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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 2822896" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #336] Complicated Matters[/PLAIN]"'We yield'? 'WE YIELD'?????" Lela screamed at the top of her tiny lungs. Her voice was shrill, edged with grief. "Are you out of your mind???? You don't get to YIELD!!!!" She flew toward the man and as she went she gestured at her Flaming Sphere and the fire ball obediently followed in her wake.The scruffy man glanced up, saw the flames moving in his direction and quickly renewed his struggles. He was still weakened from smoke inhalation and securely entangled by thistles and grass, so his struggles were futile."We are beaten!" he choked at Morier. "We have gold... and magic!""You slew our friend," Morier hissed back at him across the expanse of writhing vegetation. Ravager wavered in his hands from a position of rest to one of attack as if neither it nor its wielder could decide on the proper course."Feln did not get to call yield!" Lela wailed as she circled down toward the bandit leader. "I'll tell you what, you bastard: how about you tell us why the hell you just attacked us and who exactly ordered it and we will kill you quickly and painlessly... well, quickly anyway!"Fortunately for the helpless human, Lela's Flaming Sphere spell ran its course before it could reach him and the faen squeaked in frustration as the fire sputtered out.Karak stalked forward through the Entangle spell - which had no effect on him thanks to his Ring of Freedom - and swung his axe in the air, muscles bulging, his teeth clenched in barely contained fury. "Well, now it seems what you'n all had in store for us did not go as planned, other than killing my old friend with your cowardly bow fire!" the dwarf panted as he came. "That an now you got one mighty angry sprite and a half-dead drow elf!"The man looked around, apparently searching for a black-skinned elf, but, seeing only the albino Morier, quickly put one-and-one together. The look of despair on his face increased four-fold. Karak couldn't see it of course as he stalked effortlessly through the grasping vegetation toward the man's back."I mean just look at 'em," he went on. "Why I seen him stick that bastard sword of his in a man just the size of you and blow him up with electric lightning. Guts went everywhere!""We've surrendered!" the human shrieked. "Certainly that means something.""It doesn't mean as much as it might have a few moonsdances ago," Morier told him. "We've lost too many friends of late. And now you kill Feln and try to kill the rest of us." His words were threatening, but his voice seemed to have lost a measure of its earlier venom."See that one over there?" Karak said as he finally moved abreast of the man and could see his fear-filled face. The dwarf pointed at Shamalin with his waraxe. "She seen and lived through more horrors'n the likes of you can even think about with yer pea-sized hummie brains. Personally I think she be ready to snap, and you lot may well be as good a lot for her to snap on as any, I be thinkin'."The man looked at Shamalin then quickly looked back at Morier, clearly considering a drow to be more of a threat than a woman in antique armor.The hunched figure to his right, however, saw the cleric and let out a bark of recognition. "Ye be a Florian!" he croaked and a smile of sort played across his naked snout - something he had kept hidden by keeping his head down while his leader spoke. "We beg mercy in the name o' yer goddess!"Shamalin looked at the misshapen figure more closely now and spotted for the first time the symbol of Neralas, god of thieves, dangling from his forward-thrust, over-long neck. The face above it was furless, but looked otherwise canine - full of sharp teeth and eager hunger. She recognized the presence of gnoll blood in the figure."Hamelin!" the priest of Neralas growled excitedly to the human imprisoned beside him. "A Mercybringer!" But Shamalin dashed his hopes by turning away."Sometimes living can be a far greater form of punishment than death," she said bowing her head."We can tell you things if you let us go!" the human called to her. "About your temple in Rhadcliffe! We been that way less'n a week ago! We saw things!" Shamalin turned back with obvious concern on her face and the man's expression brightened a bit. Until Lela put an arrow from her shortbow into the ground beside him."How about you tell us and then we decide what to do with you!" she shrilled circling above the cluster of earth-bounds, another arrow already in her bow."You'll kill me as soon as I give you the information," Hamelin argued, tracking Lela's flight as he spoke."Aye!" Karak agreed. "The pixie'd just as soon gut ye here and now. The ogre ye killed was 'er friend." The man whimpered and hung his head, but Karak leaned forward, slid the head of his waraxe under the man's chin and forced the captive to look him in the face. "As for me, I still got a bit o'the rage in me, and I sure be dyin' to avenge me friend on ye. So as I see it, you got two ways this can go down. You can tell us who you be? Why you attacked us? And who you be workin' for. If you do that, we let you live. The other way, well you just look around you and at my friends' faces and you figure it out, you lot of thievin' filth!"Karak stepped back sweeping his axe around to indicate the carnage and then spit on the entangled man. "What's it gonna be?"Hamelin looked around despondently. Only the half-gnoll priest was alive and nearby, and he regarded the man expectantly. He lowered his head, resolved to his fate. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know," he said."Tell your men to lay down their arms!" Huzair's disembodied voice called from nearby. The mage removed a ring from his finger as he walked toward them around the far side of the Entangle spell and became instantly visible again. Pointing to the half-gnoll, he added, "That spell-caster needs to be bound and gagged as well."While they waited for Lela's Entangle spell to run its course, Hamelin spilled his guts. After the spell had expired and the prisoners had been rounded up and divested of anything Huzair determined was magical, he finished the tale. It was not particularly encouraging.He admitted freely to he and his band being brigands, eking out what existence they could under the cruel talon of winged-folk rule in Pellham. Contrary to many of the rumors that seemed to be circulating in the area, however, Hamelin maintained that he and his band did not cause the disease infecting the surrounding lands, nor had they actively attempted to spread it. The temple to Flor at Rhadcliffe had been attacked several weeks ago by a military force of unknown origin, he explained, and this same group was now living at the temple. Hamelin had at one point thought that he might be forced into a confrontation with this other group, but so far they had not infringed at all upon the bandits’ activities, and so Hamelin left them alone. He had also heard that the group was accompanied by a dragon, but he didn't believe this rumor to be true. Shortly before the plague first broke out, there were stories of strange creatures attacking farms bordering on the Spiney Wood to the south but he didn't have any specific information beyond that. His group did attack and loot one shipment of healing supplies destined for the Duchy of Deliham, and it was these Potions of Cure Disease that had allowed them to range through the plague-ridden areas with little fear.With regard to the invisible halfling and the others who had fled, Hamelin supposed that they had retreated to their camp some mile or so distant from their present location.The sound of hoofbeats tore Shamalin's attention from the words the man was babbling - a string of vile acts committed in his lifetime for which he seemed to be seeking absolution. She knew that it was not in her power to grant or deny such pardons, and wondered if it was wrong to allow the man to think so. As such, she had been half about her own thoughts when the sound assailed her. Seeking the source, her heart constricted to see a dark image astride an even darker warhorse approaching along the road. Her fingers grew slack, causing the flask of water in her hand to spill onto the ground as she quickly rose to her feet. The others had heard it too, and already Morier and Karak were scrambling into defensive positions along the base of the cliff walls. Grimly, she wondered what strength remained in them to confront this new attacker. Certainly her own resources were nearly depleted.Her eyes took in the figure's appearance - spiked full plate armor of a dark metallic hue. A skull's image set grimly in the center of the breastplate. A human rider, wearing no helmet. His strong and handsome features were framed by silvery blond hair. And at the sight of his face, Shamalin let loose a scream of sheer and utter terror.</blockquote>

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