He calmed himself down enough to tell Neven, "Well go and talk to Calish. I believe you're still on the clock on this one."

"Yeah, right," Neven walked back over to Calish, "Hello, again! How do you feel? Are you ready to talk?"

The Fox Man eyed the thief suspiciously, "I'm fine. Well, spit it out kiddo. Did you or did you not acquire some item worth fifty gold?"

"I have," Neven admitted as he looked around, "Can we go somewhere private so I can show you?"

Calish held up a hand as he reached into one of his small pouches on his belt. It was a platinum ring with a sapphire gem inlaid in it. He tapped the ring once, twice, thrice and suddenly he and Neven popped into a pocket dimension. "Well, lets see what you brought for the entrance fee."

"Nice, very nice," Neven looked around to examine the pocket dimension before he revealed the ring to Calish holding it out for the Fox Man to see, "How about this for an entrance fee?"

The fox man took the ring to inspect it further. "Not bad, kiddo. Not bad at all. You took one item worth fifty gold pieces exactly. Well done indeed. Here's a key to a well that leads to the guild. There are four wells in each district to pick from. I would not recommend using the one here until after sun set. As Gabe mentioned before, you and ONE other may go along. Not the whole bunch. So, which one will you take with you, the drow or the ranger? Sorry, the guild doesn't like loud mouth children causing scenes in public. That's where you'll find Gabe and his crew and you will get to meet the rest as well."

"The drow," Neven replied without hesitation as he accepted the key from Calish, "He is used to watching my back in tight situations. Thank you, sir."

***********

Above the city of Asylum everyone in the merchant district for a moment looked up to see the guardian flying over head. Even the party saw the gargantuan bronze dragon gliding over them towards the ocean beyond the sea port.

"Impressive," Willow remarked.

"WOW!" Serna gasped, "Not as big as that ancient Black Dragon we encountered when we had the Eleventh Talisman but still big nonetheless."

Irzen nodded in agreement.

Talos corrected the group, "Actually a bronze dragon is slightly bigger than those vile black dragons."

"I'll have to take your word for it," Irzen added, "The one we encountered was massive beyond imagining."

The bronze dragon glided ever lower to just above the surface of the water before disappearing beneath it. Its motion mimicked that of a submarine diving into deep water and was gone from everyone's sight.

"That was impressive," The Swordsman quipped, "I didn't know Bronze Dragons could swim."

"Aye. Bronze dragons are semi aquatic for their species. Being able to breathe underwater helps them hunt for sharks and other aquatic creatures for food. I would not want to be on the receiving end of lightning breath under water. I've seen what it does to marauding ships. It's both awesome and terrible to witness when you see a ship get blown to bits from lightning."

"I'll see you and raise you an entire village being reduced to a pool of liquid acid by a Black Dragon," Irzen replied as he sadly shook his head, "Not a pretty picture!"

"Has anyone seen Neven?" Serna asked no one in particular.