Forest sickness, blessings and beyond

[Swebbs]

*Thoughts/words of Pom Wador, gnome druid*

Okay so heres how it happened from my recolection right? Edgar runs in and says "Quick somethings wrong the forest is attacking!" I was with Akodo chatting about animals in the druid glade. The forest attacking? Im not sure why it would but it'd have a good reason to I would think. Okay so I went with him and true to his word Edgar the magician had seen plant creatures attacking some travelers. Rushing to their aide me and Akodo tried to talk them out of attacking but in didnt work and we were forced to fight them, cutting and burning the plants into submission. I'll be the first to admit that I didnt like doing that.

What was wrong? The forest was angry and was lashing out, but in response to something, but what? Sure there was the plague being combated every now and then but the forest hadn't done this sort of thing since the time two trees smushed Ariel the into a broken elf pie.

So we beat the angry forest plants and well Ive no clue what to do neither do the others, of course talking to the keeper was the right thing to do. He said we needed to search for the source which was probably followers of Talona. Talona? that jerk, just a few months back some goblins stole an evil poison dagger from the druids in the glade and they tasked little me to find it which I did. Wow that was neat but so Talona priests are behind it? The keeper wanted us to find out little did we know what we were going to find.

Deep into the forest we went and wow there were a lot of us by that time... they looked at me as some kind of leader. Me? Little Pom? All those elves and humans and Akodo. That felt really odd, but kind of nice to be looked up to and down to at the same time. Heh bad joke, of coures all my jokes are bad. Right dad? right son. Gotcha. Fought some more forest avengers, didnt like to but we had to, but then we found them. Found THEM inside the forest protected by some energy field of magic. We tried and tried breaking it. I yelled, I screamed! That poor little child, poor little thing, it didn't even stand a chance. Even Alyrian couldnt break the barrier till it was too late. Killed it? Violated it, the poor thing and it corrupted the tree, such a beautiful tree and such a violent one after. We killed them. Killed each of those Talonians. They deserved it, but the leader got away, that man who melted the little child. Im going to be haunted by that sight for the rest of my life. We'll find him. Make him pay, make him bleed so the land can taste his blood and spit it out like the vile bile it is. I shouldnt feel this way, but I do.

We told him. Told the Keeper what happened, the horror, every detail. I didnt mean to lose it, didnt mean to cry but I did. I cried like that little child in front of him. He told me to control myself, and I did. I was so embaressed. Im still so embaressed about that. I didnt mean to either. But he was right that we stopped the ritual at least and did some good. Made me feel a bit better, but the Keeper always has that aura about him. Like a gentle breeze on a summer morning. I hope, maybe someday I can be like him, but maybe its not possible, no, not for a little gnome like me. Little tiny Pom.

[Swebbs]

Ariel said that more trees had attacked her and her group. Im starting to wonder if its because the forest just dosnt like her. I looked at them. Those trees, I think they looked sick probably. Hard to tell exactly what a sick tree looks like after its been chopped and burned a bunch by weapons and magic. It must be the work of those foul Talona followers. Talona, Talos, and my panther is named Tala? That dosnt really sound like a good choice but too late to change it now, sides I named her didnt I.

Tala, at the grove she was acting all finiky, frisky and wanted my devoted constant attention when the others were there. She growled at that halfling girl Wren, but Tala dosn't growl at anybody unless they are a threat though, and Wren was completely harmless. Hmm it was'nt until I praised her. Tala is she jealous? I didn't know animals could be jealous, so we left the grove just tala and me. Then she started talking to me, wow that was a shock. Well talking in animal talk I mean which makes more sense. We had been playing in the grove I was a panther too at the time and we were wrassling playfully. I think she got the wrong idea after that. But maybe not? She seems really attached to me more so than normal now. Not like thats a bad thing. Tala's my best friend after all.

[Swebbs]

Finally there is some good news about the corruption in the forest. I was in the grove with the keeper and several elven rangers as well as Hano. He said that he could sense an upheaval in the north part of the forest, in the untrodden grounds. We went to take a look at it of course as soon as we could. We found that the forest guardians were fighting the corrupted trees, trolls and animals of that part of the forest. We aided them and it felt great to be able to fight off the corruption in part at least. The good parts of the forest didnt attack us because of these charms the Keeper gave us. I still have mine and I will keep it always. So we ventured into the deeper corrupted part of the forest and we were on our own in battling the corrupt trees and these massive spiders as well. We fought for the forest and for nature and for Silvanus. I did at least.

After the big battle, we had to withdraw because the path into the corrupted wood was closing in on itself and if we hadn't left we probably would have been stuck there, and that would have been really bad. That corruption fills me with sickness and anger. I compare the corruption of the forest to a zombie of a former human. I believe its a pretty good comparision of how vile the corruption of the forest actually is.

We were able to escape intact without losing anyone and we went and told the keeper of the grove everything that we had done. Next we'll just need to find a way to penetrate deeper until we can find and stop the source.