Dust and blood

[Iron Dragoon]

"Honeydip, Emily, I know this isn't how you like to do things, but I need to look at the long term. Reservation now will likely save us a hole in our defenses later. My concern is for that fight. Freeing every slave and defeating every evil now will mean nothing if we fail later."

[Anastasia]

Emily shakes her head, "It's not an excuse to ignore evils now."

"It isn't," Honeydip agrees, but holds up a finger. "But." A moment before she goes on. "But. It also depends on what you get later. If we do this, what is our expected victory?"

[Iron Dragoon]

"We're trying to draw out Gargauth. We know he has ties with Razma, and the goal of this whole thing is to strike Razma's holdings that Gargauth is involved in. In order to strike multiple targets, I want to pull in Razma's enemies. But now they want us to strike Ogremoch by way of Grimrock.

If we do this, we're now four steps removed from our original target, drawing an established alliance of enemies that already have ties to each other against us, and exposing our combined strike with Queen and Empress Sulia to possible attention.

The goal is to identify targets that are combined holdings of Gargauth and Razma, which is why I'm resistant to bogging down our forces, and influence, with a direct strike. We already have agreements of cooperation from Lady Chan's paladin and the Karami clan. Not to disregard Bastian's efforts, but I'm concerned this strike to secure a third party for this is drawing us too far away from our original target, if we do it personally. Hence the mercenary option. Getting our people in the command structure is just my wanting to maximize the opportunity to get them in the fight, test them, and get them experience in command and planning."

[Anastasia]

Rumza.

"This is getting complicated," Bastian notes, "We can try it, but let's try something not so thrice stupid complex if this fails."

[Iron Dragoon]

Alyssa nods, "That's why I don't want to get any more directly involved in this strike. It's too far off from our objective. Any opinion change on the mercenaries? With our people acting as anchors for them and giving some oversight, it may be the solution."

[Anastasia]

There's some thought about it, "It's still too indirect," Honeydip insists, "There's illusions, and then there's fooling about without being effective."

"Then," Dolmaya declares, "I'll make sure they're effective."

[Iron Dragoon]

Alyssa nods to Dolmaya, then to Honeydip, "Make suggestions to improve the plan."

[Anastasia]

"Scrap it. It's not a good plan," Honeydip, as she sticks to her ideals.

Meanwhile, "Choose the right people and the right mercenaries. This will work if you can do that." She gets up, "Jarem, we'll have to do this personally."

Jarem matches her, "It does take good judgment," he agrees amicably.

[Iron Dragoon]

Alyssa raises an eyebrow, "Then come up with an alternative, Honeydip."

To Jarem and Dolmaya, "Make plans, but don't commit or deploy. Let's see what Honeydip comes up with. Honeydip, ask for whatever help you want, but no final decisions. Disagreeing is fine, but it doesn't solve problems."

[Anastasia]

"I have," Lady Honeydip rises, "If you're not willing to face Ogremoch, so be it." she turns away and flies out.

[Iron Dragoon]

Alyssa raises an eyebrow, "Proposing a strike isn't a battle plan."

[Anastasia]

Emily looks down a moment, "I'll go talk to her," she says, getting up and following.

Bastian lingers, "Paladins," he says quietly, a note of tired exasperation there. "Martyrdom glorified, every one of them."

[Iron Dragoon]

Alyssa snorts, "Only sometimes. Conviction rarely allows flexibility."

[Anastasia]

"She's right, it would be a lot more direct and simple," Bastian admits, "We may be outsmarting ourselves here. A plan with ten great steps is worse than one with one good step. Martyr in the making or not, there's value in that sort of simplicity."

[Iron Dragoon]

"Then get me ten good steps. We don't have them right now."