Sorry guys! Last night I finished my word count at 2 AM and was in no shape to post my progress. Here are my words for you lovely (seven) people! (They finally eat! It's a miracle!)

Last pouted, her obvious ploy to learn more about the reticent Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants having failed utterly, and resentfully turned back to the coneys, which she had skinned and spitted, as Lord Squigglebottom FAncypants had gutted and exsanguinated them before hand. She started to turn the spit sullenly as Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants Looked archly over at er, clearly pleased at his victory. Main and Charlie looked at both combatants, each feeling as if something significant had just happened, but each also feeling a little out of the loop as to what, exactly, was significant about that little exchange. They looked at each other, both clearly confused, then shrugged in unison and headed over to the campfire, Charlie to accost the sour-faced man who was huddling near it, and Main to ogle Last, who clearly didn’t mind, and even adjusted her neckline (which already plunged quite low enough) to tease Main a little more. She smirked at Main’s obvious entrancement – she loved to manipulate men with her looks (which, in her defense, were rather spectacular), and this Main character was shaping up to be a truly effortless mark. Why, if this adventure shaped up like she hoped, then she would be able to afford a new outfit! And maybe even a tumble or two with the men of the party. She enjoyed a good tumble. It was one of the few things in life that gave her pleasure, after cooking and manipulation. And this party looked as if it could provide some quality entertainment, with the muscle bound idiot and the amorous dunderhead for more … carnal pleasures, and the sour-faced one, the angry one, and the mysterious and pale one for manipulation. And the pale one could clearly provide food for her to cook – that he had already demonstrated with the wonderful gift of these two coneys that he had produced. However, she knew she needed to keep an eye on him – the man had too many secrets, and didn’t seem to be swayed by her charms, great though they were. And he didn’t seem to be any kind of being she knew of – not a human with that pale, nearly yellowish skin and those faintly pointed ears, but surely not elven – his ears may have been pointed, but nothing close to the long, elegant spearheads that full elves sported.

Last’s thoughts were interrupted by Charlie, who went up to the sour-faced, reticent man although he was exuding extremely strong “do not come anywhere in my immediate vicinity” vibes and shook his hand as vigorously as he had shaken Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants’ hand. “Hello how are you my name is Charlie how are you what’s your name!” he said exuberantly. The sour faced man scowled harder and extricated his hand from Charlie’s suffocatingly strong grasp.

“I /was/ doing perfectly fine, /thank/ you,” he said sourly (as was his wont, being a sour faced and generally all around sour person), adding, “But if you’re so /intent/ upon knowing my name, I suppose I ought to tell you, if only to get you all to stop bothering me. My name is Mr. Ian Woon, and I would /prefer/ if you would use my honorific. I wish to keep my association and familiarity with this particular group of /miscreants/ to an absolute minimum.”

Charlie’s face fell. Literally. Off his head. Sorry, I digress:

Charlie’s face fell. His hand went limp in dejection, and Mr. Ian Woon took the opportunity to pull his hand away huffily. Mr. Ian Woon turned aaway, effectively rejecting Charlie, and stared determinedly at the fire. Charlie stared at Mr. Ian Woon for a little while, still flabbergasted, obviously unused to such rudeness, until he finally shook himself out of his shocked stupor and turned hopefully to the remaining members of the party: the other elf twin, Someone, and the angry young man, who oddly didn’t seem to be terribly angry anymore. Charlie took one look at the blissfully unaware look on Someone’s face, who appeared to be playing a musical instrument, and recognized a kindred spirit. He bounded over to Someone and said excitedly, “What are you playing is it a lute I played a lute once but everyone said I sounded like a dying cat and made me stop but I didn’t think I sounded too bad can you teach me!”

Back in the thick shadows of the oak to the back of the campsite, Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants said sourly, “Is the man incapable of forming anything other than a run on sentence?”

Mr. Ian Woon muttered back, “I think he only recognizes exclamation points as true punctuation.” He and Lord Squgglebottom Fancypants shared a look that said, “At least there’s another intelligent person amongst all these dullards.” Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants’ side of the look tried to communicate some overly posh Britishism, but as Mr. Ian Woon was too stolid an Englishman to say anything even slightly resembling a posh Britishism, even in a wordless look, the short addition withered and died without even a short life in a wordless look. Dear Heaven I am grasping here.

Someone’s face lit up (with real, visible light. I’ll stop now) as he realized that he and Charlie were kindred spirits, much as Charlie had done a mere two paragraphs ago, and he grabbed both of Charlie’s large, tendony hands in his fervor, saying, “You’re interested in music too? Oh I’m so excited why did you know music is my entire /life/? I’m excited to get started aren’t you excited? I’ll teach you everything I know? And we’ll be like best friends? And our party’s bards? Only you’re like a fighter right? That’s okay, you can take music lessons on the side right?” He looked expectantly at Charlie, who reacted to Someone’s enthusiasm with an equal amount of zeal.

As the two chattered on, fast friends, Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants stared at the rest of the band in abject horror (Mr. Ian Woon, being more of a sarcastic person than an actually intelligent one, was wallowing in self pity rather than actually reacting to his surroundings), wondering how in the world he had managed to get himself stuck with such blithering idiots – and in a written contract no less, which unfortunately he was bound by his own thrice cursed rash oath of years ago to honor. He raged at himself briefly, wondering what kind of idiocy could have possessed him to even think of joining an adventuring party in the first place, instead of remaining in his own comfortable castle, easy to get to for him at least, and placed perfectly for as much easy hunting as he could please. Then he recalled the reason he had left in the first place – the boredom, the loneliness, the desire for fresh experiences. And slaves. Fresh slaves … they were always better than the ones that he had had for a while. And what better marks than the ones he found here? He smirked to himself as he lounged in the heavy shadows of the mighty oak, watching the farce playing out before him: the leader of their party, ostensibly on a mission of honor but doing nothing other than ogle the pretty young elf maiden (if maiden she was); the elf girl herself, who was long on looks and short on brains (although she was certainly cunning enough); Someone and Charlie, still conversing in rapid fire, both rather brainless themselves, and obviously the “motivation” of the party (“motivation,” in this case, being the motivation to kill something, anything, as long as you could imagine it was one of those two – at least in Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants’ mind); the angry and confused young man, who had yet to reveal his name to the party (or, if Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants was right, /their names/); and the sullen Mr. Ian Woon, whose sarcasm and dissatisfaction Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants had initially thought was intelligence. His train of thought, however, was swiftly derailed as Last called suddenly, “Coneys are ready!”

The adventuring party fell joyfully on the food, devouring the two fat rabbits completely. As they ate, they continued to examine each other, covertly or overtly as were their own respective wonts. Once they had completely demolished the rabbits, Main imperiously directed the others to break camp; the adventuring party holding whom it did, this translated to everyone lollygagging about, with the exception on Charlie, who ran around breaking camp all by himself, Someone, who was singing an invigorating breaking camp song, and Last, who was blissfully absorbed in cleaning up her cooking supplies.

After Charlie had completely reduced their small camp to seven very unproportional packs (Charlie’s pack having nearly everything, and the other party members’ packs holding only their own personal belongings, which were admittedly legion, especially in Lord Squigglebottom FAncypants’ and Last’s cases), the other party members shouldered their burdens with variable amounts of complaint, and they set off along the shadowy road to the next town, which took them out of Main’s father’s kingdom entirely.

After only a few minutes of silent tromping, the party members were beginning to get restless. At first, this only translated into Someone briefly breaking into song, which Mr. Ian Woon swiftly squelched. However, the restlessness on the part of the other party members began to make itself evident as Last began to wordlessly flirt outrageously with Main, who miraculously didn’t notice because he was too deep in self pity regarding his current lack of trousers, and as Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants began to regard the other party members with less contempt and more interest (since they were more interesting than the boring dirt, rocks, and trees that were all they could see of the forest, with even the odd flower being an object of extreme interest).