As Kasper squeezed his way up the narrow passage he prayed many times to the heavens that he wasn't crazy. By the time he reached the top of the drain he was praying that he would wake up, just so that he would know that the experience he was having wasn't real.

Memories of the earlier visions and feelings were not vanishing as fast as he had hoped. The plan that Azara concocted didn't help assuage his feelings. How she was so sure it was going to work was a mystery to him. Then again, she had been this knights lover, so Kasper supposed it was best to trust her.

The thought of Konrad being Azara's lover made Kasper just a little sad. Perhaps jealous was a better word do describe the feeling. Inadequate? That was even more fitting.

The idea that any man could even approach Azara was confounding to him, and it didn't help that Konrad looked the part. Minus the scar on the knight's face, Kasper couldn't think of any other man he'd seen that looked more regal, impressive, and just - manly? There wasn't a way to describe it since any descriptive word for someone that looked wonderful felt like it applied just fine. Even words that Kasper would think of as feminine, like beautiful, soft, kind, and so on, would not have been misplaced when describing Konrad's appearance.

The same sort of thing could be said of Azara, Kasper realized. The more Kasper thought about it, the more he realized that both Konrad and Azara were as close to perfection as a human being could get.

It was like neither of them was even human, to begin with, he realized. This was true, he knew, of Konrad. Azara, however, was another mystery. This confirmed to Kasper’s that he was definitely on to something with his theory about Azara having elf blood in her lineage.

Eventually, he came to the end of the long drain tunnel and peaked his head out over the edge into the large atrium. Within it, he saw a small campfire, and Konrad and the knights were sitting around it. Not far away, Kasper saw two of his companions still restrained. Valerius was talking to Konrad, who was responding occasionally, though Konrad seemed quite fed up with the prince. Kasper noted that the campfire didn't smoke much, which meant it had been made from dry wood. He wondered where they had got it from, till one of the knights stood up and walked into one of the now open crypt doors. He then came back a few moments later with some wood. Kasper felt a chill as he wondered if the wood was from simple construction, decoration, or the caskets of the dead. Either way, the action didn't sit right with him.

Another thing he noticed was that Irinia was sitting at the campfire with the knights. She was talking to Konrad and the others in a friendly manner. He could not make out the words, and couldn’t fathom why they did not bother to restrain her. Had her religion swayed her to their side? No, Kasper knew better than that. He knew Irinia better than that. It had to be something else.

Perhaps it was just Irinia being Irinia, kind, and soft-spoken enough that she had gained their trust. Perhaps they had just decided that she wasn't a threat to them. Regardless, whether she was free or not didn't change Kasper's plans, so he decided not to worry about it.

The first step of the plan Azara had made was for Kasper to wait for them to go to sleep so that he could make his move. Azara had said she would make the watch fall asleep for him, an ability he had doubted at first. She had explained that it was a type of extreme illusion and not true sleep, but the effect was almost the same. It wouldn't work on Konrad, but she was sure that she would be able to get it to work on one of the other knights.

After she had given him a demonstration however, he had become convinced. It also worried him. What untold number of tricks was she holding up her sleeve? How many times had she used illusions and tricks on him or someone else to get what she wanted? Joakim's midnight naps certainly made more sense.

He had to ignore these questions, and just focus on the task at hand. Worrying would only matter if he had other options. As it was, this was what he was stuck with. There was no way he would be going back to the wagon and making it out of the frozen north alive, and he would prefer dying here over dying somewhere else and leaving his friends to these Aerician knights.

For now, though, he just had to wait....and wait. Wait some more.

He wished that Valerius would just stop yelling, since keeping Konrad arguing with the prince rather than sleeping. He wondered if Valerius was trying to appeal to the knight's chivalry or something - as if the silver-haired paladin hadn't already done them that favor by not killing them outright.

This went on for a while, but eventually, they did crawl into their sleeping rolls. Nothing happened to the sentry for quite some time. After an hour had passed Kasper was starting to get worried, and he was feeling very cramped and tired.

Then, something caught his eye from the top of the atrium. He thought he had seen movement, but it wasn't a human movement, it was something else. It was as if a large rock and suddenly shifted upon the precipice. It wasn't rock though, it contracted slightly and almost...lumbered. It was like he was seeing the back of a large cat or bear extending just above the rim of the hole. However, if it was that large at this distance, the animal making the silhouette against the star and moonlit sky would have been enormous.

The implication hit Kasper hard. There was a monster up there, maybe a dragon! What if it had come looking for them? what if it knew their plans? Azara had said they were intelligent. What if - but then, the bit of the monster he could see disappeared, and shortly after that the sentinel slumped over. Azara had made her move, and a monster or not, Kasper had to make his. Feeling every nerve in his body on edge, Kasper did what he had to, and crawled out of the hole.

Keeping an eye above him, he set out a small cylindrical device. He then pulled a cord on it, and gas began to leak out into the area. As for himself, he walked over to the stairs that lead up to the raised walkway and got well above the ground as the gas crept across the floor.

This wouldn't have worked with a guard awake, as it was very visible and he could have avoided it and woken the others. It was also slow-acting, and it put people to sleep too slowly for it to be deployed in a grenadelike fashion. However, the Hawks used it in large mansions and houses to put the occupants into a deeper sleep at night than usual, one they wouldn't wake from if any accidental noise were made in the house.

Thus, Kasper had always kept some on him. There were some tricks, he thought, that even magic users can't do.

After the gas had made its way across the whole floor and thoroughly been inhaled by those sleeping, Kasper made his way over to the silver-haired knight. Sure enough, as Azara had predicted, there was a necklace was around his neck.

So it does mean something after all. Kasper thought. Nobody sleeps with something that was just a piece of jewelry.

With the hands of one trained in this craft, Kasper slipped the necklace off its owner without waking Konrad from his deep sleep. He then made his way back to the drainpipe in the corner, just a bit regretful that he couldn't kill the knight and be done with the mess. However, if this could get both his companions back and accomplish Valerius' quest, then that was the better option.

When he got back in the drainpipe he had a brief moment of panic. The gas hadn't cleared completely from it, and he found himself slowly falling to sleep when he wedged himself inside and started to breathe too heavily. However, he calmed himself, and slowly made his way back out. Then he waited a few agonizing minutes for the drainpipe to clear, before trying again. By this time the gas had cleared enough for him to make his way through.

Where the pipe exited was a small pool, a sort of ditch in a small plateau of rock that had been dug away by the pipe's drainage over the years. He wondered if Azara had encountered the dragon or not, or if the beast had even been a dragon. Maybe he had just seen things. Before long, however, he heard her voice pipe up behind him.

"You got it?"

He turned around, finding the mage standing there with a mischievous grin on her face. He noticed she looked different than usual. Her hair was down and she looked very disheveled. It wasn't odd - they had been on the road for several days, everyone looked rougher for it, but Azara was different. He'd noticed how much care she took despite being on the road, her little acts of vanity hadn't escaped him.

Still, there was something else that was different, though he couldn't quite put his finger on it. All he knew, was that when they had confronted Kornad she had looked different than the way she looked now. Something had changed, not for better or worse, but it was different.

"Yep, I did."

"Wonderful, then it’s time to rest now, and we will finish this scheme tomorrow."

"Sounds good to me, but if I'm being honest, I am a little worried that this won't work. What if you are wrong about this? Will this be enough to coerce him?"

"to be honest, I don't know for certain. But I do know that this is quite connected to Konrad. Who knows why." she said.

When she turned away to head back to camp though, Kasper was almost positive he saw that otherwise mischievous and cheerful face of hers become quite sad and forlorn.