"Ow, stop that! Self-doubt very much?" she laughs, and adds mocking Jimmy "I'm not sure, but I'm comfortable around old people, so you don't have to worry."
She grabs a handful of leaves, checking it's leaves and no dirt and throws them in Jimmy's direction, dousing him in a shower of leaves.
"You want to play that game?" Jimmy says as he grabs her arm, trying to pin her down in a playful way
Glancing at the sky taking in the sun through the leaves in the trees Gwenhwyfar muses about what will be. Smiling at Jimmy she asks out of the blue sky "What will be when we are back in Sandpoint?"
"I'm not sure I understand what you are asking Gwen?" His tone cheerful, but taking on a degree of seriousness
"You know, our group. Will everyone go back to their usual life? Will we see each other, or will it be just a memory of good times? What are you planning, after that?" she asks looking at Jimmy.
"I really hope to see more of you Gwen. I Hope the same can be said of you?" Jimmy says embarassed "But I am we will all spend time together, at the pub or on another adventure." He says, deflecting the conversation away from him
"It won't be very hard to find me. My mom and Hannah are waiting for me and between them and the temple you'd know where to look for me."
Looking at Jimmy, Gwenhwyfar adds "I'd even dare to do such a not befitting thing as visiting a tavern now and then if you are uncomfortable visiting me at the temple." being quite the teaser again.
"As for Abomentolor, he's always around and hard to miss. And with all the adventure we had, Sandpoint won't hear the end of it for years to come."
"Tauriel will most likely disappear in the wilderness again, popping up at the Rusty Dragon now and then."
"But where will I find you," and changing her voice to imitate some male barpatron "when I want to drink my well deserved ale after work with someone?"
"Well I would normally be off as soon as I could find a job with a caravan. I've never really had any reason to hang around in a city before." He pauses here a bit, looking at her, after a moment he says "But I may have reason to stay in town now." He is somewhat embarrassed so tries to move the conversation forward. "But if i stayed in town, what job's are there for a caravan guard? I suppose all pubs need a bouncer, but besides that?"
"I'm sure there is a lot of jobs for honest, hard working men in Sandpoint. But for you..." pausing a moments as if she had to think really hard about that.
"Taking your history in consideration, you could become a traveling merchant. You'd travel between Sandpoint and Magnimar. And you would be your own caravan guard. That would save money, so you could offer better prices and take over the market." she states being satisfied with her genius business plan.
"Or you ask Captain Ahab to give you a job. As you are a great sailor now, you would just have to learn a little fishing and you'd be set."
Giggly she adds "If all that fails, you could just marry a rich girl. But if you still want to meet with me, that girl would have to be me. And I'm not rich yet, so that wont work." ending with a bit of consternation in her voice. With that Gwenhwyfar's thoughts start to wander off, dreaming about how it would be if she was rich, gazing through the tree's leaves into the sky, smiling.
"Only one of those would be a plan I would be happy with. If i am going to be travelling, I will travel properly. If I settle down i want to settle properly. A traveling merchant, or a fisherman, those wouldn't let me spend as much time in town as I would care for." Jimmy says, obviously avoiding saying exactly what he means, but trying to imply it
"Well then, any suggestions for me, on how to get rich then?" she says chuckling at Jimmy's beating around the bush.
"You don't need to be rich, I just need to find a job in town." Blushing somewhat that Gwen picked up on him so easily, rests his head on his arms to try hide his face
Gwenhwyfar rolls around on her belly to be able to look at Jimmy. Resting her chin on her hands, ellbows on the ground she asks "How is it to be married? You know, my mum isn't so I don't know."
"Well I'm not married either so I don't know too much about it. My parents have been together since before i was born though, and they seem happy. They look after each other, and they worry about each other, and they fight with each other but after they are always happy again. At least that's what I experienced of them while I was with them." Lost in his memory Jimmy is smiling at the sky
"Yes. You're right. You don't know much about it." she says thoughtfully with a slight frown on her face. "If that was all marriage is about, then we'd already count as married and could now live happily ever after. I need to find someone who really knows what marriage is about."
With that she jumps up strikes a heroic pose as if thrusting with a sword and proclaims "We have a new quest. A quest for knowledge. Let's not hold back, great gain awaits! Onwards!" And imitating a horse she gallops in the direction of the camp.
Tauriell places her sack with the collected fruits down and considers her options. As she lacks the iron pot she would need to cook that fruit stew. A clay bowl would help, but it would take lot time to produce that first.
First thing she would do in Riddle Port is to buy some camping gear. Being able to survive in the wilderness on what nature provides is a good thing. But eating a skillfully prepared meal is even better.
As there is no possibility to fix that now, she decides to cut some apples in half, removing the core and filling the resulting hole with berries, she puts the halves near the embers to slowly warm and mellow them.
Abomentolor eyes Tauriell suspiciously. As she starts putting the fruit into the fire he protests "You are ruining my fire!"
Tauriel takes a deep breath and with a sigh turns towards the gome, whom she can look into his eyes on level, even though she is sitting on the ground. "Don't cry little gnome. That fire of your's would have died anyway. You want an apple and a kiss from mommy to make the pain go away?"
Abomentolor manages to start cooking inside almost instantly. His head looks like it's about to explode if he doesn't find an outlet to let off steam. "You toffee-nosed, bigheaded elven tree hugger. How dare you to insult me."
But as his usual way to handle such situations won't work here, he decides to take his frustration elsewhere and cursing and swearing he is off to the woods,
in north east direcction.
As soon as he finds some dried out trunk, he takes out his dagger, carves a face on it (guess which one) and then starts burning the thing.
Tauriel sighs to herself "Trees,... how nice it would be to be with my tree friends again." And as the gnome tramples away as if he would try to punish the ground Tauriell starts chanting a melancholy song in elven.
As Gwenhwyfar gallops into the clearing she sees Abolomentor storming into the wood. Shortly after that, smoke can be seen rising above the trees and the smell of burnt wood flows over the clearing.
Over the forrest a red-tailed hawk soars in wide circles watching out for upcurrents with the sun starting to warm the place up.
Gwenhwyfar watches the gnome leave, assesses where he started from and decides to pay Tauriell a visit to check what's up.
"Um, Tauriell. What's wrong with Abomentolor? He seems upset."
"As if I would know. I think he was born that way. Maybe he is the brother of Rumpelstiltskin. If so, I must have found out his real name, and he is going to rip himself apart." Tauriell replies without any empathy in her voice.
Gwenhwyfar looks a bit confused, as she ponders if she should talk more to Tauriell, or follow Abomentolor and talk to him instead.
"Ok..., I think I'm going to follow Abomentolor,... and ask him if he has a brother." turning in North-East direction starting to walk towards the trees.
Destinée strolls along Gwenhwyfar, when she is distracted by a rustle in the meadow. Se ducks and sneaks up to where the noise was heard. The whole cat tenses and with a long leap she pounces the position.
But the small rodent manages to slip away. Leaping from one point to the next Destinée tries to catch that little critter.
Gwenhwyfar chuckles at Destinée hunting her breakfast but follows the trail Abomentolor trampled into the grass. "Silly cat. Don't you get enough food already from my plate?"
As the red-tailed hawk glides over the clearing in the forrest a quick and erratic movement on the ground catches it's eye. Pulling it's wings close it swoops down with tremendous speed, spreading it's mighty wings at the last moment before hitting the black cat with it's talons.
Catching the food competitor unaware and almost bringing it down.
Destinée shrieks in horror as she is caught from above with talons sharp as knives.
Tauriel, rather uninterested what Gwen and Abomentolor are up to checks her fruits at the fire. But alarmed by the shriek she jumps up and checks what is going on.
But despite her sharp eyes doesn't recognize the threat. "What's happening?" she asks.
Gwenhwyfar's eyes grow wide in horror, and without giving it a further thought she charges towards the bird holding down her loved cat and with a mighty swing
sends the bird flying over the meadow.
"Destinée, are you ok?" and checking the cat
she uses her heal ability on Destinée to stop the bleeding and cure the wounds.
Glad that nothing worse happened Gwenhwyfar takes up the cat and consoles it.
Tauriell runs towards Gwen, but just as she's up to full speed, it's already over again. Slowly coming to a halt she picks the bird up at one of it's wings.
As the bird tries to free itself from that trying to claw at her, she grabs it at the neck and at it's feet calling towards Gwen "Shall I release it from it's misery and you cook it?"
Realizing that she almost killed the bird in her panic and Tauriell holding it, ready to break it's neck she shouts "Nooooo!" putting the cat down on the ground hurries over to the elf, laying her hand on the bird.
And checking what she has done to it
she sees, that it's wing is still bruised.
Realizing that in her panic she almost killed another creature she becomes angry with herself. And realizing that Tauriell would even kill that poor bird for no reason she bcomes angry at her too. "What's wrong with you. This bird has done nothing to you. And you would just snuff out his life?"
Holding up her hand in a defensive way she replies "Hey, I didn't club that bird half way out of his life. I just offered to complete what you began."
Coming far to close for Tauriel to still be comfortable Gwenhwyfar glares at her "I don't want to hear your excuses. You will care for that bird until it is completely recovered. And if you do so much as ruffle a feather of that bird I'll consider how to help you out of your miserable life." shouting her anger in Tauriels face, being on the verge of tears.
Taking a step back Tauriel tries to soothe Gwen a bit "Hey Gwen. You seriously need to come back down a bit. Ok, ok, I'm going to nurse Fluffy Puff here back up. No need to throw a fit. We'll find something else to eat. Everything is going to be ok."
As there seems to be no more shouting on her behalf now, she retreats back to the fire, taking the bird with her muttering to herself "Great." and looking back at the hawk staring frightened at her she adds "Stupid Bird."
Gwenhwyfar sits down in the meadow and the tears start to flow. Not only has she once again furiously beaten up a creature. She also vents her anger on Tauriell.
Taking up Destiée again she she excuses herself 'She propably deserved it for her acting like a sociopath'.
After a while she gets up again and follows her original plan to seek Abomentolor. She walks towards the trees, and as the forrest is to dense to see him she starts calling him "Abomentolor, where are you?"
Abolomentor, hearing his name, ceasing from torturing the charred trunc and hurries towards Gwen, to prevent her seeing what he did.
"What's the the matter? Why are you calling me?"
Quiet as per usual, and ever the silent observer, Oz had done enough watching for now. Cracking his neck a bit, and turning his mask, he followed Gwen as she looked for the gnome, but only managed to find her in tears. "Hmm... is all he audibly says as he approaches and finds the gnome with the woman. Tilting his mask to the left he began to speak. "This group is more interesting than my last one, I'd wager." he pointed out nonchalantly.
"What do you mean, your former group?" Abolomentor asks happy to have found something to distract from what he was doing.
Abomentolor laughs a bit, tilting his mask back to normal. "Ah, yes. My previous group were the ones that fled the forest before all of you arrived... they'd gotten a bad feeling a-a-a-bout it." he says, obviously rolling his head a bit as he mentioned it. "In hindsight, they might have just... well... seen the goblins, or something." he says with a little chuckle. "Mind you... I like you folks more. More energetic. Not just in it... for... the money." he explains.
"So you're more the type to be found in the thick of it? For I'm still searching for someone willing to keep up with my pace." he starting to hope again, there might be someone to charge in along with him.
Gwenhwyfar is bit confused, about how Oz managed to follow her unnoticed. And she asks herself how she ended up being just an observer to this conversation she intended to have with Abomentolor.
But as this Oz guy still gives her the creeps she decides to stay in this role and see what unfolds.
He laughs. "Well. My faith takes me to places where darkness is want to lash out at me, so... in a sense, yes." he explains. "I've only just begun my pilgrimage, but, at the same time, I'm no stranger to the dangers said pilgrimage entails." he says as he reveals the many obsidian glass throwing axes on his sides. "These are the result of me learning of ways to defend myself." he points out.
"Yeah, I saw that. They are pretty effective if you hit. You always throwing them, or do you use them in melee too? And how much difference is there anyway, for you can't throw them really far, or can you?" Abomentolor asks really interested in this fighting style and the unique kind of weapon.
"The glass variant of axes does the same amount of damage as a normal throwing axe, but they're a bit fragile... But... that works out in my favor sometimes. There's some way you can throw these where the glass will splinter away and lodge itself in your foes... That's a bit inhumane, but I'm only humane towards things that don't want to hurt me." he explains.
"They have their uses in melee. Same effects, too. Plus the axes are cheaper and weigh nowhere near as much. Here." he hands his longest throwing axe out towards the gnome. It's rather jagged, and far from worked. At the same time however, it seems like it's almost designed to shatter on contact.
The gnome takes the axe with two hands weighing it and making a few swings "That's neat. And the reduced weight really helps with the handling. Where do you buy these. The seem to be far from common, and if they splinter on contact you would have to restock regularily." Pausing with the swinging, he observes the head of the axe and feels the material.
"Doesn't look like you'd get that from a weapon smith."
He completely spins his mask to be upside down on his face. "That would be myself, actually. I repair them and make them myself. I'm not the greatest glass worker, but creating something like this is far from difficult, especially when it's as simple as grinding up previous axe heads and wrapping them properly around their old hafts."
He seems rather happy to be explaining it. "I can make plenty of glass weaponry, however. Should I get my hands on proper salts, I could easily create a masterwork variant with enough time."
Abomentolor's eyes glow with exitement. "You can make glass? Can you show me? Where do you do that. You have a workshop somewhere?". Obviously Oz managed to stirr up the gnomes couriosity. "Glass working is with fire isn't it?"
He crosses his arms, obviously pleased with the situation. "I don't have any particular workshop, unfortunately, though I certainly have the tools in my pack to do such a thing. By majority all you truly need for the melting of glass is a fire... yes... However the tools to shape it are very specific, unless you want to do crude work like this." he explains, raising the axe up and pointing at it.