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The bard nodded towards the dwarf, making a languid gesture with his right hand towards the lutecase strapped to the the back of his steed, while keeping an attentive ear to the conversation Yester and the girl were having. "Oh, I'd be delighted to, sir! It all depends on the nature of the tales, of course, but I'm sure you have a vast number of adventures to tell." The bard said with bright sincerity.

They had already been riding for a few minutes, the town no longer in sight. Fields of barley, wheat and rye stretched out as far as the eye could see, with the farmers working the land stopping their labour and turning around to see the travellers, hands up to their eyes to shield them from the strong morning sun. "And I don't need payment! It'll be something to thank you for your assistance in this particular adventure, which I'm sure will add new interesting elements to the tale!" The threw the dwarf a smile.

The Dwarf nodded his approval. Valder couldn't help but feel like he just got a good deal."Of course, Master Human. You have my thanks. I shall tell you the tales I want songified when we rest up and camp." Valder spoke as he took in the scene."For now, I would like to get to our destination as quickly as possible."

"Oh, well I'm a Florin. More specifically, the Florin are the people of Griax. Griax is an isolated foresty country if you aren't familiar with my home country either." Isabelle explained. "It's really nice there. Despite all those stories about zombies, ghosts, living skeletons, and that kinda thing."Isabelle said sheepishly. "But winters there are hte worst!"She added. "I almost got frostbite one time when I was still living there!"Isabelle said.

"Zombies, ghosts, living skeletons, my oh my, how charming." Yester exclaims jokingly, before adding "But to be honest I might have heard bout it from a passing traveller or two. You're a long way from home." The former waitress is curious on what has brought the gal so far from said home, but keeps her questions to herself. Tough she liked her, there was something off about her, especially the foul smell, and she wasn't sure if asking to early on might ruin things as they stand. Besides, was it even her business? Isabelle had proven to be pleasant company, so why not just keep thing at that for a while?

"Yes, so would I-" The bard looked like he was going to speak some more, but then his face grew curiously quiet as the girl continued the description of her country, eyes set on the road and mouth set into a still pleasant, but thinner, line. "If you'll excuse me, my lord Master Dwarf." The bard said with a cheeky smile, and encouraged his horse to go forward to where Marchesa was.

They rode side by side ahead of the others, each silent as they continued to listen to the conversation between the tavern waitress and the reeking girl. Marchesa shot him an apparently charming look, indicating that yes, she was perfectly aware of the conversation going on and no, Ben shouldn't interfere in the matter. Ben then shot her an equally charming look, indicating that he knew that she knew that they didn't suffer undead, specially in this particular venture. Marchesa gave him a still rather charming stare that possibly meant that he did not know if the girl was truly an undead, and that smiting someone right at the beginning of their quest would be of bad timing. Ben threw her one last perfectly amenable look, indicating that they would have to deal with the girl sooner or later, and rode back.

"The lady says we still have a few miles to go before a stop, Valder. Preferably near a stream of sorts. Hopefully our elven friend there will assist us with that."

"A few hours? Fair enough. This trip has only just begun and already my butt's getting sore from this saddle. Bloody hell, at the end of this I need a new saddle." He audibly complained as he rode on. He listened in on the conversation going on behind him, but decided against commenting on it. A land of undead horrors and ghosts being nice? Doubtful at best.

"Trust me, it's alot better than the rumors make it out to be."Isabelle said in a reassuring tone. "I know."Isabelle said in response to Yester's comment about her being far from home. "I figured I'd travel around and see how everything else was outside of Griax."Isabelle said.

As the others who overheard the conversation between the to women, Bluejay glanced momentarily at Isabelle, and his grim expression remained unchanged. It'd be easy to hazard a guess that his own thoughts echoed those of others: the concern, the doubt, the overall idea that this girl truly was strange. Such a guess wouldn't be entirely correct, though.

"I paid a visit to Griax, once," the elf mused. He spoke softly, and at such a low pitch that his unexpected voice was easy to miss. "I had heard that some of the greatest medicines and elixirs were developed there."

He turned himself as the elk continued forward, unperturbed. Bluejay stared at the odorous female, no smile, no grimace, nothing. "What life do you value most, miss Isabelle?"

Yester nods in response to Isabelle, however is taken by surprise when Elodar suddenly speaks. Curiously she looks in his direction. The question at the end stands out to her. 'What life do you value the most?' The question had almost seemed like it'd come out of the blue and the brunette didn't really get what he'd meant by asking such.

The bard listened to the elf speak with bemusement. Of course he had to ask such a question after such long periods of silence. Ben was quite interested in the girl's reply, though: any additional information about her country (and herself) would be useful in the long run. He pondered on how she would react to being offered food: undead generally didn't bother with digestion. The rider tried to remember if he had seen the girl eat anything in the inn, the previous night. Wasn't there a roasted duck of some sort?

Marchesa's touch on his arm interrupted Ben's line of thoughts, and he quickly looked to where she was pointing. They had reached a crossroads by the edge of the dirt path, with the wild thicket of the roadside forest having lessened into something enterable without a few sharp axes.

There was a body lying in the dust as the roads converged.
Marchesa quickly urged her horse forward, followed by the bard. They slid of their steeds with ease, each one by each side of the dead man. Was it a man? It wasn't exactly easy to say. Ben prodded the thing with the end of his spear in distaste. It didn't have eyes, or a nose, or a mouth. It just had skin, and skin, and skin. Loose skin that enveloped the former face, skin in different layers, skin that asphyxiated the victim beneath as he became blind, and then unable to smell, and then unable to breath. There was no blood, no struggle, no wounds. Marchesa kneeled, taking one of the man's boots off to eye the mass that could be once be known as a foot. "It's already reached the entirety of his body." She stood up, brushing her gloves on her cloak.. "The Ylfaulë usually only targeted the face: It's been busy."

At the sight of the corpse, Valder too immediately got off his pony. Not exactly to check the poor sod out, but more to stay defensive in case the creature that did this would return. He drew both his axe and shield before joining his two contractors.

The sight of the person was enough to make even the stoutest of knights hurl. Luckily Valder managed to keep his bile in."Bloody hell..." He muttered."I've not seen anything like this before. What the crap did this?" He demanded to know.

"Well, I care about all life."Isablle explained as they walked. "I mean, you've only got one life to live. The way I see it, all life is sacred."Isabelle explained. "Oh, why'd we stop?"She asked when everyone else stopped. Isabelle let out a horrified gasp when she the man lying in the road. "W-What happened to that poor man?"She asked, not being able to bring herself over to the man.

The elf gave no indication as to whether or not he found the answer acceptable - not that it would even have been noted in light of their unfortunate discovery. Bluejay promptly knocked an arrow and scanned the foliage around them, not yet pulling. A subtle nudge prompted the elk do warily draw a bit closer to the corpse. The beast snorted, clearly displeased by the proximity.

Though his attention was outward, he noted how the leaders of the group reacted. This was no surprise to them. They knew what this was. It was they he distrusted most from the start, and this did not help matters.

"Might our employers explain." No, that wasn't a question.

Yester was nothing short of shocked at the gruesome sight. She had seen more than enough corpses throughout her time, but all of those had succumbed to old age, disease or wounds...This was just wrong. What lay in front of them barely even looked like a corpse any more.

She made the mark of the guiders arrow around her chest, unlike her mother never being one for religion, but suddenly feeling more than a little compelled to make the ward in hopes that it would grant some protection against whatever evil had done this. She then warily scanned the area, left hand ready above her throwing knives, before she tightened her knees against the sides of her now visibly alerted steed, signalling for it to get closer to the leaders of the group.
Just as the elf, she'd noted that Marchessa and Ben hardly seemed surprised, an she wanted answers.

She'd signed on to fight the occasional men and beast, not monsters, and the youth was really starting to secondguess her choices and how trustworthy the leaders actually were. Not to mention that they were still relatively close to Elise's tavern. She honestly wasn't sure if she was willing to continue onwards without warning her and the others about the potential danger.

Marchesa glanced up at her fellow travellers, most of which had already drawn their weapons. "Oh, don't bother. This is the product of a curse, not of a monster. Well, at least of none close by." The woman took a dagger that hand around her belt and knelt near the corpse again, opening the man's coat and shirt to look at the disfigured, writhing mass of skin underneath. She seemed to be muttering something under her breath.

It was the bard that continued the explanation demanded by the rest of the group. "It's known as the Ylfaulë. A magical curse that invades the victim's cells, quickening the formation of the skin tissues and asphyxiating them within miutes." The bard's eyes never left the corpse on the ground, and he held his spear firmly pointed at it. "It used to be used as a declaration of war, aeons ago. We have heard of it before. But it has never worked like this. It only used to attack the head, not the body. It used to be a quick, painful, horrifying death, not spread like disease."

The woman spoke up again. "He had perfect health until he finally died stopped breathing. No hurt bones. No light colds. Not even the hint of a sickenss. The Chalice caused this. It's enchanting the forests, warping the trolls, healing a man's skin until his death. The Chalice has awoken, and somebody is using it to heal, to cure, to prevent deaths. These are side effects of wild, uncontrolled magic. and it's only getting worse. " She exchanged a dark look with Ben, sheathed her knife, and stood up.

It wasn't strictly true: no Ylfaulë was uncontrolled. No, this was a probe, a survey, a test to become aware of one's energies. Somebody was harnessing the Chalice. Somebody that knew the ancient curses of aeons past. Somebody far beyond the fools that were using the artifact to heal their own, unaware of just what they were nursing back to health. But there was no use in revealing that. Not so soon.

"The man was from the town of Ulmary." Marchesa said, reading a note she had taken from the man's coat. "He was returning there after having spent half a month working on a cousin's farm. We might as well investigate the town. We might find how he got marked. "

The writhing beneath the man's skin quickened, the sound of skin being eaten heard in the bright sunny morning. Ben's spear came down like a flash of lightning, piercing the corpse and the giant larvae that were about to leave it. "Perhaps we should get going? I'm not of the opinion we should bury the poor sod." He said, taking his spear out and cleaning it on a nearby patch of grass. "Unless you want to set him on fire, of course."

"Bloody hell..." Valder repeated, spitting a green glob on the ground next to the corpse."If what you say is true, that cup's not exactly a boon. Poor sod thinks he's helping people, but ends up killing them instead. We should double time it before he ends up getting other folks twisted like him." The former knight suggested.

His face cringed as soon as the maggot was struck by Ben's spear."At least burn the man before we go. We should be able to spare a minute to kindle him up and honour his death somewhat."

Isabelle was completely speechless. It was rather obvious that what she had just learned completely terrified her. Isabelle sat, frozen on her goat for several minutes, before hearing Valder talk about burning the body. "It's traditional in Griax to just entomb a dead body, in case the spirit decided it wanted to come back to its body. But.... I don't know why anyone would want to come back to this. I agree with Valder. We should cremate this man."Isabelle said.

Something in the body was moving, and it was clear that the bard was still expecting something; so, despite being told weapons were not needed, the elf drew and arrow aimed at the same target as Ben's spear as he listened. The arrow was never shot, however. The bard acted just before the thing appeared, and as it became more apparent what the movement had been, Bluejay shuddered slightly and grimaced. He'd seen some horrid things through the decades, but that had nearly cost him his breakfast.

Bluejay separated bowstring and arrow, but he did not put them away - he merely lowered them for now. Looking toward the bard, he nodded his agreement with the others. "There would be greater comfort in reducing that... flesh to ash."

Then it meant the tavern wasn't in any immediate danger...At least if she could trust Marchessa and Ben. She relaxed her left hand slightly, letting it rest at her thigh, before nodding to the proposition of burning the corpse. She wasn't one to care about the already dead's dignity, as Valder, but didn't believe it was a good idea to just let the disgusting and possibly still dangerous abomination lie around. Not to say that she didn't feel sympathy for the man...it just wasn't easy to do so when the poor sod barely looked like one.

Yester eyed the others, perhaps to see if anyone showed any sign of disagreement, before stopping at Isabelle. The spirits of the dead returning to corpses? "What do you mean lass?" She couldn't be talking about dark magic, could she? Sure, the girl had come of as rather peculiar, but nothing about her betrayed any connection to such...Perhaps beside the one question made by the Elf previously that is? Had he realized something Yester hadn't?

"It's traditional in Griax to just entomb a dead body, in case the spirit decided it wanted to come back to its body." Ben gave the girl a peculiar look as she spoke words that only further confirmed his predictions, feeling an instinctive urge to set her aflame. He knew it'd be an unwise move, of course: it would only enrage the other travellers, after all, and it was a bad policy to smite your hirelings in the first day of travel. And so he kept his face impassive, only his hand twitching almost imperceptively.

"Well, I'm glad we're all in agreement." Ben commented, glancing back at his steed, which was neighing nervously with the stench of the cursed man. "Burying him could lead to unpleasant consequences, and it'd take too long, anyways. Does anyone have any flint?" He asked, also deciding against setting the corpse on fire with any of his own magic: he wouldn't bother with wasting it just yet.

Marchesa glanced at the former waitress, placing the letter in her coat's pocket. "You're from around here, Yester! Perhaps you know where the town is? It's not like it's far away, apparently."