Un-amu leads me out of the tent, but instead of heading for the exit we go to a different part of the camp. I shoot him a questioning glance as I hear clapping up ahead. Un-amu only smiles and says, “It seems like they are nearly done.”

He holds out his hand and gestures me to stop, as a whole bunch of Jakaweres stream out from a clearing, chattering loudly to each other and gesturing nonstop. In their midst is Briareth, being swept towards us by the mass of tiny and large bodies. I fish him out of their midst and shout over the crowd to be heard.

“So, how was the entertainment?”

Briareth looks at me, shakes his head, blinks, as if finally recognising me, and then shouts over the noise of the crowd “What did you say Faladel? I can’t hear you!”

I feel a small tug on my shirt and look down. It is Un-amu. He starts dragging us through the flow of people, I grab on to Briareth and eventually we surface at the edge of the crowd, all of us gasping for breath. It is still loud, but manageable.

“I said,” I say panting. “How was the entertainment?”

“Strange, but fun!” Briareth says grinning. “First there were a lot of high pitched singers with winged helmets, then fire eating and people surviving being stabbed while locked in a box, then there was a guy who threw knives perfectly with his eyes closed, then a bunch of flying crafts exploding, then more singing and people kissing! It was all very confusing, but really funny! You missed out Faladel.”

I stare at him. Knife throwing, explosions, and kissing? Not really my cup of tea, though it does sound interesting. I think I still prefer negotiations to trying to translate what was happening there though.

Un-amu leads us out of the camp and waves goodbye as we head back to Smay’s cave. Briareth chatters about the strange performance the entire time. I laugh at his attempts to mimic the singing, and the dancing of the performers. When we finally get up all the stairs Smay is waiting for us in the dining room. He claps his talons together when we pass through the doorway.

“Excellent job both of you! I really didn’t think you would do that well Faladel! Getting that kid down to 32 hours! Sus-Ciel, he said his name was? I’ll see what I can find on him! It’s a challenge!” Smay seems super excited by the idea that he has a challenger, so excited that smoke is coming out of his nostrils. I blink at the sight.

“Smay, approximately how long will the next task take?” I ask.

“Shouldn’t take too long I should think, but we should probably stop for supper first. I made sandwiches!”

“What exactly are in them?” I ask.

“Faladel, don’t be so suspicious.” chides Briareth.

“I think I have every right to be suspicious after you two nearly poisoned me with your last concoction.” I retort.

“It’s only PB&J you sillies.” Smay says. “Nothing to get upset about Faladel.”

“Could I have the leftover soup?” Asks Briareth.

“Well… There is none of that left.” Smay says, looking guilty.

“Hmm… I was sure I left some in the pot.” Briareth says, completely oblivious to Smay’s increasing guilt.

“You did.” Smay mutters. “I may have had a tiny snack while you two were out.” I chuckle softly as Briareth rambles on about the sad lack of soup, not even noticing Smay’s explanation.

When we have scarfed the last of Smay’s sandwiches, Smay sends Briareth to do the dishes, to make up for his lack of helping earlier with the second task. Meanwhile he and I discuss the last task.

“So this last task is to wake up a sleeping Elf.” I start out. “Where is he, exactly?”

“He is in one of my secret gardens.” Smay answers, “It holds my most potent poppy plants, he stayed in there for too long, and fell asleep.”

“Is that even possible? Falling asleep because of over exposure to poppies?” I ask.

“Not normally, but these ones are special. They sell for a lot, but are a pain to harvest.”

“What do you have that will wake him up?”

“Not much. We spotted this guy last harvest. Apparently he had tried to cross and fell asleep pretty much in the exact middle of the field. The harvesters left him there because he wasn’t one of them. So he’s been here for about two years now. The harvesters know how to wake up their own, but I have no clue how they do it. I do, however, have a couple things you can experiment with to see what works.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I have that extra bag of pepper, you can use some of that. I have hot sauce, and some spices. I have cold water, and hot water. I have good food, rotten food, foul smelling food, and strange spotted mushrooms. I have noise makers, bells, gongs, and drums. I have bird whistles, frog horns, fog horns, horns of plenty, and just plain horns. I’ve tried them all, but perhaps you can come up with some new combination I haven’t thought of.”

“What do you think, Briareth?” I call, half-way turning around in my chair to look toward the kitchen. I’m startled when I hear a muffled sob in reply. “Briareth?” I call again, slightly worried. Briareth appears in the doorway, despair written all over his face. “Faladel, oh Faladel! There was leftover soup. But Smay ate it all! He didn’t even leave me one drop!” Briareth wails. I hesitate for a moment unsure what to do. My first instinct is to laugh, but that feels wrong here. Instead, I step forward, and awkwardly hug him, patting him on the back. He slowly calms down.

“It’s okay, Briareth, seriously. I can make more if you really liked it that much.” Briareth snuffles in agreement. It takes a while to get him fully calmed down, and when we are finally ready to go, Smay says we might as well wait till tomorrow because it’s getting really late, and the guard bats might mistake us for thieves.

----------------------------------------

When we get up the next day, Briareth seems as jolly as normal, even though he was still sniffling a bit as he fell asleep last night. I never did admit to him that I already knew Smay had eaten the leftover soup, it just didn’t feel right.

We had the remains of the sandwiches, pancakes, and super spicy fajitas for breakfast. That’s when I break to Briareth the information I gathered the night before. Briareth munches on his cold fajita, courtesy of the Icer, and when I ask for his opinion on what we should do, simply responds. “Pack it up his nose.”

“Excuse me? You want to pack a frog horn up the poor Elf’s nose?”

“Not the frog horn silly. The pepper. Pack the extra pepper from the Jakaweres up his nose to make him sneeze himself awake.”

“That’s ridiculous.” I counter. “You can’t just pack the pepper up his nose to make him wake up. You're more likely to make him choke and die.”

“No, he’ll cough and sputter, but not die. He can still breathe.”

“Still, people don’t sneeze while they are asleep.”

“Doesn’t mean they can’t, and if they don’t normally do it while they are asleep, it should wake them up. Don’t knock it until you tried it, Faladel. If it doesn’t work, I can always come up with something else.”

“Still seems like sleeping-person abuse to me. What do you think, Smay?”

Smay looks up from his breakfast, a mountain of fajitas with pancakes for dessert, and says, “What was the question?”

“Briareth was suggesting that we stuff the pepper up the Elf’s nose.”

“Hmm… Seems okay to me, creative at least. Why didn’t I try that?”

“You see nothing wrong with it?” I’m shocked. Am I the only one here who finds this plan ridiculous?

“Well, it does seem silly at first. But it could possibly work, and at least would be amusing to watch. I’m all for it really.”

Briareth stuffs a tortilla in his mouth, and munches down on it triumphantly. I sigh and go back to finishing my pancakes.

“Let’s get going after breakfast. You okay with that, Smay?”

“I don’t have anything else planned if that’s what you're asking.” Smay responds.

When we are done with breakfast, Smay has us grab packs of the items he had suggested for waking the Elf and stack them on his back. Then he leads the way back down into his lair’s unfathomable depths. We go deeper and deeper, stopping ever so often to consult one of Smay’s maps. We eventually go into one of his caverns filled with shelves and boxes, but we pass right through it, going out a door on the other side. From there we continue going down, sometimes passing through more rooms, but mostly staying on the stairs. Finally we start to hit an area that looks different. I don’t notice it at first, but it keeps getting clearer. When Smay blows out his torch I realize what is different. The walls up ahead are glowing.

When we go into the glowing area, I realize that the walls themselves aren’t glowing. They aren’t stone walls either. They are dirt, and the dirt walls are sprouting glowing mushrooms. Hadn’t Smay mentioned this earlier? Glowing mushrooms for his secret gardens? We must be quite close by now.

Briareth reaches out a hand to touch one, but Smay quickly stops him with a taloned paw.

“Don’t touch them, they’re hot.” Briareth shoots him a startled look and quickly draws back his hand. Smay chuckles “That was a joke, Briareth. They are actually quite safe.” Briareth shoots him a wary look then reaches out a hand again, and plucks one. He inspects it for a while, and I reach out my hand to him, he passes it over. I look at it closely. The mushroom has faint blue spots, tinting some of the light that comes out from it. It feels rather soft and pliable. Strange.

“Are they safe to eat?” I ask Smay.

“Oh yes. They only give you hallucinations for a couple hours afterwards, then you have a headache after the hallucinations end, but otherwise they are perfectly good to eat.” I blink.

“Did you try them yourself Smay?”

“Oh no, I had a bat try them.”

“Is that abuse of power?” Briareth asks. “Because that certainly seems like it should be illegal.”

“No, no,” Smay laughs, “The bat volunteered. They have been my test subjects for ages, and they don’t mind. See, if they like it, I sell it to them cheap, then they sell it to the colony with a huge markup. To some, the risk is well worth the reward.”

“Have you ever killed any of your test subjects?” Briareth presses.

“Not that I know of. Would it bother you if I said yes?”

“Yes!” Briareth and I shout in unison.

“Hmm.” Smay doesn’t say anything else, but continues walking. Both of us follow him. I feel rather disturbed by this situation. It’s not technically condemnable though; he’s not forcing the bats to do anything.

We continue through the mushroom lined hallway silently, quickly reaching a cavern where the mushrooms climb on the ceiling but abandon the floor to poppy plants. The smell of the place hits us in the face as soon as we enter, and sends Briareth stumbling backwards into the tunnel again. Smay halts right before the entrance to the cavern and says. “This is where I stop. I’ll watch from the safety of back here; you will have approximately ten minutes once you get in. If you stay any later you’ll fall into a coma. You’ll be able to tell when you are close to the deadline because you’ll feel really tired. Good luck!”

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We go into the cavern and start wading through the fields of poppy. There aren’t any paths, and everytime we step on a plant, it releases it’s pollen into the air. I can’t see anyone, a sleeping person would probably be laying down, so unless we trip over him, how will we find the Elf? We would have to cover this entire ground in less than ten minutes. I start to jog, and Briareth speeds up to keep up with me. I gradually start speeding up our search more, dashing through the fields of poppy, the only sound accompanying us are our footsteps and gasps for breath.

“Why are we running?” Briareth asks, wheezing slightly.

“We need to cover this whole field in less than ten minutes!” I call back. “How would we do that without running?”

“Good point!” Briareth shoots me a look that clearly says, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ I glance back at him, to respond with a sarcastic quip, just in time to see him stumble and fall. My feet keep going for a few steps as my brain registers that Briareth isn’t following, before I can turn around and go back.

“I guess we didn’t need to run.” Briareth gasps as I arrive back at his prone form. “I found our Elf, well, my foot found him. I never even saw the bloke.” I offer him a hand up silently, and we go to look at who his foot found.

When we get there, we find the Elf face down. “I guess he did pass out,” I say. “Unless he fell asleep with his nose in the dirt.” I proceed to flip him over with Briareth’s help. Briareth starts when he sees the face. The Elf has long blond hair, not uncommon, but this one’s hair is so blond it is almost white, which is rather strange. This person looks vaguely familiar to me, but Briareth obviously knows who this is.

“What?! What’s Raegel doing here?”

“You know him?” Raegel, Raegel, I know this name, why? My head feels fuzzy. How much time do we have left?

“Yeah, this dude was my mentor. Can’t imagine what he was doing here.” That makes sense. I would have seen him about the castle.

“It seems like you weren’t the only King’s Archer who forgot which cave led out.” I say, “Perhaps you guys should make a map or something.”

“We should try the pepper, we are running out of time.” Briareth says, looking worried.

I gesture to his pack. “You do the honors?”

“Why me?” Briareth seems just as reluctant as I am to stick his fingers up someone's nose.

“You suggested it.”

“I was thinking you would do it.”

“He’s your mentor.”

“Was. But I see your point.” Briareth sighs, and proceeds to implement the plan. He takes out the bag of pepper. And, trying not to waste too much, dumps some on his hand. I tip poor Raegel’s head back, while Briareth funnels the stuff down his left nostril, then sticks his pinky in to compress it. I grimace as it makes a small squelching noise which echoes in the silent poppy garden. Briareth funnels a bit more in, and then proceeds to do the same thing with the right nostril. When he is done we lay Raegel back down and wait for a bit. Nothing happens. I sit down next to Raegel and Briareth and let my mind wander a bit.

Why couldn’t I think of how I knew Raegel earlier? Was the poppy affecting my mind? Was it because I haven’t been home in over twenty years? Was it both? I don’t ever remember seeing Briareth with him when Father would call on the King’s Archer’s to advise him. Briareth wouldn’t be any help with advisoring. He would just help everyone get more distracted. Father probably enjoys that. He and Briareth are rather alike.

The sky is so bright. What a weird thing to think when one is deep underground. It’s too bright. I’ll just close my eyes for a bit. Just a bit. I won’t fall asleep…

“Faladel!” Briareth’s voice startles me.

“What?” I mutter, slightly angry “I wasn’t going to fall asleep.” though I was probably getting quite close to it.

“Nothings’ happening, except us getting tired. What do you think we should do?”

I blink for a while trying to process what he just said. “Perhaps we should,” I try to think, “try to carry him out, give it more time to work?”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that.” Briareth says. “I’ll take head, you take feet.”

Raegel is a lot heavier than he looks. We have to put him down to rest every twenty steps or so. But our rest times keep getting longer.

“We must hurry. Or we won’t get out in time.” gasps Briareth as we take yet another break.

“Should we run?” I ask

“Probably.”

The rests get longer, but with us running, we are also covering more ground. I estimate that it nearly makes up for the longer rests. Finally, exhausted, we get back to Smay. He was snacking on a loaf of bread, toasting bits of it over his own fire before popping it into his mouth.

“Oh, you're back. Nice timing, do you want some?” He gestures to the loaf.

“We were out there risking our lives and you're toasting bread?” I say, feeling groggily upset.

“Well they are your tasks, and sitting around with baited breath sounded boring, and there was this lovely bread.” Smay says.

Briareth steps out of the cavern and immediately straightens, I hadn’t even noticed he was slouching earlier, but now it is obvious.

“Come on out Faladel, you’ll feel much better. I think I’ll take you up on the bread, Smay!”

I enter the hallway outside the cavern half-heartedly dragging poor Raegel behind me, and feel the change instantly. The lesser concentration of poppy in the air here then was in the cavern is obvious. Breathing seems easier now, though I wasn’t aware of it being stifled in the field. I breathe in deeply appreciating the cool tunnel air. I relax slightly, and then jump as I hear a giant “ACHOO!!” coming from right next to me.

Immediately, Smay, Briareth, and I all turn to the Elf with the pepper no longer up his nose. Raegel is awake. Briareth abandons his food for the first time I’ve ever seen, and rushes to his old mentor's side, leaning over him and calling, “Raegel, are you okay? It’s time to get up!”

“Briareth?” Raegel says confusedly, opening his eyes and blinking, “What are you doing here?” Then he notices Smay, who is right behind Briareth. “Gahh! Dragon! Wait, how do you exist?!”

“That’s the sort of thing I was expecting from you two when you first saw me.” Smay comments.

“You can talk!” Raegel yelps. “Am I still dreaming, Briareth?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know.” Briareth answers. “If this were a dream, I’d also be dreaming.”

“Hmm, dream Briareth wouldn’t respond like that. So this is real.”

“Interesting deduction,” I comment. “Do your dreams often involve your former apprentice?”

“Not the good ones, only the odd ones.” Briareth shoots him a hurt look. Raegel ignores him. I bet he has a lot of practice at that. Instead he turns to look at me, confusion flits across his face before disappearing behind an iron mask. “Who might you be?”

“Oh, my name is Faladel. Faladel Mithrandir; my father might have talked to you about me, but I’d suggest making your own decisions about my demeanor.” Raegel’s eyes pop.

“Faladel Mithrandir eh? Seems like Briareth didn’t need me to tell him that you needed rescuing.”

“Wait, you knew I was alive?”

“Can this wait until we get going?” Asks Smay, “We do want to be back before lunchtime.”

“Fine with me!” Briareth says. I frown, I would rather hear this now, I suppose I can wait a couple minutes though.

“Righty-ho, let's go!” Raegel says, and laughs. Briareth grins.

Smay takes the rest of the packs from Briareth and I, because we had to carry Raegel to the tunnel, and he said it was only fair that he take a load off us so we could relax and catch up. When Raegel tries to get up on his own legs though, he stumbles and falls. “It appears my muscles are rather weak. I must have slept for longer than I thought.” He comments, looking at his legs.

“Eh, I can carry you too. No, no, don’t try to protest.” Smay says as Raegel opens his mouth. “These two have already done enough, and you obviously can’t walk on your own so the only other options would be to leave you here or for you to be carried on my back with the luggage.” He stoops down and we help Raegel climb on.

“Really, Briareth, did you even finish the other part of your mission?” Raegel says, clinging to Smay’s back desperately as he plods along. “You must have taken the entire week finding Faladel here, because there is no way you managed to rescue the prince and-”

“Um, Raegel, we aren’t supposed to mention the other bit.”

“Oh yeah. Dragon. Got it.”

“Actually, I haven’t been allowed to tell Faladel either.”

“That makes no sense. He has known how to keep state secrets since he was a child. He’s the prince for heaven's sake. Surely you can tell him.” Raegel says, more affronted than I am over my lack of knowledge.

“Well he wasn’t on the list. And since he’s technically dead, I wasn’t sure he was allowed under the Royal Family Act.”

“He’s still royal, even if he is legally dead.”

“Some in the court might dispute that.” Briareth counters.

“Good point.” Raegel concedes. They remain quiet for a while. Then Raegel blinks, “wait didn’t the news get out that he might not be dead? I’m quite sure I sent a notice to the correct authorities on that before I left”

“Well no one told me that he wasn’t, so I assumed he was.” Briareth responds. I’m slightly miffed by all the third person, but I don’t comment.

“I hope someone at least told the King and Queen. This is a bureaucratic nightmare, what if he hasn’t been declared alive by the time he arrives?”

“Do you really have to declare someone alive?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had to have someone be declared undead, have you?”

“No,” Briareth admits. “But can’t they just look at him, do magicy stuff to show that he is him, and isn’t someone else pretending to be him, and then declare him alive?”

“No, of course not. There will be paperwork, mountains of it. Mark my words Briareth, every single reporter that said he was dead will have to rescind that information, and write letters apologizing for saying false information. There will be so much paperwork, I’ll bet, that someone could drown in it.”

The only sound for a while was Briareth scratching down Raegel’s words on a notepad. Smay and I glance at each other, and make confused faces. Smay’s confused face is hilarious.

Then Raegel breaks the silence by saying. “You never answered my original question, Briareth.”

“Hmm?” Briareth finishes writing on the pad, and tucks it in a pocket.

“Did you ever finish the original mission?”

“Well of course.”

“How? It's only been a week!”

“Ah. About that Raegel,” I break in. “It’s actually been over a year. You slept in a bit longer than you meant to.”

“What!? You're joking right?” He lets out an unconvincing chuckle that dies away when he sees our serious faces. Even Smay seems to realize how serious this is.

“What day did you leave, Raegel?” I ask.

“April 5th, 2072 Years of War”

“Briareth, what’s the date?”

“I’d say about May 22nd, no... 21st, 2474 Y. W. You’ve probably been reported missing presumed dead for two years now.”

“Oh.” Raegels eyes go wide. Well, what else can you say to missing two years of your life? I feel sympathy for the man, he and I aren’t in very different situations. We walk in silence again for a while, letting Raegel absorb the fact that he is probably thought to be dead as well. Eventually he breaks the silence with a whispered, “Well now the reporters will have twice as much paperwork.” Smay bursts into giggles. I shoot him a scolding glance.

“Sorry,” He says, “that was pretty good.”

Smay has ruined the moment so I feel fine breaking the silence again. “Why did you originally head under the mountains Raegel?”

“I was supposed to get a message out to Briareth, through a network of spies we have in Dwarven territory.”

“What was the message?” asks Briareth curiously.

“I was supposed to tell you that we had gotten information that Prince Faladel was alive, and you were to pick him up, even if it meant that your first mission failed. You obviously got the idea though.”

“Actually, I just found him there. He really helped with the overall success of the mission, even though he didn’t know it at the time.”

“Well you should get a medal for ingenuity then.”

I interrupt their little dialogue with a question of my own. “How do you know that I didn’t know your identity and mission, Briareth? I could have known the entire time and just kept quiet for the fun of it.”

“You knew?!”

“No, but how do you know that I didn’t?”

“Because you just told me?”

“No, earlier.”

“Oh.”

“Point is, don’t assume.” Briareth nods apologetically, but then immediately perks up.

“Do you think I might get a medal Faladel?”

“Not for ingenuity, but possibly for rescuing the prince.”

Raegel laughs at my answer. Then he asks Briareth, “did you remember to tell the others that you completed your task?”

“Well, I couldn’t get in touch with them, and we were kind of on the run, so I mighta skipped that part.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it, while you go back home and deal with all the paperwork.”

Briareth sighs, “Not funny Raegel.”

“I’m not joking, if the Dragon would so kindly show me the way into Dwarven territories, I’ll be off. They probably sent someone though after me to confirm the message got through anyway, so I need to tell them that Faladel got rescued as well. Am I right, Dragon?”

“I have a name you know, but yes you are right, I’ll send you out after I send these two on their way.”

“What is your name?” Raegel asks.

“It's Smayhellionthostvalisonknoll, but these two call me Smay for obvious reasons. If you all want I can send Faladel and Briareth out easily, we are near their exit actually. We don’t have to stop by my home for lunch.”

“Excellent! That would be perfect, Smay.” Briareth announces. “I want to get back to Heronmal as soon as possible so I can get my medal!” Smay laughs, a very booming dragony laugh, and switches directions amicably.

Smay wasn’t lying. We soon reach a passage that is almost like all the other passages, except this one smells... fresher somehow. We head down this tunnel, and it becomes shorter and brighter the further we go. Finally, Smay has to stoop, then stop entirely, the tunnel is too small for him. He gives us some of the bread he had along with some weapons he brought with us to the poppy cavern. When I question him about why he brought them, he simply says “just in case” and insists Briareth take the magical bow with him. We slowly say our goodbyes and then start climbing up a pile of rocks leading to a small crack in the wall. We turn and wave to Raegel and Smay one last time, then Briareth and I head out into the light.