"No, I don't think you're understanding how this goes. The Jester is ours and we're taking him back-dead or alive-but he's ours and not yours." Wager hefts his guisarme into the air and his men ready to fire their bows.
The archers let their arrows fly!
Wager moves forward, swinging at Max with his guisarme along the way, stopping near the wall to the party's right.
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Remaining his inimitable self even with three arrows in his flesh, Rosham responds derisively, On the contrary, my dim-witted fool: I think we're understanding precisely how this goes — you attempt to chide us, then follow it up with a bad decision...and you each pay for it with your lives.
The Taldan Magus casts haste on the group, then moves around the right side of the stones to the spot on the map, drawing his falcata along the way.
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"Hahaha..." Maximo stops when the first arrow sprouts from his shoulder. "Hello.. Oof!" He steps back as the second finds him, and staggers from Wager's slashing guisarme.
Stumbling away from Wager, he calls out to his goddess. "Shelyn, show us grace!" He throws his arms wide, channeling energy to heal himself and his companions.
Darius steps over to Wager and lands one blow against the man. Rosham gives his party faster movement. Ignatious summons a wall of fire to block off the archers and Alie follows Darius' lead in protecting herself with multiple images. Max quickly heals himself up after several wounds.
Wreck moves up and deals Wager a devastating blow. Backed into a corner and surrounded, with his men separated from him and unable to support him with their archery, Wager calls out, "All right! That's enough! You can have Sabas!"
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Wreck pulls back and punches the man with his fist, payback for getting his friends hurt!
He growls at the man
"You hurt Wreck's friends! Waaaaaagh!"
-Posted with Wayfinder
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"Then we may go stop something terribly evil from happening in peace. See, fire solves everything. Well that and non-Taldan,. . . initiative."Stopping suddenly, as if the thought just occurred to him and infinitely more important than the still very possible threat of harm. "Miss Alie. Do you think I should grow a beard?"
I'll also offer to heal everyone, including the mortal that attacked us and his men. "Mommy thinks I must, though Father is less forgiving, and against it."
"Sabas was sent as a spy from the Disarens. He was supposed to report right back after getting ahold of whatever he was stealing. But he stopped reporting so my brother Baran was sent to track him down. Then Baran stopped reporting and we assumed that Sabas had betrayed us and taken whatever he found for his own gain. We were just looking for the bastard so I could find my brother and hear the whole story. But fine, be on your way. As long as Sabas is taken down and I find out what happened to my brother."
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"Well, well. So you admit to employing a spy." Maximo shakes his head as he approaches Wager. Tugging straight his coat, he flicks away blood and arrow holes as one might do to lint and fluff. "Caught doing such things are beneath anobleman. It is fortunate your strongarm diplomacy didn't lead to any unfortunate deaths. I am sure House Disaren would not like to lose such promising archers."
Looking to one if the archers, he gives a slight nod an thumps his breastplate. "Excellent bowmanship. Nearly hit the bull's eye! Hah!"
Back to Wager, he bows. "When the Jester is found, and truths are discovered, you shall be informed. Now, my friends, shall we press on?"
The jester’s trail winds through a tangled thicket along the marshy banks of a silt-clogged canal. Foul secretions drip from the withered trees, and broad patches of ground lie barren, as if scorched.
Almost lost in the thorny tangle, structures crumble beside the abandoned canal. Heaped debris—the remains of the pumps and waterwheels that once powered the canal’s locks—clutters their interior. The battered structures now guard a causeway of broken stone and tangled driftwood, a crude dam allowing foot traffic to avoid the swamps that line the silt-filled canal.
Torn body parts lie scattered near the buildings. Bright spatters of blood discolor the bleached stone walls and lie smeared in wide swaths across the ground.
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"Big fight. Wreck miss it. Maybe people would still be alive. Wreck say us find killer and make killer dead too " the half orc growls at the slaughter
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With a final look about, Rosham sighs audibly. Well. Back to town, then?
On the way out, he directs Pryor, his herald (and general flunkie) to take meticulous notes about the location and the general state of disrepair. He gives Pryor a verbal thrashing about the sloppy penmanship and the overall lack of elegance to the missive before pressing his signet ring on the seal of the real estate purchase offer to be delivered to Grand Prince Stavian on behalf of House Bowe.
With a shake of his head as the hapless Pryor scuttles off, he absently says to Maximo, Best there was, they said. Won't regret it a day in your life, they said. Gracious.
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Maximo observes the scene in silence for a few moments. It is like the old campaign. That town near the Qadiran border. He says a brief prayer to Shelyn for the dead.
"I had a manservant once. Pinche was his name." Maximo looks off wistfully for a brief second, then scowls. "Old fool got himself captured by pirates and left me to carry my own bags like some kind of common hobo!"
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With a final look about, Rosham sighs audibly. Well. Back to town, then?On the way out, he directs Pryor, his herald (and general flunkie) to take meticulous notes about the location and the general state of disrepair. He gives Pryor a verbal thrashing about the sloppy penmanship and the overall lack of elegance to the missive before pressing his signet ring on the seal of the real estate purchase offer to be delivered to Grand Prince Stavian on behalf of House Bowe.
With a shake of his head as the hapless Pryor scuttles off, he absently says to Maximo, Best there was, they said. Won't regret it a day in your life, they said. Gracious.
On the way back, I'll introduce Pryor to the gloriousness that is the Sliver Crusade and the benefits of dedicating one's life and faith to the Holy Flame or Heaven's Vengeance, offering the poor man a respite from drudgery and an opportunity to convert, or at least an honest chance to find a piece of wisdom that he might endure such trials throughout his life.
The offer is, of course extended to all, though throughout I simply continue to fail why even a nation like Taldor has not already accepted the goodness and purity of the Redeeming Inferno. I realize that there is a certain amount of, mortality at play, but can't comprehend just how they can fail to see the candle in the darkness for so long, even when it is pointed out. At the very least, it makes the trip go, .
Once we get back to town, I guess start asking around some more?
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Wreck was silent. He always carried his own things. No one was ever available or willing to carry his things
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Once a proud trade town, Taldor’s slow decline and the failing canal have left Rhoetius a crumbled ruin. On the muddy shores of the lake jut parapets of crumbling limestone, their stones missing and walls broken. A massive gateway yawns open, its original doors long since lost to decay, but its vacant expanse is blocked by an improvised barrier of lashed wooden stakes, ten feet high.
Towers on either side of the gateway hold bandit sentries. One of them calls down, "You're here for the auction, right? There's some empty buildings where you can make yourselves comfortable if you like."
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"Wreck not good at talking fancy or things. Wreck will just be body guard. Wreck say friend Maximo be bidder person" he suggests
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Walking into the ruins, the party notes several structures that have been erected or hastily fixed-up from the remains of former structures, each of them seeming to house a different faction here to bid on items in the upcoming auction, which the Jester seems to have organized behind the backs of everyone, including his own employers. Doubtless he wishes to cash in on the objects he has stolen and make off with the profit.
The cured skins of several plains lions are strewn about one partially-collapsed ruin. The least degenerate of the bandit gangs represented here, the Lionbanes count a handful of renegade centaurs in their numbers. Their leader, the centaur Gwyndryda, hopes to bring the urn to the druids of the Verduran Forest, using it to buy pardon for offenses committed in her homeland.