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. . . Because Elos East Station is a fortified post to the further east, meant to bar the advance of any larger force. It must, right now, be under siege and lock by the Sparkspeakers. No force they can muster could crack Elos open. The units that blew through Windchime were all lightly equipped, low on supplies, moving fast. No engineers, no theurgic batteries, no field formations.
The exact force you would send to block a pass. Nestled here, if they fortified it, they would have made a fight out of any attempt to get to Elos.
But meanwhile, behind us, in the open plains and more pleasant lowlands that you have spent the past weeks reconing?
The force riding around murdering our Cohorts and scrambling our communications cannot be the people we fought here, either. Because the light outriders are lethal, but they are not able to uniformly destroy cohorts entire.
This means there *must* be a heavier force out there.
So, we find ourselves locked between two enemy formations.
If we withdraw towards Fideli city and its gates, we forfeit any chance of supporting Elos East. But if we advance towards Elos East, the outriders and Sparksworn, how-ever many there is, must even now be crawling across the tiny pass their commanders have found and they will slowly - ever so slowly - trickle in behind us like droplets until they drown our supply lines, bring siege to Fideli and choke the entire eastern front.
Even if they bypass the fortified cities and camps, they will ride like locusts across the lower plains and bring harm and horror to hundreds and hundreds and more again.
Finally, Wellmoth is to the south-east, distant, and besieged. Same as last year and the year before and the year before and so on and on and on.
There can really only be one conclusion: They are growing desperate, Legion High is finally cracking the walls and this whole thing is a throw of the dice to force the troops in Wellmoth to shift away from the siege in expectation of a wider flank. If they blow open these passes and secure the plains, a large enough force marching rapidly through it could curve across the plains South by South-east and trap the Legions in Wellmoth against the walls of the city.
It is our good fortune that even if they have such a force, they cannot bring it to bear without first ensuring the garrison at Elos East is well pacified.
We cannot stay here forever. Yet both withdrawal and advancement bring its peculiar flavour of problems.
What would you suggest? Your formation appears . . . rather more combat effective than mine, and I would appreciate the insight.
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Scholae-Fulminant Fireskellian finishes with a slight croak to her voice, and gulps down another cup of water. Still parched. Always parched. Consistent exposure to theurgic incantation will leave the dryness lingering for a while.
>While you prowl about camp and some actions are resolved, you can take this chance to consider your next step!
