Ash stills his whetstone for a moment and regards his kin. “Is it your intention to go back and complete what we started?” he asks.
Rather than provide a simple yes or no, Tric launches into a discourse, laying out his arguments for action. “I think, well, we have to. One, we didn’t get the spider venom, and that great white spider that nearly killed you is still out there somewhere with its three remaining legs.” Ash only said that he chopped off more than one, so Tric feels free to fill in details. “Two, I believe your charge is to identify and excise threats in these mountains, such as undead, and this would qualify for that. And if there’s a necromancer there, that’s a source that has to be dealt with.”
When it finally seems that Tric is done talking, Ash agrees that the younger elves can go back in with him. However, they need to set some ground rules so that they are all operating in concert with no surprises—other than the ones the elves choose to spring. Ash has gotten accustomed to fighting alone, and the most recent collaboration has not made him more comfortable fighting alongside others. “From what Aglana has said about the necrophages, that must be a dark sorcerer in there. We need to kill him and eradicate whatever creatures of his still remain,” Ash states.
“We need to interrogate him first,” Tric counters. “Because he probably has other necromancer friends. Though we need to deal with that necrophage even before that, I think,” Tric says.
“How much are you willing to risk in order to get an interrogation?” Ash asks.
“And because of the magic,” Heppa inserts, drawing questioning looks. “Whatever magic this necromancer has. Like lightning.” She thinks it would be good to find out how much corruption has occurred here. “But I’m not sure what would be required to restrain a human mage—assuming he’s human—so that he can’t cast but can still answer questions. He has to be able to talk or maybe write.”
“We know how to make sure no one can cast,” Tric says mischievously.
It is now Heppa’s turn to look confused. “I know how to make it so that elves can’t cast,” she says, thinking of the bag full of dapper inkcap in one of Butterbell’s packs. “But that’s fey energy,” she points out. She does wonder, though, if her recent exposure to the mushroom is the reason that of the three of them, only she did not get attacked by a necrophage.
“No, no, no, it works on… other magics,” Tric argues. The concoction Heppa brewed for Kachen prevents undead from seeking him out. Surely that must be because dapper inkcap interferes with necromantic magic in some way, too. Tric does not state this explicitly, though, trying not to get their friend in trouble. Or themselves, by association.
“What are you talking about?” Ash says, cutting through the oblique conversation.
“Dapper inkcap,” Tric replies.
“It didn’t work on Kachen,” Heppa objects.
Tric frowns internally that his cousin has dragged their friend’s name into this, but he suppresses a grimace and tries to spin it in a positive light. “This Kachen fellow is a sage and sorcerer who… likes to keep his magic under control. He takes dapper inkcap to do that.”
“But he could still cast fire missiles,” Heppa points out.
Now that she brings it up, Tric remembers Kachen doing just that using the staff they found together in the Foul Fen. “I think it was a lot of work for him, but that’s a good point. However… it would be an interesting experiment, wouldn’t it, Heppa?”
“Well….” Heppa’s gaze unfocuses as she considers. “I really don’t think the dapper inkcap is the way. I don’t think I know enough about human magic to figure out what might tamp it out. But could I formulate something that would make him more likely to tell us the truth?” she muses.
“Well, what’s separating us from this knowledge?” Tric prods Heppa.
“We don’t have any humans to experiment on,” Ash answers, not knowing Heppa’s side of the family well enough to recognize one of Thrandolil’s commonly expressed sentiments.
“Right. Experience. I’m sure we can work out some sort of alchemical approach. But to return to your previous question, Ash, I think it is a preference to interrogate this person but not the highest priority.”
“All right, so incapacitate the necromancer and destroy his creatures.”
“I would do that in the other order, but yes,” Tric adds lightly.
“If the creatures and the necromancer are present at the same time, we will have to deal with them both,” Ash observes.
“Agreed. How’s that sound to you, Heppa? Or should we just forget the whole thing and move on?”
Hepalonia has been lost in thought about possible experiments. Hearing her name jars a response out of her, though not to the question asked. “Were you thinking of some sort of poison to incapacitate the necromancer? Or just a sedative?”
“What if we just get him drunk?” Tric jokes.
“A poisoned arrow approach seems good,” Heppa continues. Alric told her about the sedative with which he coats his knives. While she does not have the exact recipe, she has the entire evening to work out the details. “Is that all right with you, Ash? I can shoot it.”
“Yes, that’s fine.” Ash does not really care what is decided, so long as it is not a surprise to him when it is deployed.
“Do you have any ideas, Aglana?” Heppa suddenly asks. The mermaid has been quietly listening this whole time, a hand supportively on Ash, but she has not contributed to the land-dwellers’ plans. “Do you know anything else about necrophages? Are they hard to make? Do you know the best way to kill them? Are there usually lots of them?”
“We saw three,” Tric adds. “We think they’re down to just one.”
“I do not know how they are constructed, but my impression is that they require more work to create than a floating corpse or a skeletal warrior would. In the undead armies that my people fought some thirty years ago, floating corpses and skeletons were far more common that these necrophage creatures were. Either they are harder to construct or they serve a different tactical role in an undead army. As for some fellow hanging out in a cave with a few of them, I don’t have any idea why someone would do that. Then again, I’ve never really understood why necromancers do what they do at all. It always just seems that they want more fuel for their armies. That was why they tried to overrun Jotha.”
“Swimming undead? I imagined the walking ones could just walk through water forever,” Heppa says. “Maybe they would get eaten by fish, though.”
“No,” Aglana tells her. “Fish do not eat undead unless they are defending themselves.”
Heppa and Tric tell her about the undead wolves they saw in Estbryn Forest. Tric does not think that came about by wolves eating undead. Likely the wolves were scratched when defending themselves from walking corpses. Heppa wonders whether the plague touch can spread through water. It is yet another mystery to ponder.
After dinner, Heppa begins her poisoned arrow project. While Tric cleans up the meal, she unloads her kit from Butterbell and dons Alric’s old alchemist vest. Then she sets to work over the cookfire, turning the area into her temporary lab. Tric and Ash hang out by the water’s edge, and terribly interesting snippets of conversation with Aglana occasionally drift over to Heppa. A few times she steps over to contribute to the discussion, but for the most part, she restrains her curiosity about merfolk and concentrates on the alchemical task at hand. On one glance over later, though, she notes that Aglana is actually sitting up on the pebbly bank alongside Ash, her tail bent down into the water as though she has a knee. Heppa quickly scribbles down some notes about merfolk physiology. Able to breathe in water through gills—unlike nagas—and on land, presumably through nose and mouth. Better cold tolerance? Diet? Teeth? Then she returns to her alchemical task.