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. ]

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[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?

Well, no. If we flee, they're going to attack. But if they think we're unimportant, they're most likely going to keep themselves limited to just going after whatever valuables we're carrying.

O... Oh. I see. So... Does that mean she should or... shouldn't have valuables on her?

Well, like I said, the best idea would be to try to appear to be a merchant, so something valuable enough that it would be worth crossing the forest to sell, but not valuable enough to make them think we're a royal group. It depends on how we intend to do things, though.

It's half a plan, at least? I just want to make it through without having to wipe out everyone but the knight and princess.

I would like to avoid that too, yes. Though realistically speaking, I don't think any of my plans should result in such a complete failure...

[Then again, Fate itself is kinda sorta fighting us apparently...]

Re: ROUND 1

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.

Still, we should be able to do something... I don't suppose anyone besides me has experience in stealth?

Not . . . really, no.

I don't have any experience that I know of that would relate to this at all.

That's fine, don't worry about it too much. It gives me an opportunity to get some use out of those skills I got back.

Still, for the time being, we have a couple of plans: Do we want to go with the "disguise ourselves as merchants and surrender, knowing that bandits are just bandits and probably won't try to kill or permanently capture us without reason", or do we want to go for the fighting option?

I . . . prefer the first option, but we should be prepared in the event that it backfires somehow.

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