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Post by Brandwyn on May 16, 2009 6:47:28 GMT -5
Rick looked on in concern. "So you have had this nightmare before?" Usually dreams like that were an indication of some trauma in one's past.
"Any idea what happened that may be causing them? Sometimes you can make them go away if you can figure out why you are having them. Something that may have happened to you when you were little, perhaps?"
Rick wasn't sure what time it was, but he figured it had to be near morning since he felt like he had gotten a good rest. He stood up and then sat down in one of the chairs anchored to the deck next to a small round table in the cabin that was also anchored to the deck. He held his hand down and motioned for Kira to come over.
After a few moments she responded and started rubbing on the chair leg and his hand. Rick watched Tam with concern, wondering just what terrible things the street kid had lived through already in his young life.
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Post by Firehead on May 23, 2009 8:26:43 GMT -5
Tam thought for a moment, scratching his head absentmindedly, then finally, shook his head. "Unless it be th' thieflord, I cay'no' tell." He squinted one eye and looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. Eventually though, he lowered his gaze and shook his head again. "An' it cay'na be th' thieflord, 'cause I only run wi' him recent." He looked at Rick. "D' ya reckon we're near inta port?"
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Post by Brandwyn on May 23, 2009 21:34:40 GMT -5
Rick watched Tam try to figure out the cause of his nightmares with some concern. When Tam shook his head, Rick frowned, "oh well, maybe something will trigger the memory someday and then you will know." Maybe then his nightmares would stop, till then Rick would just have to be there to wake Tam up before he screamed himself hoarse.
"D' ya reckon we're near inta port?"
Rick listened to the ship for a moment, it seemed that they might be slowing.
"I think we might be. Almost seems as if they have furled the sail. Let's pack our stuff and go up on deck to find out."
Once they were on deck Rick could see the sky just starting to lighten over the bow of the ship and a land mass sillouetted in the near distance in front of them.
"Looks like we are about to land in Gallica!" Rick said to Tam. He stepped to the railing and squinted at the city that was just coming into view in the dawn light. Sounds drifted to them over the water.
Rick smelled smoke and heard something that sounded almost like sword fighting. Eventually a huge cloud of smoke deep in the city could be seen against the lightening sky.
As they got closer the sounds clarified and he could hear men shouting and the clang of sword on sword and the sound of women weeping. Eventually he could make out a cluster of men fighting in the street near the docks.
Thier ship pulled up to the pier after the fighting had moved on down an alleyway. "I wonder what is going on here?" Rick mused, trying to see who was doing the fighting. They did not appear to be uniformed soldiers. "I wonder if Adrian has seen this yet. Maybe he has some ideas on what is going on. I don't think those are soldiers fighting. It almost seems to be a riot, but not exactly."
Rick continued to watch as the ship was secured to the port and the gangplank lowered. They could now make out bodies lying here and there along the docks and among the warehouses. Otherwise the streets seemed to be pretty much deserted. Definately not normal.
"How do you feel about climbing up on top of that warehouse there and see if you can tell what is going on while I go get the horses and Kira?" Rick pointed to a warehouse near the end of the pier that seemed to have a good vantage point of the city from the roof. He had no doubts that Tam would be able to scale the walls. "Just be careful and stay out of any fighting. It looks like they have moved on from this area though."
Rick studied the nearest body and thought he could see something silver glinting on a chain around the man's neck. He was going to have to check that out as soon as the horses were off-loaded from the deck below through the hold door onto the pier.
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Post by Brandwyn on May 29, 2009 5:43:53 GMT -5
Rick went back down into the hold and saddled both horses and loaded their gear on the pack pony and led all three animals out the cargo hold door up onto the pier.
He looked around, wondering how Tam was doing.
He led the horses over to examine the body he had noticed earlier and saw a bear paw pendant with rubies inset onto the claws. "Definately a Grizzly." He scanned the pier and the alleyways, examining each person and didn't see anyone else wearing a pendant.
Two of the next three bodies he examined were Grizzlies. The sounds of fighting were very faint in the distance now. The black plume of smoke in the center of the city seemed to be disapating too, though there was still a stream of smoke rising into the air, it was not as thick or black as it had been. This would seem to indicate that someone was putting the fire out - whatever it was that was on fire. That was good. Rick didn't want to get caught in a city on fire. He didn't really care for cities in the first place and the thought of being trapped between burning buildings was definately not appealing.
He scanned the warehouse roof and waited for Tam to come back, hoping he would have some news on what was going on, or at least on where the fighting was located.
He was also waiting for Adrian to catch up with them before they headed off to the red feather.
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Post by Firehead on May 30, 2009 20:09:06 GMT -5
Tam nodded quickly and sprinted toward the warehouse, barely slowing down when he reached the wall. On the roof he found a vantage point that afforded him a good view of the town without exposing his whereabouts to any hostile parties. There had been plenty of fighting, alright-- most of it centered around what appeared to be a hotel. He looked back over his shoulder to check on Rick and Adrian, noting that they hadn't moved very far from the dock. After a final glance back at the city, he began scaling back down the wall. He was concentrating on the wall in front of him so he was unprepared for what happened next.
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Post by Brandwyn on Jun 2, 2009 5:35:43 GMT -5
(OOC: exerpt from "Damion/Red":
"Damien nodded his head as he waited for the boy to come back around. As he was waiting, Damien watched in amazement at the commotion. He had never seen so many people. Seeing the boy climbing down, Damien hid and waited for the boy to come back to the ground. As soon as the boy hit the ground, Damien sprang into action. Jumping from his hiding spot, Damien tackled the boy to the ground and held him there. "What is going on here boy?" asked Damien as he held the boy down. Damien, being the softy that he was, was making sure that he was not hurting the boy."
Now back to the action here:)
Rick watched Tam climb back down the warehouse wall and moved forward with the horses and Adrian to meet Tam at the bottom of the wall.
As he got closer he saw two crouched figures and jumped forward to stop the one as the man jumped on Tam as Tam landed on the ground. The man threw Tam to the ground and held him down.
"What is going on here boy?" Rick heard the man ask and he pushed his ranger cloak back over his shoulder and pulled his bow and knocked an arrow in the blink of an eye.
"Let him go. Now" Rick said, steel in his voice, his arrow trained at the other guys chest, but he kept his eye on the first guy too, hoping Adrian would back him up.
Rick heard Kira hiss as she sprang to his side. She looked like she was going to pounce on the young man holding Tam down. Rick was surprised, she had never really jumped to his defense before. She must really have taken a liking to Tam.
"I suggest you release my apprentice before my friend here tries to shred you." Rick nodded to Kira, crouching at his side, ready to spring.
(OOC: Damian and Red, just in case you haven't been following, Kira is a Lynx - half wild. Rick only has nominal control over her. She is about two feet tall and three feet long if you count her tail. She is a greenish tan color with dark brown spots running in striped patterns all over her. She has tufts of hair on the tips of her ears and her cheeks and big green eyes. Her ears are large and she has big feet for her size.)
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Post by Firehead on Jun 5, 2009 9:55:00 GMT -5
Tam saw the body come at him from the corner of his eye, but had no time to react as the person tackle him to the ground. For a moment, he panicked as he went down, but then he realized that whoever was pinning him down was being gentle with him. "What is going on here boy?" the stranger asked.
"Let him go. Now." Tam felt relived to know that Rick was helping him, even as he noticed a similarity in the stranger and Rick's cloak color. He squinted up at the stranger and dared to ask, "Are you a Ranger?"
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Red watched as the rest of the boy's party started moving in their direction, but found himself distracted when Damien suddenly tackled the kid to the ground. He moved to help him, and then realized that Damien was working quite efficiently without him.
At the same time, he saw the two men that the boy was with, react to the apparent attack on their comrade. He immediately called himself seven kinds of a fool, as he saw that one of the men was a Ranger. One he had seen, though never met, before. He was willing to bet that the boy was that Ranger's apprentice,to. As it turned out, he was right. Before he could warn Damien, the Ranger had an arrow pointed at Damien.
"I suggest you release my apprentice before my friend here tries to shred you." the Ranger added, nodding to the largest cat that Red had ever seen domestically walk among people. 'There is no way that cat can be entirely tame.' Red thought as he watched it hiss at his own apprentice.
"Let the kid go Damien, they're Rangers." Red stood slowly, keeping his hands at shoulder height as he stepped away from the shadows. "Though what THEY'RE doing here, I'd really like to know." he muttered to himself, then raised his voice a little so the others could hear him, and introduced Damien and himself to the Ranger."My name's Red. This is my apprentice, Damien."
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Post by Brandwyn on Jun 5, 2009 10:33:53 GMT -5
Rick took his eyes off the other apprentice, Damien, long enough to study the other man and recognized him from the gatherings, though they had never really interacted before.
He lowered his bow and released the tension on his string, but left the arrow knocked. "Hi, I am Ranger Rick Greenriver and this is my apprentice, Tam and my friend Adrian."
Rick noticed that Kira was still in near springing mode. He placed a hand on her head to try to sooth her, but she didn't seem to respond much. "Umm, Kira here seems to have developed a protective instinct over Tam. I am not sure I can keep her from attacking if she thinks he is in danger." Hopefully Damien would let Tam up before Kira decided to take matters into her own claws.
"You two been ordered over here by Crowley? I thought only Shanna and James had been sent over here ahead of us." Rick asked Red as he put his arrow back in its quiver, hoping that if he relaxed Kira would too.
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Post by flaminwolf92 on Jun 5, 2009 10:59:52 GMT -5
After Damien tackled the kid to the ground, he immediately knew something was off. Seeing this guy in a cloak with an arrow already notched in his bow, Damien knew that this could mean trouble. Then to add to that, this lynx shows up and starts growling and hissing. Now Damien knew he was in trouble. Then came the unexpected. Red told him to let go of the kid and told him that they were Rangers.
'Rangers? What are they doing here? What is going on?' thought Damien as he got off of Tam. Getting off of him, Damien stood up and extended his hand to Tam to help him up. "Sorry about that. I was following orders. Next time I'll look before I leap. The name's Damien Wolf. You okay?" said Damien as he warily eyed the lynx. Now normally Damien was not afraid of animals, as a matter of fact he was pretty good with them. But something told him to never get on this lynx's bad side.
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Post by Firehead on Jun 5, 2009 12:02:25 GMT -5
Red lowered his hands as Rick lowered the bow and eased off the bowstring. "You two were sent over here by Crowley? I thought only Shanna and James had been sent over here ahead of us."
"We-ell.... actually....Crowley didn't send us over, we're here...." Red paused and tried to decide what to say. To say that they were still on the trail of horse thieves wasn't exactly true anymore--the trail was well and cold by now. "On a holiday. You know, the ones they let us take every now and then, providing we're paying for it ourselves." he finished with a touch of joking sarcasm.
He switched the topic. "So what's this about Crowley sending a whole bunch of us over here? What's going on over here anyway?" he demanded. "To the best of your ability, would you mind telling us what on earth is going on here?"
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Tam gratefully accepted the stranger's help up to his feet-- his breath had been squashed out of him when he'd been tackled to the ground. "Sorry about that. I was following orders. Next time I'll look before I leap. The name's Damien Wolf. You O.K.?" the stranger asked him. "Yeah I'm fine." Tam tipped his head back to look into Damien's face. "Mine's Tam." He looked over to Kira, "It's OK, girl." he said to her.
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Post by Brandwyn on Jun 5, 2009 14:48:24 GMT -5
Rick tried to suppress a grin at Red's explanation of a "holiday" but couldn't keep the corners of his mouth from twitching up. "Know what you mean. Been a long time since I had one. I have been covering Araluen fief for several months now. Try working under Crowley's nose every day of the week." Rick grinned, though he actually didn't know what he would do if he ever did go on a vacation. This trip to Gallica was as much a vacation to him as anything.
"Basically there is a war going on over here. Aslavia is invading and heading in our direction. Last word is they had taken most of Toscano and were set to hit Gallica next. We figure they are coming all the way over to take Araluen, so the King and Crowley have sent people over here to check it out and slow them down." Rick explained, stroking Kira who seemed to have calmed slightly, but was still watching every move Damien made.
"There is also this group of mercenaries calling themselves The Grizzlies that have infiltrated Araluen and over here in Gallica. We think they might be working for the Aslavians. Shanna was sent to hook up with Tandar and Drenith and find out about them and stop them if they can. They are wearing these pendants..." Rick stepped over to one of the bodies lying nearby and pointed out the bear paw pendants with rubies set in the claws.
"but as to what is going on specifically here in La Rivage, I have no idea. That is why I sent Tam up the warehouse there to see what was going on in the rest of the city." Rick turned to Tam, "What did you see up there?"
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Post by Firehead on Jun 6, 2009 9:24:34 GMT -5
"There's been a lotta fightin' inside, an' someone set fire to somethin' big. I think th' main fightin' has died out, though." Tam reported, moving over next to Kira, and stroking her ears. He looked over at Damien, ''Do ya wanta try b'comin' friends wi' her? She'll be nice to ya, once she knows ya better."
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Red listened as first Rick and then Tam brought them up to date. "A war huh? Pretty Aslavia is going ta try to kick the seat of someones pants, eh? They're in for a whippin'." Red wandered over to one of the Grizzlies. "Grizzlies, eh? wonder where they're fr--! We-ell! It really is a small world after all! If'n I didn't know any better, I'd say this is the same one what couldn't tie a knot. I'd swear that he's one of the same bunch what--" he caught a glimpse of Rick from the corner of one eye, "caught me off my guard." he finished casually, for, like any Ranger, he was loath to say that anyone not a Ranger had snuck up on him, let alone kidnapped him.
Red shifted the subject. "We were going to start looking around for a place called the Red Feather, you wouldn't happen to know where it is exactly, would you?"
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Post by Brandwyn on Jun 6, 2009 15:00:03 GMT -5
"Actually I do and we were heading there ourselves!" Rick answered with a grin. Then he glanced around the city. The regular people seemed to be off the streets, other than those involved in the fighting. "Problem is it is pretty much on the other side of the city. Depending on what is going on around here, it might be difficult to get there."
Rick noticed Kira sniffing at Damien and watched her closely, either she would accept Damien, ignore him or attack him and Rick wasn't sure which one. At least she seemed a bit calmer now and wasn't lashing her tail around so much, Rick thought.
"Say, have you seen Ranger Palisade anywhere around here?" Rick asked. Maybe these two had run into him and might know where he was.
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Post by flaminwolf92 on Jun 6, 2009 23:37:05 GMT -5
"Yeah sure. I love animals. Hopefully she'll accept me. I really don't feel like become her next meal," Damien replied to Tam as Kira continued to sniff him. Damien felt a little uneasy as the lynx began to sniff him. Then the key of animal care came into Damien's mind. 'I must not show any fear. The lynx could pick up on it and then I would be her next meal. Hopefully she'll accept me as part of the pack or just ignore me,' thought Damien as he calmed himself. Careful not to make any sudden movements, Damien slowly stretched his hand out to the front of Kira's muzzle. Now, all was in Kira paws. If she attacked, well either Damien's reflexes would come in handy, or he would become Kira's next meal. 'Whatever happens, happens.' he thought as Kira continued to sniff him. Hopefully Damien's facility with animals would come in handy in this situation.
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Post by Brandwyn on Jun 7, 2009 21:20:49 GMT -5
Rick watched his lynx snif at Damien's hand out of the corner of his eye. He knew from past experience not to force the issue with her, so there was nothing he could do except pull her back if she tried to chomp Damien.
Kira sniffed for a minute or so and then licked the back of Damien's hand and rubbed her face against it, demanding to be petted and Rick sighed in relief. "She must be getting a bit more tame or used to people. Guess all that time on the ship with those sailors has done some good."
Kira let Damien pet her for a moment and then she circled around Tam, rubbing against his legs and placed her body between Tam and the other two rangers and sat on her haunches and watched them as if she was following the conversation.
Rick went on to explain about their mission, "Here is a drawing of Palisade." He pulled the sketch out of his satchel. "Crowley sent us over to bring him back to Araluen. He should have two apprentices with him, a boy with white hair and a young girl." Rick hated to bring up the matter, but Red should know the whole story. "He has apparently gone rouge and killed two people and stole their money just before he left Araluen. We don't know why." Rick pulled out the wanted poster. "Crowley put a bounty on him and he probably won't come willingly. My mission is to bring him back alive to stand trial."
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