RP: Parlay or Parsley?

Part of the A Line Drawn in the Sand Arc

This is a Healer's Guild RP.

Summary: Emilia responds to a letter from the Healer's Guild camp at Cenril shore to discuss matters surrounding the curse. Artia along with her assistant also arrive to relay response to the curse, but are pulled away by the healer's for some help in the med-bay tent. A strange turn of truths reveals to Mcracken that the Genasi is one of the land walkers that raise their sacred ship from the depths putting him into a catch twenty-two over wanting to end the life of the ice-woman and continuing to accept her aide in building an ice wall around where the curse has struck to quarantine it from the rest of Cenril. Tension between the two is heightened as they part ways until the next day to put the wall of ice up.

Wharf to the Pier, Cenril

To your east is a continuation of this wharf, and to the west is a tall, barely-standing structure.

Emilia had been long absent from the shore and city of Cenril with a visit up to the frozen wonderland of Frostmaw leaving Arbane in charge with her absence. Arbane stood outside of a large white tent that had been set up along the shore out of range of where the plague had taken over. The elf man stood just over six feet in height with long strands of white hair braided into a single braid falling to his waist. With the stay he had taken to wearing a pair of cotton pants cut off into shorts and a light weight button-up shirt while keeping his feet adorn in a pair of sealskin shoes. Beside him stood his wife Nyna in a forest green summer dress and matching sealskin shoes. Unlike her spouse the woman wore her golden blonde hair in two braids that fell just past her waist. The couple stood discussing with themselves in hushed tones over what they could do next to aide here. Already a long tent had been set up across from theirs and turned into a med-bay for those of non-animal species infected by the plague. The beds filled with ill patients, each strapped down to prevent self harm and of harm against the healers as they tended to them. Bodies of others tucked away into wooden coffins in another tent just off from where the sick remained. “I do hope that Emilia has gotten our letter, Dear. I am afraid that we are running out of room for the deceased and nothing seems to be slowing down the death rate of either human or animal kind...”Nyna whispered to husband with a worried tone. “I know. We need all the help that we can get, but I am not even sure what or where to assign help...this is just a deadly place and I am fearing now for the worst...” Arbane whispered in return before his words were cut short by another voice, “Look! She comes!” the teenage voice of Cain rang out as he sprinted up the shoreline waving his field journal like an excited child for a birthday surprise. And he was right in his statement as the ice woman came walking down along the shore from the North in her normal attire of a white spring gown and bare feet. White curls whipped around her frail form as she got caught in the ocean breeze along her traveling toward the Healer’s camp. Once close enough the Genasi lifted her right hand, which was now a glacial black in color fading out just above her wrist, to wave at the three healers. “I got your letter and came as soon as I could. It is such a long travel between Frostmaw and here, but I have made it. What is so urgent that you needed to see me right away? I also called, Sir Mcracken via letter to meet us here so that he can hear in this. I pray it is good news....?” However, the look on her frozen face showed true that she knew it was just the opposite they had to share with her, more bad news.

Larket's Apothecary had left Frostmaw as she hadn't find the person she needed yet, knowing her husband was fine on his on she had other task to work on. Firstly she grabbed her bags from her ranch, and her book where she took notes at. Making sure to grab a few of the samples she took from the cenril shores, and a couple of her books. She was trying to still break down the type of curse, has it had not been a curse she had ever encountered before. Being a witch gave a person many talents within the craft, and she would soon need to find Muzo to help her possibly break it down. Needing to find what made it up, and see if maybe there was a signature within it. Artia was stumped, she didn't know what to do other then continue to research. As she headed out of Larket she grabbed one of the healers from the Larket clinic so as she talked she could write the notes for her. Macy quickly joined Artia at the cenril-Larket bridge, "Lady Kerrigan, Ikked told me you needed an assistant." Artia nods, "Aye, I need to go back to the shores we need to keep eyes out as I don't know if we will encounter any large variety of the effected kind. So stay close, hold my note book and be ready to write. If something large comes, and is violent turn and run hard."

Mcracken wasn’t visible immediately, but those brave few healers working closest to the perimeter of the curse might spot, out to sea beyond the southern shore, a series of air-filled bladder-buoys pop up suddenly in a wide arc. Not long after, the heads and shoulders of several humanoid figures could be seen in the water, now and then flipping a shining, scaled tail as they dived under again. Soon, though, cutting through the waves at an astonishing pace, a familiar dreadlocked figure swam toward the wharf, but did not climb its barnacled timbers once he reached it. Instead, Mac swum through the wharf’s pylons toward the healer’s camp, raising a webby hand in greeting to the kind medics and the ice-maiden who’d recently joined them, where he lingered in the waist-deep water. “Good day to thee, M’lady,” he boomed across the surf at Emilia, once he’d greeted Arbane, Nyna and Cain, whose acquaintance he’d already made. “Thy pardon, but needs be I must stay in the shallows rather than come ashore this day…” Maybe a glimpse of why could seen, if the water was clear enough now and then.. below the man’s torso, something tentacular writhed. Was he he sitting on an octopus? Around his neck, a wondrously gleaming aquamarine gem hung from a thread of shining gold. The man, if anyone could still call him that, seemed to radiate a strength he had not possessed in former meetings.

Arbane shook his head when his fellow healer asked of him for good news on this day, he had none. “Emi, I am afraid that I have no good news to share with you this day. The plague is taking on human lives faster than we can slow it down to figure out what it is causing it. I fear that our tent for the dead is nearly full and we estimate a number more deaths to follow in the coming days. I know not what to do with these bodies that are piling up. Or what to do with the dead we have managed to gather up from the shore and the cost line waters. I just...” his words cut off by the ever excited lad as he spotted another familiar face from out by the water, “There he is! I am fairly sure?” Cain shouted out waving with his journal over at the approaching water-man with his dreads. Emilia turned her frozen gaze away from Arbane after briefly patting his shoulder so that she could in turn wave at the new arrival to the shore. Mcracken would find that the hand which waved at him was black fading into her natural white just above her wrist. It was no normal black like when one encounters a drow, but of an glossy ice-nature, black ice. Something not quite right. Nyna and Arbane would greet the man shortly there after with in sync nods over waving his way. As the wife opened her mouth to speak there was a high pitched cry of a scream coming from within the med-bay. Her head whipped so fast to look in that direction that her braids slapped against the arm of her husband with a distinct slapping sound. “Emilia, my dearest, we will catch up with you in a moment....we must...” the words never finished as the couple was off running to tend to the ill patient screaming with the agony of the plague. Cain, still young and learning, choose to stay by the frozen woman while she walked closer to the man in the water. “Hey, Ems...What happened to your hand...its all...black and not white like the rest of you?” his eager curious nature coming with his question as they closed to the gap to Mcracken. The ice-lady replied, “Don’t fret your little head over it. I’m fine.” and that was the end of that. Turning toward the gentleman she smiled, “Ah, if you must remain in the water then so be it. I can stand here on shore and converse with you so long as you don’t drag me into the ocean.” Ah, yes, she was still ever so afraid of the ocean. “You are looking a bit better today,” Em added in notion of his different state of being on this meeting.

Artia and Macy were close to the wharf, when Macy grabbed onto Artia's forearm. "M'lady.." Artia looked towards wherr she pointed, her eyes went wide with what she saw out in the sea. Bladder-buoys surfacing on and off from where they stood from land, human like figures appeared in several groups. Artia smiled widely, "Never know what you will see in these lands or to sea it seems. Macy was nervous and shaking as she had never been out of Larket nor much of the sickbay. They continued there walk to the camp, waving a silent hello to those present. Once she joined the area, she stood at the shore looking out to Mac. Seeing him with tentacles underneath him, she knew what he was so she didn't comment much. "Sir Mac, you are looking very well. What caused this change in you?" Staring now to the pendent around his neck, pointing, "What is that, and where did you get it?" She wanted him to be careful, as they knew not who was behind this curse or affects caused to him. She looked to Emilia offering her a bow, "Emilia, it is good to see you again. I hope all is well with you too?" Looking back to Mac, "As the lady said, stay in the water. But I would come swim except I think my friend Macy here would freak out." She offered another kind smile, "The samples I took home with me, I tried to break it down or find a counter curse. No luck I am afraid I am sorry, I still won't stop trying to break it down. Also sorry I have took so long to get back to you, I recently got married and been trying to help the clinic in Frostmaw."

Mcracken ’s webbed hand rose to greet Artia, then lowered to touch that shining jewel he wore, and he replied to the women in tandem, “Aye, I am somewhat healed, for I bear a holy relic of Selene, which hath offered me some relief….” Mac looked to Artia as he said, “Salvaged from a holy shrine that was looted some time ago. Two we found.. four remain lost to us.” But that was clearly a matter for another time, as his gaze shifted toward the tent-- another scream sounded, and Mac grimaced, his teeth bared momentarily before he turned his attention to Emilia, Artia and the healers again, “Much hath I learned about the nature of the curse and its cause…. The creature who summoned it is a drow, Gevurah D’Artes, and her god is the death-god Vakmatharas. It is a death-curse that holds the power of a god, a great unholy geis, and therefore it is that only holy magics may counter it with any success. I am presently building a wall, “ he gestured to the buoys out to sea, “Marking the perimeter of the curse, and hirelings will build a stout barrier to prevent further sea-creatures sickening. Though its construction may take several weeks..” Mac didn’t look too pleased about that, but mouth bore the trace of a smile when he spoke next, “I most pleased to see thee, Emilia, and thou art too a welcome sight, Lady Artia. Perhaps together we may greatly diminish the damage both to your people and mine.”

Emilia closed her eyes as she listened to the sounds of another scream as it echoed from the med-bay. The scream was different than the first, more gargled and faded. Nyna and Arbane were right, more deaths would soon follow. The healer in her could almost feel the life as it was slipping from the latest victim to the curse on the land. Slowly the eyes of the Genasi fluttered open as the screams stopped. Her attention drifted toward Artia and her follower for a moment, “Greetings. Good to see you. I suppose congratulations are in store then for this recent marriage to some lucky man.” she stated with a smile that was brief. The joy of the wedding she sported for the other was short lived if only for the mass chaos and death surrounding where she stood now. She listened as Mcracken spoke about his plan to build a wall that would keep the curse more or less in one area and prevent the spread. Below the woman where the moisture in the sand was it started to turn over into a frost with the exposure to the ice-woman’s flesh. Cain watched with interest as the frost began to form over the ground where his healer friend stood. His young brain in a whirlwind of ideas trying to connect the ocean to the frost to the wall. Emilia turned to point to the necklace worn by Mcracken, “Some time ago I ventured out to the ocean with a friend of mine and a few others. First and last time I will ever let the ocean try to eat me, but we worked together to rise a ship from the depths of the ocean...I feel like in the searching of that wrecked ship I found something like what you are wearing.” Em shuddered at the memory of being in the ocean depths. It was at that moment that Cain threw his hands up in the air with a rather excited look on his face, like he had just won first prize in some contest, “I got! I got the answer!” He jumped up and down in his excitement. Em glanced toward the human lad with a brow raised, “What answer do you have?” Curious to know what it was he managed to solve against this curse that she, nor the elder couple from the guild or even Artia could solve. Cain beamed with a smile from ear to ear as he spoke, “Mister Mcracken wants to build a wall around the curse. The curse is located in an area surrounded by water....” He waved his like he had just spoke a magic spell to astonish everyone, expecting them to pick up on his notion that before them stood an ice-genasi able to bend the water of the ocean to her will and freeze it to make a wall of ice faster than it would take for the current wall.

Mcracken ’s three hearts beat like hammers within him when Emilia spoke of having found a gem.. and at the site of the risen shrine. He was about to say something to her about it when the lad flailed and shouted his bright idea for a wall of ice… The kraken’s dual-hued gaze flicked back and forth between Cain and Emilia, while the older healers tugged Artia and her sidekick away into the tent, both of them excited at the notion of somebody being able to aid those afflicted with the curse. Finally, Mac said to Emilia, “We must speak on the matter of the gem, urgently, but there is dire and present need for a temporary barrier… perhaps, as thy lad hath said, one forged by thine glacial magics, Lady, if thou wouldst deign to lend such aid?”

Emilia looked dumbfounded for a moment trying to place the connection together that Cain was getting all excited about. It was not until after Artia with her sidekick had been drug away and Mcracken speaking up that she caught on. An ice wall. That made sense, more so than him solving the curse. “I suppose that I could manage to make a wall formed of ice around the area you are wishing to keep the curse contained into. If I could rise a ship with freezing the ocean from the depths it cannot be hard to make a wall over the surface and possibly with some help in guidance down to the ocean floor...I am not going into those waters again...Sorry, but unlike you, Sir. I am not a creature of water and I would rather not be eaten by it again. I prefer the land very much so...” Cain himself was clapping his hands and beaming as bright as could be over the fact he had a good idea. “I am going to go tell Nyna and Arbane! I am sure they will be happy to hear!” he exclaimed before running off to find the elven couple.

Mcracken ’s brows descended like a couple of dark clouds at mention of the ship being raised.. Was this woman one of the raiders who’d plundered the Seaborn’s most holy temple? The very thought sent him into a state of profound conflict, for here he was needing her help… and yet he’s sworn vengeance on the thieves! But right now was the moment to address any of this… Mac nodded, “Perhaps thou couldst employ a boat, Lady?”

Emilia twiddled her thumbs as she watched his change in facial expression after she mentioned the ship. Black thumb over white thumb in a almost dizzying manor. She was guilty of what he was thinking, the look on her pale face spoke loud enough. “I don’t really do very well with the whole boat thing after the last time of being on a boat and being knocked over into the ocean...” She admitted with a attempt at a brave smile before it faded away. She took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, “I do better with land and ice. I will just start the wall on the land and then walk along it as I go. Ice and I are one so I won’t fall from it and then your ocean won’t try to swallow me up..” she finally commented after a long moment of silence. The great good of Cenril and both its people and wild life were in need of her aide and who was she to say no? The ocean was only a little...er...big obstacle for her, but she’d try to put her fears aside.

That conflict in him wasn’t calming any, as Mac watched that guilty expression fleet across the ice-woman’s face, and observed her nervous fidgeting. The primal instinct bequeathed him by his ancestors urged him to smash this marauder to a cold pulp and pluck the holy gem from her remains, but fortunately sentience and the wisdom of aeons cooled that volcanic rage to the point where the kraken was able to calm himself, and consider the fact that Emilia was, after all, exhibiting kindly behaviours, not those deserving of such ire and destruction. As he wallowed in the waves, though, his agitation was made visible by the writhing tentacles that replaced his humanoid legs, the dark pattern of circles scattered over these appendages glowing a brighter blue. Finally, they dulled again and he spoke, “As you will, Lady. The buoys mark thy path.”

Emilia stared off into the water watching those tentacle leg replacements glow blue in a brighter fashion before after some time fading. Blinking a few times she turned her gaze toward the sea where the buoys floated in the water from the people she’d seen earlier moving them. Her gaze shifted between the cursed land and tentacle of the man almost as if she was waiting for them to snatch her up into the ocean. Shifting her gaze once more she followed the markings to find where it began on land, searching for a point that would make for a good starting point. “You are not going to eat me, are you? Like wait until I am out on this wall in the middle of the ocean and turn me into dinner...right?” She asked, fully aware at this point of the strange tension between the two.

Mcracken shook his head, brine-soaked dreads swaying wetly against his bare torso, and made a pale attempt at humor as a way to assure Emilia, “Thou wouldst be too cold in the mouth, I fear,” and offered her a brief, faint smile. “And mayest give me indigestion, besides. Thou art safe, this I swear to the Mother of Oceans." As he made the vow, he clutched the ice-blue pendant he wore, "But after thou hast made the wall, I would ask that we spare time to parley on this matter, and also the sacred gem.”

Emilia gave a small nod even though she found no humor in his words. “I shall start on this wall in the morning, if that is alright with you? I have a few things that I need to make sure are taken care of first before I vanish from the world on the other side to create a wall of ice. It will take a bit of time for me to get it finished. It is a large scale project and I would like to make sure the wall is done right and not rushed.” Running fingers through her curls she looked at him with a brow raised, “I don’t like parsley and find it a useless herb except for making a plate look pretty. But I am sure we can talk about your need for a random useless herb and a stone later. I have it, the tear-shaped diamond from the ship, secured away, don’t worry.”

Mcracken squinted at her babble regarding herbs.. landwalkers, they were a strange lot.. but as Emilia revealed the nature of the gem, he exclaimed, “The Mother’s Mercy!” He didn’t elaborate however on the fact that this was the gem’s name, rather than a seaborn expletive, “Tomorrow, then,” he said, reluctance plain in the tone of it- for what if the woman never returned? What he knew of her gave him sound reason to believe she would, but then, she was a land-walker – and a self-confessed thief, besides! “I too have matters to attend.. shall we meet here, after light dawns?”

Emilia blinked at him with a brow raised as he let out a rather strange cry of something of Mother and Mercy. Sea-folk and their tongue. Such strange words they spoke in for strange reasons that made no sense. “I will see you just up the shore from here tomorrow at dawn then to get this wall going. I’d like to see no more deaths if we can avoid it.” She took a slow step back, “And I will bring you some parsley from the farm. I think we have a small patch of it...but I have no idea what it does for your wall? Keep the curse at bay?”

Mcracken simply nodded at that.. he had no clue what 'parsley' was or why she wanted him to have it, perhaps it was a land-walker negotiating custom, or something.. "I doubt it Lady, but I dare say it would bring our cause no harm." Having hedged that bit of weirdness, he added, "On the morrow, then." And dipped his head slightly in farewell.

Emilia was about as confused as he was over the ‘parsley’ that he requested they talk about. Shaking her head she rubbed her temples, “You asked for the parsley and the gem conversation!” then threw her hands up like the sea-man was crazy. Turning about the Genasi started off toward the Healer tent to check up with them once more before leaving to tend to her duties before returning tomorrow morning.