Editing User:Trungle/Cataphracts Idis/Recap (section)

=== The Battle of Ghenio ===

As we set off, we encountered Palvis marching south exactly as Yuqiwuara had suggested he was intending to. Upon seeing the combined might of our three armies, Palvis retreated, alongside his troops, to Ghenio, where Yuqiwuara already was located. Yuqiwuara’s reaction was more hopeful. He offered to join our assault if we would make promises not to hurt his army. I welcomed the possibility of more help, but did not hear back. Keep in mind that our messages back and forth had had a staggeringly low rate of actually making it to each other. Perhaps two-thirds were correctly received, but not much more. So, worried that Yuqiwuara might not believe he was welcome to contribute to our assault, I sent another copy of the message. Yuqiwuara explained that though he had seen the message, he was hesitant to write back as he was afraid that Palvis would intercept it and learn of his distrustfulness. He promised to lower the gates and let us into the city if we confirmed our commitment to not harming any West Uuqitans.

I debated for hours on whether or not I should respond. Yuqiwuara’s concern about interception was certainly a valid one; however, he had also said that without my explicit confirmation he would not know whether to betray East Uuqita. In the end, I decided to respond, but I made it short and vague to obscure what we intended to do. With that, I gave the order to invade Ghenio on behalf of all three armies.

I don’t know what tipped Palvis off to our plan but he was prepared to contest Yuqiwuara’s opening of the gates. By a small margin, only won due to the West Uuqitan force’s higher morale, the drawbridges were lowered and the slaughter of the East Uuqitans began. The battle was a decisive victory for our coalition. There was almost no chance of failure for the allied forces once the gate was open (although the odds would have been much fairer

All would have gone well except when Yuqiwuara was carried away from the city in an East Uuqitan covert operation. If Yuqiwuara was not killed, we were not able to find him in the ensuing days. The West Uuqitan army disbanded anyway after rumors spread of their commander’s death.

I have to wonder how long Palvis was aware of our cooperation. Was it my final message, the one that I made intentionally vague and only said that we agreed to the West Uuqitans’ terms? If so, did Palvis accurately predict our plan basically to the letter and preemptively order the abduction of Yuqiwuara all based on the fact that I had agreed to some terms that Yuqiwuara had set forth? Incredible tactical knowledge, if so.

Or was Palvis aware of our cooperation before that final letter that I sent? After all, many communications were lost; it is more than possible that Palvis had intercepted an earlier letter and had seen the information that Yuqiwuara was funneling to the coalition. But, if Palvis knew that Yuqiwuara was working with our alliance, why wouldn’t he have attacked the West Uuqitan forces on his own before we arrived? Why wait until their interference could (and did) spell doom for his own army?

This is as much theorizing as I care to write down. A fractal of causes and effects has been unfolding in my head since that day in Ghenio but it would not actually be too interesting to go through them all. I will know the definite answer soon enough anyway.

The disappearance of Yuqiwuara was distressing for another reason: I now had no information on the military structures in Uuqita and no one to place on the throne once the despot was deposed. My hope was to appear to the Uuqitan people not as a dangerous general asserting myself in foreign lands but as a liberator, come to free them from a corrupt regime. After all, it is not like the despot’s rule was all that popular. That West Uuqita exists should be proof of that. But without Yuqiwuara, my options were dwindling.

I eventually decided the best course of action would be to go straight to Reihulo, depose the despot, and allow the power vacuum to sort itself out. Frankly, at this point, discussions were indicating that the game was likely to end soon. While I would have loved to craft an enduring peace to keep our nations content for generations, the gameplay effect of doing so would be basically indistinguishable from simply upsetting the power structure and leaving as soon as I could, which would be significantly easier than finding another candidate or proclaiming myself leader.

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