"Listen," says Wilkezag, "I don't want you to suffer what happened to that other guy."  He shudders and glares at Dubh.  "So come clean with us.  Tell us everything.  I'm not saying we'll let you go, but you'll stay alive and -- your crimes are not that serious, yet; you'll probably only serve a year or two.

We need to know where they are, how many they are, what are the typical defenses, and what traps we might expect."

15:02, Today: Wilkezag rolled 15 using 1d20+7 with rolls of 8.  Diplomacy.

Definitely somebody could jump in, here, as bad cop for an 'aid another.'

This message was last edited by the player at 01:12, Sun 08 Jan 2023.

In reply to Wilkezag (msg # 100):

Booker kept his protective aura up, and his sparkling blade pointed at the one living bandit. "Maybe it's not our choice. Maybe we let his victims decide his fate. That sounds just to me..." He causes flames to dance up and down the length of his weapon. Letting the man know what could happen if Booker wished it.

Why do people still use the good-cop/bad-cop routine today? BECAUSE IT WORKS.

The bandit flinches from Booker. "I think I'd rather take a year or two of hard labor. Men usually survive that long on the road crews, right? The camp is to the southwest on the Thorn River, about a day and a half from here. We left yesterday, but Kressle won't be expecting us back for a week or so. If you have a good map, I can show you the spot. There's no walls or anything, just two watch towers where someone's always looking out. The east tower is where we keep all the loot. I've heard there's supposed to be some additional temporary defenses if Kressle thinks they'll be needed, but I've never seen it happen. I don't know about any traps set up, but we keep the parts for a snare or two in the fake wagon. Maybe Kressle would set that up if she's expecting company.

"How many of us -- er, them? With the tax collection party out, there's only six more, plus Kressle. She keeps saying she wants to recruit more men, but she keeps scaring away any new recruits we find, or killing 'em by 'accident.' But with only six left, maybe she'll start restraining herself."

Hearing the relative quiet, Oleg comes back out from the house sometime during this interrogation. "And what about my Svetlana's ring, then? You bastards stole it months ago, and I'll have it back if you ever want to see a magistrate!" The bandit seems to struggle to remember anything that far back, but eventually comes up with something. "I haven't seen anything like that for at least a month. Gods, it must have been in one of the sacks those bloody gremlins took. They live under a big sycamore tree to the east. We thought they just snatched some copper junk and cheap trinkets; the Stag Lord would have our skins if we lost anything really valuable! But the ring must have been in there too. They've probably still got it, unless someone else stole it from them. I know they don't get along with the Sootscale kobolds." He points out the gremlin nest on your map as well, but he doesn't know exactly where the Sootscales live. "Somewhere farther east" is the best he's got.

You can continue to interrogate this guy if you like. He's told you everything he knows about the Thorn River camp. He also knows a fair bit about the surrounding area, including some things you don't even know to ask about right now. You'll be able come back to him later with more questions, too; Oleg can hold him without any trouble, but he can't deliver the bandit to justice on his own, so he'll be stuck here until someone else arrives to drag him back to Restov, which won't happen for at least a couple of weeks.

Will checks the bodies of all the mooks for any valuables, especially maps or information about what is nearby.  Since Charlie didn't know where the Stag King's hideout is, Will hopes Happs might have some information on him.  The bard turns to Oleg, "Can you keep him locked up here?  We'd bring him in for justice, but we really need to go take care of Kressle before she starts to get suspicious about where these 'tax collectors' are.  Charlie here said we have a week, but the sooner we get to them the less wary they will be."

Wilkezag looks out the gate, "Umm, somebody ought to go out and collect up their horses before they run off or attract predators.  I, umm, I guess I could go do it."  He moves very slowly, very much hoping that someone else volunteers to go gather up the massive beasts.  My sweet gelding Firefly is gentle enough, but what if one of them is a stallion?  It could bite me.

"Six like you?" she asked barely hiding the scorn in her voice.

"I mean, like how well trained? How many of the six do you think you could take in a fight? Not Kressie, presumably? She tougher than Happs? And how are you laid out? Defenses? Traps? Pass phrases? Watches? When are most of them going to be sleeping?"

If he wanted leniency, he needed to come out with the good info.

She was no good at tracking horses any more than Wilkezag was. Hopefully Dubh or Lena could manage.

All of the bandits have essentially identical leather armor, daggers, and shortbows (Happs's is a pretty nice composite bow), plus a small amount of coin. It looks like they generally don't travel with loot. In addition, each bandit has a silver amulet in the shape of a stag's skull: the mark of the Stag Lord. Oleg is happy to take this stuff off your hands, although you might want to hang onto a few Stag Lord amulets.

Oleg folds his arms menacingly. "Aye, I can hold him here for a while, until we can get a posse in from Restov to drag him back. Maybe I'll make him help me cut timber. If you folks are going to be sticking around for a bit, could use some more space around here. No more room inside the walls but there's a nice spot just a few furlongs to the south where I could put up a good longhouse."

The bandit shrinks at Sophia's questions. "No, no way could I take Kressle! No one could! The others, yeah, we fight a bit when we get bored. Big Nate is the toughest, but he's slow, so I can usually get in on him.

"There ain't no passphrases in Kressle's camp. There's not that many of us, Kressle knows who belongs and who don't. I haven't been to the big boss's camp yet so I don't know nothing about that; Kressle just gave me this amulet in case I ever meet someone from one of the other bands out in the field. Creepy thing, you can have it. I don't want to see it again. Mostly folks hit the sack around midnight, less'n you're on watch in one of the towers. There's always someone up there, and they got noisemakers to wake everyone up. But we're poachers, mostly; if I wanted to get up at dawn I'd've joined the army. Nobody moves around much until midmorning."

He tries to draw you a quick sketch of the camp, but it comes out mostly a scribble. You understand that there's a small stream, and a watchtower on either side of it, with the main campfire near the eastern tower, but beyond that it seems like it's just a pretty featureless patch of forest.

He already answered Wil's questions about traps and other defenses; there aren't any, unless maybe if Kressle gets suspicious and sets one up.

OOC: Ah sorry for repeating Wil I just got rolling on tactical interrogation!

"Towers. Interesting, that gives them a serious tactical advantage if they have even mooks like this guy up there with longbows. Can't be helped though, unless we can knock 'em down without being seen. Regardless, seems like in the morning we ride for this camp then. Hit them just after midnight when we can sneak in unseen while most of them sleep and we get cover of darkness. If we can get one up into a tower and claim it, that'll give us the high ground."

She kicked one of the dead bandits with her boot, rocking the body, then crouched to see if he carried anything interesting, going from body to body to search them.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:19, Tue 10 Jan 2023.

In reply to Sophia Akhova (msg # 106):

"I have a way to sneak myself in past the guards and towers." Booker said.

With no one else volunteering to go out and get the bandits' horses, Will does so.  He is a little surprised to find that they are no trouble, being loosely tied to some branches and reasonably placid about being led into the fortress.  He brings them in to the stables and puts them into stalls, forced now to double up some of the horses.  He removes their tack and stacks it up with the others, and finally returns to the group.

As he is performing this manual task, Will's mind wanders to the magic he has learned.  Since he new lyre can cast the Charm spell for him, he releases that from his mind, the mental glyphs dissolving from his brain.  Instead, he focuses on the Command spell that Black Tears wizard used on Booker.  He realizes that this is straightforward, that he could produce the same magicks, just by finding the right music in the words.  As he contemplates the music of words and the imagery they produce, he realizes that a similar approach could make images manifest, such that others could literally see them, if he just supplements the melody to create an Illusory Object.  With these revelations, he is almost too excited to try them out.

The bard returns to the captive and tries to Command him to "Tell us everything."  Unfortunately, Will realizes that he will have to rejuvenate his mind before he'll be able to use such magic.  That doesn't mean he can't use more mundane methods to get more information.

Charlie seems to have given up all the information about the bandit camps that he knows about, so Wilkezag returns to interrogating him about everything else.  "What do you know about this area, labelled 'Old Sycamore'?" and "Tell me again about this section of the river.  What is it like?  What sort of creatures live there?"  He asks about every part of the plains and the forest that their charter covers, hitting every location at least twice and many a third or even a fourth time, if he has any hint that the bandit is holding back.  Will approaches this with a barrister's attention to detail, writing down all the notes on a separate piece of paper, then correlating those to the map using a letter-number pair for each coordinate on the map.

Once he is convinced that Charlie has told everything he can, Will follows his nose to learn that Svetlana is cooking something fascinating.  Again he watches over her shoulder and listens to her tutelage on the subject of cooking.  She teaches him the basics and he looks forward to applying it at their nightly camps.

Finally going to bed, he finds that Oleg has a book on Calistria, a goddess who is a sometimes lover, sometimes enemy of Will's hero, Cayden Cailean, and he becomes captivated by it.  He appreciates the goddess' cleverness, her wit, and her striving for personal freedom.  He understands her need for revenge, but believes she errs when she refuses ever to forgive a slight.  An inability to forgive will burn anyone up, even a goddess.  When he is done, he realizes that he knows more about her than about his own deity, but he promises to raise a glass to Cayden at the first opportunity, and he knows that his god will be more happy with that than with bookish study.

As the candle burns low, the bard reaches the end of the book and is surprised to learn that the author identifies himself as an Iruxi, or Lizardfolk.  The authors note says that few Iruxis follow "The Savored Sting," as many call Calistria, but those few who do are extremely avid.  At the end is a significant dictionary of the Lizardfolk language, which Wilkezag realizes is weirdly related to Sylvan, but with construction not unlike Jotun, two languages he already knows.

Added Lore (Cooking) and Lore (Calistria), Lizardfolk language, plus the spells and a secondary muse.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:05, Wed 11 Jan 2023.

Satisfied at Oleg's security arrangements to hold a prisoner - well maybe not satisfied but out here you took what you could get - Sophia went in to relax and get her meal, chat with the others, Oleg and Svetlana.

"Did Charlie say how long it'd take us to get to the bandit camp? Seems like it should be our first destination at first light, hit 'em before they realize anyone's missing. Be nice if we could get there in a day. Then if all goes well, camp the night and explore more carefully on the way back?"

Will rolls his eyes a bit at the big fighter, "a day and a half, by horseback.  I agree that we should go straight there, make an early camp, and hit them just before dawn."  He ponders a bit, "We do have an issue though.  We know roughly where it is, but not exactly.  We might be looking to make camp somewhere close, thinking we still have an hour or so before reaching them, and stumble into them.  We should make a plan for that situation.  Maybe our stealthier folk can travel up ahead, and you and I stay back.  I hate to leave them hanging, though, if their stealth fails them."

In reply to Wilkezag (msg # 110):

"Well, I can definitely get inside unseen. The question is what do I do in there? Opening the gate so we can all attack might be an option, but doing it by myself would be diffcult. I could try and take control of one of the towers. However that does not help the rest of you get inside." Booker points out.

"I can take the other tower. Once we have the towers, we can either open the gate or use high ground advantage to control the field. Or both, I can stay up and provide cantrip cover and you can open the gate for the rest of our party."

In reply to Dubh Oiche (msg # 112):

"Alright, you take one tower. Then they are distracted by that, and I try to open the gate? Risky, but it might work." Booker rubbed his beard in thought.

Will jumps in, "Charlie said that there are no walls, just the two watchtowers.  So there's no gate to open.  The point of the watchtowers is to make sure that they aren't surprised, and the probably to provide archery support, so we want to take at least one of those out in our approach.  But we don't have to worry about walls or gates."

In reply to Wilkezag (msg # 114):

"If that is the case, then Dubh takes one tower and I take the other." Booker nods. "However, most of the time when there are towers, there are some sort of defenses. If no walls, then maybe something else. Pit traps?"
This message was last edited by the player at 16:32, Wed 11 Jan 2023.

All Charlie knows about the gremlins of the Old Sycamore is that they're a bloody nuisance. Sophia can tell you that this is typical of mitflit gremlins; they're well organized but cruel and mean-spirited. Mitflits suffer from a species-wide inferiority complex from having lost most of their gremlin magic at some point in the distant past, and are normally bound in service to some more powerful fey, but failing that, some particularly strong gremlin will take charge and the others are happy to follow. They're natural, instinctive henchmen, basically.

Charlie also tells you about the trick to the bridge several miles south of the bandit camp. It's too weak for more than one person at a time, and much too weak for horses. You'll have to be careful, or you'll get dumped in the river. Additionally, he says weird stuff keeps happening in an area north of camp, but he never found out why. One of other bandits had a lucky rock that he insisted was gold, or at least gold ore, which he'd found to the southeast of the bandit camp. Probably just fools' gold, though: Petey was certainly a fool. He's never heard of Breeg Orlivanch, but then, the bandits don't all use their real names.

As Wilkezag and Svetlana cook dinner, she teaches the young bard the traditional House Beyavin recipe for haggis. "Good for whatever ails you! Well, bad for whatever ails you, really. It's a way to prove you're stronger than any sickness!" She also has a special request. "My poor Oleg has been under so much stress recently. I want to make him his favorite moon radish soup, but with these bandits, I haven't been able to get out to the radish patch for months. I've never been able to grow them in the garden here; seems they're very picky about where they want to grow. It should be right on your way to this camp you're all talking about. If you have a chance, could you collect a basket or two?"

Oleg listens to you planning over dinner. "If you're really worried about tripping over the bandit camp accidentally, you could just drag Charlie along with you to get more precise directions as you get close. If you think you can trust him. I've been talking with him today and I don't know. He really seems like he never wanted to be a bandit that much, but then again.... he's still a bandit, whether or not he intended to get into that kind of life."

What gate? It's just a couple of lookout towers. "Towers" is overstating it a bit, too; they're really just platforms and ladders built onto trees. Also, I'm really wondering how Booker is so certain he can get in unseen.

In reply to GM (msg # 116):

OOC-Pest form. Even if they see me, they will see a bug or small animal.

"Hey, I'm not great with the little details, what can you do?" she shrugged at Wilkezag's eye roll.

"I'll just leave those bits of strategy to the lawyers," she smirked.

"Seems risky sending just one up to the tower. If I was laying out the camp I'd have two in each on watch, or if there aren't enough guys, two in one, the other empty. Single guy on watch on a platform is just asking to get ambushed, or for him to fall asleep or whatever. Point is, if I was you Booker I'd assume I'd be facing two guys like Charlie up on the platform, and well, I'm not sure I'd like those odds, if it was me."

"We'll know more if we can get there undetected and scout the place out from a distance. Handy to be a mouse for that I guess. Just watch out for hawks."

Will looks critically at the captive bandit, then back to his comrades, "What do you think?  Should we trust him?  I suppose we could hobble him so he can't run, and make it very clear that if he shouts out to warn them, we'll slit his throat.  But it just seems like a big risk to me."

"We could make an exchange. Give him his freedom for helping us. If it doesn't work out for us... He dies." He suggests.

Your captive speaks up at this one (if you're having this conversation in his earshot, and the trading post really isn't that big). "Hey, if you're planning to take down Kressle and the Stag Lord, I'm your man. I can't even run if I know they're out there waiting to catch me; they don't take kindly to turncoats, or even folks that might have talked. I can't never go back. And helping you folks sure beats breaking rocks in the quarries." As far as you can tell, he's sincere about this offer. He really seems to be more afraid of Kressle than of any Restov magistrate.

"You're right, it would be better to post two people in the towers," he goes on. "But they're not really big enough, and Kressle don't have enough men for that anyway. I can't draw a map that'll do you any good, but I'm sure I can guide you close to the camp myself without too much risk of being spotted. Hunted around there plenty, I know the ground. I don't know if camping nearby yourself is a good idea, though. Even if Kressle don't have patrols out, there's always someone hunting for food who might trip over you. Maybe you could take 'em quietly, maybe not. I wouldn't risk it. Better to plan your travel so that you're getting near just at the time you want to attack."

Oleg also catches you as you clean up from dinner. "If you're going out for a few days, could I trouble you to go check on old Bokken? He's a real hermit, lives in a little hut on the plains about a day's ride southeast of here. Spends his time making elixirs mostly, and sells 'em to me to sell on to the trappers, but I haven't heard from him in a few weeks." He indicates an area on your map in the plains to the southeast. B21 or C21, but Oleg's not sure where exactly.

I know you folks are hot to take down Kressle's gang before she even finds out she's in trouble, and that's fine if you want to do that! But there really is not a serious rush. Even if you take long enough that Kressle becomes suspicious, she can't keep all her men in the camp and alert forever; they'd starve. I would recommend at least taking the time to Reconnoiter each hex as you go through.

Wilkezag look thoughtfully at their prisoner, but doesn't respond.  When Oleg asks about checking in on old Bokken, Will gladly jumps on the change of subject.  "Of course we'll check on your friend.  Our plan is to explore this whole area, anyway, so any guidance on where to explore first, especially if it might lead to better information about the rest of it, is absolutely welcome."

Finally returning to Charlie, Wilkezag starts to speak, then hesitates yet again.  Finally, he says, "You do make a good case.  From everything we've heard of both Kressle and the Stag Lord, they'll just slit the throat of anyone they even suspect.  On top of that, we'll slit your throat if you do try to turn on us.  If you want to continue breathing without a bloody rasp, you're going to have to throw your lot in with us.  If the others agree, I'm willing to go along with it."

After a short pause (assuming the others agree, at least tentatively), he continues, "I am going to insist, though, that you stay tied to one of the horses, one that is in someone else's control.  We can't really hobble you and tie your hands behind your back -- that's too much -- but we can make sure you can't quickly escape us.  We'll be checking that rope frequently. If there is any sort of excessive wear on it, that's a throat-slitting, too."  The bard looks to Dubh, Booker, and Sophia to see if they agree.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:49, Wed 18 Jan 2023.

"Risky, but if we never trust or recruit allies, what kind of a kingdom are we building anyways? I'm willing to take the risk," she nodded to Wilkezag.

---

I was thinking we'd bee-line to the Thorn River camp since it's so close, then explore on the way back, but if people want to explore that forest hex first, I guess that's ok. C19 or something?

Can we even travel through the forest hex? Or is it impassable?

In the morning, having dealt with the fallen bandits appropriately, you set out with your captive tied to the saddle of a spare horse. He's not completely happy about this state of affairs, but understands that you can't really trust him just yet.

For what it's worth, I did roll some secret Perception checks for everyone, and as far as you can tell, he seems pretty sincere.

Here ends the scene.