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Can AK-UT-EN somehow turn the sun priest to our side or at least give us power to absorb holy magic that uses the sun as its source?
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Jun 19, 2023 21:45
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A E O
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Jun 19, 2023 23:17
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1c2h3O
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Jun 20, 2023 00:08
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super sweet best pal posted:Can AK-UT-EN somehow turn the sun priest to our side or at least give us power to absorb holy magic that uses the sun as its source? Divinity and You 102 Tiers of Divinity All begins who claim Divinity have at the very least, the following qualities associated with them: Ability to receive faith aspected mana from the worship of mortals. At least one domain, which in simple terms is a niche that they have mastered or are masters of. Some form of immortality. With these three qualia in mind, we can roughly sort Divinity into tiers of very relative power. Demigod A being with two of the three criteria met. This is the only tier a mortal may (in)officially aspire to, though even in what you can remember of your prime, most who tried were stopped with extreme prejudice before even coming close. As such, a demigod is generally believed to be something that you are born into or created as, rather than become yourself. Most Angels fall into this category, as do other supernatural servants, but also a few of the more ancient monsters of the world and even a few natural phenomena such as a particularly holy mountain. Godling All three criteria met, but only just. The entry point of proper divinity, when the entity is still making a name for itself and has few worshippers to call their own. You suspect Lord AK-UT-EN to be in this tier as he has yet to be smitten outright for merely existing, though maybe he has just gone unnoticed? Even this low on the ladder, a being of this magnitude is far more competent and dangerous than any mortal arcanist or hero, even if they are still technically in danger of being forgotten. God All three criteria met, more than one domain and at least one independently constructed temple. With a steady source of worship, these beings aren't going anywhere. In a straight up fight, a demigod would be turned to paste and a mortal may as well never have existed. Their power can directly affect the lands under their influence to a limited degree, such as altering the weather, enriching or depleting soil, redirecting currents etc, though the nature and power of these abilities depend on the domains of the god in question. Deity All previous tiers, plus a seat on the Official Pantheon (think the Divine equivalent of the United Nations). Known throughout the entire world and worshipped in some form or another by nearly all mortals, their powers are nearly infinite, within the scope of their domains. Even so, they are still formidable dabblers in every other concept as well, thanks in part to their social networking skills and wide power base. On the plus side, there are only ever a handful. On the downside, they skew 100% to the upper third of the alignment chart. Pantocrator Godhead of the official Pantheon. You don't actually know who this is at the moment. You hope they are too busy to think about you. If your suspicions are correct, and Lord AK-UT-EN is a godling with a Sun domain, he should have no trouble negating, deflecting or otherwise interfering with any sun related arcana or natural phenomena coming your way. Unless those were being powered by something higher on the hierarchy. Even so, a mortal defeating a godling in direct combat is almost unheard of, and the godling usually wins in the end. Then again, most godlings have more than one worshipper and at least a shrine or something to their name, and aren't withered husks clinging to unlife hanging from the tail of an amnesiac rat with an unfortunate sudden death subscription.
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Jun 21, 2023 11:20
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...Once we're better situated, should probably try to train some hoggoblins as faithful tending a shrine to the Boss somewhere? Don't think we have nearly enough for a temple proper, but getting a little faith for reserve emergencies could be handy.
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Jun 21, 2023 21:45
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Third Life, Oceans Eleventhousand BCE Feeling confident that your many lifetimes as a mad sorcerer are probably guiding your hand, you proceed to the nearest cluster of wall-crystal, grab a decent chunk and pry it off with brute force, showering the cavern floor with magical sparks and shards of semi-transparent, muted teal rock-glass. The next step is even less delicate, as you bind your icinicrated arm with some rags, hold it tight with your armpit and stab yourself multiple times with the jagged wedges until they stick in good and proper. The pain is there, and certainly rather exquisite, but it is of a mundane variety and one to which you have become quiet used to after so much time, to the point that even with most of your memories lost or at least missing, it is easy enough for your mind to file under “a problem for later” rather than to succumb to writhing in agony. With that issue sorted you limp over to the closest gathering of hoggoblins and screech at them to join you by the ship, as you mean to scuttle it and salvage what parts you can for your hideout – impressing on them both the need for speed and stealth as you admit that you may be coming under attack sooner rather than later. They give you happy, vacant smiles and speed off to the surface, leaving you to slowly hobble over the rough cavern stone as blood begins to soak through your bandages, matting your fur. You look to you arm and find the crystals pulsating in concerning tune with your heartbeat, the red of your lifeblood slowly mixing with the inherent teal essence of nature and the darker tones of earth already present in their makeup. Already you are getting woozy...  Taking a few more steps, you lean against the cavern wall and hobble out for fresh air. Already there are hoggoblins running to and fro, holding planks and rigging, stray bits of boat and cargo and swarming the ship itself to dismantle it with simple tools made out of bone and magic. They work with great zeal amid the chorus of nature, the splash of water and the buzz of insects that have begun congregating around the cavern entrance. You wave your hand to grab an attention, eventually succeeding by accidentally on purpose tripping a minion as it passes by. 'Follow' you command and it drops its loot where it stands, oinking a salute at your midsection. You lead it onto the deck and into the cargohold, where the now familiar runes peek out from frayed hull. 'Get this wall down into the cavern' you manage, before an onset of wooziness forces you to take a seat on some crates of cargo. 'Get to it! We don't have all day!' you'd help, if only you could remember how to move. Despite your healing-factor, you have lost quiet a lot of blood by this point, the crystals adorning your arms now fully opaque. The runes pulse menacingly as light fades, and you fall into nothing just before a skeletal arm reaches out from nothing to grab for you.  ~ Skeleton. Skeletons. There had been so many skeletons. You were tired. Your power over them waned with each blow deflected, each order more disrupted than the last. You commanded them to advance, but they merely roamed and chattered. No more than mindless mobs, an obstacle at best and not the fearsome army you had envisioned. Had you overextended? Impossible, with the artifact safe in your arcane study, fed a constant stream of Vitae, with your mastery of Necromancy unsurpassed, a paltry legion should take no effort to coordinate. Yet you were crawling through molasses. Were the clerics disrupting you? You turned an evil gaze towards the enemy forces gathered. An alliance of light and good. Races gathered together in harmony to put a righteous end to Evil. Let them try. You raised your arm (why does it burn?) and let loose a brackish bolt of suffering, to bend them to their knees at your magnificence. But the bolt fizzled into nothing and all around you, skeletons crumbled into dust as ancient as the days of yore from which you stole them. Somewhere far away a hooded rogue crept down a tower, holding tight a bundle of cloth leaking red-black ichor, a grin of satisfaction wide across his face. The runes that kept the fortress warded, rubbed out from within. Evil breached were it was strongest. Good coin for noble purpose, it matters not he broke some laws. All that mattered was the result. The chaos it would cause was merely a boon.  The Army of Light advancing. Your creatures, fleeing, routing. It was too late, too late. Your sanctum aflame despite your preparations. The radiant Sun pierced the broken sky. Cheers of hope cries of salvation. You heard the beating of their hooves and before you could react felt the crushing force of their impact, shattering your bones and knocking what passed for breath from your useless, rotted flesh. You willed yourself whole and struck out with deathly intent but withered little more than flowers (how could they grow?) and then they were upon you again, cold iron, sanctified, striking through your wards. An imprint on your very soul. You lay motionless in a crater of your own making, countless dead who died before around you, a pile of bones amongst the rest.  Set them to the pyre! Leave not one scrap for mulch! Let us purge the realms of this blight for Good! For all! For ever! No! They would have no such satisfaction. You will grant them no such sweet succour. From darkest depths of hate and wroth, with maddened clarity you Scorn: you may be dead and dying, but vengeance eternal shall be yours! The rouge, eyes vacant, stumbles to the floor. Bwa ha ha ha!! Bwa ha ha ha hah!! The light fades and darkness takes you. A hand, skeletal, reaches out for yours. 'Wha? What is the meaning of this? Why do you not fight, as I implore!" you reprimand and move to strike it, but the grin of the skull before you is far more malevolent than those you've used before. “Oh.”  "Took you long enough to notice, most valued customer.” --- There was a fuzz to the world as you came to consciousness once more, your immediate surroundings filled with curious, caretaker hoggoblins. They had you on a bed made out of broken shipping crates in a shallow side passage freshly dug out from the wall of the chamber in which Lord AK-UT-EN slept. You tried to rub your eyes only to cut your forehead accidentally with what you had hoped to be your regular old paw, which now lacked the soft fur you had become accustomed too, having instead mimicked the texture of the jagged crystals still firmly lodged in your arm. The lead hoggoblin voiced some unintelligible gibberish, though judging by its mannerisms you hazard a guess that it meant to convey something between concern and curiosity. 'how long was I out?' you manage, and the minion helpfully holds up its main gripping appendage with two flesh coloured protrusions helpfully raised. That it only had three didn't fill you with much confidence, neither did the utter lack on context. Two what, exactly? Well, you were still alive and the Lord still slept, so it could not be weeks or the adventurers would surely have found you. Neither could it be minutes, because there had clearly been a lot of furious renovations done, though you had no real gauge at the speed of your workers yet nor the extent of their escapades. Sitting upright you try to think more clearly. 'Have you had any trouble with the locals?' you muster, referring to the nearby heroes, though again communication proves an issue as the hoggoblins, after an initial hectic scuffle, bring you a freshly cooked After devouring your meel for some much needed nourishment, sipping on a nectar infused tea that another hoglet brought you in a silver cup marked with the sigill of some foreign monarchy, you got to your feet to again attempt to inspect operations. The cave is littered with pieces of boat. By your estimate, they must have stripped the upper deck at the very least, and indeed you see some stained planks on the far wall, that you remember being responsible for, ah, designing, arranged in a crude manner as to display the chars and scarring in the best ominous lighting available, as some sort of trophy. There were a ton of crates everywhere and even some furniture, though most of the fancier silks and all of the gold had been offloaded into Lord AK-UT-ENs inner chamber, you notice quickly that lesser materials such as linen, brass and scrapmetals had been put to purpose to erect crude housing for the minions themselves. You sighed internally as you walked through and towered over the hastily constructed fairytale hoggoblin village, each little abode uniquely awful in its own manner. Pathetic hoards of garbage and junk kept unreasonably safe from the non extant vagaries of weather considering you were all inside a giant cave system, by varying qualities of flotsam, salvage and vines. Further up you were met by a stench that you had somehow managed to avoid in your private misery, a small pit filled with food taken from the ship, the lake and u jungle and tossed in without rhyme or reason. It had already begun to rot. Fantastic. Continuing up and out into darkness, the thick canopy obscuring most of the cloud filled, moon back-lit sky, you brave the cliff edge to get better low light view of progress on the scuttle operation. Frustratingly, the ship is still visible, if clearly skeletonized, with most of the upper deck and the captains quarters stripped bare, the lower decks and cargo hold are still in place and indeed actively being demolished. On the most intact section of the boat, the cargo bay that held your Lord, a crew of three hoggoblins argue and toil to rip the weird metaline hidden inner wall from its fixtures. They look to have had little progress and even if you can't hear what they are saying you assess that they are out of their depth as it were, when confronted with the strange material. You summon a scurrying hog and command it to instruct the others to focus on removing the fixtures and the rest of the ship rather than to 'bash their heads against an immovable object' and it looks at you with a look of adoring bewilderment before you snarl at it to get moving. Well, things aren't looking too bad, you suppose. A few days more and the ship should be gone. Less if you help them, but that would mean sullying your paws with manual labour when you have perfectly good minions already on the job. In light of all of this, any changes to how you wish to spend the next few days? A: Preparing the defenses, by laying traps and scouting areas of approach. B: Training for martial combat. C: Training for arcane combat. Cb: C, but specifically Experimenting with Vibromancy for combat purposes. D: Thoroughly inspecting the loot. Maybe sleeping on it a bit.  E: Learning to read, inspecting the alchemical laboratory and the captains possessions specifically. A more generalized approach to magic self studies. F: Helping salvage the ship. It should go much faster with your strength, agility and ability to prioritize. G: Attempt to sneak into the nearby village. H: Tend to Lord AK-UT-EN. He is asleep and has already given you a list of tasks but maybe you can learn a thing or two about your connection to him with prayer and devoted service? I: Attempt to strike at these supposed ‘thanes’ in order to prevent the adventurers from learning your whereabouts from them. J: Just take it easy for a while. You deserve a break! --- >EXAMINE SELF< You are in bad shape but slowly healing. Your appear to have grafted some manacrystals to yourself semi-successfully. Thus, you have a local storage of Nature and Earth aspected mana independant of any other, more common means of storing arcane energies such as wands, staves or potions. >EXAMINE MAP<  
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Mar 28, 2024 18:27
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F get the job done as a priority.
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Mar 28, 2024 19:20
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ABC: Always Be Constructin traps
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Mar 28, 2024 21:08
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e lets check out magic stuffs
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Mar 28, 2024 22:21
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A Guerilla warfare tends to wreck unprepared adventurers.
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Mar 28, 2024 22:34
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D. The hobgoblins don't know their greek (what's Greece?) fire from their phylacteries. It's menial work, but better check the plunder while we aren't under attack.
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Mar 29, 2024 01:40
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F, get that ship squared away.
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Mar 29, 2024 01:58
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Third Life, Oceans Eleventhousand BCE With an unknown amount of time lost and every moment counting, you decide to not take any more unnecessary risks like scouting missions into unknown territory or magical experimentation, focusing instead on personally task mastering the salvage operation. Under your direct command, the hoggoblins work more efficiently and get 'softlocked' less by unburdening their decision making process. Indeed, you find several who had gotten stuck by salvaging the wrong part of the ship at the wrong time, for instance by cutting off their egress-routes by removing the only plank leading back to the main deck. Minions are diligent, hard working, and as it turns out, dumber than most rocks when not under your direct supervision.  Working well into the night, bothered only by the sickly sweet smells of the bountiful flora and the twitter of birds, you divide the hoggoblins into two teams, with one working on removing all the load bearing framework holding up the cargobay 'cage' area to hopefully gain access to it that way, and the other to look for spare weapons, sharp bits of metal, door hinges and anything else that could possibly be used to shore up the caves defenses. The mess provides a plethora of pots and pans, even a sizeable cauldron that may be of use should you collect some nasty alchemical, but the only weapons present are the sabres of the 'pirates' you had already defeated. You surmise that whatever they were doing here, they were not really expecting a fight. At least not one that needed gear beyond that which the adventurers could carry upon their persons. All is not lost however, as plentiful spikes are ripped from their hiding places beneath tar and lacquer, which if nothing else can serve as shrapnel as most are blunted from use.  It is only around dawn when your efforts to free the runewalls give result, hogglets cheering as they break through a reinforced section of the stern to loosen the moorings. With a soft 'thuum' one part of the strange carved metal dulls as it falls over and your headache, which you had nursed ever since you entered its proximity at the beginning of the night, is lifted all at once. You immediately spring into the main cargo chamber, your ears already picking up that same sound reverberating throughout the ship. The walls are no longer pulsing and even though you can still see the carvings, they appear at this moment inert. Carefully you attempt to pry another section of, without first dismantling the wall that holds it in place, and to your great satisfaction it lets go without a hitch. Immediately you call for all hands on deck, to move the cage in sections to the cave for storage, but what then? 1: Your keen mind can already see a few options... A: You don't have enough information and you have a lot to do, just store it somewhere safe, like the tunnel at the bottom of the cave. Continue salvage operations and start working on traps and defenses. B: You are pretty sure the walls offer some sort of magic dampening effect if installed correctly. You don't think you have time to experiment but you are reasonably sure it'd start working again if you rebuilt it exactly as you found it. Tell the hogs to cage the inner sanctum to hopefully shield your Lord from magic attacks or divination. You'll have to guide them personally if you want this to have any chance of working. C: As b, but put the rebuilt cage in an unused area of the cave, for emergencies. D: as b, but grab a shovel and command every single hoggoblin to go hogwild, digging a large enough hole near the entrance that the cage can be put inside it as a pit trap designed to neutralize mages and magic specifically. If you can get it working, at least. The minions are great diggers but you have no real tools and the cave is mostly solid rock. This will take a while. Probably longer than what you have? There is no real way to tell. F: d, but use magic to get er done faster. You don't actually know any spells that will do this so it might actually take longer than d as you experiment to figure out how to do it first, and it will be a good deal flashier regardless, thus more noticeable? Still, you have plenty of naturally occurring earth mana to work with, so in theory it should be easy?
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Apr 7, 2024 19:14
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A, don't get side tracked by micro optimization.
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Apr 7, 2024 20:05
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A This is a tomorrow problem.
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Apr 7, 2024 20:31
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D
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Apr 7, 2024 22:39
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Dig!
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Apr 7, 2024 23:20
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A. Lets put it aside so the boss can check it out before we assemble it around their sanctum.
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Apr 8, 2024 02:44
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Third Life, Oceans Eleventhousand BCE You command your hoggoblins to move the runewalls into deep storage for now and to get back to work as quickly as possible, whilst you continue to assess the situation and prepare. Hiding the entrance to your dungeon is pretty much handled already by the waterfall, anything significant you could do to it on short notice would probably only make it more obvious, not less. Still, you make sure to assign one minion to sweeping duty to at least wipe your tracks at random intervals (when it remembers) which should count for something. Equally, you decide traps around the exterior are probably a bad idea, since you don't actually want company right now. You find yourself reminiscing to your heydays when traps both obvious and insidious would litter the landscape around your fortress of doom, villa of villainy or mansion of madness. When being Evil was as much show as tell, and how a good trap could be as much for dissuasion as it could be useful for recruitment and, ah, recycling. But that was then and this was now. You instead gather a few minions and head up and out into the jungle once more to look for something more vicious than hanging vines and waterlogged planks from which to build or fill your interior traps with, but your immediate surroundings are woefully depleted of predators, to the point where even obvious bottom of the food chain prey do not even cower in fear as you approach. Building materials are another matter. The trees grow thick and healthy here but cutting one down would leave an obvious scar on the land, and even trees that have fallen with age have been quickly consumed by or entangled with the rest of the jungle. As for poisons, you don't remember enough about alchemy or zooology to make more than an educated guess that colourful means bad, sometimes? And you can't really test any of the berries you find on yourself either, for fear of the time you'd loose to ill health moreso than death which seems to be more of an inconvenience for you. Nevertheless you pick a handful of neon red berries just in case. At worst you will mildly sweeten the tooth of some ever-do-well, perhaps instilling upon them a measure of gluttony! And at best, well, who can tell the limits of natural remedies, or the potency of toxins found near a natural Font of Power?  Critterwise you find nothing bigger than the hogs used to construct your minions, which the minions themselves regard with quiet curiosity and perhaps a little sympathy. You attempt to climb into the canopy to gain a better viewpoint, but the trunks are wet and slippery from recent rains and the upper branches remain aggravatingly out of reach. Using your claws proves equally fruitless, between thick bark and the mess of vines and the chatter of birdsong that all serves to distract and waylay your progress. In a huff you decide to return to the boat and focus on that instead, leaving the mysteries of the land for later. Mid day now, your stamina boosted by vigorous devotion or magic or both, you oversee the removal of the final portions of the cargodeck and begin working on the lower deck, where the various crew-quarters take up the majority of space. Easy pickings for your minions, and all the extra cloth and furnishings quickly find their way to the Lairs whilst the official Vault hoard grows almost imperceptibly of scattered coins and long lost jewellery. Gold is, as always, reserved for the inner sanctum, and there appears already to be a minion whose whole sole purpose is to pry comparatively worthless sapphires and precious gemstones from the golden rings, necklaces and scabbards they adorn and to polish the thus unblemished most noble of metal before their introduction to your Master. Feeling antsy, you climb up the cliffs once more to run a quick perimeter patrol. Not too far into it you freeze, sensitive rat hairs standing on end as you notice the temperature drop rapidly and the rustle of the wind in the leaves and fronds cease all at once. A deathly quiet has crept over you, worse than the deepest caverns yet the sun shines bright overhead. Soundlessly, a discarded vine rises from the ground, transforming into a simile of a snake that fixes you with its gaze, against which you are unable to turn from.  A voice enters your mind, lacking emotion, A message meant simply to be conveyed: 'Intruder. Singular. Hours. Townward. Destroy. Quiet. Far." The voice stops, the snake withers into sand that spreads with the return of the wind. The temperature rises once more though the observant might notice a few specks of frost that cling to the ground where the vine previously lay, remaining unnaturally despite the warmth of the season. The sun shines a little less bright. Before you can even ask, KES-KES-TE interjects.  "A Message from Lord AK-UT-EN. A simple miracle, as he is preserving power for the inevitable confrontation. Our pursuers are on to us, but we have an opportunity here. Better to dwindle their number than to face them all an once. Come, let us be off to see to our divine mandate." 1: How do you proceed? Listed in order of how much time each option will take before conflict arises, from shortest to longest. A: Start trekking townward with the intent to engage with the intruder in glorious melee. B: A, but with magic. C: Go about what you think is half way and prepare a simple trap, and lay in ambush. D: C, but bring a few minions and make it a better trap with the addition of treasure. You are pretty sure adventurers can't resist treasure. E: Something else? Write-in.
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Apr 18, 2024 08:09
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E - Determine what kind of threat we're facing before confronting them. If it's the sun worshiper we should
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Apr 18, 2024 10:06
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Always Battle with Cuts
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Apr 18, 2024 13:10
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E Intel on the opfor.
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Apr 18, 2024 14:57
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How do you wish to gain this information? Keeping in mind that time is probably limited and you don't know any divination magic and Lord AK-UT-EN Is busy/has already delegated to you? You could try to sneak up on them, or send a minion out to scout ahead of you, for instance, or maybe you have a better idea? At either rate, time is ticking!
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Apr 18, 2024 15:17
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D, might as well use some of these worthless gems
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Apr 18, 2024 15:33
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A Gotta keep it quiet, that means no magic. Gotta keep the guy far away from here, hence interception.
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Apr 19, 2024 06:43
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