Laurel NPC's page

Laurel blushes at the men's attention, but seems to enjoy it. She brushes her bangs back and smiles coyly at Sariel. After a little bit, she forgets you are even in the room though as she starts working on the remedy. She does acknowledge Arun as he shares the tales. "You guys might want to get some sleep. I will have this ready in the morning."

You guys head to the inn and get some good rest. By the time you wake up, the town is already all abuzz with stories of your heroics. You have a good breakfast and head over to Laurel's place. She is gone and you track her down going from house to house. She tells you that the remedy already seems to be helping.

Sheriff Baleson finds you. "You guys are heroes. I can not thank you enough for what you did for the people here. Stay as long as you want. There is a group leaving in about a week if you are interested in traveling to Phaendar. There is a large market festival there in a week and a half. Several of the town folks here will be taking their wares there to sell them. Maybe you could protect the caravan?"

The group rushes back to town and arrives in the middle of the night. The town is dark and there is little to no activity. You rush to Laurel's house and knock on her door. After a few minutes, she opens the door. She has obviously been asleep for a few hours. When she sees you, her eyes turn from sleepy to excited. "Thank the gods! Do you have them?!" She swings the door wide open to let you in, not even concerned that she is in her nightgown.

Laurel nods her head no. "We are too small a village for that. You could ask villagers I guess, but I doubt they would allow their horses to go. They rely on them to survive."

Laurel thinks for a minute. "I am not sure there are any horses available..." She pulls out a piece of parchment and draws a quick, crude map to the Lumbar Camp (+10 survival or knowledge geography). She hands Sariel the map. "Of course the Darkmoon Vale is dangerous. The only threat I really know of for sure though is the witch. She is wicked. Maybe you can barter with her. I warn you though. She likes to trick people."

Laurel retrieves a book and opens it, thumbing to a certain page. "Here it is...The substances are some rare roots and concentrations.The first is Elderwood moss, which I’ve never heard of, but my granny says the stuff only grows on the oldest tree in a forest. The second is specially pickled root called rat’s tail, again, sounds like hoojoo to me. And the last substance is seven ironbloom mushrooms, stunty little things that only grow in dark places thick with metal, a favorite among dwarves, or so I hear.”

"...where can we find them?"

She continues, " “Well, for the elderwood mold, there’s gotta be an oldest tree in the vale. Damned if I know where it is, though. The rat’s tail and mushrooms are even longer shots. Way north, toward the mountains, people say there used to live a bunch of dwarves. They’re not there anymore, but I’d bet their forges are. If you can find ironbloom anywhere around here, that’d be your best bet. As for the rat’s tail, who knows? Well. Actually. Ulizmila, the witch that lives deep in the woods might. She’s a crafty, mean thing that knows all sorts of strangeness. She might even have one. I don’t know whatshe might want for it, but I doubt it’d come cheap. My mother traded her sight to the old crone for a few pages of what she knew, and that was years and years back, and I don’t know a soul who got any nicer as they got older.”

She thinks for a minute and then continues again, "I'd probably head to the Consortium Lumber Camp to the east and look for Milon Rhoddam. He is the most experienced woodsman in the Lumber Consortium. He could probably get you on the right path."

Laurel softens a bit as she realizes you are here to help. "Thank the gods. Everyone in this village thinks I am a healer or something. We've got people dying and I'm getting every snotty nosed kid being brought to me." She turns and smiles at Sariel. "Do you mind grabbing me that sage root, honey?" Laurel points to a root handing on a spike near the ceiling.

She turns and takes a good look at all of you. "OK...shops closed for the day. I need some time with these gentlemen...you heard me...out." She takes a broom and gently, yet quickly herds the villagers out. Once they are gone, she flips a sign in the window and locks the door.

"You are just the type I have been looking for. I think I have found a recipe in my Mother's book that may help the plague. The problem is that I need three specific substances that I am unable to obtain. If you really are willing to help, I need you to travel and obtain these substances. You will have to hurry though. It will take time to travel and we are going to have people dying on a daily basis."

Creeping ivy and full window boxes cover the façade of the rugged-looking, two-story shop bearing the faded sign “Roots and Remedies.” A line of twenty-some somber townsfolk—some with pale, wheezing children, others seeming to be precipitously near tears—stretches from the open door.

You all wait over an hour to get your turn inside the shop. During this time, kids cough and sneeze all around you. Villagers wait both patiently and impatiently as the time passes. But Alas...you finally enter the 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?”