The loud rumbling of the Large metal door came to a halt, yumi hopped down from driver’s seat of the large carriage, she walked along side the bast rhinos, these large equine animals had thick armor plated like skin, and were usually used as beasts of labor or transport, due to their docile nature and longevity, yumi ran her hand along the hard plates of the black and white one, stopping on it’s neck and petting it, Polaris came to the front taking the reigns of both animals and leading them inside the base, the five of them made their way into the entrance of the base, the boys looked around, intrigued by what they were seeing, to one side of large tunnel like area, were blacksmiths hard at work, behind them dug into the grey stoney side of the mountain was a large furnace, that was currently filled with all sorts of various shapes of metal all ending in sharpened points, the loud clanking of heavy hammers hitting metal filled the air, with a slight heat radiating from the furnace, on the other side of the space were what could only be described as the artisans, many hands were busy, wrapping sword handles and spears with leather grips, carving out arrows heads, and wooden bows, many were oiling and polishing other sets of weapons and armors, Aster looked closer and saw one whitehaired older looking woman restringing what seemed to be a military grade heavy bow, aster was puzzled, from the outside she looked like a frail old woman, his eyes shifted to a large axe that rested on the wall next to her, the blade had a deep scar running across it, the handle was brown and red but had worn out finger grips and parts where the raw wood was exposed, he could tell it had seen many battles,

“ I thought this was an abandoned military stronghold ?”, Polaris asked yumi,

“oh it was, but, just because the Dracht Army isn’t using it, doesn’t mean we can’t”, yumi explained,

“why was it abandoned anyways ?”, Polaris asked, his eyes darting around taking in everything at a rapid pace,

“well until recently we were at a relative peace, and this is the closest base to the kingdom, so the king shut it down so he could spend his money elsewhere”, yumi explained,

“so you guys are just squatters”, Polaris said jokingly,

“more than you know, see, a good chunk of the rebel army is made up of Bolterra and Argon citizens, these include adventurers, soldiers and normal citizens, who all want their homes back”, yumi continued to say,

“still to keep all of this running it’s quite impressive”, Polaris replied,

“yup and this isn’t even all of our troops, most of our active fighters are out, currently fighting right now, along with one of the other guys who help keep things running”, she explained,

she let go a disappointing sigh, “ though I wish you weren’t so surprised, as I am a scientist after all and a good part of that was me learning how to engineer things, though that isn’t my strong suit, I’m not to shabby if I do say so myself”, she continued, giving herself as much praise as possible

“ I’ve never seen no scientist fight like how you do though”, polaris said under his breath,

“huh”, yumi stuttered looking back at the boys,

“any ways, along with me we have engineers, from all over the continent, well the ones that sided with us any ways, working on developing weapons and keeping this place running”, yumi continued explaining as the moved on ahead, they continued down the tunnel until they came to a large over sized bunker door ,it ran from the ground all the way up to the ceiling, it was a faded, off white color with slightly visible rust spots all about it, with a faded yellow circle in the middle, next to it stood a smaller, average sized door, in the same off white color , the door opened, parting from the middle and sliding into the walls, they continued through the door into a hallway, as they continued down the hallway, a very large muscular bearded man walked around the corner, his head was bald, his skin was a light brown, and he was extremely muscular to the point where he easily dwarfed everyone else, he was wearing a black vest and camo pants and military styled boots, his left arm was covered in alot of scars,

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“oh, hey half pint, you’re finally back after three whole months, those the new recruits”, the hulking gentleman asked,

“ oh Bard , I’m surprised that you’re at the base, I figured you’d be off somewhere wreaking havoc on some guild strongholds, and yeah these are the new ‘recruits’ ”, yumi answered,

“guys this is Bard, he’s the chief officer, he’s responsible for most day to day operations and he’s also one of our top fighters, though don’t be fooled by his size he has quite the carefree personality”, yumi said introducing Bard,

“nice to meet you guys”, Bard said, extending his hand for a hand shake,

“nice to meet you to”, barak said jolting forward to shake Bard’s hand, the handshake lasted for a very short awkward moment, the air was tense, as if to wild animals had encountered one another and were sizing each other up,

“hmm, you’re quit the interesting fellow, what is your name ?”, Bard asked,

“it’s barak, seems like me and you will get along just fine”, barak said with a smirk running across his face,

“you bet”, Bard said,

“Damn muscleheads”, Polaris said under his breath

“anyways, yumi its best to take them to the training area we are having a briefing to the entire army, to night ”, Bard said as he continued down the hallway, looking at the notepad he had in his hand,

“also yumi”, Bard said stopping and looking back towards her, his expression was somber, as he struggled to make eye contact with her,

“we go the report from Demitr late last night, Aluric took out Keagan himself, they said he died fighting till his last breath”, Bard said, continuing down the hall way

“ohh, I wasn’t expecting to hear that today”, yumi said, her demeanor changed, the energy around her growing heavy,

“look loss isn’t always easy to deal with, so take your time to process it”, Levant said, resting his hand on her shoulder,

“hmm, lets continue on to the leader’s office”, yumi said, putting her hand on her chin, as she thought through what to do next, they continued down the hallway and after going around a couple of corners they came to a stop at a door with a gold crest on it, the crest was a golden capital A with four wings spreading out from it, yumi knocked on the door, but no one answered, she knocked again, but still no answer,

yumi scratched her head, she had a very annoyed look on her face,

“AWW, SCREW THIS!!!!!!”, she screamed, kicking open the door, inside the room was dark, and reeked with the smell of smoke, yumi reached her hand next to the door, a dim yellow light filled the room, with a better look you could see a wooden desk with papers scattered on top of it, a chair and an empty bookshelf behind, on the other side of the room, was a sofa with someone sleeping face down on it, so all that could be seem was their yellow jacket, and their silver hair, yumi walked over to the sofa and pulled the sleeping stranger by the collar of their jacket,

The stranger roused, slowly blinking and looking at yumi before she dropped him on the ground, “oh yumi, you’re”, the person paused, letting out a strong yawn, “you’re finally back”, they said,

“yes I’m back, but more importantly”, yumi said, the boys could tell from their time spent with her that she was pissed off, “why are you in here passed out”,

The sleepy stranger sat up on the ground, rubbing the back of their head, you could now see his face, he had brown olive skin, with green eyes that seemed familiar, his hair was silver so was his moustache and goatee, he had sleepy looking eyes, and a black metal chain with a golden ring dropping down into his chest,

“Amon you reek, don’t tell me that you were in here lounging around all day again”, yumi said, her fist balled tightly, amon chuckled slightly, taking up a small white cylindrical paper, with the ends burnt, from a circular glass bowl at the foot of the sofa,

“I might’ve been, what day is it, is it morning or night”, amon asked, these questions only worked to piss of yumi even more,

“FOR FUCK”S SAKE AMON”she shouted, pushing him to the floor and raising her fist to hit him,

“Keagan, keagan is, he’s” she began to say, her eyes red filling with tears,

“he’s dead Yu, Aluric killed him”, amon said, the boys looked on at the door at this scene unfolding before them,

“I don’t think we should be here”, aster said,

“I agree”, Polaris said looking at him, yumi wiped the tears from her eyes, getting up from the floor,

“boys”, she began, taking a seat on the sofa, resting her arm on the handle and propping her haed on her arm, she lazily gestured in Amon’s direction,

“this is the leader of the rebellion, and Aluric’s brother Amon”, she finished, A wave of puzzled and angry faces washed over the boys