Merrin remained where she was, staring with a curious expression of mixed horror, disbelief, and disgust - and battling a strange desire to laugh hysterically. When a coconut dashed itself into infinitesimal pieces on the boulder next to her she tore her gaze from the unbelievable spectacle and dove for cover beside Kendath.

"Coconuts!" she gasped, voice carrying even more mixed emotions than her expression. "He - they - coconuts!" This expressed as well as anything Merrin's current state of mind. She mouthed soundlessly for a moment, at a complete loss for words.

"It's raining coconuts," she finally moaned, one hand to her aching head. "Why - why - couldn't we get a normal wizard?"

Canine yelps were now in great abundance. Merrin's relentlessly optimistic side kicked in. At least it got rid of the wolves, didn't it? "Gods help me, I'm going to strangle him," she repeated weakly.

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Adanil nodded his head in understanding at Kendath's answer. If this was to be a test for their mage, then he would just sit back and watch. After all, if this dwarf could summon a demon, he should certainly be able to do something about the coyotes.

When the undersized mage began waving his arms and incanting, Adanil stepped back. Elkor was called the Blundering, after all. Adanil took another step back. What if he messed up his spell, or made it too large, or something like that? Taking another step back, Adanil looked for something to crouch behind. The boulder a little ways behind him would do well. He was backing there slowly when the incantation stopped, and something fell from the sky and landed next to him.

Frowning, Adanil picked it up and looked it over. One side had been partially crushed when it hit the ground, so a milky fluid was seeping out. What kind of thing is this? he wondered, mystified. There had certainly never been anything like it in his village, or any surrounding areas, either. The dark brown outside was almost fibrous, but very hard. The inside was white, like the fluid that was running out. He was trying to associate it with anything he had ever seen before when another hit next to him. Glancing up, he realized that they were falling all over, and Merrin and Kendath were trying to find cover.

Since it seemed that they knew more about the mysterious objects than he did, Adanil copied them and darted to the boulder he'd been backing towards earlier, wondering how long Elkor would keep the barrage going for. The camp had no one watching it, and some of the food had been left out, so with all of the coyotes running around, they might well be short some provisions when they returned.

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Kendath had no semi-intelligent response to that, and even if he did, it would have been cut short by his abrupt dive to the side. Third time he'd nearly received a concussion in ten seconds. What were the chances that he'd dodge every single one? And yet... he contented himself with the pleasant mental image of his falchion cleaving Elkor's thick skull in twain. If he wasn't the least fortunate man in the world, he may well be the luckiest.

Wait. What...?

Suddenly he realized that the sky was no longer falling. He warily rose to his feet, tripped over a splattered coconut - Cursing profusely, he stalked back towards the direction of camp without a backward glance at his companions. He hoped to the abyss that Gyre had guarded their provisions - or did scavenging coyotes smell funny as well?

Elkor the Blundering watched him leave with an expression of unalloyed bemusement. "Yer welcome!" he called emphatically. Brushing himself off, he stumped over beside Merrin and Adanil. "His mammy must'a' dropped him on his head or somethin'. Is he always like this?"

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"Upon having coconuts rained on him?" retorted Merrin. "I wouldn't know, it hasn't happened before."

And with that slightly cool parting response she followed, having exhausted her store of patience with the wizard. This was saying quite a bit, as Merrin's store of patience in general could seem neverending. Compiled with the fact that she badly needed a night's sleep, her day had been spent listening to him complain endlessly about the lack of Grapewing Brandy, and anxiety about the pending reconstruction of the portal plagued her constantly, his latest stunt did not leave Merrin especially cheery.

Merrin rubbed her eyes, which felt gritty with fatigue, and thought wistfully of her bed in her dragonrider's accommodations at Vryngard. Like as not she wouldn't get a really good night's sleep for quite some time.

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"This is one hell of a place, eh?"

The midafternoon sun baking on his back, Kendath glared at Elkor the Blundering and dismounted from Gyre. Getting away from the sleek jade dragon did offer some reprieve, as her magnificent bulk substituted for a flying furnace. More quickly than he would have liked, he discovered that he'd sooner take the furnace and the shadow of her wings than stand out in the open.

Elkor stomped around for a bit, muttering arcane encantations under his breath and feeling the air like a zombie. He circumnavigated the rise with the circle of obsidian monoliths twice, then stopped short and nodded as if some revelation had dawned then and there. "Yep. This hell of a place definitely reminds me o'me granmammy's chamber pot."

For Kendath's part, he didn't even want to ask. Emphatically not meeting his companions' eyes, he let his arms dangle loosely at his sides. The next thing Elkor knew, he was sprawled on the scorching ground - courtesy of a hasty overbalancing to the left. Kendath's dagger missed his right ear by a hairbreadth. It thudded blade-first into the dirt, where it quivered before reaching a standstill. The dwarven mage yelped and dove to the right as a similar dagger came flying from the other side. "What's yer problem, boy!" he howled. "Dragon drop ye on yer head?"

Gyre flipped her sinuous tail and smiled. "Not a repulsive idea, actually."

"Just because my dragon thinks you smell like roses," Kendath returned with a shrug, launching a third dagger that had Elkor doing a somersault in midair. He closed his hand over the fourth and final dagger. "You have fifteen minutes to fix the portal."

"What!" Elkor yelped. "Fifteen - Are ye as mad as the lass is fat?" He gestured helplessly at Merrin.

"Or my dragon will eat you," he warned in all solemnity, shooting Gyre a glare of doom before she could interject with, I will? That settled, he began relentlessly pacing in a futile effort to catch some relic of breeze.

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Merrin watched Elkor scurry about, muttering murderously, and would have smiled but for her burning anxiety. What if they couldn't get back to Vryngard? To be trapped in this time forever - to never see her family again, never know what had happened -

No, she was not going to contemplate the possibilities. For the sheer sake of occupying herself, Merrin searched one-handed in one of Wyvern's saddlebags for a waterskin and started across the sun-baked sand in Kendath's general direction. Stars, it was hot! By the time she'd reached him Merrin herself was practically panting in the heat.

She groped for some sort of comment, but they all sounded ridiculously either childish or motherly in her ears. Merrin ended up mutely thrusting the canteen at him and turning to squint against the sun.

A moment of silence found Merrin twisting her tunic in her hands, almost sick with worry. Disgusted with herself she balled her hands into fists to keep them still and offered hesitantly, "Do - do you think he'll be able to fix it?"

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Kendath accepted the canteen with a curt nod of thanks. Tilting it, he let an infinitesimal dribble of tepid water onto his tongue. He handed it back to her and blinked away sweat. Above them, Gyre offered a respite in slowly fanning her wings. Like a shaggy dog he shook his head and forced himself to stop pacing. He came to a stand beside Merrin. One glance at the muttering and swearing Elkor, stomping about under the sun and accomplishing absolutely nothing, more than sufficiently answered her question.

He gazed obliquely at her face, red in the heat and twisted with anxiety. He swallowed his caustic response and instead settled for, "Of course. If he can summon..." And here he trailed off, as a recalling of Elkor the Blundering's wonderful capabilities - or lack thereof - did not at the moment sound particularly reassuring. "We'll be in Vryngard soon," he said decisively. It rang more of a threat than a promise.

He shifted his attention to Adanil, who, like always, stood subdued on the margins. With a nasty pang he realized that he'd spoken about the young man's knighting to everyone but the young man in question. Needless to say, Gyre had been thrilled by the notion. The jade female now smiled and offered her rider a gentle nudge in Adanil's direction.

Kendath trudged on over and marveled, not for the first time, at how far the former farmer had come. Rising from the parochial restraints of an isolated village, Adanil had encountered the vast world with a cold slap that had scorched his past forever. He'd not only survived - he'd persevered. And despite his seniority in years, despite his experiences that surpassed Adanil's by far, Kendath felt without doubt that he stood beside an equal worthy of the highest honor bestowed to any warrior.

The awkward silence dragged on. Kendath cleared his throat. Maintaining his deadpan, he offered quietly, "You've come far."

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In the blazing heat of an afternoon sun, Adanil watched Merrin and Kendath. Neither seemed to take much notice of the scorching heat of the golden sand beneath their feet, though they had been taking swallows from the flasks of water frequently. He himself had only smiled when the sun had risen, letting the warmth diffuse into his body. The nights were cold in this barren landscape, almost as cold as the days were gloriously hot. Of course, by midday he had been working at the waterskins too.

Watching Kendath get increasingly frustrated at Elkor, and seeing Merrin's patience wearing thin, his thoughts drifted. In his mind, he went far away, all the way back to his sleepy little village. When he was younger, he and his old friends had all dreamed of many things, being Dragonriders not least among them. Sometimes they had talked about the sights they would see when they were older, vast forests, staggeringly-tall mountains, and far-reaching wastelands where a person would die without far more water than they normally needed. None of them had ever really believed such a place could really have existed, at least, not as large as they were claimed to be, but it seemed that the stories had made them smaller than they really were. He smiled wistfully--remembering home was something he did often, but it never left him feeling better.

Engrossed in his own thoughts, he gave a start when he realized that Kendath had said something to him. Briefly skipping over his thoughts for the last few minutes, he found buried among them Kendath's statement. He blinked. I've come far? It certainly wasn't something he would have expected Kendath to say. How to respond?

"So have you and Merrin," he finally said. "You both seem to have a better understanding of what you're doing since I first met you." That was an understatement--looking back on it, they seemed flustered and indecisive compared to what they were now. "And you were willing to take me to Vryngard. I do not think you would have bothered to think about doing such for a mere peasant with a sword before I met you."

It might irk Kendath, but he had been rather...arrogant. Not compared to what he had heard of nobles, of course, but arrogant enough. Contemptuous of those who were not Dragonriders--perhaps now he had a different opinion.

"Our bothersome Mage seems to be doing something now," Adanil said, changing the subject. The Blunderer was finally standing still, and not making comments about their surroundings. He was muttering something under his breath and waving a hand occasionally, but he was not talking to any of them. That alone was enough to make Adanil grateful.

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(all righty then, I would really like to get back to this rp, but instead of carrying on where we left.... would you mind, if we skip a small part of Garthags story, which I can explain in my first post etc?)

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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!

A mere peasant with a sword. Merrin smiled to herself. She could never have dismissed Adanil as unimportant - even now she thought of herself as a peasant still. Something had always separated her from those who'd grown up in Vryngard, and she knew it well. Adanil, too, was different from her - but he was not an adventurer by choice, but by necessity. Merrin looked up from absently twisting the hem of her tunic in her hands.

"You give yourself too little credit," she interjected, disregarding his attempt to change the subject. "You've changed because circumstances made it unavoidable. We...change because we can. You do because you must."

Merrin turned to squint in Elkor's direction, desert wind whipping her hair wildly about her face. "I'm glad to have met you," she added with only a glance back at Adanil, and there was a pause while she groped for words. "To be a dragonrider...it doesn't just mean you ride a dragon. It means...you're obligated to do what you can, to help who you can. And when you can't...you have to learn from it." She shaded her eyes with a hand, looking up at him. "I would not have learned what you did. If you have the chance...Adanil, you could change history as a dragonrider. Perhaps you already have."

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Betrayed, stripped of power and now lost, wandering in the desert. Garthag, the mage lord of the north had certainly come a long way trough time and space to where he was now, to what he was now. He clumsily stumbled along the desert sands, the lich had betrayed him and now he knew why. He had all along wanted Garthag`s powers or a part of them and the power of his brethren. Garthag had kept an eye on the lich, but when the decisive moment came he had been beaten, but not finished off as he still held a portal spell.

Unfortunately he accidentally, confused, sent himself to a god forsaken desert, all alone. Yet that had been his last portal spell that he had in mind and he had no power to cast another one, he was almost good as dead. The only positive news Garthag had to remind himself about was that Kalma had died in the blaze of the three faction battle. Garthag felt empty, drained and it wasn`t just the lack of food or drink, but it felt as if there was something more missing. He swore upon his already damned soul that he would annihilate the lich, if he ever had the chance. Garthag sighed and blinked his eyes, a mirage, the perfect thing was that now his head was playing with him. He saw, or what he thought to be a mirage, a group of four people and he knew two of them too well. He spat on the ground and cursed under his breath, but blinked his eyes many times before cursing again. They were definitely not a mirage and there would be would be no harm in talking to the wind, if no one was there. Garthag chuckled to himself before opening his dry mouth.

"It is so nice to see some familiar faces in this corner of the world!"

He shouted with a wide smirk as he waited for a response, barely being able to stand and wanting to let his knee`s fail him, but they at least held as did his dignity.

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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!

On the point of continuing Merrin caught a voice on the harsh, sandy wind and swiveled, turning to squint into it. Grit blew into her face, making her eyes sting and water, but the figure stumbling through the dunes was undoubtedly one she knew. She made no attempt to disguise he astonishment. "Kendath - it's Garthag!"

When had she last seen the aggravating mage? Merrin realized with a start that since their misguided attempt to achieve the Cloud Crystal he'd been effectively unseen. Granted, Kalma's visit to Vryngard and their subsequent duel of words had brought him again unpleasantly to the front of her mind, but - Garthag? Two thousand years back in time?

A memory rose unbidden to the surface of her mind. Kendath motionless under the steel of Semri's blade and her similarly cold, apathetic gaze...some talk of 'prior claim' or some such nonsense. She should have suspected that what with Semri following them into the past it was not impossible that Garthag should do so as well. But what threads of time had they shifted? Merrin recalled unpleasantly Sage's talk of only observing, and wondered with sudden trepidation if Semri and Garthag had been entirely aware what they meddled with.

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"Yes it is me... care to spare me some water?"

Garthag inquired and took few steps forward, but stopped at a safe distance with his knee`s shaking.. Then the exhaustion got better of him and Garthag fell to his knee`s, he drew his hood down, but kept staring at the four with cold eyes. He coughed dust out of his lungs, he must have appeared pitiful compared to what he had once looked like. The mighty and powerful Garthag, reduced to this, a force less wreck of a man. He required rest and he needed to gather his powers, his magic that had been depleted by whatever the lich had done to him. What the lich had done to his brethren was too terrible to even remember or to describe.

They had been sucked dry, stripped of their powers and lives, and left as dry corpses only to be shattered into the wind as they fell. Kalma had suffered another fate, the dragon being impaled by a stalagmite had not been a beautiful sight. Yet something even more disturbing had been what the lich had told him, his brethren had been the skyseekers cult and that now all of their powers were his. Garthag saved himself and the crystal, which he now took out of his pocket and held it in a miniature size in his palm wagering it. He could feel it`s powers still strong and how it`s power called to him, but he was wise enough to know that using it now would spell disaster upon him. He brushed his long brown hair aside and smirked as he threw it upwards, but it slipped from his sweaty palms as he tried to catch it and the crystal rolled a few feet forwards on the sands. Garthag stared at the crystal with an empty stare and grinned at Merrin.

"I suppose you`ll be wanting that?"

Garthag sighed, it was the sigh of a man condemned to death.

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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!

[all right... I know I'm a #@%& killjoy, but I have no idea how to incorporate Garthag into the plot. he certainly won't have the time of his life being tugged along to Adanil's initiation as a dragonrider squire. any ideas?]

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(Well they might come to an agreement to go along as there is no reason for them to really kill Garthag, but if the lich is going to appear in the plot somehow or somehow, Garthag might come along for revenge and to regan what he has lost. And yes he might not enjoy traveling with other people etc, but Garthag will do almost anything to survive.)

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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!

(Hey guys. Its me, your creator mwahahahaha. No i have a proper reason for acctually posting. To begin with I feel really guilty for abandoning the thread in the way i have, i mean i'm the founder and i'm ment to stay till the bitter end. Secondly i'd like to congratulate you on keeping this going so long. Lastly i'd like to explain why i did leave. I felt that there was no place for my charecters and i was just hanging around with pointless posts. However the guilt has got to great and i'v come to ask if you'd like me back, with my original charries or new ones if you wish.)

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Made by Lembas