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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 1674776" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #276] The Second Test, part IX[/PLAIN]Moonsday, the 25th - Waterday, the 27th of Wealsun, 1269 AEThe day dawned bright and cool, promising excellent weather for the start of the group's journey. They bid farewell to The Great Oak and headed along a winding forest path that eventually met up with a wider track that could well have been a road at one time."D'ye reckon this be that Eginnion Road the tree was goin' on about?" Karak asked as they stood in the middle of the track and looked up and down it."Perhaps," Ledare told him. "I've never heard of the Eginnion Road."Morier looked up at the sky and then pointed down the road to the left. "That way's southwest. Even if it's not the right road, it goes in the right direction.""Then what are we waiting for?" Feln asked and set off down the road with the others following behind.After about half-a-day's march along the disused road, the VQS reached the downward slope of a wide river valley and the forest fell away behind them as they descended into a land of grassy hills freckled with heather. Vade smiled broadly, sucking in the scent of home through his nose and tumbled off into the tall grass."Quit yer, foolin' 'round, hobbit!" Karak scolded. Vade popped up from the grass and grimaced at the dwarf."Oh, come on, Karak!" he said playfully. "Don't you ever miss your homeland? I haven't been here in so long..." Vade did a cartwheel and landed back on the trail.Karak harrumphed. "Dwarves do nae roll around on the ground!"The good weather didn't hold and they did some marching in cold drizzle. It turned the trail into mud and spoiled spirits. But the light rain was the worst that they had to contend with; they encountered not another soul on the Eginnion Road (for they did encounter weathered signposts at various crossroads along the trek that identified the path as such).There were several aging waystations - relics from another time when merchant traffic traveled this way - built at intervals along the trail with roughly a day's march between them, but they were all unoccupied. Of course, given the fact that they were simply square compounds bounded by wooden palisade walls without roofs of any sort and therefore offered little protection against the elements, it wasn't surprising. There were ancient firepits within each and countless signs of past occupation, but nothing recent. Even so, sleeping with the massive double doors closed and barricaded made everyone feel safer than simply sleeping by the roadside.On Waterday morning, they spotted columns of smoke in the distance and by mid-day crested a hill and laid their eyes on Flavonshire.It was a tiny settlement consisting of a half-dozen weathered, sod-roofed log buildings clustered around a square that was really little more than a widening of the muddy Eginnion Road. A few sullen-faced commoners moved about the place, and many more were visible in the surrounding fields. All the usual buildings were evident; a trading post, a tavern, and a smithy were all obvious at a glance. But the eye didn't linger long on the drab settlement, instead traveling beyond to the distant edge of another dense forest rising up over the foothills of the Altan Tepe mountains which lurked misty, purple along the horizon."Look there," the keen-eyed Ixin said pointing at a modest building that looked newer than the rest. A sign hung above the door on which was painted the ring of white flowers that they all recognized as the symbol of Flor."At last," Ledare said and they hurried toward the structure."Can we go to Thumble after this?" Vade asked as they went (for what seemed like the hundredth time). "It's not too far from here if we go back to that fork in the trail leading toward Redwood. We can be... Oh, crap!"They all saw what Vade did. A strip of yellow cloth was tacked to the frame of the door leading into the shrine. It was the universal symbol for plague in The Realms. All but Karak drew back from the door. The dwarf harrumphed and pushed the rickety barrier open with one hand.Inside the shrine was dark and warm. Two rows of wooden benches were arrayed before a raised wooden altar painted bright white with a blue teardrop on its face. There was a human-sized figure laid out between the altar and the first bench; it was draped with an old hide blanket. The body swarmed with fat flies. The air in the place was fetid.Undaunted, the dwarf approached the body and drew back the edge of the blanket with his axe blade. Beneath was a horror of putrescence. Little remained of the body save discolored bones thinly veiled with liquifying skin. Yellowish curd dripped from the corpse's open mouth, nose, the sockets of its eyes. Karak shook his head, let the blanket drop and stumped back outside."Twas no natural thing what took this man's life," the dwarf announced as he stepped out into the fresh air."Aye! Sure enough!" cried a voice from the smithy nearby. A squat, sooty man with bulging arms and a fire-scarred leather apron approached them. He bore a light hammer in his meaty right hand. His left eye was blackened and swollen. "Poor Simon was struck down. Killed by some accursed evil right here in the very street we stand upon." The smithy spit into the mud and Karak returned the gesture."Were are the Florians?" Ixin asked, pointing up at the sign above their heads."Simon was our only priest," the smith explained. "Started up this shrine last spring. Built most of it with his own hands." Ledare's shoulders slumped at the news."What 'appened to 'im?" Karak asked, planting his axe haft between his feet and resting his arms across the blade."An unspeakable horror was inflicted upon him!" the smith grumbled and again spit into the mud. "That black-hearted ranger, Plonius, struck him down with a spell!"Only Feln heard the hushed curse from the rear of the shrine or saw the shadowy figure dart behind it. He motioned to Karak to circle around one way while he went the other."Plonius?" Ledare asked the smith, unaware of the events transpiring with Feln and Karak. "The Hound?""Aye! The very same! May Garn-Zanuth take his soul!" he cursed in response. After a moment's pause, he hefted his hammer defensively and asked, "He a friend o' yours?""I wouldn't call him a friend, but we've met before," she told the man. And Ledare quickly recounted her prior encounter with the ranger on the Riverneck Path during the moonsdance of Planting. At the time, he had seemed rather sinister, skulking about silently in the night, but Plonius had ultimately given them a potion that had saved Finian's life. Of course, Soriah had sent him off in a huff after insulting him badly. Only Finian had accepted the man at face value."Hey, wait a moment!" Morier said and pawed through his pack for some of the notes he had taken. While he did so, the smith scratched his whiskery jowls."He was trackin' horse rustlers, you say?" he asked Ledare and she nodded. "That sounds like him, all right. Damn shame he's gone evil! He was a regular hero around the frontier with ranchers."Morier pulled out his notes, found what he was looking for and read the portion aloud. "One who the Janissary did not trust is suddenly not trusted by those who were once his staunchest supporters though the fault of it is not his own. Follow his trail and you will uncover a dark and twisted secret kept from the eyes of good and evil alike for millennia," the eldritch warrior recited the words of the celestial they had encountered in Hillville Junction."Where did he go from here after he killed the cleric, Simon?" Ixin asked and the blacksmith gave her an appraising look up and down as if he'd just now noticed how inhuman she appeared."H-he rode straight off  down the track toward Greenhill Woods," the smith said, pointing away to the south west although his eyes never left Ixin."See!" cried another voice. "Plonius was of the Horse Nomads. The horse is a sacred beast to them! He'd never set himself upon one!"They turned to see a lanky man dressed in leather and pelts standing betwixt Feln and Karak. He was of average height and weight for a man, standing taller than every member of the VQS save Ixin and Feln. His skin was bronzed, his black hair pulled back in a long ponytail that hung to the middle of his back, and his eyes flashed a poisonous green beneath his dark brow. He wore a cloak made from the skin of a large wolf and a necklace of bones and teeth from the same hung over his studded leather armor. A longsword was at his hip and a pair of throwing axes were tucked into his belt."We found him behind the shrine, listening to our conversation," Feln explained."He is spreading lies about The Hound, calling him a murderer" the man growled, bearing his teeth at the smith in a great snarl. "This killer of yours could not be Plonius!" "That man's in league with the ranger!" the smith bellowed and back-pedalled away. Pointing to his swollen left eye he added, "He gave me this earlier today!""Speak lies of Plonius again, dog, and I'll paint this town with your blood!" the man growled and rested his hands on sword and axe."S-s-see!" the smith said, stepping behind Ledare and Morier. "He's as mad as The Hound!"The stranger started to lunge forward, but Karak and Feln restrained him. "Where was your venom when Plonius and I slew the gnolls who were preying on your women, jackal?" he spat. "Were you spouting these lies while you cowered in your hut, sobbing with fear like a-""Okay!" Ixin said suddenly as she stepped up in front of the stranger. No one had seen her do it, but she'd fully exposed her Chainmail Bikini and it caught the light, glittering like quicksilver. The stranger blinked, staring at her chest. "I think that's just about enough insult-hurling. Let's calm down and sort this all out. What's your name, by the way?""I am Grisham Freeclaw of the Forest People," the stranger said proudly and the smith spat once more."He's one of those barbarians!" the smith said, disgusted. "You can't trust them!""Your trader likes my people well enough when they bring him pelts and skins," Grisham said. "When your town needs protection from the gnolls the Forest People are are your friends. Bah! A barbarian would not be so insulting as you lest he find a sword in his guts."Karak laughed at that and released his hold on the barbarian. "I like ye, Grisham Freeclaw," he said. "Ye speak your mind like a dwarf."Feln let go of the man's other arm and Grisham collected himself. "The wolf does not hide its nature when it walks amongst sheep," he said, running his fingers over the bone-and-teeth fetish he wore."Why were you evesdropping on us?" Vade asked, peering out from behind Ledare's armored thigh."To hear what he told you," Grisham said, stabbing a finger in the smith's direction. "I feared he had not told me the whole truth when I arrived earlier today.""You punched me in the face when I talked to you earlier today," the smith argued, his tone incredulous. Grisham shrugged."Your lying accusations could not go unanswered," the barbarian said simply. "There is some deviltry at work here that I cannot see. But no matter! I will track down this imposter and give him a taste of my steel for marring Plonius' good name! And when I do, I'll bring back his head for you to see, smith. Then you will know that Plonius, The Hound, would not slay a man with dark magic."He started to trot away down the Eginnion Road out of Flavonshire and Morier called for him to stop. The albino looked at the other members of the VQS and repeated the celestial's words once more,"Follow his trail and you will uncover a dark and twisted secret...""Should we go after The Hound?" Ixin asked and Vade kicked at the dirt."Aw! What about going to see my mom and dad?!" he whined.</blockquote>

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