Nestled in
the arms of a tree in the villa’s greenhouse, Erwen tossed and turned
fitfully as he dreamt that the Nidris’s topiary guardians were withering under
a fast-acting degenerative blight. Trike the topiary triceratops bellowed and wheezed in agony,
calling to the druid for aid… Erwen jerked awake, reflexively wildshaping into the form of
a triceratops. His added bulk snapped the tree limb beneath him and the quadrupedal
thunder lizard crashed down to the grounds of the greenhouse. The glass panes
nearest him rattled in their frames alarmingly. Saur-wen got to his feet gingerly and began peering about
for foliage to munch on. His beak wrinkled in disgust and he spat out the first
wad of greenery he was chewing. He smacked his chops, recoiling from the bitterness,
and examined the plants around him. Sure enough, their leaves were coated in
reddish splotches of rust and white laces of mildew. Saur-wen’s beady eyes narrowed. He could see the blight
spreading from plant to plant with great speed, like an invisible curtain of
disease was being drawn over the vegetation within the greenhouse. He caught signs of movement outside. Fleeting, flitting
shadows running silently from topiary to topiary, from hedge to hedge. As he
stared at the villa’s grounds, he could see the hedges visibly withering. Saur-wen felt he needed to get out the greenhouse as quickly
as possible. He lumbered forward towards the main exit of the greenhouse.
The triceratops burst through the doors, and the druid winced as the glass splintered
around him. He took his bearings. The greathouse where his friends were
lodged was up the hill. Here and there loomed the stationary topiary and the
hedgerows that framed walking paths, heritage trees and contemplative gardens
about the grounds. Saur-wen’s heart sank as he saw the powerful form of Trike
withered before his eyes, leaves turning brown, drying up and dropping away to
be carried on the midnight breeze. A sudden crack shattered the silence. A nearby tree, its
leaves having turned a variety of autumnal shades though it was only
springtime, shuddered as its main trunk began to bulge and split. Something emerged slowly, with an almost delicate cruelty,
from the slit that opened in the trunk. The bark peeled away as if it was
trying to flee from the long, slender fingers that gripped the tree trunk and
pushed it open. First arms, then legs emerged to plant themselves daintily
on the grass, which immediately turned brown. A shapely female, half again as
tall as an average human, stretched languidly. Her torso and head were wreathed
in a garland of holly leaves that gleamed with unnatural vitality considering
the blight that was spreading visibly around her as she moved. He skirt was woven
from vines and trailed behind her as she walked. Her skin looked like it had
been carved from pale maple that caught the moonlight along her curves in a way
that made Saur-wen very uncomfortable. She held a gnarled wooden staff that gushed green vapour
from its tip. From the hole in the tree emerged another figure. Saur-wen’s eyes widened as he recognized the elf from Rothé
Valley and the Watcher’s Forest, the ranger who he had tried to scorch with a wall
of fire . The elf caught sight of the triceratops and drew his sword,
pointing it at Saur-wen. The female druid stretched out her staff and pointed it at the
ground. There was the sound of twisting vines as plants began to spring up a
few feet away, shaping themselves into a huge form that was vaguely leonine in stature,
its body made of writhing vines and thorns. Saur-wen swore he could hear Reidoth whisper, “The Corruptor!”
He began to rush towards the new arrivals. The elven ranger ran fearlessly into harm’s way, firing off
a fire bolt before dodging aside at the last second and slashing at Saur-wen’s
underbelly as the Triceratops rumbled past him. Saur-wen’s armored hide
withstood the blade attack. The woman regarded the approaching dinosaur coldly, and then
gathered her skirt with her free hand, flinging it out in a thorn whip
that lashed Saur-wen’s beaked face. She pointed her staff at the Triceratops as
more green vapour wafted out, turning a sickly yellow as it gathered in a stinking
cloud that blocked the druid’s path. Saur-wen pressed on, and then with effort leaped into the air,
dropping his wildshape as he somersaulted towards the woman. “Not this time!”
he whooped as he wildshaped into the form of a giant eagle, stretched out his
wings, and rocketed skyward, dashing out of range of his enemies as he
pinwheeled overhead. He recognized the hulking plant creature as a battlebriar,
a construct that druids of a darker bent were known to create. The woman craned her neck to follow the flying druid, then
shrugged and whispered a command in guttural Sylvan to the battlebriar. Without hesitation, the quadrupedal creature bounded towards
House Nidris, followed by the woman, the elf, and a cadre of elven archers that
had emerged from the rent in the tree, which even now was clearly dead, the
last of its leaves shriveling to a crisp. There was a tremendous crash that shook the foundations of
House Nidris. The adventurers, who had been bandaging their wounds and getting
whatever rest they could after their fight with the assassins, rushed towards the
Great Room, from which emanated the sounds of splintering wood and cracking
plaster. Siegfried reached for the heavy oak doors that blocked the
adventurers’ path. “Careful now!” Varien shouted. “Remember what happened when
I tried to open the door upstairs!” Siegfried scoffed and pulled on the handle. The doors swung
inward. An avalanche of writing, skittering spiders buried Siegfried,
spilling out into the foyer of House Nidris. The swarm of chittering arachnids
roiled and seethed across the hardwood floors. Bob stopped in his tracks. Siegfried’s Armor of the Dawn Titan created a
protective mantle of ash around him as the spiders spit acid and ropy strands
of webbing at him, saving him from the worst of the mandibles and pedipalps. Alec let loose a fire bolt that was swallowed up by the
horde of spiders to no visible effect. “It’s a plague, not a swarm!” Siegfried shouted, reflexively
swatting at those spiders that got too close to his mouth and eyes. Varien bounded forward, propelled by his boots of
striding and springing as he leapt into the roiling cloud of spiders. Bob retched. Varien winced as the creatures bit him from head to toe, but
managed to scoop up Siegfried and push him to the edge of the plague-ridden
space. The two adventurers took in the sight of a massive lion-like
creature stomping around the great room of House Nidris, bashing aside a
swinging chandelier as it turned finely-crafted furniture into matchsticks and
expensive woven rugs into rags beneath its clawed feet. There was a sound of polyphonic
catastrophe as the creature’s bulk sent a heavy antique pianoforte skidding
across the floor. Bob willed himself to move. “This way! There’s another path
to the great room!” He lunged for the library, followed by his brother. Theryn nodded and dashed through the adjoining library room,
which opened up into the Great Room to the north. The lumbering battlebriar took notice of the new arrivals
and swiped at Varien and Siegfried with a thorny paw the size of an armchair.
The two managed to duck the creature’s swing. From another part of the room beyond their reach stretched a
sudden length of thorny vine that whipped around Siegfried’s legs and pulled
him off his feet, dragging him beneath the battlebriar’s underbelly. “Fine, let’s see who’s at the other end of this,” Siegfried
muttered to himself. A yellow cloud of sickly-smelling blight began to manifest
inside the room. Varien wrinkled his nose and stifled a cough as his vision
blurred. From the far side of the battered pianoforte, an elf in ranger’s
studded leather leaped, sending a fire bolt at Varien before following
through with a swing of his sword, which glanced off Varien’s shield. “Treachery!” Varien shouted, then gulped as he held back
some bile at the stench that surrounded him. “Who do you think you are,
bursting into a woman’s home like this?” The words died on his lips as he saw several other elves make
agile leaps through the giant hole in the wall of Lady Nidris’s home and let
loose a volley of arrows in his direction. Siegfried grimaced as an arrow thudded into a vine-wrapped
leg. Another thorn whip from across the room narrowly
missed Varien. “Who goes there?” he called out. “I’m growing tired of intruders
who don’t identify themselves!” Siegfried struggled to his feet, cutting the thorns from his
leg and spitefully pulling out the arrow, breaking it over his knee. He scanned
the room and took note of the tall female who seemed to be calling the plays.
He smiled darkly, manifesting a hexblade curse on the druidic humanoid
as he drew Talon from its otherworldly scabbard. He locked eyes with the woman
as he lunged at her, slashing with precision and skill, knocking her over as she
tried to put some distance and furniture between her and the half-orc, and
pushing her with his boot until she sat in the cold ashes of the large hearth
that dominated the eastern wall of the Great Room.
“No,” he said to the prone woman in elvish. “No, no. This is nothing. There is
nothing.” The woman cursed at Siegfried in Sylvan, and then tried to
wrap him in another thorn whip . Without breaking eye contact, Siegfried raised his sword and
cut the thorny vine down. The woman’s eyes widened. Alec launched a volley of magic missiles at the hulking
battlebriar in the centre of the room. Varien removed himself from the stinking cloud. “Do I
really care all that much about Lady Nidris’s belongings?” he asked himself as
he took in the growing numbers of enemies entering the northern side of the
room. “Nope!” he shouted as he cast wall of fire , splitting the room in
half with a roar of flame that stretched from floor to ceiling. The druid screamed as the hearth ignited beneath her. Wreathed
in flames, she skittered, spider-like, to safety. Bob raised his hands and fired a twinned guiding bolt at
the enemies he could see, nailing the elf who still stood atop the pianoforte
and hitting the battlebriar squarely. A thorn whip lashed out and hit Siegfried again, drawing
him nearer to the druid, who had recovered and smothered the flames. Siegfried laughed uproariously as he was dragged along the
floor. “Do you not understand?” he guffawed. “You’ve already killed yourself!” Theryn rushed forward, ignoring the pain of a thousand
thorns as he pummelled the battlebriar, cutting its legs out from under it as
he lashed out with a flurry of blows and his quarterstaff. He spared a stunning
strike for the elven ranger, who screeched as he pitched backward headlong, felled
like a tree. The battlebriar roared and turned its back to Theryn and
Varien, flexing its vine-covered muscles and sending a volley of thorns rocketing
outward towards the adventurers. Fleet of foot, Theryn merely stepped behind Varien as the barrage
of thorns hammered the paladin from head to toe. The monk stepped back out. “Even the thorniest of problems
can have an easy solution, if you have the right perspective.” Varien spit out a mouthful of burrs.
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Bob and Alec were about to rush into the fray when they heard
the sound of breaking glass to the east. As they turned, they saw a pair of
Elven druids climbing through the window frame, with vengeful murder in their eyes.