[h2]Tyaethe[/h2]

The reinforcements filing out were... interesting. Very interesting. Oh, the one who obviously [i]wasn't[/i] in some sort of armour, and carrying a parasol, had to be some sort of mage, but that didn't particularly matter, it wasn't like mages were some exotic rarity. Much more interesting was the [i]pale[/i] one, for reasons that nobody else would be able to tell from this distance: she had no pulse. Where everybody else was detectable off that alone, someone walking and talking without it... oh, if they had time, she'd have [i]needed[/i] to investigate. A name and mercenary band to go on the list once they were done, see if anybody else could vouch for her; Tyaethe herself was evidence that undeath and its ilk wasn't a death sentence, but some of the methods used [i]were.[/i]

She still found the half-giant more interesting, though. Who made a full suit of plate that big? How expensive was it? How could you possibly afford that on a mercenary's pay, no matter how good your group was? Could she sit on his shoulder? How much fun would it be to fight someone like that, with all the size and strength that her speciality was relevant, but the equipment and bearing of a soldier?

Quite an impressive group, all things considered, but not an insurmountable one.

With Lein now moving over conspiratorially--or something of the like, the point was she could hear [i]whispering[/i] from up here, if not the details--and nobody having stated what was going on for apparently being self-evident, the vampire jumped off of her perch, landing quietly behind the hundi.

For all of ten seconds.

"We are [i]not[/i] framing the mercenaries. Do you know how many oaths to uphold the law and protect the innocent I've sworn? I would be testifying in their defence," Tyaethe drawled, pausing for a second, "Now, can someone tell me what happened?"

With the captain quickly bringing her up to speed--and saving the need for her to go stick her face up against [i]every corpse[/i] to make out the details--the vampire fell momentarily silent. No, this didn't speak of some sort of magical spell, [i]somebody[/i] would have resisted or reacted unexpectedly. A violent bloodbath like this would have to be something much worse than a caster could conjure up. A grand ritual might be able to do it, but there was again no motive for something like that--if you could drive an entire fortress into a frenzy, you could achieve your aim of stealing something with a lot less difficulty and a lot more subtlety. This seemed like it involved whatever object the mercenary group was after... and whatever that was, it was enormously powerful and got past your defences [i]somehow.[/i]

"[i]Before[/i] we start looking, you tell us everything you know about this item. If it's still here, we don't need a repeat of [i]this[/i]," Tyaethe stated, looking at Alette and gesturing around, "Because you left something out and we set off another massacre."