After a good night's sleep, our heroes soon found themselves readying themselves for another day's travels. Amelia was full of spunk for she had desperately wanted to reach Zefilia soon. Even as she was a princess, she had never been given the opportunity to visit there, and she desperately wanted to see the huge vineyards that were rumored to be magnificent. However, in her morning spunkiness, she accidentally happened to awaken her roommate – probably the only person who hadn't stepped out of bed, Lina.
"Amelia! Quiet down, would ya'?" Lina screamed from underneath her blanket, doing her best to hide from the sun that was beginning to peek through the window.
"I'm sorry, Lina, I'm just getting really excited! Your country must be beautiful!" she exclaimed full of pep.
"Well, yeah," Lina began as she sat up in her bed, "but it smells like fruit punch all the time and the men are always drunk."
Amelia's head sunk. "Oh… but I still want to see the beautiful country side."
Lina shrugged. "Whatever."
"Okay," said Amelia, "I'm going downstairs to see what they're serving for breakfast. Try to get up soon, okay, Lina?"
"I suppose." Lina watched as Amelia closed the door behind her. "Ugh…" she sighed as she plopped back down on her bed. "Peace at last…"
Unfortunately for her, however, a knocking at her door soon interrupted her peace. "Amelia, don't tell me you forgot something!" she called.
There was a slight pause at the door, then a heavy sigh. "Gourry?" she asked.
No one answered. She got up and opened the door, and found herself facing the long empty hall. She looked up and down it a few times then went back to her room. "I must have been hearing things…"
"I'm so stupid," Gourry scolded himself as he ran down the stairs at lightning speed.
"Where are you going?" a voice asked from behind him.
Gourry halted. He knew that voice. He turned around. "Xelloss?!"
Xelloss smiled. "Tis me, Gourry," he said. "And like I asked before, where you going in such a hurry?"
"Downstairs. I'm hungry," he explained, neither lying nor telling the truth.
"I see." Xelloss raised an eyebrow. "But you seem upset."
Gourry didn't answer and began to walk down the stairs again, this time more slowly.
"Oh, Gourry, don't tell me this Prince Bill thing has gotten you all upset. Gourry, Gourry, Gourry…"
Gourry turned around once again. "How do you know about that?!"
Xelloss shrugged. "I know a lot of things." He pulled up his robe on his left arm to look as if he had a watch (he didn't) and sighed. "Oh, I really must be leaving. I have an important engagement I must be attending to. But I trust I'll be seeing you soon. Goodbye, Gourry!"
"Wait! Xelloss!" he cried running toward him.
Xelloss smiled one last time and disappeared.
Gourry frowned and finally got to finish walking downstairs to find everyone was there except for Lina. However, he did manage to crack a smile when he noticed two empty chairs sitting next to each other.
He sat down and noticed everyone was very quiet and was staring at him. He shifted in his seat and smelled the air around him. "It wasn't me! I don't even smell it!"
Gourry never told anyone about Xelloss and for two reasons. The first was that he didn't want to make Lina upset and the second was that he plain forgot his encounter had even occurred by lunchtime.
By the time Lina had finally woken up and come downstairs, everyone had already finished eating. Not that it mattered, for she decided to skip another meal and start off on their journey.
"Where are we headed to next?" asked Zelgadis as he had his afternoon coffee when he had finished eating his latest meal.
Ravage pulled a rather large map out of knapsack. "Gigopolous," he stated. "That's also where we're probably going to have to stay the night."
Lina turned pale. "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"
All eyes turned to her. "Don't tell me you did something there, of all places?!" Zel scolded.
"Why, what's so bad about Gigopolous?" asked Gourry.
"It's a kingdom, of well, very large people. Any by that, I mean everyone there is over seven feet tall and very strong," explained Amelia. "I once had to meet with King –"
"WE CAN'T GO THERE!" yelled Lina.
"Why not?" Ravage looked at her very annoyed. "I came through there when I went looking for you!"
"I don't want to talk about it," Lina stated smoothly, resting her head in her folded hands.
"Lina, just tell us what you did!" demanded Zel, beginning to rise out of his chair, with growing impatience.
"Are you sure you want to know?"
"YES!" everyone cried.
Lina let out a deep breathe and began. "It was a long time ago – before I met any of you, that I happened to stubble into Gigopolous. It was a nice city full of nice people, however, they had a big problem. There was a dragon wrecking havoc on it every time they decided to have a festival. So, generous, little ol' me decided to do them a favor – for a price of course. I would get rid of the dragon and they would pay me a nice hefty sum. So, I did all that, and got paid and everything was great. However, they decided to have a banquet and invited me…" She paused.
"And?" Zel enquired.
"And somehow the royal families' fine gold silverware managed to find its way into my backpack."
"So now, what?" asked Amelia. "We can't exactly go there."
Lina shrugged. "I guess we'll have to go around it."
"We can't do that! That'll add days to our trip through mountainous territory!" Ravage yelled.
"Do you think they'd even remember Lina? That was a long time ago," Gourry said
"Maybe," Zel began, "we could disguise Lina."
"Do you think it would work, Mr. Zelgadis?"
Zel narrowed his eyes. "It's worth a try."
