4 - 010: The Fourth Piece

[K Man]

{To make this easy and keep things moving at a quick pace, let's sum up a few things;

- For purchase of goods. Assume book price - 10% for purchase, you are town heroes after all. You can find any item within a 5,000GP limit. As many items as you have finance for can be found/bought, but none to exceed 5,000GP.

- For sale of good. Assume 1/2 price of book + 10%, again, you are town saviours.

- As for the magical scrying/seige at city gates. There is no trick. This is just a Kuo-Toan siege party and their machines are too alien for you to understand. It appears they are intent on using the giant hollow crab-machines in the front to guard and follow with typical forces in rear (soldiers, archers then mages etc). The leader/shaman does a bit of praying and coercing with others, but nothing fiendishly sneaky or trying to spell your doom. Let me know if you're looking for something more specific...

- Regarding the Knights of the Purest Star. Let me know what you want to do there and we can resolve it via PM or IM to speed things up. Since no one else is going and has nothing to do all night, it would only slow things down.}
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All - The night goes mostly uneventful. A few false alarms, fears that the siege force is closing in, that undead are in town...but nothing turns out to be true Weapons and newer gear are procured from local merchants, all very proud to serve the saviours of Ravenshead and offering their finest wares at discounted prices.

When dawn comes, you are all awakened by the sounds of guardsmen hurriedly moving about the city, taking to the ramparts. It seems the seige force is ready to attack...

Following the hundreds of armed men to the castle walls, you do see that the camp is being broken up and the seige crabs are being filled with soldiers. Strange conch horn are blown and the green-skinned devils go about gathering weaponry, armor and gear for the assault. Amidst all of this, you notice a very large Kuo-Toan dressed in the vibrant colors of crimson and red, standing head and shoulders above the rest. He does look very shamanistic, very much a leader.

Clearly this is the one that Adelia saw...

Approaching from the South side of the castle is the rider Sturmguard sent last night. He raises a yellowed hankerchief, the sign that the machine of Master Theld's has been re-activated without problems. Just to test, you try it again - just a mere ten foot distance.

Sure enough, the 'Vein-riding' works as it did before you entered hell...even the dirt taste is back.

King Sturmguard and the 'Faceless Knight' urge you forward, willing to follow your plans. Yuri, capable of speaking the sea-devils tongues with his mental powers, steps forward and calls to them for negotiation. The leader hears the call and grunts a response, deep and bellowing.



"Come unarmed and we shall talk!"

The whole force pauses admist preparations at the direction of their leader, anxious to hear what will come of this fated meeting...or anxious to see heads roll early...
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[Japic]

{Only those that can vein ride should go, unless your Yuri and can turn to a cloud of gas, that's just as useful for escaping in a hurry}

Weaponless is fine by me, we're not trying to kill him (yet) merely negotiate. If we can find a truce, then weapons will not have been necissary. I suggest leaving the weapons in a pile at a pre-arranged fallback spot if things go bad. We can zip in, pick up our stuff and be back in action in no time flat.

Gurid (not Alton who is atop the wall with his bow) will scale down the wall on a rope and wait for the others before heading out to meet this leader.

[GeneralMHB]

Yuri turns to his companions and says simply:

Hold you fire! They are willing to negotiate. I will go alone. There is no telling what may happen here. I will return shortly.

With this, Yuri climbs down the wall and meets with the sea-creature's troops and to speek with their leader. In front of the soldiers, Yuri plants his spear in the ground and hangs his crossbow and gear on the spear and raises his hands to show he has nothing on him in the middle of the plains between Ravenshead's walls and the besieging force. The only thing of significant importance he keeps is his cantine.

He marches forward to speek with the leader in his native tongue.

If I may, I wish to ask of your audience to ask for peace in these dire times. From what King Strumguard informs me, you believe that someone from our city has assassinated your leader. The King does not believe there is an assassin within their ranks, nor did he wish for his death. If there is indeed a murderer in our midsts, I assure you, we will bring this person to justice. I beg you, we do not wish war with your people. We want peace. If you can identify the murderer, and we bring the individual to you, will you cease the seige on our people?

He awaits a reply.

[Japic]

{For the record sending out one undead as the representative of Ravenshead isn't the best way to negotiate. Girud's going whether you like it or not. He's in no more danger than you are, maybe less with possible turrn attempts and all that.}

[Fangor the Fierce]

Krysta grabs her bow, and goes to the ramparts. She knows that simply going unarmed is not the best course of action, but there is still something that they can do. She halts the group, and simply says, "There is no need for us all to go. I trust Yuri to be capable of this task, and leaving our weapons behind is futile. We can all watch from here, on the ground outside the gates, and should he need assistance, or rescuing, we can all get to the enemy by vein-riding. WITH weapons."

She then lets Yuri go out alone, simply saying, "It is in your hands for now. We will be here, waiting for you and ready to aid if you need it."

[K Man]

{Some confusion here. Who is on the field, who is not? Girud says he's going regardless, Krysta disagrees and trusts Yuri. Let me know.}

[Japic]

{I'm not worried about trusting Yuri, I'm concerned about the enemies reaction to him. He is after all undead, and the only reason we haven't killed him is because we know better. I'm just saying that based on the nastiest force on land, solely an undead speaker might not be 100% the best idea.

Even if Girud goes he cannot make Yuri translate, in this situation Yuri holds all the power no matter what we'd like to do.}

[BluSpecs]

Garor is staying in the keep....

[GeneralMHB]

(OOC: Ok, this is the deal about my new form:

I'm Undying, not undead just to clarify. There's a big difference in the two. I know this is an oxymoron, but I'm a good undead basically. Clerics and paladins will detect me as good, as privately discussed by KMan during the transformation. Just because your dead doesn't mean your evil. Also, vampires appear to be normal mortals anyway, which is how they fool mortals into believing they are not dead. They may not know I am even a vampire and won't give it much of a second though because I'm walking around in the sunlight. Even if they did catch it, I would be more than happy to explain. So I wouldn't be automatically kill on sight.

Asside from that, my thinking on this is that if Girud goes and something does happen where negotiations turn ugly, that's two people that are in hot water where one can easily escape, ie Yuri, and the other is SOL, ie Girud.

With that, I say that nobody comes with me, but everyone covers me from the walls and help defend the city in case something goes wrong with negotiations. This is just my input, but I will be more than happy to hear your opinions. Of course, I'm not gonna force anyone to go or stay, that's your option. I'm basically leaving it up to majority, but this is just my opinion.)

[Jevva]

Galdren watches Krysta climb up onto the ramparts, and shouts up to her, "I'm going to stay down here. If the negotiations turn sour, shout down so that we can provide support. It's faster than having to jump down from the ramparts and vein-ride. This way, we can leave immediately."

[Japic]

{Yah Yuri, I ge what your saying, but vein-riding is a faster form of retreat than anything you can do. That's why I suggested the plan in the first place. I've been in some suicidal situations, but none that I couldn't get myself out of. Besides, we might need two brains out there negotiating, one can easily fall short or run out of ideas, two increases our chances by alot.}

{Afterall, how many times have you ever had something to say in a conversation that you'r not supposed to be there for? Say a PnP group and they split, the other group is talking to someone and you want to ask a Q, but you can't... I hate that.}

{Oh and on another side note, with or without weapons Girud doesn't look like someone that people want to screw with. Game on KMan.}

[GeneralMHB]

(OOC: I haven't really paid much attention to what vein-riding can do. In that case then, let's hope we can cut a deal with these sea-creatures. IE: No objections to you following me Japic. I didn't realize vein-riding was THAT quick.)