Unfurling ferns

A small clearing in Candle River the PCs will encounter.

The roots of mangroves are colonized by mud and mosses, until it progressively stops being a tangle of roots and water, and instead, the mangrove trees give way to a clearing, where time seems frozen in place. The ground is covered by carpets of mosses. Skeletons of fern trees dot the area. Some are still standing, their dry trunks holding in place; others have fallen to the ground and are slowly being conquered by the mosses.
There may be a mystery in the foggy air that hangs in this place, but perhaps the mystery is not quite in this realm.

The unfurling ferns is an area of some significance to the gripplis living alongside the Candle river. The ferns here grow, or used to, at impressive speeds. Every time lightning crossed the sky, a leaf would unfurl. As the territory of a thunderbird for as many generations as the gripplis care to count for, this made the unfurling ferns an area ripe for harvesting ferns spore cases and spores from.

With the prolonged disappearance of the thunderbird, however, the trees died, unable to grow in the absence of lightenings.

The arrival of the thunderbird

As the PCs deal with the almost drowned Galeek, the storm starts brewing in full force. Just before the PCs hear the questioning voice of Rippling Feathers, they see the ferns growing.

Bolts of blue-white lightning arc in the sky before you, an instant before the clouds envelop the sky above you, and the thunder spreads throughout the mangrove. The storm you had seen far in the distance is now relentlessly surrounding you. Lightning flashes and the clearing to the side start sprouting leaves from the mossy ground as the thunders echo in your mind.
The unforgiving squalls batter your canoe while lightenings pierce the sky with the same velocity as the ferns pierce the moss carpets from the ground.