Cecil just stood there and took in the atmosphere. There was something oddly calming about a group of people talking - even arguing - in an inn or tavern. It took him a moment to put his finger on it, then it became clear: the normalcy, the routine. Whatever may be out in the woods, whatever may have happened to poor Polly, in here, the world seemed to carry on as if in well-worn, comfortable shoes.

Since Mistress Yendale seemed to be engaged in conversation, the Vicar decided to start his inquiries with Polzeath. He nodded a polite greeting at Martin's servant.
"Polzeath, my good man, I just spent some good time reading up on old stories and legends and found a few items of peculiar interest. There was a little bit that continued to vex me, however, and I was hoping you could shed some light on this for me.
You see, I found some notes on the May Revels around these parts and there were notes on some Welsh or possible Cornish influences. Are there any particular rites, rituals, or traditions from your home region?"

Polzeath swallowed and tried to give as clear an answer as he might: "Well, sir, you see sir I do come from a small village, such as doesn't have much traffic with the world as such, an' we face the sea: we do 'ave the May Revels, but it's more of the slaughtering a sheep hung up on the beach, like, to show we're offering from the land what gets offered us from the sea. We don't have a Mercy Horse like you 'as, nor we don't have Burnt, Hanged an' Drowned a-caperin in the streets, sir. Point of fact they scare me: if y'be burnt, hanged or drowned you don't ought to be gettin up again like he barley, dancin'."

He shifted uncomfortably. "That might be childish as to 'old agen' them, sir, I knows. There's plenty villages do 'ave an 'Oss, like yours or a heap of rags or otherwise. They come out in spring to be good luck. Protect the inlanders' crops n' such. Maybe your Mercy - your Trugred, I mean - protects you folk 'ere from bein' burnt, 'anged or drowned, or from such as died any of them ways, as that's coverin' the elements, like. Air, Fire, Water, an' they all come back to Earth."

In reply to Robin Yendale (msg # 44):

Sam took a swig of his beer, setting the mug down. "No, we didn't see the devil. We headed into the woods after Master Fox, and after we had talked him we saw the stag. We got out as quickly as we could, but as far as the Devil? I don't think so."

"There was something standing by the tree though, as well as the stag of course.... did you not see it Samuel ?"


-

In reply to Thomas Bees (msg # 50):

Sam felt himself growing slightly dizzy - likely after the running through the woods and the drink combined. He leaned back a little bit before saying, "I hadn't seen anything, besides the bones I had shown you, the hares, and the stag."

"Bones? What type of bones?" Robin asked, expressing a fascination clearly felt all about the immediate area, then remembered he was still talking to men he ought to show some deference to for the age difference. "-sir?"

Maggie's face shows growingher frustration with these vague hints and roundabout words.

"Sam! Thomas! This talkin' around things you've both seen an' th' rest of us ain't don't help. Ye need t'tell a proper story from th' time ye went into the Wood until ye come out again. An' don't leave anythin' out."

Maggie's outburst got general calls of agreement and encouraging words from those around, forcing the Vicar to wait to make his reply to Polzeath. Seeing that the youths seemed a bit hazy on how to go about things, the landlord tapped the bar with a tankard for attention and nodded over to their table.

"All right. So you went in thinking to find Mistress Durbin's body. You saw something - hoofprints, was it?" the digression was directed at Andrew "-that caused grown men to blank out of their wits and take to their heels. No-one saw a body. Master Sexton and the Vicar ran out, you two and Master Fox ran in." He leant forward.

"Who was in front? What did you see?" He let them think on that. "Was there any trace of the body, whole or in part?"

”Strange hoof prints,” Andrew answered quietly, mindful of Collins’ implied scorn, ”They looked akin the those seen on the Binding Stone.”

"I will give the full story when Goodie Westcott appears, I want her to hear what has happened. Then I shall give a detailed account."


-

Lucy set down an entirely cleaned-out bowl and stood straight. "I'll go," she volunteered, since it seemed her brother could hardly escape this many to go get himself lost again.

"I'll pair with you," Nell offered.

"No need," said Bart Phippins, leaning to look out the window from his corner to interpret some movement for Arnie. "She's a-coming across the green like a thunderhead."

Nell moved to see and was joined by Beth. "Oooh, she be set to wring some'un's neck, all right."

"-or curse them wicked," Hessie's sister giggled, just a little bit nervous.

"Bees, lad, is this something you've done?" Bart leaned back to catch Thomas' eye.

"I guess she did not expect us to return and now she has to explain away why we did...." Thomas was in no mood to put up with this woman accusations again and this time she would listen.


-

In reply to Thomas Bees (msg # 58):

Sam silently nodded in agreement with Thomas.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:21, Tue 05 Apr 2022.

Maggie wonders what could have happened to put Goody Westcott out of temper, though she knows her to be a right Tartar if trifled with. She bides to see what might transpire. Still on the lookout for something to eat and drink.

"Polzeath, my good man," he said, addressing his man, "who do you think we might speak to in order to learn more about these local traditions? Trugred, and such?"

Polzeath looked a little trapped, since the most sensible answer was the most obvious, and sounded like cheek; he bowed slightly at the waist to compensate, mostly addressing his master's shoes. "Well, see you sir, I would ask some'un from around here, sir, if it's about what's around 'ere you want to know in particular. Maybe the midwife woman, or someone up at the hall."

He nodded across the room at Bart. "Mister Phippin says it was one of these here Foxes was the wicked Mister Fox from the folktale, an' that tale was old in the Shakespeare fellow's time. If that's true they must've been here a great long time."

"If the noble Vicar don't have things in his books, sir, you might look in theirs...I can tell you some things about Cornish folk tales and that, but for here precisely I'm not reliable."

"She was in 'ere, save for when she went on to deliver some salve," Bart said dryly to Tom's theories, patting Dockie's side where she sat huddled against him.

"Not much time to be getting home and getting out her crystal apple and her silver dish to know of your doins, eh Tom?" Beth giggled, troublemaking. The next moment she grabbed Nell and the two scrambled away from the window like a couple of startled hens.

"Heads down, here she comes-" Bart started, and winced as both doors were slammed through.

"Blessings be upon this roof," the village midwife announced, entering. The way she said it rang through the sudden quiet of the inn much like the challenge bell across the curséd heeath in tales of Arthur's knights.

She looked about her, not sure why everyone was there, but taking that information to herself with a steady gaze about the room. She advanced some paces forward. "All right," she said, "-now which o' ye knows anything 'bout who's turned my house upside-down?"

"Please take a seat Goodie Westcott, myself Samuel and Mr. Fox have just returned from the interior of the wood and we would like to tell our tale." Thomas waved his hand at an empty chair and waited for the midwife to take a seat before he began.


[[GM edit: mildly creepy homophone confusion, bugging me.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:18, Wed 06 Apr 2022.

Not knowing what the young man was on about with the lack of specificity as to woodlands, the midwife gave Tom a glance but stayed where she was, somewhat distracted by having her house rifled. "Talk as y'will, boy, I'm not stoppin' ye."

She raised a finger, causing several villagers to tense and lean away as though it was loaded. "There's someone hereabouts knows what those fools that turned up all my chairs'n drawers was after, or will know once they set to boastin'. So help me I will tan hides once I gets up with them, knocking things about an' the sheet off my bed and the broom in the rafters...they've made off with my- well, a device, you could say, for teaching the women, and no I don't want it back for they're surely doin unmentionable things with it, can't think what else they'd want it for."

"So help me, if I don't get names an' damage undone I will undertake to complain to the magistrate, if I have to walk that score miles myself."

Thomas gave a half wave and let the woman stand as he turned back from the woman towards the others in the Inn. "So as you all know Samuel, Mr Fox and myself were part of a search party that was beside the wood in the fields near the "binding" stone. After some misadventure with the bog there we found a trail that went from the binding stone and into the Wyzenwood."

"Samuel, Mr Fox and myself entered the wood following a very indistinct trail of possibly two people. We then found an area of churned up ground with huge cloven foot prints... we continued on towards the centre of the wood and found a pond which was filled with the muck that covered the animals that had come into the village. A huge tree was beside the pond and something else..... at that point the stag chased us from the woods and in the melee we lost Mr Fox as he tried to draw the beast off. There was also a skeleton and the floor of the woods is covered with bones of all manner of beast and bird, like a carpet it was just under the fallen leaves."

"Samuel will have more I am sure, but Goodie Westcott is there anything you may wish to add ? About the binding stone or the bog in the field or the mire and tree in the centre of the woods ?"



-

"What? You've gone off your wits, Tom Bees: nearest bog to the Binding Stone is where Bishop Elf-Guard took up the Field Stone down in Durbin's close field."

"I did tell 'im so, ma'am!" Nell put in at that. "-and how the plague came out of the ground the Good Folk didn't want to surrender, but the Bishop blessed it to be but water, and a bog," she added, in case anyone didn't know.

"Aye, well, if he went walking into the Wyzenwood an' She let 'im come to the centre as 'e says there, Herself in the Wood must 'ave some plan for 'im, and I'd ready a coffin...could be more, for he'll have touched folk by now."

That caused a murmur of alarm. Lucy paled and shot a worried glance at Tom, but the wise woman went on: "-and another Fox, dead in the Wyzenwood? Samuel, what's your part in this?"

"-and what of the Devil? An' Master Bees came out, he said he saw the Devil crouched at the middle, instructing the animals," Robin added, "-an' you never said what bones either, Master Hartman. Was there elephants? Why'd he mention a skeleton separate?" As far as Robin was concerned, it seemed 'all manner of beast and bird' was alike to what Noah put into his ark.

"Who in the wood ? and what is the connection between the binding stone, Polly and the wood ? What is the significance of the tree and why has whatever covenant between the wood and the village been broken ?"

He looked at Robin "and yes I did see something else by the tree, as for the bones there were no birds or uninfected animals they all ended up as a carpet of bones."



-

Eli the stablehand came through from the back and tapped Maggie's elbow to ask if she'd like a pint, clearly playing messenger. "...Kit says to remind you he gets paid tonight," he passed on to her with a 14-year-old's notion of decorum.

The lad folded his all-elbows kind of frame into a lean on the bar rather too near Maggie without much thought in it, clearly more interested in Goodie Westcott holding court and the state of his brother and Long Tom than anything his straw boss might owe or go inviting. "Is someone getten hexed? Kit said as what our Sam was in the Wyzenwood - is he hale, then? Is he poisn'd? What's gone on with Jim Stone, that he was goin' along with such a dark look on 'im?"


[[Mostly giving Sam a chance to answer things, but anyone can throw questions in here, too...]]

In reply to Elijah Hartman (msg # 70):

Sam chuckled as he saw his little brother come in to the inn. He nodded at Thomas, finishing his beer, buying another one before Mercy and Elijah both questioned him, seemingly at once.

"Alright, both of you, I'll answer what I can, but let me speak." He took another swig of beer, before answering Mercy Wescott first.


"The bones I had seen were animal bones, as Thomas said - so obviously, something within the wood was strong enough to kill dozens of creatures. There was... also a skull - human. However, it was far too old to be anyone who might have disappeared recently."

He took a swig of his drink before continuing.

"Brother, I appreciate your concern - but I am quite alright - nothing more than a few scratches and small scrapes. I don't know what happened with Jim Stone."