Roger stepped between the runner and Wilhelm. "Alright, alright, we get it. If you're trying to help us, how about a bit of personal space?" Unlike his younger cousin, Roger was not intimidated by the size of the runner, and rightly so. For a normal human, Roger was rather massive, though still perhaps not quite as tall or as muscular as your average mountain man. "For future reference, I don't appreciate being intimidated."

Wilhelm yanked on his brother's shirt to calm him down. "Uhm... if you don't mind, I'd like to speak with your runner friend for a moment..." He leaned in to whisper to the runner. "You know who we are then? Figures. I expect dad's got my face plastered on every wall in the kingdom. We'll feast with Lord Hamheart, but my identity remains a secret. Rumours spread fast, and I'm sure there's at least one mountain man who'll sell me out for the king's money." Solemnly, he took his hand out, which was still glowing, and allowed the magical energy to dissipate. "Don't look like you're plannin' on locking me up or cuttin' off my head."

"Who, these gentlemen?" Frederick laughed, clearly not used to the potency of mountain-man ale. "Good one, Wilhelm! You should do some of your fancy sorcery for Lord Hamheart! Are there any mages up here? Are we the only lowlanders here?" Frederick continued asking questions and joking with the guards all the way to the dining hall.

Azar paused for a moment to examine the architecture before guiding his walking throne towards the meeting room. The large contraption moved with surprising finesse despite it's large size. When he reached the meeting room with the others the Lord Engineer cautiously stepped down from his seat and stretched his legs. "Now that all of us seem to be gathered... Why exactly have you called us here, dear Lord Sonrah?" The 12 magitek warriors lined the moving throne like statues, completely silent and again unmoving. Azar knew full well that he was being impolite - or downright rude and untrusting - by bringing his mechanical guards with him even to the meeting room, but he hoped that he'd be given that little leeway.

Alzack sat down in his seat in the Conference room, Artemis standing behind his chair and looking warily at the magitek soldiers. The Sonrah Lord was not offended by Lord Kardov keeping his guard present, he took Artemisia with him everywhere even to important meeting such as these so the automatons bothered him none. While he tried to create a calm environment he understood if his guest felt the need to have their protection.

"I believe you know why I called you all here, My Lord. The King must be dethroned." Alzack looked at each and every one of the Lords and Ladies at the table. "You all know of what happened to my father I presume? On the words of my house I must take vengeance for such a crime, and even still the man is a tyrant who has abused his power for far too long. I have called all of you here because I know that all of your houses are proud and strong and not whores for the crown like many others." He folded his arm and gazed ahead. "I want you to know now regardless of your answer that there will be no retaliation, nor malice towards you or your house because I understand what I am asking of you,and regardless House Sonrah will go to battle alone if it has to. Still I ask you Great Lords and Queen, will you fight with us to overthrow this tyrant?"

The guards happily chatted up with Frederic as they ventured towards the castle, while the runner assured Wilhelm that he would be safe, and no one would be looking out to sell his hyead of to anyone. After a while the small group arrived upon the grand halls, and the runner escorts Wilhelm and his companions inside, the guards grumble slightly but then return to their posts.

The hall goes quiet for a moment as the runner arrives with Wilhelm, but after the Hamheart himself bursting out into delightful laughter, others follow after and keep singing. Wilhelm and his companions are escorted to sit with Lord Hamheart and his family, and are served the finest food and drinks the castle has to offer.

"So, you are Wilhelm the Bastard huh?" Hamheart speaks up and laughs, lifting his pint up towards the male."You've had quite a run from what I've heard, you must be starving. Come, eat and drink, you'll need your energy later on. Oh do not look like that, it's not like we'd throw you out to wolves, at least with an empty stomach!" He laughs out again and takes a long drink, slamming the pint to the table then."But in all seriousness, I am curious" He then speaks with low tone and gets up."Follow me, if you will. We have all heard the story about you. But never have we heard of it from you personally. You do not need your weapons, but I am not going to tell you to leave them behind, you have all the reasons in the world to be careful." He looks at the people and flashes a smile."Me and my guest are taking a quick break, I'm not as young as I used to be, and he's just a man, but we shall return shortly, so by all means, Eat, Drink, Live!" He shouts as others join, then he turns once more and heads outside to the balcony behind the throne.

Wilhelm managed to give a friendly, if uneasy laugh, then got up from his seat. The food was extraordinary, to be sure, but he’d eaten most of his fill at the tavern. Out of respect for Lord Hamheart, he left his pollaxe under the watchful eye of Roger. There was still a dagger in Wilhelm’s belt, though it wouldn’t be much good in a fight with an opponent with much more reach than his. “Be careful,” Roger whispered, this time pulling in Wilhelm close so that nobody else could hear, “Hamheart’s leading you into a trap for all we know.”

When they were safety out of view, Wilhelm began to explain his side to the story. “You’ve probably heard the song. It’s very popular with the peasants, ‘n you lot seem to like music well enough. Parts of it are true, actually. Three of the kings men showed up one day, but they didn’t ask for anyone specific. At least not right away. They just started…” Wilhelm gulped. He had spent the last few weeks trying to forget what had happened. It seemed as though even now he was piecing the chaotic string of events together for the first time. “They just started burnin’. My uncle’s farm, my mum’s house...” He paused. “O’ course, we had to get outta there, but the king’s men were waiting for us. Only mum knew I was the royal bastard, so I didn’t have any idea what this band o’ blowhards was talkin’ about. First error in the song, I guess, is I’d never met Rodrick or Matilda or Lily. ‘S a matter of fact, I hadn’t even heard of them before I heard the ballad.”

Wilhelm sighed. “Fortunately, my cousins, the ones I brought in with me; we’d all brought our weapons with us. We’d been to war before, ya see; that’s why I have my pollaxe. Didn’t use no sickle; that’s the second error in that little ballad. I killed two of ‘em with my axe, and a bit of royal sorcery.” He held out his hand, and as he did so, his dagger rose from its scabbard, stabbed the empty air out in front of the balcony, then returned to its place on his belt. “Roger’s the best fighter outta the three of us, though, and he killed the last one while Frederick grabbed the horses for us to escape. My uncle and my mother…” He paused for a moment. “… They were riding with us, but they were cut down by some more o’ the king’s knights.”

He leaned forward on the balcony and looked off into the distance wistfully, remembering his mother’s smiling face, and the face of terror she'd made right before she died. I might as well cover the rest of the rumours, too… “Most of the other stuff you heard about’s probably Frederick or Roger’s doing. Roger’s the one who slew twelve men single-handedly during the Battle of Westwood, and Freddy’s the one who deflowered the baron’s daughter on her sister's wedding night, and both of those things happened almost a year before any of this royal bastard nonsense. 'M just a farmer-turned-soldier with a fancy weapon and some sorcerer's blood. I'm no hero, that's for sure.”

"Ah ya pansy! Ish that all ya got?" The yell could easily be heard over all the festivities from a well lit corner of the hall. It came from a tall and strong looking man with a broken nose. To an outside looker it might have seemed like there was a very serious and brutal fight going on - judging by a large pile of coins on a tray there was some kind of a bet going on. Ygor Kardov held his own well against one of the great Hamhearts men - a giant of a fellow with arms that could probably shatter stone blocks with ease. The Kardovian received another punch to the gut and this time actually reeled backwards. The fingers of his right, gloved hand twitched slightly.

The two had been having their little match for nearly half an hour now, exchanging punches, grappling and even doing a few cross counters. For the moment the mountain human seemed to be having a bit of an edge over his shorter opponent. They went for another brawler lock as Ygor tried to come up with a way to win. He saw a little opening, struggled out of their little lock, wrapped his arms around the mountain man's waist and lifted him off the ground. "Persn'lly I think it'sh about time to end thish." The Kardovian muttered as he slammed the other man back first to the stone floor. As Ygor straightened up he pulled the heavy glove from his right hand and pulled his hand back while waiting for his opponent to get to his feet.

The mountain man gritted his teeth, he wasn't going to lose to a kardovian that easily. He clambered to his feet and charged at Ygor. Mid charge steel fingers took a firm hold of his throat. He managed to yank himself free and gave the kardovian a punch to the side followed by a heaving uppercut to the jaw that again sent Ygor reeling.

Several punches followed that forced kardovian to drop on one knee. Despite the pain Ygor was smiling - it was a rather unnerving smile to tell the truth and some of the onlookers who had seen him fight before knew what would happen next, the mountain man on the other hand had no idea what hit him.

What followed was a shoulder tackle and several rather viscous punches to the mountain man's upper body. He barely managed to shove the kardovian off of himself and clambered to his feet. He shook his head and turned again to face his opponent - only to walk right in to the steel hand again. This time there was no time to react as the mountain man was lifted from the floor by his throat and brought back first to the floor. The last thing he remembered about that night was the kardovian's iron fist crashing towards his face.

Ygor smirked as he straightened up. He knew full well that even a man of that size wouldn't get up after an assault like that. "Would shome of ya ladsh be nice enough to ch..ch... check if tha fellow'sh still breathin?" He picked up his leather glove and very casually pulled it over his right hand. Then he took the nearest tankard from a table and chugged it down like ale was going out of fashion. "Sho, I get a quarther of th' money, right? On shecond thought give it to the other guy. He deshervesh it." Ygor grinned and spat on the floor as he took a deep breath and again yelled over the sounds of feasting. "Anyone else want a go?"