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As much as he wanted to say 'I don't know', Jett kept his tongue. He was their leader, he couldn't simply shrug his shoulders and throw up his arms. "Well..." The Dragon Lord began slowly, "I think we should first wait until morning. Then I will take one group of us out to explore, look for others, maybe some form of civilization. The other group will remain in this area, watch after Celia and look for edible plants."

"Celia," A small smile grew on Jett's face, almost paternal, "If you tried to walk, I fear you would only injure your leg further. Perhaps in a few days, we can make you a crutch, if necessary, but I must insist that you stay put in the meantime. Besides, we do not know what lives out here. It would be terrible to come back from searching and find that you have been eaten by a particularly voracious animal."

"Is your book still readable?" Baran asked suddenly, sitting up a little straighter "It had all sorts of protective wards on it, so it should have escaped being totally ruined. If you can dry it out and maybe repair some of the damage on it, you might be able to find if it says anything about Arinas. Where the dangers are, maybe, or what plants are edible."

That would give her something useful to do, Baran thought, proud of himself. He neglected to mention that the spells woven into the old tome's pages were either done incredibly carefully with minimum excess magic leaking off, or... well, barely there at all.

As the others talked and prepared fires, Jett leaned back and closed his eyes. Now that it was quiet, he could feel the magic overflow, so different from back at the castle. But, to the Dragon Lord, it wasn't a pleasant sensation. It made him feel odd, almost sick. He could sense....something festering somewhere in his being, and the magic in this place seemed to feed it, strengthen it. Jett shuddered, sending his entire body into shivers, but it was not from the cold.

"I guess your right...."Said Celia, reaching over towards the bag. She picked it up, and opened it. She looked inside the bag, and took out the books. They were damp, but not as wet as the bag, and it seemed the charms had repelled all the salt.

Baran's eys widened at the sight of the books. They were considerably better protected than he had thought they would be, it seemed. He had exected them to be soaked, but still readable after a good night of drying out by the fire. It appeared, however, that they would be able to look through them now.

Leaning forward, Baran brushed sand and salt from a rock sticking halfway out of the ground and motioned for Celia to place the tomes on it.

((XDDD I LIIIVE!!! >.>;;; And tomorrow I can look it allup better. Out of time. >.<;; ))

((>D *butts in* Kyukuku!! *angel halo* =D This is just the beginning! *laughs like a maniac* ... ninja ))

Suddenly there went a pulse through the small cave, mental in its quality but strong enough for everyone to feel it. Then there was another one and another one not long after its predecessor... It was coming from the map.

The faded black lines suddenly started to bleed into red, twisting and changing. Areas that had been covered by forests grew and lessened before their eyes while dots slowly appeared to mark the sites of cities. But what probably drew the most interest was the upper right corner where a date had faded in... and was now running amok by speeding forward as the map changed.

Then it came clear... the map, if not the whole book, had been made by magical means long ago when the magic ran stronger and when the magic dimnished in Dusis the charms on the paper had gone into a "stand-by" sort of form and it was now catching up... rapidly so.

As the ink grew stronger, another image could faintly be seen in the background, a large picture covering the whole map of the last royal couple to have the continent under their rule. True, these personages had since long been missing and no one really had an accurate date for their disappearance... But under their rule the previously dead continent had flourished up and began to recover, the map, date ever running forward, leaping from century to century, proved this.

However, as the date closed in on the present the royalties' picture faded and some dots on the map were replaced with a simple circle, marking a ruin. Though some dots remained while others just grew smaller, marking villages or small towns. The persumed date of the last rulers' disappearance was only a few centuries ago but the changes that took place after they went away were quite apparent.

The small towns and villages were mostly in the south but made a stead climb along the coast northward, these places were all known already though, the small outposts in the magical land that had stood their ground and still fought off any enemy.

The two single oddities on the map was a gleaming "x", obviously marking them due to the closeness of the sea, and another "x" that was further north and more inland, this one was also bigger. Another noteworthy thing was that it lay in the middle of a forest and a name stood below it: Tel'Mior (Jewel of the North)
Interesting was that below the gleaming "x" was a normal dot... not a circle marking a ruin.

In the background of the map, where previously the picture of the royal couple had been visible before it faded away, was now a very faint, dark silhouette. Not much was visible about it other than that it was a female of some race and below the image stood Uumido tari, this one, however, did not have any translation to the Elfish language.

((Kukuku. >w> *kicks the people in the right direction* -__-;; *or hopes they got some brain to go towards the funky x*))