Just because the world was a wargame didn't mean that war occupied all of everyone's thoughts. There was plenty of room for merriment, such as the victory party.
King Slately ordered some "fine vintage" casks of wine to be brought out, although it was only about six years old.
It has never been recorded that a unit could croak of old age. Units that looked old and feeble were instead ill suited or neglected, or just had Signamancy that made them look that way to convey wisdom or something along those lines. As the counterpoint to this theoretical immortality, living for one thousand turns, about three years, was considered an accomplishment. Living for ten thousand turns was vanishingly rare. According to Janis, the oldest living Men unit was almost certainly younger than one hundred thousand turns. She did not elaborate on the existence of ancient beast units when pressed.
Tanya didn't exactly mind the idea that immortality was off the table, but living over thirty years being impressive? It was disturbing.
Fortunately, Chief Healomancer Pierce was a doctor, and he had just the prescription for an existential crisis: more wine.
"-and what did my foray into Signamancy get me? A city that makes more gin rations than I know what to do with. Keeping discipline is a nightmare, I'm just glad I can fob that off to Lady-" Tanya hiccupped. "-Lady October."
"Tragic." Pierce replied, keenly interested in the story. "Now, how much gin are we talking about, here? Is it good?"
"I'll get some casks sent over for Healomancy scrolls." Tanya immediately offered.
"Deal." Pierce replied, "You can never have too much healomancy. Or too much gin."
“Pleasure doing business with you.” Tanya said, taking another sip of her wine. She wasn’t entirely sure how alcohol translated, but she suspects she may have overestimated her tolerance. How much does she weigh? She had no idea. Part of the magic testing included other statistical data, so she knew she was nineteen kilograms beforehand, notably short and underweight for her age. She was healthier now, and combined with being older… she was at least double that by now if the flight special didn’t lower her weight. She weighed one hundred and thirty kilograms as a man…
How much did she have to drink, anyway? Victoria kept refilling her glass. Tanya took another sip as she contemplated this mystery.
Her musings were interrupted by Lady Sylvia grabbing her by the arm and dragging her into a group of warlords. Specifically, representatives from other members of the Royal Crown Coalition.
That isn’t to say that it was a group of people wearing armor and weapons. Lady Sylvia wore a relatively light dress that only went down to a little below her knees, her shoulders and arms bare while the rest of the outfit made up for the lack with enough decorative ribbons to make her not be too out of place in this party of nobles. Tanya wore a red dress that was fairly cute on her, but something bothered her about how she looked while wearing it. She couldn’t put her finger on why, so she stayed quiet and wore it anyway.
"Nice ta see you again, yet highness." Greeted Vinny Doombats of Transylvito. He wore a tuxedo, hair coiffed into a small pompadour while his bowtie was already undone. Tanya was getting delinquent vibes from the man, so refrained from smiling at him, instead inclining her head in acknowledgement of the greeting.
"You as well, Count Doombats." Tanya replied, managing to avoid slurring her words. She has definitely had too much wine. She took another sip.
"How's Ansom doing?" Vinny asked. "We keep in touch, but yannow how letters are."
"He's bored, but he's keeping things together." Tanya replied. Wait, she probably shouldn't have been so honest. "Building up a side for months is not exactly exciting." Drat, she accidentally used the wrong word. She knew they understood it automagically, but it was still odd.
"You know it, yer highness." Vinny said with a rakish grin. "I heard you only got a little bit of action against Haggar, any truth to that?"
"Both turns I participated in the war were quite action packed, I assure you." Tanya said, both confirming and refuting the rumor. "You'd need to ask Lord White or Prince Ossomer for any broader comments on the conflict."
Sylvia barked out a laugh. "They got scared of her. King Dickie must have been wetting himself after we punched him in the berries." Her smile twisted into a scowl. "I didn't get to hit Pansushot though. I was one turn from getting up in that business. I could see it, but then King Dickie had to pull out." She spat to the side, into what Tanya now noticed was a spittoon. "So unsatisfying."
"I saw what she did to our column, I can believe that." Vinny joked as he sipped at his own wine.
Duke Nozzle of Sofa King was glaring at Tanya, but he switched his vitriol to Vinny at the joke. “You think you’re funny?” He said accusingly.
Vinny grinned at the accusation, showing off his vampiric canine. “Mebbe I do, Duke Nozzle.” He said, slurring the uk in Duke to sound more like an ush sound. “What're ya gonna do about it?”
This could not possibly end well. Tanya took another sip of wine and giggled at the absurdity of the exchange.
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[Prince Trammenis, Level 4 Warlord of Jetstone]
Another war’s end, another victory party.
It was wonderful to be part of such a noble and powerful side, but Tramennis rarely felt appreciated for what he did for the crown. But alas, he loved Jetstone, so it couldn’t be helped.
This party was his battlefield, as thoroughly as the body-strewn kind belonged to his brothers. Wine and smiles were his weapons, and mutual interest was his armor.
But in either place, the most dangerous unit in the room was Princess Tanya. When Father explained her capabilities, Trammenis was shocked. A warlord that was also a caster? Two artifacts? It was almost beyond belief.
But… it was all true, near as he could tell. If you touched her, such as with a handshake, when she was wearing that cute dress that screamed danger, you could feel the barrier, if you paid attention. He saw her not only fill towers to capacity in far less time than he would have guessed was required, but pack them with more spells than he thought they could hold. They were all highly dangerous examples of anti-air magic, too. Even now, he could sense the doubled in-hex chief warlord bonus on his stat board, overwriting Ossomer’s more modest bonus.
It gave her a presence that was difficult to ignore. Ossomer, when the man was feeling poetic (which was more often than most might think), he described himself as, among other things; quietly, implicitly violent. Tanya had a similar presence, but… louder. When Ansom had relayed what Vinny had told him about how she looked while fighting their column, he had said that she fought like a madwoman, laughing in glee as she fought and even more when she won, dancing among her prisoners in joy as she executed the poor units who had gotten gummed up by pink dwagon breath, he was skeptical. But the instant he saw her smile for real, he believed it.
Sure, when she was attempting to be diplomatic, she was perfectly pleasant. He’d even go so far to say that she was more diplomatic than half of the Kings he’s had the pleasure to speak with, she had a polite humility to her that most royalty lacked. But when the metaphorical knives came out, when rudeness was deployed against her… her eyes sharpened into blue knives that cut most of those courtiers more keenly than if she deployed an actual knife. Once such rudeness was apologized for, she smiled for real, pleased at being the one appeased rather than doing the appeasing. That smile was wide, and entirely appropriate for the woman that was described to him secondhand.
Trammenis had been concerned about Tanya, faintly fearing that Ansom had fallen in love again with a woman that didn’t care for him, or worse, the other way around. After spending those turns watching her tour Jetstone’s towers, he was certain that that, at least, was not the case.
“-er, I hardly know her!” Duke Nozzle finished telling his absolutely terrible story about Countess Boring, and the collected foreign warlords either laughed politely or pretended they had not heard the punchline. Tanya’s eyes were unfocused as she almost spilled her wine on herself, but managed to take a sip.
“Is everyone enjoying the party?” He asked to break the small awkward silence caused by Duke Nozzle’s Boring story.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Tremendous-dono.” Tanya said, slurring his name oddly. What? How much wine has she drank? “Subete juncho.”
…did she think she was saying words? She’s speaking them confidently like she was, but they were nonsense.
Vinny sidled up to him. “She’s been talking nonsense for the last three minutes.”
“Tanya?” Trammenis asked, to get her attention.
“Hai, Tanya desu.” She said drunkenly. “Tanya-chan yonde kudasai.”
Tramennis shuddered as a chill went up his spine upon hearing those words. Was this some caster nonsense? She was clearly drunk, so it probably wasn’t malicious, but… Wait. From what he knows about her… did she curse herself to turn her words into code so she wouldn’t spill secrets while drunk? “Perhaps you should retire for the night. Allow me to lead you to your chambers.”
“Ton demo daijōbudesu.” She said, waving him off. She started to fly woozily towards the balcony, followed by her knight who was visibly worried at her princess’ state.
“Ah, Princess Tanya had arranged with Ossomer to bunk in Dhrystone for the night.” the knight said, embarrassed. It was a good stop on the way to Gobwin Knob, fifty-nine hexes from Spacerock. “I made sure to memorize the route, so I can get her there.” She promised him.
Ah, that will not do. “Father wanted to meet with her before she left.” Trammenis pointed out. “She’ll have to stay here. You go on ahead, she’ll take the shortcut home, I think.” Specifically, the portal.
Given an excuse, she stopped Tanya and shoved the smaller girl’s face into her chest. “I shouldn’t leave her side.” The knight said, unsure.
“That’s simple enough.” Tramennis replied, before glancing at Lord Lloyd Bernhard, Jetstone’s Dittomancer. Their eyes met, and a royal order brought the man towards them.
“Yes, yes, what is it?” Lloyd asked, buzzed enough to be rather grumpy at getting work to do.
“Do you have the juice to dupe a knight?” Trammennis asked, gesturing to the lovely woman in the snappy outfit that Ace had made for her.
“Yeah, yeah.” He said, adjusting his spectacles. “Princess Sandwich.” He said as the magic words, and suddenly a second knight was behind Tanya, also hugging her close. “Well well, now there’s a nice pair.” he said, pleased at his work. “It’s always good to be a princess, but tonight the sights are twice as nice.”
The knight in front of Tanya let go, clearly worried, but her duplicate reassured her and she left, before that duplicate started to follow Trammenis upstairs. As he had expected, Tanya had fallen asleep immediately after her head touched a pillow, even if they were encountered while she was still vertical.
Hopefully things go over well.
---------------------------
[King Slately, level 2 Ruler of Jetstone]
Slately was no fool. Ansom, his son, detested the means in which he received his own Kingdom. But the Queen, now Princess, that sat in front of him in a meeting could not have been allowed to rule. Not without dissolving the coalition of royal sides that he had spent so many turns assembling.
He had his top caster, Lloyd (even if the irreverent now-Chief Caster Pierce had exceeded him in levels in the last war), check and double check the numbers. No one knew exactly when Stanley the Worm had betrayed his liege, but if it was the latest possible estimate, adding the maximum heir pop time of one hundred and twenty turns, it just barely worked out for Princess Tanya popping when she said she did. Right on time to accomplish a nigh impossible defense that only fell apart because she lost both her chief warlord and chief caster in quick succession.
Sofa King would not allow her to rule in peace, and King Froblo was always closer to the Sofa King than Jetstone, which was entirely because you always liked the side flanking your neighbor with you, so Ansom represented a compromise, every Royal's least favorite resolution.
Ansom embarrassed himself and Jetstone in the fight against Gobwin Knob, losing both Arkentools like he did. Slately seriously considered putting forth Ossomer to rule this… Yojo Mojo, in Ansom's place, but Ossomer was even less inclined to rule, a strong militant will that would be profoundly unsuited to the tenturns of buildup that would be necessary to turn the territory into a stalwart ally.
"Your side should be nearly up to full strength soon." Slately said, breaking the flow of idle pleasantries.
Princess Tanya's eyes focused more sharply, having been pulled from whatever thoughts she had been musing over during the smalltalk. "Our garrisons should be full within another twenty to forty turns, yes." Ansom had mentioned that she had taken the large field army that had been turned over to Yojo Mojo and had demoted them to garrison, apparently a basic moneymancy spell. Useful, and her usage of it on their new cities in consideration for more of that jarhead's juice did help Jetstone's poor battered treasury after giving up on spoils for Gobwin Knob, even if Ossomer disliked how it prevented him from assembling a field army if he needed to.
"What are your intentions once you have a field army ready?" He asked idly. "Any war plans?"
"All defensive, I assure you." Princess Tanya said immediately, appeasingly. "Our war planning is something I like to call the interior lines doctrine. Each city is well fortified with a well supplied and drilled garrison, and a well armed tower, and good scouting. A mobile force, preferably led by myself, will reinforce against any attempt to invade before it can do much damage."
Slately mentally scoffed. In other words, she intended on a raiding strategy to make the most of her knights and dwagons. "So your plan is peace?" He said skeptically.
"Given Yojo Mojo's diplomatic posture, we have no current enemies." Princess Tanya said decisively. "We are in an alliance with most of our neighbors, which is not something most of those neighbors can say. Therefore, the only sensible policy is to act as an ersatz mercenary, lending inexpensive aid to those allies in any conflict they find themselves in." It was an odd choice of words, calling it the only sensible policy. Few would agree, in Slately's experience.
"Such as aiding Jetstone against Haggar." He stated the obvious, just to continue the conversation.
"It is as you say." Princess Tanya said deferentially. “Nine cities, which we have, is the absolute maximum number of cities one can have before the diminishing shmuckers point becomes a concern, assuming those cities are managed.” She was correct. Diminishing shmuckers started at thirty total city levels, but managed cities can remove all penalties before forty city levels, and the capital’s levels didn’t count towards the total. As a King, he knew that much by heart. But no one had only level five cities, so the convention was to instead call fifteen cities the start of the diminishing shmucker point. “We should not require any additional territory for our interior lines strategy, and a more compact border would only serve to increase our ability to respond to threats.” That’s certainly one way to think of it.
“Achieving level five cities is not easy, Princess.” Slately said, deciding to state the obvious. She was still inexperienced, she may have an odd idea of how difficult such a thing was.
Tanya swallowed the cake she was eating. “As long as the Royal Crown Coalition is intact, there are no convenient enemies. If the Sofa King or King Froblo intend on following through with their previous threats, we can only wait for them to leave the coalition of their own will.” She grinned sharply. “In fact, King Ansom and I are in agreement that the first member to leave would be an excellent whetstone to sharpen our swords against.” Her grin became ever larger. “King Ansom’s made sure to tell them that.”
…Oh. Slately burst out laughing. The gall of his son! Slately’s been trying to form this coalition for over two hundred turns, and now that he’s succeeded, Ansom’s assigned himself as the knife behind everyone in the event that anyone has second thoughts!
No. Such a move was not something Ansom would do. It must be a maneuver that Princess Tanya devised, assuming a threatening posture to intimidate and provoke after being told by Ansom to remain peaceful until they were ready. By staking his honor on maintaining the coalition, Ansom would have just cause to invade anyone who broke it, purely because the alliance was broken. So Princess Tanya would have her opportunity to use those dwagons as she did against the coalition, with the additional augmentation to that of her flying knights, a powerful raiding force she can use the instant she’s allowed to… which can be equally applied towards lending aid to distant warfronts, exactly as she said she would be using her forces.
It was a bold strategy that relied entirely on the Royal Crown Coalition to stay together for long enough for them to be able to back up their threats. One that required the King to have faith in the royal ideals the coalition stood for. With Ansom on the throne? Simplicity itself. Slately calmed down. “I believe your side is in good hands, Princess.” He said honestly.
“Thank you, King Slately.” She said politely. “Are there any other concerns you wished to convey? Or should I show Lord Hardware to Gobwin Knob’s portal? The turn is half over.”
Is it that late already? “No, I won’t keep you from your important work, Princess. I will order our Dollamancer here to escort you to the portal.”
“Thank you.”
---------------------------
[Princess Tanya von Degurechaff, Level 6 Chief Warlord of Yojo Mojo]
The terms of the surrender were onerous, in Tanya's opinion. Haggar was quite wealthy, as while their land armies didn't compare favorably to Jetstone, they were quite fearsome on the seas.
Unaroyal and Yojo Mojo got to split a third of the large, three hundred thousand shmucker monetary remuneration in return for their vital role in pressuring King Dickie on his flank, which was divided sixty/forty in Unaroyal's favor in consideration of their losses. Another sixth went to Yojo Mojo for their essential scouting contributions, and the assistance of Tanya herself, as contributing a chief warlord was a significant investment. Jetstone took the other half for themselves and got to keep the cities, although some of it went to fulfill other obligations from the other royal sides. It was mostly their war, so it was actually pretty fair.
There was also a bunch of assurances and some caster labor demands, but that also went to Jetstone. Yojo Mojo got to keep a cool ninety thousand shmucker payday and go home, which was good enough for her. Ansom wouldn't like it if she gouged Jetstone for more, anyway.
"Nice place." Ace Hardware said as she showed him his new quarters. It was polite to provide them for allied commanders, and that goes double for units doing long term service for your side, like Ace was.
Ace's new bunk was in a large workshop, one of the many facsimiles of buildings that were provided by the city. In most cases, these buildings were basically props for the city, they didn't do anything in a conventional sense but they represented city functions. But I'm this case, Ace's workshop was built by Sizemore as an armory during the level 4 city upgrade, which, among other things, allowed dollamancers the same casting bonus that would ordinarily require the tower, and allow the results to be automagically distributed if necessary. Given that twolls fabrication special was dollamancy, this was useful for more than just Ace.
This was also why the place was so large, everything was twoll sized. But Ace was nearly there himself, so beyond needing to bring his tools from home, he was fine after he made himself some small adjustable stilts to add an extra foot of height when needed.
"The twolls are at your disposal, if you can find additional efficiencies with their use." Tanya said.
"Yeah, a stack of them'll get me a bonus on making the simple stuff." Ace said, grinning. "Twollish stuff is nice, but there's no real customization. Fittings at best." He jerked his thumbs in his direction. "But who has two thumbs and can out-do twolls in his sleep? This guy!"
Wait… that actually reminded her. "I have a question about my raiment that perhaps you can solve." Tanya asked, before switching to Japanese: "Ordinary Girl!"
"Ee-pan jo-say?" Ace said, confused as Tanya's raiment reverted in a colorful lightshow to the twollish armor and simple white dress. Oddly, her wand and earrings vanished as well, but she could feel them at hand nevertheless. "Oh, that's cool. How's it do that?"
Tanya grimaced. "I was hoping you could answer that." She said, disappointed. "More relevantly, I was wondering if you could tell whether my armor being upgraded would affect the transformation."
Ace frowned. "It might be Changemancy? But no… the materials of the dress with the shorter skirt are the same as the longer dress. It has to be dollamancy." He looked upwards, deep in thought. "It's a real magical… wait. That's it!" He smiled again, excited as he started examining Tanya's dress with his hands, shifting the armor around to test the fit, picking at the stitching and paying special attention to… wait. He was looking at the parts that changed shape when she leveled up. He wasn't being a pervert. Probably. "You need new raiment." He concluded.
Bogroll, who had been standing around setting up the workstations for the other twolls, dropped at the news.
"This dress doesn't fit you." Ace elaborated. "It's made for someone a head shorter than you, and while the twoll that adjusted the fit did a good job… you're a princess, you need better clothes." Bogroll perked back up at the compliment. “I’d expect a dress like this from a poor barbarian caster that was trying to get pity.”
He was right, but Tanya was surprised he could tell. She underestimated the fidelity of a natural popped caster's senses. Then again, how much of that analysis did he need to come to that conclusion? “What’s your opinion on the magic?” Tanya asked.
“Oh right, that. I got distracted.” Ace said, abashed. “I’ve seen enough, transform again and I’ll compare the two.”
“Royal Tiara Magic: Make up!” Tanya shouted in Japanese, and Ace frowned at the foreign words, mouthing them out to himself as Tanya transformed her clothing before his eyes. To his credit, he seemed focused on his magical senses rather than his mundane ones.
“...if I could figure this out, I’d be Master class.” Ace concluded after a moment of thinking about what he just saw. He went on to inspect Tanya’s magical girl dress, focusing on the parts that were still white as well as the stiff armored sections. “Yeah, it’s the same stuff. It’s pure dollamancy.” After another few beats of thought, he grinned widely. “Imagine it! Your knights are loaded up with stuff that helps them scout, but when there’s a fight coming up, transform into battle mode! Pure combat! It’s revolutionary!”
Tanya imagined her knights dressed like Sentai heroes. Yes… that sounded cool… Could she make the dwagons look like mecha? Oh! Maybe Sizemore’s siege golem can be made to look like mecha. She’ll need to check in on his progress for that. “You have my full support for this endeavor.” Tanya said.
“Yosh!” He said, pumping his arms. “But first, we gotta get you better threads.”
“Very well.”