"Why the hell are you following me?"

"Why else would I follow you?" the cat-woman asked Thunderwolf, trailing
happily behind him. "I'm here to irritate you, of course!"

"It's working! Go away! I don't need goody-goody goddesses cramping my style..."

"So you've decided what you're doing then?" said Lady Bast, oozing with
false curiosity. "You seemed so unsure before...I just thought I'd help you
find a storyline."

"No, I *don't* know where I'm going, but I know I don't want to go there
with wimpy good guys," growled Thunderwolf, speeding up in an attempt to
lose the Avatar...an impossible task under the circumstances.

"How do you know I'm a good guy?" smiled Bast broadly. Doing so caused her
eyes to narrow which pushed the expression from a state of teasing warmth
to an almost feral slyness.

"You built the game, didn't you? You can't tell me you did it just to kill
us off," snorted Thunderwolf. The conversation was the one disadvantage of
leaving the Forest of Silence as far as he was concerned. The increasingly
marshy ground hardly bothered him in comparaison.

"I don't know...maybe I did it just to play god," grinned Bast madly before
her smile dimmed a little. "Of course, I didn't *really* build the game...I
just described the environment. It's running on a sort of standard set-up
with regards to fighting and skills right now."

"So you're following me, hoping I'll die."

"No, silly," laughed Bast, slapping Thunderwolf on the back of the
shoulder, "I'm following you to see if you'll make a good Avatar. I think
you would."

Thunderwolf grunted his scepticism. "And if I don't want to be an Avatar?"

"Then you aren't one! Don't make it complicated..."

Thunderwolf opened his mouth to give a sharp retort, but stopped when he
realized he was being ignored. Bast's head was cocked and her ears twitched
as though she were listening to something. Curious in spite of himself,
Thunderwolf stopped to listen as well.

There was a splashing and thrashing in the distance that could only be
produced by a fight. A real, honest to god fight! The thought of finally
seeing some action was enough to convince the lion to plunge into the swamp
behind Bast and he pulled his mace from it's loop on his belt as he ran.

The swamp churned with the activity of Demonprist's and Kith's struggles.
Bast stopped on the bank, not daring to venture any further out lest the
tentacles rise up to grab her too. "Wait a minute, 'Wolf," she tossed over
her shoulder as she watched how Demonprist put her staff to work, "I think
I know how to stop this, but I need a clear shot."

But Thunderwolf was having nothing of it. He didn't come this far out of
his way to sit on the sidelines and watch. He was dying for a fight,
dammit, and a fight was what he was going to get! With a roar of righteous
fury, he plunged into the swamp, tearing trough the tangles of wet
vegetation with his claws and breaking them apart with his mace. Better
prepared than either the Avatar or the elf, his results with brute force
were much better and he managed to free Demonprist to a point where she
could easily take care of herself.

"Dammit, Thunderwolf, I told you to wait!" Bast snapped in spite of
herself. But he and Demonprist seemed to be making fair progress so she
turned her attentions toward Kith who was slowly being dragged underwater
despite his best efforts. Taking a deep breath, she raised her arms, her
open hands describing a circle.

"Nefer-Ra-å, sekhma ket-em!" cried the cat-woman and for a moment the sun
flashed between her hands. The ray of light solidified and lept forward to
strike the water just above the spot where Kith had just gone under. There
was a rank smell like smouldering rot and the caked slime touched by the
light burst into flame and was reduced to ash in moments. The few tentacles
that were not fried retreated although for how long, no one could tell.
Keeping this in mind, Bast quickly waded out to the litte elf-made islet
and - with considerable difficulty - pulled Kith back up to safety.

"Kith! Hey, Kith! Are you alright?" gasped the Avatar breathlessly, shaking
the elf slightly. When she received no reply, she leaned over to check his
breathing and his pulse. The latter she found easily enough, but there was
no sign of the former until she felt a wave of release...and then she could
feel his breath against her cheek, matching the rhythm of his chest's
rising and falling. There was a moment of uncertainty and then the elf
groaned and tried to sit up.

"Fuck..." he mumbled only half-aware of his surroundings. "What the hell
hit me?"

"You were unconscious...thought you'd drowned!" Bast told him cheerfully.
"Congratulations, you're an Air elementalist now!"

"Ah..whuh?"

"You made an air pocket to breathe in," Bast explained. "I felt it
disappear when you woke up. In fact, you probably fell unconscious from the
strain of new magic although I thought you'd been breathing in water. It
likely won't be as powerful as your Earth magic as of yet, but at least
you'll know you can use it."

"Air pocket? What? Where's Demon?" the elf mumbled, still disoriented. He
allowed Bast to help him up and half-support him as they hobbled through
the muck to the far bank before the tentacles could return.

"Oh, she's in much better condition than you are," laughed Bast, nodding in
the direction of Demonprist and Thunderwolf. "Have a look for yourself!"

Kith cast a glance back at the battling pair. Demonprist was covered in
slime, flashes of red hair, scaled skin, and bronze armour shining through
like the tattered remanents of a war banner. She had her sword in one hand,
her staff in the other, and a mad grin plastered over her face. "Oh yeah!
That's the stuff!"
she hissed, contorting her coils to break apart another surge of tentacles.

"Not bad...for a girl," grinned Thunderwolf maliciously during a short
breather. He turned to face what he thought was another rising tentacle and
was rightly slapped with the scaled end of Demonprist's tail.

"For a girl, my ass!" she chuckled, in as much as a snake *could* chuckle.

"Watch it! I've kicked asses for less!" roared Thunderwolf.

"Come and get it! I'll take ya *all* on!" spat the Avatar in reply,
throwing her sword into its warp dimension to gesture rudely at the lion.
"You scared to take on a *real* woman? Come on!"

Thunderwolf growled and attacked, Demonprist dodging at the last instant
and coiling her tail around one of his legs. Both went down in a spray of
stagnant water, biting, hissing, clawing, and bludgeoning.

"Get the hell out of the swamp before the tentacles come back!" shrieked
Bast, but neither fighter deigned to pay her any mind. "Singleminded
assholes," muttered the cat-woman, hauling Kith along.

Begining to recover, the elf pulled away from her and stood a little
straighter. "My crystal!" he gasped. "I can't leave it behind...it's the
most powerful thing I own!" He turned to quickly survey the swampland and
caught sight of a glittering curve a little ways into the water.
Cautiously, eyes peeled for the slightest movement, the magus waded out,
retrieved the orb, and made his way back to solid ground.

He collapsed in the sparse grass and looked the sphere over. "Unbroken," he
sighed with relief. Then the full realization of what had just occurred hit
him. "I was going to drown," he said matter-of-factly.

"Yep!" replied Bast cheerfully.

"And I made an air pocket?"

"Yep!"

"So I have Air powers now," mused Kith. "Funny...I don't *feel* any different."

"Well, you only have beginner's powers, but the air pocket is one of the
first and most automatic spells," explained Bast. "You have survival
instinct to thank for that. Oh, crap in a pan," she sighed, looking up.
"Are those two going to be at it all day?"

Demonprist was all but sitting on Thunderwolf's back, her hands reaching as
far around his neck as she could. Her tail coiled around one leg and laced
around one arm as well, effectively pinning the lion down although an
occasional well placed blow from a free limb would temporarily distract
her. She was currently trying to force his head underwater.

"Say 'uncle'!" she demanded, hissing as Thunderwolf pulled himself out of
the muck with a roar and swatted at her with his left hand, connecting with
the side of her head. The effort unbalanced him and he fell back in the
swamp though he kicked his leg back to strike Demonprist's hind end. "OW!
Say 'uncle,' dammit!"

"Demon, let the little lion up," sighed Bast. "I know it's hard, but a mark
of civilization is the ability to overcome one's baser urges."

"I can take her!" roared the lion, pulling himself back out of the swamp.

"Face facts! She's an Avatar!" called the cat-woman as Demonprist vocally
threatened to use venom if need be.

"Let me try," grinned Kith, coming back to himself. "I'm getting good at
getting Demon's attention. Hey, Snakebutt!" he shouted. "The more time you
piss away here the longer it's going to take to get to Mumm-ra's pyramid!"

Demonprist paused in her efforts to choke, drown, or possibly both. She
appeared to contemplate the situation before her nose crinkled up in
disgust. "Damn," she said, loosening her grip.

"EAT SLIME, BITCH!" roared Thunderwolf, tossing the Avatar off into the mud
where she sputtered and writhed. "Ha! NEVER let your guard down! I win!"

Demonprist stood. Well, not so much stood as unfolded. Slim as she was, she
appeared much taller than she should. Somewhere in her most recent swim she
had transformed from naga form to humanoid, kilt and armour dripping with
slime and swamp rot. Her skin was very, very pale and glowed like moonlight
through the dark, clinging mud...glowed where it wasn't flushed in fury.
Her hair was surprisingly dry considering the environment and the air
around it seemed to crackle with static. A gesture drew her wickedly curved
blade from the very air around her.

"That," she said with deadly calm, "was just plain dirty."

Before Thunderwolf could raise his mace, he was staring at the very point
of the red-head's scimitar which nearly touched the place between his eyes.
He growled threateningly, but didn't dare move. Demonprist had the speed of
a viper regardless of her form.

"We never lose," said the Avatar levelly. "*I* never lose...a fair fight."

"Demon..." said Bast disapprovingly.

A pair of tentacles reformed themselves in the quiet and the warrior Avatar
turned her attention to them instead, cutting them off at the surface of
the water. Then, with a look of disgust, she stalked out of the mud and the
slime and back onto semi-solid ground. "Anyone who's coming get on the
fucking bandwagon," she snarled, "and don't speak to me."

"What the fuck's her problem?" muttered Thunderwolf, climbing out of the
swamp. "Can't take a little brawl?"

"Well, other than trying to get into the swing of being an Avatar, I'm
betting it's a blend of insecurity, bitterness, and neglect commonly termed
'siblingitis' which demands that one learn to care for themselves and look
out for number one above all else," said Bast cheerfully.

"Say what?"

"Middle child syndrome," laughed the cat-woman, falling into step behind
Kith, and leaving the lion to puzzle out the meaning.

*********************