”Yes, a young woman from your town met our people, saw the error of the destroyers, and wished to walk our path. She lived happily in the forest and on the land in peace and harmony, until another young man brought her grief and sorrow. Now she seeks to restore the balance that was lost: a life for a life. She does not yet know that the balance without cannot be restored before the balance within herself is righted. Nature is harsh, nature is brutal, but nature is never cruel. Cruelty is the invention of a sentient mind, out of balance with itself. Do you wish to restore the balance?”
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the issue is that it is cruelty to take the boy and some of the dogs as it removes the balance of love and places grief. Some of these pets are more then workers and are friends, in one case family, and certainly companions in loneliness. Her grief does not have the right to make others grieve. I am willing to work toward harmony and restore balance in accordance with your customs and beliefs and I respect you. In order to gain the boy and what ever dogs remain again I ask for your help to do so Gunnar says with a nod.
The aged druid nods. ”Millenia ago, before the forest grew, my people observed the sun moon and stars from Cearcall an Fhoghair. The eastern tip of Verduran has claimed the ancient stones and now grief lives there. Bring back the balance: a life for a life.”
With that, the druid steps back into his tree and is gone.
”The Verduran Forest comes to a point to the northeast of here,” Bonita says, ”Perhaps it’s that simple?”
Robert shakes his head and says "It sounds like we have a direction to go. Let us go that way and see what we can find."
"I can now understand the futility of speaking with druids. Fortunately no solicitation of the good word of Gozreh this time," she says undoing the cap to her wateeskin and taking a sip, "I don't expect we shall get much help from them. In fact we are likely to be in some conflict."
"I can now understand the futility of speaking with druids. Fortunately no solicitation of the good word of Gozreh this time," she says undoing the cap to her wateeskin and taking a sip, "I don't expect we shall get much help from them. In fact we are likely to be in some conflict."
"Tell me about it. I mean is he telling us to kill this lady or what?"
He shrugs, "Regardless, let's go find her before she causes any more trouble."
"Doubtful, Mr. Valdemar, more so we are on our own in this conflict, she takes a deep breath, "Hopefully we do not have to resort to killing and we may be able to talk through this terrible deleriium. We should go on."
"I mean I hope so. Though I guess we should really be bringing her back to town to face trial for kidnapping and well... dognapping isn't really a thing right? More like theft of property, I guess? Puppy rustling?"
He thinks on it for a moment, "Which would make her a bandit" He lets out a soft whistle, "Look at me, hunting bandits. I wonder if there's a reward..."
You push through the forest, heading as best you can tell, towards the eastern tip. Eventually you break into open ground, and can see the forest curving to the east further north of your position, and so save some time cutting across the moors, plunging back into the forest where the edge begins to curve north once moor.
The trees in this part of the Verduran are just as alive and vital as the other (though younger), but the woods as a whole are more subdued. Fewer birds chirp here, and fewer small animals rustle in the undergrowth. The forest feels…sad, as if you have arrived just as it finished crying, and is now worn out from its tears.
Through the forest, you can see that the ground is slowly rising to some sort of hill or plateau.
As the tone of the forest changes, Euda slowly lags from her usual place in Gunnar's shadow to the tail end of the group. As they walk, she dangles her hands and allows her fingertips to brush through and rustle whatever low branches and undergrowth they pass through.
"Why so glum?" she mutters quietly to no person. "Was that old man right, has your balance been disturbed? Is there something living among the stones that's poisoning the land? Maybe after we help you more flowers will grow here, I bet that would help cheer you all up."
Maria drew out a small dagger from her person, readying herself for the likely dizzying violence that was to occur potentially, "To think I was to leave this place not long ago, now I'm stuck here in this forest, looking for a murderous tree hugging cannibal."
"Sometimes trees need hugs," remarks softly, "it's not their fault if a cannibal is the one who does that..."
No birds at all grace the branches of the trees on the hill, nor do small animals scurry within their leaf litter. Pieces of basalt, clearly squared off with tools, lie scattered here and there, evidence of some large stone structure, damaged by time.
As you climb, through the trees you see a large circular stone structure rising from the top of the hill. Three storeys tall, though with the walls open to the outside. Thick vines cover all the stone arches that support each level, and the middle tier seems completely overgrown with them. A flight of stone steps, taking one quarter of the circle’s circumference, leads from the ground to the middle tier, and opposite them, another quarter circumference stone stair leads to the top.
Wafting down from the top level comes the faint sounds of barking.
"Of course they do. If they didn't this would be easy," she says somewhat unhappily, "These ruins are likely far older than any of us. A sort of wizard's tower, or at least a bastardized version perhaps?"
Euda looks up at the overgrown middle floor and stares thoughtfully at it for a while. "It's kind of weird how the middle floor is more overgrown than the top or bottom," she notes. "Maybe it gets the best light for these plants, or maybe someone asked them to grow more there? I could try to ask them be less overgrown and they might listen, but I really don't know how long it would take."
Looking to Gunnar and the others, she asks, "do you want me to try or do you have another plan in mind?"
Using the stairs to get up there will require you to cut through vines on the middle floor to get from one staircase to the other.
Robert starts to head up and then says, "Euda, if you can clear the stairs up, it will make our approach quicker and quieter, otherwise I'll be using this scythe more as it was intended to be."
Fezzan Gives one of the vines a tug. "Maybe we could climb up one of these?"
"Or just shout at the crazy lady to come down? Probably shouldn't cut down her plants if we're here to talk nice."
Euda looks with some trepidation at the tangled vines as she moves towards the stairs. A growing part of her wished that she hadn't said anything, though she was certainly glad that taking a scythe to the innocent plants was no longer the first option. When she reaches the bottom of the stairs, she places a hand on the nearest vine and quietly says, "good day, mister vine. I know you've spent a lot of time growing here but you and your friends have gotten so tangled up together that soon you'll be choking out each other's light. Could you please pull back some of you branches at make more room here?"
Euda can use her basic phytokineticist to prune one square per round. Once pruned, the square is passable, but still difficult terrain.
Fezzen tugs on a vine growing up the outside and is quite certain it would hold their weight and then some.
Euda grins at her success and relays her time estimate to her companions. Then she sets to work asking the vines one at a time, with a politeness that borders on apologetic, if they could please make room for her and her companions to pass.
"Vaer, vaer, sharti va be" Maria spoke, casting a spell as they cleared a path.
Eudamonia begins the process of gently clearing away vines, trying to cut straight across the round middle level. As the vines near her withdraw, she senses unrelated movement from the mass in the middle of the room. From behind her, Robert sees a stray vine moving of its own accord along the ground towards Eudamonia from behind.
Maria detects no magic down here, and the stone ceiling is too thick to detect any above.
Robert yells to Eudamonia "Look out there is a vine coming towards you!" He then moves with his scythe to intercept the vine.
Euda watches the vine creeping towards her. It seems unusual but, then, the other vines were ungrowing some of their branches for her so what really constituted weirdness at this point?
Slipping into the language of the forest she says to it, "I'm sorry, mister vine, am I upsetting you? I don't want to hurt any of you, we just need to get across here. Plus, you were all so tangled together there was hardly any sunlight getting through. You need your sunlight to be strong and healthy."
Maria snaps out of fruitless concentration as she tried to find any magical nuisances that would impede their progress, stuck on a literal wall from above. She was brought to attention to the creeping vine by her compatriots, growing nervous.
"I don't think that is one of the friendly plants Euda, get away from it!"
Maria knows that assassin vines are a carnivorous plant that wraps around animals and squeezes them to death. They also have the supernatural ability to animate surrounding plant life like an entangle spell (and there’s lots of that here to choose from). Maria thinks it likely this assassin vine was planted here on purpose.
Euda's eyes flash with fear when Maria's words prompt such a response from Gunnar. She grabs the handsome man's hand as he moves and follows him quickly away from the vine.
The trailing vine slowly retreats back into the mass of plants as the barking above continues.
Sicarius Vitis, known for their berries. They can animate other vines to attack and strangle prey. Nesting in bodies, they make more succulent fruit. We get close it will try and kill us," Maria says flexing her knowledge like an open book.
Robert nods and says "The other option is to let it come close then we "prune" it."
"I don't like the idea of killing an innocent plant," Euda answers timidly, "but, if its going to try to kill us, and it can make other plants try to kill us, maybe we should..."
"Well climbing up vines that are trying to eat us seems like a bad idea, so that simplifies our options. Either we kill it, or yell up to try to get the kidnapper to call off her guard plant."
Fezzan pull out his knives. "Time for a little gardening?"
Bonita is still down the stairs and can't see what's going on. Robert and Euda are up before the vine.
Robert moves forward and attacks the plant.
Robert wades into the vines (now in difficult terrain) and whacks at the carnivorous plant, hacking off a large branch.
AV: -10
"I'm sorry, mister angry vine, but we can't let you eat us, or turn all these other plants mean..." Euda mutters sadly as she calls upon a mass of thorns and jagged leaves to strike at the vine.
Euda's thorns and leaves do little to the angry plant, which tenses up as if about to strike, and then relaxes as all the other vines begin to writhe and lash out at you. Euda, Robert, and Fezzen need a DC 13 Reflex save or you're entangled. Maria and Gunnar are far enough away, thanks to Euda's earlier pruning.
The vine then suddenly lashes at Robert, but the vine thuds harmlessly off his armour, unable to find a purchase.
Gunnar steps forward, unfortunately into the area of entangling vines, which try to wrap around his arms and legs. Still, he thrusts his bardiche at the hostile plant, his aim thrown off just enough by the weight of the vines around him.
Maria and Fezzen are up.
Deftly dodging the grasping creepers, Fezzan pushes through the foliage to engage the predatory plant:
but fails to connect with the writhing mass of vines.
"Ardento magik," spoke Maria as tendrils of magic escaped from a fingertip towards the dangerous and killer plant. It was performed with ease, as if rehearsed a thousand times over. Those familiar with the magic would know that it was a Magic Missile, a low repertoire sort of spell that certain magic users could perform by memory. While Maria liked a little botany, it was clear she was trying to prune this weed.