[color=c4df9b]"Wyrmbender."[/color]

Hrefna [i]Wyrmbender[/i].

The runes inscribe themselves onto the naked parchment with too little trouble, lines of dark smoke curling around the beaten off-white. I haven't ever found myself wanting for dexterity above a pen in the time I've been here. It must mean this mastery was beaten into my muscle, not my mind.

[color=c4df9b]"Hyselia Erenhart. Waaater mage. Gotcha."[/color] I repeat as I write, darting down to the next line as our paladin lists off her credentials with a hmph at the end. I'm guessing here, but I don't get the sense I'm necessarily the scoff's intended target. [color=c4df9b]"Rylia Ainsberg. Paladin, Saint Saaaalva. Great."[/color]

Maybe it is... The name of her academy falls flat in my face, and my tongue doesn't terribly feel familiar with the words the same way my hands do writing. I glance up, but Hrefna seems like she's (unwittingly) thrown me a lifeline with her heckling. So the Paladin's not a big drinker, then. Good to know— either that, or very selective with whom she cares to imbibe. Good to know too.

On the last space, I quickly scrawl down the pseudonym I've been answering to this month. Barely, almost caught ahead of time, I feel my brow furrow. Under the three real names, with real histories and stories behind each listing, it's hard not to feel how hollow my gut feels when the adjective and noun ring out back to me in my head, bouncing around in so much empty space.

But there's nothing I can do about it. I tap the point of my pen against the tail end of the final stroke, before stowing the thought for the ruminations that populated dead time, like the long trek out to this farm we were all due for. [color=c4df9b]"Right, that's all. Won't keep you longer, thanks for pitching in. West gate in two hours."[/color] A reminder more for myself than them. I roll up the parchment and tap it against the wood as I step away— like knocking door to exit, almost. Might be I just like hitting on something.

Would definitely explain the stick.

[hr]

[color=c4df9b]"Fletcher, right? Evening, man."[/color] I greet the farmer from further back in our group. Not a big sufferer nor study of pathogens here, so my immediate use is pretty limited while we approach things from this immediate level, but I'll take what notes I can. Firstly, he's gone and quarantined those sheep that have been infected by whatever these weeping sores are. That takes a lot of legwork off our plate in separating them out from the herd as a whole, even if it doesn't prove to be contagious in the end.

Regarding that, he looks pretty hardy for a geezer even after getting them all penned off to the side, so it's nothing that would leave a man worse for wear to be interacting with regularly. If we're here for a good while trying to twist this thing around until it breaks the answer open for us, that's one less safety concern we'll have to deal with, most likely.

Finally, I look to the rest of the flock, those that weren't afflicted yet. I remember the initial dispatch mentioning that they get awful skittish in the evenings. Only so much light left in the day as we have, while the others are busy investigating potential disease, I guess it'd make sense for me to mind whatever's spooking the rest— try and guess where that 'unclean presence' might be skulking around further off ahead of time. I figure there's likely to be somewhere they feel is much less safe than wherever they end up retreating to, when grazing time's up.

[color=c4df9b]"Think I'll defer to keener schooling on them few,"[/color] I mention to the rest of the party, figuring they [i]probably[/i] can't read my mind no matter how much sense I think I'm making. [color=c4df9b]"I'll let everyone know when the rest of the flock starts getting cold feet."[/color]