This narrative is the first in a series of documented adventures of Picadilly
Silverleaf, affectionately known as "Pic." Who is Picadilly Silverleaf you ask?
Well, many titles have been bestowed upon this most incredible young elfen.
Savior of Gnomes, healer of body, inadvertent adventurer; these are but a few.
You see, most of all, Pic is a lover of all who walk the earth. Though she has
a near fanatical interest in archaeology and history, she above all cares for
those who are unable to care for themselves. Worn boldly on her sleeve are the
emotions that come along with the desire to fix all the world's problems, as
naive as it often seems to those who don't know her.

To look at her, one is at once stricken by the sharpness of her features. One
sees all else as slightly blurred when looking into her blue-green eyes. Raven
coloured locks tumble down her back in an envy-inducing cascade. Her figure is
one that this humble furrikin could only dream of, lithe and slender in its
form. Overall, she is widely considered one of the most beautiful creatures to
grace the Basin.

Now Pic is rarely, if ever, alone in her adventuring. Ever faithful and ever
at her side is the Ranger Delarin of the Serenguard. Delarin is a tough one to
describe for he is only ever seen when he desires to be seen. Beneath the well
crafted armor is a heart that beats only for the afore mentioned elfen lass. In
all honesty, she greatly returns such love but in a strange twist of fate, the
pair fear rejection from each other so much, they would never confess it. So,
foolishly in my opinion, they avoid the topic altogether, though they would make
a dashing pair.

Then there is my sweet Tully. In every respect she is all the bumbling,
silly, and dense Tae'dae most would expect. But, as the god from whom her race
was splintered, she has delightfully amusing moments of brilliance. In a pinch,
there is no other creature in all the basin I would rather have at my side. Her
shofa blades and terrible rage are feared by many and rightfully so.

Here, I suppose, I should describe myself a bit so as to allow the reader some
dimension of clarity when it comes to the writers point of view. As many of the
bardic circles of the basin, I am a humble craftswoman of the aesthetic. I bear
the responsibility of watching over the spirits of Serenwilde and calling on the
song given us Spiritsingers by Trialante's voice. At times, those who have
crossed me with ill intent have all but laughed at the sight of my little less
than three foot frame which resembles a chipmunk. I take it well though, and a
few exploded heads have taught most to hold their tongues until out of range of
my ears.

Now that we have taken care of the formalities, let us begin our story. This
particular tale, is the very first of our adventures together. Being the first,
I should like to say that Pic and I had been friends since our time as novices.
She and I had performed a ritual as part of her training for the Moon coven, my
music adding to her dance.

Our tale begins years after our respective graduations on a rather peaceful
evening in late summer. The leaves of the moonhart trees were beginning to turn
brilliant shades of orange and red while the late season flowers bloomed one
last time in honor of Maylea who painted them in the elder days. Pic and I were
strolling to the stage, where I was due to perform a rather censored version of
an old dwarven drinking song, when we heard an unfamiliar cough in the branches
above us. Pic immediately stopped to look up in search of the source of the
noise. I on the other hand, rather oblivious to the world as I tuned my
mandolin, kept up my pace for a short ways before realizing the absence of my
companion.

Looking back, I saw her beginning to climb, as only monkey can do, up into the
boughs of the great oak we'd paused by. Moving back to the tree, I overheard a
brief conversation between Pic and a small pixie who'd taken refuge between the
orange leaves. It seemed, from what little I could hear, that many of the fae
who took refuge in this part of the forest had begun falling sick. Small black
spots could be seen on the skin of the pixie, a few of which had grown into
outright blotches.

Concern wracked my old friend as she and I took our leave of the little fae
and padded on towards the stage. "What could be causing that? I've never, in
my days, heard of a disease that gave the patient black splotches. I'll have to
seek out mother and inquire about any known sickness with symptoms such as
this."

As she slipped into a silent thoughtfulness, which was fairly typical, we made
our way to the stage. I'd begun focusing on putting up the facade of
drunkenness used to enhance my performance and so barely noticed the soft
mumbling from my good friend. The performance went well, drumming up quite the
applause and a round of true revelry was provoked. It was early morning by the
time Pic and I found our beds within her family's manse.

The next afternoon I was roused, much to my dismay, by a shake and a shout
from Pic, "Get up lazy bones! I've spoken with my mother who's put us on the
trail of this sickness!" Of course none of this was any concern of mine
considering the enormity of the headache I was suffering from. In typical
Picadilly Silverleaf fashion, she simply touched my forehead, relieving the
pain, then tossed the blankets from my bed. I berated her with a flurry of
threats against her life and curses upon her children's children as she
retreated, giggling, from my domain.

It wasn't long until we were both bowing to Miakoda and gracefully refusing
the offered moonhart leaves. "I apologize but there is something more pressing
at the moment I must speak with you about, madam." Gracefully the wise woman
tilted her head to listen to Pic's questioning. "I wonder if you might be able
to tell me of the Dicardio incident." This induced the most singularly black
expression I've ever seen on Miakoda's face. She snatched our sleeves and
dragged us off to a more private area.

"How is it that you know of that darkest of times?" The elder's face was grave
as she spoke, "It is not something we who were there speak of freely."

"My mother is an archivist for the Moon coven, she found a brief mention of it
while researching the symptoms of a possible epidemic I've observed on a pixie
near the Spiritsinger stage."

"What? None of the pixies who've been brought in seem to be sick and none
mention it." The guardian of Mother's face became truly troubled as we spoke.

"Pixies are notoriously single minded, perhaps they'd forgotten?" My friend
too looked puzzled adding, "Though this does not explain the utter lack of
symptoms." A moment of thought and then, "Perhaps even Mother's leaves are not
enough to entice them to come home?"

"What are the symptoms young one?"

"Fatigue, weakness, sneezing and black spots that appear on the skin then seem
to slowly merge with one another..."

Absently, Miakoda nodded as each symptom was listed, colour draining from her
face as my friend spoke. "It... is indeed the Dicardio sickness. I remember it
all too well..." She trailed off, tears streaking down her face, "You must stop
its spread Picadilly, you must! I will tell you what little I know, blessed few
others remember that time as I do and even fewer must know about it now. You
must keep it between us, I fear if word spreads we all may be in terrible
danger."

I'll not bore you with the details of the conversation, simply provide the
basic facts. Dicardio was an ambitious member of the Night coven who sought to
control the very power of night. He created a very powerful ritual to draw the
very essence of night into a athame dagger. In a way he was successful, but in
many ways the change in Mother Night corrupted his intent, changing into
something far more dangerous. Dicardio became a carrier of a dangerous plague,
one that would turn any fae who came in contact with it into a dark, twisted
creature. These 'black fae' were dangerous and often attacked those who called
upon them for aid. Many good people died during this time of rumor and fear.

It was on this information that we began our search, one last bit of
information spurring us onward. Members of the Moon coven had, at one time,
sealed the dagger and hidden it within the forest. The memory of the place was
wiped from the minds of those who had done so and the time was nearly forgotten.
Well, it took nearly a week until we'd come upon the clue that would break the
case wide open.

We'd been scouring the library for any tidbits of information on where the
dagger could be. It'd been a long day and a steady drizzle was falling on the
last forest. Father sun had just dipped below the horizon in his never ending
chase of our revered mother Moon through the skies. Walking, exhausted, along a
path in single file, my friend suddenly stopped before me and had I not had some
measure of tumbling training I would have likely pushed her directly into the
shadowed form of a rather large elfen male.

"You are ruining my trail..." the elfen whispered, looking down at us with
calm, barely seen eyes. I could not help but notice the way the ranger's gaze
never left the beautiful companion with which I walked. "Please step from the
path." We quickly complied and I again could not help but notice that Picadilly
was nearly gawking at the lithe hunter as he crouched to observe the ground.
For a long few minutes we stood there, until I simply shook my head and walked
away. As tired as I was, there was no keeping me any longer than was necessary.

Next morning, the shedding of my covers by an excited friend woke me. After
my flurry of insults and angry curses, Pic returned to my room to explain that
Delarin, the ranger we'd stumbled upon had found an odd trail through the
forest. It ended abruptly at an ancient tree which he'd been watching all
night. Now, perhaps because she was enamoured with the male, Pic had volunteered
to assist him in figuring out how the trail ended and therefore, I was
volunteered as well.

Still groggy and quite a bit grumpy, I followed along wishing I could call
upon my ancestors to take me elsewhere. We found and settled into a spot next
to Delarin within the trees to watch the end of the trail. Hours passed, I
fidgeted and huffed as we sat in silence, the eyes of my companions glued on the
oak tree not far off. The forest was rather quiet here excepting the occasional
sneezes from sick pixies in the area. I began to notice how even the leaves had
begun to grow black splotches and was just about to mention it to my companions
when the rustling of leaves accompanied the raising up of a rather joyful song.

"Oh! I am a tae'dae and I'm happy today,
Cuz I don't got money just a big pot of honey.
Oh! 'ma happy tae'daaaaaeee!"

I couldn't help but grin as a large, brown tae'dae female bumbled along
happily, sticking her paws into a large pot of honey and licking it off. A
groan sounded from the ranger next to us as the Shofungite, obvious through the
large staghorn blades she carried, lumbered over to the great oak and began
rubbing her back against the gnarled trunk. Giggling sounded from me, producing
glares from the two elfen beside me and giving the tae'dae pause. With half her
hand engulfed by her mouth, she exclaimed, "Whove gere!"

Nearly falling from my branch in the hilarity of the moment, I hopped nimbly
from my perch as the other two climbed carefully down. We made our way over to
the large intruder with both Pic and Delarin berating her, which only caused me
to giggle harder. Completely confused, with a wild look of surprise and her
hand still stuffed in her mouth, the tae'dae suddenly fell backwards. To our
surprise a large crack had formed in the trunk of the great tree she'd been
scratching against.

Standing in the archway, gaping down at the great bear laying atop a writhing
and grunting shard of illith, were two shadow faelings. We all blinked at one
another for a long moment until the two inside flitted off down a musty, dirty
tunnel that delved below the oak. Delarin and Picadilly sprang after them as I
rushed forward to push our new tae'dae friend off of the Illithoid monk. He was
on his feet in a flash, dashing through the forest as I began to call up my
ancestors. Surprisingly, Tully, as we would soon find out was her name, dashed
after our target with similar, though bumbling, speed. She roared fiercely,
voice echoing through the forest as I sprinted after the pair of monks.

After a few breathless moments of chase, the nekotai found himself backed
against a wall of solid stone. Turning with a snarl he, without warning, sprang
at Tully with amazing speed and quickly stung her with his nekai, adding a quick
spit into her face which caused her to stiffen up like a board. For a moment
she struggled as the Illithoid turned on me as I raised a maestoso in in the
area. I winked playfully, skipping and bouncing about, as the creature circled
me watching for an opening. A blank note floated from my mandolin as Tully
rammed fiercely into our opponents side. It was over quicker than I could even
imagine, the great tae'dae pinning him to a nearby tree and nearly ripping off
his head in her fury.

As his lifeless body fell to the ground, I turned and ran back to the great
oak, barely aware that Tully was following close behind. We got to the tree
just in time to run into one of the shadow faelings wildly fleeing from the
opening. I had just enough awareness to send my final ancestor after them to
bind them with shackles from which they stumbled and fell. Tully was quickly
upon the tiny creature, snatching it up by the neck, relieving it of the athame
it was carrying.

A bloodied and weary Pic stumbled from the tree, panting as she moved to Tully
and the captured faeling. "Where is it!!" she cried slapping the Shadowdancer
across the face. A slight twitch of the female's eye brought my attention to
the warped and twisted dagger which lay on the ground. Taking up a piece of
cloth from my rift I wrapped it within and beckoned to my friend. Handing it
over to her, as a cold sensation crept up my arms, I smiled softly assuring her
I'd watch over our captive.

Pic reentered the tunnel, reemerging with Delarin who carried the broken
corpse of the other faeling. Upon seeing the bloodied form, our captive began
to sob. Knowing then what I know now, I would not have felt so bad for the
creature from Glomdoring. From what we gathered, this pair and the assassin
they'd been given to assist them, had discovered the whereabouts of the
dangerous artifact. They'd come, somehow managed to open the tunnel and had
spent the last three weeks fighting to lower the wards which protected the
forest from the corruption of the athame.

We happened to stumble upon them when they'd finally released it, and had
Tully not caught them unawares, we likely would have been far worse off than we
were. The battle inside the tunnel had been fierce, bloody and ultimately
deadly, swaying back and forth between the Wilders and the intruders. In the
end, it was only by the sheer determination and love for the forest that my
friend and our new acquaintances were victorious.

For weeks after, the Moonhart circle debated on what to do about the dangerous
artifact. It was proposed that we attempt to destroy it, which was turned down
for fear of releasing worse dangers upon the world. Finally, it was decided to
once more hide the dagger in a far safer place, one that would be quite
impenetrable once constructed. Now, I can't tell you where it is at, but I can
assure you that it is carefully watched and quite well protected. Only the
future will tell what may happen to that most dangerous of creations.