Hall of Doh!

[moderation]

Saulot said:
He likely teleported. Considering the 'high power'.

An astral Kraken? Sounds like a good target for Magic Duel.

[Forrest]

You want duh?

I am in the middle of the ocean. Atlantis or one of the stupid water nations. No magic on my imprisoned pretender. Turn two a earthquake takes out my lab and I have no mage to rebuild.

Game over.

[Sombre]

An imprisoned pretender with no magic? Your scales must be [censored] hot.

[Wrana]

Well, with such hot scales you probably could make enough troops to take somebody's province with lab... Or buy Dagan the Renegade Sage's services.

[Zenzei]

While in theory that's possible it will still take several turns to find and conquer such a province and it's highly unlikely Dagan will be as an available merc when you need him for this kind of job.

[Sombre]

There are plenty of magic using mercs though.

[Zeldor]

And you have plenty of money when you are not recruiting mages

[lch]

Sombre said:
There are plenty of magic using mercs though.

That Starspawn guy might be the only usable merc in the case described. Otherwise it's a bit of a chicken and-egg-problem: You'll need to outfit a mage with underwater breathing items to build a laboratory underwater. For that, you'll need a laboratory and research and the right magic paths. So your aquatic nation has to learn how to get mages with lungs real quick if they want to see any magic.