Eryll stretched his arms and yawned, sleeping on the cold hard ground of the sieghart mountains wasn’t as pleasant as he had hoped. Luckily he wouldn’t have to camp on top of a mountain today. All he and Kerii has to do was hike up the mountain, snag the crystal, then return back down the mountain. Eryll pulled his jacket back onto his arms and prepared to go meet Kerii at the foot of the mountain.

Eryll had arrived at Sieghart late last night and had decided to just camp where he had arrived, so he had a little bit of time to wake up as he walked to the mountain. Sieghart was a intersting place, a mixture of imminent danger and alluring beauty. The path to the meeting spot was lined with large orange, sedimentary rocks. Lizards scuttled about them, hunting for any remaining beetles. Eryll hoped that the sun would warm them on their way up the mountain, but a common knowledge of weather told Eryll that he should rely more on whatever clothes he brought with him to warm him. Eryll truly wanted to just get this test over with so he could go to hargeon and go for a swim, it woul also be much warmer there than it is in the mountains.

As Eryll got closer to the foot of the mountain and the path where he and Kerii planned to head up, he didn't see anyone. He expected Kerii would be there rather soon because she had left Orchidia not long after him, but he had no idea where she had entered the Sieghart mountains. Depending on where she had entered she might have to weave around the large valleys and trenches that wormed their way around the mountains. Eryll wondered how he and Kerii would do on this particular test. Elves weren't exactly the hardiest of races, they were smart and certain elves had deep connections with nature, like wood elves, but here, there weren't a lot of trees. Eryll just had to hope that both the elves had a great enough endurance to hike up a mountain, grab a crystal and return with it. Eryll sighed, guild master Shahbaraz was a wild dude with some wild antics planned for underlings. But, Eryll still had to give him props for whipping the Lamia Scale members back into shape, the man wouldn't let his old friend's guild slip into hard times. That's something Eryll liked about Shahbaraz, he was a trustworthy man who would hold true to a promise.

WC: 425/3000

Kerii had only recently arrived in the Sieghart Mountains. The first view she got of it was honestly breathtaking. She heard of it being a popular tourist attraction, but now she finally understood why. Though its climate was quite harsh and capricious, the landscape was certainly a sight to behold. Knowing Guildmaster Shahrbaraz though, he wouldn't send his guild members to a location for training if it did not prove to be quite the challenge. Kerii for one was not completely ignorant about mountain climbing. She had done a bit of it years ago, but not at all since then. She supposed that meant she was a little more prepared for this than some of her other guild members, but as far as mountain clibing in particular went, she was still not as conditioned for it as she should be. Guildmaster Shahrbaraz knew this, surely. He wouldn't assign an activity that was too difficult, would he? Still, this was definitely a step up from surviving in the woods. Kerii had a sinking feeling that their tasks would progressively get more difficult as they went on, but she would just have to deal with it, she supposed.

As the elf walked deeper into the Sieghart Mountains, she couldn't help but take notice of how vastly different the wildlife was. Though she could see the occasional lizard and snake come out of the withered bushes, they were rather different in appearance than the reptiles in Orchidia. Their coloring was the most initially apparent difference, but looking closer, they seemed to be larger with shorter tails. Kerii soon found herself becoming oddly focused on the fauna thriving within this arid climate. This was typical of the elf, to get easily sidetracked with tiny things she found interesting, especially if it related to nature in any shape or form. It was a bad habit, but she could never seem to quench her undying thirst for knowledge. Eventually, she realized that she had become too sidetracked, and was probably making Eryll wait. Shaking her head, she started picking up her pace and went over to the place where she was supposed to meet up with her elf friend. She found him sitting on a rock, drawing with a stick in the dirt-covered floor. "Sorry I'm late!" Kerii said, hurrying over to him. "I just got a little sidetracked." She scratched the back of her head and blushed out of embarrassment. It was unlike her to be late, but sometimes her curiosity got the best of her. "So, Master Shahrbaraz said we needed to get some sort of gemstone, huh?"

WC: 434/3000

Eryll chose a stone to sit on as he waited for Kerii to show up, grabbing a stick he drew circles in the dirt to entertain himself. Slowly the circles became images. Eryll tried to draw the shape shifting demon snakes that had kidnapped him a few days ago, but he was no artist and he did not have the skill to turn images in his head into images in the dust. Eryll had left the piece of obelisk that he had stolen from his kidnapping back in his dorm, in Orchidia. Eryll knew it would be safe there and he had hidden it in a small chest that he kept hidden behind a bookshelf. Eryll had thought about bringing it along and showing it to Kerii to see if she knew anything, but he didn't want to lose it. It was the only thing connecting him to those stupid snakes and whatever was controlling them. Since that day, Eryll always watched snakes for a few moments, seeing if they were going to turn into a larger, redder version of themselves with two sets of fangs and demon-like eyes. Eryll didn't think they were demon enchated, demons wouldn't spend that much time on a snake, would they? Exasperated, Eryll blew on the dust, throwing his pictures into the wind. Right as he finished, he heard Kerii call out. Apparently she had been a little side tracked. Eryll didn't blame her, he easily found himself losing track of time as well. "It's fine." He said, "I was a little bit late last time, so it should make sense for us to even the odds this time, shouldn't it?" Kerii went over the basics of the test, they had to find a crystal. It would be at the summit of the mountain, and then they would have to bring it back down. "Sounds right." Eryll said, "I think this is one of the paths up the mountain." Eryll turned his head and looked at the slim path leading up the mountain.

Eryll stood and stretched his back, turning towards the mountain and beginning to make his way up the path. Eryll predicted that the climb would be slow at first, then slowly get steeper and steeper as they got higher up. Then, the two elves would find the crystal, and they could return back down the mountain and make their way to hargeon. To say Eryll was excited for the Hargeon part of the test was an understatement, Eryll very much missed the warm weather and the ocean. Making a shot at starting up conversation Eryll asked Kerii a question: "So, what have you been doing?" Eryll himself had been talking to people and training. He had mastered some new spells that would hopefully come in handy when he would start taking requests again. He had also met someone else from their guild, who was an interesting person, but kind nonetheless.

WC:489+425= 914/3000

Kerii breathed a sigh of relief when Eryll said that her being late as fine. After all, he was late to the forest, so it sort of evened things out. Although, to be fair, Kerii didn't really know how long she really made Eryll wait in comparison to when he was late for the task at the forset. She had left him with enough time on his hands to draw a full picture in the dirt, while she was only waiting a few minutes for him to arrive. She felt as if she was later, and felt bad about that, but there was not much she could do to make up for it. All that mattered was that she was there now, and they could get on with the challenge at hand. Speaking of which, she had no idea how high they had to climb, nor how long it would take. She was praying that it wouldn't take them all day. She at least wanted to reach wherever the gem was by noon, and make it back down before dark. But again, that was only what she hoped. She could be entirely wrong, and it would take them the entire day to complete the challenge. If that was the case, so be it, but she was hoping to get the challenge over with asap. The next one was to take place in Hargeon, which she was elated about. Though it was still winter, it was definitely warmer than it was in Orchidia. She had been there before, and was eager to return. Even though it wasn't summer, she was sure that it would still be much more delightful than climbing in the Sieghart Mountains or camping in Orchidia's forests.

The elf restated their task, and Eryll said that they would just have to follow the path leading up the mountain. She nodded her head and proceeded up the trail along with him. As the duo started their trek, Eryll decided to strike up a conversation, simply asking what she had been up to. "Oh, nothing much," she began. "Since we're on that 'no magic or items' policy, it's pretty risky to take requests at the moment, but I was able to keep myself occupied for a bit with some other things. How about you?" By "some other things," Kerii wasn't exactly referring to meeting some other mages, though she certainly did that as well. She was more talking about trying to pry some answers out of her father, which turned out to be a failure. She didn't get any valuable inforamtion out of it, but was explicitly told to stop looking for a way to get Ëala out of her. Of course, she wasn't going to listen to him. Her father might have thought he knew what was best for her, but he had no idea of what she was capable of achieving on her own. In fact, she was rather offended that he thought so little of her. What did he think that she was doing all this time she was in Lamia Scale? Focusing exclusively on her healing abilities? That sort of took a turn of the worse when all her progress on mastering Celestial Sky magic was overridden with Ëala's Blesssing.

WC: 434+544=978/3000

Eryll expected that their climb would take most of the day, going up the mountain would probably have them up at the summit sometime not long after noon, as they had started just after the sun had risen. After that, it would likely take less time to go down the mountain than it would to climb, so Eryll assumed they would make it back down the mountain as the sun was setting or right as it had set. As of now, there were no clouds in the sky and the sun beat down on the baren ground. While in the summer, the sun would have caused scorching heat, the cold wind out did the little heating that the sun provided. Large rocks surrounded the path up the mountain. Every once in awhile Kerii and Eryll would have to take a large stepp across a split in the path. Eryll hoped they wouldn't come across any large gap that would have them fall down to their deaths if they were to slip. But, for the most part, their climb up the mountain went at a gentle speed. Eryll knew that Shahbaraz was not going to let them get off easy, so Eryll suspected their would be climbing here soon, but for now, he enjoyed the walk.

Kerii hadn't been doing much. She hadn't done any quests either. She then asked about Eryll, "Oh, I did a little training back in Orchidia before I left, I wanted to become stronger so I thought it might be worth it." Eryll said. That day of training had been quite interesting. "To say the least, it was quite a training session." Eryll said, leaving a little mystery behind his words. He was sure Kerii would pick up on it, she was incredibly smart. They walked on in silence for a little more before Eryll restored conversation once more, "Did you meet anyone?" He asked. He had met Kyam, another wizard from Lamia scale, who was also doing the quests. Speaking of Kyam, Eryll wondered if he had already done the mountain climbing test, or if he was climbing the mountain at this exact moment, just like Eryll and Kerii.

The sky didn't change much as their climb continued, unlike the mountains in forests that were full of mountain laurel, pine trees and animals. This mountain held giant boulders and giant cracks in the path that fell to certain doom. Eryll saw where the path stopped at a wall. He assumed that the rest of the path was at the top and the two wood elves would have to clumb up the wall. This was the one place Eryll wished he had his magic, he had a perfect spell to get him and Kerii both up the cliff in a jiff. But, no magic was allowed so the pair would have to climb up the wall the good ol' fashioned way. Eryll hadn't climbed a lot of mountains in his life. He had done a bit of cliff climbing in the worth woodsea. But most of his life he had spent in flatter lands. Eryll turned to kerii and nodded at the little cliff that they were approaching, "Are you ready to climb this?" He asked.

WC 540 + 914= 1454/3000

Unlike Kerii, Eryll had made good use of his time and accomplished quite a bit of training. He notably said that it was "quite the session," which piqued the elf's interest for sure. The vagueness of his words and the tone of his voice was enough to convince Kerii that something was up with him, but she hadn't the slightest clue what. She was hoping that she was able to learn more about Eryll on the camping trip, but she found out minimal information. There was still so much she wanted to know about the other elf's life, and part of her wanted to share some of her problems, since they were of the same race and all. It was more of the fact that she was hoping Eryll had some ideas on how to deal with the spirit Ëala, rather than having someone to confide in. She had already gotten through a large amount of stress without much emotional support. Honestly, she thought that she had already dealt with the most difficult part of it just fine. What she was dealing with at the moment was something she could at least prepare for physically, emotionally, and mentally. Little did the naive elf know, things would get much, much worse, and she would likely need the help of others if she wanted to get through it all.

Right before Kerii was about to ask Eryll to elaborate on that training session of his, he asked her if she met anyone. She nodded her head and replied, "I did, but probably not anyone you know. Nobody new from the guild either." Kerii had met two young men with starkly contrasting personalities, one of whom was a Rune Knight, and the other, well, she didn't know much about him. He could have been anyone with any background, but Kerii didn't get to hear even a peep of it. The best she could do was put her imagination to work and make assumptions. Either way though, it was highly unlikely that Eryll would run into either one of them, out of everyone who occupied Orchidia. That being said though, it was nearly equally as unlikely for Kerii to meet someone who Eryll did. While she was now intrigued about which kind of people he happened to stumble upon once they parted ways from the forest, the matter about Eryll's training still tugged at the corner of the healer's mind.

The duo eventually encountered a cliff as they continued their climb. Eryll asked Kerii if she was ready for this. "Of course," she replied, gazing at rocky landscape. They weren't that high yet, and this sheet of stone they would have to scale would likely bring them to another flat surface rather soon. Before they climbed though, Kerii had a question for Eryll. "I hope your training prepared you for this, which reminds me... what was it like?" It was an innocent question, but her motives behind asking it was clearly to try and get him to tell her something. Nobody would just drop a hint on something that sounded important, only not to bring it up again in conversation.

WC: 978+526=1504/3000

Kerii had also met a few people, apparently neither were from the guild. Kerii confirmed that she was quite ready to climb the small clif face that stood in front of them. Eryll gave a little nod then began to climb. It would be an easy climb, plenty of hand and foot holds. And hopefully, because this was a mountain, Eryll didn't have to worry about one of them being weak and made of clay. If they were, the hand or foot hold would giveway quickly and could end up making a person fall. Anyone who fell from the cliff would likely survive, they would come out with a broken bone most likely, but they certainly wouldn't be dead.

After Eryll tossed himself over the edge of the cliff, he let himself take a quick breather, the air was beginning to thin. "Actually, I met another wizard from our guild, and our guildmaster, Shahbaraz." Eryll said. The encounter flashed back into his memory. Kyam trying to attack Shahbaraz with his spear and Shahbaraz effortlessly tossing Kyam 30 meters behind him and into a stand, Eryll had secretly found the feat kind of funny, but at the time he had been too blown back by his guild master's presence to stifle a laugh. Eryll pushed himself back to his feet and begin to make his way up the much steeper path now. It was no longer a pleasan ascent. The path became curvy and slightly unpredictable. The pair would have to climb over large boulders that blocked the path and lift themselves over small ledges to continue on their way to the summit.

As they walked Eryll answered some of Kerii's questions. "My training was interesting you could say. I Had to deal with some weird snake creatures that were able to shape shift, but I managed." Eryll said. "I had no one to train with so some of my support spells I had to use on wild hogs, which was also interesting to say the least." His spells had been successful and now he had more capability in casting spells. Eryll, remembering the weird runes that he had encountered with the obelisk decided he could probably ask kerii about it. grabbing a rock from the ground, Eryll drew one of the runes. The rune was two parallel lines that ran horizontally and were very close together. On the left end of the two lines, Eryll drew a vertical curve that pointed towards the center of the lines. At the top of the curve he drew a dot. Then, the final part were two small dots that were attaced to the right end of the two lines. Eryll handed Kerii the rock, "When I was dealing with the crazy snakes, which I have appropriately named "shape shifting demon snakes." I've never seen it before and I'm 90% sure that isn't elven." He said, "It was on an obelisk that I destroyed, it seemed to be controlling those nasty snakes." Eryll had been quite proud of how he had dispatched the stupid snakes, both the obelisk and the snake were sent out with quite a large bang.

While Kerii examined his interesting rune, Eryll drew up more on another rock. One was a tirangle, with its tip facing up, that had two parallel lines passing through its sides. Inbetween the two lines and inside the triangle, a circle was drawn. The last one Eryll could remember from memory was one that looked like two C's facing back to back. In the center of the right C was a small circle. Eryll knew there were more runes on the Obelisk chunk he had stolen, but he had left that back in Orchidia.

WC: 619+1454= 2073/3000

While Kerii had not met anyone else from the guild while she was in Orchidia, Eryll had. In fact, Eryll was able to meet Guildmaster Shahrbaraz as well. "Really?" The elf was rather shocked. She rarely saw the Guildmaster, even while hanging out around the guild hall. Since Eryll didn't continue on with his story, she supposed that it was rather uneventful. Perhaps he had only popped in to check on everyone before he went back to doing whatever he needed. When Kerii was younger, she secretly wished to be a Guildmaster someday, but now that she was actually part of Lamia Scale, she couldn't even begin to imagine how much responsibility that sort of job would bring with it, and what sorts of obligations would accompany it. Part of the reason she joined the guild in the first place was to satisfy her free spirit and travel throughout Fiore, or potentially even to other countries. If she were to eventually presume the role of Guildmaster, she wasn't sure she would be able to do that. She probably wouldn't even be able to go on requests a lot, like she currently did.

Kerii knew that Eryll wasn't telling the full story when he briefly said that he went training earlier. She got suspicious when he was oddly vague about the whole thing, so she didn't fully expect him to actually tell her everything that happened, but he did end up telling her quite a bit. Evidently, he had come across serpentine creatures in his training. Although it wasn't odd to see strange creatures in Orchidia, especially in the woods, she had to say that shape shifting reptiles were a first. In all the time she spent in that town, nothing of the sort came to mind. Considering he was able to deal with them, Kerii didn't believe they were much of a threat to the citizens of her town, but if they were an invasive species, she would hate to see what kind of effect they would have on Orchidia's native wildlife. But there was more. Eryll had destroyed an obelisk that seemed to be controlling the snakes. Clearly, there was something unnatural going on. He showed her the rune he found, and she looked at it curiously. "In all the books I've read, I don't think I've seen this anywhere," she said, rather surprised. Just because of how naturally inquisitive she was, she had read tons of books on all sorts of runes. Usually when she saw one, she could connect it to some sort of origin, but it didn't look structurally similar to any she had seen before. Kerii glanced over to see that Eryll had drawn two more runes. The triangle one looked familiar, but then again, a lot of those specific runes were structured similarly. "I'll look into it when we return to Orchidia, but for now we need to start climbing. The faster we go, the sooner we can get answers."

WC: 1504+496=2000/3000

The climb up the mountain had basically become a slightly less than vertical wall. The two elves would have to be on hands and feet as they climbed up the mountain. They would have to use anything they could as a handhold up the mountain.

Kerii was surprised at the fact that Eryll had met Guild Master Shahbaraz, "Yeah, he's a pretty mellow guy. Though, he did throw someone thirty meters with ease, so he isn't someone you want to mess up around." Eryll said. He chose not to mention the fact that when their Guild Master showed up, Eryll was so stunned, he spoke in the wrong language to the man. Shahbaraz had been in the market streets for a moment and then he left as quickly as he had appeared.

When Eryll began to talk about the snakes, Kerii seemed silently surprised, like she had expected him to keep a secret. Eryll found that thought trivial, why would he keep something like that a secret, the snakes hadn't threatened his relatives or family. Even if they had, he had destroyed whatever was controlling the ones in the forest back in orchidia. "I thought they may have been something like Abyssian or whatever the divine speak. But, all of the ancient texts held no such runes. I then looked through quite a lot of the elven texts, the dots and curves of the first and last runes seem slightly similar to elvish runes and such, but they're too different and the triangle rune throws me off completely. I might send a letter home to my parents to ask if they know anything." Eryll said. It would likely take him awhile to get anywhere with his parents. His mother lived in Stella nad Killoua would have to search through the house because the gods knew Eryll's father, Gairuun, was too drunk to do it. Eryll decided that the topic about mystery runes seemed to be slightly solved, as Kerii had offered to do some research of her own. "Your help would be greatly appreciated." Eryll said.

Eryll looked at Kerii, "So, other than talking to complete strangers, what did you do?" He asked. The two would be reaching the summit soon. And if Eryll's vision hadn't betrayed him, he saw something glittering in the mid-afternoon sunlight. Eryll reached up and pointed the shiny object out, "Do you think that's the crystal? We seem to be close to the top." Eryll said. He truly wished this mountain climb would be over, he wished to move on to their next destination and enjoy some nice sunlight and warm air, oh, how he missed the south.

WC: 443+2073=2516/3000

Kerii smirked when Eryll said that Guildmaster Shahrbaraz seemed rather laid back at first, but then threw someone thirty metres across the room. Such was the overall nature of Lamia Scale, after all. She didn't know too much about the Guildmaster herself, for she never got to really meet him, but she was glad that he seemed to embody the spirit of the the guild he represented. As an afterthought, she hoped that the member was alright, but she was sure that Shahr wouldn't do anything knowing that it would injure one of his guild members in the process.

Eryll seemed to have originally thought that the runes on the obelisk were Abyssian or the divine's language, but no piece of text he read seemed to resemble the runes he saw. He then began to consider that the symbols could be related to Elvharin, given that it involved curves and dots, but Kerii shook her head. He was right. The triangle did throw everything off, but the runes he drew for her were not elven. "It's the same sort of shapes elven script uses. You're right, but they're not arranged like this at all... and I don't believe the dark elves developed their writing system to be this much different either." Perhaps Eryll was right about the fact that it was at least somewhat similar to the runes of the elves, but it was definitely not elven. Although Kerii was never able to read Dal'Elvharin, she was fluent in the language of both the Wood Elves and the High Elves. Just as the two languages only slightly differed in language and vocabulary, so did their writing systems and runes. Though the Dark Elves had a long history being secluded from the rest of the elves, from a linguistics standpoint, both how they spoke and wrote could not have significantly changed. Still, no matter what theory Kerii drummed up, they both seemed to be stumped for the time being. This prompted Eryll to say that he will write home to his parents. "Oh, they know about this sort of stuff?" Kerii already knew that her father, for one, would not know anything about these runes. He was too focused on his work. If they were dealing with some sort of ancient dialect of Elvharin, perhaps he would be of use, but she did not think that was the case. So, the only thing for her to do was some research of her own, which Eryll seemed to be happy about.

The elves continued to climb up the mountain, Eryll asked what she did aside from meeting others. Or, as he put it, talking to random strangers. "I do some research now and then... Really on anything I can think of. It's usually either magical or medical." When she said 'medical,' it occurred to her that she hadn't actually explained what sort of magic she possessed. "You know what, that probably sounded weird. I'm a healer," she explained. "Huh, and you said you were casting support spells?"

They continued to climb. As they neared the summit, she could feel her muscles burning, so she was quite relieved when Eryll pointed out something glimmering in the sunlight. Not even bothering to verbalize a reply at this point, the elf nodded her head and began to climb for it. It was an emerald embedded just far enough that it wouldn't be blown away, but shallow enough that Kerii could pry it from its stony prison. "Let's go," she said, showing the gem to Eryll before starting her descent.

WC: 2000+594=2594/3000

Kerii had enjoyed Eryll's story about Shahbaraz throwing someone 30 meters, but who didn't enjoy that story. Kerii then brought up an interesting topic, dark elves. Eryll hadn't thought about them at all, they had never been a topic in his life. Kerii mentioned that it likely wasn't their runes either. Kerii also confirmed that Eryll had been right about them not being elven, they were just not right. "You should see the obelisk I got these from, they look like they were scratched into the stone not nicely carved, whatever or whoever made this clearly did not value craftmanship." Eryll added. He had found that fact most interesting of all, Elves, especially wood elves, had a distaste for stone, Eryll didn't know if this applied to Dark Eleves as he had never talked to any, but he assumed it would be different, but he didn't doubt that they would also like to create wonderful artwork just like the other elves that existed in Earthland.

The elves made it to the top of the mountain with relative ease. They never had to fight off any terrible monsters or giant rocs. Eryll had never seen a roc, but part of him really wanted to see one in the future because they sounded like amazingly flawless creatures that no one should ever mess with. At the top of the mountain, Kerii grabbed the emerald and said that they should make their way back down the mountain now. Eryll nodded and they began their descent. As Eryll expected, walking down the mountain was much less exhausting, they didn't have to climb any cliffs, they could easily jump down them. the only cliff that would prove any trouble would be the first cliff that they had to climb to make their way up the mountain. "So, after this we move onto Hargeon, do you want to do that one together as well." He asked. Eryll was rather excited for the Hargeon test, he wanted to go swimming, search an island, all of those things sounded like fun things to him. The mountain quest had been rather boring, other than the debate about the mystery runes Eryll had found.

To Eryll's surprise, Kerii was a healer, not many people went the path of healer. "Yes, I am a support mage, I'm able to cast offensive spells, and I do sometimes. But I'm also quite adept at casting support spells to help others. I'm not a mage per say, but more like a fortifier. I can make people stronger, faster. All the fun stuff. But liklihood is, you already know that kind of thing about magic." Eryll said. Eryll liked his ability to cast supporting spells. He was a decent fighet, but not extremely extraordinary. He was confident in his ability to attack, but he would rather help someone who had a more offensively focused magic have a higher chance of surviving then fighting int himself.

The two reached the bottom of the summit just as the sun was setting.

exit

WC: 504+2516=3020/3000

Kerii found that detail rather interesting, about how the symbols were scratched into the obelisk, rather than carefully carved. She had seen rather crude looking runes before. Typically, it was either for the sake of time, not having the right utensils, or simply because of the craftsmanship of the carver. Technically speaking, as long as the rune was properly drawn, it didn't matter how nice it looked. Though historians were always impressed with delicate and intricate artifacts, what everything boiled down to on a practical level was how effective the magic was. If Kerii wasn't that neat, she wouldn't learn how to elegantly draw a symbol before using it. If she really needed to use the magic, she would do it as soon as possible, with whatever material she had with her.

After getting the emerald, the mage was relieved to begin her climb down the mountain. It was much less tiresome than the grueling trek upwards, but with every step she took downwards, her muscles responded with a tense pain. This whole trip involved far more exercise than she was used to on a regular basis, so she was sure that she would be feeling the effects from it the next day.

Going down the mountain, Eryll confirmed that he was a support mage. Unlike Kerii though, he did not mention healing others. Instead, he was able to "fortify" others by enhancing their physical capabilities, such as speed and strength. He supposed that Kerii already knew about that sort of magic, and she nodded her head in confirmation. "I can do those things too, but it's not really what I'm focused on." Healing was her passion, so one could imagine her joy when she found out that Ëala had let her retain her healing capabilities. That was the one part about Ëala that Kerii didn't quite seem to understand. The spirit never communicated with her, so it wasn't like she could directly ask how any of this worked. Her best guess was that it "blessed" its host with whatever magic fit the host's abilities. If that was the case, then Kerii was relieved that she was naturally suited to be a healer rather than some other sort of mage.

The two elves eventually reached the bottom of the mountain. The sun was setting, but it wasn't dark yet. "I'll take the gem to our Guildmaster," Kerii said, pocketing it, before heading off. She couldn't wait to go to sleep and then travel to Hargeon.

-Exit-

WC: 2594+415=3009/3000