Blue-Green Wood

## Description

*On first glance, it looks like a glassy stone, colored blue-green. It's quite pretty.*

## Quest Chain

At the turn of the year, tiny white *frost-spiders* were seen in the school, lowering the temperatures of the Dining Hall to far below freezing. Because of the terrible weather and circumstances, the traditional New Year's festivities were moved into the labyrinth instead.

Any especially observant characters noticed a small trail of these white spiders marching across the party area, down through the labyrinth tunnels. Especially *brave* students that followed them past the party area were brought through a series of twisting tunnels, during which they discovered a couple notably strange things:

* A Scuttlespore Slug that seemed *petrified*: if characters defeated it or walked past it, it crumbled, fragmenting into powder, before melting into the snowdrift.
* The tunnel that they took had walls that seemed colorful: a shade of blue-green-grey stone.
* The tunnel brought them up an upward slope, covered in spiders.
* Characters had to squeeze through an opening to the surface of the ground. When they reached the outside, they emerged from between thick roots into the clearing of the *pixie party*: the location of Event 003: Beaver Moon.

The entire clearing was covered in gossamer spiderwebs. Students that had participated in the birthday party for the maternal tree noticed that the spiders seemed to be pouring from a tiny hole in the maternal tree the size of a small drilling instrument... perhaps the hole drilled by Taesong Jun a month prior?

Although the maternal tree seemed somewhat healthy, it was also undeniable that the tree - and the rest of the forest - was covered in blankets of tiny, wriggling spiders. Though the weather clears after a couple weeks, the forest is still covered in frost: slowly, the forest's trees begin to crumble when touched, in piles of dead, blackened ice.

It is warm enough to traverse the woods now: anyone holding this item in their inventory can explore the forest in search of signs of life. But on a cursory glance, the trees seem bereft - there are no animals, no pixies, no leaves: just a wasteland of snow, as far as the eye can see.

But students might feel differently about the lifeless woods. Any character possessing the Blue-Green Wood can schedule a roleplay with Kimi or Thumper to explore the woods with a party.
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### January 17, 2017

*At the edge of the forest, the trees seem to wilt. From within, there is only freezing snow and darkness.*

### January 18, 2017

*Around midday, there is a deafening* creak *and the sound of a thousand twigs breaking; it can be heard from all the dormitory buildings and, muffled, from within the school. As the tree falls within the forest, it hits the ground with the sound of cracking ice.*

### January 19, 2017

*A lone tree on the edge of the forest has been consumed by ice. A flood of spiders crawls up its branches, contained by the tree line. Its branches have begun to blacken.*

### January 20, 2017

*Two trees have been encased in black ice. The first has begun to crumble, shattered pieces of ice on the forest floor. An icy spiderweb glints between the two trunks, swaying gracefully in the gale.*

### January 21, 2017

*The trees along the perimeter of the forest have all begun to wither, succumbing to the crawl of blackened ice that seems to have started to rot the forest from inside out.*

### January 22, 2017

*If one takes a walk within, there are broken bits of icy wood wherever one steps, like washed-up driftwood. The sound is omnipresent, stifling: trees, all around you, are collapsing within their icy prisons.*

### Alma, Freisse, Lamont, and Meloa; January 22, 2017

Alma Thompson, Lamont D'Reichier, and Meloa Ruicott enter the forest, hoping to learn the cause of the blackened trees. They arrive at the maternal tree - it sports a gaping hole, perhaps four or five feet across, exposing the giant tree's hollow trunk. Pouring from the hole are hundreds of thousands of frost spiders. Alma peeks inside and sees little *tunnels*... hairline cracks, paper-thin. The entire surface of the wood is covered in tiny, barely visible runes. The tree begins to shake.

Plugging the flow of spiders and perhaps stabilizing the tree intermittently, Lamont summons a pillar of ice inside the tree as Meloa and Alma peer their heads inside. During this time, Lamont beings to hear whispers every now and then, soft enough to simply be his imagination.

Alma begins to copy down the runes covering the inside of the tree, though they seem to be oriented in no particular fashion. During this time, the ice pillar cracks down the middle, shattering into thousands of tiny fragments. A backlog of spiders floods down the tree, slamming into Alma's back as they fall from above. Too heavy for her to bear, they push her down through the center of the tree, and Alma falls into the darkness. Fearing for her friend, Meloa dives into the tree after her while Lamont watches in horror.

The two girls land on a small platform inside the tree, still pummeled by an onslaught of frost spiders raining from above them. Meloa falls on top of her, bruising one of her ribs. They notice that inside the tree is a layer of blue-green wood, shiny like lacquer. It seems like the girls are in a pinch: their only available direction is up, to a hole far above them... or down, into the abyss. Lamont is at a loss, and attempts to use his magic to form some kind of way for the girls to climb back up.

Freisse heads into the forest, sensing Alma's state of danger. Large enough to grab Alma and Meloa, he reaches into the tree trunk and helps them out of the hole into the cold woods once again.

Despite their previous dangerous situation, Meloa decides she wants to explore further into the forest, a decision the other three agree to. The forest is blanketed with snow, unlike the rain-drizzled campus. The weather has dropped well below zero. Some digging in the snow only reveals the expected things - dirt, dead leaves, and.. the corpse of a bird, with a broken-back neck, frozen in a flying position. When touched, like the *Scuttlespore Slug* found in the dungeon, it simply crumbles to snow.

Meloa inspects the bird and discerns that the bird has no visible marks of having been attacked, apart from the strange angle of its head. She recognizes it as a *snow bunting*, birds that flourish in the wintertime - it seems strange that it should be frozen to death. Meloa collects the snow from the crumbled bird. Upon inspection, it is thin, powdery, has minuscule crystals in it, and like the Vial of Snow Alma collected before, it contains flecks of blue and green.

The forest seems to hold few other secrets for them - the Maternal Tree appears to be the center of the woods, and as they traverse further from it, they approach the other edge of the forest. The party decides to return to campus due to the weather, with a second Vial of Snow and Alma's notes of the tree's runes.

### Cade, Damiel, Niles, and Taesong; January 22, 2017

Cade Moriarty, Damiel Lye, Niles Bazarov, and Taesong Jun enter the forest in hopes of discovering answers. What plagues the forest? How can it be fixed? Taesong especially feels personal responsibility for the current state of the woods. Like Alma, Freisse, Lamont, and Meloa, they notice that the forest seems to have rotted from the inside out. Where lush green stood only months before, when three of the four attended the birthday for the maternal tree, there is only a wasteland of dead and dying branches. What *is* alive seems sickly, speckled with the telltale signs of nesting frost spiders, lathered across the trunks. The dead trees have turned to black ice. It seems undeniable: the forest is dying, if it isn't dead already.

Song attempts to heal one of the trees with their magic. The tree wavers slightly, and its bark slowly retains color - but it takes a great deal of energy to perform, and Song is only a singular person, against an entire forest of trees consumed. Though they're able to rehabilitate the tree temporarily, it appears that the problem is far deeper and more complex. When Cade touches one of the dying trees, it crumbles to ash and snow. They take a sample of these crumbled branches, adding a Vial of Snow to their bag.

They arrive at the maternal tree, which appears to be coated in similar blue-green wood. As per Pridd's advice ("Burn the blue wood"), Niles asks Cade to make flammable gas, as he has matches. They spray flammable gas at the tree, and throw a match towards it, intending to burn the maternal tree to excise the layer of blue-green wood. Taesong leaps in front of it to stop their sudden decision, and Damiel manages to abruptly stop the match from falling with his powers. Conceding to Song - *(the tree is still alive above the roots) -* Cade decides to test fire on their sample of blue-green wood, first.

Although the wood lights aflame, nothing else happens. Damiel stomps down on the wood to attempt to break it - but even though he's the strongest member of their group, only a tiny crack appears, about an inch across. It seems that if they want to burn the wood, they'll require a larger flame.

The hole from the maternal tree seems far wider than the hole made from Song's tiny increment borer now: in fact, it has gone from a small prick to a gape, covered in an outpour of frost spiders. Cade pokes their head into it - and is promptly pelted with a faceful of tiny frost spiders. Similarly, Damiel attempts to look into the tree, and discovers the inside of the trunk is covered with blue-green stones and ential runes-- the same as discovered and noted by Alma Thompson before them. Song manages to scrawl down a good amount of these runes, despite the fact that they are difficult to see and written every which way.

The temperature in the forest becomes too difficult to bear, and the party heads back to campus.

### Damiel, Rabbit, and Taesong; January 29, 2017

Still attempting to investigate the student records related to Anthony Carver and their Ornate Book, Taesong Jun pours over hundreds of years of yearbooks. They are joined by Damiel Lye, who wants to assist them- and Rabbit, who simply wants to be a nuisance.

A good deal of praise and encouragement from Damiel convinces an unhelpful Rabbit to read the runes scrawled on Taesong's notebook from the maternal tree.

She explains that something ancient from the ocean has returned, which sounds worrisome to say the least. (What goes in between the lines, at "a bit of nonsense"?)

### Cade, Lavien, Niles and Taesong; January 30, 2017

Taesong informs Lavien Capello of the results of their core sample, and tells her the maternal tree and its forest are dying, presumably because of something they've done. They pull out their chunk of blue-green wood for Lavien's inspection, wondering if she's able to burn it. Cade tells her that Pridd, of the Dirt advised them to burn the wood should they find it: a notion Lavien scoffs at.

Taesong agrees, even in spite of Lavien's obvious distaste for entities. Surely, they should test-burn the samples, before deciding on what to do with the maternal tree. But when Lavien ignites it, they discover that simply heating it isn't enough - one measly flame from Lavien does nothing. In an attempt to create an even hotter fire, they concoct a chlorine trifluoride bomb, and ignite it in the chemistry lab.

A wisp of flame travels from Lavien's hand to the petrified wood, lit by the gas that Niles throws and teleports away from. The result is a large burst of green and blue flames - it leaps from the wood, conflagrating into a burst of fire and dust, splitting the stone into four perfect pieces. Less neat endings can be said for the chemistry lab and the blast shield, though: one of the tables lights aflame as the fire licks the ceiling. The blast shield itself is swallowed by fire, protecting the group - though the front layer of paint is reduced to char. A loud and sudden RING slams into the group's ears from behind - the three well-used water sprinklers spring into action, spattering the four of them with a blast of cold, slightly old-smelling pipewater. The Sciences department requests fifty-two pounds in damages for the burned table-- from Niles of course, given his standing as a teacher--though the debt *payable eventually*becomes split between all magicians present.

The cleanly-cut stone crumbles slightly, before revealing its inside contents: tiny, messy runes, inscribed along the inside of the bark... and infinitesimal tunnels, hardly the circumference of pinpricks. A couple of frost spiders scramble from the holes, shuddering on the surface they fall on, before dissolving to small piles of snow. Some of the notebook scribbles Song has taken from the forest seem similar to these runes - they're the same script, same writing, and some of the same words. But what seems peculiar is the difference in the states of these runes: the one Song seems to have taken are scattered and randomly written. The ones on these blocks are meticulously aligned, arranged in ten lines per block, like some sort of paragraph or poem.

The runes that Niles can read from first glance are simple ones- words like *plague*, *blight*, *torment*, *curse* - the language seems ancient. Though he can read them easily, the contents are still a bit frightening. Song suggests that Niles go to the library to research curses and plagues. Cade suggested burning Damiel’s cracked Blue-Green Wood to see if they’ll get similar results.

### Alma, Cade, Damiel, Freisse, Lamont, Lavien, Meloa, Niles, and Taesong; January 31, 2017

Through Alma Thompson and Meloa Ruicott's investigations of the Vial of Snow and Vial of Frost respectively, they learn some curious information:

*The following information is accessible to Alma, Lamont, and Meloa and anyone they share it with only.*

* The frost sample contains sea plankton.
* The snow samples contain some sort of strange salt formation.
* The snow samples contain what seems to be sea salt.
* Both samples contain tiny flecks of the blue-green wood.

If Alma Thompson or Taesong Jun try to translate the words they've taken from the inside of the hollow maternal tree, it seems they'll come up with a jumble of words or phrases, not in any particular sentence:

*The following information is accessible to Alma and anyone she shares it with, and Taesong, Niles, and anyone they share it with only.*

* plague
* blight
* torment
* curse
* *winter arrives*

The frost spiders don't seem to match and known records of snow entities, regardless of where they - or anyone at the school - looks. So perhaps they've been looking in the wrong place? But what *are* these snow spiders, then?

* Lavien Capello mentioned that perhaps there are other fae to ask advice from. Where would you find one? Maybe there are *items* or *past allies* willing to assist you.
* The school has already done cursory research of the frost spiders by searching for snow entities. Nobody seems to have found any records of these spiders - not even the ential studies professors, who are more than qualified to identify them. Why?
* Alma Thompson and Taesong Jun have taken notes of the words found inside the maternal tree. If they translate them, they'll have a list of broken and fragmented words. What are these for? What wrote them on the inside of the tree?
* Lamont D'Reichier heard strange voices in the forest as he explored it. The forest is dead, isn't it? Other than the frost spiders, what could have been speaking to him? Does something still live in the forest?
* Cade Moriarty thought that perhaps they could split open Damiel Lye's cracked Blue-Green Wood, also. Would that yield results different from those they've gained already?
 **Counter Librarian Cost:** £10

The forest is long-dead now: though the maternal tree still seems to be alive above its roots, its entire surrounding forest has turned to blackened, unsalvageable ice. Even Taesong Jun, Azalea White, or Meloa Ruicott's efforts to heal the trees, should they attempt, will prove fruitless. Though they can heal a tree or two, the spiders will always overtake it again the day after.

The entire woods seems like a storybook nightmare - black wood is covered with iridescent frost-covered spiderwebs, as beautiful as they are frightening. Every now and then, someone might come across a woodland creature, completely frozen. Touching it will cause it to crumble, much like the *snow bunting* that Freisse discovered before.

Perhaps the main objective is to heal the forest and restore it to its former glory - but from the bleak situation, it seems incredibly difficult. What are the students even dealing with? These unidentifiable, tiny frost spiders have taken over the entire woods, coating it in a bitter winter that has long overstayed its welcome. Healing the forest appears to be a lost cause, when the spiders only ruin the trees again moments later.

So perhaps the students need to find the root of the problem, before they can consider fixing it. Where are these spiders coming from? How can they be removed, despite their multitude of numbers? And why is it, that when Taesong made only a *tiny* hole on an *enormous* thousand-year-old tree, such terrible things happened?

*Place a log or your next path of action on the Update Spreadsheet for further prompts.*

### Cade and Damiel; January 31, 2017

Cade Moriarty and Damiel Lye take Lavien’s suggestion to ask other fairies for more information. They enter the forest, hoping to use their Purple Harebell to invite some fairies into a conversation. But it seems like the forest is barren, covered the stubborn sleep of winter, without a single fairy in sight. The fairies from the Beaver Moon have made their promise that the holders of the harebell will *always remain in their good graces,* and Pridd, of the Dirt has claimed that faeries do not break their contracts.

So surely, if a fairy was around to assist the two, they would make themselves known, right? It seems that the situation is more serious than they initially expected. There isn't a single fairy in sight! Where have they all gone?

### Meloa; February 5, 2017

Meloa brings her Vial of Snow to Basil Payne, hoping that he might be able to identify the substance in it. He identifies it as sea salt, and keeps it to compare against Alma's. He does tell her that the salt formation he sees in the microscope is a little different from the norm though... and that he's seen it once before in a 200-year-old fossil from Sherwood Forest, after entities had turned the forest to stone.

*See: Vial of Snow.*

### Alma; February 10, 2017

Alma brings her vial to Basil Payne, who relays the same information to her: the salt deposit in Alma's snow is similar to a fossil extracted from the forest of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. He advises her to check textbooks for proper photos: after all, the fossil is quite famous. It should be well-documented.

*See: Vial of Snow.*

### Alma, Cade, Damiel and Meloa; February 15, 2017

Alma Thompson considers bringing Freisse and another friend back into the Labyrinth in search of the *Mound Fairy* they encountered during Block 000, thinking that she comes across as wise. Perhaps they could use her advice... if she's willing to give any.

Last time though, she didn't take kindly to Freisse. Not to mention, she seemed *terribly* difficult to handle! Perhaps some preliminary research will aid them well?

* There are no fae in the forests left to speak to. Perhaps Cade, Damiel, or Lavien need to look elsewhere for fairies to speak to... mentioning, haven't there been *pixies roaming the school for St. Valentine's Day*?
* Perhaps Meloa and Alma should look further into the fossil mentioned by Basil Payne- perhaps despite being old, it might have some valuable information?
 **Counter Librarian Cost:** £Varies

**Perhaps the pixies roaming the school for St. Valentine's Day can be consulted for information?** Regularly, they live in the school's garden's, but maybe they've caught wind of something the students aren't privy to. *To speak to a Valentine's Telegram pixie, you'll need to schedule a roleplay with Thumper in chat or over Skype! You'll also need to have a scheduled delivery for a telegram, or the busy pixies won't even give you the time of day!*

**Should Taesong research any recorded history on the ocean, namely notable entities**, they'll come across *droves* of information. Notable ocean-related entities are absolutely everywhere! But further investigation of Rabbit's words in the library: *plague unto the trees, two winds blow,* and a forest left to freeze*...* garners particularly odd results. It seems there is a single children's titled just that, about a frozen forest called *Two Winds Blow*. According to its description seems to be a retelling of an old pixie story from the pixies of Sherwood Forest... but Concordia doesn't own a copy of it. Where else can they find more information on it?

* Taesong could ask a pixie directly. But it seems to be a local story. Would the pixies around the school know about it? With all the other pixies having disappeared, the only ones left to ask are the pixies roaming the school for Valentine's Day.
* It seems Meloa Ruicott and Alma Thompson are researching something similar. Perhaps either of them will have something to say about this whole Sherwood Forest ordeal?

*Taesong will need to have one roleplay in the library with another character of finding the title of this book. After that, they can choose to pursue either of these prompts, or choose a different path of action by placing that log on the Update Spreadsheet.*

### Alma, Wenyan: March 8, 2017

Alma manages to waylay a pixie when it's delivering her telegrams for Valentine's day, questioning it about ways to slow the forest's decline. The pixie provides the following information:

1. This frost event has allegedly happened once before in the past, but the pixie is not old enough to remember.
2. There seems no feasible way to slow the forest's death unless you stop the spiders at their source.
3. The frost spiders are not of the forest itself; the pixie refers to them as *foreign invaders*.

* Alma can return to the Labyrinth and seek out the Mound Fairy, who may have answers.
 **Counter Librarian Cost:** £Varies

If the pixie is too young to remember the previous time this happened, Alma will need to find an older entity. **Perhaps Alma can return to the location of Block 000 to consult the Mound Fairy**, if she's willing to give advice...

*When you're ready to venture into the Labyrinth, please schedule a roleplay with Thumper in chat or over Skype. This prompt exploration is narrative-only: though you might encounter monsters, you won't gain any experience or items for defeating them.*

If the spiders do not come from the forest, then where do they come from? Basil Payne has mentioned sea plankton present in the vial of frost. **It seems the sea is its origin. Perhaps its inhabitants know what the spiders are?**

*If you choose to investigate the ocean, please schedule a roleplay with Kimi in-chat or Skype, any time from March 17 onwards.*

### Meloa, Bleu: March 17, 2017

Meloa and Blue encounter a really vain mermaid who hits on Bleu and sings them a strange allegory for the origin of the spiders: the storm entity that lies several miles to the west, who allegedly fell in love with the tree and thus made a gift of the frost spiders to the forest. The mermaid does not comprehend why the trees would die from frost, being a creature of the sea who doesn't understand plant biology. She does, however, suggest that sailing out to a magical supercell thunderstorm entity, only to inform it that its gift has inadvertently killed its lover, is a "suicide mission."