Shienvien

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Sir Yanin Glade

There was a barely perceptible hitch in Yanin's quill when Sir Freagon fixed his single eye on him, but ultimately admitted he had no better plans, either.
He had figured he knew why Sir Freagon did, but the human knight had no particular desire, or, at this particular point in time, need to haggle. Bar untimely violent destruction of their equipment, they could make do for a good while, even at these rates. They could kill the vampire, given no surprises. So could the Dei'iel. It wasn't unique to them. It could very well be a waste of time, and of whoever it or the predator they were urged to go after took. What he really needed was information. Solutions.
"The reasonable course of action would be to rendezvous at a designated location in Wenal if deemed necessary. He's been killing people. Delaying wastes lives."
Wouldn't doing be a more reliable indicator of worthiness? Easy enough to say just about anything.
Yanin couldn't disagree that these lands needed heroes - desperately, lest they were truly headed to end times. But no mere hunters hunters and fighters. Wouldn't it be lovely if all problems could be solved in single melee combat.
Those, too, naturally, but also learned mages. Healers. People who knew - or could figure out - things not even divines had any apparent knowledge of.
Why would a torn apart soul slow the Withering down?

Yanin spent some more time carefully cleaning and setting aside his remaining writing supplies when he was finished.
"There might yet be people who come looking; Quintin seemed to not recall them from around the town. Figured this would be more accurate than a written description," the human knight offered, handing Lady Bor (or, at least, setting down close to her plate) what turned out to be quite faithful illustrations of the five people killed by the crusaders - as much as was possible with just black ink and paper, anyway - along with a note detailing the circumstances of their deaths. Up to Lady Bor if she wanted to share the latter with any potential family or friends that might turn up.
Mercifully, in the actual illustrations, Yanin had omitted some of the details that were most likely the result of their murder, and subsequent hanging from a tree for any number of hours.
It was only then that the Viper finally decided to fill his own plate.
"If you have questions to me, ask. I won't answer any I deem dangerous to the undeserving."

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Sir Yanin Glade

The human knight didn't immediately move to parttake in the offerings when food was brought out, but rather continued drawing, listening and observing. Never at rest, eyes looking at doors a second before anyone stepped through, carefully tensioning and untensioning muscles between brief stretches of running his quill across the paper.
It looked practiced. Had been practiced. His dear mother had ensured that he had the experience of having pedantically copied thousands of illustrations, but lost any potential for deriving enjoyment from the process of inking an image. It was useful, though. Not really art in the same way the large pictures adorning Lady Bor's walls were, not meant to inspire awe and be admired, but purely functional. His were monochrome, unimaginative replicas of things he had seen he figured might be useful to be shown to others at some point, for whatever reason. Whether it was copying over the shape of a jewerlymaker's sigil or drawing people ultimately made very little difference.
What the baroness was proposing sounded not all that dissimilar to tasks that might have befallen upon him - and Jordan - during their duties as Fadewatchers or while roaming Wegam Fermos as free agents. So it wasn't an egregious request, at least, despite the implication that it was a mission of a different kind than the rather immediate problems Borstown had been facing.
Wasn't one of Lady Bor's late companions killed by a vampire? Felt like a minor personal vendetta. But did the motivation behind the investment really matter as long as it was aligned with the greater and lesser good of the society? Probably not.

Deo'Irah seemed inclined to accept the proposal, from her apparent discussion with Madara about the potential supplies they'd need to acquire if they were to accompany the fighters and the follow-up question of when they were supposed to start.
Jordan, Yanin didn't figure would have any arguments against. The guy's stated motivations were quite simple, and after all those years, the knight had no reasons to doubt them. If it was for a good cause and yielded enough to support his family, he usually didn't have any qualms. More often than not, it was up to Yanin to shut a plan down for its flaws. Besides, he was his squire. Jordan would be going where he would.
The younger human didn't appear to be doing anything, mostly just watching what the knight was (or wasn't) doing, so Yanin motioned him to take some food, which Jordan did, picking up a plate and, after a brief contemplation, opted to just try a moderate amount of everything. Or at least as much as he could without his plate not being impolitely overflowing.
The question really was, was hunting down a troublesome vampire a good use for his time?
Time was running out. Coin was but a means to an end; time was by far the more valuable resource.
He already had pre-existing allegiance to the Fadewatchers back in Etlon, and to a number of the members of his family, whose situation was always more precarious than he'd like, along with all the other personal demons lurking about. Was it a good political move, then? An old adventurer from a town threatened with destruction by the Crusaders, should they consider themselves able to get away with it? To, in a roundabout way, forge connections in Nemhim? Lady borr alleged she was in somewhat regular correspondence with the Duchess. What in the Planes was in those stolen documents?
Could any of them really afford a delay? Him and Sir Freagon in particular. Other than resupplying, what did he have to do here? Play guard in the absence of others? Wander around in the forest and see if he could uncover a track? Just practice to pass time? Not that he had had more elaborate plans than trying his luck in Zerul City and maybe Relimon.

It was Sir Freagon who broke the various ponderings of the people around the table first. Not enough pay. If it was obvious enough what Jordan's problem with money was, then the old nightwalker was a harder guess. Securing funds for his newly minted squire, perhaps.
"Can't fathom business here worth several days. Any contamination we might've accrued would fade en route same as here." Maybe they'd have a chance to discover something unrelated on the road. Maybe. Yanin didn't give any indication of whether he was inclined to take or leave the offer. Directed the next question seemingly at Sir Freagon, though. "Have a matter of more significance we should rather investigate?"

Madara

The half-palanter wasn't in a particular hurry to return, no. Her assistant and temporary backroom tenant were quite adequate. If these people here opted to go on a mission and it wasn't an outright suicide, she'd be entirely willing to keep accompanying them on their endeavors.
For the time being, though, she was content to sample the meat, spice and assorted nuts and vegetables - the latter more for the added taste nuances than nourishment. Since she had managed to finish taking inventory before arriving to the dinner, it appeared she was one of the few who wasn't preoccupied with various side-activities at the table.
"The styptics, paralytics, painkillers, anti-inflammatories, the specific thread I use, and the assorted counters to infections are usually the fastest to deplete," Madara idly surmised, carefully portioning the food on her plate, "Along with the tools of the trade themselves." It came as a surprise to many people, but the scalpels, needles, hooks and other implements very much were wear items. A tool had to be precisely as sharp as it needed to be.
"I also do have a couple chemicals the effects of which on deigan I'm not entirely certain of, if you have any insights - I rarely get unusual cases that aren't humans or palanters, and written records concerning the less common substances can be ... spotty."

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jordan Forthey

Jordan was more than slightly busy.

For one, get his and Sir Yanin's animals over to the back garden of Bor Manor, as Lady Bor had ever so kindly offered to let them. As long as they didn't eat her flowers out by the front, anyway. Which, by all means, was entirely reasonable. Being out back on lead and able to browse on whatever not-so-flowery plants they could find was indefinitely better than having them stand out there by the guardhouse with most of their things still being stored on their backs.
Speaking of which, Jordan very much appreciated that he didn't have to carry all of their stuff back on his own two feet and could just gather up everything - what was already on the animals and what had been temporarily deposited in the guardhouse - and bring everything over along with the two horses and mule in one go. That only left taking the things to the two guest bedrooms they reserved for himself and his master.
Somewhere along the way, he also offered to help bring the deigan's coach and ox over. He also gave their own animals a quick brush and a pat on the neck - he'll probably need to move them somewhere later, maybe just to a new patch of grass if it appeared it wouldn't be raining, probably help clean up after them afterwards ... ask the housestaff if there were spades, wheelbarrows and a compost pile somewhere on the property, maybe.
He also spotted Nabi wandering around the back garden, seemingly admiring the fruit trees. Evidently, there weren't that many plants back where she'd come from, or horses. He offered to teach her to ride and help pick out an animal from along the ones liberated from the crusaders if she so wished. He also noted that she could feel free to pet his horse or the mule, or borrow a carrot to give them from the kitchen, if she wanted, but warned her not to touch the large white -- technically gray -- horse that was Sir Yanin's, as he might actually bite.

There wasn't really enough time to fully unpack things - and he'll have to remember to see if the blacksmith had some tools for additional maintenance if they're going to stay on the move for longer. Sort out the arrows and bolts Sir Yanin had picked up, too, some of them probably came from Lady Bor or Nabi or Quintin... He guessed it will remain to be seen how many of the others were usable once cleaned up.
Hadn't Deo'Irah said there would be a bath? Should ... most likely do that before the dinner and worry about cleaning and organizing things later. Shed the metal and only take the belt along, pick out a new set of clothes... He only really had one set of boots so just wiping those clean had to work. Right.
Lady Bor turned out to have quite the bathhouse for the size of the manor, with multiple brass baths and what looked to be a spring-fed pool. If there wasn't one going yet, he offered to get a second bath going - there was, after all, at least ten of them all combined, and it was only so long before everyone needed to be done.
It would have been nice to just stay there for a while and do nothing at all for a good long while, but he figured he could maybe do it later, others permitting. They'd been on the way since quite early morning so it was shaping out to be a fairly long day.
For now it was just to get clean and be vaguely annoyed at the fresh bruise on his arm. Sure, he had a fair number of older, partially faded ones - mostly from Sir - but this one was from someone who had no intention of withholding and would have killed him, too.

Someone who, ultimately, had been killed himself. So there was that. For better or worse.

Some ten minutes later, he got out to get dressed in his spare clothes, just about having enough time to mostly clean his boots, belt and weapons and toss his old clothes into a pile in the corner of "his" bedroom (he'll figure out if laundry has his problem or someone else's later; armor and weapons definitely were his problem) before it was time to take seat at the dinner table where most of the rest already were.
The baroness thanked them yet again and introduced them to their payment - which, truth to be told, was a bit of a sore spot for Jordan, what with the whole business with his family, and them not really being paid for their usual guard job while they were there wandering the land and having apparent detour-adventures. He didn't move to take his share, though; not before the others did, anyway.
For now it seemed Lady Bor had other tasks to introduce them to.

Madara

Her time since their return had been mostly taken up by taking care of Cole, who had previously been passed over in favour of the more severely injured Fadewatchers for lack of time, getting herself cleaned up in a bath, changing into a fresh attire, occasionally checking on Bren who had been moved into one of the spare bedrooms in the manor, taking inventory of her available tools and chemicals, and offering Kylie in the kitchen a share of a select couple of her herbs for teas if so desired. Against joint pain and inflation, predominantly.

She was now wearing her second, more intricate, deep blue tunic before taking seat by the table, her expression carefully measured. For now, she opted to let the fighters among them do the talking. She had a feeling Lady Bor's proposal would be elaborated on sooner rather than later with or without her urging.

Sir Yanin Glade

Tedwyn had vanished into the thin air, Caleb had literally vanished into the thin air. Local hunters were recommended to keep an eye out for the missing crusader to the east of the farmstead they had left behind if they were only able - or anyone, once the people were sent out to clean up the site of what was more of a massacre than a battle. Maybe not engage immediately unless it was that one crusader specifically. Just stay wary and alert.
Had taken a while escorting thirty-four horses with all the crusaders' belongings and the five dead civilians back. Between the five of them and the Fadewatchers and Lady Bor's man, the local gravedigger would no doubt be busy for a good while.
For the lack of any other good ideas on what further to investigate, he simply helped Quintin and Sir Freagon look through the saddlebags they'd brought along - though uncovering very little of note other than some jewelry - Yanin noted down the maker's sigil, just in case it helped uncover something. Whoever they'd fought, it was probably closer than a day as a horse walked, maybe two if they'd somehow figured out how to keep their commander together for longer before they stole a healer for him.
And then the documents. Didn't look like anything that simply replaced the letters, or shifted them, or added unnecessary ones in a discernible pattern. Nothing quite as simple to decipher as that. It seemed likely these were the target of their mission; in force and unmarked as they had come, and fought. Felt likely, at least, that both these documents and the jewelry had been stolen from their rightful owners. Duchy of Nemhim? The deigan might know if the seal harboured any magical properties; the shape conveyed a few of the documents had been closed by Annette Nemhim herself, or someone very close to her, but it wasn't impossible to replicate the form of the seal.
For now there didn't seem to be much more to be done other than set the documents aside and see to no one accidentally misplacing them.

Didn't leave him with too much time before dinner; in the end, he simply opted to take a bath (if anyone was in the room, they might note he kept his dagger at a hand's reach even so), before making an appearance at the dinner table, in new clothes, once more armed, but for once unarmored, though it might have been largely due to the lack of time to re-armor himself.
Weirdly enough, he did seem to have brought ink, quill and papers, and when he wasn't glancing at any sound or motion in the room, actually appeared to be drawing. Every now and then, he shifted his position, just slightly, clenched and unclenched the fingers of the hand he wasn't using - or even changed the hand he was using. Seemed deliberate rather than restless.
It was only once Vela started to speak that Yanin seemed to listen, mostly, though ultimately, he, too, didn't seem to be overly wordy.
"Believe I alluded to being willing to hear you out. So let us."
Remained to be seen if it was indeed the best use of their time, or, barring that, since they were already part of this damn mess, at least provided sufficient in the absence of actually knowing what they should be doing. Track and eliminate things, with his particular set of skills, most likely - should they deserve it. Simple things, in the grand scheme of it all, not comparable to defying fate.

Perhaps too simple.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jordan Forthey

"Reina, right..." Jordan muttered. "I guess I could Sir to write something up if need be, he is better with a quill than I am, at least..."
He looked at Quintin.
"And, uh, there are a whole lot of horses in the barn; I didn't quite count them since I was slightly more concerned with the people, but I guess maybe around three dozen. Might help with the transport. And it might be kind of cruel to leave them there."

Sir Yanin Glade

Lady Bor didn't comment on whether or not there were hounds at their disposal - not that it was a situation that could be done anything further with before at least one of them got the word back to Borstown.
Deo'Irah parted from Sir Freagon, now carrying Kinder's temporary form. Probably quite close to breaking down and returning the angel to its home, then. Anything? Yanin opted to detach himself from the Baroness and assorted people making their final preparations and walked up to meet them partway, motioning his free hand to halt them. The deigan nodded at him. So she, too, knew now.
"Kinder?" he addressed the angel. "I'd heard divine healing can delay the inevitable, but can't remove the cause, nothing known can. Figured it becomes a choice between the disease and divine taint in the end. How accurate is that?"
"With any other case of the Withering then yes, I could delay it," the iriao replied. "But this... His soul is so bizarre, I cannot even tell where the Withering is to treat. I could try, but most likely I would just be inflicting divine taint while accomplishing nothing."
"So either it becomes clearer further in or not, at which point it'd, I assume, also inflict more taint to push it back."
"I would not 'push it back' so much as I would restore the parts it has caused to deteriorate. The end result would be the same; I would be restoring the same amount of soul for the same amount of taint, it will just be proportionally less."
Technicalities. But it did look like what little he had gathered from the tidbits he had heard had been mostly correct. "I see. Regrettable. Thank you regardless."

"I think he will live long enough to impart upon Jaelnec what he must, and then... I do not get the sense that he would want us to prolong his suffering. He will do his duty. It will then be up to us to do ours."
Impart what exactly that he hadn't managed in the last, what had 'the boy' said again, fifteen years?
It had been frustrating; if he were to take a guess, Sir Freagon both wanted to ignore the malady that had befallen him and yet also have some kind of contingency plan. To strictly adhere to the shibboleths of his knighthood, yet also considering them condemned, futile to even have anyone else witness and believe. To make plans for and act toward a future he couldn't possibly see, yet being resigned to whatever comes. Yanin didn't think Freagon knew whether he wanted to live, die, keep going, give up, or have any true allegiance besides himself.
The old knight had spoken of hope. Leaving it behind for the others. Something Yanin had thought strangely abstract, a thing one could do when one had ran out of things one could do, nonactionable and perhaps, to no avail. It would be almost ironic if the dead man walking had none left for himself, albeit not surprising. Those involved well knew what the seemingly inevitable outcome was - for Sir Freagon and, if the plague kept ravaging the land at the same rate it had been doing, perhaps for all of them. In all probability, they'd all die of the Withering, some just a bit sooner than others - man, woman, child and anything between, with naught any aspiring hero could do but fight the good fight until there were none.
If they were going to defy destiny, they were going to need all the help they could get, for as long as they could get it. Even if he didn't have any good reason to trust these people. Or them him. For the gods' sake, he didn't know how to stop the different members of his family killing one another without becoming a pariah in the eyes of most of Etlon if not all of Rodoria, let alone how to stop the surviving witness here from escalating the situation to the eventual leveling of Borstown, the civil war, a potential external threats or, indeed, the Withering itself.
In any case, they'd decide what, if anything, to do about the end of any of them once it truly arrived, not before. Each for oneself.
For a long moment, the human knight contemplated, but ultimately didn't respond before dropping his hand to the side and continuing on his way. Deo'Irah didn't try to stop him, merely nodded once more and went to join Lady Bor.

"Nothing new they could impart?" he asked Sir Freagon after making his way over. Conveniently still out of range of the hearing of others.
"Still trapped in their own minds. Not only are they not imparting anything, but we're going to have to carry them back."
Based on what Kinder had told him earlier, it'd presumably just return to its own plane upon its vessel disintegrating and recover there, if divines even had much to recover. The deigan, between the piaan and divine taint, were a different matter. "Deo'Irah? If she keeps the pace, probably." There was a brief pause, with Yanin clenching his jaw. "So, four days? Five?"
He looked at Sir Freagon, but aside of his voice being kept quiet, even away from the others as they were, his tone had changed fairly little from his usual. If anything, it was more abrupt. Not sad, not compassionate. Just matter-of-fact. It was what it was.
"Who knows? It's been eight days since it appeared already, and I'm still up and swinging my sword. For me, it seems it's... unpredictable."
That was longer than anyone else Yanin knew had survived, at least absent a powerful divine healer. "Why would it be?" The old nightwalker had implied he had no magical skill of his own, and even an angel had admitted it had no clue where to begin... "Your soul? Whatever lives in that sartal sword of yours?" Hardly replicatable under normal - or nigh any - circumstances. Felt like a question someone should find an answer to, regardless. "Happen to know of anyone more knowledgeable who might have an inkling?" Whether or not it was someone whose audience could be gained before the time ran out or not. He sighed. "But it does progress?"
"Lots of people are trying to figure out the Withering. As far as I know, no one has, and I certainly haven't... and I don't know much about my soul or the thing possessing Roct. And yes, it does progress."
So time was definitely still running out, just at the rate of who-the-fuck-knows. He already knew about people looking into it, but meeting nothing but dead ends. Naturally. It was Sir Freagon and whichever acquaintances - or lack thereof, or even entities he wasn't exactly on terms with - he might have accumulated over time Yanin knew little of.
"Yeah. Don't think anyone has. Can't exactly claim to know anyone with expertise in souls, either. Most I can do at this time is make note of anything atypical; figure out if it's of any significance later." So that was that. For better or worse. Mostly worse, though perhaps not the worst.
"You looked through the farmhouse? Any indication what the crusaders were doing before coming here, why they targeted Bren, who these people were," Yanin pointed his free thumb at the oak that had been recently adorned with the two penin and three nightwalkers, "any names or sigils? Looks like we're one crusader short and he's already out of Caleb's range, so unless he took a projectile and bled out or someone in town has bloodhounds to spare, it soon won't be the last of them. Other than that, it might be best to pack up this damned camp."
"I found a few bits and pieces, but it didn't tell me much. Best as I can tell, the big guy who's probably their commander got badly wounded wherever they were before they got here, and they kidnapped Bren to heal him." Freagon sighed. "And of course one got away; I'm just surprised it's only one. Luckily we're a long way from Etlon, so it'll be a while before he can report what happened... and even then there's no guarantee anything will come of it. They hid their tabards and pretended to be bandits, so maybe they'd rather try to sweep this all under the rug than retaliate against our retaliation? Only time will tell."
"No names, no identity but for a few unmarked trinkets," Yanin muttered. Someone had probably been thorough enforcing that. "The most recent to die also referred to him as their commander. Became a lot less useful once he spotted Lady Bor." If Sir Freagon's guess was accurate, it most likely set a limit to how far they had traveled since their last skirmish - five commoners would hardly be a match for three dozen armed men, so not the dead here. Someone else. But close enough that there were no other cities with more cooperative healers on the way. Between not riding down the horses to the point of collapse, not forcing exertion to the point of ripping open wounds and bleeding out, not having infection set in over time...
"I'd be surprised if their last site of conflict was much more than a day's travel away as a horse walks if their commander's injury forced the detour." If Bren hadn't used any magic to heal the crusader commander, the other healers might be able to confirm, or absent that, Bren himself once he wakes.
Freagon agreed with a shrug. "Whatever they were doing before was probably covert, too, since they decided to kidnap a healer rather than solicit one."
Yanin sighed. "Better than having no suspects at all once someone comes upon the site of their deeds."

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Sir Yanin Glade

Nothing. Assuming it wasn't one of those hit by arrows or bolts, who might have succumbed to their injuries later on, one of them had escaped.
"Probably to east," With Caleb to the north, and the rest of them fairly spread out across south and southwest. That left effectively no one with eyes on east and northeast of the farmhouse, at least not until Deo'Irah's group had their altercation with the commander.
"I agree. Not likely you can locate him unless you've tracking hounds. Sounds like there's disaster yet headed your way." Could mean danger to the cleanup crew, but they could discuss it on the way back.

Kinder and Deo'Irah seemed to finally heeding the insistence of talking now rather than later, so there was that. Now to see what the squires were doing and see if he can find a few more intact arrows Maybe see whether the deigan and angel figured out something further afterwards.

Jordan Forthey

The other squire seemed startled, as if woken from some deep thought or some daydream, or waking nightmare, but at least this time, the snapping out of it was more tempered.
He said he was okay - which, people in his situation really weren't, though at least the "calm" bit was most likely correct.
"Don't think you can really get used to things like that - or if you can, it's probably not a good thing," he reiterated his earlier thoughts. "Shows that you no longer care as much."
He shifted his hold to the hilt rather than grip and held it out pommel towards the nightwalker when Jaelnec seemed to realize he had indeed misplaced his sword and Jordan hadn't merely found an exact replica of it and decided to take it along for arbitrary reasons.
He glanced over his shoulder to see the others still scattered about as the nightwalker reclaimed his sword, and since one of his hands was now finally free, set it down on the other guy's shoulder, though he mostly returned to looking at the dead. It's not like he was still unaware he was there now.
"I don't think I know much of anything about nightwalker customs... What should be done?"
Could at least try to ensure they were buried right. As much as possible, anyway.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Madara

"I've only ever seen angels in imagery, never in person before today, let alone speaking with them," the half-palanter admitted, briefly withholding hersef when Kinder finished what she and Irah had started.
"Palanters, all full-bloods, at least, but most half-bloods, too, can also choose to fly - but only at the expense of the ability to birth new life and their old form, the dexterity of their hands especially, never to be able to revert back to their old life even if memories persist. Strange thought, that."
Angels didn't remember their past lives, after all. And not all appeared to have the same fondness for their full body. Caleb, in particular.
"I can only venture the guess that for many of the more gentler souls among angels, it's not about the pleasure, but the cost," Madara surmised, leaning over to brush hair from Bren's face and see if she could arrange him more comfortably until the time came to transport him off. His mind might not remember it, but joints could complain something fierce if they'd been forced into an unnatural position for too long.

Sir Yanin Glade

There was very little.
No letters, no names, no items that were obviously taken from these people's previous targets, just small, personal things that Yanin, much like the pieces of armor they wore and the weapons they had held, futilely checked for any kind of markings or insignia. If the mismatched and patchy armour - some probably taken from non-humans of similar size and build, he suspected - wasn't enough of an indication, then these people hadn't been wealthy. A lot of seemed to have even taken the effort to specifically conceal what little coin they had on their bodies.
The knight gathered up the occasional Rodlin into a piece of fabric he had liberated, but once ascertaining none of those were engraved or otherwise distinguished, just left the rings and other jewelry and knicknacks on the bodies. Money was just money; those things were personal. Even children's toys and a silver locket that, albeit otherwise unmarked, held a lock of hair, perhaps from a lover.
He stared at it for a dozen seconds, jaw glanced, before returning the locket to the corpse and getting back up again. Even those bloody sods had definitely had family and children, at some point or even now, survived by them. They had talked about going back home, didn't they?
One could only wonder how many of these people were truly evil, and how many of them merely sought to provide for their families or had lost too much, and were now trying to find purpose and an enemy to blame. Some of them could have joined for the lust of killing or power, some of the items could be trophies of fallen victims, but not all, and most likely, not the majority. There really wasn't that much that needed to go wrong for an average person to go down a twisted path.

Not that it was of any consolation to the poor penin and nightwalkers caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time, or any friends and family they might have had. Senseless violence during an age of death.

Thirty-one. Thirty-two with Bren. Didn't bode well for their little group, Yanin figured as he headed back to where Vela and a couple others were.
"Caleb said there were thirty-two sapients other than us here. That leaves one crusader unaccounted for. Nabi, Caleb, Lady Bor, any ideas?" He assumed that Kinder, who had now moved closer to stop the two remaining injured crusaders from bleeding out, would simply forward it to Caleb. Quintin could have an idea, too, but he was a bit out talking distance.
Long shot, but worth a try. The last thing they needed in this bloody mess was a witness-messenger of indubitably hostile intent.

Once it was evident whether or not there was anything to do about that, he showed the tied-up cloth of Rodlin relieved from the dead to the Baroness, perhaps even just handing it over if it appeared she wanted to take it here and now.
"Naught anything on them. Just unsigned personal memoraphilia and some coins. Reckon the latter should go to the families of the fallen," he commented. Who knew whether everyone Lady Bor had at her disposal were equally honest. Seemed more reliable for the Baroness to have full control over the redistribution of the Crusaders' wealth. "Request the items not on the bodies to be brought over; maybe there's yet something indicative of their plans and deeds in there."

"And Kinder? Please do get Sir Freagon and Deo'Irah together for a talk. Now rather than later. Time is running out. I'll see that the others have something else to do."
Now was as good time as any, with few people around and not too much time lost. Withering only took about a week to kill, maybe day less, maybe day more, and for as far as he knew, Sir Freagon might have lost one of those days already.
There weren't many iriao available, and while they couldn't possibly remove the Withering completely, seemingly nothing could, not even the full gods, he had at least heard divine healing could delay it. Was it a day, a week, even two? He didn't know. The least they could do was take any time they could get, the sooner the better.
One could only imagine how much divine taint one would accumulate by trying to get a third of an entire body's worth of gray decaying mush restored to functional flesh. It wasn't illogical to conclude that one could only beat it back in its early stages so many times before the divine taint from the healing itself became lethal.
Divine taint could be devastating; Kinder's makeshift form was already beginning to visibly crumble. Caleb might yet end up needing to resummon her, preferably into something else than Deo'Irah. Couldn't have done her any favors, this day.

Jordan Forthey

Quintin had been wrong. None of these three had been humans. The three he had thought were turned out to be nightwalkers, like Jaelnec and Sir Freagon were. And, from the other people talking, not too subtly from the prisoners' side, and Lhirinthyl bringing out a red tabard, he could only infer these people had been from the Crusaders' Guild. The same people who had killed Jaelnec's family fifteen years ago.
Even if these people weren't literally his kind, that could only be relatable in the worst possible way. That really was the worst thing he could have chosen to do, was it not? Or maybe not, maybe it was some kind of weird closure thing, or maybe he'd break down or swear vengeance - in a cruel twist of irony, not unlike the guy Yanin had spared and Quintin had killed, violence-begets-violence-like -, or...
Jordan had grown still with indecision, his blood running cold, looking from the dead nightwalkers to the living one. What did one say in a scenario quite like that? The other squire hadn't reacted immediately and violently, at least, but he probably still needed to do or say something other than stand there in silence like a fence post.
"Er, Jaelnec?" He asked, closely looking at the nightwalker's face. He wasn't going to repeat Irah's mistake of trying to touch him if he wasn't exactly sure there wasn't anything he could snap out of or into, even if he now had all the weapons and Jaelned just had a dagger still on him.
Or actually, maybe he did have an idea ... he knew very little abut nightwalker customs, but... But he might still need to see how the other reacted first.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jordan Forthey

He didn't miss Jaelnec practically jumping back from Deo'Irah trying to touch him, nor the small jerk of hand that betrayed the nightwalker had to instinctively stop himself from slashing out before he haphazardly apologized. Yes. Right... Don't touch people who have just been in a fight, or attacked, at least until you're really sure that they have calmed and know you're there and not dangerous. It wasn't exactly the first time he had seen a reaction like that, mostly from the civilians who had only dealt with incidents once or twice, or never before. Old guards, adventurers and knights in active combat roles mostly drank too much. Smoked. And didn't sleep. Some snapped. Not all of them, not Vela, not Quintin ... unsure about Sir Freagon ... but a fair few.
Protecting and saving people could be a burden, definitely, but someone had to do it. One'd think that after several years, there'd be something better than 'do something else and hope it goes away'. But it had worked this far, so it, well, was good enough. Celebrate the victories, keep yourself busy. Have a pint of ale (not enough to get drunk-drunk), sing a song, train, take care of weapons and armor, brush the horses...

The younger nightwalker let go of his sword and latched onto the recommendation. The "do something else" seemed to be the rather morbid task of helping Quintin take care of the farmowners, or perhaps them and their visitors, but... Well, it needed getting done and probably anything was better than being seized up, paralyzed by the horror of it all.
Numbly, Jordan looked down to where Jaelnec had dropped his arms, only to realize that he himself still had both of his arms full, and set his spear against the wall to unload his crossbow and sling it on his back. Now he had at least one hand free to pick up the other guy's weapon. It wasn't a good sword, but unless he somehow indicated he had found another one to use, it was probably what the nightwalker was accustomed to and would probably eventually want returned.

“Sweet Jaelnec… please stay by his side and keep him busy, Jordan, if Sirs Yanin and Freagon will allow it? He needs a camaraderie we cannot provide, until his mind settles. When we return to Borstown I will draw a hot bath for you; you’ve earned some rest… but for now the work is not over. The calm of succour is a harder draught to brew than battle’s heady high.”
She was still there, too... The kind, vicious, compassionate, lithe, pretty, innocent-looking priestess with secrets she'd just barely let them get a glimpse of. Jordan didn't quite know to be around her - she seemed like a being of a too different class to be really himself around (unlike Nabi, who, despite being from some nation and kind he didn't think he had even heard of, seemed somehow more familiar, perhaps? he'll need to check on her, too), so for the most part defaulted to guardsman.
But the squire and off-duty Fadewatcher was also tired - not just physically from coming down from the battle, but mentally, too. Usually it would be some singular beast-monster or highwaymen, not three dozen people, most of whom had been cut down or slaughtered. That wasn't normal for him, either. That one final moment of indecision which might cost Bren his health - and would have cost the town healer his life if it weren't for no less than three other capable healers on their side. That didn't help, either, the whole thought of maybe things would be slightly less fucked up if he hadn't doubted himself.
Fortunately or not, he was mostly just competent enough to manage to keep things together, and just sort of manage to deal with his own things, and some of others', too. Just okay. He was doing okay.

"Yeah, yeah, I can do that," he replied, sounding perhaps slightly out of breath, perhaps almost slightly distracted, somehow, but in general, just normal. Even if he didn't necessarily expect himself to sound just like he had merely ran a couple miles or something, and nothing more significant had happened. The calm after battle when you had actually time tho think about things... Wouldn't he know it? "I'm quite certain Sir Yanin would just tell me, us if he needed us for something else. In which case, we can just do that something else. And Sir Freagon ... I wouldn't know, but Jaelnec was with our group for now, yes?" So he was probably their business until Sir Freagon said otherwise.
He sighed, picking up his own spear and straightening up, glancing to where Quintin and now Jaelnec were. "A bath sounds nice."
Back at home and among the servants, a bath would have been a large half-barrel bowl you poured a few buckets of cold well-water in, and then a couple boiling kettles to make it more amicable to touch. You couldn't really go comfortably in it unless you were a kid, and usually it ended up more lukewarm than actually hot since you had other things to do than boil water on the stove or pit fire. The actual Glades' mansion had had a true bath, and he supposed Bor Manor would, too, if Lady Bor was willing to lend it...
"We all could use some rest, and well, something not that," he lifted three of his fingers off his spear to vaguely motion towards the field, "Don't think you can really get used to it, or if you can, it's probably not a good thing." Oddly enough Sir Yanin had said something along those lines, too, even if his reaction was more along the lines of a cold 'don't like it' than any visual or behavioural indication of being actually shaken up by, well, anything.
"But, yeah, the resting will have to wait, a little. But thank you. For caring when not everyone might." At least not until they were injured enough to actually need healing immediately. A fair amount people tended to regard guards as just kind of there until they themselves acutely needed help.
He offered Deo'Irah a weary smile and, adjusting his grip on his spear, walked over to see how Jaelnec and Quintin were doing.

There would probably be a lot of equipment to clean up come next morning...

Sir Yanin Glade

"They have been getting bolder, and defenses have been getting sparser," Yanin stated near where the others stood discussing, not really taking a break to speak while impassionately rolling over what they now knew to be one of the dead crusaders to see if this one, out of all the ones littered across the grounds, had something interesting on him. It was easier to get away with things. Easier than it had been a long time.
Lady Bor assured them she'll have someone else take care of the bodies. As long as they're trustworthy. Bury the bodies. Reuse the metal and general supplies. Burn the rest. Do not leave anything identifiable.
"Seems reasonable." She was right in one matter, at least. It wouldn't be optimal use of their time to spend the next two days digging a hole big enough to fit all these corpses. Especially when one of them - as much as there was a 'them' to speak of - was effectively dying as they spoke. Time was running out. He'd informed Kinder and Deo'Irah; if only they could stop wasting time.

"Will see," he simply responded to the Baroness' insinuation that there will be more work. He was already involved with the happenings here, and there was yet to be any guarantee going where he intended to go would end with a resolution, so they might as well listen to what the 'job' was.

When Quintin - and the squires - went to take down the bodies in the tree, Yanin briefly went over. He didn't assist, or offer to, just watched silently for a couple minutes, before returning to his perhaps equally morbid task of looking for information. Any information.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Sir Yanin Glade

"This group was ragtag. Only one individual of some significance. It's more likely they'd initially send a singular tracker or a pair rather than come in in force." If so, would it be preferable to take out any tracker that was spotted, or hold off unless something worthy of being reported back was discovered? How likely would it be that an observer would realize that a tracker had narrowed something down? "It may come to a larger raiding party, perhaps an incidental one... Best to delay that day as long as possible." Borstown was still mostly humans, even if Lady Bor's invitation might have garnered some undue attention. It wasn't a primary target.
Nevertheless, the town's defenses had been meager, and now they had been all but wiped out. If even this party had gone all-out, killing sleeping inhabitants house-by-house, not giving the remaining couple local Fadewatchers the respite... It would have been a full wipe, with little one ranger and an old lady with her adventuring days behind her could have done about it.
Maybe additional defenses were in order. Enough to let some people escape an unstoppable razing.

"Besides, it's thirty-something bodies in what was, presumably, someone's home," Yanin noted, pushing over a nearby body to see if there was anything of interest on it. It would require absolutely tyrannical control for none of several dozen people have no personal effect or trace of what they had been up to on them, or among the mess back in the barn. Maybe one or another had picked up some souvenirs from their most recent mission, if nothing else. People frequently acted contrary what you told them to do, at least if they thought it was inconsequential and they could get away with it.
"The fewer people come across a field of corpses, the better." Giving the five victims a proper burial, relieving the crusaders of whatever could be used to compensate the people who lost their fathers, sons and brothers in the dead Fadewatchers - everything identifiable would need reforging -, burning the tabards and chest, stacking the criminals in a hole and covering them up. Enough that autumn rain could do the rest.

The human knight briefly paused his investigative poking around when Deo'Irah came up with the idea that Bren might have been captured to help with ... stopping the Withering? Not even the king had avoided death from it; no one known had been cured, and even most powerful healers could only slow it down.
"I doubt Bren had enough renown to make himself that kind of target. He was a town healer, a kind, nice man, not anyone of unusual magical prowess or an avatar or Reina. If he was vastly unusual, Caleb might have noticed something. Or he would have been able to defend himself, or someone might have said something. One'd think Lady Bor would be long past concealing details of Bren's person by now. "Was he someone else before? Anyone have a good idea why they'd take Bren specifically?"
Jordan had asked something like that before, as had he himself, but it was from some kids and low-ranking Fadewatchers.
Speaking of the Withering, what was Deo'Irah doing? The deigan had evidently walked over to Jaelnec and Jordan - neither of which Freagon presumably wanted around, given he seemingly hadn't told his brand new squire. It would be a waste to have to summon Kinder again.

Jordan Forthey

Jordan had spent most of the skirmish past the ranged portion of it fighting alongside his master - which was what he usually did, not so much because Sir Yanin needed his flank covered, but because he himself could use having one less side to watch - and, if really needed, there'd be someone to bail him out if he really messed up. The Viper was perhaps the only person who could reliably fight two people at once even without any advantage in weapons or armor, besides, maybe, now Sir Freagon, too.
He didn't exactly have too much time to watch Sir Yanin actually fight this time around (Sir Freagon on the other side wasn't really fighting, more slaughtering), but he was well familiar with the usual style of it - fast, precise, and somehow ... careful. Was that the best word? Never spending too long in range, never wasting energy, fast enough that it was difficult to even grasp how and why he had gotten past an opponent's defenses and then they were mortally wounded. He made it look effortless, something Jordan knew extremely well it bloody wasn't.
Even with years of practice, he felt every parry, every stab, every attempt to divert, yank or twist, every blink of an eye was full of having to fight, having to keep himself alive, having to incapacitate in any way possible... The wraiths would have killed him, too, no doubt, but they were clumsier, less real, a threat more akin to falling trees or sliding rocks than people. People who wouldn't back down and tell him where he made a mistake, people who were fully intent of killing him lest they themselves be killed.
He knew he could, should be better, more focused, more precise, lives depended on him, damnit, yet he could not escape the pain of a desperate block instead of the milder force of a deflection, and once even taking a hit to his vambrace strong enough that it might have actually dented the metal - from a glance, anyway.

In the end, there were only the barn and farmhouse left, and he was mostly fine - save for what was probably a new bruise on his right arm and the suspicion that his fingers and right wrist might be hurting the next day. As brutal as his master was in his training, he still clearly controlled the amount of force he put into blows; these men, well, they had no reason do do so, quite the opposite. Vaguely, Jordan recalled Sir Yanin pointing out that it can be harder to not kill a man to do so - probably held for 'severely injuring', too... But no matter.
Trying to catch a breath, the squire's eyes darted around to find the construct that currently hosted Kinder, "Could you, eh, please tell Caleb we're entering the barn now?" Better not to find out what 'friendly fire' would look like coming from a fallen thalk...
In the end, there were just two bandits in the barn, one of which was dead about as soon as Sir Yanin breached the building, the other of whom was disarmed and eventually dragged out by the knight. He didn't appear to need his help with it, so Jordan continued down the building, his spear still firmly in his grasp and flinching at any louder snap and crack. Well, he was sort of alone for now. The back of the barn was definitely not empty, though it mostly sounded like animals ... in particular, horses.
The section of the building they had entered from was a mess of bedrolls and general belongings, but thankfully no more people, dead or alive. The other side of the barn was, indeed, horses. Far too many of them for the space they occupied.
"It's okay, I'll come back for you later," Jordan mumbled, taking care to move between them without getting nowhere near their back ends, or moving too fast, or being too loud, or doing anything that could potentially spook the animals. One could assume these beasts were at least trained enough to carry these people in a mostly safe and organized manner through most circumstances, but other than that, he didn't exactly know anything about their tempers.
Unfortunately, somewhere behind large, not-exactly-silent animals would have been just about perfect place for someone to hide, so probably a walkthrough was needed. He did know horses, though, well enough that if any of them decided that it really didn't like his face attached to his body, he'd notice in time. But there seemed to be no one hiding there, and the horses remained somewhat calm in the dim room.
Still, being back outside through the opposite door was a relief, even if it came with a slightly different set of dangers.

There was shouting from the farmhouse's direction, where the other group ... and the angel of fear were. Right, he can't actually go there, can he? He moved along the barn's northern wall, enough to look about the corner at where Irah's group were, standing against a large man. What that bandit was holding made the squire's heart drop.
He could - right, he still had bolts and a crossbow (unlike Sir Yanin, whose bow was back at the forest's edge). So he could, at the very least, lean his spear against the wall and take aim, right? It was unlikely the brute would have noticed him back here. Probably.
Though it was probably very much unnecessary, he still tried to be slow and quiet (why was was his breathing so loud, and if he held his breath, his heartbeat?). It was only something like fifty meters, well within the useful range of his crossbow, and compared to his melee fighting, he could at least compete in accuracy with his superior with this weapon, but it was not exactly normal for him to have to aim so close to aim at someone on his side, even though the bandit conveniently seemed to have no armor whatsoever on his sizable torso.
And, Jordan's hands were trembling, whether it was from the hostage situation or just having fought. In the end, he ended up just bracing against the wall of the barn - he couldn't wobble the whole damn barn, so at least that took care of that. Should he try to take the shot? It was ... clear enough. If he didn't have enough control once he had a bolt through his heart and lung to actually act on his threat... Just as long as none of the people ended up moving fast in any intersecting direction. Sir Freagon definitely could be unexpectedly fast, and if he ended up hitting the old knight of all people... Somehow, it was less for fear of killing him, but rather whether Jordan himself would live to tell the tale.
There was a crackle - enough to make Jordan flinch, but thankfully not enough for him to accidentally pull the trigger, and all chaos broke loose - he was quite definite he saw the brute slit, not slit, gouge out Bren's throat before Sir Freagon intervened and impaled the guy. They ... had failed?

The human squire dropped his aim, and simply slumped against the wall rather than using it as a brace. Dully, he noted that Deo'Irah went over to the town healer to do something. Maybe not entirely failed. They had something like three rather competent healers, no? So he would maybe be fine, eventually, even if he currently laid limp like all the many sliced, stabbed, disfigured bandit corpses littering the place. One could hope. Although he likely wouldn't be fully the same. People sometimes just weren't, no matter how much you tried to help them afterwards.
Somehow, with the released tension, he couldn't really even feel any amount relieved, just numb. So he stayed there for a couple of minutes, enough so that people had moved around, Lhirin had entered and exited the farmhouse with something - he will care about what exactly later - Irah and he had both gone somewhere out of his sight. Faintly, he could hear people talking. Madara went over to check on Bren. Something like that.

He should probably get over there, too, before his master started wondering what happened to him and how, huh? Jordan closed his eyes, sighed, and pushed himself off the wall, only opening them again so he could actually grab his spear. Didn't bother to put away the crossbow for the time being, and mostly just used the spear as a walking stick as he made his way around the corner and moved closer to the others in no particular hurry.
There was a small clump of the others some thirty meters from the farmhouse, discussing something, though Sir Yanin had already begun investigating the corpses, and Jaelnec standing a bit further away from them, against the barn and still with his sword in his hand, though he almost looked ready to throw up. Right, the younger nightwalker hadn't followed him and Sir Yanin actually into the barn, had he? And it was probably something along the first time of him ... not sitting back and watching? There was something vague about pages of Will not fighting that Jordan recalled.
Not that watching was necessarily better, the corpses, the screams, oftentimes the loss of people you knew, the sheer helplessness of ... watching, just watching, most people were not fine with watching, the civilians at least weren't. Jalenec had been with Sir Fragon since he was ten, hadn't he?

The battle was over now, and now they had to fix what could be fixed, bury people, gather up their arrows, sort themselves out...
This time there would not be fellow Fadewatchers to go back to - well, sort of, there were the few survivors back in Borstown, but these guys had their own troubles and he didn't really know them -, nor the other workers of the Glades' estate, there was just Sir Yanin, for the first time since they joined Rodoria's guarding forces. And, well, he guessed these new people they were working with for the time being.
Sir Yanin's idea of supporting someone was largely just (maybe literally) picking them up and having them do stuff anyway, which surprisingly sometimes helped a little bit since it was something else to focus on. (Better the something else be doing something vaguely useful than, say, drinking so much you fell over sideways and forgot about everything for the next six hours.) Other than that, and maybe doing some things himself when you really couldn't, he wasn't exactly overly helpful, or perhaps didn't know how to be. The most he'd ever gotten out of the knight in regards of the dead or killing could be summarized more or less as, 'didn't like it.'
In the end, Jordan didn't even know how much exactly things like that really affected the knight.

Deo'Irah hurried over to Jaelnec, somewhat awkwardly stopping near him, maybe to make sure he was uninjurd. As far as Jordan knew (he hadn't had too much time to watch, but he hadn't seen him be hurt, at least), he wasn't. He wasn't really even taking a moment to rest and catch his breath, rather he was just ... seized up?
"I really should have risked taking a shot at the end there, huh?" the human squire somewhat vaguely commented at Deo'Irah, because she was there, before looking back at Jaelnec. His tone was muted, kind of exhausted.
"And, er, Jaelnec? Are you -" He didn't look alright standing there not doing anything. "Come, can you? We should probably go, do something."
Granted, Jordan didn't really know what to do with himself, either - go locate ammunition, help go through the bandits' things. Perhaps they should just ask Sir Yanin. As long as it wasn't 'pointlessly standing around'. That didn't really help anyone, least of all themselves. Or ask Irah, or Madara, or just anyone. If Sir Yanin really needed either of them, he'd probably state it.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Sir Yanin Glade

Lady Bor, and after presumably dismissing the swaigh, Deo'Irah and Lhirinthyl moved over to them. Madara observed her approach, taking half a step back, but once it became evident there was no effect on the humans or penin, didn't waste time hurrying over to the farmhouse to take a closer look at the damage.
The appearance of the deigan instantly made the this far quite uncooperative bandit to go on the offensive - as much as someone injured, unarmed and with the spike of a halberd pointed at his chest at just slightly out of the reach of his remaining hand could be. Which was mainly spitting insults.

'Killed the world?' The ... farmers or homesteaders or whatever these people here were? 'You people?' What bloody people? The plague - the Withering? Not that he needed to wait for clarification for too long, since Lhirinthyl tossed a tabard onto the ground and did his best to try and grind it into the dirt. Fucking Crusader's Guild. Of course it had to be these people, and not merely a hired band of ragtag mercenaries. Any information about their plans would be beneficial, but at least one question had been answered. Of course Kevalorn and the lot would try to blame the Withering on 'literally anyone who is not human'. Naturally.
Looking down at the crusader, Yanin wondered what brought a man to be so full of fanatical rage towards unwitting passersby, but perhaps he didn't want to know. Or maybe he had a good enough idea already. The poor sod had lost everyone, and these bloody bastards were the only ones to welcome him. It didn't matter that the overarching goal of this group was just as bogus as encompassing some random farmers living in the rear end of nowhere in the blame for the Withering, they had given him a purpose and an enemy to fight, and that was that.
Was it really, then, as Deo'Irah said? That he was now long past redemption? The guy looked what, Jordan's age? Lady Bor and Lhirinthyl threatening with torture when he, a human, had not probably didn't help with first impressions.
Quintin seemed to run out of patience with the insults thrown at his superior and impaled the fledgling crusader. Yanin didn't stop him. The only visible reaction he seemed to have was him righting his halberd and resting its butt on the ground.

"These two -" one with a crossbow bolt in his guts and another with a bodkin arrow through his lung "- and the four in the farmhouse remain," Yanin summarized, or perhaps wanted to confirm.
By the end of the day, they would probably be all dead. It was safer for them all this way, if none of them ever reached their destination. No doubt, there was the chance they'd have their own investigation into their lost, what, miscellaneous assault group?
"Might need a cleanup here, or their investigation will lead them straight to Borstown," Yaning noted. It was unclear how much of their presence here was known ahead of time, and how much was incidental. "The more we learn about what they're up to, the better. Might be more forthcoming to a human alone asking." He wasn't the best one for the task, as a rule. The most he had was patience. So Quintin? Jordan?
Between the deigan, Lady Bor and Quintin, there was probably little need for him to stand around. Might as well as see if there was anything else on these people, their commander, or the chest.
Before he left to poke around the battlefield and eventually head to the farmhouse, he noted to Irah,"Freagon might want to you and Kinder - by yourselves. Soon." He could probably keep the squires and assorted other people preoccupied if here and now was good enough.
And, to the baroness, "They did find Bren. He's alive, at least." Deo'Irah probably wouldn't have left him behind and come over here if his condition was imminently critical. The details were up to her to sort out.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Sir Yanin Glade

The man didn't appear to be overly eager to talk. Regrettable, but not exactly unexpected.
"If either of you two can speak, feel free," Yanin noted idly in the general direction of the two less responsible bandits in the vicinity, "The offer stands; I don't discriminate." Markedly, his tone of voice didn't seem at all altered by the bandit's lack of cooperation. The man hadn't claimed he didn't know anything, nor tried to assert that he was only following orders. Could be telling. Unless he had been asleep, he'd also been fairly slow to react to the commotion outside.

To the original bandit, he offered a shrug. It was a deliberate action rather than an incidental motion.
"Your hand will hurt less. Whether you will be executed, imprisoned for the next sixty years, or something else entirely is to be determined later." He couldn't really force the man to speak, but he could voice his preference for making it as annoying for the uncooperative in turn. He had heard about the concept of death the fast way out. Some might even say the easy one. Yanin was just there to make sure it was no longer the bandit's choice, in one direction or another. "I'm not precisely fond of hanging people. Figured it was more of a 'you' thing. No care for even your fellow bandits?" For all the killing, some of those people could be surprisingly brotherhoody. Form of compartmentalization, he guessed.

Perhaps Deo'Irah or one of her friends was better in making people talk. Or one of her friends could outright read minds between their several forms of wordless communication. Divines worked in mysterious ways. And maybe it was even worth it to be wasteful.