Writer's Note: This chapter was inspired by the fantasy dark comedy 10th Kingdom. If you've never seen it, I highly reccomend.

Naturally Jaheira wanted to know what Arowan had told Firkraag in secret, and her daughter knew it. So began a silent dance as they made their way toward the Hidden Refuge. Every time the druid approached her, Arowan slipped away from whoever she was currently walking with and attached herself to a new partner further ahead on the path. Eventually, though, she ran out of party members and Jaheira caught her.

"You are hiding something from me," Jaheira said accusingly. Arowan looked her square in the eye.

"I can't tell you what I told Firkraag," she replied stoutly. "There are things you can't tell me, about your work with the Harpers. I also have things I can't tell you."

"I assumed as much although I don't like it," the druid sighed, "But there is something else that you are keeping from me. Something about Imoen."

A stone sank in Arowan's stomach. Jaheira's contempt for the woman who killed her husband was obvious. All that stood between Freya and the widow's attempted revenge was the fact that she was dead. Only it wasn't Freya who had struck the killing blow, as Arowan had let her mother believe, but Imoen.

"What makes you say that?" asked the ranger. It sounded very much as though Jaheira might already have some inkling, but it was worth checking.

Jaheira stopped on the path and Arowan stopped with her. The older woman had her hand on her hip, her staff clutched menacingly in her hand, and a haughty expression on her face. Like Minsc, she had survived Irenicus's dungeon physically unscarred, bar a few scratches on her cheek. The wounds inside would take longer to heal.

"Why do I say that?" Jaheira scoffed. "Arowan, I have known you to spend your own gold resurrecting assassins whose mission it was to slaughter you. In Beregost you even revived the same one twice! You have leapt to the defence of Cyric-worshipping dragons, and pleaded the case of vampires even as they tried to latch their fangs about your throat. Yet you have abandoned Imoen to Irenicus."

A crease appeared between the ranger's eyes. This was something that bothered her from time to time. Though not nearly as much as it should.

"It's not like I have much choice," she replied, trying to convince herself more than anything.

That is true," Jaheira said, "But it isn't all of it. You have expressed no guilt, no frustration. Not once have you mentioned getting her back. At first, I thought it must be the effect of those numbing potions, but you are clean now and still, no mention of Imoen. What are you not telling me?"

Jaheira's eyes burned into hers, as though trying to reach into her skull and pluck the truth out. Arowan took a deep, shaky breath. She'd not told Jaheira for fear of what she might do to Imoen in retaliation. Yet she had a right to know how her husband had died, and since she had neither the power to slay nor save Imoen, perhaps it was better to tell her.

They had stopped walking and the rest of the party were getting further away. The druid listened patiently as Arowan described how Irenicus had tried to chip away the piece of Imoen's patchwork soul that had come from Freya, how he eventually succeeded in briefly returning it to its owner and how the shock had unhinged both women.

The part about the werewolf losing control and attacking Khalid, Jaheira already knew about. Most of the gruesome injuries on his body really had been inflicted by Freya.

"Then Imoen stood between them. You know how she…" Arowan winced. "How she felt about Khalid. Only she couldn't bring herself to hurt Freya either, Imoen carries a piece of her soul. Unfortunately, Freya didn't have any of Imoen's soul, so that unconditional loyalty was totally one way. Wolf-Freya went straight for her throat. That's when Irenicus skinned her."

"Because Imoen's piece of your soul is anchoring the rest of it?" Jaheira surmised. "If she'd died and taken those pieces of souls to the Abyss with her, he would have lost all three of you?"

Arowan nodded. Then shuddered. The memory of the living but skinless wolf would never leave her. Sometimes she dreamed about the night Khalid had died, and woke crushingly sad. Yet the thing that caused her to wake up screaming, was reliving Freya's final moments.

"Do you… do you remember the tanks in Irenicus's dungeon?" she asked.

"I am unlikely ever to forget those tanks," Jaheira replied dryly, "In this life or the next."

"Irenicus meant to put Freya in one, to keep her alive. He left the room to prepare it (the only one big enough to hold her had a live beholder inside it apparently). While he was gone Dad… Khalid… he put Freya out of her misery. Sword to the neck. Without her hide to protect her, it was quick."

"He should have let her suffer!" Jaheira spat, "After what she did to him!"

"Dad didn't die from his injuries," Arowan said quietly. They were getting to the crux of the matter now. "They were bad, but survivable."

"Irenicus killed him?" Jaheira guessed. "In revenge for depriving him of Freya."

"No."

The druid's face hardened. Arowan thought she saw reflected in her eyes the same hatred that she herself had been harbouring to Imoen all these long months. Her lips thinned and her fingers tightened in a death-grip about her oaken staff.

"I see." Jaheira said in a voice like steel.

"Imoen killed Khalid," Arowan confirmed. "You saw how she reacted to Baeloth for his role in Eric's death and how she reacted to Irenicus when he threatened to kill me. It was just like that."

"If you're about to plead that it isn't her fault, save your breath!" snapped Jaheira. "I'm in no humour for your Ilmatari rubbish."

They walked on, for the others were a long way ahead now. The road had dwindled to little more than a muddy trail, and they had lost sight of the rest of the party amid the trees. Both ranger and druid felt at home here beneath the canopy of leaves. It made the conversation easier.

"I don't have the power to save Imoen from Spellhold, and I'm glad I don't." Arowan said after a while. "Because if I did, I honestly don't know whether I'd use it."

"You would."

A finch in a nearby tree struck up a sudden tweeting, making them jump. It was an astonishing noise from such a tiny bird. As a lonely little girl growing up in Candlekeep, Arowan had liked to listen to bird song and try to work out what they were saying. These days she knew exactly what his heartfelt twittering meant: Hey! Other finches! Sod off out of my territory! Unless you're a lady-finch in which case, get your fine feathery booty over here and let's make some eggs!

"I hate her!" Arowan burst out suddenly, causing the finch to fly to a higher branch in alarm. "Unfair though that is, because it really wasn't her fault. Sometimes I think Gorion was right about her all along. Maybe she's not a real person. Just this miserable abomination cobbled together from bits of soul that don't belong together. Part of me… part of me is glad that she's suffering, because she has made me suffer. I miss Dad every day and she killed him. I don't want to feel like this anymore Mum. I'm scared of what I'm becoming."

Jaheira shook her head, and placed her arm about Arowan's shoulders.

"You expect too much of yourself child," she said gently. "You hold yourself to too high a standard. Hate and anger are natural and a part of life. Revenge for those slain unjustly is an important part of the balance, and we shall have ours. One day."

Arowan couldn't tell whether Jaheira was referring to Irenicus or Imoen, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know. It was a non-issue anyway. Both were beyond her reach. She said nothing more until the group made camp for the night.

The rest of the journey passed uneventfully. Viconia set snares in the wood as Arowan had shown her before they went to sleep. First thing in the morning the drow stepped out, barefoot amongst the bracken, complaining every time she trod on a twig, just to inspect them. To her delight and astonishment, she found a rabbit in one of them and grew ridiculously overexcited about it. Especially since Arowan's own snares had caught nothing.

"I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that I have a natural aptitude for hunting," Viconia boasted smugly, as though she had brought down a whole herd of deer single-handed. "Drow possess an innate mastery of traps and slaughter. Arowan! Skin it for me."

"Have Rasaad do it," replied Arowan. This was not, as Viconia immediately assumed, sour grapes. Between what had happened to Freya and their encounters with Rejiek Hidesman, the ranger had developed an intense aversion to skinning anything, dead or alive.

She was still willing to eat her small share of the meat, when it went diced into a stew for their lunch, well aware of how hypocritical that was. Yet her days of preparing kills herself were behind her.

As they approached the Hidden Refuge, the forest about them slowly began to change. It was barely noticeable at first. The trunks and boughs of the trees began to grow sideways like hunchbacks, or twisted like corkscrews. It was as if they were confused about which direction the sun was coming from.

They were a little sparser too, allowing a dense, long grass to grow in the spaces between them. These grasses rustled constantly with the chirruping of crickets and once or twice Arowan's keen eyes made out the lurking tail of a snake.

"This is the place," declared Anomen, double checking their map. "But no sign of Minsc. He probably marked the wrong forest, poor confounded buffoon."

After a few hours of fruitless searching, they eventually gave up and made camp. Arowan took her bow and set off into the trees to see if there was anything to eat. Yet apart from the snakes and their cricket-lunches, the forest seemed peculiarly depopulated. A few squirrels peeped out curiously from the treetops. She could have shot them, but it would have been a lot of furry little lives to end for not a lot of meat. So she left them alone.

There were mushrooms here too. Large flat-capped fungi the size of dinner plates. Not that there was anything so very unusual about that. Only as night fell they began to glow green, pink and blue. So bright that they reminded her of lights at a carnival.

"Pssst!"

"Who said that?" Arowan cried, notching an arrow in her bow and looking around in alarm. There was nobody to be seen, neither sneaking around in the trees nor up in the dark green foliage above.

"Pssst!"

"Neera? Is that you?" Arowan cried, backing into a tree so that nobody could come at her from behind. Its bark felt rough and scratchy through her shirt, yet this tree seemed to pulse with an unnatural warmth. It made her feel oddly comfortable and sleepy. Her feet rustled as she shuffled about in the ferns growing at its base.

"Down here!"

She stopped scanning the inky shadows around her for assassins, and looked down. The ground was lit by the glow from the mushrooms. There was nothing there except for ferns, fallen twigs and dirt. Well that and…

"Looking for something to eat?" the voice crooned temptingly. "Why not try one of us?"

…the glowing mushrooms.

"Oh no," grinned Arowan, waggling a reproving finger at them. She'd not touched any ale that evening, but it felt like she'd drunk half a bar. A happy, woozy feeling was coming over her. If she weren't so peckish this would be the perfect time to curl up under her tree for a nice nap. "I'm not eating talking mushrooms. Especially not glowing ones."

"We weren't suggesting you should!" lied the mushrooms, shaking their caps innocently. "We just wanted to point out the bird's nest up above you. Nice, fresh eggs…"

Arowan looked up. The branches above her were kind of swimming around, but if she focussed then yes, there was indeed a large nest in easy reach above her head.

"I don't really like taking eggs from nests," she mumbled drowsily. "Always think how heartbroken their parents must be when they come back to find it empty."

"So just take a couple and leave the rest. Birds can't count," the mushrooms suggested helpfully. "Come on. How are you supposed to make a mushroom omelette if you don't have any eggs?"

"Good point… NO!" Arowan cried suddenly. Where were the others? She couldn't remember. All of her movements felt strange and sluggish. Everything seemed fine, she was perfectly merry, yet the part of her mind that was still functioning knew she was in danger. "You're not catching me out that way."

"You're too smart for us," agreed the mushrooms, bending their stalks to nod in unison. "We're too good to be true. Big, succulent, juicy mushrooms. Perfect in a soup, delicious grilled on toast, or raw as a snack. There must be a catch. You don't want to eat us."

"Nice try," said Arowan. "I'm not falling for reverse psychology."

She tore herself away from the tree, though the warmth was incredibly comfortable, and her body was screaming with tiredness. For some reason she felt too dizzy to walk, so instead she fell to all fours and began crawling in the direction she hoped was camp. Unfortunately this brought her face-to-cap with a patch of mushrooms.

"You don't look so good," they said, their mouthless voices full of concern. "Hey! You should eat something! That'll make you feel better. How about one of us? We're the perfect pick-me-up, packed with vitamins."

"I… think… I'd better be going… now…" she managed. Her arms were unsteady. She thought she was moving forward but she wasn't quite sure. Nothing she looked at would stay in focus for more than a few seconds at a time.

"Hey…" crooned the mushrooms, "Don't forget about us. You needed a snack, remember?"

"Oh… right.." murmured Arowan, who was having difficulty keeping her eyes open. "Thanks for reminding me…"

She reached out her fingers and plucked the nearest mushroom; a big, plump blue one. It seemed to be guiding her hand to her mouth almost of its own accord. All the hypnotized ranger could do was open wide and watch its approach with fascination.

"Do not eat those mushrooms!" Yoshimo's voice rang in her ear, as though from a great distance. She ignored him. "I am no expert on flora, but you are making a mistake my friend… I cannot let you do this!"

Suddenly a heavy weight cannoned into her flank. She tumbled sideways with a yelp, dropping the shroom, and the haze lifted. He pinned her down, and at first she struggled like an eel, trying to get back to the mushrooms. It took a great deal of effort on Yoshimo's part to keep her from them, until she came fully to her senses and stopped fighting him.

"Sorry!" she panted, looking up into his face. "I've no idea what got into me. It was like they were calling me to eat them."

"I thought you were supposed to be the expert on woodland critters?" Yoshimo teased, his dark hair spilling down over her.

"I'm not sure I'd describe these things as 'woodland critters,'" said Arowan. "They've been tampered with, the whole forest has."

She suddenly found herself forgetting all about food. Yoshimo leaned in and brushed his mouth questioningly over her own. Another split second and the ranger would have closed her eyes. Had she done so, the evening would have taken a very nasty turn indeed.

This was because the mushrooms were most displeased that they were not about to be eaten after all. She could tell from the way their caps had changed from glowing pinks, greens and blues to a dangerous throbbing red. They were swelling and growing larger before their eyes, pulsating threateningly.

Yoshimo noticed that she was distracted and looked up. There was a mushroom right in front of his nose which had swollen to the size of his head. With every pulse it was getting bigger, and starting to shake on its stem unstably.

"Er, should we be running?" Arowan asked.

"Yes," agreed Yoshimo, releasing her arms and pulling her hastily to her feet. "I think that running would be a very good idea."

Blinding scarlet light flashed and the trees shook violently all around them. They hadn't got ten paces when the first mushroom exploded, with easily enough force to take off a man's foot. It set off a chain reaction of incendiary shrooms and soon they were pelting back in the direction of camp.

Arowan and Yoshimo emerged into the clearing where the others had pitched their tents, leaving behind them smouldering bracken, bright flares and deafening bangs.

"What happened?" cried Rasaad, who alongside Anomen was on his feet, ready for a battle.

"Keep away from the mushrooms!" Arowan cried. "Those things are seriously bad news. They got mad when Yoshi stopped me from eating them and blew up!"

"You were going to eat those?" Anomen exclaimed, staring in disbelief at the fluorescent mushrooms. "I do not claim such great knowledge of wild plants as you and my beautiful, charming lady Jaheira. Yet even I can tell that eating these specimens would be a serious error of judgement."

"They sort of hypnotized me," Arowan muttered defensively.

"We'd better get rid of the ones around the camp," Yoshimo suggested.

Viconia and Jaheira nodded and began incantations. What spells the pair of them had been intending to use on the mushrooms, the others never found out, because the drow disappeared leaving her clothes behind her and Jaheira turned lilac. The druid had little immediate concern for the lost cleric, but was inspecting herself, livid.

"What just happened?" she demanded through purple-blue lips. Only her hair, which was a wig and not part of her natural body, remained its normal colour. "I look like a giant xvart!"

"Viconia!" Rasaad panicked, skidding to a halt beside the vacant pile of clothes. "Where did she go? Viconia where are you?"

There was a rustling in the clothes pile, accompanied by indignant squeaking. Rasaad rummaged amongst the leathers, untangling black laced underwear that made him blush. Eventually he managed to free a sleek silver rat with black paws and markings on its face. He let the animal scamper onto his palm and held it close to his face, squinting at it with concerned dark eyes.

"Viconia? Is that you?" he asked. The rat responded by plunging her sharp little teeth into his nose. Rasaad yelped in pain, but had the self-discipline not to throw the creature. It released him, watching smugly as blood dripped onto his lip. "Yes, this is definitely Viconia."

Just then there was a pattering of feet and Neera, looking unusually dishevelled even by her standards, burst into the glade. One look at Jaheira's lilac face seemed to confirm her fears.

"What happened? What happened?" Neera cried. Her eyes fell on Viconia, washing her little black paws in Rasaad's hands. The wild mage nibbled her lip guiltily. "Oh… sorry."

"You did not think to warn us about this forest?" Jaheira asked, glaring imposingly at her fellow spell caster. "First Arowan was attacked by magic mushrooms and now.. this!"

"Sorry, sorry," winced Neera. The others got the impression that she had to make these sorts of apologies a lot. "I thought you guys were going to free those druids and come straight away, so I waited for you. Only days went by, and you didn't come, and I got hungry and bored…"

"We got side-tracked," Jaheira said, tapping her purple foot impatiently. "By a rogue dragon. Who, ironically, did us less harm than you."

"It should be easy enough to fix. We'll just de-polymorph Viconia and Jaheira, you'll have to be squeezed to get the purple out. Only maybe wait until after you're clear of the Wild Forest? This whole region is a wild magic zone. Trying to undo what you just did here will probably make it worse. Or different."

Viconia squeaked rapidly in protest at being made to be a rat a moment more.

"I'm really, really sorry," Neera pleaded.

"Don't be, it's a marvellous improvement," remarked Arowan.

Viconia scampered forward in Rasaad's hands, indicating that she wanted to go to Neera instead. The wild mage, who was not well acquainted with the drow, was unwise enough to take her. Everyone else was still slightly too annoyed to yell a warning. The wild mage smiled and stroked Viconia's silvery rat-head. Moments later she was shrieking with shock and disgust, with the Viconia-rat's piddle dripping down her fingers.

Before Neera could retaliate, Viconia scuttered down, sprinted the short distance across the forest floor as fast as her little legs would carry her, and climbed back up Rasaad's trousers. She sought sanctuary in the monk's shirt, just like Boo often did with Minsc. Her little black paws latched onto his collar and she rode pressed against his muscular torso. As her head poked out just below his chin, beady red eyes peered malevolently at the world.

"What's the point of having the Hidden Refuge?" asked Arowan, as the unfortunate wild mage wiped rat pee onto the grass.

"It's a camp I and some other wild mages set up as a sanctuary for people like us," Neera replied, relieved to have a change of subject. "The Red Wizards have been actively pursuing us lately. It seems like every Red Wizard in Thay is on my tail… except for the one we're actually looking for."

"I meant what's the point of setting it up here," she said specifically. "In a wild magic zone?"

"Well… it wasn't a wild magic zone until we came," Neera confessed awkwardly. "So many of us in one place kind of affected the weave. Plus… we added a lot of defences in case the Red Wizards attack us. It was lucky you set the mushrooms off or I might never have found you."

"You put those mushrooms there on purpose?" spluttered Yoshimo.

"Yeah, cool, aren't they?" beamed Neera, totally misreading the mood. "Their spores make invaders real woozy so we can knock them out without hurting them. If that doesn't work, they blow up and no more Red Wizard! I wanted to skip the spores and go straight for the explosions but Hayes said that was 'unethical'"

"What about the eating them part?" Arowan asked. "Those shrooms were pretty insistent on me eating them."

"Oh, that was my idea," the wild mage replied proudly. "One nibble and… you… er.. you didn't actually eat any of them, did you?"

"No…" grimaced Arowan.

"No, I suppose you'd know if you had," nodded Neera. "One bite would give you insane stomach cramps and runny poop for a week, and I don't mean the normal squirts. I'm talking about such a heavy river flowing out of your butt the cartographers of the Sword Coast would have to update their maps. If Hayes won't let me kill the Red Wizards, I can at least make them wish they were dead, right?"

"I have changed my mind," Arowan said decisively. "Sod you, sod Minsc, sod Edwin and sod the Servant of all Faiths. I'm leaving this disgusting forest, and I'm leaving it now!"

"Oh no don't be like that!" wheedled Neera. "I can get you straight to the hidden refuge. It's ten minutes away. Forty minutes if we take the long way, which we will be doing, because the short way is guarded by a giant snake."

Nobody was up for taking down their tents and hiking another forty minutes just to put them up again, so the party decided to stay put until morning. They made a small crackling fire, which they lit with fire arrows rather than their usual magic.

It was nice to sit out beneath the stars, so much brighter than in Athkatla with its ever burning streetlamps. Nicer still if they could have had a bit more to eat, but they had not liked to take even more of poor Garren Windspear's meagre supplies and their own were running very low. Even with Neera sharing hers, the only one of them with a full belly was the Viconia-rat.

She had adapted to her new form with remarkable speed, and was perched on Rasaad's knee while he meditated, cleaning her whiskers. Every so often she would arch her back and vibrate her ears. It probably meant something in rat body-language, but if their druid knew what, she wasn't sharing.

One by one they retired to their tents. Unlike in the early days of their adventuring when they had all been perpetually broke, these days they had the luxury of their own small space. Neera slept in Viconia's since the rat did not need a whole berth to herself. Instead she snuggled down happily as a rat on Rasaad's chest.

The monk peered down at the silvery creature, nestled between Selune's blinded eyes. It seemed like a lifetime ago that the Cyric temple dragon's claws had torn across his torso and half-gutted him. Viconia had been with him through that, and with him through everything really. He stroked her fur with one finger and she squeaked contentedly.

Meanwhile just as Arowan was dozing off…

"Pssst!"

"ARRRRGGHH! THE MUSHROOMS ARE BACK!" Arowan screamed. She had just fallen asleep and, unable to wake sufficiently to unglue her eyes, snatched up her bow and shot blindly at the source of the noise.

"ARRRRGH! CACKHANDED CRETIN!" came the response. It was not a mushroom. It was Anomen. He had been attempting to enter her tent and she had shot him in her dozy state. At least it wasn't with a fire arrow. She sat up, blinking blearily. Gritting his teeth, the cleric yanked it out with a grunt of pain.

"You had that coming," Yoshimo said. He had come running at the sound of Arowan screaming. Though the thief had found Anomen's first attempt at courting her amusing, this time it was obvious from his expression that he thought it had gone too far. "She made it clear she wasn't interested."

"I just wanted to talk to her about a private matter!" Anomen hissed, as the others approached them. He turned to the ranger. "I need the thing you promised me!"

"The thing I… what are you talking about?"

Anomen made a circle with his thumb and forefinger and mimed putting his index finger through it. The Kara-Turan goggled at her, unable to believe that she would promise him that. Perhaps she hadn't. Their ranger looked totally baffled, and it was only as the druid arrived at the scene that the penny dropped.

"This is not good, we cannot heal it here," Jaheira said, inspecting Anomen's wound. She was still as purple as ever. "I will have to bandage the entry point as best I can and apply what herbs I have."

"Here," said Arowan, pressing something small into the palm of Anomen's hand. "The thing you came for. I want it back before we go to the Umar Hills, understood?"

The young man nodded gratefully, despite his pain and slipped it into his pocket. Then Jaheira half-dragged him away to patch him up as best she could in a wild magic zone. Yoshimo was standing over Arowan, arms folded and glaring suspiciously. She rolled her eyes at him.

"I offered to lend him the Charisma Ring for a bit," she whispered. "To help him practise talking to women in a not-awful way. Maybe once he's done it a few times he'll get the hang of it on his own."

"Ah! So he was miming putting a ring onto his finger!" the thief exclaimed. "It looked like he was gesturing something else."

Arowan rolled her eyes again.

"Get your mind out of the gutter! The only possibility of that ever happening was if the Unseeing Eye Cult had actually plucked my eyes out. Even then they'd have needed to take my ears too," she said. "I said I'd lend him the Charisma Ring at the next tavern we came to, but I expect he wants it now because Neera is here."

Alas Anomen's romantic plans were foiled, for instead of reciting poetry to Neera beneath the stars, he was having an evil-smelling poultice stuffed into his wound by Jaheira. At least the Charisma Ring might still be of some use to him. If he could use it to persuade her to be more gentle. Being turned purple had put her into a foul mood and she was treating his wound more roughly than was strictly necessary.

Flippant remarks had been on the tip of his tongue. Suggestive comments about how they were alone in a tent together and she was touching his chest. The moment the ring was on, however, it sent an urgent warning through his finger, up his arm and to his brain. He had always considered such banter with women to be, at worst, a compliment. Thanks to the Charisma Ring it was occurring to him for the first time that they might be taken as disrespectful and childish.

"Thank you for sorting my arrow wound," he surprised himself by saying. "Those must have been quite some mushrooms to get Arowan so rattled. I must confess myself sorely tempted to bring one back and plant it in the Order Headquarters. In the interests of the party's safety I shall refrain, however."

Jaheira's lip twitched. She took a bandage and wrapped it around his chest. It made it uncomfortable to breathe as well as smushing the herbs in deeper. Yet instead of telling the ham-fisted wench to be more careful (which would have been his usual response) the Charisma Ring told him to grit his teeth and tough it out in manly silence.

"Ah, look!" Jaheira smiled, raising her hand to the lamp light. "The lilac is wearing off."

"I suppose you won't need to have it squeezed out after all," Anomen smiled. "Though I was mildly curious as to what that procedure involved."

"I am happy to remain in ignorance," the druid said wryly.

"Speaking of being happy to remain ignorant, I may regret my next question," he began, "But what exactly is in that poultice you used to plug my chest? It feels a lot better already."

So the druid told him what the herbs were and where he might find them. To his surprise he actually found it interesting and they talked long into the night about the differences between cleric and druid healing methods.

It wasn't what he had expected from the Charisma Ring. Nor was it, in all honesty, what he had been hoping for. Magic quick pick-up lines guaranteed to lure attractive women into his bed had been the goal. Instead, for the first time in his life, he was having a normal conversation with a woman outside of his own family.

Not as good as losing his virginity… but a start.