Starting Date and Time: Vermillio 3rd, 300DM

Starting Location: Lessa Grove (Chartric Forest between Greenfall and Silent Rise)

CS URLs: Crann Aonair and GM.

It started with a smell. The vaulting Chartric Forest simmered under the warmth of the summer sun, the leaves glossy and shiny as they reflected the light, the golden beams full of lazily-floating motes that spiraled down to the forest floor to illuminate patches of green grass. Birds sang happily, their organic sound high and bright against a backdrop of skittering leaves where squirrels gamboled and deer picked their careful way through the hazy shadows. The woods teemed with life.

But then there was the smell. A smell like death on the wind. Death was a normal part of the forest, older and weaker animals or trees sinking down to the leaves at their end. But this smell did not go away. In fact, as days turned into weeks, it seemed to worsen, accompanying the wind from the west. Animals and birds grew more timid and fearful than usual, moving through the woods towards the east the way they might flee the encroachment of a village.

And it got worse. As the stink soured even further, the straggling beasts seemed to be infected with some sort of plague. Shrunken and dull, more vicious than usual, blinking glassily in the sunlight and wandering drunkenly, their bodies covered in oozing sores.

Jimmory approached the grove with a worried look on his horned brow, his goatlike tail wiggling nervously behind his furry legs. The faun peeked around a tree, watching for any sign of the dryad who watched over these parts.

"Crann? Are you here?" Of course part of her always was, the big oak tree reaching towards the sky. Jimmory stroked his goatee and eyed the old shrine, glad that he hadn't run into any humans trekking here to worship or meditate near it.

The unnatural smells of decay, the strange actions of the local fauna as they moved through her woods, all of it concerned Crann, but without any evidence or word about a possible corruption of forest disease she saw no need to venture out of her grove to investigate. She spent much time speaking to the animals that had come and feeding those herbs she thought she could help, and easing the ones she couldn’t into death so that they would return to the planet and be reborn. As it seemed to progressively worse, she began to worry all the more, but still she didn’t move just yet as she still waited for further confirmation that something may be wrong further south west to her forest.

It was when Jimmory arrived that her concerns were slightly alleviated, she had been worried about the Faun and seeing him in her grove gave her hope that perhaps something simple was wrong. As Jimmory neared her tree she had her Tree slowly reach out a single root behind him and prod him in the rear, her head sliding out of the trunk to stare Jimmory right in the eyes.

“What are you doing here friend? I haven’t seen you since last spring when you got rather drunk off that lavender mead.” She slid the rest of her body out of her tree and stood softly on the ground, taking in a deep breath which she didn’t really need to do as it simply filtered through her body, but she always did love the scent of her grove, the gentle scent of the grass the spicy scent of the vines, and herbs.

Putting her hands on her hips she tilted her head at Jimmory as vines slide over her body covering, but just barely all the places that marked her clearly as a female, even if she didn’t need the defining features that females of other species had it made her more acceptable among other races, and made it easier to seduce those she needed to. “So, out with it Jimmory, why are you in my grove? Do you have news of what is wrong with these animals? Is there a disease?”

The hissing creak of the grassy soil was muffled by the wind in the leaves above so that Jimmory was taken completely by surprise when something hard and pointed jabbed him in the rump. He tucked his tail and leaped forward with a bleating yelp, his dainty cloven hooves scrabbling against the ground as he turned to face his assailant, raising nothing more than his fists to defend himself. He was not tall or muscular, but rather lean and lithe like the deer or goat he resembled.

But there was no one there, and his long ears flicked in all directions, his sorrel brows knitted in confusion under his mop of curly hair. While a dryad may grow leaves in their hair as a matter of course, the ones crowning Jimmory's hair were simply tangled in his locks.

The fright in his brown eyes was replaced by one of relief when the dryad seemed to sprout out of her home tree. "Don't do that, Crann. You scared me." His tone was a bit morose. Normally he would have appreciated the playful tease, but today his playfulness had become subdued, though he did grin at the memory of the lavender mead.

"I've been a bit busy," he grinned, a blush spreading across his freckled face. "There's a farmer's son I met down by that huge blackberry thicket...nevermind." His tufted tail flicked nervously, watching the greenery swiftly sproud and grow to cover Crann's feminine features in the semblance of clothes. Jimmory's own clothing consisted of little more than a long leather loincloth tied around his hips and was decorated with hand-carved wooden beads at the bottom fringe.

"It's more than just a disease, Crann. The froth is one thing, but this is worse. It's not just the animals anymore. That whole glade of flowers by the springs is just...gone. Dead. Everything is dead. And it's spreading."

The faun scuffed his hooves in the grass, his face and voice urgent. "I don't know what to do, but there has to be something. Will you come?"

She could only smile at Jimmory as he got so put out of shape by her one simple action with a root. Though when he was about to tell of his exploits with the farmer’s son, and got shy about it, she laughed all the more and slowly shook her head. “So… What?” She said with a frown as he recounted the tells of how it was more than just a disease, how it seemed to be spreading through the plants, and killing everything it came across. She looked shaken for a moment a hand absentmindedly reaching out and stroking Jimmory’s hair gently fingers gliding through the stands and knocking the leaves out of them.

“Of course I’ll help Jimmory, I will come with you to see what this is and heal what I can.” She says with a frown and looks back towards him leaning down and kissing his forehead. “You need to tell me more though. Has anyone been around the glade? Have you seen any strangers you have never met before?” She asked curiously one of her mossy eyebrows raising in curiosity for an answer to her question.

Crann brushed past him gently and moved to the shrine picking up her staff that was leaning up against it, she gently caressed the shaft of wood and took a deep breath before setting it into the ground and walking in the direction of the glade listening to the faun as she walked. Her mind mulled it over, something was simply killing the glade and the animals, like a disease, but it couldn’t be a disease could it? it was travelling between both flora and fauna. A highly unusual turn of events indeed and it greatly worried her that something like this was happening. She took a deep breath once more and clicked her wooden teeth together with subtle clacks.

The faun gave a shiver at the tickling feeling of the dryad's fingers through his hair, his haunches jiggling until a puff of chestnut brown hair drifted down to the ground. His ears twitched until Crann moved away, wrinkling his wide nose at the brush of her lips on his forehead. She smelled like moss and sweet sap, while he smelled like fur and the crushed grass that stained his fetlocks.

Jimmory hopped up on one of the exposed roots of her great oak, his hooves clacking woodenly againts the gnarled surface as he balanced his way along it, for no other reason than the fun of it took his mind off the problem, if only for a second or two.

"I haven't seen anyone. But I didn't want to get close all by myself. I saw an elk, and it should have been dead. There were so many maggots, Crann! And it didn't even seem to hear my music." He motioned with his hand at the v-shaped drone flute hanging from a thick leather strap across his bare and slightly furry chest. "I don't like seeing the glade like that, Crann."

Jimmory was obviously reluctant to join her and waggled his tail uncertainly as he watched her pick up her staff. But in the end he followed her, pausing at the shrine to dip his hands in the cool, clear water and slide them back over his horns so that they shone wetly for a time. It seemed a ritualistic gesture, but he didn't comment on it.

"If we're going back there I need to find my bow. I left it...somewhere." He glanced around thoughtfully, sticking close to the taller dryad.

For a moment she paused and turned back and tilted her head at him her viney, leafy hair falling to the side the wind causing it to flutter slightly. A frown came across her lips small cracks appearing in her lips as her mouth was not meant to take on that expression. She walked towards Jimmory and waved a single hand at her grove and blinked softly the thin petal making up her eyelashes giving off a quick flash of color. “Jimmory… You are very distressed, perhaps it would be better if you stayed here, and let me take care of the Glade. When I have fixed things I will return and let you know to go home.” She didn’t really give him much of a question so much as a order to stay in her grove.

Crann gently cupped Jimmory’s face in her hand letting the tips of her fingers slide down his cheek before turning and once more walking off in the direction of the glade letting her staff hit the ground as she used it for a walking stick. As she moved she wouldn’t stop whether he chose to stay or follow, if Jimmory did follow she would give a small smile to acknowledge that she was happy he was joining her.

Depending on Jimmory’s choice she would either remain quiet or begin to speak. “Well since you are coming with me… Why don’t you tell me what you have been up to the last few months I haven’t seen you? Found a new Dryad friend?” A soft laugh came from her lips at the thought of him finding any other Dryad’s nearby, thinking for sure she could honestly be the only one in the area. It had been a long time since she had seen another of her kind.

Watching Crann silently, Jimmory only stared worriedly into her eyes as she stroked her cool, woody fingers down his face. He scrunched his nose, which caused his goatee to wiggle a little, and then backed up to flump down in the leaf litter at the base of Crann's tree, draping a hoofed leg over one of the roots.

"Of course I'm distressed," he grumbled, picking up his double-sided flute and trilling a few airy notes with a deft flutter of his fingertips. The sound seemed a bit shrill to match his irritation. He resolved to wait, settling down to blow through the low drone chamber of the flute and watch the birds that tended to gather in the branches when he played. He even let his songweaving magic flow, but felt restless and dissatisfied with his own music.

A light crunching of hoofbeats announced the arrival of faun behind Crann as she made her way through the deep woods. The dark-skinned fey creature glanced at Crann a bit guiltily as he caught up to her and fell in step beside her on the other side from where she carried her staff.

"I remembered where I put my bow," he said by way of explanation, and truly the polished grapevine weapon was strung across his shoulders, the fletching of his arrows poking out of a grass-woven quiver, the fletching in blues and greens from kingfisher feathers.

Jimmory whuffled non-commitally as they walked along, navigating the rolling land between the roots of the great trees, hopping the mossy stones jutting up out of the creeks, and trying to not slide down leafy embankments. (Actually, Jimmory slid down on purpose and wasn't even sorry.)

"Not another dryad. Though I heard a rumour that there is trio like you north of Silent Rise." He glanced at Crann sidelong, curious about how his companion would feel about that. "Anyways. I wandered up to the Bahora forest for a while but the treants there seem to be a lot more grumpy than the last time I was there so I came back. There's a new human family down near Milmont. I know humans are dangerous but I stumbled across one of them a few weeks ago." Jimmory sighed woefully. "I wanted to bring him to the Midsummer Celebration later this month but with what's happening in the west I don't know..."

The going was easy for the pair, but the further they walked, the more signs of wrongness they came across. Plants that should have been flourishing seemed withered and wilted, spotted and furry with some kind of disease. Saplings seemed dark and stunted. The birdsong faded and disappeared, leaving Crann and Jimmory in the company only of creatures that scuttled and skittered furtively and untrustingly at the edges of their vision. It wasn't at all like the place they remembered.

As they rounded a huge stump of a tree that had rotted from the ground up so quickly that the boughs of its felled trunk still had green but doomed leaves clustered in its downed crown, they came across a previously cheerful spring-fed pond that was now nothing more than a soupy black mess that stank of putrefaction. Jimmory covered his flat nose and bleated in dismay, though the sound was joined by a dry rattle of a growl from nearby.

She listened to the faun’s stories, more than happy to hear about what was happening in the outside world, news of trio like her north of silent rise was something she found very very interesting. She would have to ask more about that later when she got the chance, for now she listened to him talk about the farm boy. The talk of the midsummer celebration and bringing the boy to it made both eyebrows raise on Crann’s face. “Well that will certainly be interesting, it sounds like you have really really taken a liking to this fellow, and here I only get to see you in the spring normally.” She gave a light laugh at her own joke before stopping and staring at the desecration of the forest. “This is unnatural… not a normal disease something is wrong here.”

As they came upon the pond she stared at it for a long moment knowing there still eyes of creatures around them upon her. She took in a deep breath and it felt like she was being choked heavily by the putrid air that was filling the forest. “Well.. This I’m not sure what to make of all this, it’s not something I’ve really encountered all that much before.” She stopped speaking as a growl began to emit behind her and slowly turned to face the source her eyes narrowing sharply as she held her staff by her side still and slowly extended a hand. “Peace.” She said softly hoping to calm whatever it was that happened to be approaching them. “I have come to heal this land.”

A brief silence met Crann's words as she and Jimmory turned to peer in the direction of the threatening growl. It was a pause filled by Jimmory turning on his hooves, causing the grass and leaves under him to hiss and crunch, and then a gasp at the creature lurking in the shadow of a dying tree.

It stalked forward, shoulders rolling supply on its back. Its eyes should have gleamed dangerously, but instead they seemed glassy as they stared at the dryad and her companion. A long tail swished silently through the air behind it. It was a cougar, though twice as large as it should have been, and it bared its teeth in another wet growl. Hard, bony plates protruded from its collarbone and down its spine, giving it an even more fell appearance. Even if she hadn't eyes to see that there was something wrong with the dire beast, she would known it. Its tawny coat hunk loose and dull against a plague-wracked skeletal frame. Dark patches of scabbed, bloody fur squirmed with maggots. Even as it pulled back its lips she would see the broken teeth and the pale receding gums. And on top of its tortured condition, the druid would be able to feel that the life force inside it was gone, replaced by something deathly and unnatural and full of a vile hatred.

The dire puma sprang without warning as all cats were want to do, racing right towards Crann. It should have been staggering from the pain and weakness of its abused state, but instead seemed to ignore it completely, gathering itself to spring with claws out.

Jimmory hadn't the time to draw his bow, and against nearly 500lbs of undead feline it was a miracle that the cold terror in his gut even allowed him to move his hooves. In a pure panic, the faun sprang away, bounding towards the thickest of the forest.

The creature staring at her from the brush made Crann’s eyes go even wider, she had expected some kind of diseased beast, but not of this caliber. Staring over the beast taking it in as quick as she could she knew immediately it was more than a simple disease, she had even suspect that perhaps someone had been poisoning the forest or possibly a stream. She narrowed her eyes as it began to set its haunches to launch itself and she yanked her staff around to catch the beast as it leapt at her. She watched the muscles undulate under the ravaged skin and how it seemed to shrug off the fact that it was in a state of decay that should have killed it already.

Crann felt the weight slam against her, the foreclaws catching onto her staff and causing her to hit the ground with a loud thud as the rear leg claws dug into her thighs tearing into the wood and causing sap to slowly ooze out. She let out a groan as she lay beneath the beast staring up at it, the tepid, putrid breath of the creature washing over her face disgusting her. Crann’s eyes began to bare hate for whatever this created this unnatural beast that was upon her. As the anger upon seeing this abomination passed through, a slithering series of branches began to reach around from her back splaying into the air gnarled and blackened. The lengths of wood started high above the creature and the pointed tips of the branches began to point down as if it was going to stab through the felines back and tear it away from Crann. The tree that existed as a familiar upon Crann’s body had waited a long time to be released so that it could fulfill a base need of eating.

The deathly cougar snarled and snapped, its voice rattley and foul as fangs the length of Crann's palm darted for her face again and again. Its mouth was slimy, its breath rotten. It was only the angle of her staff across her chest that spoiled the puma's aim and its decaying mouth came away only with clumps of viney growth torn roughly from her head.

It didn't seem to notice that there was something growing out of Crann's back, insubstantial at first but resolving into something solid and threatening. It also didn't notice when the first turquoise-fletched arrow zipped through the air with a faint 'thwp!' and buried deep into its flank.

The undead mountain lion did notice when a second arrow struck it in the side of the head, and black blood began to ooze slowly from the wound. It jumped off of Crann to reposition itself, snarling and yowling.

Face to face with the monster and busy summoning her own, Crann would not notice the growing feeling of loathsomeness approaching from the same direction that the cougar had, but Jimmory, thinking he was safe up in the crotch of a tree and taking pot shots at the big cat, trembled as dread slid like icy fingers down his spine.

"Come on Bryan, throttle that thing!" He cheered the plant-beast on, his voice high and squeaky.

The rotten breath, the rotten flesh, it washed over Crann like a tidal wave, and she hated it. As the arrows thudded into the creature causing the weight of the beast on top of her to be relieved. She pushed up to her feet using the scratched and torn staff to lift her body to stand before the beast and glare at it. Bryan began to move towards the feral feline it’s tendrils whipping about, as Crann reached up feeling hte spot where the cat had torn out some of her vines. “It will take weeks to grow those back.” She muttered before pointing at the diseased beast. “Bryan, destroy him.” Her mossy brows furrowed as she glared at the creature wondering what or who created this thing that was completely and utterly unnatural

Bryan lumbered forward the tentacle branches above him lashing out seeking to whip the beast, or snare it. The wood of the creature creaked and groaned with every movement, due to it's size and weight. She twitched her head towards Jimmory for a moment before turning back as Bryan continued towards the beast sweeping huge branches across the ground the multiple limbs looking to snatch the beast up as the jaws of the creature snapped longingly to eat the creature. Crann knew this probably would be a bad idea just by looking at the creature. “Bryan don’t you dare eat that thing! Just kill it!”

A testament to the puma's madness, it didn't even seem to register the plant-creature until Bryan's flailing tendrils struck hard against its desiccated form. Turning to this new target, the mountain lion shrieked and lashed its curving talons against the tree-Familiar. The sharp claws didn't do much damage by themselves, but the force behind the blows crushed or severed many of Bryan's writhing branches. The huge teeth sank into Bryan's woody trunk, leaving deep holes.

But even a mighty carnivore was not designed to take on a tree.

Eventually Bryan would grab hold and manage to maintain his grip, lassoing the puma, who jerked back against the restraint with ear-splitting yowls. Bark flew and heavy paws drummed concussively against the Familiar, knocking him around but unable to break his hold. More and more, one limb after another, Bryan gained the upper tentacle, and his grip began to do more than grip.

Snap! Pop-pop-pop! The tightening vice of viney tendrils began to crush, snapping bones and forcing air out of the puma's mouth. It was not slow, and it was not pretty. Black blood oozed out of its mouth and then out of its remaining eye as it struggled noisily, twisting in unnatural positions and gurgling obscenely until Bryan had literally wrung the life out of it. As it died, Crann would know instinctively that this creature was Bonded to another, just as Bryan was Bonded to her.

If there was any true life there in the first place.

Jimmory vomited casually in the background, bracing himself against the tree.

And then a dry, raspy voice full of callous cruelty wondered aloud. "I felt his loss, to be sure. It wasn't as painful as I had imagined. Though, he wasn't long for the world anyways, as I'm sure you noticed, little shrub."

A human man in a tattered brown duster has emerged from the trees. He wasn't overly tall, and his skin was rather ashen and drawn, pocked and craggy like one suffering from disease. The effect wasn't improved by bruiselike shadows moving across his skin. They were similar to the Marks of any druid, but something was...wrong with them. His eyes were dark and cloudy, though he did not seem to have any trouble seeing Crann. A stink of death wafted from him, not the sharp odour of a rotting corpse, but something far more deliberate and insidious. Something that seemed to emanate. Even while he stood, a hand resting easily on the trunk of a tree next to him, the grass at his feet was beginning to wilt, the bark of the tree blackening and spreading.

"I have many more friends like Mogar there. It will be quite satisfying to see the despair on your face when my good work reaches your precious tree."

He spoke fey well. Almost too well, like someone who had once lingered appreciatively among her kind.

Behind him, the forest was dying.

The arrival of the rather sickly looking human caused Crann to work her mouth a bit clicking her wooden teeth together a bit. “I see.. Too bad you will never realize what you seek.” She took a step forward planting her staff into the ground and holding out a hand. “I give you this one last chance to leave.” It was a bluff. She knew he wouldn’t leave, and she did not plan to try and make peace with this man who spread disease wherever he went. As her hand was extended the owl on her body had moved up to her forearm. It suddenly shot into existence from her outstretched palm, the large barn swooping upwards and down towards the man’s face talons outstretched for his eyes as it sought to distracted him. Just as this was happening Bryan began stomping forward his branches flailing about seeking to scoop up the man with one of them and tear him to pieces.

Crann began stepping backwards and raised her hand looking back at Jimmory. “Kill him! Shoot him with your arrows!” She yelled as her head turned back towards the Blighted being hoping to see him destroyed by the onslaught that was now heading his way. She was afraid though, afraid for Bryan, afraid for Castiel. She was afraid that they would be killed or diseased by this being, but most of all she was afraid that if she failed to destroy him that they would all die, and so would all the forests. The very world could be distressed.

"I seek nothing...Everything I cared for is gone..."

The man started to speak, but was suddenly interrupted by the swift shape of Castiel the owl. The brown and white bird of prey struck silently at the man's face, though he managed to through up his arm just in time to save himself from the wicked talons. The owl screeched, flapping wildly as the man tried to shake him off. His expression was one of mild annoyance, and he seemed to be muttering something under his breath.

"...all that is living shall meet with death. Everything I loved was torn from me. You too shall feel that agony...Druid"

Heedless of the barn owl's wicked beak, the man snatched at him, his bloodied fingers clutching clumps of feathers out of the bird's skin. His intent was calmly murderous, as though the Familiar was nothing more than chicken who needed to be wrung out by the neck.

Castiel was saved by Crann's other Familiar as Bryan came shuffling forward. The man clutched Castiel by the wing and ripped him from his arm, flinging the bird hard against a tree-trunk. There was a harsh "Hoo-!" and a loud snap, and Castiel dropped to the ground and did not move.

Crann would be able to feel that Castiel was grievously injured and no longer conscious, but not quite dead.

Turning to face the tendrils of the plant-creature, the man shoved his sleeves back to bare the skin of his forearms. "Even the mightiest oak will one day crumble into dust."

The first tendril whipped close to the man's face. He reached for it and missed, but managed to catch the second as it struck low to ensnare his torso. A high-pitched shriek erupted from Bryan's mouth as a gruesome pain burned along the flexible branch. Loyal to Crann, he didn't stop his attack, but every tendril that struck the man seemed to immediately wither and begin to decay. Some crumbled dryly, some seemed to soften and bloat, becoming limp and useless.

"How does it feel to watch them die?" The man's composure was slipping. His thin-lipped sneer had become a fierce grimace, his eyes almost manic with a sort of terrible anger or grief. What had happened to make him this way?

Jimmory did his best. He managed to fire only one arrow before his almond eyes caught sight of Castiel's feathery shape. The presence of the sleek raptor spoiled his shot until the man threw the Familiar aside. The faun gasped in despair, sure that the owl was dead. It was so sudden! So cruel!

Spurred on by the injustice, Jimmory slid down to the ground, firing arrow after arrow at the plague-man. Many of them went wide, thudding harmlessly into the dirt, but one, two, then three managed to find their mark. One in the bicep and two in the thigh. Other than a grunt, he didn't seem to notice, too busy trying to poison Bryan with his touch before the shambling vine-beast could get him in a good grip.