"You know... I've been really cool about all this wilderness travel and so forth ... the creepy crawlies at night ... the rotten food, the lack of privacy...the sheer tediium and boredom..well..except for Furgh and Logan, mind you...and the hard ground...and this stinkin' weather. I mean,why can't we have heated tents, catered food, soft beds, interesting conversation? This is really like the pits, ya know? How do you all stand it???" Beauty exclaims suddenly. "Had I known that adventuring was like this...hell...I coulda stayed home and had some fun with Remington. Geez ."
Furgh laughs.
"Hey, could be worse," he says cheerfully, watching his breath fog. "There could be bloodworms."
Beauty scrunches her petite little nose and asks, "What are bloodworms? Or maybe I really don't want to know..."
"Different world. Different fauna," Furgh replies with a slight shudder. "Too cold for 'em anyway," he concludes with a happy smile. "Wonder if it'll snow?"
"Well, if Rage ever comes back, she can take you to Sandas and leave you there, Beauty. This is the life of an adventurer and you either love it or you do not."
Beauty laughs and winks at Furgh. "Obviously he isn't in on the PR committee for happy go lucky elves."
She turns back to Kadlian.
"My dear somber elf, if I had stayed in Sandas, I would most likely be dead now. If I return to Sandas, I will mostly likely be killed within 12 hours. Do detest me so much already? I thought I was actually behaving myself rather nicely," Beauty replies.
Kadlian shrugs. "Well, then perhaps one of the places you visited in the past few days. Rage does not know all that many locations to teleport to, so your options are limited.
"I do not detest you, but your attitude does get on my nerves."
Beauty's eyes suddenly fill with tears, but they remain unshed.
"I see," she whispers.
"Good goin', Boss," Furgh mutters. He then grins at Beauty. "Hey...way ta go! Yer in!"
He drops to a conspiratorial whisper. "If ya get on his nerves, that means he likes ya." He taps his chest. "I rub him the wrong way all the time. And look at me."
"Thanks Furgh..." Beauty replies softly.
The red-headed elf merely gives her a friendly grin.
Edelle laughs!
"Watch it, Kadlian!" she says.
"Eh? What do you mean, Edelle?"
"She's practising her feminine wiles on you!"
Kadlian grins. "Oh... Well, that is probably a lost cause. A few others have tried that and it has not worked. She is definitely not my type."
"Maybe he likes boys!" whispers Edelle to Wizbang. The mage smiles and looks uncomfortable.
Furgh tries, somewhat unsuccessfully, to keep a straight face.
Kadlian whispers in Edelle's ear, "Maybe I like grown up women."
Edelle laughs even louder.
Kadlian whispers something else in her ear, but much quieter.
Edelle giggles out loud, then whispers something back to him.
Kadlian moves to catch up with Wizbang. "Miss Wizbang, I was not angry with you. In fact, thank you for keeping Logan from getting us shot."
"You're welcome, master," says Wizbang, still sounding abashed.
Kadlian smiles. "Good aim, too. You went for something non-vital."
Wizbang smiles.
"OW!" Logan cries as he shakes his head. "What the hell? Who hit me?" Logan says, looking around, not pleased.
Furgh chuckles. "If I had ta guess, I'd say 'twas common sense." He nods wisely. "Ya gotta watch out for those ones. They can come on ya unawares."
"Another wiseass!" Logan scowls. "I help avoid Kad getting skewered and get bonked on the head for a thanks, ha!" Logan says, not pleased.
Furgh chuckles. "Well, not every culture shakes hands, donchaknow. There's this one bunch, way south somewhere... they beat each other with live chickens, if you can believe it." He shakes his head in amazement, then grins and adds, "One must oftimes go through great pains ta fit in."
Kadlian raises his eyebrows. "I was about to be skewered? By whom? And how did you help me avoid it?"
"The crotchy elf wasn't playing with that bow, he was going to use it and after Beauty spoke about her parentage, I figured after he shot her, you were next. But I guess you talked your way out of it as I was slightly unable to thanks to someone's hit." He looks around, not pleased at the bump on his head.
"Beauty, can you kiss it and make it feel better?" he asks, with a smile.
Beauty grins. "Sure." She blows Logan a kiss. "There. Apply that for 10 minutes then change over to an ice pack," she says, still grinning.
Kadlian looks at Logan with a faintly amused expression. "I see. I think that knock on your heads addled your memory a bit. I have to tell you that between you and Beauty, I thought we were in for a fight. In the future, please let me talk with the hostile elves? Being polite to them does not get you much, but it is far more effective than the approach you two tried to use."
Beauty nods, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Good idea, actually. Fight fire with fire, right? So from now on, I'll only talk to friendly elves and you, Kadlian, can talk to all the meanies. Birds of a feather and all . You have a better chance on meeting them at their level," she replies sweetly.
"How about we try a little different tact. Let me speak when we first encounter new people. After we have become friendly with them, then you can talk to them. That way, I talk to all the meanies and those people whom we are not sure of."
"Sure! Sounds great," Beauty replies, winking at Kadlian.
"Fine!" Logan says as he throws up his arms, "I try to be a good guy and look where it gets me, humpf!"
"I am not sure I understand, Logan. To me, you sounded like you were insulting the elf when you kept calling him brother. If you were not, then you have my apologies. But, I can tell you that if you called me brother like that, I would feel insulted. Perhaps it was just the way the word was delivered."
"Our the way it was taken, elves take family a lot more seriously than humans do, or at least on my world they do. So, brother is a term of endearment or comraderie, not insult," Logan explains.
Kadlian shrugs. "Well, you saw how friendly that elf was even after I identified myself as a Ranger of Aldacan. So, I would leave out the brother when addressing a fellow elf..."
Furgh chuckles.
"So we goin' the right way then, Boss?" Furgh asks. "How much further? Not that I don't appreciate this whole back ta nature motiff we got goin' here and all..."
Kadlian looks at the map and where he thinks they are. "A fair way from what I can see. Another week, at least."
The red-headed elf sighs slightly. "We shoulda checked out that Teleport Station. Maybe they coulda got us there quicker."
"If we knew where we were going."
"So when's the next town?" he asks.
"There is not one. At least, nothing we want to find. We will be crossing into the Empire of Mestom shortly and we want to avoid any of their people, if at all possible."
"Didn't someone off their emperor a little while back?" Furgh asks, trying to recall some tidbit of info or other. "Actually, the entire Royal family, if I remember the rumour right."
He grins. "Makes for right stable country ta be strollin' through, alrighty."
Kadlian shrugs. "They just conquered their neighbor and Nlad is preparing to be invaded by them. That is one reason we did not go through Nlad and another reason why we want to avoid any encounters in Mestom."
Furgh returns the shrug. "Hey, I haven't even been on this crazy world a yours a year yet. All this political mumbo jumbo don't make a heap a sense ta my frazzled elven head when I've lived in it for years, much less eight months."
He chuckles.
"Happened last year some time, I think. Though I s'pose it'd be a decent guess it preceded all this recent wanderlust. Political backstabbin' seems ta work that way.
"Wonder what her ebony birdness is up ta down here now," he muses.
"I cannot say. Her high priestess kept some of Nlad's troops from joining the southern front and divided the Baron's attention while we removed that threat. I only hope we did not take too long or whatever her plan is will have succeeded. This quest to find this artifact is supposed to help Nlad in the anticipated conflict with Mestom. Ray Jay believes this important."
Kadlian swears. "Where the hell are they? I knew I should not have let them attack the trolls. They could be lying dead and we would never know."
Furgh nods. "Knew they needed a sensible elf head ta keep an eye on 'em."
He sighs. "Well, the Baron will have to forgive us for missing the festival. We will keep moving. Rage has the crystal ball and she will find us wherever we are."
"What festival?" Furgh asks. "Ya can probably get Aggy ta flip ya there."
"The midwinter festival in Sandas. The Baron asked our group to be there as his special guests."
Furgh frowns uncertainly. "Really? No one mentioned it."
He shrugs. "Well... I think I'll pass," he says finally. "We elves aren't much for big shindigs.
"Aggy can have my share a the cake," he adds, with a grin. "So like, Kal had some spell that let him make a temporary crying glass. Reflectin' pool or something like that, neh?
He glances towards Birch. "Don't s'pose you can do that? Some way ta see where Rage, Sian and His Holiness have gotten themselves off ta. Knowin' the testosterone levels in that bunch, they probably wandered in after 'em and got themselves lunched."
"I think I can do that," says Birch.
"A few mage spells that might work... but I don't know any of em." He glances towards Agulhas. "Aggy?"
Agulhas shakes his hairless head. "No, I have no such spell in my repertoire." He sighs. "So, both the crystal ball and the psionic link are battling the trolls, which means they have left us essentially cut off from them. Perhaps that was a slight boo-boo. If there is no sign of them for too long, I could teleport some of us to the area to check up on them."
"Tomorrow, you and I can go atop of Fleetwing. That way, I can do some aerial reconnaissance after you teleport us there. That is, if they do not manage to return by tomorrow morning."
You set out again. Today, the trek is uneventful, as you come down out of the mountains and pass through a dense woodland. By nightfall, though, the forest is thinning out, becoming stunted and scraggily, as you approach the edge of the desert.
After reaching a balmy 55F during the afternoon, the temperature plunges to 17F shortly before dawn.