A flame-haired unseelie flitted about outside of the Shady Corner, seeming oblivious to the chill that hung in the air. Spyder dropped the pail she was carrying on her way to a tree she had apparently selected and busied herself tearing a section of bark away, revealing the smooth wood beneath. She continued chipping it away with her little black claws until the area was a few hands wide, oozing sap like a gaping wound. Satisfied, she flitted back to the bucket she had left behind. She pulled a large toad from it that struggled desperately to escape her grasp. Paying its distress no mind, the fae began to hum to herself as she pulled a small dagger from her bodice. With a squelch, she rammed the dagger to it's hilt into the creature and withdrew it without a pause in her little tune. She tossed the dagger next to the bucket and turned to the tree she had damaged.
With a shout of effort Spyder hurled the bleeding toad at the tree. It hit with a wet splat and fell to the ground. The fae squealed happily, clapping as she fluttered up to the tree. The bare spot on the tree was splattered with toad blood and she seemed excited about it. She began to trace around the edges of the thickest part of the splatter with her finger, muttering to herself as she interpreted the shape.
"Imagine that. A couple of fae amazed by a tree," Pelle said. He was leaning in the doorway to the tavern, a large glass of dark red wine in one hand. Noticing the blood splashed across the tree and the frog lying very much dead on the ground at Spyder's feet. "And they're finger painting too. Delightful," he commented again with a smirk.
A heavy sigh is heard among the sound of the distinct clanking of metal on metal. Blaise passes nearby, carrying in his arms no fewer than half a dozen shoddy iron cutlasses wrapped in a canvas tarp. His face and body are completely covered in ash and soot, and a smith hammer hangs from his belt. Bits of his clothes are smoldering slightly. He seems barely able to carry the awkward weight of the swords. "At least - Ow! - someone else in this town is keen on self-expression," he remarks, "Though I'm not - Gah! - so sure the toad is an admirer of the arts anymore." Twenty yards or so down the way, a great crash rings out as the ifrit loses control of his burden, dropping the weapons all over the ground. He scrambles to collect them once more into the tarp, uttering curses under his breath.
The ringing of metal clamming together draws her back to reality as quickly cuffs her ear to try to escape the wretched sound. She removes them as soon as it seem the sound has subsided pausing for a moment as if trying to remember what she was doing. Recalling she shifts her attention back to Spyder. "uhhh Spyder.. what is it you are um exactly doing?" She inquired fae still seeming a little rattled as she glances over her surroundings and takes quick note of Pelle in the door way and frustrated slightly singed Blaise up a the road a bit before she quickly turns to look back at Spyder.
When Poppy turned back, Spyder was already staring at her, blackened lips drawn in a tiny smile. She winked her deadened eye at the other Winter fae before whirling around to address the men folk.
"It's not finger painting!" She nearly shouted at Pelle, stomping one of her feet right onto the toad corpse. She glanced down at the muck now stuck to her shoe and crinkled her nose. Her attention was quickly drawn to Blaise, his weapons, and the noise that seemed to follow him. His fumbling made her giggle.
"It's magic!" She finally answered, grinning proudly as she flitted to the side of the tree so all could see her work.
"I don't really know my way around town yet, but I was trying to find out where lotsa things died around here. I know where the graveyard is and stuff, but from what the townies told me, there's been lotsa battles here." She ran her finger over different parts of the blood splatter.
"This is supposed to point me in the direction of what I'm after...if I can read it right." She suddenly seemed contemplative, scratching her temple with the finger she'd been pointing with. It apparently disturbed the small black and red spider that had been residing beneath the green ribbons in her hair, because the arachnid skittered down her arm, up her back, and into the webbing of her wings.
A blue portal opens in front of the tavern, and a bitterly cold wind seeps from it. Rune soon steps from the portal, clad in nothing but a simple tunic and large pack full of farmer's tools. The golem holds another pack with his sword strapped to it. The portal snaps shut behind the construct when it finishes exiting sending a back blast of cold, snow filled air into Jastrey. Rune quietly surveys the goings on while the runes covering it's body dim and cool.
Poppy jumps back a little startled by Spyder's reaction to her, and with that a bit of worry and fear filled the fae's chest over what she saw as a small slip up. She shook her head as if to dispel those thought focus on the task at hand.
"Looking for a place where lots of things have died?" she said pondering it for a moment "I don't know anywhere else besides the graveyard I am not very well acquainted with this place" "Maybe Pelle knows? Do you?" she said turning to asking the Riven. As the Fae calmed back down and inquired more questions.
She twirls back to facing the tree. "Maybe I can help you read the map thing-y." She said tilting her head and scrunching her eyebrows together in an attempt to try to understand the blood splatter mess. " I don't really see anything... but I guess I am not sure whats a good sign" Distracted by the arachnid on her wings and petting it lightly with a finger "How do you know it worked?" She said still pondering over the Fae's odd magic ways. "And why are you looking for somewhere there are lots of dead thing?"
When the cold gust of wind hits the fae. She pauses from what she was doing and straightens seeming completely alert and takes a big inhale of the cold air as she searches to find it's sorce. "Rune, Where did you just come from?" The way she asked this quesion seemed a little rhetorical.
"Hmmm," the riven thought for a moment, taking a sip from his glass. "Well, I suppose that's a fairly easy question to answer. I believe that we killed off many of those Secronal Sons all over this town. In fact, just right there I killed a rather trembly one," he said pointing to the ground just outside the tavern door, "And about 10 or so right inside the tavern here. So it's no wonder you're having a tough time reading your little, erhm, doodle."
Spyder spared a glance towards Rune and the gusts of snowy air that followed him, but the wind didn't seem to bother her and his farm tools didn't interest her. Blaise's misfortune, however, had her giggling like mad.
"And a big arse it is!" She quipped, not hesitating to mock the paladin figure. "I saw you when you all came to Tarkalysis, but I don't know if you told me your name..." she remarked, nodding at the ifrit.
Her focus was quickly turned to Pelle as he explained what was most likely very true. "Oh! Oh goodie!" She turned back to the tree, reaching for Poppy's arm to bring her in closer to the splatter. She began to point to different areas, to show her what she was attempting to do. "Life, blood, and death, all go hand in hand. Spilled blood, of course, is closer to death. So what better way to locate dead things, than with the essence of death itself?" The explanation came with jubilance that wasn't typically associated with something so morbid. "The thicker spots and clumps are supposed to be where more stuff died, like there and there." She continued, pointing to a few places in the mark. Her finger hovered over one of the more central clumps. "If this one is the tavern..." she looked over her shoulder to the Pelle and the tavern as if to be sure and back again "and this is the cemetery..." her finger drifted to a new spot, and then trailed off "It really is everywhere here..."
The riven sauntered over, taking a small sip of his glass as he approached the fae. "I suppose I could take you to the final battlefield, although it would prove far less than fruitlful. All the bodies have long since been dealt with and they were very few who were any good before they rotted away."
Poppy nodded taking in Spyder's explanation of the splatter her eyebrows furrowing together and a slight frown could be seen forming bellow her mask. "well, yes it would seem like that it is everywhere, but thats no good if you are looking for the place where the most things died that can't be everywheree" she said with a slight wine and pout towards the end. However she perked up when she heard Pelle suggestion "That is right! I almost forgot about that place. There were lots and lots of things that died over there, so many that we had to make a reaalllly big pyre to get rid of all of them!" She said ecstatically and waving her other arm around trying to motion how big the pile was. "Maybe that's the place you are looking for" She said to Spyder nodding content with this conclusion.
The golem glanced at the Ifrit, but then returned it's gaze to the fae. "Your logic is flawed. The bodies were burned, therefor would be of little use in necromancy. Spyder should investigate the Citadel. This one recalls killing many Sons there, and the dwarves would have removed to bodies by now. It is quite possible they are in a convenient pile."
With a smirk on his face, the riven turned to the golem. "Ah yes! Send the warlock fae to the Dwarven compound. I'm sure they'll be absolutely thrilled to have someone of her caliber messing around with the dead in their own home. Brilliant!. He took another sip of his glass, savoring the flavor.
As Pelle mentioned the field, Spyder's mouth formed a little "o" of interest that grew into a wide grin as Poppy explained further. She clapped a few times, wings holding her aloft as she kicked her feet with excitement. "Oh! Oh good!"
Rune's input, on the other hand, earned him a raspberry. "It's not always about the bodies- it's the energy! Sometimes there's a special energy around the area where somebody was dismembered, disembowled, burned alive, you know. BUT, if the citadiddle does have them, I wont turn away bodies that are just lying around! Ha!"
She turned back to her splatter, this time placing a hand on the back of Poppy's head to bring her face in for a closer look. She leaned in alongside the other fae, putting their heads close together.
"Look. There." This time, instead of hovering her finger over it, Spyder planted her fingertip in a clump that might have been viscera of the deceased reptile. "See how it's more lumpy there, compared to other spots? I bet that's the field. I don't know my way around enough to be sure..." she paused in her teaching to peer over her shoulder at Pelle, looking mostly with her live, green eye. "What about my caliber?"
"Oh, nothing terible. I'm sure you're a fine dabbler in the dark what-nots." He swirled the wine around in his glass before taking one last sip before dumping most of it's contents onto the dirt. "I was merely commenting on how well received you'd be with the Dwarves was all. Nothing more." He leaned over to take a peek as to what she was talking about with the bloodsplatter. Try as he might, all the riven saw was the outline of a corpse, or maybe a pretty butterfly. "I suppose I could take you to the battlefield. The immortals know I scoured the entire area for hours, so I should have no problem finding my way back. Also, it'd be nice to escape this dullness that seems to dredge here. I see to have come accostumed to the Rica lifestyle."
After observing the scene, a newly Unseelie Glimmer flits down from the tower window and lands in the mass of the group. "Stop toying with the poor girl you insufferable ton. Spyder, they are picking on you about the dwarves. However, as I'm married to one, I'm sure something could be.......arranged." Glimmer licks her thumb and wipes the bloody smudge off Spyder's face. "If death is what ye seek lass, aye, it's been o' plenty 'ere. The battlefield is strewn with it, as is the graveyard, the Quarter, the Citadel, and the Tavern itself." Glimmer eyes Poppy as she continues on "...Fresh blood, maybe not. Though there are ways." Glimmer winks at the Fae and giggles inwardly to herself. "If bodies are what yer' after, then I'll speak with me husband, Spyder. He'd be best not to deny me."
Poppy was a little startled by that the sudden pull from Spyder she quickly recoiled trying to keep the her best composure having not wanting to be so close to the tree. " Mhmm.. Well then, I guess that is where we should take you there. Since it seems to correlate with the map" She said nodding placing her hand on her hips, she wasn't exactly sure still how the mapped work. The big stop that Spyder had pointed to just looked like frog intestines to her, but she is not very well versed in the magic that Pelle or Spyder does and decided to just go along with it. " That place it sounds like a perfect fit to what you are trying to find"
Poppy's attention drawn to Glimmer for a moment, what was visible of her face was clearly seen a confused expression over Glimmer's new look trying to sort it out in her head resulting in he only catching the last of Glimmer's comments. "Oh okay, So you have plently of stuffs for....... whatever you want." She said laughing clasping her hand together infront of her. Pleased with all the help thats been composed for the fellow unseelie.
"Ah!" Spyder chirped happily at Pelles answer. She released Poppy when she tugged away, not seeming to think much of it. When the new and improved Glimmer joined them, she stared for a moment, making sure it was indeed the same fae she had met with tattoos on her face.
"You look...different..." She remarked, circling her. "You look so pretty!" She finally squeaked, very much approving of Glimmer's new look. She fluttered her hands excitedly, as if they were another set of wings. "The battlefield does sound perfect! And I can't wait to see the other places too!" She fluttered in an excited figure eight around and inbetween the two unseelie ladies and Pelle as well.
Poppy is alerted to the sound of shouting and goes to investigate it. She spots Spyder near a tree muttering and rubbing something upon it. She flitters towards her to question her very odd behavior. When she gets closer her chest tighten when her attention is caught by the smell of fresh blood that is smeared across the tree as she beings to space out and seems fixated on the tree