Late at night here! We stayed up late both nights this weekend so I don’t think I can get back to my workday schedule all that quickly. Speaking of which, I seem to be in a rut at work. I still enjoy the job, the perks, the people I work with, but I’m not driven. I wonder if there’s something out there that I’d get up each morning and look forward going to work. I mean, I know no job will be like that every day, but at least one where I feel like that the majority of the time. I enjoy programming/software development, but I have to have new responsibilities and new stuff to work on every so often or I get frustrated and apathetic. I’ve been working app support on the same site for months and haven’t programmed anything new in forever.

We played games, hopped in the hot tub, and had drinks and stayed up all night long Friday night with Jeff & Brian and their friends Nicole & Jeff. It was a blast! I’m going to miss them when they move up to Portland.

Well, here’s an excerpt of my story I’m working on. Thoughts?

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Kael rested his hands on the damp, cool stone of the cavern’s entrance and leaned into the darkness. Somehow he hoped to penetrate the dark shadows and tons of stone to see what lay ahead of them. What had they got themselves into? Two farmboys, off to face adventure by first penetrating the lair of the mysterious Seer? As for the other two, he could care less about them. They’d only known each other a week, since the mage had brought together this ragtag band of novice adventurers.

He leaned back from the dark maw of the cave and glanced at the others standing about. Let’s see, what with two winters of training with the city guard in Tershak, Kael must be the brute, the warrior. The pompous wizard’s apprentice, (what was his name again?) must be the ‘mage’. Although, he had yet to see him produce as much as a single toad much less a fireball or anything else deserving of the title “wizard”. The apprentice sat on his horse, eying Kael with suspicion, occasionally his hands wandered to the tassels on his bright blue robe, toying with them. It will be such a shame when that beautiful new robe got dirty, Kael thought with a smirk.

A bush to his right rustled, momentarily causing his fledgling battle instincts to tense, only to have the source be revealed as a red-tailed quail fleeing some predator. The bird squawked loudly and zipped across the small clearing. The woods came up nearly to the entrance to the cave, hidden amongst a few bushes and boulders on the side of a foothill of the Black Mountains. Soon after the ‘predator’ revealed itself as well: Kael couldn’t help laughing at Jonas as he darted out of the bushes, nearly tripping on a root, flapping his arms and attempting to make some sort of sound that he must have thought would scare the bird. Reeekkkttt!! Reeekkktt!! His blond hair blowing free behind his head, he darted after the bird into the other side of the clearing.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing, Jonas? Starting a mating ritual?” Kael bent over laughing at his longtime friend. Hmm, was Jonas the ‘thief’ in the mage’s eyes, as Jonas had always hoped to be known, or simply comic entertainment?

“No stupid! I’m going to catch us one last decent meal before we bury ourselves in rock and have to eat dried redberry bread for weeks on end!” Came the response, fading as he moved on in the chase. Out of the corner of his eye Kael noticed even the last member of their party, and the most enigmatic had a grin on her face. Tara’s warm brown eyes met Kael’s for a moment, sharing the humor of the situation. Here they were, thrown together as total strangers, about to go somewhere and risk their lives for something they weren’t even that sure about, and depend on these total strangers to protect them, and Jonas was flapping about like a fop through the forest.

Kael couldn’t figure her out. She seemed capable enough with that spear back when they’d run into the wild boar. He’d barely made a swing at it with his shortsword when she’d impaled it through the ribs. At least they’d eaten well for a couple of days. Plus, she hadn’t seemed to rub in her victory on him, except for one smug smile she had given him as she’d shoved the boar off her weapon with her foot.

The moment ended when the “wizard” spoke (Dannigan Quotros, that was his name…what a pompous one at that!) “Can you reign your friend in and tell him we are ready to embark into the lair of the seer?”

“Certainly, your mageness” Kael flipped his hand over as he did a short bow. On the journey out from the city he’d found Dannigan’s weakness quickly: he had not yet passed his final tests to leave his apprenticeship and open up shop as a full mage, but he had tried twice already. Some rumors said that an apprentice only got three chances. After that, you simply headed back to whatever village you came from and became the town seer or entertainer, impressing the locals with made up tales of adventures you’d never seen firsthand, displaying simple but jaw-dropping acts of magic like fireballs and creating illusions.

Donnigan didn’t respond, but guided the grey mare to the other horses and dismounted, carefully watching the edges of his clean blue robes. As he moved, the silvery threads in the robe sparkled in the dappled light which reached down twixt the leaves above to warm them on the early summer day. He carefully checked the various pouches of ingredients and the scrolls he had brought along as he packed them on his self, concealing them in hidden pockets that covered the robes.

Finally, he untied his staff and walked towards the entrance. Well, he did seem to know his spells well enough, and they were going to have to all look out for each other down there, facing only the goddess knows what.

Kael stuck out a hand to Donnigan. “Look, we don’t know each other well yet. Not well enough to harbor grudges at least! Let’s keep an eye out for each other shall we?” Tara had stepped up as well. Donnigan looked down at Kael’s hand, then over to Kara.

“Right, we don’t know each other.” With that unclear statement he took Kael’s hand firmly. Tara placed hers over Kael’s. He could feel the warmth from her hand, all their heartbeats mingling…they were all so nervous! This was a first journey for all of them.

“Together.” Tara confirmed in her smooth voice. She flicked her long red hair back behind her short green riding cape.

“JONAS!! Come on!” Kael lit a torch and checked his grasp on the hilt of the blade he carried. Jonas dashed up and stood beside the others. He fished about in his pouch for a moment and retrieved one of the moon stones Par’dash, the mage had given them. Supposedly they should glow with a greenish light for days before fading. Donnigan flicked a small bit of a root out of a pocket and cupped it in his hands. Rubbing them together, rolling them around, he mumbled a few soft words.
A short wind picked up briefly, and suddenly a small orange flame sat floating above his hand as he opened them. He glanced up at Kael with a look that almost said “see, I can do something”. Kael nodded, running a hand through his brown hair anxiously.

And with that, the four young adventurers turned and headed into the lair of the ancient Seer Uranti.