Summaries provided for each chapter.

The Plan

Summary: Skylei is still in a coma and Josleen turns to books for a method to bring her best friend back. She finds hope in the form of a rare magical mineral, and an ancient dwarven explorer's journal. The mineral, umbrastone, is said to help lost souls find their bodies. Exceedingly rare, the stone is hard to find in shops or in the wild. Aldrous Silvermane, a long-dead dwarven bard, claims to have found the stone and turned his adventure into an epic poem. Josleen deciphers this poem into a plan and enlists Ansel, her secret paramour, for the mission.

Frostmaw Fort - Josleen's Room

In the days since their reconciliation, Jos has been trying her best to keep their affair a secret, but the task is made extra difficult by her elevating profile. Pursuing justice for Skylei and picking a fight with the drow matron-in-residence has more eyes turned on a woman whose private life won't survive a little scrutiny. What's worse, Josleen herself is a liability. At times, in rare moments of levity when she thinks no one is watching, she gives herself away with a besotted gait and secret smile. No one knows what Josleen and Ansel know about it. No one knows how difficult it is to wrestle with the guilt and the longing every time she thinks of the two of them, emotionally and physically, but especially the latter. Society judges a physical affair as has having crossed a line an emotional affair has yet to cross. And now, having crossed that line, the irony is that only his intimate touch can cast aside the guilt momentarily. When she’s with Ansel, she isn't thinking of responsibility or a husband betrayed -- only in Ansel, and that freedom from guilt makes her seek out Ansel more and more. But the rules to their dalliances haven't magically disappeared, and thus alone time with him is still less frequent than she would want, and still a big risk. But she risks it. In part because she wants it, and in part to prove to Ansel that she is willing to take risks for him. Though it isn’t all perfect. His booze habit irritates her, though she isn’t fighting him on it. She won’t nag him. Yet. Skylei’s condition and Laezila’s freedom also make her moody her from time to time. He alleviates the symptoms of her troubles, but he doesn’t make them go away. She can’t help but wonder if maybe he wouldn’t be able to help her if he were sober.

She won’t wait for that, however, and sets upon fixing her troubles herself. Soon enough Laezila will be tried by combat. But what of Skylei? In the time between their secret meetings, Josleen has been doing a little research and formulating a plan. She invites Ansel to her room (he knows the sneaky drill by now) to share her plan, though this is briefly sidetracked by more carnal desires. Hey, it’s been a couple days since the last time they met (and maybe 10 days since they made up, for timeline purposes), and by now Ansel is a habit she can’t quit and from which she can’t wait to take a hit. So before she can tell him anything they must indulge in each other, passionate, sensual and unhurried, unabashed yearning fueled by the unspoken fear that this may not last forever so they need to make the most of each moment now. They have been lying in bed in post-coital silence for some time when she finally decides it is time to clue him in. She leans on her side against him, head on his shoulder, fingers idly stroking his chest and abs. “So, I’ve been looking up uncommon medicinal options for Skylei. I think I found something I want to try, but it requires a rare reagent, a deep-earth mineral. I can’t find a shop that sells it, but I found a journal that tells of a place where it can be found. I’m thinking of going out find it. It will likely take two days, one night. At least.”

Ansel was very careful about his alcoholic state. The man was usually sober during work, but he usually suffered a small hangover making him more irritable behind the table – snapping at a nurse or two and shaking this off later. He was also sober around Josleen, though his mood had changed the last days they had been together. The wolf was not the same to say the least, and he had a feeling she knew, but he did not have the courage to tell her, and he figured she was too distracted to bring it up. Too much to deal with. Lanara had not been speaking to him, his only chance at developing his magical potential was fading rapidly, and he was sort of slumping into this lazy state to fix this. None of his conversations were about him, he mostly focused on Josleen. Her comments about Skylei, and about how the drow had gotten out of prison. He would pay his ten cents and chime in here or there, making her feel better about the situation, giving her confident boosts, though he secretly disapproved the hatred Josleen gave towards the drows.

He did know the drill. As much as he was still shaken about the situation, he could not help but indulge himself in her. He was selfish. The wolf would forget about his own troubles and the old Ansel would appear in the time of passion and sharing how he felt about the woman. Perhaps that was why she did not give up on the man quite yet. His eyes were closed when she was stroking his chest idly, even soft breaths – one arm wrapped around her. As she mentions about going away, his eyes open, and his hazel gaze would rest upon her. “Sounds like you have a mission,” he would raise his brows, good old Ansel was back for the meantime until the guilt came back. Was not his fault he always thought of the other man. He waits a moment or two, “Hope you were not planning going alone…” He trails and eyes would shut again, giving her the opportunity to tell him who was going to help her on this journey.

When he looks at her with that familiar, kind gaze, the one she fell for, she presses against his side and grips his chest by the ribs gently. Although she doesn’t nag him to be present like he used to be, in unspoken ways, through touch and affection, he’s rewarded for being the Ansel she likes most. Josleen doesn’t realize she does this; it comes naturally. “I was wondering if you’d come with me.” On the bedside table, behind Josleen’s back, rests a response from Eliason, opened and held down by her duchess-duke-stablehand romance novel.

The man smiles slightly at her touch, his fingers gliding against her back gently. He would then open his eyes again. "Come with you?" He twitches a little, why would he not come with her? Deep-earth mineral, something that Ansel would be interested in. "Ah," he was pausing as if he was hesistant about the whole trip, he was giving her suspense, something to tease her. "Yeah, I'll go with you," he says this simply and with a wolfish smirk on his face as he looks over to her, turning his face. He did not notice the letter, mostly the man was focused on her - oblivious Ansel.

Josleen grins through his teasing. She knows his game and likes it, playing along as if she doesn’t know what he will ultimately decide. “Oh, in that case, I suddenly remembered that the trip may take two nights. Maybe three,” she jokes as she eyes him hungrily — a part of her game. Of course he can’t spend that much time away from his kids, it’s a joke, playing on the sad truth that three nights in a row of sleeping and waking together would be a little magical, an unobtainable dream at present. “There is a rare mineral said to grow deep in Hollow’s crust that can help reattach a soul to a body. I think that’s what’s why Skylei can’t wake. Her soul is lost. So I’ve been looking for a way to guide her back, a beacon of some sort. I came across Umbrastone in one of my father’s books.” Literally a book written by her father. It’s likely Ansel has read an introduction to medicinal herbology by her father Kyl’oriel; it’s a standard text in holistic tutelage. “The trouble is…” She stalls as she leans over the edge of the bed to pull three books out from the cabinet in her bedside table. She hands Ansel first the book written by her father. The page on Umbrastone has been dog-eared. “The mineral is hard to find, in part because it’s rare, but also because it is indistinguishable from other deep stones to the naked eye. One must drink a drug brewed from Bearded Mushroom caps. I have the recipe.” Now she hands him a pamphlet of witchy brews authored by a long dead druid. Similarly, the appropriate pages have been dog-eared and the margins marked up in Josleen’s penmanship. “The drink enables the drinker to see the mineral. It glows bright purple. There may be some mild hallucinations too, but at a low dose, nothing scary. I found the translation of a journal written by a Dwarven explorer.” Finally Ansel receives the third book. Dwarven characters and the common alphabet appear in two columns on each page. The book has been marked up heavily by Josleen in pencil. “He claims to have found and mapped a place where a vein of Umbrastone can be mined. Of course, lucky us, he was also a bard and wrote his entire journal in verse.” She pulls a face, eyes rolling over a peeved, sharp inhale, like this is far from lucky; it’s a setback. “It’s one long epic poem with lots of lyricism, but I’ve been analyzing it. I think I can follow his journey based on the poem and find the mineral. We'd start in the Craughmoyle Mines.”

Ansel smirked at her little game as he almost rolled his eyes. He then squints as she begins talking business, and this pleases him and keeps him interested. Reattach a soul to a body? Like an undead? Or was that something different? He shakes his head to himself. “Well, if the mineral is so deep within the earth…” He trailed, he held his thought until she was done talking. Sitting up as she gathered the books. He scanned over a few pages briefly. “If it’s so deep within the earth,” he continues again, “how are you supposed to get the mineral?” If she was thinking that Ansel would do it, well… he had not even conquered earth yet, earth was powerful, required strength. He was never really sure of himself and that was the problem. He did not have doubt, for maybe she had a second plan or something, he would only listen to her. As she mentions the whole lyricism, he raises his brows, truly impressed. The only thing left to say was. “When do we head out?”

Josleen smirks at Ansel’s first question and sits up next to him to flip through Aldrous Silvermane’s journal. “With a pick axe. There is a cavern…” she trails off as she deftly finds the page she wants to show him. “Here’s the verse: And then betwixt the granite shadows my eyes did perceive/ Like Loda’s mane aglow with power a thread of what I seek/ Both iron pikes and dragon’s water fought to claim her hair/ And she like Q’na’s shapely hour yielded to my care.” The bard can’t help but recite the verse in the sing-song, da-DUM rhythm of iambic pentameter. If Ansel doesn’t get it on the first pass through (why would he?), she explains the symbols and allusions. Loda is the Dwarven Goddess of Weapons and Magic whose hair is said to be made of mithril and glow. Thus the first two lines depict a vein of Umbrastone in granite rock. Iron pikes are pick axes; Josleen figured this out from other passages that use the same language. Dragon’s water is a common poetic turn of phrase for acid. After inquiring with her father, being sure not to trip any alarm bells and keep the conversation purely academic, she discovered just the right acid to affect granite but not magical minerals like Umbrastone. Q’na is the God of Time, and his shapely hour is a reference to an hourglass, which marks the time with dust. Thus, Silvermane was able to collect the mineral in dust form. Josleen intends to trace his steps and process to achieve similar results. She smiles with pride. If Ansel ever wonders what she does these days away from the clinic, well, there’s the answer. As for his second question, she says “In two days. I need to pick up some gear from a friend tomorrow — for spelunking.” Her jaw works anxiously at that revelation. The confidence that accompanied her poetic analysis is gone, replaced by nerves and doubt.

Hazel eyes scan over the pages as she reads along with him in her lyrical tone, this pleased him. Before he could even ask what it all meant, translations were made, which made him happy. She was so smart! He could not help but to kiss her forehead gently before scanning pages again. Pick axes made things a little more challenging, but he was up for the search. A little bit of The Compass coming out of him again. “Two days,” he would nod. Two days to get his head together… Two days to not be selfish for the two day trip. “Do you need me to get anything for the trip?” He then watches her nerves and he places a hand on her shoulder gently. “It’s okay, we can do this; we got poppies, did we not?” He grins all wolfishly, he did not want her to doubt, and he was just trying to lighten the mood a little.

“Could you put together a first aid kit at the clinic? Some herbs for nausea and dizziness too. I worry that at some of the greater depths the pressure may affect us.” She leans into his hand and chest as he comforts her. “You’re right. I’m just nervous about the cave diving, don’t like tight spaces. Imagine if…” She shudders as her imagination fixates on the image of a tunnel caving in around their bodies as they slide on their bellies like moles through ancient rock-faced passageways. His wolfish grin brings her back and she kisses him again to distract herself from the horrors that could be. Soon the kisses aren’t enough, and they succumb to a greater longing and more intimate act. It’s been what, 45 minutes since the last time? Rinse, repeat, as new couples do.

“Of course,” he nodded multiple times. She was nervous about the cave diving, which was normal. He was too, but not as much as that one time when he plunged in the sea with selkie lard and only had thirty minutes to find some sort of treasure while he was tipsy, but that was another story. Before he met her. “Don’t imagine, you’ll be fine, I promise,” he reassured her. He would figure out some way to pull through if something like that happened, right? Though, her kiss, well, that was also another story and the current topic at hand would have to wait!

Setting Off On the Wrong Foot

Summary: Two days later, Ansel and Josleen meet at the Eastern Frostmaw Gate to begin their journey. The first leg of the journey is a pleasant trip to Craughmoyle, for which Josleen wants to hire a carriage. War time funds have been tight, and they have to rely on Josleen's access to her husband's bank notes to pay for the carriage. This puts Ansel in a bad mood. Josleen tries to talk about it in an indirect way, but he won't play ball. The trip begins with a lot of tension.

They finally arrive in Craughmoyle and Josleen looks like a total tourist. Despite having a map, she leads them to dead ends. Finally, Ansel takes the map and takes over. He'll be the map-reader from now one, thank you very much. He successfully leads them to the mines and down a cave-diving path. After a few hours of uneventful cave exploration (during which they chat as normal and the tension subsides), they reach a massive cavern.

Eastern Frostmaw Gates

Two days later, they meet as discussed at the Eastern Frostmaw Gate with all the necessary gear: standard survival packs, spelunking gear, personal effects, and specific materials for their mission. Josleen wants the first leg of their journey to be as quick and painless as possible. They should hire a carriage to Craughmoyle, but cab service is expensive — especially a closed carriage with a roof. But there’s a storm on the horizon and the closed cabin is a must. Josleen hasn’t been properly working for weeks and Ansel, a single father of two living out of a tavern, isn’t exactly in a position where she can assume he will bankroll luxury travel. Besides, Josleen does have the means to pay for this, the same way she paid for the inn the night Shia ran away: bank notes in Ezekiel Malovich’s name. Ezekiel’s the elephant in the room whenever they meet, and living in Frostmaw makes it easy to ignore that elephant, but as Josleen hems and haws about how to pay the carriage driver, the elephant trumpets loudly. The way Josleen avoids Ansel’s stare as she fumbles through a checkbook, whose owner’s name is conspicuously obscured by her thumb at all times, only highlights the awkwardness of the transaction. The elephant can’t be veiled by a thumb. She stalls by wondering if she left the stove on. Ansel knows full well Josleen doesn’t have her own stove in the fort.

Ansel meets the woman after requesting days off with Eleenin, and borrowing supplies from the man. Yes, Ansel was a volunteer, he did not get coin, he got a free stay at the tavern, and free supplies to live off. Thanks, Hildegarde! The man is watching her fumble, and yes, there is an elephant in the room, and his stomach twists, he does not mention the elephant. He does know well there is no stove. He’s with Josleen every other day. He plays along with her, reassuring her that she probably did turn off the stove. Yeup, swallow the guilt. A man who had money, huh? He was thinking… Was that what made this husband so special to keep? No, no… That was the beast talking, or the jealousy. The darker side of Ansel. Perhaps, they should just hurry up and move on already before Ansel does become nosy.

The Carriage Ride

Josleen shields the banknote from Ansel’s view as she writes the amount payable and signs off on the payment. An awkward silence settles as they load the carriage with their gear and settle in for the ride. During the first few minutes, Josleen tries to ease the tension by pointing out the same old sights they’ve seen before. This mountain, that valley, this species of tree, that flower. It doesn’t work very well. The elephant sits wedged between them in the carriage, right in the physical distance between them that only exists because of that damn banknote, because of money. Had that awkwardness not transpired, Josleen would undoubtedly be sitting right alongside Ansel, arms and fingers entwined, bodies snuggled against each other. As it stands now: no touching. Eventually, they need to talk about Ezekiel. There is no way they can successfully carry on like this in Xalious Village if Ansel is completely ignorant about who the husband is. Could now be that eventually? Too nervous to bring up the topic directly, she finds other ways to poke at the conversation she wants to have without actually having it. “Have you thought about joining the Guild?” Again, for Xalious residents, The Guild = The Mage’s Guild. THE institution of prestige in the village, the only seat of power.

Ansel helps her throw the gear in the carriage before moving in. Ansel would play dumb, nod along with every sight that had been seen before. Ansel use to take this path almost every day to go up to Frostmaw and be within the winter. He is leaning closer to the side of the carriage than her, which is saying most of what he was thinking. So, the whole husband thing was a turnoff to him, he did not want to learn to deal with this, it was hard to deal with this. Why did she think he was drinking? He was not over this, as much as he wanted to be. Finally, he could breathe, a question, a question that he might not be able to answer very well. That will create even more tension. “No... err, I do not know much about it. Considering, I live a little on the outskirts or Xalious. I’d rather find another healing occupation – one that pays,” cringe, whoops. “I mean, I have to be able to feed my children,” he smirks sheepishly before looking out the window of the carriage. Awkward Ansel.

“You could work outside the Guild and still be a part of it. Most people do,” she says. “It would give you access to better magical tutors, help you advance your elemental skills.” Not need Lanara, hooray. Her hand rubs at her collarbone. “My father is in the guild, so are many of my friends. So is He.” The husband. In many ways (making comparisons across universes), being a mage’s guild member’s wife in Xalious is like being a senator’s wife in Washington D.C. And in Josleen’s case, her father is also in the Guild, as thus she’s been indoctrinated in its ways and politics since birth.

Ansel blinks at her first suggestion. “I’m not sure if this Guild is what I need. I’m more of a… lone-type,” meaning, working with people was hard enough. I mean, look at the chaos that was happening between them. That said a lot. He was bad at communication, no government needed that. He taps his fingers on his knees idly, and he begins rubbing his leg out of a twitchy tactic of… ‘Get me out of here’. Then again, he hides his expression of what he was actually thinking. “I channel my magic through nature – like a druid of the sorts,” no, just a druid. Do not make things complicated. Awkward Ansel. Bringing up –him- again was just making his stomach churn a little more. He was not going to follow her husband’s steps, he was his own being. Was it getting hot in this carriage? Or was it just him? The nerves were acting up, just stare out the window.

Though slightly disappointed, Josleen decides not to press the issue. He is clearly uncomfortable; she doesn’t want to do that to him. “Ah,” she says. And that’s that. She leans against the side of the carriage and stares out the window. The silence settles again. Minutes pass. New topics vy for a chance to break the ice, but the bard thinks better of it. Ansel isn’t the type to be soothed or distracted by words easily. She’s learned that much. It’s a challenge for a social creature like Josleen. The gift of gab solves most of her problems, but not with him. She recalls how the night he came back no amount of conversation made him feel better. He needed contact then, maybe that’s what will work now. But going to him now runs against her natural way of doing things. Normally she needs to talk past issues to feel safe enough to be vulnerable; and make no mistake, going to Ansel now makes her feel vulnerable. He’s off. He could reject her. He’d hurt her pride. Thus it’s an act of courage for Josleen to slide across the seat and place her hand over his, fingers searching for his grip. Her head rests gently against his shoulder. She watches his hand beneath hers. Her heart thumps wildly in her chest; she feels exposed. It is getting hot in this carriage, but not in the steamy way she hoped. Hot and anxious, like a whirring machine in its final panic before death. Perhaps in this way he is good for her, because he forces her to approach things differently than she normally would.

Ansel was definitely not the one for conversation, which is where Josleen pushed him in different ways too. He was never good at expressing his emotions through words, in fact, touch was usually his reassurance. He was all about actions. He was a healer, he crafted magic with his hands; he liked to feel energy, feel the earth below him. As the woman begins to slide across the seat, he shifts his hazel gaze towards her, he was honestly a little thrown off guard by her act. The two opposites. Ansel responds with a small squeeze to her hand, mostly to reassure her that things would be okay with him – a small action, but that was really all he could manage. He just wanted her to stop comparing him to her husband, not that he would tell her, but he could feel this. The time in the tavern, the whole thing about Ezekiel, he was connecting dots lately, and he knew. A hint of frustration beneath that touch. Eyes locked on the window now. Hopefully now Craughmoyle would be in sight, and they would be another step forward to action instead of conversing – which was Ansel’s biggest downfall.

Craughmoyle

The rest of the trip is a mostly silent one, but significantly less awkward — at least for Josleen. His hand squeeze is enough. She strokes his arm idly. He seems to like that. Maybe it’s a wolf thing? Not that Josleen’s denial has lifted enough for her to acknowledge what he is. That’s a narrator question. Moving on! They move through the gray morning on a gravel road. Rain patters loudly on the carriage roof. The noise reveals cheap material disguised as expensive cab. In fact, the roof leaks a little across the seat, where Josleen was sitting earlier. She was definitely swindled into overpaying by at least 40 gold pieces. She comments irritably about that to Ansel. That’s it for conversation. They reach Craughmoyle and are dropped off at a tavern. Josleen hasn’t been here since she was a preteen. She had come then with her father on Guild business. Few of those memories stay with her today, and even fewer will serve her well now. The bustle of dwarves disorients her for a moment. Which way was the mines again? She rummages through her purse for a map and strikes the figure of a total tourist. A few locals shove angrily past her because she is standing right in the middle of a walkway with her things gathered around her feet like an obstacle course. “So wait, is this the….” The tavern sign is in Dwarven characters which she cannot read. “Do you know which tavern this is?” She tries to retrace the carriage’s route to figure out on which road they are now. “I think…” She starts south. “This way?” About 5 minutes later they hit a dead end. She sheepishly hands Ansel the map and lets him take over. Maybe he has a better sense of direction. Wherever they are (good luck, Ansel!), there’s a beer brewery and whiskey distillery nearby and the smell of alcohol chokes the air like overripe fruit.

He is more comfortable with the silence too. Which is such a relief. Soon they would have the discussion of wolf. That would be him talking about his tragedy. He would rather play human on a daily person. Like a normal person. Anyway, Ansel agrees with her, but also looks on the bright side, talks about how she is doing this for a good cause, the whole Skylei subject. Now, Ansel was slightly familiar with Craughmoyle, but only because his kids liked the dry land instead of the cold, and he would bring them here from time to time – sometimes. “I think this is the…” He scratches his head, he is antsy for the map as they hit dead ends and random signs, but he lets her fidget for a while before she stuffs the map in his hands. His eyes skim over the map briefly. “We need to head up north a bit…” As they walk past the sense of alchohol, Ansel begins to fidget more with the map. Clearing his throat, he begins speaking wildly. “I think you read the map wrong,” dur, Ansel. He then talks about a day he brought his kids here, how they loved the travel store he brought them to. How they all bought carved walking sticks for the mountain they live on. As they pass the brewery, Ansel becomes more relaxed. He then points east. “Need to head this direction, I think we just need to head east, let’s give it a try!” And he trudges forward, no stopping the man now. Move, Ansel, move.

Josleen smiles sadly at the family vacation story. She liked meeting Shia, and she’d like to get to know Dana, but at this stage it would be cruel. How Ansel and Josleen will fit into each other’s live, or not, moving forward remains an unknown. She can’t disrupt the children’s lives the way she’s disrupted the father’s. “I really liked meeting Shia,” she says. “He’s a good kid. I’m sure Dana is too. Maybe when…” She decides against continuing that train of thought. The uncertainty of ‘them’ wrenches her heart and she searches Ansel’s face for answers, but only finds the fiendish, wild look of an addict. Without realizing it she walks between Ansel and any place that serves alcohol until eventually the tavern district gives away to the industrial sector and finally the mines. Ancient subterranean roads connect the various caverns. Dwarven miners bustle up and down the tunnels as they go about their trade. Josleen and Ansel stick out like sore thumbs, as does one other solo adventurer up ahead. Hey, at least Josleen is wearing pants (soft leather, butt-hugging, yeow), and proper boots this time around. It’s clear by the way the dwarves ignore the foreigners that it’s not unusual for journeymen to come this way. These tunnels do eventually resurface near Venturil, and that route is sign-posted crudely. Josleen follows it faithfully past three forks in the road, but at the fourth, they veer off course, away from the road most traveled. By lantern light, Josleen shows Ansel a second map that has been hand-sketched. “The cave diver that loaned the gear copied this map for me,” she explains. The spelunking enthusiast is clearly not a cartographer. The map’s scale cannot be correct. It’s impossible to estimate how long each tunnel is, and thus, how long this trip will take. She relinquishes the map to Ansel and sheepishly admits that he has a better sense of direction than she. It isn’t clear if Josleen realizes this map is all but useless. The mining activity thins out until after about an two hours of hiking, Josleen and Ansel are alone. “That took longer than expected,” she says warily. The tunnels gently slope deeper into the earth. Their ears pop. The darkness thickens. An alien ecosystem scuttles and clicks around them from time to time, the strange noises booming and echoing against stone. Josleen grows tenser by the minute, and the casual hiking space that was nestled between them earlier has now been eaten by her fear. She’s right on his heel, using him as a human shield. Here’s a sample of Josleen’s riveting dialogue starters such as: “You hear that?” “What’s that?” “Do you know what the largest predator is down here?” “What about vipers?” “How often are there cave-ins?” “I wonder if enough cave-divers come down here that we’d be found if we get lost. Probably, right?” As usual, when it comes to planning adventures, Josleen has over-estimated her courage and ability, and under-estimated the difficulty of the journey, but not once does she suggest they turn back. Aside from Josleen’s fear-steeped behavior, the hike is uneventful in the way one would hope. Most journeying is just this, surviving the elements, learning of nature, hoping not to get trapped or killed. After another hour, Josleen has grown accustomed enough to the pattern of sounds in the tunnels to relax and look at mushrooms and newts from time to time. She recognizes one species of mushrooms as being edible and collects them.

Ansel does not look at her sorrowful face, only the map between his thumbs. He is pointing in various directions. Though, as he listens to what she has to say, he frowns a little, but fully shakes this off before continuing through the tourist town. As she places herself between the places filled of bitter liquor, he would ease up a little, shoulders relaxing slightly. She was becoming more of the distraction than the alcohol – thank Sven. Soon enough, they are walking through tunnels filled with dwarves, though, Ansel is more on a mission to pay attention. Ansel is incredibly tall compared to a lot of the miners, and well, yes, sore thumbs described it well. He then slows down a tad to scan over the next map she is showing him, and Ansel gladly takes the map as they move further. So, he had a little experience, he was rather more confident than she was acting. Fingers glide over the sketched out map, and he mutters words under his breath idly, does a few direction stops. He knew the hike would be long, and he was prepared. Mountain hiking boots, those cargo pants he wore in various colors – dark green today! Fingerless gloves so the earth was not so rough on his hands, a plain long sleeve grey shirt. As they grow deeper within the cavern, Ansel is a little more careful with her, making sure to calm her down. Explaining noises. “Probably a rat.” “I’ll keep us safe, I promise.” “Someone has to be curious enough to come down here, who do you think created the tunnels?” His voice was mellowed out, as usual, and he keeps a hand on her at all times, mostly on her arm. His eyes focused on the map held with one hand, trying to balance this in one was difficult, but he could manage.

The First Spark of Trouble

Summary: In the dark cavern, they must find a cudgel-shaped hole some 10 meters off the ground. It's too dark to see. Neither of them can summon fire or cast light. Thus, Josleen has an idea to wrap a grapple hook in lantern oil-soaked gauze, set it on fire, and throw it up to light the height of the cave wall. All they have to do is run out of the way! And by 'they' she means Ansel! Ansel throws the flaming grapple hook first. The idea works for lighting, but they find nothing on their first go. Excited, Josleen tries her hand at it. She finds the cudgel-shaped hole, but in the process hits a giant chameleon that was camouflaged against the wall. The chameleon comes down, curious about how they taste, but is scared off by the approach of a giant troll.

Abandoning the course, Ansel leads Josleen down a western tunnel, away from their original path. The tunnel dead-ends save for a tiny tunnel through which they would have to bellycrawl. It's too small for them to turn around if they get stuck. Nervous, Josleen asks Ansel to check the map one more time to make sure that crawlspace has an exit. Ansel, panicked by the slow approach of the hungry troll, lies to Josleen and says that yes, the tunnel leads to another cave. In truth, the tunnel isn't even on the map.

Josleen enters the tunnel on her stomach first. Ansel gets through in the nick of time.

Underdark

Soon, if Ansel is paying attention to the map, they should reach a large round cavern with many entrances and exits feeding into it. They are looking for one hole near the ceiling on the southern wall. It is described as being shaped like a cudgel. They’ll have to scale the wall to reach it.

Ansel halts and finally looks up to where they were at. The atmosphere was different within the earth – shake this off, Ansel. He then gazes over at her. “We are looking for this…” He points at the map diagram. “Keep your eyes peeled,” he is now gazing from east to west, north to south. North to the left, north to the right. South to the right, south to the… left. Though, he is not quite sure, so he steps over to get a closer look with a squint. “Is… is that it… It’s dim?” There was no luxury lighting, Ansel just had good eyes. Perks of his curse. Though, their eyes are probably adjusted by now, but it was still hard to tell distances.

Josleen squints in the direction Ansel points out, but she can’t make out a thing. “I wish I could just snap and make light appear, like my father can. Sometimes. He’s…” She holds her hand out flat and dips it from side to side in the universal language ‘so-so.’ “He’s more of a theorist than a tactician.” Read: Sucky mage, brilliant mind. She glances at her lantern to see if it inspires a solution to their problem. Not really. Then she rummages through her pack and grips a grapple hook. Hmm. Gears are turning… Gauze…. Lantern oil...Matches… She scans the cavern floor by the light of the lantern then slowly grins. “Babe, I have an idea. It’s a bit… Ok, so what if we…” As she starts and stops her speech she soaks some gauze and cotton balls in lantern oil then wraps this around the arms of the grapple hook. “What if we set this aflame and threw it up to light the walls. We can see better then. It’s a bit, uh, unorthodox, I admit, but we can make sure to be out from under it when it falls. Nothing should catch fire in here. It’s all stone.” Despite using the word ‘we,’ Josleen hands off the necessary supplies for her hare-brained plan then jogs halfway across the enormous cavern to be safe from the falling, flaming grapple hook. She encourages him with a thumbs up. You got this, Ansel!

Ansel wished he had learned the fire element right about now because her plan was insane. A heavy sigh, “You…” He breathes this out before grasping the supplies she had dipped in lantern oil. He made sure to hold onto the wiring rather than the oil, because if he lit that match… Woosh! There he would be, on fire. Though, instead he is smart. He holds the grapple hook in front of him and scrapes the match to light the stick. He lingers the flame near the oiled cotton and gauze and the blaze set off. The next thing that happens is rapid, he did not want time to run out. A small speck of flamed cotton falls on his pants, but he sees this. He would swing the grapple hook over towards the wall so the light would shine. He would now use his other hand to pat out the flame that had yet to ignite. Thank you gloves, and thanks, Josleen! Thanks a lot! He really did not mind, though, joking aside. The flame on the hook was so bright, this burned his eyes, so he would holler back to her. “Do you see it, babe?” He would then back pedal towards her, he did not want the hook to fall on him. That would just be a disaster.

Josleen squeals with delight as the flaming grapple hook arcs upwards along the wall, casting an orange light on rock face high up above. The plan works brilliantly, and it’s fun! The grapple hook lands with a loud clang that echoes through the cavern and reverberates down several tunnels in all directions. “You look like one of those flame jugglers!” she hollers back at him, her voice lowering as he closes the distance between them. She embraces him playfully from behind when he reaches her and teases, “A rookie flame thrower. So hot.” A goofy grin acknowledges it’s a terrible pun and she knows it, but she had to go there. Having seen Ansel do it once, it’s now her turn to play with fire. She presses a quick kiss to his shoulder then starts towards the grapple hook, calling back, “I didn’t see any opening. I’ll throw it again more this way.” More to the south, but she’s turned around and couldn’t tell you which way is south. Hopefully Ansel knows. She carefully picks up the grapple hook by the hot metal fingers and tosses it up in an arc. Like Ansel, she back pedals quickly as the fire throws a kaleidoscopic spectacle of light and shadow on the walls. It flies up past the cudgel-shaped hole, yes!, and smacks into what looks like an overhang of stone, but the soft-thud suggests flesh, not stone. A reptilian eye snaps opens and stares down at Josleen and Ansel. The rock moves in the shape of a human-sized chameleon, camouflaged and clinging to the ceiling. A stifled scream and a whimper choke out of Josleen just as the flaming hook clangs against the ground a second time. The chameleon scuttles down the cavern wall and approaches the pair curiously, appraisingly. Food? Easy prey? It’s slow to decide. From the north, the sound of heavy, bipedal stomps echo through a tunnel and into this cavern, announcing the approach of something gigantic.The earth quakes. Pebbles rattle at Josleen and Ansel’s feet. The chameleon suddenly flees! All that noise Josleen and Ansel were making attracts some predator that makes the smaller creatures dart down tunnels and hiding holes, until the only sound left is the ominous approach of an unknown beast.

Ansel shakes his head as he wanders backwards and as she hugs him from behind, he grins his wolfish grin. “Not too shabby, eh?” He then whips around, gives a playful slap on her tush before saying, “You got this, babe,” he then backs up again further away from the flame. As the hook flies up, he sees the cudgel-shaped hole, and he grins. “Nice!” and then his smile fades as the hook hits the squishy surface, the wolf squints. That is not right. An eye pops open. That is definitely not right. As the chameleon crawls towards them, Ansel’s expression is a priceless disgusted face. He then hesitates before grasping onto the woman’s shoulder, pulling her behind him. Time to be the brave man… Something he was not too good at. Boom. The tunnel vibrates, something so big that the chameleon runs away. Senses heighten, thank you wolf senses. “Jos, we should… hurry and get out of here,” he suggests towards the hole they had found and he searches for her hand to pull her along.

The butt slap, she digs it. She gives him an impish look over her shoulder, wiggles her butt. But play time is cut short from a maybe-or-maybe-not carnivorous chameleon and the beast who feeds on it (and everything else by the sound of it). Josleen’s too terrified to scream properly and instead gasps into her hand as Ansel ushers her into action. She trusts him completely and doesn’t put up any resistance. His hand is her lifeline and she follows him to the grapple hook and equipment. The cudgel-shaped hole is about 30 feet up, and if Ansel remembers from their escape for Frostmaw fort when they first met, Josleen isn’t a very good climber. She puts out the fire with a heavy, fire-retardant blanket from the pack while Ansel readies the rope. He knows how to do it right? Josleen doesn’t, but her cave-diving friend loaned her a short manual. Following a manual right now seems like a slow choice for a fast and early death. The stomp grow louder and closer. “Where do the other tunnels lead?” Josleen whispers to Ansel. Should they stay on the course, or deviate and hope they don’t wind up somewhere worse than this cavern right now. What could be worse?

He is scrambling. Almost sweating. Okay, he was sweating. The sound of the creature inching towards them sounded way bigger than what Ansel could take out – he was only a lycan. The man fiddles with the rope before reaching for the grapple hook that she put out. Hot… Hot. Hot! He lets his fingers burn anyway, why not? The things he does for this woman (pfft, just kidding). Anyway, he did not know what he was doing entirely, but he liked to pretend. Which was probably a horrid time to do so. Okay, this is not working. “I don’t know, come with me; grab the lantern!” He beats her before she could even grab it. So… they were going down another tunnel. “There has to be a detour!” He is whispering in a loud voice – yeah, that works. He then grasps her arm with his free hand and drags her into a tunnel that was to the west. He was going to take his chances. He then moves behind her. “Keep going, stay quiet, I’m right here,” he is whispering completely now. He just needed to rush and look at the map, he needed to find a safe place.

Josleen grabs the hot grapple hook with the blanket and jams both items messily into the knapsack. They don’t have time to pack it correctly, or to close it. It jostles on her shoulder, contents held down precariously by friction and gravity alone. It’s too heavy for her, and it slows Josleen down, but she’s too focused on their escape to notice that she isn’t running as quickly as she normally could. She also doesn’t notice that her footsteps are eerily silent, though Ansel may. It’s a gift from her elven-heritage: an instinctual ability to step silently under pressure. She doesn’t scream and keeps a clear head as she responds quickly to his instruction. Tunnel to the west it is; she doesn’t second guess him even though she knows he has no idea where they are going. So what? Inaction kills; move to survive. In the cavern behind them, a large humanoid shadow breaks into the cave and turns west after them. It’s the size of a giant but the shape of a troll. As it grows closer, dust and pebbles break off stalagmites above their heads and rain down on their hair, baptizing them as part of the deep. Their escape tunnel tapers quickly around them until there is nothing left but a hole just big enough for them wiggle through on their bellies. The passageway is too narrow for them to turn around if they get stuck. Once they enter, there is literally no turning back. For the first time since they began to flee, Josleen hesitates. Her heart races dangerously and her hand tightens on Ansel’s. “I don’t like this. Don’t like tight spaces.” Josleen’s claustrophobic, but you don’t have to be to fear this. “Will this tunnel open up again?” she whispers as she takes the lantern and holds it up for Ansel to reference the map one more time. About 200 meters behind them, the troll-giant enters the tunnel. To their luck, the tunnel’s tapering slows down the creature’s approach. It has to crawl to reach them, and it’s slow and dim-witted, but also hungry and bone-snappingly strong.

Ansel is not good with silent noises, he was not good at creeping around – well, there was that time in Cenril, but he was quick – basically, he was the one leaving soft echoes for the giant. As they reach their dead end, except for the thin-spaced tunnel, he is breathing heavily out of adrenaline. He does not have time for her worries, and he tries to usher her to go, but she is asking him. He holds the map up again, scanning over this, but not really reading anything out of panic, so, unfortunately, he pulls out a lie, but this is for their safety, mostly because she is so hesitant, and they do not have time. He would apologize later… This would be his fault for whatever was on the other side. Being eaten by a troll, or… being stuck in a tunnel? He would rather be stuck in a tunnel. The hungry creature was gaining on them and he quickly grasps her shoulder, looks her in the eye with a sincere hazel gaze. “Yes, there is. Go, Jos. I’m behind you, I promise,” his voice is trying to be calm, but he cannot help that there was anxiety in his chords due to an angry troll-like creature behind them about to murder them.

In the game of which would you rather, death by getting stuck in a tunnel or getting eaten by a troll?, Josleen would prefer to be eaten. But entering the tunnel is not a death sentence; Ansel assures her of this. The hope of survival shines like a beacon in the pitch-black tunnel, and she follows it on her belly, pushing the lantern ahead of her and letting Ansel push the knapsack behind her/ahead of him. She scoots forward as quickly as she can, not taking the time to inspect the burrow and its spider tenants, thinking only of survival — both hers and Ansel. “Are you in?!” she asks frantically as the giant troll’s thundering steps grow louder. Ansel has enough time to be in the tunnel by the time the giant reaches its mouth and is jamming it’s fat hand into the hole to fish out the belly-sliding worms. Its arm-thick fingers tickle the soles of Ansel’s boots just as the wolf rounds a turn. The giant’s forearm can’t wind around that angle, and in its frustration it punches the wall. Repeatedly. Dust and pebbles rain down on the pair in the tunnel, but the earth won’t give. The tunnel remains intact. “Are you alright?” she shouts over the pummeling of fist on stone. She keeps moving, until the pounding fades to silence.

Ansel is ushering her quicker. Please, move, please. As she tucks into the tunnel, he follows suit, inching behind her in an army crawl. “Yes, yes! Keep moving!” Okay, so the man was yelling, he was terrified. Who would not be? As the troll jams his hand through the hole, Ansel jumps and knocks his head on the ceiling of the tunnel, well, there was going to be a bruise, but he was fine. Hair would cover the small bump. “Sh*t, go!” He would also apologize later for his vulgar language with her. He was being so forceful. He tries to pull his feet up as the troll brushes against his feet and he finally turns the corner. There is nothing but uneasy breaths from him – fear – fear for them. He does not answer the question.

Drowning in Trouble

Summary: The narrow tunnel slopes downwards towards water, and widens just enough for Ansel to take the lead. There is no telling where the watery channel will lead, and if they swim, for long they will need to hold their breaths before they find air. Thankfully, Ansel has practiced manipulating water. He swims through the tunnel to a lake basin and parts the water for Josleen to run across to shore. Unfortunately he didn't plan for his own escape and the water comes crashing down on him. He makes it to shore, and after dumping his energy to the earth (and giving Josleen a good scare), the couple discover a canoe made of bones near a river channel that leads out of the lake, the only exit.

They're lost, but Silvermane's journal describes a subterranean water system, and perhaps this channel connects to the correct path they should have taken. According to the journal, they need to follow 'the spine', which Josleen believes to be a poetic way to describe the main channel. In the river, a white, knobbly creature's back breaks the water. It appears to Ansel, but hides from Josleen. The river forks. Josleen wants to go left, but Ansel sees the unidentified beast go to the right. Ansel trusts his instincts and follows to the right. At another cavern with many exits, the creature gently bumps the canoe northward. Ansel lies about what bumped them when Josleen asks. They continue northward for another hour and enjoy each other's company again.

Watery Tunnels

In the silence, Josleen’s imagination dreams up grisly deaths, and she gasps frightfully at the slightest provocation — an insect, a skidding stone, a shadow. Her own mind is torture. “Baby, I need you to talk to me. Tell me something. Distract me,” she begs. Talking isn’t his strong suit, but she needs him to try. After about fifteen minutes, the tunnel starts to slope downward until Josleen stops suddenly and gasps yet again, “There’s water! The tunnel fills up just head! Oh no, oh Sven, no no.” She back pedals onto the knapsack (possibly kicking it into his face), her body trembling with fright. Her jostling splashes water into the lantern and snuffs out the light, which only heightens her hysteria. At first, the tunnel is so dark you can’t make out your own nose, but as Ansel’s eyes adjust, he’ll see that the water ripples with glowing swatches of blue, green, and yellow light, reflected from something beyond the tunnel and not very far away. Josleen would see it too if she wasn’t too busy panicking. They’ll need to swim to reach it, and there’s no way to tell how long the swim will last, where they will wind up, and whether or not their lungs will last the watery journey.

Ansel is in a blur as he keeps crawling, and she is speaking to him, he shakes his head. ‘Talk to me’. What? Right, opposites, she needed words, something to hold on to, some sort of hope. “Err.. I’m sorry I have not been myself lately,” he was word vomiting, though, this was true. “Truth is, I’m scared. I don’t want to be hurt, but I’m willing to take that risk,” his heart was thumping now. “I love you, and I promise, I promise once we get out of here, I will get better. For us. Don’t be scared, Josleen, I will get you out of here.” Did he just finally confess in real words that he loved her? Well, who knew if that made things better? He then goes off on a story, a memory. Something about when they first got into a sticky situation and talking about how brave she was, or something along those lines, telling her that she had to bring that to this moment. The tunnel begins sloping… Yes, the knapsack flies back into his face with a grunt. “Jos, Jos, shhh,” he was trying to calm her down. He is trying to look around her. He sees it. “There’s… a light, I think? Through the water… Can you swim?” She needed to answer now or never. Well, there was that possibility of… magic.

Josleen clings to Ansel’s words like a lifeline. He’s scared; she’s scared. He’s bargaining, making promises of what will happen if they survive this. She bargains too, responding here and there. “I don’t want to hurt you.” “I’ll figure out a way for us.” “I love you too,” she says, unafraid of the words at last. She’s been shying away from them all this time, but in this tunnel with death beckoning them to take one more wrong turn, it seems silly to be scared of something so beautiful. And if death does come for them, she’d regret not having told him. Then he recalls their fiasco at the ruins. That was easier than this. That didn’t play on her phobia of tight spaces, but his words do help calm her down. In a twisted way, his own fear is reassuring to her. He won’t do something cavalier and dumb. He’ll be careful. The tunnel widens slightly with the water, and she turns on her side so Ansel can slide up beside her and get a closer look at the light in the water. If he does, she holds his side as they figure out what to do. With him as one side of the tunnel walls, it suddenly doesn’t seem so small, so oppressive. “Yes, I can swim. But how long is the swim? We can’t come up for air in there.” Magic would be great.

He breathes out relief that she returns the love. Thank goodness, how awkward that could have been. Anyway, he moves up near her, eyes the water, and he looks at her. “I don’t know… I cannot tell,” he breathes out before getting a serious voice. “Alright,” he pauses. “We aren’t going to risk this,” he gazes down at the cool blue water. He needed space. “I’m going first, you won’t have to swim, you’ll know what to do,” he reassures her and before he slides down further, he gives her a small kiss before plunging into the water with a big breath, sucking in air. So, he was gone. His eyes are closed, but he is spaced out, finally. He does not open his eyes, she would be able to see the way. He focuses on his ‘third eye’ which Lanara calls this. This takes a while, and he is running low on air. Water was about emotions, the flow of this all. How did he feel? What would he feel? He would feel the separation that he had been feeling lately. Reality versus drowning his sorrows away. Slowly, where she was waiting, the water would begin to bubble. The man below was pushing his hands out slowly, as if he was separating the water and giving a walking space. The water would gurgle up towards the sides, now circling into an arch. He was in the center, able to breathe again. He is gasping, but he is forcing the water to the sides, eyes are opening, and his adrenaline is pumping. He stands still – he was dripping, he did not know how long he could hold this. Muscles were flexing, he was stiff. Nature was befriending him at this time in need. He could not speak, his magic made him breathless, though this would change over time, the energy wore him out, and he needed to build this up. Great practice. The tunnel would continue for her and she would be able to see the light source.

Waiting slows time, and the minutes alone feel like an eternity. Although rationally she knows he is there and won’t abandon her, irrationally the thought that he won’t come back nags at the back of her mind. Her guilt twists and projects onto him her belief that despite their bond, it’s easier to let her go than suffer through an affair and see what becomes of them when the private bubble bursts. Then the water moves and sends her heart racing. She grabs the lantern and the pack and moves quickly through the tunnel. It widens from a crawlspace to the basin of a subterranean lake. The light source is all around them in the form of bioluminescent rocks — the lake floor, the cavern walls beyond, the low ceiling. His expression says ‘Do Not Disturb.’ He doesn’t have to tell her to keep going; she knows him better now. He won’t stop until she’s out of harm’s way, and so she wastes no time running up the side of the lake and climbing onto the bank. There she turns around, kneels, and watches for Ansel, to see how he escapes — how long can he hold it? Being able to do it at all is impressive. The blues and greens reflecting on his skin make him look like a water nymph, like he’s become the water he’s displaced.

Ansel hears her feet run past him, and well, he sees her. The light is all around him. How would he get out? He did not think this through. Though, he is weakening, his arms are shaking. He did not have time… so the water collapses down on him, which would probably look horrifying from her view because he is staring at her, and time would feel slow. Whoosh! The water was like a wave that crashed down on him taking him out. Which would be painful, but almost… soothing. A peaceful way to die, right? No, not right (that would be a terrible ending). When the wave splashes down, this brings him under, but the force of this all pushes him up and near the bank and he clings onto the side, gasping for air and pulling himself up. His eyes are filled with spark, the energy taking its course through his veins. He needs to ground himself, and he lays there, taking in his breath before closing his eyes again. He is stiffening. In his imagination, the earth would open up, pulling him deep down, wrapping roots around legs and pulling him beneath the surface. Something Lanara taught him to get rid of energy, but also gave him a lot of fear. So, he was claustrophobic too, but in a different sense. The fact that something was pulling him under did not satisfy him. To Josleen, this would look like he was having a panic attack, but honestly he was trying to get rid of his energy – this was all in his mind. In his dreamy state, the earth would close up… He opened his eyes and sat up quickly. He was drenched, eyes were wide; hands were on his knees. He was shaking, but the reaction was slowly fading, he was draining, and he was still coughing. He was now taking in their new place, wherever they would be.

“Ansel!!” Josleen shrieks as the wave takes him out. Her voice scrapes harshly against her throat. Last time they made noise it attracted a giant troll. Screaming is ill-advised, but she can’t help it. She quickly starts tearing through the pack, ripping out the blanket and grapple hook and a bedroll to find the rope. She loops it quickly and throws a line towards where she last saw Ansel. He resurfaces several feet down the bank and Josleen races to his side, thinking in the last second to grab the medical kit he put together for their trip. By the time she reaches him, he’s gone stiff and distance. “No, no, no.” She kneels at his side and instinctively checks his pulse, then listens for his breath. “Ansel, baby, please,” she whimpers as she cups his face. Her thumbs stroke his cheek. “Wake up. Wake up.” Did he pack smelling salts? Just as she moves to check, he jerks into an upright sitting position. She makes little noises of relief as she embraces him, trying to calm his shaking with her warmth. She presses her face into his shoulder and tries to slow down her own breath and heart beat. Once they are both calm, she presses a few quick kisses to his cheek then lets him go. She looks around the cavern too. The ceiling hangs low. The bank they are on only hugs about a quarter of the lake. The lake opens up into river that flows through a large tunnel to the east. On the far end of the bank near the mouth of the river sits a canoe. “Oh!” she whispers excitedly. “That’s the bone canoe Silvermane references in his journal. There are a few down here. He doesn’t know where they came from. It seems no one knows. But explorers use them to navigate the subterranean water system. We need to find what he calls the spine,” she explains as she looks to Ansel to see if he is ready to continue, or if he needs a break. What time is it anyway? Surely night is beginning to fall on the surface. “Are you hungry? Do you want to keep going or rest here?”

As Ansel looks around, he does not notice the panicked woman until she presses her lips against his cheek. The soaked man lets his eyes fall on her, he was silent, he was still trying to cough up some water that burned within his chest. He looks towards the bone canoe before looking towards her. He appeared worn. He did not need food, in fact, maybe he did need rest. The man slicks his wet hair back with a callused hand. If he kept going, there was no idea what would happen next. “Let’s just calm down for a second,” meaning, let’s relax before we get too ahead of ourselves. This seemed like a safe area for the meantime. He then shrugs off the wet flannel and tosses this to the side before leaning back on his palms, taking in a few more breaths. He was a little shaken, but he was also exhilarated.

Although she’s seen him nude many times, his torso still earns an appreciative once over. “Alright, yea, sounds nice. I’ll be right back.” She recovers their pack, the rope, the lantern and takes a moment to rummage through the gear, fix this, rearrange that. When she returns to his side, the lantern is dried and relit, the knapsack is neatly closed, and she’s carrying unleavened bread and beef jerky in paper in one hand. She sits next to him and holds out the food. It’s been several hours without food. Sometimes when exhausted, people don’t know they’re hungry until food is waved under their nose. She uncorks a canteen of water and offers it to him as well. When he seems sufficiently calmed by silence and companionship, however long that may take, she says, “That was really impressive. I didn’t know you could do that. You’ve come a long way from what you showed me at the fountain.” She smiles wryly as she remembers that date, then reflects on what he just did for them. “I was terrified back there, but you got me out just like you promised. Proud of you.”

Ansel watches her walk away before running his hand through his dripping hair again, pushing the water back. He would dry soon enough. He adjusts himself. Squish, squish. The light shines again as she returns, he could see better now. The man eyes the food… was that jerky? The man reaches out and snags the jerky from her hand before chewing on this idly. He nods appreciatively before taking the canteen as well, taking a swig and handing this back to her. This takes about ten minutes for him to be soothed again. Back to calm Ansel. “I’ve been figuring out things from time to time. I’ve had water under my belt, I suppose. Especially because water and air make ice, so somehow, I equipped water a long time ago,” he would take another bite out of the jerky before falling silent again. He is almost sheepish when she acknowledged his promises. Should he tell her he lied? No, not this time… He shakes his head. “The last thing I wanted was for you to get killed, I would have done anything,” which was true. Minutes fly, and he has finished the rest of the jerky pieces with a bit of bread. He is well refreshed, though still damp, but this does not bug him. For now, he just watches her, eyes gentle, he was relieved, very relieved. However, who knew what would happen next.

Josleen blushes rosy-cheeked when he looks at her that way, says he would have done anything. She bumps her shoulder against his lightly and eyes him through her periphery, thoroughly smitten and not discreet about it. There predicament still scares her. They aren't out of the woods yet. But they found what feels like an oasis -- it needs to be. They need it. He was right to ask for rest. She feels better too. The relative calm bathes over them for a few more minutes. She indulges in it, resting her head against his shoulder, saying nothing. But the stone isn't comfy and their bodies need to move again eventually. She pulls out the damp map and spreads it across her right thigh and his left. By lantern light, she tries to get their bearings. "So which tunnel did we just take?" She locates the cavern where the chameleon found them on the map and traces her finger over the western tunnel options. Fun fact, the belly-crawling tunnel isn't on the map. The tunnel they originally took just dead-ends, with no tiny-crawl-space tunnel option extending from there. She looks at Ansel puzzled. "Am I not reading this right? Where's the one we crawled through that you found on the map?"

Ansel is now staring into the lantern as she rests upon his shoulder. He was so still, easy breathing. As she spreads the map out, he adjusts his posture for a better view of the map. ‘So which tunnel did we just take?’ (enter curse word here). He almost wants to cringe, he got them lost. She was catching his lie. He does not look at her, the wolf is lowering his head, and he lets out a deep sigh. “There is no route that we took… I lied,” he blinked and stared at the map. “I wasn’t going to let you get killed. Like I said, I’d do anything,” he was a little ashamed of himself, but he knew he made the right decision. He was ready for any type of burst from her, but he was going to look over the map anyway. “Listen, listen,” he paused. “We went west, right?” He drags his finger through the tunnel where the dead end was. “We went past the dead end, so we had to be going straight, but we took a turn in that tunnel…” He is dragging his finger to see if he could spot the route that they took. Covering his mistake that he made.

Poor Ansel must have dated a lot of really unreasonable women in his past! There is no angry outburst from Josleen. Under different circumstances, perhaps there would be, but he made a decision in the heat of the moment to save them from a hungry giant-troll. She isn’t pleased with their current predicament, no pat on the back here, but she would agree that he made the best decision under the circumstances. Pausing to take her opinion into account would have had them counting a troll’s teeth from the inside of its mouth. So no, she isn’t angry, but she is suddenly very scared again. She was afraid of getting lost down here, and that now seems like a very likely scenario. The panic starts to quicken in her gut. “The tunnel was not straight,” she insists. The soothing calm is gone from her voice. “Yes, there was one sharp turn, but the entire thing was gently curving every which way. That was carved by animals or water. Wait, wait.” The hysteria is creeping into her voice’s undertones. She looks around their cavern. It’s a distinct oval shape with a lake and one river-tunnel leading out of it eastbound. “Let’s find this cave if it’s on the map.” It isn’t, but the cudgel-shaped hole they should have taken leads to a different waterway that may connect to this lake. Most likely, they are currently off the western margin of the map. “Silvermane’s book talks about following the spine when you reach the waterways. I think it means the main river, the main vein. Maybe this,” she nods to the tunnel to the east, “Connects to the ‘spine.’” Choices are limited, anyway. Though the water had been still, it now ripples slowly. The ripples come from the tunnel.

The wolf feels sick to his gut at her hysteria. He is silent, and he is gazing over the maps. The tunnels were curved. That was his fault. “Okay, okay, calm down,” he looks up and looks at the canoe, also while listening to everything she is saying. He rises slowly with a squish here and squish there. “Alright, Silvermane talks about water? Here’s water,” he suggests, his voice is light at the tone. He was trying to be optimistic. “Silvermane talks about bone-carved canoes?” He then points to the canoe. “We can try, it seems like our best option right now. Just don’t panic, okay?” He then opens a hand for her to take to help herself up. He would then lean down to gather the knapsack and such. Perhaps, it was his turn to take a little control back again. “Bound to hit a few bumps here and there, right?” He would brush her shoulder with his palm. “Let’s load up, yes? Look on the map on the way, follow the streamline,” he would then begin to walk without her approval. Though, what was she going to do? Stay there alone? Though, she was pointing out these things already. He would then load the knapsack into one of the canoes and offer out a hand for her to load in first before he would push them both off into the line of water.

Josleen is happy to take the back seat and follow Ansel’s lead. She takes his hand, stands, walks nervously to the canoe, and in general follows directions with a terrified look on her face. Despite his recent admission of lying to her (a white lie, a baby lie), she trusts him. He lied about the tunnel, but it was to save them both and he got that right. He’ll get this right too, she tells herself with a gulp. Two bone oars sit in the canoe. She takes one and sits near the front. Ansel will have better steering power in the back. The river does lead to a wider waterway. Bioluminescent stones continue to light their path, though in some places their glow is weak and the canoers must rely on the lantern for sight. In one such low-light stretch, a large creature crests in the water. Its back is thin and sectioned off in discs. Its color is the same as the canoe. It moves like a whale, rarely surfacing. It displaces water as if it has a lot of meat to it, but all Josleen and Ansel can see is its bare spine which swims passively along the canoe, never rocking it. Josleen looks to the ceiling for concave clues to new tunnels and pathways, offshoots. “Do you think we’re on the main water way? What Silvermane calls the spine?”

As she sits in the front, he gives a firm push and hops in the back. A small rock of the canoe, but he makes this steady before sitting down, grasping a bone oar. He pulls the oar through the water with her rhythm, but also does a couple extra strokes to keep the boat in-line. The man does not notice the creature within the water yet, instead he focuses on the walls for any clues. The map is no use to them at the moment, but it rests with Josleen. “It can be, let’s just… wait until a tunnel comes up. We might be able to see it on the map and find our location,” he then twists his oar slightly, almost losing his grip. The man would look down to adjust this for a moment before notice the bare spine that swims along the canoe. “I…” He pauses, the creature was making him fidgety, but he did not want to woman to panic or to set the beast off. “Actually, I think you’re right,” he is hesitant. “About the spine. You… see anything up ahead?” He is trying to keep his cool. Oh, dear Sven, do not jump out of the water and snatch us up. We are good people.

Josleen shakes her head without taking her eyes off the tunnel walls. “No change.” Fortunately for Ansel, she is completely unaware of the creature in the water, though this cluelessness has a close shave with the truth a few times as Josleen casually glances down to the water while rowing. Each time she does so, the bony creature dives out of her sight, then resurfaces when she looks away. Surely that’s just a coincidence, right? It’s a coincidence that repeats itself a few times. Another 20 minutes pass before they reach a fork in the river. “Which way?” All this time, the creature has been with them. Now it peels away from the canoe slowly and takes the right tunnel. “I have no idea which way to go. The left seems slightly wider. Maybe that’ll lead to the main river. What do you think?” Ansel’s secret canoeing companion, the swimming spine, waits in the channel to the right.

Ansel is still a little cautious the whole time the creature is swimming by them, the whole time he is looking up, back to the creature, to the wall, then back to the creature. He is wide eyed that the woman cannot even see this thing. A coincidence indeed! As they come to the fork, and now he is looking to where the creature took off to. The man tilts his head, looks left, and then looks right where the spine is lingering in the right. “Something’s telling me we should take a right this time, babe,” he rubs the back of his neck. “I mean, I don’t know for sure… I just think it’s a better idea,” he is squinting. Perhaps the spine creature is not trying to harm them, but perhaps lead them to their next destination.

Josleen looks to the right channel and the spiny-backed creature dives again. “What’s that?” She squints at the ripples long and hard, but they subside quickly and the creature doesn’t move again. “Must be the light playing tricks,” she says/hopes. Her heart rate rises a little despite her words. Anxiously she glances back to the left, to the right, to Ansel. “Are you sure? Why?” She rubs at her collar and takes a deep breath, preparing herself for a leap of trust. “Okay. Alright. Right it is.” He’s steering this thing anyway. But now Josleen has her gaze trained on the water, and the spine doesn’t rise. They come to another lake-filled cave, this one with three channels leading in different directions. Which way? The creature bumps the canoe to the north. “What was that?”Josleen hisses. The creature doesn’t disturb them again. For about an hour, the tunnel winds in a generally northerly direction. The ride is peaceful. Josleen calms down, shares stories. She tells him about her first and only trip to Vailkrin. Skylei had gone missing and Josleen set off to find her. She traveled with Skylei’s ex-fiance, Tyler (the way she spits out the name suggests he is persona non grata these days; “He wore a ninja outfit during the day! Her taste in men baffles me. Augh, Tyler!”), and Eliason, Josleen’s ex whom Ansel has heard about before. They had to cross Vailkrin’s dark forest and were attacked by a wraith there. Tyler was hit, almost died. Josleen managed to find the right herbs to save him. They found Skylei bedridden in the tavern there, The Hanging Corpse (“Ghastly name!”). She had been attacked by spiders. Josleen leaves out of the story the part where Ezekiel had actually found Skylei before them and saved Skylei’s life before he was attacked by a lycan. Any Ezekiel-related stories are deftly avoided. Ezekiel who? A second story involved the time Tyler punched Josleen in the face. Oh and a third story about the time Tyler faked his death. Oh and a fourth story about the time Tyler ran off with some blonde bimbo and hurt Skylei.

Ansel shakes his head. “Nothing, I don’t see anything,” but he did, and for some reason, the creature did not want Josleen to see it. Perhaps because she was already panicky. Also, Ansel did not want Josleen to change her mind about the direction. “Yes, I’m sure…” He does not answer ‘why’, he lets this be. He pushes the oar through the water and they are now headed into the right channel. He does not see the creature any further and he looks up. Why did the creature not want Josleen to see it? Then, another three channels come up, and as the creature bumps the canoe, there is a secret smile Ansel is hiding away from the woman. “Probably just hit a stone,” which did not make sense. The water is calm now. As Josleen tells her story, he is intrigued. He liked when she talked, she could go for hours, which did not bug him, until he had to talk, then we would usually fidget until he could come up with something to say. Though, he was getting better. He was learning how to communicate with her. “Sounds like Skylei gets herself in a lot of fixes.” The tales of Tyler amused him in a way, but also he was frowned upon. “He punched you?” “Who the hell is this guy?” “What happened to him?” So much curiosity about the fool.

A Whale Of ATime

Summary: The northern channel dead ends in an immense cavern that harbors a magical, skeleton whale graveyard. Josleen recognizes the place from Silvermane's journal and knows that they are close. The bone canoe disassembles and the individual pieces complete a skeleton that comes to life and joins the creature that led Ansel here in the first place. The passive fossil beasts swim off.

Following Silvermane's instructions, they find a crack in the wall and slip through to a smaller, danker cave with a wet floor. Here they must take a mushroom-based drug that will enable them to see the umbrastone glow bright purple -- otherwise it is indistinguishable from other deep stones. The drug also makes them trip. An initially silly conversation gives way a bad argument, tears, and paranoia. Eventually they come down from the peak of the high long enough to get back on mission and excavate the umbrastone, which they find.

They camp for the night, and the next day leave the way they came.

Bones in a Cavern

“He’s dead now.” Josleen does not disclose that Hildegarde killed Tyler. The silver knight isn’t very proud of that history, and Josleen protects her friend by not spreading it. There would be a fifth Tyler-is-the-worst story if it weren’t for the fact that they have arrived at a dead-end, massive cavern. This one isn’t lit by bioluminescent stones. The lantern will be their guide as they moor the canoe on the stone bank and disembark. On the ground and in the shallow water, bones pile on bones. Long spines, fins, blunt teeth, ribs as big as a house. “Whale bones?” Josleen guesses. “This must be the graveyard Silvermane references! We’re so close. We need to find a crack in the wall, just big enough to squeeze through. A brook bubbles through it, then the next room is the place!” She beams at the promise of getting what they came for. She had almost abandoned hope that they would succeed, but they’re getting there. As she talks, the canoe to their left begins to glow, then hum and vibrate. Slowly, its design snaps. It bends and stretches into the shape of a rib, three teeth, a vertebrae. These final puzzle pieces complete a nearly intact whale skeleton that straddles the lake and the shore. It quivers back to life, slowly learning once more how to move. The creature which led Ansel to this cave, a skeletal whale itself, a living fossil, surfaces in plain sight of Josleen and sings a low bawling song to its kin. The fossil on the surface thrashes harder, trying to wiggle its great body into the water. Its tail whips into a pile of bones that come crashing towards Ansel and Josleen.

‘He’s dead now.’ Well, that killed a vibe – awkward silence. The dead end is near and he hops out of the canoe, giving her a hand out of the rocky boat. He eyes the whale bones, and he lets her have her moment of excitement. He then turns his head towards the glow of the canoe. “So that’s…” He trailed, he had his own thoughts at the whale skeleton. The old treasure hunter in Ansel comes to life, he is actually smiling, and as the bones crash towards the two, he hovers his body over her for a moment so she’s not hit in the face by some sort of bone. He then lowers his arm and faces the fossil entering the water. “We are definitely in the right place,” he pauses and well, he leans in to kiss her cheek briefly. Another thing conquered. “Let’s find the crack, shall we?” He insists before moving towards the wall, a hand smoothing over the surface of the wall.

Ansel’s epiphany about the whales draws her attention from the crooning fossils to Ansel. “That’s what?” she asks nervously. The situation frays her nerves — magical bones, massive skeletal beasts — but nothing threatens them, and thus she does not panic, even as the ivory pile collapses around them. She cowers against Ansel’s chest for protection until the bones are still, then pulls away with an embarrassed smile. The graveyard, this entire journey, has made her very jumpy. The only thing keeping her from panicking and shutting down is Ansel, and his sweet celebratory kiss to her cheek that makes her smile. “You were right about which tunnel to take, babe.” As she searches the wall, she says, “I wonder if my father knows about these creatures. He would love this.” The fossil whales are gone now and the cavern is peaceful once more. “Found it!” The crack is just big enough for them to slide in sideways, though Josleen’s breasts and butt catch on the uneven rockface. “Ow, ow, ow. She winces as she wiggles through, the stones pinching and pulling on the curves that make her distinctly a woman. A rock chafes a line on her leather pants where hips meet bum, and scrapes her flesh below. Ansel should have an easier go getting through. On the other side, the brook feeds into a small puddle. Their steps splash loudly. The cavern slopes downwards away from them. “If I read Silvermane correctly, this is where we drink the Bearded Mushroom oil. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.” The echo of her voice and their splashing suggests this cavern is smaller than the last one, but it is still big enough to elude the glow of their lantern. Without going in further, it’s impossible to tell if this is another dead end or not. She asks Ansel to hold the pack as she roots around for a bottle of the hallucinogenic brew. She holds it up for Ansel to take or reject. “Two swigs.”

As she hides against his chest, he rests a hand on her back. “Something that helped us along the way,” he would nod. As they carry on and search the wall, he raises his brows. “So, your father is the adventure type?” As they find the crack, he lets her go through first, he is patient, and he cringes a little as he watches her struggle. Then again, a little amusing to him as he slipped through like a breeze. He was tall, ducking a little at odd rock faces, but otherwise, not having curves was a plus. One point for Ansel! Not that he wanted her to lose the curves… Two points for Ansel! The man is still rather damp, and he frowns as his boots get soaked again. The Bearded Mushroom oil… He was hesitant. Then again, this was for her, so he would reach out to take the bottle. “I want to,” he furrows his brows slightly. He does? Two swigs… Right. He opens the oil and throws the bottle back once. He makes a disgusted face before taking another swig of the brew. He sort of coughs a bit, the oil thickening in his throat, but he shakes this off. Now, it was time to wait…

Dank Cave

Josleen’s brows level in a suspicious line at Ansel’s evasive answer, but she let’s it go. Men and their man secrets— whatever. She explains that her father is a naturalist. He makes his living exploring strange terrain and studying unusual creatures and writing about it. He’s been published several dozens of times. Oh and his best friend is Svilfon. A little Xalious celebrity name dropping goes on, of course. Josleen’s known the wizard her whole life, dontcha know. Bakes him a cakelog every New Year’s. Mhm. After Ansel takes his dose, she takes hers. “20 minutes,” she explains, though Ansel would probably know this from his work as a healer. Josleen finds a dry boulder sitting in the brook and climbs atop it. It’s wide enough that they can sit cross legged on it and face each other, the pack behind Ansel’s back, the lantern between them. “Have you ever taken hallucinogens before?” Leave it to a nurse to refer to it in the least hip way possible. She laces her fingers loosely with his and stares at his hands as the drug starts to find her blood.

Ansel has no idea who Svilfon is! Which is sad. Then again, like Ansel mentioned, he lives on the outskirts, and never really is focused on the Xalious town. In fact, he used to be a nobody. He would hop jobs every now and then, and well, keep his kids a secret to everyone. Though, he learned to let loose. So, Ansel turned crazy at one point, almost like a caveman. No big deal, right? The man nods, he would know this vaguely. He was still learning. The man climbs up on the boulder with her. The wolf also stares at their hands, sometimes it was easier to talk without looking at someone. He would raise his brows and shake his head. “Actually, no,” he would then gaze up at her. “I’ve always been curious, but I’m a control freak,” he grinned wolfishly, but then his grin turned into a sheepish smile. Okay, so we had a first timer, this should be a little interesting…

“A control freak? I didn’t notice,” she jokes with a wink. “You’re not so bad,” she adds. “I haven’t taken anything since my days at the academy.” The music academy in Cenril, she’s told him this before; hopefully he remembers. “I had a really bad trip once.” They have twenty minutes to kill, so she may as well tell the story. She sets it up: second time, with a group of near strangers, in the woods, around a bonfire. Already a recipe for disaster. She and her then-boyfriend (Josleen is one of those women who is rarely, if ever, is single) were fighting at the time, and common wisdom says you shouldn’t trip when you’re going through a tough spot. Anything weighing on your sober conscience will be exaggerated and more intense while high, she explains. Remembering Ansel’s wariness of their affair and his propensity to drink, she realizes too late that maybe he shouldn’t be doing this. She keeps this fear to herself. She’ll guide him through it it necessary. Anyway, so the story goes, she ends up believing that her boyfriend is part of a cult, these friends of his are cultists, and they brought her out here to burn her in the sacrificial fire. She ended up fleeing the campsite, carrying nothing but a spoon. Some hours later they found her napping between the overgrown roots of an ancient tree, holding onto the spoon for dear life. As the story grows comical and her blood’s pumping the oil, and her laughing intensifies. She’s almost crying from the intensity of the laughter. Hopefully Ansel is right there with her. “And then, when Cinn,” the name of her ex, “tries to wake me, I threw the spoon at his face and ran! I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast in my life!” This sentence is broken up by guffaws and breathless laughing.

“Hardy har har,” he rolls his eyes and smirks. The man then slides his hands away from hers as he bawls them into fists to rest his chin on. Might as well get comfortable. As she explains that a bad trip happens on a weighed conscience. Oh boy… He hides the sinking feeling within his gut. Perhaps he would be fine? The man continues to listen to her story, and he’s smirking every now and then. Though, as time passes, and as her laughing intensifies, he begins to laugh louder. He was like a child, and his gut wrenches. “I…I…” The tears are streaming down his cheeks, and well, he is red, he could not catch his breath. What was really so funny? He does not know. Was it the story? Or her laugh? The story seemed sketchy (af). Minutes of laughing hysterically – the oil had set in. Laughter begins to die down from him and he is now letting out sighs to try to contain himself. What was even happening? He looks around, was the cavern spinning? Right, a mission! Oh, a mission this would be indeed. He then begins spurting out more laughter before hopping off the rock, splashing into the puddle below them. He then whips around at her and places his finger over his lips. “Shh…” His heart feels like it is bursting out of his chest, most likely the brew taking effect. Things were fine for now, luckily.

What mission? Josleen’s mind is too occupied with the here and now, with Ansel’s laugh, with the cavern, the way everything feels, to remember anything else. It’ll come to her. The good and the bad always percolate up from memory and subconscious, but she isn’t there yet. She hops off the boulder and latches onto the back of Ansel’s pant’s waistband. “Ok I’m ready,” she snickers. They forgot the lantern, and after a few paces, it’s too dark to see anything but the colors and waves their drug-addled minds project on the darkness. Has Josleen gone blind? She’s about to panic when she remembers where they are, what they took. She calms down again, runs her fingers side to side on the inside of the waistband. Hopefully Ansel is feeling for a wall or something, because she’s using him as her guide in the dark. After a few minutes of silence, Josleen shares her thoughts, inspired by a combination of his pants and the repressed knowledge of his lycanthropy. “Ansel,” she whispers. “Ansel, imagine if people had tails. Pants would have a hole in the butt for tails.” Very thoughtful pause, appropriate for the depth of the hypothetical experiment she’s exploring here. “Children with curly tails would get picked on at school. Oh gods, isn’t that sad? Poor curly-tailed children. Parents would get tail-straightening surgery. I’d start a charity to pay for tail-straightening surgery for the poor. Ansel, we should do that. Think of the children.”

As she grasps his waistband, the man almost thinks he just gained weight. “Oh my,” his heart his beating fast. This all makes sense. He is obese. “I’m not fat, am I?” Perhaps he is not ready yet. He is still too self-involved. He moves forward, and he suddenly moves onto the next thing. The colors are spinning, his whole head is spinning. As she is feeling him up on his waistband, he thinks upon her thoughts. “Felines have tails, have you ever seen a feline human with kitten ears? Oh Sven…” He shivers. He then moans. “Oh my goodness, do you think the felines get picked on already? Do felines have curly tails?” He then thinks of his lycanthropy, then again, she had been in denial so long. “Would you still love me if I had a curly tail?” He did not have one. “Does a curly tail mean that it has curly hair? Or is it curled like a pig?” He then gasps. “I love pigs,” his voice is saddening. He cannot focus on the task at hand. His mind is wandering too much right now, and will only get worse. “You’re not fat!” she gasps. “You’re so sexy. I look at you and I think, wow, if that man had a tail, his tail would be so straight.” When he mentions felines, she confesses, “I picked on a feline when I was young. But not because she was a feline, but because she was annoying.” Josleen was the Regina George of her preteen clique; she’s grown since then. On the subject of the strength of her love, “I would, baby, I would love you.” Musings on the nature of curly tails, “Curly like a pig.” For some reason pigs remind her of Lanara and she gets really sullen. “Is that why you let her live with you?” The lantern and pack stay abandoned behind them. It’s impossible to tell where they are going. The brook stays nice and shallow at least. All trips have a peak. They’ll have to wait for the come down to find the mineral for Skylei.

Ansel grins at woman’s compliments. “Sexy, eh?” He sort of shakes his rear teasingly at her before carrying on. He then looks over his shoulder. “You picked on a feline?” He then shrugs this off. “I’m not a cat person, anyway,” he then laughs again. His stupid dry humor was cracking him up. He then halted in his tracks when she mentioned Lanara as a pig. “I don’t love pigs that much,” he pauses, and there is irritation in his chords. That was until he focused on the ‘living’ part. “You’re very hypocritical, I hope you know that,” oh, no, blunt Ansel. He was talking about the husband. Yikes. His heart beat was getting faster, he blinks. He can still see the cavern with his eyes closed. He was still spinning. “Are you ever going to let it go?” He was talking about the waistband because he was feeling sick, she might have thought he was talking about the other thing. Uh oh.

Josleen erupts in a high-pitched peal of laughter at ‘I’m not a cat person anyway.’ But then the conversation turns to pigs, literal and figurative, and the mirth is gone. “It’s different in my case,” she says, her voice unusually soft as if she’s convincing herself of this. Then he asks if she’ll ever let it go and she glares at him in the dark, not that he can see it. “That’s not fair. You never have to deal with him. I have to deal with her, and her hatred.” Frustrated, she releases him and sits on the ground, too far gone to mind the brook wetting her bum. Her elbows bend over her knees and she buries her face in her palms. Her mind skips from Lanara to Ezekiel to Ansel, the guilt of vows broken, the greater guilt of her fantasies for a man who, by comparison, she hardly knows. What if he is playing her? The doubt creeps in, about Lanara and the magic ‘lessons.’ Lanara, who knows his children when Josleen does not. Jenson knows Lanara, but not Jos. Did Shia run away because he walked in on something between them? Is Josleen the sidepiece and Lanara the main squeeze? She has never doubted her position with Ansel before, but drugs have a way of eroding certainty. She fidgets anxiously, swallowing hard, exhaling sharply as her heart wrenches. Normally this is where Skylei would knock some sense into Josleen (usually ‘dump him!’ so probably not the kind of advice Ansel would wish for Josleen to receive). The memory of Skylei, her condition, sends Josleen spiraling down further. She’s completely withdrawn, stifling secret sobs into her palm.

“I never loved her though!” He turns around to shout at her. “If I hadn’t even met her though, we’d most likely be… dead, damnit,” he kicks a stone. He means they would have drowned back at the lake. He wants to get this through her head. He then sighs and lets his hands settle towards his sides. Everything is still making him sick. He then backs away from her, leaving her to mind her own thoughts, which are hectic. Though, his are not any better. What if he had not met Lanara? Would things be more at ease in his life? Obviously not. He then goes on about death. He felt like he was dying already, he was tripping hard. There was a few skids across the floor with movement, his shaking of the head. Spinning, spinning, Josleen, thump, thump, spinning. “Oh my… Sven,” he could not hear her sobs over the loud sounds he was hearing, the colors he was seeing. “Make it stop,” there was no control, the man was covering his ears. “You did this on purpose! You just wanted me to get you through so Skylei could get this mineral. Now, I’m dying, actually dying. This was the plan, wasn’t it? The whole time!” His voice groans on, and his voice becomes overly worried. Paranoia. Well, this was nothing but chaos between the two.

As soon as Ansel starts shouting about the noise and lights, Josleen stands up and follows his voice. He accuses her of wanting to kill him and it twists the knife in her heart. “How could you say that? I love you. So much.” At least his distress distracts her from her own. She tries to touch him gently, not knowing which way he’s facing. Any touch, anywhere, will do. A little voice from her past whispers some helpful advice: to help someone through a bad trip, don’t argue logic. Distract them, get them to move, get them to focus on something so their subconscious stops latching onto the bad things. “Hey, it’s night time.” Is it? She has no idea what time it is. “We should set up camp. There’s a tent at the bottom of the pack. Let’s set it up.” Doubtful they will actually sleep, but pitching a tent is something that requires focus. Hopefully it will work; pull him through the noise. She tries to lead him back to the distant glow of the lantern, yammering on about guy ropes and tent poles and her decision making process in picking the right tent. She asks him frequently what he thinks of different kinds of tarps (???) and tent designs to keep him with her. If he delays in answering, she insists on a response. Stay with me, Ansel.

Ansel is clinging onto his face, and she ends up touching his arm that was lifted to his face. “Then how are you letting me die?” Whenever he would close his eyes, he would still see the room, and her. “You took the same thing, how come you’re not?” He is running hands through his hair. The lake water that had gone through it is now dry, and his fingers are spiking his hair up like a loon. ‘Hey, it’s night time.’ Yeah, she is right. Was she? He believes her. The man stands up and he is not fully engaged in the conversation of manly topic. He says something about whatever is rain proof but he is mostly focused on something else. The man is peering up while walking with her. “There’s no sky, Josleen. How can I watch the stars with no sky? You took it away, didn’t you?” What? What on earth did that even mean? He then shakes his head. Focusing on the tent. As she pulls the supplies out, he blinks. Auto-pilot. The wolf begins to pick up poles and tarp, bringing the two together, dragging out the equipment and sitting on his bumper. He was distracted, this was better. Things were not spinning as much anymore. He looked like a curious child playing with toys. Alright, she was getting somewhere.

When he accuses her of letting him die, she almost loses herself. If she? Why is she letting him die? She starts to panic and wonder if she’s killing him by accident. Is he right? But he likes rainproof tents, and that reminder brings her back to the task at hand. She talks about windproof jackets. She’s focused on him again, and he’s focused on the sky. “I took the stars down so I could polish them and make them brighter for you,” she says without missing a beat. Bard skills. Being in love also helps. Acting as his guide is a good distraction for her too, keeps her from losing her mind. His expression of earnest concentration makes her smile and takes her back to the first time she saw him, before they ever spoke, when he was focused on a patient. Admittedly he looks a bit goofier right now, with his zany hair, but still handsome. “This tent requires special knots.” It doesn’t, but teaching him a complex knot and having him repeat it a few times over will also help. Once the tent is up, she drinks water, gives him water, crawls into the tent, beckons he follow her. They need to wait out this peak. She strokes his hair and tells him what she sees by the light of the lantern. The tent is growing and reminds her of a circus. As a child, she wished she could fly on the trapeze. She feels like she’s levitating; it’s nice. “I can see time now. I’m going to fix it so I meet you sooner.” Who knows how many hours pass, but she can feel when she's coming down-- still altered, but sober enough to focus. "We should go look for the mineral now," she whispers.

Ansel gasps. “Oh my, you’re so thoughtful,” good answer about the stars. The man focuses on her knotting skills, and he follows her tutorial. As the tent is up, he is about to go insane again before she offers him water. This calms him down a little more and he crawls after her in the tent. As she strokes his ashy brown hair, it goes back to its usual look. He is staring at her as she does so, and he pictures her still with him as the room around them spins again. He is getting sick, and chokes back the sickness he was feeling. He is now silent, now just hallucinating in his own mind. Her hair looking like silk from time to time, her irises changing colors. ‘I can see time now.’ He grins. “You’re a genius, reversing time, we are going to be famous.” As hours pass, he has his eyes closed. However, he is still feeling like he is seeing the tent around them, but as her voice goes off, he jolts and sucks in a breath. Realizing that he was asleep and that he is still on the drug. Though, his mind is clearer now, but time is still feeling rather slow to him. He is sitting partially up and looking down on her. He is in a relaxed state, shoulders dropped; eyes were hazy. “… You’re right,” he would then sit up all the way before finding her hand, lacing his fingers through her own to help her up. He would then back out of the tent, hopefully she would follow. “Grab the lantern,” he asks before they are fully out of the tent.

She grabs the lantern with her free hand as Ansel pulls her up. “Wait, wait.” The remainder of the jerky is coming with them. She offers Ansel a strip to help settle his stomach. The emotional turmoil they just experienced taxed her energy and left a scar. They said a lot of things in anger and haste. Was it necessary? Will they regret it? She doesn’t let go of his hand; the contact is imperative now — a reassurance that whatever they just went through, they’re coming out the other side of it together. “Let’s leave the tent set up. Once we find the umbrastone dust, I need sleep.” The pack goes with them, of course. Don’t want to come back to find your survival gear has been ransacked by some hungry mole the size of Ansel’s thigh. Staying close to the wall, she scans it for the glowing purple vein that Silvermane described so vividly in his poem. “Let’s turn off the lantern. Maybe the light is overpowering the stone.” They circle the walls and fine nothing, the ceiling is too far to see. “Maybe the floor?” The brook bubbles around their feet. It’s the last place to look. “Do you see it?”

Ansel is patient, he waits for her to grab the jerky and the pack before continuing. He takes the strip that is offered and rips a piece off with his teeth. He is silent, but he still holds onto her. He would nod at her in understanding. He would need rest too. As they scan the area for the vein, there is nothing to be found. The lantern goes off, and his eyes adjust to the darkness. Still nothing. As the brook bubbles, he shakes his head. He sees nothing. “No…” He then begins to kick the water around, perhaps he would see the purple now as the water would slosh back and forth. “See if this helps,” he gestures.

“There!” She laughs and drops to her knees in the brook, still too altered to notice how her legs smart at the collision. She’ll feel it in the morning. “Baby, baby, baby, stop,” she says as shields her body from the water he splashes onto her. Nevermind that she put herself in that position. The lantern comes back on so they can see what they are doing. “Can you move the water?” Her hands fan apart over the stream like she’s parting it in two. She pulls the pack onto her lap and rummages through it for the shallow pan, pickaxe, and the acid solution. “I can’t believe we found it!” Her wide smile turns up towards Ansel, all teeth and manic joy intensified by the mushroom oil. He got her here, and as he towers over her now he looks like a titan, unconquerable and strong. She blows him a grateful kiss then turns back to the stream, which is hopefully now parted. Can Ansel control magic while high?

Slow motion is still in play for him and as he is kicking the water he does not realize for the longest time that he is splashing her. He then halts. “Sorry,” he lifts his hands in apology. He then tilts his head at moving the water. Well, he could try. “I don’t know,” he laughs. “Can you?” That was not funny, why is he laughing? He then focuses, realizing what she is really asking him. Right. He then squints. How did he do this again? He also falls to his knees. Well, this was going to be interesting. He splashes his hand in the puddle. “Woosh!” He is laughing again. Okay, no Ansel, you really have to focus. He then stands up again. “Sorry, sorry,” his laughter is calming down. He then stands there idly and then his face goes blank. A different way to approach this, but it’ll do. As he focuses, random colors start to flow around him in his vision – purples, blues, silvers, mystical dark colors. Controlling emotions was hard while high. He thinks about the Josleen and Lanara and him in the middle of the two. How obnoxious. He pictures them pulling on his arms and splitting him in half. What a gruesome scene – mostly the drugs. The man then squeezes his fists and pulls through the air, the water below them bubbling and splitting apart. He does not even notice the kiss she blows his way, too caught up in the magic to even know what was happening.

Tripping Josleen finds Ansel’s antics hysterical, which is to his benefit since her sober mind would not find him as amusing. When he asks if she can part the water, she imitates what he did in the lake. The only thing she’s missing is the concentration. As expected, nothing happens. “Nope!” She laughs again at her failure. Hilarious! His focus reorients her, and she remembers the mission. With the water apart, she picks at the purple-glowing stone with the pickaxe and acid, brushing the dust onto the pan. It’s a wonder she doesn’t stab herself with the back of the axe, though there are a few near misses as she exaggerates motions unnecessarily from time to time thanks to some trippy logic. It takes a while, but if Ansel can hold out, she’ll have collected an ounce before the half hour is up. The complexity of the task exhausts her. It’s a struggle to fight off distractions and stay the course. The only way he’ll know she’s done is when she gathers the gear (dust safely stored in a jar) and stands. Without a word or waiting for him, she shuffles back to the tent, unfurls the bedroll inside, and splays her body across it face-down.

Ansel finds this easier to hold than the arch he built. He strains a little, mostly because controlling his emotions while being high is a struggle. Though, he thinks of multiple things that split apart: biscuits, that sounded so good, and pants, on a bad day. By the time she is done picking, he is shaking, mostly because of the stillness that he had to pursue. Can he move already? As she collects what she needs and disappears without him, this takes him a while to realize she is gone. The man now letting go, letting the water splash. He has to ground himself, right? That would be bad at a time like this, right? Though, it would be even worse if he was focused on his energy. Lanara said bad things could end up happening. The wolf is a little more focused, he was on a slope. He then closes his eyes… This time his imagination did not create vines to suck him into the earth, but slimy seaweed. Why? Who knew? The seaweed sticks upon his face and wraps around his neck, and instead of the earth opening up around him, the ground turns into quicksand, and he is sinking through. This was worse than falling, and soon the man cannot breathe. Eyes snap open. Energy is drained… He then pivots, and follows her to the tent, only he moves to the corner and sprawls out. Sorry, but this man needed room to pass out.

By the time Ansel joins her, Josleen is in slumberland and left the lantern on. She’s easy to push aside, though her limbs tangle with his. It isn’t a very big tent. As they sleep, her body unconsciously inches towards his for warmth and comfort, so that by the time they wake (whenever that may be), she pressed up against his side with an arm and a leg curled over him, and his chest beneath her cheek like a pillow. Whale songs reach the tent from the adjacent cavern, the graveyard. The sound of bones rattling and falling create a percussive beat to the whale’s sleepy melody. Together they combine into a surreal alarm clock, but Josleen’s a heavy sleeper. If it wasn’t for her warmth and breath, you’d think she’s dead. The tent floor is littered with the acid bottle (closed), pickaxe, spare tent poles, bread crumbs, jerky bits, two half-empty canteens, one of Josleen’s boots, aborted mid-undressing for bed. The one boot is all she managed to wrestle off of her. In the pack there’s a small pocket watch. It’s 7am the day after they originally set out.

One of the man’s arms is squished against the side of the tent, one was underneath the woman, he was flat on his back. She was curled up next to him, he was trapped – not that he minded. Though, the sound of whale bones would wake him up abruptly. He was the opposite of a heavy sleeper, all the noise was extreme for his senses. Everything was ten times louder. His eyes would snap open, and there would be a small gasp. He always woke up so alert. Realizing where they were, he breathes out and he looks at her. He felt groggy. The man then twisted his body, moving her around a little to wrap his arm around her. “Josleen…” He trails, and his hand brushes her back gently. “We should pack up…” Realizing she was not awake, he would bring his hand to ruffle her hair a bit, tapping a little teasingly on her temple. “Sleepy head, wake up,” he sings this a little, gently of course. He was no bard.

Without waking, she responds to his gentle stroking with a faint smile and little pleased noises. Pleasant dreams play across her face. His song rouses her, and she wakes up slowly until she sees the tent in place of her room in Frostmaw’s fort. Her eyes widen for a moment, until she remembers where they are and why. Her mouth feels dry; eyes like sand. “Mmph,” she grumbles as she sits up slowly. She reaches for a canteen and takes a long swig before handing off the container to Ansel. Her knees hurt, and she tries to remember why. As her mind finds the memory, it unlocks other memories too, of what they said to each other, of new paranoia. She looks around the messy tent, then back to Ansel, and jokes in a deadpan tone, “We should do this again some time.” She pulls on her boot and starts organizing their things, starting with what is closest to her to delay the moment where she needs to stand. Slowly her senses return to her, and more bad memories of the long night. She looks to Ansel again and asks, “We okay?”

Ansel grins as she wakes, though as she sits up, he lets her free, he sits up himself. The wolf is not thinking of the memories of last night. Not yet. He stands up slowly and begins organizing things, stuffing things in the knapsack. He cringes at her question though, and he remembers what they have said last night, and this still plays in his mind. “Yeah,” except he was still a little ticked over the Lanara thing, but he knew he needed to shake this off. “Let’s just forget about it,” he smirks hesitantly before gathering stuff up. As the two get ready, they are both ready to take down the tent. Untying knots, taking down tarps, folding this up and stuffing this in the knapsack. There is bread for the travels. The two are ready to head out. He has the map, like usual. The man now finding out where to exit. “... I’m thinking we head south? Backtrack the way we were supposed to head in the first place?” What was her opinion he was mostly asking.

Thrown

Summary: Back in the graveyard, the couple realize they no longer have a canoe. Together they solve the problem andfashion a catamaran from whale ribs, their tent's tarp, and rope. It isn't the sturdiest boat, but it should get them through the calm river channel. However, as soon as they leave the graveyard, they hear the far off whales from the day prior cry out in anguish. It's a race to the next cavern where they can escape on foot. Using a grapple hook to latch onto the channel wall and pull themselves faster, Josleen and Ansel fight swells and waves and ultimately lose. They are thrown from the boat, almost drown, lose the catamaran, the tent and all that rope, but they escape with their lives and water-logged supplies.

The map is useless, impossible to read, but Ansel has good memory and manages to get them back to Craughmoyle. There they rest at an inn, eat, bathe, and tend to their wounds. The close encounters forge a greater appreciation and commitment to one another. In the morning, they realize they have no means of paying for the room and food. It's a dine and dash, now! The escape the city and return to Frostmaw on foot.

Watery Tunnels

Don’t worry, Ansel, two can play the ‘still ticked off over the Lanara thing’ game. But right now, she’s just glad he’s willing to move on, as is she. His idea sounds good, and she nods, takes his lead. With everything packed, they return to the graveyard. Ansel slides through the crevice in the wall; Josleen wiggles, bum and boobs catching yet again. This time a rock scrapes her chest. On the bone-littered shore of the lake, a new -- and hopefully final — obstacle presents itself. “We don’t have a canoe anymore.” She looks up to the heavens and lets out a frustrated sigh. “Please, Sven, let up,” she mutters. “Should we try to build a raft?” she asks, gesturing to the bones. “...Or?” It’s too long a swim to even consider that. She wrestles with a rib as long as her body from the pile, expending far too much energy to get it to come free. Finding and grouping all the necessary ribs seems like an impractical and futile waste of time and energy. “There has to be a better way.” Ding! Her eyes brighten with an idea. “How do catamarans float?” She pulls the tent tarp from the pack. “Maybe we use this as the catamaran floor. We just need to find bones that will support the tarp, and us, and float. Two of the larger ribs, maybe.” Assuming Ansel agrees to this for the sake of time (if he doesn’t, end the post here!), the couple sets to work solving yet another puzzle together. They also need two or three smaller ribs to brace the tarp-floor, and keep the large ribs apartat a fixed width. And they have to figure out how to tie the bones in such a way that they don’t slip and slide until the boat falls apart. All told, it takes a few hours — a real setback. But, problem-solving works as an effective bond for Josleen. It helps her forgive and forget the argument of the recent evening (for now). Everytime he solves a little problem, he impresses her and she appreciates him a little more. The tarp sags a little when they climb aboard, but they’re hardly in a position to nitpick. Smaller bones work as paddles and they set off. As soon as they cross the graveyard cavern’s opening to the south, distant whales cry out in a scream that sucks the peace from Josleen’s gut. “That doesn’t sound like before,” she stammers. She paddles a little faster.

As they slip through the crack, he is, once again, behind her. Poor woman. The man looks up and down the spine river. No canoe. He then places a hand on her back for reassurance. “It’ll be okay, babe,” he nods before he shakes his head. “Build a raft? That may take longer, let alone we don’t know how well it’ll float,” he then lets out a flustered sigh. Think, Ansel… think. She usually did the thinking, which he preferred. “Catamarans should hold pretty sturdy, should be a smooth sail…” He trails. “Stick the larger ribs on the outside, curves down, should have a steady float,” he nodded along with her. He agrees. Holding the bones in place and tying ropes around them, stretching the tarp tight so they would not sink too deeply in the water, this was a good idea. Good job, Josleen! Always thinking on her toes! The brains in the relationship, obviously. As they climb on, he pushes off with his back leg. The whales cry and he shudders. “I think…” He pauses, “I think it’s because we took the bones. We took what was their own,” his nose crinkles and he looks back. “Calm down, babe,” he reaches to place a palm on her shoulder before paddling harder himself. He did not want to her to panic. Up the river they would go. Hopefully before an angry bone-whale would do anything crazy. This land was full of possibilities.

“I’m calm!” She shouts in alarm as she paddles yet faster. She prefered when the whales ignored them. They’re working against the weak current. Add 50% travel time to their journey back. It looks like Josleen wish of staying out with Ansel for more than one night may come true with the classic be-careful-what-you-wish-for twist. Lesson: Never wish, never dream. “We need to go faster!” The water level in the channel swells subtly, rolling in waves, as the whales enter the opposite end some miles away. “We’re not going to make it, babe.” She shakes her head in fright as her mind works on a new solution. The adrenaline keeps her on her toes, her mind clear despite the exhaustion and inadequate nutrition. For a moment she abandons the paddling and looks through their pack to see what they have to work with. Most of the rope is dedicated to holding the boat together, but there’s a little bit left, along with the grapple hook. She ties them together and explains to Ansel her plan. “We’ll throw the hook against the wall as far as we can, and pull the rope to pull our boat up faster. We need to kick the wall with our feet to keep the boat from smashing up against the wall. It’s faster than paddling, and if we need to make a quick exit, we got a line.” She scoots behind Ansel so he can be the own to throw the hook; he’s better at it. She lies down on the catamaran with her legs facing the wall. Her torso and the pack provides a counterweight to keep the catamaran from tipping over, but their combined weight on one side does make it lean dangerously to the side, though it doesn’t tip. Her abs engage, holding up her shoulders so she can pull the rope more easily.

“No you’re not!” As the waves come crashing, he is trying to push past them. Now would be a good time for elemental use, but that was exhausting from time to time. Her idea seems better at the moment. Risky, but better. He grasps the grapple hook and swings this around before unleashing this towards the wall. The hook clings to an odd rock face and he squeezes his fists around the rope and pulls the boat forward through the thick waves. Holy bleep. Holy bleep. Holy bleep. The grapple hook falls again. “Watch out!” Hopefully this does not tumble on her. He then brings this back in and repeats the same action. Cling, pull. Cling, pull. He is going through a channel now. Ansel cannot multitask, so basically, she is kicking the wall by herself. Better boost your strength, darling. Up ahead, there is another cavern, and right now, he is wondering if they are going to make it all the way up the wavy river with the angry bone whales.

Josleen ducks her head out of the way of the hook, but the waves throws it down hard on her shoulder. The sharp hook rips open a gash behind her ear. She yelps in pain, once, but the adrenaline keeps her from shutting down. The cut bleeds profusely over her shoulder and quickly dies her shirt shades of crimson and pink. She hasn’t noticed this yet. The wave leaves her and their pack drenched. A second wave almost knocks the bag off the boat, but she catches it at the last second. Quickly she pulls out the jar of dust and tucks this between her breast for safe keeping. Blood pools around its silver lid. “You need to kick the wall, Ansel!” She shouts just as the front end of the boat, the side he isn’t protecting from the wall, crashes against stone. The bones rattle in their rope hinges. One rib fractures partially. The integrity of the catamaran takes a noticeable blow. She throws her weight through her hips and manages to just barely get them unstuck, but it’ll happen again if the wolf doesn’t learn how to multitask. She hooks her arm through the knapsack’s arm strap and grips the lantern’s handle as the whales come barreling down on them, sending wave after wave. Just before Ansel and Josleen reach the cavern, the skeletal whales bump the boat from below. There’s no way the tiny humans are staying on. The boat flips and tosses them like confetti. Josleen’s the red one, the screaming one. They plunge in the water and the catamaran flips on top of them. The tarp covers Josleen’s head when she tries to come up for air. She’s completely disoriented and trying to find the surface of the water, but struggling to swim with one arm and the heavy pack. She won’t give them up. Without the lantern, the oil, whatever else is left, they won’t make it back to the surface.

Ansel is too focused to even realize that the hook ripped her ear open. Though, as she yelps, his eyes snap towards her – wide. Though, the wave the crashes again knocks him back into what he should be doing. As she shouts at him eyes flicker into a glare at the woman, though she was right, the boat was being taken out. He is just horrible under pressure. The man then forgets about the hook for a moment to kick a leg out towards the wall. Throw, cling, push, pull! He’s sweating, but cannot tell due to the waves crashing down. Throw, cling, flip, splash. He is holding onto the rope for dear life, and hopefully the hook is holding. He is trying to push the tarp up with one arm, but fails. He was not prepared, he feels like he is drowning, he was not prepared for this blow into the water. Do something, Ansel! He reaches out, where was she? His eyes open in the water – that burns, but oh well. He reaches out and grasps onto her shirt. Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. Eyes close, tingles appear through his body, he was getting better thinking on his feet. I love this girl… Sweep her off her… Right! As one of the wave crashes down, he whips his arm down and curves his wrist up, he has to let her go for a moment. The wave would slope down at a steeper angle, so when the wave crashes down, the water would go under them to push them up. Who knows how high they would lift. Rope was still in hand, and as they shot up, they would be above the water. Or at least he would. She would probably get a breath and sink back down. Though, at least he would know where she was at. The man would then reach forward – the energy was running thick through his veins, so much adrenaline, so much strength. He would latch onto her with that free hand and pull on the rope, trying to keep them both above the water. Let’s just hope the rope does not snap in the meantime.

Josleen reaches for Ansel’s hand as the wave sweeps her away. From his angle, she’s nearly gone, sucked under by the current, but in the last second he manages to get a firm grip on her. She pulls herself toward him and latches onto his side so he doesn’t have to make all the effort. She checks on the jar between her breast. It’s still there, thank Sven. Lose that, then this was all for nothing. That jar makes all of this worth it — for her at least. The whales push the catamaran back to the graveyard in the north and leave Ansel and Josleen behind. They came for the bones, don’t care about the humans. Slowly the water resettles, sloshing against the tunnel walls for a few minutes more. The rope holds then goes slack as the waves come to a full stop. Ansel and Josleen are treading water under the celestial-colored glow of the bioluminescent rocks. The cavern isn’t very far. The distance is swimmable and there’s no time to reflect on their near-death. He needs to dump his energy and he can’t do it here; he’ll drown. Take down the grapple hook, keep the rope, swim. Josleen stays behind Ansel, just in case he starts to slip. “Swim, baby,” she pleads. They need to get to hard earth. Just a few strokes more.

The rope slacks and he is holding on still for dear life. Once the water dies down, he lets go. He is gasping, but there is no time to talk about what just happened. The man then swims on her command. Which, energy was not a bad thing, but too much he could end up in a whirlwind and sick for days. Adrenaline was still pumping and as they come to the earth, he pulls up and flips himself around quickly to help her out, she had a lot more to carry, with all the energy, lifting her is a breeze. “What the hell…” He gasps. The man does not want to drain himself. Lanara said he would get used to it after a while, but it had not been a while. Grasping this concept was hard. “Catch your breath,” he insisted before closing his eyes and leaning back. The vines were back, no more trip, but his anxiety was kicking in. A few panicky breaths, he was so still. Quicker this time, his eyes open. He shakes his head, this always made him so uneasy. “Let’s… let’s go… Before anything else happens,” he stands up, he stumbles and then catches himself before assisting her too. The map was probably soaked. Great!

The Underdark

Josleen lies on her side beside Ansel and watches him without touching. Whatever this post-magic ritual thing is, she senses it is very private. Her hand braces the gash behind her ear. It still bleeds. She doesn’t realize she is holding her breath until he comes to and she finally exhales. He’s getting up, and she knows he’s right to not linger, but she’s aching for a rest. Normally she’s graceful, but now she stumbles like him. “I can’t carry this anymore.” The pack, it’s too much a burden, especially now that water has made it heavier. The map is falling to pieces and smudged. Josleen buries her face in her hands and contemplates the point of even trying anymore. “I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m so sorry I got us into this mess.” She talking into her palms. She’s wet, bleeding, tired, hungry. They need a canoe to take any of the channels that branch off of this cavern. Above them on a wall there’s a hole. They could try to climb — though with whose energy? — and see where it leads. She points at the hole a few meters off the ground and doesn’t explain herself. There’s no other option. They have to climb. Josleen isn’t a very good climber, but mostly that’s due to fear. She’s too exhausted to fear anything right now. Thankfully, the hole is big enough for them to crawl, and soon after, stand. The lantern oil was protected in a jar and there’s enough to light their path. The tunnel goes on more or less straight until it opens in the shape of a cudgel. The cudgel-shaped hole! Yes! It’s a risky climb down to the cavern floor, the same cavern where the giant troll attacked them, but they make their way slowly. Josleen starts to laugh, low and slow at first, a bit crazed.

Ansel takes the luggage from her. He is fine with this. Though, as he nears her, he notices her bleeding ear, and the pink stains. “Oh, Jos…” He groans. They really need to leave, and as she puts her face in her palms, he rests his hand on her shoulder. “Shh… It’s okay, we can do this.” Then, the climb. The agony. As they climb through, he notices the hole, and the man almost wants to drop to his knees, but he does not – too dramatic. As she begins to laugh all loony, he frowns. "Sh..." He puts his finger up to his mouth. Also, noise entering the cavern would not be good. So they tip-toe slowly and Ansel tries to not make too much noise as pebbles slip and slide. Perhaps they would make it. What more could the two take?

Josleen quiets herself quickly, and says, “Sorry, sorry, I’m just. This.” Her hands wave indicatively at the cavern as she exhales sharply. “I’m so sorry for dragging you through this,” she says again. It’s unlikely it’s the last time she’ll say it. She forces her legs to move when they don’t want to. “Do you remember the way out from here?” she whispers. His sense of direction seems good. She’ll follow him wherever. She at least remembers which tunnel to take. After that, it’s all up to him. On the way into this cave system, they were chatty and sharing stories. On the way out, Josleen can’t figure out what’s worth saying. She holds his hand and takes comfort in the fact he’s still alive. What would she do if he died and she survived? What about Dana and Shia? And if she died, what about Skylei? And Josleen’s parents? And yes, even Ezekiel, who may not love her anymore but would still in his own way be affected. Thoughts like these plague her on the trek back. Assuming Ansel remembers the way, soon they’ll come across the familiar rail tracks of the dwarven mining industry. Josleen smiles for the first time in hours and looks up at Ansel with pride. She lifts his hand to her mouth and kisses it. Soon they’ll be in a city! With food! Beds! Baths!

Craughmoyle

Ansel nods, he knew, all too well. Good memory. The man was very visual. He then moves towards the east where there was a big cavern tunnel. A few turns here and there, and there was society. As she kisses his hand, he gives her hand a gentle squeeze. He was relieved as well. Boy, did she wear him down. There is still dim lighting, though as they move closer to the main mines, the lighting grows. There is a swarm of dwarves and he knows he is on the right track. The sign points left as they exit the cave and soon enough the two hours that it took them to get to the tunnel has passed and they are now in the light of day, or evening, actually. The streets are calming, they are safe, and Ansel drags her through the streets. Life was too short… Perhaps, this journey changed his perspective on things. No more booze. More time with kids. No more worries. He was so relieved. Skylei was going to be saved. Compared to the rest of civilization, these two were a muck. A bloodied, mud stained, water stained muck. "We.. made it..." The wolf runs a free hand through his hair and then slides this down his face, he was extremely relieved.

Josleen can’t stop smiling. Her cheeks start to hurt, but it’s the good pain. “Yea, we did.” She slides an arm around his waist and leans in to a sidelong embrace. They’re going to be alright. “Can we get a room? Just for a little bit. I need to eat, shower, at least nap.” The gash behind her ear has stopped bleeding, but the dried blood is caked everywhere. Not a cute look. The first tavern will do. They get a room, spring for the pricier suite with a private bath. Order food to the room. Something carb and protein heavy, please. Her body needs it. Once they’re stuffed, she runs the bath, asks if he’ll join her. Maybe he’s sick of her by now. She realizes she hasn’t overdosed on him. Traveling with someone often reveals just how much of their company you can take. While Josleen is the type of woman who enjoys her alone time too, their near-death experience(s) is making her see things differently too, and he’s very much in this new life perspective.

Oh, he joins her. What kind of man would pass that up? Sure, she wore him down from time to time, but that was something he was willing to get used to. He enjoys his little relaxing intimate time with her, though he is mostly focused on helping her with her ear. Washing the blood off for her gently. An apology here, an apology there. He was a healer, he had to care for her. He would care for her even if he was not. After cleaning up and drying off, soon enough, he is dragging her to the bed for… sleep. After all, sleep never sounded so good before in an actual bed – score!

Her eyes comb him over for injuries too. Once he’s done treating her ear, she simply enjoys the warm water, his embrace. Sit there, soak, relax. When he drags her to bed, she doesn’t stay awake long enough to argue over what they’re in bed for. The heavy sleeper falls down like a log - a naked log. She didn’t pack pajamas, and she isn’t sharing the bed with someone with whom that matters anymore. Throughout the night she wraps herself up in him again. Hope Ansel likes cuddling because she’s a hardcore snuggle bug. The type who keeps pushing into you until you’re tucked between the edge of the bed and their body and have nowhere to go. In the morning they’re both refreshed and the bed serves its second purpose. A celebration of life is necessary after a brush with death, and only love making is capable of reaffirming for her that yes they’re alive, young, healthy and in tact, in love, with a future to look forward to even if the future has a way of misaligning itself with dreams. Come what may, at least this moment feels right and full of the best of what life has to offer. She takes her time, and if he’s not in a hurry, they don’t leave until late morning. Unfortunately Josleen has to wear the same clothes as yesterday. She rinsed what she could in the sink the previous night before their bath, but it’s hardly made a difference. They’re dirty. When it comes time to pay, uh, Jos doesn’t have enough gold on her and Ezekiel’s banknotes are water-logged and useless. Dine, room, and dash! The couple that thieves together… Luckily the streets aren’t too crowded and they make a quick escape. However, as non-dwarves, they stick out like sore thumbs. No dragging your feet now, Ansel. They can’t stop until they’re clear of the city, back on the surface.

Ansel only has a few minor scratches and that bruised bump on his head, which is not noticeable due to his hair. Though, he does need this bath due to scummy lake hair and all that. The only thing that Ansel keeps is cotton pants, which got ruined in the river, but they had time to dry, what was one night? He does not take long to fall asleep – of course he does not mind the cuddling, sometimes he would rather have his space, but he would do the old roll her over and slide his arm out from under her – but not tonight! Yes, a second celebration is in order, and this makes him feel reassured that they are okay and it is perhaps time for a change in behavior. Old Ansel would be back and working on his nasty habits of draining bottles. Ansel has to wear yesterday’s gear as well, due to Frostmaw being too cold for just pants. As Josleen mentions that they just need to leave, this actually makes him feel better. Ezekiel was not in the way… Also, Ansel use to thieve for a living before Frostmaw, so this was old adrenaline and good times coming back into play. Good times? Whoops, he meant nasty habit times. Clearing the city was easy, and soon enough they are hiking the mountain, due to no funds. Perhaps a carriage would come back and feel pity for the travelers, who knew. All he knew was that he was going ‘home’ finally!

RP:Umbrastone

Contents

The Plan

Setting Off On the Wrong Foot

The First Spark of Trouble

Drowning in Trouble

A Whale Of ATime

Thrown

Search

RP:Umbrastone

The Plan

Setting Off On the Wrong Foot

The First Spark of Trouble

Drowning in Trouble

A Whale Of ATime

Thrown