soulping | GULGALLANA

GULGALLANA

[ Once you enter the train, it takes off...moving for only a few moments before coming to a stop in the midst of the void Delriza's realm floats in.

There's still no sign of the echo herself, but fortunately it's at this point that the rules of the game burn themselves into your mind, like you always knew what you were supposed to be coming here for. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You are a princess, and your most loyal knight will be accompanying you on a journey through the Rogue's Wood. You are travelling to the castle of an enemy while on a mission of peace. You are extremely confident that you will be safe, yourself, but that's only because you know she will absolutely sacrifice herself to ensure your survival.

You don't want that.

The rogues of the wood most often employ ranged weapons, and usually lay traps on the most traveled paths through the wood such as caltrops or bladed traps designed for crippling horses, or magical bombs designed to damage carriages beyond use, before firing on those who do not surrender from the trees and brush.

You are taking with you, aside from your knight, a decoy carriage with your court magician, who specializes in EXPLOSION MAGIC, a priestess, and five additional warriors.

[what even . . . ]

[ you're mentally asking the wrong person, friend. ] There's, uh, p-probably no alternate path, I'm guessing...

Well, there's probably ways through that aren't the paths, but . . .

Y... eah. That... [ pshoo. ] That definitely doesn't sound like a good idea.

... If only I had more of my Earth Seal abilities. Or at least that foot-sense one. [ curse you, shards! ]

I'd probably be a little more helpful that way, if I had some of my abilities back, too.

Right now, I'm... a little stronger than average and a little more durable. But that doesn't mean a lot for the knight...

I'm stronger too, but . . . mm. I think this is more a what-if scenario anyway. Our abilities probably won't come into play.

Oh! The "you" meant... [ nervous laughter ] Oops.

It's fine. I could be wrong, too.

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naturen - 2014-09-10 22:42 (UTC) - Expand

[Well, this is concerning, but...]

Probably the key is going to be the decoy carriage. We can use that to identify where our enemies are, then blast them with explosions.

S-So the princess and knight would be... behind that?

Well, the mage would be there, too. The idea is to stay close enough away that we can keep track of what's going on, but far enough that they don't notice us.

Oh, what if...! ... Oh, we, uh. Probably can't disguise the knight as the princess, huh? Maybe put cloaks on both?

The goal is to keep the knight safe, so having the knight placed in a sacrificial position is perhaps not the best idea. The cloaks idea is useful, though: These are bandits, they're not so much after us as they're after whatever wealth we might have. Practically speaking we're better off disguising ourselves as merchants. They're less likely to try and capture merchants than a princess, I would think. They'll still try to loot us, but lives shouldn't actually be at risk unless we fight back.

O-Oh, right... [ not used to having to save the knight, obviously. ]

You think they're just after the loot, though?

That would be my guess, yeah. Honestly speaking, capturing people is more work than it's worth for most bandits, since they have to feed the people and keep them alive if they hope to make any money on them. Actually abducting people is an expense, so they're unlikely to do it unless they have reason to believe it would be worth it.

Such as if a princess was involved.

H-Huh... So if... we make the knight and princess seem like they're unimportant, you think they might let them flee?

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naturen - 2014-09-10 22:40 (UTC) - Expand

Would that put the magician in danger, though? If we send him through with it.

More what I think is that we keep ourselves a fair bit in the distance: Close enough that we can tell what's going on, but hopefully far enough that they don't notice us. The mage and priestest will be along When the decoy carriage gets hit, we take note of where they're attacking from, we make our own attack. The mage is actually ideal in this scenario, to be honest. We can disrupt their home advantage by changing the terrain that way.

But . . . if we do that, wouldn't it make sense to send the warriors along with the decoy? In the woods, anyway. That way when the rogues attack it, the warriors can strike quicker.

That's true. It also lends more credibility to the decoy being an actual group.

Well I meant more - the warriors can be sneaking in the woods. To ambush the attackers on the decoy.

The problem is that this is the bandit's home territory. Technically speaking, they're probably going to know how to sneak around the forest better than us, barring some sort of coaching.

Ah - that's a good point.