[h1] The Coilbrywen Saga [/h1]

[b]Wandering the wastes[/b]

"Boss... are you sure it was a smart idea to come to this world? Sure it isn't a collapsing magical rift like the one we have been stuck in for generations, but, hmm... it's a bit, well you know... Trash." Eimhir Pure-Voice complained, sighing as they still hadn't found a proper untouched forest to properly settle in this world, it had been two days since they had left behind the goddess and ventured out on their own in search of a new home in this new world.

"I will admit that the lack of a sun is discouraging, but look at the bright side, if everyone is dead, that is fewer people to come bother us." the elected boss of the group said. While initially, they were a group of 30, they decided to split into three to maximize their survivability in these wastes. "Furthermore Saraid Longtail has created some of the best endless bottles we have ever seen, each of these holds four times the water, so we are well supplied in that at least."

"Yeah, but Longtail went with Farseeing's gang, all we have is good old Gormal Black-Hair here, whose hammerspace ability is a pitiful two times bigger, and even then half of the bottles he enchants implode." a forager called Cailin said in a snarky tone.

"Why that is quite rude, do you have to stab at me like that? Isn't this land being painful enough to us." Gormal complained.

Another bickering session was about to start but was quickly interrupted by the whistle of Roswita Fastswinger, who was the only "monkey-legged" of the group of 30 arrivals. She was invited to the "elite" group formed by Farseeing when the 30 divided into gangs of 10, but had denied such a proposal by the fact she was a close friend of Cailin.

"Oh dear berry bushes, please tell me you found a forest," Eimhir begged the scout.

Roswita shrugged. "Not exactly a forest you see, but I saw humans, they are going, um, towards that direction, past those buildings. They didn't seem too dry ya know? So probably have a lot of food, it's not a proper forest but it's our best shot."

The group gulped at that, it was their best shot, but it was also worrisome that they were betting their little lives on that.

[b]The folding brush[/b]

"ROSWITA! ROSWITA! ROSWITA!" the goat-legged cheered as they threw their scout up and down in commemoration. Her plan had worked and they had found a somewhat decent forest to settle in by following the human group. The issue was that they were right by a human village, this could be big trouble. But there was no time to think about that right now, they had to prepare their new home first.

Elder Adelinde did not share their excitement, however. "I fear this forest while better than the wastes is worryingly lacking. There are no bees to work with for their wax, no berries, no flowers, not even spiders. What a terrible world this is."

Eimhir Pure-Voice stopped her happy moment to smile at the elder. "Don't worry Elder, I will prove today that I am the best Biomancer in a generation! I will turn even the hardest roots into succulent trees."

Adelinde nodded but then shook her head. "I appreciate your hope Eimhir, but there is a bigger issue, the human village, I worry that they will do something to us if we are found out."

"Aw come on, we have not even done anything bad to them! No child stealing or eating, no cattle raiding, no making weird symbols in their crops." 

"But people in this world are desperate. And desperate people are often violent."

"I feel like we are acting in prejudice, let's try an amicable approach." a younger Coilbrywen said, that same fluffy one that had dealt with the goddess. 

There was an air of doubt in the makeshift camp of the newly arrived species, but they agreed that perhaps they were being a tad too paranoid.

"Eimhir, could you change this dandelion flower for me? Make it so the puffs are more durable. I have a device in mind which I want to trade with the humans." the fluffy one proposed, Eimhir nodding and getting to work. She placed both hands around the flower, a green glow and sparks started to form around it. 

"I will have it ready by the arrival of the next morning." the biomancer declared.

The next morning, a human family of foragers started their daily routine of going to the forest to grab branches, roots, and herbs. It was a mother, a daughter, and a father. Exactly the sort of public the fluffy one had expected! She looked down at the little brush in her hand and smiled. 

She waited in a grove, calmly brushing her fluffy hair and humming, needless to say, the family was quite shocked when she saw the Coilbrywen. "What in the gods' name is that!?" the father said in shock at the weird humanoid.

"Oh me? I am just a child of the forest," she said with a giggle.

"Your hair is so fluffy miss." the little girl said.

"Why that is because I brush it every day with a very special brush made of forest flowers." she showed a little box to the girl, and the child was kid confused at that. It was some sort of box, not a brush. "Oh, I see you are confused, let me show you." the Coilbrywen continued, she took away the lid of the box revealing the folded hair within, then by placing the lid of the box back into the box but upside down, the hairs of the brush would go up as the lid moved against them.

[hider=The Hairbrush]
[img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/e7ec50f5-403f-4b03-b2a0-6c2c21597e4f.jpg[/img]
[/hider]

"Whoa! That is kinda cool!"

The fluffy one nodded and giggled. "Yes! I could be willing to trade it if... eh!?" her attempt to initiate a trade with the humans was interrupted when the father suddenly grabbed his axe, the towering figure looking menacingly towards the Coilbrywen.

"Husband what are you...?" the wife questioned. 

"Silence woman. You, forest beast, didn't you hear my daughter? She wants the brush. Give it to her, and maybe I will be nice enough not to chop your head away." 

The Coilbrywen gulped in shock at the man, soon engaging in her pitiful teary-eyed mode to see if she could convince him. "B-but... I built this device with great effort, I spent days searching for the flower and nights preparing the brush. You can't steal it..."

"Are ya calling be a thief goat-legged freak? Give me the brush. Now. And don't ever come near my family or the village ever again."

The fluffy one became too bothered and simply threw the brush at the man who was hit in the head before he could catch it. "Why you little...!" this time it was his turn to be interrupted as more of the Coilbrywen showed up, slinging stones at the man, forcing him to retreat in pain along with his concerned family.

"Are you okay young one?" Elder Adelinde said. "I knew we would need to keep a watch on you. I hope you are not too bothered by the brush. You did spend the night crafting it after all. Let's us go back to the camp and leave these humans alone, hopefully, this is the last time we interact with them..."

"No." the fluffy young one said. "This is just too much, I managed to talk down a bloody god from smiting us, who in all of the existence does that BRUTE think he is to threaten me like that? HUH?" the fake tears were gone, now there was just a very angry scowl. "He is going to pay."

"Don't threaten violence child, it is not our ways."

"Oh no, that man has to suffer, but I want something more," she smirked.

[b]Singing cow[/b]

Things hadn't been going well for the village. 

In the ruined wastes, water having just returned not too long ago, they still hadn't established a stable source of food to feed themselves, the area was mostly grasslands, too poor for crops but decent enough for grass, cows had once been domesticated in this region and after the worst of the apocalypse was gone they had managed to recover a few. They were the backbone of the village, the meat and milk provided were not only useful for the diet, it was a key source of trade with other more fortunate villages.

So anything happening to the cows was always a sign of great trouble, and that was exactly what had started to happen in the last few days. Right after her husband stole the comb from that goat girl and came to the village crying about how he was attacked without reason by the "forest demons". The village had made some halfhearted efforts to look into the forest, but most just took it as yet another tall story from a man who always spoke of slaying lion-dragons with his dad in his childhood.

Since then, things started to change. People, herself included, started to see spirits when resting time arrived, shining green, going all over their fields and vanishing before anyone could go near them. Then, the cows... became weird. Their milk turned sour and sticky, and their breath, by gods their breath became insupportable. It was a foul smell that forced the village to make them graze far away from their homes. Even their meat became hard to chew and gained a bitter flavor. Traders went from regulars to the village to outright avoiding it.

When she slept, she heard whispers in her head, coming from the roof, from the windows, "return it" "thief" "sinner". Her husband was having the worst of it, it seemed nature started to conspire against him, just the other day he was assaulted by a very angry squirrel, and it seemed birds gained particular aim when it came to hitting his head with their droppings.

"Husband, you should... return that haircomb. We shouldn't have stolen it from that girl..."

"Oh you really believed that little goat-legged thing didn't ya? Typical really, the monsters always aim for the weak-minded. Listen woman, I used to hunt things in the wilds with my da. Demons, fiends, aberrations. But I guess you are right, I thought about our girl and the brush and decided to just take that and not cause a scene in front of her, I should instead have beheaded that little bastard I should. End the trouble right there. In fact... Yeah. It's no secret. They must be behind all of this."

Without further thought, the man ran towards the center of the little village. "Brothers, listen, I have figured out the source of this curse. It's those damned forest fiends who attacked us! They must be poisoning our cattle and plan on killing us all when the darkness comes!" he declared. The villagers didn't have much of an option but to listen to the yelling man, and as desperate as they were, maybe, just maybe, this once he was telling the truth.

Then they heard the weirdest sound of their life. The mooing of a cow, but it had tone, it had a purpose.

"A liiiiaaarrr is amooooooong you! A thieeeeef of what is nooooooot his"

"His foooooouuulll aaacts bring the laaaaaannnddd foooouuuulllneeesss"

The villagers were in shock to find a cow not only singing, but also doing something somewhat close to a dance. It was surreal, to say the least. And the lyrics, of course, they started to think about what could it mean, someone stole something?

"Hey, Tark, when you found those fiends, you didn't... take anything right?"

"Hey... didn't you daughter, show up with a fancy comb these days? The one that is all shiny and new."

Questions started pilling up and soon the wife broke under the weight.

"Yes it is true. My husband did this to us. The forest children didn't attack us for no reason. No, Tark threatened them to not come near us ever again and outright stole that hairbrush my daughter has been using!"

From away, on a rooftop, Roswita giggled. "Well would you look at that, the plan has worked. Guess I should prepare the folks back home for the humans coming to say they are sorry.

The humans didn't lose any moment, as soon as they pieced the scene together they banded against the man, and after beating him, they forced him to march along with them to the forest.

"I... I am sorry." the man said, tears rolling after the beating he was given. "I shouldn't have stolen your brush. But... you shouldn't have brought forth this curse... OUCH!" he was punched in the head for speaking up to the "forest folk"

The fluffy one simply shook his head. "We didn't bring any curse, you brought it with you, stealing is wrong, especially from us, who are connected with this forest. When you stole from us, the land enacted its revenge upon you."

She then smiled as she got the brush back. "Thanks for returning it, but wouldn't you like to keep it? I have a trade pro..."

"No way ma." the little girl said. "That thing is bad luck and made the land mad with us!"

"Yeah, we won't bother you ever again forest folk, we will always ask and pray before taking anything from the forest and we will never take anything from you ever again." a villager said before they all hurried away from the Coilbrywen.

At this, the fluffy one sighed. "Oh damn it all. These humans sure aren't bright. There goes my trade opportunity."

"Well, at least they won't bother us and leave us in the forest, we can focus on making food for ourselves now."

"Yeah but I still feel bad, once I come of age, my title is going to be Fails-at-Deals at this rate."

"Oh? We were thinking God-Appeaser but if you prefer that~" one of the older Coilbrywen teased.


[hider=Summary]
1: The Coibrywen have divided into groups of 3 for survivability, using a special ability to make containers big on the inside, they are well supplied to explore the wastes in search of a proper forest for them to live in. They find humans and sneakily follow them into a forested area.

2: Settled in the forest, they don't find any of the typical targets of biomancer magic in it, before they can start thinking out of the box on how to mutate plants and animals, a young one among them proposes trading with the nearby humans and creates a fancy hair brush as a potential trade item. When she tries, however, the brush is stolen by a human who threatens her with an ax.

3: Out on revenge, the Coilbrywen start to mutate the local cows to make them increasingly terrible, they breathe smells putrid, their milk is horrible and their meat is bitter. The man who stole the brush tries to rally the rest of the village against the Coilbrywen but when he gets their attention a cow starts to dance and sing about his foul deeds. Scared, the villagers simply beat the man up and give the comb back, however they are so scared now that trade becomes impossible.
[/hider]

Coilbrywen wiki page
[url]https://divinus-mkv-encyclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Coilbrywen[/url]