---

Woodland nearing Kennick's Camp, ~5:15pm Sunday May 5th, 1771

The quality of the light had slipped towards gilding as the four made their way out into the budding countryside, birds squabbling through the hedgerows and the wildflowers waving to them from the ditchside grasses. They navigated fields and copses and sparse stretches unclaimed and so technically reverting to the Crown, every step striking earth with its own tally of ownership winding back into the unremembered past. They entered trees near the great working of earth that had been Kennick Rolger's camp: land worked by hands that weren't human; a mind that saw men as food (the educated gentlemen, of course, knew the hillfort to have been raised on the backs of savages, doubtless brutally coralling slaves into the work and dedicating it to dark and bloodied godesses before the merciful light of imperial Roman civilisation dawned over the British Isles).

The group had kept up with Maggie easily enough, though she had been occasionally at fault and needing to cast about to get her bearings, darting onward whenever she saw a familiar bush or branch or hint of passing. Now she leads them amongst trackless tumbled rocks and trees heading into the giant's ditch, the woodland smelling thick with the scent of mulch and good green leafing. It's a hard scramble, and Polzeath keeps behind yet close to the others fretting they might fall: only Maggie's bare feet are absoloutely surefooted on the moist moss and root-crumbled rock.

The men have grown used to her hair as they would grow used to the company of a harvester in only hat and girded skirts, or that of some sorrel mare, all social judgement fading as they draw far from the village bounds. Maggie is still full of energy and without any shame to be found in her skin. She reaches the spot where she's fairly sure she saw the men, less than ten paces from one last squeeze through a gap between boulders and subsequent drop onto loam. The ground remains a great many shades of brown, spotted with old beech leaves like coins, but aside from dark patches and a disturbance near a rough X-shape bound of branches, the mazy men are not immediately in view.


[[Try a Spot Hidden, perhaps.]]

"Are you sure this is the spot?" Doctor Lovelace asks as he looks about for a sign of the men she described. "Perhaps they have come to their senses and gone about whatever their business is?"

10:03, Today: Martin Lovelace rolled 72 using 1d100.  Spot hidden (60).

Margaret Yendale rolled 2 for Spot Hidden 25!!

Maggie stops, stock still, as she emerges from the foliage. Her face burns, colour flushing up from her chest to her hairline. She begins to feel mortified before Dr Lovelace. And the Vicar and Polzeath.

It's not possible that she's mistaken the spot; there is the snare she fashioned to trip the one whose clothes she had disarranged to stop any sudden movement. And the dark spots on the ground where the three waited so frozen.

She starts forward to the place where the three stood, where she knows they stood. She doesn't quite drop to all fours, bur she bends very close to the ground, eyes searching for some sign to tell where they went and how. She practically snuffles after their scent as she casts about, starting at her snare and moving in a widening spiral, setting her feet carefully to avoid obliterating any track.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:41, Sat 17 Dec 2022.

[[Bravo!]]

Maggie hears the other men move a little way forward behind her, concentrating intently on the ground. Though the uncertain texture of plain leaves is hard to read, the spots where careless ambling has crushed spindles of herb and fungus are evident. She keeps to her circling, however, aiming to see if the strangers had split up, and in passing a boulder another ten paces on she spies the unmistakable print of a shod horse and a shod man near it and catches a near-ground scent that draws her eye to a mound that might have been a campfire as recently as that morning.

She can see where the horse was led away by someone with enough woodskill to make their passage no more obtrusive than a stag's track, and stands briefly near the depression that might have been one man's bed, noting that she can see the others milling uncertainly through the gap between boulder and slope. It might be that that one man watched her likewise, earlier that afternoon, breathing quietly and saying nothing as her attention was taken up by the strangers, his thoughts opaque. A thumb-smear of oily grit marked a rock nearby, suggesting he had not employed an ability to shoot her, at least. It's hard not to wonder about his hands, cleaning the weapon, adjusting his clothes, tacking up the horse - a well-fed beast, by the few golden grains of dried oats Maggie can pick out as she returns to her low-bent circling.

The mazy men had continued to wander in step, it seemed. The others move after Mistress Yendale as she vanishes amongst low beech branches, setting up a concerned rustle behind her. Polzeath even calls out, as though with some knowledge of danger: "Be wary, Mistress Yendale, please!"

The noise distracts her enough that her brain takes an extra half-second to parse an object that presents itself before her as a shoe. Still moving as she straightens, abruptly, she collides with the Young Man: her shoulder catches him in the gut. The stranger doubles, wavers, and falls like a thrown corpse.

#CRASH#

He llies on the ground for two breaths, then starts to rise. His movements are languid yet precise, as though some strong, unseen hand guided the motions of a man half awake. The Old Man and the Tall Man stand a little further away than they had before, but make no reaction whatsoever.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:27, Sat 17 Dec 2022.

Maggie’s eyes fly wide open as she sees the Young Mn pitched onto the ground before her.

"Here, Doctor! Look ye, here's one a them!” As the man gets to his feet, the tall woman catches hold of his collar. Then, she sees the other two nearby. "Oh, here, Vicar! Them's t'other two. Restrain 'em, Polzeath! Don't let 'em give us th' slip."

Polzeath hastens up, ready to seize a man and wrestle him to the ground if necessary. On catching up to Maggie and seeing the strangers showing no immediate inclination to bolt he hesitates, however, staring at the scratched and ragged men who seem to sleep, upright as they are. There's a high unnerved uncertainty in his voice as he calls back to the Doctor, recalling his master's insistence on consigning all animals that might be plague-touched to the flames:

"Do I ought touch 'em, sir?"


[[May I have a Strength roll, Maggie, please?]]

Maggie feels a sudden strength come up her captive in a surge: he straightens despite her grip, as though she'd grabbed an iron bar sunk deep into the earth, incidentally hauling her a step towards him with the motion. Once re-planted in his new spot and undisturbed, however, his body relaxes. There has been no appreciable change in his breathing throughout.

Margaret Yendale rolled 76 for  STR 75.

[[GM edit: empty post pounced on and mercilessly devoured.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:27, Fri 23 Dec 2022.

Maggie gives a yelp as the figure surges up, doubling her fist in case he offers violence. When his body relaxes and simply stands mazy again, she opens her hand and peers into his blank eyes. After a moment she releases her grip and steps back.

"Shoulda brought some rope t'bind th' feet," she says, more to herself than to her companions.

Have the others also stopped walking?
This message was last edited by the player at 19:00, Wed 04 Jan 2023.

[[Posting for the Doc, it being over a week with notice given.

The others were encountered at rest - they seem to have just shifted a little and re-planted themselves here according to the angle of the sun, or availability of moisture, or "planet"...whatever is inducing them to do anything.]]

There's nothing much for Maggie to see in the slight sliver of white seen below the youth's eyelids: just flesh and behind it presumably just blood, with bone behind that. He doesn't react to the scrutiny.

The Doctor comes up, pulling on bleached kidskin gloves from his bag. "No, Polzeath - if you can avoid touching them it would be for the best, but hold them by some covered area if you must. Avoid breathing in their exhalations, too," that last comment takes in Maggie with a concerned rather than reproachful air. The strangers simply breathe.

Doctor Lovelace sets his bag down beside him and gets out his perfumed handkerchief, holding it over his nose and mouth left-handed as he comes up beside Maggie to gingerly examine her captive: pulling one eyelid up and forcing the man's head back into a dapple of sun, taking his pulse under the jaw, rapping him on the chest and examining the long scratched wounds from thorns and briars marking his forearms. The Young Man ignores all this manipuation like a corpse, still breathing.

Maggie notes his eyes are a deep blue like a reflection of the sea he seems to have come from, fixed in a blank heavenward stare. The uncovered pupil is sluggish in its reaction when forced into the light, and the eyelid drops easily to its former position when released.

"Hmm. Well, this one is alive in the sense we usually use the term, at least. As for his state of consciousness or bodily compromise I can't say. He might be a little feverish, and it seems as though his natural responses are having to pass through some sort of filter first."

The Vicar had approached the Tall Man meanwhile, and seemed to be praying over him. Both Polzeath and Martin looked over sharply when a light flick of holy water occasioned a flinch on the part of the mazy man, though no more reaction followed after that.

"Yes, well. I'd say that killing these fellows would be found to be murder in a court of law, even if it proves the best course for them. I have an uneasy feeling the gentleman who made camp behind that rock there made the attempt, however. It seems they offered him no threat on being unsucessful...indeed, I should think he continued to keep his unusually out-of-doors domestic routine with these fellows nearby, specifically so that they might draw fascination to themselves and not to him."

"Polzeath, you might see to loading the pistol at the bottom of my bag once you've wiped down a blade with spirits of vinegar and handed it to me, please. Now, Ma- Mistress Yendale, could you show me the one you believed had been shot?" He gives her a comradely smile, determined and warmer than tolerance.

A thought comes to the Doctor and he voices it "I wonder. Might someone splash one of the mazey men with un-blessed water please?"

"The thought had occurred to me that these unfortunates have somehow had their souls removed, but the reaction to the holy water would suggest that there is at least a residual of some soul within, albeit an evil one."

"This hypothesis can be confirmed or rejected by the reaction, or lack of it when normal water is splashed upon one."

Polzeath hands over the scalpel, too-round eyes still rounder to look at the three strangers. "Y'think they've zold their souls to Old Tep, sir? That's a sad reward an' true for their zinning, no mistake."

Sticking the pistol in his belt for now, he jumps to the request for water, raising his head more to scent the air than look about. He scrambles over to near where Maggie had found evidence of presences other than these still-silent men and returns with a double-handful of rain scooped from a hollow in the rock.

He hesitates a little near the Old Man, who whilst nearest seems to be the highest in social status of the three, the fellow's grey hair shaved close to accomodate some missing wig and wearing considerably better cravat that the others' workmanlike neckerchiefs, though no ruffles and no watch. Polzeath frowns, but reassured by a look at his master, dashes the water at the Old Man's face. The man does not give any sign of noticing.

The Vicar has his hands steepled and a look of intense thought by now. Polzeath sets to wiping his hands thoroughly on his clothing, mindful that his next job is to handle powder.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:11, Tue 03 Jan 2023.

"Here, Doctor sir," Maggie says, crossing to the Tall Man, "See here."

She pulls open the man's loose-hanging coat and waistcoat and lifts the un-tucked shirt. She points at the black circle, not quite touching the skin.

The man in question shows a certain amount of that horsey Cornish look, with bad scarring near the jaw and scattered across his exposed body from some childhood bout of smallpox. The Vicar stands back to let Maggie make her indication, though still frowns at the notion that these are simply witches paying the price for wickedness. The knotted black tissue swirls over the fatal wound like a swiftly-closed fist or the knot of a tree where some parasitic worm-nest had been: simply stained skin, but filling in an entry wound for shot it would be hard to mistake, almost right over the heart. Certainly this fellow should not be breathing after such an injury, calmly and deeply as he evidently was.

Cecil strokes his chin, a puzzled look on his face. "Curious," he remarks upon revelation of the Tall Man's wound. He turns his attention to the mazy man's apparel, as if something has occurred to him. Fingering the hem of the man's coat, he asks, "Does this look outdated to you, Doctor, even for a working-class man? The cut, the fabric?"

---

10:27, Today: Reverend Palmer rolled 15 using 1d100.  Spot Hidden 50.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:08, Mon 09 Jan 2023.

The man just stands there under all this attention, breathing evenly, his stockings torn to flinders much as his calves and hands seem to have gone heedlessly through bush and briar all the way from wherever he's come from to here.

"Here now, what's all this?" Cecil exclaims, crouching behind the Tall Man to turn the leaf litter with a stick. "Does it seem to you as well that the detritus about this fellow's feet," he says, the tip of his finger tracing a semi-circular arc just above the ground, "is decaying at what to mine eye is a vastly accelerated rate? Deuced peculiar, Doctor."

[[GM edit: Martin is not a sidekick.]]
This message was last edited by the player at 20:42, Mon 09 Jan 2023.

The Doctor leans down to investigate the aforementioned ground about the mazy man, then straightens and taking his blade he bears the man's arm and makes a shallow cut in the flesh, the type used to bleed the ailing.

Whilst rolling the sleeve back, he also takes note of the temperature of the man's flesh. "Most peculiar. I should expect that with a wound like that there would be no blood left to flow, but let us see."

Cecil directs the doctor's gaze to the recently-discovered exit wound. "Indeed. A wound like that, I would not expect him to even be standing. Reminds me of the myths surrounding the Cauldron Of Rebirth from the old pre-Christian romances."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:43, Mon 09 Jan 2023.

The man's brow twitches slightly at the nick of steel through flesh, but he stands and takes it without complaint. His blood comes slow, as from a sleeping man, darker than it ought to be but not consistent in colour, as though ink were swirling in his veins somewhere.

The kidskin gloves allow the Doctor to feel the temperature of the man's flesh, though it's little different to his own. Polzeath hesitates over near the Old Man, but at length sidles near enough the Vicar to clear his throat and ask:

"Ah, zir, might I see your flask of holy water a moment?"

Cecil mulls the odd request for a moment before replying. "When did you last attend church, Polzeath? It may be best were I to bless you before you handle it, so as not to profane the water within if you've sinned between then and now. Has an application occurred to you apart from the traditional and liturgical ones?"

"I was there this morning, sir, and I...I don't think as I've done any wickedness since." The ill-favoured servant swallows and drops his gaze. "Though if y'want to put blessens on me to be sure, Reverend, that'd be your right and prerogative."

Polzeath shuffles, aware of having drawn rather too much unasked-for attention from the gentlemen. "I...well I thought...that is I heard somewhere as holy water was made with some mix of holy salt, to keep the pond scum from growen in the font and such, and that's another variable, isn't it?" He looks to his master to be sure that's the word.

"It was just my thought that maybe some things that don't mind fresh or brackish water, such as you might call blood, they don't like saltwater any."

Cecil smiles kindly at Polzeath. "Very clever, Polzeath. Very clever indeed. Whilst your hypothesis is sound, I fear the amount of salt used in the church font may be insufficient to test it." He thoughtfully strokes his chin. "A fuller test would include seawater and springwater from Bath, but acquiring either would take time and a horseman suitably knowledgable of Somerset's roads to make the trip there and back."

Maggie has taken herself into the bushes to seek out some vines with which she can hobble these strangers.

Coming back to the others with several strands of ivy, she says, "P'rhaps, Vicar, ye'd bless us all. An added token o' God's Favour be not amiss dealing with these uncanny being' eh?"

She stands, waiting, before setting to the task of binding the mazy men's ankles. Ivy vines won't restrain them long, to be sure, but a moment's notice might be useful if they choose to bolt or attack. And it might stop them wandering.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:38, Wed 11 Jan 2023.

Cecil agreeably assents. "Quite so, Miss Yendale, quite so. Although crism is more properly used for such, blessed water shall suffice." He retrieves his flask and anoints the foreheads of Martin, Maggie, and Gregory in the shape of a cross with his thumb. "Heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God, who safely brought us to this day: Defend us in the same with Your mighty power; and grant that we fall into no sin, neither any danger; but that all our acts may be ordered by Thy governance... to do always what is righteous in Your sight. We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen." He considers the mazy men for a moment before moving to bless each of them in turn. "May the grace of God keep you and deliver you from evil. Amen."

[[10:13, Today: Reverend Palmer rolled 36 using 1d100.  POW 60.]]
This message was last edited by the player at 15:01, Sun 15 Jan 2023.

Polzeath respectfully holds still to be blessed, though he doesn't seem very sure about it. His skin has an odd texture, remarkably smooth yet dry around the middle of the forehead and cat-tongue rough in other places, seemingly depending on the direction of passing pressure against it.
"Amen."

Once the others are seen to, the Vicar turns his attention to the Tall Man, who flinches a little at the first contact of holy water (or salt) to skin, but otherwise ignores him. The Vicar passes back to the Old Man, who is probably not beyond his sixties and very sound, simply the oldest by about three decades: blessing him gets a few uncertain twitches from the fellow and a slight sensation of false warmth or fine tingling from the direct skin contact.

Finally, the Reverend descends the few steps across the uneven landscape and blesses the Young Man, whose body jerks once, twice, under the attention, like something impaled. Then that easy deep breath of a sudden hitches and comes out as sound, as though a thick door had been opened onto a ship's deck where the crew were at line setting the sails:

"-LEY; BULLY DOWN IN SHINBONE A.!" The youth takes a sharp, sobbing breath, tears of a sudden beginning to streak his face, and grabs for the Vicar. "O God, sir, 'elp me-! Please, it's dark, I-I-I-I'm not-" there's a bad sound in his lungs and he hacks and wheezes, starting to painfully hyperventilate as his knees buckle under him, dark foam flecking his lips.

Startled, Cecil grabs the Young Man's arms just above the elbows and guides him gently to the turf. "Urgent need of assistance, please!"

Doctor Lovelace instinctively moves to help, but vocalises his thoughts as he does "Saline, or blessed. It's dark he said, dark in the depths, or in a grave I suppose. The sound of those lungs though, the foam. A drowning victim perhaps, at sea making salt water fearsome?"

"Just in case, let us roll him onto his side and see if more flows."

Cecil moves to comply with Martin's suggestion, carefully rolling the Young Man onto his left side.

[[would both of you roll me either STR or Brawl to pin/grapple this fellow.]]

"I, er, should I get 'is legs, or what should I?" Polzeath asks his master, flinching at the sound of the suddenly-active stranger's attempts to breathe.

The Young Man tries to grip at anyone in reach, tries to breathe, and shortly tries to scream, producing a horrible bubbling screech and yell. It hardly sounds human, more like a beast torn into by some predator, raw fear and despair forced through an injury not yet felt.

"hgghkkkEEEEYYYYAAAAAAAGGHHHH!! EghkHRAAAAIIIEEEEghEEEEEYYYYAAAR! HnYEEEEEEE-YEEEEEEIIIII!"

Cecil barely manages to keep a grip on the Young Man and wrestle him partway into position. "Young man, please! We are trying to help!"

[[17:07, Today: Reverend Palmer rolled 41 using 1d100.  STR 45.]]
This message was last edited by the player at 14:23, Fri 13 Jan 2023.

The Doctor manages to get a grip on the young man.

[[18:52, Today: Martin Lovelace rolled 35 using 1d100.  Brawl]]

Judging that Polzeath can provide any extra assistance the two gentlemen might require, Maggie turns instead to watch the other two mazy men, lest they use this distraction to get up to mischief.

The other two just stand there, quiet, ignoring the tortured sounds nearby and Maggie's determination to wind ivy around their ankles. Their complete impassiveness suggested they might have been standing so forever, save that Maggie had seen them standing twenty paces away earlier, and that the scratches on their lower limbs suggested pushing through scrub at some pace.

The Doctor and the Vicar get the screaming man pinned and wrestled onto his side, though the youth is intermittently convulsing now, like a badly-axed ox under their combined efforts to still him. The foam has mostly given way to something with the viscosity of blood, still green-black and apparently loath to actually drip to the leaves, though it pushes from the youth's nose and tear ducts as though ousted by his own fluids. Spittle flies as the young man fights against them, or his own body, or some force as yet unseen, his screams giving way to rasping sobs.

"AAAAIIIUUGGGhh-! ...hrugh...hHhraa..hnnn...augh, no, NO! ...hraaaagh...it rots, it rots...O God, O God, please...please help...AAIIIGGGHHHRRRHOOooUH! Hhrraaa..."

"Gadzooks, Doctor! 'Tis the color of gangrene!" Cecil cries out, clearly disturbed. "How could a man's innards be so corrupted without his succumbing to death?"

"It... I... I've never seen the like of it!" the Doctor exclaims. "I don't know that this is working. I don't think it is water in his lungs though, not for it to leak from his eyes like that."

Maggie works quickly to loop vines around the ankles of the Tall Man. She will then move on to the Old Man. She ignores, as best she can, the tumult behind her, though she hears the words of the gentlemen and understands the implications of 'gangrene'.

[Is there a small of corruption and decay as well?

The strangers continue to ignore Maggie, who knows enough about gangrene and the decay of flesh to tell at once that the smell of the stuff is more like the mazy pheasant at the inn and what Master Sexton reported from the stag: a wet scent like bracken rotted in a ditch or leaf mould spilled into stagnant water, thick and dully repulsive.

Polzeath sets the rapidly-loaded pistol down on the Doctor's bag and hastens back over, wincing at the ongoing screams and clearly disturbed. He hesitates, knowing his master's hardly likely to approve, but compassion pushes him to kneel at Martin's side and reach out to the patient.

"Here, let me help, zirs," he says, snaking a hand in to set it on the man's back. He does no more than that, at least until starts up with the little humming charm he uses to keep the village children from crying or troubling the Doctor with cuts and bruises. Polzeath frowns a moment and his hum falters, but before he can be told to get away with his nonsense he sets his hand over the youth's writhing spine and tries again.

The cloth under his hand abruptly darkens, the Young Man giving a sudden gasp. Polzeath yelps.

"Aah! No no no no no no!" Martin hears the flick of some thick liquid onto nearby leaves as his servant bounds up with extraordinary rapidity and flees back the way they'd recently come to scale the rocks. Their patient, or captive - or specimen - seems to have hit a calmer state between spasms, though his breathing is rapid and terrible to hear, if slightly better than it was.

Cecil casts a worried look in the direction Polzeath ran off before turning his gaze to the wet spot on the Young Man's back. "I've ne'er seen so severe an imbalance, Doctor, not even during my time among the Irish. 'Tis as if all four of this poor chap's humours were displaced into parts of the body they had no business being!"
This message was last edited by the player at 13:21, Tue 24 Jan 2023.

Satisfied that her handiwork will at least slow the strangers if they should want to wander, Maggie stands, wiping her hands on her skirts. She turns to regard the Young Man  but declines to venture closer.

"What's t'be done fer him, Doctor sir? Can your arts help him or is he a goner?"

"I... I must admit I don't know. Some of the animals came out of it" is all the doctor can suggest. His gaze though it on the path Polzeath took, and there is grave concern written on his face.

He releases his grip on the unfortunate and goes to his bag to try to find and empty jar or similar "Help me find what it was that Polzeath flicked from his hand. Don't touch it, but I should like to collect it to study."

"I also want to check on Polzeath, I've never seen him react like that!"

"I'll try t' overtake your man an' persuade him t' come back," says Maggie, "Do you have a care 'til we return."

The tall lass gathers up her skirts and departs in pursuit of Polzeath, long legs flashing in the dim light.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:00, Thu 26 Jan 2023.

"Hhh...hhh..'m alive...name's Timothy Sa- no! No! Jesu-!" the young man held down by the Vicar abruptly goes entirely quiet as though a door has been shut. The other men stand impassive, doing nothing.

[[Give me a Spot Hidden, Doc. You too, Vicar, if you'd like to help.]]

Polzeath is easy enough to find, crouching on the tallest boulder they'd scrambled over and within shouting distance of the rest. Indeed, as Maggie lopes up he's straightening to full height up there, hands cupped to shout what his master and local clergyman hear as a distant:

"Do come away, zirs, please! She'll find yez!"

It could be considered charming yokel superstition, if the terror in his voice or the urgency of his action were less evident. Maggie can see the valet scarcely heeding her presence for his concern, his face working and his throat gulping and gulping over again, as though he were still out of breath or needing water. He looks like a man barely sane, gone grey-green from paleness.

Cecil looks around at Martin's suggestion but sees nothing out of the ordinary. Upon hearing the whispered name and godly invocation, he returns his gaze to the Young Man. Drawing his rosary from the pocket of his waistcoat, he begins to intone the traditional prayer:

"In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

O God make speed to save us,
O Lord make haste to help us,
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Holy God,
Holy Almighty,
Holy Immortal One,
Have mercy upon us."

[[16:09, Today: Reverend Palmer rolled 87 using 1d100.  Spot Hidden 50.]]
[[16:32, Today: Reverend Palmer rolled 73 using 1d100.  POW 60.]]
This message was last edited by the player at 21:44, Fri 27 Jan 2023.

There's nothing more from the youth than laboured breath, though Cecil can feel the trembling of a great amount of energy or struggle through the hand still resting on the stranger. The convulsions are scarcely more than sharp twitches now, like a dying thing, though his breath remains steady.

At the point where it seems the youth has surely returned to his former state, a great shudder of effort runs through him, fresh tears sweeping through the dark fluid, and he manages to raise his hand of his own will and grasp the Vicar's wrist. He holds on mutely like the shipwrecked, eyes calmly closed but a knot of intense human feeling in his brow.

Cecil clasps the Young Man's hand in both of his and continues his prayers. "I absolve you, Timothy, of your earthly sins, commend you to Almighty God, and entrust you to your Creator. May you return to Him who formed you from the dust of the earth. May the holy Mary, the angels, and all the saints meet you as you go forth from this life."

The doctor casts about trying to find a sample.

[[23:10, Today: Martin Lovelace rolled 56 using 1d100.  Spot hidden (60).]]

The youth's hand grips hard, trembling, then gradually slackens in the Vicar's grip. Timothy - or whatever has taken Timothy's body in his stead - is still a moment, then stands with that uncanny sleepwalker's shift of balance and treelike ground-up strength. He breathes, serenely as one deep asleep, little more than his own fluids glittering on his face.

Following a faint shine from bramble to leaf litter, the Doctor is intrigued to find the glob of fluid flicked by Polzeath has somehow decreased in density and is trickling, even soaking into the ground; he darts to get some in his open vial, crumbs of loamy clay and all. The substance is green-black, and even with the Doctor's caution he catches some of that wet green smell of thick rot before wedging the cork down hard.

"Zirs, please!" Polzeath calls out from afar.

Maggie let’s her skirts down to modest length and stares up at the man in his distress.

"Polzeath, come down. Come back to yer master who need you. What makes ye take on so?”

Catching a bit of his fear, she glances about into the trees and undergrowth, seeking any threat and a stout stick to beat it with.

The woods seem as they ought to be, shaded as they are, a cuckoo calling out in the distance. A dropped branch just a little way off looks fairly sound, should she want to crack something over the head with it. Polzeath starts a little at Maggie's urging and looks guilty as well as scared, but remains where he is, havering on his rock.

"I don't dare come down, Miztress Yendale, She's took scent of me, I know it....like a pit as knows yer name. I come down an' go by those men, She'll send 'er ink for me, seein' as I tried to push it out of that fellow there...whether She'd burn out my heart or make me such as they are I don't know, but I don't care to. I don't dare be on the ground, She tried to put it through my skin." The affected hand jerks in demonstration or simple memory of the imposition.

Looking up at him, Maggie realises Polzeath is actually shivering, something she hasn't seen on even the coldest days of winter. He swallows, swallows again, apparently unable to will himself even slightly towards descent.

"I have some of it" Doctor Lovelace says "I can try it on an animal and see if they behave the same as the ones we observed before. This is perhaps a common cause and if so, then it wore off on at least one of the animals."

Cecil steps to the doctor's side. "We must place our hope in God's mercy that Timothy has found his way to his eternal reward." Glancing at the vial, he remarks, "Such a miniscule amount might unbalance the humours of an animal, but I'd think much more would be needed to unbalance a man's." He smiles hopefully at his companions. "Perchance there are limits as to how much of this substance can be produced, and stores that can be destroyed."

The young man in question stands as though he'd never briefly broken free, as calm as the other captives of the dark stuff currently thinning and spreading itself up the sides of the vial. Maggie doesn't seem to have persuaded Polzeath down off his rock yet. The ivy restraining the Old and Tall Man has already blackened and shrivelled somewhat, as though its moisture were borrowed away.

Maggie scrambles up onto Polzeath’s rock and sits beside him. The man is odd, but if he sees reason to fear contact with the soil…

"So, Polzeath, d’ye b’lieve Doctor's in danger? An’ Vicar, too? What can we do t’ protect ‘em?” Her face is creased with worry. "An’ how will ye get home without touchin' ground?"

She cranes her head about, trying to get a glimpse of their companions.

"I...don't know," Polzeath admits, scooting aside to give Maggie enough space to find herself a comfortable spot. "Was thinken maybe to go along by rocks as far as I can then run for it, 'ope She can't think both ways to work out where I am, runnen...I don't like to leave the master, though, an' I don't like that they're poking about with those fellows afull of Her stuff, neither..."

He looks over, clearly upset about all of it. "I called out to them to get away, don't know as there's much more I c'n do, not from up here. Stay ye by here, too," he urges, flicking a glance to where her naked feet are tucked under her skirts.

"I don't really think that they should come back with us, just in case they might suddenly do more than just stand about. I mean, the lad was hard enough to restrain when he got agitated."

He looks at them "By the looks of the wound to the chest on that one, he should be dead, so I think they'll come to no further harm than they are in if we just leave them here until we can decide what to do with them."

"Shall we return with the jar of... whatever it is? I can investigate then."

Cecil nods in agreement. "It would certainly ease Polzeath's mind were we to depart." He considers the three men a few moments longer. "Mayhap we could build a small enclosure and coax them into it, or just build one around them." Cecil sighs, a long exhalation, then changes the topic. "You recollect the pigeon which flew down my kitchen's chimney, yes? I wonder if these men wrote the note I found attached to its leg, ere whatever befell them, or if they are those 'odd types abroad in the woods'' the note mentions."

Maggie nods at the man, her face pensive.

"Aye, if her influence spreads through th' soil, like some great mushroom, then rock should be a barrier. That's well reasoned, Polzeath. I think she's more harmful t'men, p'rhaps, than to women. I'll go along back to our gentlemen an' hurry them as best I can, passin' on your ideas. Do you bide here an' I'll bring them to ye when they're ready t'turn homewards."

Maggie jumps dwon from the boulder and, with a wave to Polzeath, disappears back into the foliage. She quickly returns to the mazy men in time to hear Vicar's idea about an enclosure.

"Beggin' yer pardon, Reverend, but buildin' some fence 'round these three is th' work o' more hours than we've daylight left. Better t'get some hands out from Scorch Norton in th' mornin' t'do somethin' like that. May be we c'n herd 'em closer t'gether then.

"Doctor sir, Polzeath ran off 'cause he feared that black stuff as oozed outta that one. He figgers it's The Lady's substance fer to control these men an' feared she'd take him th' same way. He's fer stayin' on th' rocks as far as he can an' settin' off t'run when th' outcrops run out. He urges you gentlemen t'do th' same, in case she works through the dirt like."

She looks at each of the mazy men in turn. "They's dead, ain't they? An' she's brought 'em back with her foul arts t'serve her will, aye?"

"Maggie is right Reverend" Doctor Lovelace says placing the jar into his bag and taking it up as well as the now loaded pistol, "It would take too long and quite apart from whatever has put these unfortunates into this state, there is the fact that someone camping hereabouts put a hole through one of them."

"No, we should make haste for Scorch Norton, and have our wits about us as we do so."

He starts back the way they came "And no Miss Yendale, in all ways discernable, they are alive, not dead. Even the one with the hole through his chest. He shouldn't be, but he appears to be alive."

"Were it not for the fact that it seems to have left them soulless, I would say that whatever has done this is remarkable!"

He strides off to find Polzeath and head home.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:11, Tue 07 Feb 2023.

Maggie isn't quite sure how soulless doesn't equate to dead, but she keeps her counsel. Not for her to correct an educated gentleman like the Doctor.

Cecil strokes his chin whilst glancing between the three mazy men. "I would opine quite the opposite, my good Doctor. It is their volition, their God-given free will, that has been stripped from them. Their very souls lament that which ensnares them. Whatever evil keeps them in this state, they cannot act to relieve their own suffering, nor that of their comrades."

The doctor does not stop, but responds over his shoulder "Soul trapped is a better description perhaps, but my point is the bodies are no longer their owners', if you will."

"I've never seen nor heard the like, so I have no better description."

"Polzeath come down, let us get back, and keep your wits about you!"


GM edit: confusing typo
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:24, Tue 07 Feb 2023.

"I don't dare come down, zir, Her from the Wood knows what like I am..." Polzeath calls back, clearly feeling wretched about it. He's crouching by the time his master comes level with his rock, flat-footed as a West Indian or Irish peasant and visibly out of sorts. He gestures the way they'd come.

"I'll do my best to stay by, zir, only I can't...my 'art fails of goen down an' stayen on a piece of ground even so long as might soak up in any crack of a shoe, I-I-I...that Her don't see, exactly, but what she does do in that wise, it was Her and she did see me, I know it." The young man is shivering badly, despite the lack of edge to the leaf-scented breeze.

Having no better plan short of fashioning stilts there and then or carrying his servant back to Scorch Norton, Doctor Lovelace aquiesces to the compromise. The little party collect themselves and head back, going swiftly as they might. All of them remain alert, and all try not to think about how little recourse any being would have, should the gentle moisture of the ground turn against them.

---

Left under the shadows of the trees, the strangers stand stock-still, merely breathing.