Tove watches as Bran moves over to the body of the unfortunate animal. She walks up beside him and places a hand on his shoulder in comfort while he prays. "We will not let this beast have died in vain, I'm sure your wolves will appreciate the fresh meat."
In the morning, Tove will meet with Bran and help to skin and butcher the wolverine. A sad occasion to spill the blood of an innocent beast, but perhaps a chance to pick up a skill or two from this druid.
She will also offer to sit with him while they meditate to prepare spells for the day ahead.
As the creature falls I rush to Rufus and make a fuss of him, looking for injuries. There is a lot of blood but I can see that Tove managed to repair most of the injury with Erastil's holy power. I almost hug the lady but stop just before her and give her a deep bow, "Thank you for helping Rufus with this injury, I swear that I shall protect you from harm in any future confrontations as repayment." I then rush back to Rufus and throw my arms around his neck, whispering quietly into his ear.
Once it is time to get back to bed, I make sure that Rufus is with me and we fall asleep together. In the morning I notice that his wound has not gotten any better, so I decide not to put the armour on. However he growls when I go to leave it off so end up putting it on anyway, I then put mine on and get to my hour of swordsmanship before breakfast and giving my silent prayer to Erastil.
Seeing the halfling check his wolf over, Bran moves over to the two. "Is he still wounded? I still have a little magic left that I can try to channel," Bran says.
Bran holds out his hand and focuses once more on that inner, chaotic force of magic. "Let i' merka templa sira ar' fallana sina precious onna," Bran intones, a green energy glowing around his hand. The stream of energy leaves Bran's hand and flows into Rufus, sealing the wound.
"That should keep him patched up nicely," Bran says, checking the spot where the old wound was.
I look up at Bran and nod, before the man starts speaking in some strange tongue. Once Rufus is healed he goes to each other the people who has removed his pain and gives them a lick on the hand before returning to me.
Bran heals Rufus's remaining wounds before settling back in for the remainder of the, fortunately uneventful, night.
The party awakes in the morning to find a cool, overcast day. Bran skins and butchers the wolverine, working along side Tove, finding a teaching moment for priestess of Erastil if nothing else.
Following a quick breakfast, the party breaks camp and finds themselves heading west on the South Rostland Road again. About an hour into your journey a light rain begins to fall, which when combined with cool temperatures makes for a rather unpleasant experience. Fortunately the rains do not last terribly long and have completely stopped by time you reach what appears to be a re-purposed fort.
Oleg’s trading post is surrounded by a wooden palisade that stands 10 feet high. At each corner of the palisade are 20-footsquare watchtowers, each armed with a run-down catapult left over from the site’s original use as a border fort. These catapults are in no condition to be fired, and repairing them would take many weeks of work. There’s one entrance through the palisade—a 30-foot-wide wooden gate.
The gate is currently open, as the trading post is open for business. You go in through the open gates into the market yard, open area is where trade takes place. The two tables near the fire pit are used to display wares and serve food to visitors, while bulky trade goods are offloaded into the storage pen. Looking around the outpost you see a main house, a guest house, stables, middens, and storage pens.
You see a barrel-chested, red-headed, middle aged man on the roof of the guest house, apparently fixing a hole. As you enter the outpost he gives you a nod and grunt as a greeting before continuing his work.
Contrary to the gruff greeting the man gives you, a younger blonde woman with bright blue eyes, dressed in simple clothing comes out of the main house to greet you.
"Oh you've made it! Greetings, welcome to the Oleg's trading post. I'm Svetlana. The grump on the roof over there is my husband, Oleg."
Walking up to each of you and giving each of you a hug, she says, "You must be exhausted from your trip. Please take you mounts to the stables and come inside and wash up a bit. I've made a venison stew and some fresh bread as I was expecting you in today. Maybe if the old man will get off of the roof of the guest house we'll even open a bottle of wine or two to celebrate your arrival."
Bran nods in greeting, though backing up when she approaches him. Greypelt circles in front of him protectively, and the message is clear. At the moment Bran keeps his hood up, but he knows it won't be long before it falls back, and the sharp ringing from the man's hammering was making his ears twitch a lot.
"Thank you," Bran replies. "The warm food sounds good after the cold rain. I'll go ahead and take care of Borne." With that, Bran leads the donkey off toward the stables. Greypelt stays with him today, choosing to eat from the meat collected from the wolverine.
Once Borne is situated, Bran will rejoin the others and follow along not used to being in others' homes.
Tove is glad to see the smoke of the cooking fire rising up from the fort as they make their approach after a cold morning's ride. A nice set up they have here, very clever repurposing the old border fort.
When Svetlana moves to welcome her, she accepts the woman's hug warmly.
"It is a lovely place you have here, is it just the two of you?"
Tove leads Ros into the stable before following Svetlana into the main house.
"Thank you kindly for your hospitality, do you get many visitors? Obviously trade is good out here."
Despite the miserable day I have a large smile on my face, despite the fact that my hair is getting plastered to my head. "Who would've thought I would've met such kind people already? Got to make sure that I pull my weight here too."
As we ride into the fort I look up at the catapults and nod. I quickly dismount from Rufus and give him a quick scratch behind the ear before bowing to Svetlana. "It truly is a marvelous place, I hope you don't mind about my friend here." I gesture to Rufus, "He won't attack anything or cause any problems, I assure you. I want to make sure you're okay with him being in your home. As for food and drink, that sounds like a brilliant idea, I was just starting to get a bit hungry."
I head over to the guest building and call up to the man on the roof, "Would you like some assistance or an extra pair of hands up there? I'm not an expert, but will aid in any way I can."
Razarak accepts her offered hug, and follows her inside to grab some food. Turning to Svetlana You folk don't get too much trouble all the way out here, do you? Or any rumors of trouble on the road? We are trying to, ah, civilize the stolen lands again.
Torsten evades the hug with the practiced skill of a younger brother.
"More a look around than an attempt to bring civilisation just now. Maybe later. The Swordlords seem very concerned about bandits going by their charter - has there been trouble with them of late?"
Svetlana smiles and does not press the issue as both Bran and Torsten do their best to avoid her embrace.
"I don't mind the wolves at all, as long as they behave themselves." Svetlana says, reassuring Theodore that Rufus will not be a problem.
Oleg looks down when he hears Theodore's offer of help, and only responds with, "We'll see..."
"Plenty of time to chat along with a bit of lunch, don't you think?" Svetlana says in response to the other questions for now and with a nod she returns to the main house to finish preparing the meal.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Once you are all inside, Svetlana goes about making sure you each have a generous bowl of the hearty stew and brings out three loaves of fresh baked bread.
Not too long after, Oleg comes inside and has a seat as well.
"Lana tells me you've been askin' a number of questions." the gruff man says. "Business isn't as good as we'd like and we've our share of problems, but nothin' I can't handle."
Svetlana's expression tells a different story. "Damnit, Oleg, we've talked about this." Turning to the party she says, "We'd sent a request to Restov nearly two months ago. Sadly, we've had our fair share of bandit issues. The only reason the old grump over there hasn't tried standing up to them and getting his fool self killed is because what he fears they would do to me."
"Is it the same group of bandits, do you know? Or just a bunch of different ones? I remember a group of bandits back home in the Gronzi named Duma the Sly, but he didn't bother the common folk mucj, only tax collectors and people from the capital...It doesn't seem like that's what we are dealing with here, though." Razarak says, in between bites of the stew. "This stew is delicious, as is this bread, thank you very much for cooking for us."
"In in the area I used to live, most of the bandits were unorganized, and rarely in groups larger than five," Bran comments.
Oleg, beginning to warm up a bit to the group responds.
"Not always the same bandits, but certainly part of the same group. The first time the bandits visited, there were a dozen of them, ten or so lower ranking thugs led by a cloaked man armed with a bow, and a woman who carried two small hatchets. The woman did the majority of the talking on that first visit, but hasn't been back since." he says rubbing at his right wrist.
"Do they come at set times? Our attacks were pretty random," Bran asks.
"The rotten bastards have been showin' up at the end of the month." Oleg grumbles.
Tove glances between Oleg, Svetlana and the rest of her group. A concerned expression growing on her face.
"The end of the month is tomorrow, right? What are you doing just sitting here making stew?"
I eat my stew with a hungry fervour, saving every mouthful. I make sure that my mouth is empty before I speak, "Would you like to to arrange a diplomatic solution between yourself and this bandit group? My tribe gave the job of acting as a mediator, I could try to get them to leave your home alone?"
"Diplomatic solution?" Oleg angrily responds.
"After what that damned bowman said he and his boys were gonna do to my Lana if I didn't do what they said? No. I want to see the bastard strung up."
Turning his attention to Tove, Oleg continues. "What would we do? Yeah, we were expectin' a group from Restov to help us, but had no way of actually knowing if someone would show. Without you here it would just be me and Lana. She's tough, but she ain't no warrior."
I place my hands in front of me defensively, "No diplomacy, got it. Would you object to us holding those who surrender though, if we have somewhere we can hold them? If they're as nasty as you say, then I douby they'd surrender, but I'd still like to offer them the chance."
Oleg begins to respond before he is cut off by his wife. "That would seem to be a fair compromise. We'd likely have to do something with the storage pens or maybe even part of the stables, but we can look into that more if we need to."
Looking around at the group and perhaps even more sternly toward her husband, Svetlana asks, "Is that agreeable to everyone involved?"
Glancing between Oleg and Svetlana, Razarak says "I am willing to help however you see fit, and if the surrender then I guess we have to honor that, but if they try anything, then they, in my opinion, lose their status as surenderees"
"Please accept my apologies Oleg, I meant no offence. I merely wanted to suggest that now that we have arrived, we should be making plans for how to gain the upper hand when these bandits return!"
Tove looks toward Svetlana. "I think you'd find a better use of your time preparing a gallows. We'll see these criminals put to justice."
"How well armed are these brigands, and do you know if any can cast magic?"
I look to Razarak, "If they accept my terms of surrender, I'm honour bound to protect them from further harm. However if they breach my terms of surrender, then they shouldn't have my protection. However I'd rather end the battle with as little bloodshed as possible."
I listen to Tove and Bran ask their questions before putting my own forwards, "If I may add some extra questions of my own as well. Which direction do they come, what time do they get here, where are you both while they're here and are your gates open or closed when they arrive?"
"I can't say that I've ever seen any of 'em wiggling their fingers." Oleg says in response to the question of magic.
"With the exception of the woman, who we haven't seen in a while, they all carry swords and bows and have been wearin' leather armor. The woman is a bit better armored and carries a pair of axes."
Svetlana chimes in, "We've been making a habit of closin' the gates the last day of the month, but best we can tell they've been comin' from the south, usually arriving not too terribly long after sunrise."
To Theodore's remaining question, Oleg gruffly responds, "We've both always been here. Where in the Nine Hells else would we go?"
"Ten bandits with bows sounds like we should want to divide them rather than fight them all at once. How fast can that gate be closed, Oleg? And could we borrow a table or two?
"It was only ten bandits the first couple of times they showed up here." Oleg says. "Last time it was just the bowman with six others."
"Seven is not much if we all work together," Bran comments. "Of course, there's more to it that just dealing with this one group."
"If they choose to flee, letting others know that there's resistance might bring about consequences," he points out. "And on the other hand, even if we took killed or captured them all before they escaped, they'll take notice after a day or so when they don't return. We would need to prepare for more coming, ones that would be better prepared and ready to kill. Should there be a whole lot more, they would easily beat us in numbers, and we would have to camp out here lest they attack while we explore the Greenbelt.
"Or we did out the problem by the root, as my folks say. We could let them come and do their thing, then follow them to their hold. Once there, we could figure out the true numbers of this group, check out their defenses, and see if we can't come up with a plan to hit them at the heart of the problem. If they leave often, we can hit at their weakest moment, and set easy ambushes for the rest as they return."
"They have no reason to expect our arrival," says Ivo. "We can make this an ambush. Not all of us have to be in view just for Theo to offer terms."
"The rest will suspect something when their group doesn't return, though," Bran points out. "An ambush will probably only work on the first group."
Torsten looks uncertain, "I am not so very stealthy. Too, this means facing all the bandits - at least a dozen of them - at once. Might it not be better to deal with a smaller number here and to follow their tracks back to their hold to find any more such? Divide and conquer."
"Greypelt and me could very well try to follow their tracks back their hold."
Ivo says, "If they are doing this on the regular they probably have campsites picked out for stops along the way. If their main camp is more than a day away they're not going to ride for several days to shake this place down - they gotta stop and eat and sleep too. So if we can backtrack to their previous campsite we can probably work out the general direction. And if we can find out how much food they're carrying, that will give us an idea of how far - they'll carry less food if their main camp is closer."
"I like the ambush the first group and follow their tracks back plan, better than fighting them all at once, I think."
"I agree. If nothing else, surprising the brigands before they can extort these good people tomorrow morning will spare good Oleg and Svetlana another day's hardship. I'm not sure I could sit back and do nothing while they are robbed before our eyes. And if Bran is confident that he can follow their tracks back to their camp then there is no need to let them walk freely from here."
"I spent a fair amount of time in the woods when not helping out on the farm," Bran explains. "I've found that humanoids in general leave a lot more tracks than animals. And their confidence could easily make them careless in leaving a trail."
"So we'll set an ambush here. Where all do they go when they come here?" Bran asks, turning to Oleg. "Do they all just wait in the courtyard? How long do they stay?"
"I agree, following them or the tracks back to their camp is the tactically superior move. If anyone does accept my terms though, we could always question them about the location of the camp."
I turn to face Oleg, "All I meant, was when they get here, do they see both of you or are you inside? We don't want to cause them a reason to grow cautious."
"The first time they were here, both of us were out in the yard tryin' get some work done. After that, I've made sure Lana's been inside the house." Oleg says.
"I think we should send the wolves out in the woods as an interdiction team if they try to run away, and we should take out the archer first as he will be the farthest away and hardest to catch"Razarak said, "And if they all come inside the compound, we could try to close the gate behind them"
"That sounds like a decent strategy," says Ivo. "If I can get to a good vantage point I can probably counter-snipe their bowman."
I look up at the buildings and the walls "Would we be allowed to be on the roofs and walls, so those who fight at range can do so safely?"
Oleg nods.
"Sure if you think that will help deal with the bastards." sounding the most hopeful that he has sounded in the short time you have known him.
"Obviously I'd like Svetlana to be inside the house during the encounter, just to keep her safe. I'd like you in there as well, so maybe you could go inside once the fighting begins? I assure you we'll solve this matter for you swiftly, so that you can get back to your usual lives in peace."
"How long does it take to shut these gates? They're rather wide. And do all of them come into the courtyard or do some stay outside?"
"I guess that depends on just how many people are workin' on it." Oleg says. "If I'm doin' it by myself it takes a few minutes, might be a bit faster if I hook ol' Claptrap up to the gate."
"We still might be able to trap them inside if the wolves can move in from behind and keep them from getting through while the gates are being closed."
Ivo taps his chin, thinking, then says, "Yeah, I don't think we have the means to rig up any way to close it more easily. Should we have some cover out in the yard for you folks? A wagon or hay bales or something? Or is everyone gonna be waiting in the buildings?"
"I think I could close one of the gates, once they're all in and then offer my terms. They'll feel trapped and be more likely to accept, especially if we take out their boss. Who else could push a gate closed?"