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      "0": "Early the next morning Felis awoke to see a small fire burning smokily in the center on the camp. \"I'm sorry Felis,\" Ebon said, \"I think I must have given our position away, I didn't think the fire would cause so much smoke.\" \n   \"It's not your fault, you have to use only certain kinds of wood to avoid lots of smoke.\" Felis answered as he went to wake Alexis. \"So what do you do on your world, or rather what did you do?\"\n   Ebon smiled slightly, \"Well, I guess you could say I worked for on a commission basis. But I was kept quite wealthy by adventuring with Myshella, Vulner, Krill and Silverlocks. Alexis and I are much alike in our professions.\"\n   \"Oh? How do you figure?\"\n   \"Well, she moves as one with the forest, she is at home here. If she doesn't want to make her presence known, she doesn't have to. The forest conceals her and protects her. I function the same way in cities. The city protects me and I am one with it. I have free reign there, as she has free reign in the forest.\"\n   \"Hmm, that's a very interesting way to put it.\" Felis admitted.\n   They cooked and ate the last of their food, sharing more than a third with Ebon, who admitted to not having eaten in a few days, and began to get on their way toward the area which disturbed them.\n   At about mid-day they began to notice a change in the woods around them. The trees began to thin and many looked as if they had been ripped from the soil. Before long they came to a large clearing with a low hollow cave underneath a small craggy cliff. The entire area was dark, doleful and dreary, like an empty grave waiting for a corpse. On top of the cave dwelt a ghastly owl, shrieking a baleful note which echoed across the empty field. All about were old stumps and stubs of trees, and no leaves or life could be seen. \n   \"Well, I guess this would be the place,\" said Ebon as he drew his sword. The blade was as black as night and looked like a tear in reality itself.\n   \"Felis, come, let us leave this place,\" Alexis said looking at what seemed to be a partially buried skeleton.\n   \"No I agree with Ebon, we must confront the lord of this place, dragon or no. I just don't know if we should march in without a plan...\" Ebon merely shrugged in response. Felis and Alexis lowered their packs to the ground and readied their weapons, not really knowing what to expect. \"Are you sure you know what you are doing, Ebon?\" Felis said quietly.\n   \"Certainly. Haven't you ever fought a dragon before?\"\n   \"We've never even seen one,\" said Alexis, \"Well I did see a dead one once....\"\n   \"Oh... well... you two just stay back and I'll deal with it.\"\n   \"Ebon!\" Felis hissed. \"There has to be another way, this is suicide!\"\n   \"Leave this place...\" A whisper seemed to come from all around them.\n   \"We intend to leave wyrm! Let us go or face our wrath.\" Ebon shouted toward the cave.\n   A large dark shape moved within the cave, moving toward the entrance. \"None shall leave this place. It is my domain.\" said the whisper. Felis opened his vest to reveal his set of daggers and steadied his axe in his hands, stretching his muscles slightly, preparing for battle. Alexis did the same. Both never moved their eyes from the cave as they spread out in a crescent, with Ebon in the center. They may have never seen a dragon, if that's what this was, but they had heard many stories, especially of dragon's dangerous breath. If they stood in a group they could all be hit at once, but spread out as they were, they would make more difficult targets.\n   \"You do not amuse me,\" said the whisper as it grew in volume. Slowly a serpentine figure began to take shape in the darkness. The dragon emerged. It was huge. All over its body were shield-sized reddish scales, shiny and captivating in their beauty. It was like a coat of steel so closely were they overlaid. His blazing eyes, like two shining suns burned with wrath and sparkled with living fire. They flamed with rage and rancorous anger at being disturbed.\n   Felis and Alexis grew cold. It was immense; how could they expect to defeat such a thing? They both began to slowly back-pedal. Ebon showed no reaction at all at the dragon's appearance. He almost invisibly opened the case which held his wand. \"I give you one more chance to reconsider, wyrm.\"\n   \"Consider it rebuked,\" snarled the dragon as it quickly flapped its wings, creating a gust of wind which knocked Ebon to the ground. The dragon then launched itself into the sky and dove toward the prone Ebon, it's deep, devouring jaws wide open, like a horrid mouth of hell through which into his dark abyss all prey fell. \n   Quick as a wink Felis was moving toward Ebon's side, but stopped as Ebon waved him off with a grin. Ebon drew a blood covered wand from his case. It dripped as he pointed it toward the dragon. \"Smexather'e,\" he said quietly to himself. Immediately the dragon was enshrouded by a solid cube of black shadows. Ebon came to his feet and ran backward as the demonic cube headed down, carrying the dragon with it. \"Slam!\" The sound echoed throughout the clearing, all eyes were looking toward the shadow winter spell. Cold began to radiate back towards them, blue lightning crackled and swirled in the gaseous cube, it was followed by black thunder. The dragon cried in agony. Ebon slowly returned the wand to it's case, blood squirting out as he dropped the cylinder into its case. He began to brush himself off and steadied his sword. \"Be ready,\" he said. \n   Eventually it seemed as if the dragon was able to shrug off the diminishing affects of the wand's powers, and the cube dissipated like a early morning fog. The fury in his eyes was readily apparent. He stood to his full height and opened his foul maw.\n   From his internal furnace he drew forth huge flames which made the bright light of day seem dim in comparison. His flames, dark smokey and with the scent of brimstone enshrouded the place where Ebon had been standing, the rocks broke to pieces and melted as the land was covered with stench. The gust of heat threw Felis and Alexis back onto the ground. It was then that the dragon shrieked in agony. \n   Slicer had teleported Ebon, at his command, out of danger, and in this case directly behind the dragon. There he thrust his freshly envenomed sword in to it's hilt, tossing the empty flask as he did. The dragon howled. Felis threw two of his daggers, which disappeared when they left his hands, only to reappear in the dragons neck and chest. \"Frich! Nargold!\" he shouted. The one in the dragon's neck burst onto flames, while the other began to radiate intense cold. The dragon seemed to cast some kind of spell and spun to face Ebon. Ebon smugly commanded Slicer to move him across to the cave entrance. Yet when the dragons claw passed through the space where Ebon was standing, it still found him there, and slashed him deeply. At the same time Felis noticed that his teleporting daggers would not return to him. \"What the?\" he said as he watched Ebon tossed about by the dragons blows. He ran towards the fray, pulling out his axe. Alexis continued to barrage the dragon with her arrows, but they had little effect against its armored hide.\n   Every time Ebon was hit by the dragon he pricked the dragon twice with his long sword. He looked as if the dragon's damage on him was lessened, or somehow the blow was made less severe each time he was hit. At the same times he was hit, Alexis noticed his silver ring glowed brightly. \n   The dragon smiled as it slashed at Ebon. \"What's the matter? Won't your sword keep you from danger? Won't it teleport you away?\" Ebon gritted his teeth and kept trying to avoid the dragon's claws. He could see Felis moving toward the dragon's rear. He could also see the two things rising from the ground to intercept him.\n   They were two hideously rotten, humanoid undead warriors, both armed with long glowing runeblades. Felis hardly broke stride. While moving toward the first he swung his axe in a wide arc, easily severing the first undead warrior's head and coming down to bury itself in the other's chest. \"Your plebes are nothing against my skill and axe dragon!\" He swung and cut deep into the underbelly of the dragon, the undead warrior still imbedded on his axe. The dragon's life blood began to flow out of the cut, staining the ground below. It snarled and snapped Felis from behind with its mighty tail. The great force threw him through the air and sent him crashing through a dead elm. He hit the ground and was still.\n   The dragon suddenly disappeared. \"Blast the lords of Sanction!\" Cried Ebon as he clutched at the dwarven amulet around his neck, \"Look out Alexis, he's at your right. But his call came too late. The dragon reappeared at Riverforge's right side, she attempted to draw her twin blades, but the dragon quickly grabbed her with his claws. He then blasted in Ebon's direction with a foul smelling smoke, Ebon choked and found the dragon clutching him as well, his sword dropping uselessly to the ground as the dragon's claws pierced his side. The battle was over.\n   The dragon held them both, looking at them intently. It wiggled its claws further into the male one in the black leather. \"So you thought you could defeat me? Rakanor? Do you have any idea how old I am? How many warriors better equipped than you I have defeated? I have been wounded much worse than this, though I will admit your spell and sword thrust to my back, and the warriors wound to my belly are the most serious and painful things I have felt in years.\" Rakanor watched the blood trickle from Ebon's body, the assassin coldly matching his stare. Alexis struggled helplessly. \"You shouldn't have come looking for me. There are hundreds trapped in these woods, yet they never come to free themselves. You do have a bit of foolish courage and pride to try to escape. Farewell.\"\n   Rakanor paused, an axe seemed to grow in his shoulder and travel through his collar bone and shoulder. He dropped Ebon and Riverforge to consider this new development. Felis ran to his compatriots as the dragon howled and lurched to its side. Alexis was trying to move Ebon, but he was in too much pain. Felis had left his axe, he could not remove it, so deeply was it within the dragon. He looked up as he tried to move Ebon without injuring him. He realized they would not make it to cover. The dragon was sucking air into it's powerful lungs, soon they would be nothing but ash. There were only seconds left, Felis dropped Ebon the ground and pulled out his last dagger. He took aim, muttered a prayer to Torm the true, and threw. The dagger logged itself right where Felis had been aiming, the jaw of the dragon, locking it shut. Unable to stop once he began to blast out, Rakanor's entire head exploded. The body stood there for a second, as if not believing that its head was gone. Then Rakanor's decapitated body crashed to the ground with a thud.   \n   A few minutes later found them making temporary camp on the outside of the dragons cave. The foundation for the dragons endless forest was beginning to break down. In a few days it would be as it was before--They would simply have to wait for the effect to pass. Ebon was sleeping soundly and Felis was treating Alexis' wounds. \"I think we should invite him to come with us. He doesn't seem like a bad guy, and he certainly is interesting,\" said Felis.\n   \"I agree, he does seem a able companion. Besides, he would get into too much trouble without us,\" she grinned. \"What is it this time?\" she asked, pointing to the shape he had once again started to carve.\n   \"When we first entered this forest I began to make a carving of your magic lion. When ever it comes to life it's only purpose seems to be to guard us. It looks so proud of it's job. That's the look I'm trying to capture.\" \n   Ebon began to stir. \"Oh--my side! How long was I out? Ah never mind. I can see it was only a short time, the dragon is still smoking,\" he smirked. \"So where are you two off to now?\" They both shrugged. \"Why don't you come with me. You're both good in a fight, I could use you.\" He paused to examine the stitching Felis had done in his side to close his wounds, Ebon nodded with satisfaction.\n   Felis and Alexis exchanged a look, Felis replied, \"We would be honored to accompany a *world* traveler such as yourself, \" he grinned, \"Just as long as you don't try attacking anymore dragons by walking up and inviting them to attack you.\"\n   \"Hey, I was doing fine until he erected that shield that I couldn't teleport out of. Besides, I had him exactly where I wanted him...\" he said factiously, \"and we won didn't we?\"\n   \"Yeah,\" Alexis said, \"But thanks to Felis, we can't take the head back as a trophy.\"\n   \"Hey! I know where his head is,\" Felis uttered dryly.\n   \"Where?\"\n   \"Around....\" They all laughed, Ebon holding his side as he chuckled. He pointed a thumb at Alexis and spoke to Felis, you really got the two of us out of a real quandary, we'd both be dead if not for you...\"\n   \"I was lucky,\" Felis replied, \"He was so intent on bragging to you two that he didn't even worry if I was dead or alive. If I hadn't been able to surprise him, we'd all be dead.\"\n   \"Well Felis,\" said Alexis, \"you sure taught him not to boast anymore....\" They talked for a while and then rested.\n   A few hours later they got up, stretched, and looked toward the cave, the very edges of the cliff were starting to fade away.\n   Ebon sat up, a bit too quickly. \"Ow!... Hey, Felis, Alexis, why don't we check what's inside that cave before it disappears.\"\n   \"Ok,\" said Felis, \"sounds like a good idea to me,\" as he rose and wiped the sleep from his eyes.\n\n"
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