[h3]The Duchy of Zerul, by a road in southwest[/h3]
[IMG]http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u79/SharpshooterJack/markerJaelnec_zps53b7aa37.png[/IMG]
Jaelnec could not help but to smile at Domhnall as he nodded his head in acknowledgement and gratitude, then immediately turned away and headed back in among the trees that surrounded them in a brisk jog. He had only known this man with oddly colored skin for a few minutes, but the Nightwalker had already decided that he quite liked him. He had been nothing but helpful since the moment they had met - disregarding his reaching for his weapon when they first emerged, which was a perfectly understandable reaction to strangers approaching in the wilderness, the chaotic times taken into consideration - and the sort of awkward enthusiasm with which he had agreed to watch Aemoten had been the final push that made him accept Domhnall as a trustworthy individual. Spirits, had Jaelnec been in that situation he would probably have reacted and replied similarly, himself, and the resemblance between himself and the stranger only made him all the more willing to trust him.
The woman... well, she had healed Etakar, but aside from that she had not actually done much of anything to give the squire an impression of anything aside from a certain sense of nobility and - though he admitted to himself that such might be an unfair judgment to make just yet - cowardice. She did not speak Rodorian, which made communication awkward at best, and spent her time hiding in a tree rather than actually interacting with them, leaving all of that to Domhnall; a chivalric task the acceptance of which only made Jaelnec appreciate the man all the more. And then there was the last one, that huge black-furred creature that had been sleeping through the entire encounter... obviously he had no way of knowing what kind of person that thing was - or if it was indeed anything more than a beast with faintly humanoid built - but he knew that it looked very strong, that it was not native to this part of Reniam, and that it looked like it was bred for killing. If he was going to place any bets on which one of the three strangers that had brought down the lohk, he would wager that the black-furred one did most of the work. Bows and arrows - which appeared to be Domhnall's weapon of choice - rarely did more than infuriate lohks further, and one had to be exceptionally skilled - and lucky - to do any serious damage with a small blade. Iridiel might have other Favored powers than healing, but even so it still seemed most likely that the gray-skinned brute had been brought down by another beast... especially considering the condition of its corpse.
No, he had no way of placing anything but minor faith in Iridiel, and had no reason whatsoever to trust the black-furred one, but he trusted Domhnall. More than anything, that man seemed... [I]good[/I]. Like, just a genuinely nice and likeable person.

But as the Nightwalker made his way through the relatively short distance that separated Aemoten and their new acquaintances from Thaler and Olan, his thoughts turned to more concerning matters, namely what he was actually going to say when he reached the others in several seconds. It seemed as though he spent far too much time pondering what to do or say things these days and how to do or say them, rather than actually just doing and saying them... and he was not even entirely sure why he had grown so concerned with how people interpreted his words and actions. He had always been a firm believer that good intentions counted for much, and could at times excuse events taking a turn for the worse because of them. Back when he had been leader he had been careful about how he worded his decisions, sure, but he had never obsessed about every little thing as he did now.
As little as he wanted to admit it to himself - and he would never admit to anyone else - he figured that Thaler was probably the reason for his newfound criticism of his own actions. Having watched Aemoten trying desperately to help her, only to have the Daywalker take his every attempt to do so as a direct attack or insult against her... there was probably no way witnessing something like that would not affect a person, especially one as young as Jaelnec, and make one more wary of how one was interpreted.
Which made it all the more important that this particular message was delivered the right way, since Thaler was probably still in a bad mood, in lack of a better term, and liable to receive the message in the most personal way possible. He did not want to anger or sadden Thaler, least of all if she blamed the news on Aemoten. Jaelnec would bear the woman's ire and hatred if he had to - he liked her and would suffer from it, but he would survive - but the Sekalyn had received too many blows already. He wanted to protect him... somehow. Even from this.

"Jaelnec's coming," he heard Olan tell Thaler up ahead when he was getting close, and he could not help but to admire the older Nightwalker  just then, despite how little he had appreciated the crazy man until now. Not only did he have an inner peace that allowed him to just speak whatever came to mind - with no filter, apparently, considering the tales he had been telling and observations he had made since they met - but he had a quality to him that made him different, somehow. Even though he said stupid and outlandish things, even though he made comments that, which would have hurt or angered a person if another had made them, people never took offense when it was him. On the contrary, Olan seemed to make people smile no matter what he did or said; as though by simply being [I]him[/I], it excused all of his shortcomings and made everyone happy to be around him, and eager to call him their friend.
[I]Except Rilon,[/I] he reminded himself, and felt a knot tighten in his stomach. The Blood God had a lot to answer for, but the question was whether he had not received justice already? Having his almost unimpeded freedom taken from him by his relic having fallen into the hands of another immortal... but he was concerned for the future nonetheless. Rilon was a resourceful god, and many of his most faithful followers were almost as devious as their lord; there were no guarantees that he would not find a way to retrieve Black Thorn, and what then?
[I]Laon help us if that ever happens,[/I] he thought, only to feel the knot in his stomach grow even tighter as he realized that actually might not be enough. In the end, there was probably nothing in the planes that could protect them from Rilon's vengeance. They just had to hope that it would never come.

"Hey," he called out as he ran past his two waiting companions, slowing to a halt a few steps onto the road, next to the donkey with the raven on its back... something that the squire wisely decided not to question the logic of. "Etakar apparently found a healer for himself in there, so he's going to be all right." [I]That seems like a good way to start,[/I] he thought, and hoped he was right. "The healer and her companion...s... are even headed to Zerul City, too, so we can accompany each other on the way." He spoke quickly, he noticed; evidently nervous. [I]Kreshtaat.[/I] "We'll stay here for a few hours first, so everyone can recuperate a bit, but we'll move out in time to get to the city before nightfall.

---
[h3]Zerul City, the Drunken Dove[/h3]
The blue-haired one nodded her acknowledgement once the terms of their speaking in private had been set, and then she and her sister both turned to the innkeeper, fixing their inhuman eyes on him. "Why are you still standing there?" the masked sister asked him sharply, a dangerously impatient edge to her voice. "You're wasting everyone's time; get the drink. Now."
"Uh, yes," the innkeeper said with a nervous laughter. "Finest is two rodlin per mug, since it's hard to get and all, and -"
"[I]I said now,[/I]" the masked demonspawn growled, small cracks appearing in her mirror-glass eyes from which shone a dim, dirty brown light, and for a second one would be able to hear the bottles and glasses on the shelves behind the counter rattle and the wood of the building creak, even if one did not notice how the floor trembled slightly under their feet. Then the blue-haired one's eyes cracked as well, unleashing a faint white glow from within them; the tremors seized instantly, and the masked sister's eyes stopped glowing.
The innkeeper took the hint, though, and hurried off to fetch I'on his drink. "It's on me!" he shouted back to them as he practically dashed through a door into the next room, presumably headed for where they stored their kegs of rarer fare.

"Relax," the blue-haired deo'iel scolded her sister, her eyes still glowing from the cracked pupil-like holes. She yanked on her tuft of hair, hard. "You need to relax, dear; you know what will happen if you destroy the city."
The other one just growled unintelligibly as the cracks in her eyes - dark and empty without their glow - seemed to close, leaving her eyes smooth and uniform once again. Once her sister's eyes had 'closed', the blue-haired one's did the same.
The innkeeper was back within thirty seconds, practically running to the counter with a large glass-mug of clear liquid. He hurried so much, in fact, that he accidentally spilled a few droplets on his way, which he managed to avoid getting on his pants with a deft sideways dodge. Little indentations appeared almost immediately in the wooden floorboards where the droplets hit.
"Here," he panted, handing the mug to I'on. "Th-thank you for your business..."