It was a never ending circle of speeches these last few weeks it seemed to Des. If she wasn't in one end of town she was at another standing in the middle or on the fringe of crowds that were avidly listening then cheering wildly as the candidate of their choice stated their promises to the citizens.

When she wasn't in the crowds she was checking out all the new posters that were going up all over town to see who the next candidate would be. This was really turning into quite an election and Amal was dying for all the dirt on each and everyone that was running for office.

Now this wouldn't be so bad if people would quit throwing their hats in the ring. Des could easily dig up dirt on two or three people but, 'dang", she thought to herself, "just how much money was it going to cost her in informants to get all the dirt on all these people now in the Governors race.?

Of course some of them she already had some decent dirt on but that wasn't the point. The point was she was going to now be running here and there all over town looking for her informants, and getting new ones, unless she herself put up a poster advertising wanting dirt on the candidates which wasn't something she really wanted to do being the upstanding, fine, Oracle reporter that she was and all who would never stoop so low as to pay for dirt on people.

She thought and thought and finally decided to use her tiny recording devices that she had bought at the space port from one of her contacts to get the dirt from the Inn like she always did. Then on top of that she would get Gav to go with her and plant a few around The Arena, The Annex, and The Outback to see what juicy conversations she could pick up from there with them.

Now if only she could figure out just who kept stealing them from the various places around that she kept hiding them life would be grand indeed!

Des would have used her martial arts training to at the very least disable the person or creature grabbing her from behind had her royal guard not moved a muscle when she was drug into the alley suddenly. There was only one soul alive that any of her High Elven guards would allow to do something like that and live and that was her beloved husband, Gavilean.

So instead she relaxed and let herself be towed backwards then turned to face him once they were safely out of sight ready to hug and kiss him in greeting as they always did when they had been apart for any length of time. The sight that met her eyes though was so foreign to her though that her eyes widened, mouth dropped open, and both hands began to skim over him frantically in search of injuries.

Her voice was a low whisper that was half moan of despair, "Oh lordy be Babe. What in tarnation has happened to ya" Are ya hurt?"

Then he mentioned something about a story and she blinked. There was only one Count she knew of that could have possibly caused him to be looking like this just from going to get a story and it was the same one she had written to threatening just a few days ago. And there he was smirking about it.

Des shook her head slowly and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist. "Ain't nobody gonna kill ya on my watch Babe. Ya just stay close to me and I will protect ya. I will shove a silver cross so far down that Count's throat that he will be wishing he was never granted unlife love mine. Don't ya worry none about him.?

But just to be on the safe side she thought that perhaps she should buy herself a blaster from the space port with some ultraviolet rounds because you just never knew when you might find yourself out and about without a silver cross handy.