[center][h3][color=C0392B]Rudolf Sagramore[/color][/h3][/center]

[color=c0392b]"Then their tactics can be pulled apart the same. All I need to hear. Galahad, let's press them in from the edges before they can encircle us. I'm less mobile, I'll take the aft flank!"[/color]

Sahuagin. Native to the more tropical climes found in the Dranan jungle and coastal deltas, until now they had existed primarily as an academic exercise more than a point of experience for the Kirins' "resident monster hunter"— he'd tended to stay either too far inland, or in the case of Lunaris, too far south to encounter the fishmen in the wild. 

The burning bright crystal safely ensconced in a pouch on his hip[sup]1[/sup], he drew his paired swords and pivoted into a dash towards the rear of the rough marching order they'd taken down through the depths of Brightlam's centermost xylum, intent to cut off the denser packet of the loosely-grouped assailants from pincering them— or better still, start herding them back into the rest of their numbers.

He'd heard tell of their favor for nets and tridents, self-evident as they slinked out of the waters and onto the causeway, and how they tended to organize into raiding parties that had a habit of terrorizing riverside villages with surprise raids that came and went from the waterways themselves, the cover of the tide allowing them to suddenly strike and disappear with little warning. Even as a lone warrior of some skill, that basic level of organization and leveraging of tempo could prove troublesome, even dangerous— 

But if there was one thing the [s]nine[/s][sup]2[/sup] seven of them had gotten [i]excessively[/i] good at in the past fortnight or less, it was acting as a rapid reactionary force. A key strength they could exploit against tactics skirmishing raiders like the sahuagin favored was the ability to immediately mount a defense— if you mitigated their gain in tempo from the surprise attack, then the Kirins' superior skill at arms would make quick work of the rest of the sahuagin-favorable differentials like terrain, numerical superiority, and in their case even the threats to mobility presented by the use of netting.[sup]3[/sup]

Sparks danced through the hazy, sweltering air as he made contact, violently surging through the range of their spears as he began to isolate the very edges of their rear arc, positioning each quick, bloody exchange to not only pick off one or two weak links, but to also keep turning and forcing back their fellows at the other side of the wedge— pushing them closer to one another, leaving them easier pickings for Chisato's bombs, Izayoi's blade, Miina's spells. In many ways, it wasn't all that dissimilar to the idea he'd run with at the beginning of all this— cutting into the Valheimr at Atsu.

That seemed a world away, now. But the art of war hardly changed so quick as a single life could.

The crimson spray of each fallen enemy was painted an almost-black purple in the gloom. Even if they all just charged to the nearest packet, he'd survived too many sudden encounters alongside the Kirins to expect much more than shredding them being a matter of course, the surprise and narrow band of ground they had to work with serving more as discomforts rather than true dangers. What awaited them was another matter— Valheim was on the way, that much they couldn't ignore. Even though they only had Osprey to work with as reference, thus far this seemed to follow the playbook presented within it— subversion or outright removal of key leadership before an invading force seized the crystal.

Despite their best efforts, that initial phase had already been completed. Despite their uncovering of the ruse, the timetable had already been set, the airships en route.

Despite the fact that they were here to secure the Crystal of Water first [sup]4[/sup]... the full military arm of the invaders was going to show up and try to take it from them. The siege of the flower city was mere hours away— so even if there wasn't so much real need for it here, Rudolf felt it pertinent to do this dry run of reasoning out a bigger picture in mounting defenses, attacking the support structure of the attacker's points of advantage, maximizing their own during counterplay. While both sides of the same coin, it could be a very different beast from schemes drawn up as the aggressor, where he'd always pulled from in the past; even this was an admittedly [i]aggressive[/i] posture. If the fishmen had reserves in the depths, their counter-pincer would be in for a rough time unless they pulled back quickly.

All the more reason to make sure he was firing on all available cylinders,[sup]5[/sup] then—

A wide web of black in his vision off in periphery. He pivoted, bringing twin swords to bear in the nick of time to shred a cast net that would have otherwise bogged him down.

Not to mention that more simply, it'd also help if they could just crush this obstacle and get to their objective quicker.

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[*][sub]1. You would not believe how much cajoling it took for me to get him to put this in some kind of protective medium. The old fart wasn't lying, he wasn't speaking in religious metaphor, he wasn't stretching the truth in his faith— that thing this knucklehead almost palmed the whole way down is a white-hot shard of pure light. I feel like an ant that sees a bored child walking up on a summer afternoon with a magnifying glass to my humble hill— I can hide in here and be insulated, but I'm keeping my essential essence the [i]hell[/i] away from his right illium. If it throws off his balance he'll have to adjust, I [i]know[/i] what concentrated white magic feels like as of last week.[/sub]
[*][sub]2. Really driving home how small a task force these chuckleheads are, in the face of a full scale continental invasion. At this point, what's the gain or loss of two in the grand scheme? You're still stuck on radically different scales.[/sub]
[*][sub]3. I don't know why I don't see these more. Nets and spears are classic, tangle your opponent up and poke them full of holes. Invest if you're not on birdback today for all your raiding needs.[/sub]
[*][sub]4. Note: I broadly understand the stakes at play here, and of course would like the continent and vessel I am within to keep existing. None of this means I particularly look forward to having my presence enter one of the four most outright Etro-aligned locales on said continent, shard of Her Light in hand. You might be able to guess why.[/sub]
[*][sub]5. I can respect the pursuit of the craft looking at things from the inside, but it bears mentioning: this is implicitly turning all your gears up in the event you need to fill an unexpected hole. As tacticians go, for all your supposed education on the subject, you've been consigned fairly deep into the reserves, Rudolf. I could swear you had a talk with somebody about that, not all that long ago. Maybe we're concussed like the other guy. Something about 'keep doing what you're doing, and let him do his job'. Maybe a bit about the war veterans coming next?[/sub]
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