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-----"And they also helped us to impale some pesky wizards on stakes and burning them alive. That sure felt good. By the way, I wouldn't eat cheese made the last few days from Oakwood. Who knows what could be in them." Kazel glances at the blond man and short-haired woman for a moment, but then loses interest and starts to nose around the room inspecting the furnishings.
-----The Dread Pirate looks around the room, clearly bored by the introductions and proceedings. "So what is Krondor up to? Did ye manage to save Sarah's little gem-cutter buddy? Tell me how ye killed Devlin. I take it ye found her cave and cut her head off? As fer us, there was a demon-witch in the Temple o' Joren and we basically hacked her to bits, then threw her out the window before she exploded, sending bits o' guts and entrails all over the place. It was a pretty spectacular explosion. I'd never seen anything quite like it. And the demon was missing its tongue and its eyes. But it still managed to cast spells. And it had four arms. And a sword in each hand. And a scorpion's stinger fer a tail. It was touch and go fer awhile there. Especially when it summoned forth a horde of undead zombie-minions to help it. There must've been at least thirty of 'em shamblin about. Fortunately, we had the foresight to hire an intrepid band o' mercenaries, which ye see before ye here. And they managed to keep the zombies busy until the three of us were finally able to cut that blasted scorpion's tail off. It took awhile until we figured out that the demon was immune to enchanted weapons. Then Kazel grabbed it in a headlock and wrestled it to the ground. That was when I grabbed her longsword and disemboweled the demon. A lot of the fight went out if it at that point. It started heatin up though and leakin black smoke out of its various orifices. So we chucked it out the window, where it exploded in midair and covered everybody outside in bits of gore. All in all, a pretty good day. Oh, and we managed to capture another one o' those dark crystals. And no, ye can't have it. You guys lose those things too easily. And frankly, they prove to be gettin more and more difficult to get ahold of. What with the demon and the zombies and all. If ye want, I'll let ye look at the crystal though. But ye can't touch it."
-----Sol first tries to address Dread's questions, "All we know of Krondor's activities are that he was trying to re-establish an alliance with Devlin. He was responsible for a good deal o' th' chaos that plagued Hearthorn though, so I wouldn't be suprised th' bastard was directly responsible for much o' Redmarsh's woes. Um...Aaron Repe turned out to be false...Another one o' th' Dark's wizards. Th' one that was climbing th' walls like a spider back at th' keep t'be specific. Raven dealt with him. Lastly, yes...Devlin lost her head."
-----The Gorian then turns to Seth and nods thoughtfully to the bard. He reaches up and strokes his chin slightly and muses aloud, "Maybe hiring this mercenary troop isn't such a bad idea. Maybe. We still don't quite know how we're going t'handle Redmarsh though. A troop would keep smaller groups o' marauding creatures off our backs till we got t'Krondor's keep, but on th' otherhand, if things have fallen that far in Redmarsh, a troop might just end up attracting other large groups to us."
-----Turning to regard Brandel critically, Sol then says, "At th' very least though, anything you or yer companions can tell us about Redmarsh or even just th' area around Grute could be invaluable. We have t'pass through that area just t'get t'Nox anyway. So, unless Seth has any objections, feel free t'speak up here. An, yer right, Nox does lie on th' river, an' the keep may well do too as it lies t'th' east o' that village."
-----Seth bows and then nods at Brandel and the others from Redmarsh. "Well my faithful friends, it seems the mercantile nature of our business is put on hold again. For us to reestablish our business we needs eject this foul and hideous Krondor from Redmarsh. It would seem we will join forces with Sol and his troupe. Please feel free to answer Sol's questions and help him with information." Seth waves an airy hand and moves close to the painting on the wall and murmurs something like "How imaginative!"
-----Raven leans against a wall and listens to the news from the others. Raven seems curious when Seth mentions 'mercantile' business, but says nothing. Raven leans over and quietly talks to Rinda.
-----"Oh, forgive me, I'm Sarah Night." Sarah says, introducing herself to the newcomers. "I'm afraid I had just gotten to sleep when I was summoned here." Sarah yawns and stretches her arms.
-----"Yes, Aaron turned out to be a demon worshipper so him and all his little darkling buddies are dead now." Sarah fingers the new black cloak she is wearing; those who fought the 'spider' before find it somewhat familiar.
-----"So now we're going to head off to Redmarsh to hunt down Krondor? Good!" Sarah says. "It's about time we went after that son of a..." She stops herself before saying anything obscene.
-----Brandel looks at Seth and then at Runik. The dwarf looks at the human mercenary under his bushy eyebrows but doesn’t offer anything but a nod.
-----Looking at Sol and Raven, Brandel answers, "In Redmarsh, you will come across open plains that have scattered copses of woods, hills, and swamps. The largest swamps are found where you intend to go. Before we left over a month ago, word came ‘round amongst all of the troops in the area of humanoids, were creatures, and even dragons prowling about. Tales of dead things rising and strange lights seen in the woods and fens came in from as far away as the area west of the Town of Redmarsh."
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