thebastion | [Day 206] Set my sail

Entry tags:

[Day 206] Set my sail

Who: Colin, Zulf, Tris, and Tobias
Open: Closed
When: 206
Where: On the Skyway, close to Terminal territory
What: It's time to make an offering of peace... Step one is finding the Ura group, however.
Format: Action?
Warnings: None planned, will be updated

The plague may have been taken care of on the Bastion's end, but there's still something that's been bothering two residents of the Bastion. The fact of the matter was that there was another group of survivors out there. Ura survivors. Considering the recent incident between them and a group from the Bastion, however, and it's clear that careful steps need to be taken.

That's why the group gathered for this recent expedition more or less looks rather harmless, which is just as Zulf prefers it, but can still take care of themselves, which is how Colin does. All the necessary items have been packed along with them, including a set of spare clothing for Tobias just in case and some of the cure for the plague. It's been a bit of a journey, but, well... here they are. The same place that the cure recovery group once was.

Instead of his usual attire, Zulf is wearing the outfit which a couple of the group might remember from Night's funeral. It's not his preferred wear, but... it's the most Ura kind of clothing he immediately has on hand. He'll have to rectify that for later... But for now he turns to the rest of the group. "Everyone's doing alright so far?"

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Tris seems to be catching on quickly, so there helps ease some of Zulf's worry. Colin? Just gets some eyebrows raised in his direction. "As a change of pace, I thought I'd try optimistic for once. I can always go back, if you'd prefer." Zulf knows his only real skills are in talking, however. If he starts doubting those in a time like this....

At Tobias' recommondation, Zulf firmly keeps his eyes away. It's only the sound of hooves stomping at the ground that has him nervously jumping out of the way before he sighs. "Horses are like that, I've found. Are you certain you're ready...?"

"No, no, just jump behind me if it looks like shooting's about to start," Colin says warmly. "I won't be happy about being a bullet sponge, but odds are I can handle it far better than you can."

He gives Zulf a grin, and then he nods at Tobias. "I think we're all set," he says. "It's all on you, Secretariat."

He hoped that he'd picked a reference that Tobias would get...

The name sounds vaguely familiar, and he snorts in amusement. He lowers his head towards Zulf. Yeah. He's ready.

<Funny enough this actually is a racehorse. I didn't bother to check the name, though... Cassie ended up being mistaken for one of the actual racehorses and ended up running the race. And winning.> That whole mission had ended up completely ridiculous. Thankfully he'd been out of some of the weirder parts.

Okay, now they have a horse. Tris looks him over again, eyebrows going up, then faces the wind once more.

"I'll let you know if I absolutely have to do anything noisy. I know horses don't like thunder, and I can warn you about that." Until then, its walk and listen?

It's quiet along the path. A little too quiet, maybe. There should be animals, even monsters about, but there's nothing around here. It's almost as if anything living is too scared to come to this place in particular.

The camp itself is abandoned, but not destroyed. Anything useful they could carry with them is long gone, leaving behind only a few things. The remains of a fire pit, a few overturned logs, and some spent shell casings. Anyone who investigates those will find that they are of a particular make and model of a gun, one that Ura typically use.

At the camp, there is a short note left on one of the logs. It's written in Ura, and it's hastily scrawled, like whoever was leaving it had to write it in a hurry. But even if it's written in a strange language only one of the party can read, everyone should be able to read the name at the top, because it's been written down several times in the Bastion already.

Whatever this note is, it's addressed to Zahi.

Zulf is far from surprised that everything has been packed up. Tobias and Tris had already confirmed it empty, after all. He stands back a bit just to let Colin have the chance to look over everything just in case when he notices the note. For Zahi-?

"Zahi stepped up when the attack happened, didn't he?" he asks Tobias even as he steps forward and leans over to pick up the note after making sure nothing is amiss with either it or the logs. It's not going to do anyone any good just sitting there, right? "I suppose they thought he'd be the one to come back."

Colin steps forward as well, surveying the area and scanning for explosives carefully. He also crouches to collect shell-casings, studying their dispersal pattern curiously as he does so. Had the Ura been shooting at something from here? Or were these just empties that couldn't be hauled back with everything else?

"What's that note say, Zulf?" Colin asks. He'll want a look at it later, he did buy Ura language skills at the Monument for just this purpose. But he won't exactly let anyone else know that if he can avoid it...

He can't be sure what direction the Ura might have been shooting in, but he can give a decent enough guess based on positioning. A typical gun ejects shell-casings to the right, and if there were any footprints left, he'd probably have a decent enough chance of determining where the shots were fired from...

<I asked him to, so yeah. I assume so. I took off.>

Right. Tracking. This is what he's supposed to do. A shame he doesn't have a dog or a cat morph anymore. ... He misses Dude. But there's work to be done, and he puts his nose down, sniffing a long to try to see if he can pick up a trail.

"... It's way too quiet." Tris rubs at one ear, then the next, as if making sure it wasn't just because her ears weren't warmed up or some of her hair is in the way.

"Something's about, or something happened here that scared the creatures off. I'm still not getting anything, but.." Be careful as you poke about.

Colin's logic-ing can give him a general idea of what happened. The shell casings are mostly on the south side of the camp, so whatever they were shooting at, it came from the south. The trail out of camp leads to the north-east, away-ish from the direction that the Bastion is in. Probably by coincidence, these Ura have no real way of knowing about the Bastion, not this far out, but it means that the group will have to travel further away from home to track them.

As for the note itself, this is what it says:

Zahi,

Even though everything happened so quickly, I was able to recognize you from a distance. My superiors told us to cover our tracks, to prevent others from finding us, but I feel that you should be an exception. If you come back and find this note, we can be found at the old training grounds, back where I used to play with your sons when we were children.

You are always welcome among us, but please consider the consequences before bringing any of your new friends with you. Tensions are running high as it is, and the presence of a large group of newcomers would serve as the spark to light the powder keg.

Best wishes,

Zed

It is entirely possible to track these people down now, and with an Ura in the group they may respond favorably. But there is the risk of them assuming things and attacking first, and this would be a large group, not just a dozen or so soldiers.

Very carefully, Zulf reads through the letter all on his own first just to get an idea of what's happened. An old training ground... He'd known some warriors before going to Caelondia, but would any training ground he know of be the same one as this specific one?

Either way, he reads it all aloud afterwards before taking a breath. "So there's that. I'm not sure if I know the location, so.... Tobias, Tris, we would be relying on your skills if we wanted to find them. If you're all certain that's something you want to do, at any rate." Zulf knows what he wants to do- there's no doubt in his mind. But he doesn't want to drag them into any possible danger they won't agree with.

"I don't think we count as a large group of newcomers." And as far as Tris knows, none of them would be immediately recognized from the last meeting. Which would be in their favor.

"If you want, I don't really know how well it would work on temper, but breezes can carry voices." Or at least, it isn't very hard for her to make them do it better. "I could try getting yours to carry head of us, if you think that your voice would be calming."

Tobias lets out a huff of air, flicking his tail in irritation.

<I don't think they'll take a non-Ura well. They said not to bring anyone else so I don't even know if you'll be taken well, Zulf, since it was addressed to Zahi. I don't want to leave them out here to die, but we have to make sure we don't lose anyone, either.>

He trots around for a few moments, thinking. <But... I think we should take the chance. Extend them an offer of peace and directions to the Bastion. It's not as if we're defenseless if they turn up and try to fight us.>

"We've got medicine for them," Colin says simply. "Medicine that they apparently need. If we don't find them, we're sentencing them to what we just went through... WITHOUT hope. I'm not going to let that happen."

He smirks, and he gives Zulf a look. "Again I say, if your people have a widely recognized banner of peace, a white flag or something, we could really use it..."

Zulf's going to want to hit him before this is all said and done, he's sure of it. That said, the dispersal pattern of the bullet casings doesn't seem to match with what they know of the events last time someone from the Bastion was here. At least, they don't mesh up in his head.

"I'd rather we find them soon, though," Colin says. "They were shooting at something from here, and they left not long after. WITHOUT policing their brass. That's never a good sign. I don't think these rounds came from the incident with the last party."

Zulf keeps his face as passive as he can as the rest of them go over their thoughts and options- a bit of a feat considering that he's generally a fairly open book when it comes to his emotions. When they all come to agreement, however, a slight smile appears on his face.

He would have set off anyway on his own if no one else had wanted to do this, but it's better to have some others watching his back.

The smile quickly drops at Colin's words, however, and Zulf gives a stiff nod. "Just keep your hands high in the air when we see them, palms out. But to find them... Tobias, do you know which way they went?"

Tobias doesn't know anything about bullet patterns so he just turns his attention back to Zulf.

<Not yet. But I will.>

He lowers his nose towards the ground and sniffs, seeing what kind of trail he can pick up. Hopefully they haven't done anything to hide their scent like run through water, because it'll be a pain if they have. Still, he lets go and lets the horse instincts do their work in picking up what he can.

Edited 2014-07-22 14:31 (UTC)

"They'll see us long before we see them," Colin says, shaking his head. "I don't even know their operational doctrine, but I know that much for a fact. All we can do is move on, and hope for the best. I'm pretty sure they headed North-east, but I'm not the best at reading tracks. And I'm betting whoever was in charge will be masking their trek soon enough."

Certain customs from back home were definitely being longed for right about now... A nice medical flag would have gone a long way towards settling his nerves. Even knowing a Red Cross on the box of medicine he was carrying would have put him at ease, but that was a Terran symbol, not even widely recognized throughout the galaxy. The likelihood of it being recognized here was practically non-existent.

He'll start after Tobias and Zulf once everyone gets moving. He suspects that there's a Ura scout out there with eyes on them already, if not a whole fire-team. But voicing THAT concern would do nothing but unsettle everyone else. There was no reason to panic the rest of the group with information they couldn't do anything about.

Edited 2014-07-22 16:31 (UTC)

"Particularly if they're hiding out of the wind.." Although that particular bit of magic hasn't been helpful so far. But Tris carefully keeps walking with glasses off just in case something useful comes up.

Tobias lifts his head and tosses it, turning to the north east.

<That way. Definitely. We should probably hurry, we don't know how fast they moved or how far they are. Let's go!>

"Have patience," Colin says gently, reaching out to pat Tobias on the neck. "If we start running after their tracks immediately, we're just going to look suspicious. Let's just move at a nice, steady pace. We'll get where we need to go, and we run less risk of losing the trail than if we're running."

The group's in no immediate danger, as the place where the Ura went is a couple hours of travel away. They will be way out on the edge of the Terminals before they come across anyone else. It seems as though whatever scared off the group of Ura before is not currently around, so that is one danger that has been thankfully avoided.

But when they draw close to the place listed in the note, that is when eyes will be upon them. There are many more that are hidden, well out of sight and silently watching the party, but one Ura is in a tree and makes his presence known.

"Halt! Who goes there?"

The words are spoken in Ura, but anyone wearing an amulet can understand it.

The entire journey, Zulf is mostly quiet. The last time he'd tried to find his kin- they're all memories that he tries to outpace, distracting himself by looking around carefully every now and then. It's only when he hears that familiar dialect, a language he's only heard spoken by himself or by Zahi on rare occasion, that something in his mind seems to click.

Ah. He knows this.

Zulf's body language shifts slightly, more confident and relaxed even as his shoulders and back straighten up. He makes sure to raise his hands up, showing them empty. Ura comes from his tongue easily as he takes the helm of the group, moving slowly and carefully.

"I am Zulf, ambassador of the Tazal Terminals. These are my companions- Tris is the daughter of a healer and Colin is an inventor. Tobias is our horse. None of them are from Caelondia. My only weapon is a machete, which I'll easily give to you if it would put you at ease." Honesty is the best policy here, so he won't make any attempts to hide the fact that he's carrying a weapon. In a fight, it's not as though it would do him much good anyway.... And he won't turn a weapon on any other Ura besides.

Colin looks around, and he frowns slightly. He hopes the others won't ruin the surprise that their amulets let them understand the Ura tongue, but who knows what the Ura already know?

Besides, Colin's got his own linguistic surprise, should he need it. Won't THAT just turn the whole situation on its head?

"Uh, Zulf?" Colin says quietly, glancing at their diplomat. "I know for a fact that there's got to be at least a half dozen more guys out there, each one with a gun that has us in their sights for the first wrong move. Can you let them know we're on a mission of peace and healing? Please? Or at least let me know if there's a reason that isn't being said yet?"

"... That many?" Tris is more thoughtful than worried. She blinks owlishly at the Ura in the tree, then replaces her glasses. "Quite a welcoming committee."

But until anything moves in a way that worries her, she's just going to stand quietly off to the side. Guns are strange things, but if there is anything other than weather that she's good at, its protective barriers.

Tobias flicks his tail, uneasy with this. He's had to demorph and remorph already, which means that he can only morph something else once today. He's already feeling the strain, and walking into what could very well be a combat situation with poor eyesight and not fantastic hearing is not making him feel any better. He can smell the Ura, but taking any action right now would be stupid.

He keeps his thought speech just to the group. No need to terrify the locals. Not yet, at least. <Just let me know if I need to bolt and do a speed morph into something. I don't like this. I want to help, but the minute this turns into a fight I'm going to be useless for a bit until I remorph.>

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