A low flame frees the talisman and other coinage from the slime, and then Alessandria happily leaves the cramped tunnels to commune with Corazal more comfortably.
By the time you return to the surface, Corazal's wyrwood attendants have regained consciousness and begun work to restore the compound. Corazal also shows initial signs of recovery, the orb at their center having returned to a deep indigo hue that seems to sparkle with tiny stars.
"There you are. I am eager to aid you in recovering from the tragic events at the Greenwood Gala. I can read the roots, listen to the wind, and smell premonitions of coming events throughout the Verduran Forest. Together, we can identify imminent conflicts that you might resolve before they become disasters that feed more violence. Take hold of my bark and let us see what we might divine."
Cast 4 hours; Secondary Casters 3
Primary Check DC 24 Nature (master) or DC 29 Nature (expert); Secondary Checks DC 24 Forest Lore, Perception, or Survival
You tap into Corazal’s innumerable senses to identify disturbances throughout the Verduran Forest.
Critical Success: You and Corazal successfully identify a flashpoint: an imminent event that could stoke distrust and unrest. You experience a sensory premonition of the event, can cast know the way as a 7th-rank cantrip to point toward the location, and know which Elder Oak is closest to it.
Success: As success, but the ritual heavily taxes your mind and body. You are drained 1, and until the drained condition ends, you are also stupefied 1.
Failure: The ritual has no effect.
Critical Failure: The ritual has no effect beyond burning your mind with conflicting information. You are drained 2, and until the drained condition ends, you are also stupefied 1 and have the Dubious Knowledge skill feat. Whenever you would decrease this drained value, the value does not decrease unless you succeed at a DC 11 flat check.
"Like, I can try," Kilitsi says, reaching out to place her palm on Corazal's bark.
Unfortunately, communing with Corazal is too much for you to handle! The cascade of conflicting information burns Kiltisi's mind and leaves her
drained.
"Hmmm. This is unfortunate," Corazal muses. "We must find a way to prevent your fragile minds from becoming overwhelmed. While you were reviewing my memories, I witnessed some of your thoughts as well. There is a wise councilor of the Wildwood Lodge you are familiar with. Emorga All-Seer. I have sensed her presence before, though I did not know her by name. I suspect her patience and willpower might make her a safer candidate to commune with me.
"With your permission, I can begin preparations to open a pathway to the Elder Oak near the Greenwood Gala grounds in order to transport her to us."
"Hey, careful with her!" Higgins rebukes the ancient, powerful being. "That's our friend, and she's breakable."
"Probably god to get someone who can talk to you, if we can't manage it. How are you opening this pathway? We had quite the squirrel ride to get here."
Kilitsi groans and blinks as she tries to understand what Corazal is saying. "We should go back and get her?" she asks, confused.
"I share a cosmic connection to this forest. Scattered throughout its vast expanse are several Elder Oaks, trees that are particularly ancient, large, and rife with primal magic. It takes time and effort, but I am able to open extradimensional pathways between these trees and my own.
"I must concentrate for several hours. My servants shall tend to your needs."
A few wyrwoods approach you to offer you sustenance or salves for your wounds. The others begin preparing the area for Emorga's imminent arrival, rapidly restoring the cloister structures so that they provide sufficient shelter for any visitor to rest comfortably.
"Well, this is more like it," Wispil sighs and lets the wyrwoods take care of him. "You fellas have any grub?"
Alessandria snorts at Wispil's request. "I know you are not some lost fledgling to need us to mother you so."
You eat, rest, and recover for a few hours as Corazal completes their ritual, opening up a shimmering gateway in their tree. Emorga All-Seer steps through, and the portal closes behind her. Once she arrives, the enormous tortoise catches up on what's been going on here, then begins acquainting herself with Corazal and their capabilities.
Emorga does not arrive bearing good news; hostilities between settlers and forest natives have only increased in the days since the attack on the Greenwood Gala. With Corazal’s assistance, however, she hopes that she can identify key areas of potential conflict across the forest and send you in to mediate.
You perform the ritual of communion again, this time with Emorga leading. At the end of it, you receive a prognostication: a dreamlike mental jumble of images, sensations, and words that represent the forest’s impressions of the crisis at hand.
"By night they came, clattering and killing for the favor of a spirit in green. Those who escaped the slaughter seek salvation within a ring of ash. But the shepherds, weeping over a fallen flock, see no sense in their culling and cry out for vengeance, blinded to the nature of their true foe."
At the end of the ritual, Emorga slowly blinks and turns to you. "This crisis is happening on the east bank of the Sellen River, near the small village of Marin's Mill. When you are ready, I will have Corazal open a pathway to a nearby Elder Oak that you may travel there and quell whatever unrest might be happening there."
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Gentle Storm takes the tine to scrounge up some food for the group.
"That doesn't mean we can't help. But it does mean you shouldn't go without packing provisions of course."
He offers some of his bounty of fruits, berries, and fish to the drake. "For your aid in the journey."
"It is good to see you All-seer. I do have a request while we await Corazal to open another rootway. Kilitsi here took the brunt of our personal attempts at the ritual and I believe she could due for aid. My magic isn't quite strong enough to cure what ails her, but perhaps yours might?"
"Of course. Allow me to lend some aid," Emorga says. The great tortoise works her magic, restoring Kilitsi!
"Look, you think I'm traveling without snacks?" Wispil questions. "I just know enough to see when I can pick up a free meal."
"Do you have any sense of what we'll be facing, elder? And do you know anything about Marin's Mill?"
"Marin's Mill is a logging village. There's a community of arboreals not too far from its location. If I had to guess, I'd say that the two groups are at odds with one another. You should pay a visit to the arboreals and try to find out if they have more information."
"Very well, let's fly," Wispil says.
"Ugh. I don't feel any better," Kilitsi whines. "I'm going to take a nap and I'll catch up with you all later."
You step through the Elder Oak and emerge through another one elsewhere in the Verduran Forest. Locating the arboreals’ grove isn’t difficult. When you arrive, you find the beings engaged in a heated discussion. It would seem that the inhabitants of Marin's Mill have all but completely cleared the woods that once surrounded the village, even going so far as to set the remaining stumps and undergrowth ablaze to obliterate them entirely in direct violation of the Treaty of Wildwood. An overwhelming majority of the arboreals are in favor of punishing the villagers' perfidy by flattening the town at once!
"Like, why would they even do that?" Kilitsi says. "Everything will be covered by ash and smell like ass ... I mean ash. Or smoke."
She thinks for a second.
"Maybe we can try to find out what's going on? Something is setting people to kill each other. Like something almost ate Corazal even!"
"I say, we kill the villagers!" Wispil says to his companions. "But...Kilitsi is right. We better find out what they know first."
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Taking in the destruction Gentle Storm worries that they are simply too late. But the Arboreals are still in council about what to do next.
"Friends friends please, let us not be hasty in our actions. We come as representatives of the lodge and we believe there is foul play afoot setting us against old allies in order to weaken us further."
He bows deeply, "Please allow us to seek the inhabitants of the local village and see what drove them to such heinous acts before we seek revenge. That we find a path forward together, instead of one forged from the wake of ashes."
Alessandria stamps her hooves unhappily, all too aware that without communing with Corazal she would have been among those calling for the village's immediate destruction.
"We are being used, cousins. Some darker force has driven the interlopers to this outrage. Their actions will not be forgotten, nor forgiven out of hand, but I will not allow my anger to wielded by a deceiver. Please, stay your wrath until we can find the one on whom it should be spent."
The grove leader is an arboreal named Ironbark who is resistant to talk of restraint. "No. No! I will not hear any excuses for this wanton slaughter. These trees were our family, our friends, our community! We have always allowed these people their measure each year, as the Treaty demands. But now they clearly believe that the Lodge has weakened such that they can do as they will, and they will bleed the forest dry with axe and torch if we do not stop them. I will not stand aside and see the rest of my comrades cruelly butchered and set ablaze. No! If you care for the safety of these faithless wretches, go to their town and tell them to flee before we arrive. We will show them no quarter. They have three days to evacuate before we march!"
His tone is harsh, but is offer is fair
"Three days then. We will find the true root of this destruction, or we will see them driven from Marin's Mill."
Marin’s Mill is about half a day’s travel to the southwest. As you move through the forest toward the town, you become increasingly aware that something is stalking you. Rustling noises in the brush and furtive movements just out of sight quickly become apparent.
Gentle Storm is able to get a good look at the culprits: multiple tiny humanoid creatures seemingly woven from vines and brambles.
Gentle Storm recognizes the beings as twigjacks. Maladjusted forest denizens, twigjacks form from the cruel and prankish combination of fey and the very woods in which they reside. While truculent and violent, twigjacks care deeply for what they consider to be their forests. These creatures harass outsiders who delve deep into their wooded domains, forcing back even the most determined explorers, foresters, and travelers, especially when those intruders cut roads through the forest.
"Fellow wardens, we know that your home is troubled, and we seek answers as surely you do. What can you tell us of fires and new, green spirits?"
The twigjacks immediately scatter and flee into the forest!
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Gentle Storm hums at them fleeing, "Odd. They're known to be skittish but to this degree."
He takes a pouch of tree seeds and begins planting them along the path as they walk it won't do anything quite yet, but it would begin the slow process of healing the land. The potential saplings would do well to soak in the ashes of their fallen and grow strong.
"Perhaps we can get a hold of one of them if we're particularly sneaky ourselves. Alessandria, why don't you and the others go ahead a bit and I'll catch up if they start to follow us again?"
She nods and trots on ahead. "I am a better warden than a sneak."
"Like, I hope they don't attack you even," Kilitsi says as she picks up her own pace to keep up with Alessandria.
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"As one who calls these woods their own I would hope they don't, but fey-like creatures can be capricious at best."
Keeping on with planting seeds Gentle Storm lets the others get a bit of distance before shrinking down to the size and shape of a very fluffy white-eared oppossum before waddling off into the woods to try and sneak through the brush and find the groups stalkers.
The trail of the twigjacks leads in the same direction that you are traveling. Gentle Storm shadows the group in his opossum form as you continue towards Marin's Mill.
About an hour outside of town, you stumble upon a strange ritual site. At the summit of a low hill in the center of this clearing, a trio of ancient stone menhirs protrude from a cluster of grasping brambles, their weathered carvings long since covered by moss. Impaled on the dagger-like thorns of the brush nearest the great stones are dozens of small animal corpses: mice, squirrels, rabbits, and even what appears to be the occasional chicken or house cat.
Perched on a low stone shelf at the base of the hill, a tiny twigjack prances and capers, shrieking something indecipherable in a reedy, high-pitched voice. A horde of similar creatures gathered before the thing seem to be excitedly applauding every pronouncement it makes, collectively rattling their dry branches and erupting in a chorus of eerie whistles.
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Gentle Opossum looks about the strange ritual site, this seems rather unusual even for twigjacks in his mind as cruel as they can be they aren't typically ones to just slaughter small critters without reason.
Perhaps the purpose of this place of power can be determined and used to inform the group of how best to proceed.
Getting closer, Gentle Storm can see the twigjack leader is waving around a wooden wand and holds a mask with a strange face on it. Investigating the hill, the druid recognizes that the hill and its menhirs are an ancient site of worship for the Green Faith, though it's clearly been neglected until recently. Its creation likely dates back to the Taldan empire’s founding, if not earlier.
Geometric and arboreal designs cover these menhirs, though most of them are chipped and eroded beyond recognition. However, Gentle Storm identifies two images resembling a face. The first is heavily weathered, as though it dates back to the site’s creation. The second is crudely etched into a different menhir, as if by acid. The second design’s slightly feathered outline suggests that lichens grew in this shape, gradually eating away at the stone surface before dying off. From the design and context, these seem to represent a powerful nature spirit known as a green man.
Several tiny effigies made of vines and twigs are propped up among the standing stones. These figures resemble twigjacks, though they’ve been deliberately woven around bits of fungi, causing parts of each figurine to decay. Gentle Storm surmises these are likely meant to represent the green man, too.
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Lumbering back towards the party Gentle Storm starts to put together that the Twigjacks are likely worshipers or adherents of the green man. Judging that the lichens and brambles have eroded the monoliths more quickly he guesses this may not be a benevolent one either, so he waddles with haste back to the group.
When he reunites he reintegrates with the party fairly easily on their journey. "I believe the twigjacks are being rallied by one of their own to worship a green man. Seems the locals have lost faith in the green path as well. I would like to investigate the settlement before we act, but I also worry that the congregation may indeed summon forth one of the kin. Especially if they rally the arboreals to their cause. The possible ramifications of that are unknown to me however, but they could range from harmless reclamation and reseeding to catastrophically destructive. Given the vision we were subject to however, I believe the answer is easy to guess."
"A Green Man, eh? Well, that would certainly serve the townsfolk right," Wispil observes, darkly. "I do think we should check out the ritual site--good job finding it, GS, but if we know why the tree killers starting cutting down the forest, it might be easier to talk down an angry nature god."
"Can we wait? Like, don't we think the villagers are probably going to say they were provoked by the creatures in the woods, who say it's the villagers who started it? But, like, don't we know someone else started it? If we think these twigjacks could summon a green man or woman, we should, like, probably stop them first, right?" Kilitsi says.
"By night they came, clattering and killing for the favor of a spirit in green," Alessandria intones. "If the vision showed truly, then these twigjacks and their new patron are the ones who have set all sides at one another's throats. This ritual site and their patron are clearly at the heart of matters here."
Kilitsi pulls her axe off the back and checks its edge. As Gentle Storm prepares, she quickly pulls out a whetstone and hones the blade ever so slightly, making sure it's sharp. She nods.
"Do we know anything more about them?"
Wispil does the best shrug that his bird body can manage, "They're made of wood and we're bringing Alessandria with us. I'm sure she'll make it hot for them."
Alessandria scrunches her nose, tossing her hair back over her shoulders in discomfort.
"They are of the wild; I would fain give them a chance to explain their deeds and to introduce us to their green spirit, but I mislike what I have seen so far."
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"They are sacrificing woodland creatures to try and bring forth their spirit, so I do not believe it will be one of benevolence this time dear Alessandria."
He shakes his head at that clearly not happy with the idea of anyone summoning a violent spirit of the woad into their woods at a trying time like now. With tensions as delicate as they are right now it may even be seen as an act of aggression to summon a kind one.
"There was a very small one, wearing a mask I believe it is the ring-leader of sorts. Perhaps if it falls then the others will disperse harmlessly?"
"Let's just, like, do this? It sounds like we have a plan, and that's better than letting them kill everything."
Kilitsi knows that twijacks are weak to attacks from axes as well as fire. Once you are ready, you step out from the undergrowth and make your presence known. Upon spotting you, the lead twigjack immediately shrieks and levels his wand in your direction. The other twigjacks mass up, forming into a troop, colloquially known as a "bramble!"
Alessandria gestures with a gauntlet like she's out hawking and a fiery falcon surges forth, clawing and raking for the multitude of twigjacks even as the air around her ignites in a deadly defense.