Welcome to Gaia! ::

Jin sat quietly among the stones, the hot desert breeze wafting in his face, even as the cool rock that he leaned against almost made him want to shiver.



It was for this reason, among many others, that Jin wasted away his noontime today sitting against a stone beside the cave mouth, watching the stablehands tend to the Lurker Beetles in cave faces opposite of where he sat.

It was just one of those days... A day where work of any sort seems like torture, and even play seems to be more effort than it is worth. It was on days like this that Jin would sit and play.

'It is a good day...'

He raised his right hand, which still held the cold metal of the mythril flute from when he had been playing earlier, before he had dozed off against that cool, comfortable rock. With a soft sigh and a deep breath, Jin raised the flute to his lips and began to play.

The song not only carried on the wind, but also through the tunnels that wormed their way throughout the mesa. In a moment the entire mesa was ringing softly with the melodious sounds that Jin played; the casual, soothing tune reminding everyone who heard it that today was a good day... the sun was warm and bright, the breeze was cool and fresh, and even as the stablehands shoveled Lurker dung over the edge, they were reminded that when that task was through, they would go riding.

Jin's song was endless, twisting back upon itself more times than could be counted, even as it would always change with each time through it... what seemed like hours passed before the noontime sun began to sink towards the horizon, and Jin remembered that there were still things to be done before night fell.

'The wind is telling me, it is a good day.'

Reluctantly, he scratched his way up from where he had lay for so long today; tucking away the flute in a pouch beneath his tunic and turning back to the tunnels that had long been used as a 'home sweet home' for the Sand Pirate group.



Jin unbound the leather strap that was hooked around the frame, and propped it upright in the red dust that covered the top of the mesa. With a familiar snap of canvas, the device opened fully. A glider of canvas and sundried ironwood, meant to ride the winds that swept over the endless Barthavos, and to catch the updrafts that rose from the dunes. It took just a moment to lock every one of the wooden joints with a metal pin, and to tie a rope around his waist so that the winds would not simply carry him away.

It was time to go out into the desert; the life of a bandit was hardly for the meek, or faint of heart. It took little more than a running start before the winds caught the canvas wing and alofted both man and machine into the air.

Jin reached up with both hands to the wooden bar above his head, pulling down on two wooden handles bound to two tensile wires that pulled at the front end of the canvas to dip the 'wing' downwards and dive towards the barren flats below; and as he did he thought to himself...

'Today IS a good day.'

eek aw mann.... sweatdrop *Hono tried to jump back slightly at the sight of the monsters almost bumping into Sun as she snapped her fan blade open again trying to fend off a clawed hand as one of the monsters slashed at her* gonk this is so not fair!

*Spots still dancing in her sight Raven snapped her fingers on her free hand to ignite a spark as she tossed a nice hot little fireball in the face of her attacker, praying that these monsters were not flame proof...*

The sun was beginning to dip down to the horizon by the time Jin saw the highway in the distance. From so high, dozens of miles were in view, though only the roughest features in the landscape could be made out. This 'highway' was little more than a wide, beaten trail that caravans and travelers would use when traveling between the more temperate Gaia Plains and the sprawling desert capital of Strata to the south.

It was along this road that the Sand Pirates would most often lay in wait for caravans to pass.

Jin reached above his left shoulder and pulled down on the third handle from the end, while his right arm reached across to pull down on the left of three handles positioned near the top of his head. The glider tilted to the left a bit, swerving as the wind currents caught in the modified surface of it, and above a particular section of the highway he would circle like a vulture; decending slowly so that more explicit details in the landscape could be observed.

Jin yawned.

He thought he saw something move, but then remembered that... he didn't remember. What it was he was going out here to do, that is... maybe something would jog his memory, he was sure it would come back to him soon enough.

'Second... Fifth... Fourth and Fifth...'

Jin pulled the cords as the glider responded; first turning its slow circling motion into a tighter spin, then finally simply giving in and diving nearly straight down in a barrel roll as the ground began to catch up to it.

'Ten and Eleven.

He reached up behind his head and pulled on two cords there; the glider changing shape yet again to catch the wind and pull out of the dive. It carried on, more or less level, for just a moment before Jin shifted again; unlooping the rope bindings that held him in place in the glider, and instead dropping down to hang from the bar that he had been balancing on during flight.

Now the glider was tipped, with the ten and eleven cords still in his hands... it looked almost like a parachute, and acted quite like one as the glider continued to decend; Jin hitting the ground running in an open space.

Jin pulled out the metal pins that locked a few of the joints in place, lettting them hang down on their strings, and then popped the main support at the hinge. Within thirty seconds of landing, the rather large glider that Jin had rode the winds in on was reduced to a folded bundle about the size of a folded cot.

Without a moment's hesitation, he slipped his hand around one crossbar and hoiseted the device over his shoulder; then turned his back to the sun and headed southeast, towards the road.

(( I can hear the little voices of anyone who's been forcing themselves to read this... all shouting in unison: "FINALLY!" :laugh: ))





But what of Jin?

He was almost at the road already, having landed in a dry, rocky region a short walk from the road. It had been a simple hike back over a few hills and outcroppings before the endless snake of travel-worn earth became visible; stretching from one horizon to the other.


And now a dilemma...

Before him, tucked behind two large outcroppings of rock at a bend in the road, there were the remains of a few destroyed wagons, and a few dead horses that had been drawing them. The pirate in him said 'go for the treasure', the rest of him said 'go for the treasure'.

What a conflict, what to do?

"...OH, MYSTERIOUS VOICE OF THE DESERT, WHAT BE THINE NAME? WHAT SIGHTS HAST THOU SEEN TO TELL OF IN THAT VOICE? FROM WHAT ENDS OF THE EARTH DOES THIS VOICE HAIL?"

He spoke loudly, even as he decended a rocky hill towards the road.

::To find nothing more than an empty back seat...clues didnt add up. There was a very large gash in the side door of his car, and the back side seat door has been flung right off its hinges and thrown into the sand, and D was gone. Their wasnt a single footprint in the sand.

What worse, his bow was entirely gone. It wasnt like someone had supersped up and taken it, it was just gone, as if he blinked and it vanished. But how? Why? There were no answers, and we all know when a soldier isnt given answers....he just continues his mission. RI could afford to fix the H2, and really, what was the pain losing a single child? Arent children lost everyday? And a bow? Why have a bow when one can have guns.

Ruuvans reaction was beside the point, and out of the question. He could shout into the sands or into his necklace. He'd get nothing. Only, the necklace had once again resumed the shape of the Lightbringer...maybe there a road to walk down here, and he was driving away from it? Maybe it was just another of the freak occurances that make Gaia, Gaia...who knows.::