• They slept all through the day, not worrying about anything but themselves. It was a good rest, one that they greatly deserved. As night began to roll around, so did every one from their peaceful dreams. They awoke one by one, piling out of the bed and mumbling their way to the facilities. Soon all that were left were Shaun and Aux. Shaun looked at Aux, at his slowly rising and falling chest, and whispered “If only you could understand how grateful I am…” And he heard a soft “Oh but I do.”
    “You can speak?!”
    “Don’t be surprised, most people can.”
    “But I thought you were some sort of monster.”
    “Most people do…”
    “I’m sorry I eh…”
    “It’s okay; I know you are not like the others.”
    “What is your name?”
    “Aux.”
    “Is that all?”
    “It is all I can remember…”
    “Okay Aux, what in the hell is going on?!!”

    So Aux spent the next part of an hour telling his story. All the while the others listened from the other side of the wall. So it seemed that there were four of them. Shaun, Cybele, Athena, and Aux. They did not know what it was that fate had brought them together for, but whatever it was had built one hell of a team. They had Shaun, and while his mastery was not quite clear, he had potential in all fields. Next was Cybele, a renouned master of broad sword, and long sword, combined battle. Just recently they added Athena, an apprentice, but near master in the art of silent killing. And finally, to balance the team out, there was Aux, an obvious master of the slow, but extremely powerful war axe, and can hold his own with a long sword. This was a team of elites, brought together by fate to stop a great wrong. That much they knew. He hard part was what, where, why, when, and how.

    And it had only been a few days sense Shaun had first met Cybele. And already so much had happened. Shaun had a feeling that the next two weeks were going to bring a tidal wave of confusion, and one hell of a headache. Cybele later announced that everyone could stay, but we would have to rain together if we wished to live through the month. We all agreed it was a good idea.

    All that was left to do now was to wait for the inevitable hammer to drop, and crush this sense of serenity, and normalcy that the training was bringing on. The beginning of a great journey was near. The death of the old man will be avenged. And the wrongs brought on by Athena’s father will be righted, and maybe Aux will remember his full name. There was only one thing certain right now; everybody hurt every where all of the time, and to start this epic journey, Shaun probably aught to find his sword. The coming months would be trying, but if he pulled through, he would be stronger than ever.
    4
    It had been a long few weeks that they all spent training, and in that time Shaun had grown strong. He was not in full control of himself yet, nowhere near. But he had the basic sword skills of the broad sword mastered. They had found Shaun’s sword about six houses down, with a crowd of people in a perfect circle around it. They were all leaning in on it as if it were an invisible wall. In essence it was. As it turns out, every time Shaun loses his sword by means of force or accident, its barrier activates. So when Shaun walked through the barrier and grabbed the sword, everyone promptly fell unto their a**. Everyone was so startled; they did not notice Shaun at all. When the blade entered Cybele’s house, it caught the eye of everyone in the room, especially Cybele. He could not take his eyes off of it. He looked at it as if it were something disgusting.

    Finally when he could take no more, Shaun confronted Cybele about it. He laughed and asked if it was that obvious. All that did was confuse Shaun even more. Cybele explained that it was the condition of the sword he was disgusted by. Come to think of it, Shaun had never sharpened it once. And he had never even wiped the blade down after battle or training. Cybele reached for the sword, with the best intentions I’m sure, but as soon as his skin touched it, his hand ignited, burning white until he let it go.

    After many hours of cussing and herbs, they figured out the burn was resistant to all and had to heal over time. That pissed Cybele off. Then Shaun put the pieces together, and realized that there was something that Aux was not telling him about himself and the sword. That night his sword had disappeared, and Aux suddenly was full of energy, not to mention the similar non healing burns on his hand, revealing that it was he who had… Thrown the blade? He supposed it was possible, but only because of Auxe’s size.

    He would have to have a talk with the big man, but until then, he would just have to help calm down Cybele, and hope that the pain left with the cussing. They had become like a family, and they would remain that way… until death.

    Shaun found himself starring out at the night sky. How had his life gotten so hectic? Where was he supposed to go, and what was he supposed to do once he got there? This all started with that damned knife, now he would just have to deal with it. Before he had come to this world, Shaun had never killed before. With his first kill under his belt, Shaun did not see the future as optimistic. His position in this life had gone from bad to worse ever since the old man died. For a while it seemed as if he had reached a plato. But now that the ground seemed to be shaking under his feet, he could feel something bad approaching.

    The dawn broke, and Shaun felt the first rays of sun fall upon his brow. All of the darkened worries of the night before lie forgotten as he began to climb down off of the roof, and slip into the house. People were stirring all around him, Athena being the first to rise. She looked at him dreamily, and smiled as her head fell of. Shaun screamed, and backtracked into Cybele, whom had a similar injury, accept this one ran up and down. Slowly he peeled into two pieces, his innards spilling out onto the floor. Shaun slipped in his blood, falling onto the ground. Reaching to pull himself up, his hand hit something wet and spongy. He looked up to see Aux’es mangled corps hanging from the ceiling beams. They were all dead. With one last scream, his own body began to betray him, and fall apart.

    Shaun awoke with a start, remembering only bits and pieces of his dream, the dreary morning air pressed down on him, almost a weight on his shoulders. The dream had startled him. Shaun realized for the first time, theses were the people that cared about him. These were the people he cared about. If anything were to happen to him, he did not know what he would do… he was sure it was bad though. The sun was barely pushing through the muggy air, it was hard to breath and he felt alone. Sitting on this roof reminded him of how much he truly did not want to return to his time. From his first sword fight, Shaun knew he was supposed to have been bourn in this time.

    Shaun felt as if a dew of everlasting death had come upon him. The world began to twist and spin, reeling about as if it were in some child’s kaleidoscope. His other world came into view, only momentarily, but it was enough. The spinning got to the point where Shaun threw up, possibly all over himself. The other world was beginning to focus in, when suddenly, a sharp pain hit his shoulder, and he was pulled back in time.

    His whole world was shaken. Shaun knew that what had just happened was the closest he had ever come, and ever would come to time travel. His shoulder was broken, he could tell by the sheer amount of blood pouring through his shirt. The bone was poking through the skin. He looked around and realized what had happened. He had fallen straight off of the roof. Trying to stand was a bad idea. The blood loss and pain made him fall and nearly pass out. A tall man came around the corner limping, and picked Shaun up with one hand to carry him inside

    Aux was staring into the fire when he heard a thump and a sharp crack. Lifting his mountainous form from the floor in front of the fire pit, Aux grabbed Shaun's lesser blade and headed out side. As he exited the door, he saw a lump around the corner of the house. The lump rose to its feet, but only momentarily, as it fell back to the ground. Thinking it was a drunk, Aux turned to walk off. The smell of blood hit him so hard it was almost like a physical wall. He looked again to see the form wraith on the ground. He approached it swiftly; throwing caution into the wind, the form on the ground was Shaun. He was covered in blood, and a bit of white poked through his thin cloth clothing. With one of his enormous hands injured, he had to sheath his sword. With his good hand, Aux carried Shaun back into the house.

    The bone was not hat bad of a break. Clean break you might call it. Where the problem lied was in the artery cut by the bone. His bleeding was so severe that a quick tourniquet would not do the job. His blood was steadily pumping onto Aux’s arms. Making as much noise as possible, Aux stomped into the house, and slammed every door with his foot. Soon both Cybele and Athena were staring wide eyed at Shaun’s body. The commotion began with Cybele stepped forward, asking the graveness of the situation.

    They sliced Shaun open, trying to get to the sliced artery, and after way too much blood, found it. The bone had nicked an artery running up his back, and the problem was not that it was bleeding anymore. The blood had slowed down almost to a stop. With extreme speed and precision, Athena sowed the broken vain closed. Shaun had passed out from blood loss, and he needed a transfusion, or something to the likes. The warm liquid being force fed to him was giving his body the crucial components it needed to run. The liquid was a potion created by Cybele, it was almost the same stuff Shaun had first received, but the parameters of this one were to restore. As Shaun’s body absorbed the fluid, his heart began to pump again, his skin began to get color back, and soon conciseness would be restored to him. The next simple task was to have Athena sow up the incision they had made, but they had to start by setting the bone.

    Shaun awoke to a popping sound. Actually, it was more of a grinding popping sound. His dreams had been forgotten, and now he had to figure out what this terrible noise was. He tried to push off of his bed using his right arm, but there was no response. It was not as if he could not move his arm due to weight, it was more like he did not have an arm. He was scared to look and see if he had a broken to useless arm, or if he had a ragged stump where his arm used to be. He went to roll onto his side, but the movement caused him to be sick over the side of the bed. The sounds of him vomiting brought Athena into the room. She sat back as he finished, and waited for him to finish his dry heaving; luckily he had not eaten much in the past few days, and moved over beside him. With a warm cloth she wiped the leftovers from his mouth. Something about Athena being there made him feel better. It was almost as if he could live on her prescience alone. Her black hair had been pulled back into a bun, and her clothes were smeared with dried blood. Shaun slowly counted to three, and looked down at his arm. It was still there, and it even looked perfectly normal, but he could still not use it. He could not so much as make a finger twitch. All of a sudden he heard a loud smack and his head jerked to the side. He looked back, and Athena was in tears. She said “if you ever do anything that stupid again I'm going to kill you myself.”
    Shaun replied, “d-do what?”
    “Fall off the roof.”
    “Is that what happened to my arm?”
    “No that would be Cybele.”
    “Did he slip me another potion?”
    “No he used a local anesthetic.”
    “So in a little while…?”
    “You will feel the pain.”
    “So, about this inability to move my arm?”
    “It will pass.”
    “What happened?”
    “You almost … died.”
    “How?”
    “Your bone nearly severed your artery; you would have bled out if not for Cybele and his potions.”
    “Wow…”
    “Just promise me that from now on you will sleep on your bed.”
    “I promise.”

    When it came to the pain Athena had not been joking. It did come back and with it, Shaun thought that he was going to die, or pass out at the very least. The various things Cybele had given him, had helped to speed along the growth of a new bone, but it was as if there were needles growing in his shoulder, and the pain was the worst at night. After six days, Shaun could once again move his arm. His training really began after that. It was the same thing every day, swords, bed, food swords bed, never letting up. Not only was he receiving training from Cybele, but he was also receiving it from Aux, learning how to fend off a weapon that could normally crush him. They had gone back for his axe.

    Weeks of training had started to whip him into shape. Where there used to be flab, there was now muscle, and his endurance began to climb also. Soon he was able to hold his own against Athena, and give a decent fight to Cybele. Where it up to him he would have kept this training up until he could beat Cybele, but it was up to the fates. And the fates obviously did not want to keep him there. It was time for a journey.

    Cybele had received information on a person who may or may not have been connected to the old mans death. The only problem was that the person accused lived almost a continent away. Preparing for the journey had already begun, but they could tell that this journey was going to be a long one.

    The prep work began that day. Shaun did not have much to start with, but over his weeks with Cybele he had accumulated more clothing, and a brace that held his swords. Along with these he had also gained a small amount of gold bits. The day was long, and full of packing, shopping, and frustration.

    The end of the day rolled around, and all was finally finished. Everyone carried their own packs, plus one on a mule. All accept Aux whom carried his own packs, the food rations, camping gear, and medical supplies; all this didn’t even slow him down. They started their journey that night, and looking back upon the luminescent city, all they could do was think about how much they were going to miss it. They went the opposite direction of the old man’s house, on a dirt road made by the passing of many people, carts, wagons, and the never ending passage of time.

    A few hours after they left the trail, Cybele realized that Shaun didn’t know crap about camping. He could not pitch his tent, did not know to dig a fire pit, and could no not start a fire. After being scolded, Shaun was taught the ways of camping. He absorbed it all like a dry sponge. He had truly never been camping. Cybele lay looking at the stars, wandering what it must be like; to live in a world of horseless carriages, where camping was not necessary. The future must be a pretty dull place he decided. Cybele rolled over in his sleeping bag and went to sleep.

    Shaun awoke to the smell of scrambled eggs, and toast. Athena sat by the fire cooking, while Aux sat Close by coaching her. She obviously had no idea what she was doing. Cybele sat back watching, and laughing from time to time, but other than that the morning started out peacefully. But in a few short seconds, that all changed. The bushes around them exploded upwards, as bows were pointed towards them. At the head of the circle a man clad in green, scale armor, began to speak;
    “And who might you be?”
    “That is none of your concern.” Cybele said politely.
    “You are trespassing on our land, so I think it is.”
    “Point your bows away and we will leave peacefully.”
    “You will leave peacefully, and without your weapons, One, Two, retrieve their weapons”

    Two men lowered their bows and stepped out of the circle. Their faces were covered by black veils, and they were clad in a forest green armor of some sort. They made the mistake of approaching Shaun first. There were a total of nine of bandits in the circle, versus only the four of them. The man closest to him pulled his pack off his back, and began to go through the contents. The second man grabbed one of Shaun’s swords, the wrong one. The man’s hands burst into white flames, and he screamed something close to that of a woman giving birth. All heads foolishly turned towards him, as Athena unleashed a series of almost invisible throwing knives. On every bow, the string gave with a satisfying pop. Shaun kicked the man to the ground, retrieved his sword and drew his other, turning his back to his friends, and placing each of his blades at a man’s throat. The others apparently followed his lead, because soon he felt pressure to his left, right, and back. This, although was a useful tact, still left one man unguarded.

    The leader pulled out a secondary bow and drew the string. With a twang, the arrow lept, and bit into Shaun’s shoulder right above the heart. , Three kunai bit into his throat before he could string another arrow. The pain in Shaun’s chest was immense, but he knew that if he lowered his swords, he would not be the only one to suffer. Cybele spoke;
    “Your leader is dead; will you not let us go in peace now?”
    Man number two answered “once our leaders is dead the next in line instantly becomes our leader.”
    “And who might that be?”
    “Me” said a voice from a tree. Someone dropped down, and in their hands was a bow, strung with four arrows.
    “The man you just killed was a fool. I could not tell him so or I would have died, but now that I lead, I can say as I wish.”
    “We want no more trouble, our friend needs help, so if you would-” Cybele was cut off by Shaun’s collapse. Before any of them could move, the other person caught him, dropping their bow on the ground in the process. The stranger lay Shaun on his back, and examined the wound.
    “The arrow has stopped right before his heart; his ribs just barely saved his life.”
    What he did not say, but the others already knew, was that if he had not caught him, Shaun would be dead. Cybele sheathed his swords, and rushed over to Shaun. The arrow may not have killed him yet, but it still could if they didn’t remove it. The arrow had passed his ribs, but only just. To get it out, they were going to have to break his ribs. Slowly and calmly, Cybele and the stranger worked side by side, making a small incision and breaking the ribs.

    Shaun heard the cartilage, and bone popping as they worked at the arrow. He was almost too tired to watch. His eyelids slipped closed, and then he had a terrifying thought, what if he was pulled back again? He snapped his eyes open, and used the rest o his remaining will power to stay awake, to stay alive. The pain was starting to ebb, and Shaun did not know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. He could feel blood pooling around his shoulders now, and he was sure that he was going to die. Suddenly warmth entered his veins. He felt the pain come back, and he welcomed it, using it to cling to consciousness.

    He had not realized it but his body had gotten very cold, and even now he was still shivering. Shaun had also not realized that his vision was out focus, and was even now focusing in. A green clad figure was over him, sowing him closed. Lifting his head slightly, he realized that the figure was about to lean a knee down on his swords handle. He tried to push the person away, but Cybele caught him and said; “Its okay, they’re not trying to kill us”
    “b-but-” Shaun stammered, just as the stranger’s knee came into contact with his sword.
    There was a scream, and then fire, racing up the length of the person’s jeans. The person dropped trying to roll the fire out, but it only caused it to spread. Shaun’s pack, having been emptied onto the ground, was the closest. At the risk of splitting himself open again, Shaun rolled over and grabbed his canteen, and emptied its contents onto the stranger. The water didn’t help anything. Shaun tried to pat the stranger out, but the instant his hand made contact, they went out, without smoke, as if they had never been there. Shaun could see injuries, but they weren’t very serious.

    Shaun reached down to help the stranger stand up, and the veil covering the persons head fell off. It was a woman, with blood red hair, and slightly sharp features. Her eyes were double colored, with red ringing the outside, and dark green on the inside ring. A look of rage passed over her face.
    “You fool” she said, her voice sounding more feminine than it did before.
    “What?” Shaun asked, truly stumped at her anger.
    “Now they will never follow me.”
    “Why.”
    “They will not follow me because I am a woman.”
    “What difference does that make?”
    “They are shovonist pigs, so they see women as weaker than men.”
    “Just explain it to…them… when did they leave?”
    “They left as soon as they saw my face.”
    “What will you do now?”
    Shaun looked to the spot she had jus been, and she was gone, more silent than a mouse she had left Shaun standing there talking to himself.

    They retrieved all of their gear, and once again began to walk across the wicked terrain, and the fact that Shaun was shot slowed the down a lot, Cybele had said that he had never seen someone get gravely wounded as many times as Shaun had, and live to tell about it, he also spouted off something about getting armor, in the next town they visited, at least leather. The days had become long and painful, while the nights were cold and creepy. Shaun awoke early one morning, to see a sight he found strange, the stranger had snuck into their camp, and was just sitting there, staring at Aux. Rather than say anything he just closed his eyes, and waited for sleep to embrace him again.

    Shaun realized that Cybele had given him another of his potions, and he once again owed Cybele his life. Within three days, the bones had mended, and the wound had closed. The burn marks on Auxe’s hands were gone, and Cybele’s were almost gone. And of course Athena was not hurt at all. Their group was finally all almost healed. Cybele decided that it was high time for battle strategy. They camped for nearly two weeks, training with one another so that they could know where they needed to be, and when they needed to be there. And of course Shaun made it difficult for everybody. Aux, Athena, and Cybele all had specific battle styles, but Shaun just reacted. Other than that, they all sparred together with wooden sticks, roughly the size of their weapons (Aux used a tree trunk) and learned each others movements inside and out. It may have been exhausting, but it was defiantly worth knowing.

    As they were packing up to leave, a rustling sound came fro the bushes. Instantly all swords were drawn. The stranger ran out of the bushes, beaten op and bruised, and said two words that stopped everybody’s heart; “Help me.”
    She was propelled forward by an invisible force. Aux was there in an instant to catch her. A small humanoid shape walked out of the bushes carrying a small walking staff. Shaun ran up to warn him, but as he got closer, the men waved his staff and sent Shaun flying.

    Athena and Cybele stepped forward, preparing to move if needed. The small man waved his staff twice and they were also air born. Shaun was recovering from his flight when he had an idea. Running forward he screamed “eat this you son of a b***h!” and jumped towards the little man. A Shaun had predicted, the little man sent a blast of air at him, just as it hit him, Shaun threw his sword handle first at the little man. He smiled caught it, and burst into flames. An inhuman shriek filled the air as the little man dropped both his staff, and Shaun’s sword, and burst into even brighter flames. Soon the poor creature was dead, just a smoldering pile of ashes, being blown aw3ay by a gentle breeze.

    Shaun walked over and picked up his sword, sheathing it, and reached down for the staff. Somehow he managed to miss it, so he tried again, and again, and again. He swore and left it lying there. After a group discussion about not knowing what the hell that thing was, how the strange girl was doing, Shaun told them about its staff. They laughed at him, and of course nobody believed him, so he invited them to try. They all took turns trying to pick it up as Shaun in turn laughed at them, and finally, they decided to just leave it there. Shaun walked back to where the strange girl was set to rest, and asked her;
    “What is your name?”
    “Why does my name matter to you?”
    “You saved my life.”
    “And you saved mine, so were even, see?”
    “you have been with us for three weeks and three days now. I see you stare at Aux. and do you think it was a coincidence that he caught you today? And if you needed help then why did you come to us? Because you knew we would. So I ask again, what’s your name?”
    “Well when you put it like that… My birth name is Cassandra, but I go by Cassy.”
    “Nice to meet you Cassy, my name is Shaun, the girl over there is Athena, and the man you don’t have a thing for is Cybele” (Shaun got punched for that one) “And the one you like is Aux, the big meat head.”
    “I will have to introduce myself…”
    “So?”
    “What if they don’t like me?”
    “You’re such a girl, it’ll be fine, don’t worry about it. And if they don’t convince you, ask Cybele about his past with Athena.”

    Cassy started down the hill, with a curios look on her face. Shaun caught up to her and they walked in silence down to the others. As Cassy walked up to introduce herself, she tripped, giving a great show of not falling down. She mumbled something about a stupid stick, and bent down to pick it up and throw it.

    When she stood back up, everybody had a surprised look on their faces, and just before she threw it, Aux managed to say;
    “Stop!”
    “What, why?”
    “That was the staff the creature was using.”
    “So?”
    “So, none of us could pick it up, and you did without even trying.”
    “So, it’s still to short for…”
    Just before she said me, the staff grew to the right length, almost as if it knew what Cassy was saying. They all looked in amazement at the longer, more elegant staff. Cybele was the first to speak up;
    “Err… (Cassy) Cassy, okay. I believe you might be a mage.”
    “But… I … I don’t know the slightest thing about magic!”
    “You still are what you are, you just have to learn.”
    “I guess…”
    “Since you have already been following us, how would you like to travel with us?”
    “I would love to!”
    “Good, you may even pick up a thing or two on the way.”
    “I hope so”
    “Where’s your bow?”
    “It… was destroyed by that thing…”
    “Don’t worry; we will get you another as we go.”
    Two more long weeks on the trail revealed three things. Firstly, Cassy was a very free spirit, in a hippie type of way. Secondly, they did not carry more than six weeks of food. Finally, Athena is very territorial over Shaun.

    All Cassy would do was wonder around, never really doing anything, but always moving. She would play as if she were a child, and no matter how grave a situation was, she could always make it seem a little better.

    There were two days remaining in the week, and we were down to the last of our food supply. Aux looked grimly into the bag that held the food, and brought out our last loaf of bread, and our last chunk of dried meat. He threw the meat into a pot with some fresh water, ad some wild potatoes that Shaun had found growing next to a stream. He passed around the bread, and informed everyone of the situation. There was a general air of frustration, as everyone contemplated the situation. The city was still three days away, but with a little luck, and a lot of hunger, they would be able to make it.

    On the second day, Shaun awoke to find Cassy had curled up behind him, looking for warmth because Aux had gone hunting. There was the sliding of metal, and then the sound of a sword being parried, and Shaun turned to see that Athena had lashed out at Cassy, and Cassy had blocked it with her staff. They both knew that Athena easily could have killed her in her sleep, this was simply a warning. Athena lay down next to Shaun, where Cassy had been, and when he went to say something, she slapped the living s**t out of him.

    As the third day rolled around, the small city could be seen, but their hunger was eating at their stomachs, and they were all weak and exhausted. Aux wound up carrying both Athena and Cassy (who were friends now), and Shaun and Cybele walked at a slow, stumbling pace. The smells of the city woke them up a little bit, and as they approached its borders, they could see towns people looking at them curiously. The closer they got, the more towns’ people gathered. They moved through town, and watched the people watch them.

    A cheer erupted from somewhere in the crowd, and all of a sudden they were swarmed by people, being pulled this way and that, being fed, and washed, and all the while they had absolutely no idea what they had done. People danced, and cheered, and partied like they were having some kind of festival. A man approached Cassy, and smiling he handed her a large bag, when we peered inside of it, it was full to the brim of gold bits.
    “But why?” Cybele asked the man
    “Why, it’s the bounty for slaying the monster of course” the man replied
    “What monster?”
    “An evil little fellow, who would send people flying, with that staff as a matter of fact, most people died. You did kill it right?”
    Everything seemed to stop around them, as if the town itself were holding its breath, Cybele said;
    “It’s as dead as dead can be”
    And everything exploded to life around them, musicians, and street peddlers, children playing in the streets, and a messenger being sent to the old town to tell them the coast has been cleared by a group of brave warriors. They split the gold bits five ways, since they all had a part in killing it. They decided to give Shaun the four extra gold bits, and decided to split up, and explore the town, they were too meet back where they had come in that morning. With seven hundred thirty four gold bits in his pocket, Shaun went first to the town’s blacksmith. Here he bought a sheath that his smaller sword luckily fit into, a polishing rag, a sword sharpening stone, and a large swatch of leather to make a sheath for his main sword, and leather strips. All together it cost him twenty four and one half gold bits.

    While looking for a place to stay the night for cheap, Shaun came across a store named simply Leather; this was intriguing, so he decided to go in. Inside he was surrounded by anything he could think of, made of leather. But what caught his eye, was all of the way in back, in a display case that was surrounded by candles. Inside of it was, a black leather breast plate, black leather gauntlets, black leather pants, a black leather shirt, black leather gloves, and black leather sword belts. As soon as he seen it he almost began to drool. A lady walked out of the back of the store and seen him staring, she cackled and said;
    “A bit out of your price range boy.”
    “How much is it?” Shaun replied
    “Six hundred, fifty two, and a half”
    “I will give you six hundred even.”
    “Six twenty five”
    “Six hundred take it or leave it”
    “Show me the money.”
    “Here.”
    Shaun counted out the six hundred as she went to get the outfit. What Shaun had not seen were the black leather shoulder plates, and the black leather travel cloak. After being completely garbed, he looked in the reflective glass. He looked like a paladin in black, and it fit him so well. After walking for a little while, Shaun found the local INN and decided to book the night there, for only twelve gold bits. For the first part of the night, Shaun spent hours upon hours using the polishing rag to repair the damage done to his sword by normal wear and tear. By the time he was done, his sword could be used as a mirror it was so shiny. Next came, the sharpening stone. Cybele had taught him how to use one, but it was a terribly long process taking around five hours. Finally, it was down to the sheath, which he had to sow out of thick leather, using a small knife and threading the leather strips through. It was, of course, black leather, and it looked pretty good, but more importantly, it was a perfect fit for his sword.

    Shaun awoke that morning, to find that he had only an accumulative of one hundred gold bits. Shaun put the extra pieces of leather left after making his sheath into his leather pack, which was brown sadly, and left the INN heading towards the entrance of town. To his left he found that a shop window said Hair Cuts, so he stopped by and for five bits had his hair cut. Everybody was already at the entrance, so he began walking towards them, they seemed not to notice him, and so he casually walked up, and kissed Athena. A flash and a dagger was pulled out, stopped just short of his throat, the other surrounded him drawing their weapons, as Athena said;
    “If my boyfriend were here he would slit your throat for that”
    “I sure as hell would.” Shaun replied, smiling
    “Shaun?”
    “Yep, it’s me.”
    “You look so…”
    This time, she leaned in and kissed him. The others were all gawking at his armor, when Cybele finally asked how much it cost him he had looked at the ground and said six hundred, expecting that to be a lot, but when Cybele repeated it loudly, it was as if he were jealous. He said it was a steal, because this armor was made by a companion of his whom had gone missing, and turned up dead. They say it was his last work, because unlike other blacksmiths, he also mastered working with cloth, and leather. Shaun’s new armor was guaranteed to stand up against most anything.

    As they were leaving town, they bought supplies for three months, a new bow for Cassy (at Auxe’s very, very expensive expense) and two more mules to carry their packs. They all stopped by Leather an bought various articles of clothing and armor, then everyone got hair cuts, and that was the end of their stay at mercy bay. They set out as everyone in the town stood by the entrance and waved good bye to the local heroes.

    The trail picked up from there, heading up into what appeared to be mountains, and the terrain just got rougher from there. So far, it was proving to be a good purchase to have bought his armor, both he and Athena had been using the leather travel cloak to keep warm at night, and to the best of their knowledge, Cassy and Aux had been sharing a tent too. Which kind of made Shaun feel bad for Cybele, to have nobody, it must have been horrible. For as long as Shaun had known Cybele he was alone, only after getting the group together did he have somebody to rely on, and now both Him and Aux have someone.

    Cybele lay in his tent, laughing at the youth for being so clingy, and glad about the fact that he had nobody to be tied down to. He had loved and lost so far in his life time, he did not need to go through that again. He was happy to be on a journey, or behind his work table. Most of all, he was just happy that he never had to try to impress anyone ever again. After his dad and his third wife died, he had no need to care anymore. In three wives, he had no children, so he had not a care in the world he did what he loved, and loved what he did.

    That morning in camp everybody was happy, until they heard the bad news. The group was going to split up. There were two paths, and no way of telling which was which. In one week’s time, if they did not reach a city, or even an individual’s home, they were to turn back and come here. If they arrived here, they were to take the other path immediately. There was another point of bad news. Cybele was going to check on yet another path, so it would be, Cybele, Aux and Cassy, Athena and Shaun. Cybele said for the first group that arrives at the city, wait three weeks. If I or the other group does not appear, assume they are dead, and return to Mercy Bay, where you can live out the rest of your lives happily.

    The three groups split up, each heading in a different direction, each to face their own fate. Cybele turned and walked off, knowing that what he had just done, was foolish, but would test their relationships. He knew what the outcome of this plan of his would be… or at least he hoped he did.

    Shaun smiled to himself as he took the path closest to the middle. He would prove to Cybele that anything could be done if it was asked of him. And to prove to Athena that he was at a higher level than even her now, and he can protect her

    Aux walked ahead of Cassy worried, how was he supposed to tell her what happens when he and Shaun separate? If only he had been cut by Shaun…oh well…