The Butcher of Gadobhra

Chapter 161: Visitor from the Stars

Barkroar was trying to restrain its branches, but the human was doing things to it that itched terribly. "Are you not done yet?!"

"No, one last patch. You don't want me to miss any and have to do it again, do you?" Suzette admonished the huge treant and kept scrubbing away at its bark with a coarse file and a scraper. She needed to get every last bit of Rustblight so it didn't grow back. "Ok, I'm done with scraping. Relax a minute while I get the acid."

"The firewater? It burns! Do we have to use the firewater?"

Suzette shook her finger at the treant. "That's the whole point! It burns off any of the Rustblight and cleans your bark. It will just sting for a little bit and then Ben can fix you up." She took a large bottle of diluted acid and a rag and doused the areas she had scraped clean. Ben followed up with his spell of "Healing Fire". Small white flames moved over the areas where Rustblight had taken hold. The fire killed any small speck that Suzette might have missed, and caused the abraded bark to quickly regrow.

It had taken some trial and error to find a way to permanently deal with the Rustblight on both trees and treants. Patches of the reddish lichen appeared on all of the ironwoods in the meadow constantly. After some talk, it was decided to bring in several teams of people to work on clearing the infected dead wood and treat the trees at the same time. The Rustblight was a persistent infection that didn't want to go away.

The dead wood had to be removed. Trunks and broken limbs of once mighty trees lay all over the bog, the crimson lichen covering them. All of it was moved to a large meadow outside the glade that had once been part of the oak forest. Hundreds of ironwood trees had died as what had once been a light forest area surrounding the spring had turned into a much larger bog. Blight and rotted roots had killed the trees rapidly.

The dead ironwood was resistant to fire, but the lichen-like Rustblight burned at a low temperature. There was plenty of left-over oak limbs and leaves to burn. Two rows of fires were made of the scraps left over from logging the oaks and then the ironwood trunks were put in-between. The radiant heat of the fires quickly reduced the Rustblight to ashes. The cleaned trunks were stacked nearer to the town, and raised off the ground to prevent rot. They would be allowed to cure for a month and then be carefully checked again for any infestation. No one wanted Rustblight to get into the town.

Zephyr, Aliester, and PHZero were kept busy mixing up vats of diluted acid to treat both trees and treants. Potent acids were brewed up in Aliester’s laboratory and the large glass jars taken carefully by wagon to the glade. A small measure of potent acid would be added to vats of spring water to make a solution that was strong enough to kill the Rustblight, but did little harm to the sturdy trees, even if it did sting a little bit.

Cham and Jon inspected each and every inch of the Ironwood trees, looking for Rustblight, trimming dead limbs, and generally caring for the trees. Both of them had been given the special skills Tree-Healing, Tree-Shepherd, and Tree-Speaking by Barkroar. The skills were increasing rapidly with the constant use.

The had eager helpers in Dot, Libby, and Charlene. The later always accompanied by her pink lamb, Cupcake. The three bunny girls were rarely out of the game now. When Cham had asked about that, they'd told him about their decision to take an extended vacation from real life. All three were retired and had enough money that they didn't need to work. Libby and Charlene had simply put most of their belongings in storage and moved in with Dot for a week, and then all three had checked into a long-term gaming facility that would let them game for a month at a time.

The three women had been accepted by Barkroar and were often in the glade, helping to heal the Ironwoods, and deal with other problems in the Glade. Squirrels were constantly trying to steal the ironwood nuts as they were planted, or destroy the seedlings. Dot roamed around the forests near the Glade, putting her rogue skills to hunt squirrels. Three times she had been attacked by Squirrel Commandos. Twice she had killed the level 4 Named Bosses, Leafkiller and Goldenfur had fallen to her bow and knives. Bushweasel had been a tougher fight that ended in a tie as bleeding effects killed both of them.

Libby had immediately started working on the drainage problem, putting some of her engineering background to work. By having some of the contract workers deepen the streams that led out of the Glade and clear the obstructions placed by the oaks, she could see a change in the Glade. As the water from the spring was drained away, the area went from a muddy bog to a damp meadow with several small rivulets running out of it.

This made it easier for another crew of workers to begin hunting for metal in the ground. People could be seen at all times of the day walking along, poking long poles into the ground and feeling around for chunks of ore. Chunks ranged in size, so it took some patience to do each square yard of meadow, hoping for the tell-tale sound of metal on metal. When that happened, the metal tipped rod was traded for a shovel and eventually a large chunk of dark ore or high-quality iron was dug up. There were uncounted tons of metal in the large meadow and the woods beyond. Workers would be digging it up for years to clear it all. But the priority was the sunny side of the Glade where the young Ironwoods were planted. This was also where the blight had first appeared.

An oily patch of still water usually meant the presence of metal below it. But Jon had found two places where the oily sheen took on a reddish tint. In the mud beneath those patches, they had found what they thought was the source of the Rustblight. Both times the metal tipped rods had come back up covered in the rusty colored lichen. Wooden shovels were used to uncover the ten-pound chunks of Blighted Ore. There was something wrong about it. Touching it made a person’s teeth hurt and ears ring. The chunks had been carefully placed in sealed barrels and taken from the glade.

Suzette had consulted her resident faculty about it. It was Titania who had the information she needed.

"Rustblight? And Blighted Ore? Oh, those can be bad. I've seen whole towns crumble from one nail infected with Rustblight that was used to repair a wagon wheel. There's an old nursery rhyme about it: Because of a nail, the wheel was lost. Because of a wheel, an army was lost. Or something like that."

"Usually it falls from the sky on a night when the full moon is a sickly green. You'll see the prettiest shower of falling stars, but one of them will be a large boulder Blighted Ore. It's like opening a box of rotted chocolates, you never know what you'll get. One chunk might bring Rustblight, while another sets loose a Plague of Singing Carnivorous Frogs. I think the worst I ever heard of was...well, no... let’s just not go into that. There's a reason the Lost Continent got sunk by the Circle of Sequestered Mages.

Find where it fell, and gather all the pieces. You'll need the hottest of fires and it helps if you can find a priest to add some Holy Fire to the mix. Do it hot enough and you'll end up with a big lump of Blighted Steel. The metal will be inert, and quite valuable to a smith making weapons of destruction and death." She tapped the axe in her belt.

Suzette relayed the information to Jon and Cham who continued their search. Cham found the third piece two days later. This one was larger, nearly forty pounds. After it was out of the ground, Libby began drawing lines in the mud between the three areas. Then she examined an area roughly in the center of them. Her third poke in the ground triggered a heavy buzzing and gave everyone nearby tooth aches. Jon yelled at her. "How the hell did you do that?"

Libby was quickly moving away from the area. "Simple geometry. Connect the points, bisect and look for the intersection to find the center of the circle."

"Also, that low spot had a nasty red tinge to the grass. But look at my stick. The end completely rusted already. That has to be a huge chunk down there. Do we start digging? It's very uncomfortable to even get near it now."

Cham was watching the dirt and mud as something pushed up from underneath. "Ah, unfortunately, we may not have too. Libby dear? Could you run over to that group of slackers loading up the ore and tell them we have something nasty coming to visit?" Libby was only too happy to get away from the area. Her teeth were aching like they were going to split.

Up from the ground came a large round chunk of the Blighted Ore over a yard wide and roughly spherical. It turned back and forth in the mud. Strange strands of red vegetation grew rapidly from the top, waving in the calm air. The orb was pushed up further and out of the muck be a gleaming metallic post six inches wide. The orb swayed back and forth as the 'neck' bent in every direction. Cham's head was hurting, and he backed off a few paces more. The orb swiveled in his direction as a huge eye opened and stared at him. A voice invaded his head, yelling directly into his brain.

"Rejoice gof'nn! nog nwnglui long yogfm'll gifts l' ymg'! m'fargle"

Cham's head hurt and he suddenly couldn't hold in the last meal he'd eaten and was violently ill.

You have heard the voice of m'fargle, emissary from the yogfm'll. Listen more and uh'enythnah milk!

m'fargle frn ymg' ah'n'gha 14th ot spawning eclipse

Star spawn, Wrong, just Wrong, Life Bringing

Jon came up next to him. "I can see you two are already bonding."

M'fargle uln wgah'nagl h' gof'nn l' f' ahornah ahthrodog!

Jon suddenly understood why Cham wasn't feeling well. He too reeled backwards and lost his lunch. "Oh, shit! I think it just said: 'Avengers Assemble'.

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