Logs:The Search Begins

The day of this would be: late at night, day 26, month 9, turn 25 of Interval 10

Note: If you are interested in being part of the hunting team, please be aware this is part of a much larger plot that includes the exiles. Contact V'teri and Taikrin on the game if you think your character would be part of any of the teams, leading or supporting, and coordinating the actual find. We also want to avoid a situation with 10 different leaders when there's only 6 teams. :)

There weren't as many people as he'd hoped, and for that V'teri felt his heart sink into his belly. Perhaps, what he knew of the Reaches through the gossip mill weren't true: that they were a breed of people a little more mercenary and self-serving than the rest.

Granted, V'teri conceded in his head, a lot of those asperations had come from his departed father and his mad quest to discover his ancestors, but a part of him was starting to understand. Starting to comprehend. Starting to find himself, alarmingly, all the more invested in finding out what had happened to this lost group of people.

Perhaps there would be real treasure at the end, the leftover remnants of a civilization forgotten and left to die ignoble deaths. Rich furs and jewelry those families had packed with them, for whatever use it would do them far off on the western isles.

The dreamer in V'teri often wondered if there were other people on Pern. Other land masses to discover. Other cultures that lived at the very ends of the world, but between the threat of Thread during a Pass and Pern's most recent foray with an abnormal Falling -- it had been enough to set most of the commonfolk on edge: wary, waiting, hopeful for the best, but expecting the worst.

So it was with saddened gray eyes that V'teri looked out into the crowd that had gathered in the nighthearth. The lone girl who was here when he arrived to set up shop had given him the most coldest and irritated of looks when she realized there would be a meeting in *her* chosen spot of quiet and work and had escaped before he could get much out in explanation.

His, "Ahem," followed with a low whistle that slowly crescendoed into a more shrill sound that gathered everyone's attention.

"So," the once Monacoan began with an easy smile that belied the churn within the pit of his stomach, "All of you are here for a reason." His head tipped in a faux gallantly self-deprecating fashion. "Me." There weren't many laughs. "I've divided my map into search quadrants. My father's told me for years of treasures lost out in the western islands. And his uncle before him, a sea captain," a little lie wouldn't hurt, "Elaborated on sunken ships filled with both Hold and Weyr's lost treasures. This," he lifted his father's signet ring, the symbol of which he still had not been able to ascertain, "Is just a token of what might be out there."

A voice called out, "Let us see it! Hold it. Make sure you ain't lyin'."

His return was abrupt, even cold despite the lopsided grin on his face, "Can't do that." The ring disappeared into his pocket with its flash of diamonds and silver. "I'd probably never see it again with you lot. Healers say I can't join in the search since the Weyrwoman broke me to pieces. We should all lift a glass to such a /lovely/ woman." There was a low snicker, though not for him, as a mutter filled in the empty space with, "The Holds've gotten it right in not letting women Hold." "'Cept Tillek." "Aye. Shouldn't've backed that highbred bint."

He allowed the grumbling to go on, waiting patiently for the quiet to return.

"We'll pick leaders by picking straws and those leaders will pick their teams and then pick numbers to randomly decide which quadrants you all will be searching. Whichever team finds the treasures, we'll split it. I'll take thirty percent of ending findings for doing all the pre-legwork. You can split it amongst your teams as you see fit. If you pick out a straw, you're agreeing to these terms. If you don't like it, leave. I'll just find other people to help me out, or do it all myself when my back heals completely."

And so it went. Not everyone was pleased. Most everyone had something to say. There were six quadrants to search through and possibly just enough riders to spare 3 per quadrant. The teams divided accordingly with a few leaders he recognized and others he did not.

He just hoped it would turn out well and that no one would want his head later if it didn't.

Then again, catching sight of a particularly hardened looking rider, a faint criminal element gleaming in the person's eyes, V'teri realized in a moment of sober amusement and muttered to himself, "Guess I should go to bed with a knife."