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Tribulations of an Apprentice Witch

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[x] Cut her off and try to get the bandits to let the boy go through more diplomat means than you suspect she'll employ.

She's not going to let this go, specially not without at least trying, and if we just try to stop it at all, she's probably going to do something... righteous. And not to mention, incredibly reckless.

Edit: Some random thoughts:

Actually, thinking of bandits, that does bring an opportunity to mind: Not right now, because we are not prepared for it, but after we are way out of hear shot of them, we might want to ask Star if she would mind actually the alternative of instead of "kidnapping a random peasant girl", "kidnapping a truly terrible bandit woman" or someone of the kind. Much easier logistics at least. Maybe not a bandit strictly speaking, but it shouldn't be that impossible to find someone acceptable enough for it maybe?
 
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[x] Cut her off and try to get the bandits to let the boy go through more diplomat means than you suspect she'll employ.

While normally I'd be all for beating up bandits, that's normally when I'm working with a full combat party, not a pair of apprentices and Brute.
 
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Update 012
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    • Vote tally:
    ##### 3.21
    [x] Cut her off and try to get the bandits to let the boy go through more diplomat means than you suspect she'll employ.
    No. of votes: 12
    query, pressea, mistakenot, Shiranui, Hannz, kinigget, ObsidianWings, Macros, Power, Felius, The Laurent, SoaringHawk218

    [x] Cut her off and smooth things over with the bandits so you can go on your way. Ivy's got a point.
    No. of votes: 4
    cB557, Undead-Spaceman, veekie, ChildishChimera

    "... he looks pretty sorry already!" you say, before Star can say anything else. "I doubt he'll be try anything like that again." You offer the highwaywoman an only somewhat nervous grin.

    Star is fixing you with a hard, startled stare, which slowly fades into a resigned, almost embarrassed silence as she closes her mouth. The bandit woman is looking at you as if she doesn't know whether to be annoyed at the request, or relieved that you're not turning it into a fight or an ultimatum. The boy, for his part, had finally raised his head at the extended conversation, and was now staring at Brute with an expression of wide-eyed, abject terror. With the one eye that he can currently see out of, at least.

    "I know his type," the highwaywoman said. "Thieving little shits will be all over the place, taking everything that's not nailed down if we don't make an example of 'em now and then."

    "Be careful, Mina," Ivy warns again, voice anxious.

    You struggle to maintain the smile. "Look at him," you say, nodding in the child's direction. "He can barely see. I bet he can barely walk straight. Teach him much more of a lesson, and he can't exactly run home and show what happens, can he?"

    The woman looks unconvinced, and her companions seem to be edging a bit closer. Out of the corner of your eye, you spot the man in the tattered officer's cap discretely doing something with his pistol. Possibly disengaging the safety. At a glance, their guns seem to mostly be old muzzle loaders that would take them ages to reload, but there are enough of them with guns immediately around you that you're pretty sure one volley would be enough at this range. Brute might avenge you, but you'd still be shot.

    "If you start killing children, I'm sure someone will eventually be fed up with you," Star said. Her anger had clearly cooled, but it was still there, lending her voice a deadly edge. There was a threat there, much more than in your words, and you saw more than one set of eyes track over away from us and toward Brute.

    "... I suppose someone might," the woman said, pursing her lips. She doesn't look particularly happy at being threatened like this, but she nods at one of the men standing near the boy, and he bends down and started untying the child's hands.

    Once untied, the boy doesn't immediately go anywhere -- he sits where he is, as if paralysed by fear, until the man who's untied him gives him a hard shove. The boy sprawls to the ground, hitting his bruised face and crying out, but this was enough of a jolt to alert him to his sudden freedom. He uses shaky arms to push himself up to his feet, and scrambles headlong in the direction of the woods as if you might set Brute on him at any moment. He's gone in a moment or two without a backward glance.

    "Well, I guess he could run mostly straight after all," you say to the woman, whose expression is looking stormy. Beside you, Star has relaxed.

    "... I think it's time for you ladies to be on your way," the man in the hat says, his voice pleasant, but his eyes having taken on a hard look

    "Yes, I think it is," Star agrees. "Brute: keep moving again." With a grunt and a lurch, Brute begins to pull the cart forward once more

    Ivy is a little more pessimistic: "It's good enough the boy got away, but you can only push people like this so far. They're not out here doing this because they like being told what to do. We'll be far enough away from them by nightfall, hopefully, that it won't matter." She gives a little, wistful sigh. "Too much to hope that we'd reach that nice inn that's on the way by then."

    Too distracted and not nearly cruel enough to point out that Ivy is unlikely to appreciate the amenities of nice inns anytime soon, you watch the bandits watching you the whole time until you vanish around a bend in the trees. You slump in your seat, and let out a long breath of relief.

    You feel a hand on your arm, then -- It's Star, reaching tentatively over to you. "Thank you," she says, sounding genuine, although not quite meeting your eyes. "I'm glad we didn't just leave that child with those people. And... even though that village would probably be better off without them there, I suppose there wasn't any sense in outright provoking them, just the two of us."

    You feel your face warm pleasantly, and you give her a smile despite your just-ended anxiety. "I would have felt bad leaving him there too," you say. "Hopefully he got back to his family okay -- he seemed to know where he was going."

    You're rewarded with Star, still not quite facing you, giving you the tiniest smile. It's strange to see on Ivy's face -- Ivy's own smile is wide and nearly manic with mirth. She's always been an all or nothing sort of girl, in your experience. Star's is slow, and almost shy, and crooked on one end.

    "Three," Ivy pointed out, before asking: "She's not going to pick a fight everytime we see someone doing something wrong, is she?" Ivy mutters. "That won't be very convenient when we get to Salvograd. We're not out to solve every problem in Weissany when it means making an enemy of half the country."

    "... Give her some time to adjust," you murmur to Ivy, as low as you can, face turned away from Star with the pretence of looking over at the trees on that side of the wagon. "It's probably a lot to get used to."

    "I don't want her to get you hurt, Mina," Ivy says, with uncharacteristic earnestness. "Or… worse. She doesn't really understand what things are like yet, and that's dangerous for all of us." She doesn't even add anything about how, if anything happens to the two of you, she'll be left trapped in a trinket forever.

    "I'll be careful," you promise her.

    --

    You do not, in fact, make it to anything like an inn before nightfall. You find the gutted remnants of what may have once been a woodcutter's cabin -- decaying tree stumps stretch away from the road until they finally meet the dark wall of the forest.

    "I don't trust those bandits," Ivy says, bluntly. "Not after what happened there. You should set Brute out as a guard. Tell him to attack anything that comes near and make a noise -- he can see in the dark."

    Star seems uncertain about this idea, but she's still a little uncertain about anything regarding Brute. Her disinclination toward necromancy has apparently grown less urgent, but not less engrained. You see her bend down next to a small pile of firewood, frown intensely, whisper something… and a spark appears, catching the wood alight in quick order, the first evidence you've had of Star's sorcery surviving intact into Ivy's body.

    The fire may well attract attention to your location, but it's too cold to do without it, even with the sheltering walls of the burned out cabin on two sides. "Maybe we could just take turns keeping watch instead," you suggest. "Brute might just attack a passing cow. Or a traveller, or something like that. Sure, he can see in the dark, but he's dumb."

    "You'll both be exhausted come morning," Ivy pointed out. "Particularly Star. The closest thing she's had to a night's sleep is being tied to that chair overnight. And you can't very well stay up all night keeping an eye out."

    "I could manage second watch," Star says, although she mostly just looks tired. "I'd just as soon not rely on the creature… but it isn't as if we're not already having it pull us here and there." She yawns then, and briefly looks embarrassed. "Honestly, I'm too tired to really have an opinion right now."

    [x] Set Brute on watch, hoping he doesn't attack or sound the alarm on anything too innocent.

    [x] Keep watch in shifts -- you first, then Star. There's not really a question of her going first right now.
     
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    • [x] Order Brute to keep watch and sound the alarm if something approaches, but not to attack first unless the intruders get too close.

    Given that Brute's attack would wake us up anyway, this shouldn't interrupt our sleep more than the original option. Plan should be simple enough for Brute to follow. Has side benefit of preventing Brute from running off after a distraction, leaving us exposed to a second attack.
     
    [x] Keep watch in shifts -- you first, then Star. There's not really a question of her going first right now.
     
    [x] Keep watch in shifts -- you first, then Star. There's not really a question of her going first right now.
     
    [x] Order Brute to keep watch and sound the alarm if something approaches, but not to attack first unless the intruders get too close.

    Nothing innocent should be out here anyway.
     
    [x] Set Brute on watch, hoping he doesn't attack or sound the alarm on anything too innocent.

    Admiring someone else in her friend's body is gonna get a little weird when she gets shoved into a corpse. Do cute corpses cost extra?
     
    [x] Order Brute to keep watch and sound the alarm if something approaches, but not to attack first unless the intruders get too close.
     
    [x] Order Brute to keep watch and sound the alarm if something approaches, but not to attack first unless the intruders get too close.
     
    [x] Order Brute to keep watch and sound the alarm if something approaches, but not to attack first unless the intruders get too close.
     
    [x] Order Brute to keep watch and sound the alarm if something approaches, but not to attack first unless the intruders get too close.
     
    Update 013
  • Threadmarks
    • Vote tally:
    ##### 3.21
    [x] Order Brute to keep watch and sound the alarm if something approaches, but not to attack first unless the intruders get too close.
    No. of votes: 7
    mistakenot, SoaringHawk218, Muer'ci, veekie, Hannz, ChildishChimera, ThePastryKing

    Clear winner ^

    [x] Keep watch in shifts -- you first, then Star. There's not really a question of her going first right now.
    No. of votes: 2
    query, kinigget

    [x] Set Brute on watch, hoping he doesn't attack or sound the alarm on anything too innocent.
    No. of votes: 1
    pressea

    "We'll both do better with a full night's sleep," you reason. "Anything Brute does if he sees anything is going to be loud enough that we'll both wake up anyway." You can feel Ivy's satisfaction at you agreeing with her -- relieved far more than the decision merits, you think. But for someone like her, being so utterly helpless and unable to make her own decisions is probably hard. Star, on the other hand, was ready to be convinced either way. She busies herself with preparations for the night. You eat a cold supper, huddling around the fire for warmth.

    "What do I tell him?" Star asks afterward, looking at Brute's motionless bulk uncertainly. Being an undead creature of the common variety, he thankfully doesn't need to eat, and doesn't precisely mind the cold. The more exotic varieties -- those whose bodies or souls give more of a semblance of life -- often require sustenance in the form of blood or flesh or lifeforce. You're distinctly glad at not having to provide that sort of upkeep for something Brute's size.

    "Just tell him to guard the camp, but to leave passersby on the road alone," Ivy says, trusting you to convey it to Star. "He knows what 'guard' means."

    Star complies, with the same vaguely uneasy look she always gets at giving Brute a command, and he stalks off a few steps, to stand motionless beside the wagon -- you've already had him position it to partially block the wind out from one of the broken walls as best as it can.

    "She was a sorceress serving with an army," Ivy comments, somewhere between amused and exasperated, apparently noting this through your connection. "She's likely burned people alive. Killed them with lightning, frozen them solid where they stood… It's a little strange for someone like that to act as if there's anything so terrible about necromancy. Don't pass that on, please, I'm not trying to start an argument right now."

    "That's new for you," you murmur, spreading a bedroll on the ground by the fire.

    "Well, new experiences do give you perspective," she says, with the closest you've heard her come to levity since this all began. Then she adds, more seriously: "If I make her hate me, she'll just take my body and leave."

    "That's… possible," you acknowledge, looking over at Star. She's already gotten into her own bed roll -- or, Ivy's, technically -- curled up beside the fire to try and get some sleep. "Probably not tonight, though."

    She sends you the impression of a nod. "I can't really sleep like this," she admits. "It's… very dull when you go to sleep, and I can't even see or hear through our connection. I hope this whole business doesn't take too long."

    "We'll solve it as quickly as we can," you say, trying to be reassuring.

    It's not entirely clear that it works, but after a moment silence, she says: "Goodnight, Mina." That's as good a sign as any that the conversation is over.

    "Goodnight, Ivy," you whisper back, already starting to fall asleep despite the hard ground beneath your sleep.

    --

    You're jarred abruptly awake an unknown time later by the sound of a scream. It's still dark out, and the fire has long since dwindled to faintly smouldering coals, so it takes you a moment or two to make out what's happening in the dim light of the moon overhead. Ivy's insistent voice in your head isn't making it any better. "Mina, get up!" she's saying. You're struggling to comply, but you don't have the dubious benefit of being awake and alert all night the way she has.

    Brute has ahold of someone, and appears to be attempting to forcefully wring the life out of them with both hands. It takes you a further moment to recognise at least two other voices, shouting frantically at one another in the darkness. What finally gets you up and actually halfway alert is the unmistakable sound of a gun going off. Brute is jerking back from the impact of it, but he hasn't shown any sign of releasing whoever he has his hands on -- the screaming hasn't stopped, although it is getting progressively quieter and more laboured. As if to free up his hands to deal with the others, he gives one final, sharp jerk of his arms, and his victim goes silent with a hideous cracking sound.

    "What's going on?" Star demands, shooting up beside you, fumbling at her side for a weapon that doesn't actually exist. "What is it-- by all that's holy!" she gasps, seeing Brute drop the twisted body of the presumable intruder.

    You move toward the violence, trying to make out more of what's going on. Brute has now rounded on whoever it was who shot him, the bullet apparently not doing a great deal to slow him down. He reaches out one massive hand to grab hold of them, and whoever it is screams and runs into the night. The third figure -- dimly familiar as you approach -- seems almost frozen with terror. It's the bandit woman, from the bridge. The one who didn't want to let the boy loose, clearly having followed you with two others to do you some kind of mischief in the night, when they had imagined you would be vulnerable. She has a long, wicked looking knife in one hand, and an old-fashioned flintlock pistol in the other. Antique, but presumably perfectly capable of putting a hole in someone.

    "Brute, stop!" Star's horrified voice rings out, and he freezes in place, midway between reaching for the woman.

    "What is she doing?" Ivy demands, flabbergasted and alarmed. A moment later, you concede that Ivy has a point, as the woman's gun hand is suddenly moving between Brute, you, and her, her eyes wild and uncertain.

    "Whoa!" you say, putting up your hands, and at the sound of your voice, the gun settles on you.

    "You killed him!" she snarls, one hand gesturing in the vague direction of the motionless form on the ground nearby.

    "No, the monster killed him!" Star says, sounding a little scandalised. "It wouldn't have done anything like that if you hadn't crept up on our camp in the middle of the night!"

    "Shut up!" the bandit woman says, sounding distinctly wild and desperate, her gun training over to Star now. You figure she is not very far away from shooting someone -- she only has one shot before having to reload, and you're pretty sure it won't end well for her regardless of who she uses it on. If she shoots you, Star sets Brute on her again. If she shoots Star, Brute's general protective instincts will kick in, and he'll attack regardless. She seems too panicked to really realise this yet, though.

    [x] Tell her to run while she has a chance.

    [x] Try to put her to sleep.

    [x] Cast something worse on her -- she just tried to murder you both in your sleep!
     
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    • I swear, I'm really starting to get sick of Star's behavior. Moral she may be, she's making things significantly harder than they needs to be.
     
    [x] Cast something worse on her -- she just tried to murder you both in your sleep!

    Start shit, get hit. She's asking for it as hard as she can and we do NOT have the ability to hold a prisoner.
    Undead-Spaceman said:
    I swear, I'm really starting to get sick of Star's behavior. Moral she may be, she's making things significantly harder than they needs to be.
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    Yessss? Morals tend to do that. Adhering to them anyway is part of what makes someone a good person.
     
    [X] Try to put her to sleep.

    partly just because I find it funny, but also because it ends the confrontation now and gives us a chance to regroup
     
    Undead-Spaceman said:
    I swear, I'm really starting to get sick of Star's behavior. Moral she may be, she's making things significantly harder than they needs to be.
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    Click to shrink...
    Keep her around for long enough, and maybe she'll get a hard enough dose of reality to ease up on some things. Or she might just keep being miserable and idealistic, who can say.

    Honestly, going into this I was reasonably certain Star was going to be an antagonist for most of the story, but people kind of went out of their way to vote in a direction that led to befriending her, so here we all are.
     
    Nothing wrong with Star, really.

    Anyways, we should keep the woman alive just so Star's view on Witches being evil creatures doesn't recieve any more reinforcement.
     
    [x] Try to put her to sleep.

    Not sure she would listen if we told her to run, or that she wouldn't cause trouble down the road.

    Trying to do worse than cast sleep may be more complicated and prone to failure. We could always do worse to the bandit woman after casting sleep, though it might be OOC for us and Star might object as well.

    If it works, I guess we'll have to decide what to do with the bandit woman as our prisoner. Use her body as a vessel for Star, as @Felius suggested? Hand her over to the nearest lawful authority?
     
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