Bladesingers were taught to be prepared for any situation, being low on supplies among them. Still starvation seemed to be not preferable, that combined with the unease left by Seleniniel's rash statements left Arathea feeling frustrated. Still they would march on, but the words Seleniniel had left her with continued to scratch at her. "Life eventually makes traitors out of all of us," Arathea looked back on revelations about what the speaker might really be... she supressed the thoughts but they would keep returning. Bladesingers weren't just taught combabt skills, diplomacy, or leadership, they were taught complete and total loyalty, they were broken down and built back up in the image of the perfect soldier and the perfect servant. She had grown to trust Seleniniel, but what would that matter for if Seleniniel represented the opposite of everything she believed. Her words carried the poison of treason, of hatred for their country, and dwelling on this only built more anger in Arathea. She had learned to care about this person, she had grieved the death of her father alongside this person, how could she not see that this person walked the path of the villain? Why couldn't Seleniniel ever see things in a way beyond gloom and selfish opportunism?

She breathed, she kept reminding herself to breathe, these were also the words of someone who was hurt and in a mind that was as much a prison as it was a home, and they were the words of an invaluable asset to the group and the cause of eventually marching into the human lands. Arathea's loyalty could not falter, and any crimes against the Empire could not go unpunished, but there more pressing matters at hand, like the shcoking reveal of corruption.

Normally Arathea would call to celebrate after finding rations while in such a desperate position, but this was something offensive, this was a message being sent by this wytch. "He wants us to fear him," Arathea said as she took in the stank and stared at the rot. "We will cut him down for his hubris, a fate he shares with all traitors..." her last words seemed to almost falter, her eyes looking over to Seleniniel as they rolled off her tongue. "We'll use the good supplies, and we'll march on, our victory against this bastard comes closer, then we can get back to our main objective." It was clear Arathea seemed rushed, time was not an infinite resource now even with food, the threat of the oldest magic remained after all. "We'll make the most of what we have, and what the clerics might be able to cleanse."

After the encounter with the demigod, hunger pulled at Ruadhrí, but he had very little to sate it with. His large demeanor and muscles meant he required significantly more food to stay at full capabilities, so he could not last on whatever crumbs they could scrounge together from their packs. Hopefully, those of us who can hunt will find something soon he thought to himself. If hunger is what claims us after all of this...

Then, the ranger pulled off the path and into a small trail, where she uncovered some kind of hidden supply cache. Finally, something to sustain ourselves with. However, his stomach turned cold and hollow the moment he saw the inside of the cache. The mushrooms... his hand idly twitched as he remembered an itch so horrible it made him want to claw his skin off, and his throat and lungs dried as he remembered coughing up foul spores, the familiar taste of iron now lingering on his tongue, and yet, the party still talked about trying to eat it. Ruadhrí was not one of weak constitution, but the thought of consuming anything these spores might have touched made his breath foul as he gagged at the thought. Cured or not, we didn't understand the ways of the wytch, or his magic, so we could not be so sure that what we had done was good enough to purify the rot that threatened to infect them.

"While I trust the way of our clerics..." he began, his voice uncharacteristically shuttering once as he tried, "I would strongly recommend at least not eating anything the spores could have directly touched. I would prefer not eating any of this, and putting faith in our hunters, but... if we must, can we at least avoid that?"

When Isilmewen opened the cache, Mae'rel simply remained quiet as she stared forward into it.

They had seen many things since leaving Hyanda Nost, let alone since leaving onto this entire.. adventure. This was unremarkable compared to Owlbears, the Wytch himself, the Fae, anything like that. No endless forest awaited them. No horrific monster was facing them. No ancient being sought their aid or their death. And yet, somehow, the sight of this offended her, perhaps more than anything they had seen so far.

Someone had prepared this place so that a hungry traveler might find bread. So that the wounded might find bandages. So that the armless may find arrows when they had spent their own. It had been made for people who had no other option, for people the creator would likely never meet, simply because of the idea one day, someone out there might have need of it. They had made it out of the pure goodness of their heart.

Yet, the Wytch chose to poison that kindness.

Mae'rel's masked eyes gazed over the black soil and unsightly mushrooms before settling upon the unnatural, poisonous root. "Yes, Madam Isilmewen. I will do what is possible." The priestess spoke softly.

At Seleniniel's suggestion, Mae'rel glanced briefly towards Tubs before shaking her head. Such a suggestion was cruel and not needed. "Let us spare Madam Rosariel's companion any further duty as our poison tester, lest he be harmed."

The priestess lowered herself beside the cache, careful as to not touch it neither with hand or any of her clothing. She took a moment to examine what had been spoiled and what appeared untouched. She closed her eyes, placing her hands together, and began a quiet prayer. There was no massive effect, nor a need for one. She simply asked the Blue Lady to separate the corruption, the death, from that which was nourishing. To preserve the nutrition which might still sustain life, and render harmless anything within it that would instead bring suffering.

( OOC : Purify Food/Water!!! )

When finished, Mae'rel did not immediately distribute the food. Ruadhri's unease had not escaped her so simply, and there was still obvious corruption at some points. She retrieved what she could, before looking to her Bovin companion, offering gentle words.

"Master Ruadhri.. I understand." The priestess spoke as she looked back towards the remaining corruption. "I can ask my Lady to cleanse food of poison and of decay. I can not purge the heart of the corruption. We will not forget what happened to you. Nor shall we pretend that we fully understand the capabilities of this wytch."

"We will take only what was untouched, and what was safely purified. Anything directly consumed by the corruption, we must leave behind." Mae'rel said, rising from her knees as she looked towards the group. Her voice remained soft, but something firm sat beneath it now.

"And then, I agree with Madam Rosariel. We must find the one responsible."

6th Poleii, 452 E.R.
Forest Southeast of Hyanda Nost

After serious discussion - and Mae'rel invoking diving cleansing - the rations were split among the party members, although anything that might have been exposed to mushrooms or their spores was carefully left alone. There was a relief in knowing that no diversion back to Hyanda Nost would be necessary, but the obvious corruption of the cache introduced the disquieting notion that the wytch was apparently escalating his efforts.

The memory of Ruadhrí's agony was a grim specter hanging over the group. Had they not been the ones to discover the supply cache - what with their own careful handling of it - what would have become of others who did? Was this some new tactic of the twisted priest, to infect the innocent with his rot? The bófear's former condition was a stark reminder that the fungus could indeed pass to other beings.

A chill unrelated to the winter breeze ran through the companions. What havoc could the wytch truly inflict through his shambling minions? What other evil might he bring to the land?

As these worries set in, Isilmewen chided herself for first missing the signs of recent activity. As intent as she was on the cache, the first sign had escaped her notice. It was not until she stepped away from the shelter and allowed her attention to widen that something troubled her.

The ground immediately around the cache appeared undisturbed. Fallen leaves lay across the earth, brittle from the early winter cold, while needles and small fragments of bark covered the harder patches beneath the trees. Nothing obvious suggested that anyone had recently passed this way. And yet, the forest had been put back carefully.

Too carefully.

Isilmewen crouched.

One broad leaf lay flat across a shallow depression, its edges pressed into damp earth while the leaves around it remained curled from the cold. Beneath it, almost entirely concealed, was the heel of a boot print. A pace farther on, moss had been brushed back over a scuff upon an exposed root... but the tiny stems all leaned in the same direction.

Someone had swept away their passage.

Once she knew what she was looking for, more evidence emerged. A slight compression in the leaf mold. Mud transferred to the upper edge of a stone. A snapped twig placed carefully beneath its parent branch rather than left where it had fallen.

Several people had come to the cache. At least five, Isilmewen judged, and likely more. One among them had been a ranger - and a skilled one, at that.

She began to circle the site.

The tracks did not lead back toward Hyanda Nost. They led northeast, away from the cache, though whoever concealed them had chosen hard ground, exposed roots, and stones wherever possible. The effort had not been made to hide the patrol from friendly eyes. It had been made to keep whatever they followed from realizing that it was being followed.

Several paces into the trees, Isilmewen stopped beside a fallen limb. Its exposed surface bore only weathering and old lichen, but when she lifted it slightly, she found two shallow knife marks cut into the protected wood beneath. One was a narrow stroke angled toward the northeast.

The second curved back toward the cache.

The marks would have meant nothing to most travelers. To a sylvari ranger, their meaning was plain.

Quarry found. Trail taken up. Returning here.

Isilmewen studied the surrounding ground once more, searching for the overlapping marks that would indicate the patrol's return, but there were none.

There was inward trail, no second sign, no evidence that anyone had come back to reclaim the supplies waiting for them.

The taur'ohtar slowly rose. "A group passed by here not too long ago," she explained. "A ranger accompanied them. They were tracking something, and planned to return to these supplies." Dak frowned. "And clearly, they have not," he offered.

There was little to argue about. Given that the party had made the choice to seek the wytch, this felt like a shimmering signpost pointing them to a direction the fiend must have gone. Perhaps the companions would only track down this other taur'ohtar and their allies. But if they were tracking the same quarry...

************************************

At first, the passage remained difficult to trace. From time to time, additional signs appeared at irregular intervals.

A pale stone turned so that its underside faced northwest. Three thin stems bent beneath an exposed root. A sliver of bark wedged into the fork of a sapling where only someone approaching from behind would see it.

Each marker was economical and calm; the work of someone who believed the hunt remained under control.

The forest itself offered little reason for alarm. The morning was cold and gray beneath the canopy, the early winter sun reduced to a pale suggestion behind the branches. The trees stood bare or nearly so, and the thin remnants of frost survived in shaded hollows.

Slowly, the signs began to change.

A knife mark upon the underside of a branch had been cut more deeply than necessary, where the blade had bitten through the bark and well into the pale wood below. Another marker had been left partly exposed rather than properly concealed. A third indicated that the quarry's path had divided.

Yet the tracks of the patrol had not; the ranger had kept the soldiers together.

Farther on, the patrol ceased hiding its passage altogether.

A boot had slipped in the damp earth, leaving a long furrow down a shallow rise. A snapped branch hung openly across the trail. One of the soldiers had stepped directly through a bed of brown ferns rather than moving around it. The first trace of blood appeared shortly thereafter.

At first, one a few drops were visible, dark against the pale surface of an exposed root. Beside them lay an arrow. Its shaft was whole, its iron head clean, but a faint dusting of sickly green clung to the fletching. A few paces beyond, one of the patrol's boot prints held a tiny mushroom.

The fungus could not have been more than an inch tall. Its cap was the color of spoiled milk, its stem faintly translucent. It had grown directly from the compressed earth at the center of the print - as though it had sprouted in the brief time since the soldier's foot had lifted away.

The temperature changed gradually as the companions continued.

Not warmer, precisely.

Wrong.

Frost remained upon fallen leaves, yet isolated circles of bare earth lay wet and dark beneath the trees. Tiny insects crept across the bark, despite the season. Once, something pale and many-legged vanished beneath a stone before anyone could look closely enough to identify it.

The forest had also grown quiet. No birds called from the canopy. No small creatures moved through the dead leaves. Even the sounds of the party's own footfalls seemed to carry less distance than they should.

The ranger's final sign had been carved into the trunk of a young oak.

It was not hidden.

Three deep cuts slashed downward through the bark. Beneath them, an unfinished fourth stroke trailed sideways in a long gouge, as though the hand holding the knife had been struck or violently pulled away. Beyond that tree, there were no more signs.

There was no need for them. The ground told the rest.

The patrol had broken into a run. Boot prints were scattered across the damp soil, some driving toward a shallow hollow ahead, others turning sharply as though their owners had wheeled to face threats emerging from several directions. Here and there lay evidence of an ordered defense: the repeated impressions of planted feet, the scrape of shield rims against the earth, arrows loosed from one position in disciplined volleys.

The soldiers had not panicked. They had formed a line, and had changed its facing more than once. They had fought - and fought bitterly, by the looks of it.

As the companions studied the signs, trying to make sense of that had happened, a sound drifted to them from somewhere ahead.

At first, it might have been mistaken for wind moving through the trees. Then the sound repeated - an impossibly clear note, followed by several words sung in a language that seemed to bend around mortal hearing.

The phrase began again. And again.

The melodious voice was familiar, but this was not the effortless music with which Ysmiril had opened the shadowpath or bent the forest to her whims. This song was thin and strained, repeated with the rigid discipline of someone holding a great weight that could not be permitted to slip.

As the companions moved toward it, the trees opened up into shallow hollow perhaps forty paces across.

The patrol had made its final stand there.

Three sylvari soldiers lay near the hollow's eastern edge, their bodies still arranged in the broken remains of a defensive crescent. One had died behind a split shield. Another still gripped a spear in both hands, its haft broken a foot below the point. The third lay upon her back, armor crushed inward across the chest as though struck by something of tremendous weight.

A fourth soldier knelt near the hollow's center. Despite the unsuual pose, he was quite clearly dead.

His head hung forward upon his chest. One arm dangled loose at his side, while the other rested with his palm pressed into the frozen ground. Pale mushrooms clustered around his fingers and pushed through the gaps in his armor. More grew from the corners of his mouth, more still had begun to protrude from his nostrils.

A fifth body lay farther away, face down beneath the low branches of a thorn bush. The earth around it was disturbed, although whether the soldier had crawled there or been dragged was impossible to determine at a glance.

Of the sixth soldier, there was no body - though there clearly had been another soldier, for a single bloodied boot lay beside a broken ring of scorched, sickly-green mushrooms. Beyond it, a dark trail crossed the ground and ended abruptly inside the circle.

At the center of the hollow, Ysmiril knelt beside the patrol's ranger.

The fae looked little like the composed and ethereal creature who had guided the party through impossible roads. Her periwinkle hair hung in tangled strands around her face. Dirt and dark stains marred the translucent fabric of her clothing. The iridescence of her skin had dimmed, and strain drew unfamiliar lines around her violet eyes.

One hand rested against the ranger's chest, while the other was pressed flat against the earth. A faint boundary of bluish-white light surrounded the two of them, little more than a shimmer above the surface of the ground. Outside of that boundary, narrow threads of green-black fungus crept through the dead leaves and along the exposed roots. Each time Ysmiril repeated the strange sung phrase, the growth recoiled a few inches.

Each time her breath failed, it began creeping forward again.

The ranger remained alive, though only barely.

A terrible wound had torn open the side of his armor. Dark blood soaked the garments beneath it, and something pale could be seen moving within the injury. Fine green filaments had spread beneath the skin of the ranger’s neck and jaw, branching like roots beneath translucent earth.

Ysmiril lifted her gaze as the party entered the hollow.

Relief crossed her expression, but that lasted only a heartbeat.

"Do not step within the broken circle," she warned between phrases of the song. Her voice was birttle and raw. "Do not touch the black root beneath it."

Only then did the companions notice the exposed length of wood pushing through the earth beneath the scorched mushrooms.

It was thick as a man's arm, blackened as though burned long ago, yet faint lines of sickly green pulsed beneath its surface.

Somewhere within Dak’s possessions, the great gray down feather shifted.

Ysmiril drew another strained breath. Her eyes flicked toward the kneeling corpse.

“And ready your weapons,” she said. "One of the dead has been listening."

The kneeling soldier's head rose. The motion came with a slow, wet crack. Pale growth filled the empty sockets where his eyes had been. His jaw worked once, then twice, before a voice emerged from his ruined throat. A voice that was not his own.

"Nikerym?" the dead thing called in a frightened whisper. "I found the path."  

Rosariel jumps to cure the wounds of Ysmiril before they are entangled in a fight. Every ally they can have slinging arrow and spell is an enemy felled. And not becuase she was kicking herself for the last bit of travel forgetting she could have helped purify the food and drink of the corrupted cache.

She clicks her tongue to get Tubs hidding in her hood and seeing that hopefully Ysmiril is ready to stand on her own. Rosariel readies her bow to fight but is now aware that maybe her efforts this battle should be focused on keeping everyone in fighting spirit. To that end she positions herself more central to the group that she might reach any of them in their time of need.

"I have little like for this ambush we have found ourselves in. Let us break it that we might pursue the true quarry."

Soldiers of the Empire most noble and with hearts of courage, massacred. The brutality spoke to the evil of the wytch, a representative of corruption and darkness that lived only to destroy what was good and bright—and Ysmiril was there, clearly injured by the fighting. Standing over a brutalized ranger as she seemed to desperately fight off the fungal rot of the forest rat, Arathea found it hard to tell if it was a losing battle, the fae would need help, she seemed to have been aiding the rangers in this battle and was desperately fighting to keep one from dying.

Arathea nodded at Rosariel as she rushed to assest the fae, then looked over to the source of the noise. It was a tragic sight, a man calling out almost as though he didn't know what had happenned to him. The path lay before them, though Ysmiril warned not to follow Arathea was inclined to believe they needed to cut to the chase and end this madness now. Still as always they would handle the immediate threat, then she could talk with Ysmiril about what had happened. 

"Soldier," Arathea spoke with empathy. "I'm sorry for what happened to your group," she paused, it was heartbreaking, a hopeless soul calling out to his commander. "And I'm sorry for what we must do..." she grabbed the grip of her sword.

The sparkly fae was back. Dimmer. 

Good to know. They could feel strain... though grim satisfaction sank to foreboding as Seleniniel realized the fae’s thinning song was all that kept the creeping rot at bay… it seemed too late for the last ranger she tended. Seleniniel eyed the wound… twisting tendrils within it. The mage took a step back, eyes flicking across in the rest of the grisly scene. Sarigraamin. She studied the soil beneath her boots, suspicious of it. 

“Do not step within the broken circle…" called her attention to the charred ring. All too familiar. S***. She shared a look with Dak.. Sage. The fae warned against the very thing they’d hoped to find… his hand was fishing in a satchel, presumably for the feather. Opportunity knocked suddenly, and they found themselves unready. To rush in meant abandoning the only guide they had in that place. To hesitate might close a door that would never reopen. She knew she should act, but couldn’t pull her gaze from the circle… the door… to that twilit path…. She’d known this awaited, but now she knew. 

Fear. Memory sprung from it. She stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over Arathea. The bladesinger stepped around her, to the fae, apparently having decided. Apparently leading. But Seleniniel could not tear her eyes away from the circle. They lost their focus. Whispers in the dark, shadows in shadow. 

A different whisper broke the spiral. 

"Nikerym?" . . . "I found the path." It yanked her out of her head and into the moment. One that demanded action. F***. Seleniniel scanned the other corpses as Arathea calmly approached the kneeling damned, speaking quiet words, apparently of comfort. The mage had none of that empathy. Whatever it was, it isn’t now. The sound of steel on leather told her Arathea’s plan. Seleniniel hissed with the memory of their last dance with these marionettes. “Arathea! Get the hells back!” Before consciousness could object, reflex propelled Seleniniel into the shrinking gap between the bladesinger and the rising dead. The mage’s mind caught up barely in time to scramble for the only protection she had, “Thangail” it came out in a hoarse whisper, uncannily echoing the once dead warder. Soon to be again… she hoped.

[[OOC: casts Shield, positioning it between her (and Arathea) and the undead ranger]]

Consuming anything in the crate was enough to force Ruadhrí to choke back a gag with each bite, but he knew they needed to eat, and the group had chosen to risk the fungus instead of poor luck hunting. He could swear he could taste it again with each bite-a bitter, grimy, earthy taste that the fungus left un his mouth when he was infected. His large body shivered once, clearly disturbed at a very primal level, but nevertheless, he ate.

Ruadhrí said very little as they traveled through the forest chasing echoes of soldiers, and unlike usual, it was not because he was listening to his environment. His eyes were pin-pricks, both darting at nothing and staring into oblivian. His hands did not swing at his side, or rest on his belt, but instead crossed over each other, occasionally scratching at a phantom itch that was once the feeling of fungus under his skin and in his flesh. His ears twitched with the same phantom feeling, and Lennox was equally skittish inside the bullman's pack.

When the party eventually made their way to where the soldier's had made their last stand, Ruadhrí stopped as though he had been physically struck, yet completely frozen. Images of the fungal abominations flashed across his mind, his hand swinging to his hammer out of reflex before they disappeared. Although they were clearly not real-not the reason remaining in his mind, at least-he still didn't want to take any chances. He avoided inspecting any of the corpses, instead standing off to the side with his hands now gripping the shaft of his ax, now free from where it rested on his back and in his hands.

When Ysmiril warned for the party to be ready for combat, Ruadhrí was... shaking. Not frozen or unable to fight, but am ever-so-slight quiver that hinted at his fear to only those with a keen eye for small details and their meaning. Not those things... not again. Never again... I won't be like that again! He yelled in his mind, yet fear still clawed at him like a wyrm. For once, he would rather take the owlbears in combat over the alternative, and yet, judging by the corpse speaking to the injured ranger, it would not be foolish to assume they would be facing both.

The further they traveled, the more Mae'rel found herself wishing they had simply discovered the patrol alive and well.

That hope had faded slowly. First with the blood, then with the strange mushrooms, then entirely as they entered the hollow. Her eyes passed over each of the fallen soldiers, lingering for only moments. There would be time to mourn them, if the Blue Lady allowed it. For now there remained one among them who had not yet crossed into The Veil.

And Mae'rel knew that corruption.

Her gaze fixed upon the pale movement within the ranger's wound, then followed the branching green beneath his skin. For a brief moment, the forest around her seemed to disappear. Ruadhrí screaming. His body thrashing beneath their hands. The horrible smell of corrupted flesh as Ysmiril worked. Mae'rel remembered the helplessness of watching the strange growth fight against every effort to remove it, and remembered clutching her pendant and begging the Blue Lady for enough grace to finish what the Fae had begun. She would not watch another endure that fate without trying. Mae'rel started forward, but Ysmiril's warning stopped her instantly.

"Do not step within the broken circle."

The priestess froze, eyes dropping first to the scorched ring, then to the blackened root beneath it. "As you say, Madam Ysmiril." No questions. Not now.

Then the corpse moved. The wet cracking of its neck caused Mae'rel's stomach to tighten. Instinct drew one foot backward into a defensive stance as her hand closed around her holy symbol beneath her robes.

"Nikerym? I found the path."

Mae'rel stared at the dead soldier. The frightened voice emerging from a ruined throat was somehow worse than a monster's growl might have been. "That man holds a voice no longer. It is not his." she murmured.

Whatever inhabited the corpse, whatever listened through it, she would leave to those better suited to meet violence with violence. Her attention returned immediately to the ranger.

"Madam Ysmiril," Mae'rel called, keeping herself carefully outside the places the Fae had warned them against. "I have seen this corruption before. Tell me where I may safely stand and I will help you." She glanced toward Rosariel. "Madam Rosariel, if you are willing... we may be needed together again."

Her fingers tightened around the symbol of the Blue Lady. Last time, even Ysmiril's strange medicine and impossible magic had not been enough alone. It had taken prayer as well. Mae'rel could only hope that they had arrived soon enough for the same to be true now. She lowered herself as close to the wounded ranger as Ysmiril's protections safely allowed, ready to move the moment the Fae instructed her.

Her voice fell into a whisper. "My Lady... there is still life here." Behind her mask, Mae'rel's eyes remained fixed upon the wounded Syl. "Please allow us to keep it."

(OOC: Mae'rel will follow Ysmiril's instructions regarding where it is safe to approach and immediately assist in healing the ranger. She'll use what spells she can)

Isilmewen's eyes lit up at first on seeing Ysmiril, but even she had to admit these were far, far less than ideal circumstances.

"We're here." Isilmewen offered gently, "We haven't forgotten. Would that we could've arrived sooner..."

Not that she had any reason to believe their presence would have been enough, but there was little time to ruminate.

Af the warning and the sound of the soldier rising, Isilmewen drew her bow.

"Rot take whatever you are back to whence you came," Isilmewen swore. Even as she let loose her arrow, Isilmewen cast about warily. If she knew aught of their quarry, it was that it was ever important to stay aware of their surroundings. She moved to Ysmiril as safely as she could, keeping an eye on where she tread, that she might assist in defending the fey, and letting her know their intent. 

"We make for the rot amidst the roots twixt shadow, that we might end its willful spread," She told Ysmiril quickly, "We've been gifted a particular feather to open the path our quarry has taken."

Had the cache merely been empty, Dak might have admired the audacity of whoever had reached it first. Had it been looted, he might even have spared a moment to wonder at the skill of the thief and whether they had left anything especially well hidden behind.

This, though, was not theft.

There was no profit in stuffing good food with foul soil, no cleverness in poisoning bandages meant for wounded travelers, and no artistry whatsoever in leaving mushrooms to bloom where some hungry scout might discover them too late. Someone had built the cache for strangers they would likely never meet, trusting that the kindness would someday matter. The wytch had answered that kindness with rot.

Dak found that more offensive than he might have expected.

He watched in silence as Mae’rel called upon her Blue Lady to cleanse what provisions might yet be saved. Seleniniel’s grudging suggestion that the priestess do so had earned a brief lift of one brow, but the quip that usually would have followed never reached his lips, as Ruadhrí’s reaction had smothered it. The great bófear had looked upon the mushrooms as though they had reached from the cache and begun crawling beneath his skin all over again.

So Dak had taken only what Mae’rel judged safe, packed it carefully away, and kept his hands well clear of anything visibly touched by the pale growth.

There were occasions when caution amounted to cowardice. This was not one of them.

When Isilmewen discovered the hidden trail, the Pick’s attention shifted gladly from the cache to the work of another professional. Dak knew cities, corridors, locks, careless servants, and the thousand small ways in which people betrayed secrets they believed safely hidden. The forest spoke a different language, but there was something familiar in the care with which the patrol’s ranger had disguised their passage.

A leaf placed just so. Moss brushed back over a scarred root. A twig returned beneath the branch from which it had broken.

“Very pretty work, Lala,” he had murmured after she revealed the first signs. The admiration in his voice had been genuine. “I might have walked over it twice and thanked the forest for being so tidy.”

The signs that followed were less pretty.

The first markers had been calm and deliberate. The ranger knew what they followed and believed the quarry unaware. Farther along, the cuts grew deeper, the trail less carefully hidden, the soldiers’ movements more urgent. By the time Dak saw the green dust upon the abandoned arrow and the tiny mushroom growing from the middle of a fresh boot print, he had drawn his scarf across his nose and mouth.

Whatever the patrol had found, it had discovered them in return. The hollow confirmed the worst of it.

The dead soldiers lay where discipline had finally failed to overcome whatever hunted them. Shields had been raised. A line had been formed and turned more than once. These had not been careless recruits surprised around a cookfire; they had been armed Sylvari soldiers led by a ranger who knew the wood. They had understood that they were in danger, had fought together, and had still been torn apart.

For an instant, the sight of Ysmiril brought relief. The feeling lasted scarcely longer than the one that had crossed the fae’s strained face.

She was alive, yes, but diminished. Her effortless grace had been replaced by rigid concentration, her strange song thinned to a single phrase repeated over and over as the corruption strained against it. Beneath one hand lay the patrol’s ranger, bloodied and barely breathing, pale threads moving within his wound and branching beneath his skin.

The memory of Ruadhrí writhing beneath the party’s hands came unbidden.

“Sarigraamin,” Dak breathed through the scarf.

The Gray Down shifted within his satchel.

His fingers found the flap before conscious thought caught up with them. Across the hollow, Seleniniel’s gaze flicked from the broken circle to him—or perhaps to Sage; Dak was still uncertain which of them she now saw when she looked his way. Her eyes dropped toward the satchel, and he knew that she had reached the same conclusion.

The ring.

The feather.

The path they had sought.

Yet there were no living green flames here. No doorway remained open. Only scorched mushrooms, a black root pulsing beneath the earth, and Ysmiril’s warning not to approach.

Tali’Yore had not given him a key with which to prod every suspicious hole in the ground. The feather would hold open an unsafe road when the wytch attempted to close it. Spending its single grace upon a dead threshold would be folly.

“Not yet,” Dak whispered, whether to Seleniniel, the feather, or himself he could not have said.

He withdrew his hand fromthe satchel as the corpse lifted its head.

The crack of its neck echoed through the hollow, and the frightened voice that emerged from its ruined mouth raised every hair upon the Pick’s arms.

“Nikerym? I found the path.”

Dak had spent much of his life among masks. He had carried one name while answering to another, told lies until they wore the shape of memory, and borrowed accents, clothing, mannerisms, and occupations whenever the work demanded it.

This... was nothing like that.

A disguise concealed the wearer. This thing had stolen someone else’s terror and forced it through a dead man’s throat.

Arathea reached for her sword. Seleniniel surged between the bladesinger and the rising corpse, a protective word already on her lips. Isilmewen’s bow came up as she moved toward Ysmiril, while Mae’rel and Rosariel focused upon the single life that might yet be saved. Behind them, Ruadhrí’s axe was in his hands, though Dak could see the tremor that ran through the bófear’s massive frame.

Someone would have to make certain the dead thing never reached the healers.

Dak’s hand slipped to the bracer beneath his sleeve and drew a dart free. The expression he turned upon the corpse resembled his usual grin only in shape; none of its humor had survived.

“I know stolen goods when I hear them,” he said, beginning to move laterally across the hollow, careful to keep well clear of the scorched ring and the creeping fungus. “That voice does not belong to you, ruthaer.”

A second dart appeared between his fingers.

“Give it back.”

OOC: Dak’s first priority is keeping the fungal corpse—and anything else that rises—away from Ysmiril, the wounded ranger, Mae’rel, and Rosariel.

He will move laterally to obtain a clear line past Arathea and Seleniniel, remaining well outside the broken mushroom circle and any visibly contaminated ground, then attack the speaking corpse with his darts.

If the corpse remains upright, Dak will continue attacking from range while looking for an angle along its flank. If it closes upon the healers or Ysmiril, he will abandon the safer distance, wield his bata, and attempt to intercept or draw it away from them.

If the first corpse falls, Dak will immediately watch the other bodies and the surrounding tree line rather than assume the danger has passed. He will ready another dart against any corpse that moves or any threat that emerges near the healers. If the speaking corpse still stands, he will continue attacking, using any distraction created by Arathea, Ruadhrí, or Isilmewen to strike from its side or rear if possible.

If no further enemy presents itself, Dak will maintain cover over Ysmiril and the priests while they tend the ranger, offering clean cloth, water, tools, or physical assistance only as directed. If the broken ring suddenly reignites, he will warn the others and keep the Gray Down secured; he will not expend Tali’Yore’s gift at this inactive threshold unless circumstances change drastically and the actual rot-road opens.

6th Poleii, 452 E.R.
Forest southeast of Hyanda Nost

Seleliniel threw herself between Arathea and the fungus-infested corpse with a savagery that surprised the bladesinger.  A quick chant, a gesture, and a wall of force superimposed itself between the caster - and her chosen ward - and the abomination.

Isilmewen ranged to the side and lined up a clear shot.  Even as she sighted the target and began to pull the string back, the distance presented itself to her mind - just under ten paces; for some reason, she was absolutely certain of the preciseness of the measurement.  She exhaled, held the rest of her breath as she released, and the arrow flew true, digging into the infected flesh of the unliving creature that had once been a sylvari solider.

Even as the istar completed her spell of protection, Arathea began the wordless song, the chant that set the rhythm for the dance of battle.  Seleliniel may have meant well, but Arathea could no more ignore the abomination before them than she could ignore a drowning child.  If she would not move to defeat such a thing, how could she ask such actions of others?  Deftly, she stepped into the attack, and despite the slight clumsiness of the borrowed blade, she slashed open a deep wound in the putrid flesh.

Dak moved to his own flanking position.  All humor was gone; he stepped out, threw, and reset.  His aim was true; the dart buried itself to the fletching in the corrupted flesh.

And then, Ruadhrí swallowed the fear digging into his gut, ignored the panic threatening to take hold, and rushed up to swing his great axe with all of the power he could muster.  There was the wet crack of meat, bone, and sinew as his weapon drove down and through the body of the undead soldier, cleaving it nigh in two.

The former ohtar collapsed from its wounds and did not move again, although thin mushroom sprouts began to protrude from the wounds.

Even as the fight raged, Mae'rel moved as closely as she dared to Ysmril's side.  "Madam Ysmiril," Mae'rel called, keeping herself carefully outside the places the Fae had warned them against. "I have seen this corruption before. Tell me where I may safely stand and I will help you."

In the small gap between the verses of her song, the fae glanced up.  "Call not your healing magic yet, else you will wall the corruption within him," she commanded in a voice dripping fatigue.  "You must cut it out of the wound first - my song holds it at bay, but I have sung it for a long while now."  Exhaustion radiated off of the ethereal creature as she spoke.  "I do not know how much longer I will persevere."

She cast violet eyes at the massive bófear.  "Mieslehmä," she called, looking at Ruadhrí.  "Come.  Your might will be needed to hold him down while the healers do their work."

Ysmiril drew a ragged breath.  "If your gods can grant you a stay against the corruption while we work," she declared, "it will be most beneficial.  My strength is nearly spent."

With that, the fae's hauntingly beautiful voice, now thin and weak, rose again in the same chanted verse as she struggled to keep the infected ranger alive.

Rosariel pauses for others to help in the healing moving from Ysmiril to the injured ranger. She gathers what remaining bandages and clean steel for the cut then starts to hum trying to build the power of the healing spell while holding it ready. "Then let him be held and carved that we might cleanse this corruption and return him to effective action."

(Rosariel is prepared to spend two spells on this healing if the first is not enough.)

(Provided the healing takes.) "Your hunt is not yet done, Your quarry has run and needs tracking, Your will is strong and bow and blade ready, Stand now and let us all give chase."

(Provided it doesn't) "Your hunt has come to a close, the quarry not prey but predator, your will is spent but your community is strong and we will ensure the predator becomes prey."

Seleniniel wanted to help, but Arathea would not cower or retreat, the best leaders led by example. Who would she be to hind behind a shield while her comrades rushed into danger? A coward, so she would advance. She gave a look to Seleniniel that told the mage all she needed to know as she charged forward towards the poor creature that was once a ranger of the Empire. This tortured soul would be freed, and his corrupted body would be laid waist to.

Following the eighty nine steps you would seek to maximize the use of your range advantage against a roughly sylvari sized or smaller unarmed enemy, and so Arathea took her weapon in one hand and advanced on her charge. Disappointingly she missed her thrust on the undead creature, feeling out of her comfort with the borrowed weapon, but she managed to recover and deliver a deep cut into the side of the monster.

She took a step back, keeping her guard up, but it would be unneeded. First a dart from Dak, then an absolutely devestating blow from Ruadhrí and the soul of this soldier could rest. Arathea looked into it's dead eyes with pity, then looked back over to Ysmirel. She stood ready in case the dying soldier would fall to the corruption and try to attack them and prayed that they would be able to stop such an event. She took a glance at Seleniniel and spoke quietly to her, "I don't need you to save me, when we finally confront the man who did this I need you to fight."

Hold. Hold the position, hold the ranger... There was little moment for deliberation.

Isilmewen returned her gaze to the infected. Ten paces, a curious an exacting measurement, from whence did it come? It felt so certain as to invite uncertainty.

No, no time to be uncertain.

Isilmewen drew her bow once more, continuing her attempts to make still the infected.

She knew the body was desecrated before her arrows hit it, but it still stung as she mouthed a silent apology. Not someone she knew, but someone who should've been yet afforded respect in final rest...