A Call in the Night. ATTN: Shango, Rodrick

Perhaps it’s because the inside of the well is darker than the moon lit fields, that off color seemed more vivid as Shango looked into the depths of the well’s shaft. His headache redoubled as the echo of the bucket hitting the water reached his gnoll ears.

But there was something other than water heard in that splash. As Shango’s eye’s adjust to the strange alien light he can see the hint of a cavern below and perhaps dry land at the edge of the water.

A sickly pulsing noise emanates from the depths as the gust of air is exhaled from the well.

The bucket sloshes lightly as Shango draws it back up. At first compared to the light in the well the water appears dark, normal. But the longer he looks at it the more he can see specs of the unknown color moving though the sample he’d retrieved, and he feels a wave of nausea wash over him.

[???]: “The witches, eh? You don’t look much like a witch yourself, did Basileia come with you then?” She looked with curiosity at Rodrick, the people of this village aren't used for see new faces around here.

[Rodrick]: "Well, the witches are busy somewhere else, but I'm a friend of the family and we came with Erchon."

[???]: "Though if you’re with them I should let you ask you questions. Follow me to the back room so we don’t disturb those resting."

Rodrick followed the gnoll lady as he looked around the place, everyone looked awful and it was only a matter of time before things got worse.
The back room was a bit dark, with only a small fire lighting the room.

[Didaxe]: “I supposed I should answer what might be your first question mister Dreemurr, my name is Didaxe. I might be playing the role of a nurse, but I was a teacher here before that blasted stone fell out of the sky.”

[Rodrick]: "Well, nice to meet you Didaxe. Tell me, if you were a teacher before all of this, how did you end up working as a nurse?"

“Not by any merit on my part,” Didaxe said, and offered a toothy grin that only a gnoll could make. “No,” she continued, “desperation is the only reason I’m playing the role of nurse. Most of my students have disappeared now.”

Her friendly smile faded. “I’m afraid, if I’m being honest. I’ve got more education than anyone on the farm and I’ve never heard of anything like this. Not even the elves know what we’re dealing with.”

~~~

Outside Erchon screamed indescribable hue enveloped him. In place of the powers he’d tried to commune with chaos answered. He knew the light of the Flame, and the patterns of the Powers of the Earth he was familiar with. But only disordered noise filled him now. Voices that said nothing and everything.

He gripped the shade stone wishing to call the chthonic power within, but as he opened his maw only echoes from beyond space rang out.

[Shango]: "Ughh... damn this headache." He closes his eyes as the headache intensified.  

He pulls the water up from the well. then the nausea washes over.

[Shango]: "Oh no.. I am not feeling well."

He is indeed not doing so well. His stomach feels like he is going to throw up. along side that feeling in his gut is a strong feeling of fear, like butterflies in the stomach.

Shango carefully puts the bucket back down the well to never think about it again.

He then hears Erchon screaming. The chaos enveloped him.

[Shango]: "Erchon wha.. Erchon! Ow.." Shango looks back in the direction Erchon is, the headache stinging as he does.

Shango tries walking towards where Erchon is. Due to the nausea, Shango fails to steady himself and trips, falling on his side.

[Shango]: "Oomfh! Oww.."

Shango's face is full of fear. His eyes are watering because he doesn't know what might be happening to Erchon.

Shango lets out a raspy yell for Roku.

[Shango]: "RODRICK!!" Shango's throat feels kinda scratchy, Coughing after his yell for help.

As Didaxe spoke with Rodrick, a night rending cacophony penetrated the walls of the farm house, and caused her soul to quake.


She stood frozen at the door just able to hear the muffled unsteady voice of someone in the fields. “I…” she was stuck. More than the horror of the past weeks was contained in the dread she now felt.

“RODRICK!!” the voice from outside cried. With an effort she pushed open the door revealing the witch’s son caught in the sickly unknown color. Not far off another gnoll lay coughing in the dirt.

[Shango]: "RODRICK!!" He screamed for help as loud as he could just as Rodrick told him, but his condition was getting worse every time.

Didaxe opened the door only to see his friends in a distress situation. The first thing he saw was his beloved friend laying on the ground, not being able to move and with his face in horror

[Rodrick]: "SHANGO!!" He rushed to help him when the door opened. He bent down to check him and held him to get into a better position. "W-What happened to you?!" Then, he saw Erchon trapped in a wave of chaos, trying to hold on as well as he could. He put Shango laying next to the well for a second. "I'll go help Erchon and then I'll come back for you okay? Just hold on."

Erchon was in a circle made by him, which was causing all that chaos. He rushed to Erchon quickly with a fire dash and grabbed him out of there and took the stone from him to make him come back to his senses. "Erchon! Snap out of it! It's me, Rodrick!" He screamed at him.

Once it stopped and Erchon explained everything, he went back to Shango to check on him. Rodrick was very scared, he didn't know what happened to him and he was only guessing the worst...

[Rodrick]: "I'm back, can you breathe correctly? This doesn't feel like a normal headache to me..."

Erchon’s vision of the fields and forest flickered. For a time only the haze of the unknown color filled his sight as his thoughts were pulled into whatever corrupted the land, and the chaotic noise began to resolve itself into a voice… his.

The wordless speech grasped at his mind in search of meaning that he could not find. He was being drawn into some sort of hole, about to see beyond. His seeing of the color was blind and oracular at the cusp of infinity and oblivion.

As all was about to collapse into the singular unmeaning a hand grasped Erchon, and he reeled, pulled from organized pandemonium.

The scream still in his maw as his goatish friend tugged his arm, “Erchon! Snap out of it! It's me, Rodrick!” his friend called to him.

As his mind returned Erchon found the shade stone still gripped in his paw. “Help me," he cried for the little frightened god of the stone.

Darkness enveloped him, pushing back on the sickly light. Ere long the chthonic shade took form and lent their power to Rodrick as he pulled Erchon free.

The light from the circle faded as Erchon fell to the ground heaving. In the same moment Rodrick was off to attend Shango.

OOC: Rodrick now has the condition “Blessing of the Shade” Which will grant him increased strength for the reminder of this RP.

Shango sits up against the well, slightly wincing from the fall.

[Shango]: "T-Thank you Rodrick."

Shango's head hurts a lot. He wishes he could shake the dizziness of but that'd make his headache hurt.

When Rodrick comes back, Shango lifts his head up to look at the goat.

[Shango]: "I don't know what is happening to Erchon! Things have gotten very weird when we came here and now things are going to hell."

Shango pauses, then continues.

[Shango]: "When i took a look at the well's water, it felt like the world around me was spinning. I saw what was happening to Erchon. I tried to get to Erchon but this nausea made walking difficult and I fell. That is why I called for you, Rodrick."

He pauses once more.

[Shango]: "I am afraid I have fallen ill. this headache has lasted far too long and now i'm dizzy like I am about to throw up."

Shango holds back tears, he is scared.

Erchon sat dazed where Rodrick left him. His mind quaked from the communion with the force which devastated the land.

Rodrick was with Shango not far from the well. In time he steadied himself, stood and walked over to the others.
He opened his mouth to speak, “I aefe… wonk efw…” his words were broken and he trembled trying to still his mind.

“I… know it… now” he spoke with effort. “The thing, the light, the heart… must find.”

With the Little Shade’s help his mind held together enough that he began to think more clearly.

“This power’s corrupting our beings.” he said at last. “I can’t believe my mother sent me…” he slumped next to the others.

“I had tried to commune with the Powers of the Earth here, but that thing caught me instead. Tried to enter into me. It knew my mind, and I parts of it. There is little coherent to what I felt only madness and echos of missing ill.”

“But I think I knew enough to offer us some protection.” He opened his pack and brought out some thread he’d spun from flax. “This will take some time though, most of my magic is in making, and even with protection for ourselves we need to figure out how to destroy whatever this is.”

As he spoke he began to weave the thread.

OOC: Erchon’s protection will take two full rounds to complete. If you investigate something or talk to an NPC, I’ll let you know what you find in a post.

Rodrick's could be clearly seen in his eyes when Shango told him the news, his heart sank and he was hyperventilating.

"No... No...!! NO!! H-How did this.... WHEN did this happen?? Oh Hylia what do I do? What do I do???" He thought to himself trying to hide it, but with no success whatsoever.

He didn't know how to treat Shango, the only way he knew how to treat wounds was using his magic, but 1. His magic was very weakened by the magic of this world and 2. It was just for that, wounds...
Erchon finally recomposed himself and told them what he saw, he could grant the group some protection, but for Rodrick it felt like it was too late for that.

The only think he could think of was speaking with the nurse to see if he could get more information about this sickness. He needed to, before it was too late... Rodrick's mouth finally opened and he spoke to him with his words stuttered.

[Rodrick]: He grabbed Shango's hand before speaking to him. "I-I'll go to s-seek some help! I-I promise you t-that we will find the solution to this!" He got up from the floor and turned to Erchon. "I'll be back soon. P-Please, I beg you, keep an eye on him..." He then left into the house again, turning to speak with Didaxe.
"Didaxe, we don't have much time so I'll go straight to the point! I need you to tell me everything you know about this sickness! Symptoms, reactions, patient's experiences, spreading, time that it takes to someone to transform, everything you can think of!! We don't have much time!"

Didaxe stood, maw agape as the scene unfolded before her and as Rodrick returned to speake with her.

“I…” she hesitated. “We know so little about this illness,” she said. “It started within days of the ‘stones’ falling from the sky. Headache, nausea, like the influence of a fell star. But as it progresses it becomes unlike any flu I’ve known. In time lesions form on the body. I believe you met Lupeh?” She asked before continuing. “You may have noticed the sores covering his arm. The same nameless color as the stones and the dead trees.”

“In time they fill the eyes and mouth, and cover the skin and the pain worsens. In time the first to fall sick began to lose their form. They’d pool and swell as if their bones no longer held them.”

“We don’t know how to treat it, we can only help ease the pain, in the end all those too long sick have vanished.”

She frowned, and regarded the other gnolls who had come with Rodrick and she took a bottle from her pocket “There’s little I can do for your friend mister Dreemurr, but take this. It treats pain and nausea. It won’t cure him but it will help him work in the meantime.”

Shango carefully nods to Rodrick.

[Shango]: "Do your best.. and thank you." He sniffles.

He watches Rodrick walk back to the house where Dixade is. Shango quietly sobs for a brief minute.

[Shango]: "I'd take anything to rid of this sickness. I don't care if the treatment is painful, scary, etc."

Shango puts his paws over his eyes, wiping the tears away and then sighs.

[Shango]: "ugh... " he sniffles again then coughs.

He uncovers his eyes and looks to Erchon, having a question to ask. Shango clears his throat and lulls for a second before speaking.

[Shango]: "Erchon, What was happening to you over there? A-are you alright?"

Erchon drove a stake into dusty ground until it struck a sturdy layer. Then he unwound several lengths of colored thread and bound them to the stake.

Not far from him Shango coughed and cried, and Erchon’s heart ached. He allowed his feelings to move his hands. His wish to protect his friends poured into the threads as he began to weave his spell.

"Erchon, What was happening to you over there? A-are you alright?" Shango’s unsteady voice was only just heard by his keen gnoll ears.

“I’m here, Shango.” Erchon spoke, his voice was steady and warm, and the magic he had already begun to work carried every ounce of compassion and love he felt for his friends. “I’m safe, and you will be too.”

As his hands worked and wove the cords together he began to sing first a song for the Power’s of the Earth, and then a song for The Flame of Eluthane. Both shade of stone, and light of Flame flowed into the making.

Then the song changed. A wordless melody rang out. Its form difficult to follow yet each note was a beautiful counterpoint to the chaotic song of the unknown color.

Piece welled in Erchon’s soul he continued to work the threads.

TW: Fear, hiding feelings, character lore and regret

[Didaxe]: “We don’t know how to treat it, we can only help ease the pain, in the end all those too long sick have vanished.” Those words made his eyes widen as he was at the verge of breakdown...
“There’s little I can do for your friend mister Dreemurr, but take this. It treats pain and nausea. It won’t cure him but it will help him work in the meantime.”

Rodrick picked the a small jar of medicine that Didaxe gave him with a sad look in his eyes, considering how much time they had left.

[Rodrick]: "...Thanks, Didaxe..." He left the house after saying that, recomposing himself as fast as he could before coming back with the group. He saw Shango laying near the well at the distance, Rodrick just put the most straight face he could and approached to them.
"Hey there guys, Didaxe gave me this small jar of medicine that should help the pain. There you have Shango." He gave the jar to Shango and he gulped it straight away. Rodrick was looking at him as he took the medicine, he couldn't stop thinking about what was going to happen to him if they didn't find a solution to this sickness, a cure...

On the outside, Rodrick looked calmed (at least compared to how everyone looked) with a few small signs of worryness. But on the inside, he was tearing apart, someone he cared from his group was infected with the Gods know what and they were against the clock to find a solution.
He didn't want to lose someone, not again... All he could do was thinking about those lifes he couldn't save, all those people who fell right before him. He thought about...

"PLEASE, DON'T LEAVE ME!! I'M SORRY!! I'm sorry..."

Those damn voices, echoes from the past tormenting him over and over again... It's been two years since that incident and he can't still get over it. Rodrick sighed heavily and brushed it off. He looked at Erchon, who seemed like he finished his chanting.

---

OOC: If you guys wanna know more about his lore, you will have to ask him if we camp somewhere nearby the village.

Minutes passed since Shango took the medicine, and in the distance Erchon’s wordless song continued.


A bitter extraction of herbs, and bark infused in watered down brandy. The alcohol acts first making his skin warm, and then in time cool.

Slower is the work of the herbs. The people of this time and place don’t understand how the herbs work, only that they work. Enzymes, proteins, caffeine, and neurotransmitters are well beyond the science of the land. Even still all these things are in the drug offered to Shango and from his gut they enter his blood and wash through his body.


Next his stomach settles, and with a few moor beats of his heart the chemicals make it to the sick gnoll’s brain. The headache clears, held off by the drug's effects against pain, and Shango finds he can think more clearly again.

[Erchon]: “I’m safe, and you will be too.”

Shango quietly nods and looks back down, staring at his paws. He listens to Erchon's singing. The singing is very calming.

Shango closes his eyes as he listens, a small and quiet sigh blows though his mouth and then a sudden small cough. The sadness in him is partially gone, though deep in him he still fears the illness will consume him entirely.

Opening his eyes again, Shango sees Rodrick walking out of the house, holding a jar of some liquid medicine.

[Rodrick]: "Hey there guys, Didaxe gave me this small jar of medicine that should help the pain. There you have Shango."

Rodrick hands the Medicine to Shango. He takes a close look at the medicine, seeing if there's labels or any text on it.

Shango looks up to Rodrick.

[Shango]: "Thank you, Rodrick." He crudely smiles.

A second later, he gulps the medicine down. the taste of the medicine is interesting.

Minutes pass, he notices the pains in his head and the butterflies in his stomach aren't as intense as before.

[Shango]: "Mmmhmm I don't feel much aches now. Fascinating!" Shango carefully gets up, stretching.

He hands the jar back to Rodrick, thanking him again and smiling brightly.

[Shango]: "Thank you Rodrick!" Shango scratches his head, relieved of the pain for now..

In time the song faded as Erchon finished his weaving. Three flat cords of woven thread now rested in his paws. In each, a single green thread stood out among the rest. It rose and fell, and any who looked upon them would know and hear Erchon’s song.

He found Rorick and Shango sitting not far off. “My spell is complete,” he said as he approached them.

“When I was trapped in the light of the unknown color I had been caught in a spell of my own making. I had meant to speak to the latent Powers of the Earth here, but instead I was caught in the ‘mind’ of the unknown color. It was agonizing as it worked to break my being. And though I was near the brink of death before Rodrick pulled me free, I came to know the ordered chaos of that strange light emanating from the stones, an alien god, a seed of corruption from beyond the sky.”

He shook his head, “I still understand less than half of it, yet I know if we don’t remove the root, the heart of the power that’s grown here, our world will slowly die.”

He handed both of them one of the cords he’d woven and fastened his own around his wrist with a loop and button. “Even as we speak that power assails us, and yet I’ve learned its patterns and countered them with the spells of my weaving. They won’t cure any damage already done; that would take far more time and skill, but they will protect us from further harm.”

“Would that I had means to make enough for everyone here, but these three bands are all I could make. It will be up to us to destroy the heart of the infection for the sake of those who survive here.”

When Erchon finished his spell, he approached them with some cords made by him. Erchon gave said cords to Rodrick and Shango, which Erchon tied around his wrist, and Rodrick did the same and tied it there to keep it safe.

He explained the situation that was happening in this land and how we should stop it in time.

[Erchon]: “It will be up to us to destroy the heart of the infection for the sake of those who survive here.”

Rodrick found it a bit ambiguous. What would happen if we didn't stop it in time? And what will exactly happen after it is done? He wanted to know more about what to do, so he started asking questions.

[Rodrick]: “So, we have to 'destroy the heart of the infection', but how do we find it in the first place? And let's say we end up coming victorious out of that, will everything just come back to normal?” He asked that last question a bit more worried than usual, since Shango's wellbeing was at risk.

The effect of the bracelets was immediate. From the weaving a faint crimson light shone, the same as the old Flame of Erchon’s lamp. An aura of the Dark Powers pushed back against the sickly color which drifted through the night air.

“I don’t fully know where it is. Just near. What have either of you been able to discover?” Erchon asked.

Shango ties the chord around his right wrist. He looks at it with a slight smile, showing hope for what we are able to do against this mysterious and probably extraterrestrial danger.

[Shango]: "When I looked at the well's water, I think I heard something coming from it. I don't know how to describe it."

Shango's ear flicks.

[Shango]: "The bottom looked pretty big and I felt some wind blow at me from there, including some kind of lingering sound. The well could be an entrance to a cave." Shango pauses. "My headache stung when the bucket hit the water. When I pulled the water up and looked at it, it had specks of this unknown color in it. And then that is when it felt like the world started to spin!"

His brows furrowed.

[Shango]: "I'm curious about what lies deep in that well now. I suspect there's more in that well other than water."

Rodrick looked at the well too, he could feel that unsettling breeze coming from there. He tried to use the Eagle Vision to see what was down there, but he was far from succeed as his magic didn't fully adapt to this world yet and he didn't want to risk getting hurt from that. Rodrick wasn't sure if it was safe, so he proposed a plan.

[Rodrick]: "Alright, we need to go down there but we need to be careful, this might also be the only way out. We will go one by one to make sure we don't break the rope from the well." He grabbed the rope and got into the well. "I'll go first and make sure that it's safe down there, I'll give you a warning so you guys can come down.

Rodrick rappelled down the well, he could feel the wind blowing with more intensity as he got further and further. Once down there, he casted some flames from his arms and scattered some bits of the fire to illuminate his surroundings. In just a few seconds, light from Rodrick's fire covered the walls of the underground. He didn't see any creature in sight, so he called his friends.

[Rodrick]: "All clear!! Next!!"

Following behind Rodrick Erchon tucked the shade stone into his pouch. “You’re safe now my friend,” he addressed the Little Shade which drifted beside him in the air. “So long as I keep you stone with me the spell woven into the bracelet protects you as well as me.” The Shade rattled and whistled happily in response.

Ere long he was beside the well and watched as Rodrick descended the shaft clutching the rope used to draw water. The opening seemed to breathe and a faint thrumming pulse was only just heard by his dish shaped ears.

“All clear!! Next!!” He heard the call from below, and soon Erchon flowed down the rope. He could smell the good sturdy hemp which held his weight easier than expected, still he was careful not to cut into the fibers with his claws. He wouldn’t say he was afraid of heights even still he heaved a sigh of relief when his feat splashed into the pool of water below.

Water seeped through the stone around him. A sheen of both the light of Rodrick’s fire mixed with the glow of the unknown color reflected on the wet walls. It was brighter here than it had been on the surface.

The thrumming sound came louder now though still in the distance. Though for him to hear it even at a distance it must be something huge, he suspected, as it could be heard over constant drip of groundwater into the cavern beyond the well.

“Shango,” Erchon called, “I’m clear of the rope, you can descend now.”

[Shango]: "Alrighty!"

Shango grabs and hold on tight to the hemp rope. Shango doesn't have to worry about cutting the rope. He usually clips the tips of his nails to prevent accidentally tearing his own paintings or puncturing any fruit he finds.

[Shango]: "Comin' down!"

He steps on to the edge of the well. Carefully he steps down with one foot before the other.

Shango now carefully lowers himself down into the well.

A moment later, he's at the bottom.

At the bottom of the well, His head turns in many directions. the eerie sound is definitely louder than the dripping water.

[Shango]: "Wow.. that is louder now. scary. We should keep quiet, I really don't want to aggro anything that might lurk here."

He has a paw on the handle of his shortsword, ready to pull it out at anything that could jump out at us and attack.

Rodrick tries to use the Eagle Vision again now that they were underground. He could the strange color more clear now, but the problem was that it came from 2 different directions, one from the left and the other one from the right both still, not making any movements at all.

[Rodrick]: "Shit... We have a problem." He said whispering. "I can see the same weird enery now, but it's coming from those 2 directions." He points to the locations. "We could try our luck going to any of those places, but that would be a 50/50 chance. Does anyone have any ideas?"

He took out his sword to defend himself in case anything happened and waited for his friends to speak.

Erchon’s sister, Boule, had once explained how to call on the Powers of the Earth to find something lost in the ground, but he trembled at the thought of trying it now. Even with the spell of the bracelet protecting him he feared reaching out after the corrupting light had seized him.

He could remember from his time connected to it, them? He asked himself. Whatever it was had been vast. He couldn’t say which way they should go to find the heart, but what he did say was, “We may need to go both ways anyhow.”

He took the path to his right. “Come on,” he said.

He carefully steadied himself as he walked on the wet cave floor. In the twits and dips of the cave the thrum faded from hearing before coming louder as they rounded a final bend.

A root dangled from the ceiling which shone in the light of the unknown color. The thrumming grew louder as they approached. Then a thread began to form at the root’s and extended toward them. Ere long it took a globular form before dropping to stone below.

A… he dare not call it a creature a thing rather, bearing a sunken bovine face and squished and riggled toward them. Gnashing teeth formed a maw in the center of its writhing form.