Updated Round 6
Infuriated that her prey is escaping her, Bea charges directly ahead, cutting down an archer in her path.
Pausing for a moment behind the tree, Bea tosses a potion down her throat as quickly as possible, feeling the warm healing magic restore her wounds. Feeling a little restored, she advances again towards the bandits.
Round 6:
Bea, you are able to charge the archer line, and your attack takes down Bandit #12.
ETA: Strike that last; Bandit #12 is still up. Barely.
Jacyn, your action will close the round.
Seeing their opponent flee, Jacyn spurs Smoke into action and advances on the archer line, hoping to tie as many of them up as possible, hopefully drawing their attention from Bea long enough for her to go for the leader.
Jacyn smiles a bit to himself in satisfaction at the sound of the sickening crunch as his blade lands a solid blow against his enemy.
Jacyn, you drop Bandit #11 with a solid hit. Smoke misses #10, though.
Round 7:
Just before he would act this round, Retsiji completes his spell. Bandits 8 and 10 fall unconscious to the ground. Smoke snorts briefly, shaking his head as the fringes of the spell catch him. However, the remaining number of HD isn't enough to make him sleep. Jacyn, of course, is unaffected, and Retsiji centered the spell effect so that it would miss Bea (and Bandit #12, but you can't have everything).
ETA: UPDATED MAP
Round Seven:
With a low growl, Havrin hefts his greatsword and charges the woman bandit, swinging his blade in a mighty arc as he reaches her.
Seeing that most of their opponents had died or been trampled beneath Smoke's hooves, Adam let his song die.
"I don't suppose anyone wants to surrender yet?" He yells out as he moves toward the archers carefully, taking defensive positions behind the trees as he moves.
Simn followed in Havrin's wake, ready to lend a hand as needed. Not that he was likely to catch the woman if she persisted in running. Blasted long legs. Well, he could always help out elsewhere.
Round 7:
Havrin, as you approach the ground under the platform you realize that what you thought was a low rise in the ground is actually a tarp-covered pile of supplies less than two feet tall, and about ten feet across. Quickly realizing that you don't know what your footing would be like if you simply ran across it, you decide to vault over it. Which you do handily, landing on the other side and finishing the charge. Kressle goes down before your attack.
The two conscious bandits, seeing this, throw down their bows and hold up their hands. "Mercy! We give up!"
What now?
Jacyn turns away from the surrenduring bandits long enough to throw a wink towards his allies. He turns back to the thieves, sword still brandished, and moving Smoke about in a slow circle around the pair, he demands, "And what makes you think you are worth sparing?"
Adam finally reaches the bandits.
"Come along then, gents, where's the gold? If you're going to make a living off the resources of others, you need to learn how to bribe duly appointed government officials."
The pair are obviously shaken by Jacyn's question, and stare blankly for a moment or two before the unwounded one says, "Well, we know this area really well--" The other one nods enthusiastically, then winces in pain before adding, "ow. Yeah, we do!" The first continues, "--and if you're moving in around here an' want to join up, we can sort-of help you through the dos and don'ts, iffin' y'know what I mean. I can tell right away that you're not the sort who'll cut someone's ear off for looking at her funny--" The wounded one breaks in, "Namin' no names, o' course."
It's about this time that Adam interrupts them. The pair look at each other in response and nod knowingly. The wounded one says, "Thought you was in the trade! I like that 'duly appointed' thing--sounds much nicer than the way we go about it. Yeah, we'll be happy to introduce you to Himself, even though (just between you and me) he's crawled into the bottle so far I'd be surprised he can see daylight. No hard feelings about all this--" He indicates the bodies around you. "--particularly since you did such a fine job with the lady. Now, you want to see what we have? Not a lot of copper and junk left, couple o' mites ran off with that yesterday." The unwounded one mutters, "Filthy bigheaded buggers...like to poke out those eyes of theirs...."
If no one stops them, the pair head over to the tarp-covered pile under the platform and strip off the tarp. Underneath it are some firewood, a folded tent, a couple of water casks, and some food. They move the water casks aside, revealing a small chest, three crates, and an artistically-carved wooden box. "Here it is. Not as much as we usually have; we send it up to Himself every couple of weeks."
Bea tries to regain her composure, but is still breathing heavily from the fight. "Who is this 'himself' - I take it he's the leader of this band? Where is he?"
Adam nods to Bea, then addresses the bandits who seem to have taken a liking to them.
"See if you can find something to dress her wounds with. Or anyone else who's injured. And then we can sit and talk about the way things are going to be very soon."
Jacyn smiles to himself at Adam's words. He pulls Smoke back a few feet, giving the two men room to stand and go about the business Adam has put them to, though he keeps his sword drawn, and one eye on Kressle.
With a look of confusion at Adam's words, Bea looks down and notices for the first time that she's completely covered in blood. Her knees start to wobble and she reaches out for the nearest trunk before letting herself to the ground. She puts her head between her knees and moans a little as the adrenaline dies away and the pain hits her.
"We didn't have no healer, just got some clean cloth to wrap wounds up with." The unwounded bandit searches through a nearby backpack and comes up with some strips of fabric.
It's clear from looking at the two of them that they've been cut up a time or three and not stitched well (if at all).
What, if anything, are you doing with the two sleeping bandits?
Adam hands the bandages to someone with healing skills.
"It seems you've been sliced a few times yourselves. We should get those wounds looked at."
Adam looks at the sleeping bandits. "What about them? How eager were they to escape Kressle's clutches?"
Simn thought there had been a fundamental misunderstanding here, in that the bandits seemed to think they'd merely exchanged one outlaw leader for a new set. Nevertheless, he set about patching up the wounded, though he refrained from using divine healing to begin with. No sense precipitating another fight with healed opponents. For now, they could gather more information and decide what to do with the bandits later. Discovering that there was another ruler behind this lot wasn't exactly encouraging.
The unwounded one replies, "Weren't none of us too happy workin' for her. Thing was, leaving wasn't really a choice." His compatriot shudders and interjects, "Remember Bisk? Few months ago, this fellow decided he'd had enough...wanted to go back to New Stetven (that being where he was from, y'see). So he's out on patrol and runs off. I took a couple of shots in his general direction, just to say I tried to stop him, y'know. When we got back here, I thought Kressle was gonna kill us. Instead, she went off after Bisk by herself...brought him back alive. An' he stayed that way for a good three days while she had her fun....
"No, we'll not waste a minute mourning her now she's gone. There were a few who toadied up to her, on account of her letting them have their own fun, iffin' y'know what I mean. Nothin' wrong with taking from them as can't hold their goods, after all--" The unwounded one interrupts: "An' blood spilled in a fight, well, they coulda surrendered, an' some give as good as they get." He grins. The wounded one continues, "--but after the fight's over, let 'em be. Besides," he says, a look of cunning coming over his face, "iffin' they come through alive an' relatively unharmed, know what I mean, they might take their chances here again, an' we can give 'em the opportunity to...how'd you put it? 'bribe duly appointed government officials' again! Ho ho ho...ow.
"T'any rate, these two think that once the fight's over it's time for knives an' rape. They're able enough, though...just so y'know."
There are two other bandits who haven't died from their wounds yet, in addition to the sleepers, Kressle, and five deaders.
The unwounded one stops, and looks a little apologetically at Bea. "Sorry, yer small friend kind of draws the eye. "Himself' is the Stag Lord, the boss of the band. Not many in-dee-pen-dents around, he's either chased them off or they work for him now. We're most of who he's got up towards Brevoy; there's four more out there, with Kressle's latest boytoy. Watch out for them, too. They're like those two, only worse. And the boytoy won't take kindly to you killing her, besides."
"Hmmm, thanks for the warning then."
"When you get those wounds looked at and feel ready to talk about your future, come and see me. If there are some cards around, we can play a hand or two, but mostly I just want to make sure you understand where we're coming from, and the opportunities we can provide."
Bea looks up and nods at the bandits reply - she looks very pale and is obviously in a world of pain. After Adam's finished speaking, she shakily gets herself to her feet and staggers back to the stream on the outskirts of camp, where she collapses again to the ground and sets about washing the blood from herself as best as she can.
Before the two sleeping bandits awaken, Retsiji disarms them. Then he starts piling up the dead bodies.
Simn nodded thoughtfully as he listened to the bandit's speech. Coming to a decision, he took a central location where he could reach out to all those who'd taken wounds in the fight without actually dying. He did pointedly leave Kressle outside that radius.
"Bea, if you could step over here for a moment?" he called. Once the woman was close enough, he called upon healing energies, letting them flow out and knit together wounds. It was time, he felt, for a gesture of good faith.
Bea's face relaxes noticeably as she feels the healing energies flow through her, closing her wounds. Without a word, she returns to the creek and continues cleansing herself.
Not being much good in the ways of Diplomacy, Jacyn decides to put himself to some better use, once Simn's magic heals up the wound he took from the single arrow that found its mark. He begins gathering the bodies of the dead, laying them all together, before he sets about checking Kressle for anything interesting she might have on her person. Once he's finished with the woman, he moves onto the others as well.
Jacyn brings all the equipment back towards the area where the rest of it is being stored, though he doesnt leave the potion bottle or coin lying about, in case any of the bandits would try anything funny. Instead Jacyn brings it over to Simn, handing both the pouch of coin and the potion over to the cleric, "I found these among the gear that the woman had. I was hoping you could identify the potion, and wondering if you would mind holding the coin for now."
The not-quite-so-wounded-as-he-was-before one (at some point he introduces himself as Willem; he and his unwounded buddy Jameth are gutter-class Taldans) thanks Simn profusely. "You're a priest, right? Don't see too many of your sort 'round here. Huh." He seems to be mulling something over.
At some point the two sleepers will awaken. Neither of them are very happy about the current state of affairs ("Is not fair, ambush us and use magic! And how many of us did they kill?" "Shut yer gob, Branko. They got us fair 'n square, an' let you an' Ivan live when they coulda slit yer throats like a couple o' pigs. Who'd you rather get bossed around by, Kressle?"), but neither of them looks about to force the issue. After Simn's healing, the other two survivors are currently disabled but conscious; they're not saying much right now, just looking a little relieved to be alive.
Now that Willem's in somewhat better shape, he and Jameth head over to talk to Adam.
Willem says, "So, master halfling. What'd y' want to talk about? And would y'prefer to talk over some breakfast? Dunno about you all, but usually we'd be tuckin' inta some grub around now."
Honestly, Bea's completely ignoring them right now. She's off in her own little world, dealing with her own demons.
Wash, wash, wash...scrub, scrub, scrub.
If you want, you could give perception checks to see if anyone notices the fact that she's still furiously washing her hands even though the blood has long been gone.
"Breakfast sounds wonderful. I do hear some squabbling in the ranks, though, about what we're doing here. So I'll just ask point blank: how much of what you take do you get to keep for yourselves?"
"I am indeed," Simn told Willem, "Of Irori, in fact." The news that there weren't many priests around wasn't exactly surprising. The area was fairly sparsely populated, and any priests who'd take up with a band such as this had been weren't ones Simn would care to meet. "I'll be around for some time to come, I hope," he went on, "I intend to do my part to make life hereabouts that little bit less harsh."
He nodded to Jacyn, taking both coin and potion, and intending to identify the latter when he had a moment.
Havrin remains silent during Adam's interrogation of the prisoners, busying himself with cleaning Kressle's blood from the blade of his greatsword, retrieving his longbow, and helping Retsiji and Jacyn pile the dead bodies. His expression conveys to his companions that he would have no qualms executing the remaining bandits then and there, but he recognizes the necessity of keeping them alive for now in order to gather useful intelligence.
"T'any rate, these two think that once the fight's over it's time for knives an' rape. They're able enough, though...just so y'know."
Havrin's expression becomes even more grim, and his eyes fairly burn as he mentally marks the two murdering rapists for immediate execution as soon as Adam finishes with his charade.
While Jameth and Willem are talking with Adam, the other four are sitting together on the ground and not doing much.
Jameth says, "Kressle would get about five percent back, she'd keep half, and we'd each get a split o' the rest. (As y'might guess, no one complained. More 'n once, anyways.) Supplies over an' above what we could grab came off the top--Himself only wanted the good stuff, so we'd keep tents an' such. Wasn't really worth it, workin' for the likes o' her, but...." He shrugs. "Now, you see ta be a more reasonable sort to work for, though some of your friends aren't as friendly, know what I mean...." His voice trails off as he looks over at Havrin and does a double-take. He turns back to Adam and in a much quieter but more intense voice, continues, "Oh, fsck me...who are you people?" Willem looks over at Havrin as well with a quizzical expression. "Oi, what's got you?" Jameth replies, "You fscking idiot--the bow."
Willem's eyes widen. "So you got the boytoy already. Figured ya weren't really highwaymen...Irori's one o' them law and order gods. Do me a favor an' make it quick-like, right?" He closes his eyes and sits still. Resignedly, Jameth says, "Same for me, mate. One thing--iffin' yer after Himself, he's got a fort down on the Tuskwater, about thirty miles south o' here. Give 'im a kick for me when you've done him, right?" He also closes his eyes, only to open them a second later. "An' iffin' y'want ta surprise 'im, best y' be after Gellus. Least, I didn't see his body in the pile, an' he were still movin' after your boyo put an arrow in him." He closes his eyes again.
At the mention of one getting away, Jacyn looks about quickly, trying to remember how many bandits they had encountered, replaying the fight in his mind. "Harvin! Are there any missing that you hit?"
Adam chuckles.
"I, personally, have no intention of killing you, if you aren't going to try to kill me. You were not caught in the act of banditry, so we legally have no idea where these goods came from, except from what you've told us."
"Here's the thing, boys. This is how Taxation works. The people in the area are obviously resourceful, but its generally a good idea not to take everything they have. Why? Because we want their resources to increase. So that when we go and take a share, they'll have more for us to take. We also don't want it to feel anything like a protection racket."
"Here's my proposal. Give up the theft and robbery stuff. It doesn't look good for the region, makes people not want to come out here and try their hand with their own resources. What we do need are actual tax collectors, at some point, so that we can build (or claim and improve) a base of operations. So clean up your act, gents, and we'll cut you in, if you like. How's 20% sound to you?"
"Of course, we'll have to get rid of this Himself fellow. Definitely bad for business. And we're going to try to enforce a fairer tax then what you've been enforcing, so the amount coming in might be a little smaller, but it'll be legal, or at least somewhat legitimate. The thing is, my fine friends, as the economy of the region improves, your cut will eventually seem significantly larger than it was before."
Jacyn, he's not acting like he's deliberately lying.
Adam, the two open their eyes, shocked. Jameth: "Yer havin' us on! Aren't you?" Willem: "What, us as the law? Oo's likely to trust us 'round here?" Jameth: "Y'know, not like we stand out inna crowd, know what I mean?" Willem: "'d mean some book-learnin' while we're waitin'...could work, could work." Jameth: "Right, then. If yer not havin' us on, I think we can do business." Willem: "One small fly in the ointment, though. Two, more like, iffin' y'know who I mean." Jameth: "Too right by half, you are. An' probably a third, blood bein' thicker 'n water. As they say." Willem turns back to Adam and says quietly: "Ivan and Branko, they're cousins, an' where they're from it's family 'gainst the world, know what I mean? Jal, though, he might go for yer crazy half-arsed idea. No offense. Terrill, he won't."
Some of you might notice that Bea's been spending an unusual amount of time washing, and on closer inspection has long gotten most of the blood off her skin and equipment, though continues scrubbing at her hands in the creek.
Retsiji walks down to the creek, looking a bit green again. He rinses the blood off of his hands from stacking bodies, walks a bit upstream, and takes a drink. "I don't know how Uncle did it, day after day." He suddenly notices Bea and starts slightly. "Sorry, talking to myself. Say, you've been down here a while. If you can wait 'til tomorrow I can spell your clothes and equipment clean, no need to keep washing."
"Those who don't wish to join up, are certainly free to leave, keeping in mind that bandits caught in the act or who freely confess their crimes, may under the warrant given to us, be put to the sword."
"I don't mean to make a point of it, but my companions may not seem quite so friendly as I am. They may even take it upon themselves to enforce the warrant, though I will discourage them."
"I don't care what you do with your time or your lives, so long as you don't interfere with the productivity of the realm. And when folks are frightened to leave their homes, or to go about their business, productivity suffers."
Adam stands and paces a bit.
"I've made fair offer. If you want to make a decent living, have some food in your belly regularly, and perhaps eventually a roof over your head rather than some scrappy stolen tent, come and see me. If you think you've got better ideas..."
Adam gestures to the forest, as he goes about clearing a space by their firepit, bringing over a barrel or crate to stand on. He unsheaths his rapier in a flash. "Bea, or Simn? I need a witness."
Bea stands and faces Retsiji, but not seeming to notice him, as if looking in the distance past him. You notice for the first time that her eyes are wet with tears. She raises her hands in front of her before slowly lowering them, gives Retsiji a noncomittal-sounding grunt and turns quickly back to the camp, wiping her eyes as she does so. She hears Adam call for her and approaches.
Jacyn continues to look around to see if all the bodies are accounted for, though when Adam calls for Simn or Bea to act as witness, he makes sure to keep an eye towards the halfling while continuing his count, though he doesnt speak up.