A Fateful Return

Before leaving towards the Lurkwood the next morning, we stopped by the Golden Hammer where after some back and forth, we managed to get some diamond spell components for Kyla for the geodes we returned from the mines. From there, we went back to the Hall of the Alliance, to see how far Nada had gotten in her rummaging through recent reports. The dwarf complained briefly about our quick return and said that with more time, she would have had a more thorough look and could have sorted out some of the more fictitious sightings, but still presented us with a pile of documents, detailing her current results. A tremendous amount of work must have gone into this on her behalf already, and we thanked her accordingly for her excellent work. This would be something to browse through on our journey. Not knowing when we would next return to the city, Grum said his farewells with his family and around noon we rode our mounts through the south-westerly gate, back towards the forest.
The days have grown noticeably colder this far north, riding our horses I for one was painfully aware of the steady wind cutting through thinner layers of clothing and wrapped my cloak more tightly around myself. It already was late afternoon when we reached the edge of the Lurkwood, where Grum took the lead of guiding us and our mounts under its canopy. Still, with the shorter days and thick leaf cover above us, it soon became to dark for proper travel and we found ourselves a suitable site to bed down for the night. Gathered into the little magical hut, and thus shielded against the cold and prying eyes, I took first watch as the others fell asleep around me. Browsing through some of the findings Nada had given us, I could not help but smirk at the nature of some of the beliefs held about the forest, especially with our knowledge of the very real existence of at least one treant and his promise that there were more, alongside a handful of dryads watching over the woods. But the belief of some hidden treasure, portals to other worlds and the sightings of strange creatures fell in line with what we had learned from Kyla and Teynos about these artefacts, and especially the powers ascribed to resting in a forest and with a world tree seemed awfully real in light of such myths. The sightings of gnolls and their tracks seemed to increase over the last month, and from my reading they seem to grow stronger and bolder by the tenday. And the creeping corruption seemed to be noticed a handful of times at least, although most wanderers based on these reports seem somewhat oblivious to the sinister powers seeking to take hold here. Still, the two mentions of elves between the reports and observations leaves me wondering if there is some more civilised society that calls the forest their home? Possibly something to bring up with Quercus when we next see him. Thus occupied, my watch went without further incidents until I woke Kyla to take over for me.
This morning, Kyla and Nysqwen both informed us that during their watch they saw some shadow lurking outside our camp, Nysqwen described it as a massive spider, with a span of a good two and a half paces and a light blueish, almost white abdomen. However, as soon as either of them honed their gaze in on the apparition, it seemed to vanish in an instant. We did not find any tracks around our camp, but all felt a somewhat more watchful and sombre mood taking hold as we readied ourselves to continue our journey.
We wandered on for most of the day. The paths we tread on grew noticeably less trafficked, the underbrush from both sides encroaching ever closer until we decided we would be quicker if we dismounted. The swirling black mists we had seen during our first visit, that were dissipated in the presence of Quercus’s influence, equally grew in intensity as we pressed on. An oppressive, tense anticipation took hold. It was after dusk, when we finally began hearing the creaking of deep, wooden voices and stepped out onto an ancient clearing under a starry, moonless sky. The place was overlooked by a massive, timeworn oak, older than the kingdoms of humans, branches like enormous arms stretched towards the sky. There gathered around Grum’s oldest friend, we stood in awe, the first humanoids in possibly centuries to see gathered the treants Mountaingiant, Barkwatcher, Mossbeard and Gloommoss, as well as smaller, lithe female figures, the dryads Quercus had mentioned, Thalassa, Lyndra and Sylvaria . A gathering of watchers, an occasion so rare it was the stuff of legends.
As we approached, we just heard Brannwyr speak up. His bark was marked by countless winters and his voice resembled that of rumbling thunder in an autumnal storm. He described something pulling on their roots. A cold, one oblivious to seasons. Sylthara, a dryad, clad in golden leaves, whispered with a haunting voice like wind through a canopy in agreement that the trees muttered of disappearances. Their sisters in the outer groves wilted, with no reason or signs. The ground trembled as Gorlyn Ironbranch slammed a massive arm on the ground and moaned that this was no fire, nor the cold kiss of axes. He named it the void gorging.
Then something changed. Something crawled over this clearing, incorporeal, not moving air, a stagnant, unfathomable silence that caused us all to stiffen up in mute anticipation. Quiet, scuffing steps as of leaves dragged over stone approached from the west. And from between the shadows another figure emerged, stepping between Barkwacher and Gloommoss. A dryad, yet – changed. Where once green, knowing eyes peered kindly over the forest, pearls of midnight black took in the scenery. The once taut skin now cracked, like dead branches. Malgara. She raised a crackling voice, filled with a coldness that so betrayed her role of a shepherd, proclaiming that where it had been spoken of disappearances, there on the contrary was no vanishing, no dying. It was a return.
Brannwyr was the first to shake off his stunned state and called out in surprise that the once proud Malgara had fallen, to which she but laughed. A cold, lightless rasping sound that echoed amidst leaves and skin. She objected that quite the opposite, she finally had risen. She proclaimed that the lifeforce that the collective guarded so fiercely was never meant to remain with them. It was the feedstock for something larger. Something that stirs again. She opened her hand, a dark essence welling up from her palm, black as rotten wood, rising into the air. The surrounding trees began creaking as if under some unseen pressure. The treants next to where she stood were engulfed by this black mist. Ancient, proud bark wilted, cracked, rotted. A lifeless darkness settled into their previously gleaming eyes, the same darkness that covered Malgara’s own. The ground trembled, Roots retreated. And for the first time in centuries, the forest stopped whispering. Suddenly, massive spiders appeared out of nowhere amidst the gathering, matching the description Nysqwen had given of the apparition she had seen during her watch.
 
[to be continued at a spot where Morthos would have had time to write this all down.]