Kingmaker: Here Comes the Cavalry! (IC)

[Morbis Meh]

A nauseating feeling creeps into Brin's stomach A tower? Those are really dangerous to enter uninvited... Looking around at the others she grimaces before speaking "Well what now? I don't think we should barge right in for towers are usually well guarded and favor defenders. If we wish to go in I think we should at least scout the place out, if those six are hostile then we don't want to run into them when they have the high ground.

[Chained Birds]

Maple

"Perhaps they may not be bandits, but fellow explorers. I'll go up ask them why they are here. If combat happens, I'll give a signal to strike. The signal will be 2 bows towards the tower."

Maple believes in her sturdiness against any opposition at this moment. She is also the only one able to determine someone's inherit evil nature just by looking at them.

[Steckie]

Roqoan

"Try not to challenge anyone to personal combat again. " Roqoan says with a smile on his face. "Remember how well that went last time? You healed our enemy to regain your honor while one of our own was bleeding to death.
You might have forgotten about it since there wasn't a spear sticking out of your stomach."
He tries to hide it behind his sarcastic remark, but Roqoan is a bit worried about Maple.

[Chained Birds]

Maple

Keeping Roqoan's suggestion to heart, Maple starts to walk out and approaches the group with a pleasant smile.

"Greetings gentlemen, how is your day today?"

She says this some 45-60ft away from the individuals to not alarm them too much to her approach. She keep on walking towards the nearest individual unless told to halt or something.

[Lost Demiurge]

(OOC: 1/2 a mile is a long way to run if **** goes down. Are you guys letting her cross that distance alone, or heading out there while giving her a 100-foot lead or something?)

Maple takes the lead, and approaches the ruin. As she does, the people moving around it take cover. One cloaked person heads out and leads the horses around to the other side of the tower.

As she gets closer, she sees that the worn trail the group noticed heading west out of Oleg's picks up again here, crossing roughly east to west across the plains.

At around 200 feet, a man wearing a tricorner hat pops his head up over the edge of the tower. He cups his hands around his mouth.
"Yeah, that's far enough! You can stop movin' now. Oh, and go away, bandits, or we'll murderate ya!"

[stack]

Julian maintains a supporting distance, about 30' from Maple, hands empty save his silver flask. Ruins provide cover, opportunity to transform. Long distance to cross under attack. Dialogue contraindicates outlawry. Diplomatic solution viability growing. Good. Arrows painful, not in interesting way either.

[Steckie]

Roqoan

Roqoan takes one look at the man on top of the tower and yells out: "That hat is AWESOME! I mean, it has everything. Looks. Style. Sex appeal.
Once we get back to Oleg's i'm putting in an order for a hat like that."

He waits next to Julian, holding his crossbow but pointin it towards the ground.

[Chained Birds]

Maple

"Bandits?! Now that's an awefully rude thing to call us. We are a group of explorers tasked to map out this area. We noticed the owner here and wanted to know if it was used for trade, as an outpost, or just another place owned by those Kressel Bandits.

So, are you just a bunch of Bandits?!"

Maple says, while pointing her staff at the man with the hat.

[Sithis]

Alistar

Alistar keeps his bow in hand as he stands with the others a little ways back from Maple. "Eh, can't say I've ever liked those kinds of hat myself. Always seemed a bit pretentious to me." He talks, but he continues to keep an eye out on the surrounding area.

Spoiler

Show

Perception check to see what I can see.
(1d20+7)[13]

[Steckie]

Roqoan

"I may admit to being arrogant, but i'm not pretentious.
But i'm not going to take fashion advice from a man that routinely changes into a fur. Back in Grayhaven we had a druid cult that had slogans like "fur is murder."
Roqoan smiles as if he's telling a joke, but the story about the fur cult is completely true.

[Lost Demiurge]

"Well, you put an arrow in Fyodin. That's awfully banditty to me! Banditty? Is that a word? Bah. But then, it's Fyodin, so I suppose I can forgive you THAT. He does look shifty, I suppose."

"As to who we are... Well, uh, we are explorers too, fancy that! And we're exploring this tower right now. So there's no need for you to come look it over. Off you go then!"

ALISTAR

Spoiler

Show

You don't see anything much out this way. You do notice that aside from the forest to the south, the land is quite flat. That tower's probably got a pretty good view.

You DO notice that the plume of smoke is gone. These people probably put out a cookfire at some point recently.

[Morbis Meh]

Brin grows red in the face as the mention the man with the arrow, she begins to sob "Oh dear, I AM SO SORRY. I just saw him start running and my instict just took over. His smile was sketchy and baw arrow shot before I could think! If you want you can shoot me with and arrow, I am sorry unbelievably sorry, I thought it was just really suspicious that he started running without talking to us!" With tears streaming down her eyes and snot running down her nose, Brin drops to her knees and begins grovelling hoplessly.

[Chained Birds]

Maple

"Well, our friend was equally injured by your friend's action so I think we can speak on even grounds in those regards. Anyways, I'm Maple Leafsinger, a Mortal Sword of Sarenrae. I assure you we will not shot any of your men as long as we are both civil.

And what name shall I address you by?"

[Lost Demiurge]

"Oh, call me Falgram, everyone does." The man gives a cheery wave. "Does look like we're even, doesn't it? Well, that's good."

[Steckie]

Roqoan

"Crap, crap, crap." Roqoan quickly pulls out some of the papers that he has stashed with his map making kit. He quickly shuffles trough them until he finds what he's looking for. "Ah, here it is. We need to get Maple back here immediatly. Kesten Garess wanted us to capture one of his former associates, named Falgram Sneeg. And one of the bandits we interrogated said that a guy named Sneeg is one of the Stag Lord's lieutenants. He just introduced himself as Falgram, and i doubt there's a lot of Falgram's running through the Greenbelt.
Basically: we've ran into bandits again and they have the advantage because they have a bloody tower.

Any idea's?" Roqoan asks while he looks at the tower to see anything they could use to their advantage.

Spoiler

Show

I knew typing the quests we're on in my private notes would be usefull one day
Knowledge architecture and engineering: (1d20+8)[9]

[Chained Birds]

Maple

"Hmm, that name sounds familiar, but it must be my imagination. If it is fine with you, I'll go back to my group to tell them to behave."

Maple begins wandering back to her allies.

[stack]

Julian's mind races, reeling off a quick plan to the others."Offer healing for their wounded man. Get's us close. Let them think they have us trapped. Invite ambush, spring counter-ambush. Targets unaware of strengths. Removing distance greatest present obstacle. Tower ineffective defense once inside. Otherwise, assaulting prepared defensive position. Untenable. Ambushing any who exit feasible, but time consuming. Not stocked for siege, other bandits may be in area."

Julian flexes his scarred right hand beneath his glove. Inexperienced with explosives. Inaccurate. One experience, too ignorant. Anatomical knowledge ineffective against fortifications.

[Morbis Meh]

Brin stops crying upon learning that this was a target and she was correct in her evaluation of the man and her resolve turns to steel. With a surprisingly cold voice she looks up and says "No the best way to get a rat out of a hole is to smoke them out, while we wait for them. Chemist, do you have liquid fire with you, let us burn the tower and flush them out while we wait in ambush..."

[Sithis]

Alistar

Alistar gives Brin a surprised look. "That's...very ruthless Brin. Potentially effective, though someone would have to get close enough to actually start the fire. That, and we don't know what's inside. For all we know, they could have half a dozen prisoners in there. He pauses for a moment, taking a hard look at the tower. "It's to bad we didn't realize who they were sooner. We could have played along like we were bandits as well, and that would have made Julian's plan much simpler. Right now, it's a bit risky. I don't think we could possibly convince them to let in anyone besides the person doing the healing, and even if we COULD we don't know how many are in there. Might still be our best bet though, unless someone besides me thinks sneaking up the walls under cover of darkness might work."

[Steckie]

Roqoan

"Well, they're bandits. So by definition they want our valuables. We just have to tempt them into doing something stupid by showing them something valuable that we have.
We do have 2 vials of alchemist's fire that we took from Happs's body when we killed him at Oleg's, but i really don't want to burn down that tower if there's an other option.
Alistair is right, we don't know who or what is in there.

I do have a plan however. We ask they send out the wounded person to receive some healing. While he's with us, one of us 'accidentally' drops all his gold on the ground and starts picking it up, making sure that he saw all of it. We also 'accidentally' let slip where we will be camping tonight.
Once they inevitably show up to ambush us, we make sure we turn the tables and ambush them.
After that we come back here and clear out this tower.
We do need to make sure we capture Falgram Sneeg alive, Kesten Garess wanted him alive and i think that we all need to ask him some questions.
And you all know i would prefer to keep the bandits alive as well, weed out the evil ones and let the rest work for us. But that's what i always want to do, so no surprise there."

[Chained Birds]

Maple

"Well, I'm good with the plan on making nice with them until I've been able to identify how evil they are, or if one of you can equally tell their evil intent. Though using deception makes me feel a bit uneasy.
Hmm, I think it would be fine if I promise to heal the injured man and do it regardless of their ways, then we can attack them if they turn out to be as evil as Kressel. I hope Sarenrae can forgive our ambushing ways if it comes down to it?"

[Morbis Meh]

Brin frowns at the others and quickly waves her hands "No,no,no! You misunderstood me... I meant that I only wanted to create a bunch of smoke not set the place on... on fire. The first is just to help generate the smoke what we need is wet green logs full of sap to create smoke...

[Chained Birds]

Maple

"Either way Brin, we still don't know if they actually are a bunch of evil bandits like Kressel. They could be like those former bandits who were simply being intimidated into following that Bandit Lord fellow. Let us be civil before going all 'smoke em' out of their holes'."

[stack]

Julian checks various pouches. "Fire, acid, grease...smokesticks curiously absent. Will rectify upon return. Nine flasks of fire. Sufficient. Replenishing stocks would take time. Have not found necessary reagents. Regardless, made to be used."

"Unsupported healing untenable. Healthy return unlikely without aid. Either lure out or attack at night. Burning tower acceptable risk. No reports of bandits taking captives for ransom, preferred method apparently robbery/murder. No resources to garrison tower, when available it could be repaired. Approach in darkness, drive them out with fire. Assess moral state when defenses removed."

[Steckie]

Roqoan

"I'd really prefer to keep the tower undamaged if we can. Defeating the bandits is our priority, but the tower and the resources inside it can be valuable to us.
And Maple, evil or not, we need to end the banditry. It's in our charter. There's no need to kill them, and we can avoid it if possible. But ending banditry is what we're here for.

But we need to decide fast. They're probably watching us from the tower.
I vote for my plan of luring them out. If we choose to do so i can drop my money and start picking it up. I can be a very convincing liar if i want to.
Do you support my plan or Brin's plan of burning down the tower."

[Lost Demiurge]

Falgram leans against the tower lip as he watches you, waiting patiently. Every now and then, someone in the ruins will shift a bit. You catch movement and the occasional flash of clothing, but nothing more.

Now that you've had time to study it, the tower isn't huge. Fifteen feet tall, about twice as big around, and made of worn stone. The ruins about it are roughly cabin-sized. It looks like an old waystation.

The wind riffles the long grass as you discuss, and the sun slowly starts its descent. In another two hours or so, it'll be night.

[Chained Birds]

Maple

"I refuse to take part in a bombing on people who we only suspect to be bandits. I'm going there now to check for myself."

Maple will proceed to huff away towards the tower.

[stack]

Julain follows. "Ruse still possible. Available to offer healing. And violence." He considers drawing a vial of fire and just lighting the place, but decides that plan would require a concerted effort.

[Chained Birds]

Maple

"You may accompany me Sientist Julian, but we shall not be the ones who instigate things first. We shall heal and examine first, and attack if prompted to."

[Steckie]

Roqoan

"I'm following her, if she decides they're bandits i'll make sure to provide bait for our ambush."
Roqoan follows Maple, while mumbling something to himself about paladins and them wanting to do the right thing.