It's very surprising news!

Shocking.

She can have a kiss to fortify herself.

She takes it, and then sets off to handle her responsibilities.

How nice it is to not have any of those. Or ones that can be safely punted off for a time yet, at least.

She lazes in bed a while longer, attending to a few last prayers. Then gets up to take a stroll around the new Phoenix's Claw.

Orderly, and not as crowded as it usually would be this time of day. Most people are still under curfew, and the people on essential business are keeping their heads down. Still - it's not harsh. Wyld's people seem to be making a point of being helpful and kind and approachable and very obviously an improvement over the old regime. One is apparently doing a locked down neighborhood's essential shopping for them; another is carrying medical supplies and striding briskly towards a house; a third is talking calmly to an upset child.

(And if there's a sense of sharp claws hidden beneath the silken touch, well - that's only to be expected.)

Rather efficient, all told. Clean, though that's certainly helped by not having to paint the walls in blood before taking them.

She doesn't seek out any of her cultists, or "agents" as she would say to Wyld. No need to call extra attention them, though Wyld will perhaps wish to meet one or two. Which can be arranged, should the request come.

Wyld currently seems too busy bouncing between the places she took and the people she needs to sweet talk and the orders she has for her commanders and the speeches she wants to give...

Let her have her day.

She seems quite interested in flopping on Luc' whenever she gets a spare moment, though, especially once things wind down for the night - when Wyld does mention, off-handed, wanting to know more about Luc's people. (Seems to be in the context of understanding Luc' better, though.)

"They're less friends and more 'people who do what I ask without too much grumbling'."

"Huh." Stretch and snuggle. "Why do they usually follow you?"

"Because I gave them something or they think they can get something. Money, favors, power..."

"What's to stop them from going to the next highest bidder, then?"

"My incredible personal charm?"

Kiss. "You are exceptionally stunning."

"That, and without you," kiss, "there aren't many around who can afford to bid in my range."

Wiggle. "Mm point." Deeper kiss. "You drive quite the hard bargain."

"I do try."

Wyld laughs, proceeding to get quite thoroughly distracted from anything that isn't kissing Luc'.

Ah, that's good.

A good start to this campaign, all told.

Wyld doesn't have trouble training up new people for her next wave, to replace the loyalists she leaves behind to keep order. Nor does she have trouble with the first flickers of resistance - the waves she's making are tiny, so far. She isn't the first warlord to have seized some of the Hundred Kingdoms, and not even the first outsider to do so. She won't be the last, and as long as she keeps trading no one outside the region really cares what she gets up to. (She won't keep the same trades, of course. That causes - hints, really, of some concern. A few people grumbling, looking into sending guards to protect their 'property' and 'investments.' None of them are taking her seriously. None of them think she'll last more than a month.)

Luc's network produces other rumors, of course. Spirits, or perhaps people with strange powers, are about, causing general trouble. New cults, here or there, flickering like embers. The Wyld Hunt coming to Nexus. The owner of a large slave plantation having a religious revelation and spontaneously freeing all her slaves, giving them her wealth so she could travel as a preacher. Unrest in this or that town. A corrupt official exposed and run out by an angry mob who were swept up in caring what he'd been up to. A fight between two spirits, one of them a river spirit who had flooded a town, another reportedly some kind of fire spirit.

Much as she hates to leave Wyld's side, it's probably best if one of them keeps an eye on things happening on the outskirts.

Aw. Wyld will miss her, but she understands. (And a kiss for good luck.)

Kiss!

And she's off. She doesn't think much of the Wyld Hunt. They're easy enough for her to avoid, and if they press this far Wyld herself will either deal with them, or not. Her death would be sad, but if she only loses her territory that might drive her into Luc's arms. Or back to the fringes, which would really be a pity. She doesn't have much reason to go that far out.

The other strange events... taken individually, or even in small groups, there's not much connection. But plotting them chronologically (insofar as she can determine) on a map, they form somewhat of a trail. Enough so for her to decide to investigate more closely, anyway. She'll need to tap some of her cultists in the area.