Twinspire Event: "Escalation," 9/28/13

Tylo

Newbie
Dame Kali kept her chamber half-lit and unheated, the small glow from the candelabras providing almost no warmth and throwing the edges of things into confusion. Even on his hundredth visit, it still made Major Harkin quiver.
“Sit,” Dame Kali ordered, gesturing with a gloved hand. She spoke as she always did: quick, icy, and passing harsh.
Harkin did as he was told, dropping into the chair set in front of the huge slab of stone Dame Kali claimed as a desk. Dame Kali remained standing, regarding Harkin with brittle detachment.
“Report,” she said.
Harkin swallowed. “The nodes are all but secured. The sappers have developed a better system for rotating the entry phrases, and none of the ones known to Tezushi or the other abductees will be used again.”
Dame Kali scribbled in a leather-bound book as she listened.
“The dwarven commanders have agreed to a code system," Harkin continued. "My man-at-arms is preparing a full explanation of the structure for your eyes only.”
Her eyes narrowed a moment. Harkin locked his teeth against the urge to look away.
“Damages,” she said.
“What?”
“Tell me about damages.”
Harkin nodded, swallowed. “Widespread but completely manageable. The Night of Gates did much less damage than it could have, and we caused a great many casualties ourselves. The loss of the refinery has been a major blow, and we’re seeing an increased push in the Veldt after the loss of the recruitment center, but both are being managed. Overall, morale is still high. If anything, the Night of Gates has cemented our cause in some areas of the populace.“
Dame Kali stood up from her table, quill set aside. “Major Harkin,” she said, a serpentine calm crawling through her words, “you are brilliant at many things. Diplomacy is not one of them.”
Harkin didn’t dare to respond. Dame Kali strolled around to the front of her desk, looming over him.
“Here is what your damage report should have said.” She marched back and forth in front of her desk, gesturing casually as she spoke. “The assault on the Battlegrounds Mist Gate was a failure, and resulted in a man getting captured. The forces stationed at the gypsy camp were wiped out, and our message not only intercepted, but deciphered. The Deathcaps made contact with the outlanders and were to a man resurrected. Then the outlanders, somehow, shot a spike of magic through our node network that removed all our protections, while shielding Battlegrounds; and in short order, we lost a low-sentient recruitment station, a mithril refinery, and one of our rear command posts. Even if this has our rank-and-file chomping at the bit, that is a catastrophe.”
“Dame Captain, we could not have anticipated - “
Dame Kali’s stare quieted him.
“‘Could not’ is not in the General’s vocabulary,” she said. “We should have anticipated something like this. We should anticipate anything and everything from them.” She kept pacing, her movements sharper, more agitated. “They do the impossible. That is the definition of who they are. It will take the impossible to defeat them.”
Her voice ebbed away, distant, more a mutter than a speech. Harkin sat, listening, until she stopped. With a deep inhale, Dame Kali turned back to him, her face once more the familiar black mask.
“Take a message, Harkin. Have it sent to Foreman Entor, Foreman Kharzar, Captain Heartgrinder, Luridus, and all my officers.” She sat back against her desk, the tension inside her starting to uncoil. “Tell them we concur with General Stormbreaker that the Fields of Fire strategy is necessary at this juncture.”
Harkin blinked, and nodded. “Of course, Dame Captain.”
“Add to the message for Sir Xerxes that his experiments must be made his top priority.”
“Of course, Dame Captain.”
"In the messages to the officers, call a meeting here. We need to decide how we are going to approach the outlander situation."
"Of course, Dame Captain."
“But first, give an amnesia elixir to your man-at-arms.”
Harkin froze halfway out of his chair.
“He does not need to know the structure of our organization, Harkin.” She walked back around her desk. “Therefore, he will not.”
Harkin swallowed. Harkin stammered. And Harkin nodded, mumbled his assent, and walked out.


Pre-registration for Alliance San Francisco's September 28th Twinspire Faire Day is open!

The pre-registration deadline is Thursday, September 26th, at 11:59 PM. Pre-registration is mandatory if you wish to PC at a Faire Day; non-pre-registered players will be asked to NPC. Additionally, as with last event, we will need a certain number of PCs to be pre-registered by the deadline, otherwise we will be cancelling the event.

The deadline for downtimes for this event is Saturday, September 14th at 12:00PM. Any downtime submissions received after that time will not be responded to until after the event. (Follow-up queries about a downtime we have already responded to are fine.)

Location: Stulsaft Park in Redwood City (directions to come)

Price: $15. Non-members will be assessed an additional $10 fee.

Please use the pre-registration form located here to register for the event. If you wish to pre-pay for the event, you may do so here. Please remember that if you plan to pay on arrival you will need to bring cash, as we do not take checks or credit cards.

Registered Players:

Registered Cast/Crew:

Current Incomplete Pre-registrations:

Please see Logistics and You for more information on what is required to complete your pre-registration and remember that you will need to bring all related tags to logistics, or logistics will not be able to check you in. This includes magic item tags, spell and production books, and workshop tags. Any magic items being brought to game not pre-registered or checked in at logistics will not be able to be used.

There will be no opening ceremonies at this event. Any LCO calls or other OOG updates you may need will be provided on a printed sheet that will be available at check-in. We will make sure there are copies for everyone who pre-regged and a few more on top of that (if there is no sheet due to no updates, that will be made clear when you check in). Twinspire staff will be running the event assuming everybody has read the listen-up sheet; questions about LCO calls will be addressed on the field by Twinspire staff as needed.

Writers will be at the park and ready to run the game by 10AM. The Job Board will be open at 10AM and in-game events will begin occurring at that time. If you have any follow-ups to your downtime responses or other questions you wish to speak to a writer about in private, come between 10AM and 11AM and a writer will be available. After 11AM, writer availability for private discussions will be highly variable.

Hope to see you at the event!
 
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