Kevin Curry
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Summon Perfect Warlady 2.04
🕑 Added 2024-06-11 23:16:17 +0000 UTCDay and a half late's not so bad. I'll just start the psychoprotective epilogue immediately instead of doing something between the two updates.
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Tanya’s next target was one of the Empire’s capital sites. It was the weakest one, only level four. “No. (◣_◢) I’m not going to keep it long-term. Just for a few turns at most.” Tanya sent the angry note through hat magic and moved on to her other conversation. “If all goes well, I’ll be able to visit all of you today. It depends on how the Lookamancy report goes.”
Elya replied first. “Will you be needing me to turn any prisoners? I’d love to ply my trade.”
As Tanya was writing the reply to that, Queen Virginia’s reply came in. “Come onnnn, bestie, you should get back on a throne! /\(v-v). It’s a good spot for a breakaway side!”
Tanya turned back to her letter to the Magic Kingdom. “I’m not going to keep the city, but I suppose that particular cruelty is something I’ve done before. You’re welcome to the prisoners.” After all, while Elya was currently loyal, that was something that could change in the future. Below that statement, she added: “Status of everyone over there?”
That done, she took out yet another piece of paper from her Inventory and wrote another missive to Queen Virginia. “It really isn’t.ಠ_ಠ Sure, there’s the natural barrier of the Alps-” Wait. She used a drop of juice to rip the ink back into the pen. “-the Alfs, but there are no less than three mountain-capable units among local sides.” Well, that counts the Alfs themselves, in addition to the Alfalfas and the Hanniphants. The former were mounts, and the latter heavy mounts. It just wasn’t that good of a natural barrier with those tools available. Of course, the real reason was that she wasn’t far enough away from Charlie. She wasn’t sure how far was far enough, but the idea of settling here… unsettled her. Life on Erf had taught her to trust her Intuition. “More importantly, (̿▀̿ ̿Ĺ̯̿̿▀̿ ̿)̄ I’m not so foolish as to set up shop in a place where my only ally is so far away, surrounded by enemies. Now, that lookamancy map?”
After sending that message, Tanya stretched and looked at her troops, who were milling about, waiting for orders. “...Visha, do you think that the troops would prefer to stay here? If we take that capital site today?”
Visha took a moment to think through the question. “...I think that even if they did want a place to stay, they’d trust you that this site isn’t secure.”
Tanya nodded to herself. Yeah, that sounded like her soldiers. In her mind’s eye, she strummed the heartstrings that bound them together, creating a pleasant sound that only she could hear. Noticing her attention, her troops firmed up into orderly formations and blew off some steam with some mid-air marching. Her crown rumbled with another incoming message. From the quality of the paper, this one was from Sir Eric Blair the Lookamancer. “Ah, the tacsit is here.” Tanya said, unfolding the map.
She had noticed, after studying the region map that Elya had sent her, purchased from the Findamancer guild, that the Continental Break actually resembled Europe… if you turned your head and squinted. Literally, in this case. She needed to turn the map ninety degrees to notice it. So the region she was invading, surrounded by more chasm hexes, was the Cheese Region, the equivalent of Switzerland. The capital site was called HAM, short for Hard As Mountain, and according to Chief Gordon the side that it used to be before the Empire conquered it were some hardy folk.
The defenses were… reasonable. It would be a tough nut to crack certainly, but it was defended mostly by garrison troops and other static defenses. The field troops were stripped to the bone, the only remaining field troops being a small strike force of cavalry, a force that Tanya assumed were for dealing with ferals or enemy scouts.
The real problem would be the golems. Cities, particularly higher level ones, had small sub-zones referred to as ‘defense platforms’. Each zone had a certain number that depended on the level and nature of the zone, and each platform supported garrison units that could occupy it. Each platform could handle one stack of units, and a non-novice dirtamancer or a master Signamancer can do quite a bit of shuffling around and modification from that base design concept.
This particular city seemed to favor clockwork catapult golems with clock faces as their defensive measure. Normally, this wouldn’t be such a big issue, except that firearms have a damage penalty against hard damage reduction, the kind that can’t be penetrated by normal Knight-class units and instead require Digger or Siege to overcome. It’s why just setting rifles to full auto and shooting a city wall, while it would work, would take a lot more ammunition than a more targeted strike would. Metal golems like these possess hard damage reduction, an expensive but effective upgrade.
It wasn’t anything that Tanya thought would make them lose anyone critical, and the report noted that there wasn’t anything noteworthy in the area arround it, so she decided to fly up and take a peek herself.
[Watchers]
Combat 29
Defense 21
Hits: 39
Move: 0 (Garrison)
Specials: Ballistician (Launcher), Golem (Dollamancy), Hard
Signature: Made by Rolex Davis
Hm, Looks like a +5 combined Chief Warlord/Master Dollamancer bonus, as expected. +8 fortification bonus (which due to Ballistician applies to Combat too), +4 stack bonus, each platform supports two, groups of four platforms are clustered close enough together to give a stack bonus, no current leadership bonus but that can change… That Signature line was new, but she assumed it was some vanity thing a signamancer did, a Trademark spell or whatever. She’ll ask Janis about it later.
[Hans, Level 5 knight]
Combat: 32
Defense: 24
Hits: 9
Move: 63
Specials: Flight, Recon
Bonuses: Barrier (4/1), Camouflage
8 base at five, +2 defense from armor, +10 combat from the rifle, +8 stack, +6 leadership from Newsman…
Yeah, pretty dangerous. Could be even more so if the dollamancer equipped them with enchanted ammunition to provide additional bonuses, too. That wouldn’t pop up on Analysis. Idly, Tanya noted that her crown was shaking, so she redirected the incoming message to Visha’s hat, a trick that Prince Trammennis had taught her.
Would she be able to overwhelm them with bullets? By her math, it would take eight bullets each to destroy… two clusters on the tower, three clusters total on the walls… two more in the garrison… fifty-six golems? Yeah, that’s a normal number of defense platforms for a level four city.
Hm. Can’t precision single-shot croak them with only a four to one advantage… can’t use mathamancy to augment the precision when switching to automatic fire, a lot of wasted shots there from overboop, might run out of ammunition before the city’s fully taken out… It looks like her juice is best spent on foolamancy to reduce the number of attacks they aim at her units, that would do the most good, she thinks. She can’t protect everyone, but…
Tanya returned to the muster point. They had to attack soon, or the turn would end. “Elya’s Magic Kingdom report is in.” Visha volunteered. So that’s what that message was. She felt mildly ashamed that she got too distracted by tactical matters to remember that she was waiting for that.
“I’ll read it later.” Tanya said, “We need to plan.”
One of the newer warlords, Craig von Blitz, chuckled. “Do we, though? With these accessories, we really just need to shoot the anti-air then we clean up.”
Tanya glared at him. “I’m so glad you volunteered for the vanguard.”
Once the warlords were gathered, Tanya kept an eye on the sun as she explained the battle plan. “Okay, so it’s going to be tricky to take this city without significant losses.” In this case, and they know this, she defined significance for a force such as this one as ‘over ten units’. A bit perfectionist, but replenishing their numbers takes a while. “One of you jokers may even croak if they get lucky, so pay attention.”
Tanya used Foolamancy to create an image of the city. “Okay, so while the Lookamancy report couldn’t find any firearms, this is still a capital site, and thus we can expect some last-minute assistance from the wider side. Pistols sent via hat, for example. In fact… She made the shining red portal glow brighter in the wireframe. “This site has an active portal. This is not the primary capital site. They’ve done something. So caster backup is a distinct possibility if we dither.”
With that concrete oddity pointed out, the last of the jovial atmosphere vanished. Each and every one of her subordinates were focused on the briefing, knowing their lifes potentially hung in the balance. “I’ll be entering with one vanguard stack to bait out the tower, using foolamancy to create a false image of additional forces. We must be careful and minimize our profile against the defense platforms, there are seven stacks of them. With proper placement, we can limit our exposure to only four of them at once. Once the signal is given, the rest of you will follow suit. I will fake us focus-firing with all forces on the stacks of defense platforms at a time, using automatic fire to give the illusion of excessive force.” Making everyone use it was clearly a bad idea, they’ll run out, but one stack increasing ammunition use was completely different.
Von Blitz saluted. “I will gladly charge into hellabad at your side, your highness!” She could feel his fear, his heartstring trembling as he realized just how dangerous his assignment was. “I will defend you with my life!”
Good. He understands. “Don’t worry so much.” She said to lighten the mood. “You’ll have my full bonus, after all.” To emphasize the point, she stacked up with him. As von Blitz was only level 4, her lowest level warlord, the difference to her +8 bonus doubled was… substantial.
Properly heartened by the heady feeling of bigger numbers, von Blitz nodded firmly. “We’ll be as the Titans themselves!”
Tanya stared disapprovingly at his arrogance, but then decided to just move on. “Now, we’ll need to maximize confusion for the shock and awe tactics, so I’ll need your special accessory for this, Visha. You go towards the other side of the city…”
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Now, foolamancy has a few… drawbacks. In most cases, you couldn’t make an illusion in a hex you weren’t in. There were two common ways around this, both of which were blending foolamancy with an erf axis discipline, which was typically necessary for most effects that impacted other hexes. Much like how fate-axis effects were typically necessary for most effects that impacted units directly.
The first way was with Lookamancy. Isaac had theorized that the Recon special might be enough to let her project foolamancy across a single hex border, but she couldn’t get it to work. Headmasters typically used this method to… well, show off, mostly. Thinkagrams were better in basically every way for communication.
The second way was with Shockamancy. By transmitting the foolamancy into an energetic form, specifically beams of light, you could create a connection to the senses of another hex, creating crude, simple foolamancy effects that could not be seen through.
By ‘crude and simple’, of course, you couldn’t do much of anything you’d expect from a foolamancer. What you could do, on the other hand… is Flash them.
If there was a spell in her wand that executed the effect in the right way, Tanya didn’t know the words. But precisely because it blended two disciplines, her basic, not-even-novitiate shockamancy skill was sufficient to cast the spell.
…If only it wasn’t so embarrassing!
She flew in sight of the city, and she saw them trying to position themselves. On the other side of the city, Visha flew up.
Focusing on the the magic, Tanya took a deep breath, and, simultaneously with her most steadfast warlady… flipped up her skirt.
A great flash of light seared the eyes of the hundreds of enemy units that stared at the no doubt wondrous sight, either of them.
The veiled stack, von Blitz- Craig, she should use his first name, came into visibility, now that they could not be seen, and Tanya cast completely different foolamancy as she let her skirt fall back down and charged in.
To the eyes of the enemy, ninety knights invaded the skies, each armed with rifles in a scattershot formation. Immediately, the tower, a stack of knights led by a warlord standing at the only non-sealed entrance, started firing defense spells. Meanwhile, the four stacks of golems that could aim in their direction started firing.
Their first target was one of the garrison platforms, eighteen knights firing full auto to tear the golems apart. Full-auto was an interesting mechanic. On one hand, it literally multiplied your attacks by half of the number of consumed bullets, with the others going wild. In a large crowd of infantry, those shots would still probably hit something. Or several somethings. When attacking a fortified position like that? The rest are just going to damage the platform itself. On the other hand, it also reduced one’s damage per bullet, as there was a minor damage bonus that scaled off the difference between your combat and their defense, to reflect exceptional aim, and burst fire removed that bonus.
With one hundred and eighty attacks, and… twenty damage halved, heavies of that size reduce damage by four, plus one from Hard… eight bullets each, sixty-four per stack needed. So the plan was to have each subordinate unit aim for a specific golem among two platforms, and the full auto’s ten attacks should destroy them, with von Blitz finishing off any that missed. Tanya would focus on foolamancy, throwing in some mathamancy-augmented orders to help them dodge the ballistic trajectories of the enemy attacks that do get flung their way.
Still, after two rounds of combat, the golems that could shoot at them had fallen, the tower had unloaded its spells, few enough that Tanya spared a moment to double-check whether or not it was hiding anything.
[Black-Tall Tower, Level 4]
Juice: 0/800
Defense Platforms: 8/16
Ah. They did the opposite of what Sizemore did, and minimized the amount of juice the city could store in return for making it low-maintenance, not requiring any additional input. With anti-air like those golems, she can understand why.
Besides, it’s not like they came out unscathed. “Tch.” While her foolamancy was able to defend them completely from the first set of attacks, with only a single well placed shockamancy spell managing to shatter twelve of their barriers… the second set was far more successful, as she had dutifully simulated a believable number of her forces falling to their attacks and thus there were fewer decoys to consume their attention.
“Well, the tip of the spear is finished…” Tanya murmured, as the remains of her stack fell back. From the flash provided by Victoria’s Secret accessory, the rest of their forces invaded, the larger number of firearms easily mopping up the other three defense platforms and moving on to take the city.
“Hm. You actually survived.” Tanya said in surprise as she looked at her fellow warlord. He was missing a leg, but of the four units still in this portion of the sky, two of them were warlords. One of the things she tested with this plan was the nebulous ‘Fate’ protection that she possessed as being the one Fated to croak Charlie. Supposedly, it meant that her own safety would be assured in dangerous times… at the cost of her subordinate’s lives. It could be overwhelmed, but effectively, it meant that she would always be the last one in her stack to croak if she wasn’t stupid about it.
Given how she was completely pristine while her stack was ravaged? That’s another data point in favor. “Your Highnes- no, Your Majesty, it would be my greatest shame to have lived to see you take a single hit of damage if I could have prevented it. I had strayed from my Number by questioning you, and have performed my penance in the eyes of the Titans by my service. Fabian 4:11-20.”
Ah, Scripture. Always a barrel of laughs. Still, absorbing the wrath of the majority of their anti-air on foolamancy and wasteful ammo consumption meant that the damage they took was limited to merely the fourteen croaked knights, plus whatever overeager private gets themselves croaked in the land battle.
While she had guessed that there would be some additional resistance brought out from the portal glowing menacingly below them, it never materialized and the rest of the battle proceeded with only two additional casualties. The instant she was prompted to name her new side, she smiled and called it: Schnitzeland. Somehow, it worked.
After reading Elya’s report, which was gossip-dense but without strategic merit, Tanya stuck her head out of the portal into the Magic Kingdom, looking around for Elya. “Over here!” She shouted, using foolamancy to project her voice without overly disturbing anyone.
Elya was standing around waiting with Sizemore, Janis, Maggie, and Kurt, and they all immediately started walking towards the freshly converted portal. “Your Majesty!” Elya shouted joyfully. “You’re back!”
“It’s nice to see you too.” Tanya said, a wide smile on her face. Once they were through the portal: “It’s only temporary, Elya.” Tanya reminded her. “If any of you would like to turn for the duration, you’re welcome to, but I don’t plan on keeping this city.” Turning had to be offered by a commander of the relevant side, so she had to say it in order to meet that obligation.
“Even me?” Kurt asked, amused.
Tanya frowned. “I wouldn’t imagine you wanting to, but yes, the offer’s open to both of you as well.” She said, waving her hand to encompass Janis in the offer.
“I appreciate the thought, but no thank you.” Janis said simply.
Elya and Maggie both turned on the spot, but Sizemore begged off. “If it’s temporary, I don’t really see the point. I do owe you for the large gem horde, so I’ll help you, but…” He looked at Janis for support. She nodded imperceptibly. “...I haven’t decided.” He finished, to the tiniest frowns from Janis.
Tanya waved off any offense. “I didn’t expect any of you to be so eager to leash yourselves to me when you had an option otherwise.” That was the right thing to say, from Sizemore’s relieved smile. She turned to her other two casters. “I am pleased that you two felt comfortable enough to do so, however. You won’t regret it.”
“So, I can’t help but notice that this portal didn’t suddenly appear. It was already active.” Kurt observed.
“Not sure what that’s about.” Tanya admitted, “The treasury was empty when I captured the city.” It still was, as she hadn’t used moneymancy on the enemy bodies yet. She pointed towards the courtyard where the captured units were. “Your duties are that way, Elya. Visha’s watching over them, she’ll keep you company.” Elya gave a happy hum as she went to go… influence the prisoners into turning. Tanya deliberately did not think about how exactly she did so.
Once they were all seated at a suitable venue, Tanya used a city function to cause a snack to pop for everyone, drawn from the larders. There was an inefficiency for doing so without using courtiers to do so manually, but it wasn't a big deal. By the power of signamancy, the dessert she named the side after popped in addition to some mugs of beer. Perfect. She only had the chance to eat it once at the orphanage, and this example was even better.
“Hmmm…” Maggie stopped casting. “While I’m only a novice in Lookamancy, what I’m seeing is clear: None of the nearby cities have turned barbarian.”
“Troubling.” Tanya commented, “So it was as if the entire side turned to another right before we finished our conquest, with the treasury drained as well.”
Sizemore frowned. “...Well, our only evidence that this capital site was an actual capital was the portal. What if… it wasn’t, and they just found a way to turn the portal on anyway?”
Kurt grunted. “It does fit the evidence, but…” He turned to Janis. “Could this be done with complex enough signamancy? A binding alliance?”
Janis hesitated. “...Well, the side that’s your enemy, I’ll be polite and not say the name, their Chief Caster is Pact Romano, who is a Signamancer. He’s the one responsible for the pain-word in the side’s name, and he’s long been a proponent of one side ruling the world as a path to peace. It’s not a stance that has won him many friends in the Glade.” She shrugged, “Automagical turning, automagical treasury management… both of which can be done, so they may be doing something like that, binding subordinate sides together so tightly they’re practically one side.”
“I wouldn’t call them my enemy, but thank you for the information.” Tanya said, “It doesn’t impact my plan much, beyond affirming that staying near such a side would be a mistake. They have guns, you know.” Tanya reached into her dress and pulled out the spare pistols. “They don’t have many, these were all in the hands of warlords, but that’s a matter of time.”
“Yes, the Great Minds are not happy with Prince Jack right now.” Kurt said, unconcerned. “The amount of shmuckers being flooded into the Carnyvale is causing massive ripples in the Magic Kingdom economy.” He shook his head ruefully. ”The carnies aren’t used to being able to buy simple luxuries, so they’re going a little crazy with it. The shmuckers being flooded into the already-rich octants is a smaller problem, even if more of the money is going to them.”
“I think we may have made a rather large mistake.” Janis said, which was awfully considerate of her to include herself given that she had no part in the gun creation.
Tanya waved off the statement. “Charlie’s the one who made them.” She insisted, “We’re merely evening the battlefield. If he didn’t have them, our initial attack would have worked fine. They’re overpowered, is what they are.”
“Overpowered…” Maggie said, thinking about it. “You know, maybe we should try to ban guns? Declare them OP?”
Tanya blinked. “Isn’t that what I just said?”
“OP is a heretical class of magic.” Kurt explained, “Using it gives you a blanket ban from using the Magic Kingdom, for you and any of your allies. It’s distinct from other kinds of crimes in that it’s relatively simple to get off the ban list, just forswear the use of the OP magic and you’re back in.” With signamancy backing the oath, presumably.
Still, Tanya wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. “It’s worth considering.” She said passively. “But enough about such heavy topics. Eat, we’ve got a few things to do before the end of the day.”
Comments
Leaf
One side ruling the whole world is a path to peace if it works, but that seems like the kind of thing fate would go after you for.
