Well, you might have someone rich and magical mad at you now. Perhaps you should ask around and see if anyone recognizes the make or style of this stuff? Get a clue to who might have made it?

Well good. She is starting to be useful. She still needs to keep improving though. If she keeps up the good work she can have her name back. Do we have someone how knows about magic, or to at least knows what to do with this things?

>"I got them way west, by the next big river over."

Sounds like the Ruin or Cliff clan. Both were wealthy and our scouts were able to get information on them, so their guard wasn't so high. Waster could've taken stash from either of 'em.

Get a bit more detail from her. Might as well check to see who we might've made an enemy of - the Ruin clan were few, while the Cliff had a lot of gnolls - maybe up to nearly half our size, which could be trouble if they go on the warpath while we're already having the enmity of Chainlink and those assassin wankers. Also, get our scouts to be on a higher alert from that direction - whoever she stole from might come sniffing from thataways if they managed to follow her trail.

We should also talk to some of our craftspeople as they, particularly the Blacktorch Blacksmith (what's his name now again?), might know what that shiny brick is. Maybe it's a metal of some kind? If you find out that this shit's enough to repay a healing potion and there's no pursuit that brings trouble to the clan, Waster has actually done a bit of sterling thievin'. It might be enough to hand her the old name back (it was Grasswind) or you can upgrade her current one to something else you'll actually remember. Her 'tude still needs some correcting, but doing something good for the clan should be rewarded.

Bringing down another clan because she stole their finest shit and now they're on the warpath after the thief just as we're still trying to get our feet and defenses up, on the other hand... we'll have to see how it shakes out.

>>892761
She'll answer for it if/when it becomes a problem. In the meantime we should encourage her attempts to make herself useful.

>>892883
I agree

1/3 Clamp 2018/07/14(Sat)19:33 No. 892928 ID: bfb318
File 153162203404.png - (179.14KB , 800x800 , 217.png )

Dunno what it is, but I doubt it's mithril. That shit doesn't just get found and stolen, I don't think.

"Hey, Matron, how good are you at telling how valuable stuff is?"
>"Bad."
"Remind me again how this clan functioned."
>"Wind was a good appraiser. Without him, I think we should just have a bunch of gnolls discuss it, and we should get something around the right amount. Or just wait for the humans, they're often good about that kind of thing."
>"Humans?" asks Grasswind.
"Yeah! We're going to have human visitors, so paws off."
>"Humans, in my camp?"
"I don't care about what shitty ditch you call your camp, Waster, but my camp is going to get swarmed with humans for all I care!"
>"My name is Grasswind! You should call me that after I brought that bag!"
"We'll wait awhile, see how good this shit is, see if you got followed, then I'll consider it. Till then, you can either be Waster, or you can be Pleaser!"

I get in the pond and wash Matrons front, but the mood is spoiled 'cause Waster's putting a shitty face at me. Maybe if I turned her over? Nah, she's got a face so unpleasant that I can see it through the back of her head.

>"What're you looking at?" she asks.
"Wonderin' if your face'll look any better once it gets through Hilt's training. Which you're going to go and do while we look. Go report to him about your bag, too, and give a proper damn report! And show it to Leaf, he might know who has this level of magic shit. And if you did as good a job as you say, then good fuckin' job."

She swims off.

2/3 Clamp 2018/07/14(Sat)19:34 No. 892929 ID: bfb318
File 153162204765.png - (167.22KB , 800x800 , 218.png )

I keep bathing for a bit, 'cause I can.

>Another trophy for Matron
Eh, those're supposed to be for triumphs in combat and that sorta stuff, not decorating Matron every time someone gets any junk from another clan. Even if it's good junk.

... eh?

3/3 Clamp 2018/07/14(Sat)19:38 No. 892931 ID: bfb318
File 153162233175.png - (209.14KB , 800x800 , 219.png )

"Leaf."
>"Hey Boss."
>"Ah?!" Matron makes a real un-gnoll-like noise.
"The fuck, Leaf."
>"Saw Waster's stuff."
"You know anything about it?"
>"Yeh. It's actually pretty impressive she made it outta there alive."
"I'm listening."
>"There was an enchanted silver ingot. They make pretty crappy weapons, unless you're hunting lycanthropes. And the only clan around here that fights Lycanthropes is the Snake Clan, a ways southwest of the Ruin Clan. They're pretty alright."
"We gonna get attacked?"
>"Don't think so, I think Waster made it out clean. They'll come looking for their magic stuff, but I don't think they'll know it was us unless we start waving silver rods around. It was just Hilt, the blacksmith, me and you guys that saw what was in there, so I don't think it'll get out that we got the silver."
"So Waster did well, huh?"
>"Yeah I guess. Cept now there might be a few more werethings running around. Snake Clan kinda does a public service, you know."
"The hell'd a werewhatever ever do to anyone?"
>"Depends on what time of the month we're talking about I guess. Anyway, Waster was real antsy about getting her name back, what do you think? Assuming I'm right that we don't get attacked, that is."
>"... what's the behavior of Snake Clan?" Matron asks. "Do they ally?"
>"Yeah they seem pretty calm about things. Mostly keep to 'emselves. I'm surprised Waster even found them."
>"If we want allies or at least some goodwill, we could return the bag, and act like we took it from another clan that we accuse of stealing their goods."
"God fuckin' damn, Matron."
>"It was one of Wind's ideas. It needs Snake Clan to be amicable towards this sort of thing, as well as being absolutely certain none of them ever saw Waster."

>>892931
Then we find out if the plan will work, and execute it if possible. The silver isn't useful for us, and if there are less identifiable valuables in it we can take a few of them, and get some profit too. Not all of them of course that'd look too suspicious.

If she was that sneaky putting her under Leaf for training might be a good idea.

Tell him she can have her name back if she does well learning from Leaf.

As for returning the stuff. Maybe give them back the silver and keep the rest. So they can keep things were creature free.

Well, she gets her name back, anyway. Trouble with the "hey we found your stuff" plan is that ex-Waster's probably off yakkin' to everyone who'll listen about her grand adventure and how she totally deserves to have her name back, which means that while it won't get out as things stand now, if we did start hanging out with the Snakes someone might blab.

Eh. They don't sound like they'd make good allies and tight security beats goodwill with a few monster hunters.

We barely have enough gold to pay the human Stonecutters and Masons for a few weeks, but it'll surely take many months to properly set up a quarry and masons yard while training up some gnolls to not suck at stoneworking.

Meanwhile, we currently lack the security to continue our aggressive local raiding stance, lack the discipline to raid distant lands, and lack the infrastructure to trade.

TL;DR
We need to hold on to all the gold and valuables we can. There's no way of telling when the next opportunity will arise.

this could work, as long as Waster never goes west again.

Also.. Leaf, the fuck man. I don't need my lieutenants playing the part of river predator I could have fucking punched you man.

>>892931
I like this whole 'team up with Snake Clan' idea. It decreases the number of angry, superdurable monsters roaming the area, and also Enchanted Silver is worthless to us. We don't have the techniques to make weapons from it.

Let's try and ally with them and give em back their silver. Maybe we'll get lucky and Waster wasn't spotted. Or they'll get pissed and we'll have to kill their chief, so whatever.

If we're REALLY lucky, maybe they can teach our smith how to make enchanted weapons. And also it'll start raining gold and gems, and a dragon will be our best friend.

I like the idea, but if they find us out they're going to take it more personally than they would if we just stole their stuff. Sweeping it all under a rug is a very tempting option.

What scapegoats were discussed? We can tell Snake clan we found the ingot on the bodies of our enemies and put two and two together, and now we're just letting them know we share an enemy. Is that believable enough? Clamp can even do it in person, if he can manage to play up what honest dumb muscle he is so they don't suspect scheming.

>>892931
Waster will hate the idea of just giving that shit back after she went through all the trouble of stealing it, but she'll have no choice but to go along with it if she finds out it was Leaf's plan.

Seems like a pretty good idea. Question is, what are we giving up if we do that? What else could we get for the valuables?

Do we have to give back everything Waster got? Can’t we just keep the best stuff and give back what we can’t use?

I don’t want to return the entire bag if we can keep some of it!

Can’t we just go by the rule of “Finders keepers”? We found it, so we’ll keep it, but we’ll tell the Snake Clan who we took it from.

Or we can just not tell the Snake Clan. If they don’t notice anything’s missing, then there’s no need to let them know that something is missing.

What if they just say "Thanks" and don't ally?

I think we should send Hilt over there to establish contact and schmooze a little before we start giving shit away. We need more information, and not necessarily the kind that Leaf can get.

>>893052
Then they don't get their shit back and we pick a different clan.

I like the alince idea, specially if we can trade with them. We can keep whatever is magical and return what is not. If they ask, we say that they took the most valuable stuff separately. Or we can just return everithing, and if the alliance goes well, we can trade weapons from our blacksmith for thier magical stuff. We have plenty of choises.

Also, Leaf, is there a time of the day, you are not a creepy matherfucker?
I am not complaining, is fucking hilarious.

>>893052
If they don't ally, we'll at least share an enemy. Sowing discord among people that aren't us should help.

How about we just don’t tell the Snake Clan anything?

If they come looking for their stuff and accuse us of stealing it, then we deny stealing it and claim we killed some guys from a different clan and took it off of them and we didn’t know it belonged to the Snake Clan.

The only question is: Who should we blame for taking the Snake Clan’s stuff? Maybe we should blame Chainlink?

>>893582
We're telling them that we got some of their stuff back because A: we can't even use all of it and B: if we get some alliances going then we'll have better odds at taking apart the enemy alliance that chainlink is trying to form. (or has formed at this point anyway)

1/3 Clamp 2018/09/01(Sat)19:09 No. 900007 ID: bfb318
File 153585418990.png - (153.59KB , 800x800 , 220.png )

"Goddamn, Matron, getting sneaky like that? Leaf should train you!"

These fuckers stay silent like I just said an unfunny joke.

"Leaf, work on your not-sneaking someday. Gonna punch you one of these times you fucking river predator."
>"It's okay Boss, I can handle a punch."
"Alright Matron that ain't a half bad plan. I figure we'll scapegoat Chainlink."
>"Ye boss. I'll uh... put some of Chainlink's gnoll's blood on these bags, make it look more authentic, then deliver it... eh, can we get someone else to deliver it?" Leaf bobs his head back and forth. Not sure if he's thinking or if he's just making waves in the pond for fun.
"Yeah, send Hilt on that shit. May as well wait till next week anyway, cause if we had all our shit stolen and a dumbass gnoll like Hilt showed up the next day, I'd probly stab 'im. Wait, don't send them all of their crap back. We need some gold for those humans."
>"Yes." says Matron. "It's perfectly believable that they didn't keep all of the Snake's goods together."
"Is Grasswind gonna bitch about sending some of her prizes back?"
>"She'd better not." Matron continues. "Besides, she has her name back, doesn't she? That will make it clear that her efforts weren't in vain."
"Well whatever, keep her east of here."

2/3 Clamp 2018/09/01(Sat)19:09 No. 900008 ID: bfb318
File 153585419960.png - (172.81KB , 800x800 , 221.png )

Training continues for the rest of the week without incident. They're still crap, but Hilt reminds me that all of us fight regularly, so another week of training isn't going to change everything. Apparently a lot of the week was spent unlearning, which I thought was the opposite of what was supposed to go on, but I guess if they were doing shitty things, now they're not.

Matron also spends some time counting up all our gold coins and general wealth. I and no one around here knows a damn thing about specific prices so we just clump up different kinds of items into one big estimate.


End of Week 2

I review Matron's report, which she made with Leaf and Hilt's help. I make notes where I want then go to bed.

3/3 Leaf 2018/09/01(Sat)19:10 No. 900009 ID: bfb318
File 153585422560.png - (245.45KB , 1000x800 , 222.png )

Okay this is my week away from home.

I mean really away from home like I'm going to be in a different clan for a bit.

"Hilt."
>"Oh hey."
"Here's your bloody bag. Please return it to the Snake Clan."
>"You got it, buddy."

I make sure he can recite where to go in good detail to find the Snake Clan, as well as assurance that he won't wag his tail when he sees them. There's not a lot of good landmarks in that area, so I sent one of the less bad scouts to go with him. Stemwalker will stay here at all times to help protect Clamp. I told the carpenters to take a little time off to build a wooden structure around Clamp's tent. He'll probably gripe about how dumb it is to have a crappy wooden house over his tent, but it's so so much more dumb to just sleep out in the open where scouts could just shoot arrows into his tent. He's the toughest gnoll I know and that's the only reason he's still alive because wow that's so dumb.

>"You're trailing off there, what're ya thinking?"
"How stupid and dumb our boss can be."
>"Whoa. Well I called you buddy, and that means I won't pass it on!"
"It's okay he knows how I feel."

I wonder if there's anything I should do here before I leave.

>I wonder if there's anything I should do here before I leave.
Matron.

Stick a "Kick Me" sign on the back of your worst scout without them noticing.

Tell Clamp that you are leaving, hug him, tell him to not do anything dumb while you're gone, tell him to no do anything dumb while you're gone again.

>>900015
This, because they deserve it. Dumbass scouts, they need to get better.

>>900015
this.

>>900015
Yep.

>>900014
*ba dum tss*

>>900015
Good idea!

Too bad Leaf won’t be able to stick around and see if someone actually kicks the scout he put that sign on!

tell clamp you're leaving. it's always good to keep the chief updated! hopefully he won't do anything foolish while you're gone... but you know him. he almost certainly will.

say goodbye to talon too. he's sort of your friend right?

oh, and don't forget to pick up that gold clamp was going to give you to trade with on your way out, if you haven't already!

Go hug Clamp and tell him that you’ll miss him and make him promise that he won’t forget about you and replace you!

ambush clamp with a akward hug before you go! and make it creepy

1/4 Leaf 2018/09/16(Sun)17:15 No. 901994 ID: bfb318
File 153714330432.png - (223.98KB , 800x800 , 223.png )

>Matron
I dunno if I mess with her too much Clamp'll get mad and so will she.

I guess there are a couple of things to get in order, so first I go over to one of the newer scouts.

"Hi Guarder."
>"Whoa. Leaf. Hi. What's going on?"
"Nothin'."
>"... then why'd ya say 'hi'?!
"'cause I'm all civilized and that's what I do. No other reason."

Come to think of it, there's not many gnolls here that can read 'kick me'.

Then again, it only takes one, and they just have to point it out to everyone else.

2/4 Leaf 2018/09/16(Sun)17:15 No. 901995 ID: bfb318
File 153714331620.png - (252.76KB , 800x800 , 224.png )

Then I go to tell Clamp I'm leaving. I don't see Talon but we aren't best buds anyway.

>"Th'fuck you doin."
"Gettin' your scent."
>"The fuck, Leaf."
"It's gotta be a big scent otherwise it won't last all week and I won't find the way back."
>"If you don't get back in a week I will fucking find you myself, so don't give me that! Take that gold to trade with and get outta here."

3/4 Leaf 2018/09/16(Sun)17:15 No. 901996 ID: bfb318
File 153714335234.png - (287.08KB , 1000x800 , 225.png )

I find the large lady and wizard from before, by Blacktorch where they said they'd be waiting.

>"Well look who it is. You came." says the large girl.
"Yeah."
>"Stay ahead of us where we can see you, and don't get in the bubble."

4/4 Leaf 2018/09/16(Sun)17:16 No. 901997 ID: bfb318
File 153714336689.png - (186.65KB , 1200x800 , 226.png )

We leave and cross the big dividing river between the gnolls and humans. It's easy to tell since the humans chopped down all the trees on their side.

"So I can't help but notice you guys just sort of walk around here like you own the place."
>"We do." says the wizard.
"Do the humans know that?"
>"They pretend we don't."
"That's enough for them to take up arms, and only two of you walked though here?"
>"They don't know it's just us two. We've had our warriors look alone to lure humans into chasing them. Then we spring an ambush on them with a bunch more. They caught on, and now think twice about chasing a couple gnolls. That means that as long as we don't start burning shit, they won't bug a few gnolls too hard."

A wagon comes up over a hill to our left. They spot us, turn around, and roll back down the hill again.

>"Ignore the fuckers." says the girl. "No fighters in the wagon means nothing of value."

If I were a human and I knew that, then I'd put all my valuables where there's no guards.

Do not point that out to them. If that is a weakness we want to save it for ourselves. Would be a great way to get humans pissed at these guys. Wreck up a bunch of caravans and get the humans down on another gnoll pack.

I would say make idle conversation but you would probably weird them out.

Wait go ahead and make idle conversation. It will be for the best.

Point out that it might be worth checking out the wagons since the humans are crafty basterd's and probably exploit the fact you guys don't mess with "unarmed" wagons.

or this two I guess

tell them its rude not to share their bubble. you're supposed to be allies for the next week at least.

>>901999
All of this.

Tell 'em.

Still, whether or not unguarded wagons hide something, stopping every wagon might be impractical - and if the humans couldn't get anything past the gnolls, they'd probably become a problem too big to ignore.

>>901999
This.

Also, where's your Strength sash, I only see the one. You not down for the whole 'X' look?

Well, they are kind of smart. But apparently not enough. This will be a great chance to spy on them. Ask stuff. Something that sounds dumb and unimportant but that it could led them to spill out something juicy.

>>901997
Save that information for later. Clamp has something going on with the humans and we don't want the Rich Wizard Gnolls getting too much stronger. You're here to help them out and clear a debt, not supercharge them.

>>902029
Clamp gave that one to Matron.

Don't give such information to these guys.

Searching every wagon for hidden valuables would attract almost as much attention as setting things on fire.

Also, you're a gnoll and not accustomed to having much in the way of valuables, or operating in areas with high population density. Sure, posting visible guards means you might get robbed by smart, powerful people... but then again, the guards might fight them off, and the odds of randomly encountering smart, powerful people are low. Leaving your valuables entirely unguarded means they might be stolen by random idiots, which is a far more frequent sort of risk and more embarrassing when it does happen.

Think of it like weather. Building a hut might lead to a higher chance of getting struck by lightning, but no shelter means definitely being stuck out in the rain, enough of which can still kill somebody by hypothermia.

...and while we're on the subject of paranoia,Just let that image of our camp geting butt-fucked while you're gone,Then when you get back all is left is Clamp passed out on a mountain of dead gnoll's with leaving Shabin to clean up all the blood and body part's.

1/3 Leaf 2018/09/25(Tue)20:41 No. 903217 ID: bfb318
File 153793329298.png - (349.17KB , 1000x800 , 227.png )

I'm not gonna tell them any of that though since I might be wrong and also I don't want to actually help these guys.

"Hey can I get in the bubble yet?"
>"Why?"
"'cause this is a team building thing right and why would you have me come and help if you're not going to trust me to share bubbles?"
>"You're still an assassin and we don't trust you that much."
"How'm I supposed to help with that attitude?"
>"We'll show you."

We walk on for awhile, then the lady starts pawing at the ground. She lifts a hatch.

2/3 Leaf 2018/09/25(Tue)20:41 No. 903218 ID: bfb318
File 153793330170.png - (261.08KB , 1200x800 , 228.png )

"Oh uh who're these gnolls cause it looks like they don't have that plainswalker's appetite."
>"Slaves. They dig our tunnels. Don't talk to them. If they talk to you, kill them."
"No humans?"
>"We'd like to sometime. But right now they'd descend on us hard if we did more than ransack the occasional caravan."

Oh it's one of these zero-chill slave driver clans. Slaves haven't been a thing in decades.

"So uh, whole camp's like an underground town?"
>"Like we'd set up camp above ground where we could be seen!"
"I kind of thought you guys were so strong that it didn't matter."
>"We don't have to be strong and dumb."

This isn't even a hole with a camp in it, there's a whole underground set of tunnels going on. The dirt does seem pretty soft around here.

... I am a little envious about how this place looks defensible. Unlike our place. I wonder if I could hear Clamp if he yelled as loud as he could.

3/3 Leaf 2018/09/25(Tue)20:42 No. 903220 ID: bfb318
File 153793334857.png - (252.14KB , 800x800 , 229.png )

They push me into a stone room with a few big guys. One of them sits like he's their chief.

>"You're Leaf?"
"I am a leaf, yes. I mean yes I'm Leaf."
>"Well I'm the chief of the plains. Your debt to Goldhunter will be this. You can read, right?"
"Yeh."

He tosses me a piece of paper that looks like a human's report, then starts pointing at his map.

Three gnolls from the plains have been captured. We are sending them to you for interrogation on their whereabouts. We hope to have their location by tomorrow morning so that we may finally stamp them out.
Signed, Captain Marsh

>"We caught a runner with that letter." says the chief. "Those gnolls know every damn tunnel down here! We can afford to have some human find a random tunnel now and then, but knowing the whole layout's no good. The letter was supposed to be delivered to Twin's Keep, so that's where those gnolls should be tonight."
"And you want me to rescue them?"
>"No, I want you to kill them. No gnoll of ours gets captured. Those are now enemy gnolls who have secrets they shouldn't."

>>903220
Yeah okay. Wait, weren't you supposed to stay here for a couple months? It wasn't supposed to be a one-job deal.

Tempting to try to get one of them out and back to Clamp...

>>903220
Okay. Easy enough. You already know a lot about this place's layout just by being here.

Also, they are definitely planning to murder you and enslave your friends. Dang zero-chill murdering assholes.

Three assassinations and that's the debt? Just want to double check that. So, ok, what do they look like, what are their skills and personalities, where do you think they are and what do you know about the people who have them, and what proof do you want that they've been killed? Ears? Tails?

>>903218
>"Oh uh who're these gnolls cause it looks like they don't have that plainswalker's appetite."
Ha! Leaf just collectively called all of them fat! XD

>>903220
>"No, I want you to kill them. No gnoll of ours gets captured. Those are now enemy gnolls who have secrets they shouldn't."
Sucks for them.

This may be a bad time to mention that you’re technically an enemy gnoll and you now know secrets that you shouldn’t know about them and-oh, duh, they’re planning on killing you when you’ve paid off your debt at the end of the week.

>>903221
>Wait, weren't you supposed to stay here for a couple months?
It’s supposed to be for one week.

Yeah, this is a total suicide mission. I bet you that even if we got into Twin's peak, killed those three guys and then got out, we'd be considered an "enemy gnoll" the literal second we came back and delivered a report to these no-chill slaving fucks.

Which is why we should do it anyway. It'll get us out of these fucking caves and gives us a better opportunity for some far craftier betrayal that'll put the hurt on these dicks.

(I, for one, am thinking slave revolt. We could tip off the humans as well, but that's too obvious)

Ok.

I don't like these assholes, they keep slaves rather then giving them an opportunity to join or doing the work themselves the lazy cunts, they don't seem to really care about each other hell they're punishing these three for a screw up with death, and you know damn well that if they had killed one of ours they wouldn't be giving us any kind of payment or recompense.

If we could talk to the humans we could maybe strengthen Stormholds relations with them by helping them deal with Plainswhatevers, maybe tell the three captured gnolls that their own clan wants them dead and if they help you and the humans they can be a part of your clan.
A slave revolt at the same time as a human raid would help immensely.

Say whatever you need to say to get out of here alive, then go become Captain Marsh's new best friend.

Oh. So they want to kill or permanently recruit you since once you know their tunnels you can't leave.

You could start a slave revolt, or bring one of these assholes back to clamp.
They are probably expecting that last one, but can they keep up with you?

I think the most feasible plot we could try is to try and fake at least one of the captured gnolls' deaths - preferably the one most open to the idea that they can't go back to the Plainswalkers - and send them back to our camp. We'll have to get to them while they're still in Twin's Keep, since that's outside of the Plainswalkers' area of control, and a lone escapee is less likely to be noticed by anyone we care about. Ask how you're supposed to let them know you were successful.

plan on faking the gnolls deaths if at all possible and bringing them back to clamp and your own clan. make sure the location of this place doesn't get out - chances are innocent people and the slaves (who could really stand to be freed, keep an eye out for chances to do that) would be the ones who get hurt while the leaders escape.

Tell him if he wants you to bring back their heads that's really impractical, dragging each one along with you to the other will mess up your chances of getting them all much less escaping to bring them all back. It'll need to be something smaller.

Hopefully if you make sure he understands that you're taking his statement that these killings wipe the whole debt as fact, then all you need to do when you come back is drop the proof down an entrance with a note, give a call for them to pick it up then leave, which should preclude any chance of them easily stabbing you in the back afterwards.

Steal these secret gnoll's for your tribe instead of killing them.

Then get some horrible trophies from other dead gnoll's you kill on the way there.

These idiots will want them as proof of the kill.

1/3 Leaf 2018/10/02(Tue)16:07 No. 904572 ID: bfb318
File 153852166153.png - (136.37KB , 800x800 , 230.png )

>Length of stay?
Just a week.

>Thoughts of betrayal
They sure did show me all their secret tunnels, but, wellll... they're a little cocky and I don't think they think Clamp's clan - uh, I guess it's Clan Stormhold? - can beat them out here.

And I mean they probably aren't wrong. There's like 8 of us that are as good or better than most plainsgnolls.

I wonder if they're trusting me not to tell the humans where they're at. It's real taboo to get other races to fight other gnolls instead of doing it yourself. Maybe that's why these guys are allying up to get at Clamp I guess, since he sure did exactly that because he didn't know about that taboo and I just didn't care.

But maybe they don't know there were humans involved in taking out Wind? I don't think even the wanderers that hang out at our clan would've heard about it because, uh, since it was taboo, we just kind of... didn't talk about it. Like it never happened.

Still though this kind of stinks bad.

>"You there?"
"Yeah I'm just thinkin' to myself. This one thing will clear off the whole debt?"
>"That's right. But if you want to stay for the full week, you can have full looting benefits. We'll talk about that if you succeed here."
"Are the ears fine?"
>"Huh? Oh, yeah, if you take a whole ear from each, we'll figure you were close enough to them to kill them."

2/3 Leaf 2018/10/02(Tue)16:07 No. 904574 ID: bfb318
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>This is a suicide mission
>They want to kill you
>Say what you need to say to get out there

"Uh."

"Ok I'll do it."

.......

3/3 Leaf 2018/10/02(Tue)16:08 No. 904576 ID: bfb318
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Yep that worked.

They gave me some time to study the maps and what they know and stuff, before guiding me out of another exit.

I can make it to the fort this late afternoon, and the Plainsgnolls say the target gnolls will probably get there around sundown, in a probably well guarded caravan.

So first up I could just do the mission. Human garrisons usually aren't much better than gnoll... uh, whatever we call our garrisons. If I leave now I'll have time to scout out the fort.

Or secondly I could sprint back to Stormhold and ask Clamp how he feels about fucking up the plainsgnolls, then sprint back and either do the mission or not. I can run basically forever.

Either way I want to go into the fort later, because there's going to be a storm.

There's also all the gold I have for trading. I didn't ask but I guess I could spend my time trading for stuff, but that'd kill some time.

>>904576
Trade for a few supplies that would help in general for infiltrating the fort. Get a healing potion if you can.
I think we should treat this like an opportunity to steal shit from the human fort. Either valuables or information.

>>904576

Yeah, nah, don't run for days if you don't have to. Use your noggin and think about what Clamp would do, then do what he'd actually want instead, like a good right-hand (or is that ambidextrous?) gnoll.

... Clamp would probably have wanted you to recruit the prisoners, pending them being actually competent and shit. You'll have to see if any of 'em are good prospects for Storm hold and whether you can keep their recruitment from becoming an issue with the Plainskeepers.

On the other hand, those three gnolls did get captured like morons - are they worth possibly pissing off one of the more powerful clans around? Maybe when you find them you can interrogate 'em a bit on how they got captured and what their skillsets are, under pretense of helpin' 'em get free. Might even be able to see whether the Plainswalkers are entertaining the notion of allying with Chainlink. If they aren't, we might just want to do their job so we can keep 'em from accepting an invite into the 'Shit on Storm Hold' club Chainlink's got going.

Granted, Clamp didn't know the Plainskeepers were slave-owning asstards. Last I recall, he wasn't a huge fan of that.

The real question here is whether we want to actually seriously try to make the Plainskeepers friends - or just neutrals - or whether we want to mess them up and take their stuff, despite being one of the stronger clans around. For now, we should just do our thing, figure out some more intel, and then decide.

As an option, you could also possibly do the taboo thing and bring in the humans.

Nah. Unless it starts to look real, real ugly we probably don't have to go that far. Would bring a hell of a lot of flak Clamp's way if you got outed, too, thanks to taboo.

According to that letter, humans were already planning to "stamp out" the plains gnolls. Clamp sent you here to clear a debt; if your creditors have been destroyed, the debt's effectively been cleared. The people you might plausibly piss off by violating that taboo are pretty much already your enemies, whereas Storm Hold has been making some progress toward diplomacy with humans.

And if you come back a week later saying "Oh, the plains guys, with the magic? Yeah, they're all dead now. They were horrible slavers and sorta tried to kill me, do I simply did what was necessary," that's going to add to your legend.

You don't need to kill them to take their ears, you know. You can make it look like you've done your job, step out and let the plains gnolls get absolutely blindsided.

Alright, first off. Don't run back to stormhold. No offense, you are insanely good but all it's gonna take is one of these chucklefucks to realize you didn't leave to the human garrison to ruin things, so let's not do that.

secondly... If we're going to wait for the storm, we might as well do some shopping. I doubt that these guys have anything tremendously useful to you, barring a healing potion but I could be wrong.

You don't need to actually talk to humans to have them stomp the plainsgnolls: Just go there, cut an ear off the prisoners, and inform them you were told to kill them and bring back their ears as proof. If that doesn't make them eager to reveal what they know to humans, nothing will.

>>904576
Yeah, head to the human fort. Try approaching peacefully. Do the sneaking thing and go up to their commander to ask him questions.

>>904661
I think >>904654's suggestion has a much better chance of us not getting outed.

>>904572
Here's another way to look at this: their guys got caught, so as far as they're concerned, the humans already know where their tunnels are. If you backstab them by letting those gnolls live you don't make anything worse, you just let it stay the same bad. But if you kill them before they talk, you make things better!

Assuming they don't have any good sneaky assassin types of their own, this is a reasonably good loyalty test. They're not risking anything they weren't risking anyways. It's a gamble to see if you help them in a way they couldn't help themselves.

>>904576
>what do
Trade first, in case you don't come back.

Don't go to bother Clamp, you'll just annoy him.

Then let's go sneak into the human place. Maybe we'll kill these gnolls, maybe they'll make a better offer or something, either way you got an excuse to scout this human place.

Trade with the humans; knowledge about the plains gnolls tunnels in return for freeing the gnolls the captured.

Then go back to Clamps Camp with your new friends and let the humans go to war with the plains gnolls.

>>905103
That's assuming we can sneak them back across Plains Walker territory. Sneaking a "dead" gnoll back to Stormhold will be way easier if we do it from the more tangential Twin's Keep. Also, directly engaging in a pincer attack with the humans would be a dead giveaway of our dealings with them after the fact, and is just asking for friendly fire in the meantime.

>>905112
No I mean let the humans deal with them entirely. Best case; the plains gnolls assume their base/tunnels were given away by the gnolls Leaf was sent to kill before he got there.

I'm with >>904595

I feel like planning for contingencies is fine, but you should probably go ahead and do the job that you agreed to, in good faith. We're here in the first place because we were trying not to make more enemies, don't be the first to betray.

Leaf 2018/10/07(Sun)13:01 No. 905563 ID: bfb318
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I was given 500 gold for trading. I go back in the tunnels.

>"That was fast." says the lady.
"Yeah uh I forgot I wanted to trade for stuff. I have gold."
>"Yeah? What do you need?"
"What do you have?"
>"Nuh-uh. You're an enemy clan. We aren't showing you everything we got. But we got a lot. So you tell us what you want, and how much you're willing to pay.

I can probably guess how much a thing is worth I guess, but I have to think up what I need. Healing potions are cool, but they might have all kinds of spell scrolls and equipment and stuff, since Clamp's been unhappy with the swords we have.

get ALL of the swords

Ask for some oiled leather armor, or some padded armor with a plated but un-chained brigandine.

How much it's worth to you depends on it's quality, fit, and amount of noise it makes.
You're looking for something silent.

Also, a few health potions would be nice.

Remember what the merchant and Hilt taught you and don't get robbed. Metaphorically.

Healing pots. Inquire about prices. Buy 4 if they cost less than 50 gold. If they cost less than 100 gold, buy 2. For 200 or less, buy 1, if it's a quality one. If there are multiple qualities, get a rough mix, but at least one high-quality one, as that's probably the backup life-saver we want to have.

Magic trap scrolls - multiple, if they're cheap enough. Alarm scrolls, the same. Your scouts need all the help they can get.

Are spyglasses still ridiculously expensive? Get one if it's cheap (they can't have much use for it if it's underground), if not, nope out of it.

Don't buy swords. We've got a blacksmith that can make swords. What we can buy is a MAGIC sword. In case of werewolves or ghosts.

... actually, buy a silver ingot or silverware, they should've plundered plenty from the humans. Could be used as gifts to make that werewolf-killing clan an ally, or turn 'em friendlier, after our initial foray.

Snake clan likes silver, right?

If you can't afford it all, prioritize buying magic shit, as we're somewhat lacking in that department.

>>905563
Either ask for something that’ll be useful for the mission they’ve sent you on or ask for something that you can give to Clamp later.

>>905619
Aren’t Leaf’s knives considered magic? After all, he can get an infinite amount of them from his magic sash.

Some proper equipment would be nice. Weapons mainly. You don't use armor and shils right? We can exclude those.

>>905563
Ask if they have scrolls to summon fireballs.

1/2 Leaf 2018/12/21(Fri)12:49 No. 914687 ID: 7a524b
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I guess there's a few things I want from these guys.

"Do you have a fireball scroll?"
>"No."
"Padded armor with unchained brigandine?"
>"No."
"Spyglasses?"
>"No."
"Magic trap - "
>"No."
"... healing potions?"
>"100g a glass."
"Yeah two of those then. How about oiled leather armor?"
>"Sure, we have something that'll fit."
"What about plain weapons?"
>"Got some junk iron weapons we want to pawn off, yeah. Have a look."

They're not bad. Plain and all but they're straight and solid and sword. It's weird and concerning to buy armor and weapons from probable enemies but here we are in life. Maybe that's why they don't want to sell me good magic stuff, I'm sure they at least have a magic trap scroll.

Technically we have a blacksmith but it's going to take a long time for him to catch up on our sword needs, especially since half of our gnolls use swords like clubs.

I'll buy them later when I can actually carry them.

2/2 Leaf 2018/12/21(Fri)12:50 No. 914688 ID: 7a524b
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So I have 2 healing potions and armor for myself, with 100 gold left over for later.

I make sure all my stuff isn't rattling around and head to the fort. I put on the armor because it has pockets, and the cloak because I think I look cool in it.

It's about to rain any second, and it's close to dusk, too. If I wait 30 minutes I'll have good cover. This ditch gives me good cover until then.

The walls look a little tall, but rough and easy to climb. There's about 5 rooms on the wall that they can use torches in, but the gaps will be dark. It doesn't look like the kind of place that's supposed to last in a siege, just a stopping post or something like that.

Get your cloak up and find a good spot to get rained on.

Then wait for good light and climb that wall in the spot that looks best. If its raining the guards will be huddled under cover and not paying much attention.

>>914689

Remember not to track mud and water indoors, except where the locals are already doing it.

>>914688
Try to not let your bright white eyes hive away your position!

>>914710
>give away your position!
Fixed that for you.

And I agree with what you said.

I think Leaf is well acquainted with the basics (and advanceds) of stealth, we're supposed to choose how he enters the fort.

He should definitely wait 30 minutes though. Getting spotted before entering the fort is even worse than being spotted inside it.

>>914732
Good plan, let’s do that.

>>914688
Wait half an hour then slink in via the murderholes.