Gil-Estel sat down dejectedly. It was just no use, he simply couldn't remember the password needed to enter the dwarven city hidden in Ered Annon. He had tried all of the obvious one's, and even a few of the more cryptic ones, but it simply wasn't working. He would just have to sit here and wait until someone came and opened the door. It was going to be a long night.

Gil-Estel ate a small pieces of Lembas before lying down on a patch of soft looking grass and settling down to sleep (with his bow in his hand of course!).

Skipping lightly from rocky outcropping to rocky outcropping, Robyn made her way down the mountain with soft, light-footed leaps. She wasn't quiet about it- but she was graceful. If her flesh were still alive, she would feel the pain of her frostbitten toes and exposed flesh- and might have been a bit worried about the gravel that had wormed its way through the gray soles of her feet. But it wasn't alive and neither was she. Pain hadn't stopped her from enjoying life and she (probably) didn't see why she couldn't enjoy un-life.

After a while she made it to the bottom in a small explosion of dust and pebbles. Coughing and blinking (she still needed eyes in a functional state) she looked around, taking in the scenery.

Scenery which included a living thing.

"Beeble!" She said excitedly, laughing and gesturing excitedly at the elf. "You're Mr. Beeble, arentcha? I knew it!" Her words came out in a rush. A very, very girly rush. "Momma bear and poppa bear told me you'd be here- and here you are! I doubted them at first because it took me forever to get down the mountain and I didn't think you'd wait that long but here you are!" She was smiling happily. The expression could almost be construed as innocent.

No... it was, curiously, innocent. Devoid of evil intent, at the very least.

Hopping around she seemed to be dancing. The quiver on her back was thrown haphazardly but didn't seem to be intent on leaving its comfortable nesting ground and her bow- unstrung as it was- was merely more decoration.

"So, whatcha doing here? Momma and poppa bear said Mr. Beeble needed helpy helpfuls! And then Mr. Beeble would play with Robyn-rin." She smiled again, hopefully this time. "Will Mr. Beeble play with Robyn-rin if Robyn-rin helps Mr. Beeble?"

Gil-Estel had just managed to close his eyes and drift into a restless sleep when he was rudely awoken by the sound of someone or something sliding down the side of the cliff. He stood up abruptly to see a small girl who by human standards appeared to be about fourteen or fifteen. But this girl didn't seem to be quite human. In fact she didn't seem to belong to any of the races Gil-Estel had encountered upon his travels.

The girl (if indeed it was a girl) seemed to be speaking some sort of gibberish. All Gil-Estel managed to understand was that she thought he was someone named Beeble and that she would be willing to help him in exchange for some sort of playing. Despite the fact that the girl seemed to be slightly... unhinged, she had a very innocent smile which made her seem not dissimilar from the elven children Gil-Estel knew at home.

"Hello little girl." started Gil-Estel. He was unsure how to continue with this girl. Should he treat her as a "normal", or should he be wary of her? However, judging by the fact that she was only armed with an unstrung bow he decided that there could be no harm in indulging the poor girl.

"I'm Gil-Estel, what's your name?"

Robyn became excited. Mr. Beeble was playing with her! He had responded! And he had responded in a nice-nice fashion, just like Momma Bear said he would! Poppa bear had said he would be a meanie-pooh and that she had to kill him, but Momma always knew best. Momma was the nicest, nicest Momma Bear in the whole widest world. The bestest Momma ever. Poppa bear was nice too, but he was a suspicious poppa. All Poppa's were suspicious when it came to their darling daughters Momma Bear had said. How right she was. Momma bear was always right!

Still, even if Momma bear was right, Mr. Beeble wasn't making much sense. She tried to consider the problem in a 'logical fashion' like Poppa Bear had told her to do and then gasped. She slapped her hands together, giddy with delight. She had heard of such games!

"Is Mr. Beeble is playing a spying game? He needs a new name to hide his hidingness-ess-ess..." She seemed to get a bit confused with the last word, her tongue making odd twirls in the air as it sought to keep the word from escaping its grasp completely and finally went on a different track: "his old name-name?"

She nodded. It all made sense now! "Yes, Robyn-rin needs a new name too. Robyn-rin will be 'little girl' even if Roby-rin is a tall little girl and Mr. Beeble will be Gil-Es... ummm... Gil-Es..." She gave up. "Mr. Beeble will be Gil!" She nodded to herself in satisfaction. "Yupyup." She beamed. "Funfun times!"

"Who are we spying on Mr.Gil?" She spotted the location where the elf was staying. "Are we spying on the dwarfy dwarves?" She shivered a bit. "They smell funneh. And are meanies. Big, short, meanies. With sharp-sharp things of dooooom!" Her eyes were wide and she was nodding vigorously. "I've seen them!"

As the girl (who appeared to be called Robyn-rin) spouted out another reem of (strangely endearing) gibberish, Gil-Estel managed to discover yet more about her mysterious life. Firstly she seemed to live with bears (although whether her parents were literally bears or not remained to be seen!) and secondly she still seemed convinced that he was this elusive Mr Beeble fellow.

"Well, I'm not going to spy on the dwarves, I have to meet one. But first I need to open this door. Do you know how to open it? If you tell me, we can play after I talk to the Dwarfy Dwarves, er I mean Dwarves." (her eccentric way of speaking was infectious!). He hoped that he wasn't insulting her in any way, because although she was odd, and although he didn't even know what race she was, he had begun to feel a definite fondness towards her. And besides, it was always good to have company.

Robyn nodded sagely after the elf had finished speaking. "Of course we're not spying on the dwarfy-dwarves." She shook her head rapidly, as if horrified by the very thought. "Of course! We're little girl and Mr. Gil. Or maybe Little Girl and Mr. Gil. Gil and Little Girl? Aaanyways! We're not spying on the..." she forced her brain to accept the concept and finally choked out the single word: "dwarves. Nosiree dobob day. Not at all. Cross my heart and hope to die."

For some reason that line cracked her up and she giggled a bit before regaining her composure. She was biting her lip so as not to laugh.

"Ahem. Yes. To sum: we are certainly not spying on any dwarves. And we shall play... later. Yupyup." She nodded her head in satisfaction. The rules of the game had all been laid out. Now onto the playing!

First they had to get past the demon gate and into the lair of the dwarfy-dwarves! But how? She massaged her temples. This was indeed a grave conundrum for the valiant spies of... of something or another. Maybe the gumdrop weasels? She looked the elf over. He didn't look like a gumdrop. Or a weasel. And neither did she for that matter. But that was okay. They were the valiant spies of the gumdrop weasels!

With that particular piece of drama-worthy information safely tucked into her brain Robyn considered the question at hand: How would a weasel get into the dwarfy-dwarves underground palace? Did they have a palace? Or did they just live in holes in the ground and pop up like mushrooms? It was a question she had thought of two seconds ago but was fairly certain she had been considering all her un-life. Or life-un. Or... Robyn gave up and consulted Momma bear.

Momma bear answered, like always. She tried to twist her brain in knots figuring out what it meant. She gave up. Maybe Mr. Gil knew.

Turning to Mr. Gil she said (spookily! Cuz, that's how spies spoke to each other): "A warning twice past on the dangers of digging, is the price you will pay if you are so willing, the time that is past, the time that is there- enter brave warrior if you see the fine hair!"

"Or is it hare?" She mused. She looked at Mr. Gil expectantly. "That's what Momma Bear says about the dwarf-caves."

Gil-Estel, unsure what to make of the Girl's answer (despite the fact that he was sure he had heard it before), decided on a different approach.

"Do you know if there's any password we must use to open the door? Or some kind of spell we must recite? If not we shall just have to find another door. Do you know if there's any of them?"

He hoped that there would be a password, as he knew that if they should find another door, it would likely be just as, if not more protected than this one.

"It is a riddle, Mr. Gil," Robyn said, clearly disappointed in his lack of spy-skills. The valiant company of the gumdrop beavers (or was it bears?) were in sore straits indeed if they could not get through this demon door and into the dwarf-caves. She wasn't terribly certain why they wanted to spy on the dwarves or their smelly holes but supposed that this was a conundrum for wiser minds than hers. Certainly the riddle was beyond her feeble reasoning abilitities... abilities?... and that was that. If Mr. Beeble- sorry Mr. Gil- couldn't figure it out she didn't see how she'd make any positive influence on it either.

Still it was catchy. Humming a jaunty tune under her breath she tried repeating it in her mind.

A warning twice past on the dangers of digging,
Is the price you will pay if you are so willing,
The time that is past, the time that is there-
Enter brave warrior if you see the fine hair!"

Nope, she couldn't make heads or tails out of it. She considered this. Why did she have to make heads out of anything? Or tails for that matter?

Once again, she beseeched Momma Bear. Because Momma Bear was all-knowing. She waited patiently for the information and winced.

Momma bear was not impressed by her lack of spy skillery. The dwarfy dwarves would have to pay for getting Momma Bear mad. She'd see to it. Somehow. Maybe she'd get them to play a game of freeze tag? That was always fun. Yupyup. Sometimes all you really needed in life was a good game of freeze tag and a really mean Poppa bear to make the ice statues explode.

"There's," she said tremulously, "a rabbit stone that needs to be pushed Mr. Gil."

The girl seemed lost in thought, as though conversing with some unseen conscience. Suddenly she seemed to come to a revalation. "There's a rabbit stone that needs to be pushed Mr. Gil."

"A rabbit stone?", he asked, "And where would I find said stone?" Although he still harboured doubts about how much this odd girl could really help him, he was beginning to see that in reality she harboured some sort of fierce intellect (or at least knowledge about this area).

After a while of waiting for Robyn's answer, Gil-Estel sat down once more on the floor. Slowly he drifted off into sleep, but as he closed his eyes, the moon shone down upon the dwarvish door. As its rays brushed the surface, Gil-Estel's semi-conscious eyes could have sworn they picked out fine silver lines spreading across its face.

Sitting up, Gil-Estel looked closely at the door. There seemed to be some sort of grid there, a grid containing dwarvish runes. But what use was that. He still had no idea what password to use...

Unless... "You're a genius!" he exclaimed, addressing the girl, "Do you know that?!" He walked over to the door, and lightly pressed six runes: "R" "A" "B" "B" "I" "T" (OK, well maybe it was five.. but he pressed one twice!). As he pressed down the "T", a crack appeared down the middle of the door. And the door swung slowly outwards...

Robyn was worried for Mr. Beeble. Really, really worried. Spyery games always had time limits, because after a certain time spies were caught! And being caught was bad! Now that she thought about it, since she was here with Mr. Beeble *she* was in danger of being caught too! And that would be even worse since she belonged to five different officially reco-g-nized spy agencies and to thirty-four un-official ones including but not limited to 'the forces of good', 'the forces of evil', 'the forces of ebil' and 'the forces of two-shoes'. She was fairly certain there was supposed to be a 'goody' in front of the two-shoes but apparently it was now considered poli-tik-ally incorrect.

And then Mr. Beeble became smart again (and even said that she was a... a... *genius*) and the world was right once more.

Glad that they'd be able to continue the game (Poppa Bear was a meanie-pooh sometimes and strictly said that exactly one chance was to be given to all players and after that one chance they'd have to start some new play-with-me games that most of the participants (besides Poppa Bear of course) did *not* like) she carefully and sneakily (because she was such a sneaky-pants!) crept towards the entrance way. There were stairs. Lots of stairs. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of stairs.

And they were built for short-short people. Like dwarfies. Ewwwwww. What was that smell?

Then, out of nowhere, a leg of roast caught her on the head. It bounced off and hit the ground. Robyn eyed it suspiciously. Food only fell from the sky on backwards-forwards day and, as far as she knew, it wasn't backwards-forwards day. Backwards-forwards day wasn't scheduled for another...

And then she was beaned by another piece of flying meat. This one seemed to be a leg of mutton.

She could hear laughter but all that she could *see* was a dark, dank cave with lots of stepsies.

Oooooo! A mystery! What fun!

===============

OOC: You can decide if she's imagining these things or if there's a dwarven party going on and they've spelled the entrance with an illusion or there's another explanation altogether. Sorry for the wait. xD

As Gil-Estel looked into the dark, dank entrance of the mines, he could have sworn he heard laughter. But all he could see was the stairs stretching far far down into the heart of the mountain. Suddenly, what looked like a joint of meat came flying out of the entrance, hitting the girl on the head! And then another! This makes no sense! thought Gil-Estel There's laughter, and flying meat, but no dwarfies... er i mean dwarves.

As Gil-Estel started forward to walk through the door, he had to duck as a tankard of ale flew at his head, missing him by milimetres. Then, a small beared dwarf came scurrying out of the mine, apparently he missed his beer. He hurried over to the tankard and picked it up. He seemed disappointed as he looked inside the empty mug. Turning round he saw many more dwarves emerging from the small door. They were all squawking and squabbling in their crude language, apparently annoyed by the dwarf who had given their game away. As Gil-Estel stared in disbelief, the largest dwarf advanced on him, brandishing a leg of mutton as though it were a sword.

"Come." he said, "we've been expecting you"...

Robyn blinked.

Wuuuuh-?

No wait, that wasn't quite right. Not enough 'uhhhh' and too much 'uuuuh.' She tried again.

Wuuuuhhhhhh-?

They had been *expecting* them? Either Mr. Beeble- no, sorry, bad slip there...- Mr. Gil was the best spymaster in the world or he was undeniably the worst one. Who ever heard of spy victims greeting their spies at the front door with a leg of... ooh that did look munchable!... in one hand and, well, nothing in the other. It was enough to make Robyn *almost* believe that the world was going topsy-turvy and that the dwarfy-dwarves were the spies and that Little Girl and Mr. Gil were about to become victims to a very, very, veeeeeery elaborate game of cat and mice. Or was that mice and cats? She never could really remember.

But all that aside, the dwarfy dwarves didn't smell quite as bad as the food smelled good. In fact, it smelled delicious. Almost as delicious as what Mamma Bear had baked just... not so long ago. She forgot what it was called but it was read and steaming and everything! Probably a lizardkin or an angel wing or something of the sort. Hopefully. Poppa bear once cooked her people-meat and it hadn't tasted good. No, not at all. If anything, it tasted like chicken and chicken was not good to eat. Not after Mr. Lumlum had turned into chicken, anyways.

"Are you expecting Little Girl too?" She asked hopefully.

The big dwarf turned apparently having missed Little Girl in the penumbra between the light from the cave and the darkness outside.

"No." He said, cocking a brow. His accent seemed oddly devoid of the usual dwarvish tune- he must have been the diplomat or somesuch that was supposed to greet the elf. "No, I don't think so. One moment please."

There was a small conference of heated whispers as the dwarves conferred as to what to do with this new... creature... person... thing. Finally, it ended in the usual dwarvish manner as the largest one clunked the heads of the smaller ones and turnd back to the duo of spymasters.

"She with you?" He asked the elf with exaggerated emphasis on various syllables that made his speech seem almost lilting. "Cause' she ain't on the list."

After some discourse (involving what looked like some particularly painful head banging), the largest dwarf seemed to overrule the other, smaller specimens (as was the dwarvish way). "She with you?" He asked in his suprisingly educated (for a dwarf at least) accent "Cause' she ain't on the list."

Gil-Estel couldn't see any reason not to bring the girl inside, and he had promised her that they could play later. "Yes, she's with me." He said assuming his grandest tone. "Very well," said the dwarf gruffly, "in you come then."

He led them up to the door and stepped through. As they came right up to the door, they could see that the previously deceptive scene of stairs was in reality a curtain enchanted to appear like a quiet and unassuming entrance, probably meant to conceal the dwarves for the purposes of party tricks as it would have no real defensive value against even the least intelligent of animals (especially as the strong dwarvish scent was hard to conceal with any manner of disguises).

They walked through the curtain to find a large hall filled with celebrating dwarves, eating and drinking, laughing and crying and of course playing numerous dwarven party games, unfathomable by members of any other race. "Please, enjoy yourselves." Said the large dwarf, before sidling off into the milling crowds, presumably more interested in the many flagons of ale being passed around by numerous (bearded) waitresses. Gil-Estel shuddered at the thought of bearded women, but as they were in a dwarven city, there was going to rather a lot of them around in the next few days.

Gil-Estel wandered over to a small bench and sat down with his knees reaching his chest. This is going to be a long (and uncomfortable) night he thought, as he watched the dwarves enjoying themselves in their own peculiar dwarven way.

Robyn tried to glare suspiciously at everything. It was harder than she thought it'd be. Firstly there was the whole 'glaring business.' Dwarfy-dwarves were, by nature, phunny. They were meanie-poohs too but they were phunny meanie-poohs. And none of them had sharp-sharp things and they were giving her things to eat! Which was a very nice change from the usual order of hack-and-slash games that they liked to play with her aaaaaalllllll the time. It was good playing spies and spy-catchers Robyn decided as she bit into a crunchilicious mole-steak thingy.

Robyn squealed, losing grip on the glare completely. The bones *popped*. This was by far the best game she had ever played with the dwarfy-dwarves and she supposed that she had Mr... Mr. Gil to thank for it. A passing dwarfy was holding up a platter and a mug with this foaming gold liquid and Robyn stared at it inquisitively. Whatever could it be?

She took a gulp.

Somehow she found herself on the ground. It was a very nice ground too. She didn't know why, but it seemed like such a nice-nice ground today even though it was just normal ground. Was it normal ground? No! Normal ground wasn't purple. It must have been magick ground. Only magick ground could change color! And soot bubbles. Such pretty, pretty bubbles. She heard laughing and was tempted to join in. And then she felt herself get heaved upwards and sat back onto a stool by two dwarfy-dwarves and started laughing because they were laughing.

"Who gave t'human whelp tha drink?" He sounded mad but Robyn knew that he was just joking. Silly pooh-face, look at how much funny-funny was crawling over all his friends' faces? They were smiling and then he was smiling and everyone was happy-happy.

The little necropolitan went to sleep.

Turning his attention from the dwarves to the Little Girl, Gil-Estel saw that someone had given her a drink. A particularly strong one by the looks of it. She was now sprawled across the floor giggling to herself. Gil-Estel couldn't help but laugh. He turned back around to find himself face to face with a particularly gruff looking dwarf. The dwarf presented him with a flagon (yes flagon!) of liqueor and told him that he would be participating in a drinking game. Gil-Estel was about to refuse until the dwarf said "Let's see how well wickle elfs can drink shall we?" the surrounding dwarves all laughed so Gil-Estel grabbed the flagon and downed the contents in one gulp. He was promptly sick. The laughter of the dwarves doubled and Gil-Estel could feel his cheeks reddening. He muttered an excuse and went of to find somewhere he could wash.

Upon leaving the room, he found himself in a series of long dark corridors stretching deep into the heart of the mountain. Eventually he managed to find a small stream and washed his face and tunic. Suddenly he heard a coarse dwarven voice... no... it wasn't dwarven... in a sudden, terrible realisation, Gil-Estel realised that he was listening to the voice of a goblin. The voice seemed to be coming from down a large corridor to the left. "Yeez, vee aff manached to geet een, cackle cackle cackle. Now my preeties, vee musst attack ze party cackle, cackle, cough." Gil-Estel stood up and began to run back to the party...

Suddenly he was lying on the floor, surrounded by a group of laughing dwarves. Suddenly he realised (with great embarassment) that he had simply passed out in a drunken stupour after drinking the flagon of dwarven liqueor and that there had in fact been no goblins... He also realised (with even greater embarassment) that he was still covered in sick... what was his father going to say?

He was slowly lifted off of the floor and carried to a bed in a small room a short way down the corridor. He was then laid on a small comfortable bed and promptly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Robyn was having a terribly nice dream. It was like when she had first woken up. She was in a big, big box with lots of handles but this time it was made of glass and she could see everything outside. There was lots of outside to see too! She traveled from forests, to underwater cities, to big libraries of questionable taste and even into the places only adults went to in order to drink their gold drinksies! And she made so many new friends along the way too! There was Pony, and Mr. Beeble and Mrs. Beeble and Mr. Fluffington and-

wAke uP

Poppa Bear?

WaKE uP

Robyn felt annoyed. Her dream-dreams weren't usually so purdy. Poppa bear should know better than to barge in un-announced an un-needed. Besides, she had enough of his lecturing. She brought her fingers to her ears and firmly stuffed them inside and continued to watch the evolving scenery.

WAKE

Oh fudgepoodle. Was that really Poppa Bear? He didn't normally sound like tha-

UP

Robyn's eyes flared open. The first thing she had thought was that the world had been painted red. And then she noticed that no, that hadn't happened, i twas just that someone had painted her eyes with red paint. And had painted all the dwarfy-dwarves with red paint too.

...and made one of them go explodey-bye. She spotted a foot here and a hand there and... and...

Robyn carefully touched her neck. There was a long, lateral incision there that had completely destroyed her voicebox. She irritably snapped her fingers and willed the parted flesh closed again. After a few brief instants she felt the flesh close and she could speak again. What phun! And all her new dwarfy-friends were playing sleepy-dead. Or playing paint-paint with themselves. Grabbing onto the big dwarfy that had been the diplo-mati-ic one she started hauling him around.

"Do you know where Mr. Gil is?" She asked. He kept on right on sleeping though, ignoring her completely. He was so good at this game! She went to tickle his armpit but... it.. sorta plunked away. She watched the dismembered limb roll away and scratched her head.

"I didn't know dwarfy-dwarves could do that."

Actually she was pretty sure dwarfy-dwarves could not do that.

"Mr. Dwarfy-dwarf? Are you okay? How come you're not answering me? Did Robyn-rin make big Dwarfy-dwarf mad somehow? Robyn-rin didn't meean it..."

And on the little necropolitan went, talking to the dead corpse as if it were the most logical and reasonable thing in the world to do...

Waking suddenly, Gil-Estel sat up. He wasn't sure what had woken him, he had just woken up. He had the sudden and horrible feeling that something was watching him. He stood up and looked around the dark room. He wandered slowly over to the door and walked out in the corridor. It was eerily quiet. He made his way back to the party hall and stopped. He looked in horror. The entire party had been slain. There was blood and bits of dead dwarf everywhere. He felt the contents of his stomach coming back up. He was sick for he second time tonight.

He started to stagger back down the corridor, mortified by what he had seen, but, remembering the little girl, he realised that he would never be able to forgive himself if he never found her, or at least, her body.

"Little Girl?!" he called "LITTLE GIRL?!"

Mr. Gil was shouting. He didn't need to shout. Robyn-rin had ears. Most of the time anyways. And even without ears people could hear. Robyn-rin knew this... somehow. She wasn't exactly sure how but imagined it had something to do with a lesson that Momma Bear had taught her. She couldn't even imagine Poppa Bear ever taking the time of day to explain that people heard things through their ears let alone explain that the little fleshy bits weren't needed and that the hole was the main attraction. He was a funneh poppa Bear when he wanted to be (but mostly logical) but a teacher he was not.

But yesh, Mr. Gil didn't need to shout. They were playing spies and spy-catchers. Everyone knew that spy-catchers could hear the drop of a pin and find a needle in a haystack (why needles were always in haystacks Robyn-rin could never understand) and thus him shouting was fast equaling losing the game. Which was bad. Course' the dwarfy-dwarves seemed intent on playing a different game and maybe Mr. Beeble had decided to play it too? Maybe this was a game of hide and seek! The dwarfy-dwarves were being extra sneaky and making sure that even if they were found, not all of them were found.

How clever! Robyn nodded appreciatively. Not many people went so far for a game of hide and seek

She certainly couldn't do any less now could she? Looking for something sharp she started stepping over dwarf corpses and then crawling over them. Where did the dwarfy-dwarves hide all their sharp-sharp things? Surely they hid them _somewhere_. She couldn't imagine dwarfy-dwarves not having sharp-sharp things. It was like dwarfy-dwarves not smelling bad. They didn't exist.

But alas, Robyn-rin was too slow.

"You found me Mr. Beeble! Now I'm a seeker of hiders too!"

"Little Girl!" cried Gil-Estel as she appeared in front of him. "Come on, we must leave now!" He ran over to the main entrance, only to find that the stone door had been sealed behind the curtain. "We must go the other way!" he cried. He turned to run towards the other door. Suddenly, he stopped. He felt a fell prescence in the room. A cold breeze brushed against his neck, it felt like the edge of a sword. Suddenly he collapsed, he was finding it hard to breath. He tried to call the little girl's name but all he could manage was a strangled gasp. Then all went black...


OOC: the thing can be whatever you want. It can actually be something visible or it could just be like an invisible spirit.

Poppa Bear awoke.

And he, like his 'daughter dearest' was so apt to say all the time, was not a happy Poppa Bear. What were they missing this time? The bloody thinking cap was supposed to be active- he was trying to regain his precious strength, and wholesome, natural sleep was the only way to...

Poppa Bear's thoughts trailed away.

"Well this is lovely. What are we all doing here?"

That would be Momma Bear no doubt. She was always one for sarcasm. But her question was valid- Robyn hadn't manifested a dreamscape for a while and hadn't held a Meeting... he didn't even know if she *could* hold a meeting anymore. Her condition was deteriorating far faster than any of them had expected.

The Chef spoke first. He was a newer member to the circle but always seemed to be the most level-headed.

"Robyn's dying." He held up a furry white hand. "The last cut severed her arm at the shoulder, but also sliced right through her vertebrae."

"The dark magic that supports her- supports us- is no longer functional below that injury point."

"I estimate... forty-five seconds before irreparable damage is done." The thinking Cap added in his usual wheezy voice.

"Spend them well." He disappeared, gone back to doing whatever thinking caps... did... or something. He would be useful if he could only be convinced to act on not merely to think. Still, that was why he was called the thinking cap.

The rest of the assembled Figments looked to him. Poppa Bear groaned. They were all so very predictable.

"I'll bloody well do it, but ye owe me. And that's a debt I'll be collecting on, dontcha fergit it."

The Figments were silent except for Momma Bear who laughed.

"We never do."

===================

Robyn-rin awoke. Blood dripped unheeded from her mouth- she had been feeding- but feeding on what? She looked at her hands and made an 'o' of surprise with her mouth. Was that a dwarfy-dwarf head? But she wouldn't... she would never... she wouldn't have... would she? No, she couldn't have. It must have been that meanie-pooh, trying to convince her that-

Where was the meanie-pooh?

"You're not a zombie per se, are you? I would have sworn I removed you from the Source."

Robyn looked around and spotted the meanie-pooh. All shadowy cloaks and swirls and whirls and whatnot. She didn't see his weapons but that didn't mean he didn't have any- she had remembered a three-pronged knife that had cut her up something fierce. He was bending down next to Mr. Gil and-

"STOP IT!" She yelled. He stood up, red eyes narrowing. Robyn gulped, remembering pain.

"Why?"

OOC: sorry I haven't posted for a while..

IC:Gil-Estel slowly forced his heavy eyes to open. As soon as he did, blood dripped into them and he had to close them straight away. He wiped his eyes and managed to reopen them. Looking up he saw that there was a shadowy figure next to him. The figure seemed to be in conversation with the Little Girl. Gil-Estel drew one of his knives and tried feebly to force it through the figures back. The knife passed through the swathes of fabric, but it didn't come into contact with anything. The figure swirled around and laughed. "Fool!" it shrieked.

OOC: Lulz, I make ye wait forever and you're apologizing to meh? xD

IC:

The lich-wraith looked down upon the elf in disdain. It had been an elf once, a female elf in fact, and her hatred for living things in general was far exceeded by her hatred for her kin. She had been a banshee once, a fate far worse than death. And it had been imposed (wrongfully imposed!) by those who had called her kinswoman. Dared call her kinswoman. They were dead now- long had she sought some form of immortality that would break the chains that had made her a banshee and she had found it- deep beneath the dwarf halls and far below the mountain ranges in the pits of doom where only dragons and demons and things even more foul made their home.

"Fool!" She shrieked when she felt the blade pass through her. She had almost, for just an instant, been distracted by the undead... child. The thinking child. The zombie child who thought. Was that not miraculous? Was that not exquisite? How could such a thing exist? She had wanted to probe its thoughts, its memories. Slowly dissect it or keep it as a pet to be studied and played with.

Those thoughts left as fast as the blade had entered (foolish mortal- a blade without an enchantment had sought to wound her? Preposterous! Even as an ever-hungering and ever-pained banshee she would not have felt the merest knick of that blade.

"Stop!" The undead girl screamed against and there went another knick.
Impossibly though, the blade fell home and though the wound was hardly serious she had still felt it.

"What?" The wraith-lich screamed again. Pain and surprise mingling to become something approaching confusion. She turned her head the impossible three hundred and sixty degrees that no mortal could manage and stared at the undead girl and at the sidearm she carried. It was a dagger, a dagger crafted of pure shadow. Interesting.

She backhanded the little girl hard enough to send her flying and then disdainfully tossed the little dagger away.

"I will deal with you later." She looked back towards the elf. "DIE!"