Spring 159On the general situation of the warThe year’s first season was surprisingly calm at home. War, as we will see, is pacing up and gaining in intensity as the final battle approaches, the border also recedes further and further in the meantime.
At this point in time, the last Osmite attempt to attack the bridge town happened two years ago.
The recent beating their armies took reverted 40 years of incremental gains : Osme has been pushed back to its year 119 borders.
Osmite territory is now bordered in the north by the fortress of Stozuumu, bordering the Nuzko jungle, cursed piece of woodland no man should venture in, and in the west by the fortress of Stustonako.
With their villages falling one after another to the implacable advance of the Army of Pearls, Osmite warlords gathered their forces in the fortress of Sustonako to prepare the upcoming battle, in an ultimate attempt to stop our advance.
Now this strategy worries us quite a bit – we are not sure at all we can defeat that fortress. But on the upside, as long as Osmite army is completely pinned in that one fortress, means that not only our security is more or less assured at home, but we have also free reign in the offense as well.
In short; things are going exceptionally well for now, but the final battle at Stustonako proper makes us anxious.
Foothold gained in Stustonako suburbsNow the battle for Stustonako is engaged and ongoing, it is important that we gain a foothold in its suburb to later on be used as a springboard for further development ; only when all the suburbs are conquered can the fortress really be breached.
Because the suburb of Snudubabusp was already weakened by skirmishes last winter, the army of Pearls decided to exploit and reinforce their advantage: another attack was launched the 26th of March. This time, the villagers managed to line up a half squad of infantry. Because their officers were killed, they entrenched and waited for the pearlites.
That passive and defensive stance proved surprising for Histamine, used to exploit the lack of patience of Osmite warlords and lure their forces in the open, where Islas heavy mobile infantry slams into them.
Had Osme used that strategy when they had the forces to make it count, the outcome of previous battles could have been very different… This time, Pearlites had to fight in trenches, but against five goblins, it made no difference. The defenders were slain, and Aru’s occupation squad took control of the suburb the 8th of April.
Now the army of Pearls had a foothold in Sustonako and the army of Pearls still had unaffected reserves – momentum was capitalized on. The next suburb, Matoluru, was attacked the 20th of April, and captured the 5th of May.
During the battle for Matoluru suburb, a number of attack grizzly bears were added to the assault units, with good results.
Spisba, lord of Matoluru, is torn to shreds by the bear Kaslun. Fatally wounded, the lord manages to chase off the bear – later on, Gal, swordmistress of the Heavy Mobile Squad, found him bleeding out and put him out of his misery.Animal units proved to be nowhere near as effective as weapon masters, but inflicted casualties nonetheless. Besides, we find that they might complement occupation units and reduce their need for manpower in the future.
Snodubabusp and Matoluru suburbds fall, Slaxungostong suburb is taken in a pocketEconomy and domestic developmentBecause with all the fighting going on in the front, Histamine – who happens to also be the city’s broker, was probably not on the top of her game during the spring festival. With the elves that came this year, she managed to barter cloth jewlery against grown wood fuel. Because elves came to town without a lot of valuable trade goods besides burning wood, Histamine thought it was a good idea to send a gift to their queen – to insure good relations between Mong Kima and Iferifiyopi.
But as it happened last time, the unverified crates of trade goods contained one single scepter crafted out of a persimmon branch. The elves were outraged and left immediately.
Last time it happened, it was two years ago, in 157. We might want to try to get rid of wooden craft good in general – upsetting cultural sensibilities of our allies for items of such low value is not worth it. Hopefully they will accept our apologies next year and this incident will not degrade our relations with them too much.
The construction of the city also continues. The dying workshop has finally been completed, and additional small individual bedrooms, meant to shelter farmers and apprentice craft-men, were build under the bridge. We still lack the material to make large improvements on the mausoleum, it is also not our first priority, but it will be done eventually.
On the bridge itself, substantial progress has been made to complete the army barracks – it is a bit absurd it wasn’t done earlier actually – and Lady Uquur’s quarters has been installed in the Palace.
On the western shore, the construction of the building destined to house the smith guild is also making progress, but will likely require years of work to be complete.
Longer term projects include adding more stories to the granary and finish that building we barely started, on the westmost place in the bridge – we still don’t know what to do with it, but we’ll need to finish it so it doesn’t remain an unfinished project forever.
Lats but not least, it is important to note that
our exports are now exceeding our imports, making our trade balance positive for the first time since the foundation of the town.
A note about BirodThe whole season, as the main pearlite forces were establishing a foothold in Stustonako, the Commando has been training in the small suburb of Slaxungostong – in half a year, they robbed their coffers blind.
Birod “Infinite dream of light” was therefore away most of the time – the few days he could spend in town, he would be busy training his swordsmanship and debriefing with his companions. His underage son, Ras, would be left alone in town most of the time.
Kimaeslo Ori was not a dangerous city and a young child would be taken care of by the villagers, but it was a bit distressing to see him unattended. Where was his mother?
Well, after investigation, it turned out that Irud, Birod’s wife, has signed up with the army and was sent to occupy an Osmite village. While we don’t like de-garissoning occupied territories, uncared for children are not a welcome sight either. Therefore, in summer, we’ll conduct a survey of all lone children in town and try to get their parents back home if applicable. If the need arises, they can always be replaced later – this could even be an opportunity to house rescued vagrants.
Three new forest dwellers rescuedSpeaking of vagrants, since the winter rescues has been successfully integrated, we decided to continue our operation with the short-term goal of completely eliminating pearlite forest vagrancy.
At this point in time, most seem to have been rescued and re-integrated to the city, but every now and then we still find stragglers hiding in caves or wandering on the western shore.
This spring, three new souls were saved from the woods:
• Kabár Shaloic
• Rosha Ipomfuri
• Innah Eslikisun
Those people will be spared military activity until the first day of September 161.
Uzu is now a fatherWhen he left the town, Uzu was in a terrible headspace. The constant sight of death and the weight of the responsibilities of sworncaptain had took their toll on his mind, and the execution of his sister Are for murder left him broken and unresponsive.
For years we tried to help him, but no matter what we did, his mood continued to sink. In desperation, he was sent with his wife and their two dogs to the occupied village of Ngomzogast between August and September 157.
Now just because he was sent in mission to Ngomzogast doesn’t mean we stop caring about members of our flock, and after two years of exile, we thought we’d check on him.
And what do you know, we learned that he had become a father recently! His first daughter was born sometimes between Fall and Winter last year, and was named Umil.
Maybe those somewhat forced vacations were the contrivance he needed to finally snap out of his depression.
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Topic: Mong Kima - The Nation of Pearls (DF 0.47.05) (Read 236765 times)