(These necro-edits instead of necro-posts are hilarious, but I guess it does make a lot of sense to not spend pages of the thread on non-game stuff, since it tends to leave this big gap for people going through the archives. Also, kinda surprised that having a destroyed hard-drive slowed you down, Lurker; this whole thread I had, in the periphery of my thoughts, assumed you were writing and drawing everything on the spot from memory [and random.org]. [And almost forgot; your use of words I don't know of likely foreign origin amuses me— I'd mistaken two of them for typos {"nebst" and "dilettantish"}.])
Krasom ("Undead Troubles") if my vote tips it to success, otherwise—
Bandits ("Tin-Scraper Boys") if [quote above condition], otherwise—
Cult in Nortfahl ("Demonic Cult").
However, assuming "southern" and "east" without modifiers are at all similar distances, I think a good complete plan would be "First we take out the bandits to the south, since that should be quick, and I'd like to see what my whelping can do before putting it against something that could kill it."(With that last bit twisted sufficiently for vulpine.) "Then we can just circle around up through Larein, take out the druid-turned-necromancer, and keep going onto Nortfahl, where we should have a least a few more tricks for the cultists there. We can send messages of success along the way, then come back and
maybe deal with the basilisk after we've collected the lump sum of our rewards."
(Does Indezi gain hitpoints with str/dex or is it "by level"?
Can Elaine deliver touch attacks through Indezi D&D style?)
1st Edit: (I haven't searched through your post history to possibly find details, but it sure sounds like you had it rough! Almost like something that should make us thankful that you're back at all...
Also, kinda expected the part about touch attacks would be right on Elain's ability sheet, or part of the knowledge of any mage; I guess this means it's an uncommon trick, or has to do with mana-manipulating rules we don't know.)
Oh right, there's one more action to send— (Read bolding to get a simplified version.)
Indezi:
Don't you dare get distracted from all this; you could be with these thugs a
long while, and any scrap of information about how they think or act could be vital for for using any of those precious moments of control to their fullest.
However, when you do have a moment, think. Supposedly your extra-dimensional soul is what's allowing you any free will at all, so why aren't you trying to expand it ASAP? You've been learning quickly, growing quickly, and it's time to take advantage of that; begin trying to
focus on your ability to receive emotions— the sense, the feeling, the process, the mana— and savor every instant of its flow. Once you have centered yourself so,
try to figure out if there's more to it than that; like if there's something about it that doesn't fit your simple description— something that
confuses your rational, conscious mind.
Then, regardless of how much you find, use everything you know and detect to
stretch your soul itself; you can imagine your ability as a great pair of wings absorbing the light of people's emotions, so widen them
to try collecting more mana over a longer range. Then for every scrap you get,
try to reinvest it into yourself and those imaginary wings instead of just storing it;
eat it, lob it towards your Outer Plane, shove it into your amulet, burn like some sacrifice to your other self, whatever works.(Have some ~inappropriate music I was listening to while writing. I distracted myself a few times.)