"A wise decision," Alexei affirms with a nod and a smile, "shall we continue on then?"
There is a loud smack from Cassandra's direction. Her hand and forehead appear very red. "This is for Bokken. Not Svetlana. He wanted them for alchemy...stuff." In her mind she conjured an image of the reclusive and odd man. "Let's come back." She let's Vallen and his thick gloves handle the the branches. She waits for the others to move back before moving away herself.
"So," says Hatch, checking the map, "Where to next?"
"I'm, admittedly, no expert with maps," Alexei offers, "but it looks like perhaps if we sort of... zig-zag to the northwest that might be the most efficient path... shall we try that?"
Cassandra looks at the map and what is left to finish compared to what they've discovered. "Zig-zag probably. At least for a few days," she says pointing out the route. "At least for the next few days. We'll see what the river does to our plan."
You travel further west, continuing to push through the forest. At one point you cross the Skunk River, but mostly the mapping is tedious.
You cut north and come to an odd place where the forest seems twisted and plagued. Large boles on the tree boughs and trunks indicate some kind of fungus or parasite, and the land is squishy and the soil black. A small pond emits a smell of mold.
Though you've occasionally come across the random dead animal corpse, you are ill-prepared for what you find among an area of dead branches and silence in the forest. At the southern end of the pond, an animal lies. It seems at first like a dead goat or horse with a white coat, but as you get closer you realize it is something else entirely, for while it has a horse's powerful physique and the short beard of a goat, in the center of its forehead is a sawed-off stump where once protruded a single horn. Its eyes are glassy and open, and in spite of its state it is incorrupt, its body free of flies, parasites, or the rot of death.
Hatch nearly chokes and brings a hand to his mouth. "Oh, gods," he says, and you see tears well up at the edge of his eyes.
*Gasp* "Oh wow." Cassandra approaches the dead creature slowly, tentatively. She kneels down next to it and scoots forward in awe. She reaches out and touches the poor thing and gently moves her hand across its beautiful white fur. A unicorn. She'd never thought she'd ever see one, dead or alive. She'd heard they were good but also very elusive creatures. The fact that it didn't seem to rot certainly meant it was as magical as the rumors. When she can finally tear her eyes away from it, she looks around at the forest. She wondered if it was plagued because of the unicorn.
Jenya's face hardens at the site of the desecrated beast, the customary good naturred up turn of her lips turning into a grim tight line as Cassandra examines the corpse.
She takes out Misfire and starts fidgeting with it, cleaning the barrel unnecessarily.
Ya know it's hard to get away from realizin' that there are some folks out there that deserve to die. Desna preserve me but they do.
Cassie runs her hands over the fur and finds it smooth and glossy, but cold to the touch.
Hatch stifles a sob and his lip quivers as he says, "Why would someone do this to such a beautiful creature?"
Seems like they wanted its horn Jenya says shortly, not looking up and still fiddling with her gun.
Hatch says, "I get that, I just... I mean, it's not worth it. You'd have to be some kind of cruel monster to think it was worth it to kill some creature like this just so you could have something from it."
"I don't know," Cassandra says in response to Jenya. "This all seems strange. I can't tell if this," she points at the rot on a nearby tree, "is from the death of the unicorn or from what killed it. I don't see any wounds so probably the latter. Like some kind of death magic. But what could kill a unicorn? Aren't they pretty resistant? Something that powerful wouldn't need the horn." She takes one last look at the unicorn and turns to search the surrounding area for tracks. She certainly wouldn't be able to tell how long it had been here seeing as it wasn't decaying. So who knows when it happened.
As she searches she asks "You think we should bury it somewhere else? Maybe burn this area? If the corruption spreads the whole forest might be infected. "
Cassie searches the area for tracks and finds that the ground is muddled as if there was some kind of brief scuffle, but there are no discernable tracks leaving the area. Whatever confronted the unicorn was bipedal and barefoot.
Vallen had been uneasy since entering the corrupted forest, and could not be persuaded to dismount his horse. "I"ve seen something like this before." He mumbles, the mason's usually expresssve tenor taking on the steady qualities of a story from a recent memory.
"It wasn't just a corrupted glen like this, but a whole river. These wicked Elves... not like the kind in Kyonin, they were more like... surface Drow, meaner than a short-changed Red Dragon. They cursed the source of the river and trashed an entire peninsula to spite some competing hobgoblins. The Elves tried to to enslave them, but it went to slag for them real quick. Guess it was t heir way of getting back at them. Smelled just like this. Sickly." He starts to nervously fiddle with the bridle in his hands, obviously not wanting to stay long.
The sight of the dead unicorn casts a crestfallen pallor over Vallen's face, his golden moustache threatening to droop off of his face. "To purposely mutilate a creature of pure good... I shudder to think what purpose its horn will serve. An alchemical concoction or spell perhaps?"
While the others study the corpse Vallen begins a compassionate prayer to Torag for assistance. Surely, with a matter this grave, the goodly gods and their charges would bless them him with the means to divine the cause of this sacrilidge.
Finally, the priest relunctantly dismounts his horse and squishes over to the deceased beast. Holding his silver holy symbol, he chants words of divine inspiration and studies the surrounding area before moving on to eye the corpse.
After looking around for a bit Cassandra comes back looking confused. "I found tracks but they don't go anywhere. They're just here," she says slowly. "Also bare feet. It's like something teleported or flew in, slayed the unicorn then did the same leaving. Maybe took the horn as a trophy? I don't know." She shrugs in defeat. Only way to know what happened would be to actually have been here.
Cassandra test the ground to start digging and notices its black color. She looks back at the unicorn. Burying it might be bad too. The soil looked corrupted too and it wasn't decaying so who knows how long it would just lay there in the earth. A pyre. They should make a pyre and let the fire spread to the corrupted land. That should do it. Or at least do something.
"On second thought, I wouldn't dig a grave. Ground's foul too and it might not decay if buried. Best to burn it all. Ash should help the next plants along. I'll start cutting the surrounding plants to keep the fire from going further than we want. Vallen? Can you conjure water?"
Glad to have something to do Jenya turns away and starts marking the area where they would strip out vegetation to keep a fire from spreading.
Vallen performs some kind of complex magic and concentrates for a while.
With some effort you make a funerary pyre for the creature, and cut down a firebreak and set the whole dark area ablaze. Black smoke rises to the sky, visible for a great distance, as the body burns away along with the denuded parts of the woodlands around it.
You finally choose to make camp some distance away, hoping to avoid any residual dark magic that may remain in the place.
You set down your bedrolls under the shady trees, with a small stone fire-ring that you've assembled to keep some warmth and light nearby.
As Vallen and Jenya are cleaning their guns and Cassandra is trying to get to sleep in spite of all the smells around, Hatch sits down near Korinne with an odd look of concentration and says to her, "Korinne, after that awful day, I've been thinking... I was wondering if, um... if you'd share... no, I mean, if maybe you wanted to... uh... would you..." he gulps and then very nervously says, "...would you show me... your spellbook?"
Alexei is uncharacteristically quiet as his allies piece together what happened. The sight of the slain creature clearly unnerves him, but he seems unable to look away. Finally, he offers, "Being able to work the kind of magic that could do this and being able to heal someone or cure a disease are two very different skills... It could be that a powerful magic user committed this unspeakable act to get the horn so that he could heal someone... Whatever the case, I agree that burning the corpse is our best option- better not to risk cursing the land by leaving this travesty intact."
He climbs off his horse and begins gathering dry wood. "If we build a pyre next to the remains we should be able to roll it over into place," he suggests. "Jenya, can you make whatever preparations are necessary to control the flames, perhaps with Vallen's help?"
Vallen sits near the fire pit they've constructed, delicately chipping away at the small figurine he's been working on for nearly the past week. "The magical auras around the unicorn are still haunting me. By Grundinnar that was the strongest necromacy magic I have ever felt. Definitely killed it. But it was so powerful I couldn't even tell what spell it was. The thing that cast it was out to kill the unicorn for spell reagents, I have no doubt. Must have flown in, killed it, flown off. Some... evil wizard?" He shrugs, clearly disturbed by the day's events.
THe dwarf fowns at his figurine, chipping away at fine details. Strangely, the smoke from the burn seems to stick to him... his vestments smell like a ash pit.
Cassandra watches the black smoke for some time before settling down. She hoped it was enough to deal with the corruption. She shudders to think that they may have made it worse by spreading the ash all over the place. Maybe the unicorn's ash would balance it out. Who knew? She wasn't magically inclined so it was a best guess at this point. Though her friends here were good people, they couldn't replace her family.
She missed home.
She joins the others at their melancholy camp. As if she wasn't nervous enough, Vallen's analysis of the unicorn made her more so. A powerful dark wizard might be in the vicinity now. "Well the tracks are recent enough to see. If a barefoot wizard pops in from nowhere, I suggest running."
Jenya moodily traces the shape of a butterfly in the ash with a stick, unable to get the image of the dead unicorn out of her head. Unicorns can take care of themselves I figure. We can run but what if it comes after the fort? Only way to protect ourselves, and the others, is to get stronger ourselves.
"It is odd that he was barefoot..." Alexei observes, "I've heard rumors that their were fey in this region, do you think maybe it could have been an evil faerie that did it?"
"So far they have been pleasant, if rambunctious. The ones we met didn't have this kind of power. We can try to ask them."
Hatch says to Korinne with a slight blush, "Oh, er, there's nothing wrong with it, at least that I know." He takes the spellbook reverently, the way some might handle a prayer book. He carefully supports the book's spine as he opens it and looks at the magical writing. A slight frown crosses his face. "How do you... read this? It looks like gibberish, but it must be some kind of... special language?"
Hatch says, "I think it's just amazing what you can do, and maybe if I could learn how it works, I could do good things too."
Though a single evening is far too little to really gauge Hatch's abilities in this regard, he does seem to have a good memory, at least, which is a start. But it might take many months of study and training for him to master the most basic magics.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next day you pack up and head in an easterly direction (hex F4). You come to the Skunk River again, and you find a natural ford where several sandy islands and chunks of debris and wood have clogged part of the river and given it an easy crossing location.
A large tatzlwyrm is coiled up in the middle of one of the islands, happily sunning itself.
Hatch whispers, "I think Oleg just wanted the one head to mount as a wall trophy. But maybe this one has a lair nearby, unlike the other one?"
"Wait. Oleg wanted it for a trophy?" Cassandra asks, incredulous. "S*+@. If I had known that I would have done something useful with the rest of it. Erastil doesn't like it when we kill something for no reason other than sport." She looks over at the one sunning itself and decides to bypass this one as part of her redemption. "Well this one isn't a problem now. We can cross somewhere else."
Yeah, it ain't bother anyone. Let's just move on. Jenya agrees with Korinne and Cassandra.
Alexei weighs his companions' words.
leaving this seems like an unnecessary risk... surely the creature will have to be dealt with eventually... though I understand the desire to complete the exploration quickly without unnecessary conflict...
"This is fairly well removed from any settlements or trade routes right now," he comments, "but I wonder how long that will remain the case? Does anyone know how far a creature like this roams to hunt?"
They don't seem like they're particularly hard to track... or to kill. I figger we can leave it for later... dunno what its range would be though.
Vallen's eyebrows raise when he learns the first tatzylwyrm was merely a hunting trophy. "It's going to be mounted in some ramshackle trading post? Oleg didn't even hunt it himself! How is that a proper trophy to begin with?" He harrumps, making a series of clinking noises as he shifts in his saddle in agitation.
It seemed Cassandra was taking it a bit harder, though, and the dwarf offers words to the faithful. "Do not worry yourself Cassandra- Erastil is an ancient and wise god, as is Torag, and would take your intentions into account. You believed you were serving the greater good as I did, and indeed we rid the land of a dangerous creature."
With that, he tugs at Nelly's reins to be off. "But this one isn't bothering anyone right now, so lets leave it be, eh?"
"Very well," Alexei replies with a nod, "onward ho, then."