The bandit leader, nearly torn in half by Berrin, falls to her knees. She spits out blood and looks up at him. "Okay, you got me. Take me to your leader." Her voice is weak but still slightly mocking.
The other bandits, seeing their leader surrender, appear poised to either likewise surrender or simply flee.
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"Knock her out." Verik shouts. "The rest of you drop your weapons and come here, we will be forced to kill you if you try to flee. But if you surrender, and show true repentance for your crimes you may earn something other than a noose. This is your chance to remove yourself from this path and eventually be a person whose life adds value rather than steals it away. I urge you to consider it carefully."
Unfortunately Verik cannot quite conceal the fact that he finds the later part rather unlikely, one or two might be able to turn their lives around, but most will likely dance a gibbet jig soon enough if they surrender. He finds himself hoping that some will run - I only got to hit one - and cannot quite decide whether he feels guiltier for wanting more violence, or for not pulling his weight...
Not taking his eyes of her Berrin sneers, "Still a cocky b#@*$ eh? Weapons on the ground and I'll concider it." He says, cold menace in his voice. "That goes for you lot too! Surrender or die!" he roars at the remaining bandits.
Zander chooses to let his weapon do the talking for him and keeps his bow leveled at the remaning bandits, awaiting their next move.
[ooc]Damage:
Jemini speaks soft enough not to be heard by bandits, other than the bandit leader. "You may think you're buying yourself time, before reinforcements arrive, to lie your way into our hearts, or to escape. But trust me - there is no remorse in your veins and your surrender here is an empty gesture. If you wish to prolong your pathetic life you will command your allies to lay down their weapons and surrender; and toss your weapons softly away - do this right now. Or my next act will be to kill you."
For a brief, still moment, almost nothing happens. The bandits are like deers confronted by a hunter's bow, simply staring with wide eyes.
Then all hell breaks loose.
The bandit who began his retreat breaks his nerve and decides to run. Zander's arrow is considerably faster, hitting him in the back. He stumbles and falls, limply hitting the ground. The one on the far post leaps off, running north as fast as he can. Nearby, in the shrubs next to Verik's position, the bandit flings his bow to the ground and raises his hands.
Their leader, however, is resigned to her fate. She grits her teeth and puts her weapons to the side. Breathing heavily, she raggedly admits defeat. "I'd like to wring out as much from life as I can, so I'm all yours."
'Come, Jemini,' Tandlara says, moving closer though maintaining a safe distance. 'We're not absolving her or trusting her, only trying to find a way not paved with death. It may be neccesary, but trying to spare their lives is important. Have I not heard you say as much over the last few days? The difference between you and this woman is that you will over quarter.'
She looks at the young woman with concerned eyes, the expression of a worried older sister or aunt covers her normally calm features. She barely spares a glance for the bandit woman.
Taisper, thrown rather off-balance by this turn of events, does not let his guard down. He walks over to where the leader is sitting. "Guys I can take care of this, if you don't want it on your hands." He looks around questioningly from Berrin to Jemini to Verik to Tandlara to Zander. His morningstar is not quite in strike position.
Taisper's gold eyes are shining oddly as he looks back down at the bandit leader. "Hey Walking Dead Leader Lady. You remind me of my Uncle Tipsy Stozs back in Alkenstar, he didn't know the value of anythin' either. He was walking down the street with a growler of fine ale one day and a friend says 'Hey Tipsy, what's the ale for?' and Tipsy he says 'Oh I got it for my wife.' And the friend says 'Good trade!'"
As crickets chirp, Taisper twists his mouth ruefully. "I, ah, I guess you had to be there."
The bandit leader smirks a bit at Taisper's story. "Funny boy. Care to give a doomed girl one last ride? I'm Kressle, by the way." Her voice cracks a bit, apparently aware that her time is up. Still, it retains its cruel and ragged edge.
Taisper does not move, staying combat ready, but he smiles lopsidedly at the bandit. "Funny? Yeah well, looks aren't everything. Hi Kressle. It'll be over soon, don't worry. I can't promise it won't hurt, though. Do you have a family? Do you think they're gonna miss you? Why are you doing this? You can lead people, you should be building communities, not tearing them apart. Like this Stag Lord. Who is that? Is he or she making you do this?"
Glaring at Jemini, Kressle stands up slowly. With a predatory grin towards Taisper, she answers his question. "Honestly? I rather enjoy it. No one tells me what to do, not even the Stag Lord. I see something I want, I take it. No one's telling me that I'm too delicate, not when I've got a knife in their gut." She winks at Taisper, her voice back to being a husky purr. "I'd let you tell me what to do, at least for a little while."
Her voice gets serious. "Now, I've got something that you want. I can get you to the Stag Lord's fort, and I can get you in. You can walk right up to that crazy drunk and have a chat with him. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you're the group from that trading post with the whiny b%@!$, right? That means that you killed Happs, which isn't that big of a loss to the world. There aren't that many people left who can tell you who paid the Stag Lord to make the order to kill you all and burn down the post. That moron Happs said that he could handle it alone, but I guess he was wrong like usual."
"Keep me alive and I'll give you the name. I promise," she says with a trace of sadistic humor, "you won't be disappointed."
As Kressle is getting up, Taisper quickly kicks her hard in the hamstrings, forcing her to kneel back down. "I'm real sorry, Kressle, but you need to just stay down for now, okay? We have to figure out what's happening next to you and these others. You've said your piece, now let us think. You just concentrate on, uh, riding or whatever. Maybe my cousin Verik here can help you save whatever's left of your soul in the meantime, he's a real good cleric. That's not my job, though, you understand me?"
"Kressle. I won't lie to you. You will die by the sword or the rope - all you're doing now, is determining which it will be. We're not going to see what you're willing to tell us later. You speak now, and then we'll take you back and hang you in a few days. Or you don't speak now, and we kill you now."
Tandlara watches the proceedings keenly, growing increasingly sad. She turns away from the conversation with doomed Kressle and walks over the Verrik and his captured bandit.
'Are you going to tie him up? Or is more killing on the platter? Tell me young preist, which is better for civilisation, reformed criminals or corpses?' She says it all with a sad detachment, gazing down at the bandit as his lip shakes with fear.
Live is cheap among humans, enemies and friends alike pass and die in the blink of an eye. I grow weary of killing. What right have I to mourn if I do not even try to offer mercy? What right have I to decry monsters if I become one.
Snapping out of her reverie, she turns her large dark eyes to Verrik, earnest sadness in them, and their elven absence of whites.
Jemini does not leave her eyes off Kressle; judging every movement the bandit woman makes against the edge of her blade - but still she speaks up at Tandlara's words: "Civilization does not need relapsed criminals. The judgment and future of a criminal needs to rely on the severity of his or her crimes. Reformation can apply to thieves and miscreants - brutal killers are not easily afforded such luxuries. Which brings up the second point - there is little chance for reformation if we cannot create an environment conducive to it. True reformation is not instantaneous; it is a gradual change that must be nurtured - this doesn't happen faster for us humans as compared to the elves. But I imagine elves, with their seemingly immortal lives, have a different take on it - as they can easily wait the century that is needed for such efforts to come to fruition."
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Verik sigh heavily and gives Tandlara a pained look, "I think you believe the answer to that is obvious Tandlara, but I don't. Is it better for a reformed mass murderer to be allowed to live, surely he cannot be released, he is likely unhappy in his confinement and the ones who loved his victim are likely unhappy he still draws breath. Your question is too complex to answer without a treatise."
He turns his attention to the bandit, "But I do not want to kill you, tell us all you know, admit to your crimes and I will strive to see that you are not executed for your crimes. Our charters grant us the ability to spare the repentant."
Keeping his eyes on the bandit he asks the elf, "Um, do we have any rope? It's going to be awkward if we don't..."
Taisper stands quietly behind Kressle, listening very carefully to the conversations going on around him. To Verik's query he smiles and says softly "I've got some, cousin. In my pack."
"So your privy to the Stag Lords secrets are you? To bad you can't even pretend to be repentant, that way you'd have a chance of convincing our religeous types here to let you live. Me? I'd let you live while you proved usefull. Then I'd either kill you or let you loose. You'd come hunting for me if I did, I know, but then I'd kill you." Berrin muses to Kessel.
Looking to the other bandit Berrin points at him, "What about you? Do you know the way to the Stag Lords keep? Are you privy to his secrets?" he raises an eyebrow expectantly, waiting for an answer.
Growing weary of the cruel woman's voice, Zander moves to Taisper's pack to help with tieing up the bandits. Once they are bound (and hopefully gagged), he says to the party, "We should search though this camp; it's likely the bandits have some provisions which would be useful to us on the trip north."
Tandlara goes to help search the camp, helping Zander but staying queit, she looks sad as she roots around the wagon and the campsite, looking for supplies and equipment.
At least her new friends would have a better chance of Survival if they found something useful, so she and Riddleskin search the clearing around the bandit's fire for anything of value.
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"Ah well done cousin." Verik says helping tie the bandits and bringing them in towards the group. "Maybe go easy on the jokes for a while though because, well, ouch."
"I suggest we have a trial, I've watched my old master give judgment enough that I think I could do so. We cannot take them all back with us, and we cannot let them go... Of course those who are prepared to talk would be giving us some compelling mitigating circumstances..." He says, loud enough for the prisoners to easily overhear - with all the subtlety of a brick to the face.
"Yeah, you're right, Verik. Though, I mean, they sounded pretty funny in my head. Maybe I can practice some of them on Tandlara's rat on the ride back, give new jokes a trial run, you know? He can bite me when they're not funny." Taisper appears to be serious about this, looking hopefully in Tandlara's direction, though he's not sure she heard him.
"What. I'll bet I taste terrific." Taisper glances down at Kressle. "No comments from you, Walking Dead Lady."
The other bandit quakes in fear as he answers them. "I've never been to the Stag Lord's fort. We just follow orders. I know that Happs arranged the whole thing, though! He came in a few weeks ago, saying that he had a job that he needed to run by the Stag Lord." He looks around, hoping that piece of intelligence will get him spared.
It seems likely that Kressle wasn't lying about someone else ordering the ambush on Oleg's. She also likely has no qualms about betraying anyone to aid herself.
Searching the camp and stripping the bodies, the expedition finds a number of supplies. Their collected spoils are in the wagon. Upriver, 6 more horses graze quietly, though it appears that another one was recently untethered and ridden off.
- 3 Tents
- 30 days of trail rations
- 2 masterwork handaxes
- 1 masterwork chain shirt
- 4 daggers
- 5 short swords
- 5 longbows
- 5 leather armor
- 310g, 321s, 88c
- 3 crates of furs
- 1 case of liquor, 8 bottles
- 1 pair of silver earrings
- 1 wooden music box
- 1 potion of cure moderate wounds
- 1 bear trap
The bandit puts his hands up in a shrug, desperate to be believed. "I have no idea. None of us do, really. Only the higher-ups get to go there. I know that when they leave, they head to the southeast!"
"And while you're singing - I'd like to hear the tune on what you know about the Stag Lord. What kind of place he lives in. Who's with him." Jemini smiles at the bandit - in a situation less dire it might even be construed a warm smile, though the words that follow stand in contrast, "If it's catchy enough, we will clearly have no more need of this woman here."
"Hey, Kressle, hey; this Stag Lord. He in a fort? Lots of flunkies around him? What would knowing his name get us, you said we 'wouldn't be disappointed,' what does that mean? Could we ask for a meeting if we knew his name? Does it have other meanings or something? Is he nobility or something?"
He begins to choke up. "That's all I know. I'd tell you if I knew. Please don't kill me!"
Kressle simply rolls her eyes at him. "There's a dignified way of going about things. I've got a bit of leverage, which only I have. I'm not going to give that up for nothing. I'll give you a clue, though: it's somebody from Rostland, not Issia."
At Kressle's comment, Taisper looks at Jemini. "What...what does that mean? 'Rostland not Issia'?"
Watching and listening to the exchange from a distance, Zander steps forward and says, "Why don't we just kill her if she's not going to tell us what we need to know and offer to let her live, albeit in jail, if she does tell us. Seems like a pretty fair trade to me."
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"What jail would that be?" Verik asks frowning. "I suppose we could take her back to the trade post and get some of those fellows to escort her back to Restov when they change out, or go back for supplies, or what have you... But we would need to be very cautious, the Stag lord might want her back - though I can't for the life of me see why."
Speaking to Verik and not even looking at the bandits, Zander replies with a shrug, "I'm thinking we could arrange for an escort to come down from Restov if we let them know we had a prisoner. I'm not too concerned about reprisals from the Stag Lord as I doubt he will even know she's missing by the time she gets to Restov. Either way, we're the ones with the real leverage in that we can choose whether she lives or dies."
Turning to Taisper, Jemini explains: "It's not really a secret - Brevoy has been suffering from a schism ever since the House Rogarvia vanished without a trace. Rostland has been playing second fiddle ever since; with Issia claiming more power and successively increasing its demands on us. Although open hostilities don't officially exist - a cold war has been running that has only been contained by the historical alliance of the great noble houses." She sighs, "House Surtova, of Issia, has - by right of questionable legitimacy - claimed a tenuous rulership over Brevoy. But where Rogarvia led through moderation, Surtova lusts for power. Not openly, but through subtle channels and covert operation."
She considers Kressle's words a moment. "I doubt Kressle has much to offer us - all strings ultimately, like it or not, lead to Surtova. Whoever acted out against us in Rostland was just a hand that works for another hand and so on. Or do you imagine that the mastermind behind this would rely on the virtuous silence of bandits?"
"I told you before, Kressle, all you're doing is choosing between a brutal or swift justice. Your cruelty will not mind a few years in the slammer - you'd probably run the dominant gang in that place within two seasons - and then run amok again once you're out. I intend to follow the charter in this matter to the letter.
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"Hmmm, very well she says her information will not disappoint. How about we give our collective word that should that be true we will see her jailed instead of executed?" Verik says thoughtfully.
"I told you before, Kressle, all you're doing is choosing between a brutal or swift justice. Your cruelty will not mind a few years in the slammer - you'd probably run the dominant gang in that place within two seasons - and then run amok again once you're out. I intend to follow the charter in this matter to the letter.
"Jemini the decision is not yours alone so kindly stop acting like you are our leader. You are not." The young cleric snaps hotly. "Your very countries problems outline the stupidity of naming someone a leader because they are sufficiently inbred."
"I'm not acting as leader, I've already said I wouldn't unless asked - and I tend to keep to my word. I'm acting as her executioner; something that can be done without your consent. What truth do you expect to hear from her that would so move your mind that you would trade it against the screaming souls of the mother and child she killed as a camp-side joke? Do you not feel the evil that oozes from her pores? It makes me sick and I do not want to buy her life for a snippet. We can find the Stag Lord and bring him to justice without her aid."
"H-hey, come on you guys, don't fight. Just...don't. Okay? C'mon." Looking pained, Taisper shakes his head as if to clear it.
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Verik sighs, "Sorry perhaps my words were hasty. But its unwise to make such black and white statements Jemini, and you are wrong if you think there are no circumstances I would try to stop you in. You would have to kill me to force me to break my word, or allow you to break it for me."
"I agree that she is vile and that she deserves death, but if she can give us information that saves other lives, perhaps even our own then that is something we must weigh carefully. If we miss some shadowed foe and people die because of it can their souls not be weighed in the equation? We might prevent deaths, I feel that a murders slaying is of less value than a life saved. And I will not offer up my word and then go back on it. Again I say let us offer her her life if we judge her information, once given, to be valuable enough then we will spare her. We will not get it otherwise, without methods many of us would not condone, she may not trust us enough to tell us anyway..."
"The information would have to be very valuable indeed; but I will concede that such a degree of information exists. She may very well save lives with her knowledge - and we may very well put blood on our hands by letting her live."
Jemini goes quiet for a while. It is clear that different arguments vie in her head for dominance as different emotions cascade over her features. At some length she agrees, "Very well. She can make her case - will the next 5 minutes suffice? - I give my solemn oath that I will weigh your words, Kressle, carefully. If they meet the expectations you've raised then your life can rot away in jail." Jemini looks up, at everybody. "We agreed?"
Zander crosses his arms and nods, "That sounds fine to me. If her information is as good as she says it is, she lives. If she doesn't tell us or her information is found lacking or false, she dies. That's the best deal she's going to get and I don't feel like waiting around for more than five minutes, so that sounds fine too."
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"Excellent. If everyone is agreed?" Verik looks around for dissenters before continuing, "Very well. I swear by my faith that I shall weigh your information with the uptmost care and, in conjunction with my companions, endeavor to fairly judge whether or not your knowledge should earn you a reprieve. Take it or leave it."
"Yeah! Way to go Verik and Jemini, now that's making things work out!" Taisper trots off, putting his shield on his back and re-attaching his morningstar to his belt. He disappears momentarily behind a shrub, then returns with his crossbow. After putting in a new bolt and readying the weapon, he walks up next to Kressle and lowers the bolt at her temple. His hand does not shake even a tiny bit.
Smiling at the rest of the team he says "Alright! Trial away!"
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"Taisper we are doing this properly... ish. Sword or rope, there is a reason we don't execute people with crossbow bolts. It's a waste of bolts."
"Oh gods please don't tell me its hereditary! But, um I would feel more comfortable if we went by the book where we can and used sword or rope as the charter stipulates. In the heat of battle is one thing, at a trail is another. Besides its probably hard to concentrate with a loaded crossbow aimed at your temple."
"I'd feel better knowing that Taisper is at the ready at least; perhaps some 10 paces off. I'd like the jury to know that I'm symbolically keeping this longsword to hand; as a token to indicate that Iomedae, protector of women, is presiding with us."
"Boy am I glad I'm not you." Berrin whispers in Kessels ear. Looking on as the proceedings take shape he is infinately glad these zealots aren't putting him on trial.
Taking up postition behind Kessel with his bloodied sword drawn he keeps it in hand, the edge in the ground and both his hands resting comfortably on the hilt. Berrin can't help but smirk as everyone seems so happy about reaching an agreement on how to kill the woman. Sure, she deserved it, but it still felt like a scahade to Berrin.
"I've got rope in my pack by the horses." he calls to Verik, wondering if the cleric will actually go and get it.