Alright. She's killed enough worms, at least for now. She pulls off a bit of skin next to her fingernail until she has a slightly bloody patch, then tries healing herself, swapping "person" in for "worm" in the incantation.

And her finger is repaired!

Notetaking time again. Did it feel like anything? Was it instant, or more like watching a time lapse of it how it would have healed naturally?

A very fast timelapse, but the latter.

She makes another diagram copy and puts it and a transcript of the incantation into her backpack, both rolled up small and stuffed to the bottom where nobody will see them. Then she looks on various critter websites for magical healers. She's not ready to announce herself as a runecaster yet, or confident enough to take seriously injured human patients, but she has a plan to get there.

There are a handful of people who do magical healing in a handful of Avalons.

What sort of problems do they treat? What rates do they charge? Do they have any disclaimers about things they can't do, or that they can try but which might fail to work?

They advertise differently, but not in a way that suggests they have very different underlying capabilities - one specifies that magic is not FDA approved, one is also a regular doctor and can take some kinds of insurance. The most comprehensively informative site says the healer can ameliorate non-brain injuries, clear minor infections and help a little with major ones, isn't any good for allergies or some obscure other conditions, and cost is per casting ($275), with multiple castings sometimes producing better results than singles.

That gives her a lot of ideas for things to try, and some of them are even feasible to try on worms. She still doesn't want her parents to notice her digging around in the yard, though, so more mad science will have to wait. She reads the last of her extinction war primary sources book so she can return it to the library before the next game night.

One of the sources is by a human whose husband and children are griffins, lamenting their ever getting involved in all this madness.

That's the right attitude to take about most wars, yeah. Anything on why they joined in, or why they chose one side over the other?

Seems to be vaguely feudal family obligations on the griffins' parts.

Sigh. Critters: basically the same as any other humans. Enough depressing historical violence, time for some imaginary game violence. Or more likely, imaginary trekking through the woods, since that was where they left off last time.

Yes. Wandering monster!

Detect Evil? (Monsters that are smart enough to be evil are vulnerable to Smite Evil, which does extra damage.)

Nope, this is a dumb monster.

Then it will only get mundanely stabbed, rather than magical holy stabbed. 

Presently it is dead! Now they can investigate the dungeon it came out of if they want.

Well, they can't really go back to investigating the cultists until the heat's off them a bit in that one city, so Margaret votes for exploring the dungeon.

Into the dungeon they go. It has a traditional density of traps and creatures. Deeper in the dungeon they find that same symbol the cultists wear here and there accompanied by writing none of them read.

The plot thickens! Margaret's character makes parchment copies of the writing so they can maybe eventually show it to someone who knows the language.

They all agree that's a good idea. Eventually they have cleared the dungeon and the session is over.

"Well, that was my first ever Dungeons and Dragons session featuring a dungeon. Now I just need to encounter a dragon at some point and I'll be an expert."

"Xavier usually puts a dragon in somewhere," says Brenda.

"Something to look forward to. I'd ask what his dragons are usually like, but knowing Xavier I bet they're different every time."