"Fine fine. The hills then?"

Ixeldor nuges his horse in that direction, waiting for the others to agree....

Thrain looks up at the grass covered hills, and at the dark expanse of the forest in the other direction. "Just why is it you are so intent on riding as far away from where Ellie is going as possible?"

"You seemed to have missed some of the more subtle points of TELEPORTING!"

Ixeldor, frustrated by the entire experiance and tired, snaps at Thrain.

"The moment we can stop for an hour, we are going to be RIGHT BY HER instantly. We could on the other side of Fae'rune right now, and we would STILL arrive right by the moment we have one hour to rest! It dosn't matter which way we ride as long as the barons troops dont' follow!"

Thrain grinds his teeth.

Risking Ellie's life on a trigger-happy mage, how could this get any worse?

Ignoring the bickering between Thrain and Ixildor, Tawna drops back a bit to ask the cleric a question.

"Hey Sister, did that milk-vision of yours really tell us where the girl was? Should we have left by the other gate?"

Ixeldor heard bits of Thrains no-so quiet mumbling and managed to pick up on the "get any worse" part.

After I saved him from fighting those soliders? Ingrate!

"It could get much worse. Want to see how?"

"In the short time I've met you, I've had my best friend kidnapped by what I'm told is evil incarnate, been told she will die in two months, possibly destroying the world in the process, been yanked away from helping her to the middle of @$% nowhere only to return to where she vanished to find I'm now hated and despised and am now riding the wrong way trusting only the word of some stranger that he can magically fix all my problems while we wait to be attacked by the most vicious bastard in the long, sad line of Vaal. So, yeah, I'm kinda curious how its going to get worse. You going to zap me or somethin'? You think you can do anything worse than what's happened today? You think you can make me feel any worse?"

"Awwww. Bo-hoo. Life got complicated. If you han't run into us the Vaal would have captured you, and evil-incarnate would have just gotten her from them. And you had better home and pray we can "magicly" fix all of your problems, because I'd like to see you try and catch evil incarnate on horseback. Currently, you have a chance, and as long as you have that, yes, there IS somthing that can be taken away to make it worse. So stop pitying yourself and help us find a save campsite!!"

Aden simply smiles as the mage and guardian begin bickering, but decides to step in after things begin to get a little too loud. "Yes, your life has gone downhill, but you forget one thing. If you two draw too much attention to us, the Baron's troops will catch us. Now I seriously doubt we can outrun their cavalry, since Tawna's horse will tire from bearing two riders and her knight in shining armor will of course fall back to help her. On the other hand, if you behave like a good boy and stay quiet, then we can be with your girl within a few hours."

Thrain fumes a second, then the anger drains out of him. "Fine. We'll do it this way."

"If we stay on this road, it will eventually turn up towards the Alphwood. If we get off now, we can head around that spur of the hills and on to the shore. It's all cliff faces there, and mostly abandon."

"Sounds good. Lets get going then."

The mage turns his horse back onto the road and waits for the others to start.

Eric had hardly paid attention to the heated exhange between Thrain and Ixeldor. He had mostly been keeping an eye on the surrounding area, looking for any signs of the Baron's troops who were supposed to be after them.

Having made it out of the city fine and having spent the past five minutes bickering in the middle of the road, his apprehension about being attacked was melting away. He was content to go along with whatever the others decided, now that they were out in the open and he could see any enemies approaching.

While Eric waited for someone who knew the land around here to take the lead, he decided to bestow another withering glare upon Aden.

Thrain takes the lead, leading the little group down the road for about a half a mile before striking out east and somewhat south. They soon find themselves climbing into the Shelting hills, just before they are broken by Velikir's bay. After perhaps an hour and a half of riding, they find themselves on a wide, grassy plain, dropping quite suddenly off in the west, down about fifty feet of broken rock into a churning sea.

There is no cover and little grows other than a type of long, dry grass. As it is autumn, the grass is now yellow and dry.

"Great. Shall we stop there then? I can summon up some magic-concealment that will compensate for the lack of cover."

Aden looks around and takes note of Ixeldor's posession of magical cover and simply mutters, "Yeah, this was so much better than staying in town... then again, I'm up for getting this study session out of the way." Smiling under what will likely be another glare from Eric, and his voice dripping with sarcasm, he adds, "Of course I'm sure it's your decision, oh mighty Infallible One."