It was a crusade. The worship of the god of death was small but widespread. Not many wanted to devote their whole lives to death, but mortals had to give him heed and respect. All mortals died eventually after all. Every city had at least a chapel for Gristomales. They were the ones tasked with taking care for the dead and interning them in the ground. Aside from the priests, there were the Death Knights. They were a small Paladin Order of those ready to die to commit gruesome violence to their sworn enemies. It was concerning. They had dark gray robes and wicked looking swords. When the priests let us have the body, they were expecting him to be buried in some hole in the ground in disgrace. Because our crimes were secret, Deerhome was excited to bury what they thought was a hero. Now, they were going to be one of the main targets of the crusade. I was almost sorry for them in a way. It was certainly my fault. People were going to suffer the horrors of war. The most I could do was do my best to protect the city from invasion. That would be a major challenge in its own right.
The point of a crusade was to defeat the enemy faith in a region and take it over in the name of a new faith. If the Church of the Seven Roses lost, all the temples and all our churches would be lost. Any leaders with the faith would be purged. The shrine would be taken over or destroyed as well. All the members of the enemy faith would lay siege to all places that had at least one temple holding in it. I wrote several letters to the two mayors with a holding in them and the king. I asked them to declare full neutrality and ban all sectarian violence in their city. None of them were of the faith, but if the cities fell, they could be deposed by members of the Church of Death. The measure would at least allow for their to be piece in the streets of the cities. The mayors wrote back to tell me they did so. The king was more confident. "It falls on me to defend my realm from any and all invaders. While I do take the concern under advisement, it is not possible for a kingdom to watch their king allow the rape and pillage of their land. It would lead to challenges down the line for my right to rule." he wrote.
Reading that was a relief for us. The royal army repelling invaders was a blessing. I sighed and called for Abel and Dame Glenda to meet to discuss the plans. They arrived and we had a discussion. We had to protect the two cities, Deerhome and Beshran. The capitol and the shrine were also going to be targets as well. The eleven villages needed someone to look after them as well. It was decided that Abel would send half his forces with Chien as well as Leon to Deerhome. He would send Chat to lead patrols the four villages between the fort and the city too. The rest would defend the fort from invaders. Glenda would go to the capitol and help them with the efforts there. As a fort of mainly scouts, they would be doing the lion's share of out reach of the villages. They were taking five under their protection. It would spread the forces thin and the fort largely under staffed. I told her I would send Guy with Iota and Kappa to help man the fort. She nodded and accepted the help. I was to go to Beshran and repel the invasion. My men were to take care of the two villages near us and the fort.
Zeta and Eta as well as some of the knights were coming with me. Theta was to stay and defend the fort. He nodded and fiddled with his skirt. He said "I... wish you all... luck. C-come back safely." I had received all the money that was in Daniel's will. It amounted to 1037 pieces of gold. I immediately invested it in upgrading the barracks and the walls. That way it would be harder to siege and there were more recruits coming in. There was money to upgrade the med bay and the forge as well. That made it so the paladins here had two extra uses of Lay on Hands per day and their swords did 5% more damage. I thought that was well worth it. I then had to leave. Luckily, all 10 knights I had with me were receiving the benefits as well. We headed out to Beshran and met with the mayor. He was a real greedy bastard and not a person I would like to be around. However, he did understand the full severity of his actions. The crusade was still a week away as the participating parties needed to prepare and march down to Sacrilmon. It also gave us time to prepare for all of it as well.
