[center][h1][color=lightskyblue][b]Nemeia[/b][/color][/h1][/center]

Anxious mutterings had reached Nemeia like ill omens traveling on a cold wind. Word had spread quickly concerning the luckless strangers that had emerged from the woods surrounding the Pilgrim’s Caravan. Hoogarth, the hooman, the owl man in the common parlor, had told her. He had shared grimmer news still, relating what little the strangers had hoarsely breathed about haunted tombs and wandering undead that had assailed the strangers with cursed words.

She had listened quietly, tending as she saw to the sick. Hoogarth had departed, leaving her with a seasoned strip of jerky that staved off the hunger that had accompanied her since morning. She would remember his kindness.

A week on the road had passed far too quickly by her measure. Ministering to the sick, attempting to stave off the strange illness that afflicted more and more of the caravan had filled her days and nights traveling through the sea of boundless green. The sickness had proved resistant to mundane treatments and magical healing. It was only by a small mercy that it appeared to not yet have charted a fatal course in one of the afflicted pilgrims. The aberrant nature of the mysterious illness troubled her and she had begun to suspect a supernatural origin. Something in the forest. Something far beyond the merely mortal. 

The caravan navigator, Athulwin had said as much. He could name the illness no more than she could, but he had suggested that it almost seemed like a curse. The Dreamwalker, the old man, had told her they had to discover how the disease was spread. They had found no common cause. She could divine no easy answer. He counseled that they would have to uncover such facts in order to counter any powerful magic. She would have to continue seeking, to find answers, and to find a cure.

Beneath the broad canopy of the ancient forest, the moon and stars seemed far away. To see the moon more clearly would have been preferable, but Nemeia was not afraid, she knew that even in the darkness the moonlight was shining down on her. She did not need to see the sky, she knew that Valradun walked with her, she could feel it in her heart. Others were with her as well. Those that could help. Those that were willing to risk infection. Two carriages had been repurposed into infirmaries. Full of suffering travelers, they had become a necessity as the caravan’s pace slowed and the number of sick pilgrims grew. And yet, the work continued, as it had to. It was a bright light of compassion in the foreboding forest that filled Nemeia’s heart with much needed warmth.

Replacing yet another strip of thick cloth burned dry by fever from the head of an ailing wayfarer, Nemeia felt something stirring deep within her. She knew she could sit idly by no longer. Action was required. Great action! As Valradun would have wanted. As she wanted. The terrible disease that had overwhelmed the caravan had to be tackled head on. It was not unheard of for a sickness to stem from an undead barrow, given life by the proximity to the undead or whatever power had raised them.

Nemeia heard a commotion as she stepped into the shrouded daylight. She listened to a voice that boomed like a boulder thundering down a mountain. Extermination, the concept was not unfamiliar to her, although she viewed the undead with greater kindness. She felt no hatred, only sympathy for the misguided and misled spirits. Wretched beings that she suspected had been reanimated, most probably against their will, and cruelly torn from their deserved rest.

"Allow me to join you, Sir Stoneclaw," Nemeia said, her singsong voice ringing out pleasantly across the clearing as she approached the large man, the giant painted in shades of stone, "You speak of handling the undead, yes? I will help you bring peace to the unfortunate souls scattered in the nearby barrows."

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[i]Addressing:[/i] Galaxor [@Timemaster]
[i]Referencing:[/i] Hoogarth [@Lugubrious], Athulwin [@Tortoise], and Knossos [@Crusader Lord]