A Quest for the Stars

The plan was to find an inn at Ezmestli, drop off Chestnut and the wagon at a stable, and take the east exit of the village to reach the abandoned keep.

The villagers lived humble lives, living in small, cube-shaped houses made of adobe. From a distance, Alistair could see the entrance to the local marketplace and spotted some of the stalls. It was packed to the brim with vendors and shoppers alike, and seeing so many people at once was a little overwhelming for him.

"Park here," Tizoc told him.

Alistair stopped on the west side of a two-story stone house by the dirt road. He jumped off, patted Chestnut on the back, and went to the back of the wagon to meet back with the girls.

"We're here, ladies." He opened the flap to find Clara in meditative stance and Lenoria taking a nap. "Right. Lenoria said she couldn't sleep well because of the full moon last night. I always thought that was mere superstition, but..." He didn't want to, but he placed his hand on her shoulder and stirred her awake. "Come on, Lenoria," he said softly, "we're here."

Lenoria yawned. She gazed at the orange-hued sky and smiled at Alistair. "Good morning, honey."

The greeting caught Alistair by surprise, but despite the anxiety he pushed himself to greet her back. "M-morning, Lenoria." He shook his head. "Wait a minute, it's sunset. It's only been about an hour since we got back on the road."

"Oh, really?" Lenoria stretched her arms as high as she could. "That nap was so refreshing, though. I feel like I could go for another day."

"Please keep that energy," Tizoc pleaded. "According to the map, there has to be at least nine enemies in the keep." To Alistair, he said "I'll have them get our room ready for tonight. I'll also have the innkeep prepare special drinks for you; if I can't stop you from coming with me, then I'll make sure you at least have the energy to keep up."

Tizoc glanced over at Clara, who remained deep in meditation, before excusing himself and headed inside.

"A man with a broken heart. It would be best to leave him be." It was time to wake Clara up, but Alistair paused when he watched Lenoria get up from the wagon floor.

"Hey, Al, watch this." Doing a few squats in place, Lenoria then jumped off the wagon. The paladin reflexively stretched his arms out to catch her, and once he did, he was rewarded with a peck on the neck. "My hero."

"Lenoria, what's with you?" Alistair let out a ticklish laugh. "N-not in front of Miss Clara."

"Hey, you signed up for this when you agreed to be my boyfriend. If you want me to stop, you need to ask nicely."

"N-no, that's okay." Alistair blushed when Lenoria nuzzled against his face. "This is...a-actually kind of nice."

"As for Clara," Lenoria said, "she's meditating. She's not sleeping, it's more like she simply tuned the rest of the world out."

"Then maybe it's time we woke her and-"

"No! Um, I mean, l-let's give her another minute. We haven't had a moment to ourselves since, um..."

"That night at the Butterfly Plains?"

Face beet red, Lenoria leaned her head against Alistair's. "And we haven't even talked about what we'll do once we get to Goodsprings. I mean, what will you be doing while I work?"

"I will more than likely travel back to the Leone Estate and stay there a couple of days. After that," Alistair thought for a moment, "I have no idea."

"Hey," Lenoria said while she jumped away from Alistair, "how about you convince Gabrielle to work with me? I mean, I could tell her I need some protection."

Remembering his last conversation with Gabrielle, Alistair had a different idea. "We could try being more honest with her. I don't think she'll mind as long as we're upfront about it."

"You know her more than I do. I trust you." Lenoria then remembered something she wanted to address. "Oh, by the way, I noticed you and Tizoc were talking on the way here. He seemed a bit moody, but I was hoping you didn't take that personally."

"Don't worry about that, Lenoria. I'm fully aware of the context." It was time to wake Clara up, but Lenoria offered to do so. As Lenoria shook her friend awake, something bothered Alistair. "I wonder what Tizoc meant when he said 'room'?"

***

"What? You only have one room?!"

Alistair was in full panic mode while he and everyone else spoke with a matronly human innkeeper.

Lenoria glanced over at him. "Why are you so surprised, Al? Rural inns usually only have one room for guests."

"R-really?" Alistair hoisted his backpack and made his way to the door. "I-I just remembered, I left something in the wagon!"

Lenoria held him in place by gripping the paladin's hand firmly. "Relax, Al. They should have beds for everyone." With a hint of doubt, she turned to the innkeeper. "Right?"

"We have beds for four people," the innkeeper answered.

"Besides, look at this menu!" Lenoria pointed at the handwritten menu posted on a wooden board. "All you can eat eggs in the morning for just three copper pieces! And look! It says chocolate picante. I don't know what 'picante' means but it's probably some exotic flavor!"

"Lucky for you, I already ordered some ahead of time." Tizoc pointed at a nearby table, pointing to four mugs made of clay. "Who knows when we'll be back, so preparing for an all-nighter is in our best interest. These should keep us awake for a little while."

"Bottom's up." Lenoria grabbed a mug and gulped it down. "Mmm. It's cold, but foamy and chocolatey. A little bitter, though." Lenoria wiped a red smudge from her lips with a handkerchief. "Excuse me, ma'am, would you happen to have some water?"

"I have water," the innkeeper answered. "Why?"

"Could you bring me a tankard? With lots and lots of ice?!"

Lenoria breathed fire once again and circled around the table. Eyes watering and forehead sweating, the girl ran around with an unquenchable burn in her tongue and throat until the innkeeper brought her iced water. Risking brain freeze, the girl drank the whole tankard as fast as she could.

"Aaaah."

"Please make sure you're reading up on the ingredients before you try something new, Lenoria." Clara took a swig from her own mug, bringing a smile to her face. "Not bad."

"It's spicy." Alistair swished a small portion in his mouth before gulping it down. "Definitely some cayenne pepper in there. Hmm. Vanilla pods, powdered annatto, and honey." He looked over at Tizoc, who sipped his drink quietly. "You seem unfazed, Tizoc."

"I drink this every day, and I was raised on spicy food. It will energize you more than coffee will." Tizoc looked over at Lenoria's clay mug. "I must say, Alistair, your woman is very brave."

"I know, right? She's amazing." Blushing after realizing what he just said, the boy cleared his throat. "Err, I mean, why do you say that?"

Tizoc grabbed Lenoria's mug and flipped it upside down. "She drank the whole thing in one gulp."

***

Once they settled down in Ezmestli, the group explained the situation to the innkeeper and what they planned to do. In the best-case scenario where everyone lived, they would be stumbling in during the dark hours of the night and don't want to bother her by waking her up. The innkeeper kindly gave them a spare key so they could open the inn should they arrive after she had gone to bed. With a bow of gratitude, our heroes departed from the inn and took the north exit into the woods.

Should the worst come to pass, Alistair gave the innkeeper a gold piece and asked her to consider changing the locks if they're not back by sundown.

"Jaguars are not normally nocturnal, but stay alert," Tizoc warned. "They are ambush predators, and if one is desperate and hungry enough, our mere presence in the rainforest could be seen as an invitation to hunt us."

"If you factor in the trees and brush of the rainforest with the darkness of the night," Lenoria said with unease.

"We're effectively in their element." Alistair already had his mace and shield with him. "Tizoc, can you keep them off our backs?"

"I can try. If we stay on the road for as long as possible, we should be able to avoid any unpleasant run ins. But according to this map, those Blue Jays are in a deeper part of the rainforest."

"That reminds me," Lenoria said. "What can you do, Tizoc? Besides transforming?"

"I'm an herbalist by trade. I can make potions with the herbs of the earth we walk on." Tizoc reached into his cape and grabbed three vials. They all had a color like murky water, and Lenoria could see stems and leaves floating inside. "I can only make three each day for now, but every morning I take the time to ask mother nature for what she can spare. If I ever need more, I have to buy the materials myself in the markets. Oh, and I can also fight in melee."

The young warrior handed over his vials to Clara.

"They work just like potions, and these three in particular are as effective as normal healing potions. If you or your friends need first aid, don't hesitate to use them."

Clara nodded and pocketed away the potions. "I will. But I think we have plenty of recovery items."

"Actually," Alistair said, "having extra healing couldn't hurt, Miss Clara. If something happened to any of you in the middle of a fight, it would be very difficult for me to disengage the enemy to resuscitate you."

"Oh, so it's possible for the Blue Jays to overpower you," Tizoc wondered.

"Hell no. I'm confident any of us can single-handedly trounce on whatever members await inside that keep, if they're anything like Spark or that bugbear. But they're not known for playing fair, so we must be cautious at all times."

Music to everyone's ears.

***

The party of five - Lenoria, Alistair, Clara, Tsukuyomi, and Tizoc - continued onward and took a route off-road when they determined they reached a certain point in the map. It took some time - from twilight to the darkness of the night - but they found a withered keep standing in front of a massive stone formation. A dry, shallow moat surrounded it, and the lack of risk of getting wet allowed the party to cross it without a problem. The old drawbridge was raised to block the entrance, but Lenoria spotted a hole on the wall about 20 feet west of the entrance.

The artificer took the lead into the stone tunnel, staying a short distance away from everyone. She then stopped, raised her left arm bent upwards at the elbow with her palm facing forward, lowered all but two of her fingers, then pointed to the left and right. Alistair and Clara refused to move until Lenoria gave the signal to go, but Tizoc almost caught up to her before he was pulled away by the other two.

"Why are we sneaking around like this," the catfolk warrior asked.

Clara wordlessly pointed to the tunnel walls. Tizoc squinted his eyes, yet he could not see what Clara was looking at. Not until he focused on a single point in each wall; they were faint, but he could see them. Two glyphs faded in and out of the material plane doing little to illuminate the dark and dusty tunnels. Tizoc realized a mage must have cast something in the tunnels and Lenoria was trying to figure out what.

When Lenoria was done with her inspection, she pointed at a small tile on the west side of the tunnel, hugged the east side, and continued onward at a slower pace. The rest of the band nodded to one another and followed Lenoria's example by hugging the east side as well. When Lenoria moved away from the wall, everyone else took note at which point she did so and moved away once they reached that exact same spot.

"Could you not disable it," Alistair whispered.

"No," Lenoria whispered back. "It's a [Fireball] trap. It's very complex, and by my calculations, we had a 60% of triggering it even with my skill. I wasn't going to risk it." She pointed at the ceiling and the walls of the tunnel. "We can probably survive the fireball itself, but these walls look so old and withered. The impact has a good chance of causing a cave-in."

Alistair shivered at the thought. "Good job. Please keep up the good work." Once the group continued their march, Alistair gazed at Lenoria with admiration. "She's so fearless in the face of danger while also prioritizing our safety. I wonder what her thought process was..."

"Oh my gosh, he actually praised me!" Facing ahead was the only thing keeping Lenoria's red face away from the party. "I can't let him down now. Scouting and searching for traps is my strength in the same way beating up bad guys is his. It's my chance to shine!"

Reaching the tunnel exit, Lenoria stepped out into the bailey of the keep without further incident. The main building was just up ahead, and she mentally prepared herself by hopping in place and shadowboxing with a couple of punches. But this pre-fight ritual was interrupted by the rattling of metal. To her right, she spotted several cages with jaguars inside of them. Most of them hissed and growled at her, but one in particular tackled the iron bars of the cage and tried to claw at her through an opening when that failed.

"We're not too late," Tizoc whispered. "We can still save them."

"Not yet," Alistair said. "If we release them now, they'll simply jump at us, and we'd cause a scene. Not to mention, we might end up killing them to defend ourselves."

"We can't just leave them here."

"I know. That's why we must deal with every single Blue Jay here before we do." Alistair pointed at the cages. "Tizoc, see if you can calm the jaguars down. Lenoria, see if you can find more traps. Miss Clara, please help me keep an eye out for danger."

First up was Tizoc. The troublesome jaguar was already making noise with all of the hissing, which immediately roused the others. Alistair readied himself for any Blue Jays that would check out the noise, but one hiss from Tizoc was enough to confuse the hostile cat into silence. Following that with a growl, the big cat and all the others were cowed to submission.

"What did you tell them," Clara asked.

"I was saying hello. Looks like I managed to calm them down." Tizoc reached into the jaguar's head with his hand. "We'll get you out of here. Just wait a little longer."

"Good." Alistair looked over at Lenoria. "Now it's up to Lenoria."

This whole time, Lenoria had been searching for glyphs on the main building. "Nothing here. I guess it's safe to open the door." She raised a thumb at Alistair, placed her hand on the doorknob, and jiggled it.

Unfortunately, the dice had a different idea.

"Huh?" Lenoria felt a tight squeeze around her shins and had little time to react as she was pulled upward by a rope attached to a tree branch. Hanging upside down, the girl could see the rope squeezing her legs as she hung about six feet above the ground.

"Hold still, Lenoria!" Looking around, Alistair spotted an opening into a small room. A knife had been placed down on a rack set on a table. "We can get her down with that."

"I'm on it!" Clara made a dash into the room and pulled the knife from the rack. "Got it!"

Click!

A portcullis slammed the only exit shut from above, trapping Clara in the room. "Rats!"

"Hey, Al, I can't turn around. What happened?" Lenoria asked.

"Miss Clara is trapped, too. Hang on, I'll get you both out!" Unable to reach Lenoria's branch, Alistair dashed for the tree.

"Hurry, Al! I can feel the blood going to my head!"

"I guess it's up to me!" Just as Alistair reached the tree to climb it, he felt his body collapse atop a pile of leaves. "Whoa!" The leaves made way for a pitfall, plunging the young paladin into a 10-foot hole.

When Tizoc finally noticed what was going on, he witnessed several men in chainmail coming out of their hiding spots; some came out of crates, others from the main building, and the rest from blind spots he couldn't perceive before. The caged jaguars grew tense and the belligerent one from earlier started roaring again.

"Well, well, well," said a blue-caped man holding a morningstar, "looks like another cat just trapped himself with us. And he brought some friends!"

"Looks like he's all alone now, boss," commented another wielding a longsword.

"Just wait until the press hears about this. Yes, I can read the headline now. 'Three teenagers tried to colonize a region by hunting jaguars to extinction, but they are stopped by The Order of the Blue Jay!'"

"Tizoc, I'm counting at least eight of them!" Clara shouted as loud as she could to get his attention. "Run away!"

"I won't," Tizoc said bluntly. "I promised to protect you, Clara. I tried to keep you from coming here because you could get hurt. And now that you are here, I have to make peace with myself, and accept the fact that what you are all about to witness won't be pretty."

"Why? Because we know we'll beat your face in to a bloody pulp," asked the Blue Jay with a morningstar.

"No." Tizoc grinned. He flashed a pair of fangs that were not there before. He gazed at the full moon, after which his pupils vanished completely, and his muscles began to expand. "Because you hurt my jaguars. I am no longer responsible for what's about to happen to you!"

The Order of the Blue Jay collectively gasped in horror as they witnessed Tizoc grow claws on his hands and feet, and spotted fur all across his body. Plates of bone covered his chin and pectoral muscles, and his human-like face took the appearance of a jaguar.

"You will make a fitting sacrifice to the gods," Tizoc roared.

"Sir, he's one of them," said a frightened Blue Jay.

"A Lycan," Clara said with awe.

"Clara, what's going on?" Lenoria tried to reach her feet to undo the knot around her shins. "I can only see glimpses. What is Tizoc doing?"

"Tizoc's a Lycan, Lenoria! He's either saving our lives or dooming us all!" Clara banged the portcullis with her bare hands. "Tsukuyomi! Get Lenoria down and Alistair out of that hole!"

With a single burst of his jets, Tsukuyomi propelled himself forward, grabbed Lenoria, and yanked the rope off her legs.

"A Lycan?" The blood flow was returning across Lenoria's body, but she felt dizzy during the process. "You mean like a werewolf?"

"He's taken the form of a jaguar, but unless he's tamed his instincts, he can't discern friend from enemy! Get somewhere safe, now!"

"I'm not leaving without you!" Lenoria tapped Tsukuyomi's biceps. "Get Alistair!"

Once Tsukuyomi approached the pitfall, Lenoria jumped away from him and made a dash for Clara.

"Lenoria!" Clara slammed her fists on the portcullis again. "Don't!"

"Sorry, Clara! But I'm here to save you and study this man. Scientific discoveries like this are hard to find!"

With Lenoria inspecting the portcullis and Alistair in the process of getting out of the pitfall, the dice would soon be rolled for initiative once again.