The Tainted Wood

by Alara Branwen

  The elf’s member hardened remembering the event. He listened at the door while Tarka gave herself to the troll. He smirked. He wouldn’t mind if she offered her services to him again, except this time, he wanted to take a more active role.

  Tarka punched Cleave’s arm. “Get your mind out of the gutter perv.” The elf chuckled.

  “Then let’s hurry.” Lurupine stood up, took hold of the small white tree beside her, and magically pulled its roots from the soil. “I don’t know how much longer I can stand hearing my friends cry.” She motioned to the forest around her.

  Cleave let Lurupine know the direction in which the troll lived, and she immediately started walking. Krug tried to stop her, but she pulled away. It took a weak plea from Cleave to get her to agree to allow the party to rest for a couple of hours, so they could regain their strength before continuing.

  When the party had rested and regained a good portion of their stamina, they began their trek toward the troll’s abode. Tarka remembered a fairly safe route to his house. They would be able to avoid most of the forest’s dangers, although it would take them a little longer to reach their destination.

  As the party marched along the trail, they saw a figure appear out of the trees in front of them. All five froze, waiting for the figure to act, but it didn’t move. Krug cast his light spell on his shield and held it forward.

  The robes the person wore were dark purple with the cowl pulled down over the head. The only distinguishing feature Cleave’s elven eyes could make out was a thin nose. The figure shuffled, and he saw a sharp chin and ruby lips that curled into a smile.

  Cleave reached for his weapon, but the figure held up a hand. The hand and arm were thin, and the skin was smooth.

  “Calm yourselves adventurers, I’m not here for a fight,” the voice was smooth and airy and, without a doubt, female.

  Berryl clenched her fists and straightened her arms. “Go away you weirdo. We’re not giving you the Scrying Eye.”

  The cowled woman eerily chuckled and shook her head. “I’m not here to take it from you. I saw your last fight, and I daresay my allies and I are not in a position to fight you.”

  “Then what do you want?” Tarka said.

  “I’m here to talk, nothing more.”

  “Before or after you throw a lightning bolt at us?” Cleave asked.

  This made the woman laugh even more. “I am not like the more uh, brash members of my guild. I’m of the opinion that violence does little to solve matters.”

  “So you’re here to barter with us for the Scrying Eye,” Krug said.

  “You could say that,” the woman said. “Or, rather, I want to know what it sees.”

  “There’s nothing you could give us that’ll make us tell you,” Berryl said.

  “I beg to differ. Would you mind following me? I wish to show you something.”

  “Sorry lady, we’re busy,” Tarka said.

  “I don’t intend to waste your time. Our current interests are very closely intertwined. Come with me, and I’ll show you what I mean.”

  A nasty feeling took hold in Cleave’s gut. Whatever this woman wanted to show them, he was sure it wasn’t what he wanted to see. “How long will it take?” The elf’s voice was hoarse from exhaustion.

  “Not very long at all, and I promise that you and your group will leave here alive whether all goes well or not. Sound fair?”

  Cleave quietly discussed with his party members what they should do. The consensus was that even though this could be a trap, they didn’t know anyone, other than the Crimson Kingdom, that wanted to harm them, and this lady didn’t seem to be with them. They hoped the purple robed figures might be able to tell them what was going on with the forest. They were willing to face a little danger and give up the Scrying Eye if, in the long run, it saved the forest.

  In the end, the party decided to follow the woman to see what she had to show them. She led the party down the same path they were already following. The party grew more apprehensive the further they went. When they took a familiar turn that opened to a small maze in front of Kurkmud’s house, the dread in Cleave’s stomach grew. It was obvious the troll was in danger. The rest of his party knew it too but said nothing and went along. They were certain their cooperation would be needed to keep the forest dwelling troll alive.

  Darkness slowly fell on the forest as the robed woman led Cleave’s party entered the clearing where Kurkmud’s hut was situated. The party looked around them and saw several people in purple robes standing among the trees. When they walked a few feet outside of Kurkmud’s house, the woman turned to them and smiled.

  “Here we are. This was where you were going, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, and we can see we’re surrounded by your guild members,” Tarka said, almost bored.

  “Of course you are, but you already knew what this was. I could see it on your faces as you were walking.”

  The woman had good eyes if she could see in the dark like that. Given the few features Cleave had already seen, he figured she was an elf. “I’m guessing you want to see what the Scrying Eye sees as well. I know you’ve been spying on us, so I’m sure you know all about it,” he said.

  A smile erupted beneath the woman’s hood. “Why of course. I wouldn’t be a fun antagonist if I didn’t indulge in a little espionage, would I?”

  Krug gripped his hammer and hoisted the head to his shoulder. “You know that I could strike you down before your allies could kill me right. Not terribly wise to announce you’re our enemy when you’re so close to us.”

  The woman shrugged. “I planned to deal with you as honestly as I could, and right now, we’re enemies. You have what we want, and we want to take it from you, putting us on opposite sides of the spectrum. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I think we can be of immense help to each other. All you have to do is tell us what that Scrying Eye sees, and we could be on our way to a wonderfully beneficial relationship.”

  “What kind of benefit could you possibly offer us?” Lurupine asked.

  “I could tell you where some of your guild members are, and I can even help you get them to safety.”

  “They’re in danger?”

  “Everyone in this forest is in danger. The taint is growing, and I have no doubt it will consume this entire forest in a couple of months. But I know a place where you can all be safe.”

  Berryl furiously shook her head. “No can do. This place is our home. I’ll fight until the very breath is taken out of my sexy body to defend it.”

  “Noble,” the robed woman smirked, “but not terribly wise. This forest is dying, as I’m sure your dryad friend can tell you. Anyway, you tell me what that Scrying Eye sees, and I’ll tell you where your friends are.”

  “Throw in information as to what is causing all this taint, and you have a deal,” Krug said.

  The robed figure shook her head. “I’ve heard you talk, and I know what you want to know. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you that information. The deal stands as is.”

  Cleave thought hard about it for a long time, then nodded. “It’s a deal. We’ll see Kurkmud, and if he knows how to unlock this Scrying Eye, we’ll tell you what you want to know. Provided you keep your guild members away from Kurkmud and us. They don’t need to be here.”

  The woman giggled and shook her head again. “Oh, but they do. I need a little insurance to make sure this transaction goes smoothly. Besides, I thought it might make you a bit more comfortable if we stuck to the theme of capturing our enemies and forcing information out of them.”

  A pang hit Cleave’s conscience. He’d felt a bit guilty about how he and his party had gotten this far in their adventure, but at the time he didn’t see any other way around it. Everyone in the wood was aggressive. It was the only way he knew to get information. Sometimes a person had to do what they could in order to move things along. It wasn’t a pretty truth, but it was truth, nonetheless.

  “Okay, point taken. We’ll get what you want. Just don’t harm
anyone.”

  “I gave you my word I wouldn’t hurt you, and if you cooperate, the troll won’t be scathed either. So why don’t you go talk to your friend. My friends and I will be waiting.”

  The robed woman walked back into the woods with a few of her entourage and blended into the shadows. When she was gone, they approached the door to Kurkmud’s hut. Cleave lifted his hand to knock on the door, but before it could touch the wood the door opened a crack.

  “Come inside. Hurry,” a voice said.

  Cleave obeyed, and he and his party made it inside. Lurupine wanted to take her small tree in with her, but Krug instructed her to leave it outside. She hesitated, but Krug squeezed through the door, and slammed it behind him.

  The elf’s eyes were met with the familiar sight of a simple hut littered with papers containing scribbles in various languages. Parchment was haphazardly stacked atop the circular table in the middle of the room, the wooden chairs, and even the kitchen shelves and countertops. Kurkmud apparently made little effort to tidy up his abode since their last visit.

  Cleave turned to face a green skinned humanoid much taller than himself. His face was long and thin, ending in a pointed chin. His nose jutted out several inches and ended in a downward hook.

  Kurkmud’s dull amber eyes surveyed the party crowded into his small hut, and the scowl on his face deepened. The troll straightened his bushy eyebrows and ran long, thin fingers through his surprisingly rich head of thick, black hair.

  “I must confess I wasn’t expecting company.” Kurkmud squeezed around his guests to the hearth where a fire raged beneath a large copper kettle. “I would’ve tidied up first if I did.”

  He picked up an earthen mug from the mantle atop the hearth, and with a wooden ladle, scooped a liquid from the kettle, filling the mug. The party stood in silence as he went about his activity.

  Kurkmud looked for a place to set the mug, but when he found none, he shrugged and handed it to Lurupine. “Perhaps that’s a lie. I did expect company, at least of some kind. I put a kettle on when I noticed a bunch of shady folks surrounding my hut, but when they didn’t approach I lost all hope they’d come in. But you showed up, and well, here we are.” Kurkmud finished pouring liquid into cups, pushed a pile of papers onto the floor and sat down.

  Tarka squealed as a few stray pieces of parchment escaped the shower of paper and floated toward the hearth. She managed to catch all of them before they could touch the fire.

  Kurkmud crossed his legs and took a loud slurp of the liquid in his cup. Cleave looked at the murky substance he held and deduced it was some kind of herbal tea. The water looked a bit putrid, so sure he wanted to drink it. His other party members felt the same.

  The troll didn’t seem to mind. He slurped at his tea as if it was the best thing in the world. When he finished, he dropped the cup onto the floor, and it rolled beneath the table. “I have a large number of dubious types surrounding my house and a number of people who were on a dangerous quest a few days ago show up to my house again. I’m going to presume they’re looking for information of some kind and you led them here?”

  The troll’s tone was very dry and Cleave couldn’t tell if he was upset or not. If he was the troll he would’ve been, through knowing how Kurkmud generally behaved, it was just as likely he was only curious or intrigued.

  “Pardon this intrusion on your privacy,” Cleave bowed as best he could in such tight quarters. “My friends and I are on a quest and were coming to you to seek information. A number of people were following us and that led to our current situation.”

  Tarka walked up to the troll and took his hand. “We’re sorry to drag you into something like this Kurkmud. It’s a really shitty way to repay you for the way you helped us last time.”

  Kurkmud gently squeezed the kobold’s hand and stroked his bony chin with the other. “It most certainly is. I’m hospitable and help you on your quest, and you respond by bringing a bunch of strange looking people to my hut. I should be furious. I barely have enough cups to serve them all tea.”

  Tarka couldn’t help fixing him with an odd gaze as he pulled away from her and shuffled through a few papers on a table. “So, you want my aid in finding out what’s causing everything to die around here?”

  “We’re hoping it’ll lead to that,” Tarka said. “But it isn’t quite what we’re looking for. Our friend Berryl obtained a Scrying Eye and those jerkoffs outside want to find out what it sees.”

  “We tried to find out ourselves, but it’s got some kind of magic lock on it,” Cleave added.

  Kurkmud stopped shuffling through his papers and tapped his chin, and then he resumed shuffling through his papers. “You’d normally need a powerful mage to crack a magical lock, and I know no magic. Though I must confess, I’m a talented landscaper. Can I see the item?”

  Berryl removed it from her inventory and showed him. Kurkmud took the small rock and tossed it in his hand a few times. He banged it against one of the few open spots on the table, then placed it between his large teeth and bit down on it.

  He spat the rock out in his hand and looked at it. “A normal rock with traces of Climp soil and Darpmine, rather strange thing for a mage to create a magic eye with. How did you come by this item?”

  Kurkmud handed the Scrying Eye back to Berryl. She made a face when the moist stone touched her skin.

  “I stole it from some goblins,” Berryl grinned.

  “A naughty thing to do, but I hate goblins since they have a proclivity for vandalizing my garden, so good for you. Would you happen to know the tribe?”

  Berryl shook her head. “No but I saw a bunch of banners of a really fat man with horns on his head.”

  “Ah, the Wugmullys from the east. Nasty tribe. They have a penchant for necromancy.”

  Kurkmud searched through a large number of papers, creating another shower of parchment that Tarka had to frantically try to keep away from the fire. Cleave amused himself imagining the kobold as a beleaguered goalie for a soccer team.

  Kurkmud gathered a few pieces of parchment in his lap and read through them. “This is all the information I have on the Wugmullys, which is quite a bit, since historians are loath to write about goblins. However, the Wugmullys are a notorious bunch since they’ve had minor altercations in the past.”

  “Like?” Cleave said.

  Kurkmud shrugged. “Just a couple of mass genocides. They busied themselves with creating an undead army and needed a few thousand bodies to get it started. Might’ve made a bigger mark on history had Devdan Erwynn and his army of Living Trees not put an inconvenient end to their plans.”

  “You think this Scrying Eye is connected to that?”

  “Probably not, but it’s the only lead I have. It’s likely just a magic item the goblins took from a hapless passerby.”

  “Considering who was interested in this Eye, it likely has something to do with all of that,” Cleave said.

  “If your buddies out there practice the dark arcane arts, then I’d agree,” Kurkmud said. “If not, it was all happenstance, and you’d be horribly screwed in your endeavor.”

  “But you don’t think it’s all happenstance, do you?” Tarka said.

  Kurkmud made a strange face. “For your sake, I hope not.” He looked to the rest of the party. “I assume you know how magic eyes work. The key to activating that magic lock is a command word that’s probably connected with the events I described, or it might be the lyrics to the mage’s favorite song, there’s no way of knowing unless we try. Try a few words associated with death or necromancy to unlock it.”

  Berryl concentrated hard on the stone in her hand. Her eyes focused on the little blue pupil in the center. After a few seconds, her lips parted, and she said the most death related word she could think of. “Flowers.”

  Nothing happened.

  “Flowers?” Cleave fixed her with a quizzical look.

  “Duh, of course. What do you put on someone’s grave when they die?”

  Krug smiled a
nd took the stone from Berryl. “A good guess, but let me give it a try.” The half giant concentrated over the stone. “Skeletons.”

  He waited, but nothing happened.

  The party passed around the stone trying to guess the phrase. They said every word or combination of words they could think of to try to unlock the stone, but nothing happened. Lurupine suggested trying all words associated with life, and they tried those, then a mix of both types of words. The only results yielded were a headache and an argument between Tarka and Berryl about how “ale” had little to do with life, even if it made you the “life” of a party.

  As the party attempted to guess the phrase, Lurupine withdrew into herself. She took a couple of guesses at the stone, but for the most part, she stayed silent. She thought about what the stone would see. Life and death. What was alive and dead right now? The forest, of course, the last bit of life was being squeezed out of it while dark magic was wreaking havoc across the lifestream.

  Why were there so many necromancers in the woods? Couldn’t guilds that didn’t use dark magic come looking for magical ingredients? Of course, those stupid necromancers and everyone else couldn’t share. They were greedy. They wanted to take everything from the forest and leave it a husk.

  The groves suffered the most. Those bastions of life energy were being drained of their essence, killing them and the creatures that lived in them. They were the parts of the forest that held the most life, at least to a dryad. Some groves were left untouched by the taint, but if this madness wasn’t stopped, the entire forest would die.

  Lurupine saw the picture of a grove in her mind. The beautiful trees and flowers growing at the bank of a babbling brook while small forest creatures frolicked among the grass. Black and purple phased into the rich brown wood of the trees while the flowers and grasses wilted. The skin fell off all the animals, but they continued to play in their skeletal forms.

  The dryad shivered. She couldn’t stand the thought of death stealing so much from the living. Lurupine’s eyes lit up. That was it! The answer to the mage lock, a combination of death and life, at least as it related to their current situation.