Cygna thanks the captain for the food and starts to eat in something passing for a lady-like manner.
She glares at him. [color=red]"You break into the inn, wound, if not kill, innocent men, and spirit me away in the middle of the night, and you expect me to take you at your word?" She pauses to take another bite.
[color=red]"And besides...if he's not in the castle where he told me he would be, then he could be anywhere!"
((just out of curiosity, does the cookfire provide enough light for Cygna to make Eye contact with him?))
"You are concerned for Kote? He is a traitor to his own people, twice over. Living among the English like some tame beast with new masters, but refusing to fight for his rightful Prince out of misplaced loyalty to the usurper-- this, you would call 'innocence'? Spare me your denigrations of the early hour and the battle we fought here. Only armed men were injured-- all who surrendered peacefully were given quarter, as is rightful and just. The actions we have taken today were seen and judges by the eyes of the Lord, and neither I nor my cousin have aught to regret."
Should be close to dawn, so there is sufficient light for eye contact.
"Now, will you help us find your liege lord, or do you
(not sure if he trailed off or if you accidentally the sentence, but anyway)
[color=red]"Pfft...Kote looked to be giving as good as he got. But what of the blue-haired man? He was unarmed, and yet he was run through...was that right or just?"
Cygna sets down the bowl and stretches, then looks the captain in the eye. [color=red]"♪♫ You wish to know where my lord may be found, ♫♪ " she sings, then sings Peering Into the Mortal Mind (and doesn't care about the Warping Point it gives him...he's being a right git, anyway).
((CT is In 6 + Me 18 + Sta 0 = 24 plus the die roll. Main thing she's going for is what he knows/believes about the civil war, about Robert, about the faux prince, where he expects and believes the baron to be, what is supposed to be done with Hiems, what he knows about the layout of de Montfort's castle. If she finds anything else of interest, bonus cookies.))
The captain looks sharply at Cygna. "The sorcerer, you mean? Truth be told, I never believed the rumours about Kote, and I would not have believed it of this associate of his, had I not seen the unnatural frost cleaving to Owain's wounds. Those who deal with the devil for unholy power are hardly unarmed, let alone innocent, miss. And to prove Owain's tale, when we went back to retrieve the body, the sorcerer had vanished into thin air. Owain was sure the man was on death's door, but the only trace of him was a few drops of the bluish ichor that ran through his veins. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you? It is our duty as Christians to stamp out such abomination."
Cygna's spell goes off successfully, though she loses a fatigue level.
The captain, Ioan ap Rhodri, believes that Thomas lacks the hardness required to hold onto as much territory as Llewelyn has claimed, but Ioan serves Thomas faithfully anyway, out of fraternal loyalty. He hopes that skirmishes with the English will distract Llewelyn long enough that Thomas can claim part of Gwynedd, as he believes a local liege rules best.
He has no idea where the baron is, but fears that the rumours may prove true, that the Baron consorts with wizards, and that his timely disappearance may be part of some plot with the satan-worshippers. He would kill Hiems on sight without any hesitation or remorse, and Cygna gets the impression that this is a common reaction to his un-Gentle gift, unnatural appearance, and arcane talents-- all the military men who heard Owain's debriefing had similar reactions.
He doesn't have any especial knowledge of the small manor here.
Ioan has a good and noble heart, and genuinely abhors violence. He believes that Thomas' cause is just, because the Welsh would live more peaceful and prosperous lives than they would under either Llewelyn or the English Marcher Lords. He hopes for quick victories so he can return home to his young wife and the child that should have been born earlier this month. He hopes for a son, of course, but more than that he hopes that his wife survived the birth. (Heh. What a wuss.)
He hates the English, not as a reflex, but because his and Thomas' mother was raped and killed by an anointed English knight in service to the Earl of Chester; he hates Llewelyn for literally being in bed with the English. He fears becoming old and frail, and he fears losing the people he loves. He strives to be an upstanding Christian, a devoted husband, a strong respectable father, and a just lord.
(Did I miss anything? I hate that gorram spell. Too bloody much work.)
Cygna breathes a sigh of relief, and gives a quick, silent prayer of thanks that Hiems still lives.
[color=red]"No, I believe as you, that those who would barter their immortal souls for some fleeting reward here on Earth deserve their just reward, and I pray that I never encounter one again."
Cygna now knows more about the political situation than she did before. She's still not happy about the two Welsh princes going to war with each other, apparent in a #1 Contender's Match to see who gets to challenge the Baron (and, by extension, King Henry), but at least she has a better feel over who's who.
She does find it interesting that Ioan doesn't know where de Montfort is? Is he not, apparently, in his castle and is out and about somewhere, or does he just not know where in the castle he would be?
I'll try to use it sparingly.
Um...okay. I think he's saying, in Tarzan-Latin, that he doesn't need her singing to cheer him up, that he speaks English just fine, and he's not going to shut her up.
That's not what he was trying to say at all, but then, with his 2 in Latin, he won't be too surprised when you ignore his warnings Cygna can tell from sifting through his brain, he would make threats to make things go smoothly, but he would never strike a woman.
He doesn't know if the Baron escaped or is hiding in the manor.
He doesn't like this, since this means increased chances of dying before rescuing cygna, but he mustn't risk harm happening to her. So he'll take the risk.
He'll... Fail miserably. He doesn't know the native's tongue... I just realize he couldn't have thanked the innkeeper's wife, save with gestures.
So, while in the waters, he'll cast, while relaxed, his "Sidestep the Sight" spell (as Veil of Invisibility, with Personnal Range), and come back to the village, trying to spot either the soldiers, or the trail of their depredations (which should be quite easy, since they were maximizing chaos). He'll then follow back to their camp.
(Sorry for the dealy, I shouldn't even be posting now )
Come sunrise, she's going to ask Ioan for a couple of minutes of privacy...a potty break if nothing else. Mustn't let her Parma lapse...never can tell when it might come in handy.
She's going to wait things out for now, unless anything changes. Singing a lot (just to make it less obvious when she sings a spell). Any song she can remember, and probably making stuff up on the fly, in Latin, English, and Castelian.
Even while invisible, going there is too dangerous. He could easily bump into someone, or be bumped into.
He'll thus use his ring of flightin order to soar above the crowd. This'll eliminate the "bump" risk.
This will not make his shadow dissappear, although this'll surely make it less noticeable (and even if it is, the guards are quite unlikely to guess Hiems is flying above them, and even less at what height: they'll see a "devilish moving shadow", not the shadow of a wizard flying ten feet above them).
Nonetheless, he doesn't want to raise any alarm, so he'll fly as much as possible over tents (so his shadow can't be seen) or places where it is less likely to be noticed.
He'll fly all over the camp, trying to ascertain where the prisonners are kept. Once this is done... Well, we'll see.
Since e did not get any useful information from her, Ioan sends Cygna off with some of his underlings. "See if she knows anything about the manor; you'll need an English translator. She is useless to me."
They return to the manor, and enter. They wander through the building, seemingly aimlessly, until one of the soldiers turns a sconce, and a wall swings aside silently, revealing a dark passageway.
One of the soldiers shoves Cygna forward into the darkness. She stumbles but does not fall. The men file in behind her.
At the end of the hallway is a small antechamber with a small pallet and a few personal effects. This chamber opens into another area:
A spacious bedhamber, with opulent furnishings. Upon the ornate canopy bed lies a dressing gown in a familiar-looking shade of hideous yellow.
One of the soldiers scowls at Cygna and slaps her across the face. "Tell her to show us how the Baron escaped this room, if she wants to live," he growls at the translator (a smallish mousy man, who relates the information in English as commanded).
Hiems flies about for hours, but does not see any prisoners. It is likely that they are either held within a tent, or not within the main camp at all.
((She will try to remember the path they took. Any chance she's able to make eye-contact with anyone to cast Posing the Silent Question ("Where's the baron?") en route? If so, she would try to do so with either Subtle or No Gestures.))
Oh, great, Cygna thinks. Looks like someone from the covenant's been shagging the Baron. (At least, I'm assuming that the dressing gown is ladies' wear. Thinking back, does she know, or know of, anyone from the Covenant, Tribunal, or the Order named Elisante or Geirlaug?)
[color=red]"How dare you?" Cygna yells, then slaps the soldier right back.
An Awareness, Order of Hermes Lore, and a couple Magic Theory check later, Cygna notes that there are a few things of interest here, besides the obvious. One is a ladies' mirror wrought in silver; as she glances at it, she realizes that the mirror could not be embedded within thesilver casing except if made by a Verditius. The other is a stone slab which is clearly a casting tablet, of the Rego Corpus variety.
The soldier takes her slap in stride, and smiles maliciously. He balls up a fist and punches Cygna straight in the nose, sending her reeling in pain and shock. (It's only a Light Wound, but it hurts like hell.)
One of the other two soldiers grabs him by the arm. "That's enough, buddy. We won't get any information out of her if you kill her, and then it'll be our asses on the line."
The first soldier stares at Cygna with a sick sadism she recognizes all too well, from her childhood. "Fine. You, English whelp. Tell the girl she has two minutes to find her boyfriend's secret exit, before I smash that pretty face of hers 'til even her boyfriend the baron can't recognize her."
The mousy man, terrified, says to Cygna in English, "The soldier apologizes for his temper, but says you must show them how Lord Robert escaped from here."
Her nose is probably gushing blood, too. Jerk. She will grab some scrap of fabric to hold to her nose to staunch the bleeding, and make a show of looking around, examining the gown, the mirror, and finally the casting tablet with a scowl. ((Is this, literally, a tablet? Or is it like a scroll?))
Finally, she glares at the first soldier. [color=red]"Tell your Welsh friend that whoever that yellow...thing belongs to spirited Robert away with magic" she tells the mousy one.
"M-magic?" he squeaks. "Th-They won't like that, miss. Can't you come up with something they'll believe? They-- they will kill me too," he pleads.
(It is an actual stone tablet, yes. And they work much like D&D scrolls, except that they are reusable. This particular one was created without a Terram requisite, which may explain why the tablet is still here :p)
Cygna herd Elysante's name earlier from the other prisoners, and has heard the name mentioned about the covenant once or twice. Nothing she could place (though I don't know how Art of Memory works, so it is possible she has some way of magically recalling).
((Art of Memory is from TMRE, p 25. Basically, you have to attempt to memorize something, and if you succeed with an Int+AoM roll against an ease factor based on how much you're trying to memorize, you store it in a mental representation. Cygna's memory palace is on the Phoenix wiki. But yeah, memorizing something beyond the normal Int check requires conscious effort.))
[color=red]"You're right...that is ridiculous, isn't it? sniff cough To be honest, Robert never brought me down here...although he obviously brought someone here!" She grabs the yellow gown and shakes it for emphasis, then throws it back on the pallet.
[color=red]"Tell them that there is a secret exit in one of the walls, but he never trusted me with just where it was. He always had me close my eyes and let me in by my hand." She will pick up the tablet and "examine" it as she speaks. [color=red]"We can probably find it if we examine the walls carefully...or there may be a clew on this...whatever this is." She is going to try to use the casting tablet before they catch on. ((Her ReCo CT is 10+the die roll, so she should be able to avoid Warping. Hopefully. And, with luck, she can get it off before they catch on, and it will either take her someplace safe or somewhere closer to the Baron.))
The tablet is a lv35 effect, so it does inflict Warping as a powerful mystical effect, but Cygna does not incur any additional warping due to her casting. She does, however, lose three fatigue levels.
As she vanishes from the hidden chamber, she hears the sound of Adorjan's laughter; she turns her head and barely catches a glimpse of the soldier who attacked her, bursting into a column of flame.
Cygna finds herself in a dank, dark cave, lit only by some sort of luminous fungus growing on the ceiling. She can see char and deep score marks along the cave walls.
Ah well.)
Cygna can tell from sifting through his brain, he would make threats to make things go smoothly, but he would never strike a woman.
I just realize he couldn't have thanked the innkeeper's wife, save with gestures.
)