Torvald isn't so sure this is a good idea, it goes back into that playing with fire category, but at the same time he feels it's needed. He wants to know the real reason Kelosh is here, he doesn't believe such a large empire would offer help for no reason. And if so they could have spared more men. 100 isn't anything to an empire the size of Kelosh. "Well, this should be fun." He suddenly wishes he could be one of the ones looking instead of the one doing the stalling. Oh well. "Just remember their whole army stays on their ship. We didn't have room to put them up. We have to be careful."

Noah nods, still thinking, and says, "Go put on something flashy," before settling back to lean against a post as he waits for his pack to get ready. He already knows that some of them won't be going, because they don't have the right temperament for it, but he wants to see if this change of pace brings out something in them that he hasn't seen yet. He'll know by the order they come back in, how they look, what they say. He's thinking... this will be look, not touch. But he doesn't really know. He does know that he kicked the crap out of them easily, and, now, that that wasn't necessarily because he was good at what he was doing. Time to start crossing things off the list.

Torvald gives Noah a very strange look. "I don't own anything flashy." He thinks a moment and then adds, "Besides, they've seen me looking like this already. And I'm sure they've seen me around the courtyard or the docks. If I showed up in something different, they might realize something was up?" He'd suspect anyone that suddenly came to him in flashy clothes. But then he doesn't like flashy.

Noah accepts that as reasonable and just nods. "Any other advice, sir, before we head into enemy territory?" ... The first of the pack to return is a woman named Jirriah. She's about Noah's size, with short-cropped blond hair and green eyes that appear strangely flat. She was the second person Noah choked out that day, and has since been the first to tag him on every mock-hunt they've gone on. She's definitely in. Others filter back toward the courtyard, some more enthusiastically than others. Hunting means being stealthy with your weapon drawn. This will mean being stealthy with everyone watching you, and your weapon sheathed. Cool challenge, no? Some of them obviously think yes.

Torvald shakes his head slightly and glances out the open gates toward the docks. "Nah, let's just go do this." He takes a deep breath and tries not to rush or get excited. He has to stall, which means he'll be moving nice and slow. He doesn't do nice and slow very well, but can for this if it means finding out information.

Noah quickly picks who's going and who's not, which, in the end, leaves only eight hunters to make sure the Croxx representative isn't at a loss in front of one hundred Keloshian throwbacks-- Er, at least, that's how the Pack sees it. The eight who will not be boarding the ship are officially on lookout duty, and lastminuteemergencybullshit duty, as Noah put it. Hmmm. And then they're off. Everyone involved seems to have a little of the pyromaniac in them. Got fire? MmMmmmm. Noah's just glad to have found something to do that doesn't involve a book.

Torvald steps out in front of the group as they walk to make it look more official. He only hopes that none of his cousins have already had a tour of the ship. Karel is useless, Mykail is missing, Vedric is dead, Dieago sleeps all day, and Sal is too young and submissive. Nope, no danger in them looking around. No wander Cecil seems to need Torvald so much, Ferdinand had useless children. Even Angel. Well she's just insane.

Noah... Insane, yeah, but also lucky. The problem seems to be that Angel's personal good luck becomes bad luck for anyone who gets too close to her. What a weird problem to have. Whatever. The Pack, the half of it that is here, makes noise and there are whispered jokes and hissed insults passed back and forth between rows as they split into two sets of four, but as they get closer to the docks they settle down and get a kick out of looking snooty and escortish. Noah just wants to hit something, but he's behaving himself. He's got a mental list of possible sources for the communal discomfort, and the ship from Kelosh is not near the top of the list--but it is the one that can be more or less addressed right now.

Torvald walks straight through the gates from the courtyard and with purpose to the docks and up the gangplank of the ship. Where you supposed to ask permission first? Oh well, too late for that. A guard stops them at the top of the gangplank and Torvald tells her in a very friendly manner that he's here for a promised tour. The guard calls another over who then goes to tell the captain, while the guard makes them wait on the gangplank. How rude.

Noah stayed off the gangplank, along with two of the eight hunters, just because they figured it would snap, and they'd all fall between ship and dock, and give the bastards shipside something to laugh about. That would suck. The hunters stay surprisingly quiet at this point. They are not in their element, perhaps for the first time in years for some of them. This is new. They are aware of what it means that this ship is representative of an empire most of them won't ever see unless it comes here to meet them.

Torvald tries to look friendly still, but he's never been patient. After only a few moments, which seemed like forever to Torvald, the captain comes out to greet him. They exchange the typical mundane pleasantries and the captain allows Torvald and all his men onto the ship. They head to the front of the ship to start there and will work their way back then down and toward the front again. It should take a nice long time, since Torvald is faking extreme interest in every space of the ship.

Noah and his Pack follow Torvald and the Captain, with the space between them and those ahead of them lengthening whenever possible. Look, don't touch. But that's not to be taken literally. While Torvald and the Captain talk about holds and bunks or whatever it is that Torvald latches onto, four hunters block the view behind them in the cramped ship, and the fact that their straggling five comrades are poking their noses everywhere. Later, the theory is that what was seen will be matched up with what the Captain said. And Noah, after recently having been shoved down into a smuggling compartment with Torvald and Angel, is on the look out for places where there might be unaccountable walls, or floors. What he thinks Kelosh might hide is completely beyond his ability to answer--he's just snooping, and trying to keep his options open. The place he really wants to see is the Captain's personal cabin, and the Captain's personal desk, and the Captain's personal papers.

Torvald continues to try to look interested in everything they come across. It's easier in some rooms than others. But when he runs across army personally or sailors he stops and makes up some bs question to ask them. He only hopes the captain isn't getting annoyed by how slow it is going. But they've been at port for a week, and there's not much to do in port. He suddenly realizes he missed something though. The captain is the commander of the ship, but is he also the commander of the army? If not, then why hasn't Torvald met this other person yet?

Noah takes up the rear the whole time. From what he's seen, he could reconstruct the ship on paper the way he reconstructed what he'd seen of Calian's fortress for Torvald. The forces that hold his body together also keep the structures of his brain that handle memory intact. But other than a few places where he's not sure the walls would have been put in for any practical reason, there's very little here. There are no papers laying around that say: Dear Captain Soandso, BE SURE TO BETRAY THE CROXX FAMILY AND KILL EVERYONE IN KAHERDIN, Love, Kayos. Damn it. Doesn't that just suck? But his hunters are making other observations of their own, on more human levels. Having never seen 'proper' soldiers before, they are coming away from this already thinking that they don't like these men. Particularly the ones with tattoos.

Torvald finds himself back at the gangplank, the captain is starting to look a little annoyed now. Torvald had kept looking for someone with larger shoulder guards than everyone else, or something of the like to indicate who was really in charge. The more he got to know the captain, the less he thought it was this man. He seems to know about shipping armies, but not running them.

Noah is back to being a good little soldier at the end of a perfect, compact formation. He hasn't been introduced to anyone, and he's pleased. Just one of the crowd. His pack is keeping quiet. Yep... they've handled this pretty well so far. No one decked any of the soldiers aboard the ship for looking at 'em funny. Soon it'll be time to compare notes... but for now Noah just tunes in to Torvald, to watch signals and listen in for the first time since he came on board.

Torvald says, "Well thank you for the tour captain. I'm sure my men enjoyed it as much as I did." He doesn't really listen to the captain as he responds with some typical response. Torvald turns and heads down the gangplank without another word, he tries to remember to keep up the appearance of a friendly nature until he's out of the line of sight of those on the ship. It's much harder by now than he'd first thought it would be.

Noah ... The orderliness of the escort dissolves as they get out of sight from the ship and away a good distance. Then it becomes more of a gang, and it swells as the other eight join back up with the pack one by one. Noah comes up beside Torvald and says, "I've got zilch. What do you have?"

Torvald says, "The same. And the feeling that they're hiding more than I first thought to go with it. Did you see any military leaders onboard?" He looks at Noah and hopes that he just missed them. Noah would spot them quicker anyway. His father's men in Lamorak are less hunters and more soldiers than those here. But then on the border they live on, they don't really fight vampires. Torvald has seen soldiers, but was sent here and raised as a hunter himself.

Noah shakes his head. "None. They've got a few questionable compartments blocked off in the hold, but those could be for anything. If they're quarters for your missing officers, then those officers must not have to breathe." He doesn't ask the others what their impressions were--and won't, until they're back within the walls of the castle. To Torvald, he says, "I'll help you find the Baron. He hates me, but he'll listen to you." Actually, he's not so sure that Cecil will listen. They've go nothing. But maybe he's latched onto something himself? He's got magic. He used it twice right in front of Noah.

Torvald nods listening to Noah. He figures Noah knows more about ships and armies than himself. "I hear they have armies of underwater races too. That not needing to breath, might be that they just don't breath air." He doesn't think they have to worry about those type. They might if they had a navy, but Croxx doesn't. This war will be fought on land. Torvald was just commenting while he tries to sort his thoughts out mentally.

Noah blinks. He doesn't have a clue what Torvald is talking about. For him, it's mythology's ink bleeding and running into reality. That's just something you wipe away. Clearing his throat, he says, "Sounds like a crock of shit to me, sir."

Torvald gives a little shrug. He's never seen any proof of these armies himself and always dismissed them like he did stories of hidden kingdoms in valleys. But then one of those hidden kingdoms turned out to be real. It's just a fluke, he's sure. "Let's go find Cecil." He turns once more toward the keep. He's sure Cecil is in there somewhere, maybe his study.

Noah sheds his pack at the courtyard, following a pace behind Torvald. By now, just about everyone is used to seeing him around, so he's not technically a stranger anymore. As they walk, Noah makes the comment: "They looked fit, but not battle-ready."

Torvald glances back at the pack as he walks and then realizes what Noah meant by 'they'. "What do you mean? They're not here to really help us?" Torvald had mentioned upon the ship's arrival that it could be there to pretend to be friends, while larger armies are preparing elsewhere to crush everyone in Hana'Var. Or maybe just the Croxx. "I hear Kayos is a vampire master."

Noah looks a little startled at that. "I didn't say that," he clarifies immediately, in response to They're not here to really help us? "I just said that they didn't have the look of men who think they're about to have death thrown in their faces. It makes you act different. And it's different in a soldier than in a hunter. Soldiers do what they're told, even if it's suicide. No control there." His voice trails off; he can't really explain it anyway. It was a valiant attempt, though. But then Noah stops short. He's heard the name Kayos floating around recently. "If he's a vampire, why the fuck does he expect Baron Croxx to accept his help?"

Torvald says, "There's no proof he is. I hear he walks around during the day. But he has fangs and is undead or something like that. It could just be rumor. No one seems to know for sure. I mentioned it onboard, but the captain wasn't even sure. I think Angel has met him, but I never thought it was important to ask her. I didn't expect this." He shrugs helplessly. It's all really out of his hands.

Noah is in the same position--only by choice, for the moment. "This makes less and less sense the more we talk about it," he mutters. "Shouldn't this be black and white? Calian kills, so we kick her ass?" He shrugs. It would be great if things were that simple. He'd be in dog heaven, forever chasing slow cars and gnawing on bones. Woof woof snarl yip.

Torvald says, "Well the part between us and the Jar'Ha is still that black and white. They're evil, we destroy them." He glances up toward the gates and a few Kelosh soldiers wandering around on the far side of the courtyard. "But I'm not so sure they're aren't evil either. If we could afford the time and effort right now, I'd like to run them out. . . . Maybe after we get rid of the Jar'Ha?"

Noah doesn't respond to that. Instead he asks, "Don't you people have intelligence experts?" He foregoes making all of the obvious jabs about that. But he's thinking... an individual or two sent to the Empire, or more likely its outskirts, could find out useful things. Simple things, that Hana'Var as a whole doesn't know simply because of the distance involved. "Spies," he clarifies.

Torvald says, "Angel. Does she count?" He looks at Noah with a look that says what he thought about that. "She went to the Kelosh capital and lived there. Mykail, her brother, was supposed to go too, but he got lost along the way. She brought back Petter Summers, but never any good information. We should find her friend and beat it out of him." He smirks. He's like that. It could be fun to beat the crap out of the assassin.

Noah ... The assassin seems to be everyone's favorite punching bag... which probably says that he's not a very good assassin? ... Noah just remembers him as being crumpled on the floor, more or less, in chains. He remembers some pussyfooting... and then, also, the offer that Noah could escape with them if he wished... even though from how things sounded that probably would have damned all three of them. Interesting. "I'll take all of that as a 'no,'" he says with a frown. "If you're worried about how much you don't know... why don't you do something about it? Stick a guy on a ship and point him toward Kayos."

Torvald thinks that sounds like some good advice. But would they have time for someone to cross the ocean, find information and get back before the war was over? Probably not, but maybe Kelosh wouldn't attack before Croxx and Jar'Ha had weakened each other in war anyway. Maybe Kelosh doesn't want to attack "That's a good idea. We should leave tonight." He looks pointingly at Noah. They don't have time to delegate this, and Torvald isn't doing any good here.

Noah blinks. He nearly does a doubletake, too. That wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind. It takes him a minute to respond, because he's trying to figure out if Torvald is joking. He doesn't look like he is. He considers his hybrid pack he was given responsibility for. Hmm. He says: "Yes, sir."

Torvald smiles and nods once, glade that Noah isn't disagreeing. Torvald's mind was already too busy planing the trip to really notice Noah's reaction. "We can take your new men too. We might need them." Torvald isn't sure what kind of trouble they can run across in the Kelosh capital, but is sure it's a lot. If Angel was bringing the nice boys home, that doesn't say much about the rest of the men in Kayosia.