Log:Expedition to Earth-946, Scene 4

Expedition to Earth-946 2008/07/23 	 Jennifer Sable Trueshot Yolanda Hungry 4

Jennifer asks Yolanda, "Can you ask Trueshot if the demons are living sentient beings? It's kind of important to me."

Trueshot shrugs. "Vey are demons, cruerr as ve vinter."

Jennifer sighs, "Okay, since we've asked twice and not been answered either time I'll assume they are. That makes it a lot harder."

Sable says, "But are they intelligent, self-aware beings? Do they die when they're bodies here are destroyed or do they just return to their home dimension?"

Sable says, "Perhaps we should ask someone who knows more about demons. Are there any scholars in the city?"

Trueshot says, a little annoyed, "I am no sorcerer to know vese fings!"

The old man has overheard from his seat by the fire. "Perhaps I can herrp?"

Jennifer nods, "Fair enough answer. You could have said that the first time." She turns to the old man, "Perhaps you can. It's a question of whether the demons out there are living sentient beings or just animals or magical creations?"

Sable nods to Trueshot. "Fair enough." She turns to Jennifer. "We should seek out an expert while the mangonels are being built." She blinks as the old man approaches. "Tjasviju. We would like to know whether Icy Breath's demons are intelligent living creatures. Do you know anyone who might be able to tell us?

Sable smiles to Jennifer. "Sorry for interrupting."

The old man looks into space as if trying to recall something clearly. "They are of demonkind, not of this worrd. Few are the weapons that can sray them trury. They have not the wit of man, but they are more than animarrs - and yet they are ress than animarrs and more than man, they are other."

Sable transfer into the local tongue. "So killing their bodies does not detroy their spirits?"

The old man replies (in that same language), "Not without an ensorcelled sword, or the claws of a demon, or some other such thing. THough they say Brun himself needed no such things."

Sable nods to the old man and turns to explain to Jennifer. "Destroying their bodies does not harm their spirits."

Jennifer grins. "Okay! Been there. Done that. It's just so much easier. Now... let's talk catapults and fire." She looks at the scholar, "What's the state of the art in seige weapons here?"

Sable follows Jennifer's gaze, waiting for the sage's response.

"Erm - catapurrts and fire..."

Jennifer nods. "Good. Sable, lets go see them, hey?"

Sable nods firmly. "Do you have any that have already been constructed?"

"There are some, but they stay back from the walls."

Sable says, "Where are they keptHH:nods. "Prudent." She smiles to Jenn. "Let's give them the once over.""

Jennifer looks at Sable and Yolanda. "I'm thinking we might need to go talk to the King again after touring the defenses. Get some answers. Does it look to you like this city used to be more prosperous at one time. It seems this place has been going downhill for a while."

The old man laughs. He seems to find something funny in that.

Sable says, "Perhaps the weight of sustained over-taxation has taken its toll."

Jennifer looks over at the old man, "Spit it out. You know something."

"The whorre rand has been going downhirr since King Brun went to meet death, and that was rong ago. How can there being a kingdom with no king? Or twerrve - no, erreven now." He's sure to say this in English.

Jennifer frowns, "Uh, how long ago was King Brun killed?" She asks intently.

Sable's lips purse as she watches the exchange.

He has to think a bit before saying, "More than twerrve hundred winters now."

Yolanda nods, listening, interested in hearing the old man's question. She asks, "He died without an heir?"

He laughs again. "That was not the man he was. He died with too many!"

"Ah." Yolanda says simply. She looks to Jennifer. "We need to talk to the King again? What do we need?"

Sable says, "Jennifer just wanted to know why things weren't better, which is to say, why the king wasn't doing doing his job better."

Jennifer shakes her head worriedly. "I thought Kihzra was the daughter of Brun? If I remember right... we have some serious time slippage going on. Oh, the King? Making arrangements to get the resources needed for the distraction we'll use to cover the assault on the encampment."

Sable says, "Kihzra is Brun's daughter."

Sable reverts to the local language. "so if one of Brun's children were still alive they would be rightful ruler?"

"The king takes after his father and his father. But they are not of Brun's rine. The lioness *is* of Brun's line. Only in her tribe did the rine of Brun stirr run true. But they are dead now."

The old man sticks to English, and looks sharply at Sable.

Yolanda nods to Jennifer. "I'll see if I can talk to the King about that; it will give me something useful to do." She looks to the old man. "But they're not all dead though. I'm understanding more about why Kihzra was banished to Earth."

Jennifer gives the old man a firm gaze. "There's no need to confuse the issue of breaking the seige with such revelations at this time is there? We need the King's support. He might make poor decisions if he thinks his position is being threatened."

"He might make them anyway," says old man. "His grandfather was a brigand, not a king. But you would do werr not to mention the name of the rioness in his parrace. At reast, not in his ranguage."

Jennifer nods.

Yolanda nods to the old man. "Thanks for that piece of advice. Jennifer, is there a list of things that we need to get that I can take to the King?"

Jennifer says, "Not until I see what they have already and that I can make use of. Sable probably needs to see the siege engines. It's not my area of expertise. Making explosives and incendiary devices is though."

Yolanda nods. "Well, let's get started. I'm at your disposal, Jennifer. If there's something that you need me to do or to get, just say so."

Jennifer nods. "The tour first. See what we have to work with. If Sable can extend the range of the catapults we can give the army out there a surprise. Especially if I can cook up something interesting to throw."

The young guard takes Sable on a tour of the catapults. They're pretty primitive. Evidently the town lacks anything like a real siege engineer.

Sable's suggestions meet with a lukewarm reception; they probably don't really like being told their jobs.

They just shrug. "We've always done it this way."

Sable's lips curl into a soft smile and she nods. "Well then that must be the best way to do it."

Jennifer steps forward, "Excuse me, Sable, maybe I can help?" She says on seeing the careless shrug. She picks the spokesperson of the siege engineers up in one hand and dangles him in the air. "Tell them they are going to try your suggestions on one engine." She advises Sable while keeping the engineer dangling.

For some reason, this seems to change their minds and they decide to give it a go after all.

Jennifer puts the engineer down and brushes off her hands. "You were never in the military, were you Sable." She grins. "Soldier motivation 101. It's timeless in application."

Sable translates the suggestion as directed and turns to Jenn. "Wow, you can be really persuasive when you want to be!"

Sable's shoulders lift slightly. "No, never in the military I'm civilian through and through."

The modify one of the catapults according to Sable's instructions.

Jennifer grins, "Nah. I just understand how to get a soldier to obey. It's a specialised artform. Not much use anywhere outside the military."

Sable says, "Well it sure did the trick here, and I thought being personable was the way to go."

Jennifer says, "Nice job, Sable. Now I need to cook up some ammo for it. Fire if I have to. Case shot or explosive loads if I can find the stuff I want."

Sable says, "Case shot out of a catapult, that will give them a shock."

On testing, range does seem to have improved, though it may take a bit of practice to get the aim right.

Yolanda says, "Congrats, Sable. Looks like it's working fine."

Jennifer nods smiling. "Yep. There's an army sitting just inside what is now the new catapult range."

The engineers seem excited by this and set about modifying the other catapults.

Sable smiles and nods to the catapult operators. "Great work men, you have just brought your city that much closer to freedom."

Yolanda smiles as the men begin to work on the other catapults. "Seeing is believing, apparently."

Jennifer checks what the catapults have available as payloads.

They don't have much, any more. By the look of it they've already chucked out most of what they can spare (parts of the king's palace excepted).

Jennifer looks to the scholar. "Okay, take me to your fire making place. I need to see what I have to work with."

"Fire making place?"

Jennifer sighs, "Do the catapults ever throw flaming missiles?" She asks the old man.

"The catapults? No, I don't think so..."

Sable says, "Do you have charcoal?"

Sable says, "Charcoal, salt-peter can be found in any pile of dung, and sulfur"

"Charcoal, yes, I'm sure..."

Jennifer chuckles, "You do have fire. I've seen one in the King's palace. Do you have lamp oil? Coal? Anything like that?"

"Lamp oil, yes... coal, pitch..."

Jennifer grins. "Good start. Charcoal you have. Dung heaps, white crystals inside of. That's saltpeter. Sulpher, more tricky. But often used in primitive medicines so might be some around. Chalk dust, thickens up oil based materials. We can do this."

"Yes, I'm sure there will be sulphur somewhere." Finding dungheaps isn't much of a problem.

Sable says, "So would anyone have sulfuric Be afraid, be very afraid"

"I shall find out. What do you need these things for?"

Jennifer tells the old scholar. "You don't want to know. Because if you learn then someone will try to squeeze the answer out of you. Best you make sure everyone knows you don't have the answers."

He smiles. "BUt I do want to know. That's why my name is Gorazhbeehn, Hungry. Werr, my mother probabry corred me that for another reason, but that's why I am corrred it now."

Jennifer tells Yolanda and Sable, "I'm not planning on letting the King have gunpowder. He'll probably be as ambitious as Arctic Fox if that happened."

Jennifer says, "Old man, do you want the King to be fighting wars with all the other surviving cities?"

He shakes his head sadly. "Perhaps not. I will find you the sulphur." He goes off to do so.

Sable whispers to Jennifer. "you know he'll work it out for himself with the ingredient list but we don't need to help.'

Jennifer nods, "He'll be able to make meal-powder. Probably not gun-powder."

Sable nods again.

Jennifer seem to know what she's doing, and manages to produce the gunpowder.

Jennifer uses the gunpowder in clay pots packed full of old nails and oil soaked wadding. A fuse trails out of the pot before she seals it. "Happy days. Incendiary catapult payloads." She chuckles on finishing.

Hungry looks on with interest.