Dragonsbane: I thought it had gates. I was aware that the Avariel live in big floating disks. I meant that I landed on the disk and walked up the the palace "gates. Here, I will try again.

Laine Novienta slowly lowered himself onto the great metal disk that was the foundation of the Lord Gwaethir's palace. He began walking towared the two massive doors of that fronted the palace. A guard stepped out to block his path.
"Halt, knave! State your name and your business!"
Laine answered, "I have come to offer my services to his Lordship Gwaethir."

OOC: BLARG! He isn't covered in MUD (yet) he just has some dust on him.

IC: Alec snorted. "Well, excuse me. I was under the assumption we were going bandit killing soon. Forgive me for liking the state of being ALIVE."

He sighed, and scratched the inside of his leg. Under his breath, he muttered something about, "The god-damn rich."

OOC: For everyone present, I tried to keep track of everyone talking there currently and I think its Alec, Sarin, Jechir, Jerrick, Judas, Gabriel and Gug. I could be wrong though.

Lithril looks a little confused. Turning to Alec, a fellow human - if a grubby one, he says, "But wait, do they even know where the orcs have taken her? How will we be able to even get lcose if they're holding her hostage? This feels bad to me, very bad..."

"We can do all of those through a combination of wit, intelligence, and martial prowess. And a healthy spattering of LUCK above all else."

He looked back at the people present, "So, WHEN are we going to be going after them?"

OOC: Arha, you forgot Hakar and Metrius. Also, just assume Dain is in that room with everyone else, I haven't felt like posting recently.

Hakar laughed, "true....I hope! There's more to questing than just killing things." he grinned, "Orcs probably wouldn't have access to Winged Cloaks, ((OOC: the cloaks that turn into wings)) so they probably came here in a small airship.....we'll have to search the area beneath the disk, as well as the land around here, to find it. The kidnapper probably abandoned it, so that he wouldn't have to dodge flying Avariel patrols, and hide under the tree cover. Does anyone here have any magic that could make this task easier?"

"Hmm...if this girl had any Elemental power, and she left something that was always near her, I might be able to concoct a device that would track her magical signature, permitted I had access to some metal in the armory. Otherwise, I say we see if dirt boy can find them. An airship would leave quite an impact, and orcs, especially ones on the run, wouldn't bother to cover their tracks well." Gug said in his thinking voice.

Jechir managed to not laugh at the sight of the goblin calling Alec 'Dirt Boy.' He shrugged a little bit. "I'm sorry, but I may not be of much use until we actually find the girl. I never was very good at tracking, and my magic doesn't work like that. However, if you need a distraction in order to get in there to rescue her once she's found, I'm your man."

He waited to see what everyone would do.

After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, an Avariel entered the room.
"I'm sorry, young one, but it seems that Jericho has already left for the southern empire. Come with me, and I will give you the details."
They made me wait for hours just to be told that he's already left?!?! Metrius thought to himself. [I[Oh well. At least i'm finally able to get out of this stuffy room.[/I]
As Metrius was being led down the hall to the main room, the Avariel filled him in on what had happened the previous night, as well as the 'test' that awaited him and the others.
"So, when do I meet these 'others,' and when do we leave?"
"They are in this room right here in front of you, and you will leave when the desicion is passed down by the Windlord."
With that, Metrius entered the room.

Alec glared at the goblin, then said, "Well, I'm a ranger. Odds are I can probably track them, and while I'm at it I can ask the trees if they saw anything."

There was an odd silence.

"Yes, I can talk to trees."

Jechir laughed. "Anyone can talk to trees. It's just that they don't answer most of us."

Litheril chooses to ignore Alec's last comment and instead replies to Hakar, "Yes, good idea trying looking for the airship. I'm afraid I won't be of much use for tracking it however, my affinity is for water..." He trails off and then has an idea, "Wait, I just thought of something. If any of the kidnappers were injured then they may have left some blood behind. Could we use that to track them?"

OOC: Yes it would be very difficult to geta sample and then tell which blood belongs to who, but Litheril's water magic might help get around that problem.

"Well, so these are the ones i'll be working with, huh? Can't say they're the best i've ever seen, but i'm sure they'll do." Metrius was looking towards the goblin and the elves when he was saying this, making sure they realized he was talking to them. "So, do any of you know where exactly they've taken her?"

"Well sorry we're not up to your standards newbie, but hey, if standing around asking the same stupid question that we've all been trying to figure out is your style, go ahead, we'll just be over here trying to do something constructive." Gug snapped at the guy who had gone out of his way to insult him.

"Can we get on with this?" Sarin looked at all of them, annoyed. "You aren't the only one here who can talk to vegetation, human, all of which is alive if you'll listen." he said to Alec. "My guess would be some sort of neutral drop off point near the orc gathering. place. If they are using something as big as an airship and we can get in the area, we can track by ground displacement."

(Jaguar and I came up with this, he said it was fine to put it into my post)

"What is the nature of these..." the guard trailed off.
Suddenly, Laine felt a serrated edge press against his throat, and a gauntleted hand clasped over his mouth.
"Move one step," a gruff voice growled from behind him, "and bleed to death before you hit the ground.

Gabriel nodded. "Indeed, though the nearest Orc encampment is a days ride from here." He narrowed his eyes in concentration. "Which would mean that they would still be on their way. If I were an Orc capturing an Avariel from their own stronghold, I would choose stealth over speed. Chances are that they are covering their tracks as they travel, rather than riding off at full steam to the encampment."

He looked quickly to Sarin and Alec.

"If we could lead you within range of their path, do you think you could track them?"

Ooc: once I get a response to this, I will make the new chapter, where their will be bloodshed, killing and good times galore.

OOC: Antarrak is gonna kick all yo' sorry asses!

IC: Talos ground the edge of his knife a bit harder into the newcomer's neck. "Gabriel. We've got an intruder! Shall I throw him off?"

Gabriel studied the Intruder for a long while; then he began laughing.

"Are you serious Talos?" He laughed as wiped a tear from his eye and jestured to Laine. "How old are you Kid? Nine?"

(OOC: I'm guessing Gug's magic tracker is a no-go?)

Alec glared at Sarin. "See, this is what I hate about elves. They automatically start saying they're better than you, and they automatically assume that you're a wannabe. Just on a note, for the rest of the trip, do not expect me to work well AT ALL with him."

Anger vented, he returned to the discussion and ignored the child that had walked in. "But he does have a point. It's not easy to hide an airship of any kind, so I could find it within about 2 hours. Max. The problem is going to be how to get you guys to sneak up. I know the Elf and I can both hide in the woods to the point of invisibility. Well. I can. Not sure about him. Exposed skin doesn't blend well, but anyways, the rest of you will need to sneak up somehow so we can do a 360 degree ambush. Back home, with my two buds we could take out 30, 40 orcs at a time as long as we hit from all sides and his hard and fast enough. Then, hid of course, but still."

Gabriel wiped the last tear from his eye. "Let him go Talos, the kid isn't going to do anything; and if he does you can always kill him." He forced himself to focus on the matter at hand.

"We can camoflage ourselves effectively enough, we have avariel cloaks within the armory, they are created using the scales of Chameleons, and magically enhanced so that they maintain their color-changing qualities. As for our skin, we all can cake mud on ourselves in your own fashion; though those who wear armor will have to change into something less noisy..."

He grabbed the arm of a passing Avariel guard and told him to alert the armory to prepare several cloaks.

"We shall leave," he said turning back to the others and crossing his arms. "-as soon as we know what this rascal was doing wandering around at the base of the city."

"It is nice to know that we have our priorties straight about threats. I mean, elven children are so threatening to this city as we know it," he then coldly looked at Alec, "as for what you say, I can handle myself within the woods having been born and lived there since before your father was a twinkle in your grandfather's eye. Metal armorl will NOT be helpful, I recommend leather. The cloaks are fine, but it's late summer/early fall, so keep that in mind before you take anything. You don't want to be dropping from heat exhaustion because you thought the forest was a verdant, cool paradise."

"Using trees and vibrations from ground displacement, however, the human is correct, it will not take us long at all to find the orcs. But perhaps we should find a way to send the orcs to us when we reach our destination?"

Jechir spoke up, after all of this. "Setting up an ambush will be easy enough. I am a bandit, after all. If there's one thing bandits know, it's ambushes." He thought about it for a few moments. "What if Alec and Sarin sneak behind the group after tracking, and we send a few people out to the flanks. We can feint a frontal assault to cause enough confusion to allow Alec and Sarin to get in behind and pick off easy kills. When the feinting group falls back, the two flanks move in, and then the feinters resume the assault either by running back in, or attacking from range with magic."

He hoped his plan was to everyone's liking, even though it would mean the wood elf and Alec would have to work as a team.

Litheril has something click in when he hears Jechir talk about bandits. "Wait," he says, "we're forgetting one thing. There are also the bandits in this area and like Jechir said, they're good at ambushes. Can we take the chance that the orcs aren't using them to guard their rear? If they are doing that we will have to travel extremely lightly and stealthily or they'll be alerted to us. I'll volunteer to go in the feinting group for the attack, I'm not a very good shot anyway."

Jechir thinks for a while about the bandits. "Well. Perhaps there are ways to persuade the bandits to look the other way. Greed, my friend, is a powerful motivator."

"Yes, but so is fear....and that's probably how Antarrak is controlling them. Money doesn't do much good to you when you're dead." Hakar's eyes narrowed, as he considered the problem at hand.

Laine suddenly began to glow.
"I have to get this guy off of me," Laine thought to himself. "Maybe if I use that Light Repulsion Technique that that angel taught me..."
Suddenly, Laine released the light energies that had been building up inside of him in a blinding flash of light.

OOC: Warmage...that was godmoding. Edit it, and don't do it again, Jaguar is perfectly capable of deciding Talos's reaction to a glowing kid, and he doesn't need you typing it out for him.

"Hmmm..." Jerick had been thinking while everyone was talking about their plans. "You know, really big diversions always seem to work against everything, so maybe if we distract them long enough with something, we could get their backs turned for the split second we need. I'm thinnking Gug and I make the biggest explosive we can and set it off as close to them as we can get the thing. Hopefully we could even get it into their base." He had really put some thought behind it, but it all depended on the execution if the ida was accepted.

"Of course, an explosion...so simple, yet so fun. After the two wooders get directions from the talking kindling, all I'd need to do is to make some metal conductors, then I'd construct a magic resevoir, fill it with Fire magic, make a trigger, then BOOMO. Its perfect." Gug said, working out calculations in the air. "Or, the whole ambush thing if you guys want. So when do we leave?"

"Hmm, pretty good plan for such a rag tag group. I volunteer to be part of the real strike force, if that's all right with all of you. Unless there is anything else that needs to be mulled over, i'm ready to depart for the forest. I'm anxious to get my feet back on solid ground again."

OOC: Warmage, I wasn't kidding. Edit it.....Jaguar's character has seen FAR more impressive things than a glowing kid, back when he was an ultra-powerful Hero of Shadow, and your little display wouldn't impress him or affect him unless Jaguar types a post which shows him reacting that way. Basically, no controlling the actions of someone else's character. Consider yourself warned.

Hakar nodded, "An explosion is good....but we aren't trying to directly engage their armies. Our mission is to rescue the princess, and she's very likely to be in one of those bases...so it would be best if we infiltrate, instead of just destroying things. I know that some of us are well-suited to that sort of thing, you accompany me when we invade the base. Remember, we're SNEAKING in, not just breaking things." the half-drow grinned.

"Wait a second, what army? I thought we were taking on a motly group of kidnapping orcs, not an army. You never said anything about an army, cuz I would be scared of an army, not motly orc kidnappers, what army?"

Dragonsbane: Sorry about that. It's just that Jaguar and I always go over each other's houses, and he lets me put in the little stuff like that, but if you don't want me to, then fine, I'll change it.

OOC: a bit of advice...just because Hakar is MY character doesn't mean he's always right. ;)

For example, now he's making a plan because he thinks that orcs kidnapped the girl, without a clue of what really happened...heh.

IC: "We know where their encampment is, that doesn't necessarily mean the Kiiri is there." he shook his head, frowning, "Look, if I was their leader, I would want my orcs to bring her directly to me, safely surrounded by my armies. We have to intercept them before they get there, and we have NO time to waste!" Hakar took off his usual cloak, folding it and putting it in his bag, then put on one of the Avariel Winged Cloaks, "It's time to leave....we'll make plans when we catch up to them!"

[edit] OOC2: If Jaguar gave you permission, then it's perfectly okay with me, Warmage.

by the way NEXT CHAPTER IS UP!!!

Okay, I'm glad that you understand. Here is my edited-for-the-second-time post:

"I really need to get this guy off of me," Laine thought. "I wonder what would happen if I used that Light Repulsion Technique."
Laine suddenly began to glow. Talos's eyes widened in surprise. After a blinding flash of light, Talos staggered backwards. Laine stretched his wings. The muscles of his bare chest flexed stiffly.
"As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted." Laine cast a withering glance at Talos. "Laine Novienta at your service." Laine bowed. "I came to speak to Gwaethir, but it is apparent you are the one they call Gabriel. I heard about the message sent out to a select few elemental adepts, and I have come to offer my services as another. I specialize in the Light element, in case your are wondering."