The boat creaked and groaned on the choppy waves. As it turned out Aurelia and boats were not a good mix. She spent much of her time feeling queasy. She lay there on a hammock focused on a singular nail to keep the bile in her throat down. After a week on the boat,  the princess longed to feel the firmness of the earth beneath her feet.     The winds remained strong and the weather favored them for the last week. Gael proved to be a capable leader and would frequently check on Aurelia much to Zinjo's displeasure. Aurelia admitted the muscular sailor held some interest for her, but always paled in comparison to Zinjo.     Their first stop was the port of a small kingdom called Larylia, Gael entered Aurelia's cabin and nodded to Zinjo, "We'll be here in Larylia for a few days. They have the most beautiful botanical gardens and their forest boasts some bizarre rock formations, you can hire a guide for a dec

     In a small port town in Larylia, coastal kingdom trouble is brewing. Aurelia has no idea what kind of trouble, but it warranted twelve men and two werelions. Zinjo professionally held his partisan. Aurelia clutched the parasol blade with determination, despite the small shard of doubt in the back of her mind. With one victory under her belt, she felt like a child next to the men who practiced day and night to keep their skills sharp.    "What sort of enemy are we facing?" Zinjo managed to ask after a prolonged silence.     The guard captain, Tiberius Steele, turned to Zinjo and pointed to the woods, "Our enemies are creatures of our own making I'm afraid. Once upon a time, Larylia was the pinnacle of magical research. We were prosperous, and had the respect of peers."    "What happened?" Aurelia asked. Her ears detected low hisses and the rustle of leaves amid the snap of twigs. She

     Deep in the rainforest of Larylia, a seaside kingdom a plan is being hatched. Thanks to the order of the Gentle Tower, an organization dedicated to creating animal hybrids to serve the occupants of Larylia. Like all things wrought by human hands, the Order survived long enough to lose control of their creations. Unlike most humans, the Order continued their horrid experiments in a secret location.    All of this went through Auerlia's mind as she watched Zinjo gather up flowers and other items with an unsavory smell. A soldier volunteered a helmet to help brew vile concoction over a flame. Aurelia held her nose, against the paint peeling odor, "I'll assume there is a point to this vile brew your making?"    Zinjo grinned and threw some berries into the helmet, "Back home we use stink beetles to confuse the senses of snakes and lizards, we use a special stone to, extract the poison of such animals, and use them for hunti

The morning proved to be fruitful in the ideas department. Tiberius had taken them to a warehouse where he stood next to a barrel, "I present to you our valiant steed to victory," Zinjo and Aurelia crossed their arms, and the guard captain's face fell.    "How is a barrel going to secure victory?" Zinjo asked in a dubious tone. He sniffed the barrel and balked, "This is worse than my stink bombs." He backed away from the barrel and hid behind Aurelia.   "The stick proved to be an effective weapon, but I felt we could do better." He motioned them to the practice yard; he whistled and the men formed up around him. "Henshaw, a demonstration please."    Henshaw drew back a curious arrow with a round bulbous tip. The sharp twinge of the bowstring drew everyone's attention to the target and the other end of the field. A loud band and the target were blown to the underworld.     "We spent most of the ni

    After the last two adventures in the jungle, Aurelia was quite sick of the thick groups of plants that grew by the minute. Even with the map, it took forever just to make a little progress, or at least that is the way it seemed to Aurelia.      Zinjo studied the paper and twirled it around, “I understand the usefulness of this paper but how does one read it?” He flipped it around a couple more times, and Aurelia giggled and turned it around to the correct position.      “You see the arrows with letters, each one represents a direction. North is the guide,” Aurelia pointed to the map, “We were here next to the swamps yesterday, and it says here the order of the Gentle Tower wasn't too much farther away.”     &nbs