[Bungleau]

As she broke the surface of the Lost Sea, Missy Hissy felt tired. All the fighting and the killing... and now she floated in a deep sea, far from any civilization and any other creature. Except the occasional sea shark, that is... and she dispatched the two that swum up to investigate her with little more than a pair of dagger swipes. Kill often enough, and you know where to strike to kill quickly. Part of the assassin’s trade that she had learned, though its learning weighed heavily on her.

Calling on the powers of the moon, Missy cast a spell to call her back to the civilized confines of Brimloch Roon. She thought of the group of adventurers she had seen in Collasium... followers of Stackman, she wondered if they had also spoken to Kerah, as had she, the now-dead Kol, and probably many others. How could so many people be the chosen ones, the saviors of the Gael Serran, the protectors against Cet Ude D’ua Kahn and his evildoings? It was too much for her mind to fathom, so she pushed it to the back and stopped in to see if Miruth had regained his sanity.

He hadn’t.

Missy cleared her pack of the things she’d collected. Funny... her tastes were changing. Why, it was but a week or two ago, and she would have collected every sword and staff, saved every spear and shield. Now, she’d as soon be rid of them as anything else, leaving them behind as scraps for another.

Heading out from Brimloch Roon, she teleported back to the area of Collasium and swam north. As she approached dry land, she suddenly sensed a jungle lily. One, perhaps more... they always liked to travel in packs. Knowing that the overgrown salads were deadly, even to one as skilled as her, Missy set out at breakneck speed to try to find it. Kill or be killed, yes, but always eat your salad before you become dinner...

Missy ran in circles, battling more of the wild longtooths (and leaving their hides on the desert ground), but could not find a trace of the lilies. She did come across a many headed beast... this must be the Hydra that Lord Brinsly had asked her about. Several firestorms later, the hydra was no more.

Walking past where the hydra’s body had decayed into mush, she found herself at the edge of a vast desert. Knowing the dangers of getting lost in the desert, she set her eyes on a distant point and marched forward, keeping always to a straight line. Strange and deadly creatures approached her, from vicious sand crawlers to two-headed Dumdee Oleohs.

At one point, she thought she saw a group of adventurers in the distance, but it turned out to be her eyes playing tricks on her... although she did appear to see footprints in the blowing sand. And there seemed to be a weeping or sobbing sound coming from somewhere near by, but she couldn’t find exactly where it was coming from.

She found an opening in the woods on the eastern edge of the desert, and dispatching another band of desert raptors, she soon found a guarded chest with the most complex lock she had ever seen. Even though she had learned from the best, it still appeared to be beyond her skill to pick easily. Fortunately, she had been saving a level-four lockpick that she’d found in Skull Castle for just such an occasion, and with a flourish, she opened the chest and removed a green-stoned amulet. A quick examination revealed that it was inscribed with the name of the first monk of the temple, Morris the Meek. He had tried to go by Morris the Magnificent, according to legend, but he never lived up to his billing. Still, he uncovered quite a bit of knowledge about the workings of the body, and monks to this day owed him a debt.

Pocketing the stone, she created another portal and teleported back to Brimloch Roon, to regroup for the adventures in front of her and to take the stone back to the templ.

[ 12-20-2003, 01:27 AM: Message edited by: Bungleau ]