War ends fast

The war is over in a few days, thanks to me. Esmerelda gathered her forces from all across the country, and hit the enemy capital from inside the castle walls, when the opposition was scattered across the border. Quick repeat at every major city and… well, Ms. Essex no longer needs to worry about that trade route: She simply annexed the entire country… and now has a quick route for anyone who pays the fee from any major city under her rule to any other. The fee isn't much: One silver if on foot, five for a horse and rider, a gold for a carriage or wagon. Considering an overnight stay on the floor in the common room of an inn costs two silver (and bring your own blanket), that's great for travelers and merchants.

Not so great for the small villages that made their living providing food and lodging along the former trade routes for those travelers and merchants.

Queen Esmerelda Essex the Eighth solves that by using the money to buy preserved foodstock for her armies: Wheat, corn, and hay for the horses; wheat, corn, dried fruit, and jerky for the soldiers; beer, mead, and wine to drink. It all goes into warehouses in the capital. Gear too: Horses, weapons, saddles, swords, armor, and so on. After all, she has a lot of extra territory to patrol.

Life goes on… and we dig into the idiot who murdered four pleasure slaves to summon us here. He makes Simulacrums that can teleport, so he's at least 20th himself. And because we saw his simulacrum, we've at least heard of him.

So we get together inside a Mage's Magnificent Mansion to figure him out. We start with Scrying… and find out he has Mind Blank up. Fortunately, I ignore immunities… but having only heard of him, and him being high level… and when I see him, I notice a problem.

“Okay, who has Mind Blank and Detect Scrying and False Vision?” I shake my head when the image presented is obviously fake.

“Besides you?” Alice laughs at me.

“Fair,” I take a breath, “Okay, so… options.”

“Commune?” Brian suggests.

“The pantheon loop we use makes that problematic…” Charles cringes, “...you don't know, so when I ‘ask my deity (or an agent thereof)’ I won't expect a useful response.”

“Do you think Slut knows?” Alice pipes up.

Brian smiles, “She would at least have something of a name, wouldn't she? She had to have been working with him.”

“Certainly a place to start,” Charles

[concurs.

So](http://concurs.So) we head to the bordello….