Snippet #2689242

Interrupted mid-thought Apan stood up as the hunter came back already. He'd expected he had more time the hunter worked quickly. Well he needed hard training in combat to get good samples so a hell of training would have to do. The hunter certainly lived up to his reputation of hasty resolving but didn't think much of the lone adventurer's social sense. Par for a leader he supposed.

A loud whine of confused wards sounded in his head. The wards went off constantly but what had interested so many of them now? He looked up to find his crows circling in confused wobbling paths. The wards had little of the intellect from their living brethren and he knew his formulas needed work. What went wrong that had confused so many of them? While wondering if he'd screwed something up a nagging sense of survival insisted abnormal things were hardly ever mild. Apan's face soured and glanced at Mahina then to Tutac swinging in the door.

Apan quickly stowed his hand crossbow, grabbed his staff, then went to the door. His worry was interrupted by the swinging happy woman. A weight on a line? Hrm that would be something he'd have to look for. Apan stretched the butt of his staff to the rope dry rot spreading across its length. Apan stepped around her and went inside.

~~~

Three pairs of milky eyes and darting black-feathered heads hop along the ground a orange coral fungus sticking out from between their feathers. The brainless creatures couldn't understand the shining glow to communicate it to apan. Just a burning need to look at the shiny light. Apan's wards looking for nonhuman blood were spread through town to draw the caws of infested crows like shiny objects.

One small carefully engraved wooden box next to a house bearing one of many crow skeletons had caught fire. It had caught fire exposed to something quite as powerful as Bellatroix. Most of the milky eyes in town still lurched that way even as it burnt out.