I guessed I do a little interrogation of my own. Walking towards the defeated buns they quickly got scared. They must have been thinking that I wanted revenge for what they said about me.
"Hello there. Since you seem to like gossiping so much why don't you tell me something useful? What can you tell me about Carlson, that human strategist in your little group?"
They looked at each other as if confirming something. I could tell that most of their gazes drifted to the one who had told them to shut up. He sighed.
"I hope magnanimous lord can spare us for our hubris."
"I'm not like your gods. Honeyed words of my apparent greatness will not sway me... easily. Telling me what I want to know is far more productive for getting into my hood books."
"I will tell you all I know. Carlson is a human that was picked up by lord Khan to be his personal advisor. He claims to have come from another world where water and nature is an abundant resource and all the humans are part of some empire."
"What empire?"
"I don't remember. But they worship the sun as their only god! What kind of crazy people are they? Only one god, tch."
"The sun? Might the name be the solar empire?"
"Yes, that was it! Do you know of it?"
He asked with great fear. The way he had spoken about the empire could be seen as more than a little disrespectful so if I was from the solar empire or one of its allies he'd be in deep trouble.
"I've heard of them before but don't know them directly. Thank you for telling me something useful."
I walked away from them while simultaneously building up a mental bridge to Red's mind.
'What? I'm busy and don't need your help or advice!'
His slightly gruff mental voice reprimanded me. Admittedly, I liked to meddle a little too much sometimes but this wasn't the time.
'The guy seems to be from the solar empire. Make sure to grill him on their presence in the jungle realm. He might know something.'
'So he really is hiding something! Thanks, I'll make sure to squeeze everything he knows out of him.'
That was good then. I let the mental bridge drop and left Red to do his weighing. He used a peculiar artifact called the scale of Osiris to force people to tell him the truth. One side of the scale would be weighed down by the interrogated's heart and the other by a feather.
If the heart was heavier than the feather the one who was interrogated was lying. If the feather was heavier than the heart he was trying to use magic or other means to hide the truth. Only if the feather perfectly balanced out with the heart would he be telling the truth.
And as a side note, the heart in question wasn't the interrogated's real heart. It was a spell that produced a substitute. The real one would work but taking the heart out of ordinary humans was typically fatal so...
While Red spent two hours with our human captives, Rose and I cleaned up the oasis and debated what to do with the prisoners. Kesh and Puri were also present to give suggestions.
"We should kill them outright and be done with it! Our enemies will never have a place in this oasis."
"I disagree, send them into one of the ruins. That way they can die as proud warriors and we will get something out of it."
Puri seemed very extreme with her just kill them approach. However, sending them into the ruins like Kesh had suggested didn't sit right with me. I had no idea what was inside those ruins so sending people in might not be the best idea.
"Why don't we just have Aurelia sell them as slaves?"
Rose? I hadn't taken her for the type to make such suggestions.
"As slaves? So that they will have to serve for the rest of their lives to atone? That would indeed be even better than just killing them. What do you think, lord Abel?"
Of course, Puri immediately jumped on board with Rose's suggestion. The oasis being attacked must have really gotten under her skin.
"I'm not a particular fan of this idea but I can't see any reason not to. Do as you wish with them. Though I should warn you, we won't be able to sell them all immediately. They are all high mages, a fighting force of this caliber would only bring chaos. Therefore we would have to slowly sell them whenever an opportunity presents itself. Additionally, we'll have to wipe parts of their memories."
"Then it is decided."
By the time we had finished our discussion on how to deal with the captives, Red had also managed to finish on his end. I was curious to hear what he had squeezed out of this Carlson.
"Carlson is quite an interesting character, isn't he?"
"You find nearly everything interesting so that doesn't say much, Abel. But yes, he is interesting even from my point of view."
"Red, Abel! Stop being so mysterious about everything, I want to know too."
Red and I laughed at Rose's outburst. He knew everything and I had been able to guess some things but she was completely in the dark about these happenings.
"Then, I shall delay no longer and tell you about our captive's story. His name is Carlson, he is a commoner born in the solar empire. After going through numerous hardships he somehow became an apprentice knight. However, on an expedition through the desert, he got into a sandstorm and found himself in this realm. It didn't take him long to figure out that he was in a different realm but he never found a way back.
"However, he extensively prepared for going back. He drew plans of all the fortifications inside fortress city and even took the time to investigate their gods. He is a real gold mine for us."