As the scent of artificial grape filled the tunnel, Kimmy spoke while she made their next arrow. "Tommy, Sterling and Zaki are... well, themselves. Well, mostly anyway. Sterling got tossed into the Realm the same way I did pretty much and got changed a bit too. He's a Drow now. Actually, he's sorta sharing the body of one, so he goes by the name Dy'var Irzen to Realm folk and by Sterling to us--" Kimmy paused in her writing to curl her fingers into quote marks, "--'Outworlders'. But he's still Sterling."Turning back to the wall, she continued cheerfully, "Tommy is friend of Sterling, and one of mine too. Come to think of it, he looks a lot different than when I saw him the first time. Huh." She shrugged. "He got zapped into the Realm too and is another 'Outworlder'." She made quotation marks again and rolled her eyes.
"And Zaki is..." Kimmy's brow furrowed for a moment as she tried to think how to explain her other friend's 'Outworlder' origin with her Realm charac... even her thoughts were getting confused. "Uh, well, Zaki is the Lorekeeper. Guess that's just the easiest way to say it. She has a big book and records all the big events that happen in the Realm in it. It's cause she's a um... Val, Vali... Valleygirl...lian or something or other."
Kimmy put the cover back on her marker and continued talking as they went down the new tunnel. "Y'see, when we got here, we split up like ol'DM told us. Sterling went with some others to this smelly swamp to rescue a wizard and the rest of us went to Yarfell. Um... then, some of us went to look for some staff pieces that when put back together, calls the Guardian of Yarfell up to protect it, and some of us went to Venger's place. Well somehow, Tommy, who didn't originally go to V's on purpose as a performer like me and Bubbles and Fay and EO and the rest, and Zaki, who went to the Swamp to check on Sterling and the Crew, got caught and thrown in Venger's tower. Sterling broke them out and... well, ya know about V now. But we all got out of the castle before it crumbled and went back to Yarfell. Then we got split up again and I wound up here with you guys!"
She stretched and rested her hands on top of her head. "Hmm, so how much farther is Blaze anyway?" She paused to listen but didn't hear the whispery answer she hoped for. Instead, she waited for one of the others to respond. Kimmy turned around to make sure Izzy and Adrick hadn't fallen behind and reassured, slid her hands back down and rested them in her pockets.
It was then that she heard the whispery voice! She squeaked out a gasp of excitement! "Blaze is just around the next corner?!? Ohhh!" And she took off at a fast skip, grabbing onto Glitter and his lantern as she went.
