Request for Statements, 1500 4 Day Options

[Ryan]

It has been brought to my attention that while on another plane of existence Captain Lannery Strom attacked a fellow mercenary with intent to kill and place the body beyond resurrection.

The group were hired in the Bildteve area and as such I will be giving judgement on this following statements of those present.

Louis Athanyn
Magistrate of Bildteve

[TheOG]

Dear Magistrate of Bildteve

I am a wizard of some skill, I take pride in my skill at the written word and I am capable of reading. I understand the law uses the written word, so please, consider the following my statement.

The person you have named could well have been frozen in the sky, taking umbrage over the lives this cost. He might have suggested that many lives would be saved. This person probably would not have known that the Druid named Aythor had been prompted to shout a word of power, by a crafty Crol and so would have desired vengeance on the dark evil Druid, who had a penchant for turning things to mulch.

The person you named could of, indeed hatched a plot to drag the Druid to the ocean floor, to choke upon water, to breathe his last. In fact, it is possible that the person you have named could have used simple subterfuge to do so. The other mercenaries would have been none the wiser. The person named could well have left a magical trail, easily followed by a Wizard of great skill. Indeed the great wizard who had written the Teaching scroll to enact the Mass Planeshift spell. Such a Wizard could simply wish such vengeance to be undone...

The person you have named, in your ink, with your signature did not do any of these things. I have never met a blaggard by the name of Lannery Strom. I've met a few people worthy of repeated kickings to the groin, but this Strom you have entered into your lawful enquiry, is not known to me.

Milenko the Magnificently Great.
A Wizard. Known for writing Teaching Scrolls and granting Wishes.

[JamesC]

The events were sudden but I believe there may have been mitigating circustances.

Shortly before the event Aythor almost killed Lannary, all be it by accident. Lannary was running through the air in the way many blue wizards do only to be frozen by Aythors shout. When the freezing effect of the unholy word wore off Lannary began to plummet to the ground only to be saved my the swift actions of Milenko and the snowflake spell. Naturally Lannary was quite upset not only at his plight but at the deaths of three of our party he was unable to prevent in his frozen state.

It should also be considered that Aythor was quickly saved and we will never know if Lannary was actually intending to kill Aythor or if he would have rescued him at the last minute as is indicative of someone trying to teach someone a lesson. We will never know if this was the case or if murder was truly in his heart.

From my perspective it was an eye for an eye, both put each other in peril, both were saved.

Demorak - Ward Breaker

[Trickyz]

Hi Louis,

From my point of view it was a series of blunders, we hatched a plan and when we went to execute it the timing was off.

I was advised by Seven and Azel bin Razel that it was time to shout the unholy word, even the protection from spirits was drawn and I believed that I was doing so at the right time.

Unfortunately it was too early, so potentially three people died that perhaps might not have, it was after all during a fight.

Lannery Storm was quite rightly angry and berated me at great volume and length.

At the end of the day we thought we were all being transported back to Primus by Lannery.

A moment later, I found that I was at the bottom of an ocean of some kind. Lannery Storm stood in front of me smirking for but a moment before disappearing a few moments later I found myself back with the rest of the mercenary group soaking wet and Lannery was not there. I think he did intend to kill me. However, I am not sure if it was just to teach me a lesson or murder me. I doubt he knew that the rest of the group had the ability to call me back.

It is very lucky that Rits had a magic carpet or we all would have been stranded on Sothek!!

I don't think it was a lesson that needed teaching it was a genuine error and actions were taken on advice.

To be fair despite the incident I still quite like Lannery, he seems like a fairly decent guy just a bit hot-headed. I don't think he was fully aware of what happened and acted out of grief, anger and helplessness.

If he just intended to teach me a lesson then the lesson is learnt I will be even more careful of executing a plan in future.

Regards

Aythor the mulcher

[Nibs]

Due to earlier cock-up, Lannery had been held by an unholy word that had been shouted at the wrong time by Aythor. This froze Lannery up in the air and almost certainly contributed to the deaths of 3 of our party during that fight. Which I then had to rez! Which I hate doing.

After the mission was completed we had gathered together for Lannery to shift us all home. Except when he finished his casting only he and Aythor were shifted. After some brouhaha, during which I wasn't paying attention due to exhaustion, Aythor re-appeared, absolutely drenched. He stated that Lannery had shifted them under water and then shifted himself off again.

Other than this incident Lannery proved himself to be a worthy Knight, however, and I would happily stand by his side again. He was proper pissed off at Aythor though.

Brother Tubbs
Friar of Border

[MattWest]

This is my evidence. Before you read it, you should be aware that it is as inconclusive as it is long, but please feel free to read it if you wish to anyway.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I journeyed to Sothek a week or so ago and after more than a day of wandering alone I chanced upon a group of mercenaries including a "mulcher" (don't ask, it's a bit gross), whose name I believe to be Aythor, and several of my fellow Knights of the Land, one of whom I believe was called Lannary. I was present, though not necessarily always conscious, at times material to this inquiry. I have made enquiry of my fellow Knights of the Land and believe that there is no impediment under my oath to me speaking the whole truth as I see it. Of course it is a matter of grave importance to me not to lie, given the laws of the Confederacy and customs and values of my people. Frankly I would have chosen to remain quiet but Aythor has attributed some role in this to me so I feel compelled to speak.

Aythor restored me to life, probably more than once, and saved my life on other occasions.

Lannary was an invaluable member of the group and provided leadership and wisdom, though he was not the only individual to do so, and not individually as impressive in resolving hostile situations as the anger-prone Lady of the Stars priestess Faithful. (The anger was mostly directed at me.)

Close to the end of our time in Sothek, members of our group prepared a ritual circle which drew repeated attacks by a series of groups of manifestations of the corruption of Sothek. During the final assault upon the ritual, Faithful drew a protection. I ended up inside the protection, basically because some crol made a fool out of me (was that Seven?). Aythor was not inside the circle. The hostile creatures appeared. Through the use of Onyx magic I ascertained, one after the other, that they were not living in the eyes of the Onyx Dragon. I shouted this information out, as I understood it to be useful for Aythor, in case he should wish to "mulch" them (don't ask, it's a bit gross). It turns out that I was a bit confused about what I was meant to be doing but anyway. The largest of the creatures, a void-like thing, strode around the edge of the circle of protection. I ascertained that it would succumb to three runes. I tried to thrall its right arm, if arm be the word. It shrugged this glyph off, entered the circle and struck me with a long thing. The blow was sturdy and carried a deathly touch, though I believe I did not die as such, but lost consciousness immediately. When I came to, I had an injury to my head where the creature had struck me, and injuries of a different kind to my leg. I believe I saw three of our mercenary companions dead on the floor, receiving priestly attention. That is pretty much all I remember of that fight. I do not specifically clearly recall telling Aythor to shout his unholy word, which is not to say that I did not do so, though I can imagine that there may have been some misunderstanding, but really I do not remember with any clarity, and I think this is the first time that it has been suggested that it may have been partly my fault. I certainly did not tell him to yell his unholy word without first shouting a warning to the group of mercenaries to cover their ears, which one might have thought a basic precaution. I do not remember the unholy word being shouted, but then again, from a previous occasion when no-one clearly warned me despite everyone else seemingly knowing what was going on, it seems that the unholy word would not have affected me anyway, so it is possible that I would not have paid much attention to it. It would have been diffiult for Aythor to stand right next to me as I was in the protection and he was not. (It was good against both of us.) I do not even remember seeing Lannary flying in that fight.

After the fight, Lannary teleported us all to a location near to where the Breakers of Chains were based. These were hostile individuals of great skill and experience who were responsible for the corruption of Sothek, or so I was led to believe. We attacked and defeated them. The fight was frenetic and I was busy doing things like casting the Heart Attack glyph and striking ethereal creatures repeatedly with my glaive. Whilst my memory of Lannary's actions in that fight is hazy, it is overwhelmingly likely that he fought heroically and with great honour; in fact probably all of the other mercenaries did so too, including Aythor.

Afterwards we all gathered round at Lannary's invitation to be transported back to Primus. He furtively whispered the words of his glyph, supposedly of teleportation, and I did not hear them clearly, even though I was standing only a couple of feet away, nor did I hear him name the destination. In fact he was so quiet that it is almost a wonder the glyph worked at all. It did occur to me that his behaviour was rather suspicious but he had acted with such honour, wisdom and valiance during the mission as a whole (or what I had seen of it) that, given that he was apparently a Knight of the Land and given my lack of an obvious alternative way of getting back to Primus, I decided to chance it and resolved upon my willingness to be transported. But the magic did not seem to touch me. Instead only Lannary and Aythor vanished. Neither returned, until Milenko, as I recall, said words along the lines of "I call my ally to me", whereupon Aythor reappeared, choking up water. Lannary did not return. We discussed among ourselves whether this constituted abandoning fellow Knights of the Land and there seemed to be general agreement that it did not, as we were now in a place of safety. I think everyone seemed a bit shocked. Ritz, whose praises I have sung elsewhere, provided a magic carpet and we all hung on for dear life and made it back to the Empire.

Until the incident under investigation, I could not fault Lannary's actions, and, unlike me, he is not, as far as I am aware, dark of heart. Therefore I find it difficult to believe that he would have gratuitously sought to murder Aythor without a serious sense of grievance and indeed while still in a hot temper over it, as hardly any time had passed between the final assault on the ritual and the attack against the Breakers of Chains, and this incident occurred immediately after that. However Aythor, though dark of heart, had been making a very creditable effort to contribute to the mission, for example to the point of using the last shreds of his power the previous day (or so he said, more than once), and whilst he (and I and others) may have made some serious mistakes, I do not believe that he would have recklessly endangered the mission in any seriously culpable way. It is more likely that he made a simple misjudgement and that it was purely the gravity of the unfortunate but unforeseen and unintended consequences which led Lannary to overreact in a moment of temper having not really had any time to calm down in the mean time given that we were so busy fighting.

I cannot imagine how we can ever prove whether the intention was to endanger Aythor's life without a full confession from Lannary.

Perhaps if Lannary were bound over to keep the peace and spared further punishment on condition of making a public admission and apology, that would provide sufficient reassurance to the mercenary community? If that commends itself to the wisdom of the magistrate, of course. Forgive me, I am not entirely familiar with Imperial laws and customs.

Razil, Knight of the Land

[RichFromant]

I was annoyed at Lannery for leaving us all and the cowardly attempt to murder Aythor, we had got on fairly well for most of the time we were busy saving the world, was a sh*t way to ruin what should have been a great celebration of our success.

As part of saving the world we had to complete a ritual, the last part of which summoned a creature of destruction and its minions. There was some confusion among our group and some of them, me included, thought we needed to kill the minions before we could kill the main creature, but the main creature would keep summoning minions.

During this confusion Aythor stopped all the minions moving with a shout while most of the group were warded inside a protection. He had used the shout the previous day to stop a whole group of the Breakers in Chains, which was really useful. The plan was to save it for our big showdown with them but this felt a good time to use it.

Unfortunately the shout caught Lannery who was rightly annoyed, but was no way intentional. There were a number of deaths in the fight, but that was nothing unusual for this mission. When Lannery was able to move again he had a go at Aythor who explained the crol Seven had encouraged him to use it and thought he was helping.

I thought that was the end of the matter, and it was a shame that it wasn’t really, as these things happen when you out doing crazy things to save the world.

If you need any more information I will be out in my garden, need to replace all the potion ingredients used.

Roland Bolbek
Doctor of Sweethaven

[Benson]

Hey man.
I thought this was all a dream?

Hey Lannery was really upset with random
Unholy words. I don’t think it would of made
any difference if we had a plan as we were
flying by the seat of our pants...

The mulcher was out of order. Lannery was out
Of order. Let’s just forgive, love and be at peace?

Love
Ozwald.