We can't catch a break. Not ever, not once in our entire fucking lives.

Butterflies. Those beautiful little blue butterflies we saw swarming in the woods around Carolyn. But now they were on fire. And how the fuck do you fight off burning butterflies? You don't, that's what, and instead you yell at each other while the skin is scalded off your bones until two of you finally remember that, oh, duh, there's a phsy crystal in Semie's pack, maybe just maybe we should use it on the butterflies that can't be real.

By the time I'd yanked it out and started trying to figure out what to do with it, we were pretty badly burned. So I did the only thing that made sense- I tried to ask it to help us.

Total blank out for I'm guessing a good several minutes. It was that kind of blankness where you know the answer to a question, it's right there on the tip of your tounge-

-and then Meyone touched me, and I jerked out of it. Ann and Meyone both looked a little shell shocked, and it took them a good couple moments to explain everything that had happened. And forget shell shocked, when I heard it I was freaked right the fuck out. Apperantly the butterflies were gone because Feldon had reappered and made them go 'poof', all the while reaching for the thing I held in my fist. Or me. I feel better saying he wanted my pretty shiney rock, though.

He'd done the typical roaring about 'the stone eye', apperantly, but the whole time been fighting off some force that was pulling him back and away; eventually, it apperantly did pull him away. Meyone told us that something had been differant, though he couldn't put his finger on what; something besides the force trying to rip Feldon apart, it seemed.

As Meyone pondered and Ann and I tried to figure out what step two was supposed to be, Carolyn suddanly appered from the woods, looking, again, mostly like a little girl but with that horse very near her still. It watched protectivly as she came running up to us and asked, as any sane person would, what had just happened. She had apperantly 'felt' Feldon come and go, like a ripple in the earth (disturbingly similar to what Drauthy might feel, I assume) and thought she heard Feldon's voice.

Of course, that wasn't the only reason she came. She'd been thinking, apperantly, and reitterated for us that it couldn't have been her nightmare that attacked the town because her nightmare wasn't a real nightmare. After some discussion, we came to the conclusion that the thing in Jhonna's amulet wasn't Catalina- it was a nightmare. A nightmare that had not been defeated by the amulet but instead basically absorbed by it. That nightmare was probably awfully pissed; and incredibly strong, given all this time to gather itself.

It was only after Carolyn leaft that Meyone suddanly barked out that Feldon hadn't said 'find the stone eye'. He'd left out the 'find' part.

We had the thought, at that point, to bring this little shiney to Jhonna and see what, if anything, happened. We had the typical worries; what if Sonya was our enemy, causing all this bad shit to happen, as we'd been concerned about in the past; what happened if we fucked everything up by doing this? We didn't know what could happen or what we might cause.

We decided to do it anyway. We brought this to Jhonna the next day, even though Ann was acting- completly off kilter, the way she had when she'd failed her oath using that damn bow of hers. I poked at her a little, but we didn't have much time before we were approched by gaurds and told that Jhonna was wanting to see us. We were brought back into Jhonna's home, where she stood, looking beautiful and more alive then she had in days. She greeted us warmly enough, only dissapointed that we didn't have more to offer her. I hesitated before telling her otherwise, and Ann finally spoke up, informing us that she had seen it fail i nher dreams.

But she also reminded me that she wasn't supposed to dream.

She left it up to me, in the end, and I handed over our last chance, last hope. She took it from me, and then promptly asked if something was supposed to happen.

How anti-climatic.

At least, until suddanly she informed us that she understood, and apperantly more happened then we were at all knowledgeable of because she told Jules to take off the amulet. After a few assurances from us, he did so, and the tension in the air was palpable. But when he took it off-

-nothing happened. For a second it looked as though that may have been a mistake, but then Jhonna was alright, and rounding on Sonya.

She demanded to know why Sonya had done what she had done, confirming our suspicions that she was a villin in all this mess. Sonya only laughed at and mocked us, then opened that door in the air again to let something else start to come into the room. For a second it seemed nearly everyone was frozen but, amusingly enough, myself. I did all I could think of to do. Mentally and physically, I screamed about now being a good time for some help, and dove forward towards Jules, snatching the amulet from him.

And then a bunch of things happened in very, very quick sucession.

The first was all mental. I could hear voices, thoughts, words, ideas, that weren't at all my own, that soothed me somehow none the less. And for some reason, part of those thoughts seemed- personal, in a way. They said things like, wasn't this how it was supposed to be? That stands out the clearest in my memory.

But also, I could sense that nightmare, feel it, an overpowering, overwhelming pressance in the amulet, holding the woman who'd worn it in the past all prisoner in there. Hundered years plus of power, all held together in this little necklace and all ready to blow.

Damn.

The next thing that happened was rather a blurr, but it ended in the familer, defiant cry of a girl and then Carolyn was there- Carolyn in all her firey old goodness. She caught just about everything on fire, singed us, and chased Sonya and that thing back. It melted the chain of the amulet and the thing hit the ground with a soft chime.

She looked downright embaressed for a second, and turned as if to apoologize as her flames went out again. Then, suddanly, she just- fell. Toppled forward and landed inches from the amulet. She stretched out her hand and whispered for her mother, and then, like that, was gone.

The nightmare was gone, too, after a mournful whinny.

There was a pause, a solom, helpless silence as we all realized just how deep in we'd become. Jhonna had relised my little friend ealier, apperantly, because it was on the floor now, too, and both the amulet and it began to spin madly. We all fell into typical position; some of us taking an instinctive protective stance more in front, others just behind, ready and wary. The two halves of a whole actually lifted into the air and formed a triangle from each other out, but there was clearly a peice missing- the last peice.

You guessed it, sweet, the stone eye. That was our mysteriouse stone eye.

And we thought it was a person.

Jhonna gathered herself after a few moments and we discussed what needed to be done, before Ann, Meyone, Jules and I decided to head for Avendale and see into bringing the stone eye back. Ann instisted on going to our little girl's woods to see if we could perhaps make use of the not- really-so-much-horses we'd used the services of before, but she and her nightmare seemed to be well and truely out of the picture, at least for the moment.

So it was on foot, halfway through the day, that we rather stupidly left. Of course we didn't even make it to the half-way point before night fell, and though we could have pushed on, we decided it was better to rest rather then be exhausted if something happened the next day.

Bad choice.

I can't tell you exactly what happened, as I was asleep for it. But I do know that, not for the first and probably not the last time in my life, I remember pain, lots of it in large quantities, and then.... nothing else for a long time.

Next thing I remember I'm waking up in a clearing of sorts, surrounded by people and stones. I felt better, and apperantly I wasn't the only one that had been knocked for a loop, because Jules was shuffling around beside me, and there was evidence that we'd both been towed here. I wasn't sure what happened, but Ann and Meyone filled me in on the details. Although, amusingly, it was Meyone and not Ann who told me that I'd been dropped some feet from the air in Sonya's hissy fit.

I was irritated but far from surprised. Besides, I understood why Ann had refused to give up the amulet, and I was alive, if bruised. So it was all alright, for the moment. Anyway, I had no time to dwell. Ann seemed to think there was a door to Sanctuary through this place somehow, and wanted help trying to find it. We looked until we growled in frustration, but found not a hint of a door. At last I pulled out my Pretty-Shiny-Danel-Rock and tried, as I'd tried so many times before, to talk to it. I practically begged it to help us, and, to my amazment, it relucatantly agreed. It only really offered yes or no answers, not speaking in very many full sentances expect to express annoyance or to insult me.

It had not been like this before. It had been calm, almost gentle, a mild and paitient voice that spoke up when it chose to. This voice, though, was all attitude, impaitence, rude, annoyed and clipped. It was agressive and bitchy to listen to, and it decided that playing a fake game of hot and cold with me might be funny.

It had me frustrated to the point of tears when Ann suggested I close my eyes and just focuse, think logically about the situation and stop chasing my own tail and berating myself.

The instant I closed my eyes I could see, and the oh well fucking duh hit me hard enough to take the wind out of me.

In the back of my mind, I heard slow, sarcastic applause. Bitchy damn fucking thing.

That coffin. In the coffin in Avendale, I'd had my eyes shut but been able to see perfectly, and completly, in the chaos after, forgotten about it. Now I had the same thing occuring, and could see what I needed to do to open the door.

I walked forward to the obviouse spot in the middle of the area, and place my hand on yet another shiny that was there. A door slid open in the ground a few steps away, and I grinned sheepishly. I felt like an idiot, and said so.

My pretty rock informed me I was not. I was surprised by that, to say the least. It wasn't a total asshole, then.

We went down into the doorway and were greeted by a creature that spoke druidic (for once in my life, I can say, my Kingdom for Illoria!) but soon realized we, y'know, couldn't, and switched over to a rough common. It lead us through a doorway when I told it what we wanted, and we saw to our dismay, once inside-

-one of the same tables we'd seen before, the tables that had a direct link to the portals we used and then some. Ann launched into a barage of questions about it and the portals, answered to the best of these rock creature's abilities- there were two more in there- and I listened and didn't add much. I wasn't sure what Ann was trying to get at with her line of questioning and I wasn't, also, entirely sure I wanted to know.

At last she stopped, and not long after our beardless friends showed up. They told us they couldn't bring us back, as their home had fallen under unwanted attention since the last time, but they did, of course, want to help. We explained we thought that the stone eye might be in their home, and with some quick mental exploring they told us our thoughts were wrong; the stone eye, they'd always assumed, was with Tallia. Yes, it had been part of the culture for a long time. No, they did not have it, and it was not hiding itself with them.

Ann mentioned the nightmare in the stone, and this changed things drastically. No longer was the goal 'get the stones together', it was now, 'cleanse the amulet then get the stones together'. But they needed a way to do so. Ann suggested perhaps requesing help from the Lord of the Land, which did not make the beardless ones very happy, but they had no better ideas. And all we could do was wait and see if he helped. They told us to go back to Fera, which was safest for now, and wait there. They'd get us home, at least. Ann asked, and they provided transportation.

Transportation turned out to be something that looked like a dragon made of air. It was a beautiful creature, not really frightening at all. In fact, it reminded me rather of a very, very large pet. It seemed more then friendly and happy and Jules did not seem surprised or displeased for it to be there. Ann, Meyone and I scrambled aboard- Jules mounted smoothly and with clear ease.

Yeah, he'd done that before.

Our ride home was uneventful; for once, we did not get attacked by anything, nor did we get attacked once we got back. We dismounted and Ann offered the creature a touch in thanks, though her fingers barely connected before it was off again. Jules told us it was called a method.

Apperantly, he'd been around them before.

Jules had also, before we left that underground place, told us he had some concerns that needed addressing once we got back. We were back now, and wanted them addressed. He took a deep breath and launched into it.

He explained more to us about himself and, consequently, his fears about General Kale. The dark rider, remember him? Yeah, you remember him. How could anyone forget?

Anyway, not only was Jules worried about the man returning, but he'd seen those tables before; those tables that connected to the portals. Some people in his army had used them, and not for the best of intintions nessicarily, either. Also, they had used the things and creatures associated with it to make the strange armour- that wasn't really amour but a lot more- that we'd seen Kale wearing. It was what, apperantly, gave him the ability to alter his form, and not, apperantly, fully die. We discussed it at further length, and Jules admited he was fairly certian that the rider was an elf who hated elves. Exiled, perhaps, or some such.

He was, in truth, the least of our worries. Although the table thing purturbed Ann and,to a much lesser degree, myself, we had too much on our plate as it was. There was nothing we could do about the rider, the tables, Jules's past exploits, or our portals- any portals- right now.

We couldn't do anything right now, in fact, but sit tight.

So tight we sat, until the climax of this insane, horrible adventure finally came.