Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest

Fourteenth Day of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descending) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

Here and now you have the advantage, six against three, long odds be they ever so skilled, it would take time for more of the warriors to rush from the temple at the sound of fighting and longer still for any attention from the lords of the city... the plan comes to a painful stop as you consider the next step, you wold have to force your way into the temple of Ikomi in search for Zuan, spilling the blood of her priests in her halls, while in Inge's company. The most dreadful thing is that you are all but certain the girl would fight and even kill to aid you if it came to and what curse might befall her then you could not say. Perhaps only the curse of regret, but that is more than enough to bear...

"Very well..." You hear Tom curse behind you, and not particularly softly either, though thankfully in French. You are not sure you can blame him for calling you a fool for all he looks shamefaced when you glance his way.

"Perhaps I am," you admit with a slight shrug of the shoulders. "But is so at least I know I shall have a good man with me... and good men ready to send word to the ship and plan a rescue," you add looking to the others.

Thus it is you Inge and Tom pass into the temple, the air growing still and cool within but a few steps of the entrance, the sounds of the city fading to muffled whispers behind you even before your... host, guard perhaps, no word quite fits yet, lead you into a small square room, barely twenty steps across with a high narrow window and a heavy door. It almost reminds you of a penitent's chamber or a prisoner's cell, though you would make poor prisoners armed and armored.

"I would see our countryman and know that he is well and then you may have all the answers you wish," you say, taking a seat at the simple wooden table unprompted, giving up the advantage of height and making it clear that you have every intention of lingering so long as your request is met even while your tone makes it clear that you will not budge in it.

"Anar, fetch the man," the woman said simply and the man bearing the warscythe does so without a word.

The moments crawl by at a snail's pace and snails you might as well have crawling upon the back o your neck for all the comfort there is to be found there, as each expects treachery of the other. Finally Inge speaks. "Why did you send him away to do it?"

"Because the priests are more likely to listen to one of their own, even if he is a foreigner," the woman replies with a telling look at the girl.

"You don't seem in any hurry to listen to me," she challenges. "Why are you so quick to see enemies 'round every corner?"

"Because if one is quick to see foes one is called suspicious, but one who is quick to dismiss them is called dead," comes the reply. It might have been called glib if not for the weary look that accompanied it. Perhaps it had been so, long ago and now was left behind as some reflex of another time. She does not look much older than you, five years, mayhap ten, but from what little you guess of her history you suspect those had been years if not more filled with blood and death than yours than at the very least filled with more strife and suspicion.

"One who sees foes where they are not might make them," you counter, but before you can expend upon the point or she answer the door opens again and the other priest, Ana appears in the company of the beleaguered cook you have hunted so far and wide today.

Though he looks unharmed in body, and even his clothes are no more unsettled than might be accounted for from a night of drinking he starts to babble apologies eyes filling with tears as soon as he lays them on you. A dark thought occurs to you, how easy might it be to heal the marks of torture with such powers as Inge and others like her bear?

"There is your man," the hunter says sharply. "Now talk, where do you come from, why do you keep the company of a half dead woman and why in the name of All Seeing Elnu was this one trying to buy old goats for blood sacrifice to the ship?"

In that moment you curse Antonio's tightfisted ways, the cook's loose lips and for good measure you curse fate for placing you in a position to explain that to such company.

What do you reply?

[] Write in (Diplomacy or bluff rolls depending on how truthful you are DC variable)

OOC: So what happened here at lest from Roland's best guess is thus, the cook was looking for goats no one else wanted, because well blood is blood to feed to the ship. Then the hunters caught wind of someone making strange purchases and they found him in a tavern. Whatever he said then was incriminating enough for him to be captured and taken to the temple where Roland suspects he was tortured.... though of course it could have just been an interrogation and threats and he is just bad under pressure.