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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 1385587" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #257] It's All Right Here![/PLAIN]"It is a tremendous service you have done for our village," Lord Arundel told them and raised a flagon of mulled cider. "You have not only eliminated a threat to our very lives, but you have allowed for the recovery of goods produced from the very sweat of our citizens over this passed year."Vade didn't like the sound of goods made of sweat and he grimaced. "Eeeww," he moaned under his breath and Feln looked over at him with a bemused grin on his lips."We could not leave you in such a dire situation, mi'lord," Ledare told her uncle and the man smiled at her paternally."Of course not, Janissary," he said. "You are far too honorable for that.""Aye!" Gellir agreed, thumping Ledare hard enough on the back to make her armor rattle. "Tha' ye be! There be nae mistakin' it!""I offer you and your fellows  the hospitality of my hearth for so long as you might wish it," Lord Arundel said. "I will arrange for a feast tomorrow night in your honor and-""We can't stay," Windstryder said, cutting off the Lord. She turned to look at her companions and asserted, "We must to Barnacus with all haste!"Lord Arundel sputtered, obviously unused to having someone interrupt him only to refuse his offered hospitality. Ledare could see color rising in Gellir's cheeks as he readied himself to defend her great uncle from further embarrassment. She stepped quickly into the social breach and bowed diplomatically to Lord Arundel."Mi'lord," she began. "Uncle. We now have the cure for the plague that has befallen the capital. We dare not tarry here while so many lives depend on us returning with this cure." "I understand, Ledare," Lord Arundel replied, and a shadow of worry passed over his face. He turned toward the hearth and stared briefly into the flames as he thought about his daughter and grandson. The hound reclining on the stone nuzzled against the man's leg as he turned back to the assemblage. "No one understands the importance of the cure better than I or has more to lose if this cure fails to reach Barnacus in time. But we have dispatched a rider to the shrine of Garjarvan and doubtless a Runner has already made haste toward Elcaden. News of the cure will reach the King's ear within the week.""News of the cure is not the cure itself," Windstryder chided and Vade's eyes widened with alarm as he mentally willed her to stop talking. It didn't work. "My mission was to bring a cure to Barnacus and I intend to do just that.""Your intentions are good, but your methods would take too long, ranger" another voice said and all eyes turned toward the hearth. The hound that had been there was gone, and a burly man with a thick beard sat in its place."Malcolm!" the man's name was shouted in unison by Morier, Gellir and Lord Arundel. Only the albino sounded pleased to see him."What have I told you about snooping about my manor?!" Lord Arundel bellowed."Desperate times, mi'lord," the druid said by way of explanation. The word "mi'lord" passed his lips with some difficulty. "And anyway, I've only just returned to your demesne, so you needn't fear my intrusion beyond this little meeting today.""And what is so desperate that you felt it necessary to violate our agreement, Malcolm?" Lord Arundel grumbled. "If our treaty means so little to you, I have hunters and loggers eager to ply their trades within Spiderwood. I need but give them my blessing.""And I have many beavers upstream eager to damn the Drewett. And wolves that would love to dine on your flocks. Not to mention mice that I can barely keep away from your graneries," Malcolm said with a huff, not at all impressed by Arundel's threat. "I do not violate our agreement lightly. I have heard of the troubles that have arisen in and about these woods during my absence. I was told of them who slew the invaders and wished to thank them myself." The druid got easily to his feet, moving with grace despite his girth and age."It seems now that you need my help!" he said and laughed deeply. "I have already sent a message to a druid closer to Barnacus that a cure has been found. And I've an albatross that can carry the cure on its way."The Companions looked at Malcolm with suspicion."Come on, now!" he chuckled. "Winesada will have notified the king of your success by nightfall and my animal messenger can have the cure in Barnacus before Lord Arundel's runner has a chance to start back for Byr. You have succeeded in saving the city.""Well, then," Lord Arundel said after a moment during which no one spoke. "It's settled then. We'll celebrate and you'll stay for the feast." But Ledare shook her head."With all due respect, mi'lord," she said. "Nothing is decided. We have other duties to which we must attend and other things we need to acquire. Things that Hillville Junction can't readily offer us.""Such as?" Lord Arundel asked, arching an eyebrow."I have some magical stuff that I need to have a wizard take a look at," Vade piped up, drawing back his sleeve to show off one of the bracers he had found in The Devourer's caves. "So I can know what they do.""Angwyn ap-Llewellyn is a capable wizard," Lord Arundel said. He turned to Morier and asked, "He would be willing to look at your halfling's bravers, would he not?""Probably," Morier said after a few moment's thought. "He'd probably want to be paid, though.""You have a chest full of platinum," the Lord reminded. "More species than this entire village is likely to see in a decade's labor. Surely you can afford to hire a wizard to cast a few spells. Now what else to you have that Hillville Junction can not provide you?""I would like to acquire some new, lighter armor. Chainmail perhaps," Ledare said and Gellir burst out laughing."An' why would ye be wantin' ta leave tha Junction, then?" he guffawed. "When ye've got a dwarven smith at yer beck 'n' call? I ken make chainmail in me sleep, lass!"And so it went for some time, with the group mentioning items they wished to have and services they needed to purchase and Lord Arundel explaining that those things could be found right within the confines of Hillville Junction. It was plain to  Ledare and the others that the Lord was trying his best to ensure that a goodly portion of their newfound wealth stayed in his fief rather than migrate elsewhere with their leaving. But in the end, they announced that they would stay for dinner and discuss their plans amongst themselves.Meanwhile...Winesada stepped out of the trees and surveyed the farmsteads that marked the hills below like a quilt. The men of this land did their best to tame the wilderlands - an effort that rarely bore them fruit - but there was a harmony here that pleased the druid. The pulse of the Green was all around her even here on the edge of cultivated fields, fields that represented an imposed order that Nature would never have chosen. She sighed, sensing the next oak in range and stepped into the tree behind her...... and out again from another oak several thousand feet closer to the city walls. She emerged amidst a stand of beech trees near a wooden signpost. A weatherworn plaque on the post bore the black silhouette of a petrel in flight above a name carved in the commontongue: Fudd O'Sheah. An arrow pointed along a narrow path leading into the stand of beech trees, but that wasn't Winesada's destination. She sensed another oak and stepped into the tree by which she'd come...... appearing at the edge of an untended field of wheat. The tree was on the corner of the plot and a barricade of cleared brush and stones surrounded it.  They presented no impediment at all to the druid and she stepped through them into the unkempt field. It had been many days since the wheat had been tended and weeds were beginning to reclaim the once-orderly rows. Winesada smiled and looked toward the whattle-and-daub farmhouse on the opposite side of the field. It too looked untended behind its shuttered windows.Apparently the stream of refugees fleeing north through Rowan Wood had come from these very farms. Suddenly Malcolm's whispers of plague didn't sound so outlandish. The druid stood and strode purposefully back through the pile of cleared undergrowth.Two Tree Strides later she was inside the walls of Barnacus. The stench of death was strong here, and Winesada could hear the sound of sobbing and insane babbling coming from many of the buildings that abutted the small park in which she found herself. She grimaced and wildshaped into the form of a gull. Running and flapping, she took awkwardly to the air.The view from above was as bad as it had been from the ground. The city was like a ghost town. Shops and homes alike were tightly boarded up and the streets themselves were deserted apart from the few staggering figures she occasionally spotted moving from alley to alley. Oily clouds of smoke choked the afternoon sky where the druid could see armored men dutifully burning corpses in the main thoroughfare that crossed the city. She avoided that area and sailed out across a nearly empty harbor toward the rocky island that jutted up from the sea like an enormous titan of stone wearing a formidable castle as a crown.Her shadow passed over the ruins of a pair of sailing ships that had been sunk in the harbor. They were surrounded by clouds of flies and swarms of hungry fish, speaking of the drowned sailors floating, bloated amidst the wreckage. Winesada adjusted her wings and angled in over the outer curtain wall.The bailey was crammed with refugees seeking respite from the plague. They seemed miserable, but the druid could tell from their clothing and the richness of their pavilions that these were the wealthiest of Barnacus' people. The nobility had come to the king for a safety that even the impressive walls of his castle could not provide.She landed near a cluster of soldiers and resumed her elven form. There were cries of fear from the gentry, and the guards levelled their halbards at her. Unperturbed, she approached them with her hands neatly folded."I have been sent to speak with your king," she said in the commontongue. "I bring word from Byr that a cure has been found."</blockquote>

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