Tempest's first in-game experience was an immediately violent and combative one, as I thought best suited the character. The player had given me such a nice description of Cornaro that it was inevitable that there would emerge a threat to such beauty and tranquility.

What would I have liked to do better as a GM in this section? I feel like I should have raised the threat level a bit higher... I don't think it came across as scary enough, and there were times when I felt that Tempest's player had no doubt about the outcome of the battle.  On the other hand, Tempest is as arrogant as the Alaskan day is long, so maybe the perception was just the result of PC quirks.

Also, it must be admitted that I totally flubbed some tactical descriptions. Plus, I had yet to figure out the style of "here are your options and how many DPs they cost" that would later make my life so much easier. To Theresa's credit, she took my clumsy revisions and rules mechanics very much in stride.

Tempest watches as Reynold carefully humiliates three guardsmen more than twice his age. Practice swords clack back and forth with sharp wooden clicks. The guardsmen are red-faced with anger and exertion. Reynold has the energy of youth, and the arrogance to match. No question that the boy is good. He took to the sword like a bat to blood, and his dedication is unmatched. Most of the young nobles who are sent here to train view it as a chance to climb socially.

They're second sons, or worse, and they and their parents hope that some of the glory of Amber will rub off on them. But from the first day Reynold made it clear that he was here to learn.

Which makes his horrendous attitude all the more galling. When he was starting out the raw obnoxious contempt he distributed in all directions (save that of the weapons-mistress, of course) simply encouraged others to work harder to beat him. Now, however, he's passed the point where that's possible, and it is telling on the morale of the other students, as well as the regular military that train in the same area.

The boy could disarm his opponents, or give them blows that they would have to accept as play-acted wounds, taking them out of the fight. He doesn't. He toys with them, forces them to foul each others blows, and to swing at air.

He is smiling.
Tempest scowls. While she herself was prone to such antics in real combat, she had the reputation and the experience to back it up. She was going to have to do some serious ass kicking here. Teach the brat some humility before he got his ass handed to him along with his head.

She draws her own blade as she stands to do just that.

"HOLD!" she barks as she stalks to the center of the arena. Everyone falls back to the sidelines and she points her blade at the offender.

"Not you, Reynold," she growls. "That smirk is about to get wiped off your damned face."

"You are like a small child who thinks he knows everything because he has learned how to tie his shoes," she scoffs. "You are wrong."

There are titters from the observers but a swish of her blade silences everyone. Tempest doesn't bother with Rules of Engagement. She simply attacks and the smirk disappears as Reynold quickly gives up on his usual tactics and scurries desperately to defend.

But she's not letting him off so easily. Tempest treats him exactly as he's been treating the others. She toys with him. She snaps through his openings in a blur and swats him with the flat of her blade with force enough to leave bruises for several days. The tip of her blade zigzags across his doublet and shirt, leaving cuts in the fabric where she could have just as easily drawn blood. She contemplates drawing blood from his cheek, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of a dueling scar.

But her piece de resistance is the tatters she leaves the crotch of his leggings in.

But she doesn't stop there. All around the arena she runs him, smiling as she asks time and again if he yields and smiling wider when he says no in defiance until panting and with sweat pouring off him, he falls to a knee, her sword point at his throat and yields.

He is not happy.

She does not care as she stands over him after flipping his blade out of his grasp. Her eyes and her voice are hard as she addresses him in a tone loud enough to be heard by all.

"No student here is above the others. You have proved you have ability, but without honor, you will never be great. You will only be a bully and bullies are to be pitied, not respected. Men who serve with you will not be willing to risk their lives for you because they cannot expect you to do the same. You will never know command, for it takes more than ability to use a sword to be a leader of men. Friendship of others you will never know because they will only be fawning out of fear and when you find your back to the wall, you will find yourself alone."

"This is how it will be if you do not take heed now. You have the capacity for greatness within you. All who come here do. But without some humility, it will never be yours."

She steps back and lowers her blade, her eyes never leaving his. "I do not expect to have to give this lesson again. Are we clear?"

He nods mutely.

"ARE WE CLEAR?" Tempest asks again, louder, her voice ringing off the walls.

"Si, Senora," he answers.

"Change your clothes," she says with a wave of her hand, dismissing him. "I expect you back in this arena in twenty minutes and I expect some discipline and some humility from you."

OOC: Oh, bitter irony, most patient and long-working of my dramatic herbs. :-)

Lovely scene, sure to cause you trouble in future. Take a Drama Point in your choice of denomination as a reward for playing Arrogance to its hilt.

Tempest turns angrily as she hears the sound of hoofbeats on her carefully polished wood floors. A rider gallops into the salle, or rather a horse gallops into the salle with a blood-soaked rider draped precariously over its saddle. The tack and uniform are those of Julian's rangers, though without the marks of distinction that mean service in Arden. One of the out-country patrols for Black Road activity, then. The man is still breathing, but has numerous wounds that have clearly been aggravated by a long hard ride. The horse is on its last legs, blowing foam and quivering as it stumbles to a stop.
"Son of a bitch," she snarls. "Medics! Make it snappy!"

She strides over and as one of the students rushes over to grab the reins of the horse and two of the instructors catch the rider before he falls and eases him to the ground between them.
Tempest gets close enough to read his insignia with a quick glance. The man is of the Fourth Grenadiers, a Hussar unit for rapid response in shadows where some variant of gunpowder is available. She remembers fighting alongside members of this unit in the Pellorian Outbreak just a decade ago, when Julian and Fiona's forces turned back a -race- of lizard-bitches intent on marching their spawn into the Golden Circle. They're brave men. Tempest remembers that they had a female minstreal, Sabine, sort of a mascot to the soldiers and strictly off-limits. Strange little girl, she was always playing this little diddy on the flute, but would stop or switch songs instantly if she saw Tempest nearby. Tempest never did figure out exactly what that was about.

The man looks familiar, but it's been so long... name is just on the tip of Tempest's tongue.

Spend a Psyche DP for the name, or don't. Your call, as always.
Not important at the moment

Tempest drops to one knee to assess the damage herself along with the medics who have appeared breathless at the man's side.
The man has been grievously, but not fatally wounded. He has several long claw-marks on his body (as, indeed, does the horse) and one gash that has clearly been made by some sort of bladed weapon. It looks like he rode through enemy lines in order to deliver the message, as the cuts come from all angles, not just the front. The jostling of the ride will probably complicate his recovery, but recent advances in the understanding of anatomy and surgery should make these medics competent to tend to his injuries, so long as no further great exertion is required of him.

In fact, these advances also make the surgeons substantially better at drawing or painting the human figure, but that is not a skill they are likely to use today.
"What happened?" she asks briskly, her voice a tad softer than normal. Clearly this Ranger had put his own life secondary to reaching her. That deserved some respect.
"Princess," he gasps, "We were hunting down what might be a breakthrough, but we came upon... too many. Cap'n Janicke had us fall back to Bergamo, and sent me to plead for your aid."
Tempest stands and heads out of the Salle, shouting orders.

"I need a squad of Calvary ready to ride, fully armed five minutes ago!," she yells. "I want my armor to meet me in the stables in TWO MINUTES!"

She is, of course, gratified in some way that squires bearing her armor were, in fact, waiting for her, as was her saddled horse and the unit was even now readying to depart. They learned a while back what it meant to have Rangers ride in, though they usually weren't that bad off.

Tempest gives the squires a hard time by not standing still as her leather armor is strapped and belted on and she's checking weapons even as she mounts up. She barely acknowledges the captain as he rattles off a state of readiness.

Into the midst of this chaos, a group of her students burst in, holding a large bundle of cloth and a long staff. "Please, sword-mistress," they say, "take this."

They let it unfurl. It is a pennant in Tempest's colors, and from the uneven stitching and bunched fabric it seems clear that the boys did not commission it, they made it themselves.

I'll call upon you to describe a set of colors and (if you like) heraldry that would be distinctly Tempest's.

Purpure, on a pile Argent, a heart Sable.

Tempest's heart fills with pride. Her young ones, now, they knew what respect was!

Knowing they didn't have enough of the fastest horses for everyone, though these were indeed fast, she dispatches a runner to go ahead of them to a guard station to have fresh horses ready for them to change over. They can bloody well commandeer them from some local noble as needed.

"Let's move!" she commands, swinging her stallion around and spurring it to launch into a gallop right out of the gate
The streets are lined with concerned citizenry as Tempest and her force clatter out of the town. The women, particularly, weep in open concern and pride for the Princess upon whom so many fasten their own dreams and aspirations for adventure and importance. The men who are not themselves in the guard nod knowingly, as if riding out to battle demons from another world is something that they have all done and now leave to the younger generation.

Tactical question before I can describe what you encounter in Bergamo: Would you rather get there in three hours with a force of fifty, or in four hours with a force of three hundred? Or, of course, the third option is to get there in two hours alone on a horse that's about to die. Naturally, whatever you choose, the larger units will be following as reinforcements. You've got the warfare to assure that with a significant glance at a well-trained lieutenant.
I want "showing up three hours later with a force of fifty", with the remaining 250 en-route to arrive an hour later.
The ride throughout the verdant countryside is furious. Terrified villages scatter as the vanguard of the troop thunders through, far too hurried to offer any explanation. Tempest rides up and down the lines, and none give less than their utmost under her careful scrutiny. By the time the sun is leaning past its zenith, they can see an acrid smoke rising, and shortly thereafter they crest the gentle that leads down to Bergamo.

The numbers of the enemy are as bad as Tempest imagined... perhaps a little worse. They appear mostly to be hairy beasts, about seven feet tall on average, although with the usual admixture of things both more uncanny and more demonic. They have trampled the valley, uprooted its vines and churned its fields to mud. But now they are, for the most part in the city proper, fighting and pillaging by turns.

Tempest takes in the tactical situation at a glance. There, in the broken ground halfway down the valley, where so many blackened and burnt shapes lie, is where the Grenadiers laid an ambush, spending much of their precious powder to detonate as mines. There at the main gate of the town is where they made their first stand, and where the numbers of the enemy finally forced them to fall back yet further. Here and here, in the city, they engaged at poor odds, a desperation move. Tempest can't quite see the sense of that until she looks before the keep itself and sees the cowering peasants who have taken refuge behind the thin line of Grenadiers, reduced to sabres and raw bravery. Yes, they have been working to evacuate the town, and that required them sometimes to fight where they would rather have fled, in order to give time for the innocents to make their way to safety. Many men lie dead throughout the city, but they are wearing the grenadiers uniforms, not the colorful shirts or dresses of civilians.

And seeing her comrades in arms fighting outside the gate, rather than from behind castle walls, Tempest realizes the final piece of the puzzle. The gates of the castle have been closed. From the number of peasants still outside it looks like Pietro Bergamo accepted the folks of his village for as long as the fighting was distant, but once it came close to his walls he closed up tight, leaving the Grenadiers and the remainder of his villagers shut out with the man-beasts.
"That sorry slime sucking, cowardly, worthless waste of skin and oxygen!" Tempest growls as she wraps the reins around the saddle horn. "I'm going to rip his sorry useless balls off and feed them to him before I rip his head off and use it for a chamber pot! BASTARD!" Bergamo was a sashay on the best of days, but this was beyond the pale. Worthless git.

"We'll just see about that," she states.
The situation of the town is chaotic, with the creatures vastly outnumbering the defenders, but clearly not yet organized for an assault. As Tempest watches, a Grenadier's uniform breaks from concealment far from the castle. The woman is dragging two peasant children, and has chosen a good time to try to make a run for the safety of her unit. Even so, one of the creatures raises its head from gnawing on the leg bone of one of its fallen kin, and leaps to pursue this tastier prey. Tempest and her men are perhaps a quarter of a mile away.
"Oh, no you bloody well don't," Tempest says to the distant freakazoid. She unslings her rifle and spurs her horse forward, controlling it expertly with her knees the way Julian had taught her.

"Captain, CHARGE!"

Tempest takes off like a shot. She was going to get that damned thing herself and as soon as she's in range, she fires and immediately draws her pistol to follow it up with another shot.
The creature is slavering after the fleeing trio. As Tempest pounds down the slope, outpacing her own cavalry, the woman clearly decides that she would rather die fighting than be torn down from behind. She turns, pushing the children behind her and drawing her saber, and Tempest recognizes Sabine, now all grown into a woman and a fighter. Tempest is still at a range that would make the shot a near impossibility with the unrifled musket she is carrying.

For you, oh mistress of the Warfare, a mere impossible shot at inconceivable range costs but two Warfare Drama Points. Your call.
Ah, what the hell. Sure.
"Fuck it," she grates, and raises the weapon to her shoulder. Momentarily slowing her horse, she sights and fires. There is a thundering crack, and the bullet leaps away, cutting the vast distance with a sound like the ripping of silk. A sudden burst of blood like flowering poppy marks the creature's head, and it sways in its tracks, stunned, until Sabine rams her saber up to its hilt into the thing's belly. It falls.
"Ha! Take it!" Tempest crows as she slows her horse a notch. She raises her firearm to Sabine in salute.

The crack of gunfire gets the attention of the beleaguered Grenadiers. As they look up and see their beloved Princess's pennant flying, her forces (however slight) coming to their aid, a great cheer rises. The man-things are beaten back for a moment, and horns are raised. Suddenly, Tempest is taken back a decade, to the sight of a scared young girl hiding her flute at the approach of a princess. That little tune, refined and magnified, and now joyously pealing out of a dozen horns: It was a fanfare. Tempest's fanfare.

I'll hazard a guess at your next course of action. At this point, if you want to pick up Sabine and her charges and cut through the lines to the Grenadiers, I'm not going to throw any immediate insurmountable obstacles in your way: That seems well within the range of your unaided attributes. Just describe it, or leave the description to me, as you see fit.

If you've got something completely different in mind, of course, that's a different matter.

"Well, sonuvabitch," Tempest says after a moment to let it sink in. She holsters her rifle and signals some of the men to pick up Sabine and the children. So now she had a theme song. Well, seemed only right, after all.

The rest of the unit follows her down to the Grenadiers at speed to take advantage of the lull and cutting through anything stupid enough to get in their way.

She dismounts before the horse even stops completely and heads for the Captain-if he's still alive.

Tempest doesn't see anybody with captain's bars, nor anybody who resembles the Janicke she knew. In fact, it seems very much as if the group has been fighting on nothing but discipline and esprit-de-corps, completely devoid of officers or other leadership.

She points at the closed gates.

"What in the bloody hell is going on here?" she demands. "Is that rat fuck in there hiding while women and children are being slaughtered and we're risking our hides for his worthless ass?"

The Grenadier closest to her, a gangly older man with dark hair going slightly to silver, says "That's about the long and short of it, Yer Majesty." Another Grenadier cautiously hands her her own musket, reloaded.
Tempest's blistering retort threatens the gild on her own leather armor. "We'll see about that," she decides as she holsters her pistol. "More reinforcements are about an hour behind us. We just have to hang on that long."
The man-beasts mill about at a bit of a distance, conferring uncertainly in guttural tones. There seems to be a gathering movement at the back of their troop, however. Tempest guesses that something akin to an officer is approaching from that direction, though the throng is far too tight for her to see anybody, much less get a shot.

"Captain!" she yells, summoning the one that came with her. "Keep an eye on what's going on over there. Shot 'em if they try anything. I'm going to get this damn gate open if I have to tear it down."

She eyes the gate to assess the best way to get over it or through it if need be. She was just mad and disgusted enough to tear it off the hinges with her bare hands
Easiest way: Convince them to open it from the inside.

Fastest way: Rip it off its hinges personally, as you mentioned. *Tempest* isn't at all sure she can do this, but you as the player get to know that for 4 Strength DPs it is within her abilities. I'd want it described to be a fairly massive, legendary effort for her though.

Medium way: Climb the wall personally, kill anybody who gets in your way, and open the gate from the inside. That one's a little on the slow side, though.

Tempest looks very much like her name as she approaches the gate and pounds on it with the hilt of her sword.

"OPEN THE GATE!"
"Not a chance!" comes back Pietro's voice. Tempest quickly scans the battlements, but he must be shouting from behind the walls.

Take a DP in your choice of denomination. I'm not sure whether it's for Cultural Arrogance, Code of Honor or Backstabbing Politics but one or the other is clearly working against you pretty hard as far as Pietro is concerned :-)

"What. An. Idiot," Tempest mutters to the people near her. "Do we have enough powder to blow this gate?"
"Yer Majesty, at this point we haven't got enough powder to blow my nose, and that's the truth."
"Damn," is her only opinion.
"Ah, this is sweet vengeance indeed!" Pietro goes on. "For so long you have held over us this illusion of Amberite superiority... but see now who is outside the walls about to die, and who is inside safe and sound. Where is your vaunted infallible planning now?"
"Innocent villagers are standing outside about to die, you cowardly ass!" she bellows in response as she starts looking for toe and hand holds to climb.. "I have plenty of troops here and on the way to remove the innocents left over and guess what!? That will leave these demon spawn with what to play with? Why, a big lovely CASTLE! And they'll be fucking welcome to it because it will be about as much use as the pile of rubble that it is!"

Tempest gestures for a rope and ties a slipknot in one end.
One of the soldiers catches Tempest's eye and gestures out toward where the hairy man-creatures are clearly forming up in ranks. The time to chatter with this Cornaran maniac is clearly growing quite short.

"Ya know," she continues as she slings the rope coil over her shoulder. "I find this all very suspicious. No doubt the CHURCH will be interested in how you have trafficked with DEMONS in order to try and show an Amberite what an ignorant braying ass you are!"

"Like I didn't already know that!"
Pietro gives a maniacal laugh. "When they have killed you, we will be in the perfect position to finish off those beasts that remain. My castle cannot be penetrated! But perhaps if you were to beg for the life of your men, I might let them in. Yes, that would amuse me very much!"
"You’re a fucking idiot!" Tempest responds. "I can leave anytime and take a sizable number with me, you spineless, honorless, hosebeast! "

She turns to the soldiers. "Get in formation. Prepare to engage. Ignore this asshat."

Tempest starts scaling the wall. "It is my conjecture," She continues ranting at Peter old boy to keep his attention on her. "That your mother is no stranger to the embraces of barnyard and domestic animals"

I fear I may, by my inadequate description, have given you a mistaken impression of the situation. -Pieter- is not among those visible on the wall above. That is not to say that it is deserted.

His own personal guards are very much in evidence. Not that you can't scale a wall while being shot at from above and possibly attacked from below. I just don't want it to come as a surprise :-)
Well, hell. How many are there?
Fully armed manor-house/castle... I'd say about four score guards on the walls. I mean, it's not like they aren't at a state of high alert.

For your OOC reference, I'd charge you two DPs of -either- Warfare or Endurance to get to the top without significant injury, OR you can reach the top having taken a flesh wound from a lucky shot, for zero DPs, OR you can take a flesh wound and fall back down to the ground and receive 2 DPs for having tried and failed.
Ah, the flesh wound. That would really have her in a foul mood by the time she got to the top.
There is a roar of outrage from the forces on the wall, although it is mixed by a few brave (or uncontrollable) outbursts of laughter at Tempest's insults. Still, loyalty and honor are potent forces in Cornaro, and the musketeers bring their rifles to bear on Tempest as she scales the walls.

Looking up, she can see the dilemma on the faces of the gunmen directly above her: if they don't shoot her then they will certainly be the first to die, but if they fire and miss their bullets will crash into the villagers below. Faced with the prospect of firing on their friends and relations, the men look to their dusky-skinned lieutenant.

After a moment he shoulders his musket and waits to die with honor.

Of course, soldiers further along the line have a longer shot, but a much clearer angle. They open up without hesitation. Sparks and long streaks of lead scrapings appear on the wall around her. Just as she is about to clamber over the battlements a lead ball passes straight through her left bicep. With a wince of pain, she keeps her grip on the rope left-handed (though blood soaks her blouse-sleeve from the effort), grabs the battlement right-handed and vaults over. She is on a platform forty feet above the mustering court of the castle.

Below, the man-beasts are charging. Attacking in a wave they are much harder for even the reinforced troops to hold off. A glance at the lines tells Tempest that even with their discipline and inspiration they will buckle soon.

There are perhaps a dozen men with rapiers between Tempest and the nearest stairway down. A much further stairway, nearer the chapel, features Pietro Bergamo abandoning a bullhorn and fleeing for his miserable life.

"YELLOW BELLIED WORM!" Tempest bellows after him.

She turns on the short sighted men still defending the stairs as she draws her rapier. "You have got to be kidding me. Those are your friends and neighbors down there about to be torn to shreds and you're still defending the gate even after that sorry excuse for a man just turned tail and ran like the dog he is?"

"Get the hell outta my way!" she orders. "Or would you rather I arrange an upclose introduction to your ass and the pavement?"
The men don't look at all happy about the situation, but it is clear that they'd far rather die horribly than fail in their duties as soldiers, even to an unworthy lord. Oh, and the concept of giving in to the threats of a woman may be a little foreign to them as well.

"OPEN THE GATES!" she yells down at the men on the ground or the villagers inside who have relatives about to be demolished. "OR WHEN I GET DOWN THERE I WILL, BY GOD, THROW EVERYONE IN OUT!"
The villagers who are watching their not-well-liked lord flee, and their relatives stuck outside with devils, do seem pretty worked up. Tempest can see that they are building up to storming the gates from this side. At the same time, however, they're unarmed peasants against armed guards, and nobody's particularly keen to go first. At Tempest's incitement, however, they do manage a ragged charge. It's hard to tell from this angle, but it looks like the troops are unwilling to cut down their countrymen, and are settling for warding them off with fists and the blunt ends of muskets. Despite the sincerity of their efforts, it is clear that Tempest could get the gates open faster than the townsfolk will.
And if that fails to move them, she will start throwing people off the walls.
Tempest tears into the men, whose skill with the sword is stylized, but not tremendously effective. She bats their blades aside and simply slams into the bodily. Since they are, after all, only doing what the Church and their schools have beaten into them over the course of a lifetime, Tempest shoves them to her right, to fall with broken ribs and legs into the protected courtyard, rather than to her left where they would fall into a horde of ravenous demons.

The screams of her men outside are loud in her ears by the time Tempest finally batters her way to the chaos at the gate. With a quick shove she flings the massive timber bar aside and swings the gate sharply outward. Villagers come pouring in to the welcoming sobs of their kin.
She looks up at the men still on the walls. "FIRE ON THE ENEMY! TRY AND KEEP THEM OCCUPIED!"
The musketeers still on the walls seem relieved to have somebody giving them an order which doesn't directly conflict with the orders they've already been given. They open fire immediately, with withering effect.
The situation beyond the gate is bleak. Those too wounded to fight on the front line are being dragged through the gate by grateful villagers, and their number well exceeds those still in the fray. There is practically a wall of dead man-beasts, but this doesn't seem to have any real effect on their morale, for they keep vaulting their fallen comrades to leap onto the scant defenders.
"FALL BACK!" Tempest charges out to help cover the retreat into the protection of the courtyard, shoving one door of the gate closed behind her. All she's interested in at the moment is getting what's left of the villagers and defenders to safety. Once inside, they can defend from the walls and hopefully hold out until their reinforcements arrive.
The fusillade from the walls gives the defenders time to pull back in good order. Tempest slams the gate shut and twelve guardsmen laboriously raise the bar back into place.

And now it is, for at least the next half hour or so, a siege.

Storm clouds begin to gather over the keep, entirely too quickly, and with entirely too much intent.
How appropriate. That matches her mood. Tempest scowls skyward and then looks at the crowd in the courtyard now.

"Get them under cover," she orders a couple of her still upright soldiers. "Women, children and injured into the chapel. And if that gets too crowded, that cowering swine who currently holds this place can bloody well share the castle."
"Your Majesty," says one of Tempest's swarthy soldiers, holding up her pennant, "Should we strike Bergamo's colors?" He nods at the flag-pole atop the main house, where Duke Pietro's heraldry still waves.
Tempest glances up. "Why, yes. I think we should. It's not like he's actually holding the place, is it? Wait." She smiles. "Don't strike them. Just fly mine over his. Lower his about halfway and turn them upside down."

Knowing they'll see to it, Tempest returns to the walls. "Shoot anything that comes too close," is her only order for that. "Reinforcements should be on the way. Let me know if anything changes."

With that she returns to the ground, eyes the door to the castle and decides it can wait for now. But he was going to answer to someone for his actions. If she had to drag him to Roma herself.
As Tempest looks out over the lost village, she sees a tangle of movement. Riding hell bent for leather through the center of the village are a red-headed woman and a short fellow in red full-body metal scale armor of some sort. The man-beasts are, of course, hungrily attacking them. It looks like they had been planning to break through to the Grenadiers, though now of course those plans are scrap.
"Curses," she mutters.
1 Psyche DP to accurately identify them at this distance. Or you can just guess :-) Could be northern barbarians, really... I mean, that's likely, isn't it? Northern barbarians show up in the oddest places...
Ahhh... Sure. What the heck. How far is it?
Oh, about a quarter mile... though a quarter mile of ravening hell-beasts can still be quite a trek. Heh... I just like the word "ravening". And "fusillade", for that matter. I wonder if I can arrange a ravening fusillade?

Squinting against the sun, Tempest looks out at the struggling figures. The woman is... Ana, Fiona's daughter and minion. She fought at the Pellorian Outbreak, as a matter of fact, so she might even know some of the Grenadiers. Though, come to think of it, she didn't really mix with Julian's men. The animosity that Fiona held toward Julian was enough to make her troops stand-offish.

Having identified the woman, the creature next to her is much easier. Some of these metal-encrusted shadow-beings were in the forces at Pellorian. It appears to be a natural state with them.
Tempest holds out a hand. "I need a loaded firearm! Maybe if I can pick off a couple at this distance it'll give them some time."

She didn't have to like a person to want to deny the ravening horde.
At this point, the armored creature makes a suicide charge into the line of beasts blocking Ana's path. He seems to have broken enough of a gap that she should be able to ride through, although she's still going to be stopped well short of the keep itself... and that's without figuring the more organized force just outside the front gate.
Let me guess. We are hopelessly outnumbered and there's no real way to take what few men I have left to go out and clear a path.
What... make a rescue attempt impossible? That would be just plain mean. Of course it's possible. You just have to spend lives and tactical advantage to achieve it.
Oh, I'm sorry. Tempest is many things but STUPID isn't one of them and that would be really stupid. With as few people as she has. Is this foolish person in Tempest's trump deck?
Let's see... you were actively coordinating with her in a military campaign. Yeah, I'd say that you probably have her in your Trump deck.
Tempests curses under her breath, muttering about stupid fools who ride into battles and through the enemy ALONE, gesturing with her hands to underscore her annoyance as she flies down the stairs again while pulling out said foolish person's trump card.

She jumps over the side instead of taking the last few steps and focuses on the card as soon as she lands.

[ Click here to see Ana's thread leading up to this point... ]

Ana continues running and answers , "Yes?' quite breathlessly.
In the time that Tempest took walking down from the battlements Ana's tactical situation has changed somewhat. She is now afoot rather than mounted. Her sword seems to have been lost somewhere along the line, and there are three long parallel claw-wounds down the left side of her ribs, which seem to be bleeding quite a bit under the exertion of her pell-mell run toward the castle. That having been said, the red-head has made substantially more progress through the city than Tempest would have expected, and is practically on the point of engaging the forces at the front gate. Oh, and it's not clear whether she's yet noticed the matte-haired devil-thing that Tempest sees in the card's background about to jump off of a nearby rooftop onto Ana's back.
Tempest just holds out her hand. "Look out!"
Ana dodges grabs for the Tempests hand and comes through the trump.
Ana is pulled through into a courtyard filled with confusion and chaos.

Villagers, clearly non-combatant, are being crowded into the manor house, while battered soldiers of various units organize themselves in the courtyard itself, and on the battlements above. The most battered of the soldiers, in the uniform of Julian's troops, are systematically raiding the powder battery, replenishing spent supplies.

Tempest has a bullet wound straight through her left bicep, and numerous other scrapes and scratches. A soldier with gauze and a poultice is nervously mincing about nearby, trying helplessly to apply a bandage without actually interfering with the Princess.
Tempest sighs with annoyance and holds her arm out to the soldier. "Here. If I'll make you feel better."
As Ana comes through the trump she fairly staggers her face is a rictus of pain from the deep cuts across her abdomen. Ana slinks slowly to the floor and manages to say, " Thank you...you must be the Princess Tempest." The pauses are as she speaks through the pain." I am Princess Ana...I had heard there was trouble here....that was an undersatement. You...wouldn't happen to have a healer about would you." At this Ana manages barely to find a pillar that she can prop herself against , closing her eyes against the pain she most obviously is in.
Tempest looks at the soldier still trying to work on her arm. "I think she needs it more than I do. Get her into the chapel with the other injured and see to her."
The soldier doesn't seem thrilled at disobeying a direct order, but since he has an arm-sized bandage that wouldn't do much for a chest-sized wound he takes a few seconds to finish tying that off. Then he starts organizing folks to attend to the Princess Ana.
The blonde looks at Ana. "I'm not even going to ask what you were thinking, riding into this alone. At the moment we're just holding the fort until the rest of my reinforcements arrive. We wouldn't be this bad off but that arrogant, spineless, dumbass Bergamo closed the gates before all the townspeople could get in then decided he was going to show us Amberites who was really the biggest ass and not let us in." She smirks. "I climbed the gate and made them open it. He ran like the dog he is and hid somewhere."
"Well, the information I got was misleading at best. Otherwise I wouldn't have chosen to ride in here like some half-baked hero on horse back." wincing as she puts pressure on the abdominal wounds, Ana adds, " Frankly it is a good thing that Bergamo is hiding. I too would love to take some of this out on his precious hide." Ana says with a slightly vicious smile that turns into a grimace of pain.
As Ana closes her eyes, the whiff of ozone reaches her, along with the unmistakable tingle of sorcery being worked very nearby. Her eyes fly open and she notices the sky for the first time since she started her charge into the city. It has blackened with dark, flickering clouds, all of which are flowing in towards a point just above the castle. They fairly throb with energy. As Ana watches, electric Saint Elmo's fire starts flickering around the roof spires of the battery, where roughly a third of the soldiers inside the keep are still unloading gunpowder.
Ana calls to Tempest, " Princess Tempest they are using sorcery directing a St.Elmo's fire type spell which is flickering around the top of the castle where if I can detect correctly the soldieer's are using and storing a good portion of the gunfire. If the spell takes effect it could very easily blow this place sky high."

Is it posible to use a warfare DP and A psyche DP to create a Defensive Spell blocking the spell they are using?
The post above was, to be blunt, the last straw in terms of my ability to deal with Ana's player. First she had Ana spend a huge amount of time chattering in a situation where seconds clearly meant lives. Then she continued a pattern of wanting to make exceptions to the rules (in this case casting a spell without hanging it first) but pay only a fraction of the costs that I plainly posted on the web-site (in this case offering me 2 DPs for something listed as 4). In assembling the log, I can totally see why I felt guilty about dumping her out of the game on this line... it's not so annoying on its own, it's just "more of the same"... the continuation of a pattern of willful cluelessness that convinced me she wasn't even bothering to pay attention to anything other than herself.

Ana breaks out of the trance into sudden motion, throwing off the medics around her as if they were rag dolls. She runs toward the small outbuilding that houses the armory and battery.

"GET AWAY FROM THERE!" she shouts at the men working to unload gunpowder. There is a searing flash of light. When Tempest blinks the tears from her eyes she sees that the courtyard is still bathed in a caustic white light. A lightning bolt hangs suspended and writhing above the battery. It has clearly foregone striking the much higher spires of the main building in order to target that one place.

Ana is standing near the building, her hands raised toward the captive lightning. Every muscle in her body is tense, and sweat pours off of her in rivulets. She is gasping rapid harsh phrases in a language Tempest doesn't know, and frankly doesn't want to know. The soldiers around her are momentarily stunned by the uncanny sight of death hanging above them in such a concrete fashion.
"MOVE!" Tempest orders to the shocked soldiers, her voice splitting the silence like a shot "Grab the nearest keg and get to the other side of the castle. NOW!"

A rush of activity follows as the realization of what they're seeing sinks in.
The soldiers fling themselves over earthen piles just inside the main wall. Those already safe lean far out to help drag their running comrades to safety. Tempest is, of course, behind to make sure that all her men reach as much cover as possible, and so there are several pairs of hands roughly pulling her down to relative safety when the lightning bolt strikes and the world goes all to fire and roaring.

Tempest opens her eyes. The world is strangely silent, filled with ringing like the echoes of madrigal's bells. She looks down and hazily realizes that her right sleeve is on fire. She bats it out. In bits and pieces clarity returns. A few men still cling to the battlements, and all of her men appear to have cleared the blast area, though many of them have been struck by falling and flaming debris. She begins to hear, faintly, moaning and movement, but the ringing is still very strong.
She holds her nose and pops her ears to try and clear some of it away as she climbs unsteadily to her feet. "See.." she stops and clears her throat and tries again. "See to the wounded," she says and hopes it's loud enough to get past the ringing in everyone else's ears.
The soldiers just shake their head, clearly more deafened than Tempest was. However, they are well trained and it is easy for them to interpret her motions as an order that they pretty much expected any way. They start clustering together, triaging themselves and carrying away the worst of the wounded.
Climbing out from behind one of the piles, she moves in to get a better assessment of the damage, Ana among it.
There isn't a corpse, not even pieces of a corpse. Frankly, at point blank range on that explosion it would be a surprise if anything survived.

Standing, she looks at the ruins of the battery and then scowls as she stalks purposefully up to the battlements. Bastards. Tempest gives the demon horde nary a look. They were beneath her contempt. Instead she looks out to see if there is any sign of her reinforcements.
That would be -very- gutsy, since the vanguard of the horde is even now scaling the walls, digging their claws into the mortar, and climbing up each other in their bloodlust. Though they have not yet reached the battlements, they will very soon.

Looking out over the field, Tempest sees a figure unfolding to its full height (perhaps ten feet). It is covered in black plates like armor or chitin, save for its head which is furred and antlered like that of a stag. Or rather, it has fur and antlers, and that is the full extent of its similarity to a stag, unless you count a horribly diseased and deformed stag.

Somebody manages to complete the operation of hoisting Tempest's flag up the flag-pole of the castle. The stag-man looks, it must be said, disconcerted.
Somebody manages to complete the operation of hoisting Tempest's flag up the flag-pole of the castle. The stag-man looks, it must be said, disconcerted.

She shakes her fist in that direction while drawing another pistol from her belt.. "HEY, COCKSMOKER! YOU MISSED!"

Tempest fires off a shot at the creature's right eye. Something strange and twisting happens in the air before the thing's face, and a small wriggling fish bounces ineffectually off of its crusted forehead to flop to the ground. The demon takes a moment to crush out the fish's life with one pus-covered hoof.

"Betrayal!" it shouts, "This place was to be ours. We were guaranteed that your kind would not interfere. This is not as agreed!"
Tempest snorts. Damn wizards. "And just who was your bargain with?" she shouts. "Because, if I were in your shoes, I would take it out of their mangy hide!" She gestures for the men to get up here and fire at the demons scaling the wall. "In fact!" she continues. "I might even be inclined to help you nail them!"
The demon seems shocked. "You mean you would willingly face..." then a look of malicious cunning crosses its face. "Ah, you do not know," it says with a grotesque smile. "In that case I will be generous. You may flee now. It would be wise. I will give you my word that none here will live who would carry word of it to your people."
Tempest laughs loud and disdainfully as she accepts another pistol from one of her men and fires on another demon on the wall. "Blow it out your ass!" she sneers arrogantly. "My "kind" do not run!"
She blows one of the beasts back into a crawling horde of its fellows, and perhaps a dozen of them fall back to the ground. Her soldiers are mounting the walls, with the less-wounded lugging up powder and spare muskets. Soon there is a withering barrage of gunfire, cutting through the lines of the beasts.
"What an asshammer," she mutters to the man beside her.
The man shakes his head to clear his ringing ears, and clearly tries to figure out whether Tempest just gave him an order, but when she turns to leave he quickly trades his spent musket to a wounded soldier for a fresh one, and resumes firing.
Tempest drops down behind the battlement wall and pulls out Julian's trump card. She was perfectly willing to battle hordes of fighting men by herself but there was more here than she bargained for.
The contact is a long time coming, but finally Julian's picture takes on life and breath. He is in a portable command tent, of the type that Tempest has seen many times before. Her hearing still has some ringing, but she thinks that some of the more distant sounds of gunfire she is hearing are from his side of the Trump. He glances toward something she cannot see, looking for a moment over her shoulder, then says "Tempest... this is not a very good time."
"Figures," she replies. "It isn't here either. I've got some demon leading a horde of demons here telling me they were promised none of my kind would be here and Bergamo would be theirs. I'm pretty sure Ana has already fallen. Well, vaporized might be a better word. There was an explosion and now I can't find even her piggy toe."
A small smile creases his lips. "What a terrible tragedy," Julian says, "Fiona will be crushed."
"It was tragic really," Tempest remarks drily
Then he narrows his eyes, looking over Tempests wounds and the generally devastated appearance of the area. "What of you?" he asks. "Are you equal to the situation?"
"That depends. Do I trump everyone out someplace else and leave that coward Bergamo to his fate-he locked the gates and taunted us before all the locals were in, the finkweasel-or do I do the noble thing and stay and fight. Decisions, decisions..."
Julian glares. "I don't have time for games, Tempest," he says flatly.
"Ah, is it any wonder I love you?" she smirks. "Alright. I just found it interesting that they expected this place to be Amberite free and theirs for the taking." She shrugs. "Must be just me. You get back your problem and I'll get back to mine."
Tempest covers the Trump card, ending the contact.

Tempest returns her attention to the battle. The men on the battlements appear (from the fact that they are neither overrun nor firing wildly) to have driven off the wave of beasts. But they look scared, very scared.

When Tempest reaches the battlements and looks out, she sees immediately why. The stag-demon has taken one of its own men, eviscerated it, and now the creatures vitals are hanging in the air in an insane and mind-warping tracery of blood and insanity. Most of the men (and many of the opposing force) are unable to look at it. Some are vomiting or weeping uncontrollably. Even Tempest finds it intensely uncomfortable to look upon: she gets the distinct impression that the thing is defying several of the laws of Cornaro's geometry.

Tearing her eyes away from the monstrosity for a moment to scan the tactical situation, Tempest does see one reason for cheer. A cloud of dust nearing the edge of town will be her reinforcement riders. They should enter the fray in ten minutes, perhaps even a little less.

There is a chill wind, and a darkening at the edge of town. The darkness spreads in rapid leaps and bounds. Where it passes, buildings twist. As it comes closer, Tempest can see that the darkness is actually the withering and blackening of grass, the staining of the ground itself. Cold white vapor rises from the spreading stain as it flows under and around the stag-thing on its way to the gate.

It is the Black Road. And it is coming, moving and driven in a way that Tempest has never before even heard of, much less seen.
"Oh...shit," Tempest whispers. She had to stop this and she had a moment's doubt that she could.

"Open fire!" she cries and points her own musket at the hanging innards. "Shoot it!" The bastard couldn't turn them all into fish and hopefully some would pass through and get him.

The men open fire raggedly, streamers of smoke and even flaming gunpowder reaching out to the horrible moving, growing vision that hangs in the air. It swells slightly. The bullets pass into it and become a part of it, and it stretches forth its vile essence along the tendrils of smoke, the rippling paths of broken air.

The Black Road reaches the gateway. It shudders.
"Shitshitshit!" Tempest growls. "Merde. I hate these things."

"Prepare to shoot as they come in. If they do," she orders the men on the wall near her so they can pass it around. "And stay off that thing! The party's about to really get rocking."

She glances out at the demon and gives him the universal gesture of annoyance though she looks anything but annoyed when she gives it. "You're still a cocksmocker!"

She turns and skips down a few stairs and yells down at the men in the courtyard. "Find that spineless Bergamo! I have some questions for him!
One of the men shouts back up, "We've looked for him, Princess. The Duke is gone!"
"Pig!" she snarls. Tempest spits on the ground for emphasis. "How did he get out?"
"Last anybody saw he went into the chapel," the man responds, "Only place we didn't check was the catacombs themselves."
"That's probably where he is," Tempest grumbles. "I really should let them have this place with him in it."

She dashes back up and shouts over the wall. "HEY! You with the antlers! I just have one question!"
The gate crumbles. Darkness swells into the courtyard of the castle. Beasts run along it, slavering. Gunfire roars, but still they keep coming.

"ASK!" the demon shouts in reply.
Tempest blows the head off one without much more than a glance before firing. "Do you or your string puller know the spineless worm that owns this joint?" she yells back.
"This castle is nothing!" the creature bellows as he strides forward, dismemberment flowing around him like a nightmare, to aid his forces at the gate. "We have been promised this world, and we will take it all!"
"Aw, and we were just starting to be friends!" Tempest calls back before taking aim at another nasty and splitting his skull. "But I kinda like this place the way it was, thanks all the same."
The creature bellows with fury. "How dare you continue to mock me! Come to me and I will soak the ground with your tainted blood! My name is Jorgan, and I am POWER!"
She glances in the direction of the approaching troops as she draws her sword. "Hurry up, dammit," she mutters.
Jorgan blows through the defenders at the gate. The sinews and smoke of his diabolical construct lash out in all directions, wrapping around necks, tearing at eyes.

If you want them to continue to be a disciplined fighting force while being torn at by raw madness I'm going to request that you spend two DPs of either Warfare or Endurance to bulwark the unit.
Done.

Tempest hides her own distaste at this spectacle and continues on as if it was something she saw everyday in an effort to keep the men from fleeing and to maintain discipline.

"Now, Jorgan," Tempest drawls as she wades in, keeping to the stairs to give her some extra height on this tall bastards. "I don't recall the invitations saying "Bring a Date" and here you have that rather charming companion. I really must protest"
The creature's horrific face twists into an expression of raw malice. The necks of half a dozen men, captive to the construct, snap like twigs. But the thing itself seems to be losing coherence as Jorgan's concentration is shattered. "A DATE?" he screeches, "This is the Logrus, source of all power, and I it's master! I will tolerate your scorn no longer, half-breed!"

As the last of this "Logrus" fall unattended to the ground, Jorgan bears claws and leaps up the stairs, clearly intent upon tearing Tempest to pieces. The Grenadiers have their own troubles, now forced to saber's point with the still huge army of man-beasts, so Tempest probably cannot expect help from that quarter.
Tempest isn't about to throw off her training to attack willy nilly. Her ability to maintain in the face of overwhelming odds is one of the sources of her vanity after all. So she's more controlled than he appears to be. People who fight mad, fight stupid and she'll take advantage of the fact that he's pretty annoyed at the moment.
Jorgan fights hard, and with seeming disregard for the slices and surface wounds that Tempest is peppering him with. He forces her back up the staircase and onto the battlements. He pushes harder, clearly intending to climb onto the battlements and regain the advantage of height.
Well, now, Tempest is not above fighting dirty (an honest trait from her father's side of the family), although that's not what she calls it. To her it is 'taking advantage of a situation'.

With that in mind, she is not above taking advantage of a situation should such a situation present itself.
The creature pushes up onto the battlement, and though Tempest gets in several cuts they seem to be knitting up with quite unnatural (and unfair) speed. From the battlements, Tempest can see that her reinforcements are riding down upon the milling hell-beasts like the Hammer of God. Still, the numbers are very much not in their favor. It looks like about an even fight without either side having a commander to swing things in their favor.

"I will not," Jorgan pants, "allow a puny half-breed like... yourself to... stop me."
"There is no dishonor in losing to me," Tempest counters. "You wouldn't be the first."

"I grow weary of this game," she says, sounding bored before her blade suddenly becomes a blur of silver and Tempest surges everything into the fight.
So, are you spending DPs to increase your skill? Or just testing out how well he fares against an all-out attack?
Test first. Tempest arrogantly believes she can take this mangy stag-thing. She's just toying with him.
And if that arrogance were going to get you into trouble in this instance I'd reward you for it... but since she happens to be right...

Tempest pushes forward savagely, and Jorgan is forced back. He seems exhausted, the energy that fuelled his rage spent. The anger and arrogance fades from his eyes, to be replaced by fear, and the wounds that Tempest inflicts, they aren't closing anywhere near as quickly.
Her offensive attack aggressively pushes him back, back, back along the wall of the battlements. "Who promised you this Shadow?" she demands, her blade coming closer to ending it right there.
"If I tell you," he says, his eyes unable to tear themselves from the sight of her flickering blade, "What assurances will you give me?"
The blade presses into the flesh at the base of his neck.
The demon darts away from the blade, but the moment of easy contact has clearly put yet more fear into its eyes.
"You are really in no position to bargain," she points out. "Afterall, how do I know if I let you live that you'll take your demons and road and go home?"
"Well, if I can't bargain..." he says, then begins to throw himself over the side of the wall toward the horde of troops below.
"Oh, I don't think so," Tempest growls, annoyed now, her blade flashing as it draws back and returns to separate the demon's head from its body.
There is a massive gout of black ichor, and the creature falls down into the midst of its cannibalistic horde (which promptly starts clustering over themselves in an attempt to get at the food). Tempest can't be absolutely sure, however, whether it was just a terrible wound or an actual decapitation. Doesn't really matter though... nobody could possibly survive the blow and the beasts.
Tempest raises the ichor covered sword over her head and lets out a victorious yell, meant to boost the morale of the men below. Lord knows she doesn't need it as she charges down the stairs to engage the easier targets, bellowing the Cornaron battle cry at the top of her lungs
The cry is echoed loudly from outside the gates, where fresh reinforcements start cutting their way toward the castle. Within the gates, however, things are still looking quite grim. The beasts are pushing inwards, and those just outside the gates look to the courtyard as a refuge from the troops riding down upon them.

There are several bodies in Grenadier uniforms on the ground, along with many Cornaran soldiers. The remaining forces are exhausted, their morale and discipline holding but their sword-arms weak.

The beasts outside of the castle break with a long series of ululations. It is clear to Tempest in an instant that they are scattering, no longer a unit, simply mad beasts fleeing in all directions. If Tempest doesn't take a personal hand, immediately, in hunting them down many will escape.
She's inside, they're outside... ? Can she fly? ;)

"Fuck it," Tempest decides and starts cutting her way through the forces in the courtyard, yelling orders to the men remaining inside to form an inverted wedge behind her to keep the demons contained as much as possible
The soldiers try desperately to push the demons back far enough to create a formation, but the effort fails. They are pushed back to the cratered gunpowder battery and the entrance to the main castle (wherein are clustered all the civilians).

There is, however, plenty enough chaos in the courtyard for Tempest to force a bloody path for herself through the gates and meet up with the larger, safer portion of her forces.
Tempest scans quickly and finds the insignia for the 21st nearby and calls for them to follow her back in, this time as a wedge with her at the point. This one should defiantly work, what with a whirling dervish of death at the point.
I'm losing track of what you're doing, sorry. Where is the 21st? Inside the courtyard? Outside? Follow her back in where?
Outside. To follow her back inside. I gathered she had met up with her forces outside the gate
Oh, sorry. I was offering that as an option, not saying that you had to do it.
Well, unless she can single-handedly defend the castle where the civilians are until the reinforcements get inside...

What am I saying? Of course she can! She is Tempest!
Take a DP in your choice of denomination off of raw arrogance! Woohoo!

Tempest screams and leaps into the midst of the oncoming horde. Laying about her with her blade in one hand, and slamming her free fist into anything that looks even a little bit soft, she charges well in front of the lines of exhausted soldiers. Beasts swarm upon her in a massive pile, their claws tearing shallow cuts in her chest, her back, on her arms and legs. She hefts and hacks, and every beast she flings to the ground finds at least a few soldiers with enough energy to just fall on top of it, stabbing as they go.

There is the sound of gunfire close at hand, the clattering of hooves on cobbles, but Tempest can't see any of what is going on. All she can see is blood-matted fur, lunging fangs and ripping claws. Targets, targets, how she loves a target-rich environment. She bites and kicks, head-butts and body-slams, and then in a moment it's over. Fresh men are pulling demons bodily off of her, and she has to check a swing that would have decapitated a lieutenant in the 21st lancers.

When the soldiers see that Tempest is still standing, a murmur of fear and near religious awe goes through their ranks. They seem to be working their way up to a ragged cheer. As the fury of battle ebbs, Tempest feels as if her skin is on fire. Her clothes are in tatters, and she is bleeding sluggishly from dozens of superficial gashes up and down her body. A sudden wave of nausea pulls at her.
Tempest waves off a medic. "Tend to those too wounded to stay on their feet," she says as she pushes her matted hair back from her face again as she takes a step, her boot coming up against the fallen body of former foe.

"Captain Vega!" she hollers for the leader of the 21st, scowling. "Start two details. One for the proper burial of our fallen-Bergamo is going to generously donate a parcel of land for a cemetery whether he likes it or not. Have the second detail start building pyres to burn this .." she kicks the demonic corpse at her feet and sneers. "This trash."

She strides to the castle steps and turns to address the soldiers. "Well done! You have served Cornaro well this day! And now, someone find that cowardly ass, Bergamo and bring him to me! In chains if necessary!"
The soldiers roar their approval, including even a few of Bergamo's own men who have been pulled into the fighting.
She scans the men and spots one of her aides who had come in with the reinforcements. "Medici! I will be in the master suite. I am claiming it as a base until we're ready to leave!"
"Yes, Highness," he says immediately, "Will we be leaving soon, or shall I have the men set up camp?"
"The burial and burning details are going to take awhile," Tempest says grimly. "And I don't doubt that the townsfolk will need some help. Some of those demons got away. They may be back. Better set up camp."

Tempest turns on her heel and makes her way inside, looking for a servant.
The instant she is inside, Tempest is mobbed by grateful villagers, tears in their eyes. They bow, they grovel, they sing and cheer. Many of them are simply shaking, unable to move, filled with the stunning realization that they will live. Tempest does manage to pin down somebody who, from their livery, was a servant in the castle itself.
Tempest smiles, nods and tries to get people to settle before she turns to the servant. "Bergamo's rooms. I will be using them. I would like a bath and a meal immediately and find me some clothes. I will also need an inventory of the castle's stores."
The servant takes Tempest to Bergamo's luxurious rooms, and finds a lady's maid to help her. The maid putters around, drawing a bath and then flittering in and out with flouncy dresses for Tempest to try on.
"Oh, get out," Tempest scowls from the bathtub as she pushes back her clean hair. "Just find me one of Bergamo's silk shirts for now and leave it on the bed. Then find me some *pants* that will fit me and have my boots cleaned."

"No one is allowed in until I say so after someone comes up with my food. Prisoners can bloody well wait until I call for them. Even Bergamo," she adds with a faint smirk.

Staying upright long enough to get out and get a shirt on and eat a little something before she passes the hell out
It's pitch black, the only light is the faint ruddy glow of torchlight from the camp, bouncing in the window and off the ceiling. Something is battering against the glass. A bat. An albino bat. It brushes against the glass with a sound like dry twigs in wind, then flies away. Every part of Tempest's body hurts, but the major bleeding seems to have stopped, and she feels like she could get up and stomp around scaring people a little, if she's careful about it.
Tempest stretches gingerly, wincing as she does, before she very carefully swings her feet to the floor and stands slowly. Stupid bat.

Ravenous. That snack had only taken the edge off. She searches in the half light for the bell pull and yanks it to summon a servant. She then casts about for a lamp and flint to get real light in so she could take a look at her own injuries before anyone else came in. All things considered, not too bad. But she takes perverse pleasure in ripping up one of Bergamo's silk shirts to using as dressings on the likely bleeders on her torso and arms and legs.

She finds the pants, which are thankfully a little loose. No rubbing against her injured hide too badly. Pulling on her boots is an exercise in discomfort but she, by god, will not let anyone see how bad off she feels. The sword belt gets buckled on before she makes her way out to the sitting room as the summoned servant comes in.

"Food," she says brusquely. "And a hair brush and then have my aide Medici come in."
A hearty meal is brought in immediately. They clearly had it ready, under a silvery tray to keep warm. A brush follows an instant later, an essential tool in and lady's maid's arsenal.

Medici takes longer. When he gets to Tempests room his is clearly very worn from the many things that must be done to get the chaotic situation under control. He grits his teeth and squints a little, trying not to show any weakness or inattention before his commanding officer.
She doesn't have to ask for a report. She just gives him The Look.

"We've resecured the town," he says "and set up a cordon. Some of the creatures tried to make their way back, but I think we've convinced them that they're better off staying away. The road is giving us trouble, particularly in the castle itself. Things just show up along its length. Pretty minor things so far, but unsettling. The civilians are a little battle-shocked, so for the moment it's easy to keep them under control. Won't last though... it never does. Still, by the time they get restless we should be able to have them back in their homes, cleaning up."

He seems very nervous, as if he's really hoping that Tempest won't ask one particular question.
"Sit down, Medici," she says, gesturing at the chair across from her with a chicken bone. "Have a cup of coffee before you pass out."

She waits for him to sit then eyes him as she rips off a hunk of bread. "You can't find him, can you?"
Heehee... this is why they're going to get together a group to burn Tempest at the stake as a witch one of these days. You know that, don't you?

"No, Princess," he says, shame and fear comingled on his face. "There was an underground passage out of the castle, known only to himself, and I suppose to the laborers, long gone. He made his way to the catacombs and thence fled. We have men out combing the countryside near where the tunnel emerges, but he has a substantial head-start."
"Bastard," she growls. "Well, there's nothing for it now. I want a couple of the local surviving landowners with a squad of escort on the road to Roma as soon as they can get things rounded up to go to give their testimony to the Council and the Church. He'll lose his lands and titles for this. Part of his responsibility as a Don is to see to the protection of all his peoples. Not leave them to the wolves and flee like a rabbit while they're being torn to pieces."
Medici's face is an eloquent testimonial to skepticism, as he obviously calculates the odds on a Don getting in trouble for screwing over the peasants. But he holds his tongue.
She glowers as she pauses to sip her wine. "You said the road is still giving us trouble?" She asks with a feral smile. "Well, we can't have this place keep getting assaulted like that, can we? I don't know. Can you think of anything better than just torching this place?"
"Not particularly, Princess," he says. "Doesn't matter what sort of defenses we put up if the land itself is accursed of God."
"Good," she nods. "Then after we empty the place of everything of value, we'll bring it down. Can't have anything getting into the catacombs and tunnels, now, can we?"
"Yes'm," he says quickly. "I'll just have the chaplain see to desanctifying the chapel then. Anything else needs doing?"
Tempest eats while she talks. "We need to go through this place and get the usual valuables. The bastard owes us. We wouldn't have had as many dead to bury if he had kept the gates open like he was supposed to. Then let the locals come in and strip the furnishings. Some of us need new horses, so have someone get them out of the stables for us. Anything left, the village gets. As soon as someone has decided a fair market value for the valuables, make sure to keep the Church's cut and the State's cut separate before divvying up the rest."
"Errr, meaning no disrespect Your Highness," Medici says carefully, "but if you're going to permit looting we should probably gather up the Tithe and the Tax before setting the men loose. It's the kind of thing where even a good soldier can get a little carried away."
"Well, of course," Tempests replies. "What did you think I meant?"
"Sorry, Your Highness," he says quickly. "Must be the long duty, getting to me. I'll assign that to somebody a bit more rested."
"Make sure the men are getting food and rest, including yourself. I mean it. On your way out, send in that silly maid again"
"Yes'm," he says, retreating quickly. The maid comes in immediately, though she too seems a little worn and shocked by the events of the day.
Tempests sets down the bone that was once a turkey leg and looks at the maid. "Are there any Bergamo family heirlooms we should see to the safety of?"
"Well, there's the Duke-mum's jewels, I guess... and then there's the tapestries in the main hall, very old some of those tapestries. And belike the Duke's chambers have some things, though I've seldom been there, milady, but I could ask around."
"Bring me jewels," she says as she drains her wine glass. "I'll check through here myself. Have the tapestries packed up to be sent along to the Pope."

Tempest rises. "And have the kitchens just start cooking until they run out of food and wine. With the Black Road out there, we have no choice but to abandon this site. As soon as everyone and everything is out, we'll be bringing it down."

As soon as the girl leaves, she'll start searching the rooms for anything that strikes her as significant

Time passes, details are glossed, narrative unfolds....

As the last of the servants are loading tapestries onto carts for transport to Roma, Tempest's attention is attracted by a sudden angry shouting, of many men. Rushing to the scene, she sees lieutenants of both sides holding apart two small but very angry groups, one of Bergamo's men and one of Julian's grenadiers. One of Bergamo's men lies dead on the ground, his blood pooling under him.
Tempest glowers at the lot of them. "STAND DOWN! What in the name of all that's holy is going on?"
"This... honorless dog..." a black-haired Cornaran spits, pointing across the way at a Grenadier being held back by two of his comrades, "Just slaughtered my friend under guise of a duel!"

"The sonuvabitch said 'Give me satisfaction or die where you stand' and drew his sword on me," the Grenadier says, his eyes fixed on Tempest. "I only did what I had to do."
"And just what?" she demands evenly-always a bad sign, "Were you fighting about?"
"Your Majesty," the young man says, calming in the arms of his comrades, "I don't even know."

"He called us fools for doing our duty!" the angry Cornaran shouts.

The young grenadier shakes his head, "Your Majesty, all I said was that I couldn't follow a man who'd abandon his own troops..." But as Tempest stares at him the young man admits, "... well, maybe I also said I didn't think much of those who would."

"No doubt there are many that share the first sentiment," Tempest scowls. "My self included. But you of all people should know that orders have to be followed. Even when we don't agree with them. It's in the job description."
The man pauses for a long time. He takes several deep breaths. Then he says, "Of course, Majesty. I... I was wrong. I apologize."

There is an outburst of angry shouting from the Cornarans. They don't seem terribly satisfied.
"I said Stand. Down." Tempest says in that 'do not fuck with me' voice of command. "You are members of my command and another outburst will be viewed very dimly. There is only so much I will attribute to the stress of our battle and this accursed place."

She turns back to the Rangers. "You, however, are Rangers and I know you are better than this. I suggest that you, personally, see that the deceased man's family receives some sort of restitution. See Lt. Medici now and find out who and where they are and then report back to me."

She turns back to her Cornarans. "One of you go find the priest. The rest of you, burial detail with honors."

"Your Majesty," the original spokesman of the Cornarans says, passion infusing his voice. His left eye twitches violently, and his jaw is set firmly, but beyond that he manages, by some obscene effort of will, to keep his face neutral. "This... Ranger... violated the most sacred rules of a duel of honor."
Tempest raises an eyebrow. "Explain.... "
The man warms to his topic quickly. "My friend Lucio," he says, pointing to the body, "was the finest swordsman in the Duke's service." A brief murmur of agreement goes through the Cornaran crowd. "Had this foreigner fought fairly, with a rapier, or even requested another honorable weapon, my friend would still be alive. Instead, as soon as Lucio moved to engage the foreign dog threw dirt in his eyes and gutted him with a dagger... a cowards weapon!"
Tempest's jaw twitches. A classic example of cultural differences. However, Tempest took a dim view of duels on a battlefield.

"Tell me something. Is this, or is this not still considered-by me- a battlefield? Is arguing over the body of your fallen comrade honoring him in death?"
"But..." the man flounders, "... he died defending his honor. Surely we cannot let his murderer simply walk away..." He looks desperately to Tempest, clearly unwilling to believe that she would allow such a breach of honor, now that the situation has been explained.
Tempest gives the Rangers still loitering around a hard look and then addresses the Cornarans in their native tongue. "I am not going to debate this over this man's body. It is gruesome. Nor am I going to stop in the middle of this operation to conduct a trial of honor. Or have you forgotten everything I've taught you, not to mention your orders? I will be expecting sworn statements from all involved in my hands by lunch time day after tomorrow. There will be consequences. But we simply cannot afford to do it now, here, after we have already lost so many."

"Or are you inferring that you no longer trust me?"

There is some muted grumbling, particularly among Bergamo's men (whom Tempest has never trained), but they fall to their duties.

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