As they walked together Cole was silent as the ideas circling what it could be abounded. This kept up until his curiosity got the better of him less than a minute later. “Anyway,” he said breaking the momentary silence between them, “what was that item you were carrying on the back of your belt? I saw it when you turned your back to me while you were pretending to be restrained by your cape. And let me say that that was the only thing I was looking at when you turned your back to me. Honest.” Kryshenn paused, pondering the possibility that he was probably peeking at her posterior.
Then she remembered what she had tucked into the back of her belt in the catacombs. It seemed like weeks ago that she'd found it, and with everything that had happened between then and now, she'd sort of forgotten that she had been carrying a piece of what they'd been sent to find in the first place.
"Oh, this?" she said, pulling the broken rod out of the back of her belt as they continued to walk. "I should have mentioned it earlier, it's just that things kind of got a wee bit crazy for a time there." Holding it up for Cole to see, she explained, "I'm about 99% certain that it's a piece of the Staff of Yarfell. Whatever it is, it has a lot of really powerful magic associated with it. This ghost or something led me to it, but I actually found it because my sword was absorbing and discharging so much power so fast that I kind of blasted the rocks that it was buried under. I don't know about any of the other pieces, but at least we have this-"
It was then that Kryschenn proved that, after all this time and all the marching practice with the bagpipe band, she still hadn't quite mastered the art of walking and talking at the same time. Suddenly, her feet were tangled by something thaat seemed alive, wrapping around her ankles and tripping her. She pitched to the ground with a shout, throwing the piece of the Staff several yards.
"YAAAAAAH! It's got me! Run, Cole! Take the Staff! I'll hold it off!" Struggling to a sitting position, she drew her sword and prepared to attack whatever had grabbed her ankles. "It's a roper! Or a jaculi! Or an anaconda! Or... or... ivy?"
"Um..." Lowering her sword in embarrassment, she looked somewhat miffed at the perfectly ordinary, perfectly innocent vine that she had tripped over. Finally, she swung her sword up again and, with a heartfelt roar, savagely hacked off the vine as close to its base as she could reach. "Got to watch out for that stuff, it's deadly," she explained, grinning up at Cole as she sheathed her sword.
