Aporeu chronicles Issue 93: Disturbance in Nature

Stories from the adventurers

This week

Dane is back, back again.

Disturbance in Nature by Alyr

Hello, I am Alyr Dendrogar and I am writing this story about a quest I went on because everyone needs to know that Dane is very mean and dangerous! Dane is an elven druid who has hurt and killed a lot of people. He has long, dark brown hair and a scar under his left eye. If you see him, please be very careful and go find an adventurer!
Dane, if you are reading this, please stop hurting people and come to the Adventurer’s Guild in Arnheim. We just want to talk to you and know why you are so angry.
Anyway, I should probably start from the beginning. I saw a quest on the board about a village called El’daar that was having some nature troubles and decided that I should help. I guess I felt a little guilty about not doing so well helping Tembega town with their nature problems before. (That’s where I first met Dane!)
I was pretty scared because this would be my first gold quest and I heard those are really dangerous, but then Thamior joined as well and I knew we would probably be okay. Thamior is very strong and wise and kind. He is an elven druid, like me! And like Dane I guess… but Thamior is nice. Unlike Dane, who is very mean.
Also joining us were my good friends Jade and Quen. Jade is really fast and fun and soft. She can be a little scary sometimes, but usually she is very nice! Quen is super famous because he can play music really well. He is also very nice despite being half a Drow. Finally, I also brought a very special friend with me in my backpack. His name is Brownie, and he is a teddy bear that can move and talk! I don’t normally bring Brownie because quests can be very dangerous, but I was very scared to go and he helps me feel better.
When everyone was ready, we went to a person from the guild who could tell us more about the mission. Instead of going up to see Lornan as usual, we had to go outside to a little grove in the guild grounds. I was really confused, but it turns out this really pretty and kind elven druid lady lives there in a tree! Isn’t that amazing? Her name is Gwendolyn, and she told us some things about the mission. I have to admit I was a little distracted by the beauty of Gwendolyn and her grove, so I didn’t really catch much of the stuff that was discussed...
After the meeting, we all left together, walking south to the village of El’daar for about an hour. There, we met Dod, a nice man who explained that three of his friends had disappeared in the woods, where strange black roots were spreading. We promised to find Dod’s friends and make the bad roots stop spreading. I had no idea how to do that, but Thamior is a really wise druid, so I trusted that he would know.
Dod led us a little way into the woods to where the black roots were. He seemed really scared, so Jade told him he didn’t have to bring us all the way. Quen looked ahead using his amazing far-seeing magic. He can’t see very well with his eyes when he does this, so Jade held his hand. I got to hold hands with Jade too, which was very nice. Her paws are so soft! Oh, did I tell you yet that Jade is a cat person? I don’t mean like a person who likes cats, but more like a person who is also a cat. Sort of. I can be a cat too sometimes, but that’s different.
Anyway! Quen said there was a scary place ahead with a lot of those black roots, so we told Dod he should go back now. I was a little worried about him going back all alone, so I gave him one of the potions I made to drink if he got hurt.
After Quen explained that there might be scary monsters or something ahead, Jade said she was going to go take a look all by herself. She’s so brave! Jade did say I could come with her if I wanted to, but I was too scared that I would mess up and get us both in danger. Instead, I asked nature to help Jade and keep her safe. I hope that helped a bit.
I don’t know how, but Quen and Jade were talking to each other from a distance without making a sound. I was a bit worried, and then Quen said that Jade got hurt! Of course, we immediately ran over to help. There were some scary looking monsters with four eyes hiding in the roots, and they were after Jade. I tried to help out by using my sling like Q taught me. It went pretty well! Even though I almost hit Thamior once…
Speaking of Thamior, he was incredible! Thamior is so strong with nature he can even make a thundercloud appear and have it make lightning. I was a bit scared at first, because I think Dane used this power before, and he killed a lot of people with it. Quen was helping as well, making things light up with magic and saying encouraging words. He was even flying around with his boots that have wings! That seems very handy.
Jade was running all over the place with her really fast cat legs, climbing in trees and shooting really well with her bow. She even did some magic that made me feel a bit better when I was hurt really bad, I didn’t know she could do that!
As if the scary monsters weren’t bad enough, more and more dangerous things just kept showing up! First there was a big flower that spit out dead people that started moving and trying to hurt us. Then, the bush Jade was hiding behind suddenly started moving and attacking us! Worst of all, we saw a man in the distance, who was seeming to be controlling these horrible things. The man was Dane, who I told you about before. I tried to ask him why he was doing this, but he wouldn’t listen.
Thamior fought very bravely, all alone in the middle of all those monsters while we stayed further away. He even turned into a really big bear, much stronger than the little cat I can turn into. But even the bear wasn’t strong enough, and Thamior got hurt badly. The monsters were all really scary, but I had to at least try and help Thamior.

I ran over and asked nature to help heal Thamior’s wounds, which looked really bad. Some flowers grew and closed the cuts, which seemed to help! Thamior was still on the ground however, so I decided to stand between him and the monsters to keep them away. I don’t know why I thought I could hold them back, that was really foolish. The monsters were very strong, and they just kept hitting me. It hurt so much… and then I woke up on the ground with Thamior giving me one of his amazing potions that are way better than mine.
Everyone kept fighting really hard, until finally the monsters were all defeated one by one. Jade and Quen tried to stop Dane from running away, but he turned into a really big and scary cat that was too strong and fast. I can’t believe Dane got away again… I hope he doesn’t hurt more people before we find him again. Everybody was really hurt from the fighting, except Quen I guess, so we decided to rest for a while. Jade and Thamior worked together to get rid of all the black roots while I just sat against a tree hugging Brownie. I was so glad he didn’t get hurt in the fight.
After a while, we decided to go back to El’daar village to see Dod, who had thankfully made it home safe. Thamior took one of the dead zombies with him, and Dod said it was one of his friends. I was sad that we couldn’t save the people, and that there wasn’t enough left of the other two to bury them properly. We told Dod about Dane, and he seemed to know about him already.
In the end, I guess we did what we were supposed to do, though I wish we could have helped more. We weren’t in time to save Dod’s friends, and Dane got away again. Thamior said not all gold quests are this dangerous, and I hope he is right. Thamior is always right though, so it should be okay.
That’s all for today. Again, if you see Dane (elven druid, long brown hair, scar under his left eye, not Thamior!), please inform the Adventurer’s Guild. Thank you.

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Disturbance in Nature by Thamior

It was half way morning when i entered the guild hall. I had a mission planned to go and check a swamp on some kind of trouble. Coming in, I saw Alyr, sitting at a table, ready to go on mission too. Finally the time had come for us to go on a mission together.
When Quen and Jade had joined us, we went to Gwendolynn, who I must say, I never met before. I have to check with the circle if they knew a druid was employed by the guild to hand out quests for gold tier members. We talked to her and she told us the information we needed for our quest. The village mentioned on the note was El’daar. A village I’ve been to before, some time ago, so I knew where we needed to go.
After an hour walking, at the edge of the village, Alyr showed us she had taken Brownie with her. Brownie is a living teddy bear which she had found on a mission when she just started adventuring and had stayed with her ever since. Apparently she was really scared of going on this gold mission, which she should not have been, because she is a very good adventurer although she is very young still. After we decided Brownie could stay, if he stayed in the backpack, Dod called out to us. Apparently the villagers were eager for a group of adventurers to turn up. He told us there were some black root patches in the area and a few people were already lost from investigating those. He said the village had elected him to take us to those patches and he didn’t like it, so Jade suggested he would take us half way and send us in the right direction after that. So we started walking and soon after we left the village he started to get anxious, looking around for blackened roots. Jade soon told him to go back home and let us handle it and the relief was clear on his face.
Quen scouted ahead with his long range vision and found the blackened roots. He also saw some bubbling in it, so either it was alive itself, or it hid something under the surface. We had to go see for ourselves. Knowing there were creatures in the blackened roots, Jade snuck forward to check it out. She did also notice the creature in the roots, we heard from Quen. Apparently she was talking to him some way. Suddenly Quen told us to get in, because Jade was hurt by something and we went in. I immediately decided to get in a thundercloud to help us, from which lightning started to strike the ground. I carefully placed every strike. My main target was a strange type of flower which spit out zombies. It was clear those zombies hadn’t been dead for long and we all knew it had to be the villagers who were missing after investigating the blackened roots. After killing a few creatures a new creature rose up. Literally. A bush behind which Jade was hiding, suddenly started sprouting and growing. It attacked us with a lot of strength and it didn’t take us long to notice a strange druid standing some distance away concentrating on the creature. It had to be the one who brought it to life. Unfortunately he was outside the range of the cloud, so I couldn’t rain down lightning upon him. Luckily the creature itself seemed to hate the lightning. Alyr appeared to know the druid, because she shouted out to him to stop. I learned his name as Dane.
The bush kept attacking me and after it hit me hard, I decided to change into a bear so I had some reserves. Looking back I’m not sure it was the right call, because as a bear it is much easier to hit me and that it did. Multiple times. Had only one chance to attack as a bear before I was forced to change back and again took a lot of hits. Before I knew it, I was laying on the ground, with Alyr looking over me. She decided to stand between me and the monsters. Knowing how hard the monster could hit her, I didn’t think it was a good idea, but it gave me time to stand up. Alyr was hit so hard in the meantime she fell down too and I took one of the potions I learned to make in the past weeks to heal her up.
After some time we killed almost all monsters and finally were able to make Dane drop his concentration on the bush. This caused Dane to run. He probably saw it was a lost fight for him and by running he at least survived. We went back to Dod and we took one of the lost villagers with us, which I carried on my back as a bear. In the village Alyr told Dod she was the reason why the mission didn’t go as well as it could have been. So I did something I always try to avoid. I willingly dropped my bear form. I told Alyr she did great. Without her I would probably have perished.

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On the next issue:

Precious Cargo