Hello again. Today we found a war.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the war found us.

We were walking along a deer trail between two ridges when we stumbled into a camp of roughly fifty men with spears and purple painted shields. There was a chubby bear curled up and snoozing on the shields, and on the purple banner waving from the pole in the center of the camp. How did we miss that?

I think we surprised them. I guess thats only fair though right? Who expects a man, a rabbit, a little girl in a tophat, and a crazy cat lady to wander out of the brush and right into your army camp?

One of the fatter soldiers with a little feather on his helmet marking him a sergeant barked at the others around him. "Capture them!" Yeah, that went about as well for them as you might expect.

After we got done playing with the soldiers, they were too weak to kill, we tried to figure out what was going on. The fat sergeant was still puking up his shattered teeth and dreams. So we chatted with Morana instead. Morana is a nice young lady with sleepy eyes and a round face that make her look like a baker or a particularily slow librarian. But she's actually pretty dang sharp. She also had a bigger feather in her comically oversized helmet, marking her as commander of the unit we surprised.

"So, I don't suppose you guys happen to be mercenaries?" Morana asked before we could muster up any questions of our own. "Because if you are, then I would be very pleased to hire you. I would be willing to offer you my most precious treasure for your services." She had guts this one.

Lena and Julius had been leaning towards her in anticipation since hearing the word treasure, but someone had to be the voice of reason and restraint around here. So I steepled my fingers in front of my face and asked her "That would depend on the treasure, miss..." I trailed off, hoping that was the right thing to do.

"Morana, my name is Morana Somursa. Head of House Somursa." Oh good, it was the right thing to do. "The treasure is a map, passed down in my family for generations. Great-great-great grandpapa won it in a dice game from a pirate, then fled inland to escape his wrath. It is a map to a legendary pirates hidden treasure" Treasure map! Buried loot! Ohohohohooo was I excited!

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Then Onica jumped in before I could immediately accept and clapped her hand over my mouth for good measure. "And why, exactly, would you be willing to give up a family heirloom in order to retain some random people you just met in the woods?" She was giving Morana the super duper I will kill everyone you love if you lie eyes. You know the ones.

Morana shuddered and started to sweat, but still managed to open her trembling lips to reply. "W-well, I know for a fact that you are strong, and I don't know if the treasure map is genuine. Or if the story is even true and wasn't just made up by my great-great grandpapa." Her voice steadied and strengthened as she spoke. "I will chose the certain over the possible. Do we have a deal?" She met Onicas murder eyes with her own sleepy but hard gaze.

Onica peeled her hand away from my mouth." Of course we accept!" I blurted before anyone else could try to stop me! A PIRATES BURIED TREASURE!!! I don't give two hoots about the treasure itself, what do I need more shiny heavy stuff for? But this just smells like too much adventure to miss out on!

Anyway, then the boring talks started, factions were outlined, forces arrayed, and a plan was made. The gist went like this. *ahem*

Morana was one of six claimants to the local throne. Her mothers aunts sister or something like that was a sister to the king before last. She had the smallest claim, the worst army, and no real possibility of victory. But she fought regardless because either way the other five claimants would kill her to clean up any loose ends.

So all we had to do was break five armies, smash five strongholds, and bring her the heads of the other five claimants. Then we would get our treasure map and off into the sunset we would go.

Easy as pie.

We got a flag with a purple bear to wave at our victims, and some neat purple armbands to show our allegiance. There were some annoying things we had to do as well. We couldn't actually kill everyone in every army. Because apparently they are mostly farmers and if we kill them all the Moranas queendom will starve. She also wants us to bring the other claimants before her, alive, so she can accept any surrenders and take hostages to control their allegiance. Again, apparenly if we kill them all then her position will be secure, but her national power will be so low any of her neighboring powers could just step in and crush her.

Being a ruler sounds hard. Glad I am just a wanderer.

We moved the rest of the day. Setting up camp on the border Morana shared with two other claimants. Tomorrow we will flip a coin to decide who to attack first. 

Sounds like fun times ahead!

Goodnight.