%20pngg.png)
"Who knows? It's possible that he's just waiting for the right moment to bring it up….although somehow I doubt that. I guess we'll have to wait and see." Bernon stared up at the sky, admiring the wispy gold clouds hovering overhead. "Man, the weather's sure been beautiful lately. I hope it holds 'till after the attack."
Tanrial looked up and smiled, drying her hand on her shirt, "I hope so too, it'd be a shame if it didn't. But who knows, we can't control the weather, well, not completely anyway."
"True. Who knows, maybe a storm would work in our favor." Bernon suddenly brightened. "Hey, that's a good point, though. I have water and lightning powers, so maybe I could make a storm myself! That sounds really hard, but really cool also. I'll have to try it sometime."
"Just try not to hurt anyone in the process it you try. But I'm sure you could so it." Tanrial gave him a grin, "It might be incredibly draining though, creating a storm."
"Good point. The last thing I need is to pass out in the middle of the battlefield." The boat hit the edge of Polla's house with a bump and Bernon grabbed on so they didn't drift away. "Welp, here we are. I think I can hear them talking in there already."
"Let's see what their talking about then." She hopped out the boat and knocked on the door, "Hey, It;s Tanrial and Bernon." She called.
There was a brief pause, then Polla's voice came through the open window. "Come in."
Bernon opened the door and entered, making space for Tanrial against the wall of the slightly cramped room. Polla and Ozrig were standing at the table, as well as Mike and Dane. They had a faded map laid out and Mike was in the middle of updating it with a pencil stub.
"Hey, good timing," he said. "When we were scouting the other day, did either of you notice any little dips or holes in the ground around Ryker's base?"
(gotta go now, not sure when/if I'll be back on)
Tanrial shook her head, "Not that I can remember. There was a slight hill, though but that's about all there was that I know of." She said, peering over at the map on the table.
(alright, see you soon)
Bernon shrugged. "I mean, the ground was pretty uneven in places, but I didn't notice anything specific."
"Okay. Well, we'll probably be sending out another scouting party today or tomorrow. I'd just like to know for sure because a dip or hollow might indicate an entrance to Ryker's base, or at least an area of weak ground where his base is closer to the surface. Either way, we need to find some good places to potentially break in. We also need to find an easy path for the bulldozer between the trees." He finished scribbling some cramped notes in the margins of the map and glanced back up. "Anything else we need to do to prepare that you guys can think of?"
"Have you marked our where we found those footprints? If they're Ryker's men that could mean they patrol that area at a certain time, which means we have to find out when." Tanrial crossed her arms and frowned at the map.
"Right." Mike carefully made a dotted line on the map and made a note of it nearby. "We'll have to decide what time of day to attack too."
"My men specialize in night attacks," Dane put in, "But they're able to adapt to any conditions if necessary. We may want to plan for a dawn or dusk battle to maximize the benefits of both night and day."
"That sounds like a good idea. That way if we attack at dawn we can get everything redy over night without being found out."
Polla nodded. "Dawn is when most of my village is up and about anyway. They're used to working in the dark."
"Do we know when the other troops will be coming?" Dane asked.
Tanrial shook her head, "No clue. Either later tonight or early tomorrow morning would be my best guess."
"Alright." Dane glanced at Mike. "Who all's coming?"
"Besides you guys it's just Tanrial's people, called the Evyns, and the Pikes."
"Hmm. I can't say as we've done business with either of those groups before. I hear the Pikes are kind of savages, but they should have no trouble with night combat. What about these Evyns, do they have a specialty?"
"Magic of varying kinds, plus they've dabbled in war before, civil war, granted but still." Tanrial shrugged and put a hand in her pocket, "There is a slight chance they might not come but they wouldn't want to miss out on a battle."
"Magic?" Dane's expression darkened. "I'm not sure if we can work with people who–"
"Learn to," Mike cut in without looking up. "Both Tanrial and Bernon are magic-users, and my best friends. The fact that the Evyns use magic is the last thing you'll have to worry about with them."
"We've been tolerant for almost a week now, and you can be too," Polla added sternly. "They're going to be fighting on our side, so there's no point in being prejudiced."
Dane's no-nonsense attitude faltered for the first time and he backed down uncertainly. "…all right. Fine."
"The world is changing, Dane. Get used to it." Tanrial sighed and rubbed at her face, "Anyway, I doubt they'll want to spend much time with your tropes. They keep to themselves mainly but will cooperate."
Dane didn't reply, sullenly shuffling his feet.
"Anyway," Mike said after a short pause, "I think that's all the planning we can do until the others get here. Let's focus on preparing for the attack, however you need to do that. It won't be easy, we know that much."
"Hey," Bernon said suddenly. "By the way? I think we might need to reiterate the point that there are children in Ryker's base. If we can help it, we don't want any of them hurt, even if some of them try to fight us. They have powers too, so that might be the hardest part of all."
Mike gave him a nod. "Yeah. Thanks, Bern. Those kids are the reason we're attacking in the first place, so it would really destroy the point if they died in the chaos."
"They might try and attack us, granted but… be careful if the main thing. Ryker might try to keep them hidden but we don't know what will happen."
Dane turned abruptly. "Right then. I'll brief my men." He opened the front door and strode out to his boat.
Mike sighed and rolled up the map, handing it back to Polla. "I guess we'll be at the tavern or on the beach somewhere if anything else comes to mind, or if you need help with anything. Thanks for your time."
Polla smiled. "Of course. Have a productive evening."
(brb, gotta have supper)
"See you soon." Tanrial said before walking out the cramped room, sighing a little, "Well that went… interestingly."
(Okay, I have to go out soon so sorry If I don't reply)
(np ^^)
"Yeah," Mike said, getting into their own boat. "Sorry about Dane. I didn't expect him to react badly to magic-users."
"Well, it's still a pretty common opinion among humans," Bernon said, starting to row them back to shore. "Hopefully we can turn him around, though. In a way, I think it's a good thing we got to him before Ryker did, otherwise he might have joined the other side and fought for him instead of us."
(Off to bed then, have a nice day! ^^)