When the treant steps near her, Croq swings with all her might, and then just keeps swinging as she belts out her war ballad.
Kallie pitches her head back in frustration as the lights go out. "Uhhhggg! Who has the wand of dispel?""I do! It should be..."
Gali begins looking through her wand collection, where she spots something really interesting!
"...A Wand of Cure Serious Wounds," Galatea mumbles. "I totally forgot Tammerhawk gave this to me."
"Great!" Kallie winces as she's struck by something she can't see. "I'll need that too!"
She's tempted to drop a solid cloud on the area for added protection, but she doesn't know if it'll help or hinder the team's efforts. "Talk to me! How are we doing?"
"A bit disappointed. Often treants are happy to see people who are respectful of the woods. The fight's going well though." Jaya dutifully reports, firing off another carefully shaped fireball that swirls harmlessly around Cai'nan and Thalanir.
Aurealia takes a mental inventory of her diminishing spell power, and decides it's okay for her to play a secondary note in this particular song. Jaya's got this...
Cai'nan manages to further damage the Forester with his talon strike. Meanwhile, Thalanir finds it difficult to grapple and crush a bulky tree. The Andosana Siblings quickly inflict heavy damage on the animated tree to the south, though Croq promptly discovers that trees are apparently quite resistant to clubs!
Jaya's second fireball completely obliterates the western animated tree and leaves the Forester himself on death's door. As he is burned alive by magical fire, the treant lets out a roar of agony and nearly collapses to his knees. If not for his... unexpected resistance to fire, the Forester would almost certainly be dead by now.
Realizing that petrifying a hardy tree is probably a fool's errand, East decides to take cautious step out of enemy reach and try her bow instead. It... doesn't go well. Nearly all of her shots bounce off the Forester, and the one that does strike true runs into the same issues Drumstick encountered. Meanwhile, not being able to safely use her bow, West decides to take a cautious step... west and maintain her petrifying stare. She doesn't have any luck either.
Seeing how resilient the Forester is, Cheshire switches to more measured strikes. The Forester manages to fend off her bite and first claw swing, but Cheshire's second claw swing catches the treant directly in his charred husk of a head. As a result, the Forester collapses to the ground, where ghostly strikes from Roderics finally put him out of his misery.
With the death of the Forester, the remaining animated tree goes still.
Galatea lets out a sigh of relief as the Forster/forest goes still. Without further ado, she quickly pulls the Wand of Dispel Magic from her Bag of Holding. She then aims it at Kallie and...
...manages to restore her relative's sight!
Finally, Galatea uses the Wand of Cure Serious Wounds to patch up Kallie, Cheshire, and (when her invisibility finally ends) Jaya.
Ending her song with a dramatic flurry, Croq turns to Jaya and says, "Damn, talk about explosive! Nice work there with those fireworks."
Then, when Gali is curing Kallie and healing folks, she takes a minute to examine the Forester for further evidence of his disloyalty (and of course any interesting loot).
Jaya smiles. "Well, good kindling and all."
The familiar sounds of Jaya's fireball spells are followed by the smell of a campfire and rending wood. Kallie taps her hoof as the fight ends as she expected. "As annoying as getting blinded is, the Forester really picked the wrong target," she comments when the sounds of battle cease. "I was already not going to be very effective in the fight."
When her sight is restored, she approvingly surveys the battlefield. "Good job, all. Thanks, but in the future let's keep that wand where it's more handy."
"I can carry it," Galatea volunteers. "If someone else would rather take it, that's fine. It's just that I'm largely a support caster anyway. Meanwhile, the rest of you typically either use weapons or cast more conflict-oriented magic."
During her search of the Forester's remains, Croq discovers an amulet and a ring, which both register as magical. Otherwise, the area appears to be devoid of anything but a bunch of nice trees (plus three badly damaged ones). The path north to Jade Gardens of Jealousy is now completely clear.
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Croq looks over her two magical discoveries, giving each a gentle bite and then holding them up to her ear, as she attempts to divine their uses.
Aurealia chuckles at her sister's unorthodox way of evaluating magical items.
"Nice job Jaya," she agrees. "Would have been a lot of chopping to down that timber without you!"
Jaya's smile deepens at Aurelia's compliment before she smooths it away with a quick glance at Cai'nan. "Really. Just a matter of having the right job for the right tools."
Jaya and Croq are able to determine that the amulet is an Amulet of Mighty Fists +2. Additionally, they determine that the ring is a Minor Ring of Fire Resistance. This latter discovery explains why the Forester was able to weather Jaya's Fireballs just a bit better than the animated tree did.
"Might be a nice alternative to your holy amulet when dealing with neutral foes," Kallie suggests to Aurelia when the items are identified. "I'm not wearing a second ring, so if no one else wants the ring of fire resistance, I'll use it."
She starts to move north towards the Gardens. "'Jade Gardens of Jealousy.' Think it's called that for the alliteration? Or that the color green is associated with envy? Or that there's actually jade ornamentation to be jealous of?" she muses aloud.
Aurealia nods. "I was just wishing there was a way to combine amulets, but having a backup is better than nothing for when I'm morphed."
"Maybe some kind of golems or animated statues?" she muses in response to the Jade Gardens comments.
With nothing else of interest to be found in the Forester's grove, you proceed northward to the Jade Gardens of Jealousy. The trail ends at a small peninsula, where you find a gorgeous garden with an excellent view of the temple proper. The flower beds and fruit trees come together to create a very aesthetically pleasing environment, and at its center, you see a lovely marble fountain, where a suspicious green peacock statue sits perched upon a plinth, surrounded by crystal-clear water. As beautiful as the gardens are, however, they ultimately seem to pale in comparison to the cathedral-like structure across the lake.
The gardens appear to be completely empty, but as you draw near, Cheshire pauses and begins to sniff the air...