The hulking warrior excuses himself from the guildmaster's and Lady Alexandra's presence, and walk over to the alu-demon and imp.
"Good work, Shashanta. Any news on the goblinoids?" Turning to the imp, Domayoku says "Bela. Where have you been?"
Shashanta blushes under Domayoku's praise, then meets his eye again. "I found her in the kitchens this morning. Bela was unaware that anything happened."
In a small churpy voice, Bela exclaims, "I guess I got pretty lucky. The guildhall must have moved shortly after I got back from The Kingdom of Cervial back on Yggdrasil."
Domayoku breathed. "I'm glad you have returned, Bela. I do have a job for you. We can discuss it more in my quarters. Shashanta, please grab some cheese and bread from the guild pantry and join us."
------
Later, Domayoku, Bela, and Shashanta are in Domayoku's quarters. There he discusses his clandestine meeting with the mysterious merchant. The Demon King relayed all his knowledge gained from the meeting.
"Bela, you are to deliver these packages and missives, if you can physically do so. I do know know their sizes. Your secondary objective is to get as much information on this mysterious merchant. Name. Her family. The region she is in. Anything we can use as leverage against her", Domayoku commanded.
Amadea moves from the group after teleporting them back to the keep. She settles back into her apartment, and after washing off the layers of blood and gore, she puts on a dressing gown and moves into her study to start identifying the treasure she collected.
Bela nods to Domayoku and takes the first package from him, then she begins making preparations.
If anyone asks he can be found in the vault, directing and helping sort all the loot found from the dragon's hoard, minus the items Amadea collected. Making a pile of coins that the guild can use for normal purchases. Then sorting the rest of the items by roughly their value, most of them are simple items made of precious metals.
Domayoku flew with the distressed Alexandria the whole way back. She didn't say much the entire trip back. After this meeting with his cohorts, The Demon King will stop by her quarters to make sure she's alright.
You hear loud rousy partying and what seems to be a mixture of Hardbass, Power Metal, Techno and classical music from Ekaterinas area.
Apparently she is trying her hand at DJing. A refreshed Elshahirah presumably enjoys it.
Ginza is busy testing new recipes and cooking up a storm in the kitchen.
He does sed food to their guests on a regular basis to see what strikes their fancy in their tastes in food.
You hear loud rousy partying and what seems to be a mixture of Hardbass, Power Metal, Techno and classical music from Ekaterinas area.
Apparently she is trying her hand at DJing. A refreshed Elshahirah presumably enjoys it.
The refreshed Elshahirah does in deed enjoy it but she had to get into the rhythm first. As this was completely new music to her.
As Ginza asks what she would like she asks for some Elven delicacies, to help her remember of home.
Hmm, something more Elfish? Let me try this, its a combination of a made up language and Japanese but it should be closer to your home, musically, then hardbass my dear.
"Elvish? I know several recipes. We can start with sweet bread followed by mixed nuts over honey dripped fowl...." GInze begins as he lists out the number of recipes he's learnt over the years as he leaves to go prepare them.
In the kitchen thanks to his current physique, Ginza works to produce a fine feast of Elven delights!
The half-fiend monk hears the techno dance music and follows it to Lady Ekaterina's room. Domayoku knocks loudly on the door to be heard over the music.
Get in, drugs are to the left of the entrance, booze to the right
Domayoku smiled wide and bowed. "Thank you, Lady Ekaterina."
The godling walked to the right of the room and poured himself a large goblet of dragon wine. Domayoku drank the contents down with great relish. Refilling his vessel, the half-fiend warrior was walking to the left side of the room, when he noticed Elshahirah dancing away. Downing the second goblet of dragon wine, Domayoku walked over to greet the drow woman.
"HELLO!" Domayoku yelled over the music. "WHAT DO YOU THINK?!"
She yells back at Domayoku, enjoying the music and dancing, "YEAH! ITS PRETTY GOOD, IT JUST TOOK SOME TIME." She obviously has sampled some of the offered drugs as her eyes can't focus, she keeps closing them.
He arrives soon after Domayoku in a simple silk robe of orange. Bare chested and wearing only his basic equipment. With a charming smile he walks over to one of the couches and has a seat enjoying the show.
Domayoku dances with Elsharirah to the pounding beats. The half-fiend warrior smiles as he dances in his new unbroken body.
Amadea make an appearance at the party, keeping a mostly quiet presence. She comes in her natural form, snake tail, and six armed. She has a quiet drink, letting the energy of the party flow around her.
Ginza brings in food and Elvish Alcohol. No idea from where he managed to make or get some.
But he doesn't dance.
He can't.
The battle maids come in appropriate garb for a mosh pit at a rock concert. Their makeup and hair has been undone matching their garb. Many more of the cohorts come and join in the dancing and celebrating.
The party goes on into the wee hours of the night, most just find a couch or pillow letting fatigue catch up to them. Others left mostly in couples or larger groups.
He consumes what is brought to him. Enjoying drinks or treats with a bit of flesh. A gaggle of women are around him and vying for his attention. He flirts, kisses, teases, and makes them beg.
You believe he might be interested in a few of them but he is putting on a show for them.
Domayoku gravitates throughout the party as it begins in full swing.
The godling raises a goblet of dragon wine to his reclining guildmaster, surrounded in leisure with many female admirers.
Shashanta eventually finds the party and dances and mingles alongside her master. Domayoku and the alu-demon drink heavily, take some of Lady Ekaterina's mind-altering substances, and dance the night away with multiple partners. Team Demon King leave the party with several battle maidens in tow.
With his current duty done, Ginza beats a retreat and withdrwas back to his kitchen.
Once there, he begins to reflect on all that has happened and most of all.......He wonders if there's any nearby Hamlet or such that no one would miss....
He was still curious.
Lets see if this works
Antigravityfield incoming in 10, 9,8,7,6,5,4... NOW
Going with the idea that dancing is more fun without gravity, Ekaterina does her special little surprise and disables gravity on the dance floor. Everyone floats! Dont worry, its not the reverse gravity that makes you fall face first on the ceiling.
Extending her hair to some pretty ridiculolous length to keep DJing, she does a pretty quick and stylish Circe de Soleil improvisation with essentially everyone who is dancing.
Once the party dies down, she would escort Elshahira to her lodgings.
Once the party begins to simmer down, she is out cold on one of the couches. With the help of Lady Ekaterina she is likely carried to her room and bed. She murmurs as she is laid to rest, Ekaterina you see a smile upon the elves face.
Your two guests sleep the next day away unless someone wakes them. They are both recovering.
Ekaterina tucks Elshahirah in, chuckles, and gives her a quick good night kiss on the cheek.
Ginza my old friend,
I know of a few places that could be routed using your omen. Perhaps we get teleported tomorrow and we take a week excursion? Does Shasha have teleport at will same as Amadea?
What do you say?
I hope to see you tomorrow for the start of our trip, or at least the meeting. 5 :00 am or 10:00 am.
He contacts each of your subordinates and has some spending money delivered to each of you, 1,650 gp, in gold and silver coins.
Everybody in the guild knows of my world tree quest. :P
Ginza receives the message and considers it very carefully. As a gamer he wanted to see how would this SSS rank quest go? Yet he also understood that this might have lasting consequences on this world.
He sent his agreement back to his guild leader and preps himself for the trip. Afterall he didn't need sleep now.
The Demon King, Shashanta, and several battle maiden spend a drug-induced, alcohol-addled night of debauchery in Domayoku's bed chamber. In the morning, several battle maidens left while others slept in. Waking up refreshed, those who stayed got another orgy care of The Demon King and his alu-demon.
Sometime during the morning festivities, a subordinate dropped off a bag of coins for Domayoku. Taking his reward and adding it to his bag of holding, the half-fiend warrior went to the morning meeting. Domayoku was all smiles as he sat in on the meeting, deciding what the guild would do next.
GOOOD MORNING Ekaterina, currently in a different purpleish dress
Is in the meeting lounge, looking radiant, full rested and quite happy.
She has absolutely not spend a fair bit of time making Elshahirah dreams a lot more interesting and fun.
So, the recap, our side of things ingratiated ourselfs with the nearby town, murdered some hags, found 2 new recruits and yoinked some interesting loots. We currently dont have a mean of instaneous communication with the town, but I can probably arrange for one. From what I get you had some interesting adventures as well?
"Indeed. We found a nest of white dragons, and in addition to getting ourselves some impressive skulls for the walls, we were able to aquire a large quantity of cash in local currencies, as well as a friendly D'jinn, willing to continue a future association, and use his powers on our behalf."
He offers with excitement of the new member, "Yes! Yes! A great addition to our guild. Before that I was working my way up the adventuring guilds system and destroying the opposing armies of the dwarven kingdom. I am just waiting for a message from the Dwarf kings about when they want to invade their previous lands."
Invade their previous lands? Ekaterina asks
It should be called Ekaterinas tone switches to Angelic ringing endorsement.
I can probably sell PR and Propaganda services on top. Dwarfs are historically bad at those. I can do both internal to motivate them, and external, to sell their claims to the rest, propaganda.
Can you describe your dwarf interlocutors? And the name of the enemy organization? We can probably do a "the dwarf garrison at whatever writes a reply to the Nerdleauges demands", styled after the "Zaporizihian cossack writing a reply", but with Dwarfs, and then we circulate different escalting insulting replies, before we crown a dwarf the insulting reply king. At the same time, we need to make sure to internationally paint the dwarfs as the plucky underdogs and then... Ekaterina is in full PR mode and has many cunning plans.
The Demon King crosses his arms, pleased. "Excellent. Securing the lands for the dwarves will guarantee access to their vaulted superior goods, and women. Spoils of war will also help refill our guild bank."
"Or knowing their background lore before we became part of this world. We'll be entered in as Eternal Enemies or some such nonsense. They are supposedly a race that bears grudges and does not so easily forgive them." Ginza adds in.
Invade their previous lands? Ekaterina asks
It should be called Ekaterinas tone switches to Angelic ringing endorsement.
I can probably sell PR and Propaganda services on top. Dwarfs are historically bad at those. I can do both internal to motivate them, and external, to sell their claims to the rest, propaganda.Can you describe your dwarf interlocutors? And the name of the enemy organization? We can probably do a "the dwarf garrison at whatever writes a reply to the Nerdleauges demands", styled after the "Zaporizihian cossack writing a reply", but with Dwarfs, and then we circulate different escalting insulting replies, before we crown a dwarf the insulting reply king. At the same time, we need to make sure to internationally paint the dwarfs as the plucky underdogs and then... Ekaterina is in full PR mode and has many cunning plans.
After hearing these words he realizes how true her words are, "YES! Yes! Yes." Then he sounds confused repeating her words, "interlocutors?"
The he relays some more information, "The opposing empire is Grand Victory, a nation ruled by magic. Their warlords are illusionists. I have been helping the Dwarven nation. Grand King Moric of Ulfgar of Ulden rules over the dwarven kingdom that rivals an empire. King Moric has seventeen brothers that help in the capital. Though many of his relatives and cousins are ruling members of other cities or kingdoms within the greater kingdom."
"I am now a platinum level adventurer. I captured about a dozen of Grand Victory's general wizards and turned them into the dwarven nation. I have my targets for the coming day another few batallions of soldiers and their arcane leaders."
Later in the day he checks in again a bit after noon, "Well that quest was a lot easier than I thought. My guard is still up even as I wade through them and slaughter those in my path. I am going to see the forward general of the dwarven kingdom to turn in the captured wizards and gain new orders."
About another hour and he pings to you again, "I feel like I could kill their 'general' with a flick of a finger. They are following my orders to keep bindings over their wrists, fingers, and mouths. Apparently a few of them got free and make a ruckus. I have asked that they be treated as humanely as possible and that as my reward I will likely be taking some of the wizards with me when I leave. Off I go to hunt down some more mages. Tomorrow I should be into my Countess's region again and should be able to broker a cease fire at least between the two nations. We will see."
Ulgarfield
Grand Victory is merely a group of illusionists. Sure wizards can be dangerous but not against me, the mage slayer. I think I will just fly right through them.
The Dwarven lord was most appreciative of my support. He had given me a gold rating for the adventuring guild. I could likely take on the whole keep. I am flying around the mountains some to familiarize myself with the region. I have a feast to be at in my honor soon. I will check back in once that is done."
"The feast was a blast, lots of Dwarven war songs, dancing, ale, whiskey, flaming axes, the whole shebang! I spoke with the lord again and I will be meeting with the warlord of Grand Victory tomorrow."
Ulgarfield but now is called Lillyville. It is about 200 miles from our keep. There is a sparse splattering of villages near the town. I made contact with the magistrate and have been collecting information. She is from an empire called Grand Victory, likely another guild from our game as their warlords take to the field and single handedly defeat armies.
He offers a suggestion, "From the intelligence I have been able to attain, Grand Victory has a sizable force of enforcers in each city they are occupying. Apparently there is a rift that they used to come to this continent. I would suggest we make a strike force to go stop the rift or use it to go to their capital."
"Dominique, I wish you had come to this group before getting so involved in partisan politics. It is possible we might have come to the same conclusion, but then we might not, and I thought we had agreed to engage only in peaceful relations until we had a clear picture of the political landscape. Decisions regarding conflicts were to follow after our intelligence gathering period."
He takes a moment to digest the words before agreeing and pointing out some of his justification, "That is true, I ask the groups forgiveness for my rashness. Though I did relay a majority of the information and asked for advice before entering into any contracts. It has been for the betterment of the guild. We now have a gold rating as a guild and I am classified as a platinum adventurerer."
"Yes. We have a gold rating and you're a platinum adventurer however are we an adventuring guild or a mercenary warband? Much as your intention might have being good and meant to aid us all in progressing in this world, It might also draw massive attention to us and have other less friendly eyes see us as an immediate threat." Ginza points out emotionlessly.
"Now it seems that the option for the guild is to enter directly into kingdom affairs. Be it disrupting the rift or heading towards their capital, we would already have shown our hand."
"The guild can decide from here of course whether to continue on this course or debate on our current direction."
"So are we ready to vote on 'to continue on this course or debate on our current direction'. Who wants to continue this course?" Once he counts the hands that are raised, he then asks, "Who wants to debate on our current direction." Another tally is taken, and he offers up a third choice, "Is there anyone who wants to propose a new line of questions or thinking?"
Now tallied up he...
"I am concerned about how much is happening on the discression of individual members our our company. It was my understanding that we had agreed to restrict our activities to information gathering and establishing relations with local cultures for the time being. Some of these situations, the involvement with the Dwarves for instance, seem to be on the verge of involving us in wars and ongoing conflicts. I am not saying the result is not one the group might have chosen, but I do think that such degrees of involvement, and things that will end up reflecting back on the guild, should be brought back to the guild council for debate before commitments are made."
"For instance, I am vague on who the enemy of the Dwarves are, and as to whether the claims they have to these former lands are valid. Not suggesting of course that we need to make our decision based on legal grounds, but rather in what best benefits the guild. In many cases, helping any single power to eliminate their enemy may not be in our best interest. A power without a surviving foe might be tempted to focus their power on eliminating emerging powers, such as us, once their established enemies are gone. The wiser policy is often to balance the interests of enemies against each other, without ever allowing a decisive Victor, so they never have the time to decide we represent the greater threat. I doubt they have Sun Tzu in this world, but the principles are still just as insightful."
In fact, it occurs to me that if we intend to manipulate trends and outcomes across this landscape, it might be useful to start establishing a second guild, ostensibly in opposition to our own. Therefore, if Götterdämmerung were to aid the Dwarves in reclaiming their lost territories, our second group, Implausible Deniability or one of the other proposed names from back in the day, could aid their enemies, making sure their leaders and royals escape, and can reestablish themselves in order to rearm and continue the conflict."
The Demon King sits and listens to the Guild leader, Amadea, and Ginza present their points. The half-fiend stands to address the room.
"Guildmaster, I stand with you in our gambit to secure The Dwarven Kingdom as allies. You've led us to success this far, in and out of game. And Domayoku will see it done."
"I, also see the benefit of Lady Amadea's plan for a second team, 'The Villains'", Domayoku said, making 'air quotes' with his hands. "'Implausible Deniability' sounds like it would live up to it's name. If the guild agrees to Lady Amadea plan, and no one else seeks leadership of our 'shadow organization', I shall lead."
I am uncertain about playing "both sides" at this moment. We know of at least 1 more faction, and I would be entirely unsurprised if far more then 1 additional faction exists. We also do not know if we are actually strong, or merely big fishes in a relatively small pond. The Hag was fairly formidabble, and I would strongly expect that factions exist that are stronger then ours. Securing a clear victory for one client is, in my opinion, preferable. Trying to play both sides at such an early point could sink our reputation quite aggressively.
We could however go with a somewhat modified approach.
Ekaterina offers
I am quite capable of making it a very pleseant idea to surrender to me, while our dear Dominique probably racked up a fearsome reputation.
I also have questions as to how these "adventurer ratings" work, who can issue them, how does one become able to issue them and how visible they are. Can they be accessed to tabulate the number and ranks of other adventurers in an area? If yes, do we want our information in that, or would we rather keep some capabilities in reserve?
"If we're going to make friends, then the dwarven kingdoms are a sure bet considering that our guild master has already being racking up victories for them. This Grand Victory could be like us or a faction that has existed far longer then we might think." he pauses.
"While I"m not sure of respawn points even exist at this time, we need to consider what we know of the world from our time as gamers and how much difference it is from that. It is clear that our powers makes us stand out trhoughly and while adventuring ranks or ratings seems unfamiliar to most of us....I'm sure we would have gone through it one way or the other. For my case rather then monster subjugation, I did quests that were related to recipes that were are considered rare ad revived or the restoration of said recipes. Even then that ranked me up to Platinum as well. Accepting a quest is the same as in game, going to the adventurer's lodge and picking out an available quest. Your rank is limited to what quest you could take but successful completion would gain you points that are then used to evaluate if your tier is upgraded. It's teh same as levelling up."{/b] Ginza explains.
[b]"Furthermore failing to complete a quest deducts points from your total that could cause a rank down. Requests could come in asking for you in particular if your fame or known specialty is what the client requires, that is up to an individual to accept but refusing specific requests has being said to have severe consequences."
"That's all I have for adventuring quests or such. As far as I've seen they're mostly neutral in political stance as they are more focused on getting jobs issued to the adventurers and making the area safe or for obtaining materials or such. We have yet to decide on our guests that are residing with us in our home."
|
"My point is that respawn points probably don't exist. If we find ourselves in the graveyard, we probably aren't getting our bodies back. So we should try and be friendly, especially while we figure out where the power centers are. But picking sides when we don't know more is dangerous in ways the game never was. Quests that are neutral and make friends are good for now. Picking sides before we know more is a bad idea." Kazko says.
"I am concerned about how much is happening on the discression of individual members our our company. It was my understanding that we had agreed to restrict our activities to information gathering and establishing relations with local cultures for the time being. Some of these situations, the involvement with the Dwarves for instance, seem to be on the verge of involving us in wars and ongoing conflicts. I am not saying the result is not one the group might have chosen, but I do think that such degrees of involvement, and things that will end up reflecting back on the guild, should be brought back to the guild council for debate before commitments are made."
"As I have said before, I was in daily communication with Lady Ekaterina and assumed she was conferring with the group, appraising you of my situations. At any time you could have asked that I not do such an action but I never heard a response. What do you propose?"
"For instance, I am vague on who the enemy of the Dwarves are, and as to whether the claims they have to these former lands are valid. Not suggesting of course that we need to make our decision based on legal grounds, but rather in what best benefits the guild. In many cases, helping any single power to eliminate their enemy may not be in our best interest. A power without a surviving foe might be tempted to focus their power on eliminating emerging powers, such as us, once their established enemies are gone. The wiser policy is often to balance the interests of enemies against each other, without ever allowing a decisive Victor, so they never have the time to decide we represent the greater threat. I doubt they have Sun Tzu in this world, but the principles are still just as insightful."
It is not arrogance in his demeanor, he honestly believes there is little to no threat, "Their is little threat that the dwarven kingdom can muster at least compared to me, let along our guild. Especially when they are so focused on adventurers fighting for them. They are a means to an end, to gain creidt for achievements. There system has been established for hundreds of years, whereas Grand Victory is a new entity. They have ranks for their citizens. Their warlords have been illusionists in disguise and invisible rogues."
In fact, it occurs to me that if we intend to manipulate trends and outcomes across this landscape, it might be useful to start establishing a second guild, ostensibly in opposition to our own. Therefore, if Götterdämmerung were to aid the Dwarves in reclaiming their lost territories, our second group, Implausible Deniability or one of the other proposed names from back in the day, could aid their enemies, making sure their leaders and royals escape, and can reestablish themselves in order to rearm and continue the conflict."
He offers, "I see your point, we should have a draft team come up with particulars and then I can introduce them to the captain I know that is apart of Grand Victory."