"So…would you say your skills as a sex golem are more acrobatic or athletic? I mean, you're pretty slim, so you're pretty flexible right? But you're also a golem, that means you have inhuman endurance. That should make things…."

Jimmy tuned out Chloe. He often prided himself on noticing and cataloging every detail, but since he had grouped up with the druid/dryad/dwarf/thief or whatever she was, he had slowly learned to reduce some of his senses so her chatting became just a soft buzzing in the background. Nymk on the other hand was getting more and more irritated. She hid her frustration at his companion at first, but Jimmy saw that she was making mistakes and slip ups and was getting more distracted. A stumble here, and a back track there would not do. Having suffered through his own interrogation about Sammy, Jimmy was just glad someone else had gained Chloe's focus. Also the stress would be a good way to glean their hostesses true intent, but the Baroness' life was a bit more important at the moment. He needed Nymk to focus, so he decided to intervene.

"Why are you asking all these personal questions anyways?" asked Jimmy as they crossed a narrow rope bride separating two derelict buildings.

Chloe shrugged. "Hey, I'm young and I'm curious."

"And apparently shameless…." Added Nymk with an annoyed whisper. With Chloe occupied she took the time to pull ahead and scout, well out of ear shot.

Chloe watched her leave and frowned but continued anyways. "I'm a dryad and we're naturally very lusty and sexual creatures. It's not every day you meet a bride of Boryis, a sex golem! I need to know stuff, and it's not like I can ask my dad about this sort of thing."

Jimmy puzzled over this. "Hey, I thought you said you can access …umm racial memory? Couldn't you just learn all this birds and the bees stuff from your ancestors.

Chloe shook her head. "Let me ask you this? Would you like to learn about sex by watching your mom sleep with Hoaglie? Just think about that and keep that image in your head for a second."

Jimmy shuddered and decided not to press the matter.

When Nymk returned she waved the pair to follow, but Chloe suddenly stopped and cocked her head as she stared to the side.

"We're being followed," whispered Chloe in the darkness.

Jimmy thought her statement dubious. Following Nymk, they had snaked their way through the sewers, climbed through some abandoned buildings, and had literally hopped from roof to roof on their way to an abandoned pier. While the young Blade had considered himself quite athletic, both Chloe and himself found it hard to keep up with their mysterious 'Ally'. Jimmy still wasn't sure if he should refer to her as waitress, Arbiter, Bride of Boryis, or Chloe's favorite, sex golem. Regardless of who or what Nymk was, Jimmy was fairly sure her meandering path to the docks would throw off any pursuers. Also given his own heightened senses, he had doubts about Chloe's claim.

Still, if anyone could detect something that Jimmy could not it was Chloe. Jimmy wasn't sure how alert Dryads or even half dryads are, but regardless of her unique racial profile she was a street urchin first. Raised in the alleys, by one of, if not the toughest and most ruthless mobsters that Jimmy has met, she would be the first person he would rely on if things on the street did not seem right.

Nymk stopped and scanned behind them. Jimmy wasn't sure what supernatural senses she possessed if any, but he followed her gaze as it narrowed onto a pile of refuse. While no slouch, Jimmy just couldn't see what they could see. All he could spot were what looked like a bunch of …

"Wererats?" he asked as his hand hovered next to one of his silver throwing blades. While demons often needed cold iron to hurt, it didn't hurt to have some silver weapons as well for devils and the odd lycanthrope, especially the urban rodent variety.

Chloe shook her head as she timidly walked towards the garbage pile. Jimmy thought this was a poor idea and reached out to grab her back, but she easily slipped past him. The young woman then began making strange clicking and ooking noises towards the rats, and strangely enough a similar series of noises were reciprocated back.

"Err…what is she doing now?" asked Nymk.

"Some druid thing. Probably communing with the rats," shrugged Jimmy.

"She's a druid? Her? The guttersnipe?"

"Something like that."

"That would not have been my first guess."

While obviously Jimmy could not speak rat, there was something oddly familiar with the noises the furry creatures' were making. For one thing, they weren't squeaking or doing the high pitching whining that Jimmy was familiar with, but continued to repeat the ooking noise that Chloe was talking to them in. Were these creatures like ravens, mynah, or perhaps those parrot birds that pirates sometimes sport. Were they imitators or was his first guess correct? Were they wererats?

After a brief, and unintelligible conversation, Chloe turned around and walked back towards them with an unusually long rat with an uncharacteristically furry tail.

"This one says it knows you," smiled Chloe as it scratched the back of the elongated rat's head.

"Who me?" asked Nymk, shocked at the accusation.

"No, no. The tall ugly one," snickered Chloe.

Jimmy took a closer look at the creature. It was definitely furry like a rat, but besides having a furry tail , it's body was about one and a half times as long.

"I think this creature is called a ferret. It's too big to be a weasel or a marten," said Nymk observing the creature from a safe distance.

"Or a mongoose. There are a lot of these type of creatures in Vinraj. They are trained to hunt snakes and detect evil spirits," said Jimmy. "Even Sammy had…err never mind."

"How did it get here? And why is it following us?" asked Nymk.

Chloe made some clicking and ooking noises at the strange creature which replied in kind. "It's not exactly coherent. It says something about a bow man, and then the streets, and it recognized you, so it's following you."

"Bowman? Wait, do you think it belongs to one of the Khanians? "

"Khanians?" asked Nymk.

"A long story, I'll explain later if we have time," shrugged Jimmy as he turned to Chloe." Do you think it was brought over by one of the Khanians we met? It got lost in the city and somehow it latched onto me because it saw me before?"

"Aww, why did this cute little guy latch onto you, and not me," pouted Chloe. She lifted the creature up and began ooking at it again. "It says something about bat winged creatures, a good smelling man, corrupted creatures, her favorite mistress, and armies, and oceans. Actually it's making hardly any sense. Compare to other creatures, it's talking about a thousand leagues a minute. It's a very hyper little guy."

"Corrupted creatures? Bat wings? Like demons? Hmmm," considered Jimmy. "I've met one of these creatures before like I said, and it was trained to sniff out demons. Considering how much I've fought in the past, maybe it smelled a bit of them on my gear."

"Well, at least it's not a spy. I would have hated to have killed this cute little thing," shrugged Chloe, as she simply let the creature down. Instead of bolting back into the refuse, the ferret mongoose thing darted towards Jimmy, and before even his lighnting reflexes could react, it snaked up his leg, onto his back, and finally over his shoulder. "Aww, looks like you found a friend."

Jimmy wasn't sure how to react. The smart thing to do was to grab this critter and chuck it away, but there was something comforting and oddly familiar about this animal. It reminded him of Sammy's pet mongoose Chit and despite his desire to forget about her and move on with his life, he found his nuzzling oddly soothing.

"Are we done here?" asked Nymk. "The Baroness, the Greater Asura, Ulfgar? Remember them?"

Jimmy nodded and motioned Nymk to continue towards the lightless pier. The bow woman claimed to have a boat stashed somewhere and they were going to need it if they were going where he thought Ulfgar wanted him to be.

The Pirate's Stump, Claw Island, or simply the Slab. It seemed like a lifetime ago when he first set foot on its sandy shores, but if Ulfie wanted a meeting spot, that would be it. The island where Jimmy set out on his own after leaving Martinez's pack and also the place he met Ulfgar.

As they followed Nymk onto the abandoned pier, a part of Jimmy still expected some form of ambush from their guide. This could have all been an elaborate trap, but there was plenty of opportunity earlier for her to spring one on them. If the Baroness was in trouble, he needed to trust her. Besides being mysterious, their guide radiated an aura of trust, but that might have been her latent Boryis given powers to put him off his guard. Speaking of which, while he had met a 'Bride of Boryis' before, he still not understand who or what they were exactly. Nymk had said she was an artificial life form but she did not appear to be like the Halfling Warforged, living constructs made of wood and metal for the Great Leeha wars, or even the massive Iron Golems used in the Grommish army. She was definitely something unique, but for now he would need to focus on Ulfgar.

"Here we are," said Chloe as she scanned the end of the old dock. "And…no boat. Or is it one of those invisible boats, or perhaps its underwater?"

Nymk ignored her and reached into a pouch and produced a strange miniature bird. She placed it to her lips, whispered something into it, before throwing it into the water.

*Plop*

Jimmy and Chloe waited, but nothing happened as the token sunk into the dark waters.

"Wow, that was a big waste of time,"shrugged Chloe. "If we hurry back, maybe we can find that Javindar guy that the Khanian Prince was looking for. If we don't have the sword, or your Baroness, we might as well fill our pockets with something other than Vleda's crappy trinkets."

"Prince Vleda?" asked Nymk, unworried about their lack of a boat. "You mentioned Khanians before, are you in league with them?"

The Khanians were currently a foreign military with command of an unknown power, occupying a Grommish fishing village nearby to the north. Jimmy thought it would be best to keep their relationship with them shrouded until after they rescued the Baroness. There was no need to complicate an already complicated venture, so he signalled Chloe to remain silent.

Chloe on the other hand had other ideas as she freely chatted to Nymk. "Oh yeah, Prince Vleda. A tall swarthy guy, well groomed kind of handsome with a dangerous bad boy look to him. Him and his gang are stuck up north, and wanted us to shake up some rival of his, even gave us some goodies for our good will. Too bad we have no clue what they do. I was hoping to ask this Baroness lady about them, but that was before some giant golden demon snatched her up."

"May I look at them? To see if these items are actually spying on you?" asked Nymk, even as Jimmy rolled his eyes at his big mouthed partner. "I was trained by the greatest Archmage in the land. While I lack the ability to channel magic directly, I am well versed in its lore and applications."

Chloe turned to Jimmy who simply sighed as he retrieved the items in his hidden pouch. There was no need to be subtle anymore. As he passed the items to Nymk, the water began to bubble and a large wooden swan boat bobbed to the surface.

"Wow! That's amazing! " said Chloe as she hopped around the pier. "Oh, oh, me first, me first."

Before receiving a reply the young thief jumped into its open back before examining the ship like an excited child.

Jimmy and Nymk both boarded in a more subdued fashion before Jimmy took the 'helm' of the vessel. While he had never owned a swan token, he was familiar with their operation. He simply placed his hand on the Swan's neck, thought of the direction and speed he wanted, before the vessel began gliding through the waves. With the vessel on course, Nymk returned her focus onto the items, and seemed both surprised and puzzled as she examined them.

"These items appear to be ….Vinraji in origin?" she said as Chloe nodded to confirm. "This cloth is nothing special, it is the shredded remnants of a sarai, a common dress worn by women from Vinraj," she explained.

Jimmy recalled a Marilith smell on the rags, a fearsome female demon with a snake body and six arms, and wondered if Nymk could detect it as well. When she made no mention of that particular type of demon, he noted to himself that particular limitation on her senses.

"This pin is similar to the hat of disguise. An item that allows a person to change her basic appearance, though it is limited by the type of creature you originally are," said Nymk as she examined the second item.

"Pffftt…big deal, I can do that," scoffed Chloe. Jimmy would have preferred her to keep the extent of her own abilities a secret, but there was no controlling his sidekick. Chloe happily demonstrated her power as she first made her hair white, then green , then black, and even lengthened and shortened it at will. The half dryad also made her face round, then oval, then thin, and even adjusted her height a little. Jimmy also noted that in each form she still looked like 'Chloe' though slightly different, but wondered if that was simply a quirk of her power, or if it was her vanity showing.

"I can also change into critters," boasted Chloe. "Jimmy here has already seen the deadly Chloeverine in action."

Nymk nodded and then turned to the bottle. "This…this is unusual. The pin is a useful item, but it is common enough, but this bottle…this bottle is special. A variant on one of my master's signature spells, though used in a more offensive instead of a leisure oriented fashion."

Though Jimmy was hardly a wizard, even he knew of some of Boryis' spells. Boryis' shelter, Boryis' faithful hound, Boryis' blade, Boryis' magnificent mansion, and more if he thought hard enough. He was considered the premier wizard of world, but that didn't necessarily meant that he was. It was sort of like Royal Adventurers, Ricardo Belcadiz, the Scorpion of Grom, was considered the greatest Royal Adventurer in the land, but Jimmy was pretty sure that Reinhardt guy with the Baatezu scent and even his consort that Amirah woman were probably more dangerous than that foppish elf. Jimmy was sure there were more powerful wizards than Boryis, but Nymk's creator was definitely the most famous.

"This bottle seems to have a person trap inside of it currently, though I do not know how to release him unless we have the proper command word," continued Nymk as she examined the bottle.

"Oh we can worry about that later," said Chloe as the swan boat swam deeper out into the Grommish Harbour. Ahead of them was a small island with several pillars atop, seemingly forming a claw framed by the moonlight. "So, is this where we throw down with Ulfgar and this big golden demon buddy."

Jimmy smelled the air, and the corruption was raw and tangible. "They're already here, waiting for us. Get ready."