A dark and stormy night found Serena Mystwud cheerfuly singing arm in arm with a motley crew of patrons at the local pub. The liveliness of the crowd in the old Winchester starkly contrasted it’s size unfortunately. A mystery illness seems to have overtaken the majority of the town, though it seemed like the regulars at the bar had managed to dodge it entirely.



After a delightful row with the lads, she approached the counter and slammed a handful of solars down. “SPEAK ANOTHER ROUND OF YOUR FINEST, ONE FOR ALL” she shouted at the barkeep Constance, who was unfortunately attending her post as she always had. The cheers from the crowd did not subside despite her absence, only glee and tomfoolery amongst the local drunkards. Serena’s decision making capacity already impaired, and being of the type to not wish for dissapointment, she simply shrugged her shoulders.



And then of course hopped the counter. The solars would still be there, not like she was robbing the place. If anything she’d be doing them a favour if anything by serving herself. The priestess reached down to grab as many flagons as she could carry, only to be greeted by an unpleasantly wet and sticky sensation.



Her hand came back to her face, squinting through the foggy haze of alcohol it appeared to be a dark red… “Oh my…” She muttered, before shouting out to the rowdy crowd in almost a panic.



“H-H-HEY! WHO THA FECK SPILLED THIS WINE BEHIND THE COUNTER. CONSTANCE IS LITERALLY GONNA KILL US.” There wasn’t even a bottle lying around to make an accusation as to who had done the deed… a pity. Some secret society of bartenders is not gonna make life easy on her were she to take the blame.

Quest Name: Hunted

Participants: Two or more

Location: Anywhere

Post Requirements: 5 posts per person, 200 words per post

Reward: +1 Mystical Archive Ticket, +1 Mysterious Reward

Description: You find yourself as the main character in a Black Harvest story! Write out a spooky or scary story where you find yourself hunted, stalked or followed by a scary, creepy or frightening threat. The location, villains, and details of the story are completely up to you, as long as this year's theme is obvious and consistent throughout the topic.

Normally, Gerhart was willing to be a bit reckless when it came to flying with Halcyon. Given how well the two worked together inclement weather didn't bother them much but there was no sense in risking it tonight. He had nowhere to be urgently so why fly just for the sake of it? Besides it wasn't often the ranger actually stopped to slow down and live his life. Not everything can be adventure.

Though with how this bar was shaping up he might be in for more than he expected. He barely held in laughs and his usual wide smile as people seemed to be enjoy themselves quite furiously. Gerhart was no teetotaler and had a mug in hand, though he avoid the more raucous center of the group.

He does raise an eyebrow when Serena shouts loud enough to cut through the crowd noise. Things simmer down to a murmur for a moment as the crowd tries to figure out what was happening. Gerhart means to quietly watch before something catches his nose.

Iron......That wasn't wine.

"Ah, I'm sure it was an accident. Why don't we find Constance and explain it? I'm sure if someone just pays for the bottle and maybe helps cleaning up everything will be OK."

He does his best to not give away that something is off, but the scent is hard to deny.^[1]

---

1. Blood Scent

    Jaunty tunes were played surprisingly fancifully on the piano by a rosy-cheeked fellow with a magnificent mustache! Thus, along that same backwall bordering the door to the kitchen, there was Baird, singing with his similarly surprising pipes. His father taught him a thing or two about belting notes, but he would only bust them out when around a less critical crowd. It helps a tad that he did down a couple pints of cider like a fish when he joined the revelry! A lightweight he will always be.

    Conversely, a sour-faced dragonkin fellow with a glazed pair of eyes was hunched nearby, his elbows holding him up from the other side of the bar. Pale pupils stared longingly to the sloppily forming quartet with such a.. fleshy giant at the center. Streaks of red splashed all over his face nearly hid the sickly greenish hue. His mouth of pointed teeth were bared from his lazily slack jaw. Baird made eye contact and felt he had to do something for this poor guy. He cheers-ed the best informal band to ever get together this side of the complimentary peanuts, then approached the pallid man behind the bar.

    "Hey, bruddah! I saw ya lookin' kinda down." Putting effort into softening the harsh belch that snuck up on him, Baird continued, "If you're hungry, I can fix something up for ya. Lemme get passed, watch me cook a meal fit for Ginma himself!" The patron just stared back, unchanging, yet exuding an aura of gluttonous need for the huge boar standing before him. Baird stepped to the side and took a second to lift the hinged counter door that separated the workspace from the rest of the room. Being so large, Baird still basically stepped over the bar. Now he just had to squeeze real tight to get through the doorway to the kitchen...
   
    The creature behind the bar greedily raised a hand, similarly covered in red just as his face. Grabbing Baird's arm, he tugged it back. A woman from the mob of drunks came by just at that moment and talked to the sickly man, "Hey, you mind lighting me one, Dirk? I want to show you off to the girls over there." She produced a long smoking pipe and held it out to 'Dirk'. The man turned to look. He tilts his head forward at her and opens his maw wide.

    Making a deep inhale, Dirk then blows a focused stream of flame over the pipe's chamber. The woman smiles with glee, looking back at her girlfriends who are all gawking and guffawing. "Thank you, Dirk, you're the coolest! So awesome to know a red draconinh!" She then notices his complexion with worry, "You okay, sweety? You don't look so good."

    Dirk responds after putting his free hand over his mouth to keep from blowing more than fire, "Yeah, I'll be alright. I have a massive hangover. Had too much with the employees at the other location last shift. This guy wants to cook, but I am the cook!"

    Then, suddenly, a zombie rises from in front of the liquor wall! It lunges and grabs at the woman's hand now holding a lit pipe! Oh no!!

She blinked, giving the scarred fellow a blank stare as she tried to reconcile the three images of him swirling about. Serena shot him a slightly approving, slightly confused look with a sharply arched eyebrow as she just kinda stood there, wobbling in place for a moment. A deep inhale,



A sharp turn of only the upper torso as Baird the Beastman also hopped the bar, shaking off dirks dire protest with relative ease. She grew a wicked smile, and put two hands around her mouth to ensure the dragonkin heard her barbs.



“Heh, speak of the scaly bastard. WATCHIN YER OWN KITCHEN TOUCHED BY ANOTHER I SEE.” The priestess shouted over the hustle and bustle before turning back to the brown haired one. “Anyways, what was youse saying? You wanted me to…..grab you a bottle or somethiiiiinAAAAIIIIEEEEEE” The woman screamed, a terrified pitch as to what she was currently witnessing past the handsome lil guy. The piano stopped for a moment, the moustachioed man turning to see the commotion.



“EASY! That is NOT how you treat a woman MISTER! You-YOU back off or I’ll curse yer familias society for geneRATIONS.”



The zombie in front of the liquor did not seem to be put off by her interjection. In fact, it seemed more attracted to the amount of noise Serena was making trying to chastise him. He lunged towards her with both arms raised, mouth agape.



“YES, no secret first you must DANCE before the grabs.” Serena said, firmly grasping his outstretched hands and swinging him too and fro in the cramped space behind the counter.

'Am I misreading this situation,' Gerhart thought to himself. No, it's the drunks who are wrong. There is no time to be a gentleman about it so he just reaches over the bar to grab a fistful of the back of Serena's dress and pulls her back over the bar.

It is a rough and tumble rescue, but hopefully that gets her out of harm's way. The zombie man does not seem all that happy to have lost a meal....though the way his face is sloughing off from the rest of him Gerhart is not sure what he is feeling. This is becoming very strange, very quickly.

Someone has to be the epicenter for why people are turning zombie. Finding them was easier said than done in a sea of drunks and zombies with little ways to tell between the two.

He looks to Baird, "Please tell me you're at least somewhat sober enough to help. I think this night is about to go really badly for everyone here."

The groans of hunger and hangovers fills the tavern as people shuffle about. Some patrons push and shove with each other, while others find corners to pass out in. Who was a threat and who was a drunk was going to be fun to figure out.

    Baird sluggishly pulls out from the kitchen door at the commotion. Right on cue: woman grabbed, Serena yoinked, and Gerhart's plea. Blinking heavily at what was going on, a slurred train of thought began to put some coal into the boiler.

    Dirk wasn't doing well, but he wasn't an oblivious mess like the sea of slobs. He saw the thing grabbing at his friend and got up from the bar top. Serena's tango with the undead being interrupted, it searched again for something to bite into. It got something alright, a knuckle sandwich covered in blazing red scales. It tumbled to the ground, Dirk poised to scorch the thing. Instead all that came out was a burning sensation of acid pouring onto the already unsanitary ex-human.

    Baird came up from behind the dragonkin and patted at his back, "'Ey, frien'! Take a break in the kitchen, I'll -[Hic]- handle the business for a bit!" Dirk wiped his mouth with a cloth produced from his chest pocket, nodded, and squeezed by the giant to the doorway to the back. The bloody thing sizzling from unsightly fluids reached for Baird but only got a digging hoofprint embedded into its face. That helped sober the beastman some.

    Looking out into the room of swaying maybe-wells sparked an instinct from the boar. A rough yell into the crowd, "Free fried cheese curds and ice cold water! Hol' up a hand if you want 'em!" It could seem like a lie but was really a useful truth, in the case that Baird gets the chance to use that kitchen by the end of this. Looking down at his recent drinking buddy and a clearly capable adventurer, "Grab whoever's hungry for not-flesh. Kitchen's probably good to stow 'em, we'll sort the rest out."

“HAHAHAHA DIRK CANT LANDLE HIS HICQOUR!” Serena exclaimed, doubling over to point and laugh moments after standing up from an apparent tumble herself. “Wai…wait. I thought I…I was over there?” She pondered, looking at where she was standing not moments ago, eyebrows arched heavily in deep concentration as the crowd began to converge on the bar. Thats right, she fell over the bar or something.



Cheese curds? FREE?! This was truly the perfect night, She popped the cork on a bottle hidden within her sleeve and took a long chug before attempting to push through the crowd. Her sensibilities were no longer completely with her, these people were between a woman and her cheese curds.



Two men from the crowd did not gather at the call for food and water. Instead, they were drawn to a corner where a fat looking cleric had passed out. Serena, a woman of the gods, and hopefully a good person, was torn in that moment. Those guys were gonna rob that fellow, but if she intervened, she would miss out on the free cheese. Her crimson hair shook back and forth as she looked rapidly between her two options.



“Cursed be the gods for dangling so precious a gift before an unending chasm of moral ineptitude” She said, or at least she thought she did. What came out was more like “Currssgodang nmnumdubg mrneptitude.”

Witches Brew

"Madame Minervas Cauldron of Whimsey" 15% ABV

MAT



A dark black bottle filled with thick liquid that shimmers a deep purple color. When this potion is consumed the drinker will be filled with dark magic for a sort period of time. For the rest of the topic the drinker may choose any spell from the dark domain shop, but can only choose one. They can cast that spell for the rest of the topic regardless of their skills (must still follow the rules of the spell)

Ginma's fuzzy horse ass this was getting out of control faster and faster. Almost no one but him was sober enough to address what was going on and people were getting very bitey with each other. Why with the biting? Why couldn't becoming a zombie be like catching a cold? Sneezing on someone else is gross, but it's better than biting them.

Gerhart did not enjoy having to be the serious person. He is an inherently silly man and this is a situation he cannot cajole himself out of. He also can't just start swinging, it is way too hard to tell who's drunk and who's a zombie. Ok well the people trying to bite other people were zombies, but until they go for a bit it is hard to tell.

"I don't think that's exactly working." He looks at Baird's offer.

Some people are interested, others turn and adjust their shuffle because they are attracted to the noise. Noise means the person is alive and zombies like their snacks warm apparently.

"You look way stronger than me, let's swap all right? You grab, I'll bait." Gerhart flicks on his Sun Ring giving it a small glow, something more to entice the zombies.

"Oh man, I sure hope no zombies come to bite me, that would be bad. I am too alive to become a zombie." He rattles his swords and waves the ring as he tries to lead them outside of the tavern like the world's worst pied piper.

    Finally with a sensible idea, a handful of zombies would out themselves by following Gerhart. Taking a second to absorb his words, Baird would nod at nothing as the Ser had already turned to leave.

    This was a large establishment with a well-counter stretching around the inward corner. Baird himself was also quite large, so he came to conclusion that 'grabbing people' meant literally now. He'd step gingerly back to the open floorspace. Serena was handling a pair of blokes crowding a portly fellow, so it was up to him to make sense of the rest!

    Alright, with a meaty hand clasped at the collar of a man's coat, Baird held him up and questioned, "Name?" The man responded by hissing and reaching out to scratch at the beastman. "No name. Zomb." He would then toss the aggressor towards the front door-ish. Then he grabbed another, "Name?" 

    To which the second man did respond, "Woah, hey, what the-!?"

    "Glad to meet you, Wohaywuthah. Go to the kitchen, please." Baird would then place the patron over to the other side of the counter and flail a hand in the general direction of the doorway at one end. This was a really brute-force way to go about it, but Baird is a brute-force kind of problem-solver.

Serena took off in a wobbly sprint as the crowd behind her got louder and more rowdy. The mozzies must be pretty bomb today… a pity. The morsel of moral righteousness instilled from a couple of years in seminary unfortunately won over. The two were really digging into the fat clerics shirt, pawing and chewing away at the clothes presumably to reveal whatever treasures he had lying within. Not on her watch.



Majestically, she jumps once, launches off of a chair and dropkicks the shit out of the pair. Realistically, it was more like a tumble and a crash into a pile of bodies, but that was not the issue. As Serena shook her head to recover, she realized the two people were not in fact robbing the priest, BUT ATTEMPTING TO EAT HIM?!



“H-holy Shit. Hey guys! There…there are zombies here!!”



Now was not the time for drunken shenanigans. No, it was the time for mental clarity and fortitude. Her innate resistances against poisons kicked in, immediately shoving her from intoxication to withdrawl. A throbbing headache caused her to wince as she unfortunately returned to the world of sentience. The staff on her back ignited with an iridescence that pervaded the room. A pale glow encompassed the two zombie menaces that she had crashed into, along with several other fellows accosting their brethren in the crowd.



“They’re the glowy ones! AND PLEASE SAVE ME SOME CHEESE”
Purity Graft: Poison effects wear off one turn sooner
Controlled Immunity: Poison effects wear off one turn sooner
Vestige of Light
-Blessing of Pain


If your Vestige of Light is in effect, you can activate this blessing, causing enemies within the aura to glow softly with a cool light. For the next three posts, if any enemy inside of your aura tries to heal or mend themselves or another enemy, they will instead take damage equal to the amount they were trying to heal.

Gerhart got a good distance from the tavern before he stopped, a satisfied look on his face. All right looks like he thinned out the crowd in the tavern quite a bit. He smiles proudly with his hands on his hips as the crowd shambles towards him. They approach closer and closer before it hits him.

Damn....now what? He didn't really think about this plan other than getting them out of there.

"Hey Mads."

"Stop calling me that."

"C'mon it's been like a year, aren't we friends?"

"....What do you need?" The former deity did not exactly like not being treated with the same reverence he had before, but this was the pact he made.

"Any way we can like....bonk the whole being a zombie out of people?"

"...What?"

"Like I don't want to kill all these people."

"They are undead."

"So...it's fine to make them un-undead? Re-dead?"

"It is putting their bodies back to rest."

"Fine, I don't like it, but if you say so."

Gerhart sighs and draws both his swords with a flourish. His skin starts to glow with tiny star-like dots as his eyes take on the look of space. He settles back and gathers himself with swords held at canted angles.[1]

He then charges forward right into the middle of the crowd. Hands can barely lunge towards them before they are cut off, Gerhart leaves wide gashes in the resurrected corpses. His swords seem to trail light behind them and leave glowing wounds that burn the bodies away in a soft ash. [2,3]

The ranger could only hope the rest of the tavern was doing fine. Most of them seemed drunk, but it seemed like there were at least a couple left behind to help if not all the zombies followed with.

---

1. Javian's Falcon Wing
2. Talon Strike
3.Angelic Light

    It seems Baird has to get with the script and match his allies in sobriety. This situation is getting serious. Fortunately, there was one trick up his sleeve that gave him an advantage few could withstand at a time like this. After looking about, he takes a stance with both knees bent at his sides. This was something passed down from his own mentor fairly recently. Baird looked down at a glowing foe, steadied his mind and body, and hurled a volley of stomach contents onto the undead, just as his recent tutor on Sol City cuisine had done, Dirk.

    After a few seconds, he wiped his lips and grabbed a glass of water nearby to wash his mouth out. "Okay, I am not really sober, but I am done playing games. Donut time." With his overwhelmingly large body, Baird simply reached over the thoughtless monsters with a palm across the cranium. A squeeze and each one he could get his mitts on slumped to the ground. Sadly, for every two or three lights he snuffed out, another one would light up among the thinning crowd, and the rate was getting faster. No time to give each one an easy trip back into the afterlife.

    Baird instead chose to start wading his way through to each dull body still standing. A wave of one of his arms was enough to create decent space to reach each remaining healthy survivor, all he had to do was pick them up and get them onto the other side of the counter where they had a much better chance at getting away. The real trick was keeping all the slobbering maws from getting a grip on his juicy corpus. A job that would prove fruitless once he was surrounded.