"I fancy we should look to our borders. Pavetta's children, certainly, should be secured in some location where they cannot be exploited. And we still no very little about our dragon."
"Either way works for me, Chief." He then looks to Malaswyn through narrowed eyes. "Yeah. 'Our dragon'. We need to find out everything we can about that one. I've got some 'payback time' for that piece of reptile dung."
"That will be difficult, as we still know next to nothing" Oberlin says with a frown.
"Perhaps tomorrow, I would be of more use in town, attempting access to a library, rather than engaging in the festivities?"
"I imagine that I would need some letter or writ to get inside on short notice. We may need to fenagle our host to obtain it however..." Oberlin grimaced.
"Whatever you think is the best here liege, I am at a loss otherwise on how to proceed."
If he hasn't reported in by the time you are ready with the spell, we'll reach out to him. Kriger, if you want to prowl around some, I trust your skills to be discreet."
Malaswyn raises an eyebrow, "My lady's gifts do include a sending if that is what we require."
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If he hasn't reported in by the time you are ready with the spell, we'll reach out to him. Kriger, if you want to prowl around some, I trust your skills to be discreet."
"Actually, Chief, if it's okay with you, I'd be interested in seeing what Marcel has come up with. And to be honest, I'm pretty good at being discreet but not like Marcel. That fella could walk into a prayer vigil with bells on and still nobody would hear him," he confesses, albeit rather unwillingly. "By the way, don't tell him I said that. He'll think he's better than me and we just can't have that. Because then he'd just become too overconfident and then he would slack and then he'd probably get himself killed... you know what I mean." He explains, giving a wink.
"Aww Kriger, I didn't know you cared..." a voice says from the shadows of the tent, "...sort of..."
Marcel stands up from where he was sitting in the dark corner of their pavilion. Padding softly into the soft light of the lanterns, he nods briefly to Kalsgrim. "I apologize for my sudden disappearance. It seems like we have walked into a nest of hornets, the murderous kind, and I felt my talents would be best used in the shadows, rather than feasting or watching Kriger fail to cut a log in two. Not that I saw that or anything." he says with a wink.
"I don't think it matters which way we turn, or how we handle each thing Irovetti throws at us. He will twist it to his benefit. React aggressively? We are the angry unstable neighbor. Stay quiet and silent? We are weak and unfit to make tough decisions. While the Rushlight Tournament has been going for some time under him, Irovetti has always used this event to make himself look like the better option, and put Pitax in the best light."
"My recommendation would be to act in the way we want to be seen, in accordance with our core values. At least we can leave with a clear conscience that we stuck to our beliefs. Even if we can't control Irovetti's spin."
"The matter of Pavetta's children is more delicate. If we look like we are imprisoning them, we come off in the worst light." he pauses to think. "I think we are in the right if we delay in name of the 'safety of the children'. The roads between Pitax and Frieland are fraught with peril."
It takes a few attempts to safely have a look at the content of the couriers' satchels, but manage to get your hand on one and put it back without getting noticed. The couriers were all diligent and never left their satchels out of their reach, but even that did not stop you.
The letter you see is, unfortunately encrypted... To your eye, the content looks like gibberish in a language no one on this plane should be able to speak.
"As far as what Irovetti is up to, all I can surmise is that there are an inordinate amount of couriers going back and forth from his pavilion. Some from Pitax, some from other places. They carry coded notes in their satchels. I was not able to decipher them, unfortunately."
"Were you able to copy them? Or at the very least could you replicate a section?" Oberlin asks patiently.
"Decoding arcane information might be considered a specialty of mine." Oberlin reminds him.
"No." Marcel replies. "Tracking a half-dozen couriers, getting into their satchels, reading the messages, and returning the notes undetected was about all I could handle. I might be able to remember some of the cipher...although I'd think the contents would be diplomatic, not arcane."
Marcel manages to reproduce a few lines accurately.
** spoiler omitted **
"Aww Kriger, I didn't know you cared..." a voice says from the shadows of the tent, "...sort of..."
Marcel stands up from where he was sitting in the dark corner of their pavilion. Padding softly into the soft light of the lanterns, he nods briefly to Kalsgrim. "I apologize for my sudden disappearance. It seems like we have walked into a nest of hornets, the murderous kind, and I felt my talents would be best used in the shadows, rather than feasting or watching Kriger fail to cut a log in two. Not that I saw that or anything." he says with a wink.
Kriger doesn't budge as an annoyed grin forms while shaking his head. "See? I told you. Of course, I knew he was behind us the whole time," he lies freely but sports a wry grin. "But he's getting better, I'll give him that," he returns a jab from the rogue with one of his own.
"I say our Chief goes out there and destroys the competition tomorrow. What better way to embarrass Irovetti and his dog food of a team. We need to WIN! And win big," he says with an emphatic nod.
Malaswyn will cast comprehend languages, in case that helps, and look over the text.
[ooc]I will have to wait until the morning to prepare new spells.[/ooc[
Oberlin pours over the few lines of text, attempting to parse out some modicum of meaning.
"There is something about this phrase here..." Oberlin muttered as his finger traced the line of text, "Its familiar, but I might need a few more lines to make it out. Let me think about this a bit more." Oberlin finished with a sound of resignation.
The fragment is short and reads something like:
Circular maneuver completed. Units undetected. Ready to strike.
Yours in victory,
Jurrg
This sounds pretty bad. In the morning, when the group wakes back home (assuming we are continuing with the Word of Recall + Teleport plan) Malaswyn will want to call together the party plus their advisors, including his niece) before casting a lot of divination spells.
Malaswyn explains the message to his companions, "We need to understand this better. It does not bode well. This is what it says:
'Circular maneuver completed. Units undetected. Ready to strike.
Yours in victory,
Jurrg.' "
You have a contact here at the tournament, a woman named Arinetta, who's one of the persons in charge of banquet arrangements.
For your network, how do you stay informed when in the wild?
I probably would have gone to see Arinetta reasonably quickly to get a sense of what was happening once we had gotten here; or I can work that out now.
Your network hasn't mentioned troop movements as far as you could tell.
Let me know what you would like to do next.
"I have a contact here at the tournament. I'm going to see if she has heard anything specifically related to us."
Marcel nods. He plans to be all eyes and ears - more than normal.
Malaswyn makes obeisance to Sarenrae in Her temple at dawn then next day. Then he enters into a deep prayer to commune with the servants of the Everlight.