Snippet #2689947

Apan finally got down to the large arena putting his suitcase down with a deep sigh not of amazement as much as of worry. Such an open room with monsters likely to be able to climb. But then if some were humans that left questions of anyone he met with wards gone mad. His mind raced with his limited options for reasons that would cause all the wards to be so irritated. It was best to assume the worst until he could look at them all. That something of enough power to trip them all somehow. Still, he couldn't yet get information from the wards at range but perhaps he could create some useful motivation to them. As much as the Hunter seemed irritated perhaps he could stand to irritate the man a little more.

While setting his suitcase open he looked over to Tutac, "Miss, if you would be so kind as to keep an eye on the stairwell. I would prefer the only large angry monster we meet tonight be the one that's on our side."

He knew two names that would be in range of the creatures upstairs. One wasn't a name per se but known to enough blood in the soil it might as well be. His suspicion rapidly grew but didn't have means to test Tutac.

He pondered the small slate that emerged from his suitcase wreathed in crow feathers and albino redwood. The parasitic redwoods tainted by himself and carefully metastasized across town. Each left pale spots but the wards needed to be fed of rotting earth. Especially since the damned crows somehow puzzled out how to infect their dying using pieces of other wards. He wasn't sure their efforts were terribly effective by the corpses of old birds he'd found but then he'd only made a handful to start. Now there were dozens off scarring foxes trying to eat eggs. Even the new ones had the rotting breath of his initial experiments.

As long as he wasn't too far away he could affect the wards infected by eldritch disease in orbit of albino redwoods be they his own or not. The reverse was the different matter yet discovered. Words welled up from the earth into disease infesting them. At least he could hide the trees for now they didn't need light after all. They worked just fine in fine carved stone coffins underneath roosts hidden in town. Chalk in his hand scratching out a message he wished he could use instructions with more nuance. It was hard enough to push a fleeting piece of his memory to name those he'd just met. He'd have to ask them their names again later.

In a dank decorated tomb of dirt floor the trees hear scratching from beyond the walls, 'Find Hunter. Test Mahina. Test Bale. Find ichor. Down.'

~~~

The ward at Mahina's feet perked up with a ragged squawk mirrored by many on the sills and elsewhere in the room. The one at her feet pecked loudly at the metal heels in front of it then loosed a gout of burning spore to try and taste bad blood. Other milky eyed fungus-backed crows meandered their way across the room to the Hunter and Bale. The living crows were under a low table now disinclined to follow riled fallen.