A question of crimson.[Private]

[JLScrolls]

THWOOM! The old wood creaked and swayed under his feet as the ships cannons fired upon a patrol from Alerar(as if we could let them impede our way into Tular of course, even if their only purpose was to keep the exiles in.) He could see their own ships reflection on the swaying water, which had a heavy opaqueness to it. The smell of saltwater and sweat from the workmen weighed heavy in the air. Looking over to Zelrius he asked "Do you think we will have to intervene?" Personally he did not believe so. He did however, keep an eye out for any stray cannonballs that might hit their vessel, prepared to kick them back to whence they came.

He idly listened to his friends response and nodded his head in assent, all the while studying the oaken floor of their small maneuverable vessel and going over in his head their reasons for coming here. His employers(Thank all light above he was finally being paid!) wanted them to scour these barren wastes for any demonic artifacts or magic, even with him forewarning them what their meddling would come of! Nothing good would come of playing with the toys of the shadow he had said, but they just gave him more gold and declared the matter closed... "Do you think that we should be doing this?" He asked Zelrius after a long silence on his part. Listening for the response he tightened his resolve as his angelic being quivered in disgust of the taint he felt from the land over the horizon and he had to resist the urge to leap onto the patrol ship and burn their souls from existence in his rabid fear and instinct.

[Zelrius]

The shouting of the men and the seeming chaos that insued them brought a smirk to Zelrius. Mainly because that Chaos was as previously mentioned "Seeming" and not real. To the enemy vessel it would seem that this great Desert ship that was yet unnamed, that it's crew and captains were in complete distress. On the contrary however, The crew had spent a great deal of time with Lord Blackfyre now and were more then used to doing daring and life threatening things for nothing more then the thrill of it, and were more than prepared for a battle on the high seas. "Intervene? Depends on what you mean by that. We do need to shout commands here and there, but other than that, Their not children; They need not their hand held throughout the entire procedure." As Zelrius finished the sentence another great ball of Lead struck their ship and bounced off, causing minimal damage.

"Congratulations on being put on pay. That is a luxury few outsiders have had the pleasure of receiving." Another loud crack, this time it was the Ship Zelrius was standing on that returned fired, knocking out an enemy cannon. Silenced ensued the two as they watched on and Lord Blackfyre occasionally pointed to crew members here and there and gave them a sense of direction. It was easily told that the Fallien ship was winning. Most clearly, the enemy vessel was untrained in combat. Probably more rusty than untrained. Very seldom did anyone challenge the Police fleet of the mainland, Especially the southwestern division. That was not of fear, no. That was simply because only things that came from here were merchants from Fallien or Exiles from the same desert. That meant very little experience and even more or, more surprise when combat arose. Just like that, another ball of lead fired from Zelrius's own crew, whacking the mainland ship in its hull, causing a minor shake throughout the ship. "Good, now this is ours. All men focus in the newly made hole in their ship. Plunge an opening into the bottom of their ship. We're going for their deaths, otherwise we'll be tracked down." Orders like this were not uncommon from Zelrius, but the men of his squad always got the chills when the boy gave such commands in his arrogant, and what seemed like he was pleased about the orders, voice.

Now that their victory was damn near assured, Zelrius turned to his friend to answer the question that was asked. "Should we? Probably not. Can we? I dare someone to stop us."

[JLScrolls]

He watched passively as the hole was born in the enemy ships hull, and abruptly turned away. There was no longer a point in watching, from this point it would just be a matter of cleaning up the scraps. "Thank you, I'm afraid if they had kept me off payroll much longer I would have left, which thinking back on it, might be the only reason they are paying me now." A sound drew his attention from Zelrius, as the men followed the captain's order and sunk the police freight gave out under the pressure of the collapsing hull and fell inward upon itself, drowning the men inside. Sighing, he walked down the rampart to the lower deck and removes his tunic. Once he was shirtless he reached into his back pocket and withdrew a pair of boar-hide gloves, he looked at them thoughtfully before throwing them to a grizzled and scarred crewman. "The fighting is done, now hoist the other sails so we can travel with speed, grab that end of the rope and hold it steady, if I break the pole again it comes out of my pocket." The man almost looked doubtful of that being in his ability, until he remembered the one time Michael had tried to hoist the sails alone, and the wood snapping under the pressure of his strength. They got going and soon the sail was flowing in the wind, a beautiful phoenix adorning it. Although he and Zelrius were the only two on the ship to know what it would be used for eventually.

Hours later, they were docking on shore, the dusk light gave a fairly nice looking glow to the beach they found themselves upon. A thicket of trees no more than thirty paces ahead, and by every one was a thornbush at the base. On a whim, he launched himself at one such tree and ascended to the top in 5 jumps, from branch to branch. He found himself surprised to see a barren wasteland and mountains with hearts of fire a distance away. "We found it! It can't be anymore than two leagues away!" He shouted to his friend. He dropped down and landed loudly, and walked over to Zelrius. "I suggest we make camp for the night and set off for first light in the morn." A stab of pain made him look down and realize that he had broken his ankle in the fall, and his unprotected upper body was littered with cuts from the pine needles of the tree. He banished the relatively minor pain with effort, his wounds would be good as new in an hour anyways.

[Zelrius]

As the Phoenix was drawn down the ship was pulled into shore, a post being placed in the sand to tie the ship into, Zelrius turned to watch as Michael had seemingly leaped up a rather tall tree with little to no effort. God damn that Athleticism, The golden haired boy thought to himself as Michael began shouting something about seeing it in the far distance. "Very well then, seems like you need a bit of time anyway. Now for the real question; Should we head into the wilderness just us two and leave the Crew to tend to the ship, or Bring some of them with us? Remember, we do have Gwen, whom is better in small groups than in Large ones. Of course, if you'd rather we be safe and bring the crew with, I've learned by now to trust your instincts when it comes to such things." That was true enough; Michael was damn good at sensing danger, and even better at knowing how to deal with it. In a way, that made these two working together the perfect pair. One could sense danger and know the right course of action, and the other was fearless and would always take on challenges. With that combination in mind, there truly wasn't anything left in the world that scared the Fallieni boy. Of course, there were many things Zelrius didn't know existed; things he would definitely be terrified of had he known that they did.

"Gwendolyn!" Zelrius called out in more of a Command than a calling. Within moments, the small framed Elf girl appeared, silent and with lifted eyebrows. "Help Michael here set up his tent. Don't want him to break the hoists." It wasn't that Zelrius thought The Fallen Angel couldn't set up his own tent, it was merely the fact that the golden haired boy had seen the Angel fiddle with many things much stronger than tents, only to have them snap inadvertently. With that command, the Elf servant rushed off to the ship to grab the necessary supplies for the Fallieni boy and his Nephilim friend.

[JLScrolls]

Mika'el-Err Michael(Damn modern dialects) looked over at his newest friend "Lets leave the crew aside from Gwendolyn, I want to see her in a real combat scenario and this is as good of a opportunity as any." He didn't speak up when Zelrius commanded the elf girl to make his tent for him, silently agreeing with his choice, this was exacerbated when the railing he was gripping finally crumbled in his hands. He sent an apologetic look over to Zelrius and went to check on his tent. Gwendolyn had been making good progress it seemed and would be done in a few minutes, while he waited for his tent and his wounds to regenerate, he cast a cursive glance over the entire crew that they had brought along. Far too noisy, if they were brought along they would bring enemies down on their heads in mere moments.

Walking back over to Zelrius, he asked "What are the plans when we wake up in the morn, did we bring a map or are we just choosing a direction." "Also how did you convince your boss to send us on an unsupervised expedition right away?" He didn't sound it, but in his face you could see that he was impressed. After the conversation with his friend he went back to his tent to see it finally made, putting off sleep for the moment though, he went to go join every one else for a night of drinking and feasting to celebrate being on dry land finally.

[Zelrius]

"Very well, I will inform Gwendolyn that she has a chance to be useful, for once." He spoke with malice about the Elf girl. Though he wouldn't say it; Zelrius too wanted to see her skill in a battle, which would be much more difficult with a ton of yelling, loud, and nasty soldiers following them through the plains. Not to mention; Zelrius had no intent of letting any of the Soldiers get their rocks off with the Elf girl. "I will let the men know to Fortify here, my guess is we'll be back to this shore once we're done here. I think if we station men in a fort here and get the Jya to allow supplies back and forth, We can start a little colony city here. Prehaps it will be good for trade." He grinned at Michael's next question. "Funny enough, I am not the one who wanted to sail across the sea with a bunch of ill-mannered disgusting soldiers - It's by the Old Woman's command that we are here, searching for what we are looking for."

Once the tent was set-up, Zelrius wandered over to where Gwendolyn was now standing, her eyes downcast to the dirt and her soft spoken voice but a faint whimper "His tent is up, Commander." With that, the Golden haired boy grit his teeth with anger, throwing a punch at her stomach and letting her fall to the ground in pain. "I have eyes, I can see that. Shitty job, worthless piece of shit Elf. If Michael wants it redone, you will do so without hesitation." He drew his foot back to kick her until she called out in a near whine "Y-Yes Commander!" With that, Zelrius planted his foot back down, not kicking her. "Good, now, go get the Map of the local area. Let's hope our scribes are completely incompetent."

With that, the Blonde Elf girl stood up quickly, hurrying off back to the large vessel, and Zelrius made his way in the tent, to enjoy feasting and celebrating with Michael, to be joined by Gwendolyn later on once she had acquired the map, holding it out to Michael.

[JLScrolls]

He was awoken by pained groans, they echoed across the camp and almost had him on alert, if he had not remembered the fact that the average hairless monkey- err Human awoke with some not so fun symptoms after a night of drinking, he got dressed and clambered out of his tent with as little grace as could be, he was still getting used to the hominid body shape of course and it was annoying 'only a couple hundred years to go' he had to remind himself as he made to the center encampment to wait for his friend to arrive.

On his way he caught the smell of breakfast and saw that the men had boiled stew over a fire and sat down to have his fill while he waited. He finished with the stew and pulled out a wineskin to enjoy.

[Zelrius]

As the echoes dropped throughout the night, making the Golden haired boy toss and turn throughout, his slightly drunken state not helping with his wanting to be asleep. When Gwendolyn lightly awoke them, Zelrius was too out of it to beat her or punish her for it, instead he got up and stumbled around a bit, holding a hand out, in which the Elf girl placed a sword in, before withdrawing it, "Commander, are you sure you're okay to wield a sword," With that, Zelrius snatched the sword and whacked her with the Sheath, to which she just yelped and hurried off to get Michael hand wraps and pack their supplies for the trip.

With that, The golden haired boy got all ready, the Sword being attached to his hip backwards, so that the pointed end of the sheath was pointing up, and his tunic fitting loosely. When Gwendolyn came and tried to fix the tnuic, he swatted her away and made his way outside into the faint blue morning light. "Let's get a move on."

[JLScrolls]

While waiting he took the opportunity to observe the men that came with them on the trip. For the most part, they were all lower class workers specifically suited for one profession at most, however there were a few with military training interspersed within should the need arise. Still seeing no sign of the commanding officer he took to socializing with the men who were almost all recovering from hangovers, asking questions about their lifestyle and careers and so forth. Eventually one of the men who looked to be devoid of any hangover with black hair and brown eyes, topped off with a large beard, challenged him to an arm wrestling match, not one to back down from a challenge, he accepted and got into position over a dining table. As he held his arm up, his eyes locked with the mans own and his irises went from gold to glowing white with a black sclera for a moment. Not seeing the man back down from his intimidation display he grinned to himself as they locked arms. The round began and the force pressuring him was disappointingly weak, deciding to end it he flexed his arm which spun his opponents body 180 degrees, and both of their hands split the table in half as he was sent sprawling on the ground. No longer in the mood for games to pass the time, Michael simply napped against a tree whilst waiting.