I finally blocked out the rest of the damned story. It’s like pulling teeth, this summer.
Finglas, Elanor, and I all hissed, “Hold!” at the same time. Perforce, the entire group stopped. Any one of us would have been enough to get them to stop, but all three? I’m surprised they didn’t take a few steps back. I’m surprised I didn’t.
“Lifebane,” I asked/commented to the other two. “Vitalism drain. I have a spell watching for it.”
Elanor nodded, and showed a blackened vial of goo. “Special fungus. Does the same thing as your spell. Doesn’t say what kind, though.”
Finglas grunted. “Air just smells bad here. Dead, but the wrong kind of dead. Dry-dead, not new-dead.”
“That’d be all the invisible demons in the air being killed,” I observed, then grimaced. “Sorry: all the bacteria. Good news if any of us get a cut, bad news if we go too much farther without protection. Elanor, you’ve got stuff for lifebane, right?”