>>6199702The two groups march side by side, neither intermingling with each other. You’d heard stories of armies on the move singing or chanting in an effort to raise morale before battle. There was none of that here. The march to Sanctuary feels like one long awkward endeavor, with both the Scorchers and the cultists keeping their eyes straight ahead. Up above, you could hear some of the Almyrans trading jeers and laughs. At least they sounded like they were having fun. A few wyvern riders fly further ahead, tasked with performing scouting duties. Eventually, when the armies reach a large swath of flat desert, one of the scout wyverns returns, shouting as loud as he can.
“The enemy army! They’re coming this way!”
“They’re here already?” Tobias notes with some shock. Squinting your eyes, you were in fact able to see dust on the far horizon. The scout lands on the ground before you and the governor, looking quite fearful. “How many are there? Did you get a look at their numbers? What about their army composition?”
“Apologies, Governor, but I was unable to get a good look.” The scout says, panting out of breath. “We encountered the enemy army, but the second we did, we began taking fire from an enemy archer. Two of our own were shot down, and the rest of us could only concentrate on escaping from the fire.”
“What? From this distance?” Tobias says. “How is that possible?”
“Likely the work of Grigori.” Eman says. “He is the most fearsome sniper the Cult has, and his abilities are enhanced even further by his Dragon’s Blessing. Marek is aware we come for him, and he has deployed Grigori to ensure you can’t scout ahead with your wyverns.”
>“What should we do then? Some scouting on the enemy would undoubtedly be helpful, but we can’t exactly keep throwing away wyvern riders to do that.”“Maybe we send May ahead?” Alvin suggests. “The girl has an almost preternatural talent for going unnoticed, and she’ll surely attract a lot less attention than a wyvern rider would. We can have her scout out the enemy ranks and composition and then report back to us so that we may prepare accordingly.”
“You want to send me?!” May asks, horrified. “I-I don’t know. Do we really need to scout the enemy? Doesn’t the Goddess say that surprises are the spice of life?”
You weren’t sure that was a saying actually attributable to the Goddess, but Alvin did have a point. If anyone could sneak by unnoticed in this flat wasteland it would be May.
>A): Send May to scout ahead. (May SPD + Tristain LCKx2: 80% to succeed.) (Failure results in May sitting out the rest of the battle.)>B): It’s neither worth the trouble or danger. We’ll find out what the enemy is capable of in our first clash. 