"Let us go and establish an appropriate place for the burning of all said creatures, Polzeath. I have no wish to examine them, lest their malady spread to me somehow."

Andrew followed the doctor and Polzeath, his mind still lingering on the image of the mummified pheasant. ”Doctor, if I might ask, do you know of anything that would cause the bird that died to decay that quickly? To be reduced to nothing but bones over the course of an afternoon?”

Polzeath had nodded and swept the crispy partridge into the crate with the rest of the corpses to follow his master's lead. "...if you'll excuse me, sirs," he broke in quietly after Andrew's question, "I'm not sure as it's skin and muscle the dried one has at all."

He held up the crate, the soft of his throat moving in some subtly disconcerting manner as he swallowed. "That texture - more like leaves on the thing, and roots, just with the moisture gone away - see there."

Andrew was hesitant to speak up, only able to offer the evidence of his own senses. “When I’ve gone hunting, I’ve come across animals who have perished. Although it is slow, the earth always works to reclaim them, a small amount at a time.”

The words of Genesis came immediately to the carpenter’s mind. ”By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

He swallowed, then added, ”Perhaps this is what is happening. The forest taking them back.”

"Hm, but see you, sir, I'm not sure as your Wyzenwood here didn't put the life back in it before it - she - took it away again, seein' as we didn't want that. It's a bird skeleton, right enough, but what's on it's like plants, not flesh at all...you see the other ones are fine, muscle and bone, not even the green stuff. On the outside, anyhow," Polzeath observed, holding the crate up nearer Andrew as they went since he seemed more interested.

[[If there's no sign of Dr. Lovelace by the morrow I'll consult the Magic 8-Ball as to where we're going exactly.]]

"Well, if the one of them is some sort of plant it'll burn all the better - I'll take a look at it once we get out to...oh, let's say the crossroads up by Goodie Westcott's cottage," Doctor Lovelace said cheerfully, grabbing a bundle of kitchen firewood on his way out. "That's supposed to confuse devils, isn't it?"

[[Grabbing the good doctor with permission, since the player has been sighted but has Preſſing Concerns at present.]]

They came back out into the lane with their grisly burden covered by a tea-towel and made a little procession up the main road towards the crossroads, avoiding puddles and horse dung. Andrew tried to ignore the part of his mind that told him he was walking away from the spot his father died, as though that were important, or turning around to see that stretch of road might do anything at all. It was so easy to die of a sudden - the flash of an opened window or a falling crate scaring a horse, for instance, or a swift disease, or being run through by a stag - the very idea of murder seemed an impossible waste. There were holes to fall down, roof slates to come loose, the fearsome bites of badgers or fevered fits; how anyone might design to take a young woman's life away in wrath or lust or jealousy was not a thought that could be followed.

All was pretty much quiet in the village as they went, those with urgent work either at it or newly gone to the inn on prior summons at its end, those without already there or amusing themselves in their own homes as wonted. A distant cuckoo could be heard somewhere before them to the right, off beyond the fussy cooing of doves and some muffled dispute between dogs amongst the houses behind them. All seemed very much normal and right with the world.

They reached the crossroads and Doctor Lovelace cast down the firewood where a sign post might be if anyone had any need of it. "This ought to do," he said, and tested the wind's direction. Polzeath apologetically handed the crate to Andrew as he crouched down to start arranging something that might get up heat enough to immolate a fresh corpse.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was looking thoughtfully off into the orchard.

Andrew regarded the crate in his hands uncertainly, recalling the leaves that had been scattered near the mummified bird. Clearing his throat, he asked, ”Could it be that the plants…invaded them somehow? Similar to a hookworm or the like?”

Feeling more and more like a simpleton, he added, ”Is that even something that’s been known to happen?”

"What? Oh. Hmm. I don't recall anything I've studied along those lines, though given the strangely decayed condition of one of these creatures I suppose the biology might not be exactly the same. I have read of some plants that can grow in a corpse, so if these creature possess some strange condition that renders them partially rotting...then it may be possible. This is all speculation. I'm not sure what is wrong with these creatures, but that is the best I have for you," he said.

"Now, how many more such creatures do you think are about in the village?"


[[GM edit: only one weirdly decayed/suspiciously vegan partridge, other critters were fine.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:17, Tue 28 June 2022.

With the little pyre heating beside him and his kerchief protecting his long fingers from the blood, Polzeath took and opened the unwithered partridge for his own curiosity. Tilting it so that any unclotted blood would head into the flames, he remarked:

"If it's plants grown inside them alive, they're fearful slow. Can't see a thing in eyr...no, not even at the spine. Should I look at the heart whilst I have the knife out, sir, or the brain maybe, or is that too much of spreadin' it about?" He shuddered.

"Don't like the idea of slowly turning plant any. Worse than hookworm, that is."

"Yes, I should think becoming a plant would be quite dull indeed. Let's not go messing about with it too much. Fire is what we need, and soon," he said cheerfully.

Stepping back as Polzeath performed his examination, Andrew’s thoughts went to the stag, suddenly curious about where the creature might have vanished to. When the doctor’s assistant mentioned that he saw no traces of any plant life within the bird, the carpenter briefly wondered if what they had seen was the Wyzenwood’s way of controlling the unfortunate beasts. If perhaps the forest, or the witch that made her home there, had sent them into Scorch Norton for some unknowable purpose, and now that they had done her bidding, they were freed. Those that had been able to survive the affliction, that is.

“No sign at all?” Andrew asked, his throat suddenly dry, at once wishing that the animals’ sickness had a natural explanation.

07:06, Today: Andrew Sexton rolled 100 using 1d100.  Folklore - Folklore 20%

Yeah, if there are any prior stories of wildlife becoming ill in this manner, Andrew certainly doesn’t remember them.

The Doctor's man glanced up at him, equally peturbed. "None, sir."

Polzeath let Andrew see the inside of the partridge, delicate membranes pulled loose from glittering flesh: pink muscle over the long keel plate and delicate stone green at the guts, all of it hale and healthy as his best catches from a moonlit night's wandering. Once the carpenter seemed satisfied he reluctantly closed the little bird's skin and wings in his hand, letting the head loll like a tassel on its broken neck.

"Mind not to be downwind," he said, holding it carefully and then letting it slip into the hottest flames. Even upwind there was a terrible smell of good fat and burnt feather. Polzeath reached up and quietly took the crate to let the others step back.

---

They burned the rabbit, too, and the crate with its remnants of fear-piss and plant-wrapped skeleton. The Doctor watched until he was satisfied all was ash, perfumed kerchief over his nose, and Andrew wracked his brains for anything of use, sending all his folk knowledge scattering from the point of pressure to doubtless seep forth in the deepst watches of the night when he had no need of it. There was something about using apples to repel doctors, but that wasn't much use.

They explained themselves to anyone passing by, and at length left a gang of interested village children to guard the ashes and each other as more kindling was gathered and donated wood set ready to make the smoulder a blaze when called for. Armed with a sack and the village's general goodwill towards the Doctor and Bill Sexton's son (there were a few folk still unsure about Polzeath, for being Cornish and thus rebellious, if not for being peculiar in his looks), the three set about searching through the village for dead or captured beasts. They picked up the dead rabbit-kit from outside the Sexton kitchen, a plump pigeon that had dashed its skull to pieces on the Wortheys' door, and even retrieved and slaughtered a wild duck caught in the Durbin farmhouse, though at that point the Doctor was called away to the bedside of the understandably devastated lady of the house.

He managed to get a tincture of opium down her, and persuaded her that Kit had not been lying about traces of murder out of wanton cruelty, and that running into the Wood herself would not bring her baby back, though if a future search should find a body, Dr. Lovelace would do his utmost to return it. Mrs. Durbin had kissed his hands for his kind words and fallen asleep holding them, exhausted from hours' intermittent weeping and screaming. Other neighbours were gathered in the kitchen with Phillip Durbin: Stephen Collins crouched on the floor beside the farmer's chair explaining how work could be done, should he need time away from either field or wife; the women stowing away things out of place and ready-made food for when it was needed. Being outside with Andrew, Polzeath and a dead duck in a sack was a relief like surfacing, coming out of that house of grief.

All the same, they went quietly down the footpath Polly must have often trod, threading back around and along Church Lane to cover the houses on that side. No further beasts were netted there, though Polzeath did his best in crawling through a shrubbery in search of a reported hedgehog and wedging himself up the still-warm base of a chimney in search of a suspicious thrush. Thanking the occupants of various houses, some of whom had been quite prepared to take advantage of free meat, they continued along the low path, past the hoarse shouts of the rookery.

Ruth Hooper stirred from the indeterminate heap of dirty clothing and blankets as they passed her hovel beside the tannery grounds and growled something but neglected to hurl a gin bottle at them, ostensibly boiling scavenged meat bones down for soap. The Doctor did call over to ask, but if she had seen anything then gin or syphilis slurred the answer to some incomprehensable aggression the former nonetheless thanked her for as they went on their way, circling back towards the consuming fire. The Sibley girls at the tannery had seen nothing, but didn't know about their father; their mother silently added another neck-wrung rabbit to the sack on being informed it was a danger to their health, though it looked clean as the others and might have fed them for days.

---

Crossing the bridge and commencing up one of the little paths through the bluebell-studded strip of woodland, Andrew spotted something like a sack down nearer the water, hurled haphazardly amongst the cow parsley. Quite used to being asked to do all necessary clambering by now, Polzeath left the carpenter in charge of their sack as soon as the request was made and edged down to the object. He gained trepidation on getting close, remembering that somewhere was a missing body and that surely this could not fit all of it.

After some pause he reported that he'd found the device, and that given leave sir, he warn't touching it and would just poke it under the foliage there with a stick. As he was coming back up with almost comical levels of supressed disgust written over his face, Andrew happened to glance behind them and spotted something else.

"Polzeath, the oldest and strongest emotion is fear of the unknown, and with respect to the device you have located, I believe we best know as little as possible and have a little fear of it, but not so much fear that we won't touch a sack that contains it. Give it to me, and we will make a present of it to Goodie Wescott."

Despite having boldly crawled through hedges and up chimney-pieces this past afternoon, Polzeath cringed at the thought. "Ah...no, sir. The thing be as she described it, exactly sir. No."

He looked a bit closer. "Oh dear. You are correct. It is rather unseemly. Fear it shall be then. Can you go fetch Goodie Wescott then? Tell her we've located her device and where to find us."

"As you'd ave it, sir," Polzeath said, bowing a little to the instruction. "Though I do think she'll say as to burn it, seein as it's, well, somewhat buggered as you might say. I'll take the sack, for I'll pass the fire. Master Sexton-?"

 The servant approached Andrew to reclaim the sack of dead beasts, yet hesitated as he observed the carpenter's gaze fixed elsewhere. Polzeath looked behind them also. "?"

Andrew deliberately looked away, doing his utmost to appear calm and focused on the task they had come for. Speaking quietly to Polzeath, he said, ”There’s someone else here, sir. Behind us. I thought it a scarecrow at first. They’re wearing a sack over their head. But I feel certain they know they’ve been seen.”

The servant hesitated in the course of taking back the sack, somewhat foxed. Frowning, he looked at his hands, then made some quite serviceable fists and looked to his master. "Shall I off and 'ave at 'em, sir?"

”I’ll do my best to help you, Mister Polzeath,” Andrew told him, ”though I’ll confess that I haven’t been in many donnybrooks myself.”

"I haven't been in a scrap in some time, since my days at sea, I think, but never let it be said that the good doctor wasn't capable of throwing a punch or two at a miscreant if need be. You needn't go it alone, Polzeath. Sexton and I will be with you as well," he said.

"Now listen here, you sack-headed pisspots, you may think it well and amusing to play with Goodie Wescott's device, but it is in truth a very foul matter. You best identify yourselves on the moment and we can keep as quiet as possible, or we'll have no choice but to give you a sound thrashing before we drag you through the town to answer to her yourself for all to see!"

There was a long silence from the mid-distance, and then the sudden break and crashing of someone taking off like a rabbit. Polzeath stood a moment, startled by the other's sheer speed, then darted away after them, not even troubling to call out.

[[a CON roll for the standing start if you wish to follow, gentlemen.]]

OOC:

I'm a doctor, not a runner!

18:29, Today: Martin Lovelace rolled 87 using 1d100.  CON artistry.

OOC: Andrew wants to follow, but his athleticism is…lacking.

21:12, Today: Andrew Sexton rolled 83 using 1d100.  CON.

Doctor and carpenter lurched into motion, almost ran into each other and righted themselves, losing sight of their quarry as the masked lurker dashed off into the trees and bracken. Only partly led by the distant and indistinct crashing, Andrew realised where the presumed miscreant was heading and tugged the Doctor that way.

Doctor Lovelace had no time to examine the axe he'd spotted and within a partly hollow tree, but grabbed it and hurtled on as bid, thinking it entirely too much running about in woodland for one day as he ploughed through a glade of bluebells. Rather heedless of his injury, Andrew slid over newly-crushed cow parsley in a scatter of buttercup petals, flailed upright partway down the alarmingly deep ditch beside the Wookey road and hurtled onward, his next two steps along the wedged cart shaft once brought down in a flood to jump off on the other bank. The Doctor followed with a little more caution and arms outstretched, quite aware that slipping on any moss would pitch him into the nettles and vile water beneath.

Andrew scrambled up the other side and saw Polzeath engaged in a pitched if truly inept battle with their chosen prey on the ground some twenty paces off, both sides flailing in an energetic struggle for the upper hand to an effect much like a pile of old sacking possessed by the Devil. As Andrew stumbled forward, feeling the hot pain in his side again, the disguised party managed to kick the Doctor's man in the chest, sending him flat and apparently winded.

The lurker turned and was instantly up again, running as though life depended on it. By the time Andrew had reached Polzeath, the figure was mostway up the meadow and accelerating. There was a brief glimpse of the sack turned back to see them at the edge of the woods around the Fox estate, and then the runner vanished among the tree trunks, far off and brown amongst brown.

"Well, I 'ad'm, zirs, but I last'm," Polzeath explained between wheezes, his accent coming thick through the other exhertion. It seemed those following him had lost the miscreant as well.


[[Those rolls put you rather far behind Polzeath, who only really caught up to our mystery buddy by luck, then got exceedingly outrolled in the holding on stakes...]]

[[ghost-posting for the Doctor, who's been gone a week, just to sweep up.]]

"Well...bugger," Doctor Lovelace concluded, letting his breathing steady. He looked at his newly-aquired axe. "I rather wonder what this was for. Sinister, isn't it?"