Quest A Spore Choice

[Mayhem]

Spring 3rd, 520AV

Ser Aric paced, though the knight did not look out of place in the Great Bazaar. Even with the fungus spreading along the north wall of the basement, business flourished in the south. Rumor had spread that the mold was making people sick, but anyone coming down with so much as a cough was promptly treated by one of the Rak'keli-marked Konti who made their homes in the citadel, loosely affiliated with the Knights themselves. More often than not, they simply worked as doctors for the people who resided in apartments nearby.

He'd heard more on top of that rumor. The Knights whispered among themselves that this cousin's so-and-so's friend's brother refused to see a healer and turned into a pile of spores as a result. Aric didn't believe it, and that's why he was put in charge of the clean-up efforts. It was his idea to get the community involved as a way to show that the mold wasn't any more harmful than other mold that could be found around the castle, growing on food and bread and in small, damp corners. He felt that the rains easily explained the quick spread of this particular fungus, and scraping it off the walls would fix the problem soon enough.

Every person who responded to the bulletin posting was told to come to the north wall of the Great Bazaar, early in the morning, on the 3rd of Spring. They were also told to bring something to cover their mouths and noses while they worked. Metal implements were laid out, various blades and scrapers and large picks to scrape out every last spore. There were also buckets of water mixed with vinegar, and an assortment of rags hanging off the sides. Everything was prepared.

When the volunteers arrived, Ser Aric was prepared. He lifted up the first metal implement. It had a short handle and a wide, bell-shaped blade. "This is a scraper. We have some bigger scrapers, and ladders, for reaching the ceiling and taller portions of the wall." He mimed pushing the blade along the mostly smooth stone wall of the basement. "You want to get the blade underneath the moss and off the wall. A few of you will have brooms so that none of it gets left on the floor. For those of you with the brooms, you will sweep up after the people scraping and put the moss in a wheelbarrow. That will be carried up periodically and it will be disposed of." He then gestured to the buckets lined up on the floor before he kneeled down and picked up one of the rags. The sour smell of vinegar was very strong in the air. "A few more of you will be using these rags to clean off any small bits that were missed by the scrapers. Now, each of you will be assigned a job. I will be helping, too."

———

The Knighthood did not want any volunteer's efforts to go to waste, and so everyone who had signed up to help got a knock on the door to their apartment one bell before they were supposed to arrive, and a letter with a list of instructions and directions slipped under their door. More and more people had been getting sick, and some apartments close to the source of the fungus had been abandoned as those, too, began growing the mold. With the already limited space in Syliras, it was of upmost important that the issue was addressed quickly, effectively, and without harm coming to any more citizens.

OOC :

Roll 1d6 in the Discord chat and I will give you a rumor your PC has heard based on the roll. You can also roll for your job in the cleanup (scraper, sweeper, or washer), or you can choose whichever one you would like for your post. Please try to incorporate the rumor into your post. Thank you!

[Reed]

It came as a relief when finally, the knock came at his door, with instructions on what he was supposed to help with that day. He’d signed up as soon as he’d heard they were asking for volunteers and had been waiting anxiously ever since. Although he’d heard it was nothing to worry about, just some light cleaning of the basement, he still was eager to help the knights out any way he could. Of course, there were some internal... struggles with the way he felt about his task, but he felt conscious and in control of his emotions today. Being able to repay the favor of the knights was everything to him, and he certainly didn’t want to let them down on his first volunteer assignment.

He headed out immediately after giving the little note they’d slipped under his door a read. In his haste, he almost forgot to bring his pack, but doubled back to grab it before heading out the door. He made it with time to spare and wrapped a scarf around his lower face. He’d picked it up after they mentioned needing it when he was signing up.

“What’s that for? Can’t stand the smell of vinegar?” A man asked from behind him, and he looked back to see it was a knight, but not one he immediately recognized. “Just a precaution against the mold” He muttered, subdued as he turned to face the man whom was standing rather unconcerned. “No mold, just moss” He grumbled quietly, looking around. “If you ask me, it was the bad weather that got those people sick, but words already gone up, so we got to make it look nice and clean down here anyways.” He looked about to say more, but that was when Sir Aric started talking so Reed turned about to face him. After he’d said his piece, Reed looked about for the knight, but the man was gone, off to do his part probably. As for his own duties, Reed went, and grabbed a broom before following a clutch of scrappers that had already started on one of the smooth walls.

The ‘moss’ was a color he’d never seen before. It was a vibrant, purplish blue that reminded him a lot of Kaer’s skin. He wondered what that knight was up to today. Reed hadn’t seen the man in several days, but that wasn’t particularly strange. The knight was often off on business like the kind that had saw him safely from his Ravokian masters. After sweeping up a tidy pile of the strange moss, he scooped it up, and headed for the nearest wheelbarrow to dump it. He looked at the walls and ceiling as he did, surprised to see so much of the stuff growing strong down here. As more time passed, he made several more of these trips till the wheelbarrow was full and he volunteered to dump it. On his way back with it, he stopped beside one of the volunteers that was working at the walls with a rag. Glancing down at her bucket, he said. “Need me to dump this, and haul you up a fresh one?”

oocTan scarf - 1sm

[Nayato]

“HURRY UP! YES! TIME FOR PRACTICE!”

Nayato chuckled to himself as he sat on the edge of the bed in his apartment. His obsidian eyes glancing towards the excited ghost watching him slip on his boots. “Calm down, Jaleh.” The Chaktawe spoke in Tawna, but his words had no true meaning behind them. Nayato knew the ghost girl was happy to see him finally return to Syliras after having needed to leave when the city closed its gates while he was out camping. Ironically, it left him in the same situation as the ghost... unable to strive towards what he wanted.

They had grown to become good friends in their frustration, but she lived vicariously through him to fulfill her own dream of becoming a knight someday. It's a dream the fledgling Spiritist-squire also wished to achieve, but he felt like accomplishing it would help the ghost pass on.

“I’m just getting ready to help clean up the mold… it’s not really even training.” Jaleh floated over to him. The ashen pale Benshira woman clad in the facade of squire's borrowed armor the girl died in. The only color the ghost displayed appearing as red painted lips that emulated blood being coughed up.

Jaleh was always excited to push him to train... to incessantly train. And she always wanted to be there as he trained to achieve their goal.

“Yeah? Then why are you taking that and that? Let's go.” She pointed to the buckler strapped to his left arm and the khopesh sheathed at his hip. “Because If I don’t take it, you’ll try to fling it across the room while I’m gone…” A knock on the door caused Nayato and Jaleh to look over at the large dog laying belly up in front of it. Osawa, Nayato’s sleeping Akinva Deerstalker, woke up when a note slid under the door to prod against the dogs back, causing Osawa to roll over onto his side.

Nayato got up, fully clad in a set of leather armor, then retrieved the notice to read it over. He showed it to Jaleh before retrieving the fured hide of a bobcat he kept in the chest in the apartment. It was a hide he obtained after a hunt, though never used it. "This will make for a good face mask..." He said while retrieving a knife from his back pack, then etched the blade through it to remove all four hide legs from the main torso of the skin.

Nayato wrapped one around his head, then tied the ends together to form a face mask. It wasn't the best use of an animal skin, but it got the job done. He put the remaining three hide legs in the backpack in case other volunteers needed them.

"See, just cleaning duty..." Jaleh de-materialized with an annoyed huff as Nayato put his pack on, then stepped over the dog while leaving to join the other volunteers.

***

Nayato made his way to the Great Bazaar's north wall, absently listening to two knights walking in front of him on patrol. This mold is getting out of control... even the Konti are having trouble healing people..." The other Knight chimed in shortly after. "No, I heard its the singularly marked of Rak'keli having trouble healing people. If you catch the Moss sickness, see a twice marked healer." They turned down a different path as he carried onward, although he now made sure to tightened the hide around his face.

***

Nayato arrived moments before Sir Aric began to describe the work details. He listened, though did retrieve the three other hide bobcat legs from his pack. He silently held them up to the other volunteers, then pointed at the one wrapped around his face. If no one wanted to use one, he'd put them away.

The Squire retrieved one of the larger metal tools once he was assigned to scrapper detail. Looking up to the wall, he stood at the base of a ladder. His eyes blinked twice in preparation before a third blink caused the nictitating membrane of the Chaktawe's secondary eyelids to close. It blurred his vision, but just like they protected his eyes from the desert sands, they should keep the mold from directly touching his eyes.

With that, he began to climb midway up one of the ladders to work on removing the 'moss'. He held the scrappers handle in a firm reverse grip, this allowed him to pressed its blade against the stone, then scrape it downwards the floor rather than scooping it up into the air. It felt like he was trying to stab the wall to death each time he set the blade against the wall, then carved down to send moss tumbling to the floor.

[Naiomi]

A day in spring
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People left. It was the sad fact of life. No one stayed long. Her childhood friend and bondmate had abandoned her for the Rujaro. Timmy Brimble had fallen. And now, Master hadn’t showed up to fetch her for a hunt the way he usually did most mornings. People left, and Naiomi was the one who was always left behind.

Sure, she was Kelvic, and all it took was her willing it to turn into a human, open the door, and go searching for Master or ay of her other friends herself. But that wasn’t the point. There was something about having someone else come to see you, about being the one sought out, that was a comfort. There was something about greeting a person at her own door that brought Naiomi absolute joy.

Besides, it was the routine, and routine should not be broken.

So Naiomi lay behind her door, waiting for Master to come. Her nose was an intricate thing, designed by eons of survival to be the best there was, and it was at work, sniffing at the finger wide gap at the bottom of her door. One might think that sitting waiting at a door was a dull affair, but Naiomi found it to be the thrill of a lifetime. She lived in a well-populated section of the city, and people walked by her door often, each one bringing a fresh new scent.

Almost everyone had at least some small amount of body odor. The halls of the castle allowed for minimal ventilation, and in the bustle of the day, bathing was not a priority. It wasn’t a smell that Naiomi minded. Her animal nature accepted that this was the way of life, that it was a natural part of the human animal, and so it wasn’t something to be despised or disdained. She enjoyed it, found it a comfort that there were scents that connected everyone. Still, each individual was unique, some more potent than others and each with their own little flare brought by their lifestyle and their line of work.

The bakers lived close by, and they were late to work this morning. As the husband and wife half-jogged, half-ran down the hall outside, Naiomi could smell the scent of the many ingredients they used wafting off them. Flour and sugar were at the heart of most of those, but certain spices- nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon- rose above it all. They were generally so covered in the smell of the bakery that the smell of sweat that so often permeated was nearly lost.

Many of the general laborers lived nearby. Almost all of them were big men with broad bodies meant for heavy lifting. They always smelled of sweat and the general stink of unwashed bodies, even after the rare occasion that they bathed. These were some of Naiomi’s favorite people, and she was one of theirs. Whenever the hound came bounding through whatever job site they had been assigned to for the day, the big men generally took the time to stop what they were doing to give her some of their time. Admittedly, sometimes that was because she had stolen one of their tools and was busy drooling and chewing on its handle, but any admonition that came was lighthearted, hardly even a scolding.

Many bodies passed, and almost all of them, Naiomi recognized. Only one disappointment came from this endeavor. None of them slowed their pace when they came to her door. No one was coming for her. Her deep dog chest filled with air, and she let it out in an exaggerated huff.

But if there was one thing Naiomi knew about the world, it was that the world was not full of disappointments. Good things had to have their time, too, and so she waited. It felt like an age, but truthfully, less than a bell had passed since she had woken up and begun her waiting. Finally, her patience was rewarded. A steady pair of feet came down the hall at a good clip like every other one had, but this one slowed as it neared her door.

Head raising, she tilted it to one side as she considered the door and the sound and what they could mean.

Outside, the feet stopped, and the person they belonged to shuffled through a bag.

Naiomi was having trouble keep her excitement tethered, and the fierce whipping of her tail back and forth showed it. Each wag smacked her tail against the post of the bed that she sometimes slept on top of and sometimes underneath, and though it was vigorous enough to bruise her, the mutt didn’t care.

There was a final rummage, a soft ‘aha’, and then a knock at the door.

Any self-control Naiomi had evaporated. Bursting to her feet, she bayed at the top of her lungs to greet the fortunate soul on the other side. This was not what the messenger had been expecting, and a string of curses came as he leapt to wall opposite her door. After the initial shock and the realization the door between them would hold her back, he scurried over, slid a letter beneath the door, and hurried on to his next delivery.

Head tilting sideways again in curiosity, Naiomi looked at the letter. Her name was scrawled across front, but it was the only word she recognized. She’d have to wait until Master came for him to read it to her, so she picked up the letter gently in her canine jaws and did exactly that. Master arrived only a few chimes later, but the letter was already well-saturated with saliva by then.

Opening the letter after wiping it as free of drool as he could, Master scanned it quickly. “No hunt for you today, Pup. They’re getting around to that cleaning up you volunteered for. They expect you to be at the north wall of the Great Bazaar as soon as possible, and they want you to protect your nose and mouth. Here.” He took off his scarf and wrapped it around her neck, tucking it into her collar along with her shirt. “Be good. I’ll see you for a hunt tomorrow.”

In a moment, she was out the door and on her way to the Great Bizarre. Every time she heard the name, she wondered why people found it strange, but after a year of pondering, she’d still not come up with any answers. Bounding through the halls, she came to where the volunteers were gathered and in a flash of light was human once more.

Quickly, she slipped her shirt on and tied the scarf around her face to cover her nose and mouth. Master was adamant that decency be preserved, so Naiomi did her best to be naked as little as possible. She smiled at a squire standing next to her, only to realize after he didn’t return the gesture that he couldn’t see her face.

Ser Aric gave brief instructions, and soon Naiomi found a rag and bucket being placed in her hands. She was glad someone had assigned her something to do. Otherwise, she would have felt lost. The Kelvic hound was glad Ser Aric had been placed in charge of this. He had a level head, and a level head was needed with all the rumors that were circulating about this mold.

Since her job required her to follow others, she was going to be waiting for a bit. She sat down with her bucket between her legs and sniffed at the liquid in it. Its pungency burned her sensitive nose, and the dog half of her drove her to do the only reasonable thing. Peering around to make sure no one was watching her, she slipped the scarf off her face, dipped her head down, and licked the water.

Immediately, she began licking her tongue across her teeth, trying to scrape the taste free, her face twisted and puckered at the sudden assault on her taste buds. It was terrible, perhaps the worst thing she had ever licked. Perhaps. Or was it? Something in the back of her mind told her she wasn’t sure, and it wasn’t until she had repeated the process several times over that she decided her initial reaction was correct. The stuff was awful.

By the time she had decided that, the scrapers were moving well along, so she replaced her scarf and brought her bucket to the wall. It was heavier than it looked. It wasn’t a large bucket, but filled close to the brim with liquid, it was heavy. Muscles in her shoulders and arms strained to keep it steady, but despite her best efforts, she still sloshed some of it on the floor on her way to the wall. Dunking her cloth into the water, she wringed it out lightly, leaving plenty of moisture for the scrubbing. Naiomi’s Kelvic form lent her powerful shoulders that could endure long periods of steady work, and she was happy for that. Only twenty chimes in to her work, her shoulders were burning something fierce. She worked one stone at a time, scrubbing as powerfully as she could until no more signs of the moldy moss remained, then moved to the grout around it before starting on the next stone. It was slow work, and she imagined the scrapers and sweepers would be joining the scrubbers at the end.

She was just taking a break to rub at the aching muscles in her shoulders when a squire approached her. She recognized him (it was hard not to with his magenta skin) but couldn’t recall his name.

“Need me to dump this and haul you up a fresh one?”

Naiomi looked down into the bucket and nodded. It had turned thick and brown with the muck she had pulled from the walls. It wasn’t just the mold. Her scrubbing had been pulling up what she suspected was decades of buildup of nothing more than grime and dirt and dust, and she was glad for an excuse to take a longer break. Her muscles weren’t used to this sort of activity.

“Yup, that’d be great. I’m Naiomi.”

She followed him as he lifted her bucket almost effortlessly. New friends made Naiomi happy, and happy Naiomi could be chatty. “It’s nice to be down here and be able to see the mold for ourselves. With all the sickness and the worry, folks have been making up some real strange stories. Anita told me she saw the mold eat a cat. Well, she didn’t see it eat the cat, but she saw the dead cat, and the cat was covered in the mold, and then she went to get a Knight, but by the time she got back, the cat was gone, and so she’s certain the mold ate the cat. Anita ain’t the kind to be fibbing, but that seemed like a stretch to me. It’s nice to be down here and see it. It really ain’t scary when you see it in person, you know? It’s nice to know it’s just mold.”

boxcode credit : Ennisa

[Lutro Seafoam]

Soak and scrub, soak and scrub. Soak the rag in the murky liquid and scrub the subborn mold until your knuckles hurt. The vinegar was suffocating, masking the Great Bazaar's one redeeming factor, it's wide array of fascinating smells. Lutro furrowed his brow and pressed his rag into the rough stones. He had been at this for who-knows-how-long and boredom was setting in. The northern wall was still covered in a thick layer of this vivid moss, although the scrapers were making some progress further along. Lutro worked vertically and spent half his time bent over or sat on the floor, scrubbing and soaking, scrubbing and soaking.

He looked over at the other volunteers and wondered how many of them were honestly charitable. The mold was particularly bad for business after all - Lutro had tried to ignore it until his fish stand had to be shut down due to its spread. Finally the city was taking an interest in the issue and a made a concerted effort to clean up the bazaar. Lutro took the opportunity to stay inside the castle for a change - not a decision he made quickly - to get his workplace up and running as soon as possible.

Of course there was also these health problems. It had started weeks ago, hushed whispers by customers or drunken discourse in the local taverns: something was making people ill around the castle and it was spreading quickly. Then the mold started turning up in the market. Just his luck, it came around his pokey little fish stand within days. Lutro figured he was taking a big risk by helping here, but what choice did he have? Without a stall he couldn't make any money.

Then there was this disappearance, this woman from the bazaar. She had gripped the attention of Lutro's normal drinking buddies for days now, the mysterious missing woman. Some say she was sick, others say she had chased after a man, some stablehand or disgraced nobleman. Frankly Lutro found it difficult to care. He knew fully well how these stories spread. He was Svefra after all: how many of his father's stories had enthralled him, only to find out they were fabrications?

With nothing better to do, these thoughts ricocheted around Lutro's head. He pulled the bobcat hide tighter around his mouth and nose. He had been given this hide by the copper skinned man@Nayato who was just in the corner of Lutro's eye, up a ladder digging at the wall with murderous intent. Partly out of boredom and partly to break up this frustrating thought loop, Lutro knew he had had enough. He got to his feet, threw down his sodden rag with a satisfying 'plomp' and went to approach the chaktawe.

"Careful with that wall friend. Some people rely on this dungeon."

If Lutro's tongue in cheek tone was lost in his choppy delivery of common, his intent should've been clear in his half grin as he removed the hide mask. He fired off a short laugh to the top of the ladder.

"I play. Thank you for this."

He gestured with the mask.

"Perhaps this gift has saved my life, no? If we can bring this place to its former glory, I can repay you with fine fresh fish maybe."

As he spoke Lutro looked up at this man with startling blue eyes. There was a sarcastic undercurrent to his outward demeanour. He was testing the man, waiting to see how he reacted, not in malice but simply for something to do. Lutro was also curious. There was such a plethora of people living in this city and due to his relatively isolated upbringing, the Svefra was enjoying the experience of makng new acquaintances. Mostly.

While chatting, Lutro also kept an eye on Ser Aric. In his experience, these knights had been a nightmare to deal with, brimming with false ideals and shining egos. How would this one compare?

[Mayhem]

Ser Aric was not one to idle, and sure as his word, he was standing next to Nayato, scraping away at the unusually thick mold. It was almost as if the mold had grown into any hole, any porosity the rock and mortar held. It was like they had to scrape into the foundation of the castle itself to get everything out. Every ten chimes or so he would pause and check on how everyone else was doing, and would return to his post again.

His first patrol had him closer to Lutro and Nayato when the Svefra was mentioning his fish stand. A pleasant smile could be seen in his eyes, despite the covering over his mouth and nose. "So you're the fishmonger I heard about? A friend had said your fish was the freshest she'd seen in the Bazaar. Maybe when this is all over you'll be able to get a better spot for your stall, even."

The Great Bazaar was nearly empty of people other than the volunteers. It was eery, quiet in a way that it hadn't been since the stronghold was built. Stalls, some empty, some with their wares locked up, lined the paths of the ghost town. Echoed words bounced around the cavernous basement. Echoed screams bounced around the cavernous basement.

"AAAAAAH! What the PETCH is wrong with that cat!" A squire who had volunteered to clean came running out of a storeroom, knocking over a bucket and cutting it close to a ladder as he went. A sickly, garbled mew could be heard, unlike anything the usual feral and stray cats that lived down there sounded like. Ser Aric's eyebrows shot up and he dropped his scraper with a clatter. He was in and out of the room in ticks, but he looked like he had aged years. "Lock the doors. We can't let anyone in." His voice was level as he pointed to some of the knights, who hurried to barricade the doors on all four corners of the bazaar that led to the stairs. As they did that, the cat wandered out of the storeroom. In their hurry, neither Ser Aric nor the squire had closed the door.

The cat was originally orange, but only tufts of fur remained. It was instead covered in growths of thick blue-purple mold. It didn't walk like a cat - it thumped and swerved like a drunk. The cat began to hack and cough, and where a hairball should have been came, instead, a large, fuzzy chunk of purple. It pulsated as it rolled and then stopped, bits of it visibly sinking into the floor and taking hold. Ser Aric stared, and in a tick, drew his sword and cut the head off of the cat.

He turned back to the group. "Nothing that happens here will leave here." The Knight in charge turned back to the group. In the citadel holding of tens of thousands, only a dozen people had volunteered. "I will need some of you to come with me. The rest of you - keep cleaning. You will be safe."

When further volunteers came to him, he gathered them in a tight huddle. "We will need to find the source of this blight upon Syliras. Our efforts at cleaning for the past season have not been enough, that much is clear." Ser Aric looked back towards the storeroom, the door shut tight. "If you are still willing to come with me despite threat of illness, we must split up. The basement of this castle is far too large, and I fear we may be running out of time. That cat may not be the last, and they're spreading it further." His expression was stoic, but there was fear in his eyes. "Groups of two - look for something, anything, out of the ordinary. We will meet back here in a bell. Bring torches taken from the walls."

OOC :

Post in the Syliras chat if you have any questions, or want to pair up with someone specific. Otherwise, I can pair you off myself.

[Reed]

“Mold?” Reed asked, dumping the bucket. “I met a man who swore it was mold brought on by the bad weather. Was rather insistent about it in fact, though I’m not sure about the difference between mold and moss.” He chewed his bottom lip while staring at the empty bucket. “I’ve never seen either do that to a cat so I guess I’m learning a lot today..” His voice trailed off as he considered the thought. Walking over to refill the bucket, that line of thinking was interrupted when a man screamed. Immediately he dropped the bucket, brought his fists up and bent at the knees, his eyes narrowing as the squire came running out of the storeroom.

“A cat?” He said incredulously, standing up straight, though still very tense from the whole affair. However, the strangeness wasn’t to end there as Ser Alric took the warning very seriously, and suddenly the room was a buzz with action, and excited voices as the knights went to secure the doors to the Plaza. When the feline finally walked through the door, it wasn’t at all what Reed had been expecting. The mangey looking creature stumbled in, bobbing unnaturally in a way that sent a chill up his spine. It rattled off a disgusting blob of the mold, moss, whatever the petch it was. Ser Alric reacted quickly, and after several moments of stunned silence, Reed made his way over to the Ser with the rest who’d decided to see what this was all about.

What the Knight had to say was more than a little disturbing, but Reed tried his best to keep that off his face. He’d volunteered for this after all, and he was more than a little bent on proving himself after the growing pains he’d experienced on the sparring field. Partners though, that made him more than a little bit uncomfortable. He didn’t know anyone here well enough to ask them for that, though he supposed that he kind of did already have a partner as he realized the woman from earlier had decided to join the group. Glancing over at her, he mulled over the idea for a moment before speaking.

“Well, what do you think? Beats carrying buckets I suppose.” Reed shrugged, walking over to grab a torch. If she decided to join him, he would hand her one as well, and walk a bit into the darkness before stopping. “Are you partial to a direction?”

[Nayato]

Nayato hummed to himself as he worked, causing staccato sounds of unformed muffled words to reverberated as unspoken sound from his throat. The Squire was clearly talking to himself to keep himself entertained. He was narrating his every action in to turn the scrapping into a play within his imagination.

He guided the edge of the scrapper inches above a mound of mold, trying to turn the situation into a story to tell his ghost friend later. “Metal Wing high over... stone?... Seeking to find a home atop a mountain…” He spoke to himself, though not really minding if anyone heard him. His story paused once someone started to speak to him at the base of the ladder. He glanced down at Lutro, meeting the Svefra’s blue eyes with the pure obsidian black of his own gaze.

“Dungeons are used to keep prisoners confined, yes? That's too aggressive.” Nayato asked in a tone that sought for clarification. “I’d rather call this place… a great tree.” He said before clanging the scrapper against the wall. “A great tree?” A newfound idea led the Squire down a personal tangent as he started to speak aloud to himself rather than mumble.

“The tale of Metal Wing soared over a Great Tree ...under a Mountain.”

Once Lustro thanked him for the mask, Nayato just shook his head. “No need to thank me for that. I just wanted to help. And if the stories are true about the first marked of Rak'keli having trouble healing people of the mold, then you can keep the hide mask to stay safe.”

When Ser Aric chimed in about fish, Nayato realized that he never really cared for the taste of fish. “I didn’t really grow up eating fish. If you want to repay me, come hunting with me someday.”

Nayato almost fell off his ladder when he whipped his head towards the loud yell. Once Ser Aric dismounted the latter, Nayato quickly climbed down from his ladder once orders were given to others to lock the doors. The whole situation was oddly intense for a day of cleaning mold off a wall.

Even as Nayato watched the cat, he couldn’t help but narrate it to himself to aid in processing what he was witnessing. “Metal Wing from high saw the Rotting Orange at the base of the Great Tree, the fruit decaying into the darkness of an evening twilight purple rot. A rot used to corrupt the roots of the Great Tree.” As Ser Aric removed the cat's head with the strike of a sword, Nay resisted the urge to end the story there since the story was just getting started.

Nayato was always going to volenteer to help out, though the fear in Ser Aric's eyes grounded the imaginative Squire back to reality. He glanced towards the other volunteers, giving Reed and Naiomi a nod, then called over to Lutro.

"I did ask you to go hunting with me someday." Nayato said while drawing his Khopesh sword in his right hand, then taking up a torch from the wall to hold it with his left hand. He held the touch with an odd grip, mostly holding the touch with his thumb and index fingers while leaving his other three fingers slightly outstretched ahead.

[Naiomi]

Into the dark
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As the Akalak pondered the difference between mold and moss, a terrified shout rang into the open hall of the Bazaar from a storage room off one side. Reed showed he was a Knight in training, his body dropping readily into a fighting stance. For her part, Naiomi showed she was not, dropping her head to one side to curiously see what the fuss was about. Hearing someone mention a cat, her whole spine began to wiggle back and forth. She’d been wanting to see the odd creatures again. While she was an adventurous creature herself, cats, she had found, were reclusive; and her experiences with them, limited.

Everyone’s eyes seemed to be on the squire exiting the storage room and on Ser Aric as he entered. Efficiency was hammered into the Knights from a youthful age, and Ser Aric was in and out in no time, having evaluated the situation and already decided what needed to be done. Though his eyes said differently, his voice portrayed a calm, as he began to give orders.

And then the cat stalked out of the room. Or at least that’s what it should have done, if her previous meeting had been any indication of cats. They were hunters, predators to the very core, and stalking was what they did. This cat did not. It stumbled out, like a drunk leaving the Rearing Stallion, and was barely aware of the collection of volunteers about the Bazaar. This was not the elegant, defiant creature she had encountered last season.

But it was. Only by the build and the few tufts of remaining fur could Naiomi tell, but this was the first cat she had ever met. Something though was terribly, terribly wrong. The same bluish-purple mold that covered the walls had replaced most of the fur. Patches where the mold had not grown over were balding at best. It looked about for a moment, eyes seeing but mind registering nothing, then hacked up a glob of the same mold.

Something twinged inside of Naiomi’s soul. The tiny beast needed something from those watching, and though Naiomi couldn’t tell what that something was, she took a step forward to help anyhow. Steel sang out of its sheath, and Ser Aric took the cat’s head with a single stroke. For a moment, Naiomi was stunned, but when a sense of peace filled her, she understood that this was exactly what the cat had been asking of them.

“Nothing that happens here will leave here.”

A thought entered Naiomi’s head. She was happening here. Her hand went to her neck as if more amounts of flesh would stop Syliran steel. It took her a few more moments to realize that Ser Aric was talking about knowledge of whatever transpired. Relaxing and her hands dropping back to her side, she almost lost complete focus on the things around her, but a single word in the Knight’s sentence had her reflexively stepping toward him.

“Come.”

That wasn’t what he had said, she knew, but it was what she had heard, and so she was by his side listening to his instructions in the space of a few moments. Some of his calm had disappeared. The smell-taste of fear was in the air. Even her human nose could sense it, and Naiomi admired the Knight even more for it. Despite the fear that was warranted, he remained level-headed, doing what needed to be done.

“Groups of two,” he commanded.

Naiomi didn’t know anyone here. She was still new to Syliras, and the only real connections she had made were with the other children. Other? She was an adult now. It was probably time she started making grown up friends. Either way, that didn’t change things now. Naiomi needed a partner. Fortunately, the man who’d been carrying her bucket, the Akalak, glanced her way and invited her along. Accepting a torch, she followed him a short way into one dark hallway of the basement until he asked which way they should go.

Thinking about it a moment, Naiomi realized she knew a way to know the best way to go, but it came with its risks. The last thing she wanted to do was spend the last moments of her life barf-coughing up mold only to be finally decapitated by Ser Aric or maybe even this squire. Decapitation seemed a messy way to go, even though it was quick. It wouldn’t mean anything when she was gone, but she still preferred her body to be in one piece. Still, hopefully, the risk was worth it. She slid the tied scarf off of her nose and sniffed the air. Even not as a dog, her nose was sharper than any human’s.

First, she walked down the hall in one direction for a dozen strides or more, sniffing at the air as she did. Turning around, she repeated the process in the other direction. Once more, she went her initial direction, covering up her nose and nodding, speaking through the material of the scarf. “I think we should go this way. It smells stronger this way. It smells worse.”

Worse was a relative term that the squire who’d joined her couldn’t even hope to comprehend. Dogs (and Naiomi was no exception to the rule) loved things most people would consider awful. They loved to smell them. They loved to eat them. And what they loved more than anything was to roll in them. But this smell was something even she wouldn’t roll in.

It felt good to know that a Knight-trained squire was heading into the dark with her. Her torch did little to lift her spirits, nothing to bolster her confidence.

boxcode credit : Ennisa

[Lutro Seafoam]

Lutro leaned against the freshly scrubbed wall. Nayato looked down on him and spoke something about a tree and a metal wing, but Lutro found it difficult to follow. He had seen plenty of trees in his short time travelling and couldn't make the comparison. None of these trees had grown under a mountain... He shook off the confusion and pressed on with the introduction.

Ser Aric spoke up then, a compliment none the less. Partly in shock and partly to hide the fact he had been slacking, Lutro stood up sharply and locked eyes with the knight.

"Ah, you flatter me sir. I would like to meet this friend, she sounds wise." His body language was nonchalant and open, but the more perceptive would easily see through it as forced and unnatural, like a child talking back to their parent. Lutro was a sucker for a compliment though, which softened his attitude towards Ser Aric considerably.

The prospect of expanding his business excited him. For too long he had stared jealously at the reserved inner tables, who undoubtedly received more trade and more renown. he responded coolly.

"That would surely be a dream come true. We shall wait and see, eh? I am glad my produce is finding itself in good stead!"

“I didn’t really grow up eating fish. If you want to repay me, come hunting with me someday.”

Lutro grinned at this. He was never one to shy away from a challenge and was already weaving this offer into some sort of competition down the line.

"I would be honoured, friend. What is it they say? Give a man a fish and he will not be hungry for a day. Teach a man to hunt and he can open a second stall!"

Lutro's happy-go-lucky act was quickly cut short as a scream rang out over his laughter. He watched as what had once been a cat stumbled into the hall. Everyone seemed frozen in place and for what seemed like an eternity it shambled forward, what Lutro could only describe as an abomination, unnatural movements and sightless eyes. Ser Aric's blade snapped the room back into reality as it nicked through the cat's neck, ending its misery. Lutro cursed audibly in Fratava and turned away, fastening the hide mask back around his mouth.

The mood shifted instantly. What had once been a friendly group of strangers working at a menial task was now a shocked group of co-conspirators who had witnessed something foul. Lutro was intrigued and more than a little frightful. Ser Aric seemed immediately in charge of the situation, issuing orders to their group. Nayato called over to him and Lutro was compelled to follow, so picked up a torch from the wall and crossed the room to the huddle.

This is madness. Lutro thought to himself. He had no real weapons on him, just the blunted knife he used to eat with tucked away in his backpack, and there was something unnatural about that cat, something ungodly. He could hardly look at its twitching corpse, lying decapitated on the flagstones.

In spite of his better judgement, Lutro turned to Nayato. The other partnership had started off in one direction confidently, which left the Svefra and Chaktawe to search the opposite way.

"I did ask you to go hunting with me someday."

"And who could have known we would be lucky enough for that day to be today?"

Lutro started off in their direction, crossing to the end of the hall before turning and addressing Nayato.

"We should at least be known to each other, friend. I am Lutro."