“Heeey, Snowball! What's uuup? … Ja? … Ooh, very goot. Just an injunction. … Puh-leeze, we both know it could be way worse. … Mhm. … Yeah. … Coppernose, hold on a second. You… do remember that you have another product, right? … I know that you like the big boom-bang-pow sticks, but I’m kinda more interested in the flying magic zappies. … Hey, you should be too, considering they’re probably going to make money without the need to win a protracted lawsuit… just sayin’. Well—”
Knock knock
“Hold on a second. WHAAAT?”
Pokle opened my door. “I have a very freaked-out GC on the line. I can’t make heads or tails of his situation, but I can tell he wants to talk to you.”
Sure enough, some incomprehensible gibberish was radiating from the stones she was carrying. “Yeesh, I can hear him from here. Hey, Snowball, rain-check, looks like an emergency. … Thanks, bye.” I clicked the stones. “Alright, give ‘em here.”
Pokle handed me the stones and I gestured for her to stand next to me. “Hello?” I asked, before immediately needing to make some space between my ear and the speakerstone.
“Dude. DUDE! Pipe down, what the fuck is going on? … O– okay, it itches, that doesn’t help. … I need you to focus. Where are you? … Uh-huh, okay, near where, give me something on the map. … Pokle, map, find me the village of Brilton, near the forest of Faurlorne.”
She was off in a flash, leaving me with my panicking compadre. “Okay, we have the ‘where’. Now, what do you need? … Hello? Are you there? … HELLO? … Who is this? … Alright, ma’am, but what happened to the other guy? … What? The itching got him? What does that even mean? … Alright, alright, what do you need? What is causing this? Stay focused. … Okay. … Fine, we can deal with it. … Oh my god. … I hear you, it’s bad, whatever it is. We’re on our way, just hang in there. … We’re coming.”
I hung up and stood bolt upright, rushing out to the main office space to do a headcount. 1.
“Cam, where is everybody?” I yelled nervously.
He flinched slightly at my tone. “Lunch! I already–”
“Have you read how to use the hazmat kit?”
“Uhh, yeah, yeah, I have.”
I pointed at him. “Fucking. Great. You’ve just been volunteered for emergency response. Get a hazmat for each of us, as well as the analysis kit, and tell Pokle I’ll be back in 5 minutes!” I ordered before rushing out the door. No, I didn’t hear if he responded, and frankly, I didn’t care if he objected.
My feet carried me across streets, through alleyways, bowled over some random gentleman who was probably going to mug me, and right to my stable. I threw the door open and had Pyroshir’s saddle halfway strapped by the time he de-statuized.
“Whoa, what’s the rush, Big Bossman?” he asked, slightly startled by my urgency.
“Got a call. Sounds like some guys are straight up dying right now, so we’re going to go save ‘em.”
“Nah, I ain’t doin’ it.” I took a step back and looked him in the eye, flabbergasted. Before I could say anything, Pyroshir pulled his lips back in a cheesy smile. “I’m joking. Let’s go!”
“Oh thank god. Now is not the time for the independence to kick in, no offense.”
He shook his mane. “None taken,” he spoke, entirely too soon as he spotted the catch-orb in my hand. “Wait, some takeeeeeeeee–”
Finishing the sentence wasn’t an option, as he was quickly reduced to real pocket-monster status. I spun back around and started my run back, knocking the exact same likely-cutpurse on his ass a second time. In a record-breaking round trip, I arrived back right as both my subordinates were finishing their tasks.
“I found it!” Pokle yelled the moment I got in. “I called ahead and had the local sorcerer chalk up a teleportation sigil for you.”
“Great. Cam, kits?”
He held up the 3 separate E-D sacks. “Got ‘em. What’s the situation?”
I unpacked the 6-piece hazmat barrier set, donning the bangles, anklets, sash and necklace as I spoke. “We have some unknown outbreak in the forest of Faurlorne. I didn’t get any names, but there were two people on the line suffering from some sort of symptoms. I didn’t get much description, but, and I quote: ‘Ahh, it itches, it itches so bad, help me, it won’t stop’ and ‘hurry, I can feel it wriggling under my skin’.”
Cam and Pokle shared a look as I finished getting dressed. Instantly, my senses of touch and smell went kaput, so I knew it was working. “These calls are almost always serious. It’ll either be a plague, which we can diagnose, call the authorities, and bounce, or it’s a blight, which is probably our job.” I gestured to Cam. “Get dressed. I should probably take someone with more experience, but them's the breaks. We’re leaving ASAP.”
He looked at me, then the sack. “Fuuuck, dude, I guess it’s me,” he mumbled before getting his quarantine kit on.
Off we went to the basement. The sigil whirred, bottles were smashed, and some expensive-as-hell portal potions spread across the floor. We were whisked away into the distant Nassur equivalent of Nebraska in a flash. If I had to make a tier-list of spots to—rather noisily—teleport into a place, town bloody square would get a big fat F. But there I was, with 100+ heads turned in surprise as Cam zapped in right behind me.
Rather than explain anything to such plebeians, I gave the local sorcerer a polite nod of thanks (as opposed to ripping his head off for location choice), and proceeded to shout: “ANYONE SEE A GODS’ CHOSEN HEADING INTO THE FOREST RECENTLY?”
“YEAH, HE WENT THAT WAY, WHY?” a random citizen shouted.
I craned my neck to see where he was pointing, at which point Cam applied his height advantage. “That way?” he pointed.
“YEAH!”
With minimal information gathered, I cleared my throat for another good yelling. “CLEAR THE WAY, HE’S CALLED FOR HELP! RAPIDASH, I CHOOSE YOU!”
Pyroshir appeared in a flash of light from the thrown catch orb (and if I didn’t mention it here, someone would be like ‘hey where’d that expensive orb go?' I picked it up with disjoint). I mounted up and got Cam riding tandem. With a flourish, at least partially for the crowd of confused onlookers, I spurred Pyroshir forward.
“Our mystery dungeon awaits. Red rescue team, AWAY!”
And we were off. The crowd parted as I acted semi-heroic, and Cam was trying to distribute a few warnings about something going badly in the forest. It was cute, but unlikely to really make the key difference, as we were on our way to, y’know, stem the tide of 'problem' at its source. The forests of Faurlorne came into view the moment we left town, with scarcely a mile of farmland in our way. All subtlety pre-abandoned, we went at wind-swept hair speeds. Well, for me. Wind ain’t doing nothing to Cam’s short fade cut.
Well, that wind. Not the other wind, he’ll ruin anything. I wonder how hard it was for him to keep up behind us.
Once we hit the woodline, I slowed us down. It was time to start paying attention. Of course, a distraction had to come first.
“Did y’all see their dumb-lookin’ faces? It’s like they ain't neva seen no burnin’ black horse before,” Pyroshir quipped.
My response was delayed on account of only half listening. “Umm, I missed them, sorry.”
He looked over his shoulder. “No time for jokes? We really that serious?” he asked, seeing my stony face. “Damn. Now I gots to pay attention too.”
Our party of three fell silent as we watched and listened for any signs of trouble. The birds sang, the crickets chirped, and the wind kept stepping on twigs like the amateur he was. I silently prayed that he was immune to whatever we were walking into. Thus we went, deeper into the eerily calm woods. Whatever it was, it seemed not to have spread to the entire forest… yet.
Left and right our heads swiveled, searching for the slightest hint of anything. The real wind swept the grass, leaves fell piecemeal as the autumn colors demanded they would, and not one bit of it was calming. The anxiety had plenty of time to move in, liven up the place, maybe even throw a barbecue by the time I saw…
“Is that a camp up ahead?”
Cam and I leaned in opposite directions and both agreed that it looked like a few shelters in a spot up ahead. We dismounted and walked up to find… a scene. Orcs were strewn about the place, all frozen, desiccated in various poses of distress… death. Some were curled, others clutching limbs, and almost all of them were covered in self-inflicted claw marks. I crouched down to study some of them.
“Itching,” I said to nobody in particular.
Cam blew some air. “Damn, what happened here? They all just itched so bad they couldn’t find a drink? Or is this a further progression of the disease?” He dragged a foot across the ground. “Their salt shaker detonate or what?”
I left behind the orc I was crouching over and took in the sights. He was right. Granules of white salt were all over the place. “Maybe they were trying to ward off a demon? Can probably rule out demons, since whatever it is still got ‘em.”
“Somethin’ else merk’d this one,” Pyroshir called.
Our heads swung around to see an orc in a similar predicament as the rest, however, he also had an arrow through the head. I stood over the body and mimed shooting a bow straight down into the poor sod’s head. It lined up perfectly.
“That’s a mercy kill. Might’ve been our caller that did it, if the timeline matches up. Cam, check the fire pit, see if it’s still warm at all.”
He was about to do that when Pyroshir stepped in the way. “Leave that to the big dog.” He strutted over and sniffed the ashes. “This was last burnin' 8 hours, 22 minutes, and 16 seconds ago.”
We both looked at him, then at each other. “Well, that settles it. Dollars to donuts says our caller did this.”
I drew a pocket knife and tapped on the ribcage of the most recently deceased orc. It sounded hollow. Then I made a little stab at the gut, but no liquid came out of the wound. “Dead to dry in 8-ish hours. That’s not good.”
Right then, it was like a light switch went off. Every sound in the forest went blank. No frogs, no birds, no crickets, not even an errant gust of wind. I dropped my knife and drew my sword, backing up to stand by Cam, who followed along and readied his sickleback hammer. We stood ready, back-to-back as we waited in a near-perfect silence.
“That’s reeaaaally not good,” I whispered out of hand.
It felt like an eternity we waited, but it only took about 2 minutes before we heard an actual sound. It was the clatter of a rock, tumbling across dry earth, originating from beyond a small bush. We waited a moment more, but nothing happened.
“You wanna draw straws, or go together?” I asked in a hush.
“Together,” Cam answered with a mild tremor to his voice.
In unison, we crept around the bush, eyes alert as Pyroshir stood silent vigil behind us. I spotted a patch of dry, cracked, sun-baked earth. In the middle of it, sprouted a single white tulip with a round black spot. I approached it and motioned Cam over. As we drew near, the black spot moved as if the iris of an eye, because that’s exactly what it was. Once it spotted us, the sounds of nature began to return.
Releasing a stressed breath, I addressed Cam. “Alraune, that’s an alraune ocular stem. Stationary nature guardian, close relative of the dryad. She has a vested interest in the wellbeing of the forest. Let me do the talking.”
I knelt by the flower as Cam held watch. “Can you hear me?”
The eye-dot moved up and down, a nod for sure. “I’m Dennis, did we speak on the stone earlier?”
Yes. “Okay, look in the right direction, and we’ll come to you”
The eye turned around and I laid a compass down for reference. “Bearing north-northwest. We’re on our way, hang tight.”
……
Pyroshir held a good pace through the temperate woods as we followed the compass. With every hoof beat, we not only closed in on our callers, but neared the epicenter of the problem. It’s not easy to tell in the fall, but the trees were withering, dying. Many had lost all their leaves already, their branches and trunks thin and frail by some unseen force. The more I saw, the more certain I was that we had a blight on our hands, though it had yet to be narrowed down.
I was also quite grateful for the magical hazmat gear we were wearing.
As the minutes ticked on, the ground we crossed was dead and drying. Flowers were desiccated husks, grasses made hay look like it was 90% water, and the bushes were pretending to be tumbleweed. The sun was more prevalent than shade as the trees were all but dead twigs standing. It was just begging for a single spark to burn it all down, whether by accident or not. In fact, a forest fire was one of the potential solutions knocking around in my head. Push comes to shove…
“Alraune bud, dead ahead,” I called out upon sighting the titanic flower in an upcoming clearing.
“I see it… damn, that’s big,” Cam commented.
He’s not wrong. While shut, that flower bud was at least 15 feet tall. They’re shorter unfolded, only about 9 feet, which is why they have a hard time seeing… eye to eye. Bad jokes at bad times aside, we stopped at the edge of her… former clearing. It might’ve been a small meadow if everything wasn’t a dehydrated husk.
“Alright, Cam, Pyro, here’s the deal. Alraunes are generally reasonable, but they can get violently unreasonable when they or their forests are threatened, and, well, look around,” I explained with a wide gesture. “That being said, unless one of you want to volunteer, I’ll go make contact.”
It was all quiet as I gave my companions a chance to take up the mantle of ‘good-natured idiot’ in my stead. When—expectedly—nobody volunteered, I did it myself. Dismounted, I walked over, making sure to be easily noticeable. The massive flower bud was built atop a bed of viney tendrils, half thorned, half not, all prehensile, because god forbid a regular monster girl isn’t enough, they throw in a tentacle monster combo for absolutely free!
What I gleaned was that most of those appendage vines were shriveled, save a few, and two were raised all the way up and sticking into the closed flower at the top. It meant something, and I was about to find out as I knocked on the leathery plant flesh making up the outermost protective layer.
“Hello? The legendary heroes you ordered have arrived. We accept cash or credit.”
After a few moments, the flower began to creak and groan as it unfolded. Petals of pink and yellow appeared from within their protective shell of green, each one pocked with patches of sickly brown. And within all that were two people. One bow-equipped hero, unconscious, and dangling by the two vines wrapped around his arms, and one alraune.
Normally, describing the humanoid segment of such a being would involve words like ‘thick’ and ‘big tiddies’, but that wasn’t the case. She was skin and bones, appearing to be incredibly malnourished. Her breasts were a distant memory, long since flattened as the stored nutrients were needed elsewhere. The leaves that would typically cover them like a bra were hanging limp and sickly. The large blossom that would serve as her hair was brown and dry, shriveled into almost nothing. Her green skin was about as smooth as a raisin.
“Y– y– you’re here t– to help?” she asked through parched lips and rotting teeth.
I put a hand to my chest. “Yes. I’m Dennis, over there is Cameron, and the horse is Pyroshir. Now, answer these 3 questions, please. What’s your name, what happened to him, and what do you know about what’s going on here?”
She took a deep breath, nodding along. “He… descended int– into raving madness. The itching, the itching was too much. I had to put him to sleep, s– slather him in nectar to preserve him. I d– d– don’t know the source. It came without warning, an itch with no cause, wilting death with no end. Please…” she shuddered. “My name is… th– they call me Guardian.”
“Guardian? Is it alright if I call you Dia?”
“I don’t… call me what you will, but please, help me,” she whimpered.
“You got it,” I replied, motioning the gang over. “Alright, Cam, get the analysis kit out. Dia, drink this.”
I threw her a restoration potion that Matti had recently added to my kit. The cost of such was not on my mind, as it was plausibly the difference between life and death. She did as ordered and instantly appeared slightly less skeletal. Cam approached with our scanning and divining equipment and passed me some of it.
“Good to meet you, ma’am, we’ll take good care of you,” he greeted.
Dia said nothing, only sitting down in the knee-deep pool of nectar, grasping her knees and gently rocking back and forth. Our unnamed blondie GC was laid down on the petals to rest as well. I exposed a sickly petal, brushing away the sand to search it with a dowsing rod. It detected magic, but that’s not much of a surprise while pointing it at a magical creature. I moved onto a divining pendulum and its chart while Cam checked Blondie.
Several fruitless minutes passed as we found little. The patches of brown were either dry, or swollen in an attempt to survive, but a source was not forthcoming. Cam and I traded equipment, though it didn’t help. Over and over again I dusted a place off and searched with an increasing variety of esoteric divination equipment, but it was nada, nothing. Even pale, sandy granules didn't return a reading to the equipment. Dia did a very good job of letting us work, considering the encyclopedia entry calling alraune ‘touch sensitive’ and ‘whippy’.
I backed off and started listing the tools we hadn’t used, which had hit the critical number of 0.
“Dia, how long was Blondie in the forest before he called us?”
“Less than a day.”
I scratched my head. “That’s just it. A time like that from exposure to debilitation is too short for most any disease that doesn’t trip the divination. It has to be a blight of some sort, but what’s causing it? There is a great deal of surface damage, targeted desiccation. But it’s not on the surface, and that crystal ball right there is literally designed to detect internal parasites. What are we missing?”
Cam looked up from where he knelt on the flower petals. “Is there anything divination resistant? Maybe we need to go conventional.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Possible, definitely possible,” I replied, bouncing a pointed finger up and down. “I’ll see what non-magical stuff we have, and maybe start working through the reference books.”
“Umm… heroes…” Dia called out. “Who is… what is th– that?”
All 3 of us looked where she was pointing. There was a humanoid… outline standing a few paces away, dotted with specks of white sand. Cam reached for his weapon, but I called out first.
“Dude! What part of invisible bodyguard is so hard to understand?”
The wind looked at himself, judging by the head movements. Then, brushed the white sand off his arm and itched. Right then, something in my brain clicked.
“Whoa whoa whoa, wait wait waitwaitwait. Wind, you’re professional. You don’t just get dirty like that… so… how’d all that get there?”
Everyone was motionless for a moment. I gathered my senses and snatched a little glass petri dish plus tweezers from the analysis kit and bounded over to the wind. Deftly, I picked 5 of the pieces of sand off his skin and into the dish before I closed the top. Cam was in sync with me as he’d forgotten the appearance of the wind and was already setting up our knockoff microscope. I handed him the reference book from the bag, a thick tome full of many, many culprits of countless afflictions.
I peered into the scope as he awaited any information I gleaned. “Oh yeah, we found our culprit, Cam. Grains of sand don’t have legs.” I paused to look further. “They’re see-through, barely off-white, two tiny black dots for eyes and six legs. Now that I think about it, that probably wasn’t salt in the orc camp.”
He nodded. “Probably… but, any ideas what they are, exactly?”
My lips scrunched. “I have a vague recollection on one of the entries there. Go to the index and try ‘glass mites’.”
I kept my eye on the little buggers while Cam searched. “I’ve got a… Glassien Silicomite.”
“Sounds promising. Let’s hear it.”
Cam cleared his throat and started skipping through the highlights. “Magic bio-weapon, designed by the dark wizard Eidrich Glassien in the grimdark era. These mites attack all living things by extracting moisture, leaving extreme irritation and rashes, soon progressing to fatal dehydration.”
I looked up as he continued. “Devastating… armies… losses… here we go. Diminutive bugs, easily mistaken for individual grains of sand. Motionless when observed and designed to be undetectable by magic. Some eggs still lay dormant to this day.”
With one more glance into the microscope, I confirmed that they had moved since I last checked. “I think we’ve got a match, Cam. What’s the defcon rating?”
“3.”
I stood up and popped my back, then pulled out my map. “Aaand we’re in the demilitarized zone. Neutral ground. Get your stones out, you’re calling the League. I’ll phone the Holy Expeditionary Forces. We are going all hands on deck.”
......
“Hello? … Yeah, this is Dennis, one of the Chosen. I need to speak to whoever is in charge of outbreaks and blights. … Just– just transfer the call. Verify who I am after you hand me off to the guy in charge, please. … Thank you. … Hi, yes, speaking. … Yeah, I’ve got a blight of some Glassien Silicomites here in the forest of Faurlorne, near the village of Brilton. How soon can you get here? … Yes, I have verified the culprits to the best of my ability. … Alright, I’ll send a runner to guide you here. Look for a flaming black horse. … Godspeed.”
I concluded my call and checked on Cam, who was holding the speakerstone between his shoulder and head whilst referencing the dialogue tree guide for the League in his handbook. He noticed that I was done and waved me over.
“I got a little lost. I made it as far as emergency services, but I don’t know which category. Is it wayward creatures?” he whispered.
I raised a finger, then pondered a moment. Then, I reached down and flipped him to the next page and tapped a section. “Ask for a supervisor, then mention ‘old war scars’. Should do the trick.”
He nodded a thanks and I consulted the Silicomite entry. It was rather concerning how the solution listed was ‘contact authorities’. The only other helpful information was the decontamination protocol, which was to soak exposed people or items in a mixture of potion base #12 and some other things, or ash-based soap. Or just burn the items (… people).
While it wasn’t much help overall, I did get one idea. In my bag was a resistance rainbow, AKA one of every elemental resistance potion. So, I gave Dia the fire resistance potion… and maybe a few healing potions too.
“What… do I need these for?” she asked in a tiny voice.
I beckoned Pyroshir over. “You’re covered in parasitic bugs that are vulnerable to fire, so I want you to drink that orange fire resistance potion so that this fire elemental right here can blanket you in flames, and you won’t die, deal?”
Pyroshir pranced in place excitedly. “Now we talkin’! Imma get to use ma SKEELS! Ma special talent of burnin’ shit down.”
Dia didn’t answer, rather, she just drank the potion and braced for impact. Pyroshir then proceeded to breathe white-hot fire all over her, getting it between every petal and vine. (Huh, the way I worded that sounds kinda… hot.) While that was going down, Cam seemed to finally get where he needed to go, leading him to hang up a moment later.
“Alright, they’re on their way.”
I looked up from the rather unhelpful encyclopedia entry. “What sort of forces are they sending, what’s their ETA, and where are they dropping in?”
“The 5th Masters of Decay and Pestilence. Said they’d be scrambled in 20 minutes tops, and they traced our call right here, which I didn’t know they could do.”
“If America did it, the League of Conspicuous Evil is probably able to as well, even down to racism, bombing foreign countries, and overthrowing perfectly-stable presidents and prime ministers to install despotic dictators that ruin the country for decades to come. Oh, and I need you to hop on Pyroshir and go guide-in the good guys, since they’re porting into town.”
His face was blank for a moment. “What?”
I sighed and raised both my shoulders and hands expressively. “I need you, to get onto that horse, and go back to get our support,” I explained, doing double knife hands.
“No, I got that, but–”
“Get on the fuckin’ horse, Cam. People and plants and plant people are sick and dying and I need you to go do something about it rather than sitting on our hands making fun of America! Even if that’s exactly what we’d do back home!” I yelled, at the time only caught up to late 2019 in Earth happenings.
Happily, Cam had hoofed it for Pyroshir, who had stopped burning out the pests on Dia’s body. Cam was… mildly intimidated, avoiding eye contact with a slight ‘oh shit’ frown. Pryo, on the other hand…
“If I can get fah more minutes, since I ain’t done getting flames all up in this bitch.”
I whipped out the volcano rod (obligatory giggity). “I got it covered, shoo! And flame up to get any Silicomites off once you’re out of the danger zone!”
They ran off, and I gave the dials on the rod’s shaft a few twists, getting the settings just right. I shook my head and wandered over to Dia, who was peeking over the edge of her flower.
“Is… everything alright in this 'America'?”
“Well, if I had to guess, with all the timey-wimey bullshit, it’s probably getting into the 2020 election season right now, so, given the 2016 elections, I’m just going to go out on a limb and say no.” I sent 2 little bursts of flame out the end of the rod. “Now, this might be a little too hot, so if it is, scream first, potion second, okay?”
(Here’s a spare giggity, just place it wherever you feel is best.)
……
“I… I’ve stopped itching… in places,” Dia noted tiredly.
My circular pace around her flower continued as I hosed the ground and nearby underbrush into ash. “Well that’s nice. Probably burnt and regenerated a lot of the irritation at this point.”
A minute later, I heard the crackle of actually good portal magic. A spinning disc of crimson darkness formed, from which stepped the MODAP (5th brigade, 3rd company). 48 of them. For looks, they were a mix of plague doctor and… skitarii, I guess, minus the high-tech gadgetry. And if you don’t know what a skitarii is, congratulations, your chances of being a meaningfully-contributing member of society have increased. (Also, in that case, just fill in the blanks with your imagination or something.)
A woman approached me, hand extended. It was pretty easy to tell the sexes apart as her… utilitarian take on a latex (leather, technically) fetish suit had an impressive amount of under-boob. At least their cloaks were unisex, as well as full of pockets and equipment. Count at least 1 win for practical design. (No, the men were not sexualized, the true crime of the day.)
“Would you be Cameron, or the Dennis he mentioned?” she asked through that steel crow mask with a British accent.
I looked her in the back-lit red goggles. “Dennis.”
“Sanma. And where would Cameron be?”
“He’s…” I started, immediately falling silent as I heard a significant amount of hoofbeats. “About to arrive with the Crusaders of Restoration and Preservation.”
She visibly sighed, forcing me to look somewhere else out of politeness. “Well then, we’re off to a flying start. Everyone, make ready for hostilities!”
Great minds think alike, as neither of us particularly trusted zealotry. All 48 MODAPs produced a stylish ‘walking cane’ from their robes and waited. Menacingly. Cam led a small stampede of 60-some horses, atop which were lightly-armored knightly fellows, festooned in some nice white-and-blue colors. I might have liked to see some of the distinctive yellow that goes with hazmat barrier items, but hey, not my problem. Cam and company came to a stop at the edge of the still-smoldering clearing.
A slightly fancier knight removed his feathered helm. “Oh good, I see that it’s a proper party here already. Come to help us clean, or take notes on the results of your latest experiments, hmm?”
“You know we are equally as adept at removing pestilence,” Sanma retorted without a hint of anger in her voice. “And I am sure you are aware of the nature of today’s threat: An ancient remnant of a bygone era, best stricken from existence.”
Everyone dismounted and a big circle formed, with Cam and I in the center, unfortunately. Sanma and Crawlos introduced themselves, and henceforth I will refuse to refer to him as anything but ‘Craw’. With tensions dying down… enough, I took the lead.
“Okay, everyone’s here. First, is everyone familiar with what we’re dealing with?”
“Yes, of course,” Sanma affirmed.
I glanced to Craw, who was whispering to his right-hand-man to go deal with a small contingent of his men huddling around their own manuals. He noticed my stare and straightened up. “Oh, um, yes, sufficiently so.”
“Grrreat. So, what’s our best solution?
Sanma raised her hand, to which a sen-soary bat flew down and hung from the underside of her wrist. 5 imaginary dollars if you can guess what that critter does. He chirruped into her ear for a moment as she nodded along.
“It seems the infestation has spread several miles in each direction from an epicenter 1 mile northeast from here. At this size and stage, the Silicomites have been reproducing for months, so we face numbers well into the millions. They most likely can be found in areas showing no symptoms for several miles more.”
Craw nodded along for a moment. “Burn it.”
“Burn it,” Sanma repeated.
I looked over my shoulder at Dia, who was listening intently. “Burn it?”
She looked around at the withering, dying woods. A number of emotions played across her face. However, if there’s ANY species of forest guardian I would expect to make the hard decisions in favor of nature’s wellbeing, it would be an alraune (sometimes known as a war dryad).
“... Burn it.”
I smacked my fist into my palm. “Okay, here’s our game plan. MODAPs, you’re on information. I want the edge of the infection charted fast. Whatever manpower that task leaves, I want in pairs, partnered up with pairs of the crusaders in 4-man teams. They’re on endangered species, magical creature, and innocent animal duty. Follow the crusaders’ lead on attracting and calming the critters, then work your decontamination magic.
“We’re basing right here by Dia, it’s a perfect landmark and already somewhat clear. I want a command tent and the decontamination tubs set up ASAP. Get the animals coming in before the fires can spook them. Sanma, pick a coordination team to keep everyone on-task, and have the crusaders do the labor for setting up camp.
“Craw, can you cast… umm… shield of innocence in the continuous line style?” He was surprised again, but nodded in the affirmative. “Great. Once we have the borders marked, I want you and Cameron on Pyroshir. Cam will drive, while Pyro will leave a trail of blazing destruction. You will be laying the line of the spell until you complete a circuit around the affected area. That should contain the blaze. Until then, I want your free hands to be burning anything flammable within 300 yards of Dia, should keep the fire off our backs later. Everyone got it?”
Nobody said a word for a good few seconds. I scanned the faces, noting that most weren’t too confused. The rest were wearing blackened steel crow masks.
“MOVE OUT!”
……
It gets a little less glamorous after that. There was a command tent with a bunch of calling stones in walkie-talkie mode, a map constantly being scribbled on with new updates of the boundaries, and about 6 people talking their heads off constantly. A med-tent was pitched, into which went our dear comatose caller. They were giving him fluids for the next 4 hours. We also got the decon tents up and running quickly, with tubs of ash-soapy water that kills Silicomites that try to drink it—which they do in an attempt to eliminate the moisture.
Deer, rabbits, and birds were flowing in constantly, along with a smattering of faeries, monsters that are sufficiently cute and cuddly, and also apparently a dryad who’d gone into septic shock when entering a diseased tree. I didn’t ask if she had a name, and everything was magically frozen after being washed, so your guess is as good as mine.
I expected more fights, but apparently I’d put the fear of God(s’ Chosen) into them, and also being on the job at a natural disaster makes people more cooperative. Who knew? We had the boundary charted in 1.5 hours, and Pyroshir did that legendary lap I proposed, spewing fire, hooves aglow, leaving incendiary destruction in his wake while Craw shielded the outside world at all costs. He did bottom out hard on mana, but credit where credit is due, he drew an entire protective circle as Pryo went full-speed.
Thus, we sat back and watched the world burn. Everyone was recalled as the fire came inward, right at us. A flood of salt-granule-looking mofos came spilling in as the fires spread. We offered them no quarter, for even as they’d abandoned the strategy of stillness when observed, it didn’t save them from being purged in holy fire. The biggest fuss was trying to contain the crusaders’ horses, which were getting itchy and freaking out at the fire. That was a good 2-hours of magically pacify, wash, freeze.
Great walls of fire closed in on us from every direction, rushing forward to consume the brush and leaf litter, setting trees ablaze and sending a tower of smoke higher than a mountain. We felt that heat, the wind it made as air was sucked in to fuel the blaze. It was a spectacle of nature beyond magic. A raw display of science, and a very good example of a chain reaction. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. The Silicomites had only 2 choices. Stand and burn, or face us… and burn.
With just a few teams needed to sweep the camp of new ‘salties’, as we’d begun to call them, that left the remaining labors for each sect. The crusaders—shockingly—had to wash themselves thoroughly, because that’s what happens when you don’t use protection. The MODAPS, meanwhile, were preparing to scatter ash soap far and wide across the forest, then conjure a light rain. A quick, effective 1-2 punch to wipe out any stray populations.
And amid all the chaos, I snuck off to a vacant decontamination tent to give the wind a bath. Then, I stuffed him into my shoulder bag, because that’s literally the best idea I could come up with to not have him carry any infection. He didn’t say anything to complain, but, then again, he never says nothin’.
That did leave a few other things, though, which were to be discussed in the command tent.
“Now that the forest is quelled, we need to get any animals who may have passed through recently all soaped up as well,” Craw suggested.
Sanma pointed to the map. “The village of Brilton is the most likely to harbour a secondary concentration. Given the likelihoods, I propose that it is burnt.”
Seeing Craw’s fist tense, I knocked on the table. “Middle grounds, people.” I pointed at Sanma first, then alternated who I indicated with each sentence. “Arrest everyone. Give them all baths. Search their homes. Purge the unclean. Provide insurance details. Offer aid.”
Everyone seemed more or less unopposed to the compromise, so I moved onto the next subject. “Speaking of insurance-y stuff. Sanma, Craw, would you two please make out some tax write-offs for emergency services rendered? It’ll help me justify doing stuff like this in the future.”
As they started to do that, Cam entered the tent. “Hey, Keith is awake, he wants to talk to you.”
“Keith? His parents unironically named him Keith?”
……
“‘Sup, dude,” I greeted upon entering the near-abandoned tent.
There Keith was, on his sterile little cot, with 2 bottles of water remaining out of 6. “Suuup,” he groaned. “I feel like shit.”
I made my way over and sat on the empty cot beside him. “Well, you were just exposed to fluid draining magic parasites, and you’re hitting withdrawal from alraune nectar. Good news is, I got the gang together and we cured cancer, solved world hunger, eliminated the pestilence in this region, and told at least 2 lies.”
“That’s cool. It was scary, calling you out of the blue. All I had was… a name, a number, and a reputation. So… thanks, man. You rock.”
He offered a welt-covered hand to shake, which I gently did. “Hey, you called the right guys for the job… which was calling the right-er guys.”
He nodded and sighed. “I… didn’t get this far on the stone, but… I don’t think I can pay you much for all this.”
“Oh goodie. Fortunately for you, there is a bounty for eliminating examples of species marked for extinction, and tax benefits for jobs like this. You, however, will have to settle for your name going into my book of favors, which may or may not come back to haunt you.”
Keith smiled. “Lots of ways our past comes back to bite us. I’m just happy to be alive.”
Seeing him slump into his pillows a bit, I decided to wrap things up. “Tell you what. I have to head out pretty soon, so how about you give me a call once you’re feeling better?”
“Sure. That sounds good.”
“Alright, fist bump it. That’s as good as a promise.”
We bumped knuckles. He did the fireworks explosion, I did the swim away.
I soon strode out of the med tent, the first thing to catch my attention being Dia, who was waving me over the moment she saw me. A small crowd was gathering around her flower as well. I jogged up in time to hear a crusader describing in great detail the nutritional, soil, shade, and moisture conditions needed to optimally grow an alraune. The MODAP was honestly astonished as she took notes, clearly reconciling a former notion about his intelligence.
“What’s going on here,” I asked as I butted into the circle.
The crusader snapped his focus over to me. “Dia’s not going to make it here. No more shade or leaf litter, the water’s gone, the soil’s shit now. Strong and healthy is one thing, but after what those salties did to her, she’s not got enough left in her. She needs to be relocated.”
Sanma appeared from further into the crowd. “We are scouting for a suitable location presently. However, Dia has stated that she only trusts Cameron and yourself to remove her person-fruit.”
I nodded, then addressed Dia, who was peeking her head over a petal to look down on us. “That true?”
“Yes. You are… still crazy, but much easier to trust.”
“The demons you know, right? Where’s Cam? It’s a 2-person lift.”
“He’s in the loo.”
……
“So we just… go either side of you and stand up once you’ve got a hold of our shoulders?”
Dia looked more and more concerned as the moment drew near. “Y– yes, that is the summary.”
I spun myself to have my legs dangle into the nectar, rather than off the side of the flower. “Anything wrong?”
Cam balked. “She’s scared, obviously. I would be terrified too if I had to cut off the equivalent of my arms and legs.”
She held her arms, as if to shiver. “He’s right. It’s terribly frightening.”
Our local gardening crusader stood on his tippy-toes outside the flower. “I’ve just received word from your new plantation site. They say they’ve taken all the dead animals and piled them into a vat with dead leaves, dirt, and buckets of water, then cursed it to rot, cleared the curse, added more dirt and thrown worms in, and that’s what they’ll bury you with.”
Dia blinked. “It sounds… divine.”
“And you’re not getting there unless you’re willing to leave this dying patch behind,” I said, standing up and moving to her side.
Cam followed suit. “I have no clue if this will hurt, or how badly if it does, but I bet it beats slowly starving and dehydrating to death.”
She took a second to heed our words. “Give me a moment.”
We watched in real time as the flower we stood in withered, colors and fluids draining as Dia’s humanoid section—the person-fruit—rapidly reinflated, going from nondescript, to sexy curves, then blowing past stereotypical beauty standards right into 300 pounds of literal water weight. She wiggled side-to-side, then took a deep breath.
“Okay.”
I jerked my head at Cam. “On 5,” I said, secretly having prior told him that it’s actually on 3.
“1… 2… 3!”
“AIEE!” she squealed in shock as we lifted her right out of the bud with a rooty snap. “That wasn’t 5!”
Cam and I worked hard to keep her from falling over, as she’d gone nearly limp. Consequences of packing on 250 or-so pounds of weight after experiencing months of malnutrition.
“I’ll let you in on a secret, Dia,” I whispered in her ear as we lowered her to roll off a petal onto a stretcher. “You’re more ready on 3 than you are on 5.”
She was silent as we got her whole body—along with the numerous snapped tendrils dangling from her feet—loaded onto Pyroshir. Cam and I walked either side of him, holding one end of the stretcher to balance it as we made the 7-mile trek to the new site. It was quiet for a while, but then, the birds began to sing with the smoke-tinged sunset.
“You know… even though you had to burn much of it, I’m still glad you saved my forest.”
I patted her rosy hair. “Helping people is part of the job.”
She took a moment to respond. “As a Gods’ Chosen, or as part of your occupation?”
“Yyyes.”
Dia sighed. “Either way, I don’t have much to repay you with. I can only offer thanks, and perhaps offer a mark of friendship, if you don’t already have one.”
“I’ve got 7 minus… 4? Yeah, 4, so 3. I’ve got 3, but 1 more wouldn’t hurt.”
“And I’ve got none,” Cam grumbled from the other side of Pyroshir.
I tapped my chin, as a thought had occurred. “Alraune nectar, though. That’s liquid gold right there, fantastic potion catalyst. Would that be alright to pay with, once you’ve regrown?”
“Brotha’s already back to thinkin’ bucks,” Pyroshir quipped.
I thumped his rump, then shook my hand because I forgot it’s fuggin’ stone. “Hey, it’s a legitimate ask! And you can say no if you want to, Dia.”
She was silent for a while. “I don’t know. It’s only to be given for special reasons, to special people.”
“Person who saved your life, because they saved your life? Sounds like it hits both criteria.”
“I’ll… think about it.”
……
“Alright, you get her other leg, Cam, crow-face, you’re on arms.”
All 4 of us in unison worked to heft Dia’s extra-large self into the rectangular pit, taking care not to drop her. She was clearly out of it, barely registering us most of the time. This only served to breed a sense of urgency as we divvied up the 4 shovels and started heaping pre-decomposed plant superfood onto her. We were about to cover her face when she became more animated again.
“Dennis… all of you. Thank you.”
It was tired, heartfelt, genuine, and rather stumped me. She saw it on my face.
“What irks you?”
Then, I cracked an odd smile. “Oh, it’s nothing. I’ve just never been thanked by someone as I buried them in a shallow grave.”
Dia closed her eyes slowly. “I see.”
We gave her a solid 15 seconds to add anything onto that, but she didn’t, so a shovelful of deluxe mud to the face it was. Soon, we had nothing but a mound of dirt and some buckets of soapy water to dump on it. Not long after that, it was just the 3 of us. I pumped my fist.
“Home in time for dinner, yeah! We saved the day on a convenient timetable, high-five, Cam!”
He left me hanging, looking at me funny instead. “Dude, we burned down a forest. That’s not really high-five worthy.”
Right then, a black hoof smacked into my raised hand. “Sucks to be you, then, sucka. I burnt down a forest, hell yeah!”
We then made it back to town, where they tried to arrest us for disturbing the peace. Something to do with burning their forest down, and summoning a bunch of overzealous plague doctors and religious fanatics to drag them out of their homes and forcefully bathe them whilst randomly setting buildings on fire.
I get their point of view. But also, ha ha, no. That didn’t fly with the traveling authorities either, and we teleported home after I was made to apologize ‘sincerely’ for the trouble I brought to the town. But hey, a few weeks later I got a letter of apology… for making me apologize, trying to undo their wrong. They even sent it via expensive express mail, and waddya know, that’s the second wrong right there, so, boom, that totally makes a right.
……
“Hello? … Yes, speaking. What do you need? … Umm, once? It was weird as hell, but. yeah, I did it once. Who needs it? … Okay, then let me get some details. … What are you? … … Okay, I think I see what you’re getting at. … No, no, it’s not a service we really offer. …
“Wait, it’s not that we won’t do it, but it might incur some real expenses, you get me? … That would probably cover it, but what if it doesn’t? And what about safety? This strikes me as a rough sell. … Yeah, mhm. … Not bad, we might be able to work with that. … You already mailed the proposal? Well, look at you, planning ahead. When’s good for you?
I looked at my calendar. “Umm, factoring in travel, it might be a month or 2. … Wait, actually…”
My desk drawer slid open, and I retrieved a certain RSVP to double-check. “I’m going to be in the Azure Sea in 2 weeks, you think you could meet me there? … Okay, great. … I'll see if anyone volunteers as backup, so those safety plans you have in the mail… prep enough for 2 or 3 maybe. … Sure, call back every other day and we’ll let you know when the papers are here. … Yup. … Happy trails!”
I hung up the stones and kicked up my feet to ponder a moment. “Jabu-Jabu has a jobu-jobu…” I sighed. “This reeks of hazard pay in all the wrong ways.”