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While I am sorry to see the game end now, I fully understand. It's a pity, though - I like it, and even though my day is a tight commute between work, hospital and my father's house right now, I always looked forward to it. Still, thank you for these kind words, hopefully your commitments leave you time for what's best in life (and no, I am not quoting Conan here ;) )
Anya smiled as the man laid out his achievements, and his offers of future assistance. She weighed his words very carefully - of course she was not seriously considering replacing Alandra, or even letting such a blatant powerplay go unanswered, but she had to come up with a response that neither curtailed her options all too much, nor gave him any kind of encouragement. "You make a good point about the state of my reign. We are small, and we are not yet fully equipt. We are, in many ways, a babe in the crib." Anya rose, and moved towards her friend. "Can you tell me as well as my friend what needs to be done when a child moves into the world? When the pain subsides and the babe is stuck in the womb? Or when it fails to cry for life?"
Fully expecting to have some impact - these man had wifes, whose labors had assuredly been overseen by Pharismin priests - Anya turned her attention back to the man. "Abadar is a god fully worthy of all praise we may give him. I am glad to have you here, and I am looking forward to hearing your advice when I call for it. For the time being, though, matters of our metaphorical birth are close to my mind as well. I would invite you to contribute to the spirtual wellfare of our nation. Though there is one limitation - the shrine currently being build is for the cornerstones my people's lives. The births, the deaths and the destiny that lies between them. I will gladly visit your sermons in any other safe space. If you wish to raise money to build your own chapel, I will gladly aid you in finding a suitable location."
Anya smiled as the priest made his introduction... more because of his reaction as he saw Alandra than for his presence, but she did try to not let this show all too obviously. "Thank you for arriving on such short notice. I know your time is precious, as is mine." She waited for him to make at least some token gesture of submission - or any kind of acknowledgement of her newfound station. This would set the tone for this meeting in no small part, after all. "It has come to my attention that there has been some trouble as to the shrine we are currently erecting? Now, since you come here with the backing of such prominent citizens, please do tell me what the matter entails." She just hoped Alandra had the self-control to keep calm - these men needed to be made to feel safe. Otherwise, the truth would never come out. She needed to clear this up quickly - and was hungry for a success after begrudgingly deciding not to take part in the tournamet herself - but too many people had rightfully remarked that living down the accusation of unfairness should she acutally amount to anything would be a bigger pain than any price and standing gain was worth.
"Please, you need not do that." Anya blushingly replied to her friend. "You are one of my council, Alandra. Doing that is only needed on the most official business. Otherwise, I would like to have your honest views and opinions - and that usually works much better at eye level
As Anya heard Alandra's concerns, her expression turned grim, and she immediately postponed the meeting she had originally planned. "Alandra, I'm sorry. I had hoped this man to be reasonable - a chance for you to grow into your new rank of high priestess in the eyes of your peers. It seems, though, that this man needs a sterner reminder. " Once again, she privately cursed their blindness in any underhanded business. "I'll see who might be able to get some facts about this man. I can't promise I'll find anything, but I'll try." She motioned Irian to come closer "Make sure I have the afternoon off. Gathering knowledge may take time, but if he wants to talk to me, tell the Priest I summon him." Back towards Alandra, she added. "We'll have to make him recognize these titles are not just for show. By disrespecting your rank as religious leader, he disrespects my choice. Just as you must look beyond your own faith and decide what is best for the community, he must trust that judgement." With a grin, she added "I leave it to you if you want to be part of my little chat with the man. Being there could be interesting, but you will have to trust me, even if I say things you don't like." While Irian was preparing an official writ of summons, and delivering it to the wayward priest, she briefly consulted with Oleg. "Oleg, I thought long and hard on your taxation plans. We should try to generate revenue quickly, but we need to maintain our pull on new settlers. I would suggest taking taxes slightly below Brevoy levels. People won't love it, but its still a better deal, and we have less labors and noble privilege to boot. Do you think that would put us into the black before our current supplies become critically scarce?"
Anya listened to Batsukan's suggestion patiently, but her eyes did not light up with agreement. "A very worthwhile project, but before we try to assemble cavarly units in earnest, we should first build our infrastructure to match. We would need at least a competant weaponsmith to keep them equipt and a formalized war academy to train them. I would think that for the moment, putting a little money in sponsoring the wardens to own private horses may have more effect. In time, we will girt ourselves for war, but right now, I think Winter is our most pressing..." Her monologue would probably have continued the mollifying explanaitions for a while longer, had it not been for Irian Formerly. The young elf (who looked boyish despite being easily thrice Anya's age in years) had become Anyas informal private secretary in the past few months. Nicknamed for his habit of introducing himself als "Irian, formerly of Kyonin", the elf had left his home after some kind of scandal - possibly due to his penchant for writing poetry that not only kept crossing the lines of good taste towards the bawdy every other stanca. Still, life as a bureaucrat seemed to suit him, and his capable hands took much of the mundane shuffling of papers from Anya. Right then, he just briefly touched Anya's shoulder, and she turned to him. "Irian, what is it?" He smiled, and announced that a representative of one of the relatively wealthy familes had arrived. Anya swiftly told him to keep them entertained until she closed council.
"Alright, more to the point. What can we achieve in the next month?" She focussed her attention back to the cloth map rolled out on the table, with small felt markers scattered to represent their holdings, major landmarks and known perils.
Anya looked Lev over, then decided it was best to cut this behaviour in the bud. As flattering as deference was, it was not what she needed from the council. "Lev, voice your thoughts. Any of you. I need to know when you think I do the wrong thing. I may not always agree, but I at least want to have that much warning." She picked up his train of thought. "What risks do you see about the loggers? As far as I can see, they are some gold in our coffers." She had resolved not to poke into each of her friend's affairs too deeply, but tried to stay on top of things this way. As Alandra voiced her distaste, she perked up. "I had hoped you and the other priest would work things out on your own - as you know I am not that big on worship and any particular god. If you want, I can try to mediate, but 'fore i can put a spymaster on him, we'd first need one. That's something I wouldn't let my father help us about for any price in the world, just so you know. We need someone competent, utterly loyal and discrete. Very tough to find, that."
Anya sat in council with strongly mixed feelings. On the one hand (and she felt the most important one), they were doing well. The tourney was going to seem frivolous to a ledgers-man like Oleg, but she hoped to make a tradition out of it - one that would pay for the initial investment in time, and then some. Yet the speed they were burning through their resources (as if they were really theirs) was frightening. They needed to stop riding this bull very soon, and limit their expenditures to what their little kingdom could support - or their creditors and benefactors would all too soon own the crown, regardless on whose head it rested. "Oleg, I know this will be another expense, but we need to start generating more food. Would you agree we can expand our farmlands further north, and west into the edge of the woodlands? We should not mince words here - there is plenty of game to be had, and for the time being, I need to have my people fed much more urgently than I need to enforce some noble privilege on the boar and venison".She walked the council table up and down, uneasly surveying the map. "If i remember correctly, there was some gold to be had - lets safe that for springtime, when we can more easily afford a strong influx of settlers." She trusted her friends above all else to handle any situation, but the vacancies in some key positions were more than troubling. Perhaps, even though she would dearly hate to owe her family any amount of money, there was something they could do. "Friends, I have thought long and hard about something, and would like your opinions. My father has offered to support us - and I am inclined to follow through on that offer. No, Lev, before you object to anything - I will not take his money, and only accept a small part of what he had in mind. Enough to be grateful, and keep him warm for further aid, if we need it - but not enough to go into his plans too deeply. Unless you object, I will ask him for Alexej. A cousin of min, even though you'd never think so if you saw it. He fast approaches his fiftieth winter now, and has so far amounted to little in the family - but he is a wizard, though of no major talent. Smart enough to teach children their letters and numbers, and to not make us seem like the worst backwater on Golarion's far reaches."
Anya nodded at Alannah's comment. "Yes, that makes sense. We can't keep trophies of every kill we make, but these have potential beyond the moment. They are degenerate, twisted and immature, but still they are dragons." She herself wouldn't dream of claiming the Dragonslayer title over them, but if that happened to gain a foothold in the pulic mind, she certainly wouldn't mind it either. As they went to work skinning the tatzelworms, she had another idea. "We should check with Oleg, but I have half a mind to commission a set of armor from this, and put it out as a price for some kind of competition. A fencing tournament, maybe? It would serve as a good promotion, giving our people exotic faces and a distraction from the hardships."
Finally, after evading yet another of the beast's angry assaults, Anya had found what she had been looking for - an opening. With a decisive leap, she nearly stradled the worm as she drove both of her blades into its back, butting her entire body-weight behind the thrusts.
Still, the tough hide of the Tatzelworm gave her some trouble, but either strike drew foul blood, and her risky maneuver had left her in a position the worm would be hard-pressed to retaliate effectively.
Anya avoided the beast by a narrow piroette, but Alannah wasn't as lucky. She had counted on her to retreat somewhat, avoid the jaws of the beast. Now, that option was gone, and she had to be all the faster in dispatching the beast. She closed in half a step, struck left, struck right, before jumping back - hoped that the worm-like dragonkin was too occupied with Alannah to effectively strike back despite her recklessness.
Anya didn't have time to actually call out in surprise. Her focus narrowed, her eyes settled on the monsters. They had been fast. They had gotten closer than she would have liked - had she gotten her way, they might have killed one from a distance, before the others would be able to close in. Alannah was was the most exposed of her friends. Lev and Batsuka would manage just fine, but the archer was going to be in trouble. She jumped from the horse , drew her blades as she moved besides her friend, and gauged the monster. Big, dangerous and unlikely to fall for any fancy feints and maneuvers. Again. This battle would be testing their ability to do damage faster than the monsters stopped being cautious and not throwing their entire mass into the fight.
Anya felt slightly at a loss how to respond to the orphan. The little girl was clearly trying to avoid incurring her anger, and intimidated - but Anya had no clue how to bridge that distance, make her less frightened. Maybe there wasn't any way, after what she had just suffered through. "You have been very brave, and telling us has been very helpful." She tried to smile at her, but her seriousness couldn't quite be dispelled that easily. Whatever these worms were, they were dangerous and quite too close. She looked down on herself, but found no small trinket or bauble that might be comforting. So instead she crouched down close to her, and spoke to the girl at eye level. "Thanks to your quick wits and quick feet, you managed to live. That is a great gift your Ma and Pa gave you, and I will help you make the most of it. Bergan, my Counciler, will make sure you find a good home, where you will be save and you will be loved."
Anya put down a marker on the western waterfront where the orphan girl had been found, and thumbed it slightly. "We got caught with our pants down here. We are underprepared for the settlement. Usually, we should have secured a few miles to either side of our borders, to ward against any surprises. Things went too fast, but we should, as a principle, adher to this in the future." She briefly weighed her options, then added "Alright, here is what I propose: We will convert the area around Nettle's Crossing to farmlands. Its close to the river, but not boggy, and we might be able to get a harvest of winter barley through before the weather turns too cold - and further expand our borders northward, towards Mite's old lair. All the while, we first deal with this crisis, and then create the buffer of secured land we should have created in the first place." With a winning smile towards Elsbeth, she asked "Or would any of you plan things differently?"
"Of course we build up defensive armies. Who knows, we may eventually even go to war. Right now, we need to worry about defense only. Doing otherwise we ruin our reputation with Brevoy, we incite the very lawlessness that we just bled out of this land." She took a gulp from her wine. "That is not to say we don't intend to expand. I am looking for input here, but from what I remember, we had found a good bit of gold further north. If we focus on that direction, and bring it into our control, that would be a real boost to our growth, even if it plays out in a few years." She looked at the rough map on their central table. "Another matter is the boy with the slain parents. We should take care of that, right soon. It could look really good if we brought the guilty to justice quickly - or really badly if we don't seem to care about an orphan."
Anya looked at their newest accomplice with some degree of shock, after she had nodded quietly to his plans to getting past subsistence-level economics quickly. "Just to make it plain from the get-go. The River Provinces are known as the Bandit Kingdoms by some. If I have anything to say about it, this has ended when we came here. We are not going to go raiding our neighbours. We are not going to sponsor highwaymen."
The frantic pace of setting up their new capitol, drafting laws and rules that were not Brevoy's own, but did not deviate too far off to be cause for concern in the parent kingdom, tending to the everyday duties of rulership (she never would have expected just how frequently someone had to "check back at the top") soon kept Anya from the brooding and over-involvement with every step she had attempted during the first few days. She had grown used to stamping edicts with the fine engravings in her new sword's pommel - a cocky wasp inside a spiral, once again inside a disk that she liked to think off as a coin. Three gods she held dear and near to her heart, and (despite the seeming frivolity of Calistria) she privately considered essential in the success of her reign. They would have to be smart, vindictive and willing to take risks to stand against the larger, more established powers. They would be rudderless in the storms of fate, and death would more than once have them in its jaws, ready to swallow if they let it - and ultimately, Abadar was going to be crucial, as taming and making safe a swath of wilderness was one of the acts this god embodied. Matters of justice, such as the three captured scavengers, she had resolved to handle fairly but with strictness. While privately, she wanted to let everyone but the most heinous criminals off with the lessons to start a better life, she knew she had to set examples. So she heard the case, saw the things the men had taken. "You have tried to steal from all of us. The river kingdoms have a saying. A 'Freedom' as they call it. 'You have what you hold'. We'll keep what is ours. And offer you a choice. You can swear yourself to Schwertmark's service, for a year. You will be clothed and fed, but work hard day in and day out, receive neither praise nor pay. Or you can not take this oath, and lose a hand, so you don't ever attempt to hold something you don't rightly have." The strange sensibilities of the River Nations had prevented her from just indenturing them outright - it might have been viewed as slavery, and the river kingdoms took a right dim view of that. But them submitting "voluntarily" should not cause any ruffled feathers - neither with the new colonists, nor with the locals. Or so she hoped." She had just drafted a formal invitation to the Abadaran priest, when the news of the dead family reacher her. Somewhat reluclantly she put down the feather, and decided to look into the matter, before bringing it up in the morning council. The priest would just have to wait, and Alandra to suffer his "interference" for a while longer.
Anya snswered the foreign-looking Warrior's introduction in all form, before settling down to business with him. "That sounds like a very good idea. In fact, feeling the people's pulse, so to speak, has been something I have thought a lot on, lately. It is one thing to hold court and settle grievances. It is quite another to make sure laws are upheld, understood and even known to the people." She tried to overlook his unfamiliar features, and trust in the Lord Chanellor's knowledge, but still could not resist scanning his face time and again for any hint of just what that strange otherness in his features might be? Elven Blood? No. Lev looked nothing like him. Some darker influence, like the Hellborn she had read about in the Chelish Novellas? Unlikely, there was nothing sinister about it.
Anya was seemingly omnipresent after her brothers departure, taking a personal interest not only in the big picture, but seemingly into every private one as well. She could not possibly have any time left for herself, but her concerned looks grew more so each day. Not only because she had grown quite fond of her half-brother during their reunion, but also because the weight of rulership was settling on her in an ever more real fashion. Slaying Auchs had been hard on her, harder that it ought to have been, but the sobbing simpleton had been a rapist and murderer before circumstance alone had forced into the childlike state he displayed. It was the only fair judgement, and as her father had been fond of saying: "If you cannot wield the blade, you ought not wield the gavel." Additionally, she was franticly piecing together her lessons in rulership and the sciences of state. She had never been considered a likely successor - in fact, with so many brothers and eager uncles, cousins and "friends of the family" eager to console a widow, her catching so much as a glimpse of even her family-branches head had been close to out of the question. Consequently, her lessons had been an afterthought. She knew she would claim the title, but she also knew her friends not only deserved to be held in council - she was in dire need of them. Many important fields she would have to fill with relatively unproven and potentially untrustworthy people. She mentally counted them out to their positions, and found glaring holes whichever way she turned things. She would need outside advisors, and it galled her greatly to rely on strangers. But could Oleg be convinced to abandon his isolated trading post for equally rough comfort of a new colony, with additional responsibilities and only a slim hope of comfortable retirement? Could she really foist an office of state on a reformed bandit like Bergan? And if so, what was he even qualified in doing? The mad hermit Bokken wasn't a suitable magister, or was he? These questions kept her awake at night, and deeper shadows clouded her eyes each morning.
Anya nodded, still flush with excitement. "yes, that would be for the best, I think. We should meet back here within two weeks. This fortress is too well-situated to simply abandon, and Oleg's is getting a bit far off-field for a home base anyway. We should look into settling in in earnest here.
Anya looked in astonishment as the creature fell. She could almost feel the weight lifting, even more than when the Staglord had been felled. These lands were no longer stolen - they were about to be reclaimed. "I went over what to say this very moment so many times, in my mind and in the quiet hours of night. Finally, I settled on not saying much. No grand speeches, because those with me need them not. No grand celebrations, because those with me will reap much more than any simple feast or party could express." She turned to face her companions, and gave them a beaming smile. "We did it. We won the day. Now, lets work on securing the month and year!"
Anya shot another arrow at the wolverine, aiming high as to avoid endangering her brother.
While all she scored was a glancing blow, it was enough to draw blood, and maybe keep the creature distracted.
Anya wasted no time once the ant-thing was defeated, going for the... roof-thing, for lack of a better term. She swiftly gauged if she could reach the roof with her weapons, and found them lacking - so she put them away, and prepared the bow she had claimed earlier.
Anya cursed under her breath, and began to emerge even into her brother's front. "Then we got to move fast. Remember the Kobold Caves, everyone" As far as the sunrod shed its light, she scanned the room in front of them, moving into it as needed.
Anya stopped as Alannah raised her protest. She turned around, making sure to not be within his reach beforehand. "I know. Bringing him back to Oleg's will make the trip much harder, since we not only need to watch for stragglers, but also make sure he doesn't run off, killing us on the way. If you think it is worth the effort, though - I will not protest too much. It is a much better signal."
"Actually, I agree." Anya said. She hadn't been prepared to be the simpleton's defender. Her the least, after how badly she had been wounded by him. "I am not going to let him run free. I am not going to risk anyone's life for misguided pity." She looked Auchs over one more time, and found only... revulsion with a tiny tinge of pity. She finally spoke, quietly as she could "He dangerous, more than dangerous. He combines the cruelty and thoughtlessness of a child with the apetites and cruelty of a grown man's darkest side. He must die." She drew her shorter blade, and approached him. "Rope is not a choice, I think. He'd fight it." She was going to calmly speak to him, not give him a chance to realize what she was going to do, and slay him with only one swift strike, below the ribs.
"I'm right behind you, brother. If we can, we should pincer any foes... between your power and my... let's just say, willingness to strike where it counts - we should be fine." Anya half-jokingly answered
Anya looked at the scene Elsbeth was making, "just barely bemused" like her. Her neck tingled, and she suddely found the whole issue more interesting by magnitudes. "I think you underestimate us, but be that as it may... the whole purpose of the issue is to judge in calmness rather than in hot blood." It had another, secondary purpose. By these proceedings, they were developing a legitimacy beyond the exterminators they had been playing at. Rulers held courts, while adventurers only did what it took. "I disagree with you on one thing, Lev. This fort is valuable. It is in bad shape, true - but we should clear it out, and make it ours. Oleg's is a good base for exploring these lands, but think about what this fort can do for us in the future. Burning it to the ground erases that option."
Anya returned to her friends, grim-faced. "We are not done yet. There is someone waiting in the cellars. Lets prepare as best we can, rest up if we must - but I don't want this fort half-taken and ready for another occupation by bandits." Regarding the simpleton's face, the gears had ground to an acceptable position, and she looked at her friend Elbesth with suprising openness. "We will prepare court here. Hear what he has to say for himself, and decide a suitable punishment calmly, not in hot blood."
Anya, like her brother, started to take inventory of the many dead bodies they had just created, moving much easier thanks to Pharasma's blessings. "Let us take inventory of this fortress, but keep an eye out. There might be more bandits waiting in ambush. Their leader is dead, but the desperate beast is the deadliest."
Anya held her enchanted shortsword hovering just fraction of an inch from the simpleton's throat. She still had tearshot eyes, and was breathing heavily. Killing someone in cold blood was anything but appealing, but giving the brutal man another chance to do more harm than he could begin to fathom - her wounds and pain were too fresh to really suggest that. "Someone else be the judge of him, brother. If I slay him now, I would never know if it was for revenge or because of what he did." "Asmodeus' Ankles, and I visited the Wasp's grove a month ago. When did I grow so soft?" She wondered aloud, but the sudden flash of Mawj's face before her inner eye answered that question better than any words could have.
Anya found herself pincered between Akiros and the idiot, her brave, foolish brother getting back up from close to death's door. She could do no other, she had to help him. Besides, the slugging match with the idiot was not going to end well without aid - better she received it than the simpleton, who felt like he very nearly broke every rib she had.
She only made a brief sequence of a half-turn, upward stab of the short sword, downward slash of the duelling blade. Graceful in its economy of action, beautiful in its clarity - and an absolute torture to suffer through. Distracted as Akiros was, he could do nothing to lessen the impact, turn the blade or prevent its full effect. "Happy to help, big brother" she managed to gasp out, as another half-turn brought her back to fully focus on the oaf.
Anya felt a red rage descend upon her, as the pain mounted, and even Alandra's continued blessings could not shake the primal "frenzy" as easily as her trained mind should allow. She needed a moment, to free her mind, free herself, and stop going where she was ill-equipt to win - into a simple grudge-match with the simpleton on who could bear more punishment, or dish it out more quickly instead of who could calculate the next move better, and strike where it counted, when it counted. But with a focussing breath, and a silent invocation of Razmir, she managed to shake the animal nature off a little bit. She circled half a step, turned her injured side away from the simpleton, and towards the newst opponent. Breathed, shakingly, and tried to once again create a saner fighting environment. Start from the ready position. Strike, strike offhanded, circle, restore distance.
Once again, she drew blood, this time more tellingly, close to the neck artery. As she restored her distance, she huffed "Stand down, and you get a fair trial", but like Akiros, there was very little she could do, locked in mortal combat as she was. The turncoat would likely get away, and as galling as it was... she was to practical to make much of an issue out of this blessing - they were well-matched right there and then.
Though annoyed at the big brute's peristence, the channeled energy Alandra had blessed her with did not only reduce the pain to a much more manageable level - it also reminded her that they were in fact outnumbering the brutes now, that Lev would be ok, that the most dangerous opponent lay in dust already.
Ducking past another of the clumsy-yet-immensely-powerfull swings of the simpleton, Anya maanged to sneak another stab with her short blade. Again, a painful hit to the ribcage... enough to make most enemies reconsider the fight. But unfortunately, not fatal in and by itself.
Anya stumbled back a step and a half, narrowly avoiding to knock the ladder down with her. She grabbed her swords as she went, and circled the oaf, finally bringing both blades forward in two quick slashes.
The cut was more shallow than she intended, and not close to the bone-breaking force she had just endured, but Anya nevertheless spit back a defiant "Girl hit you back!" While her vision tunneled in to the man-child, and she was putting away the pain for later, she decided that this one had to die, for all his eventual claims "He did what he was told, no more"
Anya tried to slip into the beast's range, and put on a brave showing at it. The creature was tactically almost a stroke of genius - it pinned them in the relative open, while the archers had the luxury of picking and choosing their targets. Yet the massively enlarged Lev probably was the better match for the beast than her - she needed to keep his back clean. "Big brother, can you handle the beast?" she asked, preparing to disengage.
Reinvigorated by Pharasma's grace, Anya renewed her assaults with the vigor she had felt when they struck out on this venture. The touch of fate she had experienced had maybe opened her eyes to the larger picture somewhat, allowed her to actually realize how close they were to fulfilling their charter - and reaping its rewards.
While her magical blade only dug a hole into the musician's shoulderguard, her longer, more favored dueling sword fared better. She executed an upward chop from an almost implausible angle, and caught his offhand arm on that upswing, shearing meat from bone.
The long, nasty cut was probably enough to make most think twice about continuing a fight - without clerical aid, or a very gifted surgeon, the man was sure to retain some disability. "He's dead. Don't make us kill you where you stand, too."
Anya gave Akiros the best parting shot she could summon up after getting her wind knocked out of her so severely.
It wasn't even close to hitting home, hardly even knicking his clothes, let alone draw blood. She blamed it on the shock. The coldness of her wound worried her - she did not feel the red hot flash of pain she had become used to during her youth (being prone to accidents had some unforseen advantages), but the cut felt, while present, almost liquid and without feeling. Had the bandit managed to hurt something major? Still, she resolved to hold the line as long as she could. Elsbeth, Alannah and Alandra all needed someone to keep distance, and Lev could use anything but a swarm of other combatants while fighting the stag lord. "Not so easy, no. Take another shot" She whispered
Anya's hands darted forward, striking at Akiros before he could fully unsheathe his blade. Her tone did not change an inch from her previous concern, giving her words and actions an unreal quality. "Well, I suppose this must hurt worse than the knock. Looks like these folks from up north found their way down here."
She midded her shot by a wide margin, but to her credit remained calm and collected, re-establishing duel distance and raising her blades to the inescapable counterattack. "You know? It's better this way - hiding and sneaking and getting you drunk smacked of trickery"
Anya could stand by no longer, and swiftly moved towards Akiros, who seemingly had borne the brunt of the Staglord's anger at the spilled grog. "Hey, you okay?" She hadn't seen the exchange between the man and Alannah clearly enough, but he seemed preoccupied. Maybe some quick talk would keep his mind off things. "That looks like a nasty knock." She commented. Her weapons were still at the ready, but the tips lowered, as if she had forgotten them. "If that's what you'd been warning us about, much appreciated now." She raked her brain on how to get a handle on things after letting the reigns fall as she had, but came up empty beyond striking up a conversation with the only one she had been able to identify how carried a little authority, wasn't close to a berserker rage, and who had so far displayed at least a shred of civility.
Anya spied the Stag Lord from behind the corner, and could not help feeling a bit intimidated. The man was huge, and obviously quite capable if he was able to keep control of these bandits. On the other hand, he was also quite obviously a drunk to the point of impairment. They had what he wanted, needed. And if he got his hands on the alcohol, he would be much easier to bring to task. Wordlessly she cursed having handed the reigns off this conversation, playing the minor role for once. She wanted to step in, shape things - but doing so would endanger the whole ploy. So she kept quiet, and let the others roll this one out.
Anya whispered a hurried "Prepare yourself for the worst, but try and keep this civil" to the others, and put her hands on her bow while moving out of the secluded area. "Any trouble there?" She loudly inquired, just to make sure they were not forgotten.
If possible she still wanted the element of surprise for herself - but it might turn out not worth the effort anymore. It all depended on how willing these bandits were to continue the charade, and how quickly tempers would flare on either side.
Anya quietly shared Alandra's estimation of Akiros - the man was something of a leader, it seemed. Not rank and file riffraff, but someone who, unchecked, might be able to pull the fortress even if this stag lord was quietly deposed of. In fact, he even might be the real one - putting some pompous patsy up to be able to pull the strings in peace. She had heard of such arrangements in Taldor. When they had time to plan, Anya laid down her ideas fairly swiftly and plainly. "Taking on two at a time is risky. We'll wait until they hit the alcohol - should make them easier to manage. If some drift off to sleep, all the better. Akiros need special treatment. He doesn't look like a simpleton or drinker. I'm not sure what to do with him yet."
Anya turned towards actually unloading the horse while this "Akiros" took their story, took a nice bite and swallowed. Having the camp drunk and obnoxious might not be the most pleasant experience to look forward to, but it certainly would make smoking this nest out much easier. "You got no girls to take care of that here?" Anya asked with well-feigned casual infliction. Any prisoners, whores or other camp-followers might make this harder, and Akiros was a good source right then. "Not that I'm volunteering, mind you. Quite enough chances of that back in Restov."
"Boss, you said we'd get paid once we get here. We make our way down here, and all we have to show for it is you making nice with these people" Anya interjected, despite not having hear all the previous conversation. Things looked tense, and some small distraction might be needed.
Anya examined the tactical situation some further, and decided that striking now did not suit her just yet. However, waiting for this "Akiros" character was adding even more risk. A moment of indecision almost paralyzed her, but then she decided they had what it took. They had the talkers and the story, the bribe and the reminder that their hosts couldn't be choosy. "Lets keep going as we are. Talk our way psst Akiros and strike once they lower their guard" she whispered.
Anya looked upwards towards the giggling man, and when she could not see him properly, shifted her position slightly. Where there children here? If so, their approach would have to be gentler, less brutal - kids could nto be blamed for the world they were born into, only for eventually participating in it.
Anya nodded towards Alannah, and as she moved to fasten her horse, whispered to her. "No worries, they think us friendly for the moment. Lets see how things develop. We're already better for our ruse, inside their fortifications. If we get them good and drunk, all the easier. If we can start a fire, better still." Already she was looking over the stables, the wooden towers... trying to see how a blaze might be encouraged.
She was trying to close her eyes to the misery of these bandits. They were a blight, true, but a blight brought on by misery and slow despair as their numbers dwindled against their own cleansing. Bergan's face appeared unbidden before her minds eye. Roasting them in their own fort was apt punishment - but utterly devoid of mercy. She hoped there might be another way.
Anya remained apart from the main "inspection", handling the pommel of her larger blade self-consciously. Interestingly enough, she was not acting so much - but decided that her own nervousness didn't hurt her part in any way. If they gained access to the camp, they could sabotage it with relative ease - and thus turn a sucide assault into something more manageable.
Anya stayed close to her brother, and did her very best to look out of place and a little insecure. Anything to prop up her friends and make the picture more harmonious.
Since she was standing so close to her brother, she briefly touched his hand to signal her understanding. Three enemies on the palisade.
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