The evil fiend whoever came up with that song deserved to be smitten. Not killed, not beaten, not flogged, nothing like that. Smitten. Struck down with a blue bolt from the heavens. Reduced to ashes by the almighty hand of some greater power.

"Six-sixty-nine(heehee) bottles of beer on the wall, six-sixty-nine(heehee) bottles of beer... Take one down, pass it around, six-sixty-eight bottles of beer on the wall..."

And who, in the name of all the gods and all twenty-seven True Runes, had told Crys de Lara he could sing? Amaranth wasn't even this bad! She was annoying, and whiny, and demanding, but she wasn't nasal and didn't have pretensions of being a virtuoso performer!

"Cleo, that elf is giving me a headache. Make him stop."

"Six-sixty-six bottles of beer on the wall, six-sixty-six bottles of beer..."

Cleo was going to go insane one day, she knew it. She attracted freeloaders who annoyed her the way a flame attracted moths.

"You haven't made him stop yet! And his sword is bothering me."

Cleo counted to ten in her head, slowly.

"Six-sixty-two bottles of beer on the wall..."

She hit ten.

"Cleo, I told you to make him stop!"

"Both of you! That's enough!"

They shut up.

"You know, you could have just asked..." Crys murmured.

"And I'm sure you would have listened," said Amaranth.

"I would have!" protested Crys, sounding quite offended.

Cleo groaned and held her head in her hands. "Why me?" she said to no one in particular. Why had these people never been chucked down a well? Or throttled, at the very least?

Crys stopped dead at that moment and went silent. "Be quiet, both of you," he said sharply, which quite thoroughly irked Cleo. She hadn't been the one yammering on and on... "Okay..." Crys said, looking around, a bizarrely thoughtful look on his face. "We turn... this way!" he pointed. "We're almost there. So we all need to shut up. Okay?"

Amaranth opened her mouth as if to say something, but Crys whirled on her, looking up at her face for once and jabbing his finger at(but not into, oddly enough) her chest. "Listen here, Jiggles," he said, "I really couldn't give a flying fuck about what you do or say on your own time, and I've been more than happy to oblige you in your need for pettiness on the way here, but we are at the point where we simply cannot afford such. If you wish to carry on, you may leave."

Amaranth slapped Crys sharply across the face as he finished speaking. "How dare you," she hissed, "speak to a lady in such a fashion?"

"Oh, a lady," Crys said mockingly, matching Amaranth's inflections precisely. "Miss Amaranth, if you truly think yourself a lady, then you are quite thoroughly deluding yourself."

It was quite impossible for Amaranth to pale any further, but her hands were clenched into fists and were shaking with what seemed to be pure rage. Cleo, on the other hand, was having a hard time keeping her jaw from dropping at this complete change in Crys.

He carried on. "A proper lady would not display that much cleavage. A lady would not wear a dress with a bodice so tight one can identify exactly where her nipples lie and their exact size. A lady would not wear white on a day that looks like it shall rain. A proper lady would have difficulty identifying which end of a sword to hold. A lady would have, the very instant that sword of mine opened whatever it uses for its mouth, returned it to me, probably slicing her arm open in the process. And, lastly, a lady of any sort would never be caught dead in the presence of a lowlife, bastard son of a whore such as myself. So, delude yourself if you must, but do not dare to publicly declare yourself a lady, Miss Amaranth, for you most certainly are not."

Amaranth positively oozed rage out of every possible pore, crack, and orifice. The thin, tight line of her lips was as stationary as her shaking fists weren't. However, she made no move to do... anything.

Crys turned and started walking in the direction he had originally pointed out. Cleo followed almost immediately, but Amaranth stood there, still as a statue for a moment or two more. Finally, she followed.

Cleo stared at Crys for a while as they walked, finally bringing herself to say, "Crys, you're--"

"Not the fool I play myself for," he replied shortly. "You may find it hard to believe, Cleo, but I am, or for the moment, was, the brains of this little operation I've drafted you into saving." He paused, a smile quirking the corners of his lips upward. "Though, if you'd met Amber, it wouldn't be so hard, I think."

"Yeah?" Cleo asked, still taken a little aback. "What's he like?"

Crys shrugged, "He's a complete idiot," then paused. "No, maybe that's not completely accurate. He's book-smart. Book-brilliant, even. But he has nothing even remotely resembling common sense, and he's no practical intelligence whatsoever. He doesn't think, is his problem. Probably comes from being from a human city. Brains don't last too long there, I've noticed."

"A human city?" said Cleo, genuinely slightly interested now.

"Yeah, he's from L'Renouille," said Crys, pronouncing the name flawlessly. "I think his parents run a bar there, or something..." He paused thoughtfully, chewing on his lower lip. "Come to think of it, that might well be the cause of his problem..."

He returned his attention to the path in front of them, leaving Cleo to turn various things over in her head. Like just how strange a name Amber was for anyone of the male persuasion.

"Almost there," Crys murmured, eyes following the path ahead.

They were actually a bit north of the mountain range; what they were circling was more of a large hill. It was big enough, though.

Crys stopped in front of a suspicious-looking bush that conveniently covered a large, opening-shaped area of the hill.

"Isn't that a little... obvious?" Cleo said, helping Crys move the bush out of the way. He shrugged at that and held enough of the bush aside to allow Cleo and Amaranth through. He followed quickly, letting the bush go once he was inside.

As their eyes adjusted to the relative darkness inside the cave(the torches not starting until a while further in), Crys said, "I think they're out; I can't hear anything, at least."

With that, he headed deeper into the cave, looking for all the world like a stalking... ... ... ... short, somewhat scruffy Harmonian Elf who couldn't look like a stalking cat to save his life. Cleo looked at Amaranth for half a moment, sighed, and followed.

Crys had stopped at the first branch in the path, and had produced what looked to be some kind of flute from the large bag that rested on his hip. He paused, then raised it to his lips and began to play.

Except it didn't make a sound. He kept 'playing' it and did it in the direction of the other tunnels. On the third of the four, the flute emitted an odd note(e flat, technically speaking). "We go this way first," he said, then went down that path.

It ended in a doorway which proved to be locked. This didn't deter Crys, though, who pulled a pair of wires from a boot and picked the lock within seconds. He opened the door, saying, "We need to pick up some things here, first."

The room proved to be an amoury of sorts. "Of sorts" being the operative words there. It was likely the place where the thieves held any weaponry they stole, as the place was as organized as a twelve-year-old's bedroom.

As Crys started rummaging around through the pile, Amaranth developed a very odd look on her face. She raised her right hand, fingers twitching slightly, and walked towards the pile. "They're calling to each other..." she murmured and began going through the stacks of weaponry.

Cleo hung near the door, wondering what Amaranth was looking for. Crys was probably looking for any weapons owned by Amber, but Amaranth had no reason to be looking through there. Or maybe she did. She probably just wanted to get rid of Crys' sword.

She came up with a rapier whose elaborate guard proved to be the coils and twists of a sapphire-eyed, silver snake biting its own tail. "This is the one..." she breathed, turning it over in her hands.

Crys came up, holding a relatively plain, but well-worn looking rapier and a small, thin, emerald-hilted dagger. He paused, then bent down, and began fiddling with something on the floor. It opened slightly, revealing a small compartment. He removed three objects from it and closed the floor.

As he stood up, Amaranth handed him his sword back, pausing to slap it upside the hilt. She didn't say a word to Crys, though.

"We all done here?" Crys asked. "Cleo, you want anything from here?"

Cleo shook her head. "No, I'm fine. I've got everything I need for now."

Crys nodded, and headed out of the room, locking it once Cleo and Amaranth were out as well.

At the intersection, Crys pulled out the flute again, paused, then put it back. He removed a ring from his left finger instead and held it up. He nodded, murmured, "This way..." then headed down another tunnel.

He was walking a great deal more quickly and the ring he held seemed to be giving off a pale light. Cleo wondered at that slightly, but paid it little mind.

The tunnel was quite long and very winding; Cleo nearly had to run to keep up with Crys by the end. Amaranth just walked, falling a great deal behind.

Crys' face was extremely eager as he reached the door; he nearly dropped his lockpicking wires.

"Crys..." Cleo said. His head jerked around to look at her. "Calm down, Crys..." she said.

He shook his head. "No... I won't... I can't. Not now, anyway."

A thought wiggled its way into Cleo's head as Crys looked back to the lock. As he opened and bolted through the door, that thought solidified quite thoroughly.

Cleo pushed the door further open and walked into the room to see that Crys had completely launched himself(and started babbling at) at a redheaded elf who happened to be chained to the wall. This, then, was Amber.

He lightly pushed Crys off and said, smiling, "Good to see you again, too, you bastard son of a whore, but could you get me out of these things before you start getting all strange on me? After all, they aren't really appropriate outside of a bedroom..."

"Bah, I should just leave you here..." Crys said, even though he'd already started work on freeing Amber. "I could get some good prices on your stuff..."

"The hell you will, you little prick," Amber said, waving his now-free left arm theatrically. "Now give me back my stuff before I--" he stopped short, looking at Cleo, then at Amaranth. "But you'd enjoy that too much, anyway," he finished smoothly.

"Yeah, yeah..." drawled Crys as he got Amber's other arm free. He handed him the sword and dagger and tossed the three other objects at Amaranth. "Hey, Ammy... Rune him, would you?"

Amaranth caught the things, which proved to be rune crystals with a look of some distaste. "Why should I even..." she started, then sighed, "Why bother?" and walked up to Amber. "Where do you want them?"

"Look, I'm sorry if Crys has been an ass--" Amber started, but was cut off by Amaranth reiterating her question. "Blinking goes on the forehead, Darkness on the left, Mother Earth on the right," he sighed.

Amaranth nodded and embedded the runes. "Now, can we leave?"

She didn't wait for a response and headed out the door immediately, giving Cleo her first good look at Amber.

He would have been lanky if he was taller, but, only being around Cleo's height, was just skinny. His hair was slightly curly, flaming red and quite long, being held back in a sloppy ponytail that reached just below his waist. Though his eyes were half-hidden by his long bangs, they were distinctly golden in colour. It might have been some look in his eyes, or some quirk of his lips, paired with his unusually high-pitched voice, but he had a strangely feminine 'feel' to him. Amber smirked slightly, noticing Cleo's eyes on him. "I have that effect on everyone," he said. "But the Lady is right... we really ought to get out of here as soon as possible. We can introduce ourselves later."

Cleo nodded, "All right," then left the room, Crys and Amber following closely behind.

They caught up with Amaranth at the intersection and made their way towards the exit of the cave.

The quartet was at least as surprised to see the eighteen unsuccessful(their own damn fault, though, for picking an over-bandited, small-and-densely populated area) bandits at the exit of the cave as the eighteen unsuccessful bandits were to see the quartet at the entrance.