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Date Posted: 14:22:18 11/30/01 Fri
Author: Barry and Isobel
Subject: Approaching danger
In reply to: Corum, Valhorek, & Erlic 's message, "Common interests" on 20:13:31 11/29/01 Thu

Barry hovered around "Bessie's" head and said pointedly to Corum, "Hows about you get on it, Chief. I don't generally need transport to fly." He grinned.

As Corum lifted the undead Bessie up into the air Barry hovered effortlessly off to his left, looking around as everyone boarded and took off. "Looks like we've got us a convoy," he muttered for no apparent reason.

“YO BARRY!” Corum yelled. “Like just how much do you know about skulls? I mean, like, do you know why some skulls utter complete nonsense, and others don’t?”

Barry naturally assumed Corum meant that he was the nonsense-spewing skull and said, "Aw, Chief. That's so unkind." Then Corum held up Yorik and Barry floated over. "Oh, YORIK! Well maybe some skulls are just more intelligent than others. I'd say ol' Yorik there was one empty brainbox, Chief. You really hear him talk?"

The next words out of Corum's mouth confused the blazes out of Barry. “You know," Corum stated. “You’re not that bad after all…..for a skull.”

"Eh... feeling's mutual, Cheif," he muttered, noticing something flying toward them in the distance. "Uh... Chief. We got some bogies at twelve o'clock."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Isobel suddenly smelled a stench that rivalled that of the rocs and she turned to see Justin attempting to board her bird. "Ay!" she muttered and was about to tell the roc to just take off before the disgusting-smelling merc got on, but the beast suddenly lurched as Justin tripped and the malodorous man stumbled.

Isobel grabbed onto the creature's neckbone and held on to avoid toppling off herself. When she'd finally regained her balance, there was Erlic, sitting all cozy behind her. She chuckled to herself. Perhaps Senior Frio was not so frio after all. In fact he had grabbed her waist, but she recognized that this was merely to stabilize himself while the bird took off.

“You must excuse my presence,” Erlic said into her ear. “I couldn’t let the opportunity go to waste, where we could discuss matters in private.”

Ah! So Senior Frio was merely on a recon mission. She could not blame him for wanting to be sure about her. After all, she had simply wandered in out of the desert and joined up with their party. The others (except Tristan of course) seemed easily accepting of her (perhaps because she was a woman), but Frio would not be so swayed by a batting of her eyelashes.

“So tell me a little bit about yourself Isobel,” Erlic asked her. “What made you get into the adventuring business?”

Isobel spoke over her shoulder, trying to concentrate on making sure the beast did not dump them off, hoping none of the rotting flesh would slip away in her grip. "My father taught me the ways of combat. He was once a great warrior and would go from village to village helping the people solve their problems. But it happened one day that he did not return from one of his adventures. When I finally found him, he was drunk in a small saloon in a town not far from our village. I never knew what caused him to come to such a state. I asked him once but he forbade me to speak of it again. I can only guess that it was something terrible and shameful, for my father was never the same after that."

She paused, reflecting on this. He really had been a great warrior in his time, and had not even been disappointed that his wife had given birth to a baby girl instead of the son he had probably been hoping for. She wondered if things would have been different had mama survived the birth.

"Papa was killed in a card game in one of those saloons. They say he had been caught cheating, but I do not believe my father would cheat. I hunted down and slew the men who had played that hand with him. They had all told the sheriff that Papa had cheated in order to back up their amigo." Her voice was like ice and her grip was tight enough on the neck of the roc to make her knuckles turn white.

"I was left with nothing but his sword and a mountain of debts. They had to be paid some way and so I hired onto whatever caravan would have me, or took whatever bodyguard job someone would trust a woman with. There were few opportunities, for women where I come from do not do such work. Eventually I paid off all the debts but there was little to keep me in my village. Papa was the only family I had there. So I moved on to where there would be more opportunity for a woman to do what I did best." She paused as if she was about to say more, but did not. "And here I am," she finally finished.

She was enjoying the feel of the wind in her hair, but realized it must be swatting Erlic in the face. Well, she grinned to herself, it was a small price to pay to sit with her. She chuckled.

Suddenly she noticed something flying toward them and was about to warn Erlic when he spoke up. He had seen them already. Frio has sharp eyes, she noted.

She drew a poison-tipped dagger from the bandellero on her chest. She checked the undead beast's sides and hooked her feet around the front ribs to keep from falling off. She readied herself to throw the dagger at one of the creatures, then was prepared to draw her sword. Muerte would be too short to do much good while mounted on this flying carcass.

She could see the approaching creatures clearly now. Desert Vultures! She hissed in anticipation of the fight to come, grinning as if prepared to savor the battle. Then Erlic was shouting, “EVERYONE WATCH OUT! ATTACK!" Ay! Her eardrum would never be the same!

“Keep the roc nice, and steady,” Erlic said to her. “I’m going to fire some arrows, and see if I can’t get them injured. Then we attack by hand, and hope we don’t fall off.”

Isobel nodded and murured to the roc to maintain a steady speed and height. She hoped it could understand her.

Erlic fired his arrows but the vultures continued to close, making that terrible noise they made. Isobel held steady to the mount as Erlic drew his katana and prepared for battle. She drew her arm back and hurled her poisoned dagger at the closest vulture when it approached, sending the thing into its eye Ay! That was a million-to-one shot! she thought to herself, but had no time to congratulate herself for it as she drew her sword and prepared to do battle.

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