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Bloody Revelations     The Scavenger Lands have been in general chaos since the events of the battle of Thorns and the battle of Lookshy both. The death of the Mask of Winters and the liberation of Thorns has resulted in a huge release of pressure in the area, as multiple standing armies are suddenly no longer needed, brokered agreements obviously going to be double-crossed later rendered null and void, certain alliances become irrelevant, and the Realm's focus drifts from the Mask himself to the other events in the region.

    Many couriers have shown up to obtain news from the liberated city, political, civil, economic, and otherwise, to deliver to lords, generals, traders, and whoever else pays their route. A contingent of Dragon Blooded from THE REALM have shown up and since been destroying the lingering ghosts and banishing the forced Ancestor Cults in the area, though it remains an impoverished shadowland. Those prepared to try and win their continued survival in the face of the Mask of Winters' previously inevitable conquest have been instead sending diplomats and scouts to attempt to assess and curry favour with the rival Deathlord who has set up in the ruins of Lookshy. Due to his lack of overtly broadcasted pure evil, they might hope that he is less militarily inclined, and that they can get in good early.

    The balance of power has rapidly and chaotically shifted. Basically every nation of note in the Scavenger Lands has been armed and trained by Lookshy, and has a FOREIGN LEGION garrison posed there, as Lookshy was the glue that held the region together as a defensible whole. No one major power has risen to strong prominence, and conflicts have been proxy skirmishes as no soldiers of the FOREIGN LEGIONS will fight against one another now.

    The group flourishing in the area is now THE GUILD, as an exorbitantly rich merchant conglomerate of ill-repute, profiting tremendously off the chaos, confusion, and opened roads; especially the shadowland that easily transports them between Thorns and former Lookshy. The REMNANT SEVENTH LEGION has supposedly been going from town to town throughout the province of THE MARUKAN ALLIANCE, being the only allies that directly aided them in the battle of Thorns, and who are largely composed of huge tracts of scattered agricultural villages connected with a thriving horsemanship culture. The REMNANT SEVENTH LEGION cannot be supported by any one town, and must keep moving to make ends meet, and to avoid AGENTS OF THE REALM trying to track them down and deliver some inevitable ultimatum or another, supported by various FOREIGN LEGION redoubts around the area that are prepared with emergency supplies and tools for maintenance of their remaining MAGITECH ARSENAL, never staying in one place and hard to track down.

    TIEN YU has been severely crippled by the loss of her city, and diminished from the city god of Lookshy to the army god of the Seventh Legion, supported only by their faith, and thus much weaker. Lookshy is now a tremendous shadowland owned by SIXTEENTH NIGHT'S SILENCE, who retains ownership of the PRISONERS OF WAR, SURVIVORS of the Soulbreaker Orb, and Lookshy's CITY MANSE and VAULTS OF SECRET MAGITECH.

    The lengthy operations in Thorns and the nearby Cold House have resulted in STOLEN NECROTECH research from the Mask of Winters, the SECRET MINE only you're aware of, your remaining connections to SILKEN LAUGHTER and his den of organized criminals and the former rebel faction leader, modest amounts of MAGICAL MATERIALS, as well as your REPUTATION for defeating the Mask himself in personal combat. You have no other contacts or resources of note at the moment.
All-Seeing Eye      All-Seeing Eye remembers well the outburst from Bloody Revelations. Having her pieces taken off the board apparently infuriates her. That's good--it's something he can use. If she's tired of not being taken seriously, he'll show her what it is to have the full weight of his attention. The instability of the Scavenger Lands is a problem, certainly. But the number one problem, the number one source of instability, is Revelations herself. To that end, Eye goes in search of THE GUILD, known traders of information and profiteers extraordinaire.

     He will ask, or forcibly interrogate, for information on Bloody Revelations. And he will cover his tracks, with the promise of MAGICAL MATERIALS, the threat of his REPUTATION, or simple elimination if necessary.
Tomoe Tomoe has been tracking down those survivors of the battle that had managed to flee the city before the soul breaker orb, the region around the GU's castle town of Haven is lush and very unpopulated save for them it should have space.

She knows some escaped the city before and got out of range of the Soul Breaker Orb.

She would travel light and keep on the move seeing if she could find any bands of SURVIVORS, she knows the land isn't much but it's far better than being left to wander in this region.

Also during these times she would be working with Gawain on trying to get the few Lookshy natives who pulled off the feat of surviving the Soulbreaker Orb.

She will only use her REPUTATION if she must, she takes no pride in what she sees as one of the monumental failures in her life.

If she will also deal with questioning people as she travels.
Gawain Gawain has felt deeply for the people of Lookshy. He feels responsible - after all, he claimed the Soulbreaker Orb for Bloody Revelations, and that makes him culpable. So, he wants to fix this. He wants to help the survivors of the devastation where he can. But while that might mean to some to go help the civilians, Gawain felt a strong loyalty to Tien Yu having seen her in action, and wants to support her and the Seventh Legion.

So, over the course of many weeks, Gawain would try to track down the SEVENTH LEGION REMNANTS in the MARUKAN ALLIANCE and offer them aid. Moving from FOREIGN LEGION redoubt to redoubt, bringing along offers of food and medical treatmment from the Paladins, Gawain would hope that his REPUTATION precedes him as honest and trustworthy, as a hero and an ally of Lookshy. His goal is simple - he wants to find where the Remnant Seveth Legion is and try and recruit them to work with the Paladins, or failing that, at least make sure they have somewhere stable to be, as they're likely to be a necessary ally against Bloody Revelations and the Deathlord who has taken up shop in Lookshy's corpse in the future.

If also necessary, MAGICAL MATERIALS would be offered as well, what they can spare. Gawain wants this to go as smoothly as possible.
Bloody Revelations     THE GUILD is either unaware of, or unafraid of, All-Seeing Eye's REPUTATION. They see no particular way he could threaten the entire organization's operations in the area, and individual members, as it soon turns out, are highly expendable. They will absolutely haggle him to the hilt on the MAGICAL MATERIALS. If he is willing to exchange the amount the group had taken, they will provide all the information on Bloody Revelations they have discovered trading with Sixteenth Night's Silence and previously the Mask of Winters, as well as what they know about the new occupation of Lookshy.

    Tracking down the SURVIVORS is extremely difficult. They've scattered to many corers of the east to find safe harbour, and finding them all will be a tremendous undertaking. Tomoe can either milk their REPUTATION for all it is worth to spread word through the grapevine, or she can direct all of her PERSONAL EFFORTS to find them all herself, flying back and forth across the Scavenger Lands, to the point she won't be able to do anything else with her PERSONAL EFFORTS.

    The FOREIGN LEGION are cooperative with Gawain, demanding no excessive payment, nor questioning his reputation. The tax on their resources from trying to keep the SEVENTH LEGION in working order has been tremendous however. They'll simply tell him their general path if he asks, which will require the bulk of his PERSONAL EFFORTS to go back and forth as a liason, or they can use their own communications or send their own runners if they are restocked with either the bulk of the PALADINS RESOURCES that can be spared, or else their magitech can be resupplied and maintained via the donation of MAGICAL MATERIALS.

    LOCK IN CHOICES.
All-Seeing Eye      All-Seeing Eye has no patience for haggling, especially not with what he sees as the personification of Creation's moral decay. He expends his PERSONAL EFFORT to work his way up a chain of informants the hard way: judicious application of the Personality Override Spike. Rather than give up valuable magical materials, he simply tears the requisite information from the minds of the Guild lackeys, and covers up his passage with elaborate false memories.
Gawain The Foreign Legion's cooperation is appreciated. Gawain considers what resources he has to share, but sadly, most of it is due for the Seventh Legion. Therefore, Gawain will use his PERSONAL EFFORT to track down and work as a liason, since he only has a limited number of resources.

That means it's a lot of effort ferrying himself through the Marukan Alliance (which isn't all bad, new food and experiences probably!). Heading redoubt to redoubt, Gawain hopes he can get to the Seventh Legion to offer them his supplies for negotiation. If he does get a chance, he has a few things he wants to talk about, if he can get his foot in the door. Wanting to offer them help setting up a camp, maybe joining the Paladins (he brought plenty of pamphlets and information stuff), and if that doesn't work and they need a settled home, telling them that Claslat will welcome them (though it's super far-off, in another dimension even if it's technically a local dimension, and they have to go through cannibals to get there, so it's probably not the most appealing idea).

But first, to see what they actually need! Gawain's hoping that they'll remember him, especially if TIEN YU is with them.
Tomoe Tomoe wants to do this right, she could play off her reputation sure? Still, she'd rather do it herself, so she will search all over the region for survivors rounding them up as best she can to make them the offer of land, and how to get there. She does not know how they would take it or if any will but she feels she must make this offer when she can. She will be quite the common sight flying across the region as she searches for the survivors. This is going to take a lot of PERSONAL EFFORT.
Bloody Revelations     Gawain successfully tracks down the SEVENTH LEGION in a PERSONAL EFFORT after ages of riding. He is recognized, especially by TIEN YU, but given the welcome of a distant friend rather than hero. In the state they are in, they currently have enough SUPPLIES to last for a time, though the MARUKAN ALLIANCE can't support them indefinitely unless they fragment the entire army, which isn't practical in the way the Thorns siege initiative was assembled and organized. They still retain all of their MAGITECH ARSENAL that wasn't wrecked in the battle, but all of their stuff like powersuits and warstriders and siege weaponry requires MAGICAL MATERIALS to replace broken and worn components and to recharge to usability, as their lack of technomagical resupply and expertise from Lookshy has worn on them. The SKYGUARD unit has suffered the most from this, and the airships are barely operational.

    The SEVENTH LEGION obviously want LOOKSHY taken back, but don't have nearly the means to do so. TIEN YU estimates it will take a huge amount of resources, fresh bodies, a new base and support infrastructure, and significantly more information on the foe, as well as thoroughly weeding the army out for any more spies, double agents, or brainwashed sleeper agents waiting to be activated. They want, in the immediate term, to fix and keep their MAGITECH ARSENAL, to secure their SUPPLIES situation for the immediate future, and their PRISONERS OF WAR back. The SURVIVORS are more or less on their own; they've found somewhere to go or they haven't by now. They are not willing to give up and go somewhere else, and the FOREIGN LEGION cannot be recalled or else the Scavenger Lands will plunge into instability.

    Tomoe spends all her time, energy, and PERSONAL EFFORT tracking down the SURVIVORS. Most of them have fled across the Yanaze River to the city of NEXUS to the east, but as NEXUS is largely run by THE GUILD, some have gone somewhere much less sketchy and gone to GOODHARBOR or PORT CALIN to the north. They too want their home back, but see no real prospects of doing so in the future, and are focused on the struggle to find a local livelihood, especially with how much people want from them in regards to how rich and full of exclusive expertise Lookshy was.

    All-Seeing Eye uses up all his time and PERSONAL EFFORT snagging flunkies from THE GUILD and working up the chain to squeeze what they know from them. He recovers a large amount of INSIDER INFORMATION about Thorns, the Mask of Winters, Silken Laughter, and the Guild's dealings and movements, as well as solid PRELIMINARY INFORMATION about the new Deathlord, his Deathknights, and the SECRET MAGITECH VAULTS he now apparently has nearly unfettered access to. THE GUILD do not appreciate this, and are hostile towards him and the Paladins from hereon.

EXPENDED:
PERSONAL EFFORT - Gawain
PERSONAL EFFORT - Tomoe
PERSONAL EFFORT - All-Seeing Eye

ACQUIRED:
INSIDER INFORMATION
PRELIMINATY INFORMATION

CONTACTED:
SEVENTH LEGION
SURVIVORS
TIEN YU

LOST:
THE GUILD
Gawain Gawain is saddened by the distance, but isn't surprised by it. He tells the Seventh Legion, with his usual charm and politeness, that he seeks to help them accomplish their goals, one by one, as best as he can. Some will take more effort than he currently has to expend, however, but he'll do what he can.

For now, Gawain can offer MAGICAL MATERIALS to help resupply and repair their technology. He doesn't require anything expensive - just the hope that they can be allies in this trying time, to bring the Seventh Legion and Lookshy back to power with the aid and cooperation of the Paladins. If there's anything they can use the PALADIN RESOURCES for, he's willing to discuss it.
All-Seeing Eye      Eye is not particularly bothered that a band of rapacious criminals such as the Guild considers him their enemy. As he sees it, that is the way it should be. Having secured two solid leads, he is for a time pensive, considering what move Revelations would take. She would probably find two enemies and pit them against each other to further her own agenda. The obvious answer is to pit the Realm against Sixteen Night's Silence. But... if they succeeded, they would then control Lookshy. The smart play is letting them take back Thorns from the Guild. They'll want a foothold, and he'll be able to leverage that. Eye contacts the REALM with an offer: actionable intel on retaking Thorns in exchange for their assistance in retaking Lookshy. Lookshy would of course be returned to the control of TIEN YU, and the SEVENTH LEGION. But surely, they are better neighbors than a mass-murdering Deathlord!

     He isn't stupid, of course. He will probably need his REPUTATION to get an audience, which is a fair price to pay. He does love talking about himself. Between his efforts, he contacts GAWAIN and shares the PRELIMINARY INFORMATION with him--but /not/ with the Realm. He doesn't want them getting ahead of themselves and trying to snatch Lookshy from under Tien Yu's feet.
Bloody Revelations     The SEVENTH LEGION accept the MAGICAL MATERIALS gladly, desperately needed to repair the damage to their MAGITECH ARSENAL sustained in the battle against the Mask of Winters at Thorns. At full capacity, it is significantly more powerful, but also significantly more valuable. They would like the PALADINS RESOURCES either way; though they do not strictly need them at the minute, without a real support infrastructure, they won't be able to maintain cohesion as an army forever. They have nothing to particularly offer him for the PALADINS RESOURCES save a NEGOTIABLE FAVOUR, however TIEN YU is willing to consider serious long-term cooperation if they can get back the PRISONERS OF WAR and whatever dangerous items that shouldn't fall into a Deathlord's hands back from the SECRET MAGITECH VAULTS.

    All-Seeing Eye stakes his REPUTATION on getting an audience with powerful parties of the Realm. He succeeds in getting an audience with HOUSE CATHAK most interested in the military matters of Lookshy. HOUSE CATHAK is very interested in taking Lookshy, but absolutely refuses to do so if they're only going to hand it over to the SEVENTH LEGION again. Lookshy remaining independent was an unacceptable state of affairs before, and their city-state being taken out has improved their prospects of annexing the entirety of the Scavenger Lands.

    So far, THE REALM has not done battle with a Deathlord, and is not particularly eager to start unless they have an overwhelming advantage *and* overwhelming profit to gain. All-Seeing Eye promising to provide the PRELIMINARY INFORMATION along with the theoretical alliance of TIEN YU and the SEVENTH LEGION on the party's side would constitute an OVERWHELMING ADVANTAGE, but they stand nothing to gain except removing a so-far passive Deathlord, and will need an offer worth the assets they will obviously lose in the process. Just the INSIDER INFORMATION necessary to own Thorns and expel THE GUILD is insufficient. They are exceptionally wary of something like another Soulbreaker Orb being deployed against them, as Lookshy had done in past. They cannot stand to sustain heavy casualties with the Realm in the state it is in.

EXPENDED:
MAGICAL MATERIALS
INSIDER INFORMATION(HELD)
PRELIMINARY INFORMATION(HELD)
REPUTATION - All-Seeing Eye
PALADINS RESOURCES(HELD)

ACQUIRED:
MAGITECH ARSENAL - Seventh Legion
NEGOTIABLE FAVOUR

CONTACTED:
HOUSE CATHAK(HELD)

LOST:
Tomoe Tomoe is going to make use of her REPUTATION now that she has found the largest population of survivors of Lookshy, she will make use of the REPUTATION she has to get word passed towards the three largest locations, that being NEXUS, GOODHARBOR and PORT CALIN.

The Offer comes from her directly the offer of land for the survivors though it openly states they will have to make something of the land themselves but the land is there. She will also offer the information of how to get there. As obviously that needs to be known how to get there right?
Bloody Revelations     Tomoe's REPUTATION is sufficient to reach the SURVIVORS in all three cities, and sufficient for the them to trust her implicitly that her offer is legitimate and to wish to take it. The issue is that there are thousands of survivors still; the Gatecrashers might be able to fit them, but they absolutely cannot provide for them. It would take FACTIONAL RESOURCES or something equivalent to actually give the SURVIVORS a place to settle down and rebuild their lives and INFRASTRUCTURE.
Tomoe Tomoe comes to a roadblock while her offers on the table? She lacks the resources and the means to get the survivors there. At the very least they are in large settlements for the moment which are somewhat safe. This may have to sit for now or she may have tanked things badly, she does not know. Given she's working with Paladins in this region she will go contact Eye to ask the Paladin for help on this.
Gawain Gawain will exchange the PALADINS RESOURCES for a NEGOTIABLE FAVOR, though he does mention that he hopes to try and form an operation to recover the PRISONERS OF WAR in the future, if at all possible. He doesn't have the immediate resources to do so, and his reputation is sure to only be negative in those dealings, so Gawain doesn't have much of a choice. They can't negotiate anything to the Deathlord, because that'll give him an advantage, after all.

Also, Gawain will share the PRELIMINARY INFORMATION with TIEN YU and the SEVENTH LEGION REMNANTS, to make sure that they have the knowledge they need to handle their movements and know their enemy.
All-Seeing Eye      Tomoe finds some sympathy from Eye, who at least appears to care about the fate of the refugees. He declines her request, however, with an approach based in cold hard facts. The Paladins operation in this area will gladly help any refugees /after/ Sixteen Nights Silence and his favored Deathknight are neutralized. To treat the symptoms without the root cause would be a waste of resources, and while the Paladins have plenty to spare, they are not infinite. He explains that providing the resources to the SEVENTH LEGION is the smart play, as it allows them to rebuild and retake Lookshy, and possibly to depose the Deathlord from his ill gotten throne.
All-Seeing Eye      Tomoe finds some sympathy from Eye, who at least appears to care about the fate of the refugees. He declines her request, however, with an approach based in cold hard facts. The Paladins operation in this area will gladly help any refugees /after/ Sixteen Nights Silence and his favored Deathknight are neutralized. To treat the symptoms without the root cause would be a waste of resources, and while the Paladins have plenty to spare, they are not infinite. He explains that providing the resources to the SEVENTH LEGION is the smart play, as it allows them to rebuild and retake Lookshy, and possibly to depose the Deathlord from his ill gotten throne.

     Meanwhile, on the negotiating front, Eye poses as reward the prospect of the SECRET MINE, an as-yet untouched font of potential resources, for The REALM. Surely, he argues, that would be fair payment for their assistance, and ample salve for the pain of an independent Lookshy? He understands they would rather the Scavenger Lands remain free for the taking, but urges that there is a storm coming for which they will need allies--and allies are a lot cheaper than colonies.
Bloody Revelations     With the communities of SURVIVORS located and contacted, Tomoe will be able to access them in future should circumstances change. For the meantime, the Scavenger Lands are very used to refugees going from city state to city state as a city or province collapses every few years and a new one is born every other. They will be more or less fine as refugees can be for the time being, barring another upheaval in the east.

    The SEVENTH LEGION is immediately grateful to Gawain for hooking them up with a flow of PALADINS RESOURCES, allowing them to settle down in an uninhabited road-dense area of the MARUKAN ALLIANCE with a warpgate, establishing a semi-permanent presence so they can at least stop taxing the FOREIGN LEGION to depletion. With the news spreading that the SEVENTH LEGION has essentially stopped bleeding out as a faction and is likely to extend its influence into the surrounding area, with the skyguard sent to contact the various redoubts around the Scavenger Lands, a good deal of the skirmishing and proxy conflicts deescalate around the area, as small warlords and petty rulers think twice about trying to seize the opportunity if half of Lookshy's military force is still 'in play'.

    TIEN YU declares that no operation to retake Lookshy itself will begin until they can either retrieve their PRISONERS OF WAR or confirm their deaths, as they are exceptionally valuable individuals to a war effort, and would be a huge gain beforehand and/or a huge loss to kill in the crossfire or be executed as an ultimatum with the legion at the gates. She wishes to mount a rescue in the near future using the PRELIMINARY INFORMATION, risky as that is.

    HOUSE CATHAK is intrigued by the mention of the Mask of Winters' secret cache of resources, but notes that retaking Lookshy isn't necessary to make use of those, since they are set to essentially re-annex Thorns again in the short term. There is the credible matter that All-Seeing Eye could hide or destroy them, but then he'd immediately lose their cooperation in taking back Lookshy for good, and so they wouldn't believe a bluff to that effect.

    HOUSE CATHAK essentially will not expend soldiers, weapons, supplies, artifacts, warstriders, and dynast lives to the inevitably herculean effort of taking Lookshy from Sixteenth Night's Silence. They have no reason to conclusively believe he is so drastically greater of an oppositional power to THE REALM than Lookshy previously was, and they need to conserve the house's strength as much as possible against their allies gunning for the throne. They believe that with the SEVENTH LEGION'S cooperation, and the PRELIMINARY INFORMATION, they would have a decisive advantage in a hypothetical conflict, but they lose more than they gain for taking the city *itself*, and it cannot even be said that they gain 'control of the Scavenger Lands', since reinstating the Seventh Legion as the heads of Lookshy would simply restore the power that previously opposed them. Lookshy would be lessened, but so is THE REALM compared to the last time they attempted to conquer the Scavenger Lands. The only way HOUSE CATHAK will commit resources here is if it gains them back an edge over their rivals, or their rivals can be convinced to expend just as much as they do, if not more.
Gawain Gawain pledges his assistance to the SEVENTH LEGION for their rescue of the PRISONERS OF WAR. He promises to gather Elite aid, if he'd be welcomed. Otherwise, the knight has done what he can for now. He'll coordinate otherwise with All-Seeing Eye and make sure they're both up-to-date on the current going-ons.
Tomoe Tomoe has done what she can to locate parts of the surviving population as cold as All Seeing Eye was? He'd laid out the facts, the Refugees were relatively safe for the moment and if Bloody wasn't stopped there's sure as heck be a lot more or worse could happen.

So she will keep with Gawin and All Seeing Eye, when Gawain makes his offer to aid in the risky rescue mission she will offer her own sword to the cause. If they will take her.
All-Seeing Eye      House Cathak's hesitance to assist has Eye frustrated--but there's not much he can do. He explains that all Deathlords, even relatively placid ones, are not political enemies one can simply outmaneuver. They are the enemies of life itself. They will see it in time, he tells them, but Lookshy is being taken with or without their help. The INSIDER INFO on the GUILD is given to HOUSE CATHAK, as a 'gesture of goodwill from the Nation of Claslat.' This is not his decision, but the Claslat National Tripartite's--their government. The language they use implies that they expect a favor later on in exchange for this information, and for the location of the SECRET MINE.

     When Gawain contacts him, Eye explains that the REALM will not be assisting in the capture of Lookshy, which means that the SEVENTH LEGION's efforts to claim the PRISONERS OF WAR may be more difficult.