Unbeknownst to a lot of the rest of the party, or so he hoped, Sett had not spent his whole time sleeping as the others had. Partway through the night, or what he supposed was night, he'd managed to awaken himself with the good old-fashioned clock of bodily urges, light as his sleep often was; once those were handled, he returned to his tent and drew forth from his elven bag his prizes from the day before: the helmet of the Rog he'd slain, and the Dark Elven stave, carefully hidden until now. In hindsight, the helm was perhaps a bit large for his skull... not that a bit of padding couldn't fix that issue, only he'd need to figure out what to pad it with in the first place.

But that wasn't the point of his awakening. He'd intended, earlier, to bless the helmet and cleanse it of its bloody past - or something to that effect, he honestly wasn't fussy as long as he could make sure it was just a helmet after all - but the second was a difficult proposition. Magically potent, for sure, but what sort of magic? Usable, or just vile? Two Dark Elves had slain each other over it, Fineki apparently wanted him to bear it, and so bear it he did. What more could he do, but pray that it didn't fail him?

For the next hour or so, he spent his time quietly praying over both objects. "Blessing them", arguably, though in his church, his blessings had always been as shallow as a puddle, and he had very little idea about the process of imbuing a true blessing into an item at all. In the helmet's case, then, he prayed that it would shield him from harm when worn, that it wouldn't fall off, and that the others wouldn't realise where he'd gotten it from. For the staff, he prayed that whatever power it held wasn't... well, evil, or corrupting, or anything like that, and that whoever owned it wouldn't come after him to get it back. He had enough of those problems with the Valdium sword, after all.

Sharp hearing and keen awareness of his surroundings were what brought his prayers to a halt. Something was moving around - and from the sound of things, entering everyone's tents. Shit, were they under attack again? Well, they'd have to try harder than that to catch out Settionne Maralanna the Inconsiderate! As quickly and silently as he could, Sett packed himself and his stolen goods beneath his sleeping blanket and feigned restfulness, one hand on each of the daggers at his side, ready to be drawn and swiped at whatever chose to target him, to take them as hostage, to slay them, whatever was appropriate.

It turned out that whatever it was, it was bipedal, apparently interested in breathing on him- no, smelling him, and as it happened smart enough not to try either to attack him or steal anything before leaving. Though he eventually fell asleep again, his items by his side until he stuffed them back into his bag again, it wasn't until the morning rolled around that it clicked for him - the trespasser was the newcomer, named Aeryn according to the girl herself. He did wonder what her motivation there was.

But, it mattered not. She was apparently able to lead them out of the caverns they had found themselves in, and with her at the head of the pack, and both Geradin and Argon at the back, Sett was more than happy to stay roughly in the middle of the group. To pass the time, he figured he might as well chat with the dwarf and the lizard. Was that not what a good priest did for his flock, after all? Though much of it was meaningless, intended merely to get them blathering about themselves so that he could avoid discussing his own past, he at some point asked the both of them these two lines of questioning: 'What made you decide to take up the warrior's path?' and 'What opinion do you hold on the gods? Are there any in particular you prefer over others?' Whatever answers he received, he'd store them away in his mind for later reference. Perhaps they'd be of use.

Soon enough, the previous night's prediction proved true: Aeryn's skills did indeed prove useful, upsetting a swarm of bats that they might show them the way to the exit of the cave, a show of animal handling that Sett himself had little awareness of. How impressive of her... and, to wit, he couldn't disagree with Ursaren's insight into the nature of sunlight on his skin, embracing the sunlight as though for the first time again. Not that he'd know what his first time in the sun had been like. Unlike the average Dark Elf, he'd lived most of his life above ground, thank you very much.

'Aeryn, my lovely lady,' he exclaimed, strolling to her side and patting her on the back, 'your expertise is matched only by your beauty. It's as I said yesterday: your ability in all regards will be much appreciated in our journey.' Did he need to specifically point out her appearance? Not at all. But then, he hadn't had a chance to say so earlier on, either, and he had always had a womanising streak, as he was sure the Elven nobility they'd interacted with knew full well. Gosh, had it only been two nights since their journey began? Time sure seemed to slow to a crawl when one was attacked in rapid succession by ogres, Rogs, and Dark Elves.

[@POOHEAD189][@Gardevoiran][@The Fated Fallen][@Fetzen][@Stormflyx]