• Hail Guest!
    We're looking for Community Content Contribuitors to Stratics. If you would like to write articles, fan fiction, do guild or shard event recaps, it's simple. Find out how in this thread: Community Contributions
  • Greetings Guest, Having Login Issues? Check this thread!
  • Hail Guest!,
    Please take a moment to read this post reminding you all of the importance of Account Security.
  • Hail Guest!
    Please read the new announcement concerning the upcoming addition to Stratics. You can find the announcement Here!

(RP) Something is not right in the air... Does anyone else smell it? (Part 4)

EvilPixieWorks

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
There is a true evil spawning...

Someplace. However, I can not figure out where it's coming from.

As of late I’ve been smelling something... off... someplace around the woods of my home. The morning air is so pure and clean... but something is clearly wrong within in. Like a poisonous flower that only blooms at night... or under a full moon. The magic of Christmas faded away along with the joy starting a new year with wishes of hope and progress. Whatever it is in the air, it makes the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up and a special kind of worry sets in. Not a powerful worry, mind. A worry as if you are being watched, but somehow different... and should be aware at the same time.

The next day... I discovered that the front garden of the Red & Purple Mini Mall had suddenly died and become nothing more than sand and the last few plants. What was left was simply struggling to stay alive. As skilled in the horticultural arts, there doesn’t seem a cure for whatever this sudden plague is. I’ve tried watering that section of the garden. I’ve tried pouring different potions all over the plants and sand that used to be a lush green field of grass. I’ve tried screaming at it! Nothing.

I sent a dispatch to a group of specially trained pixie scouts to go out to the woods around the Red & Purple Pixies of the Yew Wood. Once they arrived, nothing could be found around the wood... however they too could smell something was just not right. In asking a few others if they noticed anything in the air... no one seems to be able to see anything out of place. Perhaps it's something in the sensitive nose of the pixie kind. As the pixie scouts started widening the search area, they started to notice small signs of death and decay at the base of the trees. So much like what happened to the mall garden. They figure it has to be something small. Something smaller than us pixies. Something we pixies may find long before anyone else. “What do they look like?” I asked the scout leader. She told me it was far too soon to even speculate such a thing. No tracks in the traces of mud from all the winter rain and snow. No rubbish as if something had camped. No droppings. Nothing to suggest any clues... other than... this, whatever it is, could have come by the way of Cove. Picked up in the winds and raining down from the clouds.

Within a few short days, other pixie kind started to notice the same thing throughout the entirety of the lands, however in small concentrated areas. The bulk of the infestation seems strongest around Cove itself. This could be a clue, but again... it's too soon to really know what’s happening. There is just not enough evidence as the first reports indicated. Nothing TRUE can be found or gleaned... no samples can be collected or studied. Once the pixie scouts visited some of these other minor infestations... it was discovered they are growing. Growing with every passing day. Spring is so close... this should be a joyous time awaiting the end of snow and a return of flowers of all kinds and colors, an endless blue sky, and a sun that can warm your skin and bring back health. Not this. Not this growing... horror, for lack of a better word.

I’ve contacted a squadron of special pixie hunters to be on standby if an invasion starts. An invasion that the lands of Trammel haven’t seen since the other horror of Malas became known and colonized in mass. This was before the Mini Mall became the mall it is today. So many long years ago. Within the very small space of a Small Marble Shop with open walls and a great deal of traffic, the likes of the Juka came... and the giant ants... and then the swamp monsters. Three massive invasions... over almost every part of the land at the time. In that time, because of such poor defenses... the only way to protect the people was to set up armed guards to keep the spawn away. Each time these invasions came... it had that same trace of... pure concentrated evil in the air. That same something that I’m picking up in the air, however so small.

Beware of movement in the shadows, my friend. Beware of anything out of the normal wondering around... it could be a growing horror.

Something is coming.

I have to put my quill down for now... however I’m watching this very closely...
 

EvilPixieWorks

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Logged 10 of February

Now a few days in to the infestation revealed itself...

The best investigators still stand behind the fact this plague started at the township of Cove and is still growing around the lands. The Pixie Scouts have been over every square yard of the land looking for even a smidge of proof any kind of creature is responsible for this horror growing ever closer to our lives and livelihood. A most alarming turn of events has finally started to revealed itself! The news must be broadcast far and wide.

Within the sands of what used to be our front garden... a sticky sweet and highly toxic goo is starting to ooze from beneath the surface. The consistency is that of watered-downed honey and appears as different shades of blood... to being very washed out pink...within these small pools about the garden that seem to have different scents according to whatever color they are. The difference is ever so slight... and it's not of flowers or spices known.. not fruit... maybe it's a bit more like bark from a tropical tree... or something... it boggles the mind what exactly it is. I didn’t dare touch it! From what has unfolded thus far, it surely must be poisonous and the wondering healer hasn’t been seen about the town wood since the Halloween events. Rather, I contacted the highest level of chemist to come and examine the new emissions.

Samples had been gathered and bottled, then carefully transported next door to the Plant Shop chemistry lavatory where all of our potions are mixed and kegged. This, before testing could even be underway a perplexing turn. These little icky pools of poison are quite noxious too. The chemist, upon opening the flasks within the tiny laboratory... whatever that odder of, what I can only assume is some kind of tropical bark, overtook the chemist and she just barely made it out of the building before passing out on to the bricks just outside. The room itself has been deemed too dangerous to even return. Once fully revived, she said the mystery goo had expanded within the flask, ruptured the vials and started eating away at the stone table the testing equipment had been sitting. She instantly felt lightheaded and unable to breath, staggering back to the teleporter out.

This is a horrid turn! What of the pools in the front garden! People come and go so quickly, it must be only the fresh air that keeps them safe as they shop and load vendors.

The investigation is far from over. Its time to alert the guard.

The front garden last week:

Mall Garden with Sand 2020.png

The front garden today:

Mall Garden with Sand 2020 2.png
 

EvilPixieWorks

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Logged: 13 February.

Beware of the pixie commandos.

It's starting to happen. This blight... this plague... this horror... what killed the front garden at the Red & Purple Mini Mall garden and then started leaking sticky sweet goo... it's starting to come in to focus. Samples were collected and sent off to the best laboratory in the entire kingdom and the tropical bark smelling substance has been identified as cinnamon. This a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus Cinnamomum and found in the tropical forests in the south lands. The toxic effects of the goo cause one to become dizzy, nauseous, and otherwise dopy. The substance could be a neve agent or to otherwise fog the mind with confusion.

This morning, alien footprints were found in the dampened grass after a long night’s rain. As if something or someone was taking shelter from the storm... and the prints were far too large to be that of human, elf, or anything known.

A call went out to guards to protect the town.

No sooner than the first pixie archers appeared then something was spotted lurking around the trees on the outskirts. The commando that spotted the creature yelled “It was winged!” as she fired the first arrow at the figure moving in the trees. As we watched for the body to fall out of the tree... it vanished. No question, the arrow met it's mark... but no proof of what the arrow struck. It was described as completely unlike pixie kind, a great deal larger... about the size of an 8-year-old male human child, but chubby and armed with a red bow and quiver, wearing nothing more then a scrap of cloth... “It had wings.” She proclaimed.

Before a survey could truly be completed, an arrow shot at the small search party just missing one of the party’s heads... however pixies are far too quick to be taken so easily. Other guards had stayed on the rooves of the town buildings returned fire, striking the perpetrator. Before the body could fall and vanish, the reconnaissance party was already back on the high ground ready for an invasion. We must recall the pirate hunting kill-crew, feed and ready the mighty pets, load the cannons, ready the explosive potions, and defend our home!

“Gather all the arrows in the storehouse!” What is not an easy task. “Prepare for invasion!!!”

*The large bell in the church’s tower sounds.*

*A horn sounds, echoing around the surrounding trees*
 

EvilPixieWorks

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Logged: 14 February.

They brought... CANDY?!!!

And... what?! Flowers??? That’s insane!

“IT’S A TRAP!” The Candy Bishop screamed, pointing over at the locked and barred doors of the First Church of Candy.

It turned out the red-foil covered heart-shaped box was not full of candy but explosive. As the archers struck the 2 wigged chubby intruders down a few yards before the door, causing the box to fall and exploded in a mighty building-shaking crash, it caused the entire guard to attack from the rooftops and the tamers charged from behind the enemy lines. The gigantic dogs normally never like meat... but they sure seemed to love the flesh of these creatures. The nightmares had no problem doing their job, throwing the intruders left and right, as they fell to the ground and vanished back to whatever hell they came from. Mages stood protecting the archers from return fire. Potted plants around the palace, struck wit these odd red arrows, quickly withered and died like a balloon losing its air. Then the purple rain of potion filled bottles filled the air... causing the buildings to vibrate, shake, the pops and bangs driving hearing from our little pointed ears... and a cloud of foul smoke rose without causing the enemy any relief. We just continued the defense.

They came...

And they came...

And just as we thought they would get a clue and stop? They kept coming.

Apparently, they never defended themselves from hordes of angry pixies. Unlike fairies who are mostly harmless unless those with evil karma wonder too close... pixies are driven by raw emotion if that be passion or rage.

We wouldn’t give up. We couldn’t! Not for our sworn duty to serve the masses. We wouldn’t submit or even run out of ammunition. Not with our best fletcher stockpiling and selling arrows and bolts for the last 18 years. Not with our most skilled guard with blade, hammer, and axe dashing about removing head from shoulders as fast as they could. They just wouldn’t take the hint this was the wrong place to attack.

Dead Cupid.png

They just kept coming... and coming. Yet the pixie snipper squad never tired and the ammo never dwindled. It was about that point someone noticed the invaders struck an amazing resemblance to a statue sitting by the Red & Purple Mini Mall’s front door. Where it came from was anyone’s guess... but any effort to remove it became totally impossible. As the invading army broke from one wave to the next... efforts to destroy the statue hit it with wave after wave of explosions, blasts, arrows, and even axes. The air was becoming increasingly harder to breathe when suddenly... an arm fell off the statue. Then it's head. Next was it's bow and that arm. Next, the rest of the mass started turning to dust and fell to the side of the plinth. With the dust blowing away in the shockwaves of explosions defending the town... finally a body became the last to fall.

It was over. Finally.

:thumbup: Happy Single Awareness Day! :mf_prop:


The Red & Purple Mini Mall, independently serving Atlantic since 2002. For the people, by the people. Everyone welcome.

18 years and more to come!

Thank you to EVERYONE for making it possible.
 
Last edited:
Top