"A chill wind tonight," the gnome replied.
"Unseasonably so," Shoudra agreed, for it was still summer, though fall was fast approaching.
"Which'll of course, only adds to the misery of the open road," Nanfoo-dle muttered.
Shoudra giggled again and took a seat opposite him. She started to unroll the side of her stuffed dress but paused when she caught the gnome staring at her shapely leg. She thought it perfectly ridiculous, of course; Shoudra was a statuesque woman, which made her leg alone taller than little Nanfoodle. She held the pose anyway, and even turned her leg just a bit to give Nanfoodle a better view, and watched his jaw drop open.
Eventually, the gnome glanced up enough to see Shoudra staring at him, an amused smile on her beautiful face.
Nanfoodle blinked repeatedly and cleared his throat, shuffling around as if he had misplaced something. Watching his every move, Shoudra unrolled her skirt and guided the roots and mushrooms gently to the ground.
"Do you find the road so miserable, truly?" she asked a few moments later, as she began separating the various components by type and size. "Do you not find it invigorating?"
Nanfoodle crossed his arms before him and huddled closer to the fire.
"Invigorating?" he echoed incredulously.
"Have you no sense of adventure then, my good Nanfoodle?" Shoudra asked. "Have you become so tame from your years and years in front of beakers and solutions that you've forgotten the thrill of roasting a goblin with a fireball?"
Nanfoodle fixed her with a curious stare.
"The Nanfoodle I met those years ago in Baldur's Gate could weave a spell or two, if I remember correctly," Shoudra remarked.
"Nothing as crude as a fireball, surely!" the gnome protested with a dismissive wave of his little hand. "Bah, a fireball! Next you will recount your glory at bringing forth a bolt of lightning. No, no, Shoudra. I prefer the magic of the mind to the blast and burn of elemental forces."
"Ah, yes," Shoudra replied. "Of course. I should have better recognized the link between illusion magic and alchemy."
How Nanfoodle's eyes widened at that! He had been hired by Marchion Elastul of Mirabar, Shoudra's superior, to bring his alchemical brilliance to the aid of their inferior orc in their trade war against Mithral Hall. Many times had he suffered the dry wit of Shoudra Stargleam on those occasions when he had to report his progress to the marchion, for alchemy was an imprecise and trial-and-error science. Unfortunately for Nanfoodle, his efforts in Mirabar had been almost exclusively of the error variety.
Something that Shoudra rarely failed to point out.
"What do you imply?" the gnome asked evenly.
Shoudra laughed and went back to separating her mushrooms.
"You do not believe in alchemy at all, do you?"
"Have I ever made a secret of that?"
"Yet, were you not the one who gave my name to Marchion Elastul?" Nan-foodle asked. "I was under the impression that he had learned of my growing reputation from none other than Shoudra Stargleam."
"I have no use for alchemy," Shoudra explained. "I never said that I have no use for, nor care for, Nanfoodle Buswilligan."
After a moment of quiet, the woman glanced up to see Nanfoodle staring at her curiously.
"If Marchion Elastul was so determined to throw his coin away on fool's gold, then why not have some of it go to Nanfoodle, at least?" Shoudra explained with a wry grin.
The alchemist nodded, but his perplexed expression showed her that he really didn't seem to know whether to thank her or berate her.
She liked it that way.
"We eat the food and yet our load increases," the gnome remarked, staring sourly at Shoudra's growing component collection.
"Our load?" came the sarcastic response. "A single mushroom would seem to be a load for poor little Nanfoodle." She ended by playfully throwing a small white-capped mushroom across the fire. Nanfoodle's hand came up to block it, but he merely deflected the item, which bounced from his hand to thump against his long nose, drawing yet another laugh from Shoudra.
Scowling and muttering under his breath, Nanfoodle deliberately reached down and picked up the missile, then regarded it for a moment, still muttering, before throwing it back.
Shoudra had her defenses set, her hands up in front of her, except that not one, but a half dozen identical mushrooms suddenly flew her way.
"Well done!" she congratulated as the real missile bounced off her forehead, the illusionary ones flying right through her, and she laughed all the louder.
"One should be careful not to raise the ire of Nanfoodle," the gnome boasted, and he puffed out his chest, which almost tightened his small cloak around him.
"I have a few here we can use to dress our dinner," the woman remarked, and she held up both hands full of mushrooms and various roots. "If you eat enough— and that has never seemed to be a problem for you! — our load will lighten."
Nanfoodle started to offer a reply, but the sound of hoofbeats stopped him short and turned both him and Shoudra to regard the road that passed just south of their camp.
"The rider has seen our fire!" the gnome said with alarm.
He fell back to the shadows, seeming to retreat even more under his cloak, and he began chanting and waggling his fingers almost immediately.
Shoudra watched the gnome with some amusement, but then focused on the road. She wasn't overly afraid, for she was a seasoned adventurer and could stand her ground with weapon and with spell.
But then everything seemed to go out of focus, as if some enchantment had engulfed the camp, and Shoudra gave a slight cry and started to dive aside.
Started to, for she quickly enough realized that the spell was not the work of an enemy, but of Nanfoodle. She glared at the gnome, who just looked at her from under the cowl of his hood, grinning from ear to ear. He placed a finger over his lips, bidding her to silence.
Up bounded the horse, a large and muscular bay stallion, bearing a tall human rider in a weather-beaten gray cloak. The man pulled his mount up short, then dismounted with practiced ease. He walked before the horse and patted the dust from his cloak, then bowed politely—bowed to a tree a couple of feet to the side of Nanfoodle.
The rider seemed to be of middle age, perhaps forty years, but was in fine physical shape, and his hair was still mostly black, with a bit of gray showing at the edges. He wore a broadsword on his left hip and a dagger on his right, and he had his right hand resting on that smaller weapon as he approached, in a position that seemed one of convenience to the untrained eye. To a seasoned adventurer like Shoudra, though, the man's posture was one of readiness. She could tell from the angle of his settled right arm that he could bring his hand around in an instant, drawing forth and launching the dagger in a single fluid movement.
"Well met, good gnome," the tall man said to the tree, and Shoudra had to fight hard to stop from giggling.
She looked to Nanfoodle, who was grinning even wider and more emphat-ically trying to silence her. The little one began waggling his fingers once more.
"I am Galen Firth of Nesmй," the man introduced himself.
"And I am Nanfoodle, principal alchemist of the Marchion of Mirabar," the tree answered through the power of the illusionist gnome's spell. "Pray tell us, good sir, your business in these parts. You are a long way from home."
"As are you," Galen commented.
Indeed, but it was our camp which was violated," Nanfoodle's chosen tree replied.
Galen bowed again.
"Grim news from Nesmй," he remarked. "The bog blokes and the trolls have marched upon us. Our situation is grim—I do not know if my people hold on even as we speak."
"We can turn fast for Mirabar!" came a voice from the side, Shoudra's voice, and the woman moved toward Galen.