Part 120: Hinnom - Turn 25
Turn 25
Dawkish isn't responding, there's a huge army on my border and I've assembled an all-star cast of Dawn Guard to defend, led by KING HIPPO JR. This is Hinnom's version of 300. You can see I cast call of the winds twice at the two middle provinces on Lanka's island to stop Lanka from reinforcing the southern tip of the island. Call of the winds is a terrible remote attack spell, but it should be able to take out one monkey PD.
Research turns to Alteration where I have finally discovered Earth Meld to reside. It is a spell that I should have been using a long long time ago to stick the Palankasha in the ground while my dudes beat them.
In Vepitre, the first bunch of black hawks are... killed. By what turns out to be five monkey PD. Something I didn't know (although it's probably in the manual) is that 1-5 PD all look the same. After my prophet went a-raiding, TheDemon upped his PD to five everywhere. So I wasted five air gems here thinking it was just one PD when it was actually five. Sweet.
And in Remecia, there's the other bunch of birds getting beat up by monkeys. Five more air gems. Super sweet. The lesson here, as always, you should know more about dom3 than you do.
In high woods, "volunteers"... god damnit guys, I told you that slaves are for summoning unspeakable demon horrors from beyond, not for getting their hands dirty.
Fom is south of my construction site and here you can see a single Melqart in action. That'll do pig, that'll do.
Now in Laerian Swamps, where my Dawn Guard re-enact 300. I neglected to inform them that they were supposed to be playing the part of the Spartans. Oops?
Let's take a look at the battle. I have my dawn guard in the rear set to hold and attack. Hopefully the meager PD will break up the rush of Palankasha and the distance will hurt the accuracy of Thunderstrikes before the Palankasha close. Once the Palankasha get stuck in, I'm hoping the Thunder Strikes hit them as well as the Dawn Guard. KING HIPPO JR is off on the side, getting ready to slam into the flank of the Palankasha tied up with the Dawn Guard and obliterate them a square at a time with his fire brand.
Everything begins according to plan. TheDemon casts storm and lets loose the barrage of Thunder Strikes. KING HIPPO JR gets his first kill. Yay!
Battle is closed and the Thunder Strikes rain down indiscrimi.... GOD DAMNIT How are u! That was perfectly placed in the middle of the Dawn Guard. It kills one and adds a tremendous amount of fatigue to the others close by, rendering them even more susceptible to the beat sticks carried by the Palankasha.
And with a few more Thunder Strikes, enough Dawn Guard have died to trigger a HP route. KING HIPPO JR decides that this is lame and with a final "screw you guys, I'm going home" he's gone.
In the fighting he was wounded.
Acquiring a nasty limp that will flare up later in life, leading him to turn to tincture of laudanum in a vain attempt to stop the pain. Eventually his addiction will spiral out of control and he'll end up working on a fishing scow smuggling human traffic out of Kowloon.
Fortunately for him, he's young and his heroic quickness makes up for the limp or he'd have been caught by the Palankasha and killed.
In Histyra, the Ammi get to work forging him a ring of regeneration (regen 10%, rounded up, of hp/turn and significantly reduce likelihood of getting future afflictions) and a Pendant of Luck (50% chance of stopping any damage).
Cacian Forest is Hinnom's pearl harbor, where 3,650 gold worth of Melqart and Ba'als are currently hard at work researching. TheDemon can attack either Hinnom or Cacian Forest, but I don't think he'll try to attack both. At first I thought he'd go straight for Hinnom, but upon further reflection I changed my mind. If he can kill all these guys in Cacian Forest then this war will be effectively over.
Rather than potentially lose everyone, I set them all to strategic withdrawal
In Hinnom, CHAMPAGNE OF DROPKICKS heads to the middle fortress to do some blood hunting while KING HIPPO JR returns to the capital to try out his new kit.
Gemgen Counter
0
Diplomacy
Let's meet Xanrick!
Uh, hi dude. What, uh, what are you doing?
These are the ones I like. Uh, what are you doing with them dude?
Building a church. Uh, dude? We should, like, kill TheDemon. It's important because, you know, he's like the physical embodiment of evil dude. 
For a brief time I served in a small parish in England, and every Sunday after mass, I would see a young boy waiting at the back of the church. And then one day the boy confessed to me that he had beaten his dog to death with a shovel. He said the dog had bitten his baby sister on the cheek and he needed to protect her. And he wanted to know whether he would go to hell for this. I told him that god would understand, that he would be forgiven, as long as he was sorry. But the boy did not care about forgiveness. He was only afraid that if he did go to hell, that dog would be there waiting for him.
