Kevin Curry
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Summon Perfect Warlady 18
🕑 Added 2023-12-01 15:00:13 +0000 UTCOkay, this is the last 'first of month' chapter for Summon Perfect Warlady. Another one's coming on Monday, so look forward to that.
I know it's a bit short, but I'll try to make up for it next chapter. I'm not really happy with this chapter, a bit too much exposition and not enough action in my opinion, but it's what I got.
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While it was only about half of Yojo Mojo’s air forces, the level of force that they had brought was substantial.
All three sixteen-stacks of her accessory-laden knights were brought, led by the Warlords von White, von Kurig, and von Newsman, who will hopefully level further in the conflicts. One stack of dwagons, which was all five pinks, including the one they had popped recently, a single green/red pair, King Bomber, and two purples, in case they needed to break a siege door or something. This stack was the one led by Tanya, with Elya taking up the caster slot, magically paired with the highest-level pink dwagon, a level five she named ‘Latex’ for some reason.
Visha was present along with eight level 1 Noble warlords, mounted on those dwagons, but their jobs were to be floating warlords, pun intended, either attaching themselves to an allied stack or to lead whatever auxiliaries they gain from Elya turning enemy units. Tanya wasn’t quite sure how she felt about deploying tactical mind control to this extent, but given how questionable free will was for the inhabitants of this world… giving these battle maniacs another chance to fight seemed to come out positive, from her understanding of their common belief system. Some of those warlords will croak, others will survive and level. It all comes down to her tactical decisions.
Nevertheless, Spacerock was two turns from the rendezvous point on dwagonback, and while her knights were faster than dwagons, particularly when they were slowed down by the level 1 pink, it wasn’t by enough of a margin to change that. They used the surplus to find a good nesting spot to rest the dwagons at and to check for enemy ambushes within however large of an area they could manage to search. So she emptied her juice finishing those accessories before she left, sending them over to her knights via hat, and by the time she arrived at the front she’ll be back to full along with Elya, who boosted production of four cities one last time. From here on out, her juice is to be spent turning units and manipulating Move.
“It’s an interesting capability…” Tanya said as Elya worked her magic on the stack.
“It’s easiest if I’m transferring it between two units of the same kind. If I was better at it, I think I could do more.” Elya replied, depleting move from King Bomber and Latex to bolster the move of the lowest level dwagons in the stack. “This will extend our range by about six hexes, if my math is right.”
“Seven, actually.” Tanya corrected after spending a drop of her juice on calculating it. “Dwagons have best-in-class move for a heavy flier mount, so they gain 8 move per three levels. Fifty at 1, Fifty-three at two, fifty-six at three, fifty-eight at four, and sixty-one at five.” Elya nodded seriously at Tanya’s explanation, paying close attention. “Levels are 1, 2, 3, 3, and 5 among the pinks, fives for the red and green, a pair of fours for the purples, and King Bomber is also five. Minimum move is fifty, average move is fifty-seven and a half. We require two more levels, at least one of which is not one of the level three pinks, in order to average fifty-eight move, which is the move rating of our level 3 knights.” Which was the lowest level among the ones she selected for her elite rapid response force. There weren’t enough higher ones to fill everything out, although she did make sure to make at least one of them, Lord von White’s stack, to have only level fours and fives, which thus had an extra three move.
“So I need to move one into each of the level threes, four into the level two, and seven into the level one… I got it.” Elya said, carefully calibrating the stack’s Move by pulling the surplus move from the level 5 dwagons. Motion magic was useful stuff, perhaps she should try and start to learn Weirdomancy? She kind of has her hands full with the five disciplines she was currently working with, though… That was two more than most experienced casters dealt with, so she felt comfortable in leaving other options to the side for now.
Soon enough, Tanya found themselves in front of Prince Ossomer once again, at the head of a much more powerful flying host. “Good evening, Prince Ossomer!” She declared as she landed in a chair that was prepared for her at the tactical map. “What’s the tactical situation?”
“Poor.” The Prince replied bluntly. “Rightshoring has been strengthened by their conquest of Leftovers, and have used those resources to send many mid to high level warlords against us.”
Tanya frowned. That could actually pose a problem, depending on their force compositions. “I assume they lead knights mounted on Drama Llamas?” They were the biggest threat to her units. The vast majority of Rightshoring’s land units had less than ten move. There were precisely two exceptions, each with sixteen instead. The flying advanced infantry unit known as Beagles, which were slow for non-heavy fliers but somewhat effective at aerial dogfighting, and the drama llama, which has the lowest possible move for a non-heavy mount unit but had a ranged acid spitting attack, which meant they were basically archers.
“Some of ‘em, yeah.” Prince Bill-Bob said, his drawling speech giving Tanya a distinctly rural impression. “Others are leadin’ stacks o’ Minertaur Heavy Knights, “ Their natural allies, heavy digger units that presumably occupy the role of siege for their army. “And there’s one or two dance-fighters leading big infantry stacks.” Hm, seemed like a conventional distribution of forces, for the most part. “Over half of em are led.”
“I assume some of those warlords are uncroaked?” Tanya asked, “The intel mentioned a croakamancer.” And a Chief Dittomancer, both sons of Overlord Epic Showdown, their names were Boomstick and Whiz.
“The uncroaked army is why their force is so fearsome after conquering Leftovers.” Ossomer said, his tone grave. “They’re duplicating their croakamancer, so you’d need to defeat four powerful hexes at once to make sure you get him.”
Tanya blinked. Well, she’ll just have to do that. Unless they have a few fast mounts, the duplicates would still be bound to the dittomancer’s general area. “What’s the scouting look like?”
“Our Ranjahs-” Bill Bob started, his thick accent not helped by the chewing tobacco he had put into his mouth since he last spoke, “-are keepin’ a perimeter, and Lord Tears should be givin’ us a report any-” He paused as his hat, a straw one, shuddered. He took it off and plucked a parchment out of it, unrolling it. “Here ‘tis.” He said, turning it around. Having an allied Lookamancer was quite convenient. Even if it was somewhat inconvenient that it was one of the two that may be enemies later. She should just be thankful that Lord Allen Tears was busy during the battle of Gobwin Knob.
Tanya had eventually figured out a few magical tricks that her Recon special provided her, and one of which was a ‘zoom’ function on her regular eyesight. “How much move do we have to move our base hex?” Tanya asked.
“Six.” Ossomer said, “But we can go eight if needed, with some adjustments to our composition.” Presumably, leaving behind the slowest units.
As the infantry stack designated for the task updated the map on the table, Tanya counted the hexes. With the move pooling that Elya used, they have twenty eight move left for their forces. Range of twenty two hexes without leaving themselves vulnerable to counterattack, twenty of they don't push the base hex. According to intelligence, the most relevant numbers were a level 10 Chief Warlord, level 7 croakamancer, and level 6 chief dittomancer. Plus an unknown level 2 caster, theorized florist from the plant units in his stack. Checking levels wasnt something a novice lookamancer could do, but HobbitTM had a Master.
“Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one.” Tanya finished, speaking out loud for the last three numbers to inform the other commanders. “I'll need you to take the extra two hexes, or at least one, to come back after hitting this hex.”
“That one?” Ossomer asked. “The Croakamancer is assuredly a dupe in that hex.” He pointed out.
“There are also three warlords in there.” Tanya pointed out. “Elya, how many units can you turn in one turn?”
“All three and then some” boasted the turnamancer. This was a lie, given the levels involved getting all three warlords would be iffy, but with Tanya bolstering her juice reserves…
“Right, we’ll be leaving our riders with the column, to allow us to return with the freshly turned troops.” Tanya explained, “They're all eager to croak the enemy, so don't be afraid to give them dangerous postings.” The various level one warlords, each proudly bearing ‘von’ names, all chimed in their agreement.
Ossomer frowned at the outburst of enthusiasm, as it wasn't quite proper decorum, but Tanya had encouraged her leadership units to voice any concerns or comments during the planning meetings, and they didn't let the fact that they agreed with all of her decisions stop them from providing the requested input. “Understood. We have a few unled stacks of heavies that could use the bonuses.”
After a brief exchange of small details, Tanya grinned as she flew forth. Maybe she’ll level up…
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Her knights were a minimum level of 3, with a base combat and defense of 6 at that level. The maximum power date-a-mancy buff to make them sixteen-stacks gave them a +8 bonus to those. Their equipment provided 3 more. Tanya’s in-hex chief warlord leadership was currently 3, doubled by the dittomancy of her tiara. They were led by level five warlords, providing another +5. This meant that her knights attacked and defended at a whopping 28.
The enemy column was concentrated into as few hexes as possible, but also distributed, keeping gaps between the hexes. Tanya surmised that the goal of the strategy was to invite attack, allowing them to crush the enemy in a counterattack, as the gaps were small enough to make it simple for multiple hexes to collapse on any attacker, but large enough to make it more challenging for a single force to engage more than two hexes in a turn.
The enemy stacks were reasonably powerful. The fifty stacks of infantry attacked at 8-11, depending on type and level, due to the +3 side-wide chief warlord bonus they enjoyed. The uncroaked infantry, thirty stacks of much higher quality than the mass-uncroaking that Wanda used during the battle of Gobwin Knob, also benefitted from a duplicate croakamancer’s in-hex bonus of four. Unlike other kinds of caster-created units, uncroaked could level. That duplicate had their own stack of knights along with a level four uncroaked warlord, which meant they had a minimum of 23 combat and defense. Actually dangerous, in other words. They were further supplemented by five stacks of beagles, the white dog-like flying units only fit as a speed bump, and to prevent certain low-effort tactics. The last facet of the hex was the two stacks of minertaurs and single stack of archery knights mounted on drama llamas, all led by warlords leveled four to seven.
The key to success here was her own stack, the dwagon stack. Their bases were much lower, due to the lack of date-a-mancy and dollamancy augments, but they benefitted from her full leadership bonus, which given that her in-hex bonus stacked with it, after the doubling it totaled +18. This amounted to her stack’s attacks being only slightly stronger than her knight’s, only by one or two points.
When you were fliers facing non-fliers, there wasn’t a whole lot, beyond archery, that the ground forces could do to stop you from engaging the most valuable enemy stack, and the angle of attack affected how many screeners could be used.
With some dwagon breath aided by a shockamancy spell, the croakamancer dupe’s entire stack, along with the stack of beagles screening, was quickly reduced to dust. While she did that, the shockamancy spears came into play, allowing her troops to get a few attacks off before they engage in melee. They used these attacks to whittle down the archer knights and the minertaurs, which Tanya took advantage of by using the pink dwagon’s bubblegum breath weapon to capture the knights for turning.
With the “loot” dealt with, they settled into the final order of battle: Tanya led the dwagons into fighting the uncroaked, White engaged the mass infantry, and the other two handled one minertaur stack each before engaging the infantry.
When all was said and done… “DING!” Tanya announced as a euphoric feeling overtook her. She knew that she had gained a fair amount of experience, so she was bound to be close to a level, but after the first engagement? Exquisite.
Elya stumbled down off of Latex the dwagon, panting in exertion. “Flying and shooting is harder than it looks.” She wheezed. As she caught her breath, she patted herself down, checking her gear to confirm it was all still secure, a sign of military discipline that Tanya found pleasing. “Do you want to recharge my shockamancy wand now or wait until later?”
“Pass it over.” Tanya said, and she pulled out one of the gems on her own wand, showing that it was a charging cord. She connected the two wands, and her Analysis indicated that the transfer of juice was successful.
Taking one of her other wands, a dirtamancy one, Elya cleared out the bubblegum from the prisoners, manacles instantly appearing in place of the sticky stuff. “Okay, give me some time to work. We have just enough units captured that we can barely fit them on the dwagons.” The necessity of such being the primary reason Tanya focused on the knight stack to capture.
Meanwhile, Tanya focused on moneymancy. While they didn’t really need the shmuckers, it also allowed them to clear out the bodies so that Boomstick Showdown can’t uncroak the bodies they leave behind. As the uncroaked leave behind equipment but not bodies that can be eaten by dwagons, Tanya then used the less efficient spell to turn those into shmuckers instead. More importantly than denying the croakamancer, having a large lump sum from emptying the mine doesn’t mean that they could sustain that kind of cash long term, so eking every shmucker they can was just good sense.
After she was done, she checked the numbers of her troops. Very few had unbroken barriers, and none were completely uninjured, but only one was nonlethally incapacitated, the one that oddly was also named Tanya, Tanya Nin. “Kurig, what is the meaning of this?” She asked. !
“Poor luck, Princess.” William von Kurig immediately responded. “He suffered a bad hit when he disengaged.” Okay, that was rather improbable. Assuming he was being truthful and not concealing his poor performance as a commander.
Tanya huffed, before drawing the healomancy wand that Sizemore bought with his shopping spree in the Magic Kingdom. “Bad Potato, Max Tomato.” She intoned, using the magic words of the wand to heal the man just enough to get on his feet. Then she charged the ordinary wand with her artifact wand, as she didn’t anticipate a need to use shockamancy any more today.
She glanced back to Elya, who was smiling widely as she whispered into the ear of one of the archer knights, who had an… interesting expression. What on earth was she saying to them? Given the intensity of the blush the archer knight had, Tanya couldn’t dismiss the possibility that she was being given the salacious details of Elya’s last night in Gobwin Knob. The caster was quite promiscuous, and seemed to delight in embarrassing anyone who took umbrage with her off-turn habits.
Well, as long as she could turn the knight to the other team, it doesn’t really matter how Elya gets there. Tanya paused and replayed that last sentence in her head, before feeling her own face heat up at the accidental double entendre. No, that was definitely not what was happening.
In the end, Elya managed to turn the whole stack plus the warlord with only one juice refill, and she didn’t even need the whole thing; she also leveled up to three between that and the few croaks she managed with the shockamancy wand, although whatever insight into her discipline she got by turning enemy units, it was insufficient to raise her to adept.
There were also a few dozen infantry that were imprisoned via pink dwagon gum, but they couldn’t carry them back so they were executed instead by Victoria, who did not level unfortunately. The drama llamas were harvested for rations, and those executed units were eaten by the dwagons.
With the battlefield completely clear of bodies, Tanya ordered the return to the planned base camp hex.
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“That’s a lot of magic you’ve brought wit’ ya.” Bill-Bob commented at the morning meal the next day. “Are you even going to turn a profit, here?”
Tanya swallowed her mouthful of rice and miso soup, pleased that the coin flip that was her breakfast came up Japanese today. She’s eaten Imperial breakfasts for the last three turns. “You let me worry about that.” Tanya said dismissively. “The most important thing this expedition can grant my side is levels. Thus the overwhelming force. I’ll just win a few battles, cripple their ability to do anything but hole up in their cities, and that’s when Jetstone and your forces start cracking them open like shellfish.” Tanya continued eating, pausing after a few more bites. “The most important thing in a war, rather than a battle, is Move. Rightshoring has many troops, dangerous ones, and many force multipliers, but they lack mobility. I can engage their forces at will, and as long as your armies provide me a safe base camp, which I would ordinarily need to provide myself out of our own heavies and infantry, that will continue to be true no matter how they position their troops.” If she didn’t have such a base camp, she’d be constrained in how she was positioned.
Bill-Bob snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure our Lookamancy and scouts help too.”
“It certainly is appreciated.” Tanya said sincerely, diplomatically not mentioning how she’d have just brought extra, lower level, recon knights if they needed extra scouting. “My point is that I fully intend to take the bulk of the fighting in the field. Just focus on scouting and advancing towards...” Tanya paused, “-what was the name of the city we are marching on?”
“Offshoring.” One of Jetstone’s warlords, a Lady Athena, offered. “We’ll be able to attack in seven more turns of steady advance.” Tanya snorted at the name of the city.
Elya, who was enjoying her bratwurst, suddenly startled. “The barbarian turn is over.” She seemed confused. Turnamancers could detect the progress of turns with much greater sensitivity and precision than non-turnamancers.
“Oh, Rightshorting’s turn.” Tanya said, quickly finishing her food and sending out orders to organize for the enemy turn. Turn transitions that did not involve your side were detectable, but they were easy to miss if you were distracted.
“No…” Elya said, “It’s actually… Charlescomm’s turn.” Tanya paled at the news.
Turn order was natural predictamancy. If they could perceive Charlescomm’s turn as a distinct phase in the day, that meant that the side was not only within the battlespace, but that they were predestined to interact with them.
Sure, she was supposed to get notified in advance if Charlescomm ever got a contract to attack Yojo Mojo or their territory… but when she was afield like this, that didn’t mean squat unless he was hired to attack her or her forces specifically. Contracts against other members of the Royal Crown Coalition weren’t restricted, nor were defensive contracts.
On the plus side, Tanya also didn’t have to avoid hurting any Archons. That prohibition only applied within Yojo Mojo or Charlescomm’s territory. But seeing as how Charlescomm represents one of the greatest threats to her forces, that was a cold comfort.
“...Charlecomm’s turn was folded into Rightshoring’s.” Elya announced, “They have allied.”
Ossomer read a note that was passed from one of the scouts, who presumably received it from one of the warlords assigned to scout coordination. “Sixteen archons were spotted in an overflight by one of the Ranger sentries.” He announced. Bill-Bob nodded smugly.
Tanya relaxed. Okay, that explained the turn perception. The predictamancy went per hex, so the scouting report received by the HobbitTM warlord assigned to watching the scouts was sufficient to perceive Charlescomm’s turn.
Still, sixteen archons was a lot. “Please inform Lord Tears that foolamancy is expected among the enemy.” Tanya suggested to Bill-Bob.
“Yeah, I better.” The exceptionally short redneck said, taking a piece of paper out and starting to write.
Now, they wait.
Comments
Kevin Curry
Yeah, that wasn't supposed to be a difficult reference to grok. That said, his dittomancy senses gives him all the info he needs on that front.
Chris Larson
I feel like Wiz probably has Mathamancy in addition to Ditomancy so that he can "analyze their armor, skill, and weapons".
Kevin Curry
She's been 6 for a while. Now she's 7. Which means she looks fourteen now.
Leaf
That makes Tanya level 6 or 7? I wonder if she grew any this time.
