RP:A Fatal Step
Part of the Rynvalean Outbreak Arc
It perches nearby, just at shoulder level and hoots for Daisy's attention. With a single wing extended outward, it waves Daisy over. He lifts one taloned claw towards her, a tiny scroll tied to his leg with twine.
Unraveling the roll reveals the following message:
"com too me"
Beside this simple phrase is a drawing of a firelily in red.
Ancient Wall of the Fog Forest
Madigan had sent a letter to Daisy soon after observing a desired preadaptation in a fungus she'd collected that could work in favor of what she'd been looking for. Unfortunately, her specimen had died when she'd taken it out of its extremely humid environment where she'd found it, and she couldn't quite replicate its unique environment, so she knew she'd have to return to its place to begin her experimentation. She'd caught word that Daisy worked at the Broken Barrel, and that's where the dryad went to retrieve her druidic friend. Madigan had grinned happily when she caught sight of her furry friend, pleased to see her after so long. The last they'd seen each other had been when they'd travelled beneath Craughmoyle's surface in search of mithril and a dragon egg. Madigan had looked down at Ajani in that moment, the smile still on her face. Ajani had been sitting on his haunches, big enough that his head reached up to the dryad's waist (not that that's overly big, considering Madigan's only four feet and eight inches). Ajani's eyes had wandered around aimlessly, his irises a dark shade of lavender and his pupils dilated enough that the black hole that sucked in light and rendered images to his mind wouldn't be seen from a few feet away. His eyes looked entirely lavender. Around one eye was a huge spot of white with several rustic-colored and black rings surrounding it, and other spots of orange and rusty red overlapped each other along one side of his face. His scales had irregular patterns and colors - a product of being a Poppy-Jasper dragon born deep within the land's surface where ancient clay deposits were in abundance. His eyes had flicked up to Madigan and he'd lowered his head, likely wondering if he had been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to. To assure him, Madigan had stroked her hand over his head, to which he had responded by leaning his head against her thigh and closing his eyes appreciatively. Madigan had looked nothing like that day when they explored the cavern. She had changed completely and would seem almost completely unrecognizable to her friend - at first. Her skin had gotten darker from the sun, making the moss green of her eyes and the vibrant red of her firelily stand out even stronger against the contrast of her skin and white hair. Madigan wore an intricately beaded collar around her neck that hung over her breasts and hid her otherwise-naked body from the public. Around her upper arm was an armband with fringed beading hanging down the side of it, and on the opposite arm, she had a beaded cuff that extended up to mid-forearm. She wore a white hem-tail skirt that flowed graciously behind her whenever she walked, and her legs were wrapped in leathered strings. Down the spine of her back, she had a black tattoo with foreign symbols unknown to anyone but her people, and on the right-side of her back was a massive phoenix motif designed by Satoshi herself. It spanned from just under Madigan's armpit to below her skirt's waistline and had been inked in a crimson-colored ink. More specifically, it'd been inked in Troblin's blood which had unknown consequences. That particular tattoo had been designed as a fire ward and seemed to work swimmingly for Madigan so far, though it hadn't been *really* tested. When Madigan had greeted Daisy, Daisy likely would've noticed that her accent had thickened. After a chance meeting with another dryad, Madigan had felt more confident in embracing her roots (no pun intended) and had resubmerged herself in her cultural traditions. It was for this reason that she was dressed as she was and spoke as she did. She was honoring sacred tradition. Together, they began the journey to Rynvale's Fog Forest where Madigan had first spotted the species she would need for this experiment. She knew she had a lot of questions to answer to Daisy and she was aware their journey would give them enough time to discuss everything that needed discussing.
Daisy meets up with her lovely dryad friend there at the Broken Barrel. There is much gushing over hair and clothes and omg that dragon! and things that girls do when they haven't seen each other in a very long time. Now the kitten is going to need some exploring clothes! So she changes out of her little sailorservinggirl costume and into her green sundress. Nothing fancy. Just that and her locket and her bag of conveniences. Now she's ready! So they walk and talk and we both know that Daisy is more than happy to help Madi with anything she needs. Eventually they get to the wall that isn't much of a wall anymore. "Is this it?"
Madigan nods slowly, uncertain. "I think so," she responds, glancing at Daisy. "It's hard to tell with this forest. Most of the roots here are dead... it's hard to sense what's going on and where I am..." She wraps her fingers around the strap of her satchel that hangs over her chest and moves forward in search for a decaying tree. Through the fog, she eventually comes upon one and crouches to study the base of the tree. Surely enough, there was the fungus she needed. Ajani, like the overly curious child, scampers over excitedly when he notices Madigan paying special attention to something. It must be something he'd be interested in, too! or so is his logic. When he comes up beside her, he stares for a long time, glancing back and forth around the base of the tree and then lowers his head to look at the floor near his forepaws. Nothing? He glances up at Madigan questioningly with a wag of his tail and then another abrupt look toward the ground. Nothing. His tail stops wagging and he turns away to find a spot where he chooses to lay down and wait boredly. His back against a decaying tree, he yawns and lowers his head onto his paws to watch them through lethargic eyes. Madigan starts scraping up some of the fungus, taking care to not destroy the mycelia. "Daisy," she calls her friend over with a quick glance over her shoulder. "We need to be especially careful with this. This," she says, lifting a piece of the fungus over her shoulder to show Daisy, "has the potential to become a very deadly weapon and it's this that I'm interested in. I called for your help because we need to speed up the processes of this fungus. It's preadapted for eating living things. We need to..." Madigan stares up into the fog overhead as she tries to find the words for what they need to do. "We need to make this fungus sleep. Right now, it's awake and growing, but we need to make it sleep for a long time and train it to only wake up when it tastes the living and return to sleep when there's nothing left to eat." Turning her head completely to stare at her friend, she asks, "Can you help me do that?" Daisy may or may not have noticed Madigan's tongue, split perfectly down the middle, when she turned to her friend.
Daisy strolls dreamily behind Madigan with her eyes up in the trees. "Mmm. Not dead... just unloved." Of course the forest would be more alive with a bit of attention. Too bad Rynvale isn't more loved. Her attention is snatched up by the little dragon, tugging a smile at the corner of her lips. She's so entranced, she barely hears Madi's explanation and inquiry. "What? Oh!" She frowns at the fungus in thought. Deep thoughts come with frowns, you know. "The only problem is that there are always living things." She picks up a leaf and holds it out to the dryad. "Even if you isolate something like this." That leaf is put down on a bit of dirt on the ground and a single claw points at it. "Once the fungus eats this, there is still life in the soil below. So where does it stop?"
Madigan nods, "Right. I wondered that too..." She glances around at all the fog, looking for an idea - something that could serve to inspire a solution. Seeing nothing but fog, she slumps slightly and turns around to sit with her back pressed against the tree, thinking. She closes her eyes and tilts her head back against the trunk, concentrating in the sounds of the fog forest, dreaming about her homeland. So many things are alive and so many things are dead and decaying... What is alive and rare? What is she trying to keep out? Her eyes shoot open with an idea. "Living flesh. We have to teach it to not eat just living things," she points towards the leaf, "but to eat only living flesh. That's what caught me about this fungus." Her eyes shot around excitedly in the fog, wondering which direction it was that she'd first found the fungus. "I was drawn to it because I could smell rotting skin and blood. It was such a strong smell. Why I was drawn to it, I didn't know until just now. This fungus can eat people alive! We just need to teach it to do it and how to do it fast. Like us, plants mature, make offspring, and then die while their offspring go through the same cycles; instead of having this fungus do that over weeks or months, we need to make it do that within minutes." By the end of her explanation, Madigan's voice was rushing out quickly, charged with excitement.
Daisy's eyes glisten as she watches her friend speak. Oh the possibilities! Burly guy trying to have a kitten for lunch? Oh let me just throw this fungus on you. HA! Escape. Wheels spin in that little feline head. Smoke? Does anyone smell smoke. *cough* Oooh. Oh that's real good, kitten. A slow grin spreads across her face as she makes eye contact with that pretty dryad over there. "We need a body."
Madigan stares at her friend for a moment, wondering what's racing through her mind. The silence that follows might seem like the dryad disagreed with Daisy and thought she had lost her mind, but then Madigan says, "Where do we get one?"
Daisy drums her fingers against each other as she paces and thinks. "We need to train the fungus. There is a way things adapt to live... to survive. A cactus has spines to keep animals from eating it. Things like that." She scratches her head, still pacing, tail swishing. "So if we isolate the fungus with flesh, we leave it with only that to eat. I can speed up the growing process and the rate it consumes. But the fungus has to have a sense of urgency, like the food will vanish if it doesn't consume quickly. The 'body' will have to be alive... or there will have to be many." Her ramblings go on. Silly thing doesn't even wait to see if Madigan is following.
Madigan is most certainly following. Her people have studied natural selection for centuries, so she's able to follow Daisy easily and was even growing infatuated with her friend because of her understanding of the process. It took a special kind of person to willingly consider such a thing as real and to understand how it might work. "So, we need a place of Nothing, no bacteria, nothing dead, and lots of bodies." She bites her lip, considering where they'd get so much living flesh. "Rodents. They reproduce quickly. We just need one male and one female and we can move from there." Pushing off the ground with her palms, she stands and walks over to Ajani, crouching African-style beside him. His lavender eyes flicker up toward her without him lifting his head. She stares at him a moment, her eyes never wavering from his eyes as he returns the gaze. An unspoken and unheard conversation passes between the two as they stare in a trance. Slowly, Madigan lays down beside Ajani, her body running the length of his. A soft sigh escapes his nostrils, brushing against Madigan's face. She smirks briefly and it's gone. They never break eye contact as Madigan strokes her hand over his head and down the length of his back just once. Ajani suddenly stands up and runs off into the blanket of fog, vanishing from view. Madigan lifts herself slowly, eyes trained in the direction he went. She finally stands and turns to Daisy, her expression patient. She inhales deeply, her nose filling with the smell of wet musk from the fog and decaying foliage. The subtlest hint of death makes it to her nose and she stares off into the distance, sniffing to try to locate where the smell was coming from but to no avail. A glance to the floor as she contemplates how they can make a place of Nothing. She starts rummaging through her bag to find a container that'd serve as a suitable place to put the organisms. Madigan finds an okay-sized jar, though she purses her lips because it's the biggest she can do under the circumstance. From her bag, she pulls out a smudge stick and looks up at Daisy. "Can you make fire? I need to light this to smoke out the jar and burn out anything inside while we wait."
Daisy spends a lot of time watching Madigan and that dragon. Maybe she's a little jealous, but she'd never say. She loves dragons and her friend (not in that order), so she admires them both with a little smile until that dragon takes off. Kitten eyes follow that little dragon until Madigan speaks to her. "What? Fire. Fire! Yes." She rummages in her bag a bit. "I have matches." And then pulls out a small box of wooden matches. One is lit and held out to the dryad.
Madigan extends her arm far from her body toward the match, trying to keep herself at a distance. Strangely enough, the small flame didn't make her fire ward react. Assuming it was safe to approach, she moves closer and hesitantly grabs the match from Daisy's fingers to hold it closely against the smudge stick. A few leaves catch, and Madigan shakes the match to turn it out, dropping it onto the ground. She holds the smudge stick up and tilts it in different angles to let the flame burn around the leaves before she waves the flames out. White smoke curls up from the still-burning leaves, the orange of the heat gradually eating its way through the leaves. Placing the jar face down on the ground, she tilts it slightly to hold the smudge stick at the mouth of the jar and let the smoke curl up inside. The jar fills up soon enough, the smoke wafting from the mouth of the jar, so she lets the jar sit back down against the ground to trap the smoke in. As she waits for the smoke to suffocate anything and everything inside the jar, she slowly passes the burning hot tip of the smudge stick along the outside surface of the jar, occasionally scorching the surface with black stains. Madigan slowly works the surface, taking care to evenly heat up the jar across all the surfaces. A few minutes later, she lifts the jar and places it right side up, running the smudge stick around the rim to kill anything that might have gotten on the neck of the jar. Sensing something approaching, she casts her eyes in the direction Ajani had run off to and she sees him appear in the fog with a mouse's tail clenched between his maw. The mouse squirmed helplessly in Ajani's clutches, his little paws clawing at nothing as he tried to escape. Reaching for the mouse by the tail, Ajani releases it and sits on his haunches. Madigan blows into the jar to push the rest of the smoke out and drops the mouse into the jar. "The female?" she asks aloud as she watches the mouse clawing at the jar's interior, staring up at the mouth in the hopes of escape. His little whiskers twitch and sneezes, then pushes off the jar's walls and starts running quickly around in circles, occasionally pausing and looking up at the walls to see if perhaps the jar has opened up for his escape. Ajani didn't audibly respond to Madigan, but she looks at him anyway as if he said something. She then looks up toward the sky and into view came Castanops, her old friend. His flight was silent as always and his wingspan wide enough to rival Madigan's height. Clenched between his talons is the female Madigan had asked for. She grins up at Castanops as he soars over her head and releases the mouse from his grasp. Reaching up quickly, Madigan catches the mouse in her hands and quickly tosses her into the jar because the female has a chance to bite and scratch the dryad. From within her bag, Madigan extracts a piece of cloth and punctures several holes throughout before placing it over the jar's mouth and starts tying it in place with twine. She stops suddenly and stands, rushing over to the patch of fungus she'd carefully pulled from the tree's base and returns to the jar, sitting down crossleggedly as she replaces the cloth over the mouth and finishes the tying of twine. "It's likely the mice will learn to feed on the fungus and the fungus will either have to develop strategies to fight off the mice for its survival or lose the race for survival. Do you think you can help me quicken the pace of adaptation? It won't be as quick and strong, but I will manage if you can't help push the mice to procreate."
Daisy sits down across from her friend to watch the jar cleansing. There isn't a whole lot for her to do right now, really. So she watches and waits and is asked to... encourage little mousey porno. With a nod, she takes the jar and holds it up to her nose. "Don't you want the fungus to work faster than that? I can't make a mouse give birth faster than twenty one days."
Madigan thinks for a moment. "Do you think two bodies are enough to make the fungus work fast? I just wanted to make an abundance of mice so that the fungus was forced to eat them to survive. But if we wait days, the mice will eat the fungus before it can adapt. We have to speed up the urgency for the fungus while keeping the mice steady. Does that makes sense?"
Daisy holds the jar up to her nose and nods. "Oh yes. But if the fungus consumes too quickly, the mice won't reproduce." She pets a claw down the edge of the jar, encouraging that fungus to grow. "Or... we keep adding mice." She looks over at Madigan with a nod. "I can make the fungus consume at a rapid rate, but we have to starve it without killing it so that it will consume quickly when a new mouse is introduced to the habitat. Eventually, I won't need to help it. A mouse will be put into the jar and within minutes, it will be gone." She smiles at the dragon. "Maybe they can fetch more?" Daisy said, "Eventually the fungus will develop an urgency to feed as soon as it is exposed to flesh."
Madigan nods in agreement and turns to look at Ajani. He's off before anyone can blink, sprinting into the fog happily. He was wanting something to do and now he feels useful. The dryad smiles affectionately after him, appreciative of his personality. She's grown a bond with him unmatched by any other she's had in her two hundred years of existence. She wondered if all mothers felt the way she did about Ajani. Casting her eyes to the floor in contemplation, she thought of her mother and wondered if that's how her mother had felt about her. Madigan glances up at Daisy then, quietly and serenely waiting for Ajani and Castanops' joint efforts of providing them with all the mice they would need. Getting onto her knees, Madigan lean over toward the jar to check the holes on top. Were they big enough to let the humidity in? The fungus would die without the humidity. They're big enough, she decides, sitting back down. "Let's begin, then."
Daisy sits there on her knees, ignoring the squealing mousey pleas as the fungus devours them. Everything has to eat, right? That fungus takes over the smaller female first, reducing it to mere bones within minutes. "It's working..." the feline whispers. Of course at this point, she is pushing the planty substance to grow and feast. Their goal is to make it so she doesn't have to. "The second mouse is almost gone." She looks up to see if Madigan's children have returned with more mice.
Madigan watches quietly for a moment and realizes she should probably be helping. She places her hands on the jar as well, staring in and watching the fungus slowly digest the mice. They only had to wait a moment before Castanops and Ajani returned with more mice, this time not giving importance to whether they were male or female. Madigan undid the twine and dropped the mice in, and the two helpers were off once again to fetch more mice. They were back with another pair before the fungus was done digesting the last of the mice.
Daisy likes being this close to her friend, even if it is to do something kind of disturbing and gross. She grins at Madigan over the jar. "Can you feel it? The fungus is moving on its own. See?" It isn't long before the two mice in the jar are gone. She holds a paw up and 'tells' the fungus to eat. But there is nothing to eat! It needs something to eat and now! A moment longer of the light taunting from the druid and then another mouse is dropped in. "We did it, Madi," she whispers in awe.
Madigan grins happily and squeals in excitement when the fungus, without their provocation, devours the mouse. "Put it on the floor so it doesn't feel us. We don't want it to grow dependent on our presence for it to eat." They place the jar on the ground and back away from it slightly before placing the last of the mice into the jar. The mouse stands on its hind legs to sniff at the top just as the first mouse had. It unsuspectingly stepped atop the fungus, sniffing it and nibbling on the edges. A fatal mistake; the fungus immediately responded, its mycelia digging into the mouse's flesh, rapidly releasing spores as it digested the mouse's face, spreading further over the mouse until its entire body was coated in matured fungi. As soon as the fungus released its spores, it died away and nothing was left to be eaten. The fungus responded by its caps closing in on themselves and curling downward into the decay of the mice and dead fungus. Madigan pressed a single finger to the jar, sensing for life. The fungus was still alive, she realized in awe. It was simply dormant as she'd wanted it to be. "I think our push of magic worked," she grins at Daisy. "Not only does it eat living animals, but we've triggered a catastrophic mechanism. We made the fungus need food so urgently that it suddenly responded to no food by going dormant. It's sleeping! Now I just need to grow it and cultivate it." She picked up the jar as she stood. "I just have to make cultures now." Madigan presses her face up against the glass, studying the structure of the fungus they produced. It even looks slightly altered from the species it'd derived itself from. "Structure equals function," she mutters under her breath. She turns to carry it off, but in her excitedly distraction, her foot catches in a dead root and she falls with a loud gasp. The jar helplessly slams into the ground, the glass shattering and sending shards spreading. Madigan closes her eyes and cringes away as some of the blades hit her. Hurriedly and scared, she gets up onto her knees and reaches toward Ajani. He was just in the way for the spores to puff out and land on him. Her heart's pounding in her chest as she grabs a hold of Ajani and pulls him to her. He seemed utterly unaffected by the spores. She relaxes as he stares at her in worry, but as soon as her hands touch his scales, the spores germinate on her skin. Screaming in fear, she triggers her bark form and the fungus instantly goes dormant. In her palm, there was a portion of bark that seemed chewed away at, bits of sap slowly pooling. She stares at her hand for a long time and glances toward Ajani. He was still unaffected by the spores. "The fungus can't eat through scales." Ajani tilts his head to the side then and lowers his head slightly to whimper at her. She simply stands there for a long moment with her palm facing up as she glanced toward Daisy. "You need to leave this place and not ever return. It will eat you if you don't stay away. Don't worry about me; I'll be okay so long as I'm in this form. Go now." Madigan doesn't wait for Daisy to respond. Instead, she hastily digs through her bag to pull out another jar. Opening it, she starts scooping dirt into the jar, trying to collect as many spores as she can. She can only guess where all it landed and she knew she wouldn't be able to safely collect all of the spores, but she'd collect enough for her purpose, and whomever dared enter the fog forest would surely end up dead. Her stomach plummeted at the thought. What has she done? This was supposed to be contained! Recapping the jar, she throws it into her bag, stands up and makes her way out of the forest quickly, Ajani following behind with as much worry tensing him up. He could sense his mother's fear and it upset him greatly.
In Summation
None of this information has been publicly announced because the public doesn't know of this problem. Currently, only Madigan and Daisy are aware of what has been unleashed into the Fog Forest. This will not change unless RP is done to spread awareness of the problem. To participate in the Rynvalean Outbreak, please send Madigan a copy of the RP with the subject box indicating the RP is for this arc. Madigan will then be adding the RP to the wiki for reference. Thanks, and have fun!
- The epidemic originates at the Ancient Wall.
- If any creature with (live) animal cells enters the fog forest and explores too far, the fungus will germinate and eat their flesh when coming into contact. The fungus can spread further out depending on RP done.
- It will grow dormant (as opposed to outright die) when there is no food and will germinate once food is available (e.g., a living, fleshy-type race touches it).
- The spores don't germinate when coming into contact with dragon scales. If a dragon were to come into contact with the dormant spores and retract its scales to become human-like (without aid of scales protection), the dragon's exposed skin will trigger germination. The spores could stick to the scales and be spread around.
- As mentioned in the first post, the fungus needs a humid/wet environment.