The Four Treasures

~Thaden Ma'lar~

"None of this makes any sense."
"That's what I think too," Driznarden said.
"No, not her, Sira. She is performing magic at an highly advanced level." A low chuckle rang out from the Old Man.
"What a strange group. High magic, lots of mystery, and I thought I was the only one without an explanation."

I scowled "We have reason's for our secret old man you just mind your own business"
"Fine, fine i'll mind my own business", grinned the old man

I went to sleep dreaming of my life with my Dad and Mum.

"thaden, hand over that book, let me take a look at it, seems interesting enough"

Wow, fontroy, did Alex just turn into a narrator? If not, you need to remember to close your quotes at the end of the quote, not at the end of the sentence.

Croak's still asleep, and not looking like he's gonna be waking up any time soon.

~Thaden~

"If you can read gryphon, go ahead." I handed him the book.

"no but i know a spell that will help me" i quickly flipped through the first few pages, "this looks like a book describing ways to transport things, as quick as a flash, from one place to another. It mentions using nodes as energy sources hmm.... you mind if i borrow this for a while?"

~Thaden~

"Go for it," I said. I was too preoccupied with it all.

"thanks, i never really used the nodes much, this should be interesting"

Valin Norovir:

The conversation stopped being interesting, and Drow stopped fighting us and amongst themselves. They weren't telling us anything of substance either, but Seraph had everything under control. I hadn't slept more than five or six hours in the past week and a half, so I fell asleep.

I sat up in the wagon. "Driznarden, I want you to get to work trying to decipher that spell. We're going to need Sira if one of us is wounded--I can only heal so much before my own energies are expended. If that happens, I won't be able to fight. I'm going to TRUST you with using that spell wisely. If you need further incentive to not misuse the spell...remember that I hold your lover's life in my hands. Do not betray us."

Turning to the resting Thalin, I whispered,

"I'm going to take first watch. Just because it's day does not mean that danger does not lurk. Besides, someone has to watch the drow. I'll wake you up in a few hours for your watch."

I glanced up at Ma'Lar, who was looking worried indeed.

"Ma'Lar, I need you airborn...try to find us a place to camp for the night. We want to put as much distance between us and the drow as possible before they resurface."

Looking over my shoulder to the female drow, I saw that she had fallen asleep.

One of the few things she can do that will not trigger that ward I thought with some amusement.

With Alex, Croak, the female and Thalin sleeping, and Ma'Lar and Driznarden with their own tasts, I set to cleaning my weapons and armor, stripping away the pieces of my platemail until I was wearing only my black breeches, one sleeved tunic, and knee high-leather boots. Pulling a cleaning kit from a belt pouch, I began oiling up the metal plates and cleaning them with precise motions and the utmost care.

-lirear-

I pretended to sleep because I knew my anger wuold flare up if i did anything else. I decided that it wuold be a good time to practice meditateing because i had not done so in a while. When i was done i thought about my options, i cuold either pretend to be "good," not that any of these guys were exept for posibly the sleeping one, or i could leave and forget about revenge and possibly die from pain, one other option was to travel with them and be myself, but tormented by that monster's pain every five minutes. All in all i considered my only option to be insenserly good. I opened my eyes and made a show of waking up.
"I am sorry for the way i acted earlyer, i was unreasonable and acted rashly; i shuold have lisened, and coroperated" I said as i thought is shuold meditate more often because my viocew suonded sincere while i was really seathing inside. "Cuold you explain more thougherly what you want to know from me and what triggers this pain, please."

I looked up from my work.

"Apology accepted. I'd like your name, to start with." I held my bare hand out to her.

"I am Seraph Belfast Templar of Helm. My father spent some time in Menzoberranzon; is that where you hail from?"

Croak's eyes slowly opened. He couldn't remember anything from the night before. He could barely even remember who the big man in front of him was. All he knew was that he ached all over, and he could tell he had been sleeping for a long time. He looked around. Valin was asleep, thank goodness. The gryphon was gone, probably flying around somewhere. Seraph had taken off his armor and was cleaning it carefully, while talking to a female drow. Croak opened his eyes wider. The drow was new. In fact, he couldn't remember meeting either of them, although they both seemed strangely familiar.

"Okay, big man," Croak sat up, speaking to Seraph, "my head's all fuzzy; who are these drow, and why are we in the back of this cart?"

~Thaden Ma'lar~

The air felt good. I kept a sharp eye out for Sira, but she was nowhere to be seen. I looked down at the road. It split in half, one heading west and the other heading south. I looked further on and there were some splits, and if the vegetation was any indication, there were probably several paths hidden underneath the trees. The towns were huddled together and had fortifications.

So this was the myriad forest. Numerous paths had been carved through it, but not all of them were safe ones. Stories of robbers were abundant, some noble and kind, others ruthless and cut-throat. The stories and characters varied, but there was always two constants, robbers and travellers getting lost. I saw some especially thick parts of the forest, which possibly held streams, but nothing was certain. The forest covered everything. I wasn't happy. I'd have to tell Seraph that there was no apparent overnight area, except in the towns, which were almost certainly under surveilence, complete with spies from any number of gangs.

I turned back towards the cart.

"They call me lireal" i said pleasently while firmly shaking his hand, but i was thinking he was some dullard for not paying atention the first time around for not paying attention to my name. I gave him a smile and relaxed a bit.
"as for my life story, it is quete long and complex, i am over 200 years old, so maybe this griffin shuold hear it too, so you know i am telling the truth. I trust they can detect lies? Also thank you for forgiveing me, i am glad to see you are not racist as my foolish comrade surly thinks." i then noticed the sleepy one awakening, "my goodness! its alive! i thought it was a body, waiting for the grave! Oh my!" i joked trieing to get him to relax, but when he only looked alarmed, i went on, "that, my freind was a joke, we have those in the underworld, i asumed something like that wuold exist up here too" i wondered if he relised the second part was half jokingly too. "Anyway, before we beggin may my dog come out, she is very freindly? and what IS your quest?"