The quiet doe padded softly through the forest green as she searched for her meal. She was a rather picky thing, passing up on billions and billions of blades of grass in search of a patch that met her standards. In a tree branch high above the deer, a man sat, legs wrapped around a trunk, watching her. He breathed slowly and uniformly as he watched for the beast to slow down. Across his knees was a hunting bow, an arrow already knocked to its string. At long last the fair beast had found a patch of grass fit for her whims. She stooped her smooth neck to start her feast, nostrils flairing and eyes swiveling to search for any interruptions. [i]No one ever looks up,[/i] the man in the tree thought to himself. He rose the bow to level with his face. He grabbed the arrow with his first two fingers and drew back to his cheek. His right thumb touched the corner of his mouth as he frowned in concentration. He needed the meat, but if he was going to kill this creature he wanted to make it quick for it, which meant the heart was the only way to go. The doe's mouth was filled with grass as it brought its head back up to look around. It heard something then, and its ears pricked up to try and detect the no-- The deer fell softly to the ground as the archer began his descent from the tree. He patted the doe's hide fondly as he looked bitter sweetly at the beast. === A cabin in the woods sat idly amongst a small clearing of trees, making a nice picture of a peaceful homestead. Smoke poured out of a chimney of the little house, but for some uncanny reason, the smoke was red, a dark, brackish red, but red smoke nonetheless. The Hunter noticed this as he returned to the cabin with his game in tow. For some reason, the sight didn't seem to surprise him in the slightest. Striding into the room, the archer threw the sack of meat and hide onto a table near at hand. "Holmes! What does the red smoke do?" The man called as he unbuckled his quiver and vambrace. " Holmes? " Setting the gear next to the bag, he went into the main room where the fireplace was. Inside he saw one of his companions, a tall, thin man with a hawk like nose and black hair, leaning into the fireplace itself and looking up. "What in the blazes are you doing!?" He said looking curiously at his friend. Slowly, Sherlock brought his head out of the fireplace and looked back with his face covered in soot. "Ah, Ring, you're back. Just in time!" He stood up, taking the end of a scarf around his neck and using it to wipe the soot from his face. He walked straight past Ring and to a short table in the center of the room. He picked up a beaker of red liquid and held it out to Ring. "What is it?" Ring asked curiously. Sherlock raised his finger as if to make a make a point, but then thought better of it and placed the paced the beaker on the table. "I don't know." " You don't know? " "Not at all!" Holmes returned gleefully . "Isn't it brilliant?" He opened the top of the beaker and then carefully formed a small flame in the palm of his hand. "It's a simple elixer, really, but when I add the fire to it." He flicked the little light down into the bottle and as soon as he did so the contents began to evaporate into a red gas as the very bottom of the mix bubbled in a reverse boil. "Fascinating," Ring said. "It's nothing, look." Sherlock pointed to the small trail of smoke coming out of the bottle, red, like the chimney smoke. Strangely, and to both of their curiosity, the smoke vanished within inches of the liquid. Suddenly, not fading or evaporating, just gone. "Where does it...oh..." Ring looked at Sherlock, then pointed at the fireplace then up at the roof. Holmes merely nodded contentedly as he watched the smoke disappear. "It somehow goes from the bottle, straight to the chimney, like it teleported to another location." Ring ran his hand through his hair, half understanding, half not understanding what he'd just seen. " Yes. That. " Sherlock corked the bottle and set it aside. "But now I need to figure out [i]why[/i] it does [i]that[/i]." He sat down and started to work on the new project. "Alright, you do that and I'll go see what Drizzit is doing." Ring left Sherlock to his work as he went to the back of the house. === As he went outside, the sound of colliding wood instantly met his ears. He followed the sound of the noise to a small copse just within the woods near the house. There he found his other companion, Drizzit, who was busy fighting with a practice sword, weighted to approximate the heaviness of his true weapons, which were leaned against a tree nearby. Drizzit stood in front of a large and sturdy oak. His legs were spread slightly apart and his heels dug into the dirt to give him a solid stance. Without moving beyond what was absolutely necessary, he swiftly delivered a series of blows to the trunk of the tree with blinding efficiency. Up right, down right arc, feint left, then vertical slash, the tree took all the blows patently, with the grace only creation's oaks could hold. Neither the tree nor the warrior moved in an inch out of place as Drizzit continued the barrage past a comfortable exercise. As Drizzit slowed down his exercise, Ring strode up next to him. "I pity the tree whose roots trip you, my friend." Drizzit chuckled and sheathed his sword. "How's the supply gathering going?" He asked. "Going good," Ring replied. "I'll check the traps tomorrow morning, should be enough food then." Drizzit stretched before taking up his gear and heading back to the cabin. "That should allow me enough time to chart the map. The old thing is still withered beyond reading at the end, but the dungeon's traps can be beaten without it." The two went back inside, discarding any other outside equipment in favor of simple tunics. "Sherlock said this morning he'd finish some concoction by tomorrow," Ring said. "By the look of it we'll be set to move on the dungeon early." Drizzit observed the pair of swords crossed over the fireplace, their steel reflecting the flames as if they were their forgefire. They'd be using those swords soon enough, he thought. "Yes, tomorrow it is then."