Completed Old Dreams and the Sea

[Garrod Arlette]

The strange healer said nothing, only gave another nod before he stopped his palpating. His hands went back to the syringe, and he lifted it up with care, raised the needle point straight up, and pushed the plunger in just a bit to let the clear liquid inside spurt out.

"This will likely hurt, Lady Elinyra, but I will need you to stay as still as possible," he looked to her, and gave her a moment to ready herself. "You must do your best to remain relaxed, if you tense up your muscles or flex your fingers, could be I do more damage than is necessary." he paused again. "You will feel a sharp prick, and like some stinging there after, but if you stay still and relaxed, it should be no more than that. Do you understand?"

The needle loomed before her. The red light of the lighthouse filled the room, and the needle's long point seemed to glow hot.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

She nodded, gathering herself. She'd faced worse than this. It would be no more than a few moments of discomfort; nothing to be so foolishly afraid of.

Breathing deeply, she closed her eyes and turned her focus into her inner world. She tried to forget about the doctor, his horrid instrument, the rattle of gears, the red light, all conspiring against her calm. Her whole body relaxed as she entered a partial state of meditation.

Yet there was a part of her, hiding in the shadows of her mind, that waited.

Garrod Arlette​

 

[Garrod Arlette]

"Good," William said coolly as he brought the long needle's nose over Elinyra's discolored flesh. His eyes unnaturally wide as he watched, so carefully, the point of the sharpened metal hover just hairs away from the afflicted area "Now, you'll feel the prick," he said, and dipped the cold metal nose into the discolored flesh, careful as he guide the proboscis in between the sinew and bone of the hand.

His mouth was tight, it held back a smile that was want to be ear to ear behind the flesh of his lips.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

At first, she felt nothing more than a slight pressure as the needle penetrated the surface of the blackened skin. It was only when it went deeper into the flesh that the pinching pain became apparent. She knit her brows together as she tried to dismiss the bothersome sensation, but heat blossomed in the palm of her hand - like fire, like rushing blood. The needle hit something hard as bone. She felt it shudder through her entire arm.

She opened her eyes to see the instrument stuck in her hand. She wanted to tell him to stop, but a curious crack caught her attention. A shard of the syringe's vial glinted from the floor, tiny beads of the liquid previously held within still caught in the curved glass. Elinyra stared in shock at the widening cracks in the chamber and the tiny, hair-like roots that were growing around and through it; colonizing the instrument like a forest reclaiming a long-forgotten ruin.

Garrod Arlette​

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Strange eyed, William stared at the thing that looked to be growing in the glass tube of his precious syringe. "Fascinating," he whispered, the needle still stabbed in to the back of Elinyra's hand. "It seems to be a living thing there inside of you," he said with too much excitement, his teeth bared in ecstatic grin.

For all his strangeness, it must be said, William kept the needle still, even as the hair-like roots pushed at the walls of glass that kept them so contained.

"Viktor!" he hollered out, "Viktor, I need your assistance at once!"

Porcelain clattered against wood and the clumsy shuffling steps of the one eyed creature could be heard as he made his way back to the room. "Yes, Masterrrrr?" Viktor croaked.

"I need you to fetch my surgeons knife, Viktor, post haste! And a vial of the amnion fluid, Viktor! Hurry Viktor!"

Viktor waddled about the room, and maybe if he didn't move so slowly, his upraised hands may have translated to panic. "Amnion... Amnion," the creature repeated in its froggish voice. "Kniiiiiife,"

The needle stayed steady, and William stared at the spreading roots with moon-wide eyes.

Red light filled the room.

Elinyra

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra wasn't sure which was worse - the roots that were growing out of her hand on their own initiative or William's reaction to them. She managed to stay reasonably calm until he yelled for a knife, at which point the needle was not so much removed from the druid's hand as is it was flung across the room, filaments of torn roots floating down behind it. The vine that had erupted from Elinyra's hand snapped back into a shelf, sending its contents flying.

"Don't you touch me!" Elinyra exclaimed.

Garrod Arlette​

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Garrod came through the door frame, wide eyed and ready, his limbs bent, as if ready to spring forward, but his hands were low at his side, his greatsword still at his back. "Elinyra!" he called out, as he watched a horrid vine whip back and slam against a shelf. Plant pots rattled and fell, smashed against the floor and spilled out soil and small bones.

William was fully pressed back against his seat, his head leaned away as for as it could from the vicious growth, and though his eyes were huge with fear, his lips were spread wide, his teeth bared in gleeful excitement as the wheels of the gears kept churning and the red light filled every corner of the room.

"Fascinating," he said beneath tittering breath. "Fascinating.... fascinating, what a reaction, what a sample, its as if it knew of my intent, no no, its as if, as if your fear called it forward," he nodded.

Viktor shuffled back into the room, a vial in one hand, a tiny headed knife raised high up in the air and held firmly in the other. "Masterrr," the creature croaked. "Kniiiife...." he alerted, his wide eye seemed oblivious to the necrotic vine whip. "Fluiiiiid," he said as he dutifully moved to his master's side.

Garrod grit his teeth, and grabbed up his sword. Laid it down and rest it against the wall before he stepped into the room, both hands raised up to show his lack of threat. "Elinyra, can you hear me?" he said in a measure that was firm and clear over all the din, his eye shifted between the strange vine, and the panicked druid.

Elinyra

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra bolted from the chair, overturning it in the process. Her frightened stare was focused solely on the dagger in Viktor's hand. For a moment, it seemed that she might lash out against William and Viktor, but she froze when she heard Garrod's voice calling to her. She glanced at the vine whip that had grown out of her hand, then between the monster hunter and the so-called 'healer'.

"Yes, I hear you," she said after taking a steadying breath. She lowered her arms to show that she didn't mean to further antagonize anyone, but she couldn't help but stare at the strange growth that had been summoned a second time, and the band of necrotic flesh that was spreading over the fingers on her right hand.

She glared back at William and repeated in a calmer but no less decisive tone,

"You will not touch me with that knife."

Garrod Arlette​

 

[Garrod Arlette]

William's wide stare bled away the red light. "No, no, no," he said as he fanned his hands before him. Whether he was trying to fan the flames or put them out, who could say. "Not you, Lady Elinyra," his smile was cracked, and he took the knife from Viktor's hand. "Not you, unless..." he smirked as he shift his eye from the vile vine to the Druid's eyes. "You think that that vine is a part of you now?" he tittered some, and stayed sat in his seat as he looked down in thought. "A part of you, yes, maybe it is, maybe you can no longer see yourself removed from it, like a snail from its shell? No, no... like lichen... moss and fungus turned to something new..." he mumbled on and muttered.

Garrod's eye pealed away from William, and set itself back onto Elinyra. "He will not touch you with the knife, right, uh... healer man?"

William barked a laugh. "No, no! Of course not!" he grinned wildly. "Look at her! She'd kill me!"

Viktor looked at Elinyra, small jar of amber liquid in hand, and blinked.

Elinyra

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

The druid didn't respond to William's round of conjecture. She only continued to stare at the blade as it changed hands. Given the rabid fervor in his eyes, Elinyra felt no inclination to trust this lunatic. Was a madman with potential answers any better than the usual kind?

She withdrew her hand slightly, and the vine coiled up near her feet. William was probably right that any further attempt to meddle with the wound would provoke an even stronger reaction, but she had an idea.

"Give me the knife," she said. She thought to reach out with her good hand as she asked, but she couldn't get it to budge. "Just... put it on the table, and I will get your sample."

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

William's eyes narrowed, laden with distrust. "You will get me the sample?" he questioned aloud as the crankshafts ground and the machines whirred. "Very well," he smiled slyly, and Garrod watched as the man put the razor sharp blade down onto the table, and pushed if forward with long elegant fingers.

Garrod felt powerless, his eye shift between the knife, Elinyra, and the strange thing that grew from her right arm.

"The sample, Lady Elinyra," William reminded, with eager eyes smiling happily at the druid. "Will help us better understand that... curiosity sprouting from you."

Elinyra

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra matched William's suspicious look with a hard stare of her own, even as he relented the knife.

"Understanding its nature is rather the point," she replied acidly and reached forward with her good hand, carefully, as if the knife would spring to life on its own at any moment. Grasping the hilt, she turned to Garrod.

"I'm going to do this outside - just in case this thing makes a plan to destroy more of this fellow's house. Would you mind... coming with me?" She felt a bit abashed asking it, but she admitted to herself that she really had no idea what the wound was capable of. And she didn't see much point in keeping it secret from Garrod now that he'd seen it.

"I hope that a flaming sword won't be necessary," she added gloomily.

Whether or not anyone wanted to join her, she would leave the lighthouse.

Sunlight had melted most of the fog away and shone warm on the grassy hill outside: an outside where the glaring red light was muted in the wider spectrum of colors, where the groaning of gears was drowned in the cries of sea birds and crashing waves. Elinyra subconsciously let out a deep breath.

She took up the knife to get to the grisly task of cutting a sample, only to notice that the growth was withering away - as it had done on the ship when she'd realized Maeve wasn't an enemy. Within moments it was merely a crumbly, decomposed twig snapping into pieces in the breeze.

Garrod Arlette​

 

[Garrod Arlette]

A silent nod was all the response Garrod could give, his wide eye watching as Elinyra took the knife and made to go outside.

Maybe I can eat it. Belephus snickered. Wouldn't that be fun, Garrod? Then you could be the hero, and I can get a meal.

He ignored the demon's whispers, and eyed the strange healer instead, who just smiled wide as he made to get up. "Just, need to make sure the sample is properly acquired," he assured.

Garrod's eye narrowed. "Right,"

Viktor looked down at the fluid in his hand, and raised it up, waving it slowly in the air so that his master could see. "Amneion Fluiiiiid,"

William snarled, and shot a glare at his strange servent. "Not now, Viktor!" He barked.

Viktor blinked, and kept holding the jar of amber fluid up in the air.

Garrod was already outside, and watched as the strange growth withered to dust.

"What!" William cried as he hurried out, his eyes blinked quick as they tried to adjust to the bright light. "The sample?" he asked hotly. "Did you get it?"

Viktor followed out the door. Jar still raised high in the air.

Elinyra

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra didn't answer William at first. She had already tried - and failed - to understand what had happened here. The cause of the growth was apparent enough; both here and on the ship, she'd felt threatened. What eluded her was what, exactly, had quelled that fear enough for this thing to retreat seemingly of its own volition.

Now, as she stared at the swath of necrosis that had spread over her entire palm, up to her fingertips and down part of her wrist, she had a more burning question. If it was some curse meant to destroy her, then why was it apparently protecting her? And if not her, then what was it protecting? She hovered the knife in her other hand over the center of the wound, debating if she should try to cut into it, but her hand trembled until she jerked it away.

Sighing, Elinyra bent down and picked up a shriveled piece of what had been a living vine only moments ago. She studied it as one might study a rotten tooth that had been removed. Then she walked over and handed it and the knife to the irked healer.

"This will have to suffice for your 'sample," she declared in a tone that suggested she was no longer willing to debate with him.

​

Garrod Arlette​

 

[Garrod Arlette]

William's eyes narrowed with a harsh scrutiny, they watched as the elf approached, and they judged as she offered up the shriveled remnant of the specimen, alongside his surgeon's knife.

"If you would have just..." he started to grumbled between gritted teeth. But huffed out a breath, and shook his head, dismayed. "Thank you, Lady Elinyra," he feigned is sickly sweetness, and carefully took up the knife in one gloved hand, and then the withered vine in the other. "It would seem that your... parasite, no, parasite doesn't quite fit, now does it?" he asked nothing and one one as he raised the husk up to his eye, watched it shake in the cool sea breeze, at the point of breaking.

With one hand, he tucked away his knife, neatly into a pouch upon his woolen coat, and with the newly freed hand, he took the jar from Viktor's hand.

"Viktor," he said absently, and laid the jar back into the creature servant's hand. "Be a dear and open the jar, yes?"

Viktor nodded slow, thoughtful nods. "Yes, Viktorrrr, is dearrrr to maaaaaster," and with his clammy grey fingers, he undid the cork lid to the amnion with a pop, the amber liquid sloshed some.

"Careful, Viktor!" William barked.

Viktor nod, slow, understanding nods. "Viktorrr is caaareful, master, verrry careful," he said, sure none had spilled as he offered the open jar.

William scowled at the one eyed creature, and plopped the sample into the jar. It float some, then sank down as the viscous liquid swallowed it up.

"Give me that," William said as he took up the jar and stopped it with its cork lid once more. He held it up to his eye, and smiled. "If you are a parasite, then certainly nothing so ordinary as a tapeworm, or a flea, now, are you?" he asked with an excitement in his eyes that bordered on electric.

The lighthouses red light beamed overhead.

Garrod looked ot Elinrya. "Are you, are you alright?"

"If she suffered any harm it is of her own doing!" William snapped, clutching the jar close to his chest. "She took the knife from me, you saw it,"

Garrod snarled, his brow pinched tight. "Right, thank you, piss off inside now won't you, healer?"

Willam stood squinting angrily at the pair. "Your sword is still in my hut, big man," the strange healer smiled and shrugged. "But, I can keep it as payment for my services if you prefer!" he laughed, all too pleased.

Garrod huffed, and looked back to Elinyra. His eye looked down to her hand, then to his own strange artifact, strapped to his own right hand. "Right, maybe we should go?"

"Come by tomorrow, Lady Elinyra," William said from the door, something wicked spread across his lips and hiding in his eyes. "I should have more information on your little, friend here," he said and raised the jar up proudly to his face. The wilted vine float, as if weightless in the fluid. "And its... nature." he went into the lighthouse.

Garrod shook his head. "I'll grab anything you left inside," he anounced, before he too went into the building.

Viktor stood outside, and looked on at Elinyra, large eye empty. Just a witness to all the strangeness that occurred.

The lighthouse's beam of red blurred overhead. The feint grind of the gears whirred and rumbled from behind the crooked stone walls of the lighthouse.

"Viktor!" the strange healer cried out. "Be a dear and clean up the needle, will you?!"

Viktor blinked at the druid, turned about and followed Garrod into the lighthouse.


Elinyra

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra tried her best to ignore William’s ravings as she turned to Garrod.

“I think so,” she answered his first question with a slight nod, although that was probably a lie. Staring at her infirm hand, she didn’t feel well at all. She only returned her gaze to the monster hunter when he suggested they leave. A very wise idea; and beyond that she ached to get away from this crimson stain of light and its mad keeper. She agreed heartily with that desire.

“I’ll grab anything you left inside,” he offered.

“Thank you.” She was glad to be spared from going back inside the lighthouse. Something about William’s thrill to have gotten a sample, the way he spoke about it – and to it, of all things – made her paranoid. It was unprofessional and unsettling at best.

Stands of tall grass, their heads thick as fox tails, hissed as they waved in the summer sea breeze. Shorter grass tufts tickled Elinyra’s ankles. The odd little cyclops stared at her.

“I pity you. You deserve a better existence than this one.” Some song about unconditional loyalty repaid with bitter resentment fluttered around in her memory. The thought came from nowhere, and likely went nowhere. But it was spoken upon that briny wind.

Then William called, and the servant shuffled away.

Garrod Arlette​

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Before long, Garrod emerged from the lighthouse, his sword towed over his shoulder, carried by his white-armored hand, and Elinyra's bag was slung under the other. He crossed the field of grass, and the air stirred his hair as he approached the druid. It filled his ears, and his breath. He stopped before her and handed her her rucksack.

Ask about the arm, Garrod. His demon's voice whispered into his ear. Ask, or travel with that thing and know nothing whilst you do.

"You..." his face scrunched up, and he shook the thought away. He had no right to ask her about her private matters. "Are you tired?" he asked, and motioned with a jerk of the head for them to get moving. "Feel like I would be tired after a thing like that," he said, and moved on through the field, back to the village, and away from the lighthouse, and all the strangeness there inside.

Elinyra

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

She reached out with her good hand and took the empty flaxen bag from him. Her medicinal materials would have to wait. That was all right by her; perhaps she might find time to forage some herbs herself while the ship was docked for repairs.

"Tired?" she considered as they walked back towards the village together. He was making an odd face as he asked. Of course he was: she'd want to scrutinize what had happened in the lighthouse if she'd been in his place. "I suppose so... though you mentioned something about lunch earlier. Shall we find somewhere to eat?" If there is anything remotely edible to be found here.

Huddling at the edge of a swamp the color of muddy moss, the shanty village looked a lot less eerie in the warm light of the midday sun; though no more welcoming by Elinyra's reckoning. The ruined mast of the Sea Demon poked up from the busy dock like a splintered lance.

The druid paused partway down the hill, sighed, and regarded Garrod resolutely. "I owe you some answers. What little I have to give, anyway," she told her companion. Better to tell one person now than to have this conversation with the entire crew of the Sea Demon later. Whether the monster hunter decided to tell them or not, she figured at least this might save a lot of baseless speculation.

She gesticulated with her wounded hand briefly before placing it back at her side.

"Obviously, I wasn't completely honest with you before. This is the reason I left my people." In the brightness of the noon light, it almost appeared that the wound in her palm had formed some sort of hard callous. She'd investigate that later, when she had more privacy.

"Something happened to me - something even the most skilled of our healers could not mend. My circle grew afraid of the risk it may pose, so they sent me away with only a bare guess as to its cause. My own research has given me guesses of my own, but I had to travel beyond the Falwood to learn anything more."

She continued to look silently at Garrod, wondering how much information she really owed him. Whatever his questions, she would answer them; the crew's guard had a right to know about a potential threat, even if that meant she had to find another way to get to Alliria.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Garrod blinked as he listened to the druid speak, stopped down the hill as they were, the wind still a-bluster, and the world about them set into motion.

She hides, as you hide, Garrod. Belephus laughed. She knows the danger she carries, just as you do.

Yet, it was for that very reason that he listened so intently, a small nod of acknowledgment all he gave her so that she knew his attention was hers, and when she showed him her wound, he observed it. Took in all of its strangeness, and felt it like some portent to his own fate.

Come now, oh bearer mine. The demon in the jewel of his gauntlet cooed. I would never...

She shared some of the weight of her plight. Shared that she was on the search for answers, and had left her home out of fear of what might come to those she cared for most. The wind swept across them both. Fresh against his skin, and even the lingering smell of rotting fish and dead things in the water blew away, for but a moment.

His eye rose up to meet her gaze. "You've been through a lot then," he said with a nod. "And had no need to tell me anything," he affirmed, to himself, just as much to her. For he knew the value of secrets, and held on to his own still. He raised his gauntleted hand, and scratched at the back of his neck. "I appreciate that, really," he added. "I guess, my only concern is, well," he looked back at her hand. "How does it work?" his brow scrunched up, and he looked back to her with a hint of embarrassment. "I mean, do you feel like you understand it?"

Do you feel as if you understand me... Garrod?

Elinyra

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

"You've been through a lot then," he had said. The thought reminded her of a snippet of wisdom - or folly, perhaps - that she'd read years ago from a human philosopher: even elves found human writing interesting, in one way or another. She repeated it with the slight smile of someone who wondered if they themselves were being serious or jesting:

“'To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.'”

It made her feel suddenly small in the scheme of things; beneath the import of sympathy. In the pleasant sunlight and briny wind, it was enough to make her laugh at herself - her silly fears, her attachment to a past long gone when such a nice day was to be found here and now. She needed such grounding thoughts, even if the ones said aloud likely seemed strange to her companion.

She cast a long glance back at the strange lighthouse - a crooked place with its crooked keeper - standing like a haunted tower on the top of the hill. The yearning cries of seagulls mixed with the ceaseless song of the wind.

"I'm far from understanding it," she declared at length. "I've seen enough to believe that this affliction reacts to my emotions, and that it seems to consume more of me whenever it does, but I don't know exactly what it is yet. Without knowing that, I have no direction to pursue for the how or why.

It came from a wound I received ten years ago, but I'd thought it had finally healed before... well, this behavior is recent."

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

'To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.'

Garrod crooked his brow at her words, and his head tilted, as the words lingered in the air between them.

Wisdom, if ever one can call the product of mortals such a thing. Belephus said, poison sweet.

Was that what he was doing, with the this thing upon his own hand, tied to his soul by pact of flesh? Finding meaning in that suffering he had been ritual part of?

Steady now... Oh bearer mine, Belephus laughed.

When she spoke next she shared more of what she had come to know. A thing that reacted on emotions. Spread the more it was used, he looked down at his own strange hand. A thing encased in a relic which held its curse, until he let it out.

"Sounds... demonic," he uttered, and clutched tight his hand before he let it fall back to his side, and looked back to the tower, and the red eye it flashed in warning to all.

Away. The light said. Proceed at your own risk. Danger lays here. Doom lays here. Away.

Though the way it bled, slow and without smoothness, it was almost as if it welcomed them.

"I suppose we will have some more to know come the new day," he looked back to her, something like assurance in his eye and the slight upward crook in his lip. "Some more meaning to all this surviving we are doing," he nod his head toward the huts and buildings, ramshackle and stuck together out of nothing more than sheer defiance, it seemed like. "Still hungry?" he let on. "The stew wasn't half bad, spicy, but I'd skip the bread," he added.

Maybe it was wrong to just, move on, after all she shared. But, standing around in it didn't feel right either. Half the time he found himself just wanting people to be normal. Hard to do in a world full of horrors. Especially when you carried some yourself.

"You like spicy food?" he added, easily enough, and started walking, slow, so that she might follow or interject.

Elinyra

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

"I have considered that it could be demonic in origin, though my studies on the subject back in Fal'Addas suggested it's unlikely. It doesn't have the hallmarks of demonic influence; besides, demons are rarely, if ever, so subtle. They hoard power and enjoy the suffering of mortals as directly as possible. A demon gifted with the ability to plan more than a murder is - lucky for us - very rare among their kind."

She, too, was ready to move away from this locale and her own suppositions. He was right; she'd waited this long, she could wait a day more. Assuming the healer was true to his word. That was its own problem.

"That depends on the spice," she replied politely as she followed him back towards town. She didn't really care for spice the way he probably did; elven cuisine used a variety of herbs and spices, but as a rule elves appreciated the more delicate flavors. As with most things, humans were passionate about turning even mundane things into an adventure, including making their foodstuffs into a form of personal torture. But it was, if nothing else, amusing to watch them enjoy their food while also crying uncontrollably over it.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Garrod smirked at the Druid's response. "Well, might find it hard to like what's on offer," the hunter replied. "Couldn't quite tell you the type, on account of there being so many," he went on as he kept his stride. "But it blends all the strangeness together," he said with a smile there behind his words, and a laugh hiding on his breath.

The life of the monster hunter gave little room for much luxuries. Till you got paid at least. Made the silks and fine leathers feel all the richer.

Come the food, and some peaceable silence, the day played on. Both turned their separate ways. Not due to discomfort, on Garrod's part. For he knew the burden that came with hiding dark secrets. Amicable distance. A warm peace. That was its own balm, oft enough.

Come the night and the cricket songs and the buzz of the lantern bugs. And every other bug and creature that called the dank bayou town home, Garrod stayed awake. Perched atop a crate as he watched the door to the inn that most of the Sea Demon's patrons and crew resided in. His one green eye wide open as it stared out into the dark beyond. The field, and the hill. And the tall silhoute of the lighthouse.

A black sword against the bright burn of stars' light and moons' glow. Its hilt, burned red.

Again.

And again...

Again.

And again...

Always just a little off. Not quite a steady pulse. Arrhythmic. Wrong.

You can always go and... Take care of the problem, Garrod. Belephus whispered. And his jagged teeth spread foul and green in the depth of the hunter's mind.

Garrod smirked. As if that wasn't already on his mind.

Elinyra

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Whatever Elinyra's expectations of it, lunch turned out to be quite palatable; even if Elinyra wasn't quite sure how to describe it beyond an amalgamation of seafood and questionable vegetables coated with spices. Afterwards she and Garrod each turned to their own tasks. Considering this morning's predicament, the predicaments previous, and simply the fact that she'd been crowded on a boat for days on end... she was appreciating some time to herself. Some space to breathe.

She spent the early part of the afternoon learning about the local flora and fauna from the local people. The Crossroads was not a welcoming place, but the old timers here as everywhere often enjoyed sharing their stories and wisdom - even with a strange elf from the Falwood. Apparently they supplemented their protein-rich diet with insects when mushrooms were out of season; a fact that some might have found repulsive. The druid found it interesting.

Elinyra didn't spend the night in town this time. Instead she set up camp on the beach, near an eroded rock outcropping that served to block a bit of the wind. Luckily for the small campfire burning away in a makeshift stone ring, it was a calm and clear night anyway. A bunch of sliced white mushrooms and skinned cattail roots sizzled gently on a flat stone set among the flames. Elinyra turned them with a stick every now and again while snacking on some sea grapes she'd foraged that afternoon.

A sliver of moonlight caressed the frothing waves of the sea as they crashed against the shore. They answered that celestial glow with brief blue flashes of bioluminescence like she'd seen on the ship. Had Elinyra the gift for poetry, she might have wondered if it was the whisper of lovers written in light, or a quarrel.

The stars were shining like impossible gems above. Usually such nights made Elinyra feel content and comforted, seeing the strands of existence in such beautiful unity, but tonight she was troubled. She'd discovered that the scar on her hand had grown, and it looked like no callous nor scab she'd ever seen. If she didn't know better, she would have said it looked like tree bark.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

It was in blurs and blinks. Black shadows that narrowed his gaze, with flashes and streaks of ghastly greens and wicked whites. Teeth, jagged as scars of lightning across the dark clouds of his mind. He could still feel the weight of his sword at his back, as his boots trudged through the soft earth. Squelched through the mud. Sank on the hillside. Slipped and he fell face first into the muck.

Cold and wet, the slick mud smacked against him.

With a groan, Garrod pushed himself up onto his knees. Felt the wet mud sap away some of the strange heat that ached its way through his veins. Each thrum of his heart seemed to ring with a metallic laugh, that had the feint traces of hungry teeth shimmer in the black behind his missing eye.

You recognize evil when you see it, oh bearer mine. Belephus cooed. That man. That place. A storehouse of horror. But another monster to put down.

Garrod bared his teeth, his breath steamed hot in the cool night air. He looked to the white gauntlet. How it gleamed, chitinous and pale beneath the stars. Its eye, like a third moon, stared wide at him, and he could see a green flickering flame there at its center. He looked up, and saw the violent light of the beacon tower burn red across the midnight sky.

Slower. Slower. Slower than before.

It stopped.

A blink with one green eye.

It stopped?

Garrod's brow furrowed, face contorted with confusion. He worked himself back up to his feet, and stared at the stilled beacon, blazing brilliant bloody bright. It compelled him. Invited him in. The hunter broke forward, toward the tower. Steps steady as he marched.

At the door of the tower, he could hear the crunch and grind of bones and the wet suck of flesh. A whimpering, too mixed with the seized gears and slow rip of something soft, the tear of something elastic.

"Viktor, oh sweet Viktor," the voice cried, weak before the angry whines of the gears. "Viktor, why?"

Garrod peered through the door, and stared on with strange smile across his lips. "My," he sounded. "Wasn't expecting that,"

Before him, at the center of the lighthouse turned apothecary, grew a strange tree. Black and fetid, with bark that seemed to bleed a shadowy ichor from the jagged cracks across its surface. A mix of leathery skin and roughened wood. At the strange tree's heart was a single large eye, wide and open.

"Maaaaasterrrr," the tree croaked out, and one of its twisted branches reached out, struggled to grasp the apothecary, William, who lay upon the floor, pressed against the wall, eyes wide with fear, an arm raised up to shield his face.

"No, no, Viktor, you mustn't" tears ran down his face. "You mustn't touch master now, ok? We do not know..." he choked on his words and looked away. "We do not know if it spreads to the living,"

Garrod drew his blade.

The sound of the great-sword come free of is sheath pulled William's eyes up. "What are you doing?!" he cried out.

"Ending his suffering," the hunter said simply. But his eye burned with an excitement.

"No! You bloody fool! I can still save him!"

Garrod but grinned.

Viktor's eye looked to the hunter, and the blade he held firmly in his hands. "Kniiiiiife," he croaked.

---

Elinyra