Update - June 1, Year 1
Project Results
Dominic - Walk the Rogatica Border
Baron Rogatica shows up with a considerably larger party than expected, including four knights and their squires as well as twenty men at arms and a few servants. His troops are all disciplined and well trained, with excellent equipment (i.e. Skill 2, Discipline 3, Equipment 3)
Your border with Rogatica is relatively short, but it's the most problematic one since the river Lim tends to flood, change course and wash away marker stones on a semi-regular basis. You encounter several stretches of border where there are no markers or landmarks that fit the old descriptions, forcing you and Rogatica to set up new markers and negotiate where they should go. Fortunately there aren't any settlements or other valuable points of interest in these zones. so you're able to come to a reasonable agreement in each case.
Your overall impression of Baron Rogatica is a lot more favorable than you might have expected. He's a professional military man with a strong drive for personal advancement, but he's not a megalomaniac or a nut. You get the impression that he admires Ezti on a personal level, and thinks he's doing her a favor by planning to marry her to legitimize his impending conquest of Kiscun instead of executing her.
Actually, in talking with Rogatica you realize that it would be entirely possible for you to ally with him instead of Kiscun. He has a low opinion of your family due to past dealings with Pavel and Nikolai, but he seems to think you're honest enough to make a deal with. Right now the main thing holding him back from moving on Kiscun is the knowledge that Nikolai would probably take the opportunity to carve off a chunk of his territory while his army was busy, and you could probably get some nice concessions from him for using your influence to prevent that. If you could actually deliver Ezti to him unharmed…. well, he'd probably trade you a decent chunk of Kiscun for her.
In any event, you complete the border ride and part more or less amicably. You can now proceed to claiming regency over Corzu as soon as the haunts are dealt with.
Dominic - Research Corzu (Haunts)
This is an interesting exercise, but somewhat frustrating due to the general lack of solid information. You consult with Kat about haunts, make the rounds of your settlements collecting local tales about the two you're interested in, and make careful visits to the sites with Dita in tow to see what you can observe.
According to Kat a haunt will almost always have a 'heart' - a physical object imbued with fel magic that acts as its anchor to the physical world. Destroying the anchor kills the haunt, but they can be annoyingly hard to find. Normally the anchor will have some metaphorical or thematic connection to the form the haunt takes when it manifests, but that's usually the only clue you get.
Investigating the well, you confirm that the glowing tentacles described in the stories do emerge from the well at night. From a distance they look more like ghostly apparitions than anything solid, and arrows pass through them without effect. A torch left burning near the well draws their attention, but they probe the air around it cautiously for long minutes without ever touching the open flame. They don't seem to be able to reach more than a hundred feet or so from the well, but there's no sign of a central body or other vulnerable point. It seems obvious that the anchor is at the bottom of the well, which is going to make getting at it quite difficult. Kat observes that it might actually be the water in the well, which would be especially hard to destroy.
The tower may be simpler, if rather creepy. Dita can see dark magic covering the whole grove around the tower, apparently emanating from the stonework. Approaching the tainted grove causes the leaves to rustle unnaturally, and at night you can sometimes see ghostly figures inside the ruin. But if the magic is in the stonework it seems likely that the anchor will turn out to be the cornerstone or some other key structural element, and Kat can probably shatter it easily if you can just get her inside.
Dominic - Recruit Troops (Spearmen)
Bialas - Recruit Troops (Spearmen)
Jaroslaw - Recruit Troops (Spearmen)
You recruit and organize three new units of spearmen without incident. But at this point you've hired a large fraction of the young men in Corzu who want to join the military at the moment, so you won't be able to do multiple recruitments in one turn again until next year.
Dita - Training
Dita begins a grueling dawn-to-dusk training schedule largely on her own, although she's quite energetic about pestering all the swordsmen in the castle for tips and sparring matches whenever there's an opportunity. You estimate she's now halfway to improving her Swordsmanship to 2.
Katiana - Construction
Kat switches projects and begins work on a new granary. She estimates that completing the project will take another 2 months, 80 man-months labor and 120 SP cash.
After examining Mira and then Aldona Kat reports that Atalaya has apparently created a pretty impressive enchantment that inflicts a withering curse on any inhabitant of Tamasi who tells an outsider anything about her magic. Since they don't live there anymore Kat was able to ward both girls against the effect pretty easily, and she even returns Mira's lock of hair to its normal color. Both your mistresses are very grateful to her for her help.
In her spare time Kat has also befriended Dita, and you've seen them talking together a lot recently. Or possibly plotting together. Kat has definitely noticed Dita's attraction to her, but while she doesn't appear to return the interest it doesn't seem to bother her either.
Traian - Train Engineering
Traian grumbles a bit about his talents being in mathematics rather than piling stone and cutting lumber, but he dutifully purchases an engineering handbook in Tamasi and spends the month poring over it.
Rangers - Hunt Beastmen
Sending your eight newly trained rangers out into the woods to hunt beastmen without a leader proved a disastrous move. One group. Thanks to a combination of bad luck and inclement weather they came off on the losing end of several skirmishes, losing one man while three more were seriously injured. Their wild talk of 'dozens' of beastmen in the woods is almost certainly exaggerated, but their claims that they killed half a dozen of the things seem equally unlikely.
The Call
Near the end of the month a strange apparition appears in your keep near sundown. A young peasant girl dressed in torn and bloodstained rags, with a short mop of pale blonde hair that looks like it was hacked off with a knife. One arm is heavily bandaged, and she carries an improvised spear made by tying a kitchen knife to the end of a broom handle. She strolls past several startled mean t arms to where Dita is sparring with one of the rangers, and nods to her.
"I heard your call, priestess," she says in a voice that barely rises above a whisper. "Where's the monster?"
Other Events
Lala asks you to visit Castle Pisch at some point in the coming month to help her hammer out travel arrangements (and browbeat Nikolai into getting out of the way).
You receive an unexpectedly prompt reply from Gavrilla, saying she'd like to visit you this month and discuss the family political situation and alliance options.
You receive a response from your father explaining that good castellans are hard to find and he's currently employing all the ones he'd recommend, but if you just want a seneschal he can send you a good one. He also expresses concern at the rather sorry state of Pischia, but cautions you that it's entirely possible Pavel is intentionally creating an impression of weakness for some reason - the crusade in Anatolia is winding down now, and Pavel is prone to setting up Byzantine plots. In any event he's supposed to be returning to Borjeria next year, so you'll be able to speak to him yourself at that point if you like.
A new map has been added to the Lore post, showing a more detailed view of Corzu.
Note: Status posts are still being updated.
