The two of you gather with Antenora to discuss Benfal. It's Aurora's meeting room, Elena also in there and setting up some refreshments. "Hi!" she says, then goes over and hugs Jaela, while the other Elena appears and hugs Afina. "Thank you so much for getting Muirfinn back! No one deserves what he got. Now I'll see you later, I'm going to go find out if I can hug Tryll."
"Things went better than expected, but I'll believe it when I see Muirfinn up and about," Afina says, briefly returning Elena's hug before she settles in.
"I rejoice yet I also fear," Antenora takes her own seat, "Hell does nothing freely or without a great profit to it. I pray to all the forces of good that the price was not too high, that the Father will not be used to somehow greatly empower Hell."
Not to be outdone, Jaela gives her Elena a happy hug before sitting down on Antenora's other side. "The only price too high for rescuing a friend and comrade from Hell is the betrayal of another," she states firmly. "We'll deal with their plots as they come, and if they break the agreement we'll tie them up with Primus and make them regret it."
She grins hungrily. "Besides, Hell's going to be a bit busy putting out a few fires. Which brings us to what we should discuss quite nicely, don't you think?"
"Yes, do go on," Antenora says with her own smile.
Jaela retrieves Afina's latest creation and places it on the table in front of her. "We were waiting on something to keep the Duke of Destiny in check. Here is that something."
"We were warned off of Benfal, if Aurora takes part then Taelfagn will also participate and bring our destined defeat," Afina goes, summarising in case anyone's forgotten. "This spear forged from the first embers of Goldenfire unravels destiny. With it we can bring our forces to bear and not have to worry about calamitous happenstance adding up to our utter defeat."
It is a simple spear. Unremarkable on a glance. That glance would be wrong.
Every few seconds the stone sphere flickers with golden fires. It draws you to its light, and in it, everyone you see looks younger. Vital, full of life and in youth's full flower.
"There is no better time to strike," Jaela adds to that.
"Will this be the beginning of Lifasa's liberation?" Antenora asks, studying the spear intently.
"A dry run of it, at the very least. If we get Taelfagn, Hell might end up in disarray long enough for us to make a push on our homeworld."
"Not really," Afina shakes her head. "But the hope is that in freeing Benfal we'll be able to spare more reinforcements from Alicia and Seira, as well as proving our commitment and ability so as to rally more support from further afield. Those are things we can then leverage towards a proper push on Lifasa."
"So be it," Antenora agrees, "Before we get into that, when would Aurora be ready?"
"I believe the only relevant question is when the integration will be complete. Elena, could you shed some light on this?"
"About 12 more hours, give or take," Elena pops back in, "We're mostly done and on the stabilizing phases. There's not much we can do about those to hurry them up, it takes time."
"There you have it. We'll be ready within a day. How about your forces?"
"You've helped us a lot so far, and now we're ready to repay it," Afina says to Antenora after that. "Whenever you're ready for the final assault, we'll be there. Aurora can be used as a beachhead to secure anywhere you need a fortified redoubt on short notice, or we can besiege any of Hell's own fortifications and tie down their ability to respond to a more wide ranging attack. I'd like to think the tactics we use here will help give us good practice for when we return to Lifasa in force, anyway."
"I don't know now, but I will soon," Antenora says, rising. "I will return after consulting with Alicia and Syala. I will use magic and prayer so it will not take long."
"We're at your disposal," Afina nods, settling in to wait.
"If you need an escort, don't hesitate to ask," Jaela offers, likewise having no problem with waiting on the answer.
Antenora soon returns.
"One week." That's the answer, "Prepare yourselves until then. Semyaza will not take his personal fief being taken lightly, a battle between him and Sylica has been long in the making."
"I'll let Ebony know to act as a liaison. Pass on word through her as to where and how you'd like us deployed?" Afina asks.
"Do we want to use the ex-efreet ships?" Jaela asks, glancing between Antenora and Afina. "A week might be enough to bring at least a few up to spec."
"Mmm, yes. They'd be good against a lot of fire attacks devils may use," Antenora decides.
"I don't see a great deal of value in those to be honest," Afina confesses. "Our forces aren't large enough that we'd benefit from being able to send a few dozen bodies off on a flying ship far away from Aurora, and Aurora itself serves perfectly for deploying the bulk of our forces anywhere in the world that they're needed."
"Do you mind taking a closer look at them with me all the same?" Jaela asks Afina. "I've been meaning to use one for myself and add some stealth to it, but the basic upgrades to get them powered up should be identical and thus easily copied once we figure out how to do them."
"I should have time for it, but I'm no shipwright," Afina acquiesces in the face of the two angels' enthusiasm for the project.
Okay plans then? Y'all have a week.
I'll have Finnegan figure out who we have that can actually effectively crew the ships. If we just don't have enough people to utilize them properly, I'm sure Antenora could send people over for that. The holds should be fairly large, if nothing else.
I want to figure out how to add the engines/power to the ships and see just how the GoldenSpear works, but that's OOC.
So IC I'll go visit the Terminal Archive after all. Vul'lath aside, who else wants to come with?
I guess I'm looking at boats?
Past that I'll be drilling our forces to get them sharp and in shape, so no time to go adventuring for me.
Finnegan's away right now, he's with Moore and Surraruthru.
You can go adventure if you want, Afina. There are other generals and plenty of trainers, but if you feel you need to, that's your call.
If spending her time like this gives our forces that bit more of an edge in battle it's worth doing.
The Master can do this, then!
On my part, I just want to be sure I've done all I can. Since people don't come train in my style anyway, my time is best spent seeing whether I can gain a last moment advantage for us.
I'll post more boat info tonight or maybe tomorrow (since holiday retail sucks) since I have tomorrow off, so let's table that for the sec.
What's your goal at the Terminal Archive, Jaela?
Afina, how are you looking to train people? Anything special?
[21:01] <Jaela> Right. Loopholes. Jaela nods. "My bad. I'm new at this. New conditions, the death must be permanent and not allow for reincarnation or respawning or bullshit like that, and it's not the way where you just plane shift them home and kill them there. How about now?"
[21:08] <Koaway> 'It can be done.' There's a long pause before a reply, papers swirling furiously around Darvul! It almost entirely obscures him from view. 'Go to the sixth floor and seek Forgotten.'
http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,102061.msg1030642.html#msg1030642
I'm going to look into what the Archive has on permakilling devils on that sixth floor.
Afina will run war games with attacking/defending fortified locations. She'll see what the brain trust can dig up on Semyaz's favoured tactics and incorporate that kind of stuff into it along with a smattering of generic Hell tactics and Bel specials. It's less Afina teaching people how to murdersprint and more broad strokes command stuff. Her personal involvement will be giving the rank troops practice in dealing with elites, which will boil down to a lot of 'don't bunch up and get murdered by AoE, use battlefield control and stuff that doesn't go directly against the enemy's resistances, and if pushed into melee rely on buffs and lots of aid another to make hits count'.
As far as anyone needs to know if they get curious she'll explain it as prep for an attack on Lifasa, just so if there's any spies they won't give away the surprise advantage.
Thanks. We'll deal with NPCs going along in the next topic, Jaela. This one's done, I'll split you two off.
Sounds good, Afina, I'll touch on that in your new topic.
This topic's done.