2020-03-12 - There Is Trouble With The Trees

August has no idea what to expect, so he's packed the same variety of items as last time (Leatherman, LED flashlight, heavy duty rope, flare gun and flares, a shiny new handgun--sorry Ruiz, he went with Easton's suggestion, as well as some herbicide, a small batch of Hoagland's, and other odds and ends like a hatchet and am ice axe), all in a very small hiking pack. He's in heavy duty hiking gear, and arrives with Isabella, as his car is in the process of being made trade-in worthy.

He follows their guide without hesitation, nodding for the others to keep up. "Don't use your power unless you have to," he warns.

It's been around a week since she has returned from England and already she finds herself back here, and without an Anne to rely on to open a door to the Veil. Thankfully, it's a skill that Isabella hasn't forgotten - she's just reluctant to use it unless absolutely necessary. With Ciprian unable to open a Door wide enough for the rest of the party to get through, the newly-minted Doctor Reede assists by adding her own psychic weight to it, and manages to get it open enough for all of them to enter. And while she's heard of the gnomes, this is actually her first time seeing one.

She lets August deal with it, though she stares in disbelief when Horlin vanishes into the bushes. "They always like that?" she wonders, hitching up her standard Veil Exploration pack and her fingers finding the gun at the waistband of her jeans. She's also got a hatchet braced against her belongings, just in case. "So what happened to your car, anyway?"

Ciprian is clearly grateful for Isabella's assistance, shooting her a smile as they make it through. He looks a little bit apprehensive about the whole thing -- there's a tension in his shoulders, and the smile is just a bit tight, even though it's obviously genuine. "Thanks," he says with a note of apology as he looks around to the others, reaching up to rub a hand over his forehead. He quiets then in the face of the gnome, and his eyebrows raise. However, he doesn't say anything, though there's a nod to August when he warns them not to use their powers if they can help it.

Finch is here and ready to work. She's in her 'Out on a Limb' coveralls over jeans and a sweatshirt, just for a bit of padded protection if she needs it. She has her work boots on as well, and goggles on her head, for eye protection just in case things start flying. She has a small backpack slung over her shoulders, with her Veil trek gear in it, which is basically her birding gear from when she was in the Ornithology program at Cornell.

When they step through and are greeted by the ugly ass gnome, Finch can't help but make an 'eek' face. Sure, she will pet a prismatic Utahraptor, but a wee zombie garden gnome is startling to her. As they head through, she tries to chalk mark their path on the nearest trees, but she suspects the forest will obscure or remove the marks, because this place is a jerk like that. Speaking of jerks, the gnome ditches them. "Well that was rude."

Hyacinth came prepared. She came equipped wearing the largest, tallest most fashionable hat she could find in case there is any question between she and some gnome as to whose authority is important here. Perhaps against what one might expect she does have a small backpack with her with essential tools. August said forest so she thought spiel, basic tools, a ball of twine rope, lunch in a bento box, emergency spare battery, and a nail repair kit. One never knows.

"Gray Harbor happened to his car. Why didn't you have Itzhak look at it?" Looking around her nose wrinkles slightly. "Well isn't this place very...natural."

"Yeah, they're just...like that." August grimaces as he watches Horlin vanish. "Thanks," he calls after the gnome. Of his car, he says, "It got fried." Past exonerative tense is go. His look implies there's a lot to this story he's not going into. "And he's fixing it so I can trade it in. It's for a ton of miles on it, though." He shrugs, eyes the path.

"Here we go," he said, hitching his backpack and heading forward. He glances at the trees around them on this path, checking for signs of the graft, particularly if it spread like the chalk did. And, well, for signs of anything else odd.

A returned smile is flashed towards Minerva's older brother, and a familiar face after their last library adventure. "No worries, normally I just stand aside and let the lighthouses take over. Good to know I'm not completely devoid of talent in that regard though." There's an apprehensive glance at the forest around them, the open spaces making her feel around for the bottle of Prozac in her pocket. Isabella takes a breath, and the suggestion of a longer story has her turning her eyes to her fellow field researcher. She doesn't press it. Hyacinth also gets a smile. "Sounds legit," she replies, and a wave to Finch - who she doesn't know well, but recognizes from past misadventures, as well as the additional interest drawn from the fact that she is now aware that she's Javier's daughter, forever late to the town's rapidly turning gossip wheel.

She follows after August, sturdy, but worn hiking boots crunching into ice and damp Spring detritus.

Aidan has also never met a gnome -- or most of the people assembled, I think, so they've all gotten the oh-hey-I'm-Aidan-nice-to-meet-you about the time everyone's together and about to head through, which is something he hasn't figure out how to do himself as yet and therefore very interesting. He's dressed more or less or the situation, which is to say jeans (albeit red ones), boots, t-shirt and open flannel and polar-bear hoodie under the leather jacket, with gardening gloves 'cause they're gonna maybe-probably fight trees, right? And like Finch, he has goggles on his head today, though that may or may not be event-relevant. They look neat. He doesn't have a whole handy pack of survival stuff, alas, but there's things in his battered backpack and 'hatchet' did come to mind as 'a thing you might want while fighting wooden stuff if you can't burn it or something', so there we are. "I kinda imagined gnomes a little bigger," he remarks after Horin's left them, "and maybe kinda... less teeth."

Javier's daughter indeed, if the dirty look the departing gnome is given is any indication. Finch follows August, her head on a swivel, looking for any glints of movement along the trail. "So should I even ask how we find our way back if our guide just vamoosed?" she queries.

The voice gets louder and Hya tells the young woman, Finch, "The same way we get everything we need; we carve a hole." Looking around she calls back, "No they must not. WHO is your representative? We wish to speak with them."

Aidan's introduction actually gets more than a polite, returned greeting. Green-and-gold eyes find the young man's. "You're a Kinney?" Isabella wonders. "I-- "

But whatever else she's about to say is cut off when the forest becomes more defined, ambiguous lines solidifying to sharper relief. She doesn't have the knowledge base to identify the evergreens as their proper species, she leaves that to the Combat Botanist, but what does capture her attention almost immediately are the incongruous faces worked on the boles and the chalk marks. "August, you mentioned..." She tries to gesture to the lines on the bark that she can see, and would have said more, again, but now the trees are calling for them to die.

She doesn't reach for a weapon, not yet. "....I definitely vote for some degree of diplomacy in this instance. Thankfully we brought a capable advocate." A quick glance towards Ciprian. He's a lawyer, right?!

August makes a face as he identifies the type of tree. "Yeah." When he sees the chalk, he sighs. What will a graft do? Question asked and, quite horribly, answered.

He pulls up short when the voices speak, stopping dead in his tracks. "Oooooh boy," he murmurs, and shifts close to Ciprian. "We came help you," he says, raising his voice so it'll carry.

Finch has a really good question, though one that Aidan doesn't find much time to wonder about before Weird (okay, Differently Weird) Trees. Just about long enough to give Isabella a nod, and a curious look, before other curiosities take priority.

"Hey, so those chalk marks you mentioned--?" he starts, Augustward, not getting any further before the trees have their own things to say. Cheery things! From Trees With Faces. Good times. Well. "Hi!" he greets them, "We'd kinda rather not, so, maybe we can talk about it and work out something else? Like, what do you actually need that isn't us dying and can we maybe help or something?"

Well, that's comforting. If Ciprian had been apprehensive before, it's nothing compared to when he hears those voices begin. He barely has time to register the chalk markings before he's taking a half-step back, looking sharply around in the directions of the voices. So, basically almost all the directions. He stays quiet for the moment, poised to do, well...something.

That something is illuminated by Isabella's suggestion, and he looks over at her, eyebrows raising. There's only a moment's hesitation, though, before he says, "...yes. Good for us." There's a touch of dryness to his tone, but there's a very brief smile as well, even if it doesn't quite make it all the way up. He looks over at August with another nod, before he turns his gave toward the trees. "Let's all just take a moment to discuss why we're here."

Finch stares at the creepy tree faces with a wrinkling of her nose. "Man, I wonder if the dryads know about this. They are probably really pissed," she comments idly. The calls for their death make her eyes widen and she calls back, "Hey! We're just here to help! What is it with this place and ingratitude!?" She narrows her eyes to try and scan the health of the face trees though with her Spirit Sense.

August gives Finch a Look of 'please do not invite more trouble than I am already in'. "Yeah. Those are ours. So if I had to guess, the graft...propagated. Like the chalk." He peers skywards, not sure if he can expect to see whomever's speaking. He bites his lip, reaches out to examine the trees with spirit, to see how different they are from, well, actual Sitka spruce.

Finch's expression falls to something sad. "They're sick, they hurt all over, achy and stiff, like they have arthritis, even the little ones," she says to the other. "It's making them very unhappy. They feel like we did on like, day three of that Flu that went around," she explains. She looks to August, "Think we can heal whatever is wrong with them?" she asks, concern furrowing her brow. She heals dinosaurs, saves yule cats and displacer beasts, and makes friends with plants. She is so going to get eaten over here eventually.

August nods at Finch, expression distant. He's happy to let people like Hyacinth and Ciprian attempt to talk their way out of this. In the mean time... "It's infected them. Like a parasite." He looks at one of the chalk marks. "We're...infectious, over here. Life from the real is, I mean." He clears his throat, calls to the voices, "Will you let us try to heal one?"

Finch staggers back a few steps as the tree falls, and the giant Ent rises. "NO we really want to help you!" she shouts, even as she pulls her goggles down over her eyes in case of flying debris. She holds her hands in front of her and her fingers move in a little dance, like a puppeteer pulling strings, sending strands of Spirit energy towards the massive, angry tree. But it refuses to let it in. She grits her teeth in frustration and lets out a stream of curse words in Spanish. She learned those first. Thanks Iggy and Javier!

The answer is 'no we just want you to die' and well, August sure does a good job of basically doing that. Something gives--broken ribs? hernia? and before he can think to say or do anything except shield himself, he blacks out.

Hyacinth has really had it. SHe demanded to see their manager as imperiously as she could and now? Now they are throwing things at her. Right mental note: call Nicole in teh morning to get all the sap out of her hair. Step two? Keep Ciprian from being smooshed. "That's it. You get anyhting stuck on me and I'm making you into a bench so you can kiss my backside, tree!"

The trees attack, and Ciprian can't do much else but attempt to throw up a shield. It doesn't do much good -- he gets pelted by branches, one of them getting stuck in the chest. He stumbles, managing to keep his feet...until he's felled by a sharp hit to the head by a pinecone. He falls to the ground, unconscious.

"August! Ciprian!" They go down fast, and hard, and Isabella grits her teeth. As always, whenever threatened, her powers lash out to protect her, minimizing her own injuries though she doesn't go completely unscathed. A pinecone drills on her arm, leaving a nasty bruise, and another bounces off her leg, but since she's already running towards the fallen lawyer, she barely notices. She removes the hatchet from her pack, and in a telekinetic wave, sends the spinning blade towards the nearest homicidal tree in his direction.

"Dammit!" Aidan never expects things to want to talk these days, but he still lives in hope. He darts aside, managing to just avoid getting pelted with pinecones, doing his best to steel himself for... well, more of that. And two of their number go down. He darts toward the closest of them, Ciprian, to try to help.

Finch moves over to where August is dropped by the Ent, and she crouches beside her boss and sorta other dad despite refusing to acknowledge that. She lays her hand on his forehead and mumbles, "Wakey Wakey, Roen, we need you up and at em." Her Spirit energy flows into the man and wakes him, just in time for him to see one of the big elder trees throw pinecones at her and nail her so hard in the chest it throws her several feet away, with the sickening crunching sound of bones breaking in her clavicles and sternum.

August comes to just in time to see Finch go down under a hail of pinecones. He rolls over and coughs, getting sick despite himself. "Fucking hell," he coughs, getting to his feet and helping Ciprian up. He pulls his hatchet out of his bag, nods at Isabella. "Do like she is," he says, and heads over to Finch.

"Someone see to him," Isabella calls out to the rest, but given her lack of skill as a healer, she doesn't chance making Ciprian's state worse. So she simply acts like his shield, standing over his body and weaving threads of her own power outward. Her spinning hatchet is one that she calls back, reaching out to snatch the handle from the air when it returns to her. And then sharp eyes catch what happens to the tree that she chopped up.

"The grafts!" she realizes. "If we can just remove them off the trees, they'll defend themselves against them! ...I think! I don't know, I'm not a botanist!"

Aidan's attempt may not have worked immediately, but maybe it did some good, because Ciprian's eyes do open a few seconds later, and he blinks several times, shaking his head as though to clear it. It brings a wince, but he does manage to get up, with August's help. He accepts the axe with a nod, taking a deep breath and readying himself to do just that.

Hyacinth dodges and tries to distract the trees. The people falling get an alarmed look that doesn't evoke a panic response so much as it evokes an immediate action response. "Izzy pick one. These sons of birches are going down." yeah it's carpenter vs tree with lighting striking the tallest thing around and bad puns. Oh yeah it's that kind of battle.

Aidan was already seeing to Ciprian... except it didn't do any good, which has him hesitating and staring at his hand long enough to get hit right in the head with a pinecone. "Ow!" he complains, stepping aside, just as Ciprian seems to come around. He offers a hand up as well, and seeing August has Finch... and considering how well things just went... turns his attention back to the trees, hands flexing as he focuses on one. Isabella's suggestion gets a nod; he can try that, maybe? It's probably a better plan than setting them on fire.

Finch wakes up thanks to August but everything in her general torso area hurts like a "MOTHERFUCKER!" she shouts, then regrets shouting because that hurt even worse. She waves August off, "Go, do something to stop this, I'll keep people up." She crawls on hands and knees over to the next person she sees on the ground, Aidan, to try and revive him.

Apparently all Ciprian needed to actually get his head in the game was to have it smacked in the head with a pinecone, because when he flings that axe toward the tree, it goes exactly where he wanted it to go and does exactly what he wanted it to do. There's a yell of triumph that seems to surprise even him when he lets it out, but he reaches up to catch the axe, the handle smacking into his hand as he prepares for another attack.

August gets Finch up, wincing as he moves. "Yeah," he says, panting and watching Isabella and Ciprian. Well, August has one additional...axe-like thing, and that's an ice axe. Maybe that's close enough? Only one way to find out.

Hyacinth's directive to tell her to pick one has the hatchet spinning back out of Isabella's grasp and rocketing towards an elder tree this time, just in time to get pelted by pinecones. "Ow! OW!" The last due to the pinecone in the gut that nearly has her doubling over. "Jesus Christ!" It's fine. Everything is fine! Gritting her teeth against the scrapes and bruises, when her distant Kinney cousin goes down, and with Ciprian back up, she leaps across the battlefield to defend the newest fallen body. She pulls her control on her hatchet when it whirls in the air, snatching it into her grip by the handle. She launches it again, aimed for another elder tree.

Hyacinth takes a deep breath. Through gritted teeth she listens for those behind her, "We'll work on keeping them impared." There's a sigh where she admits to Aidan and Izzy next to her, "I have never been so gald for my acquisitions. Let's make tinder."

Aidan is apparently just entirely on the fritz today, because the only thing that happens from his attempt is that he gets a branch squarely to the chest, one that lifts him right off his feet and sends him sprawling on the forest floor, out cold.

Finch sends a Spirit jolt through Aidan with a hand on his forehead. "You alive there, pal? Good. Go make some kindling outta those trees. I'm just gonna lie here for a bit." She isn't moving anywhere. Moving grinds bone against bone in a manner that makes her want to vomit from pain.

She makes plenty of timber, as it turns out.

But Isabella doesn't have the time to get cocky about it because javelins made of spruce launch towards her chest, and as the grafts fall away on the last Elder tree that she attacks, she's impaled by them. Blood bubbles out from her mouth - but thankfully the tree ceases attacking by that point. Garish crimson spreads from her clothes as she collapses on her knees, palms bracing herself upwards. But she can't breathe, cheek pressing into the dirt as she chokes into it.

August lays there, pointed at, chest a bloody mess from pinecones and branches. The ice axe sits on the ground in easy reach for the Elder to take. And hey, when he comes to, he'll happily spread the word about what not to do.

And order some more hatches and ice axes for everyone.

Hyacinth is trying (trying) to divert as much focus from the group as she can and who knows if it is working as planned. Izzy Borden over there though seems to make short work of the future dinette set. When she falls he watches the others and crouches by her. Unshouldering her backpack she carefully rolls Isabella to her side so she doesn't wind up with dirt in her lungs. Hella eew. She pulls out a small canteen and a portable collapsable shotglass and pours holding it under Isabella's nose and pulling her hair from her face. "Cm'on. Wakey wakey..." Amazing what 40 year old Balvenie can do.

And August is down again, but it looks like the trees were dealt with in between her being up and down and up again. She crawls back over to August and presses her hand to his forehead again, her other arm braced on the ground.

Perhaps it's the strangeness of the Veil, or the fact that Isabella just really loves scotch, but she wakes up immediately to the scent of a 40 year old Balvenie. Looking up with glassy but grateful eyes towards Hyacinth Addington, she reaches for the glass. "You're the only person I know who would have this sort of thing in hand," she croaks from around the copper-tang coating her tongue. Doesn't stop her from taking a good swallow though, and starts to rise, pressing a hand against her wounds to keep pressure on.

Ciprian stands there warily as the trees disperse, his eyes on the very large one. It's only very slowly that he straightens up from his position -- hey, at least they're being allowed to live! That's good! He turns to assess the damage then, swaying a little bit on his feet, before he starts toward August, Giving Finch space to do what she needs to do but ready to help the other man stand when he comes to.

Aidan takes a deep and immediately somewhat regretted breath when Finch brings him 'round, and sits up. "Thanks," he says, and takes a quick if woozy look around to assess the situation. Hooray, not being fought! Less hooray, multiple people down. A moment of triage, and-- Finch drags herself past him as he's moving to get to August. And Hyacinth's bringing Scotch to Isabella, which seems like a good start, but considering the blood and all, he heads that way to see whether he can do a bit more.

"...they try to kill us and they're the ones walking off with loot?" Isabella grumbles from around a mouthful of blood and scotch, watching the elder tree flounce away with her hatchet and the others' axes. "I demand a re-do of today." With Aidan's help, still sitting on the ground with Hyacinth nearby, she flashes him a smile. "Thanks." She feels a little better, though her torso still feels punctured. She'll have to have that seen to later.

August starts, rolls over, groans. He grips Finch's arm in a thank you, shudders when she heals the worst of it. "Don't make your dad come and kick my ass, yeah?" He murmurs a thanks to Ciprian for the help getting up, pulls out his hefty medkit from the hiking pack. Unfortunately, Finch's injuries are a bit beyond August's shaking hands. And, well. This was his fault. He's not going to let her take the worst of it. So he heals her injuries in turn, slowly gets to his feet. He's going to pay for that, no doubt. So it goes.

"Thank you--all of you. This was," he eyes one of the graft scabs on the ground, "my fault. So, now we know. Don't...do things, to things over here. Not like that, anyways."

Aidan kneels by Isabella, setting a hand very gently over the wound to her abdomen, and... still nothing happens. He looks slightly shaken by this... probably this. "Me too," he agrees about the re-do, and hesitantly tries his hand (ha) at her other wounds. Those, at least, cooperate, which gets a deep sigh of something resembling relief, even if he still ends up staring at his hands. "Um. So does-- anyone else still pretty hurt?" If trees are going to take his hatchet, that's fine with him.

Finch shudders as August heals her, whimpering as bones knit back together. She tries to do the same in turn for Isabella, but things took a lot out of her and it fizzles. "Sorry," she mumbles to the woman apologetically. "I think we should probably burn those scab things," she notes to August.

Hyacinth eyes the lot of them and says, "Come on. I'm taking you back... to not the hospital. We can rally and heal up where there's room to rest. The lot of you are... unfit to drive. I'll-" Her scratches where she was punctured burn but she's not by far and large injured, "I'll arrange it." Decorum to the end with this one.

"Yeah." August looks among the rest of them. "Gather them up? Bonfire back in the real?"

Aidan glances around, but even though people seem still hurt, no one seems to be volunteering a desire to be healed. He brightens slightly at August's suggestion, however. "Bonfire! Yeah. On the beach maybe? 'cause only sand around it's maybe good."

"Thanks guys, but I think the universe wills that I suffer through this one," Isabella tells Aidan and Finch with a smile. "Don't worry, I've had worse." She slowly starts to get back up - the Balvenie leaves her warm, and numbs the pain. "Shall we get going? Ciprian, I'll..." She winces. "I'll leave you to open up a Door again to get home." The suggestion to burn the grafts gets a wordless thumbs-up from the archaeologist.

August gets to patching everyone else up with the medkit. Because, well, that's something They don't give a shit about. He pauses to snappoint at Aidan. "Sounds pefect." After he finishes bandaging up Ciprian, he kneesl down and stares at the grafts. He's like that a while, expression distant. Then he shakes himself out and starts gathering the chunks of wood up into a plastic bag in his hiking pack. "So. Beach bonfire later. And don't...try to cross anything with stuff from the real." He glances up at Hyacinth. "You should tell Enzo that."

Ciprian helps August to his feet as well as he can, and when his wounds get treated by Finch and August, he gets immediately more steady. He nods once when Isabella speaks, and while he looks slightly apprehensive about it again, judging from his slight failure before, he steels himself, and then concentrates on a space before him, a frown coming to his face.

Hyacinth says dryly to August looking up, "Like his damned DNA? Noted." Looking to Isabella she frowns. Concern in the Hyaverse is shown through fretting and the amount of disapproval she invests into things. "Isabella, I'm having my car drive us back. You can stay at my place and I'll have your car moved tomorrow. I mean... you can argue with me but I'll win so." She blinks and screws the cap back on her liquor canteen. "You're welcome."

There's a concerned look over August, reaching out whenever he ventures close enough to squeeze her fingers into his shoulder, if he allows. "Hey, don't. It would have been terrible if we came away with nothing, and we didn't. Every little bit, right?" Her hand falls away, and with Hyacinth's visible concern, there's a quirked, if not somewhat pained grin. "I've got too many holes with me to argue, I'm relatively certain whatever reason I've got in me is leaking out as we speak, anyway." Her expression softens. "Thank you, Hyacinth. Everybody." With Ciprian successfully opening the door though, she tips him a salute, and she will follow with the rest once it's time to vacate.

"No crossing," Aidan agrees, wincing a bit as he pushes up to his feet again, and he gives Isabella an apologetic half-smile. "The universe is being kind of a dick, though. Sorry, anyhow." He helps to collect the dropped graft-bits up, shoving as much into his backpack as he can and carrying what he can get that won't fit there.

Finch moves with August to help treat people, and they manage to mundanely patch some things up for people.

It takes Ciprian a minute. Maybe it's because he's still shaken from being knocked unconscious by weird mutant trees, or maybe he's just got a case of performance anxiety. The portal flickers open, shuts again, flickers...Ciprian lets out a little grunt of frustration, and then one of effort, clenching a hand into a fist and bringing it down hard. When he does, that portal SLAMS into existence, as though it's been kicked open by an invisible foot. Take that, Veil. There's a little sigh of relief from the lawyer as he looks around at the others. "Let's get out of here," he suggests, as though they were going to do anything else, but he'll wait for everyone to leave before he'll go himself.

August nods at Isabella, more exhausted than anything else. He dredges up a small smile. "Sure am glad we came up with these packs," he says, and bobs his eyebrows.

He turns to watching Ciprian, evidencing not the least amount of impatience or concern. And sure enough, there it is, after some effort. "See?" He grips Ciprian's shoulder--gently--and nods. "After you," he says.