Janius smirked at the names for the different Dunmer brews. Maybe it was just their language, but 'greef' sounded like a drink for particularly bad nights.

"Huh," Janius replied to Lorag, pondering being sent off at an age that he would have considered young to be sent off to war. Then again, this was Lorag. "My father didn't seem to mind most of the time, that was probably because he was often away with work. He didn't even know what I got up to. I doubt he would have liked to hear the full story, though." Janius laughed, letting the drink relax him. "May as well enjoy this one..." Janius said, before finishing his mug and leaning forward to pour himself another, "a nice drink once you get past the aftertaste." He leaned back again and swirled the drink in his hands like he was scrutinising a wine, and enjoying himself with the parody, "'tis like biting into a raspberry that turns into a dead rat in your throat." He drank again, not particularly caring.

"I wonder when Alpha and Ariel are going to get back?" Janius said without so much concern as annoyance, "How long's a scouting run going to take?"

----

Induced by a combination of Ahnasha's antics and her tail making him ticklish, Fendros smiled back and complied. It wouldn't do if he wasn't thorough after all. Just before he reached the top of her leg, however, he paused, then teasingly resumed at the base of her other leg. Ascending this time, though, he would see what he could get away with...

----

Finally outside, Ariel listened, then shook her head. "The outer patrols are always in groups of three, we'll need to find one of those groups and distract it with something, then catch one of the stragglers," Ariel said, "it shouldn't be too hard, they'll get excited by something as small as an errant magelight. If you could cast one in the direction away from the keep when one of the patrols passes by, drawing them out a little further, I could paralyze one and hide it away, we just need to find a good spot to pull such a thing off..."

With the terrain being as thickly vegetated as it was, it wasn't too difficult to find a place with a couple of appropriate hiding spots close enough to one of the patrol routes. With Ariel finding a spot underneath a bush where she could drag one of the sentinels once she caught it, and Meesei in a similar bush in a divot nearby, all there was left to do was to wait.

After a couple of minutes, three lumbering armoured skeletons lazily walked by, their gait making them look deceptively tired. Once they were in just the right spot, Ariel signaled Meesei to create a distraction to lead them away. With her other hand, Ariel charged a green spell, ready to release on the closest Sentinel.