Negotiating a brief respite

After your little stunt with Prince Ioas, the envoys on both sides agreed to talk with you. Galeon, a former brigand and your best friend of the past 6 years, steps to your side joining you in the negotiations. Galeon is a 30-year-old giant of a man, a full head taller than you, who moves faster than a man his size should.

He wears heavy armor wields a dory in his right hand; the heavy hoplon in his left is emblazoned with image of broken chains. This combination of a short thrusting spear and heavy shield is the most common choice of weaponry in the city states, but there is nothing common about the skill with which he wields them. The Xiphos hanging in its plain scabbard from his belt is his weapon of last resort, and in his hands the short thrusting sword is not to be overlooked.

Galeon leads your heaviest phalanx, always at the center of your forces. It is he and his hoplites who defend breach-heads while the rest of your forces rush to establish themselves or narrow paths forcing your enemies to weaken themselves trying to breakthrough their shieldwall while you strike at them from the air, and Alexia leads your light infantry to strike their rear usually wiping out the enemies before they can regroup. Hopefully you won't have any of that kind of fighting because your small army is outnumbered more than ten to one. Instead of fighting you turn your attention a more peaceful way to resolve this issue.

From the City of Athenapolis you request three things.

1. Permission to visit the temples of your mother and father that sit in the city's temple district in the shadow of the great citadel.
2. Allow you to evacuate the elderly, very young and wounded as well as anyone who is not a citizen of Athenapolis
3. A meeting with the Regent.

The Athenian representatives readily agreed to all three requests, it cost them nothing and the fewer people that need to be fed preserved their limited resources.

Of the United Armies you requested three things as well.

1. Permission to evacuate the young, elderly and wounded. Only after agreeing that anyone leaving the city could be searched for valuables did the envoys agree and they insisted as well that the elderly be those sixty and above in age, and children under the age of six.
2. A meeting with the leaders of the siege. Like the representatives from the city, they readily agreed to invite you to the tent of Lord Marshal Raxius.
3. A three-day Ceasefire. At first, they refused the ceasefire on the grounds that they would be **** to give up the area they have already taken, and that it would give the inhabitants of Athenapolis time to regroup. Reasonable concerns, but you assured them you would allow them to stay in their current potions just not advance any farther into the city until after the three days were up. You sweetened the offer by giving them a pouch of jewelry worth as much as two of the largest estates in Athenapolis if they agreed and vowed to give them another one if they did not break the ceasefire.

You can see the confusion of all parties concerned, who is this man who gives away wealth like it means nothing for no benefit to himself? However, as the negotiations come to an end you offer yet one more token of good will.

A day of games in your camp to broker good will to all sides. The offer is not only to ease the tension between these enemies. They will also allow you to collect information on the best warriors and Riders of both forces, and maybe get them drunk enough to find out if they have any plans of invading other rogue nations (like Kalion) if and when they win this war.