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"Well," she said in an offhand tone. "Only been protectin' my clan for the last fifteen years or so. You get all kinds of dangers down in the swamp, like wild animals and forest beasts and tourists and stuff. What about you?"
Thranion shrugged, “One major fight between houses for more territory, trespassers and such but other then that, nothing much. We’ve been itching for a fight for a while now.”
"Oh yeah, us too. 'Specially if it's for a good cause like this. Right Dane?" She elbowed Dane jovially.
Dane edged away a bit, but nodded. "Yeah. The People's Army always looks after its own."
(brb, gotta have supper)
Thranion frowned, “People’s Army? Never heard of them. Then again my people don’t pay much attention to the outside or any of their business… apart from this one time.”
(Okay)
Dane seemed happy to explain. "Well, we're based mostly in the center of the country, but we travel wherever we have to. By the people, for the people, that's our motto. We do a lot of defending small towns and settlements from what's left of the government and old military. Those parasites want nothing good for ordinary folk."
Thranion nodded, “Sounds like a good cause, good to know there’s some poeple defending the defenceless.”
Dane straightened proudly. "Yep. Just doing our job, that's all."
At that point Rick came over, nodding at them cheerfully. "Hey, so you're the rest of the people who decided to help, huh? I'm Rick, it's nice to meet y'all. How many fighters didja bring, if I may ask?"
“There’s about fifty of us humans.” James said with a shrug.
“And over one hundred and fifty of us, I think…” Thranion scratched at the back of his head, “Didn't know what the enemy was so didn’t really know how many to bring.”
"We're two dozen," Trouble said. "Couldn't spare any more, it's red mud season."
Dane looked like he wanted to inquire, but didn't. "I brought a square hundred."
"Cool beans," Rick replied. "And I was talkin' with the villagers here and they said they'll lend thirty men and women, so that gives us….lesse….about three hundred-fifty soldiers, all told. That's a pretty good number. I doubt Mr. Ryker has more 'n that."
(I'm off to bed, see you tomorrow!)
James shrugged and crossed his arms, "Who is this Ryker guy? What is his motive for us having to fight him?" He asked, frowning.
Thranion nodded, "Yeah, I'd also like to know about this guy."
(Seeya)
(I probably won't be on much tomorrow as I'm going to a performance and have to do tones of cleaning so sorry if I don't see you much)
(Okay, good luck with your day! ^^)
Rick scratched his head. "Well, I admit I haven't met the guy or seen his base firsthand, so I probably shouldn't be the one to give you the details on 'em…."
Bernon, who'd stayed out of the conversation so far, now spoke up from his spot a few feet away. "When everybody's here, I'll bet the first thing we'll do is explain the situation to everybody. The others should arrive soon, but until then I'll just say this: Ryker's plan to build a so-called 'utopia' won't benefit anyone but himself. Heck, it's such a flawed plan, it might not even benefit him. But he has the means to make it happen, and that's why we're here trying to stop him."
Thranion and James nodded, "Okay, thanks for the small run down. Why would he want to do this? What's the point of it?" James asked with a small frown.
Bernon sighed. "Well…I'm not real clear on that, to be honest. He seemed to think he was powerful enough to help the whole world….but I don't think anybody can do that."
Just then Mike returned with Polla and Ozrig in tow. "All right, that's everyone. Go ahead and make yourselves comfortable and let's get started, hey?"
(brb, gotta have supper)
(gotta go to bed now, seeya later! Hope you had yourself a good day ^^)
James and Thranion nodded before sitting down at a near by table, Thranion had his arms crossed over his chest. Tanrial turned around in her chair to face the small group that had gathered in the tavern, still not looking at newest arrivals, "Yeah, let's get this show on the road."
(Thanks! I did. Seeya later ^^)
(ooof long post ^^; )
Mike leaned forward and addressed the group. "Okay, so first of all, I'm gonna give you guys the short-story version of what happened when Bernon, Tanrial, and I visited Ryker. Stop me if you have any questions.
"Several weeks ago Ryker hired me to find him a certain machine part–which we still have, by the way. It's a data drive that contains info on tons of things, from science to history to magic and so on. I found it, met Bernon and Tanrial, befriended them, yada yada yada. We brought Ryker the machine part, and found out to things: What he's doing now and what he plans to do.
"What he's doing now is creating a new type of human, one that has no magical ability but can still do things no ordinary person is capable of. He's got a bunch of scientists helping him out by cloning people and fiddling with their genes. Right now, all these 'hybrids' are still young, and he controls them with lies and false kindness. Now, what he plans to do is use the abilities those kids have to build a new city where only hybrids and pure-blooded humans are allowed. His ultimate goal is to completely replace the old humans with the new humans, and maybe take over the world after that. I wouldn't put it past him. So, our objective is to rescue those kids and put a stop to Ryker's plan before it even starts."
Dane raised his hand. "Why does he want to replace humanity again?"
"He thinks it'll give us a fighting chance against the growing population of magic-users, whom he hates," Mike replied. "It's worth noting that most magic-users want nothing to do with humans and aren't our enemies at all."
Dane frowned, still seeming unconvinced. Bernon noticed and spoke up. "Oh, and another thing? I'm not sure how many of you know this, but pure-blooded humans are incredibly rare. Almost all of us have either dormant or active magic in our genes nowadays. Dane, I'll bet most of your army could learn to use magic if they wanted. Maybe even you could."
Mike nodded. "Yeah, and that's why Ryker's plan would never work. Working only with pure-bloods makes for a pretty small gene pool, and his supposed miracle humans would die out as soon as they were born. Okay, with that out of the way: any other questions?"
James raised a hand, "If Ryker has poisoned these kids minds, how are we supposed to save them? What's the age range on these kids? The younger ones we might have a chance at saving but if they're older… there probably won't be any hope at saving them."
(not gonna have time to be on tonight, sorry)
"We have to at least try," Beronn said fiercely. "The oldest is about twenty-one and the youngest is almost two. They can't understand how twisted Ryker's plan is. If we can publicly expose him somehow, it'll hurt them, yeah, but they won't be able to ignore it. I know I for one am not going to abandon even one of them down there."
(All g, don't worry ^^)
James held his hands up in innocence, "No need to get defensive their mate, I was just asking. Saving them should be our priority, yes but all I'm sayin' is we might not be able too, especially the older ones. They'll probably sick by this guy until they die."
Bernon frowned. "Yeah but we can't just–"
"Take it easy, Bern," Mike cut in quietly. "You're right that we won't give up on those kids without a fight. But James is right too. We can't be too hopeful and we'll have to take what we can get in order to make this work."
From her seat nearby, Polla rose and took out a map, which she unfolded across the tabletop. "If that's all, shall we get to the practicals? Some of us were coming up with a basic plan before everyone got here. Shall we run it by you?"
“That would be wise, yes.” Thranion said, sitting up straighter to get a better look at the map, “This is the general area, yeah? How bad is the terrain? From what we saw it was fairly covered in some areas.”