It was a quiet month that followed as the Scourge of Nature held firmly,
not a single sighting of mushrooms reported or rotten whiff caught.
Still, tension and uncertainty hung in the air after Estarra the Eternal
Herself had proclaimed the influence to be of Soulless origin. Without
knowing the underlying cause, could the infestation truly be over?

Sure enough, the foul presence returned with a vengeance, shrouding
Avechna's Peak in thick green clouds that polluted the heavens in their
wake. The Seal of Nature struggled against the invader with a renewed
power but yielded eventually, overtaken by necrotic mushrooms. The
people of the Basin responded immediately, rushing to the Cave of Nature
only to find the mushrooms had now evolved into trees, their entire
lengths befouled with rot. No single worms sprouted from these but
rather entire writhing masses of them that proved a challenge even for
the hardiest of demigods.

The trees spread along the length of Avechna's Peak and crept into the
communes, twisting the flora in their path. Slowly but surely, the
spores also took root in the cities, bursting through flagstones and
crystal. Axes were put to the trunks to little effect, except to entice
a worm-ridden assault; fire, druidry, elemental rituals - all failed to
elicit a response, let alone curb the spread.

As the rotten infestation continued to sate itself on the purity of the
lands, unchecked during the following month, a fight broke out in
Faethorn. Preceded by Queen Maeve calling upon the Covens of Moon and
Night to attend her as she sensed a disturbance within her kingdom, a
host of maddened brownies stormed the Ethereal Plane. No longer simply
struck ill, the brownies engaged both the knights of the Court and the
residents of the Court alike in a scuffle, no amount of verbal
pacification ceasing their onslaught as they muttered about doing their
mistress' bidding. Suprisingly enough, it was a Serenwilder who first
struck at the attacking brownies, refusing to stand down in spite of the
knight's insistence. The Queen shared her worry over the brownie's
wellbeing with the gathered members of the communes, and together, they
deliberated upon a suitable course of action.

Meanwhile, the Illuminati had snuck in a ribbachi to spy on the
proceedings whilst Magnagorans, at the Earth Lady Gravynia's behest,
sought to infiltrate Faethorn in their own manner. Hallifax's Overmind
uttered its own warnings whilst the Celestians heeded the words of the
Water Lord of High Tide, Skerriagh, to follow in the communes' footsteps
in dealing with what had been occuring of late. Both the Earth and Water
Lords warned against meddling with Ethereal using Elemental forces,
especially not when a blight had been spreading throughout Nature.

Eventually, the Queen beseeched the Tree of Trees to aid them for,
indeed, Nature was threatened as had become all too obvious. And so it
was that the maddened brownies were brought, and an acorn was awarded by
the Tree to all those who brought them back into its cleansing embrace.
No explanations were necessary; the communes seized upon the acorns and
turned their power against the unyielding rotten trees that have been
polluting the Prime Plane. Hesitantly, the cities followed suit, heeding
the warnings that to use other resources might be folly. Some fought
through the brownies' haze with words of empowerment that earned their
trust, others slew them and brought back to life through the Well of
Souls, while yet others utilised their unique tools to entice the fae to
follow them to the Tree - such as the Queen Nifilhema's shackles or Lady
Raziela's sun-kissed locks of hair.

Hope returned as a means of fighting the quiet, unnamed menace was
finally discovered. It was no easy battle, for as many trees were being
destroyed, equally many continued to sprout elsewhere in their stead,
carrying masses of worms ready to spring on unwary passers-by. The
struggle continued for a time until the host of trees was all but
obliterated, prompting new visitors to appear in their protection.
Unheard of for centuries, spriggans came to the defence of the trees,
snarling and smashing at the ground at any bystander. The bloodthirsty
fae also invaded Faethorn which prompted Queen Maeve to take action.

Once she revealed that the spriggans had been banished and imprisoned
for their cruelty, she imbued a clover with both shadow and silvery
essence and used that to peer into where they were now. Her sight was
blocked by something, that part of Ethereal unreachable, and so the
communes set out to scout for the reflection of that place upon the
Prime Plane - knowing that the two planes not only overlaid one another,
but mirrored as well. A day's worth of searching later, a blocked tunnel
in the Razines revealed an entrance into a long-forgotten serene valley
cradled between the upper peaks of the Razines - the place where, just
beyond, the spriggans frolicked.


Penned by My hand on the 1st of Urlachmar, in the year 402 CE.