone off with the last spoils of the temple to turn the last chunk into gold, to spend building bigger towns, increasing the tax revenues of the nation, making the nation better and they returned and saw that he was doing his part of the covenant between Ruler and Lord of giving the people a place to expand by declaring war on the neighbouring lands.  The spoils of war and the new lands would enrich the nation and each of the towns in his nation and it would also get rid of the neighbour that the populous hated so much.  But they on seeing this did not return to their towns and raise the armies he requested, but instead returned to Jarda.  He knew this, how could they not know that he would know this?  He focused his power on seeing the market square where the Teleport Circle destination spot and followed them to where they went.  He saw they met with his sister and because it was his sister, he was able to listen in directly to the conversation.  They plotted insurrection!  Against his rule! 

He sat back and realized that he had to change his plans.  It would be difficult, but it could be done.  The long summer was coming, there would be time for another war on the Northern neighbour, but first he had to arrange for something else.  Adventurers have always been a lot of trouble for most rulers, they solve problems that most rulers do not have the time to solve, they keep monster populations in the wild down and they bring in income to the towns, but when they are in town they often do damage and flout the laws of the land.  A wise rule will ignore most of these violations because the good outweighs the bad for your typical adventurer, but it is also wise to keep track of what laws were violated and what actions the adventurers had done and what grievances the populous had against them.  The Duke kept very detailed records.  He sorted through his papers for the rest of the day.  Apparently when these adventurers were new to the area, they uncovered a wicked cult that was operating in Neloar and ended it as a problem, but in the process they did a few things and killed a few mind controlled people and took their stuff as loot.  They killed some monsters too.  They had done a lot of good, but he was looking for dirt, so that did not matter.  They attacked an outpost of the local constabulary and defeated them, no, not defeated, murdered them and then took their possessions.  They invaded a local Temple dedicated to Auristra and murdered its priests and holy monks.  They desecrated its grounds.  They killed some monsters in the town, they attacked an inn, no.  They vandalized an inn and murdered its patrons.  Hmm, the cult, once they cut the head off the cult, all the affected citizens returned to normal and were unaffected.  The Duke knew about the Jardanese Thieves Guild using Neloar as a site to launder their money, he was okay with that if they gave him his cut and did not become an active Guild in Greysteel.  They rewarded the adventurers with handsomely as they inn they attacked was the seat of their operations in the town.  They thieves funneled additional money into the area buying up land that no longer had residents, due to the cult killing them.  The thief’s guild picked up several properties for a good price.  The Duke thought about it.  He could come down on the thief’s guild and expose their operations, pinning the actual leadership of the cult on the adventurers that cleaned up the situation.  Afterall, the thieves guild were all from Jarda and the adventurers were all from Jarda, it is clear from the records that his investigators were going to find in the Guild records in the inn that the cult and the adventurers were all in cahoots with the thieves guild to scam the good people of Neloar of their money, lives and land.

He checked on the adventurers.  His informers told him that they had returned from Jarda before the Teleport Circle stopped working and had headed off towards Hommlet.  He checked in with Lord Gerald in Hommlet and he confirmed that they had passed through.  He checked in at the Inn there to hear what was being said and he heard a tale being spread that had the fingers of that half-elf bard all over it.  The claim was that the duke had his entire family murdered.  It was wise of them to start that rumour there, that rumour had risen there several times in the last fifty years already.  He thought idly that it might have been better to have wiped the people out there years ago, except that would just have confirmed all their ideas to the rest of the nation.  He arranged for the cleaning staff to overhear a discussion with his advisors and he planted the seeds in his propaganda spreaders.  He arranged for the raid on the Golden Grain Inn in Neloar and prepared the documents that they would find in the raid and then to provide the arrest warrants and to issue the commands for the lords of the realm to be ceased and tried and then to be executed.  He knew that it would not be easy, but for the sake of the Duchy, it had to be done.

Vistra had a plan, but she needed time to develop it properly.  The dragon that she tried to befriend in Moolooite’s Grant needed to be nourished and to grow to trust her and her people to become a good dragon.  She needed to send the Dragon to her home where she knew her Steward would be able to take care of it, maybe befriend it.  But to do that she needed to get back to Moolooite’s land, get the Dragon to her land and get a message to her steward.  Moolooite who was listening to this, told her to just take his Celestial Mount, saying it would be faster and that they needed to rest here anyways.  She agreed and found the dragon before it decided to dine on a villager and asked it to follow her, after she hunted down a deer for it to eat.  She headed to her lands and arrived and asked for her steward, who arrived.  She told her steward her plan and it nodded, telling her that it would be done as she requested but warned it might not go as she hoped.  When she turned to leave, he told her that there was something that she needed to deal with at this moment, now that she was here and he brought out the two official decrees that had arrived while she was gone.  The first her steward told her was to raise levies to join in war, and this part was done, expecting that Vistra would do this when she returned, but the second was why he waited for her.  It was a declaration that Lord Vistra was to appear before the Duke of Greysteel to answer for several crimes listed below, included Murder, Vandalism, Sedition and Treason to the Duke himself.  When she had finished reading this, her steward told her that there was an army parked outside the mountain gates waiting for a response.  It had arrived a few days ago.  Being a proper steward, he had told the emissary of the Duke that you were not available and you would be out soon to hear the charges directly, and then he told her that he had sent the bulk of the troops including the raised levies down the ancient road to Korrin’s lands and left him and a few units of troop behind to hold the army off.  He then told her that she may need the troops if she wants to answer the charges without a trial being held after her execution.  She went off knowing that her steward would send word directly to Korrin’s own steward, who was an Orc and decidedly against the war on his homeland. 

Vistra returned with the heavy news, that although they had the moral high ground in this dispute the Duke had the Military high ground and although she and Korrin had secure boarders, the rest did not.  They went to the nearby town of Hommelet for confirmation and the disguises they took helped them talk to the people.  Apparently, the troops of Hommelet that had been raised to fight the Orcs were being moved to secure the traitorous Gnome Anti-Paladin in his lands.  It was revealed that the trial and execution of a local herdsman was perpetrated by the diminutive villain all so that he could get the property and the herdsman’s Wife, because he coveted her and the cows.  He and his villainous companions were implicated in a plot to burn the village of Nulb to the ground after they drove them from town after they fed kidnapped towns folk to ghouls in the local derelict temple of Elemental Evil.  The charges also went into detail about how the Duke’s own investigators were beset on the road by these villains and murdered, killing all the witnesses including a few farmers and the owners of the local Trading Post.  They were not able to round up all the witnesses, as some farmers escaped, claiming they used Giants to attack the convoy as a distraction.  Lord Gerald was sending all his troops to Moolooite’s Land to cease his person and bring him before the Duke.  The troops were leaving as they spoke, a grand day for justice.  Sentiment around the village agreed that nonhumans were untrustworthy, but gnomes were evil to the core. 

The adventurers took away with them the important information was, public sentiment was against them, the duke was sending troops to take them, and lastly it was probably not a good idea to keep the Evil Paladin with the party, but they were stuck with him, so they knew that had to fight the evil of the Duke with the Evil of the Paladin.  Maybe, the Paladin would see the error of his ways and reform.  Maybe, if the removed the Evil duke and replaced him with his sister, she might serve as an example of Good and have Good laws that the Paladin would follow and enforce, maybe.  The Druid and the Ranger joined together to make sure that the path to Moolooite’s land appeared as treacherous as it could, a road that would normally take a day to pass would take a week; they changed the appearance of the terrain into a swamp and a mire that sucked the horses and the men down making them make detours through dense forest and deep gorges.  The rest quickly made their way to Korrin’s lands to pick up more troops and Vistra’s troops.  On the way they sought out Cael’s town and discovered that it was occupied, and the militia arrested.  His bugbears had escaped into the woods and he was able to send them to Moolooite’s holdings.  Korrin’s troops were skilled in moving through forests and they were able to take some of Vistra’s troops quickly through the forests avoiding the roads just as quickly as if they were on roads. 

The troops of Lord Gerald could only be delayed for so long and when all the troops that they could get to Moolooite’s lands, Gerald’s troops were laying siege on his fortification with Moolooite and his townsfolk and his armies inside the curtain walls.  There was one set of troops outside the walls, his gnomish Javelineers, who could hide easily and avoid detection.  The troops of Korrin and the troops of Vistra broke cover from the forest and tried to close on the troops of Gerald without being seen.  Korrin’s troops succeeded, but Vistra’s troops failed.  Vistra did not have any cavalry, but Gerald did, and he sent them towards the Vistra’s position.  Gerald knew cavalry and he used them to great effect, the swooped up to Vistra’s troops and attacked and then away steering clear of the archers that she did have.  To say that Vistra was losing the engagement would be accurate.  Korrin’s light cavalry was making its way to support Vistra’s troops but was on the other side of the field of battle.  With the two units of Cavalry away from his walls, the troop count was closer to being equal and he risked opening his gates and sending his troops out.  Gerald then sent his infantry and archers out to engage these troops hoping to gang up on one unit and destroy it.  Korrin and Vistra were able to coordinate their attacks forcing the cavalry to engage her infantry and the archers were finally able to rain arrows down on their position and force the cavalry into retreat.  The retreating cavalry left to support the engaging units around the Castle walls when they blundered into an ambush by Moolooite’s heavily armed Gnomes.  The damaged cavalry was finally scattered by the ambush and were in no shape to aid the sieging troops.  Korrin’s troops and the remaining troops with Vistra were closing in on the castle battle zone when Gerald surrendered ending the battle early. 

Gerald was taken captive and interrogated.  The results of which showed them that the Duke had the upper hand in this fight and Gerald knew it.  He told them that he would be happy to sit the rest of the battle out, imprisoned in his own jailcell in Hommelet knowing that in a few days they would be defeated by the Duke’s much larger forces and he would be freed and would likely be called to execute each of them as traitors to the Realm.  He taunted them and they imprisoned him.  Later that night Korrin visited him in secret and in the morning, he was found in his room hanging where he apparently killed himself.

Next the Party sent a few troops to free the populous at Saltmarsh, the lands granted to Phil and to the lands where Cael built his town.  Hommelet troops were freed from service to the Duke and asked to join up with their side.  The troops bottled up in Saltmarsh, joined up, but the troops from Cael’s town were no where to be seen.  The occupying army was sent to the land outside Vistra’s Domain as a ruse and they learned that Neloar’s levies were being held as hostage by the Duke’s troops.  The troupe learned that there was an ambush set up between Neloar and Cael’s domain in part to trap them should they come that way and to bottle up the unruly town.  Korrin was able to scout out the position and determined that there were two units of cavalry in the woods that would attack any attacking army’s rear as they engaged a makeshift wall built across the road from the river to the forest.  There was a total of ten units there, four units of infantry behind the wall with four archery behind them as support and two units of cavalry in the forest.  They saw the strategy after some discussion.  The wall and rampart would give the infantry advantage on any unit that attacked, and the archery units would rain death down at the same time.  The wall was built with long sharpened stakes pointed outwards that would prevent cavalry from attacking.  As soon as any troops committed to attack the wall, the cavalry would charge out from behind the troops bottling them up before the wall.  They did not know that some of Korrin’s troops were able to move freely in the forest and could attack without disadvantage.  They also did not know that they had siege troops, capable of attacking the fortifications directly.  And they concocted a plan to ambush the ambushers.  They decided they had an additional surprise and were not sure when would be the best time to use that advantage, Io had two units of amphibious troops, Lizard men and River Elves.  They decided to keep them at the ready in case things went bad, but otherwise to hold them for the future as another surprise.

With six commanders, the troupe discovered there might be a problem with their attack of the city of Greysteel.  Six commanders, six leaders trying to lead troops against the barricade meant that the attack although successful was not optimal.  Troops were stalled as other troops moved in their way and siege units had difficulty coming to the fore.  If the enemy had not been so dependant on their original plan working, it could have been bad for the allies.  The cavalry was very resistant to attacks because it was heavily armoured, but it was stymied in the forest.  After they were eliminated, they chose to attack the fortifications from behind the troops; they decided to attack the archers.  This proved nearly disastrous.  The initial attack was effective, but the longer range of the archers meant that the cavalry was out maneuvered and attacked at the same time by four different units.  Attacking the fortification took time and the defending armies did not waste time moving around and attacked as planned.  Eventually though the battle went their way and when the last infantry unit was immobilized, the archery unit surrendered. 

The troupe may have learned the strengths of their units, or they may not have.  Infantry is the basic unit; it is the only unit that can hold territory.  Cavalry is used to harry, attack and retreat without letting the other units engage it, thus attack Infantry while it exists first.  Archery has better range, so it can support infantry attacks, but because of its range it can more easily attack cavalry units.  Without Infantry support all other non-cavalry units are vulnerable to cavalry, calvary can run through and archery unit scattering it.  Siege units can’t exist without Infantry support either. 

While the battle was being planned, Io headed off to Jarda, bringing the recently resurrected guard to present evidence to the Duchess that her brother had murdered her father and all of her family and tried to murder her and that he was ruining her families good name, if the former was not enough, it was unlikely the latter would mean anything either.  She accepted the evidence in the form of the eyewitness of the battle that they were not attacked by Orcs, but by humans in the employ of her brother.  She journeyed back to be part of the final assault on the city of Greysteel.