Shida often dreamed of the times in his past. He had been so used to staying in nice hotels almost every night, he blew all of his cash after every hijacking from his days as a raider, sometimes buying or sneaking his way into the hotels rich people use when traveling between cities. He often had himself his share of prostitutes as well, they were not hard to find in the rich or poor neighborhoods for that matter. But he was always viewed as a gentleman when he was in a hotel, he often referred to it as, " the laughing mask" when he was drunk. It had been his alter ego and double life he bragged about to his friends mostly while intoxicated as well.. and not all of it was entirely true, he may have slightly exaggerated some events for entertainment purposes.. not that he could remember that well anyways. He said things like [i]"No piece of shit poorer than I could ever be with one one hundredth as many women as I by the time I die, and no man as rich and powerful as me will ever be as good of lay!"[/i]-Letting out laughs that sounded almost too enjoyably insane.- People were easy to fool when he was hiding behind the mask of wealth. He listened to many men brag, about their wealth, and their prosperity, and the way that they manipulate people.. One man told him of a time that he killed his wife, to collect the life insurance, in order to start a fundraiser for a cure for a disease that caused an epidemic a few years back. He said that it had made him billions within the first year..and that there was never any plan to make a cure in the first place. By abusing the state of political affairs, he said it was easy to accomplish this.. He was repulsed by this man, and later made him pay for his mistakes, he made him paid the price for his crimes against humanity, and that was all the reason Shida needed to end him. The distaste stirring in him as the man spoke to him hiding behind his mask imagined doing unspeakable things to this urchin possessed by greed. 

[i]When he awoke from a shallow sleep he had wondered if he'd met any of these Vygrons before..[/i]
 
After listening to the old mans speech as wholeheartedly as he could, which was not very much, he just sort of leaned into his breakfast, randomly grabbing at the blur of the table in search of food. He didn't even remember how he'd even gotten up to this table, everyone around him seem as if their faces were a blur. He tried to ignore it, but this has happened before, on a few occasions.. it will go away he told himself, as he drifted off into a nap in his bowl of vegetables.

When he finally snapped out of it, he heard the old man saying [i]"You Hygrons should talk less and act more, its almost noon already."[/i]

Shida awoke, and suddenly had a brilliant idea.. 
He went over to the fluvius elemental, Will, he recalled.
"Will, I need you too help me make a hot tub, if you go convince that earth elemental to just wave her hands around a little, I will give you first dibs on a decent soak..." -after a short pause- "Although you look like you've already had one..."
Shida stopped and realized what was important here.
He leaned in closer and cupped his hand next to his mouth to cover his words too Will in a loud whisper.
"Look, if we play our cards right, maybe we can get a couple of these babes to go topless too eh? Have ourselves a real party before setting out to die. Whadaya say?" he nudged his side with his elbow playfully and smiled. Will looked as though his hat was going to fly off.
Shida slowly looked over at the girls laying in the grass across the haven, making sure Will noticed where his eyes were going.
"Bet you'd like to water those cantaloupes eh?"
Shida let out a barrel of laughter before Will had time to respond, slapped him on the back, and exclaimed "Don't let me down shark boy!"

Shida, praising himself for being a tactical genius as he strutted over to the stone nature freak had summoned out of nowhere, now that he thought about it, this journey was turning about for the best so far. Laying there was all sorts of weaponry, many of which he was already accustomed to. What caught his eye the most was the bow, beautifully carved out of golden yew and set with rubystone engravings. As he reached to grab it, it lit up in flames between his fingers, casting long waves of flame up and down the bow. [b]A flame that never dies..[/b] He looked down again, seeing a curved sword, resembling a Kukri, he recognized its beauty, as he had long had a strong appreciation of ancient weaponry. The blade was steel, but scorched to a darker reflection, it had an onyx stone handle as well, the blade traveling all the way through the hilt. A master smith must have carved this a long time ago.. he thought, picking it up, light in his grip. He also saw something strange, it was a small stick, resembling a handle. Not knowing exactly what it was he picked it up, it suddenly began to feel warm. He turned around away from the others, and instinctively, swung it in a lashing motion. What to his surprise, a long string of flame, extending well over 15 feet danced madly through the air, he felt it subside to his will, and then he retracted back into the handle and tucked the piece of stone into his pocket. He had never felt so much control of his power than when he held these weapons, they almost unburdened the fire inside of him, putting him at ease.

He walked back over to Will to see how the progress on the hot tub was going. He then realized everyone was talking about tactics on how to beat the Vygrons now, and felt pretty cheated, he glared at Will, and at his fedora. He walked over to everyone and exclaimed the following "So, which one of you lucky ladies is gonna get to be my girlfriend for the rest of the journey?" He let out a big smile to all of them. "Do you really plan on dieing out there without at least getting a little bit of action? Will told me that one of you here's got a crush on me, and he even said that he can "sense it in the flow of things". Pretty accurate information coming from a water sage like him you know." He turns to Will who is looking at him with confusion and gives him a credible head nod in return. Shida then glanced over at Aerilyn standing in the back, knowing he'd succeed in drawing her attention, he then winked at her knowingly.