66. In the Pines

* On Anemone's abundant island, the party spend 12 weeks readying themselves for the fighting to come.
	+ Aerendyl and Wilfred busy themselves with herbology, brewing potent potions of healing from the powerful strains of panacea plants that grow on the island. They learn a great deal from the contrasting methods of the other during this time they spend together.
	+ Clwyd requests teachings from Anemone regarding a Weird-Magic-based goal of hers. The witch proves to be a very good teacher, and seems content to help with Clwyd's request to the end that it might help the group slay the other witches in the coven -- a feat that would ultimately free Anemone from her captivity. That said, the former naiad remains inscrutable, and despite her best efforts Clwyd can't tell if she's attempting to wiggle around the deal they've struck or not.
	+ Clwyd spends the first 8 weeks of her captivity learning from Anemone and doing as instructed: she catches a wild, predatory fox on the island, she names it Alephi and places it in a cage, and eventually teaches it to accept its captivity. When it has grown fond of the bars, they take the fox to the edge of the forest, to where Clwyd had first caught it, and they carry out a ritual in the light of burning tallow candles, singing a Sylvan song that speaks of catching Alephi and making his live better for it. The final act of the ritual is to slit the fox's throat. Then its body is taken back to Anemone's hut, it is cleaned and skinned, and its skull is prepared to one day cage a much larger predator. Alephi's skull goes inside the silver cage Clwyd had made back on Tortuga.
	+ When he's not assisting the others in their tasks, Pyt spends his time being wistful in the island's forests, playing songs and trying to come up with rhymes. One day he meets a group of pretty, youthful dryads who bid that he play with them, and soon it becomes a regular thing. The dryads run about the forest, striding through distant trees as if they were taking a single step, and bid Pyt chase them, giggling all the while. Pyt is unsuccessful in every game but his last, when he manages to snatch the hand of a handsome male dryad just before he disappears into the trunk of a tree again. The pair tumble through a thicket and the dryad is laughing by the end. He sits up and gives Pyt his name as 'Ash.' Before Pyt really understands what's happening, Ash seems to be undressing, the giggling sounds of the other dryads are coming from the edges of the clearing, and Pyt just shrugs and goes with it. He and Ash share a tender moment together, and when Pyt says he'll probably die in the coming week, Ash brushes his face tenderly and tells him to just stay then. . . Alas, Pyt says he cannot.
	+ When her fox skull was finished and caged, Clwyd took to helping Anemone about the island a bit in turn, seeing much of how the witch keeps the unnatural abundance of the place flourishing. She mixes poultices and nurses the wounds of animal and plant throughout the forests and glades, helps when an animal is suffering a difficult calving, spreads wildflower seeds with meticulous precision, prunes the leaves of trees, and so fourth.
	+ When she isn't doing that, Clwyd helps Wilfred in his goal of abjuring against Weird Magic more successfully. From this, the young wizard eventually uncovers the secrets of the Remove Curse spell.
	+ Aerendyl has a brief conversation with Anemone about how one might see through his scrying efforts, as Cana had done before. Anemone tells him there are many paths to True Seeing, though it isn't an ability gifted by vampirism alone. This vampire that he's earned the attention of, she says, is likely a special case.
	+ Pyt finds the time to master a new spell, *Bane*, at the cost of perhaps his least used but most favourite of spells, *Dream*.
	+ Though the weather of the fey island would suggest otherwise, the Oceanic Calendar moves through Midwinter and ticks over to the year 6279. The twins reminisce about their hometown celebrations for Midwinter, a concept that completely foreign to Alric - celebrating the deepest part of the coldest time of the year. From there, the calendar passes through Winter's End, a date Alric is very used to celebrating back in the Black Salt Springs. On both occasions, the party made time to have a little celebration with their crew. Soon after, on Snowmelt 4, it was Wilfred's 28th birthday (though subjectively, he feels 29!). They have another little meal and Alric tells him that 29 is an unlucky year for men. To wash off the bad luck, he offers Wilfred a 'sacred ritual.' When the gnome agrees, Alric picks him up and throws him in the lake, bellowing out a hearty laugh. Wilfred responds in kind, turning into a giant ape and launching the berserker into the water, making more laughter erupt from him.
* By the end of their time on Anemone's island, when they're ready to move out and take the fight to the first group of witches -- Tiphorea and Orphne in their great forest -- the date is now Snowmelt 25, first night of the moonless week.
	+ They know that the treeline of the forest lies some 300 miles away from the edge of the unfrozen lake; that its grows thicker, more magical, and less arctic as they head towards its centre; and that there at the heart of it lays an enormous, powerful, sentient-if-not-sapient tree known as the Grandmother Tree -- what was once Tiphorea's heart-tree when she was a dryad, that has only grown alongside her own power as she embraced Weird Magic and became a witch. The mouth of Orphne's cave, they know thanks to Alric and Anemone both, is located somewhere in the fringes of the forest, the region where the vegetation remains somewhat sparse and boreal, and the cold of the Roof of the World still rules.
	+ They decide to leave their crew on the island, perhaps to utilise in the fighting against the mountain witches when it comes to that. That is, all save Alric, who they decide to take with them not only to navigate the tundra between the lake and forest, but because he's been to Orphne's cave once before and might be able to help them find it again.
	+ Their plan as it stands is to Wind Walk to the edge of the forest, at which point they've been warned warding will likely prevent them from flying further. From there, they trek through the forest fringes, heading in a clockwise-ish direction, looking for Orphne's cave. Aerendyl is to mark a tree near the cave entrance so they can Transport via Plants back to it in a hurry. Then, they push through to the heart of the forest, where Tiphorea makes her home within the bark and boughs of the Grandmother Tree. Once they've slain the former dryad, they travel back to Orphne's cave through a tree before the monstrosities at the heart of the forest descend upon them, they delve down into the cave at the edge of life and death, and they kill Orphne.
* Aerendyl, Clwyd, Pyt, Wilfred, and Alric set off at 9am on Snowmelt 25. They Wind Walk over the unfrozen lake and the tundra beyond, stopping only so that Alric can make not of what scant geographical markers he can. By 3pm, they see the first inexplicable pieces of vegetation: lone, scattered, stubborn pine trees jutting up from the ice, their needles covered in snow powder. Eventually the trees and scrub brush become more apparent, more regular, and soon before them extends the treeline of a vast seemingly-boreal forest.
	+ At first, it seems as if the warnings were unnecessary, since they continue to Wind Walk over the canopy and see the horizon of trees rushing to pass under them. But when they eventually check behind themselves, they see that they've made no progress beyond the initial treeline -- a glamour of some sort.
	+ They land, revert to their humanoid forms, immediately feel the bite of the -40 cold and windchill, and begin their trek through ice and snow, pushing into the forest somewhat, but circling around it in a clockwise fashion -- though he's never been to this part of the forest before, nor did he venture to the cave from this direction, Alric reasons that Orphne's cave will be somewhere in this direction.
	+ They get in three hours of trekking before the sun sets and they opt to set up camp for the night rather than deal with the dark and the temperature plunging further downwards.
	+ Clwyd has her Fiendish Resiliance set to cold resistance, and Pyt has similarly set his Gambler's Ring to give him cold resistance (at the cost of gaining vulnerability to fire damage). Aerendyl, Wilfred, and Alric however, have to constantly battle the elements, and even in their warm clothing, the cold threatens to sap their strength with each step.
	+ Between icy ground and deep snow in places, they make it 7.5 miles before the sun dips below the treetops and they need to contemplate stopping for the day.
	+ Just as they plan to do so, they spot a humanoid figure in the distance, apparently a lone trapper setting up a rabbit snare. Wilfred casts *Detect Magic* and the group approach. The middle-aged human man greets them in a friendly yet guarded manner, remarking that it's surprising to see people out in these parts. Wilfred starts answering and as he does he draws within 30 feet and his *Detect Magic* senses immediately note the man is cloaked in illusion and abjuration magic. When pressed on this, the man says he was given an item to hide a disfigurement. He gives his name as Vasily and tells the group he's looking for the cave of a cunning woman, because his son is sick and can't be healed. Well, the group don't trust him and they remain cagey when he questions them in turn, save perhaps for Aerendyl, who doesn't want to be making enemies this early into their hunt. When the group agree to share a fire with him for the night, Wilfred positions himself behind the man and casts *Dispel Magic* from a distance, revealing him to be some sort of seemingly undead creature -- paper-thin, pallid skin stretched tight over an eyeless skull was all he had in place of a head. A bit of combat ensues, and the creature again tries lying his way out of it, saying that this form was the real reason he was seeking out the witch -- but the party see through it. Wilfed *Counters* a spell the creature was planning on holding, and the party keep their distance from him. Thanks to a successful *Bane* from Pyt, Wilfred locks the creature in a Mental Prison, preventing him from seeing any of their further efforts against him -- though outing Wilfred well and truly as a powerful magic user in the process. At that point, they are able to make swift work of the creature, and as he falls, he croaks out a laugh and the ominous phrase: 'Fools! Death means little to the First of the Lampades!'
	+ With that, Clwyd and Wilfred can together conclude that the creature was a Deathlock of Orphne, a creature much like a warlock but bound in undeath to complete obedience.
	+ They burn the bony corpse and Pyt sets up his *Tiny Hut* as a 6th-level spell.
	+ Clwyd keeps watch into the night and Aerendyl joins her once he's rested after four hours of Trancing. The others are awake after a few more hours. The *Tiny Hut* spell ends after 8 hours, leaving them in the dead of night and the cold at 3am. Another casting of it, this time at regular level and as a ritual, and they can all wait out the dark and the cold together. The night is ultimately, and perhaps unexpectedly, uneventful.
* At about 8:30 the next morning, they push off again on the trek.
	+ Aerendyl casts *Water Breathing* on them all, and Wilfred gets the *Telepathic Bond* up for the first hour of their journey at least.
	+ In the wake of encountering one of Orphne's servants, the group decide to just mark and tree here and then make for the heart of the forest, rather than risking their element of surprise entirely.
	+ They push inwards, and as they go the vegetation slowly starts to thicken and the temperature gradually drops.
	+ After three hours, they've made it 7.5 miles.
	+ As they're passing over a frozen river, the ground rumbles and erupts as they're attacked by a massive remorhaze -- an insectoid-like, burrowing, apex predator with a burning core temperature that scalds and burns any who touch the thing. There's a hairy moment when it goes for Wilfred, but Pyt's *Cutting Words* combined with Wilfred's *Shield* spell ward off the attack. Alric tells them he's dealt with these things before, that it's just a hungry predator and should flee if they hurt it enough. They keep to the frozen ice, which it doesn't seem to be burrowing through, and attack from a distance, and eventually scare the thing off without a great deal of injury.
	+ In the wake of the Remorhaze attack, they make good progress. After another four hours, they've made a further 10 miles progress through tough terrain -- but Wilfred and Pyt have picked up a level of exhaustion each for their exertions and the group seriously contemplate stopping for the day, despite it only being 3:30 in the afternoon.
	+ Alric leads them for the next two hours of travel, covering another 4.5 miles, bringing their total for the day to 22 miles heading towards the centre of the forest, on top of the few miles they headed inwards as they were circling yesterday. They suspect this fringe section of the forest to last for no more than another 5 miles or so.
	+ After 5pm, as they are bringing their trek to an end for the day, they hear a deep humming in the distance, through a thicket of bushes. It's an obviously massive humanoid figure and Alric says with some confidence that it's likely a troll. Though he has never met one that was happy to see him before, he thinks maybe the group could swing some 'enemy of my enemy' type logic on the thing, since trolls are supposedly of Phigalia's ilk, the rival witch faction to the forest here. They go into the thicket and the troll chucks a half-eaten stag corpse at them, but Wilfred blocks it with his *Arcane Ward*. They have a weird chat with this confused, very dumb troll. He apparently came here to hunt gnomes, but he doesn't know what they look like other than that they ride wolves - which he's also apparently a little unsure about the look of. He got lost but caught this deer and has been enjoying it for a bit. When the party ask him if he wants to come hunt some gnomes and wolves with them, he says 'ok.'