The first few items on the list were simple enough to locate because they were usual beach items like seashells or driftwood. As the list went on and our sack filled with the hunt items, they became increasingly difficult to obtain. The twenty first item on the list was a carved animal that we eventually found up high near the archery equipment. The carvings were set above small targets, some of which had arrows embedded in them. The animals that were above those targets were gone.

Pandia shielded her eyes as she looked up at the rows of targets. "Well, I think the mission here is obvious."

Pernyx silently went to where bows were piled and handed one to Pandia. She picked up one of the fallen arrows from the sand and took her aim. It was easy for her to choose a target and hit the center to release the carved animal. I went to retrieve it from where it fell in the sand.

"Well, what do you know, we got a tiger." I stated as I turned the small piece of wood in my hand.

Pandia took it from me and glanced at it before tossing it in the bag. "Of course I got us a tiger. What other animal would I have aimed for?"

I looked up at the carvings that were still with their targets. I could barely make out what sort of creature each one was. They were barely the size of a chess piece and nearly fifteen feet above our heads. Pandia must have had incredible eye sight to have seen and chosen a specific one.

"What's next on the list?" I asked. Pandia had taken lead and held the list while Pernyx quietly carried the bag. I had not heard her speak since the game began. So far the items had been far spread out along the stretch of beach and so were the teams as they searched. A ways away I spotted Victoria's familiar dress as the prince climbed up a short ways on the cliff to get a certain type of rock that had placed in an alcove there. It was the item that my team had gathered before the carved animal.

We found more items from the list until we were very near the end. Most of the items we skipped over because the clues didn't make sense and our plan was to find all the easy items first then go back for the more difficult ones. One of the final items was to find a couple.

"Find a couple," I asked, "A couple of what?"

Pandia shrugged. "I don't know. It just says to find a couple. Maybe it just means to find two of anything and call it a couple."

"Maybe we are finding two things that look alike and form a pair." I suggested.

"It means we are to find Prince Reginald and Princess Joslynn. They are the main couple at this gathering and they haven't been seen in awhile. They were probably going away so we could find them as part of the scavenger hunt." Pandia and I turned to look at Pernyx as she calmly and quietly explained what the clue meant.

"We cannot get them and put them in our bag to bring back." I mused.

"Maybe that is why they are one of the last items on the list. We have to bring our findings to them." Pandia suggested. Pernyx nodded in agreement. "We still have other things to find so we should look a bit longer before we find the prince and princess."

We did search a bit longer and found a fair few of the other items on the list. While we were scouring the beach, the sky was gradually growing darker. A storm was rolling in from across the water. We reasoned that other teams had already seen the storm clouds and had already set out on finding the royal couple for the last clue. We were passing fewer teams on the beach now. The wind was making the Aeolian harps sing, but this time the tune was quick and angry as the winds picked up speed. We were a ways away from where the main party was held and quickly started making our way back there. Other teams were hurrying before us and a few more came from behind.

"Hey, Pandia!" Someone called over the wind as we neared the cave with the portal in it.

The three of us turned and saw both princes and their teams coming to meet us. We only slowed enough for them to catch up. The first few drops of rain were already starting to fall. Giselle and Victoria were huddled together against the drops and neither of them looked very happy. Hector, Christian, and Sir Brockton seemed to be enjoying the weather and skipped and leapt in the damp sand.

"How did your team fare? I am afraid to say that I we did dismally." Christian said happily when he came into stride with me. His teammate and her sister were already hurrying ahead with their heads down against the wind and rain.

"We did rather well, I think. We found over half the items on the list." I replied proudly. That was sure to impress Christian.

Hector bounded around in front of our line of people and walked backward so he could face us. "That is quite a bit better than us. We were barely able to find a mere twenty items. My sister is a clever one and has a love for these sorts of things. She thinks she is making it easy but forgets that not everyone shares her love of puzzles."

"Maybe it wasn't the clues that were difficult, have you ever considered that you are just thick?" Pandia joked from where she walked beside me.

Christian and Brockton laughed while I just smiled. I was the odd one out now and I did not want to offend any of the important people I was walking with. They had all seemed to grow up together. Hector pretended to be insulted and dramatically put a hand to his chest. "Me? Thick? I should think not. Even if I was, I was teamed up with the clever Victoria Kingston who may give you a run for your money, Pandia."

I highly doubted that Victoria could outwit very many people. The only cleverness she had even exhibited was ensnaring young men into doing her bidding. If there were handsome men to find on the scavenger hunt then she would have surely done very well.

Pandia just waved a hand dismissively at the comment. "If she is as smart as you say then I should very much like to meet her. I must see if I am truly threatened by her or if my cleverness is safe."

Hector grinned broadly. "Then I will introduce you two at the tournament. I have invited her and her sister to join us in the royal seats. She tells me that she has never seen a tournament before and I simply insisted. You are invited as well, Ebony. I know how much my brother would appreciate it."

Hector winked roguishly at his brother and Christian looked away. I smiled at Christian's bashfulness. Now I was sure to be able to see him without distraction. The tournament days were scattered until the end of the celebration and I would be able to spend them with the prince. Giselle would not even be in much of a mood to latch onto him as strongly for she would have Joslynn to talk to. She would also take displeasure in being out of doors for such an extended period and that would put her in a sour mood. When Christian turned back to me he affirmed his brother's statement and offered me his arm. I gladly took it and thought that my smile would break my face if it got any wider.

We arrived at the cave to find Joslynn, Reginald, Victoria, and Giselle waiting. We were all nearly soaked through when we stepped into the cave. Joslynn welcomed us and took our sacks that were filled with all our findings. "Well, brother, it is certain that you did not win. There is barely anything in here." Joslynn said as she looked in the sack Hector handed her.

Hector just shrugged and turned to talk to his other teammates. Another group arrived in the cave just as Pernyx handed our items to Joslynn. From the looks of the pile that was already started along the wall of the cave, ours was definitely one of the fuller ones. I hoped that we would win now that I saw we had such a good chance. The other team's bag joined the ones along the wall. Reginald was tagging them with the names of the people in each team to keep them all separated.

"Since the rain has interrupted my plans for today, the winner will be announced once we all return to the castle. Thaddeus and Marigold are waiting to show you to where we will all be meeting on the other side of the picture." The princess explained as she motioned to the cave wall behind her that I knew to be part of the portal.

Victoria had volunteered to stay with the princess while she ushered the last of the teams back to the castle. Giselle was still adamantly clinging to Christian. Pandia and Pernyx were the first to return to the castle and I followed with Christian and Giselle. Like Joslynn had said, the two servants were waiting inside the hall of pictures. They informed us that we were some of the last groups to return. Everyone had been accounted for but six people. The older servant Marigold showed us to a sitting room large enough to seat everyone comfortably and provided us with warm towels to dry ourselves off as best we could.

"Come, Ebony, our team will sit on this nice sofa here." Pandia grabbed the hand that I had not placed on Christians arm and started towards a clean white couch. I looked back at Christian and tried to politely refuse for I wanted to sit with him and the couch she mentioned only seated three. Pandia would not have it, "Come now, teammates must stick together."

Pernyx had already quietly seated herself on the sofa and was calmly staring straight ahead. I was slowly getting used to her strange way of behavior. Pandia had informed me that it was how all Kiatians acted. I looked longingly at where Giselle curled up next to Christian on a loveseat as I took my place beside Pernyx.

"Don't worry about your prince; there will be plenty of times to see him over the course of the month. Remember you are going to sit with him at the tournament." Pandia whispered once we were all seated.

I looked at Pandia. I was doing my best to not be annoyed with her for pulling me away from the prince. It seemed that I had no luck in seeing him so far first at the ball and then at the beach. "Yes, but Giselle will be there also." I muttered.

Pandia laughed. "You are a much more substantial person than her. If the prince is smart he will see that."

Pandia was making light of the situation and I thought that perhaps I was too focused on Christian. I did not want to devolve into one of the girls who do nothing but scheme on how to get into a man's good graces. I reminded myself that it was I that Christian had invited to the hall of pictures the first time and not Giselle. I hoped Pandia was right and that Christian would see how shallow Giselle was before long and was not distracted from her personality by her beautiful face as so many men were.

Before long, the rest of the people arrived. Joslynn and Reginald stood up in the center of the room with the trophy to announce the winners. "It was a close match between four of the teams. No team managed to complete the list and find everything, but a few came close. To start I would like to mention my dear brother and his team for their efforts. Hector, Sir Brockton, and my good friend Victoria all teamed up together. Despite of him helping organize the scavenger hunt and putting items around the beach, Hector and his team had the least out of everyone." From around the room came muffled laughs. Hector had not mentioned that he had helped his sister with the hunt which made it all the more humorous that he did not find the things he had hidden.

Before Hector could defend himself to his sister and the room, she continued. "However the winner did exceedingly better than my brother and his team. The winners had returned to the cave with ninety-eight items from the list even before the rain started and brought everyone else back. Lord Dimmock and Duchess Ojera please come forward and accept your prize."

Everyone applauded as the pair stood up to take the trophy. I glanced to see Giselle's and Victoria's reactions to being beaten by someone they disliked so much. Giselle was barely managing to keep her countenance while Victoria was merely frowning. I was impressed that they had managed to do so well. Some of the items on the list were so confusing to my team that we thought that no one would be able to decipher them. If they had puzzled it all out, then Lord Dimmock and Ojera deserved the trophy.

Lord Dimmock took the trophy from Joslynn and handed it to Ojera, "For the woman who did most of the hunting."

Ojera swept into a graceful curtsy and thanked the lord graciously, "I could not have done it without your help."

So yeah, there's the next chapter. The chapters are really getting out of hand because there is so many. So I could either (A) reorder them now and just write uneven length chapters for the rest of the story (which I'm not going to do because of my intense writing OCD), (B) finish the story and then do like weekly updates once a week or something with the longer chapters (and it's going to be a while to finish the story so I don't want to do that to the readers), and (C) I just leave it like it is and post the like 150 chapters (yikes!) this story is going to be at this rate and figure it all out at the end. I'm probably going to go with the third option and see how annoying it will be having to sort through dozens of chapters. Hopefully the chapter titles will help with finding things easier when the chapters start piling up.

150 chapters, yes that is what I said. I'm guessing based on the outline I have set up and this story is going to be crazy long. I hope that with such a long story that it doesn't get annoying further on and also that it doesn't feel like you are just reading the same thing over and over again because the characters can't get it together. Personally though, I think the outline is super exciting throughout and the story just keeps slowly escalating in excitement until the denouement. It will be up to you readers though to tell me if the writing is taking a turn for the worse. I will try my very best to avoid that, but sometimes I can be biased and miss things.

I would like to thank you all for your concern about my procrastination on schoolwork! You are all lovely people! I will get my textbook tomorrow for sure and do my homework then. It's only a 500 word essay due on Friday and after this monster of a story 500 words is nothing.

OK, end long author's note.