#fenixtj

"Healing springs, nu? Trolls, so stubborn..."

"I'll get Clem in one" Earl says "Then she can heal the rest if..."

And Jessica has a ribbon in her hair.

"Clem... heal Clem...." but Buce has no trouble getting the ribbon on her.

"oh.. sorry, lady I... " but it is too late. The spring ribbon gives a giggle that sounds like a young girl's... and then Jessica feels gut wound shift a bit... and then it hurts less.

A grunt. "Better." She admits.

"You too!" Fuss. She can't carry a troll!

Earl says to Zara "But darling... it might turn into a manly scar."

Buce grins "Ah, there it is, Sir Earl of Sammich... a scar or three lends gravitas to a man's form! It says I have arrived! And possibly nearly departed" And he nods to his liege "Parkay"

Yup, Jessica isn't hobbling at all now

As they make their way inside

She does walk carefully, but without agony. "Fontaine! Pants....."

"Feh."

"But the childlings aren't IN here, I was told it .. oh very well" Fontaine says... and there's a sound of pants coming on. "Safe!"

Jessica gingerly enters, Clem being carried, Earl dinged up, Zara fussing.....

"oh my" Fontaine says and helps guide folks into the water..clothes or not.

But his eyes fall on the staff... and narrow "I don't like that" The inaminae says simply

Yeah, Jessica keeps most of her clothes on.

Boots, socks, those can come off.

"Do you know what it is, Fontaine?"

He gestures... "it's waiting to take all of something or someone... and give it to the eye. Don't you see.. oh, of course you don't.." He makes a hand over it, and the staff..changes...oh it's still wood, but now it is far more polished and carved with words of power and runes and... a mark of a large eye sending death to all below it who behold

It doesn't take a LOT of education to recognize the reference to Balor, the Fomorian King of Dark legend

Hissssssssss.

Earl takes it out of hsi cousin's hand from her girp and puts it to the side away from her... and out of the pool

Fontaine says "it needs words.. I think..to make it feed. But when it feeds, it goes somewhere.. somewhere I don't think I'd like." He nods

Zara slinks towards the staff - rather serpentine herself in her fluid stalking, but one wouldn't tell her that.

Even Buce, who can be rather dim, doesn't. Might be ungentlemanly

Zara can sense the power of the staff, oh it was primed..ready to send it's power somewhere... to slay such a dream so it might not be reborn again but rather fuel someone

"A balor mark on the girl, and now this? Jessica, my friend, I think you have a problem."

Jessica allows the waters to work. "Lots of Balor around these days, yes."

Earl soaks in the water, well his legs... "I don't think whoever they were, that they were Balor. Nary a sidhe among them... and they had their own symbol"

"Mercenaries?"

"Or unwitting, as the girl."

"I was thinking mercs but... maybe the Balor had pressure on them" A shrug from earl

"Tomato, ToMAHto."

A flutter of eyes "You getting cheeky there, Westward?" Clem has revived

"Thy form revealed, no more may be concealed..." Zara coaxes the treasure. "Speak to me, serpent-tongued staff."

"Speak to an ingrate? Very well, the glamour so compels, but i have little affection for a backfiring weapon. I am loyal to House Balor" the staff says

"No, just saying that a merc by any other name...." She hushes as the staff speaks.

"Of course, you are most loyal. You were on a mission. How came you to be in the Rider's hands?"

Clem sits up in the water...

then stops whatever she was going to say, as clearly Zara is working.

"I was yielded up by her employer, oh most twisted of offspring. Through she did not know the full risks. hahah..no she did not"

"And who yielded you up?"

The staff fusses as if fighting this compulsion "One who, unlike you, knows loyalty. The Heir of Rathbone"

Jessica sits up.

"Tell me their name." A gentle press of will and magic - this is Zara's cantrip, and she is a Master of the Fae realm. How many can command words from a treasure?

"Fairfax Paler...." it spits out after trying to delay

Earl sits up "who?" But he doesn't break the cantrip

Fairfax is a name... that oes not ring bells. Vashti has made no mention