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==Chapter 2 - A Toreel Wizard in Prince Davion's Court==
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===Aftermath, did we make it?===
Jumpship Hank Morgan
Deep Periphery?
3025?
"So," Chim was asking hesitantly. "It... worked?"
They'd taken the count and gone over all parts of the ship. Six of the crew were... missing, including the captain. Most of the crew had reported the same vision of the mysterious being with the mask appearing in different parts of the ship and either taking or trying to take people before the jump ended. And they had the wounds to prove it. 
The ship was fine. No damage, and the jump computer placed them 8.47 light years beyond what they hoped was the boundary of the nebula they'd been trapped in. The astronomy section was checking surrounding stars to confirm.
Still, "it worked" didn't seem the right term to Doug's ears. 
"We lost six people," he said. "What was that thing?" 
"I..." Chim hesitated. Doug considered the way she and her friends spoke both annoying and distracting, like watching a badly dubbed movie, because magic apparently. "I didn't see it."
"It was like no fiend I had ever faced before," the bodyguard Celia, knife eared like her mistress, but at least proportioned mostly like an adult, not a cartoonishly big headed child like the wizard. "I sensed no evil in it, and my every strike seemed to slide through it without affect. It is a mystery to me." 
"I had assumed it must be something from your realm," Leo, the wizard's other companion (Actually L'heo, but screw that noise). "It's nature was alien to me."
"We don't have monsters in our world," Doug snapped bitterly. They just... they just bugged him! The wizard, a pint sized girl with ears that poked out like daggers and who did magic like that made any sense. The body guard who wore plate mail everywhere and kept staring at people saying she was searching for evil. And hey, there's that damn cat hovering around at will in defiance of microgravity like it was frigging normal. Leo was the only one who looked ordinary, but only if you didn't look at him too long and started to realize that something you couldn't put your finger on was just plain off about him. 
Also, they were too clean. The ship was a mess. Everybody in the crew was dealing with vomit and blood and other fluids and solids they'd inadvertently released after that hellish jump, but they were clean as a whistle, because magic apparently!
"I'm gonna be clear here." he said. "As near as I can tell we pissed something off taking you with us. so the only reason I don't take you back where we found you is that I don't want to get stuck in that damn nebula again. Right now, I still kinda want to push you all out the airlock just in case."
"I'm sorry." Chim said. "I had no idea this could even happen..."
"Save it," Doug said. "Luckily for you, it'll be more than a week before we can jump again. Maybe I'll have calmed down by then. Just... just go do something useful. Go magic up something and leave me alone for a while. Maybe woogie up something to clean up this mess."
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===Fretting with getting along with everyone===
"I don't think he likes me," Chim said as she and her party left the bridge. 
"Us," L'heo said. "He doesn't like us. Remember that village down by Goran river? The one with the really loud priest?"
"The one that tied me to a stake and set me on fire?" Chim replied.
"Same concept," L'heo said. "We stand out here. We're new and scary, and some people you gotta win over before they decide you're not gonna sacrifice them to fiends."
There was a bloody streak on the corridor wall which caught Chim's attention, but only taking a minor bit of magical focus to remove. 
"Do you think it was our fault they got attacked?" she asked.
"Don't know," L'heo said. "You know more about extraplanar creatures than I do. Maybe if you'd seen it..."
Chim shook her head. "I already saw enough of something I didn't understand," she replied. 
L'heo looked confused for a moment. "Outside? You didn't see the Astral plane?"
"No," Chim said. "I don't know what I saw, or if I saw it or felt it... Oy! We've been to the realm of primordial chaos and that made more sense than whatever was out there. Those guys who told us not to stay outside during one of these jumps, they weren't joking. It's like... I don't know. Like the planar structure of their side of reality either doesn't exist or is just fundamentally wrong."
None of her companions seemed to know what to say after that, though Celia attempted to move closer to her, as though she intended to physically block Chim from existential terror using her own body. 
Of course in the "microgravity" conditions, Celia misjudged the maneuver terribly and collided with her. Chim's tiny body bounced off the elf's armored chest and lightly drifted into the corridor wall. 
"Oh, my lady!" Celia cried in a mixture of shame and despair that only a paladin who'd done something wrong could really manage. "I am so sorry!" She reached towards Chim, her hand faintly glowing with the light of her healing power. 
"It's okay," Chim said, having steadied herself against the wall. "I'm not hurt. Save your abilities for the crew." Gods above and below, Celia meant well. It was actually a prerequisite for her divinely gifted abilities for her to mean well, but she was always so tightly wound...
"They ain't gonna take it," Polly, hovering just above Chim, pointed out. "I offered to heal two of them already and they wanted nothing to do with me."
L'heo's gaze went from Polly to Celia, seeming to linger over Celia's armored form.. the sacred armor that magically sized and shaped itself to her form in a way that maximized freedom of movement as well as displaying each curve... umm... nicely. He looked back to the cat. "I... think she'll have better luck getting people to let her touch them than you will."
Polly tilted his head sideways. "I've never heard such nonsense," he insisted. "It makes no sense at all."
Chim had of course caught L'heo's meaning immediately, and strangely found herself indignant about it. As Polly and Celia proceeded down the corridor to, as the cat said "settle this nonsense," L'heo looked back to Chim and... well, maybe she'd been pouting and didn't realize it.
"You can't even use healing magic," he said. 
"Well if I could," Chim protested, "They'd totally want me to heal them."
"I'm not saying you have anything to prove," L'heo insisted.
"Obviously not. My grandmother was quite popular among the human residents in her day, you know." Chim said, not even caring that she could feel herself pouting.
"And you're even more beautiful than her..." L'heo said.
"You'd better believe it."
"But..." L'heo continued, "It's not about beauty, I just don't think they have... well beings of your stature where they're from."
Chim scoffed. "That's just mean. Obviously true beauty wins out over height."
"Of course," L'heo said. "But you can't use healing magic, so why should it come up?" 
"It shouldn't," Chim agreed. "It was stupid of you to bring it up."
L'heo smiled a defeated smile. "Of course, my mistake."
"Good," Chim said. "Just so you understand that. Let's go clean up the human waste."
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