Lonedia

It was a beautiful evening, the Nomad was at the harbour in the land of Lonedia. Some of the crewmembers were down in their cabins sleeping, some had gone into town to have a good time. Firouz was up on deck tinkering with an invention. Everything seemed very peaceful. "Let's see, "Firouz thought to himself "if I place this here, and then..." Suddenly he felt the ship jerk, as if something heavy had moved down in one of the cabins, the jerk was followed by a scream, Maeve's scream. "Maeve?" Firouz dropped everything in his hands and ran below deck, there he met Sinbad who had been sleeping in his cabin and had been awoken by the scream. They bursted into Maeve's cabin. "What the..?" Sinbad exclaimed. Everything in the room had been pushed towards one wall, and Maeve was stuck between the wall and the half overturned table and a heavy chest. Books, bowls and different other objects were scattered around the room. "Sinbad...." Maeve tried to push the furniture away to get free. Sinbad and Firouz pulled the chest away and put the table back on it's feet. "Maeve, are you all right? What happened?" Sinbad asked "I'm OK, I think..I have been up all night practicing my spellcasting" Maeve answered "and I tried contacting Dim Dim .... oh, I was so close, but then..." "Then what?" "I didn't have the strength to hold it. My powers got out of control and a strong magic wind blew everything across the room." "Well, no harm done, I guess. We'll help you tidy up." Sinbad said. He took the chest and tried to pull it back to where it had been. "What makes this chest so heavy anyway?" he asked. "It's the chest I got from Queen Nadia, some of the dresses I got from her are in it.. and some other stuff. She opened it to put some things in it. "What is that?" Firouz asked, and pointed at an object in the chest. "It's something I got from the people in Mirhago after we freed them from that greedy Zabtut." "Here's the norseman helmet Eyolf gave you." Sinbad said, and picked it up from the floor. "What's this then?" Firouz asked and held up some kind of medallion. "That's an amulet I got from ... from an old friend of mine, she's living here in Lonedia actually. I've almost forgotten about her. Oh Sinbad, I have to visit her,I guess it's to late now, but I have to see her." Maeve pleaded. "No problem," Sinbad said "we're ahead of schedule so we can stay one more day in Lonedia, and the crewmembers could need a day off... Which reminds me, Doubar and Rongar should have been back by now, I hope they haven't gotten into any trouble again. "We could go and look for them." Maeve suggested. Firouz agreed. "Let's go then" Sinbad said.

In town they looked up the tavern where they assumed Doubar and Rongar was. When Sinbad opened the door he was greeted by a flying bench. He barely had time to duck. "We're just not having luck with furniture today have we? he muttered. Doubar had thrown the bench at some men. He and Rongar didn't use much time before they had knocked them all out. "What's going on here?" Sinbad asked. "These men were attempting to steal our money" Doubar exclaimed. "And you decided to teach them a lesson right? Well, I guess you succeeded. But I think we should get back to the ship before something else happens." Sinbad said. They paid the tavern owner for the damaged furniture and went.

As they were walking down to the harbour they saw an elderly woman who came running towards them and calling Maeve's name. "Maeve! Is it really you? This is very fortunate. Please, you must help me." "Wait a minute, who are you?" Sinbad asked "Sinbad, this is the old friend I was talking about" Maeve said "I'm Elaysa," the woman said "Maeve and I haven't seen eachother in over five years. I have known her since... "Elaysa.." Maeve interrupted her "you said you needed help, is something wrong?" "Oh, Maeve, I've heard so much about you and your new friends. I hope you can help me." "Help you with what?" Sinbad asked. "Come with me." Elaysa said. The crew followed Elaysa to a little house outside of town. Here is where I live with my husband." she said. They went inside. "So, where's your husband?" Maeve asked. "This is where I need your help. You see, some days ago my husband, Farim disappeared. He went to the forest to collect wood, and didn't come back. People have been searching for him for days now, but it's like he just vanished." Elaysa looked around, frightened, and she lowered her voice "And that's not the worst... because .. I think it's THEM again.."

"Them?" Elaysa looked around her again "One night, about four moons ago some horrible demons came down from the mountains and into Lonedia. They were humanlike, but looked like they were cowered by black mud. They went through town, destroying everything on their way. I don't know what they were after. My husband and a few others managed to kill some of them, and after a while they retreated back into the forest. Since then we haven't heard or seen anymore of them." "So you think this demons have taken your husband?" Maeve asked. "I fear they might have. But you see, I believe the demons only come out at night. Before he left, Farim told me he would come back late. And when it started to grow dark.....The people who searched for him only searched at daytime, they were frightened of being in the forest after dark. " Well there's only one way to find out about this demons." Sinbad said. "We have to go into the forest, now, when it's still dark." "Right" Doubar agreed, "If your husband's there we'll find him."

The forest was deadly calm, and dark. The only thing which made the crew able to see anything was the torches they held. "This place give me the willies." Doubar exclaimed. "Let's split up." Sinbad said. "Firouz and Rongar, you go that way, Doubar, Maeve and I will go this way. The crew went in different directions. "I can feel the evil here." Maeve said "This is a place of darkness, it's as if..." Maeve suddenly stopped, closed her eyes and started walking around. "Maeve? What is it, have you found something?" Sinbad asked. "The source of evil, it's coming from the ground...or below the ground..it's .." Doubar interrupted her. "Look it's Rongar!" Rongar came running towards them. He gestured to them and pointed back to where he came from. Sinbad tried to make out what he meant. "Firouz? He fell down? Into a hole in the ground?" They followed Rongar to the place where the hole was. Sinbad looked down into the hole. "Firouz?" there was no answer "Firouz? Are you hurt?" still no answer. Sinbad turned to the others "We'll have to go down there" "It doesn't seem to deep, I think we can climb down." They tied the rope Rongar carried to a nearby tree. With the help of the rope, Sinbad went down the hole, and the others followed. From the hole, a tunnel went farther into the ground. They lit a torch and put at the opening, then went into the tunnel. They found Firouz's saber on the ground. "The demons must have taken him." Sinbad said. Suddenly Doubar became aware of a pair of green eyes watching them in the dark. "Sinbad, look, over there." "What?" Sinbad turned to look, but at the same time two creatures came out from behind him, one grabbed him, and the other moved forward towards Maeve, she quickly jumped aside. Doubar took his saber and cut the demons head off. It fell to the ground and vanished. Sinbad struggled to get free from the other demons grasp. Maeve took a fireball and tossed it at the creature, it winced and stepped back, Sinbad got free. Maeve threw another fireball at the demon, and it disappeared. "So much for Mr. Muddy." Sinbad said. They went farther into the tunnel, and they reached a cave. It was lit up by torches on the walls, in the middle was some kind of black pit. "Sinbad!" They heard Firouz's voice. "Firouz!" Firouz and Farim was locked up inside a cage at the far end of the cave. Sinbad and Doubar started to walk over to them, but Firouz stopped them. "Careful, don't come near the pit!" What's with the pit?" "That's where the creatures come from." As he spoke a creature rose from the pit, and then another one. Sinbad fought off one of the creatures. "What kind of magic is this?" "It looks like ordinary oil." Maeve said. "But it's a spell on it. The pit is the main source of the evil here." "Can you break it?" Sinbad asked. "No..it's to powerful... but I could try to stop the creatures from coming for a while." Maeve used her magic on the pit and all the creatures which had come out of the pit disappeared. "There, " she said "the spell is temporarily stopped." Sinbad and Doubar ran over to the cage and freed Firouz and Farim by cutting off the wooden bars with their sabers. "Let's get out of here." Sinbad said. they all ran out of the cave. Sinbad stopped and looked at the cave opening "It would be best if we could block this tunnel off." he said "Firouz, do you have any of your exploding sticks with you?" "I have a couple." "That will do." They lighted the sticks with one of the torches and put one in the wall on each side of the cave opening. "Now run!" They quickly ran out of the tunnel, and climbed up the hole. Then there was an explosion, the ground shook, and some dust came out of the hole. "Hopefully the tunnel is totally blocked now." Sinbad said.

The Crew and Farim went back to the house where Elaysa greeted them. Farim ran towards his wife. "Elaysa!" "Farim, you're back. " Elaysa turned to the crew. "What happened? Did you find the demons?" The crew told Elaysa what happened. "Do you have any idea who cast the spell on that pit?" she asked. "No, but it wasn't R.." Maeve began. "Rumina?" Elaysa finished. "You're still after her?" "Yes.." Maeve made a sign to Elaysa that she wanted her to change the subject. " So, where's Dermott?" Elaysa asked. "He's on the ship." Maeve answered. "By the way, I think we should get back to the Nomad." Sinbad said. "Thank you so much for finding my husband." Elaysa said gratefully.

On the ship Maeve came over to Sinbad. "I've had this strange feeling." she said. "About what?" "That pit." "Well, it was a strange pit.." "If I only could figure out why I have this feeling about it." Maeve said. "You're probably just worried because you didn't manage to break the spell on it." "Maybe..." "Let's not worry about it, ok, there wasn't anything else we could have done." "Maybe you're right..." Maeve looked at the handsome captain, and her worries slowly disappeared.