So, did the dumb ass / stand around some more concept work?

[Brand Nar Gath]

What happened?!?!  BTW, most of us had already agreed we were moving forward after my report (towards the blue banner folk) when I re-turned into a bird and then tried to get you to move faster.  Had I understood these clowns (skeletons) were so close I would have blasted them with the cone of ice..... So how many levels did I lose this time?

[Mr. Woodhope]

Sorry I missed the full description...sometimes sound does not travel all the way to

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/z0JkyaCrX0U&amp;ap=%2526fmt%3D18&amp;rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/z0JkyaCrX0U&amp;ap=%2526fmt%3D18&amp;rel=0</a>

.

We went to the ramparts, joined up, found out BlueBeard works for the other team and guards a nearby bridge. The visible among us want to storm the bridge and kill him...as the sage stone (and sage handout) indicated we should. The less visible of us, led by Roguish Girl think we should kill the 11 zombieish warriors with us and then go talk with Blue Beard and ask him to give us the info.

We are poised to attack at the beginning of the next adventure...I think the way forward is clear...our allies want the bridge, will fight along side us and will give us Jacek's corpse. He will only return to Cheren's keep after he has been killed. This is yet another test of our worthiness.

[Loken]

The stone text doesn't say to kill him, it's more cryptic than that, it doesn't say "kill Jacek and follow his spirit back to Cheren's Keep". I grant you if we kill him he might very well just get up and led us where we want to go, but if not then we will have already killed him.

Look just because we approached the nearest group of people doesn't mean we have to join up with them, and we certainly shouldn't mindlessly make their goals our own. Who gives a crap about the war these clowns are fighting? Let alone who owns the bridge.

We are here for one reason and that's to get the info from Blue Beard. If we are making deals with anyone here, shouldn't it be him?

The people you've joined with are not our allies, they're just the same as the other scum here. They are all undead using creeps. And If we have to ally with one group, wouldn't logic suggest we learn about both factions and make the most usefull choice.

Look if we need to kill Blue Beard, great then let's kill him, I'm just suggesting that that need not be the first course of action.

You might be right and there is a very liner course here for us to follow, but this adventure has at time been full of twists and turns like a twisty turny thing.

[Genlok]

Fellow travellers,
Forgive the incorrect identification, this is not the dwarf but instead your newly literate barbarian comrade.  It seems that my literacy does not extend into the realm of computers.
Speaking of literacy, I have been exercising my newfound skill by perusing the summary of Narayan we received only last night.  It seems to me that possibly you that have so long held the luxury of the written word are also doomed to overlook it.  If I may direct your attentions to items four, eight, and nine of said pages you will find that many may be willing to aid us on our quest to restore the elemental gods, and that perhaps Jacek has left the side of Cheren not as an act of treason, but as a direct result of Cheren having "gone mad with power" etcetera.  In my humble opinion, Jacek would be more than willing to reveal the location of his former keep.
Perchance my newfound skill has gone to my head, and I have erred in my assesment of the situation, but I feel that our best course of events is to slay the midget, kill his toadies, chop off their filthy heads and present them to Jacek.  
Yours in blood and guts,
Dav'l

[Mr. Woodhope]

Excellent. Welcome on board.

OK, I begrudgingly admit that there is a razor thin chance that this guy might be willing to co-operate. But I think it is foolish and wasteful to just axe the guys who could fight with us on a sizeable gamble.

Here is another tactic. We appoint one person to go up under a white flag to parlay with Jacek. Say, a hale warrior type. We tell our Sgt. Zombie that it is our tradition or whatever. Our envoy feels Jacek out and we either switch or fight. Or we could teleport an envoy crew.

We have consistently overthought several recent encounters (the snake in the  treasure pit, the windy bridge, the Rakassa). I'm concerned that we are doing this again.

[Brand Nar Gath]

hey, we will be back to visit that grandma snake and her kids in a couple of years!

[Shotoku]

I echo the concerns about painfully overthinking this hurdle. I agree that we are not beholden to these "allies" and that there is a very good chance Jacek will help us willingly. There is also a very good chance he won't, and this is perhaps backed up by his comment that he would not in life return to the place we seek.  That seems to indicate a shift of loyalty. In any case we have some party members that can sneak into the camp and talk to him while the rest of us delay the troops we're with.

Consider that there are a couple dozen (?) guys with Jacek. Yes we could kill the undead guys we're with, or we could save them to use tactically should we need them, after all if we can just kill them now, then we could just as easily kill them later.

Consider also that whatever we do we have to get the fuck out of here, and I'm not sure if any of us knows how to do that.  This poses a couple of problems. One, Jacek might need to be an ally for this info if nothing else, Two if we kill the undead so close to a camp of 50 guys who are ready to kill us for trechery we might not fare so well. I can only raise dead once (today) or twice a day man, and I have to be alive to do it.

We could also argue about contacting him with message spells and all that crap but again we are making this needlessly complicated. I say either Loken and Torbin make contact and see if he's friendly or we attack. And if we cant come to a consensus by the next game I'm leading the undead in an attack, balls out. Literally. I'm serious.

Besides the accord we came to was only that we leave with this guys body, not that he be dead.

[Shotoku]

Or we could teleport an envoy crew.

or that.

[Mr. Woodhope]

Or we could teleport an envoy crew.

or that.

I can only teleport once today, so we would need somebody else along who can teleport or dimension door again. Or just somebody who can do it twice today.

[Shotoku]

I can teleport once a day. And dimension door.

[Brand Nar Gath]

I am thinking that teleporting out of danger might be the better choice... unless you can teleport in and out, in which case I can be flying overhead...

[Loken]

We have consistently overthought several recent encounters (the snake in the  treasure pit, the windy bridge, the Rakassa). I'm concerned that we are doing this again.

Umm, we actually underthought the Rakassa didn't we? We were presented with a set of facts that we took as truth, the old woman disguise, and we failed to be properly on our guard.  And as to the snake in the pit our natural reaction was just to fight it like everyone else, when in truth we didn't need to. We had to think that through.

Does it matter if Jacek wants to go back to the keep? Couldn't he just tell us about it?

All we have is a little info that has been spoonfed to us, and it's not enough to determine what to do.

I doubt the dudes with us will like the parley idea but we could try that.
I still like the message spell idea, it alows us to communicate at a distance, so no one has to be two exposed. And if we keep most of the group back far enough they don't need to know we have a strike team in the area.

Mike and I and birdman could sneak in close incase we need to act while two someones do the teleport/dimension door thing and have a word with him. This does mean we lose some element of suprise, but I don't think there is too much suprise here. No telling how many battles have been fought at this bridge.

[Mr. Woodhope]

OK, so here's a sample plan. Shotoku (Priest of the Elements) and a warrior-type, maybe Kael (Paladin of Elements) dimension door in, talk, and either give us a high sign or bug out as prelude to attack.

I'm certainly not totally against talking, but I think that this plane is a rather unconducive place for a constructive discussion. If the Elemental Twins are willing to try it then I am willing to risk them.  :twisted:

[Shotoku]

He's a Paladin of Balance.

I'm game, though I cant promise not to just kill him outright for old Dhol's sake. I did take Slay Living today.

[Loken]

That's fine with me.  Y'all get in position on one side, while we move around to flank them incase they run or send for reinforcements.

Then we try to talk  (what if we can help Jacek's people storm the camp we just left, that could be worth something to him if he's that caught up in this conflict) and if that fails wipe them out from both sides.
Watch those fireballs Nyther!

It just had seemed to me that going to the bloodfields was an intel gathering mission so it just seems to make sense that we,

Ask questions first
then
assassinate

Perhaps that should be the other way around but hey that's me.

And in a horrible bit of meta-gaming: Hasn't Sanford always asked us to do a little detective work, and puzzle solving?