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[FE] the lumberjack school of warfare
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Zia sighs, squinting through the foliage towards the alcove she's being directed to. Never one for quick, aggressive actions, she hesitates for a moment, but the cleric's firm grip incites a flicker of haste. Not happy about being "volunteered" to go first, the young girl shakes off Orson's grasp with a touch more force than would be necessary, and pries open a path with her blade.
She slips through nearly without a hitch, only a few small cuts appeared on her forearm thanks to a wandering branch she brushed against. Quickly hiding the blade of her sword with her cloak, Zia darts for the alcove.
It's difficult to tell in the darkness whether they're actually marked with the white and green of the royal guards. Seems...odd for the Guard to be this far out in the sticks. But they're using some nice equipment!
"Sure, sure, threaten a harmless cleric!" Orson calls out harsly. He steps out, drops his stave...the implement falling a whole three inches before bouncing once, coming to a rest leaning against his massive chest. He looks down at it, shrugs, and raises his hands.
"Now we know this is a bandit camp, so I want to hear what on earth you are doing lurking around here." he calls out with a voice tinged with suspicion, seemingly a lot less worried than he should be about the weapons pointed at him.
"Sorry if I don't take you at your word, sir." Allan refuses to put down his lance, holding it at the ready. "All due respect, I wouldn't expect you to listen if I gave that very order, so let's just have a nice little parley and get to know each other, huh?"
Poking his head around the knight and listening for sounds of approaching footmen, Sardo tries to get a better look at the self-claimed guardsmen, and comments, "Shhhhh shhhhhh. Now, let's not get too loud. If you're really a guardsmen, you have to admit that there's no point in letting everyone know we're here." Sardo takes a paranoid glance behind him to check if someone is sneaking up on the group, and continues, "Now, Mr. Guardsman, you have to admit that the knight here has a point. You're pretty far out in the middle of nowhere for us to not be a little suspicious of a man claiming to be a royal guardsman, much less when the supposed guard is inside a bandit fort. Let's just get our stories straight, and we may be able to help each other." Lowering his voice to a whispering hiss, Sardo finishes, "But, let's do it quietly!"
Twitch Stream
The soldier interrupts him. Her expression turns sour, but her voice remains calm. "Raines. Your tongue. Watch it."
Raines scowls. "Yes, ma'am."
The woman steps forward, into the light. She appears to be wearing standard royal guard gear- light, white-tinged armor, deep green tunic underneath. "This is a military operation. I'm going to need you all to hand over your weapons and come with me. If you're not with the men who were here, then we should be able to let you go shortly. Refuse, and I shall be forced to use...force." The side of her mouth puckers a little, displeased with the way that last sentence turned out.
Raines grins. "Hey, you should listen to this one! She's a real psycho, here." His grin is... unsettling, to say the least. You can see just about every tooth in his mouth.
I will prrrrobably be slow in posting until this friday or so? just, fyi. Then things should pick up again.
"Did... did you hear what I said?" Allan turns to Orson. "Did she hear what I said, about the whole 'lack of trust' thing between us? Should- should I say it again?"
Allan doesn't wait for a response. "You're going to have to give us more than a vague claim of military authority and a veiled threat if you want us to hand over our weapons. If you were in my shoes, would you let yourself be defenseless around total strangers? I mean come on, you've gotta have some sort of proof, lady. Maybe some identification?"
The penalties for falsely masquerading as a royal guard are rather harsh. Points in her favor?
"All right, that's it!" Allan has had his last straw plucked. You can call him a thief, you can insinuate that he's a jerk, you can even say he's an idiot. But taking good care of one's armor is a point of pride among knights, and Allan is no exception. He no longer appears concerned with remaining quiet. "We're about to get things started now, I hope you're happy with yourself! You dare to call my armor anything but the pinnacle of polished perfection, we're gonna have some fisticuffs! You've just turned this into a matter of personal honor, and I demand satisfaction!" He pulls the gauntlet off his left hand and drops it on the ground in front of the woman. "I'd slap you with that, but it'd mess up your face, and I don't want to ruin the view of me laying you out."
I really hope I'm not screwing over the whole party here.
"Hey, Al." Macia gives the knight a cool look. "Stop being a shithead."
Steam
"Easy for you to say, Miss, not like she insulted that great scaly beast you ride about on. She has besmirched my name, what do you expect me to do?"
"Smile and take it."
Steam
"Fine then, you hand your weapon over to the lady." He pauses. "Or the man, I guess. He could use it."
Zia clears her throat and drops the sword from her hand, keeping her second blade swung across her back. "If you were with the bandits then you probably would've shot us before asking any questions," motioning to the unhinged bowman.
"My name is Zia, I'm from a village near Ravennia." She bows her head briefly and looks at the woman. "We're here pursuing a group of bandits that attacked the people of Valetia."
He turns back to the rest of the group. "Now, why can't the rest of you be this reasonable, hmm? Trust me, the bandits won't be a problem for you. Unless, y'know, you're the raiders themselves."
Very, very hesitantly, Sardo places his Flux book on the ground and slides it over to the guards.
Twitch Stream
Orson looks up at Macia atop her wyvern. Between her and...wherever the hell Russo is there might be a chance of escape if these guys weren't on the level?
"Look, I'll admit you guys seem to be the real deal..." he ponders his words carefully.
"Just tell me this: why is the royal guard clearing out bandits usually left to local militia and mercenaries?"
Raines waves his still-loaded crossbow around, rather carelessly. "C'mon, already. You all giving in or what?"
"No." Macia unslings her crossbow and places it on the ground. "I am not giving in. I am resisting arrest." She faces Gyorsul. "Stay." Her eyes waltz back to the two soldiers. "Anything else you need me to do?"
Steam
Allan none too politely drops his lance to the ground at the lady's feet. "Guess I'm outvoted. Fortunately, just because I don't have a weapon doesn't mean I'm defenseless." He turns to Macia. "When this goes wrong, I reserve the right to say 'I told you so' in the Elysian Fields for all eternity. You think I'm a disagreeable bastard now, wait'll I've had a few millennia to get nice and crotchety."
"Cleric bent knee first. Annoy him."
Steam
"Yeah but he's the Cleric. I've have been surprised if he didn't surrender. You're the Hag Queen herself, even got a dragon scared to cross you. Hell, only reason I'll wait 'til we're dead to say it is 'cause I'm reason'bly sure you'll kill me in my sleep if I try it while I'm still alive."
"Because I despise you. Take their weapons."
Raines sighs and starts picking up the many, many dangerous items that the party has dropped, and the other weapons that are visible. Two armfuls of deadly implements later, he looks up at the other soldier, and nods. She addresses you all once again. "I'm glad you all saw reason. Follow me, please."
[Party has been disarmed!]
The fortress doesn't look much better from the inside. Everything has a damp smell, and those stone walls that still stand are crumbling or covered in moss. Torches flicker along the walls, but somehow stay lit despite the wind blowing in. The soldier leads you in silence through the corridors. First up the stairs, then a long hallway, a couple of left turns and into what must have been makeshift living quarters, with rotten wooden beds and tables, then forward, into a tall, green room with a few marble pillars in the old Caldean style stretching up to the ceiling. Then it's back to the identical corridors again, past what must have once been a shrine of some sort... and back down another set of stairs. Although your path is fairly straightfoward, it's difficult to form a mental blueprint of the building, with all the unnecessary turns.
This place doesn't contain nearly as many bandits as were advertised, living or dead. Occasionally, you pass other guardsmen. Mostly lance-users and swordsmen, but there also seems to be an unusually high proportion of green-robed mages. None of them gives you more than a cursory glance as you pass by.
After a few minutes, the soldier leads you to a wide, circular room that seems to be towards the center of the building. Inside, a few other guardsmen are lounging about- playing dice, taking a standing nap, or the like- but they stir and start to pay attention as you walk in. One lightly armored figure, a man with shaggy brown hair and tanned skin, gets up from an ancient stone chair- a throne, perhaps- and walks down to you. A white-robed man with pale, sickly skin and long black hair follows him, edging along behind the first man like a child clinging to its parent's leg.
"Captain." The soldier you've been following addresses the first man. "Found a few more. West end, first floor. They claim to be mercenaries."
"Yeah?" The captain glances over at you. "What company?" he asks, looking Allan up and down.
Dropping your staff to a still easily grabbed distance doesn't really count :P
"Storm Riders. Or at least, that's the company I used to be in. Freelancing now. Think it's the same for these other scrubs."
Steam
Allan removes his helmet before replying. "Companies are for soldiers who don't have enough of a reputation of their own." His gruff answer underlines the fact that he is not happy about this situation. "Perhaps you've heard of the name Vigilance? Went by that for a few years." He stares cold daggers at the one called the captain. "But then I'm just a lowly merc. Surely your reputation precedes you, Captain..." he pauses, waiting for the man to supply a name.
"Overslept."
Steam
After making a visible effort to tear his gaze away from the white robed man, Sardo responds haltingly, "I'm... uh... not exactly a soldier. I mean, I am a mercenary now, but I was just a scholar. You know how student debt can creep up on you." Sardo nervously laughs at his own joke, eyes flicking back to the robed man for an instant. "Anyway, I'm sure you're very busy here, what with getting cleaning up the bandits in the area, and you don't need mercenaries getting in your way. I think we should just get out of your hair and go tell the villagers the Royal Guard is out here looking after them." Sardo looks hopefully at the captain.
Twitch Stream
The cleric closes his eyes. "Five would do nicely," the man speaks in a soft, feminine voice. He doesn't open his eyes, yet.
The captain claps his hands together. "Well, how fortunate."
A tiny pebble smacks the back of Zia's leg. Did someone throw a rock from the hallway behind them? No one else seems to notice the missile, at any rate.
"Men!" the guard captain calls out to his men. "That's enough relaxing for now. Get yourselves ready." Slowly, his troops start to grab their weapons and pull themselves upright. One broad-shouldered man yanks an enormous hammer from the ground and yawns, a bored expression on his face.
The captain turns back to you. "Well, mind giving us a hand?"
Zia peers over her shoulder looking for the source of the thrown pebble. Seeing no one, she shrugs and turns to answer the Captain. "I think that depends on what you need us to do."
Orson shrugs. "We we paid by our employer to deal with the bandits threatening the town." he seems very casual, perhaps even too casual.
That cleric creeps him out. And why did they need so many mages for a fortress of bandits?
"Speaking of which, our employer seems to have deserted us as we were entering this compound. Probably went back to town if he knew what was best for him." He sighs. "Keep it in mind if some large, loud-mouthed axeman with a scarred face asks you not to kill him." Another sigh. "You know, in great contrast to an actual bandit."
Orson idly wonders if Russo actually knew about this operation. He's certainly involved in something other than woodcutting, and his demeanor as they approached, followed by his disappearance...meh.
er
whoops
"Don't bother trying to make sense of their plan, Orson. They're more like Captain Clueless and the Blunder Brigade. You invade a bandit hideout with the funding to hire the men you need... but not the actual men. Don't know how you graduated from the academy, my boy, but you'd be well served by some remedial classes there." Feeling as though he has properly criticized him, Allan now ignores the captain, turning back to the woman holding hostage his weapons. "So, your brilliant plan was... threaten us, insist that we surrender, explain that you think we're murderous bandits, lead us to an obviously incompetent leader and his little toady of a bookkeeper, and then... ask us for help. Clearly you trained under Captain Clueless here and picked up his style. Now hand me back my weapon before you hurt yourself with it." The last sentence carries the careful condescension one uses when insisting that a small child put down a sharp knife.
Orson [14/14] [Build 12] [ Mend ] [Exp: 72]
Orson takes another step away from the unarmed Halberdier as he launches into a diatribe. Alan's words were... starting to look wise. Yes, that Alan, with one L.
Vigilance? He called himself goddamn Vigilance? Fuckin' really? Macia buries her head in her hands, the Captain's words washing over her like the sea over a rotted boulder. Then Vigilance gives his lil' speech.
"Everything is stupid."
Steam
Realizing she couldn't compete with the fierce vigor of the knight, Zia's attention returns to the projectile that struck her moments before. She reaches down, picking up the small stone, and turns towards the hallway behind her. She peeks her head out and looks left, then right, searching for the pebble's source.
I think I misread the pebble flinging as nothing more than "Rhapsody needs to post more".
Nah, I'm nowhere near that subtle :P While I always welcome more posts, we've been making decent speed as of late and such! everything is a-ok, except maybe Allan manifesting latent psychic powers. (???)
will update in the morning (probably afternoon.)
edit: no what happened to my beautiful smilelys