Akoujan v. Sapphire Oath: Trial by Combat

Criminal Activity

The Sapphire Oath fight for their dignity, reputation, and future in the Argil courts.  Who doesn't love some D&D Law & Order?

The companions along with the Vizconde and Menna Talo were escorted to the Hall of Justice and held in a meeting room for a few hours to give the judge time to get ready. Upon entry into the court chamber, the companions found the upper gallery for the public full. Despite the court only letting in a limited of outside eyes and the short notice on the hearing, the Sapphire Oath pulled in a full crowd.
  The entry hall had two guards and the main court had another four crossbowman. A captain of the guard served as bailiff. The judge brought along a full plated, claymore wielding hulk that entered that served as his bodyguard that joined him on the upper deck of the 8 ft high desk. To either side of the judge were 3 ft tall platforms with permanent zones of truth glowing upon them. To the right side of the hall sat a table for the Condesa Akoujan and her barrister. To the left was an equal table for the Vizconde and Menna Talo. An additional table was added behind for the Sapphire Oath that threw off the balance of the room.
  The Court hearing was ground first on the independent statements of those involved. From there, topic based questioned was allowed with the participants knowing what kinds of questions were being inquired before taking the platform to make their truth compelled cases.
  The companions maintained their previous statements. Adding to theirs side was the Vizconde's statement which follows:
~ He was approached by the Sapphire Oath on a proposition to pursue the Skyport. They had learned of the prospective project on their adventures and knew it would be big. The adventuring group sought to be included on the project and wanted a man of Iarnan's reputation to lead it as a project of the people.
~ Iarnan was aware of a dubious past for the project but wanted to begin it publicly. He went so far as to hire the group to deal with a possible foundational problem whether or not he committed to the project wanting it to be done safely no matter who undertook the assignment
~ When the Condesa Akoujan approached him after the announcement, he knew she would want to discuss greater details than the public needed to hear.
~ He did not know who the assailants were or experience what exactly drove them off due to his condition at the time.
  Opposite of all of this was the Condesa Akoujan's narrative.
~ She believed the Sapphire Oath meant her legitimate harm despite having never interacted with the adventuring party before in person. While she wished to include “via proxy”, she had sent her advisor to invite Beatle to compete for her patronage at the festival.
~ Two Hours before the skyport announcement, witnesses detailed Beatle the Bard smearing her name with only a false facade after she invited him to her celebration village along with other artists to be a patron of.
~ During the Skyport announcement, she was nothing but supportive of the endeavor. Afterward, she wanted to speak with Vizconde Iarnan in private about his plans and how her expertise in the area.
~ During the assailant's ambush while she was pleading to go to the Temple of the Mighty Light for the Vizconde Iarnan's life, Beatle the Bard pulled her out of the carriage and into the clear view of the assassins.
  After the statements where given, the questioning began. Most questioning the Sapphire Oath received was along the lines of making sure items previously discussed were plainly stated and not cutting corners such as Zith fully intending to protect the Condesa in his Fog Cloud spell.
  The Sapphire Oath questions through Menna Talo pushed for the Condesa to publicly give them more credit. When asked, “Did we offer to help afterward”, and “Did we apologize”, the Condesa shared that the actions had been voiced but that says nothing of their authenticity at the time. She was forced admit that Beatle did not attack the guards to her knowledge nor did any other Sapphire Oath member directly threaten attack or cajole her or her followers after the incident. Despite that, things could have happened beyond her sight and the factional aggression had already been shown. Finally, when asked if she believed that the fog cloud of the Sapphire Oath saved you and everyone,she diverted. The role of the fog cloud was conditional on her being removed from the carriage in the first place and instead pointed to the work of her private guards and those of the city to be beneficial to her independent safety.
  Both sides of the court went easy on the cross examination because neither side wanted to open a closet to let their own skeletons fall out.
  As the trial wore on through the day, the judge did have a question to be answered by the side of the Vizconde Iaran. While the barristers asked questions to sway perspective, the judge was permitted to ask questions to illuminate detail mentioned but not understood. It was his job to come to a verdict and he felt he could not do so without certain knowledge. The question of intent weighed on him. What precisely had caused the Sapphire Oath to have prejudice of the Condesa Akoujan to drive them to even suspect her of hiring the assassins. The judge was open to having any singular person answer the question if it provided context.
  Whoever answered this question would paint the background of the situation. In this case, the seemingly long ago asked favor to not paint the sky yellow now weighed on companions. The truth was that they had learned of her misdeeds from the Saffron Palm. The guild had been instrumental in guiding that opinion. But how not to implicate them. The plan taken was not to have the best person answer the question. It may lead to having more people called but the party started with the person with the least amount of detail hoping to find a suitable answer before it got to anyone who knew anything. Zith was first with his reiterated statements that he had no ill will towards the Condesa. He was a newer addition after all.
  The party then had the Vizconde take the stand. In seeking to answer the question, the Vizconde's own problems with the Sapphire Oath came to light. He knew the Sapphire Oath act under their own interests. Beatle's tale against Akoujan was against the Vizconde's wishes. When planning the announcement of the skyport was initially planned and after the narrative incident, it was agreed that the Sapphire Oath would be secondary announcers to be used in rhetoric. Instead, they took the stage with force. After the Vizconde had made the announcement, they had led the audience interaction. He himself felt like the technical advisor and they were the true owners of the organization. The vizconde knew the party to alpha's and resisted any opposition. From his own experience, their problem with the Condesa was one of territory. Her position and expertise in an area that threatened their desires to own the skyport.
  The Vizconde, pressured by the court, had thrown the Sapphire Oath's reputation under the carriage. While serving the party's end goal, the words still read to the party as an affront. In answering the judge in a way that would somehow end the line of questioning, the Vizconde did not know he was helping the party. If he didn't know he was helping them, this was personal.
  The judge began his final statements. Due to both sides' reticence to push hard beyond the details of the attack itself, the severity of the trial came down to “if's”. If the Condesa had be slain, Beatle would be an accessory to murder. If the actions had deeper motives, something would exposed to the public. As far as the judge saw, this high publicity case came down to middling charges. Before he could give his final verdict, though, he was interrupted by the peanut gallery by someone yelling that there was something he wasn't factoring in.
  The crossbow raised weapons to the left corner as people panicked to get out of the way to reveal who was speaking. The judge, while perturbed, wished to hear what was to be said in a case that was afraid to reveal too much. The slender man atop the gallery then angrily supposed the situation that both of the nobles were guilty. Growing in fervor, the now visibly elven man accused them and the city itself of wishing to expand it's boarders and claim what wasn't theirs.
  Throwing a gem down into the middle of the court room, it sparked with electricity and the room fell into a panic. From the entry hall, rapid stretching and growth of vines was mixed with half screams and gurgles from the guards at the door. Zith slid from his chair and darted under the table and to the side of the room. The juggernaut by the judge removed his charge from the room as the captain of the guard charged toward the second unseen attacker trusting his crossbowmen to take care of the man on the balcony.
  Beatle quipped out at the man on balcony as the guards sent a volley of bolts up at him, riddling through the body. He spat and spasmed but held himself up on the railing as he refused to die. He then incanted out a spell the party had seen before: the aura of clouds and lightning that the assassin had used on the southern rooftop. Surrounded by a crowd of people, many of them were likely to die in seconds.
  In anger, Marduk stood from his chair and strode into the storm as lightning jostled his muscles. Struggling through the spasms, he managed to scale the wall and climb to the balcony. His long arm reached out to grab the dying man's chest The bugbear heaved, trying to bring the man over the balcony to through him to the ground below to save the civilians. As the bugbear heaved, the man dead-weighted his body and leveraged Marduk's joints across the railing. The bugbear fought on with desperation but couldn't find a favorable position handing onto the outside of the railing. The dying man grinned as he whispered to the bugbear that this would be a lesson for the city. As the lightning surged around him, thirteen men women and children where electrocuted to death with another four of them vastly wounded. Two of them stumbled to the entry chamber for a marginally safer position. As Marduk struggled, a final phrase from Beatle was the lasting thing the terrorist heard as he choked on his blood. (Marduk had advantage on two attempts as well as multiple Lucky re-rolls and could not bring the terrorist over the railing knowing the citizen's turn was next).
  From the sparking gem an elemental of pure electricity arose into the court room. Surging over towards Zith's wall, it turned it's attention from the gnome to the adjacent table with the Vizconde and Menna Talo. Launching out an extension of its body, and bolt of lighting crossed the entire room to crash through both men as well as the other barrister and the Condesa Akoujan. The nobles managed to avoid the full blasts while the seconds where struck squarely. While the Condesa's barrister was simply brought down, Menna Talo was blacken and smoking.
  The guards attention switched to the elemental and was spearheaded by the juggernaut's charge across the room. Marduk lept to the ground the flank with the armored behemoth as the others backed away. Despite having no weapon, Marduk lashed out with his fists.
  Outside of this room, the other druidic terrorist summoned a blizzard to segregate the captain of the guard from his aids. This didn't stop Beatle from charging through the ice to join him swiftly followed by a penguin Ravel. No sooner was Ravel through the blinding storm than she was recalled to the main courtroom with calls for aid. The elemental might have been besieged in melee and ranged combat but it had focused on it's charge of eliminating the nobles. By the time Ravel was back through the snow and in her true form, the Vizconde was seconds from a coup de grace.
  The battle pushed out of the room after the juggernaut's enchanted sword finished off the lightning elemental. While Beatle flanked with the captain, Marduk fought through the blizzard. It took a while but eventually the blizzard was dropped. The Sapphire Oath came to find their roll in the battle without equipment as one of utility and tactics over straight damage like their were used to. As the field closed around the druid, Zith magic pulled from the terrorist her true name: Virion Nerinan. Marduk got to the battle just in time to clock her in the back of the head to drop her unconscious so the city would be able to question her.
  As the battle field fell quite, Ravel turned towards the fallen to heal as many as she could while the guards triaged the first aid. Ravel would magically save the Condesa's Barrister and six others that day.
  In the time that followed the conflict, the courtroom splintered into tasks. Some guards continued the first aid they and Ravel had already started. Others broke apart the brier wall that had been used to seal the main exit. The unconscious Galeborn woman Virion Nerinan was double shackled and gagged. Once those two tasks had completed, there was a slow filter of individuals out of the room. The prisoners were taken under guard while the spectators of the day were given one last look over as they were released. In the end, the only individuals left in the courtroom were the Sapphire Oath, the Vizconde Iarnan, the Condesa and her Barrister, and the guards. This day in court would not end without a final sentencing.
  When the judge returned to the room, he brought with him more guards in addition to his juggernaut champion that yet remained. The first order of business the judge had before him was to inquire if any present could identify the attackers. Their assault seemed apropos to what had been shared this day. Despite reticence, the Sapphire Oath would slowly take charge to identify the attackers as Galeborn. The slain individual was one of the ones who had attacked the night in question. Zith shared the name of the captive who he had compelled the true name from. With the information noted, the judge commenced with his judgment.
  “The egregious actions here today show why societies have a duty to act when those of ill intent walk among us. In today's hearing, many truths were stated as to the actions that were taken when these same Galeborn terrorists attacked not two days ago. The actions of the Sapphire Oath on the 15th of the Turning seemed to be in reaction to an alleged alliance between the Condesa Akoujan and the assailants. According to the accounts this day, the Condesa was not affiliated with the Galeborn. One individual, Menna Talo, was not fortunate enough to survive this second attack.”
  “All of that withstanding, there was an unrighteous assault on a noble of this city by Beatle the Bard. Such actions cannot be allowed to go unpunished. Beatle the Bard, you are to be exiled from this city for your crimes against it's ruling class. This is for their defense and to prevent the rising of other citizens to take such actions. While Beatle remains affiliate with his adventuring troupe, whether by the name of the Sapphire Oath or any other, they too shall maintain the exile to prevent unlawful representation or deeds to be taken. This exile is to begin upon the dawning of the 20th of the Turning to give rightful opportunity to prepare for voyages to be undertaken. However, this exile is not permanent. In good faith to the city and for reparation to their names, this exile shall be overturned if those effected are responsible for the apprehension or extermination of masterminds of the Galeborn attacks.”
  With the sentencing complete, the judge exited the hall. Those remaining had a few moments to sort through the thoughts after the disaster of the day. The Sapphire Oath would turn their attention to both nobles in the room for separate endeavors though in a sense the words remained similar. Apologies and attempts at mended bridges were shared.
  Upon approaching the Condesa Akoujan, the wish for reparations were diverted. The Condesa accepted Beatle's apology with a level of hollowness. The Condesa shifted attention to the judges claim either for her own interests or simply as the etiquette of the city. The Judge had laid forth a means of social restoration. The Condesa asked for nothing more from the Sapphire Oath than a herald of the law had deemed necessary.
  When approaching the Vizconde Iarnan, the man accepted the situation that he had been dealt based on the situation he had to agreed to. Despite the circumstances, he did not cut ties with the Sapphire Oath directly. If they wished to continue their affiliation with him and the airship project, there were still actions they could take while exiled from the city. The project would need a lead engineer. The best place to find them would be among the gnomes of Lacington. The Sapphire Oath could use the city as a destination upon leaving Argil. Zith's request for funding and paperwork to be presented to a suitable engineer was accepted. The Vizconde would get it all put together tonight and the party could pick it up tomorrow.