The Early Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 7. Rain and Stone

The town welcomed us as returning heroes, as best as they could in the downpour. None of us, not even the resilient Mordo, could join in their soggy celebration. We took our turns visiting the Carla the healer, then sought the comfort of our beds. We did not stir until a day later. And still the rain poured down.

When we finally found our way to the common room of the inn, Gaerling and the bookish wizard we’d seen came to see us.

“This is Westendorf. He, like you, has come to call Ellry home.”

“Yes, noble warriors, let me offer my thanks for your help against the kobolds,” Westendorf said. He was a slight man in good robes and only slightly taller than Leffe.

“You’re a wizard, Wes, unless I miss my guess,” said Dalvin.

“Indeed, good druid, you are correct.”

“We could have used a magical hand out there, wizard,” I said.

“Ah, yes. Well, I…I’m afraid I haven’t progressed very much in my research of offensive spells. I’ve only recently finished my apprenticeship.”

“What kind of spells do you have?” I asked.

“Minor tricks, some illusions. I’m quite adept and making prestidigitation work in creative ways.”

“Oof. You were right to stay behind the wall,” Leffe said.

“My real strength,” Westendorf said, drawing himself up straight, “is in research. Especially when it comes to things supernatural.”

“This is leading somewhere, otherwise Gaerling wouldn’t have come with you,” I said. I wasn’t up to being my usual pleasant self. In truth, seeing the mayor before us yet again, and not with a chest of gold, set my perfect teeth grinding. I could sense yet another favor coming.

“It’s the rain, you see,” Gaerling said in his over-smiling, desperate manner. “It’s not natural.”

I walked to the window of the inn and looked out. The rain ran down the street in full streams now. Mud and debris completely covered the stone pavers of the road. Townsfolk labored to dig trenches or sandbag around buildings. One home’s roof had caved in. It had been weakened in the kobolds’ first attack on Ellry. In the lower parts of the town, near the gate, water pooled.

“It’s not just the amount of rain, you see,” Westendorf said. “It’s oily nature won’t be good for the crops, should any survive the deluge.”

“I was afraid of that,” Dalvin said. “Nothing about that rain felt natural to me.”

I stifled a grumble. The gnomish druid suddenly had a new cause, now that the undead had been put down. I glanced over at Mordo, who sat with a blank smile on his face. If he was listening or ten leagues away, lost in his own thoughts, I could not tell.

I turned from the window. “Let’s get to it. What do you need us to do?”

Westendorf looked to Gaerling. The mayor nodded and the small wizard cleared his throat. “Frankly, I don’t know.”

“You’re honest, I’ll give you that,” Leffe said.

“That is to say, I don’t know how to stop the rain. I do know someone who might.”

“Is there some reason a townsman can’t go and contact this someone?” I asked.

“The kobolds—they, well, are they truly gone?” Gaerling said.

I realized that I had no way of knowing. We hadn’t properly scouted their lair. Besides, with the shaman’s abilities to raise undead soldiers, they’d recover sooner or later. Still, the town’s general inability to even make an attempt at saving itself annoyed me. I don’t mind risking my dashingly handsome head for good people, but I expect them to be trying to save themselves, too.

I sighed. Dalvin, of course, eagerly anticipated another chance to make the natural world right. Mordo would probably go along with whatever we decided, as long as crushing was involved somewhere. Leffe surprised me the most. For whatever reason, he seemed to like the wizard Westendorf.

“Mayor, you still haven’t paid us for the last heroics exploits,” I said, trying to appeal to Leffe’s well-honed sense of greed. “Yet here you are asking another favor.”

“We give you shelter, food, ale and healing,” the mayor said.

“What’s this ‘we’ nonsense?” Waltr the barman yelled from his post at the kegs. “I expect to be paid for this!”

“Not now, Waltr! What good will pay do you if your inn washes away?”

“Be a good way to pay for building a new one, for starters,” Waltr said more quietly, before he returned to wiping the same spot on the bar.

“Be serious, Gaerling,” I said. “While we do wish to help you, you can’t expect that to come at no cost.”

“I see. I didn’t take you for mercenaries.”

I started to growl something back, but Dalvin leapt to his feet.

“What good Ander means, Mayor, is that we have expenses, too. We can’t properly work to save Ellry without being able to restock, you see.” Dalvin looked from the mayor to me. I bit back on my annoyance. Dalvin, sympathetic, added “And it is our time, effort and lives on the line. Surely a reasonable man such as yourself can see the need for appropriate compensation.”

The mayor thought it over. “It’ll take some time to get funds together. Many people have lost what little they had. I’ll tell you what. We are still waiting to hear back from King Vargas. They should be here by the time you get back from the druid’s grove. Surely they’ll have funds to compensate you.”

I had little faith in that scenario, but I gave up my objections. I was mostly sticking to principle anyway, wanting them to at least understand what we’d already been through to help them.

“What’s this druid’s grove?” Dalvin said. “I haven’t established one around here yet.”

“Not you, friend gnome,” said Westendorf. The town wizard unrolled a parchment that had suddenly come to his hand and laid out a map on the table. He pointed to a body of trees set a good distance from the main trail. “Hawken Bramblebraid. He’s a druid of some power, as I understand it. He’s a bit before my time.” He looked to Mayor Gaerling for confirmation.

The mayor nodded. “Aye. We used to trade with him, supplies for help with the crops, that sort of thing. We haven’t seen him much lately, though.”

“Probably because he wanted to be paid in actual money,” I grumbled under my breath. Leffe smirked from behind his hand. Dalvin held up his hand, imploring me. His interest had grown even more. I assumed he’d relish the chance to learn at the foot of a druid master.

“Actually,” Mayor Gaerling said to me, “No. Bramblebraid was fine with the arrangement. He seemed to disdain the money of civilization. No, he became increasingly, ah, eccentric, in his behavior.”

“How eccentric?” I asked, my brow lowering in suspicion.

“He tended to not wear clothing. At all.”

“That’s eccentric all right.”

“Yes, and word is that he may have laid many traps around this grove to deter guests. Not that experienced adventurers such as yourselves will have any problem, I’m sure.”

I rubbed my temples and walked over to Waltr at the bar. Tyr bless him, he set a full tankard out for me. I took a long pull on it.

“You coming with us, Westendorf?” I said.

“No, I’m afraid my talents would be put to better use here, diverting the water.”

“Does this mean you’ll do it?” Mayor Gaerling asked.

I looked at my companions and could easily read their faces. I rolled my eyes and returned to my beer.

“We’d be delighted to, Mayor,” Dalvin said.

* * *







“Leffe, you’re telling me that you’re all right with this? To keep helping out Ellry when they can’t pay?” I said as we trudged along the path through the western forest, toward the druid’s grove.

“No, not at all. Funny thing is, I’ve been trying to be a bit more like you,” the dwarf said. “You really stuck your neck out to help these people. I didn’t see the cold glint of coin in your eyes when you did so. Not like me.”

“And here I thought I could depend on your well-developed sense of greed.”

“Were you being greedy when you saved me from that poison?”

I grumbled something unintelligible, even to myself.

“I told you, not a lot of people have shown me kindness. Not a lot, but some. I guess what you did got through to me,” Leffe said.

“You’re saying you don’t want to make some coin off this?” I said, recovering my tongue.

“Of course I do, but I’m betting we can take it off the villains, when all is said and done. But you tell me, if they didn’t make that promise to pay us when the king gets here, would you have walked away from them?”

I clenched my jaw, then released it. I’m dashing when I’m stubborn, but he had a point.

Leffe spotted the druid’s first trap shortly after the conversation ended. It was a nasty thing, a spiked branch set waist high to a man. If Dalvin had wander into it, it would have impaled his face. Leffe disarmed it and we continued on, more wary. What Leffe missed I caught, and vice versa. The next was a pit with spikes in it. Last, we made it under some hanging logs, sharpened to point and suspended up in the canopy of trees.

“He sure likes his spikes,” Leffe said.

“Uh, you could say that again,” Dalvin said, nudging the rogue. Even Mordo was caught flat-footed by the sudden appearance of a man in front of us. His hair fell down to his waist, and his beard even farther than that, which was fortunate for our sensibilities; the man wore only a belt with a pouch on it.

“You must be Hawken,” I said.

“If he’s not, then there’s two naked guys running around the woods,” Dalvin said.

“Thanks for that thought.”

The old, naked fellow seemed to be chewing on the ends of his moustache as he cocked one eyebrow, then another, examining us. He hopped sideway around us until he’d done a full circle.

He stopped in front of Mordo and blew out the ends of the mustache he’d been working on. “You’re here from Ellry about the rain, ain’t ya?” he said.

“Mordo sent by village leader man, aye,” Mordo said.

“Whose Mordo?” Hawken said

“Mordo is Mordo!” Mordo said, smacking himself on the chest plate.

“Mordo refers to himself in the third person? And they say I’m crazy!”

Dalvin cleared his throat and stepped forward. He did some sort of motion with his hands, then bowed. I guessed it was a sign passed between druids, for Hawken did something similar.

“Master Bramblebraid, I am Dalvin Dahlgood, hero of Harlan’s Gate, and now also hero of Ellry. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

Hawken stared blankly.

“Eh, No matter. I have come here, with these fine companions, to seek your wisdom.”

“My wisdom, eh? Hehehe. You know, they say I’m crazy.”

“You did mention that already, Good Master.”

“Well, they are right. Probably been out here so long I don’t know the sane way of things. Not for civilized folks, I reckon. No great loss that.”

“Sir,” I began, “we seek your help—”

“About the rain, yes. I’ve already guessed that. Thought my traps would have dissuaded that notion. Probably would have to sensible men. But let’s get right to it. You want my help, I want your help.”

“You can stop the rain?” I asked.

“No, but I know who can.”

I groaned inwardly. “Who?”

“The hags that started it.”

“Hags?”

“Yep, three of ‘em. The usual number for a coven of hags.”

“I’m guessing you don’t just mean some old women,” Leffe said.

“They might look like shriveled up old prunes of a woman, but they ain’t. No, they wear humanity like a mask, an ill fittin’ one that does nothing to hide their rotten hearts.”

“How do you know it was these hags that sent the rain?” I asked

“Oh, it’s just like them. They do like to mess with the natural order, just to get under my skin.”

“Can you not stop them?”

“Up till now, I put up with their nonsense. They never transgressed this badly. But the rain is an evil that’ll destroy the plants, the animals, even the ground itself. For that, they gotta be stopped.”

“I suppose this is where our help comes in?” I asked.

“Yep, but not like you’re thinking. The hags want somethin’, and if they get it, they’ll turn off this damnable rain.”

“What do they want?”

“The blood and egg of a basilisk.”

Dalvin laughed. “I’m sorry, I thought you said basilisk there for a moment.”

“I did.”

“Oh.”

“It’s like this. You get me that egg and some of its blood, they’ll give me, well, that’s my business. But I’ll also get them to turn off the rain.” Bramblebraid’s crazy eyes looked into each of our own in turn.

“Why don’t you do it, or at least come with us?” I asked.

“Need more than one fella to go after a basilisk, what with its petrifying gaze and all. And I can’t go with you now because, in case the hags back out on this deal, I hafta prepare a little counter magic.”

“Why not lead with countermagic? Why deal with these hags at all, if they’re so evil?”

“Again, pretty boy, that’s my business.”

I closed my mouth then. I’m not comfortable with being called pretty by a naked and crazy old man in the woods. Leffe and Mordo saw my distress and tried to stifle their giggles.

“Well then, Master Bramblebraid,” Dalvin said. “Where do we find this basilisk?”



* * *



The basilisk lived in the ruins of an old elven temple, now profaned and destroyed by some old evil. Bramblebraid told us that large trees grew right up to the cave, so we might be able to lure out the basilisk and stay above it, thus avoiding its petrifying gaze. Dalvin added to the plan. He would take the shape of a small animal and sneak into the cave to secure the egg, whilst we distracted it.

“Creatures come smaller than you?” Mordo said.

Dalvin stuck out his tongue. We continued to plan. We might be able to sneak out an egg, but we didn’t reckon on getting blood from the basilisk without it knowing.

“We don’t need to kill it necessarily,” Leffe said. “I mean, I’m not saying I care about it, just that we don’t have to get into a fight to the death if we don’t have to.”

“Mordo think it be easier to get blood if basilisk dead. Basilisk not sit still while we poke it.”

I agreed, but added that if we could get it and run, we should. There was no sense risking petrification or death if we didn’t have to. Agreed, we set the plan into action.

The thing about plans is that they can sound really good, right up to the point where a monster is snacking on your liver.

The first signs of our target were small statues of woodland creatures. Some appeared to have bite marks, but others were pristine. Since not even Bramblebraid was crazy enough to make such things, we took these to be the basilisk’s prey. Using some climbing gear, we scaled up trees and made our way limb to limb, moving carefully. At times, Dalvin clung to Mordo when a gap between limbs was too wide.

“Fellows,” Leffe said. A shiver ran up my spine. Leffe pointed to a figure, a wizard by the look of his robes. One arm wrapped around the trunk of a tree. He held his other mid gesture, forever summoning a spell that would never be cast. The wizard was solid rock.

“We have to keep it from looking up,” Leffe said.

“I have an idea,” I said.

Finally, the ruined temple came into view. It was not a large building, only slightly more than a roadside altar. Centuries and a monstrous inhabitant had it looking more like a cave than something build by elven hands.

At first, Dalvin had no problem getting into the ruins. Amusingly, he took the form of a weasel, and slithered in undetected. He waited for us to lure out the basilisk, hiding himself, including his view, among some rubble. I knew a spell song that would let me conjure a static image. I cast it on the ground, next to the trees we were in. The idea was that Mordo would smash the beast from above, while we poured on all the firepower we had. We’d borrowed extra crossbows from Bramblebraid, weapons he had collected over the years. Some were quite old, but we had tested them to make sure they worked. We cocked them and positioned them on the trees around us, ready to be loaded with a bolt.

We threw rocks at the temple ruin while Leffe attempted to sound like a wounded goat. The beast came out all right, eyes locked on the image I’d cast. Eight thick legs pounded the ground, though it moved in no hurry. Its long, thick body was reptilian and scaly, and a hard comb of scale stood up the length of its spine to the top of its head. The body was all white, as if it had just been cast from marble. I dared not look toward its face.

Then it roared. In spite of myself, I cringed away, inadvertently moving the goat illusion to the base of Mordo’s tree. The basilisk charged headlong at, perhaps frustrated that its gaze had not frozen its prey. Unfortunately, the basilisk struck Mordo’s tree so hard, the warrior was dislodged from his branch. Mordo, always trying to be epic, turned his fall into an attack, leading with his maul.

Mordo missed entirely. He smacked off the ground and bounced to a sitting position, propped against another tree. The basilisk gazed at him, but Mordo’s eyes were shut from knocking himself out. The beast then roared again, even more enraged at a second failure of its power, and perhaps from the blow it had dealt itself. The earth churned under its eight-legged charge of the fallen warrior.

Just as the basilisk was about to crush him, Mordo slumped down to flop on his face. The basilisk slammed headfirst into the massive tree. It grunted once, and then lay still.

“I think it knocked itself out,” I said to Leffe.

“So did Mordo.”

We climbed down from our perches and landed on the ground at about the same time Mordo revived.

“Mordo crush?”

“Yourself, mostly. The beast lies senseless but alive, yonder.”

“Mordo get blood.” He hefted his maul and charged.

“Fellows?” said a squeaky voice from inside the ruins. He transformed back into his gnomish form.

“Dalvin, we’ll be right in,” Leffe said.

“Oh, no hurry,” the druid said as he walked after Mordo. “My but that basilisk was a majestic beast,” he said, following Mordo. He pulled a sharp stone knife from as sheath. “You know, I’ve always fancied a basilisk skin for armor.”

Leaving them to their grim work, Leffe and I enter the beast’s lair. The interior of the ruin looked a bit more temple-like. In some spots, pictograms had survived the years and weather. In others, an old form or dialect of elven had been carved, but I had difficulty understanding it.

“Egg is here,” Leffe said. He gently picked up the egg and slid it into a cushioned box Bramblebraid had prepared for the occasion. “And that’s not all that’s here!” he exclaimed, looking down. “Gems!”

He was right. A pearl caught my eye. I plucked it from the mess of a nest and instantly felt a zip of something magical. Leffe collected the gems and a few coins.

“Mordo and gnome got blood,” I heard from behind. I turned and looked at the warrior and druid.

“You sure did, but did you manage to collect any of it in the vial, and not just wear it?”

Dalvin held up the full vial. Something scaly hung over his shoulder.

“Ooh!” the gnome exclaimed. “That looks interesting!” Dalvin selected a rust colored bag I’d discounted out of hand.

“Anything good inside?” Leffe asked, for the bag now looked full.

“I can’t see anything definite…” Dalvin trailed off before sticking his hand in it. “Something fuzzy and warm is in here.”

“Something alive?”

“No, not in the natural sense. I think I know what this is, but I’ll save it for when I have time to look it over.”

“Something for you, Mordo,” Leffe said. He hefted the weight of a sword, one big even by Mordo’s standards. The warrior’s eyes lit up as he accepted it. He banged the flat of it against an old stone altar, and the caked-on crud fell away to reveal a magnificent blade.

“Thanks Leffe,” Mordo said. He seemed in awe of blade.

“Maybe we’ll get an occasional ‘Mordo slice’ now, for variety,” I said.

“No, Mordo still prefers maul. But sword is good, aye.”

Something else caught my eye. When Mordo had brought the sword against the altar the second time, dirt had fallen away from it, too. A magnificent black gem, the type of which I’d never seen or even read about before, beckoned me to it. I took a dagger and got to work loosening it.

Dalvin and Leffe came over to look at what I’d found.

“There’s a pictograph here,” Dalvin said. I didn’t stop to look at it. I had to have that ebony beauty before Leffe got any ideas. It had to be mine. The thought reverberated in my head. My vision tunneled until all I saw was the black gem and the tip of my blade working to free it. I wanted it so bad, I had trouble keeping the blade from shaking.

Distantly I heard Leffe ask if I wanted help.

“No!” I remember saying. They told me later I sounded more like a vicious creature snarling.

“Ander! Ander! Stop!” Alvin said. I could tell he was shouting, but his voice sounded muffled, as if he shouted to me while I was underwater. “The pictogram! The thing on it is the same one we saw—”

The black gem popped free before he finished. Time froze as I tried to catch it. My shaking hand bobbled it, but I dropped the dagger from my other and clutched the thing to my chest.

My head spun as a tunnel of black and blue swirled around me. My stomach lurched as if I would be sick. I felt like I was flying, then weightless. I couldn’t control myself or even breathe. Bony claws held my neck and I drenched myself in the cold sweat of fear. A malevolence looked into me, sizing me up, judging my worth.

When I came back into the real world, my friends had dragged me clear of the temple. Try as they might, they couldn’t pry the black gem from my hands. As my faculties returned to me, I jerked fully upright and dropped the gem.

“Evil. Hatred. A will of sole crushing violence,” I said through parched lips.

My companions surrounded me and the gem.

“Leave it here,” Leffe said.

“Someone else may find it,” Dalvin said.

“Kick back into the temple then.”

“I don’t think that will do any good,” I said. “It will call to its minions.” How I knew this, I cannot explain.

“The kobolds, you mean,” said Dalvin. I looked at him. “The carvings on the altar. They were newer than the old elven ones. And though they were done by a far more skilled hand, I have no doubt that they were the same ones we saw in the kobolds’ lair.”

A shot of hot blood brought me to my feet.

“The dracholich!”



* * *



We stood for a time debating what to do. Leaving it here didn’t seem an option, for we all could feel a certain pull of the gem calling to us. Weaker minded beings would come for it, and somehow it would find its way to the kobold shaman. Finally, we decided to take it to Hawken Bramblebraid. These were his woods, after all. No one would know the lore better than he, and perhaps a way to destroy this thing before it fell into the wrong hands. Careful to not touch it with my hands again, I scooped it into a sack and tied it shut.

“What did you do?” the stunned Bramblebraid asked in a tone that revealed his absolute horror. His joy at having the blood and egg of the basilisk had fled. “What did you do?”

“It’s evil, I understand that now,” I said. “It’s not like I meant to unearth the soul of an ancient dracolich.”

Bramblebraid continued to stare agog at me.

“Come on, man! Snap out of it. How do we destroy this thing?”

Finally, the old druid’s mouth snapped shut. He looked away and started to pace, running his hand repeatedly through his hair and beard. We stood underneath his treehouse home.

“Think Hawken, think,” he muttered to himself, over and over again.

When he stopped, he did so abruptly.

“You have an answer?” I said, hope pitching my voice an octave.

“No.”

“What?”

“You’re doomed, I’m sorry to say.”

“What?!”

“I mean, it will be bad for all of us when the dracolich gets back to its bones and this shaman you mentioned performs the ceremony. But for you especially, it will be bad. It won’t just kill you, but devour your soul.”

“Tyr’s bloody stump, man!”

Dalvin patted me on the back, trying to calm me.

“Your bedside manner could use some work, Hawken,” the gnome said to the old man.

“I mean, you can fight its will,” Bramblebraid added.

Dalvin patted me again. “See that, Ander, there’s hope—”

“For a time, anyway. I can’t see you holding out forever. It’s a dracolich, by the gods! You’re too pretty to be strong-willed.”

“First, I prefer ‘dashingly fetching’ and second, that’s an awful stereotype to purport.”

Leffe snorted from the boulder he rested on. “You’re in danger of being possessed by pure evil, and that’s what you focus on?”

Mordo rose from his seat on a fallen tree branch. “Creepy old man help bard. Now.”

“You can scowl at me all you want, big fella, but it ain’t gonna change the facts,” Bramblebraid said, waggling finger at Mordo. “I don’t have magic to fix this, and I’m old and wise.”

“Who might?” Dalvin asked.

Bramblebraid stroked his beard, pausing to remove a bit of thistle that had stuck there. “I suppose a cleric of sufficient power might be able to do something, like you’d find in a big city. Oh! But don’t bring the gem thing near a city. All the hells would break loose if that was near a large population.”

My legs felt weak and I abruptly sat on the ground beneath me.

“Look, let me make the exchange with the hags,” the old druid said. “That will stop the rain, at least. Once I’m done, I’ll think on your problem.”

“What could be of greater concern to you than this?” Leffe asked.

“My daughter,” Bramblebraid stated flatly.

“You have a daughter?” asked Leffe.

“The hags have her?” asked Dalvin

“You’re not too old to reproduce?” I accidentally blurted. Everyone turned to look at me. I blushed.

“No, I’m not too old, or at least I wasn’t ten years ago when I met her mother.”

“When did the hags grab her?” asked Dalvin. “What did they want?”

“They grabbed her last week. I wanna believe they were just using her to make me gather the basilik’s egg for them.”

“I sense a ‘but’,” Leffe said.

“The but is, and it’s a big one, that they may be tryin’ to turn her into one of their own.”

“Wait,” I said. “I thought hags were their own kind of creature or race.”

“They are, in a manner of speakin’. They can’t breed by bumpin’ uglies, though, so the only way they can create more of their kind is to corrupt an innocent girl.”

“God’s man, I’m sorry,” I said. Despite my own predicament, I wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with Bramblebraid. I didn’t want to go through that again. Clara had been just twelve when my troupe had lost her in the crown city. We’d never found her, despite all of our best efforts and nefarious connections. The not knowing and dark thoughts were maybe worse than whatever fate really had held for her.

“Do you want us to accompany you during the exchange?” Dalvin asked.

“No!” Bramblebraid shouted. “No. They said to come alone. I will, and I can handle ‘em if they get outta line. Just gotta get Jessa back. Let me do that, then I’ll think on how to help you. I can’t think of nothin’ else right now.”

“If crazy old man can handle hags, let Mordo and friends come with. We keep egg from hags and rescue Jessa-girl.”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought of that. But I won’t risk my Jessa like that. And killin’ them might not turn off this wicked rain. They had to work a humdinger of a ceremony to make this happen.”

“All right, then,” I said, feeling a little more like myself. “We’ll wait here for you to return.”

Bramblebraid shook his shaggy head. “No. They need you back in Ellry.”

“How do you know that?” Leffe asked. The dwarf’s prodigious brow dropped with suspicion.

“Despite my estrangement, I still care about that place. Jessa’s mom came from there. I keep tabs through the birds. They bring me tidbits. Harder to get at the moment. Damned oily rain makes it harder for them to fly. But they got a message through. There’s a stranger in town, and he scares them. He looks sinister, but his heart is pure. You must go to him, help him and settle the town down.

“Why?”

Bramblebraid shrugged. “Sometimes the animals just sense things. Not like I laid my own eyes on him though.”

“And you?”

“Go. Once I have my Jessa back, I’ll consult an oracle I know. After that, I’ll come to you. I’ve let Ellry go too long.”

Dalvin nodded. “Thank you and may nature favor you Master Druid.”

“One thing,” Leffe said. “Put on some pants before you stroll down Main Street.”

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