Arui looked down at Bardan on the ground.  "Good.  You're awake.  No-one else here appears to be injured.  Are you recovered enough to answer some questions?"

To Robert she said, "this warehouse is run by thieves and liars. They tricked my people.  They may have tricked you too."

Etzagith was somewhat heartened that Bardan's first thought was for the safety of his charges.  It reduced his need to get away immediately.  Etz did not try to shake off the strong grip on his arm, knowing that to try and fail would be far worse than not to try, but he did not release the boys.  Rising to his full height, he took on the role of a member of nobility, adjusting his speech to an oratorical one, and using a noble's accent.  "I am Etzagith, son of Baron Rugulus of Harvisborough and nephew of Leguraff Truminsen, Duke of Uxuria.  I act on behalf of Queen Jia Eldrian the mother of these two boys, Prince Liam and Prince Lucas.

"You will unhand me, now.  You already face charges of High Treason against the crown.  Pray you do not make matters worse by obstructing our recovery of the boys and their return to the Queen."  Even though every word was true, Etz still felt himself a fraud, claiming nobility in such a dramatic and public way.  He could only accomplish it by playing a role, one that felt outside of himself.

Cara's face went stony as Etzagith finished what Nathan had started, pulling rank and giving the game away.  It might have been the right call, but they wouldn't know until after they'd gotten everyone out.  She spent a long moment staring at the crowd, making sure no one bolted or tried to pick a fight in response to the revelation.  Only when she was sure that everything wasn't about to erupt into pure pandemonium did she stalk over to Hollis, who had largely been ignored since the fight had concluded.

"I think you are beginning to understand just how much shit you are in."

She said as she drew her right blade, taking him about the shoulder with her left hand and keeping the dagger tip pressed up tightly against his ribs.

"You and I?  We're going to go check in on your friend with the daggers, and while I'm working to make sure he doesn't die from the venom these little blades of mine hold?  You're going to sing me a pretty little tale of everything you know.  Aren't you Hollis?"

Describe the Action:  Intimidating Hollis into spilling the beans

Roll the Dice:  17:34, Today: Cara rolled 0 using 4 Fudge dice ((1, 0, -1, 0)).

Determine Approach:  Provoke, which brings my total to +4

Choose an Action:  Would that be an Attack or an Cvercome?  He's conceeded, so I'm not sure.

"Are you recovered enough to answer some questions?"

Bardan nodded, lifting a hand to his scap, then checking it for blood...  There was none.  But he winced as he moved.

Robert flciked his eyes at Arui, but didn't say a word, too intent on his standoff with Etzagith.
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 04:35, Mon 20 July 2020.

In fact, the crowd was a little thinner than it had been a couple of moments ago.  Some of the cloaked figures had already made off around the side of the building, around the corner, don some far alley...  There were maybe a little over a dozen when she came upon the scene, now there were ten?

mine hold?  You're going to sing me a pretty little tale of everything you know.  Aren't you Hollis?"

Hollis grinned, and there was blood in his mouth, staining his teeth.

Cara rolled 0 + Provoke(+4) to attack (command)
Hollis rolled 3 + Will(+3)

Hollis succeeded by 2-shifts.  Is it worth the fate-point to invoke an Aspect?

@Cara inside with Hollis (ZOne-1)

Hollis gritted his teeth and tried to laugh, but it came out as a series  of wheezing squeaks.  "You're not half as scary as the stories.  By Bilary's balls, You're just a girl.    You wanna eat my soul?    Wanna save me from the Inquisitor's pen?   Hope what you came to steal is worth it.  'Cause it might mean the end of everything."

After a moment where Hollis strained with his brathing.  "Acton's not dead?  Demeris said you killed him.  They were bond-mates...  Silly twits, both of them..."
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:32, Tue 21 July 2020.

@Nathan, Etzagith, Arui
Outside (ZOne-5) with the princes, linen cloaks...

"The woman met me at the Harpy's Last Note. Two days ago." Robert met Nathan's gaze.   "Said she was dying of some disease or another.  Said her  body wasn't benefitting from the food she ate.  She was barely more than a walking skeleton.  But she had the same eyes as the boys.    We take in strays.  There's hardships enough before and after. "

Cara's grip on the man tightened, and so did her jaw.  She tried to let the sleight roll off of her, like she had been taught by Yisil's House Mother, but those had been the lessons she'd been the worst at.

"I'm not supposed to scare you."

A little bit of edge crept into her words.

"You're talentless, there isn't a drop of power in your blood for me to claim."

She dragged him over to the prone form of Acton and pushed him down on the opposite side of the man as she knelt down beside him.  She sheathed the heavy duelist's blade, and again withdrew her boot knife, using it to start cutting away the man's clothing around the neck where she had stabbed him.  She withdrew a small stoppered glass vial, and with the blade carefully pushed some of the man's still wet blood into the vial.  Only once this was done, the vial stoppered and put away, did she begin tending to his wounds.  She traced two fingers of her left hand through still more of his blood, cleaning a patch of his chest with his torn shirt and using her new canvas to begin inscribing runes of neutralization and disruption.

"But your saving grace is that you know things, so I suppose you're not completely useless to me.  End of everything you say.   Is that what you were trying to do here?"

Describe the Action: Neutralize the Mindfire Poison currently in Acton's system.

Roll the Dice: 12:08, Today: Cara rolled 1 using 4 Fudge dice ((1, 0, -1, 1)).

Determine Approach: Lore?  I'm disrupting a magical poison.  Brings my total to +5

Choose an Action: Seems like I'm attacking the poison's stress track.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:10, Mon 20 July 2020.

Arui didn't really know who was right, but if Etzagith was here to return them to the Queen, then they would be admitted into the castle to do so.  And if she helped rescue the Queen's  sons, it would reflect well on her and her people petitioning the royal court, and if Etzzagith was a charlatan, his deception would be proven if the boys were sent away.  "It speaks well of you that you take in strays," she said to Robert, "but if they are the Queens sons, then they aren't strays.  Then, they were taken from her."  She indicated Etzagith, "If this man is true then he can get into the castle to return the boys. We can go with him to be sure.  If the Queen doesn't accept the boys, then you can take them with you, but if they are her sons, then they deserve to be with her.  Either way we will know the truth, and honor will be served.  Does this sound fair to everyone?"

Nathan watched Robert's response, his shoulder's itching as they remained here debating the matter. He would not muddy the waters with further words, but nodded encouragingly at Arui's

Etzagith nods at Arui.  "Even if we believe this man's tale, someone has engineered this kidnapping.  He and his associates need to be taken into custody, but the most important is that we get the boys back to the castle safely.  We don't know whether or not the mastermind is here, possibly pretending to be a bystander, and he might have thugs with him.  I would welcome you and any available city guard as escort.  Can you command them?"

@Cara

"Really?"  Hollis said. "Is that what you think?   She got you so blind that you don't know there's a war?  We don't end it now, it's over.  All of it.  We're not trying to end everything.  We're trying to stop it, you bloody useless lizard."

--
OOC: Lizard?  No idea.  but I think I'll play with that a little...
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:58, Tue 21 July 2020.

@Arui, Etzagith, Nathan

"The huntress speaks  fairly."  Robert said, quietly.  He exchanged a glance with the woman with child he'd protected earlier.  She nodded briefly and there was real regret in her expression.

"Surely the local guardhouse should be able to verify them--and you, son of Harvisborough.  If this is so, I will gainsay nothing further and will relinquish all claim of guardianship."


OOC: The castle is some distance away... but the local city guard garrison-house should be closer...   There should be one per district..   .

Cara paused briefly from her work to favor Hollis with a weary gaze.

"The thing you Green Landers don't understand, the thing you have never understood, is that there is always a war.  It is unending, and it has always been about the end of everything."

Indeed, the thing which pulsed within her left forearm even now was a sign of it.  Utterly alien, utterly inhuman, it represented an apocalypse of such a staggering scale, greater by an order of magnitude than that which had shattered Fallen Khadid.  She could feel it writhing, shifting about for a view behind its fleshly lens, even blinded by her vambrace as it was.  She could feel the taint of its power infusing her Mantle, the foundation upon which all of her stolen and borrowed magic was built.  What would be the point of showing him?  Even if she had been willing to explain the meaning behind it, she did not expect any of Kumlar to understand the doom that her people bled and died for to keep at bay, it was not her place to try and teach them.   Instead she only sighed, and went back to work cutting up Acton's shirt and fashioning it into a makeshift bandage for the man's neck and head.

"What makes your apocalypse so important that you are willing to risk kidnapping the Queen's heirs for it?"

The secret was already out, she didn't care enough to maintain propriety.

"What doom is it you're fighting, and how does such a risk help you fight it?"

Once she was done wrapping the cloth around Acton's head and neck, she withdrew a leather chord from her belt pouch and bound his arms behind his back.

"Help me lift him, and let's see if he can walk."

She said, pragmatic as all of her people were.  Her other hand had drifted to her long knife, and her wolfish eyes watched them both unending as she moved.

That Cara had taken a stopper full of Acton's blood was not lost on Hollis.  But he was hardly in a position to do anything about it.   Cara appeared to be acting on authority of the Blue-Coat, and that meant the jig was probably up.

"Queen's heirs?" Hollis snapped. "That what you think was going on here?"       Drunk though he might've been, it was clears the wheels were turning.

"Kidnapping royalty is a bit above my station."  Hollis said, but his voice was much more subdued. "But it does fit the bill, doesn't it?  You and your fake Pennryn Guard going to pin this on us, then?  It'll start a war here, too..."


Earlier, Etzagith failed on a deceive roll to crate a insignia of the East Pennryn Dukal guard.   It's what tipped off the combat in the first place... Hollis recognized it as being wrong...

It was possible that Cara was still feeling a little testy about the drunkard's earlier sleight, for she spared the effort to give him a condescending pat on the back around supporting Acton.

"Look at that, the bells are finally ringing!"

Was it raw pettiness that put a little extra venom in her words?  Perhaps.

"So now that you've finally achieved some small measure of understanding of just how screwed you are, perhaps some part of you has enough sense to know when it's time to start singing.  Like you said, this is well above and beyond the sort of trouble you want to be in.  This ain't about loyalty, this is about someone fingering you for something you didn't want nothing to do with.  So what's a poor besotted drunk to do?  You can start by explaining to me everything you know, and we can see about preventing whatever war you're so twisted up over together.  Because if you don't give me anything good?"

She chanced a glance at the twins, then eyed him.

"Oh yes my friend, this does not look good for you."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:28, Wed 22 July 2020.

Etzagith looked at Arui, "to the local garrison, then?  I doubt whoever is behind this could have had the foresight and the resources to buy them off, and they will represent enough muscle to get us to the castle."  Indicating Robert, he added, "I'm even willing to have this man come with us, as long as he stays more than an assassin's strike away from the boys.  His story seems genuine, but that judgement will have to be made by a magistrate, or someone higher."

(Assuming he receives assent) Etzagith leads the boys to the nearest garrison.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:42, Wed 22 July 2020.

@ALL
Re: Robert & The Princes

I'm gonna switch to prose form for a little bit to wrap up this scene (and let Nathan go on Vacation without strings).

Robert agrees to go with you to the local garrison.  While he's been arguing with you all, though, parts of his group have been sneaking off, walking around the corner, or fading away down the myriad back-alleys in the Dockward.  Where there were perhaps twenty or twenty-two of them, there were now nine or ten.

You simply don't have the man-power to detain them all.  And the priority is on the Princes.  Robert and teh Blue Sails guardsmen appears to be one key players, so keeping them detained is a best-practices move.

Now, since Nathan is going off on Vacation, I am going to simply say that Garrison Commander does, in fact, verify that the boys are who Etzagith says they are.   Robert fulfills his claim and formally relinquishes claim of guardianship over them--but he will not do so until someone else makes a vow of guardianship.

Arui, at least, should appreciate the seriousness with which Robert takes the vow.

So... What do you want to do with Robert?

Robert can--and will willingly--give a much more detailed description of the woman who'd paid him to take guardianship of the boys.   It's an open thread for which I don't have anything defined, so if you want to introduce anything here, I'm game.  No fate-point cost needed...

Next active scene will be the wrap-up with Menkliia and Stefen.   We'll call it,... the next day.   Nathan can join us when he returns, having some obligations for debriefing among the Fist.

@Cara

"It never did."  Hollis said, his voice flat.  "You've been bleeding this kingdom for decades.    None will mourn me when I'm dead.  It was only a matter of time.  You and yours.  Your a distraction.  Always have been.  You're not the enemy.  The Fel Mondain.  They're the only enemy that matters.  And you pin this on us,...  THey may come for us first, but they'll come for you too..."

Cara stared at him blankly, looking over the only barely conscious form of Acton to do so.

"You seem to know many of the stories about me.  Good.  But if you think calling an Oathsworn a pawn is going to rile them, then you missed a few tales.  I am what I am, and I will do that which it is my sworn duty to do.  Nothing can stand in the way of that, not even the Dragon Emperor himself.  You think your Queen any more important?"

She leaned in close, whispering so that only he could hear.

"Fuck the Queen."

She pulled back, her smile grim.

"She knows what I am, and that my loyalty to her is absolute just as long as my House wishes it so.  She tolerates that because sometimes the Kingdom needs bleeding, and she knows how to play the game."

She did not hide the glance at Acton, and another at the pocket where she had placed the vial of his blood.

"Whatever game you were playing?  You lost. Your end is coming, but if the end is truly coming, then my duty goes far above and beyond any paltry task the Queen sets me yipping to attend as her snarling cur."

She grabbed his arm, her fingers squeezing hard, though she was not mighty enough to draw pain from the gesture.

"If you mean to burn it all down behind you, then I won't try and talk sense into your ale addled skull.  If we are all to die, then I will sleep tonight with a smile on my face knowing that you will die first, preferably screaming.  But it sounds to me like you're taking a fall for something larger.  Is your last act to be to go sullen and silent to your death, or would you rather have a dog nipping at the heels of Fel Mondain?  The choice is yours, I don't give enough of a damn to try and beat it out of you."

She released him, and went back to the task of coercing him into helping her drag Acton along.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:45, Wed 29 July 2020.

Etzagith decided that Robert must really believe what he is saying.  "I will take a vow of guardianship for these two boys until I deliver them to their mother, Queen Jia.  No harm will come to them that I have power and breath to stop.  I will make no detour from the path to bring them to their mother unless it is for their physical safety."  What have I got to lose with this vow?  It's what I was going to do, anyway.

Still looking at Robert, he continues, "You still have to answer to a magistrate for your part in this affair.  I will, however, testify that I believe you did not know whom you held.  That is, I will do so as long as you give all the evidence you have about who is responsible for the kidnapping."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 04:00, Wed 29 July 2020.

@Cara

Hollis winced at the pressure applied to his arm.   "Wasn't... trying to rile you.  ... Don't care enough to do that." He said through gritted teeth.  "There's nothing you can do to me.   I'm already dead.  Have your two-faced Blue-Fist look up the name Nathan Hollis.

Arui was about to offer a vow of guardianship which is common among sentinels, but Etzagith spoke quicker which brought a smile to her.  He didn't look like a sentinel, but he acted like one.  "If you will allow it, I would like to accompany you in taking the boys home."

She agreed with Etzagith to Robert, "You have acted honorably as a guardian, and I too will speak for you, and the others who came with us to the garrison.  However, I noticed more than a few snuck off before we arrived. I can not speak for them, but the magistrate will likely want to know about them."

Cara ignored the others as she walked, focusing on her prisoners.

"You are not listening."

She said, her voice low and gravelly.

"I am not threatening you.  I am giving you a chance to continue whatever work you thought was so important you risked all this for."

She gestured towards what few refuges hadn't managed to slip away.

"Do you think one of the Khundari would ignore rumors of the Mondain?  House Yisil does not do its business in Fallen Khadid, but there are none among my people who do not know what happened to Javid.  You say I am being used by them in my ignorance, help me understand, so that I can be a thorn in their side rather than their pawn."

"It's simple." Hollis said at last, sullenly. "The Mondain have been swarming Pennryn Hills for years.   Duke Pennryn has pled the crown for years.  But they tell him it's not their problem, that he's making it up, that there is no threat.

So, now, any who fight the Mondain in Pennryn may earn tenancy.   Doesn't matter where they come from or what their life was before.  All that matters is that they fight.  We arrange transport. Volunteers, all of them.  Pennryn pays.  It's not just the coin.  There are easier ways to make your weight.  Everyone on the shadow path has lost family, friends.

My son was disemboweled by an Urgach in the mountains East of Pennryn, under the King's banner.  Now, they won't even give him the honor of recognition for his sacrifice. Won't acknowledge he even existed.  Where's the justice in that, hm?   If the king won't fight to save his own damned kingdom, somebody's got to do it.

--
Duke Pennryn
Duke Churthan.  Duke Pennryn is simply a reference to title/estate rather than the individual who holds it.  Still the same person.

Shadow Path
Just made it up...  'cause "underground railroad" doesn't make sense if railroads haven't been invented yet.

Urgach
No clue.  probably some sort of Orcish type of creature.  I'm envisioning humanoid, brutish and quick.

"Make your weight"
Earn you coin.  Since "weight" is a measurement of coin (10 times a piece of currency is a weight).