"Chaos will not win, Mr. Cole...but it is certainly the best at lies and deception, fooling poor folk such as you trying to look out for their own in the world, that victory is in its hand and that it has something substantial to offer. It is not true, just as the shadow in the night may seem to be a thousand things your mind imagines, when it is but the stirring of a grass blade in the wind. The wages of evil is only misery and nothingness, in the end. You are worth more than that!" The centaur extends one hand, from one angle placatingly, and from another welcomingly.

Keeping her arrow nocked and ready, Ereni does not try to stop the hobgoblin from killing himself.  She only nods stoically and murmurs with empathy:
"I know the feeling, hobgoblin.  The darkness.  It's always there in the end.  Waiting.  Maybe one day, I'll follow your footsteps."

Scanning the surrounding desert for further threats first, Ereni makes sure he is really dead, filling him with a few extra arrows.  She then searches the corpses of the hobgoblin and the orc, looking for anything of interest - in particular any communication, signet ring, or other identifying mark.  Also looking in the horses' saddlebags.  She thinks about making a pyre for horses and humanoids alike, but decides that's better done with a group (and with Cinder).

If no further incident, she eventually returns to where the party is speaking with Cole.

"Have you not heard?"  Cole says, still sneering down at the Centauress.  "The Ivory Tower is gone.  What hope is there for the world?  Things are changing!  It's changing, ladies!"  

He looks around, defiantly staring at the women gathered before him.  

"You think you can stop the man who just took the Ivory Tower?  You think I'm worried about what you people think of me?  I made a deal to survive, not to please the rest of the world."  

Malenia, Forced to keep her distance in this instance strides up to meet her companions. "All it takes for evil to triumph, Is for good people to do nothing." Her prosthesis whirs into action, the mechanical device ejects her weapon. Igniting it she holds it up, pointing it directly at the Hobgoblin. 

"We choose to do something." 

"I alone? We alone?" Stasolya is unfazed, standing regal and proud, though far shorter than the Bantha upon which Cole glares down at her. "We are not alone, and never have been. The reach of the Childlike Empress goes far beyond a physical location. The love of her springs eternal in the hearts of thousands of her subjects. As long as we stand and fight, hope will not die. The defeat and bleakness that you see is only in your own husk of a heart that has lost faith. But faith has not lost, and neither has the Lady of the Ivory Tower. In the darkest moments, in the silence of nothingness, that is when we will see her again. With a tiny, shining grain of sand, though it be all that is left of Hyboria, she can create it anew."

Thea pauses from happily feeding the little cactuses to the Bantha and giving them skritches. She's been listening but is a bit confused as to what's been happening in the world. When she hears about the Ivory Tower having been taken, she looks up in surprise first at Cole then at Stasolya. "The Tower fell? What's been going on?!", she asks with some alarm in her voice. However, she tries to stay calm and continues to whisper sweet nothings in Bantha to keep her new friend calm. "And what do we do with Mr. Cole?"

Cinder catches up with the party listening to what is being said. "We do have a pile of explosives. We could see how far we could blast him. Maybe halfway across the desert? We could hold bets, make a day out of it. Or we could give him to the people and tell them what happened. I don't imagine they'll be too thrilled to learn that Mr. Cole here was the cause of a lot of their problems."

Ereni returns from the desert, not having heard the conversation with Cole up to this point.

"Orc and hobgoblin - both gone.  No chance to talk much.  Vader's Imperial sigil on them both.  I'm sure they were nice, other than that..."

Her tone is laconic but Ereni's teeth are on edge.  She has her bow drawn, arrow aimed at Cole's heart.  "This one talking any?"

Cole turns pale as a ghost when Cinder suggests using his own explosives to blow him to smithereens.  He gets even paler when someone says something about giving him to the people of Jappiter and telling them he is the cause of their problems.  

"Now let's not be hasty.  You'd done the same thing I did if faced with ruin and worse.  I only tried to do what I had to do to save myself!"

Thea huffs indignantly. She starts speaking in Bantha but quickly realizes her mistake as her cheeks flush. Clearing her throat, she speaks in common.  “Don’t lump us with you, Mr. Cole! I’d have been right there helping the people of the town and not trying to save my own neck! You better tell my friends everything or else we will let Cinder explore her ideas about blowing things up!”

Ereni lowers the aim of her bow to somewhere just below Cole's belly as he talks about saving himself.

"Yeah.  You're a real hero."

Malenia chuckles at Cinder's proposition. "I like the idea, but I do prefer letting the people know about his scheme. Let them be the judge's and if need be, The Executioners."

Cole shifts on the back of the Bantha and then looks down with a sort of uncomfortable expression on his face.  

"They made me do it."  He stammered.  He looked from the Jedi, then to the Ranger who had a bow drawn on him.  "His men came to town, wanted to use our deepest mine, see?  Yeah.  And so then they said if I didn't, you know, didn't dig it down so they could have an access point where they could cross without ships...you know, through Subternea...then they said they'd kill me and take over and do it anyway you know?  Yeah.  So they've been bringing in explosives and stuff for months, you know?  So they can help get this big hole blown open and then like, I guess walk from the Black Crags all the way to Jappiter.  Puts them in a spot to slowly build up an invasion force in Hyrule you know?  They'd have killed me if I hadn't done it I swear!  I swear to the goddesses!"  

Stasolya's eyelids lower a moment, and her head bows, as if in sadness. Then she looks back up at Mr. Cole. "This does not surprise me. I believe you. Who of us could knowingly claim, were we in a similar situation, that we would not have done the same? Many people depended on you for their livelihood. Standing against evil costs a great price, sometimes our own life. That is much to ask for many. But here you are, and they have not killed you yet. You can take hold of hope again, and stand with us in defense of the Childlike Empress and Hyboria. Will you?" She looks earnestly up at him.

Thea stands to her full 5'1", arms crossed, and puts on her tough face. "Who are you more afraid of, Mr. Cole? The people who made you do this or my friends who could take you down right here and right now? We need information to put a stop to this! Tell us everything you know!" She looks to her friends with regular Thea face. "Do we have any specific questions before we hand him over to the townsfolk?" Glancing back to Cole with her tough face. "And feel free to tell us anything you think will help. It seems you have a chance here to remedy your cowardice!"

Ereni stays quiet, having nothing further to say.  Her visceral hatred of Vader, his orcs and anyone who would associate with them, whether their hand was "forced" or not, simmers beneath her shaded green eyes.  The arrow remains nocked to her Longbow, +1, aim steady.

Perhaps we should let Cinder detonate the explosives after all, somewhere out in the desert where there is nowhere to hide...

She swallows once, then forces herself to observe Cole's face and throat the way she would watch Ernie "Three-Sixes" when was cheating at dice.

Ereni Insight on whether Cole is telling the truth and/or holding anything back:  16

Hallius Cole looks around at his options and shifts uncomfortably, clearly aware of the Elf's aimed arrow.  He looks around at Stasolya and Thea, both of whom are talking to him, and then looks over his shoulder back out at the open desert.  

"You think I can fix this?"  He says.  His voice has a nervous titter before he opens into a giggle.  "You think the people here are going to let this go now?  Now that I've been strong armed by Vader to do his work?  That I've leveraged a corrupt Town Guard for that benefit?  You're nuts!  They'll string me up by my ears before the night's over!  Look at them!"

It was basically a cue.  Any of the ladies who took a moment to look over their shoulders will notice that there are members of the town already popping out windows and doors to look, standing in alleyways watching the standoff.  One man has a torch.  A woman holds a pitchfork.  

"What more do you want from me, huh?  I've told you!  They're gonna use Subternea to cross to Hyrule! They want to come up here!  You might slow them down by stopping what I was doing but so what?  They're an army!  A professional army!  You think their sappers won't be up through that mine after they kill the Kruthiks themselves huh?  Yeah?  You know, you're all a little screwy if you think that!"

Thea looks to the group. “I must admit you all understand this all much more than me? Seems like we need to find a way to stop this mine from being used?” She is clearly out of her element having been just a simple jeweler not too many hours ago. Now she feels like a rebel. Her butterflies flit about with her flash of excitement at the thought. Reminding herself to “Focus!” She turns another stern look to Cole. 

Malenia lowers her weapon, letting the blade sear into the sand for a moment before sheathing her weapon. Of course she is able to see the folk of the town beginning to gather, she was not one to stand between a person and their justice. Even if it was frontier justice. 

"In truth there is little we can do, save warn the Kruthiks of a coming attack. If the force behind the attack truly is an army, we could only delay them. Never stop them." Folding her arms across her chest, Malenia takes a few steps away from the Bantha. "Let the people have him, they deserve their justice."

Stasolya looks at the gathering townsfolk, then looks back up at Cole. "You will have to answer for your actions, Mr. Cole. I do not know what your fate will be in the hands of the town you betrayed. However, if you confess your wrong to them and are sorry, and put your back into making right your wrong, there is still much you can do with us to turn this around."

Then she herself turns around, looking to her companions. "They must know what is going on, what he has told us. Thea, you've been working in this town. Can you speak up and explain to them the danger they are in? Don't play up Mr. Cole's role in it too much, please. Let his own conduct now decide their judgment of him."

The centaur then turns to Ereni. "You can speak to the Kruthiks---they need to be warned. Perhaps they have forces that can be mustered against the army themselves, but they must know the danger they are in. Can you run to inform them?"