You run for your life, along with the other surviving monks. As you leave town, you can hear the screams of townspeople as the bandits start raping and pillaging the town. Apparently the bandits decided to get what satisfaction they could out of the town since the town couldn't pay their tribute. Sometime in the middle of the night, you finally [[arrive back at the monastary]].
"Those might prove helpful, and I shall have monks start making them, good suggestion."\n\n[[Return|"We need ranged weapons"]]\n\n<<set $bolas to true>>
You order your archers to prepare to fire at the barrel the instant your man is back accross. The enemy army continues to advance towards the river, and opens fire on the man in the middle of the dam, as well as on your main army. \n<<if (random(0,100) < 30)>> \nYour man manages to stumble back to your side of the river unharmed, though a stray arrow did hit one of your other men in the shoulder. \n<<else>>\nYour man is caught in the leg by an arrow, but manages to stumble accross. While he is stumbling accross, however, another three of your men are hit by arrows, two of which die on the spot and the other of which is hit in the arm. \n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-2)>>\n<<endif>>\nYour archers detonate the explosive barrel, creating a large explosion that takes a huge chunk out of the center of the dam. The dam proceeds to collapse entirely, releasing a massive torrent of water downstream. You quickly order your men to back away from the river, not wanting to get into a doomed shootout across the river. You [[return to the camp]] to discuss your next move.
You return to the capital, and report the outcome to your battalion commander. Your commander seems disappointed but unsurprised by your failure to find the Cinethrans. A few days later, a set of barracks are burnt to the ground, and you are sent to [[investigate the fire]].
You collapse back onto your bed, and almost instantly fall asleep once more. You are awoken, still rather groggy, by a soldier informing you that Sathra had requested your presence. You crawl out of bed, put on your armor, belt on your sword, and join Sathra. \n\nSathra explains her plan for blowing up the dam. "You will find an explosive barrel in the luggage train. To blow up the dam, a man will have to place this barrel in the center of the dam, and then this barrel will be ignited by fire arrows. The resulting explosion will be enough to completely destroy the dam."\n\nYou break fast with your men, this time a rather depressing rice porridge of sorts, and then lead your men out to the dam with the explosive barrel in tow. <<if $trusted is false>> Sathra accompanies you. <<endif>>\n\nYou soon reach the dam, though you see an enemy army in the distance approaching the dam quickly.\n\n[[Prepare to defend the dam]]\n\n[[Destroy the dam]]\n\n[[Try to push the barrel over the dam]]\n\n<<set $destroyedDamn to false>>\n<<set $Defended to false>>
You have your monks engage and fall back in a sequence, trying to neither let your monks take too many casualties in close fighting nor let the Cinethrans use their bows.\n<<if random(0,100) > 90>>\nYou manage to lure them near a set of Japreth barracks, and the Japreth quickly join the fight. With their help, you manage to overwhelm Sathra. She tries to retreat, but the Japreth come up from behind her as well, and she is killed with all her men. \n\n[[Legacy|MonkVictory1]]\n<<else if $staff is false or random(0,100) < 70>> However, you are still eventually overwhelmed long before you reach the nearest Japreth barracks. Your sacrifice does buy enough time for the Japreth to mobilize several companies, though, and Sathra loses half her men while trying to escape. In vengeance, she later burns your monastery to the ground.\n\n[[Legacy|MonkConclusion1]]\n<<else>> \nYou manage to lure them near a set of Japreth barracks, and the Japreth quickly join the fight. With their help, you manage to overwhelm Sathra. She tries to retreat, but the Japreth come up from behind her as well, and she is killed with all her men. \n\n[[Legacy|MonkVictory1]]\n<<endif>>
When you explain that this is a routine activity in the investigations that follow such attacks, the guardsmen obediently empty their pockets, revealing a few Japreth coppers, barely enough for a meal. \n\n[[Search their houses|SearchInitialHouses2]]\n\n[[Check the captain's pockets|SearchCaptain'sPockets2]]\n\n[[Ask the guards what happened last night|QuestionInitialGuards2]]\n\n<<set $checkedGuardPockets to true>>
For a few days, things continue on as normal, except with the newcomers not being supervised. However, one night you are awakened to sounds of a struggle and the crackling of flames. \n\nJumping down the stairs, you find that the prisioners are free, and have stolen their weapons, and have already slain a third of your monks. The surviving monks that have woken up are starting to try to form a resistance, but it seems to be a mismatch. You fight desperately trying to even the odds, but you and the other monks are overwhelmed and killed. \n\nWhile you never learned this, those newcomers were sent by Sathra to pretend to be interested in becoming monks and free the prisioners. They gave the monks in charge of watching the prisioners drugged water that caused them to fall asleep during their watch.\n\n[[Legacy|MonkConclusion5]]
Sathra gives you a glance that implies that she doesn't believe you, but cannot prove that you are wrong. Several of the squad leaders tell the truth, however. [[This is not going to be good.|"I decided not to send any message, fighting should be left to soldiers"]]
You are remembered unfairly as a tyrant, your heavy-handed treatment of the gate guards being blown completely out of porportion with the passage of time. Your killers are eventually lauded as heroes, decades after their deaths, and countless myths are built up around you, all with you being the villain. \n\nThe raid on the capitol in which you died was among the worst of the war, and dealt a serious blow to morale. However, the Japreth did not give up, and instead had all the guards in charge of guarding the gate which the attackers had come through executed, and afterwards made sure that the gate guards were loyal, dutiful, and well-treated. \n\nEventually, Japreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. The war continued for almost two decade after your death, and the war proved costly enough that Japreth was eventually conquered by another country to the west, which in turn splintered into several parts in a large civil war, before being taken over by a fourth kingdom. In the end, hundreds of thousands of people died in the wars over Cinethra, and the quality of life for the local people only fell.\n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
Your company commander is shocked and dismayed by how far the treason reached, and that it came down to open fighting in the streets, but he congradulates you for resolving the situation. <<if $createdTratiors is true>> He does, however, ask that you avoid being unnecessarily harsh to innocent soldiers in the future, and hopes that those guards do not require replacing due to your heavy-handedness.<<endif>> He then dismisses you, and you [[return to your quarters]].\n\n<<set $arrestedGuards to true>>
The air in your room is filled with smoke, and you can see flames travelling down the hallway outside your room. Outside, you hear a large collection of large bells and gongs that you never knew the monastery had. You rush outside and sprint down the burning stairs, with your robe catching fire as you run and your feet feeling like they also caught fire. Burning pieces of wood rain down around you, but somehow you manage to get to the bottom of the stairs, and break through the wall of flames in the meditation room. You immediately start rolling on the ground towards the nearest rice patty once you are out of the flames, to put yourself out. The flames don't quite die out until you roll around in the rice patty. They you stand up, muddy but alive, [[to look around]].
Your men do a quite thorough search, while trying not to knock anything over. They fail to find anything, and manage to break a couple pots in the search. The guards seem angry at the search, but keep any complaints under their breath.\n\n[[Ask the guards what happened last night|QuestionInitialGuards2]]\n\n<<set $annoyedGuards to true>>
You order your men to abandon the dam and fall back. This gets your men out of bow range of the enemy, though it is now impossible to destroy the dam so the enemy will likely follow. Surely enough, as you reach your camp and begin quickly packing it up you notice the enemy army slowly crossing the dam single-file and forming up on your side of the river. Sathra orders you to retreat to the capital with the men. She, of course, accompanies you on your retreat. You begin the long, hurried march towards the capital, with the enemy consistently within a half-day's march of you until sunset, at which point they stop. Your legs are quite sore, as likely are the legs of most of your men. You could [[make camp now]] and begin the chase tomorrow, or you could try to [[march through the night]] to gain a bit more space.\n\n<<set $hope to false>>
You return to the capital with the food in tow, and report the outcome to your battalion commander. Your commander replies, "I'm glad you managed to return with some of your men, though it is indeed regretable that you lost the rest of your company, and I cannot approve of you abandoning your company. Still, as long as we keep this between us, I see no reason for formal punishment, and such results are to be expected when fighting Sathra. We'll have to wear her down, and even such apparent losses as you suffered are victories in their own way, for she cannot afford to lose men. Get some rest".\n\nThe next morning are merged into a different company, which lost several men after their provisions were poisoned. The next few days are relatively calm, but then news trickles in that one of the main bridges connecting Japreth to central Cinethra was destroyed, and your company is [[sent to investigate]].
You tell the guard captain that if he doesn't cooperate, you will need to bring him to your commander. The guard captain decides that he still does not want to cooperate, and instead accompanies you to your company commander. Upon arriving, you explain that you need to check the captain's pockets, just as a matter of procedure, after finding evidence that he lied about last night's guard rotation. The guard captain argues vehemently that he is being unnecessarily and unjustly detained, and that there is no need to search his pockets. Your company commander instructs the guard captain to empty his pockets.\n\nThe guard captain eventually relents, and out come a dozen Cinethran gold coins, among other coins, a quite suspicious amount for a Japreth guard captain to have, so he is promptly put under arrest. Your company commander congradulates you on finding out that traitor, and asks you to investigate the rest of the guards of that gate. When you return, you find that most of the guards for the gate disappeared while you were arresting the captain<<if $annoyedGuards is false>>, but that the ones the captain claimed were on duty are still here. Those guards, however, seem to be innocent of any treason<<endif>>. [[You report back to your company commander]].
You decide to flee from Sathra, but not to return to the capital, likely fearing retribution for your insubordination, and instead planning to start stealing food for a living. However, the second caravan you raid for food turns out to be a trap, and soldiers pour out of the caravan and surrounding woods. You are all captured, and later executed. \n\n[[Legacy|OutlawConclusion1]]
<<if random(0,100) < 90>>\nYou continue hiding in your wagon, and for a while everything seems to be going fine. Then your wagon hits a large pothole, causing a small barrel of flour to tumble out of your wagon. You try to catch it, but it is too late. The guards look at the wagon, probably intending to make sure no other goods fall out of it, and instead see you and another soldier waiting in ambush, and quickly raise the alarm. You desperately charge out of the wagon, as do your soldiers, but having lost the advantage of suprise, and being both surrounded and outnumbered you are fairly quickly overwhelmed, only managing to kill a couple dozen Cinethrans. \n\n[[Legacy|WagonConclusion1]]\n<<else>>\nYou continue hiding in your wagon, and somehow you and all your men manage to stay hidden in the wagons for the hours long journey back to the enemy hideout, over long and quite bumpy roads. Once you are in the enemy hideout, and they seem to have fallen asleep, you get out and signal to the rest of your men to follow you. You then kill the entire remnant of the Cinethran army in their sleep.\n\n[[Legacy|TraitorVictory2]]\n<<endif>>
You decide to keep your dreams to yourself. Another couple weeks pass as normal, before [[you are selected to lead a mission]].
A variation on a halberd, these Jis are like spears with a dagger-like crescent blades attached to one side of their heads. \n\n[[Return|GuardsOnDuty2]]
In the morning, your squad leader wakes you up for breakfast, which consists of pork buns seized from a local bakery. After breakfast, the general gives a speech praising the bravery in which we fought to sieze the city, and honoring the fallen. Then he announces the promotions for the army, which are quite a few indeed, and among them is your promotion to squad leader. The general then announces that Sathra has escaped, though the royal family was killed, and ordered a hunt for Sathra. \n\nA few weeks later the entire next food caravan vanished. The Japreth believe that this is not the act of any normal group of brigands, and instead think that Sathra is responsible. Your company commander is put in charge of [[investigating the theft|InvestigateTheft2]].
History remembers you mostly as a traitor, rather than for your long, loyal, honorable, and successful career in the military before the war that claimed your life, but the Japreth military honors you, attributing much of Sathra's defeat to you. Only a few scholars remember that you had been the model officer before then. \n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a year after the fall of Cinethra's last town, but many people think that the war would have lasted years more if not for the damage you did to Sathra's army, and some are wise enough to be grateful for that, at least. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
You are remembered for your bravery and loyalty, though many question your tactics at the dam, and wonder if you lost your tactical genius at the end. \n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
History remembers you as a martyr, who refused to drown thousands of civilians despite the orders of your general, and instead chose to sacrifice yourself to save their lives.\n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
<<set $armyLeft to Math.round($armyLeft)>>\n<<if $enemyMorale < 1 and $armyLeft > 0>>\n[[The Japreth withdraw from occupied Cinethra]], finally tired of having their officers killed, their barracks set on fire, their food and gold stolen, and every bridge destroyed. \n<<else if $armyLeft <= 0>>\nYou and your last men are eventually hunted down and killed. \n[[Legacy|ConferenceConclusion1]]\n<<else>>\nYour spies report that there are more paychest and food caravans coming south to the capital of occupied Cinethra, that the Japreth have hastily appointed new officers, and that most of the Japreth troops are still living in barracks in the capital. They also report that the new Japreth senior officers are hosting another meeting to figure out what to do about you. You have <<print $armyLeft>> soldiers left.\n\n[[Raid the meeting]]\n\n[[Steal a Japreth caravan]]\n\n[[Order an assassination]]\n\n[[Light some barracks on fire]]\n\n[[Surrender|GiveUp2]]\n<<endif>>
You fight your way back down to the gate, slashing through any Japreth who get in your road. The gate shatters shortly before you arrive, in such a way that you hit the enemy in the flank just as they emerge from the gate. You hold out behind the line of dagger carts and mobile walls for a while, though eventually the position starts to look tenous. Sathra urges you to order the men to retreat into the city and snipe from houses.\n\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-80)>>\n\n[[Order your men to retreat into the city]]\n\n[[Hold your position|HoldPostion2]]\n\n<<set $hope to true>>
You decide not to drink the vial in the end, and go to sleep instead. When monks arrive the next morning, they ask for you to be allowed to come with them, which Sathra bluntly refuses to allow, and the monks leave. You continue marching south for two days, at which point you reach the [[capital]].
"I am glad you have seen reason. You will start as a common soldier, but I have a feeling you'll rise through the ranks quickly enough. My men will lead you to your quarters. Make sure to rest well tonight, tomorrow we march towards the capital." \n\nYou are lead to one of the barracks tents. The tent is filled with fellow soldiers, looking well-armed, well-fed, and in fairly high spirits. A few of them give you suspicious looks, but most accept you quickly enough. You learn the new chain of command, with Squad Commander Vemeth being your direct superior, and get to know your squad mates. They seem to treat the war like some kind of game, and you learn that there is a special set of tents for forced prostitutes. Part of you feels guilty for breaking your word and betraying Sathra, while another part feels that this is for the greater good.\n\nIn the morning, you are fed a hearty stew of rice, beef, and vegetables, and ordered to break camp. You march back towards the dam, only to discover that it has already been destroyed, at which point you march upstream for the rest of the day in search of a place to cross. In the end, you find a crossing point the next day, though it takes another two days to get back to the dam on the other side. All this time you are well-fed, and allowed to enter the tent with the forced prostitutes, though you refuse the latter out of principle. After crossing, you begin to march south, and after another three days of marching find yourself before the Cinethran [[capital|capital4]]
You get up, put on your armor, belt on your sword, and leave your tent to break your fast. You and your new squadmates eat together, and are each given a rice ball and a leg of chicken for breakfast, better fare than you've had since you were put under Sathra's command. Everyone eats in silence, and when all have finished, the army gets ready to depart, and leave the camp heading towards the town along the road, lead by General Sathra. \n\nAfter about an hour's walk, you reach the town of [[Nogrith|Norgith2]].
You start to follow the wagon tracks down the road. The wagon tracks turn towards the east at the next intersection, starting to head southeast towards the mountains. Up ahead, the wagon tracks veer onto a small path through the woods, heading northeast perpendicular to the main path. Your commander orders you to [[continue following the tracks]].
Sathra is renowned for both her cunning and her brutality. \n\nRumor is that when she starved one city out, she announced to the city that she was going to feed them, but fed them poisoned food, since she could not spare enough food to feed the whole city for more than one meal. Thousands of men, women and children were said to have died during that incident, without one putting up a fight. \n\nRumors also claim that during another campaign, her food ran out entirely, so her army was forced into canabalism. However, instead of having her men eat themselves, she started murdering and eating the local townspeople, sneakily and under cover of darkness so that the town never knew what was going on. Dozens were said to have been killed and eaten this way before Sathra's next supply shipment finally arrived.\n\nShe is also known to be a great swordfighter, and as of yet, no one has beaten her in a sword fight, so many believe her to be the world's greatest swordmaster. She typically maintains casualty rations of around 5:1 in her favor.\n\n[[Return|Start]]
"I will allow you to think upon the problem, then. You are all dismissed"\n\n[[Return to your quarters.]]\n\n<<set $noSuggestions to true>>
You return to your quarters, and quickly fall asleep.\n\nYou find yourself in a courtroom, with yourself in the defendant's chair, and Sathra in the Judge's chair. The courtroom is otherwise completely empty. Sathra calmly announces, "Raulind, you are hereby accused of neglecting your duty to your country, and abandoning her in her hour of need. Furthermore, you are accused of faking illness in order to gain my consent to leave my command. How do you plead to these accusations?"\n\n[["Guilty"]]\n\n[["Not Guilty"]]
You write:\n\n"Dear Bloody Idiot of Buthen,\nI have my soul quite well in hand, and don't need you trying to get me to desert from my commanding officer, you traitor. If I wasn't so busy, I'd have you flogged for making such a letter. I have zero interest in becoming a flaming monk, I'm an honored major, and have no need of your stupid offer."\n\nYou then seal the letter, and hand it off to the camp's postmaster, who attaches it to a mail raven, and sends the raven off.\n\n[[Return|Return to your quarters]]
Being both outnumbered and outequipped by Sathra's forces, you need to think quickly to survive this.\n\n[[Bluff]]\n\n[[Try to persuade Sathra that what she is doing is wrong]]\n\n[[Lure her towards the Japreth barracks]]
You write a letter accepting Shal's offer, and asking to be extracted as soon as possible. You then seal the letter, and hand it off to the camp's postmaster, who attaches it to a mail raven, and sends the raven off.\n\n[[Return|Return to your quarters]]\n\n<<set $Monk to true>>
You managed to use your monks to end the war years earlier than it otherwise would have been, saving the people countless deaths and hardships. With the war ended, proper law and order could then be implemented, and most of the groups of bandits were hunted down. When High Monk Shal eventually died of old age, you were picked as his successor, and under your leadership the monks further improved conditions for the common man. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
The capital is surrounded by a giant city wall, about a hundred feet high and twenty feet thick, with a slight angle to the walls to make it more resilient to trebuchets. There are square towers spaced out along the wall every hundred feet or so, about ten feet back from the front of the wall and about fifteen feet high, with small windows to shoot out of and triangular roofs. The wall bends slightly inwards near where the gate is, in such a way that makes any attackers trying to batter down the gate even more vulnerable to arrow fire. The wall is made to fit many more men on it then Cinethra can currently field, a relic of when Cinethra was much more powerful than it is today. A few archers are scattered along the wall, enough to provide warning, but not enough to provide serious resistance to a determined assault. The gate itself is arch-shaped and about fifteen feet high, eight feet wide is made out of thick, hard wood. \n\nYou lead your men inside, grateful to have a wall between you and the pursuing army. You walk through the crowded streets towards the barracks. Once inside, Sathra [[calls you into her quarters]].
You order your monks to flee into the city and spread the news. Cursing, Sathra orders her men to fire at you. Arrows pierces both of your legs and one hits you in the back, causing you to fall over, bleeding out. Around you, six of your other monks are similarly shot by arrows. Sathra approaches you, and finishes you off by stabbing you in the back with her sword. \n\nThe surviving monks managed to spread the news quickly, and Sathra was forced to cut off her attack with several casualties due to the Japreth army's quick reaction. In vengeance, she later burns your monastery to the ground.\n\n[[Legacy|MonkConclusion2]]
"How do you justify yourself in letting Sathra commit warcrimes?"\n\n[["I couldn't have stopped her"]]\n\n[["She didn't commit warcrimes, she merely did what was needed"]]
History forgets about you fairly quickly. The few who remember think you will be reincarnated down for fleeing when you were needed most. \n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
Grethnir explains that he has noticed that Sathra has always proven slippery in the past, but is also desperate for men. However, before he can get around to explaining how he intends to take advantage of this, the sounds of a battle can be heard. Everyone stands, and grabs for their swords, eyeing the door nervously. \n\nSuddenly, the dead body of a Japreth guard flies through the doors, spear still in hand. The officers look at the dead body in shock until about four dozen Cinethrans soldiers flood into the room, all with swords drawn. Leading them is Sathra herself, blood covering her sword and with a gleeful smile on her face. The smile fades when she sees you, however, and falls into a look of cold fury. She advances on you, while her men attack everyone else. You know that she is the better swordfighter, but perhaps you can beat her if you think quickly.\n\n[[Insult Sathra]]\n\n[[Flirt with Sathra]]\n\n[[Throw a knife]]\n\n[[Try to convince Sathra that she is morally wrong]]\n\n[[Fight Sathra honestly]]\n\n[[Run for it]]
You wait on both sides of the road in ambush. A couple hours later, you hear a caravan of wagons approaching, about twelve in all, with three guards apiece. You give the signal, and suddenly your men shoot arrows into the caravan from both sides, killing half of the guards instantly. The remaining guards lose all discipline and duck for cover rather than forming a defense. The next wave of arrows flies into them, killing another half-dozen. The remaining guards drop their weapons and surrender. Your men steal the wagons, and start driving them towards the hideout.\n\n[[Kill the prisioners|Return towards the hideout]]\n\n[[Release the prisioners|Return towards the hideout]]
In the morning, your squad leader wakes you up for breakfast, which consists of pork buns seized from a local bakery. After breakfast, the general of the remnants of the army that took the capital gives a speech praising the bravery in which they fought to sieze the city, and honoring the fallen. Then he announces the promotions for the army, which are quite a few indeed. This general then announces that Sathra has escaped, though the royal family was killed, and ordered a hunt for Sathra. \n\nYour army sets off to [[conquer the rest of Cinethra]], while the other one commences the hunt for Sathra.
You triumpantly return to your camp with your men, and report the good news to Sathra. \n\n<<if $burntNogrith>>\n"Good job dealing with the enemies in Nogrith, Major Raulind. I am glad to see that you were able to overcome your famous sense of honor enough to follow my suggestions and avoid unneeded casualties. I think you will make a worthy second in command indeed. Eat with your men, then return to my tent for briefing on our next mission."\n<<else>>\n"Good job dealing with the enemies in Nogrith, Major Raulind. You avoided unnecessary casualties, and commanded brilliantly, I must admit. Eat with your men, then return to my tent for briefing on our next mission."\n<<endif>>\n\nYou celebrate your victory with your men, eating your relatively dull rations enthusiastically. When you are done, you [[return to Sathra's tent]] as ordered.
"Very well, then, I shall inform the men. Do try to avoid acting too honorably tomorrow, we can't spare the men for that."\n\n[[Return to your quarters]]\n\n<<set $menAlong to 100>>
You run around town for the rest of the day, sharing the news that a Japreth army is coming to town to murder and rape, but unlike what everyone else is claiming, they will likely leave most of the populace alive. People seem confused at what they view as your mixed messages, and give you mistrustful looks. When you return to the barracks, you find a furious Sathra awaiting you, accompanied by a hundred of your comrades, who look quite hostile. Sathra orders them to execute you for insubordination. You draw your sword, and swing it at one of them, but he parries the blow and his comrades quickly kill you.\n\n[[Legacy|PropagandaConclusion1]]
You are sent to help fortify the city against assault. You help assemble knife carts and mobile wooden walls to roll into place behind the gate to slow down attackers in case the gates fall. After a long, hard day's work you [[return to the barracks]].
The archers obediently shoot the barrel, causing a large explosion that knocks the man who was in the middle of the dam over the dam to his probably death, as well as creating a large hole in the center of the dam. The dam proceeds to collapse entirely, releasing a massive torrent of water downstream. You quickly order your men to back away from the river, not wanting to get into a doomed shootout across the river. You [[return to the camp]] to discuss your next move.\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-1)>>\n
Over the next couple weeks, you find yet more signs of Sathra's guerrilla campaign, including officers and squads being found dead, supplies stolen, buildings and bridges burnt, and poisoned food. You have begun to wait for someone else to take the first bite and drink during meals. Though you have obediently chased all these clues, you have made little progress against Sathra, managing only to take out a few of her soldiers before they vanished back into the night.<<if $createdTraitors is true>> You hear that the loyal guards whose houses you searched are still manning their gate, despite their anger.<<else if $annoyedGuards is true>> You hear that the loyal guards whose houses you searched have left capital.<<endif>> \n\n<<if $createdTraitors>>\n[[You awake one night to the smell of smoke, and the distant sound of screams]].\n<<else if not $arrestedGuards>>\n[[You are awoken to find the city aflame]].\n<<else>>\n[[Several years pass much like this]], continually finding signs of Sathra's attacks, but never being able to track her men down.\n<<endif>>
The men look even less pleased at their houses being searched, but reluctantly lead you to their houses. The houses are quite modest mudbrick houses, with thatched roofs.\n\n[[Order your men to respectfully search their houses]]\n\n[[Order your men to thoroughly search their houses]]\n\n[[Order your men to tear the houses apart in their search, leaving no spot unsearched]]
Their houses look larger than what a normal guard should be able to afford, with wooden walls and slate roofs. Upon looking inside, you see decent wooden furniture, and a stock of good food, as well as chests containing several dozen gold coins each. With such overwhelming evidence, you have little choice but to [[arrest them|Arrest them]].
The guards obediently assemble before you about half an hour later. \n\n[[Search their pockets|SearchFinalPockets2]]\n\n[[Ask the guards where they were last night|QuestionFinalGuards2]]
The room is extremely dark, except for a set of torches illuminating High Monk Shal's face. He is sitting in the defendant's seat, while the judge seems to be in a shadowy alcove, though you can't make out the judge's features. \n\nThe judge calmly states, "High Monk Shal, you pledge to serve the people, but yet you have done nothing about this war that plagues them. Please explain yourself"\n\nHigh Monk Shal responds, "My followers have a very particular set of beliefs, and come here to help people without getting involved in wars. I cannot help end the war, my monks would simply stop following me if I tried. Besides, I do not believe my monks would have a chance against a seasoned field army like Sathra's. \n\nThe judge responds, "But you never tested that, did you? You make all these assumptions about what your monks will and won't do, and use that to explain why you do not help the people more than you do, but do you actually have any idea if those assumptions are accurate? Is it really the monks that are holding you back, or are you holding yourself back, and using the monks as an excuse?"\n\nShal remains silent, and appears to be deeply considering the issue, and re-evalauting many of his life choices. [[After a few minutes, the trial continues]].
You charge straight at the enemies. The enemy's barrage kills eight of your men, and then you slam into their center, which is quickly pushed back. However, you notice that the sides of Sathra's line are starting to come inwards and slightly forwards, encircling you, and her center is still holding firm. At the very center is Sathra herself, who cuts down two men beside you before engaging you in a swordfight. Your men form a tight knot around you. \n\nSathra's attacks weave seamlessly from one strike to another, and her feints are both entirely too convincing while not slowing her down at all. Your own attacks are well-refined and quite smooth as well, but your feints are not half so convincing or seamless as Sathra's are, and your cuts are slightly less streamlined than hers. Eventually one of her feints manages to trick you, and she hits you in the head. Bleeding profusely and in great pain, you fall to your knees, allowing Sathra to behead you. \n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConclusion1]]
Cinethra is your homeland, a relatively poor country with small boundaries. It has a bit of trade, but not much, and is mostly sustained by subsistence rice farming. It currently fields a military of about three thousand men, which already strains its economy near the breaking point, and unusual numbers of peasants are already starving to death. Crime has also been increasing, and roving bands of bandits have been making it hard to get supplies. Its main religion is [[Buthenism]].\n\n[[Return|Start]]\n\n<<set $inTent to false>>
Nathaniel Holle
"What weapons would you suggest?"\n<<if $darts is false>>\n[["Blow darts"]]\n<<endif>>\n<<if $bolas is false>>\n[["Lengths of rope with weights on both ends"]]\n<<endif>>\n[["I have no more suggestions"]]
You order your men to guard just the right side of the caravan. The other squad of guards look at you oddly, but their leader just shrugs. You guard the caravan along a road through a bamboo forest. The first few miles pass quite peacefully, and you see the other squad getting fairly complacent. \n\nSuddenly, arrows fly out of the woods from both sides of the caravan, hitting two-thirds of the other squad, and a third of yours. \n\n[["Take cover!"]]\n\n[[Lead the charge]]
After a couple hours of walking, you spot a cave with a pair of very bored looking guards outside. The cave is about six feet wide, and seven feet tall. Heng orders the attack, and you rush forward. The guards barely give a cry of alarm before they are overwhelmed. Heng leads you into the cave. A short ways in, you find two dozen drunken bandits hurriedly grabbing axes, while behind them you see dozens of bound and gagged women and many boxes of stolen supplies. \n\nTwo-thirds of the bandits charge in a disorganized manner towards you, while the rest stay where they are. <<if $staff is true>>Heng calls out instructions, and all the monks, including you, lift your staffs up into stabbing position, facing the bandits. You end up forming a 3 man by 8 man formation ressembling a phalanx, not that any of you know what that is. You stab the bandits in the chest with your staffs, which are long enough to keep you out of range of their axes. A few of the bandits manage to break a couple staffs, at which point new monks shuffle up to take their place. The staff blows take their toll, and bandits start dropping their weapons and surrendering. Eventually, none stand before you and the group of the bandits that didn't charge. The remaining bandits grab women, and threaten to kill them unless you drop your staffs and walk away.<<else>>You and the other monks charge, dodging or catching the axes and hammering the bandits with your bare hands. However, the occassional ax manages to land, and you are losing the occassional fellow monk. After losing a half-dozen monks, you manage to incapacitate the bandits that charged at you. The remaining bandits grab women, and threaten to kill them unless you walk away.<<endif>> The rest of the monks don't move, and can't seem to decide. You sense that whatever choice you make will be mirrored by the rest of the mons.\n\n[[Walk away]]\n\n[[Attack the bandits]]
"As you have abandoned your country, so I shall abandon you." Sathra then leaves through the court's one exit door, and locks it behind her. A few minutes later, you find yourself before [[a court of the people]].
As soon as your men reach the intersection of the alleys, enemies attack you from both alleys to your sides, and the enemies in front shoot arrows into the center of your squad. Your outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and sleep-deprived squad is quickly overwhelmed, as are you. \n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConclusion1]]
Around you, you see the monks in complete disarray, with some dead or wounded with arrows, others charging at sixty Cinethran soldiers, but most simply ducking for cover or milling around. Then you spot High Monk Shal, lying on the ground with an arrow through his chest. You rush over to him. Struggling for breath, Shal says, "I am dying. Raulind, you must lead the monks in my place." He then lies still and dies.\n\n[[Flee for your life]]\n\n[[Give a rallying speech]]\n\n[[Try to lead a charge]]
The barracks is a pile of badly charred rubble. You ask about where the arsonists went, and you follow the townspeople's guidance towards the south gate. The guard captain for the south gate quickly announces which [[guards were on duty at the time|GuardsOnDuty2]].
You order your men to guard just the back of the caravan. The other squad of guards look at you oddly, but their leader just shrugs. You guard the caravan along a road through a bamboo forest. The first few miles pass quite peacefully, and you see the other squad getting fairly complacent. \n\nSuddenly, arrows fly out of the woods from both sides of the caravan, hitting three-fourths of the other squad, and a fourth of yours. \n\n[["Take cover!"]]\n\n[[Lead the charge]]
You do not notice any wagon trails leading back onto the path. After a while, you realize that the narrow pathway you passed never even leads back onto the main path. Either Sathra changed her route drastically, or is waiting off the side of the road, either to ambush you or simply to hide. Whatever the case, you'll have to investigate.\n\n[[Return back to the narrow path into the forest|Continue to follow the tracks]]
Despite losing your command and rank, you fought bravely and loyally under Sathra's command, and died faithfully fighting for her cause. Some view you as a tragic hero, fighting for your country even when everything was lost, while others view you as one of many misguided victims of Sathra's ruthlessness. \n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
You awake to the sound of giant bells ringing, guards calling the alarm, and your squad leader cursing like a wounded sailor. You spring to your feet, quickly putting on your armor and belting on your sword. The Japreth must be attacking the city. You follow your squad leader up the wall, and see the enemy army charging at the walls with ladders and a battering ram. On the wall, in addition to a thousand or so professional soldiers, there about three thousand civilians deployed, wielding a mixture of pitchforks, axes, kitchen knives, and makeshift clubs. Your fellow defenders release waves of arrows at the enemy, killing dozens with each volley. However, the enemy still manages to reach the wall with their ladder and battering ram. The enemy starts climbing up the ladders, albeit with heavy losses. One of your fellow defenders crushes the skull of one of the enemy as he climbs with his sword, only to be grabbed and thrown to the ground below by the next attacker. \n\nEventually, bands of attackers manage to get footholds on the wall, and fierce fighting results. You charge at the enemies that have gained the wall, but for every two enemies killed another three scale the wall. Eventually, the enemy is established on the wall, and your fellow defenders are being pushed back. By this time, you hear the gate shatter, and the defenders below shouting that the enemy has broken through. Your squad leader orders you to make a break towards the gate. You hope that the knife cards and mobile wooden walls manage to delay the enemy reasonably well. You crash into the enemy from the side, just as an angry mob holds the enemy off from the front with the help of the knife cards and mobile walls. The enemy is driven back outside the gateway, and then your squad [[falls back to the other side of the carts]].
You split up your monks, having a dozen monks on each gate, with orders to inform the rest if they are attacked, with you watching the south gate. Several days later, you see about sixty soldiers with Japreth armor enter the gate at night, looking both strangely familiar and hostile. One of them shouts with Sathra's unmistakable voice to kill you and your monks. So that was how they kept managing to sneak into the city. Three of your monks obediently run towards the other gates, to inform the rest of the monks.\n\n[[Stand your ground]]\n\n[[Scatter into the city, spreading the warning]]
You lead the charge towards one of the groups of archers, followed closely by the remnants of both squads of guards. Ahead of you, a last volley of arrows flies out of the trees from both sides of the road, taking out a third of the remaining guards, and then swordsmen emerge from out of the trees, a squad from each side. You fight bravely, but your guards and the enemy soldiers are taking about equal casualties, and the other squad closes in from behind. Surrounded and outnumbered, you are eventually overwhelmed, though not before killing about a squad of enemies. \n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConclusion1]]
"The caltrops will be hard to acquire, most of the smiths have been snatched up by one army or another, and as cavalry is not used all that often in warfare these days, even fewer will know how to make caltrops. Still, they could be quite valuable, so I shall try to find such a smith, though I certainly won't be able to find one soon. [[Any other suggestions?|return to your quarters and fall asleep]]"\n\n<<set $caltrops to true>>
Your squad leader wakes you up breakfast, which this morning consists entirely of ordinary bread. Afterwards, Sathra orders the men to break camp, and continue the march. The march is long, and along a dirt road, though luckily it is not muddy. The march ends at sunset, when you set up camp again. You continue marching south like this for another three days, at which point you reach the [[capital|capital3]]
History remembers you mostly as a traitor, rather than for your long, loyal, honorable, and successful career in the military before the war that claimed your life. Only a few scholars remember that you had been the model officer before then. \n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
History becomes quite puzzled by you. On the one hand you are despised as a traitor, but on the other hand a few surviving Cinethrans admire you for your sudden outpouring of patriotism at the end. Still others think that your sudden outburst of patriotism merely got people unnecessarilly killed, and despise you all the more for it. Your long, loyal, honorable, and successful career in the military before the war that claimed your life becomes relatively obscure. Only a few scholars remember that you had been the model officer before then. \n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
The man stares at you as you are hauled out of the tent to be tortured for information. Being strong of will, and extremely loyal, you refuse to give the torturer any information, despite hot irons and thumb screws both being used on you. In the end, you die of your wounds rather than give up any information.\n\n[[Legacy|ExecutionConclusion2]]
You lead your squad straight to the left to try to avoid the flames. You seem to be staying ahead of the flames that had been in front of you, but they have now cut you off from the road, and no other squads seem to be following. Suddenly, you notice large and quickly-growing fires to your front-left and front-right. They quickly cut off your path forward. You try to go to the right, but that path is quickly cut off as well. Looking around, you find that you are in the center of a circle of fire, with the sides dozens of feet thick and stretching to the tops of the trees. Burning trees fall into your squad, killing several of your squadmates. You desperately try to break through, but are incinerated.\n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConclusion1]]
The barracks is a pile of burned out rubble. You ask about where the arsonists went, and you follow the townspeople's guidance towards the south gate. The guard captain for the south gate quickly announces which [[guards were on duty at the time]].
You order your men to stand in the middle of the road, and intend to negotiate the theft of the caravan peacefully. A couple hours later, the caravan finally approaches, consisting of about a dozen wagons each with three guards. You call for them to halt, and tell them they will all be spared if they give the wagons peacefully and leave their weapons behind. \n<<if random(0,100) < 60>>\nThe guards surrender the wagons peacefully, and walk away, leaving their weapons behind. You steal the wagons, and start leading them back towards the hideout.\n\n\n<<else>>\nThe guards refuse to surrender without a fight, and charge directly at you. Your men release a quick volley of arrows at them, killing a half-dozen, then charge in a tight formation. The guards are outmatched by your men, and are quickly killed, but not before five of them get lucky stabs in with their spears.\n<<set $menAlong to ($menAlong - 5)>>\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft - 5)>>\n<<endif>>\n[[Return towards the hideout]]
General Quithnine is the least competent of the Cinethran generals. He is the son of the Cinethran Emperor and the Crown Prince, which was how he got the position, otherwise he would barely have made squad leader. He has casualty rations of about 1:1, though has mostly fought bandits and rebelling peasants, as opposed to professional soldiers. He is a below average swordsman, being worse than most of the soldiers in the Cinethran army. He had a force of a thousand men under him at the start of the war, and was attacked by a force of several thousand enemies, making his defeat unsurprising.\n\n[[Return|return to the camp]]
You rush back and forth from the nearest well, desperately trying to put out the fire. You eventually do, stopping it from spreading to any other buildings, but your own barracks is pretty much ruined. Your company commander reports the incident, and informs you that you are to be moved to a barracks that has not burned down. You move into that barracks, and [[go back to sleep]].
"For the crimes of letting Sathra commit attrocities against us, your own people, when you were the one person who could have stopped her, you are hereby condemned to be hung by the neck until dead."\n\nYou are lead out of the courtroom by a pair of guards, but the dream ends abruptly, and you find yourself in another courtroom, but this time [[you are not the one on trial]].
You charge straight at the archers, bellowing a warcry. The archers you saw vanish into the forest, but as you look around for them dozens of swordsmen emerge from the forest around you and your squad, quickly surrounding you. You and your squad form an ever smaller and tighter knot as you desperately try to fend off the swordsmen. In the end, you are overwhelmed before reinforcements could arrive, though you and your squadmates did manage to kill about thirty of the enemy. \n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConclusion1]]
You order your men to guard both sides of the caravan. You guard the caravan along a road through a bamboo forest. The first few miles pass quite peacefully, and you see the other squad getting fairly complacent. \n\nSuddenly, arrows fly out of the woods from both sides of the caravan, hitting three-fifths of the both squads.\n\n[["Take cover!"]]\n\n[[Lead the charge]]
You welcome the men to the monastery, and accept them as monks. For a couple days, they act quite normally, and seem to be trying their best to be good monks, though they do seem to have more violent thoughts than the other monks. However, one night you are awakened to sounds of a struggle and the crackling of flames. \n\nJumping down the stairs, you find that the prisioners are free, and have stolen their weapons, and have already slain a third of your monks. The surviving monks that have woken up are starting to try to form a resistance, but it seems to be a mismatch. You fight desperately trying to even the odds, but you and the other monks are overwhelmed and killed. \n\nWhile you never learned this, those newcomers were sent by Sathra to pretend to be interested in becoming monks and free the prisioners. They gave the monks in charge of watching the prisioners drugged water that caused them to fall asleep during their watch.\n\n[[Legacy|MonkConclusion5]]
You enter the palace, where the conference is being held, and are led to the a large and ornate room where many tables and chairs have been set up. There appears to be about sixty officers in attendance, including both remaining occupation generals (the third occupation general having been drowned as a result of Sathra destroying a dam early on in the campaign) and even the supreme Japreth military commander, Jixithren. It strikes you that if the palace was to be burned down, most of the senior military officers in the Japreth army would be killed. You also notice that your are the most junior officer invited to this conference. \n\nJixithren starts off the meeting off, "We are all assembled to figure out how to deal with Sathra. While her forces have crumbled, she has proved both elusive and persistent, and it has become clear that she is not going away without a plan. There is one man here who has fought both alongside and against Sathra, and emerged victorious. Company Commander Raulind, could you please brief us on how Sathra thinks and fights?"\n\n[[Warn that the palace might be attacked]]\n\n[[Give a thorough description of how Sathra thinks and acts]]\n\n[[Give a brief description of Sathra]]\n\n[["No"]]
Fighting along side the mob, you manage to hold the enemy for another hour or so, at which point the mob starts to buckle. Maybe two hundred professional soldiers are left at this point, and the wall has completely fallen, the surviving soldiers joining you behind the knife carts. Seeing the line buckling, Sathra orders the defenders to scatter among the houses, and defend house per house. You are assigned to protect a two-story house with the help of a two archers, two peasants with pitchforks, and a pretty girl of about eight with a dagger. The archers position themselves so that they can shoot out of windows on the second floor. You station yourself just inside the door, and have the two peasants wait behind you, and order them stab anyone that gets past you. You have the girl wait by the archers upstairs, and warn them if any enemies come.\n\nThe enemy eventually comes for your building, but you and the peasants manage to hold the building for quite some time. You slash at any enemies within reach, and expertly most of the blows coming towards you. However, the blows you let through begin to add up, and eventually you collapse onto the ground from blood loss, after killing a good twenty enemies. Lying on the ground, you see the peasants behind you killed quickly, and then see the enemy storm upstairs. You hear a girl's scream, followed by the hiss and crackling of flame. The enemy soldiers rush back down the stairs, quickly followed by flames, and trample you to death. \n\n[[Legacy|FootSoldierConclusion1]]
"I am glad you have seen reason. You will start as a common soldier, but I think you'll rise through the ranks quickly enough. My men will lead you to your quarters. Make sure to rest well tonight, tomorrow we march towards the capital." \n\nYou are lead to a nearby building that used to be a storehouse, and given a cot to sleep on. The building is filled with fellow soldiers, looking well-armed, well-fed, and in fairly high spirits. A few of them give you suspicious looks, but most accept you quickly enough. You learn the new chain of command, with Squad Commander Fethran being your direct superior, and get to know your squad mates. \n\nApparently Japreth is unconcerned enough that they have allotted the day to recuperating the army before marching further into Cinethra. You are well fed that day, apparently Japreth is well supplied with food. You notice that some of the men decide to have some fun with the local women, but decline to ask whether said women gave consent. Part of you feels guilty for breaking your word and betraying Sathra, while another part feels that this is for the greater good. The next morning, you are woken up to break your fast on a thick beef and rice stew, and then begin your [[march]].
<<if (random(0,100) < 50 and $menAlong is 100) or random(0,100) < 60>>\nYour men climb up on the rooftops, and start shooting down at the enemy with deadly results. Some of the enemies scatter for cover, some flee, some run about aimlessly, and a few charge, only to be killed by the barrage of arrows. A few enemies shoot from inside the buildings up at your men, but they are less organized, and are defeated without too much difficulty. In the end, about two thirds of the enemies are killed, with the rest fleeing for their lives. You lost only six men.\n<<set $menAlong to ($menAlong - 6)>>\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft - 6)>>\n[[Return to camp in triumph]]\n\n<<else>>\nThe enemy reacts sooner than you were prepared for. You manage to shoot a decent number of the enemies, but then the enemy fills the steets around the buildings you are shooting from, and light the buildings on fire. As the flames spread, you and your men are forced to jump into the street, and form up, some of the men dying from the fall and some from the enemy. You are left with but two choices, [[charge|Continue charging]] or [[surrender|Surrender]]. \n<<endif>>
<<if random(0,100) < 90>>\n\nYour men follow your orders beautifully, and the enemies are bit by bit surrounded and massacred by your men. In the end, you defeat the enemy with only eight casualties.\n<<set $menAlong to ($menAlong - 8)>>\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft - 8)>>\n[[Return to camp in triumph]]\n\n<<else>>\nYour plan proves too intricate, and the whole thing falls apart spectacularly. Your feint squads arrive too soon, and are surrounded and defeated before the ambush squads arrive. The ambush squads then are unable to perform ambushes, and simply charge headlong into the enemy in a particularly disorganized manner. Your only choices at this point are to [[continue charging|Continue charging]] or to [[surrender|Surrender]].\n\n<<set $menAlong to (($menAlong-40)-($menAlong/10))>>\n<<set $armyLeft to (($armyLeft-40)-($menAlong/10))>>\n<<endif>>
You order your men to guard just the left side of the caravan. The other squad of guards look at you oddly, but their leader just shrugs. You guard the caravan along a road through a bamboo forest. The first few miles pass quite peacefully, and you see the other squad getting fairly complacent. \n\nSuddenly, arrows fly out of the woods from both sides of the caravan, hitting two-thirds of the other squad, and a third of yours. \n\n[["Take cover!"]]\n\n[[Lead the charge]]
"No, you were not. Do not think that we are ignorant just because we carry no swords. For lies and warcrimes, you are to be drawn and quartered."\n\nYou are lead out of the courtroom by a pair of guards, but the dream ends abruptly, and you find yourself in another courtroom, but this time [[you are not the one on trial]].
"While that is true, at some point it is a duty of a good person to disobey his orders for the good of his country. Still, as you were merely following orders, your punishment will be considerably less. You are to be imprisioned for ten years, at the end of which time you will be freed, but stripped of all command, rank, and honors."\n\nYou are lead out of the courtroom by a pair of guards, but the dream ends abruptly, and you find yourself in another courtroom, but this time [[you are not the one on trial]].
"We have no idea, we were off duty last night, and took the opportunity to get a drink at the local tavern. A couple of us splurged for some pleasant company, some of the Cinethran girls are going cheap these days, but it still took a few weeks savings." \n<<if $checkedGuardPockets is false>>\n[[Check the guards pockets|CheckInitialPockets2]]\n<<endif>>\n[[Check the captain's pockets|SearchCaptain'sPockets2]]
"You just want to surrender, and switch sides, you bloody traitor!" , Sathra replies in a voice filled with fiery rage and intense suspicion.\n\n[[Yes, I do]]\n\n[[No, seriously I will kill them all myself]]\n\n[[Never mind, perhaps I've had too much wine|Start]]
You run around town for the rest of the day, sharing the message that a Japreth army is coming to town to murder and rape, and that they will spare no one if they should break through the wall, and beg everyone you meet to help defend the town from these northern heathens. People seem to believe you completely, and many promise to stand by the army tomorrow. Some even seem honored to have a chance to fight for Cinethra. You have a feeling that most of these volunteers will die in the upcoming battle.\n\n[[return to the barracks]]
"Brothers in arms, you have bravely fought alongside me these many long years. We have killed countless enemies and fought valiantly and without faltering. However, now our strength is at its end, and we must face the facts. Our brilliant leader Sathra is dead, as our most of our army. We must surrender."\n\nThe soldiers seem to agree with your speech, though do not seem happy about it. A few days later, you surrender to the Japreth, and are imprisioned. A decade later, you are all given the offer to join Japreth's army in exchange for freedom. \n\n[[Take the offer]]\n\n[[Refuse the offer]]
"Cinethra is going to lose the war, as both of us realize, and it would be best for all involved for the war to be over as soon as possible. Cinethra has rarely treated its people well, peasants starve to death in the countryside by the hundreds while her military plans to kill thousands more as collateral damage. As such, I would highly suggest you join us, for the sake of all the people as well as yourself. However, if you still feel duty-bound to Sathra, you'll leave me no choice but to kill you. So, what say you, will you join us in ending this madness, or will you die for a lost cause?\n\n[[Join Japreth]]\n\n[[Refuse to betray Sathra]]
You order the squad leaders to have their men spread the word that the Japreth will kill every man, woman, and child in horrible ways if they get inside the walls, and urge the populace to join in the defense of the city. They quickly send soldiers to spread the message around the city, and a few hours they report back that a couple thousand promised to stand alongside your men when the city is attacked. Sathra seems pleased with the turnout.\n\nThe next morning, [[the Japreth attack the Capital]].\n\n<<set $spreadLie to true>>\n<<set $spreadTruth to false>>
You bury Sathra in a space outside the caves respectfully. You notice that men are gathering around to watch. You pay your respects to Sathra, and give a short eulogy. Now it is time to explain to the men what will happen now.\n\n[[Give a speech about fighting on]]\n\n[[Give a speech about how you can no longer fight on]]\n\nYou have <<print $armyLeft>> soldiers left.
After a couple days of walking, you finally reach a set of caves in the mountains, which is apparently Sathra's hideout. Your supplies of food are running fairly low by this point, though they should last a few more weeks with careful rationing. Sathra calls you into her section of a cave. \n\n"Major Raulind, as you are no doubt aware, we are running low on food. Therefore, we shall steal the enemy's next food shipment. It should be guarded by just a couple dozen men, and the next one is expected to go through a bamboo forest. Take half of our fully-trained soldiers, and bring back those provisions."\n<<set $menAlong to $armyLeft/2>>\n[[Ready the men]]\n\n[[Lead the men to surrender]]
History remembers you mostly as a traitor, though this is mitigated by your subsequent refusal to massacre the citizens of the Cinethran capital which resulted in your own death. History mostly forgot your long, loyal, honorable, and successful career in the military before the war that claimed your life. Only a few scholars remember that you had been the model officer before then. \n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
Sathra gives you two dozen men to stand alongside you during your last stand, men seemingly picked for their unwavering loyalty to Cinethra. You man the walls, repair the gate, and prepare for the next push. Behind you, everyone else is fleeing south from the capital. You order a watch rotation, where the men off-duty rest while the others are alert for any signs of an attack. The next day, an army of several thousand shows up, and attacks using ladders remaining from the first attack. Your small force is quickly overwhelmed, and you are killed. \n\n[[Legacy|SiegeConclusion3]]
You circle each other throwing out feints to try to throw the other off balance or reveal get them to reveal their plans. Sathra appears to see right through all your feints, despite them being quite good, whereas each of her feints almost fools you. \n\nYou start another feint but turn it into an actual cut to her head. She parries the blow while simultaneously cutting straight towards your neck. You manage to parry the cut while simulataneously cutting towards her head again, though her sword got within a couple inches of your neck. Sathra steps to the side, evading your head cut and traps your sword down below her own. You step back to free your sword, then quickly enter into a flurry of blows with Sathra, each one of you trying to hit the other while simulataneously protecting yourself. After about ten blows, Sathra closes to within two feet of you, then kicks you hard in the chest, sending you flying backwards onto a table. \n\nYou roll off the table back onto your feet, just in time to evade one of Sathra's cuts. You swing towards her head, but Sathra steps to the side and gives you a nasty cut on your arm. The pain is distracting and is slowing down your movements, and the flesh around the wound is starting to turn black. She must have dishonorably poisoned her blade. After a short exchange of feints, Sathra gets you off balance enough to cut your head. This head cut causes enough pain to cause your to collapse to your knees, at which point Sathra stabs you through the heart.\n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConferenceConclusion]]
Over the next few years, you lead your squad attempting to catch the rest of Sathra's forces, but you only manage to catch the occassional Cinethran soldier. Sathra continues to wage her guerrilla war, despite her depleted forces. You hear reports of her assassinating officers, lighting parts of the city on fire, destroying bridges, and freeing prisioners, as well as stealing both food and pay chests shipped in from Japreth. For your many valiant attempts to catch Sathra's men you are promoted to company commander. Eventually, the Japreth decide to host a conference to decide how to finally deal with Sathra. You are ordered to [[attend the conference]].
You mention to your squad leader that Sathra doesn't believe in halfway measures, so the forest is probably lit it multiple places. He disdainfully replies that that is common military procedure for burning forests, so he was already expecting that. \n\n[[Fall back in line|retreatDownRoad2]]
"Hold out for Cinethra, as long as you are alive and fighting, there is still hope for Cinethra. Despite our losses, we have dealt terrifying blows to the Japreth, and if you show them that you are still willing to fight just as hard as ever, they should eventually cut their losses and flee back to old Japreth."\n\nSathra goes to sleep, and never wakes up. You [[bury her]] outside the caves.
Your men do an extremely thorough search, while knocking everything possible over, and tearing what little furniture the guards own apart. They fail to find anything, and leave only small piles of debris left of the house interiors. The guards seem furious at the search, and seem quite speechless in rage.\n\n[[Ask the guards what happened last night|QuestionInitialGuards2]]\n\n<<set $createdTraitors to true>>
You hold out valiantly, forming an ever-tighter knot of men as you are surrounded, but eventually you are overwhelmed completely.\n\n[[Legacy|SiegeConclusion1]]
You force your way past the knife carts and the mobile walls, then grimly set to the work of forcing your way through the angry mob with your sword. Your first stroke finds a peasant with a pitchfork, who looks like he is on the verge of starvation. Your second stroke finds the head of a pretty girl about eight years old holding a dagger. Your third stroke finds the neck of a sixty year old man holding an axe. Your forth stroke finds the chest of a beautiful woman holding a club who you remember used to sell flowers three streets down. You let your sword take on a life of its own, and tears fill your eyes as you slash through the citizenry of this city you once knew. \n\nEventually, you slice finish slashing through the angry mob. You company commander orders you forward towards [[the center of the city|CapitalCenter2]].\n\n
You live out the rest of your days in your cell. After your death, legends are told of your exploits, how you slaughtered a room full of officers in the middle of their own city, how you stole countless caravans of food, how you burnt barracks to the ground, and how you lead the heroic defense of Cinethra's old capital. Most people agree that you caused more harm than good, though even many of these are forced to admire your daring and genius in war.\n\n[[Return|Start]]
"Brothers in arms, we have fought for many years against Japreth, and held out. Sathra's loss is a grave blow, but we must not let it be in vain. We shall fight on, and in the end defeat Japreth. As long as one of us is alive, Cinethra has not yet fallen."\n\nThe soldiers seemed moved by your speech, and look determined to defeat the Japreth, whatever that takes. Now you just need to figure out [[what to do with your soldiers]]. \n\n<<set $prevMove to "meeting">>\n<<set $prevCityMove to "meeting">>\n<<if $hope is true>>\n<<set $enemyMorale to 10>>\n<<else>>\n<<set $enemyMorale to 100>>\n<<endif>>\n<<set $assassinsLeft to 2>>
You order your men to chase down the fleeing enemies, and charge after them yourself. You catch sight of them again fairly quickly, and start to gain on them. Suddenly, the ground vanishes from beneath you and you fall into a pit trap filled with sharped wooden spikes, which cut into your legs as you fall on them, and causes some disconcerting cracking noises on the back of your armor, but your armor manages to prevent much further damage. About a third of your men seem to have also fallen into traps, whether pit traps or net traps that yank them up above the ground and trap them there. \n\nYou crawl out of the pit trap only to find yourself face-to-face with Sathra leading her men to counter-attack your force, coming straight towards you like a reaper. You pull out your own sword, and order your men to gather around you. About fifty men manage to comply, leaving you outnumbered by Sathra's ninety men. You engage Sathra in a swordfight, while your men engage hers. Her attacks weave seamlessly from one strike to another, and her feints are both entirely too convincing while not slowing her down at all. Your own attacks are well-refined and quite smooth as well, but your feints are not half so convincing or seamless as Sathra's are, and your cuts are slightly less streamlined than hers. You find yourself being pushed back before Sathra's skillful swordsmanship. One of Sathra's cuts hits you in the arm, and the pain distracts you enough that you have to scramble to block a cut to your head, and the resulting block is too large. Sathra takes advantage of this to kick you in the chest, and send you flying back into the pit trap. As you try to crawl back out the other side, Sathra walks around the pit and cuts off your hands. You scream in agony, and fall back into the pit again, and are left to bleed out as your men die around you. \n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConclusion1]]
"I never understood your love for the common man, but I suppose that is one interpretation of your vows. I still blame you as a traitor personally, but I cannot find you guilty under the law for that, as I did give you leave to go with the monks, and never actually demanded that you come back. We come to the second accusation then, that you faked illness in order to get me to give you leave to go with the monks."\n\n[["I wasn't faking"]]\n\n[["I didn't know what was in the jar"]]
You enter Shal's quarters, which are just as luxurious and out of place as you remember. Shal is sitting in one of the ebony chairs, and gestures for you to sit in the other. You obediently sit down in the chair. Shal says, "I am glad you are starting to learn to make the hard choices. The other monks are too idealistic to make them, which is why I need you to make them. This is hardly the first time we have bumped into this issue, and previously hostages have been left captive because of it, and bandits have been left free to pillage and murder. I wish to help my fellow Cinethrans, and sometimes that means letting people die in order to save more. Do not tell the other monks what I said, though. You are dismissed"\n\n[[Return to your quarters.]]
The guards reluctantly let you pass, and the man marches you out of the camp, and into the dark night. The moon is only a quarter-full. You cross the dam and eventually arrive at the large enemy camp, and are presented to General Grethnir. You are then given a choice between surrendering to Japreth and fighting along side them, or being tortured for information and then killed.\n\n[[Join Japreth|Join2]]\n\n[[Refuse to join Japreth]]
"You have gone completely insane, and are now unfit for duty. You are hereby stripped of command and rank, and will fight and probably die as a common foot soldier. Your tent will also be reclaimed, as it is far beyond what any common foot soldier deserves."\n\n[[Leave the tent in disgust]]\n\n[[Try to kill Sathra in a fit of rage]]\n\n[[Commit Seppuku]]
"You lie, I know that you never left the monastery except when High Monk Shal told you to. Never think that just because you have become a monk that you have escaped my notice. I cannot suffer a lying deserter such as yourself to escape her alive." Sathra then draws her sword, and stabs you through the heart.\n\nYou find yourself in another court, Sathra's court apparently being merely a dream, this time [[a court of the people]].
You continue on as a famous and successful officer in the Japreth army, eventually rising to become a full general. You help fight wars against many other lands, becoming known across the known world for your cunning tactics. You are eventually shot by an arrow while leading the defense of a city, and die of your wounds. You are afterwards remembered as one of Japreth's greatest generals.\n\n[[Legacy|TraitorVictory3]]
As you are walking, a few arrows fly from the buildings around you, forcing you to start siezing these occupied buildings one by one, cutting down both surviving soldiers and armed townspeople. The house to house neutralization takes another several hours, so it is past noon by the time the battle finally finishes. Also, many times the defenders lit their houses on fire before they were killed, leaving you to rush out of the building to escape the flames. You have seen no sign of Sathra's body, and you have a feeling that she got away with some of her men, and that she will return to cause you problems in the future.\n\nWhen the battle is done, the army proceeds to the work of taking all the bodies, friend or foe, out of the city and burning them in large funeral pyres. At last, as the sun begins to set, the army eats supper and then you [[return to your tent and sleep]].
You order a man to move the barrel to the center of the dam. That man does so, though agonizingly slowly, and as he is crossing, you can see the enemy army getting closer and closer. By the time the barrel is placed, the army is within bowshot from the man in the center of the dam.\n\n[[Order the archers to detonate the barrel now]]\n\n[[Wait until after your man has crossed back]]\n\n<<set $destroyedDamn to true>>
Your men do a fairly thorough search, while being careful not to knock anything over. They fail to find anything. The guards seem annoyed at the search, but relieved that nothing was damaged during it.\n\n[[Ask the guards what happened last night]]\n\n[[Investigate the captain|Check the captain's pockets]]
The next couple weeks are fairly uneventful, with the normal farming, training, and meditation. You do notice, however, that the other monks are avoiding you, and do not talk to you unless they must. You also notice several of them giving you awkward glances, and whispering about you. Your arms began to ache quite badly after the first few days of having to wash the upstairs, but began to recover after that, and the awkward glances and whispers seem to die off as your penance progresses. \n\nSeveral weeks after your penance is complete, you are picked to go on [[another mission|another, less peaceful mission]].
Your men do a quite thorough search, while trying not to knock anything over. They fail to find anything, and manage to break a couple pots in the search. The guards seem angry at the search, but keep any complaints under their breath.\n\n[[Ask the guards what happened last night]]\n\n[[Investigate the Captain|Check the captain's pockets]]\n\n<<set $annoyedGuards to true>>
Throughout the next several weeks, news trickles in of Sathra stealing innocent caravans, destroying badly-needed bridges, lighting parts of the capital on fire, and depriving the capital of food. Otherwise, you continue on with your normal routine, farming, training, and meditating, but something about your dreams keeps bugging you, and leaves you distracted.\n\n[[Tell Shal about your dreams]]\n\n[[Keep silent about your dreams]]
You join the Japreth army, and have another long and illustrious career in their army, eventually regaining your rank of Major. You are eventually killed by a stray arrow while invading a distant land. \n\nAfter your death, legends are told of your exploits, how you slaughtered a room full of officers in the middle of their own city, how you stole countless caravans of food, how you burnt barracks to the ground, and how you lead the heroic defense of Cinethra's old capital. Some, however, remember just how much destruction your defiance caused, and wish you would have surrendered earlier. \n\n[[Return|Start]]
You charge at the men, shouting a bellowing warcry. The enemies try to surround you, but you back away and circle them as needed, while slashing at their arms. You then spot an opportunity, and charge in, driving your sword straight through an enemy neck, then ripping your sword, parrying attacks from a pair of enemies while you recover your distance. You keep circling your enemies, so that only one can engage you at a time, and fight valiantly. \n\nHowever, by the time you kill another two of them, you hear more enemies approaching, and notice that another dozen Cinethran are coming at you from behind, including Sathra herself. You are surrounded, and overwhelmed. \n\n[[Legacy|HeavyHandedConclusion1]]
Commander
You shout at Sathra, accussing her of being an uppity illegitimate child of a peasant. She states that she always thought that birth status was overrated, and [[closes in to fight you|Fight Sathra honestly]].
The guard captain still refuses to let his pockets be searched, and when your men approach, he stabs one with his Ji, before the rest of your men manage to kill him. \n\n[[Ask the guards you talked to to assemble the rest of the guards for the gate]]\n\n[[Report the captain's treason immediately]]
Your company does little for the next few days, as you wait for Sathra's next move. One night, however, you are suddenly awoken by shouts of alarm, and screams of pain. The barracks you were staying is on fire, and a burning beam of wood fell on one of your fellow soldiers, from whom the screams of pain now emenate. You notice to your horror that he was laying near the center of the room in the exact cot where you would have been laying if you had not just been promoted to squad leader and therefore been moved to a cot slightly closer to the door. \n\n[[Lead your squad out of the barracks in an orderly fashion]]\n\n[[Flee from the barracks]]
You continue through the narrow path through the bamboo forest. You notice that the tracks have gotten deeper as the ground has gotten softer, and there are signs that the wagons needed to be pushed to help them traverse the terrain. This is not a normal path for wagons, either Sathra was desperate to get off the road, or it is a trap.\n\n[[Warn your commander]]\n\n[[Stay silent]]
The guards give a variety of answers, varying local taverns and brothels to their houses. You notice that some of the guards casually mention that they frequent the brothel often, despite a guards budget only allowing for an occassional visit. At least some of these guards are likely receiving some other income than their guard duty. \n\n[[Search their pockets|SearchFinalPockets2]]\n\n[[Arrest them|ArrestGuards2]]\n\n[[Search their houses|SearchFinalHouses2]]
Sathra orders a man to move an explosive barrel to the center of the dam to destroy it. You know that there are several major towns downstream of the town and that many people will die if the dam is destroyed. That man starts hauling the barrel to the center of the dam, though agonizingly slowly. Archers on your side of the bank prepare fire arrows, presumably to use to ignite the barrel.\n\n[[Watch as the dam is destroyed]]\n\n[[Try to push the barrel off the dam]]
Once inside her quarters, Sathra says, "Major Raulind, we do not have long until the enemy attacks, I had hoped to have a couple days to prepare at least. As it is, we only have time to make one preparations, to recruit the townspeople into helping to defend the city alongside us. We our outnumbered too badly to hold it forever without their help. Therefore, spread the word throughout the city that the Japreth will kill every man, woman and child if they take the city."\n\n[[But that isn't true!]]\n\n[[Leave her quarters]]
You admit to killing the bandits. High Monk Shal looks solemn, and calls you into his quarters. \n\nThe quarters are several times larger than those of any of the other monks, with a masterfully made zitan wood desk engraved with dragons with a pair of equally well made ebony chairs, and several portraits on the wall of monks fighting monsters. Off in the corner you can see a nice-looking bed with a xiangzhi wood frame. Overall, these quarters look much nicer than those in the rest of the monastery, in fact they look worthy of a royal palace, to the point that they seem downright out of place here. \n\nShal gestures for you to sit down, then sits down himself. You obediently sit down in one of the chairs. Shal says, "Killing is against our vows, so I am supposed to condemn you, and likely many of your fellow monks will. However, I am rather more pragmatic than my fellow monks, and between you and me, you did the right thing. If you hadn't stopped those bandits, that village would likely have been raped and pillaged, then probably set on fire for good measure. You saved the village, take comfort in that. However, as killing is against our vows, I must hand down a public punishment, so as not to show favoritism. Therefore, you must wash the upper floor after supper tomorrow. I hope that you will not have to resort to killing again anytime soon. Now, we should both get some rest."\n\nYou [[return to your quarters and quickly fall asleep]].
Trying to keep your voice calm, you order your squad to form up on you, and you lead them out of the barracks in an orderly fashion. Outside, you see a group of people in Japreth armor fleeing the scene through a series of narrow alleys. \n\n[[Pursue the fleeing people into the alley]]\n\n[[Try to put out the fire]]
How shall you light the town on fire?\n\n<<set $burntNogrith to true>>\n\n[[Keep your forces together while circling the town, lighting it on fire]]\n<<if $menAlong > 10>>\n[[Split your forces up into small bands to light the outside of the town on fire]]\n\n[[Surround the town with a thin ring of your men while lighting it on fire]]\n<<else>>\nThis is your only option because you brought so few men.\n<<endif>>
By marching through the night, and continuing the march early the next morning, you manage to lose any pursuit from the Japreth. After another couple days, you manage to make it back to the hideout. Sathra is looking quite pale by this point. You had managed to take the arrows out during your flight, but the hard march after those injuries must have taken its toll, and they might have been poisoned. Sathra calls you over to her, and tells you she will answer any one question before she dies, and yes, she asserts, she is dying. \n\n[["Save your strength"]]\n\n[["Why do you fight so hard for Cinethra?]]\n\n[["Why don't you seem to care about the common people?"]]\n\n[["Are the rumors about you true?"|"Are the rumors true?"]]\n\n[["What should I do now?"]]
Over the next few years, you lead your company attempting to catch the rest of Sathra's forces, but you only manage to catch the occassional Cinethran soldier. Sathra continues to wage her guerrilla war, despite her depleted forces. You hear reports of her assassinating officers, lighting parts of the city on fire, destroying bridges, and freeing prisioners, as well as stealing both food and pay chests shipped in from Japreth. Eventually, the Japreth decide to host a conference to decide how to finally deal with Sathra. You are ordered to [[attend the conference]].
You are a renowned Major in [[Cinethra]]'s army. You typically have a casualty ratio of about 3:1 in your favor, and are known to fight quite honorably. While [[Sathra]] has critisized you for "Not having the stomach to do what needs to be done", even she has to admit that you are one of the best officers in [[Cinethra]]'s army, and in fact personally chose you to be under her command. You are next in line to be made a general, once one of the other generals die.\n\nYou are six feet tall, have reasonable-length black hair and blue eyes. You typically wear the traditional armor made from hardened leather plates reinforced with veins of steel, and carry a katana. \n\nYou are a skilled swordsman, being ranked as the fourth best in [[Cinethra]]. \n\n[[Return|Start]]
You are awoken by a tearing sound, near the back of your tent. Carefully looking over, you notice a man in a black cloak entering through a newly-made tear in your tent with a dagger in hand. You took off your armor and katana to sleep, and left both on your table, about six feet away from you. \n\n[[Leap for your katana]]\n\n[[Continue lying still]]
You tell everyone who isn't willing and able to fight to scatter to wherever they wish, but under no circumstances to follow you. <<print ($townspeopleLeft/10)>> of them decide to follow you, and look able-bodied, and the rest obediently disperse. With that complete, you [[proceed to the hideout|Proceed to the hideout]].\n\n<<set $civilliansLeft to ($townspeopleLeft/10)>>
History remembers you more for your previous glories, rather than your pathetic end, and you are held up has an example of honor, duty, and trustworthiness. \n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
History remembers you mostly for your steadfast loyalty and honor. In future generations some respect and admire your unwavering devotion and persistence, some of whom view you as a tragic hero, while others view you as stubborn and blind to the realities of the world. But none of them question that you were faithful to your vows and to your country to the end, and that you acted with honor.\n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
Your squad leader leads your squad back up the road, to avoid the flames. All around you, trees catch on fire, confirming your suspicions that Sathra lit the forest in several places. Your squad manages to keep away from the spreading flames, however, though the squad behind you is barely staying ahead of the occassional falling burning tree. After about an hour of running you are back outside the forest. The army makes camp to waits for the forest fire to die out. In the morning, the fire is gone, and you continue your marching south. After two days of uneventful marching along the road, you reach the [[capital|capital6]]
The next morning, you are awoken via a large gong to indicate that the time for farming has begun. You help harvest the wheat, and continue the hard farm work until about noon, when it is finally lunch time. After another few days pass like this, you hear that the capital has fallen, though Sathra has apparently escaped with some of her men. Another couple of days after that, you are [[picked to go on a mission]].
"Unfortenately, we will be fighting many different types of enemies, and we cannot afford to spend the time to train the monks to use the ropes to dismount cavalry when most of our enemies will be on foot. [[Any more suggestions?|return to your quarters and fall asleep]]"\n\n<<set $ropes to true>>
You and the other surviving monks walk back in an awkward silence, that no one attempts to break. Eventually, around midnight you get back to the monastery. The main room is almost deserted, but you find High Monk Shal meditating in his red and gold dragon robes. He turns when you enter, and asks why so few of you have returned. One of your companions explains what happened in the village, including how you mercilessly slew several of the bandits with a sword. Lord shall turns to you, and asks whether that was true.\n\n[[Deny that you killed the bandits]]\n\n[[Admit to killing the bandits]]
The enemy moves towards the smoke to investigate, only to find themselves trapped in a ring of fire. Desperately, they charge out, through the flames, losing most of their men and all of their order while doing so, allowing your army to defeat the survivors with only losing nine men. Though the flames, you can see men, women, and children burning alive, and their screams fill your ears.\n\nYou return to camp, and your fellow men drink a toast to the victory today. It seems you are now allowed a place in a tent again, and when it is time to sleep you are lead to a large but crowded tent meant for common foot soldiers. At last, you fall [[asleep]].
A glint of anger flashes in Sathra's eyes, and her hand unsheathes her sword with lightning quickness. You unsheathe your sword quickly, stepping back to buy time. Sathra says with cold fury, "I cannot ignore insubordination, even from someone with your reputation." You circle each other throwing out feints to try to throw the other off balance or reveal get them to reveal their plans. Sathra appears to see right through all your feints, despite them being quite good, whereas each of her feints almost fools you. \n\nYou start another feint but turn it into an actual cut to her head. She parries the blow while simultaneously cutting straight towards your neck. You manage to parry the cut while simulataneously cutting towards her head again, though her sword got within a couple inches of your neck. Sathra steps to the side, evading your head cut and traps your sword down below her own. You step back to free your sword, then quickly enter into a flurry of blows with Sathra, each one of you trying to hit the other while simulataneously protecting yourself. After about ten blows, Sathra closes to within two feet of you, then kicks you hard in the chest, slamming you into a wall. Sathra takes advantage of this to trap your sword above your head while simulataneously stabbing you in the chest. You slump to the ground, dead.\n\n[[Legacy|DuelConclusion1]]
The bridge, from what remains of it, appears to have been made out of solid stone, and appears to have been broken using mining picks from both ends. You see muddy tracks leading to the east along a riverside gravel road. You follow these tracks a ways, but after a ways the tracks begin to fade and finally you can't spot them. Their boots must have tried up enough by walking on the dry gravel that they no longer made a noticeable mark. You [[return to the capital to report your failure]].
You reach for your sword, but Sathra is quicker. You only mostly leap out of the way of her first swing, recieving a thin but long cut across your chest that hurts like molten iron and starts bleeding profusely. Once you get your sword out, you fight valiantly and skillfully, but you find yourself becoming weaker even faster than the blood loss would account for. As you fall to your knees, you catch a glimpse of the skin around the wound blackening sickeningly. You last thought before you are decapitated is "She poisoned her sword. That's dishonorable". \n\n[[Legacy|ExecutionConclusion1]]
You form a circle around the house, and light the house on fire from all sides. You hear rapid shuffling and anxious discussion on the second floor, as the spies inside presumably inform each other that the building is on fire, and come up with a plan. Someone pokes their head out the window, and one of your men fires an arrow at them, but the arrow misses and that person quickly ducks down for cover, then presumably rejoins the discussion. The flames spread further, now making escape from the first floor unlikely. The spies smash an upstairs window, then thrust a long wooden ladder through it, stretching over to the roof of the nearest building. \n\nThe spies then start trying to run across it, at which point you order your squad to shoot at them. Some of the spies are shot by arrows as they run, while others either fall off the ladder, or trip and fall down on the ladder only to be shot with arrows. Two spies out of a total of twelve make it accross to the nearest building, which you then quickly surround. The spies look reluctant to come down, so you signal for your archers to shoot them down, and their lifeless bodies fall down into the street. After putting out the fire, you [[report your success]].
You and your battalion charge through burning streets, pushing through panicked crowds and winding through narrow alleys. You occassionally find a small group of Cinethrans, and take them out. Eventually, your commander feels you have found as many enemies as you are going to, and the fires are put out, so you return to the palace. Upon arriving, you are informed that the gate guards on duty let in the enemies without raising an alarm or putting up a fight, and are being held for interrogation. You are asked to [[attend the interrogation]].
You and your squad discreetly arrive outside the house a little after midnight. The building appears to be in the old brothel district, and the streets are fairly narrow. The building itself is two stories tall, and about fifty feet wide and long. There are no signs of life, but that is to be expected for this time of night. \n\n[[Light the house on fire]]\n\n[[Storm the house, leaving a few men to make a perimeter]]\n\n[[Pound on the door, and order the people inside to open up]]
"We have no idea, we were off duty last night, and took the opportunity to get a drink at the local tavern. A couple of us splurged for some pleasant company, some of the Cinethran girls are going cheap these days, but it still took a few weeks savings." \n<<if $checkedGuardPockets is false>>\n[[Check the guards pockets|Check the guards pockets, in case of bribery]]\n<<endif>>\n[[Check the captain's pockets]]
Japreth is country just to [[Cinethra]]'s north, that is currently invading it. It fields a force of about thirty thousand men, and unlike with [[Cinethra]], this does not strain their economy. Japreth has good trading revenues, and is renowned for its crafting and its culture. It is also highly militaristic, and has expanded greatly over the past century, to around four times the size of [[Cinethra]]. This is not the first time [[Cinethra]] and Japreth have gone to war, the last time Japreth offered a peace treaty after conquering a good fifth of [[Cinethra]] due to civil war within Japreth. [[Cinethra]] desperately accepted. Japreth is an atheistic society, and your people view them as barbarians.\n\n[[Return|Start]]
The Japreth retreat back entirely to north of Cinethra's old borders, and allow Cinethra to regain its independence. The Cinethran royal family takes charge of Cinethra again, and the country begins to rebuild. Years later, Cinethra's army is close to its former strength, the cities have been repaired, and the common people are still malnourished. You overhear many people saying that it would have been better had Cinethra just been conquered, and become part of Japreth, and you become secretly rather unpopular among the common people. \n\nCenturies later, you are remembered partially for your determination and tactical brilliance, but some consider you to have been too stubborn and single-minded in your resistance, and many think that Cinethra would have been more prosperous under Japreth rule.\n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
You retrace your route back through the city, and then run through yet more streets of burning houses until you eventually find your company commander. He asks how many of the men staying with you survived, and you reply that you didn't see any others, which causes your commander to start cursing. He then composes himself, and says that it is time to move out and start [[chasing down whoever did this|ChaseDown]].
You split your forces up into small bands to light the town on fire more efficiently. The enemy moves towards the smoke to investigate, only to find themselves trapped in a ring of fire. Desperately, they charge out, through the flames, losing most of their men and all of their order while doing so, allowing you to defeat the survivors with only losing nine men. Though the flames, you can see men, women, and children burning alive, and their screams fill your ears. [[Return to camp in triumph]].\n\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-9)>>\n<<set $menAlong to ($menAlong-9)>>
You enter the tent to find a map spread out across the desk, with several wooden figures set atop it.\n\nGeneral Sathra sees you enter, and calmly says, "[[General Krethron]] is being pressed back towards the red river, with significant losses. At the current rate they will be on our side of the river by tomorrow, with the enemy in hot pursuit. Left on their own, Krethnon will be defeated entirely, and the enemy will swarm towards the capital and simply circumvent us. We cannot get to Krethnon in time, and we cannot afford to let the enemy get to the capital. In order to stop this, we must destroy the dam upstream from them before the enemy crosses the river, so that the flooding destroys or at least severely delays the enemy. In the meantime, we must also leave a hundred men here to disrupt the progress of any enemies trying to proceed past us here."\n\nYou look at the map, and you can see that you could indeed destroy the dam in time to cause the required flooding, but you also notice that the flooding would destroy several sizeable downstream towns, likely killing around ten thousand civillians in all.\n\n[["But what about the people?"]]\n\n[["Very well"]]
Sathra unsheathes he katana in a blur of motion, and before you can react she stabs you through the chest. As you fall to your knees, you hear her say, "I cannot allow a traitor to live, even one with such a reputation as yours" and she decapitates you without a hint of regret.\n\n[[Legacy|ExecutionConclusion1]]
The forms come fairly naturally, and although you stumble at first, you quickly manage to flow with the others with decent technique. After a while you find the moves somehow relaxing and peaceful, despite knowing that most of them could cause serious injury to an opponent. You are not quite sure whether or not you ought to be disturbed by that. \n\nAfter a long afternoon of training, you return to the main room for supper. Supper consists of rather similar fare to lunch except with the addition of some fresh yumberries, which have an interesting sweet and sour taste and were presumably a gift from the locals. \n\nAfter supper, and the following cleanup, you and the other monks gather for meditation and prayer, in the middle of which High Monk Shal gives a sermon explaining the importance of calmness, and how one must balance your passion with logic in order to best help the world. After meditation and prayer, [[you and the other monks head to bed]].
You lead the evacuation, with <<print $armyLeft>> soldiers in addition to several <<if $spreadTruth is false>>hundred<<else>>thousand<<endif>> townspeople and the royal family. After you are out of the capital a ways, Sathra takes you aside.\n<<if $spreadTruth is true>>\n"Major Raulind, we need to hide, we can no longer defeat the enemy in open battle. There is a hideout in the mountains, but it cannot fit everyone, nor do I think we could feed everyone. I suggest we take only those willing and able to fight there, and tell everyone else to scatter. From there, we can slowly wear away at the Japreth using a serious of carefully calculated strikes."\n\n[[Tell everyone who isn't willing and able to fight to scatter]]\n\n[["No, I won't leave anyone behind"]]\n<<else>>\n"Major Raulind, we need to hide, we can no longer defeat the enemy in open battle. There is a hideout in the mountains that we should hide in. From there, we can slowly wear away at the Japreth using a serious of carefully calculated strikes."\n\nYou notice that several groups of people are scattering away from the group, apparently deciding to flee somewhere other than where you are leading them. \n<<set $civilliansLeft to 240>>\n[[Proceed to the hideout]]\n\n[[Insist on open battle]]\n<<endif>>\n<<if $spreadTruth is true>>\n\t<<set $townspeopleLeft to 2150>>\n<<else>>\n\t<<set $townspeopleLeft to 340>>\n<<endif>>
You gather the guards that were on duty together. The guards look fairly underpaid and disgruntled, though they do keep their [[Ji|Ji2]]s well polished, are pretty alert, and show you respect. \n\n[[Ask the guards what happened last night|QuestionInitialGuards2]]\n\n[[Check the guards pockets, in case of bribery|CheckInitialPockets2]]
You and the other monks report how you failed to rescue the captives, due to the bandits preparing to kill them unless they left. High Monk Shal looks both disappointed and frustrated. He says, "We need to figure out a plan to deal with that in the future, these are unlikely to be the last bandits to try that. Does anyone have suggestions?" The rest of the monks are deathly silent. \n\n[["Next time, we must kill the bandits anyways"]]\n\n[["We need ranged weapons"]]\n\n[[Remain silent|Offer no suggestions]]\n<<set $darts to false>>\n<<set $bolas to false>>
You start to follow the wagon tracks down the road. The wagon tracks turn towards the east at the next intersection, starting to head southeast towards the mountains. Up ahead, the wagon tracks veer onto a small path through the woods, heading northeast perpendicular to the main path. \n\n[[Continue to follow the tracks]]\n\n[[Continue along the main path]]\n\n<<set $menAlong to 80>>\n<<set $enemyLeft to 100>>
History remembers you mostly as a traitor, rather than for your long, loyal, honorable, and successful career in the military before the war that claimed your life. Some admire your career after your treachery, seeing how you helped shorten the war and in the process saved hundreds of lives. However, others condemn you for your treachery. Your final swordfight becomes one of the most famous swordfights in history, and becomes extensively analyzed by swordsmasters. Only a few scholars remember that you had been the model Cinethran officer once. \n\nSathra's men slaughtered all the officers in the room, stripping Japreth of their senior military leadership and dealing a crushing blow to morale. However, Sathra was mortally wounded during her escape, and after her death the remnants of the Cinethran military surrendered.\n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
"Good idea, with that many men you should be able to burn them out with little danger. I assume that was your plan, rather than trying to overwhelm them with pure numbers. You should get some rest"\n\n[[Return to your quarters]]\n\n<<set $menAlong to 1000>>
"Good idea, I have been considering that myself. It will take a while to retrain the monks, but the extra reach should prove valuable. [[Any other suggestions?|return to your quarters and fall asleep]]"\n\n<<set $staff to true>>
As you are walking, a few arrows fly from the buildings around you, forcing you to start siezing these occupied buildings one by one, cutting down both surviving soldiers and armed townspeople. The house to house neutralization takes another several hours, so it is past noon by the time the battle finally finishes. Also, many times the defenders lit their houses on fire before they were killed, leaving you to rush out of the building to escape the flames. You have seen no sign of Sathra's body, and you have a feeling that she got away with some of her men, and that she will return to cause you problems in the future.\n\nWhen the battle is done, the army proceeds to the work of taking all the bodies, friend or foe, out of the city and burning them in large funeral pyres. At last, as the sun begins to set, the army eats supper and then you [[return to your tent and sleep|CapitalTraitorAftermath2]].
High Monk Shal calls you into the main room after lunch, with a dozen warrior monks being the only other occupants of the room. High Monk Shal explains, "The nearby town of Wujin is being extorted by bandits, and is unable to pay the next extortion payments. They have asked for our aid to remove the bandits. Monk Jian will lead you into battle. Remember, we do not kill our enemies, merely protect the innocent and teach the guilty the error of their ways. You shall leave in an hour to protect the town"\n\n[[Go to protect the town]]
"We have a limited number of fully-trained monks, but with our recent losses, we may have to include less well-trained monks for a while in our dangerous missions. In order to compensate, we should indeed likely use more monks, and work hard to train new ones. [[Any other suggestions?|return to your quarters and fall asleep]]"\n\n<<set $moreMonks to true>>
You deny killing the bandits. High Monk Shal looks solemn, and calls you into his quarters. \n\nThe quarters are several times larger than those of any of the other monks, with a masterfully made zitan wood desk engraved with dragons with a pair of equally well made ebony chairs, and several portraits on the wall of monks fighting monsters. Off in the corner you can see a nice-looking bed with a xiangzhi wood frame. Overall, these quarters look much nicer than those in the rest of the monastery, in fact they look worthy of a royal palace, to the point that they seem downright out of place here. \n\nShal gestures for you to sit down, then sits down himself. You obediently sit down in one of the chairs. Shal says, "I know you lied about killing those bandits, and I will not tolerate you lying to me. Not only is it against our vows, but it makes me unable to trust you. As for your actual acts in the town, killing is against our vows, so I am supposed to condemn you for that, and likely many of your fellow monks will. However, between you and me, you did the right thing in that town. If you hadn't stopped those bandits, that town would likely have been raped and pillaged, then probably set on fire for good measure. You saved the town, take some comfort in that. However, for lying to me and for breaking your vows, you must be publicly punished. Therefore, you must wash the upper floor after each supper for the next two weeks. I hope that you will not have to resort to killing again anytime soon, and for both our sakes, don't lie to me again. Ever. Now, we should both get some rest."\n\nYou [[return to your quarters and eventually fall asleep]].
You are in a large tent belonging to General [[Sathra]], your commander. She is a six foot tall woman with black hair wearing black leather armor with a katana at her waist. According to the accounts you have heard, she is ruthless, but brilliant, and as such is one of the three generals of [[Cinethra]]. This is your first week under her command. You are both standing, with a desk in between you.\n\nShe says to you with a calm voice filled with authority, "[[Major Raulind]], you will be leading the raid tomorrow. A hundred [[Japreth]] warriors have siezed control of the nearby town of Nogrith. You are to lead however many of the thousand men that we have here that you believe advisable to defeat them. Make sure to keep casualties to an absolute minimum no matter what the cost, we are outnumbered ten to one in this war, so if you lose any more than ten men, the battle will be a loss. Feel free to burn it to the ground, we cannot afford to lose men to spare civilians. How many men will you be using tomorrow?"\n\n[[All of them|1000]]\n\n[[Same as them, one hundred|100]]\n\n[[Let's make sure I don't lose more than ten, so I am only taking ten|10]]\n\n[[I shall go myself|1]]\n\n\n<<set $armyLeft to 1000>>\n<<set $Monk to false>>\n<<set $trusted to true>>
You walk over to your squad leader, and mention that there appear to be several logs rigged to fall onto the roadway, as well as some snapped branches in the forest along the road. Your squad leader thanks you for your warning, and sends two men to spread the word to keep a lookout, and that your squad intends to walk through the woods to the side of the road to check for traps. Your squad marches off the road, and into the forest, heading directly uphill to the right. After you reach the top of the hill, you start walking parallel to the road. After a few steps, arrows fly from in front of you, killing four of your squadmates instantly, as well as your squad leader, while wounding another two. You see that there are archers hiding on the side of the road.\n\n[[Duck for cover]]\n\n[[Run back towards the rest of the army]]\n\n[[Charge]]
You stand your ground as Sathra's men charge at you, but being badly outnumbered and with Sathra's men being well-armed, armored and trained, you are quickly overwhelmed. By the time the other monks arrive, Sathra had already lit a significant part of the city on fire and fled into the night. In vengeance against your attempted resistance, she later burns your monastery to the ground.\n\n[[Legacy|MonkConclusion1]]
"So you drank a mysterious jar sent in a letter, on the request of a monk. That seems quite desperate of you, but also rather cunning. Well, I can't find you guilty in court, so I must pronounce you cleared of all charges, though we will never be on good terms again. I shall leave you to answer to the accusations of the people you claim to care for so much"\n\nSathra then leaves through the court's one exit door, and locks it behind her. A few minutes later, you find yourself before [[a court of the people]].\n\n<<set $InnocentCourt1 to true>>
You retrace your route back through the city, and then run through yet more streets of burning houses until you eventually find your battalion commander. He asks how many of the men staying with you survived, and you reply that you didn't see any others, which causes your commander to start cursing. He then composes himself, and says that it is time to move out and start [[chasing down whoever did this]].
You help assemble knife carts and mobile wooden walls to roll into place behind the gate to slow down attackers in case the gates fall. After a long, hard day's work you [[return to the barracks|returnToBarracks2]].
You decline to mention any message to spread, and instead sit down to play go. You play for a few hours, winning all but one game, losing only to a young captain. Sathra comes out to ask how the message spreading is going.\n\n[["I decided not to send any message, fighting should be left to soldiers"]]\n\n[["I'll get around to that here momentarilly"]]\n\n[["The messengers haven't come back yet"]]
You proudly bring the caravan to the capital, and announce your success against Sathra's ambush. Your company commander congradulates you on your success, and announces he is going to recommend you for promotion. \n\nAbout a week later, you become a company commander for your valiant protection of the caravan. Over the next few years, you lead your company attempting to catch the rest of Sathra's forces, but you only manage to catch the occassional Cinethran soldier. Sathra continues to wage her guerrilla war, despite her depleted forces. You hear reports of her assassinating officers, lighting parts of the city on fire, destroying bridges, and freeing prisioners. However, you notice that the attacks on caravans have dramatically decreased, perhaps as a result of your efforts. Eventually, the Japreth decide to hold a meeting on how to finally deal with Sathra. You are ordered to [[attend the conference]].\n\n<<set $protectedCaravan to true>>
<<if $civilliansLeft > 5>>\nDo you wish to send civillians or soldiers to try to light the town on fire?\n\n[[Send civillians in]]\n\n[[Send soldiers in]]\n<<else>>\nYou do not have enough civillians left to light barracks on fire effectively, so you must [[send in soldiers|Send soldiers in]].\n<<endif>>
You run through streets of burning houses, and eventually find your batallion commander. He asks how many of the men staying with you survived, and you reply that you didn't see any others, which causes your commander to start cursing. He then composes himself, and says that it is time to move out and start [[chasing down whoever did this]].
<<if $prevCityMove is "meeting">>\nYou and your men change into Japreth armor, selecting Japreth helms that hide the face so that you will not be recognized. You then walk for several days until you reach the capital. It is nighttime, and the conference should be a couple hours from the end. You enter the gates into the city, but you notice that the gate guard's eyes linger on you suspiciously long, and you get a bad feeling about this. \n\n[[Continue on with your mission]]\n\n[[Flee]]\n\n<<else>>\nYou and your men change into Japreth armor, selecting Japreth helms that hide the face so that you will not be recognized. You then walk for several days until you reach the capital. It is nighttime, and the conference should be a couple hours from the end. You approach the palace, where the conference is supposed to take place, and find the doors guarded only by a dozen soldiers. \n\nYou and your men approach to within striking distance of the soldiers, then quickly kill them before they can sound an alarm. You then rush inside, killing anyone in your path. Men and woman scream as you charge through the palace, barrelling towards the conference room. Once inside, you encounter about forty officers who are all now standing with swords drawn facing the doors you entered through, but luckily most seem to be missing their bamboo armor. \n\n<<if (random(0,100) < ($armyLeft)) && ($armyLeft > 60)>>You charge at the officers, who seem unprepared for such a vicious assault. The officers fight back valiantly, but they are overwhelmed. After losing a couple dozen men, you manage to kill everyone in the conference room, though not before likely alerting half the city to your attack. You rush back towards the gate, trying to escape before help arrives. The guards at the gate try to close it, but one of your men shoots the guard trying to close the portcullis, and you quickly unbar the gate and rush through. However, archers on the wall release arrows, killing some of your men. In the end, you escape the capital after losing thirty six men.\n<<set $armyLeft to Math.round($armyLeft - 36)>>\n<<set $enemyMorale to $enemyMorale - 8>>\n[[Flee to hideout|what to do with your soldiers]]\n<<else>>You charge at the officers, but they counter-attack valiantly, and the fighting seems fairly even. After about half of the soldiers on each side are dead, dozens of soldiers pour in from behind you, apparently alerted by the screaming. You are eventually all overwhelmed, and killed.\n\n[[Legacy|ConferenceConclusion1]]\n<<endif>>\n<<endif>>\n\n<<set $prevMove to "meeting">>\n<<set $prevCityMove to "meeting">>
You tell your company commander about the guard captain's treason, to which he is shocked and dismayed, but congradulates you on finding them out. He then sends you back to search for more traitors among the guards of that gate. When you return, you find that most of the guards for the gate disappeared while you were arresting the captain<<if $annoyedGuards is false>>, but that the ones the captain claimed were on duty are still here. Those guards, however, seem to be innocent of any treason<<endif>>. You then report back to your company commander. \n\nYour company commander says that it is unfortenate that the treacherous gate guards got away, but at least they could be replaced with honest ones now. <<if $createdTratiors is true>> He does, however, ask that you avoid being unnecessarily harsh to innocent soldiers in the future, and hopes that those guards do not require replacing due to your heavy-handedness.<<endif>> He then dismisses you, and you [[return to your quarters]].\n\n<<set $arrestedGuards to false>>
You charge confidently, looking as if your victory was predetermined. However, Sathra is unshaken by your apparent confidence, and holds her ground. You weave in and out of sword range of her men, hitting them when possible, but the difference in equipment is really starting to show, and you are losing monks much faster than she is having men knocked unconsious. \n\nIn the end, you are overwhelmed, but you bought enough time for the Japreth to mobilize some of their forces, and Sathra's raid is cut off prematurely. In vengeance, she later burns your monastery to the ground.\n\n[[Legacy|MonkConclusion1]]
You order your men to quickly blow the dam. Four men rush the explosive barrel towards the center of the dam, though only two of them make it, and another six of your men are hit by arrows. Your archers immediately fire flaming arrows at the barrel, the resulting explosion knocking the other two barrel-carriers over the dam to their deaths, as well as knocking a giant hole in the dam. The dam proceeds to collapse entirely, releasing a massive torrent of water downstream. You quickly order your men to back away from the river, not wanting to lose more men in a doomed shootout. You [[return to the camp]] to discuss your next move.\n\n<<set $destroyedDamn to true>>\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-10)>>\n
The next morning, your company is broken up to escort several caravans. You are assigned to help guard a caravan of ten wagons with your squad. The caravan has another squad guarding it, under a different commander. This other squad is evenly split between both sides of the caravan, with a soldier on each side of each wagon. \n\n[[Order your men to guard the right side of the caravan]]\n\n[[Order your men to guard the left side of the caravan]]\n\n[[Order your men to guard the front of the caravan]]\n\n[[Order your men to guard the back of the caravan]]\n\n[[Order your men to hide inside the wagons]]\n\n[[Order your men to guard both sides of the caravan]]
You and your monks return to the monastery, to report how you scared Sathra off, but how she swore that you would regret doing so. High Monk Shal looks troubled, but congradulates you on defending the capital. Several days later, you [[awake to the sound of bells, screams, and the roar of flames]].
You wait in the wagons, as you hear the squad of your guards outside being massacred. After the cries of agony are cut off, you hear Sathra instructing her soldiers to drive the wagons back to the hideout. You feel your wagon starting to move, and the conversation of enemy soldiers to either side of the wagons.\n\n[[Leap out of the wagons]]\n\n[[Continue hiding in the wagons]]
"How do you justify yourself in destroying a dam upstream from several major towns, killing tens out thousands of civillians"\n\n[["I was ordered to do it"|FollowingOrders2]]\n\n[["Stuff like that happens in war"|WarExcuse2]]\n\n[["It was the only way to give Cinethra a fighting chance"]]
Sathra replies, "They are a necessary sacrifice. If the enemy gets behind us Cinethra is lost, so we must stop them in whatever way possible."\n\n[["Very well"]]\n\n[["I can't let you do this"|Try to kill Sathra in a fit of rage]]
You wait on one side of the road in ambush. A couple hours later, you hear a caravan of wagons approaching, about twelve in all, with three guards apiece. You give the signal, and suddenly your men shoot arrows into the caravan, killing a dozen of the guards. The other two dozen guards form up and prepare to charge into the woods. The next wave of arrows hammers into them, though, killing another half-dozen. The remaining guards charge into the forest, and are fast enough that they manage to kill two of your men before they are subdued. You steal the wagons, and start driving them towards the hideout.\n\n[[Return towards the hideout]]\n\n<<set $menAlong to ($menAlong - 2)>>\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft - 2)>>
"Daring, but I'll let you try it. I had better see you back here alive and victorious at the end, though. There are so few competent officers left, we can't afford to lose you too. [[Return to your quarters]] and get some rest"\n\n<<set $menAlong to 10>>
You dispose of the enemy general's letter, and go to sleep. Your dreams are dark and haunting, nightmares of you committing countless attrocities under the orders of General Sathra. In one dream you are ordering the assassinations of fellow officers. In another dream you are ordering the complete extermination of a town, carefully ensuring the death of every man, woman and child from the town. In yet another dream, you pretend to switch sides and to buy time for your schemes, lead enemies in burning and plundering the cities of your own people. The nightmares continue on like this, each one more disturbing than the last.\n\nAt last, you [[awake]] from your nightmares, somewhat rested but deeply disturbed.
The enemy's volley kills 7 of your men, while your volley kills 9 of theirs. The back line of the enemy retreats, while the first line reloads. Apparently Sathra intends to sacrifice half her men to allow her time to retreat. She must be getting desperate.\n\n[[Charge at the enemy]]\n\n[[Continue to shoot]]\n\n<<set $menAlong to $menAlong - 7>>\n<<set $enemyLeft to $enemyLeft - 9>>
You pound on the door, and yell at the people inside to open up in the name of the Japreth Empire, but you hear no response. \n\n[[Light the house on fire]]\n\n[[Storm the house, leaving a few men to make a perimeter]]
With Sathra's army finally destroyed, peace is restored to the land. With the land at peace once more, Japreth turns its armies to hunting down the bandits, and most of the bandits are killed. After a few years, the Cinethrans become better off than they ever were when they were independant. Eventually, Japreth gets involved in new wars, but fortenately the fighting stays out of occupied Cinethra during your lifetime. By the time you die of old age, Cinethra has become fairly well integrated into Japreth, and the pinnacles of Japreth culture are spread across old Cinethra.\n\nHistory admires you for the valor and wisdom you displayed as a monk, as well as for your previous career as a military officer before Cinethra's last war. However, some believe that as a monk you should have remained neutral in the war, despite the fact that that would have resulted in many more deaths and hardships for the common people.\n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
You order your men to continue firing from where they are. After another three volleys, and ten more casualties, you manage to take out the part of Sathra's forces that stayed behind, but in the meantime Sathra escaped from sight. However, they did leave all the wagons behind, with most of the food still on them.\n\n[[Return the food to the Japreth and report Sathra's escape]]\n\n<<set $enemyLeft to 38>>
You are remembered all too clearly for having your otherwise good plan being foiled by a bump in the road. Many later military strategists are of the opinion that if the road was smooth, you could have ended the entire war in one fell swoop. Some view you as a tragic hero, trying to end the bloodshed and thereby save countless people on both sides, while others remember you as a traitor. Your long, loyal, honorable, and successful career in the military before the war that claimed your life is largely forgotten. Only a few scholars remember that you had been the model officer before then. \n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
You quickly grab the sword from the fallen bandit, and decide to fight them how you are used to. You weave between spear and guandao thrusts, slashing the tips off them when you can and leaping out of the way of axe blows, while taking every opportunity to kill a bandit. Despite being outnumbered twelve to one, your skill pays off, and you manage to pick off four before the rest become scared and flee the scene. You look back to see the remaining monks staring at you and your gore-drenched sword in undisguised horror. You quickly drop the sword, and you realize you are probably going to be in considerable trouble for killing as a monk, though you have no regrets. You [[walk back to the monastary in uncomfortable silence]].
You leap out of the wagon, with the other guards quickly following your example. You quickly assemble a charge, with both your squad of guards and the surviving third of the squad of other guards. Ahead of you, a last volley of arrows flies out of the trees from both sides of the road, taking out a third of the remaining guards, and then swordsmen emerge from out of the trees, a squad from each side. You fight bravely, but your guards and the enemy soldiers are taking about equal casualties, and the other squad closes in from behind. Surrounded and outnumbered, you are eventually overwhelmed, though not before killing about a squad of enemies. \n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConclusion1]]
Smoke fills the air of the house you are currently quartered in, which is a large house commandeered from a Cinethran merchant family. Out of your window, you can hear screams, and you can see other buildings on fire in the distance. You are on the third floor of the house.\n\n[[Flee out the front door]]\n\n[[Flee out the back door]]\n\n[[Jump out the window]]
Pushing past the pain of your legs, and the complaints of your men, as well as the low visibility, you order your men to continue marching through the night. Using torches you manage to navigate your path, albeit slowly. Eventually, your legs begin to cramp, and you order a break. After about twenty minutes, you have gotten you legs to function again, and order the march to continue. You continue this through the night, much to the despair of your men and your legs. When dawn comes, you are well ahead of the enemy but your legs are unwilling to continue walking. \n\nAfter a few hours break in the morning, you begin to march the slowly forwards. By sunset, the enemy is only about a half-day's march away again, but you believe that you are within a day's march of the capital. Surely enough, the morning after the next day, you reach the [[capital]].\n\n<<if $Monk is true>>\nYou realize that any monks trying to reach you would likely have been unable to follow your hasty march.\n<<endif>>
Deathly silence fills the room, and everyone stares at you in complete shock. The look on everyone's faces is almost worth the punishment you are likely to receive. Serves Jixithren right for reminding everyone of your treachery. About a minute later, Jixithren sighs and says your impudence will be dealt with later. He then asks General Grethnir to give the briefing instead. Grethnir stands and explains briefly how Sathra has been waging a general guerrilla war against you, and is particularly fond of <<if $protectedCaravan is false>>stealing caravans and<<endif>> raids of the capital, as well as sneaking assassins into the capital to kill various officers. Grethnir then sits back down.\n\nJixithren then asks for proposals on how to deal with this problem. The other occupation general stands, and [[explains his proposal]].\n\n<<set $impudent to true>>
You scramble out of the house through the back door, coughing in the deep smoke, and dodging burning rubble. The buildings in front of you are also on fire, but luckily the streets seem to be free from burning debris thusfar. About a mile to your right is the palace, which should be quite safe from all the chaos, but halfway across the city. A tenth of a mile to your left is where your battalion commander is staying, but the area near him could be in just as much disarray as where you are at.\n\n[[Flee to the palace|FleeToPalace]]\n\n[[Attempt to reunite with your company commander]]
In the minds of people living long after you are dead, you become a stereotypical villain, completely lacking in both loyalty and morality. Very few remember your long, loyal, honorable, and successful career in the military before the war that claimed your life, and the fact that you had been the model officer before then becomes lost to history. \n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
You shout up at the wall, "You'll be better off under Japreth rule, they feed their people better than Cinethra ever did, and their trade and culture will make us prosperous". The defenders don't seem to buy the argument, and seem insulted that you would make it. Your general announces that diplomacy has failed, and orders a full assault on the walls. After losing a couple hundred men, your army manages to capture the fort, stations a garrison, and [[moves on]].
The enemy general looks sad and disgusted. He says as if to himself, "What is it about Cinethra that inspires such loyalty? It kills its own subjects, through starvation and flame, but its citizens are willing to follow it to the end even when all their loyalty only results in suffering for all."\n\nYou are hauled outside of the building, and your neck is placed on a execution block near the center of town. The executioner brings out a ceremonial greatsword, and swings down quickly and precisely, decapitating you in one stroke. \n\n[[Legacy|ExecutionConclusion2]]
You quickly order your men to flee, realizing that something is horribly wrong. The guard behind you blows a horn in alarm, and above you someone cuts the ropes holding the portcullis up, causing it to slam down behind you, trapping half of your men back in the capital. Battallions of enemies pour out from the streets behind you, and quickly pin your comrades to the portcullis and kill them. You lose several more men to arrows as you flee. \n<<set $armyLeft to $armyLeft/2>>\n<<set $armyLeft to $armyLeft-6>>\n<<if $armyLeft <= 0>>\nYou and your last remaining men are run down a few miles outside the city.\n[[Legacy|ConferenceConclusion1]]\n<<else>>\n[[Return|what to do with your soldiers]]\n<<endif>>\n\n\n<<set $prevMove to "meeting">>\n<<set $prevCityMove to "meeting">>
Your company does little for the next few days, as you wait for Sathra's next move. One night, however, you are suddenly awoken by an crushing pain in your chest accompanied with a sense of intense heat. You open your eyes to find that a burning beam has fallen straight on your chest, and is lighting you on fire, as well as likely breaking several bones. You scream in agony, and try to push the beam off your chest, but to no avail. If you had just been a cot to the right or left, you would have been fine. Perhaps this is karmic retribution for failing to warn your comrades. High Monk Shal would likely think so. Around you, the other soldiers flee as the rest of the barracks collapses in burning ruin.\n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConclusion1]]
Your sleep is troubled by nightmares about villages being raped and pillaged before your eyes. At last morning comes, and you help harvest the rice. After another quite normal day at the monastery, Shal pulls you aside, and asks you what strategy changes you have come up with. \n\n<<if $staff is false>>\n[["Arm the monks with staffs"|Arm the monks with staffs]]\n<<endif>>\n<<if $ropes is false>>\n[["Use ropes to help with cavalry"|Use ropes to help with cavalry]]\n<<endif>>\n<<if $caltrops is false>>\n[["Deploy caltrops when needed"|Deploy caltrops when needed]]\n<<endif>>\n<<if $weapons is false>>\n[["Use deadly weapons"|Use deadly weapons]]\n<<endif>>\n<<if $moreMonks is false>>\n[["Send more monks on missions"|Send more monks on missions]]\n<<endif>>\n[["That is all"|That is all]]
The monastery is a large building, that looks well-built and painstakingly maintained, but not extravagant. Its roof it slightly curved, with the roof becoming less steep towards the edges and most steep towards the middle, but not so much so as to prevent water from running off. It is surrounded by farmland, currently filled with monks bringing in the harvest, and including several rice patties. \n\nThe monks bring you inside the monastery, where the main floor is mostly taken up by a large room empty room, with a painstakingly cleaned and extremely smooth wood floor. To the right, there is a kitchen, as well as a staircase leading upstairs, which is presumably where the monks live. There is one single person in the room other than yourself and the monks leading you in. This man is wearing a red robe engraved with golden dragons, unlike the brilliant white robes of the rest of the monks, and is kneeling facing away. He stands and introduces himself as High Monk Shal, the leader of the Buthenist faith.\n\nShal says, "I am glad you accepted my offer, Major Raulind. We are in desperate need of your talents to protect the people, and fighting in this current war would have destroyed you. You must take a vow to not kill another person from this day forth, but because of the situation in the world today, that does not mean you can avoid fighting. Rather, you must learn to fight without your weapons, and to defeat someone without killing them. While the armies have been fighting, and even before that, the high taxes have forced many to banditry, endangering the remaining people."\n\nShal continues, "As the only force still interested in peacekeeping, we must protect he people from these bandits, but while many of our monks are quite well trained in martial arts, none have commanded in more than a couple minor fights, and few have done even that, limiting the extent to which we can protect people. You, however, are one of the most talented commanders around, and with years of experience. With your help, we can protect the people from the bandits. In the meantime, the monks who lead you here will lead you to your quarters, and fetch you when it is time for lunch. Your training will begin shortly after that. Leave your sword and armor behind in your room. The monks will give you a set of robes to change into"\n\nThe monks lead you to your [[quarters]], which are on the second floor.
History remembers you as a martyr, who refused to lie to the people despite the orders of your general, and instead chose to sacrifice yourself to insure they got the truth.\n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
You return to the barracks, where you eat a hearty dinner of beef, rice, and bread provided for you by the people of the city. Afterwards, you play Go with some of your fellow soldiers, and beat most of them. Eventually, you retire and go to bed. \n\nYou awake to the cries of "Enemy approaching!" from the guards on top the walls. You hastily grab your sword, put on your armor, and climb the wall to see what is going on. You see an army of about five thousand men gathering outside the wall, though remaining carefully outside of arrow range. The enemy army proceeds to set up camp, with protective walls of spikes to protect against counter-attacks, and then starts preparing siege equipment. Seeing that there is no urgent threat, you and many of the other men return to the barracks to grab breakfast. The enemy continues building their siege equipment throughout the day, but by night they have finished a significant set of ladders and a battering ram. They look like they will wait until tomorrow to attack. You return to the barracks to get some rest. You quickly [[fall asleep in your cot]].
Instead of trying to convince the defenders to back down, you shout up at them to fight til the bitter end. You are quickly killed by the Japreth, but your cry convinces the Cinethrans to fight. They are overwhelmed by the Japreth anyways, though a couple hundred Japreth die in the assault.\n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConclusion2]]
History remembers you as an honorable and loyal commander, who sacrificed himself rather than be captured by the enemy. \n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
"Because I don't care about them. Once I was an herbalist, and happily married to a blacksmith. I was quite a good herbalist, as it turns out I was too good. There was another herbalist in the town, who I was unintentionally driving out of business. He was not half so talented and couldn't even tell viper venom poisoning from deathcap poisoning. Eventually, this herbalist accused me of witchcraft, and claimed that I had caused many of the afflictions people came to me to cure, being unwilling to accept that he was simply an incompetent herbalist. The townspeople believed the accusations and came to kill me. My husband held them back while telling me to run. I fled, and from behind me I could his screams as the crowd killed him."\n\nSathra pauses for a bit, and then continues, "After that, I tried becoming an herbalist in other towns, but each time the rumor would follow me and I would have to flee. Eventually, I had to resort to banditry to feed myself. So because they showed little concern for me... and in fact showed me much hostility... I have little concern... for them."\n\nSathra ends her story with difficulty, then shortly dies shortly after. You take her outside, and [[bury her]].
You order your men to charge, thinking that you must be past the line of traps Sathra set. A half-dozen of your men fall into traps you missed, but the rest manage to continue charge alongside you. You seem to be gaining on Sathra's men. When you are about two bow-shots away, Sathra's men spread out into a precise line 2 people thick and about 40 people wide and then turn to face you, archers already loading bows. Your own company is in a looose clump around you. \n\n[[Hammer into them]]\n\n[[Shoot at them cautiously]]\n\n<<set $menAlong to $menAlong - 6>>
"We must begin the march immediately. Ready the men, Major Raulind!"\n\nYou and the rest of the army, except for the hundred men selected to stay behind, march the rest of the day over a rough cobble road that leaves your feet and legs sore. As the sun begins to set, you see the dam and order your men to set up camp. Once the camp is set up you eat with your men, and return at last to your tent to rest your weary body. You soon fall [[asleep|assassin_scene]].
The bridge, from what remains of it, appears to have been made out of solid stone, and appears to have been broken using mining picks from both ends. You see muddy tracks leading to the east along a riverside gravel road. Your follow these tracks a ways, but after a ways the tracks begin to fade and finally you can't spot them. Their boots must have tried up enough by walking on the dry gravel that they no longer made a noticeable mark. You [[return to the capital to report your failure.]]
"Indeed, but this opportunity is too good to pass up. We can do more damage with this single blow than we've done over the last decade. Besides, I think this plan is too daring for the enemy to actually expect us to do it. It would be quite an odd trap indeed."\n\n[[Return|with one attack]]
<<if $prevCityMove is "burn" or random(0,100) < 75>>\nYou send most of your remaining civillians in to light barracks on fire, but never hear from them again. \n<<set $civilliansLeft to 2>>\n<<else>>\nThe group comes back reporting that they successfully lit a few barracks on fire without casualties. \n<<set $enemyMorale to $enemyMorale - 1>>\n<<endif>>\n\n[[Return|what to do with your soldiers]]\n\n<<set $prevMove to "burn">>\n<<set $prevCityMove to "burn">>
You continue through the narrow path through the bamboo forest. You notice that the tracks have gotten deeper as the ground has gotten softer, and there are signs that the wagons needed to be pushed to help them traverse the terrain. This is not a normal path for wagons, either Sathra was desperate to get off the road, or it is a trap.\n\n[[Warn your company commander]]\n\n[[Remain silent]]
You carry the loot back to the monastery. The survivors you rescued scatter in all directions, presumably returning home. When you return, High Monk Shal gives a speech saying that the hostages that died will be mourned, but that you and the rest of the monks should be proud that you managed to rescue the people you did, teach the bandits a lesson, and return the people's stuff. He then dismisses everyone, and suggests that you get some rest. \n\n[[Return to your quarters.]]\n\n<<set $loot to true>>
Once inside her quarters, Sathra says, "Major Raulind, we have a couple days to prepare for an enemy attack on the capital. We need to recruit townspeople to fight alongside us, and to prepare our defenses. We our outnumbered too badly to hold it forever without their help. Therefore, see to our defences while I recruit the townspeople."\n\n[[Leave her quarters|LeaveQuarters2]]\n
You mention to your company commander that this looks like one of Sathra's typical ambushes. He doesn't seem pleased to be reminded of your defection, but does at least wisely order the men to be alert for an ambush. However, no ambush seems to materialize. You find an abandoned where the wagon tracks end, and still no enemies in sight. The company commander orders one of the squads to start moving the wagon back onto the main road. You get a very bad feeling about that wagon.\n\n[[Warn the commander]]\n\n[[Stay silent|StaySilent2]]\n\n<<set $warned to true>>
You hold out valiantly, driving back countless attacks on the line of dagger carts and mobile walls, losing men with repulsing each assault, but eventually you are pushed back behind the line and surrounded. You form a tight knot of defenders, but you are eventually killed.\n\n[[Legacy|SiegeConclusion1]]
You force your way past the knife carts and the mobile walls, then grimly set to the work of forcing your way through the angry mob with your sword. Your first stroke finds a peasant with a pitchfork, who looks like he is on the verge of starvation. Your second stroke finds the head of a pretty girl about eight years old holding a dagger. Your third stroke finds the neck of a sixty year old man holding an axe. Your forth stroke finds the chest of a beautiful woman holding a club who you remember used to sell flowers three streets down. You let your sword take on a life of its own, and tears fill your eyes as you slash through the citizenry of this city you once knew. \n\nEventually, you slice finish slashing through the angry mob. You squad leader orders you forward towards [[the center of the city]].\n\n
The squad starts to pull the wagon. Suddenly the wagon explodes in flames, and small bits of hot iron spray out of the wagon, cutting into the men around the wagon. In all, two dozen soldiers were killed by the exploding wagon, including the company commander, who happened to be standing too close. \n<<set $exploded to true>>\n[[Report back to the capital]]
You pull a knife from you belt and throw it at Sathra, hoping to kill her before it comes to a swordfight, but she half-dodges, half-parries the dagger. She smiles and says, "I see the Japreth managed to corrupt your overly strict sense of honor, where I could not" while closing in to [[fight you sword to sword|Fight Sathra honestly]].
You release Sathra's soldiers, accepting the large sum of gold on behalf of Buthenism. A few weeks afterwards, Sathra's soldiers come back and burn down the monastery, and massacre you and the rest of the monks. Apparently your willingness to ransom her soldiers was not enough to make Sathra forgive you.\n\n[[Legacy|MonkConclusion4]]
You tell the other monks to charge, then charge yourself at Sathra's soldiers. A few monks follow, but most still seem either shocked or scared. You and the few monks that followed charge into the soldiers, but you are fairly quickly overwhelmed after only knocking out two enemy soldiers.\n\n[[Legacy|MonkConclusion1]]
The capital was lost, despite your valiant defense. Most of the women were raped, and in the chaos many of the townspeople were slain, though a couple thousand survived the chaos. The royal family was slaughtered, though Sathra managed to escape with a few dozen soldiers to continue the fight. History remembers you as a brave and dutiful commander that most people think Sathra did not deserve.\n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
The capital was lost, despite your valiant defense. Most of the women were raped, and in the chaos many of the townspeople were slain, though a couple thousand survived the chaos. The royal family was slaughtered. History remembers you as a brave and dutiful commander that most people think Sathra did not deserve.\n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra shortly afterwards, with the last of the Cinethran military and its last commanders killed in the siege, along with the entire royal family. \n\n[[Return|Start]]
The capital was lost, despite your valiant defense, though you did manage to ensure that everyone else had pleny of time to evacuate, which is likely why Sathra allowed your last stand. Sathra managed to escape with a couple hundred soldiers to continue the fight, along with the royal family and a few hundred townspeople. History remembers you as a brave and dutiful commander that most people think Sathra did not deserve.\n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
Your men form the backward-facing part of a desperate defensive circle. You order your men to stand fast as arrows bombard you from the sides, and swordsmen charge at you. Eventually, the swordsmen surround your company, at which point the archers stop firing. Men fall by your side at an alarming rate, and you notice that the circle is continually shrinking. Sathra's men are falling as well, but your company is losing probably four men for every one of hers. Eventually, you are all overwhelmed. \n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConclusion1]]\n
You drop to the ground followed by most of your squadmates. Two of them charge, but are quickly cut down by enemy arrows. One of your squadmates pulls out a small horn and blows on it, apparently signalling the danger to the rest of the army. Presumably realizing that their cover was blown, the Cinethran archers vanish back into the woods. Another couple Japreth squads arrive from behind you, only to find the enemies gone. Once you return to the army, after explaining what had occured, you are promoted to squad leader for keen insight and quick thinking, and replace your fallen squad leader. After that encounter, several squads are detailed to walk along the forests to each side of the road to prevent any future ambushes. With that concern resolved, the [[march continues down the road]].\n\n<<set $SquadLeader to true>>
You return to the camp in disgrace, head hung low in failure. The men around you are less depressed, not realizing that today was effectively a defeat, rather than a victory. A few try to comfort you, and one even tries to congradulate you on your "victory". You eventually report your failure to General Sathra in her tent.\n\n<<if $burntNogrith>>\n"Major Raulind, letting your lines get overextended is a novice mistake unbefitting an experienced leader such as yourself. Make sure that no other such foolish mistakes occur during this campaign, we cannot afford them. You will be under more direct supervision in our next mission, which I will brief you on after you and your men have eaten."\n<<else>>\nSathra glares at you in fury, but her voice is icy cold and as unyielding as steel, "You lost more men than the enemy, with our country overall outnumbered ten to one? I don't care how 'honorable' your conduct was, or what you accomplished before you were under my command, these losses are unnacceptable and endanger our entire war effort. Hopefully this has shown you your folly, though it may be too late for that to change the war."\n<<endif>>\n\nShe dismisses you with a simple, "Eat with your men, then report back to me. Think on what mistakes you made." You obediently eat your rations with your men, then [[return to Sathra's tent]]. \n\n<<set $trusted to false>>
Seeing the enemy army approaching, you order your men to take up defensive positions. As the army closes in, you see that it is about six thousand strong. As they reach bow range, both sides open fire at each other accross the river. The casualties on both sides seem to be almost equal, with your side taking perhaps slightly fewer casualties than the enemy. You have already lost over eighty men in this battle. <<if $trusted is false>>Sathra shouts at you to salvage the situation.<<endif>>\n\n[[Blow the dam]]\n\n[[Retreat]]\n<<if $trusted is true>>\n[[Hold your ground]]\n<<endif>>\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-83)>>\n<<set $Defended to true>>
"What do you mean you won't throw the torch?", your squad leader barks angrily at you.\n\nYou explain how burning a town to the ground is dishonorable, and you want no part in it. In spite of further shouting and barking by your squad leader, you do not throw your torch. However, despite you refusing to participate, the town still erupts into flames. \n\nThe enemy moves towards the smoke to investigate, only to find themselves trapped in a ring of fire. Desperately, they charge out, through the flames, losing most of their men and all of their order while doing so, allowing your army to defeat the survivors with only losing ten men. Though the flames, you can see men, women, and children burning alive, and their screams fill your ears.\n\nBack at camp, you are hung for insubordination, but you take comfort in the fact that you acted with honor. \n\n[[Legacy|ExecutionConclusion1]]
You open the letter and begin to read.\n\n"I have heard you have been transfered under Sathra's command. This saddens me, and I fear for your soul. You are an honorable and good man, but Sathra will corrupt you if nothing is done. If you follow her commands, you will find yourself doing increasingly vicious and dishonorable things, which will cause you problems with sleeping at night, and endanger your soul. If you betray her, however, you will have broken your word and sense of duty, and that will lead you down a path of self-destruction as well. You would not be the first to do either and corrupt their soul as a result.\n\nThe only chance for your soul is becoming a monk. Simply send the word, and I will send monks to extract you honorably, and then you can help the simple townsfolk, rather than making soul-destroying choices daily. I know you have not shown much interest in religion thusfar, but please consider my offer as your one chance at salvation.\n\nSincerely,\nHigh Monk Shal"\n\n[[Write a letter accepting Shal's offer]]\n\n[[Write a polite refusal]]\n\n[[Write an angry refusal]]\n\n[[Return|Return to your quarters]]
A variation on a halberd, these Jis are like spears with a dagger-like crescent blades attached to one side of their heads. \n\n[[Return|guards were on duty at the time]]
You return to the capital, and report the outcome to your battalion commander for your company commander. Your battallion commander seems disappointed but unsurprised by your failure to find the Cinethrans. A few days later, a set of barracks are burnt to the ground, and your new company is sent [[to investigate the fire]].
<<if $menAlong < 200>> You force surrenders, both sides thinking you are to blame for your force's quick defeat. You are all locked together in houses, and the next day you are privately brought to see the enemy general, who arrived with an army of several thousand men. He gives you an [[offer|Option to Surrender]].\n<<else>>\nYour men angrily kill you, rather than surrender, and keep fighting. In the end they are victorious, but take heavy casualties. [[Legacy|ExecutionConclusion1]]\n<<endif>>\n
You decline to mention that there is probably an ambush ahead, and the army marches on in blissful ignorance. Surely enough, as you pass the trees that are ready to collapse, those trees collapse onto the squad behind you, and arrows bombard the army from the right. You and the rest of the army charge up the hill towards the enemy, but after releasing another volley the Cinethrans vanish into the forest. After that encounter, several squads are detailed to walk along the forests to each side of the road to prevent any future ambushes. With that concern resolved, the [[march continues down the road|march2]].\n
A half-dozen guards immediately make a break for it, but your men haul them back violently and throw them before you. Of the guards that the captain just fetched, all but two have a suspicious number of Cinethran gold coins in their pockets. \n\n[[Search their houses|SearchFinalHouses2]]\n\n[[Arrest the guards with Cinethran golds|ArrestGuards2]]
You charge at Sathra's rearguard force. They wrap around you to surround you, letting their center be pushed back, but you manage to break through the center after losing about two dozen men. After losing another dozen men, you manage to take out the rest of the rearguard and start chasing after Sathra's remaining forces. \n\n<<if random(0,100) < 15>>You manage to catch up with Sathra's fleeing forces and charge into them as well. Sathra engages you with a swordfight, while your men engage hers. Her technique is smooth and cunning, nearly tricking you many times, but you manage to hold out with your own well-refined technique while your men defeat hers. Eventually, she is overwhelmed and killed, though in the battle you lost all but eight of your men. You take her body and the stolen food back to the capital, and are promoted to Major in the Japreth military. The war is quickly won, since with Sathra dead very few were willing to resist the Japreth after that. \n\n[[Legacy|TraitorVictory1]]\n<<else if random(0,100) < 25>> You manage to catch up with Sathra's fleeing forces and charge into them as well. Sathra engages you with a swordfight, while your men engage hers. Her technique is smooth and cunning, keeping you on the defensive, and you know that unless your men can defeat hers quickly, Sathra will eventually defeat you. However, Sathra seems to have positioned her troops well, and you notice that they have partially surrounded your men, and your men seem to be losing as well. You try to extract your men, but by the time you manage to get your men back to neutral position with Sathra's forces, her forces outnumber yours, and you know all too well how effective her forces are. You desperately try to surround her forces with yours, but your lines become too thin, and the center collapses around you. Sathra slips her sword around yours and slashes her sword across your neck. You fall to the ground, and quickly die from blood loss, and as you lay dying you see the last of your men being slaughtered.\n\n[[InvestigationConclusion2]]\n<<else>>Sathra's remaining forces seem to have disappeared once again. Their footprints are too faint to follow, so following them is not an option. However, they did leave the wagons behind, along with most of the food. \n\n[[Return the food to the Japreth and report Sathra's escape]]<<endif>>\n\n<<set $menAlong to $menAlong - 26>>\n<<set $enemyLeft to 38>>
You make camp tonight, deciding not to exhaust your men in a desperate attempt to gain distance. <<if $Monk is false>> You continue marching and making camp for another three days, with the enemy still only a half-day behind you, until you at last reach the [[capital]].<<else>> When you return to your tent, you find another letter from High Monk Shal. The letter contains a vial of a mysterious liquid with instructions to drink it. The letter explains that the vial will make you temporarily ill so that the monks can claim that you need their help to be cured, which will allow you to join their order.\n\n[[Drink the vial]]\n\n[[Do not drink the vial|Don'tDrinkVial2]]\n<<endif>>
"Unfortenately, the correct poisons needed to knock someone unconsious without killing them are not easy to find, and we don't have the resources to acquire them now."\n\n[[Return|"We need ranged weapons"]]
The general lays out a plan to lay traps on the city gates, putting companies of soldiers in nearby alleys, and ordering all people approaching the gates to remove any headwear so their faces could be clearly be seen. General Grethnir points out that no one knows either what all the rebels look like, or what everyone in the Japreth army looks like, and therefore doubts that the guards would be able to spot the Cinethrans reliably. The general who suggested the plan suggests that in any doubt, the incomers are questioned extensively. Grethnir concedes that this would likely spot the invaders, but would also create resentment from anyone who travels out of the city. \n\nJixithren thanks the general for his plan, and then General Grethnir announces that he [[has another plan]].
The man desperately slits your throat, making killing you his last act.\n\n[[Legacy|AssassinationConclusion]]
General Krethron is a rather traditional general of Cinethra. He is known for fighting in a relatively honorable fashion, though often to the point of blunt attacks. He typically maintains casualty ratios of 3:2 in his favor, and is not a bad swordsman, but is overall a fairly forgettable commander. He had a force of a thousand men under him at the start of the war, and was attacked by a force of ten thousand enemies, making his retreat unsurprising.\n\n[[return|return to Sathra's tent]]
<<if $staff is true>>You drop your staff and walk away, followed by the rest of the monks.<<else>>You walk away, followed by the rest of the monks.<<endif>> Behind you, you hear the jeering of the bandits, and muffled crying from the hostages. You eventually return to the monastery in the middle of the night to [[report your failure]].
You desperately jump out the window, land badly and break both of your legs. Screaming in pain, you try to crawl away from the burning house. A minute later, a pair of crossbow bolts fired from a nearby rooftop put you out of your misery.\n\n[[Legacy|HeavyHandedConclusion1]]
As the weeks pass, you notice the newcomers becoming more and more disatisfied, and the monks you are asking to have watch them are also becoming increasingly annoyed. One morning, you are told that the newcomers attempted to beat up their supervisors and free the prisioners, but that the monks managed to stop them. You order the newcomers to be imprisioned with Sathra's soldiers, and praise the monks for stopping this attempt. You are left to wonder whether the newcommers were originally up to no good, or whether your suspicion of them caused them to snap and burst out in violence. In either case, though, you need fear no further threat from them, now.\n\nSathra learns of this failure, and being apparently quite desperate, attacks your monastery again. The monastery burns down again, killing all the prisioners, and several of your monks, but this time you capture Sathra and the rest of her soldiers. Seeing that Sathra is not going to learn from her mistakes, you order your men to imprision Sathra and her men. A week later, a Japreth army shows up, and demands the Cinethran prisioners. Not having the forces to argue with them even if you wanted to, you hand over Sathra and her men to the Japreth. Later you hear that they were all executed, along with the Cinethran royal family. With that, [[Sathra's resistance is ended]].
You and your company charge through burning streets, pushing through panicked crowds and winding through narrow alleys. You occassionally find a small group of Cinethrans, and take them out. Eventually, your commander feels you have found as many enemies as you are going to, and the fires are put out, so you return to the palace. Upon arriving, you are informed that the gate guards on duty let in the enemies without raising an alarm or putting up a fight, and are being held for interrogation. You are asked to [[attend the interrogation|AttendInterrogation]].
You order your men to cautiously follow the route the enemy took, and to absolutely not charge blindly ahead. Ahead, you spot an off-color part of the ground, and you instantly call a halt. You stab it with your sword and push forward, and a dirt-covered canvas rolls away to reveal a pit filled with wooden spikes. Through the trees you can see Sathra's force regrouping and heading towards you. You order your men to form up behind the pit trap, and fire at the advancing enemy. Your men obediently fall into formation, and load their bows. You and the enemy each release one volley of arrows at each other, killing a half-dozen men on each side, at which point Sathra evidently orders a retreat. \n\nYou notice Sathra's look of cold fury towards you just before she flees. Most likely she was expecting a less competent officer to be in charge, who would have lead their troops straight into the pit traps. By the look she gave you, she probably previously thought that you were dead or a prisioner rather than a traitor. \n\n[["Run them down!"]]\n\n[[Follow cautiously and slowly]]\n\n<<set $menAlong to $menAlong - 6>>\n<<set $enemyLeft to $enemyLeft - 6>>
Sathra looks into your eyes, and seems to believe you. Cursing, she orders her men to retreat. Turning back to face you, she tells you that you will regret this, before fleeing into the night.\n\nYou [[return to the monastery to report what happened]].
When you return to the barracks, you hear that Sathra has told the city that if the capital falls, every single man, woman, and child will be brutally killed by the Japreth, and that every able-bodied citizen should be prepared to defend it. You know that to be an exaggeration, but apparently it was enough to rouse a couple thousand townspeople to fight alongside you. \n\nYou pass the next day playing go with the soldiers who are off of guard duty, as the preperations have already been made as best as they can be. You beat everyone at least once and lose only two games, one to a young captain and one to an old veteran. That night, Sathra joins in, and you play ten games with her, of which you win three. \n\nThe next morning, [[the Japreth attack|JaprethAttack2]]
High Monk Shal calls you into the main room after lunch, with a couple dozen warrior monks being the only other occupants of the room. High Monk Shal explains, "There is a band of brigands that has been raiding nearby villages, carrying off food, women, and treasure. They have been moving quickly, being a cavalry force, so thusfar we have been unable to catch them. However, a hunter stumbled accross their hideout yesterday, and told us their location. You are to teach the bandits a lesson and return their loot tonight. Monk Heng will be leading this mission."\n\nThe rest of the day passes as normal, and at the start of meditations you and the other warrior monks selected for this mission [[depart]].
<<if $warned is true>>You order your squad to form a sharp wedge, then charge to the rear. Neither Sathra's men, nor your company commander seem to have expected your move. In fact you can hear your company commander shouting at you to get back in position. Your men crash full-speed into the enemy swordsmen, who are spread out into a two-man thick line. The enemy swordsmen try to wheel around to surround you, but you manage to break through their center after losing two-thirds of your squad. You then start to flee through your hole with the remnants of your squad, while you hear the death cries of the rest of your company behind you.\n \n[[Return to the capital]]\n\n[[Become an outlaw]]\n<<else>>\nYou order your squad to form a sharp wedge, then charge to the rear. Neither Sathra's men, nor your company commander seem to have expected your move. In fact you can hear your company commander shouting at you to get back in position. Your men crash full-speed into the enemy swordsmen, who are spread out into a two-man thick line. The enemy swordsmen try to wheel around to surround you, and quickly you find yourself forming an ever-tighter knot in the middle of the hostile Cinethrans, mirroring what is happening to the rest of your company. In the end, you are all overwhelmed. \n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConclusion1]]\n<<endif>>
You fight your way back down to the gate, slashing through any Japreth who get in your road. The gate shatters shortly before you arrive, in such a way that you hit the enemy in the flank just as they emerge from the gate. You manage to push them back into the gateway proper, while also holding against the enemies descending from the wall, but the position is not secure. Sathra urges you to order the men to retreat into the city and snipe from houses.\n\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-100)>>\n\n[[Order your men to retreat into the city]]\n\n[[Hold your position]]
Sathra gives you an angry stare that seems to pierce straight through your skull and directly into your brain. "You seem to be thinking this is some kind of joke, Major Raulind. I assure you, the fate of Cinethra relies on that message. If things were not so dire, I would strip of you command, but currently I am still in need of your talents. Order your men to spread my message and I will overlook this."\n\n[[Order the men to spread Sathra's lie]]\n\n[[Refuse to spread Sathra's lie|"I decided not to send any message, fighting should be left to soldiers"]]
You continue down the middle of the path for a while longer. You can just barely make out a wagon in the distance when suddenly arrows fly into you from both sides, killing two dozen of your men instantly. Swordsmen appear behind and in front of you, blocking off your retreat, and among them you recognize Sathra herself. She says with cold fury, "You will come to regret your treachery, Traitor Raulind." and advances towards you. \n\nYou hastily order your men to charge directly at Sathra, but you are by this point outnumbered in addition to being surrounded. You and her engage in a fierce swordfight while your men fight around you. She sees exactly what strikes you intend to make before you make them, whereas her strikes come as complete surprises to you, and you have trouble telling which of her strikes are feints, and which are real. In the end, you attempt to block her cut to your head, only for her to slip her sword back and down slightly (getting just barely around your sword), and slash you accross the chest vertically. As you bend over in pain, she takes advantage of your distraction to decapitate you. \n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConclusion1]]
You shout at Sathra that she is a mass-murderering demon with no conscience and no soul. Sathra just shrugs and [[closes in to fight you|Fight Sathra honestly]].
You stand, and warn, "She is fond of taking out the officers of the enemy, and is quite opportunistic and doesn't care much for whether what she does is honorable. She is fond of raiding the capital as well. I see around me collected the most important officers in our military, and it strikes me that she is likely to attack us during this conference. Therefore I suggest being on our guard during the rest of the conference."\n\nSome of the officers whisper to each other nervously, but Jixithren reassures everyone that the conference is completely safe, and requests that you continue your description of Sathra's tactics. The occupation generals still don't look entirely convinced, but hold their tongues and remain in their seats. \n\n[[Give a thorough description of how Sathra thinks and acts]]\n\n[[Give a brief description of Sathra]]
Your sleep is disturbed by nightmares about burning people screaming for help, most of whom are fellow citizens of Cinethra. Except in this dream, many of them are your friends and family, instead of strangers. \n\nYou are awoken with a start, and after breaking fast on a thin rice porridge you begin your march. You march all day, the long distance of mile after mile making even your legs ache. At last you make camp as the sun begins to set. The next morning, after a relatively short march you approach a [[dam]].
<<if $exploded is true>> \nYou are picked to report on the results of your investigation. You report back that you lost a couple dozen men, and found no sign of the gold. You did manage to report that it must have been the Cinethrans behind it. The Japreth do not seem entirely surprised by your company's failure, but they do still seem disappointed by it. Luckily, they do not blame it on you, and thank you for your honest report. \n<<else>>\nYou company commander picks you to report on the results of your investigation, presumably fearing punishment for not finding the Cinethrans. You report back that the wagon had been rigged to blow, and all the gold had been emptied from it, and that it must have been the Cinethrans behind it. The Japreth do not seem surprised by your lack of success, although they do seem slightly disappointed by it, and they seem happy that you managed to at least avoid losing men. They thank you for your honest report, and dismiss you.\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if $warned is true>>You are promoted to squad leader, and the squad leader you are replacing is promoted to company commander.<<if $exploded is false>> The previous company commander is demoted down to foot soldier for nearly getting a large part of his company killed, and failing to track down either Sathra or the gold.<<endif>> You then [[return to your barracks to get some rest]]. <<else>> You [[return to your barracks to rest]].<<endif>>
<<if $prevMove is "caravan">>\nYou wait on both sides of the road in ambush. A couple hours later, you hear a caravan of wagons approaching, about twelve in all, with four guards apiece. You give the signal, and suddenly your men shoot arrows into the caravan from both sides, killing around half of the guards instantly. Suddenly, fully-armored soldiers pour out of the wagons and the surrounding woods, surrounding you and heavily outnumbering you. It must have been a trap.\n\n[[Surrender]]\n\n[[Fight to the last man]]\n<<else>>\nYou wait on both sides of the road in ambush. A couple hours later, you hear a caravan of wagons approaching, about twelve in all, with three guards apiece. You give the signal, and suddenly your men shoot arrows into the caravan from both sides, killing around half of the guards instantly. The remaining guards lose all discipline and duck for cover rather than forming a defense. The next wave of arrows flies into them, killing another half-dozen. Your men shoot the remaining guards quickly enough, but a couple manage to hit your men with spears. Your men steal the wagons, and drive them back to the hideout.\n<<set $armyLeft to $armyLeft - 2>>\n<<set $prevMove to "caravan">>\n[[Return|what to do with your soldiers]]\n<<endif>>
The site of the incident is a road in the middle of a bamboo forest. You see the bodies of the guards laying around, pierced with arrows. Most of them are in the rough circle typical for guarding extremely valuable wagons, implying that these were killed before they were able to react. Whoever did this certainly knew what they were doing, and must have ambushed it from both sides. Upon inspecting the arrows, you find that they are of the same Cinethran design that is used by Sathra's men. The Japreth were likely right, this does indeed look like Sathra's work. You can see wagon tracks continuing to move down the road to the south, back towards the capital, but less linear than usual, swerving back and forth accross the road slightly as if the driver didn't know how to do their job. Those are likely the tracks of the stolen wagon. Your company commander orders you to [[follow the tracks]].\n\n<<set $menAlong to 80>>
You order your men to guard just the front of the caravan. The other squad of guards look at you oddly, but their leader just shrugs. You guard the caravan along a road through a bamboo forest. The first few miles pass quite peacefully, and you see the other squad getting fairly complacent. \n\nSuddenly, arrows fly out of the woods from both sides of the caravan, hitting three-fourths of the other squad, and a fourth of yours. \n\n[["Take cover!"]]\n\n[[Lead the charge]]
"I was hoping we did not have to resort to that, but that is the best alternative I see as well. We cannot simply let the bandits do whatever they want simply because they have hostages. Raulind, please meet me in my quarters. The rest of you are dismissed". The rest of the monks return to their own quarters, while you [[walk to Shal's quarters as requested]].
"While it is true that attrocities happen during wars, that does not justify them. For the burning of an innocent town, you are to be hung by the neck until dead."\n\nYou are lead out of the courtroom by a pair of guards, but the dream ends abruptly, and you find yourself in another courtroom, but this time [[you are not the one on trial]].
Smoke fills the air of the house you are currently quartered in, which is a large house commandeered from a Cinethran merchant family. Out of your window, you can hear screams, and you can see other buildings on fire in the distance. You are on the third floor of the house.\n\n[[Flee out the front door|FleeFrontDoor]]\n\n[[Flee out the back door|FleeBackDoor]]\n\n[[Jump out the window|JumpOutWindow]]
"Look around you, Major Raulind, there is barely anything left to defend, and few forces left to defend it. Also, the next army incoming is expected to be just as large as the last one, and we barely defeated that. We only have <<print $armyLeft>> men left. If you insist, I can left you hold with a small detachment of men, but you will die, and the royal family and the majority of the remaining army must be rescued."\n\n[["I shall hold the capital to the bitter end"]]\n\n[["You're right, let's get out of here"|Lead the evacuation]]
You leap out of the wagon, and bury your sword in the skull of one of the Cinethran soldiers. You then proceed to charge at the rest, releasing a bellowing war cry. Following your example, the rest of your men leap out of their wagons, and ambush the Cinethrans. You manage to kill maybe two dozen enemies before Sathra has the rest of her forces retreat, and abandon the wagons. You try to pursue, but they vanish back into the woods. You lost only six men in the struggle, and [[bring the wagons back victoriously]].
During the interrogation, the men reveal everything they know, which is very little indeed. They claim that they were perfectly loyal gate guards, until you tore their houses apart when they were already struggling to make ends meet. Then, they sent messages using the pidgeon used by their less loyal comrades, offering their services to Sathra, and providing information on the layout of the city, including where you lived. They then used the money sent by Sathra to aid in their revenge against you, hiring mercenaries to suplement the Cinethran force. When asked what happened to these pidgeons, they said they sent them off with a message not to send them back days before the raid. Upon leaving the interrogation room, the battalion commander mentions that this is why you must be careful during investigations not to create new traitors while searching for existing traitors. \n\nThis was the worst raid that you had experienced thusfar. [[Several years pass much like this]], continually finding signs of Sathra's attacks, but never being able to track most of her men down.
You continue to lie still as the man approaches your bed, waiting for him to approach before trying to make your move. The assassin approaches the back of your head, making it hard to strike at him, but you have already waited too long to make it to your weapons. Before you can move, the man holds the blade to your throat and says, "You are coming with me. Do not attempt to resist, and tell any guards you pass to stand down. I have been sent by General Grethnir to bring you to him. Now, get up slowly." You slowly and carefully rise to your feet, making sure not to get yourself cut by the man's dagger. The man directs you to leave the tent, where you pass several of your guards. \n\n[[Order the guards to kill the man]]\n\n[[Order the guards to stand down]]
You scramble out of the house through the front door, coughing in the deep smoke, and dodging burning rubble. You just get time to catch your breath before three crossbow bolts bury themselves in your chest, and you fall over, dead.\n\n[[Legacy|HeavyHandedConclusion1]]
You arrive in the capital, and start keeping an eye on the gates. You use the money you were sent with to rent rooms in inns near the gates. Upon further investigation, it appears she usually enters from the south gate when she raids the city.\n\n[[Move all the monks to watch the south gate]]\n\n[[Have monks watch all the gates, and send a message if their gate is attacked]]
You search along the woods near the site of the ambush, and find footprints on the forest to each side. It looks like about a hundred men were part of the ambush in all, fifty on each side, spread out in long lines to the sides of the road to insure that all the guards would be shot in the first volley. Upon returning to the road you notice that some of the men seem to have dropped their weapons and put their hands over their heads before being shot. Sathra must have killed those men after they surrendered, likely to make it harder to [[follow her|Follow the wagon tracks]].
Sathra replies calmly, "Truth is the first casualty in any war, and often few things can be more lethal than a well-placed lie. Your sense of honor has disarmed you of this valuable weapon and made you weak. Do not let your sense of honor be our downfall. Besides, the Japreth are known to kill a fairly large number of civillians in towns they capture, even when there is no civillian resistance, and many of the women end up raped, so it is not exactly a large lie, merely an exaggeration. If you cannot bring yourself to tell such a small lie, I fear you will not be able to survive what is ahead."\n\n[[Return|calls you into her quarters]]
You scramble out of the house through the back door, coughing in the deep smoke, and dodging burning rubble. The buildings in front of you are also on fire, but luckily the streets seem to be free from burning debris thusfar. About a mile to your right is the palace, which should be quite safe from all the chaos, but halfway across the city. A tenth of a mile to your left is where your battalion commander is staying, but the area near him could be in just as much disarray as where you are at.\n\n[[Flee to the palace]]\n\n[[Attempt to reunite with your battalion commander]]
You and your battalion charge through burning streets, pushing through panicked crowds and winding through narrow alleys. You occassionally find a small group of Cinethrans, and take them out. Eventually, your commander feels you have found as many enemies as you are going to, and the fires are put out, so you return to the palace. Upon arriving, you are informed that the gate guards on duty let in the enemies without raising an alarm or putting up a fight. \n\nIt turns out that these guards were also being bribed, but you failed to catch them during your investigation, and they bribed the right people to be allowed to return to duty. This was the worst raid that you had experienced thusfar. [[Several years pass much like this]], continually finding signs of Sathra's attacks, but never being able to track most of her men down.
You lead your squad further down the road. The march passes uneventfully until about an hour before sunset, at which point you notice smoke drifting in from in front of you, much more than would be caused by cooking fires. Knowing Sathra, she lit the fire in multiple places. You order a couple men to explain the situation and your decision. Soon you see flames in the distance approaching.\n\n[[Go straight to the left]]\n\n[[Go at a 50 degree angle to the road to try to get just barely around the first fire]]\n\n[[Retreat back up the road]]
Their houses look larger than what a normal guard should be able to afford, with wooden walls and slate roofs. Upon looking inside, you see decent wooden furniture, and a stock of good food, as well as chests containing several dozen gold coins each. With such overwhelming evidence, you have little choice but to [[arrest them|ArrestGuards2]].
<<if $assassinsLeft > 0>>\n\n\t<<if $prevCityMove is "assassinate">>\n\tYou send in one of your few remaining attractive civillian women to try to seduce and poison one of the senior officers. However, so soon after the last attack he is suspicious, and has the woman searched first, revealling the poison. He then forced the woman to drink the poison, killing her.\n<<set $assassinsLeft-->>\n\t<<else>>\n\t\t<<if (random(0,100) < 60)>> \n\t\t\tYou send in one of your few remaining attractive civillian women to try to seduce and poison one of the senior officers. She succeeds in poisoning him, and getting back out alive. He was a battallion commander in the Japreth army, not irreplaceable but his death should lower enemy morale. \n<<set $enemyMorale to $enemyMorale - 1>>\n\t\t<<else>>\n\t\t\t\tYou send in one of your few remaining attractive civillian women to try to seduce and poison one of the senior officers. However, he is suspicious and has the woman searched first, revealling the poison. He then forced the woman to drink the poison, killing her.\n<<set $assassinsLeft-->>\n\t\t<<endif>>\n[[Return|what to do with your soldiers]]\n\n\t<<endif>>\n\t<<else>>\nYou search your camp for anyone who would have a good shot at pulling off an assassination, but come out empty-handed. \n[[Return|what to do with your soldiers]]\n<<endif>>\n<<set $prevCityMove to "assassinate">>\n<<set $prevMove to "assassinate">>\n
"Thank you for your thoughts, hopefully they will allow us to be more successful in the future."\n\nYou return to your chambers and quickly fall asleep. <<if $staff is true>>Over the next few weeks, you and the other monks are trained with quarterstaffs. At first your quarterstaff feels foreign and clumsy, and you are tempted to use it like a sword, but over time you become used to it.<<else>>The next few weeks progress much like usual, a combination of training, farming, and meditation.<<endif>> At the end of these few weeks, you are sent with a group of other monks to repair a bridge that Sathra tore down. A few weeks after that, you are picked to go on [[another, less peaceful mission]].
"Well, if you have decided now is the time to die, I won't stop you, but I am sure you'll understand that I can only send you volunteers for such a suicide mission, Major Raulind."\n\nYou ask around for volunteers, but only four people are willing to fight alongside you in open battle. \n\n[[Launch a suicide attack]]\n\n[[Pretend to suicidally attack, and instead surrender]]\n\n[[Forget the idea of attacking openly|Proceed to the hideout]]
You tell the captain to fetch the rest of the guards. He reluctantly fetches them. \n\n[[Search their pockets]]\n\n[[Ask the guards where they were last night]]\n\n[[Announce that their captain is under arrest]]
You return to the capital with the food in tow, and report the outcome to your battalion commander. Your commander replies, "I'm glad you brought back the food, and returned with your company intact. Sathra is a slippery foe, and you did as well as could have been expected of you. Its a pity she managed to escape, but we'll have other chances to catch her. Now get some rest"\n\nThe next morning are merged into a different company, which lost several men after their provisions were poisoned. The next few days are relatively calm, but then news trickles in that one of the main bridges connecting Japreth to central Cinethra was destroyed, and your company is [[sent to investigate|InvestigateBridge1]].
"Because I owe the royal family everything. Once, I was the leader of an outlaw band. We stole caravans at will, even the best guarded ones, and lost very few men. We became infamous throughout the land, and had the highest bounties on our heads of any criminals. This was shortly before the Cinethran civil war. Then the Cinethran army created a trap, leaking rumors of a particularly valuable caravan filled with exotic jewelry imported from Japreth. I heard these rumors, and decided to ambush the caravan, but it turned out the caravan was filled not with jewelry but with elite Cinethran soldiers. These soldiers leaped out, and other soldiers appeared from all sides, so I was forced to surrender."\n\nSathra pauses briefly, then continues, "I was imprisioned, and was waiting to be executed when the civil war began. One of the leaders in the civil war was desperate for a good commander, so he made me a deal. He offered to grant me my freedom if I agreed to serve him as a military officer. I eagerly accepted his offer, and I became a distinguished military officer instead of a mere outlaw on death row... That leader is now our current Emperor... Funny how things come full circle."\n\nSathra finishes, then dies shortly after. You [[bury her]] outside the caves.
You return to your tent, which is of a similar size to your commander's, though slightly smaller. It has a small desk and a cot. On the desk, there are two letters. One [[letter|Monk's Letter]] is sealed with a sun rising above a mountain, apparently coming from [[High Monk Shal]] himself. The other [[letter|Enemy's Letter]] is sealed with a rampant wolf, apparently coming from [[General Grethnir]], an enemy general. You have no idea how that letter reached you, and you should dispose of it quickly, lest someone think you a traitor.\n\nYou should destroy the second letter and [[get some rest]].
"And what was this Cinethra you were fighting for? It certainly wasn't us. Indeed, the only thing old Cinethra really stood for was oppression and poverty. That is not something to fight for so desperately. For the drowning of tens of thousands of innocent civillians you are to be hung by the neck until dead"\n\nYou are lead out of the courtroom by a pair of guards, but the dream ends abruptly, and you find yourself in another courtroom, but this time [[you are not the one on trial]].
Sathra shouts to the townspeople that unless they are able-bodied and willing to fight, they should scatter, rather than following her.\n\nSathra turns back to you and says, "There, let them make their own choice now. It would be cruel to drag the weak and injured up into the mountains with no food and little shelter without at least warning them. And since it was me doing it, it shouldn't effect your strange sense of honor. Such an inconvenient thing a sense of honor must be." Her expression of concern for the people seems mocking, rather that sincere, as if she doesn't care a bit whether or not the people die, and finds your own concern amusing. \n<<set $civilliansLeft to ($townspeopleLeft/10)>>\nMany of the townspeople scatter, wanting no part in a future battle, but <<print $civilliansLeft>> decide to follow anyways. You [[proceed to the hideout|Proceed to the hideout]].
"How do you justify yourself in burning down a Cintheran town, with all the civilians still in it?"\n\n[["I was ordered to do it"]]\n\n[["Stuff like that happens in war"]]
Filled with shame at losing your command and rank, you pull out a knife, and use it to kill yourself in an honorable manner.\n\n[[Legacy|ExecutionConclusion1]]
<<if $trusted is true>>\nBeing unwilling to drown thousands of people, you order your men to toss the barrel over the dam. They obey your orders, and you watch as the explosive barrel floats harmlessly downstream. The enemy army continues to approach the dam from the other side.\n\n[[Prepare to defend the dam|DamDefense2]]\n\n[[Retreat]]\n<<else>>\nYou grab the explosive barrel yourself, and desperately try to hurl it over the dam to prevent the deaths of thousands of people in one last act of defiance. You manage to grab the barrel, and approach the dam, only to be shot by a dozen or so arrows. Your corpse falls over the dam with the barrel, and the dam is saved at the cost of your own life.\n\n[[Legacy|DamConclusion1]] \n<<endif>>
Your squad marches further down the road. The march passes uneventfully until about an hour before sunset, at which point you notice smoke drifting in from in front of you, much more than would be caused by cooking fires. Knowing Sathra, she lit the fire in multiple places. A couple men are sent to explain the situation. Soon you see flames in the distance approaching.\n\n[[Try to warn your squad commander about lighting forests in multiple places]]\n\n[[Keep silent|retreatDownRoad2]]
A chorus of boos and angry shouting comes from behind you. "I assure you, her crimes are quite real, regardless of how the war was going. Do you have any idea how much better off this country would have been had Sathra simply surrendered? For abandoning us to Sathra's insanity, you are hereby stripped of the protection of the law. If anyone attempts to do anything against you, the law will look the other way"\n\nYou are lead out of the courtroom by a pair of guards, but the dream ends abruptly, and you find yourself in another courtroom, but this time [[you are not the one on trial]].
Shal announces, "Then you are all dismissed." The other monks file out of the room towards their quarters. \n\n[[Return to your quarters.]]
You loudly and confidently begin your speech. "We have come far, putting down bandits and saving villages. We have trained long and hard each morning, preparing for the stuggles before us, and learning how to teach people the errors of their ways without killing them. We have walked the paths of enlightenment to ensure that we will help those around us reincarnate up."\n\nAn arrow pierces your right arm, but you angrily tear it out and continue your speech while stopping the bleeding. "Now, a set of villains more misguided than any we have yet faced threatens the world, burning down neighborhoods and monasteries, stealing food from the hungry, destroying roads, and killing innocents. We cannot abandon our cause now, not when we have come so far, and we are needed the most. So we must fight, fight for what is right, fight to restore law and order, and fight for the people of this land."\n\nThe monks around you seem filled with renewed confidence and purpose, and all follow you when you lead a charge. With a couple hundred monks all following you, you overwhelm Sathra's forces, and they are forced to retreat. Forty of Sathra's men are knocked unconcious, while you lose twenty more monks. \n\n[[Capture Sathra's soldiers]]\n\n[[Let Sathra's soldiers go]]
You are awoken to the sound of warning bells, announcing that the Japreth are attacking. You rush to the battlements, where you find that they are rushing forward with ladders and a pair of battering rams, the second one presumably there for when the first one is destroyed. In addition to your own men, a thousand townspeople gather on the walls, armed with anything from axes and knives to pitchforks and what look like chair legs. Another thousand townspeople are gatherered below behind the gate. The Japreth army is only about six thousand strong, but they all appear to be well-trained and well-equiped soldiers. Your men release waves of arrows upon the advancing Japreth, but the enemy reaches the walls with relatively limited casualties and begins to scale the walls. After a few hundred casualties, they achieve footholds on top of the wall, and are also battering down the gate. You thrust yourself into the fray, slicing apart attackers with well-practiced strikes of your katana, and the other defenders charge with similar vigor, but whenever you manage to close down one pocket of attackers, another two appear. Eventually the enemy becomes well established on the wall, after a couple thousand casualties on their side and about six hundred on yours. Below, you hear the gate splintering, it won't hold for long.\n\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-300)>>\n\n[[Fall back to the gate]]\n\n[[Hold your position]]
The site of the incident is a road in the middle of a bamboo forest. You see the bodies of the guards laying around, pierced with arrows. Most of them are in fairly straight lines, implying that these were killed before they were able to react. Whoever did this certainly knew what they were doing, and must have ambushed it from both sides. Upon inspecting the arrows, you find that they are of the same Cinethran design that is used by Sathra's men. The Japreth were likely right, this does indeed look like Sathra's work. You can see wagon tracks continuing to move down the road to the south, back towards the capital, but less linear than usual, swerving back and forth accross the road slightly as if the drivers didn't know how to do their job. Those are likely the tracks of the stolen wagons. \n\n[[Follow the wagon tracks]]\n\n[[Continue investigating the area]]
You charge the bandits unarmed, in a desperate attempt to save the townspeople. You grab two of the spears coming at you, and then use these as leverage to kick a bandit in the face with both legs. However, another bandit catches you in the chest with an axe as you kick the bandit, and you fall to the ground, bleeding out. The last thing you hear is Jian telling you, "You idiot, I told you to flee". \n\n[[Legacy|MonkConclusion1]]
You get up, put on your armor, belt on your sword, and leave your tent to break your fast. You and the warriors to accompany you eat together, and are each given a rice ball and a leg of chicken for breakfast, better fare than you've had since you were put under Sathra's command. Your men eat in silence, and when all have finished, you get them ready to depart, and leave the camp heading towards the town along the road. \n\nAfter about an hour's walk, you reach the town of [[Nogrith]].
High Monk Shal summons you and a set of a couple dozen other warrior monks together. He then informs you that you have been picked not only for your fighting prowess, but also because he is sure that you are not spies for Sathra. He goes on to explain that Sathra's crimes against the people have become to great to ignore, and that you must stop Sathra. He announces that Sathra is expected to raid the city again at some point, and you are to [[stop her when she attempts to do so]].
Upon being asked, they appear to understand the basics of Buthenism, and certainly are not athiests, but they are also certainly not as devout as people seeking to be monks normally are. Similar to you before you became a monk, in fact.\n\n[[Treat them like any other monks|Welcome them to the monastery]]\n\n[[Have monks keep an eye on them]]
As you charge, a few of the bandits kill their hostages, while others don't bother and simply turn to face you. The rest of the monks are frozen in horror for about five seconds before they all furiously charge at the bandits. The bandits seem unprepared for the fury of the attack, and also seem even more drunk than the the group that charged, so are fairly quickly overwhelmed. A few manage to escape, while the rest are knocked unconsious. You take their weapons away, release the surviving hostages, and [[haul the loot back to the monastery to be redistributed]].
You stalk out of the tent in dejection. How dare she simply remove your rank in the first week, has she not heard of your glorious victories in the past? With such thoughts, you fall asleep on the ground, since you are now found unworthy of a tent, and sleep until you are forceably awakened by a squad leader, who is now apparently in charge of you. It seems you are now not only a mere foot soldier, but a badly disrespected one at that.\n\n[[Get up]]
You run back towards the main army, quickly followed by your squad. You warn the army of the ambush, and several squads are sent to deal with it. In the meantime, the rest of the column halts. When the squads return, they report that the enemy vanished into the woods. You are promoted to squad leader for keen insight and quick thinking, and replace your fallen squad leader. After that encounter, several squads are detailed to walk along the forests to each side of the road to prevent any future ambushes. With that concern resolved, the [[march continues down the road]].\n\n<<set $SquadLeader to true>>
You order your men to take cover under the wagons. The other squad of guards are quickly mowed down by the next barrage of arrows, but your men are protected from arrows under the wagons. A squad of swordsmen step out of each side of the road, leaving you surrounded and outnumbered. You and your soldiers are overwhelmed, after taking out about half a squad of enemies. \n\n[[Legacy|TraitorConclusion1]]
When you explain that this is a routine activity in the investigations that follow such attacks, the guardsmen obediently empty their pockets, revealing a few Japreth coppers, barely enough for a meal. \n\n[[Search their houses]]\n\n[[Check the captain's pockets]]\n\n[[Ask the guards what happened last night]]\n\n<<set $checkedGuardPockets to true>>
Your duel with Sathra becomes famous among swordmasters for centuries, and was intensely analyzed. Over time, your rough words you used to announce your refusal to lead civillians to their deaths are turned into poetic masterpieces by bards, and history remembers you as a hero of the people. <<if $burntNogrith is true>>Your burning of Nogrith is glossed over, only a few remembering your true story. <<endif>>\n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start]]
Some people later think of you as a despicable villain, while others think of you as a brilliant hero. Some blame you for switching your allegiance, though others see how your treachery managed to save countless lives. Few doubt your cunning, though many point out how lucky you must have been to not be discovered, and some wonder how the Cinethran soldiers could be so unobservant. \n\nAfter your cunning attack, the Cinethran resistance broke apart, and the Japreth were left in control of the country. Cinethra was eventually fully assimilated into Japreth, and now the pinnacles of Japreth culture are spread throughout Cinethra. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
History remembers you mostly as a traitor, rather than for your long, loyal, honorable, and successful career in the military before the war that claimed your life. Some admire your career after your treachery, seeing how you helped shorten the war and in the process saved hundreds of lives. However, others condemn you for your treachery. For some, treachery even for the best reasons and with the least choice is unforgiveable. Your swordfight with Sathra becomes one of the most famous swordfights in history, and becomes extensively analyzed by swordsmasters. Only a few scholars remember that you had been the model Cinethran officer once. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
People looking back on your life are quite divided as to what to make of you. Most believe that your capture of Sathra helped end the war more quickly and with much less bloodshed than would otherwise have occurred. Some believe this to be a quite good thing, and a justification for your switch in allegiance. However, some cannot get over the fact that you switched your allegiance. To some, treachery even for the best reasons or with the least choice will still be abhorrent. \n\nCinethra was eventually fully assimilated into Japreth, and now the pinnacles of Japreth culture are spread throughout Cinethra. Cinethrans no longer think of themselves as seperate from their conquerers.\n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
You decide to surrender to the Japreth, and your comrades agree. When you surrender to the Japreth, you are all imprisioned. A decade later, you are all given the offer to join Japreth's army in exchange for freedom. \n\n[[Take the offer]]\n\n[[Refuse the offer]]
The captain's quarters are quite nice for a guard captain, with two stories, a small wall around it, and even a balconey overlooking the courtyard. Upon entering the house, you go to the captain's desk, and find signed papers from Sathra herself, thanking him for his service, and offering further lands and titles once the war was won, instead of the gold shipments he was currently receiving, and an unsent, but signed letter from the captain to Sathra reporting on the current conditions in the capital. With such strong evidence against the captain, you have little choice but to [[order your men to arrest him|Arrest the captain on the spot for treason]].
<<if $prevCityMove is "burn" or $prevMove is "meeting" or random(0,100) < 50>>\nYou send a group of disguised soldiers in to light barracks on fire, but never hear from them again. \n<<set $armyLeft to $armyLeft - 8>>\n\t<<if $armyLeft > 0>>\n\t[[Return|what to do with your soldiers]]\n\t<<else>>\nThose were the last of your soldiers, and without them, your cause collapses. You are eventually found and killed.\n\n\t[[Legacy|ConferenceConclusion1]]\n\t<<endif>>\n<<else>>\nThe group comes back reporting that they successfully lit a few barracks on fire without casualties. \n<<set $enemyMorale to $enemyMorale - 1>>\n[[Return|what to do with your soldiers]]\n<<endif>>\n\n<<set $prevMove to "burn">>\n<<set $prevCityMove to "burn">>\n
<<if $menAlong > 200>> You take heavy casualties, as you are quickly surrounded while under arrow fire. However, you eventually manage to break through their lines after losing over a hundred men, and storm the buildings, and take out the archers. In the end, you lost over a hundred men in that charge. Sathra is going to be furious. [[Return to camp in disgrace]]\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-157)>>\n<<set $menAlong to ($menAlong-157)>>\n\n<<else>>\nYour force is completely crushed by the enemy. Despite valiant fighting, you and your entire force are killed, a victim of your foolishness. [[Legacy|ExecutionConclusion1]]\n<<endif>>\n
You decide to be safe, and go around these Cinethrans, going up a sidestreet and continuing on towards the palace. Another quarter mile on, you get to another burning section, and have to go a couple streets to your right to avoid burning rubble. You eventually reach the palace, where you find a couple lines of soldiers guarding the palace, one with pikes and one with crossbows. Upon approaching you are asked for your name and company. You answer, and then are reunited with a dozen of your men, and told to [[find your company commander]].
The men look even less pleased at their houses being searched, but reluctantly lead you to their houses. The houses are quite modest mudbrick houses, with thatched roofs.\n\n[[Order your men to respectfully search their houses|RespectfulSearch2]]\n\n[[Order your men to thoroughly search their houses|ThoroughSearch2]]\n\n[[Order your men to tear the houses apart in their search, leaving no spot unsearched|TearApartHouses2]]
Being somewhat suspicious, you order some of your monks to keep an eye on these men, to make sure they don't cause any trouble. These men seem to be trying their best to be good monks, and are not acting suspiciously, though they do seem to have more violent thoughts than the other monks. After a few weeks of routine training, farming, and meditation, with nothing significant happening, these newcomers meet you in your quarters after meditation and ask you to stop having monks following them, saying it is quite distracting and annoying.\n\n[[Have the monks stop keeping an eye on them]]\n\n[[Continue having the monks keep an eye on them]]
You cautiously follow, wary of further traps. You find a couple more pit traps, and a few net traps. Pretty soon, however, Sathra's troops are completely out of sight, and her soldier's footprints are too light for you to track, and you didn't bring a trained tracker. On the plus side, they did leave all the wagons full of food behind.\n\n[[Return the food to the Japreth and report Sathra's escape]]
You and your four men march back in front of the gates of the capital, and challenge anyone to dare face you. A few hundred Japreth soldiers quickly pour out of the gate, and attack you. You fight bravely, but are quickly overwhelmed.\n\n[[Legacy|SuicideAttackConclusion1]]
You order your men to arrest the captain for treason. The captain makes a bolt for it, but one of your men shoots him in the leg, allowing your men to capture him, and haul him towards the nearest prison.\n<<if $arrestedGuards if false>>\n[[Ask the guards where they were last night]]\n\n[[Search their pockets]]\n<<endif>>\n[[Report your findings]]\n\n<<set $arrestedCaptain to true>>
How do you wish to insult Sathra?\n\n[[Call her an unlovable witch, and express pity that she will never find love]]\n\n[[Insult her birth]]\n\n[[Insult her psycopathic tendancies]]
"While it is true that attrocities happen during wars, that does not justify them. For the drowning of tens of thousands of innocent civillians, you are to be drawn and quartered."\n\nYou are lead out of the courtroom by a pair of guards, but the dream ends abruptly, and you find yourself in another courtroom, but this time [[you are not the one on trial]].
You charge headlong towards the center of town. You soon see a force of about forty enemies clustered near the center, leaving you to wonder where the other sixty enemies are clustered. This question is soon answered as another forty enemies form up behind you, and about twenty archers begin bombarding you with arrows.\n\n[[Continue charging]]\n\n[[Surrender]]
The judge calmly announces, "Now, we shall move onto your webs of deceit. You don't truly believe in Buthenism, any more than Sathra does. You believe that violence is often needed to end violence, and is justified as a means to an end. Furthermore, you don't really care about Raulind's soul. Even your name is a lie, Shal, or should I say Lord Jinhei Leung, sole heir to the Leung dynasty, which was usurped by the current royal family with Sathra's aid"\n\nShal simply nods, ashamed.\n\nThe judge then asks why he created this giant web of deceit.\n\nAt last, Shal responds, "My name was a death sentance when I abandoned it, a pronouncement of treason in and of itself. I had to abandon it in order to save my own life, and do what I could for the country. I couldn't let the current royal family rule the country unchecked, and so used much of my wealth to bribe my way to become High Monk of Buthenism, which seemed as antithetical to everything Sathra supported as anything in the country. With my aid, the faith grew and prospered, and I guided it in a more martial direction, so that it could protect against bandits, and in time hopefully rival the royal army." \n\nShal pauses to take a drink, then continues. "However, the people who are drawn to Buthenism are not true warriors, nor true war leaders. Sure, they have more skill and work harder than most warriors, but they don't have that killer instinct, nor do they understand battle tactics. Hence I needed to recruit Raulind, who could fill in these vital gaps. Without him, my monks are doomed to relative powerlessness, but with him, I feel we will be able to change the world for the better."\n\nThe torches sputter out, leaving the room in complete darkness. [[You awake to find yourself back in your quarters in the monastery]], sensing somehow that your dreams were not normal dreams, and contain important truths in them.
You stand and explain briefly how Sathra has been waging a general guerrilla war against you, and is particularly fond of <<if $protectedCaravan is false>>stealing caravans and<<endif>> raids of the capital, as well as sneaking assassins into the capital to kill various officers. You then sit back down.\n\nJixithren thanks you for your briefing and asks for proposals on how to deal with this problem. The other occupation general stands, and [[explains his proposal]].
Over the next couple weeks, you find yet more signs of Sathra's guerrilla campaign, including officers and squads being found dead, supplies stolen, buildings and bridges burnt, and poisoned food. You have begun to wait for someone else to take the first bite and drink during meals. Though you have obediently chased all these clues, you have made little progress against Sathra, managing only to take out a few of her soldiers before they vanished back into the night.<<if $createdTraitors is true>> You hear that the loyal guards whose houses you searched are still manning their gate, despite their anger.<<else if $annoyedGuards is true>> You hear that the loyal guards whose houses you searched have left capital.<<endif>> \n\n<<if $createdTraitors>>\n[[You awake one night to the smell of smoke, and the distant sound of screams|Traitor'sRevenge1]].\n<<else if not $arrestedGuards>>\n[[Someone wakes you, and you find the city aflame]].\n<<else>>\n[[Several years pass]] much like this, continually finding signs of Sathra's attacks, but never being able to track her men down.\n<<endif>>
You wake up Sathra and quickly inform her of the assassin and tell her to be wary. She thanks you for the warning, then tells you to try to get some [[sleep]].
You explain how her actions are resulting in the deaths of thousands on innocent people, and that she should just surrender for the good of everyone. Sathra says, "It seems I overestimated you, I never thought you would be such a petty hero of the people, let alone try to fight for the common man. I care nothing for them" while smiling and [[closing in to fight you|Fight Sathra honestly]].
After occupying several towns without resistance, you come to a small fortress defended by a hundred men, of which only twenty appear to be professional soldiers, with the rest appearing to be farmers hastily given crossbows. Your general decides to try to convince the defenders to surrender peacefully, and tasks you with convincing them. \n\n[["Cinethra is doomed, its armies have been crushed and no one is coming to save you."]]\n\n[["You'll be better off under Japreth rule"]]\n\n[["Long live Cinethra"]]
How do you wish to bluff?\n\n[[Claim that several Japreth companies are going to arrive shortly]]\n\n[[Charge confidently, and pretend that you are the superior force]]
You report your findings back to your battalion commander. He congradulates you for finding the treacherous guard captain<<if $arrestGuards is true>> and guards<<endif>>.<<if $createdTratiors is true>> He does, however, ask that you avoid being unnecessarily harsh to innocent soldiers in the future, and hopes that those guards do not require replacing due to your heavy-handedness.<<endif>> He then dismisses you, and [[you return to your quarters]].
Your archers detonate the explosive barrel, creating a large explosion that takes a huge chunk out of the center of the dam. The dam proceeds to collapse entirely, releasing a massive torrent of water downstream. You are ordered to back away from the river and march back to your camp, which you then have to pick up, and begin marching some more. You notice that you are marching south, towards the capital and away from the front lines. Eventually, you make camp, have supper, and [[fall asleep]].
Your men do an extremely thorough search, while knocking everything possible over, and tearing what little furniture the guards own apart. They fail to find anything, and leave only small piles of debris left of the house interiors. The guards seem furious at the search, and seem quite speechless in rage.\n\n[[Ask the guards what happened last night]]\n\n[[Investigate the Captain|Check the captain's pockets]]\n\n<<set $createdTraitors to true>>
You run through streets of burning houses, and eventually find your company commander. He asks how many of the men staying with you survived, and you reply that you didn't see any others, which causes your commander to start cursing. He then composes himself, and says that it is time to move out and start [[chasing down whoever did this|ChaseDown]].
<<if $warned is true>> The commander disdainfully says, "You're just being paranoid, Private Raulind, nothing came of your last warning, nothing will come of this one." However, the squad meant to move the wagon now seems rather hesitant to touch it, so the commander angrily grabs the wagon himself and starts to pull. Suddenly the wagon explodes in flames, and small bits of hot iron spray out of the wagon, cutting into the men around the wagon. In all, 25 soldiers were killed by the exploding wagon, including that arrogant company commander. \n<<set $exploded to true>>\n<<set $menAlong to $menAlong - 25>>\n[[Report back to the capital]]\n<<else>>\nThe commander looks skeptical, but orders the squad to check for any traps. They find that one of the wheels contained a flint with a string coated with gunpowder sitting right next to the flint. They then found that the entire back of the wagon was filled to the brim with bags of gunpowder and piles of nails. If they had pushed the cart, it would have exploded, killing many of the soldiers in the company. Sathra must have taken the gold out of the wagon and left the wagon behind as a trap.\n<<set $exploded to false>>\n[[Report back to the capital]]\n<<endif>>\n<<set $warned to true>>
You order your men to retreat into the city, and hold out in seperate buildings. The men obediently scatter throughout the town, about five men in each guarded building. After almost all the men are in position, Sathra and you shelter in the royal palace itself, along with a few dozen royal guards. The imperial palace is on a small hill in the capital, allowing you to watch the Japreth assault. The Japreth are shot from many different buildings as they charge through, and are eventually forced to invade the buildings one by one, or set them on fire. The defenders jump out the windows to the next building when this happens, however, slowing the attack to a crawl, and making it very deadly. \n<<if $armyLeft > 300>>\nAfter burning a good chunk of the city, and killing probably three fourths of defenders, the Japreth assault peters out about three blocks from you, and a few minutes later the surviving Japreth flee back to the north. Sathra informs you that you need to evacuate the capital before another Japreth army arrives. \n<<set $armyLeft to Math.round($armyLeft*0.3)>>\n[["We can't just abandon the capital"]]\n\n[[Lead the evacuation]]\n<<else>>\nThe Japreth eventually manage to burn and fight their way to the palace, where you make a last stand with the royal guards, and are eventually overwhelmed.\n\n[[Legacy|SiegeConclusion2]]\n<<endif>>
You order your monks to flee into the city and spread the news. Cursing, Sathra orders her men to fire at you. Arrows pierces both of your legs and one hits you in the back, causing you to fall over, bleeding out. Around you, half of your other monks are similarly shot by arrows. Sathra approaches you, and finishes you off by stabbing you in the back with her sword. \n\nThe surviving monks managed to spread the news quickly, and Sathra was forced to cut off her attack with several casualties due to the Japreth army's quick reaction. Your monks take much longer to reach the scene, not arriving until long after Sathra fled. In vengeance, she later burns your monastery to the ground.\n\n[[Legacy|MonkConclusion2]]
You move all your four dozen monks to the south gate, so that you will be ready if she attempts to use that gate. Several days later, you see about sixty soldiers with Japreth armor enter the gate at night, looking both strangely familiar and hostile. One of them shouts with Sathra's unmistakable voice to kill you and your monks. So that was how they kept managing to sneak into the city.\n\n[[Stand your ground|StandGround2]]\n\n[[Scatter into the city, spreading the warning|SpreadWord2]]
You lead your men around the right side of the flames, though as you do you notice another fire off to your right which is closing in at about a walking pace. The rest of the army follows your lead, but only about half of it makes it. Presumably the rest turned back and started retreating back up the road. After you get around the flames, you merge back onto the road, and hurry up the road. By sunset you are out of the woods, and starting to set up camp. The forest continues to burn through the first half of the night, then the flames die out. In the morning, your half of the army decide to wait in camp while the rest of the army catches back up. A little after lunch the other half of the army arrives along the road, and you continue the march towards the capital. The rest of the march is uneventful, and after two days you are within sight of the [[capital|capital5]].
You desperately jump out the window, land badly and break both of your legs. Screaming in pain, you try to crawl away from the burning house. A minute later, a pair of crossbow bolts fired from a nearby rooftop put you out of your misery.\n\n[[Legacy|HeavyHandedConclusion1]]
You stand and explain in depth how Sathra has been waging a general guerrilla war against you, and is particularly fond of <<if $protectedCaravan is false>>stealing caravans and<<endif>> raids of the capital, as well as sneaking assassins into the capital to kill various officers. You explain her favorite ambush tactics, and how she has a complete disregard for the lives of civilians, as well as her dislike of open battles and her eagerness to cut losses. You then sit back down.\n\nJixithren thanks you for your briefing and asks for proposals on how to deal with this problem. The other occupation general stands, and [[explains his proposal]].
You back away from the intersection warily, and return to the ruins of your barracks. While you were gone, the fire spread to several nearby buildings, but it is now under control. With your squad's help, you manage to kill off the fire, though about three barracks, including yours, were ruined before you could contain the fire. Your company commander reports the incident, and informs you that you are to be moved to a barracks that has not burned down. You move into that barracks, and [[go back to sleep]].
You eat lunch in the main room, which now has wooden tables. Lunch consists of bread, rice and some vegetables. It is overall fairly plain but of decent quality. When lunch is complete, you help move the tables back out of the main room to a storage room, and then help clean the floor by putting a wet rag on the ground and running it accross the room. After this is done, it is time for [[training]].
The next couple weeks are fairly uneventful, with the normal farming, training, and meditation. You do notice, however, that the other monks are avoiding you, and usually do not talk to you unless they have to. You also notice several of them giving you awkward glances, and whispering about you. \n\nA few weeks later, you are sent with a group of other monks to repair a bridge that Sathra tore down. A few weeks after that, you are picked to go on [[another, less peaceful mission]].
You order your monks to tie up the fallen soldiers, and hold them as prisioners. The monks look at you oddly, as if to point out that this is not what the monks did, but they obey your commands. You then set to rebuilding the monastery. Several weeks later, the monastery is finished, if not quite the same as the old monastery. Several days later, Sathra sends you a ransom request for her soldiers, offering to pay generously in gold coins for their release. You have the feeling that if you do not accept her offer, she will attack again.\n\n[[Accept the ransom]]\n\n[[Do not accept the ransom]]\n\n<<set $CapturedSoldiers to true>>
"You lie, I know that you received no such orders. Never think that just because you have become a monk that you have escaped my notice. I cannot suffer a lying deserter such as yourself to escape her alive." Sathra then draws her sword, and stabs you through the heart.\n\nYou find yourself in another court, Sathra's court apparently being merely a dream, this time [[a court of the people]].
The guards give a variety of answers, varying local taverns and brothels to their houses. You notice that some of the guards casually mention that they frequent the brothel often, despite a guards budget only allowing for an occassional visit. At least some of these guards are likely receiving some other income than their guard duty. \n\n[[Search their pockets]]\n\n[[Arrest them]]\n\n[[Search their houses|SearchHouses2]]
You leave to protect Wujin, and arrive about sunset after a long walk. The town appears to hold about two hundred people and seems to be stuggling a bit. Some of the houses are in disrepair, and most of the people's clothing is somewhat worn and torn. The people also look fairly thin, they likely haven't been getting enough to eat. They weren't kidding about being unable to pay off the bandits. \n\nAbout an hour later, the bandits arrive on foot, twenty strong. They are armored in leather armor, and are armed with an assortment of guandaos, axes, and spears, with one having a sword as well. You and your comrades are unarmed and unarmored. You and your fellow monks meet the bandits in the middle of the road through the center of town. You notice that all the townspeople have cleared off the street. The bandit leader demands that you get out of their way. Jian replies, "We are sworn to protect the people from bandits, whatever the cost, so we cannot step aside. Repent of your ways, and you may yet achieve salvation."\n\nThe bandit leader does not seem pleased by that response, and orders his men to advance. Jian orders you and the other monks to counterattack, and you and your fellow monks obediently charge at the heavily-armed bandits. Half of the monks are quickly impaled by spears, after which point a couple of the remaining monks manage to take down several bandits each using quick and vicious strikes, one of which is Jian. However, Jian is caught by an axe in the arm, and the other of these monks is hit in the chest by a spear from a bandit that managed to regain his distance. Jian, bleeding out from his arm wound, shouts for the rest of you to run. You notice that among the downed bandits was the one with the sword and about ten bandits remain in the fight. \n\n[[Run away]]\n\n[[Continue to fight unarmed]]\n\n[[Grab the sword]]
You talk to Shal after meditation one night, and tell him about your dreams. As you describe your last dream, he looks shocked, quickly closes the door, and then says, "What I am about to say must never leave this room, but what you saw were true dreams. The statements and opinions of the people in the dreams are what they believe to be true. I am indeed Lord Jinhei Leung, and I must apologize for my deceit, but it was all unfortenately neccessary. Now, please return to your quarters, and I hope you will forgive me. Whatever happens, do not tell anyone else about your dreams, for any reason, particularly the last one."\n\nYou return to your quarters. Another couple weeks pass as normal, before [[you are selected to lead a mission]].
You return to camp, where Sathra calls you into her command tent. Once inside, she explains, "We have now likely destroyed or at least serverely delayed the enemy engaging General Krethnon, though we might have drowned his forces as well, and also delayed the forces that attacked us at the dam. By their appearence at the dam, I can only surmise that they already defeated [[General Quithnine]]. However, another enemy general managed to cross the river before the flood, and is now near<<if $burnedNogrith>> the ruins of<<endif>> Nogrith. With two armies advancing near us, both badly outnumbering us, we must retreat to the capital and make our stand there. Ready the men, Major Raulind."\n\nYou tell the men to pack up camp, and then lead the march to the south, towards the capital. The march is long and on dirt roads, though fortenately it has not rained so they are not muddy. The march continues until sunset without breaks, leaving your legs quite sore. Then you make camp, eat a rice and beef soup with your men, and at last [[collapse into your bed]].
After a few days of walking, you return to the hideout around dinnertime. When you reach the mountain, you have to send a messenger up to tell the men above to help haul the food up to the caves, since the wagons won't go up such steep terrain. The men seem quite happy to have the food. You also notice that there are a few dozen more Cinethran soldiers in the hideout than before. Sathra says simply, "Well done, Major Raulind". After that, you eat a hearty dinner, and go to sleep. In the morning, Sathra reveals that the rest of Cinethra is quickly falling to the Japreth. \n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft + 32)>> <<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft/2)>> <<set $civilliansLeft to Math.round($civilliansLeft/10)>>\nYou and Sathra unleash a long series of strikes against Japreth, including stealing food supplies, burning down barracks and towns, cutting down bridges, ambushing groups of soldiers, assassinating officers, freeing prisioners, and stealing Japreth pay chests. The remnants of Cinethra officially fall into Japreth hands, but that does not deter you. <<if $hope is true>>After a decade, you have lost about half of your soldiers, along with most of the townspeople that accompanied you, but the Japreth are finally starting to look worn down and slightly demoralized. Then Sathra comes up with a plan for a strike to win the war [[with one attack]].<<else>>After a decade, you have lost about half of your forces, and the Japreth occupation force still seems quite intact. Then Sathra comes up with a plan for a strike to even the balance [[with one attack]]<<endif>>
You lead your men back up the road, to avoid the flames. All around you, trees catch on fire, confirming your suspicions that Sathra lit the forest in several places. Your squad manages to keep away from the spreading flames, however, though the squad behind you is barely staying ahead of the occassional falling burning tree. After about an hour of running you are back outside the forest. The army makes camp to waits for the forest fire to die out. In the morning, the fire is gone, and you continue your marching south. After two days of uneventful marching along the road, you reach the [[capital|capital5]]
Your quarters are rather modest, enough room to fit two cots if you left no room to walk, though of course the room contains only one cot. The monks hand you a pair of white robes, and then leave to attend to their other duties. You close the door, remove your armor and sword, and change into your white robes. Shortly afterwards, you are summoned for [[lunch]].
You exit Sathra's quarters, and enter the common room of the barracks, where you see the captains and squad leaders playing go with each other. \n\n[[Order the men to spread Sathra's lie]]\n\n[[Order the men to spread the truth]]\n\n[[Play go with the men, instead of telling them to spread any message]]
Sathra fills your group in with the details of your assignment, "You are to declare that the Japreth will kill every man, and child, and rape every woman repeatedly if they break through this wall, and urge them to take up arms to help defend the city when the Japreth arrive tomorrow. Split up, and spread the news throughout the city. Have every rumor-mongerer sharing it, post a notice on every notice board, and make sure everyone hears the news." You are then dismissed to perform your duties. While you have little respect for the Japreth, you know that they would hardly kill all the men and children, though the the raping part might be might be true.\n\n[[Share Sathra's propaganda]]\n\n[[Share the pure truth]]
The guard captain seems quite angry at you asking to search his pockets, and refuses to let his pockets be searched. \n\n[[Bring him to your company commander, and explain the situation]].\n\n[[Order your men to search his pockets]]
General Grethnir is an enemy general whose tactics are decent, if conventional, and is known neither for particular mercy or particular cruelty. In short, from what you know of him, he is a completely average general, except for sending you a letter.\n\n[[Return|Return to your quarters]]
You drop your sword in horror, unwilling to slaughter the entire horde of townspeople. Men behind and beside you shout at you to pick up your sword and fight, but you fail to respond, stunned that most of the city was willing to die rather than surrender. Eventually an officer decapitates you as an example, though your hesitation delayed the charge, and resulted in additional casualties on the Japreth side. \n\n[[Legacy|DropSwordConclusion1]]
You fight your way back down to the gate, slashing through any Japreth who get in your road. The gate shatters shortly before you arrive, in such a way that you hit the enemy in the flank just as they emerge from the gate. You manage to push them back into the gateway proper, while also holding against the enemies descending from the wall, but the position is not secure. Sathra urges you to order the men to retreat into the city and snipe from houses.\n\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-100)>>\n\n[[Order your men to retreat into the city]]\n\n[[Hold your position]]
You drink the vial, at which point you begin coughing fairly violently, and feel quite hot. One of the guards outside the tent checks on you, and you report the symptoms, but as there is no healer in your camp, you are left in the end to simply go back to sleep. In the morning, a dozen monks arrive, at which point Sathra asks them to see if they could heal you. They do a quick examination, and announce that you can only be cured in their monastery, and claim that otherwise you will die. Sathra reluctantly allows them to leave with you, and they carry you off. \n\nAfter you are out of sight of the camp, one of the monks gives you another vial to drink, telling you that it will cure you. You drink the vial, and your coughing and fever subside. Afterwards, you walk together for another three days, sleeping underneath the stars without a tent, until you reach their [[monastery]].
"If you have not abandoned your duty to your country, then why did you never report back to me, your superior officer?"\n\n[["I had a higher duty to protect my countrymen from this doomed war"]]\n\n[["I received other orders from the royal family"]]\n\n[["I tried to link back up with you, but couldn't find you"]]
The capital is surrounded by a giant city wall, about a hundred feet high and twenty feet thick, with a slight angle to the walls to make it more resilient to trebuchets. There are square towers spaced out along the wall every hundred feet or so, about ten feet back from the front of the wall and about fifteen feet high, with small windows to shoot out of and triangular roofs. The wall bends slightly inwards near where the gate is, in such a way that makes any attackers trying to batter down the gate even more vulnerable to arrow fire. The wall is made to fit many more men on it then Cinethra can currently field, a relic of when Cinethra was much more powerful than it is today. A few archers are scattered along the wall, enough to provide warning, but not enough to provide serious resistance to a determined assault. The gate itself is arch-shaped and about fifteen feet high, eight feet wide is made out of thick, hard wood. \n\nYou walk through the crowded streets towards the barracks. Once inside, Sathra [[calls you into her quarters|calledIntoQuarters2]].
The capital is surrounded by a giant city wall, about a hundred feet high and twenty feet thick, with a slight angle to the walls to make it more resilient to trebuchets. There are square towers spaced out along the wall every hundred feet or so, about ten feet back from the front of the wall and about fifteen feet high, with small windows to shoot out of and triangular roofs. The wall bends slightly inwards near where the gate is, in such a way that makes any attackers trying to batter down the gate even more vulnerable to arrow fire. The wall is made to fit many more men on it then Cinethra can currently field, a relic of when Cinethra was much more powerful than it is today. A few archers are scattered along the wall, enough to provide warning, but not enough to provide serious resistance to a determined assault. The gate itself is arch-shaped and about fifteen feet high, eight feet wide is made out of thick, hard wood. \n\nYou enter the capital, and you are lead to barracks inside the capital where you will sleep tonight. Sathra explains that an enemy army is expected to arrive tomorrow and attempt to sieze the capital. Half the army is to be assigned to preparing the defenses, while the other half is to be assigned to rousing the citizens to fight along side the army. Sathra must be desparate if she intends to make civillians fight beside her. Sathra asks for volunteers for each duty, and says that any who do not volunteer will be assigned a duty.\n\n[[Volunteer to prepare defenses]]\n\n[[Volunteer to rouse the citizens]]\n\n[[Remain silent|Volunteer to rouse the citizens]]
The capital is surrounded by a giant city wall, about a hundred feet high and twenty feet thick, with a slight angle to the walls to make it more resilient to trebuchets. There are square towers spaced out along the wall every hundred feet or so, about ten feet back from the front of the wall and about fifteen feet high, with small windows to shoot out of and triangular roofs. The wall bends slightly inwards near where the gate is, in such a way that makes any attackers trying to batter down the gate even more vulnerable to arrow fire. A few Japreth archers are scattered along the wall, enough to provide warning, but not enough to provide serious resistance to a determined assault, and Japreth banners hang from the walls. The gate is laying in heaping rubble. Before the walls, there are giant pyres where heaps of bodies are being burned, both Cinethran and Japreth. You notice that the Cinethran bodies are men, women and children ranging from six to sixty years old. The smell of burning flesh fills your nose.\n\nYour squad leader leads you into the walls, where you see similar lines of corpses scattering the streets, being pulled towards the funeral pyres by the remains of a Japreth army. Many of the houses are are burnt, some being no more than heaps of ash. Apparently that Japreth army managed to take the capital, after heavy casualties, but had to slaughter almost the entire city before then. You overhear the sounds of women being raped from a nearby building. You help the original army burn the bodies, and then [[return to camp to get some rest]].
The capital is surrounded by a giant city wall, about a hundred feet high and twenty feet thick, with a slight angle to the walls to make it more resilient to trebuchets. There are square towers spaced out along the wall every hundred feet or so, about ten feet back from the front of the wall and about fifteen feet high, with small windows to shoot out of and triangular roofs. The wall bends slightly inwards near where the gate is, in such a way that makes any attackers trying to batter down the gate even more vulnerable to arrow fire. The wall is made to fit many more men on it then Cinethra can currently field, a relic of when Cinethra was much more powerful than it is today. A few Cinethran archers are scattered along the wall, enough to provide warning, but not enough to provide serious resistance to a determined assault. The gate itself is arch-shaped and about fifteen feet high, eight feet wide is made out of thick, hard wood. \n\nYour company commander orders you to start making a ladder, which you relay down to your men. Your squad works painstakingly on building the ladder over the course of the day, finishing it a little before sundown, at which point you help set up camp, eat dinner, and go to bed. The next morning, you company commander wakes you up, and says that your squad will be using a battering ram to batter down the gate. You advance the ram towards the gate under heavy arrow fire, while other squads start to rush ladders towards the walls. After losing a third of the squad, you reach the gate and start battering it down. After losing another third of the squad, the arrow fire stops, apparently they are too busy dealing with the Japreth on top their wall to fire at you. Eventually, the gate comes down, and you pull the ram away from the gate to allow your men to pour through. You then orders your to charge in. You find knife cards and mobile wooden walls blocking your path, with an angry mob of Cinethran townspeople behind them. Among these citizens blocking the advance, you notice women and children, with some of the children being as young as six, but all seem willing to die rather than let you pass. Behind you, you hear repeated orders to charge.\n\n[[Charge into the angry mob|ChargeMob2]]\n\n[[Drop your sword in horror]]
The capital is surrounded by a giant city wall, about a hundred feet high and twenty feet thick, with a slight angle to the walls to make it more resilient to trebuchets. There are square towers spaced out along the wall every hundred feet or so, about ten feet back from the front of the wall and about fifteen feet high, with small windows to shoot out of and triangular roofs. The wall bends slightly inwards near where the gate is, in such a way that makes any attackers trying to batter down the gate even more vulnerable to arrow fire. The wall is made to fit many more men on it then Cinethra can currently field, a relic of when Cinethra was much more powerful than it is today. A few Cinethran archers are scattered along the wall, enough to provide warning, but not enough to provide serious resistance to a determined assault. The gate itself is arch-shaped and about fifteen feet high, eight feet wide is made out of thick, hard wood. \n\nYour squad leader orders you to start making a ladder. Your squad works painstakingly on building the ladder over the course of the day, finishing it a little before sundown, at which point you help set up camp, eat dinner, and go to bed. The next morning, you squad leader wakes you up, and says that the squad will be using a battering ram to batter down the gate. You advance the ram towards the gate under heavy arrow fire, while other squads start to rush ladders towards the walls. After losing a third of the squad, you reach the gate and start battering it down. After losing another third of the squad, the arrow fire stops, apparently they are too busy dealing with the Japreth on top their wall to fire at you. Eventually, the gate comes down, and you pull the ram away from the gate to allow your men to pour through. Your squad leader then orders you to charge in yourselves. You find knife cards and mobile wooden walls blocking your path, with an angry mob of Cinethran townspeople behind them. Among these citizens blocking the advance, you notice women and children, with some of the children being as young as six, but all seem willing to die rather than let you pass. Behind you, you hear repeated orders to charge.\n\n[[Charge into the angry mob]]\n\n[[Drop your sword in horror]]
You run along the streets of burning villages and screaming people, occassionally having to push your way through crowds of confused people. You see some people trying to put out the fires with buckets, and people being trapped by falling buildings, but you know you have no time to help them. About a half-mile into your run, you get to a part of the city that is not on fire. Shortly upon entering this part of the city, you spot a group of a half-dozen Cinethran soldiers in front of you, armed with swords and in hardened leather armor. You have your sword with you, but you lost your armor in the fire. You could probably take out the men, or you could sneak around them.\n\n[[Sneak around the men|SneakAround]]\n\n[[Attack the men]]
The guard captain seems quite angry at you asking to search his pockets, but eventually relents and reveals the contents of his pockets. They contain several gold coins, the majority of which are of Cinethran mint, and worth what ought to be his annual salary. The combination of the amount of gold, and the large percentage of Cinethran gold is extremely suspicious of bribery.\n\n[[Arrest the captain on the spot for treason]]\n\n[[Search the captain's quarters]]\n\n[[Gather the rest of the guards for this gate]]
You order your men to halt, then cautiously approach the intersection, in case the enemy intends to ambush you. Your caution seems warrented, since you realize that the enemy outnumbers you, and one of your men reports that the enemy isn't moving away, and is instead waiting to ambush you.\n\n[[Continue the pursuit anyways|RecklessPursuit1]]\n\n[[Cautiously return to your barracks]]
You run out of the barracks, shortly followed by your men, who regroup around you. You see a group of people in Japreth armor fleeing the scene through a series of narrow alleys. \n\n[[Lead your squad in pursuit|Pursue the fleeing people into the alley]]\n\n[[Try to put out the fire]]\n
Seeing the enemy army approaching, you order your men to take up defensive positions. As the army closes in, you see that it is several thousand strong. As they reach bow range, both sides open fire at each other accross the river. The casualties on both sides seem to be almost equal, with your side taking perhaps slightly fewer casualties than the enemy. You have already lost over eighty men in this battle. \n\n[[Hold your ground]]\n\n[[Retreat]]
You march down a smooth stone road leading south, heading back in the general direction of Sathra's camp. You are in the second squad from the front, and the army is marching down the road in a line one squad wide. As you pass where the camp used to be, however, there is little sign of it ever having been there. The march drags on into the afternoon, at which point you notice that the road enters a forest, with the surrounding forest uphill from the road. As you approach the forest, you notice signs that an ambush is prepared ahead: small spots of snapped branches and a couple trees that look ready to fall on the road in front of you.\n\n[[Warn your squad leader]]\n\n[[Keep silent]]
A few minutes later, your suspicions are confirmed, and arrows fly at your company from both sides of the road, kiling a couple dozen instantly. Swordsmen appear behind and in front of you, blocking off your retreat, and among them you recognize Sathra herself, who luckily seems to miss you in the crowd. Your company commander orders you to form a tight knot and hold off the enemy.\n\n[[Obey his orders]]\n\n[[Order your squad to break through the enemy to the rear]]\n\n<<set $warned to false>>
You write:\n\n"I appeciate your offer and your concern about my soul, but I cannot abandon Sathra, and I believe I can look after my own soul. I will contact you if I change my mind.\nSincerely,\nMajor Raulind"\n\nYou then seal the letter, and hand it off to the camp's postmaster, who attaches it to a mail raven, and sends the raven off.\n\n[[Return|Return to your quarters]]
You lead your men through the narrow path through the bamboo forest. You notice that the tracks have gotten deeper as the ground has gotten softer, and there are signs that the wagons needed to be pushed to help them traverse the terrain. This is not a normal path for wagons, either Sathra was desperate to get off the road, or it is a trap.\n\n[[Continue down the trail]]\n\n[[Order your men to spread out into the forest to each side of the trail, and search it carefully for any ambushers]]
The site of the incident is a road in the middle of a bamboo forest. You see the bodies of the guards laying around, pierced with arrows. Most of them are in fairly straight lines, implying that these were killed before they were able to react. Whoever did this certainly knew what they were doing, and must have ambushed it from both sides. Upon inspecting the arrows, you find that they are of the same Cinethran design that is used by Sathra's men. The Japreth were likely right, this does indeed look like Sathra's work. You can see wagon tracks continuing to move down the road to the south, back towards the capital, but less linear than usual, swerving back and forth accross the road slightly as if the drivers didn't know how to do their job. Those are likely the tracks of the stolen wagons. Your company commander orders you to [[follow the wagon trail]].
You lead the men out of the cave as if they were going to sieze a caravan. However, once you are out of the mountains, you tell your men that you are actually going to surrender, as the cause looks doomed. Many of the men look like they had been waiting for a chance to surrender, and they suppress those who wish to continue fighting, in some cases quite violently. Once at the capital, you surrender and tell the Japreth exactly where Sathra is hiding. You are put in house arrest while the Japreth hunt Sathra down, but it is the most luxurious house arrest you have ever heard of. You are housed in a merchant's house that survived the siege, and the Japreth send in plenty of good food and bards, with the food including roasted duck, rice dumplings, sushi, and artisan cheeses. The Japreth must be desperate to deal with Sathra to be so generous.\n\nAbout a week later, you hear that the Japreth managed to surround Sathra and destroy her forces. She managed to escape the original ambush, but was ridden down and killed. You are released from house arrest, given back your katana along with a bag of gold, and offered the chance to become a major in the Japreth military, but you have had enough of war, and decide to become a bar owner instead. You hire ex-soldiers as your bouncers, and the bar becomes quite prosperous. The men you led to surrender are also given their freedom, some of whom become regular patrons of your bar. \n\nSome condemn you for betraying Sathra, but others think you were wise to do so, and realize that you saved many lives by not letting Sathra drag on the war needlessly. In time, you are forgotten completely, except by a few scholars. \n\n[[Return|Start]]
Things are calm for the next few days, but after about a week your battalion officer is found dead in his quarters, with no marks on his body. Your company is assigned to investigate the affair. You find no marks on his body, with a broken glass near his right hand, implying that he was poisoned. \n\nYou ask about who was visiting his quarters before he died, and who prepared the wine. Apparently a woman visited him shortly before his death, and the wine was bought from a local winery. Upon testing the bottled wine on the winery owner, it is determined that only the glass was poisoned, not the bottle itself, so the woman must have been responsible for the crime. The Japreth set up a wanted poster with the best reconstruction of her face up, but do not expect to catch her. \n\nAfter a few days without her showing up, it is assumed that she has left town, and it is also assumed that she was under Sathra's employ. A warning is sent out to not let strangers into your rooms until the end of the war, but no one expects that advice to be followed. About a week later, a safehouse for Cinethran spies is discovered in the city, and your company commander orders your squad to [[deal with it]].
A soldier wakes you up the next morning. You eat breakfast with the men, which this morning consists entirely of bread. Afterwards, you order the men to break camp, and continue the march. The march ends at sunset, at which point both you and the men are rather tired and you order the men to set up camp again. \n\n<<if $Monk is false>>\nYou continue marching south like this for another two days, at which point you reach the [[capital|capital2]]\n<<else>>\nWhen you return to your camp, you find another letter from High Monk Shal. The letter contains a vial of a mysterious liquid with instructions to drink it. The letter explains that the vial will make you temporarily ill so that the monks can claim that you need their help to be cured, which will allow you to join their order.\n\n[[Drink the vial]]\n\n[[Do not drink the vial]]\n<<endif>>
A half-dozen guards immediately make a break for it, but your men haul them back violently and throw them before you. Of the guards that the captain just fetched, all but two have a suspicious number of Cinethran gold coins in their pockets. \n\n[[Search their houses|SearchHouses2]]\n\n[[Arrest the guards with Cinethran golds|Arrest them]]
You are awoken to the sound of warning bells, announcing that the Japreth are attacking. You rush to the battlements, where you find that they are rushing forward with ladders and a pair of battering rams, the second one presumably there for when the first one is destroyed. About three hundred townspeople are gatherered below behind the gate, armed with anything from axes and knives, to pitchforks and what appear to be chair legs. The Japreth army is only about six thousand strong, but they all appear to be well-trained and well-equiped soldiers. Your men release waves of arrows upon the advancing Japreth, but the enemy reaches the walls with relatively limited casualties and begins to scale the walls. After a few hundred casualties, they achieve footholds on top of the wall, and are also battering down the gate. You thrust yourself into the fray, slicing apart attackers with well-practiced strikes of your katana, and the other defenders charge with similar vigor, but whenever you manage to close down one pocket of attackers, another two appear. Eventually the enemy becomes well established on the wall, after a couple thousand casualties on their side and about five hundred on yours, all experienced soldiers. Below, you hear the gate splintering, it won't hold for long.\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-500)>>\n<<if $armyLeft > 300>>\n[[Fall back to the gate|Fall back to the gate2]]\n\n[[Hold your position]]\n<<else>>\nYour path to the gate is cut off by a particularly fierce-looking group of attackers. You desperately try to cut your way through them, but before you can the enemy below breaks through the gates and overwhelms the townspeople below. You are quickly surrounded, and eventually are overwhelmed.\n\n[[Legacy|SiegeConclusion1]]\n<<endif>>
During the interrogation, the men reveal everything they know, which is very little indeed. They claim that they were perfectly loyal gate guards, until you tore their houses apart when they were already struggling to make ends meet. Then, they sent messages using the pidgeon used by their less loyal comrades, offering their services to Sathra, and providing information on the layout of the city, including where you lived. They then used the money sent by Sathra to aid in their revenge against you, hiring mercenaries to suplement the Cinethran force. When asked what happened to these pidgeons, they said they sent them off with a message not to send them back days before the raid. Upon leaving the interrogation room, the company commander mentions that this is why you must be careful during investigations not to create new traitors while searching for existing traitors. \n\nThis was the worst raid that you had experienced thusfar. [[Several years pass]] much like this, continually finding signs of Sathra's attacks, but never being able to track most of her men down.
<<set $inTent to true>>\n\nHigh Monk Shal is the leader of [[Buthenism]]. He is also known to encourage warrior monks to deal with bandits, and is always looking to recruit new monk to help.\n\n[[Return|Return to your quarters]]
Your men do a fairly thorough search, while being careful not to knock anything over. They fail to find anything. The guards seem annoyed at the search, but relieved that nothing was damaged during it.\n\n[[Ask the guards what happened last night|QuestionInitialGuards2]]
You kick the door in, and lead half your squad inside, while leaving the other half to prevent any spies from escaping. You quickly search the bottom floor, finding a kitchen, a small dining room, and a small coatroom. This house must have once belonged to a merchant or a minor noble, few others would be able to afford this many rooms. You start to climb the stairs, but one of them collapses beneath you, and you fall ten feet to the floor below, letting out an involuntary shout. Above, you hear motion, apparently the spies are now quite aware you are storming the building, and are preparing to do something about it. You sprained your right ankle, but are otherwise fine. That stair must have been intentionally sabotaged as a precaution. You order your men to continue storming the building, carefully skipping the broken stair. You see small pots of oil quickly hurled at the stairs, followed by a torch. You quickly order your men to leave the building, and stumble out yourself. \n\nThe spies are running across a large wooden ladder they thrust through a smashed window and onto the roof of a nearby building. You order your squad to shoot at the spies. Some of the spies are shot by arrows as they run, while others either fall off the ladder, or trip and fall down on the ladder only to be shot with arrows. Five spies out of a total of twelve make it accross to the nearest building, which you then quickly surround. The spies look reluctant to come down, so you signal for your archers to shoot them down, and their lifeless bodies fall down into the street. After putting out the fire, you [[report your success]].
You and the other surviving monks walk back in an solemn mood, and very little is said during the walk. Eventually, around midnight you get back to the monastery. The main room is almost deserted, but you find High Monk Shal meditating in his red and gold dragon robes. He turns when you enter, and asks why so few of you have returned. One of your companions explains what happened in the village, including how you were all forced to flee, and abandon the village to its fate. [[High Monk Shal calls you into his quarters]].
You decide to be safe, and go around these Cinethrans, going up a sidestreet and continuing on towards the palace. Another quarter mile on, you get to another burning section, and have to go a couple streets to your right to avoid burning rubble. You eventually reach the palace, where you find a couple lines of soldiers guarding the palace, one with pikes and one with crossbows. Upon approaching you are asked for your name and battallion. You answer, and then are reunited with a dozen of your men, and told to [[find your battalion commander]].
You order your men to hold their ground and continue fighting. The casualties continue to mount on both sides, but as your army becomes sufficiently depleted the enemy eventually mounts an assault accross the dam. Despite taking heavy casualties in the crossing, the enemy eventually reaches your side of the river and starts driving your army back. You end up in the midst of the fighting, surrounded by three enemies who you manage to fight off by yourself, but not without losing your right ear and your left arm. Eventually, the rest of your army is overwhelmed, and you are left in the center of the enemy, desperately fending them off. You manage to slay four more enemies before you are overwhelmed yourself and slain.\n\n[[Legacy|DamConclusion2]]
You and your battalion charge through burning streets, pushing through panicked crowds and winding through narrow alleys. You occassionally find a small group of Cinethrans, and take them out. Eventually, your commander feels you have found as many enemies as you are going to, and the fires are put out, so you return to the palace. Upon arriving, you are informed that the gate guards on duty let in the enemies without raising an alarm or putting up a fight. \n\nIt turns out that these guards were also being bribed, but you failed to catch them during your investigation, and they bribed the right people to be allowed to return to duty. This was the worst raid that you had experienced thusfar. [[Several years pass]] much like this, continually finding signs of Sathra's attacks, but never being able to track most of her men down.
"Most of them are, especially the ones you have likely heard. When I was besieging Novithra during the civil war, I saw that the walls were too well defended to be easily taken by force, so I resorted to trying to starve them out. My food supplies would last much longer than theirs, but as it turned out the city's commander wanted to hold out longer than even their food supplies. I had a spy in the city at the time, and learned that they had turned to cannabalism in their desperation, but the enemy commander would still not let them surrender. So I promised to feed the city after it surrendered to me (even though no commander carries around enough food to do that for long) which quickly caused an angry mob to lynch the enemy commander, and then open the gate. Seeing the angry mob in action, I knew that failing to keep them fed would have dire consequences, but I only had enough food to feed them for a single meal. So I distributed small chunks of bread to the people, but had them poisoned, and then shot anyone who didn't eat the bread. I then burnt the city to the ground."\n\nSathra pauses for a while, and drinks some tea before continuing, "In a different campaign, one against Japreth, my baggage train was stolen, apparently spies had poisoned the men on watch, allowing for the enemy to steal it in the night. I was most distraught by this loss, especially as I was by this point trapped in the middle of enemy territory in winter. I sent out a request for resupplies via messenger pidgeon, but knew that I needed to steal more supplies to last until then. I tried raiding the local towns, and stealing every last bit of their food, but between the viciously heavy taxes our enemy had been levying and bad harvests they had very little to steal... Eventually, we were forced to resort to eating the local villagers, because there was simply no more food to steal. We had to do this particularly sneakily, because we were in no shape to meet the great Japreth field armies at that point... we worked hard to create the illusion that we had struck west... However, the rumors of me practicing black magic are of course false... and hopefully have been largely suppressed... by this point."\n\nSathra ends her story with difficulty, then dies shortly after. You take her outside, and [[bury her]].
You gather the guards that were on duty together. The guards look fairly underpaid and disgruntled, though they do keep their [[Ji]]s well polished, are pretty alert, and show you respect. \n\n[[Ask the guards what happened last night]]\n\n[[Check the guards pockets, in case of bribery]]
You turn tail, and run away. You keep running for miles, leaving the monastery far behind you, before slowing to a walk. Eventually you are ambushed by a group of bandits while walking along the road and killed. \n\n[[Legacy|CowardConclusion]]
You leap out of bed, and rush for your katana. The man curses, and rushes at you with the dagger, but you now have your sword and skillfully leap back out of the dagger's way. Shouting, you bring the katana down on the assassin's head, which instantly starts bleeding profusely. The would-be assassin falls to the ground, dead. Several guards arrive at your tent, and then notice the dead body lying before you. You explain that an assassin tried to kill you, and order them to double the guards outside your tent and Sathra's. \n\n[[Wake up Sathra]]\n\n[[Go back to sleep|sleep]]
The guards try to resist, forming a small defensive formation with their Jis, but your men quickly overwhelm them, being much better trained. Afterwards, these guards are hauled off to the nearest prison.\n<<if $arrestedCaptain is true>>\n[[Report your findings]]\n<<else>>\n[[Arrest the captain|Announce that their captain is under arrest]]\n<<endif>>\n\n<<set $arrestedGuards to true>>
You desperately start complimenting Sathra to try to get her emotionally off balance. You strive to embarass her, but Sathra simply ignores your compliments and [[closes in to fight you|Fight Sathra honestly]]
You report back to your company commander that you killed everyone inside the building. He replies that it is a pity you didn't manage to save any of their documents, so you could know what information they stole, and prove that they were indeed spies as suspected, but is glad you at least managed to kill the spies. He then tells you to [[get some rest|GetRest2]].
You order the squad leaders to have their men spread the word that the Japreth will kill many townspeople and probably rape many of the women if they get inside the walls, and urge the populace to join in the defense of the city. They quickly send soldiers to spread the message around the city, and a few hours they report back that a couple hundred promised to stand alongside your men when the city is attacked. You inform Sathra of the results, and she seems disappointed by the turnout, but doesn't seem to blame you. \n\nThe next morning, [[the Japreth attack]].\n\n<<set $spreadLie to false>>\n<<set $spreadTruth to true>>
The town appears to hold about 4,000 people, and is mostly made out of wood, with a few small bamboo huts scattered throughout the town. It looks quite flammable indeed, and has no walls, simply being a grid-like layout of wooden houses. The houses are pressed so tightly together in many places they almost form walls except where the roads cut through. The enemy soldiers are not yet visible, likely huddled towards the center of the town.\n<<set $burntNogrith to false>>\n[[Light the town on fire]]\n\n[[Climb along the rooftops and shoot down at the enemies]]\n\n[[Charge!]]\n\n[[Lay an elaborate system of traps from four directions, trying to lure the enemies into getting surrounded.]]
Despite your suspicions, no ambush seems to materialize. You find an abandoned where the wagon tracks end, and still no enemies in sight. The company commander orders one of the squads to start moving the wagon back onto the main road. You get a very bad feeling about that wagon.\n\n[[Warn the commander]]\n\n[[Stay silent|StaySilent2]]
You start to lead your men towards the palace, where the conference is going to take place, but you see a battallion worth of men pouring out of the palace in front of you, more than your men can fight off. You turn to flee, but find several more battallions cutting off your escape. \n\n[[Surrender|GiveUp2]]\n\n[[Fight to the last man]]
A person you don't recognize stands in the judge's seat, while you are once again in the defendant's chair. This time, however, there is a large crowd gathered behind you. The judge calmly states, "Raulind, you are accussed of letting Sathra commit numerous warcrimes<<if $burntNogrith is true or $destroyedDamn is true>>, and even participating in some yourself<<endif>>. You are furthermore accused of hiding in a monastery rather than facing the problems facing us all. How do you plead?"\n<<if $burntNogrith is true>>\n[["Guilty"|Guilty2]]\n<<else if $destroyedDamn is true>>\n[["Guilty"|DamAccusation]]\n<<else>>\n[["Guilty"|People'sAccusation2]]\n<<endif>>\n[["Not Guilty"|NotGuilty2]]\n<<if $burntNogrith is false and $destroyedDamn is false>>\n[["That's not a crime"]]\n<<endif>>
You decide not to drink the vial in the end, and go to sleep instead. When monks arrive the next morning, they ask for you to be allowed to come with them, which Sathra bluntly refuses to allow, and the monks leave. You continue marching south for two days, at which point you reach the [[capital|capital2]].
History largely admires you for the valor and honor you displayed as a monk. Most do not blame you for not suspecting the newcomers, and instead villainize Sathra for sinking so low. A few think you were foolish to not suspect the group of newcomers claiming to want to be monks so soon after capturing Sathra's soldiers, though. You are also known as the leader of the last monks to fight against a professional army.\n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for years after the fall of Cinethra's last town.\n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
History largely admires you for the valor and honor you displayed as a monk. However, some think you were foolish to accept the ransom, despite how honorable that was. You are also known as the leader of the last monks to fight against a professional army.\n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for years after the fall of Cinethra's last town.\n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
History remembers you largely as an example of the difference between warrior monks and soldiers, and become a textbook example of why professional armies are superior to monasteries on a battlefield. However, some admire you for the valor and honor you displayed as a monk. \n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for years after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
History forgets about you fairly quickly. The few who remember think you will be reincarnated up because of the people you saved.\n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
History forgets about you fairly quickly. The few who remember you believe that you will be reincarnated up due to your selfless sacrifice at the end of your life.\n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
You lead your men back towards the capital, but seeing that they seem to be diehard Cinethrans, and seeing that the war is doomed, you kill all four after you are out of sight and hearing range of Sathra's group. You proceed to the capital, where you immediately drop your sword and surrender. You tell the Japreth that Sathra is planning to flee into the mountains and from there fight a guerilla war which you want no part in. You are put on house arrest for a few weeks, but are then released and allowed to do as you please, though they decline to return your katana. \n\nYou become a bar owner in Cinethra's old capital, and hire a set of bouncers that used to be part of Japreth's army. You hear news of how Sathra lit such and such city on fire, or killed these officials, and such, and even sometimes hear spies being chased through the streets outside your bar, but it all stays politely outside your bar, and you take no part in it. Occassionally a patron will wonder out loud why you are allowed to wander freely in Japreth lands, or why you aren't still fighting, but the bouncers keep them from causing too much trouble. Your bar becomes quite prosperous, being one of the first bars to reopen after the siege, and having a good selection of drinks. A decade later, the war finally ends and Sathra is executed. Cinethra had already by that point become fairly well assimilated into the Japreth empire, and you notice that the area is more prosperous now than when it was independent. After the war, you are allowed to buy back your sword, though you are charged several times its worth for it. Still, you are happy to have survived the war and remained free.\n\nHistory forgets about you as the years pass on, though Sathra remains firmly remembered for centuries after her death.\n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
You ready the men, and depart for the interception point. A few days later, you arrive beside a road in the middle of a bamboo forest.\n\n[[Wait on one side of the road in ambush]]\n\n[[Wait on both sides of the road in ambush]]\n\n[[Stand in the middle of the road and try to negotiate peacefully]]
You lead your squad in pursuit of the fleeing people, suspecting them of starting the fire. You are starting to gain on them, however suddenly a third of them turn into an alley to the right, and a third turn into an alley to the left. \n\n[[Order your men to chase one of the groups|RecklessPursuit1]]\n\n[[Order your squad to break up and chase each of the groups|RecklessPursuit1]]\n\n[[Order your squad to halt, and then carefully check for ambushes]]
The guards try to resist, forming a small defensive formation with their Jis, but your men quickly overwhelm them, being much better trained. Afterwards, these guards are hauled off to the nearest prison.\n\n[[Report back to your company commander]]
You scramble out of the house through the front door, coughing in the deep smoke, and dodging burning rubble. You just get time to catch your breath before three crossbow bolts bury themselves in your chest, and you fall over, dead.\n\n[[Legacy|HeavyHandedConclusion1]]
Your company commander says that it is unfortenate that the treacherous gate guards got away, but at least they could be replaced with honest ones now. <<if $createdTratiors is true>> He does, however, ask that you avoid being unnecessarily harsh to innocent soldiers in the future, and hopes that those guards do not require replacing due to your heavy-handedness.<<endif>> He then dismisses you, and you [[return to your quarters]].\n\n<<set $arrestedGuards to false>>
You keep your forces together while lighting the town on fire. The enemy moves towards the smoke to investigate, only to find themselves trapped in a ring of fire. Desperately, they charge out, through the flames, losing most of their men and all of their order while doing so, allowing you to defeat the survivors with only losing seven men. Though the flames, you can see men, women, and children burning alive, and their screams fill your ears. [[Return to camp in triumph]].\n\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-7)>>\n<<set $menAlong to ($menAlong-7)>>
"You always were foolishly considerate. As you wish, I shall save my strength, but it won't be enough to save me."\n\nSathra then obediently remains silent and goes to sleep. She never wakes up. You [[bury her]] outside the caves.
"We leave in an hour. Ready the men, Major Raulind."\n\nYou, Sathra and your men all change into Japreth armor, selecting Japreth helms that hide the face so that you will not be recognized. You then walk for several days until you reach the capital. It is nighttime, and the conference should be a couple hours from the end. You approach the palace, where the conference is supposed to take place, and find the doors guarded only by a dozen soldiers. \n\nYou and your men approach to within striking distance of the soldiers, then quickly kill them before they can sound an alarm. You then rush inside, killing anyone in your path. Men and woman scream as you charge through the palace, barrelling towards the conference room. Once inside, you encounter about sixty officers who are all now standing with swords drawn facing the doors you entered through, but luckily most seem to be missing their bamboo armor. \n\n<<if (random(0,100) < ($armyLeft - 5)) && ($armyLeft > 70)>>You charge at the officers, who seem unprepared for such a vicious assault. The officers fight back valiantly, but they are overwhelmed. After losing a couple dozen men, you manage to kill everyone in the conference room, though not before likely alerting half the city to your attack. You rush back towards the gate, trying to escape before help arrives. The guards at the gate try to close it, but one of your men shoots the guard trying to close the portcullis, and you quickly unbar the gate and rush through. However, archers on the wall release arrows, killing some of your men and an arrow hit Sathra in each shoulder. In the end, you escape the capital after losing forty two men.\n<<set $armyLeft to Math.round($armyLeft - 42)>>\n[[Flee to hideout]]\n<<else>>You charge at the officers, but they counter-attack valiantly, and the fighting seems fairly even. After about half of the soldiers on each side are dead, dozens of soldiers pour in from behind you, apparently alerted by the screaming. You are eventually all overwhelmed, and killed.\n\n[[Legacy|ConferenceConclusion1]]\n<<endif>>
Sathra gives you a look of pure fiery wrath, as if you destroyed her entire life. She charges in, releasing a bellowing warcry, and initiates a rapid flurry of cuts. You desperately parry the blows, and are at first left on the defenses, but you start to realize that her technique has suffered due to her wrath: her attacks are too large, she's not defending herself, and she's not even bothering with feints. You eventually manage to block one of Sathra's cuts towards your head, while simultaneously stabbing her in the neck. She falls to her knees, clutching her neck, and then falls onto her stomach, dead. While you never learn this, Sathra's entire life had been destroyed and husband killed by accusations of using black magic.\n\nThe few remaining the Cinethran soldiers either flee or die. You are promoted to battallion commander for slaying Sathra. You are also given the title of swordmaster, and people come from all around Japreth to learn from you.<<if $impudent is true>>You punishment for refusing to give the briefing is reduced down to ten lashes of the whip in honor of your valor.<<endif>> A few weeks later, the last few Cinethran soldiers are killed or captured, after a failed raid on a caravan, [[ending the war]].
You order your men to form a defensive knot, and they obey. You fight the Japreth valiantly, but all too soon you are overwhelmed by their vastly superior numbers. \n\n[[ConferenceConclusion1]]
You let Sathra's soldiers be, despite having bad feelings about doing so. You then set to rebuilding the monastery. Several weeks later, the monastery is finished, if not quite the same as the old monastery. A few weeks after that, Sathra's soldiers come back and burn down the monastery, and massacre you and the rest of the monks. Apparently your martial arts failed to bring them to enlightenment. \n\n[[Legacy|MonkConclusion3]]
<<if $menAlong < 20>> You simply don't have enough men for that. You'll need a different plan to take [[Nogrith]].\n<<else>>\n\nYou order your men to set up an elaborate system of traps from all directions, with small teams to draw the enemy out into an attack, and other teams lying in wait to surround and destroy the enemy, taking advantage of the town's layout. \n\n[[Outcome|traps1]]\n\n<<endif>>
Some of the poets sing of the bravery of your last stand, but most people consider it simply idiotic, and wonder whether you went insane or were simply suicidal. Very few doubt your devotion to honor and duty, however. <<if $burntNogrith is true>>Your burning of Nogrith was forgotten.<<endif>> <<if $destroyedDamn is true>>Only a few scholars know remember that you destroyed the dam, killing thousands of innocent people.<<endif>>\n\nJapreth conquered Cinethra after a surprisingly long and bloody war, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead in addition to the high military casualties. This war did not even entirely end even after Cinethra had no territory left, instead turning into a guerrila war that lasted for more than a decade after the fall of Cinethra's last town. \n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
You order your men to arrest the captain for treason. The captain makes a bolt for it, but one of your men shoots him in the leg, allowing your men to capture him, and haul him towards the nearest prison. After they return, you are informed that most of the guards for this gate disappeared while you were arresting the captain<<if $annoyedGuards is false>>, but that the ones the captain claimed were on duty are still here<<endif>>. Time to go and [[report your findings|Report your findings]].
"You cannot win the war, and you know it. Your continued resistance is simply causing hardship on the people of this country, and killing many of them. Just stop, for the good of the people"\n\nSathra laughs, and says, "I see you have come quite the guardian of the people. I, for one, care little about the people, because they have always cared little for me." She then orders her men to charge. Out of time, you have no choice but to order your monks to charge. \n\nYou weave in and out of sword range of Sathra's men, hitting them when possible, but the difference in equipment is really starting to show, and you are losing monks much faster than she is having men knocked unconsious. \n\nIn the end, you are overwhelmed, but you bought enough time for the Japreth to mobilize some of their forces, and Sathra's raid is cut off prematurely. In vengeance, she later burns your monastery to the ground.\n\n[[Legacy|MonkConclusion1]]
You open the letter. It says,\n\n"Major Raulind, I am glad you decided to open the letter. Perhaps you have come to see the truth already. If not, hopefully this letter will enlighten you.\n\nThere is little point in continuing to fight against Japreth. You and I both realize that Japreth victory is inevitable, and trying to resist it will merely result in unnecessary death and destruction. And knowing General Sathra, that needless death will be great indeed, especially among your own people.\n\nLet me tell you a story. Eight years ago there was a succession crisis in Cinethra. During this crisis, there was city called Novithra that supported the candidate that happened to lose. As Sathra began to destroy this candidate's powerbase one piece at a time, eventually she came to Novithra. She surrounded the city, and decided to starve them out. \n\nEventually, the city surrendered upon the promise of food. Sathra provided the food as promised, but had it poisoned, because she could not afford to keep feeding the city. When some refused to eat the food, she unleashed her soldiers upon them without a second thought. Two thousand men, four thousand women and four thousand children were killed on that day, almost all of them innocent. And this was to her own people! This is who you now serve. We should both tremble to think what she will do in her desperate attempts to stop the inevitable.\n\nSee wisdom and stop fighting in vain for a monster in the name of honor,\nGeneral Grethnir"\n\n[[Return|Return to your quarters]]
Sathra explains, "The Japreth is having a large military conference in Cinethra's old capital.<<if $hope is true>> The general of the occupation force will be there<<else>> The generals of the occupation force will be there<<endif>>, along with Japreth's head military commander and most of the senior officers in the occupation force. They are supposed to be talking about how to destroy us, ironically enough, giving us the opportunity to cut off their head. We shall disguise ourselves as Japreth soldiers, sneak into the capital, then slaughter everyone in the conference room and slip out before the other Japreth soldiers think to kill us."\n\n[["It might be a trap"]]\n\n[["Brilliant idea"]]\n
You order your men to hide inside the wagons, laying a trap for Sathra. The other squad of guards stare at you, but do not argue with you hiding within the wagons. You carefully move the food barrels to the sides of the wagon, while you go in the middle, for protection from arrow fire. For miles your ride is peaceful, if bumpy, but then arrows fly out of the woods from both sides. Some of the arrows slam into the barrels to either side of you, while the screams of dying guards implies that many of the other arrows found their targets. \n\n[[Leap out to help you fellow guards]]\n\n[[Wait in the wagons]]
You order your men to spread out to both sides of the trail, ranging from 20 to 50 feet away from the trail on each side, to try to spot any possible ambushers before they spot you. This makes for slow going, but the added safety is worth it. You spot men hiding in the trees ahead, and signal your men to charge. The would-be ambushers fire arrows back at your men, hitting a half-dozen, before organizing a retreat. Your men fire arrows back, hitting several before they fade back into the trees.\n\n[[Chase them down!]]\n\n[[Follow cautiously]]\n\n<<set $menAlong to $menAlong - 7>>\n<<set $enemyLeft to $enemyLeft - 10>>
You shout up at the wall, "Cinethra is doomed, its armies have been crushed and no one is coming to save you. Save yourselves, don't throw your lives away for a cause that is already lost." The defenders grudgingly seem to agree with you, and they drop their weapons over the wall and open up the gate without a fight. Your army gathers up all the weapons, stations a garrison in the fort, and then [[moves on]].
A man comes to wake you up, and when you do, you see buildings on fire from outside your window. You quickly dress, get your armor on, and belt on your sword, then leave the house. The man tells you that your company commander is ordering the company to rally around him. You obediently run to him, and find that the buildings around him are on fire. When you arrive, he announces that it is time to move out and start [[catching those who did this]].
You try to run away from Sathra, but she calmly follows you at a reasonable pace, killing anyone who gets into her way, and you find yourself pinned against a wall, with Sathra quite close to you. You are left with no choice but to [[fight Sathra|Fight Sathra honestly]].
Buthenism claims that people should learn to move beyond violence, and that only through outward peace can true happiness and inner peace reign. That said, its followers also believe that in order to prevent violence, minor violence on their part may be needed, but they take vows not to actually kill anyone. Buthenism also claims that those who achieve true inner peace and happiness will be reincarnated into a higher position when they die.\n\nIts monks take vows of poverty, and their monasteries have no more room per person than the average home. They also still farm half of their food, in addition to dealing with bandits, so as not to be too much of a burden on society.\n\n<<if $inTent>> [[Return|High Monk Shal]] \n<<else>> [[Return|Cinethra]]\n<<endif>>
There is a sudden uproar from the audience, until the judge calms everyone down. He then turns to you and says, "You mistake where you are, Mr. Raulind. This is not a court of law, this is a court of public opinion. It follows no strict legal code, but I assure you that if you are found guilty, it will have no less dire punishments. Now, how do you plead?"\n<<if $burntNogrith is true or $destroyedDamn is true>>\n[["Guilty"|Guilty2]]\n<<else>>\n[["Guilty"|People'sAccusation2]]\n<<endif>>\n[["Not Guilty"|NotGuilty2]]
High Monk Shal looks solemn, and calls you into his quarters. \n\nThe quarters are several times larger than those of any of the other monks, with a masterfully made zitan wood desk engraved with dragons with a pair of equally well made ebony chairs, and several portraits on the wall of monks fighting monsters. Off in the corner you can see a nice-looking bed with a xiangzhi wood frame. Overall, these quarters look much nicer than those in the rest of the monastery, in fact they look worthy of a royal palace, to the point that they seem downright out of place here. \n\nShal gestures for you to sit down, then sits down himself. You obediently sit down in one of the chairs. Shal says, "You followed both your vows and your orders to the best of your ability, and I can't fault you for that. The rape and pillage of the town, however, is an unmitigated failure worse than anything else we've had in the last month, not to mention the loss of eight of our best monks. I suggest that you meditate on how we can prevent similar disasters from occurring in the future during our next meditation session. Please see me after tomorrow's meditation to share what thoughts you have had. Now, we should both get some rest."\n\nYou [[return to your quarters and fall asleep]].
You run along the streets of burning villages and screaming people, occassionally having to push your way through crowds of confused people. You see some people trying to put out the fires with buckets, and people being trapped by falling buildings, but you know you have no time to help them. About a half-mile into your run, you get to a part of the city that is not on fire. Shortly upon entering this part of the city, you spot a group of a half-dozen Cinethran soldiers in front of you, armed with swords and in hardened leather armor. You have your sword with you, but you lost your armor in the fire. You could probably take out the men, or you could sneak around them.\n\n[[Sneak around the men]]\n\n[[Attack the men]]
You are awoken to the sound of warning bells, announcing that the Japreth are attacking. You rush to the battlements, where you find that they are rushing forward with ladders and a pair of battering rams, the second one presumably there for when the first one is destroyed. In addition to your own men, a thousand townspeople gather on the walls, armed with anything from axes and knives to pitchforks and what look like chair legs. Another thousand townspeople are gatherered below behind the gate and behind a half-circle of dagger carts and mobile walls. The Japreth army is only about six thousand strong, but they all appear to be well-trained and well-equiped soldiers. Your men release waves of arrows upon the advancing Japreth, but the enemy reaches the walls with relatively limited casualties and begins to scale the walls. After a few hundred casualties, they achieve footholds on top of the wall, and are also battering down the gate. You thrust yourself into the fray, slicing apart attackers with well-practiced strikes of your katana, and the other defenders charge with similar vigor, but whenever you manage to close down one pocket of attackers, another two appear. Eventually the enemy becomes well established on the wall, after a couple thousand casualties on their side and about six hundred on yours. Below, you hear the gate splintering, it won't hold for long.\n\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-300)>>\n\n[[Fall back to the gate|ToGate2]]\n\n[[Hold your position]]
A man comes to wake you up, and when you do, you see buildings on fire from outside your window. You quickly dress, get your armor on, and belt on your sword, then leave the house. The man tells you that your battalion commander is ordering the battalion to rally around him. You obediently run to him, and find that the buildings around him are on fire. When you arrive, he announces that it is time to move out and start [[finding whoever did this]].
"You could have, had you not run away to the monastery. I suppose we owe you some thanks for at least preventing her from burning down Nogrith and destroying that dam, though. In honor of your service, and your help defeating petty bandits, you are hereby pardoned for letting Sathra do as she pleased on the condition that you stop her, once you have the power to do so."\n\nYou exit the courtroom, only to find yourself in yet another courtroom, but this time [[you are not the one on trial]].\n\n<<set $InnocentCourt2 to true>>
You refuse the ransom offer, being unwilling to give Sathra back her men. About a month later, a group of men come to the monastery claiming to want to become monks. They appear quite in shape and well-fed, and appear to be Cinethrans. \n\n[[Welcome them to the monastery]]\n\n[[Ask about their beliefs]]
"Regrettably, that is not an option. The monks follow their sense of ethics quite strictly, and won't tolerate people killing, let alone even threaten doing it themselves. The people that don't have such a restrictive sense of ethics are either in an army, in a militia, bandits, or laying low these days. [[Any other suggestions?|return to your quarters and fall asleep]]"\n\n<<set $weapons to true>>
The town appears to hold about 4,000 people, and is mostly made out of wood, with a few small bamboo huts scattered throughout the town. It looks quite flammable indeed, and has no walls, simply being a grid-like layout of wooden houses. The houses are pressed so tightly together in many places they almost form walls except where the roads cut through. The enemy soldiers are not yet visible, likely huddled towards the center of the town.\n\nWhen Sathra sees it, she orders the army to split up into squads, and each squad is to light the town on fire, burning all within. Your squad leader hands each of you a torch to throw into the town. You take turns throwing torches into the town as you circle it. Eventually, it comes your turn, and the squad leader orders you to throw your torch into the town.\n\n[[Obey|Obey1]]\n\n[[Protest|Protest1]]
"I was once a herbalist long ago, a pretty good one at that, so I know that no natural disease that severe would disappear that quickly. My spies reported that you made quite good time away from my camp, despite your supposed illness. Furthermore, I have all the food and drink from my camp carefully searched for tampering, so you could not have been poisoned on accident. For your lies and desertion, I shall abandon you as you abandoned me."\n\nSathra then leaves through the court's one exit door, and locks it behind her. A few minutes later, you find yourself before [[a court of the people]].
In the morning, your company commander wakes you up for breakfast, which consists of pork buns seized from a local bakery. After breakfast, the general gives a speech praising the bravery in which we fought to sieze the city, and honoring the fallen. Then he announces the promotions for the army, which are quite a few indeed, and among them is your promotion to company commander. The general then announces that Sathra has escaped, though the royal family was killed, and ordered a hunt for Sathra. \n\nA few weeks later the entire next food caravan vanished. The Japreth believe that this is not the act of any normal group of brigands, and instead think that Sathra is responsible. You are put in charge of [[investigating the theft]], and given eighty veteran soldiers to help you.
Your army continues marching down, occupying towns with little resistance. After about a month, all of Cinethra is under Japreth occupation, and your army marches back up towards the capital. Once you arrive in the capital, you hear that Sathra has been conducting a guerrilla war against the Japreth. When a wagon filled with the gold to pay the wages for your entire army goes missing a few days later, [[your company is sent to investigate]].
Tales are still told of your exploits. Many believe that you caused more harm than good, and you become a villain in most of the stories told about you, but still some think of you as a hero, and almost no one forgets about you. Even some who believe you caused only harm still partially admire you for your cunning and daring strikes, and your determination to defeat the enemy. \n\nWith the death of you and Sathra, the last resistance to Japreth occupation died, and Cinethra became a mere province of Japreth.\n\n[[Return|Start][state.restart()]]
You mention to your company commander that this looks like one of Sathra's typical traps. He doesn't seem pleased to be reminded of your defection, but does at least wisely order the men to be alert for an ambush. A few minutes later, your suspicions are confirmed, and arrows fly at your company from both sides of the road, kiling a dozen instantly. Swordsmen appear behind and in front of you, blocking off your retreat, and among them you recognize Sathra herself, who luckily seems to miss you in the crowd. Your company commander orders you to form a tight knot and hold off the enemy.\n\n[[Obey his orders]]\n\n[[Order your squad to break through the enemy to the rear]]\n\n<<set $warned to true>>
You surround the town with a thin ring of your men to light the town on fire with maximum efficiency. The enemy moves towards the smoke to investigate, only to find themselves trapped in a ring of fire. Desperately, they charge out, through the flames, losing most of their men and all of their order while doing so. Despite this, your lines are thin enough that the surviving enemies punch through your thin ring, and attack the rest of your army from behind, killing 24 of your men before you stop them, much more than you could afford to lose. Though the flames, you can see men, women, and children burning alive, and their screams fill your ears. [[Return to camp in disgrace]].\n\n<<set $armyLeft to ($armyLeft-24)>>\n<<set $menAlong to ($menAlong-24)>>
You rush over towards the center of the dam to grab the explosive barrel yourself, ignoring the shouted orders to stay back. Archers line shots up at you, and you feel an arrow hit your lower right leg and upper right arm, but keep running towards the barrel. You desperately hurl it over the dam to prevent the deaths of thousands of people in one last act of defiance. A few seconds later, your corpse falls over the dam. The dam is saved at the cost of your own life.\n\n[[Legacy|DamConclusion1]]