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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 3545766" data-attributes="member: 11760">The fugitives ride quickly toward Middleborough in the dark.Tock takes swigs from the bottle of apple brandy and asks Dieter about himself, his job, his family and other pleasantries. Katadid mentions the House of the Transformed Toad and Renraw seems lost in thought after that.After less than an hour, the group sees the lights of Middleborough appear before them through the trees. Atfter a moment, Tock leads his horse off to the side of the road, jumps off and begins to remove his shirt."Right," he says, taking a deep pull of the brandy and spitting it to the ground, "I'm going to play a drunk from Foxton and get my way inside. I'll have conveniently 'lost' my papers. I'll grab another horse, get some forged papers and maybe some stuff for a disguise and then walk out the other side a new man. Dieter? Help these two lead their horses through the forest. I'll meet you there.""A-am I supposed to get naked now?" Kat asks nervously."No, Weird Bird," Tock laughs, "I was messing with you. That'll be me. Let's move."Dieter's head bobs so much, it seems like it must be ready to snap off entirely. He begins leading the wizards toward the forest.Or, at least, he attempts to. Tock looks up and meets Renraw's scowl."Come on, we have to go. Hurry it up.""Chandler, we're all exhausted. Furthermore, it's urgent we depart the barony at once. A more straightforward approach might do us better right at the moment.""Oh?" Tock asks, a frustrated edge creeping into his voice."Look, there's plenty of time for fun with disguises and play-acting when we aren't in immediate danger. You know I've a fondness for that sort of thing as well. But now we need to get in, get what we need, and get out. And the quickest way to do that is with -- and it pains me to say it -- a straightforward and honest approach.""So much sense from one with so little!" Tock snorts. "Weird Bird, you feel the same way?""I-it isn't to say that," Katadid says, looking shocked at being consulted at all."Wonderful, just wonderful," Tock growls.Dieter violently shakes his head in disagreement and points a finger at Renraw."Mr. Chandler's not steered us wrong yet! Y'all will see! He'll get us all out of this here pickle, whatever it is!"Tock sighs and drops a hand on the boy's thin shoulder."No, Dieter, it's OK. They're right."Tock digs through their bags, then hands Dieter a sack of coins."All right, Dieter, I'm trusting you to do something very important. Get to the stables, apologize to the owner for rousing him so early, and buy a horse. There should be enough for saddlebags too. If they ask, just tell them it's for a very important client at the Way Inn who needed to ride at dawn and he insisted that Middleborough horses are the best. Come back out the way you came and once you're away from the guards walk around the town and meet us on the other side. Don't take too long now, pal. If you get all that done in 40 or 50 minutes, I'll have another sack of gold for you, more if under half an hour. Now go on.""Hold, boy!" Renraw blurts out as Dieter turns to head into town. He pulls out a pen and paper and begins writing. "Just give me five minutes."Everyone stands in annoyed silence as Renraw writes his note in the dim light coming from the town. Finally, he hands Dieter a carefully folded note with a name, "Telgen," written on the outside."Boy, please deliver this to the proprietor of the House of the Transformed Toad before you visit the stable. I understand it's early. Just stick it under his door if necessary.""It's OK," Tock shrugs, "Just hurry!"The bard watches the boy race off, thining."Here's hoping the promise of gold will keep him going if that charm wears off."* * *Meanwhile, back in Maidensbridge, the gnomes' celebration has only begun to die down, after Heda Littlelark has won the festival prize once more. There was much drinking and revelry, and endless drunken telling of complicated jokes that Vonmora found herself losing interest in halfway through.She had noticed, while distracted, that Fiddler seemed to be in furious temper at losing to the gnome once more and had packed up his goods and met another kobold at the edge of town, where they rode together on the back of a single huge weasel, riding off towards Green Mountain and muttering darkly.She sipped her green beer, listening with half an ear to a clanmate complaining that dwarves never won the contest, and relaxed.* * *Soon enough, Dieter returns to the wood's edge with a new pitch-black horse."His name is Anvil," he says."Dieter, You're a better man that most in these parts. Here's something for your trouble." Tock presses gold coins into the boy's palm. "Now, we have to go. Walk on back to Foxton. We'll be heading into the woods now and going to the far north. If you're ever in Grail Keep lad, look us up! We'll be glad to see you."Tock bows with a flourish and leads the horse into the depths of the forest."Chandler," Renraw coughs, "I know I used the word 'straightforward,' but did that have to include paying the boy so much? Or at all? He's only a child. What could he have done?""He can trust us," Tock says, smiling. "Now keep yourselves mum. We have a ways to go yet."They creep into the woods, long shadows of black trees dancing in the spectral flames of Renraw's torch-staff. The wizard begins to whimper softly, looking over his shoulder, trying to catch sight of the huge and awful thing he's sure is following them.Did that bastard Khenemet-Apep do this? Renraw wonders. If I didn't leave St. Feldin's before finishing my education ... I'm sure I remember Piggy Gebauer mentioned a bear-attracting curse ...The horses don't seem much happier about being in the dark woods than he does, and several times they stumble over unseen obstacles. Should one, or more, break a leg, it would be a perfect time for the bear (or bears) to attack.And, of course, there's the matter of Hangman's Pass ahead. It's safe, of course: Merchants travel up and down the steep path on a regular basis. But few do so at midnight and there are too many stories of spectral bandits stringing up the living from the hanging tree for him to ignore.Katadid clears his throat."Are we sure we're going the right direction?"Everyone else pauses. The answer, of course, is no."Son of a ..." Tock glares at Renraw in the darkness. "Right. Get what we need and get out. That worked well.""Don't lay this on me!" Renraw screams, his voice shrill with terror. "I wanted to go around the outskirts of the town, not into the thick of the woods! We're lost because of your flair for the dramatic!"Tock opens his mouth to reply and Renraw claps a hand across his mouth, holding up a finger and listening.Straining to hear the sounds of would-be rapist bears approaching, Renraw realizes he can hear the sound of the Moss River in the distance to their left. Closing his eyes, he can see the map of the barony is his mind, as Scimitar once unrolled it on a table at Kem House, long ago.If the river is on the left ...Renraw opens his eyes and takes his hand from Tock's mouth."I know where we are. Where do we want to go?"Tock blinks and then slowly smiles."Back to the road, on the other side of that damned town if you please."Renraw smiles a smug, self-satisfied smile, slapping Katadid on the back so hard, he almost sends the younger wizard tumbling headlong into a bush."Never fear, young Katadid!" Renraw says as he marches past his friends in the direction of the pass. "As long as I'm upright, my staff will light the way to our freedom."</blockquote>

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