A few men from the inner circle, about twelve, gathered in the Pub around dusk, They were all dressed in dark colors and each carried multiple weapons. ***** herself wore three, one on her hip, one on her thigh and an extra one concealed in a special compartment in the heel of her boot. Her attire tonight consisted of another black tunic and leggings. The shirt was loose fitting, not doing much to extenuate her figure but she liked it like that. It gave her more range of motion while fighting and allowed her to stash things under it when the need arose. She was standing off to the side, tucking her last dagger into the sheath on her thigh, when Carnie walked in. The grin he was wearing faltered when he saw the number of men in the pub.

“What is going on," he asked walking over to Mornic was leaning against the counter, calmly. "I was told to come meet you here, but it looks like you are on your way out."

"We are, and you are coming with us. We need to see how many guards are protecting the Crystals and what kind of weapons they have. Here, put these on," Mornic replied handing Carnie a black shirt and matching pants.

"What do you mean," Carnie asked, taking the clothes and putting them down on the counter with a thump. Some of the men had glanced over at Carnie when he first came in but now all eyes were on him as he continued, his voice raising a bit. "You said that we would be going tomorrow. You didn’t tell me about- "

"Are you questioning me, Carnie," Mornic asked with a warning tone, cutting him off. Mornic pushed off the counter, standing at his full, imposing height to glare down at the significantly shorter man. Carnie stumbled back, shocked, into a table behind him. "If you want to be a part of my group, you will follow orders without all this questioning and keep your mouth shut."

Carnie started to stutter out an apology but Mornic just turned away signaling for the team to move. ***** glanced back at the still slack jawed Carnie on her way past him and smirked. He saw this and snapped his mouth shut, returning her smirk with a fierce scowl of his own. She continued out the door and stopped at Mornic's side watching the men file out of the pub alongside him.

"That was good," she said softly after the men had passed, heading up the hill and into the forest. "We need to keep a close eye on him tonight though. He's embarrassed and angry. Not a good combination."

"He won't do anything. He knows that if he tries anything, he won't get into the group and he's too much of a wuss to do something about it even if he wanted to. Either way, there's ten of us and one of him. We will be fine."

She made a noncommittal noise of agreement, somewhere between a grunt and hum, before starting off after her men. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something in the shadows. She spun but found nothing like the last time. After a minute, Mornic called after her and she slowly turned and jogged to catch up.

They walked for a good amount of time with Carnie leading the way. It was a bit chilly for ***** who got cold easily. She huddled in the long sleeved tunic she wore and cursed the early spring days where it was just warm enough to make one want to go outside but cold enough to need a coat. She was grateful that summer was on its way, the weather slowly but surely getting warmer.

She frowned at Carnie's back as they walked along. As much as she didn’t want to rely on him, he was the only one who knew the paths and which way the Fire Crystals were. After a while, it seemed to ***** that Carnie was just taking them in circles but when every tree looked the same to her, it was hard to tell. After about an hour, she was just about to ask Carnie if he really knew where they were going, when he hissed for everyone to get down. Everyone ducked behind a tree or a bush of some kind and strained their eyes to see what Carnie had begun to point frantically at.

About a hundred feet away, through a brief opening in the trees, they could see dim lights. Creeping a bit closer, they saw a pub overflowing with noise on the side of a narrow road. Small pubs like this were fairly common in these back roads, waiting for the a group to come through its doors when they passed through. The road was nestled between two hills, one of which they were at the top of. The incline wasn't too steep to get down if the gang were careful but they were at least twenty feet high and this was a great place for ambushes. Looking down the road, ***** saw that it seemed to snake between these two hills for many miles. It would take a couple hours for someone to make it out of the crevice. She smiled, the hills working perfectly into her plan. Next to the pub, was what seemed to be a simple peasant wagon hooked up to two horses. However, the two capital guards watching it and keeping a lazy eye on the road and the extra horses tied up near it, gave away that the wagon was not as ordinary as they tried to make it seem. ***** frowned, she would have thought that the wagon would've been more heavily protected. They're probably getting cocky, thinking they are smart by taking the back roads. She also didn’t know how many guards were on the inside but she would find out soon enough.