Session 4

October 17th

They meet with Gallienna and Sindre at first dawn and begin the two hour trek to their home. As they walk, Della asks about the issues they've been facing. Gallienna says there's been illness with their crops, animals, and now in the people too. Furthermore, people have been disappearing lately. Everything is mundane, but its suspicious when its all lined up. Della asks if the disease with the animals and plants in particular seems to be localized to their village, or if they've noticed it in the area.

Gallienna and Sindre exchange a meaningful look. They seem glad that Della is insightful. She says she isn't sure, and hasn't specifically asked.

The landscape north of Vollendorf is largely scrubland. Dull, rocky, and poor farmland. Despite how generally unsafe the lands are, they don’t see anything along the way.

A simple flagstone wall surrounds the village of simple houses. In the middle there is a common area, and sheep grazing around. The people dotted around the town stare at the group of them as they pass. Ophelia garners the most curiosity from them, due to her western clothes. A prevailing sense of exhaustion weighs heavy on the village.

They head to what appears to be a large meeting building, which has a curtail along the back wall. Gallienna pulls the curtain back to reveal a living space that appears to belong to her and Sindre. The party settles in there while she makes them tea. Della asks to use the stove as well for some medicinal purpose. Eden and Della had seen a woman while they were walking through town who looked to be struggling with a simple task, and Della asks about her.

Gallienna said the woman hadn’t seemed unwell, but it could simply be exhaustion from the situation. When asked about other illnesses among the people, she described a strange gangrenous rot that had killed someone without discernible cause. Sindre speaks up then, declaring it was a type of jungle rot that is uncommon on this side of the spine. Another person fell asleep and never woke.

They have an hour before a scavenging party returns, and as they wait Eden asks about the religious beliefs of the people in the village. She explained they believe in Animism; spirits in living things. Some people also follow Maligant, the former god of war.

Basil returns after roaming around to get the vibe of the wildlife around and Ophelia goes to ask about what he saw. He confirms that he saw animals, and indicates that something was strange about the animals, unsure if they were sick or not. She asks if they seemed sick as affected by the company, or normal means. Basil indicates that it didn’t seem to be from the beast.

The group decides to split, with Eden and Della going to talk to the old woman, Nishia, while V and Feli go to check out the animals that are sick. They meet with Nishia and Della quickly notices that the woman seems to be suffering from the early stages of sight rot—a quickly progressing disease that will cause the person infected to go blind after a week of unpleasant symptoms. Della explains this and Eden offers to help try and heal her eyes. Nishia is hesitant, but agrees. The spell helps a bit, and they depart after.

Ophelia and V are led by Gallienna back through the commons where a small pen is. She flags down one of the shepherds to speak. He explains the animals growing ill have a variety of seemingly unrelated symptoms. Cysts, sores, fatigue, it seems random.