Angelo groaned as he got up, 'A bit more armour than a linen shirt might have helped.' He chuckled weakly, his chest hurting as he did. He looked at her and then at himself, 'Damn, we look like a complete mess.'
"Hmm?" Allune looked at the young girl, "What did you have in mind?" She asked, wondering what the librarian was thinking after hearing their quest was to put down some demons.
Mszczuj call loud to armoursmith, to break through noise of his work. "Hey!! God bless, good men!" He walk to him, knowing it would be dangrous if he move too close. Hammer and hot steel, doesn't like suddenly moves and suprise "I have business to you."
A young man approaches, ascending up to the battlements. "Lady, we have more problems." He gestures to the forest. The black knights wheel out two heavy cast iron cannons, beginning to unlimber them. "My name is Kuril, lady. I accompanied lord and lady Ilya and Olga here. My 6 men are yours, but those cannon are a problem. I fought in Savoy a few years ago, and our army used cannon like that in the siege of a castle. They knocked down the wall in days."
She laughs, throwing the robe back on. "Yeah, we should probably see an armoursmith. Still, you didn't do all that badly. That was a good move, you just have to be faster." She returns to her human guise. "We sho-" A boom echoes through the forest, the sound audible even in the cave. @Auraicide Miroslava curses in her native tongue. "What now?"
"Well, if you're going after Templars... They are supposed to, by legend, have a collection of ancient texts that they acquired in Outremer, called the Register Templorum. I thought that the register was destroyed with the Order, but if they're still around, maybe the books are too?" She looks at Allune. "I can't really afford to pay you much, but if you got ahold of any texts, I'd reward you what I can."
“We need to find a way to regroup with the bulk of the forces. I don’t have the magic for a drawn out engagement. Alerting people to our position is a risk. Lure out the closest group and take them out so we can move quickly without needing to sneak.” Larisa made a face of uncertainty. Warfare was a subject she had ideas of in theory through her studying of history, but this was the only large scale attack she had seen. The horde always loomed over Russia as a threat, but never acted on where she could see it. And now that she did, she was determined to survive, even if it was going against the clearly laid out rules of engagement. “...leave Angelo out to pretend to surrender, the rest can hide in the cave and prepare an ambush to take the squad by surprise and kill them.” Giving a glance to Miroslava and the Guardian, she looked at the potion cabinet again. “Got anything that will burn through armor? Maybe find a way to prepare some makeshift bomb. Preferably acidic to avoid the danger of a cave in..but we have to work with what we got.”
“Nice to meet you, Kuril. I just wish it wasn't under such circumstances.” Ophelia greeted the man, then cursed when she saw what 'problems' Kuril was talking about. “Cannons! These guys sure a resourceful, if they can afford to bring cannons... let's see how many they have brought – hopefully just those two...” She sighed and tried to estimate the distance from her position to the cannons. I don't think I've ever tried using my spells at such distances, but with the aid of the ring Benacio bought me I should be able to do it – though likely only a few times. But trying to freeze the cannons will only buy us a little bit of time – if it works at all, that is. Fire arrows won't have much of an effect on something made of iron, but maybe there is some gunpowder, or something else, I could set on fire? The noblewoman desperately wracked her brain to come up with an idea, before the attackers could get ready to fire their cannons.
'That doesn't sound good,' Angelo said, 'Sounds like this place isn't the only one that got attacked. Maybe we should head to the camp and rally the others?' He looked to Larisa, 'Pretend to surrender? I thought the Guardian and Marguerite killed every knight out there. That bang sounded like it was quite far away.'
Larisa frowned. She didn’t enjoy the idea if stragglers existing, but she had to speculate. “Most likely they intend to assault the castle. Perhaps.” She thought on it. “It would be possible to confuse them with a large scale illusion to confuse and divide the enemy into smaller groups..but there’s no way I could do something of that size. ..It may be possible to drain the bodies of the already slain knights to have enough energy to conceal our approach and use hit and run tactics to confuse them, but I can’t promise how effectively that would work either. Our first move should be to assassinate the engineers first so they can’t carry out their siege. If they’re forced to wait out the castles food and supplies, that at least buys more time to prepare a proper counterattack.”
Mszczuj show to him his lower part of armor and ask if it is possible to make it more fit for him. If not, Mszczuj want to sell it of.
"Errr?" Allune had a disappointed expression, "I can see why you'd like their ancient texts. But, I'm sorry to say, we're only looking for a scouting party of theirs. I doubt they'd have the books you're looking for." She replied with a sigh, "However, I'll try to bring back any books or scrolls they might have... uhm. Assuming it's safe to read."
The cannons are positioned quite far from the walls, though still within arrow shot. Each cannon has four men around it, regular humans from the look of it, who begin to undertake the operations necessary to fire the piece. Buckets of water are brought out, one man each using a mop to swab out the barrels. Kuril looks down at it, trying to think of ways to deal with the situation. "If only it was winter." He mumbles in his strong Russian accent. "Back in Savoy, one of our cannons cracked and exploded, because the iron can't handle the quick change in temperature between the winter chill and the heat of the blast." He sighs. "Back home, this wouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately, we're in Poland, and it's already hot as hell." Jarolaw looks at the two pieces, as the cleaners finish swabbing, and a barrel of gunpowder is brought out, from which the artillerymen begin to prime the pieces. "Lady, that barrel should be explosive. If we had a skilled archer, it might be possible to hit it with some sort of fire arrow, but no one in the castle is skilled enough to make the shot, as far as I know." He looks at Ophelia, Kuril and Benacio, the latter two shaking their heads. Ophelia hears a voice behind her, turning to see the beautiful maid she had so much fun with the other night. "M-My lady, I may know of a solution." Jaroslaw looks at her in distaste. "Quiet, girl. We're talking of military matters, no business for a maid."
Miroslava nods. "Drain the bodies? I might be able to help. What are you thinking?" Marguerite wipes blood from her now human face and says "They must have been watching. When Miroslava left, they thought that they could assassinate her, and take the castle while it's leaderless, possibly recruiting piggy over here in the process." The Guardian crosses his huge arms and grunts. "The succubus has a tongue that would be better put to use elsewhere, but in this case, I agree. An attack on the castle is the logical conclusion, and your Inquisition camp as well."
The armourer takes a look at the leg plate and sabatons, examining the steel thoroughly, before looking up. "These aren't too big. I can adjust them to fit you. I hear you leave tomorrow, though? The work can be done by then, but it'll cost more. Let's say, 600 if you want them adjusted. If you want to sell them, I'll give you, why don't we say, 300." Msczuj realises that the price of a tailored piece of armour is far higher than either of those sums, but second hand pieces tend to go for less money.
She nods. "Yes, it shouldn't be anything heretical. The collection was gathered during the Third Crusade, when the Order was still quite godly. Oh, and it's a long shot, but if you ever head to Marienburg," she names the home of the Teutonic knights, "There's a book there in the hands of an English knight named Francis of Strathclyde. The book is titled Liber de Compositione Alchemiae. I'll pay whatever I can to get it off your hands."
'Then we should make our way to the camp to help the others before moving towards the castle,' Angelo said, trying to stand on his leg, 'Agh, shit, I won't be any help in the fight.'
Sarva walks up to him. "There is a way I can help you further, b-but you might not like it. I was only going to do it if I thought that I couldn't save you."
Angelo looked at the young succubus, confused but curiously, 'Help me further but I might not like it? What would that be?'
