Howl sighed at the sight of the wayward horse. How should he corral the beast? He didn't have the patience to chase it until it tired, even if he could figure a way to match its speed. However, perhaps there was another way. "Calcifer, I'm going to need your help for this one," he said aloud.

Horses! Rashid smild as he heard the god's request. Oh he was good with horses, even though he had no horse for his quest. Back in his homeland, horse breeding and horse races had been a national sport, second only to camels. Also it was said by his people that the wind would take the shape of a horse if it could. "Come my friend", the arab spoke to his falcon. "Let's do something that we did at home too."

[IMG]http://i59.tinypic.com/2chxnc8.png[/IMG] Talwyn furrowed her brow. If Heimdallr couldn’t even corral his horse, Gulltoppr, what made him think a little pixie could help him? Talk about odd requests. But if there was one thing she was good at, it was being creative. “Here, horsey-horsey-horsey!” Talwyn clapped her hands over her knees a few times and made kissy sounds in vain attempt to lure it closer. The golden-maned horse barely spared her the time of day and whinnied as it slowly trotted away. This made her blood boil. It was teasing her! She recalled a few spells she could use against it and prepared to run after it when Gilbert stopped her.

Mjrn turned to Kathryn with a puzzled look on her face. "Can't we just make a pen or cage with high enough sides at one end of the ravine and chase Gulltoppr into it?" Kathryn thought about it for a moment and turned to her barbaric colleague. "2 flaws with this plan of yours you goon. Problem 1, what are we going to make this cage of? I'm not seeing any steel bars or anything nearby. Problem 2, what is stopping the horse from running behind us? We're nowhere near fast enough to block the entire width of this ravine. Seriously, and you expect me to get mud in my boots?" With a light smack upside the head, Mjrn looked at Kathryn with a sad pout.

Both women bickered over ideas on how to catch Gulltoppr, one idea after the next was shot down.

Skarn awakened by the bickering flicked his long ears and stretched. Hopping out of Mjrn's hood, the Wolpertinger landed in his owner's pouch. Foraging through all her belongings the clever little creature found a great treasure within, a bundle of carrots. Wrapping his little paws around the bundle of carrots Skarn flapped his wings out of the pouch and onto the side of the ravine. The puppy Ofelia was immediately startled by the sudden appearance of a gross bundle of plant things and a delicious smelling fuzzball with wings. Drooling at the mouth Ofelia went to sneak after Skarn. Preparing to jump on the "unsuspecting" wolpertinger, Ofelia landed on nothing. Skarn laughed at the foolish dog as he took to the air once again with his vegetable prize.

Clearing upset that he was outwitted by a flying rabbit of all things Ofelia growled and tried to jump at the mischievous Skarn. Thinking this was quite a sight to behold, Skarn took off flying down the ravine with Ofelia giving chase while both their owners were so caught up in trying to solve this darn puzzle for the Bifrost shard.

Flying as fast as his little wings could take him, Skarn went to make a game of avoiding Ofelia who gave chase. This little game did not last very long because another creature's attention was drawn by the bundle of carrots. OH NO YOU DON'T! THESE ARE MY CARROTS. the pesky wolpertinger thought as it now had to out maneuver a speedy horse as well as a dog. Weaving left to right and flying as fast as his little wings could take him, Skarn started to grow tired, both the horse and puppy were relentless.

Turning back towards his master, Skarn dropped the bundle of carrots (minus one) in Mjrn's hands as he flew past. Kathryn almost trampled by her puppy grabbed the silly dog by the scruff of her neck and went to scold her. Confused for a moment, Mjrn looked down at the carrots then was met face to face with Gulltoppr. Both girl's face drew blank and jaws dropped as the horse dropped the shard and started to feast on the bundle of carrots. Noticing that Gulltoppr followed Mjrn as she took a step to the side with the carrots, the girls were able to at least capture the horses attention.

Nightowls

Alanna was panting from the effort of trying to catch the elusive Gulltoppr. Even when riding Vár, who was clearly no match for Gulltoppr's extraordinary speed and strength, although the golden steed's curiosity was clearly aroused by the appearance of another horse. Vár whickered towards Gulltoppr, who snorted back but stayed where it was. "Ugh... no good, Mal. We need to do something else. This is obviously no ordinary horse. So it looks like we may have to come up with something special." Alanna called to her companion as she kept an eye on their tricky target. "I think Vár can help us."

Mal looked askance at the big horse.

"He's really come in handy for this mission. I guess he's an alright guy."

She tried to remember what strengths he had and thought about the river crossing. "He's really good at doing stunts and tricks, right? What if we used that to our advantage? Might be we could trick this horse or make him jealous enough to get close to us. It would have to be a really big stunt though!"

She chewed on her lip for a moment. "If he knows how to do things on command I might have an idea. I think we should definitely use fire!"

These tasks are just getting more strange as we go... Cronus thinks to himself. How was he supposed to catch this horse anyway? He was too hungry to think so he told Dise that, for now, they would camp out at the entrance/exit of the ravine and make some food. Part of him hoped that the horse would grow bored of no one paying attention to him and walk over to give them the shard, but Cronus' other half told him it would not be that easy...

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What a strange issue to have, Cuinn though, but he reasoned it as logical with a herd that size. His thoughts strayed to wondering what someone would even do with that many sheep...

A harsh chirp on his shoulder brought him back to reality as he realized Custenhin was waiting and wanting to see some action. He gazed at his pet, reaching up a hand to brush some feathers while he thought over of some possible ideas.

It only took a few moments longer before he spoke.

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Dise frowns at the new dilemma that Custenhin has posed to them. How exactly is it possible to count an infinite number of sheep without falling asleep? Given that they all look similar, how would it be possible to count one more than once or to skip over one? She pauses her contemplation and notices that Elethia has gone strangely quiet. That's impossible! She's fallen asleep standing up! Dise thinks. She moves over to Elethia and jostles her to awaken her. It doesn't help that Mr. Scoots has already found a warm spot to curl up and take a nap in. As Elethia wipes the drool from the corner of her mouth, Dise lets her know that they need to find a solution and fast before they end up sleeping there for the rest of their travels...

Nightowls

Alanna was feeling a little overwhelmed at this point. She was fresh out of ideas. This task was impossible! How were they supposed to count a seemingly infinite number of sheep? This whole quest was turning out to be full of unexpected twists and turns. "So... it has come down this. Just when you think you've seen and done it all." Alanna muttered under her breath, resigned. But if they to retrieve that piece of the rainbow bridge, they would have to come up with something extremely clever. Or crazy. Or both.

Mal yawned loudly.

"This is making me so sleepy!" She shook her head to try and wake up a little. "This is a tough one.."

"You know, I've never seen a sheep in real life. I thought they'd be smaller. They look so soft and squishy. Do you think they'd mind if I just took a nap on them?" She bit her lip wistfully as she looked at them. It'd been a long time since she'd seen an actual bed. She whispered to Alanna, "I don't weigh that much, they won't even know I'm there."

Alanna could hardly hold back a snort at the thought of Mal lying on a bed of sheep. "I don't think Custenhin would be too happy that you're treating his sheep like bedding." She told her friend wryly. "Remember, he's got that huge dog over there." Alanna nods towards the shepherd's mastiff.

How can one count a thing that is innumerable? Cronus thought he would have better luck counting his hair than counting the endless flock of sheep. However, one can't trust the words of other people all the time and one has to experience things themselves. This is how wisdom is born. He looked down at his feet to Ambrose who looked hungrily at the sheep. Sheep meat was Ambrose's favorite meat and Cronus would have to watch him closely while counting the sheep, but how to count them? He knew some tricks to stay awake that worked for him, he would impart that knowledge to the desperate shepard.

He thought of how he could help the man count the sheep. Back when he was in the royal army, there was a woman who had to keep everything neat and in its place. She organized the armory tent in order of the most mint conditioned weapons to the most used weapons and kept spears with spears and swords with swords. She never mixed any weapon together. She did the same with potions and ointments. She had her own method for packing things away too for when they moved camp. What was her name? Cordella. No...Diana. Yes. That was it. She was a clever woman. She imparted many of her secrets to Cronus during their campaign. Most of those secrets he practiced almost daily. She also told him a nice tip about carrying peppermint oil at all times in case he had to use in a hurry when he felt a headache creeping up on him. There were a few times he needed it while they marched on and most of the medicine was packed up.

He wondered what Diana would do in this situation. He knew she would be meticulous about whatever she would do here. After about an hour of hard thinking, he came up with, what he hoped his comrade-in-arms would be proud of, a method of counting the flock.

[IMG]http://i59.tinypic.com/2chxnc8.png[/IMG] To quantify what was endless? How could she go about such an impossible feat? As far as her eyes could see, there were roving, fluffy balls. Talwyn felt dizzy just looking at the flock of sheep, and would’ve faceplanted on the ground if it weren’t for Dise catching her. “Talwyn, don’t fall asleep now. I just got useful information from Custenhin; he said that he has an empathy link with every single one of his sheep.” “Wow. Every last one of them?” The pixie paused to consider the thought. “That’s impressive.” She then reconsidered the seemingly insurmountable task of putting a number on his flock of sheep. “Well, if I can’t approximate the number of sheep by sight, I’ll just have to do it another way…” Suddenly, like lightning, an idea struck her. “I know what to do, and I’m going to need everyone’s help to pull it off.”

Amarantha frowned. Count sheep? What would they ask for next?! These 'requests' were getting odder and odder...still an idea was already forming in her mind.

(( Oh crud, I thought the deadline was tomorrow, and I just got off work. =/ drat.))

LATE POST Howl scowled at the sheep. Infinite sheep? Airwalking up to look showed him that the herd did indeed seem to be infinite, and what was more, the field appeared to lack concrete dimensions. He felt like he was back Paradox and Hilbert's Hotel. Unfortunately, he hadn't excelled at the subject, and none of them seemed to apply very well to tangible items. The information that the sheep did in fact all have names was interesting. "Honestly, as long as he knows none are missing, I'm not sure I see a need to count all of them," Howl murmured to Calcifer. "Still, we must complete this task...somehow."

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The attack was sudden, but a quick leap was enough for Cuinn to avoid the charge.

He had been wanting some more action, but this was a bit unexpected even to him. There was no reasoning or poem writing now, only screaming and snap decisions.

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As the Banshee lunges at Elethia, Mr. Scoots scurries off and hides behind a nearby tree. Battling is not his forte thank you very much! He contemplates giving the creature his big sad kitty eye look in case that would sway her mood, but then shudders with having to face her directly again.

A loud shriek is heard from Elethia and then silence echoes through the area. Mr. Scoots removes his paws from his eyes and peeks around the tree and starts snickering because he sees that Elethia didn't actually dodge the attack; she tripped over her own feet instead.

The Banshee pauses and even Dise looks perplexed. Elethia splutters as she wipes the mud off of her face. "Alright that's it! I've had enough! You want a fight evil wretch I'll give you one!" she growls out