To Find Friends

Act 1: The Old Homestead

Chapter 1: Prologue.

A cart rolled into a small, lonely looking homestead in the wide-open fields south of a terrible fortress that was set around an active Volcano, just barely noticeable on the edge of the horizon. There was a small, perhaps 2 or 3 room house, with a tin roof extending from the right side, where a horse stood, tied up. A stone's throw away from that was a barn, which was laughably bigger than the house. All around the outer fence, there were small patchwork areas that were once fields of something. Inside the fence line was various farmers tools, from various centuries, lying everywhere. Most of them showing early signs of deterioration. 

On the cart were a number of people. A old, Easterly-dressed, dark skinned woman shared the driver seat with a young fair-skinned man in burnt, ripped, torn servant's uniform. Behind them, in the bed of the wagon were five others. All of them were as battered and disheveled as the young man driving. There was a cyborg sitting next to a silent-type young man, with a light, altogether fine, but unkempt, beard who watched a snoring, more heavily bearded man twitching on the floor of the cart. Across from the cyborg and the silent man sat a slightly younger man with a significant goatee dwarfing all other facial hair, and a young dark-skinned lady (who obviously had no facial hair,). Of those five, only the lady was not wearing thin gray prisoner's garb. 

They had all just escaped prison. Thunderclap Prison.

The old, dark skinned woman, Mrs. Richardson, also known by her Easterner persona, 'Sandhya', pointed to the overhang. "Park there, Carson."

The driver, Carson Flemming complied.

"That's not good," from the back of the cart, Peragrine Wanderthistle, the young man sporting the goatee, indicated the one horse. "Where's the other horse?"

Next to him, the young woman, Emily, also known as 'Yasmine' responded. "I think that's Tain's horse." 

'Tain', another escaped prisoner, had gone ahead with two other fellow escapees. 'Loden', a rather roguish and mysterious blonde fellow,  and Peter Silverstine, Emily's brother, who had ridden on the back of Loden's horse. They had left with two horses. . .

And now there was only one. 

"If he's here, he'll know. Let's find out," Emily reasoned, quelling the unease in her gut.

The silent one next to the cyborg kicked the sleeping one on the bed of the cart. He muttered something about rice cakes, and rolled over.

As soon as the cart stopped rolling, Peragrine hopped out, followed quickly by Emily. The others followed more slowly.

Peragrine hopped up the two steps to the door and knocked. "Hello? Tain? Anyone home?" he yelled.  Behind him, some shushed.

Nothing happened for a moment, while the silent one, going by the name 'Vorpal' helped the cyborg, 'Burnie' out of the cart. It was clear Burnie needed medical attention. 

When they had found him in Thunderclap Prison, Burnie was actually an integrated pilot of what could only be described as an advanced BarneyBot. During the escape, he had been forcibly extricated from it by a Red Mythran, then ran over by the cart. Thankfully, the cart destroyed the Red Mythan's glasslike physical structure when it took it by surprise. Unfortunately, though being made of mostly metal as cyborgs commonly are, Burnie was further harmed. His face, with it's only human feature being his left eye, betrayed very little emotion as his mechanical legs audibly whined and shifted, as he got up and, with Vorpal's help, carefully climbed out of the wagon. 

The opening of the door refocused everyone. Tain stood in the doorway with a rusty spear. 

"Get in."