Linnix examined the wooden chest. The lock seemed simple enough, but there was something nagging at her, the feeling that something was wrong. Finally, she found it. She smiles as she disarms the trap; good thing no one else tried to open it. Yet, even as her lock picks clink in the chest's lock, she hesitates.

"Aelistae," Linnix begins quietly so that only Aelistae would hear, the metallic clinking aiding to mask her speech, "After that last battle, it looked as though you were holding your blade differently from when you fought that spider... it seemed like there was something wrong."

Linnix glances over at Aelistae, catching her eyes with her own, "If there is something, did you want to talk about it?"

The sound of metal clinking against metal echoes gently up the hallway after the others, concealing the concern hidden within.

“I…don’t worry I’m fine.”

Aelistae’s brow furrowed as she stooped over the kneeling form of Linnix. She had stayed behind even as the others had moved on because she had been asked by the human woman to provide her some light for some task she had in mind. Only to find herself surprised both by the task Linnix had set herself and by the question she had asked of her.

Part of her wanted to open her heart to Linnix, and divulge all of the concerns and fears she had. But Aelistae was not confident that she could express it clearly in the human tongue, especially since she barely understood it herself.

“I’m just weary, both in body and in here,” she added, gesturing at her heart. “I’m not sure I can explain it, Linnix.”

[Feel free to add more if you like, Reralae. I’m happy to back post]

---

[Later that night:]

Aelistae drew her knees to her chest and looked up at the night sky. She sat alone at the edge of the cave in which the camp had been made, the warmth of the fire behind her and the cool of the night air before her. The soft murmur of her companions’ conversation could be heard upon the warm breeze, but Aelistae’s mind was elsewhere, focused upon replaying the events of the last few hours.

‘In the end we were lucky they were just orcs and ogres and not….’
She left the thought unfinished. She was about to add ‘and not Lolth’s children’ but the human that had manipulated the orcs had proven herself to be just as conniving as any drow. Aelistae felt the bitter disappointment she had felt earlier rise within her once more.

‘Was I wrong to come here? …Wrong to hope?’
She had no answer. But then it was not a question that Aelistae was asking of herself. Her violet eyes focused upon a small parting in the clouded sky that grew and grew until the silvery light of the moon spilled forth onto the land beneath. Aelistae rose and slipped away into the night.

She did not go far. She carefully picked her way through the undergrowth to take her away from the camp, until she arrived at a small clearing. Aelistae’s drow eyes could still make out the edge of the cave in the distance. She had not moved away from the others because she wished to abandon them, but rather to spare their modesty. Because all of her clothes lay forgotten upon the earth.

She knelt upon the cold earth and savoured, for a moment, the feel of it under her skin. Then she looked up at the moon once more and burst out into song.

It was not a song in the human understanding of the word. There were no words, and at first all Aelistae uttered was a single, mournful note. But then it changed, becoming lighter somehow, less melancholic, almost as if the song was an echo of Aelistae’s own journey from the evils of the Underdark to the light of the surface world.

After what seemed to Aelistae to be minutes but which could have been an hour or more, her sword, which she held unsheathed in the palms of her hands, began to glow with a silvery light.

Her mind flashed with images. She saw once more the touching concern Linnix has shown for her welfare, the resolve Artanis had shown when defending others from the host of orcs, and the self-sacrifice of Kas when she charged the sorceress even though she had been severely wounded. And Aelistae saw once more the kindness of Nash, who had saved her from a mob of his kinsfolk.

The song came to a sudden end, and tears welled in her eyes.

“F'sarn taudl whol treem dos Jallil...whol treem mina.”
The words trailed off. Aelistae rose to her feet and danced. The silver glow of her sword matched the silver of her hair and the silvery moonlight, as sword, drow and glade became one. She danced even when her breath came in laboured grasps and the midnight black of her skin shimmered with sweat.

But Aelistae did not stop even then. Eilistraee had eased the cares and doubts that she carried, and she was determined to honour the Lady of the Dance in the manner that She most loved.

OOC: “I’m sorry for doubting you Lady…for doubting them.”

Oh and there’s no intention to ignore Xaris or Loriel in what I’ve written. It’s just that neither of those two are human or have human blood.

“Elisia, I do hope you have some healing spells left. Kas has been sorely wounded and so has Artanis.” Loriel asks as soon as she sees Elistae across the double ladder bridge.

As a precaution she had fastened her rope securely around Moonshadow’s body in a figure eight before crossing the bridge herself. She carefully takes her time and does rush as she transfers her weight slowly form one place to another so not to strain the lashed ladders too much. With a brief sigh she was over safely but now she had to get Moonshadow across and that would not be so easily. Moonshadow certainly weighted more than any of them perhaps more than any two of them together and would test their construction to the limits.

First problem was to get Moonshadow on the bridge. The huge wof-Coo Shee had watched them all cross and began to whine a bit a Loriel moved out on the bridge. Moonshadow begin to try to get on the ladder at the same time. “No, Moonshadow. Wait there. I will call you,” she said and reinforced it with her telepathic link. When she called Moonshadow move forward but on placing her forepaws on the ladder, she hesitated. It sagged under her weight so she backed up onto the ground.

Loriel tried coaxing her forward again. She knew it went against her companions instinct to move out on anything that gave so beneath her weight. Loriel knew Moonshadow follow her instincts in this matter. Loriel was going to have to ask her to trust Loriel more than her instince in this matter. “I did it my friend you can too. Come to me.” Moonshadow whine again and paced on the edge of the floor next to the opening in the floor/. Moonshadow was thinking about jumpin the chasm at an angle. Loriel didn’t want her to try. The rope around the Wolf-dog if she missed would drag Loriel into the pit after Moonshadow. “Come to me, Moonshadow. Loriel pats the ladder “Come.” Still whining a bit Moonshadow put first one paw then another on the ladder once again. Slowly she tentatively place her third paw on the rails of the ladder and then began to move she keeps her head down and slowly, one paw at a time, moved forward across the expanse. The last few feet Moonshadow launched herself from the ladder to the safety of the floor beyond.

Loriel let out her breath with a whoosh. She hadn’t even realized she was holding it. Loriel moved forward to scratch Moonshadow in her favorite spot, behind her ears. “What a good girl” she crooned softly, and all the while fondling the big wolf-dog’s ears. “Come on lets get out of here,” Loriel expresses clearly, but to mo one in particular, and she proceeds forward to the entrance of the cave, or tunnel in this case.

The scene outside is not as they had left it. There were dead Orcs on the ground. Bart it looked like was or at least had been wounded. She really hoped Elisia had some healing left.

Once Loriel had heard the tale of the goings on outside. She broached the subject that ws still concerning her. “You know that we do not know for sure that this was alll an elaborate trap. I cannot leave until I know we are not leaving a woman and her child here. I am planning to go back in and check the place out as best I can. That woman I know seemed to be saying we were on a fool’s mission but that trap she had set was hastily prepared and that could be because they heard the floor collapse earlier. Is anyone willing to go back in with me to make sure about this.”.

Kas can barely function without the others aid. When it cam time for the small battered band to move out she moves slowly and with extreme care so as not to open the stitches in her side, using the spear as a support. Once outside she finds that Bart and Elesia also suffered an attack by a pair of Orcs. With Aelistrae’s aid she sits against the wall of the cave at and takes out her sword and after wrapping her cloak about her, she lays the blade across her lap. The Spear is propped up against the wall, but she knew she could not use it again, not in her condition, it would kill her. While they discuss the treachery of this incident and decide to camp here for the night, Kas listens to what is going on about her; listening so that her mind is occupied with something, and not the nothingness she had perceived earlier.

Never before had she ever felt so helpless and alone, not that her new friends did not care for her, for their concern and solicitations were all that one could want in so new a group, but there was a feeling of the emptiness, the nothingness that left her feeling alone, cut off. Compounding this feeling was the fact that the god she knew, did not exist here. If that was so then this was not her world. Kas trembled at the thought, up until now she figured she had just come into a new land and accepted the strangeness as due to that, but now? In the battle she had been calling on Pelor, but it was not Pelor who answered, Tyr answered her, as Pelor, The Shining One, Patron of the Domains of Sun, Light, Strength, and Healing, who was her god, was not a deity of this world, Tyr filled the void of Kasenarrion’s need.

Leaning against the wall on the cave, catching the last rays of the sun, tears well at the thought that Pelor was not with her, not here, wherever here was.

Yet there was Tyr, he had given her succor and strength to battle the evil and for that she now gives her heart-filled prayers of praise.

“Tyr, as the Patron of Good, Law, Knowledge, Retribution, and War, I, Kasenarrion Sunfire, promise to serve you faithfully. I will Fight for Justice, Serve and Do Good, Support the Higher Law, Gain and Use Knowledge to perform duties for you and to aid others, Deliver Retribution where and when needed, and to use the Craft of War to help others.” After saying this Kas felt little bit less lonely and cut off, but cut off from where. Her hand caressed the golden emblem of Pelor in the hilt of her family’s sword. She knew that much, but with it came no memories of family, it was a void in her mind and for the first time she truly felt it. “This I swear on my family’s sword, in this Pelor and You have a common ground, and that is Good.”

Her family’s sword, but a family she could not remember, there were no faces, no voices, and no memories of anything related to them. She could remember schooling and training and learning. She remembered wanting to be a Bard and the time coming when she had to give that up to become what she was now. Normally what one becomes is based on the background and upbringing and half of that was related to family, but for Kas there was no family. It hurt knowing that, a pain worst that the throbbing in her side, a pain of emptiness and not knowing.

Kas caught bits and pieces of further conversations, describing what had been happening both inside and outside the cave. Kas was upset that she could not be of more help to these new friends, and the reason she was now as she was, had to do with a bad choice on her part. She should have heeded her own misgivings about the weapon carried by the horse-headed man, where as the shield of the Centaur had been beneficial to Artanis, the spear had been a mixed blessing. Kas had made good hits on the Ogre and the Magic User, but she had suffered for it. The only physical blow she had taken was from the Ogre, but the spear had twice bitten her back after she scored hits on the enemy. That is why she now held her family sword in her hand, if they were arttacked and she used the spear, it would kill her. She was not ready to die, she had a memory to recapture, however one does that, she was not sure. Perhaps it was the blow to her head, the one that left her with the star shaped scar and a headache that was not yet quite gone.

Talk then turned to Loriel feeling that they should reenter that cave and make a complete search of it, just to make sure that the missing women and child were not really their. She was right, they only surmised that the thing was a trap and that the old man and sent them into it. As much a Kas would have like to help, she knew she would only be a hindrance.

“Loriel,” Kas calls to the Elf, “I have no divine blessing to give you, but for what it is worth you have my blessing on this endeavor. May haps Tyr will see fit to watch over you as you go to seek the Truth of this matter so that Justice, and, or Retribution can be served.”

Elesia looks up from the small cache of potions and scrolls she has before her. She wished she could sin a song to wipe the pain away from al he dear companions, but Bart's wounds had required immediate aid in the aftermath of feding off the orcs who had arived at the cave mouth afterthe others had ventured inside. The man was no warrior Elesia knew, but for such a common folk, his courage and determination were something commendable. He had put himself in harm's way to protect Elesia, a stranger to him on all accounts, and fended off the attackers as best as he could. Fortunately, Elesia's 'charming' personality had won over one of the orcs, helping turn the tide on the others.

"I'm afraid I cannot sing a song to aid anyone, but perhaps these few potions will lighten the burdens of pain." With that Elesia lifts up the wo potions of Cure Light Wounds and the Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds. "Kas, Artanis, they are yours for the taking for you wounds appear great. Come, drink." Elesia holds out the potions for the others to accept or be given while she continues her identification of other potions and scrolls. "If there is something to identify, please let me know soon, I'd rather be singing a song round a warm fire when the chill of night arrives, then sitting out here with random items before me just piquing my interest." With that, she lets her fingers slide over the spear Kas once carried, and muttered something indeciferable to everyone else. She looked up and smiled at whomever was closest. "It's pretty. Probably worth quite a bit to a collector."

Turning to Loriels ask for assistance, Elesia could only shrug, her time was already allocated. "I wish you luck in your venture too. I'll sing a happy song for your safe return."

Linnix nods solemnly, "It's alright, if you can't explain, then you don't have to try. Just please remember, I am here if you need to talk; you're the one who said 'a trouble shared is a trouble halved', so try not to keep everything inside."

Even as she says those words, Linnix knows they are as directed towards Aelistae as they are to herself, but there just didn't seem to be any time for it for her. Linnix turns back to the lock, and with a smooth click, it unlocks, with the footsteps of the others already slightly faded. With a last check over the chest, Linnix opens it. From within, she pulls out a dusty pendant of a horse-headed humanoid figure.

"I like jewellery, but not when it's ugly." Linnix says casually, stuffing it in her pack negligently (to throw it onto the pile of treasure later).

While her hand is in her pack, she feels for the money pouch she picked up earlier, and reaches within. She feels the coins, and grabs a handful, but also feels a smooth object against her hand. Reaching a bit further, she manages to grab the opal along with the coins.

"Here," Linnix says, holding out her hand, "I don't know if that's half, but we can look at it later and check if you want to; I had found more than a sword back where the spider was."

(let's see, a random handful of coins would be... umm, maybe 13gp and 1sp? I'm not sure, you decide Kaelyn )

* * *
[Later]

Linnix sneaks the pendant onto the treasure pile when (hopefully) no one is looking, and then afterwards walks over to the side of the group and sits, slightly at a loss of what to do. She watches Aelistae exit the cave, and thinks of following, but decides not to. Aelistae likely wanted some time to herself, and so she would respect that. Without thinking, Linnix stretches her arms, and then winces as the pain to her shoulder blade returns. She definately jarred it hard in that fall earlier. Just then, Loriel spoke up about wanting to venture back in.

"Are you out of your mind?" Linnix asks, "First off, did you see the bridge fall into that hole that now blocks the way in or out of those ruins? How are you going to get back across that? Not to mention, if you do find them, presuming they actually are there, how can you get THEM across that hole as well? Secondly, there are no real coincidences when two opposing forces are involved. Face the facts: our patron was attacked soon after our entrance, we run into a series of traps including one whereby the one we're supposed to be helping attacks methodically and a few people nearly die, and you have the nerve to say that wasn't an elaborate trap?! Not to mention this after being duped by something so elaborate as an illusion no less, with that false river and bridge, or have you forgotten about that?"

Linnix takes in a large breath, and nearly continues her rant, but decides that was enough. She had actually stood up and advanced on Loriel at the outrageous idea. Linnix shakes her head, and turns her back. It was bad enough earlier when Loriel had first spoken against their patron, but now she had the nerve to suggest this notion as well. This didn't bode well, and yet, Linnix now knew it wasn't going to get better. She had resolved to talk with Loriel earlier, but it seemed that it wouldn't solve anything. Without another note, Linnix left the cave entrance, careful to not be too loud, in case she disturbed Aelistae, but when she came out, she could see it wasn't necessary. Aelistae was in the midst of a beautiful dance, and how pretty it was. Linnix sits just past to the side to the cave entrance and smiles sadly, perhaps another time, another life, she would have learned how as well.

Kas passes the Cure Moderate Potion to Artanis and takes the other two cure Light potions, she drinks both knowing just depleated she was, both by wounds and by the draining caused by the spear. She looks to the others as they go about their business.

"I suggest that we use the money from tha sale of what we have found, for the purchase of healing potions."

"I would also add that anything having to to with the horse headed man be taken to a temple and inspected by a High Priest or Priestess. That spear exacted a price for its use. Every hit I got with it I paid for with my own life force."

"Elesia, what did you feel with you inspected it. And can anyone do an augury, or divination to find out if the woman and child are in there, before I aid Loriel in her search. The truth of their existence is in question, but I feel as Loriel, we must know for sure before abandoning the cave, and maybe them."

Kasenarrion
1st potion +7
2nd potion +9

Kasenarrion 17/30 HP

Xaris sat a a few feet from the fire, just outside its glow. He faced the wilds and thought about the events that had just passed, and took his blade in his hand. With his legs stretched out, he laid the blade across, and cleaned it.

Father would be proud at how I use you, I'm almost as good as he was! But never could I match him. So many enemies I watched him take down, and I could do nothing.
Xaris took his blade and held it in front of him, letting the low light around him shine off of its steely edge.

Every kill, every life I help all goes to you. To my family, to Shei, Jheril, Asersie, my father and even Yyreienl. To everyone who was caught, it all goes to you.
Xaris sheathed his sword and ruffled through his pack, bringing out an old, decrepit arrow. It was in two halves, and the wood was dark from age and brittle. The feathers on its end were red and white, and the arrow head broad and heavy. It had an insignia on the side that he still to this day could not find.

One day, I'll find out. One day, everything will come together.

He sat back, putting the arrow away, and listened to snippets of the conversation behind him. He ignored it all, as the group mostly sat, and watched the night go by.

As Xaris sits, warming himself by a newly constructed fire, just within the mouth of the cave, allowing the smoke to trickle out into the early evening sky, he seems lost in thought as he fingers an ornate arrow in his little hands.

Elesia, sitting nearby with the pile of loot, catches a glimpse of the arrow and can't help but speak on it. "You cradle that arrow as though it were a child, so gentle with it, yet I can see in your eyes that it fills you with such anguish. Did it perhaps belong to a friend of yours, a member of the Green Dragon Brigade? For surely that is one of their arrows."

Xaris sat, half listening to the conversations behind him until he heard a mention of an arrow, and something that would change that night drastically for him.

"You cradle that arrow as though it were a child, so gentle with it, yet I can see in your eyes that it fills you with such anguish. Did it perhaps belong to a friend of yours, a member of the Green Dragon Brigade? For surely that is one of their arrows."

He snapped a look back at Elesia, wondering if he heard the words that she spoke correctly. Did the information that he was trying to gather for the past twelve years actually just reach his ears? He opened his mouth, but few words came out.

" The arrow. It belongs to murderers, people who need to be punished. Green Dragon Brigade?"

He pondered on the name, letting it digest in his mind, hoping finally he found out what it was.

Elesia looked at the sadness and anger that welled in Xaris' eyes as he stared her down, desperate for more information. "Murderers, well, probably, for the war was bloody for everyone, and many lives, innocent lives were lost."

Elesia turned, placing a stray hair behind her ear, her eyes sparklin in the firelight.

"The Green Dragon Brigade was one of Tethyr's more skilled, and zealous groups of regimental soldiers in the time of war. Consisting almost entirely of men, most skilled at the rangerly or stealthy arts, the Green Dragon's purpose was to infiltrate suspected areas of rebellion or mutiny within the kingdom's borders, and quell them, that they might not cause trouble for the monarchy who was already desperately fighting against not only the insurgents, but tertiary, outside forces, such as the drow, or amnish forces seeking to expand their territory beyond the peaks in Tethyr's time of struggle."

Elesia let it all sink in for the little one, casting a glance over to the others who were still trying to persuade Loriel not to enter the cave once more. "I have no magic's left to me dear Loriel, only a prayer to the spirits that you will have luck in this venture, should you be resolved to persue it despite the obvious dangers.

"The Green Dragon Brigade was one of Tethyr's more skilled, and zealous groups of regimental soldiers in the time of war. Consisting almost entirely of men, most skilled at the rangerly or stealthy arts, the Green Dragon's purpose was to infiltrate suspected areas of rebellion or mutiny within the kingdom's borders, and quell them, that they might not cause trouble for the monarchy who was already desperately fighting against not only the insurgents, but tertiary, outside forces, such as the drow, or amnish forces seeking to expand their territory beyond the peaks in Tethyr's time of struggle."

Xaris just stood there, thinking of everything that was just told to them. It would make sense at how easily the humans picked through the forest, and how they were able to get to the dead center of the Wealdath woods. He always pondered at how they humans were able to get to them then and not any earlier time.

" So, they must of thought us as an outside force? They tricked the goblins into killing us, so they didn't have to bother with three dozen gnomes. "

He looked up to Elesia, a small tear coming down his cheek, and a smile on his face.

" For twelve years, I wandered all of Tethyr to find this information. Something drew me here to you, all of you. Thank you again..."

He looked up, and chuckled slightly.

" Oh, you might be wondering what happened." He sighed. " Well twelve years ago, goblins burned our village, killed, desecrated, and even ate some of my family. For centuries they did not know how to fight, and when these humans came, they gave them the knowledge, arms, and insentive to kill us all. Then the humans killed the piss soaked goblins, leaving nothing. Well except me. My father was to thank for that. Now one of the reasons I travel is to find this group. To exact revenge. But that is not the main reason why I walk the roads I do..." He looks up, tears strolling down his face, but they are tears of joy.
" That reason is of a different mind set, not one born from this human treachery."

"Elesia reached over and put a delicate hand on Xaris' knee." I don't know of treachery or enlisting goblins to do their dirty work, but it is true that the Wealdath was a place of much death and destruction. The lives lost then do enrich the soil so that life may bloom now though. Your family lives on in every flower, tree or bloom, and thus up the food chain into every creature that has been born since then in the great woods. It is a circle, everlasting my dear sweet Xaris. Do not carry the burden of the past alone, and do not let it drive you to that which certainly is unattainable."

Elesia thought for am oment before adding more.

"Even were you were to miraculously--and incorrigably and irrevocably turn from the light-- in hunting down every member of the Green Dragon Unit from twelve years ago, and slay them, you would not bring your family back, and only further seperate your chances of ever reuniting with them, in this life or the next. The times of war were hard on everyone, and if the Green Dragon was responsible for the death of your family, I can only presume as much that their intelligence was compromised somewhere along the way to what ended in a grievous tragedy. You must let learn to let it go."

Loriel hears Linnix out, not bothering to say anything in response. There wasburst. really othing she could say to LInnix;s emotion out. Loriel couldn't leave withoug making sure that there wasnot woman or child.

Loriel looked about for anyone else and noticed that Xarius off talking with Elesia and AelistraeShe was nowhere in sight. She though thought about asking him to go with her becauswe he had proved such an able fighter but decided against it.

Loriwl takes everything out of her pack except her rope, and antitoxin, she keeps only her eapons and tales off all pouchs and eany extra weight rolling them up in her dagger, longsword adn bow and quiver. To the other she turns as she slings her nearly empty pack over her shoulders and fastens it around her waist.

"I am just going down the center corridor. I plan on jumping the pit and checking the doors out and calling out for the woman if she is not gagged then answers then I will return for help to get her out."

Loriel pats her summoning Moonshadow to her side and sets off doen the corridor they had traverse early. She will take a running jump for the far side (take 10 add bonus of 6) and leaps acorss the pit trap.