(hurrah, good idia btw, will do)

Evlyn heard a sound behind her a drew her dagger. Then allmost dropped it at the mans apperance. "Who are you" she asked, her voice leval, not showing the fear she felt...there was something about him.

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Made by Lembas

"Good question"

Garthag spoke out as he appeared some feet away from Evlyn with his eyes narrowed and his hands crossed on his chest, Kalma was nearby keeping an eye for the renegade dragons and making sure that no one could catch them by surprise.

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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 dragons had to fly away Curi, the noxtiose gasses?)

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Made by Lembas

"My name is Xandir," the man said with a rasping noise that sounded more cough than laugh. He raised his hooded head, and beneath the shadows one might glimpse the glittering of two crimson-hued eyes. He took a few steps down the trail, then extended a gaunt hand to beckon them. "Come. I know the way to that which you seek."

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A bit taken aback by Merrin's insistence that he lead, Kendath nonetheless picked what appeared to be the easiest terrain and began trudging up towards the Sigil. Tendrils of greenish miasma wafted down to them, and he covered his nose and coughed.

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Merrin wrinkled her nose at the noxious fumes. "What a place to choose," she muttered, scanning the barren expanse of smog-covered mountainside. Wondering uneasily if whoever hid the Crystal here had the same morbid taste when it came to selecting a Guardian, she quickened her pace slightly and queried uncertainly of Kendath, "Do you know very much about this Guardian?"

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Evlyn looked at him, then shrugged and followed, however she did not sheeth her dagger.

(who's going to arrive first?)

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Made by Lembas

((I was thinking it would be interesting if we arrived basically at the same time....but it seems to me that the Meiltha will end up arriving later, if I've grasped LDM's idea right?))

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[I don't think they should meet until they arrive at their destination because meeting beforehand would provoke a few... problems]

"No idea," Kendath replied helpfully after his coughing fit had subsided.

The day drifted on, a bleak monotony of jagged boulders and difficult terrain. The occassional cool wind breezing down from the mountain was their only respite from the pungent stench. By midday, their surroundings had induced an almost surreal sensation, as if the world were floating in diseased limbo.

Under the sickly yellow shafts of sunlight that had the misfortune of piercing the miasma, the three Renegades stood under the looming shadow of the Sigil of the Dragon. "The road," Kendath said, indicating a cracked stone path that wound up around the mountain.

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Merrin leaned for a moment against the bleak, vertical face of the mountain and her eyes followed the winding road up until it disappeared in clouds of sickly greenish fog. It seemed, as they ascended, that the air became perpetually thicker and that breathing in turn became perpetually more difficult.

"At least it's a road now," she murmured to herself, as if attempting to find some modicum of good fortune amidst the gloom-inducing clouds; and started up it, keeping one hand on the rock wall.

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(ok, it would be cooler if Semri turns at the lst moment, that would really upset the Renegade plan...and who the hell is the crimson dude?)

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Made by Lembas

((Whenever Semri turns is good with me, but yeah, that would be cool))

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"But what's waiting for us alond it?" asked Semri with her usual seceptism.

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Made by Lembas

"Would anything wait here voluntarily?" said Merrin with equal skepticism, halting momentarily. "I think we can assume we're alone."

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After a few more hours of trudging along, they encountered a sheer rock face that looked for all in the world like a dead end. Wiping perspiration from his brow, Kendath traced his hand along the stone and found a small engraved rune. And below it...

It looked almost like a key socket. A key socket in a mountain face?

"Anyone here capable of conjuring a key?" he asked, stepping back down and eyeing the rest of the band.

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"Believe it or not..." and Merrin fished out the tiny gold key from where it hung on its ribbon around her neck, and stepped forward to insert it in the keyhole. It went in almost the full length of its shaft, and Merrin had to try a few times before there was an echoing click and two vertical cracks joined at the top by a horizontal one appeared in the sheer cliff face.

Merrin hesitated - and pushed with her palm. With a creak that spoke of untold years of being firmly shut, the thick door swung open, revealing a dark path into the heart of the mountain.

"Funny, I never thought that would come in useful," Merrin mused aloud.

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Kendath looked into the dark tunnel, driving into the heart of the mountain like some passage into the underworld. He couldn't help but shake his head in disbelief. "Full of surprises," he muttered. "Where in the abyss did you get that key?"

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