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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DoctorB" data-source="post: 336291" data-attributes="member: 903">Under the TreesAfter only a few minutes of walking, Selmi heard the rumble of hooves, like a giant cavalry charge.  Looking into the clearing to his left, he saw two great and twisted Boars charging at them.  Toiva faced down one of the behemoths and took serious wounds in the process.  As the other attacked Selmi and Cobbe, Liana struck it from behind.  This time Arin kept his human form and tried merely to distract the beast.  After both creatures had been dispatched, Selmi helped Joy to heal the wounded.  The Champions staggered on, but Selmi had the feeling that the Heart Oak merely toyed with them before exerting its real power.Selmi could feel the closeness of the Tolnan forest close around them as they approached closer to the Tree.  The forest seemed if anything more twisted than before, with writhing shapes on all sides suggesting constant attack.  Nonetheless, nothing bothered them for a long time.Finally, a rustling in the underbrush signaled something moving towards them.  Crea burst from the forest and threw herself at Arin.  The others raised their weapons, but they all noticed that her demeanor had changed.  Before she had shown only cool confidence.  This time, she seemed genuinely distraught.“Please, you have to help us!” she cried.  “Save the master!  It is being changed slowly for moons now.”Everyone seemed to speak at once, ready to ask their questions, when the twisted dryad called out again.“No!  He knows I am here!”  As she started to rise and the expression on her face began to change, Toiva stepped up and knocked her out with one flat-bladed strike.  Before they could absorb what had just happened, darkness abruptly fell over them.  Even Selmi’s keen eyes, used to seeing in the deep caverns of the Dwarvenrealm, seemed struck blind.Combat raged inside the darkness as the party tried to move clear of the effect to see what was happening.  Selmi knew only that some giant creature attacked him and Krag with great limbs.  He heard Galena chanting a spell and he hoped she would remove the darkness, but her frustrated curse revealed she had failed.He heard the hill dwarf grunt as the blows connected even as Arin picked him up to carry him out of the darkness.  Selmi also worked his way out of the darkness to find giant tree creatures fighting Cobbe and the others.  One of these looked more humanoid than the others.  Selmi had heard stories of the shepherds of trees, the Treants, but this one was twisted and diseased like everything in this accursed forest.Selmi, Toiva and the dragon Arin fought an awakened tree even as Cobbe, riding Lady Breda, charged the Treant, who was some distance away awakening another twisted tree.  The Lord of Pella found himself trapped between Treant and one of his servant trees as the others finished the corrupted plant they were fighting and ran to his aid.  Even as the Treant seemed about to collapse, it stepped back and invoked another sphere of intense darkness.  Undaunted, the Champions continued to fight.  Selmi took serious wounds and heard the crash of metal as Cobbe fell from his warhorse’s back before Toiva’s greatsword cut down the creature.Carrying his fallen liege-lord from the scene of the fighting Selmi could see immediately that Cobbe was beyond hope.  He could do nothing to help.  The Straw-Hat Knight was dead.</blockquote>

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