July 15th
Legum cursed again. The captain of the Small Fry shrugged. "Sorry, I can't leave until the shipment arrives, and then I can't leave until the Warship Grim Reaper is ready to provide an escort. I have no desire to become pirate bait". "When is the shipment supposed to arrive?" Legum half yelled. "I told you, it was suppose to arrive yesterday. We don't know why its late. But the Grim Reaper isn't leaving until the 17th anyway".
Legum turned away, walked back to Hammerhand. His lessons at the Hcetlac cult had been cut off on short notice the day before, when the news of the attack on Nial had reached him. Nial was still with Brean, slowly recuperating from the attack of two days before. They had tried to catch Elwood, thinking they might be able to ship out together, but he had already departed on the Sunrise for Nol.


Legum looked at Hammerhand carefully. The troll was normally taciturn, but the last day had been a new low in the troll's quantity of conversational banter He sat, cross legged, eyes closed, holding that stupid troll skull, humming quietly to himself. Legum shook his head in disgust. Great thing, to have your eyes closed when you are making a deliberate target of yourself.


He stooped, about to shake Hammerhand's shoulder, and paused. Something was wrong. He suddenly realized that the humming sound was a little too steady, a little too high pitched, to come from the throat of the low-voiced troll. He glanced down at the skull, and... yelled, jumped back in surprise. The thing had eyes! Eyes that had look right at him! There was a sudden flash of light, centered on the skull, and Legum turned away, dazzled. When he looked back, Hammerhand was holding a little bag that had the vague look of a small bag of coins. His eyes were open, and he was smiling.


Legum realized his jaw was hanging open. He shut it with a snap, and said with a voice that almost but not completely failed to sound as normal as desired, "Well, that was interesting".
"More interesting, friend Legum, more interesting than realize", and smiling, "We have big fun now, big, big fun".


Legum was not sure whether that was a promise, or a threat. [Hammerhand has regained his clerical powers. He has also become second level. Spells:


He also has the following item: Bag of 10 Disharmony coins. Hammerhand can kick them off, then they run for about a week, casting a low level disharmony field. Over several days, they will get even family members to trade blows. An hour, and enemies will be unable to speak, attacking each other on sight. A week, and close friends will attack each other.


July 16th


Ziwa almost skipped on her way down the street. She would have skipped if she wasn't so tired. Those weird dreams she had been having bothered her more than she cared to admit. Even more irksome was her inability to remember more than little flashes here and there, images of a large ruby, of eyes cold as death, and of other unrelated things. Still... she smiled to herself. Things were going well enough, and she had another day of studying with Everly. Everly was bright, fun, full of life. Not to mention an outstanding teacher. Ziwa was learning faster than she would have though possible.


There were some oddities about Everly, though. In the last few days, they had spent so much time together, some of Everly's private life had intruded on their sessions. One of the people who had "stopped by" was the Lask Hold Warden, Lasner. The others Ziwa had not recognized, but their fine dress and cultured accents marked them as belonging to the same social strata. Everly, for her plain dress, appeared to count a number of gold ring holders as friends.


Another little strangeness came from a break two nights ago, when Everly had broken out a couple of glasses and a bottle of Cognac. The taste was liquid gold on the tongue, and the small warm glow that spread through her was like bottled happiness. They had finished the bottle, and Ziwa had taken it on the way out with the intent of tossing it. Instead, she kept it, Facinalethvree's tiny prodding giving her a clue that this meant something. The next morning, she had stopped at a wine merchants shop to ask about the bottle. His eyes had opened with astonishment. "Where did you get this, woman?!" He had cried. "If you know where to find one that is full, I shall pay you fifty gold pieces!". Ziwa had almost choked. They had been drinking something more valuable than a good sized fishing boat! It was clear that Everly's outward appearance was a carefully maintained mask unrelated to her wealth or social standing.


Ziwa was passing down an alley a few blocks from Everly's small house. The sudden touch on her arm brought a startled gasp from her. She turned wildly around, letting out a sigh of relief at the familiar face. "Baldar!" she cried, "where the heck did you come from?" How she had missed him approaching in this bare cobblestone passage was a mystery to her

.
Baldar smiled at her. "You told me I should go and learn some magic, didn't you?" He laughed with an infectious smile. "Well, here you are! I've learned how to sneak up on pretty women without warning!".


Ziwa's laugh matched his. "You always knew how to do that, Baldar". He was standing close to her, closer than seemed comfortable, but somehow it seemed right for here and now. Ziwa was a head shorter than him, and she needed to tilt back a little to stare up into those liquid, dark brown eyes and see the even white teeth flash in contrast to his tanned face. She could almost feel heat from his body, and a clean, masculine scent seemed to permeate her sense of smell. Baldar had always been handsome, and charming, but it had never hit her quite like this before. In the lull of the conversation, she almost unconsciously leaned into him a bit and half closed her eyes.


Baldar's arms slipped around her waist, and the kiss was almost bruising in its intensity. His hand slipped up the side of her body, sliding over her breast and resting there. The touch sent ripples of warmth through her, and she gasped in surprise and pleasure. Her arms reached for him, passion a sudden, unexpected hunger in her. Then, somehow, one of her sleeves became caught in her sword belt, and in freeing it, her hand touched Facinalethvree's hilt.


It was like a bucket of cold water. She planted her other hand on Baldar's chest, and pushed, hard. Baldar, obviously not expecting it, stumbled backwards and fell, ending up sitting in a small puddle of water. His look of open eyed surprise was almost hysterical, and Ziwa felt the uncontrollable urge to giggle. Then other things bubbled to the surface, and the amusement faded, replaced by confusion. "What the hell are you doing, Baldar?" she asked, her voice made harsh by the frustration and contradictory feelings flooding her.


"What? What?" he cried, "You started this!", but in a tone without much conviction. Ziwa paused, admitting the truth of it, but knowing that there was something wrong with the entire situation. She shook her head. "Perhaps", she replied, "but I'm certainly not going to finish it. In fact, I'm already late for my appointment. Catch you around, Baldar." She marched off down the alley, not looking back, but also aware that this issue wasn't settled, and not convinced she knew how she wanted it to end.


Baldar watched her go, the smile locked on his face, tense muscles and cold eyes the only indication of the pounding rage he felt. He thought he really had it down at this point, the lessons from Selena, Ranee's wife. The tension slowly leaked out of him as he though about the last week. He had escaped Rocky's obvious attempts to stick with him. No sense flaunting his activities, was there? Meeting with Selena had been everything he had dreamed of. He remembered sweating bodies straining together, building to a climax that was ecstasy, that was agony, that was so intense that afterward, he collapsed unmoving for the better part of a day. Selena had helped him, had pointed out that she could teach him the spells he was supposed to pick up, teach him in a way that was effortless, even fun. Baldar had never been one to push himself. If he had been good at studying, he never would have been in Bythe in the first place.

And it had been fun. In bed again, but this time slower, more languid, and more inventive, with long periods of teasing, followed by a slow, comfortable fade to black. When he awoke, there were... things ... in his mind, ready for use. The shadow hiding trick he had used to catch Ziwa was one. The other he had tried on her... well, it had worked well enough recently. Threelese, the daughter of a simple baker, had proven that. She had fallen into his arms as he twisted the thoughts in her head in that peculiar way. He smiled coldly. She tried to stop things when she realized that he was about to bed her. She was gorgeous, yes, and had the simple ethics of a merchant's daughter, and had tried to push him away. But a few strokes here and there, twisting her struggling body against him and nuzzling her neck with his lips, a tug on the already loose bodice and a little nibbling at the obvious places, and she had been pulling his clothes off even as she cried for him to stop.


It had been different from Selena. After a session in bed with her, he felt drained, almost lifeless. With Threelese, afterward, he had felt like running, like singing, like anything was possible, full of sparkle and energy. He thought about Threelese for a second and frowned. He should do something nice for her, some flowers or something. She seemed so listless in the past couple of days. Not in bed, of course. She was past the initial shame, and now sought him out as often as she could, making love with a wild abandon that he had never seen in a woman before. But afterwards, it seemed to take longer and longer for her to recover. This last time, he had left her in bed, impatient to be on his way. She had lain there unmoving as he walked out.


Selena had told him, though, that something like that would happen, although she had been rather vague as to why. Soon, she said, he would learn to look beyond the trappings of beauty, and the other traits considered desirable by society. He would learn to see with new eyes, to look for the very aura of an individual, the mark of someone energetic enough to feed him.

Baldar stopped, shook his head. Feed him? No, certainly that had not been what Selena had said. To sustain him? Something like that. Well, no matter. He glanced back the way Ziwa had gone, smiled. Well, perhaps he was already learning to pick auras out. Ziwa was attractive, yes, but that was not why he had attempted to seduce her. There was something in her that called to him; she seemed to burn with something that left him feeling hollow, hungry.


Well, time enough for that latter. He smiled again. There would be plenty of chances to "run into" Ziwa again. After all, they were close friends, right?