"I agree that is not just to withhold water, yet I find it pales in comparison to starving. Friend, are you with us in finding food for the people, we will not live long at this rate. Yet, we can do something about the situation, if only a little bit."
*puts his sword away to extend a hand to the man in front of him*"The king may not be the strongest of us all, but he is trying to supply us with food as not to render us deceased to the world. Pray, join us on this most honourable mission."
Keeping his gaze upon the King, Bren slowly shook his head. "You misunderstand," his tone was flat as he addressed the man who approached his flank "I've chosen how I am to help, and it is not your goal." The voice of the man... he had been the one to address the youth... they had exchanged names. Bren wracked his weary brain in frustration. "I'll not leave the youth to the life I've lived. Nor any other who shall travel with him. That is my repayment."

He paused, trying to force the name to surface. He glared at the monarch during the entire exchange and recalled the youth's hopelessness. He replayed the voices, once assumed the whispers of spirits, in his mind.

"...Leon. Direct me to the youth known as Leon who stood in your hall, and I assure you he will survive his journey."

He heard the movements of others around him and cared not for their actions and scantly heard their words, keeping his gaze upon the ruler. Unless someone was going to direct him to the youth he was done here, but he'd give the man a final chance to speak.

Leon sat on his bed flipping his father's pendant through his fingers. "I need to find others to travel with me through the wastes. Surely we'll find something out there, something we can use to survive." Standing, Leon placed the pendant back on its chain. Leon scrutinized his small home, searching for anything of use to take into the wastes. After a few minutes he laid everything on his bed. His dagger, a small satchel with maybe two days worth of food, and his half-empty water-skin. "Well this is everything I need, now to find companions." Leon walked out of his door with his plan fresh in his mind. As he walked down the street, he looked back once more at his home and gave a silent farewell to his old life.

As he walked through the streets searching for someone to travel with, he thought he could hear what sounded like someone digging just around the corner. "Who would dig in the middle of a street?" Peeking around the corner Leon noticed it was in fact one of the others from the throne room. "Uh.. Excuse me sir? Were you in the throne room with me earlier?" Leon stood at the end of the street staring at the cloaked figure. "I... I was searching for others to travel into the wastes with, to search for somewhere more fertile, a place with food and water. Would you like to accompany me?" Leon looked down at his feet, trying to hide the nervousness in hie voice, something about this man made him uncomfortable.

The young woman maneuvered through the medium sized room, occasionally bumping her hip on an object. Breathing slowly she glanced around the room closing her eyes she tried to remember the way the room had been the last time she had been in here.

The lighting in the room was dim, and the room filled with document after document of information. The woman walked over to the desk running her fingers along the edges lightly. Suddenly she stopped and grabbed one of the booked and opened it running her fingers along the old papers. Arathyra sat down on the floor and started flipping through the pages occasionally brushing her fingers along the surface of the paper.

The woman`s guest would notice strange markings on the scattered papers. Deep impressions on the corners of the papers that seemed to feel different than the rest of the paper. It was the way the woman filtered through the papers so quickly. She would run her finger along the mark, muttering something under her breath as she flipped through the papers.

A beautiful wooden staff lay in a corner of the room engraved by a skilled hand with images of wolves. The staff looked ancient, but seemed to be well taken care of as far as the wood. Resting in the corner collecting dust along with the rest of the items in the room. A few coins scattered through the room and many strange objects littered the floor. Drawings of creatures, and papers full of formulas and thoughts flooded the room everywhere, as if a tornado had swept through the area.

Arathyra sat quietly shuffling papers after verifying each of the markings that identified the contents of the paper. The woman smiled as she found the one she had been looking for and then sighed.

As Takley began walking to his house he began to pray to the earth that the vegetables he was growing a year ago, were not withered." Oh lord of the vegetable, I beseech thee, I pray that thou shalt keepest mine vegetables ripe and fresh. Mine allies and comrades are in great hunger mi'lord. may thee keep us strong and able to live for another day. Amain." As he got to his house he grabbed his spade and began digging in his garden and saw what remained of a marmalade and carrots. All withered and rotten looking as if they had been in the sun for 3 days straight. He cursed the dirt and bid that it never shall grow food again for the rest of its existence. After the deed had been done, he got most of his rations he had left and handed it out to people on the streets and blessed them saying"May you live another day for every hour I do." At that he went to find an ally that needed help in their search.

Razor whirls, his spade coming up like an axe, poised to strike, before, after a second, the foreigner lowers his impromptu weapon, eyes glinting darkly out from under his hood.
"You wish to travel the wastes..." The sentence hung somewhere between a question and statement.
------------------------------------------------
"Damn, they've found you...not to worry though, this way there will be less mouths to feed."

"No, you cannot slay a man for trying to help-"

"He'd do the same to you, just do him in Raze' if he chances a look behind you you're finished."

"Not necessarily, perhaps this shall be a measure of how desperate this city is. Leave him be."
------------------------------------------------
"Do not yet abandon hope, lest it abandon you." Razor's voice is quiet as he steps forwards, his mouth a dispassionate line. "Give me this one day then I shall join you, there are necessary parting gestures that...need to be made."

The tall, cloaked figure blocks out the view of the street, fortunate since behind Razor is the half-excavated grave of a recently deceased child.

[In the throne room...]

"...Leon. Direct me to the youth known as Leon who stood in your hall, and I assure you he will survive his journey."
The king sighed as the situation began to escape his control. Not that it was in his control anyway, but it was becoming insanity.
"I regret to say he left a while back, saying he was heading to his house. Wherever that may be, I do not know."

------------
[In the mage tower]

The paper Arathyra now had in her hand - well, the papers, as it was a thick, bound wad - was labelled "Diary" in the simple block script of Alan Morind, the mage. A characteristic handwriting, as he firmly believed in simplicity: if something takes hours to write in a flowing script, and is barely readable, what's the point?

The mess in the room was amazing, but Alan had been an organised man. It looks messy, but it was all organised chaos, in such a way that no-one who didn't know him could understand the system. But there was nonetheless a system behind the pigsty of a chamber's organisation.

"...Wherever that may be, I do not know."
Bren openly scowled, shaking his head. "Then I had best find him before he gets himself killed."

Without saying anything further he turned at departed the room, surprisingly more stable than he had appeared. His new-found focus to locate the youth was enough to drive him beyond exhaustion, though his body ached. He had no ties to this place, and felt no reason to stay longer than needed to repay his debt; and by his sense, offering to protect the lives of those departing was a fair exchange.

Re-entering the city he realized he knew nothing of its layout, having originally thought all to be an illusion. He began to wander the deserted streets in hopes of some sign of the young man...

"Alright, I guess I can wait another day..." Leon looked up at the looming figure before turning to walk away. "Meet me at my house tomorrow at dawn, It's just at the end of the street." As he wandered the streets Leon saw very few people who would be strong enough to make the journey. He continued to wander the streets until dusk. Leon wandered to the abandoned house he claimed as his own. Trying the door and finding the door locked, he found and crawled in through an old, broken window. "Better then the streets." Leon looked up through a hole in the roof towards the stars as he slowly slipped into a restless sleep.

Xavier looked around the room, somewhat taken aback by the clutter. It was amazing that a man could live with so many possessions, but to live with them in such a cluttered way? None should live like that...

Xavier shook his head as he began to look at everything in the room. He didn't even to know where to begin, and yet his companion was already tearing in to everything that was held within the tower. Xavier had no idea how she knew such mess, but he didn't stop her. The sooner she found something, the sooner they could return, and the sooner he could go out looking for his sister. He hoped.

"Hey, is there anything you want me to start looking through? I don't even know where to start... This place is a mess."

Arathyra heard her companion standing where she left him, and the woman grinned slightly to herself as she grabbed the pack of paper in her hands. Rising from her knelt position on the floor she turned towards the sound of his voice and nodded to him.

Xavier had stood near the door, and the woman smiled up to him as she pressed the papers into his hands.

"Please do not insult my master, the room is not a mess, its actually well organized in a stranger manner to keep theives from finding what they need easily. Here read this stack of papers, it is what the King was hoping we would find."

Arathyra sat down on the floor as she waited for the man to reply to her words. Closing her eyes she listened to the sounds around her waiting patiently for Xavier to comment.

The book contained a bookmark, a thin metal rod carved with tree branches, near the end. Xavier opened the tome to that page.

He began to read it out loud, "Dear Xa-"
He stopped suddenly. Did it say "Dear Xavier"???

He began again:

"Dear Xavier,

Welcome to my apartments. I apologise for the mess, I'm sure you'll understand why I've organised it this way.
Say hello to Arathyra from me. I would be quite obliged if you turned back one page and read it aloud to her, it contains important information for the future and past of humanity. She should understand it fully, even if you might not.

See you soon,

A. Morind."

He whirled around to look at Arathyra, mumbling, "What?!"

As Ta'nil was wandering around town handing out his rations. he felt a little silly, so he stood in the middle of the town and proclaimed

"The time is near, the time is near for salvation to come"He began to speak louder and louder and crazier and crazier."We will travel back to when we had food, we will travel back to when there was cool weather.To the time there was vegetation around town. And it will come in a form of... A Note!.Hahahahahahahahahahaha."He began laughing crazily and all the people around him looked at him crazy. They stared for a while and began to walk away.

He stopped laughing and walked home to pray for his sanity to return.

"Oh lord of the vegetables, king of the plants, I inquire of thee to grant me sanity for thou art good. Oh vegetation, forgive me if I am wrong. May thee grow up the vegetation and help us live for longer than we have at the present. May your mercy rain on this realm and provide us food that is good to eat. Amain"

He fell into sleep and awoke hours later.

It was, Razor hoped, a familiar sight to see a man carrying a bundle through the streets, a child's body wrapped in the cloth of his cloak. Perhaps the people thought him mad, perhaps not, after all, man was inclined to believe in ludicrous tales as long as such tales didn't involve him.

So, on the assassin strode, making for the city gates, his eyes regarding the guards coldly.
"On the authority of your king I will pass." Half way an order, half way a threat, just as it had been long ago.

As Arathyra shrugged, Xavier flipped back the page and started reading again.

"Dearest Arathyra,

I suppose that I should get rid of the formalities of a hello from "beyond the grave", and get to the point.

I suspect you remember those many times using that infamous ritual. Going backwards in time was such an interesting experience, to be documented. But sadly events have meant that those documents are now lost to history, along with so many more.

Now all that remains to document our lifetimes are these few scraps of paper remaining hidden from the Kingdom's ovens in the harsh winters. Most containing magical information protected with various charms, so that they cannot be burned.
But as the inevitable End approaches, we are left with no choice.
Do you remember that last time we went into the past together, when I forbade us to ever return, after we damaged history too much? That interdict is lifted, I guess you could say.

Now, I could let you, Xavier and the others travel back using the ritual you used when you thought I was away. Yes yes, I did notice.
That's why I modified the ritual that I left out so that you'd not damage history accidentally.

So to cut this letter short, as I am running out of page, I have left the two rituals - the original and the protected - in the small chest on the worktable. Further instructions can be found in there.

Oh, and cast a spell of communication to your companions: I think they're setting off on various wild goose chases.

Best of luck,
ASP"

Xavier looked up with disbelief, and glanced at said chest, before looking back at Arathyra.

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

In the dark times they were in, the guards didn't tend to ask many questions about happenings.
"Er... go on through sir," a young guard replied to Razor, glancing at the bundle with a glint of curiosity in his eye, but he was clever enough to not say a word.