Geraint wasn't willing to risk people he did know and care about for people he didn't know.  He would already be gone if Vara would abandon the idea that her parents were alive.  He didn't like fighting in fights he didn't know he could win - there was nothing gained when you fought and lost.  In his eyes, Blackvayne had too many tricks up his sleeve.<br/><br/>He wasn't sure what to say when she acknowledged it would be hard to save her parents.  He didn't want to push her into something that she'd hold against him later, though thinking about it made his face turn hard.<br/><br/>Carefully, he said, "There are... ways to survive in the ruins.  If you hadn't suggested we come here, well, the Old World had a great warren of underground... everything.  They even had tunnels that connected their cities.  They're not safe, but the risks can be managed.  Not only is there enough clean water down there to get by, but there's still real salvage.  But there are also people down there.  Humans in armed camps, mutants, of course, who lair below but spend time above, too.  I've heard them speak that to the south there are even communities that existed from the times of the Old People.  I never had the freedom to go that far and it might be bullshit, like the pure frozen north with their egalitarian werewolves and abundant game.  I bring it up as an option.<br/><br/>"Otherwise, to the west is Indborg, which is ruled by a vampire lord, and tribes of werewolves between here and there.  To the east there are mountains and the werewolves there are crazy, and then there's the sea - which I've hard is so hot that it kills anyone who sees it, that it's just glowing with radiation.  That in places it boils eternally and the steam is pure poison.  But I've heard there aren't any vampires there, that the wild packs of the mountains will kill anyone tainted by vampirism, and even small taints will drive them into a killing rage."