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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 4017848" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #424] Little Keep on the Borderlands[/PLAIN]"Watch who ye be shootin' at, ye bunyun-brained anvil-droppin' goblin spawn!" Karak shouted back, the paragon of dwarven diplomacy, and shook his axe in the air for emphasis. "We're nae yer enemies!""Perhaps it is best not to antagonize them," Anania suggested, estimating the distance between their current position and the archer behind the wall. It wasn't point blank range, but it was darned close. She notched an arrow into her bow and waited for the keep's reply."This is your last warning!" the voice shouted from within. "Come no closer or you'll find an arrow in your throat.""Charming," Ixin said as she came up behind the dwarf and the elf."Fireball is always an answer, regardless of the question," Huzair's voice spoke from the air amongst them. The mage had turned invisible, but the faint smell of smoke that always surrounded him betrayed his presence near them. "I also have a Web spell if you want to have someone to interrogate afterwards.""Huzair, let's away before we make even greater targets of ourselves. This situation is best left alone... the mark of Aphyx is clearly posted for all to see," Morier said as he stepped up behind Karak. He didn't bother looking for the wizard, but kept his eyes trained on the weather worn battlements for any sign of archers. "I see no valid reason to put ourselves in harm's way to disturb this place. Yes, we near exhaustion, I feel it too, but let's get away from here and find a suitable place with cover. I can't imagine what we've to gain inside.""I like Morier's idea of falling back and watching to see what we can see," Shamalin huffed as she caught up to the others. She was breathing hard and sweating profusely under her heavy plate despite the cold. "If we make it a night, that also allows me to adjust my spell list to make it more specific to the current situation.""Hang on," Ayremac protested. "Are we not heroes? Must we retreat from every obstacle?""Who said anything about retreating?" Huzair's voice asked. "I am suggesting a full frontal assault before they can poke us full of arrows." Morier sighed, pulling his eyes away from the keep and looking at the holy warrior."I understand yours and Huzair's feelings. And believe me, I don't want to overestimate my own importance... but the pull in my head is the only thing leading us toward our goal at this point," the albino explained, his tone sullen. "I don't feel like I have the freedom to take unnecessary risks. In many ways it's contrary to the ways of the Eldritch Warrior... I struggle with it every day, probably more than all of you know.""Morier, you understand this is a clandestine mission," Ayremac argued. "We have been set upon this path by Higher Powers, and for all we know this fortress has been put before us for some reason we cannot even begin to comprehend.""And for all we know it hasn't," the eldritch warrior countered. "It could just be chance that we stumbled upon it. And as a matter of fact I think it probably was.""Trust me, Morier. You may not realize it, but I can feel Umba is leading us here," Ayremac said with utter confidence and Morier turned away with a resigned shake of his head."What did you have in mind?" Ixin asked the holy warrior."Let me try to convince them," Ayremac said to the group. "I can fly up there and persuade them to let us enter.""There seems little harm in that," Ixin said with a nod. "We'll have lost nothing by trying the diplomatic approach." Anania nodded in agreement and Karak harrumphed but said nothing."Okay, fly boy. You go up there and do that. But do not get too close," Huzair's voice spoke from the air to their right. His feet scrunched the snow as he moved away from the group. The remains of a large bonfire thrust darkly up from the snow in that direction. "I will just hide behind this rubble over here. And oh, I have got your back." Being invisible did little to hide the sarcasm in his voice.Shamalin doffed her helmet and took the golden Circlet of Persuasion from its place amongst her sweaty locks."Here," the cleric said, offering the band to Ayremac. "This will help." Ayremac took it and wiped it fastidiously dry on his cloak before removing his own helmet and settling it amongst his platinum hair."Thank you," he said to Shamalin before turning toward the fortress with his helmet beneath one arm. He stepped in front of Anania and shouted, "People of the keep! I am an Officer of Umba, a trusted holy man of the town of Frothingham to the north. We are traveling the countryside trying to heal the sick and find a cure for a plague that is spreading throughout the region. Would you allow me to meet with your town leadership to see what help I can bring?" They waited for a reply, but all was quiet from within and Ayremac turned to look back at the others. He shrugged and replaced his helmet before taking to the air. Shamalin stepped quickly behind Karak and began casting Detect Thoughts from the cover provided by the dwarf."I assure you that I am not at risk of infecting you or you infecting me," the holy warrior said as he rose gracefully upwards. "My Celestial blood grants me that advantage. If you cannot trust in me, a son of angels, who will you put your trust in?"There was no reply to his honeyed words as he soared up above the battlements, but he got a good look at the keep's interior. He was not impressed. It was all mud and ramshackle buildings with sod roofs. There was an obvious stable but no visible horses and an equally obvious smithy in which no forge burned and the hammer and anvil were silent. He saw the bowman, however, a lanky man with cornsilk hair and beard dressed in ratty furs and clutching a bow that seemed pretty pathetic after seeing Anania's so much over the last weeks. The man stood in the open space beside the gate half in the shadows of a wooden catwalk that ran along the wall. He seemed stunned to see Ayremac hovering above him in the twilight and his jaw hung open revealing a mouthful of brown teeth.Shamalin concentrated on her spell, listening to the cacophony of thoughts given voice in her head. Most were of a type that she should have expected."An angel! Brogine's Balls! A real angel!" and "Perhaps he'll deliver us!" and "We're saved! We must be saved! Surely!"But a few others gave her pause."He'll kill us all!" and "Dear gods, why won't they just go!?" and "They follow me even here? How far must I run?""Truth be told, we need you as much if not more," Ayremac said, hovering above the parapet and flashing  a smile that seemed almost painfully white in the semi-darkness. "It is cold, and we crave a warm fire and the stories of your stronghold. Will you please open your doors to us?"The bowman jerked his head away from Ayremac and looked into the dark beneath the walkway. The holy warrior could see another figure there, broad and thick-limbed, with whom the archer was conferring, but he could not hear their words. At last the bowman turned his face skyward once more and shouted up at Ayremac."T-tomorrow at sunrise!" he stammered, looking back at the shadowy figure for reassurance that he was doing the right thing. "We'll send an... an envoy to meet you then! If... if you are who you say... then we'll let you in. Tomorrow!"Crouched in the snow beside the charred remains of the fire, Huzair couldn't hear most of the exchange, but he was really inclined to listen anyway. He had prepared both Fireball and Web that morning and either was ready to go at a moment's notice. Hells, BOTH were ready to go in succession if that seemed advisable, but he had a feeling that Pyrotechnics would be most effective in the wake of his Fireball. He'd put it to good use the last time they'd been faced with archers.As he crouched there, grinning invisibly, he absently looked at the blackened remains of the fire. It was getting hard to pick out fine detail in the rapidly darkening twilight, but there amidst the burned logs and charcoal he spotted some blackened bones. Many were large - too large to be human - a horse or cow perhaps. But then he saw staring out of the snow at the edge of the firepit a human skull, darkened by flames, but still displaying the gouge above the left eye socket that could only have been left by the killing blow of a slashing weapon.</blockquote>

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