((From last time, there's no temples in town, if I recall correctly.))
Karl rides in silence, and as the others seek their rooms, he takes charge of the prisoner train. He separates out Aki from the bandits and drags him into an alleyway, the bag of heads in his other hand, saying in an ominous tone
"You said you'd rather be dead and defaced then let your wife see you hung in shame as a bandit. I can arrange that."Once out of sight, he sets the bag on a barrel and pins Aki to the wall with one hand, his voice quiet and deadly serious.
"I am not without mercy, friend, and neither is my Mistress. You and your friends have made a terrible mistake, but you have been honest with us as we asked you questions, and I sympathetic to your plight. The elf portioned out 50 gold for you, and you will receive this. Return to your wife, pay your debts. The witch who was blackmailing you is dead. If you can secure your son's release with this gold, do so. If not... send me a message, and I will see what I can do.
As far as your friends by the wagon know, I will kill you. Leave behind trying to be a bandit - despite the promises of easy money, it's a fool's path, and most of those who walk it die doing so. Find a safer occupation, and raise your son to an honest life."Karl let's go of the man's throat and unties his hands, handing him the pouch Thyra had filled earlier.
"And Aki... if you do decide to return to banditry, do not expect the same mercy twice. Now, scream like I'm murdering you and slip back to your wife."Timing it with Aki's scream, he kicks over a barrel. After Aki leaves, he returns with the bag of heads and surveys the prisoners coldly.
"As for the rest of you, the authorities will get to decide what to do with you."Karl leads the prisoners to the city watch and turns them over along with the bag of heads for the bounty, pointing out on the map which camp they took out. He also asks to meet with the commander in the morning, to relate the information they picked up from their interrogation.
Returning to the inn, he makes sure the wagons are safely secured, since it's too late in the evening to even begin to dispose of all the spoils they recovered.
Sighing heavily, he snags the passively staring Cromwell and sits down with him, praying to the Raven Queen as he performs every religious test he can to detect or banish a possessing spirit.
((Covered quite a bit here, but given I'm not around for the day, hopefully that's forgivable.
- Released Aki with the 50 gold Thyra set aside for him. Hopefully he doesn't go around and backstab us - maybe we'll even get an informant for this area out of it. Attempted to arrange it so that as far as his buddies knew, I killed him, letting him get a fresh start without the guards getting on his case.
- Turned in the living bandits and the heads for the bounty. The payment should be evenly split across the party. When Karl meets with the Commander, try to use Diplomacy to negotiate a reward for the information that the bandits harrassing the town are all one group and are being coordinated from the distant encampment.
- Knowledge: Religion check on Cromwell to see if Karl can figure out what's going on with him.
- If it turns into morning, meet with the Commander, then go ahead and start selling all the loot we picked up. Diplomacy on all transactions to sell the nonmagical gear, excluding light sources, anything that would make sense exploring caves/mountains and potions, vials, etc. Keep the unclaimed magical gear for now, in case anyone wants to pick through it. Split the proceeds evenly across everyone.
- Since people are already going to bed, in the morning, ask Weston and Nadarr to inspect his family's sword. Karl won't say anything about the voice he heard, but the sudden enchantment might mean there's more to his sword then he knew.
...and there's more I'd want to do, but I'm guessing Karl sort of needs to have his evening prayers, sleep and morning prayers in there somewhere.
))