29: The Beasts of the Wood

So, we were faced with a foreboding wood, and if we wished to continue to follow the course of the river, we needed to enter it, or at least skirt it. Otto told Schnitzel to find a way through the undergrowth, and he began to follow an animal path. It was a bit scary, so Kurtis sang a song about a river to keep our spirits up, but it was shit.

Otto was in the lead, scouting for us. Solvej would have been doing this if she had been here, of course, and even she would probably not have been as bad at it as Otto. He soon discovered a trap, however, by walking into it. Luckily it was broken or already triggered so it didn’t harm him. It looked like it was some sort of lever designed to stab a creature, or an interloper. The blade of it was covered in some sort of organic-looking noxious substance.

We continued to follow the river for a couple of hours and began to wonder about a time to turn back, so we could get back to the commune before nightfall. Even though we knew we wouldn’t be allowed back in, it was one night only thing, we felt like it would be a lot safer being near there. We came across a fork in the river, with the smaller inlet heading deep into the forest. The bank here was covered in all sorts of animal waste, as if it had been dumped here deliberately. Some of it had been washed downstream, and this might have been deliberate, too. It was all a bit of a mystery.

We began to follow the inlet into the forest, but soon heard some strange moaning sounds. There was a steep bank leading downwards, and Kurtis went down the bank to discover a deer that had been impaled on some sort of spike trap, and that he was sure would soon be dead. It seemed a shame to waste such good food, but we knew that whoever set the trap would probably be nearby.

And sure enough an arrow shot from the forest, narrowly missing Gulgad’s head and stuck in the trunk of a tree not far from me. And a couple of other arrows soon followed. One of them hit Gulgad, and although he said it didn’t hurt, I think it must have.

I was pretty sure that this must be some sort of misunderstanding. I thought that this was likely to be a group of hunters out for food, and that they had hit us by mistake. So I stepped in front of Gulgad and made it clear we did not offer any sort of threat. Imagine my surprise, then, when I noticed that the hunters were in fact hairy humanoid creatures with goatlike horned faces and goatlike rear legs. I think these were the beast-creatures of the forest fairy tales that we were all told about as children, but who none of us had ever seen before. I had doubted, I think, whether they even existed. And despite being supposedly fearsome monsters these creatures were skinny, mangy, and flea-ridden and looked rather pathetic.

Gulgad readied his axe and let out a scream, trying to scare them off, and Erhardt took advantage of the distraction to manoeuvre himself to the side and loose one of his magic arrow things. He managed to hit one and so the other one legged it into the undergrowth. Kurtis, seeing the second creature flee, recklessly ran after it. It wasn’t long before he found himself deep in the forest, all alone, with no sign of the creature, so had to make a quick retreat.

Meanwhile four more creatures emerged, and Gulgad charged in slaying one of the creatures immediately, while Otto slinged another. Erhardt cast even more powerful magic at them, killing one of them, but this was accompanied by some sort of spectacular magical explosion, and Erhardt’s screams. I think it was clear that something had gone terribly wrong. Otto called me over to take a look at Erhardt and I could see that his face was a mess. There was blood pouring from his mouth, nose, ears and eyes. I rushed to his aid and wanted to pray to Shallya to help me, but I didn’t really know what she would be able to do, so I grabbed my bandages and simply tried to stem the bleeding. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

The fight continued around us, but I had to concentrate on Erhardt’s bleeding. I think I managed to stop the worst of it, but it wasn’t enough, he had lost too much blood. Erhardt’s body seemed to relax and the life force drifted out of him. Then just as suddenly, he breathed again, and was alive.

Later, Erhardt implied that it was his own force of will that caused him to survive, but I choose to believe that it was Shallya that saved him. Even if he didn’t really have any faith in her, and he didn’t follow any of her strictures, and he dealt in magic, which Shallya does not care for. I think Shallya moves in mysterious ways and that perhaps she has had a plan for Erhardt all along. In any case I bandaged him up, said a few prayers, and he was remarkably healthy once again.

While I had been saving Erhardt, Gulgad, Kurtis, and Otto had defeated the beast creatures, Otto, even killing one of them himself. Looking over their bodies, we could see that they were generally unhealthy and disease-ridden. They were covered in fleas and had all sorts of pustules and buboes and we realised that the sort of pus and ichor that covered their bodies was the same sort of stuff that Otto had discovered on the trap, earlier.

In fact, they were suffering from Packer’s Pox. It’s a disease humans can catch from livestock, and these creatures looked part human and part livestock, so I suppose that made sense. I recommended that Gulgad, Kurtis, and Otto go down to the river and wash off all the beastie’s blood, so they wouldn’t catch it.

As we surveyed the site of the battle, we noticed that the trees were somehow twisted and ugly and that the pinecones were large and rotting and something about the woods was unnatural and ugly. I had already felt the presence of the dark god N_____ among the dead beasts. And then we heard some sort of whisper coming through the trees. Whether it was the wind among the leaves, or our imagination, or a real creature, the voice seemed to be calling for Rita, over and over again, Rita.

Somehow this made sense to me. Something about the way the beast creatures had moved put me in mind of Rita, the way the river had led us here, and the disease, made me think we needed to return to the commune and find the answer there. As we left, we heard a mighty roaring in our wake. We had plainly left some great creature behind us. We made good time on our way back to the commune, glad to be out of the woods. I wasn’t sure we would be heading towards safety, however.

By the time we got back to the commune it was dark. Sophia asked what we were doing and told us we had already spent a night here and wouldn’t be welcome for another one, but I just barged past her and into Rita’s hut. I demanded to know why the creature had been calling for her. She looked kind of blank but managed to reply that it was Taal talking to her, and that she had only ever served Taal.

I got Erhardt to illuminate the hut so I could examine Rita, it was for signs of Packer’s Pox, but while I was doing so, I feared I would come across the cloven feet of a beast creature and sure enough, hidden by her over-size shoes she had the feet of a beast. This was not a gift from Taal, I was sure, but from the dark god of disease, Shallya’s nemesis. Rita said something about Taal’s children gladly giving themselves to sacrifice. We got the impression that if anyone died at the village then their bodies were taken up to the wood and buried, or something, but I was too angry at that moment to consider that properly.

Anna then entered the cramped hut to see what we were doing, and noticed her mother’s cloven feet, and she immediately blamed us for it. I was, of course, adamant that it was nothing to do with us, and that we had merely discovered the mutation, and we went outside to discuss what to do about it. Although she was having difficulty rationalising what was going on, I told Anna that we knew a witch hunter in Nuln and that she would be coming to the commune in a few days. And if she were to find Rita there, she would destroy the entire commune, and hinted that the best thing she could do would be to allow Rita to go up to the woods and end her time with her beast-creature friends.

Then we heard a smashing noise coming from Rita’s hut, and so went back in. Rita was scrabbling on the floor near the shards of a broken jar. I had a look at the contents and realised this was some sort of Graveroot concoction. Graveroot has a number of uses, but one side effect is that it can leave its victim appearing as if they are dead for a number of hours.

And then it suddenly dawned on me. Through whatever unspeakable influence, Rita had been moved to drug some of the children of the commune and take their death-like bodies up to the woods. Where everyone else had though they were merely being laid to reast, Rita was offering them to the creatures of the woods as living sacrifice. Whether she knew she was serving the dark gods or she thought she was serving Taal, I had no idea, but it didn’t really matter. Seeing my discomfort and despair at her activities, Rita merely laughed at me, and it was all I could do not to punch her.

I went out and told everyone about the Graveroot, and they too realised what had been going on. We wondered whether Anna was in on it too, but I think it was quite apparent that she was merely loyal to her mother and ignorant of her deeds. And we agreed we should head back to the woods and put an end to whatever was there. Gulgad, of course, was particularly enthusiastic. And I had to admit that my inclination to be merciful to Rita was gravely mistaken. Kurtis tied the old crone up and we led her out of the commune, towards the woods, and towards the great, roaring creature we had heard earlier.