The dragon duke nodded as Anke reported her and Farliaren's conclusions, before dismissing her to prepare for her new job at the end of the month. Zack, however, reported that he had finished training up his own replacement, with Talia's approval, and he would be ready at the end of the month as well. The replacement was a friendly but quiet half elf merchant with a badly mauled leg, that had moved into the town right at the start, working and living out of a pair of wagons. The leg had been a result of a bandit's flaming arrow that hadn't healed right, so while he couldn't move much, he was quiet successful in spite of his limitation.<br/><br/>Devaguea was glad he had elected to send out a full advisor party AND a guard patrol with them, otherwise he might have lost some of his advisors and that would have been bad. Losing a couple guards was sad, though they had been newer members, and had expected an easy patrol. Still, he added a note about the fortification on the map, and made it a priority to burn that first. Once the other group of scouts returned, he frowned at the lack of a concrete location, but did authorize the Warden to call up a full platoon of guards and rangers to scout the area in detail, taking whichever advisor with them they needed.<br/><br/>When Amvarean asked about the informant, she was clearly nonplussed about being told a half fae silver was living in or near the lake, and quickly joined the party heading to the lake to assist in scouting it. They would send a messenger once a day back to Silverstep, who would be charged with dispatching another messenger straight to the Capital at all speeds. If they found ANY evidence of goblins in the area, they were to scout their presence, not try to wipe them out in a misguided attempt to 'prove their worth' or whatever. He gave Kesten Garess a particularly flat look as he finished writing orders to his personal squad to join the scouting platoon. Cynthia he added to the scouts, since he was going to the forest and goblin lairs were notoriously tight and windy. He also included a message to the building company in town, giving them their build orders for the next month so they could better support the search for the origin of the plague.<br/><br/>Devaguea would be taking a heavy group north to wipe out the goblin fortifications, and see if they could learn anything about the source of the Polymorph plague in that direction. After a moment of contemplation, he took Sak'bas to hold the goblin's attention, Sena to track and provide an extra attention getter, Sydon to flank and take out any shamans or mages, Nordri to scout and deal with the infamous goblin traps, and Korima to snipe targets. The rest of the advisors were told to hold the fort, and the subordinates staying behind were told to hold all major or external issues until the head got back. Minor or routine issues they should have the authority to deal with, and would be a good test to see if they were worth holding as a replacement for the head.