Tiral gave a slight nod towards Fanilly as she split the knights up, noting to himself how the team to take out the witch was structured. If anything, their team would be enough to handle the culprit of this whole ordeal.

"I have no complaints," the mage-knight responded, the ice crystal from earlier now having been shrunk to a manageable size. "Pass this on to the Church or the College; they're likely used to dealing with this sort of item."

With all of that said and done, of course, Tiral calmly spent his time waiting for the others to prepare multiple protective wards and other such defensive measures. Attacking was simple, but to counteract a more concentrated barrage directed towards not just him, but the rest of the knights, meant that he couldn't simply spend time wholly on defense. That took far longer than simply firing ice at a target, after all.

As he left with the other knights, though, the mage-knight simply looked ahead, trying his best not to become wrapped up in the mood of the town's fervor. Moments like this would only get to his head or pull him from his combat preparations. As things were now, if they failed then there would be hell to pay in the future for all of them.

"Hm... I would suspect that clairvoyance would fail if I attempted it, so we really are going to have to rely on those things again, aren't we...?" he sighed, shaking his head in annoyance. "I'll leave the matter of the fairies to you all, then. Involving me would only end up causing more harm than good."

Klaus was surprised to learn that the Knights will be splitting into two fronts. She wasn't expecting something like this because the black haired lady seemed dangerous, especially when she herself wasn't on what she was fully capable of doing. Guess that applies for me solely, I know as much of magic as the orcs...

"The Faeries have been sent to spy on dark lady," Klaus made the brief report to her captain, before turning away for her duty at Brennan.

---

The crowd of people around the Knights was too much for her to deal with personally. "Have the walls been repaired yet? There might be another orc raid, and we still haven't figured on how they've made the long trip undetected." She approached the soldiers, donning on her grey cloak.

"As long as the walls are properly manned, and noncombatants to move to the keep in an event of a siege, the city wouldn't have any problems in facing a normal orc raid." What she said was of the usual as a former mercenary. Its just that orcs appearing in a place like Brennan was not normal to begin with. As uncertain as she was about the possible oncoming battle, she'll have to fight those orcs in the way that she was used to fighting far from the Capital.

Indrau put the food into a spare sack hanging from his saddle. Riding away from the town his drew his blade to examine the edge. Flawless as it always was, he would never shake the habit of checking before and after every battle. He turned to Tyeathe, adjusting his posture to rest on his good leg. He had noticed Tiral preparing his wards and was riding slightly away from the rest of the column.

"Of course, and I've promised food so they should already be seeking me out."





Salz stood in the courtyard. Her people were a warlike culture and shoring up the defences of a recent conquest was almost second nature. She examined what they had and the toll that the battle had taken. The town had a formidable gate that has weathered the abuse of battle well. As long as any counter attack had no heavy magic to back it up the gate would hold.

But the defence had depleted the numbers they had to work with. It would be enough to man the walls. Salz grabbed a bundle of spears and headed to the top of the wall near the gate. With her strength she could throw one though a breastplate at a reasonable range. She leaned on the top of wall and studied the treeline.

The horses steadily advanced out of town, towards the treeline. Fanilly was at their head, her white mare trotting confidently along as she went. For once, she felt somewhat confident in her choices. There was no real need to contemplate why Sir Tyaethe was a good choice when it came to tracking down and defeating... just about any target short of perhaps the greatest of dragons, and Sir Tiral and Dame Cymbeline only made sense due to being both full-blown knights and magi themselves.

Dame Vionne was one of the younger knights in the order, perhaps even shorter then Fanilly herself albeit several years her senior. Her warhammer, while without any particular special traits, was a large and heavy weapon excellent at breaking down even magical defenses with its impact. On top of that, the tall, unusual helmet she wore, an heirloom of her family, was a magic ward. It had no anti-magic traits, but spells would find her a difficult target, and most would simply curve away from her rather then hit directly.

Dame Avina wielded a long, somewhat heavy-looking sword, a tall woman with platinum blonde hair and a serious look. She didn't talk very much.

Sir Denvon was a tall, board man in heavy armor. On his person he carried several weapons, and a large shield.

Sir Elex was a lithe man in light armor, with a shortsword and a crossbow.

All for of them were accomplished knights of the order, and Fanilly felt comfortable with her choices.

"First, we must check with the fairies," Fanilly said, as the proceeded into the forest, "Given they seemed aware of the 'dark lady's' movements, it's important to follow up with them. After that... we shall have to be careful, as her base of operations is likely trapped, but even with the power she's displayed so far..."

A mage, even a powerful one, would have difficulty dealing with so many strong foes at once.

As they entered the forest, there was some commotion from the leaves... and soon enough, a large number of fairies began to emerge from the foliage.

@Raineh Daze@Crusader Lord@PKMNB0Y@TheFake

One... two... three four fivesixse--It was the same as ever with fairies. Find one and then more and more would crawl out of nowhere. Unfortunately, her other favourite fact about fairies didn't apply in this situation: ignore them long enough and they would get bored and leave you alone. Instead, they were having to work with the fairies... which meant a lot of opportunities for them to go through everyone's pockets and make off with anything that wasn't properly attended to.

Not that they couldn't be amusing sometimes, but she'd lost her lunch to them in the past. She'd made sure nothing was easily taken this time.

He lifted the bag containing the gifts and pulled open the neck of the bag.

"I'm looking for Feeree and Kopuro."

Inside of the bag was some bread, milk and honey; the traditional gifts to appease faeries in his homeland. He hadn't before attempted to actually get work out of any of them.

"My companions and I seek the location of the Dark Lady that I had them track for me."

Fleuri Jodeau

Fleuri was not surprised that he would not be pursuing the sorceress- he was not a mage, nor did he have experience battling them.
On the other hand, he was unsure what to do in the meantime, as defending a city was not Fleuri's area of expertise. He had fought in enough melees to lead a squad of men-at-arms, perhaps, but organizing a siege defense was a bit beyond him. Consequently, when the knights were swarmed by excited children, he was without an excuse to leave, and before he knew it, he was surrounded.

"How many orcs did you kill, sir knight?"

"Did you kill any trolls?"

"How do I get to be an Iron Rose Knight when I grow up?"

"Can I see your sword?"

I suppose this is what I'll be doing, Fleuri resignedly concluded, looking down at all the curious little faces bombarding him with questions. I suppose it could be worse.

"Settle down, settle down everyone," he spoke up, quieting the group as he stepped back. "Gather round, I'll answer your questions, but one at a time, please."

---

The faeries again. Ah. Cymbeline activated the other sigil on her cloak again that would deter any would-be pickpockets....hopefully. Faeries could be determined little things, especially if offended or curious she supposed. As much a studying them would have been an interesting project, right now they had a more important matter to attend to. The Dark Lady. Having unwound one sigil with a careful mage's expertise, she worried what other sigils might spell, though at least the insight and what Sir Tiral had could, with study, give her the key to this dark magic. Hopefully. Though more than ever, if they couldn't stop this dark lady here they would need to understand her better at least. So that's why, to Cymbeline, studying that magic in a careful manner to understand its nature and origins was perhaps the best idea once they got back to base.

Almost immediately on smelling the offering in the bag, the fairies flooded forward excitedly, surrounding Indrau immediately. There was a great deal of excited clamor from the miniscule girls, but eventually it was clear that Feeree and Kopuro were present, two frantic hands waving from the crowd as they tugged at the bag.

"Here! I'm here!" cried Kopuro's voice.

"Me too!" came Feeree's.

The two were allowed to flutter above their fellow fairies.

"Feeree nearly blew our cover, but we got a nice good look at them!" declared Kopuro, folding her arms with a look of triumph.

"It wasn't that bad, Kopuro..." protested Feeree, but the other fairy seemed not to pay any attention to her friend.

"The dark lady is still there! And there's some smelly orcs, too!" continued Kopuro with an eager nod, "She's doing something funny though, we could feel all the magic in the air, it felt like it was going to zap us!"

Fairies were uniquely sensitive to magic. Fanilly knew that much, at least. So if they felt like they were going to be harmed just by going close to Old Falthier... Just what was the dark lady doing, that was registering to the fairies so intensely?

"Feeree, Kopuro, can you lead us there?" she asked.

"Of course! But, um... I don't really want to get too close, I don't want to get zapped for real..." replied Kopuro. Feeree nodded as well.

"That's fine, we just need to get close," the blonde knight responded, before turning to the others.

"We'll have the fairies take us to a location where we can attack Old Falthier," she said, addressing the knights, "But to begin with... it's clear she must be planning something, attempting to cast some kind of spell... do you have any suggestions on our approach?"

With that, the fairies began to lead the way, with Feeree's promise that it wouldn't take long.

@Raineh Daze@TheFake@Crusader Lord@PKMNB0Y

Good, ignoring the fairies until Indrau had done something to get all their attention had worked--and now they had a clear lead on where to go. Well... provided that they were certain that this was the same person, but if the fairies were going off of the feel of the magic rather than some vague recollection of somebody that had been seen in the area recently, she had considerably more confidence in their abilities.

But for tactics... not knowing the sort of mage they were out to get made the planning a lot more difficult. Curses like the Earl's weren't practical for a battlefield and, if that was all that they needed to deal with, they just needed to prevent any attempts at fleeing. But hadn't someone been nearly taken out by a bolt of magic? In that case, it went the same way as dealing with most magic-wielding opponents... get in close and restrain them as soon as possible.

Either way, they didn't want to be going in grouped up like this: "We should spread out. If they're any good at this, one spell could hit all of us."

---

Manning the defences... as usual, she was ill-equipped for such an exposed position. But assisting in the co-ordination of the Iron Roses with the townsfolk to not concentrate their forces too much in one place and leave some reserves in case of a (truly unexpected at this juncture) breach? That was something the duellist was well-trained to do. Which meant that the apparent absence of some knights was hers to correct.

It had mostly been something minimal--getting something to drink after fighting in armour, having injuries tended to. But when she got to working out what Fleuri was doing... well, the knight might feel the judgemental stare.

Of all people, why was one of their youngest knights taking the time to babysit now? To her, this was quite unfair.

With the matter of handling the fairies settled, the mage-knight calmly followed behind the rest of the group (and away from their miniature guides). It was already settled that their method of assaulting the enemy base (given the current squadron of knights) would be a frontal assault, and given that Tyaethe was probably going to be leading the charge, there wasn't much to worry about in regards to breaking through. The problem instead became protecting everyone else, though. All things considered, it was probably for the best that he would simply act to protect the Captain and the rest of the Knights as they charged in. To that end, though, it was probably better to act independently so as to not be caught up in the crossfire on the off chance that the enemy launched another blast like the one he had deflected away from the captain on the battlefield earlier.

"I second that suggestion," Tiral added, nodding his head in assent. "If anything like the attack that was fired at the Captain was directed with any higher amount of force or intensity towards us, I do not believe we could come out with all our bodies... Well, intact."

Of course, further elaboration on their method of attack would be ideal, as committing wholly towards an attack on a magician holed up within their base was suicidal without proper measures taken...

And, quite admittedly, they didn't have enough of those to hand out to everyone present in the first place. If anything, attacking the base from multiple angles might be ideal, but that necessitated scouting out the enemy encampment first...

Fleuri Jodeau

"...then the Captain led us in a cavalry charge at the orcs and trolls. We cut the orcs down, and I broke my lance in a troll's skull," Fleuri narrated, the children hanging on his every word. Truth be told, things got confusing in the heat of the battle, so he would have to fill in the gaps, which in this case would probably mean embellishing a bit. It didn't matter, it's not like he needed to get every detail correct.

"What happened next? What did the Captain do?" one of the children asked.

"The Captain sought out the orc chief and engaged him in combat, while the rest of us set to work fighting off the trolls and orcs," The knight answered. "One by one the trolls began to fall, but then an evil mage fired a wicked spell at the Captain. But just before it reached our valiant leader, one of our mages redirected the magic beam into a troll, turning it to ash."

It was at this point that he noticed Lilianna standing there, staring daggers at him. His countenance immediately changed to that of concern.

"Dame Belwiss," he spoke shakily, "I did not see you there. As you can see, I'm...err...helping to keep garrison morale up," he explained. It was at this point that an idea popped into his head, an idea that he would probably regret later on.

"Children," he said, turning back to his audience, "This woman is Dame Belwiss, the Captain's trainer and teacher. If you want to know anything about the Captain, she's the one you want to ask."

@Raineh Daze

Klaus
@Raineh Daze@Crimson Paladin

They're doing okay for now... Klaus thought, as she straddled through the bystanding crowd. What she needed to do is to get back to the keep for any further news from the Knights. The crowd was an obvious presence of their Knights, somehow it baffles her. She knows the Iron Roses are the strongest order of Knights, but was their attention really necessary? They only did what they had to do.

"Quite an interesting story I'd hear," Klaus emerged from the crowd of children, her face letting off an amused smirk. Her grey cloak have covered most of her armour, along with the Iron Roses symbol, intentionally. Only the hilt of her sword is shown, but she resembles more of a wandering mercenary than a Knight. Somehow, she looked less out-of-place with her dull clothing. To avoid unnecessary attention, and she preferred looking like this rather than with those linen coat.

"The Northern Side is secure from how I look, it would be better if there's walled keep and moats, but this would do." Klaus leaned her back against a hut, her blue eyes glinting at Belwiss and Jordeau.

Indrau bared his blade and fell in behind the fairies. He was glad that they had shown up and not left the knights wandering in the forest and into a potential ambush.

"I think I should take the point, at the very least, to blunt any magical first strikes. Maybe groups of two with Tyeathe and I together and Tiral with the Captain, giving each some form of magical defence."

He rolled his shoulders and adjusted his seat on his horse.

"Feeree, how many Orcs did she have?"

Fanilly nodded.

It was a sound proposal, to her. Moving in a single large group would make them easy prey for another one of those offensive spells, like the one that had been fired into the battlefield during the defense of Brennan. Additionally, it would allow them to strike from multiple angles, making a defense more difficult to establish on part of the orcs defending the ruins. Ideally, they could cut through the defensive force relatively quickly before moving in to capture, or kill, the 'dark lady'. For the moment, the blonde knight was keeping the potential failures of their attack out of her mind. She had to focus on success, for the sake of her knights and of the people that she was here to protect.

"I believe Sir Indrau's proposal is for the best, and as such I will be dividing us into two teams for our advance," the young knight-captain began, "Each team should also move in somewhat loose formation, preventing her from targeting us easily."

"How many orcs?" said Feeree, "Ummm... A bunch, but not a ton!"

As she spoke, she illustratively spread her arms wide for 'a bunch' and as wide as she possibly could for 'a ton'. Expecting a fairy to be able to give accurate numbers when it came to enemy forces was, perhaps, somewhat silly.

Soon, however, the first sign of Old Falthier came into view. A crumbling, overgrown stone pillar... soon they would be able to see the rest of the ruins, from a vantage point that would prevent them from being immediately detected.

@Raineh Daze@PKMNB0Y@TheFake

With the ruins nearly in sight, Tyaethe was the first to dismount. Being mounted wouldn't help too much with poor footing, and the horse wasn't armoured. The thing would probably just get killed if the numbers were that badly against them--she could protect herself fine, but something as fragile as a horse if the fairies were right and there were "a ton"?

"Think that sword could even survive a spell like that?" she said, obviously meaning Indrau.

It would be nice to not have to dodge.

---

Sword drills. Sword drills until his arms fell off or he obtained what Lilianna deemed an acceptable level of skill. Getting out of your duties by playing dirty... there was no way that she could actually attempt to instil discipline whilst being surrounded by children eager for some story or other. Not that she was particularly aware of any great stories that a newly instated captain could really feature in--for that you would want a more fanciful storyteller or one of the knights determined to shadow her every move.

Instead, looking thoughtful, the duellist began: "Did you know that Captain Fanilly once fought a deer and lost? She was only learning, at the time..."

It was a true story, though she embellished it a little: shortly after Fanilly had begun to practise wielding a sword, a small deer had blundered into their surroundings and somehow taken offence to the girl. With only a wooden sword she barely knew how to use against people, the result had been trying to get away from the inexplicably angry herbivore until she got some help to drive it off.

Probably not a story she would have liked children to know, but it was more amusing than most of the things Lilianna knew.

Tiral simply nodded as the Captain went along with Indrau's suggestion, only taking the offhanded mention of the orcs' numbers in passing. To him, something as vague as 'a lot' would serve no purpose in judging their numbers other than to mentally remind himself of various debilitating spells that could reach across the area. In terms of efficiency, there was one idea that came to mind, but... Well, if anything, he'd have to see how large the enemy forces actually were before putting any plan into action.

Taking after Tyaethe, the mage-knight promptly dismounted from his horse and tied its reins to a nearby tree before attempting to scout out the enemy forces from their location. Hopefully, the enemy wasn't already aware of their movements toward their encampment; otherwise, it was very likely that they might be forced to retreat before the fight event began.

"Captain, how do you wish to proceed from here?" he asked, peering through the brush before attempting to set up a weak clairvoyance spell. Ideally, it wouldn't have enough of a magical response to trip the enemy's sensors (assuming they had any), but that also meant that the quality of what they would see in turn wouldn't be particularly clear, if anything.

He grunted as he dismounted, idly tossing the reins over a branch. The horse was trained well enough that moving from this spot wouldn't even cross its mind. The beast lowered it's head to much on the grass around the base of the tree.

Indrau nodded at the question, the sword would be fine and Indrau had mulled over the results of the trapped sigil on the tree. The damage to the surrounding area had not touched him or anything behind him, something more focused and not so indiscriminate should be wholly blocked. "The sword doesn't stop magic, it devours it entirely."

After the incident with the tree the blade had fairly hummed with energy and something like an awakened hunger for more.

Fanilly dismounted her white mare shortly before the knights arrived at the ruins, coming to a halt just as they reached the overlook. From this vantage point, the group was able to see over the ruins of Old Falthier. It had once been a castle of some renown, but that had been a long time ago. Now, what sat in the forest was crumbling grey walls, overgrown with moss and vines. And indeed, from here, it was clear there were a great deal of orcs positioned in the ruins. Several were guarding various entrances, while others milled about inside. There was no sign of the 'Dark Lady' or anything that could have been associated with her, but there were indeed parts of the ruins that could not be seen from this position. It was possible she was lurking somewhere in there.

"See? It's just like Feeree said!" Kopuro declared, nodding as she stood on a small rock, arms folded, "Even she can be reliable, sometimes!"

"It's not only sometimes..." Feeree half-heartedly protested, but it seemed as if this was something she was used to.

Fanilly narrowed her blue eyes slightly.

There was a lot of orcs, but they had defeated plenty previously. As intimidating as they could be, they were mostly untrained and savage, making up for skill with aggression and numbers. Their ability to slay orcs in great numbers had already been proven, by this point. But The presence of such a powerful mage meant it was for the best for them to be cautious.

It was best to disable and kill the orcs as quickly as possible.

"... We'll begin by flanking them and entering from the East and West entrances. Sir Tiral and myself will enter from the East, and Sir Tyaethe and Sir Indrau will enter from the west. Upon our entry, Sir Tiral will use a spell to freeze a wide area of the ground and disable the orcs. At least, as many as possible. This will allow us to kill them more quickly and, ideally, reach the Dark Lady before she has a chance to mount a counterattack."

---

The children were now rather giggly, to say the least. The fact that someone like the Captain of the Iron Rose Knights had once been frightened of a deer was something they couldn't help but be amused by, even in the aftermath of the ferocious battle that had proven just what kind of force the knights were. A few of them, however, were heartened at this. Did that mean that any one of them could become a great knight, if someone who had lost a fight with a deer could become someone like the captain?

One girl, with short, messy brown hair, large green eyes, and freckles raised her hand into the air.

"Hey, hey!" she declared, "Does that mean I can be a knight too?! I'd definitely win against a deer, so if she can be captain I can be a knight!"

"Yeah!" declared a boy with black hair and a somewhat darker complexion, perhaps due to days out in the sun, "I wanna be a knight too!"

Soon, there were a large number of children clamoring for knighthood.

On top of that, another girl had appeared from nearby.

She wore a pointed travelling hat, and had bright green eyes and pale skin, with long, black hair.

"... Hello! Sir Knights?" she said, a little awkwardly. It seemed like she knew the knights had duties to attend to. But, then again, from her perspective it did look as if the knights were spending their time entertaining a bunch of children... "My friend Mae, she can't find her puppy, so... if you're not busy... she didn't want to ask herself..."

It was clear what she was asking. Perhaps Mae's parents were working to reinforce the walls and had been unable to look for her puppy. Something about this girl might have seemed oddly familiar, but there was likely nothing special about that, right?

@TheFake@PKMNB0Y@Raineh Daze@Noodles@Crimson Paladin

"Seizing control of the terrain before we go in? It's almost like old times," Tyaethe said, hefting her shield before turning to Indrau, "If you're confident nothing is going to overwhelm that, then I'll let you lead once we're done with the orcs. If their first big spell gets stopped and we don't need to slow..."

Still, there was one more thing to establish before they split up: some sort of signal that they were both in place. She could create a candle flame, at least--probably nothing orcs would catch if it was only for a second, but with the other pair watching out for it then returning the sign (Tiral could surely do something so simple) they could actually move in together.

Whatever the case, once that was agreed upon, the paladin split from the captain to circle around to the westward entrance. If it was just orcs, this wouldn't take long.

---

"If you want to be a knight, then you need to work hard and act like one. Do you understand? That means doing what you're told and behaving," the white-haired knight said, not one to pass up the opportunity to make a moral lesson. Not that it was wrong; unless born with the privilege, then knighthood was something to be earned rather than merely awarded... as frustrating as that happened to be and as dangerous as it would be for someone like that to take to the battlefield.

With the gaggle of children around her, it would surely be easier for Klaus and Fleuri to answer the hat-wearing girl's request... not that this was supposed to be their duty, but it would certainly avoid any reprimands for not doing what Lilianna believed to be their current duty.