The girls seemed suprised at he starly naked and blindly beautiful Dora, but not in a negative (save perhaps midly jealous) way - their faces said 'the day can't get any weirder, so why not?'<br/><br/>"Oh, my thanks," the blonde seemed to appreciate the apparent nymph's and Toria's offer to look for the fled fellow, as well as the latter's cleverly diplomatic way of getting Cecily out of the house. "I, by the way, am Ashalia Huntsilver," she introduced herself after Kalia, and smiling at Randal added, "And your presence throughout day and even would be<em>most</em>welcome, and make me feel far safer, I know." She squeezed Kalia's hand, and vouched to the others for her friend's magical abilities. (They were hardly her only talents, but Ashalia would leave those revelations to Kalia herself if-when-how she deemed.)<br/><br/>Arivel volunteered to go into town to report what'd happened to the guard, so they could notify the relevant families to collect their dead (whom Ashalia morosely then recited the names of). He confessed aloud to the others that he was leaning to going back into town at any case, so he might as well be the 'messenger' in this respect: after seeing the massacre he suddenly had more of a mind to shack up with the two sorceresses for softer living in the days head, and perhaps not go dragon-hunting after all.<br/><br/>In the hedge maze, the several lady adventurers would find no more lurking dangers beyond the occasional spiderweb across the path. The soft earth afforded easy location of footfalls here and there; if they belonged to the escaped lad, it would seem he had fled to the riverbank and then south along it, likely back into town.<br/>