AVB - The Feral One

[Kalirren]

Not seeing Hallethil even after re-assuming her native human form, Sascha glances about furtively, knowing that she is trespassing on another's sacred space. Yet she is disturbed enough to place that concern a distant second. With blessed grace of her own, she traverses the garden and falls on both knees before Hallethil's oldest tree. Reaching out, she almost comes to tears at the profoundly correct feeling of solid, familiar bark upon the center of her outstretched palm.

Sascha closes her eyes and leans in, looking in her symbolic heart for spiritual answers. In her state, she'd feel almost anything she was told. The woodswoman was desperate to return to the comfort of land that felt right. She convinced herself that it would shortly be her job to be able to identify what was wrong when she saw it, without having to guess. She convinced herself that it was time to set philosophy aside. She'd done quite enough philosophy. For some time, Sascha meditates, and prays [repreparing spells] - for strength, for endurance, for luck. If she were to prevail against this...this mutagen, she would need her every blessing.

Insects metamorphosed. They would consume themselves in the transition and live entirely new lives. To see a mammal do it? Her teacher Gleason had said that "every kind was its own law", but Sascha was personally certain that whatever grotesque, rage-filled living shadow of a beaver she had beheld today corresponded to no law she could ever recognize. She could not respect a ravenous half-kind that destroyed every relationship that a naturalist could hold sacred. The abomination and the mutagen that made it would have to be eradicated.

She had to warn the guards about the abomination before morning shift went out on the river. Morning shift had no clue what was waiting for them. They would certainly be surprised and killed.

**If no one shows up**

Spoiler

Show

But who would believe her? For that matter, who ever believed a young woman of ignoble blood after dark? She needed someone who could really help her: someone who could help her interpret the proof she'd managed to collect, who was passionate enough about their own work that they could look past the obvious plight of a slightly disturbed young woman and see the very real urgency. Someone whom the Watch would believe even more than they believed her...

Those were the thoughts that sent Sascha scampering through the streets of Aldhaven in her bloodied cloak at about suppertime to the halls of the Royal University.

[Rizban]

You suddenly feel a hand on the top of your bowed head. Looking up you see Hallethil stepping out of the tree in front of which you kneel, a beatific smile on her face.

"Have you found your purpose?"

[Kalirren]

The young druid looks up, breathes in, and is for a moment speechless, as her pain seems to melt away into soft moonlight at her elder's touch. Of course, it was all in her head. So very tempting it was to admit that she felt her soul shining with the light reflected from unexpected acceptance. Indeed, she was admitting it silently with every motion of her face, for she had the wits to conceal nothing. She could say so much and mean so much more in that very instant; yet somehow, in hesitation, she found her better judgment and tact.

"For now, yes," responded Sascha, her slow blink making clear that she would not mind if now were to be a rather long time. "I am rather glad of it, thought I think the price high. I watched as a beaver ferociously drove itself to consume vile sap from a tree that corrupted it, and I watched it die of a metamorphosis that was wholly unnatural, and be reborn as an abomination."

"I need your help, Hallethil," she implores, cupping the elder's hand firmly in both her own. "I need to know how you knew about the logging camp, and I need you to tell me what you know about the glowing mutagen that has infested the trees in that place."

[Rizban]

Hallethil steps out of the tree fully and takes up a position on the ground with legs crossed.

"I see. I wonder what that may have been. Surely, it must be something quite unusual to exhibit such malignant properties of metamorphosis. It was from a tree, you say? Hmm... I do wonder how it got into the tree in the first place. Did the tree show any signs of ill effect?"

[Kalirren]

OOC

Will it be okay to fluidize time a bit, and finish this discussion concurrently with moving time forward? Unless Hallethil turns out to be the Big Bad or some such, I know that come dawn, Sascha's headed for the Fortress to warn the Watch about the kaiju, and given what Jeriah posted, it's very likely that Sascha would have run into MegaMecha on her way south from the Fortress.

**

"Yes, from a tree," confirms Sascha. "I wonder the same. I don't remember if there was anything particularly wrong about the tree aboveground, though belowground I can't say. I know I did have a very wrong feeling about the whole place. Whether the tree was making it or getting it from elsewhere, I don't know. I fear most that the tree was just concentrating something more everpresent, and I wouldn't know how to know. That's why I need your help," she explains.

She takes a moment to reexamine her memory for more details. "The beavers certainly thought it was a very special tree, and went out of the normal way to harvest it. I think the mutagen flowed with the sap down from the tree aboveground. I actually brought a sample of the bark and the sap back; it's in my bag, but I won't take it out here unless you think it's safe."

[Rizban]

Spoiler

Show

That's fine with me.

Hallethil casts a few warding spells and lays out a thick cloth on the ground before nodding to you to produce the piece of wood.

---

Later That Day

You indeed do cross RoboGal on the way to the Fortress.

[Kalirren]

Sascha helps lay out the cloth and sits cross-legged at the other side facing Hallethil, her feet and knees slightly on the cloth to weigh it down. She then proceeds to unshoulder her haversack and lay it in her lap facing away from her, then open it and take out the cylindrical roll of bark with both hands carefully, afraid of dripping any part of the sample outside the cloth. With great hesitation she sets it down.

"What do you make of it? That's the top. Maybe if I turn it over the sap'll drain out faster," she suggests, crossing her arms, flipping the cylinder upside-down and holding it in mid-air. Curious, she raises it slightly and scruches her head to look underneath, to see if that unnatural glow is yet visible in total shadow.

[Rizban]

The sap has congealed into a sticky, tar like substance. There seems to be no chance of it dripping, though it would probably still be a good idea to not allow it to touch anything important...

Hallethil just looks at it contemplatively for a moment, rubbing her cheek as she does.

"Honestly, my dear, I have no idea what to make of this. It doesn't appear to be a natural phenomenon, and I can't remember having heard of anything even remotely similar to this before. My initial thought at your description is that the tree perhaps belonged to a dryad who had become corrupted through foul magics, but this comes from no dryad. I can think of only two possible methods by which to determine the solution to this conundrum, three perhaps.
First, follow the beavers back to their home to see what you can discover. This may reveal where and how and even why, but it may not unearth the who or what behind it.
Second, dig. Dig deep. Perhaps you can trace the root systems of the affected plant back to some kind of source. That may perhaps reveal what and where but not necessarily why or how.
Finally, you may try to find the individual or individuals responsible and question them, though I find this so unlikely as to be hardly worth mentioning."

[Kalirren]

My initial thought at your description is that the tree perhaps belonged to a dryad who had become corrupted through foul magics, but this comes from no dryad.

"You're sure no dryad did this? How did you know? For that matter, how did you know about the logging camp?"

First, follow the beavers back to their home to see what you can discover. This may reveal where and how and even why, but it may not unearth the who or what behind it.

"Yes, I agree," Sascha nods. "I'm going to have to warn the Watch about the abomination. I didn't mention to you, it's huge, and it drools acid, and it goes through tree trunks like a powered saw. I need to find it and put it down before it decides to go on a hunt and kill someone. That's only a matter of time.

"As for the log, the rest of the tree, I'm less worried. A oaken log that size can't be moved that quickly, even if it's being dragged through the water. Unless it suddenly grows feet, I'll be able to track it down again, and we can safely assume it's coming downstream towards the beavers' dams on the river."

Second, dig. Dig deep. Perhaps you can trace the root systems of the affected plant back to some kind of source. That may perhaps reveal what and where but not necessarily why or how.

Sascha nods again, concurring. "I'll have to go back. Again, I thought the same. I wasn't prepared to talk with trees today, or I would have asked it before the beavers felled it. Here and now, though, I want to ask you to look at the sap more closely." She turns the roll of bark back over and sets it down. "Can you understand from looking at this here what I meant by everything feeling wrong out there in that place? You see, even if I were to feel that feeling again, I don't know if I could recognize it or trace it. Next time I go out there, I want to make sure I know how so that I don't waste any more time. A second pair of eyes would help."

Finally, you may try to find the individual or individuals responsible and question them, though I find this so unlikely as to be hardly worth mentioning.

"I doubt so too. We'll most likely get to the 'who's last, not first. But now consider this: now that we have this transmutative substance in our hands, do you have any suggestions for how one might begin developing an antidote of some sort?"

[Rizban]

"Look at the wood. It's the wrong species to be a dryad. This is clearly oak. Unless I am mistaken, we have had no hamadryades in this part of the world for centuries. There are oreiades far to the east and daphnaie to the north. The occasional meliai can be found to the west, though they are the most rare. Though, if this were a hamadryad tree, it would be most disconcerting indeed...

As to the logging camp, I overheard one of the loggers complaining of problems with the local wildlife when he came here to pray, further investigating with scrying upon his departure and return thence. The view was hazy, but it seemed a reasonable enough locale to begin, given your own desires."

Hallethil leans in to look at the piece of wood, being careful not to touch it herself.

"This is..." she sighs and squeezes her eyes shut. "I'm afraid I really don't know what this sap might be, though I do believe it is not the natural works of the fey. I can feel what you mean about the wrongness, but it's faint, muted... I've spent too many of my years tending to local matters of the heart, guiding people to oneness with the natural world and focusing on the needs of the person. I have lost much of the connection you so obviously feel, and I envy you in this. I must confess that I have not ventured outside of this grove for many years, save for the rare occasions in which my skills were needed within the city, and then only briefly. The grove has become both my sanctuary and my prison, for my powers wane quickly when I leave it. That is why I sent you when you came seeking."

She stands, reaches up to the large tree from which she emerged, and lovingly caresses a lower branch. Seemingly of its own accord, dew and sap run down the branch, carrying tiny glowing bits with them, and pool on a wide leaf, which wraps itself around the liquid. Hallethil plucks the coiled leaf from the end of the branch, kneels back down, and gingerly hands it to you with a faint smile. The odors of cinnamon and cardamom waft up to you from the leaf.

"A gift from the grove. This elixir will protect you from anything unnatural for a brief time. Should you be exposed to this sap yourself, chew the leaf and swallow immediately. Anything not of the natural world will be repelled from you for a few minutes... It is the best I can offer you for the moment."

Spoiler

Show

The leaf is an edible 'potion' that provides a magic circle against X effect that protects against any creature of a type other than animal, magical beast, or fey. This effect lasts for 10 minutes when consumed.
Additionally, the potion will provide an immediate neutralize poison effect and provide poison immunity for 10 minutes.

[Rizban]

Spoiler

Show

Team up thread for record keeping purposes.

[Kalirren]

"Thank you, Hallethil." Sascha puts away the bark roll inside her haversack and accepts the proffered potion daintily and graciously in both hands. "Don't be modest, my friend, and don't lose hope. Your senses are clearly still with you. You haven't lost your knack. I myself can only see a little glow from here. My memory tells me it's wrong, but trying to see how is like trying to make out the twinkling of a faint star." Sascha looks up at the night sky, and when she brings her eyes back down, she regards Hallethil's tree with a certain new reservation, and found herself asking exactly what kind of tree it was - how old Hallethil might be. Rising up again on her knees, Sascha lifts the roll of bark back into her bag, and clasps it closed. But after she puts it all away, she crawls forward a tad and comes to rest on the side of her leg, putting her hand on Hallethil's knee. Her torso turns to face Temple Street. "You don't deserve to be trapped here. No one does, least of all someone with a heart as big as you have. I'm glad to do some travel for you, I really am. And I'll tell you what, when all of this dies down a bit, I'll help you find a way of going out into the wide world again." She lifts the leaf vial and stashes it inside her sack. "It's really the least I could do."

[Rizban]

"Thank you for the kind words, but, believe me when I say, it is a willing imprisonment. If my remaining here can bring even one wayward soul into the true embrace of nature, then it is a sacrifice worth making. Besides," she says as she caresses the tree lovingly, "where would I could I go that could be anything but away from here?" She stares into the distance as if unseeing what is before her, obviously lost in thought or reverie. The look on her face is one of contentment and peace if not necessarily one of happiness or joy.

[Rizban]

By the way, Sascha gains 1,000 XP for partially uncovering the source of the beaver infestation and forging ahead. Forgot to mention that earlier.

[Kalirren]

OOC Understood, and cool.

Sascha didn't want to pull away from the human perspective from which she saw the obvious tragedy. "Not away from here, but that here itself could be a bigger place," she argues, looking at the tree. "You can't separate a city from its hinterland, like you can't separate a small island from its coast. They're really only one place, and you've tied yourself too tight here. I..."

Sascha blinks, breaking the unintended crescendo of her voice. "Listen, you might not be wrong about your sacrifice being worthwhile, but why sacrifice yourself at all? You're worth more than that. Trust me. Please." A sigh and a laugh escape from a youthful smile. "Let me help you, or at least try. At least try with me."

[Rizban]

She hesitates.

"Perhaps...

We both have duties to attend for now. Maybe..." She takes a breath. "We will talk again in the future...

Please. See to the beavers..."

She turns away and, glancing over her shoulder only once, is gone like a mist with the rising sun.

[Kalirren]

Oh, by Pelor, was it morning already? The sunlight strikes the dew, banishing the colors of firelight and continual light to memory for another day.

Fortunate she was to be blessed with clarity of purpose, if only for a moment.

***

After giving her valedictions to Fama, Smithers, and his men, Sascha was once again on the wing and off doing volunteer work. You really had to love what you did to do things like that, she reflected, and she did - she really did enjoy the rush of the landscape, the process of experiencing all of its expanses and crevices, its highs and lows, by air, sea, land and underland - the individual spiritual work and training of honing and ever improving one's connection to the landscape, as Hallethil had remarked. Sascha approached this work today with an unusual keenness unlocked by what she could only describe as new love, spurred on by the dryad's envy. She had another person that she could live for now.

The young druid found that one of the most annoying things about even the most familiar animal forms was needing to eat. Gleason's ring of sustenance, which she typically wore, took care of such bodily inconveniences while she was in her human form, but the ring didn't work when she was shapeshifted. Perhaps that was a 'good thing', in not being too much of a good thing. There was nothing natural about an animal who didn't need to spend time foraging, or hunting, and spending time in that form un-driven by those instincts would be less than edifying.

The search area being more or less a strip 20 miles long, she hoped to do a simple scouting run by passing over the area back and forth, to be back in town before it got dark, which meant before Greywind got too impatient with her leaving him for such stretches of time. She planned to spend the following couple of days in a relatively calm and decent manner, riding in the countryside southwest of town, where the stablehand had told her that there were some sick livestock to check up on. Maybe she could build a circuit for some steady income.

Resisting the tempation to fly low and slow enough to catch a fish, Osprey-Sascha instead tried to find the optimum height from which to survey the riparian landscape the quickest.

[Kalirren]

About Up a Creek/Pacific Rim:
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler

Spoiler

Show

IMO, even if the outcome is predetermined, I'd actually prefer to keep playing that interaction straight. It might actually work narratively speaking, because if Fama -insisted- on going off alone, Sascha would follow both of them by air 'cuz Sascha honestly doesn't really trust Fama when Fama's not with her after that morning's weirdness, and I'd rather hear the insistence from Jeriah rather than by fiat. That was my point in explicitly stating, "[Sascha] drops the subject" that morning - she's covering for her friend against Kate's inquiries, but also herself gives credence to the fact that something is going on.

I don't imagine either of them should know that Sascha plans on following them.

[Rizban]

Spoiler

Show

I understand completely. I was responding based on what Jeriah told me in case she couldn't respond promptly. Like I said, I was going to let it play out, but Thundercracker was getting very impatient, and planswalker started merging their actions before you could post. We can keep doing the conversation out of sequence, but Fama definitely heads out alone to get there as quickly as possible. You'll need to decide what to do with Greywind. Pick up playing here as though Fama has just left, and we'll get you caught up as quickly as possible.

Since you're following by air, I'm going to assume you take the form of some bird and fly high enough to not be easily spotted. In addition to being pretty much your standard MO, it's also going to ensure I don't need to retcon any of their Spot check results. If you wish to do something different, please let me know, and I'll revise things.

Upon concluding your discussions, Fama dives into the water and swims quickly back towards the dam. You follow her from high above, keeping watch both on her and your surroundings for any indication of Katoerian.

When Fama reaches the waterfall, she hesitates a moment before swimming quickly over the edge. She seems to flounder a bit but quickly regains herself and swims to the dam, where she takes up a position off to one side and waits just under the water, only occasionally breaking the surface to scan the area before submerging again.

About 10 minutes later, Katoerian arrives from an oblique direction, barely skirting the tops of the trees. He hesitates a moment, then flies over the dam area, scouting. Fama clearly spots him, and she submerges a bit deeper, avoiding Katoerian's notice. Satisfied that he is alone, Katoerian examines the unfinished point on the dam for a moment before finding a large, heavily leafed tree in which to land. He seems to make himself comfortable to wait.

Both individuals now seem to be waiting for... something, neither being willing to move. Katoerian soon falls asleep.

Spoiler: Assuming you do not interrupt Katoerian's nap...

Show

...then there will be no need for any retcons, and any other actions you take can be slipped into the other narrative fairly easily, even interacting with Fama.

[Kalirren]

After Fama leaves, Sascha quickly makes camp for herself on the ruins of the logging camp, and ties up a canteen of purified water and a bag of oats by a tree near the clearing for Greywind to drink and eat. She didn't trust Fama for her penchant for ending up bloody, and she didn't trust Katoerian to be telling the truth, which left her with only herself and her horse. It would have to do.

She spends a Speak with Animals spell to give Greywind relatively complicated directions, because she's not tying him up, as usual; she tells him that she loves him very much, reminds him not to drink the water from the river, and that she should be back by sunset. If she's not back by morning, he's to go back to the island in the middle of the city, carrying a scroll case in his mouth, which she leaves out for him, under a blanket in the shade.

Inside the scroll case, scrawled on the back of the flyer she was thinking of posting in the Sad Flint a few days before, is a message:

Sgt. Smithers, City Watch
if you are reading this, then I am deep in trouble. My new crowd, whom I do not trust, are the armoured knight you have met and a flying warlock named Kat-er-inn. Start your search at a giant beaver dam upriver of where we left you.

I hope to meet you where you fell off the boat.

Then she takes wing. Knowing that they had left the beavers to rot below the dam, the druid chooses the form of a vulture, for there would likely be a crowd of them to blend into. Sascha is very content to observe. She mistrusts each of her companions differently, and wants to know how they behave when she's not there.

As events unfold, several questions arise in her mind. Katoerian came from an oblique angle; what was in that direction?

Once Katoerian seems to fall asleep, Sascha watches Fama closely - even from the short time she'd known Fama, her friend could seem a bit possessive at times, and she wondered if Fama was ...jealous...? well, at least Fama would at least keep an eye on him, which would buy some time. As she waits, Sascha's mind turns to several different issues; what kind of beavers, and how many, exactly, did Fama slaughter that morning, and where on the river did they come from? Also, there were several horrid beavers that had escaped the incident at the tree, and it would be wise to track them.

She is tempted to go look, as long as she's a bird and Fama and Katoerian are both content to wait for some third party...

[Rizban]

Nothing transpires until nightfall. Just after dusk, Katoerian quietly lifts off from his perch in the tree out of the tree and glides over to the dam. Once there, he makes his way to one of the trees growing on the north side of the river below the dam. He continues to wait for a few moments there. You spot ripples in the water made by Fama as she peeks up and over to locate Katoerian after he flew out of her view on the other side of the dam. Katoerian notices the ripples, but only after she has resubmerged and does not seem to have noticed her at all.

He peers around in the darkness then speaks up a bit loudly but not shouting: "Hello? Is anybody out there? Can anybody hear me? Hello?"

He waits another 20 minutes, eyes drawn briefly by Fama's movement while observing him but still not seeming to recognize her. Perhaps he thinks it merely a fish or turtle. Apparently believing himself alone, he moves to a different location, glances around, then fires a bolt of his foul energies into the unfinished section of the dam, causing the wood there to rot and sag under the weight of the water it holds back.

Before you can react, Fama leaps forth from the water like a flying fish, spiked chain in hand. She lands gracefully atop the dam, scans the area, and quickly spots Katoerian, turning towards him.

"Well, hello, Kate. Do tell, what are you doing?"

Katoerian flinches and withdraws a potion from his pack as Fama appears, then tries to calm down somewhat as he recognizes her. He lifts vertically to the point where he can look her in the eye but keeps his distance, trying to suppress a smug look.

"Lady Fama," Katoerian replied with a slight bow, "I was destroying this dam, but now I am speaking with you. I assume you've come to the same realisation i have, and are here for the same reason? You might have said something when I called out, saved me the fright."

Spoiler

Show

And you are now officially caught up and in sync with them both.

[Kalirren]

Spoiler

Show

Oh crap, you were waiting on me?

As Kateorian sleeps, Sascha grows tired of soaring - thermals are fun to ride, but only for so long, and it's very physically taxing for hours on end. Furthermore, her ring doesn't work to keep the worst of the fatigue away. It really made no sense, she thinks as she descends to poke around the beaver carcasses. What was Kate doing, sleeping by the dam? What was his damned agenda? Sascha passes the time until nightfall blending in with fellow vultures, picking away at the carcass, but eating none, and wondering if she should have to keep track of horrid vultures that ate horrid beaver meat.

"Hello? Is anybody out there? Can anybody hear me? Hello?"

Sascha takes this as her cue to start climbing again. She counts her accelerated heartbeats twice over and waits a minute before leaving the immediate scene for the airspace above it.

And for which gods' sakes was he now trying to destroy the dam?

Maybe the man wasn't as bright as she had thought he was. Beaver dams were only superficially made of wood; the wood was there mostly to stabilize a structure of mud and rock while it remained under construction, and all that weight wasn't going anywhere once the mud had set. If he thought he could blast it down, he would be working for a good long while.

It mattered not. Fama was right, damn it. And with less an hour of whittling, the dam would give way. He'd have an even shot of killing himself if he did it wrong, so arguably, if Fama stopped him, they'd be saving his fool life. And there was Fama, on the job. She was close enough to see the two of them facing off, but too far to really hear their conversation clearly. That mattered to her. All the reasons mattered to her.

Flying unsteadily, like all vultures do, she inconspicuously loses some altitude to come within earshot.

[Rizban]

Spoiler

Show

So, I'm really curious. Just what is Sascha's opinion on Fama? The two have a very interesting dynamic, and I can't quite figure it out.

[Kalirren]

spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler

Spoiler

Show

To Sascha, Fama is a creepy, possessive knight in shining armour. Sascha comes from a village exactly like the one she and Fama stopped by, from a free peasant family rich enough to have a spare horse. She is running from a marriage back home to some dolt who feels entitled to her because he's the only guy her age. She's a lawful neutral horse-thief (she hasn't -inherited- Greywind yet) and an inveterate poacher. She wants to be free. She doesn't want to be anybody's lady, except the land's. (That is to say, she'd be all right with being a noble regnant.)

Sascha is especially disturbed by Fama's comments about Sascha's beauty. She's never thought of herself as a particularly pretty girl. As I've remarked IC, she somewhat resents the world for treating her like a girl, especially when she gets shafted for it. When she shapeshifts into an animal, people and animals both treat her like an animal, for who she is and what she can do. But when she walks around as a person, people treat her like an image they impute onto her, be it a girl or a young lady or whatever. It's really striking, and I must compliment you for how you've really brought that out.

Fama's ethos of judging people by their actions and not their associations resonates powerfully with this thread in Sascha. Additionally, Sascha is immensely grateful to Fama for, as she thinks it, saving her life, and she would let Fama treat her in ways she would hardly suffer others to. Sascha greatly admires Fama's strength and resolve. Yet Sascha is increasingly worried about owing so much to a person who may be unstable and is known capable of what she sees as disproportionate unkindness.

OOC, I think of it as a proto-abusive domestic relationship. We'll see where it goes.

[Kalirren]

spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
This is a Sense Motive roll for Sascha on Fama. Perhaps it's unfair for me to ask based upon Jeriah's response delay, but I think the current possibly critical situation warrants it anyway. (1d20+4)[17]

[Rizban]

Spoiler

Show

I'll give you a result after she posts.

[Kalirren]

OOC: Well, then. I guess it wasn't necessary.

The tall trunks of trees raced past Sascha, from her own point of view, as her blessed strides took her further and further into the forest south of the dam; but Sascha could not escape herself, no matter how hard she tried. She wanted to flee, but there was nowhere to run - nowhere to run from her own choices. She had chosen to accept Fama's help; she had chosen to accept the life-debts; she had chosen to draw her sword and cane and slay; she had chosen to come to this city full of courtly intrigue and cheating watchmen that now loomed so large in the mental fabric of her distress; she had chosen to take Greywind and take her chances away from her own family, away from people like herself.

People like herself. She didn't know if they were dead, how many were dead. She knew she would be hated. She knew there were people looking for her, who did not think they were like her at all. Had she truly left her previous life so far behind? Could she return home without men armed with magic swords knocking on her door?

For a moment, Sascha felt like she hadn't a single friend she could trust in the world. She wanted to remain unfound and hidden, like the maidens who ran from gods' lusts. She wished that she were a simpler being, like the trees all around her, who every morning raised their leaves to receive the sun and rain. She wanted to dissolve.

The undergrowth yielded before her passage, but her lungs could only draw the air in so fast. It was dangerous to run in the darkness, and with every stride, her awareness closed in on her. One false step on an errant rock sent her tumbling, breaking the rhythm of her gait. Her outstretched hands found the shaggy bark of a hickory tree, and her momentum tore several strips away from the trunk as she broke her fall.

Sascha scrambled from all fours into an orphaned crouch, next to a barberry bush half her size as if she could hide behind it. Seeing little in moonlight, she opened her awareness to sound. She heard herself panting. She heard herself collapsing in tears, trying desperately in paranoid fright to shed them without sound. She remained still.

Was she being followed?

[Rizban]

She hears no pursuit. The forest around her is quiet for the moment, her tumultuous noise causing the night creatures to fall silent. After a few minutes, the sounds of crickets resume. In the distance, she can hear the distant hooting of an owl.

[Kalirren]

Who-who. Where-where, Sascha's jokester self quipped silently. What was she going to do? Where was she going to go?

If she went back to the city...well, then the guards would find her, if they were looking. And then it would be only a matter of time before they persuaded her to tell what Fama had shared. They would judge her, she realized; they would judge her in a way that she could not bear to judge a friend. And a friend Fama was, even though Sascha was scared of her - that is what made people different from animals, after all. People could hold contradictions in their heads and act through them. The young druid could hardly think of looking at her own reflection if she betrayed her friend so. Maybe that's why Fama wore a mask...maybe she was afraid of herself.

Fama was afraid of herself, realized Sascha. She couldn't help but let out a breath and raise her gaze to the sky above. And I ran. Oh gods, I've left her alone with herself. How dangerous of a thing might that be?

She thought of going back right then and there, but her sense told her no. What would that do? No. It would have no good effect. She'd won the privacy because she'd needed it. She needed to help herself first.

Staying still was insane. Going back to the city was out of the question.

And that left going further away from the city. Going further from the city meant proceeding further into beaver country, but she had supplies, and at least a finite goal; presumably at the end of the valley there would be some last eastern guard that marked the boundary, and people would start speaking something else.

She resolved to turn back the first time she heard a foreign tongue. But all that began with getting back to camp. That thought was not a happy one - she knew that Fama knew where it was. That very same reason made it imperative that Sascha get back to Greywind before anything strange happened to him. He needed her. Honestly, Fama probably needed her too.

But not now. If she had the courage to show up at the camp, Sascha wouldn't run again. But it was more likely that she, who had run, would have to make the overture again.

Sascha kept the road at some distance as she skulked her way back on foot towards the camp she'd made.

Rolling Survival to not lose my way: (1d20+17)[18] Oh god that's a nat 1.

[Rizban]

Spoiler

Show

Since the DC is 15, and skill checks don't auto-fail...

Sascha makes her way back to the camp, but it's slow going through the undergrowth of unfamiliar woods in the dark. The moon rose early and has long set, the dawn still hours away.

In the distance but not far, Sascha hears the sounds of several creatures following her while trying hard to be stealthy. She pauses a minute to listen before her brain kicks in with an answer. Wolves.