”Agreed.” Eunomia watches as the Vixen finishes off the creature, noting her clear expertise with the bow. I don’t think I’ve seen her use a weapons before, but she did say her mother was a hunter. It’s clear she knows what she’s doing.
Turning to the pack, Eunomia opens the scroll case to see if anything's In it and quickly scans everything with Detect Magic. She raises an eyebrow at the jade figurine. Thats an...interesting pose. At the Vixen’s question, she can’t help but grin. ”Maybe they thought only a monk would be flexible enough.”
Ahto recognizes motifs related to Cayden Cailean etched upon the pewter stein, although that is hardly unusual. The monk depicted in the jade figurine also seems to wear an elven emblem of Irori, but the small scale makes it difficult to be sure. Ultimately, though, these are simply artistic embellishments and do not denote them as religious icons.
The only one of the dead adventurer's possessions to show a magical aura is the mud-caked suit of scale mail still protecting its inert bones. The longsword, although masterfully crafted from cold wrought iron, is not enchanted.
The watertight case, once opened, reveals not some magic scroll but an equally valuable treasure. This adventurer, however long ago they trod these woods, seems to have embarked upon a quest similar to yours. The parchment within is an incomplete map of the region, detailing the southwestern expanse of the forest that you have yet to plumb. Incorporating this information into your own maps would save you many days, if not weeks, of work.
The Vixen, who just got through kicking a taller opponent in the head, admits to Eunomia, "I've spent the past four years learning to kick o'er me head—in heels—but yeah, I'd hurt meself trying that." Oddly, the jade figure seems less trashy to her after hearing Eunomia's take on it.
She shoulders her bow, then brings her fingers to her clasp as she approaches Eunomia. If Eunomia hadn't noticed before, the clasp depicts two succubi in a naked embrace. She says of it, "Last time I found this sort of art, no one claimed it. Given the rosy cheeks and raised brows, it seemed no one wanted it.
"I suspect it'll be the same for this jade figurine. Too embarrassing to keep in our treasury, but valuable if ye decide to sell it. Ye're very generous—in many ways, not just yer offer to make a cloak for Ash." She holds the figurine atop both palms, well within Eunomia's reach. "If only one of us is to keep it, I'd prefer it to be you."
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"Perhaps Oleg, or whoever placed the bounty, will be appreciative enough to pay for both," Ahto replies. He stands ready to remove the second head once Wonky has completed her examination of the creature's body.
"The heads can be wrapped in sacks. We can bring the rest of the remains back to be skinned, if there is any interest in using the hide. Does anyone have past experience eating the meat?"
Harmond looks over to Wonky seeking out her expertise. "Are these things dragons? Perhaps their scales could be useful in the crafting of magical goods." He pauses for a moment seemingly embarrassed to admit his lack of skill. "Not that I know how to do that... Yet."
Eunomia isn't quite sure what to make of the Vixen's offer. "Uh, thanks? I'm sure there's a collector somewhere that will buy it. It's well carved, even if the subject matter is a bit unusual." She hadn't noticed the Vixen's clasp before, and her eyebrows go up once more as she examines it. "Huh. I guess there must be a larger market for such items than I'd have thought." Taking the figurine, she wraps it in a spare blanket before putting it in her bag. I have no idea how fragile jade is, but it should be safe enough that way.
She shakes her head in response to Ahto's query. "I'm sure we could use the hide for something, but I've never run across these creatures before. I have no idea what their meat would be like. Should we just burn them, like we did the frogs?"
The Vixen seems relieved when Eunomia becomes visibly uncomfortable.
She replies to the comment on the quality. "I s'pose the Shelyn-worshipper in me should appreciate the craftsmanship, but me Milani-worshipping half says it's crap.
"I don't mean to pay ye with a burden, Eunomia. If we can find a buyer, lemme go through the trouble o' selling it. I've the skill o' pretending to like it—convincingly if I draw attention to me clasp—which is art for all the reasons the jade's a piece o'..."
The Vixen doesn't bother finishing her sentence.
"A nun," she scoffs, "in-f@~!ing-deed."
Ahto ably begins flensing the scaly hide from the first of the dead tatzlwyrms, finding it only slightly more challenging than skinning an alligator. With enough time, he is able to extract mostly intact hides from the creatures. Although their scales are nowhere near as strong as those of their mightier kin, leather from a tatzlwyrm can be made into masterful armor, and the creature's primeval origins seem to also make the leather more amenable to enchantment.
However, Wonky strongly cautions against sampling the creatures' flesh. Not only is the meat very tough and barely edible, but it is also quite toxic. Tatzlwyrms possess a breath weapon, but it is a feeble echo of the fire and lightning bellowed by true dragons. Instead, these lesser draconic kin belch forth clouds of noxious gas. This poison permeates the creature's flesh, especially after death, making the prospect of dining upon one an almost certainly deadly affair.
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"Getting rid of the meat and offal is going to be problematic. If we burn it, the fumes will most certainly be toxic. We will have to be careful about tending the fire and moving upwind of the smoke. If we bury it, we will have to bury it deep, as any animals that dig it up may inadvertently poison themselves." He looks to the others. "Thoughts on the matter?"
"I'd vote bury them, if the smoke might be toxic. No telling what creatures might just happen to be downwind." Eunomia sighs, clearly not looking forward to the task. Pulling out her any-tool, she manipulates it into the form of a shovel.
Unless there are objections from the more knowledgeable members of the group, she'll find a likely spot and start digging.
Harmond speaks up when Eunomia suggests burying the creature.
"No sense doing the work yourself. We can have Vencarlo do it.
With this he pulls what appears to be a well crafted ventriloquist dummy from his bag and sets it on the ground. He leans over a speaks a word into its wooden ear. "Vencarlo, I need your strength."
With that the doll stands up and begins to move about, roughly the size of Wonky.
"Vencarlo, can you dig us a hole please? We need to dispose of some poisonous critters." The homunculous then triples in size, standing a foot or two taller than Harmond. He walks over to Eunomia, hand out as if to ask for the shovel.
"See, no need for us to do the manual labor!"
The Vixen is about to help lug bodies, but seeing Harmond's magic, she relaxes. Clearly impressed, words spill out of her mouth: "That's a great trick to perform at parties. How's it work? I mean, could ye take that jade figurine and make her come to life? And if I made her an outfit, would she grow tall and the clothing with her?
"Not that I'm suggesting actually doing any o' that. Just curious if yer trick works on anything that resembles a person or animal."
By tool and puppet, a grave is dug for the wyrms high up the river bank, where their blood will not leech into the river. The work is not quick, though, as such sizeable beasts require a deep, trench-like pit within which to inter them. If nothing else, this provides a respite from travel and allows you to examine the items recovered from the wyrms' lair. Your fey companions perch on opposite ends of a log balanced upon a rock within the debris, teetering and tottering up and down like a pair of tiny children.
Harmond blushes at Vixen's praise. "I.. I'm not sure? I've never tried. The enchantment imparts spirit and mobility to the receptacle, but I've only ever done it on cloth or bone before. It may not work on a stone statue."
Eunomia is more than happy to relinquish the shovel to the puppet. While she may have been willing to dig the graves, manual labor is not her strongest suit. "Thank you...Vencarlo?" She feels a bit silly thanking a puppet, but it is being helpful. Actually..."Harmond, how sentient are your creations?"
"It depends on what you mean by sentient. They are certainly smarter than your typical animal, Laury can even speak. They only last for a limited amount of time though, maybe three quarters of an hour. I haven't thought to test them for persistence of memory. They certainly seem to have distinct personalities and retain memory from previous times I animate them, but I am unsure if that is my mental pattern and expectations imprinting itself on the constructed body, or an intrinsic property of their individuality."
He pauses to think for a moment.
"I suppose it would be possible to perform an experiment to test it out, but I wouldn't even know where to begin."
He looks to Wonky.
"Miss Prong, would you have any insight?"
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Wonky looks up where she has been furiously scribbling some notes into her journal, already halfway-through designing an experiment.
"Yes, of course, we could set up a control of a piece of information that only you could know, followed by a similar experimental set of information that you couldn't possibly know. Then we summon Vencarlo, or which ever of your enchantments you wish, to experience the set of information, after which we would summon Vencarlo - or the other summoning - once more with a subset of information dependent on the first set of information. Then and only then would we be able to establish the presence of short term memory in your enchanted summonings!"
She continues to scribble quick notes as the words tumble out of her, the tatzylwyrm corpses far from her mind.
"Woof," Sprocket adds helpfully.
Alongside burying the wyrms, you spend the restful time at the river crossing discussing the nature of sentience in these summoned, conjured creatures while also incorporating the fallen explorer's map into your own. Using the defensible islets as a base, you also fill in the remaining gaps of this expanse upon your map.
The following morning, you again follow the feys' lead to meet their unicorn friend, Horace. They are especially eager, with Tyg declaring in a sing-song voice that she can feel how close they are. They lead you east across the river, into the swampy Narlmarches.
Eunomia smiles at how eager the fey are. Not that she can blame them. "I must say, I never thought I'd end up meeting a unicorn when I came here. I've never even seen one before. How did you meet him?"
"Oh, it's been so long that it's hard to remember," Tyg replies to Eunomia before turning to Perlivash. "Was it during one of the Solstice Games or did we meet him at one of Nectar's revels?"
"I think we actually met him at...huh? What's that?"
The stink of moldering plants and a strange quiet in the sound of birdlife surrounds a somewhat sunken clearing in the woods here. At the center of the clearing, the soggy ground becomes an insect-infested, stagnant, swamp-like pond, and sprawled at the pond’s southern edge is what appears to be a dead horse. Further investigation reveals the creature to be a dead unicorn, its horn broken off at the brow.
"Horace!" the two fey offer simultaneous shrieks of horror before rushing to their dead friend's side, screeching and blubbering in shocked grief.
The unicorn's body is strangely untouched by insects or other necrophages. Furthermore, the stink of mold comes not from the body, which is weirdly odorless, but from the fouled water of the pond.
The Vixen is blindsided by this tragic discovery. She doesn't have the words.
"Tyg, Pervalish... I'm so sorry."
She certainly has a vengeful thought: not as sorry as the bastard who did this'll be, if I find out...
But she keeps this internalized, and simply waits for her more observant companions to explain the cause.
Harmond's face goes pale when he sees the corpse. A moment later he loses it and empties the contents of his stomach behind a bush. After a few minutes he regains his composure.
"This. This is horrible. What happened? Who did this?" He steps away for several minutes looking away from the body hyperventilating briefly before regaining his composure. "Ok. Focus. Focus. So, looking over the body, something is off. There is no sign of decay or necrosis. Even the insects and other scavengers seem to be avoiding it. Something unnatural is going on here."
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Wonky's face wells up, tears streaming from the gnome's eyes. She collapses to the ground at the edge of the swampy ground, wailing. After a few moments, a stream of shuddering sobs comes out.
"He's dead.....he's dead.....he's been marked....his corpse.....marked by some otherworldly anger.....cursed to repel life...." Her voice becomes quieter and high-pitched. The First World....something wicked did this...."
"Who gets pissed off at a unicorn?"
The tearless Vixen reminds herself that her wish for vengeance is her desire, not necessarily Tyg's. And letting her emotions cloud her judgement won't help either. The Child would never have needed me if she could grieve and kill Gill at the same time.
Horace's corpse is white as a bridal gown, and bloodless as Vikki was on that day. Her corpse was odorless, though surrounded by stench. And of course she was lifeless, though as Ahto's voiced words of denial, the Child also had a naive hope Vikki would gasp for breath as the rope was undone. So many parallels... except with Vikki I knew the killer would come back.
"Tyg, Pervalish... if ye need a shoulder to cry on, I've one for each o' ye."
The Child needed at least an hour before she could even...
Should either little fey perch on the Vixen's shoulder, she will stay back from Horace or go to him, depending on what the fey want of her. She will not attempt to examine the corpse, but rather, she'll keep her eyes peeled for threats.
For a fraction of a second, seeing the body, Eunomia thinks maybe it's just a horse. Hopes that it's just a horse. But no, it is Horace. The first unicorn she's ever seen, murdered and mutilated.
She tries to examine the scene professionally, but it's hard to remain objective. "Something from the First World?" She casts Detect Magic and scans the area, looking for any signs of a portal. Or an invisible creature.
"Whoever or whatever it was took the horn. Why? Did they need it for a spell?" What kind of evil spell requires a unicorn horn?
Although Ahto cannot discern a cause of death, he finds that the majestic magical beast is, tragically, quite dead. Other than the missing horn, there is no sign of trauma upon the unicorn. Nary even a scratch or rash can be identified upon the pure white body.
Eunomia's magically attuned sight detects the faint, lingering aura of magic. As she focuses, she discovers these are traces of powerful necromancy, although she cannot identify what precise spell was used. No further clues can be discerned regarding who or what might have unleashed such dark power.
"Necromancy..." Eunomia whispers. Logically she knows that many spells from that school are beneficial, and it's certainly not inherently evil. But the feel of it has always disturbed her. Right now, all she can sense is the aura of lingering death.
She shivers and swallows hard. Focus. Be objective.
"I think whoever killed Horace was a necromancer. They likely used a powerful spell to...to murder him. That would explain why there aren't any wounds on his body. I don't see any indication that they're still nearby."
Not that I necessarily would. The kind of spells that could do this are all far more powerful than any I could cast. If they made an attempt to mask their presence, they could be standing right next to me and I wouldn't know.
She shivers again. Assume they're not. If they are...well, there's nothing you could do about it.
"We should bury him. But not...not here. Tyg, Perly, is there any place in particular he was fond of?"
While the Vixen has stated her offer comfort to the tiny fey, she is well practiced at bottling up her emotions.
Calmly (or at least she appears to be perfectly calm), she waits for the others to get past the emotional shock, approaching Eunomia since she's obviously putting in effort. Maybe she's about to say something, but...
It won't help.
She offers her hand, and if Eunomia takes it, she gets a gentle squeeze. Then the Vixen moves to Wonky. She pets Sprocket, gives Wonky an ever-so-light pat on the shoulder (if allowed), then she moves on to Harmond. "Sucks," she tells him.
If the fey land on her, she uses her littles fighter to gently caress Tyg. But all this somewhat silent offer of condolences is just stalling. It's Ahto she wants to talk to.
"It reminds ye of yer own loss, don't it? Ye wanted to believe Horace wasn't dead, which ain't like a realist such as yerself. More like a boy who lost his parents too young.
"Apologies if I'm wrongly assuming that about ye 'cause this dredges up me own worst loss. But in case there's truth to me words, ain't nothing wrong with drawing the parallel. You're too stone-faced and I'm too f++*ed up, so neither one of us'll lose it.
"But let yerself feel what that boy in ye felt, same as I'm listening to the girl behind this mask freak right now. That's how we relate to the fey, who count on us to deliver justice to the necromancing bastard who did this. If ye need me to hold the rope like I did for the rapist, it'll be me pleasure."
As the Vixen speaks, she finds herself fueled by her desire for revenge. Justice. Whatever. F*@% semantics. How do we find this guy?
"We should bury him. But not...not here. Tyg, Perly, is there any place in particular he was fond of?"
"He liked to roam, to wander," Perlivash says, composing himself. "I don't think there was any one place he felt tied to."
Tyg flutters over to the Vixen and lands atop her shoulder. She wipes the tears and mucus from her tiny features before offering her own suggestion.
"Could be bury him by the elk statue? It's got a good view of the grasslands to the east...but I guess it's kinda far to carry a whole unicorn, right?"
The Vixen intends to carry out Tyg's request. She asks how far the statue is, unless she can plainly see it.
Then she considers how to move Horace...
"We might need to go back to the trading post and get a cart."
"Would Jhod have a cart? It's closer than the trading post. Otherwise..." Eunomia starts digging through her pack. "We might be able to create a rudimentary sled with the tools we have available. The any-tool could form the frame, blankets and bedrolls could support his body, and we have plenty of rope to tie the resulting 'sled' to the horses and have them pull it." She hesitates. "I guess that's not the most dignified solution, but...it would get the job done. Otherwise, like Ahto says, we could form a temporary cairn while we track down a proper cart."
"A cairn sounds nice," Perlivash says with a sniffle. "It's better than just leaving him out here."
Harmond helps move the stones silently, lost in thought.
The Vixen is hyper-focused on the task. Though tearless, effortlessly concealing any sign of emotion from the heartbroken "Child" within, the Vixen is still (regardless of how she defines herself) an artist.
Memories of laying Vikki on her bed, flowers on her grave, a solitary candle at the shrine... these images are vivid, almost as if the memory is the reality, and superimposed over it is the surreal morbidity of the dead unicorn and tiny mourners.
The solemn work progresses slowly but surely, sapping the prior enthusiasm of exploration.
Soon enough, a broad but modest cairn marks the resting place of the unicorn.
"Can...can we still visit the elk statue?" Tyg asks. "I know we don't really pray, like at all, but I think I'd like to, for Horace."
The Vixen is fine with this. "Shall we?" she asks Ahto. Though her tone is a business-polite, her masked eyes narrow as she speaks.
Either VV expects to find the necromancer himself, or she expect to find evidence he was there, along with the means to track him.
"Of course we can visit the statue. Just...just give me a few minutes."
Eunomia studies the cairn carefully, committing the scene to memory. Then she very deliberately turns away, pulls out a sheet of parchment, and sketches it.
She's no artist and the sketch is crudely done, but the scene is recognizable. Finished, she carefully folds the paper and puts it away. "Thank you for indulging me. Let's head to the statue."
Eunomia is very quiet as they ride. Anyone looking closely might observe her lips moving in a silent prayer.
Verity, Lord of Truth, grant us your blessings for this investigation. Help us discover the true identity of Horace's murderer. Let us find them and bring them to justice, so that they can never again perform such an evil deed.