Previously: Chapter 69: Off the Beaten Path
An Old Friend
The large figure in the night is getting closer and closer, and so Kal opens the door to the mansion, whistles at Penny and Relic inside, before returning to the outside to face whatever is coming. Elmroot is steadfast and sees a large figure approaching, but she doesn’t seem to be discouraged, holding her ground. Kal also sees the figure, and realizes that it is an ent, a tree shepherd. As it spots the two companions, it stares at them, before getting closer, apparently recognizing Dandelion, calling her “Daisy”. The Treant introduces himself to Kal, calling himself Wanderwood. They reconnect, apparently old friends from long ago, Dandelion mentioning that it must have been at least 45 years since they saw each other last. Penny eventually emerges from the mansion, wanting to see what the fuss is about. Wanderwood apparently can sense what each companion is, because he refers to Kal as a “celestial”, and Penny as an “infernal”. When Relic emerges as well, Wanderwood is confused, as he reads Relic as a dwarf.
They talk a bit about what they are doing in the forest, with Dandelion mentioning them wanting to find the grove to the south, which the ent refers to as the Grove of Eternal Whispers. He asks why they want to go there, and is told that they are looking for the staff of Brónach, and he recognizes the name, having met him long ago. When asked about the Heartwood Staff, he says that it was made from one his own branches, apparently being guided by Faunus himself.
Penny and Dandelion both try to convince the ent to show them the way to the Grove, but he seems resistant to the idea, apparently people have a tendency not to return, or not return as themselves, but agrees to do it after they both bring up compelling arguments, it being a task given by Faunus himself after all. They ask him how he knows what Kal, Penny and Relic is reading as, and he tells them that he senses everything in a certain radius in the forest. He also notices a darkness looming over Penny, prompting Dandelion to mention The Forgotten One, but Wanderwood implores her not to say “his” name. They decide to call him Carl instead.
Suddenly, Wanderwood appears to stare into the forest, before returning to the party, saying they are being watched. Dandelion and Penny both notice the mysterious hooded figure that has been seen watching them from time to time. Penny says it’s probably an ally of Malice. Dandelion calmly sends the owls out to get a closer look, but Kal takes a more hands on approach, walking a bit away from the party, before suddenly casting a reverberating jump, ending up right next to the hooded figure. At first it keeps its gaze fixed at her companions, but suddenly turns to face Kal. She cannot see anything beneath the hood, as it is complete darkness.
She tries talking to the figure, asking who it is, but the figure doesn’t respond. Instead, it begins moving towards Kal, calmly, raising its hand to touch Kal’s face. When she takes a step back, the figure retreats, and suddenly, without noticing it herself, Kal, Penny and Dandelion all blink, and the figure disappears. Relic, who doesn’t blink, saw it fading away in a split second. Kal scans the area, not finding it anymore, and returns to the rest of the group.
Penny asks Wanderwood what the figure read as, but it’s not something he recognized, having not seen anything like it before but could sense that it was powerful, dangerous. Fie got close to it once on their travels, and found it to appear to be neither friend, nor enemy, but watching the party.
Kal wonders if the darkness around Penny might be the cards that she drew that brought her bad luck, or maybe the curse, or even the contract with Raam. Wanderwood asks about these cards they are talking about, with them explaining about the Deck of Many Things, and Shehemis. He seems intrigued, asking if he can draw a card too. They are reluctant, but allow it, with Penny also expressing a desire to draw another card. They present the deck to him, and he carefully takes one of the cards. He looks at it, asking if anything is supposed to happen, before disappearing in front of their eyes, mid sentence.
They slightly panic, Penny using a sending spell to send a message, but gets no response. Kal tries to do a commune to check where he ended up, but can’t find out if he is still on the plane, if he is in danger, or if he is outside of Udall's reach. In the confusion, Penny declares that she will draw two cards, one of them making her much better at sharpshooting, which is fitting, considering Harmony, and also, another curse. This time, she has to sleep for a full eight hours to get the benefits of a long rest, and she cannot be awoken.
Argus and Ira both return from flying around the area, and tell Dandelion that they couldn’t see anything, and just saw Kal speaking into empty space, so apparently the figure only appears to the party. Kal casts a Divination spell, asking what the card that Wanderwood drew did, and is told by Shehemis that the drawer is pulled to a random location and cannot be located or communicated with for 24 hours. He also tells her that he is looking forward to the entertainment.
Continuing Towards the River
That night, Penny goes to sleep, wanting to have a good night's rest. But someone has another idea. She dreams about being back in her community, sitting around the campfire during one of their summer festivities. Suddenly, everyone disappears, and Penny is left all alone, as the campfire extinguishes itself. A dark figure is standing near the forest, which suddenly grows larger into a white, eyeless face staring down at her. Vuthul speaks to her.
“You think I forgot about you? I will find you…”
The dream turns into a nightmare, as she is chased around by his minions, barring her from a good night’s rest. When she wakes in the morning she feels exhausted. When she joins the others for breakfast they notice how tired she looks, so Kal uses a greater restoration on her, helping her a little bit, but Penny still feels tired. Not much to do about it now, so they continue onwards. Before departing, Dandelion wanders through the area to find materials to make some potions of healing, having bought the raw materials they needed before, finding enough to make five.
As they wander through the forest heading east, they decide to make sure they have some Doom Blooms at home, using them to scry on the garden in order to make them appear there. They see the horses frolicking in the plains, Rod lurking through the grass, but no Arin in sight. Relic makes sure to scry on the flowerbed, but the others in the party don't consider that, so Dandelion will probably have to do some gardening in order to gather the flowers. While walking, Penny mentions that they shouldn’t wait too long to find the blade that Raam told them about, considering the main clue was a waterfall that never froze, and if they wait until summer, it will be too warm to find it. Relic agrees, and thinks they should start looking for it after they have found the Heartwood Staff.
Dandelion leads the way through the forest, with Penny asking her about all the pretty flowers growing around. Dandelion tells her all their names and what they are good for. Relic tells her about their proper elven scientific names as well. Towards the end of the day, they notice that the forest appears to be more sparsely grown, showing signs of the corruption that plagued the area, slowly being reclaimed. When they reach the river at dusk, they see that the other side appears to be completely dead. Although the corruption is gone, it hasn’t had the chance to heal yet. Relic thinks a well placed fireball might be helpful here. They put up the mansion again, and get a night's rest. Penny makes sure to cast protection from evil and good, which she didn’t have the chance to do last night, allowing her to get a proper long rest.
Remnants of Evil
The next morning, after eating breakfast, Dandelion wild shapes into a giant eagle in order to ferry Relic across the river so that he can set off a fireball in order to cleanse the previously corrupted forest, allowing for new trees to grow. The fire starts, and begins to spread quickly. Dandelion and Kal both make a short prayer to Deidama and Udall respectively, hoping that they can help contain the forest fire so it doesn’t spread to the healthy forest. In the distance, a thunder is heard, and lightning strikes further inland, setting more of the forest on fire, but containing its spread.
Continuing southwards, following where the river flows, they come across a tributary feeding into the river, but the water coming from it looks a bit darker than the rest, clearly not being right. They wonder if the corruption might be returning to the forest, and discuss whether they should follow the tributary to maybe find and stop its source. While they talk, they notice that someone is watching them. In the middle of the river, the head of a woman is sticking out, observing them. Penny and Dandelion both go closer to the riverbed, prompting the mysterious woman to approach, carefully.
The woman is a naiad, a water-fey. She tells them that the tributary is poisoning the river, hurting her and her kin. She gives a demonstration by manipulating some of the water, making it rise up. She then tries to do the same with the dark water, but nothing happens. As it is hurting her, she cannot venture up the tributary to find and stop it at its source, and asks the party if they can help. The party asks how long it has been like this, and is told that it was very bad for many years, the river being totally uninhabitable, but about half a year ago, things started to get better, but the tributary continues to plague them. She is separated from the rest of her kin as the tributary poisons the water.
They discuss a bit about what to do, and come to an agreement with the naiad that if she can show them the way to the Grove of Eternal Whispers, they will help her. She agrees, albeit reluctantly, clearly having heard of the grove before, but will do what needs to be done in order to fix the river. Dandelion turns herself into a giant eagle and ferries people across. Before they venture further into the corrupted forest, Penny asks what the naiad's name is. She introduces herself as Celandine.
Dandelion and Penny send in Argus, Ira and Riff to scout ahead, and they report back that there appears to be a small pond, about 2 miles upstream with a sort of pillar in the center of it. It appears to grow vines and thorns, and a green glow emanates from cracks in the stone. They think it sounds similar to the corrupted shrines they have found dedicated to Udall, but will have to get closer before they can determine if there is a connection.
After about an hour, trekking through difficult terrain consisting of mud and swampland, they reach their destination. The pillar the birds were talking about is oozing water, feeding the tributary. There is an eerie lack of creatures, as no birds or beasts can be seen or heard, clearly wanting to stay away from the area. The party gets the same feeling they did when trekking to the hags to stop them, albeit not as strong. This appears to be a remnant of their doings. Dandelion does a commune with nature, finding there to be several elementals in the area, but on beasts, fey or influences from other planes.
Penny goes to the tributary, sticking her finger into the water, much to Kal’s protests. It doesn’t hurt her, but she doesn’t think she should take a sip of the water. Penny isn’t really sure what elementals are, and is surprised when told that Ranesh is an elemental, but a different kind than what probably resides here. Relic casts fly on himself, asking to borrow Penny’s monocular. He flies above the water, peering through it, and spots several water weirds and a huge water elemental hidden in the waters below.
Kal casts a sending to Thervan, asking if he has a scroll of water walking, hoping it might help, but it’s not something he can provide. Penny asks Morgan for help as well, but he too is rather useless in this. They think about how to approach it, wanting to avoid a fight if they can. Penny thinks that they might be able to just destroy the pillar with a well placed spell, and casts a dispel magic on it from the shore. She concentrates, breaking through the magic, and they all watch as the pillar crumbles, the magic gone. The water flow stops, and the pond and tributary turns a tinge brighter, apparently no longer tainted. The elementals protecting the pillar start making their way down stream as the air seems to become lighter. The party considers themselves lucky they managed to solve the problem without fighting, and starts making their way back to the river.
Going With the Flow
When the party reaches the river, Celandine is surrounded by the elementals and water weirds, caught in almost a dance, as they are overjoyed at being freed from the influence. She thanks the party wholeheartedly and tells them that she feels so much better now that the river is safe once more. The party asks if the elementals might be able to give them a ride downstream, and she tells them that it should not be a problem. Penny summons a beautiful boat, allowing the elementals to guide and push it, making this leg of their journey a bit easier.
During the ride south, Penny plays a song on her lute and is joined by Celandine singing, with the party enjoying the scenery and ride, thankful that things are going so well. After about five hours, Penny’s magical boat is fading, and they are led to the riverbank where they decide to make camp. The elementals depart, heading back upstream, with Celandine lingering, waving them goodbye. Relic asks if she would like to sleep in their mansion for the night, to which the naiad accepts, albeit a bit curious about her accommodations, as she cannot be out of water for too long. Relic tells her it shouldn’t be a problem.
Relic summons the mansion, modifying it for their guest, and leads the shambling Celandine inside, as she clearly is uncomfortable with walking on solid earth. Inside she is intrigued by the interior, but finds it a bit disconcerting. Relic leads her to her quarters, a river going in a circle where the training chamber used to be. He has also prepared a small tub where she can join them for breakfast if she wishes. Celandine is thankful for the thoughtfulness, and jumps into her “bed”, but says she cannot be gone from her river for too long, as she is its “voice”. They ask what she calls the river, as Dandelion only knows it as the “South River”. She tells them that their kin calls it the Silvershade River.
Relic mentions the date, to which Penny says it’s her birthday. The party is surprised, but happy for her, so Kal bakes her a cake which they all share during the evening before retiring. Morgan also sends her a sending, wishing her a happy birthday, hoping that they will meet again soon. After having the cake, the party heads outside to see if they can find where Wanderwood ended up, as 24 hours have passed by now. Dandelion sits down to scry on him, finding him trekking across a barren landscape in the middle of a storm, heading towards a forest. His legs seem to be covered in a few wounds from an attack, and it looks like he is shivering. Dandelion feels bad for him.
She asks Kal to send Wanderwood a sending, telling him to find the biggest tree he can find so they can pick him up in the morning, and to ask if he is okay. He seems to be in good spirits, having had a wonderful time, and tells them he will find the biggest tree and wait by it. Afterwards, the party retires for the night, getting a good night’s sleep.
Old Wounds
The next morning Celandine joins the party for breakfast, with Kal making a wide array of various foods and flavors for her to sample. She eats most of the fish, but seems to have a taste for pork as well, basically eating all the bacon she can get her hands on. When they leave the mansion they decide that they should follow the river on foot, as Dandelion did want to feel the earth beneath her feet again. Dandelion heads into the forest to find the biggest tree she can find, and scries on Wanderwood once more. She finds him standing next to a suitable tree, ready to jump inside at a moment’s notice. She casts transport via plants, opening a massive doorway in the tree, spotting the ent on the other side. She gestures for him to hurry, and he makes his way through, safe at last.
He picks up Dandelion, carrying her back to the riverbed, asking where they are. She tells him they are near the south river, heading towards the grove. Reaching the riverbed, he greets Celandine, them apparently having met before. They both are guardians of their respective domains, and act friendly towards one another. The group points out the wounds on Wanderwoods legs, which he explains was a group of orcs that attacked him, but he chased them away when he threw three of them down a ravine. Relic offers to help, taking out Caduceus. Wanderwood, intrigued, holds out his hand. Relic stabs him, but the ent is resilient enough not to take any damage from it. The magic of the dagger however appears to flow into the hand, healing Wanderwood slightly. Kal, Penny and Dandelion tops him up with a few spells, and in the end he is good as new.
It seems that Wanderwood got a taste of adventuring during his endeavor the previous day, saying that he might take a “vacation” of sorts. Penny asks who will take care of the forest in his absence, but apparently there are six other guardian ents that roam the forest, keeping it safe. But first, they have to reach the Grove, so the party continues southwards, Wanderwood heading into the forest to watch for dangers from that edge, with Celandine swimming along the party in the river. Celandine teaches Penny one of her songs, who turns it into a beautiful melody on Harmony while they are traveling.
During the day, Dandelion can hear something lumbering around in the forest between them and Wanderwood, who is a couple hundred meters inland. She takes a closer look, spotting an owlbear limping along. She tells the party to wait, as she moves closer, with Penny in tow, in case she needs help. Dandelion makes her presence known, holding up her hands so that she shows she doesn’t want to hurt it. When he spots her, it stares at her in agony, then appears to recognize her, asking if the ones who hurt its mom are with her. She recognizes it as one of the cubs she encountered when traveling briefly with the Band of Tempervale, but with a few arrows lodged into its side, apparently having survived an attack.
She tells the owlbear that she left that group when she realized how bad they were, and is sorry for what happened to its mom, but that she wants to help it get better. She manages to convince the owlbear, who lays itself down onto its side, allowing Dandelion to work on it. Penny calmly approaches, with Dandelion explaining that it is a friend. The owlbear trusts her, and with Penny playing a calming song, Dandelion takes out a dagger and begins cutting away the flesh that has grown around the arrows.
After a few minutes, with the owlbear lying on its side, tears pouring out from the pain, Dandelion has managed to remove the arrows. She uses her magic to heal the owlbear, closing the wounds. The owlbear stands back up, stretches out, testing the pain, but happily finds it gone. It thanks the duo for the help, wondering what it shall do now. Dandelion says that they are going to a grove, and then back home, but if it would like, it is more than welcome to join. It appears to be okay with the idea, and joins the duo back to the river. Penny asks what its name is, and it tells them that its mother called it Berry.
Dandelion introduces Berry to Kal, Relic and Celandine, who greets it in return, albeit Kal is not entirely comfortable with the idea of picking up another companion when they are in the middle of something important. The owls fly down, landing on Dandelion’s shoulders, asking if this is their new brother, but she tells them that they shouldn’t get ahead of themselves. After introducing everyone they continue venturing south towards the grove, eventually having to take another night's rest.
That night, Celandine tells them that she appreciates having gotten the opportunity to rest in their mansion, but would like to stay in the river for the rest of the journey, as to not grow complacent with luxuries and food that she cannot get a hold of in nature. Relic totally understands, but thanks for the company anyway. The owlbear would also like to stay outside, and goes to sleep next to a tree, as Wanderwood emerges from the woods to rest as well.
When they all sleep, Penny better than most because of her new condition, Kal has a dream about being back in the snow covered landscape far to the north. She is surrounded by fighting, slaughtering of villagers and rebels fighting back. In front of her stands her enemy, Ildrex. He looks straight at her, and Kal realizes that he’s not just in her dream, he’s talking to her.
“Why do you resist?”
Kal asks if he is speaking about resisting his trap, but he asks why she is resisting his goddess. Kal tells him that he is being controlled by her, but he retorts with his opinion that she is being controlled by Udall. She disagrees, saying she does what she wants to do, but he tells her that she is only doing what she is doing because Udall demands it. All Ildrex wants to do is to free her, allow her to be herself.
Kal isn’t having it, and since they’re in her dream, she walks up to him, being propped up by the snow so that she is at eye-level with the dragonborn. She demands that he gets the fuck out of her dream, and if she was face to face with him, she would kick his ass. He looks at her with sad eyes, telling her that it’s heartbreaking to see how dominated by Udall she really is. He reiterates that he only wants to help her, to free her, and allow her to reach her full potential. Thunder looms in the distance of her dream. Kal says that if he wants to face her, he only has to get his ass back to Rexendell, and they can have a proper face off. Ildrex laughs at her, saying that when they meet, Yana will finally have her, referring to himself as Yana’s chosen, while Kal being Udall’s acolyte. He then vanishes, having delivered his message. Kal eventually wakes up from her sleep, and makes breakfast.
The Ward
During the next day's travel, they encounter a hill giant with a seagull in his hands, asking for the way to the ocean. They say that they can help, asking to see the bird, with Dandelion healing it, allowing it to fly off. The hill giant is overjoyed and thanks the party by patting Dandelion hard on the head, before running back into the forest. Kal thanks the gods for not picking up yet another stray.
Eventually Celandine stops swimming, and Wanderwood comes lumbering out of the forest, telling them that they have reached their destination. They point to the other side of the river, saying that the Grove should be nearby. Dandelion asks the owlbear if it would like to come with them, to which it agrees. Wanderwood offers to ferry the party across in his arms. They all climb aboard, with the ent picking up Berry, and is carried across. They find that the river is surprisingly deep, with Wanderwood barely being able to stay above water. Safe and secure on the other side, the party thanks the duo for the help. Dandelion takes out a stone from where they cleansed the shrine in the north, carving a symbol into it, before dropping it into the water, telling Celandine that it is a rock from the place she has been furthest away from the forest. Celandine thanks for the offering, and gives the party a boon in return for helping her, allowing them all to be more in touch with nature.
The ent makes his way across the river, and waves at the party as he departs, with Celandine swimming back upstream to where they came from. Dandelion sits down and does a commune with nature, hoping to find some hints about the path ahead. She finds that there is a powerful plant nearby, as well as many firbolgs in the nearby woods. They decide to venture into the forest, hoping to find the grove eventually.
After about an hour of walking, they still haven’t found anything resembling a grove. Also, Penny and Berry are no longer with the party. They look around, and find them wandering in different directions, back where they came from. After Kal shouts at them, they seem to come to, and rejoins the rest of the group. There seems to be some sort of protection, so they decide to use some rope to tie each other together, so as to not lose one another.
After another hour of walking, both Penny and Berry are missing again, having taken off the rope, and walked away. Yet again they stop them, and they return. Going forward, Kal decides to walk to the back, so that she can see when it happens again. And sure enough, Penny starts taking off her rope, but Kal stops her. Penny doesn’t appear to remember starting taking it off, almost like she is in a trance when it happens. Also, Dandelion notices that they appear to be walking in a circle, as they have returned to where they were an hour ago. Relic figures that there is probably a powerful ward surrounding them, and imagines that teleportation and planar travel is impossible. Since they are at the edge of their limit, they need to rest for the evening, but since they cannot use the mansion according to Relic, they will have to watch out for one another.
They make a rudimentary camp, with Relic putting up an alarm spell so that if anyone moves out of the area, they will be awoken by the sound. Relic sits down to rest, watching over the other party members. After about an hour, everyone except Relic and Penny, who is basically dead, gets up and starts walking away. They are luckily woken by the sound of the alarm, and lie back down to sleep. This happens a few more times during the night, before they realize that this will not be sustainable, so they decide to leave the warded area and instead try again in the morning. Since they have wandered quite far into the forest, they decide to use wind walk to quickly get out before they become too exhausted. Dandelion casts the spell while they stuff Penny’s body into the bag of holding, and they start making the long journey back to the river. Or so they thought.
After about a minute, they find themselves back at the riverbed. Laughing at how frustrating the ward appears to be after returning from mist form, they just want to get a long rest. Berry is having a hard time getting out of the mistform, so Dandelion guides him inside the mansion where he goes to rest in her chambers. Relic dumps Penny on her bed, and goes to meditate in her chambers, while Kal retires as well.
After a couple of hours, Penny awakes, being surprised to find herself within the mansion. She wanders around, finding nobody else awake, and then looks outside to see if it is daytime, finding the sun shining between the branches of the trees. After a couple of hours, during which Penny has gorged herself on the pastries that Relic has summoned in the pantry, Relic appears and explains what happened. When Kal and Dandelion wake up, they eat breakfast. Kal uses the mushrooms that Raindrop gave her in the food, knowing it will help against the ward for at least four hours, and feeds them to the whole party, Berry included. They exit the mansion, hoping to have another go at the ward.
Kal does a short divination spell, hoping to contact Faunus before they enter the woods. The wind starts picking up, and Kal is surrounded by leaves which flow around her as the others watch. Dandelion is proud of Kal opening up to other gods. Kal asks how they will acquire the Heartwood Staff, and gets a response.
“Either by cleansing or by fire, but you must work together, and not veer from the path.”
Dandelion asks from a sign from Faunus that it is safe, and finds herself the target of a pinecone that falls from a nearby tree. She smiles, thanking Faunus, before putting it in her bag of holding, rubbing her head where its truck. They then all venture into the woods once more.
The Grove
The mushrooms seem to be doing the trick, because the ward doesn’t prove that much of a challenge this time. After a little over an hour, with Dandelion leading the way, they find themselves in the middle of a beautiful verdant grove, filled with various bushes and trees that all carry fruits. Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, oranges, apples and pears, which all look delicious. In the middle, a small stream carrying the most pure water they have ever seen is flowing, and it all looks very inviting.
Dandelion takes a step forward, as does Penny, but Kal and Relic both are a bit reserved. Berry runs forward to one of the bushes, and begins eating them. Dandelion goes to taste one of the blueberries, while Penny takes an apple from a tree. It is the most delicious fruit either of them have ever eaten. Berry is also happily eating, smiling at the others.
Having not seen anyone else, Dandelion starts making her way around one of the hillocks surrounding the grove, and spots a firbolg woman carrying a basket while picking fruits from the trees, eating one as she goes. Dandelion stares at her for a few moments, before the woman turns towards a nearby bush, spotting her, exclaiming in surprise.
“Oh! Visitors!”
Next: Chapter 71: Awakening