Disclaimer: If I owned NWN, do you really think I would be writing something like this?

Again, a note: Well, I'm afraid there's really more digression then the actual action in this chapter. Forgive me, but there are things I simply had to say. ;)

This chapter is written in honor of one law you can be sure always works – The one and only, The Murphy's Law:
"Anything That Can Possibly Go Wrong, Does!"

Chaos AD(n'D)

chapter 1

With Friends Like These…
or
(A Brief Glimpse At Some Laws Of Fantasy Universe)

The first and most important prerequisite for any fantasy universe to function is to banish any and all logic from it. Once logic is out of the way, things get considerably easier. Smooth going, so to speak. At any rate, much more comfortable.

"Wait! Don't you recognize one of our own?" the Seer said in a calm, composed voice.($)
($)Which just goes to show that either she was completely nuts or downright dead because no one who wasn't in one of those two categories could possibly remain calm and composed when an entire bundle of kicking, trashing and cursing steel an' fur pops out of thin air and crashlands in their house. (#)
(#)Or maybe it was just because she was a Seer and thus knowing just who's gonna pop up she stuffed herself with a whole bottle of pills strong enough to tranquilize a horse prior to their arrival.

"Errr, no. Not really. Uhm, is that you, Nathyrra?" said one of the drow, poking at the bottom of the bundle with the butt end of his spear.

"Nope. I think that's the girl below me. Pretty squished, too." answered a voice from somewhere within the bundle. "…SO YOU CAN STOP POKING!" ($)
($)You will notice, of course, that the newly-arrived and the drow are actually communicating. How and why is that possible is the topic that shall be addressed later on. Suffice to say that the current speaker is not the type to dwell on irrelevant little things, such as not speaking drowish.

"And you can stop hugging Michael" said another female voice. It sounded somewhat irritated… and about to turn quite angry. Soon.

"Well I will, as soon as he gets his foot out of my boobies!"

"MICHAEL!" this time, the voice was definitely angry.

The paladin in question said nothing. It is kinda hard to speak while you're trying to get your own sword hilt out of your mouth.

"All right, this does it!" said the first female voice and, with very little effort, pushed away the bodies on top of her.

"Hey! I could've done that too! I have a great strength score, too, you know! And I want to show it off… but in a quiet, unobtrusive way, because no-one expects a girl of my slender build to be so strong and…" said the other female voice, but shut up as the love of her life finally spat out his sword and heaved himself up… making it a point to step on the owner of the first female voice. Nah… a paladin wouldn't do that… would he now?

"Are you all right, my love?" the paladin bent down and asked his betrothed, still standing firmly on the other female… Which was a mistake, 'cause, as you already heard, the other female was also ridiculously strong and thus got up anyway and the paladin landed flat on his nose.

Now, "my love" as we all know, is exclusively Valen's line and at this point he would likely have started objecting to someone else daring to use his convo option. Only, he didn't. And he didn't because in this fic he doesn't have chronic constipation and at the time of the brave adventurers' arrival he was in the privy. And I'm not about to explain in detail what was he doing there, so - No Valen for now.

And while I wasn't explaining what Valen was doing in the privy, the entire freshly arrived bundle of adventurers finally disentangled. And after they had, one flattened drow, namely Nathyrra, at last got her chance to get off the floor (she was at the bottom of the pile, remember?) and to start her proper conversation option. But due to the fact that she had just been buried under the adventuring party, she wasn't much in the mood for talking and so she settled for some quiet groaning and ouching instead.

"No. Now I really don't recognize one of our own." said Imloth looking at the Seer. "Last time I saw Nathyrra, she was 3D, not flat... OUCH!"

Being quite frustrated by all that has happened, Nathyrra kicked Imloth in the… Well, guess where! And so, Imloth fell down and now he and Nathyrra could groan together.

"Now, Michael, what were you doing hugging Vix…?" the second female voice was saying, not at all perturbed by the fact that: one, her beloved was very ungracefully hugging the floor right then and two, that she was in the middle of an unknown temple full of drow.

"Mrgmrfphmffff…" replied the paladin.

"Hey! She's got white hair! Like us! Look!" one of the drow said pointing at the female.

"And the other one's got black skin!" shouted another in astonishment.

And then, all hell broke lose…

Of course, Hell, as such, shouldn't come into play before chapter 3 of HotU (save for several ominous references made throughout chapter 2 concerning a certain archduke), but apparently, in-game rules do not apply in this story. For instance, there is a whole party here, not just one lone Hero.($)

($)Which, in hindsight, might even make some sense, for the Hero in question had the pleasure of starring in the SoU campaign prior to this, and should one consider the amount of loot said Hero gathered there, one would be safe to assume that the Hero would have likely bought a nice house on the beach, and the whole beach itself come to think of it, and is now spending some quality time rolling in luxury.(#)
(#)Or, at least, that would be the sensible thing for the Hero to do. For some reason, heroes never seem to be sensible.

Anyway, during this rather unnecessary digression, the events in Lith My'athar Temple, happily detached from their usual, in-game, chain, were now quite enthusiastically exploring their sudden new-found freedom. That is to say, they were running wild. Completely.

The white-haired girl, namely Lavinia Justblade, left her betrothed to enjoy the close-up of the Temple floor and, having quickly scanned the situation, began wriggling her fingers preparing a spell. Her other hand rested lazily on the hilt of the sword. Did you notice the white hair? Having white hair when you just celebrated your 20th birthday barely a few days ago is not really normal, is it now?

For some reason, the crucial point of every fiction and the ground basis for any and all character interactions seem to be Characters Painful And Mysterious Background - an item that commonly gets fished out of the Grand Pool of Lame And Overused Plot Devices. Well, the white hair issue here obviously came straight out of it. Later on, it will likely be used and abused incessantly for sooner or later, everybody feels the unexplained urge to poke and pry into somebody's past. This always happens as the result of the writers need to "deepen the relationship" between the characters and can take many shapes and forms, ranging everywhere from "Why is your hair white?" to "Have you ever been in love?" This is also known as the Tell Me About Your Childhood Principle, named after the immortal words of ol' Uncle Freud. Apparently, the shadow of the Father Of Psychoanalysis looms over every story teller in the multiverse, especially in the late nightly hours when writers block strikes at its fullest. Goes to show that the old bugger was right after all: In the end, it is all about sex really.

But, no matter how loud Uncle Freud was laughing his ass off somewhere in the heavens, most of the drow in the Temple failed to notice it. Currently, they were way too busy running around in the attempts to get away from the other female member of the party. The black skinned one. Namely Vix, though commonly better known as Crazy Bitch.($)

($)Something that, curiously enough, she never seemed to complain about, mostly because she was a crazy bitch, but also because "Crazy Bitch" just happened to be her real last name. That, however, is another, rather bizarre, story which won't be told here. At least for now. After all, we can't just drain the Grand Pool of Lame And Overused Plot Devices dry before the story has even begun properly. And it's a silly story anyway, so you haven't missed much.

Anyway, being the happy-go-kill person that she was, and also having complained incessantly throughout her previous adventure at the ridiculously low number of pointy-eared creatures (skin color optional) she was allowed to kill, Vix was now positively ecstatic, having found herself in what she thought of as a dream come true. And so, with a loud battle cry of "WHEEEEEEEEE !" she happily launched herself forward, feeling like a kid in a candy store… but looking more like a bull in a china shop. Which was not to say she was ugly! Sturdy –yes, muscled – yes, but ugly – no.

There are many laws around which every fantasy universe seems to revolve. One such law, regarding female adventurers, is the one that clearly states that, regardless of how harsh a life they might be leading (and it is safe to assume that "adventuring" does fall into the "harsh" category), how long they go on without food, water or sleep, and whatever injuries they might be sustaining, the female leads are always pretty! Period! The only exception to this rule is when they are downright gorgeous. You can make them go through the desert for days, they'll get no sunburns; you can have them starving, they still won't look like skeletons afterwards (a shame, come to think of it, for they could easily get a job in the fashion industry afterwards); you can put them through a meat grinder, and still they'll have their beautiful bodies intact… They won't even get scars!

However, their charisma score will always be completely independent, separated and alltogether unaffected by the rest of their physical attributes. How Lavinia, with her beautiful, yet extremely slender frame, manages to be exceptionally strong, able to lift weights three times her own and still not have her fragile bones snap from the pressure, or how Vix, leading the physically demanding life of a warrior, manages not to look like Whoopie Goldberg on steroids is anyone's guess.

And so, Lavinia was trying to cast a spell, but almost instantly was distracted by charging Vix. And she wasn't the only one who was… distracted.

It is a commonly accepted fact that every man's dream is to have a beautiful woman on top of him. Or at least a pretty one. Paladins, however, are an exception to this rule. For one, they tend to be rather picky about their women. But once they do make up their minds (provided they have any), go through the ordeal of courtship (provided they find a woman willing to endure the courtship of a paladin) and finally gather the guts to propose (provided the woman in question didn't run away screaming two brackets ago), they tend to be faithful to the one they love… Actually, it seems that paladins are just like any other man really. Well, except for that being faithful and true bit. But such is the price of paladinhood – Paladins can't cheat on the one they love because if they did, they would be breaking their vows. And if they start breaking their vows, sooner or later, they would fall out of grace and stop being paladins all together, after which they are free to cheat whenever, however and whoever they want. (Apparently, once they lose their paladinhood, paladins become real men.) However, until they become real men, paladins are forced to obey The Code and stick to their Word Of Honor and that, among other things, means they must be true to the one they love both in body and in mind alike.

And thus, unlike your common man, Michael didn't dream of having some random good looking woman on top of him. And he especially didn't dream of having just the foot of one, high-speed and full-charge, pinning him to the floor yet again. …Come to think of it, you don't have to be a paladin to not dream of something like that. Could pass as a nightmare though…

Sometimes, dreams come true. Unfortunately, so do the nightmares, as Michael promptly found out the second he got Vix's foot planted into his back as she was charging head-on full-speed into a bunch of suddenly very pale-faced drow. Whereupon, Michael decided that getting off the floor was a bad idea to begin with. The idea of just lying on it however… Now that was a bit more like it. Not extremely dignified, but at least, fairly safe, and especially compared to all the perils getting up obviously got you in.

And then, after he spent some time marveling at the intricate floor ornamentations and, occasionally, shifting a bit in order to avoid another random drow or even more random Vix stomping on him… again… a question of burning intensity appeared in Michaels mind. And the question was: Where Is The Elf?

High above the ongoing chaos in Lith My'athar Temple, a pale, shuddering elf desperately clutched at the ceiling. His name was Callis, and his life was full of problems. And the most pressing of those at the moment were these: One, he was claustrophobic; Two, he was also drowphobic and Three, he was losing his handgrip… Fast!

How the elf got up on that, at least 12 foot high ceiling in the first place is not the topic that shall be discussed here. Suffice to say, it happened very, very fast. And his way down was even faster. Exactly 9,81g to be precise.

Fantasy worlds operate in such a manner that within them, aside from biology, laws of any other science also bend (or, if they happen to be too rigid - break) according to the needs and whims of The Great Laws Of Fantasy. This is commonly known as Break Or Bend Rule. It is this rule that makes things such as wish-granting genies, people with undersized wings that can still fly or goodly kingdoms possible. It is this rule that allows Lavinia to be able to wield two longswords, know ancient languages, cast magic and cook and be perfect in all she does. It is this rule that enables Vix to wield two flails without knocking herself out cold or, at least, entangling herself in them. And it is this rule that now allowed Callis to plummet down from the 12 foot high ceiling without breaking his neck… or Vix's spine for that matter, as he landed straight on top of her, thus abruptly ending her killing spree and possibly saving the lives of a few drow in the process.

(You will notice, however, that in spite of the Break Or Bend Rule, Callis did, in fact fall! This only goes to show that some basic laws of physics do function after all, even in fantasy. Too stubborn to either break or bend, Gravity still rules supreme. And Gravity is a harsh mistress.)

So, to sum things up, the brave adventurers arrived in Lith My'athar in a plummeting bundle, disentangled themselves and instantly launched themselves into various social activities such as cursing, shouting, bitching and murderous rampaging. In short, all the things adventurers usually do. Meaning – making one hell of an excited mess.

Throughout all that, the Seer waited patiently for someone to start paying attention to her. After a while, she got bored of it. Slightly worried too. And so, after a while longer, she quietly slipped out and went to write a letter of protest to Halaster:

"Dear Halaster, "
"I thank you kindly for sending the adventuring party to our aid. My visions clearly indicated that this party alone shall prove to be the salvation of the Lith My'athar rebels."

She paused and thoughtfully tapped the quill against her cheek.

"However, it is now my firm belief that the said goal would've been far better accomplished had you sent them into the HQ of my evil twin, The Valsharess, instead…"

By the time The Seer returned, things in the main chamber had become somewhat calmer.

Michael, up on his feet at last, took upon himself the task of trying to calm one trembling, pale-faced elf down. Such tasks, as we all know, are most commonly accomplished by placing one firm hand on the distressed person's shoulder while at the same time talking calmly into the distressed person's ear. The words that are spoken, however, most of the time don't make much sense.($)

($)After all, if "Calm down, nothing to worry about. Everything's gonna be all right," was true, there wouldn't be any need for comforting in the first place.(#)
(#)On the bright side, the words don't actually have to make sense anyway. The catch is to get the right tone of voice. Once that is achieved, you're free to blab whatever you want.

The task Michael undertook was made somewhat easier by the fact that, after the initial shock of being teleported straight into a roomful of drow, Callis finally remembered that he should at least try and stay in character in this fic. And that meant he realized he should actually be the calm, reliable, mostly-expressionless, ice-eyed archer of the party, not a random comic relief.

But, since the elf now firmly made up his mind about not being a comic relief and Deekin never made it into the story in the first place, we're obviously one comic relief short. Which means one has to be found. And fast.

Back in the privy, for reasons not yet known to him, Valen shuddered.

Meanwhile, while I once more wasn't informing you that Valen is still in the privy (Hey! I said he's not constipated! I didn't say he doesn't have diarrhea!), The Seer grabbed the doormat for support and continued to scan the situation at hand. Apparently, the females of the party were slightly more active then the males. Then again, females always are, aren't they?

After having an elf plummet down on her head, much to everybody's relief, Vix found herself flat on the ground. Whereupon Lavinia ceased the opportunity to put a knee between VIx's shoulder blades and twist her arm behind her back, thus preventing the unruly barbarian from getting up again and continuing what she was previously doing. Chasing drow with two flails in her hands, that is. Currently, several dark elves stared at Lavinia with mix of deep respect and undying gratitude in their eyes. Some were even applauding.

Vix, on her part, was still desperately trying to wriggle herself free. Failing that, she reverted to whining and cursing instead.

"You never let me kill anything!" she complained, but Lavinia remained adamant.

Seeing all that, The Seer realized that this must be her best, if not her only chance to finally say her lines. Having correctly picked out Lavinia (Or Nia, as she hated being called) as the unofficial leader of the party, The Seer straightened her long silken robes, took a deep breath and approached her.

"You are most welcome here, Lavinia Justblade. I am the Seer. I have awaited your arrival with great anticipation. Please… errr…." Somehow, "Come... do not be alarmed," didn't sound very appropriate at the moment. She could say it to her own troops, though. The Seer cleared her throat and quickly continued.

"I am sure you have many questions, and I assure you that they will be answered. I am curious first, however, as to how you came to appear before us."

The Seer glanced around in a slightly nervous way, trying to spot Nathyyra. After all, this was Nathyrra's cue. Nathyrra, however, had had just about enough of these adventurers and everything that has to do with them, for whatever had to do with them, sooner or later always involved being blown up, teleported around and all in all getting severely injured. Thus, she quietly crept away to have a good, strong drink instead.

Forced to think fast on her feet, The Seer improvised.

"But, I believe I can answer that myself. I am, after all, a seer. You managed to free Halaster from the Valsharess, ending her efforts to use Undermountain as a base to launch her attacks on the surface and I am sorry that he violated you in that way for that is not how I would have wished to acquire your assistance, however Destiny has decreed that you alone can stop the Valsharess which gives us all the more reason to support you so our fate lies in your hands and thus I believe it is time for you to learn more of the Valsharess, herself, not that you know about the Valsharess and her attacks on Waterdeep and Undermountain or, for that matter, just what are Waterdeep and Undermountain in the first place, having just popped up from a completely different world and all that, but let us just pretend that doesn't matter right now shall we and anyway it is important you know something of the Valsharess, if you are to help us against her for not only our hides are in danger here but also the whole world you see and there is only one thing that I can do now and that is put my faith in the goddess and that means putting our faith in you," The Seer blurted out without pausing for breath.

Lavinia blinked, astonished.

For some reason, in almost every fantasy universe, there exists a language called The Common – A language spoken and understood by any and all regardless of the race, class and overall linguistic capabilities.($)

($)Curiously enough, this Common almost always seems to be English, which raised some pretty interesting debates among the historians about how big a colonial force Great Britain truly was.(#)
(#)Which then in turn raised another, even more interesting debate about the true origins of Brits themselves. Those debates mainly revolved around two main postulates, first one being: "Look, everybody speaks English! Everybody! From D&D races to X-Files aliens!" and the second one being: "And come to think of it, those Brits did always seem a bit alien themselves, don't you think?"

Anyway, the fact that everybody could understand everybody made some people wonder what is then the point of having spells such as Comprehend Languages anyway? And the reason Lavinia was blinking in astonishment was that her previous DM just happened to be one of those people. Thus, Lavinia came from one of the rare fantasy worlds in which there was no Common, so the fact that she now understood everything the Seer was saying came as a complete surprise to her. So big a surprise in fact, that, while she did understand the words, she completely forgot to pay attention to their actual meaning.

"Uhm… Could you repeat that, please?"

The Seer's jaw dropped. She used the opportunity to stuff her mouth with another handful of pills and wash them down with a glass of water that miraculously appeared in her hand.

"Of… /GULP/…course," she replied calmly. And then, having just OD-ed on the pills, she collapsed on the floor and was instantly sound asleep.

"Nia?" Lavinia groaned. Like I said, she absolutely hated being called that. Which was the main reason why Vix was always calling her so.

"Yes, Vix?"

"Did that sleeping chick just say 'prophecy' ?"

Lavinia sighed. "Yes, Vix."

"Involving us?"

"Yes, Vix!"

"And… saving the world, too?"

"YES VIX!"

"AGAIN? …AAAAAARRRGHHHH!"

Whether it was a cry of anguish or of pain, for Lavinia just twisted Vix's arm even harder, one couldn't tell. In truth, it was both.($)

($)Another Great Law of fantasy clearly states that sooner or later, every world gets to be in dire need of saving.(#)
(#)This law seems to be especially popular on Faerun. Now, if one takes into account the number of people living there and the number of potential adventurers in the population on one side, and the number of various organizations, fractions and squabbling deities bent on world dominance on the other side, with some quick math one can easily conclude that Faerun must be in dire need of saving about once every five minutes. Almost makes one wonder if it's really worth it.

Furthermore, the law states that regardless of the number of various powerful, super-powerful and downright omnipotent people who live in the world in question, The Saving can always only be accomplished by one goodly heroic individual or one single party of those. The Law, of course, supposes that said individual or individuals will be of goodly disposition. If, through some bizarre set of circumstances, they happen not to be of good alignment… if they happen not to really give a damn… if they would even rather side with the bad guys instead… Well, their personal preferences are entirely their own problem and they shall be forced to do the job regardless! Which was the reason why Vix was now helplessly banging her fist against the floor and sobbing loudly.

Deciding that it's better to comfort than to be comforted, Callis stepped away from comforting Michael and went to comfort Vix instead.($)

($)The greatest comfort of all can be found in knowing that, no matter how lousy you might feel, there's always someone who feels even worse. Nothing to brighten your mood like seeing someone else is having it even worse.

Deeming it safe to let go of Vix's arm for now, Lavinia left the elf to take care of the barbarian while she herself moved over to The Seer and tried to wake her up. Suddenly having nothing better to do, Michael joined her.

It needs to be said at this point that, regardless of the world you find yourself in, the average amount of sleep an average adult of any age, race or class needs is always the same: Five More Minutes! Thus, precisely five minutes later, the combined efforts of Lavinia, Michael and a bucketful of cold water yielded results and the Seer opened her eyes… only to find herself soaking wet. Well, I did mention a bucket of water, didn't I?

Exectly where that bucket came from, however, nobody knew. Most likely, it just materialized out of thin air, in accordance to yet another Great Law. And this particular law clearly states that, whenever someone has to be waken up, a bucket of water always has to be involved. Always!

It is only fortunate that falling asleep on the other hand, doesn't always necessarily involve falling pianos… Like the one that, at the precise moment the bucket of water appeared, suddenly popped into existence some ten feet above the privy. …Well, some balance has to exist after all, even with things popping into existence out of thin air!

On pianos, it needs to be said that regardless of the way they come into existence, they too have a tendency to fall with exactly 9,81g. Pianos are much like elves really. This one in particular landed straight on Valen's head, and thus the appearance of a certain tiefling in this fic got delayed even further.

Meanwhile, for all her efforts, The Seer utterly failed in her attempts to look at least a bit dignified. Sitting in a puddle does that to people, you know.

"Ehrm… You were saying, lady?" Michael asked.

"Um… Yes. I was saying that… you must have many questions," The Seer replied, hoping that either Michael or Lavinia would take the hint and start asking their bloody questions already so that they could all go on with the usual, in-game dialogue at last and be done with this already.

I shall assume at this point that, by now, most of you know the in-game dialogue by heart and can very well imagine the few possible variations of it as well. So just imagine, if you will, that there's a lot of it written here, ok?

Done imagining yet? Good. And now, if you'll be so kind to follow me into an unknown region of the Underdark where you shall be introduced to the main villainess herself…

At the moment of our arrival into her HQ, The Valsharess was staring at the scrying ball and gasping for breath. If you take a closer look, you will notice that the image displayed in the scrying ball is that of Lith My'athar which, on reflection, should give you a fairly good idea why was The Valsharess gasping for breath.

After about half an hour it took her to finally stop laughing, The Valsharess took a quill in her hands, found some paper and, still stifling an occasional giggle, begun writing a letter of thanks to Halaster:

"Dear Halaster, "
"I thank you kindly for sending the adventuring party to The Rebels' aid…" she wrote,
"However, Mephistopheles here (and he sends his best regards, by the way) now keeps fussing about the fact that said party is apparently not in possession of a certain item called 'The Relic of The Reaper' and, according to Mephie, without that item the progress into the third chapter of the story is rendered impossible."
"I keep telling him that writing a parody about Cania is even more impossible, due to the fact that the whole Cania part of the story is already a parody in and of itself, but he just won't listen and I'm growing really tired of his incessant whining."
"Thus, I would be much obliged if you would be so kind as to pay attention to the rest of the adventurers who, I have no doubt about it, are still stumbling through Undermountain, for Mephie informs me that one of them might be The Hero who, unlike the adventuring party, does have that Relic."
"This Hero should be easily recognizable by having a certain silly-sounding kobold tagging along as a henchman. Failing that, The Hero can also be identified by being fairly naked because one of my Red Sisters apparently managed to nip all of The Hero's possessions prior to getting herself killed …though why she did either of those two things is still beyond me."
"Anyway, should you happen to spot The Hero, both Mephie and me will be extremely grateful if you would just teleport that person, and into my HQ this time as opposed to those of my good twin, The Seer."

"Sincerely yours, V."

"P.S. Teleporting the kobold is completely optional."

And while The Valsharess was writing her letter, things in Lith My'athar were slowly being brought to a more-or-less successful conclusion.

Having been briefed about their oncoming mission at last, the adventurers were shown into their rooms.($)

($)However, the idea of locking them in there and tossing the keys into the Dark River failed utterly, due to the fact that both female members of the party, being incredibly strong as they are, were more then capable of breaking the doors down.(#)
(#)As was promptly demonstrated the moment Vix decided to go out for a stroll and then Lavinia decided to go out to see what was all that noise about.

The Seer felt she needed to lie down a bit, Nathyrra and Imloth were happily drinking themselves unconscious and Valen was still busy spitting out piano keys.

And thus the saving of Lith My'athar had begun.

In hindsight, don't you think it would've been far better if you had just turned off your computers and gone for a walk instead?

Hah! Got ya hooked! ;) I just hope you're liking this chapter as well. Stay tuned – In the next episode, I'll take you to the Mysterious Island with many winged elves in it… There will also be some drow involved… and a broken mirror should be around there somewhere… And we all know breaking one brings 7 years of bad luck, don't we? ;)

Wolf-Kin: Well, there are stories you write when you have a horrible day and need to laugh your head off… lest you break someone else's. ;) Nope, Underdark won't know what hit it, for Underdark has yet to see the most ferocious monster of all – A frustrated writer! ;)

Night Vendiviel: Yeah, those two are fun, aren't they? Hopefully, I'll manage to put them in the spotlight more in later chapters.

Penname wa Silver B: What to say? You're editing it, you're commenting it, then you read it again, and then you even review it! ;) Top of it all, the whole story came to life because of what you said in the first place. Err… I just wish you told me a hobbit is spelled with two Bs earlier. ;)

Essence Silverdragon: Hey, Shadows are doing fine, more or less. This is what I write when I get tired of them. The fact that this chapter is out should tell you enough about how my other story is doing right now. Don't worry, though – I'll be writing, updating and eventually finish both. ;) However you look at it, you'll have what to read. ;)

Black Sable: Truth to be told, I myself have no idea just how did the hobbit get in there. Really! ;) And considering the kind of death prince Corvin of Amber would welcome, I think yours is rather sensible and understandable. ;) I do, however, hope you won't die of laughter just yet, 'cause I've plenty more to tell… Yeah, and 'cause there's plenty more about a certain half-puff adder I want to read. ;)