I've just ruined our whole thing about Verminaard, either that or delayed it I couldn't help myself....



anyway past, present, or future?

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maybe we will continue with the present cause I couldn`t expect that Tas thingy besides it messes our original plot complitely and our chars would know everything that would happen if they returned to their time later

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Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

Ghyreian felt the world tip - literally - beneath her feet. Then there was a soft thud, and she, Edwin, and the wretched kender landed in a heap on the grass.

Ghyreian picked herself up and brushed the dust off her robes. Her eyes fell on the kender, who was coughing up dirt. "My what an interesting experience! That was almost as interesting as when Raistlin whooshed me into a duck pond!" He paused, then continued on sternly, "Those elves were not nice - " He never got to finish, because Ghyreian had siezed him by the topknot.

"Give me the Device," she commanded in quiet, deadly tones.

"I, uh..."

"Give it to me, or you will be in for a most interesting experience," she intoned.

Tas backed away. "The offer is very nice of you, but I don't think I want to have quite such an interesting..." He tentatively held the magical Device out to her. "You won't tell Par-Salian I broke it, would you? I didn't mean to, and - "

Ghyreian deftly snatched the Device out of his small hands and concealed it in one of the secret pockets of her robes. Still holding the kender's topknot, she dragged him over to where Edwin stood. "Are you all right?" she asked him in a low voice.

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Edwin spat some dust out of his mouth and cursed loudly, which got the klender to cover his ears and Edwin sighed then when Ghyreian asked the question. Why would she care? They were only together to chop off Verminaad`s head and to get what they wanted, the medallion had no part nor the fact that he saved her once.

"Yes, I`m fine enough..." He looked around and almost whacked the kender with his staff. "Let`s get out of here and leave this crazy kender here...."

The words of magic came out and the device began working soon they were in the same place where they had came trough, Edwin cursed as he hit the ground hard. Soon he would be pointed with elven arrows he supposed.

(If I understood correctly...)

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Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

but I thought Ghyreian took the Device away. I thought to speed up Pax Tharkas a little. Qualinesti was getting a little boring. ah, well....

The familiar, oddly lamenting scent of aspenwood once more filled her nostrils as she staggered, a little disconcerted, from the ground.

Tasslehoff was regarding the magical Device in his hand in utmost consternation and bewilderment. "I gave it to you, I swear!" he protested earnestly. He looked about to scold the Device when Ghyreian snatched it away again.

"I should have foreseen this," she mused. "The Device is designed to return to its original owner wherever he is." She gazed at the kender with an expression not of anger but of something Tas thought more ominous than anger. He had seen that look often in Raistlin's eyes. Ghyreian averted her gaze again. As it was, Tasslehoff thought this the most convenient time to slip away unnoticed, as the Red Robe was also cursing him loudly.

Ghyreian studied her surroundings. "We are on the borders of south Qualinesti," she reported gloomily. "And we best be off soon, or there'll be the Abyss to pay. Our fortune just goes that we have no idea if we're in the present, past, or future, and the only person who can operate this god-forsaken Device is a kender," she added with a sardonic smirk.

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(Noooo! What meant with my post was that they returned to their own time!!

look at the text! I wrote that the device began working and got them back where they supposed to be!!
)

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Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

wha...? but they ARE in their own time actually that's what I intended anyway

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(Oh my mistake.... phew... I got it ALL wrong.. sorry continue the story so I can get on track...)

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Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

Edwin leaned on his staff and looked at their surroundings noticing something, he took few steps and he was looking at Pax Tharkas and he smiled pointing at it`s walls.

"Well...it seems that we are in the right place...now.. we just have to get in there... any ideas?"

Edwin inspected the fortress and it`s mighty walls while waiting Ghyreian to answer.

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Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

**so this is where they should meet the companions?

Ghyreian studied the fortress intently, focusing her gaze on the vast armies that marched in and out its huge gates, at the massive towers that defended the great fortress engine.

"I know! I know!" Tasslehoff shouted, jumping off and down excitedly. "It's called the Sla... Sla..." He faltered, then grinned again. "I remember! The Sla Mori! Gilthanas showed us."

Ghyreian pointedly ignored the kender and mused to herself, "Once, in a time long forgotten, our cousins the Qualinesti and the dwarven kingdoms had an alliance. That alliance is now in ruins."

"We can go in through Sla Mori!" Tasslehoff continued loudly, tugging on Ghyreian and Edwin's robes.

She abruptly became aware of what the kender had just said. "How do you know of Sla Mori?" she demanded, her anger flaring.

Tas, looking quite pleased with himself, announced proudly, "Gilthanas showed us. We heard about it in Qualinesti! It was the most interesting experience. Would you like to hear about it? Well, you see it involved a trip through Darken Wood and those guardians were not nice..." He stopped at the look on the dark elf's delicate features. He shuffled his feet nervously. "Maybe some other time. Anyway Gilthanas showed us the secret passage in Sla Mori - "

"Gilthanas!" Ghyreian said sharply in astonishment. "When was this? You claim you have come from the future. What happened with you and Sla Mori?"

Tasslehoff looked pleasingly surprised at her interest in his story. "You see, we were in Qualinesti with Fizban and Tanis and Raistlin. Speaking of Qualinesti, I finally found out about Laurana and... No? Maybe I'll tell you later. Anyway we had this feast with the Speaker of the Sun - "

"Get on with it," Ghyreian snarled. "When did this happen?"

"Right before the War of the Lance! With the return of Fizban - er, Paladine - and the true gods, right when Highlord Verminaard was getting stronger - "

Ghyreian sucked in her breath. "That's our time!"

"Really?" Tas looked around at his surroundings with new interest. "Do you think I'll see Flint again? I awfully miss him, although Fizban said I'll see him again..."

Ghyreian, troubled, left the kender to his ramblings and turned to confer with Edwin.

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Edwin showed a cunning smile to Ghyreian, he then looked at the kender quickly and turned to Ghyreian.

"I think we need to send this kender to his own time so that he won`t be in the way...after we have found sla mori or this group lead by that half elven *beep* and Gilanthas... then we can let them go first and face whatever obstacles, then we shall slip into the fortress and get rid of Verminaad..."

Edwin looked at Taslehoff and whispered to Ghyreian.

"We are going some pointers or if you know the access to sla mori all we now we need is to send that babler away to where he belongs...agreed?"

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Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

Ghyreian sneered at this. "Send him back? How? I doubt even we could if he didn't want to. The Heads of the Conclave have done it before and for the process drained even them, the most powerful wizards on Krynn. I admit both our powers are rising, but for the time being we do not have the resources to meddle with time travel." Then, more quietly she added, "But I agree that he cannot stay. What should happen if he bumps into his former self? He could destroy us all. We should send him back to Wayreth and let that old fool Par-Salian deal with him."

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Edwin nodded slightly.

"agreed..that is one place where he couldn`t escape nor meet the former self.. Well.. then I`ll give this kender one of those exiting expriences..."

Edwin turned towards Tasslehoff with a smile.

"Ready for a new exprience?"

The kender was about to open his mouth when Edwn began speaking the spell and soon the kender was gone and Edwin smiled because they had gotten rid of him. Edwin smiled began walking down hill so that they could make their way towards sla mori.

"Are you coming?" Edwin said as he walked down hill.

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Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

"Quiet!" Ghyreian hissed harshly. She silenced Edwin with a wave of her hand. Her sharper elven senses had detected movement.

A low murmur of voices met her ears. They were coming from a dense clutter of underbrush. "...I've never seen anything so big! Who built it? They must have been powerful men..." A female. Human by the sound of it.

Creeping silently closer, no louder than the wind on the grass, she listened intently.

"It was not men," replied a gruff voice. Dwarven? Impossible.... "It was elves and dwarves working together. Once, long ago, when times were peaceful."

"The dwarf speaks truly," said another voice. This one was smooth, cool as the trees of springtime. It was faintly accented by - Ghyreian suppressed a start - high Qualinesti Elvish.

She could resist her curiousity no longer. She crept even closer and peered out of the underbrush.

She was met by a most unusual site. A group of humans, elves, and a dwarf, all clad in armor and heavily armed. One of them had girth and muscle enough for three men, and another was a magic-user, skinny and Red Robed. Yet another had pointed ears, mark of an elven heritage, yet also bore a brownish-red beard. Ah, the half-elven *beep* she had heard of. That meant the lovely elven maiden with golden hair was Lauralanthalasa, Princess of the Qualinesti.

She beckoned for Edwin to come and take a look.

That was when the elf Gilthanas raised his head, sniffed the air as if he scented something unfamiliar. Strange. The dark elf remembered there had been another warrior, the one with the brawn....

"BEHIND YOU!" Ghyreian shouted, whipping around.

Edwin just managed to parry a blow from the huge shadow that rose up behind him, swinging his sword.

"Caramon!" the half-elf cried, running to his aid.

Ghyreian steeled herself for the battle that was plainly to come.

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Edwin was able to parry the sword and hit the big man in the knee cap with his staff buying time to get away for his spells, he took asuitable position and began soeaking the words. Soon the warrior was trapped in a sticky mass like the men in the inn of last home, Edwin waited for ghyreian to act and also waited for more enemies to come trough as the man strangled in the web.

Soon a knight came trough like a ghost from the past in it`s former glory with the knights didn`t really posesses these days. Edwin embrased himself for another spell and threw a group of small fireball`s towards the knight who fell on the ground with his armour hot. The Knight seemed to be okay, if you didn`t count his armour. Soon a thin red mage apprearred and the half elven *beep* with his sword in his hand. Edwin smiled.

"Well well...this will prove to be intresting indeed...."

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Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

The mage appeared on the line of her vision. The man called Caramon went to join him, and soon they made quite a formidable pair. Ghyreian just managed to parry one of the mage's spells before rolling over to avoid contact with Caramon's sword. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Red Robe edge over to the half-elf and whisper something in his ear.

"Halt!" the half-breed commanded.

Ghyreian, a spell halfway out of her lips, stopped and eyed the group warily.

"We attacked you out of haste," the half-elf made quick amends. "We don't expect you to tell us, but if you will, can we at least know whose side your on?"

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