The night is peaceful, save a few gleaming eyes slinking by outside the camp.

Frodo stirs several times in his sleep, and moans once during Sam's watch about chill pain in his shoulder.  But then when Sam asks him, concerned, he's back asleep - and the next time he stirs, he can't remember much about it.

But in the morning, his shoulder is stiff and cold again.  Not as bad as yesterday... but still bad.

(Gord's is a little stiff, but nothing worse.)

Sam shakes Gord just as the dawn is starting to shine over the horizon.  "Frodo's shoulder is bad again!" he exclaims in Westron.

Then he points to Frodo, then to his own shoulder, and winces.

Gord himself feels more tired than usual this morning.  And his shoulder is feeling... not stiff, but cold.

Oh, curses.

Gord wakes Strider up to translate. 

"I'm feeling - mostly rested, I could pass it off as still being a little tired, but my shoulder feels weirdly cold. Which means I probably didn't fully remove it from myself, either." Is it a specifically shoulder-affecting curse, does Gord now bear the Curse of Cold Shoulder?

"I still hope a full Restoration every day could stave off indefinitely, but casting that on me and Frodo both would take all my fourth circle slots. And I would run out of diamond dust." How much does he actually have, he used some up on Nondetection... "If I use it for nothing else I have enough for - nine more casts, I think. Four or five days, not enough to reach Rivendell."

"So, slight change of plans. I'm going to prepare all the detection spells I've got. Maybe we're lucky and it's actually a disease or a poison, something I can heal with the right spell. And if that doesn't turn up anything then I guess I'll prepare Restorations, and lesser Restorations against tiredness - those don't need diamond dust - and we'll run west as fast as we can and hope we won't have to fight? Unless one of you happens to have a diamond on you. Maybe I'll think of a better plan later but I need to start praying in a few minutes."

What else, what else...

"I won't prepare Remove Curse for Frodo, it looks like it didn't help me and I need the slot."

"Oh, and I just remembered - you said you could make slings, do you still want the spell that makes magic bullets? I don't know if I can squeeze in the powerful one, and it's not certain to work anyway, but I can definitely prepare the first-circle one. It only makes three bullets every time but they strike undead extra hard, that's better than nothing."

Aragorn's face sinks.  "I'm not surprised... but I'd hoped you'd fully defeated the curse.  Very well.

"You know your magic better than I - I can tell you what I know about Morgul-knives?  As far as I know, the blades themselves are cursed.  I suspect they break off inside the wound... or at least I saw the one that pierced Frodo did.  The Elves of Lorien might know more... Boromir Steward of Gondor was famously pierced by one centuries ago, but he was mostly healed and lived for years afterwards.

"I don't have diamond dust; unless we meet a Dwarf on the road, the closest place to find it is I think Rivendell."

He stares at the ground for a minute, thinking.

"Do you think your Restorations would keep working?  Without your magic, I'd expect the curse to keep getting worse day by day.  If they don't keep working... we'll need to find a horse, or put you and Frodo in your bag.  And, I suppose, do something else with the Ring."

Gord had hoped so too! He doesn't want to go home in the bag, he can pay for a raise but they won't know where to send him - no, focus.

"I thought the daggers smoked away after being used! Healing spells normally remove anything that's in the wound when they heal it, but if it's meant to stay in... Did you remove all the fragments from Frodo's wound?" Nothing showed up to Detect Magic, but who knows how curses work.

"I don't know if Restoration will keep working but I will at least try. After the detection spells. Putting me in the bag and making a run for Rivendell while I cast lesser Restorations all day so you don't tire is - hopefully the backup, backup option. Are you sure they can heal this in Rivendell, could this Boromir not afford the price -"

A tiny little alarm goes off inside his head. "I have to start praying, we'll talk later." 

Before praying, Gord channels on the off-chance it will help anything. Casts Protection from Evil on himself and on Frodo and Strider, it's supposed to help with enchantments. Comprehend Languages, it might make him easier to distract while he prays but will last a little past that. Greater Hide from Undead.

And then he chooses a comfortable place to sit with his back to a large tree. Carefully takes his totemic skulls out of their (non-magical) bag in his haversack, arranges them in a little pyramid, and leans his (Mended but decidedly non-magical sword) on top.

So. How did yesterday go? What should Gord learn?

"I looked, but I don't think I found everything in the wound --"  Aragorn stops abruptly when Gord says he has to start praying.

His eyes go wide for a moment when he sees Gord taking out skulls, but he doesn't do anything more at the moment.  Gord did, after all, say not to interrupt him.  He'll have a lot of questions afterwards, though!  He's seen things like this in the Farther Rhun cults influenced by Sauron, and he always thought skull pyramids were just another thing put in by Sauron...  Maybe Gord's god of battle has more of an unpleasant side than Gord made Him sound?

The hobbits are more impatient.

"What's that?" Merry exclaims with disgust.  "Are those all people you killed!?"

Pippin's thinking for a moment of the bones set in honor over the graves in the Great Smials, but those're graves!  "And why're you carrying them around with you!?"

Ugh.

People back home understand Wound veterans. They each have their burden to carry, they don't stick their nose into other people's obviously private business, and they don't interrupt a cleric at prayers.

Maybe he should have explained this ahead of time but he hates feeling like he has to explain and justify himself, least of all to clueless strangers like "I just picked up a magic dagger the other day, are those all people you killed?!" Merry.

At least these ones don't know to complain about him being Chaotic Evil. He agreed with Strider to help their party but it is not his party.

"Don't interrupt my prayers," he says (which only Strider can understand) while giving the two halflings his best glare.

Aragorn gives Gord a silent nod, and then tells the hobbits in Westron, "He can't talk when he's praying for spells.  In the meantime..."

There're many things that could be said, but what useful things should be done now before they start moving?...  Ah.

"Let's get a fire started, and heat up some water.  Gord's magic isn't fully working, so let's steep some athelas.  I fear it won't fully cure you either, Frodo, but it will at least help."

Before Gord's prayers are over, the athelas is ready, and Strider bathes Frodo's shoulder in it.

Frodo's shoulder warms up somewhat, and the stiffness recedes.  Maybe he could walk some more?

Alright. Time to review. How did yesterday go?

He agreed to join a very dangerous quest. He did so because -

Strider said there's a Lawful Evil god Who already rules a country here, like Asmodeus in Cheliax. The wraiths work for Him and if they get the ring they'd take it to Him and He'd become much more powerful and conquer the whole continent. Gord confirmed this with a truth spell and he feels confident in that part at least, Strider doesn't seem experienced enough with magic to throw it off undetectably. 

So he came back to the ring and gave up his bag of holding to hold it, maybe indefinitely. (Something he'd declared just before he wouldn't do). Also, the ring is known to enchant people into wanting it and staying around it, and he wanted to leave it behind for this reason but was convinced to come back anyway. At one point he was worried that Strider might be enchanted (or cursed or however that works), and then - promptly forgot about it? And everyone felt and acted weird when it came time to put the ring in the bag - well, maybe Strider didn't - Gord still can't be sure if he just imagined it or if his will really was being swayed a little.

These aren't details he knew or anticipated when he agreed to join this party, but they're within the bounds of what he expected; the ring is dangerous. But that doesn't mean his decision to come back was wrong. He learned something new and important and acted on it. 

Should he have done something more to guard against enchantment? Can he do so now? He would prepare Enchantment Foil, except he has no free fourth-circle slots for the foreseeable future. Not succumbing to the curse is more urgent than not being slowly enchanted. 

And he is in fact still cursed (if that's what it is). Strider thinks his friends in Rivendell can remove the curse so it's good Gord joined up with him, but he didn't know that at the time. This is a decision from his first day in this world coming back to bite him, and he already realized fighting the wraiths had been a mistake.

He should have thought of Enchantment Foil yesterday, and Protection from Evil and other spells that might help with enchantments. Lack of sleep is no excuse; he didn't spend the walk back trying hard to think of something. He needs to do better.

Overall, it was a day certain to go down in (Gord's personal) history, but it may be some time before he learns the consequences. (Unless the wraiths find and kill them all next night.) He doesn't think he was wrong. It was a very high stakes decision, but it still seems like the right one.

He finishes praying with almost half his slots still empty. Time to face the music.

Detect Poison. Diagnose Disease. Detect Charm, he's not sure what that pings which isn't magic but presumably the spell exists for a reason so why not try it. Detect Magic again for good measure.

Can he see anything wrong with either himself or Frodo? 

Yes, of course he can keep having spells.  He's still here; he's still himself; he can keep filling up his spell slots.

There's no disease or poison on either of them.  

There's a charm on Frodo, but none on Gord himself.

That's probably very important to know if only he could spare time for it right now! Is anyone else here charmed?

(Why is it a charm and not a compulsion, does the ring make people think it's friendly?)

More importantly -

"Strider, tell me everything you can about these broken bits of knife. Did you get some of them from Frodo's wound to look at? How large are they, what do they look like - I have a spell for finding nearby objects but I need a clear mental image, it'll be hard without having seen it myself but I want to try it." 

(No, no one else here is charmed.)

"Alas, the knife vanished in the light after it was pulled out of his wound.  But I can show you the hilt -"  He digs in his pack, and brings out a knife-hilt very much like the one that pierced Gord himself.

"I found the usual bits of clothes and dirt in the wound, and cleaned them out, but I didn't find any fragments of the blade.  Perhaps they vanished in the light.  Still - the tip of the blade was broken off when I saw it, before the rest of it vanished.  I don't know how big it was, because the blade was tapered and I don't know how far the taper went.  But perhaps..."  He draws with his finger on another fingertip:  maybe about half the size of his fingernail.  "Or maybe smaller than that."

"It could have been the same when I was stabbed. I wouldn't have noticed, I was busy feeling terrible all of a sudden and didn't look at the knife again beyond seeing it smoke away." But he remembers the knife as it was before it stabbed him; fear heightens memory. "If there's still a fragment of a cursed knife in the wound it makes sense spells would have a hard time curing it."

"Here's my plan. I'll prep Locate Object, it's third circle but very much worth it if it works. It will, hopefully, let me sense the location of the closest knife fragment. If it fails, it might be because I didn't see it myself, or because the fragment is shielded from divinations to protect against this - that would explain why it doesn't ping Detect Magic, I ought to notice if there's something magical inside my shoulder. I don't think I can find something so small cutting at random, or notice if I did and it evaporated. Or it might mean there's no fragment after all."

"If I do find it, I'll need to extract it while the spell is up, which is only eight minutes. I'll need the finest, thinnest knife anyone has - mine is in the bag and a fighting dagger isn't great for this. I'll sense once it's out or gone."

"And then the spell will tell me if there's a fragment in Frodo - it always shows the nearest object of the kind you're looking for, I'm not sure if I can even check Frodo if I have one myself. Or I suppose it might say Frodo has one but I don't, it seems unlikely but who knows. The spell might not last long enough for both of us but if it works once it'll be worth it preparing it a second time. If Frodo doesn't think he can hold still I can prepare Delay Pain, which will make him feel no pain and then feel it eight hours later when it won't matter if he moves his arm, but after all that I will really and truly be out of spells below fourth."

What else... "Your Share Language will expire sometime soon, I prepped another one, let me know when you need it. And I can create the food before we start, unless Frodo is feeling bad enough that we should hurry."