I discovered in short order that all the tales of romantic adventure in the Southlands conveniently left out the bugs. Probably dashing heroes were a deal less dashing after a pint or two of blood had been removed by various flying stinging insects. We hacked our way through the trail in what Beren assured us was a northerly direction. The snakes too were a problem and for me particualarly, not because I was stung, bitten?, or anything like that. My problem was a bit more complicated. After about an hour of chopping our way through steamy jungles, Beren struck a vine with his axe and as it parted a large greenish snake fell to the ground. By this point the party had become rather used to avoiding the reptiles that seemed to lurk in every bush and behind every rock. This one landed beside Beren who backed rapidly away, spreading his arms to ward the rest of us back.

"It's an emerald viper," he hissed, "invariably deadly. Very aggressive." The snake didn't seem immediately aggressive, but it reared back like I had seen cobra's do in Arad Lund and scanned the front rank for a likely target. It's eyes fell on each of us in turn until it fell on me and paused. I stifled the urge to yelp, thinking the thing was about to attack. Instead it seemed to bow its head at me and then turned and slithered away into the brush.

"What in the hell..." Beren muttered, "never seen one just back off before."

One of the conquistadors rounded on me and thrust out a finger as though about to decry me as a Mervegian heretic.

"She is a witch woman!" Which was true. "She has power of snakes!" Which was demonstrably not. I scoffed, more for the need to say something than from any real plan.

"Our mighty friend here is a teensy bit scared of snakes," I told the party at large, earning myself a murderous look from both men.

"Not to worry fellows, I'll protect you from the scaled menace," I boasted then stuck out my tongue and made a hissing noise. Both conquistadors flinched and then colored, earning a smattering of chuckles from the rest of the shipwrecked, raftwrecked?, passengers.

"The trail isn't too far ahead," Beren interjected, clearly eager to forestall a fight, an instinct I was all to pleased to see given I'd be fighting two armed men with a gun that didn't have any ammunition and a sword I was barely competent to draw from it's scabbard.

"Then lets get onto it by all means... if you gentlemen are quite ready?" I asked the fuming conquistadors with elaborate patience.