Linx dropped back to where Nyk was seeing as no one seemed to be that interesting. He raised an curious eyebrow at him, "What's this you're talking about?"

*Honestly, what are you talking about sylverdawn? Please reply in the DT*

Atila

Atila watched as everyone filed into the tunnel. She took the back. She was thinking to herself when she bumped into Nyk or wild boy as she called him.

"Could you hurry up," she looked up at him. His face full of sadness but you could see lines of determination. The curly head frowned playfully.

"You look like an alligator in the morning," Linx said.
"Yes, and I have very sharp teeth." She was probably the only one who understood Linx's language. Linx's goofy grin made Atila laugh. She hadn't laughed in a long time. Linx went off to talk to the others.

Atila touched Nyk's arm which made him look up at her.
"I know who's son you are."

*Sorry I'm in a hurry*

*Nik101, I'm not sure sylverdawn would want it to be found out so early *

Linx turned to the twins, "You guys seem to be quite engineer, what do you think about all this intrigue?"

Shahara, not part of Linx's attnention, had listened to what he was saying and replied, "Don't you mean intelligent when you said engineer?"

Linx looked to her, "Yeah. I did, they mean the same thing."

He then glanced back at the twins, "So?"

Simon and Susa

“Well,” began Susa, “we figured out how the royal family was killed. That was easy, if unpleasant.”

“The King was poisoned,” said Simon promptly, as if he were reciting something for his tutor. “That could have been done by one of the servants, kitchen staff, or the guests he was eating with.”

“Princess Lilith was alone when she died. That was harder to solve.” Said Susa, who was so caught up in the mystery that she accidentally tripped over an uneven patch of floor. She stood up, grinning sheepishly.

“Anyway,” She continued, as if nothing had happened. “She may have been attacked from behind. How else could the blade of the scythe so effectively pierce her heart, without slicing her in half?” She winced at the thought.

“And Luther was killed in the dead of night when no-one was around." Said Simon. "That would have been an easy assassination, even with all his guards. All there was to it was to avoid the guards, sneak into the tent, kill the prince and leave the bloody weapon beside a sleeping guard. The assassin gets off scot-free. But that still doesn’t get us anywhere.”

“And as for Prince Kent…” They said together, identical looks of concentration on their faces.

“No one really knows.” Simon looked thoughtful a moment. Then, addressing him for the first time, asked;

“Nyk, have you been near the bottom of Heelopeer Ravine lately?”

Nyk shook his head. "No. It's impossible. Crossing the valley would be suicide."

"Oh," Said Susa, rather disappointed. "Well, have you, I don't know, heard of anything strange in the forest nearby?" She asked, dropping back to walk next to the boy.

Spoiler

All edited! If anything seems off in this, just ignore it.
Note to self: Heelopeer pass - impassable.

*The Heelopeer Ravine (an apt name if I say so myself ) is unreachable, well - if you want to live anyway, that's why they never uncovered his body. Nyk would've died if he went there *

Linx blinked and looked at them in surprise, "You know I'm beginning to think what Luke had to say had some pretty good grease behind it."

"What do you mean?" asked Simon with slightly narrowed eyes.

Linx grinned, "You guys pretty much have all the information, that's a little suspicious - if you know what I'm saying."

Susa frowned, "You're not saying we had anything to do with all the deaths, are you?"

Linx raised his hands, palms up, into the air and shrugged, "Hey, I was just making conversation. Anyway, if you guys had done it, I doubt you would've been caught."

Simon glared at him, "What are you implying?"

Linx backed off, "I was just complimenting your minds, that's all."

He sighed as he fell into step with Shahara, "Sheesh, a bunch of downers, aren't they?"

*And with that I'm waiting on just jok101 to reply, I think, before we can continue on. As a reference: post643109.html#p643109 and if you want to ask any questions I'd be glad to help. *

Johnathan

I slipped back to talk to Simon and Susa. I liked these two, they weren't fighters but they had the brains. Hell with a bit of patient mentoring Simon could easily be a great hand to hand fighter.

"I like your theorise but what about the recurring factor in each death" I said. Simon looked at me with interested eyes.

"Yeah what is it" Susa said.

"Poison, the king was poisoned probably by the people you said, or a guard. Now Kent wasn't poisoned, his horse could of been. given a poison that takes time to take affect, the assassin would of had to time it perfectly but he still could of done it. The only people questing with Kent were guards" I said taking a breath as I gathered my self for the next part of my theory.

"what about the Princess how did poison kill her huh it didn't because a scythe did it" Simon said.

"Same as the horse timed sleeping poison or maybe a timed lethal poison after all with a scythe through her heart the coroner probably didn't do any tests. The assassin must of tracked her through the field until she fell and placed the scythe through her heart to make it look like a terrible accident" I looked at Simon and Susa they didn't need me to tell them how the other prince had been killed.

"A simple rampage poison slipped into the guards evening drink" Said Susa like she was reading it from a book.

"Now we know were to start, complicated poisons like that can only be found in black market poison stalls" Karana said.

"I guess were going to the slums then" I said.

"I think we'll need to stop and get peasented up maybe give wild man a wash" I said looking a Nyks long shaggy hair.

"I wash" Nyk said looking insulted.

"really I didn't know their was soap in the wild" I said and he looked down defeated.

*if this isn't okay Light devil I'll change it if you had different ideas of were to start investigating*

Nykyrian(Nyk)-

Nyk scowled good naturedly at the dig. "It's kind of hard to sneak up on animals when you stink to high heaven." He smirked. "Besides it's not like I crawled out from under a rock. My mother taught me manners before she died. Although I seldom use them.

Johnathon chuckled, acknowledging the comeback. He was about to snap back at Nyk when the tunnel opened up.

*All I got. Been up all night, I'm out of it.*

Shahara smirked at Linx. "They're definitely eager to figure this out. Their investigative skills go beyond their age. But, yeah, the topic is kinda morbid, but I suppose the sooner we figure this out, the better." For the others at least. Shahara was not looking forward to returning to her old life.

Linx sighed in defeat. "You guys are really putting me feathers."

Shahara barely caught her laugh. "Don't you mean down?" She asked, struggling to hold back her laughter.

"That's what I said."

Shahara smiled and shook her head before looking up to see the end of the tunnel getting nearer.

*Ahhaha!, nice one EmiSukotto, . Anyway, Heelopeer is the first stop, seeing as that's where Kent perished, you might find something . . . interesting there, , but you'll eventually get to the slums and black market - that's more into Megrunda You're actually pretty close to the solution of Kent's death *wink-wink, hint-hint, nudge-nudge*. *

Linx blinked as the sun just showing over the cliff peaks strained his eyes, he blinked momentarily and the guard who had been escorting them pointed towards a wagon postioned a fair distance away from where the tunnel exit was, "This is where your supplies and personals are - everything you need. The wagon will never make it past the Heelopeer Ravine Fork, so there are bags for your items when you need to ditch the wagon."

Linx nodded and blinked some more as little black dots danced above his eyes, when he looked back the guard was offering him something. It looked like a parchment. A place was marked on it, he frowned as he took it. He had no idea how to read maps.

He looked to the others with a raised eyebrow, "Any of you guys know how to stalk maps?"

"Do you mean read?" asked one of the "spies".

Linx grinned, "That's what I said! Anyone?"

He held the parchment upside down and sideways. It was obvious he did not know what he was doing.

The guard bowed to them and began to walk back, he stopped and turned his head back to look at them, "Best you flee quickly, 12 hours on the Heelopeer Ravine Roads is not a very long time. Soldiers will be after you soon, that our gracious Regent Luke cannot stop."

The guard disappeared back into the tunnel. Both Atila and Nyk ran to the wagon. Inside rested their close and lively personals. Linx laughed and then turned to the others, "Anyone know how the read maps, I mean, I can't at all . . ."

*I would like to have a bit of a personality for Hero, since Nyk can talk to animals.*

Nykyrian(Nyk)-

Laughing, Nyk buried his face in Frost's thick silver pelt. Anxiously, the wolf sniffed him, checking for injuries. Not wanting to intrude he carefully tuned out the dog's excited, one sided conversation with Atila.

He glanced up at Linx's words and laughed at the baffled expression on the young mans face. Grinning he spoke up. "I can't, I've never needed to. But if we go through the forest I can find the ravine, or we can take the main road. Either way I can least stop them from pursuing us on horseback, and tracking us with scent dogs." Nyk shrugged and hopped down from the wagon. "It's your descision, I'm fine either way."

A babble of voices broke out behind him as the others started arguing about travel routes. Nyk jogged over to the tree line, and grinned at who he find hiding behind the bushes. Gently, he took hold of the leather strip that dangled down, he offered the animal the apple he had pocketed as he led the stag out of the forest. Like Frost, Cloud was still fairly young, just two years old his antlers had only just started to branch.

The stag was as white as the mountain snow fields. He tossed his head, excited to be going on an adventure with his friends, even if there were humans coming along. Laughing, Nyk mounted the stags bare back and rode over to the others.

Frost jumped down from the wagon, and trotted over to walk beside him. A couple of his new found friends, glanced up to gape at him. Cloud snorted, his voice carried laughter. "They're a bit scrawny, you sure we'll be alright with them Nyk."

Nyk rolled his eyes. "I think we'll do just fine." He spoke louder so everyone could here him. "I don't know about you guys but I am not riding in that wagon. Cloud can take me anywhere I need to go."

*I'm glad people read my posts (sarcasm there) . I think I wrote, about 6 posts up, that:

*The Heelopeer Ravine (an apt name if I say so myself ) is unreachable, well - if you want to live anyway, that's why they never uncovered his body. Nyk would've died if he went there *

Also, it was in the link I obviously wasted time and effort in posting:

http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/post643109.html#p643109

If anyone checked it, they would understand that there is no forest that is crossable and also would know the reason as to why it would not be safe for a stag to travel the Heelopeer Ravine Roads.*

---

Linx ignored the remarks that Nyk had made and looked at the map, "Well, Heelopeer has to be marked for a reason. We'll probably have to go there first."

Susa and Simon shared a look, "But those rock bridges are known to be perilous! And Nyk's stag wouldn't even make it a metre across the thin span that the Ravine Roads are!"

Linx looked at Jon, "You seem like the type who can read maps, are you good for it?"

Shahara listened to the conversation as she dug amongst the wagon's contents. Her hand finally found her blades, set next to what had to be Karana's weapon. She removed her scimitars and pulled the blade of one partly from it's sheath, the steel glinted in the sunlight. Shahara slid the blade back and busied herself with strapping the blades onto her belt as the others continued with their map discussions.

"You seem like the type who can read maps, are you good for it?" Linx asked, turning to Jon. Shahara would have offered her input, but the Heelopeer Ravine was a place she'd been taught to avoid at all possible times, and avoid it she did.

During her time serving as a soldier for her Aunt's home village, she would leave days earlier on a mission to have time enough to find a safer alternate route to where she was heading. What these people were suggesting was crazy, but they didn't have the time they needed to make this a safe mission. The group needed to get as far from Capital as they could, and fast. The Capital Guards would most likely want to avoid the Ravine, leaving a bigger gap between the "spies" and their pursuers.

Shahara leaned against the wagon and listened as Jon took the map.

*I read the posts, Light Devil. Just keep reminding us to check the DT, and it'll stamp into our heads eventually. I'll put Hero's personality in the DT.*

Atila

Atila rummaged around the wagon. Her belongings were underneath the driver's bench, all tied up in a canvas. She grabbed the bundle and sat in the driver's seat. She heard a mummer of voices behind her but she blocked all that out; her back faced everyone. The first thing she picked out from the canvas was her dog whistle.
Now how the buzzards did they get my whistle if it was hidden in my inside pocket. They would have had to stick their hand down my sh- Those guards will get a beating for that!
Come on, now, collect yourself. Blow the whistle!

She blew the whistle long and hard. Of course the humans couldn't have heard it, but it would be a slight ringing sound in their ears.
Come on, Hero. Where are you? All dogs could hear the whistle a mile away, or at least Hero anyway. That dog's ears were trained for every sharp whistle of his master. Atila only used the whistle when he was too far away to hear her.

She blew it once more. Atila was completely oblivious to everyone behind her. She picked up her longbow and inspected it.
The guards at least cared for it. She saw that they had not scratched it it even looked polished. They had even loaded her quiver with new arrows.
Brilliant! Her eyes twinkled.
She heard a dog barking in the distance.
"It's Hero. I'm sure of it," she said determinedly.
She looked over her shoulder and yelled, "Aren't you a little worried I'll steal your belongings?" She said this humorously but she did actually have the temptation of taking a necklace she saw poking out of one of the canvass. Atila finally noticed wild boy's wolf, Frost as she remembered him calling it.

Something thumped right next to her on the bench.
"Hero!"

*Sorry this is so long. I didn't mention if we were leaving or not because I'm not sure where we're going exactly. And um, I'm just imagining here that the wagon would look like this http://home.att.net/~carriagerides/cloverwagon1.jpg Of course it would look aged more. Just a suggestion, Light Devil. And my longbow looks like this http://www.patnorrisarchery.com/lightbo ... h_ML4.jpg*

*Thanks Nik101, I like the way you have thought about it. It looks like a pretty good wagon, but what if it was going to rain? I was imagining one more like this http://www.crunchgear.com/wp-content/up ... -wagon.jpg just incase of that little detail. Also I think your bow link is broken. Thank you both for reading my posts as well *

Linx looked over at the path leading to the Heelopeer Ravine Fork and whistled, "Jon, Jon, Jonny-boy! Which way in the fork should we take?"

Linx had basically shoved the map into Jon's face. Karana voiced her soldier like thoughts, "We've only got a 12 hour advantage. Let's not waste it."

Yeah that detail didn't come to mind. Forgot that. And here's the link for my longbow http://www.patnorrisarchery.com/lightbo ... ah_ML4.jpg