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Post by Brandwyn on Apr 21, 2009 19:12:05 GMT -5
Rick looked solemnly at Tam, "I won't let anyone hurt you, especially not a rouge ranger. Besides, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I don't think he is as good a shot as I am, though I cannot be sure about that. The one time I saw him shoot was when he was just finishing his apprenticeship, so he has had a few years to gain some more experience. Course so have I since then."
Rick turned to Adrian, "lets go back to our cabin and take a look at my maps of Gallica and La Rivage. I don't know if we can really plan an attack since we don't know for sure where he is, but we should probably discuss what we are going to do when we land tomorrow. We don't want to tip him off if by some miracle he still is in the city."
Rick led the way back to their cabin...
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Post by drenith on Apr 21, 2009 20:30:42 GMT -5
As they sat down Adrian pulled a map of Galacia and a smaller one of La Rivage, "We should land here." he pointed to the dock on La Rivage, "and since this is the last place he was seen. We should look her first." He looked at Rick thinking about what was to come.
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Post by Brandwyn on Apr 23, 2009 14:24:01 GMT -5
Rick nodded, "yeah, we can ask some questions and show my sketch around at the docks, but then we need to go to the Red Feather Inn and talk to the Innkeeper, Brice Tarrow. Hopefully either he or someone at the docks will give us a lead." Rick ran a hand through his long black hair. "I sure hope he didn't jump on another ship bound somewhere else. I am going stir crazy on this boat and I don't want to have to jump right back on another one."
"Any ideas how we are going to take him back alive if he doesn't want to come?" Rick watched Kira play-stalking Tam. "I was kicking around the idea of shooting him with a poisoned dart that would knock him out for a few hours." Rick grinned, not entirely joking.
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Post by drenith on Apr 24, 2009 7:15:13 GMT -5
Adrian thought that would be the easiest way, "Or we could ask nicely." He was entirely joking. "The dart would be the easiest way to incapacitate him though." They would need to come up with a plan that would catch him alive but also able to talk. "And if we had to we can kill him, which would seem the eaisier course of action."
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Post by Brandwyn on Apr 24, 2009 13:10:41 GMT -5
"You don't know Palisade if you think killing him is the easiest course of action." Rick said ruefully. No ranger was easy to kill, but some were harder than others and he knew Palisade had seen plenty of action over the past few years.
"Don't forget he has two apprentices with him that Crowley doesn't want to see get hurt. We are to bring them back as well." Rick reminded the bounty hunter. "I don't want either of them in the crossfire should it come down to a shooting match."
Rick pondered Adrian's joke about asking nicely. "You know, I wonder if we could come up with some bluff that could convince him to come with us willingingly. Having orders from Crowley won't work, since he knows they wouldn't be real...mmmm" Rick leaned back in the chair that was bolted to the deck so it wouldn't slide around in bad weather. He rubbed the scab on his side absentmindedly because it was itching as it healed.
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Post by Firehead on Apr 25, 2009 9:15:03 GMT -5
Tam continued to pay attention to Kira while listening to Rick and Adrian as they mulled over which course of action to take when they arrived in --. He squinted as he tried to remember how they pronounced it.'Gal-li-ka.' Something close to that.
"He soun's as tricky as th' thieflord." He muttered to himself. He tried to think of a way to help them out. A few ideas flitted through his mind, but he quickly discarded them. Most of them--one kept coming back. Feeling suddenly shy about suggesting anything, he said, "Well, it might not work if it were you doin' th' askin', but..it might work if'n it were me."
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Post by drenith on Apr 25, 2009 9:20:20 GMT -5
Adrian thought of the idea, "But then he would know were going to try to take him and I don't think he cares about a kid, he'd just push you out of the way or kill you." Adrian had to admit it was hard but the boy may be onto something, he looked to Rick "We could have Tam try to persuade the apprentices to come and we can trap him from there."
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Post by Brandwyn on Apr 25, 2009 18:35:52 GMT -5
Rick pondered Tam's suggestion, tending to agree with Adrian's assessment. "We would need to come up with some excuse to get him to agree to come back. Simply asking him, 'hey, will you come back to Araluen with us?' isn't going to work. Any ideas on what kind of story we could use?" Rick asked Tam. "I think he would be less suspicious if it did come from you, but I am not going to put you to any risk just to get him to come quietly."
Rick considered Adrian's idea. "I don't know. It might work to use the apprentices to lure him into a trap. Course that depends on a couple of things, like if he is even still with the apprentices and if he is, does he care enough about them to come after them or listen to them? And what if the apprentices refuse to work with us? We have no idea where either of them stand in this either. They may be loyal to Palisade." Rick knew that when he was an apprentice he worshiped his mentor and would never have betrayed him. At least one of the apprentices was Albion's, not Palisades, so they might have better luck with that one. But then again, would Palisade care enough about Albion's apprentice to walk into a trap to rescue the boy?
Rick then thought that he had opened up another can of worms. What if they found Palisade, but not the apprentices? They were going to have to find them before they could return to Araluen anyway. He hoped they were all still together.
"I hope no other bounty hunters have the jump on us and have caught up to him first." Rick looked at Adrian to see if that thought had occured to him yet. Crowley had put the poster up a couple days before he had talked to Rick about it, so it could be possible that some bounty hunters were already on Palisade's trail. "If someone has already confronted him and not captured or killed him, then he is going to be on his guard and we are going to have to do it the hard way." Rick said glumly.
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Post by drenith on Apr 26, 2009 7:10:40 GMT -5
Adrian thought about it "Yes it will be hard but even finding him will be a challange. We don't know where he is, after all he could already be in Alsalvia right now." Adrian didn't think much of loyalty of the apprentice since he never was one, he wouldn't of know what Rick was talking about so he just agreed. "I met a couple people in Redmont when I first saw the poster but no one knew more than I did... Which was nothing."
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Post by Brandwyn on Apr 27, 2009 19:12:28 GMT -5
"Ah well, maybe we should sleep on it." Rick suggested. "Somehow I always end up working better as I go than trying to stick to a plan anyway."
Rick studied Adrian's maps for a bit, but nothing sprang to mind. "We should be arriving in La Rivage in the early morning, I think. I'd like to get off the ship before they start unloading the cargo if we can. Get an early start." Rick turned to Adrian. "Sound ok to you?"
(OCC - you can advance it to landing in the city the morning after the current battle going on, if you like, or we can keep going with this dialog on the ship.)
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Post by Firehead on May 14, 2009 10:27:48 GMT -5
The moment Rick mentioned sleep, Tam realized that he was bone-tired. He yawned quietly, then blinked his eyes and curled up on the small heap of baggage that they had stashed in one corner of the cabin.It was pretty comfortable, actually. Using one hand as a pillow, he stroked Kira's fur with his free hand, until the combination of her purring and the gentle rocking of the ship lulled him to sleep.
Tam had often had dreams or nightmares that had often left him with a disturbed feeling in the back of his mind when he'd woken up. But there was always one major difference between the other nightmares he'd had and this one. This one came back. Sometimes he would have it for days or weeks on end and then suddenly it would go away, only to have it show up again for a day or two after nearly a month or more of being absent, before vanishing again....but it always returned. He often thought of it as his unwanted friend, the pesky sort who always showed up when you least wanted them to.
All that he could ever remember of the nightmare was that it was dark, and that his throat was raw from screaming when he woke up. Such was this case, only there was one difference-- someone was shaking him and yelling in his ear for him to wake up.
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Post by Brandwyn on May 14, 2009 18:39:45 GMT -5
Rick woke up to the sound of screaming and jerked out of the bunk, his saxe knife in his hand. As the sleep quickly faded from his brain, he realized that Tam was the one doing the screaming. Rick looked around the cabin and didn't see anyone, then he noticed that Tam was still asleep. Rick put down his knife and lit a lamp and knelt down next to him and gently shook him and called his name. "Tam! Tam! Wake up, Tam!" He shook him a bit harder. "It's ok, Tam! Wake up! You are having a nightmare."
Rick had no idea what Tam was dreaming about, but whatever it was must be horrible if his screams were any judge. "Come on Tam, wake up!" Rick said loudly right in his ear.
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Post by Firehead on May 15, 2009 8:40:06 GMT -5
Tam's jerked awake suddenly to the flickering light of a lamp. The dim light just about blinded him, after the darkness of--... he wasn't sure. He blinked his eyes, trying to adjust them to the light and looked quickly around. Kira was gone--instead, Rick was kneeling down next to him with one hand on his shoulder. 'Probably the source of the shaking' Tam thought to himself. He found that he was gasping for air, and that his throat was raw. 'From screaming, likely'.
He propped himself up on his elbows, and swallowed a couple of times to moisten his throat.It hurt to do so, and he winced as he did. Finally, he managed to croak, "What's wrong?"
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Post by Brandwyn on May 15, 2009 11:23:55 GMT -5
Rick was relieved when Tam woke up and then noticed that the boy was having trouble swallowing. He stood back up and pulled down his waterskin from the hook on the wall and uncorked it and knelt back down next to Tam and handed it to him after Tam croaked, "what's wrong?"
Rick sat back a bit and noticed Kira was crowching in the far corner with her tail switching back and forth, staring at his and Tam's every movement.
"I was hoping you could tell me. You were having a nightmare and from the sounds of it, a pretty terrible one." Rick looked at him in concern. "Do you remember any of it?"
Rick glanced at Kira again and motioned for her to come over. She just stared at him and didn't move, but her tail slashing slowed considerably now that Tam wasn't screaming anymore.
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Post by Firehead on May 15, 2009 11:43:27 GMT -5
Tam gratefully accepted the waterskin from Rick and took a swallow. He winced as he did so, for it hurt as it went down. But at least the second swallow was not as painful, Tam noticed. Apparently, no lasting damage had been done to his throat when screaming his lungs out. That was good.
"Do you remember any of it?" Rick asked. Tam thought hard for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I never do." His voice rasped painfully in his throat.
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