A wagon with two prisoners, continually driving to the roots, potholes and other road joys, was shaking intensively along the forest road. The winding path, threatening to completely overgrow trees, sometimes even strived to make travelers into an impassable swamp. But two strong horses, in spite of everything, stubbornly dragged the cart through a thick thicket of forest. A pair of men, a girl and a disgruntled dwarf headed a modest convoy of the “small ship”. Conversations have long been fed up with the whole company and a group of risky adventurers, but simply vile robbers, preferring to keep a lazy silence. Only one of them checked the integrity of the “goods”, and occasionally lifting the tarpaulin, looked out at the surrounding landscape, not so much to enjoy the beauty of the evening forest and the endless rain, not for a breath of moist air.

- To hell with the money, to hell with everything, I ran out of drinks, and this rain has been pouring for several days in a row! - the dwarf angrily looked out and relish recklessly under the hooves of horses, as if this could change something.

A disgruntled little satellite was a typical-stereotypical embodiment of its people. The dwarf wore heavy armor, a heavy ax, almost more than himself and was distinguished by a very bad temper. The only moments of joy came when Corrf fought in the trash. But since lately there was nothing to drink, the mood rolled to zero and he began to get those around him with his gloom.

“Korff is sick,” a broad-shouldered, muscular man answered, “Better imagine when we sell those two, we get such a pile of gold that you can drink every day as much as you weigh!”

“Then I won't leave the bout for a few weeks,” growled the stocky gnome and fell silent again, rubbing his red beard.

The undisputed leader of the bandits was Bennett - a strong, rather cunning and resourceful man. According to Korf and Skif, their leader had, and perhaps had, a relationship with Nadine, the only girl in the gang. But since they were the last to join, and the possible couple itself did not in any way clarify the veil of their personal lives, all speculation remained a conjecture. But Skif himself himself once tried to incite wedges to Nadine, but received such a message from the girl that he quickly changed his mind. The skater brunette, part-time magician in their group, quickly expanded the geographical knowledge of unexplored places to the hapless guy ...

- Well, gentlemen, another day has come to an end, we need to find a place to rest and how to sleep well! - Said the man looking out from under the tarpaulin and looking at the sun.

“Bennett's a good idea, my sides are already hurting,” Nadine said.

- Yes Yes! - giggled the last satellite named Skif.

A small sprout, skinny and puny boy often kept silence from the whole company. Only small, nasty eyes constantly ran, studying everything around.

Finding a suitable place the wagon stopped.

Partly from the shock when braking, but because of the continuous sobs of a slim blonde, a second prisoner woke up in a corner of the cage. The girl sleepily patted her eyes and looked at their abode with her companion. In fact, nothing has changed in the last few days. For their heads, the gangsters would get a nice bag of coins, the northern cities of the Lazert (lizardmen) were very fond of beautiful girls. It was considered prestigious among their people to have such slaves ... Sangia wrapped her clothed cloak tightly and looked at her friend once more:

- Well, enough already, honey! - Olivia, as much as you can!

- It's easy for you to tell Rovel! - I am amazed at your calm, it would be better if they killed me right away! - through sobbing said the girl.

- We will always have time to find death, do not chase after it and stop yourself constantly tormenting, crying, you will not make life easier for yourself.

- I'm trying, but you know, they killed everyone, these geeks killed everyone! My whole family, the inhabitants of our village, you know! Every time when I remember, I feel as if I am going through it again! I just do not know how to live on!

Sangia understood in the best possible way, she had already heard this story more than once, and Rowell moved closer and hugged the girl tightly. Olivia Collins - was a young, pretty blonde, about twenty years old. The girl had a good character and a calm disposition, but the recent tragedy abruptly pulled her out of her usual, rural life. She sobbed a couple of times and fell silent, buried in the shoulder of her new friend willy-nilly. So they sat: a small white-haired kitten, in an already dusty, worn dress and a strange girl with white hair, dressed in a road hooded cloak. Her companion looked much older and calmer, Sangia Rowell was thirty-two years old and by her small age she managed to see a lot. A girl who is large enough for a girl — seventy-five meters — combined well with a sports figure and cold-regular features that, along with white-white shoulder-length hair and expressive red eyes, gave her a unique look. Unlike sandals and Collins dresses, her friend wore boots and as already mentioned, a raincoat that hid her well from those eyes ...

During this time, the wagon stopped long ago and the bandits hurried to set up camp.

- Let's hurry! - hurried gnome Nadine.

Korff did not answer, only cursed himself in the beard, the short man hastily drew stick runes around their camp. Having completed his work, the gnome went around several times, checking the correctness of all the signs. Around the carriage formed two even circles clear only for Korff characters. Humming something under his breath and thoughtfully stroking his beard, he began chanting a spell, outer signs flashed, and a transparent film crawled up from them. It looked like a soap bubble most of all. The edges of the film quickly rose, curled and soon the dwarf stood under a small, transparent sphere. But the magic did not end there, the walls of the bubble began to expand rapidly, absorbing the surrounding. Very soon everything turned out to be inside the sphere: a wagon with prisoners, Bennett and Nadine, and even Skif, who deliberately moved away (the guy did not like sensations when the walls of the bubble passed through him), but he naturally, as always, could not avoid it. As soon as the dome covered the entire small camp and a decent piece of the nearest territory, its surface hardened and turned into a kind of stone. Such a "shell" protected primarily from the weather and wild animals. After reading the second spell, everything under the protection of the dome dried up: soil, grass, trees, everything except our heroes and wagons. The spell acted selectively, but not so effectively as to save a few birds, the latter experienced terrible agony and dried corpses fell to the ground.

Bennett touched the trunk of a small tree and grunted. The trees that fell under the magic of Korff completely lost moisture, they stuck out of the ground with dry giants. Only due to the powerful root system, and under the influence of spells, the plants remained in an upright position. The ground was covered with a carpet of dry leaves and branches. The man began to lead his hand through the air, as if drawing a figure of eight, each time he tried to do it all faster and ultimately, his hand controlled a powerful wind flow. As if conducting, Bennett cut dry trees with several smooth movements of his hand. And after a few minutes the logs cracked merrily under the flames.

While the male part of society was engaged in the arrangement of the camp, Nadine checked the captives, threw out some food to them, so small that it was impossible to eat on the one hand, and to die of hunger on the other, too, somehow did not work.Girls eagerly ate a handful of greed. Sangia looked out of the cage and pulled back the hood inhaled the air:

- I think a day, two and we will reach the black peak.

- Do you think they will go along the path or through the caves?

- I would go in their place along the path, in the cave a lot of things be found, they will accidentally disappear there ...