A few short years after the sky split wide and revealed the return of
the Silver Goddess, Her four Void-weary cohorts in tow, the mortals of
the Serenwilde Forest noticed a cloud of silver butterflies that seemed
to follow their mysterious Patron's every manifestation. Each time the
deity appeared, She was accompanied by these harmless creatures, and
they became companions of a sort to the Goddess, Who viewed them as a
gesture of good will from the natural world.

Soon, however, it became apparent that the butterflies were more than
just a fragment of the Ethereal Realm, a land Lisaera favours for its
connection to the Great Moon Spirit. When the Silver Lady's enemies
began moving against Her in various interactions, the silver butterflies
reacted hostilely toward the Goddess's assailants. Although their lives
were short, the Goddess admired their strength of spirit and used this
inspiration to awaken a similar quest for inner strength in Her
followers, the Lisae.

Together, the Order of Silver composed a potent ritual that would unite
the guilds of the Serenwilde Forest together, fueling the boughs of the
woods with faith - and, unbeknownst to the members of the commune at the
time, a large fragment of Lisaera's own power. The Ritual of Unity was a
triumph that brought the forest itself to life during a time when the
Glomdoring Forest's dangerous attempts to quell the new growth of the
Serenwilde seemed overwhelming, and the commune surged forward into a
new age of strength and unification. "Basala'oren Seren!" they shouted,
a fae phrase that means "To awaken shelter!"

And then their Deity fell sick.

Over the course of several years, the Silver Goddess exhibited strange
symptoms - She spoke to no one, despite the attempts of Her faithful to
hold Her steady in Her own fulcrux; She fell to Her knees and begged for
clarity on different occasions, accusing Herself of a mistake She could
not explain; Her senses began to fail Her, including Her Divine vision
and Her ability to hear. With each new symptom, the Silver Goddess grew
weaker, until finally, in a moment of lucidity, She shared with Her own
that the Crone, Her most powerful aspect, slept and that She was weak
beyond a point of reconciliation, and that it was Her fault. She also
shared a vision of darkness, wherein the image of beaks and talons tore
through the skies, dropping silver blood onto the canopy.

Exhausted from the power spent in sharing these visions, Lisaera
continued to explain what She thought was causing Her diminishing
strength. She confessed that in an attempt to empower the Serenwilde
Forest to a point where it would easily outpace the growth of its
neighbours, She poured Her own essence into the ritual's spellcraft,
which She worried may have begun the process of Her own splintering. She
also sought an end to the burdens of Her memories, which She believed
held Her back from accomplishing Her goals. She then bid Her Lisae
farewell and asked them not to dwell upon the terrible recourse of Her
decision, and then Her Order watched in horror as the Serenwilde's
now-living boughs began to devour Her remaining power.

Days later, the Ethereal Maiden, an aspect of the Silver Goddess,
appeared amidst a crowd of troubled Serenwilders, who were convinced
their Patron had just been consumed by the boughs they are sworn to
protect. Seemingly unaware of the events that transpired, the jovial
Goddess begged the forest to remain positive despite its sullen
attitude, until Arien Siar'luin, a high-ranking priestess within the
Silver Order, convinced Lisaera that something was amiss.

Together, the Goddess and Her mortal followers sought answers from the
natural world and worked a spell to See what was happening in the
unseeable world around them. The Maiden reminded the Lisae that She was
weak, and so their contributions were vital - and also, that if any of
Her enemies were to discover this secret, it would surely be Her
undoing. So convinced that the Southern Alliance played a role in this,
the mortals convinced the Goddess to bid them to find key ingredients:
books that held knowledge from every nation, blossoms that represented
the turning of the seasons, and enough corpses from Magnagora and
Glomdoring to represent the physical nature of Her casting.

The Lisae looked on in wonder as the Ethereal Maiden lifted the blossoms
into a ritual circle and used Her moonfire to ignite them, releasing
their energy into the spell. She then read from each book of wisdom,
filling Herself with the knowledge of the nations She sought to know,
and then finally reduced the corpses to ash with a single wave,
compelling the bones and dust to take the shape of Her enemies. At
first, a feminine shape appeared in the image, and the Silver Goddess
focused Her power intently on this revelation. With a flash of silver
light, however, the image shifted to reveal the outline of a feral hawk,
its dark eyes intent on murder. With the spell ended and the knowledge
gained, the Silver Goddess bid Her followers to look to the skies for
their answers - while She decided to break another spell.

Soon after this revelation, the forest watched in vain as silver blood
rained from the skies and the corpses of butterflies fell to the ground.
All that remained of the creatures were their tattered wings, and the
Lisae, equipped with their new wisdom, blamed the Goddesses Viravain and
Drocilla, two beings Who knowingly despise the Silver Goddess. The
Ethereal Maiden completed Her second spell, which sapped much of Her
remaining strength, and broke the veil behind which the nighthawks
worked, revealing them to the forest. At this very moment, the silver
butterflies - which toiled this entire time on a mysterious task - broke
through the walls in the Silver Lady's temple, showing the Order what it
was they worked so hard to do: they had created a gargantuan cocoon of
gossamer silk, which they spent their short lives empowering with the
silvery essence that was locked within their tiny bodies.

Finally seeing their opponents in the flesh, the Serenwilders made it
their mission to destroy each nighthawk they discovered, bringing their
slain corpses to the cocoon to deposit the energy they stole. This
continued for several months before finally, the true enemy was revealed
- a few of Drocilla's Evanescent were seen crooning to these dread
beasts, their voices empowered by a choker imbued with a sample of their
Goddess' voice.

The back-and-forth continued, each side struggling to obtain the
contents of the nighthawks' bellies before the other, until finally, the
cocoon, filled with enough energy, burst wide, revealing two spectral
visions within: one a male spirit that fled to another corner of the
temple, and the other the manifestation of the Crone's sleeping energy
newly awakened. As the Silver Trinity appeared above the Serenwilde
Forest, uniting once more as the Hallowed Crone, the Enchantress made
Her triumphant debut as the architect behind the Crone's prolonged
slumber.

Lisaera, Her strength restored in full, reviled Drocilla's attempts at
claiming Her essence, recalling a time when the Goddess was not known as
the Enchantress. The crooning laughter of the Deceiver filled the Basin
of Life as She supplied the Silver Goddess with Her own wisdom: that
Lisaera was not strong enough to match Drocilla in any way. The Crone
manifested a blaze of moonfire, which She sent hurling through the
heavens toward the Enchantress, striking Her square in the chest.
Drocilla healed immediately and shrugged off the blow, firing back with
Her own attack - a cloud of nighthawks that streamed up from the canopy
of the Serenwilde. After igniting most of the feral birds in a silver
conflagration, Lisaera withdrew from the battle, promising the
Enchantress that She would see the Crone again. This promise was
returned by the Deceiver, Who claimed that it is Lisaera who stands as a
traitor to the Elders, not Drocilla.

When the dust and moonfire finally settled, the Hallowed Crone revealed
to the Lisae that the male spirit who escaped from the cocoon was in
fact the reason She survived these trials. Known as Elthadean Lunseer,
this spirit-made-man by Lisaera's power once reigned as the foremost
scholar of transformation and change in his time, and so continued this
craft in death as a shepherd of sorts for the mooncloak butterflies. In
exchange for his assistance, the Crone promised the scholar that if he
helped Her, She would renew his mortal cycle, allowing him to continue
his work. He obliged, and so is reborn as a priest in the Hallowed
Crone's temple, free to teach the Lisae about what he knew in his former
life.

Meanwhile, the nighthawks that did not meet their end in a blaze of
moonfire scattered across the Basin of Life. While some members of the
Serenwilde Commune hunted them down before joining the celebration in
the Hallowed Crone's temple, not all of the nighthawks were found. Not
by those who would protect Lisaera's lost essence, at any rate.



Penned by My hand on the 19th of Estar, in the year 398 CE.