Fate - First Reply Soured Milk

[Arnor Skuldsson]

Village of Jarendale, Falwood

"Most peculiar thing, you see, Slayer. All the milk, all the crops, withering away! Milk soured, juice tart, berries rotten, all at once!" The man said, as Arnor looked down at the meal he had ordered inside the village. Indeed he was right, the beer tasted like shit, the soup tasted like shit. He wasn't lying when everything had gotten rotten at once. The only thing that seemed to be spared was water, to which Arnor settled for. He took a deep breath, annoying looking up at the man who addressed him.

"We'll pay for you to find out, natural or otherwise." Arnor sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. He hadn't meant to stop here for this long, only for a night or two to recuperate from his long journey.

"When did the rot start?"

A good indicator if it was otherwordly or a simple case of poor storage would be evident in a few questions.

"Erm... this morning, sir. All the food at once. The milk, the fruits, the breads, the beer- all at once, rotten away, without so much as a touch. Even the food in the barrels for the winter!"

Several others in the tavern nodded along eagerly, repeating the claim.

"We sent word to Vel Anir, but if you're here now, perhaps the Dreadlords need not be involved.." They said, grimacing at the thought. Arnor did too. He only heard bad things about the warrior-mages of the city, and their brutal revolution. He wanted them to be as far away from him as they were currently, which was to say, nowhere near him.

Arnor stood up, taking a firm swig of his.... water.

And began to formulate a plan to address this.... rot.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Tariel picked a squishy blackberry from one of the nearby brambles and flicked it aside with a grimace of disgust.

“Rotten.” He sighed deeply and assessed the rest of the fruit. “All of it.”

“Same as the others,” Valaya said, clearly unsettled by their discovery. She turned to the druidess, who had plucked a small branch from one of the affected bushes. “What do you think could cause this? The foliage all looks fine, but all of the fruit? And so suddenly?”

Elinyra had joined these two young scouts reluctantly, but Valaya had insisted that they needed a druid’s opinion on the matter. In truth, Elinyra wanted to help them, but she had a bad feeling about this particular problem. Especially when the wound in her hand had begun to ache. It hadn’t acted up in years – why now?

Valaya was correct; the sprig in Elinyra’s hand, and the rest of the leaves on the shrubs, were perfectly healthy. The druid took one of the berries and smashed it in the palm of her left hand. A rancid stench rose from its remains. At least the berry was rotten - as if moldy. Finding the fruit to be a desiccated husk would have been much more of a disaster.

“Have you seen this affliction anywhere else recently?” she asked the scouts. They both shook their heads.

“No, but we haven’t had the chance to see how far it may have spread. It only started this morning,” Tariel explained.

Elinyra frowned as she looked over all of the affected plants. This was no ordinary disease.

“What about wildlife? Have any of the animals shown any signs of illness since this morning?”

“I haven’t honestly seen anything,” Valaya said sheepishly. Tariel likewise shook his head with a shrug.

“Not even birds?”

Now that she was thinking about it, Elinyra couldn’t recall having heard any birdsong in the trees this morning either. Nor any sign of scavengers that would be drawn to the smell of rotting things.

Elinyra bent down to take a handful of soil, running it between her fingers as she let her senses navigate the scene around her. Speak to me she asked of the earth. Perhaps there was an answer there, but too faint for her to make out.

“Jarendale is the nearest community. We should ask the residents if they’ve had anything strange happen lately,” Tariel suggested.

“That’s a human settlement, isn’t it?” Elinyra asked.

“Mainly, but most of them are tolerant of elves. Maybe moreso than some of the elvish communities I’ve been to,” Valaya added with a chuckle. “I think that’s a good plan.”

“While you two are asking questions, I’m going to get some samples from around the edge of the village. It may give us an idea where to look for the source of this rot.”

Elinyra wasn’t going to suggest what she was thinking; that this wasn’t any usual form of rot. She hoped she was wrong.

 

[Arnor Skuldsson]

Sure enough, the fields outside the town were not barren, but rotting away. As if they were left alone for weeks at a time. But all at once, they were rotten away. Every fruit, every piece of meat. But nothing living. Starved away.

Arnor ran his hands through a market stall's goods, grimacing as he rubbed a berry to dust. He paced around, noting that the wildlife were not dead or diseased like everything else. The goats, sheep, and cattle seemed fine. Only the food and drink that the town had, in it's entirety, was gone away.

And meant certain death, if not resolved. No doubt some spell or magic, some form of a curse. But how to reverse it? Curses were always able to be broken, but the method how was the true question. But, the chief question when investigating a curse, was who placed, and what the curse's incantation was.

He turned his eye, spotting something rapidly moving, but dismissed it. His eyes lingered on the edge of the village, icy blue stares at a handful of elves poking about. Scouts, from the look of it.

He wondered how far this rot went that the nearby elves were getting involved.

He approached them, marching across the field. A big mass of imposing muscle and brown and black chainmail and leather- well, that was something he couldn't have missed. He carried himself like a warrior, but passive. He had a "don't fuck with me" sort of air about him, but he seemed relatively calm.

He looked around as he approached the elves, giving a gentle wave.

"Hello friend. I assume you're here about the goings-on?" He said, noting that she was looking intently at the ground. "The town asked me to investigate as well. I think we may be able to help each other, if you'd aid me."

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

One male and two female elves, all dark of hair and with lightly tanned skin, were standing in a loose group at the edge of a withered field. Two of them were wearing leather armor, simple and light but stylized with stitched leaves and knots around a tree with interwoven branches. They were both armed with bows that looked like they’d seen frequent use and longswords that might as well have been new. The man was tall for an elf, and lanky even by elven standards, the armored woman slight and jaunty. The third elven woman, who was dressed in a simple green robe but also carrying a longbow on her back, was busily gathering bits of dead plant material.

“Do you think it might be a disease, Ovate?” the elven man asked the woman in the robe. An outsider may not have recognized the title, but any resident in the Falwood knew it to be some esoteric-styled rank within druidic orders.

They all glanced up at the imposing human who’d greeted them before she had a chance to answer.

"Good morning,” the elven woman greeted him cheerfully. Yes, we are also looking into this 'rot' problem.” She introduced them each in turn – she as Valaya of the Green Guard, he Tariel of the same order, and Ovate Elinyra, the more mature-looking woman who was hardly paying attention to the conversation at hand. “We would be happy to assist-”

“We take it this is what’s been happening all around Jarendale as well? This… disease?” The lanky man interrupted his partner before she could continue. He gestured to the dead field.

“I don’t believe it is a disease, actually. Diseases are rarely ever so quick to kill,” the druid spoke up, her tone thoughtful as she rubbed a dead potato leaf into dust in her hand.

 

[Arnor Skuldsson]

Arnor stood for a while, looking back towards the village. Something was bothering him about the village- as if something, not someone, was watching him.

"Curse." He said, turning his head back to the gathered elves. "In my opinion. Everything points to it." He grimaced, examining the elves briefly, finding them not repulsed by the Nordenfiir. Perhaps they were unaware of who and what he was- hence the welcoming tone. And to be fair- despite his graying hair and taller frame, nothing particularly about him said Nordenfiir- after all, his glyphs were located on his collarbone, unlike some of his kin.

"It must have gone fairly far for you all to take notice of it. All the food on the vine and in storage- rotten. Wine soured, milk, beer, anything and everything to drink or eat- rotten away. Most peculiar."

Another turn of his head.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra listened to this new information with a certain degree of apprehension. Blaming a curse whispered under the breath of an enemy for life's tragedies was all too simple. But she'd be more of a fool to disregard the possibility.

"For all of the village's foodstuffs to have changed so dramatically in one day; I have to agree that it sounds more like a planned attack than any natural cause. But if the rot is spellcraft... such power on this scale would have an enormous consequence for the magician."

She recalled what lore she had on the subject of curses. Hardly any since druidic practice, at least in this part of the world, did not support such malign magics. It seemed absurd to, considering that there were always consequences for dabbling in purely destructive, reality-bending power. There were supposedly a number of rituals to protect individuals from curses, but all of them were based purely on hearsay and in the logic of 'whatever makes the bad thing stop happening to me.'

"If this is true, then we must warn the villages within our borders," Tariel cut in gravely. He seemed suddenly shaken by the discussion.

"Then why don't you both go and tell your superiors what is happening here?" Elinyra suggested with an air of authority that she'd not taken advantage of until now. "I will stay here and investigate in the meantime."

"Are you certain you want to stay here alone, Ovate?" Valaya asked timidly.

Elinyra considered the warrior who had asked for their assistance. Trustworthy - she wasn't sure of that. But he didn't look like the type who would cower under a little superstition, and whatever his reasons, he seemed sincere in wanting to put an end to this.

"Yes. Go." Valaya and Tariel said farewell to the druid and the stranger before heading back toward the forest.

Elinyra waited until they were out of earshot before asking,

"Now, would you care to tell me what it is you keep looking at?"

 

[Arnor Skuldsson]

Hurm.

Was the sound he made when she asked him what he was looking at. "Something." He said, turning back towards her. "Something keeps watching us. Moving around. Not a regular human, if I had to guess." He said with a grimace, turning back to the village, away from the druid- he turned his back on her.

A display of trust, and also that he did not perceive her as a threat.

"If it is to be a mage or witch at all. Something else, perhaps?" Something in black, something dark, evil. He breathed deeply, turning his head back to the Elf.

"What other creature causes such suffering to one specific place that you know of.." He marched to the village, and there it was. Dark and shrouded, as if moved in shadows itself. And it scurried across the outer edge of the village. Arnor stopped, pointing forward.

"There."

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

"There are tales of malevolent creatures in every history. Many of the humans who live near the Falwood tell tales of the Beldame or the Harridan - evil, cunning old women who steal children away and bring death and misfortune to those unlucky to come across them.

"Elvish legends have a similar figure. The Cailleach is a mythical spirit said to be one of the rulers of winter and midnight. Similar in some respects, but not an evil creature."

Elinyra stared at where he was pointing. She could tell that something was stirring; a subtle shifting in the shadows behind a barn, maybe no more than shadow puppets cast by trees. But there was a distinct feeling of unease in the forest.

"If this is a spirit of some sort, I may be able to contact it. Or at least ascertain what type of spirit it is." She felt reluctant to offer this option considering she'd done ritual very rarely since the attack that had left her with the strange wound in her right hand, but a spirit could have them set on a wild goose chase until the world's end. "Unless you have an idea of how to track this 'creature' down?"

 

[Arnor Skuldsson]

Arnor had his thoughts, but without study or more information, it was simply a hunch. Arnor looked over at the Elf, nudging his head. "I have an idea." He said, in regards to her last question.

And with that, he just walked forward towards where the shadowy thing was. He stopped near the outer edge of the shed it was near, his eyes staring at the ground. Footprints. Humanoid. Frail, light, barely disturbing the soil. Light on the balls of the feet and not a wide toe.

A woman, perhaps?

"A barefoot woman." He said gruffly, pointing to the tracks. Curiously, the tracks lead...nowhere.

"Or something disguised as a woman." He stood up, after having been crouched near the footprints. He turned his head to the Elf.

"Forgive me, by the way. I am Arnor, son of Skuld."

And for those near the Spine, known as the Axe of Knottington. Not that it mattered right now, and it wasn't as though he had pamphlets.

He did, but he ran out.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

“I am Elinyra, of…” she paused. “Well, just Elinyra now.” It had been only about a tenday since she’d parted ways with her circle. It was still a strange, empty feeling. Probably much like the local farmers seeing their lifeless fields, verdant and productive only yesterday.

Elinyra could track a rabbit through thick trees and name about every plant to be found in the Falwood, but she was no tracker of humanoids. Yet she found it strange that anyone would be running around in this forest barefoot. Considering the oft-rocky terrain, the amount of brambles in the deeper forest, and the leavings of the livestock that used the same roads as the townspeople, even the druid wore shoes. The more he described it, the more she considered if it was fae. That worried her greatly. Her last encounter with a fae had been disastrous.

It soon became clear that a malevolent presence wasn’t the only thing watching their investigation; a few townsfolk were staring curiously at the nordenfiir and the elf from a single track path between this farmstead and the rest of the village. They kept their distance, either cautious of the curse-bearer or of the sterling intensity of Arnor’s hunt.

“Perhaps the villagers know something, or else have encountered this shadow woman recently?” Elinyra offered. That had been Valaya's suggestion when the elves had begun their inquiry into the rot, and perhaps not a bad one. Although by the uneasy glances of the men and women standing about thirty yards away, they looked as if they'd spook like deer if she approached them.

 

[Arnor Skuldsson]

His fear of what it might be only grew worse as the villagers watched the outsiders intently. He stood tall, curling his hands into fists.

A woman, a shadowy figure, not laying tracks. He had a few ideas of what it might be. But it wasn't anything pleasant. He shifted his body to face the Elf, breathing deeply before speaking.

"If we're to be sure- of what it might be, my hunch relies on something." He marched forward, grabbing one of the elder villagers by the scruff- and with a single hand, lifted him off the ground. None dared interfered, no one made a move against him. No one even called the guard.

"What did you all do?"

He said, walking forward, pinning the elder villager against the barn.

"N-nothing m'lord! We're just-" He shifted, slamming the man against the wood. He could have put him through the wall, but he showed restraint.

"Who brought it here?"

He stared at him, narrowing his eyes, the elder turning his head away not in fear, but in shame.

"You must ask the tavern keeper sire, it was... it was her idea."

Arnor let the man go, letting him fall to the floor. Villagers around them looked in shame, as if a shameful secret had been exposed. Arnor didn't need to know what it was quite yet. He looked down at the Elf.

"Something only I heard about in stories. A Pesta, perhaps- though never heard of anything quite like this." Arnor's face soured, thinking intently. "And a Pesta may not be the entire source of it all."

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

The villagers' confession, and their subsequent scurrying out of the nordenfiir's reach, puzzled Elinyra all the more. By the looks on their faces, it was clear that somehow they had committed a grave sin... a sin that her people may also pay the price for. As usual, the peace between the elves and humans was a tentative one. Why couldn't humans ever be content without creating their own problems?

"What is this 'Pesta'?" she asked, watching the irregular forest edge around the cluster of homesteads. Trees had been cleared here not a season past, their stumps pulled from the earth and left to rot in clumps outside of the tilled fields. No sign of any baneful shades besides what the waning evening sun cast across gnarled root and branch. Elinyra would have preferred to chase this curse-bearer through every shadowed field and valley to stepping foot in the town proper, but that seemed to be their only recourse.

The tavern was of the architectural style very common to moderately-settled human towns: Latticed windows peered out from plastered walls supported by wooden beams. Its steep, wood-shingled roofline rose above a packed-dirt main thoroughfare that was busy with workers returning home and merchants closing up their stalls for the day. Bright banners adorned the shops and the tavern itself in a discordant display that the humans must have found somehow appealing.

Elinyra could already smell the stale alcohol and burned meat before she was within a couple paces of a door worn smooth by a thousand openings. She wondered if these people's temples saw as much use - or if the tavern was their place of worship.

 

[Arnor Skuldsson]

"Troll, demon, witch- depends on who you ask and where you are. Always follows a great evil, or drawn to it." He said, walking inside the tavern as the pair furthered their goal.

He took up much of the space in the room, his fists curled at his side. The tavern wasn't full- after all, who enjoyed moldy and stale food? He leered around, to a smaller man, aging like milk behind a sturdy wooden bar.

Arnor barged past the few customers, snarling as he grabbed the tavern keeper, and hoisted him over the bar, pinning him down by his collar.

"What did you do?" He said through clenched teeth- the more feral part of him coming to light. The bloodthirsty Nordenfiir in him wanted to kill him, rip him apart with hands or paws. He looked sternly at Arnor, before looking over at the Elf.

"Get this lunatic off of me- ack!" Arnor hurled him across the room, into some tables. "You must have done something to get that demon here. You're going to tell me-" He marched towards him, kicking a heavy wooden table out of his way.

Several guards were already called, dispatched via cries of fear. Their heavy boots could be heard from a great distance.

"Speak."

He narrowed his eyes, indicating for the Elf to prepare for the Guard's arrival.

"They was just traders..."

Came a lowly confession under a hushed tone.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

The druid froze for a moment, as surprised by Arnor’s public aggression as everyone else in the tavern. But when she saw the bestial rage in his eyes, she felt she had to step in before somebody was killed.

Elinyra placed herself between Arnor and the dazed tavern keeper. She was not much more than a wisp of a creature before the giant man, but she held her ground as a druid was taught to when facing an angry animal. She tried to hold him with her gaze as she would a badger or a bear; and her instinct felt there was something very bear about him.

“Stay your anger,” she pleaded calmly. “You won’t be able to stop this madness in shackles.”

She looked back at the innkeeper, who recoiled from her glare.

"Whatever your secrets, whatever your shame, you'd best lay them out here and now if you don't wish your entire village to starve, or worse." She emphasized the last part, hoping that the fool might realize that the threat he'd unleashed - willingly or unwillingly - was potentially far worse than the nordenfiir's anger.

A couple of guards burst through the door at that moment, hands on weapon hilts already. One bystander was pointing out the troublemakers standing amidst the disheveled mess of broken and tossed tables.

Elinyra sighed, nodded to Arnor to continue his questioning, and walked over to meet the guards. She was still trying to decide what she was going to tell them.

 

[Arnor Skuldsson]

The Elf had a point. Though he wasn't wrong. He felt it all was off. Everything. The guards looked nervous- most of them had barely left the village, and were not equipped, trained, or ready to deal with Arnor- or the Elf.

"Traders. Who?"

The Innkeep scrambled up to a sit, leaning against the bar. "They had some wares comin' 'round. A couple o' the villagers bought some for their ilk and whatnot, but they got mad, you see. Didn't have enough to pay, all of us. So some got to thievin' from 'em in the night, and they came- so we..." He shook his head, crying. "We told 'em they could find their goods out in the fields. Me and a couple of other lads grabbed their wagon for 'em, led 'em out there and..." He waved his hands.

Arnor kicked the bar near him, cracking the thick wood.

"SPEAK!"

"They 'ad a carriage you see- we didn't know 'bout their families in there till we set fire to it..." Arnor's nostrils flared.

"How many?" Arnor bluntly asked, his fists curling at his side. "Don't know, their wares caught up and the flames got too hot for us to get them out... We put the rest o' the traders in there wit' em. Spent a fortnight burying the carriage and them out in the fields."

Arnor stopped and loomed over him, turning towards the Elf. Righteous retribution was in order, but perhaps it was not his place.

"And now the Pesta has come. Your great sins come back to haunt you. I should leave you all to starve." Arnor said, turning on his heel. He was beginning to get hungry- and a hungry Nordenfiir was not pleasant company. He walked over to the Guards and the Druid, breathing deeply.

"Should we help them?"

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Hot pain flared across the old wound in Elinyra’s right hand as a wave of disgust crept up her spine. Truthfully, she wanted nothing more than to let this filthy village crawl into the grave they’d dug themselves, leave and never look back. But she’d taken an oath when she became an ovate of her order; to be a healer and arbiter. It wasn’t uncommon for older and more experienced druids to act as judges in far-flung communities of the Falwood that lacked their own, but Elinyra had never finished her training in this capacity. And the brutal nature of this crime would require a deep well of wisdom to draw from, indeed.

She glanced coldly between the two guards, who had practically frozen in place when they saw Arnor.

“Did you know about this?!” she demanded, her tone accusatory. The younger of the two, barely out of adolescence even by human standards, shook his head fervently like a child caught stealing candy. The older guard, well into adulthood but still a fraction of the elf’s age, only returned a steely glare.

“Where is your magistrate?” She was met with two blank stares. “Who is charged with holding the records of your laws?”

“That would probably be the mayor, Vernalie,” the boy answered softly with a nervous glance at his compatriot. The other guard narrowed his eyes at Elinyra.

“Why is this any concern to the elves? We’ve not broken our treaty with you,” he snarled.

Elinyra was silent for a moment as she slowly and thoughtfully removed her longbow from the backstrap. The weapon was unstrung, and the purplish-red wood appeared to gradually morph into the form of a staff or long walking-stick when she touched it. The two guards took a step back, hands again at their weapons, but she made no aggressive move beyond striking the planks of the floor loudly with the butt of the staff.

“Elves and humans have many laws in common. Among them, the foulness of murder.”

She turned back with that same stony glare aimed at the tavern keeper as she said this, ensuring that she had his full attention.

“The victims of this crime have called for justice in the only way they could. And I promise, justice will be served,” she told him before glancing back at the guards. “Block my path at your own peril.”

 

[Arnor Skuldsson]

Justice.

Arnor stood over the Innkeeper, reaching down rather slowly, grasping him by the collar, and hoisting him to his feet. He screamed and protested, and Arnor simply walked to the door, the innkeeper trying his best to stop him. Arnor did not move for the guards, they moved for him.

"Perhaps my new friend and I should leave your town to rot in it's sins." He threw him into the waning light of dusk outside of the inn, into the dirt.

He looked around, before looking down at him.

"Elinyra. Perhaps we should give the Pesta a more fitting thing to feed on, hm? Perhaps the evil it so greatly desires." The innkeeper looked at the guards to help, who had their hands on the pommels of their swords. Arnor paid them no mind, his fists curled tightly at his sides.

"You doomed this place to rot. You will suffer onto me."

He spoke with such anger, such hate- it seemed unnatural. The beast in him wanted to be let out. The Svalen in him raged, his human form barely containing his anger. His soul cried out to let the rage out. It took everything he had not to behead him in the street right then and there.

The innkeeper, a modest man once, looked upon the visage of his doom, a nearly seven foot tall outlander, hellbent on him getting retribution for a crime long past.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Upon hearing Arnor's proclamation of the innkeeper's execution, the two guards in the tavern rushed uncertainly at the nordenfiir. Elinyra's staff intercepted them with a speed neither of them expected, catching the younger guard squarely in the side of his head with one end and, a moment later, sweeping his legs out from him with a low spin.

The second guard lunged awkwardly at the elf with his sword. She sidestepped the thrust and brought the staff down as hard as she could on his fingers. He managed to keep his grip on the weapon, but he paused long enough for her to find an obvious opening in his poorly-designed excuse for armor. She slammed the staff into his throat, then knocked him off his feet while he was gasping for air. With another solid thump of the staff on the floor, the wooden planks beneath the guards rotted away like centuries-old wood, dropping them both into the cellar below. Alive but suffering from sincere regret and splitting headaches.

Faint odors of smoke and rot drifted on the evening air as she stepped outside behind Arnor.

"Wait! If you kill him in the street like this, it won't be justice. It will just be another murder. There's another way."

"That's... that's right! You can't jus' kill me like some rabid beast... I 'serve a trial!" the sad little man dared to stutter in his defense.

"And you shall have it, but not here," Elinyra replied, her expression grim. The smell of the smoke was intensifying, as if someone had lit a fire nearby. The wind had shifted, sending bits of dust flying up around him. "The victims have already chosen a place - the field where you trapped them."

The tavern keeper gaped at her as if she'd gone mad. Then it seemed as if he had, for he bellowed a terrible laugh at the two of them. "I s'pose you'll have t' try the whole gods' damned town 'en. 'Cause everybody knew. Even if 'ey wasn't wit us, they knew. Vernalie even 'elped me light the wagon up, she did!" His trembling voice had settled into a low, guttural growl.

"So judge us if y'will, bloody knife-ear. As if your friend 'ere 'asn't slit a few throats 'imself!"

The mad ravings of the man seemed to wash over the druid like a drop of water on a leaf. She didn't look angry or disgusted anymore; her expression was only one of sadness.

But the other villagers seemed to have a different kind of trial in mind. Arnor and Elinyra both heard them before they saw them - a group of farmers bearing the sharpened utensils and torches typical of an angry mob. At their head was a hefty middle-aged man, large by Elinyra's standards, who was dressed in the same shoddy armor as the other guards and bearing a longsword.

"You outsiders have been nothing but trouble. And now you're blaming Paul. Leave him alone!" the man shouted and waved his weapon as threateningly as he could manage.

"Le'duwiau yn le eparhan idiotan.." the elf cursed under her breath.

 

[Arnor Skuldsson]

It happened very, very, very quickly. Arnor wasted no time when the man waved his sword at him. He wanted to make it clear that he was not going to tolerate any form of violence- not anymore than the they already had. The rage inside of him, his soul, burned. His Svalen cried out for release.

He removed the sword from his back, marching towards the guardsmen. He knew by the look on his face that he was complicit in their crimes. They all were. Arnor walked forward, and the hefty man- the elder guard he supposed, swung at him. Arnor caught his blade on his, and drove his blade to the crossguard, before spinning the blade in his hand, knocking the man's sword out of his hands.

Instepping, he drove the sword behind the man in an arc- and then back down.

He cut him in half, the power of the Nordenfiir's physique simply cutting through the man.

Inhumanly so.

He rotated the sword, staring down the mob.

"Does anyone else care to act, hm?" He kicked over the legs of the pudgy man towards the crowd. "Does anyone else wish to starve to death?" He sneered at them, bearing his teeth. "I will watch you all burn, but for the sake of those around you, I will drive off this Pesta. None of you will interfere." He turned his back on the silent crowd, most of whom who had never seen a swordsman before, nor any violent act outside of the one they knew or participated in.

He walked back towards "Paul", finding his name as short as the rest of his life was going to be. He grabbed Paul by the collar, dragging him towards the field.

"And apologize to my Elven friend for calling her a knife ear!"

"Sorry..."

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra could almost feel the villagers’ animosity falling around them like rain, as deep as midnight. Frozen in their fear, not a one stepped forward to stop the outsiders from taking one of their own away, nor even to mourn their fallen. They simply stood there in the street like ashen ghosts, staring in hateful, hungry silence.

Some of them, she was certain, had earned their fates. But not their children – nor even those who were simply too afraid to stand against the evil among them.

The druid turned away from the crowd, from the broken body and viscera in the street, and followed Arnor to the decrepit field where this all began.

The night air was still, the disquiet palpable in the village’s outskirts. Elinyra cleared a space a few feet in diameter in the dirt and dead plants.

“What… what are you doing?” the tavernkeeper asked. She didn’t elect to answer his question. Instead she turned to Arnor.

“This won’t take long.” She hurriedly gathered some branches and deadwood on the outskirts of the field and piled them in the clearing. Paul looked on wide-eyed as she lit a fire with two sticks and a bit of magic. He seemed to suddenly comprehend how agonizing it must have been to be burned alive. Elinyra let him sit with that thought instead of enlightening him to her true purpose.

She drew a hasty circle around the three of them with her staff. A haste not only brought on by her common sense telling her that her companion wouldn’t have the patience for a proper trial, but the sixth sense telling her that something else was here, watching.

The branches cracked as tongues of flame danced towards the starry sky, casting the field and surrounding forest in flickering light and shadow. From a satchel on her belt she retrieved a bundle of sage and threw it onto the fire, sending a new spout of flame up.

Paul recoiled as she looked at him.

“As you have confessed to the crime of murder and you have no accountable peers, you –‘Paul’ – shall be the voice of the living and the dead who committed it. I shall act as arbiter and judge. Your guilt has been assessed, now shall your penalty.”

Doubtless everyone present felt the sudden, unseasonable chill in the air. Elinyra turned her face back to the fire, then focused behind it as if seeing something beyond the flame and smoke.

“Who shall speak for the victims of this crime? Who shall speak for the dead?” the druid’s voice resounded across the field.

“We didn’t… it was just-” Paul started to stutter in his defense, but his words turned to ash in his mouth when he saw blackened footprints appear just beyond the circle Elinyra had drawn in the soil. As if someone unseen was walking with soot-covered feet around the circle’s perimeter; or rather, multiple someones.

They all heard the voices, unintelligible whispers all around them. A burning branch from the fire cracked in half, sending sparks rising into the darkness. In the resulting flare of light, they could see the shadowy figures stalking in circles.

Then, with a swirl of smoke that spiralled up into the air, the fire went out.

 

[Arnor Skuldsson]

The air around them grew still, and the hushed voices suddenly ceased. Arnor was patient as any, at a kneel, sword laid before him. He studied the landscape intently, watching each passing tree, before closing his eyes. The Pesta was summoned, the moonlight giving shape to a hideous, terrifying figure of a monster.

The Pesta, feeding off the evil around them, had grown more... humanlike. Arnor opened his eyes, only to see Paul lifted off of his feet at the Pesta's whim, and he decayed horribly and rapidly. His skin sucked inward, the life draining from his body, as the Pesta stole every ounce of him at once. No longer needing to hide her hunger or her feeding, it was terrifying quick of what she could do on a whim.

But Pesta's were able to do so on those they had already fed on- it required a great deal of knowledge about the person to make them be able to fed on. Arnor took to a stand, unsheathing his sword, letting it clatter to the ground.

The Pesta was about three inches taller than he was, gaunt and gray in the skin, with pits for eyes and flowing hair, as if the breeze was constantly flowing through it. He sneered, looking to the elf, before rotating the sword in his hand.

"Begone from this place, creature."

"You first, Son of Skuld."

It spoke in a gravelly, cruel voice, from the void and a world beyond the Elf and Nordenfiir's understanding. It lashed out, claw-like hands reaching for Arnor. Arnor pulled his body back, and brought his sword in a crossguard, where the Pesta latched onto the sword itself, screaming as she came into contact with the silver blade. She curled a hand into a fist, and struck at him, sending even the large man scattering on the ground, tumbling into the darker wheat fields.

She turned to the Elf and screamed, a piercing, terrifying shriek that echoed across the empty fields. Her jaw unhinged to inhuman lengths- and she held her arms out, beelining for the Druid.

Meanwhile, in the tall wheat fields, something large and menacing stirred...where Arnor previously was.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra brought up her yew staff defensively with the thought that if the pesta was undead, something carved from the tree of death might have an effect on it. Not that it was her plan to get in melee with this horror, considering how easily it had thrown Arnor. She backtracked away from it, but it was clearly too fast for her to outrun or outmaneuver. And it was coming for her.

She sidestepped into a roll a moment before one of the pesta’s claws would have cleaved through her. One of the claws raked across her arm, sending waves of pain shooting through her body. She collapsed to one knee by the smoking remains of her fire.

Fire. The thing seemed to have an aversion to it. She hoped.

Taking the staff in both hands, although her left arm was torn and bleeding, she swung at the pile of wood as hard as she could while mentally coaxing the embers within back to life. Bits of wood broke apart in the air and flared up into a barrage of flaming debris and ash. It wasn’t enough to remotely harm the monster, but the unexpected attack caught it momentarily by surprise.

Elinyra continued her retreat as the pesta howled in outrage.

 

[Arnor Skuldsson]

The Pesta's claws raked through the skin of her foe, her foul gaze turning towards the Elf. She raised her hands up again, and the air grew still, as if all the light had gone out- before the flames and ashes brought her to a screaming rage.

Her claw-like hands raked at her own face, scouring the spot where the Elf once was. The Pesta, however, was caught off-guard. She turned to look where the rumbling in the wheatfield was. Silence overtook the land again, as the Pesta peered into the darkness. Her sight was otherworldly, but she could not see the human anymore.

Not a chirp of a bird, not the noise of a cricket. Total silence blanketed the area. Terrifying quiet-

Before the roar of the bear.

The Pesta was launched back as Arnor's true- or perhaps not his true, but his other form, rose from the tall, golden wheat. He stood two feet taller, on his powerful hind legs, and his claws extended outwards. He breathed raggedly, his nightmarishly savage brutality now transferred over to his true form.

The Pesta tried to retreat for a better position, but Arnor's claws came out, slashing at her foul body. Arnor's mighty hands grabbed at her, throwing her into the dirt- hard, fast, and face-first. He savagely mounted her, claws swiping and drawing hideous black blood from her foul form. She reached up with her disgusting hand- and shoved Arnor away with a blast of telekinetic energy, sending the bear form of Arnor flying back into the wheat field. She screeched again, rushing Arnor, while he did the same, leaping into the air, preparing to meet her-

Before he looked over at the Elf, winking.

She had an opening.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Now was the moment, when the monster was distracted by Arnor’s attack. Calling out to the latent power beneath their feet, to the web of roots that interconnected all life, the druid tossed a handful of dry willow catkins on the earth.

“Devancer y’mlaen, gweri se lin’yn!” she chanted. She beseeched the spirits of this forest to rise up against this unnatural foe that dared to desecrate their dominion. She felt her individual will melt away as she became the conduit for the forest’s wrath.

The earth heeded her call. The pesta lost its balance for a moment as a chunk of ground collapsed beneath one foot. The monster had no time to recover before great roots burst forth from the ground and entangled its body. It writhed and clawed and blasted at the mass of growth, tearing away chunks of dirt and wood, but the roots only gripped more viciously; leaving the pesta completely helpless against the deadly mass of angry bear about to collide with it.

 

[Arnor Skuldsson]

The Pesta tumbled and lost it's way, before being wrapped up in the Elf's magic. Arnor's massive form tore at her again, grabbing at it. The large bearman began to viciously maul it- a terrifying sight to behold for those unaccustomed to the rage, the brutality of it.

The Nordenfiir earned their legends.

And Arnor demonstrated their reality.

He clawed and mauled the helpless Pesta, bound by the Elf's magic. The rage that Arnor felt was on full display: he viciously and maliciously clawed and beat it, while it screamed a horrible, helpless cry. But Arnor ignored all it's cries and begging for mercy. It managed to wriggle out of the growth the Elf placed it in, no longer to have the strength to even float as it did. Black blood littered the ground- and the blood on the ground that landed, the droplets formed greenery and life where it hit, as if returning the life and joy the Pesta stole.

The Pesta crawled towards the Elf, a hand outstretched for mercy- before Arnor grasped it by the foot, turning his head to the Elf only briefly, while he dragged the screaming creature into the tall brush.

For several seconds, there was a curt scream, and then silence. In the moonlight, a firm swash of black blood rang through the air, splattering the ground.

Arnor returned to his human form, and walked out of the thick brush, holding the head of the pesta, throwing it to the ground at the Elf's feet. But something felt off. Despite the Pesta's influence being gone, it was as if nothing had changed.

He looked over at the elf solemnly, breathing deeply and sighing.

"Something else lurks here. Can you feel it, druid?"

He said, in a nonchalant manner, having just killed a monster with his bear hands.

And then ripping it's head off. And then rolling it towards the Elf.