The party stepped away from their chained-together motorcycles, stopping a few feet distant to examine the scene. Shaking his head, Aerandir walked back and gathered several branches, creating green and brown camouflage that he carefully leaned against the bikes. Stepping back again, he surveyed his hiding efforts and nodded, satisfied with his work. He then carefully skipped from rock to rock, making his way back to the party without any tracks while dragging another leaf-filled branch along behind to obscure the party's footsteps.
"Now we canna' find 'em, erselfs," Andouille grumbled as he spun on his heel to lead the party toward the opening in the large dirt mound.
Aerandir shrugged and said, "I'm sure that one or the other of us will be smart enough to recall where we parked our only transportation home. If not, we probably don't deserve to go home."
"If we can't find them, at least that means they'll still be here to remain unfound," Yslea pointed out.
"Huh? That makes no sense," Tarn said.
"No, it does, in a strange sort of way," Aerandir said as he walked. "Tarn, you just need to focus on the healing, while...."
"While what?" Tarn asked, stopping and turning. "Aerandir?" The elf wasn't moving, though; instead, he was frozen silently in place, eyes darting furiously back and forth.
After nearly a minute of silence had passed, Aerandir shook his head. "Nothing."
"Another spot check?" Samanthia asked, annoyance creeping into her voice.
Aerandir nodded and then shrugged. "At least they're picking the most observant of the party to check."
"Uh huh," Samanthia said. "Mr. Observant who nearly tripped over a gas pump hose back there?"
"Hey, somebody moved it suddenly."
"Uh huh. Hey, Yslea? Yslea?" Samanthia snapped her fingers in front of the female mage's face. "Uh, oh. They nearly never have us do two spot checks in a row."
Yslea shook her head as her eyes refocused. "No," she said, "that wasn't a spot check. I felt my intelligence being used."
"Maybe you could explain to Andouille how that feels, since he's never experienced it before," Aerandir quipped.
The dwarf shook his fist at the elf rogue. "Fightin' words!" he said, and then his eyes glassed over too as he walked over to the entrance to the mound and searched all around its edges.
"Some day the Dee Emm is going to try having the mage do a spot check, the dwarf check for magic, and the priest check for traps. Won't that be fun?" Aerandir said.
"You hush, now," Samanthia said. "Don't give them any ideas."
"It's safe!" Andouille announced.
"Are you sure? Last time you said it was safe, what you really meant was that you hadn't located the trap that was just inside the door," Azo asked.
"Safe!" the dwarf warrior replied, stomping his foot in punctuation.
"Okay, fine," Azo said. "It's just that we've seen a lot of checks here in the last couple of minutes, and false checks aren't this Dee Emm's thing."
"Azo, Azo, my friend mage, if the noble dwarf says it's safe, then it must be," Aerandir said, gliding past and falling over onto his face in the entryway as he tripped over a wire. Suddenly large spiders appeared from within the tunnel, hissing as a group, and a dozen armed men appeared from behind nearby trees.
"I don't suppose you're here to wish us luck?" Samanthia asked.
- TOSK
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