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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ScyldSceafing" data-source="post: 811832" data-attributes="member: 5928">And into the wildClad in lovingly crafted leather armor decorated in a motif of twining green leaves, armed with a fresh bowstring and straight, shining steel, Wyn marched over toward the mustering bower to meet her companions for her first ranging. The three elves she met there were a bit ... unexpected."So who's the new girl?" the shortest one said as she walked through the archway. "You comin' with us?""I ... I'm Wyn. Yes. I'm-""Like your armor, Wyn," he said, drawing a small guffaw from the largest elf. The third, a young one whose face showed the scars of a battle with spotted fever, didn't laugh, but he smiled a bit. A moment of silence followed ... stretched ..."It's new," she offered, hopeful."Yep," said the largest one. "I'm Laucion. Don't b'lieve we've met." He stood and extended his hand, palm-up, showing a healing cut on his thumb."Pleasure to meet you-""Look. Let's get something straight here. I'm leading this here rangin', right?""R-right.""And you got new armor.""Yes.""So maybe you listen to me a little. I ain't part of no diplomatic corps, but I know a thing or two. And one of the things I know is that I want you to get back to your mama in one piece, new girl. Understand?"This is the worst of it, Wyn. They're testing you, she thought. All she said was, "Yes. I understand."*-*-*If Laucion did little to make her comfortable in the mustering bower, he did less in the field. In their practice at targets, Wyn showed she was the match of any of them - their better, truth be known - but still the ranging leader squinted hard at any suggestion she could hold her own.What made it worse was the sneaking suspicion he was right. Her first attempt at tracking was a disaster - she not only lost the signs of the owlbear, but she also so muddled the trail that even Laucion couldn't straighten it out. And she learned quickly that it didn't take a master bladesman like Ji'tun to humble her. The first night, Laucion worked with her until full dark, hitting her again and again with the flat of his sword, daring her to call it off. She drifted off into meditation thinking about the relation between pain and wisdom, and hoping her abundance of the former would produce some of the latter.Still, her mother's most common words kept her trying: You're never beat if you're alive and learning, Wyn. Alive and learning. Stay that way. She was alive, and she was learning. Learning to sleep on the ground. Learning to gobble hot food with her hands. Learning the words to some songs she hadn't heard from any minstrels.After a few days, Wyn settled into the rhythm of the thing, and she realized that a great portion of ranging was boring. Reports from recent rangings had only talked of a few problems on the boundaries of Celene - some well-organized but seemingly non-aggressive goblins in the Lortmils, an odd concentration of ankhegs just south of the Kron Hills, and a few incidents of orcish predation on peaceful folk. Nothing organized and no incidents of note. Boring.Ten days into the ranging - with the group west of the Kron Hills in the lower Lortmils and just about to turn for home - that all changed.</blockquote>

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