From:  "Arlene E. Jacobs" <wondermom@ij.net>
Date:  Sat Jan 12, 2002  12:15 am
Subject:  [DL-T] What about them Rogues

Day 2
Very Late Afternoon/Early Evening.

NRPG: This part is back post to fill in a gap

Seeing to all the new hatchlings and talking to all the newly joined had
been more taxing than he'd expected, and all Eth'n wanted to do was to curl
up and go to sleep -- for about a year! The queasy feeling in his gutt had
returned and thoughts of dinner were far from his mind, yet he knew that Mae
would be expecting him. Earlier he'd had Warton tell Zareena that he'd be
coming by her office to collect her for dinner.

As he approached the offices, he could see a large group of what appeared to
be farmers, trappers and other assorted town-folk gathered about. They
seemed to be anxiously waiting for something.

He tapped on the acting-warrenlady's door and heard Mae's voice answer,
"Just another few minutes!"

Eth'n hadn't been expecting that answer and had already turned the handle
and was pushing the door open.

Mae stared up from her pile of papers, looking harried and very annoyed, "I
said.... OH! Eth'n, well, that's different. Come on in."

"Mae, darlin', what's wrong?" Eth'n asked.

"I'm not exactly sure.... Seems we have a bit of trouble on our borders."
Mae pulled out a large map of Telnor warren to show Eth'n. "Some of the
people living here and here," She jabbed her finger at their Northern
border and the range between Keldarra's Domain and Telnor's, "claim to have
been attacked by dragons."

"Wilders?" Eth'n interjected.

"No, joined."

"Rogues?" Eth'n hissed. "But that's quite a distance between those two
regions, though I suppose teleporting...."

"Perhaps," Mae shook her head. "It just doesn't all add up."

There was another knock on the door, but before Mae could answer, the door
opened and H'nry and Lira walked in.

Eth'n raised an eyebrow and glanced in Mae's direction.

Mae looked relieved.

H'nry spoke first, "Dalanth said it was urgent?"

Lira also commented, "Drathor says there are dragons attacking villages!
What's going on?"

Mae nodded, "I'm sure you waded through that rabble outside my office.
They're all here to complain about dragons *with* riders who are attacking
caravans and traders -- and even small villages!"

"That does not sound good," H'nry looked thoughtful.

"A rogue band?" Lira stated the rhetorical question.

"Looks more like perhaps two... or one being very clever...," Eth'n
responded

"What do you mean by that?" H'nry frowned.

"Well, look at this map...," Mae showed the two wingleaders the map where
she had put a dot on all the locations where reported dragon attacks had
occurred.

"Does look like two different groups -- here, look, these occurred on the
same day," H'nry pointed to one dot with the right hand and another with
the left.

"Either they are a very large, well organized, rogue group... or there are
two of them," Eth'n commented.

The discussion went around a bit before they decided the best thing to do
was to send riders out to investigate. That would appease the villagers at
least temporarily.

Alpha wing was sent to search the Northern territories while Gamma went to
the Keldarra border. Now all there was to do was wait for the reports to
come back in.

"Waiting is the hardest thing," Mae sighed.

"Well, maybe I can think of something to do in the meantime?" Eth'n smiled.

****
Respectfully Submitted by
Arlene Jacobs
AKA Eth'n, rider of Warton, of Telnor Warren