Speaking To The Heart

• Ms. Rosewood explains everything we have discovered to the Archdruid of the Grove and will allow me to accompany them to speak to the Heart of the Grove.
• Ms. Lendiel goes to speak to the Seneschal about any visitors around the time this corruption began.
• Though some of the life around the grove has died, there is still life at the Heart, and three druids who are focusing their magics to preserve it at all times.
• We sit around the Moonwell, remove all weaponry, and meditate on the forces of nature here.
• Awakening to a field of Treants and Elementals in a weakened and embattled state with desolation beyond, the sound of beetles and smells of rot surround us.
• Ms. Rosewood and I head to the edges, the front per se, of the battle – we find one giant beetle battling with four Treants and a Dryad.
• The beetle, glutted on energy, begins to fade back into the surrounding mists, and we follow.
• We follow it for sixty miles or so in this shadowy version of the world – until it touches down in a dark place, sinking a proboscis into the earth, shrinking in size as it transfers energy into the ground.
• Ms. Rosewood looks around the area and notices a brook, which we follow upstream to a basin where a large number of these beetles defend a well of energy.
• This must be the place, so we retreat back to reality.

The Basin

• Gathering the group back together, we Windwalk over to that basin to investigate, and find it covered by a dome of illusory magic.
• The Moonwell’s power has been inverted and around it are undead creatures and mounds of beetles, seeming to multiply every ten to fifteen minutes.
• We engage, destroying these corrupted guardians of the well.
• Ms. Rosewood sends some magic down the well so we can track it to its source.
• Mr. Darkfoot has once again fallen in battle, so we bring him back to the Grove before reviving him.

Tracking the Magic

• Ms. Rosewood and I head back to the Heart to track her magic from the corrupted moonwell.
• Once back, we see the guardians all dead like we left them, but a large beetle represents the pulsing magic that still remains.
• Ms. Rosewood spreads her fire through the well to help with the tracking in this world and ours.
• We return to the group and begin to rest, while Ms. Rosewood keeps her mind on her magic.
• After three hours, it begins to move, but we wait.
• Around six hours into our rest, the magic stops moving, but nothing happens to it.
• We find our rest, and she is still aware of where the magic has gone, waiting to be collected perhaps.
• We travel back to the basin through trees, and then Ms. Rosewood Windwalks us toward the magic signal to another desecrated area.
• There is a portal here, into a shadowy realm of bowed trees and thorny heights.
• As we step through, we see more beetles, but small and not in swarms.

Shadowfell Showdown

• We find a pair of tents and another moonwell, this one created more recently and also inverted.
• A voice calls out telling us to go away, as Ordinaus and Salya step forward, their eyes sunken, heads hanging, and movements stiff – these were to more recent additions to the grove that Ms. Lendiel had noted.
• They are followed by what appears to be a man half transformed into the form of a corrupted Treant, who Ms. Rosewood recognizes at Coal.
• Ordinaus and Salya transform into young Black Dragons as the ground rumbles and cracks and the three rush to attack us, bringing the very trees along in their wake, a storm rages around us, as well.
• Ms. Rosewood finds justice in burning Coal down, and Mr. Darkfoot finds a black rock of a heart which once belonged to the Raven Queen.
• Several other items are gathered including a corrupted crown that Mr. Darkfoot is quite interested in, but I won’t allow him to wear until I get a better look at it – we don’t need a repeat of what has happened here.
• Fortunately, Shohei also convinced Mr. Darkfoot to return the heart to the dark Goddess Queen shortly after we return to the Library.