With a skip and a hop, the bounding snake-human leapt from one building to another, using precise burns of her stored reserves to push herself just far enough. Thankfully, the people inside the buildings that she was landing on and leaping from were either utterly incapable of noticing the impacts on their structures while inside, or they were uncaring of them.

Either way, this was good for Lyrhea, who moved swiftly towards her new goal. She knew that to assault the shrine directly was suicide, and to try and sneak in while the guards were about was also suicide, and so she had thought up an old, tried and true tactic that any invader worth their salt would use from time to time.

It was why she was carrying that pot with her, of course. She intended to, to quote a certain toy sheriff, ‘poison the water hole’. It was a pain lugging a literal pot full of liquids around and still bounding from one roof to the next, but she had managed to do so quite well up till now, and it didn’t look like she would need to stop and worry about it anytime soon.

Eventually, though, Lyrhea reached her destination and had to roll the dice again. She saw the grass-covered ground at the base of the buildings leading up to the large well that was currently unguarded and she worried that maybe, just maybe, she was either being set up or that merely touching the grass and/ or ground would alert the Forest Guardian to her presence.

This was the place closest to its very heart, after all, so maybe just so much as being near anything natural would set off alarms. Still, though, she had to try, and so she dropped down and ran over to the well while bracing for any counter that might appear.

She reached the edge of the well as fast as she could and uncovered the liquid-filled pot before dumping its contents down the hole and bolting back up to the rooftops and then back to her hiding space inside the tilted building half embedded into the wooden walls of the town and waited for the inevitable attack that she felt was sure to come quickly.

Putting her back up against a wall and positioning her legs and feet to force a powerful leap from her position quickly should the need arise, Lyrhea waited for what she felt was inevitable, but the inevitable did not come and eventually she relaxed and let her heart stop pounding. She relaxed and sighed deeply. Maybe she was just a bit too paranoid than she needed to be, but given the gravity of the situation she was in she felt it wise to keep herself as paranoid as she could be.

She was alone, she was threatened with death from nearly all sides, and she was deep behind enemy lines with a target on her head. Anyone and everyone she met seemed to be out to kill her, and so why would she not be bouncing between extremes and swamped by paranoia?

She sat down and pulled the pot close again and began to do what she had done last night to it again. This was going to be a long few days and nights. Thank god that she didn’t need to worry about sleeping much anymore…

…

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As Lyrhea finished off the pot once again, she felt a tingle inside her mouth.

“Aw, hell…” she grumbled. “Don’t tell me I’ve got a cavity?”

She pulled her lips apart and dislocated her jaw again and went over to a broken mirror that was hanging on the wall. She ran her finger over her teeth, but she could not find any trace of any discoloration, but the tingling would not stop and only intensified.

She looked back at the pot that lay half-filled. It was the fifth time that she had done this, and the fifth night that she had spent with her face over the metal vessel just drooling endlessly into it. Maybe the overuse of her own biology was causing her some issues?

She put the issue aside for now and decided to let her mouth do whatever it was that it was doing without taxing it even more. She could leave the half-filled pot for now, and besides, what issue would one night of not dumping this stuff into the well cause?

It wasn’t like the situation had already begun to change, after all. Despite four previous times, the townspeople seemed none the worse for wear at all, not that she got much of a good look at them while stealing through the night and avoiding patrols.

…

“The chickens are restless…”

“are you… was that a…? Did you mean that literally?” asked another man.

“Oh? Yeah, yeah I did. Something keeps spooking them at night, and I’ve got a mind to stay out tonight and see what it is. Might be responsible for the dip in numbers.”

“Eh, it might just be the avatars of God, just getting their fill, y’know?”

The second man shook his head. “When did God’s avatars ever need to eat our food? Our children, sent into the shrine, offer their prayers forever as sustenance for them, so why would they need our chickens?”

“Eh, just a thought.”

“Say, I don’t mean to pry, but do you feel a little… off lately?”

“Yeah. I can’t really place it, but I just feel kinda, well, off…. I mean, It isn’t being sick, but it isn’t not being sick. Maybe there’s something going around?”

“Shouldn’t be. The Harvest God said that we’d never be touched by plague again.”

“Yeah… weird…. Well, maybe its all just the stress. That monster is still out there somewhere, and we’re all on pins and needles. I know I am, at least.”

“That’s probably it. It has to just be stress. Hey, fancy a drink? I’m stopping by the well to pick up some water for later, so do you want to go with me?”

“Sure. Tastes a bit funny lately, though.”

“Yeah. Can’t place why, though.”