3. The Trade Way

Aiwë blinks at them. "Are you complaining about your hostage? Making your captor's trip miserable is generally advisable as a hostage."

She pushes them back into the zone of the silence spell.

"We've got about five minutes with them deaf here. What's next?"

"justice, what else?" Dieter replies calmly. "to die by the sword would be above these kidnappers, hanging is more fitting"

Aiwë looks at Dieter flatly. "Put those away. Once we stopped fighting for our lives we lost all authority to take theirs. There's no justice in adventurers hanging men who have surrendered." She glanced at them. "Idiots though they be."

She folds her arms and looks at Stella and Ida. "Can we leave them here and send a message to some Fist to pick them up?"

"Hopefully they’ve simply ported to the bandit camp to buy themselves time" Ida can tell that the mercenaries before them were only there for what in their eyes was suppose to be an easy pay check. "we shouldn’t waste anymore time on this spineless swill" making a pointed look at the tied and now defenceless criminals "I say we leave them tied here and let nature take its course see how they like to be on the receiving end of justice. If they’re lucky maybe they can make it to the inn before something worse than the flaming fists finds them first."

"This isn’t a game Aiwë, they’ve murdered their boss and kidnapped a boy. What do you think The Fist will do to them, they want us to scalp them and collect their bounty. Remember the last time we brought prisoners back?" Dieter says returning Aiwë’s look

"If we don’t do it they’ll be eaten alive by animals or scalped by The Flaming Fist or worse recruited into a bandit gang. In fact The Fist is not passively but actively paying us to kill bandits in this area."

"Don't talk to me of games," Aiwë growled. Even Dieter thinks she doesn't take things seriously now? Boy thinks himself a soldier but fought no wars.

"First of all, knowing that the Fists will execute them doesn't entitle us to. I knew I was bringing those prisoners to death. Like I said, it's only justice if you have the authority."

"Second of all— yeah..." she holds her head. How has she forgotten? "Yeah that contract gives us the authority. Sorry, I guess I got caught up in the Aldous thing."

She draws her sword. "But we don't have time for a whole event. Maybe your sword is too good for them, but mine isn't." Her braids swing as she jerks her head toward Stella.

"Keep her distracted?" she says quietly to Dieter.

"-Oh…you’re the boss I guess." Dieter turns not really wanting to watch himself

"Ida and Stella, let’s take a look at this spell site. We can probably figure out where they’re going"

Ida obliges Dieter, if not to try and help calm Stella down more than anything else beckoning to the elven figure as well. Ida positions herself and helps guide Stellas back to the violence about to occur and begins examining the circle. "have either of you seen anything like this?"

"So is Lythander stronger than Shar?" Dieter asks Ida

Sitting with her back to a tree, face sullen, Stella closes her eyes. "Word of Recall spell. She's taken them to a pre-determined sanctuary related to her deity." She shakes her head. "It could be a temple, chapel, or even a shrine, so they could be anywhere, really, provided it's been set up for a while."

What now? Camp out? Did they go back to the inn?

"Should we...go back to the inn? Bently there. He can scry. He...helped us solve an abduction before," she suggests, speaking slowly. "Or...should we just, find a place to camp, and...deal with things tomorrow?" Not that she'd get much sleep.

"Time is everything," Aiwë says, returning with a snk of her cleaned sword. Her face is grim.

"We need information and the only place for us to get that is people. The Inn seems our best bet."

She holds a hand out to Stella. "Valiance, Sister-girl," she murmurs encouragingly in orc-accented Elvish. "He's not lost yet."

Stella slowly nods, eyes still closed. "I don't know what Valiance has to do this anything," she says in Common, a slight grin creeps onto her face. "But, yes, I'm sure he's fine."

Valiance was the name her father, Zenithral, gave to his own half-brother, a cambion he rescued from being murdered by his father—Stella had quite the family. Aiwë and Sheemish both knew the stories, so even in her distraught state, Stella couldn't resist the joke.

She takes Aiwë's hand and lets herself be lifted to her feet.

Aiwë laughs, pleased that Stella is well enough to have humour available to her. "What is your uncle up to, do you think?" she asks as they walk.

Ida quirks her eyebrow "Of course" not planning to humour such a silly question.

"Good" Dieter says shaking his shoulders and arms loose "good… I mean we got this ourselves but it’s cool that you’re here with the big L." Dieter says awkwardly. "You know I met him, well it was Tulfgar but he’s like pretty much the same thing... I think."

Ida looked with the slightest hint of wonder at dieter "does that mean you’ve also become chosen of Lythander?"

"yeah, Probably" Dieter says having not thought about that possibility before.