Spinney, the eldest leshy in Devon's Clearing, woke up for morning drills. He fancied himself a warrior ever since the day he protected the clearing from 'The Giant Spider'. That kill is where he ultimately got his name. Before that day, he was grown by the ifrit druidess Devon to be a helper in her garden. Born from a spell taught to the druidess by the lady of the Daycalm Forest, the dryad, Alyea. He was helpful and even taught more leshies after he gave up his gardening duties. But since he was a warrior, he felt it imperative that the other leshies also know how to defend the clearing. Should the spiders return...
Now, leshies were small creatures made of material from nature; cute, curious, anthropomorphic little plant people. The primary type of leshy that populated the clearing were 'leaf' leshies because they were easiest to grow. Spinney was one of that kind, as was his 'sister' and second eldest, Lark. His youngest 'brother' Pepo, however, was a gourd leshie--like Spinney but with a jack o' lantern for a head. And Pepo, like all the other leshies that were made after him idolized Spinney the Spider Slayer. Spinney found that getting the other leshies to admire him was much easier than getting them into fighting shape. Today, like every other day before it, he was going to try anyway.
Up with the sun, donning his cute armor and spear, he went to the garden where all the other leshies were playing. Pepo was up as early as him, a cute sword much too big for the gourd strapped to his back. He begged to help and Spinney graciously allowed it. Spinney stood on the tallest object in the garden, which turned out to be a watering can, and commanded the attention of every leshy on 'the field'. Much in the same way a general would to his troops! He had their attention, however fickle that was, and got straight to demonstrations before he lost that attention to something more interesting. A bird or bug, perhaps?
Using Pepo as a partner in his demonstration, Spinney tried to show the other leshies how to 'dodge big attacks'. Unfortunately Pepo wasn't very graceful and went all out. The demonstration turned quickly into Spinney backpedaling real swings from an overenthusiastic Pepo. A commanding, "I think it's time to stop!" from Spinney is what mercifully ended their 'demonstration'. Spinney turned to the assembled leshies waiting with wide eyed cuteness for the next lesson and told them, "Uh, okay. Practice that!" And they did... It was as chaotic as one could imagine. Such was the rigmarole that Spinney heard Lark giggling over it from wherever she was perched. Likely out of any range to participate in violence. That just wasn't her thing.
Spinney turned to Pepo and gave him a heaping bunch of orders the dim gourd nodded to but didn't really understand. Giving Pepo too much to do was the best way to assure that nothing got done at all. Spinney sighed, simplifying his order, "Watch over the trainees, okay?" The gourd nodded and Spinney left the 'training grounds' to wake up Devon.
The little leshy precariously rode the breeze as high as he could then climbed the rest of the way into Devon's tree house. The ifrit druidess always overslept and waking her was the only job Spinney kept from his helper days. As he scampered over toward her sleeping form, he noticed one of her storage boxes was ajar. So he peeked inside. What he found was a dead rose. So dead looking, in fact, that all the color had run from her pretty petals. When he tried to retrieve it, he gasped at how cold to the touch it felt and jerked away. He couldn't describe the touch, only that it felt cold and unnatural. But with great fortitude, he fought off the urge to drop it again and brought it out of the box. The rose was barely alive. Good thing he was fluent in plant-speak. She asked for the sun and he brought her immediately to the sunny balcony. Once in the sun, Spinney questioned where the rose came from and who brought her here. She could barely answer, only slowly die.
Seeing the commotion from her vantage point, Lark floated over to join him. He had Lark use her singing to put the rose at ease and went back in to wake Devon. He knew she had the power to bring dying plants back to life. It was the first thing he begged her to do the second she groggily awoke. A fellow enthusiastic lover of nature, Devon assessed the rose's situation and had Spinney bring the poor thing to her garden where she could anchor new roots.
Carrying the rose like one would cradle a princess, Spinney did as he was told. All the leshies got to work digging up some dirt and preparing a bed for the rose to lie on. Pepo even grabbed some water and carried it back in his head. When that was done, Devon came down with one of her prepped scrolls and magical material and brought the rose back to life. The rose's petals went from a withering gray to brilliant yellow and red with orange tips. A sunrose! Not a local flower in the least. Now that the rose felt better, it answered Spinney's questions. Devon could speak with plants, but only with a spell and she didn't have anything like that prepped yet. So she relied on Spinney to provide translation.
Questioned over who, how, and where, the rose's ultimate recollection was this:
"He took me in white hands of winter,
Looked at me with eyes the color of clay,
Carried me out of the people-rocks,
Toward the great blooming day.
Then I fell to sleep...."
She couldn't recall being left here. Only being taken from her brothers and sisters growing out of the ground near the 'people-rocks'. Closest 'people-rocks' around was a village called Crann Scáth. It seemed that was the place to start their search for his mysterious man.
Devon wasn't at all happy. This wasn't the first time the locals of Crann Scáth played cruel pranks. None so brazen as to leave a dead rose at her bedside, though. The natural fire that lit the color of the ifrit's eyes were ablaze. She turned to the assembled leshies and asked curtly if any one of them saw a man fitting the description. The only one to raise his leafy hand was Pepo, like an eager child. Oh he recalled such a man, all right. All he remembered was that he saw him and that he was 'very nice'. Not when he saw him. Devon and Spinney both deflated. Of course the only witness to the intruder was the absent minded little barbarian...
It was Spinney who demanded the intruder be caught, volunteering himself and Lark to accompany Devon. The druidess' mood lightened at the spunk of her eldest leshy. Lark was none too eager to go along with anything that might involve violence, suggesting Spinney take Pepo instead. Nonsense, the self proclaimed little warrior insisted Pepo was physically able to take on the task of guarding the clearing. And he certainly was. But the hollow headed gourd never really possessed the mental fortitude to handle more than one--maybe two--orders at a time. Either Spinney forgot or refused to accept this handicap, proceeding to lay out a string of orders for Pepo. This fruitless endeavor gave Devon enough time to prepare for the day long trip to Crann Scáth. Five, maybe seven minutes passed. When she returned to collect her volunteers, Pepo was no closer to understanding the orders and fail safes than he was when Spinney started listing them.
"...and if that should happen, you must gather the forces who can defend while sending another group to get Alyea. You understand?"
Pepo's jack o lantern face smiled eagerly, nodding to Spinney, "Yes!"
Lark shook her flowery head. "He doesn't."
"Of course he does, Lark." Spinney turned to his younger brother, a little frustration in his otherwise patient tone. "You understand, right Pepo?"
"What?" The gourd leshy perked.
Spinney surrendered to the maddening dopiness of his little brother and ordered the far more competent--and far less martially skilled--Lark to run the clearing. Pepo was coming along after all. The three set off on foot from to traverse the Daycalm Forest toward Crann Scáth. A fiery druidess, a noble leaf, and a brave pumpkin.
Preferring to be carried upon the wind between trees rather than Devon's shoulder like Pepo, Spinney lilted about in an adorably clumsy flight through the woods. It lagged him behind a little, but he was insistent on watching the rear. As he glided between two trees, the dryad Alyea walked out from one of those trees. His flight came to a crashing end when he bounced off her bosom and landed in a sticker bush. The sweet lady of the forest scooped up the little leshy and asked what he was doing so far from Devon's Clearing. More villainous vermin, perhaps? Oh, no. This was a serious matter and Spinney briefed Alyea on the happenings with due urgency.
She knitted her brow in concern. Daycalm Forest so intrinsically belonged to the dryad that nary a mouse could trespass in it without her finding out. Yet this went over her head? The revelation was alarming. But more than the news of the intruder, it was the description of the rose's affliction that widened her great green eyes. It was magical to be sure... Icy magic, perhaps? Maybe a tricky undine or lost ice elemental... in late spring... But she stopped just shy of considering it Death Magic. She assured Spinney that anyone wielding magic in her forest like that were bound to be discovered. Should that happen, she promised to deal with it, tapping her bow to show just how.
In their conversation, they'd lagged far behind Devon and Pepo. So Alyea tucked Spinney in her belt bag and went tree-hopping to catch up.
It was her forest. So to Alyea, the druid and her pumpkin were easy to find. Popping out of a tree like one would a body of water, Alyea landed gracefully and set Spinney down. The druid and the dryad shared a friendly hug and there was further talk about the strange happenings in Devon's Clearing. To cut their travel time down, Alyea tree-hopped them as far as she could take them. Just before the edge of her forest was as far as she was comfortable. The group was alarmed at the state of the fringes of the forest. It looked as if autumn had come early from the withered state of the young trees and wild shrubbery.
Spinney turned to Alyea, beseeching her to come along on the investigation. The dryad gently smiled but shook her head. "I can only travel so far from my tree, my brave little leshy." She spoke to Spinney still, but addressed all three. "Should you uncover anything, speak it to the eldest tree you can find and I'll hear it. Carun is with you..."
"She's with us all." Devon replied the religious farewell and stepped outside the safety of the Daycalm Forest.
The three made good time and arrived in Crann Scáth by that afternoon. This place was usually colorful with flowers in almost every season. Bow there was a visible lack of such flora now... and certainly no sunroses. Devon wasted no time in dawdling over this and headed straight toward the only real place people gathered, the mead hall. Spinney was of no use in questioning the locals of the people-rocks. He couldn't speak or understand their strange language. But he could understand the other, greener locals. So he bid Pepo to follow along and made toward their first interview.
As her leshies scampered away unseen, Devon's entrance into the mead hall drew some glances. Some alarmed. Some confused. Fortunate then that the village elder, Rhianu, was in the hall today. It's her she made a beeline for.
It wasn't a strange thing for the fire-child to make appearances in the village. Devon often traded and helped them in times of harvest or natural disasters. But drawing Devon out of her clearing usually took something severe. Having been around this village all her life, Rhianu's rise to elder of the village came with Alyea's blessing. She'd been running this place since before Devon arrived northwest. Fair but stern, if one of their own was vandalizing nature to taunt the dryad and the druid, Rhianu would be on top of it. The village elder offered a seat and food to the druidess...
Meanwhile Spinney got to questioning the grass first. But they were far too young and couldn't agree on much. All people looked the same to them. Moss was sleepy and tucked away in places where they didn't often witness the world. And weeds were notorious liars. Spinney considered questioning the only flowers in town at the florist... but a visit there never ended happily. And besides, the sunrose wasn't from around here. It was plucked from somewhere, not cut. That left the eldest, most pompous natural resident of Crann Scáth, the courtyard oak tree, Ceinwen.
Most trees were slow to speak. One could ask them what the weather was like and they may take a whole season to answer. Alyea's home-tree was the oldest and slowest of any tree Spinney ever tried to hold a conversation with. But Ceinwen lived in the middle of the people-rocks for so long that he caught the local attitude as well as the quicker response. Today Ceinwen was meaner than usual. But a quick glance and Spinney could see why the tree was so grumpy. It's leaves were dying, sick, and withering when it shouldn't be. The old oak was in agony. Spinney offered the powers of his druidess to heal him in exchange for some answers. Ceinwen agreed and the leshies made haste to the mead hall.
Meanwhile Devon spoke with Rhianu at length. Crann Scáth wasn't without its visitors. More so since the road Rhianu's father commissioned before she was born brought in some much needed trade. So a pale man with dark hair fit an impossible number of visitor's descriptions. Especially given the area. Rhianu was much more interested in plying Devon to convince Alyea in allowing some logging to fill stores. Mention of the state of the forest fringes brought the conversation back to the matter at hand. The village couldn't grow flowers anymore and had to go outside village limits to do it. The old oak was dying in spring. Devon was sure autumn wasn't due early this year. Rhianu promised to go over the logbooks in their Loft temple, check for any unique visitors. If there was a man wielding magic against the Daycalm Forest and Crann Scáth, she would put aside pressing duties to help find him. Hopefully he was still staying here.
Just then Spinney climbed onto Devon's shoulder and whispered in her ear. Devon nodded and stood, thanking Rhianu for the lunch. There was a tree to tend to.
After introducing herself to Ceinwen, since Spinney explained the tree could understand her, Devon cast a spell to purify and heal him. In an instant the premature death was gone and the oak tree was himself. For the kindness, Ceinwen allowed three questions and only three questions. Spinney felt the pressure to ask the right ones as Devon wasn't quite sure what to ask herself. His first question: "A man with dark hair, pale skin, clay colored eyes, and hands like winter was here. You've seen such a man?"
Ceinwen replied, "A rich man in spun metal. A winter man in spring. He visited me because I am the most important plant in all the people-rocks. He came with the elder and made a wish on my skin with his hands of winter. When he wished on me I could not feel Ellekah's touch on my leaves. He hasn't returned to visit me again."
"It sounds like he hurt you, so I'm glad he hasn't returned to visit you. You're the tallest and wisest tree in the people-rocks. I know how wanderers come from very far to see you bloom." Spinney buttered him up a little and asked a second question: "When he left, where did he go?"
Ceinwen replied, "He walked toward Ellekah, the great light blooming."
"Toward sunrise, Toward the Daycalm Forest..." Spinney grumbled. Obviously this man went there! He felt like he wasted two questions already. So he made a gamble on the last question, as most plants weren't quite capable of answering such an inquiry: "What was his name?"
Ceinwen replied, "The elder and the locals called him a 'Viem'."
Gasp! Spinney whooped in triumph and told Devon quickly. She was happy to get the clue but where did the sunrose come from? Spinney turned to the oak tree and tried to ask but Ceinwen refused to answer any more questions. He was back to his pompous self. It was something to go on. Devon went from there.
They stuck around Crann Scáth while Devon questioned various people she knew over this mysterious Viem. It didn't look like anyone in town had seen or heard of such a man. She even questioned the florist on the off chance that Viem bought the sunrose in his shop. No dice.
While they waited, Pepo was chatting up the weeds. Spinney overheard their asinine conversation and caught onto a part of it that peaked his interest. "Wait! You said you saw sunroses!" Spinney ran over to the weed who insisted it didn't 'see' any sunroses, but that it 'was' a sunrose. The leshy's brother was an absent minded pumpkin, he could play this game. "Fine... sunrose. Where'd your seed fly from?"
"People-rocks, you dull boob."
"This IS people rocks, you lying—!" he paused to collect his manners, then tried again, "Your seed didn't fly very far. We are among people-rocks."
"Other people rocks. Bigger, grander people-rocks! Farther than any bird could fly, I flew."
"And other sunroses live there?"
"Pfft. No." the weed scoffed. Well that was that. There were other villages or towns Spinney never heard of? He grabbed Pepo's viney arm and ran to tell Devon.
When he told her about revelation, Devon questioned Rhianu over whether or not there were other villages nearby. There wasn't. But there was a derelict hamlet southward that once belonged to the long dead Lord Monteleone. The place was called Hiel.
Monteleone? Devon had a thought, "What if the name of the man isn't Viem... but his initials? V.M.?"
Rhianu narrowed her search through the week's wanderer logs as she spoke, "Oh, bonny Devon, Iffn you're suggestin' it's a Monteleone, you'd be wrong. Lord Monteleone's been dead for a long time wit' nary a babe ner heirs to his name. Dead a generation 'fore you were even born, I'd wager. Me Da used ta tell me and mine about the handsome lord what loved a fae then was cursed by'er. He'd say Alyea, but I dunna name names... One day he went mad and shut himself in his hamlet to live out the rest of his days alone. Some o' the residents of the Hiel fled the hamlet to live in Crann Scáth. Now it's a spot our young and bored go to be brave, scare themselves, or pluck the wildflowers in exchange for a wee bit a quinney. Justa overgrown ruin now. Nothin' there but animals."
"So the teenagers pick flowers from there?" Devon asked. Rhianu nodded and the druid went on to describe the sunrose left in her room. It'd been a while since Rhianu had seen a sunrose, but when she did it was given to her in her youth by a brawny lad who braved Hiel to get the rose in exchange 'for a wee bit a quinney'. Which he got. As she shared that tale, she found a note addressed to Devon. The words were strange and Rhianu didn't understand it but Devon did, and so did Spinney. To their surprise it was written in druidic, a secret language among only the most devoted to nature. Only druids and their most trusted companions knew it. It read:
"Join me, my love. -V.M."
So a fellow druid left a love note? A dead flower and a cryptic love note? Fantastic. She had a secret admirer with a poor sense of humor. Join him for what? Who the hell was V.M.! She didn't know anyone with those initials! As Devon racked her brain, Rhianu found the initials written in the logbook days ago. Penned with the handwriting of an educated man. Seeing this, she began to recall something. Though she didn't have the sharpest memory in her old age. With so much to do, who could remember it all? "Nuthin too special about this man, iffin it's the one I'm thinkin 'bout. A lil off, but polite. Well mannered. Well spoke. Asked what's notable here n' I showed 'em the oak tree of my father's father. He made a wish onnit like all visitors do. Dinna stay here longer than a day, from the look of the book. Left a handsome donation, though. Maybe he's one o' them travelin' scholars like that air-bastard from last year. Prolly squattin' at the Hiel."
It was approaching late afternoon. Devon asked how far Hiel was. If they left now they would get there in the late evening if they took a horse. All signs pointed toward this hamlet. Spinney left a message with Ceinwen for Alyea to receive about what they found so far. He received no reply or indication Alyea got his message and tried again and again until he finally got a strange monotone answer. I understand. It wasn't the oak tree... But Spinney chalked it up to Alyea finally getting back to him. Then Devon grabbed up her leshies and helped herself to one of the village horses, much to Rhianu's chagrin, riding for Hiel Hamlet.
.
They arrived at the hamlet past nightfall. Outside the dilapidated walls was a lone sunrose bush. This was the place Devon's dead flower was plucked from. Evident by the blackened dead point where it was broken off from the rest of the bush. The horse was uneasy here and wanted to go back. Devon asked the nag to stay just a little longer while they investigated but that wouldn't happen. The poor thing. Devon more or less stole the thing for a ride. She allowed the horse to gallop home and it did without hesitation. Even Pepo was a little wary in sending the horse back. Devon eased their worry, telling them they would camp here and set out at first light after they've investigated and hopefully found this prankster. This V.M. needed to get his ears boxed.
They climbed the hamlet's walls to find not a triumph of overgrown nature but a desiccated wasteland where nothing could ever grow. It reeked of refuse and decay. Not a hint of flora or fauna remained in this terrible place. Vermin buzzed and vultures circled. Oh this place was cursed all right. Recently. More than cursed. It was blighted. Spinney noticed one of the vultures wasn't circling. It was sitting and watching them. He spoke up to tell Devon but was interrupted by attacking stirge! Disgusting, mosquito-like creatures half the size of the leshies.
No problem! Spinney drew his long sword and defended Devon from the vermin with ease. Then, as Pepo ran to stand alongside Spinney, a huge centipede crawled its lumbering girth out from under the foundation of one of the buildings and came right for them. Spinney--killer of the great spider, fearless defender of Devon's clearing, envy of all the leshies--saw that huge centipede and was struck with terror at the sight. He turned and fled for the wall. Pepo though? That little pumpkin-headed leshie went full tilt at the bug, cracking its carapace with a mighty swing. Pepo cried out, "I hit it!" stopping Spinney's retreat before it made the wall.
What was he doing? Spinney couldn't believe himself in that moment. Pepo was doing what he always idolized Spinney for and Spinney wasn't there alongside him! He ran like a coward and opened up Devon for attack. He felt like such a fool! Getting back to his senses, he drew his spear and joined shoulder to shoulder with his leshy brother, saying, "Good Pepo! Just like I taught you!"
Devon endured the leaching attacks of the stirge to heal her injured leshy guards. But she was in a bad way before Spinney finally managed to cleave them all off her. She ordered the leshies to endure the centipede just a little more. Her eyes and hair danced like a bonfire. Spinney saw the sight of the ifriti girl conjuring the deep blood of her fiery elemental ancestors and widened his eyes. He managed to dodge a nasty whiptail attack in spite of the distraction. But Pepo got a good chunk of his viney body torn up, nearly killing him. Such a scratch wasn't likely to stop the raging pumpkin, no sir. Then a fiery bolt of magical prismatic lightning struck the centipede, sending it shrieking and cooking in its carapace. It wasn't dead yet but Pepo lept on the sizzling beast and made sure it did. With a crack of his cute bastard sword into it's head, the battle with bug was finished. Pepo was covered in smoking buggy remains and still looked to Spinney with bright eyed hope on his pumpkin face. Spinney hugged his little brother, gushing with pride and congratulations. Pepo was no trainee, now he was a warrior, a warrior who bested a bug the size of three Great Spiders! (With a bit of help from Devon, but that's not what Spinney planned to regale once they got home.) When Spinney turned to tell Devon about the vulture, though, it was gone.
Such creatures only gathered in places where life had not only fled, but was cursed never to return. And the land throughout the entire hamlet was blighted. Blighted so badly that it was any wonder anything grew here at all. The sunrose bush was either very resilant or deliberately spared the hammer of the magics here. The blight here was too powerful, though. The deeper Devon went in her investigation, the more uneasy she personally felt. She kept Pepo on her shoulder for fear that touching the ground would injure him further.
Spinney braved the blight by floating from stone to stone as he split from Devon to investigate. What he found was a ruined graveyard that once served as a lovely courtyard. In the center was a mausoleum with runes carved all over. At first it looked like vandalism, and some of it was, but these ruins had purpose. Some Spinney recognized as druidic in nature. It was all opened and recently disturbed, within the last week or so. No one lived here now. There wasn't signs of any attempts at comfort like food or makeshift bedding like one would expect from a squatter either. Spinney got a creeping feeling and told Devon about it, bringing her to the place to see for herself.
All of this destruction and grave desecration had the look of Wudward activity. Devon very nearly chalked it up to their ilk. But she couldn't. As terrible a sect that Wudwards tended to be, they never blighted land. Nature was precious to them. Did whomever did this wanted the Wudwards blamed? She steeled herself and entered the mausoleum with the leshies.
What she found inside was more desecrated, vandalized, and robbed tombs. A realisation struck her... the bodies were gone. Here and in the yard. Gone! Then she saw one name not smashed or carved from the wall of names. A small blurb buried under a heap of names greater than itself: Videro. Just... Videro. Devon thought aloud, "Videro... Monteleone... V.M." She never heard of the man. But this man heard of her. And this man dabbled in death magic. A druid dabbling in death magic... "A blighter... Spinney...?"
"Yes, Miss Devon?"
"What did Alyea say when you spoke to her through the oak tree?"
"Nothing really. I heard 'I understand'. I mean... I think it was..."
No. That didn't sound right at all. And the land was so consumed in death that there wasn't any real tree in sight. Spinney finally mentioned the vulture. Suddenly Devon realized just how far her curiosity took her and acute panic hit her. This man was here and never returned since he left less than a week ago. He was in Crann Scáth, but never returned there either. When he went into the Daycalm Forest, he must have never left! A blighter cloaked in death magic! A powerful one too since any attempt Devon made to cleanse this hamlet fizzled and failed. This man, this Videro Monteleone... Alyea was alone in the forest and devon was days away without a horse!
Devon made haste to the only non-blighted land nearby, the area near the sunrose bush, and cast a ritual to call an ally. A hawk answered the call. It was big enough for the leshies to ride. "I need you both to fly and find Alyea. Tell her all we've found and prepare the clearing for my return."
Pepo sniffled, worriedly asking where Devon's bird was as she set the two leshies upon the hawk's back. She hadn't the power to call a bird that size and only enough power left to call this one after her failed attempts to cleanse the hamlet.
Spinney patted Pepo and spoke to Devon bravely, "It'll be done. You got two of your best on the task, Miss Devon."
"I've no doubt." Devon smiled nervously, "Carun is with you, always."
"She's with us all." Spinney recited. The bird took off and flew toward the eventual sunrise until Devon couldn't see them anymore. She shuddered a sigh and prayed they'd make it on time.
Though she feared she was already too late...
Ellekah rose, casting her pink morning light on the horizon of trees. Soon she would be the great blooming light all plants adored. As Spinney held to the bird--and Pepo held to Spinney--they saw the peak of Daycalm's tallest and most brilliant tree, the dryad's great oak. What they saw struck them both in horror.
Alyea's powerful tree showed signs of wilting and withering in her discolored bloom and dying branches. Just like Ceinwen in Crann Scáth, Alyea's tree had been touched by the hands of winter. Death never left the Daycalm Forest. It waited for Devon to leave it.
Pepo whimpered, "Lady Alyea... Lark... Spinney what do we do? What do we do!"
Spinney saw that vulture circling and narrowed his big eyes. "Defend Daycalm."
"The whole thing?!"
Spinney unsheathed his sword as the hawk dove for the vulture. "The whole thing!"