Trade Routes, <open>

[Erberk Dankil]

Erberk the Dwarf was on his caravan, with a single horse pulling along the heavy contraption slowly but surely through the foothills. She wasn't an old horse, but she had been pulling this cart for a couple years now. He may have to spring for another horse. Two horses move faster and lessens the weight on each horse. He liked to be kind to animals, becuase they were usually kind to him. Sitting next to him was Ruffles, one of his favorite dogs. He was just a regular dog but he could rip into any man who meant Erberk harm. He's seen his dogs do just that to an unfortunate theif who thought Erberk wasn't much of a threat. While true, it didn't mean his dogs weren't.

Erberk had just finished trading with some of the barbarians in this land. Admittadly the best place to sell weapons and some armor was to King Martin, but he wasn't very nice on the sharing aspect of his kinghood. So Erberk felt he should sell to his peons too. That is the only reason why he has passed through unmolested. He was a nice dwarf who sold them weapons at reasonable prices, while their king hoarded the best ones.

Erberk was just leaving the S'uthlamese range and was about to head to the small city of Yoya. It wasn't really in need of weapons, but he was also paid for smithing services. He could fix broken tools and the like. He might even find a horse there that was young and healthy. It was so hard these days to find such a place.

As he was thinking of Yoya, one wheel of the wagon hit a rock and started to go over it, and it was a large enough rock that the entire cart tilted and Erberk was afraid it would fall to the side. But it didn't and went back down with a thump. That's when he heard barks and whimpers from behind. "MY DOGS!" He shouted as he stopped the horse quickly. The dogs slept in the back, where the weapons where. Admittadly this sounds strange, but it was safe, he doesn't hang his weapons up while traveling. They had a tendancy to fall, and sometimes onto things. So most often his dogs slept on top of weapons wrapped and bound in cloth. But accidents happen.

He jumped off his caravan and kicked the rock that he hit out of the way. Amazingly how small of a rock could cause him damage. He walked around back. "Boys! ARe you alright." He said as he tried to climb in on the little ladder. Ruffles was in front, he knew that. So he counted his 3 other dogs he had. Odin, Cereberus, and Fluffy. Strange names, true. But Erberk didn't name them. He just bought them. "Where's Steven?" He asked the other dogs. As he petted them and they started to like him. Steven was his blink dog. the special dog amongst the others. He was sold Steven because nobody else wanted a dog named Steven and that made him cheap. Blink dogs are actually rather expensive because they are great gaurd dogs with the magical power to "blink" wherever they needed to be.

Erberk Sighed. "Damn you Steven." Steven must have been frightened or hurt himself and blinked out of the caravan. He crawled out, his companions climbed out too, and even Ruffles was there. They were all awake now and excited because they had stopped and stopping usually meant people. "STEVEN!" He shouted, trying to find his dog. He looked around the foothills. "STEVEN WHERE ARE YOU!?"

[Rayne]

Rayne slowly walked along the foothills,humming to an old tune her foster father had taught her.Her fox was right behind her,ears perked up,aware of anything.Rayne had let her guard down for a while.Nothing seemed to happen.All was quiet and still,until she heard someone yell.Rayne jumped and pulled out her daggar,that was laying agenst her right leg.
"Hello?"She yelled as she glanced around cautiously.
Her fox ran ahead to find the source of the voice.