Chapter Nine:

The skies of Treen were rather dreary this day, the dark, ominous clouds promising a storm. Not that Barlimu cared. He was leaving soon anyway. Barlimu was a short, rather stout semi powerful wizard, with wild red hair and a temper to match. He was also a bit of a magical creature collector. Which was why he planned on going to Dondar. But to get to Dondar, one must first go through Rawn. Not and experience he was looking forward to.

Beside him, was a cage. A rather small dirty cage, to the disgust of it's inhabitant. The small red panda looked up at his master and said, "When can I get out of here? I'm hungry. Why won't you feed me? Were are we going? Hey, what are you doing? You know, there's a much easier way of...."

"SHUT UP!!" Barlimu, who was attempting to open a portal, was greatly annoyed by this interruption. The stupid beast was always interrupting him.... "You silly, idiotic creature! I have a mind to cut out your tongue! Why, of all the animals I could pick up, did it have to be one who could talk....."

The panda was a little more than upset at this. "I am not idiotic. And I'm not a creature either. I'm a panda. Get your animals straight. And I can talk because I'm special. Unlike you. Now, when's dinner? I'm hungry."

"I've a good mind to eat you for dinner! Now hush!." he began to attempt the tricky spell again, only to be interrupted again. "You are a very sorry excuse for a wizard. My old master could open a portal in a minute! It takes you all day. By the way, that's because you're doing it the hard way. If you'd let me...."

"QUITE! It's only taking me so long because every time I get started you start talking! Darn founded animal, just hush!" at this point, Barlimu was strongly in favor of just walking off and leaving the little creature, but he couldn't bring himself to. Not out of any actual attachment to the animal, but because it had so much magical power... it was like a magic battery. And quite soon he'd be needing it.

"Alright, if you say so. But I could make it easier you know. And, I'm still hungry, just so you know." with that, the panda settled down in his cage, in and promptly fell asleep.

A few minutes later he was roughly awakened as Barlimu hastily lifted the cage and took it with him through the newly opened portal, which closed only seconds after they had gone through, it's job done.

"You could have been a bit nicer. I was having a really good dream..." the panda began, but Barlimu cut him off.

"Quite! There are things here we don't want to meet, don't want to notice us. With you talking continually, we'll be found and killed in moments. Hush!" Surprisingly enough, the panda fell silent. He, of course, had absolutely no clue what the man was talking about, no clue that this place wasn't people friendly, but he didn't like Barlimu's tone. It frightened him.

Barlimu could have sighed in relief. He had had to put up with the panda's whining and complaining for weeks now, and it had strongly grated on his nerves. Many a time he had considered throwing the cage off the closest cliff. And it wouldn't do him any good to have the little chatterbox going on about all his woes now. If he heard another 'I'm hungry' he was going to go crazy.

Satisfied his little companion would stay quite, Barlimu began to make his way through Rawn. He was to tired to make another portal to Dondar at the moment. They needed a good, safe place to sleep. Here, that wouldn't be so easy to find. Most unfortunately for him, he had come out at the base of the Jagged Mountains. He didn't know about the Troll village there. He didn't know he was walking right in to his own doom. So when after a half hour of walking, he was greatly surprised to find the troll's excuse for a settlement before him.

Rawn's two, small moons were just rising now, and it was another bit of bad

luck that they made the man and his creature very noticeable. And trolls didn't exactly go to bed early. They saw him. Felt a moment of puzzled curiosity. And then the thought 'human!' filled them and ten of the slightly numb witted, but incredibly strong creatures were up and running strait towards the highly startled Barlimu. He had a moment, just a moment to stare in amazement, and then he was running.

In his cage, which was grasped firmly in he fleeing man's arms, the panda squeaked loudly in fright. He had never seen anything quite so big as the trolls were. Frightening and large as they were to a human, it was at least ten times as worse for such a small creature as the young panda.

Barlimu was doomed from the start. There was no way he could out run ten. fully grown trolls. And his magical energy was all but exauhsted. As the large brutish creatures caught up with him, he turned and through a weak fireball at them, but it had little effect, except to send one running around in alarm, it's cloths on fire. But this only made matters worse.

Barlimu dropped the cage containing the panda, and it sprang open. The little red creature darted out of it, glad for freedom, but at the same time alarmed, for compared to a scarcely grown panda, troll feet were very dangerous. With out so much a glance for his soon to be dead 'master' he darted off, heading for a large forest that wasn't far away, praying there wasn't something much worse waiting for him.

Lucky for him, he went unnoticed, and it wasn't long before he collapsed beside a small bush, and quickly scurried to sit within it's leafy branches. It would be a good place to sleep. He would think about what he was going to do about all this in the morning. Besides, he couldn't do anything now, he was lost. So very lost.

Authors Note: And so I introduce Blink. I'm going to have a lot of fun with the next few chapters....