Only Ruins: Game thread

[Anti-Eagle]

North Onchesmos

Sinan watched with frustration as his men drilled their squires with muskets. Clouds of smoke filled the grounds as line after line fired, reloaded, and fired again. Most of them couldn't see through it. This was a problem. A problem they were used to, but not one that he wanted on the battlefield. Their powder was simple, crude, and in his mind inefficient. It needed to be refined. How?

He brought the few sages and shamans of his that worked powders to his small camp amongst the camps and walls of North Onchesmos, and put them to work beside himself. He couldn't remember how it had been done, cords of some such, but he would see it done again.

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The North

The journey North was long as Atik and his guard followed the path long held by the horsemen between the North and the South, and the cursed lands of the desert and the marsh. Days turned to weeks as they followed sightings of parties and then signs of battle. Apparently organized, and coming from the North. Heading far into the marshes, and according to some trying to loot.

The trail was long and he saw two possibilities. The people of the Basalt were trying to learn their secrets, or they had missed something in the North. Atik considered the possibility as he divided his guards into three groups, one to report the fighting and bring enough soldiers to follow in their footsteps and reinforce them, one to make its way into the land of the Basalt Throne and determine their work, and the third to follow him to the north and attempt to discover if the path North was the home of the raiders.

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The East

Mimar's journey to the east and Mereton was uneventful. Uneventful until he reached the land around the walls that long separated the kingdom and the khans. Camps had began forming within the past month or two along the wall, apparently on both sides. Meretonians abandoning their posts, or fleeing to it, some crossing into the forests beyond with their families trying to flee towards the coast or join with the clans. Those still on the wall, trying to buy guns, powder, rockets... Anything they could get their hands on to slow whatever it was they thought was coming.

Why were they afraid? Mimar and his men worked their way to the outer gate, and bought the small guard contingent watching it off with the promise of a chest of guns. They spoke of what they had heard from the North. An army of monsters had sprung up almost overnight in the North, forcing part of the wall to be abandoned. The King was rallying and levying any who'd come to hold the land between the things and the land that hadn't been abandoned.

He passed the wall and continued North.

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The West

Rashid watched the small camps on the coast, a few Janissaries to his side, and horsemen rallying a few kilometers behind him. More force than was needed, far more than he knew the khan had at his side, and more than he assumed the Navasti would bother sending.

After a few hours of watching from the shadows he eventually approached the camp, musket in hand, and shouted with an almost wet voice` to the men on watch "I come on behalf of the Khagan."

Spoiler: Actions

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Diplomacy - Send Diplomat to the Harconin Protectorate
Diplomacy - Send Diplomat to the Empire of the Basalt Throne
Research - Research Fedayeen
Research - Smokeless Powder

Research - Research Fedayeen
Research - Research Smokeless Powder
Settling - Negotiate with locals (south of 5)
Settling - Negotiate with locals (south of 6)