"Sounds like the perfect way to get ourselves into trouble. If we're not ambushed in the forests, we'll be spotted and sniped from the mountains. I'm in, sounds exactly like my kind of mission, assuming the worst." Something about the way he says it almost seems as though he should have said 'hoping for' instead of 'assuming.' Still, the cowboy seems fairly calm about it all things considered, despite the obvious twitch when he was told smoking wasn't allowed. Sighing, and giving another of his 'what can you do' shrugs, he turns to the group at large.
"So, how about you all? Since you're gearing up, I suppose we're a strike team?"
Phaedrus:
[spoiler]Well, if you kept up with the news from the wildest portions of the desert, then probably. You wouldn't know him specifically; this mostly took place during levels 1 and 2 for him, the gunmage levels coming after, during the portion of his bio covered on his charrie sheet. If you do, you'll possibly know the unit, might have had contact with a similar regiment of exploring militants if you lived nearby, or might even have encountered Stars of either his unit or others (to clarify, Duststorm = regiment of exploring men, Stars = the paladins that went with explorers. Other regiments would have other stars, etc.) if you too were a frontiersman.
I just figured that desert was the closest to the wild western plains that I could reasonably fake without having to deal with where specifically this takes place. So basically, it's up to you if it's even the same desert, or if you know anything about them.
This is sort of assuming modern tech in an older scenario, not quite modern-day present-place with magic... but Kuro left that open enough. I'm a friggin cowboy, for christs sake...[/spoiler]