"....." Ceth was now silent.

"Hmph." he muttered.

It seemed he still wasn't happy... but he was at least satisfied with that explanation.

"...so." Adym commented.

"If I were to wager a guess, you need some help." he told her.

"I can sense something in you." he went on.

"Something... well, not nice."

Ceth now looked panicked.

"That's not good!" he exclaimed.

"It's not." Adym replied. "In due time, she will be completely paralysed, and barely alive by the time we get to shore." he told the group. "That poison is very strong, and getting it with it has a very high mortality rate." he went on.

"How can you be so calm!?" Ceth asked him angrily.

"...because it's child's play to counteract." Adym responded simply, causing Ceth to freeze where he was.

"...excuse me?" he asked.

"Well, okay, it's child's play for me, because... well... I'm what I am." Adym clarified.

"Oh. Okay, yeah, that makes sense." Ceth admitted.

Adym then placed a finger in the potted plant that was still near him, and a gorgeous jade-coloured rose grew out from the earth... though it had some particularly nasty-looking thorns on the stem.

"I'm going to need to prick you with one of the thorns, where you sustained the initial injury." the wood elf told Xeri.

"I won't lie, it's going to hurt like buggery for about 10 seconds, but it should subside, and you'll feel a soothing tingle moving through your body." he warned her further.

"It's as dangerous as it is pretty." Adym confirmed.

He then plucked the rose from the soil, and made his way to Xeri. Once he was close enough, he took one of the thorns, and jabbed it into the wound that had been seared closed.

As soon as he did that, Xeri felt an immense painful burning sensation spreading throughout her body. It was almost like there was a fire inside her, raging and burning, threatening to burst out from her.

Just when she felt she would be engulfed by it, it disappeared as quickly as it came.

And, sure enough, she felt the tingling sensation throughout her body... and she immediately realised it was easier to breathe.

"Give it a few days before you're back to 100%." Adym told her.

Adym just sighed.

"At least SOMEONE can." he said.

"What do you mean?" Ceth asked.

"Well, when Callie and I arrived in town, and got on the ship, she started suffering from a massive headache that nothing could relieve." Adym responded. "Seems like that is the sensation of a crux sensing another crux. In this case, Callie was sensing Kai." he explained further.

"All right... and...?" Ceth asked further, wondering where Adym was going with this.

"And the same thing's happening to ME." Adym responded.

"There's a crux on this ship, I can sense them, and it's giving me a massive headache." he told them. "So I intend to find them so I can make contact and at least make this pain dissipate." he finished.

Adym just sighed.

"All right, fine." he said.

"Let's do it." he told her.

Sure enough, a bit later, they were all gathered in the pool area. Callie, Adym, Kai, Ceth, Xeri, Sara, and Karivyn. Kai was still in the pool, but they were all clustered close to him... with Sara being the furthest away from the water.

"All right." Adym mumbled.

"I'm clearly not connected to Callie." he said. "I'm not connected to you or Ceth." he told Xeri.

"Clearly." Ceth said. "As I'M the one connected to Callie." he chuckled.

"I'm not connected to Kai, as Callie is." Adym went on.

"Indeed." Kai confirmed.

"That leaves..." Adym said, trailing off a little and looking at Sara.

"I... don't believe we've been properly introduced..." he realised.

"My name is Adymar. I am the Crux of Nature." he introduced himself to her.

"Ah, there's a language barrier." Adym said.

"Indeed." Karivyn responded.

"Myself, and those two are the only ones that can communicate with her, it seems." he commented, gesturing to Ceth and Xeri.

"Well, would you ask her if it's all right for me to take her hand, and see if she's the one I'm connected to?" Adym asked Karivyn.

Karivyn just nodded, before looking at Sara.

"Is it all right if he takes your hand for a moment?" he asked her.

"To see if you are the crux that he is sensing." he said.

Adym responded by gently taking the hand and holding it for a moment.

"Well?" Ceth asked.

"It's warm." Adym replied.

"And?" Kai inquired.

"And that's it." Adym said, letting go of Sara.

"She's not the one." he told them.

"...so there's another crux on board." Kai muttered, thinking about it.

Adym just growled a little.

"Seriously?" he asked.

"THAT'S what you're going to say?" he asked her.

"Great." he muttered.

"So I'm not going to hunt for them because... they want their privacy." he said.

"Does that sum it up?"

Adym was growing visibly angrier now.

"Fine." he said.

"I'll go back to the room and be slowly driven insane by this pounding headache that I can do nothing about." he said further.

"I mean, whatever, right? Who cares, right?" he then asked.

"I'm just the little wood elf." he went on.

"Nobody to be concerned with."

Adym responded just as quickly, by slapping his hands over his mouth. He was frozen like that for a second or two, before slowly removing them.

"I... I..." he stammered.

"I don't... know..." he admitted.

"I do." Ceth responded.

"Oh?" Kai asked, curious about this now.

"To cut a VERY long story short, and not bore anyone with a lot of history, there are different kinds of elves in this world." Ceth said. "And, generally speaking, they get along. But it wasn't always that way. Elves used to always keep to the same kind, and were horribly discriminatory towards any other kind of elf. And for the longest time, Wood Elves were seen as... well... the 'commoners' of the elf hierarchical system." he explained further.

"Now, time has passed, and those attitudes have, for the most part, gone away. That being said, it happened for so long in the past, it's almost carved into genetics by this point, sadly." he then said.

"So when tensions run high, or stress is prevalent, sometimes people slip back into old ways. In this case, Adym fell back into the mindset that we believed he was lowly because of him being a Wood Elf, and responded with a bitter attitude." he finished.

"...." Adym was silent, before looking away slightly, and shamefully.

"Sorry, Xerica..." he apologised to Xeri quietly.