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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kid Charlemagne" data-source="post: 197856" data-attributes="member: 93">The Kingdom of Caer Sidi, June 24th, AE 420Brennen looks up at one the many very large trees in the area.  He picks out the tallest.“Jalea, can you climb that tree and see if there’s any sign of what direction we should go in?”“Yup.”After about thirty seconds, Brennen narrows his eyes and glares at the scout.“Will you climb the damned tree… oh, forget it, I’ll do it myself.”Brennen clambers up the tree expertly, and wedges himself between two large granches near the top.  The forest stretches for miles in all directions, ringed on three sides by low mountains.  The fourth side goes further as far as the eye can see, possibly ending in plains.  Brennen pulls out a spyglass to get a better look at a gap in the mountains.  Once he’s focused in, he can see several plumes of smoke.  Signs of settlement, he thinks to himself.  About twenty miles off.Down on the ground, Aris, Jalea, and Soldago hear the sounds of something making its way through the trees.  Something big, and slow.  Jalea and Reana take cover while Corwin, Gavin, Soldago, and Jovah stay about thirty feet behind them.  Aris steps out next to a tree, and peers into the dark forest.  For a moment, he could swear he saw a tree move.“We mean no trespass!  We have come into the forest by mistake, and only seek to find our way out!” the Bladesinger cries out.Soldago hears the quiet rustling in the underbrush again.  It is accompanied by a fiendish snickering.  To his right, Reana cries out in pain; she’s just been stabbed in the calf by something, but she never caught a glimpse of what.  The rustling passes swiftly by all those in the rear of the group, and Jovah is stabbed also.  Reana climbs up into a tree to avoid her unseen assailant.  In the front, Aris can see for certain that the tree he thought he saw move is definitely moving.  Suddenly, he is caught from behind by a huge branch from the tree he is standing next too, and knocked for a loop.  The tree Reana took to for refuge seems to shrug twice, attempting to throw the Ranger from its branches.  She leaps out to avoid being thrown out.Soldago receives a wound to the thigh, and feels a momentary sleepiness overtake him, but he fights it off.  He manages to track the rustling noise, and draws back his bow and lets an arrow fly.  The snickering stops, and a squeal of pain is heard as he pins something to the forest floor.The larger tree now moves into the midst of the group.  It wallops Aris and Gavin heavily, sending them reeling.   The tree that attacked Aris first and the one that attempted to throw Reana now pull their roots up out of the ground, and shift to fight.  Aris and Jalea begin fighting one, while Reana and Gavin deal with the other.  Brennen is climbing down from his lookout perch as quickly as he can, while Jovah and Corwin prep spells on themselves.  Soldago keeps a lookout for more unseen calf-stickers, and is surprised by the long reach of the bigger tree.  He takes a step or two back to avoid it, and tries to peg a couple of unseen assailants, missing due to the underbrush providing concealment.Aris gets smashed again by the big tree, and is almost knocked unconscious.  Brennen runs up to the big tree, and starts laying into it.Jovah finds this all rather unusual, and tries to determine if the attacking trees are some sort of Fey illusion.  Strong concentration and observation doesn’t show this to be the case, though it does reveal something odd:  The big tree has a shield spike into a rotted area about twenty-five feet up its fifty foot trunk.  It is spiked in with heavy brass spikes.  The shield bears an insiginia of a tree split by lightning on a red field.Jovah casts fly and zooms through the branches up to the shield.  He grabs the top of the shield with both hands, and braces his feet against the trunk.  He gives the shield a strong tug, and the top portion pulls out from the trunk about eight inches.  He tries again, and can’t seem to pull it any further.  He notices however, that the big tree has stopped flailing about with its branches.“Stop attacking the big tree!” he yells to the others, who are finishing up the other local flora.  Meanwhile, Corwin takes a blow to his calf, and since he can’t see his attackers, decides to play sleepy.  Moments later, he hears a nearby malevolent giggle, and another needle sharp tiny blade cuts into him.  This time, he does succumb to sleep.“He did a much better job of faking it the second time, Gavin,” Soldago says.  “Hey!”He stops as he realizes that Corwin is being slowly drug off by little unseen creatures.  He and Gavin run over to help.Corwin tried to bluff the creatures into thinking he was asleep, and rolled pretty poorly.  Not a good actor at all.Reana climbs up into the tree to help Jovah with the shield.  The tree hasn’t attacked since Jovah began trying to remove it.  The two of them give it a tug, and it pulls out a little farther.  Jovah takes a peek behind the shield, and sees a blackish piece of crystal imbedded into the rotted knot behind the shield.  He can just fit his arm in there, and pulls the crystal out.“Yieeee!” the gnome yells, as he feels his hand burn from unholy energy coursing through the crystal.  Reana jumps down to the ground and brings her sword down on the crystal, cracking it.  Another blow causes it to explode into fragments, each of which evaporates into blackish mist.Jovah flies up to a part of the tree that resembles a face, and hovers there.  Gavin and Soldago try to revive Corwin.The tree’s dark eyes open and look the gnomish priest straight on.“Thank you,” the immense creature says.  “I owe you a debt of gratitude.”</blockquote>

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