"Last I checked I believe I was asking the questions," said the Phantom, but he took an apple as well and tossed it up and down contemplatively. "Rebellions take money, you know. You need armor, weapons, food, transportation..." he ticked them off on his fingers and added with a shrug, "the help of various people you wouldn't get otherwise." Eledhe. "There are more refugees every day. We need to be able to feed them, house them, clothe them."

He waved a hand at the furniture. "This isn't because I'm rich. It's rather more due to the fact that the people who made these things would be very offended if I refused to use them."

_________________

Kjan opened his mouth, only to find that he did not have a suitable reply. Or rather, he had one, but not one that would have any sort of desirable results. The response his mind immediately generated was something along the lines of 'I'd sooner be dipped in boiling tar, coated with birdseed, and thrown to a flock of boran during mating season,' but actually saying that would no doubt give Jais ideas, and Kjan was not interested in discovering just how large of a gap there was in his younger companion's reasoning.

What he was interested in, however, was what the Phantom was planning on discussing with their new 'friend.' He was quite intrigued by the young noble -what was his name, again?- and was understandably upset that the Phantom had not chosen to include him in their discussion. Here was someone of his own (former) social standing, someone who had no doubt had an upbringing similar to his. The boy seemed to share (or parrot, Kjan suspected) the views of those he had been raised by, yet he seemed quite unlike most of the nobility Kjan had had the pleasure of meeting. He vaguely wondered if he had ever encountered the man at any of the various events he'd attended in his previous life. Not that his parents had really made him attend many parties after the roast duck had landed quite unceremoniously -and completely by accident, he swore- on Lady Lyrain's head (though the evening had been considerably quieter and far more pleasant after the fact), but there was always a chance that they'd become acquainted at some point.

Of course, he hadn't exactly been uninvited. The Phantom had just taken off with their guest without saying a word to anyone. There certainly wasn't any reason Kjan couldn't follow them. In fact, he could think of several occasions on which the Phantom had wanted him to follow and yet said nothing, trusting Kjan to pick up on it anyway. Yes, that was it. He was practically encouraging him to come. The only flaw in Kjan's otherwise impeccable logic was that following the Phantom involved leaving Jais. Alone. Bored. Unsupervised. As Kjan had grown quite fond of his new home over the past few years, this, above all else, was to be avoided.

And so, Kjan determined, it was time to employ a long-established strategy: dump Jais on someone else. "Look, an eligible damsel!" he cried. The moment Jais's attention was effectively diverted, Kjan took off in the opposite direction, doing his best to ignore the figurative daggers being hurled in his direction by a certain greatly-displeased elf princess. My Lady Silvryn would forgive him...he hoped.

Finally, he came to the Phantom's quarters. Not even bothering to knock (he wouldn't want to interrupt, after all), he let himself in and leaned up against a back wall. "Don't mind me," he said when he found two gazes fixed uncomfortably on him. "I'm just here for the show."

"Ah, Kjan! Have a seat - if you can find one," offered the Phantom, looking about him at the cheerfully untidy chambers. There was a stack of parchment on the nearest chair, which was surrounded by what looked suspiciously like tall rolled-up carpets. Strangely enough a gift of one carpet hadn't been quite enough for their latest addition to the Keep, a prolific weaver who would have happily decorated with her creations the floor, walls and ceiling of the entire cavernous construction with nary a word of complaint. The Phantom had evidently made such a positive first impression that her intention seemed to veritably clothe him in carpets.

"Kjan, Jateyani. Jateyani, Kjan. I don't believe you answered my question," he continued genially in the boy's direction, still tossing the apple up and down contemplatively. His thoughts, however, were beginning to go decidedly elsewhere.

There was still the matter of that rolled-up parchment in his pocket. That would no doubt be examined and reexamined to within an inch of its life, and the Phantom made a mental note to get Eledhe and Silvryn to confer with him and Kjan as to what exactly their next course of action would be now that he'd gotten it. Eledhe and Silvryn. He winced inwardly. There had been better pairings. Perhaps he'd throw Jais in the mix to keep things suitably impromptu.

_________________

"What question?" Jate asked, leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms. "As I recall, you want to know if I know Lady Silvyrn. What do you think the answer is? Everyone in the kingdom knows her. Well, pretty much."

He glanced slightly at the man-Kjan, was it?- lounging on the wall, then his eyes flicked back of their own accord. Did he know this man? The face seemed...oddly familiar. But that wouldn't be possible, unless Jate had seen him on the streets or such at one time or another.

Deciding his apple wasn't really too much of stolen loot, Jate took a bite and heard it's refreshing crisp. He was not giving in, he was just hungry, that's all. And he'd need to keep up strength if he was ever to get out of this place. If he could just get a look at that map...Jate comfortably swung his leg over the arm of the chair, just happening to place his head near the table with the map. He casually reached up to scratch his head...and twenty papers came cascading off the table top.

"Oh, terribly sorry," Jate muttered as he bent to pick up the papers.

_________________
going on a journey through my old claims

Kjan was crouched on the ground next to Jate before than the young noble could so much as blink. "Please, allow me," he said easily, flashing Jate a grin and beginning to gather all the papers together once more. "You are our guest, and nobility besides. It would be just plain rude to make you do any work."

As he straightened the stack of documents he'd gathered thus far and added a few more to the collection, Kjan caught Jate's eyes lingering over one particular sheet: a map. "It's not on there, you know," he whispered conspiratorially, then clarified, "On the map. That was a commendable effort on your part, however. I employed a similar method once when trying to obtain my father's signature on a document stating that he knew precisely what had occured during my visit to Lord Beryn's summer estate, and that he did intend to pay for the damages. Of course, I didn't want for him to know about any of that, and so one day a bird accidentally got loose in my father's study and accidentally knocked over a few stacks of paper, and by the time the creature was gone, the document had accidentally wound up on top of the papers he was signing. To this day, I don't think he knows."

Winking and patting the young man's upper arm amiably, Kjan straightened, then set about finding a usable chair. After turning down one that seemed liable to collapse the moment he added his weight to it and another that was sticky with a substance of questionable origin, Kjan finally settled for removing a large stack of papers from an equally large chair and draping himself unceremoniously across its arms. "Jateyani of Lord Ralkaien's house?" he asked abruptly, not even sure where the question had come from, nor the name, for that matter. He chalked it up to the hour being ridiculously late (or early, he supposed, by now) and his own hours spent asleep being pitiably few. Anyway, worst-case-scenario, he was wrong, and the young noble thought he was an idiot. Nothing terribly new.

Jate blinked at the barrage of words coming at him. All he seemed to filter through the muss was that this Kjan had known exactly what he was going to do. Getting out of here would be difficult. One sentence caught his ear.

"Jateyani of Lord Ralkaien's house?"

Jerking his head up, Jate stared at the man. How would he know his house? Staring hard in Kjan's eyes, Jate tried to think of where he would have met this strange, self-assured stranger.

_________________
going on a journey through my old claims

"As I remember," said the Phantom thoughtfully - he still hadn't bitten into the apple and was tossing it absently from hand to hand - "Ralkaien was that fellow who had the agents in Hurad Eren, wasn't he? The one who was trying to import slaves from the desert..." he trailed off. "Or was than Pyrell?"

He shrugged as if dismissing the matter and looked back at Jate and Kjan. His mind had already moved on from the young noble, and the Phantom observed him now with only a faint air of interest - though Jate's earlier words still lingered at the back of his mind, refusing to be banished. I am not about to set up a tyrant.

"Have the dwarven stonemasons been dispatched with the gold I promised them, Kjan?" he inquired thoughtfully, making as if to rise - both the Phantom's mood and his topic of discussion tended to be as changeable as the wind. "I've never seen such a race capable of being irate so quickly."

_________________

Jais rather liked this new status quo. Very much. In fact...

ED1's Glare of Ultimate Doom (EGoUD) warned away the lotioned hand that was even now surreptitiously inching through the little pocket of air between them. So much for holding her hand. He glanced askance at her tapering fingers. Those beautiful tapering fingers... like tannish rainbows... or so many thinnish twigs swaying in the wind...

O my lady Silvryn! Your fingers are like twigs! Your fingernails like oval rays of sunshine! Your hair like deepest midnight... or my grandmother's darkish socks...!

O Bonbon!!! Such poetry! Take my hand, my gallant knight in thief's armor, and we shall sail the stars together and let fly our dreams of birds and warts and lax geniuses....

Staring at her now, his perilous expedition which could result in him being curious which could result in the entire mountain crashing around their ears which could result in someone's untimely demise was all but forgotten. With all the charm of a landed fish, he opened his mouth and proclaimed, "O my lady Silvryn! Your fingers are like - "

Mercifully for him, that was when a loose stalactite detached itself from the ceiling and landed on his head. The stars prancing around his head were kind of pretty....

_________________

"Sounds like something 'My Lord' would do," Jate muttered under his breath. He had little love for his alleged father. Seeing the Phantom turning his thoughts elsewhere, Jate stood up.

"May I ask, where am I to stay? Unless, of course, you plan on sending me back home tonight." Stifling a yawn, Jate stared at Kjan and the Phantom.

_________________
going on a journey through my old claims

After they had arrived back at the underground fortress, Ash had taken the opportunity to wash the charcoal off his face. Actually, he kind of regretted doing it. It was a clever disguise, he thought- simple, yet effective. Of course, his blackened face had been the recipient of many stares and not a few snickers. <i>Critics. They don't appreciate my genius.</i>

Walking through the caverns, he was still discovering a good deal of stares and snickers were being directed at him. He glanced down self-conciously. The front of his shirt was streaked liberally with charcoal and water. He half-shrugged. It would clean.

With the terribly exciting venture of washing his face done with, Ash found himself very bored. Fortunately, he soon found Jais was putting on an interesting show. Leaning against a wall, Ash settled down to watch. About that time, a stalagtite came crashing down upon Jais' head.

Ash winced, then walked over and offered his hand to help Jais up. "That looked painful." he commented brilliantly. With any luck, the Lady Silvryn would be struck by his loyalty to his friends, be overcome by emotion, and realize her true feelings for him. A kiss would be nice as well.

<i>I hope it doesn't look like I've drooled on myself.</i> he thought worriedly.

Silvryn deigned to endure Jais's company with an air of elvish indifference, silently making a note to have Kjan encounter an unfortunate accident in the near future. Though, aside from the occasional attempt to grab her hand (which was easily thwarted with a dark glare in his direction), Jais was almost being tolerable tonight....Then he opened his mouth- no doubt with the intent of 'serenading' her yet again, she reflected dismally.

Fortunately, this evening's bout of attempted poetry was cut short as a small stalactite detached itself from the cave's roof and conveniently landed on the thief's head just as he had begun to extol her fingers. Unfortunately, fate saw fit that she should be temporarily relieved of one idiot, only to gain a second. Typical, that, she thought resignedly.

Glancing down briefly to assess Jais's wound, then looking up at the second idiot -Ash?- again, she declared, "He'll live."
___________________________________________________________________________________________

"Mercifully, yes," Kjan said in response to the Phantom's query. "Though I do suspect they may have made off with more than that. I observed Belnarr standing rather conspicuously outside the kitchen earlier, and I wouldn't be surprised if we found our supplies mysteriously absent a few kegs of ale."

He dismissed this thought with a casual shrug, then turned toward their newest guest. "But of course we'll send you back tonight, my friend!" he replied cheerfully. "In fact, to save you the trouble of wandering aimlessly through the wilderness, I'll even draw you up a nice map from the Keep back to Y'rydha. And then Phantom and I shall go and present ourselves before the venerable Regent himself and place our heads on the chopping block for him. I have an extra bed in my quarters, should you desire it."

"This is it." The leather-clad ranger felt the rock, then stepped back for the Guild Master.

Falch'nus drew his green cowl back for a better look. His eyes scanned the flat heath behind him, then shifted to the foreground - the barren mountainside above him, stabbing into the sunset sky like black monoliths. The Earth's Teeth had been aptly named. And he wasn't especially titillated to be standing at its base, on Vidyr's volatile border.

He did not know about the extensive network of caverns and tunnels within. Neither did the High Vizier, or the Phantom would already be eliminated, along with the threat. Falch'nus cared little about Kytana's weal or the blinding jewels adorning the Regent's fingers and silk robes. He cared only that as long as Phantom Grey thrived, so did his guild. It wasn't Falch'nus's fault that the Regent had paid him before the Phantom had escaped.

In fact, Falch'nus knew little of his current task save for what the Regent had seen fit to impart. "Sir bounty hunter, you have extensive knowledge of the border, do you not? I want you to procure for me an artifact, said in the ancient texts to be hidden under the Earth's Teeth."

The artifact had been crafted by dwarves, and they'd hid it well. The solid mountain face now smirking down at them testified to that quite suitably.

A raucous cry sounded from above, and Falch'nus extended a gloved hand for the gray gyrfalcon that descended from the darkening skies to perch on his arm. Night was not the bird's element, though it looked calm from its circling.

"All clear," he announced, glancing back at the five men behind him. "Fire away."

-----

Boom.

In the middle of assuring ED1 that she was absolutely correct - a concussion was nothing compared to the toils he'd suffered under Belnarr's cruel tyranny - Jais rocked back on his heels, landing on his sensitive rear end for the second time in thirty seconds. And... what was that? Something bursting on his left buttock...

Oh. Lovely. He'd forgotten all about the wart.

A few more stalactites detached themselves from the walls to batter the poor bachelor's thin skull. The sky was falling! And he hadn't even embarked on a perilous expedition which could result in him being curious which could result in the entire mountain crashing around their ears which could result in someone's untimely demise! Alas, where was the fun in that?

"My lady Silvryn, whose fingers are like twigs! Never fear, for Bonbon your gallant knight will protect you!" He threw himself at Silvryn, toppling both of them into the wall. His best friend Ash could have described the incident as painful, provided a stalactite hadn't already blasted his nonexistent brains out. Ash's nonexistent brains, that is.

-----

"You couldn't have been a bit more subtle?" Falch'nus demanded, milliseconds after picking himself up from the rock beneath him. The rather hard rock beneath him. He threw his arm over his mouth and submitted to the same coughing fit plaguing all his men.

"It looked like a small explosive," protested Dirral, the one who'd ignited the powder. "The alchemist assured me that - "

Falch'nus waved it away. He coudn't help it now. Fearful of an avalanche, he scanned the slopes above him. Nothing more threatening than a few tumbling rocks. Incredible fortune seemed to favor them. The explosive had done its work, he noted when the debris and choking dust had settled.

Seltonn, the consummate ranger, had led this mercenary band adroitly to the precise location. A gaping aperture now scarred the mountainside. Rubble half obscured what was most definitely a tunnel descending into the Earth's Teeth. A tunnel crafted by dwarves, to have even survived the explosion.

"Clear the tunnel," Falch'nus commanded, setting to the strenuous task himself. As he'd so brilliantly observed five minutes ago, subtlety was not an asset. They'd have to work quickly.

_________________

Ash looked up in surprise as sounds of an explosion echoed through the tunnels and rocks showered down around him. Several stalagtites decided to land on his head, shoulders, and back. Grimacing in pain, he had little time to think and even less time to act. Jais had beat him to the rescue-the-fair-damsel act, so Ash threw himself against the nearest wall, hoping it would provide some measure of protection.

With his vunerable limbs a bit safer, two pressing questions presented themselves to his mind. Glancing at Jais and Silvryn, he asked the more pressing one first. "Her fingers are like <i>what</i>?" As a rock landed on his head, he asked the second question. "What's happening?"

In the midst of replying wryly, the Phantom started upright as the very ground shook beneath their feet. "What was that?" he demanded of no one in particular - or everyone in the general vicinity, either worked. "Kjan, if you would see to our guest's accommodations," he added, mind clearly otherwise occupied, and was gone in a whirl of grey cloak.

That one shake appeared to be the end of it, but the Phantom was not one to dismiss it as nothing. Nothing did not produce a tremor of that size. Luckily there were no stalactites in the main corridors and larger chambers, and nothing seemed to be dislodged beyond the trivial. He paused at a corner, frowning. Was that the barest breath of air...? A draft? There shouldn't be drafts, not this deep in the caves.

Moving with an air of one determined to get to the bottom of this, the Phantom continued to follow what he now identified as a distinct breath of air. He was somewhat hampered by the rush of people emerging from their various dwelling, asking in bewilderment what had happened.

"...broke all my crockery, it did! Sir Phantom, what..."

"...'tis a miner's tool if I ever 'eard it, m'lord..."

"...explosive..."

The Phantom stopped dead in the middle of the teeming thoroughfare. "A dwarf!" he said loudly, ignoring the plentiful protests around him. "A dwarf, a miner - a knowledgeable one - someone send for a dwarf!"

_________________

Kjan was on his feet not half a second after the blast shook the Keep. He opened his mouth to reply to the Phantom's question with a sardonic retort, only to find that said Phantom had already departed and left him behind. Again. Turning toward Jate, he forced a smile and swept an arm dramatically toward the door. "Well, 'guest,' shall we investigate?"
___________________________________________________________________________________________

"Phantom!" a voice called out over the others, interrupting the Phantom's string of orders. Moments later, Silvryn pressed her way through the crowd, her two would-be 'protectors' in tow. "Firstly, these are yours. Secondly, what was that?!"

Just slightly farther away in the caves there was a cavern that had been shaped by an outside source, the floor had turned more into a pit that circled downwards. The only guidance the dark cavern gave for those that entered was a lonely light in the bottom of the pit and the sounds of a pick hitting against the rock. Khraven Copper helm preferred to work alone and in the quiet, but as an experienced miner he felt the tremors of an explosion and gazed at the edge of the pit with a confused yet furious face. He was not aware of other mining here nor explosives, he certainly carried some with him, but he didn`t know anyone else having any.

Khraven muttered a curse in dwarven before rushing up the pit and reaching the top surprisingly quickly, grabbing suitable places in the stone and using his pick for help. He grabbed his other gear and tied his mining pick to his back along with his shield, you never knew what dangers lurked in these tunnels. After heading into the tunnels it was not before long someone came running and shouting for a dwarf, why Khraven was not aware. Yet despite his lack of insight, Khraven stormed past the man and grabbed him by the sleeve dragging him along.

"Now where be the trouble? Who set off the explosives?"

Khraven asked with a cold tone and didn`t even look at the man. The man seemed happy about the fact that he had found Khraven and took the lead, not long they arrived to Phantom and the man stepped aside leaving Khraven before Phantom. Khraven tsked loudly and crossed his hands on his chest.

"Who be blowing up the caves?"

Khraven asked with a demanding tone as he was sure they were able to give a straight answer in exchange for his aid or whatever the hell they wished of him.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!