A clutch of eggs, like many others she had seen in past hatchings, sat before her, their little occupants beginning the struggle to break out. The shaman sat watch over them, the night sky clear of any clouds as first one shell was broken, then another. Each time the shaman would reach in and lift the baby lizardfolk free, reading their portents and granting them their vision-name. They would later choose their callname when old enough, but the visionname defines the lifepath of the one it is given to.

Finally, all were hatched but one last one. "It is time to awaken, little one," the shaman murmured to the egg. There was no response at first, but then as a shooting star flashed across the heavens the final newborn of this clutch broke free of her shell. The shaman lifted her free of its remains, and little hands scrabbled at her arm as she made her pronouncement. "I see omens for this one. She shall travel the paths of dreams. Be known, Dreamwalker."

---

Not tough enough to grow up a hunter, like most female lizardfolk, Dreamwalker was relegated to the custody of the shamans. Unlike the other hatchlings however, she eagerly devoured the stories and legends they told, especially those tales surviving from the days before the great cold. She was a precocious hatchling, facinated by magic, and constantly pestered her guardians to teach her what they knew. They refused, saying she would be trained as a shaman when she was ready. Still, she soaked up every bit of knowledge she could, regardless of what it referred to. And so it was for fifteen years.

---

As Dreamwalker stuck her head outside the shaman-to-be hut, yawning, the village was abuzz with activity. Warriors ran back and forth, grabbing spears and greatswords, while several shamans gathered in a circle near the firepit, heads huddled.

Unfortunately, in her view at least, no one had bothered to tell Dreamwalker what it was all about. All she had managed to catch was a whispered "Invaders!" between two warriors near the shaman huts. And so, as the warriors headed out in a group, the shamans a short distance back as they moved through the trees, she followed as well. At a distance of course.

So of course, she wasn't that surprised to hear, in Draconic, "Hail the camp! We bring goods and wish to trade!" It was to her kind what Common is to humanoids, so her first thought was that the intruders must be from a distant tribe of lizardfolk. Turning around, she made her way back to the village, so no one would notice she had followed them.

Sitting down outside one of the Shaman huts, she took the staff she had been working on and resumed whittling it, seeming to pay no attention to the shouts of astonishment as the expedition returned with the visitors. Until she heard that surprising word.

"Softskins!"

The knife fell to the ground, forgotten. Rising, thinking 'That can't be true!' she made her way across the fallen leaves, using the half-finished staff like a walking stick. 'Why would softskins want to talk? They'd just as soon kill us on sight!'

But it was. As she made her way past several of her broodmates who were running the other way, she saw first the large warriors of her tribe, and then the strange beings they were "escorting."

She was repulsed and fascinated at the same time by these weird creatures. Both were a completely unnatural pinkish color, and stood at around her height. The one on the left apart from the lack of a tail, the strange scaleless skin, the grotesque flat face, and strings coming out of the top of its head, seemed like a slightly smaller version of her own warriors, though it seemed to cover itself much more. 'No surprise,' she thought, 'since they don't have scales to protect themselves.' It looked to be discussing something with one of the shamans, so she turned her attention to the other one.

Her grip on the staff tightened a bit more as she got a good look at the speaker's companion.

Its build resembled more that of the shamans nearby, but there the resemblance ended. In addition to the changes she had noted in the first one, this one looked as if Semuanya had reached out and squeezed it about the waist. As it turned to say something to its companion in a voice that sounded like birdsong, she shuddered again. This one had two large growths on its chest, though they were hidden under the clothing. Sometimes her kind had a slightly larger growth of scales in that area, but these lack scales... She shook her head a moment, then remembering that the female softskins fed their children from their own body. That one then must be female, which meant the other was male.

She almost didn't notice the shaman gesturing to her, but another broodmate of hers, Longspear, was nudging her. "Seems you're wanted over there. Good luck!"

Uncertain, she walked over to the shaman, but took the opportunity to get a closer look at the two softskins, eyeing their clothing and what she took to be their weapons as unobtrusively as she could.

The male put out his hand as she reached them. Dreamwalker tilted her head, uncertain as to what he wanted, until the shaman next to her whispered to her "They want to see the staff."

Gingerly, she gave it to him, afraid that she might damage the "guests" without intending, but he took the staff firmly, then turned to show it to his companion.

Though she missed the hand motions, she heard the words that echoed with power fall from the flat mouth of the female, and a ball of light blossomed above her.

The warriors all seemed to take half a step back, as did every other lizardfolk within sight... except for Dreamwalker. Though she had only heard of it in tales, she recognized the magic as that her kind had once had. Rather than drawn from Semuanya, as the shaman's magic is, this magic had some other source. The tales refused to speak of it though, and her mind flashed back over all the times she had bugged the shamans about teaching her, and their refusal each time. She barely heard the words of the softskin and the shaman as they discussed the workmanship and the value of the staff, her eyes blinking away the light as that light gave her a glimpse into her future.

---

The next day, things had returned to a semblance of normality. The designated hunters were out in the forest looking for dinner for tonight's feast, which would be slightly larger to accommodate their... unusual guests. Last night Quickstrike had asked why they didn't just make the softskins the night's feast, but Dreamwalker didn't even get to say a word. The others immediately told him about the light the female had summoned, and they all set to speculating what sort of atrocities they would do to the village if the lizardfolk tried such a thing. Dreamwalker could have debunked half the ideas, as evidently she was the only one who had paid real attentions to the legends and thought about them, but instead she laid back and planned until she fell asleep.

Now, it was time to put that plan into action. She had spent the morning observing the softskins as they observed the lizardfolk going about their morning duties, and had observed a few more differences. The male seemed to have pointed headfrills, while the female's were rounded. The female also seemed not to be able to speak their tongue, but relied on the male to translate. That was going to be a problem, but not an insurmountable one.

Walking casually their way with another staff in hand, this one completed, she presented it before them. "You seemed interested yesterday in the staff I was working on, so I thought you might wish to see what a finished one looked like."

As the two looked it over, muttering something in their birdspeak, she managed to recognize a couple words she had heard yesterday. Filing them away for later study, as she'd always had a good memory, she gathered up her courage. "That ball of light you created yesterday was interesting. Could you show me it again?"

After the male said what was presumably her question to the female, it seemed to provoke a small discussion, but Dreamwalker waited patiently. She'd waited this long; a short while longer wouldn't hurt.

Finally, it seemed the female had convinced her companion that it was alright, and smiling to Dreamwalker, she once again spoke the words of power, bringing into being another small ball of light formed around a leaf. This time she also saw the small bit of moss the female had removed from her belt pouch beforehand, and its disappearance.

As the light appeared several lizardfolk looked their way, then away again as they saw the softskins with the staff and Dreamwalker standing with them. More than a couple probably made a joke about softskins' poor eyesight.

Bursting with questions, Dreamwalker couldn't hold back any longer. "Did you pull the power for that from that bit of moss? Is that how you can cast without calling on Semuanya? What did those words mean? Can..." She trailed off as the male just frowned at her, then turned to look to the female. The female then said something to the male, presumably asking what she had just said, and that triggered what seemed to be a sort of argument if their body language was even close to hers. Glancing around, she saw that luckily at least no others seemed to be within hearing range, and the softskins weren't shouting at each other, at least.

Finally the two seemed to come to some sort of agreement, though the male didn't seem too happy as he answered. "In a manner of speaking, yes. We don't know who this Semuanya you speak of is, but I draw my powers from Sylvanus and nature itself, while my companion draws her from the world around us. And those words can harness that power, but you wouldn't be able to understand them without the proper training."

A puzzled expression grew on her face at the mention of this "Sylvanus," though the rest of the answer she grasped easily enough. "Who is this Sylvanus? Another aspect of Semuanya? And how do you draw that power from nature and the world? Can it be learned easily with this training?" She stopped there to let the male translate, which seemed to spark another discussion. 'Honestly, with how easily they show it, why is it so difficult for them to speak of it?' she wondered.

The discussion continued for an hour or two, before the male, finally fed up with trying to discuss basic magical theory with this (to him)primitive, just abruptly stood up and walked off into the forest. As he left, Dreamwalker slumped a little, looking crestfallen. She was beginning to grasp the concepts that these softskins spoke of, taken with what she had learned from the legends, but there was so much more to learn. She was also starting to recognize a few more words of their language, but nowhere near enough to continue the discussion without the male.

The female just smiled softly, and patted her on the back, saying something in that singsong language of theirs.

Over the next couple of days as the two softskins rested and re-provisioned, Dreamwalker took every chance to continue the discussions, which seemed to annoy the male. On reflection after one of the times he walked off again, she decided however that she would probably feel the same if she had to translate a bunch of questions and answers between a shaman and a softskin about Semuanya.

Then, finally, the softskins had finished their re-provisioning and trading, and were ready to move on.

---

The world felt caught in that moment between dark and light as several of the village's warriors again "escorted" the two softskins towards the edge of their territory. The sky had lightened enough that you could see blue where there were holes in the forest canopy, but the sun had not yet risen high enough to bring the forest out of twilight.

As she watched them from behind the trunk, Dreamwalker was thankful that they had chosen to leave this time of the day, since she wasn't that great at stealth. She was sure that the warriors probably knew she was there, but luckily they had no idea why she was really following. If they had, she was sure that one of them would have left to drag her back by now.

Moving from tree to tree, she watched carefully, pulling completely behind the trunk whenever either of the two started to even glance her way. Finally, the warriors turned and left back towards the village, and it was just the two and their hidden follower.

They traveled at a leisurely pace through the forest, stopping for a meal at lunchtime. While the two ate some rations, Dreamwalker left them for a bit and made use of her little-developed hunting skills to catch herself a rabbit.

Things were rather uneventful the rest of the day. When camp was set up, Dreamwalker found a comfortable niche in a nearby tree to watch from and sleep in. In the morning, the softskins broke camp, and they continued traveling, along with their hidden companion. The second day was about as uneventful as the first, until that afternoon...

The two softskins seemed to be discussing something as they walked down the trail, Dreamwalker staying just within sight of them. She couldn't quite make out anything at this distance though, if they were using any of the words she had understood. She had learned their callnames as well, the day before they left, to be Maria for the female and Andorus for the male.

It was just as well she wasn't close enough to listen in or things might have ended very differently. The two travelers were so engrossed in their discussion that they didn't see the owlbear approaching through the trees. To be fair though, even Dreamwalker almost missed it. It was almost to them, drool dripping from its beak before its movement caught her eye. It took a second to register, and another to realize that neither of the two had seen it.

Thus it was with surprise that the two stopped as a green streak flashed between them, slamming the butt end of a staff into the stomach of the owlbear which had just stepped onto the trail. It let out that strange cry its kind makes, and swatted Dreamwalker aside, slamming her into a tree, but she had given the two the warning and delay they needed. As it stepped towards them, Maria was already muttering the words of a spell, several orange beads of magic flying from her fingertips to blast into the creature, while Andorus closed his eyes, his body growing and changing into that of a large bear.

Dreamwalker was in and out during the battle, laying on her side against the tree as she tried to focus to see what was happening. She would look up a bit, then things would start to get blurry, and she'd have to turn her gaze back to the staff lying next to her until her eyes could focus again. While she couldn't follow it that closely, she managed to get the gist of it, and marveled at the power these two wielded as they defeated that owlbear and the two more that had shown up after that, drawn by the cry of the first one. As the last one fell, she finally succumbed to the tiredness she felt, her eyes closing.

Then, with a yawn, she opened her eyes, and wondered why the ceiling was white. A moment later the memories of what had just happened before she lost consciousness came crashing in and she sat up, looking around. She was sitting on some sort of mat, with a blanket that had been covering her now down around her legs. Her head, even sitting, was almost hitting the top of the tent, though it seemed fairly empty right now apart from her and a small table to her right, on which some herbs were sitting.

Gingerly she got her legs under her, but everything seemed to be working properly, and she wasn't actually feeling any pain. As she tried to decide what to do, she finally noticed the voices outside. As quietly and carefully as she could, she stuck her head out through the tent opening, and saw Maria and Andorus in the middle of some sort of argument. While she still couldn't understand most of it, she managed to catch her visionname, and the word "return."

'No! Not after this!' she thought, and scrabbled out of the tent and onto her feet, using the few words she knew, in Common. "No. No return," she said, shaking her head for added emphasis. "Learn magic."

The two stopped their arguing and turned to look at her, Andorus frowning and Maria smiling, just a little. "Looks like the decision's already made, Andy, unless you want to tie her up and drag her back, and I'd just hate to think what kind of reaction that'd get," the sorceress said as Dreamwalker looked on uncomprehendingly, disappointment and resolve recognizable even if they hadn't just spent several days among her kind.

"And if we did she'd just follow again." The elven druid sighed. "Alright Maria, you win. But you have to teach your... er... new apprentice Common. I refuse to translate for her all the time." After that, he said to the waiting lizardwoman in Draconic "You may come, though I warn you it will be dangerous, and you will not be accepted everywhere."

He might as well have not said the rest of the sentence, for as soon as she heard the "you may come" she was jumping in happiness, letting out a hissing cry of victory she had heard hunters give after a particularly successful hunt.

Maria just looked on, shaking her head softly at the new third member of the little group. "I'm definitely going to have to start studying that language spell," she said to herself.

---

As she traveled with the two, she learned more about magic, and each time she learned more it only hardened her resolve. After a comment the lady made one night to some friends in a roadside inn about how the lizardfolk girl(whom the folk thought a pet) had "slithered' along behind them originally, Dreamwalker laughed and took it as her callname in defiance of their expectations, shortening it to S'slith.

Finally, several years later, she returned to her tribe's old encampment. They marvelled at her finely-wrought quarterstaff and outfit, but more than a few looked at her oddly for her outlandish appearance. Later that night, she talked with the shamans, telling them what she had learned. There were uneasy stirrings among the shamans when she brought up Azuth and Mystra, and the head shaman rose to cut her off. She then dismissed the conclave, claiming that the hour was late, leaving just her and S'slith. She congratulated the young lizardwoman on her accomplishments, but warned her not to blaspheme their god, or else she would become the next sacrifice to that god. S'slith tried to argue, but she could tell the shaman's mind was closed.

Over the next week she tried twice more to talk to the shamans, but they refused to listen each time as soon as she started touching on the concept of other gods. She was about ready to give up when she had a dream-vision. In it, she was standing at a fork in the road. One side led into a swamp, disappearing into the muck, the footprints of many lizardfolk imprinted in it. The other was overgrown with brambles, but beyond she could make out a fantastic city of some sort. Without hesitating, she stepped on the latter path, and woke up immediately, knowing her stay there was done.

She set out the next day, determined to rediscover the magic her race had lost, and return with proof of her words.