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Pietro


"That might work," he said slowly, the words dragging out as he considered the ramifications of destroying everything with such a deluge.

"What we need to be sure of is the simplest plan, the plan with the greatest chance of success, of freeing the enslaved Forest Kin and, preventing the dwarves from repeating their creation of slaves and protecting the ones we save from retaliation by their former owners."

Keiko

“I am glad that I could help, Friend Lyric. And ja... that is what I saw, too, as I drew each piece. But I wonder...” She shook her head. “No, perhaps the Dwarves do not think long and hard about how their mines look from the surface of the world. Possibly the Weasels give them the confidence to believe their dam is invulnerable.” She paused, once more considering her particular skills beyond that of painting and Reading her Cards. “I am nimble and can Dance well. But I have no magics beyond those that aid in subterfuge and escape. Perhaps you or the others will have the skills and magics I lack.”

And then she quirked up one corner of her mouth. “Despite my sometimes acerbic tongue, my heart is more like Lady’s — nurturing and perhaps too soft.”

As Keiko stepped back into the common room, her eyes searched for someone that she knew wasn’t there. She missed Renyard’s wisdom. She missed his presence. Even if all he did was ask her questions that seemed to be irrelevant or questions for which there were no immediate answers, he was someone she could count on to keep her mind busy solving the puzzles.

This was not her puzzle to solve. And her mind needed a distraction — or help facing that which most distressed her.

Dommi and Emmi still sat together, with Broke lounging beside them and Wrath stretched out using Broke’s lap as a pillow.

She made her way across the room and sat at Broke’s feet, looking up at a face that should not be familiar. It seemed like a fullhand of days or more when Broke had removed her cloak to reveal her features. Perhaps it was just that Broke had a distinctive temperament and no cloak could hide the way she held herself, the way her head tilted that made her so familiar after these many months of Marketdays in Waverider’s Watch.

“Warriors... I...” Keiko sighed with some small amount of frustration with herself as she looked from Broke’s face to Wrath’s. “I am terrified. I won’t insult you by asking how to set my fear aside because I know that, for this task that is being planned, I cannot. I am afraid for not only myself but for the Kin.

“I can hide it from some, but others will know that I am afraid. How can I put my fear to good use so that I can help as many Kin as possible?”

Her greatest fear was not for herself but for that which her Elders commanded that she walk the World. Even her second greatest fear was for the Kin. For her friends. For the Forest and for Home. And yes, finally, for herself.

Lyric

The Minstrel abruptly hugged Keiko and spoke in her ear, "More hearts like that are needed, and will be needed in the days to come. Death and destruction is easy. Healing and Hope are the hard things."

And with that she parted company with her friend. Her resolve was now set and she was determined to save as many as she could and bear the weight of the guilt that came with the ones she could not. Keiko was right in that taking on this mantle could help save so many more than if she didn't.

Lyric crossed the commons Room again, back to the table where Kadri, Cesare, and Pietro were gathered around the drawings. She spoke from where she stood just a few feet distant, not coming closer unless invited.

"Yes, the simplest would be best, but the Dwarves did not afford you that luxury. There is an engineering flaw in their design, but it is probably one born of expediency and arrogance. They sacrificed invulnerability for inaccessibility and I think they knew very well what they were doing when they did it. So, while there is a weakness it is not an easy one to exploit. We will have to turn their strengths against them here."

She paused just enough for a breath.

"I know I am a minstrel and very new to your company, but would it be impertinent of me to offer my thoughts and strategies to your efforts here?"

Kadri:

"It might well be impertinent, you would have to ask someone else. But I, for one, celebrate impertinence. In fact, someone I very much respect more or less believes it a positive virtue. So please, by all means do. I am guessing that we may be thinking along the same route - the waters. We need to recruit the forest itself, so to speak, to our side to finally end this and wash clean the stain. Yet I am not an engineer, so the exact mechanics of it ...".

She raises her hands.

"I am unsure of. I deal better with people. Or at least used to think I did."

Briefly looking the direction of Keiko, for only a brief second before looking back while motioning to a spot at the table.

Cesare

He moves over along his bench providing room for her to sit.

"More than welcome. We are just discussing how to flood the mine.. but after everyone is out."

He shrugs.

"I did think though that we weren't trying to kill the dwarves either. I need to speak to Clever again to work out the levels and where things are, so we can see the implications are actions might create. Also we need to know how to flood the mine. At the moment it looks like we either need to raise the water level or to make a hole in that chimney tower.."

He points it out on the drawings.

"..somewhere under the water. Neither of these strike me as easy. Anyone got any other ideas?"

He looks at the drawings again.

"Need to have some idea of how much water we need and how far and how quickly the level will rise. I could really use a drink. I've never had to use my brain this much.. ever."

There is a soft sigh following this last observation.

Pietro


The squire stood as his friend, the minstrel, approached and spoke, and he gestured toward a seat.

"Please tell us what ideas you have. The more different points of view we can share, the better able we will be to choose the best, most efficient, tactics."

Lyric

With just her eyes alone, Lyric followed Kadri's glance toward where Keiko was now speaking with the leaders of the Pack. She smiled softly and those eyes returning to Kadri were sympathetic.

"Be yourself. You try to carry a mantle that is not comfortable to you. Be a people-person. Be gregarious and friendly. It is not that you aren't these things, you know you are... but release the weights you bear in trying to be something that never suited you to begin with and thus set you on a path to discover yourself. If you simply release the burden, and be who you were meant to be, then you will find the person you were seeking to become was right there with you all along."

Whether the wisdom was useful or not, it was delivered by Lyric in gentle voice that was so far removed form those manic mercurial moments or even the quiet and reflective ones. There were many facets to the Minstrel's personality. One might even say, many personalities all similar in ways and very unique in others.

But with that said she turned her attention to Cesare and takes up the proffered place on the bench next to him.

When he points to the drawing she reaches out with her own delicate hand and lays it over his to guide his finger. Her skin is pale and her touch is warm. He can feel the strength in her hand as she copies his hand position, her hand atop his. She moves his hand from the shaft to the dam wall as she spoke.

"They drove their shaft in the ground in a place where they determined they could reach many sleeping dragons... and then they dammed the river to create a lake, not only to supply their shaft with water, but to create their principal defense."

She stopped his finger at the overflows.

"These set the finite height of the lake and the shaft's lip is built accordingly. The water can not rise higher than this. This is the first part of the engineering flaw. Again I think by design and need for expediency they did this. It was arrogance on their part but until now no one that we know of has been able to get this far in mounting a challenge to them."

She then drew his hand and finger back along the narrow bridge that ran from the bank near the dam wall to the shaft. She used a finger from her other hand to follow the other bridge that ran from a point along the bank that seemed to indicate the path continued deeper into the Cursed Forest. Both hands came together at the shaft as she continued.

"These are the only two path of direct approach to the shaft. And, from the shaft, these are easily defensible. Choke points. The soldiers of the Evil Dwarves would cut any force the size of which will be needed to cross here long before enough reached the shaft to effect any plan of rescue. I will come back to this though."

Lyric's voice was soft and calming, almost muically so. Even when she spoke she had breath control and complete command of pitch and intonation. The rhythm of her words was precise.

She moved Cesare's hand, finger stopping at the one of the sluice gates.

"Raise these, lock them off so they can't be lowered and water will flow unchecked down into the shaft. They have no means to stop it."

She could continue, but she knew from her approach that Cesare had a concern for making the rescue first and then flooding the shaft. Lyric wanted him to voice that again. She wanted and needed the check to her conscience. But ultimately she knew what needed to be done and what the cost would be. Not only did they need to rescue as many Forestkin as possible, they had to fend off the opposing forces loyal to the Dwarves and the Dwarves themselves. They had to destroy the entire mine structure in such a way that the evil could not begin again... She had that plan in her head but it had a price. She wanted the others to hear her words and know her heart was desperate for a way to save all lives...

Still resting her hand atop Cesare's she waited for he and the other two to speak their thoughts on what she has said so far.

Ceasare

Despite the importance and almost desperation of their mission, he is easily distracted and enjoys his hand being guided over the drawing. When Lyric stops though and leaves her hand resting against his, he quickly turns his hand over, his fingers capturing hers as he does so.

"You have nice hands."

His eyes twinkle at her, a grin on his face.

Kadri:

She murmurs under her breath, looks down momentarily.

'Alas, in the matter of that one, I am not sure it would have much effect."

She looks up again, catches Lyric's eyes.

"As much as I despise what is in the nature of these dwarves, the amount of death disturbs me. If we could bring them to the surface and banish them it would not disturb me - although that is unlikely to be possible."

She herself sighs.

"So many lives ruined, and to be ruined because of ... what?"

A sigh and a twisting of a lock of hair around her finger, and a chewing of her lower lip, as a child might do. Then she looks back up.

"But sometimes, life is not a matter of what you destroy, but what you allow to continue, and the damage it would do if left ... unchecked. All things have a price. Sometimes, all of your choices ... suck. And some merely suck less than others. Nonetheless, you still have to choose. And if that is what 'fate' has in store, so be it - but I fully intend to make rude gestures at 'fate' along the way. So if we do this the questions are - how to rescue as many as possible from below - how to lose as few as possible in the opening of the sluices - and how to bring as many of our rescuers home as we can."

Lyric

A slight shiver passes through her as Cesare interprets her touch as he does, and her body responds to his. At the intersection of want and need she reined in the chaotic feelings of her libertine nature yet again. As much fun as she thought this might be, and had thought before where One Fang was concerned, or even Dommi before he made his emotional attachments quite clear... or even Kadri, for gender was immaterial to her in such pursuits, and that thought prompted the considerations she had given to such an escapade with Keiko and dismissed because such things can change or break bonds as equally as they might strengthen them and losing a Friend or a Sister in Spirit would have been much too high a cost for the fun it offered. What of the Squire? Handsome and courageous for certain and probably altogether too serious for one such as her. He was the first squire she has ever met and her first traveling companion since leaving her home. He was more a protector to her than a potential lover, but the curiosity of such an affair intrigued her all the same.

Where was she? Oh Yeah, smiling at Cesare as he had turned her hand over in his. He had a streak in him similar to her.

"I know what you're thinking and you're probably right, I would... But not here, not now..."

And, in a slow motion turn of her head, she shifted her attention back to Kadri.

"The Dwarves have cast aside hundreds, maybe thousands, of lives in pursuit of their own avarice and greed. They have no moral equivocation in this regard for life, and would offer you none either. Kadri, we do not possess the ability to offer a banishment nor the means to enforce it. If they can be driven from this forest so be it... But the coldest and hardest truth is that we have to focus our limited resources and efforts on saving those that can not protect or defend themselves and we must do it with a fierce determination to do what must be done to succeed."

She let slip Cesare's hand at this point, provided he released it.

"My plan is to flood the mines with an unchecked flow of water. That is the 2nd part of the engineering flaw in the Dwarves design. I have to expect they know this and chose ways to work around it in the defense of the shaft. Jam or destroy the sluice gates, as I said. Water will flow until the lake equalizes at the lower edge of the sluice gates."

"It is sudden and drastic and will provoke the most basic reaction in everyone down below, potential friend and probable enemy alike. And that is self-preservation. Water will rush in to the lowest depths and the ensuing panic will create chaos. Yes, that could be bad... but we can not fight our way to the bottom levels to rescue people one at a time. We must force them to flee upwards and escape. If we can force the Dwarves to issue an alert that will clear the mines as some sort of protocol on their part, then that will save even more lives. Fewer will be trapped at the lowest depths."

"And as part of the overall plan to destroy the operation itself, when that very cold river water born from springs and run-off hits the forges, which are kept red-hot, there will be chaos that will force the Dwarves to embrace or abandon their greed. There will be steam and maybe even explosions as molten dragon blood or the forged darksteel that comes from the blood meets the cold water and that can fracture metal and stone and maybe even darksteel itself."

"Once the panic takes over and the rush to escape begins there will be little in the way of organized resistance left. There will be some. Our forces will have to do something that requires a stout and brave heart. They will have to rush toward the danger to aid and assist as many as can be rescued as possible. Carry them up, guide them to lines to climb up, or give them air-filled oilskin bags to help the weaker swimmers and poorer climbers to float until help can retrieve them. It will take some time for the shaft and the mines to fill and that can be used to clear upper level resistance and rescue those we find early, offering them a chance to fill our ranks to help even more."

Lyric made certain she had eye contact with each of them now before she said this last...

"But none of this will ever happen if we don't have a plan to get to the shaft in the first place. All the hopes and dreams we carry for the Forestkin will mean nothing if we can't defeat the perimeter defense. Timing in all this is critical and I am thinking through it all as best I can."

Again Lyric felt compelled to pause. She had given thought to this as well. It was in her nature and once given over to this subjugated aspect of her personality, her mind was a storm of strategy and tactics.

Lyric is Lyric is Lyric, or so she had been told.

Pietro


The Squire of Lord Rames looked around to the others and, after a moment, shrugged slightly and spoke.

"I am not worried overmuch over the fate of the dwarves. If ill befalls them, they brought it upon themselves."

He paused for a moment.

"But I do not want to cause deaths which can be avoided."

Cesare

He smiles as she pulls her hand away because had he not had a promise for later. More than he had expected. But now they have serious business to attend to.

"I think we need to get down there before the flood occurs, or the panic might be too much for the forestkin who have no experience of anything like this. Maybe some of us can avoid being spotted long enough to do some good before the waters start?"

He pauses.

"Getting in is an issue. The weasels patrol I understand and the sense of smell is formidable. I wondered if herbs or something could camouflage it, or could we be made to smell of weasel?"

Lyric

The Minstrel listened and heard their concerns.

"Everything is a matter of timing. I understand and agree that we need to do everything we can to save those that need to be saved. But we face an entrenched enemy with a superior defensive position and numerical superiority. We lose the element of surprise long before we ever reach the shaft... unless we begin the fight on the banks of the lake. The free forestkin and the weasels have been engaging each other for some time no doubt. They know each other's strengths and weaknesses. As I said before, we use their strengths against them. We start with the dark of night. The weasels can smell us long before we reach a position to cross the bridges or the lake... so we have to occupy them in a series of feints that will, at first, appear to be a routine conflict between them and the free forestkin... someplace that is a familiar fighting location, say... here."

Lyric pointed to the area where the one bridge reached the shore line, where the darksteel pipe went deeper into the Forest.

"This is important to the Dwarves and they will defend it but they know it only creates a short term problem. Conflict over the tree sap supply has been unable to creating any lasting effect for the Free Forestkin. Both sides know it, but both sides still contest this. A first feint that replicates this action can draw one or two patrols to investigate... and if those patrols find themselves in an ambush, then they will call for reinforcements or retreat. If it is the latter then we have to press them until they call for reinforcements. This will draw more forces from the Shaft."

"We will need to engage them in a second assault here," she continued as she pointed her finger at the bridge near the dam. We have to convince them that we seek to damage the dam, and that this is the real assault. We need for them to commit forces to running their bridge toward the dam, hopefully bringing their wall defenses to a minimum. This is also a feint because as long as they remain at the walls of the shaft they can choke us on the bridge and we would never be able to run the gauntlet down that bridge."

"Our real effort is over water... in punts and corracles, quietly poling to the shaft to scale walls. The Free Forestkin are surely excellent climbers. They live in a tree. If we can get their main defense forces occupied on land and away from the Shaft then we have a chance to get up those walls and down into the shaft."

"Again, timing is critical... If all of this happens up to this point, then we can neutralize the remaining forces on the walls and take over the bridge defense to keep the patrols from getting back to the shaft. Those who will go down the shaft begin and those up top start to disable or destroy the sluice gates."

"I know my plan is rough and probably not up to your standards, as you are all Heroes and Warriors and Squires of Great Lands but it is the best I can do in such a short time," she concluded with genuine modesty.

Kadri:

"Hero, heh. Kadri is Kadri is Kadri and is little else but kadri. I am not a hero, I am not a warrior, I am just me and I do what my heart and head tell me. "

She taps the spots she mentioned on the bridge.

"Your game of shells and peas suits my way of thinking as well. I am a creature of shadows and tricks. I am a quite good climber myself. "

"If we are to make them believe the attempt on the dam is real, it needs to look plausible as an attempt even if unlikely. Like something which could succeed if there were no defenders. If it seems merely routine they will only send routine patrols, no?"

Pietro


The squire listened and frowned and nodded and scowled as the others talked and pointed to the map. Finally he spoke.

"I am better at head to head, straight ahead fighting than I am at stealth and subterfuge."

He looked around at the others, one at a time, concentrating especially at the forestkin.

"On average how accomplished are the dwarves as fighters... man to man?"

Pietro smiled crookedly.

"Or dwarf to man."

Cesare

There is too much fighting in this plan for his liking. And it is not his forte either. Yes, OK, he has become reasonably accomplished with the crossbow. And of course he can dance with his daggers but he found that up close against well armed folk, his daggers did not do enough damage and left him exposed. He had had a few close calls. Luck would run out one day.

"We have the advantage that they will not be expecting us amongst the forestkin but I am not arrogant enough to believe we would make that much difference either. Pietro maybe? But Kadri and I are not fighters. We have done what we have needed to do in the past but our skills are more in subterfuge rather than upfront. I can use a crossbow if that would be of use but it bothers me that we are planning an assault rather than a rescue."

He shrugs. Have to say it as it is.

Kadri:

T'Remember way back when, out game of shells and peas with the iron ore, Cesare? Think of the fighting in that sense. Its the wagon with the fake ore."

Lyric

Lyric nodded slowly ending with her head bowed.

"I understand your concerns. I am not a death monger and I have no desire to harm anyone. I am simply offering what I feel to be the best option given the circumstances and our assets and abilities contrasted with what I perceive to be that which opposes us."

She looked up at them in turn.

"Our enemy dwells within a guarded keep that is a shaft in the middle of a dammed lake that can only be reached by two bridges or watercraft. There are patrols guarding the shores and a defense force at the Keep that can choke us in any approach we make. Even if we got there without conflict, we still have to descend the shaft to rescue scared Forestkin and carry them all the way back out again, and back through the same gauntlet. At any point should we lose the element of surprise in a stealth reliant plan, then it is all over."

Lyric's tone and cadence had become considerably more serious.

"The Free Forestkin will have to carry the weight of the effort. There are simply not enough of us to effect any plan given what we face without them, and taking sufficient numbers of them to do what needs to be done to save as many as possible means our plan needs more layers and more contingencies... and more conflict to maintain the subterfuge and preserve the tactical advantage it gives us."

"If we had more time, maybe... I don't know. But we don't. The Free Forestkin are rescuers and warriors and their people are dying every day. I believe they understand the risks and the potential rewards and can weigh them for themselves. I am eager to hear alternatives... Please? Offer me something where we need not carry a sword or a bow or risk drowning those we can't rescue... But if your concern is preserving the lives of your enemy then let me remind you these dwarves, and those loyal to them, are evil and they forge forest creatures in the most painful abominable way and use them as slaves without concern for their life or well being. They discard them when they are no longer useful. They are consumed by self-interest, avarice and greed. They will not negotiate with you except as a means to satisfy their own ends only or buy time to turn the table on you through deceit. You are good and honest people and would offer them life in banishment if you could. They will not offer you the same consideration in their efforts to defeat you."

She offered her hands out in front of her, palms upward and then spread her arms wide as she finished her piece.

"I have done the best I can. Perhaps now we should ask the Forestkin their thoughts, Ja? Lady? Broke? Wrath? Clever? Emmi? Others? Perhaps they see an alternative to my plan, or maybe they see ways to alter it to serve better and more noble sensibilities than mine. They will be the ones who bear the burden and majority of the risk."



*****
*****

Pietro


The squire couldn't help but wonder how a young wandering minstrel, a mere wisp of a girl, could come across as a tactical expert able to plan such a mission, but he did not want to say it out loud.

What she said made sense... mostly, and it was definitely more and more complete than what little he'd come up with.

"I did not mean I was overly concerned with saving the lives of the dwarves, just that I am not overly proficient in stealth or subterfuge. My skills are in combat, confrontation, and I would add more to the mission in a position of assault, if necessary, or defense of the rest of you, if possible."

Pietro looked around at the little ones.

"With the help, of course, of the forestkin."

The Heartwood
The Dirkwood Forest
Home Again
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Yrick

Bekkah, Cesare, Kadri, Keiko, Lyric, Pietro, Tomomi, Dominic Korie, Miss Emerald Mouse, Broke, Soft, Clever, a pair of Rats and most of the Pack, Lady and various and sundry other Forest Folk

The Forest Folk listened to the planning, especially as it moved through the possibilities from start to finish. Lady, however, tilted her head at the start and as things moved from step to step, from consideration to consideration, her expression slowly fell.

She glanced to one of her family. Their gazes locked for a moment and then she nodded once, very silently. It was not if they were reading each other’s minds, no, not anything like that at all. It was a simple understanding shared among the Forest Folk, a fact of life that they had lived with for so long, obvious to them but not as obvious to those that came to help them. Her companion stepped forward.

“I am right here.”

That was the Rat’s answer, to the question spoken long before. Clever Rat walked up to the drawings, hands folded behind his back. He looked down at them and after, raised his head to take in Pietro, Kadri, Cesare and Lyric, each in turn before he spoke.

“This is a good plan. You have accounted for so much. And we appreciate the thought you have put into it. So, no matter what I say, it is a good plan, and it should not be abandoned because of our concern. It is just, that, as someone said much earlier, it is a matter of timing; timing is so important.

“We can get you over the lake and on to the wall without the Weasels or Dwarves knowing; we have done that before. Drawing them both away makes it even easier.

“As for their prowess in battle, I suspect the Dwarves are like everyone else – and their skill varies depending on each of them. Some will be good, some will be not-so-good. They will be better in small spaces, tight places, because, well they are Dwarves and thus their stature is less.”

He then drew himself up.

“The concern is the truth of those that serve in the Mines. Never forget that they are considered tools. They are nothing more, nothing less. Thus, when things start to go wrong you must look at it from the Dwarves’ point of view. Do you clear the mines …”

Clever Rat looked down.

“Or do you simply abandon your tools?”

His dark eyes rose again.

“Never forget that to them we are replaceable.

“You will need to strike fast and deep. We have to be on our way back, with our kin, before the mines and forges are flooded.

“As I said, it is indeed a matter of timing.”

Lyric

That 'mere wisp of a girl' sat silently for a time, the amount irrelevant to her, with her eyes closed as she listened to to the Clever rat offer his well founded opinion.

"I have not forgotten," she said softly, eyes still closed. She lowered her chin, bowing in thought where she sat. She brought her hands together at her chin, delicate fingers interlacing, and the knuckle of one index finger nestled into shallow between her lower lip and chin, possibly for the support of her bowed head. Her breathing seemed to slow, the rise and fall of her chest becoming rhythmic and deeper but the time it took to do both increased.

And she was silent and still, and a casual observer might assume she was praying because the pose seemed appropriate enough for a penitent follower of some divine being.

And the world moved on around her as she retreated to a place within herself. A place that gave her refuge and helped her when the world moved to fast and she needed to think. Keiko said something that she was hearing over and over in her head right now...

'If being the warrior you were meant to be will give more souls a chance to live, can you be that warrior? Will you be that warrior?'

Lyric is Lyric is Lyric.

'No path is ever perfect. Standing at the crossroads can be dangerous.'

At what cost? To lose everything is relative though, when you have nothing, you can only but gain something. I started with nothing and can end with nothing. Sometimes it is not for any of us to determine what it is we gain when we take those steps into the unknown and the Wheel turns.

'...you will still be my friend, the Minstrel Lyric...'

Will you still be my friend? Really?

Your choice is your own, and I will not judge you for choosing one Path over another. This place you stand now, this place of not wanting to choose, is hurting you, my friend. I see this in your eyes, in the set of your shoulders.

We judge. All of us. Every choice we make is built upon our judgements past and present. It is how we determine our place in the universe. It is how we find our place on the balance scales. So... Who am I? What do I believe in? Am I different? Was I chosen for this? Or was I simply a tool of convenience? The wrong place at the right time and too desperate to refuse? I ask again, Who am I?

Lyric is Lyric is Lyric. It is a way of saying that you simply are who you are... and that who you are is a very complex person.'

Ja! This is true...

Wrath and Dominic Korie

To the side, in the corner claimed by the Pack, a lordling and a Mouse, Keiko arrived. That odd collection listened to her question and the first to answer was the black cloaked one. He rubbed the back of his neck as he considered her words, finally ending his contemplation with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I’m not the one to ask. They are the predators. I am not. Fear is my constant companion, it is what lends wings to my feet and demands me to be quick and bright and smart and most importantly smile. Without the chance of losing, any challenge has no meaning.”

The surprising answer, however, came from the big black wolf. Surprising in that he chose to speak at all. The very dangerous looking Wrath lifted his head from his Broke-pillow and leveled stern look towards the Rhoni lass.

“Once. Saw one of the rrraccoon girls. Wa’k up to a bug. Touch it. Smile. Dance. Clapped hands and said I have overcome my fear.

“I was impressed.”

Crossing his arms atop Broke’s side he rested his toothy muzzle upon them.

“Fear reflects limitations you set on yourself, not actual ones. To change, to grow, to learn, you cannot turn from what scares you.

“Understanding that, it will give you the strength to shake loose your collar.”

Cesare

He listens, silent at first and then nods.

"I cannot see another way and if the forestkin feel the risk is worth it then I will do my part to the best of my ability. We should however take as many inflatables, small craft, anything that will float down into the mines. Save as many as we can, give a chance to all we can reach."

Pietro


Pietro nodded slowly; it made sense, but it did not sound easy or even probable.

"Can the forestkin, or at least most of them, swim?"

"If it comes to moving fast is small dark spaces .. I can do that well. As risky as it may be."