Stone Men In Water Street

[Bjorn]

All right.  Let's get out of this place, and then we can talk about what to do next.

Unless there's objections, Bjorn leads the way out.

[Brian]

After finding the exit, you realize it's, in fact, dark out (the sun has set, but the western sky bears the faintest of glows).  Victor takes a deep breath (even though you suppose it doesn't do as much for him as it does for you), and the air here smells better.  Cleaner, for one.

There's a few lights in the village below as people move around, though it's hard to see what they're doing from here.

[Bjorn]

"All right," Bjorn says.  "Now, the way I see it, it's already nigh.  We can't do much about moving on to Gibraltar right now, so we should spend some time scouting out the area.  If we can figure out anything about the weather.  If not...."  He shrugs.  "This area should be scouted anyways.  Might as well do our bit before leaving.

"Thoughts?"

[Brian]

Victor frowns.  "It would be best for me to know this area if I'm going to stay here," he concurs.

[Rezantis]

"Well, up to you guys. We should leave sometime tomorrow, though . . . long way to go, and all."

[Bjorn]

"Fair enough," BJorn agrees.  "So let's make the most of this.  Hm."  

Futilely trying to peer into the darkness for a bit, Bjorn suddenly realizes the slight idiocy he is perpetrating.  "Anything strike your fancy as a good place to start?" he asks, primarily of Victor.

[Brian]

Victor considers that for a moment.  "Not really," he says after a moment.  "I don't want to climb the mountain yet, and I think it's too large to go around in a single night."

[Bjorn]

Shrugging, Bjorn looks around into the darkness as best he can, doing his best to recall the geography, as he tries to figure out a good place to start looking.

[Brian]

If you recall correctly, the village is basically in a natural depression, or valley (some would say 'armpit'), between two foothills that run directly off of the mountain.  Any direction other than back to the village (which is south-east of you) is also incidentally 'up'.  The hillsides should be sparsely decorated with scrub brush, but not really anything close to a forest.

The height differential is low enough that you'd probably only be about ten meters over the rooftops when you were on the hills.  Climbing the mountain itself would be a different matter, however.

[Brian]

Choosing a direction arbitrarily, you wander off into the night, searching for anything that could either help or harm New Delphi.  Victor comments at one point that he thinks there's a coyote nearby, but you never see it.

The landscape is pretty unfriendly and difficult to move through (especially in the dark) from any other approach other than the road.  It probably helps make the place a bit more defensible, all told.

By the time you finish making a large circuit of the area and return to the village, Victor immedately sets off to the mine, citing that the sun will rise sooner than later, and without a reliable source (yet) he needs to conserve his energy.

It's probably about four or five o'clock in the morning, you haven't eaten since yesterday's breakfast (which you only picked at) and you're a bit sleepy.

[Bjorn]

"Fuck this shit," Bjorn pronounces, "as the sages of old were wont to say.  We've done our bit.  Let's go back to the village, get some breakfast, and then catch a plane to meet up with the rest of the crew."

He frowns.  "Speaking of which..."  Touching the smudges on his mindboard, he brings that of Dracos, Paul, and Ginrai into focus, which means more jibber-jabber in the other thread.  Goddamn, they get all the hot mind-on-mind action, let me tell you.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn breaks the connection with the European crew abruptly.  "Pax Arcana has caught up with the other guys," he says to Nathan, tersely.  "Let's go.  We need to get to Gibraltar now."

[Rezantis]

"I knew it. Negotiation or gunfire?"

[Bjorn]

"Didn't say.  I'm not going to ask 'em, either.  I don't want to risk being telepathically tracked or attacked or whatever.  They can email us when they're safe -- and if they never do, then they can't.  But they're either still in Paris, or they went to Gibraltar.  So let's get to Gibraltar -- worst come to worst, we backtrack to Paris."

He pauses, and then adds, "Doesn't seem worthwhile to do anything but a direct flight.  Airport security is as good as it's going to get, and if they could track those three, odds are they can track us.  Let's go for bold and ballsy, and fast.  Sound good?"

[Rezantis]

"There are no direct flights from America to Gibraltar, so we'll have to go through somewhere, but yeah, mad dash sounds good."

Rez hums.

"Oh, and don't forget you owe the priesthood cookies."