Overstaying our welcome

Grolm 9, 578
 
At least I think its the 9th. Might be the 10th. At this point, I don’t recall, so I’m going with the 9th until someone tells me otherwise. We’ve heading for Arjory Pond and hopefully won’t make a pain of ourselves to the dryad who cares for the place.
 
It’s been a long two or so days, with this being the first chance I’ve had to stop and write anything down about it.
 
Good intentions and roads and all that aside, the plan was sound. To, maybe, bring a halt to this range war the idea was to set the devil possessed animals against the undead vegetation. Let both sites whittle their numbers down to something more manageable. It almost worked. Only we underestimated how fast the cattle and sheep were being taken over by demons. We underestimated a lot. Including each other.
 
We had rescued one barn-load of captives. Farmers and what might have been ranch hands. Including one Chica Alston, the spouse of one of the family that had caused part of this mess. She was angry, hostile and I didn’t help things. Little sleep, lack of solid progress left me irritable. I’m ashamed to say I vented at this lady. So her hatred of me was earned. Sadly, this seems to be a trend.
 
I questioned her some, what I got out of her was that she got shuffled off to the barn to help and oversee the “Process”, only to wind up being slave labor herself. She had no idea where her wife was or any of her family. Lee Chung reported the devil possessed animals seemed to be calling the shots. What I had studied of arcane lore filled in the gaps in my mind. The devils possessing the cattle did what they always do. Once they got a foothold, they took control. From the sound of it, that happened long back and no one realized it.
 
So that was one problem. Zheng Sephia had found the other.
 
See, over part of these two days we met with the lady in charge of the undead plants. Only, she wasn’t responsible. She’s some half-devil, half-dryad that had been bound to some … by all accounts … lich. At least from hearing the way Sephia told it, that is some sort of lich with a plant fetish. Which meant the lich was responsible for the murders, the dead Pathfinders that had been hired by the caravan, and all that.
 
We were set to kill her until finding out she had been enslaved to the lich. That, and her attempts to gently and magically convince us to leave, changed things. At least it changed for Jessie. He fell for her pretty hard. I’ve seen stranger pairings but not by much.
 
To my surprise the dryad, one Scaevola Aemula, seemed to be set on her heels by Jessie. Who knew?
 
There was a fight but that wasn’t that important. The important part was brokering a deal that we would work “with” her boss to help solve this. That was how Sephia got to meet the “boss” for a short time and learn he’s obsessed and convinced he’s “doing the right thing”.
 
So there was the second problem. Third problem is all the people caught in the middle.
 
Some of the locals had decided enough was enough. Loading up wagons, they headed out for Aquitaine. The town was dying. We were screwing up trying to save the town with every moment. Not encouraging.
 
Taking it upon myself, I pushed a bit to get people moving. To stop a range war, you ether get both sides talking to each other peacefully or you get one side to stop. This leaves only one problem to unwind. With the lich being well sealed back up in that canyon, I chose to deal with the rangers first. That meant find out what happened to Mrs Alson’s wife and family. Along the way, track down and grab the alchemist or wizard responsible for that half of the mess.
 
We headed out to do just that but not until getting some odd warning from Jessie’s new girlfriend. The devil animals could “sense” rangers. I had no idea what that meant other than Sephia and I needed to be careful. The others felt that meant we needed to stay and “guard the horses”.
 
Well, that wasn’t at all going to happen. I don’t understand what possesses the SNAFU guild to think I need protection from harm, and so leaving me behind, but me and that attitude of theirs is coming to a middle.
 
Taking a buckboard over to the Whitpetel ranch, Chica escorted the others down to the ranch house. Once they were gone, Sephia and I made our own way there. Quick as a whistle we slipped down with no one the wiser, the made it inside. Before we knew it, we caught up with the others at the second floor. That was when things took a sad turn.
 
From the looks of things, the family had been taken over by whatever devil-fueled plot the creatures were now running. Chica’s wife was gone, most likely to one barn to put a stop to this. Only she never came back. Odds are she’s still at that barn called “Sarsaparilla” over near the waterfall on the far side of the ranch.
 
But we also uncovered the missing town alchemist, one Melinda Nakinore. The lady who is, in part, responsible for this mess. Miss Melinda was a captive at the ranch house, being held there against her will for what seemed quite awhile. To me that was strong proof that the family wasn’t in charge anymore.
 
We needed to get Miss Melinda out along with Chica. That would throw a prybar into the gears of what was happening at Whitpetal ranch. It might not solve the problem but it sure would slow it down to something more manageable.
 
And so we did just that. Getting her out, despite a few devil-sheep running around in the house, proved easier than I worried about. Though the flight to the wagon was a bit harrowing. But it gave us a hint as to what the ‘next step’ in the devil-animal plan was. Either devil possessed ranch hands, or ranch hands turned into revenant undead.
 
That might seem the worst of it. Anytime else, that would be, only now? It wasn’t.
 
We rode the wagon back, nursing our wounds. I had mostly bangs and bruises. Only cut I had was healing slow but steady so long as I kept it bandaged and didn’t push things too hard. That last part is getting harder to do.
 
The thought was that reaching the town would be a step forward. A turning point. Well, it was, just not for us.
 
Before we had left for Whitpetal ranch, we knew Scaevola had been ordered to collect the townfolk, or those that were left, and bring them back for “safe keeping”, if you could call being held captive by a lich “safe”. I thought that cutting down her forces would have stopped or slowed this down. At least enough we could get back and deal with that. But I guessed wrong.
 
When we returned to Purgatory Gulch, the town had been surrounded by a huge cactus wall. Getting past that we found the people were gone but the animals were left. Scaevola enchanted the people as commanded by the lich and had them taken away. She stayed to protect the animals using that cactus wall of her own decision.
 
I wanted to be angry but I couldn’t. Her whole plan made sense and I would’ve done it myself. My anger was really frustration. Frustration at myself and not protecting the people in trouble here.
 
The others were angry, too. Especially Miro. He’s gone down a dark hole on revenge. It might eat him alive. At one point, I had to call him out before he stabbed Scaevola. Sure the half-dryad had done some bad things and I get the sense she’s not on the side of the heavens at all. But she couldn’t help herself and said so.
 
There was conviction in her voice. I believe her. But Miro? He doesn’t care. Miro’s not far from just wanting to watch the world burn. I know better than to ask him if murdering everyone will bring back the other stormborn? Wouldn’t get me anywhere. Better to try and keep Miro focused on the lich instead of collateral damage.
 
If that wasn’t enough, Jessie tried a damn fool stunt. He pulled everything he had to shift the arcane bond from Scaevola to himself. Forcibly. It was a long shot and it worked.
 
We learned a bit from that, too. His stunt got the attention of what sounded like the one who did the arcane binding. Scaevola said the lich we’re dealing with isn’t strong enough to bind her. So this monster that appeared, threatened us, then vanished? That was at least an archmage and bad news. A ‘Dark Lord’ in a way. But… also a problem for another day.
 
So now, Jessie’s bound to the lich here in the canyon. The others were upset and Scaevola offered to murder him to set him free.
 
Me? I see an advantage.
 
That lich commands Jessie to do something,he’ll have to do it. Or try and do some flavor of it. But Jessie’s own connection to nature will fight back against that. Likewise we get a connection to know when and where the lich is. Provided Jessie figures how to manipulate that. If need be, we can tie Jessie down and stuff wax in his ears. I’d hate to have to kill the druid.
 
I made a comment about turning loose the vampiric rabbits we found on that field of undead cabbage the lich is using. That wasn’t a joke. Either we do that or set the whole batch on fire. Burn the crops, it whittles down the lich’s resources.
 
Not sure if the others will agree. At this point, I may talk to Scaevola about where those crops are, then ask Sephia to help while the others sleep.