Looking up at him she nods and he can tell she is sad about that. "I will keep watch first if you wish to rest. I can tend to them until then. Get cleaned up and rest."
Kane nodded. He felt clean. He didn't sweat anymore and he had yet to suffer injury. Still though, Jazzai's nose was far more sensitive than his. Even if all he smelled like was rock, he at least wanted to be a clean rock.
He quietly moved off to find a stream to clean himself in.
Jazzai felt bad slightly as she heard him wonder off. She had more meant like washing up before bed and such. Though she could smell trade off from the blows in the fight it wasn't that bad but the lingering smell of the whip trees still clung to clothing and the like. She herself knew she would want a bath.
She used 30GP to desoluve away the dark spike and cords, all of it, she spat the gold back up on the two spike parts, so shes back at needing 500GP to grow and your down 30Gp [5+10+15] and she owes you.
Sphene "ZZzzzzz"
"Miss Jazzai, would you mind if I took the first watch while there is still some sunlight left?"
Peacock suddenly speaks up, breaking out of a trance. He had been franctically inspecting the menhirs, trying to understand their meaning.
There are no active magical effects present within the menhirs, although they remain a powerful, ancient force.
"I don't mind. You can wake me when it is time to take watch." She will tend the two prisoners, for lack of a better turn and would go wash up when Kane returned. Once he was back she would settle down. Instead of sleeping though she would try to meditate focusing inward to what she had gained.
The night is uneventful, save for the possibility of strange dreams. As the golden light of dawn graces the canopy of the valley, the captured creatures stir.
Sphene finds herself fully healed of her wounds.
Sphene wakes for he watch and is socked to find she fully healed. To the great tree she bows.
"Thank spirt I will not forget this"
She seems some want hummbled by the act.
She sits Iuntil sun rise letting the others have a full rest, then informs them it's time to get up.
Jazzai would rouse from her dreams seeming lost in thought and indeed for the next hour just walks around touching various things as if exploring and learning it for the first time. Information flooded her head, gestures words, and simple items that would draw power from nature. She would search for some Holly and mistletoe knowing that would suffice for most of her spells. Once the hour was up she would move back to where everyone was, silent and would check on the two prisoners as she focused on something else.
She would check to see if she could tell how long it would take the two to recover. But her thoughts were still distracted
After waking Jazzai for her watch, Peacock lays down in the grass next to one of the menhirs, huddling in his quilt, and peacefully drifts off, carried away by the mysterious song.
I wonder if I'll find any answers here...
The one with the wings is fully recovered, although it still has wounds. (The last strike was nonlethal, so that damage is gone now.) The one with the antlers is still grievously injured, though Jazzai had stabilized it. He is still in a bad way, but can be roused.
Jazzai would turn to the one with wings.
"Do you understand me?" She asked as her hands slowly started checking out his body. Starting with his arms and moving up. She was looking for a physical reaction to her words since her eyes couldn't see.
Her white eyes looked up at it as she spoke. "What is your name? Who brought you here?" These questions were asked in a soft voice.
The creature tenses, and the others observing can see his eyes flash in rapid sequence. After no response from Jazzai, its eyes stop blinking and it stares soullessly at her.
Understanding, it mangles through its canine muzzle. This one's host was known as ... Hender "Red" Candrus. This one traveled here with the Masters. It answers flatly, with little inflection. The only detectable emotion is a sort of matter-of-fact attitude that seems to imply these answers should already be known.
Jazzai looks up at them. "I cannot see you. These eyes are blind." She touches her own cheek below the eye. "What did the Masters leave you here to do?" She asked.
So they were people. Sounds more like these....organs and teeth were part of some kind of creature that took over a host
She touches their hand to main. "How long have you inhabited your current host?"
Sphene has come over as Jazzira works on the two,
Jazzira can see that the wound on her shoulder is gone and the Sphene looks whole once more. The small gold dragon/woman sits down close by and study's the two captives.
When Jazzria gets one talking her ears pick up, but she dos not interrupt Jazzira as she talks .
The harmony again...
Adrien finds himself walking the strange forest once more. The sky above the canopy shows a deep, clear night sky full of bright twinking stars, and yet the forest is as brightly lit as in the middle of day.
This time, the birds look on curiously as he walks through the forest.
"Look!" A voice whispers. "It's one of the princes!"
"Oh my! One of the Queen's offspring! He's one of us!"
"One of us!"
He comes upon a small stream crossing the path.
Adrien looks down into the stream, desperately needing to recall his own image. To his horror, the one who looks back is not Adrien. The one who looks back is Peacock; not Peacock the boy turned fey, but Peacock, prince of Thistlefeather, proud young noble of the Fair Folk, grinning with uncanny mischief and frighteningly sharp teeth. "Farewell, Adrien; now it is I who shall be!"
Without any further warning, the reflection jumps at him, and he is no more.
---
Peacock wakes up with a start, finding himself by the menhirs once more.
No. No. Not Peacock. Adrien.
The harsh truth is upon him. He's been letting himself get lost in this new fantasy. He can't allow himself to forget who he is like he's been doing.
Before Peacock, there was Adrien, and it wouldn't be good or right to forget himself.
It is Adrien who reaches for his bow and kneels upon the ground, and it is Adrien who engages in franctic prayer.
Oh, great father, Old Deadeye, here is one lost son seeking your guidance, for I am lost... Please grant me the courage to find a new home, wherever it may be, and that if I am truly to become a fey, that it be on my own terms and choice, and not through forgetting myself so.
The next morning, the party finds the boy sleeping restlessly, clutching the weapon as though his life depended on it.
Kane rests in the shadows, unmoving, letting Jazzai speak to the prisoners.
The creature again blinks its eyes in rapid succession, then switches to verbal communication -- something it seems unused to. Defend the Tethers. Absorb. Change. Find new hosts.
At Jazzai's next question, it tilts its head, as if thinking on an abstract concept. Always. There's a hesitation, as if it seems aware that the answer isn't quite correct, or the answer she wanted.
"What are the tethers for? And new hosts for yourself or others? At what age of your current host did you take over?
The winged being grows more agitated with the questions. Tethers? Unknown to this one. We are supplied with two implants ready for hosts.
Her last question gets the worst reaction. Hender... was... adult... male. Unknown age. Its eyes blink rapidly.
She would looks at them sensing the agitation and would sit back wondering if the agitation was from her questions...or a reaction from the host. "Would the implants be the vials of blood in he satchel?" Jazzai would wait for the answer then asks.
"Is Hender's consciousness still intact?"
No. That is sustenance. In the ... case, the creature says through gritted, canine teeth. Jazzai begins to feel her hunch is correct, the way it starts to writhe against its bonds.
At her last question, it pauses in its motion. It... hurts...
"Then where are the implants you were provided? Did you find hosts?" Looking towards the others she wracked her brain on how you would take out something like them. Or expunge it from the hosts. Was there something that they could do to save the hosts.
"You say it hurts. Does it hurt you or is the host currently hurting?" Hearing it struggle against the bonds she would look at him.
The creature strains again against the ropes, as its teeth elongate into the silvery, jagged fangs. Hurts... Kill...
Fortunately, the ropes hold.
She was looking our over a hill range, she knew this, by her side was a great form. She looked up at it, there next to her little body was a vast Golden Dragon. Its head the side of a house, tuned and looked down at her. Its voice spoke into her head.
::"little Sphene, the dryad you saved as allowed me this time to talk with you. I am your mother yet not your mother. I am the one who's egg you gained new life from. It is nice to meet you at last. She told me you where a brave one, taking on such evil alone, and now with others, in the wilds and only a day old. I mother even one who is not your true mother, would feel pride."::
"You where the one that gave the temple the egg? the one she spoke of"
::"Yes, I was, it was a gift, for help I once needed. Such is the way with our kind. But I would ask a thing of you Little Sphene"::
Sphene felt like a child again, with the old lady, nan all she could no was node at such a from.
::"I would like you to think of me as your mother, I have seen your mind, I know you never new your real mother, So I would like you to think of me as your Second mother. It would please be greatly for you to think of me as such."::
Again all Sphene could do was node, the feelings in her heart, complex, conflicting. She has learned to stand alone, leaned to be strong with no one to help. She needed no one, that had been her way from the death of nan. Now here she was like Child again, small helpless in the face of...
she gained her voice.
"I am no child, I have lived, I lived before this"
:;"Yes you did and you must never ever forget that, that life made you who you are now. Stronger then you can possibly imagine, with a anger at all things wiked and evil. I see it in you Sphene at the center of your very soul. If you did not have that, the body you have now would reject you. You hid it from yourself, you feel you had to but its there,
a golden heart of good."::
Sphene could feel it
Then as if a freash echo, Sir Kane's words sounded around Sphene.
"Of course you are free to do as you will. Just as we all are. Just keep in mind that freedoms come with responsibilities. We don't get to put our personal liberty above the safety or welfare of others."
The words had been in her mind from the moment they had been spoken.
She had felt them deep inside her, move her, find a truth in her.
::"You know in yourself, this is true, look back at the times in your life you have stood up and protected others. getting food for nan, looking after the young children in the gangs, the girls sold because they flesh was new. A temple statue because evil was being done. A young boy fay lost in his life, A wood full of darkness, you have been putting others in front of yourself all your life."
she felt the truth of it crash down on her, into her, waking her.
But a thought came
"But I want my old body back, I want legs I want to be me again"
::"That will come in time, trust me Sphene that will come"::
And the great dragon shifted, changed, shrank, then in front of Sphene was a radiantly beautiful woman, she looks late 40s she raised a hand and brushed Sphene human fact. With a shock Sphene realized she to was human once more.
::"Any mother would be...":;
Then she started to fade.
"No wait, I wanted to..."
Sphene has waken with a start, she blinked, a dream, all a dream.
But something had changed in her, her body was whole once more but more than that much more, so was her soul.
------------
Sphene says with a kind but sad voice.
"Hes asking for death to be set free form... A parasite. That would be the best way to think about this I feel. We could see the Dryad was being eaten, not just in body but also in power. This dark parasite lives by taking the soul and power of the host feeding on it until well we don't know yet. This is anit-life, necromancy, When I was at School, one of the teachers told us tales at night, to scare us. He liked to tell us about such dark things."
She looked at the vile's and box.
"The In-plants could be the teeth, once fitting their roots going deep into the body eat the subject from the inside out. Like your teeth Jazzia, If they are the same, Do you feel any thing in them, dark thing? If so dos it talk to you as it must talk the the poor souls here."
She points to the bound form.
"Think on that we may lean things if they do.
Then she looks back at the form.
"Just think what it must be like to be trapped screaming in a body you no longer control, seeing your loved ones fall at your hands, every thing you cherish broken and not one thing you can do about it. Must be hell in there for them."
She pads over and looks at the being, looking past the body at the soul locked inside. Sphene is majestic and calm, the sunlight glints of her gold scales, here is a gold dragon, soul not true, and young but still, something the world knows to be good and kind. When she talks she dos so with deep compassion in her voice. The understanding that comes from someone who has lived with terrible pain and loss.
"I am sorry, so sorry, if we can we will help, but if it is the freedom of death you seek tell us now soul inside the abomination"
There is sadness in her eyes.
Something has changed in Sphene, something deep, it could have been the Dryeds healing or the events of the last few days, or fighting the darkness, or the words of Sir Kane, But there is an aura about her an aura of good.
Beneath his hood, Kane smiles just a little.
To Sphene, the eyes are the most inhuman; clearly not of this world. Everything else of this creature has a physicality to it -- a natural analogue even if stolen from another being. The eyes, however, are unnerving as they examine the gold dragon before it. A malevolent, alien hunger appears within them, and the creature that once was Hender again leans against its bonds toward a source of new abilities and gnashes its fangs at her.
She lowers her head and shakes it,
"I don't see anything left in that body of its host, only malevolent evil looking out. Lost soul I will find who did this believe me."
She moves away from the thing.
"Sir Kane, I think your jugment will be needed soon"
She gos back to the spot she was sitting on but this time looks out over the stones.
Jazzai would try to push Hender back, pushing on his chest, away from Sphene as she heard the gnashing teeth.
"No, you cannot bite her. She is a companion of mine and I will not let you feed on her." Her tone was sharp and had a hint of a growl to it. She tried to think of what could be being put in these people.
"Sir Kane, There is a box in this satchel along with the blood vials. Do you want to take it out and look at it. See what is inside. I can say we are not exactly the same but I reconized them as familiar, and they do not register as food like you do." She would take the satchel off and place it behind her so the others can look in it.
This was a terrifying prospect indeed if they could not find a way to seperate host from what ever these things were. Or, if the Host truly was destroyed or consumed.
"What do you call yourselves?" Jazzai would ask. "And do the Masters have a name other than Master?"
Surely there was something that could be done to remove otherworldy creatures. Some kind of higher magic or the like or was it to late for these people.
Kane nods and rises to take a better look at the box and it's contents.
Peacock sits by the wayside, deep in thought, only somewhat paying attention to the goings-on. It's clear that his mind is on other things entirely.
Jazzai senses the creature's tension, but doesn't see its alien eyes blink again in a vain attempt to communicate with... her?
Kane finds the metal case and easily releases its catch and opens it. What's inside is enough to make the stoutest soul recoil in shock and horror. Two glass vials, each roughly large enough to contain about two pints of fluid, sit nestled within. Inside each glass is a mass of writhing black tendrils and two red, alien eyes attached to a pulsing sac. The tendrils press and strain against the glass impotently, but the eyes definitely see Kane with unblinking malice.
Several paces away, Jazzai gets her answer. This one is ... a Collector. The Masters... are the Masters.
Sphene comes over as she sees Kane open the box,
She looks down at the items.
"Parasites, I was in a city once an they said don't go down unto the under city, things lived down there, things that, took you over, used your body, flying things but this, never heard of any thing like this. We need to get this to someone who can find a way to remove or kill them, gods this is dark magics"
Lowering her voice as the others talked. "Do you recognize me? Or see me as something familiar? I am afraid, being robbed of sight that I must go on instinct and senses." Jazzai wanted to figure out why there was a connection she felt.
Ears pricked, but says nothing, I thought had come to her, she looked closer at the two things in the case.
"It's the eyes Jazzria, the eyes. I think I understand now. You can't see it but they are blinking at you, like they did before we stopped them, they talk with their eyes, by means of blinks. I think they are answering your questions, you just can't see the answers."
She comes over to Jazzria
"In the box are two large glass vials, Inside them is a mass of writhing black tendrils, like the spike, each connected to two red, alien eyes linked to a pulsing sac. That's the parasite, a body, some kind of vine like thing to control the body and eyes, The mind must be linked to the eyes. It's why you are like them but not like them, You have part of such a parasites in you, but not full mind, because who ever did his cut parts off like the eyes."
She looks at Zarria,
"You have one in you, but its not whole, you have control for now. They have not been trying to talk to you but talk to it, But it can't see them, it can't talk to them. It has no eyes."
She looks back to the two,
"The Black parasite can be harmed, if it could be cut away with out killing the host. I just don't know. But you seem to be well and alive.
Most of all in-control. You rule the parasite not it rule you and that is hope."
she lets all that sink in.
The creature only stares at Jazzai in its alien way. To the others, its eyes continue to blink. You are... flawed. Defective. But... a Collector.
Sphene Ears pricked, but says nothing, I thought had come to her, what she had seem, the words of hunger, what the Dryad had said, Jazzrias fangs, her talk of her being 'like their pets' but not their world' The masters are collectors had visited the one who gave her a curse' And Jazzira was blind, yet the things blinked at her, talking, that was how they talked, just as the things in the box did. This 'He' gave her the 'pet's' ability, then sent her far away. To here but why. 'To not be found by them possibly' why hid Jazzira, unless.... She said she did not bear the taint. Yet the things here see her not as they see us. She said they did not feel like 'food'. Then this talk of a hunger, A hunger to bite and take over. She was trying to fight it, she had said that. So she did have the taint. The Dryad has seen it. it all added up.
she looked closer at the two things in the case.
"It's the eyes Jazzria, the eyes. I think I understand now. You can't see it but they are blinking at you, like they did before we stopped them, they talk with their eyes, by means of blinks. I think they are answering your questions, you just can't see the answers, and they see whats in you, the taint, the hunger, the thing you where hidden with. The Dryad could see it. You fangs Jazzai, just like theirs."
She comes over to Jazzria
"Jazzai In the box are two large glass vials, Inside them is a mass of writhing black tendrils, like the spike, each connected to two red, alien eyes linked to a pulsing sac. That's the parasite, a body, some kind of vine like thing to control the hosts body and the eyes to talk and see with, once in they must grow the fangs. The mind must be linked to the eyes. It's why you are like them but not like them, why a part of one was put in you Jazzai. The Hunger, the fangs, the taint, why do don't see them a pray and why they see you as one of them. You have part of such a parasites in you, but not full mind, because who ever did his cut parts off like the eyes."
Then after they talk just.
She looks at Jazzai, .
"Yours is not whole, its why now they see you as Defective, not whole. Yet a a Collector like them, a better word would be 'Infecter' ones who bit, capture and then infect others with the parasite. The masters must have control over the infected. But you have control for now, like them but not like them, I worry what will happen to you should a Master come close. Or you will files and you become fully infected, driven by them by hunger to infect more. Being of power like, the Dryad, and my godling need to be taken over in a more powerful way. The Spikes and draining their there powers."
You can see her working all this out, such is the mind of even a young Dragon. Its as if other voices are talking throw her, Its slightly odd.
"Jazzai, I think right now I think they have not been trying to talk to you but talk to it, But it can't see them, it can't talk to them. It has no eyes."
She looks back to the two,
"The Black parasite can be harmed, if it could be cut away with out killing the host. I just don't know. But you seem to be well and alive.
Most of all in-control. You rule the parasite not it rule you and that is hope."
she lets all that sink in.
"You can never get my name right. You are also making a lot of assumptions. Yes, by how you describe their teeth and fangs. We do share a lot of similarities. As for Taint, you can ask Sir Kane, I carry none. Otherwise I would not be traveling with him. What she felt was something otherworldly, from the same world. Whether that is this creature or not who knows. Most things cannot function without a brain so that hypothesis doesn't work exactly right. You are also assuming that something like them was put in me and I wasn't born with it." She said simply and looks at the creature.
"What does a collector do?"
She listens to some of Sphene's words and shakes her head. Not all of those things were adding up right.
"I apologizes for my bad pronunciation, Jaazzai"
She works hard to get it right.
"As of a few days ago I had a human mouth, I am still not used to using a Dragons mouth, its longer and the teeth."
"I understand your anger, they came to see you, you said that, they did something to you did they, no one likes to be used, to be defiled like you have been if they did."
She looks as at the blind girl as she seem to be shaking her head in denial of her her words
"Jazzai your blind, you can't see what we see, the way they act and move, the things in the box and the eyes. We can see them, see you. Your teeth. The taint I was taking about was the one the Dryad could see, when she touched your fangs. The darkness she said was in you as well. They look at you trying to talk to the thing in you, we can see that. They are doing it even now. The way they don't see you as they see us. All that is before our eyes, Jazzai. You talked of a hunger in you, one you where fighting. Tell us of that, Jazzai tell of yourself. We need to know as much as we can if we are to work out what is going on here."
Peacock, having recently woken up from restless slumber, follows the discussion in silence, frightened by the strange creatures in the vials.
"First of all, how do you know he isn't saying all of this to someone or something hidden to us? Secondly you so far have gotten most of the story incorrect and are happily passing out information to Hender here. I am not going to bother telling you the story when I am trying to get answers you don't seem to want from them. Not everyday an interrogation suddenly turns around"
Turning back to Hender. "Now I asked what does a collector do? What do the tether's do and what does the spike that was in the Dryad." It blew her mind that she was the one being interrogated and all this information was being just given to the prisoners. It also grated on her Sphene's assumptions. Just like the villagers in some respects.
Reaching up she would touch the creatures eyes and rests her fingers gently on his eye lids. Jazzai doubted she would understand the blinks, but then again you never know. She knew her story could put them in danger and had to decide anyways what she could tell and still protect them and the other that tried to protect her.
Sphene looked on as the blind child as her templet flared, there was real anger there just under the surface. Like the bland anger and lust in the two captives. Was she the same? was she looking at three infected here, or just an angry young girl who's held rage at what fate had done to her. She needed to calm this child down, at make her understand the possible danger she could be in,
In a motherly caring voice she said to Jazzai
"Jazzai Im not trying to hurt you, I'm trying to help you. It just called you 'a Defective collector' you not us, it's sees you have no eyes, that's what it means by defective, the same but not whole. I don't feel I am making any assumptions here at all. What it just said, The fact you see some of use as 'pray" but not them, what the Dryad said and what we can see with our own eyes Jazzia. The anger your showing now, and blind intent on ignoring all that, hiding from it as if..
Her voice gos soft again,
" as if being compelled to."
If only she could make this girl child see the danger she may be in.
She had to be clear. Let her know what was needed by them.
"Look your going to have to give us answers, do you understand, you and the thing in you, I'm willing to wait until your done to talk about this, but talk we must. Carry on with your 'interrogation' but if we find the thing in you is trying to communicate to them or take you over, we must and will have to step in for your own safety. Jazzai, Do you understand. For your own safety."
She looked once more at the things in the box, then at the two captives.
hells if she has something like that in her! gods help her
"You may not even know you are being used by it Jazzia, that's what I'm saying"
She looks hard at the girl child, trying to see the thing in her, then she moves back a short way next to Kane and let's the girl carry on her talking to the captives., There was another here who had spent time with her maybe he could help, the danger her was real. An assistant she had called herself, well let's see what the assisted know that may help her. After a moment she whispers to Kane.
"Sir Kane I am sorry, but I have to ask and you don't have to answer now. You knew Jazzai before we meet, did she ever... act in a way that seemed odd to you, in a way like the things here?
It would be a DC 16 Perception check to overhear the conversation.