The Green Man, his mind swimming with rage, still manages to retain enough sense to continue with the plan of getting into position.
Slowly he steps around the troll to provide attacks from both sides together with Kane.
The part of his mind that is shut down, the civilized rational part is busy thinking about the legends of his homeland, of warriors who transcend the simple rage he feels now and achieve a sort of trance like state.
Where he feels hot, the grow cold, where he stops thinking, they achieve clarity.
Since diplomacy seems not to work Norton charges the big guy.
"Somebody sent them, get the little one alive!"
As the second elemental appears, Furiel calls out:
"If he surrenders his side, he will be spared."
He looks at the caster with a meaningful look.
Round 3 actions
Furiel's second elemental tries to grab the caster too!!
The elemental holding the caster squeezes as he maintains his hold.
Furiel continues to summon his army of earth creatures, ready to send his third summons to help Green.
"I can't imagine the troll knows anything worth asking it about." Sonechka's jibe comes out langorous, almost lazily, as if she's sitting in a living room instead of participating in a battle. "Poor thing. With such bad luck I'm amazed it's alive to be here tonight."
Kane and Green tear the troll into shreds. It falls hard, and lies unmoving.
In the grip of Furiel's summoned minions, the other gasps at the brutal and efficient slaying of his partner.
He tries - and succeeds in working himself loose, just as Dolgrym and his fellow ax-wielding mirror images reach him. He starts to bolt for the safety of the woods.
Attack
Damage
"Aha, demon! Taste my axe!"
Furiel's minions hammer at the caster.
He prepares to send his earth minions after the escaping caster
The earth elemental delivers a bone-bruising "charlie horse" to the mad rhyming satyr-like lurker - who immediately drops to his knees... pleading and shielding his head.
"No more... prithee. I vow I'll comply! Gotten as you wished sir, I wish to stay alive!"
Sonechka sneers at the caster as he pleads for his life on his knees. She emerges from her artificial darkness to stick into the campfire a piece of firewood laid by to stoke the fire. "It seems to me that the possibility of whether you live or die tonight could be affected by how helpful you are now. You were already offered safety in return for surrender but you chose to continue resisting."
Once the brand is lit, she holds it out in Green, Kane, and Norton's direction. "It's a troll. Burn the corpse after you check it for valuables or we'll be fighting it again in a few minutes."
She continues smoothly, as if suggesting the burning of a corpse was nothing out of the ordinary. "So, in the spirit of cooperation and good will. Who sent you? Names, locations. Specifics, please. I see that you prefer flowery language but you might want to consider that poetic license could lead to an... unfortunate misunderstanding."
"Aye, burning the troll makes good sense. Let's get to it, he motions to Green."
The Green Man, still somewhat in the throes of his rage snarls a reply.
"Aye! Burn the abomination of nature that threatens the land!"
He then smashes the unresisting troll's head in before applying the brand to the corpse.
Only then does he fully slip out from his berserker state, leaning heavily on the haft of his weapon, breathing heavily for a moment.
"And I want to know what that snake tried to steal from us..."
Furiel explains:
"You are our prisoner. You will be restrained! I hope you know useful information!"
"And DON'T feed him lines he can rhyme off! I'm in NO mood for rhymes right now!"
Giving the "Satyr" a glance, The Green Man then relents a little and grudgingly offers, "more than necessary I mean..."
"Will tell you again, milady, what you've maybe once been told.
Was the Clat and Clew who sent me... but a sheep in their fold."
"Who I serve, serves yet another - who does whats asked by a third.
To sum it up in one clear answer. I.. I.."
he stammers watching the precautionary measures brutally delivered to the fallen troll.
"Oh...poor Mossberg." "Spent much time with that scrag."
"Espied you for the Foul One by way of the hag."
"Jot things down 'bout your skills, ways that you fight...
then we'd poke through your things while you doze off for the night."
"The Foul One's well aware of your new peasant throne.
Likely for a time he would have left you alone.
But once you did step on the skirts of his wood.
We were to send you a message... leave at once, and for good."
"I know my rhymes turn some mugs all shades of livid,
just imagine my cursed life if yoou were to live it."
"Not doing it on purpose then? A real curse put on you by...whom?
And why?"
The Green Man grimaces as he feels his strength returning.
"If you intend to make good here, return whatever it was your snake pet swallowed."
Sonechka frowns. "I thought you were Clat and Clew. But no, you were simply their followers? You could conceal a great deal behind your rhymes. Can you write without turning it into verse?" She shakes her head.
"The Foul King must have a name. The one you serve, and the one they serve- they must have names. You must have a name. Speak them, if you can."
"Mossberg. Was that the troll's name?"
The Green Man grimaces as he feels his strength returning.
"If you intend to make good here, return whatever it was your snake pet swallowed."
Sonechka gives Green a chilly smile. "Don't worry about that, Green. Our poet won't be leaving here with any of his things, much less our own." She turns back to the rhyming spellcaster. "To put it in your own terms... 'For daring to attack us before we slept, now it's your things that we'll have kept.'" She shakes her head. "I am glad I don't need to speak like that all the time."
He responds to Green with a shrug. "When its ready to make dooo..., feel free to chase it.
But if you'd rather have clean gold, I'd hap'ly replace it."
He taps the side of his nose with his finger when Sonechka mentions writing, then slowly lifts the side of his jacket to reveal his pocketed journal.
As Sonechka continues, he looks "put-off".
"Attack while you sleep... the work of a coward?
Says the pot to the kettle from atop her high tower."
"Yes Mossberg the scrag, and I am Barndoor.
I'm sorry I'd meant to say that before..."
Sonechka smirks. "It's not a tower, Barndoor, you're just on your knees." She gestures at the journal in his pocket. "But perhaps, if we're feeling friendly by the end of this, you might leave with more than just the shirt on your back. May I?"
The Green Man smirks, quite pleased with not only how clever Sonechka is proving, but also at the rebellions nature of Barndoor.
"A bit of gold was all it took? It's a small snake, it can't have been a very big amount then."
Then his face grows angry, feeling the rage welling up in his mind again, inflating his chest like he was holding back the very northern wind.
"So...aware of our "peasant throne" is he? Threaten my people will he?
I might have been willing to live and let live, but when someone threatens one of mine, then all such "niceties" becomes a moot point."
for each words The Green Man speaks, his voice drops and grows colder and colder.
"On my knees yes! How clever you talk.
Just give me a moment to turn the ward off."
He starts to pull the book out with one hand, and gesture with the other... but stops as he loses faith in his bluff.
He sighs and hands over the journal.
He was beginning to cast invisibility
"The head of a satyr but not the legs, mention of a curse...
Most curses are usually designed to be "ironic" in some way or another...
Satyrs are known to be musical, rhyming and...lustful.
Did you have the misfortune to seduce a powerful wizards daughter or something?"
Sonechka takes a few steps and takes the book out of Barndoor's hand, smirking at the recognized spell preparations. "A wise choice," she murmurs to him, "though the inclination bodes ill for that spirit of cooperation." The snowy-skinned woman looks at the book for a few moments, turning it over in her hands and mumbling something to herself as she examines it.
The first pages have the names of the charter holders at the tops of each page. Underneath are several sketches of them, and notes about what weapons they use, how they act in battle, etc.
The next pages are of Dolgrym, Kane, Sonechka, and the others they lost. Only the first three are complete, and the notes appear to be based on the battle before all of you met... as well as the more recent liardfolk fight.
The notes on the Stagfall leaders look well-ordered, as if copied.
The notes on the three of you are not.
There are a few adjacent pages torn out.
Barndoor shakes his head in response to Green.
"My only crime was a slanderous rhyme,
and see and hearing at a terrible time.
Woke up with bad verse haunting my brain,
in the garden of Beldame, leg in a chain."
"Twas under my feet where I met my mates,
Similar folk living similar fates.
When fey-folk are stranded with little to do,
they'll find a home amongst the Clat and Clew."
"What are we going to do with this rhyming so and so? He clearly still has spells remaining...how do we trust him to not try and attack us during the night?"
"I will hope being fully restrained and under guard will be enough to deter him."
Furiel explains: "Any further spellcasting without permission will result in severe punishment."
"So you saw something someone didn't want you to see and they cursed you?" She looks up from the book to watch Barndoor's response. "And the Beldame- you are her slave? Does she control you and other fey?"
Sonechka frowns, drumming her fingers on the cover of the journal. "But you say when fey have nothing to do, they fall in the Clat and the Clew. Are you mercenaries, then? Or simply looking for something to amuse yourselves?"
She holds up the book. "This has many notes about us, but nothing about the rest of Clat and Clew, the Beldame, or who your master's master is." Sonechka holds out the book to anyone who wants to take it. "In short, it tells us nothing we do not already know."
"Are we her slaves or hired thugs? Wouldn't go that far really...
it feels like home, and lurkings fun. Spying and creeping is thrilling."
"Beldame's master's name a common object. Already offered it once to you.
His weight always comforts his subjects. He's why they do what they do.
Ready your quill so you don't forget?
Or skip ahead to what you had meant?"
He waits a moment then skips ahead...
"Vesket the Foul, King of bloody rivers
His hunger for flesh gave e'en the late Mossberg shivers.
Meat is Meat. His quote.. or some similar saying.
Beldame's master? It's gold, and the Foul One is paying."
He then grins mischievously...
"Beldame's garden appears with the wolf which is no wolf at all,
and gone again into the mist with the song of nature's heralds call."
"That's nature... not a farm, if that is what you were thinking.
The ones you hear if you rise too soon, or were up all hours drinking."
"Divulged what I can to you. Not news? I'm not the one to blame.
If you go where you cannot see, that's where you'll find Beldame."
Sonechka nods. "So not quite the unwilling participant you made yourself out to be a moment ago, then. Can you give us a location? Where does this Vesket live? Or Beldame. I heard what you said, but 'go where you cannot see' is not the same as a direction or distance."
The Green Man sighs and runs a hand over his face in something akin to either frustration or irritation.
"So now we have another mystery, and more than one monster of a foe.
But I'll not be discouraged, not so easy to sap my will."
Then The Green Man leans forward, looking intently on the prisoner.
"The question is what to do with you? As rulers of this land, it is within our power to offer you both amnesty and sanctuary, but would you take it if offered I wonder?"
The riddle of where to find Beldame... those are the things they will not lie about.... That would break their "rules".
It is soon made clear, Vesket is the Foul King. You have been shown the location of his lair by Ahngurfrok. Barndoor does not seem willing to provide any more clarity... his rhymes become more and more confusing. It appears he was only willing to tell you how to find Beldame's home in a cryptic form.
Barndoor shakes his head at Green's offer.
"Too set in your ways? It is your choice, if a man stands on the edge of the abyss, I will reach out a hand to help him step back, but I cannot prevent him from hurling himself into the void, because as soon as I turn my back, back at the ledge he will be."
But that won't stop me from trying, if given half a chance, and I won't let him take anyone else with him.
Sonechka nods at Green's offer. "If you will not accept an offer of sanctuary, will you pledge to not attack us again or to direct an attack against us? I will not ask for you not to gather information about us, in order to preserve some of your value to your employer, but I think we would all agree that a pledge of non-aggression from you may be a good place to start before we agree to let you leave."
Dolgrym was surprised the others were going to let the strange creature leave. He had thought them more violent than that. "Don't let him leave unless he agrees. If not, we have to come up with a more permanent solution, I'm afraid."
"He will not be leaving our 'hospitality' until the Foul King is no longer a threat. He knows too much about us to be allowed to go. The word of someone under duress is suspect--many even say oaths given under duress are free to break."
Sonechka turns to look at Kane and gives him a small gesture indicating that he should position himself behind Barndoor.
There we go again, the clashing of strong wills.
The Green Man debates stepping in, but decides that he needs to talk to everyone later.
For the moment, he is content to let things play out and see where they end up.
Sonechka frowns and glances at Furiel. "Unfortunately, I wouldn't trust any cell to hold one of the fae. How do you propose we keep him from fleeing the moment we leave him alone in his prison?" She looks at Kane again to see if he was doing as she suggested.
As Furiel pages through the book, he seems concerned about the material in the book. "I thought they would make me taller. Am I really this small?" He shrugs and returns to the matter at hand.
After thinking a minute or two, Furiel replies: "We already have a high profile prisoner. She is a nasty magic user with a heart as black as night. Last I checked she was still in her cell. I will muse on the best manner to keep this one from damaging us--a cell of pure cold iron may not be enough. But he will not be released based on a simple verbal agreement while the Foul King is a threat."
"You mentioned he would have to be useful to us to survive. I have not heard anything from him we do not already know. I would think his fate should at least be equal to that of the troll who may have been duped into his role in this."
"If you are keeping one prisoner, why not keep two? Then, once the Foul King is dispatched, we might be able to come up with terms that would keep this one at bay."
[b]"I think Lady Alkaeva is concerned that he could just teleport away from the cell."[b]
"Well, can he teleport through cold iron in a cold iron suit of armor?"
Sonechka nods at Furiel and Norton. "Just so." She looks over at Dolgrym. "That doesn't prevent him from escaping while we wait for suitable confines to be built. How long would it take to craft a cell made entirely of cold iron and washed with gorgon's blood? We would have to watch him the whole time, all the while knowing he is perfectly willing to return to his master with his information and come back to fight us in the future."
She turns back to Barndoor. "And what would you or your master do, if the situation were reversed? I'm not asking for moral guidance from you, simply trying to gauge what kind of enemies we face."