March 9th

Question: I'd like to get started on Greta's Olthoi plan as soon as possible but I don't know how to go about it. I'd prefer face-to-face time with her so we can hammer out the plan before approaching the Olthoi but I'm not sure if I have to travel to do so, so I'm not sure what kind of actions this would involve.

Kolson, thinking studiously, realizes that he can either send a letter to Gretta for her to visit the Veil here in Holtburg, which would involve an unknown amount of time until she can find the free availability in her schedule, or go to visit her himself, which would take most of a day's journey.

Kolson will use all of his actions to hire some bodyguards (2 or 3 tops) and travel to Gretta.

Edit

1st Major Action: Prepare for journey. (supplies, plot route, etc.)

2nd and 3rd Major Actions: Travel to Irondell with Javan.

Actually, it makes sense for Javan to accompany Kolson to Irondell. Javan's rough idea is:

Rough route:

1st Major Action: Prepare for the journey. He'll look for supplies for at least 1 1/5 weeks for himself and whatever mode of transportation he can get access to shorten travel time.

2nd and 3rd Major Actions: Travel with Kolson to Irondell

Thanks man. I feel much better traveling with you than I do with some toughs I just hired. I'll edit my post.

In keeping:

1st Major Action: Prepare for Journey

Higaide will hit the barracks, or wherever it is his people are gathered, and mingle a bit (get to know them), before telling them who he is.

ooc:

OOC: Might as well get started here.

1st major action: training the guard(Locked)

Rory will advise Zeiss to keep an eye out for people out of work since the Adventuring Guild was shut down. If they haven't joined a bloc already or moved on.
OOC: Hell, see if you can find Whis Kor. His situation might have changed.

2nd major action: Schedule rotations for off-duty recruits to help "haul the food they'll be eating this month".

3rd major action(may take more than one day: (Non-Combat AP) Research the political platforms and/or political angles of the "GOP" of Holtburg on the refugees(humans and non-humans separately). That's people in charge, people who are advising them, or the rising stars. Any election day(s) coming up?
Note: Rory's personal project, unplanned direction. Devote more effort to this action if the other two can be completed in sufficiently and efficiently on less time and energy.

Zeiss and Van spend the first third of the day trying to find what recruits they can amongst the 20-somethings and the disenfranchised. While not the most successful, they do find a few people interested in long term work and willing to do more menial paperwork jobs.

Kolson spends the first third of the day gathering supplies, planning his route northwards, and otherwise.

Javan also prepares for the much longer trip he'll be taking far west to complete Zeiss' sidequest, which will involve far more provisions and planning. He also coordinates with Kolson on this regard.

Higaide spends some time amongst his fellow Humans. While the approach is rather mixed, the general feeling he gets overall is one of resentment and bitterness. While not exactly living in paradise before, the general consensus is that the way the Vesayen Lassel was previously was better in every way compared to the way things are now, with sickness and weather and discomfort and bad eyesight and lord knows what other horrors, nevermind having just been rescued by large insect creatures from enslavement by moving metal men.

Rory begins his day training, which goes about as smoothly as one can expect. Fortunately no one bludgeons or stabs themselves in a permanently harming manner.

ooc:

Higaide looks at his new team, and takes a breath.

"Can i, uh..." - he tries to get the party's attention - "(Yeah, this is so not me.)"

He drags a nearby large object to stand on (probably a box), not really caring how much noise it'll make across the floor, since he's trying to get their attention anyway.

"Good, you're all looking. Hi, my name's, Higaide. I'll be in charge of this party here for the foreseeable future."

A second's pause, just to let that one sink in.

"I was one of the first people from back home to set foot on this big patch of land here, a few months before that big flying ship got you over - though i was there for that nightmare with the Tumeroks as well. I've spoken to some of you, and got an idea of how bitter you are with the current state of affairs. Life just got a whole lot harder for all of us, ever since we became part of the world at large, and Dereth isn't giving any handouts. For starters, the elemental energy that fed our affinity doesn't reach out here, making us a lot more vulnerable than we were used to. Second, this continent is undergoing it's first large-scale war in it's recorded history, and the fact that the people here number in the billions means that life in general has but a fraction of the sanctity that we gave it back home. I've probably seen more death here in the last few months than in my whole life before i came here, and for far less than we could have ever been driven to end someone's life before."

Another moment's pause, just to let them digest that.

"That being said, make no mistake, these are people, just like us. And now a lot of them are being crushed in the crossfire between Aluvia and Naverre - a conflict already magnitudes more devastating than anything we've seen back home. Now, a short time ago, the leader of the Exchange came up to me and pitched this idea of a team dedicated to relief effort, something that the war has already made gravely needed, and will only get worse as it progresses. Already i've heard of our people getting recruited into military work, turned into manpower for a conflict that has nothing to do with them. The way i see it, i figure that if we must get involved in the war at all, best do it by helping to heal the wounds it's gonna leave behind - some of them uglier than anything most of us have seen, if my experience so far is anything to go by."

Moment's pause.

"So, soon as this outfit is ready to go, we'll be making our way Northeast, to Janwall. The town got hit pretty hard by a wicked storm that all but levelled it's infrastructure. Amazingly there were no casualties, but it should be a good way to put us through our paces as a team, give us a all chance to learn how to work together. Regardless, the people there need help, and it wasn't so long ago that it saw a major influx of refugees of it's own, so keep that in mind when we're out there.

Any questions?"

2nd major action:

3rd major action:

Zeiss, having spent a third of his day arbitrarily assigning positions to their new recruits, gives them their first assignments, as well as maintaining himself as a prominent figure amongst their ranks.

Kolson and Javan start traveling to Irondell.

Rory gets no volunteers for his recruits in the heavy labor department so he begins assigning people to it randomly under the guise of training.

Higaide's charisma manages to rope him about 100 people all-told, several of which are family units. 50 gold would get the entire group tents and rations for the duration. Obviously there are no otherwise permanent places to stay other than the ground in Janwall at the moment.


Zeiss spends the remainder of his evening recruiting a total of 2 additional people, ex-Adventurer's Guild members as it happens, both of whom were actually AT the local PTC branch talking out loud about signing on to the IGA, and Zeiss happened to swoop in and Persuade both to join him instead. The other two rolls Zeiss managed were a 2 and a 4 respectively.

Rory learns a decent amount about the economic-driven Aristocracy of Aluvia, which when summarized boils down to those with money determine who actually are part of the aristocracy and one can lose position due to loss of financial backing, as well as gain it from not having had it previously if one 'buys in'. This means naturally that there are no elections, nor any real democracy of any kind in Aluvia or in Holtburg in specific, with positions being appointed by those above them, going all the way up to the Council of Lords, which appoints fellow Lords. With this new information in hand, he does (with a rather high roll) gather enough information to see that some people see the influx of both refugees as a boon of resources to be used to expand the military arm of Aluvia extensively, but he also is successful enough to learn that Aluvia's economy was ALREADY failing before this, and having more mouths to feed is not helping things. This being said there seem to be two general lines of thought amongst the wealthy in Holtburg; either use the refugees as expendable labor under the table (since official policy is military or bust), or ship them out of Aluvian lands.

Higaide spends his evening getting his hundred people ready to ship out for Janwall, leaving close to 10 PM at night.

Before leaving, Higaide heads over to Zeiss, making sure there isn't anyone else around, and speaks in a low voice (not a whisper, just low enough to be discreet).

"I need a favor."

Curious, Zeiss answers:

"Sure. Let's go to my office."

When they get there, he closes the door and sits down behind his desk.

"Bonebreaker's chair was too big for me. Had to change it. So, what is it?"

"It's a nice chair." - he says, lifting an eyebrow.

"There's three friends i have from back home that i haven't seen in a while. My master, Anji, and two craftsmen i know from childhood, Ivy and Maeve - they're married now, if that helps."

Higaide gives Zeiss a rough description of the three (Ivy's the guy, Maeve's the girl, btw).

"Ever since Rory's family was threatened, i've thought the smart thing was to keep away, lest they be targeted too, but now that Vaseyans are getting dragged in to the war, well... i'm not so sure that's such a good thing anymore. I'm still kinda paranoid of what may happen if some Vyeotian spies me getting personal with people i care about, but if it's a third party doing the scouting, i think it should be relatively safe... maybe. Could you get someone on it?"

Zeiss appears pensive for a moment.

"If you haven't found them here, they were either pulled into the Aluvian military or they're still on Vessayan Lassel."

He pauses.

"I'll put someone on it as soon as I have the resources to do so. And don't worry, it will be done discreetly."

Higaide stiffens slightly at the mention of them possibly being in the Army.

"Thanks."

"Really now, you guys have your work cut out for you", suddenly Javan started to talk during his and Kolson's travel to Irondell. "The Exchange is basically barebones right now, and you going to see Gretta just to keep appearances... I dunno man, it looks like tightrope walking from where I stand. Be frank with me, you think you guys can really pull it off, with the war, the invisible enemies and all that going on at once?"

"Heh, tightrope. How apropos." Kolson chews on his lip in thought. "I don't know. Probably 80 to 20 for not, based on the information I have. And that assumes we have time to play catch up and repair our alliances.

But we also have a lot going for us. I mean, we have each other. We've been through a lot of crap these last months but somehow we always find a way to survive. Maybe we can do the same for other folks with The Exchange."

"Hmm... yeah, they kinda took the shaft on this whole deal. And I guess if the Exchange does nothing about them... Man, I want to slap some sense into the people who started this damn war. I mean, what do you gain with the war but lands and resources? That is, if there's any recoverable anything left afterwards...", the faery ends his small argument with a deep sigh.

"I don't blame you." Kolson lapses into silence as he walks beside his friend. They share a companionable silence for a time. "I've walked this road before, when I was young. My father would travel here and there for his work, trying to track down any information or artifacts he could, trying to piece together the past and our place in it. Use to drag us all over with him."

"You mean, like an arca... arko... arkham...", the fairy starts to make funny noises with his mouth in frustation of being unable to pronounce 'archeologist', and continues, "Uh, the person job thing that studies the past in order to understand it, so we don't do the same stupid mistakes, right? Man, you must have some stories of him doing archen... ugh... past-people stuff."

"That's ballsy, I'll give you that. And well, he was right about at least one of those islands being a possible market... ... I just noticed yet again how often we doom other people's lives trying to do something good... We were trying to... do something good in that fire island, right...? Uh...", Javan finally caught himself trailing off and tried to savage the conversation, "Sorry, we were talking about your father and his gutsy disposition... How did it go?"