Episode 7
From Iridium Circle Exalted
An Ambush - Distant Smoke - A Death - Negotiations - A Duel
Episode 7 - The Wreckoning
- The caravan provides excellent bait for the bandits.
- As the bandits enter the kill zone, the Pale Horse thunders over the hill.
- The fight is over in no time.
- Only one prisoner is taken, the leader of the bandit group.
- The victorious mercenaries ride down the last of the fleeing bandits as smoke is seen from the south.
- Isn't that where the village is?
- It is where the village is...
- The exalts (River, Carver and Oboreta) jump into a hastily summoned storm-wind rider and head back.
- More bandits have spilled out of the woods and surrounded the village.
- Houses are on fire and the bandits are mopping up the last of the resistance.
- They are lead by an imperious looking man with a crown of brambles riding atop a large tiger-like beast.
- Carver decides that this heinous act will not stand.
- He summons a suit of glowing orichalcum armour and strides defiantly toward the bandit horde.
- He is backed up by Oboreta and River, who remains in the storm-wind ready to fling sorcerous death at the evil-doers.
- As Carver strides forth, one of the bandits charges out of its unit and turns into a bear.
- The shock of this sends Oboreta involuntarily running for her life.
- ...
- This doesn't bode well.
- King Bramble Hat shoots Carver with an arrow made of Carver's mother's disappointment just as the bear barrels into the solar.
- River throws out a blast of obsidian butterflies, carving a great chunk out of the bandits and grievously wounding the king, the bear, and the cat-beast.
- This does not stop them however, and Carver gets ripped apart by the bear-man.
- It is brutal and unrelenting, Carver didn't even get a proper hit in.
- Goodnight sweet prince.
- King Bramble Hat XIV splits into a number of reflections and stabs River so hard he falls out of the storm-wind.
- The blow nearly kills the sorcerer and the attendant fall knocks him into the border between life and death.
- The cat-beast runs Oboreta down and drags her insensate body back to the bandits.
- River is bought back from the brink but both are now prisoners of his majesty.
- As the pale horse approach, a lone rider emerges from the village to meet them.
- It is Carver's headless corpse with a note pinned to it.
- Rude.
- It reads: "We will return your circle-mates in return for unimpeded passage to the place of power in which resides the Eastern Green Dragon."
- The Dragonlord goes out to parlay with the bandits.
- She is met by the bear-man, now returned to human form.
- The Eastern Green Dragon is a day's travel south-west of here (probably at or near the drunken tower).
- What it is or does is none of our concern.
- They also want possession of the area around said place of power as it is their birthright.
- The Dragonlord refuses as it is outside of her authority to make such a bargain.
- King Bramble Hat XIV, Lord of Brambleton calls bullshit.
- Bramble Hat: "As a Solar, it is always within your power to make such gifts."
- Dragonlord Tepet: "We only have the power to give what belongs to us."
- Bramble Hat: "Then you are the sorriest excuses for Solars I have ever seen"
- Did a cloud just pass over the sun? because that's a lot of shade he's throwing around.
- The Dragonlord and the bandits are at an impasse.
- The decision to go to open warfare (possibly forfeiting the lives of Oboreta and River) gets mulled over.
- Eventually the Dragonlord and the Bear-Man decide on a duel.
- If the Bear-Man wins, we leave and let them do what they want.
- If the Dragonlord wins, they leave forever and we get the prisoners back.
- The duel will be done with no magic and mortal weapons only.
- It will commence in the morning so that everyone gets a rest.
- The bandits continue to burn and ransack the town during the night.
- A long and bloody battle in which Bear-Man has the advantage for most of the fight ends with the Dragonlord triumphant.
- The bandits pack up and leave after handing River and Oboreta back to the Dragonlord.
- The bandits do, however, take all of their loot and a bunch of prisoners from the town.
- Are we calling this a win? because it doesn't sound like one.