"Build a kingdom? Fortify? This place fell to the Bandits once... you should strike at them now, before they know you're here!"
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Kesten Garess is obviously confounded by the conversation "Kesten - of the Garess family, of Restov. I'm a soldier. What do you mean I've been appointed Ambassador? Who's Hargran? The dwarf? Isn't he dead?" he shakes his head "Look - I appreciate you saving me. Not sure how - even on a good horse Svetlana could only barely have gotten back to Brevoy before you turned up. But can someone explain what's happening!"
"Who do you think I am asks Garess, eyes narrowing. I haven't committed any crimes, AND I'M NOT AN AMBASSADOR!"
Garess looks at Arioch and obviously takes this as some sort of snide attack on his country.
Arioch: Well he believes it. Also, he doesn't seem to have been very keen on the idea in the first place... although there are some of them he seems to miss - presumably Seelah and the others who didn't turn up. He's taking the comment as a snide attack on his country, but is biting his tongue because you did save his life.
"Eighteen more. Not all returned with the bandits though, and I heard some were going elsewhere." At odds with his educated background he spits on the ground "They had everything. A more mixed group of adventurers I've never seen." here the ambassador uses adventurers as an epithet. "Mostly youngish, but experienced. Except for one old man who cast the spell that put me down."
Garess looks around
Putting it off to some strange verbal tic of the people who saved his life he continues anyway "This used to be Oleg's Trading Post. Set up by Brevoy to help civilise the Stolen Lands. Only ones here now are your men and myself. The Bandits finished looting it and were on the way out - they just wanted to wait to hang me first." It is obvious the ambassador has had a hard enough day that he is mentally and physically exhausted - and probably emotionally numb. "The Trading Post was to be the core of a new kingdom. A bunch of heroes and mercenaries were recently given a charter." the bitterness when he says heroes is palpable. "About a week past past they all set off chasing rumours of some local Bandit 'King' and vanished." "One of 'em - the only good one - was Seelah. She came racing back on her horse yesterday. Sent Svetlana off to 'get help from the swordlords', but I now think that might have just been an excuse to send her off and save her." "There were only eight of us here trying to guard the fort. We had fortifications, but the Bandits turned up with thirty men, half of the 'heroes' and some deer-horned Bandit." "Astounding we held off as long as we did. Seelah kept us all going, and her horse killed at least two men when the gate fell. I was knocked out at that point, so I'm not sure what else happened. The horned bandit woke me up and gave me a chance to swear to him, but I spat on him instead." He smiles grimly at the memory of defiance. "So he said to hang me, rather than killing me in battle, then to bury me in the midden and torch the keep. Fortunately the Bandits took long enough getting drunk first they made my hanging a party, which meant I lived long enough to be rescued." "Not that I wish to question my good fortune, but I do wonder why you showed up." |