March 18th

A new day dawns... Javan and Kolson have made their way north, with an odd Half-Dwarf Half-Elf in tow who goes by the name of Eric of Anvilmar, who after some idle discussion Javan learns is already well on his way to becoming a Dragoon. The trio will arrive near the outskirts of where the Lefftenant supposedly is encamped in a few hours, and have a chance to plan their approach.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Rory has reached a conclusion about the drunk guard and his incident. Higaide has returned to Holtburg and discovered that his little 'help people' organization has reached the decision that they are going to leave the Holtburg area and head west to Glenden Wood, to assist those suffering near the front lines, where they can do the most good. And Zeiss has finally reached a conclusion of his nearly 2 and a half day solid negotiations with the Mites. In summary; the Mites have no organization and as such decided that, rather than negotiate for it being theirs, they are going to hand it over to the Osteth Republic, who is prepared to pay a total of 30 Platinum for the Leycite, in addition to granting full private access to the Hub for each individual Zeiss specifically selects for the rest of their natural lives (note: such access is granted to those individuals' belongings, but not other people they wish to bring with them. The Mite you talked with was adamant on this point and would not budge no matter how many CHA rolls tossed at him). At various points in the discussion Zeiss tried to bring up the information network but no one he spoke to seemed to have any idea what he was talking about, including the Osteth Mite and Lugian who traveled here to finalize the deal. The ink is not yet laid if Zeiss still wishes to bargain.

Zeiss will accept the deal under these two conditions:

• Have 5 pieces of platinum turned into gold instead. We need some change.
  
• The unlimited access to the Hub must extend to any new Hub the Mites may build in the future. You know, just in case they can do that. I'm sure they can figure it out.
  

If that doesn't take much time, could they tell me for how much the Osteth government would pay for the Leycite without the access to the Hub? I'm assuming we discussed this possibility in these past two days.

The Republic is not exactly cash flush right now, and after some discussions (that already occurred) you realize that they're already technically offering more than they can afford, Hub or no, at least in terms of raw cash. They are willing to think about lowering that number a bit if Zeiss wants other concessions from the Republic.

Okay. We'll accept the previous deal if the two conditions I laid out are accepted.

Is there any defensible terrain we can hide our force in while we send out the scouts to find the camp and confirm it's there? Any other info they could bring would also be helpful, such as force numbers and defenses.

If so, we'll stop there for now, post a watch, and send out the scouts to do just that.

The local terrain is lots of trees and woodlands, though no thick forests. Any approach will likely be watched, but one could easily try and send someone skilled at stealth to scout things out. A small rock outcropping near one of the small hills will service to hide your tiny band in the interim while sending said scout out... the only question is whom to send.

Depends, was I able to get those scouts I wanted? If so send both of them out to do it. I can't speak for Javan but Kolson is only as sneaky as the average person, which is not very. :p

Unfortunately Kolson has not procured the scouts he was looking for.