Chapter 161: Visitor from the Stars

Chapter 161: Visitor from the Stars

Barkroar was trying to restrain its branches, but the human was doing things to it that itched terribly. "Are you not done yet?!"

"No, one last patch. You don't want me to miss any and have to do it again, do you?" Suzette admonished the huge treant and kept scrubbing away at its bark with a coarse file and a scraper. She needed to get every last bit of Rustblight so it didn't grow back. "Ok, I'm done with scraping. Relax a minute while I get the acid."

"The firewater? It burns! Do we have to use the firewater?"

Suzette shook her finger at the treant. "That's the whole point! It burns off any of the Rustblight and cleans your bark. It will just sting for a little bit and then Ben can fix you up." She took a large bottle of diluted acid and a rag and doused the areas she had scraped clean. Ben followed up with his spell of "Healing Fire". Small white flames moved over the areas where Rustblight had taken hold. The fire killed any small speck that Suzette might have missed, and caused the abraded bark to quickly regrow.

It had taken some trial and error to find a way to permanently deal with the Rustblight on both trees and treants. Patches of the reddish lichen appeared on all of the ironwoods in the meadow constantly. After some talk, it was decided to bring in several teams of people to work on clearing the infected dead wood and treat the trees at the same time. The Rustblight was a persistent infection that didn't want to go away.

The dead wood had to be removed. Trunks and broken limbs of once mighty trees lay all over the bog, the crimson lichen covering them. All of it was moved to a large meadow outside the glade that had once been part of the oak forest. Hundreds of ironwood trees had died as what had once been a light forest area surrounding the spring had turned into a much larger bog. Blight and rotted roots had killed the trees rapidly.

The dead ironwood was resistant to fire, but the lichen-like Rustblight burned at a low temperature. There was plenty of left-over oak limbs and leaves to burn. Two rows of fires were made of the scraps left over from logging the oaks and then the ironwood trunks were put in-between. The radiant heat of the fires quickly reduced the Rustblight to ashes. The cleaned trunks were stacked nearer to the town, and raised off the ground to prevent rot. They would be allowed to cure for a month and then be carefully checked again for any infestation. No one wanted Rustblight to get into the town.

Zephyr, Aliester, and PHZero were kept busy mixing up vats of diluted acid to treat both trees and treants. Potent acids were brewed up in Aliester’s laboratory and the large glass jars taken carefully by wagon to the glade. A small measure of potent acid would be added to vats of spring water to make a solution that was strong enough to kill the Rustblight, but did little harm to the sturdy trees, even if it did sting a little bit.

Cham and Jon inspected each and every inch of the Ironwood trees, looking for Rustblight, trimming dead limbs, and generally caring for the trees. Both of them had been given the special skills Tree-Healing, Tree-Shepherd, and Tree-Speaking by Barkroar. The skills were increasing rapidly with the constant use.

The had eager helpers in Dot, Libby, and Charlene. The later always accompanied by her pink lamb, Cupcake. The three bunny girls were rarely out of the game now. When Cham had asked about that, they'd told him about their decision to take an extended vacation from real life. All three were retired and had enough money that they didn't need to work. Libby and Charlene had simply put most of their belongings in storage and moved in with Dot for a week, and then all three had checked into a long-term gaming facility that would let them game for a month at a time.

Cham was watching the dirt and mud as something pushed up from underneath. "Ah, unfortunately, we may not have too. Libby dear? Could you run over to that group of slackers loading up the ore and tell them we have something nasty coming to visit?" Libby was only too happy to get away from the area. Her teeth were aching like they were going to split.

Up from the ground came a large round chunk of the Blighted Ore over a yard wide and roughly spherical. It turned back and forth in the mud. Strange strands of red vegetation grew rapidly from the top, waving in the calm air. The orb was pushed up further and out of the muck be a gleaming metallic post six inches wide. The orb swayed back and forth as the 'neck' bent in every direction. Cham's head was hurting, and he backed off a few paces more. The orb swiveled in his direction as a huge eye opened and stared at him. A voice invaded his head, yelling directly into his brain.

"Rejoice gof'nn! nog nwnglui long yogfm'll gifts l' ymg'! m'fargle"

Cham's head hurt and he suddenly couldn't hold in the last meal he'd eaten and was violently ill.

You have heard the voice of m'fargle, emissary from the yogfm'll. Listen more and uh'enythnah milk!

m'fargle frn ymg' ah'n'gha 14th ot spawning eclipse

Star spawn, Wrong, just Wrong, Life Bringing

Jon came up next to him. "I can see you two are already bonding."

M'fargle uln wgah'nagl h' gof'nn l' f' ahornah ahthrodog!

Jon suddenly understood why Cham wasn't feeling well. He too reeled backwards and lost his lunch. "Oh, shit! I think it just said: 'Avengers Assemble'.