"We're pretty deep in the forest. Should we tell the mailman, or let him think we're still skimming it?" Lirit crunched on a sliced piece of apple.
      "Why? He'll just freak out. He said he'd leave, just let him finish washing off in the stream." Kern shook his head, "It's not really haunted, everyone knows there's no such thing as ghosts." As he finished the sentence a scream pierced their ears.
      Staring at each other queerly, Lirit and Kern stumbled into fighting poses. Remus tripped through the bush holding his shirt over his privates and only wearing his hat.
      "That's something I didn't need to see..." Lirit loosened up, "What are you doing?!"
      "There's a face in the stream!" Remus pointed, cloaking his stomach to his knees with his shirt.
      "Did he have wavy blond hair blue eyes and a 'Postal' cap?" Kern sheathed his gun.
      "No!" Remus wrinkled his nose, "He was white with blue eyes and he smiled at me funny!"
      "Sure... just please, put some clothes on. Go rescue the little mailman from the horrible monster, Kern." Lirit grumped. Nodding, Kern stepped after Remus.
      "I don't need rescuing, and it's Special Postal Delivery Service, not mailman." Remus sneered at her.
      "Mailman, postalman, same thing." Lirit sighed.
      Muttering under his breath Remus led Kern back through the bushes. He pulled his pants back on, glancing warily at the stream. Kern investigated it to find nothing. Grunting, Remus slid back into his still damp clothes.
      "He was there..." he insisted. Kern curiously poked at a shiny sapphire in the water but it dissipated into ripples.
      "Hmm, interesting. Don't worry about it, I'm armed, Lirit has her family sword or whatever." Kern narrowed his eyes at the water.
      "What is it?" Remus knelt down next to him.
      "I thought I saw a gem. It must have been a reflection of light." Kern swirled on his heels to trot back to Lirit.
      "Hey, why are you bandits anyway? You've never even shot anyone, have you?" Remus began inquiring at his true intentions.
      "I shot at someone once. It missed though, luckily." Kern answered firmly.
      "So all you are is looks. The vampire... What happened to you anyway?" Remus glowered at the ghastly light gray skin and the unusual pointed ears. It certainly didn't look natural or normal in any way.
      "I was born this way. Except for the teeth, those were implanted by a dentist." He shrugged.
      "Why'd you decide to be a bandit?" Remus continued.
      Kern glared at him coldly, "This isn't an interview."
      "Alright, point taken." Remus consented without argument.
      When they reached Lirit they grabbed what they had quickly.
      "Time for you to go home." Lirit shooed the mailman, joining Kern's side.
      "Alone? In the forest? Are you nuts? There's some sort of ghost out here!" Remus pulled down his hat.
      "Fine, but we're going deeper into the forest." Lirit turned to leave.
      "Further! Hell no! We're going back and then you can get yourselves killed if you want!" Remus snapped.
      Without any response other then two icy stares, the other two walked quietly away from Remus.
      "Wait!" he jogged after them. Bickering between Lirit and Remus ensued as Kern silently strolled in the middle of them. The two argued, reasoned, shouted and debated every issue. Somehow they ended up arguing whether lavender was purple or not.
      Groaning throughout the hour of torture Kern stopped them both as he spotted a boy in the forest. A second later the other two actually noticed him too.
      "That's him!" Remus pointed.
      They took a moment to glance skeptically at Remus. The young albino boy only appeared about nineteen, and he certainly didn't look dangerous. His bright blue eyes were cheerful and soulful.
      "Excuse me?" Kern tried to approach the boy.
      The boy giggled, trotting up to Kern with his white robes flowing gently.
      "Um... listen..." he tried to stop the boy as he ran a small circle around Kern.
      "Hey! Listen!" Lirit grabbed the white boy's sleeve. He turned to her with large hurt eyes. Shamelessly he began sobbing.
      "Lirit! Now look what you did!" Kern endeavored to comfort the crying boy.
      "Wow, he's even wussier than the mailman." Lirit scratched her head, "Hey, stop that, don't cry..."
      "Leave him alone!"
      All three searched for the hardened voice.
      "Above you..." it moaned. Glancing up they saw the gigantic underbelly of a spider. It's jaws were only a few yards above their heads. Paralyzed with fear they watched as it scuttled a few yards distance and lie down so its belly touched the ground. A humanoid slipped off its back.
      He was decent sized with plain brown robes and wooden staff in hand. Bangs drooped over the right side of his face while the rest of his chestnut colored hair shot out wildly. What caught Kern's eyes the most were two ears that poked out above the bangs and nearly over his hair.
      "Elf?" Kern curiously piped.
      "Elf?" Lirit and Remus echoed, studying the humanoid closer.
      "Get your hands off that boy!" the elf demanded as he pointed to them.
      "Listen, we didn't mean to hurt him." Kern removed Lirit's hand from the boy.
      "Why should I trust you? Ne, come here!" he summoned the boy with surprising concern in his voice. The boy hopped to his feet and flew over to the elf.
      "Who cares if you trust us? We outnumber you!" Lirit yelled.
      Kern tilted his head near Lirit's ear, "I don't think we should piss off a guy who rides a giant spider."
      "Ne, you're ignorant." The elf pierced Lirit with his bright emerald eyes.
      "Sure she is!" Remus butted in, "We just came here because we wanted to see an elf, and now that we've seen one, we can go!"
      "Ne, you can't." the elf turned to mount the spider.
      Startled by this Lirit yanked out her family sword instinctively. From behind she charged the elf, determined to keep him off the spider. Hearing the sound of leaves crunching he twirled about just as she raised her sword.
      "Lirit!" Kern shouted. She brought the sword down but stopped it an inch from the elf's hair. Both Kern and Remus sighed in relief.
      A bead of sweat trickled down Lirit's brow as she used all her weight against the sword, but it refused to touch the elf.
      "Lirit, I didn't know you were trained so well in using your sword, I thought you just carried it around." Kern wiped the sweat from his forehead.
      "I do just carry it..." she grunted. She squealed as the hilt shocked her hands and the sword fell.
      "Stupid sword, it must be cursed..." she rubbed her shocked hand.
      At first the elf look unamused, until his emerald eyes glimpsed the sword again, "Ne, Alan?"
      "Alan?" Lirit blinked at him. The elf hefted up the sword by the hilt, studying it intensely.
      "Ne, where'd you get this sword?" he narrowed his eyes at her distrustfully.
      "It's a family sword, give it back." Lirit hissed.
      "Wait." Kern approached them in the style of a gunslinger, "We have a book we received from a man named Prism concerning the elves. If you don't mind, explaining what you know?"
      Slightly more impressed, their adversary lowered the sword with a glimmer of hope twinkling in his eyes, "Prism... Ne, all right, let me see his book, I will explain what I can... My name, is Emeryl Tekutsu."