>>5381742It takes you several days to reach the final Blackmantle company-town. It is much the same as the two you took earlier, albeit not so impressive is size or defensibility as the second… Nor, you must admit, so precariously-placed as the first, where a single clever utilization of your <Earth Tremor> allowed you to lay waste to the entire fort.
>19: Total successLuckily, you do not necessarily NEED to. You find it in quiet chaos, its hirsute and bearded residents shouting out unfamiliar names—and, among them, that of the delegate (Vekel) and the geologists (Karon and Noelle). You feel a grim sense of satisfaction fill you from where you and your forces encamp, avoiding direct observation, to await a rendezvous with the Thief and his squadron.
They do not disappoint: the Thief and his forces, all still disguises as dwarves until they are safely among you, bring with them three bound-and-gagged prisoners: a black-bearded, proud-features dwarf who even now manages to look haughty (though you can smell a uric acidity that reveals it is a mask for terror); a bald-headed male with a brown-grey beard and cool blue eyes; a female, younger of features, with dark brown hair, the same blue eyes, and fury and fear writ across her features in a way that contrasts to the curious calm of her obvious progenitor.
“The leadership is decapitated,” the Thief reports, in Nortehr Cmoon-tongue so all your forces may understand.
“Hrrr hrrr… Literally!” the Duergar Brute of Uncertain Nomenclature adds, pulling a grey-bearded, blood-drenched head from a leather sack and dangling it like a trophy, upside down, by its beaded beard.
“What is our next move?” asks Ivno, evidently nervous. “There are still many soldiers. We were not able to set the stores to burning as readily—not and capture these three at once.
“We should take the town,” the Pit-Guard declares. “Shock and awe! They will panic!”
“Or lure them out with our hostages, and bombard those who emerge with spells, slings, and arrows,” the Novice Fleshweaver suggests more pragmatically. “It would soften up defences and allow us to take the fort’s contents with less… Damage, thank in the last two attempts.”
You suppose you can see her point—burning and collapsing one company-town in on itself destroyed many trade-goods and records, while unleashing a fire elemental in the next melted at least one magical axe and armour set to slag and did untold damage to the managerial office which held still more records. This could be a chance to seize not just valuables, but valuable INTELLIGENCE.
