“Oh, sure, normally gremlins ain’t that bad. Wee little fuckers, no real threat if you can catch ‘em alone and in the open. When you’re facing a dozen of ‘em, though, it don’t really matter that they barely come up to your knee - you and your mates can take out half of em lickety-split, but that still leaves the others to come in, kneecap you, and then tear your throat out while you’re rolling on the ground.”

- Padme Kenderson, former adventurer

Greentree

The trip out to the lovely (if rather fortified) farming village of Greentree was less bucolic and relaxing than I’d hoped for when I spied the place from the Bridgehead, what with the pace we were moving at being a brisk jog and us keeping the company of a bunch of grim-faced guardsmen. Cherubix, being herself, kept trying to cheer them up with jokes and terrible puns, but their smiles didn’t last long before slipping back into worried frowns. Eventually, though, we made it to a small house on the edge of the village, just inside the walls.

On stepping inside I got a strong whiff of blood and magic. Marahm had beelined right towards the room where they were keeping the patients, but I stopped to take in the scene. The magic and blood-scent were coming from the makeshift hospital bed, so nothing unexpected there. There were a half-dozen guardsmen and -women standing around, grim-faced, some checking their weapons while others just sat in brooding silence. A woman - who I took to be one of the actual residents of the house, given that she was the only civilian I could see - was sitting in a chair next to the door of the sickroom, wringing her hands and looking devastated.

I glanced at Faraday and asked, quietly, “You want to take the lead on this? If they’ve got injured then your tricks’re more likely to make things go smoothly than mine.”

He nodded in response, reaching up and moving Cherubix down to the ground. “I’m sorry, my friend, but if they’ve been attacked by gremlins then you’re like as not to spook them. Still and quiet until we know the lay of this, aye?” The brownie solemnly nodded in response, before padding back outside. The feeling of her presence stopped moving just on the other side of the threshold, out of sight, and I could sense her hunkering down and drawing into herself. I knew that we couldn’t leave her be for too long before her irrepressible tendencies took over, but for all her fey nature Cherubix had a huge heart, and she loved kids. She might not like being excluded for now, but she was willing to be patient for a bit if it meant not scaring a child.

Faraday moved up to the doorway of the sickroom, knocking gently. “Captain, may I be of service? My skills in medicine are minor, but I can call on the Light for healing, if that would be helpful.”

Instead of the captain, a cool, clipped, feminine voice answered him. “Oh, a cleric? Yes, good. Come, I’ve almost got the muscle fibers aligned; your help would speed this up immensely.”

He moved into the room and soon after I felt the familiar bloom of his magic, twining alongside the unfamiliar sense of the strange magic I’d felt walking in - the healer’s, apparently. Nature magic, if I didn’t miss my guess, though without spending more time investigating it I couldn’t tell what flavor.

I poked my head around the doorway to find two beds, each occupied, and four people around the room - the captain talking with his guard in one bed, and Faraday, the lady healer, and a frazzled-looking young guardsman who was clearly out of his depth surrounding a boy in his early teens who occupied the other bed.

While the guardsman seemed to be only lightly injured, the kid who Faraday and the healer were working on looked like he’d been cut up pretty badly - I could see multiple fresh-healed scars across his body, with lots of blood streaks to prove how bad they’d been. Poor thing probably passed out from blood loss. What Faraday and the healer were working on at the moment, their hands surrounded by faint emerald and golden light, was a deep-looking gash in his back, which had stopped bleeding but was still gaping open.

Smart. Healing that kind of deep muscle wound too quick was liable to cause long-term weakness, but now that they had two healers - one to pour in the magic, the other to keep an eye on the muscle - it would, as the lady said, make things go a lot faster and smoother.

I left them to it and drifted over to the captain and his man, who’d obviously gotten sliced up as well to judge by the scars and blood streaks, but seemed in good enough shape to give a report. As I got close enough to listen in, he was getting to what sounded like the important part.

“Then all we could see was the blue and red lights, sir. I managed to snap out of it when they started cutting me, but Carter and Harvey were just standing there drooling while the buggers sliced them up. I tried to fight, sir, I did, but they were all around us and I didn’t get more than one swing in before there were three of the white things with blades coming for me and I grabbed Carter and -” At that he broke down and started hyperventilating. Physically, he might be fine, but it sounded like the guy was gonna be seeing that in his nightmares for a while.

Captain Marahm looked up at me as he gently patted his man’s shoulder, murmuring reassurances. His gaze was solemn but I could see the burning anger in his eyes. Not gonna lie, I didn’t really appreciate hearing about things that put people under what sounded like a Hypnotize spell and then ‘sliced them up,’ either.

“So, what are you going to be sending us to kill?” I said, keeping my face somber and my tone soft and even, to avoid stressing the corporal even more. “I cannot say that I recognize the things, but…” I smiled, blade-thin. “They certainly sound like a nasty little pest, yes? What good fortune that we are skilled at dealing with such.”

The cat-man snorted, then shot a worried glance at his corporal before gesturing me outside into the living room.

Once we’d left the bedroom, he started explaining the situation. “There is a grove a few miles outside of the village. The trees are mostly blue oaks, but scattered amongst them are fruit trees. The fruits are magical, with healing properties, though apparently only a few are on the branch at any time. This one has never been there, but the farmers and this one’s men who have swear that the place is haunted - they don’t know by what, only that something watches them whenever they go there. It doesn’t object to them picking fruit, but they don’t linger.” He sighed. “Beasts do not go near there, and so this one had thought it relatively safe to send a single man with those two when they requested an escort to go pick some. Corporal Jackson is one of this one’s best rangers, trail-wise and able to spot signs that a predator is about, and good with a blade or spear as well.”

The resigned expression transformed into an irritated scowl. “This one did not consider that gremlins would take up residence, though, and certainly not in such numbers that Jackson would be unable to fight back effectively.”

I nodded, then motioned him towards the front door so that we could continue our chat outside, at the same time sending a pulse down my link to Ko. “Which direction is the grove, Captain? I would like to send Ko out to get the lay of the land, and to see if he can spot anything out of the ordinary.”

He blinked, his ears twitching, and then held up a hand to block the sunlight as he stepped out the door. “Ko? Ah, yes, your file did mention that your familiar was useful for scouting. It should be…” he turned around, orienting himself, until he was pointing just north of east. “About there, this one thinks. It shouldn’t be hard to spot, it’s the only old-growth south of the forest.”

I had set Ko to flying around to keep an eye out for any dangers, just in case, but he’d stayed close by enough so that he came in for a landing just as the captain was finishing his directions, settling on the bracer of my right arm, talons gripping hard enough for me to feel through the thick leather.

“Heya. So, how much of that did you get?” I said to him.

“Gremlins, just like we thought, and they’ve likely holed up in the grove. Scout it out for us, please? Don’t go in, just skirt the outside to make sure there’s nothing lurking before we get into the trees. Sound good?”

“No, we don’t know what they can do, and there’s no need to take the risk. Thank you for the offer, though. Go, fly safe, we’ll be heading that way in a bit.” So saying, I threw the arm he was resting on upwards to give him a bit of a boost and he took off, spiraling up into the sky heading eastward.

After watching him fly off for a few heartbeats, I turned around towards the still and silent brownie sitting curled up next to the house’s doorway, eyes closed in her fey equivalent of meditation. “Cheri?” I called out quietly. “Cherubix? We’ve got a job, you can-”

Her eyes popped open before I’d gotten her name out the second time, turning towards me and smiling that disturbingly large, childlike grin. “Yeah! I’m here! Watcha got? Are we doing something? Oh please tell me we’re doing something, it’s been forever!” So saying, she bounced up and landed on my shoulder, blasting my ears with the last sentence. I was not Faraday, big muscly hunk of man that he is, and so her leap nearly staggered me before I caught my balance.

Inwardly, I sighed. This was what happened when we had to ask her to be quiet and let us do stuff without her. She made up for the lack of ambient enthusiasm with interest added on top. (Also, had she forgotten that we’d literally done a sewer delve just yesterday?! Gods...)

Outwardly, I was still all smiles, though I made a gesture to try to get her to lower the volume. “Yes, well, the captain here” I gestured toward Marahm, who seemed rather amused at the whole thing, “was describing the magic grove that seemingly needs to be cleared of gremlins. We’re all going to need to know what we’re walking into, so I thought it time to wake you up and get you up to speed.”

Her expression darkened at the word “gremlin,” going from sunny to stormcloud in two syllables. “Oooh! Hey, yeah, if there really are gremlins, they need to die! Like, quick-quick!” She made slashing motions with her hands to accompany that last bit, spitting sparks and embers from the tips of her fingers at the end of each motion. “So, what’s going on? Are they the break-ey kind of gremlin, or the poo-ey kind? Wait, you said there’s a grove?” Her face scrunched up. “Why are they in there? What kind of gremlins are these?”

“We think -” Marahm didn’t get very far before another voice cut him off.

“Excuse me, Captain, could I intrude on this discussion?” The healer had apparently finished up and had joined us, trailing Faraday. A tall woman with lightly tanned skin, intelligent-looking blue eyes, and a round face that might have been pretty if it weren’t paired with a mass of barely-tamed curls, which only exaggerated the roundness and gave her an oddly child-like appearance. The slightly-pointed ears peeking out from her hair attested to some kind of elfen heritage, though I couldn’t tell at a glance what kind. She was wearing a green cape, a brown canvas apron - freshly stained with blood - and a cream linen dress. Every garment had significant amounts of very fine green and gold embroidery on the edges as decoration. A walking staff with intricate carvings of animals and leaves, and a large pouch filled with what smelled like herbs, completed the ensemble.

Definitely a druid. No way she was anything else, with that getup. Though normally they didn’t go in for the embroidery - the few I’d met tended to prefer rougher cuts and materials that didn’t object to living rough out in the wilds for months at a time. Interesting.

“N’Laive Hogsworthy,” she said, sticking her hand out to me and then Cherubix, revealing even more embroidery on the sleeve, this time fine white thread spelling out what looked like elvish script. “Though everybody calls me Ladybird. I’m an agricultural consultant and occasionally an emergency medic for the folks around town.” Nodding at Faraday, she went on, “I’ve already expressed my thanks to Mr. Constance for his assistance. Do I take it that you all are planning on heading out to deal with the creatures that did this?”

“Dezi Arbodor and Co., pest relocation and, if need be, extermination,” I said, in a much more business-like fashion than my normal marketer’s patter, pulling out one a business card from their holster on my quiver strap and handing it to her. “This is Cherubix, brownie and elementalist.” Said brownie just grinned at the presumably-druid and waved. “And yes, we were indeed planning to do so. There were just the questions of settling on compensation and getting any information you all might be able to give us on what we’re dealing with before we head out.” I raised an eyebrow at Faraday as I was saying this, checking to see if he agreed, and got a firm nod in response. No surprise, he hated seeing kids in pain even more than I did.

“Excellent. I don’t suppose you’d mind if I came along? I’ve done some research on the little buggers and my father believes that there’s some kind of elven ruin deep in the goodfruit grove, so I’d love a chance to get deeper than usual with your help.”

Uh… what? “Ah, no, that won’t- Wait,” I held up a hand, dropping my formal accent. “Okay, miss, I get that you think there’s a ruin in there. But this is dangerous work, these things have already done for a guard and the kid’s father. We’re trained in dealing with this kind of thing, and have our own tricks besides that’ve gotten us this far. We can’t really-”

I stopped, as I felt the air suddenly grow thick and heavy and the scent of growing things slammed into my nostrils. Her eyes started glowing a vibrant green, and I could practically hear the magic flowing through her like a sudden geyser.

“I think you’ll find that I have plenty of tricks of my own, Ms. Arbodor,” she said, cocking an eyebrow at me even as she continued to channel a massive amount of magic without doing so much as raising a finger. What the fuck was this woman?

“I…” This was not how I’d planned this conversation, and I desperately looked from Faraday to the captain. Faraday had edged slightly away from Ladybird and was regarding her warily.

Captain Marahm, however, just had a resigned expression on his face. Glancing at me, he said, “Miss Hogsworthy has been requesting assistance to explore the nearby woodlands for some time. This one has never felt comfortable agreeing to send men out with her-”

“You mean my mother has ever-so-politely bullied you into stonewalling me, and I’m too sensible to go out on my own,” she interrupted, sparing him an irritated glance before turning her attention back to me. Her eyes, at least, had stopped glowing quite so intensely, and she’d cut the flow of magic down to a trickle. I guess she thought that her little light show had served its purpose. She wasn’t entirely wrong, either.

Marahm continued, “Ah… yes, well, Madame Hogsworthy is a… formidable woman, and this one has found it unwise to argue with an elf about the safety of their children. Especially,” he added quietly, “when this one cannot be certain of his own men’s safety, let alone a civilian.” He shot her an equally irritated glance, before looking back at me, rubbing the burn scar that covered the side of his jaw. “This one would not presume to judge Miss Hogsworthy’s credentials as a member of an adventuring band, but… he will say that he would not have objected to having her skills available in some of the scrapes that he has been in, from time to time.”

At that he gave me a level look. “Although this one certainly would not recommend that you take a civilian into harm's way. And would deny even having any involvement in such a discussion, should it have taken place.”

This was too much. We hadn’t been in town long enough to get even an inkling about the local politics, we sure as hellfire weren’t stepping into that mess. Gods, we didn’t even know why this woman was -

No. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then let it out in a long exhale. Calm. Find the answers you need, don’t stop at the surface.

I lit up my own magic, just a bit, sending a mental prayer out into the ether and asking for a bit of insight from the spirits that followed me, before looking back up at her. “Okay. Three things: why do you want to go, what kind of magic was that, and what kind of training have you had?”

She blinked, then looked down, suddenly embarrassed. “I… curiosity, partly. My father’s an archaeologist, he would dearly love to get his hands on some undisturbed artifacts left behind by the elves who used to live here. But...” she stood up straighter and met my eyes, a bit of fire in her gaze where before there’d only been calculation and bravado. “The wilds call to me. I’m a Greenspeaker, I need wild spaces to live and to do my magic. It’s been maddening growing up here and then coming back from school and now spending the last three years afraid to go where my magic tells me I need to go.”

My eyebrows went up at that. She hadn’t been lying about the wilds “calling to her,” whatever exactly that meant, and the spirits whispering in my ears were implying that she didn’t mean it in the way that idiot city-slickers did when they talked about “wanting to get back to nature.” There was an odd solidity to the words, the way she said it, that made my instant disdain for the phrase turn into curiosity.

She saw the questions her little diatribe had raised in my eyes and waved her hand in the air, batting them away. “As for my training, I got my Mage’s licence and a degree from the Collegium Sylvis on Arthaeum. Druidcraft and Classical Transmutation, fifth tier in both. I went on field expeditions with the Collegium to Thuselah, Cartelann, and Lliarwyld; I was designated as offensive support for all three, and passed the evaluations with flying colors.”

I pursed my lips in a silent whistle, and I looked at Faraday and the captain again. Sylvis was famous across the Federation as the place for elementalists, druids, and blue mages to get their education, as well as excelling at all the mundane kinds of things that could be learned about the natural world. And fifth tier meant that she wasn’t just any old hedgewitch - fourth tier and up and you were talking about serious firepower. (Although admittedly she’d already proved that much with her earlier demonstration.) The field expeditions they held each year were known as some of the toughest wilderness survival training exercises in the Federation short of the Adventurer’s Guild final exam. And she’d gone on three of them.

“... Right. So, first off, as impressive as that is, we are tabling any discussion of bringing you with us, for now.” I gave her a very direct look as I said it, making sure she understood that I was both utterly serious but still willing to have the discussion, later. “Second, tell us what you know about these things and the grove, besides that it’s maybe haunted and definitely magical.”

She looked a bit surly for a moment, but then her expression shifted to cool and professional. Good, she could contain her disappointment, even if it turned out to be temporary.

“The gremlins here on C’thon are, in their essence, very similar to those found elsewhere. There is one notable breed, what we call ‘Redcaps,’ that I haven’t run across labeled as a gremlin on other worlds, though similar fey spirits are found -” She shook her head at the digression and got back on track. “The point is, most of the things you know about gremlins remain true: small, malicious, and cowardly. Simple to deal with on their own and in the open, but dangerous in groups and difficult to root out of hiding. Each breed has their own preferred method of inflicting chaos on civilized peoples, and they revel in doing so.”

Her face turned contemplative. “The biggest difference is that, where elsewhere each breed of gremlin has its own magic that enhances their particular brand of unpleasantness, here on C’thon those magics are concentrated in their eyes. The guardsman mentioned red and blue lights, correct?” She looked at Marahm for confirmation, and he nodded. “So, Nuglubs and Redcaps. A Nuglub’s gaze is hypnotic, capable of catching and holding someone’s attention and even putting them into a trance. Redcaps can incite fear and panic in those who see the light from their eyes, though from what I recall the effectiveness of it decreases dramatically with repeated applications.” Again, she looked at Marahm for confirmation. “Does that match what you and your men know, Captain?”

He was looking at her with a raised eyebrow. “Hrr. Yes, just so. Though this one would add that the Nuglub’s trick means that they are unable to move while they keep it up, so it isn’t much of a threat when they’re alone.” He grimaced. “However, they never appear singly. We have no records of them attacking in packs of less than three, so don’t count on that saving you.”

“How resistant are they to normal steel?” Faraday asked.

Marahm grinned, baring fangs. “Not noticeably. Killing them is not very hard; it’s surviving being swarmed that’s the trick.” Faraday’s shoulders lost a bit of their tension at that, and he gave me a small smile, which I returned. Neither of us had been looking forward to dealing with creatures that could shrug off a perfect blow just because we hadn’t packed the right kind of weapon.

“And the grove?” I looked at Ladybird questioningly, switching back to my more formal mode of speaking. “The Captain says that he has not been there, only that it is haunted and that there are magic fruits. What do you know of it?”

She nodded. “Yes, it’s… an oddity, and whatever resides there is one of the reasons my father and I are so curious about the place. The blue oaks -” She broke off and looked at us searchingly. “Do you know what they are, what they mean?”

All three of us shook our heads, and she sighed. “They’re a rare cultivar, usually only found in old elven settlements. They draw small amounts of magic out of the air, concentrating it in the soil around their roots, and so even one of them can be a useful resource for anyone living nearby. But they’re finicky about where they grow, and take a great deal of care on the part of their tenders to survive beyond their first hundred years or so. The relatively minor magical side effects caused by mature trees aren’t really worth the time or effort for anyone who does business in terms of less than a century.

“At any rate, the discovery of an entire grove, in such high concentration and to all appearances in perfect health, was one of the things that caused FExCorps to approve the founding of the town.” She smirked, then. “They didn’t learn that the grove was haunted until the town was half-built.”

Faraday looked over at me, then back at the druid. “Interesting. And the conditions inside the grove? Is it cramped? Dark? What’s the ground like underfoot?”

“Yes, and what about this haunting? Does nobody know what kind of spirit it is?” I added in.

“I -” She stammered for a moment, taken aback at our complete lack of interest in the historical and economic ramifications of the local flora. “Um, no, nobody’s been able to get even a glimpse of it. In fact, to my knowledge this is the first time anyone’s been attacked or gone missing in the grove, ever.” She sent Captain Marahm a questioning look, to which he nodded. “There’s just a consistent feeling of being watched while you’re there - one that I can attest to, having gathered fruit and herbs there myself a few times. Like there’s a monster keeping an eye on you and you can’t tell when it will run out of patience with your presence in its territory.”

She shuddered and paused, collecting herself and thinking about our questions.

“The grove itself does get cramped in places, yes, but there are few areas that a man-sized creature couldn’t walk through. The oaks block a fair amount of light, but there are gaps enough between them and the canopy isn’t so dense that you need to bring a light source during the day. As for the ground… The area has little shrubbery, only grasses and flowers on the forest floor, though directly next to the trees the leaf litter and roots could certainly complicate footwork.”

She paused again, and then looked up. “I’m not sure it has any bearing, but the grove is being tended to by whatever lives there. The trees have signs of intentional pruning in places that had gotten infected, and when I sent my senses out into the trees the feeling I got back was… well, a sense of gratitude for how they were growing. I got a similar response in a forest that woodsmen were keeping for one of Lliarwyld’s kings to hunt in.” She shrugged. “But, as I said, I can’t tell you whether that’s a good thing or not. I could list a dozen kinds of spirits that will lovingly tend to the wilds where they dwell and are viciously territorial towards intruders.”

I gave her an appraising glance, impressed by her ability to vomit out the local lore on request, and then looked at Faraday and Cherubix. “Well, that is better than a good number of the briefings I have had before heading out on an expedition. Do either of you have anything else you need to know?” They shook their heads, and I smiled at the druid and the watch captain.

“Excellent. Now, if you all could excuse us? We need to have a team discussion…”

“Okay, you two,” I said. “What’s your take on our friendly neighborhood druid? Should we take her with us, or thank her kindly for the briefing and leave her behind?”

Cherubix, naturally, got her thoughts out first. “I think she’s nice! I like her magic, it feels all warm and tingly.” No surprise there - fey, even urban varieties like Brownies, tended to like people who used nature magic. “And she seemed to know a lot!” She looked between the two of us. “Do you think we could take her with us? I know she’s not in the Guild, but she seemed powerful and all that stuff about going to school sounded really impressive!”

I nodded to show I’d heard her, and looked at Faraday for his opinion.

He was feeling uncertain, I could tell, and I didn’t blame him - it’s not a simple thing, adding someone to a team on short notice. “I think… that she’s worth a shot. Provided that she understands she’s to turn around and run home if we tell her, and to follow our orders to the letter.” He grimaced. “I’m not sure that that’ll prevent any issues, but…” He looked at me, and his gaze was a bit concerned.

“Dezi, these aren’t just dire rats or untrained cultists. When I was younger, I was part of a squad sent into a crypt infested with undead that could paralyze with a touch and cause people to panic by just snarling at them. Numbers can be decisive when you’re up against that kind of thing.” He grimaced. “We still lost people in that engagement, but if we’d gone in with twice the men we likely would’ve lost less than half as many by the time we brought the bastards down.”

He shook his head. “If you’re getting a bad read on her, we go without her, but if not then I think it’s worth extendin’ a bit of faith. She’s got the power and should have the skill to lift her weight, my only worry is her instincts and how she works as part of the team.”

I nodded. “Hmm… yeah, that’s my worry as well.” I scratched at my cheek, thinking.

Adding a new factor to a pre-existing team was always risky, especially someone who we hadn’t seen in a combat environment before. Real, life-or-death stakes had a tendency to make some people freeze up, which could be deadly for the whole team if you were depending on them or if the team had to rescue them from danger. Not to mention that, with high-powered and untested casters, you were never sure whether they were going to miscalculate the area affected by their spells and accidentally crisp you with their fireball in addition to the monsters. I wasn’t terribly worried about that where Ladybird was concerned - if she were going to screw up that way, she wouldn’t have gotten through three field expeditions with Sylvis without having at least one blemish on her record, and she hadn’t been lying about the “flying colors” bit.

We didn’t strictly need another offensive support - I had that covered, mostly. But the fact that she could act as a healer, in case Faraday was out of commission, and had a connection with the wilderness… I still wasn’t certain of the ramifications of that “call of the wild” stuff, but it should at least mean that I wouldn’t have to exhaust myself trying to use my magic to interpret wilderness signs that she could understand more clearly. Plus, she seemed to really know her stuff about what we were walking into, without having read up on it or anything - having a knowledgeable local guide we could lean on for future expeditions could be huge, especially given the unusual communication and travel restrictions that we were dealing with on this world.

Really, it all came down to whether she would do something stupid, like dashing out in front of the melee fighters, trying to grab an obviously cursed relic that would set off a trap, just running away and leaving the rest of us to die, or… really, that list was practically endless. The thing was, I didn’t really get that sense with her. She might, don’t get me wrong - I’d been on expeditions with some really competent people who’d done incredibly dumb things. But, as Faraday said, it was a matter of trust, and right now I didn’t have a reason to doubt her, besides cynicism about a civilian’s ability to cope with a dangerous situation.

And he was also right about numbers coming in handy against stuff like this. If she could help without slowing us down or causing problems…

“Okay, we’ll bring her,” I said, looking at the two of them. “Faraday’s point stands, though - if she doesn’t listen to orders or does something stupid, then we send her packing. Otherwise, we treat her as an Auxiliary. Sound fair?”

They both nodded, Cherubix looking delighted to have a new friend and Faraday still somewhat uncertain.

Well, we’d deal with any problems when we came to them. For now, there was the matter of figuring out how much silver we could get for this, without coming across as heartless money-grubbing bastards.