Week 5: April 20th - 27th April

Post here.

Near the beginning of the week there's a fairly loud commotion in the Royal District of Holtburg. Several Exchange members and spies die during the ensuing scuffle. No one's entirely certain what happened at first, but it becomes clear fairly quickly that there was some kind of battle, and for some distance people can still see smoke rising from the district.

Through the surviving spy network, the Exchange leadership learns that thanks to their pushing and prodding, quite a few of the aristocracy had decided to unite together in an effort to depose the 'wrongful leadership' of the newly appointed Lord. They decided to do this through force of arms rather than anything less obvious, resulting in a fairly large battle that lasted most of a day and, as mentioned earlier, significant loss of life. Most of the proper military is away, either at the front lines or preparing to go there, so there wasn't much of an armed resistance here to repulse them. Further, it seems the IGA had a strong presence in this attack.

In other news, several of the spies that were present in the Holtburg region itself have rather suddenly gone missing.

Towards the beginning of the week, Huldar shows up again out of no where and informs the Exchange that his superior wishes to discuss things with the Warlord of the Bloc personally.

OOC:

Zeiss will accept to meet Huldar's superiors... and takes Kolson's Exit materia before going. He obviously seems concerned with the attack that was made by the Aristocrats, and secretly think it was foolish of them to do anything so obvious. He also lost many of his own spies because of this, which is quite annoying and GODDAMIT WHY DID YOU-  Ahem. In any case, Zeiss is upset by this whole situation.

Heh, whoops. Looks like we might be going into action to stop the monster we created. I'll obviously need to see what Zeiss learns before taking actions.

After the disastrous first attack, without any real warning the Royal District comes under gun from several Aluvian military-grade Destroyers which cause a tremendous amount of damage, and an unestimated number of casualties in local military and government officials. Shortly thereafter, within a few hours, large numbers of soldiers... some Aluvian military, but most clearly mercenaries... march on the District to take and hold it.

Edit: Fixed.

To summarize: The General wishes to become a paid-off military official for the Exchange.  His terms are 15g a WEEK in exchange for occasional aid from supplies, training, etc.  He is also willing to make smuggling through the Docks easier on the team and admits that he ordered the original kidnapping of Sareth to pay off a debt as a favor, though he does not know to whom.  That favor debt was then transferred to the group of bandits who took Sareth thereafter.

EDITED

Wait, it's 15gp a month? Not per week? Just to be sure.

Zeiss has agreed to this deal after he made sure Javan and his Scarves were free from the General's clutches.

Well... time to correct my mistakes. *facepalm*

Main goals:

• -Zeiss is personally involved- With the help of Gretta's men and Intelligence (and maybe that passage through the Veil that leads to the Royal District), I will attempt to arrange a meeting with Myra of Hammersmith. When I do meet her, I will explain that I am here to offer my support against the Aristocrats' rebellion; the only thing I would ask of her in return is to consider the possibility of taking one of my people on her "council" so that I am kept informed of the changes on the political landscape and that the ownership of some of the Aristocrats' companies be transferred to me. Regardless of what she decides, I will support her and coordinate with her people. Gretta's men and my spies would probably focus on sabotaging their efforts, cutting off supplies, gathering information and turning the Aristocrats against each other by making it look like one of them is trying to come up on top of the others (send only the most experiences agents on this last task). I will also fight in the Royal District with my most hardened and disciplined guards, the kind that won't screw up military formation. If it's only like a dozen of them or less, so be it. Oh, we will hide our identities so that the Aristocrats don't have the idea to attack the Exchange. Sareth will oversee the Exchange's activities while Zeiss is gone. And if I manage to find a way to get rid of the Lady of Holtburg while taking care of the Aristocrats at the same time, it would be perfect. But I'll focus on the Aristocrats for now. Kolson will help with the fight, and the tactics, if he returns alive from his encounter with the Tumeroks. If it makes more sense to meet the High Queen before the Lady of Holtburg, I will do so.
  
• -Zeiss is personally involved- Gretta's men and Intelligence will investigate the company that was bought under the orders of the High Queen herself and also try to find where she lives with the info we got from Lord Fahran. I want to meet her, in person, and ask her what her true plans are. Who knows, maybe I could help her with that. If Kolson survives the Tumeroks, I'm sure he will come with me.
  

Secondary goals:

• -Zeiss the Delegator- Consolidate the Exchange in this time of crisis. I don't want it to implode because of the civil war. We're calm and in control. No need to panic.
  
• -Zeiss the Delegator- If the two black mages Rory brought are willing to participate in the combat, I will bring them with me to fight under my orders.
  
• -Zeiss the Delegator- Intelligence, under Sareth's supervision, will continue to crack down on the collaborators. Compartmentalizing the information within the Exchange would probably help. If my character thinks it's a good idea, we could explain to the humans we're also trying to help other refugees with the Exchange's profits and they're undermining our efforts (Rory or Higaide could do that if they are willing to do so).
  
• -Zeiss the Delegator- Send Zeiss' father 20 pieces of gold with a letter in which he explains he will see him soon, but cannot right now because of some problems he must take care of. He will send him more money at a later date, so he should rest for now and try to get better.
  
• -Zeiss the Delegator- Rebuild the spy network. We will also look for ex-adventurers to become Ciphers.
  
• -Zeiss the Delegator- Still working on the Shadow Depositary and the plan to bring the Blocs together, even in this time of civil war.
  

Yup, I'm in if I'm alive. I've been wanting to meet her for a while now as you all well know.

15g a week, a week.

By the third day of the week a full squadron of military-grade Destroyers have gathered around Holtburg now. Most people are unaware of further events but thanks to the Hub access, the Exchange as a whole becomes aware that this little insurgency isn't just limited to the metropolis, but is occurring in a fairly large swath of Aluvia. The only area no one has any news on yet is down south by Lytlethorpe, though of course with no Hub travel no news will probably be coming for over a week.

...Is this the biggest effect one of your player ever had on the political scene of one of your campaigns?

Well I did have a party that literally destroyed a planet once. On accident.

Also Rory's possibly tying you in impact right now, though no one's aware of it yet.

I'm really, really curious as to what he did.

By the way, aristocrats rebelling? Totally by accident.

By the way with the previous week not quite done yet you might want to hold off on actions for the coming week... depends on how things turn out.

Yeah, sure. I'll edit my actions depending on how things turn out for Kolson.

Zeiss of Dreamkeeper wrote:I'm really, really curious as to what he did.

By the way, aristocrats rebelling? Totally by accident.

Quite possibly...that raid I planned two weeks ago. Don't tell me that the ones who owed that favor debt were one and the same. At the same time, probably just accidentally sent the city guard and Aristocrats the message that we could do their job better than them, in tandem with some other actions by the others in the party to contribute to that message.

Nobles. They're touchy like that.

Zeiss of Dreamkeeper wrote:Yeah. Against the Aristocrats' mercenaries. In the Royal District. We could even let Thog have fun too, after we warn the nationalists that he's on our side.

Archengeia wrote:After the disastrous first attack, without any real warning the Royal District comes under gun from several Aluvian military-grade Destroyers which cause a tremendous amount of damage, and an unestimated number of casualties in local military and government officials.  Shortly thereafter, within a few hours, large numbers of soldiers... some Aluvian military, but most clearly mercenaries... march on the District to take and hold it.

This. This is what we face if we ever decided to take over Holtburg. No way in hell am I open to the idea of using Thog as a means of intimidation or threat vs those Destroyers, if they're still around.

But if we can cull the Aristocrats, find the ones we like and just depose the rest and hand all their stuff to the ones who remain, we('scuse me, Zeiss and Kolson) might possibly be able to work with them to reform the system of government in Holtburg. It can't just be all about the rich people, because then richer people could come along and make things worse if they just happen to be corrupt. Wealth fluctuates, and you don't just hand leadership of a party over to the guy who happens to have the biggest sword.

The Aristocrats just decided to do a coup on their own; they wouldn't want me or Kolson to "limit" them.

My plan (which the idea was brought up by Kolson) is to repel the Aristocrats while attempting to let them take care of the Lady of Holtburg and have Kolson step in as a temporary commander. Once Holtburg needs to name a new Lord, Kolson would have enough influence to take the position.

Note for later: Mite Black Mage named Zanizak.

...A MITE black mage? Who is also amoral? I'm surprised. He must be Araiguna's older brother or something.

Mites can still be evil/unscrupulous, I'm sure. This only disqualifies them from any employment by the Mites who run the hub network.

...I think I have a plan to eliminate the Aristocrats' mercenaries in one fell swoop. Disregard my previous actions, I'll write a new post.

However, I'll need to learn a few things things before I do so:

• Is the Lady of Holtburg winning? I'm guessing she's not.
  
• Does she still control the airships?
  
• How much damage to the Royal District have the airships done?
  
• Where are most of the Aristocrats' troops stationed in the city?
  
• Are there any civilians left in the Royal District?
  

I will employ whatever methods needed to obtain this information (spy network, Gretta's men, the General, whatever). Even meeting the Lady of Holtburg.

Right now neither side is winning.
The Lady of Holtburg does have Airships under her control but they have not shown up yet.
The Royal District is hard to infiltrate to get solid information right now but there have been visible fires and smoke.
The majority of the Aristocracy's troops are stationed in the Royal District.
There are unlikely to be civilians left in the Royal District as neither side would be so stupid as to ensure their defeat by violating the Dericost Accords (also there was a mass civilian evacuation earlier).

Hmm... It will depend on how soon the airships will show up then. My plan will probably be of last resort.

Namely evacuating the Aluvian army through the Veil (or the airships themselves if there's enough of them) and bombarding the Royal District with the Aristocrats' troops in it.

Gotta make another plan before we enact this one. And meet the Lady and the Queen.