[Episode 2] Two Minds, One Body

[Kokuten]

"Perhaps it is the forest, it is their home, is it not?" shrugged Manon, dropping the two sleepy Spriggans like unwanted sacks of potatoes. "That may be a question for Willow, or perhaps Mr. Flynn when he returns from his vacation, non?"

The clown looked about, seeming to have misplaced something, "Now, where is my ball?"

She rubbed her chin, and turned, and then turned back, pacing in a circle. The ball came into view as she walked, and she stood on the other side of it, looking around. "No ball, no mysterious protector."

At that, she walked around the ball again, not noticing its presence, and it disappeared as she walked in front of it, wiping it from their vision. The clown gave another shrug. "C'est la vie, non?"

Meanwhile, the Spriggan in Willow's hands began to wriggle and struggle, before rattling at the ones in the bushes. A couple of them came out, gathering up Drysi's boots, and taking her glasses when they were tossed down to them. One of the fae assembled itself into a character; its legs filling the boots and wearing the glasses with a patch of dried, yellowing moss on its head.

Plop, plop. Stomped the actor, rattling low, as if grumbling. It paced one way, and then another, showing a walk through the woods, before it came to a stop.

Suddenly it began to claw at it's face, a pitched percussion emulating a scream.

Fwash! A spriggan came bursting out of the bushes, and the two seemed to notice each other. The one bursting on the scene cautiously waved before putting its hands to its throat. The yellow-moss Spriggan had its hand out, and then slowly clenched it into a fist. Then, with a bold warcry like the group just faced, the fae in reserve came charging out, swinging clubs and spears, knocking the actor over, pulling off the boots and glasses. Frustrated, the actor sat up and threw its hands out, and the surrounding looters fell to the ground, as if pushed away.

Then, the actor stood, brushed itself off, grumbling again as it stomped away, bare-foot, deeper into the forest.

At that point, the leader looked at Willow to see if this skit had appeased her.

[Mr. Blackbird Lore]

Johann, glad to have something other than Manon's stupid tricks to look at, was first amused and then confused. He searched the others with his eye to confirm he wasn't the only one. "She ddddidddiddd-" another deep, resetting breath. "Drysi hadnnnn-" the second deep breath was more of a frustrated growl as he gestured vehemently with both hands at the Drysi-spriggan. "Not that," he managed, and merely hoped they understood what he meant.

[Straken]

"What did you make of it, Johann? I'm not sure I understood it much beyond these little imps attacking her," Willow huffed as she lobbed the spriggan she was holding off into the brush with a light underhand throw. Burning a bit of iron, she found Drysi's glasses in the dark by following the thin blue line to the tiny screws set into the joints. She noted a number of other lines pop up, most of them directed at a number of bells adorning Manon, but to her dismay she realized she had forgotten to grab some coins before leaving. Mentally berating herself as she tucked the glasses into a pocket, Willow realized how tedious only being able to push or pull metals would be.

"Because it seemed like they were saying Drysi went Darth Vader, but I've never seen her use the Force before so that can't be right," the Brit reasoned she she began to take a few steps in the direction in which the yellow-moss spriggan stormed off.

[Kai]

As the brief skirmish wrapped up rather swiftly, Katerina sheepishly gathered herself and made her way once more to an upright position, brushing some of the forest loam off of her now sullied clothes, before an impromtu troupe of actors took a verdant stage in front of them, doing their best to wordlessly relay what had happened to them prior to the group's appearance.

"I do have to admit it seems odd. Drysi is rather the fragile girl and I've not seen her do much magic that doesn't involve paper in some way," Katerina observed. however, intrigued by the scenario presented by the spriggans, she looked to the 'leader' of the troupe as Willow moved to follow one of the 'actors'

"Well, shall you lead us to where this all took place?" the blonde asked of the forest creature, leaning forward to get a better look at the spriggan as she questioned, keeping an eye on which way Willow had already begun moving.

[Mr. Blackbird Lore]

"Right. Nnnew magic. Ssssomething... Or someone." He gestured with both hands at the Spriggan-Drysi as if to make his point. He was reaching a breaking point with his stutter again, and his desire to speak was dwindling. The necromancer was more than happy to subside to silence as they walked.

[Kokuten]

The spriggans of the Wilderwood retreated into the night, rattling little curses, and shaking their rootborne fists.

Cutting through the brush, the group found that the small forest fae that had played Drysi hadn't gone far. It was pulling off the yellow moss as they approached, and as it looked up at them, they saw its wooden mask was cracked. It wasn't so broken that they had noticed it before, but without all the accoutrement, it was clear that it had been injured recently.

The small fae beckoned them along, pointing ahead.

"It looks like someone did go that way," said Eryk, squinting his yellow eyes, the irises adjusting in the dark before determining to follow. "Some of the branches have been bent, and..."

He looked down at the mud, "Footprints. Small."

The hexer had clear, but unvoiced reservations as the group followed the woodkin. They walked for some time, Manon occasionally breaking the tense atmosphere with a bad joke. Yet, as they walked, the noise of billowing trees and the hooting of owls were all that filled the space between the punchlines. Eryk kept looking over his shoulder as they went. Willow could vaguely hear what he was hearing with her enhanced senses. They were deep into the forest, alone save for their nocturnal audience of animals, but she could hear something

Someone was following them.

"BLOODY BOILIN' CUNTS!," a screaming stream of profanities drowned out the tailing presence as they came upon a clearing. "Fuck. Fuck. Months. Months of preparation. Months. This can't be happening... This can't be happening..."

Peering through the bushes, they saw their quarry. It was Drysi Maelgwyn, her robed form crouched in front of a tree, her blonde hair shaking with each utterance of anger and hatred. "Fockin' whisperdust. When I come back here, I'll kill that alchemist... or whichever one did this... Argh... Fockin' hell... I can't... I can't get it out. I can't even get enough magic out of the tree to light the damn lanterns."

From the tree hung a slew of effigies, stick-men hanging by their necks. Symbols of dark magic had been carved into the bark and a large circle of magic had been drawn at the perimeter beyond the roots. "It wasn't... It wasn't like this last night... No... The stupid girl... she must have... Foolishness."

The presence of magic felt suppressed the closer they came, but Johann could nevertheless sense the dark magic he had felt before, coming from Drysi's direction.

[Gwathdraug]

Vrey appeared amidst the boughs of the ritual scarred tree. The bald teen, still in her mismatched pajamas but now missing her gauntlets, placed her own scarred hand against the rough bark of the central trunk. "My apologies." The girl's statement was little more than a murmur, quickly swallowed by the heavy, groaning crack as her fingers sunk down splintering through the old wood.

Even as they retreated the spriggans could feel as a flood of energy as it bit into the grand tree's heartwood and then continued down again and again until from leaf to root the nature spirit was nothing more than a silenced, boiling mass of otherness that was already falling apart.

The ground trembled and the first roots that surfaced in gouts of soil were far too thin to be anything more than skeletal remains that burned away alongside the green light that animated them. The fourth and fifth eruptions - twisted on themselves with bulging growths at one point and deeply devoured grooves at others - hissed out against the open and air and darted forth to grab at Drysi.

[Kokuten]

A small layer of whisperdust faded under Vrey's bare hands, instead of hissing against the effects of her energies, there was the bubbling of laughter. Much as with anything inherently magical, the dust acting strangely under her influence.

It was enough to draw the attention of the triclops, who raised her head in alarm as the tree began to erupt to life. The roots sprang like arms from the earth, sinewy and mighty as they reached for her. Drysi turned, retreating from the shambling tree, the source of power in this strange ritual. She seemed to stumble at first, before throwing herself to her feet, running for as long as it took to pull out a curved wand.

With a swiping motion, it proved to be a sheath, housing a narrow blade, like a thorn. The girl turned, plunging the knife into her palm.

"Mae Tân Du yn llosgi fy ngelynion," seethed a crony voice from the girl as she ripped the curved blade from her hand. The roots stopped in their tracks, and from the wound erupted not blood, but thunderous fire. It was an elemental magic that made Katerina's skin crawl and drew the familiar sense of the necrotic that Johann was so familiar with.

The flames scoured the tree, ruining the ritual that seemed to be prepared.

"To think... of how much I despised the distractions..." Drysi's head rose, revealing a tear-stained face; with three, wild eyes shining unnaturally green in the moonlight. "That in the end... her foolish attachments would bring me such brilliant ingredients."

Barefoot, dirty, and her hand dripping fresh blood now, Drysi looked the part of a stray dog left out for days. Her clothes were a mess, her face was mottled with dirt, and her hair was wiry mess of tarnished, gold threads. "The brain of an all-powerful source... the hands of an opulent noble... the eye of a necromancer... and the beating heart of the one she--..."

Her hands came up to her hair, pulling tightly against the roots, a fresh stream of tears running down her face. It took a moment for her to compose herself, the thornblade ready in her hand. "NNNNNNNGGGH--... No. No she does not like that."

[Gwathdraug]

As half of the tree began to go up in smoke as the other half of it continued to be devoured from existence Vrey jumped from off her perch. As she hit the ground both wisps of smoke and power still clung to the girl as she trotted forward before flickering out of sight.

The short teen, her eyes back to a cold grey instead of a vibrant green, reappeared in front of the triclops with her gauntlets once more buckled securely over her bony arms.

"I do not know you and you do not have permission for speech." Vrey punctuated her statement by crashing the leather covered knuckles of one of her fists against Drysi's dirt-covered cheek in a crossing hook.

[Kokuten]

It was a moment that had been coming for a long time, but perhaps expected in a much different set of circumstances.

The triclops wasn't ready for the sudden assault, and the fist struck her so hard that the minimal amount of a barrier only lightened the force. Her body went tumbling a few yards away, bouncing over the ground, before crumpling in a heap by a bush.

"What the hell is happening," Eryk spoke first among the group, shocked into silence by the sudden skirmish.

"I do not know! But it makes for good TV, non?" commented Manon, who somehow had a bowl of popcorn and a pair of shades as she watched the event unfold.

At that, Drysi rose again, throwing her head up, indignant.

"VREY!" she whined, a big bruise forming on her cheek, "That hurt! First you go pulling my hair, now you're punch--... Hah...? Ha ha ha..."

The triclops began gasping in a terrorized laughter, as if realizing something monumental, and patted herself down, "I'm me. I'm me."

She started to cry, her voice shaking as much as her hands, "I'm me."

Then she started to sob.

"Help. Someone."

Again, as the clarity in her eyes began to fade, the stare drifting to Willow.

"Help me."