Chapter 1 – Part 6

Pienna resisted an urge to call down fire and fry the filthy vardigg. Grues were horrible things at best, and were usually slain when sighted, but this one hailed from the Demon Wastes. She had negotiated with it for information, many years before, and now she did again.

“Ohh but the Mistress can be more generousssss,” it bubbled at her in the language of water elementals. Its eyes shifted around in its muck. “This poor vardigg, so poor, so sssad.”

“I would think that you would enjoy your freedom, having escaped from the Wastes,” Pienna said, knowing not to give in too quickly. The grue hated the Wastes, and escaped when it could, traveling along underground streams into the Eldeen Reaches, but something always called it back. It hated the Wastes, but was addicted to them somehow. “I would think that your euphoria would keep you from demanding too much.”

“I know about the half-breedsssssss,” the vardigg said. “Both part of your race, one born from the swamp-strong, the other touched by the Buried Masters.”

Pienna deliberately pointed her staff at the creature and made the end of the wooden tip glow. “Are you a water elemental twisted by the daelkyr, then?” she asked. She already knew the answer, having cast a spell that detected aberrations many years previously. The grues were twisted by the Lords of Dust, not the daelkyr, but the vardigg didn’t know that she knew that.

“Vardigg is not flesh-twisted!” it insisted. “Not! Vardigg merely hears how others under the ground speak.”

“You saw a half-orc and a half-daelkyr?” she demanded.

“Heard of them,” the vardigg said, submitting. “They came to the place that the fiends allow with a thing of walking stone and wood. They killed a feared thing there, another half-breed touched by the daelkyr. They treated with a bugbear, and left with another bugbear.” The vardigg twitched as it spoke quickly.

So they passed Festering Holt, Pienna thought to herself. An ashbound had come to her, after she had left Merylsward, telling her that he had carried Orphan, Delagado, and Thomas across the mountains into the Demon Wastes, and that he had been ordered to tell only her what he had done. Understanding Oalian’s desire for secrecy she had only told Chubat.

Who was now dead of course.

The vardigg appeared not to know what to make of her fresh tears. It tipped its ‘head’ about, wondering what to say. Objecting to this sudden motion, Missy hissed at it, and the thing pulled back a bit from the great panther’s fangs.

“What more do you know?” she asked.

“What will the mistress give?” the vardigg asked, weaving about.

Sudden rage surged through Pienna. She had been dancing in conversation with this damned thing for almost an hour, and she was tired of its greed. The power of nature rose within her, and a flame appeared in her hand as she spoke sounds of power that were almost words. She threw the flame point blank at the vardigg, and it keened loudly in pain.

The vardigg did not seek a fight with the powerful druidess, instead darting quickly beneath the surface of the small pond that it had risen from. An underground stream passed by it, and in less than a minute the vardigg was away and gone.

“Brilliant, Pienna, that accomplished a lot,” she scolded herself aloud. The grue left a foul smell behind it, and she wrinkled her nose. Not only was the smell offensive, it reminded her of the price of her impatience. She had lost her temper, and now her only source of information on the Demon Wastes had left her with only a baleful vileness.

Again she called on nature’s power, summoning winds to whirl and move about, to remove the smell.

In the process, the wind shifted a bit, and Missy bolted upright, staring at an oak tree some forty feet or so behind her. Pienna whirled, gripping her staff.

A short creature, a goblinoid, gradually came around the trunk of the tree, holding its empty hands above its head in plain view. A sheepish grin on its face, it wore leather armor, plain woods-colored clothing, and carried a shortbow and a quiver of arrows on its back.

“Brezzy,” she said, recognizing the goblin. A quiet walker and an expert archer, he had taken out an important cavalry officer in the battle the day before. Hailing from Droaam originally, the little man had made his way north and east through the Eldeen Reaches, fighting Aundairians. “Why were you spying on me?”

“Brezzy just looking,” the goblin said with a foolish grin. “Brezzy go looking for Pienna, see slime-thing, got scared. Waited.”

For a moment she believed him. Then she thought. “Brezzy, the camp you came from is to the east, but you came from the north.”

“Brezzy follow game trail first,” the goblin said. He eyed Missy with elaborate caution. “Brezzy put his hands down now?”

Pienna sighed and nodded. She made the ‘stand down’ noise to her panther as the goblin relaxed and lowered his hands. “I have many enemies, Brezzy, it is both rude and dangerous to sneak up on me.”

“Pienna not protect Brezzy from ugly water-thing?” the goblin asked, making big eyes at her.

“Before the ugly water-thing I had a conference with another druid who was greatly angry,” Pienna informed the goblin. “Had you snuck up then, he may have reacted violently.” The goblin seemed relieved to hear it had missed a bad fate, but Pienna thought she detected something resembling frustration in his demeanor. It made no sense, and after a moment’s consideration she decided that she had been mistaken.

“Brezzy and Pienna walk back to camp now?” the goblin asked.

“Yes,” Pienna said. She began walking east, and Missy followed her. Brezzy trotted rapidly after the two of them.

“Brezzy sorry about Chubat,” the goblin said after a moment. “Brezzy felt sad listening to Pienna speak.”

“Thank you,” she said. “But I have spent enough tears. I wish to speak no more of it now.”

They walked back in silence. Not until they were within sight of the tents did Brezzy say anything, and then only a quick goodbye as he disappeared from sight into some bushes.