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Since they were already quite close to the eastern coast, it wasn't long before they found themselves standing on a clifftop overlooking the eastern ocean. Sideline peered over the Wizard's shoulder at the compass.

"Still south east," he muttered, resignedly. "Anyone up for a swim, in scylla infested waters?"

This post has been edited by cache22: 15 January 2007 - 01:33 PM

Alice shook his head vehemently. "I can swim, but not in THAT. I don't fancy having my limbs bitten off by sea monsters, thankyou very much."

Silverfish had long since switched back to his i'm-acting-like-a-familiar look, and was sitting on Talryn's golem when Retsy started complaining that her feet hurt. Rapierian helpfully offered her a murky orangish-red potion, "If you drink this potion, you won't notice that your feet hurt for a long time."

Retsy held back for a moment, and then started reaching tentatively for the bottle. She glanced up. The look on Rapierian's face convinced her that she didn't want whatever was in the bottle; she hurried back to where she had been in the group.

As Rapierian put the bottle away, Silverfish saw the label:
Tavara's Sauce: (for initiates only)

Soon, the successful rescue party caught sight of of Odemia.

This post has been edited by Jehezekel: 10 January 2007 - 12:58 PM

"There are several options," Selax stated. "Two of these are that those of us who can could fly out and get the clue or that we could swim and trust to Wizard's telekiness and telepathy to ward off threats. For the moment, I suggest that we wait for the rescue party to arrive."

A few minutes later, the rescue party did indeed arrive, and the two groups quickly recounted their adventures and brought each other up to date.

"One of the Undine said to ask you if you were able to kill all of your old students and said that you'd know what that meant," Talryn said to Selax. "Do you?"

For a moment, Selax remained quiet, and, for a moment, Talryn wondered if he answered at all. Then, Selax replied, "Yes, in the days prior to the elemental wars, when the Undine had not yet revealed their evil intent and when there were worse threats, I trained several of them sword combat, needing their aid. In those days, many elementals chose to wield weapons to give them an added edge. When Wizard informed me of the elemental wars, I returned to Cythera to deal with the threat presented by my old students, and, with the Seldane protecting me from their magic, I did so, although I heard later that my best student had survived. This you now confirm."

Then, he changed subjects and said, "So do those who can fly, or do we swim with Wizard's protection?"

This post has been edited by Selax: 14 January 2007 - 12:10 AM

Silverfish spoke up, "If we were to go south to Catamarca, we might be able to cut a side off the triangle. And if we decide to swim, I'll guard against scylla." Then he went back to eating bread dipped in Tavara's Sauce.

"I'm NOT swimming, end of story. We'd better pick some other way." said Cat vehemently.
"Maybe someone could magic a bridge or something." suggested Starfall. "And no offence, Silverfish, but how could you guard against scylla? From what I can see, they're enormous!"

This post has been edited by CrazyChick: 05 January 2007 - 04:28 PM

"I would say those who can fly, fly. My abilities would becmoe pretty much useless under water, except for making a bubble of air around the group..." Talryn said, seeing as the party was going for a vote.

-Dark

This post has been edited by Dark Jet: 13 January 2007 - 10:46 PM

While the group debated, Rapierian came walking up with an older man at his side. While the group had started to discuss their options, Rapierian had wandered off and bumped into the older man; this had almost led to a fight, but Rapierian found out the man was a fisherman and decided not to kill him. The man explained that, since the curing of Alaric, the seas near Odemia had become safe enough for him to build a small boat and do some fishing offshore. Rapierian had managed to convince the man to let the group borrow the boat, as long as they agreed to pay him if it were damaged; unfortunately, he couldn't get the fisherman to agree to come with the group because of the danger. He hoped that somebody of the group knew how to use a boat.

"This kind gentleman—Tlepolemus or some such name—has agreed to allow us to use his boat to sail out to our destination," Rapierian said. "Of course, we'll have to rely on our abilities to protect us against scylla and pay him for use of his boat, as well as compensate him if it is damaged or destroyed. We also need someone who knows how to sail."

After a brief debate, the group agreed that this seemed to be the best option. They paid Tlepolemus a reasonable sum for use of the boat, piled into the craft, and set sail at a good pace toward the next clue.

This post has been edited by Selax: 14 January 2007 - 12:10 AM

Cat was staring over the side of the boat, a frown on her face. "Look at all that water... it's terrible."

"Oh, I don't know if I'd say that. It's beautiful out here; just smell that fresh sea air!" Wizard took a deep breath with satisfaction, happily ensconced on his seat by the side of the boat. He smiled at the water splashing below him.

"Almost makes you want to take a swim, doesn't it?" Rapierian hinted.

"No actually. I'm quite happy where I am thank you," Wizard managed to keep smiling but muttered under his breath: "Although I wouldn't mind helping you over if you felt the urge to be dowsed in sea water."

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing."

"You sure? I was certain I heard you say something..."

"No, you didn't hear anything thing. Mr. Sideline?"

"Yes, Wizard?" Sideline was at the helm, studying over the compass and the map.

"Do you know how much farther it is? I have a bad feeling about sailing over scylla-infested water any longer than we have to, especially if we know there are Undine involved in this thing."

"I can't give us an exact point from this map, but I'm hoping not much farther."

"I hope so too. Not that I'm not enjoying sitting in my hand-picked spot," the old man said with a touch of insincerity in his voice. He slowly turned to look at the necromancer sitting next to him. The necromancer sat with a grin on his face, staring forward at the endless miiles of water before them.

Starfall was obviously enjoying herself in the boat, much to Cat's consternation. The copper elf was staring around her with a smile on her face, murmuring to herself. Cat caught, "...salt water, isn't it...", but otherwise heard nothing.
Starfall took a small bottle of some form out of her pack, and proceeded to fill it with sea water, still muttering under her breath. She then took two of the bits of copper out of a separate pocket in her pack, and dropped them into the bottle, fastened the lid, and stowed it back in her pack. Noticing Cat and a couple of others looking at her oddly, she said, "Conductivity. It makes me feel better if the copper conducts better." She continued looking at the horizon.
A few minutes later she said, "Um, Wizard, I think we have visitors!"
The water a hundred metres from the boat looked as if it was boiling, and occasional tentacles were visible over the surface. It looked like an enormous battle was taking place. And all the while, it was getting closer....

"Um, mister Sideline," the Wizard wheedled, "don't you think you should try and steer around it?"

"I'm trying, believe me! It's not doing any good!"

Brianna frowned down at the water streaming past the side of the boat. "It's those damned Undine again, isn't it! They're pushing us into it!" She slumped back down on the deck, and began to check her bow and her supply of arrows. "What we really needed was Wolmark's zeppelin," she grumbled, focusing the ire of her gaze on Rapierian, "only we wouldn't all have fitted on board. Or better yet, Talm's airship - only nobody's seen or heard from him in months. Surely somebody on Cythera has something better than this damned boat!"

She ducked as a tentacle swished over her head.

This post has been edited by cache22: 06 January 2007 - 04:41 AM

Silverfish was flying along beside the boat when the scylli came into sight. He dived down into the water, and found the brain center of one scylla. *ZAP* the scylla's muscles contracted violently, and Silverfish dodged easily as it crushed itself with its own tentacles.

But now the other scylli were alerted to his presence, and they started hunting him in turn. Duck, duck, dodge, stun! A tentacle fell useless for half-a-second, long enough for Silverfish to avoid it, but he wasn't paying attention, and another tentacle grabbed him, and pulled him toward the gaping maw of the sea-beast. He waited until he was quite close, *stun*, slip out, connect electrodes to brain, *ZAP*, dodge. Another scylla down, but he could see by their changed reactions that the other would not fall to that trick, they would try to kill him with their tentacles now, and not risk trying to eat him.

This post has been edited by Jehezekel: 10 January 2007 - 01:04 PM

Rapierian crossed his arms and said, "Oh sure, blame me for not being able to run to Cademia and back in five minutes."

He seemed to be completely ignoring the chaos around them until, quite suddenly, a mass of tentacles appeared over the edge of the boat behind him. Rapierian turned and looked at them. "Oh this-this has potential for fun."

Carefully avoiding the tentacles (the scylla was being distracted by Brianna's well-placed arrows), he walked over to the edge of the boat and began flinging lightning bolts into the water about where he guessed the scylla's head probably was. It took several tries, but there was suddenly the smell of roasted scylla (never a pleasant smell) and the mass of tentacles slid under the sea. Rapierian sat back down at his previous spot, watching and smiling as the others continued to battle the other scylla.


Meanwhile, Selax and Wizard had moved next to Sideline. Selax and Sideline busily cutting through tentacles, while Wizard attempted to steer the boat.

"Can't you use your telepathy to tell these things to go away?" someone shouted to Wizard over the noise.

"I think that Undine must be driving them to attack," Wizard replied, sounding annoyed.

At that moment, the point became moot when the Scylla suddenly seemed to run out of tentacles and decided to stick its head above the water, apparently believing that this would win it the fight.

It didn't.

The instant the scylla's head broke the surface of the water Sideline and Selax buried their swords in its neck; Brianna feathered it with arrows; and Moonshadow froze its head by freezing the water that still covered it.

With that, the fight was over and Silverfish climbed back into the boat. The Undine allowed control of the boat to return to the group; after all, the Undine needed the group to find the clues for them.

This post has been edited by Selax: 14 January 2007 - 12:10 AM

A few minutes later the compass started spinning erratically. Dark shapes moved in the water beneath the boat.

"How far do we have to go before we can get out of this pesky boat?" asked Cat. "All this water... It's horrible! How can anyone stand it?" She lay down on the deck, trying to avoid seeing the waves.

This post has been edited by CrazyChick: 15 January 2007 - 04:17 PM

Alice leaned over the edge of the boat and peered into the water. It was murky all around them, implying that either one large creature, or several smaller ones, were surrounding the boat.

"I hate... sea... creatures..." Alice said, twitching spastically. He narrowed his eyes. "Sideline, can I borrow that compass?"

Shrugging, Sideline passed it over to him. Alice held it out towards the water and watched the needle spin rapidly back and forth. Reaching into his bag, he dug out a small srip of dried meat and tossed it into the water. Several mouths, ringed with rows of razor-sharp teeth, surfaced and snapped at the meat. It was torn apart in a matter of seconds.

Retsy's eyes widened in horror. "What ARE those?"

Alice handed the compass back to Sideline. "A couple of you, grab my feet and for the love of Alaric, please don't let go." He drew his sword and braced himself against the side of the boat, leaning down as far as he could, secured by a couple people holding his legs. "Here, fishy fishy fishy..." he cooed, and, waiting for just the right moment, stabbed his sword suddenly down into the water with reflexes only a twitchy haunted person could muster.

"Quick, pull me up!" he said, and the group hauled him back up into the boat. Alice turned and held out his sword to Retsy, showing her the large, snapping, dripping, scaly thing impaled on his sword point. "Fish," he answered her question, grinning almost demonically. "Bloody fish. There's dozens of them in there, and one of them has swallowed our clue."

"Oh, drat," Rapierian said. He began to rummage around in his cloak. "Now where did I put that," he muttered. "Ah, here it is!" He pulled out a vial and held it up. "Poison! Should be just the thing!"

"You want us to let you put something you think is poison into Cythera's waters?" Brianna asked skeptically.

"Sure! It's fast acting, but it dissolves and becomes harmless after minutes in water." Seeing the other's still skeptical looks, he shrugged and threw it in before anyone can stop him.

For a few moments, the water under the ship blackened, and the fish bobbed to the surface, writhing and contorting. Then, the water returned to its ordinary color.

"Now, I shall prove that it is harmless," Rapierian said, leaning over the edge. He scooped up a mouthful of water and drank it; no one stopped him, hoping that it was still poisonous. Rapierian fell over, gasping and chocking.

In his convulsions, he slammed into Cat and knocked her over the edge and into the water. She screamed frantically and began to thrash around, yelling death threats to Rapierian and cries for help.

Selax walked over, reached down, grabbed Cat, and lifted her back into the boat.

"I'M GOING TO KILL HIM! LET ME AT HIM! I'LL REND HIM LIMB FROM LIMB! I'LL—"

Then, Rapierian stood up—on the far side of the boat from Cat, in a position where she'd have to walk through the wet fish—and smiled. "Just kidding!" he laughed.

Grumbling in disappointment about the fact that Rapierian didn't die, they lifted the fish's bodies into the boat and turned the boat back toward land. Although everyone (except Cat and Retsy) was searching the bodies, it was not until they had reached land and docked the boat that they found the clue. Wizard dug it out of one of the fish.

It was a small piece of crystal, but, unlike the other, there was writing on it. It said: Go to the city at the mouth of the river.

It was agreed that this must refer to the ruins where Timon had found part of the Crolna.

This post has been edited by Selax: 14 January 2007 - 12:10 AM

Uzsuy was feeling very dazed, confused, but somehow he thought this was much better than if he had walked back to his dirty, attacked, vandalized, robbed, torn down old house. He recovered his voice and said:

"I forgot who Timon is, who is he again?"

The group had started on their journey to the western mountains by now. Wizard tried to make his answer to Uzsuy's question as concise as he could, "Timon is a freemage, although I think he is a master mage now, who specializes in the study of the Seldane elementals and who found one of four shards of the crystal that was used to cure Alaric."

They travelled for several hours, making good time. Wizard was near the back when he remarked to no one in particular, "At times like these, I wish I were on horse back..."

Just then, as if in response to Wizard, Silverfish shouted out "Beasts!"
A swarm of what seemed like at least fifty wolflizards poured forth from the crags and converged upon the adventurers.
They quickly shifted into battle array

Retsy reacted instantly—hurling herself to safety behind Rapierian. Actually, she had been hoping to get behind Sideline, but she didn't get as far as she had hoped. Toreon rolled his eyes and pulled out his sword, moving to a position where he could protect his sister. (He rightly doubted that protecting Retsy was high on Rapierian's list of priorities.) Selax pulled out his swords and began cutting through the wolflizards that were trying to get at Wizard, while Wizard used his abilities to turn the front rank of Wolflizards into a confused mess. The other group members closed ranks and began mowing down the attacking wolflizards. Rapierian summoned the "shadows" again, which caused several of the wolflizards to catch on fire and to start setting others on fire. It didn't seem that this battle would last long...

This post has been edited by Selax: 06 January 2007 - 10:42 PM

Until, suddenly, several maddened titans burst from the bushes and attacked the party. Cat leapt onto one's back, and clawed her way to its head. Taking a stone from her pocket, she proceeded to hit it repeatedly over the head, until the titan finally realised it had been knocked out. Cat leapt clear as the titan slowly fell over sideway, and finished it off.
Starfall was doing her best to trip up another, but a stick is really no use against two tonnes of titan.

This post has been edited by CrazyChick: 15 January 2007 - 04:18 PM

The second golem that Talryn created had been more of a mix between his magic and had improved dexterity among other things. It grabbed a nearby wolflizzard and begun to swat the others advancing in Talryn's direction. "... I really want to know how to do that.." Talryn muttered after Rapierian cast the shadow spell.

As the titans came out, about a fourth of the party's attention focused on them, with the other three fourths focusing on killing the ever decreasing amount of wolf lizards. The golem shifted its piorities(sp?) to a titan. The golem leaped and tackled one and begun to beat it with the soon the be nothing wolflizard. After a couple more hits, the wolflizard pretty much exploded in a shower of blood and internal organs, with the golem's weapon now gone, it proceded to beat the titan with anything in reach.

Meanwhile, Talryn half heartedly called forth a miniture thunder storm. He moved into a defensive postion infront of Wizard, so that others wouldn't have to worry if Wizard needed help or not.

This post has been edited by Dark Jet: 13 January 2007 - 10:47 PM

Brianna quickly leaped onto the back of one of the titans. It reared back, but she managed to hold on. While the others finished off the last of the wolflizards and dodged the raging titans, she began to speak softly in its ear and stroke its neck. It was quickly pacified, and started to chewing on some overhead leaves. Sensing the changed atmosphere, the other titans also gradually calmed down and joined the first in munching on the trees, while the rest of the adventurers carefully backed away.

Brianna grinned widely down at the bemused group. "Now you know what a ranger's good for," she laughed, gleefully. "Did somebody call for transport?"

This post has been edited by cache22: 07 January 2007 - 03:39 AM

Silverfish crouched down near Retsy, and whenever a wolflizard approached; he reached out some filaments, and absorbed the metal out of its bloodstream. By the time the battle ended, Toreon was under the impression that wolflizards are weak creatures that don't have any blood, and Retsy had the misfortune of thinking she'd magik'd a few of them.