Alloryen Kingdom
Hith Elee
6th day of the 8th month: Temoth Ore
10:26 am
It took a while for Malius to find a good print. The sand was too hard and apparently this creature travelled light. The ranger bent down to take a better look at the tracks. They were birdlike, with three long toes sticking forward, but without the supporting toe in the back that would go with those kind of prints. Little holes appeared at the top of the toe-prints, indicating long crooked nails. Similar tracks had been made by some kind of lizard Malius once encountered, but they had never been the size he had just glimpsed.

Meanwhile, Geim was in the tavern, plundering the liquor cabinet. But it was not the tastefulness he was after; he was looking for a bottle that would do well with fire. So far he didn’t have too much luck. Most of the displayed bottles carried Sylvari wine, and he knew such weak drinks would never suffice. It was under the counter that he found a special cabinet which carried six skins containing a foul liquid that he recognized as ‘Galbladder Beer’, obvious an import from one of the Warrens of Khordal. He knew for a fact this would burn.

The only other bottle that would qualify as ‘flamable’ was carried around by Draven. He was on the hunt in the town, searching for a magic shop or alchemist’s home. He stepped over the bodies in the streets, his eyes open for a hint of useful tools. But it appeared the village housed only commoners, hunters and elder.
He turned around a corner, when he suddenly found himself eye to eye with a monstrous lizard. It was as large as he was, and it had its jaws wrapped around a Sylvari child’s intestines, ripping them loose from the torn body.
The creature looked up, placed a step forward and sniffed. Now Draven got a good look at its body. The head was big and blunt, with a thin jaw full of razorsharp teeth. The lizard’s body was lean, ending in a tail as long as the rest of the creature. It’s legs were long with firm claws, and two small arms greedily clutched the air as the thing regarded Draven with equal interest. It took another step, sniffed again, and then ran off into the forest with incredible speed.

Thondrek was searching the village as well, but so far hadn’t had any luck finding survivors. He had checked the buildings, but every open door brought him nothing but corpses. The Khord was surprised to find that even in the homes that had closed doors, there were no survivors. But the Sylvari that he found there were not cut open. Instead, they appeared to have simply collapsed, as if their bodies had given out.
He walked the streets when he heard a noise coming from on of the houses. He entered, to find a young Sylvari male sobbing over the corpse of a young woman. His face was covered by his dark hair and burried in her shoulder. He was shaking with tears, and looked up when Thondrek approached. His eyes were wide and blood shot, and his gaze spoke of a fear and torment that Thondrek had not seen before.
He learned the lad’s name was Aluwego Marrienbark, and the woman was his wife to be. As Thondrek gathered, she had suddenly stopped breathing and Aluwego had felt her life slipping through his fingers. Nothing he had done had helped her. He grabbed Thondrek’s sleeve and did not let go anymore, crying and mumbling to himself.

As Loda stood with Malius and the two bladesingers, she became aware of a soft rumble next to her. She glanced to her side, and found Gothard, who was slowly building up an angry growl. A few moments later, a Sylvari man came walking around a corner of the inn. Gothard barked at him loudly, but the man did not stop. He was dressed as a warrior, and carried a long sword and wooden shield. His clothes were covered by a coating of fur, most likely wolven. His face was white and stern, with long blonde hair flowing from under his helmet. He called out to them from a few yards away.

“There is something loose in the village. A big lizard or something. It has killed most everybody. But I just saw it. It had an open chance to catch your friend, but for some reason it didn’t touch him. I want to know why.”

The Khordish Duskblade was amazed at the destruction wrought in such a short amount of time. He had seen fireballs level small settlements, but to systematically eliminate every living Sylvari in such short order left Thondrek more than a little perturbed. He had searched for survivors, and was beginning to lose any hope when he opened a building’s door to the sounds of sobbing, and found a young Syl sobbing over a young woman’s body. He turned and looked at Thondrek in terror, but settled a bit when he realized it was not death coming for him standing in the doorway. Grabbing the Khord’s sleeve, the man began crying and mumbling.

Thondrek let the man weep for a little while, before squeezing the man’s shoulder and straightening him. “Aluwego Marrienbark, I symp’thize fer ya lad, but nothing’ can be done at the time fer yer woman cept ta find and skin whatever did this ta ye people.” Thondrek glanced behind him and straightened, gripping his weapon. “Time ta mourn is over…for now, time ta act has arrived. Come with me, we’ll keep ya safe while we search fer whatever done this. “ Thondrek attempts to guide Aluwego back to his companions.”

(Presuming he arrives back when the warrior man appears)

“Ye talkin bout Draven? ‘es as strange as they come, ugly too. Mebbe whatever came across ‘m thought ‘e was a relative or something.” Thondrek tried to put out another mistimed laugh, but again it likely didn’t go over so well. “Anyways, this is Aluwego Marrienbark, ‘es lost a lot today as anyone can imagine. So we’s got to keep ‘im safe.” Turning to Aluwego he added. “That means don’t be doin nothing stupid like tryin at playin hero either. Leave that to us.” With that he tried to flash a disarming smile, barely visible behind his thick beard.

Draven watched, fascinated for a moment as the beast tore into the open torso of the young boy. His white ribs were splayed, and pink entrails were strung about the lizards forearms and tangled in it’s jagged teeth. This was the murderer of an entire village? Draven frowned. Suddenly the beast looked up, and locked eyes with his.

“Somehow I expected something…bigger.”

The beast took a step towards him, then froze. A breeze swept around his black cloak, wipping his ebon hair around his white, carven face. The creature sniffed the air, and as Draven watched, it turned and seemingly fled from the village, into the trees beyond. The warrior raised an eyebrow as he looked after it, before glancing once more at the mangled corpse. Stepping over it, he continued down the road. This was a common village, however. Elders, farmers. Not a place for commerce or the adventuring sort. With a sigh, Draven resolved to loop back around the block and return to the group. Something told him that any lively welcome they had here was gone. He chuckled at the pun.

As Malius examined the tracks before him Loda stood quietly with the two bladesingers, and as the Ranger began to rise to his feet the hound by Loda’s side began to grumble slowly building up to an angry growl. Malius not one to ignore the instincts of any animal had his bow up and an arrow nocked within an eye blink.

A few moments later, a Sylvari man came walking around a corner of the inn. Gothard barked at him loudly, but the man did not stop. He was dressed as a warrior, and carried a long sword and wooden shield. His clothes were covered by a coating of fur, most likely wolven. His face was white and stern, with long blonde hair flowing from under his helmet. He called out to them from a few yards away.

“There is something loose in the village. A big lizard or something. It has killed most everybody. But I just saw it. It had an open chance to catch your friend, but for some reason it didn’t touch him. I want to know why.”

“That may be stranger but first who are you and from whence do you come here.”

The bow yet pointed the man’s way Malius was ready to fire if he felt at any time the man was an enemy.....

Geim finished gathering what would burns some empty bottles for filling with the flammable liquid and some wash cloths and towels to stopper the bottles. He quickly tore those clothes into strips and packed the makings of the fire bombs away in his backpack, except for the Gallbladder beer. which her carried out with im.

Rejoining his friends outside the inn she spots the new comers. "Only two survivors so far?" he questions the other. "That is sad news. Too much death and destruction. We need to get those trees taken care of and kill that mutant critter."

"I got some Galbladder Beer. Good stuff, flames up right nice." It should do the trick."

If someone will help me with getting it into the bottles I'd appreciate that. Hard to hold the bottle and pour at the same time. Got some rags to stopper them up and a few live coals in a lamp for setting them afire.

Noticing the missing, Geim asks. Where's Draven laddie off to and where is Malius. Those two disappear faster than an ale down a thirsty dwarf's gullet.

Elessarae moved up to the young man she had met that very morning. She put a hand on his shoulder and when he looked at her she spoke. “I understand your loss Aluwego Marrienbark, the time to grieve will come, but for now we must stop that creature and then find the infected tree.”

Elessarae turns to the Sylvari warrior and then to the young archer, “Sir Warrior, Aluwego we need to find that creature as soon as possible. Can you think of a place where we might lure it or drive it, where we can set up a trap using fire against it? Also do either of you know of a large net that we might use?”

Elessarae was trying to cover all the possibilities. She knew it was fast and if it had the abilities of a lizard, then it was agile and could climb. Her mind was racing with what if and then what.

“Loda, do you have an entangle spell?”

Then she remembered her vial of Lotus Potion. “If worse comes to worse, I have an extra vial of potion, it might work on the creature, just like it works on a tree.”

She then looked about to the others hoping someone would add their ideas so that a plan could be formulated from the best possible input. She, her new companions, Quilanday, Aluwego and the Sylvari warrior, were all in the same boat when it came to dealing with a completely strange creature. There would be no knowing what would work and what wouldn’t work against it. But like the other creatures she had dealt with and heard of, the MAOUS were tough, with enhanced natural armor like the Demon Owls.

Elessarae took a deep breath and tried to rein in her racing mind. She felt that one of the more experienced of the group should be heading up this part of the planning, and she look to Lady Quilanday suddenly feeling a bit embarrassed that she had stepped in and was ordering others about, she the neophyte of the group.

“My Lady, what would you suggest?”

Alloryen Kingdom
Hith Elee
6th day of the 8th month: Temoth Ore
10:45 am
As each of the companions found their way back to the front of the inn, the stranger answered Malius request for his name.

“My name is Wulvomyr Alloryen, but you can call me Wolf. I come from the forest. Now tell me why your companion wasn’t attacked like the rest of the villagers!”

At that point, Thondrek came back, dragging a young Sylvari along, the only survivor he had found. The Khord regarded the man for a moment and replied:

“Ye talkin bout Draven? ‘es as strange as they come, ugly too. Mebbe whatever came across ‘m thought ‘e was a relative or something.” Wolf didn’t laugh at his comment but stared at him indifferently.
“Anyways, this is Aluwego Marrienbark, ‘es lost a lot today as anyone can imagine. So we’s got to keep ‘im safe.”

Elessarae recognized the young Sylvari from their previous meeting, hours earlier.

“I understand your loss Aluwego Marrienbark, the time to grieve will come, but for now we must stop that creature and then find the infected tree.”

If she had thought these words would lift the man’s spirit, she was wrong. He grabbed her hand, the only familiar thing he saw between all these strangers, and held on to it with all his strength.
“No, don’t go after it! It will kill you all, we will all DIE!”
He was screaming through his tears now, a broken reflection of the confident archer she had met before.

Geimiedefher, who came out of the inn at that point, entered a situation where Malius was pointing his arrow at a stranger, and his newfound bladesinger companion was clutched by another newcomer. At least Thondrek had returned safely.
"Only two survivors so far?" he questions the other. "That is sad news. Too much death and destruction. We need to get those trees taken care of and kill that mutant critter."
He showed his companions the Galbladder Beer he had found, but most of them only listened with a half ear, preoccupied by other matters.

Elessar tried to calm the young archer, and looked at the other Sylvari as well.
“Sir Warrior, Aluwego we need to find that creature as soon as possible. Can you think of a place where we might lure it or drive it, where we can set up a trap using fire against it? Also do either of you know of a large net that we might use?”

Wolf looked at her, raised the tip of his longsword into the air and pointed.
“Finding a large net is not my business. I want to know why HE was not attacked!”

Draven had rounded the inn and entered the scene.

Lady Quilanday, who up to that point had been uncharacteristically silent, stepped in between Wolf’s longsword and it’s path towards Draven. Her gaze was upon the dark warrior though, her back to the tip of the sword.

“As blunt as Wolf here seems to be, his question is a good one. Why were you not attacked?”

(OOC: I usually don’t like posts that copy everything that has already been said. But I deem it necessary here, because there are too many questions and too many different interactions going on to keep track of in a natural way. I’ve uncomplicated them a bit, made everything more fluent, but that includes me leaving away Elessar’s final requests and words, for instance. We can assume she might still say them, but not right now. Same goes for Geim's question. There is just too much going on for a rush of orders and questions. I hope that is alright with everybody)

Elessarae took Aluwego by the shoulders and looked the young man in his face while giving him a bit of a shake to get his attention. When some sort to calm returned she looked him straight in the eyes.

“Dying to save Sylvaria is the ultimate gift we can give our people if in doing so we can eliminate this terrible threat or any other dangers to our people. No one wants to die, I, you, these others here, but I would hazard to guess even these non Sylvari understand the gravity of the situation and what it may take for us to end this blight.”

“We must kill the MAOUS the attacked your village. There could be Sylvari still hidden in their homes or up in trees, afraid to come out or down. We must make it safe for them to do so.”

Elessarae gave Aluwego’s shoulder a squeeze and then turned to the situation at hand. She stepped up to beside Wulf and looked at him. “He was one of the first to react and move out to see what it was that killed the innkeeper, and to traverse the village. Not exactly the man one would lift a sword too.”

And then she steps up to Lady Quilanday. “I only just met him, but his group seems to include him as a valued member even though he seems to stand apart from them.”

Now she turns her head to Draven. “Sir, Is there anything you may carry that the MAOUS might sense.”

Although the dark warrior is markedly different than the others of his group, there seems to by nothing about his appearance that would cause the beast to leave his presence, and her Sylvari nose detected no unusual smell to him, so it must be something else that it sensed that caused it to leave. Just what that could be was as yet unknown, so she waited and listened for Draven’s answer.

(OOC no problem with DM prerogitive. I will probably repeat that part of my previous post in a later post.)

As Draven rounded a corner and strolled towards the party, he raised a brow and regarding the near-accusatory elf who had just arrived. The others piped up but it neither improved the sylvari's suspicions, or Draven's humor. His pale face was currently...particularly dour.

Yet when Elessarae questioned him, he replied, having approached the group in that usual, lightfooted swagger of his. He looked at her a moment, as if confused by her question. Then slowly he lifted the bottle of Troggladyte's Tears he had so legitimately aquired. Glancing at it sidelong, as if it may be the reason, he shrugged, then spoke.

"I assumed, my most prestigious Lady, that the creature had satisfied it's bloodlust, and was returning to the forest. Or perhaps it was simply a scavenger. Not the murderer of an entire village...did seem a bit small to me."

Draven cast the newcomer a glance and grinned a wolfish grin.

"After all. It left us be, knowing we were in this fine establishment here."

He gestured to the tavern.

"Nor has it attacked our most honorable knight here."

"Then again...If you've never met a human before, then allow me to educate you all. They don't usually have eyes that can...peer into your soul."

The man smiled. A chilling smile. his golden eyes sparked, with that hollow light, then faded.

"Perhaps I don't need to carry anything to strike fear into that which is conscious of the laws of mortality."

He let the silence settle over the group for a moment. His hands still held out at his sides. His right, gloved hand still gripping the bottle. When he acted again it was to lift the bottle to his lips and lean against the building. By now the group knew this was Draven's way of saying 'Im ready'.

"Wulf, since there does not seem to be a Druid about I need to know if you know anything about the Fairies at the River Crossing. Last night thet attacked Comrade," she points to the Moon Horse, "they were pulling the hide off of him and taking it down into the water. I rescued him and they chased us a good while before we left them behind. Was that usual or unusual?"

Elessarae asked the question because she wanted to know about the attack last night and also to keep this defused. She say the wat Draven was standing and knew he was open for a challenge. Elessare, had wanted to know that and had even asked the innkeeper to bring a druid back with him. In a way she feels responsible for his death.

"Now listen here Wulf or whatever you call yourself. I don't like the tone you are taking towards Draven. I be a man of plain speech. Now we all be companions here except you and this boy. Draven is one of us. I know him as well as any could that fight side by side with one another. We have drawn weapons together and fought all manner of opposition and many of these mutant creatures. I know all that I need to about him for now and that shpuld be good enough for you." Geim bristle up at the man;s insinuations

"If it isn't enough, take it up with the Lady Quindalay. I will not take kindly to you casting anymore aspersions on Draven. I don't know about you but if a man fights by your side to kill those opposing you, do you need to know his full history before you do. T'aint any o'my business. T'aint any o yours either".

"Beside if you saw it and Draven it might have decided to run off from two of you. It seems to catch one at a time and perhaps is cowardly when facing two armed warriors.

"Now we've been sent here to find out what is going on by the Sylvari court no more no less and that is what we plan to do . You can help us or leave us to do it. I care not one way or t'other.

Alloryen Kingdom
Hith Elee
6th day of the 8th month: Temoth Ore
10:45 am
“That answer will have to do then.” Wolf said to Draven’s answer, and lowered his sword. He ignored the others, even Elessarae’s question about the fairies. He didn’t even so much as glance at them. For all they knew, he hadn’t even heard what they said.

Aluwego was still crying, but his agonized heartbreak was reduced to sobbing. A few steps away, Quilanday looked at Wolf, and seeing the man had cooled down a bit, called to them all.

“We can’t linger too much on distrust. We find ourselves in a situation where we are not all acquainted, but we all have the same goal. Now how will we go about finding this tree? I think it’s more important to find the tree than finding the monster. If we don’t find the source of this tragedy, there will be more monsters before we know it.”

“I know where that tree is.” Wolf replied dryly. “I can take you, if you are ready.”

The Khord took a serious look at everyone who was gathered. Friend and stranger alike were now united in a common goal that would affect those far beyond their reach. Different paths had lead them all to a singlular purpose, and the Khord had an axe for a remedy to that purpose.

"Aye be ready. Need we provisions for the trek? Foodstuffs and the like? or is it close enough that we can leave this very morning unabated?" Was all he said, before toting a swig from his ale filled waterskin.

"Hrrummpf" geim grunt out as Wuld ignores what he had to say. Her grumbles a bit but stops when the elf ranger sort stops pessering Draven with his questions.

"Ah well now, le's get to that tree and get it taken care of. Elessareae you said you have done this one already. THen what do we need to do. Never attacked a tree before. Doesn't sound so hard. My ax ought to be able to take care of it real simply. Several good whacks and we'll shop the thing down. I kno wyou tree huggers normally don't like that but if it is diseased then it has to go."

Geim losing up his axe drawing attention to the bright steel blade sharp on the edge to shave with but lots of heavy steel back that edge up. "Ought to be abkle to chip that thing up into kindling right quick."

"We need protective coverings, waterproof canvas or oil treated leather the cover the head and body and even the feet. It would help if there was a mage among you, as we did not have the time to fully introduce ourselves I do not know what each of you can do, a fly spell would be of great help."

She looks to the others, "When I used the potion on the tree near the village that had been decimated by the Goblins close to Flame Tower, I had to rub the potion over the trunk. The ground under the canopy of the oak was saturated with the innards of mushy acorns that fell from the tree. At the time I had a Goblin with me and I made him preceed me to the tree, His major reaction came from an acorn that plopped on his head and he panicked crying for it to be wiped from his head. The mage that was sent with me had a fly spell, which is why I still have my boots, but after dealing with the tree, I burned everything I was wearing."

"Hopefully the sages and mages A Flame Tower were able to get some information from the Goblin that might help us learn more about the nature of the infected trees, and maybe something about the Goblin's plans."