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The man would take the coin from Kuori, surprised at her sudden showing of generosity. "Oh, the scratches are just right here." The man points to a spot on the floor. Kuori recognizes it as being where the petrified statues of the soldiers once were. She could deduce from what the man had said that the guards must have kept the family away, then dragged the statutes out under cover of night to avoid notice. The man would scratch his head. "It looks like something heavy was dragged here, but I have no idea what it could have been. None of my stuff was missing. You know, we don't usually get adventurers here in town, so people might find it a little weird for you to come knocking around on their doors..."

When Valac bore down on the man, he shrank away from him and his children ran shrieking upstairs. He sputtered out his next words. "Look, I don't know who they were! They obviously weren't from around here, but they were very official looking and had on blue tabards with a symbol I didn't recognize. They just left town this morning so I'm sure if you ask around someone will know something about them. Now, will you please just leave me and my family alone! I don't know anything else, nor to I care to know. Whatever's going on doesn't involve me!"


After Twyla answered, a glimmer of recognition seemed to come into the lieutenants eyes. "Ah, that's right, they mentioned a gnome. I was one of the few guards that wasn't there on scene that day, but I was told three adventurers helped us safely clear the house. You should have just told me directly. We are deeply grateful for your help! Unfortunately, the petrified guards and citizen are no longer here. They are being taken somewhere to be cured, but they just left this morning so if you leave now I'm sure you can catch up with them and save everyone a bunch of time."

The guard lieutenant would stand up and shout down the stone hall. "Hey, those adventurers that helped us before have returned with a way to un-petrify our men. Take them to your people so we can n** this in the bud and finally get our captain back."

Out of a nearby room emerged three men clad completely in impressive looking full plate. Not an inch of their skin was exposed. They wore enclosed helmets that had odd, shaded lenses in the eye sockets. Over their armor they wore ornate blue tabards which Revenge and Twyla would immediately recognize as bearing the emblem of Aria. Revenge could feel his wife stiffen up behind him, but she says nothing.

The men would come forward and the one in the middle would speak out, his voice somewhat distorted by his helmet. "We only take orders from our own captain..." The man would then pause to look over Revenge, Abby and Twyla. "But I feel in this case we can make an exception. We will take you to the petrified men. On our way there we have some questions we would like to ask you about what you might have seen in the house you cleared."

The Gladesdale guard lieutenant waves his hand dismissively, obviously annoyed by the the man's attitude. "Whatever, we already told you everything they told us, so there is no new information to be had. You agreed to help us return our men to normal, so help us."

Valac stopped bearing down on the man as he answered but Valac did not recognise what he described. The man was protesting but was cooperating so Valac decided not to pursue him further on this.

Valac begun leaving and just as he reached the door way where Petra and Kuori were Valac stopped. Raising a thumb at the man and with a forced smile that only managed to accidentally bare fangs at the man Valac said, "Thanks. Good Job."

Then Valac stepped outside looking like he was about grab anyone walking pass to interrogate them meanwhile as he eyed who to grab he said aloud to Kuori and Petra, "Who are these bastards in blue looking into this?"

Upon Revenge's request, the heavily armored Aria soldier crosses his arms. "I'm not going to march all the way out to the rest of the division and ask them to turn around just on your words alone. If you want to use that wand to turn these statues back to flesh, you got to come with me. Otherwise, you can wait until we do it ourselves. A few days isn't going to make a difference to them."

It was hard to get a read on the soldiers with the full encompassing helms they wore, but after Twyla made her plea they seemed to relent a bit. "If you are all that exhausted, we will give you an hour to rest, but if you are not back by then I won't be taking you out to them at all. If we wait too much longer than that, we won't be able to catch up with them anyways."


Petra, who had not bothered to enter the house, but was listening by the door, looked visibly shaken by the revelation of this information. As she spoke to answer Valac's question, her voice was trembling. "N-no. It can't be. T-they couldn't have found out so quickly! How, how could they? Oh, but it's them, it's them, it's them... It has to be. Aria is the only nation I know that has blue tabards. W-we have to warn the others. I-if Aria is already here, we're probably already too late. We need to escape while we can!"

Kuori nodded, "Aria was my thought too. We should probably still check Abby's place, they may have ransacked it." She looked the directions from wence they had arrived and said, "But they may have left somebody behind, so we might need the others, and if not, we are going to need to play catch up."

Twyla paused, deep in thought. "Actually, I don't really know this kind of magic that great, so I can't be sure. I guess it'd be better to be safe than sorry! We need to get some support system out there to help them! And I agree, Mr. Revenge, who better than people they'll recognize?"

She looked to the Lieutenant too, sporting a hopeful grin and puppy eyes. Well, it couldn't hurt.

((I rolled an 8 Heal check in the presence of the DM to determine if there are aftereffects from the wand. So... I actually don't know!))

"..."

Sometimes, Revenge worried that people didn't even recognize the symbol of Sehanine that he wore around his neck, mistaking it for one of Kord or of Bane, or some other deity that cared less for the well-being of all.

He would not address the soldiers, and assuming no one else did either, he would address the Lieutenant. "Sorry that we couldn't be more help to you or your men." Looking to the others, he would turn towards the door. "Let's go."

If allowed to get to the wagon uninterrupted, he would say nothing as he collected his weapons and re-armed himself. He wouldn't be letting these back down anytime soon.

"All right, well, we're off then!" Twyla curtseyed again, and went off with Revenge, following him back to the wagon.

Once they were safely away from anyone who might overhear, she would say to him, "I think maybe we should find the others, don't you?"