Make a Deal With the Widow

Summary: Beans the Spider, who was asked to defend the Brylln wood by the Druid Naoki has become its grand protector. The woods have come under threat by encroachment of development by the city of Illnerya. A group of empowered critters must band together to save their home, no matter the cost.

In a side adventure within the Brylln Forest, a ragtag band of animal guardians—including Nocturne the lynx, Hoot Hoot the owl, Rooter the boar, Phaestus the raccoon, Sol the wild magic butterfly, and Barbra the badger—intervened to protect a creature named Beans from an invading fire brigade. Combining wild magic, stealth, and primal combat, the critters ambushed the intruders; Barbra entangled them with roots while Nocturne and Phaestus viciously executed the attackers. Before fading into the silver mist, Beans begged the critters to uncover the brigade's broader plot and asked the "great god Naoki" to watch over them.

Infiltrating the brigade’s walled camp, the animals used fire and chaos as a distraction to raid the command tent. Inside, they met Gale—an 80-year-old, blue-skinned, white-haired cloaked woman—who translated their charades, warned them of the forest’s impending destruction, and outlined methods to sabotage the industrial operation at Foundry 7. Straining under the threat of environmental collapse, the critters snuck inside the foundry via an ore carriage. Hoot Hoot and Phaestus rigged a heavy ore crucible to crash into the main conveyor belt, while Phaestus picked the lock on the dwarven foreman's safe to retrieve incriminating financial documents. When a gnome overseer interrupted them, Nocturne and Hoot Hoot violently subdued her just as the damaged crucible triggered a catastrophic kiln meltdown. Exfiltrating as Foundry 7 detonated in a series of massive fireballs, the critters delivered the evidence of the Governor's financial fraud to Gale, successfully securing their legacy as the newly crowned Guardians of Brylln Forest.

In the court of silence and truths, a strange world comprises mirrors and glass shards that reflect the world in a different way. We finally make our way to the great tree of the grove reflected in the court, but me and Emelyne notice these weird crystalline webbings lining the trees, choking it somewhat. I can feel the grove speaking to me almost asking, pleading for help in quiet hushed tones that seem to bounce off these reflective trees. The thought of those druids seeming to fade away, I have to do something…. The great tree seems all choked out by the amount of webs stuck inside of it, constricting it of the life and nutrients. Is this what is causing my people distress? We look inside to see a great spiraling web like staircase, Emelyne lights up a rock and tosses it down, but as she does it seems to just fall down, but no sound as it bounces around. Shrugging her shoulders, she walks down and we all follow suit when suddenly the floor beneath gives way! We all fall down, but for some reason nobody can hear us, its like our voices are deafened or simply swallowed by the tree itself. We fall into this large chamber landing on a web breaking our fall revealing the abomination that is slowly choking out the grove. 6 pods lay around this strange beast called the Weaver attaching more and more webs to each of the pods, an eerie crystal mask adorning its face. It looks over at us, not attacking immediately, but I can tell this won’t go without a fight.

I ask it boldly to release my people and leave this grove alone at once by order of the grove leader of the Lammuld wood. The beast doesn’t look back ignoring my order as it continues to weave nightmares, dreams, joy and sorrow into a twisted tapestry. It looks back around saying that it likes the druids and will continue to feed on them one by one and sees no issue in this. Sanasha and Emelyne stand with me asking if there is a different way, but its no use. We ready ourselves as it barrels down from the web for a fight. As the fight raged on lightning bolt after lightning bolt sent at its face, we noticed it would draw the life force out of the cocoons healing itself completely and stitching our shadows to ground freezing us in place. Thankfully Sanasha was quite skilled ripping this apart and freeing us from those constraints. Diablo began to saw off the connecting threads of the cocoons upon the connection being torn apart with the crystal dagger, a ghostly druid would rise up to the top of the tree one by one. Finally deprived of its energy began to get desperate knocking at Emelyne and attempting to take her out with it. I stepped up to the plate afraid to lose her again conjuring my magical energy around using Polymorph to wrap her body in the form of an enormous T-Rex that we had seen earlier. With the help T-Rexmelyne we managed to hold it down striking at it all at once with Sanasha dealing the killing blow inside Emelyne’s gaping mouth. Finally freed, the webbings the monster made began to fade and glow in an ethereal golden light leaving behind a lot of gold, an origami boat of some sort, and rose quartz.

I turn around hearing a voice congratulating us on taking out the weaver and freeing the parasitic relationship the Weaver had entangled around the grove and the court of silence and truth. The Archfey Lady Veritoth has graced us with her presence! Im extremely thrilled to meet archfey emelyne Oh my SPIRITS! Ahem, she granted us 3 boons to the party 1 of which she reserved for me in exchange for my lightning and thunder staff. I discuss with the party as this staff means a lot to me, but they urge me to take it and the boons that come with it. She plucks from the great druid tree a branch that unspirals itself with liquid moonlight glowing in an orb while the branches are unspun in a way forming the Staff of Moonlit Dreams. She tells me this will heighten my dreamwalker powers significantly. She also bestows to Emelyne a wand when flicked around the dead stores energy and can unleash bigger spells and heighten their effects as well: The Marrow of the First Father. For Renatus, she tears a bit of cloth from her cloth spinning magic until it reveals the Mantle of the Fractured Truth that allows him to use his echo as magical conduit that can now damage enemies and invoke magic itself now. 

She warns us this was only a puppet and the grandmaster still stands tall orchestrating these attacks on the druid groves and the courts of the fey as well. There are more weaves that need to be unwoven in this tale as the boss is a creature from beyond the now shattered veil. We have our work cut out for us, she also grants me a stone that can let me open a portal back to this plane if we so choose for the job is far from complete. We depart, I stay behind and ask her if I was originally from Court of Silence and Truth. She merely shakes her head and sends me on my way. Upon us arriving, we begin to check on the now waking druids, in the midst of hiding in a corner to smoke, Emelyne happens to bump into a woman wearing astral clothing adorned with stars and galaxies underneath, she says her name is Astra!