Chapter 4
" One Step Forward, Three Steps Back "
page 15 'The First Step Towards Micheal'

AT THE END OF THE FIRST SEASON
Dio plunged his arm into Vichorn's chest with waves of energy rippling around where a wound should be except Dio's arm just disappeared inside of him. Hating what Automail does to magical forces Dio went to search for the person who would create such a thing. With the slight side effect that occurred with Shaggeon, Dio was sure to ask his question in a hurry before Vichorn was not able to answer anymore and with that Dio leaned in closer and asked 'Who is your master?' Standing accross the room still a little dazed from the fireball all the party could see was Vichorn's lips moving. 'That's who it is? Then I understand why I couldn't find it,' said Dio as the Automail in Vichorn's body started to react. Dio was thrown accross the room as Vichorn's musscles rippled and enlarged into a grotesque form.

Vichorn's body dropped down to the ground and the sword is pulled out and with a triumphent cheer Dio jumped upon the speaker's dias and exclaimed, "With this information my sister will have to forgive me!" With that the Wyvern's claws latched onto his shoulders and it's tail pierced through his ribs. Dio was lifted off the ground and was dropped along with the Wyvern down over 300 meters to the ground below. Everything was fine, all the bad guys detad and the party was even rewarded, except for the fact that Dio's body was never found and they will have to deal with Micheal soon. Elly stares out over the land thinking over these past events she then turns back to see Cade, Enutrof, and Myr who were taking her along with them to share information on the problems of the land. With that the ship turns slightly to the east before it flew of into the Talocian mountains towards Harfein.

AND NOW . . .
The Airship lowered itself near the walls of Harfein as Cade and Enutrof disembark to tell everyone the great news and not to attack their airship. Walking through the gates of Harfein the party almost didn't recognize it. The placed seemed to be expanding there were new buildings and others built up including an extension to the outer walls. The party was then greeted by O'Neill, the Dwarven Ranger and one of the three leaders, who was introduced to Elly for the first time. Since the party needed to tell O'Neill everything that has happened especially Micheal, Elly was asked to leave with Pandora, the grey elven Sorceress and one of the three leaders. O'Neill sat and listened to everything from the Automail to Micheal and agreed with the party that more information needs to be known about this Micheal, his strengths and weaknesses. Because of the danger they were asked to take the warrior monk Kai along with them. Even though they weren't going to be at Harfein long O'Neill thought it best to tell the party of their new 'discovery' in the underground levels when they were expanding the complex. The Party stood in front of it and could only stare at the 10' Double Metal Doors that had runes carved into it and lead sealing its sides. O'Neill told them they don't have to deal with this because no one here is stupid enough to open it without being absolutely positive as to what is behind it. After a nights rest and a very confortable bed the party grabbed all of their new equipment and embarked along with Elly onto their Aiship which they will be riding for the last time.

With the cover of darkness and over 7 hour walk south of Dunnealgate the Airship slowly decended over a small clearing in the forest so the party could disembark. After everyone climbed down the Airship lifted back into the air turned around and started its journey back to Harfein. If they left now and traveled north to Dunnealgate they would get there around daybreak and not wanting to create too much attention to themselves (they thought that would be an odd time to enter the town) they decided to look around for a place to camp for the rest of the night. Enutrof pulled out his skills and found another pretty rock outcropping, when it was decided that would be a bad place to stay Enutrof continued looking. To much of a surprise to the party they saw a small fire burning through the trees as they were looking for a place to stay warm. Of course they were careful to approach even though Cade believed he knew who it was. Kai went around one side as Cade circled around the other and the rest slowly approached from the south. As Cade walked around the only person who was taking refuge at the fire he saw the dwarfs face and recognized him immediately as Berlin.

Not long after the entire party was sitting around the fire with Berlin. Myr questioned Berlin about his activities while Enutrof asked what he was using as kindling. Only a few feet from the fire pit there is the reminints of a broken wooden cage that was splintered from the inside. Being a very curious individual and seeing not only paw tracks but also boot tracks leading awasy from the cage Enutrof decided to use his tracking ability. Enutrof left with Cade in tow to follow the tracks while Elly, Kai and Myr stayed behind to continue asking Berlin about his mission and anything he knew about Micheal.

Following the tracks west Enutrof and Cade pushed themselves through the trees and standing atop the hill they could see everything. Not 200 meters away they saw some poachers who had cornered their pray, a large Dire Wolf, and they now had two of its legs caught with ropes that two of the poachers were holding on to. Not wanting to see anything happen to the poor woodline creature Enutrof took to action by steathly moving in closer to the half dozen poachers. From either side Cade and Enutrof rise up from the large grass with ranged weapons in hand telling the poachers to surrender. Since the poachers were not out numbered they decided to that Enutrof and Cade on, which was their first mistake when Enutrof took one of them down and then turned his sites to the ropes that were holding the Dire Wolf. The only thing that Enutrof and Cade didn't realize is that these six poachers had another sixteen people in their ranks who just appeared from the forest atop the hill and making a loud war cry they charged toward Enutrof and Cade. Kai's ears twitched a little when he heard so many people yelling at the same time and with that he told Myr and Elly there was trouble and all that was left was a dust cloud in the form of his body as he ran at over 1000'/minute towards the sounds that he heard.

Ariving at the top of the hill not too long after Kai was able to see the poachers charge towards Enutrof and Cade and that's when he took to action. Pumping his crazy legs he was able to catch up to the last man in the charge and stun him down to the ground and then Kai continued on. Enutrof and Cade were having some more problems while they were being clubed and stoned Enutrof was able to shoot a couple of the poachers dead. A poacher was about to hit Enutrof over the head when the Dire Wolf jumped at him to maw and hurt the poacher before he could do any damage to Enutrof. At the same time Kai broke a couple of ribs, a leg, and hurt a few of the poachers making sure he didn't kill anyone. Myr then arrived at the top of the hill and seeing all of the commotion used his ghost sound to make it seem that there were a lot of soldiers coming to the rescue the party. Not long after any of the poachers that could tried to run away. With only one poacher left, the one that Kai stunned, was now tied up while the party asked him questions. All they could get from him was that they were poaching because there was a high reward for this creature. He was then doused in alcohole and dumped by the side of a road before the party buried the other bodies.

Not wanting to stay around the area for much longer Berlin and the party separated ways as they traveled at the edge of the forest up towards Dunnealgate with Enutrof's new friend the Dire Wolf. The Dire Wolf sat down realizing that it would not be able to travel with the party into the town. As the party walked into town they got some evil looks from a man chopping wood and another guy throwing some knives at a target board as well as some of the townsfolk. With only five Inn/Bars in this town the party picked the best Inn to request rooms at, 'The Weeping Willow'. Walking into the bar section they saw three guys sitting at a table chewing down on some chicken and turkey eyeing the players as they rented two rooms for a few nights. Not long after Cade and Kai left the 'Weeping Willow' to go around to the other Inns to find some information. With Kai's alcohol tolerence and Cade's musical ability Kai was able to find out from one of the drunks th6 at he beat that two-dozen of Micheals mean had taken over the town recently. But, not a week ago Micheals second in command, Moray, entered the town and not a few hours later almost two-dozen of Micheal's men left the town to travel south (this time in tandom with the attack on Port Drake) with the rest of his men taking up lodging at the 'Weeping Willow'.

During the busy night the party saw the three men at the table in the corner again and the rest of the seats in the place were filled, execpt for a row of buffer tables between that table and Micheal's Men. Kai acting drunk made a drinking bet against a large oaf who came down from upstairs, and was also able to drink that man down. This gave Cade the perfect opportunity to poison a few drinks and send them Micheal's mens way which was able to drop one of the guys and seriously impeed two others which included the large Oaf. Thats when the Party made their move and took out the gang of thugs, since Kai was able to subdue one of them they had a prisoner. Less then a minute after the fight started everyone in the bar made a prompt exit including the bartender himself. Myr had already been rummaging through their rooms when the party brought the man they knocked out up there to tie him down. Cade stood on top of the mans chest while the rest of the party started to question him about Micheal and what's been happening in this town recently. After it was discovered that there were six of Micheals men in the town and the party only took down five of them Kai quickly made the man tell them where their leader was. He told them that their leader was contacting Micheal outside by the big oak and with that Kai was again a puff of smoke as he ran out the door. Standing by an oak tree in the town center was a man standing with his back turned to Kai a slight glow eminated in front of him. A plant of his foot and a lift off the ground and Kai was in the air giving the guy a flying kick and he dropped what he was holding as he rolled away from Kai. The guy pulled out his Atmose Pistol and launced a bullet at Kai missing him he then took to his secondary weapon his longsword. Kai was able to hold his own taking some deadly strikes from the guys longsword and dealing some crippling blows with his fists. The guy fell to the ground and slowly closed his eyes as he gently fell uncouncious, Kai then looked around and dragged then man back to the 'Weeping Willow'. Kai did search around the ground for the small metal orb that the man dropped at the beginning of the fight and wrapped it up in cloth just in case it might do anything.

The only information that these two guys knew was that it wasn't safe to travel to the city of 'East Cameron' for any of Micheal's true believers. They aquired the location of 'East Cameron' before Cade, knowing that these guys knew nothing else, took his sword to their throats as Kai watched on frozen from disbelief and horror. The party knew that they had to leave soon so they grabbed all of their items and some food and drink from the bar before they walked east out of the city. The Dire Wolf, waiting at the edge of the forese, ran up to Enutrof to walk by his side as The Party walked east into the forest with the sun to their backs.