Master Vrak steepled his hands under his chin, trying to make sense of the offer he’d just received from the Interim-Mayor. . . Elect.

  “Can we even manage it?” Xanya crossed her bulging arms. “We don’t even have the carriages.”

  Vrak rubbed his temples. “Logistics aside, my mind’s telling me his offer of diamond is too good to be true.”

  Xanya leaned back in her leather chair and kicked her legs on top of Vrak’s desk. He ignored the act.

  “Say he does have the diamonds,” she said, “then what? You think we can get that many iron chains made?”

  Vrak slipped out a pipe from his desk drawer and lit it. “Not us. But the dwarves might be able to accommodate.” He sighed. “It’s getting the phoenix tails that I’m more concerned about. I wish the bloody necromancer hadn’t left right in the middle of our conversation.”

  Xanya snorted. “What was that he was saying about the town guard anyway?”

  He shook his head and took a puff of his pipe. “I was too stunned by the deal he’d offered, whatever he said after that didn’t stick.”

  There was a rapping on the office door.

  Vrak scowled. “What?”

  “Fire! There’s a fire!”

  ===

  Maplebrook’s Population: ~530

  Undead Servants: 10 Greenfolk Thralls (43 intact corpses stored, 10 more beyond repair)

  Allies: Atan, Ronald, Nora, Von, Master Vrak

  Workers: 2 Apothecaries, 5 Guardsmen, 4* Hunters *(1 Injured-Molly), 3 Woodsmen, 3 Craftsmen, Mason, Blacksmith-Jules (Not friendly), 2 Blacksmith Apprentices?

  ===

  Buildings: Townhall, Apothecary Shoppe, South Terragard Mercantile and Commerce, Tavern, Chapel of Light (Crypt), Dockyard, Blacksmith, Palisades

  ===

  The leg wound was rather ghastly, though quite fascinating. The huntswoman writhed on a wooden table as two apothecaries worked to stymie the bleeding.

  Molly was the hunter’s name. She had short black hair and dark features, and she gave a good deal of effort bearing through the pain it seemed. No tears, no screaming, just heavy breathes and gritted teeth.

  The two grey robed apothecaries were a husband and wife pair, both in their forties. Lysa and Fern. They were silent as they worked, and their hands moved with such mastered synchronism you’d have thought they had the same mind. One kept pressure on the green wound, while the other cut the sickly flesh away, then that one poured purifying salts while the other prepared a suture.

  Another hunter stood beside me in the back of the apothecary shoppe as we watched the operation. He had a magnificent beard that ran down his chest, and a balded head where a cap belonged; which he held to his chest in courteous fashion. His name was Mooney, but he went by the name Oon. I didn’t understand why but who was I to question it?

  Apparently a third hunter had been ripped apart by a sickly looking wolf, of which had worked to do Molly the same favor. But Oon had shot it with an arrow before it could do any more damage. It had run off, which troubled me. Such a beast would be a problem.

  “What was sickly about the wolf?” I had asked Oon.

  We had been in the main shoppe at that point, which was a jumbled mess of shelves and herbs. We could only see the slightest glimpse into the backroom, which stole Oon’s focus.

  “Mooney?”

  “Oon,” he muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  “Oon, master wizard. They call me Oon.” He maintained his gaze at Molly’s squirming feet.

  “Ah, I see. Well, good Oon, please tell me about this wolf. What was so distinctive about it?”

  He scraped his teeth together, as if in a trance. “Dark green fur, like the moss off a rock. Its spittle was the color of a glowworm’s rear.”

  That had indeed sounded like a rather irregular looking wolf. “Have you ever encountered a creature like that?”

  He shook his head. “No.” He looked at me finally. “May I?”

  I nodded and followed him into the back of the room, where we now stood.

  The apothecaries finished their last suture thread and fed Molly something that put her to sleep.

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  “She has a fever, but it should pass,” Lysa said.

  Fern agreed. “It’ll pass.”

  They both spoke in an accent I couldn’t place, something from further east I had gathered.

  Oon nodded. “Thank you.”

  I couldn’t let go of the peculiarities of the mysterious wolf that had done this. “Fair apothecaries. This kind of wound, have you seen it in these parts before?”

  Fern and Lysa traded each other a look, then frowned. “Not here,” they said in their odd accent.

  “Where?”

  Lysa wiped blood from her hands with a cloth. “From our homeland. We called it, kol-vash salvio, the green curse. It is known to many apothecaries and druids. There is a plant that causes it if ingested without the proper treatment process.”

  My mind began piecing the puzzle together, but first I asked, “And what exactly is the curse?”

  The couple looked at each.

  Fern sighed, wiping his hands with another cloth, like his wife. “Let us talk somewhere else and give Molly some rest. Oon, will you stay with Lysa?”

  The hunter nodded.

  I was getting the distinct sense that this issue was far more ominous than Maplebrook was prepared to deal with.

  Fern walked me outside of the shoppe, which had fortunately been spared any damage from the recent fighting. He spoke in a hushed tone. “There is only one way to be certain that the wolf and the hunter are infected. The plant is a sort of weed, called Nightfire.”

  I let out an involuntary cough.

  The apothecary raised an eyebrow.

  “My apologies. Does it happen to resemble,” I reached into my satchel and pulled out the vial of blood that housed the green residue I’d acquired while fighting the Greenfolk, “this substance?”

  Fern took the vial and held it up to the sun’s light. “Yes. This is the refined state of the plant.” He handed the vial back to me. “The unrefined weed glows green, and grows in patches of berries. The fruit is what animals will tend to ingest, which is why there is an ordinance to eradicate the plant when found.” Then he said almost to himself, in a sort of purr with the way his tongue rolled over his words, “I wonder why this plant would be appearing now. . . The druids all left this area once it was purged.”

  There it was, the last piece of the puzzle. I shook my head. “The Greenfolk used it for their tattoos and drank it in potion form. I think it enhanced their killing instinct. Green Thumb was a dark druid who had forsaken his enclave. It would seem he might have persisted in cultivating the weed, and now that he and his people are dead, the weed is growing unchecked. Assuming the plant is that quick in growing?”

  Fern swore. “This is not a good thing. Yes, indeed the plant is known to grow quite rapidly. I have known whole towns to be lost in the matter of a week.”

  “And what is it that is so dangerous when ingested in its raw form?” I asked again.

  He looked at me with his glassy eyes. “I wish that being ingested was the only way to spread the curse, but no, anyone whose blood is mixed with raw Nightfire will find their blood and mind replaced.”

  I looked back at the shoppe where Molly rested. Was she to become a mindless host to this parasitic plant? “Is there a cure?” I asked.

  Fern sighed. “A druid.”

  I swore. Infer—

  “Fire!” someone yelled. The town hall’s bells rang.

  I swirled to see where the crisis was coming from. My mouth dropped in utter horror. It was the chapel of light that burned, and all those precious corpses in the crypt were in danger of being incinerated.

  I ran down the street. My prized hat flew off my head, yet still I sprinted.

  The roof of the chapel was engulfed with twisting flame. Dozens of townsfolk scurried around the building with buckets of water and tarps.

  I gawked hopelessly. I needed to save the bodies. I needed my thralls. I ran back to the town hall, threw open the door, and hobbled down a flight of stairs to a basement. There, my lovely ten undead shuffled around awaiting my command.

  They all twisted to me and let out a variety of, “Uh? Uhh!”

  “Come!”

  They shambled my way.

  “With haste!” I added.

  That shook them into gear. The ten of them hobbled up after me, and together we spilled into the streets.

  There was a predictable onset of cries from all sorts of folk as my small horde emerged. This was why I’d kept my thralls sequestered to the basement, as suggested by Atan. Though, I had thought exposure therapy to be a more suitable solution. It mattered not at the moment.

  I led my contingent to the chapel doors and waved my minions in. “Save the bodies!” I yelled.

  Then I heard a small voice.

  “Help!”

  I quirked my head for who the cry belonged to.

  “Help!”

  The voice had come from inside the chapel.

  I rushed inside, the ceiling absolutely smogged in black smoke. I was unaffected by breathing in smoke, even though I was in my visage form. It did not take long to see who was crying for help.

  Little Nora lay pinned under a fallen beam. She was bloodied and scorched.

  I cast Levitate Object to lift the beam off of her, and scooped her up in arms. I let the beam crash behind us as I carried the little girl out of the building.

  “Apothecary!” I shouted. “Atan!” I cried. Anyone, I hoped.

  The paladin was already there, not in his armor, which surprised me. “Allow me,” he said, taking Nora.

  She coughed and raised her defiant eyes to me. “Thank you for saving me.”

  That stunned me. All time ceased to exist as the phrase pierced my chest. Thank you for saving me. Was this. . . heroism? I had slain a whole army of bandits and resurrected the dead, yet it was this simple rescue of a girl that warranted a thank you.

  I. . . I was utterly lost. But then the warmth of the flames brought me back.

  The thralls had managed to bring out what bodies they could, namely the corpses drenched in honey. One thrall lugged out a corpse that was engulfed in flames—it was one that I had put in alcohol. I shuddered at the realization that many of those bodies were quite flammable and were most likely lost.

  Oh how I longed for the power of elementalism, to create a torrent of water to save this temple and the crypt. But there was naught I could do but watch the building crumble beneath the destruction.

  My thralls had only managed to save nine corpses from the fire. My mind spun trying to piece together the situation. What would I do now? What would those who put their faith in me do?

  But then I came to a more dire revelation: this had to be intentional, and if someone had done this, then who?

  That’s when I saw Watcher Ronald running out of an alleyway with a torch in hand.

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