Dronin’s Travels, Chapter 3—Who Did It

Written by Dronin Gammerson

Luckily because I am an herbalist I have my antidotes close at hand, and my poisons but we won't talk about that. So I quickly grabbed a lethal poison antidote and a deadly poison antidote, because I didn't know which poison was used on me, and chugged them both down as fast as I could. Just in time too because I lost contentiousness just after that. I woke up not thinking straight and after a few seconds I remembered what had happened the night before, and I went straight to the King. The guards asked their usual question and I answered with my code. Then I continued to walk to the King. I threw open the door to the King's living quarters to the King eating.
“Someone tried to poison me!” I said to the King
“Who, how, when” the King said rapidly. The food forgotten for the moment he got up and came towards me, “Answers Dronin who did this.”
“I don't know” I said exasperated, “Last night I went to Halmac's shop and bought one of the rock worm and mushroom skewers that I always get and when I got home, I knew that I had been poisoned. So I chugged my antidotes and they apparently worked.”
“Hmm who would want to kill you?” the King said.
“I don't know, but the symptoms of nausea and fainting are definite symptoms for Bungle berry leaves.”
“And where might they be found?”
“Well there is a grove of them on the east side of the Thengal forest.  That is the largest source of Bungle berry leaves in Draldon.”
“I will send men there to find anything out that they can.”
“I think I will go there myself” I said starting to walk away.
“That might be a good idea,” the King said as I continued to walk away. I walked for about fifteen minutes going to the Thengal Forest. Once I got there I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. The Thengal forest is a place to behold. Threes made of iron and stone and coal everywhere. It is truly a beautiful sight. And I turned to the east where I knew the Bungle berries were. As soon as I came to them I knew something was missing. There was a patch of dead stalks completely stripped of their leaves.
I looked at the stalks closely and that the stalks were ripped violently meaning that whoever did this was in a hurry, and if they were in a hurry they were probably not common visitors. Of course I could be completely wrong in my assumption. Since there were many plants stripped that meant there are probably many targets.
With that conclusion I sprinted to the Kings house. About halfway there I decided to bring my antidotes. I quickly rushed in my house grabbed the Deadly poison antidote (by now I had determined that was the correct antidote) and sped towards the palace.
“Your n...” said the guard
“Dronin Gammerson battle commander number nine senior surface strategist” I said as quickly as I could. As soon as they opened the gate even a little I was through sprinting onward.
I threw open the doors to the King's living room where he was reading a book.
“This is becoming a habit Dronin.” He said calmly, “What is it this time” and put down his book
“How do you feel” I said
“Fine why.”
“I have reason to believe that I was not the only target of the attack.”
“Oh my, and you believe that I might be a target?”
“Yes it could be possible.” I said and walked towards him, “If you start feeling bad drink this immediately.” I said and handed him my antidote, 
“You will have about one and a half minutes before you become unconscious and soon after die.”
“I will keep that in mind” he said taking the potion from my hand and tucking it into his belt, “If you were not the only target then who else might be targets?”
“I'm going to give an antidote to all of the battle commanders.”
“Okay I will call a meeting” the King said, “In the meantime, I would like to finish this book of mine.”
“And I need to make a few antidotes” I said and walked out.
I spent the next hour working on antidotes for the battle commanders. Then the summons came and I left for the King's command room. When I got to the gate I gave my code and strode to the command room.
“Now we are missing only Malkalad and Manden” the King said as I walked in.
It did not take long for Malkalad to show up, but we didn't see Manden. Half an hour passed and Manden did not show up. Many of us got bored and tossed miscellaneous items in the air only to catch them when they came down. An hour passed, still no sign of him. By this time we had gotten bored of throwing items in the air and resorted to sitting on the hard floor.
“Maybe we should send someone to check on him” said Kilimor.
“You might be right,” said the King, “Andolin go check on Manden, see if he is alright.”
After roughly ten minutes Andolin the King's servant came back.
“Manden is dead sire” said Andolin.
“What!” said the King “Where is he?”
“His house is in Stonesburrow” He said “Just to the left of the workshops.”
“I know where Stonesburrow is Andolin!” said the King harshly. All of us set out to find Manden's house and see what had become of him. We got there pretty quickly because we were all in shape and could run for great lengths at a time. We found him dead in his bed. The others couldn't but I could easily tell it was from poison. He probably felt that he was going to faint and got in bed just before he did.
“He has been dead for roughly ten hours” said Kilimor.
“And it was done with poison” I said, “You see how his lips are blue from death but they have the slightest yellow tinge which tells you that it was done by poison.
“Mmm” said Kilimor as if he already knew it.
Our discussion came to a halt as a soldier came in “I need to speak to the King in private” He announced.
So the King and the soldier went into another room briefly. When they came back out the King said “We believe we know who killed Manden and tried to kill Dronin.”