Loukas takes a bite of the food he and Zmija have been brought and considers, "A man has to undertake responsibilities my father used to say. I thought he was talking about paying attention to my tutors, but today I have bit deeper understanding..."

He looks unusually shy for a moment as he takes a sip from his cup, "I do not think that today is the day for this conversation, but the day will come when we each must take on a different and greater role than we have today."

Filling up two plates A'kos leads Jaleh to a table away from the others, content to let Miroslav plan and Loukas talk.  For him, some peace before battle is a prize worth embracing...though he does commisserate with Miro's apparent fate.

Balthazar sweeps into the chamber carrying a rope and a gem and announces, "Sorry Dobrynya, you can't have him.  Miroslav's destiny lies with us."

"And our destiny lies with Dobrynya and Khorsun. We seem to be talking in circles...

"You've a rope and a gem, Balthazar. Do you intend to capture the Khan by laying a trap with the stone? Or perhaps you have some other scheme? Come, have yourself a goblet and tell us what you are thinking."

"Yes, if you have a plan, please share it. Miroslav's future can wait till this crisis is over."

Heinrich sits eating, listening to the conversation flowing around him. He enjoys the food provided, a bemused look on his face as he thinks of how life has placed him here.

Dyanna fills a goblet with her own hand and holds it out to the Hedonite.

"Yes, tell us what you intend, good Hedonite!"

"It seems to me that the best way to stop an army is to confuse its orders.  I intend to possess the Khan, or if not him, one of his chief lieutenants, and sow chaos.  But we need some information first about him; Dyanna do you have the Mirror?"
This message was last edited by the player at 14:53, Wed 13 June 2012.

"I agree that we need to use Dyanna's mirror before we do anything, but we need to do more than stop the army that isn't moving and camped around our walls. We need to destroy its ability to fight. This seems like an interesting trick, my friend, but I am uncertain whether it would have the effects we need. I thought we were going to kill the Khan and lop off the army's head?"

"Lop off its head, it grows another...like the many headed snake of Dyanna's folktales," the Falcon replies.  "This plan of the enchanter's, it sows confusion...a more useful tool in this case when combined with carefully planned strikes made in unison with his deceits.  Well thought, friend Balthazar, indeed!"

"The mirror, of course i will have to go fetch it. Give me a few minutes. I have it stored in our lab here near the barracks."

Dyanna leaves her plate and drink and quickly heads for the lab, returning in just a few minutes with the large mirror in hand.

Setting it down she says,

"Ok, now what?"

Heinrich nods to Dyanna, looks at the others and says, "We are looking for the leader of our enemies right?  To see if there are any weaknesses to exploit and use to eliminate them?"

"If I understand correctly I believe we're looking to identify him so that we can exploit him in some way," replied A'kos.  "The mage has the particulars, of which the less I know, the better."

Loukas nods in agreement with A'kos, "Yes. If we can eliminate him we hope that his army will disintegrate or at least give us the opportunity to counter-attack and send them into sufficient disarray that they'll leave."

Zmija shakes his head slightly..."I believe the idea is to possess the Khan and make him do our bidding as long as possible. Poor command choices should do more for our cause than defanging the snake, so to speak." says the hatchet featured Monk of Veles.

Heinrich grins, and says, "Possession? In addition to disruptive commands, is there anything we could make him due to diminish his authority? Cultural taboos and such?"

"The point is not to diminish his authority...the point is to make him give commands that will not be questioned that actually expose large portions of his troops."

As Dyanna sets up her mirror and begins to concentrate on the idea of the Khan she says,

"Even just making him delay his attack until the Knyaz arrives with help could be accomplished by making the Khan stay in council with his advisors too long. Sometimes subtlety can go a long way."

Slowly the image of Kurya Khan comes into view, framed by gilt. He is a strong dark man wearing a small crown. Surrounding him are several shamans and a strong guard of 20 select troops. He sits on a pile of furs in his yurt. A small brazier burns before him as one who looks ot be head shaman meditates before it.

Kurya looks to be waiting on this man to tell him something.

"It appears as if they are doing their own scrying..."

"There are two ways I can go about this.  One is to have my soul hop into the gem right now.  On the plus side, that's good because my body will be safe here.  On the bad side, that puts a lot of distance between myself and my body.  The other option is to get into the extradimensional space of a rope trick, then jump into the gem and start possessing.  Which I choose will depend upon what plan we come up with."

"Now, as for how this will work, once I am in the gem, I can sense other life sources and jump into those bodies, but I can't tell who's who very well.  Presumably the Khan will have the strongest life force.  I may try jumping into some of the shaman bodies first - they won't tolerate my presence for long - have them commit suicide right away, then jump into the Khan and have him declare that this is clearly a bad omen.  I certainly don't want to get stuck in anybody's body, and I need to have control to jump back to the gem."

"So, maybe the best approach is just for someone invisible like Jaleh or Loukas to go through the Mirror carrying the gem, allow me to sow dissension for a bit, then the rest of you can jump through and finish them all off while the gem-bearer comes back through the mirror and I return to my body.  But I'm up for whatever ideas you have.  The key thing to remember is that the smarter/wiser a person is, the less a chance I have to possess them, and at that possess them for long."

"Can you speak their language?" asks A'kos, suddenly, curious and a bit confused by the whole thing.

OOC: Balthazar speaks Greek (common), Latin, Arabic, Persian, Slavic, Turkic, Magyar, and Hebrew.  Is it one of those?

Zmija answers for Balthazar..."Balthazar and I have had a few conversations in the Turkic language of the Pechenegs in months past. It is always good to keep your language skills polished, especially when dealing with your enemy neighbors."

He looks at Balthazar and says..."You must tread carefully here. Kurya Khan is a wise and cautious man. The magic of his shaman is not weak, it is very different but still strong. Kurya Khan is every bit an Emperor as John is...his guards will not be the only thing that protect him. Tread carefully."

Loukas nods at Zimja's warning, "Quite so. His Shaman is either doing something like what we're doing now or invoking some sort of protection, I'd bet. Can you or Dyanna detect what sort of magickal activity is going on there?

"That said, I would not miss the opportunity to assist here. I'm willing to take you in, Balthazar, but as A'kos said earlier we need a plan. There does not seem to be much point in taking you over there to take over the Khan's body if our goal is to simply jump through and kill him. We could do that now without the body-stealing, couldn't we?"