Burbling Brook

[Suede]

The trees were dying, a slow rot from the lake that seeped endlessly through the growth and out amidst the roots of every tree it could reach. The waters were surely the cause, and some people in town even blamed themselves for the result. Of course the ones really to blame didn't even think such thoughts. It was just all for fun.

Three mud-coated men hunkered down in a cave tucked deep into the forest. One was pulling his legs out of a half collapsed tunnel of sticky sludge while his companions wiped at their faces. An attempt was made to light a cigarette, but the mud had utterly soaked it and the matches, so it was left drooping between a pair of lips as they all sat there to catch their breaths.

They'd been crawling beneath the forest most of the night along with a few others of their group, necklaces strung around their necks enchanted to hide their presence and keep them from suffocated as they burrowed like worms across Myrken. A fitting description, since as they went they would pause to release special breads of worms, maggots, and termites into the infected soil. Vile, voracious things that would scour the woods and spread the poisons in the water all the more quickly, chewing their way up into trees, into roots, and eventually honeycomb the entire forest.

Within a few days the earth of the forest would become a boggy, ankle deep mire that reeked of decay and death.

It had taken them bloody HOURS to get all the little bastards scattered about and tear up the roots of as many trees as they could. Whomever it was that had the idea to dig through the ground to do it was a jackass, but they were done, the smell could be washed off, and they would get paid. The three muddy men grinned, stretched, and wandered out into the woods to disappear.

[Drache]

--Lilani--

The idea that there was a witch lurking in the unplumbed depths of the forest was not a new one. Such tales and bedtime stories had always existed among the people of Myrken. It helped to put an explanation on the strange and supernatural things that happened in a place so rife with magic and mystery. So it wasn't really a surprise when people started talking about the depressing state of the forest and the lake, especially when the tracks started to appear.

The trees were dying. Many of them were dead already, and more of them had simply got up and left when the soil beneath their roots turned rancid and disturbed by the shifting of maggots. They shambled off in the darkness towards the mountains or the forests to the north, leaving behind them deep holes that filled with the stale water that no animal wanted to drink. The layers of autumn leaves should have been crunching underfoot, but instead they were slowly turning to mush that stank of mildew and swampwater. The underbrush had died back to leave the spaces between tree trunks bare. The wildlife in the woods would have been much clearer to see, until the beasts fled too. Now the forest was a place of slow, quiet death. Where coiling steam filled the blanks between the sad trees as it rose from the putrid soil. The only vibrancy to be found was in the bustling hoards of vicious termites that thrived on the dying wood. It was clear to just about anyone that what was happening wasn't natural, and if something wasn't done soon it would take the land centuries to recover. If it ever did. Soon, the people of Myrken would lose their most important resource; the land they lived on. And the blight was spreading. More than one farmer was watching his crops slowly wither and sag back into a soil that didn't look as if it would ever yield anything worth tending.

But something had happened in one cool morning just after the moon had begun to wan. A brisk wind picked up and gusted through the lonely trunks, though there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It carried with it a sort of urgency that had people dashing off to make appointments that were still weeks away and wrap yuletide gifts that weren't yet in their boxes. It seemed to affect animals the most. Cows that were normally docile turned sour and kicked the bucket. Fleabitten old nags worn down by years of pulling the plow suddenly bolted from their stalls and cantered uselessly around the fields. Dogs of every shape and size broke free of their pens and leashes and roved across town in noisy packs, barking and wagging their tails at nothing. Cats, even the surliest toms, coiled around legs and meowed for attention and more than one person ended up in the Rememdium after having tripped over the nuisance felines. Pet birds threw themselves at the walls of their cages and carrier pigeons seemed to completely disappear in transit.

But all of this paled in comparison to what was happening in the woods. Maggots and worms swarmed to the soggy surface and lay helplessly in the muck. Battalions of termites marched smartly from their meals to gather in the open. And then the birds came. There were few left in this part of the land, but still they came, winging in from the north and south. The sky turned black with them, the air rife with their sounds as they responded to a Druid's call. And in one mass they descended into the forest, pecking and jabbing at the provided meal, their beady eyes glinting greedily as their beaks flashed lightning-quick and their feathers ruffled.

It took several days for them to make a full circuit of the affected lands, and there were surely some of the gruesome insects left behind. But eventually the flocks of sparrows and crows, chickadees and mockingbirds, swallows, and doves, drifted away like leaves on the wind. Even the raptors had answered the call. And though they may not have eaten of the insects and worms, they were the ones left to clean up the corpses of the birds who had fallen victim to the termites' vicious bites. They were the ones left to see the tracks that wended through the forest, changing from those of a young girl, or maybe a small women, into those of a wolf and back again. Or into those of a bear. Or perhaps they would disappear completely as if their walker had simply taken flight. The hawks and eagles were the ones who looked down to see that in the wake of that curious tread, life was starting to come back to the trees. Not all of them, of course. Only in a line that meandered almost aimlessly across the land, as though someone had passed by and given life back to them with a touch.

And in the hollow between the roots of a steady oak a small figure dressed in supple doeskin curled in exhausted, dreamless sleep. Her pretty face was pale and drawn, and there were berry-purple stains under her almond shaped eyes. She wore a formless apron tied around her lithe frame and there were bone beads and wooden carvings in her hair. Her fingers, smudged with dirt, grasped the length of an oaken quarterstaff carved with runes in one hand and the cinnamon fur of a large wolf in the other. The large canine curled next to his Mistress, his yellow eyes flashing in the dark as he watched over her.

[Drache]

--Lilani--

The petite Druid woke two days later. As she stirred from the little hollow amongst oaken roots she disturbed a layer of fallen leaves that had drifted down to cover her while she slept. Like most of the leaves littering the forest floor and gradually turning to sour mush, these leaves were poison-yellow and fragile, the life cruelly leeched out of them while they struggled to feed the tree they belonged to. Lilani stretched and turned her eyes up into the boughs of the oak. Her heart-shaped face brightened with a smile and she laughed, a cheerful sound like birds singing or water chuckling down a shallow mountain stream-bed. Hikoti lifted his fox-like face to observe his Mistress and then followed her gaze upwards. Above them, the oak had sprouted new leaves of dark, shiny green. There was life and health in it again, its sagging trunk straighter, fresh bark already creeping to cover the termite scars. And there were others like it all around them. The Druid clenched fistfulls of leaves in her hands and threw them up in the air before jumping up. She had a sylvan's tendency to go off waltzing through the trees like any self-respecting nymph. But her joy was short-lived, because as soon as she was on her feet she sagged against the tree and clasped her hand over her heart. The exhaustion struck like a physical force and she gasped as she tried to catch her breath.

It worried her, as she stood there recovering while Hikoti whined and licked her hand. It shouldn't have taken so much energy to do what she had done, and the effects of her secret spells and rituals should have been quicker and farther-reaching. She had already guessed that this blight was nothing natural, but purposeful and cruel, and now she suspected that whoever was behind this had taken some steps to hinder her type of power. She finally bent and hugged Hikoti around his shaggy neck, whispering her thanks into his black mane. When she rose again she was only more determined to see this through.

Her small hands searched through the haphazard pockets of her thick leather apron until she came up with some special sachets of dried herbs and fruits. She ate them as she walked and felt their magic coursing through her. The distant water of the lake carried with it the source of this blight, and while she had searched before she had only come up empty. She didn't relish the thought of entering the water again, not with that strange eye down there with its invisible tentacles and unveiled melavolence. But she had to.

[Drache]

The half-hearted waves threatened to wash the rune away even as she traced it in the silty soil on the shoreline. With one hand on her staff and her other now coated in muck, she bent down and pressed her palm into the water. A number of the runes on her staff exploded with white light as the spell of communion took the Druid far outside of herself. Hikoti watched over her, pacing just outside the waves and whining. His was a race of wolves that didn't take well to swimming. And there were people in the distance. A group of townspeople clustered around some strange glass object while more patrolled the edges of the lake. There were none too close now, but the wolf knew that could change and didn't like it.

Lilani's mind was down with the fishes. Or it would have been if there were any fish left. The lake was murky and deep but largely devoid of life. Only some of the hardiest and most unsavoury slimy things were still clinging to a shadow of existence. In the many long minutes that her mortal body crouched in the shallow water, Lilani learned many secrets about the lake and the surrounding area. Her consciousness extended for many miles and she learned of everything from a variety of lost or forgotten objects buried in the lake's bottom, to supernatural creatures who slept the slumber of centuries, to hidden caves, and finally, a steady watery trail that reeked of poison and meandered upstream into the mountains.

It was this last that she wanted to know, and she rose shakily and peered with gray eyes out across the water. She felt as if she spent all of her waking hours tired these days. She needed to rest again and together, she and Hikoti melted back into the treeline.

[Suede]

Death, decay, pestilence, plague, wasting, rot. So many negative names for what they all said attacked the earth, destroyed life, ended nature. But they simply didn't understand the purity. There was truth, beauty, and sweet balance in the ending of this forest, the poisoning of this lake. Oh, bemoan the death of that dog, for he was so loyal. Mourn the end of that cow, for it could provide us milk. Loathe the loss of that bird, for it sang so sweet.

It damn right pissed him off. The insects, the fungi, molds, parasites, and all the little slimy things people would just as soon step were refiled, ignored. He found them quite lovely, and that was why he'd been so eager to take up this task for his boss, to help make sure their little kingdom would succeeded. And yet, someone had already come through and pushed right through his protection for his little friends.

Canthag stood admit the slaughter grounds of termites, the deathbeds of maggots, where the poor things had made their last stands they had never wanted to come too. He was ashen in color, his once vibrant hair turned into a dark, greasy mass of briny green. He was thin, nearly skin and bones beneath the out of place finery he wore. His clothes were cut to fit him perfectly, hiding his emaciation under careful, sharp folds made by quite the skilled tailor. His equally sharp face was marred with a frown itching towards outright anger at what he saw.

Putrid power practically dripped from his finger tips and leaked into the ground around him as he turned his head to stare towards the lake. He couldn't see it from this depth in the woods, but he could sense activities there. Well, he'd not been told to do anything just yet, but to hell with careful planning.

As he seethed he raised one bony leg, pointed the foot down, and jammed it deep into the earth. The other followed suit and something twisted beneath the ground, stirring the soil. Suddenly his whole body contorted, limbs bending unnaturally where there were no joints, loud snapping ringing out into the dead forest as he folded in on himself. He bent at the waste as his skin darkened, becoming leather and eventually hardening into a blackened bark that would make a drow jealous for its absolution of color.

What was once the remnants of a wood elf would contort and bend until it was no more than a stumpy mass of bark. A single shudder and angry, curling branches would grown their way out from it. No leaves would sprout and all that would be visible about the ground would be an ugly mass that could barely called a tree.

Beneath the earth was a different matter, as its roots were a far more impressive display as the shot out into the woods at a terrifying pace to continue the task that had been started by the insects, choking out the life of the nearest trees, strangling roots or simply removing their certain grip on the soil. They'd continue to spread through the forest lazily, but with a clearly visible growth. Some of the more industrious roots would even snap several of the small linger wildlife into their grasp and drag them into a shallow grave in the dead grove.

Far into the woods the cancer would continue in a new form.

[Drache]

--Lilani--

Death, decay, pestilence, and rot were all a necessary part of the Balance Lilani endeavored to preserve. It was a balance between life and death, darkness and light, the plants and the beasts, the water and the air. One day she might meander past a dying tree and reach up with her small hands and caress life back into it with a touch. Another day she might come across a similar tree and cast it down to the earth with a crashing of branches and a snapping of roots to be a feast for the writhing worms and industrious termites. How she came by these decisions she couldn't always say. The subtle differences in the way each choice would affect the surrounding land were often subconscious, delivered to her by the same power that allowed her to bend the forces of the wilds to her will.

And it was such a sense that prompted her to seek out and eliminate the source of the poison in the water. It was no natural source. It was no gradual altering of the landscape that forced the trees to die and be replaced by a swampy bog. It was no natural event that tainted the lake and forced the beasts to flee. It was deliberate tampering by someone malicious, and it needed to be stopped before the damage was permanent. A scar on the land that would force the residents of Myrken to flee as well or sacrifice much to adapt and survive.

It was this conviction that had her skimming across the chill water, though it didn't feel so chill against the impenetrably thick otter pelt that covered her body. She was ten feet long with a blunt wedge-shaped face and tiny round ears. Her whiskers were long and pressed tightly to her oilslick fur, water streaming by with each twitch of her rounded tail, each flick of her flippered feet. The rocky shore where she had left Hikoti and her humanoid shape behind was far back in the distance. She crossed the lake, following the tendrils of stink and corruption. She dove deep until her clawed paws skittered across the dark, rocky bottom, only to surface again and break the silver barrier, leaping into the air with a splash.

And then there were banks on either side, narrowing gradually as she paddled and darted upstream, the forests on either side even more deathly putrid than the ones she had left behind. She was getting closer, she could sense it. The swiftness of the water couldn't hide the miasma seeping into it. And then she found it, and her Wildshape form choked and sputtered in the poison. She dove, streaking downwards with bubbles trailing from her whiskered snout. She grasped the rocks, twisting and wrenching them free, seeking with otter's senses until she found them.

Them. The balls of poison that belched gray clouds when she sank her claws into them. One by one she carried them ashore, her body failing even as she flung them out onto the narrow beach. The Dire Otter retched and gagged, her long flexible spine arching sickly. She leaped into the water again and again to make sure she had retrieved them all, and then she slumped onto the stony shore and melted back into the lithe young woman she really was. She was drenched from head to bare feet, her golden hair plastered to her head and mud streaked across her tan skin. But there was deadly purpose and triumph in her eyes as she struggled to her feet, leaning heavily on the rune-carved quarterstaff that had appeared in her hand. Her pretty mouth pursed grimly.

She twirled the oaken weapon and grasped one end with her hand so she could swing it overhead. Several of the runes lit up with a golden glow and a bright flash like lightning struck the sodden poison sacks. They were instantly charred to ash by daylit burst, but she struck them again for good measure and then stood gazing at the scorched stones for a long time, knowing that her work had only just begun.

Much of the forest was dead. And even with the removal of the poison there were some parts of the forest that would still die without her intervention. She turned then and picked her way across the rocks until she could climb the embankment and gain the higher ground. She surveyed the land down-river and thrust her staff into the dirt, even as Calthag was planting himself in ground miles away. She chanted something soft and tender under her breath and the runes on her staff began to glow, a soothing white-blue. A stream of light lanced up into the overcast sky and the clouds began to gather more thickly, swirling and darkening. The Druid gasped as the spell left her weak and she fell to her knees.

It began to rain. It was a chill and miserable rain to look at, just as any normal autumn thunderstorm. But as the drops seeped into the soil they banished the grayish taint, neutralizing it with something nearing a holy touch, even as they flushed it downriver and towards the ocean far, far away. It was a healing rain, and though it couldn't undo all of the damage it was a start. The storm spread over the affected woods and Myrkentown and hung there, heavy and ponderous, and it would continue to pour for days until Lilani's spell was done.

[Drache]

The cool, soothing rain that had been pelting Myrken wood for days on end finally relented and the sun dawned pale and watery through the wisping clouds. The chill gusts smelled like wet loam and wood, the traces of toxic decay finally absent. Even with winter right around the bend, signs of life began to creep back into the forest. Firstly the birds, their beady eyes shining as they picked through the leaves for worms. Even the worms and insects were affected by the healing purge. Most living creatures thrived in a Druid's presence, even the servants of death like maggots and vultures had their place at her side. And later, the chittering of squirrels could be heard, especially when they discovered that many of the surviving trees were already heavy with nut and seed. And crisscrossing all through the woods were a duo of footprints filled with tender green grass. One was the light tread of a wolf, and the other the ever-changing steps of the Druidess.

It was the hunters and trappers who noticed the arrival of animals first and brought the news back to Myrken town. And then the farmers whose lands bordered the woods woke up to find parts of their crops nearly exploding from the ground. Old Farmer Brandon discovered a pumpkin so huge he could fit inside it once he'd carved it out and proceeded to jump out good-naturedly at children who came by for some pumpkin pie cooked by his loving wife.