Chapter 4: People of Power and Influence

Ranma climbed the small cliff, the mountains had contained many but not
one was close enough to the path or had such a cave near them. This one
had both, which was all right in her book especially since she could
barley lift herself up to the next handhold. If she hadn't drained her
reserves she would have been able to quickly scale such a short cliff.
As she was now it took her close to ten minutes before she reached the
top, breathing hard and sweating, her stomach yearning to be filled.
Normally food came before anything in the mind of Ranma Saotome, but
after releasing so much energy the only thing she could think of was
getting some sleep. Ranma squirmed into the tight opening of the cave
and sighed relieved that it was empty. Sitting close to one corner of
the wall Ranma slowly drifted to sleep, spending one more night on the
mountain of this strange world.

0000

Herb did not have to travel very far to find the tracks that the other
martial artist had left, almost on the other side of the peak from where
his earlier opponent entered. He was by no means a tracker, he left
those skills to his retainers and focused on more martial pursuits but
he had learned to follow simple paths left behind by animal and men.
While Ranma had an exceptionally light step because of her martial arts
training she made no move to hide her tracks. This made it exceptionally
easy for even an unskilled tracker such as Herb to find them on the
gravel filled ground.

The real problem tracking came when he reached the harder rock further
on into the mountains, the hard surface allowed little or no tracks to
be left upon it, making his rudimentary tracking skills almost useless.
Looking around for any sign of the red-haired girl he had almost given
up hope when he noticed a flash of bright red cloth in the distance.
Heading off in that direction he was just close enough to notice the
figure with the cloth slip into what appeared to be a small cave.

Quickly picking up pace he reached the bottom of the small cliff within
a couple of minutes, leaping up onto the cliff edge he examined the
entrance to the cave closely, seeing that there would be no way he could
fit within without getting stuck he decided to wait a few feet above for
the pig-tailed girl to emerge.

0000

Several orc's slowly crept up to the settling pile of debris, something
had been launched off one of the nearby mountains and they were ordered
(read bullied) to find out what it was by their comrades. When they
finally reached the impact zonethey were surprised to see the intact body
of a fellow orc lying on the ground, had they been any more observant
they might have noticed the slight but profound differences between this
fellow and your normal orc but, well orc's are rather lacking in the
brain department...

The largest of the group (and obvious leader) approached the corpse (no
one could have survived that fall short of Obould himself) he would have
first dibs on the loot and the other's would get what was left over. Therefore he
was quite a surprise when the figurecame to life, even more surprise registeredinto his brain before his neck was snapped like a twig.

Looking over the group of orc's the battered and beaten Scrow scowled.
With a few quick short commands he was being escorted to the main camp
for his audience with the great Obould. His thoughts a million miles
away, seeing the glorious battle of a few moments ago, finally a worthy
opponent, he would need more training. The grin the split across his
face made many of the orc's quicken their pace in sheer fright.

0000

Waiting above a cave entrance was not something that Herb found very
entertaining, least of all doing so for a couple of hours. It was
obvious that the red-haired girl was not going to emerge any time soon.
Frowning deep in thought, he did not move for a few minutes, when he
finally did he moved off to the north, in search of something.

0000

An outlandishly dressed wizard looked on the scenes of recent combat in
the northwest. His smoking pipe and classic pointed hat, along with his
mostly red colour scheme donated his position as the magister,
Elminster. He had been watching events in the spine of the world
mountain in his spare time for quite awhile now, wondering if he should
'help'. Elminster, although powerful, never helped directly, he usually
worked through agents and so was the case now, he had been moving events
along in the north to a more favorable end. A little push here and there
was all that was needed to get some people into the right place at the
right time. Using his scrying bowl (and any other implement of scrying
he had on hand at the moment.) he watched the events unfold and made
sure those certain agents of his arrived in place on time.

Oh sure most of them didn't know that he was guiding them from afar but
all their choices had been their own, he just sped things up a little.
For the past few days he hadn't had a chance to guide any of his
northern charges, most of them were already in opportune positions as it
was, requiring no further guidance for quite awhile. What was his
attention focused on? Well a day or two prior he had sensed a huge
expenditure of magic, something in the Underdark below the Spine of the
World had used a very powerful summoning spell to yank a powerful
outsider out of its home plane and bind it to their control.

Normally such spells do not cause such a disturbance, but this
particular one reached further than was previously thought possible. It
had broken the Universal vale, a phenomena that would not allow for
travel into distinctly different realities. Whoever the summoner was
either far beyond even him or had failed his/her original spell so
horribly that he was now dead. The summoning spell was obviously for
something extremely powerful, but curiously had only gotten some slip of
a girl barely entering adulthood and some other girl around the same
age, well the second one was obviously under some sort of curse as she
had changed genders with the application of hot water.

Both of the travelers had a strange magical aura around them that smelt
of lower plane magic and enchantment, which must have been what the
spell latched onto. What was really strange was that the magic also had
a divine taste to it, whoever or whatever had done this to them was
obviously some sort of demon god.

On the smaller traveler the magic seemed to fading, bleeding off into
the surrounding weave. The one around the magical aura around the
currently male traveler did not seem to be getting weaker, which was
strange seeing as it was of the same spell as the one on the red-haired
girl. This was very curious indeed, he would have to investigate further
into what these spells did.

When he had first detected the magic that sent them here, he had watched
to see whom their mysterious summoner was, but seeing as he never did
appear his fears were set to rest. No powerful force had decided that it
was now it's time to rule/set things right. The latter would have been
welcome but for one small problem, the realms have had more than enough
upheaval for one generation, they did not need another self-righteous
crusade.

His fears at rest, Elminster continued to watch the duo whenever he had
a spare moment, wondering on why such a powerful spell would choose
these two. They didn't look like much, each was obviously a monk of some
skill but they had done nothing of significance. His entire view of the
two changed when the red haired one was practicing on the top of the
mountain. She had incredible skill, such grace would be hard to find
among elven kind let alone humans. If the spell was looking for pure
skill then the reason was obvious, but such a spell did no such thing.
They looked for powerful individuals, well demons and monsters really,
beings of such power that they made even the bravest of wizards quiver
in fear, and kingdoms to bow before them. So the summoning of these two
should not have been possible, his opinion stayed firm until the
red-haired monk stopped her practice, and began to glow a sickly green.
There was obviously no magic being bled off of her but she was glowing
all the same.

He grew slightly worried when a band of orc's approached her seemingly
without her notice, but when the glow around her intensified, and the
creatures stood completely transfixed by the sight. He found himself
staring in fascination as the dark green glow continued to build, he
could do nothing else until a dark green almost black pillar broke into
the sky. The srcying pool he was using at the moment had all of it's
water suddenly turn to steam burning his face slightly before he moved
back. When he finally cleared his vision he was surprised to find dark
green lightning coursing along the sides of the bowl. Surprised at the
reaction of his bowl, he set off to his library; he had some research to
do.

0000

It had taken several hours but he had done it, he had carefully gathered
all the components for his creation. All it required was a small bit of
energy to set it in motion. Channeling his power into the palm of his
hand he grasped one of the implements, heating it to the burning point
and with a sudden whoosh the pile of wood began to catch fire. With a
satisfied smirk Herb began to prepare the meat he had caught. Bear
always made a good meal, especially when cooked over an open fire.

Stripping off the hide and fur took far longer than he would of wanted
but without the proper tools that is to be expected, he had a single
knife, but it was more of a ceremonial blade, making it nearly useless
for cutting off the leathery hide of the bear. By the time he had
finished cleaning the carcass to an acceptable level, the sun was
drooping in the western sky. Shrugging he began to remove the meat from
the body and place it on nice thick branches so they would roast
properly.

It was about an hour later when he had started on his second piece of
stringy bear flesh when a figure dropped from the darkness near the
fire. Quickly getting into a ready stance he prepared to defend his meal
against the unwanted intruder. When he finally noticed who it was, he
changed into a defensive stance but did not drop his guard.

The figure looked at him with narrowed eyes, each stormy blue orb seemed
to bore into him, as if the figure to see straight through him. "What
are YOU doing here?" the figure spoke, the flames making her red-hair
seem darker and almost demonic. The short red haired martial artist
known to many as Saotome Ranma had come to confront him.

0000

A few minutes earlier

Ranma awoke to the world with a start, the sweat from some unknown
nightmare fresh on her face. What was more concerning to her at the
moment however was the great amount of thirst she had and the horrible
emptiness in her belly. She had not eaten in a couple of days and it was
starting to get to her. Worse is the timing of this little escapade, her
period would begin tonight, along with her ravenous hunger, made her
rather cranky. What was worse is that she could smell good food nearby,
well maybe not that good but it was obviously not one of Akane's
concoctions and well she was so damn hunger she could have eaten even
her toxic waste.

Deciding to visit the owner of said food was the first and only thought
in her head. Exiting the cave she was surprised to find a fire of all
things not ten feet from the cliff she was currently at, not questioning
her luck, or if it was a friend she made a leap towards the fire, with a
perfect landing she stood up to inspect her soon to be benefactor. Who
she found brought a scowl to her face, it was Herb the bastard who had
locked her into her cursed form. snarling she was prepared to attack
him, when her ravenous hunger again asserted itself in her mind. So
instead she went for a more diplomatic approach, "What are YOU doing
here?" well as diplomatic as one Ranma Saotome can be...

0000

Sitting there stunned at the sheer venom and bluntness of the question
for a few moment. Final snapping out of his stupor Herb replied in a way
you would expect someone to reply to such a question, "Eating food, want
some?" or not. Hopefully by not responding to her bait he could gain at
least some of her trust.

Earlier aggression gone, Ranma stood there dumbfounded by the Musk
prince's response. She had expected a challenge or a death threat but
not this. Nodding still stunned by his response, she grabbed one of the
meat sticks and began to daintily (see; eating like a rabid wolverine)
consume the food. It was almost a full minute before she regained her
mental faculties and started 'interrogating' the prince.

"Where the hell are we? why did you take me here and, what have you done
with the open water KETTLE?" starting low Ranma's voice raised to an
almost shriek.

Herb audibly blinked for a couple of seconds before breaking out in
laughter, much to the annoyance of Ranma who was about to show her
displeasure at being laughed at before he stopped, pounding his chest a
few times and catching his breath he finally spoke, "I don't even know
where we are, so how do you presume to blame this on me?" Herb replied
getting annoyed.

Getting to her feet Ranma glared at the dragon prince, "How do I blame
you? WHO was the one that locked me into my cursed out of spite? Who
refused to allow me to use the open water kettle to unlock my curse? The
answer to all these questions is YOU!" Her snarling visage was made to
look almost demonic by the light of the fire, the flames dancing within
her eyes, as if showing the anger she held within herself.

Before Herb could reply in kind she stalked out of the fire light with
an angry gait. She didn't look back upon the camp.

0000

In a dark musty room that stood a few feet below the ground an old crone
stood over a black cauldron, bubbling with some black viscous substance
that was not easily definable. She muttered words in a language that was
known to few, and spoken by fewer. With a fevered pitch the incantation
came to an end. The room grew quite, the few candles on the walls seemed
to dim as a pillar of purplish black power erupted out of the
concoction.

The effect seemed to continue for several minuets before finally
settling down. The black liquid that resided within the cauldron wavered
and formed an image. The familiar visage of a red pig-tailed girl
arguing with a self proclaimed Dragon prince. Cackling the crone woke
the other two residents that slept on the upper floor of the residence,
each with a cold sweat and a shiver down their spines.

0000

Using skills that had grown rusty since her stay in Nerima Ranma
silently slipped away from the dragon prince and his camp. This was
extremely difficult for the first few minutes until the image of the
fire and its brightness faded from her vision and her eyes adjusted to
the dark.

She had to find shelter for the night, as far away from Herb as
possible. The small cave she had hidden in earlier was too close for
comfort to the Musk prince and his camp fire. So she had to find some
other place to rest. The only problem she had with her current plan of
action was the darkness. Oh she could see in the night very well for a
human, which means she could see maybe a few hundred meters when the
moon was full. Problem was, the moon was only a small crescent in the
sky, leaving very little light to see by.

A few minutes of walking also revealed a second problem, it was cold,
really really COLD! If her Ki reserves were at full, or she had any
significant amount of bio-energy left this would not be a problem. Sadly
even after eating and resting for a few hour's her reserves were almost
nil, she needed a full nights rest and a good meal before she could
recover her inner energy.She had had neither for quite some time.

Looking mournfully back at the flaming glow in the distance she debated
internally whether to head back to the camp, the warmth of the fire and
food singing a siren's call through her mind. Sighing at the unfairness
of it all she continued walking.

0000

Not far off from the position of the red-haired martial artist, a being
at home in the shadows slipped silently across the ground. Only the most
trained would notice the soft patter of feet or the slight whipping
sound made by the figure's quick efficient movements. The figure's
piercing violet eyes were the only distinguishing feature that could be
noted from within in its cloak. Night provided excellent cover for one
of his birth, and he had long ago learned to exploit it to its fullest.

One did not walk any city of the under dark without learning to meld
into the shadows with some skill and the figure was arguably one of the
best of his kin at hiding in the shadows. That however was not what made
him infamous within the circles of his race, no what drew the attention
of so many was his skill with his chosen blade, the scimitar. His skills
with other weapons were quite deadly but when the hilt of a scimitar
touched his hand they became one with him body and soul. The amount of
control he exhibited with his chosen blade was matched by so very few,
the amount one could count easily on one hand. But this is not what made
him famous among the surface dwelling races no. The reason for his fame
was the race of his birth, Drow, dark elves, bent on the destruction and
slaving of all other races.

What makes him so special among his dark kin, well this 'dark elf' was
only dark in skin colour, not heart or mind. He had long ago broken away
from his darker kin, refusing to partake in their basic culture and
finally achieving what was once thought impossible, escaping the matron
mother's of the great city Menzoberranzan. He was still hunted by the
leaders of his home city, but not as fanatically as he once was, they
had lost far too many to his twin blades to actively send their minions
to hunt him. They offered a large reward for his death however which
attracted some to take his head and present it to the leaders of the
dark city he once called home. Those attacks had gotten rare over the
past ten years, the bounty hunters and cutthroats that would have taken
it were either dead or had heard of his legendary skills in battle.

This Drow however did not allow this to go to his head, he had seen many
a person, be they Drow human or dwarf taken out because of their
overestimating their own skill. Currently the male Drow was following a
human women, well girl really from the look of it. For the past couple
of days strange things had been happening in the area, large pillars of
green almost black light, and orc's that were far too powerful and
intelligent had begun appearing. The spine of the world mountain already
had enough problems with the stupid creatures, if the trend continued
there was a good chance that that descriptor would not apply any more.
If that where to happen then the orcs would be able to conquer all of
the northern land, and later the better part of Faerun.

This was the reason he was following this girl, trouble seemed to be
attracted to her, several of the events of the past few days could be
traced almost exclusively to her. She was a mystery to be solved, and he
planned to do so before she got herself killed.

At this distance he could not make out much about this human girl, her
mannerisms and clothing was completely different than anything he had
seen. Normally he would be far closer but every time he would attempt to
do so, the girl's muscles would tighten ever so slightly as if she knew
he was there. This was doubly strange as the only people he had seen do
that were the monks that every so often left their hidden monasteries,
but this girl did not dress or act like one of their number so this was
curious indeed.

What was more puzzling was her gait, it was fluid like that of a highly
trained warrior, but it had a very feline quality to it, as if she was a
cat on the prowl. She even had many of the unconscious mannerisms of a
cat, such as the twitching of her ears when she seemed to hear a sound.
The mystery of this red haired stranger was getting deeper.

The only problem he had now was how to approach her, he had spent
several hours thinking and talking with his only other companion of
late, and had decided to contact this strange red haired girl, if she
was hostile than he would have to 'deal' with her sooner rather than
later, if she was not hopefully he could get some information out of
her.

Deciding that now was as good a time as any he began to approach her,
knowing full well that she could detect his presence even if he did not
know how...

To be continued...

0000

AN: I will be posting approximately one chapter per month possibly faster, but I wouldn't count on it.

Any and all reviews are welcome; flames will be used to roast marshmallows.

And thanks to Questara for proof reading, and correcting some of my grammatical mistakes.