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Bolt was not in the mood. Any other time he knew he would be having a chuckle. As he walked behind the striding 3' Anterbach with 2' of green frog legs, Bolt's mind easily came up with puns about green amphibians and French Gnoll snacks. The humor, however, was wasted on him. He ached for the opportunity to equal the score with the adjudicator. The party had been following the path of the red beast and his entourage for the past three hours. They had made good speed . . . no where near the speed of a pair of nightmares of course. Bolt could hear the heavy breathing of the half Gnoll and odd human Dobbs. Dev was as silent as ever and Korg appeared to be having more fun than anything else. As Anterbach bounced ahead at point, Florimund was zig zagging across the road picking up gold and silver coins that had spilled from the speeding stagecoach.

The weather in the Abyss was odd. It was always one gray form of gloom and yet Bolt felt that he could detect sunny and cloudy times and perhaps could even taste rain in the air. It was while pondering the weather that Bolt was startled to hear talking. It was an illogical kind of loud fear mixed with odd syllabic stutters. Rounding a turn in the road, Bolt stopped next to Anterbach. In front of him was a tall and very thin, pinkish colored man. He looked to be human and perhaps quite old. He also was dressed in the traditional "garb" of a wizard. He appeared to be foolishly trying to talk his way out of a precarious situation as two rust monsters circled him hungrily.

"Now, now boys. You are much better off to eat those delicious little round coins. There isn't anything on me you're gonna want. Go on now boys. Go away . . . Hey, don't stick that little antennae of your's on me. I don't know where it has been. Hey, you . . . "

Perhaps Bolt was ready for that laugh!

A green haze shot across the path. Dev watched in odd amazement as the gnoll man jumped towards the smallest of the two creatures. With a thud he squished the creature and shot pungent brown acid arching over the group.

As Phth continue to jump on the remains of the creature, Korg and Dobbs charged the larger beast. Both swung and missed. Anterbach fired his bow and missed once but with his second hit, pierced the center of the creature with abnormal force.

Bolt and Dev, sensing little danger from the rust monsters walked up slowly towards the human. "I am Dev," he offered. "we are an unfortunate group of vagrants in this land. This is Bolt my co-leader. Who might you be?" The man continued to fumble and mixed odd expressions with strange somatic gestures. "I am, uh Giliad, the um . . . did you say bolt?"

A green light radiated momentarily from the man and suddenly took form in the glowing ghastly shape of a lightening bolt that shot forth towards the crushed group of a creature beneath Phth and the unfortunate gnoll man standing on top of it.

As the bolt hit the humanoid with full force, he seemed to sizzle in his eyes and then quickly emitted a horrific smell of roasted troll skins. With a surprisingly silent thud, Phth hit the ground. The chain lightening arched away from the dead beast and shot towards the Kender who took a shot in his leg from the blast before it arched over to Florimund, shot through his abdomen and then finished in the shoulders of Dobbs.

"Yikes, oh, um . . . I really sorry about that. Didn't see that big boy on his way. Um . . . I am really sorry about that. I hope you don't mind. I just do not know um my own magic misses . . . I mean missiles . . . I mean . . ."