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DQueene and Shana looked at each other and both turned in unison. They mounted the other two horses when they heard Elendirill speak and saw him go running toward the bridge leading over the chasm. Mari was up on her stallion just as quickly, appearing almost at home on the stallion now. Shana grabbed the lead of the extra horse, muttering about a silly elf who preferred to run rather than ride maybe needing to give his legs a rest at some point. DQueene and Shana split up to ride on either side of Mari, just in case something unfortunate occurred and spooked the stallion during their ride through the night.

They rode as swiftly as they could under an overcast night sky; no stars were visible through the ominous low-hanging clouds and not even a hint of either of the two moons could be seen. DQueene saw the bridge over the chasm ahead and called as softly as she could to the elf in the lead. “Elendirill, go slowly, the bridge would be the perfect place for us to be ambushed.”

Approaching the bridge cautiously, Shana moved up to ride beside Elendirill. “Look! In the middle of the bridge, there’s something glowing! And by The Many Faces of Tandra, the bridge is broken!” She pointed at a huge crack which appeared to extend across the complete bridge: “See, there and there. We should walk our horses across.” She glanced at everyone, and then dismounted: “I should go first, I’m the smallest and if it’s going to break it will break under me.”

DQueene nodded and dismounted also: “I would recommend we all get off our horses; if the bridge starts to collapse I will change to my dragon form and save whoever is on the bridge at that time.” She smiled wryly: “For some reason, I don’t think the horses will like that very much. I’ll go last, for obvious reasons. Is everyone agreed?”

Bignor is no longer a bat. He is no longer an orc. He is now an elemental spirit -- complete and fully capable in every way. And he knows his duties: to guard the Ancient Staff of the Elements; to align the staff with its bearer; and, if possible, to guide the staff to the hands of one who has been touched by the Guardian of the Elements.

But the staff currently has no bearer.

A voice from Beyond asks: "Who bears the staff?"
A voice from Pilgrim's Bridge answers: "No one."

Shana whispered to her horse to calm it as she started walking slowly across the bridge. The glow from the object lying on the bridge got brighter and brighter as she approached. Testing each footstep for any sign that the bridge was going to collapse, she called back to the others. “It seems okay so far. I’m going to see what this glowing thing is before I try to jump that gap.”

She leaned down and reached out her fingers toward the object: “It’s only a staff; I don’t know why it’s glowing though.” Shana’s fingers were almost touching the staff …

The elemental spirit guardian of the Ancient Staff of the Elements, formerly known as Bignor the "Flying Fox" bat, formerly known as Bignor the orc, formerly known as a nameless chasm-crawling rodent, thought to itself:

Suddenly a little spark jumped from the staff to Shana’s fingertips and she both heard and felt the word “No!”.

“Ouch!” She jumped back to standing position and stuck her fingers in her mouth, sucking on the offended tips. “Wow, you could have just said something, you know,” she scowled down at the staff.

“It won’t let me pick it up,” she yelled back at the group. “I’m going to try and jump the gap now.”

She climbed on the horse’s back and took a deep breath before kicking it into a gallop directly at the gap. “Tandra, help me make it!” She prayed as the horse sailed over the gap, landing with a jarring motion on the other side.

Bringing the horse to a halt, she called back to the others, “I made it! I’ll walk him the rest of the way.” She climbed down, being careful not to jar the bridge anymore than she had to, and safely made it to the other side.

“I’m here! Mari, why don’t you come across next?”

"Ok..." Mari whispered to Zanor:" Now, boy, we're in for the tricky part, we'll take good care of one another, right?" The stallion snorted.
Leading her horse very carefully and testing the stones underneath, Mari came to the spot where the staff glowed.
"Zanor, hold me." Mari tied herself quickly to Zanor's breast, told him to back off a few steps and lent down to fish for the staff. Her fingers nestled for it and she felt a strong electricity shock. Fumbling for her cloak, she wrapped it around her hand and tried again.
"Gotcha!" Triumphantly she asked Zanor to back off more, so she could scramble up the crumbled stone ledge.
"Hah, here it is", she waved. "But no one should touch it. We'll keep it in my cloak, until the staff decides who is the bearer."
"Alright, Zanor, Lovey, now for a nice jump over that little gap, hm? Do you think, you can make it?" She untied her safety rope, hauled herself on Zanor's back and let him do his jump.
Safely on the other side, she turned to Shana and held the glowing staff upright.
"Have you got any idea what this will be?"

Slowly, silently, secretly a feeling crept into Mari's mind. It was a shadow of a thought, a hint of an idea. The staff "felt" familiar. It felt like the healing finger of the Guardian of the Elements. It felt right, somehow.

Bignor was doing his job. He was aligning the staff to its new bearer: Mari -- the One. Soon, very soon, she would begin to know how to use the staff to command the elements of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Spirit, and Chaos. She would learn them in that order. She would learn to summon fire, wind, flood and rain, earthquakes, and eventually commune with spirits. If she would bear the staff long enough, she would learn the deep secrets of the staff -- but it would take time to learn its deepest secret of all.

Shana shook her head and her hand at the same time, remembering the shock it had given her. "No, I don't know what it does but it told me No and shocked me."

"Oh yeah, we'd better tell them you're okay." She raised her voice and yelled across the bridge, "It's okay, come on." She watched intently as the elf started over leading the horse. "Two more across and we can ride fast."

Mari was scared, she didn't want anything bad to happen to the elf and DQueene - but she was helpless. As usual she tried to distract herself from worries and concentrated on the staff. She carefully laid the bundle on the ground, unwrapped the staff and took a closer look at it.
"Hmm, nice piece of work... look Zanor, this glowing end is pretty, ain't it? Now, I wonder what will happen if I..." Mari's curiosity again... she tipped the staff with her pointer finger... nothing happened. She used 2 fingers, the staff just rolled a bit... Mari felt confidence and used her foot to kick the staff gently. A flash, a whirl and Mari felt a short pain on her backside. The staff lay calmly on the ground again.
"You you bastard... Hitting me like that! What do you think you are?" The glowing end seemed to twinkle mockingly.
"Now, look here, Staffy-Baby: I need my cloak, it's very cold and I'm not going to give it to you for keeps. So, you'd better behave, otherwise I'll throw you into the chasms to stay there and rot, do you understand me?"
The glowing changed into a milder colour - a flash again, a whirl and the staff jumped into Mari's hand as if he had belonged there all the time.
"Ok, if you behave, I'll behave, too. I guess, I need Eandrae for this..."
Hey, Shana, looky here.. the staff seems to like me.." Picking up the cloak to warm her, Mari turned around...

Elendirill had watched the other two jumping over, he felt kind of annoyed that they got first, who was the one searching for his wife again? And now they left him with the dragon ... He had set aside his feelings about her kind, he even talked to her, in a way that seemed very friendly to him. All she did was answering him like he was a little bug, standing under her claws, waiting to be crushed ... He didn't like that at all, so he wouldn't be last to jump!!

The humans seemed to have taken an extra horse, and it seemed like they wanted him to jump with it. That's the problem with humans, they have used other living beings for so long, now it seems unusual for them if someone doesn't want to use a horse ... His legs were still fine, he even enjoyed a good run now and then. So why would he use other legs than his? And he was the one being strange ...
Well, he would show them ... He took the horse with him, but didn't jump on it. Just when they reached the edge of the gap, he lay his hand down on the horse's neck, trying to comfort it. Then he spoke to it in his elven language. There's something strange about it, animals don't understand any language, but they can recognize the sounds of his language. What he just said was something most animals understand, follow me and run. Elendirill took the horse back again, closed his eyes for awhile, concentrating on the jump. Then he ran for it, jumped and spinned around in mid-air, landing on the other side facing the horse. He look straight into it's eyes for just a few seconds, then turned around and ran a bit further and then he stopped. He didn't even look back, all he did was looking at Mari and Shana, mocking them with his look. Then the horse came standing next to him, pushing his mouth against Elendirill's hand ...

DQueene chuckled to herself, that elf was certainly arrogant. He wasn't over his hatred either, but hopefully they could work together without conflict. She mounted the Appaloosa and leaned over to whisper: "It's just you and me now, girl."

She walked the mare slowly until she reached the spot they would have to start galloping to make the jump. Lightly slapping the ends of the reins against the mares flanks, she also kicked her gently in the sides: "He Yah." They jumped the gap and landed solidly on the other side. Just than several large chunks of rock broke off of the bottom of the bridge, plummeting and crashing down into the chasm. Rather than chancing the bridge crumbling anymore before she got off, she continued at a run off the bridge.

"Come on! What's taking you so long?" She called to the others as she rode by.

Shana caught up with her, laughing "You can't beat me DQueene, I can ride better than you!"

The bath was finished and things had calmed down in the Abbey, so Kegger decided to feed the babies.

The chickens didn't seem to mind Elmo, but they took an instant dislike to the baby dragon. Kegger was a practical soul, however, and let nature take its course while she waited outside until the squawking and thumping sounds died down. Then she gathered up the loose feathers into the burlap sack in the corner, checked for any abandoned eggs, and counted her chickens.

"I'm missing four chickens." she pretended to be surprised, "I wonder where they could have got to?"

Then she carried the two sleeping infants to the storeroom adjoining the kitchen where she made them a nest of straw and old rags in a large wooden crate. Saying "I'll check on you two in a few hours" she trundled off to stoke the hearth before going to bed.

Sparkl met her at the hearth and announced that Illillitl was her bestest friend in the whole wide world and that he was going to name his special wine after her: [color:"pink"]Sparkling wine[/color]. She also reported that Mari and the others were racing north from the Pilgrim's Bridge and probably would have made it to the Evil One's Cave by now. She said, "I'm going to look for them near the caves now. I may be gone a while, 'cause I'm gonna try to help them get the elf-lady free. But I am expecting my cousin, Twinkl, to be born very soon. This will be her home fire, too. Please tell her I'll be back as soon as I can, Mrs. Kegger." Then Sparkl was gone.

Kegger wandered off to bed, while the hearth burned merrily and occasionally sputtered and spewed sparks with a loud "Pop!" or "Crack!" or "Snap!"

Eandrae readed the scroll again and again , but she didn't found any sign , anything wich could help her on her way to defeat the evil .
Maybe she could travel to the halls to ask her former teachers for help . She was never that good in understanding a profetie . Instand action was more her thing .

The old witch placed her scroll back in her bag and walked with her donkey in the direction of the halls. In the dimension of the wind it didn't take that long to arrive the halls , when she noticed the familiar dust wich told her that she arrived her goal , Eandrae left the dimension and suddenly she stood before the entrance of the hall .

An ignorant person would never see the entrance . The only thing he would see was a green hill with an old tree on top . But Eandrae saw under the tree a small opening with stairs wich led to the inner heart of the hill .

Of course the guardians had noticed her already long before she entered the opening and when she stood beneath the stairs a welcome committe was already formed around the old witch . Well it seems that nothing changed in all this years of my abscene though Eandrae . With a grin she grabbed a small paper out of her bag and handed it to the leader of the welcome committee . "I am allowed to enter these halls" she told him while she smashed the whole group aside with a small gesture of her hand and an innocent spell.

Elendirill saw the two of them taking off, racing like this was some kind of game. He didn't mind, at least they were moving fast now, but this side of the bridge was really different ... He had been running through snowy plains for days, but this was different ... The snow almost looked ... darker here. When you looked at it directly it was as white as always, but when you were just looking ahead ...
He didn't have time to think about this, but he was on guard, running somewhat behind the others, so he might look back and check for any possible danger.

The good side was that they could see the mountains where the cave should be ... They looked extremely rough and dangerous, if they had to climb up it would be hard for all the girls traveling with him ... but he could still leave them behind when time was running out. Untill then he tried to be thankfull for the support they could mean if it ever came to a fight ... but on the other hand they werre easier to spot as a group, especially when those girls continued screaming to eachother like that ...
But well, he would tell them to be quiet, that arrogant dragon would probably have something to say back, and he didn't want to waste more words on the matter ...

There was something else, he didn't noticed it untill now, but although the weather was still as cold as before, he was getting warmer and warmer, when he noticed it, he could feel the source ... the green leaf was glowing again, and filling him with warmth. Not the kind of warmth you could burn yourself to, but just a warm feeling inside ... The same feeling he got when he was holding Feraila ...

Feraila didn't know how long she was locked in this cell .. She vaguely remembered how she was pulled along with her captor, she clearly remembered how he was confused, like he didn't know where to go, but after awhile he seemed to remember and started going in one direction. She didn't like this place, she didn't like to be away from the open air ... This was even worse, it was like he was taking her to some underground place, and no elf would willingly go deeper then a few feet underground. She couldn't remember anything from then, but she knew he did something horrible to her, when she woke up in this cell she felt ... abused, raped even, and her thoughts were going to places she didn't want them to go. She crawled into a corner and cried untill she fell asleep. That's how whe spent most of her time, but now the horrible thoughts seemed to fade away, and they even started to appear far fetched now ... Elendirill would never abandon her, and he certainly won't take his own life away ... no elf would do such a thing ... but if he felt like she was feeling now ...
There was no use in thinking those thoughts, Elendirill would come for her, and if he did, she should make sure he found her ...
Feraila got up, she felt weak, and it seemed like her legs couldn't carry her anymore, but some time later she managed to get to the wall which was farest away from the door and she started searching .. it didn't matter what, as long as she could find something all hope wouldn't be lost ...

Mari kept a bit behind Elendirill, she was worried and watched him closely. Zanor seemed to sense her caution and fell into a slight trott, closely behind the elf, they rode on in silence whilst she tried to send colours to Elendirill, strenghtening and soothing at the same time - she knew he would need both badly - soon.

The world seemed to change in an instant, one moment, DQueene and Shana were laughing and then there was cold darkness surrounding the travelers. DQueene and Shana immediately slowed their horses to a walk. Shana pulling her sword out and searched the darkness with fear sharpened eyes. DQueene began chanting a rudimentary spell to dispel darkness.

Suddenly, ear splitting screams and moans shook the magical darkness, and a bony hand reached up to grab Shana’s ankle and gave a fierce tug. Shana shrieked and immediately swung her sword downward in an attempt to sever the bony limb from its owner.

DQueene’s spell took effect just at that moment, although when she saw what surrounded them she almost wished she could take it back. Shambling decaying bodies were approaching them out of the darkness. The moans of tortured souls crying out for peace echoed from out of the distant gloom. She quickly counted, there were at least 8 Undead warriors, dripping poison from their hands, directly in front of them blocking their road to freedom. Closer to them, within the circle of light, were Skeletal warriors with ancient weapons – some rusty and useless and others shining with a magical light.

The dark creature who had followed them suddenly jumped out it's hiding shadow cast by a huge rock.

" stay stay not touch it mine it is mine food found it first did I the pray is mine say I say I nononono come closer not kill all you do I powerfull I" "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII" he yelled while started growing, his black skin became grey, the hair on his back became spike's . He looked at his feeted confused not knowhing what happend he has been mad before but this never happend.

It seemed the evil force that came stronger triggered this.

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meanwhile Dalartus came awake screaming in pain out of the bed he dozed of under the influence of the wine.
This was no pain as in wounds it was a pain he felt only once in his live, just before it happened, just before they took away his soulmate, He's one and only love it hurted made Dulartus very ill back then.

"I have to stop this, I have to help her!!!" he screamed while taking all his possesions , his sword. " I can't lose her again" this pain seemedd even worse, as if her dead that is about to happen well be more painfull, Dulartus felt the pain she is going to have. He felt it burn when Salinna was killed by a fireball spell of a jaluos fellow apprentice witch. but that was by far not such a awfull pain is what he is experiencing now he couldn't place this pain anywhere he only knew he still had time to safe her. " He ran out of the abbey, to the north into the mountains.

DQueene took a deep breath; deciding that turning into a dragon would leave Shana defenseless for precious moments. She called her prince, hoping he would reach them in time. "Draconis, I need you!"

She quickly cast a fireball at one of the approaching Undead, seeing and arm blasted off. It still kept coming, no pain, no thought would deter it from its intended prey.

Kegger saw Dulartus run out of the Abbey in a hurry. "I wonder where he's going in such a rush?"

Drakonis went outside to transform to his dragonform to go and help his queene when he saw Dulartus runnin north to the mountains, "hey Dulartus, The Queene said she needed help, Wait I'll fly you to them!"

As Dulartus was running the only thing on his head was to get there as soon as possible, he heard somebody calling to him but he didn't understand what was said he didn't care either, he yelled " No not now i have to help her"

"Sigh, ok I'll have to do this my way then" Drakonis polymorphed, and flew towards Dulartus, scooped his nose down in the snow lifted Dulartus and threw him on his back.

Dulartus yelled "hey what do you think Your doing put me back you.."

" Calm down i'm helping you to get there, to help them my queene told me she was in danger, now stop bashing my back, it's distractin" Drakonis said with his soar heavy and loud dragon voice.