Lithos settled back into his corner of the captain's quarters on the newly-rededicated Pinnace McPinnaceFace, leaning back as Whisper scribbled furiously on his slate. Across from him, James yawned casually... but he was watching Whisper, too. Their brother's expression was exactly the sort of intent that indicated that if they tried to go to sleep right now, he was just going to wake them up again.
He turned the slate so they could see it. What were you thinking??? it said.
"Um," answered Lithos. "We were thinking that James needed a magic pickaxe?"
"The wall said not to go past there without the weapon," James added. "So we got the weapon!"
Whisper's face screwed up into his wide-eyed, lips-clenched, I-am-frustrated-with-you-in-particular expression. He wiped the slate and wrote, And you didn't think anything would happen? HERE? In Durest's Deathtrap Dungeon?
The two siblings exchanged a glance. "Well, we thought we'd get an enchanted pickaxe," James pointed out, "and we did."
More wiping. More writing. Two words:
Vampire.
Spawn.
"Well, yes, that wasn't my favorite thing," Lithos admitted. "Especially since it wouldn't turn me into a vampire." Not that he especially wanted to be a vampire, as such. But it would be nice to be stronger, tougher, and harder to kill. Maybe he could find a dragon who could turn him into another dragon? No, dragons didn't work that way. Too bad. Lycanthropy would make him tougher... maybe he could...?
Whisper grunted at him, pointedly, and tapped the slate.
Check for traps first.
Everything else second.
"Oh," said Lithos. "Oh, right, sure. We'll be very careful and strategic from here on out, Brother."
"We will?" asked James, sounding dubious.
"We will," Lithos affirmed, nodding earnestly at Whisper. He really hoped this conversation was over now; he had a spell to copy, and then he needed to rest.
Whisper rolled his eyes but left them alone, and Lithos promptly forgot all about it as he pulled out his new scroll and focused on its content. It was written with Eldraster's method of annotation, which meant that that the corner-markers indicated the gestures to make with the associated words, and he was going to have to focus if he was going to convert that over to the Harbinmoor method that he used for his own work...
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