Cairn: Into the Woods

Back to the village of Cairn, and the woods lovely, dark, and deep beyond. Here's last time.

The Traveling Knights want to nip this "oozy chipmunk" issue in the bud, so they gather up some supplies and head out of town, heading north into the Shady Forest. They decide to first pay a visit to Gene Stormwatch, a weasel who used to be an adventurer of some renown. He lives in the woods and keeps a garden (so he's a g-g-g-garden weasel). Fun fact: He's distantly related to the Ebonblood family. 

They Knights arrive and find Gene picking squash in his garden, and tell him about their experiences with the pika and the chipmunk that make the Stalker sick (rather, Ratatosk Longberry explains this and everyone else tries to keep up). Gene notes that he hasn't seen a lot of chipmunks this season, and the Knights worry that this might be a bigger problem than they thought. Ratatosk scampers off to try and catch a chipmunk to talk to, while the others talk with Gene. He shows them on a map where the Stalker pack has moved to (heading west). 

Ratatosk sets a snare for a chipmunk and runs up a tree to wait. He apparently baits it really well because a chipmunk steps in it, and Ratatosk runs out and calms the (understandably stressed) creature. He casts Speak with the Small and asks about what's going on with the chipmunks, and the little fella says that it's normal for daggerbeaks and stalkers and so forth to catch some. This season, though, it's been worse - there are creatures that smell of rot and blood, and they take chipmunks away. It's not in any one place, and it's not a creature that he recognizes. 

Ratatosk concentrates for a moment to try and find Unnatural stuff, feeling for icky stuff in the forest. But it's not stationary and it's not one thing, it's more like a mobile group of small Unnatural feelings. Ratatosk heads back toward the cabin to talk with the others, and puts the chipmunk in a backpack to keep him safe.

When they get within sight of the cottage, though, and see Gene, the chipmunk panics and runs ("oh, right, weasel"). Ratatosk explains what he learned to the others, and they decide to have Ratatosk call up a dryad. All of the Knights can talk to the dryad (as opposed to the chipmunk), so they sit under the tree where Ratatosk caught the chipmunk and he calls out the tree spirit.

The dryad emerges and sits on the forest floor with them, yawning a bit (it's autumn, so it's nearly time for dryads to sleep). The Knights ask what the dryad has seen or felt, and it says that there is a feeling the Shady Forest, something dark and Unnatural, and it's affecting a lot of the animals. She mentions that just recently, a group of gnolls died and were revived - dead, but walking! The Knights realize, after recalibrating their clocks to "tree", that she's talking about the attack of the Blood-Walkers a couple of years ago. She advises them that they might try and find the Stalker pack, as they will be more knowledgeable about animal dealings. Once things are dead, she as a dryad doesn't have much to do with them (and fungal spirits...are not friendly). 

The Knights decide to crash for the night and then in the morning track the Stalker pack. Gene cooks them dinner and they forage a bit for things to supplement. Rumdiggle Sunsong changes into a bear to sleep, and Russelet Leatherwind flits into a tree. Snootabur Shadowbough just curls up into a spiky little ball, as is the way of her people.

In the morning, the Knights head out (Snoot mentions to Gene that her mother lives on a farm nearby and likes having company). They head northwest, through the Shady Forest, and start tracking the pack. Russelet, of course, is an expert tracker, and he and Ratatosk check things from above while Rummy and Snoot walk along the forest floor. 

Soon enough, they see a pair of wolves flanking Rummy. Ratatosk calls down to her, and she promptly faints dead away (in the way of her people). Russ fires a couple of sleep arrows at one of the wolves, and it stumbles and starts wandering off. The other wolf breaks off and follows it, and Ratatosk casts Speak with the Small and talks with the wolves.

They address him as "food," which is a little off-putting, and he tries to get them to talk about the sick wolf and the chipmunk, but they're more concerned about why one of them is sleepy. Finally they agree to lead Ratatosk back to the leader of the pack so that she can answer the squirrel's questions. 

The pack-leader, though, is also more concerned about why food is talking to them. She does confirm that there was a chipmunk that was dead but walked, bled forever - she calls it "brackish." There's a bit of kerfuffle as Rummy takes bear form, the wolves smell the bear and the leader calls for a general evacuation, but eventually they learn that the wolf pack found a dead daggertusk on the banks of the river (they ate it, but no one got sick). The daggertusk was killed in a strange way. The wolves also reveal that the sick wolf was accepted back into the pack after the Knights helped her barf, so all's well there.

The Knights travel all through the day and reach the Swiftwater River as the sun sets. They can feel Unnatural energies as they approach the bend in the river, and Russ sees the tracks of a daggertusk - but walking on two legs. They decide they don't want to mess with this at night, so they fall back and make camp. Rummy, still in bear form, takes the first watch. 

As she's watching, she hears a whisper from the dark: "Bloody bones, bloody bones, rise ye up!" And someone starts walking through the woods towards them. She wakes the others as the creature comes through the trees - it's bipedal and nearly as tall as Rummy's ripper form, but all made of bones. Its skull is clearly a daggertusk, but the other bones are longer than they should be and it's got fingers. It emerges into the Knight's camp, and Snoot plants an arrow in its skull, cracking it down the middle. Horribly, the skull starts to bleed.

Russ fires more arrows, including an incendiary one, and the creature's blood catches fire and it bursts into flame. Ratatosk summons up a tree to animate and protect them, but the marksmen fire arrows and knock the thing to pieces. The bones collapse and melt into the ground through the puddle of blood, and all is quiet.

The Knights are too riled up to sleep, so they start trying to investigate a bit. Ratatosk mediates, trying to use his senses as a druid to pinpoint the source of the Disharmony, but it works too well. He feels the Disharmony from the river, but it grabs his consciousness and eats it. Ratatosk, now in Discord, panics, and has the tree turn and run ("NOPE NOPE NOPE"). 

Russelet flits after him, while Rummy and Snoot go check the riverbank. Rummy lets her instinct as a bear take over, snuffling and feeling around in the water, and finds an opening into the riverbank, about the size of a beaver's den. But when she puts a paw in, she feels the same horrifying Disharmony that Ratatosk did. It hits her so hard that it knocks the bear right out of her, the bear skin falls off and melts, and she's left standing there in her possum form as Ratatosk runs away in a tree.

There is powerful evil here, necromancy that the Knights have not seen, and they'll need to go into the den to understand it.