Coming around

There are looks of blank incomprehension on their faces, and I realise that they don't speak the Common Tongue. That possibility hadn't occurred to us. Everyone can speak Common, we had thought.

Grailing

.....

Should have figured on a language barrier....but I must admit I had not thought of such.

Well, I was, after some "hit and miss", able to stumble across a language that our "friends" speak. Haven't spoken that particular dialect in quiet a while and I know that I speak with a terrible accent, but we understand each other well enough.....

Wish I had better news to pass on as we back off slowly from our greeters.

At least I was able to calm them enough so that we can back away...

Jarlath

After about twenty minutes of quiet marching, Grailing finally tells us the content of his discussion with those people. Having seen the looks on the faces of those speaking gave me a pretty good idea of what he's going to say.

"They didn't seem to interested in doing business with us," Annafrid sighs, looking back the way we came.

"You'd be correct on that matter," Grailing sighs, "It lay within the fact that they could tell we come from the North...."

The elf goes on to explain the crutch of the problem. It seems that long ago there was this great human empire that fell suddenly. No real explanation had ever been heard by the elf and the rumors of the cause were various, misleading, contradictory, and mostly unlikely. The end result was, though, that those human people of present day who lived in the Northern region (Allaria and the like) had been psychically scarred so much by whatever happened that even to this day few wanted to really try to push into those olden lands. Oh, some had gone and set up colonies down in the Hespen Territories. But however bold and daring the local humans seem to take that a local Terra Prime human, even before the coming of the Enemy/Alliance war would look at that venture and laugh! See, the ventures done by those human beings on this world I fear would be considered meager at best! See, the empires of Terra Prime spanned much more territory before the Enemy/Alliance war....

Nevermind.

Well, from what Grailing tells us here the folks who'd met us seem to have been effected by the destruction of that empire as well. However, instead of their ancestors moving north like the rest, these folks here seem to blame the human beings of the North for that collapse. The exact details aren't known from the small conversation (Grailing didn't get a chance to ask), but from what he gathers these folks are on some kind of holy mission to keep the Northerners contained! Trespassers who went beyond a no-man's land between the borders of the North and the Undiscovered Country were summarily executed on the spot AND by what Grailing gathered from our visitor's they had a means of detection that was....very effective. Only two reasons we hadn't gotten into a fight with the Southerners. One was that the odd makeup of our group. Where I, Annafrid, and Astra looking relatively (not causing problems...up until the rangers met Astra) by Northern standards and thus blended in, it was the exotic look of Joan and the non-humans who'd helped. Non-human and exotic humans like those of our group were a rare and prized thing, not to be extinguished but......collected. Meaning that they were gathered and honored. The seerers of the Southerners, however, had seen Mucky's ship and US exiting it. Not Mucky, who'd Grailing found out had been "collected" already, but us. Uh, let's just say that while not exactly a BAD thing, it made the desirability of the group less so. Net effect is that while they won't fight to try to exterminate us (or at least the more "Northern" looking types), they won't let us travel through their lands.

This is greeted by less than enthusiastic responses by the majority of our group.

"Between the demon's three and the deep blue sea," I mutter, annoyed just a little bit at our luck.

Still, some of the legends that Grailing had related in his tale about just why Northerners don't go south give me an idea.

Why not? I sigh, If spotted we'll just become another urban legend of sorts. Always wanted to play the part of a UFO sighting. I wonder how I'd look as a little green man?

Flying by magic carpet between the buffer zones won't be fun....but actually faster than just by horse.

Then I remember Tarin Gazin, who we haven't told everything about us AND who could put a hamper on that plan. Don't know how he'll take to yet another flying vessel after that crash.....

Meanwhile that little train of thought is interrupted by the elf in question!

Tarin

"Hey," I ask, perplexed by the attitude of those around me, "Why not just forget about traveling through these benighted lands and just go back into Northern territory?"

I blink, remembering some of the business and people of the place I had worked at, before the Silver Eyes had destroyed it. There are those people who find it profitable in becoming "scarce" to the legal authorities who come to Wallant....er....came to Wallants to do just that. The exact details on just how that happened I am not sure (Rift wasn't involved in that business), but it happened.

Though in my heart I know that Jarlath and his friends (who frankly saved my sanity back at Wallant's fall....would have lost my mind otherwise) aren't evil or vile like some I'd seen come through those gates......

That doesn't mean they weren't fleeing a warrant for their arrest (or worse). Indeed, I had heard something in passing a few times about Aqualarian rangers. Maybe they were fleeing the wrath from some Aqualarian high blood?

Learned even before arriving at that shadowtown not to ask too many awkward questions, but.....

Hmmm.

Maybe if I share my problem with them (something that must be done anyway, I now see) with my Vision (and those lovely four fingered elfin hands) I can perhaps coax it out of them?

If nothing else, the sin of keeping secrets will be on just them instead of us both....

"Here," I say, winding up, "Maybe if I tell you something you could share with me and we can then work out some kind of solution, right? Get a few things out so we can more easily overcome obstacles. That's the way us dwarves do things....more open and forward. Saves time, you.....see...."

.....

Uh, right.

Gods, being an elf is going to take a LOT of getting used to here!

Anyway, I tell them my story of the Vision. I know from it that despite what I thought, the religious business surrounding the Forge need not be a dwarf only affair. Tell them it all, including the tale of....those...lovely....

.....

Let me compose myself....

Gods, my heart! It's beating like it's going to explode every time I think.....

....

"Do you know of any elves like that?" I manage, swallowing as I compose myself (with a lot of effort).

Astra 9

I look at he others, sighing, and then back at the distraught red haired elf (who'd been born a dwarf).

That would explain a lot about him, I sigh to myself, Even mentioned Walker's rather distinctive accent as well as telling us the name of the caretaker of the Forge's earthly body when She wasn't using it was named Walker.

Can see where his destiny lay....and have an odd idea with just who...

That and we just aren't going to get away from him. Gazin, elf or dwarf, wasn't the type to give up and would hang on to us like a barnacle until he got what he was after!

Going to have to talk with Walker about this after and see if she remembers this Vision business......

But I think we know now what his actual Heart's desire is, now. Gazin is an elf now and as such.....is under the sway of what his Heart wants (more so than before).....

"We do happen to know one particular elfin lass who just might...." I begin, explaining to an increasingly wide eyed Tarin Gazin. Can see that he's having a hard time accepting....but his elfin heart is FORCING him to do it. I get to telling him the elf's name....and I'll be hung if the former dwarf doesn't actually shiver in reaction at the very sound. Is that what I look like when I talk about Ti'mma the first few times? Grailing asks, surprised.

Yep, Synizn says, But that's alright. Should see how dragons act when Eye meets Eye happens. Silliest thing you've ever seen!

Day and night.

Night and day we fly, knowing that we are spotted from afar by woodsman and such. Well enough, we are only adding to the mystic of the Undiscovered country and NOT endangering both Allarian and Aqualaria.

We forage off the land and sleep under the stars.

After such a trying time with the ranger it's a rather relaxing holiday, really.

Then, finally at the border of Mal Boncton (we'd bought horses and ponies after slipping away from the border zone of the Undiscovered country) it happens.

No, not more rangers, thank God. We'd improved our magical disguises on that score (for all of us as much as we could). We don't need more trouble from that quarter. Rather, it was Tarin. The transformation on his nature had been happening in fits and starts. Sometimes little happened in that business, then yet another dwarven quality evaporated in a massive influx. Painful for him, I am sure, in a sense, but also welcome to him as well.....

His heart, you see, knows.....and is making him welcome the shift.... Tarin,

It was the last shift....accompanied by a grinding sound off from the direction that Tarin had gone to relieve himself.....

He comes back with a fey, daffy smile on his face. The same odor of Champion we detect on ourselves and Grailing is now upon him as well.

Yep.

"She was the most lovely thing I have ever cast my eyes upon," he sighs, looking moonily at us.

"Enjoy being an elf?" Grailing asks gently, sitting the still dazed former dwarf down.

"Oh gods....yes....." he whispers, looking forward to meeting her again....for the first time....on the Voyager back on Nantucket Earth.....

1. The dwarf he'd been (he was now sure) would be cross at the business of time travel....but as an elf he can enjoy it. It fit within his new frame of mind so WELL!