After my successful summoning of the longdead at the battlefield, I retook possession of the mine where the colossus slew the monsters two years ago. I also spotted the band of brigands again, they were still in the hamlet and they would be the next to feel my wrath. The Colossus has discovered the lair of these ne'er-do-wells and as soon as time permits, I will eradicate that nest of trouble.
The brigands fled north before me, to the farm they had looted. My undead butchered some deer that got in our way as we took possession of the hamlet and prepared to pursue the outlaws. However, by fortuitous coincidence, it seems that the brigand threat is no more, for those jungle-born savages that the Colossus saw earlier had passed north but were coming back to take my holdings and they seem to have run headlong into the brigands.
I love being able to kill two birds with one stone and this if anything qualifies. First my enemy takes care of a nuisance that could have cost me troops and weakens himself in the process. And offers himself up for being eliminated at the same time. I love it when a plan comes together!
The only cloud in front of the silver lining here is that I don't have enough funds to hire the apprentice who came begging for employment. I didn't even know there were others of my order left after Childerik's dead, but apparently some texts have survived in secret and there may be neophyte practicioners seeking to learn from a master.
I attacked the jungle savages and in the first charge I lost some of my longdead to the spells of the undead spirit and the toad-like warriors. The leader of the enemy is some kind of priest and he invoked the favor of his gods for his soldiers.
Little good it did him, for despite taking a few more losses, my troops cut his forces down. I was not about to take any chances with that strange woman spirit, so I dealt with it once and for all in the most expedient manner: Bane fire.
The priest in the fancy headdress was the last to go down. He fell to a hail of crossbow bolts and that was that. Unfortunately only one of my spearmen survived the battle, but such are the vagaries of war.
Elsewhere Manvale took the garrison troops out of the citadel to deal with a gigantic preying mantis that had appeared to terrorize the farmers. Apparently winter drove it out of the forest to the plains to seek out prey.
The creature was swiftly dispatched, with Manvale himself striking the fatal blow.
Now I face the tedious task of once more establishing myself in the south. The ethereal spirits roaming the countryside are wreaking havoc with my holdings, so I'm going to station my soulless in the farms and hamlets to take care of such nuisances. The undead are immune to the life-sapping cold of the spirits, which means that they will be able to dispatch any such incursions with ease.