interrogation

“The In­ter­ro­ga­tion part 1”

Through sev­er­al walls you can hear the faint roar of a sand­storm rag­ing out­side. Its fine grit pen­e­trat­ing this far and clog­ging your noses. With­out warn­ing your vi­sion is re­stored. Seat­ed on the floor in a rough semi­cir­cle are the com­pan­ions you have strug­gled to sur­vive the desert with. Like your­self they are re­strained with man­a­cles. But, al­so like your­self, they ap­pear to be in bet­ter health than at any time since this or­deal be­gan.

Djinn and Taqir still dressed in robes and tur­ban­s, sit stiff and up­right. De­fi­ant looks on their dark faces. Qazir sits eyes closed med­i­tat­ing. Still you sense he’s aware of ev­ery­thing around him. Ian bereft of the gold­en breast­plate he briefly but proud­ly wore re­clines ex­pres­sion­less and calm. Qui­et­ly await­ing his fate or per­haps his mo­ment of es­cape. Dyrk­ius an­gri­ly shouts what no one can hear. He slow­ly ceas­es stamp­ing his foot af­ter gaz­ing across at Ione. You are all some­what stunned at see­ing how ra­di­ant Ione is af­ter be­ing re­freshed, rest­ed, and not en­cased in desert gar­b. The be­jew­eled veil of sheer red silk she wears en­hances her con­sid­er­able nat­u­ral beau­ty.

One of four sol­diers sneezes jostling the black and yel­low bris­tles of her crest. She holds a well worn broadsword drawn at her side. As does the sol­dier op­po­site her. The two far­ther away have load­ed cross­bows held with the loose­ness of long fa­mil­iar­i­ty.

From sev­er­al square holes in the ceil­ing light pours in­to this room. Cre­at­ing beams in the dusty air. Pil­lars of light that il­lu­mi­nate an or­nate wood­en desk. Up­on which sev­er­al desk type things are pre­cise­ly ar­ranged. The front face of it’s rich red­dish wood is carved with an ea­gle tri­umphant­ly grasp­ing a de­feat­ed drag­on in its talon­s. You know this to be the Seal of The Re­pub­lic of Pe­los.

The four Pelosians raise their weapons ver­ti­cal­ly in front of their faces salut­ing a fifth who con­fi­dent­ly strides through an arch­way and up to an ar­mor rack against the wall near the desk. Two at­ten­dants dust off her boot­s, un­fas­ten her greaves and spurs while she un­buck­les and re­moves her hel­met. This hel­met is sim­i­lar to oth­ers you’ve seen ex­cept its black and yel­low crest cross­es hor­i­zon­tal­ly from ear to ear and two huge, three foot, yel­low with black spots feath­ers ex­tend up from ends of the crest. With one hand she sets it pre­cise­ly on the rack and with the oth­er ad­justs a greave that one of the hasti­ly re­treat­ing at­ten­dants had slight­ly mis­placed.

Run­ning her hands over cropped black hair “sum­mon­s” a small cloud of sand dust which slow­ly set­tles to the stone floor. Shafts of light re­flect off of the bird em­bossed in pro­file on the gold­en breast­plate she wears. A small yel­low gem or crys­tal is mount­ed in its eye. An­oth­er glow­ing gem emits mes­mer­iz­ing rays from the cen­ter of the cir­clet wrapped around her fore­head. She is tal­l, thin and her point­ed ears be­tray her High Pelosian her­itage.

Her lu­mi­nous yel­low eyes ob­serve each of you in turn. Then in a clear, com­mand­ing voice states, “I am Cit­i­zen Hyr­mi­na. There are a great many ques­tions I wish to ask of you. Short­ly your speech in­ter­dic­tion will be re­moved.” Look­ing point­ed­ly at Dyrk­ius, “I ex­pect on­ly civ­i­lized be­hav­ior. It would be some­what dis­pleas­ing to me if any of you be­came un­nec­es­sar­i­ly in­jured, es­pe­cial­ly be­fore your guilt or in­no­cence has been de­ter­mined.”

The same sol­dier sneezes again.

With­out in­ter­rup­tion Hyr­mi­na smooth­ly con­tin­ues, “This is a mil­i­tary in­qui­si­tion to de­ter­mine the facts sur­round­ing the fate of a feath­er of cit­i­zens and the car­a­van they were es­cort­ing. Your tri­al is to­mor­row. Do not waste my time plead­ing your case now.”

Dur­ing this two Com­mon Pelosian­s, a male and fe­male en­ter through the arch­way. The fe­male sets up a chair next to the desk. The male starts trac­ing a pat­tern on the floor in front of you in col­ored chalk­s.

“Now that the pleas­antries are over I am sure you are all ea­ger to tell me the truth.”

You can speak again.

<to be con­tin­ued>

[Qazir, Ione, Tariq, Djinn failed their save vs Hyr­mi­na’s “Sug­ges­tion”. They must speak the truth or re­main silen­t.]

[She asks the fol­low­ing ques­tion­s. They don’t all ap­ply to ev­ery­body. Please re­spond with your an­swers or “si­lence” to in­di­cate your non-­co­op­er­a­tion. If you lie or “si­len­t” give me an in­di­ca­tion of how strong­ly you will re­sist Hyr­mi­na’s de­ter­mined in­ter­ro­ga­tion. Unan­swered ques­tions I will as­sume you an­swer with the truth as your char­ac­ter sees it. All re­spons­es should be sent by Fri­day. Start­ing Sat I will write the next “scene”]

What is your name?

What are you do­ing in Scu­pi Province? Esp to the Babrem

Why did sand­men(guys who slaugh­tered the hye­na men) at­tack you?

Do you have some abil­i­ty to ab­jure sand­men or drive them away?

Why did sand­men let you live?

Where did the sand­men go?

Where were you head­ing when sand­men at­tacked you?

Where is the hye­na men’s cam­p?

How many hye­na men are in this pack?

Why are the hye­na men this far south?

Did you hire the hye­na men? To what pur­pose?

What did you do with Cit­i­zen Thebe and Cit­i­zen Ae­son. (own­ers of the two breast­plates)

Why did you steal their equip­ment / prop­er­ty of The Re­pub­lic?

Where are the oth­er sev­en cit­i­zen­s?

Where are the sup­plies, the work­er­s, the an­i­mal­s, the wag­ons from the car­a­van?

Who else is work­ing with you? (even with the hye­na men you could not have suc­cess­ful­ly at­tacked the car­a­van)

Why did you at­tack the car­a­van?

When/were did you at­tack the car­a­van?

[Dur­ing the in game time that pass­es be­fore next ses­sion all the rest­ing, eat­ing good food, and priest­ly care will heal all wounds and stat dam­age. For those that got them, you’re al­so de­in­fest­ed of fleas. Mylien loves you!]