Date: Seventeenth of March, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Morlen Daxana watched the sorcerer stumble back into camp. The man looked dazed, but unhurt. Morlen let out a long breath that he didn't know he had been holding,

"That's a relief."

"You can say that again Sir. Wonder where he wandered off to?"

"Meddling in the affairs of mages now are we Sergeant Oakheart?"

"Best not so Sir."

"Indeed."

Job Arseoth scratched at the small of his back. Ever since kicking over and burning down that shrine to She of the Blackened Heart, he had felt a persistent itch. It danced about his lower back, hiding under scales and out of the reach of his fingers. He wasn't sure what to make of it, and without a mirror he couldn't get a good look at it. Giving himself one last scratch Job forced himself to ignore the itch and focused on getting back to Enra's campfire and Baar'Miin's cooking. Field rations weren't the same as a fresh-cooked meal but they tasted best when hot.

As he sat and ate his porridge, Job looked about the party and saw that everyone was thinking more or less the same thing.

"Alright, I'll say it then. Now what? Enra finally has the things she needs to complete her degree, so what are we doing next?"

Baar'Miin ran a hand through her waist-length hair, "I need to help my Egg-Mother with her newborn, so I can't really go wandering about anymore."

Enra shook her head, "I'll be tied down wrapping up my dissertation for another moth or so, and then it'll probably be several more months until the whole line of succession thing shakes out..."

Sly punched Enra's arm gently, "what Prancer's saying is that she's booked for the forseeable future and that I'm staying with her for the duration."

Index slurped the last dregs of porridge out of her bowl, "and I'm going to have more work then I can shake my arms at with the Trebor Liberary, what with sorting out a new automagical index, settling in a possible new resident, and other things..."

Job set his now-empty bowl down, "and I need to figure out this whole Hoarding thing. I guess we'll be going our separate ways then?"

Enra waggled her hands, "for a while perhaps, but not forever. A Doctorate in Arcane History, which is next on my list of things to be done, requires more field work and I don't know of a better team of people to call upon."

Baar'Miin bobbed her head, "and if you need to learn about dragon-things, why not talk to my Egg-Mother?"

Job scratched his chin and the small of his back, "who better to ask about a dragon's hoarding instinct then a dragon? Thank you Baar'Miin, I'll probably take you, and lady Silon'Dez'Monah, up on that offer."

Tracie Ethelberry frowned at the circle of runes on the floor. It was obviously a Guild teleportation circle, albeit on a larger then usual scale, but it utterly refused to activate to any of the known activation sequences.

“Alright, TP Circle theory 101. What does one of these need to activate, even before we start throwing active magic at the issue?”

Her colleagues looked about in confusion.

Her theorist co-worker rolled his eyed at the basic question.

“Self-location rune sequence, magic input sequence, and an input rune for the destination circle's location sequence.”

Tracie nodded, “right. If this circle isn't activating, then there must be a problem with one or more of those components.”

“Makes since, it's not had any upkeep done on it in at least eight hundred years.”

“and the thing that needs tweaking the most often is the Self-location sequence. I get a call-out to work on those once every five years or so, and the records have it at about thirty years between required maintenance on a given circle. Almost as if they are drifting out of place or something.”

The group's historian spoke up. “That's actually an accurate way of putting it. I noted that some of the older self-location sequences have changed over time. Not by much, but enough. The one in Sapphire was the oldest known TP Circle still in operation, and it has had something like four Self-location Sequences over the past thousand years or so.”

Tracie cracked her knuckles, “so this circle has, at a minimum, an out of date Self-location Sequence. Without which it won't activate properly and can't receive incoming teleports.”

Her apprentice put his face in his hands, “so we're starting from scratch then?”

“Nope, we have all of the foundations laid, we just need to calculate how far this particular circle has 'moved' since it was last used so we can update the Self-location Sequence. Shouldn't take us more then three days or so...”

“We have food for two.”

“Shit.”

Sargent Oakheart ambled up to his superior officer, “you called it Sir, right on the lips.”

Morlen shook his head, “Guilders didn't bring enough food did they. How bad?”

“They estimate three to five days to fix the Teleportation Circle, and have food for two.”

“four extra mouths for three days isn't nearly as bad as I had feared. We've the extra for that, if I recall your inventory report, especially if we can teleport out instead of having to walk through the caves again.”

“There is also that salt-air smell Sir. Perhaps there is another cave, one that opens to the sea?”

“As another way out?”

“Or a source of fish Sir.”

“Mmm. We'll take the rest of 'today' recovering and patrolling the immediate area. If no threats present themselves, we'll look for that sea-cave and scout the rest of Mevada. The men will do well for fresh food.”

Date: Twenty Fifth of March, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Job Arseoth walked out of the Trebor Guild offices, cracked his back, scratched at the damned itch again, and started walking for the temple district. Enra was handling the paperwork, and Baar'Miin was getting besieged by requests for her aid from other adventuring parties. Clerics of Life, whatever god they followed, were always in high demand because of the healing potential they could bring into hostile situations. An Aasimar was a rare addition to any party, a sure sigh of both high risk missions and lavish rewards for the survivors in the imminent future, one that most sensible parties avoided like the purple plague. An Aasimar Cleric of Life on the other hand came with both the missions and the healing powers to see a party through them intact...

Job shook his head. Baar'Miin would be along when she could, hopefully after healing any broken bones that she had to dish out. In the mean time, it was a long hike to the temple district, and the day wasn't getting any shorter.