Heading toward what I thought was the capital, but now it's the second place to go from metropolis to shambles when I got within 2 region tiles of it. In other news, I finally found a quire, and can now practice writing squirrel girl love letters. Not that she'll like them, regardless the quality demons just hate everything. I may as well lead with this salutation, "Say, bitch!"
EDIT: I thought a vampire henchman companion would survive longer, but I ran into more than he was ready for. I mistakenly believed he was dwarven, so not only did I pass up great armor that would've protected him, I traded my small liquid darkness clothes for his clothes, not thinking for a second "His clothes aren't small." I gave him a masterwork iron longsword and exceptional iron shield, though.
I ran into another huge platoon of 'raiders'. Even if I went for a tree, I didn't expect the vampire to, so I had to face them. I managed 21 kills, my companion only got credit for causing the collision death of their leader, who I had jumped into. After the rest had fled too far to kill any more of them, I fast traveled back in to find them in formation again, 23 of them. I told them my story and recruited 14 of them as hearthpeople before they told me there wasn't room for any more.
Then I ran into another huge platoon while crossing the wild, all of them surrounding me again, but this time I was drowsy. I waited for them to approach, but instead of closing in, they kept marching the same direction they had been going. Apparently they really were on a mission, from some ringleader, probably to go harass another village.