Turn Nine: Roads and Homes
>>6128748>VizariThe guerilla efforts of the Vizari meet with a curious, but welcome surprise. Their direct trade with the rank and file of the Krovians has been replaced by a number of oddly cool headed krovians, who patiently explain that the stumblebird imports have been placed under new management. A Vizari representative meets with this new management and finds that the drug trade and underworld has been consolidated under a single grinning maw, one who (after a bit of clever and seamless mind magic in a one on one meeting) agrees to use his criminal organization for vizari agendas. A most useful asset.
Meanwhile, in the City of Towers, mages hone the craft of telekinetics. A dangerous and powerful art in the right hands, allowing a mage to surround themselves in a whirlwind of objects. The first legion of blade dancers will soon be ready to march to defend their land. At the same time runic smiths work to improve and renovate the Riptide Pylons, replacing their stone forms with ones of glass and copper. The pylons defending the heartland are replaced with improved versions, but, as news of crushing defeat reaches the capital, magicians refuse to venture from Vizari to fortify the south.
>>6128840>Krovian BandsIn the homeland of sharkmen a grim feeling fills the air. Fort Morda is constructed overlooking the cliffsides, placed so that krovians might leap from its walls directly into the water and surge toward ships and vessels, though the flow of trade remains uninterrupted. Of course a few heavy tolls do end up being introduced, and those vizari vessels that try to brave the straits with supplies for the warfront find themselves plundered most thoroughly.
Further inland the Crimson Tide temple is expanded, just in time for shipments of slaves from the Vizari to arrive and be placed into holding cells. Hopeless gazes stare in horror at the great blood collection vessels and bowls, the rust stained channels and sharpened knives waiting for them.
An unpleasant new wave of crime seems to be spreading across the land however. Merchants, shopkeepers and even everyday citizens are finding themselves preyed on by surprise ‘tolls’ and ‘fees’, payments for ‘protection from undesirables’ and other such extortion. At its heart is the shadow figure ‘Alpha’, who seems to have captured and consolidated the stumblebird trade under his maw, and intends to take as much as he can.
