This takes place towards the end of our stay in Jurgenville, actually on Nightal 20th, (December 20th) two days before the Winter Solstice.

The day had seen Jurgenville and the TSR compound buried beneath the first snowstorm of the  season.  Well over a foot of snow had fallen over the course of the day and the winds have picked up as they whistle down through the mountains making being outside down right miserable.  Whatever drills that had been scheduled for the day had been of course cancelled, as well as one's scheduled for tomorrow.  Night has seen the wind pick up and the snow, which had fallen all day had not let up as of yet.

Although the weather outside is horrendous, it is quite cozy inside, the fire in the hearth crackles, providing plenty of comfort.  The evening meal has been served, the staff has provided well for your comfort.  Most everyone this evening has retired to their quarters, choosing to bury themselves in either their research or several thick wool blankets whatever the preference may be.

Just before turning in for the evening, you peer out your frosted window just to check on the winter storms progress.  Although dark, the clouds have cleared somewhat. the nearly full moon bathes the wintry blanket in a silvery glow.

You catch a glimmer of movement out of the corner of your eye, your vision obscured slightly by the frost on the window pane, you rub bare a spot to see through.

Your eyes widen in astonishment at the sight.  Xaveus, naked as the day he was born, streaks past your window, causing wisps of snow to whip up around him as he sprints through the knee deep snow.  In a flash he is gone, and you begin to wonder if you indeed just imagined the sight.

Rubbing her eyes, shaking her head she looks out again and sees the disturbed snow.

<<Nope, I did see...>> her thoughts trail off...

In the time it would take to circle the compound, Xaveus streaks by again, the moonbeam glistens as it shines on his wobbling butt-cheeks as he passes.

The third time around his pace as slowed and he stops a distance away from your window, clearly not knowing that his nocturnal activities are being watched.  Xaveus holds his arms outstretched wide, tilts his head to the moon, then falls backward into foot deep snow.  Once there he flaps his arms and legs back and forth, clearly enjoying the new fallen snow.  After a moment or two, he gets up and starts off, the only remnants of his being there, a snow dwarf.  The impression quickly begins to fill in with the still blowing snow.

"What fun!  Don't know why everyone wants to stay inside and grumble about that beautiful stuff." Amber mutters to herself.  She's never seen snow before and thinks it quite beautiful.  "Though I don't think I will go out undressed, wouldn't be seemly.  Now where's my cloak?..."  She hurriedly puts on her cloak forgetting to put on her boots and trots hairy barefooted out of her room and outside.  The wind whips her cloak open and she grabs it.  She moves around to where her window was the snow going up to her waist.  All of a sudden it dawns on her that the hairs on her feet are standing straight up each one a tiny icicle.  This white stuff is cold!  The white sand on the beach in Suzail certainly isn't like this.

"Humm...I bet Xaveus did this.." she mutters and taking her holy symbol out of her tunic she murmurs a short prayer 'Aura of Comfort'.  As the spell takes effect she smiles.  She takes her cloak off, tossing it to one side.  Taking a great leap she jumps to a clear unbroken spot, rocks back and forth and then falls back like her birthday suitclad friend did.  Waves her arms and then carefully gets up and turns around to survey her' snow hafling angel'.   "Oh!  That's what I look like!" is a cryptic response.  She smiles and walks over to get her cloak.  A clump of snow catches her eye and she picks it up.  Spotting a branch of a tree she throws the snowball at it and laughs with glee as it splatters all over.   She picks up more snow and compacts it into a better ball and looks around for something to throw it at...

Sounds of running footsteps and around the corner comes guess who? :)

*SPLAT!*  a hit!

The snowball hits Xaveus squarely in the rump, he turns around looks up then around clearly trying to identify its source.

"Hey! Three balls your out!" she calls out grabbing more snow and grinning from ear to ear.

OCC:   [so sue me, Amber didn't have time to play baseball as a kid. :)]

Xaveus looks down, making sure that Amber is not talking about him <<Nope, only two!>> then subconsciously he realizes that he is standing there buck-naked.   Xaveus makes a Herculean dive to a short, stubby, pine tree to his left, crawling on all fours in two foot deep snow until safely behind it.

The bush shouts out "Amber is that YOU!  What in the heck are you doing out here?"  You see a bit of commotion going on from behind the tree. 

"Caught a glance of you from my window." she replies.   "You were having so much fun I thought I'd join you.  I've never seen snow before.  Neat  stuff!"

Then a second later, Xaveus comes out from behind his screen carrying a very large snowball with both hand.  Clearly the snowball is not meant to be thrown, it's purpose to screen Amber's spying eyes from Xaveus's private parts.  Xaveus stands there with all the dignity the little dwarf can muster, which at this time is very little.

"This ain't fair, Amber!  I got no clothes on."  Xaveus sees that Amber has readied another deadly cold missile. 

"So?  I've seen everything you've got before.  With three brothers and all the healing I do." She shrugs.

"Well you've never seen mine before!"  Then thinking a bit at the statement he just made.  "Well, maybe you have!"

"Okay, okay, you got the drop on me!"  Xaveus starts to slowly side-step away from the bush, his eyes darting to the corner of the building, he looks back and forth between Amber and the building, clearly his mind calculating if he can make to safety before she can get her throw off.

"Now you wouldn't throw a snow-ball at a naked, defenseless dwarf would you."  With that he heaves the huge snowball underhanded in Amber's general direction, without looking to see if it hits, he pivots and heads for the corner of the building.  Xaveus cackles with glee, almost as if a child, as he plows through the snow, his little legs pumping as fast as they can.  For all the commotion, he really doesn't seem to go anywhere, an easy target for a second snowball.

"Where ya going?" she ducks some of the bits of snow.   "Take my cloak over there if you need something to cover your dignity with."  She turns her back so he doesn't get anymore embarrassed than he already is.

As she hears the crunching of snow headed towards her cloak she asks.  "I didn't interrupt some clerical meditation rite did I?  I apologize if I did.  Kind of strange and different I'd say." she pauses for a moment.

"Nah!  Just getting used to the cold, have a Holy Day coming up on the Solstice, and since it requires just the bare minimum of clothing, thought it might not hurt to prepare.  Thanks for the cloak, though."

"Say!  How about you get dressed and we can find some hot nog to drink and talk about stuff.  I'm not sleepy at all."  she tosses the ball of snow off to one side to show she is over 'fighting', though she does keep an ear out just in case he tries to put snow down her back like her brothers used
to do with sand at the beach.

"Sounds good to me," Xaveus tosses the cloak back to Amber, at the same time he backs away from Amber cupping his dwarf-hood in his hands in a show of modesty.

"I'll make one more lap a round the complex then head in!  Then I'll meet you make in your room in say 20 minutes?"

___________

A loud thud on the door sounds Xaveus's arrival, as you open the door you see that Xaveus is carrying a huge rock, large enough that he needs to carry it with both hands.  You wonder for a moment how he ever managed to knock on your door.  The mystery reveals itself to you shortly as you see a red welt forming on Xaveus's forehead.

With a strained voice through clenched teeth, veins popping out on the sides of his neck, "You going to invite me in?"

"Oh! Yes, do come in!" after a seconds astonishment.   Careful where you walk." she replies and shoves a pile of small wooden toys out of his way.  A top rolls under the bed and a wooden chain encircles a wooden dolphins neck.

Xaveus meanders through through the wooden trinkets to a fairly empty spot in the center of the room. With a loud "kathunk"  the rock manages to avoid all of the obstacles, Xaveus stands up, then arches his back backwards while placing his hands at the base of his spine.

"Ah, another training device?" she asks as Xaveus grunts a little carrying the huge rock inside. "Or did you bring me a nightstand?" and she grins.

"Actually I figured I would do a carving of you while we talked.  If that is okay?  I will attempt to do all of the Seekers eventually, I figured I'd start with current henchmen then work my way around through the others.  I figured we could talk while I carve."

"Well, if your going to carve let me put down this piece of old tarp so the stone dust and chips make more work for the servants.  I use it when I'm carving wood."

She reaches under the bed and pulls out an old tarp and starts unfolding it.   She looks up expectantly when she reaches the rock for Xaveus to lift it up while she rolls the tarp under it. Nods her thanks.

Xaveus looks a bit bewildered at Amber but says nothing, cradling the rock, then rolling from one side, then to the other as Amber puts down the tarp.

She is dressed in a lovely blue silk dress and the silver chain with her holy symbol peeks out through the opening around her neck, symbol itself under the dress.  She has on boots and her cloak is on the bed.

"Any ideas where we can go to get something stronger than this hot cider?"

"No, can't say that I do.  I don't generally drink.  Clouds my mind!"

"Have a mug if you wish."

"Thank ye kindly, I will ."

On a chest at the foot of her bed is a pitcher of hot cider and two mugs.  Along side are three wooden panels with scenes from her religious history and one of Tymora.   One is completely finished the other two are work in progress.  Wood carving tools are there too.  Apparently it will be a triptych for a shrine or something.

Xaveus sits down in the middle of the floor with a leg on each side of the rock, he then proceeds to unroll a little satchel out, which contains all sizes of assorted chisels and mallets.  Then takes a drink of his cider.  He reaches over and picks up one of your wooden tops, studies it a bit, then places it on the floor.  Flicking it with his wrist at the very last second the top goes careening through the room and disappears under your bed.  Xaveus smiles in amazement then returns to his stone.

Amber looks his tools over, some of them are the same that she uses.

Some are however quite different as they have no obvious purpose or use to someone who chisels stone.

She opens a chest and takes out her tool bag and shows him her chisels.

Xaveus meticulously examines Amber's tools, examining each curved utensils, deciding what it's purpose is then places it back gently into their place in the chest as if they were gold.

"You must have a harder time keeping them sharp than I do.  Unless I'm working with ironwood.  That stuff is aptly named!  I only got to try it once when my dad had a small piece left over from a special order he had from a local mage."  she rubs a tiny scar on her left hand the other memory she has of that time when the chisel slipped.

"Ouch!"  Xaveus harps in as he is shown the scar.  "A lesson hard learned it would seem."

Amber just shrugs. "Not any harder than the scrapes a child gets when its learning to walk.  All part of the process."

Xaveus nods in agreement, then motions Amber to sit where she wishes to sit.

"Find yourself a comfortable position and strike a pose that you wish.  I work pretty fast so you can move and talk a bit and if you get tired of sitting or standing just say so and we'll call it a night.  Is that okay with you?"

"I'll put my cloak on this chest and sit on it.  Mind if I carve too?  I hate doing nothing for long stretches of time.  I'd like to finish off this wooden jumping jack then I will be all done with my project.  I'll stop when you get to my hands."

"What project is that?" Xaveus asks.

"The Winterfest celebrations are in two days and I thought I'd make some toys for all the kids here at the compound and for those whose folks work her but live else where." she grins, "And it will keep them busy while their folks make merry."  she settles into a comfortable position and starts carefully carving a head with a hat on it, the body and appendages already made and waiting.

"I've been working with stone since I was ten years old, maybe before I can't really remember, so that would be nearly 90 years, as I turned a hundred a few months back."

"Whoa! That's a lot longer than I've been doing woodwork.   I started helping in the shop when I was 4 and I'm only 31.  I'll be 32 in the month of Kythorn." Amber sits up a bit straighter feeling younger.

Xaveus rolls the rock a round making sure that he has it at just the position, sometimes turning his head nearly upside down in order to envision the rock in its proper place.   Then he begins tapping on the rock, once, twice, then a third time.   Coinciding with the third tap he brings his hand up flatly against the rock and begins using his hand as a saw and starts sawing through the solid rock.

The rock yields to his touch as his hand slides through the granite as if it were clay, once his hand cuts through the rock he lifts the top part off and sits it on the tarp, as soon as the rock leaves his hand, the granite loses its malleability and becomes firm again.   He then turns the rock back over
and sits it on the now flat surface, it sits perfectly as Xaveus's hand cut was as clear and as smooth as a piece of glass.  He then begins to pull molten, yet cool chunks of rock away from the boulder, sitting them with the rest of the rock to his side.

Amber's eyebrows almost meet her hairline, the stoneworkers in Suzail certainly work that way.  She feels just a tad foolish for insisting on the tarp.  His way certainly isn't messy!

Seeing Amber's expression as he works he begins talking as he constantly looks between the rock and Amber sitting regally on her chest.

"Ever since I can remember me and stone, excuse me, stone and I have had a special relationship.  We have nurseries at the clan, didn't you have nurseries when you were growing up?  Most of the early times we spend in the hearth, I'm not sure if you understand "hearth"? But dwarven hearth, is father, mother, sister, brother, grandfather, grandmother. Course, ours was without grandfather and mother, and sisters as I didn't have any."

"No, no nurseries.  Just the family.  Gran and Gran Da died when I was real little, don't remember them much.  Our family was just my dad, mom, aunt and uncle" a pause "..and my brothers.  I do have a niece now to join in the family business someday." her expression lightens.  "To me a hearth is just the brick area in front of the fireplace." she grins.

"Anyway, until we're about 10 years old we spent most of our time in hearth and in these clan nurseries where we'd play with toys and stuff. Since our clan pretty much specialized in coppersmithing and stuff, they'd give us these little mallets and little pieces of copper and most of the kids would beat them into something like a ashtray or something. My sheet of copper always ended up looking like a rock. No matter what. Finally, they gave me a rock, and a chisel, and told me to go over and play by myself."

"So I looked at the rock, and the rock looked at me, then I asked the rock what it wanted to be, and it said I want to be a bird. So I chipped and chiseled at it, and sure enough, there was a bird inside that rock."

"I still remember the way they looked at me when the bird came out, it wasn't a real bird, it was a carving of a bird. Whole bunch of the elders came to look at the bird, and they didn't know what to think, they said it was so lifelike, they couldn't believe it.

"From then on they stopped giving me pieces of copper to bang on. And started bringing me rocks, sometimes they brought me clay as I could shape the clay to just about anything too."

"You know what the funniest part was back then?" he asked.

"I'd never seen a bird before, I'm a 10 year  old dwarf, who lived underground. How would I know what a bird looked like?"

Amber shakes her head in amazement.  Her artistic talents don't go that far.  She has to have seen something or have a very good description to visualize what it would look like in a piece of wood.

Xaveus sitting on the floor has managed to rock sculpt a basic form , using just his hands, as he begins to work on the finer detail he begins to use some of the different tools that are in his satchel.  After watching you begin to realize that they work just a bit differently than you might have thought.  Xaveus seems to be able to impart just a bit of his rock skill to the tip of the tool as it momentarily slips through the rock as if it were butter.  Each chisels point becomes finer and finer and you wonder sometimes if he is carving every individual fiber of  your fine cloak.

A bit astonished at his speed, a stone mason wood have chipped and chipped for hours and still not have been as far as Xaveus's unique technique allows him to carve.

"How long you been with the Seekers actually?"

"Well, not very long.  I came to Jurgenville a few weeks after the Red Vale war and had to wait around till the Truth Seekers came back up to the surface." she shudders and gives a deep seated growl.  "Not a pleasant time for me." she proceeds to tell him about her leaving the Temple Tower
in Suzail with a gift for the Tymora. temple here.  Her being changed into a golden retriever type dog, her loosing her hold on who she was and finding Diana.  "It was thanks to Diana's discovery, Tymora bless her!,  that I wasn't a dog but a halfling in distress and her getting me changed back that I was able to finish my task and look around for employment.  At that time the Truth Seekers were starting to look for recruits and since Diana and I had made friends and she persuaded them to accept me for a trial period.  She's been so nice to me."

[for full story see the WebPages under Amber's 'history/story' areas.]

After a little bit while the only sound is 'clink, chip, scrape, chip, clink' of wood and stone tools being worked Amber talks a bit more,   "You know, after that experience I have a lot more empathy and appreciation for animals and those who are helpless to save themselves."

Her pensive face changes to a smile, "I wonder if dogs will be able to sense I was once one of them? Ha! and if someone calls me a bitch I will feel complimented not insulted." and she giggles.

Xaveus stops carving a bit as he thinks about Amber being a dog, his eyes lighting in wonderment at the predicament.

"Do you ever have the urge to chase after wagons when they go by?"  Xaveus asks  as he starts carving again, Xaveus doesn't appear to be putting you on with the question, it was simply the first thing that popped into his head to ask.

Amber starts laughing and shakes her head no.

"How do you get along with cats now?"  He asks absent-mindedly as he carves.

"Not as well as I used to." she thinks back to the many temple cats she made friends with.  "But, then I haven't had much time lately to make their acquaintances.  Maybe mountain bred cats are more aloof.   I'd like to have a cat here but being gone so much..." her words drift off.

"How about you?  You've just joined up recently.  How'd you come to be here?"

"Now that's a strange story."

Xaveus paraphrases the following.

Xaveus makes his way through the forest leading up into the Greypeak Mountains back to his home, the Dwarven Stronghold, Delanetek. Leading his pack mule named "Honker" through the dense woods he occasionally whistles but today he mostly hums a dwarven tune to himself. The trip up from the small hamlet of Orlbar has been uneventful and although he enjoyed his excursion he looks forward to returning home to get back to his stone carvings. Even the recent friction between his father, Aegi, the clan leader, and some of the others didn't sour his mood. Although he knew deep down inside that soon he would have to leave Delanetek for good.

He has made this trip several times before with other dwarves from his stronghold, but this is only the second time he has made the journey by himself. The relationship is good between the dwarven stronghold and the humans in the small hamlet, with the dwarves trading their copperwares for
sheepskins and other bobbles that the dwarves find useful. Xaveus does not do the bartering himself he merely transports the goods up and down the mountain, with the help of Honker of course.

If dwarves are considered the surliest, orneriest, most stubborn two legged creatures that ever walked the earth then mules have to be considered the surliest, orneriest, most stubborn four legged creatures that ever walked the earth. Now, Xaveus is not the typical mountain dwarf but Honker is the typical mule in fact if he had only two legs and grew a beard he might pass as a dwarf!

The woods leading into the mountains has been fairly safe for years, a few marauding bands of orcs, mountain lions, grizzly bears and the like but nothing that Xaveus and LuLu, his hammer can't handle. The air today is crisp and cool as is normal this time of year, the sun streaks through the branches of the huge conifer trees highlighting nature's work where it shines.

As Xaveus trudges his way through the timber almost pulling the heavily loaded pack animal along the way, he casts his eyes downward at the rocks which are intermittently scattered across the forest floor.

"Duck, cat, deer, bear," Xaveus says he looks "into" the rocks, to most, heck to all, they see only the surface of the rock but to Xaveus he sees creatures familiar and strange inside the rocks, some he doesn't even know the name of but he "sees" them nonetheless.

At midday the path that he and Honker had been following crawls its way out above the tree line and the majestic mountains reveal themselves, twin snow-capped peaks shrouded in clouds, the path forking less than fifty paces past the tree line, the immediate area is a boulder field strewn with rocks and sagebrush.

Xaveus looks up at the identical peaks, looking first at the peak to the east, then to the west, then east again his brow furled he then hangs his head dejectedly. Honker neighs loudly and shakes his head back and forth violently and if anyone could understand the mule they could clearly hear.

"Not again!"

The last time back Xaveus came face to face with this same dilemma. Was home on the eastern peak or the western peak? Last time he chose the eastern peak, or was it the western, anyway he couldn't understand how his father could move the entire stronghold from one peak to the other in the time he
had been gone!

"Don't worry Honker I'll figure out where home is?"

Of course, this did nothing to reassure Honker as he continued to neigh and whine.

"Perhaps if I eat on it the answer will come to me?"

Honker stopped neighing, not because of Xaveus's reassurances but because of the one word that Honker understood. Eat! Xaveus undoes the straps to his saddlebag, and throws it over his shoulder, he then straps Honker's feedbag filled with honeyed-oats over the mule's mouth, much to Honker's delight.
Xaveus moves over to a huge slab of granite, props his back up against it and eats his lunch in silence, still glancing from one peak to the other.

After a half an hour of contemplating and eating Xaveus comes to the conclusion that the eastern peak is where Delanetek is located and he prepares to continue his trek onwards, he removes the feedbag and ties his saddlebag back onto the back of Honker, they start off towards the eastern peak.

After three steps he looks back at the slab of granite, something catches his eye as he looks at the huge granite slab for a second time. He leaves Honker, knowing that the mule is too stubborn to go anywhere on it's own and walks towards the massive stone.

As he reaches the stone the sun breaks through the scattered clouds and shines brightly onto the upright granite slab highlighting it's surface.  Xaveus stands erect and stares deeply into the stone for the first time. He let's out a moan, not out of pain but of pleasure.

Ohhhh! Is all he can utter. Xaveus gazes deeply into the stone, tears stream down his face, he "sees," not a creature or an item inside the stone but a village nestled in a heavy wooded countryside, a beautiful sight. A whisper called his name. And without a thought he stepped into the stone . . .

Seeing Xaveus disappear into the stone Honker looks up at the eastern peak, shakes his head and neighs loudly, tosses his scraggly mane back and starts out towards the western peak . . .

. . . and back home to Delanetek!

The village turned out to be Jurgenville, there at one of the Inn's a traveling bard, had sung songs of the Truth Seeker's accomplishments. The next morning found Xaveus at the compound door. And a short time later he was headed "home" to the Underdark.

"Oh dear!  Have you been able to get word to your family of where you are?   I would think Honker coming home without you would set up the alarms.  It would in my family, unless they knew you had the wanderlust already.  Mom and dad knew long ago I wasn't the homebody type." she gives a big yawn.  "You almost through for tonight?  I'm getting sleepy." she stretches and goes back to the position Xaveus was carving.


"Oh, by all means get up, stretch, walk around, I'm working on the cloak part, then I'd like you to stand up on the top of the chest for about five more minutes, then I'll leave you me."

"My father and I haven't gotten along well since I came back from the Underdark, so I imagine he will not miss me, me grandmother knows that I needed to get away and she will be happy for me!  I won't be missed!"  Xaveus adds with just a touch of remorse in his voice.

Xaveus is true to his word as he finishes up the rock sculpture, it is quite good you see, as you wonder how your carving skills might be with 90 or so years of practice.

When ready, Xaveus motions you to the top of the chest, he takes a piece of the rock that was discarded earlier and begins working at it feverishly. 
"I'm making this one for you, something to sit on your nightstand, now turn please, so I can get the back side of your flowing cloak, there, that's it.  Thank You!"

Moments later Xaveus beckons you down from the chest, offering his hand so that you do not fall as you step down.  Xaveus is very well-mannered you note, not near as gruff as most dwarves that you may have come across.  There is a bit of gentleness that lies closer to the surface that Xaveus exhibits that is rarely displayed by dwarves in general.

Xaveus sits the larger statue of you on a table while he meticulously cleans up your apartment.  He then sits the little miniature of you standing regally in your cloak next to the lamp, it's somewhat less detail than the bigger one, yet given the time that he worked on it, still a beautiful work of art.

"Thank you very much for allowing me to carve you, should you ever wish, I will gladly sit and return the favor.  Thank you also for the conversation, it is nice to get to know someone in other that a combat situation, don't you agree?

Xaveus bows at the waist, picks up the statue and the rest of the rock fragments and heads for the door.

"Goodnight, Amber Rose, may you sleep well!"  With that the flame-haired dwarf departs down the hallway whistling an unknown tune.

Epilogue

Amber Rose crawls into bed, wrapping the blankets comfortably around her, as she reaches to turn down the lamp she looks at the little statue that Xaveus had carved for her.   She reaches for it, then turns it around to look at Xaveus's workmanship.   Xaveus's workmanship on the cloak is flawless, even where the fold of the cloak is lifted, revealing a rather furry dog tail!



OOC:
It takes a great deal of willpower not to roll over in bed to check!  VBG