Kilanashradora watched the group as they headed back to Sailune. "How could my zombie dragon fail?! Oh no what am I going to do now? Well I can't report back till I have some better news. I guess I'll just have to go with my next plan. Hopefully this one will do better." She smiled and laughed out loud like a mad women and she phased out not even realizing that she had been watched by one of the amber-eyed shadow creatures. That same creature got out of her hiding spot after Kilanashradora left. She went over to a hidden section covered by trees. She changed from being a shadow creature into a human looking person and with a wave of her hand a portal appeared. The woman stepped into the portal and she appeared in the dark dwelling of the amber-eyed creatures.
"I am here to report back to the high elder." The woman said to the guard near the entrance to the elder's great hall.
"Name?"
"Felfy."
"The high elder has been expecting you. Proceed." Guard motioned for her to go in. Once inside the great hall Felfy bowed down before the high elder.
"What do you have to report minion?" The high elder spoke in a cold tone. He couldn't remember the name of the person he had sent to spy on them and on their newest allies' underling. But then he really didn't care either.
"From what I can see Kilanashradora failed in her first attempt. But then she also had to change her plans anyway due to a certain Beastmaster's General."
"You mean to say that cumbersome Trickster Priest Xellos was among the group?" The high elder said in a tired voice. Having him in the group might make things a bit more difficult.
"It would assume so high elder."
"Well then, let's not tell our new ally that I had you assigned to spy on one of his minions now shall we?" The high elder said with a smile.
"No High Elder I will not say a thing." She turned around to leave.
"Oh no I know that you will definitely not say anything." He cackled as he charge up a large dark flare and shot it at Felfy before she knew what was coming. Many others saw this act of carnage, but fearing their own lives, none of the others chose to comment on the situation. They merely kept their mouths shut and pretended that the event hadn't happened.
Back in Sailune Lina and company were trying to figure out on what to do. Because you see they had a little problem. When they had been sent out on this little search for a dragon's tear crystal they really didn't set out a time and place for them to meet Kilana to get the information in exchange for the crystal. And what made matters worse was that when they went asking around for her no one had even heard of her. Which wasn't too surprising due the fact on how large Sailune was. Of course Xellos probably wouldn't have had any trouble finding Kilana only he decided at this time that he wanted to go see a show and basically abandoned them.
"And just what the hell are we going to do now?! We don't have a clue where Kilana could be nor can we give a go description to people because she we didn't see her face because of what she was wearing. And if we don't find her in two days then she could just say that we didn't find the crystal in time and not give us the information!!!!" Lina fumed out pacing around in a circle.
"Please Miss Lina, this isn't that bad. All we need to do is find her. It could be worse." Amelia tried to calm Lina down but instead received an evil glare for her trouble.
"I fail to see how this could be worse."
"Well it could be raining right now." Amelia said in a small voice. Well knock on wood, guess what happened?
Minutes later they were inside Sailune castle dripping wet and soaked to the bone.
"Had to say it didn't you Amelia?" Lina grumbled and hit her over the head.
"I'm really sorry Miss Lina but you didn't have to hit me!" Amelia cried out rubbing her head.
"Well there isn't much else we can do except wait a little while and hope that maybe Kilana finds us. But what we shouldn't do is whine and complain about it." Zelgadis said in a very serious tone, but it's kinda had for people to take you serious when you looked like you were drown in a river. But before anyone could make a comment Prince Phil came rushing towards them.
"Oh my you are all soaking wet! You got caught in the storm, how terrible! I shall see to it that the royal baths are prepared and your clothes taken to at once." Phil said with a grin on his face and determination in his eyes. No one was going to argue with him on this one. And it's not everyday that someone gets invited to take a bath in the Sailune Royal baths.
Moments later Amelia, Lina and Sylphiel were heading towards the women's section of the royal baths, while Zelgadis and Gourry headed towards the men's.
Of course Amelia and Sylphiel were glad to take a nice long bath but Lina was a bit weary. She couldn't help but think about the story Zelgadis had told her about his bathing experience earlier on. Well if some perverted shadow creatures desides to rear it's ugly head and take a peek on me then I'll just blast it to kingdom come. Lina thought with a rather evil smile.
"Miss Lina what are you smiling about?" Of course Sylphiel and Amelia had no idea what had happened to Zel, because Lina was the only person he had told. And naturally Lina was going to keep it that way.
"Oh nothing, just thinking about something that someone told me." Lina smiled while getting ready.
Though Lina seemed to be perfectly fine with taking her bath, Zelgadis wasn't so keen on his. The big difference between Lina and Zelgadis in this situation was that Zel was the one who had been attacked in the bath when it should have been impossible, not Lina. So that's why when he went into the bath Gourry was curious on why Zelgadis was acting all paranoid.
"What's wrong Zel? Think something is going to come out and get ya?" Gourry in his blissful ignorance smiled at his stony companion.
"Um no. Everything's fine." Considering on the pointlessness of Gourry due his poor memory Zelgadis decided it would be best not to say anything. But then it might be fun to feed Gourry some lies and make him ridiculously paranoid. Zelgadis mentally chuckled and then he made a sour face. What the hell am I thinking? That's something that that fruitcake Xellos would do. Zelgadis sighed and got into the water. No sense worrying about something that might not even happen.
Xellos, whom the group thought was out watching a play was in fact searching through the streets of Sailune trying to find information about this Kilana person that they were doing business with. This wasn't to help Lina or to the others, this was merely to satisfy his own curiosity. The problem was though normally he could find people quite easily over the astral plane, he couldn't locate Kilana. That was what started him on this little search. He was going to all the libraries that Lina, Zelgadis, Sylphiel, Gourry, Amelia and himself had visited before when Kilana supposedly heard about Lina's search for the keys of Elendar. And like he figured no person matching Kilana's description had visited any of the libraries that they had been to. Oh course he also went with the angle that maybe Kilana had visited some of the libraries not wearing clothing to disguise her appearance. But Kilana had also said that she had been visiting libraries in search of a vanishing spell. So Xellos also asked if there had been anyone looking for such a spell. Besides a large and rich old man no one had been looking for a vanishing spell at all. Which brought Xellos to the conclusion that Kilana wasn't who she claimed to be and was probably going to lead Lina and the others into a trap and that that zombie dragon was probably also part of one of Kilana's ploys. With this confirmed Xellos was going to back to Sailune castle to meet up with the others. Though naturally Xellos wasn't going to tell them a word on what he had discovered. In the past he found it more amusing to let them figure things out on their own. Especially when he baited them with only a small fraction of the information that they needed to know.
"I absolutely refuse to wear that!" Lina yelled throwing the garment at one of the servant girls who had brought Lina, Sylphiel and Amelia clean clothes to wear. When they had arrived at Sailune originally all of their spare clothing had been taken to be washed. What was left was what they had been wearing before they got caught up in the storm. And those clothes were also being washed at this moment. Meaning that they were going to have to wear clothes that were being provided to them. Due to Lina's special body type, there weren't that many things around Sailune castle that would fit her. But they found something; only it wasn't exactly the type of clothes that Lina would wear. "Are you trying to make me look like a pink powder puff?!?!" Lina yelled at the servants despite Sylphiel and Amelia's requests. Alright the dress was pink and it was a little bit frilly, but they didn't have much of a choice. Of course Sylphiel and Amelia didn't have much trouble getting clothes that they liked. And that's one of the reason's why Lina was pretty annoyed. The fact that they got clothes they liked and she was stuck wearing the pink thing. Another reason why she was so annoyed is because she didn't want to wear a dress.
Lina wasn't the only person having troubles with the clothes that had been provided to them. Zelgadis whom is normally accustomed to wearing his gray outfit that concealed most of his body. What he had been provided with was dark blue pants and a no sleeved black shirt that had a high neckline. Zelgadis did not like the clothes given to him only unlike Lina; Zelgadis had a harder time refusing to wear it. Basically Gourry wasn't going to go and eat unless Zelgadis was with him and well Gourry was very hungry at that point. And well let's just say it's not a good idea to toy with Gourry when he was hungry.
"Come on there has to be something else in here!" Lina searched through the rest of the clothes that the servants had brought. She refused to settle for wearing the pink dress. Though it did disturb her that the dress fit her perfectly. But after starting her search Lina had so far found a nice dark red and blue shirt that was a bit tight on her but at least it didn't bother her too much. "Ah this is perfect! I just hope it fits!" Lina exclaimed as she held up a pair of tight looking black pants. But luckily for Lina it was made of a stretchy material so it fit.
"Miss Lina have you got your outfit so that we can eat now?" Amelia said with a bit of impatience evidence in her voice.
"Food? We're going to eat after this?! Yeah let's go!" Lina yelled out and zoomed out of the baths and towards the dinning hall. Sylphiel and Amelia had to run to keep up with her. In the dinning hall they weren't surprised to see that Gourry was already eating before they had got there. What did surprise them was the way that Zelgadis was dressed. Lina smiled evilly and opened her mouth to say something only spoke first. "Don't you dare even say a word." His tone was so dark and it was very clear that he wasn't enjoying himself that much. So instead of what Lina was going to do, she kept quiet and went straight for her food.
What they didn't know was that Kilanashradora was not only inside Sailune castle, but also in the dinning hall watching them. She figured that maybe a little poison in their food would be an easy way to kill them all at once. Naturally Kilanashradora would normally do something more excessive, only she didn't know if Xellos was going to come back at any moment and she didn't want to expose herself needlessly. So Kilanashradora took a more conventional way to them. But what she didn't count on was that they poison would chemically affect the food that had been poisoned so that it smelled bad. Therefore no one wanted to eat it. So they avoided the poisoned stuff and continued with the uncontaminated food. She was going to do something different only at that moment Xellos decided to make his reappearance.
"Having a nice lovely meal are we? Oh and I have to say that I love the clothes." Xellos smiled and joined them at the table. He asked a servant for a cup of tea and he was provided with one.
"So how was the play Xellos?"
"Oh I didn't go see a play or a show." Xellos opened one eye slightly and took a sip of his tea.
"Then where did you go and do for the past few hours?" Lina dared to ask the monster, even though she and the others were expecting only one answer from him.
"Why that is... a secret."
None of them paid any attention Xellos, they just continued on with their meals.
Kilanashradora retreated from Sailune castle and went someplace else to think. "With Xellos around this is going to make things tough. But I still think that I can do this. I've still got a key to direct them to. So all I have to do is send them to interesting place that will suit my purpose perfectly. I'm surprised that Xellos hasn't figured anything out yet. Perhaps he's not as smart as his reputation credits him to be." She laughed and phased out to go plan her next ploy.
Xellos whom had been spying on Kilanashradora himself was a bit annoyed by her last statement. But at least now he knew who she was. Now why would he be involved in al this? Xellos mused to himself. He made a mental note to go see his master to see if she had any new information that could be of use to him.