#1 The Road to Hell is paved in good intent they say...

Chuckling to himself at his impromptu performance, Bit turned back to Thorsan and huffed as the threw all of his weight into tightening the last strap on the chest plate.  "Friend, seeing as how difficult this armor is to put onto you, perhaps you should consider sticking to the hardtack rather than camel steak."

Wiping the sweat from his eyes, he turned to the equipment pile, grabbed the scroll case and sauntered over to Taliesin and his trusty, ridiculous and talented mutt.  Bit tucked the case under his arm as he dug in large sack, and produced his waterskin so the dog could have a taste.  After a moment, he did his best to wipe the copious amounts of dog effluvium from his hands and waterskin, and replaced it in the sack.  Opening the case, he examined its contents and spoke with his fellow traveler.  "Taliesin, we have traveled far over the land and through the imagination.  Have you heard of any tale spoken or sung of a pyramid in this foul place?  I am wracking by head for a dance about the same, but nothing comes to mind."  

Zacklun watched the riders start to disappear into the sand.
"Finally!" he thought to himself and stepped into view from behind a camel. He bit down onto a fresh apple he had stowed away and looked at the motley band.
"You know, it looked terribly uncomfortable in there. I have no idea why you wanted to get carted about like that." He wiped a bit of apple juice from his lips and looked up, "Is it always this hot? With you guys napping in the cart it was a very boring ride out here.. just.. sand.. and.. sand. All you had to do was ask to ride one of the horses and they would have let you. They might have been a morose lot, but they were fairly decent. I tried talking to them and getting them to play I-Spy-With-My-Little-Eye, but when all you see is horse ass and sand.." he finished with a shrug.
He fed the rest of the apple to the camel.
"So, what's next?!", he asked with his normal huge grin plastered across his young face.
"Are we going to visit that board-dell-oh that the dwarf was talking about? I'm still willing to 'learn me a thing or two' (he said in a near perfect imitation of Thorsan)" He looked around, "It seems like a most odd place for it to be.."
Zacklun ambled closer and handed the bard a set of strings, he had seen them cut them before they were escorted from town and managed to find a replacement set. Granted, they had been attached to the lute of one of the guards.. but he didn't seem to mind sharing.
"You dropped these."
A very slight frown eased into the corners of his mouth, "But really.. is it always this hot?"

Arristuun was vaguely aware of Zacklun's "arrival", but said nothing of it, as he was busy putting his tent up. In fact, he was now nearly done. He took pride in being somewhat of an expert on tents.

(as stated in the background, his default form when not alone is that of a Human male in his early 20's. Armor and other belongings are still being worked out. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Unless "imp-like" was regarding his demeanor, which is quite accurate)

"Things live out here? Why? I mean, if they really like sand this place is great.. I guess.. So does that mean we are not going to the board-dell-oh? Some guy at the tavern was telling me about hiding weasels and some game where you need three people, a candle, a blindfold, a duck, and some axle grease. He wouldn't really go into the rules or how you play though, which was quite odd." He turned to Bit, "See, that's just it. I did try to thank them. You know.. after the big fire and after they put everyone into that nasty hotel underground. But they were all, 'Why aren't you in prison?' (in the voice of Curtus) and I said, 'Because I didn't want to go and that it looked boring down there.' Then the Queen said, 'Who is this little wretch' (again mocking the voice of the Queen). So I tried to introduce myself and said, 'Hi, I'm Zacklun.. how are you doin?'. But then they both got really angry, so I played hide-and-seek with the guards for a while." He shook his head. "They weren't very good at it."
He let out a deep sigh and dropped down next to Arristuun. "Nice tent, won't it be awful hard to see? What if we have to go to the bathroom and can't find it again? I heard from some guy that the people way off in the frozen lands that they string up ropes to help people find buildings."

He looked around at the whole group, "Even though it was kind of fun, can I suggest not burning down the tower next time? After they took you to your private rooms they were really angry."

The map quickly grabbed his interest. "This big empty splot is where we are? They need to rename it 'giant-blotch-of-boring-sand'." Zacklun tried to spot any points of interest on the map to try and remember where they were, just in case the map was destroyed. "Treasure is good.. I guess.." He did not sound entirely convinced of that statement.

"This might be hard for you, Zack, but you might want to go easy on the chatter," Arristuun said. "You're liable to get yourself thirsty talking like that, and we've got to conserve our water."

Am the Goat sat in the shade of the tent. He watched his friend, Bailey, following Taliesin around. Am loved to romp and play with Bailey, but did not feel like it in this heat.

"Aristuun-Boatman. When dusk comes we should scout around," Alfbern said. He located ordinary arrows in the supplies and carefully used his small knife to put a tiny mark on each so he could distinguish them from his magical arrows. Those were too precious for regular use.

((Unless I say otherwise, Bob, can we assume Alfbern is firing regular arrows?))

"Not talk? Would you ask our bard friend not to sing and delight us, would you ask the dwarf not to chop the big, yelling things into small squishy bits, would you ask Saskia not to.. umm.. do.. druid-y stuff?" He pats the half-elf ranger very lightly on the back, "I understand why you are cranky, it's like we are on the biggest beach ever and there isn't any water. But, I make you this promise.. we will find you that water and you will be able to play about in it before Thorsan kills something in it."
With his ranger friend now cheered up, Zacklun stood and brushed off the sand with a grimace. "Does this stuff get everywhere?" He cocked his head and squirmed a bit, "Yes, yes it does." He was still attempting to extricate some sand when Taliesin came over and asked after libations, Zacklun truly did look crestfallen.
"I do have one skin of wine, there were others but the trip was very boring and you all decided to ride in the carriage which left me with horse ass, sand, Curtus, and his band of horrible players of hide-and-seek. It's some good stuff, straight from the Queens own selection. I think she is enamored of me." He said with a quick nod.

This desert was a far cry from the forest and wooded glens where he grew up, when he returned he would have a great many stories to tell and some of them might even be truthful.