Disclaimer: I don't own Golden Sun or any of its characters, just the story only.
Chapter 2 – A day's work
As Sol's light bathed the entire forest, the fort began to buzz with activity. The veterans were up and wide awake, preparing breakfast or helping the newcomers and younger members. Pretty soon, everyone was awake, aside from a certain person.
Isaac and Ivan stood in front of Garet's room, tapping their feet impatiently. To their dismay, Garet was still snoring, thus proving one problem already for their mission. With sighs of exasperation, they barged into the room. Garet was still asleep, sprawled across his bed. Isaac and Ivan looked at each other, grinned, and then proceeded to drag Garet from his room.
Garet was apparently having a too good of a dream to notice that his head kept banging against the wall. His dream probably dealt with food or else he would've woken up by now. He was still dreaming when he became aware of the sensation that he was underwater. His eyes snapped open and to his complete surprise, he was under water. How was the question? Apparently his adrenaline kicked in and he stood up flailing his arms wildly. Laughter rang in his ears he managed to calm down long enough to look around.
Isaac and Ivan stood in front of Garet, trying to stifle their own bouts of laughter. About half of the camp stood behind them, still laughing at the scene that had unfolded in front of them.
"What the hell was that for!" Garet yelled, "I could've drowned in my sleep you know."
"Well if you had woken up earlier, then there wasn't the need to do what we just did," Isaac retorted, "now if you'll just remember why we did what we did."
I finally dawned to Garet that he was on a riverbank, soaking wet. Isaac and Ivan had taken the liberty of dragging him from his room and dropping him in the river.
"I don't know. Maybe it was just for a prank?" Garet suggested. Isaac and Ivan fell to the ground in stupidity, gawking at Garet's ineptness.
Garet then proceeded to grin, "Gotcha!" He then proceeded to laugh at their faces. "What makes you think that I've forgotten about our mission today?" he choked out between laughs.
The other two just stared at Garet, wondering just how in the world that he managed to outsmart them. Shaking their heads, they turned and headed to the stables.
Upon arriving at the stables, they saw that Roland was already there waiting for them.
"About bloody time you got here. What in the world took you so long?" Roland then shut his mouth, noticing that Garet was still rather wet. "Alright I don't need to know why. Now can we please get a move on? We're late as it is!"
Isaac grinned and then went inside to get a horse, Ivan followed. Garet smiled sheepishly and then focused some psynergy throughout his body and drying himself, before following the others into the stable.
An hour later the four of them were on the road towards Vault. Having said a brief farewell to the commander and eating a light breakfast did they then proceed south at a steady speed. It was at least a day to a day and a half of riding to reach Vault.
By nightfall, they were about three quarters of the way there. They stopped and set up a camp for the night. Isaac unpacked the provisions he'd brought and divided it among the four of them. Garet and Ivan scoured the area for wood to make a camp fire while Roland tied the horses to a nearby tree.
When Garet finally got the fire going, they sat down surrounding the fire. Ivan struck up a conversation regarding on how they should approach the bandit situation surrounding Vault.
"Edward mentioned that the bandits have taken over a village near Vault. It seems likely that these bandits would've taken hostages and such to prevent from being forced out. The question is: how do we make it into the village, apprehend the thieves, and prevent any more damage to the village?" Ivan stated.
"I think the best way is to somehow sneak into the village, corner those bandits, and knock the stuffing out of them," suggested Garet.
"Your idea has some merit to it, for someone as dense as you," noted Roland causing laughter to erupt from the others and an indignant "Hey!" from Garet. "However, the problem with that is that we don't know how many bandits are there. Second, the best time for us to sneak in would best be at night, but that's also the best time for thieves to strike as well. We're going to run into a problem of apprehending them all at once."
Garet nodded; seeing the flaws and possible outcome should they take his suggestion. He then turned to Isaac, noting that Ivan and Roland did as well.
"So what do you think, Isaac? How should we approach this situation?" Garet asked.
Isaac sat still and pondered for a moment. Then he looked up and in serious tone said, "We'll take Garet's approach," which surprised the rest of them. "Seeing that these bandits obviously work in a group, they must have a leader among them as well, coordinating all of this. If we strike when they're all out at night, we can then apprehend the leader first before moving out to the others."
Ivan looked unconvinced while Garet and Roland looked puzzled.
"What I'm saying is that the leader will be coordinating these robberies at the village. When they execute their plans, they will head for the city – due to the village's short distance away – and leave the village with a small number of men. If we can apprehend the leader at village, we can then cut off any attempts to warn them."
The others were beginning to understand what Isaac was pointing at. If they apprehended the thieves in the city, some will most likely escape and warn their leader that the city had mercenaries in the city looking to apprehend them, allowing them time to escape or take arms against them. However, should they get to the leader quickly and quietly, while most of the others are headed into the city, then they can cut down the chance that a skirmish would break out. The ones in the city wouldn't know what happened to the leader and therefore continue what was planned. In the meantime, after the leader was apprehended, they would head back into the city and apprehend the others as they returned to the village.
"Isaac, I think you're idea would work, assuming we have all the assumptions in our favor. However we'll need to speak to the mayor and Edward for more information as to how these bandits operate," Ivan pointed out. Isaac nodded, seeing that there were a few anomalies in his plan that needed to be fixed.
"I see your point, Ivan. Now I think we should get some sleep and head to Vault at dawn. If all goes according to plan, we should reach Vault by midday."
"What about guard shifts?" asked Roland, "shouldn't someone stay up and keep watch?"
"I think we should all take a shift with two hour intervals. I'll be up first then Garet, Roland, and finally Ivan"
The others nodded and settled down for the night. Isaac sat at the fire still, throwing sticks in now and then to keep the fire going. He looked around the woods around him. The horses were on the ground resting as well, and the wood was quiet. He could hear crickets chirping, an owl hooting in the distance, and a distant howl of a wolf. Sighing to himself, he returned to his watch and waited until Garet's shift.
The next morning, Isaac and Co. continued towards Vault. Albeit the occasional skirmish with monsters, they made it rather safely. Once inside the city, they headed towards the mayor's house while keeping an eye out for the bandits – Ivan was casting Mind Read at suspicious people, hoping to identify some of the thieves. All proceeded without incident when they finally arrived at the mayor's house.
Edward was waiting for them when they arrived.
"Greetings, Isaac. I trust your journey was well?"
"You sure have impeccable timing," Isaac answered, "We just arrived not too long ago, and to answer your question, yes there wasn't much trouble during our journey."
"My pleasure," said Edward, "Please, come this way. They mayor's been expecting you."
They followed Edward into a large room, which was evidently built for meetings and gathers. At the head spot sat a may in his late forties or so. He was rather tall, had dark brown hair that was beginning to gray, a rather thin frame, and a tired looking face.
"Greetings, Master Isaac." The mayor stated, standing up and holding out his hand. "My name is Irvine, and as you know I am the mayor of Vault."
Isaac shook Irvine's hand and spoke, "Greetings to you too, mayor Irvine. These are my companions: Garet, the tall, red haired one, Ivan, the youngest here, and Roland the dark haired one." Isaac gestured to the others behind him as he spoke. Irvine nodded to each one in acknowledgement.
"Now, I know the reason you're here for, so let's just cut to the chase shall we?" asked Irvine. "I'm pretty sure you've figured out how to handle the problem? If not we can discuss it right now."
"No need to, mayor, we've pretty much figured out a way to capture the bandits. All we need now is some clarification on how these bandits operate," replied Isaac. With that said, Isaac began explaining their plan and the flaws that made the mission all the more difficult. Irvine listened intently as did Edward, nodding once in a while to show that they followed.
Near the end of the conversation, Edward brought out several reports by the guards. Remarkably, Isaac and Co. had guessed quite accurately to how the bandits were organized. Upon reaching a planned agreement and cooperating with the already limited number of guards, they set off for the village, hoping to reach there by nightfall.
A/N: Phew! That was a long chapter. I hope I didn't overdo it. Please R & R people! Thanks.
EA17
