[Game Thread] That which flows from fated springs...

[Nimlos]

Pulling herself from the water, Liria walks beneath the dubious cover of the foliage. A tree's root juts a few feet up from the earth before plunging back down again, forming a suitable spot for sitting. Resting against it, positioned so she can keep an eye on each of the men, she pulls off one boot and dumps out the water caught in it, then the other. Picking up a small stick from the ground, she scrapes off the worst of the mud - and a bit of now-dead tendril.

"Flying through the air from a ball of darkness?" she muses. "I'd be tempted to call it a lie, if not for ... well, how I got here."

"I'm called Liria," she tells Rin as he finishes his tale. As he complains of feeling weak and slips to one knee, she raises an eyebrow questioningly. "Are you hurt?" she asks, not noticing any signs of a wound on him.

[Lord of the Hamsters]

Briain listens in shock to Rin's account of the stump's origins, backing away from it slowly as he does so. If it weren't for a vague recollection of a flying elf woman who had haunted his unconscious visions, he might not have believed it. This place, so crystalline perfect when I stood just an hour ago at its banks... Dark vine draperies , water clear unto non-existence above glittering rock candy stones, grass from the wool of a green lamb. Too beautiful perhaps. Clever glamour of evil, or only now defiled? A million questions flood his brain, none of which Rin could probably answer -- and anyway they compete for airtime with the ageometrical hallucinations of his worsening fever, forcing him to concentrate on speech to avoid babbling nonsense. He too finds a tree to lean against, knees bent as though casual but really helping him keep balance.

"And I am Briain, originally of Cormyr, more recently of the druidic college of Madrone, and currently of the road," the tall bard says when Rin has concluded, as usual managing to smile despite the circumstances. Briain had stopped using his family's name long ago to save both of them embarrassment; hopefully his thorough litany would discourage that question. "I also seem to be particularly useless at saving jettisoned elf maidens from horrible fates," he adds glumly.

He watches the poison fade from the water, still unsure that the plant had not managed to get in some final wickedness before returning to its vegetative state. "I had come here to see this spring, which is rumored to carry a blessing and enchantment from the memory of Myth Drannor," he continues. "But it seems I was deceived by stories which must have originated in some evil place; either that or some magic more powerful than that of ancient druids has managed to corrupt the spring."

Briain stares blankly at it, his normally lively hazel eyes glazed over, before turning to look at his newfound allies against animated vegetables. Rin seemed a little too handy with his axe for Briain's taste, but such skills were obviously occasionally useful. As for the young woman, Brian takes no notice of her unnatural features, seeing only that she is beautiful. "Milady, did you see any of these strange things as well?"

OOC Hey, no problem here with the hexes in the future, I just wasn't sure how diagonal movement works and how far I could move in a round on them. One of these days my books will arrive... EDIT: Ninja'd!

[Codger]

The nearest bank is to the northeast, which the trio slog towards and settle themselves upon to unsodden themselves to some degree, under the sprawling branches of a pair of modest trees surrounded by ferns and bushes. The purplish ichor spreads and thins out through the springs, with fresh water presumably pushing the tainted cloud southwards down the little creek that meanders for a short way along the eastern edge of the Thunder Peaks, away from the Moonsea Ride. The crowding lush vegetation apparent along its entire length easily sets it apart from the surrounding grassland. The falling rain, if anything, has worsened a bit, to a steady drizzle of little drops chilled by their passage over the peak just to the west, and only partially warmed during their fall through the sultry air of autumn in the Dalelands. A most idyllic place really, even in the rain, if not for the memory of the demon weed that fouled it.

Despite his surprisingly sudden fever, Rin recalls that it was this very bank of the springs that he first carried the elf maiden's body to, before there was any sign of a plant within her. It being the nearest bank then, as it is now, he notes where a small patch of grass and a missing fern were ripped from the fecund soil by the vile plant, right next to where he now kneels. The jagged tips of the torn plants are no longer green, but sickly looking and curled away from the sun. A tentative touch of a yellowed blade of torn grass reveals its tip to be mushy, as if rotted in a dark place for three or four days.

Besides not being particularly attuned to nature, Liria's distraction over the potential reaction to her, prevents her from noticing the nearby patch of torn greenery. A person in need though, gets her immediate attention, as that is the calling of her heart. While the ranger bears no obvious wounds, closer scrutiny through the rain reveals that his face is abnormally flushed except where the skin is pulled taut, being abnormally pale in those places. While no expert on all the many diseases a person might suffer from, the ancient longsword's recent words suddenly loom large, as this man naming himself Rin is almost certainly suffering some illness. A glance to the bard reveals a lesser version of the same!

Some of the sweet phrases he had been working on to describe this spring come back to Briain, and the bard within him cannot help but measure them against the tragedy that followed, for there is ever interest in songs and tales that measure extremes against each other. He remains somewhat woolly-headed though, easily ascribed to the lump on the back of his head. That unfortunate malady fails to explain the increasing warmth of his face though, or the chill of his legs on this otherwise comfortable day, excepting the rain of course. Nothing at all can account for the queasiness of dreaded expectation that tightens his guts as he converses with the others, a vague sense of impending wrongness that has no apparent source or reason.

OoC The hexes are 5' across, which should help in their traversal. I really didn't intend to interrupt the conversation with a post here, but saw where a few relevant details could be added, or clarified. Enjoy the chat while it lasts...

[Whispers]

Looking up at Liria through bloodshot eyes Rin shakes his head slightly, “I don’t think so.” He manages to utter while clearing the over abundance of sweat away from his brow with a dungy cloth he produced from a pouch on his belt.

The ranger points to the decaying greenery as a worried expression takes over his visage, “Whatever that thing was it seems to have a corrupting effect on living things around it.” He turns and continues to examine the wildlife around the spring for some indication of what actually caused the plants to decay, be it the touch of the vile stump or the intoxicating purple ichors that it exuded. He watches as the purple substance continues to be diluted by the springs replenishing waters and attempts to stand once more, “I have to follow the creek and find out if any use it as a source for drinking water. If they drink that poison they may suffer the same fate as I or worse.” He takes a step but is clearly too weak to continue without some rest.

[Lord of the Hamsters]

"Mmm, I don't think we need to worry about that too much," says Briain, looking concerned at Rin's poor state. He had decided long ago that sitting down would be a bad idea for exactly that reason; he probably couldn't get back up. "We're blessed to be in a desolate area, and the creek only runs for about a mile through wilderness. I saw the end of it from the road and that was what tipped me off to there being a spring here."

Briain bends to look at the degenerate grass that the ranger is pointing out, but putting his head in any position other than straight upright causes what feels like whirlpools in a liquid brain. "We should maybe be more concerned about the rest of the vegetation around here, and also travellers who might see it and think of it as a good source of water, as I did. A marker should suffice to warn humans -- and I'll be glad to make one as soon as my head stops spinning -- but I do hope it will dilute before it harms the plants and animals. Thank the gods for this rain!" he laughs.

[Nimlos]

As the two men speak, Liria's hand drifts up over her shoulder, grasping for a moment the rather odd, lightning bolt-shaped pommel of the long blade strapped across her back. It seems almost an unconscious gesture, however, as her gaze remains cautious and concerned while she looks at the increasingly ill men.

"I didn't see any of that," she tells Briain, shaking her head. "I arrived just as Rin here was fighting the, well, the stump."

She glances toward the far end of the pool, where the diluting cloud of venom left behind is beginning to snake its way into the lazy creek Briain mentioned. "Whatever it is, it's affecting both of you," she tells them. "I don't know much of such things..." she continues, almost apologetically. "I'm no great healer, but the two of you should be someplace warm and dry, not out here."

Turning her head, she casts about looking for someplace that will provide a little more shelter than the dubious cover of rain-soaked trees. "And maybe then I can figure out what's happening here," she murmurs.

[Codger]

The rain intensifies, almost on cue with Briain's exclamation. Rin cannot help but smile a bit at the irony, the chilly drops helping to cool his fevered head. They also do a fair job of washing away the rotted tips of the grasses and plants where the elf maiden's body was laid. There will be little in the way of evidence of what happened here for anyone to find, an issue the ranger is plenty familiar with from his lone foraging through remote lands. Of course the three resting here know, but there is a duty of informing others. He can easily mark the area as tainted, with clear signs that any ranger or druid could read. But is that enough, with the community of Pheldon's Helm roughly half a day's walk to the northeast? As remote as this locale is, can the happenstance passing of a druid or ranger be relied upon to that extent?

While Briain's memories of the chalet are clouded by his brother's misguided wrangling, those of the outer ring of the Sacred Grove of Madrone remain unsullied. The taint that has been visited upon this idyllic little place, hopefully quite temporary, is disturbing as much for its intentional deliverance as whatever lingering effects remain. The purposes behind such an attack cannot be trifling, while assuredly depraved. Even if no further harm comes from all this, can he walk away in good conscience with those questions unanswered? Has the worst of it even passed, or might some vigilance be in order to assure nothing more develops?

While the despoiling of a pleasant natural spring is no trifling matter to the paladin, the thought of these two suddenly sickened men spreading whatever it is they have to others is an ongoing threat. A threat to whomever they might seek out for a remedy, people she might well have to warn from a distance, lest they inadvertently come too close. And should the men suffer to the point of being unable to travel, what then? Even as she contemplates it all, a new development catches her eye. On both of the men's rain streaked, flushed faces, she spies dribbles of crimson leaking from their nostrils into the steady wash.

OoC Liria is fully healed :

[Lord of the Hamsters]

Of course the gods wouldn't just dump a healer into our midst, that would be silly, thinks Briain.

He closes his eyes hard and forces himself to step forward. "While you do that, I'm going to take care of quarantining this poor, maligned spring," he says in response to Liria's suggestion of finding shelter, and walks across the glen to where his belongings lie, tripping through the thick foilage so as to skirt the water.

To think I'd planned to spend the night here, he mourns as he ruffles through his backpack, producing a cloth, with which he wipes his face, a waterskin whose sealed contents he trusts much more than the rain, and also his little woodcarving knife. "Sorry, just water, next time we're attacked by plants I'll remember to bring something harder," he says to Rin. Nevertheless, the drink makes him feel a bit better, at least on a psychosomatic level.

Briain straddles a fallen tree near the pool and begins stripping off the bark: not the neatest job in the world, but sufficient for his purpose.* "We should probably make some sort of warning up where the crick is visible from the road as well," he says, pausing for a moment. Concentrating on both speaking and not slicing his hand open with a shaky knife is too difficult to do at the same time. "And after that, I will probably head along the road a bit. Yesterday evening I ran into a strange rider -- or rather he almost ran into me -- who seemed to be very concerned about finding someone, even though I hadn't seen anyone on the road in a day. Probably unrelated, but given the loneliness of the area, there may be some link to this dark magic ball thing, and maybe someone in the direction he was coming from would know who or what he was pursuing. His attitude was definitely... frightening."

When a portion of the log is naked, Briain carves the word "POISON" in both Common and Elvish into the wood. Burning it in would be nicer, but the wood is far too wet and in his current state he would probably just end up setting his hair on fire.

OOC *This will probably take a while, axe help would be welcome...

[Nimlos]

"What on earth is he about?" Liria wonders as Briain straddles a fallen tree and starts scraping at it with a knife. "Please, don't let madness be part of this..."

A moment later, she realizes what he's trying to do. Admirable, but there are more immediate concerns.

"Come on," she tells him. "Time enough for that later, when you're not gushing blood." She turns back to Rin, much the worse of the two, still kneeling unsteadily on the soft loam of the bank of the pond. "Whoever these two are, it looks like we're thrust together for now. Heironeous willing they're decent sorts."

Approaching Rin, she pulls the longsword from its sheath on her back and crouches next to him. She holds the blade reversed, stretching the odd-shaped pommel toward him. "This may sound odd, but it's worth a try. Grasp the pommel and it might help you. Whatever's affecting you, it's no normal fever."

Once Rin has touched the pommel, she offers it to Briain as well.

[Whispers]

Rin eyes the lady oddly but heeds her strange request nontheless. He grasps the pommell of the blade with an outstretched hand and awaits some reaction.

“What is supposed to happen?” he asks weakly. His voice straining from the effort.

Releasing his grip on the handle of the blade, he turns his attention to the crimson fluid streaming down his face. The metalic tang of the blood slowly making its way into his mouth , he leans forward and spits the taste from his mouth.

The ranger shakes his head slighly as he forces himself to stand and slowly walks towards the bard as he starts to remove the bark from the nearby tree,

“That will not be necessary friend. There is a better way than endangering the life of that tree.” Rin bends lows and gathers several stones and stacks them carefully in a pyramid pattern on each of the banks of the spring.

“I will have to press on. The people of Pheldon’s Helm will need to be warned of this possble threat.”

The rangers turns to the northeast and forces one foot in front of the other.

[Codger]

The rain continues to worsen, unleashing a smattering of tiny hail pellets, as the skies darken to a false dusk. Briain's precautionary carving upon the fallen log is marginally quickened by the sluicing of shavings from his meager blade, and the steady clearing of his target. Meanwhile, Rin grasps the proffered lightening bolt of the battered and notched sword of great age, at Liria's enigmatic urging. As his bare skin comes in contact with the curiously whitish metal, something does indeed happen, but it may require some time and a distanced perspective to sort out fact from fevered imaginings.



During those few moments that the ranger's hand grips the unusual pommel of the blade, his appearance rapidly improves under Liria's watchful gaze. The blood leakage ceases, his coloring returns to a more normal cast, and a weight seems to lift from his shoulders. However partial or temporary, it certainly appears that the brief contact did a world of good for the man.

[Lord of the Hamsters]

Briain looks at Rin, then at the fallen tree he's sitting on, then at Rin again. He decides not to judge the ranger on his efficacy at his trade just yet, seeing that he must feel at least as cottonheaded as Briain does. "I think this tree's been dead for a while," he says. "If I anger any mushrooms and they attack us though, I'll take full responsibility," he adds with a smile and continues to work. "I've seen families and children along this road who don't know a cairn from a trailmark; a few dead mushrooms are a small price to pay for their safety."

The obvious symbol of Heironius that makes up the sword's pommel is a bit off-putting to Briain, but he wraps his long fingers around it anyway and thanks Liria for her offer.

[Nimlos]

As Rin starts to walk away, Liria reaches out and grasps his arm.

"Wait," she tells him. "In your state, stumbling through the woods, whatever that thing left in the water will get where you're going before you do." She releases his arm and pushes a mop of wet hair back from her face. "There's something more here, I'm sure of it. I was pulled here, two days' journey in the blink of an eye. It couldn't be for no reason but to fight a foul stump in a pond. I don't know anything of either of you, or you of me, but I suspect there's more to be done here. The elf maiden ... was there anything left of her?"

Liria takes a step back, turning toward Briain as he reaches for the sword's pommel and waiting as he grasps it, her eyes looking out over the rain-battered surface of the pool, as though expecting to see something else foul and unwelcome come from its depths.

[Codger]

The odd whitish metal of the lightning bolt is initially cold to Briain's disconcerted touch, as Liria points the pommel of the chipped sword his way. A curious custom by any measure, almost the opposite of the stately tapping of shoulders as worthy squires are benighted. Not so strange of a thought to occur to a man embroiled in the tangled twines of familial obligation perhaps, those poignant strings that can be tugged from so very far away. Strange how the relatively simple terms of 'duty' and 'honor' can mean so very many different things to humans. Perhaps there is a ballad down that road somewhere...



Much like the transformation of Rin, the bard's appearance rapidly improves under Liria's watchful gaze. The dribbling blood leakage ceases, his coloring returns to a more normal cast, and a weight seems to lift from his shoulders. He too appears much better off for the contact.

[Whispers]

As he grasps the oddly shaped pommel of the longsword Rin's eyes seem to glaze over and it is clear that his mind is thinking of something other than his immediate surroundings.



Rin raises his left hand and gently places it on his cheek as he looks at the blade with an expression of pure bewilderment.

“Amazing”, He mumbles. “Such power held within the confines of a blade! Does... ” Rin is apparently at a loss for words as he simply stairs blankly at the lightning bolt pommel of the blade.

The womens words and his renewed heath has seemingly changed the rangers mind about storming away to warn the neighbouring village of the possible corrupting magics of the stump.