Return of the Emblem Chapter Thirteen: Flight

[Mercakete]

Once the bandit rolled off of him, Norbert quickly got his feet under him, even if he hesitated to stand. His first priority was taking in his surroundings, and that was done pretty quickly. The Ursaean guardsmen were on their way, and the groaning bandit's ally was lying a little ways away, seemingly caught in a bear trap and bleeding. Besides the guy holding his head and the trap that had just snapped up on one of the patrolmen's legs, there weren't any potential threats in sight, and those two could only barely be counted, in all honesty.

The Crusher was still of a mind to finish off this one, or at least knock the fight out of him completely -- there was no way that aching head would hold him down for long -- but the guard captain has asked he be left alive. Thinking about it, that was fine: he had other problems to worry about, especially with those traps around.

To buy the guards a bit more time, Norbert kicked a bit of the ground into the bandit's face before hurrying past the guards. As he went by the captain, he hastily passed along a message: "All yours. I'm finding my pegasus." And keeping an eye out for traps. I hope Riz didn't get caught in one...

[-Cynthia-]

"Avians don't usually receive visions," Liam answered Greta simply. This might be related to the emblem in some way- which means that we can't trust whether it's true or not. I'd rather talk with Joanna about this alone rather than involve overly curious humans however...

"But most of our flyin' mounts are up there already- I guess Isis could go but she's kinda...big and obvious. We're supposed to be keepin' a low profile," Nadya reminded the group.

[Toogee]

Jam was safely sitting behind Eva, yet she couldn't see any of the action. The fighting seemed to have ceased, yet she could hear cries of pain. She attempted to peek through the forest, but couldn't get a clear view.

"Are they done in there?" Jam asked Eva. At the same time, she was looking behind her to make sure there wasn't a dragon rushing them.

[Phoenix]

Only Pain Here

As Norbert took off after his pegasus, the guards swarmed the area. Apparently the last incident hadn't quite sunken in, yet. Once another trap slammed shut around a guardsman's leg and sent him into a screaming fit, everyone slowed down and started to really take in their surroundings.

"Careful, this path is a trap," Doran called out. Worse yet, they weren't really on a path, so there was no clear direction of where to go, and no truly obvious places one might lay down one of these steel traps. They had to be hidden under sticks and leaves like the previous two had been, but there were patches of those everywhere. The bandits likely hadn't had more than a handful of minutes to set these things up, but they clearly didn't do so sloppily. They were likely outnumbered here, and definitely outgunned, but they held the home field advantage, and probably a great deal of experience disguising their handiwork.

When Shadrak made it over only to hear various bits of moaning and screaming, he winced. This had all happened extremely quickly and he wasn't sure what to make of the situation, now. One bandit was as good as captured, and the other was dead, so where did they go from here? He didn't see any others around.

Riding Along

They weren't anywhere near an actual road, yet, so Glen carefully looked over his shoulder at the conversation going on in and around the wagon, some concern clear on his face. "Uh, wasn't that wyvern too big to go, and that's why it's still with us? How good of a fighter is Bert, anyway?"

"He was on his back," Joanna raised her voice. Apparently she didn't care how good of a fighter the pegasus rider was right now.

"Do ya really want to take the chance of just hopin' things turn out alright? Also, if avians don't get visions," Greta continued, "then how's Jo know what the heck's goin' on up there?"

[-Cynthia-]

"Bert...well he tries his best and hasn't died yet," Nadya answered halfheartedly. "I'd rather he and others not die either- but what are we gonna do about it? I doubt they're still gonna be fightin' tomorrow which is when we'd get there."

"Well, Joanna received a vision just now obviously- but how such a thing occurred I am not sure," Liam said, frowning

[Mercakete]

And there went another one. Now, it could have very well been that these soldiers didn't know what to look for when avoiding traps like that out in the wilderness. It could have also very well been that these bandits were particularly good at hiding traps. To be safe, Norbert chose to assume the latter and not care about the former, and watched his step as he made his way over to where he'd last heard Rizen cry out.

Once he got there, it was easy to see which way she had come from and which way she went. She hadn't exactly been trying to be subtle, so to his eyes at least, the track she tore into the ground was easily readable. Norbert may not have been a hunter, but he knew his own equine's tracks and he knew what the ground looked like after a charge in the mountains. He didn't see any activated traps, which was a relief. He did, however, notice that her tracks seemed to have veered off in a strange way, as though she'd changed directions suddenly. He knew she was hurt, so whatever hurt her must have come from the side she ran away from. The ground around there didn't seem to be very disturbed, but Norbert still followed the track to where her hooves seemed to change course, keeping his maces handy and glancing off to the side every once in a while. Then, he saw an arrow.

Norbert glared at the projectile and lowered his profile, keeping a mace-wielding arm up defensively in case the ones who shot that arrow were still around. He called back to the soldiers, "Careful! There are still archers around here!" I have to find Rizen quickly. Needless to say, next on the agenda was following these tracks until they ran out or he found his missing pegasus.

[Ether]

"I'll be fine, Eva. You should know well enough by now that I'm not exactly a fan." Angelica replied, as she moved her way up to the guardsmen, who were trying, and in some cases failing, to avoid traps.

"Stand aside." She stated rather bluntly, summoning a gust of wind to sweep the area, and clear out the accumulated leaves and unsettle the under brush. With any luck, the traps had been somewhat hastily hidden, and such a thing might bring them to light.

[Nanami Touko]

"Right, right," she said, shaking her head a bit, and turning towards the captain. "Well, what're we waiting for, yeah? Let's get in there and help!"

[Phoenix]

Revealing

The Guard Captain stood over the injured man and the dead one, watching the former toss and turn and writhe for a moment. Norbert had already run off, so it was up to them to salvage the situation here. "Tie this one up." Just as he gave the order, a gust of wind blew through the area, picking up just about everything not embedded in the ground. That was when the situation became much more clear.

"Huh ..." the guard captain began counting up the traps he could see. He got up to ten before he decided he didn't need to know the exact number. What he knew now, however, was that there were definitely more than two bandits in the area. This type of setup wasn't a two man job. It wasn't even a four man job.

Two of his men navigated the now exposed traps and approached the guard captain and their soon to be prisoner. "We've got'em, captain," one of them said with a nod.

"Good. We'll see what we can get out of him."

Wagon Worries

Amon was genuinely surprised. The emblem piece she'd been guarding for who knows how long wasn't at least suspected in her vision? Well, he still felt it wasn't really important right now, so he didn't say anything, instead focusing on what they should do about the vision, itself. "We could probably get someone there in time to help ... maybe in a couple of hours if Isis flies as fast as she can. The problem is that the whole reason we couldn't go flying around in the first place was because there might be a ballista or something like that waiting."

"Better ask Haythem, then," Greta shrugged, "'cause I can't make that call. Still, I'd feel sick if we just went on our way and didn't at least try to help."

"Joanna," Glen called into the wagon, again, "if it isn't too difficult, maybe you should try to see what's going on up there, again." He wasn't sure if it was a voluntary thing that she could do at will, or just some sporadic occurrence, but if there was even a chance she could control it, then she could at least keep them appraised of the situation, and that would help them come to a decision on how to proceed.

"I ... suppose I could try," she replied quietly, all too easily recalling the violence from before.

[Mercakete]

Norbert hadn't been expecting the sudden burst of wind, and once it started, he worried that something or someone was going to use some sort of weird wind magic on them. In the end all that happened was...that the ground got completely unsettled...and any tracks Rizen had left were gone. Nooo, no no no no no--!

With the traps revealed, Bert could move around a lot more easily and soon found himself racing for where he recalled Rizen's tracks veered further down the hill. When he reached the slope, he froze. Then, he sighed in relief. His memory was right, and the wind hadn't disturbed anything down here. He still shot a glare over his shoulder in the direction of his "allies." If they were uncovering traps, it was probably one of them, unless it was an enemy's misfire.

Well, he wasn't about to stick around and wait for some other form of misfortune, so he began following the pegasus' hoofprints. He also made sure to keep an eye out for foes and unsettled ground where traps might be.

[Ether]

"So, how many guys do you think it took to set up that many traps? Seems unlikely that we just so happened to get ambushed in a spot that they had rigged up beforehand, so there's bound to be more around." Angelica asked, as she walked up to the Guard Captain, sending out a few small gusts around the area to check for any suspect spots that might have been missed, ready to erect a barrier in the case of any projectiles disrupting the air.

[Afterglimmer]

"Try to find some sort of landmark if you can. If we're going to send someone, we need some way to find them as quickly as possible," Luther suggested. He was a bit skeptical about her supposed vision, but it was still far from the strangest thing he witnessed within the last couple of days.

[-Cynthia-]

"Well if we're going fly around on a huge wyvern, sign me up to go. Bert'll need healed I bet," Nadya decided.

"Don't push yourself too hard Joanna. We still don't know much of anything about this power," Liam cautioned.

[Phoenix]

Assessments

The captain rubbed his chin a couple of times. "It must have taken at least a dozen men to get them set up this fast. For one man this could have taken an hour or longer. There're definitely more of them nearby."

"These mounts are more trouble than they're worth," Doran shook his head as he came up beside the captain. Between the wyvern roaring and giving away their position to the whole mountain and Norbert's pegasus being impossible to rein in when it really counted, they were lucky to have gotten this far without any casualties. "Sir, we're near the main road. I'm thinking we should set up a very small, very out of the way camp, and leave a few people here with all the animals while the rest of us push ahead. This is getting out of hand, and we're already too spread out."

"If you've got issues with the mounts, take it up with their keepers," the captain answered without looking Doran's way, "we've got bigger problems right now, like the other bandits we haven't seen, yet. I'm thinking we're dealing with at least a dozen of them, and we've only found two so far."

Second Attempt

"If that ballista tries to shoot y'all down, Haythem's wyvern's gonna need ya more than Bert will," Greta noted, but it was good that she was at least willing to help. The only other healer they could have sent was Joanna and that might prove to be worse than simply doing nothing.

Trying to emulate the conditions that led to her first batch of visions was proving more difficult than she expected it to be. Before she had just been helplessly musing about how she could deal with a completely unrelated problem. Now she had more pertinent things on her mind, like where the group was, and how she could find out exactly where they were. She stared off into space as she thought about them, hoping something would happen. Anything.

Amon could tell it wasn't working, yet. That was when he hit up on and idea of his own. "Joanna, don't worry about getting it to work. Don't think about how or why, just focus on what you want to happen. Trying to figure it out is just going to distract you."

[Nanami Touko]

Eva plodded Sasha over to the captain, the wyvern still seemingly very on edge. "Hey, do you need me to do something? Sasha, he's... He's really not happy about the big thing screaming over the way, and while I can keep him from flying off at it, it'd probably do to get him doing something. I know I can't take all the bandits on by myself, but I'm fairly sure we can handle a few." It would give him a way to release his anxiety, and give Eva something to do, because between Angelica clearing things out, and Bert running off, she really felt she had to do something.

[Mercakete]

Norbert wound up using Rizen's tracks as a guide for where to step, just in case the traps extended out here, though by now, he suspected he wouldn't run into any.

"Rizen! Riz! Where are you?" he called. This served a dual purpose with one setback. The two positives were the hope that Rizen would hear him and come back, and also that if she didn't come, then at least she'd know it was him who was on the approach, and not some random set of footfalls. The downside was fairly obvious: he was near-continuously giving away his position. Of course, he'd only begun shouting in the first place when he was far enough away from the others that he felt comfortable with it, and when Rizen's trail began to get harder to see. She must have slowed down...

Then, he heard a whinny in response to his call. Norbert hurried towards it. "Riz! Don't worry; I'm on my way!"

It didn't take long to find her, though he wasn't happy about the state she was in. The arrow was clear to see. Rizen's rider quickly got a hold of the shaky pegasus' bridle and began stroking her face and neck to calm her down. "Hey, it's okay, Rizen... I'm right here. We have to get you back to the others, though, okay? I'll get that arrow out as soon as it's safe to. Alright?"

The pegasus brayed uneasily, but she was calm enough to listen for now. And listen she did -- her ears were continuously swiveling about. Well, that was good and all, but there was no riding her until that arrow was dealt with, and he wasn't going to pull that out until he at least had a vulnerary to treat the hole with. So, carefully, he began leading the pegasus back the way they'd come from. It was a slow process, and he knew he was a lot easier to spot now, so Norbert kept his own ears and eyes attentive. There was no way he was leading Rizen into a trap, and he wasn't about to let her be attacked again.

[Phoenix]

Stuff

"Yeah," Doran spoke up before the guard captain managed to answer, "put a muzzle on 'Sasha' so he doesn't roar, again. It might have scared off the bandits somehow, but now there's an even bigger problem out there that knows about us."

"Yeah, I was going to mention that, but I don't think it needs a muzzle," the captain began, "Once the kid finds his pegasus, we're going to start moving, again, but we'll mind the bandits nearby and keep sweeping for them and traps. We'll interview our captive here along the way; I don't want to be here if your wyvern's new friend comes around. The road we waited by is just over that hill, and there's plenty of clearing for a peek above the trees. It's a bit risky, but I want to know if there are any landmarks around, so you can go check that out for us. Don't fly too high, though."

[Nanami Touko]

"Because I'm to expect a dragon at all turns," Eva replied with a sigh, trying to keep in check. She listened to the captain to curb her annoyance, nodding. "That sounds fine, I'll go give it a check. Jam, did you want to come along?" she turned her head to the dancer. "I get you wanna help, but if I get caught out by a group of them, things could get messy."

[Toogee]

"If you get caught by a group, you'll be glad for the backup," Jam replied back, a little sass in her voice. She wasn't about to sit back and wait to get her foot cut off by some random trap. Nobody wants a peg leg dancer. Despite the danger, it was probably safer on the wyvern anyways.

The dancer remained seated behind Eva. She placed her hands on Eva's shoulders to prepare for takeoff.

[Nanami Touko]

Eva smirked. "You're a brave one. Just don't do anything stupid, if something happens, alright?" She patted Sasha, and snapped his reins, the wyvern taking off. "We'll be back," she called out as they left. She made sure to listen to the captain's advice and stay low, though, amongst the trees, for now. She wasn't about to crash him, and they didn't have to fly very fast. Whenever they came onto the road, she'd take him above the treeline and see what was hanging around.

[Toogee]

When they did get above the treeline, Jam started looking around for those landmarks. All she was seeing at the moment were trees and a mountain range. She looked behind to see even more trees. The dancer couldn't even make out the town, much less their camp. So far, nothing significant was jumping out at her.

"What exactly do you think we're looking for?" Jam asked Eva. "I was hoping we'd see a fort or something..."

[Nanami Touko]

Above the treeline they went, and they saw... More trees. A few rock formations in the distance, as well, but really, just more trees. Eva sighed. "Well, I can't say I'm surprised that there isn't that much to be seen, this high... Hmm..." Eva turned back to glance at Jam, mulling it over. "So... If you want to risk it, we can go higher. Like, way higher. So that we can get a good look around the area, but... Those bandits were pretty serious, so, if we do go higher, I'm not saying it's a definite, but... I wouldn't be surprised if we got shot at, maybe by something worse than arrows. I'm willing to try it if you want to; I'd already be going up if i was alone, but... Need to hear what you have to say."

[Toogee]

"At least we'll know where they're coming from, right?" Jam tried to lighten things up. It would be a waste of time to stick around at this height any longer, though this certainly wouldn't please certain people on the ground.

"Just watch out for Norbert's temper tantrum when we get back. The higher we go, the redder he'll be."

[Mercakete]

It took more time than he would have otherwise took, but Norbert wasn't taking any chances with Rizen in the state she was in. When Norbert finally got over the rise, still carefully watching Rizen's steps and looking back to the Ursaeans, he called over to the latter, "Hey! Anyone have a vulnerary or a staff or something? My pegasus is injured!"

By the time Norbert had finished his call, they were over the rise and heading less carefully over to the clustered soldiers. The arrow still stuck out from Rizen's side, and since the traps were either out of the way or plainly visible by now, the two didn't have to watch their steps as much.

[Phoenix]

News?

Disarming the traps had proven to be more trouble than it was worth, and they set them off just as often as they disarmed them, nearly losing a few fingers in the process. After about seven of the traps were dealt with one way or another, the patrol left the rest of them. They were uncovered and easy enough to avoid. They had finished tending to the injured by the time Norbert made it back, and one of the only two staffers they had headed over without a word.

"Did you see any more of them while you were gone?" the guard captain called over, hoping the trail wasn't going to go cold before they could get themselves together and give chase. They still had their captive, but they weren't having much luck with him. Doran and the others were going to start breaking his bones, soon. If that didn't cut it, they might have to just let it go.

Edited July 22, 2015 by Phoenix