Overcome with concern for the howling orphaned plague babies, we all flew down the river looking for the pirates responsible for stealing the medicine. We spotted a lone ship stopped at a remote dock, far from any town, and landed to investigate. The pirates were amazed to see a dragon, but though they saw us bearing down on them and readily admitted to their crime, the pirate captain refused to back down. Captain Bart of the Purple Pirates sent wave after wave of goons to face us, but each fell before they could even land a blow on us. Finally, Captain Bart was forced to face us himself, and he too fell (finally beaten with Kuarjav’s “shipquake”). We offered him clemency if he would surrender to us, as we are always eager for more soldiers, and asked why he did not think of surrendering when he saw a dragon bearing down on his ship. The captain refused to join us and stated in no uncertain terms that he hated those vile creatures, so Vasuki ate him. Thus ended poor Captain Bart – the dragon he hated ate his heart. (See In Memoriam page for obituary)
Not wanting to waste any more time, we split up and searched the ship for the medicine, claiming some pirate loot for ourselves along the way (Daisy now sports a dashing eyepatch). To our surprise, we also discovered a woman named Bernadette chained to a wall. Immediately recognizing a fellow Narcissist, Harold struck up a conversation with the poor woman, who insisted that she was no longer fit to live in polite society (she lost her Rose Brooch, of course, what else?). Harold convinced her that they were kindred spirits, that she would find a place among us, and thus did Bernadette the Narcissist join our crew.
The medicine reclaimed, we flew at once to Lorin and met up with Leah, the nurse who had sought us out. In a few short hours, all of the sick children had been saved, and the howling slowly died away. It was brought to our attention then that our castle still had no doctor, and Nurse Leah graciously agreed to lend us her skills.
Meanwhile, with that crisis resolved, Royce took Vasuki back to the now-vacant pirate ship and towed it to our base, making it the first ship in our secret navy.
Daisy took the opportunity during the lull to ask a favor of her companions. Thanks to Xander’s investigations, we recently learned that the woman who wants Daisy dead, Octavia, may be found in the village of the Beast Tribe somewhere in western Harmonia. A quick map consultation showed us an unidentified village in that general vicinity, so we made our way to Osthollow Province to check it out. To our surprise, however, we found no humans living in the village, but only an unusual collection of animals. Some were unremarkable and native to Harmonia, like rabbits, but some, like the elephants, were utterly out of place. The town was in good repair and the animals healthy, so Daisy began to suspect that all of the residents of the village had animal transformations they could fully control and had reverted to them upon spotting the strangers approaching. None of the animals showed any sign of understanding her when she tried to speak to them. Royce thought he saw a woman watching the group, but when they chased her around a corner they found only a raven sitting high on a wire.
Frustrated that she still couldn’t control her own transformation at will, Daisy convinced Royce to assist her in triggering it with violence. Her bear form came out roaring, frightening off most of the animals in the vicinity (including the raven), but Kuarjav healed her back up before she could go into a full rage. Seeing that trying to communicate with the animals was no use, the team explored the rest of the village and found an item shop. We acquired a Garlic Seed and Harold left a generous amount of money on the counter.
Momentarily accepting defeat, Daisy decided to leave the village. But before our departure, she marched into the center of town where the most animals would be able to see her and bellowed at the top of her voice, “My name is Daisy Saint-Anicet. I want to know what’s going on here, and I’ll be back.” And then we walked out, pursued by an eerie feeling of being watched.
Caesar already had his next plans in place when we returned to Liberty Castle. A new Priest General named Marcus recently took control of the Clearbeach region to the north of us, and rumors had trickled out from Merridwell Castle that Marcus might soon move to attack us. Caesar knew we had to make the first move if we were to survive, so he sent our team along with Lorelai to the North Ruins in order to awaken an ancient power to fight for us. Inside the North Ruins, another remnant of the Sindar, we eventually located the “Iron Giant,” a massive mobile suit. A smaller robot emerged from the Iron Giant when we pressed a button, and we were forced to fight little Joe Robot for his activation key. Lorelai used the key to start up the Iron Giant, and we left her to figure out the controls while we hastily returned to Caesar to start the war battle.
Our units rapidly advanced on Merridwell castle, where we found that Priest General Marcus also had our old friends Felicia and Henry on his side. We made quick work of our enemies, and Daisy defeated Marcus with her final charge. Choosing the same path as Lena Suphina, Marcus surrendered to us and joined our army, along with some of his troops. As in Lena’s case, we did not trust his loyalty immediately and, erring on the side of caution, relieved Bandit Bill of us duties at the bar and assigned him to be Marcus’ new “assistant” in order to spy for us. However, we also became concerned for Marcus’ family when we heard he had a wife and ten children waiting for him back in the war-torn town of Osil, so we sent a messenger to help evacuate them all to Lorin, where they’ll be safe from potential Harmonian reprisals.
Recruited: Bernadette, Leah, Marcus
Investigations: Marcus, Jonah, Damien
