Jormungand Sat in a clearing. His chest was slightly distended from just having swallowed a squirrel. He looked at the stars. He didn't like the portents he saw in them.

Vlad did two claps, stopping everyone in the room. He ignored Aidelyn for the moment, and turned to the rest. "You four," he said, pointing to three non dancers and one who could, "you can all go." The four said some words and bowed, then left.

Turning back to Aidelyn, he signaled the rest to gather around him. "You three teach this one. I'm only going to need four of you anyway, and I've decided you four shall be the ones I use. However, if you," Vlad motioned towards Aidelyn, "do poorly, those three shall be punished, and something 'special' will happen to you."

Atha was sticking her toungue out at Aidelyn, laughing to herself.

Jormungand was resting. His rythmic breath slow with sleep. His tongue flicked a bit involuntarilly and he tasted something on the air. He woke quickly. There was a fire near by.

Aidelyn frowned at such news. Unhappy that her plan backfired on her, and even more unhappy at the slave sticking her tongue out at her.

"But..." She glanced at him, then around at the three other Nerieds, "Why do you want somebody who doesn't already know how to dance rather than somebody who already knows? And... Why would you punish them for something I did?" She asked, noticing some of the other Nerieds were giving her strang looks, as if being in slavery was a normal thing. By the looks they were giving her, Aidelyn guessed that they would have never questioned their master for anything like she had just done.

Dezil was leading the group through the woods, and they were still ahead of schedule, more so then the last time they checked. <How odd, I was fairly certain my calculations were correct. Let me check my notes...> He thought, fearing saying something would distract Ssslara and his short attention span. As they traveled, one of the Order guards rode up and said, "Magister Zalbag, we have noticed something odd in the woods, a town it seems to be, with a large castle."

Zalbag looked at him and said, "Chances are our maps are just outdated. We haven't updated them in years, or even longer. They aren't good for much more then physical landmarks now, since the cities have changed so much since then."

The guard replied, "We are still suspicious Magister, and we do have the extra time. Perhaps we should go there and document this city, since it may help with any future travles by mages this way."

Zalbag thought for a second and said, "There isn't much in this direction mages usually need to investigate, but alright, we'll document the city. I know after I've gone through the Vault, I will need to report it, and the Order will send more more mages to fully document the Vault and everything in it. We shall take a detour and investigae this place."

As the order knight bowed and fell back with the others, Zalbag stopped the horses and said, "Some of you may have noticed the outskirts of a city in that direction. I have conferred with my the head Guardian on this expedition, and we have decided since we are ahead of schedule, we will take another break here instead of making camp at the base of the Vault itself. We will take a short break, and be on our way."

The group headed into town, noticing it was conspicuously empty. Zalbag felt odd here, because he didn't like crowds or cities much, but he knew how it should be, and it shouldn't be this deserted. He said, "This is very odd, why is the town this empty?"

The leader of the Mercenaries, the dwarf from earlier, noticed a minotaur waving at him. He went around and saw a very finely writtenand official document, and the minotaur had noticed because of the shiney gold on the edges of the papers. The dwarf read aloud so all could hear, "It is determined by Lord Vlad Frost, that there shall be a tournament of champions in the arena at Castle Frost. All are invited to attend this event, or to join the tournament itself and face our reigning champion." The mercenary leader nodded and said, "Sounds like quite an event. Mayhaps we can pay a visit to this tournament and see what all the fuss is about."

Zalbag wanted to tell them all no, and that they needed to go, but he saw all the mercenaries, and even some of the order guards, chatting about this exitedly, and he didn't want some sort of minor uprising to force them to go, so he nodded and said, "We cannot stay forever, we need to get to the vault within the next few hours, but I will allow us to visit this castle and watch part of this tournament."

The group got moving again, this time for the castle. They made their way to the front gates, and were stopped by a guard. Zalbag explained who they were and that they were interested in the tournament, and after a short debate, the guard stated he would consult the Lord of the castle. The settled in to wait.

From the trees Jormungand watched the odd group head toward the town. The town always bothered him, even moreso than other human settlements. He was tempted to talk with them but he had a mission to fulfill.

Vlad smirked, then turned to the troublesome neried. "Because my dear," he reached out with his right hand, grabbing her chin and lifting it to force eye contact, "everyone needs to learn sometime." Vlad leaned forward and gave the neried a kiss, then let her go and walked back to the chair. "Learn to enjoy it, it will save us both time." He called back to her. Atha was still sticking her toungue out at the neried.

Aidelyn glared after Vlad, watching him return to his seat, <Of all the nerve!> She fumed, curling one of her hands into a fist, <I don't even rightfully belong to him. The slave dealer only captured me and he gave me to this man for free... so this is just a horrible kidnapping...> She was going to fume more, but the other Nerieds gave her a look as if saying, "Let's get to work now, and you'd better not screw up anymore."

She sighed dejectedly, knowing there was nothing she could do at the time, unless she was to endanger the others, and she didn't want that. <I'll just have to wait for the opportune moment.... whenever that will be...>

She ignored Vlad and Atha and focused on what the other Nerieds were teaching her, which wasn't very hard, since Aidelyn was a fairly quick learner, just not always willing to learn. Also, it wasn't hard to learn to dance, just annoying that Vlad had won that small battle. <But he hasn't won the war yet...>


After awhile of practicing, the other nerieds glanced at Vlad, expecting his evaluation of the dancing session, hoping that Aidelyn hadn't messed up and caused them to get punished.

(OOC: after we get past this dancing part, we can skip forward closer to the tournement, right?)

OOC: Now we just skip ahead three hours, meaning Forever is now at the gates.

IC:

“Keep going.” Vlad said when the girls stopped. It had only been half an hour since they started, and Vlad had already gotten bored. “I’m leaving now. Keep going for another hour. The new girl seems to be lacking in the subduing part.” With that, Vlad stood up and left the room, taking his ‘nymph’ with him.

Since the ballroom only had one entrance, Vlad brought a Xodar to stand guard at the doors for an hour, not letting anyone in or out until Vlad or Jared told him so. The Xodar understood and stood guard. Vlad left to do other things for a couple of hours.

And hour later, Jared came and the Xodar left the door, letting the nerieds out.

Much later, the guard returned to the group outside of the gates, telling them they should proceed to the throne room of the castle.

OOC: You’re being considered slightly better then commoners, otherwise you wouldn’t meet Vlad at all.

Jormungand was heading into the hills. He wouldn't have the cover of trees anymore. He looked across the open grass and stones. He then began to move across the hills. He heard the howl of a wolf in the distance.