Chapter #4Ruminate on the matter by: Yote   "I will need time to consider this matter," you announce with as much gravitas as you can muster. It seems to give the villagers some reassurance as they disperse to do... whatever it is the common folk do with their time. Joshua brings forth a flagon of weak ale, presenting it as a great gift, before removing himself from your sight.
Blight and shadows - they could be symptoms of almost anything. Alone at the fire, you take a stick and begin to doodle out a few hypotheses in the sandy dirt.
Shades of undeath birthed from the bodies of unburied dead? Unlikely, considering the small settlement has a priestess.
Burnt out fire elementals holding on as smoke on the wind. It would not explain the shadows but not the blight.
Demon souls pushing through reality from the other side, manifesting as hazy figures. Possible. But again the presence of a priestess should ward away such incursions, assuming she is performing her rituals right.
Fetchlings? Nah. Fetchlings weren't malicious but they were mercantile. If they saw starving villagers, they'd be selling them food by now.
Cheap seed and jumpy villagers. You underline that one with your stick.
Across the miserable landscape, grey clouds are rolling in. Away from the village a dip in the land shields the fields from the weather. Villagers mill about the edge of the rotten brown expanse as if lost. Some are even splitting open the decayed husks as though expecting to find ripe grain inside.
The whitish gown of the priestess draws the eye. Ilia is marching towards the field, dragging a lanky youth behind her. He seems bemused and brow-beaten, carried along by her harsh tongue more than her strength.
"Stop whining and drink this," she snaps, pushing a bowl of something to the boys lips.
He obeys. Annoyingly, whatever he's offered is clearly much stronger than the swill given to you, as the lad immediately staggers as if drunk. The priestess lifts a handful of dirt, smearing it down his cheeks and forehead. She straightens a chaplet of green grass on her head and begins to incant, though sounding to stammer and fumble some of her lines. Taking the addled boy by the hand, she leads him between the rows of withered crop, discarding her gown as she goes.
The specifics of such things lie beyond your area of expertise, but you recognise a pagan fertility rite when you see one. The old ways still hold sway in these remote lands. You raise a flagon to the lad's good fortune, assuming that the priestess isn't required to kill him upon consummating the ritual. Evidently you didn't raise it high enough - a minute later, Joshua is racing towards the field, bellowing his daughter's name. As he dives in after the pair, a thick black cloud of flies feasting on the decay buzzes into the air.
Flies, you write in the dirt, driving the stick in as the fullstop. Frightened villagers mistaking a swarm of flies for shadow figures. That's all this is. The others will mock when they learn the details of your first mission.
From the fields comes the sound of coitus interuptus of a sort, as Joshua bellows, "Ilia! No! Not the baker's boy! Got off him right now! What will your grandmother think?!" and Ilia begins screeching at him like a banshee.
"I haven't finished yet!"
"Well you're finished now, young lady! Remove yourself from... his person at once!"
"You can't stop me!"   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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