With every sodden step the soaking wet, miserable, hungry and very irritable dwarf trudged his way up the slippery slope.  "Curse this rain and the whore that prayed for it."  Darval muttered half under his breath not for the first time and probably not the last.  "Blasted trees!!!  Do your job and protect me from this blasted torrential down poor!!!"  Darval bellowed at the indifferent trees as he made slow yet steady progress below their branches.   With his long black hair and beard plastered to his head and chest the dwarf continues on with his journey.  His dark brown outer hooded cloak is completely soaked as are his clothes beneath.  Even his heavy woolen undergarments worn under his Mythril armor is completely soaked.  At the top of the slope Darval leans against a tree to catch his breath and to take a look about.  Hearing a loud grumbling sound Darval spins about while drawing his double bladed battle axe from his back.  Darval sighs heavily when he hears the sound yet again and realizes the sound is his own stomach complaining about the lack of food.  "By the Seven Hells that woman better have a good hot meal ready when I arrive.  Nothing but rain and more rain for 3 weeks... yes she better have some food ready."  Of course Darval was exaggerating it had only been raining for 3 days but just try and tell that to a wet miserable.<br/>By mid afternoon Darval arrived at the Elvin city of Enclaryln.  What he saw however was nothing like what he expected to see.  Not exactly at any rate.  The Elvin tree city was there of course but there were no signs of movement anywhere.  At first Darval thought that all the elves were only being wise and staying in their homes as the storm continued to rage on.  But after he awkwardly climbed the ladder to the tree he knew his friends home to be located in he found that all the walkways were completely devoid of life as well.  He passed one home after another.  All the doors were shut and the shutters were all drawn on the windows but he could see light coming through the cracks.  The only sounds were of his own wet boots sloshing as he made his way across the wooden walk and the sound of the rain and thunder that had been his constant compainion for far longer than he cared to think about.  Darval knocked loudly on his friends door and shouted, "Come and open the blasted door woman before I get washed away!!!"  When no answer came Darval let himself in and found that his friends house was dark.  No fire had been set in the hearth and there was a fine dusting of dust on the furniture as if she had not been home for weeks.  "By the balls of a harry goat!!!  What a time for that blasted woman to go traveling."  Darval bellowed.  "Never mind I'll go to the pub at least there be a warm fire some good booze and if I'm lucky some food as well."  Darval muttered under his breath.  Once again braving the storm the dwarf wound his way through the wooden paths towards one of the more central trees where he knew there was supposed to be a pub.  Darval opened the door to the pub expecting to find some merry making elves but what he saw before him left him speachless and completely puzzled.  The room looked as if there indeed had been many elves enjoying a meal and drinks with friends except for there were no elves... not a living soul.  Only trays of food and cups of ale left on the table tops to get warm and flat.  Darval inspected the food and found that it looked like it had only been sitting out for a couple of days at the most.  Darval's stomach took this moment to restart its grumbling.  Sighing heavily Darval walked into the kitchen proper to see if he could find something to munch on.  However the bar was closer and the thought of a good shot of whiskey took over any thoughts of food he might have had.  The dwarf grabbed a large flask and an even larger bottle of whiskey and walked back over towards the fire place which by now only had a few red glowing coals down in the bottom of the grate.  Darval filled the fireplace with wood and got a nice proper fire going before plopping his tired wet bones into the nearest chair.  The dwarf then downed a couple of glasses of whiskey almost taking time to breath in between glasses.  Only after a very large and long belch did the dwarf slow down to a more moderate rate of drinking.  The drink however only managed to warm his belly.  Though he would never in a million years admit it even to himself Darval was terrified.  Never in his life had he ever seen a whole city that looked like all of it's people just suddenly went off and left everything they were doing.  His earlier search of the city had shown him that.  There had not been another living soul.  "Cursed woman... where are you?" Darval muttered before taking another swig from the flask.<br/>