The Forgotten Zodiac

"Yes. It looks pretty ordinary, but it has needles like a pine tree." Sylas nodded. "I wonder why Bershee wants some. I didn't think it had any healing properties..."

"Maybe it has some we're not aware of, or if used in combination with something else?" L'arc reasoned, headed off into the woods. He paused, thinking for a moment. "Maybe we should split up and gather different items. It'd go faster that way."

"Sure." Sylas shrugged, taking the list and looking it over. "Three different kinds of vine, five mosses...these are a lot of flowers. But I know exactly where to find them." He grinned. "I'll focus on the flowers. Hey Bird, were there mushrooms in your ruins?"

"Um...yes. Lots. Sparkfens and Vialroot, Crystine, Perse...there's also poisonous mushrooms." Bird listed off a few.

Sylas checked the list. "We need just about everything you listed. How about...Vale? And...ew, what? Vole tails?"

"I can get those!" Bird nodded quickly. "Voles are large mice. Some live near the stream that runs through the temple."

"Alright. You can get the mushrooms and the vole tails." Sylas nodded. "I'll be getting the flowers...we also need a lot of leaves. Doesn't say what kind. I wonder how Bershee got all this stuff when she was living underwater..."

"I'll take care of what's left. Kendra, you go with Sylas, and Byrne, go with Bird. Verolen, come with me," he instructed.

"Sure." Verolen nodded. Sylas immediately turned slightly red, but he didn't object. He had no reason to, after all.

Bird, however, stared at Byrne as though just now realizing he was there. He glanced nervously towards Byrne's Dark Matter arm, looking a bit nervous.

"We meet back at the treeline at high noon. Stay together, all of you." Verolen ordered, then sent them off.

"So, mushrooms, right?" Byrne voiced after a few minutes of walking. He normally was one of the more quiet ones of the group, but being alone with someone wearing a mask unnerved him a bit. If he could just engage Bird in conversation, he figured he'd feel less nervous. "You remember which ones L'arc said to get, right?"

"Sparkfens, Vialroot, Crystine, Perse, and Toadstool. Vole tails, as well." Bird said quietly, leading them in an odd direction. "I'm...going to be straight with you, Byrne. That's your name, right? Well...you scare me. But I apologize for staring at your arm. I've watched you before, and you seem nice enough..."

"Oh I... well, I guess we can call ourselves even on that account," Byrne replied, talking a bit louder than he needed to to fill the otherwise silent woods. "Both halves. I think you seem nice, too," he added.

"Well then. Let us dispel the troubles of fear. We consider each other to be kind, why should we think of each other as something to be scared of?" Bird smiled a bit as he led the way. He walked around a hill, brushing aside a curtain of dried grass and a couple flowers. A door stood before them. There was no handle, and the entire door was covered in intricate symbols. Bird pressed his hands to two of the symbols, then pushed. It opened easily, surprisingly. "Here. The Nymph Temple. A better entrance than from the roof down, right?"

"Seems like it," Byrne said, going in first. He made sure to tread carefully, so he didn't step onto anything important.

Bird walked after him, but suddenly pulled him into a side room.

It was incredible. The whole thing seemed to glow with a brilliant blue light that twinkled and shone here and there. The walls, floor, and ceiling seemed to be made of a liquid, but it had to be a solid, because they were standing on it. The room itself breathed peace into any who entered, and sang a glorious song of joy.

"This was my bedroom. I slept in the corner." Bird walked to the center of the room, reaching up and touching the ceiling, which wasn't all that high. Yet still, it seemed so far away. "It's Liquid Crystal. It can be used as a weak metal, but the Nymphs collected a whole ton and covered this room in it for some reason. It has magical properties, and can probably be used to amplify even a simple spell...but here it stays." He looked at Byrne and smiled. "Do you like it?"

"It's incredible," Byrne breathed, looking around with wide eyes. "I've never seen anything like this. Where does it come from? What does it do?" he asked, extending his hand to touch the wall. He drew back suddenly, though, and extened his "normal" hand to do this - he didn't want to break something by "infecting" it with Dark Matter.

"It's...it's created when a Nymph dies. Their body turns to Liquid Crystal. There's more of it deeper in the tunnels. Technically...it holds the memories of the Nymph that died. But I don't know how to access those memories. But, this room is relaxing. So I liked to sleep in it."

"...oh," Byrne said, realizing the importance of this room to Bird now. He looked around with a new light of respect and awe in his eyes, before looking back to the Nymph. "Did it get lonely?" he asked.

Bird eyed Byrne curiously, then smiled. "Yes. It became more lonely than I'd care to admit. But it was about more than just survival. The forest, even if it didn't know it, depended on me to keep the seal from fading. I often considered giving myself to it, following in my sister's footsteps, but I decided to wait until the seal was close to breaking. I left messages all over the walls...I should have known no one would be able to read them, really..."

"Who knows? Maybe someone, sometime, would have been able to," Byrne said. "Even if it was years from now, right?"

Bird slowly nodded, then smiled. "I'm at a disadvantage, now. You know more about me than I know of you. Come on," He turned and opened a side door, holding it open. "You'll have to tell me about yourself. Perhaps you could start with that arm...the more you know about something, the less of a threat it seems, right?"

"That's true," Byrne said with a nod. At Bird suggestion of topic, he glanced down at his arm. "I actually don't remember much of what happened. The Phantom, while he was still a bad guy, replaced my hand with Dark Matter. It's deadly to most humans, but something about me made this Dark Matter fuse with me instead. I'm still not quite sure of why, myself. Eve knows more than I do about this sort of thing." Byrne shrugged. "I'm not sure if it give me any special sort of ability, either. I'm still just trying to get used to it," he said.

"Oh. I see..." Bird blinked at him curiously, as though wondering if the human was still something to be feared. But he turned and continued on his way. They were passing by mushrooms, and before long, Bird stopped to pick some up. "This is Vialroot. Do we have something to carry this with?"

"We can use my pack," Byrne said, unslinging it from his shoulder and offering it to the Nymph.