The vampire tapped her fingers against the sword, evaluating the answers as well as she could. "If I had to score you out of ten, I would say that warrants an eight. Maybe a seven, if I was to add a penalty for suggesting that running away is an option if the need ever comes up." They were knights, after all, if a dragon happened to show up where they were and attack them, the chances were extremely high that other people would be the ones doing the running away while they bought time. Or killed the dragon, as the case may be and depending on who was involved.

"Numerical superiority mostly turns into a slaughter, since everyone's movements are so constrained. Archers in particular are mostly an irritant and tend to be the first thing to face dragon fire if they mass," Tyaethe explained. "If you're on your own or extremely well-co-ordinated with a small group, you can also goad most dragons into landing by avoiding their fire for long enough. Dragons are every bit as territorial as kings; it's the main reason they spread out and start trouble. You have to go for the wings even faster then, of course."

The white-haired paladin frowned, going through a mental checklist. "Oh, magic. Try and get something to help with surviving the fire, even if most protections will burn away faster than you hope."

The real question was still why Tyaethe thought 'how to fight a dragon' was a necessary skill. "You're right that the most important defensive skill against something that huge is dodging, though. So, tell me, how good are you at that?"

From the way she lifted her sword, the reason for the tangent was more than obvious.

Fleuri Jodeau

Fleuri sat at a desk in his room, writing a letter. With the sheer potential magnitude of the crisis at hand, Fleuri had felt the desire to catch up with a few old friends, while he still had the opportunity. He had already finished writing a letter to the paladin who mentored him, and was now writing one to a friend/rival from his tournament days. He wanted to be sure that he had the chance in case something bad happened, but there was more to it. In the context of this particular letter, the threat was solid proof to him that leaving his career as a tournament competitor and joining the Iron Roses was the right choice, and he wanted to assure his friend that he was confident in his decision.

Fleuri wouldn't actually say anything about the crisis or the mission- he didn't want word of this getting out to anyone who didn't need to know- but he felt that they ought to be assured of his confidence in his choice. He wasn't even sure if or when his friend would reply, but he knew the tournament schedules well enough that the letter should at least be able to find its recipient. If anything, he at least hope that it'd ensure that they'd stay in touch even after going their separate ways.

Once he had finished the letter to his satisfaction- something that took far more time than he had expected- he folded it up, dripped wax onto it, and pressed a seal with the House Jodeau signet ring. He set the letter to the side- he would take care of the delivery later. For now it'd be wise to get some training in. More than ever, it was important that they not shirk their efforts of martial improvement.

Fleuri made his way to the courtyard, where it looked like Tyaethe was about to begin a sparring match with Maritza. Fleuri grabbed a wooden sword and began to watch, curious to see how the serpentine knight would fare. He was curious to see how deft and mobile Maritza's snake body could be, and whether or not its mass would work to her advantage of disadvantage.

@Raineh Daze@FlappyTheSpybot

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR

"Right," He nodded simply, breathing out through his nose as it seemed any potential offense was avoided. It was good to know she'd not begrudged the idea at all— last thing a man needed was to get under the skin of his commander. Regarding his condition... "I ought to be back up to speed in a few days."

With that established, he returned to folding the concept over in his head, eyes scanning the shelves. If his Captain hadn't considered the sides that lied outside raw legends and academia, that wasn't unforgivable—his own notions of knighthood and chivalry stemmed from the same sources through the majority of his military career, after all. It was a reminder, if anything. Just as he was new to this station... she'd barely had any more tenure under hers.

Two of a suit, if not a kind.

His eyes narrowed as he glanced back to her, shaking off a little color from her cheeks. Probably kicking herself for missing the thread his experiences had naturally drawn him to, if he had to guess— he couldn't count the number of occasions he himself had fumed similarly. But more to the point, that meant his perspective and hers sat in contrast— his way of approaching the issue differed.

Best to share that, too. It might not have helped with her immediate shame, but if fighting alongside men like Fleuri and Nicomede had taught him anything, it was that the tools would give her the means to not blank on that again.

As he ambled between the shelves, ever searching, he spoke.

"One of the things I learned was the landscape's role on the field," he spoke with a tone more of recollection than declaration or teaching. He didn't have that much presumption in him, even after the reassurance that his help was favorable. "How a battle can be shaped by it, how it directs troop flow, how you can use it to narrow your expectations ahead of time. All stuff I'm sure you know as well, but... from the perspective of a single soldier, I guess. Knowing where not to step, where our unit might get bogged down, how to read for signs of ambush. If you know a field's full of sinkholes, you skirt the edges unless you know the path."

Here, he found a potential candidate: Thaln's Locales— The Many Faces of the Homeland. A little general, and not necessarily exactly what they were going to find their information in, but he had to imagine even an overview would mention areas of hostile terrain. Places hard to reach that a shard might be hidden, or perhaps...

"My thinking's along similar lines here, I mean— That the land itself could end up being a clue. We know exposure to the shard can drive men crazy enough to kill one another from Fort Daelantine, right?" He slipped the book into the crook of his arm within the sling, wincing minutely but soldiering on. "So I'd imagine one sitting in one place for a long time... might have that curse similarly desecrate the area around it, be it a temple or a valley or whatever you like. Such places that inspire madness ought to be warned away from, even if the rest has nothing to do with the shards."

Humble origins only mattered if they turned out to lack effect. Even a stick's a weapon, if you can beat a man over the head with it.

"Anything you've come up with so far, ma'am?" he asked idly, pausing to peruse the tomes above head height behind his squint.

There was a momentary pause as Maritza looked at Tyaethe with her head cocked to the side. Then, a grin slowly spread across the Naga's face as she hefted her quarterstaff and gave it a twirl. "Against larger opponents? Actually quite good. Plenty of unpleasant monsters down South. Never tangled with something the size of a dragon though, so a little hard to say if I'd loose my advantage against something that big." Mari replied as she slowly began to circle the first member of the order. "Against someone as small, fast and experienced as you though? That's a lot trickier. Unlike most everyone else here, I assume you've had to face off with my kind before... and know how to do so." The naga was positively grinning like a loon now, her staff starting to disappear in a blur as it switched from one hand to the other. "Been a while since I've had to opportunity to go all out sparring."

"Not all that much, but it's better than nothing," Tyaethe admitted, shrugging. It wasn't as if her kind were the only things with large tails or that much of a size advantage on her, or even both. There were finite ways that a body could move without getting magical contortion involved. "I can't say that I'm much of a dragon, either, but I'll do my best to be appropriately aggressive~"

It really did come down to a difference in perspective.

Fanilly had been very young when she first learned of her position as a successor to the Iron Rose Knights' leadership. But even as a small child, she was aware something had changed. Her education took a considerably different track. She had gone from a potential candidate to a certain candidate, and one that would be needed as soon as she came of age. Matters of military, of warfare. The way to use a sword. She had gone from a noble's daughter who would never see combat to a knight-in-training incredibly swiftly.

Her perspective from her education was one that had groomed her for a leadership role. Of course she would fight on the battlefield, but she would also command her knights in battle strategy. Thus, it was not the perspective of a single soldier who must execute those commands.

No matter how embarrassing she found her failure to consider all the possible sources of information, it ultimately came down to the gap in their perspectives. And that made Sir Gerard all the more useful as a partner in searching these books for clues, didn't it?

And so...

Places of madness. Locations that could insight sudden violence or loss of sanity. Or perhaps locations afflicted with strange curses, like the withering of plantlife or the avoidance of animals.

It was in the tome that Sir Gerard had just presented, the Thaln's Locales - The Many Faces of the Homeland, that she found something that peaked her curiosity.

"Here, look here..."

Pointing to the passage in question, it read.

Brennan Forest is lush and fertile with life, perfect for the enterprising hunter or the herbalist. But one must be aware of the dangers, and one danger is particularly curious. The remains of an orcish temple, erected to some profane and wicked figure lay long abandoned in the forest's eastern reaches. While the last of its inhabitants were slain long ago, it is still considered a place of evil. It is said that dark thoughts of violence and madness can manifest in those who spend more then a few hours nearby. Of course, this place exists only in the tales of wild adventurers, so it's difficult to verify the truth behind them. But historical records do indicate an orc temple once stood in Brennan, and thus it would be unwise to remain unaware of the potential danger.

@HereComesTheSnow

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR

Pulled away from the search of everything with potential to be anything useful, Gerard swiftly about-faced on his heel, marching over to his leader's side and gazing at the words over her shoulder, reading them in time with her finger as it traced a line through the text. He was lucky he'd made a habit of harassing the merchants passing through his town in youth— literacy was a rare skill among most of his possible paths of education back home.

"Damn," The erstwhile mercenary grunted, left with no recourse but a curse beneath the breath. After a revelation like that... the mind couldn't tear itself away from a single track of thought, even if it may have tried to first mind the broader scope of things. "Right under our noses the whole time."

His free arm felt the urge to fold across his chest— impossible with its partner in a sling. Instead, it floated up and behind, scratching an itch around the back of his head. An absentminded gesture. His eyes continued to pin the text to the page, a tight, sharp glare that received neither word nor gaze in reply. Thinking back to that night, he remembered truly needing to war with his own impulses— that thirst for battle that was so ingrained it began to swell at the slightest tension. Despite the Silver Stone being a place of order, protection, symbolic of Mayon's gentle light and care for peace... was it possible that having a shard in the proximity had exacerbated things?

Maybe. Maybe his concerns that night had been on the money in grander scale. He didn't know enough to say. More importantly...

"I suppose that explains what the Boars were doing there," he ventured, reaching down and tapping the words 'Brennan Forest' twice. "First the fort where we know one was stored, then the forest the Stone's within, rather than the Stone itself. No idea who left that note, nor whom it was a hint for, but..."

He took a breath, trying to pull the tension growing in his shoulders out. No luck. Not with that conclusion staring them both in the face, plain as day. He couldn't imagine what else the answer was, not remotely.

"They came from the forest, too— Not the Shrine. They had to be hunting that temple, right?"

And they'd been hunting the shards as a collective, not just one.

Reforging the blade? Unthinkable. Surely anyone that ambitious would have made themselves known by now.

... Then again, they had made sure to obfuscate the search by hiring mercenaries instead of using personal forces or adventurers from the guilds to do dirty work like attacking a garrison. in dealing with a threat like this, one that jeopardized the very nation if it got as bad as it potentially could... Best not to assume all parties listened to their first thoughts quite so much.

...They needed that prisoner to rat his employer out, more than ever.