SPQT -- Northern Diplomacy

April 3 - We had a visit from the vigiles today, saying that a young man named Thorolf had been arrested and was claiming the protection of our house. Quickly reviewing all the barbarians in the house, I could not recall one of that name, so I asked for more particulars. On being informed that the specific claimed connection was to Sigurd, I called him in. He didn't know a Thorolf, either, but agreed to go see the young man, who had been arrested for disturbing the peace and stabbing someone in the Helmet.

Some time later, a runner came from Sigurd asking me to go down to the station. By this time I was sure something odd was going on, so I dressed formally, instructed Robyn and Alfredus to come after me if I didn't return in half an hour or so, and asked two of the remaining Sunshine Boys if they would mind lowering themselves to carrying my sedan chair, in case this were some sort of trap or plot. They agreed with the precaution and bore me off to the station, where I found Sigurd, looking distinctly annoyed, and a young lady in barbarian boy's garb. The sergeant in charge seemed oblivious to the disguise - I trust he is not normally involved in operations requiring much observational skill! - and it did not seem incumbent on me to enlighten him. Sigurd said that "Thorolf" was a kinsman, newly-arrived in town, and that the stabbing had been an act of self-defense. The complaint had been made by the landlord and the supposed victim had run off, so it was a simple matter to get her/him remanded to Sigurd's custody.

He had all the opportunity he liked to harangue her on the way home, where I called them into my office and rang for food. Her name is Freydis and she is Sigurd's 16-year-old sister. She is a little tricky to get a coherent story out of, but in essence this is what we find:

First of all, a band of frost giants, ousted from their home in the frozen north, has taken over Sigurd's homeland, where the Jarl is acting as their vassal. He apparently thinks that if he is not vassal to frost giants, a warlord from a nearby island will conquer him, and it makes little odds one way or the other.

Second of all, Sigurd's brother Olaf attempted to lead a revolt against the Jarl and the frost giants, which was betrayed by parties unknown. Olaf and Sigurd's other older brother are presently in durance vile at the Jarl's keep, while the steading is in the nominal charge of Sigurd's little brother Gunnar, supported by his mother and an old friend of her father from his viking days.

This on its own would be enough to upset anyone, but to top it all, the Jarl's son Thorvald has been harassing Freydis with his unwanted attentions to the point that she decided to run away; whereupon, he pursued her in company with some thuggish friends. It is one of these thugs who she stabbed in the Horny Helmet when he attempted to abduct her, and quite right too.

Sigurd is positively breathing fire, and I have reminded him that dueling is not permitted in town. However, this cannot be left as it is. We have sent a messenger out to locate this Thorvald and arrange a meeting in a nearby public forum. Meanwhile, Giulia, Greta, and Thyra are in charge of Freydis, who has no wish to go home before sampling the delights of empire, and is asking practical questions about gaining employment. She cleans up nicely.

April 4 - We met Thorvald as agreed - Alfredus and the rest of the Sunshine Boys guarding our backs against treachery, and Sigurd, Robyn, and I to speak to him. Freydis was with Thyra, in case someone had the bright idea of trying to kidnap her out of my uncle's house. He came with a crony of his, a heathen priest named Thorbjorn who wouldn't know a sound theological argument if it bit him in the nose. The meeting cannot be called amicable, but in the end Thorvald accepted Robyn's terms - we send a contingent back with him and rid his land of frost giants, a deed for which he gets the credit; and in return, we keep any loot and he leaves Freydis alone forevermore.

There are certain practical difficulties with this. The frost giants, for example, had sent along two ogres as escort; I think a sleeping potion in their wine and a quick trip to the buyer for the arena will take care of them all right. More seriously, Uncle cannot at the moment spare Decimus, and the idea of possibly battling frost giants without him is daunting to say the least. I would prefer that it not come to outright battle, as the invaders brought their families with them. Yet many elegant solutions also benefit from inclusion of a wizard.

Uncle has released the Sunshine Boys, Robyn, Alfredus, and me, authorized hiring of an independent mage or two, and in order to facilitate matters will teleport us as far as Roskildé. I will take Gaius, but am putting Giulia in charge of Freydis while I'm gone. Her manners need a little smoothing out before she is suitable for a Tarantine household.

April 5 - Interviewed three mages - two northerners and a turncoat Leaguer. One of the northerners, alas, did not pass my Detect Evil check and we set him on his way. The Leaguer is a little shifty and an opportunist, but since he takes the sensible attitude that his country is losing the war and the sooner he gets used to it, the better, I am willing to give him a chance. The other northerner, a young lady named Ingrid, is not particularly ambitious and provides us with an excellent cover story for Thorvald's return without his boat, most of his crew, or the bride he went after. We have hired both, and started outfitting for the north. Most of our cold-weather gear from getting Alexandros's treasure is still suitable; but Gaius hasn't a thing.

Decimus will be taking his next opportunity to visit his "friend," the scrying orb on the Island of the Archmagi, to scout possible alternate locations for frost giant settlement.

April 6 - Using an existing teleport circle to Roskildé, we have come north. Thorvald and his boon companions are primed with a story about how they were attacked by pirates, who killed the ogres, and were in desperate straits (burning boat etc.) when reinforcements arrived in the person of Ingrid. Together they destroyed the last of his foes and her courage and deadliness drove Freydis right out of his mind. She however insists on an Orusian wedding, so here I am; we are essentially her entourage. We hired a small boat and got a grand welcome at Sigurd's brother's steading, though his mother is not at all happy about her daughter's behavior. I have made her daughter's virtues a major topic of conversation.

Though we did not tell them the whole story, Sigurd's family is greatly cheered by the prospect of Olaf and Einar being released and the frost giants being a memory soon. We are gathering as much intelligence in the form of gossip as possible. This would be easier if more of us spoke northern. Sigurd's mother divides her time between fretting about her incarcerated sons and fretting about her daughter, alone in a strange land and so on. I find she calms down at once if I start praising Sigurd's usefulness and expressing admiration for Freydis's resourceful and courage, discussing all the bright prospects the empire holds for a girl of her talent, etc. Gunnar, the youngest boy, speaks Tarantine well enough to be enthralled by Gaius's accounts of the splendors of city life and adventure.

I didn't find out about it until a little while ago, but Robyn and two of the Sunshine Boys surprised, cornered, and brought back to the steading a gentleman who appears to have been spying on us. They didn't disturb me with it since my lack of skill in the language would have rendered my presence at the interrogation superfluous; I gather Sigurd asked the questions and Robyn looked terrifying in that way he has. This gentleman's presence was the more interesting as the family is convinced Olaf and Einar were spied upon and betrayed. He came from the steading of a man named Egil, and seemed to be of the opinion that our behavior was going to bring the frost giants down upon everyone. They turned him lose with a message for Egil and we will keep a weather eye out in future.

April 7 - At the Jarl's steading. Ingrid is having a wonderful time being treated as bride-to-be; I hope the Jarlina doesn't die of disappointment when the marriage doesn't come off! We have learned much that is unsavory about the frost giants. (The king's - interest - in human women is as puzzling as it is appalling.) I think we could take them in a fight - Marzuk's spell list is an impressive one - but not without considerable casualties and property damage. The giants were displaced from their own territory by even nastier giants, so they can hardly go back where they came from.

Decimus has contacted us with a couple of suggestions, primarily a string of islands well outside of Tarantine influence. The major objection to this alternative is that, if it works, some other group of innocent people will be faced with the same problem we have; however, they might not survive a sufficiently arduous ocean voyage and the people can be forewarned. Robyn is against the idea of warning anyone. He says that we don't know those people, don't owe them anything, and the giants might take it badly if they think we played both sides. I say that we owe consideration to all our felllowmen and that the good opinion of frost giants is low on my list of desiderata. We *are* playing both sides and there's no point being halfhearted about it. I find I balk at Decimus's suggestion that we ambush them at sea, however. They have children with them - that's the core problem. No solution is going to be one I'm comfortable with.

April 8 - Decimus and Robyn have selected a victim and Thorvald and Robyn have gone to see the giant king. The rest of us are on alert in case they don't take the bait. This waiting business is painful for all of us but Ingrid. It's a shame she won't get to use that wedding dress they're running up for her - the color and cut are very suitable (time-passing doodlings snipped).

Success - so far. They could still change their minds. Robyn painted such an irresistible picture of the delights of a set of islands I would have thought much too far south to even tempt a frost giant, that the king is ready to pack up and leave at once. I am composing a warning message to be translated into as many languages as possible and sent to the relevant islands by as many animal messengers as practical. Funny, I can't seem to scry the place myself. I expect I got the coordinates Decimus gave me wrong.

April 10 - We waved the giants good-bye, Olaf and Einar were freed from durance vile, and the jarl has presented us with presents which should fetch a tidy price in the Empire. Meanwhile, the party had begun. Marzuk and I, not having much taste for the local amusements, spent a lot of time discussing poetry - some very interesting lyrical developments have been on foot in the League since the war began and the import of publications dried up. Decimus, having finished up the project he was helping Uncle with, popped up to visit and see if we needed any frost giants polymorphed into seafood.

He seemed disappointed, and slightly suspicious of Marzuk. Tamara's absence is beginning to wear on him.

In any case, about the time I was ready to give up and go on to bed, Primus came and found me, and took me to Decimus, who had a bucket with a sea slug in it. He told me he had caught a burglarous wizard. I thought perhaps he had sampled the mead too freely, but he showed me a hole in the jarl's thatched roof. We found the jarl, but he was a little merry to take the sea slug seriously, so we found the captain of the guard, who is too good at his job not to remain sober. Not being familiar with Decimus's habits, he was skeptical, but he knew we were honored guests so he summoned someone to hold a knife to the sea slug's - throat - while Decimus polymorphed him back into himself.

He didn't look particularly wizardly, wearing spiked gauntlets and a sullen expression, and the captain of the guard did not recognize him. He looked and sounded Aechean to me. He claimed to have been making a hole in the roof in order to have a friendly conversation with the Jarl, which struck us as unlikely, so we started to relieve him of magic items prior to proper interrogation. However, we failed to secure him properly, and he teleported away, much to Decimus's disgust.

The captain of the guard immediately started organizing his men. Decimus and Primus guarded the hole in the roof as I found all of our party and alerted them to the danger - all but Robyn, who I didn't see until breakfast. [He was getting laid, but this is not the sort of information he's likely to share with Sofia.] I didn't get any sleep to speak of.

April 11 - When morning came without incident and people were more or less sober, Decimus cast a scry spell. Our missing burglar mage was eating breakfast in a great hall, which I described to the captain of the guard. My own thought was that this would be the hall of the rival jarl who is gobbling up everyone's territories, but the captain of the guard said the hall was too small, and suggested Egil as a more likely culprit. Since the Jarl has confirmed that it was Egil's evidence that sent Olaf and Einar to the dungeon, we declared our willingness to support them in going to arrest the wizard and his master, too. Sigurd, Olaf, Einar, the Sunshine Boys, Robyn, Decimus and Primus, Ingrid, Marzuk, Alfredus, Gaius, and I thus marched off.

It was only an hour or so, moving briskly, and while we were persuading the gate guard that he wasn't paid enough to turn us away, Decimus polymorphed into a sparrow and flew inside to locate the wizard. He sent me a quick message that he was indeed present and Egil and his hauscarls were arming to meet us. When we couldn't get Egil to admit us sensibly, I opened the gate with a flame strike spell. I have since learned that Decimus took this as his signal to cast manaspear at the mage.

My hope was that we could subdue Egil quickly, I could teleport him back to the jarl for arrest, and by the time I returned the hauscarls, leaderless, would have surrendered. Alas, I misjudged their mindset. Teleporting away with him only made them angrier, and only one surrendered, after all his fellows were either dead or unconscious. Marzuk did good service, taking out approximately half the hauscarls with a cone of cold and then using some devastating magic missiles. Ingrid summoned eagles to peck at and distract first Egil and then his entourage, and finally their spellcaster, and also I believe did some execution with magic missiles. The barbarians and Robyn charged everything in sight and Gaius sensibly took up a position behind the smoldering gatepost and peppered people with arrows as the opportunity arose. Decimus was badly hurt by the mage, but hurt him a great deal in return; so much that when Alfredus charged him, he used Tenser's Transformation in order to gain more strength and vitality, and turned from spells to fisticuffs. In the end Robyn attacked him a little too enthusiastically, and cut his head off. The spiked gauntlets had the "wounding" quality on them, so that Alfredus was afflicted with a serious nosebleed, but Robyn administered a healing potion before I returned and I had only the normal clean-up damage to heal.

Decimus is sadly annoyed, because the Aechean turned out to be a sorceror, rather than a wizard - no spell book. The jarl is pleased, because under questioning Egil has confessed to plotting to take over the local leadership. This was why he betrayed Olaf and Einar's plot against the frost giants - he didn't want anyone overthrowing them except him. Once the giants announced they were moving, he adopted a new plan. His hired spellcaster was to learn the layout of the jarl's keep, so that he could teleport in and out; charm the jarl; and then persuade him to rule unwisely, so that Egil could lead a revolt against him.

The upshot of this is that Olaf is back home, Einar has a new steading, the jarl is anxious to get into and stay in the good graces of the entire family, and I am very tired.