Black Spine: Adventures under a Dark Sun

[evileeyore]

"Very well. Beyond determining where the encampment is, their numbers, perhaps a better idea of their plans, and the location of this 'secret' stash of metal goods; anyone have any thing else they wish to know? I might as well get this over with. Ursus, I'll be happy to have you along as back up. I don't expect trouble from them, but it'll be nice to have you. Perhaps Ristu or Arriha as well, as healer back up, in case someone gets hurt."

 

[Paxus Asclepius]

Grykee learns the location of the gith encampment, and a rough layout thereof. By the best estimates of your captives, there are roughly 700 gith in total, spread between three tribes. The leader of the Hand tribe is a powerful warrior, a tall, lean gith with an unusually straight posture; he wields a pair of excellent steel alhulaks. The leader of the Eye tribe, the largest, is a defiler, who will be most readily identified by his lack of weapons; the other identifying marks given are facial features, and it's hard for a non-gith to tell whether this gith has unusually sharp cheekbones and a narrow chin. The leader of the Rune, a smaller but better organized tribe, will be readily identified by the rune tattooed onto his face, and dyed onto his robes; his warriors all have the same rune, but bear large shields and spears, where he dresses lightly. Neither gith knows much about him, save that he has a very imposing presence.

The source of the metal is evidently a mine that once belonged to Nibenay; the gith apparently swarmed it under and seized the stores there for themselves.

 

[humble minion]

Some idea of the level of organisation would be useful. Do the gith obey one leader primarily, or is it a cooperative effort between the three tribal rulers? What do they hope to gain by attacking a village that specialises in pottery? Are there guard schedules, military chains of command, preplanned strategies and so on, or is the army just a big mob of individuals? What do the tribes think of each other, and is there intertribal tension? What spells does the Eye's leader generally use in combat? How long ago was the mine overrun, and are reprisals from Nibenay expected?

Also, what exactly does the Rune tribe's rune look like? Does it have any linguistic or magical significance? (Garak will ask Grykee to draw a copy in the sand, then use Read Magic on it if necessary)

 

[Paxus Asclepius]

Each tribe obeys their own leader. Each gith believes their own leader is running things, with the other two leaders following his lead. The Hand and Eye apparently are fairly disorganized, and have no real command structure or patrol schedule. Each tribe doesn't think too highly of the others; there's been bad blood in the past. They don't know when the mine was taken, and are extremely confident that no effective counterattacks will occur. Neither knows what the Rune looks like well enough to identify it.

EDIT: and Grykee's other questions:
The tribes came from underground; they were essentially united by arriving on the surface with a great deal of metal and a wide-open hunting field. The mines are guarded, and supplies are brought through the mines to the army. The vast majority of the troops are warrior-types; there are maybe a half-dozen caster/manifesters in the whole mess.

 

[evileeyore]

Grykee Mindbender 12th PP:11 HP:25/46

After the exhaustive Mind Probing (22 PP) Grykee has the Gith blindfolded and feed half rations for day. She thanks Ursus for the backup (and anyone else who there), gives them the basics of what was learned, and returns to the tent.

"Okay. There are three tribes of around seven hundred Gith, mostly warriors. The Hand and Eye are fractious, I think we can use that to our advantage. The Hand leader is a warrior, the Eye a Defiler. The thrid tribe, Rune, sounds a bit more organized and is led by a charismatic. possibly a Psion, or just a viscious killer. I would like to grab up a Rune tribesman at some point in the next few days."

She pauses.

"I figure I can make our captives believe they escaped and are uncontrolled. Then when they get back, subtley use them to sabotage the supplies and guard routines. With some remote viewing help I can more actively controll them, but it would be risky to be too overt.

This is the basic setup of the camp and disposition of guards as the two knew them."

Grykee sketches out the camp and such roughly in the sand.

"Now Garrak I have those descriptions for you. Now I know you hate this but, Memory Implanting is the fastest way."

She reaches her hand towards his face and waits.


OOC: I also wanted to get a feel for the captives personalities, and how they think they might escape. She's decided to let them go...

She will manifest Tailor Memory and give Garak the details of the three leaders, as long as he is willing. Then she will manifest Combat Precognition and Conceal Thoughts (both extended) just before trying to get some rest.

 

[Cerebus13]

Ursus

Ursus ponders for a moment, then says:

"If one of us could be suitably disguised as a Gith of a differing tribe, we might be able to assassinate one of their leaders and have the blame be pointed to one of their own groups. That would certainly set up quite a bit of turmoil, along with any other chaos you folks can create by disrupting their food and supplies.
Does anyone among us possess that much ability, magic or otherwise, to be able to make a Gith disguise capable of getting us into the camp?"

To Grykee: "Err....you're probably too tired to want to stay up all evening pondering over this so go get some sleep. Hopefully I can come up with some more ideas we can discuss tomorrow while we begin to fortify the village."

Ursus spends the rest of the night watching the Gith captives from a bit of distance so as to mask sketches of the Gith camp he scribbles with on the ground. He tries to figure out the safest routes into the camp if a single individual, or a small group, wanted to sneak in and get out again safely.

 

[humble minion]

Garak pulls a face as if he's bitten into something vile.

"Alright then. It's for a good cause. Just make sure you leave everything in there the way you found it", he adds, only half-joking.

OOC: I'll accept Grykee's memory implantation without attempting a saving throw. Time for Garak to put his money where his mouth is with the whole 'trust and cooperation' thing. On the other hand, betrayal is but a moment, vengeance is forever, as they say...

Then I will attempt to scry on the Hand - the Eye will probably detect my attempt, and I'm unwilling to risk going up against the Rune until I know more about him. Does anyone have a Comprehend Languages spell or similar that they can cast on me first? I don't speak Gith.

While scrying, I will also try to 'zoom out' to get some idea of the layout of the camp, fortifications, water sources, lay of the land, which tribes are where, and so on. I would still like to get a good look at the Rune tribe's rune, if I can. Mind you, I haven't got my book with me right now, so I don't know if this second bit is possible. If not, just go with the Hand.

 

[Keia]

Arriha: Aarakocra Air Cleric 1 / Nomad 9 PP's:59

Arriha will heal those that she can with Empathic transfer and Lesser body adjustment, before retiring fo the rest of the evening. Her powers are much more personal than any of the others within the group, so she cannot really help them with this task.

"I'm going to get some rest," Arriha mentioned, "Your ideas seem sound, but I don't really have anything to add. I'll be here when everything shakes out, though. Wake me for my watch."

With that she looked around for a good high perch to rest in, trying to keep it inaccessible to villagers (on top of the temple, etc.). Arriha will, of course, let her friends know where she was resting.

 

[Paxus Asclepius]

You can only see within a 10 foot radius of the target; you could scry on the camp only if he is walking about. No one presently has a Comprehend Languages prepared; either Garak or Arriha could prepare one.

 

[humble minion]

Garak will just try to scry the Hand then. There's not much point leaving the scry uncast, and if he does end up overhearing something in Gith, Grykee can just look through his memories and try to translate it from there.