It seemed things were even worse than Jolyne had feared from those plants, she had known them to be nefarious but according to this letter they were influencing actions of animals as well as spreading a sickness. Inspector Nilan urged to attempt non-lethal take down but Jolyne only hoped that was an option at this point, if their mind was altered it may take death to render them stopped, Jolyne had heard that sometimes even death would not work, if that was the case she would need to train the forbidden spell, the one spell she had figured out long ago but had refused to pursue further due to it’s overall danger. Jolyne could feel that there was urgency due to the hurried handwriting the man had used in his letter and she was extremely concerned.

Jolyne continued to move on her way towards the rendezvous point which was a place just outside of the little district that functioned as a town within the city. On her way there however she met Nilan who literally ran into her. The man was extremely disheveled and Jolyne could smell him from where he stood, it seemed that he had not slept in a while as well due to the bags under his eyes. Her fellow Rune Knight was a mess and that made the woman’s heart hurt.

“Thesicknessisspreadingthroughthetunnels” the man yelled hurriedly as he scrambled to his feet.

“What?” Jolyne asked hoping he would repeat slower as she bounced back to her feet as well.

“The sickness is spreading through the tunnels, it’s infected all the livestock by now and most everyone is sick. It’s spread underground!” the man seemed on the verge of tears and the stress was palpable or at least it was to the girl from the desert. “The vines ended up making tunnels and it’s all through the town.”

This was bad but Jolyne had confidence in herself to solve any plant based problem no matter how unruly the weed was she would put it in her metaphorical pipe and smoke it. Clearing out the, ‘Shaft of Life’ as it were, with a gusto! In fact the raised stakes seemed only to embolden Jolyne to embrace a challenge and save these people. No matter what she would make sure they were not sick and their secondary food supplies were saved without needing immediate butchering. While hard Jolyne doubted this would prove impossible, her positivity in this moment would no suffer such a thought as she felt the heat in her blood rise to the occasion.

“The animals are attacki-” Jolyne interrupted this before it got any more redundant than it already had.

“If this is the only new information you have then it seems it would be the best course for me to simply get a move on her no?” Jolyne asked the man in a polite tone making sure not to reveal too much of her eagerness to get going on this.

501/2000

First things first I shall require some sort of ten foot pole so I can knock the animals in the solar plexus and render them a moot point. If Jolyne could find a way to subdue them without killing or touching them she was sure the contagion would not spread from them. Killing them may cause more spores to be released, Jolyne knew how fungus enjoyed working and a lot of the time it required the destruction of at least a part of itself to spread the spores into the air to spread itself.

The worst thing about this being a fungal infection is that it was entirely possible that this whole thing was one giant connected organism, in which case knocking these animals out was an extremely small stop gap and it would spread to the villagers extremely quickly. Hell if this was her call she would have evacuated the village and burned the whole thing as soon as it infected the first biological organism. Once a plant could spread to an animal it could easily spread to a human, and that must not be allowed if it is not controlled. Plants without man's control could cause man a lot of problems, nature needed to be reigned in or it would run rampant over everything only caring for survival of the fittest being.

While that was all nice and good Jolyne preferred to protect Humans first above all else, and while she was certain at times humans should either move or be removed from the factor this time it was quite apparent that this was not something that was here before but invasive. Squatters rights were very important to Jolyne and her morals were very important in factoring in which quests she wished to complete. It was not as if she would take any quest and had actually considered this one for a while. Jolyne wished they would take more immediate measures rather than try to delay it like they currently were, but regardless she needed to help. Jolyne just could not leave this plant to it's own devices.

It did not take her long to find her ten foot pole but it did take a bit of time to carve it to ensure it would not poke through anything and that Jolyne could jab it into an animal without puncturing it and instead using it as blunt force to force them unconsious. While even that was still deadly it was the only option at this point and was better than killing all of them. Jolyne knew that finding a cure from alive animals would be much easier than getting it from dead animals and while she hoped that these animals could be saved she knew that fungal infections needed to be gotten quickly. She would have to see how bad the infection had spread before she could know for sure but she was thinking most of these animals would never be able to be eaten, she could only hope the villagers had a good crop harvest this season.

512+501=1,013/2000

The pole was quite a piece of work when she had finished, it was rounded down and looked much akin to a staff. This would work in putting down the animals and now it was time to move towards the town and begin the process of putting the animals down, it would take some time but it would be doable and the end result would be much better than a rushed project. Jolyne often found that the more she took her time on a project the better it would end up in the final phase, the woman figured it was the most important part and so she tried to be methodical in her planning and actions. It did not always work out but it seemed to work out pretty well this time. Her anxiety and lack of staying on track seemed to clear up for this bout of planning and for that Jolyne was glad.

She made her way towards the town proper with the stick over her right shoulder, Jolyne was wearing extremely protective clothing for this outing as well. She was covered head to toe in a plastic suit that filtered air below the glass face, while it looked extremely goofy one could never be too safe when it came to these sorts of things. While this would reduce her movement the Atreides did not think that she would need to be on her top gear for the fight against these animals and instead should focus on defense and non-lethal blows. She needed to respect this enemy of hers on this mission, while it may be C ranked it seemed much more dangerous in her opinion. That being said she could always be overestimating her opponents as she was wont to do, but that was better than the alternative to her.

It did not take her long to spot the first animal, it was better than she had expected but it was still not good. Instead of the fungi she had imagine it was some sort of algae that covered these sheep, their wool had taken on a sickly green hue however and all their other organs that could be seen from the outside(such as the eyes, skin, etc) also seemed to be tinted green from the infection. While this was disturbing it could have been far worse and hopefully this meant that eating the grass was how it was spreading instead of some airborne monstrosity that could wreck havoc everywhere. That would be truly horrible in her opinion, as it was she had to focus on taking out this small flock.

The first five gave her no trouble but the last two split up and ran for opposite sides instead of the aggressive rush of their counterparts. Jolyne had forgotten the anger part at first but it made for easier targets and work than the two that were now fleeing, luckily they were all still penned in and only had about two thousand square feet to run. Unluckily they had two thousand square feet in which to run.

513+1,013=1,526/2,000

The pale animals plagued Jolyne for the next twenty minuets until she managed to trip them up on each other and swiftly smacked their skulls into a gentle sleep. After this she tied up each and every sheep that was in the pen, this would allow the villagers to do what they wished with the things without her having to worry about the animals hurting them. As aggressive as they were to her she did not want to think about what happened before she got here and only hoped that everyone there was safe.

Jolyne then repeated this process for all the domesticated livestock, it was the simple part as they were penned up. The harder part were animals that had free reign of the town, pets.

This would be the true test, the true way for her to be sure of the town's safety. Pets could be found anywhere and they came in every shape and size. This hunt would be one of the trickier ones she would undertake at least up until this point. It reminded her of hunting sand trout back in the dunes of her homeland, a nostalgic thought that brought a smile to her face as she subdued the first unfortunate infected animal, trying it up and ensuring it was in a safe spot before getting back to the trail, back to the hunt.

She crawled through gutters, scaled them too, scurried through alleys and scoured rooftops. She systematically went through it and had gotten through about half when a group had ambushed her, in the end she did not kill even one but it was close. Jolyne had almost got bit by one large dog that slipped behind her while the rest had distracted her but thanks to her agility she managed to bring the infected victim down gently before any damage was done. After tying them up she realized that there might be some overarching intelligence after all. While they may have naturally ambushed her she could not be sure and once more was on edge.

It had taken the better part of a day but in the end Jolyne Atreides ended up subduing every animal in the village and ensuring they would not move when they woke back up. For this the villagers were extremely grateful and thanked her profusely. Jolyne could not deny that she enjoyed being thanked for her trial but she would have done it without this. After a quick and makeshift party at a local bar, Inspector Nilan approached and congratulated her.

"Thank you again Jolyne, you have proven to be a wonderful help to this place" the Inspector said smiling with a beer in hand.

"I am glad to be your fellow Rune Knight Nilan, it was no problem just please make sure this gets investigated further I have a bad feeling about this" Jolyne rarely had a less than chipper tone, and rarer still was it that she had a worried tone but that was how it was today.

504+1,526=2,030/2,000

Quest Complete