i promptly assess the situation in 0.3968 seconds and reach both a conclusion and a solution.
but before that, there are four main influences on my verdict that you need to understand:
1. our location.
@sterben and i had planned where we would enter the titless castle from: a back channel. specifically, the lower level railway used for transporting minerals, reminiscent of the one underneath hyrule castle in tears of the kingdom. this area is always lightly guarded, and, due to the titless kingdom's current festivities, has even fewer security measures in place today.
2. our foes.
@Fishman and
@EOTFOFYL are two rogues sterb and i are familiar with. we've met them on various occassions throughout our travels, and know with certainty that the two of them swear no allegiance to any present kingdom; they're vagabonds — mercenaries — with devotion only to their long-lost home, Village3 (V3 for short), which was razed by defaultbros in the Great Mango War many years ago. but in short, these two likely oppose us merely for personal gain, not because they actually believe in the titless kingdom. and given their reputations, and the area they're guarding, it would follow that they were hired discreetly, possibly even without the titless queen's knowledge. if that were to be the case, then it would further provide evidence in favor of my third point...
3. the titless guards. sterb and i incapacitated the few grunt-level guards on our way here. since we made no commotion before arriving, and neither fishman nor EOTFOFYL made any effort to alert other guard forces, it seems that the two of them may not be in contact with the titless guards at all. and given their aformentioned reputations in point 2, there's a good chance that the titless guard forces are unaware of fishman and EOTFOFYL's presences altogether.
4. our conditions of victory. while Fishman and EOTFOFYL merely need to stop us here, sterben and i must both defeat these two AND have enough energy left to take on the titless queen in her titless castle. meaning, this battle is going to be a tricky one; we can't rely on sterben's innate [
TIMEsterb] ability due to its unpredictable activation, and it's unlikely that it will activate any time soon since it was just used a few hours ago. as for me, i have some trump cards of my own, but, like [
TIMEsterb], they can't be used too much. they also take a lot of energy and mana or whatever out of me.
all of these pieces of info lead me to my conclusion: sterben and i must defeat Fishman and EOTFOFYL using as little of our energy as possible. we also should do so without causing too much of a disturbance, to avoid alerting any nearby titless guards. we should be wary of Fishman and EOTFOFYL using any high-risk high-reward tactics, as their victory conditions don't take into account their post-fight states.
just as i'm about to convey my thoughts to sterben, i'm stopped in my tracks by a haiku...
With this mulligan
I engage that before me
Domain expansion
i'm suddenly pulled into EOTFOFYL's domain (
@pandascepter this is from jjk bro btw
) and forced to face him while sterben takes on Fishman outside. i immediately understand through domain magic stuff that i need to formulate a haiku to move our battle forward. i roll for int to think of a haiku.