Belladonna
Given the pace at which the line appears to be moving from the last time you were here, you determine it would likely take about an hour for all these folks currently waiting to shuffle through Roots and Remedies.
While you all are conversing, Belladonna and Zilka suddenly get the feeling over someone watching them; however, a glance around shows no one in the general are paying any particular attention. Belladonna thinks she sees someone turn down a nearby alleyway rather quickly, while Zilka could have sworn she saw some curtains on a house suddenly draw close...
I feel our mission may be delayed. I would certainly not want to even consider keeping any of these good folk from having their turn at seeing the good apothecary. Perhaps one of us should make a list of questions and stand in line, while the rest use the time to see if there are any other recourses available that might be helpful. Ahem, Belladonna, Belladonna, I was saying that...
Though Nathaniel does not take notice of anything other than the long line, maybe he notices Belladonna's distraction?
Ignoring Artegal (sorry), Belladonna makes a quick dash to the edge of the alleyway.
S$&+! Was that a Kabran recruit?
Zirren was guiding the others through town but mostly thinking on how it was living here before. Then Bilka warns about the house, fortunately he glanced in the direction Belladonna dashed off and was saved from looking at the house.
"Casual it is. Could just curious people wanting a looksie or it could be worse."
Zirren gets ready to defend himself and wishes some of the things he could summon were bright enough to do some scouting.
Belladonna
You see a cloaked and hooded figure walking down the alleyway, much like everyone else out today. The figure appears to be walking quickly, but not excessively so... The figure does not appear to be trying to hide, nor does it make any attempt to look back over it's shoulder. The figure simply continues walking through the alleyway...
Hmmm, must of just been my imagination. C'mon Bella, keep it together.
Belladonna returns to the group.
"Uh sorry Mr. Artegal, what were you saying?"
Well, I was observing that the shop, the healer's place, is quite crowded and perhaps we shouldn't all have to spend time here waiting our turn to be seen, if all we are seeking is a few answers to a few questions. Or, I suppose, we could all wait, if no one has anything better to do.
"I wouldn't mind staying, but I don't think I could represent all of us."
"I'd be happy to talk to Laurel and see if she has figured anything out. Maybe she could use some help that we can accomplish while out and about."
Zirren will go ahead and go inside with Bella.
As he notices two of the people break away from the group, Ruhk takes a steadying breath, turning his face upward to let the cool rain was over him, removing the few tears that had escaped his eyes for a moment.
Here goes nothing...
Stepping briskly over to approach the remaining group, he raises a hand in greeting.
"Hey there, listen...I overheard a bit of what was said in the Duck before, I'm thinking you're looking for a cure to the sickness plaguing this town.
...
I want in!
Screw Payden and Kreed, there are kids dying back there, they're mad if they think I'll just go back into the forest like a good little lumberjack and ignore something like that.
Kids! KIDS for..."
Calming down with visable effort, Ruhk continues in a less loud voice, but one with a steel rod of determination running through it.
"I'm coming ok? And if you say no, I'll go myself."
So are we just barging in, or are we waiting our turn in line, 'cause, you know I think we should wait for our turn, you know, just, well, because
"Well, if there is a cure, we'll find it."
Ruhks face splits into a grin, but it looks forced and slips after only a moment.
"We definitely wait, Mr. Artegal. I know most of these people, they are just a desperate, or even more so, than we are."
"Oh and good to meet you Mr. uhhhh person. I'm glad there are people concerned about this. The more heads we put together, the more taters we'll eat for dinner."
Caine leaned against a wall under an awning, a little far away to overhear the conversation. The boisterous lumberjack had joined up with Zirren and his little friends. Caine sighed. Any hope of them managing to stay out of trouble on their own had pretty much just died. This Ruhk fellow seemed like the he and trouble were on very good terms.
The next was was grueling listening to the hacking coughs of those in the line ahead of them, dealing with the soaking rain, and the pestering itch at the back everyone's neck that someone, somewhere was watching them... Until finally it was their round, stepping into Roots and Remedies.
The smell of burnt earth and spicy incense chokes the air of the cramped, mud-tracked shop. Bunches of dried herbs hang from the ceiling, along with dangling pots, presses, alchemical apparatuses, and glassware of more arcane purposes. Pouches of rare plants, jars of colored glass, and all manner of dried, preserved, and jellied animal parts fill high shelves and tables doing double duty as displays and workspaces. In the shop’s rear, a rail-thin woman with severe-looking spectacles and hair pulled back tightly busies herself between an overpacked rack of herbs, a table covered in stray powders and measuring equipment, and a pot loudly
bubbling over with thick gray froth. Over the din of her work and without looking up, the woman impatiently shouts, “And what’s your problem?”
"Hello Laurel, its Ziven. My mom said you were looking into the cause of the plague. We were wondering if you had found anything. " <shrug> "Maybe we could help."
Ziven is accustom to people in town knowing who he is. The number of half-elves is small, the number of those that were often defended by celestial animals was limited to a sample size of one.
At hearing Zirren's voice, Laurel finally looks up with a surprised smile on her face. "Zirren? That really you, sweetie? When did you get back into town? And why?" She gives the half-elf a somewhat stern look with her last question.
"Hey there Lauren, Hamlin said to tell you thanks for giving him herbs for that little...problem of his.
But next time I think he'll have to get them himself, I don't work for Kreed no more...althought HE may not know it yet."
Belladonna will keep in the back of the group while the others visit. She'll be looking around for anything interesting, including that book.
"Yes, Laurel. I'm back from school and as Zilka said managed to get a job doing a little research in the region so managed to visit mom."
His expression takes on a serious cast "So, have you found anything about the disease and is there any way we can help."
Hello, I don't believe we've met. I'm sorry, but I don't want to assume I know who you are, or what your name is, so may I call you, Madame? Madame, I do not have a problem, so to speak, and if it is not forward of me, I would say that I am accompanying these fine people, Zirren and Zilka, as they have told me there is a possibility that they can locate a ruin, associated with a group of dwarven monks, or so I understand, somewhere nearby this village, and I am looking for information that will lead me to reconnecting with my brother, Thomas, also known as Tommy, Boote. I am Nathaniel Artegal Boote, and I am pleased to make your acquaintance.
Belladonna
As you cast your glance around the store, you spot several tomes scattered about. Some stacked in haphazard piles, others lining bookshelves, some open, some closed, but no one single book seems to stand out amongst the rest... She sees all manner of bundled herbs and roots, bottles of tinctures and potions, jars of creams.
Laurel smiles at Ruhk and his fanciful antics. "Glad it helped him out. And glad to see you get out from beneath that man's thumb, Dandy." She throws a playful wink towards him before turning towards Zilka. Laurel has always been a flirt with Ruhk, but she has not ever made any actual advances towards the young man.
Laurel eyeballs Zilka for a moment as if to say "I didn't ask you" when the half-orc answers for the both of them. "Well, it's good you came to see your mom. Poor woman works too hard if you ask me, but then again don't we all here in this town..." She lets out a weary sigh. "If I had my way, you'da left and never come back this way..." She shrugs and looks down at Nathaniel to address the halfling before answering Zirren's question.
"Well, now, aren't you a handsome fellah. Pleasure to meet you, Nathaniel Artegal Boote. Can't see I know anything about your brother, but there's plenty o' dwarven ruins 'round these parts." She tosses a playful wink towards Nathaniel as well, but then she glances back towards Zirren and her smile falters a bit.
"I know plenty about the disease, Blackscour Taint they call it. It’s a sickness, almost like any other, but you get the mold growing in you. It starts eating away in your chest and belly and is damned determined to stay. Your body near turns itself insideout trying to hack the stuff up, but all that does is cuts your guts up… bad. It's called that on account of the cause, blackscour... Just a fungus that’s
not good for anything. Hard, bitter, and sharp, it likes the water and gets you sick if you drink it down. Never heard of it growing around these parts, though, until now.” She pauses and a thoughtful look passes her face for a moment. "I traced it back to Brookman's Well, but Gods only know how it managed to get there. As far as help goes, well, any of you know anything about diseases? So far I've had no luck beyond limiting the exposure of folks, been trying what I know, but none of it seems to be helping."
You say you traced it back to a well? Has this well been isolated? Perhaps we should inspect this well, try to see if there is a source for this fungus that is below ground that can be cut off, isolated.
"Yeah, the well has already been restricted. As far as inspecting it, well... you'd have to talk to Kreed about that. He keeps a pair of his goons watchin' over that well at all hours of the day. The rub isn't so much the source now that we know where folks are gettin' sick from... it's finding a cure for those who are already infected." She glances outside to the line outside her building. "And soon. We already had quite a few folks die already..." Laurel's eyes glance over to Belladonna and holds the young halfling in her gaze for a moment before offering a sad smile of encouragement.
Laurel then looks at Zilka. "What about you, dear? Zilka was it? You have the look of a knowledgeable lass about you."
Belladonna breaks from Laurel's gaze and keeps in the background.
Is there more water available to Falcon's Hollow?
Laurel smiles at Zilka. "I imagine you do, lass. I---" She stops suddenly at the horrible coughing and gasping sounds coming from directly outside the shop's doors. The is a loud clamor as folks begin crying and shouting.
There's a loud thumping and crash as two men push their way into the store with an elderly man held up between them by his limp arms. The old man's body shakes with each hacking cough and the horrible raspy gasp that follows fills the small room. "Laurel, you gotta help! He's dyin'! Listen to him!" The younger of the two men pleads with the herbalist.
She looks at the limp man, looks at the rest of you, and lets out a heavy sigh. "Okay, lay him there on the floor. I'll do what I can! Afterward, wait outside you'll just in the way. You!" She points at Zilka. "Take this cup and get some of the tea that's brewing on the hearth in the back room." She tosses a clay mug at the half-orc while the two men slowly lay the coughing man down on the floor. She then chases them off before kneeling next to the old man... whose eyes are rolled back into his head. His entire body violently shakes with each cough and blood flows freely from his mouth and nose.
Laurel takes the old man's hand in her own. His eyes flutter briefly and he wheezes out a whisper of a word. "Please..." before another coughing fit takes hold of him. She then looks up at Ruhk with a very serious expression. "Go behind the counter and you'll find a black bottle labeled "Nightshade". Get it and bring it to me. The rest of you... help me comfort him, if you can, he ain't got long." She casts a glance at Belladonna, whom already well knows the last stages of the Taint...
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Slowly, Belladonna made her way to the wheezing old man. Her footsteps upon the wooden floor reminded her of a memory she had been desperately shielding herself from. The thought of her father finally pushed it's way through her mind, overwhelming her senses.
She stood in the front entrance of her family's little halfling home, a three room shack, but with a new makeshift wooden floor that her brother had put together two days prior. A violent fit of coughing and spluttering shook the walls of her home, and she heard her mother weeping in the next room.
No, not today
The fresh loaf of bread she carried fell to the floor and tears flowed from her eyes. Slowly, she walked towards the sound of her father's last breaths. Each floorboard creaked beneath her feet, their cries falling deaf upon her ears.
Standing before the makeshift door, she pushed it open with shaking hands. Her father lay on his bed, a small mat with her mother's hand stitched multi-colored quilt. His white eyes glanced blankly in her direction, and he opened his palm to her. Her mother kneeled next to him, completely overwhelmed in grief.
But for every step forward that Belladonna took, her father drew further and further away. Her legs wouldn't respond. They betrayed her, running towards the front door. She heard the front door shut behind her, and a loaf of bread flew into the street. Still her legs did not stop. The scream in her throat choked her into darkness, and she awoke in the forest covered in soil and water. Her eyes were stained with mud.
Slowly, Belladonna made her way to the wheezing old man. Her body shook violently, her legs stiff with fear. She fell by his side, her eyes flooded in tears, her lungs drowned in sorrow.
"P please... ff forgive me...
Please... forgive me
I'll never... forget you"
She then curled up next to the old man, buried her head in his side, and wept.
"You're damn right it shouldn't."
In the doorway, a cloaked man loomed. It was the drunk from the bar, Caine. His hood was up and his face was covered by a scarf. He gestured to the weeping halfling.
"Pick her up." he said with quiet force. "Get her clear of the body."
Caine's time as a healer had been a long time ago, but there are certain things no one could forget. Like, for instance, that the absolute last place you wanted to be in a plague town, was on a diseased corpse.
"And everyone cover your faces. Fungus gets in your lungs by breathing it."
Nightshade...like, DEADLY nightshade? Eh...this town needs a cure badly.
"Uh right, I'll get right on that."
Ruhk quickly moves behind the counter, finding the bottle with it's dire content and hands it over to Lauren.
NOT liking this one bit...
Laurel takes the cup from Zilka and looks up at Greyson standing in the doorway with a glare. "Not this one, it's not contagious in that manner. You can only get it by ingesting the fungus. Not that a drunkard like you would know anything about that." She then looks back to take the bottle from Ruhk, which she then places upon the floor along with the cup from Zilka.
She slowly and carefully removes the dropper from the bottle of poison and with painstaking care she places one drop of the deadly liquid into the tea and stirs after placing the stopper back. "This will put him into a deep slumber so he can pass in peace... Please, put this back where you found it." She hands the bottle back to Ruhk and continues stirring. "Sit him up, please." Once they have moved the old man into a sitting position, Laurel waits for a lull in the coughing fits and then holds the cup to the man's lips. "Drink this, it'll help you."
The old man sips down the bitter tea with a grimace before shortly before being overcome with yet another horribly violent coughing fit...