We Are Saints

[Lefish]

We Are Saints #20: Overview
Issue #2: War of the Edges

Lord Wright was angry. His chief warlord had taken all of his casters to a small mission despite his orders to the contrary. How can a chief warlord ignore orders like that? He was obviously on his side or would’ve turned a long time before. Wright only kept him among his leadership because he was such a strategic genius. He had just captured the enemy outpost. Right now, he had to worry about other issues, like his conversation with King Steve.

“We didn’t capture the caster, though” said Lord Wright.

“It doesn’t matter. Don’t you have a Healomancer already?” answered the King of Apple.

“No. It’s my chief warlord, who possesses… a Healomancy artifact.”

“Still, it’s almost like a Healomancer.”

“Yeah, well. We need to see the disposition of our forces” insisted Lord Wright.

“Haven’t we done it already? My troops are at the Fronts citadel. We’re waiting for the enemy to do something stupid, to leave a loophole open and then we pry through those weak points while they’re not looking.”

“But they’ve got that huge column hidden in the forest, though…”

“Yeah, we saw that coming turns ago. They think they’re perfectly hidden… hah! Our Lookamancer sees more than they do. We’ll crush that column.”

“But they broke leadership. There’s a squad of Dior units heading to… where did you say?” Wright could imagine King Steve sighing at this question. That king was so impolite.

“They’re looking for their King Christian. They think we have him, of course. They’re as foolish as they look. My Intel tells me he was captured by Mezons about two turns ago. I don’t know what they’re going to do with him.”

“Are you planning to target them?”

“No. Our purpose here is to take Fronts and croak the chief warlord of the Mark. After that, we continue to the north.”

“What about the Overlord?”

“The Overlord?” asked King Steve “We don’t have any Intel on him; at least for now. As far as I know, Forte’s in Bras”

“Well you may need to check your Intel. My Reapers saw him leaving with a large column.”

“Where could he be going?”

“I don’t know. Wherever he is going, it’s somewhere important. With such a big display of units, he’s going towards one of the hot zones.”

“That narrows it down. Would he go to the Mountain Pass or towards the Southern Desert?”

“There’s no need for him to go to the Southern Desert.”

“Well… there’s that big group of Mezon soldiers in there. Maybe he fears for the security of the Southern entrance to the Creek?”

“I doubt it. They don’t know they’re there yet.”

“Yeah, but if they do… it could be very good for us.”

“How come?”

“If they knew the Southern Alliance has gathered so many of their troops in the Desert, the Mark may feel a need to reinforce their position. And thus…”

“Denying even more power to the groups attacking us. That seems like a nice plan.”

=============================================================================================================

The king’s concentration on the thinkagram was suddenly interrupted by some noise coming from outside King Steve’s throne room. Someone was arguing.

“Listen, Lord, I got to go. Maybe we’ll exchange a few more words tomorrow” hurried to say King Steve.

“Yeah, maybe…” answered Lord Wright. Wright’s Reaper ended the thinkagram. Pop.

Just in time before four people busted into the throne room, yelling loudly.

“What’s going on?” asked Steve.

The taller man, wearing a blue robe spoke first. It was Steve’s Moneymancer, one of the most important advisors in his council, and the very first caster he had ever popped. King Steve trusted him so much that he had assigned the special infantry force of Alpha Gamma Rho knights to protect him.

“I’ve been informed that there’s been a change of plans, your Highness” said Peter the Moneymancer.

“My lord, please don’t…” spoke the warlord walking right behind Peter with a loud and aggressive tone.

“That is so rude, Bertrand” Peter accused the warlord. Nevertheless, the warlord continued speaking.

“… Tell me we need to inform every aspect of our pacification campaigns to this caster. I thought that the task of overseeing the military forces from the capital was my job.”

“You need to inform everything to us, warlord” answered snappishly the caster standing at Peter’s left. Bertrand gave him a killing glare.

“Bertrand, Sina, Peter. Please calm down. What is the problem here?” ordered King Steve. The warlord and the two casters looked at each other for a moment. Then, all three of them spoke at him at the same time. Steve could barely understand at all.

“Silence! You, Sina, tell me what’s going on” Steve ordered his Mathamancer.

“Sir, you have appointed Peter and I these positions because you trust us and our valuation; which is, by the way, quite different than what others” he said as he gazed Bertrand with a defying look “think. You trust us, and so must your warlords.”

“You see, Highness, Peter and I were just informed on your campaign in the Half-Moon Creek just now. Your warlords hadn’t bothered to inform us…”

“Because we didn’t think it was important, that’s why!” snapped Bertrand.

There was silence. Nobody said anything for a second, not even King Steve. He trusted Bertrand. That’s why he had such an important job. He trusted his warlord Bertrand so much that it pained him so to see how he argued with his casters, some of his most faithful commanders. If Bertrand ever made it to the position of Chief Warlord, there would be some major problems with the chain of command.

“Do you hear that? It’s called silence. I want it to stay that way until this battle ends” commanded King Steve. They didn’t answer. He stood up and walked out of the throne room.

“C’mon! What’re you waiting for, an invitation?” yelled King Steve as he left the room.

[Lefish]

We Are Saints #21: Several unfortunate things
Issue #2: War of the Edges

Both Chief Warlord Avie and King Steve had told them this was a very important battle. They needed to win at all costs, or the balance in the Half-Moon Creek would be lost forever. That’s what Count Avie had told him, anyway.

Unfortunately, Rob didn’t trust the chief warlord so much.

Someone he trusted was Warlord Bertrand. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the one leading this siege.

Rob remembered when he had first popped, all the way to the small city of NEXTSTEP, more than 50 hexes away from the capital. That city was under the protection of Warlord Bertrand at the time. Unfortunately, there was a big struggle over their neighboring city of OPENSTEP. Some ancient side all the way to the southern side of the kingdom led by King Gates had been trying to take those two cities along with OSX from Apple.

Rob and his crew were popped for the sole purpose of helping Bertrand defend those cities. King Gates’ kingdom had sent a whole army prepared for dance-fighting, something which Apple wasn’t ready for.

Luckily, Apple had a magic item, which let it’s the stack under its wearer’s leadership to rock out.

Unfortunately, one stack wouldn’t be sufficient. That’s why King Steve hired a Rhyme-o-mancer, a Thinkamancer and a Dollamancer. The casters created a link and imbued the item’s properties on Rob’s crew. Unfortunately, this destroyed the magic item. It had worked, though. From that day on, Rob’s crew had led Apple’s dance-fights; because they rocked out psychedelically.

Now, they were supposed to be preparing for dance-fight, but the attack orders never came.

He looked at his gang. Each one of his crew members had stacked up with a different group of heavies and knights. They were supposed to lead those troops to victory.

He exchanged looks with Dennis and Jeff. They looked worried, too. Were they thinking about the same things he was? No, perhaps not.

The chief warlord summoned his crew to the map tent.

“Mac, why aren’t we attacking the city?” asked Jeff to Chief Avie.

“King Steve is unsure about the attack. It seems something else is going on.”

“It seems?” asked Rob incredulously. “You’re the chief warlord and you think something’s going on?”

Count Avie bit his lower lip.

“Yeah. King Steve didn’t want to share the information at the moment. So we’re waiting for now” stated the chief warlord.

Rob and Jeff exchanged looks. A horn sounded somewhere in the hex.

“It’s nighttime. The enemy just ended turn” said Dennis.

“Thank you very much” Rob told Dennis.

Oh man, so many things were about to go wrong.

The next turn, at dawn, Chief Avie got a thinkagram from King Steve. Perhaps they would attack this turn.