With her manners as far away from her mind as the Earth was from the sun, Cerys looked over the sword and its scabbard. If she knew hew blade classification rightly, it was a short-sword. It made sense, since James did not have particularly muscular arms; he did look strong, but also very lean. The handle had been wrapped in supple leather, as blue as cobalt, and the hilt was carved with the image of a pegasus. The scabbard looked like it was coated with high-quality lacquer.

“Cerys, where did you go?” she heard a voice call just as the was moving to draw the sword.

She stood up and went to the doorway. “I’m in your room!” she called back.

A couple moments later, James appeared in the doorway of the study. “It’s your turn. Why are you wandering o–” His eyes went wide when he realized that she was holding the sword. “What are you doing with that?”

“Oh, this,” she said, looking down at the sword. She walked through the hall as she explained, “I found this under your bed. Do you know how to use this sword?”

“I do,” her told her, not seeming too thrilled that she was holding it, but also not wanting to sound angry about it. “Do I want to know what you were doing under my bed?”

“Looking for goblins,” she said matter-of-factly.

James took the sword gently from her hands. “I’d better hold onto this for you. Come back in, it’s your turn,” he reminded her, and stepped back to his seat. He leaned the sword against the shelf behind himself.

“So what is going on?” Cerys asked as she sat down.

“Your character is sitting in her home, organizing spell materials and checking over her spell-book, when the sounds outside become too great to ignore. You go to the window and see that a goblin is running towards your house, chased by two elves and a dwarf.”

“What is this, the festival of fools?” Cerys asked, jumping straight into character. “I will deal with this.”

She grabbed her dice and told James, “I’m going outside to cast a lightning bolt on th goblin.”

When James old her to roll the dice, however, it turned out the the goblin was running around to erratically to actually aim at.

“Can’t catch me,” it started saying over and over again. Can’t catch me, can’t catch me, can’t catch me!”

Cerys grumbled and glared at James. “Hold creature,” she told him, but before she could throw the dice, there was a noise in the hallway.

“Can’t catch me, hahaha! Can’t catch me, hahaha!”

It wasn’t James. It was someone natural at trouble-making, and Cerys thought that she know what it was. She what about to get up to investigate when the giant crystal at the center of th table began to glow and sparkle.