Lassara - Shards of Neril - Story Thread

[TheLastDays]

Annoyed the demon turned his gaze towards the Borian and shook his head, like an elderly man who had to correct a young child.

"I was not talking to you, youngling, and you should be thankful that I do not see you as a threat. Now stay out of this and let us more experienced talk. You cannot even imagine the time I have spent serving Lord Vayne and I would assume you judge the one you're travelling with as a much younger being than what he is. He's actually much older than he looks, even though that's hard to believe." A loud chuckle escaped the demon's throat and he returned his attention to Morangul. "Now listen, Lich. I would suggest you stay out of our affairs as even you do not understand what you are facing. Find a place to live, outside of our sphere of interest, I hear northern Tarania is a nice place for someone who doesn't really feel the cold."

[Diamondeye]

Alyssa lowered her bow. "We should continue, I don't want to linger here in case what it said about huge creatures turns out to be true." They spurred their horses and continued south. Alyssa shook her head, "this really is the strangest of times," she said.

[Death is yonder]

Sheathing his sword, Guantano nodded, and the pair made their way with added haste south, eager to move away from where the elf might be. The afternoon sun shone brightly in the sky, and Guantano raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. They would take a breather once they had gotten some distance on the army at Leon.

[thefluffyone93]

"Oh, I know very well what I am facing, dog of Vayne! Run home to your master,
tell him that Morangul has returned, and to expect the bite of a Shard Weapon upon his neck!"
And with that, Morangul cast a bolt of lightning at Irigo, which was easily dodged by the demon.
"Fool!" The demon snarled, "You could have been spared destruction, but now you will be crushed like everyone else!"

Morangul laughingly replied, "I'd like to see you try! Now begone!"
And with that, the demon vanished, making the area much brighter, as if a
shade had been removed from the burning trees. In the distance, Morangul and Frijyk
hear the crashes of the demon's giant companion begin to move again.

Morangul quickly put the fires out, turned to Frijyk, and said, "We shall stay here for the night;
we can easily follow their trail in the morning."

[TheLastDays]

Alain nodded at Dietrich and while he got up he replied: "Rufus is right, you'll see when we get there. Now I think you should try to get some sleep. We will be riding all day tomorrow and Rufus, you're up holding watch after midnight."

Most of the camp lay in silent talk, the two guardsmen were eyeing the stranger and Rufus, probably discussing what danger came from them and Alain just got up and walked over to them and Drax. Only Glungurd was sitting next to the fire with no one to talk to until the princess sat down next to him.

"Thank you for your company today, Glungurd. I know it must have been a hard day for you, riding for the first time." She smiled and looked at the Odglok, "I haven't answered your question before but to be honest, it's hard to explain. I have to care for my people. As princess it is my place to lead them and make sure they are doing well. Now someone else wants to take that place and I fear he will try to harm them more than help them and since I am still the princess, he wants to kill me, because only then he will be able to really take my place."


***

In the middle of the night one of the sailors entered the cabin they had brought Thomas in to rest and woke up Gilford. "Master knight! You'll want to see this." With that he ran out again and Gilford slowly got up from his seat, next to Thomas' bed and went out. The night was red and in the distance they saw the flames where once was Tar Cantun. Only few ships were crossing the bay to the mainland, one had already reached the coast and Gilford went down to talk to one of the survivors.

"It was terrible. They are razing the city, not conquering it. They are burning everything to the ground, killing all they can reach, very few have reached the harbour before it was destroyed and I don't think anyone who is still on the island will survive this attack..." He went on, describing the whole attack. It seemed the demons' flying fortress had hovered over the city while magical lighting and fire poured down onto it, arrows were shot and demons entered the streets. The pagic projectiles had destroyed most of the building and set on fire what was inflammable. Tar Cantun was no more.

https://img202.imageshack.us/img202/5601/nasmith61.jpg

[B-Wing]

Glungurd nodded to the princess, pretending to fully comprehend her significance. He wasn't sure why a person, who was supposedly able to take care of many others, needed to be taken care of by Glungurd and the rest of the company. But he had become used to not understanding things lately and was content to trust the princess's words. Gazing into the warm fire brought him thoughts of the warmth and comfort of his cave dwelling back home. But he shook these thoughts away, determined to forget such longings until his current task was completed. "So we are going to kill the other person? The one who wants to take your place?" Glungurd asked.

[TheLastDays]

The princess sighed and stared into the fire, along with the Odglok for a moment and then returned her gaze to him. "I think we have to, yes. But he has brought even more dangerous people to help him. They are the ones we really need to fight and we are on our way to find out how we can accomplish that." After a few moments her smile had returned to her face. "And with a might warrior like yourself on our side, what could possibly stand in our way?"

[B-Wing]

Though the princess's question was rhetorical, Glungurd became quite nervous as he thought of all the things that might seriously threaten their lives. He had only witnessed a few demons, having been imprisoned during most of Lassara's invasion, but he found them terrifying. They reminded him of his own race's legends. Stories told of horrible creatures encountered deep underground by Odgloks who had mined into veins of mysterious ore, or tunneled their way into spaces already inhabited. But again he stopped his mind from focusing on anything other than his new commitment. He forced a reassuring smile and nodded to the princess.

But the question had given him some serious doubt. He looked around at the other men in their company. They all carried bladed weapons of steel and were adorned in varying degrees of armor. He had an over-sized hammer and a sack of stones. It was becoming glaringly obvious that what constituted a warrior in his own society was vastly distant from the standards of Men. Again, Glungurd countered his fear. He knew he was brave, he knew he was tough, and he knew he was stronger than the others in their company, despite his inferior stature. He figured he would have to rely on those qualities if he was going to defend the party (or himself for that matter).

"What do you think about the other folks who are protecting you?" Glungurd asked the princess. Alain was obviously capable of handling himself, but Indax seemed more nervous than the Odglok. Rufus and Dietrich were also big question marks to Glungrud at this point.

[TheLastDays]

The princess thought about that question herself for a moment. Obviously she knew, she could trust Alain and she had no doubt about the other guardsmen either. But what about the mercenaries, bandits and the young boy who was wanted for murder? She felt something about Drax. Something insides of him was haunting him yet he was hiding a strength that would break free at some point. She had also heard the story of Rufus and this new mercenary, Dietrich, seemed to be involved too. The princess felt genuinely sorry for what had happened to these scouts and deep inside she had already started to make plans for reforms, that would avoid such things in the future but that would have to wait until she was restored to her throne.

"Well, a merry group we have thrown together here", she smirked and looked around, "they are all strong, each in their own way. Some carry a strength they themselves do not know yet. Some are seeking vengeance for a past and seem to forget the future over it but I trust Lassa, she is one of your gods, to lead us. We are all here for a reason, or at least that is what us clerics are taught."

[Death is yonder]

It was now almost evening, the midday sun's glare had faded into a dull glow by now, and the parting rays of sunlight illuminated their path. Riding onwards, Guantano glanced at his side. Alyssa remained focused, and had not called for a stop yet. He shrugged, unwilling and too tired to bother attempting to convince her of the need of a break like the other occasion. Raising a hand to wipe away the sweat on his brow, he gazed into the distance and beheld a strange sight. Two elves stood by the roadside conversing, a feline of some sorts by one of their sides. Alyssa mirrored his curiosity, and they both spurred their tired mounts on, anxious to discover what was going on. Magical bombardment, annoying elf-like creature talking of dragons, and now two elves and a large feline by the roadside, not in the forest! It looked like Lassara had changed a lot since he had last went on a journey, mused Guantano.

Riding closer, it appeared that a male elf was conversing to a female elf, speaking in common no less! Oddities abound indeed. Slowing his horse, Guantano was the first to shift himself off the horse, boots impacting the ground with a dull thud. Alyssa followed suit shortly thereafter, and the duo approached the pair, one of whom was leaning on the tree. The feline bared its fangs towards them, a dull growl echoing forth from it. The two elves ceased their conversation and turned to face them. Apprehensive of the feline's action and what seemed to be a tense situation, Guantano made the effort despite his weariness to sound welcoming and polite.

"Greetings, what brings two elves such as yourselves out of the northern forestland?" He asked, his palms faced outwards to indicate that he meant no harm.

[Greyblades]

Thomas woke to the sound of scratching, an incessant rhythm that gnawed at him, nagged at him, pulling his mind out of sleep as roughly as a crone pulling string from wool, bits at a time, those wits told him he was lying on a hard bed with a headache like a poker in his brain, he wasn’t likely to be going anywhere soon. As he pulled his senses together he opened his eyes and saw a grey moon with a black jagged edge and seven white stars rested on its dark edge as it danced on a sky of black and brown. After a few seconds he had regained enough wits to notice it was a particularly dusty chandelier hanging from a set of rafters that housed a prodigious amount of spiders. And it wasn’t dancing, that was the room spinning.
He tried to pull his hands to his head but found he couldn’t budge and the attempt left his mind reeling and sent the room into a spin that would make a gymnast blush. After a few seconds the room returned to a slower spin from sickening to merely disorienting. Unable to move even his head Thomas lay in his bed brooding on the events of the last few days and trying to ignore the headache and unbearable amount of itching in his arms and nose until after closing his eyes for a few seconds falling asleep.
Thomas woke again an unknown time later to the same scratching this time the moon wasn’t dancing and his headache had gone enough for him to think straight and even turn his head, which was something.
He was in some sort of room, the walls were of old looking wood and there wasn’t a ceiling just rafters and the underside of a thatch roof, the seven stars had extinguished leaving a great amount of wax caked on points on the rim of the moon. Looking to his left he could see a tall wall of shelves with a large amount of bottles and jars of coloured glass, some containing innocent looking liquid but the majority had a number of beans, eggs and powders. Or at least he hoped they were beans and eggs as on second glance there were a number of jars containing pickled snakes, frogs, insects, eels, and several other creatures he couldn’t identify.
To his right was a wooden chest of drawers. There was nothing odd about that. If only he could say the same for the things sitting on top of the drawers. On the drawers someone had decided to mount a sword, a helmet, a skeletal hand that was covered with scratches and one of the fingers were missing.

And a severed head.
1586

With that he pissed himself and fainted.

[Chaotix]

After the demon had left, Frijyk looked back at Morangul. He was nearly fuming from the demon's taunting words, and now turned his worsened attitude on his ally.

"Why did you let him escape? We should have fought him right there! The next time we see him, he'll probably have that other giant one with him... that might've been our only chance to fight them alone, split apart!"

[thefluffyone93]

"Don't be foolish, Frijyk! I may be powerful, but that demon
was as well. We would not have left that battle unscathed.
Besides, that "giant" was actually a golem, and they are notorious
for being extremely resistant , if not immune, to magic. Calm yourself down, and listen to me!
It would be unwise to keep following them."

Seeing Frijyks anger rise again, Morangul quickly added, "We must find a weapon of Neril if we are to fight them."

[Chaotix]

The wizard's words made sense to Frijyk. He reasoned that the old mage probably had some prior experience with them. He felt his anger cooling, and he was slipping back into his normal temperament.

"I suppose you're right... still, resistant to magic or not, I do hope you can teach me some new tricks and technique. Who is this 'Neril' you speak of, and why do we need his weapons?"

[Greyblades]

The second time was somewhat easier, since the last time the sheets had been replaced and a now stable vision helped. More of Thomas’ strength had returned and the itching had eased off. Even the head had become easier to view though it still gave him a chill as he looked at it.
The skeletal hand had lost another finger. The scratching was still there through.
After a few minutes of brooding Thomas sat up in the bed and backed up to sit against the headboard. His right arm was wrapped in bandages, he couldn’t feel his hand. He looked to the other side of the room to a desk up against the far wall under the window where a small figure sat on a tall chair his presence betrayed only by the sheen from a bald head just visible over the back rest.
“Where am I?” said Thomas.
The scratching paused for a second then resumed as a rough voice answered.
“In my bloody bed.”
“Oh, and you are?”
“Almost finished, stop bothering me.”
Thomas swallowed the next question and started to examine his bandages. His elbow bended easily but for some reason he couldn’t twist his forearm. The forearm was thinner than he remembered and seemed shorter. A wave of dizziness washed over him. The hand seemed to be missing altogether. Thomas’ heart started to pound as he started to rip at the cloth wrapped around his arm.
“Just noticed did yer?” The man asked not turning from the desk “Do yerself a favour and take yer medicine before doing that.”
Thomas paused and looked around. A stool had been pulled up to the left of the bed. A tray had been placed on top, its contents; 2 pieces of bread and a yellow bottle.
Thomas made a small prayer that the bottle wasn’t like the ones on the wall, pulled it to his lips and drank. A familiar feeling of wellness spread through his body as all the aches faded and his head cleared. It was a restoration potion like the ones on The Silver Maiden.
His head cleared Thomas returned to the bandages and unwrapped down to the elbow. The bandages became loose and with a flick the sheets of linen fell off.
Underneath two white bones sprouted from his elbow.
Thomas stared at what remained of his forearm for what felt like days, transfixed, unable to move or speak just stare in bile fascination.
“Hey lad” The rough voice snapped Thomas out of his fixation “think of a hand and say ‘le’”
“W-what?”
“Think of a hand and say ‘le’”
“What happened to my arm?”
“A curse took the flesh of the bone. Now think of a hand and say ‘le’”.
“...”
“Come on lad say ‘le’”
“...le”
He heard a clicking sound
“Right. Now say think of a hand and say ‘tm’ ‘en’ and ‘tr’”
“...Tm” another click “En, Tr.”
He heard a whooshing sound and then two clack sounds to his right. Looking at the draws he saw the hand had regained two fingers.
“What was that?”
“Progress” The man hopped off the chair and walked over to the bed.
Now Thomas had a clear look the man deemed to be a rather ordinary dwarf, about 4 foot tall the man stood in breeches, a white tunic, leather boots and a brown waist jacket. His head was bald but he had a white beard that stretched down his chest, on a large nose sat a pair of golden spectacles magnified two chestnut eyes and his face and hands were wrinkled. He was quite portly yet he looked like he had some muscle underneath the girth and he didn’t seem to have problems manoeuvring.
“OK lad, this will be quite a jolt but try not to piss yerself. Think of a hand and say ‘Redghast’”
“Uh... OK, Redghast-Gah!”
The entire skeleton hand shot from its stand and flew at Thomas, he scrabbled backwards to avoid it but the hand planted itself on the end of the bony end of his forearm.
“Heh, say hello to your new hand lad.”
Thomas held up the bone limb and tried moving it. The hand clenched into a hollow fist.
“Wh-what happened?”
“Well yer big friend said to include all the bells and whistles so I gave you the ability to detach and reattach each bone at will, wait I got a chart” The dwarf produced a piece of parchment, on it was a diagram of a skeletal hand. Each bone had a different letter written on them. “See each letter correspond to each bone if you want to attach or detach a different joint just say the two letters in one word, the letters in alphabetical order, and they will either zoom to eachother or drop to the floor. And Redghast is the reset word, say it and they'll all either fall off or reatach.”
Thomas took the sheet
“Thanks but I was talking about how I got here”
“Oh. Well yer were hit by a nasty curse that made your arm rot, by the time yer friend carried you to my shop the only thing keeping yer hand together was a few pieces of sinew. Standard procedure was to cut it off and cast regenerate, but for some reason only the bones grew back. After a few tries nothing could be done so yer friend decided to at least give you back use of your hand. So some runes on each bone and a set on your temple to make a connection between your brain and the arm and we were in business.”
‘Big friend?’ That would be Gilford he guessed.
Thomas turned his hand around examining the gaps between the bones. The bones didn’t seem to be held together by anything. There was a gap between the hand and the arm bones yet his hand didn’t fall off but hovered in place.
He reached over to the pieces of bread and picked one up with his bone hand. The bread fell almost instantly back to the plate. He frowned and tried picking up the bottle, this time trying to keep a better grip of the glass. The bottle fractured between his finger and thumb.
“Yer going to have to get used to that, without skin to feel with yer have no senses to tell you how to maintain pressure without crushing things. I’d suggest a padded glove and learning to use yer left hand.”

[seireikhaan]

Kyran paced southwards. The elven woman was still obstinate about his proposal. Now, these humans had the gall to intervene on their conversation. Pulling back up, he decided on a new approach. Perhaps "resetting" the conversation was in order. In lieu of a 'yes' to his demand, perhaps a name would get things on track. Ignoring the humans, Kyran chose to converse in his own elven, if for no other reason to keep them clueless.

"Mani naa essa en lle?" he posed to the woman. "Amin naa Kyran."

He turned back to the humans. He gave just the slightest of nods to indicate he had heard the male. "Curiosity, one might say," he responded, turning his head slightly to indicate the human city in the distance, which appeared to have succumbed quickly to the invaders. "Do you know what happened to the city?"

[Diamondeye]

Alyssa's courser trotted slowly forward, and she appeared next to Guantano. She was still holding her axe in one hand, hanging down passively but at the ready at a moment's notice.
"It was attacked by a host of demons led by the ancient enemies of Lassara and is at the moment, I suspect, succumbing to fiery death and destruction."
She had made her voice flat on purpose and sounded as if she was carelessly conversing about the weather. She turned her head to Guantano.
"Don't you think we should get going? These elves are not a problem unless they have half a mind to squeal about our passing by, and I can't see who'd be interested in knowing that anyway. Not enough to try and question an elf, at least."
She turned back to the elf who had spoken.
"You speak with a strange accent. It is so far from the High Elven I recall from my school days. From where do you hail?"

[Greyblades]

When the dwarf had finished detailing the new features of the new hand and left the room to fetch some cleric Thomas sat in bed staring at his bony appendage.
The runes scratched over the surface of each finger were magically strengthening the hand to the point where it could stand a mountain landing on it. Also the strength the runes that moved the fingers with were limitless, so when he squeezed hard on an object the pressure would build and build until the either the bone shattered or the object broke; as the tray his medicine had arrived on found out.
He made a note to make sure he didn’t step on the splinters still littered the floor when he would leave.
Thomas looked to the right and stared at the head, ignoring the shivers crawling down his back.
“Enego” he mumbled to himself, the voice had called the demon that, a scrawny devil that enjoyed pain. Even its features seemed animalistic. He looked to the helmet lying next to the head. How had he fit his head into that?
“Ugly little blighter isn’t he?” A voice asked
Thomas turned his head, the door at the end of the left wall was opened and another dwarf was standing under the frame. He looked alot like the runesmith but had a head of faded red hair, a patchy beard and was wearing long (for a dwarf) blue linen robes.
“Still, not as ugly as his choice of curses, would have taken your entire body if it had been any quicker acting.”
“Who are you?”
“Rorek SoftChisel at your service, you’ve met my Brother; Kaz. Please don’t be offended by his manner he’s a bit impatient.” The dwarf walked to the end of the bed.
“Softchisel? I know dwarf names are weird but that seems odd by even your standards, no wonder he seemed annoyed.”
The dwarf frowned.” Your name’s not exactly up to snuff itself. Targryn, why you would want to be called a sticky tunnel worm is not any of my business.”
Thomas turned his nose at the dwarf, “Huh, the Targryn name is the second most coveted name in the realm, any lord would marry even the ugliest of cousins for the smallest chance to get into my family.”
Rorek grinned “Well it’s none of my business what you people would do for a silly name though why you would want one that is so obviously a mangling of the name of gnome hero Tar-Grin is beyond my comprehension.”
Thomas’ face went red “I’ll have you know The Targryn Name is as old as Lassara.”
“The Gnome’s tale is over a thousand years old. You humans ripped it off.”
“Why you- Gah!” Thomas vaulted off the bed. He then jumped back onto it clutching his foot. The dwarf burst out giggling as Thomas gingerly pried a wooden tray splinter from his foot.
“Ha ha! Next time you might want to refrain from criticising your healer’s name. Heh, oh, you must have gotten along famously with Kaz, wish I had been there to see it. Still you seem to be fine, your friend will be relieved, he’s been pacing at my front desk for hours. “
The dwarf helped Thomas get dressed and after a few minutes found a bag to carry the sword, helmet and head.
“Whose idea was it to leave the head of the thing that took my arm by my bed? It nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Oh, I was using him to try and reverse the curse and I needed some place to put it.” Rorek handed the sack to Thomas who flinched.
“Ok fine, but right beside me? And why do you think I want to have the head?”
“I’m sure you can find a use for it,” Rorek moved towards the door. “Now come on, someone else might need to use this room.”
The stepped out into a long hallway, the room Thomas had been in was at the end of a row of 7 doors and there were windows on the opposite wall. At one end was another door, the other an open doorway gave Thomas a glimpse of a workshop but the Dwarf walked towards the nearest one and opened it to reveal a store front room.
They stepped through into the back of the store, it was an apothecary shop reminiscent of the one Gilford had looted in Lassara, along the walls were more shelves of bottles jars and tins, all labelled, and across the floor were several tables laden with more jars. On the far wall were two large windows separated by a door, beyond a crowded street bustling with townsmen and women going around their business, it was light but rather sullen the sky was overcast. To the right was a till, a wooden desk with a large book and a raised platform behind it. On the platform was the Dwarf Kaz pouring over the book and opposite him was Gilford leaning over the desk with a rather stiff expression on his face.
Gilford looked up and seeing Thomas his face lightened for a second before darkening again.
“You had better sit down” said Gilford “Something has happened.”

[TheLastDays]

The conversations in the princess' camp went on for a while until, one by one, the members of the party were seeking sleep. It had been a long day, mostly spent on horseback and they all craved rest for their weary bodies. Guards were posted but nothing happened through the course of the night. With the first light of the sun coming up over the horizon Alain was already on his feet, getting the camp ready. "Alright, wake up!", he shouted while prodding some of those still lying on the ground with his feet.

The princess was already up as well, readying her things for the ride when the captain approached her. "Are you alright, your Majesty?"

"I thought we talked about this, my captain", the princess giggled softly and waited for him to help her into the saddle, "I am Liana, not 'your Majesty'. You're going to blow my cover, Alain."

He smiled and nodded before replying: "Are you sure about Leon? We have not succeeded in reaching the city before the army and by now the town will be under siege or already occuppied. I fear you will put yourself in a lot of danger there."

"I am more worried about what would happen if we delay our visit of Leon. We need to figure out a way to stop this. There is no telling what this flying fortress will do to the east of our country but I fear the worst and I believe the army will march further south as soon as they can arrange that. By the time we reach Leon they should be gone."

"The army will be gone, yes, but Boreale will surely leave a garrison to keep order in this newly occupied region. They will be looking for us, especially for you."

She smiled again and looked over the camp, mostly ready for the day's journey. "That's why you mustn't blow my cover", she finally replied, almost jokingly and the captain retreated, shaking his head, to mount his horse. "Alright everyone, off to Leon!"

[Death is yonder]

The male elf grew silent for a moment, his jaw tensing, perhaps unwilling to divulge the information so freely.

Meanwhile, Guantano inclined his head towards Alyssa, and with a very nonchalant expression, he replied, "Never underestimate the value of casual conversation, perhaps they might know some information which a typical human may not."

Reverting back to a clearer and warmer tone, Guantano repeated Alyssa's query. "Indeed, your accent escapes the recognition of even one who has passed the borders of Tarania."

[Greyblades]

Thomas sat on a chair by the window Rorek had produced and stared out the window silently. He was watching the southern sky as the furthest clouds were lit by the fires raging on his home.
The dwarves had moved to the till and were talking to Gilford.
“I’ve given him the regular strengthening runes” Kaz said ”Right now the bones should be as strong as a titan’s skull and it’s proof of pretty much everything; acid, fire and it won’t turn off if he gets hit with dispel magic; magic. His fingers are as strong as his brain tells it to be but he doesn’t have any feeling so unless he’s paying attention he could end up dropping things, or worse yet crushing them. Right now he could crush a steel helmet by squeezing too hard.”
“He also can’t maintain much of a grip with bone” Added Rorek “so we took the liberty to have a glove made with Varim sand silk, the fabric is soft on one side and rough like sand on the others so it should replicate skin.”A black glove was laid out on the desk; its palm was a yellowish brown colour and a simple iron buckle adorned the wrist. “It’s a bit rough as it was made on short notice but it should do and with a bit of padding it’ll fit the bones without being loose. For the time being he should just tighten the buckle around his wrist to keep it falling off.”
Gilford nodded. “Well, at least he won’t be scaring people with that on. How how much will this cost?”
“Not much” Replied Rorek “apparently you lot saved the entire dockyard from burning down so the basic prosthetic has been paid for by the dockmaster, the extra bits; strength, dispel proofing and element resistance, is all that’s left to be paid.”
“50 Gold.” Said Kaz
“Oh dear” Gilford rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t suppose you accept trade ins?”
“Hmm... That horn you have there, yer blew that in the street last night before running and getting the kid, what were yer expecting it to do.”
“This thing?” Gilford un-slung his horn and held it up “we got it a while ago, after we got separated in Faylen one time, it teleports Thomas to me if I lose him.” He grimaced “We could have saved more of his arm if it had worked.”
Kaz stared at him, stunned. “How the Hell did ye get something like... Give me that!”
Gilford handed the horn to the dwarf and he disappeared into the back. After a few minutes of clangs and muffled curses Kaz re-emerged with the horn red of face and panting.
“I never knew they made things like this. Do yer have any idea how much I could make with... err, never mind, this should cover it.”
“Thirty percent.”
“Eh?”
Kaz and Gilford turned to the window, Thomas was looking over his shoulder at them.
“It’s worth ten times the arm but from what you said it’s especially valuable to you, I want thirty percent of whatever profits you make out of it.”
Kaz grit his teeth. “Damn... ten percent.”
“On second thought, Gilford” Thomas unclipped and held out a yellow object to Gilford, ”take my crest to the nearest pawn shop you can find, we can pay from the money they give us for it.”
The dwarf gaped “W-wait a minute, let’s be reasonable, I’ll give yer Twenty.”
“Gilford, get going”
“Fine! Twenty five no higher!”
Thomas nodded, ”I want it in writing, signature, seal and I want the bank to witness it.”
Kaz slumped and waved his hands “Fine, fine” he sighed “Seventy five percent of Teleport runes sales will have to be enough for me”
“Don’t you mean thirty seven point five percent, Brother” The other dwarf asked.
“Damn it Rorek, don’t yer start. Bloody money grubbing kids.”
Gilford looked away from the sulking Kaz to Thomas “You’re taking this well.”
“My family didn’t get rich by being slow”
“That’s not what I meant”
Thomas shrugged “Not much I can do, homes can be rebuilt and my ‘dear’ siblings are probably on one of the ships fleeing the city, mum is with father, wherever he is. Besides,” Thomas smiled “you’d be strangling me within a week if I got mopey on you”
Gilford nodded, grabbed his things and left for the bank with the dwarf and the squire. On reflection Gilford noted that his charge’s smile was different, it was as if his eyes weren’t in it.

[seireikhaan]

Kyran crouched to his knees. He stroked the grass. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, focusing on the gentle breeze across his face. The demon army. The human city, destroyed, perhaps enslaved. He thought back to his kin, far to the south. What goal did this demon army have? Do they simply want the human settlements, the concentrated pockets of wealth and property? Or did they truly want, as the lich claimed, to put everything under thumb? If the latter, his people needed to be warned. And... perhaps it was time to acknowledge his shame. If he didn't warn them, if they didn't know the army marched upon them until it was too late, if he was responsible for even more deaths....

He opened his eyes and stood straight again. He spoke to the male human. "I hail from the far south. My clan originated from near the human city of Yonal. I must ask of you. Do you know the purpose for which the army has come? Demons do not participate in ordinary human wars, do they?"

[Diamondeye]

"The demons I know of are more interested in bringing eternal torment and killing anything that screams when you hurt it", Alyssa snapped. "We do not know specifics, but they appear to have struck with immaculate timing and coordination, when all the nobles of the capital were gathered. That suggests to me that they either have been waiting for this a long time, or that they have been let to our world by ssomeone trying to control them." Guantano raised his brow; in her sour mood, he had forgotten the intellect she hid behind her venomous tongue. "Whichever it is, they are going to deal with the human cities first, but that is no guarantee that they will not come south for your kin if given the time and opportunity.
Also, it looks like many of the Lassaran soldiers have joined them. It would be in your interest to stop them, the sooner the better, before the tide of their army becomes inexorable."

[shlin28]

The army was streaming into Leon, marching in well-dressed formations that were exposed to attacks from all directions. Clearly the city had already fallen, and quickly, despite the slim lead the Lassaran army had on their party and the stout, if damaged, walls that stood before them. Nias must have been more of a fool than I thought… He probably surrendered the city to save his miserable hide - no doubt he is now feasting with whoever is commanding the turncoat host and toasting his new overlord. Who is the traitor now? Drax thought bitterly, the memories of his last meeting with Nias still fresh in his mind.

But such thoughts were useless right now and Drax dismissed them. They had ridden hard and fast to get here, and despite the new obstacle facing them, the Princess would no doubt insist on trying to get into the city somehow to meet her mentor as soon as possible. As the only person trained in the magical arts in their little party, Drax would most likely also be dragged into whatever scheme the others cooked up.

He sighed again and guided his horse towards where the Captain was busy conferring with the Princess – whatever they are planning, Drax was determined to make sure that it at least had a small chance of success, if only to make sure he lived to see another day.

[thefluffyone93]

"What, have you forgotten already? Neril was the name of the blade that felled Darganta;
it is said that it was blessed by Lassa herself." At this point Morangul rolled his (illusionary) eyes and snorted.
"Anyways, after the demonic horde was sent back to their own realm, it was broken down into seven fragments,
each of which was re-forged into new weapons and spread out across the lands, to prevent great evils from
arising."
Morangul looked at Frijyk, who was staring at the trail the golem left behind.
Eventually, he looked back at Morangul, and asked; "If we were-to go find one of the
weapons, where would-we start?"

Morangul just smiled and said,"Have you ever heard of Paladins?"

[Chaotix]

Paladins?

The word did not ring a bell to Frijyk. He was unfamiliar with Lassaran culture as a whole, and would have had no way of knowing what these Paladins were. But he had been traveling the country long enough to have heard about various aspects of the culture of Lassara, even if only a few words. That he had never so much as heard the word hinted to him that Morangul's knowledge of the subject was probably reaching back centuries, and that there weren't too many people alive today with that same information. Before Frijyk responded, he considered the possibility that "Paladin" was yet another Lassaran word for "magician", just like "sorcerer", "enchanter", "lich", and the rest. He hoped it wasn't.

"I have not. These Paladins... they have one of the Shard Weapons?"

Frijyk also noticed his own speech was flowing a lot more naturally as he conversed, without many of the awkward breaks and rhythms that didn't translate well from his Borian language. While he still had the accent, he figured he was probably more understandable than he had been before. Perhaps he was just picking it up naturally now- before meeting Morangul and the others, he had not done a whole lot of talking besides what was necessary.

[seireikhaan]

Kyran pointedly addressed the male, twisting his head to indicate his annoyance.

"You would be wise to tame your woman's tongue. It might get you into unneeded trouble. Now, I must ask, what is your relation to this invasion? Do you have an objective?"

[Diamondeye]

Alyssa let out an ugly snort of laughter. "You assume too much, stranger. I'm not anyone's woman. But since you seem to think so highly of my esteemed companion, why don't you two exchange pleasentries while I warn the fair lady with the beast over here?"
With those words, she cut off from the discussion with Kyran and Guantano and turned towards the female elf. "Greetings, milady. I do not believe we have been introduced to each other." Her discontent with Kyran was in every word she said; It was clear that it was very much his lack of etiquette that had meant they were not introduced. "My name is Alyssa Fangstrike. Be kind and tell me yours."

[Death is yonder]

At her characteristic un-ladylike reaction, Guantano's lips lifted upwards at the elf's surprised expression.

Just as Alyssa broke off the conversation, he strolled over and angled his left hand, whispering into the elf's ear. "You, my friend, would want to watch your words around her." Glancing around briefly to make sure she wasn't in earshot, he continued softly, "this one has fangs, if you get my meaning."

Turning to face the two women, Guantano could not help but smirk, Lady Fangstrike had struck again.

[TheLastDays]

Alain and the princess were talking about the situation in Leon when Drax was approaching. The captain stopped in the middle of a sentence and looked over at the young guy, raising an eyebrow: "What's up?"

"I wanted to see if I can help. I know this town quite well."

"Listen, your help is appreciated, but..." He was interrupted by the sound of loud horns coming from the city as they heard the shouts from the towers. The southern gate was opening and the army was moving out, southwards. "They haven't even rested here", the princess exclaimed, looking at the walls of Leon, the town still emanating smoke from the attack although the fires had been put out by now. Alain nodded and shrugged. "It seems some our problems have just solved themselves. We will wait for them to be out and attempt to get into the city once it isn't so full any more.

[Seon]

Alaria fluttered over the still smoking city. Mortal world was a strange one indeed. There were firstly that strange bony man who was too young to be looking that old, a slightly less strange blue person, pointy eared folks, a brown haired annoyed woman who had a beautiful singing voice (and a strange blunt and hollow instrument), and a random guy.

And now this. Mortals...uhh... didn't really screw around when they wanted to kill each other, did they?

Alaria fluttered down towards the side of a city that looked particularly well blown-apart. The red spider that she was holding on to hissed.

"Oh come on," Alaria said. "What about your sense of adventure?"

Hiss. Creeaaaaak.

"What about your friends? We might find some of them down there."

Hiss? The spider eyed the rubble down below suspisciously. Body parts were sticking out of it all over the place.

"...Okay, you got me there."

Creak. The spider nodded triumphantly. Alaria fluttered awkwardly for a few more seconds.

"You know, I wonder how many times this happened before."

Hissssssss.

"Not that many times? I guess that makes sense than. Just my luck," Alaria sighed. "Why do things start dying wherever I go?"

Spider suddenly looked slightly nervous. Hiss? It asked.

"Oh, uh, nothing," Alaria said hurriedly.

Hiss.

"Oh hey look!" Alaria said cheerfully. "Somebody's still down there!"

Spider looked at where Alaria was pointing. She was pointing to somewhere beyong the burning city... in the forest towards the North.

Creak? The spider asked dubiously.

"Of course I am sure. I can hear them in the forest."

Spider dug into her chest. "OW!" Alaria cried out. "What's wrong?"

HISS! The spider said angrily. "Oh fine. I'll do what they are doing."

Hiss, the spider nodded.

..........................................................

Alaria quietly materialized behind the princess, disguised as an peasant girl.

"So... uh..." she said, whispering as quietly as possible as more and more people noticed her. "Umm...hello?"

The spider did an equivalent of a facepalm, which was rather difficult to do so since it was disguised as a flower box.

[shlin28]

"That's... rather convenient." muttered Drax as he followed Alain's gaze. "Maybe it's a trap? They must know that resistance won't disappear with only a show of force."

A look at the Princess and the Captain's faces however told him that both were determined to get into the city tonight, regardless of any potential threats they might still face within the city walls. ".... But obviously we still have to get into Leon, we lost enough time already, right? In that case, could I suggest that we bring along the two mercenaries with us? I wouldn't trust them to keep our secret. If I were you that is."

The two would also serve as excellent catapult fodder for their dangerous escapade, but that needn't to be said in front of Alain, Drax thought to himself - the Captain probably has a very dim view of him already and Drax could do with less people being suspicious about his motives for almost everything he does.

[Greyblades]

With contract in hand Thomas and Gilford bid farewell to the dwarf and made their way to Birun’s dockyards and the Silver maiden. What they arrived to see wasn’t promising, the forecastle had collapsed into blackened rubble, the aftcastle had been half smashed and the main deck was littered with broken wood, though the crew had removed the bodies from the day before. They found Essa where it had been left; discarded by the rail, anyone who had touched it found themselves waking up an hour afterwards so the men had just worked around it. Thomas had stowed the blade in its sheath when the captain emerged from the lower decks, saying he was pissed would be an understatement.
“I thought you were dead.” Said Gilford
“I was!” he replied “Those demons you pulled in killed me! Worse; I lost a 5000 gold diamond to the church getting back. You’ve got 5 seconds to explain why they were after us and why I shouldn’t throw you and your damn alchemist overboard!”
Thomas looked around but couldn’t see the man “Oh, what did he do?”
“He’s cowering in the hold throwing exploding powder at anyone that goes near him, answer the question!”
“Because I have something they want.”
“What?”
Thomas drew Essa “This.”
“They wanted that? An enchanted sword’s not exactly hard to come by. Adventurers sell them every time they get a new one.”
Gilford flinched. “This is not exactly your usual magic sword it’s-“
“Wanted” Thomas interrupted “by the people in that flying castle that just flew over.” He lied, sheathing the sword.
The captain stared for a few seconds “get off my ship.”
“I paid you-”
“And you got my ship, my livelihood, smashed and burned!” The captain yelled “If there’s even a chance that there’s going to be more where the last lot came from I’m not going to have you on my ship when that happens. Get off and take your potions, alchemists and magic swords with you!”
“Huh, well seeing as your ship is unusable your services will not be needed anyway, you won’t mind giving me my money back then.”
“Piss on that! You should be glad I’m not making you pay for the repairs.”
“...”
The yelling had drawn the remains of the crew from the lower decks and they stood staring at the scene, Cedrick the wizard among them bearing another smile
“Get off my ship!”
“... Gilford strip him of all his valuables.”
“You can’t do that! This is my ship!” The captain spluttered in outrage as Gilford moved forward, pushed the captain over and started rooting through his pockets.
“You’re refusing to repay me and I don’t have the time to go through the local law, so I’m seizing your property.” Thomas frowned as Gilford handed him the captain’s purse “You seem to be short 30 gold, well then your ship’s useless and you can’t pay up I think I’ll take your crew, I assume you have contracts.”
“I’ll call the guards!”
“My father is the Lord of the man that Birun’s lord answers to so I don’t think they will help much.
“You bastard!”
“For that I’m taking the ship too. Gilford, please throw the good captain off my property.”
Gilford dragged the captain to his feet, manhandled him to the rail and threw him overboard to hit the water with a splash.
“Actually on second thought you can have the ship.” Thomas called as he leant over the rail at the struggling man, he turned to the crew who were staring dumbfounded. “Well then, as you heard I am your new employer, Ced get the alchemist out of the hold the rest of you start unloading the cargo, I've got a ship to find.”

[thefluffyone93]

"Paladins are, put simply, holy warriors. There was quite a large sect of them in Lassara,
in years past, but they have dwindled down to almost nothing now."

Probably due to me decimating them, Morangul thought with a grin on his face.

"However, I do know for a fact that the Paladin Order here in Lassara was in possession of
one of the shard weapons. I'm not sure where their main base of operations are currently,
but I do know for a fact that their ancient stronghold still stands."

"Surely such a structure would be nothing but rubble, or inhabited by
creatures, right?" Frijyk asked.

"The stronghold was built-and enchanted- to resist major damage, even from time itself.
There were also a great many holy wards placed to prevent intruders."

"But I wouldn't worry about that!" Morangul added, noting Frijyks dubious face.

"And why is that?"

Ever since I assaulted the stronghold and corrupted the land, the wards have allowed me to pass through,
the enchantment still holds strong for everything else, but what about a demon and a golem? Morangul thought to himself.

"Don't worry, I can 'rewrite' the wards to allow us to pass through; but for whats inside the stronghold, well,
you have a weapon for a reason!"

[Chaotix]

Frijyk considered his options at the moment. A weapon forged to kill demons would be incredibly useful for what he was trying to accomplish. If he could acquire one of them, possibly from this ancient Paladin stronghold, it would be well worth the risk involved. The problem was that even Morangul had no idea where this fortress was supposed to be. And it wouldn't make sense to wander all over Lassara looking for it; by the time they found it the demons would have already conquered the entire contitent. And the longer he waited, the longer he risked them discovering his people.

"This is good to know, but unless we can find out the location of the stronghold, it doesn't matter whether or not you can get us inside."

But from what Morangul had said about the spying demon and the golem, Frijyk was starting to think that perhaps the two demons were more than he could handle at this point. One was able to completely disorient him with a surprise arrival, while the other looked incredibly resilient and was supposedly resistant to magical attacks as well. Perhaps it was not the greatest idea to continue chasing them... at least for now.

"Morangul, we need a plan. I want to kill these demons. All of them. But it will be easier to do that if I have one of these weapons... and I must improve my magic as well before I can face them effectively. We should stop following these demons for now. Let's try to find more information about these shard weapons instead... perhaps we could go to one of the cities to the east? I have no desire to return to Leon."

[TheLastDays]

Alain was about to answer to Drax' suggestions when the little girl behind the princess spoke and quickly they spun around, both the other guardsmen drawing their swords as well until they realised that they were trying to protect the princess from a child. While they were still looking confused the princess looked at Alaria with pity and knelt down before the kid, taking her hands.

"Hey", she looked over the girl as if to scan her for injuries, "have you ran away from the city? Are you alright?"

[Seon]

"No," Alaria said, suddenly feeling rather helpful. "I was looking for some friends that went to Leon before me. But there were people having some... Territorial disputes? I guess? And I went past them."

"My mom told me to stay clear of violent people because it messes up my head," Alaria said after there was a period of silence. "By the way, have you seen my friend? She's very tall, have black hair...rather large face, beady eyes, 8 legs... You couldn't have missed her."

[shlin28]

Stranger and stranger... Somehow, Drax doubted that this girl got this close to them due to the incompetence of the guards or through her adeptness at stealth - he had heard of tribes to the west that raised children as silent assassins, each skilful to the extent that no-one but their victims would ever see them; this child however appears clumsy and oddly distracted, so unless the tribes' reputation is thoroughly inflated to push up their price, he doubted that the girl would prove to be any threat. But the mystery of her sudden appearance still troubled him, more so once the girl started to describe an eight-legged monster. After all, the two guardsmen weren't slouches either, as he had seen them deal with the two mercenaries and that noble-born idiot as well.

Could it be magic? Surely not... Drax did feel the tiniest perturbation in the auras around him when he was conversing, but that is natural when a great amount of life (and death for that matter) gathers around a certain area. At least, that's what the books told him. Even a minor cantrip should have created a bigger disturbance than that, unless it invol-

Watch her, she is dangerous.

That comment came out of the blue and for a moment Drax let down his guard, almost laughing at the Voice's suggestion. But he caught himself in time and in the end only a painful-looking grimace showed on his face. Embarrassing, but much less embarrassing than being seen as a crazy man who converses with himself and who laughs at nothing in particular.

"Erm... is that a giant spider you are describing? Or is it a Tukoreth, a spider-man?" Drax asked the girl, trying to cover-up his misstep. But even as he asked his question, he realised how stupid he sounded, attempting to talk facts with a peasant girl who was probably only suffering from shock. Just for that moment, all his thoughts about the girl's mysterious appearance was forgotten - after all, how likely is it that the girl is anything more than just a bog-standard peasant?

[Seon]

"Why ye-" Alaria blinked. She was sure that there suddenly were more people than one sharing the same spot as the young man who burst out laughing. She frowned. The second presence was...weird.... to say the least. But now the presence was gone.

"Why yes," Alaria said sweetly. "She's a big spidew. She said she was looking for her babies in the city of Leon! The people there have been trying to gather spidersilk..."

"Spidersilk?" one of the guards said.

"The material used in spider's web! Don't you know?" Alaria said, suddenly proud that there was something that she knew that others didn't. "It's tougher than steel and is soft to the touch. Some tailors were trying to create cloths for the noblemen out of them... Failed, of course."

"Huh," one of the guards muttered. They felt somehow...relaxed... around the strange little girl. "Don't know what those people were doing...trying to make clothes out of spidersilk. They would've never succeeded."

"Well, actually, my robe is made of spidersilk, and..."

"...Your robe?"

"Hmm?" Alaria said.

"You're not wearing a robe."

Alaria looked down. "Are you crazy? Of course I'm..." She gulped as she realized that she was in a disguise, and that nobody could see the robe. "Uh, eheheh..." The guards all put a hand on their weapons.

"Don't hurt me?" Alaria suggested.

[Visor]

Rufus and Dietrich looked at each other.

"Like hell!"

Grinning, they drew their swords and pointed them at the little... thing.

"Something you'd like to share?"

[TheLastDays]

"Halt!" the captain exclaimed and his guards instantly retreated their weapons. Still ready to wield them but not pointed at the little girl. He shot a look at the two mercenaries. "We are not going to kill a little girl here, no matter what she may hide."

He approached Alaria and stood next to the princess who was still kneeling down, at eye level with the girl. She spoke first. "Tell us, what robe are you speaking of and what is it you're hiding, girl? We won't harm you, so don't be afraid."

[Visor]

"Kill a little girl? Never." Rufus shook his head, "But threaten, to get information? I got no qualms with that my friend. Children are not always innocent."

[Seon]

Alaria shifted her feet, avoiding eye contact. Today was not her day.

"...this..." she finally admitted. She removed her disguise, showing herself as a silvery-robed figure with a hood covering her face and holding a red giant spider in her hands.

[shlin28]

"Lower your hood. Now, or... or those two will gut you where you stand!" Drax attempted a threatening tone, but it quickly faded into doubt - could he really condone the death of someone who hasn't hurt them?

Yet.

Somewhat recluctantly, a spell formed in his mind. Just in case...

[Greyblades]

After an hour of scanning the horizon for a ship fleeing Tar cantun that conveniently flew Targryn banners with no success they had found a familiar sight. A large carrack flying the Targryn banner; a golden lion on a black field holding a coin in its front paws, was moored at dock on the other side of the port from the silver maiden. The ship’s hull shone with plated brass so on a good day it hurt the eyes to look directly at it and gave the impression that it was made of gold, today with grey skies and red clouds it looked like blood stained mud.
Its name was The White Scale, the personal ship of the Targryn family, was left here when the head of the family travelled to Lassara awaiting the lord’s return, now crawled with sailors and soldiers loading cargo and readying to leave under orders of the Lord’s son Thomas Targryn. The son was now sitting at a desk in the vacant guest’s cabin attempting to write a letter in candlelight. His knight was sitting on a stool looking out the cabin window.
“I wish we could have done this yesterday.” said Gilford
“We didn’t have half a crew yesterday.”
His father had left a skeleton crew to tend the boat as he had taken the ship’s soldiers with him to Lassara, they had found barely twenty sailors left and without the fifty men of the Silver maiden’s crew and about twenty marines they had hired the group would have been sitting for four hours just to cast off, not to mention the time it would have taken to get the countless boxes of potions on board.
Gilford looked away from the window.
“What are you writing?”
“A letter, hopefully I can pay off that captain you threw in the dock, this should entitle him to 50 gold next week.”
“I thought you didn’t like him“
“I don’t, but I don’t want to get mobbed next time I come here because I lost my temper.”
Gilford stared at Thomas. “You’re feeling guilty.”
Thomas looked at him with a scowl.“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are.”
Thomas glared. “Father told me; if I don’t respect the lower classes I am inviting assassins, rebellion and adventurers. I’m following his guidance that’s all.”
Gilford continued staring, Thomas tried to avoid his gaze and bent back over the note.
This continued for a minute until Thomas sighed and slumped in his seat. “Fine, I’m guilty, I mugged and humiliated a man and I’m guilty.” He sighed then gave a weak grin “Heh what does it say about me that I can’t even feel guilty without an excuse? Gods, the second I take over I’ll have an army of adventurers bashing down my door on behalf of some repressed rabble.”
Before Gilford could respond an old man’s voice sounded through the ship and the room lurched as the world started to move.
“I am never going to get used to this.”“Relax Gil, It’s only half a day to Leon”
Gilford gave him a quizzical look “I thought we were going home?”
“With that great Castle still floating over its ruins? Princess Udine’s going to Leon and these daemons are going after her, there’s no way she’s going to last long hiding in the mainland. Don’t worry Gil we’re going home but we’re just going to take some extra passengers first.” Thomas frowned “Damn, I still have the letter. Oh well, the good deed will have to wait until next time I’m here”

[Seon]

Alaria frowned once more at the man. There it was again, that little disturbing feeling... but then she smiled at the man's stammerings.

"You're funny," she muttered.

She eyed the swords of the mercenaries wearily. "People have been waving that a lot in my face latel. And yelling. I don't really know what that is, but I don't like it. Could you put tha-hmm? Really?" Alaria seemed to be talking to nobody inparticular. "Oh alright."

She pulled down the hood...for just a second, letting people see the green hair and horns underneath, before hiding it once more. "People kept on staring at them. I don't like it when people stare."

[TheLastDays]

Most of the people nearby took a step back when they saw the girl's real form, horns and all, only the princess stayed where she was as she looked at Alaria, still smiling and then waving to the guards and mercenaries to retract their swords. Alain stepped over and made sure Rufus and Dietrich didn't threaten the girl anymore before the princess spoke.

"Alright, we won't stare. What's your name and how did you end up looking for spiders in Leon?"

[Seon]

"Alaria," Alaria said. "Mr. Bones..."

"The spider?"

"No, he's a really thin guy I met south of here. He kept calling me a little devil so I called him Mr.Bones, because he doesn't have anything other than that. I kept trying to feed him but he won't eat anything, instead trying to hide that he has no fat by using magic. He was looking for something... A sword of some kind... I think... But then we met a giant monster!

I ran and the big spider took me away. I promised her that I would help her after I found out that a man named Frijyk killed her babies... He's my friend... And besides, I thought Mr. Bones and Frijyk needed some help. They were trying to take down the giant monster.

But we got separated along the way because of two people with a bird-like voice...

What is a dragon by the way?"

[TheLastDays]

"A dragon?" It was all the princess managed to get out before laughing after the story the little girl was telling and the others around, even the mercenaries, couldn't help but giggle after this little speech.

"Well, a dragon is a very big and dangerous monster.", Alain had regained his posture and this girl clearly knew more than she was wanting, or able, to tell. "Was the monster your friends wanted to take down a dragon? Where are your friends now?"

[Seon]

Alaria seemed slightly startled by the princess's behavior...

"Ah, uh... Well... I guess it was really big... It walked on two legs and was taller than the trees... Way taller... And then there was a man sitting on its shoulde- HEY!" Alaria suddenly shouted. "You were feeling just like the like the time when my mother felt when I told her that I saw a giant golden ostrich fly across the forest. How was I supposed to be able to distinguish between an eagle and an ostrich when I was 52 years old?"

One of the guards coughed. "How old are you again?"

Alaria blinked. "90 something, why?"

"..."

"It's not fair. You can't run from home, the great eagle told me. You're only 96 or so years old. Well I say that's old enough! By the way... Oh?"

Alaria muttered some seemingly unintelligible words.

"Alaria's been a naughty girl again. She eavesdropped. I heard that you wanted to get into the city... I can help you avoid the people there if you want me to. They are not nice."

[thefluffyone93]

Morangul pondered the question for a while, until he finally answered,
"No, not east."

"But-"
"Do you happen to have a map on you?"

Frijyk nodded and handed over a map.
"I, uh, acquired it in Leon while many of the people were distracted by....something.
Probably the flying citadel, now that I think about it." Frijyk smiled sheepishly at Morangul,
who only had a sly smile on his face.

"Its nothing to worry about; the way I see it, your only borrowing it for an undisclosed amount of time.
Now lets see....."

Morangul slowly searched the map, pointing first toon the marker for Leon.
"Leon is probably either a ruin or overrun with demons, so there was no chance we were going back there
anyways," Morangul said as he heard an audible sigh of relief come from Frijyk.

Morangul then pointed to the marker on the road south of Leon: Vintom.
"And chances are that whatever forces attacked Leon are headed here.
So, that leaves..."
And Morangul pointed to yet another Marker, on the southern tip of Ayal Royad Hyo.
"Yonal. As I recall, it was a small mining settlement. But, that was a long time ago.
It is either abandoned, or a thriving town."

Morangul looked over a Frijyk, and noticed his eyes still roaming over the eastern part of the map,
and the many towns and cities there.

"Look, I know you want to go east, but if it makes you feel better, I believe the
Paladin Stronghold was in the southern end of the country. And if I'm
wrong, well, we have a few choices."

He looked at the map again, and said, "After Yonal, we can make our way to
Epayl Nir, one of the major ports, and either sail to either of the two southern islands,
Ai and Quin," and he pointed to the islands, "or sail to Avin, the easternmost city." and then he pointed to
a marker on the tip of the eastern peninsula. "And after that, we could go full circle if you want,
heading up to Null," Morangul stated, pointing to the northwestern part of the map.

"But for now, to Yonal, agreed?"

[Chaotix]

Frijyk considered Morangul's advice carefully. The old mage did indeed have the most logical route in mind. Yonal looked as if it were a stop on the way to anywhere else they might travel to on the southern half of this map. And a mining town...

"If Yonal has mines in it, then I assume they will also have a skilled metalsmith, yes? Where there is a forge, there are bound to be weapon merchants... so we may as well begin the search for the Shard weapons there! And if we can't find any, we may find something else just as good."

Frijyk looked up at Morangul, who nodded in approval.

"Yonal it is, then. If we're going to get there any time soon, we should head back to the royal road tomorrow. And we may need..."

Frijyk's mind lapsed. What were they called again? Those large, four-legged beasts he had seen the Lassarans riding on in Leon. He was certain that riding them would be faster than going on foot, but admittedly he had no idea how to ride one. Horses! That's what they were called. Horses. How hard could it be?"

"We may need to borrow some horses as well."

[TheLastDays]

Alain shook his head and the guards were obviously trying to make sense of what was going on before there eyes. THis girl was talking about big monsters and claimed to be 96 years of age, obviously she was not human but she seemed to behave like a child.

The princess stopped laughing though. The giant thing the girl had seen could have been with their enemies and then the girl talked about helping them.

"Wait. You said you could help us? How?"

[Seon]

Alaria Placed a hand over her face, turning it into the one similar to the princess. "Like this," she muttered, in a voice similiar to the princess's, albeit more childish. She placed a hand over it again and it soon turned to normal:

"Or this," she snapped her fingers and disappeared from view. Few seconds later, she appeared on top of a tree.

"And this," she waved her hands at Alain, causing him to turn invisible for a few seconds. She giggled as Alain and the other guards tried to make sense of things. She looked almost proud to be able to do it.

[shlin28]

"Could you... disguise us?" Such magicks were possible by human hands, but only the fey was said to be able to master it completely - if so, this would help them to achieve their goals, not to mention raising the chances of Drax's personal survival.

If she really is a fey.

Legends speak of mighty sorcerers that could decieve whole kingdoms at their whims, but this girl demonstrates preciously little of that strength and certainly none of their otherworldly grace. "And.... if you could help us, could you be a little, um, more circumspect about your, fey-ness?"

You can silence her forever.

Then again, she does appear to worry the Voice, which is always a good thing in Drax's book.

[TheLastDays]

The guards were staring where there captain had been standing until they heard his voice our of nowhere. "Why's everyone staring at me? Did she turn my face green or something?"

"You are quite... invisible", Rufus replied, clearly amused just as was the princess who could hardly hide her laughter.

"So", she finally said, looking up into the tree where Alaria was sitting, "you can disguise things. This would indeed be very helpful but could you bring my captain back, before he gets angry?"

Alain appeared again after another snipping of the fey's fingers and he shook his head, not really amused. He was interrupted by the princess before he could even start to say something though. "These are really impressive skills. Could you disguise a whole group of people at the same time?"

[Seon]

"Yes," Alaria said, hopping down from the tree. "Or at least I think so. As long as people don't bump into anyone or stray too far away from me." she gazed at every member of the group assembled. Then she started walking off towards the city.

"Wait!" one of the guards said. "What about our disguises?"

Alaria frowned. "You already have one."

"Oh."

Alaria waited there until everyone had catched up with her, and ran up to the funny young man named Drax. "Do the trick again!" she said.

"What trick?"

"The one in which you made yourself feel like two people," Alaria whispered. "Even I can't do that. I promise I won't give it away to anyone else."

[thefluffyone93]

"Horses? Bah! We don't need no stinkin' horses! Filthy things,
and they always need to be looked after!," Morangul replied.
Frijyk only stared curiously for a moment at Morangul, before replying
quite slowly, "But...how are we...to travel there quickly...?"

This time, it was Morangul's turn to stare curiously at Frijyk,
before he said simply, "Magic."

And without another word, Morangul began to chant in an ancient tongue.
The shadows that surrounded them seemed, to Frijyk, to sway with
the chant. It took him some time to realize, to his shock, that the shadows
were in fact moving. He watched, entranced, as the shadows of the forest all
moved to one location, slowly coalescing into a large mass that continuously fluctuated.
Eventually, it came to a form Frijyk recognized: that of a chariot, pulled by two powerful horses with
glowing red eyes and manes of shadow.

Morangul turned Frijyk, flashed a big grin at him, and hopped on the chariot.
"Well," Morangul said, looking expectantly at the shocked Borian, "Are we going to Yonal or not?"

[TheLastDays]

The guard that had asked took a look the the others and suddenly started laughing. Where Alain had been standing a young teenage girl could be seen, the other guardsmen had been replaced by a short, bald man, almost two times wider than he was tall. The princess, Drax and Dietrich looked like your average farmer from the surrounding areas of Leon and Alaria had taken back to her appearance of the girl they had first seen her as. What really got everyone laughing though was Rufus, who appearead as an old woman, walking on a crutch, a grotesquely proportioned nose in the middle of her face and the most ugly robe, stitched together from the remains of plenty of other garments, making it a mess of colours and patterns, almost physically hard to look at.

"What!?", Rufus exclaimed when he noticed everyone laughing and staring at him but Alain just shrugged and turned around. "Alright, as far as anyone asking is concerened, we are a group from a farm south of here. We were on our way to the market when we noticed the attack on the city and have waited for everything to settle down before approaching Leon. Let's go."

[Greyblades]

To avoid unwanted attention from the mainland The White Scale had sailed out to sea out of sight of the main continent before heading to Leon. The natural winds had been kind enough to drive then southwards but when they turned west the wind had not obliged and the weather wizard Cedrick had to make up the slack. He was now standing on the aft castle coaxing wind into the ships sails, every few minutes one of the men on duty took a vial from a crate by his feet and upended it over his head.
Thomas sat in the main guest cabin peering over a set of maps he had laid on the deck as a portly man was pouring vials of liquid into a wide, shallow silver bowl that was suspended at waist height from the ceiling by a white cord. The man was the alchemist that Thomas had hired the day before and went by the name Xandrax. He was clad in scorched black and brown robes, his eyes were blue, his features were rough, his skin was waxy and scarred and his entire head was hairless including the eyebrows. All these were marks of the alchemist guild, but Thomas suspected they were not due to any sort of dress code.
The man shuffled around the bowl chanting as it swayed in opposition of the rocking of the ship not spilling a drop. He had been at it for several minutes and the smell had been unbearable to Gilford who had left quickly but not before opening the large window that adorned the rear wall to retch into the sea. Thomas’ tolerance was somewhat stronger, his only recollection of what happened to his hand was the smell of quickly rotting flesh, in comparison the sharp fumes were practically perfume.
That hadn’t stopped him from opening the rest of the windows.
After an hour the man stopped chanting and stared into the bowl for a few seconds. Nothing happened. He cursed and struck the side of the bowl several times. Surprisingly the bowl’s contents didn’t spill out but actually started to glow with its own light.
“There we go,” said the man “Leon.”
Thomas got up from the desk, walked to the bowl and gasped. Looking into the water he saw bird’s eye view of a sprawling town and a large dock. Outside of the walls was a litter of wooden tents and siege engines as small as toys. Inside of the walls; small dots travelled down streets of thatched roofs, at the top left of the town were two grey squares one inside the other and in the middle was a brown block, a lord’s hall.
“Wow.”
“You can move the position by pulling a finger across the surface, zoom by pushing two fingers over it in opposite directions and-“
“Zoom?” Thomas asked, puzzled.
“Oh, uh, it changes how close the things look.”
“Oh.”
“You can change the pitch by tilting the bowl. When you’re finished you can turn it on and off by wiping your palm across the surface.”
Thomas barely took his eyes off the bowl “So this will show me the entire world?”
“Well up to 3000 miles then they start losing connection, if you wanted more you should have asked a wizard. Oh and there are a few spells that will disrupt the scrying but they are pretty rare outside of mage guilds.”
“What about illusions?”
“Unless the caster’s more skilled than the average mage this should see right through them.”
“Good, now go to Gilford and see if you can make something that will help defeat ten men of his skill, make him faster or something.”
The alchemist shrugged, “I’ll see what I can do though I’m not sure he will let me near him.”
“Tell him he’ll cooperate if he doesn’t want a repeat of yesterday, dismissed.”
Xandrax frowned then nodded and walked out leaving Thomas staring into the bowl.
“Well at least I have an idea of where to start.”

[Chaotix]

Frijyk's heart dropped into his stomach as soon as he saw the chariot with its two horses. These horses that Morangul had conjured... they were black as pitch, and their eyes burned red. They looked, for all the world, what Frijyk imagined the mounts of a demon would look like. Morangul was a powerful magician... could he be a demon in disguise? Frijyk's mind raced in circles, a thousand possibilities flashing before him as he tried to explain to himself his own circumstances.

Had he been traveling with a demon all this time? It would explain why the other demon they found seemed to know Morangul personally... and why Morangul refused to attack him. He thought back to the elves he had met, who regarded the wizard with disdain. Had they seen something he had not? Perhaps they were wise to get away from him when they could, for now Frijyk was nearly totally at his mercy. He reached to his side and grasped his dagger firmly with his left hand...

Wait. There must be another explanation for this. But those horses...

Morangul had begun to regard him curiously. He risked betraying his suspicion, but he also could not ask Morangul for an explanation... a devious demon would have one right at hand. Frijyk had to make sure on his own... he put on the most neutral face he could manage.

"Pardon me a moment, Morangul, but I'm just curious about these horses..."

Frijyk walked up to the horse closest to him. He held out his hand and touched its side. The creature did not make any indication that it even felt the young man's presence. Then, fast as his reflexes could manage, he reached for his dagger and plunged it into the horse's side. The creature's body gave way around the knife blade and a shadowy gas seeped out. Still it did not seem as if it had even felt the wound. Nearly as soon as Frijyk pulled out the blade, the dark fluid flowed right back into place and reformed itself onto the creature's body, as if it had never been stabbed. Their wispy manes, likewise, were not solid but fluid, made of the same shadowy substance their bodies were.

Frijyk came to his own conclusion... that this was not a living being at all. It was a manifestation of the wizard's magic. And now it seemed logical to him that, in order to create something with magic, one would have to build it with something else. Morangul had built his chariot and its steeds out of shadows - a choice that made practical sense, since they were already malleable and easy to manipulate. Frijyk thought himself a fool to have thought Morangul to be some being of evil. He was just being practical. Frijyk was glad he had thought before he acted.

Satisfied, Frijyk climbed up into the chariot next to Morangul, who seemed to be smirking at him.

"You know, if you kill my steeds, we won't be going anywhere fast!"

"My apologies. But I think I'm learning new things about your magic every day. I think we should pass over the main road on our way, though. We might be able to catch up with those elves that left us."

[shlin28]

"Erm... what do you mean? 'Feeling' like two people? I feel fine to me, especially now I'm taller and looks brawnier." Drax laughed nervously. By the Gods.... I'm not even convincing myself...

The illusions cast by the fey girl did not placate Drax, and her little trick with that detestable mercenary was not even amusing now that he had realised the true ramifications of her being here. She can read minds. That in itself is not so bad, since Drax has long learnt that the Voice was good at keeping quiet when diviners and telepaths are about, but the tiniest tremours she could feel could, no, would lead to very bad things to happen to Drax should she ever tell anyone, which is not unlikely given how quickly she divulged everything she knew within seconds of meeting them.

No... he has to keep away from her... but how? The Princess' party wouldn't let him out of their sights now, but maybe in the city... perhaps he could escape then. A wild plan bloomed into shape. Yes... Yes...

[TheLastDays]

Alaria was about to ask Drax another question but she would have to postpone further inquiry until later as the group approached the once mighty gates of Leon. Now they were scorched, a few guards standing where the thick, wooden gate had once barred entry from anyone who meant harm to the city, others were working on removing the rubble from the area. It was obvious that the town could not rest from the attack they had suffered. Boreale had given orders to return to normal state as soon as possible and had sent one of his magistrates to oversee the town for now.

As Alain approached the gate, one of the guards broke away from the rest and stopped right in front of the disguised captain, hindering him from walking any further. Alain noted that the guardsman was not wearing the colors of Leon but was armored in the fashion of the Lassaran military, bearing the insignias of a corporal. The captain had no time to think about it though, as the guy addressed him in a rather rough manner: "Names, origin and business in town?"

"We are from two different families of farmers, out on the eastern plains, the Linons and the Mattais. We were on our way to the market when we noticed the smoke and fire in the distance", he looked past the guaradsmans shoulder and into the town, busy with cleaning up, "but it is too late in the day for us to turn back now. We need to spend the night in the city and will return to our farms tomorrow."

The guard corporal nodded and slowly walked past Alain, checking the faces of these newcomers, examining them closely but Alarias disguise seemed to be sufficient. After a few more moments of checking them out he nodded again and stepped back towards his guard post. "Alright, welcome to Leon, or what's left of it. Sorry for the inconvenience but orders from Governor Mathis are to check everyone until the rule of Emperor Boreale has been firmly established."

Amalia flinched at this comment but Alain quickly stepped in, nodding in approval: "No worries, Sir, you are only doing your duty for the kingdom." He began to lead the group through the gate, but turned around one last time to ask another question: "You are an army officer, right? Where is the town guard? Were they all killed in the assault?"

"No", the corporal shook his head, "the assault was far less bloody than expected, the bombardment did a lot of damage but there was no fighting after the town surrendered. The town guard has been incorporated into the army and moved south. Governor Mathis wanted more trustworthy men to keep order here."

Alain nodded and they all entered the town, quickly leaving the gate behind as they stepped through dusty streets, full of collapsed walls, dust and broken bars from the houses of Leon. There was still smoke coming from some of the buildings but mostly the fires had been put out and the bodies of dead and injured people had been moved off the streets. They looked at miserable faces, some crying for those they had lost, some angry at the invading force, some simply in despair with the current situation but all working. It seemed like the whole town was up to clean this mess away, under the supervision of army officers, obviously there to make sure the townspeople were doing a good job.

"Come on! Do it faster, this town has to look presentable when the emperor comes to pay our new Governor his visit!", one of the guards yelled at a group of peasants who tried to heave a large boulder onto a cart to be taken away. Amalia had to hold herself back from stepping in but she knew she held no authority here at the moment. Clenching her fists she continued on through the streets, looking for a particular house, near the southern gate of the town and suddenly Amalia stopped in shock, only to run moments later, towards a collapsed heap of stones and other building material that had once been a proud house obviously. Alain was quickly to follow her, approaching the princess who knelt in front of the building, weeping uncontrollably, making clear that this was the house they had been looking for.

[shlin28]

"Should... should we try to look in there? We could find books, or notes or something that would...." Somehow saying more did not seem appropriate at this moment, so Drax stepped aside and instead looked upon the ruined streets he once knew so well. So much for my fear of being arrested for kinslaying then.

"Oi there!" A brutish voice shouted from behind them, "No lazing about 'ere, get those rocks and... and pile 'em up!" Drax turned around and saw a dozen soldiers walking towards, drunk most likely. The one who looked most like the leader reached for his scabbard in an attempt to threaten their group, but found only air. His friends however were more clear-headed and walked towards menacingly, each carrying a sword or a whip. A few even made japes at the expense of the women of the group, towards the disguised Rufus most of all.

This could end badly, Drax thought as he reached into his satchel to quietly pull out his jar of flashbang powders, just in case. Unfortunately his fingers fumbled and despite a desperate attempt to catch the dropping jar, the glass shattered and the powders did exactly what Drax had made them to do - blinding everyone in his immediate vicinity with a white light as bright as the sun.

Idiot.

[Seon]

"AHhhhhhhhhh!" Alaria screamed, clutching at her eyes. Surprisingly the disguise of the group didn't even flicker. "What did you do that for you big jerk!"

Her Fey eyes adjusted to the light faster than the humans did. She noticed the armed group of men rolling around on the floor. They did not look friendly.

"Oh," she said. She clapped her hands together and the everyone around the princess disappeared, replaced with illusionary copies of themselves that ran somewhere into the maze of buildings.

"Hey! Stop right there!" one of the soldiers yelled, recovering from his blindness. The rest of the soldiers recovered as well and ran out of sight.

[Greyblades]

In the guest cabin of the White Scale Thomas mind was drifting as he stared into the bowl, he had combed leon's streets looking for someone, anyone he had seen at the camp. He was nearly about to take a break when he spotted a large flash in the Noble's Quarter.
What the hell?
Pulling at the pool's surface he zoomed into the street to see a group of people crowded around the remains of some building, he moved the view to get a better look at the group's faces, it was them.
Oh you have got to be kidding, they're not going to last a minute
He looked over the group, Alain and his guards, Rufus and Glungard, the alchemist, princess and somebody else. Thomas squinted at the last person trying to make out any features behind some sort of grey mist covering it's body.
Some sort of illusion? When did they get a wizar-
His thought was interupted when he noticed the figure's mist had wained enough to see through to the face, it was a green haired girl with horns and a red eye.
That eye was staring right back at him.

[TheLastDays]

The soldiers were confused and distracted by the flash of light and the illusions while Alain quickly recovered from the blinding magic, grabbed Amalia and made for a narrow road to the side of the collapsed building. The other guardsmen reached for Alaria and Drax, pulling them away as well and followed their captain, figuring that the mercenaries would be able to follow themselves. The whole group ran into the alley, looking for a place to hide when suddenly a door to their left openead and an arm reached out, stopping Alain in his tracks.

"Come in, quick."

The captain looked back at the commotion they had cause and decided that whatever was in there couldn't be worse than facing all the soldiers that would soon be coming thisn way and so he stepped inside, beckoning the others to follow. The man who had called them in closed the door after Rufus, who stepped in last and looked at the group who had just stumbled over his doorstep. They were all still catching their breath, most of them rubbing their eyes as they leaned against walls or sat down on the signle bench in this rather poor living quarter.

"Sorry for the surprise", their host finally said, looking at Amalia, "I take it you were looking for the professor?"

[TheLastDays]

The group stared at the man, Alain wondering how he could have known why they came to the town, especially since they were all supposed to still wear their disguise. Realising their bewilderment, the man in a servant's garments explained: "I saw you approaching Gunther's house and then you", he pointed at the princess, "looked pretty desperate, when you found it demolished." He sighed and seemed to investigate them with his gaze. "Ma name's Harkin, I am... was the professor's servant. But before I go on, what business could a bunch of farmers have with the old man?"

They looked at each other, until Amalia nodded at Alain and the captain faced the little girl that was actually the fey. "It's alright, Alaria, drop the illusion."

A moment later they all returned to normal, including the big spider that the fey held in hands, the mercenaries armed to their teeth and the princess, fair as ever, even thought eh dust of the road and the town had perfected her disguise as a travelling cleric by now. It was quite a shock to good Harkin when suddenly he was staring at the changed group and some of them had a hard time not to laugh.

"Now that's more like it", the servant muttered, when the princess spoke up.

"Listen, Harkin, I am princess Amalia Undine and I am the rightful ruler of this kingdom. I was a student of Professor Gunther when I was a child, you should remember me, actually."

Harkin raised an eyebrow and closely inspected the princess' face when suddenly his eyes lit up and he nodded. "Oh, yes! Little Amy, yes, I remember. I never knew you were a princess back then, more of a little brat... no disrespect meant, of course, your Majesty."

The princess smiled and shook her head: "Don't worry, I'm not in a position to demand coureous behaviour right now. But tell me, what happened to the Professor?"

"I am afraid, Milady, that he didn't survive the bombardment. He was in his house when it was struck by these fireballs and he never came out again", he walked over to a window and looked outside, "it's a shame really. Never had a better master than him."

"This is... disheartening news", the princess muttered and sank back onto one of the benches.

Alain stepped up to the servant and asked: "So, are any of his books safe? We came for knowledge. I am sorry for your loss but we need to know what your professor knew and if you are loyal to the royal house you will have to help us."

"I would", Harkin nodded, "but all his books were burned in the ruin of Professor Gunther's home. He had no... Wait!", he suddenly jumped up and looked at Alain: "There were these two... travellers. They visited the professor and asked all kinds of questions about important history things. I never bothered with this kind of knowledge but they seemed very interested. I think the professor even gave them some of his books."

"Who were they? Did you hear names and what were they like?", Alain quickly inquired.

"And where were they headed?", the princess added.

"Let me think", Harkin replied, his face taking the pained expression of someone who was going through a severe case of occlusion, "One of them Gunther called Guantano. I remember him, it was not his first visit, seems he is a mercenary of sorts, dark hair, broody type, looks more dangerous than he is, definitely one of the fighting folk but not undeucated", he kept thinking hard, "and then there was this woman, they left together. I don't think I heard her name, if I did, I don't remember but she was a young woman, armed as well and there was a sense of danger or ferociousness about her." He sighed: "I am sorry but I don't remember more, it's never been my strong side."

Alain wanted to reply when one of the royal guards, looking out of a window cried out "Danger! They're searching the houses!"

"Rufus, Dietrich, Drax, man the windows, tell me when they approach", the captain reacted quickly, "Alaria, maybe you could go ahead and mask us again?"

[Seon]

"Somebody saw me," Alaria hissed. "He tried to hide his gaze, but I am sure he saw through me."

Alaria clapped her hands, together, making everyone around her invisible.

Outside, the guards began running away in terror.

"...What did you do to them?"

A homicidal armored beetle with sharp claws charging at them whilst ululating, Alaria thought. "Just something my uncle said frightens humans," Alaria said. "Does anyone know where the spiders were kept in the city, by the way?"

[shlin28]

"This would just attract more attention to us now, especially if they have any mages." Drax said, ignoring the keening sound of the illusionary beetle and the fey's question regarding spiders.. "We have to move, now."

[Greyblades]

Thomas looked over the situation unfolding in Leon from the scrying bowl, a new set of illusions the green haired girl had cast since seeing him had forced his bowl to hover five feet away or the image became blurred so he had returned to a bird’s eye view. The princess’ group had been holed in some house for the last twenty minutes and Thomas had watched helplessly as the solder is in the area had started to search though the houses two streets away, turning people out of their homes and comparing them to a bounty poster of Princess Udine.
Thomas moved the surface of the bowl to look in the building’s window and started shifting the view around in a vain attempt to catch the attention of the horned girl, to no success. A group of soldiers had entered the street and were currently frisking a trio of dwarves as Thomas walked away from the bowl, out the cabin and onto the deck.
The wind was howling through the rigging, inflating the sails and straining the masts, the lookouts in the ratlines and crow’s nest were holding on for dear life as the odd seagull tumbled through the air with a scream. To the right Gilford was sitting on a pile of rope in full armour as Xandrax fussed over an outstretched arm. Both men seemed to be purposely ignoring a seagull that was perched on Gilford’s helmet, Thomas decided not to ask for the moment and moved up to the aft-castle to Cedrick.
“Wizard!” Thomas yelled “We’re running out of time, you have to make us go faster!”
“Can’t, the masts are an inch away from breaking as it is!” Cedrick yelled back.
“You’ve got to be able to do something!”
Cedrick paused for a minute as one of the men on duty poured a potion over Ced’s head. “We could get out and push!”
“What!?” Thomas screamed.
“Just watch, Bugsby’s pushing hands!”
The ship lurched forward sending Thomas to his knees and sending the crew stumbling. Thomas crawled to the rail and got back to his feet. He glanced over the rail and saw a purple glow by the rudder. “What was that!?” Two Glowing hands had appeared, gripping the stern of the ship and was pushing The White Scale forward at an alarming rate.
“I pushed! Give it ten minutes!”
Shaking his head Thomas struggled across the heaving deck back to his cabin, after securing the candles he looked into the motionless bowl and found himself looking down at a man who had appeared at the end of the street. Clad in skin tight studded red leather the man headed a column of guardsmen and was heading straight to the house the Princess’ group were in.
“Oh.”

[TheLastDays]

The group around the princess, all invisible at the moment, were manning the windows, trying to get a good look at what was happening and at the moment, soldiers were running away from the giant bug projection Alaria had caused and the streets around them were in total chaos. Only a red clad figure at the end of the road seemed to be completely unimpressed by the scene.

Irigo calmly walked towards the beetle, shouting: "Now behave yourselves! I can't believe you fall for such simple trickery!" He extended one of his palms towards the beetle and muttered something and moments later the illusiion disappeared. It didn't just fade away, dispelled but the beetle exploded, the illusion being violently ripped from the fabric of magic, definitely causing a resonance withing the illusionaries mind as pain began to flow through Alaria's body, breaking her concentration.

The group around the princess appeared from thin air and now they had nowhere to hide, soldiers gathering again, following Iriog to the house where he sensed the source of the illusions.

"Barricade the door!", Alain shouted and quickly led the princess into the back of the house before asking Harkin for a second exit.

[shlin28]

This just gets better and better... thought Drax as he feverishly tried to think of a workable plan as the red-clad demon and his band of lackeys walked purposefully towards their hiding place. There had been a back door to this house, but a few lucky catapults had collapsed most of the houses around it, making the path behind them almost impassable to pass through at speed. Nonetheless, the Captain waved the Princess and a few of the guards through the door and into the rubble-strewn ruins, whilst gesturing for the others to hold the door. Just perfect, guarding the rear against a magic-wielding demon.

The doors were barricaded now, but their enemy had already reached the house and were busy hacking at the door with axes, whcih even to his untrained eye was doing more damage than whatever the guards were doing to prop the door up. Drax ran to the window, his hands moving as he prepared to unleash a st-

I SEE YOU, LITTLE ILLUSIONIST.

A voice screamed into Drax's head and he was blinded with pain, images of beetles and demons hammering through his mind.

THAT WASN'T SO CLEVER WAS IT? YOU MAY FOOL THOSE LITTLE GNATS WITH THAT LITTLE PARLOUR TRICK, BUT NOT ME. NOT IRIGO...

Drax stumbled towards the door in pain, a strange compulsion within him telling him, urging him to throw himself at the guards and strangle them with all his strength.

YES... DO WHAT I BID, LITTLE MAGE. WAIT, WHA-

HE... IS... MINE...

The pain suddenly subsided. Drax opened his eyes just in time to see a kneeling Irigo outside, his robes partly on fire and green fel blood streaming out of his demonic face. The demon looked shocked, but once his eyes found the still confused Drax, his eyes became daggers and he screamed in rage as he leapt impossibly fast into the air and shot through the already flimsy walls, sending Drax tumbling backwards.

"You... will... suffer... for... that..." The demon muttered as he advanced meancingly, ignoring the other dazed figures around him, his elegant hands turning into bitter dripping claws.

[Seon]

Alaria was hiding from sight and ether, intensely concentrating on hiding herself whilst looking on at the things around her with a strange bit of interest.

Silently, she pulled out the small dagger from the interior of her robe. It helped to calm her down when she held it. The dagger's hilt was made, no, grown from the trees of her homeland and was thusly infused with much magic of the fae, unlike the boring woods in this land and the dead lands of this city.

But then again this dead land have been fun so far.

She grasped the dagger tightly and felt it amplify her own magic. She let the spider scamper off towards the group of the princess's guards and climbed through an open window.

She felt a tremor behind her. Now there were three people inside that funny young man. She made a face, picked up a rock, and threw it through the window and towards the man-creature who made threatening advances towards Drax, unveiling herself in the process and letting out all the signs and magical presence of a powerful illusionist.

"Hey! Oh, nice claws," she said as everybody turned to see her. "I...err... umm..." she turned invisible and fled into the dark corridors.

[Death is yonder]

Thus far, the fair elvish maiden had not yet spoken a single word, merely keeping by her beast's side, her hand resting on its veridian-tinted fur punctuated with stripes of dark-brownish earth, a majestic creature indeed. She had reacted with perhaps uncharacteristic stoic silence in response to the male's remark, maybe something bothered her. Her beast, no, companion, was undoubtedly intelligent, its muscles likewise tensed, clearly in tune with its mistress' discomfort. Even as Alyssa approached her and broached her question, the elf was clearly distracted.

As the wind carried the light spring breeze, her posture stiffened dramatically. She held a slender palm up in Alyssa's direction, motioning her to silence, before she nimbly bounded towards the nearby tree and leapt up, agilely navigating the branches until she had worked her way to its top. With a hand holding the trunk for support, she gazed into the distance, her eyes widening even as she did so.


https://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8551/flyingdemons.jpg

She revealed the source of her distractions when she finally spoke, her voice with a fluid and light quality to it yet carrying a sense of unmistakable urgency and worry. "Demons approach quickly in force from the city, we must leave at once!" Gesturing towards the northern road from which Guantano and Alyssa had approached from not long ago, indeed, a silhouette of an approaching band of demons rose over the horizon, some even aerial. Squinting in the fading light, Guantano said, "No more than two score, but still too many for a band of four, we must flee into the forest."

At once Alyssa and Guantano hastily mounted, Guantano quickly glanced towards the leading elements of the eight flyers, marking them roughly 300 yards away now, fast approaching bowshot. Before the elves likewise hastened off, Guantano raised his voice and while grasping the reins with his right hand, he pointed to the flyers.

"Our escape will go all the more smoother if we take out those flying demons, they are almost within bowshot! Their bloodlust has driven them to fly farther in front of the others, we shall be able to pick them off."

Thankfully, the female elf understood, and unslung her bow, nocking an arrow and sighted down the leader of the pack. Moments later, a sharp whistle sounded out as the arrow whooshed through the air, seconds later hitting its mark, the demon screeching loudly even as it fell to the earth. Now, the demons hastened their flapping, realizing that their prey was capable of striking back at them. As soon as she had released the first, the second arrow was already fully nocked and quickly released, swiftly burying its sharp edge into the wing of another demon. By now, Alyssa too had retrieved her shortbow, and as soon as the creatures drew close, she too released an arrow, but this one flew just ahead of the demons, a strong gust of wind throwing off her aim. The elf had no such difficulties, rhythmically loosing arrows into the air guided by the marksmanship of one born to the bow.


https://img339.imageshack.us/img339/4672/elfarcher.jpg

Finally, Alyssa found her mark on her second shot, the tip piercing the skull of one of the rear elements, no more than a hundred yards away, the burst of gore and orange blood visible despite the failing light. By now, four of the flyers had been shot down, and now a clash was imminent. Readying his throwing knife in his off hand, and drawing Gutripper from its sheath, Guantano took in a deep breath as the ugly screeching monsters approached. Suddenly, a mass of branches burst out of the treeline and it caught the flyers by surprise, three of them wheeling to dodge but one did not manage to avoid the tangled trap, crashing into the sturdy branches at a high speed, impacting with a loud thwack. Taking advantage of the surprising distraction, Guantano let loose his throwing knife, which narrowly scratched past the wing of another, cutting a gash into its wing which leaked sizzling orange blood onto the grass. Guantano rapidly kicked the horse into motion and made ready to face the leader which began to swoop down, its small mouth contorting as it shrieked loudly. Grinning, Guantano waited for the last moment just as the demon readied its talons and fangs before he leapt out of the saddle, swinging his sword in a fluid motion, catching the demon by surprise, Gutripper tearing through its already damaged right wing, and his weight dragging the large demon crashing to the ground, a sharp shrill cry from the demon accompanying his action. Swiftly raising his sword arm again, Guantano hacked downwards, ending the misery of the demon, his longsword now stained a dark orange.

Pushing himself upwards from the warm wet corpse, Guantano looked and saw Alyssa and the two elves harried by the remaining three flyers, the third having recovered from the impact with the branches. In a coordinated attack, the demons took turns to harass the defenders, dodging even as the male elf sent the trees after them, and escaping out of the reach of the female's shortsword. Alyssa likewise wielded her shortsword, her usual axe too cumbersome a weapon in this duel of agility. Yet, their short reach was proving troublesome in dealing with the attackers who retreated out of reach after every attempt to break through their guard. It seemed as though they had not expected Guantano to be finished so quickly. Running up, just as one of them attempted to swoop in and attack Alyssa from the side, Guantano roared loudly and thrust his longsword into what passed as the belly of the demon. Distracted by the attack from their rear, the other two swiftly fell from quick thrusts from the shortswords of the duo, one of them ensnared out of the sky by a root.

Breathing heavily from his exertions, Guantano signaled to the group that it was time to leave. Already, the demons were within earshot, and their loud grunts and hoarse roars accompanied their advance. Unlike what were likely the scouts, these were heavily armed, some sporting huge broadswords and axes still bloodstained that looked like they could hew a man in two. Breaking into a sprint, the demons chased after their fleeing quarry.


https://img684.imageshack.us/img684/6709/thickforestevening.jpg


The forest was densely forested with much underbrush that hid roots and other obstacles, that proved to impede the progress of the duo on horseback. Traveling much swifter was the male elf, swinging from branch to branch, bending nature to form a faster route through the forest, and the female who gracefully bounded through the obstacles with little difficulty. It was a shame that he had not visited here in a calmer moment, Guantano thought to himself, for it was breathtakingly beautiful, well, if one wasn't being pursued by bloodthirsty demons and able to appreciate it.

The momentary distraction cost him dearly, and unguided by Guantano whose eyes which had previously scoured the path searching for hidden roots, the courser's hind leg caught in one such, a crack following the impact, which threw Guantano off the horse and snatching him abruptly out of his thoughts. The horse whinnied loudly as it crumpled onto its side, Gautano likewise grunting as a sharp outtake of breath escaped him. His heart pounding in his ears, Guantano struggled to his feet, in a daze. Staggering to the horse, he noticed despite his difficulty in focusing that one of the horse's hind legs was bent backwards at an awkward angle, the bone clearly cracked, definitely beyond his aid. Guantano hastily retrieved his supplies from the pouches, stuffing them into his sack, and then bent over. Closing his eyes, he muttered a few quick words under his breath before he raised the sword and quickly ended the horse's suffering, sparing it from a torturous death at the hands of ravenous demons.

Having been closest when it happened, Alyssa was by his side already, with a stern expression she yelled to him, "Come on, we don't have time to lose!" Shaking himself out of his grogginess, Guantano hoisted himself onto Alyssa's courser. Parrying an incoming broadsword swing with her axe, Alyssa shuddered at the force of the brute's impact. As the courser raced off into the open forests ahead, Alyssa angrily said to him, "That's the second crazy stunt you've pulled off already Guantano, if you're trying to die then please inform me so that I can at least use your thick hide as a shield." Despite the situation, Guantano smiled weakly, "Third time's the charm milady?" When she scowled, Guantano continued in a mirthful tone, "I am touched by the lady's great care and concern."

By now however, the demons reacted accordingly to the split in the party of four, and a band of demons, perhaps half the remaining pack had sought to pursue the fleeing elves, and now, the path between the humans and the elves was cut off. The male elf paused for a moment on his branch, and he made eye contact, with a look that almost seemed to ask as to what was to follow. Guantano returned the glare, shrugging momentarily before raising his hands in farewell, bowing whilst astride the courser. Likewise bowing, the male elf turned and resumed his manipulation of nature to his will, and soon, the both elves had escaped their view. They would meet again, Guantano was somehow sure of it.

With nightfall fast approaching, now began the game of cat and mouse that would tax both of them to their limits.

[Diamondeye]

With one hand on the reins of the Courser and the other clenching her axe, Alyssa didn't have any means of dislodging the arm that Guantano had placed around her waist, or to shield herself from the branches that seemed to flood against her as they raced through the forest. She bit her teeth together hard and kept her head down as much as possible without losing sight of the way ahead. The branches whipped and snapped, and through the rush of adrenaline, she could feel sweat and blood run down her face. Behind them, the demons were slowly losing ground, but were still clearly audible, trampling through the underbrush, their metal armour clanking and their hardened boots stomping.

She could not tell how fast time went, her eyes were staring unerringly ahead of them in intense concentration, but she noticed that it was rapidly getting darker, and the noises of the demons were slowly fading to a level that competed with the other sounds of the forest at night. Still, they kept going, the demons following their clear tracks only a few minutes behind them.

"Guantano," she spit out in a moment of relatively quiet around them, "soon, we will have to dismount and hide. The courser needs to keep going, to lead the demons astray. Make sure to take what you need the most, and be ready."
She reached down and began recovering her small saddlebags and other things attached to the saddle, leaving the shortsword to favour the axe. "Soon," she whispered.

[Death is yonder]

With his necessities and miscellaneous equipment already stored in his sack or hanging off his belt and in various pouches thanks in part to his abandonment of his mount, Guantano was already ready. His eyebrows raised unseen to Alyssa as he inquired in a tired voice, "What are you proposing Alyssa?"

[Diamondeye]

"Let them chase the horse while we hide away? Do you think we can keep outrunning these inhuman beasts, or somehow lose them, then please say so. I'm not proposing this because I'm happy about losing a horse."

[Death is yonder]

It occurred to Guantano that she had already said what was to follow, he was definitely more tired and battered up than he thought he was. Yawning, he said, Apologies milady, I am far more tired and bruised that I would prefer." Rapidly flexing and unflexing his muscles to restore sensation to his hands, he sheathed his sword before rubbing his eyes with his free hand. Feeling as refreshed as a man in the midst of a battle could possibly be, he said, "No time like the present. There's a copse of thick bushes and a gathering of trees just after the clearing ahead." Glancing back, he continued, "They're just barely out of visual range, it will do." Suddenly smiling despite his exhausted demeanor, Guantano added, "One last thing princess, you might want to ditch the axe before taking a tumble. You don't exactly have a scabbard for it." Continuing quickly before she had any chance to toss in an annoyed retort, Guantano continued with a grin, "I have a few tricks up my sleeve to avoid our deception from being avoided for a while."

As the courser approached the densely forested area past the clearing, Guantano dug his heels into the courser's flank and cried out with a loud voice, "Hyah, Hyah!" With Alyssa staring at him, Guantano merely shrugged and replied, "If the demons have any semblance of intelligence, which I'm certain they do, they would most certainly think we were spurring your mount to more swiftly escape." With a heavy dose of humor injected into his voice, he said, "Elementary my dear Alyssa!"

Conveniently overlooking the comically near-murderous expression on her face, his hands quickly reached down to a brown leather pouch hanging on the right side of his waist and he retrieved a small black ball. At Alyssa's curious look, he motioned to the ground, "This will make it much harder for our pursuers to determine whether the horse is travelling alone after having picked up speed." After a few more moments, Guantano sharply whispered, "Now!"

Guantano tossed the sphere between the clearing between the two trees they had just passed by that the demons would inevitably pass through, which exploded with a bang akin to the sound of a popped bag of air, before it rapidly released a cloud of white smoke accompanied by a loud hissing sound and a pungent smell much akin to rotten eggs. Flinging themselves off the courser, the duo landed with a loud rustle in the bush, which unfortunately partially turned out to be a cover for a gathering of brambles. Wincing slightly at the scratches, they proceeded to a denser and softer foliage and Guantano hazarded a whisper to Alyssa, "A wonderful creation from a smith in my travels further south at Vintom, I especially like the hissing smoke, a very nice touch that further incapacitates the senses of pursuers." Alyssa nodded, but said with a unhappy tone, "You could have tossed that stink further from where we were at the present, Guantano. I most certainly did not wish to be blanketed in 'essence of Guantano'." Forgetting himself for a moment, Guantano laughed before stifling the sound. "You're not exactly smelling very fresh yourself milady, though I must say I don't mind one bit."

[Diamondeye]

Alyssa's face was a jumble for a moment before she decided to just smile disarmingly. "Good, because you're going to suffer it for a while. Do you have any idea where we are?"
She was trudging through the foliage, her axe still in hand and the shortbow tucked with a dozen or so arrows in a belted quiver. She had attached a few of the saddlebag pouches to her belt as well, and her lute was still on her back although the tumble had not been kind to it. Guantano giggled to himself and spoke his thoughts out loud after a questioning gaze from Alyssa just ahead of him. "The only instrument we have left now is your beautiful voice, milady," he explained and nodded to the lute. She shook her head and looked ahead again. "We're in the southwestern part of the forest," Guantano answered, "and if we keep moving in this direction, the woods should thin out somewhat, eventually giving way to the South Ayal Hyo ridge." She nodded. "Hunting some wild will be easier when the woods get less dense."
"Tired of being the hunted, my dear?"
Alyssa sent him a piercing gaze. With the dried sweat and blood in her face, her hair ruffled and with a few leaves and other plants in it, she looked the epitome of a huntress to him. "Aren't you, Guantano? I've always felt best of the offensive."
"I do not doubt that."

[TheLastDays]

Soldiers were swarming into the room now, entering the house through the whole in the wall where they were instantly greeted by two royal guardsmen and their swords. Both Rufus and Dietrich had their weapons drawn and were engaged with the intruders and Glungurd, who got the idea that these were the bad guys had already finished one with his hammer and the soldier he was fighting at the moment was actually more on the defense, clearly scared by the sight of a violent Odglok with a mighty weapon that would just crush any man. Alain was still trying to get that backdoor open, his sword ready though to protect the princess who he had shoved into a corner near him, to shield her from the attackers.

Irigo though, seemed not affected by what was going on around him. first he was bent on getting his hands on the young man who seemed shielded by some kind of weird power and now he had finally found the illusionist. Alaria's invisibility shielded her from everyone, except the red clad demon, which coul have almost been her downfall. No one saw what he was after when he followed her and Drax seemed to be preoccupied with the chaos that had gripped his mind. "Come little girl, come out!", the creature hissed and as Alaria turned around to face him, still believing to be invisible, he extended a hand towards the fay, again disrupting her illusion in a way that had to hurt the illusionist herself. Cowering on her knees now she couldn't run away from Irigo who was extending his claws towards the Alaria's now visible true form, ready to take his prey.

"Gotcha!", he hissed now but suddenly his face went into a pained expression when Glungurds heavy hammer came down onto the demon's forearm, crushing Irigo's bones with an audible crack.

"Leave her", the Odglok plainly told the demon, feeling compassion for the little girl and Irigo reassessed the situation. Open combat was not his strongest side and Vayne still needed to hear about the Necromancer in the woods, let alone this strange party. "Alright", another hiss and the demon whispered a word, the whole place went dark for a moment and when everyone was able to see again Irigo had vanished.

Most of this had only been noticed on the perimeter by the other people in the room. The two guardsmen, along with the mervenaries had disposed of most of the soldiers and suddenly, with a loud burst, Alain was able to break through that backdoor and he instantly pushed the princess outside. "Over here!", the captain yelled through the room.

Glungurd picked Alaria up and ran for the newly opened exit and both of the mercenaries followed, Rufus murmuring: "Come on, Kid", grabbing Drax' robe and pulling him along. Just as they exited the house another group of soldiers arrived and entered from the other side, surely to follow them on their heels when Alain shot his two guardsmen a glance and they both nodded, understanding his last order and readying themselves to hold the attackers until the princess was out of reach, before the group took off, towards the town's harbour.

[Death is yonder]

By now, another hour or two had passed, and nightfall was now upon the duo. Gradually, the sounds of pursuit had died down, it seemed as if their plan had worked.

Guantano reached below to his water gourd, and removed the stopper, before taking a sip, sparingly drinking the precious water. As the moisture soothed his burning throat, Guantano re-stoppered the gourd, before fastening it back onto his belt. Licking his lips of any remaining moisture, Guantano said, "We will set up cold camp tonight Alyssa, on the off-chance that the demons are still around." The thought of a cold camp in the chilly nights of spring did not endear itself to him, much less Alyssa, but neither did getting set upon by bloodthirsty demons in the dead of night appeal to him. "We shall have to gather up some firewood and dead twigs. With a heavy dose of luck, we might just find a brace of hares out for a night roam and perhaps if not, just a gathering of berries."

Alyssa cocked her eye at him and asked, "Why would you want to go out to hunt tonight Guantano? Didn't you just say that we would hold cold camp tonight?"

Despite his tiredness, Guantano found the energy to laugh. "Why, for breakfast, my dear Alyssa! I strongly doubt that either of us would have the strength to go hunting tomorrow at dawn, and well, if we don't get food tonight, any fears of predators attracted by our catch will be purely secondary."

The grimness of the situation dawned upon Alyssa, who for a moment harbored nostalgia for the wonderful delights that Gunther had kept them preoccupied with. The thought of the boiled eggs and deliciously grilled bacon sprinkled with just the right amount of seasoning, washed down by honey ale was a mouthwatering delight that she would perhaps kill for now. "No worries milady, if all goes well I will be back in an hour or so with something that will keep you on your toes with excitement and anticipation." Venturing a wink at at her, he continued, "Perhaps you would be so kind as to look around for nice velvety soft sections of bushes for my sleeping area, since I happened to not be as well-graced as you to have my sleeping cot with me." His face now an expression of open mirth, Guantano continued, humor filling his tone, "Or if you wish to take a rest, the alternative is as equally preferable, or I might dare say, a more amenable choice in my opinion."

Balling her fists, Alyssa's expression grew from a slight frown to a clear visage of annoyance and irritation. Her eyebrows narrowed as her eyes darted for a second to her axe lying by the side.

Guantano held up a hand towards Alyssa, "Now now princess, it would not do to murder the man getting the food. As you might have deduced, it is in your own interests to find me a comfortable spot for resting. The last time I slept upon the cold hard earth was definitely not an enjoyable experience." Making a show of shrugging, Guantano noted with a mischievous grin, "The choice is up to you my dear, but either way I win and I'm happy with both options." Setting down his gear by hers, he grabbed her shortbow and a quiver of arrows. "Don't mind if I do milady." Walking off into the forest, Guantano smiled broadly, despite his tiredness. Teasing Alyssa had definitely become his favorite past-time.

Angrily muttering something under her breath about chauvinistic male boars and something about carving a second face with an axe, Alyssa nevertheless set out finding the desired objects, absentmindedly wondering whether there were brambles nearby.

[Death is yonder]

A lilting melody in the very heart of nature awaited Guantano as he awoke from slumber, rubbing his eyes as he yawned and stretched, the bed of leaves rustling as he did so.


https://img534.imageshack.us/img534/5810/thrush.jpg

Sitting up with a broad smile, he was pleased to note that they were still alive, a beautiful morning too. Not too far away a brown-breasted thrush perched upon a sturdy branch, singing to its hearts content. Suddenly twitching, it took off, flapping its delicate black wings rapidly as it swooped down onto a yellow tinted flower, and in one swift motion, pecked at a spotted red beetle crawling on it. One could scarcely believe that only the previous night they were on the run in this peaceful forest from a pack of ravenous demons for their very lives.

Guantano glanced over at Alyssa, who still lay fast asleep upon her cot, the lines of worry and anxiety that often marked her face in her waking moments not present, her expression relaxed. Her soft features lay in contrast to the steel within her, and Guantano wondered what harsh events might have shaped her into what she was now. Thinking back to the night before, Guantano knew that something in her past had troubled her deeply, perhaps even now. As the cold spring breeze blew, she stirred slightly, her lips parting with a tiny sigh, but she did not awaken. Standing up, Guantano gingerly brushed off the leaves on his clothing, and carried the softest of the leaf blankets over to Alyssa, spreading it over her, taking care to make as little noise as possible.

Tip-toeing to a log upon the ground, Guantano retrieved the two hares that he had stored under a pile of rosemary and sage that he had found in his hunt, placed to disguise the smell of the kill. Sitting down and drawing his skinning knife from his belt, Guantano then proceeded to skin and dress the hares, removing the offal and other innards, leaving them in the wild as an offering of thanks for nature extending its bounty. Upon a small stack of twigs and small branches, Guantano set to work with his tinderbox, and within moments, he had brought to life a small warm orange glow upon the top of the pile. Gathering a handful of dried leaves at hand, he then placed them for the fire to consume and grow. Meanwhile, he cupped his hands around the glow, and blew gently and constantly. Soon, Guantano had nursed a sizable fire into life. Pleased with his handiwork, Guantano took a step back, before reaching into his pack for something else. Retrieving a cast iron pot and a simple wooden ladle, Guantano set it by the side first. Driving two sticks into the ground by the side of the fire before placing another overhead, connecting the two, Guantano then hung the pot from the thick wooden branch.


https://img508.imageshack.us/img508/8210/boilingpotofstew.jpg

It was sheer luck that he had discovered a small spring nearby during his hunt, for the sound of the water was gentle and light, and he would have missed it had he not literally stumbled upon it. Pouring his gourd to fill just enough of the pot, Guantano then stoppered his gourd before lightly jogging to the spring, arriving minutes later to refill. When he arrived back at the campsite, Guantano resumed his work at the fallen log, cutting the rabbit meat up into bite sized pieces. When that was done, he gradually chucked it all into the now boiling pot, along with the fresh herbs that he had found, stirring gently as the ingredients heated up. Taking in a deep breath, Guantano's lips lifted into a curve, clearly pleased. The growling of his stomach distracted him somewhat, but years of discipline as a mercenary allowed him to overcome his immediate needs.

Life was definitely looking up for the both of them.

[shlin28]

Drax struggled to comprehend what he had seen as he stumbled with his ragtag group towards the harbour - the demon had somehow focused on him and would have no doubt killed him if the fey was capable of staying silent and intervention of the Voice in his head, which was disturbing to say the least, since he was fully aware of what had happened, instead of blacking out. For a brief moment, he saw the world as a tangled web of interconnected - lines? aetheric connections? fate? - through which he felt he could exert his limitless will to achieve anything he wanted. Compared to that, what he had learnt at the academy and indeed what he has read from arcane tomes appeared paltry and pedestrian.

That feeling however was gone in an instant and soon he was somehow bundled out of the room, barely able to open his eyes against the banality of the material world. Somehow he managed to run, despite his ears ringing with the the sounds of clashing swords and shouting and his mind an aching mess. Somehow he held on enough to reach the harbour, where they hoped their salvation would lie. When Drax struggled to open his eyes again to find out why they had stopped, he saw a group of soldiers surrounding the few ships and boats left - evidently the truly great merchantmen and cogs having fled already when news came of the impending battle and what ships remained were seen as too important to lose. But the soldiers were surprised, clearly ignorant of the fracas occurring in the middle of the city.

Their only chance now is to break through this little blockade of men and from somewhere deep within him, Drax sought whatever reservoir of power he had within him and tried to reach towards the invisible lines again. It was a futile attempt however, and all he could grasp in his mind was the after-images of that brief moment of power. This last exertion proved to be too much for his battered body and Drax collapsed onto the pebbled road, only his shallow breath betraying the fact that he is still alive.

[Seon]

Alaria let out a small snarl as she managed to snap out of her discomfort. The big...thing... (she didn't really know how to categorize it) was carrying her. It was warm there so she didn't really mind. Nevertheless, she kicked Glungard to get his attention and hopped off of his hold.

She glanced behind her to spot the group of soldiers chasing after her. She snapped her fingers, causing them all to stumble and look around in confusion.

"What's going on?" one of the guards asked.

"I tried to make them go in the wrong direction.... but it's hard to do that in this place... espescially since they were expecting it..." Alaria said. "They'll regain focus soon."

"What about the people in front of us?" the princess said hurriedly.

Alaria glanced at them. She took a moment to compose herself, feeding off of the princess's own confidence. For a moment, she could see the individual thoughts of the soldiers ahead. She understood all their drives and their fears.

"I can do it," she said. She extended her arms towards the group of soldiers.

The legs of the soldier closest to the group began to quiver as he dropped to the floor.

The second soldier dropped his weapons and ran away, screaming as invisible bees dug into his skin.

The third soldier hurriedly began sheathing and unsheathing his sword as if a drill instructor was screaming instructions into his ears.

Some of them simply broke down and cried.

The rest stood merely slightly unnerved, as if somehow thrust into an unknown situation. They looked away from the group as if paranoid, but otherwise stood their ground.

Alaria began to cough. She still held on tightly to the dagger. "I...can't... go... on anymore," Alaria said. "My mind's broken too far."

Before anybody could ask what she meant, she grabbed onto Drax and turned invisible. She would drag him across the lines and towards the harbor.

[Diamondeye]

Alyssa opened her eyes slowly, for a moment oblivious to their situation. She heaved herself up into a sitting position and looked at Guantano busily cooking, and smiled.
"Well, this is a nice respite from the usual running," she mumbled, and stretched her body with closed eyes. Guantano found himself staring, but luckily Alyssa didn't seem to notice anything and instead laid herself back down on the cot, purring almost unhearably.

[Death is yonder]

Sensing her awakening, Guantano turned his head, glancing at her. Alyssa's lithe body flexed lightly as she stretched, and Guantano caught himself staring at her, marveling at how toned, healthy and beautiful she looked, a pang of emotion stirring within him. Averting his eyes quickly, Guantano felt his cheeks burn ever so slightly even as he returned to his cooking. Continuing his stirring, he chanced a glance in her direction, and to his relief, found her oblivious, relaxing with an expression that could only be considered pure contentment. Ah. If only life could always be like this.

Lifting the ladle, Guantano's eyes lit up when he sipped gently at the hot stew. It was just right. Reaching out to grab the two clay bowls by his side, he ladled up a healthy portion of the stew, including a generous serving of meat and some of the greens that he had found while exploring a bit. Picking up the nearest bowl and a spoon, he leisurely strolled over to Alyssa's cot.

"Good morning milady! Today, on our menu we have rabbit stew, simmered with a gathering of the finest herbs in the region!" Guantano said, a smile on his face. Grinning widely, Guantano continued, "I must apologize for the lack of wine from the finest mountain vineyards of Yonal, we appear to have run out of stock. I trust that nevertheless this meal is to the expectations of your noble palate?" Kneeling down ever so slightly, he handed the bowl into her waiting hands, before he wryly observed, "Breakfast in bed, truly no luxury can compare."

[TheLastDays]

Amalia shot a worried look at the fey before she turned invisible but there was no time to think about the obviously exhausted girl right now. It only took those guards who were still standing in front of them a few moments to regain their orientation and make towards the group of what seemed like mercenaries and given the state their obviously bewitched comrades were in, these guards were not in a talking mood.

Sword at the ready Alain calculated their chances, two mercenaries, an Odglok, a princess who was not used to fighting and two magic user, both obviously not in the shape to do anything useful. Against them stood eight guardsmen who were approaching and there was no telling how quickly the others would recover.

"What's your plan?", Rufus shot at the captain, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"Ask me when we've survived these", Alain replied, pointing at the approaching soldiers, "we need to get out of here, maybe seize one of the smaller vessels, we can't sail a large ship anyway."

At that the soldiers were upon them, without even a word of warning the obvious leader of the group stormed towards Alain, bringing down his halberd that was easily parried by the captain's longsword. Another soldier stepped up to help his leader and the others spread up between the various member of the group, three of them attacking the two mercenaries who were guarding the princess and the other three weren't quite sure if they dared to attack Glungurd, who looked more dangerous than he probably was, angrily swinging his hammer from side to side.

"Try to break through!", the captain yelled over at Rufus and Dietrich, deflecting a stroke of the soldier's sword while he sidestepped the officer's halberd again, trying to get a better stand and return the attacks.

[Visor]

The fight continued.

"You know, I think that we should probably end this quickly." Rufus said to Dietrich.

Another blow deflected, sweat dripped down Dietrich's brow. "No :daisy:."

"No need to get nasty, I was just suggesting a logical course of action."

"Now's not the time."

"I think now is a perfectly good time to kill these folks. What do you think folks?"

The leader smiled as he landed another particularly strong blow on Rufus's sword. "No sounds like a good answer."

"I prefer yes..."

"No."

"Please?"

"Shut up and die."

"Can't we have a friendly fight to the death?"

Dietrich yelled at Rufus, "STOP PLAYING WITH HIM AND KILL HIM ALREADY YOU DUMB PIECE OF :daisy:!"

Rufus grumbled, took a step back and threw his sword at leader, who was not expecting it. He pushed the sword away, only to be jumped upon and stabbed with the daggers on Rufus's belt. A sword stabbed downwards into the soldier's back as Rufus rolled over the man now dead, and he now stuck under him.

"You are a :daisy:ing moron." Dietrich laughed. The fight continued onwards. The other guards were stil occupied by Dietrich. Rufus slowly crawled out from underneath the man, and pulled out his crossbow, firing and killing the last two guards.

"Now, where were we?"

[Diamondeye]

Alyssa gratefully accepted the steaming bowl of stew. Her insides were screaming for food, even if her expression did not betray it except for the clear delight she took in sniffing in the aroma of the food. She smiled, "You're forgetting some of the most important details; The surroundings... And the company. If I settled for breakfast in bed without further ado, I'd be a vague and girly daughter of a nobleman." Her eyes smiled as she lifted the spoon to her mouth to taste the stew. "Mmmhm! And that is clearly not the case, as I'm sure both you and my parents have come to understand by now."

[TheLastDays]

The right side of the pier was free now and Alain, finishing off one of the guards with aquick blow after a reposte, turned, looking at the mercenaries and Amalia: "Run! Try to make for one of the boats and get it ready to leave the harbor"

"You won't get away from us!", the officer now snarled and attacked more fiercely, throwing away his halber and drawing his sidearm longsword.

Drax, beingpulled along by an invisible hand, stumbled over to the mercenaries as well, while Glungurd swung his hammer in a circular fashion, breaking one of the soldier's spine with a single, crushing blow, another of them already lying at the Odglok's feet, the obviously fearsome warrior was now staring the last of his opponents right in the eyes and the soldier was apparently weighing the odds in his mind until he threw down his sword and took off, away from the group.

Alain used the short distraction of the officer in front of him, kneed him in the stomach and quickly brought the hilt of his sword down on the man's neck, knocking him out for the moment, before pulling Glungurd alon, following the rest of their group down the pier.

[Death is yonder]

"I am most grateful that you enjoy my company Alyssa," Guantano said, a warm smile lighting up his face. Chuckling, he motioned towards the great big axe which she wielded, now lying near her cot. "That was definitely the first indication that you weren't the typical nobleman's daughter, nevertheless you do certainly swing that thing with grace and charm." At her slightly piqued expression, Guantano flashed his trademark grin. "A mere compliment milady."

With a sly smile on her face, Alyssa responded with a twinkle in her emerald eyes, "I was talking more about this beautiful place we are in Guantano." Alyssa laughed when she saw the surprise registering on Guantano's face. "A mere joke, silly."

Guantano lifted to his mouth the spoon that had stopped midway for a split second, sipping the hot stew, savoring the taste, satisfying the growls of an empty stomach. He allowed a glimpse of a smile to flash by his face as he observed, "A fine rejoinder."

Not wishing to spoil the mood, yet well aware of the realities outside this forest, his expression grew serious. "Though I may wish for us to continue enjoying nature, we've really got to get going. A small spring lies but further south of this camp, we will stop by there after we have broken camp to refill and freshen up before we continue southwards. I assume of course, that you still wish to head in the direction of Vintom?

[Diamondeye]

"Yes, that seems like the best shot at finding those Shards, I think. The chase might have brought us a bit off course, though..."

[Death is yonder]

"Then we shall head southwards." Looking skyward and shielding his eyes with an outstretched hand, he observed, "I judge it likely that we are but perhaps an hours walk from the main road, best to get going if we are to reach Vintom by dark, now that we have no mounts." Saying the last phrase with a sigh and evident frustration, Guantano went on about his work.

Within minutes, the camp had been totally dismantled, and now, not a trace remained except some char marks and ash where the fire had once stood. As the duo walked southwards towards the spring, Guantano remarked offhandedly, "Perhaps it may do for myself to purchase a bow at next opportunity, another bow would have significantly reduced the risks to our persons when we were attacked." At Alyssa's glance towards his knives, Guantano laughed, a deep reverberating sound. "I may be more comfortable with my knives Alyssa, but by no means am I a stranger to the bow." Gesturing to the campsite that lay behind them, he asked with a grin, "Or have you forgotten already the most sumptuous meal caught and prepared by yours truly?"

"Of course not, my compliments to the chef on his masterpiece adorned with much finery." Alyssa smiled, her tone sarcastic but punctuated with mirth.

They soon reached the spring, and were greeted with a pool of water, its surface a clear blue hued sheen as it reflected the light off the morning sun. Cupping some water and rinsing the culinary items, Guantano also filled up the gourds which they carried. That done, he then dipped his head into the pool of water, the cold cool waters dripping down his face, a sigh of contentment accompanying the resulting feeling of refreshment, before he ran a hand through to brush off any excess liquid. Alyssa did likewise, and Guantano could not help but gaze upon her chestnut brown hair as it swayed about in the wind. As she swung her hair to the side, running her hands down its length, her gaze faced towards him, and their eyes locked as she noticed his stare.

Knowing he'd been spotted, but not willing to allow her to have the first word, Guantano immediately said, "If the lady would forgive the lack of her grooming finery, but we had best quickly move." She nodded once, her gaze returning elsewhere, face impassive. Guantano couldn't tell if she saw through his spontaneously planned scheme or not.

Absentmindedly, he recalled the words of his old mentor when he was back still in Calvan's Company living the dangerous life. "Never mix business with pleasure, it never ends well." With a chuckle the older man had added, "Unless you're in a w:daisy:house of course."

Time would tell whether the older man would prove to be right. Guantano would hardly admit it to himself, but he hoped Calvan was wrong.

[Diamondeye]

Alyssa's emotions seldomly stirred, she had been through too much that was too hard on them for her to notice the more healthy, minor outswings that seemed to dictate the life of so many pedestrian people with simple lives, but as their eyes interlocked, something inside her had given a jolt, even if her face had not betrayed her. She was almost sure she saw through the desperate catch by Guantano to avoid an awkward silence, but she was so thankful for it that she bought it at face value. She walked behind him, letting his superior knowledge of the surrounding terrain guide them, struggling with herself in silence.

No. Men are cruel beasts, soldiers are worse, and the worst of those are lordless soldiers. If Guantano had looked back, he would have noticed that Alyssa's teeth were firmly clinched together.
But what about you? Are you any better?
She didn't know.

[Death is yonder]

Guantano remained oblivious of Alyssa's inner struggle, but nonetheless he noticed an almost palatable tension that lingered in the air. Out of respect for whatever inner deliberations might have been going on in Alyssa's mind, the journey southeastwards was conducted in general silence. Curt and brief exchanges were the only evidence of communication between the two following that encounter by the spring. It weighed on Guantano's mind heavily. Perhaps he had brought up bad memories, he silently wondered. Guantano shrugged inwardly, time would tell, he thought. With that, he resumed the trek across the forest, his mind a whirl, reflective of the contemplative atmosphere that had sprung up.

By midday, the main road was in sight, a thick stream of light beaming through the last obstacles that lay between them and the open road. "Well Alyssa, a good omen perhaps. A ray of hope in these dark tumultuous times." Guantano said with a half-smile, leaving it ambiguous what he was referring to.

[TheLastDays]

Four men, two women and a miniature troll were frantically outrunning a mob of guardsmen clumsily chasing them down Leon's Pier. The entire docks had been filling with a surprisingly fast forming fog and even the sun’s light was dimmed. Dodging abandoned crates and spools of rope the group were making for the silhouette of a likely tall ship at the end of the path, what they expected to do when they got there, what with a mob of angry men barely 30 seconds behind them, was unknown but there was no other way off the pier save for the sea so they ran anyway.

They were starting to make out the ship when the fog lifted suddenly and they were blinded by the sun hanging low in the sky before them. They paused stunned as their eyes were still used to the gloom and turned away from the painful glare back towards the town, what they saw was a white wall of fog shining bright from the sun just standing unnaturally, cutting off half of the pier from Leon. The shouts of the perusing guards emanating from inside the fog snapped the group from their daze and sent them running further down the pier to the ship.

The guardsmen had been equally stunned by the end of the fog and time it took for them to regain their bearings had given the group time to reach the ship, an abandoned single mast brig, but they were gathering their wits. The group cut the mooring lines but it proved pointless, the mast was missing its sails. Even if they had pushed off they would find themselves adrift in the port. Seeing no alternative Alain ushered the group onto the brig’s deck and dragged back the gangplank while a small group of soldiers, ahead of the bulk of the guard's forces, gathered around the ship and hel on to the cut mooring lines, using grappling hooks to keep the ship tied to the pier.

With their lives hanging by a thread, Glungurd suddenly climbed the railing, looking back at Alain: "I'll save your sheep, you find mine!", and with that the Odglok summoned all the strength in his short legs and jumped onto the pier, right in the middle of the surprised group of guardsmen, swinging his hammer in a fierce roundhouse blow, sending two of the men onto their backs immediately, the others barely jumping out of reach. "Go!", he yelled back at the captain, who was hesitatig, while Dietrich, with Drax and Rufus adding strength to the shove, already used his halberd to push off and shortly after Rufus loosed a crossbow bolt into the nearest guard’s gut.
Unperturbed the rest of the mob charged to the edge of the pier and a few, avoiding Glungurds deadly blows, even jumped towards the brig but either fell short or were cut down before they could gain their balance. Among those who remained on the pier, Glungurd was wreaking havoc, a group of five guards where already down on the ground, their limbs or skulls crushed by the mighty rock he was swinging but even more were advancing towards the slowly retreating Odglok, who would be back against the end of the pier soon. Alain sighed and sheathed his sword as the guards stood at the edge of the pier unsure of what to do next as the Brig slowly floated away. Before they could relax though, a crossbow bolt whistled past his ear. Some of the guardsmen had brought crossbows and were trading shots with Rufus.
As crossbow bolts shot over and into the deck Alain ran towards the princess, who was taking cover near the aft castle, pulled her to the doors beside the stairs and shoved her into what he assumed was the former captain’s cabin and had closed the doors when a crossbow bolt slammed into his head. With a crash of buckling metal Alain crashed to the floor, his head swimming.

After several minutes Alain pulled himself to the handrail and leant against it as he wrenched his now deformed helm off and tried shaking away a concussion. Looking to the pier he noticed they had drifted further away, the guardsmen had been bolstered and were now trying to catch the ship with grappling hooks along with a flurry of now more inaccurate crossbow bolts though they only were able to get one tug each time before Dietrich cut the lines. They seemed to have stopped drifting away though. He glanced to the others, Rufus was sporting several cuts, Dietrich seemed unharmed as was Drax, who was hiding behind the railing, next to Alaria. The fey was staring slack jawed east and seemed mesmerised at whatever she was looking at. “So pretty...” Glungurd was nowhere to be seen, but the pier was crawling with guardsmen and the captain had to assume that the brave Odglok had fallen to their assault.

Alain shifted himself around, wincing at the stab of pain that shot through his skull like lightning, and gasped. On the horizon were four suns: one White, one Gold and two Violet. The violet suns seemed to be getting closer.

OOC: above courtesy of Greyblades, apart from a few changes/additions, mostly dealing with B_Rays request to leave the game permanently.

[Diamondeye]

"Perhaps... But there are dark clouds looming on the horizon. We have a task to do, and as much as I would like to lay down in the grass and enjoy the sunshine, I think we would regret it later."
Right after the words had left Alyssa's lips, she realized the alternative interpretation that was probably not that long to occur to Guantano. She almost hit herself.
"Let's just keep moving, okay? Being caught after that chase would be a shame."

[Death is yonder]

Hearing Alyssa's hasty withdrawal following what was probably her realization over the double entente, Guantano fought hard to refrain from laughing and making a suggestive rejoinder, out of respect for Alyssa.

While granting her the peace in withdrawing gracefully, Guantano nevertheless cracked a smile and said, "Oh Milady, but the chase is the most exciting part of the journey!"

[Diamondeye]

"Right, but I don't have another horse to sacrifice."
Nudge nudge.

[Death is yonder]

By now, the duo had cleared the forest, and were once again upon the main road, perhaps a few minutes of hard riding south from where they were chased into the forest the previous evening.

Glancing at the city of Leon, now a small blob on the horizon, Guantano was relieved to see the city still standing. They had not razed it to the ground. Silently, Guantano wondered if Gunther, that old joker, had survived the siege.

Sighing as he considered just how much life had changed over a few days, Guantano looked over to Alyssa, who followed after him. "I doubt we're going to be able to find another rich fat merchant," he said almost wistfully. "If we are lucky, we'll reach Vintom by nightfall."

With that, Guantano resumed the march southwards, deep-down he hoped that the army was behind them, not ahead of them. If not, two weary travelers would not be much of a problem for whoever manned the gate then.

[Greyblades]

In a blaze of violet light a great fist passed over the still brig and slammed into the middle of the pier, smashed wood, and stone flew into the air as the panicking guards found themselves cut off from the mainland, stranded on a thin island. A second hand fell into the water with a crash and the brig started shuddering, sending the occupants toppling over the deck as the front of the ship rose from the water bit by bit. Alain grasped the rail to steady himself. The rest didn’t.
Rufus and Dietrich were sent head over heels into the aft castle stairs, Drax slammed into the cabin doors and Alaria fell onto Drax. Their combined weight proved too much for the door and it flew open as the ship became ever more vertical sending the duo tumbling down the cabin, past a confused princess, through the window into the waiting palm of the other giant hand. The hand deposited the tangled two onto the growing pile that was Rufus and Dietrich and flew back to the aft where it took hold of the back of the ship. With the combined effort of two giant hands the ship was levelled out and, with a view that caused Alain’s head to spin more than ever, hoisted into the air and carried towards the horizon.


Aboard The White Scale the entire crew were assembled to watch the spectacle of Cedrick trying to put a flying brig back into the water without killing the occupants.
“Easy... Easy... Easy... Now drop it.” Splash! “I think that went well.”
After afew annoyed mutterings the now soaked crew returned to work as Thomas and Gilford peered over the ships rail at the tangled heap resting on the smaller ship’s deck.
“Oh dear, think they’re dead?”
The pile of bodies started groaning, a dishevelled Udine staggered out of the cabin and Alain dragged himself to his feet just to retch over the side.
“Give it a minute.”

[thefluffyone93]

"Ach, fine; if you really want to look for those tree huggers, we'll head over to the road. Now, get on! They won't bite!"
With Morangul's....reassuring comments (not really) , Frijyk tentatively stepped onto the chariot, making sure he
wouldn't fall through the shadow. To his relief, the chariot was quite solid.
Morangul cackled, a sound that sent shivers down the Borian's spine.
"Now then.....AWAAAAAAAY!!!!"
And with that, the shadow horses snorted, and leaped into the air at an alarming speed, jerking the chariot off the ground.
"Bye the way, hold on!" Morangul said to Frijyk, who almost fell off when they launched.
Frijyk had a sour look on his face when he turned to Morngul, "Thanks for the warning", he deadpanned, which only made Morangul
cackle again.
Its going to be a long ride.....Frijyk thought to himself as the trees whipped by him.

----------------

After a short time of flying, during which Morangul was cackling all the while,
the lich nudged the young warrior, as his cackle slowly died, and his face of glee
was replaced with a more grim one.
"What is it Morangul?"
"We are at the road, but I sense demons nearby.....perhaps our tree hugging friends ran into them...."

Frijyk looked down, and sure enough, they were at the road.
"Morangul, I just thought of something...." he said slowly, "And what would that be?" Morangul asked.
"Well, wouldn't elves normally.....stay in the forest instead of come to a road traveled by humans?

There was silence for a few moments.
"Morangul?"

"Well.....this was your idea, not mine! And, unless my old eyes deceive me, I do believe I see
some people on the road!"

Frijyk squinted, and he saw two specks far down the road.
How does he know what they are? Frijyk wondered, until he remembered he was standing next to a wizard
who was who knows how old.

"Well, before we scare them half to death, we should-"

"AWAAAAAAAAAY!"
And they shot off again, this time speeding towards the unfortunate souls ahead of them.

Frijyk could only sigh.
And hold on for dear life.

[Death is yonder]

It wasn't too long since they had reemerged from the forest and continued on their journey southwards. Thankfully, the sun was behind them and not relentlessly shining into their eyes, but it was small comfort as the heat sizzled their backs. Wiping the sweat off his brow, Guantano paused for a moment, raising a hand to signal Alyssa to stop.

"Wait. Do you hear that?"

As the sound of boots treading across the road ceased, the duo heard a very unusual noise. In the distance, somewhere, something that sounded vaguely like a horse whinnied, and was accompanied by... cackling? Tis not the ordinary laugh of humans. Guantano instantly snapped around when he heard it, a spine-chilling cackle. Had the demons caught up with them? He wondered.

Narrowing his eyes as the sun glared into his eyes, he looked at the road from Leon. To his puzzlement, the road was empty. Learning from the lessons of the previous battle, he raised a hand to shield his eyes and looked up into the sky. Defying all expectations, steeds seemingly made out of the very shadows effortlessly pulled along a chariot with two occupants in the sky, advancing upon the duo with maximum speed. Seated at the fore was a wizened old man clad in rich robes, and just behind him, was another human.

With the speedy advance of the chariot, Guantano had no time for further inspection. "Shadow steeds approach from the South, in the sky! We are going to have to stand our ground, its too fast!" He shouted to Alyssa, his experience as a mercenary leader taking over.

Guantano unsheathed both his weapons, and out of the corner of his eye he could see Alyssa had withdrawn her shortbow, and was drawing a bead on the lead horse. She let loose, and an arrow raced towards the steed, and struck it dead on in the head, only to pass through. The targeted portion of the head split apart into a dark purple mist, and in moments it had gathered back together, forming a solid frame once more, with the two blood red eyes at the fore. Alyssa's eyes narrowed at the ineffectual strike, and angrily snorted, this time aiming at the passengers.

As the chariot landed, the two individuals hopped out of the chariot, and turned to face the duo. As he got a better look at the new arrivals, Guantano's eyes widened when he saw that the younger human's skin was tinged a blue color, though his face looked pale as he stepped out of the chariot, his footing somewhat unsteady. The robed individual however, was clearly unaffected, probably used to the mode of transportation. He was the dangerous one.

"So what do we have here. Two humans walking all by themselves on a road to Vintom. Either the two of you are part of Vayne's forward party or you're more foolish than I actually thought to be in the way of Vayne's army." The old man said, his face contorted into a mix of glee and mirth.

Immediately, Guantano raised his weapon, and said menacingly. "You won't be the first demon to have tried and failed to kill two humans recently, scoundrel."

At this, the blue human stirred somewhat when Guantano called the old man a demon, but the old man seemed to not have noticed.

Glancing at Guantano's side, the old man's gaze turned to Alyssa. "Put your bow down my dear, I'm very tired of those bothersome pesky arrows. And as you can see, it won't do you much good anyway."

Alyssa let fly the arrow anyway, at this range it was impossible to miss, but just before it hit the old man, he raised his hand and the arrow stopped but inches away from his skull. Dropping his hand, the arrow likewise followed, falling harmlessly to the ground.

Sighing, the wizened man clutched his staff and motioned with it. Shadows gathered around the staff before he launched it at Alyssa, who cried out in surprise as her bow was yanked from her grasp and fell to the road with a dull thud.

"I warned you that it wouldn't work, but it would lovely to not have to deal with such distractions." The man said with an almost reprimanding tone as if lecturing a child. "All I wanted was to come and have a nice chat."

The duo glanced at each other, evidently they didn't really have a choice.

Guantano lowered his swords slightly. With a suspicious gaze still affixed upon the old man, in contrast with the latter's calm expression, he said with a weary tone, "So be it."

[Diamondeye]

"Can your frail constitution bear the exhausting tasks of walking and talking at once, warlock? I believe you said something about being ahead of the Demon army and I would prefer it that way."
Alyssa said, the malice in her voice clear. She leaned forward comically slow and demonstratively picked up the bow and re-set it in her belted quiver, before she turned and began walking towards Vintom again, her voice being carried backwards. "What do you want to know, warlock? Pray ask, before I lose my patience."

[Diamondeye]

((Lookit me being a double-post))

[thefluffyone93]

Morangul gave his bone chilling cackle when he head the malice in the woman's tone.
"You've got spunk, lassie! However, it won't do you much good if you are indeed heading to Vintom.
The army and the demons would arrive shortly after you, and I'm sure both of you would make nice meals for
whatever demon is hungry!" With that last sentence, Morangul was staring at the woman the entire time,
waiting for her to flinch. When she did not, Morangul smiled and said, "Of course, that is if they want to eat;
if you haven't noticed yet, the majority of the demons are males....."

At that, the woman did flinch, causing the old lich to cackle once again.
When he finally stopped, Morangul realized he never introduced himself.
"Ah, but where are my manners? My name is Morangul, and my friend here," he pointed to
Frijyk, who was still trying not to fall over,"is Frijyk, a Borian. Now that we are done,
you mind telling us who you are?"

[Diamondeye]

"We've outrun demons before and we'll do so again if we need to. Also, with all these magical powers at your command and hurtling out of the skies, would you have me believe that you're not aware of who we are, warlock? If that is the case, hell even if it isn't, you need to answer my question before I'm answering yours. What. Do. You. Want."

[Chaotix]

Frijyk stepped forward now, having regained steady footing on the ground.

"We want to kill the demons."

The two human warriors looked surprised at his sudden interjection. They, like the demon Irigo, had assumed that Morangul was the one in charge, but Frijyk was determined to put an end to those assumptions. He had much to learn from the old wizard... but his motives were his own.

"We were looking for a pair of elves we had met before. At a distance, it looked like you were they."

[Diamondeye]

"Well, I'm sad to disappoint you but my ears are perfectly round and smooth. Was that everything?"
Even Guantano was starting to wonder how Alyssa managed to make her voice sound that much like a whip.

[Death is yonder]

By now Guantano felt that perhaps the other two weren't involved with the demons, the boy seemed honest enough, though it was odd that an honest person would be travelling with that character. Interesting... he thought, his mind racing through the information he had just heard. The old man had referred to the person in charge of the renegade army or demons or whatever as Vayne, the whole thing smacked of familiarity, but not allegiance. And what sort of dark party existed in the land that wasn't subjected to demons? Only two, if he remembered his time of discussion with Gunther correctly. Yet for the thing to have adopted a human appearance, and even seem neutral and calm...

Coming to a conclusion, Guantano smiled inwardly at his logical deductions. Glancing at the boy again, a thought came to his mind, the boy must be unaware. If he was right of course.

Returning to reality, out of his thoughts, Guantano was just in time to hear Alyssa's latest stinging remark. Even as she walked off, Guantano looked at the other two people standing there in her wake. Shrugging once, but not sheathing his sword, he took one last good look at the robed man, before he gestured towards Vintom, his feet following his hand shortly thereafter, his sword still at the ready, caution accompanying his new found suspicion.

[Chaotix]

Frijyk was kind of annoyed about being shrugged off and ignored. From common townspeople, he expected it. But these two were clearly warriors like himself; he had thought he might be able to relate. They were clearly concerned about escaping the demons, yet they chose to walk rather than inquire about the flying chariot (unpleasant though it may have been to ride). He spoke, clearly an uttered thought, but deliberately said loudly enough for all to hear.

"Hmph. Typical of a Lassaran to walk away in the middle of a conversation."

[Diamondeye]

Alyssa waved in the general direction of the chariot. "You come hurtling from the skies right into our little picnic with that thing and you talk to us of manners?"
She didn't appear to be loosening up, but Guantano caught her eyes in the middle of her next outburst, causing it to stumble slightly towards the end.
"Besides, I thought the conversation was oh- over."
Guantano made a series of gestures that were hard to discern, but she caught the gist of it and then remembered that the warlock had indeed given them his name.
"Oh, and foreigner? Do you realize who you are travelling with? Provided I am thinking of the right Morangul - that was the name, right?" She stopped for a moment and shot the warlock a gaze.

[thefluffyone93]

At that comment, Morangul's jovial attitude was extinguished.
"Not only is she a warrior, but a history buff as well? My, have you found quite the catch young man!"
Morangul replied, his voice dripping with the venom that being trapped
for centuries and being reminded of your biggest failure could bring.
"However, my quarrel is with the demons, which is why we are heading to Yonal, not Vintom.
Frijyk and I are in search of the Shard Weapons. A particular weapon actually, one that I have-unique-knowledge of,"
he finished with a chuckle,"We are heading to Yonal for information on the old Paladin stronghold. Now, I doubt either of you two are
simply fleeing from the army; you seem to determined for that. I can only guess you are on a quest of great importance. And what is more important
now that defeating the demon horde?"

[Diamondeye]

"Survival is always my top priority. And in the case of this Demon Horde, survival definitely seems easier with a Neril Shard, of that you're correct."
Alyssa turned and looked Morangul up and down. "But I dislike the sound of this... A Paladin Stronghold? A likely place to hide a powerful weapon, sure, but also a prime target if you are who I think you are... How can we know that your motives are not simply sinister and selfish? History would support that analysis."

[TheLastDays]

Slowly an eyelid opened, only to close again quickly. The captain tried to sit up on his bed, failing to do so at first, his head falling back onto the pillow as he heard a loud groan that got him to open his eyes again, this time quicker, only to realise that it was himself groaning in pain. He looked around, his eyses slowly adjusting to the light that was flooding the room from a small window, trying to figure out where he was. He remembered the pier, running away from the guards in Leon. There had been a fight, a ship without a mast and... Glungurd. A knot was forming in the captains throat but he cleared his thoughts. The present was what mattered. Where was he?
The room was spinning, no, just shaking. A ship! Or was it just his head, still being affected by the concussion he had taken from hitting the deck. The young man concentrated, looked around, examined his surroundings. The smell of salt, the cries of seagulls, the soft rocking of the bed beneath him... It was definitely a ship. More memories returned. Two gigantic hands, their boat being lifted out of the water, the arrival of another ship, probably the one they were currently aboard. They? He didn't even know if his companions were around. The next thought hit him like a bolt of lightning. He didn't know where the princess was. The captain sat up quickly, too quick maybe, his head starting spinning and he felt a sharp pain piercing through his skull. Reaching up he felt his head bandaged. At least they had cared for his wounds, whoever had gotten them out of the harbour.

Slowly the captain now sat up, lifting his legs out of the bed and adjusting to the shaking of the planks before getting up. He looked around and saw his armor and weapons at a nearby table. Good. They hadn't been captured, otherwise their captors would have taken those. Shakily he now approached the small cabin's door, stepped out into a small hallway and, after adjusting his orientation, quickly found the door that lead him out onto the main deck. Stepping outside he took a deep breath of the morning air, and quickly regained his secure standing, looking around and was surprised to see Thomas standing amidst a few sailors, giving out orders apparently. The captain approached the young noble and greeted him politely.

"So it's you we have to thank for the rescue, I guess, so thank you. Has everyone survived? Where is the princess?"

[Chaotix]

"I was told the Paladins no longer exist. Is this not true? The only things stopping us will be whatever traps may be guarding the sword."

Frijyk stopped and thought more closely about the woman's words. Sinister? History? Frijyk knew the wizard was old. Did this woman have some knowledge of Morangul's past that he wasn't privy to? But they had never met, and this woman was not much older than himself. He resolved to ask her about this... but later, and in private. Morangul was always free to spout information, but Frijyk had noticed a tendency of his to spin things always in his favor.

"I'm not sure what you imply about my companion, but the only way it strikes me to use a castle for sinister purposes is if there is an army to fill it with. And it's not as if the old wizard could do much with a sword; one of us would be far more suited to wielding it."

[Diamondeye]

Alyssa tilted her head and looked at Frijyk questioningly. His naïvity was stunning to her; Morangul had performed several magickal tricks even just since they had met him. Surely, the outlander knew that not everyone could do that? She shook her head and gave up explaining, for now.
"I see. Well, I am willing to accept a lift in case you are really telling the truth about the Shard, if nothing else to make sure everything pans out. If you're not interested, please don't keep us here any longer."

[Greyblades]

Thomas looked at the bedraggled Alain with a frown, "Take care not to call her that again, Captain, you never know who's listening. She's in the same corridor as you, third door on the left, next to yours. The mercenaries are below deck and I havent seen much of the fey"
Alain turned to head back inside.
"You should know she is forbidden from coming above decks, we arent exactly inconspicous as it is, the last thing we need is some passing demon catching sight of her."

[thefluffyone93]

"Oh Please, the past is the past. Besides, I've had plenty of time
to reflect. But you know that already, don't you? Anyways, I am indeed
interested with your offer for help. Strength in numbers correct? So what do you
say? Will you and your boyfriend accompany us to Yonal?"

Morangul finished his question with a mischievous grin on his face,
as if already expecting the reaction from the fiery woman.

[Diamondeye]

Alyssa cast a glance at Guantano - he, too, seemered wary of the old man. But the lift he offered was important, even if his promise of finding a Shard turned out to be false.
"Sure, we're going. But don't expect me to deal with any Paladins or haunting spirits that might see fit to challenge you."
Guantano followed her to the chariot with a slightly dumbfounded look. He and Morangul seemed to still expect Alyssa to explode over the "boyfriend" part of the comment but it seemed like she had either ignored it or stomached the emberassment of tagging along with the ragged mercenary.

[TheLastDays]

Alain smirked and turned around once more: "You try to keep her from going somewhere." Another thought crossed his mind before heading back inside. "What's our current course? I'm sure she'll want to know."

[Death is yonder]

As they walked towards the chariot, Guantano had a closer inspection of the shadow steeds. Their wispy fine skin looked corporeal, but as they had seen earlier, it gave way easily it seemed, to normal weaponry, reforming rapidly after attacks. For a moment he considered seeing whether such protection was limited to ranged projectiles only, but he thought the better of it. Trust was a rare commodity in all circumstances, and with the new arrivals, even more so. Finally sheathing his weapons, he gingerly tested his weight with one foot into the chariot, before sitting down and adjusting himself until he was comfortable.

"So, Morangul right? Does this chariot have any fasteners or straps? I was wondering how one travels at such great speeds without getting thrown off."

[Greyblades]

"Tar cantun, the fortress must be gone by now and I have buisness there." With that Thomas walked off.

[thefluffyone93]

While not getting the reaction he wanted, Morangul simply shrugged it
off to answer Guantano's question.
"Ah, well, actually, now that I have a few more passengers..."
And with that, Morangul rattled off a few more arcane phrases,
causing the chariot to warp and shift, with Guantano still in it mind you,
until if formed an open carriage, with room for four people to comfortably
sit. A very surprised Guantano already found himself sitting in the carriage, already strapped in.

[Death is yonder]

An eyebrow cocked upwards as Guantano found himself the victim of a very bemused Morangul. Muttering softly, but loud enough for the others to hear, he said in a voice dripping with sarcasm, "Now all I need is a pair of glossy glass slippers and we can all go to the king's ball."

Gesturing to the shadow steeds, Guantano continued, "Well what are you waiting for Morangul? We're going to need a pair of flowery pink ponies rather than these if we're going to want to be admitted you know. The ball only accepts quality visitors."

[TheLastDays]

"I am here now. Wake up!", the sound of this voice, like the sweet song of birds or the clear ringing tone of glass, it woke her up immediately, the princess' eyes opening to a variety of different colours, all bright, building up to a crescendo of light, blinding her, almost painfully, yet she could not look away. "Do not be afraid", there was the voice again, "my light shines bright in the present darkness but not to blind you, my child." And with that the light began to fade, yet not darkening at all, it was more as if the light was taking up form, giving itself a clear shape, making itself visible to mortal eyes.

"Are you...?", the princess mouth formed the words, but the sound of her voice could not escape her throat this time.

A warm smile formed on the now visible face of a young woman, dressed fully in white robes. She seemed to be the center of the light and yet the light seemed to illuminate herself as much as everything was illuminated by her presence. "I am", Lassa nodded and only now the princess realised that she was not actually awake in bed, in a room, but surrounded by light on all sides and she started questioning the fact that she wasn't still dreaming.

https://img408.imageshack.us/img408/6636/lassa.jpg

"You're not. This is as real as the world out there, the world that is losing so much as we speak."

"Then you know of it", finally Amalia found her speech again.

Again, this warm smile and the hint of amusement in those golden eyes: "Of couse I know of it. My eyes are ever watchful on the realm of Cantus, my old friend and his descendants. I have long feared this day would come and long have I begged my love to prepare for it, pleaded for his intervention..."

Amalia bit her lips, realising what her goddess was saying: "But why would Astaron deny us his help? Why would he let this happen?"

"I know it is hard to understand, my child, but there are rules and issues among gods that cannot easily be explained to mortals. We are bound to our own fate and in this case, one of you has invited this darkness upon your lands."

"But it was not the people of Lassara, they would never accept Boreale."

Lassa sighed and her face took on a sad expression, while she replied: "I'm afraid some will readily accept everything they see benefit for themselves in. Some have already fallen, before ever fighting and over time most will start to accept. Change happens, dynasties fall and new ones rise and we cannot intervene in everything." A smile returned to her face now: "But all hope is not lost as long as you are here. There is a descendant of the true king and you will always gain the support of your people if you can defeat your enemies."

"The chancellor?"

"No", Lassa shook her head, "he is but a pawn in the schemes of greater powers. The old enemy of Lassara has awoken."

"Then it is, as I have feared", the princess nodded, "the legions of the Void?"

Now the goddess nodded: "And Vayne, their master. You must fight them, or they will overthrow your people and ruin this kingdom forever."

"Will you help us?", the princess pleaded.

"I cannot", Lassa shook her head, sadly, "I have disobeyed my husband once and I will not battle their forces with my power this time but he has allowed me to guide you, to show you the path or at least point you towards your goal. You must use what I have given you long ago. Reassemble the shards of Neril, the old sword of Cantus. When you wield the power of the blade, broken in seven pieces and unleashed by seven bearers, opposing the darkness as one... you might yet avail the curse that is to be brought down upon this land." Again a worried look mixed with the gentle features of the godess' fair face: "Yet you must not underestimate your foes. Vayne's powers will not easily be broken. There are things about the void that you do not yet understand and I cannot talk freely about them. I will be your guide and you will have to fight and discover for yourself."

"Where must I go now?"

"Go to Tar Cantun, my beloved city, or what Vayne has left of it. You have to look deep under the earth, where once my golden temple stood, fear not, you will find help there and if you look closely, you will be one step closer to solving this riddle, when you emerge back to daylight. Fear not, my child, now rest and let your body be strenghtened again. Courage will find you, when you need it."

The light faded, while Amalia wondered about those last things her goddess had told her about. What had Vayne done to Tar Cantun and what was she to find under the Temple of Lassa? Those thoughs were still on her mind when she woke up, slowly opening her eyes, taking in her surroundings. "Where am I?"

"On a ship, your Majesty."

She looked to her side and saw Alain, her faithful captain, sitting on a stool beside her bed, his sword at his side and his eyes awake and watchful. "Fear not, we are safe. This is Thomas Targryn's ship. He has rescued us out of the harbour in Leon."

Fear not. Lassa's words. The princess nodded and smiled. "Thank you captain. You may leave now".

Alain was confused for a moment, then realised that the princess wanted to get up and dressed. "Of course, firgive me, your Majesty." He quickly got up from his stool and opened the door. Before he was out, however, he heard the princess call out to him once more: "Also, make sure we are going to Tar Cantun!"

The captain nodded and closed the door, sighing in relief. At least that would be easily accomplished.

[Seon]

Alaria growled as she left the bunk in her room. It was uncomfortable and crowded in there; she will have to find somewhere else to sleep soon.

First thing she noticed, though, was that she was surrounded by wood. Dead wood.

Second thing she noticed was the foreign presence that had arrived into the ship before leaving. She had felt it, albeit faintly. She did not like that presence, it felt...

strange and foreign, yah.

"Hey!" Alaria looked around to see the strange woman from before looking at her. Amalia was her name. "Are you alright?"

Alaria blinked. The presence felt the strongest around this one, although it seemed to be disappearing quickly. "You are not a normal human, are you?" Alaria said.

"What?"

Alaria vanished from sight.

[thefluffyone93]

"HAHAHAHAAAA!!!
Keep up that attitude, boy, and I just might give you what you want!
As well as a body to fit it! HA!"

Morangul was apparently unable to fazed by any snide comment; he was having too much fun.
Being trapped for a few centuries can warp one's sense of humor (as if a lich's sense of humor wasn't warped enough already!)
The lich, still chuckling to himself, turned to Frijyk and Alyssa as he hopped onto the front of the carriage
and grabbed the reigns, "Well, what are you two waiting for? Unless you two want a change of clothes!"

[Chaotix]

Frijyk had been around Morangul long enough to know that he was about as likely to be serious as he was to be joking. Not one to take any chances there, he hastily hopped up into the carriage and chose a seat in the back. Recalling the last trip and how he had not enjoyed holding on for dear life every time the magic vehicle took an unexpected lurch or dip, Frijyk also decided to fasten every single belt and restraint that pertained to his seat. He was not to be taking any chances there, either.

He was about to address the rude female warrior to hurry her along, when he made a stunning realization.

"Hey- err... I don't believe we know your names yet. What should we call you?"

[Diamondeye]

Alyssa swung herself into the carriage, next to Frijyk. "My name's Alyssa." She turned to Morangul. "Let's get moving."

[thefluffyone93]

"Alright then! Off to Yonal!
Just tell me if any of you have to get off for a little while,
or else we won't stop until we have to make camp, understood?"
Frijyk wearily nodded, not entirely excited on flying again, while
Guantano only mumbled something under his breath.
Morangul could only assume that it was an insult of some kind,
and it only made him smile.
"Now now, don't be so down," Morangul started with a mischievous grin.
A grin Frijyk immediately noticed, which caused him to recheck his straps.
"Because we're about to be going up!
And with that, he snapped the reigns, sending the carriage off like a rocket,
with all passengers holding on for dear life.

And, if one had very good hearing, one could hear beneath Morangul's cackles
a very loud, drawn out sigh.

Frijyk was not amused.

[TheLastDays]

The princess raised an eyebrow, staring at the point in the air, where moments ago the fay had been standing, sighing softly: "You can come out again. You don't have to hide here, nobody wants to harm you and I'm just a normal human, no need to be afraid."

[Seon]

"It spins" Alaria suddenly said.

"What?"

"The entire world," Alaria explained. Her form flickered for an instant as she emptied herself on the floor of the ship. "I am going to go talk to the birds."

The slightly deranged look on the girl's face showed that she was in no mood to have an intelligible conversation. She turned into the shale of a fairy and weakly fluttered away.

[TheLastDays]

The princess took a moment to think about the strange girl but then quickly followed her outside, onto deck, not really caring about the warnings about staying inside. She found Alaria again and tried to get the fairy to stop. "Can I help you? Is everything alright?"


***

Meanwhile Alain had found the young noble again, in the captain's quarters, idly looking out of the back of the ship. "May I enter?"

"If you must", Thomas replied, without turning around to look at Alain and the captain stepped into the quarters, looking over the lordling's properties laying about the room.

"So, what happened? I know this must be hard for you, but we need to know anything about our enemy you may have learned."

[Death is yonder]

Guantano wasn't a coward. He was a mercenary who worked for gold, but he still always prided himself on not pissing himself in the pants when it came down to the charge. Yet now, he was positively frightened, the chariot was soaring along the sky at unnatural speed, and his knuckles had bled white from gripping the handle bars too tightly for his own good. Tearing his eyes away from an impending squishy death, he chanced a glance at Alyssa, and saw that she shared this predicament. The blue-skinned fellow, Frijyk, looked pale, but seemed like he was coping better than they were.

At the front, Morangul shared none of their unease and discomfort. He cackled wildly as the whole chariot twisted and turned continually, and occasionally he would deliberately perform an aerobatic maneuver just to amuse himself, much to the chagrin of the other passengers, perhaps even delighting in their groaning and moaning.

"What a splendid afternoon ride wouldn't you agree? Its so sad that we're about to land soon. You don't get to see such quality time often," Morangul said with a delectably evil grin etched on his features.

Gritting his teeth, Guantano managed to force out an angry retort. "N-No, the pleasure was a-a-all ours."

When they finally landed, not too far from the city, Guantano stumbled out of the carriage. "Finally," he declared, "back on solid ground, where things make sense." Clutching his stomach with one hand, he wondered absentmindedly whether this was how Frijyk seemed blue when they first met.

[Greyblades]

"...Wait here."
Thomas took one last look out the window, before walking out of the room, leaving a puzzled Alain standing alone in the cabin. After about a minute, Thomas re-entered, carrying a black longsword in one hand, and a brown leather bag in the other. He dumped the bag on the captain's desk* and placed the sword propped up on the desk chair.

A rancid smell had come with him, and when he guestured for alain to open the bag the guard hesitated for a moment before taking the bag and upending the contents onto the table. He stared at it.

And it stared right back.

https://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff24/gith75/Fantasy-67.jpg


*who was conspicuously absent due to drowning his sorrows in a Birun Pub. His reluctance to leave the port had not impressed the heir.

[TheLastDays]

The sight in front of him in combination with the putrid stench that quickly filled the cabin's air did affect the young guard captain and he swallowed hard a few times, controlling his urge to empty his stomach right there, before he steadid himself and folded the cloth of the bag right over the demon's severed head, covering it up.

"Well, unless you have developed a sense of humor, I suppose this guy somehow stood out among the hordes of demon's we've witnessed so far. Care to tell me his story?"

[Greyblades]

Thomas moved to open the cabins windows.
"How should I know his story? He showed up and flitted around untill we killed him hissing about the princess, the only thing I can tell you is he could teleport, fly and apparantly wasn't considered much of a threat by the rest of the horde. He was stuck with a curse that dissolved whoever killed him." Thomas glared at the mound of cloth and his hand started to itch. "He could heal his wounds without magic and grow back hands, I'm not taking any chances, we burned the body and we'll do the same to the head's at the next temple we find."

The groan of straining lether caused Thomas noticed that his right hand had clenched to the point where his fingers were in danger of puncturing the palm of his glove. He released his grip and turned to the windows. The sun was setting and the clouds were red as if on fire. It was becoming annoying how the world seemed to conspire to remind him of that memory.

"Anything else you wish to ask?"

[Seon]

"The thing!" Alaria snarled. "The horrible clawed thing! Wrecking my mind!"

Alaria twirled around in the air as she flitted uncertainly about. "I can still see it in my eyes. WHAT WAS THAT?! I should have sensed the land where he belonged to, but I couldn't."

Alaria giggled nervously. "Mr. Bones said that he was dead. Just bones walking, as if by magic. I saw him die. I looked into his memories. A man in white armed with an abhorrent shining blade killed him. Or did he die, I saw him walking. He TALKED to me, gave me this brooch. Morangul, yes, that was his name."

Alaria steadied herself on the railing. "They went west... to stop the...stop the... demons... I saw the clawed man on the giant monster in that night." She looked down into the water and frowned.

"This... dead wood from the Forest of Leon... it is headed towards the island. The demons are approaching said island. They come in thousands. The water is abuzz with the talks of them."

Alaria lunged at the princess, launching herself into the princess's face in her fairy form. "WHY ARE WE GOING THAT WAY?!"

[TheLastDays]

Alain had noticed the way Thomas was viewing his own hand, as if he was watching over a wild animal that was about to break out of it's cage. He wasn't sure it was wise to address that just yet, though and so he took a few steps towards the window, looking back west, away from the island they were headed to right now.

"Well, that was probably the wise thing to do, collecting it's head", he actually meant it but he wasn't sure if Thomas would take the comment as a sarcastic attack. "Anyway, we are headed towards Cantun. What happened there? Did the flying fortress actually go to Tar Cantun and where was it headed when it left? I need to know how big the risk of taking our passenger there is."


***

Amalia was listening, trying to make sense of what the little fairy in front of her was talking about. She had no idea what the part about this 'Morangul' was supposed to mean, apart from the fact that obviously others were fighting the demons as well. She was able to link the image of a clawed man to the demonic attacker they encountered in Lein, but before being able to think about Alaria's last comments, she was completely taken by surprise as her face was attacked, stumbling backwards a few steps until she felt the reling behind herself, in danger of tumbling over and into the ocean. Fortunately the fey's physical strength wasn't all too much and the princess only needed to overcome the shock and quickly take the fairy form's hands, pulling Alaria away from her face. She knelt down and held the fey down onto the ship's deck, careful, not to hurt her but firmly enough so Alaria couldn't just slip our of her grip.

"Now don't go invisible on me again, please. No one wants to hurt you here, little one. I'm letting go now."

And that she did, letting the fey free, the princess sat back on the deck and stared at the strange girl. "Easy now. I want to help you but I need to understand what you are talking about. Don't panic, you're safe here."

[Seon]

"No!" Alaria gasped. "You listen, but you do not comprehend. I lived for centuries, and I saw and heard much. Yet the beings of worlds other from this one, I do not know of."

She sighed. "What do you need to know?"

[TheLastDays]

Now for a moment Amalia paused, processing that last bit of information. She had gotten the fact that this was not a normal little girl long ago but that she had lived for a few human lifespans was new.

"So, you're saying you are older than anyone in our kingdom, who is still alive? How old exactly are you?" She sighed and eyes the fey closely. "And what did you mean, about the clawed man. Do you feel him in your mind? Is he coming after us?"

[Seon]

Alaria raised an eyebrow. "No, you silly. He ran away from us in that city, remember?"

"Oh...was it seven hundred or eight hundred.... I lost track... You don't always see the days go by when you are within a deep forest." Alaria giggled. "Older than anyone? Hah! And my mother told me I was too young."

[TheLastDays]

While the princess didn't really share the fey's view of the demon running away from them, back in Leon, she marvelled at the thought of this innocent looking being that could be older or at least as old as the kingdom of Lassara. She had never heard of beings that would grow so old and not age, except for gods maybe, but gods weren't ever born, or were they? This converstation was starting to confuse Amalia and she shook off her thoughts, concentrating on the here and now.

"Well, it depends on what you define as too young I'd say", she shrugged and smiled, "but you are way older than I will ever get."

So much for little child, the princess thought, before turning more serious again: "So, why is the clawed man still bothering you? Do you still see him in your mind?"

[Greyblades]

"How big a risk? What makes you think there are any safe places?" He sighed "There's afew dozen vaults and about a hundred tombs to hide in where we're going, and considering my family, I think you'll be able to find at least one that is inpregnable for your tastes. We have a scrying bowl on the ship and even with its lack of distance a flying castle is hard to miss, there's nothing over Tar cantun."
Thomas walked to the door, but paused.
"Its fortunate, our backup plan is currently sleeping off a potion overdose below decks. The princess has cleric training correct? If she doesn't have any objections could you ask her to see to Cedrick before we arrive. I doubt they would have left the city completely abandoned so we'll everyone in top form when we arrive."

[thefluffyone93]

After the camp was set up, with little to no help from Morangul,
the lich turned to his human companions.
"All right, I'll be meditating over here; and don't worry about sentry duty, I've got that covered."
And with that, Morangul walked over to the base of an old tree, sat down cross-legged, closed his eyes,
and did nothing else.
Alyssa and Guantano watched the lich curiously, but Frijyk just rolled his eyes.
"Come on, lets dinner started; Morangul won't be doing anything."

However, Morangul was quite active. In fact he was searching for the energy
his brooch gave off. Eventually, he found it, still up north, closer to Cantun than Leon,
if he remembered the locations correctly. He could only wonder why the fey was heading in
the same direction that the demons headed in.
He focused on the energy emitted by the brooch, for yet another one of the
many enchantments he placed on it was one of communication; he and whoever wears the brooch
could communicate with each other via their minds.

So, Morangul attempted to open up a telepathic connection with the fey.
And was quickly barraged by a jumble of images and emotions, the chief among them being
an image of demonic being and fear. However, it quickly ended, replaced with a stunned silence
as the fey realized there was another being in her mind.

Remember me, Little Devil?

[Seon]

Alaria was about to respond when she suddenly paused and tilted her head as if to pour offf some annoying bugs. Then her smile brightened.

"Mr. Bones!" she said out aloud. "How can I help you? The demons gouged my mind out, cracked it and gnawed at it like a squirrel, but I am sure that I have some time left for you!"

She turned to the princess, who raised her eyebrows in an alarmed fashion. "Shhh," Alaria said, giggling. "I am talking with Mr. Bones."

[thefluffyone93]

I can clearly see that, Little Devil, but you should recover soon enough.
I've seen worse, trust me. Morangul responded to the young (relatively speaking) fey.
Hey! I said my name was Alaria! And I'm not a demon! She responded, and then added, I wasn't talking to you,
silly, I was talking to Mr. Bones!
Morangul was confused for a second, until he realized that the fey is probably speaking out loud, with someone next to her.
Ok, Alaria, I have a few questions for you. First, why are you going to where the demons most like are? And second, who are you with
that can find a boat to go to Cantun?

[Seon]

"Well I'm..." Alaria paused. "Excuse me," she said, eyeing the princess. "But your name is Amalia, correct? I think I overheard some of the guards talking about it, but I don't really recall..."

"In fact," Alaria mumbled. "I don't really remember how old I am either. How many days is in a year? 365? 40? Ooh, what is that down there! Cool! A shark! Can we eat it? I don't think I've eaten in days..." Alaria gave a nervous chuckle. She swore that she heard somebody groan inside her head.

"Oh, sorry Mr. Bones!" Alaria said. "But he better not see me in the forest because I'll kill'em. With his own skin. In his sleep. No, Alaria, you are going down the slippery slope again. Bad Alaria, bad."

Could you focus for 5 seconds?

"Oh, sorry, sorry," Alaria giggled. She waved her hand across her hair, where the brooch was. A green mist began to gather next to her before taking the shape of a tall and very thin and skeletal looking Mage. "Now you can talk to each other!" She said to both Morangul and the princess.

[Diamondeye]

Alyssa turned to the blue-skinned stranger and stared daggers at him, snapping, "can we trust him?" so low that Morangul was out of earshot by far.

[thefluffyone93]

Morangul was caught off guard and was about to cast a counter-spell when he
realized the kind of spell being cast upon him. Soon enough, he saw in his
minds eye that he was standing upon the deck of a ship, next to Alaria in her fairy form,
and in front of a very shocked young woman.

A very holy, very shocked young woman, as Morangul could
easily sense the holy aura the woman emitted. He could only shake his head
at the absurdity of it all; first, a fey with the mind of a child casts an illusion spell most
masters would struggle with, and now he is standing in front of someone who could quite possibly
detect his true nature!

The old lich sighed, made a grand, sweeping bow, and said
"Greetings, I am Morangul, and I'm sure you already know her name," he said,
pointing to the giggling fey.

He sighed again and turned to the still giggling fey.
"Oh, Little Devil, what have you gotten yourself into?"

[TheLastDays]

"Oh, you can ask her yourself. I'm sure she'll want to talk to you before we reach the island", the captain walked towards the door as well, "Now, I'm not sure what the princess wants there, but what are you looking for?"


***

At first the princess was a bit shocked by the appearance of a man out of thin air and, somehow expecting another demon attack, took a step back, backing into the reling again. She quickly realised this was Alaria's doing though, judging by the giggle on the fairy's face and she examined this new 'arrival' more closely, sensing it's dark aura, a presence that made her inner being cringe.

"What are you?", she pondered the name, Morangul, that had now been given to her twice and combined with what she sensed about this character she remembered her teaching and the revelation of who she was talking to hit her like a bolt of lightning. "This is impossible", she whispered, her eyes wide open, as if she was seeing a ghost, "you were slain."

She looked over at Alaria: "You should not have brought him here, for all we know this... this abomination could be behind the evil that has befallen Lassara!"

[thefluffyone93]

"Ha! Even I am not stupid enough to unleash Vayne upon this world!
I wanted to conquer Lassara, not bring it crumbling down! And it is not so
easy to slay a lich, as you well know, woman! Even if that Paladin was using
one of the Shard weapons...."

Morangul grimaced, then flashed a big grin at the woman.

"But you already know who I am, pray tell, who are you?"

[Seon]

Alaria listened to the princess and the lich, pondered on their discussion for some time and came up with absolutely nothing in particular.

"What does slay mean?"

"Shut up, little devil."

"Hey!"

"Alaria, he's a..."

"I like Mr. Bones though," Alaria muttered, sensing the princess's thoughts. "He reminds me of my great great great grandfather after he went on a mouth-stitching diet for a year. Lost 500 kgs of weight. He was always so cranky and mean and fat before that. He was mean and cranky and lean after it. Did I tell you about the time when some hunters came to decapitate him?"

[thefluffyone93]

Morangul and the cleric (since she certainly didn't look like a Paladin) stared
at the fey, who had the most innocent looking face. After a few awkward moments,
Morangul facepalmed and cackled, a sound that shocked the cleric out of her stupor.

And alerted the rest of the ship to his presence.

[TheLastDays]

A few members of the crew made their way towards the scene, wondering who this man was and why he was upsetting their female passenger so much. Amalia calmly raised her hands to show them the situation was under control and they didn't need to step in. "I am Liana, a cleric from the Order of Dawn", it wasn't a lie, except for the name, "and I have sworn to battle... things like you."

She calmed down a bit though, realising the Lich was not about to unleash a horde of undead creatures onto the ship's deck. "So, why have you returned, if not to bring ruin into our lands once again?"

[Greyblades]

"Hopefully we will find out when we get there. We have generations of-"
Thomas stopped midsentence as he pulled the door open to the deck and stared in shock. Slowly, he closed the door, turned, and rushed wordlessly past the confused captain to the window. He pushed the windows open wide and, ignoring the questioning of the captain, lowered himself from the captain's cabin window to the guest cabins, leaving Alain in the cabin wondering what the hell was going on and why the Lordling's chest seemed to have a glowing thing on it. Trying to ignore the foaming water beneath him Thomas reached his leg over to the nearest cabin window, which he kicked. After a few kicks the window opened and Gilford leaned out wearing a bed robe, bewilderment on his face.
"What in the hells are you doing?" He asked
"Trying a new diving technique!" Thomas hissed "Shut up and let me in, quick!"
With some cursing and several bruises Thomas lowered himself into Gilford's cabin and rushed to the armour chest at the foot of Gilford's bed.
Gilford looked him over "Do I even want to know?"
"No" Thomas grunted as he pulled a steel breast plate from the chest and laid it out on the bed. "Big skeleton thing on deck."
Gilford groaned. "Well that’s just perfect." He walked over to the chest of drawers and pulled out a padded shirt "How many have we lost this time?"
"None so far"
"Really?"
"Yeah, it's talking to the imp thing and the princess"
Gilford had put on the set of padded wool and held out his arms and slipped on the chain hauberk Thomas had held up for him. "Talk-talk or enchanting-talk?"
"How would I know?" Thomas replied pulling out more armour from the chest and laying it on the bed. "For all I know he could- wait why is that bird in here?"
He was referring to the seagull sitting on the pillow of Gilford's bed; it cawed at him and prodded with its beak at a gauntlet Thomas had placed next to him. If he could tell the difference between birds, Thomas would have sworn it was the same one from earlier.
"I don’t know." Gilford replied his voice muffled by the mail coif he was pulling over his padded hood "'just showed up this morning and has been following me around all day. It hasn't crapped on anything yet so I've been ignoring it."
"Yeah well, It better not start" Thomas said as he held up the breastplate "now hold still"

[thefluffyone93]

Morangul stood there pondering.
The woman was a cleric, no doubt, but he
was thinking back to Alaria's ramblings
before he was projected.

"Wait a second! Alaria said your name was Amalia!"
Morangul gave a large frown.

"It's not nice to lie to potential allies, for I to am
looking for a way to defeat Vayne and the demon armies."

The cleric scoffed at his comment; "And why should I believe you, of all people?
Why should I believe that you have not joined them?"

Morangul simply rolled his eyes;
"Put simply, I actually want to enjoy my new-found freedom in an actual world,
not a smoking ruin. Now, I suggest you tell me who you really are."

[TheLastDays]

Alain, after regaining his balance, carefully opened the door as to not alert whatever Thomas had seen to his presence. He gained a look at the skeletal Morangul across from his princess' face and quickly slid out of the door, without making any sound.

Whoever this was, his presence made the hairs on the captain's neck stand up and he wished he had brought his sword from his cabin. Slowly approaching, he heard fragments of the ongoing conversation.

"...Now, I suggest you tell me who you really are."

The captain's eyes widened. Surely she wouldn't...

"I am Amalia Undine, rightful queen of Lassara and I hope you are sincere in your proposals of allying yourself to me, or I will hunt you down with all the might that is at my disposal", the straightened posture, her proudly lifted chin and the spark in the princess' eyes made clear that she was momentarily unaware or intentionally oblivious of the fact that all the power at her disposal might well be limited to who was on this ship. And even that wasn't as clear as the captain had wished.

The reaction of the crew was as it was to be expected. Open mouths and wide eyes, but also some laughter went through the crowd that surrounded Morangul and Amalia and the princess quickly realised that what she had just done might not have been the wisest course of action.

[Chaotix]

Frijyk took a glance at the old wizard, who looked unusually concentrated while sitting in his meditative position. Usually, his face was more relaxed, and more... well, meditative. He couldn't tell what, but Frijyk guessed Morangul was doing something. Probably magic-related. He turned back to Alyssa, who was glaring at him expectantly.

"I've been traveling with him for a while, and he seems mostly benevolent. I'm not one to believe in trusting anyone besides oneself with his own life... but I at least trust him not to suddenly betray me. He helped when we were fighting one of those demons. He knows some very powerful magic, and has some strange ideas about the subject... but he is teaching me to use it myself. And anyway, he's just an old wizard. If he does try anything, there are three of us, and only one of him. And we have swords."

Frijyk hoped his answer was satisfactory. Both Alyssa and Guantano were giving him something of a strange look.

"What about you two? What do you plan to do if we find these weapons?"

[Diamondeye]

"We'll see about that once we're there. The most important thing right now is to get our hands on something that can actually defeat the demons. As benevolent as he looks, Morangul is not helping us for the blue in our eyes."

[thefluffyone93]

The revelation of who he was talking to put Morangul off
guard for a few seconds, but he quickly composed himself.
"Ah, well now...." He started off, "Now I see why you were
hiding yourself. I could imagine what Vayne would do to you if
he captured you."

He chuckled at the red flush that came to
the princesses cheeks. "Oh, but you have a filthy mind, you do!
Here I am talking about torture and a gruesome death, and here
you are thinking about that. Kids these days, so uncouth...."
He ended with a mutter, chuckling inwardly as he watched the
princess fumble for words to refute him, her face redder than ever.
And Alaria didn't help much either, giggling madly and zipping around the princess's head
in her fairy form.

It was at this point that he noticed the man standing behind him with a shocked look on his face,
"Ah! Greetings, I am Morangul, and you are?" The old lich gave yet another sweeping bow.

Before he could even begin to answer, two other men came out of a cabin with a crash,
both fully armed and armored.

"Oh, its becoming a grand party on deck, it seems." Morangul
said dryly. Then he felt a peculiar sensation emanating from one
of the newcomers. In fact, it seemed to be coming off of the finer dressed
one's right hand.

After a few moments, he finally realized what it was, with a strange look coming over his face.

"Nice hand you got there."

[Seon]

"I feel dizzy," Alaria moaned. She stopped spinning around Amalia's head and dropped to the deck like a stone, moaning.

The lich's image flickered once. Then twice. Then stayed exactly where it was as Alaria burst back up. "Mr. Morangul!" she yelled. "You are glad! I've never, ever seen you glad before!"

[TheLastDays]

Alain was about to answer and he took a step, trying to place himself purposefully between the skeletal creature and the princes when he noted the flickering image and the reactions of Alaria.

"Alaria, is he an illusion of yours?"

[Seon]

Alaria looked at Alain as if he was crazy.

"Mr. Bones is sitting far far away in some trees. Why would he be here? That's just him speaking throuh me."

[Greyblades]

"Speaking through you..." Thomas muttered to himself. "Well that's just what we need. Yet another monster who knows who we are."
Thomas walked over to the fey woman and struck the side of her head with his palm, shocking the girl and breaking her concentration, causing the image of the skeleton to dissapear. "If you ever do this again, I'm throwing you overboard!" said Thomas. He turned to the surprised crew "That goes for the rest of you, we have gods knows how many creatures looking for this ship, all eager to tear us to pieces if given the chance. If I find any of you doing anything to give away our position, so much as a message in a bottle, I'll have you hanged! Dismissed!"

[Death is yonder]

His stomach finally slowly steadying, Guantano turned to look at Frijyk before adding on to Alyssa's reply.

"Well Frijyk, I don't know whether you've been one for the bards," Guantano said with a hint of his telltale humor. "But we, are going to make a saga worth a dozen compositions and countless recitations in inns all over the land." Taking a quick swig of water from his gourd, before burping and raising his hand to wipe his mouth, Guantano then continued in a faux serious voice, "Will you join us on this epic quest Aqua boy?"

[thefluffyone93]

".....Aqua Boy?"

Morangul just came out of his trance,
and was still quite disoriented from the abrupt ending
of his conversation with Alaria and Amalia.
Impetuous fool, he thought, thinking of the young upstart with the prosthetic hand, its never a good idea
to break a telepathic connection by force! I hope her fragile mind wasn't damaged even more...

With that, he turned to the events at hand, and called out,
"Actually, I think he is more of a sky blue!" as he shakily got to his feet.

"Might be from the lack of oxygen so high up in the mountains."

[Seon]

"Speaking of hanging people..." Alaria said, slowly raising her head. The tone was of intense annoyance, with none of the characteristics of the confused little girl before.

"You do know that I can pretty much kill everyone in this ship right now if I really want to, right?"

Alaria raised an eyebrow as if amused. "Oh? Surprised that I can even talk this way? Don't worry, I'm fine. I am just...borrowing... some vocabulary from your own brain here. A big roomy place as well, I might add. Mother told me that it was very rude to do so, but you know what? I don't give a damn," Alaria smiled. "It makes me feel...powerful."

"Hey, did you hear an anecdote about a nobleman hanging from the ceiling by his own entrails? Well, you better listen when a Fey tells you a life story because if not, you may just miss the life lesson... hell, you might find yourself becoming a life lesson!"

[Greyblades]

Thomas froze, this girl seemed to believe what she was saying, and the little fey had some power, the illusion was proof of that. And his own wizard was incapacita-

He was unable to finish his thought as a figure rushed past him with unimaginable speed and a mailed fist came crashing down on the imp girl's temple. Thomas was shocked , and stood mouth agape along with the rest of the crew as Gilford was now standing over the prone girl with glowing green script criss-crossing his armour.

Gilford stooped over and held up the delirious alaria by the wrists with one hand pulled back his other one and gave Alaria a quick punch to the forehead, knocking her out cold. He then carefully laid her out on the deck and pointed his finger at the princess.
"She's your companion, clean her up then go with her to the wizard's quarters." Gilford said. He turned to the stunned audience "As for the rest of you, get back to your stations, show's over."

[Seon]

Alaria growled as she felt a presence behind her and turned invisible, leaving behind an illusionic decoy in her place. The nobleman mentioned a wizard... How troublesome. She placed additional care into the spell as not to be detected by them. After all, it fooled Morangul, at least for a while. At least not until he put in actual effort to locate her specifically.

She watched the drama unfold with mild interest and pulled out her dagger. They'll notice that they had been bewitched in few days or so... Unconscious girl wasn't that hard to maintain a decoy of. Someone could ask why she was unconscious for that long, but who understood how Feys operated anyways? So she had things to do... Favors to repay... Tricks to prepare... She let out a silent giggle as she began to climb up the mast.

[Greyblades]

Amalia Udine had not protested when ordered to heal the girl, she had taken an oath as a cleric to heal the sick that had overrided any indignation she felt over being ordered around. Alain however had no such oath and had entered into a heated argument with Gilford, which was not helping Amalia's concentration. She knelt over the prone body of the fey girl and raised her hands ahead of her.
"Cure moderate wounds"
Her hands started to glow with a faint blue light and she lowered them towards the fey to administer the magic by touch. She gasped in surprise as her hands went right through the girl.
Thomas had walked over from where he had been standing in shock and was attempting to break up the two solder's argument when he heard her gasp. He looked over to see the Princess' hands seemingly embedded in Alaria's torso.
"I'm guessing that's not normal." Thomas said.
The illusion started to disintergrate where the magic of Amalia's hands touched it and within seconds the girl was gone much to the amazement of all of them.
"Oh gods."
The implications of a psychotic fairy out for blood running around the ship unseen sent Gilford scrambling to the hold stairs, dragging his charge behind him.

[Diamondeye]

"I trust you are well rested, Morangul," Alyssa sneered, "so how about we get moving? You know the way, I believe."

[TheLastDays]

Alain was still arguing with Gilford when he noticed the commotion about Alarias body and heard Thomas' comments. He shook his head, shooting another glance at Gilford but before the captain could make up his mind about what to say, the knight grabbed Thomas and pulled him away.

The princess wasn't quite finished though. Quickly getting up she stormed after Thomas and Gilford, followed by Alain, who was now worried about his charge. Entering the hold, Amalia was already arguing aggressivly: "Sires, I will not accept this kind of behaviour. The choice as to with whom I... negotiate and who travels with me is not yours and the way you handled this situation was more than unhelpful."

She calmed down a bit, her gaze shifting from Thomas to Gilford and back again, before she drew a deep breath and gathered her thoughs.

"Alright, we need to plan now. Whatever we may want to think or feel about the 'monster' that Alaria projected onto your deck knew more than we do and right now we need all the information we can get."

[Greyblades]

Gilford had bolted the doors to the main deck shut and they were standing in the first deck the staircases. The group found themselves watched by several pairs of curious eyes; Up and down the ship sailors were caught in the middle of setting up hammocks and were staring at the only light source in the room brigter than the odd oil lantern: the green glow of Gilford's armour.

Before he replied Thomas turned to the closest sailor, "You, get Cid, Xandrax, and that neurotic man with the bottles to my quarters, now." the sailor nodded and set off down the ship to the guest quarters.

"Well, princess, right now we have an angry invisible pixie flying around above deck, looking for me shaped things to kill and sooner or later I expect she will decide the easiest way to do so is to set the ship on fire. I really don't have time to give you an update and- Wait I didnt mean-"

At the word 'Fire' a gasp spread through the onlookers and after afew seconds there was a great rush as 50 odd sailors rushed the staircase wielding sticks, buckets of what was presumably water* and whatever seemed to be around they could beat flames out with. Only Gilford's firm grip had kept Thomas from being trampled.

"Uh... oops."


______________________________________________

* Thomas didn't have an opportunity to inspect them. After a poorly timed breath he decided he didn't particually want to.

[Seon]

A scream and a loud murmur.

"What's going on?" one of the sailors said.

"The stairs up the deck," another sailor answered. "It's gone."

"What?"

The sailor burst though the row of other sailors in front. It was true, the stairs leading out the deck was gone, replaced by an imposing wall.

"Some kind of trick," a sailor muttered. "it's probably just invisible. If we search carefully."

"No, no, no," another sailor said. "Look!" Another sailor walked forward to touch the wall on the other side. "There's absolutely nothing here."

"You mean we are trapped? With a crazed Mage killer inside?"

"No, wait!" another sailor said. "We still have a few lad up there... Maybe we could..."

Kh-thuck. A trapdoor suddenly opened over them. Three men dropped through it, covered in slime and seaweed. The trapdoor above then quickly closed and disappeared.

"What happened?"

The slime-covered sailor rose up and grabbed the nearest sailor. "Squirrels!" he said. "Squirrels!!!" he collapsed.

"Fick," said one of the sailors.

"Worst part is that she's an illusionist. She could disguise as one of us."

The sailors all exchanged suspicious looks. Was the man in front of them really the same sailor that they've worked with for years? Didn't Jod said he was grabbing lunch? What was he doing here?

"Anyways, we are trapped here until we find her. That means there's only one thing to do..."

"Kill each other until we find the fae and kill her?"

"What? no, you idiot. We travel in groups. Don't let each other out of your sights! If you are vein bewitched, call somebody! And then we'll do a full body search."

"There is the princess, no?" said Alaria disguised as a sailor.

"What about her?"

"The moment she touched the fairy, the fairy disappeared! Who knows if it isn't just a mind trick? What if the fairy knocked her out and disguised as her? Then we would have an insane psychotic killer of a fairy disguised as the princess!" said Alaria.

"Are you suggesting..." the other sailors said. "That we do a full body search on he princess of the kingdom..."

"Yes."

"Who happens to be a 16 year old girl?"

"Yes?"

"I actually like that idea. It'll ensure that our superiors won't be a psycho fairy."

"Purely for security purposes, of course."

"But wait!" Alaria said. "You can't go in there unarmed. The fairy might have bewitched or tricked the princess's honor guards to serve her instead! You know what she did with the stairs... She mitt make us look like monsters tothe eyes of the honor guard! So we have to knock the honor guard out quickly and silently and then search the princess."

"For purely security reasons."

"Yes," Alaria rolled her eyes. "For purely security reasons."

"Alright man," one of the sailors said. "We got out plan. Quick! We should have some rope inthe hold. You! Grab a few cudgels from the armory!"

"Here, take this!" Alaria said, handing the sailors a pouch of crushed mushrooms.

"What's this?"

"It makes people really dizzy if they breathe it in."

"Thanks! Where did you get it?"

"From the herbalists? Duh?" Alaria said. "Quick! We don't have enough time... Who knows what evil that the fairy could be plotting? We have to go stop her!"

"Right. Man! Follow me! You, give this to the chef! Tell him to make some soups out of it! We'll give it to the princess, err, fairy's honor guard.

Rest of you, to the holds!"

The army of sailors quickly left the scene, leaving Alaria shaking her head.

"That was too easy."

[Greyblades]

"Yes," said a voice behind Alaria, "your performance wasn't very convincing."

Alaria spun round just as a sickly bald man behind her blew a silvery powder into her face. Before she could even think to avoid it a warm feeling spread through her body causing her muscles to relax and her mind to become heavy. She was paralyzed in an instant, it took all her concentration to keep her illusion from fading when her body crumpled to the floor.

"Heh, now that was too easy." Said the man, "Dont think I dont know what you are, fey," he tapped some sort of monacle that he had straped over his eye and grinned "I've been keeping an eye on you since you came aboard, in case you fell out of favour. It's a pity you havent done anything serious yet, your ingredients would make me alot of money in the guild. Still, never an opportunity wasted. I think the others will notice if I drag you in front of the lord missing a horn or a pint of blood." He pulled out an empty vial and moved it to alaria's mouth "But I doubt they will notice if I took some saliva, now, open wide..."
______________________________________