[pick a mage type and go ahead. pretend you were with us the whole time.]

Cirron shook his head. "No, don't bother. I'll be fine. A bit of rest... but not here." He pushed himself off the boulder and scanned their surroundings. Mountains, black and forbidding, stabbed into the dusk on all sides. His gaze alighted on the narrow road leading from the Wyrmlord's citadel. He racked his brains. Legend associated the Wyrmlord with the Mountains of Dereksh, so this road must wind through the infamous Dragontooth Pass. It had to lead somewhere - villages, other roads. The citadel still had to be supplied, didn't it?

"We'll follow it," he decided, acutely aware of his voice cracking. Disgusted with his lack of control, he mentally slapped himself out of his weariness. He was hardly the one among them to hand out commands or even suggestions, yet here he was. "There has to be a town... people... somewhere safe where we can talk. I'm sorry. I know many of you are still wounded, but we have to...." He shrugged helplessly and gestured with his staff towards the road. As the others moved off, he hung behind to kneel beside Dyr'a and shake her awake.

_________________

Dharron sighed inwardly. His ability to remain unnoticed had served him well, especially during the fight with the dragon beasts, but it was time to speak up. "Adellis, you may want to heal this one to the point of walking..." He rose from his crouch beside the struggling form of Quinlan Vose, releasing the flow of magic which had been dulling the elven sorcerer's pain. Although the druid's healing abilities were above average, the damage was far too much for him to repair.


Profession: Druid
Name: Dharron (Oak Grove)
Gender: Male
Race: Human, with a hint of elven blood
Age: 18
Appearance: Tall and wiry, with messy black hair, brown eyes, and a small beard
Equipment: Drab brown robes with inner pockets full of herbs. Short knife at the belt around his waist, and soft leather shoes.
Other: Dharron always loved nature, but remained undecided at the age of twelve as to what he desired to be. He studied simple prayers to the good gods and elementary illusions, but his ties to the earth manifested themselves forcefully at the age of fourteen, causing him to become an apprentice druid. His thirst for knowledge and keen mind propelled him swiftly through apprenticeship, although his lack of physical discipline proved to be hindering. He has no formal weapon training, instead relying on his wits during battles. He also has a knack for remaining unnoticed when in a group, partly because he so rarely speaks.

_________________
"Who are you?"
"I am the Sage-Child, bearer of wisdom past and hope for tomorrow.
Join me and see what was and must be.
Youth and age can conspire, if you just believe..."

I flew all the way from Texas to New England to spend two weeks with miss Nienor. 5 of those days were to survive on an uninhabited island. Booyah.

"Talk?"

Alteron hissed as he slithered pass the others, those that were hurt he looked upon with predatory eyes as, if seeing them as his next possible lunch. Yet he could heal them, if he wished to, but decided against it. He would not use his powers for them and certainly had no great intent of keeping them company.

"I hardly consider it while worth chatting with you when I have far more pressing matters at hand, back at home. I for one have other responsibilities than listening to your babble, what happened here was a disgrace and a spit against my face, but I hardly consider it anymore serious...."

Alteron hissed with the full intent of returning to his homeland and setting straight what had happened, he had been obviously betrayed and someone in the naga temple had a part in it. Alteron could only begin to play with the thought of what he would do to the poor soul once he would catch the traitor.

_________________

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 images in the water began to move, becoming clearer by the second. There was fire, Dyr'a realized, much fire, and blood, and giant bat-winged silhouettes. A sword flashed across the liquid's surface, just before the chamber shook and the image broke. The world was trembling....

She was shaking. Or rather, someone was shaking her. And there were rocks digging into her back.

Upon opening her eyes, she found herself staring into the tired face of the young druid, Cirron. "Anxious" was how one might describe him - perhaps about her, but definitely about life in general. She followed his gaze, seeing the retreating backs of the escapees, and realized that they were leaving.

A thoroughly good idea. The Shvat sat up, and found, to her delight, that she was completely mobile. It was as if she had had a week's rest; there was no soreness, no pain, no bruising. She could run twenty miles if she had to. "Are we leaving, then?" she asked the druid, but before she caught sight of Quinlan Vos' battered form on the ground, dragged up to a sitting postion. Her eyes grew wide.

"Master!" Dyr'a was at his side before she knew it, examining his wounds and trying not to look at his arm. "Master Vos! By the gods, what happened?" She looked up at Cirron blankly, afraid of a refusal. "Can you do anything for him?"

_________________


<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

"Since you are so concerned with haste," Methadox said without bothering to turn and face the naga, "perhaps you could cease 'chatting' and aid us in supporting those too wounded to move easily on their own."

He'd just begun to follow the path once more when the shvat - who was apparently feeling much better than she had two minutes ago - let out a cry and ran over to her master.

"He did battle with a horde of mutated dragon-men," he said in response to the apprentice's anxious query. "Like the rest of us. Thus, he most likely obtained his injuries by similar means as well. And, no doubt, Adellis can quickly heal him by the same methods she did you."

Adellis threw a startled glance in Methadox's direction and did so with some alacrity, though healing Vos was a much briefer process than it had been for Dyr'a. "Aye, I suppose - if no one else is hurt - " she agreed falteringly, bent over the strangely angled arm and straightening a moment later in a fading aura of white light. Involuntarily she found herself scanning the sky and shuddered once, pulling her cloak around her shoulders and moving after Methadox.

_________________

As the party slowly recovered from the dragonmen raid, Carlina impatiently waited for them. She was slightly quicker in healing than they were, thanks to her vampiric traits. But she was still disgruntled that she had lost all of her bolts in her climb to the shrine. She tapped her foot against the floor, staying clear from the bickering of the party.

_________________

I was cured all right.

Profession: Mercenary
Name: Ayden Brandt
Gender: Male
Race*: Human
Age: 20
Appearance: Short, dark, brown hair, grey eyes, pale skin, something like 5'10" and 160 lbs
Equipment: Single-edged slightly-curved sword, hauberk, gambeson, coif, vambraces, conical helmet, surcoat, satchel
Other: Ayden, born on a farm, decided at around the same age as most other lads of his lifestyle, that farmlife was not for him. When he was sixteen he ran away from home, wanting to travel the world. With the few coppers he had, he was lucky to make it to the nearest city. There, his grand ideas about life were quickly quelled when he ran out of money and had to beg, sitting all day in the mud by the side of the road and calling out to indifferent strangers. Two years of that miserable lifestyle changed his hopes from becoming rich and famous to simply making it back to his parents' farm. He was almost at the point of leaving the city when, on another impulse, he signed up with a mercenary company. Though there was much more work that needed to be done than while he was begging, his income was greater, and he was given a sword and armour. He was far from talented wielding his sword, and gave both himself and others many small injuries while trying to convince himself that he could. Eventually, though, he became adequate enough to go along with the rest of the company whenever they were hired. It was during one of those assignments that he got lost in the middle of the night, traversing a twisted pass in the Mountains of Dereksh. Much to his misfortune, no one either noticed or cared, either, because no one was sent to find him.

-----------

The path ran down the side of the hill in steep, slippery slopes and muddy flats, over precarious rocks and through swollen streams, eventually disappearing behind a turn. For someone in armour, every steep, slippery, mudy, precarious, or swollen part was more of an adventure than throwing rocks at Guardsmen was for the average person. It was certainly more difficult. Ayden had been working his way down the hill for several hours when, once again, and without much surprise, he fell. This time, though, there were no handy rocks to grab, or protruding roots to catch, or mossy spots to cushion his fall. With something resembling the sound a pantry-full of pots would make on impact if dropped from the top of a castle tower, he tumbled down the slope, bouncing and sliding, his gasps and groans interrupted by appropriate words from his extensive-but-not-much-used vocabulary.

Finally, he slammed face-first into something hard, and stopped. As he opened his eyes and stared somewhat glassily at the massive boulder that had acted as a barrier, he realized that he hadn't really stopped--he'd simply started falling another direction. Around the turn. With a gasp he spread his arms and legs out in a vain attempt to stop himself, but once again he rolled down the path, through the mud and over the rocks, bouncing and twisting and wincing. After what seemed an eternity, he slowed, then stopped moving. Not even opening his eyes, he groggily tried to get past the pain-recognition stage and into the pain-pinpointing stage. His legs and arms were sore, but not broken, his head was ringing, but intact, although there was a telling amount of blood coming from his mouth and nose. His torso had largely been spared because of his thick gambeson, but his ribs ached, and he certainly didn't feel like running at the moment. All in all, he ended up deciding, getting into a fight would be suicide.

He chose that moment to open his eyes and look around, wincing again as his eyes adjusted to the light. He blinked in confusion. It was already dusk--what light was there? Trying to get his mind around the out-of-place light, he glanced past it, and noticed a figure. To be precise, he noticed a group of figures.

With the suspiciously-large amount of ornamented staves and elaborate robes in the group, along with the rather grim faces, a more cautious greeting would be appropriate, but in his groggy state, all he could manage was a bloodstained smile that he suspected look somewhat demented and a shaky "Hello."

The fact that those he had nearly bowled over did not choose to obliterate him with a him-sized fireball was seen as a sign to Ayden that it was fine to sit up. His first attempt sent a groan whistling through his teeth, some of which he thought might be loose. All subsequent attempts produced enough pain and brilliant displays of stars and spinning skies that he elected to stay where he was, sprawled out in the middle of a group of unhappy-looking wizards.

_________________

His stupid grin still adorning his face, Ayden's mind struggled to break through the haze his long tumble had put it in. The cloud that sat between his eyes and his eyelids distorted his vision, but he could see that one of the wizards--an attractive woman a few years older than him--was saying something to him.

It took another few minutes to figure out just what it was that she had said; something about why he was somewhere and what was he doing? Blinking several times, he opened his mouth to say he was lost, and all that came out was something that sounded like "Oooouuaw." It wasn't exactly a reply that would put him very far up on someone's mental list of people they thought possessed a high intellect.

Pushing himself up to his elbow--which worked this time, he noticed--he tried again.
"Uhm wost." It was definitely an improvement from the first time, but still wouldn't really help anyone understand what he meant.
"Lost," he finally managed to croak, just before his spinning head decided to deposite him back on his back on the ground.

At least, he thought, it wasn't muddy. Lying there like that, he felt almost the same way he had the night before, though that had been a steeper fall and a shorter duration. The night before that he had woken from his fall in the morning, actually, so it didn't really count.

Thinking back on the woman's question again, he realized he hadn't fully answered it. Articulating carefully, he completed what he was trying to say. "I am lost. I have been trying to find some civili--" here his tongue abandoned him in favor of making some unintelligible sound, so he chose a different word instead. "--some village, where I can find my friends again."

He blinked--something he noticed he had been doing a lot in the last few minutes, and ran back over what he had said. It wouldn't do to leave out part from what he was vocalizing and make them speculate on what he was trying to say.

He waved his arm feebly, trying to sit up. "Where are we?" he asked.

_________________

Dharron sighed. The trek had been rather tedious, as the others had yet to notice him. However, the sight of a man in his twenties tumbling down the hill while dressed in armor proved moderately refreshing. The druid strode forward, grabbing the man under an arm, and helped him stand. "There." He sighed again as the man sagged, threatening to collapse. A small amount of magic remedied the situation, allowing Dharron to step back and survey the soldier critically.

He would make a good jester...or meat shield. Of course, I don't need a shield, considering that even my fellow party members don't notice me. But the others tend to rush into dangerous situations... The young druid raised an eyebrow, finishing his mental conversation. "The Dereksh Mountains, I do believe."

_________________
"Who are you?"
"I am the Sage-Child, bearer of wisdom past and hope for tomorrow.
Join me and see what was and must be.
Youth and age can conspire, if you just believe..."

I flew all the way from Texas to New England to spend two weeks with miss Nienor. 5 of those days were to survive on an uninhabited island. Booyah.

"That's a very good question." Dyr'a, the next closest to the new arrival, crossed her arms and opted not to examine him closely, defiant nonchalance etched across her delicate features. The shvat caught herself and mentally grimaced, but maintained the posture anyhow. She definitely had an inferiority complex around Illaria.

"Another question of equal importance is, who and what are you, and how much do you know?" The apprentice looked around at the others. "It's getting late; we should find suitable cover and make camp. We could all use some rest - and a plan."

_________________


<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

Carlina looked at the newcomer with little interest. If he proved to be hostile, she could easily kill him. But he didn't and so now, Carlina watched him with arrogant eyes that suggested smugness in every degree. She listened to her companions question him as for his identity and his business and had no further questions to ask.

_________________

I was cured all right.

After being healed, Vos simply trudged along with the others, all sembelance of elven grace gone from his step as all he wanted to do was rest but knew he could not lest they be recaptured. So, when the human in armour decided to 'drop in' on their little group, the elf didn't even manage to scrounge up enough intrest to ask the man where he was from or what he was doing miles into no where; or at least no where Vos knew about. So he simply stood there and listened.

_________________
Four Gods wait on the windowsill,
Where once eight Gods did war and will,
And if the Gods themselves may die,
What does that say for you and I?

Now, three Gods wait on the windowsill
Where one God's blood was lately spilled
While black tongues lap at the spreading pool
And build the strength they need to rule.

Adellis surveyed the human round-eyed, childish curiousity entirely getting the better of her. Was this normal, for humans to travel about dressed in such heavy suits of armor - and then tumble down a mountainside to end up looking as though they'd ended up on the wrong side of a rock troll? That was not hard to do at all, she admitted to herself, but when one wore all that armor, wouldn't one take care to make sure it didn't get as obviously dented as it already was?

She found she quite wanted to ask him the questions that were lining themselves up in her head, but making camp meant - "Could this hu - this man camp with us?" she ventured cautiously. She did not sense, from their expressions, that this was really a favorable idea to any of them. Adellis ventured to take a step closer, and was instantly startled. Why, his face looked nearly as dented as the armor! How, really, could a human abide that? The slight half-elf nearly healed him then and there until it occurred to her that a slightly more plausible reason to have an extra member of that night's camp could be sitting - or rather, sprawled - right in front of her. "He looks hurt," she added, genuine anxiety in her voice. By moon and starlight, those did look like they must pain him. Would he perhaps not want to answer her questions?

_________________

Just fyi, everyone, a hauberk is a coat of chain-mail that goes down to the knee area, so it's not like plate armour.

--------

"Thank you," Ayden said thickly to the mage who had helped him up. As his leg threatened to drop him back again, the mage extended a hand, and Ayden felt some of the stiffness leave his legs, allowing him to stand upright without too much wavering.

Discovering with a small modicum of delight that he could actually speak clearly now, Ayden answered the questions they asked him, starting with the ones from the female mage who somehow seemed small among the rest of them.

He smiled again, his former stupid look fading back into his normal features as his head cleared. "I'm what is known as a human, Lady Mage, and the name my parents gave me is Ayden. As to what I know, it's next to nothing, especially after that latest incident coming down the hill. I was separated from my mercenary company three nights ago, and lost my way, seeing as I've never been good for finding my way around mountain country like this."

One of the other women there, one who was lingering in the back, spoke up. "Could this hu-- this man camp with us?" she asked in an uncertain voice. "He looks hurt."
Ayden glanced down at himself. Blood, mud, and bits of plants decorated his formerly-plain surcoat, with innumerable things stuck in his chainmail. It seemed that he was something of a mess, though he didn't feel as bad as he looked. He shot a grateful smile at the woman who'd pointed it out. Were all of the men mutes or something? So far, except for the one helpful male, only the women had said anything.

The first mage, the woman who had first asked him what he was doing, declared that he could camp with them that night, and he sighed in relief. Spending another night huddled next to a small fire in the middle of the mountains all alone didn't sound that good right then, so the possibility of staying with a group of apparently-trusting mages who wouldn't burn him to cinders sounded very good.

_________________

Dharron was happy, considering their current situation. For the first time, someone had actually spoken to him.

Scanning the area for firewood revealed little flammable; the ground was damp and bare, save small rocks. Probably erodes every time it rains here...

The young druid widened his search until he reached the base of some boulders. Leaning against one briefly, he stumbled suddenly and grasped an outcrop of rock as the earth beneath both feet caved in. Soft leather tore against the rough rock face, and Dharron had one last look at the sky before his fingers slipped and he fell. He tried to grab the wall in front of him even as he was falling, but merely succeeded in spraining one arm. Furthermore, the attempt sent him into a slight spiral, causing him to smash his forehead against a rock and rendering him unconscious.

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

He awoke roughly three hourse after nightfall, if awoke were the proper word to describe the sudden awareness of pain. It was almost completely dark; the only light source was the opening far above. Very slowly the druid forced himself to his knees, also resting on his uninjured arm. He could feel a small trickle of blood running down his face, and as the waves of pain lessened, the smell of decay grew more and more noticeable. He gagged, retching, only to find himself face to face with a partially clean skull.

_________________
"Who are you?"
"I am the Sage-Child, bearer of wisdom past and hope for tomorrow.
Join me and see what was and must be.
Youth and age can conspire, if you just believe..."

I flew all the way from Texas to New England to spend two weeks with miss Nienor. 5 of those days were to survive on an uninhabited island. Booyah.