Expedition Elemirre
by: Benjamin "Pilpus" Lacasse
To Whom It May Concern,
This last week, Highlord Sir Temorse of Ashenmark led an expedition to Elemirre Isle, starting from their base of Farport, a settlement Ashenmark controls to assist in their trade and naval operations, to investigate the terrorist attack that was perpetrated by a supposed resident of the Isle, Emeris. It was suspected that he “gifted” what he and his followers have referred to as a “Bloom Tree” to the Highlord during tithe collection at last year’s Ashen Bounty Court, which unbeknownst to the Highlord enraged local wildlife and nullified magics. This created large issues for Golden Hall’s Enforcer Golem Police Force, distracting and eventually dismantling them when adventurers cut down the tree in an attempt to stop the spread of its blight, but all of this covered the escape/jailbreak of Wulf Swiftarrow, a prolific kinslayer who was scheduled to be executed that morning, who for unknown reason Emeris had coordinated and covered the escape of. There was something larger at play, and allies of Ashenmark couldn’t let this act of terror go unanswered, so into the Isle we had to venture in search of answers and justice.
Temorse provided the ship, but we adventurer’s headed the expedition with our first stop being the village of Eastwatch. As I write this, I am unsure if this is another settlement usually maintained by Ashenmark, but by the time we arrived it was in a state of disarray all the same. The Bloom Trees in the area had enraged the local population of bullywugs, forest spirits and rust salamanders to such a degree that they began tearing the settlement down, leaving the townsfolk questioning their very way of life. Soporific bramble patches infested with wood woads with a mysterious master had grown wild all around the village, leaving denizens unable to flee the aggressive wildlife. A local blacksmith lent us his forge to fix our supplies that were damaged by the rust salamanders after we restored it, but even he was so traumatized by the wildlifes’ viciousness that he came to believe the gods themselves were punishing him for his corruption of nature through his work as a metalworker, laying down his master’s hammer forever after this night in an attempt to appease them.
As our assistance to the townsfolk began to reach its conclusion, we were unexpectedly assailed by the fugitive Wulf Swiftarrow and his pack of wolves. We rallied as quickly as we could but not so fast as to stop him from retreating deeper into the wilds. We wouldn’t let him evade our grasp that easily, so in pursuit we cut into the brambles as far as we could until the trail went cold. Beyond the brambles though, we had stumbled into the grove of the noble dryad Setiyah. While initially displeased with our presence in her sanctum, after a brief explanation of our chase and identifying ourselves as nature's allies, she benevolently didn’t push the issue. She said she hadn’t seen/felt Swiftarrow pass through her grove, so we adventurers took a moment to acquaint ourselves with these significantly less hostile wilds and guide some wild chickens back to Eastwatch to help them refill their food stores.
We spoke with Setiyah at length about the events that had transpired in Golden Hall, asking if she’d heard any stirrings in the wood that could’ve led to the attack, or knew any of the involved parties. While she knew not of the motive (or happening), she did seem to recognize the name Emeris. She could also see that the Bloom Trees’ influence was a corrupting and dangerous one, judging by how feral the affected wildlife had become. When we sought answers about Emeris from her, trying to get a lead on his location, she seemed shocked that we would suggest Emeris would do such wicked things. She would need more convincing of his misdeeds before she would give us the information we sought; blinded by a disconcerting, almost charmed, sense of love for him that I, in my extensive personal experience with natural spirits, have never known a dryad to have for a human naturally. She also spoke of a wound to her heart tree in the north that was seemingly causing a memory fog which we agreed we’d look into helping her with as we made our way north.
By morning, through Setiyah’s guidance coupled with Ashenmark scout reports, we had a clearer picture of what the northern part of Isle looked like, identifying a village of island natives called Warrian in a valley to the north and a ruin called The Stone Grove where some of Ashenmark’s golems in search of a fuel not reliant on souls had taken up residence to the northeast. The scouting reports confirmed that both the north-western route through the swamp and the north-eastern valley pass were both too dangerous to go on foot; the swamp being filled with aggressive bullywugs and the valley’s trees being so blighted that barely any sent to scout it returned. We determined that our best bet was to sail around the coast and visit The Stone Grove, establish a base and then head to Warrian as we suspected that was the easiest place for Wulf and Emeris to hide, being entirely unknown to Ashenmark before this point. When we arrived at The Stone Grove though, we found the golem’s were under attack as some of the Ancient Jade wards they were studying had been smashed by a coalition of aggressive plantlife and wolves. We spent some time reclaiming pieces of that jade from the assailants and doing our best to repair what we could of the wards, but mainly we learned to utilize the amazing properties of Ancient Jade to resist the Bloom Trees’ blight from Setiyah, making single use wards we could carry with us out of whatever material we couldn’t manage to work back into the wards.
Confirming our suspicions, while hunting wolves for stolen jade we found Swiftarrow on the road to Warrian and collapsed upon him, using our silver to beat him within an inch of his life before he managed to Second Chance away, leaving only one of his familial victim’s teeth behind as evidence of our encounter. Again continuing our pursuit, we pushed forward to Warrian where we were acquainted with a blissfully unaware populous in the shade of a massive and growing Bloom Tree. Singularly focused villagers led by a Shaman in the absence of their Chieftain immediately began to beg us to assist them with fetching an offering for the Bloom Tree, despite the fact that their Chieftain and Sheriff had gone missing upon the trees sprouting. Only the Chieftain's Son seemed to care about even finding their leader, otherwise everyone was obsessed with smashing the ancient totem that had protected their village for generations from blight effects and this “berry” that was now unobtainable due to the fact that the Bloom Tree had invigorated and feralized the vine that grows it. Mistaking these villager’s pronunciation of “Hydra” for “Hydro” I led a far too small party to attempt to collect this mysterious fruit for us to research while the greater party went off in search of the Chieftain in the wilds. Timelapsed, the Hydraplant spent an hour beating us senseless while the greater party fought through other aggressive wildlife and found the Chieftain saying he was in the wilds doing the work of his master. The Chieftain declined returning to the village, but encouraged the party to feed the Bloom Tree. At this point, the greater party returned and helped my group take down the Hydraplant, securing the fruit for research, much to the chagrin of the villagers who incessantly chanted for us to give them the berry.
It is around this time the group began to come to the conclusion that the Blight has an effect on mortal minds as well as wildlife. We discovered through our research into the “berry” that it was a Hydrafruit, an immense source of Ancient Jade energy, meaning if fed to the Bloom Tree it would greatly proliferate its blight along with any crops it fertilized. We ultimately decided to give the Hydrafruit to the Golems later to further their research. While we researched, the rest of the party went out to rescue the Sheriff from the bullywugs who’d taken him. While I don’t know what happened on the field, everyone returned covered in mud and Lord Sir Elric of Rathkeale had on a new bone crown that he claimed made him “The King of the Bullywugs” which made me not want to know what happened, not knowing myself then that I’d be writing this report.
With the Sheriff returned, we were immediately embroiled in Warrians local elections, which went exactly as well as you could expect a local election to go when 60% of the populace has quite literally been brainrotted by blight. Democracy prevailed, electing the sheriff who was an “unblighted but unaware of blight” centrist who immediately attempted to appease the villagers by agreeing to smash the protection totem. This caused what I will lightly refer to as an “international incident” where townsfolk moving towards the totem were cut down where they stepped by an adventurer, immediately souring our local relations with the populace. While we used our healing magic to return the denizens of Warrian to life and the ensuing cries of “murderer” rang through the streets, we ever-resourceful adventurers, devised a plan to trick the rioting townsfolk into thinking they’d destroyed the totem without actually compromising the wards integrity. In the words of the Esteemed Sous-chef of Neden, “This is why democracy is always a mistake, Monarchy is decisively the way to go every time”. I also cannot stress enough, the results of that wards’ destruction would have been catastrophic, and while I was glad to not have blood on my own hands at that moment, I do not condemn the actions of that adventurer who bought us time to come up with a solution. True peace is a lie, life is always a balance of benevolence and bloodshed, and with no dead bodies left unraised among even tenuous allies, the scales remain level.
In this hullabaloo, Emeris the Terrorist arrived at the gates of Warrian with an invitation to treat with his master, a horned man named Rav who lives in a nearby ruined fortress. I immediately began to question him, seeing if he was of his own mind when he delivered that Bloom Tree to Golden Hall. He said yes, and when pressed about it, brazenly admitted to the freeing of Wulf Swiftarrow. As Sir Eamon and I moved to arrest this criminal, Setiyah flung her arms around him and declared openly that she was granting Emeris sanctuary, professing her love for him, which seemed to shock even Emeris. As we were in the midst of resolving one international incident that had divided the party morally, I begrudgingly accepted this, promising Emeris that if he is to ever betray Setiyah’s protection or leave this Isle again I will personally deliver him to High Lord Temorse in whatever state my pursuit of him happens to leave him in. As a group, we accepted the invitation, then privately devised a plan to split the party once again with one side going to speak with and distract Rav while the other party infiltrated his fortress.
I was on team treat and distract, where Emeris guarded a ruin, requiring us to give up our weapons if we wished to speak with the 3 figures inside: Wulf Swiftarrow, The Chieftain of Warrian and their master Stravamore. I refused to give up my weapon, thus spent my time eavesdropping on the peace talks and listening to Emeris talk of the unspeakable crimes he committed upon Setiyah. He phrased it more cutely; spun a tale of 2 forbidden lovers, one of man, one of the earth. One longing for adventure beyond the shores of the Isle, one bound to her grove. It almost sounded sweet when Emeris started talking about how he sought Stravamore out to help him bring Setiyah on his grand adventures, and then he spoke of trying to sever the roots of her heart tree from this land by hand to uproot and move it, callously uncaring of the suffering and hardship he would put her through to have his way. I wasted no seer magic on this, the candor of this man’s cavalier character spoke volumes to me- Setiyah may have had feelings for Emeris to start, which I doubt but will concede for sake of argument, but having spent a day with her and felt her devotion to that Isle, there is no way she would elect to have these atrocities upon her in an effort to remove her from the home she tirelessly works to protect. Emeris is irredeemably despicable.
In the ruins, Stravamore sputtered on about 2 century old natural rites that bound him unfairly for wanting to give nature a fighting chance against the rise of human greed, and 10 wicked mortals who sacrificed everything to seal him away to allow for their greed to go unchecked. Wulf claimed to be working with Stravamor because a Swiftarrow ancestor was one of the people who’d sealed Stravamore away, so Wulf has to make it right by working to free him entirely. Wulf started this repayment to Stravamore by killing his family members to find the one entrusted with hiding one of the pieces of Stravamore’s binding, and returning to this isle to unchain him. The Chieftain spun a similar tale to Wulfs, of ancestors who’d betrayed the land by sealing Stravamore. As information was unveiled, more information was divined on the outskirts of the ruins, and the truth was unveiled.
Stravamore is a Leshen, a nature spirit born in blight, wrath and hunger. While natural, they view most “intelligent life” as a plague, not part of nature, and thus will vindictively spin forests into a state of primeval rage and rot them from the inside out just to make sure society doesn’t share the spoils. Specifically, we are all just food on which he feeds. He’s a prehistoric apex predator who would eat humanity, for lack of better phrase, to extinction to claim the hunting grounds for himself, then hunt the woods barren. While Stravamore may not be doing anything “unnatural”, he is actively using his natural magics to twist the minds of animals and people to follow him through blighting their minds and bodies and infecting them like a disease. He is ancient and powerful, maybe even so powerful that sealing him away again is our only recourse, but be assured regardless of what lies he/his followers tell or whom he enthralls to do his bidding by whatever means he does, he seeks to hunt humanity to extinction on Elemirre Isle at least- potentially the whole Realms judging by Emeris’ thwarted attempt to plant the Bloom Tree in Gaia’s Grove on his orders.
Tired of hearing his lies veil his selfish predation, I pushed past Emeris to confront Stravamore. As I spat out that he was not some essential natural force benevolently returning nature to its former glory, just a selfish, hungry monstrosity, he shot out a wave of blight and disapperated into a cloud of bloom and rot, sending Wulf into a frenzy. All those who couldn’t resist it, myself included, immediately felt the blight take root, touching each race differently but devolving us closer to base instinct, just like all the other life here. Stravamore is all of its source. We had to handle Wulf, and try to capture him before he could escape and thus the Chieftain managed to slip away. Once again, an inch from laying Wulf low, we find a single wolf tooth. 2 down, 8 to go.
On the infiltration team, they fought through armies of wood woads, wolves and will-o-wisps and cracked complex nature magic locks to break into what I can only assume is Stravamore’s servants quarters. There they found a staff capable of repelling Will-o-wisps and notes on the 10 heroes who once sealed Stravamore, seemingly seeking their pieces of Stravamore’s binding. After the distraction team took care of Wulf, we rushed to the fortress ruins knowing that Stravamores forces would soon be upon them and arrived just in the nick of time to stand together and fight our way out of the ruins against an army of feral animals and wood woads, led by Warrian’s Chieftain. We succeeded in escaping and in that process, the Chieftain was slain. On his corpse was a piece of Stravamore’s binding, seemingly unused. We made our way back to our base for the night in The Stone Grove, and prepared for more fighting come morning.
The next morning, we were awoken by a visibly blighted Setiyah, pink Bloom flowers sprouting on her green viney cheeks like open sores. She asked for our assistance in servicing her worsening conditions. We happily obliged, journeying to her heart tree to see the damage Emeris had wrought, finding an open festering wound steeped in blight that would require intricate rebalancing if there was any hope of survival. Scouts had told us of another set of ruins north of Warrian where there appeared to be more Ancient Jade we could potentially use to stabilize Setiyah. The ruins were haunted by spirits guarding chests of jade runes and old notes that would serve perfectly to help Setiyah. After looting the ruins, attempting to leave any active looking wards intact, we found a secret room in the far back where there was a centuries old tablet that surprised us with familiar heraldries, or iconography of which our familiar heraldries drew inspirations from, that claimed to be a testament to the sacrifice of the 10 heroes, each represented by one of the heraldries along the tablets border: The Tree of Eroewan, Rathkeale’s Silver Chalice, Cawdyll’s swords, and even a early representation of the Northern Alliances heraldry and some less familiar symbols for us to decipher later. We took this tablet with us back to the heart tree as we couldn't delay helping Setiyah any longer, despite how intrigued we were.
When we arrived, Setiyah was in a blight-addled state, her condition declining rapidly. She attempted to swing on us, but we managed to knock her out and get her into a Circle of Protection before she could cause any real damage while a crack team of our fastest runic professionals got to work delving into Setiyah’s roots to cut out the blight and replace it with restorative Ancient Jade. Irri, in the meantime organized a ritual to attempt to cleanse our largely blighted party of their affliction, successfully allowing for King Orion to become a conduit of blight, taking it from all in the circle allowing healers to just focus on cleansing him as many times as they could. With her wounds on the mend, Setiyah thanked the party for their help and said that while she can’t believe Emeris would do something like this to her, she obviously didn’t know what he was capable of and apologized. We commiserated with her on this until we heard a scream for help in the distance as bullywugs once again descended on our party.
After we handled that interruption, we returned to Warrian to study the tablet and Stravamore’s forces orbiting it menacingly. I got to work in the tavern comparing Stravamore’s notes with notes that we found in the northern ruins and did my best to get a lay of the land, learning that each one of the represented heraldries had a person who sacrificed themselves to physically seal Stravamore within the Deepwood on Elemirre Isle, each sealing 1/10th of his soul and power. While each sacrifice is dead and in the binding circle, their souls were each put into palimpsest, 10 wooden daggers fashioned from Stravamore’s wooden heart. Those dagger’s were entrusted to their ancestors to guard and make sure they never fell back into Stravamore’s hands by any means necessary. Now obviously someone violated that sacred oath, which is what caused the return of Stravamore, and the binding piece we pulled off the Chieftain was why Stravamore was circling this village. Without that dagger, he can’t empower himself more. And no sooner than as we come to this realization does Stravamore push his way into the tavern, trying to sway the Chieftain's son to his side, thinking the boy must be the one in possession of the dagger. After a confusing exchange where Stravamore backed the boy into a corner of the tavern, saying that he will help defend his people from the Realms invaders, I spirited the Chieftain's son to our research station as King Saegan, Duke Nos and Sir Vesper held back the wood woads who attempted to intercept me. At our table, I convinced him that despite our group's violent exchange yesterday, we are on the same side. I showed him the ancient documents, and where our crests sat together on the tablet, which successfully broke through to him as he rallied to our side. In one last ditch effort, Stravamore attempted to peddle more lies, but I bit him off before he could and Stravamore disapperated once more in the same fashion, blighting the room as he went. After one more exchange with Swiftarrow, collecting a third tooth, we prepared to disembark as we planned our next steps.
My last action on Elemirre Isle was to seance the soul inside of the heart shard, and flesh out the 10 heroes' identities as well as I could to hopefully find their descendants and ensure the shards are still guarded. I intend to work on another publication with Charrus in the near future where we compile all of the relevant historical information into one document in an effort to make sure no one walking onto this new battlefront does so blindly and stumbling. The one relevant piece that the spirit in the shard shared with me is that Stravamore, beyond blight, can install dark spirits into the bodies of those he can sway to his side. Once a Dark Spirit is installed, the original soul inside that body is entirely consumed, unreclaimable. I believe that is what happened to the Chieftain of Warrian: blighted to a point where he became susceptible to Stravamore’s power and then was consumed. It’s a miracle we caught him when we did, before he could fully return the shard. I suspect Wulf and Emeris are both in that same boat, now just meat puppets for a predatory puppet master. For those of you who are still blighted, I recommend you seek means of curing yourself sooner rather than later, lest you become an agent of your own extinction.
If my time in Elemirre Isle has taught me anything, it is that the Realms has been working together to stop malevolence in all of its forms for centuries, if not millennia or eons. This foe will be no different as long as we are coordinated and unrelenting. I am a servant of the grove as much as I am one of man, so take it from me- heed not the lies of the hungry, it is on you whom they will feed.
In Coordination of a Better Future
Sir Pilpus Jainrose
The Stag’s Rook
Knight of Blackwood
Squire to the Knights of
The Blue Rose, Garm
and the Aberrant Gate
Steward of Eroewan
Map of Elemirre Isle
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