For once, even Smith was caught off-guard by the quickness of his companions. He was used to the much slower Guild employees, who barely knew how to find their own homes, even with a map.
He waited until everyone arrived, remaining completely silent and unresponsive. In that time, he only emptied a single glass of beer.
As the final recruit entered the tavern, he stood up and looked at his assorted party. The skull pattern on his mask seemed to be displaying a grin. He motioned to the bartender, who rushed away and turned on a phonograph. The sound of music flooded the dive, distracting the regular patrons, while the bartender opened a small door leading into the back room.
Smith entered the room, motioning for everyone else to follow. When everyone had gathered, the bartender closed the door. For a moment, the room was completely quiet, only the quiet sound of the phonograph cylinder playing a lively melody in the background could be heard. Then, Smith spoke.
"Now, then. Thank you for gathering this lovely summer afternoon. Without further ado, to business. First of all, allow me to make clear, from now on, your past is dead. You're travelers. Once we're away and out in the desert, it's a whole different world. Forget your name, forget who you were and, perhaps, you'll live long enough to actually do something."
"Ahem. Terribly sorry about speaking so plainly, but it had to be said. Now, as for your rewards..." he opened one of his satchels and removed a gold statuette, carefully wrapped in a handkerchief, "This. And a lot more where this came from. There's a gold mine in the desert and you might wish to collect as much as you can. However, once we're back here, we sell this and split the money equally. Understood? Very good. I trust there are no objections."
He put the statue on the table, allowing everyone to look upon the golden surface, as he took out a map and placed it on the wall, attaching it to a wooden board that was there for just such a purpose. It was a map of northern Africa, displaying the major cities and ares of the Nation. Smith pointed at the largest city.
"We are here. This is New Carthage, pretty near to where the old one was. The greatest city in the world, as far as we know." His finger trailed from the city, across the Great Desert, and to their destination. "And we're going here. Zundhoven, the largest port of the Nation."
"Now, as you know, the Nation is a conglomerate of all surviving European communities, so I won't have to clear it up. Ahem." He cleared his throat and motioned north. "From there, we go north, across the sea where the nation of Greece used to be, to old Hungary, if it's still there. From there, we explore as much as we can, then return to the ship and head across the ocean, to, what hopefully still is, North America. From there, we take a route along the coast by land to South America, if it's still there."
"The ship will be following us and as soon as we declare that we wish to get out, we hop on and travel around the most southern point and into Australia, only observing it, as our official target is southeast Asia. From there on, a land trail into India and then a short ride on the steamer ship back to port. Since the Middle East, along with a good chunk of the rest of the continents are submerged, we should have little difficulty. From there on, a land trail back to here, where we split all the wealth amongst ourselves and report to our ...benefactor."
He took the map down, rolled it up and placed it inside his safari shirt, giving the rest of his companions a glimpse at the small metal breastplate, apparently filled with holes, underneath. He took the statue and put it inside the satchel, then spoke again.
"Thank you for listening. Now that all of that is understood, we'd better be off..." he checked his pocket watch, "...right now, in fact. Blast. We need to get out of the range of the city before those damn steam zeppelins lift off, or else they might report our party to someone and, personally, I'd rather stay unnoticed, thank you."
He opened the back door, which led into an alley way, the end of which seemed to be a large steel door, built in the city's defensive wall. He left the room and looked into the sky, covering his eyes from the sun. "This is why I love this tavern. Back door right into the desert" he said, while scanning the sky carefully.
"Ah, jolly good. We're off to a good start. Still enough time to make it through." He looked back at everyone else "Last chance to leave. Once you leave this door, there's no way back." Noting the determination of everyone, he grinned underneath the cloth mask and turned around sharply, quickly marching towards the door leading outside the city. "Now, then! Tally ho and all that tattle, Gentlemen!"
