Alas! I was looking forward to a war wit the fey if they kept knocking me off my horse :).
I enjoyed these characters quite a bit, and thought we would have made a good kingdom. Looks like I'm down to only a couple of games now...
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Perception:
As Shadow begins to shuffle around to the music, Haldaval tries to calm him down.
Perception: Haldaval stands up, alert and tense. "I grow tired of these games. I do not want to make enemies, but this constant harassment cannot continue."
"Ah, but we are good company, Tityanna, are we not?" He takes his slice of pie gratefully. "I think Oleg and Svetlana will be fine. I think their marriage will last through anything these lands can throw at it."
still here, checking a couple of times a day, although I'm pretty busy until next week.
Survival: "Do what you may to maintain their friendship. I will not object, though I find they have much to apologize for if they wish to be my friend." He sighs as he dismounts and begins to settle Shadow in for the night. "I must admit our first encounter with the fey in these lands has not been what I had envisioned. I was not prepared, and for that I apologize." ETA: "I think it is evident that there were people camping here recently. Can anyone tell if this was possibly the bandits that attacked us? Or perhaps the ones we pursue?"
I'm fine moving on to camp. I wasn't sure how to resolve the fey thing. They certainly haven't made a friend in me, but I suppose I would have done what it takes to appease them this time.
Welcome back! I'm crazy busy, but still checking in daily.
"I have nothing that they would want, and I'm not sure I like the idea of being coerced into giving gifts with threats."
"We are not intruders. If anything we go to eliminate the intruders, and they attack us."
Perception:
Shadow's Perception:
Haldaval reacts to the whispers he can here, while shadow clearly seems troubled by something nearby. When he almost falls, he dismounts, settles Shadow, and prepares his bow, although he does not yet reach for his cold iron arrows. "Can we be sure these creatures in fact do not mean us harm. They are clearly using magic on us." He uses his detect evil ability in the general area he and Shadow have noticed things nearby.
"Perhaps they would be willing to help us with the bandits?"
Sylvan:
"As my good friend here has stated, we mean no harm to the good fey of the forest. We are seeking to remove evil men from these lands. If you have knowledge of them, or wish to help us, we would be extremely grateful."
"Worry not, good Malaswyn. The horse will carry you without much trouble. We should take only what we need, as we intend to return here quickly. There should be no fear of overburdening these beasts."
"Do not worry about Oleg, good Tityanna. He's no fool, and wants our friendship and business far beyond the cost to him of a good reward or two. We should just as much not refuse his payments or contracts, so that he will be a friend to us as well. There is no reason we cannot all profit from our adventures. If we manage to bring some order to these lands, he will be in a very good position as trader here." "I believe we should take Puck, of course, and I will ride so that I may meet any enemy first, if necessary, but we should not hesitate to take horses to speed us on our way, even if we must dismount as soon as necessary. It is possible the horses will be docile with Shadow there to lead them." "In any case, we should set out as soon as possible. We may be able to cover much of the distance to this bandit camp today, and then prepare for battle tomorrow. I can scout ahead if you all wish, although I may not be the best at remaining hidden, or at perceiving hidden enemies.."
"Yes, untrained mounts and riders can prove difficult, especially in battle. Shadow, of course, is a valuable friend to have in battle even if I must dismount due to the terrain. He'll knock a few heads if I point him in the right direction. If we are to explore all of these lands, it might be best if everyone learn to ride a mount of some kind. I'm sure we can find something suitable for you, Harsk, and Shadow might be willing to bear you behind me if that is simpler until then. If no one is comfortable riding as we hasten to deal with Kressel, then perhaps we should leave the horses behind... although I am loath to ride as the rest of my companions walk, and I would hesitate greatly to reduce Shadow to a pack animal in such a case. He has his pride as well." Haldaval winks in Tityanna's general direction.
"I believe we will have need of your hammer, friend. If there are 12 of them including this Kressel woman, it might be difficult."
I don't need any of it although we might want to keep the amulet... it is unusual.
Haldaval is still eating as everyone takes off. He mumbles to himself "Hmm... never know when the next home cooked meal will be, gonna take advantage of it." He will eventually join the others outside.
Haldaval tries to say something to Svetlana but she hurries off before he gets a chance. He heads over to Tityanna and speaks to her in a low voice, "Svetlana would have a word with you if you have a mind." He hesitates for a moment and then starts again, "If you wouldn't mind letting her that she should fear no embarrassment from me. I meant merely to address any concerns she had. I would gladly help with anything."
Haldaval looks a bit surprised at Tityanna's words at the graves, but makes no remarks of his own. As the companions return to the outpost, he checks in on Shadow, and makes sure he's settled for the day and night before joining the others for food. Sense Motive: As he enters, he notices Svetlana's mood and goes over to her. "Good Svetlana, it has been a trying day, but the evil is behind us for today, and we will hopefully eliminate it entirely in the near future. Your days of worry should be behind you if I have anything to say about it. However, you seem more deeply troubled. Is something more wrong of which we are unaware?"
"I will take care of this one as well, for the insults paid to Tityanna and Svetlana." After doing his duty, Haldaval remains silent with a bowed head as he cleans his blade. "Let us end this business together, friends, and move on to less unfortunate things."
Sense Motive: "I do not trust the man, and I fear the evil in his heart, but he may be truthful. However, he was not truthful earlier when talking of Svetlana and his desires. I believe he is deserving of the same fate at the others."
"Well then," Haldaval smiles at Ray, slapping him on the back heartily. "Perhaps we can learn from each other."
"No, no, I daresay you could take on the whole world if you wished. I merely would spare any others the necessity of dealing with these scum, even in death. It is simply my way of shielding others with my own actions." He smiles a bit at that thought.
"I would dig them all myself, and spare anyone else the trouble, as I consider it my duty," he shakes his head, with a glance in Tityanna's direction. "But somehow I doubt my offer will be accepted."
Yeah, we can summarize. Unless you intend anything to be significantly different than Happs. I don't see any way they can escape their fate.
Haldaval nods "Very well"
Haldaval walks over to Svetlana and while addressing her, gives a nod to Oleg. "Lady, there is no need for you to witness this unfortunate task. I fear we shall repeat the same thing three more times. If there is any need of your opinion or another witness, I can come to get you if you like."
After hearing and accepting Svetlana's response, he heads back to Tityanna's side and speaks to her in a low voice, although not in secret. "The same is true for you, good Tityanna. I would spare you this grim task if I did not think you would demand to stay." He gives her a slight bow of respect before turning back to the second bandit being brought out.
I concur with Ray, nicely said :)
"I believe if we contrived to send him away as a prisoner, they would simply execute him there. We may as well save the effort as our charter indicates. I will do it, if we do not want to bother with the rope."
Haldaval looks back at Harsk. "The sword or the rope, it matters not. This one seems devious enough to keep up talk distracting us from what we want to know. The other one already told us their number and location, we don't need him if he is going to waste our time with lies." He turns back to Tityanna. "If he has a wife and children matters not. More than likely, it's a lie to try and gain our sympathy. But even if it is true, the innocent are better off without this evil hearted man in their lives."
"You pretend some grievance with my attack on you? You dared to lay a hand on this woman, who has more honor and integrity in one finger than you could possibly manage in your entire life, and who furthermore is a companion of mine. No, your life was forfeit from that moment if not before, and your cowardice is laid bare by attempting to vilify the defense of my companions."
Nah, my stuff wasn't all that serious, just tedious and time consuming.
Haldaval stares at the bandit curiously.
Haldaval bursts out laughing at the worthless bandit. "You seek to bait me, scum? You think, perhaps to incite me to kill you quickly, before you tell us what we want to know?" He chuckles once again. "We already decided to let you live long enough to talk, I will not betray that decision so easily." He walks to Tityanna and speaks in a low voice, "You are too harsh with yourself, Tityanna. And you should care not one bit what this filth thinks of you. As for what the rest of us think, perhaps you are too quick to judge your friends as well."
Well, I almost finished my project. I will try to start posting more again tomorrow, but it might still be slow for a day or two.
Sense Motive: "The lies come too quickly to his lips. I'm not sure we can trust anything he says even though he is willing to betray these bandits without a thought. I suppose if his information matches those of his companions, they might have some truth to them." Haldaval shows little regard that the bandit hears his conversation, sure the end of a rope is his fate.
Yeah, go ahead. Haldaval will mostly stand there and look mean. He's reflecting on all that has happened. I'm still going to be really busy through the weekend, hopefully I can make a few posts, but today made me realize It won't be easy to finish all I'm working on by Monday... alas.
Haldaval's current thinking is to ignore the chaos of the morning's events, at least until the bandits have been dealt with. And with that I'll be off for most of the day. I'll try to check in when I can.
Tityanna is found examining Shadow's shoes and hooves. At her approach he says, "I'm wondering if he might have a pebble or something in a shoe. He was reluctant to listen to me today." At her speech, he pauses for a moment, "I will come, but I believe his actions toward your person are the principle reason I believe he shall hang. These men are evil in their hearts. My training has given me insight into the hearts of men and beast, and these are among the worst kinds." He pauses again as he settles Shadow, having found no stones. "We must be cautious of lies, but must gain as much information as we may."
Sorry, I have a bit of a project I'm working on, that hopefully I'll finish by tomorrow, so I can get back to lots of posting. I'll try to post to keep things moving when I can think in the morning.... but then I'll be gone most of tomorrow too.
Haldaval is just shocked that we had the guy willing to talk and we're not just getting the info from him. His patience has been tried, and there is no immediate danger to anyone, so he might be spent for a while.
Haldaval stares at the young woman and dwarf with a look of utter incredulity on his face. He looks at the bandit on the ground, pleading for his life, and then looks back at his companions, as confused as ever. "Do what you will, friends. I only ask that we find out what we may from them before the inevitable conclusion... and that we not use the stable. I will not have Shadow in danger from these criminals. It seems cruel to heal and imprison these men when their execution looms before them." He kneels down next to the conscious bandit. "You knew what this choice of life would mean if the law ever caught up with you, and you didn't care. You will not escape the punishment that is set for banditry." Haldaval gets up and goes to Shadow, leading him into the stable and attending to whatever he may need, leaving the rest of the company to deal with the prisoners.
Lord of the Flies is chaos. Three of us are Lawful, and there's no doubt we want to maintain the order that law provides. However, we are not sheriffs. We are not judges. We are executioners, or at least we can be. We can implement the order that law provides, but we cannot (at least not yet) provide all the processes that law requires. We don't have a jail first of all. We have no way of securing prisoners. We have two options, release or execution. The only way we can release someone who is guilty of a crime (in this case banditry), is if we are certain they will abandon that way of life. Regardless of what we decide to do with them, we have to get information out of them. The only thing I'm thinking of for IC is that Haldaval thinks you all are messing everything up again :)... but he's tired of confrontation with allies, so I still have to decide what to do, carry on.
Well, he's currently intimidated, so he'll give us more now than later, unless we intimidate him again... as this time it was accidental, that seems unlikely... but as I said, that's not necessarily in game knowledge. I'm not sure how to proceed with Haldaval, though. All that you guys are arguing isn't a bad idea as far as he's concerned... were we in a civilized country. As we are not, I'm not sure he would see the time as anything but wasted. I'll have to think on it a bit.
Ninja'd there. Yes, Tityanna, he wasn't actually going to be able to rape and murder, but it was the desire to such things that Haldaval reacts to. On a slight metagaming tangent, are you guys suggesting we don't actually let this guy tell us everything we want to know, but rather, lock him up and ask him later?
Well, I don't know about "kill all the sinners," we'd all be in bad shape in that case ;). Rapists and Murderers, though, they don't get much of a chance. I will admit to some disconnect with how many people view the 'good' alignment and how I see it in the game. I mean, most of Haldaval's actions to this point were out of a desire to protect Tityanna, prevent possible injury to her, and to seek retribution for the disrespect paid to her and Svetlana. The fact that she does not recognize this, and in fact doesn't want it doesn't really matter to Haldaval... he's still going to do it. That is his "good" alignment at work, and his dedication to chivalry (which has a wide variety of definitions itself).
"I don't understand the need. This one will tell us all we need to know right now, won't you?"
Respectfully, I would disagree. None of his actions were selfish in the least. As I said earlier, his actions were not influenced by his emotions, even if they were evident. I also do not see how his actions were without virtue. Paladins are warriors. These are evil criminals. These men are literally the absolute worst possible people in his eyes (granted, he's young). It is not only his code, but his duty to punish them, and the law states that punishment is death. The whole situation was going to be controlled, with no one in harms way initially but himself. Instead, he had to deal with, in his eyes, the most helpless member of our company immediately in peril of the worst kind. It disturbed him a great deal, and then he had to deal with that same person wanting to coddle the enemy and sit with them when they would gladly rape and kill her. So he's pretty much been going from one disaster to the next with no order maintained until now. He's a Paladin, not a saint. |