I don't hate you

The trees provide shade practically year round, which is great in summer, but here in spring, it makes for a chilly outing in the woods. The path is rough, and not well formed, but with the snow having receded, folks are out and about once more. A certain orange-haired Gnome rides along the path, her giant beetle moving slowly but steadily. "Ooh, hold up here Chaucy.", the druid calls out. The giant insect obliges, and Tawyse dismounts. She moves to the side where a tangle of brambles has begin encroaching on the path, and she begins to delicately relocate parts of the bush. Other parts are deftly trimmed away by her small set of shears.

There's no sound of warning. Nothing to tell the gnome that something is happening before suddenly there is someone standing before her. It is a leather-clad individual with a forest-green cloak to cover most of their body. It is the cloak and leather gear that suggests a forest-dweller of some sort, but it is the bow which truly suggests a ranger. One of those who protects nature. The bow itself is more interesting than whom holds it. It is a well-crafted item made of smooth wood that's etched with careful runes in elvish. What's really interesting though... is that it is pointed directly at the gnome. "Don't move." A woman's voice firm and steady.

The Gnome squeals loudly, giving a start when the woman speaks. She holds up the shears defensively. The beetle makes a sort of hissing noise, and begins to advance, his giant horn being thrust forward menacingly. "What are you doing?", Tawyse demands. "Thieving? The Union'll clear you..." She huffs, but hasn't taken a step.

A coarse curse in elvish leaves the woman's lips and the arrow leaves her bow. It whizzes by the gnome close enough for her to feel the breath of it as it goes by and slams home into a small tree behind her. Already a second arrow is readied and aimed at the beetle. "You should have stayed silent! Look at the arrow you fool before I'm forced to shoot your twice-blasted mount." There's a small motion of the woman's head toward the arrow but her bow never moves an inch.

Pierced on the arrow is a surprisingly small green scorpion. The creature is small enough that the arrow has nearly bisected it, but it is close enough that it clearly was intending on jumping on the gnome. Furthermore it has an odd look to it besides the color, and after a moment there's the sharp realization that it bears a pair of dragonfly wings and that it is slowly shifting color back to a more natural black.

The Gnome doesn't look, but she does thrust a hand out to her side, the beetle slowing its charge. He does begin to interpose himself between the elf and Tawyse, though. "You can lower your bow now.", she says to Rhyn. "There's also no need to curse at me."

"I'll say as I please." The woman retorts, but slowly begins to lower her bow. She doesn't unknock the arrow, but she lowers it and that's something. The woman tilts her head, still covered by the hood of her cloak but enough for the gnome to get a glimpse of a lovely sildanyar face marked by particularly interesting eyes. Rhyn has eyes like a stormcloud, darkened as they are by the cowl of her cloak they nonetheless flicker with coppery streaks like lightning flashing. "That is the twelfth of those things I've killed today. Plague-touched creatures seeking to spread their sickness to others."

"Then I, too, shall say as I please. You scared the crap out of me. You could have just shot it and explained after." Tawyse reaches behind her, and plucks the arrow free, and pulls it forward so that she can inspect the scorpion. "Hmm, it doesn't smell right at all. Definitely corruption of some kind. Plague-touched, you say? There've been quite a few creatures corrupted like this." The Gnome offers up the arrow to Rhyn.

With lithe grace the elf moves toward Tawyse, watching the beetle with caution. It's not until she's very close indeed that she moves the bow to one hand, fingers still holding the arrow to the string. Faster than a blink she could have it up and ready to shoot again. She holds her other hand out for the arrow. "I suspect that it's a carrier of the corruption. I saw one earlier attack a stag and kill it with a single strike. I've been hunting a nest of them all day." Rhyn wiggles her fingers for the arrow. There's not much if any of an elvish accent on her tongue, but it's clear that she knows it well. She also distinctly doesn't apologize for frightening the gnome, or even bother to explain her reasons.

GAME: Tawyse rolls knowledge/nature: (11)+9: 20

Tawyse lets the Elf take the arrow back without resistance, and she shrugs. "Very likely someone is spreading this corruption, infecting nests and burrows, and letting the nature of the pestilence spread itself from there." She rubs a cheek. "You could go to the Grove with that, and enlist some assistance in tracking those down. I'm trying to open up the path more, here, but I could follow you for a time if you wanted? I live in the woods here, most of the time."

"You should leave the path as it is. It is dangerous up ahead, and the woods hardly need /people/ at a time like this." Arrow is wiped on the edge of the elfs cloak and the more carefully set amongst it's fellows in a quiver that's attached oddly enough to her thigh. She moves backwards, heading around the bush with careful steps. "I don't need your help either. I have more of these damnmidable things to hunt down and no time at all to talk to a bunch of druids about whether or not it's 'natural'."

The Gnome raises an eyebrow, and shakes her head. "I don't need to be told what to do." She shrugs then. "Gosh, sorry to have suggested a reasonable course of action. I'll leave you to run off on your own, then. Good luck at solving the plague that many others are working on with out huge success." Tawyse steps over to the beetle, and strokes along its head. "Good boy.", she says quietly. "Extra soggy logs for you tonight."

It's almost audible the glare that the gnome is given by the cloaked woman. An air of irritation surrounds her and she practically slams the arrow she'd had drawn against the giant rhinocerous beetle home with the rest. "I'm not trying to cure the plague. I'm not sure it can be cured. I'm just trying to curb the effects." She starts to stalk off into the woods. "Nice to know that people still say thank-you when you save their asses."

Tawyse's eyebrow manages to rise higher than before. "Of course it can be cured. Running around putting out sparks doesn't fix the problem of the forest burning down. You can't lone wolf it. The dead scorpions could hold clues, stuff you've missed." Her other eyebrow rises to join the first. "Well if you hadn't scared the crap out of me, and hadn't acted like a stuck up bitch with a tree up her arse, I might've thanked you..", she calls out.

A vibration seems to go up the sildanyar's spine, because she shudders from head to toe. There's no way of knowing what caused it, but she turns slowly back, tension in every line of her body. "Well. Sorry to have frightened you /miss/." She turns back with an irate growl. "Sorry!" Rhyn doesn't sound the least bit apologetic. She does stop however, still in view but quite far away and loses another arrow. This time she pins a scorpion to a tree that doesn't have a gnome crouched down in front of it. Seems there really are more of the things in the area.

The Gnome shakes her head. "My thank you is as sincere.", she calls back. Tawyse settles onto Chaucy's back, and the beetle continues down the path. The druid's hand reaches for her quarterstaff, and after a couple of spins, she leans forwards and strikes downwards. "You missed one!", she calls out, the beetle stopping once more. She puts something into one of her pouches, scraped from the end of her staff.

The elvish woman makes an inarticulate noise and glares briefly in the gnomes direction. "I don't remember you thanking me at all. I /remember/ you saying that you would thank me." She pulls her arrow free of the tree with a little jerk and then a noise of disgust that isn't because of the scorpion on the end. She wipes that off and fingers the shaft of her arrow. Gone out of true she snaps it in half and tucks it into a pocket. "Blasted!"

Tawyse pauses at another part of the path, and begins clipping at a tree that has fallen across the path. "Chaucy. Push.", she commands, and the beetle sidles up to the trunk, butting its head against it. Over several minutes, the two are able to push the tree to the side. The Gnome continues to clip away at branches. "Expecting a thank you is as rude as not giving one.", she says, at a conversational volume.

"Whatever." Rhyn continues on, not waiting for Tawyse, but another of the scorpion-things has her stopped in her tracks to squash it with her boot. "You should go back. I think we're getting closer to the nest." There do seem to be quite a lot of them around here. More than were back over by the path at least.

The Gnome will advance towards Rhyn's voice. "You should probably stop trying to tell me what to do. It's not working out for you that well." A few solid thwacks indicate that Tawyse has found a few more. "Just how many of these are in one nest, anyways? I've never checked, they don't often pester people like this."

"Scorpions don't usually keep nests like hive insects do, but these ones have been acting more like killer bees than scorpions. They attack everything." She sounds digusted, and quickly glances toward the gnome following her. "I'm not telling you what to do, I'm suggesting. /Nicely/. That you go back now." Rhyn's voice is firm however, her stormy gaze peering down at the gnome.

"I'm not a child, and you're not my mother.", the Gnome snaps, her facial expression visibly darkening. "These woods are my home, and I'm not going to sit around idly while other people protect it." Tawyse huffs and shakes her head. "I know they are not insects. But if there are this many of the blasted things around, they've only recently been born and thus have come from a female who's ... in her nest.. or someone's messing with them to cause them to do this. One way or another, I'm going to be helping out here. So deal with it like an adult, yes?"

Rhyn says something very, very unkind in elvish and turns her back on the gnome, stomping toward the nest without bothering to answer any of the other woman's questions. It seems that Tawyse has said something to upset her though in truth the elf also seemed like maybe started off in a nasty one. She stops only to stomp, smash, swat, and otherwise kill the little scorpions which she seems to be able to follow because they are indeed becoming more and more thick. Until at last there's a hill of them. They buzz about in the air and crawl along the ground amid one another building up the nest and doing other things which make sense mostly to insects and those devoted to studying them. Rhyn stops, staring at the mound unhappily trying to figure out how to approach it without being attacked.

"Such a rude thing to say. As if you're the only one who can speak Sildanyari.", the Gnome replies, in said language. She follows along in Rhyn's wake, squishing the odd few that the Elf might miss, making a face at the noises they make. "Well. That's definitely not their normal behaviour. Looks awfully like a nest, don't you think? Termites, I'd say, with how they're building the mound up." Tawyse is quiet for a few moments, watching the Elf. "You don't have a plan, do you? Hate t'say it, but I am not equipped for this either. We need lightning or fire, and I've none of those spells ready. We will not be smashing them all either, not with out grave risk of injury and death." She lets out a breath. "Face it, we need more people to combat this."

"Afraid now all of the sudden are you?" The words aren't whispered but rather spoken in such a low tone of voice that they're almost inaudible. The woman gives her gnome companion a harsh look. "You can turn back now if you like but I'm not going to let these things spread. Or some innocent dumbass get killed stumbling into them." That... comes with a very pointed expression.

"Afraid? Of course I am afraid, I'm not stupid or stubborn. But I'm not thinking JUST of myself. If we die here, guess what happens? It WILL spread. We both need to leave, get back to the Grove alive, and bring back a whole bunch of people who can stamp it out together. But fine... tell me o learned one, what are you going to do? Chop chop, 'cause time is passing." Tawyse crosses her arms and eyes the Elf, waiting.

"Then. Turn. Back. Go warn someone. No one asked you to be here." Rhyn's reply is short and irritable. She turns away, pulling out a wineskin, a piece of cloth, and a flint with some steel. All the makings of a home-made bomb if there isn't actual wine in that skin. The elvish woman hefts the bag and nods to herself before pulling off the top and stuffing the empty hole with the cloth.

"Either we both go, or we both stay." The Gnome watches as Rhyn puts together the makings of a firebomb, and she then takes a few steps forward, planting her hand on the Elf's back. Spidery words of magic are intoned, and the Elf's skin begins to harden and dry out, taking on the shape and consistency of bark. "This should keep a bit of the sting off. And I can keep most toxins at bay, at least long enough to get you back."

The elvish woman growls and grumbles under her breath, but doesn't shake the gnome off. She does however look at her own hand perspectively before slowly rising to her feet. Rhyn makes a gentle motion for Tawyse to stay back which she doesn't expect to be listened to, but she does it just the same. Slowly the elf eeks forward. Then she tosses the bomb into the center mass of the creatures. They skitter away from it and then a moment later it detonates, scattering them in every direction. Immediately Rhyn has her bow out, firing at the creatures that aren't immediately burned up though... Now that they've caught fire they /burn/. From one to the next the fire spreads as though it's hungry for the little critters.

Tawyse winces at the bang, and stares as they are scattered into the air. She lets out a lengthy sigh, and begins to squish and crunch. The Beetle simply runs amok, trampling them as he charges ahead. "This is likely to end badly.", the Gnome says casually.

Rhyn grunts at her, swinging her bow to smash one against a tree and then fires an arrow at another. "I don't want to hear your complaining! You could have left at any time!" She doesn't seem afraid at all, in fact she seems strangely satisfied to be destroying these things. Crunch-crunch underfoot. Whack with the bow, and then the twang of an arrow. She's finally able to let loose all her pent up irritation on the very thing she's been hunting this whole time. Fire burns through the air but the vegetation around here is wet enough that the fire isn't spreading beyond the bugs.

"Just a statement of fact, not a complaint.", the Gnome comments, her quarterstaff now twirling about as she strikes out on all sides. She laughs then and shakes her head. "So will it be momma scorpion, or a queen, that comes out to see what is making mincemeat of its children?"

It seems that the gnome will have her answer because as the last of the smaller scorpions dies or manages to make an escape the ground trembles. Soon enough the ground at the center of the mound begins to quake. "You had to ask!" Rhyn snipes back at Tawyse, readying an arrow the moment that the thing frees itself of the dirt. A moment later it bursts out, a massive brown scorpion who's color shifts in the light making it harder to see. It's easily the size of a human being, and far more fearsome to look at. It arcs it's deadly tail back and looks around for the source of what brought it forth. It doesn't take long to orient, not with Rhyn's arrow stabbing it in the face. With an odd chittering noise it rushes her.

"Chaucy!", the Gnome yells, and the Beetle obeys, charging forward with its great horn prominently displayed. It catches the scorpion in the side, Chaucy's head lifts, and the scorpion finds itself on its back. Chaucy scuttles backwards, trying to move out of range of the tail. "Go for the underbelly!"

Rhyn doesn't hesitate, was in fact already in action. She fires off arrows at the thing's underbelly but when they plink off it's armor she moves in more directly and starts to beat at it's underbelly using her bow as a club. "AAHHHH!" Amazingly it seems to be working, but its legs stab down at the woman as it tries to get to its feet. Rhyn doesn't seem to notice the legs, so focused is she on attacking it. He hood falls as it's kicked off by a stray foot and red hair like the spill of a crimson dawn falls free around her head. "DIE CURSED BEAST!"

The Beetle returns, its horn lowered, and it punctures deep into the scorpion. Which doesn't help the leg kicking bit, but it is deeply wounded now. Tawyse runs up the back of her mount, and lowers her sickle, catching at the hole already made, and 'unzipping' a few sections of the scorpion's carapace. "Eewh.", the Gnome says. "That's what guts look like."

The elvish woman doesn't give in. Not until the scorpion is no longer feebly kicking. Then with the creature dead she leans back, her stormy eyes flashing pure copper in the light. Then suddenly the color fades to gray-blue. They looked much more ominous in the darkness of her cowl, as did she in fact. Though now she's sprayed with black ichor she's remarkably beautiful, her red hair framing delicate feminine features that somehow seem at odds with the course personality that she displayed earlier. Rhyn turns toward Tawyse, and flashes her a grin that's all teeth. "Not too shabby when the cards are down are ya?"

Tawyse keeps slicing until the scorpion is a beaten, gooey mess, and then she goes about cleaning her blade. She keeps her distance from Rhyn, those does note the difference in her demeanor. She shrugs slowly and nods. "I earn my keep.", she says quietly. "And with some notice, I can bring some hard hitting spells to the fore too." The Gnome raises a foot and crunches down on a smaller scorpion that was still alive.

Rhyn frowns slightly at the sound of the crunch and looks around for any more stray critters. They seem to have all gone for now, but she's on vigil for more. The elvish woman pulls her cloak around to clean the ichor off her bow, careful with it now. It seems to be of a sturdy enough make that bashing it against the scorpions body did it no harm. She seems displeased though that she can't get her bow entirely clean. Finally she sighs and leaves it as good as she can get it. "Now I mean to warn the druids. In case there are more mounds like this one." She eyes Tawyse. "Are you going to keep following me?"

"If you are going to warn the Druids, then I do not need to follow you. I will go back to my task of clearing the path. If you think I would be useful at your side, say so." The Gnome goes about cleaning her own gear, as well as cleaning the gore from her Beetle mount.

The elvish woman nods. "You should leave that path. There are more things out here like that." She motions toward the scorpion and then makes a gesture with her hand. "I know, don't tell you what to do, but the next person up that path won't have me to save their ass. Just think on that." Then she's walking away for good.

"Better they follow the path than wander the woods, get lost and THEN find one of those mounds.", she calls out. "Name's Tawyse. See you around, I guess."

All she gets in reply is a bow lifted and a grunt of disagreement. Then the woman is lost to the woods like a ghost between the trees. "Rhyn." It echoes back, but Rhyn herself is already gone.

-End