The group has no other issues escorting Noromo Esdallefin to Levoča village just after sunrise the day after dealing with 'Dib's wagon fortress'.
The muddy byway you are on winds its way through the forest and eventually reaches a damp clearing where the sun struggles to reach the ground through a canopy of forlorn trees. About thirty moldering, thatched cottages sit in this clearing. Local children chase pigs and sheep in play, but they all rush toward you. They take your hands and lead you into the dark village, the clearing around which is watched by hundreds of scarecrows made from bones and branches wound together.

As the children lead the group into the village several of the animals around seem a bit more aggressive than what you'd expect, with a sheep turning around and giving a child a bit of a chase before a dog comes by and barks at it. The really odd thing is that the sheep looks ready to attack the dog for a moment before it backs down and trots off. The children stop and look at the unexpected spectacle and the boy that was suddenly chased by the sheep speaks up as he is a bit surprised and startled, and even slightly worried "Think something like that happened with Olay Yurt and his bull?"

Another child shrugs and says, "Who knows, perhaps it is why we haven't seen Karda or her pet pig today."

After reaching the village proper, Noromo thanks the party for their services and pays everyone their 10gp payment for services rendered and heads off to prepare his wagon to vender his wares and possibly acquire new merchandise to sell elsewhere.

Some of the children run off to resume playing with the pigs and sheep, along with the dog that has shown up, while others follow Noromo to see if he has any sweets or toys to sell. A few other children remain near the party to observe the strangers.

Upon seeing the beauty of the tree canopy and the darkness caused by it, Amalar closed her eyes with a soft smile and began gently singing an elvish song about the beauty of the forest.

Amalar was a bit surprised by the children and smiled and followed when they led the group. The surprisingly aggressive sheep and what the children say after, causes her smile to fade into an expression of concern and she looks at Caeldrim. "What sort of evil would cause even a gentle animal like that to turn aggressive?"

With some of the children still following, she is happy to share in showing them whatever they are curious about, be it questions about her crystal-infused glove, her skin and hair colors, or what it is she does. Though if asked about what she does, the way she will put it is "I like to dance, and nature likes to dance with me. Together, we create beauty. And like many beauties in nature, it can be used to bring harmony." And will gladly demonstrate things like making the elements swirl in her hands. Nothing TOO fancy yet, as she doesn't know how fearful the village would be towards seeing fire, water, earth and wind swirl about her entire form.

  "Way things go? Probably some hypocrite ready to very loudly start throwing a tantrum about harmless people 'not respecting nature'.  Who will then hold their livelihood hostage until you humor them that twisting nature to their whims for personal gain is okay if they do it."

  He sighs, "At least things honest about being the most evil thing for miles wouldn't drag things out." So many pay attention to the bad rep of 'Chaotic Neutral', but it's almost always the self proclaimed True/Lawful ones that cause the most long term trouble.

  Nature is a lot like fire. A real good time until it starts getting pushy for attention.  Most don't take the effort to make both deserve the attention at once like Amalar does.

Hunter enjoys Amalar's song when she sings it. But much as he'd like to close his eyes to enjoy it more, he keeps his eyes open to be alert.

Upon seeing a swarm of children come to greet the group, Hunter smiles brightly and immediately gets to running around with them and being playful. Then the weird thing with the sheep happens. His expression becomes stern. Hearing Amalar amd Joe, he answers, "Whatever it is, we will stop it. Clearly, that is why we have been guided here. Margreve guide us to what ails you, that we may remove the cancer quickly."

He is somewhat amazed that the children half-shrug off the extremely disturbing display, but then they are children and are still learning what counts as weird or not. He loves children and wishes he could be in a more playful mood, but the seriousness of the situation is a bit too ominous for him to ignore. Still, he calms himself by remembering one has to take these things one step at a time and there is nothing he can do about it for now, so why worry before he needs to?

Mix is grateful to have more kids around is excited to share her ability to shapeshift... but doesn't know this place yet. So she keeps to her human form and answers questions about Barby in a half-bragging sort of way. Much like a kid bragging about their cool big sister would.

Mix gives Joe a confused look. "If they hold people's livelihood hostage, they will be proclaiming their evil and we'll just kill 'em. But like Hunter said, whatever it is, we'll fix it. It's what we do."

If any kids object to Mix saying "we", she will gladly explain that she is Barbara's squire.

At first Pyrus was staring at the thatched cottages, fantasizing...  ( https://www.deviantart.com/won...art/Trogdor-14789603 )*

But when the kids show up to escort the group into the village, he gets a proud grin and starts bragging.  "Yeah!  Lady Barbara and the others already took out a band of goblin bandits on the way here, and burned down their fortress!"

No longer wearing her helmet, Barbara gets a disgusted look upon reaching the outside of the village.  What's with the zillion creepy scarecrows?  And what a dreary place this is.  I've seen a prison cheerier than this.  And as if that weren't enough, the livestock act like they have rabies.  The strangest part is that the animal snapped out of it.  Maybe it's just bordering the madness stage.

Barbara listens to her allies, and nods.  "I hope you're right.  That this is a simple matter of slaying an evil druid.  An epidemic of rabies would be a far worse problem that we are not equipped to handle."

Upon receiving payment of 10 gold, Barbara stares at it for a moment.  It still stuns her that people are willing to put their lives on the line for such a small reward.  But then she reminds herself that she would risk her own life for another without any promise of reward.  Still.  10 gold.  Yeesh.  She off-handedly hands the money over to Mix.  "I trust you to keep track of the treasury."

Wildfire cheers and claps for Mix.  Pyrus looks jealous.

*OOC: Is reference to this: https://homestarrunner.com/sbemail58.html

Rocky would frown if his face could adequately make that expression as he sees the event with the sheep and hears the comments the children make. "Odds are that the missing Karda and her pig is related to this as is the situation of Olay Yurt and his bull. But are we to do about it?"

Caeldrim replies to Amalar, “There are several possible reasons why this is going on. We don't have enough information to rule out anything yet. The bigger question right now is the one Rocky pointed out... which situation do we deal with first, Karda's or Olay Yurt's?”

One of the children overhears the group's conversation and speaks up, "Can you all find Karda? None of us have seen her today...I saw her mother Jarka searching for her this morning over in that direction." The kid points off in a northwestern direction. The boy then continues, "There isn't much you can do for Olay Yurt, his bull killed him without warning three days ago and his son Drash wasn't able to kill the bull due to how angry it was... so he's now cleaning out his father's house, which is over there." as the kid points in the direction of Olay Yurt's house.

Rocky turns to Caeldrim and says, "It should be easy to deal with finding out what happened with the Bull I can use speak with animals to question him since I use it all the time to talk with Don."


OOC: Not needing to make a separate narrator post at this time since I included what would be added here. The question is, which task does the group deal with first... Find the Missing Girl or deal with the Angry Bull?
This message was last edited by the player at 22:41, Wed 07 Aug 2019.

  "Well, the expected thing would be to go straight to looking for lost kids.  But I would not be surprised if the problems with the Bull are related to why nobody has seen Kardra today.  So I think we should swing by to ask some basic questions first. If ten minutes of fact checking got Karda killed, then the kid probably wouldn't last another month anyways.

  Also, 'speak with animal to the bull that killed a man' counts as basic questions when you are Adventurer.

Amalar looks to Barbie and says, "I don't think rabies acts this way, so you can rest easy on that one."

She listens to her bro, then to Joe, then nods. "You have the right of it. And the bull is a danger right here and now to more than one person."

Amalar looks at Rocky. "Thank you, Rocky.. your ability will be needed very shortly."

Hunter knows better than to suggest splitting the party. So it really is a matter of what the group does TOGETHER first. "While I am loath to suggest it, I think caging as many of the local animals as possible is going to be needed in the near future. But I guess we'll see what the bull has to say first before we make such decisions."

Mix looks a little proud when Barbie entrusts the money to him, but she glances at Pyrus, seeing the hint of jealousy and asks, "Wanna help me count it and sort it, Pyrus?" in an attempt to involve him so he doesn't feel left out. That and thanks to Mix's background, she SWORE to never be even remotely like the tyrannical bullies from her old home. Never lord over others unless they are villains. And even then...

Besides. Pyrus is her friend. And Mix wants to make Barbie and Wildfire proud of her. And a whole host of reasons...

Barbara listens to the others with her usual stern expression, hiding the urgency she feels for rescuing the missing girl.  And the expectation that it is already too late for her.  Amalar's point is some comfort, at least.

"We will search for Karda, if that wasn't clear.  Where was she last seen?"

The Mom is probably checking her daughter's usual haunts.  Unlikely to be found in any of them under the circumstances.  More likely to find the remains by following a trail of blood that starts somewhere near where she was last seen.

In Sylvan she comments, "I doubt the bull will be in a chatty mood after murdering his best friend.  Steel yourselves for the likelihood that we will have to put him down."

Pyrus hesitates to answer Mix.  But then smiles and nods.  "Sure.  I'll help."

It only takes the group a few minutes to walk to the small croft with a pair of walled fields at the rear that was Olay Yurt's house and the field with the bull.

It doesn't take Rocky long to ritually cast speak with animals and then approach the bull. Rocky pauses in his approach when the bull suddenly looks up and bellows. Rocky then translates for the group, "The bull is complaining about a maddening singing voice that is coming from the forest."

Rocky then asks the bull, "Why did you attack and kill the man."   and the bull angrily bellows out a response.

Rocky then backs away and turns to the group, "The bull doesn't even remember an attack, he's distracted and agitated about that maddening noise. I doubt I'll be able to get anything more out of the bull and it would probably be best to leave the bull alone since he's likely to attack anything nearby for little to no reason without even realizing what he's doing."

Caeldrim rubs his chin and speaks up, “What are the odds that all of the afflicted animals are hearing this 'maddening singing noise'? Guess that means we'll need to find a way to stop that noise...but finding the girl needs to come before we try to find the source of the noise. We probably should let Olay Yurt's son know what we've found out... if only to make sure he doesn't risk injury going near the bull until we can resolve this issue.”

  "While it is good to have confirmation something is changing their behavior, 'It's coming from the forest' isn't exactly specific in a place like this.  Particularly when it's bound to be related to where the girl ran off to. Is there a specific direction? Or, knowing our luck, is the answer 'all of the forest' full three sixty degree problems?"

  It's a good thing Hunter would be very good at tracking small frightened children. And also a good thing Joe ops not to say that out loud about his goblin pal right now.

Amalar says, "Joe has a point, though. Especially if we wind up with no decent leads on how to find Karda."

She hurries off to Olay's son and says, "Leave the bull alone and make sure people stay away from him until we find the source of the problem."

Hunter says, "Once you ask it that last question, Rocky, we need to subdue this bull and knock it out... and any other animal. If the animals in this town are that unstable, anyone could be killed any moment, let alone while we're off looking for Karda."

Mix looks worried at the revelation of what the bull said. He's happy to have the task of keeping track of the money, but.. can't help worry in the meantime. Which means he actually NEEDS Pyrus' help counting. And soon, the counting is a very welcome distraction from what the adults are doing.

Well.  That is much better progress than Barbara was expecting.  More likely would be the animal saying, "Rrreeaaarggh!" and charging the moment Rocky tried to reason with it.  And wouldn't it just go to figure that this was all a string of unfortunate coincidences like the farmer getting drunk and antagonizing the bull and the adventurers were jumping to conclusions about some nefarious magic.  At least now its much more certain that this isn't a huge waste of time.  So there's that.

She nods in agreement with Caeldrim's prioritizing finding the girl.  And Joe's conclusion that her whereabouts are likely connected to the mystery.  Though she's not entirely sure what he means by 'knowing our luck.'  Have they been a team long enough for a pattern of having to search entire forests to have arisen?  If so, clearly this means Barbara hasn't been paying enough attention, and she'll have to assign herself proper punishment for her failure.  400 knuckle pushups over a bed of coals?  We'll see.

Watching Amalar scurry off to warn the farmer's son, Barbara listens to Hunter's suggestion and gives it thought.

"I have a suggestion.  What if we were to plug the bull's ears?  I don't expect it'll work, but it may be important later to have ruled that out as a solution.  I'm sure the bull will be willing to give permission for a remedy to the singing, so that should be the first question before we go asking for directions and get a 'leave me alone' response to everything from then on.  Instead, it may be more willing to do us favors if it thinks it'll be getting relief by being cooperative."

She turns in Amalar's direction and hollers, "Ask if the bull needs subdued or if he's certain the fence is enough to keep the bull contained even if in a frenzy."

Pyrus pauses from the counting and leans in to whisper to Mix, "Don't look now but you've become a 'he.'"

Rocky turns to Joe and then says, "Unfortunately the bull isn't able to give a more precise answer than in the forest."

Caeldrim follows along with Amalar to help explain things to Drash with Amalar. Drash looks to Amalar when she approaches him and responds somewhat angrily, "And why would I do that? The bull has gone made and killed my father. It needs to be put down."

Caeldrim then speaks up, “Our druidic friend used a ritual to try to speak with the bull and has discovered that a sound coming from the forest is driving the bull mad. The bull does not even realize he killed your father. We are just asking that you don't endanger yourself or anyone else by confronting the bull until we do what we can to try to stop the sound which should end the madness that is affecting some of the animals of this village. You have had to have seen animals doing some strange and aggressive things over the past few days. We have already seen some and have only been in the village for a few hours.”

Drash frowns at Caeldrim's explanation but nods before saying to Amalar and Caeldrim, "I have seen things... I'll wait to deal with the bull until you have gathered more information about what in the forest is causing this madness. If it cannot be stopped or if it is irreversable then the bull will still have to be put down. If whatever is causing the sound can be stopped, then stop it permanently... and if anyone is behind the sound then those individuals need to be killed or this village will never be safe." It goes unspoken that Drash also wants those responsible killed to avenge his father.

Meanwhile, Rocky turns to Hunter and shakes his head, "No if we try to subdue the bull it will fight to the death, and could cripple or kill someone before he is put down. We are better to leave him trapped in the fenced-in field where he can't hurt anyone. Trying to knock out all the animals wouldn't work either. There is no way the villagers would tolerate people just coming into the town and trying to do so without having the village turn on us. Plus the animals would likely flee into the forest where we couldn't get them all. It would be better to just let the villagers know what we have learned and for them to be on guard and to not travel alone. After all, if the animals in the village are being affected, so too are the animals around the village, like wolves or bears... and such wildlife might attack without warning."

Rocky then turns to Barbara and contemplates her suggestion, "Hmm, while that might work, getting close enough to use the earplugs would be too dangerous, as the Bull would attack from what he's already said. However, that could work to keep Donny, Parne, and Wildfyre safe since they could also be vulnerable to the effects of the sound."

Parne, who has remained with the group as Caeldrim followed Amalar looks around and sighs as he knows he'll have to speak up in order to explain things since Caeldrim is with Amalar and hasn't returned yet... Thus a soft voice can be heard coming from the Leonino with brown and white fur, as he speaks up in the elvish tongue. This possibly surprises those around Parne since he has not previously spoken up in their presence, (Elven)"Earplugs of some sort is a wise precaution as I am hearing a strange sound from the forest although I can't tell from where it is coming from... it seems to echo off all of the trees somehow and is most annoying in that regard. Unlike with the bull, it isn't affecting me, but that may be due to my higher intellect since this sound only seems to affect animals, not creatures with enough intelligence to be sentient, like me. I doubt Wildfyre would be vulnerable, but Donny is at risk, so we should at least use earplugs for him before we head off to find the girl. Oh, by the way, Caeldrim and Amalar have managed to convince Drash to not approach the bull until the group finds more information about what is causing the sound."(Elven) There is a slight hint of a mixture of both a sense of superiority and boredom in Parne's voice.

Rocky blinks as he listens to Parne as he knows Parne's voice is not due to the speak with animals ritual and that the Leonino actually can speak, and probably understands any language that Caeldrim knows since Parne is some sort of familiar. Rocky also realizes that not everyone in the group may understand Elven and thus what the Leonino said so the Warforged Druid translates it for the rest of the group if asked to.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 22:26, Thu 24 Oct 2019.

  Joe is counting on the fact Mix is always the same amount adorable to reduce the amount of people who notice the shapeshifter's momentary oversight, be it one in or out of character.

  "Well, at least this group isn't any stranger to tracking things down the old fashioned way.  Though hopefully we can work out something more convenient than long term self induced deafness if the noise is a repeat occurrence, and we're not lucky enough that smacking down one asshole deals with it long term."

Hunter looks over to Rocky when he speaks up and nods. "I trust your judgement, Rocky."

Mix glances around and looks back at Pyrus. He gets an impish smile, pops out a ponytail, and whispers. "Tada. Instant she." Then "lets her hair down" and shakes her head a little to loosen it up, disguising the fact he is completing the disguise and making hair grow a bit and subtle changes in face shape to be back to being a girl. He whispers again, "Guess I'm feeling... boyish today. But darned if I don't enjoy doing that particular trick with the hair." followed by a girly giggle.

But Hunter and Mix both do a double-take when the cat speaks. At length, even. Not just parrot-talk.

Hunter listens to the Leonino. He does catch on the air of aloofness, but doesn't mind. It's speaking elven, after all. AND it's a cat. The aloofness levels should be off the charts! He responds with a respectful tone, <Elven>"As you say, Parne. Glad you're not affected. If I may... why haven't you spoken till now?"</Elven>
This message was last edited by the player at 04:10, Thu 03 Oct 2019.

Amalar is lightly startled by the angry tone. <Elven>"I thought this man didn't want the bull dead since the bull was still alive..."</Elven> she comments very quietly and somewhat defensively as if expecting to be flogged. But she calms down when Cael explains things more thoroughly. "We will..." she answers to the man's demand for justice.

She turns to walk back to the group with Cael. <Elven>"Thank you, Caeldrim. I don't mean to sound impatient, but the sooner we deal with this problem, the better."</Elven>

Barbara tries not to let it show that a weird cat creature suddenly speaking in fluent Elven surprised her too.  She carefully mulls over what the cat had to say, though.

Wildfyre shrugs and answers in her tiny voice, "I don't hear any strange annoying sounds."

Listening to Joe, Barbara becomes convinced that her confusion with Joe's way of speaking is because she hadn't noticed till now his proclivity for exaggeration.  But animal earplugs for the duration of an adventure being described as long term deafness finally convinces her to consider everything he says as an exaggeration.  But princess training also convinces her that it's not her job to correct him on just how vast a difference there is between earplugs and long term deafness.

"Donny shall be our answer, then.  If the madness appears in spite of the earplugs, we shall know that the remedy doesn't work.  I expect you won't have any trouble convincing Donny to wear earplugs, Rocky."

What's more surprising?  An exotic cat-like creature who speaks Elven?  Or a goblin who speaks Elven?  Either way, the obvious question asked, Barbara remains silent on that.

Pyrus grins at Mix.  "Love how you do that."

He then leans in close and whispers, "I would think that Donny would have mentioned something about a maddening sound to the druid by now.  But I'm betting they'll get all defensive if I bring it up.  And Lady Barbara didn't.  Sooo maybe she hasn't thought of it?  I'm gunna say something to her."

He gets up, and unless Mix stops him, he goes over to Barbara to whisper his thoughts into her ear.

Parne seems to sigh, as much as a cat can make those facial expressions, and answers Hunter's question as if stating the obvious, (Elven)"Because something needed to be said and Caeldrim was not here to say it."(Elven) Parne doesn't seem impressed by Mix's 'trick' but it could just be that the Leonino just wasn't paying attention to Mix.

As Caeldrim wakes back to the group with Amalar, Caeldrim answers, (Elven)“It seems that the reason Drash hasn't killed the bull yet was that he was busy dealing with his father's final affairs and belongings. At least he was choosing to mourn before attempting vengeance. But I agree that we need to solve this problem quickly, I don't believe this village would last long if packs of wolves or families of bears were affected and attacked this village. And let's not forget swarms of insects, they can be dangerous as well.”(Elven)

Rocky's eyes contract and dim as he says, "I'll go ask Donny about the sounds since I haven't used this ritual in the village before we approached the bull."

It doesn't take Rocky long to reach where the group left Donny and the carts where Rocky asks Donny about any strange noises or other oddities... upon getting Donny's reply Rocky rushes back to the group and says, "Donny is hearing a strange noise but it is faint and ignorable for now so we'll need to try out the earplugs before we leave the village to search for Karda."

OOC: This also includes the narrator's posting since there is nothing more the Narrator needs to mention at this point in time.

  Amalar is going to need to learn to deal with bipolar NPCs with annoyance at worst, or they will be afraid of at least 37% of exposition.

  "Why can't 'the animals have it worse in the forest than people' be things like chipmunks unable to get a date instead of voices telling them to kill."

  OOC: Joe hopes Barbara gets to continue to live in the world where "Joe exaggerates every concern" remains true, because that means Joe gets to live there too.