Part 3

The dryads felt the spread of Liddell's rot first. The sickness slowly spread, whether Liddell intended it to or not, and the trees reflected it first. The trees slowly began to wilt and die, as the earth itself rotted from within. As the ecosystem collapsed, the animals began to change, as if mutated through the horrifying power of Liddell's decay and death.

Of course, Liddell hadn't intended for the rot to spread, only for it to expand. But spread it did, until it grew close to the roads, and King Zarfangal himself took notice. It was when he was walking through the trees nearest to the mountains, as he normally does on crisp late autumn days, he noticed the trees begin to distort into strange shapes and forms. Diseased and decaying trunks on trees still upright, needles littering the forest floor, a sickly black in colour. The still uncorrupted animals of the forest fled from the spreading rot, and Zarfangal looked upon the unnatural beasts twisted by Liddell's miracle with intense disgust.

"Nay, what matter of foul beast is this?" Zarfangal asked, as he purged the dark and twisted animals with divine light. "Who is creating these monsters?"

Zarfangal's divine aura glowed brightly as he purged the forest, making his way over to Vaust's Inn. Searing white light was left in his wake as the Dragon King placed his mark in the forests of his mountain range, and a reminder as to why he was also known as the Dragon God. By the time he reached the clearing of the Inn, he was in his dragonborn form and towered over the door of the Inn, yet it yielded to him, expanding in size so that he could step into the busy inn.

The chattering inside the Inn died away immediately as Zarfangal's presence in the Inn was noticed. Vaust poked his head out from the kitchen to see what the fuss was about and very nearly broke character when he saw Zarfangal in his dragonborn form. Remaining calm, he immediately pulled an amulet out of his pocket. Carefully drawing the sigil on the floor behind the counter, he exhaled slightly when Eigengrau immediately arrived and pulled Zarfangal out of phase with reality.

Murmurs in the Inn started, as only a few people saw Eigengrau arrive and grab the Dragon King, yet most people did recognize him on sight.