Bob picked his way carefully through the flames left behind by Xylon’s burning hands spell. He stood before the dryad, realizing that it had filled the tunnel his friends had just dashed into with deadly needle-sharp thorns. He knew that if he could break her concentration, the magical thorns would disappear, sparing his friends further injury. “Hey!” he shouted at the creature. “You look like you could use some guidance in life!” He reached out and cast a guiding bolt , which barely missed, impacting on the root wall behind the dryad. He sighed and gestured again, sending another bolt lancing out at the creature, which struck her squarely in the midsection. The dryad twisted in pain and rage. “You’ll regret that,” she hissed at Bob. The thorns remained in place. Alec laid the unconscious body of the elven druid down on the carpet of leaves and regarded the wall of thorns that had trampled his companion Radegast. He could just barely make out her twisted, bleeding form hemmed in on all sides by the ropy, razorsharp thorns. Her blood pooled on the ground, seeping into the soil around the thorny wall. He drew his greatsword and began swinging mightily, carving off twisted branch after twisted branch. Satisifed with his progress, he sheathed his sword and plunged his hands and forearms into the morass of thorns, wincing as they shredded his skin. Roaring with exertion, he pulled Radegast’s unconscious form from the thicket, and carefully placed her on a patch of dry ground. The bard didn’t move. Alec wrung his hands, trying to remember what he’d learned about first aid from his time as a mercenary. “I’m better at putting holes in people than trying to close them up,” he muttered as he clumsily tried to stanch the flow of blood from the bard’s many wounds. Nothing he did seemed to have any effect. “Uh, a little help?” Alec shouted. Striding out of the flames, Xylon approached the dryad, shoving Bob aside. “Let me show you how a real mage brings down death upon those who harm the people I like.” An orb of fire began to glow in his outstretched palm. Xylon hurled the fireball at the dryad, and it detonated in a flash of fire and wave of rippling heat. The blazing flames obscured the dryad for a moment, but as they ebbed, she stood fast, laughing at the wizard’s efforts. The thorns remained in place. Varien slowly turned around within the tangle of sharp thorns that stabbed into him at all angles. “Ye gods,” he gasped. He began to painfully move back into the warren, wincing at every scratch and slice. As he pushed his way through the thorns, he came across the bloodied form of Erwen, who had yet to recover from the shock of being knocked out of wildshape. Varien scooped the Halfling into his arms as he pushed his way clear of the wall of thorns, staggering into the intersection, his body brutalized by the barbs. “Thanks!” Erwen chirped. He hopped down and circled around to the dryad, a single tear welling at the corner of his eye. “May you wilt in the moonlight,” he intoned, casting moonbeam . A silvery beam of pale light stabbed through the earthen roof of the warren, catching the dryad within its radius. Ghostly flames began to curl around the creature, who grit her teeth in agony as her bark-like skin began to burn. “Enough!” the dryad shouted, plunging her arm into the wall beside her. She withdrew a gnarled length of wood and spoke a Druidic incantation. The natural quarterstaff began to glow with unearthly light as a shillelagh spell enchanted it. The dryad swung the staff at Varien, who blocked it with his shield. “I’ll tell you when you’ve had enough,” shouted Xylon. Bob turned and cast cure wounds on the ailing Varien, dancing a healing dance as he did so. Xylon conjured a chromatic orb and threw it overhand at the dryad. “I hope you like fire!” He called out as the orb struck home. The dryad wailed as the orb burned a neat hole through her chest, detonating inside her reedy body. Fire shot out through her open mouth, and her eyes burned away, replaced with smoldering coals. Her body blackened and shriveled up like grass before an advancing wildfire, and she turned to an ashen corpse that blew away in the rush of air let in by the disappearing wall of thorns . Erwen spat out a mouthful of ash as he rolled out of the way. “Ah, gross!” As the dryad died, the tunnels around the party shook, sending leaves and clods of dirt everywhere. The walls began to wither, as though the dryad’s ebbing life force was the only thing keeping the warren’s shape stable. Varien was already rushing up the tunnel, intent on tending to Radegast. Bob and Erwen followed close behind. Xylon looked around at the rapidly collapsing warren, sighing as he considered what might have been. Then he followed his companions out the way they had come in. “Ouch!” Radegast screeched as Varien’s healing light brought her back around. “Also, I’m missing a shoe.” She tried to get to her feet, tottered momentarily, and then fell back into the muck. “Nope,” she sighed. Bob danced with renewed vigour and healed Radegast further, turning to do the same for his brother Alec. Radegast’s bare foot tapped a sympathetic rhythm as the cleric did his healing work. “We’ve made few friends in this forest,” Varien said. “It is time to leave.” “Agreed,” Alec said, tying ropes around the unconscious druid. “We got what we came here for.” Bob helped a weak Radegast to her feet. Radegast could feel her strength returning, and with it, her rage. She pointed at the elven druid. “You keep a close eye on that one,” she snarled. “I mean like a blade to her throat at all times. She could try to wildshape right out of those bonds, and you’ve got to be quicker than that.” Alec nodded, hefting the woman over his beefy shoulder. “Don’t worry,” Bob said, “we’ll keep close watch on her.” He turned and glared at Xylon. “Wouldn’t want her getting hurt on the way back to civilization or anything.” Xylon rolled his eyes. “Well then,” Varien said, pulling out the last of the thorns from his head. “Where exactly is civilization?” “There’s Conyberry to the southeast,” Bob said. “I walked over its grave on my way to Phandalin before I first met you.” “Grave?” Alec said. Varien nodded. “Conyberry was a stop on the Triboar Trail until the Spellplague messed this whole region up. A portion of Returned Abeir actually imposed itself upon the village, killing many and laying waste to the town.” Radegast nodded, duly impressed with the paladin’s grasp of history. “Earthmotes, flying bits of mountain with buildings on them floated above the area. The surviving populations of the merged communities helped one another recover from the calamity of their sudden coexistence, creating a new village out of the remains of the two.” “And then?” Alec asked. Varien shrugged. “It didn’t last. Abeir disappeared again, and the town was vulnerable to raiders and barbarians alike. It was sacked, and sacked again, and then its population fled. Hardly anyone uses the Triboar Trail anymore, so it’s not like the town is a going concern.” “Hence the bones,” Bob said. “Of the town, that is. There’s not much left.” “I know the way,” Xylon said, brushing past his companions. “Come on then.” The trees of Neverwinter Wood leaned in menacingly as the party picked its way eastward, finding the overgrown trail that Xylon and his sister had used to travel to Agatha’s lair. After a few hours of tense silence, the party found Neverwinter Wood’s eastern edge and began climbing down the cliffs that led to the ruins of Conyberry. The town was much like Bob had described. Where once a collection of thatch-roofed houses lined a winding road, only fieldstone foundations and broken walls remained. Here and there an upstart tree pushed through the rocks. A crumbling keep stood watch on a low rise on the eastern edge of the ruined village, giving it a view of the now-uncertain Triboar Trail. “Nice place,” Radegast said as she walked past a section of broken stone wall. She reached out and knocked a chunk of fieldstone loose, breathing a prayer to Talos as she did so. Varien picked out the sturdiest-looking ruin and ushered the rest of the party inside for a much-needed rest. The adventurers were glad to be out under the stars after more than two days beneath Neverwinter Wood’s dense canopy of leaves. The air seemed less oppressive, though the thick treeline to the west was a reminder of secrets held by the dark forest. The party members rested and tended to their wounds as the night wore on. Radegast was about to slip into a much-needed trance when her sharp ears picked up a sound in the distance outside the village. It was howl of a wolf or perhaps a coyote. Radegast shrugged and happened to glance upwards through the gaping expanse of the ruined hut’s roof. The midnight clouds parted to reveal the moon Selûne, followed by her Tears, the hazy cluster of twinkling stars barely visible in the clear sky, which followed Selûne in her journey around the planet. The baying animal was joined by first one, then two, then more full-throated howls. Radegast’s eyes widened as the animals’ calls grew in intensity and more importantly grew closer. She retrieved the cache of silvered swords looted from the dead Eldreth Veluuthra . “Just in case,” she said, handing them out to her companions. “Just in case.”