"I am not sure why you spared these men, Aster. They made their choice. Death is what they earned as a result. I suppose leaving a pile of bodies might be a problem, first thing in town. Maybe I'll have to settle for one."
Ensuring that a living, bound conscious survivor witnesses it, Serwa performs a coup de grace on the man who threatened to assault her, while making eye contact with the conscious man. "I guess the pixie ended up sheathing her weapon in him." She then attempts to intimidate the conscious survivor who witnessed the slaying into talking - hopefully with advantage.
"You're the lucky one who wake up first, and got to witness this object lesson. Now tell us who your little gang is and who sent you after us, now. Answer all our questions truthfully and you will live, but you'll leave this town and never rejoin this gang. Withhold answers, and once the next member of your gang wakes up, you'll be the next object lesson, and on we go, until we might just be leaving a pile of bodies. Safer not to have them at our backs, right, Xianon?"
I understand your reasons Serwa, but i have mine. I have made an oath to a deity, maybe similar to you, that i will save a human life if i can. Besides that, i dont want to make a bad impression when i return to my hometown. So please, leave it by that one if you can hold your grudge. I have a hunch that you will skewer more of them later on for a more justified reason. Aster walks over to the corpse and closes his eyes. May Kelemvor judge his soul and treat him as he deserves, be it good or harsh. he adds while eyeing Serwa with a look of dissatisfaction.
I understand your reasons Serwa, but i have mine. I have made an oath to a deity, maybe similar to you, that i will save a human life if i can. Besides that, i dont want to make a bad impression when i return to my hometown. So please, leave it by that one if you can hold your grudge. I have a hunch that you will skewer more of them later on for a more justified reason. Aster walks over to the corpse and closes his eyes. May Kelemvor judge his soul and treat him as he deserves, be it good or harsh. he adds while eyeing Serwa with a look of dissatisfaction.
Without looking to Aster, Serwa says, "I'll pray my apologies to Kelemvor later, for sending Him another soul so foul He might choke on it. You did right by your oaths, Aster. There's nothing you could have done to stop me, and you know it. We're both at peace with our gods." Serwa continues to stare icily at the conscious man, waiting for him to break and sell out his handlers.
I dont want to question your oath. I can only make assumptions based on my views. And you might do so regarding my oath. We have the same goal, and i dont want these disagreements to stop us from teaching that goal.
I dont want to question your oath. I can only make assumptions based on my views. And you might do so regarding my oath. We have the same goal, and i dont want these disagreements to stop us from teaching that goal.
"I couldn't agree more, Aster," Serwa says. "I am sure your god wouldn't have cared much for that man sucking air. Consider it a favor to the next girl who caught his eye, who didn't happen to be an armed and armored warrior accompanied by others of similar skill. We've saved her a lot of pain."
Serwa waits to see if the thug who witnessed the execution of the other thug will provide them any intel.
I guess you are right. I dont think this one will talk. Aster walks over, and reaches out to help the man up. if he accepts the offer, Aster will pull him up with a bit too much momentum so that he will end up a step behind aster. Get your life together, scum! He shouts at the man before he kicks him in the back, sending him to the ground once again.
The elf was waiting for this to erupt. He had mixed feelings when Aster spared the dying thugs, but knew Serwa wouldn't. He watches the interplay between them with interest, but stays silent - though he does smile slightly when Serwa tries to draw him into the argument. "I agree with Tomora," he says simply.
Three of the thugs had little left after drinking most of the day. Four silver and seventeen coppers between them was all you found. One also had a steel lock with him, but no key. Another had a dice set. Niklos - the one with the mouth, now dead - had another pouch with 10GP in it and a garnet ring worth 10GP as well. The one Serwa has spoken to had the same, and you may or may not remember that he was the one who initiated the confrontation.
You also each receive 125 experience points, bringing each to 425.
The five shortswords can be gathered easily, but if you want to try to strip them of their armor, that might take a while. And smell bad. You can, however, take their cloaks. One is burned too much to be of use, but four are still serviceable.
When Serwa first props him up, the leader - for so he was - puts on a defiant snarl. His eyes go wide with disbelief when she draws back to deliver the killing blow to his comrade, and when she does, he emits a silent shout. He gapes at Serwa for a moment before turning back to the corpse. "Niklos..." he whispers hoarsely. Finally he rounds on Serwa. "What do you want, girl?" he demands. "We didn't come after you - you came after us! You strut into our territory and..." he looks again at his dead friend and swallows. "I don't know who you are, or what you want...and... and at this point, I guess it doesn't matter. You come here and started a war, lady, and then blame us for fighting?" He shakes his head, unsure what to say next. "You started a war," he repeats. "And the Redbrands are gonna finish it." He slumps back down, looks again at Niklos, and resigns himself to wait for his own death to come.
"Redbrands, hun? Doesn't sound like you'll get much more out of him. Let's see what Daran knows about them in the morning." Tomora says, eager to away from the place.
"Hear that? The Redbrands are going to finish it. So any of these people we leave breathing will come back to haunt us another time, armed and angry and ready for revenge. Leaving a pyre of burnt enemies as a warning might actually send the remaining members of the gang running. They'll know we won't forgive their sort. Hells, we would probably save more lives tomorrow if we end this today. But that's not how we operate, I suppose, is it? So we'll just wait until you all come back, and next time I won't be so nice. Let's go,"Serwa says, realizing that although she - and Xianon, she suspects - are willing to end them, her other allies are not.
The elf makes a gesture of calm. "Peace, Serwa," he says. "Your lord will get his due. He always does." He looks with grim satisfaction at the corpse of Niklos, but still continues. "Yet there is a difference between slaying foes in combat and slaying captives on their knees. It is much like the situation with the goblins, isn't it? We will likely have to finish both jobs, but we will do it at the proper time. I liked the idea of sparing the goblins even less than I like this. But what's done is done. Let's move on." He gives Aster a sour look. "Perhaps next time it'll be elves, so our good wizard won't have to worry about his oath to save human life."
Please excuse my choice of words, sir elf. I dont hold a grudge against your people. I dont just want to save human life, but all life that might be worthy to live. And as much as i understand your resentment towards them, Aster nods his head at the thugs I dont know the full story and therefore am not able to make judgement over their lives. And how would you have acted, if they were of your people?
"In your place, or in mine?" he asks. "In my place, I likely would have acted as I have. I am quite content to let you and Serwa search for a point of agreement between your respective oaths. Oaths are stronger than whims, after all, and insisting on a course of action of my own choosing would only increase the tensions. And now, we have a result: the worst of them is dead, we have information we need, and the rest live. Judgement balanced with mercy. But I certainly would not have determined who lived and who died on the basis of whose ears are pointy. Unless, of course, I had sworn an oath to do so," he adds, almost as a challenge.
Again, the my oath is not about whose ears are pointy and whose not. If it was, why did i heal you back in the cave. And if their ears were pointy He nods at the thugs again, I certainly wouldnt have acted differently either. He makes a pause. And what oath is it to kill anyone who does not meet you with friendship at first sight? Yes they attacked us, but what reason did we have to not follow their order? If pride is reason enough to call vengance 'balancing the scales' then i'll leave you in this belief. As the tension grows, aster casts Endurance on himself, as now he could expects serwa to loose it, calling her oath pride.
Serwa notably hasn’t betrayed any outward signs of anger during the prior confrontation, even during the killing of the subdued gangster. She continues to be almost frustratingly placid, as she methodically gathers the loot and prepares to set off. She raises an eyebrow after a moment of silence.
“Oh, balancing the scales, that’s me, so I suppose the pride and vengeance conflation is about me as well. Thanks for leaving me to my beliefs, I suppose. I’ll leave this guy -“ she gestures to the corpse “-dead, and these guys-“ she gestures to the living gangsters “-terrified, and call that good enough for now. It is about balancing the scales, though. Death has always followed me, long before I could take credit for having a hand in it. It might as well visit the right people for a change.”
As she heads out, she takes one last backwards glance, and speaks possibly for the benefit of her allies, or possibly as one last lingering threat to the gang. “I don’t drink. I don’t raise my voice in anger. I don’t get caught up in the moment. There’s never going to be a ‘I don’t know what came over me.’ If I kill someone it wasn’t a mistake. I didn’t hit them too hard, or forget my own strength. I meant it. They died by design, and Kelemvor be praised.”
She seems to have nothing more to say on the subject, and is content with how it left things, regarding her own oaths and convictions. In a turnabout of coming to the sorcerer’s defense, she adds, “And maybe don’t give him such a hard time over his wording, Xianon. He talks about an oath to protect human life. You know Common is just as human centric in its language as Elvish is for the elves. ‘The people,’ is what elves are in elvish, right? Common is just as racist, calling elves and dwarves and other sentient races ‘Demi-humans.’ It’s like our languages were written by people who didn’t expect to ever get along, yet here we all are, doing just that. Let’s be better than the people who crafted these tongues. Shouldn’t be hard, right? They were clearly all racist.”
She hopes her return to form of deadpan humor helps put them at ease, but doesn’t delay for more reassurances. She is ready to go.
Maybe death would stop following you if you werent carrying all those weapons.Says aster, trying to sound humorous, but fails I hope i you forgive me my comments, i dont know your whole story either, so i should not judge you in any way. Or what points does an argument make if it contradicts another one, right. Now, if you want to take a drink and sleep in safety, i know a place where we could rest. Its free but might not as comfortable as an inn.
"Lead the way. Maybe I'll think up a good song, something cheerful to help us relax and stop thinking about death and mortality," Serwa says. As a bit of a non-sequitur, pulling Tomora into the discussion, she adds, "Also sexist. Common, I mean. The language is really sexist as well. 'The works of men, nations of men, man kind,' you'd think they forgot about the other half of the species."
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
She sings a song that is predictably entirely about death and mortality along the way.
Perform: 5
It seems to deal with philosophers debating all the great answers to all the great questions, and taking their knowledge to the grave, and then moaning as they hear the next generation echo the same conversations, come to the same revelations, how life is nothing but a serious of people making the same mistakes, learning the same lessons, and taking them to the grave. It's one of her better songs, truthfully.
The wood elf sighs, letting some tension out of his shoulders. "You're right, Serwa," he admits. "Please forgive me, Aster, for being so prickly." He gives an impish grin and adds, "I should give you lesser men more slack."
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"I am not sure why you spared these men, Aster. They made their choice. Death is what they earned as a result. I suppose leaving a pile of bodies might be a problem, first thing in town. Maybe I'll have to settle for one."
Ensuring that a living, bound conscious survivor witnesses it, Serwa performs a coup de grace on the man who threatened to assault her, while making eye contact with the conscious man. "I guess the pixie ended up sheathing her weapon in him." She then attempts to intimidate the conscious survivor who witnessed the slaying into talking - hopefully with advantage.
"You're the lucky one who wake up first, and got to witness this object lesson. Now tell us who your little gang is and who sent you after us, now. Answer all our questions truthfully and you will live, but you'll leave this town and never rejoin this gang. Withhold answers, and once the next member of your gang wakes up, you'll be the next object lesson, and on we go, until we might just be leaving a pile of bodies. Safer not to have them at our backs, right, Xianon?"
I understand your reasons Serwa, but i have mine. I have made an oath to a deity, maybe similar to you, that i will save a human life if i can. Besides that, i dont want to make a bad impression when i return to my hometown. So please, leave it by that one if you can hold your grudge. I have a hunch that you will skewer more of them later on for a more justified reason. Aster walks over to the corpse and closes his eyes. May Kelemvor judge his soul and treat him as he deserves, be it good or harsh. he adds while eyeing Serwa with a look of dissatisfaction.
Olloray Dim - Limbo's Pit
Gunther Korroden - Nightmares in the Mist
Intimidate (with advantage, hopefully, for the circumstance) 23
OOC: Apparently he never liked that guy anyway.
Without looking to Aster, Serwa says, "I'll pray my apologies to Kelemvor later, for sending Him another soul so foul He might choke on it. You did right by your oaths, Aster. There's nothing you could have done to stop me, and you know it. We're both at peace with our gods." Serwa continues to stare icily at the conscious man, waiting for him to break and sell out his handlers.
I dont want to question your oath. I can only make assumptions based on my views. And you might do so regarding my oath. We have the same goal, and i dont want these disagreements to stop us from teaching that goal.
Olloray Dim - Limbo's Pit
Gunther Korroden - Nightmares in the Mist
"I couldn't agree more, Aster," Serwa says. "I am sure your god wouldn't have cared much for that man sucking air. Consider it a favor to the next girl who caught his eye, who didn't happen to be an armed and armored warrior accompanied by others of similar skill. We've saved her a lot of pain."
Serwa waits to see if the thug who witnessed the execution of the other thug will provide them any intel.
I guess you are right. I dont think this one will talk. Aster walks over, and reaches out to help the man up. if he accepts the offer, Aster will pull him up with a bit too much momentum so that he will end up a step behind aster. Get your life together, scum! He shouts at the man before he kicks him in the back, sending him to the ground once again.
Olloray Dim - Limbo's Pit
Gunther Korroden - Nightmares in the Mist
Xianon Lathalas
The elf was waiting for this to erupt. He had mixed feelings when Aster spared the dying thugs, but knew Serwa wouldn't. He watches the interplay between them with interest, but stays silent - though he does smile slightly when Serwa tries to draw him into the argument. "I agree with Tomora," he says simply.
Three of the thugs had little left after drinking most of the day. Four silver and seventeen coppers between them was all you found. One also had a steel lock with him, but no key. Another had a dice set. Niklos - the one with the mouth, now dead - had another pouch with 10GP in it and a garnet ring worth 10GP as well. The one Serwa has spoken to had the same, and you may or may not remember that he was the one who initiated the confrontation.
You also each receive 125 experience points, bringing each to 425.
The five shortswords can be gathered easily, but if you want to try to strip them of their armor, that might take a while. And smell bad. You can, however, take their cloaks. One is burned too much to be of use, but four are still serviceable.
When Serwa first props him up, the leader - for so he was - puts on a defiant snarl. His eyes go wide with disbelief when she draws back to deliver the killing blow to his comrade, and when she does, he emits a silent shout. He gapes at Serwa for a moment before turning back to the corpse. "Niklos..." he whispers hoarsely. Finally he rounds on Serwa. "What do you want, girl?" he demands. "We didn't come after you - you came after us! You strut into our territory and..." he looks again at his dead friend and swallows. "I don't know who you are, or what you want...and... and at this point, I guess it doesn't matter. You come here and started a war, lady, and then blame us for fighting?" He shakes his head, unsure what to say next. "You started a war," he repeats. "And the Redbrands are gonna finish it." He slumps back down, looks again at Niklos, and resigns himself to wait for his own death to come.
"Redbrands, hun? Doesn't sound like you'll get much more out of him. Let's see what Daran knows about them in the morning." Tomora says, eager to away from the place.
"Hear that? The Redbrands are going to finish it. So any of these people we leave breathing will come back to haunt us another time, armed and angry and ready for revenge. Leaving a pyre of burnt enemies as a warning might actually send the remaining members of the gang running. They'll know we won't forgive their sort. Hells, we would probably save more lives tomorrow if we end this today. But that's not how we operate, I suppose, is it? So we'll just wait until you all come back, and next time I won't be so nice. Let's go," Serwa says, realizing that although she - and Xianon, she suspects - are willing to end them, her other allies are not.
Xianon Lathalas
The elf makes a gesture of calm. "Peace, Serwa," he says. "Your lord will get his due. He always does." He looks with grim satisfaction at the corpse of Niklos, but still continues. "Yet there is a difference between slaying foes in combat and slaying captives on their knees. It is much like the situation with the goblins, isn't it? We will likely have to finish both jobs, but we will do it at the proper time. I liked the idea of sparing the goblins even less than I like this. But what's done is done. Let's move on." He gives Aster a sour look. "Perhaps next time it'll be elves, so our good wizard won't have to worry about his oath to save human life."
Please excuse my choice of words, sir elf. I dont hold a grudge against your people. I dont just want to save human life, but all life that might be worthy to live. And as much as i understand your resentment towards them, Aster nods his head at the thugs I dont know the full story and therefore am not able to make judgement over their lives. And how would you have acted, if they were of your people?
Olloray Dim - Limbo's Pit
Gunther Korroden - Nightmares in the Mist
Xianon Lathalas
"In your place, or in mine?" he asks. "In my place, I likely would have acted as I have. I am quite content to let you and Serwa search for a point of agreement between your respective oaths. Oaths are stronger than whims, after all, and insisting on a course of action of my own choosing would only increase the tensions. And now, we have a result: the worst of them is dead, we have information we need, and the rest live. Judgement balanced with mercy. But I certainly would not have determined who lived and who died on the basis of whose ears are pointy. Unless, of course, I had sworn an oath to do so," he adds, almost as a challenge.
Again, the my oath is not about whose ears are pointy and whose not. If it was, why did i heal you back in the cave. And if their ears were pointy He nods at the thugs again, I certainly wouldnt have acted differently either. He makes a pause. And what oath is it to kill anyone who does not meet you with friendship at first sight? Yes they attacked us, but what reason did we have to not follow their order? If pride is reason enough to call vengance 'balancing the scales' then i'll leave you in this belief.
As the tension grows, aster casts Endurance on himself, as now he could expects serwa to loose it, calling her oath pride.
Olloray Dim - Limbo's Pit
Gunther Korroden - Nightmares in the Mist
Serwa notably hasn’t betrayed any outward signs of anger during the prior confrontation, even during the killing of the subdued gangster. She continues to be almost frustratingly placid, as she methodically gathers the loot and prepares to set off. She raises an eyebrow after a moment of silence.
“Oh, balancing the scales, that’s me, so I suppose the pride and vengeance conflation is about me as well. Thanks for leaving me to my beliefs, I suppose. I’ll leave this guy -“ she gestures to the corpse “-dead, and these guys-“ she gestures to the living gangsters “-terrified, and call that good enough for now. It is about balancing the scales, though. Death has always followed me, long before I could take credit for having a hand in it. It might as well visit the right people for a change.”
As she heads out, she takes one last backwards glance, and speaks possibly for the benefit of her allies, or possibly as one last lingering threat to the gang. “I don’t drink. I don’t raise my voice in anger. I don’t get caught up in the moment. There’s never going to be a ‘I don’t know what came over me.’ If I kill someone it wasn’t a mistake. I didn’t hit them too hard, or forget my own strength. I meant it. They died by design, and Kelemvor be praised.”
She seems to have nothing more to say on the subject, and is content with how it left things, regarding her own oaths and convictions. In a turnabout of coming to the sorcerer’s defense, she adds, “And maybe don’t give him such a hard time over his wording, Xianon. He talks about an oath to protect human life. You know Common is just as human centric in its language as Elvish is for the elves. ‘The people,’ is what elves are in elvish, right? Common is just as racist, calling elves and dwarves and other sentient races ‘Demi-humans.’ It’s like our languages were written by people who didn’t expect to ever get along, yet here we all are, doing just that. Let’s be better than the people who crafted these tongues. Shouldn’t be hard, right? They were clearly all racist.”
She hopes her return to form of deadpan humor helps put them at ease, but doesn’t delay for more reassurances. She is ready to go.
Maybe death would stop following you if you werent carrying all those weapons. Says aster, trying to sound humorous, but fails I hope i you forgive me my comments, i dont know your whole story either, so i should not judge you in any way. Or what points does an argument make if it contradicts another one, right. Now, if you want to take a drink and sleep in safety, i know a place where we could rest. Its free but might not as comfortable as an inn.
Olloray Dim - Limbo's Pit
Gunther Korroden - Nightmares in the Mist
"Lead the way. Maybe I'll think up a good song, something cheerful to help us relax and stop thinking about death and mortality," Serwa says. As a bit of a non-sequitur, pulling Tomora into the discussion, she adds, "Also sexist. Common, I mean. The language is really sexist as well. 'The works of men, nations of men, man kind,' you'd think they forgot about the other half of the species."
She sings a song that is predictably entirely about death and mortality along the way.
Perform: 5
It seems to deal with philosophers debating all the great answers to all the great questions, and taking their knowledge to the grave, and then moaning as they hear the next generation echo the same conversations, come to the same revelations, how life is nothing but a serious of people making the same mistakes, learning the same lessons, and taking them to the grave. It's one of her better songs, truthfully.
Xianon Lathalas
The wood elf sighs, letting some tension out of his shoulders. "You're right, Serwa," he admits. "Please forgive me, Aster, for being so prickly." He gives an impish grin and adds, "I should give you lesser men more slack."