Lina yawned and continued down the path towards Geoas, she, Gourry, and even Zelgadis and Amelia had been walking for nearly 3 days, and luckily - Geoas was only a half days more walk - but it was looking like a storm and she was not in the mood to continue in the rain, her feast was in 2 days - she had plenty of time. "Gourry!... GOURRY!" she yelled, and Gourry popped out from behind some bushes "Hey Lina, what's this?" he said, showing her a small plant he plucked Lina looked at for a moment
"That's poison ivy you dolt!" she said, walking over to where Gourry was - he was sitting in an entire patch of it.
"Great," for a moment Lina actually wished Shifeel was there - she was more equiped for this, Amelia would have to do - Lina wasn't good at white/shamanist type magics like that, and she needed to eat and thus, was not in the mood at all to even attempt casting.
Amelia popped over the hill - snuggling up against Zel's chest, who was ignoring her until he saw Lina and Gourry and gave a look with his eyes 'I beg you to get her off of me!' it yelled, and Lina already expected this "Amelia! Come over here!"
Amelia, hearing her presence actually be requested by Lina (a rare event indeed) quickly ran over, "Hai, Lina-san!" she said cheerfully.
"Gourry went and crawled around in some Poison Ivy, I don't have the time to remember the spell to get rid of it - could you do it?" Amelia nodded and slowly moved her hands in front of Gourry and the spell took affect, stripping his body of all organic materials that were not part of Gourry's natural body - Lina suddenly realized what spell she was casting and averted her eyes.
Amelia screamed for nearly a solid minute then she finally had the breath to speak, "Why didn't you tell me you wore wool pants?!?" Gourry, however, had dived BACK behind the bush with poison ivy. Zelgadis saw this and chuckled slightly as he removed his pack. It looked like they were going to camp out here unless they got a move on.
Gourry was quite uncomfortable in Zel's spare pair of pants, but it was better than walking around with only his leg guards and underwear. Lina was preparing to start pitching the tent, when a bolt of lightning struck a few miles away and gave the rain the cue to begin falling. Lina began to curse about how she was cursed, when Xellos suddenly popped up in front of her "Evening Lina-san!" he said cheerfully, the rain stopping a good foot above him and peeling off the invisable shield. "Let me help." he said, and there was a flash of magic and the tent was suddenly pitched.
"Hi Xellos. Following us again?"
He giggled "Sore wa Himitsu Desu," Lina wished she kept that frying pan. "Oh - please," he gestured towards the tent.
As everyone got situated in the tent, Xellos giggled. He thought to himself Tonight would be fun, with that he dissappeared.
Later that night, Lina felt herself be shaken from sleep, but when she opened her eyes she only saw she had rolled onto - and off her things. The ticket that Xelloss had given her had fluttered free, Lina took a moment to read it. "permission to be a judge at..." it all seemed to be normal rules, she flipped it over and saw in red letters IMPORTANT she read below the label to be eligable to be a judge, the holder of this ticket must strip naked, go out into the rain, and sing as loudly as possible. Lina looked at the ticket strangely. she blinked and saw another line she must of missed before Yes... This is serious - we WILL know if you did or not, Lina suddenly remembered that Geoas had a telepath who could make simple inquires and recieve a yes, no, or don't want to tell from someone's mind. She muttered a curse, and walked into the rain - lucky it was storming tonight.
Lina walked back in, soaked, and she wrapped her cloak around her, she spied the ticket where she left it - what the? The back had changed - it now read HEY! Have fun?, Lina looked at the ticket strangely - then she remembered her conversation earlier: "I have an Artifact" - ARTIFACT - why didn't she catch onto this before? This ticket might let her be a judge - but it would blank out the side that had the important stuff if she didn't do what was on the back of it. Great.
Xellos knew Lina had figured it out. He also knew that it didn't matter - he appeared beside her, she looked so peaceful when she was sleeping. She wanted the worlds best food she would have it - but it wouldn't be puny human chiefs preparing it. He picked up her body and felt her begin awakening, he kissed her lightly, which made her wake up suddenly. "Xellos!?"
He smiled at her, "come on dearie - I have something much better than this." and with that he carried a drowsie Lina out of the tent.