Choose your path to greatness, obscurity or death. A multiple choice LP

[m4davis]

the reason we are listening to Kalz so much is because this is are first mission and we barely know anything after we are a bit more experienced and not so likely to mess everything up then we will do whatever we want

 

[Kz3r0]

A)

 

[Vernydar]

Well, not many votes here. A) beats B) 5 to 3. So A it is. And one vote for F) . No excerpt today, since no time passed.

35 – A disturbing development

You decide to follow Kalz's lead for now. He's experienced, and he is the leader. Better listen to him. After a quick look around, he formulates a plan. He sends one of his men to the barrack to get the soldiers, and you to talk to lord Tilash. He also tells you to to make this quick, he and his other men will try to calm down things, and if not possible and a fight breaks out, to knock out as many people as possible.

You quickly nod, and start to run. You dash through the village as fast as you can. As you reach Lord Tilash's mansion, you hear in the distance cries of pain and anger. You guess a brawl did indeed start out. You are quickly admitted to the Lord's presence and explain the situation. He immediately starts moving and order you to come with him. After rounding up all the guards he has at his mansion, you all start running back towards the plaza.

After a couple of minutes you reach your destination, and what you find is not a good sight. Many people are down, others are being subdued by the village guards as you watch. Oh right, the army barracks are closer to this place, they must have arrived earlier. You look around a bit, and find Kalz tending to one of his men. He doesn't look in bad health, but the man on the ground is bleeding profusely from a chest wound!

Lord Tilash barks some sharp orders, and a lieutenant comes to talk to him. Meanwhile you run to the downed man, and tell Kalz to move aside. You can't do much here on the spot, but at least using your skills you manage to bandage him tightly. You are really glad you learned first aid from your mother, this should buy enough time for the village healers to arrive, and you are reasonably sure they are more competent than you.

As you finish up, Lord Tilash arrives
"I want to know what happened here, captain Kalz. I have also sent for the merchant guild's head. I have twenty injured men, and six dead people. Four of them have swords, and I am being told your men killed those. Tell me what happened here. And, the carpenter guild's head is not here. Just what in the name of Adsal happened here?"

Kalz looks one last time at the injured soldier and slowly answers: "After Kyoss left, I tried to calm down the people here by remembering them that the village guards would enforce the peace of the King, but the carpenters screamed even louder, and one of the hit savagely on the head the injured apprentice. With that the brawl broke out. Most people were barehanded, a few had sticks. I ordered my men to put as many of them as they could to sleep in the least painful way. Then, the carpenter guild's head whistled, and four men with swords came out of a nearby house. They quickly killed two merchants, and I had no choice but to order my men to take them down. Which they did, after all they were not well trained. Then I ordered to capture the carpenter guild's head, but once my man here got close to him, he took out a knife and stabbed him in the chest. Then he fled, and a few seconds later the guards arrived. I was the other side of the brawl, I could not reach the fleeing man, and so I tried to help my soldier. Luckily Kyoss knows how to treat people, I hope he'll survive"

Lord Tilash asks a couple of other details and barks some more orders to his men, but as he turn again towards you a soldier comes running.
"Lord Tilash, the merchant guild's head is dead! He was not answering the door, even though his secretary assured me he was inside. So I broke it down, and he was there dead on the desk. Sir, someone cut his throat from side to side!"

Another disconcerting event! Lord Tilash is extremely angry and is giving orders left and right, Kalz is talking to his soldiers, and everyone seems confused. You don't have much to do right now, but maybe you could do something!

What shall you do?

1. Do nothing, help treat the downed villagers. You can do something useful, and stay safe here.
2. Ask Lord Tilash if you could go with a few soldiers to take a look at the death scene at the merchant guild. Maybe you could find some clue about what happened to the merchant.
3. Ask Lord Tilash if he can give you a few man, you're going to hunt down the carpenters guild's head!
4. Other. Make a proposal, put a number on it.

 

[m4davis]

1

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

1

 

[TOME]

Let's make use of our sharp eyes and solve the murder!

2.

 

[Kipeci]

2

 

[newcomer]

2

 

[Monty]

4 - Make use of our skill with herbs, roll a fat spliff and head off into the woods to smoke it while the Lord and Captain sort out the mess.

 

[ScubaV]

Heheh, another "fuck it" option courtesy of treave's LP. Anyway, I'll vote seriously this time and choose 2. Inspector Kyoss will indubitably discover the doer of this dastardly deed posthaste!

 

[Smashing Axe]

2. We specked ourselves for a charismatic Sherlock Holmes, might as well make an attempt at something useful

Edit: Does survival in the woods include the ability to track, or is that a seperate skill?

 

[Curufinwe]

This is pretty bad. We're going to have a full scale riot on our hands in a moment. And it's not a normal riot. There is definitely something weird going on here, problem is we don't know what.
Threats won't do anything.
C) Run to get the rest of the soldiers and establish a perimeter around the carts, then get the hell away from here. We're here for the caravan, that should be our main concern. I don't think there's anything we can do to prevent a fight at the best and a slaughter at the worst, we don't have enough soldiers to intervene unless we want to start a bloodbath ourselves.

 

[m4davis]

This is pretty bad. We're going to have a full scale riot on our hands in a moment. And it's not a normal riot. There is definitely something weird going on here, problem is we don't know what.
Threats won't do anything.
C) Run to get the rest of the soldiers and establish a perimeter around the carts, then get the hell away from here. We're here for the caravan, that should be our main concern. I don't think there's anything we can do to prevent a fight at the best and a slaughter at the worst, we don't have enough soldiers to intervene unless we want to start a bloodbath ourselves.

I could be wrong but I think your voting on the last choice

 

[Curufinwe]

This is pretty bad. We're going to have a full scale riot on our hands in a moment. And it's not a normal riot. There is definitely something weird going on here, problem is we don't know what.
Threats won't do anything.
C) Run to get the rest of the soldiers and establish a perimeter around the carts, then get the hell away from here. We're here for the caravan, that should be our main concern. I don't think there's anything we can do to prevent a fight at the best and a slaughter at the worst, we don't have enough soldiers to intervene unless we want to start a bloodbath ourselves.

I could be wrong but I think your voting on the last choice

I think you're right, now that I check it again. My browser loaded until posts from yesterday for some reason o_o
Now it's fixed, but damn that was weird.

*Cough* Anyway, voting for 2
Might as well put our attention to detail to use.

 

[GreyViper]

Yeah to many coincidences for just random riot, the merchant might have been the real target.
2)

 

[Vernydar]

2. We specked ourselves for a charismatic Sherlock Holmes, might as well make an attempt at something useful

Edit: Does survival in the woods include the ability to track, or is that a seperate skill?

It includes how to capture small animals, but tracking IS another skill. During character creation one of the skill choices was:
11) Tracking. The ability to follow animal tracks in various different terrains. You think it could also work with humans....

 

[Smashing Axe]

Ah well, not worth going after option 3 then, hopefully the lord will have a scout or two on his team who can do it.

 

[Vernydar]

Heheh, another "fuck it" option courtesy of treave's LP.

Unfortunately, you do not have the advantage of immortality. As the title of my lp clearly states

 

[Omicron]

2

 

[Stygian Lurker]

2)

 

[CappenVarra]

Interesting developments, I your ability to develop interesting consequences for seemingly no-brainer choices.

I say 1) - help heal the wounded, that way we're doing the most good right now. We can always examine the scene of the murder later (and possibly find something, or not), while healing the wounded will get us guaranteed goodwill from everybody present - which we need if we're to get to the bottom of this shit. Investigations take time, and possibly interviewing the witnesses for strange things happening in the last few days - which again, we won't be able to do if some of those witnesses die from the wounds we left untreated

 

[Zwist]

Looking into the murder has other advantages: There might be written material interesting for us, unrelated to the murder. We might get to know more about the entire clusterfuck going on here.
Also: The longer we wait, the more the crimescene will be altered.
CappenVarra makes a good point however. We are collecting goodwill among people who might know more and, also important, who are going to be part of the journey.
I am also uncertain if we have enough standing for the lord to accept our request.

So 1
I'm boring today

 

[Smashing Axe]

The lord's right there, if he refuses us, do 1.

 

[Vernydar]

Very well, vote closed. Going to write the update now, will take a bit maybe..

 

[Vernydar]

9 votes for 2), 4 votes for 1). You will try to see if you can convince the lord to make you conduct an investigation.

36 – Death in the office

You decide to ask the Lord if he could allow you to examine the death scene at the merchant's guild. You would like to do something useful to solve this situation, after all it is your responsibility to make sure that the caravan does set out. And you're not really good at tracking, so you cannot really follow the fleeing carpenter. Nor you are better than the local healers...

Lord Tilash thinks a bit, then agrees to send you there along with a detachment of his soldiers and one of his trusted advisor. He makes it clear to the man that he trusts you, so you are more or less in command, unless you do something truly questionable. It seems you made a good impression with him at least... Kalz will instead stay here to try and put some order to the caravan, though it seems likely that it will be at least a few days before it is ready to set out.

After reaching the merchant's guild you are ushered inside and lead to the second floor. A distraught secretary tells you what happened, trembling all the time. The merchant guild's head, Herzil, went inside his room around four hours ago, to work on some documents, and locked the door. The secretary didn't hear or see anything, and his desk faces the very door to the study. When the soldier came in to summon Herzil, the secretary led the way here and knocked on the door. But no matter how much they did that, nobody answered. The secretary was afraid that something happened to Herzil, and so agreed when the soldier decided to smash the door. Once inside, they found the merchant dead on his desk, his throat cut from side to side. The secretary insists that nobody else has the key, and that he only left for the brief few minutes necessary to greet the soldier and bring him up here.

You enter the study and start to look at the crime scene. Herzil is laying on the desk, in a veritable puddle of blood. After a short prayer to the body, you raise the head to check, and true enough the throat is cut from side to side. It's a very deep cut, and the advisor states that there is no sign of struggle here. You have to agree, and so the advisor turns to the secretary and talks.

"Nice try, it's clear you killed your boss. He did not struggle at all, so he must have been caught by surprise. And also, you say that nobody else had the key. It must have been easy for you to get inside, make a copy of the key, and then today kill him and pretend nothing happened"

The secretary starts to protest, but the advisor seems very secure in his accusation, and is basically not listening to him at all. Truth to be told, it really does seem that this man killed Herzil. But why, it was obvious he would get caught....

You look around. The rooms is perfectly clean and ordered. No stuff laying around, no sign of struggle, nothing at all. There's a cupboard in a corner, and a few libraries full of what seem to be documents. It would take the Lord's direct command to allow you to browse them, these are private documents of the guild. The desk is empty, it really seems that the man had his throat cut from behind and was killed... Meanwhile, the advisor has just ordered the secretary to be restrained for murder

What are you going to do?

1. The advisor is most likely correct. The secretary killed Herzil, so he will face his punishment. You have to go back and try to help salvage the caravan.
2. Tell the advisor you do not think the secretary killed Herzil. Maybe you could investigate this room and the body further? The advisor is not going to like it though, and you risk making yourself a fool..
3. Let the advisor bring the secretary away, in the meantime you can investigate the room. Since the soldiers are simple men, you can see if you can find more information, and then decide whether to release it or not
4. Other. Make a proposal, put a number on it.