Atharen, A Fantasy Roleplay Forum

Posted: **Sun Mar 06, 2022 3:00 am**

46th Ash, 4619

As Thomas urged his wagon along the winding, poorly kept road he wondered for the umpteenth time about what exactly he thought he was doing. Normally, he didn't follow treasure maps, he sold them to other people. For that matter, he normally sold them to people after forging a treasure map for them to follow. Hopefully, the real treasure would be the memories of the journey itself, and any friends they made along the way. Being familiar with the hallmarks of fake maps, though, led him to believe that this one was actually the real deal, and he'd already been in Daravin with the traveling carnival. It seemed perfect. Fated, almost.

He'd bought some of the supplies using his wages from being Altair the Clairvoyant, and the crew of the carnival had actually given him the rest of the supplies. Turns out, it paid to be personable. If the carnival wasn't seasonal, and if traveling as part of a drunk circus of random people didn't make him feel so exposed, he might have considered staying on indefinitely, but there was to be no indefinite engagement, which was just as well, because a customer had come in to ask him what he thought of this map toward the end of the tour, and then threw up all over his tent. While he'd helped the man put himself back together, he'd pocketed the map, replacing it with a folded scrap of paper. The man was far too drunk to notice, and by the time he woke up and sweated out all the booze, Thomas would be long gone. Besides, cleaning vomit out of velour was hard, so he was owed something for all his labor. The man had only had twenty farthings on him, which wasn't nearly enough.

In any case, this map seemed to be the real deal. For one thing, it was a carved off piece of an actual high-end map, likely something from an Entente estate. It wasn't just old paper made to look fancy; it was something fancy that someone had repurposed for their own ends, adding careful markings that were not necessarily meant to be understood by other people. That was another hint: the map wasn't in code, but it wasn't particularly clear, either; this was a note to self, a reminder to whoever had made it to return later. People didn't make those for things that weren't worth money, and people didn't need them if they didn't have multiple caches of valuables, so this person clearly did, and something about this one merited special consideration. Finally, it seemed liked he could stay on the roads, where it was relatively safer, for much of the journey.

Once he got about two thirds of the way there, of course, he'd have to rough it a bit, but his brave team of Stubborn the mule and Chestnut the Horse would do just fine. Or at least, he hoped they would. He'd heard many things about the Badlands, few good. His best hope, if all else failed, was the gun on his hip. He hadn't shot one since he was sixteen, but hopefully, it was like reciting a soliloquy or riding a man -- not hard to do once one knew how, even if some time had passed between now and then. Hope and apprehension warring in his heart, Thomas urged Stubborn and Chestnut on as the sun beat down mercilessly on the three of them.

Posted: **Fri Mar 11, 2022 3:23 pm**

It was always a pleasant thing: the sunny warmth on his features, running over his exposed shoulders and arms, the wind that circled through the desert cooling him down, even if it was often attached to grains of sand. He had his goggles for that, and the things never failed him. They were Unbroken-grade, found in some ruin... somewhere, indeterminable since he'd just gotten them off of a dead Iron Moon. As always, Jack was laboring for Scythe, his gang, but he was by his lonesome that day; patrolling, which was usually just an excuse for most of the guys to go and visit Rustbucket to purchase a whore, or to drink brandy alone in the desert. He smirked, thinking of Enrico, who liked to bring a chair strapped to his Chariot, just to take a seat in the valleys between the dunes and smoke a cigar.

Jack liked to take his duties somewhat seriously, though whenever an interesting thing caught his eye, he'd follow it. Wheeling across the Badlands' eastern edge on his Chariot, the man rode over the cracked earth, eyeing whatever cacti, mesa or tumbleweed he could find in the distance, the occasional broken-down ranch passing him by. Looking up towards the sun, he estimated that it was a little after noon, which gave him plenty of time to wade through the desert and make it back.

Scythe had taken up residence in the southwestern section of the Badlands, recently, near the border between Ostigen and Indories. In their view, being so close to the Imperials meant few other gangs treading near their territory, which was a strategy that seemed to work so far. He questioned the longevity of a plan like that -- immersing into risk to avoid risk of another kind, Emmanuel was the boss, and it was his job to wordlessly follow. He hadn't really failed them yet, either way; Jack had seen a lot less bloodshed within Scythe than a lot of the other gangs he'd known, or been a part of. Some portion of him even dreamt they might join the big leagues, one day, like the Moons, Pyrerazers, Bloodbreakers and so on.

The man slowed his Chariot, raising one brow as he caught the visage of a man in the distance, hauling a wagon with a mule and a single horse, the sun glaring down on him. Slipping on his knuckle-dusters, the Badlander picked back up with his speed, riding towards him at a quick, unrelenting pace.

"Hold up!" he yelled out, circling around him as he got near enough, before settling one foot on the ground once the Chariot slowed enough for him to steady it. "You don' look like a ganger. What's your business here? Don' even think to spew any bullshit to me -- nice and upfront, guy."

Looking him over, the Raider sighed, hitching his Chariot to the cracked soil and stepping off of it. He was wearing a white tank-top and some leather-like pants, though the interior fabric was a simple linen. Slipping off his goggles, he hung them over one of the handles of his Chariot, before returning his view fully to the wagon-wheeling outsider. "Your donkey looks lame as fuck," he randomly blurted, shifting between the man and his 'pets'. "Y'should put it down."

Posted: **Sat Mar 12, 2022 1:16 am**

Thomas sighed. If he were smart, he would have started shooting as soon as the local color had alit upon him, but he still, despite everything, believed that shooting first and asking questions later was a barbaric policy. Better to ask at least a few questions first. Once the man got out of his desert contraption and started jawing at him, he got a good look.

Not a man, really. They looked to be about the same age, although the desert was hard on the mind and on the skin; perhaps this was a fifteen year old boy weathered by life in the harsh environment. In any case, Thomas' mind pointlessly noted that he was rather handsome in a tall, lean, hungry sort of way. In any case, he was dumb enough to let the man-boy get close without putting a bullet in him, but not dumb enough to blather to a stranger in the Badlands that he had a credible treasure map.

He drew himself up and began complaining in a reasonably convincing Gentavarese-tinted accent: "I'm visiting an old friend of my father's who is foolhardy enough to think that being free of the Entente is worth living in this barren midden, if you must know. As for 'dropping it,' I'm sure I have no idea what you mean."

The hand that was on the gun already out of its holster had been there since before the other man approached. His finger was not yet on the trigger, but his hand still gripped the stock. That could easily change if he felt threatened, but so far, he just felt antagonized.

"And you? Why are you here, exactly? Do you live here?" He asked, with more incredulity than he felt. In Thomas' experience, people lived everywhere, no matter how awful. It's not like his old neighborhood in Starkwayte was such a prize, even if it was walking distance from Lord Ashley's manor.

"Perhaps more importantly, what do you want with me, then? I'm not seeking any trouble, Ser, just a visit to an old friend. Hopefully, you can understand what it's like to want to see someone you miss quite dearly, and sympathize, yes?"

While Thomas was lying through his teeth, when he said it, it was true in the moment. He had sufficient training with acting that lying was almost superfluous; far easier to simply convince himself that what he was saying was the truth and then say it with feeling. With any luck, it would work on this man as it worked on countless others.

Atharen, A Fantasy Roleplay Forum

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